XVII.

When the great city lay buried in that obscurity which the mantle of night had thrown over all, and while she seemed to sleep, resting on her bed of earth, by the banks of the river that flowed for ever with a measured sound――when she seemed to sleep at last, although neither the scholar, nor the afflicted, nor the criminal whom she enclosed in her bosom could have extinguished in the depths of their being the fire of intelligence which consumed them――there was to be seen a silent and fugitive figure gliding along by the walls of the Tower, upon which a noble and slender form was reflected. The light footfall made no sound, the sighs of her heart were stifled, and the folds of her veil hung motionless. She seated herself on the stone threshold of the awful gate, and for a long time wept in silence.

“Naught!” she said. “Not a sound to be heard. These walls are like the hearts of the judges. Children weep,” she said again. “What are tears but weakness and water? Not a gleam! It seems they have here neither fire nor life. What is this that consumes my heart? Weep, women! weep in your silken robes, under your downy coverings! As for me, it is the night wind dries my tears, and the damp earth drinks them up! When wilt thou cease to weep, and when will the heart of Margaret feel revived?… But why be astonished to feel it tremble? Has it not been broken like a precious vase which can never more be mended?

“‘Come, Margaret, white Margaret!’ they used to say when you trod on the grass of the fields, Come, death, or yet a moment of life.”

And the young girl, standing on tiptoe, with strong arm and powerful effort, raised the heavy bronze griffin, which fell resounding upon the brass of the doors, and then she started, for at times she was a woman.

But there was no response; and when the sound of the iron had ceased to vibrate, and, it seemed to her, had exhausted itself in the air, nothing was heard but the monotonous dashing of the waves which came to die at the foot of the wall; and nothing more disturbed the silence of the night.

“Deaf as the pity in their souls!” she said after some moments.

And this time she knocked without flinching; for already Margaret had recovered from her fears. But a long and mournful silence continued to reign.

Whilst she was trying so ineffectually to reach her father, Sir Thomas re-entered the Tower, exhausted by fatigue. He had been confined in a still more gloomy and narrow cell. A miserable lamp, high placed, dimly lighted the obscurity. He was seated in a corner, and, alone at least, he went over in his mind the agonies he had endured in that fatal journey. “Where is my daughter now?” he said to himself. “Alas! I saw her but an instant going out from before the judges. She will have seen that axe turned toward me. She will have said to herself there is no more hope; that I was branded with the seal of the condemned; that what she had heard was indeed true. If only she had returned to Chelsea! For they will not permit me to linger: Cromwell’s eyes gleamed with a ferocious light. Yet what have I done to this man to make him hate me so intensely? My God, permit me not to be betrayed into an emotion of hatred against” (Sir Thomas hesitated)――“against my brother,” he continued with courage; “for, after all, he is a man like myself, formed in the same mould, animated by the same intelligence; and it is better to be persecuted than to be the persecutor. Pardon him, then, O my God! Let your mercy be extended toward him, surround him on all sides, and never remember against him the evil he has wrought on me.”

While reflecting thus Sir Thomas suddenly heard a slight noise. He paused, and, seized with inexpressible anxiety, listened almost without breathing.

“It was in such manner he walked! It is he! It is Rochester!” he cried. “But no, I am mistaken; that cannot be,” he said, casting his eyes around him. “They have changed my cell; alas! I could not hear him even should he be there. It is an error of my troubled imagination.”

But the noise increased, and Sir Thomas soon heard them opening the doors which led to his cell. Some one was approaching.

“Again!” he said. “They will not, then, allow me a moment of repose.” And he saw Sir Thomas Pope coming in, bearing a roll of paper in his right hand.

Pope approached More and presented the paper.

Sir Thomas calmly took it from his hands, and, looking at Pope, said: “What! Master Pope, the king has already signed the death-warrant?” Glancing over the paper, he saw that his execution was set down for the next morning at nine o’clock.

“The king, in his ineffable clemency,” said Pope with an air of constraint, “commutes your punishment to that of decapitation.”

“I am much beholden to his majesty,” said Sir Thomas. “Still, good Master Pope, I hope that my children and my friends may never have need of any such favor.”

More smiled at first; then he regarded Pope with an expression of indefinable melancholy, and was silent.

“It is true――it is too true,” stammered Pope, “that this is not a great favor. But permit me, Sir Thomas, to avow to you that your conduct appears to me so strangely obstinate that I cannot explain it, and that you yourself seem to have had the wish to irritate the king against you to the last degree. Thus, you abandon your family, you leave your home, you lose your head, and all rather than take an oath to which our bishops have readily consented.”

“Yes, consented, and not wished to take,” replied Sir Thomas, “partly through fear, partly through surprise. They have taken it, you say; but I fear that they may be already repenting it. Good Master Pope, if you live you will surely see many strange events taking place in our unhappy country. In separating herself, in spite of the law of God, from the Church of Rome, you will see England change her face; intestine wars will rend her; the blood of her children will flow in every direction for centuries, perchance. Who can foretell whither the path of error will lead us when once we have taken the first step? Doubtless we are still Christians; but Christians who, separated from the mother that gave them birth, will soon have lost the revivifying spirit they have received from her. The Catholic faith, I know, cannot perish from the earth; but it can depart from one country into another. If, in three hundred years from now, we were permitted to return, you and I, to this world, we should find the faith, as to-day, pure from all error, one, and resting upon the indivisible truth, yet submitting to that supreme Head, to this key of St. Peter, which indeed some mortal men shall have carried a moment in their hands, and which is so violently attacked to-day. But my country, this land that I love――for it holds the ashes of my father――what is it destined to undergo? The incoherence and diversity of human opinions; the violence, the absurdities of the passions which shall have dictated them. Divided into a thousand sects, a thousand clashing opinions, you will not find a single family, perhaps, where they are united in one common faith, in the same hope and the same charity! And this divine Word, the Sacred Scriptures, which we have received from our fathers, abandoned to the ignorance and the pride of a pretended liberty, will have, perhaps, become only the source of horrible crimes and frightful cruelties, in place of being the foundation of all good and of every virtue!”

“Verily, Sir Thomas,” said Pope, “you frighten me! How can it hap that the ruin and disasters you have described should be in store for us? No, no, I do not believe it; because it is then you would see us all bound up around the centre of unity which they think to destroy to-day by a word!――expressions of a spiritual power which the prince may not, in fact, exercise.”

“He may not, as you say,” replied Sir Thomas; “but he will exercise it nevertheless, and at least I shall not have to reproach myself with having contributed to it. Oh! no,” he continued, “no; and I am happy to shed my blood in testimony of this truth. For listen, Master Pope: I have not sacrificed twenty years of my life in the service of the state without having studied what were her true interests, and consequently those of society, which is at the same time her foundation and support; and I declare to you that I have recognized and am thoroughly convinced that the Catholic religion, the realization of the figurative and prophetic law given to the Jews, the development and complete perfection of the natural law, can alone be the foundation of a prosperous and happy society, because it alone possesses the highest degree of morals possible to attain; it alone bears fruit in the heart; it alone can restrain, and is able even to destroy, that selfishness, natural to man, which leads him to sacrifice everything to his desires and gratifications――a selfishness which, abandoned to itself and carried to its greatest length, renders all social order impossible, and transforms men into a crowd of enraged enemies bent on mutual destruction.

“All that tends to disrupt, then, all that would alter or attack, this excellent religion, is a mortal blow aimed at the country and its citizens, and necessarily tends to deprive them of that which ensures their dignity, their safety, their happiness, their hopes, and their future. Look around you at the universe, and behold on its surface the people of those unhappy countries where the light of the Catholic faith has been extinguished or has not yet been kindled. Study their governments, and behold in them the most monstrous despotisms, where blood flows like water, and the life of man is considered of less value than that of the frivolous animal which amuses him. Read the cruel laws their ferocity has dictated; learn the still more crying acts of injustice they commit, and how they pursue, as with a tearing lash, those whose weakness and stupidity have delivered them up as slaves; tremble at the recital of the tortures and barbarities they inflict before death, to which they condemn their victims without appeal as without investigation; behold the arts, spiritual affection, sublime poesy, perish there; ignorance, instability, misery, and terror succeed them, and reign without interruption and without restraint. Ah! these noble ideas of right, of justice, of order and humanity, which govern us, and ensure among us the triumph of the incredulous and proud philosopher, which makes him say and think that they alone are sufficient for society――he perceives not, blind as he is, that these are prizes in the hand of religion, who, extends them to him, and that, if he speaks like her, she speaks still better than he. I do not say――no, I do not say――that we will fall as low as the Turk, the Indian, or the American savage. So long as one glimmer of the Gospel, one souvenir of its maxims, shall remain standing in the midst of us, we will not lose all that we have received since our ancestors came out of the forests where they wandered, subsisting on the flesh of wild animals; but we will begin to recede from the truth, we will cover it with clouds; they will become darker and darker, and soon, if we still go on, it will be no longer with a firm and resolute step, but rather like gloomy travellers wandering in a vast desert without a breath of air or a drop of water.”

Pope listened to Sir Thomas without daring to interrupt him, and felt his heart touched by what he said. For this admirable man possessed the faculty of attracting all who saw him immediately toward him; and when they heard him speak, the strength, the justness of his thoughts and his arguments penetrated little by little into their minds, until, almost without perceiving it, they found themselves entirely changed, and astonished to feel that they were of the same opinion as himself.

Pope leaned against a stool which was there, and remained very thoughtful; for he had taken the oath himself, without dreaming that it could result in such serious consequences. Neither his convictions, however, nor his courage were such as would make him desire to give his life for the truth; but he could not refrain from admiring this devotion in the illustrious man before him. He looked at him without speaking, and seemed entirely confounded.

Mistaking the cause, and seeing him abstracted and silent, Sir Thomas supposed the conversation had wearied Pope; he therefore ceased speaking, and, taking up the death-warrant, he read it a second time. At the end his eyes filled with tears and his sight grew dim.

“It is, then, fixed for to-morrow!” he exclaimed――“to-morrow morning. One night only! Oh! how I wish they would permit me to write to Erasmus.[143] Pope,” said he, “shall I not be permitted to see once more, for the last time, my dearly-beloved daughter? I fear that she may be still in the city. I would like her to be sent away――that Roper should take her. Ah! Master Pope, it is not the riches or honors of this world which are difficult to sacrifice, but the affections of the heart, of the soul that lives within us, which is entirely ourselves, without which the rest is nothing.” And he again relapsed into silence.

“I do not think you will be able to see her,” said Pope, replying to the question of Sir Thomas; “and――even――” he added with painful hesitation, “I am also charged to ask you not to make any remarks to the people on the scaffold. The king hath expressly so willed, and then he will permit your wife and children to assist at your interment.”

“Ah!” replied Sir Thomas, “I thank his majesty for manifesting so much solicitude about my poor interment; but it matters little where these miserable bones be laid when I have abandoned them. God, who has made them out of nothing, will be able to find the ashes and recall them a second time into being when it shall please him to restore them to that indestructible life which he has so graciously vouchsafed to promise them.”

“You wish to speak, then?” answered Pope. “Nevertheless, I believe it would be better not to anger the king more.”

“No, no!” replied Sir Thomas, “my dear Master Pope, you are mistaken. Since the king desires it, I will not speak. Most certainly I intended doing so; but since he forbids it, I will forbear. If they refuse me permission to see my daughter,” replied Sir Thomas, “I hope, at least, I may be able to see the Bishop of Rochester; since he has taken the oath, they will not fear.”

“Taken the oath!” cried Pope. “Why, he has been executed; he died to-day!”

“He died to-day!” repeated Sir Thomas. “My friend died to-day! O Cromwell! May God, whose power is infinite, hear my voice, grant my requests: may the same dangers unite us, that, following close in thy footsteps, my last sigh may be breathed with thine!”

And More, plunged in the deepest grief, slowly repeated the memorable words, the solemn words, which the holy bishop had pronounced in presence of the Lord and of his friend during the vigil of St. Thomas, when they were alone together in his home at Chelsea.

“Rochester would not take the oath, then!” continued More in a stifled voice, clasping his hands and elevating them toward heaven.

“Alas! no,” replied Pope.

“Cromwell told me he had.”

“He lied,” answered Pope, and his eyes filled with tears.

“He would not swear?”

“Never!”

“Pope,” said More, “I beg you to let me write to Erasmus. To-morrow I shall be no more! You are the last living man to whom I shall be able to speak.”

“Ah! Sir Thomas,” cried Pope uneasily, “if that letter were seized, what would become of me?”

“Let me write a few words on this leaf,” replied Sir Thomas, looking at a leaf of white paper belonging to the book which contained his condemnation――“a word on this leaf,” he continued. “Pope, you can cut it off and send it later when there will be no danger for you. Nay, good Pope, grant me this favor,” he added. “I have neither pen nor ink; but I have here a piece of charcoal, which I have already tried to sharpen.”

“Ah! Sir Thomas,” replied Pope, “I have not the heart to refuse you; however, I shall have cause, perhaps, to repent it.”

“No! no!” cried Sir Thomas. “If you cannot send him this last farewell without being afraid, you can burn it.”

“Write, then; I consent,” said Pope; and he handed the death-warrant to Sir Thomas, who had returned it to him.

More seized it, and wrote the following words:

“Erasmus! O Erasmus! my friend, this is the last time I shall have the happiness of pronouncing your name. An entire life, O my friend! is passed; it has glided by in a moment. Behold one about to end like a day that is closed. I have loved you as long as I have had breath; as long as I have felt my heart throb in my bosom the name of Erasmus has reigned there. Alas! I have so many things to say to you. Though the words die on my lips, your heart alone will be able to comprehend mine. May it enter; may it hear in my soul all that More has wished to say to Erasmus!

“When you receive this page, I shall be no more; it is still attached to the writ which contains my sentence of death. Erasmus, I am going to leave Margaret. I abandon my children! Our friend Pierre Gilles is here. I saw him for a moment――the moment when they were pronouncing sentence on me. Without doubt, to-morrow morning, I shall see him at the foot of the scaffold. I shall be kept at a distance from him; I shall not be able to say a single word to him. My eyes will be directed toward him, my hand will be stretched out; but my heart will not be permitted to speak to him! O Erasmus! how I suffer. And Margaret――O my friend! if you had seen her, how pale she was, what anguish was painted on all her features. I could wish that she loved me less: she would not suffer so much in seeing me die. Erasmus, not one minute! Time is short; the hour approaches. Oh! when I could write those long letters so peaceably, when science alone and the good of humanity occupied us both; when I saw those letters despatched so quietly to go in search of you, and said to myself: ‘In so many days I shall receive his reply!’… No more replies, Erasmus! If ever you come to England, you will ask in what corner they have thrown my ashes. Oh! what would become of me if I were not a Christian? What happiness to feel our faith rising up from the depths of wretchedness, to hear all our groans and lamentions, and to answer them! I die a Christian! I die for this faith so pure and beautiful! for that faith which is the happiness and glory of the human race. At this thought I feel myself reanimated; new strength inspires my heart; hope inundates my soul. I shall see you all again. Yes, one day――one day after a long absence――I shall clasp you once more to my bosom in the presence of God himself. I shall see again my daughter! We will find ourselves invested with our same bodies. ‘I shall see my God,’ said Job; ‘for I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise again at the last day; I will go out of this world into that which I am about to enter, and then I shall see my God. It will be I who shall see him, and not another.’

“Erasmus, to live for ever, to love for ever! Farewell.

“Your brother, your friend, “THOMAS MORE.”

The charcoal began to crumble in his hands. He was scarcely able to trace the last words. He pressed his lips on them and returned the book to Pope.

Meanwhile, Margaret, tired of knocking, and losing all hope of reaching her father, was seated upon the stone step before the door of the prison, and, being wrapped in her veil, she remained motionless and mute, like a statue of stone whose head, bowed upon its garments, is the personification of sorrow and silence.

Thus she sat absorbed in thought, and the burning tears had bathed her hands and ran down on her knees, when the footstep of a man who was approaching from the quay aroused her from her reverie. Alarmed, she arose abruptly, and, placing her hand upon a long and sharp dagger she had attached to her side, she stood awaiting the intruder; but she recognized Roper.

“Margaret,” he exclaimed, “what are you doing there?” And he spoke these few words to her in a melancholy tone of voice more expressive of pain than reproach; because he sought her, knowing well where he would find her.

“It is you, Roper,” said the young girl, and she resumed her seat as before. William Roper then came and seated himself by her side; taking her cold and wet hand, he pressed it to his lips with an inexpressible oppression of heart. “O Margaret!” he said at last with a deep sigh, “why stay you here?”

“To see him again to-morrow――yes, to-morrow! But tell me, Roper, why I feel so weak; why my blood runs so cold in my veins; why I no longer have either strength or energy; why, in fact, I feel myself dying, without being able to cease to exist! O William! look at that dark river in front of us, and that black hill lifting its head beyond. Well! when the sky begins to grow white on that side, that will be the light of to-morrow which will dawn; that will be the hour of the execution approaching; and then you will see the eager crowd come pressing around the boards of the scaffold, come to feast on the cruelty of the misfortune it applauds, to enjoy the death its stupidity has not ordered. You will see them decked out in their ribbons, while the bells of the city will ring for the feast――the great feast of St. Thomas; for that is to-morrow, and to-morrow they will come to see my father die. Then all that I love will be torn from me, and nothing more will remain to me on earth. Oh! how happy are the strong: they break or perish. Roper, speak to me of Rochester. I loved him also, that venerable man. No, do not speak of him. Hush! I know all; I have seen everything. They dragged him to the scaffold; he prayed for them while holding his feeble, attenuated neck upon the fatal block; and, detached from the earth, his soul continued in heaven the canticle it had commenced in this world.”

“Alas! yes,” said Roper. “They had to carry him to the scaffold on a chair, because he was no longer able to sustain himself.”

“Ah! Roper,” cried Margaret, “behold the fatal light! Here is the day!” And she fell, almost deprived of consciousness.

“No, Margaret, no; the hour strikes, but it strikes only the small hours of the night. It is not yet day, my beloved――it is not day!”

“Oh! how cold I am,” said the young girl, shaking the veil which enveloped her, all humid with the dews of night. “Roper, is there no more hope, then? Do you believe it? Do you believe there is no more hope――that to-morrow I will see my father die?”

“Alas!” said Roper, “Pierre Gilles has gone to seek the queen and throw himself at her feet.”

“Say not the queen!” cried Margaret. “Give not the name of queen to that woman!”

“At least, so they call her,” said Roper. “She is all-powerful; if she would only ask his pardon! But they press her so much! But, no, she will not do it, Margaret; she is a hyena covered with a beautiful skin. She managed to procure the head of Rochester, and with her foul hand dealt it an infamous blow.[144] Ah! Margaret, I have done wrong in speaking to you thus.” And Roper was silent, regretting the words that indignation had forced him to utter.

“She struck it!” cried Margaret. “She recoiled not before those white locks dripping with the blood her crimes caused to flow! William, I shudder at it! Oh! can you believe it? The only time that I have seen my father he spoke to me of her with tears in his eyes; he said that he prayed God to raise her soul from out the miserable depths into which she had fallen. Roper, look!――there is day!”

“No, Margaret, no!”

“But it will come! Ah! how the hours fly, and yet I would be willing.… No! no! nothing. William, I feel as though I were dying! Yet I would wish to see him again――again once more!”

Roper took the hand of his affianced. It was burning; the irregular and rapid throbbing of her veins betokened the agony that her soul endured.

“Well,” she continued after a moment’s silence, “speak, then――speak to me of Rochester; tell me how the saints die.”

“Margaret, I can talk no more; I feel so crushed by the excess of these afflictions that I have not even dared to glance at them.”

“Yes, you were deaf and blind; you always will be, and for a long time I have been telling you so. It is a long time, also, since I saw all, since I felt this horrible hour coming on, since I measured the weakness of my hands and curbed the strength of my mind. It is long since I knew that I must remain alone in this world; for this life will not depart from my breast, and without crime I cannot tear it away! I must live, and live deprived of everything. Do you see this weapon, Roper?” And Margaret drew the poignard, the blade of which flashed. “Were I not the daughter of More; feared I not the Lord; if his law, like a seal of brass, had not engraven his commandments on my lips and in my heart, you should see if I would not deliver my father――if Cromwell, if Henry, struck down suddenly by the arm and the hatred of a woman, would not have already, while rolling in the dust and pronouncing my name, cried to the universe that cursed was the day when they had resolved to assassinate my father! In giving my life I became mistress of theirs! Ah! where would they be to-day――this brave king, this powerful favorite? A little infected dust, from which the drunken grave-digger would instinctively turn away! But, William, raise your eyes; look at those numberless stars that gleam so brightly above our heads! The word of Him who has suspended them thus in the immensity of the heavens humbles my spirit, enchains my will. He ordains, I am silent; he speaks, I obey. Impotent by his prohibition alone, I can die, but not resist him.”

And Margaret, pressing her lips upon the blade of the threatening weapon, cried: “Yes, I love thee because thou art able to defend or avenge me; and if thy tempered blade remains useless in my hands, say that it is God himself who has ordered it. Let them render thanks, then, to that God whom they provoke and despise; let them return thanks to him; for neither their guards nor their pride, their crimes nor their gold, could have prevented Margaret from sweeping them from the earth which they pollute, and breaking their audacious power like a wisp of straw that is given to the winds!”

She turned toward Roper, transported by courage and grief. But she saw that he was not listening, and that, entirely crushed by the misery he experienced, he had not sufficient energy in his soul to try to resist it.

“He is already resigned!” she said. An expression of scorn and disgust contracted the features of the young girl; she abruptly withdrew the hand he held in his own; moving away from him, she went and seated herself farther off, and, remaining with her eyes fixed upon the east, awaited the moment of harrowing joy which, while restoring her father to her, would tear him away from her for ever.

As the hours slowly tolled, each one awaking a dolorous echo in her heart――when at last she saw the first rays of morning stealing over the heavens, and the rosy tint which precedes the flame of Aurora――she turned again toward Roper; but, happy mortal! his heavy eyelids had lulled his afflicted soul to sleep. As a reaper reposes sweetly in a field covered with rich grain, so Roper slept peacefully with his head resting against the walls of a prison.

Margaret arose instantly, and, seized with indignation, she advanced toward him, and, with her hands clasped, stood regarding him. “He sleeps!” she said――“he sleeps! Truly, man is a noble being, full of courage, of energy, of impassibility, of strength of mind. It is thus that they accomplish such great things! Dear Roper, you belong to this mass of men which crowds us in on every side, absorbing and devouring our lives! You are their brother, their friend; like them, during the day, you love that which laughs, that which sings, and you sleep during the night. Well! I will laugh with you, with them. Are you worthy of beholding me weep? No; my father alone shall have my last tears, and carry with him the secret of my soul.”

And Margaret, seizing the hand of Roper, shook it violently. He awoke, startled.

“It is day!” he said. “Ah! it is day! Margaret――eh! you are weeping.”

“No, I am not weeping,” replied the young girl. “I have slept also, slept very well――and I am comforted!”

“Comforted! What do you mean? Has Pierre Gilles obtained his pardon? Have they granted his freedom?”

“Yes, they have granted his freedom――from life. In a word, they will shorten it, they will drag him from the midst of you. Is that a misfortune or a benefit, an injury or a favor? This is what I cannot decide. But as for me, I remain here!”

“Margaret,” cried Roper, “what is wrong with you?” And he gazed at her, astonished at the cutting irony and the bitter despair expressed in the tone of her voice and imprinted on her features. “I no longer recognize you.”

“Yes, I am changed, Roper. Henceforth you shall be my only model. Who is that young woman dressed in gauze, crowned with flowers, whom the light and rapid dance carries far from the banquet and the cups filled with fragrant cordials――who casts far away from her the memory of her father, and has forgotten the grave of her mother? That is the wife of William, Margaret Roper. No, I do not want that name. Go, keep it; give it to some one who resembles yourself, to whom you may bear presents, and who, on hearing you say it, will believe that one can be happy――yes, will believe that it is possible to be happy!”

“Margaret,” said Roper, more and more surprised, “I cannot comprehend what you would say.”

“Nor do I any more,” replied the young girl, wiping her forehead; for she was warm. “But do you understand at least, Roper, that the city is awake, that they are preparing the scaffold down below, that the soldiers are astir within, that I hear the clanking of their arms, that we are very soon going to see my father pass? Tell me, Roper, how do you contrive to become so unfeeling, to love nothing, to regret nothing? Have you a secret for this? Give it to me――give me that which makes one neither feel nor speak; that one can sleep beside the axe and the prison, when within the prison lies a father whom they are about to immolate!”

And she fixed her piercing eyes on him.

“Ah! Margaret. Yes, I have slept, I have done wrong; but fatigue overcame me. It seemed to me I saw him; I dreamed that I had rescued him.”

“Yes, your dreams are always happy; but look, Roper, here is the reality.”

Margaret withdrew to one side under the walls of the Tower; for the door of the fortress was opened, and they saw a troop of soldiers, fully armed, preparing to march out.

“Tower Hill!” cried their commander; and they filed out in great numbers. Others succeeded them; they arranged themselves in two columns, which extended from the gate of the lower to the place of execution, still dyed with the blood of Rochester.

Meanwhile, the rumor spread abroad rapidly that they had sent for the two sheriffs; that Sir Thomas More, former lord chancellor, was going to be executed; and from all directions crowds of people rushed precipitately――some remembering the lofty position the condemned had occupied; the greater number, without thinking of anything (coming to see the criminal as they would come to see any other), impelled by instinct, habit, or want of occupation, arrived without aim, as without reflection.

Who can paint the anguish of Margaret when she felt herself surrounded, jostled, elbowed, by this turbulent throng, crowding and shouting, which pushed her up against the prison walls, threatening to carry her forcibly from the inch of ground which she had held all night; and more still by this ignoble mob of malefactors, vagabonds, of adventurers of all kinds, who came in those days of murder to learn in the public square what their own end would be, and to behold the funeral couch society had destined for them on the day they should fail in audacity or skill. Who can describe, express, or feel the shame that overwhelmed her soul in spite of her reason, and suffused her pure brow with the blush of ignominy, when she heard them pronounce the name of her father, howling and clapping their hands because the criminal was slow in appearing and the tragedy they awaited did not begin? Her weary eyes sought Pierre Gilles in this tumult, and he was not there. He, at least, would have understood Margaret. She was unable to explain his absence; he had no more hope――unless the queen had detained him. But he must know that the execution was near, that the hour had arrived. And if he had obtained it, and should this pardon arrive too late! A thousand times Margaret, rendered desperate, was on the point of addressing the fickle crowd surrounding her. She wanted to say to them: “I am his daughter! Oh! save my father. He who sacrificed his life, his comforts, his happiness, to govern you wisely, to render you full justice, to reconcile your families, is going to perish unjustly!” But her anxious gaze fell only on faces coarse, stupid, indolent, impassible, or vicious. Then she felt the words die on her lips, while courage and hope expired in her heart.

The hours glide away in these mortal agonies; for they pass as rapidly in the excess of sorrow as during the intoxicating seasons of joy and happiness. Presently Margaret heard a confused noise arise. The masses moved; the soldiers drew up closer, brandishing their arms――they were afraid of being overwhelmed. The crowds climbed on everything they could find: the quay, the carts, carriages, steps――they took possession of all, made ladders of everything. Margaret is drawn into this frightful whirlpool; she struggles in vain, trying to make room and to stand firm. A loud clamor arose, re-echoed, increased, was reproduced in the distance. “He comes! he comes!” they cried on all sides. “How pale he is! That is he! that is Sir Thomas More, the old lord chancellor! Oh! how poor he looks. He walks with difficulty; he leans on a stick; he has a cross of red wood in his hand; he bows on each side of him. There are the sheriffs walking behind him. There is a tall black man who follows them. Do you see the lieutenant of the Tower? He is there also. Hush! he makes a sign with his hand. He smiles! How fast they carry him along! One has not time to see him. Are they afraid, then, that we will take him away by force? Eh! no person thinks of that. He has done something very bad, they say. We believed him so good! Ah! here is somebody stopping him. Look! look! He speaks! he speaks! Yes, he speaks!” For Margaret, reduced to despair, animated by a superhuman strength, has broken through the ranks, passed through the guards. She throws herself on the neck of More; she sees him, she embraces him, she clasps him to her throbbing, palpitating bosom.

“My daughter! my daughter!” said More, pressing her to his heart; “oh! what anguish to see you here.”

And his cheeks, pale and furrowed by suffering, were wet with tears that brought no relief to his soul.

At this spectacle the guards themselves were moved. “That is his daughter, his poor daughter!” they exclaimed on all sides; and by a unanimous movement of respect and compassion they stepped aside, forming a circle around him, while the tears flowed from all eyes.

“How beautiful she is!” said the men. “How young she is!” exclaimed the women.

“My father! my beloved father!” cried Margaret, shuddering, “beg of God that I may not survive you; that I also may soon leave this world when you abandon it! O my father! bless me again, and swear to me that you will ask God to let me die also.”

She threw herself on her knees without letting go his hands, which she bathed with a torrent of tears and pressed against her face as though without power to release them.

“Dearly beloved daughter!” said More, resting his hand upon her long, dishevelled locks, “oh! yes, may the Lord bless you as I love and bless you myself. You have been a sacred charge, a treasure of joy and happiness which he has given me; I return it to him! He is your first Father――he will never abandon you; and one day――a day not far distant, for the life of man is but a breath that passes in a moment――we shall be reunited, to be no more separated, in a blessed eternity! Margaret, since I have had the happiness of seeing you before I die, take my blessing to your brothers and your sisters; tell them, and also all my good friends, to pray the Lord for me! You know them? O Margaret! let Pierre Gilles learn from you how much I have loved him; how deeply I am touched, and grateful for this voyage he made, I doubt not for me alone. Alas! if I feel a regret in dying, it is because of not being able to tell him this myself. Why is he not with you? But I perceive Roper, my beloved daughter; give him also a thousand blessings. You know that I have regarded him for a long time as my son; love him as you have loved myself, and let your tears flow not without consolation, because, since it pleases God to permit me to die to-day, I am perfectly resigned to his will, and I would wish nothing changed.” And Sir Thomas, bending over her, clasped her closely to his heart.

“Let me follow you!” she gasped in a low voice; for she was no longer able to speak.

“Margaret, you give me pain.”

“I would follow you,” she said in still more stifled tones.

“Ah! Kingston,” exclaimed More (and the perspiration poured from his forehead), “my good friend, assist me in placing her in the hands of her husband.”

“I will do it,” cried a bellowing voice well known to Sir Thomas.

“Master Roper, come and take your wife away.” And they saw the hideous face of Cromwell pass, who surveyed those who accompanied the condemned.

In the meantime William Roper had succeeded in pushing his way through the crowd; he took the hand of More, and kissed it, weeping.

“Take her, my son,” said More, entirely occupied with Margaret. “I confide her to you, I give her to you; be her support, her friend, her defender!” And he turned to resume his march.

Margaret, observing this movement, again endeavored to rush toward him; but the crowd hurried on, the guards closed around, and she found herself separated from her father.

He cast upon her a last look, which he carried to the skies. She uttered a piercing cry; but already he had moved on and far away.

She rushed forward, endeavoring again to break through the crowd; but curiosity had made them form like a rampart, growing every instant around her.

She heard the commands of the military authorities; already she could not see beyond the group that surrounded her; then she almost lost the use of reason. “Save my father! save him!” she cried, extending her suppliant hands toward those who environed her, whose sympathies were diversely excited according to their different characters.

“Why have they brought this young woman to this place?” said the good ones. “His daughter, his poor daughter!” murmured the more compassionate. “She looks like a lunatic!” replied the others. “She will die from this; it will kill her. It is most cruel! If the king had only granted his pardon! He might have done it.”

“Yes, pardon, pardon!” repeated Margaret, frenzied and wandering. “They have granted his pardon, I assure you. Pierre Gilles has been to Hampton Court to find that woman. Roper, is it not so? Roper, I am dying; take me away.” And she grew pale and seemed ready to faint. Three or four hands were immediately advanced to sustain her; but Roper would not suffer them to touch her, and, raising her in his arms, he asked them to make way for him to lead her out of the crowd and from the place. The crowd opened with respect, and he assisted Margaret to the same place where she had passed the night awaiting, with her eyes fixed on the horizon, the terrible day which was to remove her for ever from her father.

“It is daylight, daylight,” said Margaret. “Yonder, Roper! And when night comes on, he will be already cold in death! O Roper! all this in one day. William, give him back to me! What have they done with him? Oh! no, he will not die. He is going to the king!”

She kept her eyes fast closed, and poor Roper regarded her with anxiety.

“They have forced him away! You know the place where the soldiers have taken him. I have seen it――I have seen everything. But that was yesterday, Roper. I have lost my reason,” she suddenly exclaimed, opening her eyes, filled with terror. “Tell me, where is he? They will let me bury his body, will they not? I will kiss his face, I will embalm him; and you will bury me beside him, will you not, Roper? They will not leave it on the bridge――that head; I will remain on my knees until they give it to me! O Heaven! dost thou hear――dost thou hear the cries of the people? All is ended; the crime is consummated! My father has left the earth! Roper, let us go to the church; I want to pray――to pray until eternity!”

Alas! Margaret spoke truly. Arriving at the scaffold, More, after having embraced the executioner and given him a gold angel in token of forgiveness, was beheaded by the same axe, upon the very block on which the head of his friend Rochester had fallen a few hours before.

Thus perished these two illustrious men, the glory and honor of England. Thus began the cruel schism which since then has torn so many children from the church, separated a great number of Christians from the common trunk, and deprived, in the course of centuries, so many souls of the knowledge of the eternal and indivisible truth.

And now, when old England unrolls before the eyes of the eager explorer of the past the long list of her kings, she places one of her fingers upon the bloody diadem which encircles the brow of Henry VIII., and with the other she points out to the moved heart the spot where, their dust mingled together, sleep within the walls of her most ancient fortress the victims of the fury of this king. For she also, that first cause of so many woes――the young Anne Boleyn, so proud of her fatal beauty――passed from the throne to the scaffold at the very moment when Catherine was dying of misery, pain, and neglect in the depths of an obscure city. The odious Cromwell, who had guided her to that scaffold, was not long in following her, and his ignoble blood was at last brought to expiate in the same place that of the illustrious More.

* * * * *

Such, reader, is the recital which as a faithful historian I resolved to set before you. A book is a thought. Mine has been written to emphasize a truth in our days too often forgotten――which is, that religion alone can lead men to happiness and perfection; that, being the most perfect law which it is possible to conceive of or attain, it is to her alone we should attach ourselves, and it is by her alone the state will see reared in its midst wise and just rulers or noble and generous citizens; that all, in fine, will see wisdom, science, order, and prosperity flourish.

PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

[143] The learned Erasmus was then at the height of his brilliant fame. After numerous visits to England, where he had formed an intimate friendship with Thomas More, he fixed his residence at Bâle, in Switzerland. Admired by all the princes of his time, by all his learned contemporaries and a crowd of illustrious men, he contributed by his powerful writings to restrain Germany from barbarism.

[144] This fact is related by an English historian, who has written the life of the Bishop of Rochester. The same author adds that Anne Boleyn, in giving the blow, cut her finger against one of the teeth which the axe had broken; that there came a sore on the finger; that they had the greatest difficulty in getting it healed, and she carried the scar until her death.

THE END.

ADVENT.

Clear as the silver call Of Israel’s trumpets on her holy days, Calling her children from all walks and ways, The church’s accents fall.

With sweet and solemn sound Where winter’s ice imprisons lake and stream, Where tropic woods with fadeless summer gleam They make their joyful round――

Joyful, and yet how grave; Bidding us kneel with faces to the east, And watch for Him, our sacrifice and priest, Who cometh, strong to save.

As, at a mother’s feet, The children of one household sit to learn Some sweet domestic lesson, each in turn His portion to repeat,

So, at this holy tide, Calling us round her for exalted talk, From each loved haunt, from each familiar walk, She bids us turn aside

And list while she relates The blessed story――old, yet ever new―― Of Him, the Sun of Righteousness, the True, Whose dawn she celebrates.

Now the rapt prophets sing Their anthems in each bowed and listening ear; Now the bold Baptist’s clarion voice we hear Down the glad centuries ring;

Till, fired with joy as they Who spread their garments ’neath his precious feet, With rapture we go forth our Lord to meet, Our glad hosannas pay.

Yet list! Another note Blends with the holy song our Mother sings, And, high above the harp’s exultant strings, Clear, trumpet-like doth float.

He comes to judge the world; To garner up his wheat, to purge his floor, While into flames of fire for evermore The worthless chaff is hurled.

Lord! we would put aside The gauds and baubles of this mortal life―― Weak self-conceit, the foolish tools of strife, The tawdry garb of pride――

And pray, in Christ’s dear name, Thy grace to deck us in the robes of light; That at his coming we may stand aright And fear no sudden shame.

THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1876.

The year has been one of grave anxiety to all the world. It opened in shadow; it closes in gloom. Among nations as among individuals there prevails a feeling of uneasiness, of dread at a something impending. Here at home we are happily removed from the dangers that the European nations have for centuries invited. We have no national crimes to answer for. We have not persecuted God’s church. We have not martyred his confessors. We have not sealed our Constitution with heresy. We have not betrayed a faith committed to our keeping. And these are things worth priding ourselves on, worth confirming ourselves in, in the centennial year of our Republic. They are the brightest jewels in the nation’s crown, and may they shine there for ever!

Of course we have had our faults――abundance of them. We have made mistakes, and in the course of human events will probably make many more, for nations never become great without suffering and sacrifice; they can no more hope to escape these fiery proofs than individuals. But at least we have, as a nation, been guiltless of the graver sins against God, his church, and humanity. And it is on this fact above all that men who believe in a God ruling over this world found their hopes for the future.

It is not our purpose here even to glance at our history in the past hundred years. Our present business is with the year just closing. Looking at the plain, level facts before us, we confess that they wear an ugly aspect. It is painful to be compelled to acknowledge that the dawn of the hundredth year of our national existence might have been far brighter. Unhappily, the legacy of many years of mistakes, misgovernment, and――let it be confessed with pain――of malfeasance in high places, both in State and national offices, has accumulated to fall upon this year of all others. One good, at least, has come from it. The nation, in American fashion, injured as it was, has at length faced the evil, which is in itself and due to no extraneous influence at all. The year opened with investigations. Indeed, it has been pre-eminently a year of investigations; and much matter there was to inquire into. The result showed a wide-spread corruption in the national administration. This corruption was probably one of the results of the war; but it was none the less corruption on that account. The Rebellion had been crushed, heroic deeds had been done. _Væ victis!_ There was an army of political heroes waiting for their reward. There are more ways than one of sacking a city. In these days we sack nations――as witness Germany and France――and arrange the terms of the sacking in peaceful convention. There are insects that thrive and grow fat on corruption. Some of these set on the carcase of the dead South. Others settled on the offices of national, State, and municipal government. They have been eating their way into the body politic for sixteen years. There is only a rotten shell left, and this year that shell fell to pieces.

In treating of the last Presidential election in our annual review of four years back, we wrote: “General Grant was re-elected. The opposition arrayed against him … utterly broke down. General Grant’s is undoubtedly a national election; we trust, therefore, that his future term may correspond with the confidence placed in his rule by the nation; may be productive of all the good which we expect of it for the nation at large; may heal up old wounds still sore; and may lead the country wisely into a new era of prosperity and peace.”

It is plain that we bore no ill-will to the President. What shall we say of his administration to-day? What need we say in face of the

## action of the country regarding the administration?

The heart sickens at going over the record of the year. It is only the culmination of the preceding years of ill-government which have been duly noted in this review, and which there is no special reason now to enumerate. We would not undertake to say that the government under President Grant has, _as a whole_, been a failure; but in great part it undoubtedly has been. We use a studiously mild term in describing it as eminently unsatisfactory, and the verdict of the nation, as given in the recent Presidential elections, endorses our opinion. Whoever may be seated in the President’s chair for the next four years, President Grant and his party have been condemned by the feeling and vote of the county, not because he was so foolish as to aspire to a third term on the strength of an administration that fell to pieces of its own rottenness and on a proposed anti-Catholic ticket, but simply because the country was sick of it. The disgrace and fall of the Secretary of War, the recall of the American Minister at the English court, the disclosures of corruption and inexcusable expenditure in the civil service, the plain traces of corruption in every department of the public service down to the most obscure, such as the peddling in post-traderships by the brother of the President――all of which came to a head within the present year; the stanch support given by the President to men whom he had appointed to office, many of whose dealings were shown to be of a most doubtful character, so much so that some of them just escaped the fate of thieves by technicalities of the law that in themselves were moral condemnation――all this was only the rotten ripeness of a growth diseased from the beginning.

But if the year, notwithstanding gloomy forebodings, to which we had grown accustomed, has been one of disgrace and disaster where pride and glory ought to have had place, it has not been without its bright side. The Presidential elections have been a series of surprises. Late in last year, as we noted at the time, President Grant made what not only we but all the world regarded as a bold and infamous bid for a third term in his speech at Des Moines. He aimed at riding into power on that favorite, and too often successful, hobby of a hard-pressed politician――an anti-Catholic ticket. This, in politics in these days, we take to be the last resource of an ignoble mind. Nevertheless, the bid was undoubtedly well timed. All the world is up in arms against the Catholic Church. No government dare hold out a hand to help her and hope to live. It is only recently that the President of Ecuador did so, and what was the result? He fell at the hand of an assassin, as De Rossi fell before him. The sentiment of English speaking peoples had been appealed to with all the force and violence of which such a man as Mr. Gladstone is capable, and his words were widely read in this country, being multiplied and confirmed by the secular and sectarian press. The President saw this opportunity, and took it at its flood-tide in a speech that was as ingenious as it was malignant. A Methodist bishop, in a large and important conclave of Methodist ministers, took up the cry, and, amid the acclamations of his brethren, nominated General Grant for a third term. Then came out from the holes and corners those imps of mischief, who are always at hand to do evil work at a time when the minds of men are excited――secret societies――and tendered their services and votes to President Grant. An adroit bidder for the Presidency bade higher and went further even than the President on the same ticket. He looked the winning man, and the secret societies transferred their allegiance to him.

This was undoubtedly a clever diversion for the Republican party. Dark clouds hovered over them, but there stood the Pope. He was their old ally in difficulties, and, if only they held him up to execration, the bull they were goading would turn aside from the lancers who were drawing his life-blood, and charge only on the red rag. How miserably they misread the people of this country has been seen.

The real issue was between a corrupt and an incorrupt government. No “making of demonstrations” could conceal this fact from an outraged people. To use homely but expressive language, “the pious dodge would not work,” especially in the hands of men like Grant and Blaine. The Pope was not the author of the rings, small and great, throughout the country; he had nothing to do with post-traderships; he had not stolen a penny from the civil service; Kellogg and Chamberlain were ruling in the South, and not he; Schenck was not his Minister to London, Babcock his private secretary, Belknap his Secretary of War, Robeson his Secretary of the Navy, Pierrepont and Williams his legal advisers, Shepherd his trusted confidant, and Chandler his pet minister. The time had gone by to fight with shadows when there were such glaring realities before the people. The corruption was homespun, unfortunately. It was of native growth. It had aggravated and increased the financial depression, in which foreign countries had a hand to some extent. It had fostered a lavish display and gilded vulgarity which were not only unbecoming republicans but rational beings of any class or kind. It had laid the road open to constitutional dangers, and honest citizens had good reason to dread a prolongation of the term of a man who had too military a way of looking at civil affairs, and regarded lawful opposition somewhat in the light of military insubordination. These things were before the people, and they laughed at the idea of dragging the Pope in.

General Grant was thrown aside; Blaine was thrown aside. A man whose record seems to be stainless was named in his place――Mr. Hayes, the Governor of Ohio. A far abler man was set up as the Democratic candidate――Mr. Tilden, the Governor of New York. The election was probably the most stubbornly contested ever known, and the day after showed Mr. Tilden with 184 electoral votes and his opponent with 166. Three States remained doubtful――three Southern States where the negro vote predominated, and two at least of which, by the confessions of both Republicans and Democrats, had been vilely misgoverned since the war. The country had to wait, as we still wait, for the returns from those States. At the very utmost they could only give the Republican candidate a majority of one in the Electoral College, while, whatever way they went, the votes of a vast majority of the people were undoubtedly given to the Democratic candidate. The fact was undeniable: the voice of the American people was for a total change.

Then ensued a scene unexampled, perhaps, in history, certainly in the history of this country. The administration came out in all its force. State rights were invaded by the military in South Carolina――as in the opening of the year they had been invaded in Louisiana for the purpose of sustaining the Republican candidates, right or wrong――while a nation looked sullenly on.

The country has undoubtedly been on the verge of danger; but we cannot despair of the Republic while so magnificent an exhibition is given by the people of calmness, forbearance, and good sense through days and weeks fraught with every incentive to exasperation and violence. We cannot foretell who will be the next President, but the will of the people is manifest and unmistakable. Politicians high and low have received a bitter lesson, which the nation has indeed dearly bought. Let us continue to be jealous of those whom we elect, of our own wills, to carry on the business of this great country, and we will force honesty even from the dishonest.

We have not space to deal with national topics of lesser moment, though of great interest and importance. With the centennial year came our first International Exhibition. It brought the eyes of friendly nations upon us, and, while the exhibition of the products of other and older peoples was a lesson to ourselves, a still greater lesson to them was the exhibition of our own industry and productiveness. The advance in the art and industry of the United States attracted the admiration of competent critics from all civilized nations. A more significant sign even than this is the alarm in England at the rapid growth of our iron trade, while our grain floods English markets. Ten years ago forty-four per cent. of the grain sent to England came from Russia, fourteen per cent. from the United States. Now forty four per cent. is sent from this country, and twenty-one per cent. from Russia; this, too, at a time when business generally at home was never duller――a dulness that the Presidential crisis has confirmed. Yet even at our present condition we are, as a people, more prosperous than most of the European nations. The money that people generally squandered, and that was allowed to be squandered in the national, State, and municipal governments, has at least not been spent in the forging of cannon and the mustering of dread armaments of war, in which so keen a rivalry is exhibited by the European monarchs. Such comfort, at least, as this consideration affords is fairly open to us.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF EUROPE.

And now we turn to Europe. It would take the eye of a prophet to read the future, the pen of a Jeremias to paint the present, of the continent to which God, through his church, gave the leadership of the world. The European crisis that all men saw coming seems come at last. Four years ago we closed our review by saying: “War looms on the European horizon, gathers in silent thunder-clouds all around. A flash is enough to kindle the combustion and make the thunder speak. Who shall say when or whence it comes? Europe is arming, and we have good authority for saying that ‘the next war will rage over half a century’――Bismarck himself. For the church we foresee an increase of bitter and severe trials.…”

Well, the thunder-clouds have gathered and are now impending. During the greater part of the year the world has waited with bated breath to see them burst and the bolts that smite nations fall. The hand of Providence is in it. The sins of three centuries seem to be gathering to a head at last. There is no nation in Europe that can call the other friend. There is no such thing as the comity of nations. The big battalions alone take right and wrong into their hands. Treaties most solemnly and formally ratified within a quarter of a century are torn to pieces as waste paper. Such alliances as are patched up between the Powers are rather personal than national――the alliances of savage chieftains against some rival, to be broken as occasion requires when the allies may fly in turn at each other’s throats. France and Germany are sworn foes; Russia and England hate each other; Austria trembles between Germany and Russia; Turkey is doomed, but seems resolved to sell its life dearly, and draw all Europe in to witness and operate at the death. Italy seems ready to follow the beck of Germany, and Spain is consumed with her own troubles. Add to this that each nation is disorganized within itself. The war, as will be shown later on, has proved a curse to Prussia, and, through Prussia, to all Germany. The empire is far from consolidated; the Catholics have been alienated from the government; the socialists, who are now in the ascendant, have been denounced by Prince Bismarck; the Protestants have lost what unity they ever possessed, and have shown an example of weak subserviency to infamous laws that has won for them the contempt of the world. In Russia the emperor himself dreads the future. The long-pent up elements of discord are bursting through at last, and even his immense power cannot restrain the nation from a war which, it is generally believed, his mind and heart condemn. Austria has its Hungary, and its persecution like to that of Germany; England its Ireland and a people that, with all its wealth, it cannot find employment for or feed. It has its India, also, with Russia for a neighbor. France has its Imperialists, its Legitimists, its Socialists of the fiercest kind; Italy its secret societies, its persecutions, its people that groan under an incompetent government and scandalous monarch. What a picture! And in the background millions of armed men, millions of starving people, bankrupt treasuries, general disaffection, a thousand conflicting passions of race, of religion, of social and moral theories, and the pale ghosts of murdered kings vainly warning the handful of monarchs who are riding over the old ruts red with so many an awful disaster! Such is Europe in the year of our Lord 1876. Why is Europe not united? why is it not at rest? why is it ever on the verge of war? why is its surface being constantly changed? why are its governments so diverse? why is it the stronghold of the foes of all government? why is it bristling with armies and weighed down by armaments? why, wherever the eye turns, is it faced by cannon?

That the Reformation divided Europe into two hostile camps is a fact acknowledged by all students of history. We do not say that previous to the Reformation there were no wars among the Catholic European nations. There were――bloody, long sustained sometimes, and bitter. But they were wars of dynasties rather than of nations, for which the feudal system, that in its essence and construction was a pagan system, was chiefly accountable. The people hated not each other. They were one in faith, one in religion, one in their worship, one in their hopes of a hereafter and the means to attain it, one in their recognition of one supreme head of the church in which all believed. While they were just as much Germans, French, Italians, English, Irish, as they are to-day, they all worshipped one God in one manner. English saints were revered in Ireland, Irish saints in England, German saints in France, French saints in Italy. While Charlemagne was battling with pagan hordes and Moslem infidels, Irish missionaries went forth and spread themselves along the borders of the Rhine, diffusing the light of faith and knowledge in their path. They were welcomed as angels, not looked upon as aliens and foes, as are the missionaries of Protestant societies to-day in Catholic lands, who only stir up strife wherever they set their foot. Thus there existed something stronger, broader, more universal than nationalism, which destroyed not nationality, but taught all men that they were brethren, and that geographical lines were blotted out in the sight of God and in the common home of faith. Then was exemplified the sacred words of Scripture: “This is the victory which overcometh the world, your faith.” It was this faith that out of barbarism drew and moulded the mighty nations of Europe. It was this faith alone that saved Europe from being overrun by the Moslem as it already had been by the pagan North. Just at the moment when the Moslem power was about to receive its last check and overthrow came the Protestant Reformation, which was not only a religious revolt, but a disruption of Christendom. To that we owe the presence of the Turk in Europe and all the fatal consequences that have flowed from it, now at their ripest, when the moribund carcase that the faithless kings and nations allowed to lie there and rot threatens, in its final dissolution, their descendants with ruin. To that movement also we owe the bitterly hostile lines that have been set up between nations that once were brethren. To it we owe the persecutions and the cruelties that have resulted on either side from the day when a man’s religion assumed a political and geographical character. To it we owe something worse than all this――the substitution of doubt for faith, and the questioning of all authority, both human and divine. To the impious setting up of the monarch as the great high-priest of the nation we owe the absolutism which has crushed peoples, been overthrown and crushed in turn by them, and risen again only to repeat the old story of devastation.

Ever since that fatal outbreak Europe has been steadily drifting back into the old paganism to which such civilization as letters give is only a thin veneer; and paganism, at its highest, is only a step removed from barbarism. What is called progress would have come without Protestantism, and been estimated at its true value――as a means to a higher life for all the world; not as an end, not as the all in all in this life. Mere worshippers of progress make this world their heaven and self their god. This is the growing feeling in nations to-day, and the Reformation it was that, however unconsciously at the beginning, formulated it into a religion.

It seems to us that the present state of Europe is the logical and plain outcome of the great religious revolt in these last days. What nation to-day has a religion? Has Russia? Has England? Has Germany? Has France? They each have religions――fragments of religions or no religion――as apart from one another as the poles. At the very least this depriving men of a unity in their highest beliefs is fraught with interminable discord. And never were the minds of men more disturbed than they are to-day. Protestantism has almost run its course, and, by its own confession, disbelief in Catholicity is resolving itself more and more into disbelief in all things spiritual and necessary bowing to brute force in the material and moral order. Men look around blankly and ask, Where do we stand? And the answer is, Nowhere. Men are born and live, they eat and sleep, they sin and die in their sin, passing through life in a sort of dumb wonder that life should be. Life is a hopeless mystery to those from whose eyes heaven has been shut out. Then all those hard social problems become unanswerable. Why, they cry out in despair, should kings have our blood and sustenance? Why should we kill each other to make them great or small? Why should they live and we die? Why should our lives be spent in drill, portioned out by the corporal, and our means be dragged from us to buy cannon? These thoughts are boiling and seething in the hearts of the masses, and kings know it. They and those they favored have destroyed faith and religious unity. They have in its place what is called socialism, which means revolt against all things that be. The name of priest was made hateful by the calumnies of false teachers with the sanction of kings; and now the name of king is coupled with that of priest in the mouths of the irreligious masses. The first French Revolution was but the awful flash of a fire that smouldered and still smoulders under the thrones of Europe. It has set kings up and set them down like toys with which a child is pleased and then breaks, and then takes others to make its sport and break again. The history of Europe from the Reformation down is a continuous conflict between despotism and revolution. The fullest liberty is the only safeguard against it; but the fullest liberty may no longer be allowed to the peoples, for the Christian spirit and the Christian guiding hand have been withdrawn; deprived of which, liberty of the masses means license and lawlessness, government either absolutism or a strong tendency thereto.

SOCIALISM.

Let it not be thought that we are drawing a fancy picture. “Socialistic journals,” said Prince Bismarck in a speech delivered early in the year, “had recently done much harm, and had done so without let or hindrance. The poor people who subscribed for socialistic papers read but one journal, and were perverted by that one. They had an indistinct idea that they were badly off, which was no doubt true, and they therefore were ever ready to believe the insane promises held out by the socialistic journals. The result was that the German operative no longer worked as much and as well as did the English and French, and that German manufactories could no more compete in the great markets of the world. A nation that had been industrious and steady to a proverb had, by the incessant agitation of the socialistic press, been brought to this sad pass.”

Prince Bismarck cannot well complain. The only press he could not tolerate was the Catholic. The publication of a letter of the Pope was the signal for suppression of the paper, and fine and imprisonment of the publisher. He used the socialist press to inflame the hatred of the people against the Catholics, and now finds that in the unlawful use of dangerous weapons he has only cut his own fingers. In a debate in the Prussian Parliament Count Eulenburg, the Minister of the Interior, was compelled by a Catholic deputy to admit that “the government did tolerate the excesses of the socialist papers and societies for awhile, although the existing legislation enabled them to interfere.”

“I have always been _Intransigente_,” said Garibaldi last February. “Brought up with republican principles, through having served the Republic in America, I could not change my opinions, only I thought in the past that it was necessary to suppress our republican sentiments, because, in order to unite Italy, the monarchy was necessary. But not for this have we renounced our republican principles. As republican principles are the principles of honest people, there cannot be an honest government which is not republican. However, we are obliged to get on by compromises, which the force of circumstances demands. _I do not tell you to-day to make a revolution. We must adapt ourselves to the times._ Nevertheless, vindicate progress to the last gap. Keep yourselves in the path of progress. Do not let yourselves be weakened to-day; the country groans under depredations, the unjust acts of the government. When we compromised with the monarchy, we might have expected from it that the country would be well governed; but it is not. The monarchy must also complete its course; but the Guizots and the Polignacs of to-day do nothing but accelerate its fall.”

“In conducting the government of the world,” said Mr. Disraeli in his speech at Aylesbury in August last, “there are not only sovereigns and ministers, but secret societies, to be considered, which have agents everywhere――reckless agents, who countenance assassination, and, if necessary, can produce a massacre.” “I think,” he said, in speaking of the negotiations for adjusting matters in the East and staving off a little longer the fatal hour, “that in the spring of the present year the negotiations might have resulted in peace on principles which would have been approved by every good man; but unexpectedly Servia――that is to say, secret societies of Europe, acting through Servia――declared war on Turkey.”

On the eve of the German elections the _Provinzial Correspondenz_ warns Germany against the socialists in this solemn fashion: “As for the aim of socialism, we can have no doubt whatever about it. For on all occasions the members of the party make known this aim more or less openly. It is the utter overthrow of all order established in the state and in society, the destruction of all social culture, which has found its expression in religion and morality, in the family and in property, in art and science, in industry and commerce; and all this for the erection of a chimerical workingmen’s state, wherein would fall all the power of government and all the enjoyments of life to the pretended proletarians, or men who possess nothing.”

The invincible opposition of the Catholic Church to secret societies of every kind, the frequent warnings of the Holy Father and of the Catholic episcopate, clergy, and press throughout the world, have generally been laughed at as a clerical bugaboo, set up to frighten women and children. Well, we have not quoted from a single Catholic so far, and certainly the threats coming from so many different quarters, and from men whose words are not idle, are sufficiently strong.

THE COURSE OF EVENTS IN EUROPE.

Leaving this, the general and gravest aspect of European affairs, we proceed to touch on more specific topics of public interest which have arisen during the year. Many must necessarily be omitted.

Not even the gravity of the Eastern complications has been able to withdraw the eyes of the world from France. The story, repeated in these columns year after year, of the country’s wonderful advance in material prosperity is happily confirmed. We wish that the prospects of a satisfactory government were on a par with this material advance. There exists still a feeling of great unrest in France. The various political parties are as far apart as they ever were, and it seems impossible to bring them together so as to carry on the business of the country in that healthy constitutional fashion where opposition is a spur rather than a material hindrance to the government, where the government has not to deal constantly with a strong body of irreconcilables, and where cabinet crises need not be expected at any moment on what to outsiders often look like trivial points――as, for instance, the one of which we hear as we write: the concession by a Catholic nation of military honors at their burial to men who have lived and died unbelievers, and whose funerals, by their own expressed desire or the will of their relatives and friends, are devoid of all religious ceremony and a renunciation of the Catholic religion. Now, it seems to us that such a question as that should not be permitted to necessitate the resignation of a ministry and the consequent throwing out of gear of the chief government machinery.

For difficulties like this those who arrogate to themselves the exclusive title of republicans in France――the party that regards M. Gambetta as its leader and Victor Hugo as its prophet――is chiefly responsible. It has taken a distinctly anti-Catholic basis in what undoubtedly is a Catholic country. The name for it is “anti-clerical,” which is a distinction without a difference. It palliates the excesses of the _Commune_, while it opposes freedom of education.

There seems, unfortunately, to have been too much truth in what Mgr. Dupanloup said early in the year when speaking of the university question: “To make us love the republic, the first thing done is to identify it with a war against religion.” And the venerable prelate’s words received strong confirmation from so decidedly un-Catholic a writer as the Paris correspondent of the London _Times_, who wrote to that journal while the Chamber was still fresh from the elections: “On observing the attitude of the Chamber it is evident that the religious controversy is the great motive of all its passions. In the last Assembly, at least in its early days, every speaker courting applause had only to attack the Empire. In the present, as yet, the most frantic plaudits are reserved for whoever attacks not only the clergy, but any creed whatever. This is a fresh discord about to be added to so many old ones.”

If there is any truth in the report of Prince Bismarck’s views of the French elections as given in the letter of a German diplomatist, extracts from which appeared in a Rouen newspaper, the prince-chancellor agrees with both of these views. The report in question at least smacks of the man.

“The chancellor,” says the German diplomatist, “does not appear to be affected in any particular way by the result of the elections. In a conversation I had with him a few hours ago he remarked: ‘I doubt if the French Radicals will get into power; but should they, I am sure they will begin eating the priests before they tackle the Germans; the task is so much easier, and I have no desire to balk their appetite in that direction.’”

On December 31, 1875, the French National Assembly was dissolved, though its actual dissolution only took place in March, 1876, at the meeting of the new Chambers. The elections followed, and the voice of the people was certainly for a republic. The question of education immediately became a great subject of debate. In July, 1875, was passed a law allowing mixed juries, composed half of examiners appointed by the state and half of their own professors, to question the candidates for degrees, and decide whether or not to grant the degrees. Not a very monstrous concession, surely, yet on the strength of it the Catholic University of Paris was founded and inaugurated on January 10, 1876. This was too much for republicans of the Gambetta and Victor Hugo stamp. Accordingly, to M. Waddington, “an Englishman by birth and education, and moreover a stanch Protestant,” as the Paris correspondent of the London _Times_ triumphantly announced to that journal, was confided the Ministry of Education. It seems that M. Waddington was actually born in France, his father being an Englishman who was there naturalized, but the rest of the description is accurate enough. Of course M. Waddington’s stanch Protestant conscience could not allow of this concession to Catholics, whatever his English education might have done. He moved immediately to repeal clauses 13 and 14 of the law of July, 1875, which embodied the concessions above mentioned.

Now, what is this system of state monopoly of education in France against which the Catholic conscience rebelled? It owes its origin to the despotic genius of the first Napoleon, and we cannot do better than describe it in the words of a critic who will, in the eyes of non-Catholics at least, be above suspicion: “He [Napoleon I.] formed one great university,” says the London _Times_, “which was only the state acting as an autocratic teacher. The chief dignitary of that university was the Minister of Public Instruction, and all the officials, from the highest to the lowest, were servants of the government. The state appointed all the professors in the Sorbonne, the College de France, the law schools, the Polytechnic School, the Military College, and the crowd of Lycées throughout the country. Indeed, the state does so still.” It will be seen how open was such a system to abuse, particularly when the “state” in France has changed hands half a dozen times since Napoleon organized his system. “The state alone could grant degrees in Medicine, Law, and even Theology. The system was completed by the stipulation that no one could open even the pettiest of infant schools or the greatest of colleges without ministerial authority. Thus the state could despotically decide what books should be studied by every scholar in France, by whom and how each should be taught, what moral or political ideas should be spread through every school or college, and what amount or kind of knowledge should be exacted from every candidate for the practice of medicine or the bar. _No more rigid system of intellectual despotism was ever fashioned by the wit of man._”

After a prolonged, fierce, and bitter debate, M. Waddington carried his motion through the Chamber of Deputies, but it was happily thrown out in the Senate; and there the matter stands.

If French republicanism is made to assume a distinctly anti-Catholic character on the part of those who look upon themselves as the only true republicans in France, then France cannot hope for a good government from it. It remains for the Catholics to show and prove themselves the veritable republicans by devoting themselves absolutely to the country and the government as they stand. They have the game in their own hands. The French nation seems to be profoundly and reasonably mistrustful of kings and emperors. Yet a republic in which Victor Hugo, Gambetta, and the apologists and leaders of the _Commune_ are to be the chief actors would be worse than the Empire. France would have had revolution ere this only for the strong, wise, and just man who holds the reins of power with so firm a grasp, and swerves not an inch either to the “Right” or to the “Left.” What a contrast between Marshal MacMahon and our own soldier-President! We can only continue to hope for the best from all parties. Time may teach them to coalesce and deal fairly with all. Could they only do this, the mightiest bulwark would be raised up on the continent of Europe against the threatened encroachments of absolutism on the one hand and the madness of socialism on the other, and in this France would attain to a height of power and true greatness that no king or emperor ever brought to her.

Germany goes on its way resolutely. The persecution of the Catholics, which is now an old story, has not been abated a jot. To it is added, as has already been indicated, an attempted persecution of the socialists. But the socialists, besides being too strong, are hard to catch. The recent elections for the Prussian Chamber of Deputies show an immense gain for the party of National Liberals, who represent every wing of socialism from its highest to its lowest aspects. The Catholics remain much the same as before. The result is not favorable to Prince Bismarck, who seems to be growing more querulous than ever. An arrangement has been brought about by which the Prussian railways have been transferred to state control, and an attempt was made to extend it to all Germany, which has thus far proved unsuccessful. Still the military hand everywhere, and here is a result of it on which we have often dwelt, but which grows more sadly manifest every year. The Berlin correspondent of the London _Times_, writing of the accounts of Prussia for 1874 and the estimates for 1875, after struggling manfully but hopelessly to make the figures wear a favorable aspect, finally confesses: “These figures point a moral. Comparatively easy as it may be to balance the Budget in 1876, the present is the last year in which this can be done. Next year there will be few, if any, surpluses to draw upon. On the most favorable assumption the Prussian needs may be covered without having recourse to fresh imposts; but how about the wants of the Empire in 1877?[145] The Empire in the current year lives upon its usual income of custom, excise, and a modicum of state contributions, patching up its deficit by consuming the remnant of accumulated funds left. _A year hence realities both in Prussia and in the Empire will have to be faced with empty pockets._ If industry has revived by that time, the taxes will be augmented; if not, the only alternative will lie between a loan and the reduction of military expenditure. In any circumstances the situation in which Germany is placed by the military preparations all round will then be acutely felt.”

Such is the cost of military glory and power in these days. What doth it profit the people? We have seen Prince Bismarck’s views on the German workingmen, who, instead of becoming the strength and support of the Empire, are becoming its terror. How could it be otherwise with the means taken to educate them? No picture could be sadder than that drawn by the chancellor of the present condition of the German working classes. Industry cannot thrive on bayonets and cannon. Social order cannot prevail where the minds of men have been debauched for a purpose by the free dissemination of evil doctrines, and when they have ever before their eyes the steady persecution of the best citizens. He has outlawed the church of God. He cannot wonder at the devil stepping in and claiming his prey.

A still greater shock was given to German feeling by the report of Prof. Reuleaux, their chief commissioner at our Centennial Exhibition. His conclusions, in brief, were: 1. That the main object of the German manufacturers is to produce an article which shall be cheap and nasty. 2. That German manufacturers find it easy to succeed in this line, considering that the men they employ are deficient in skill and taste. 3. That judging by the German display at the Exhibition, the German nation seem to be steeped in utter servility, so great is the number of Bismarck statues, Red Princes, and other heroes of the war, in every conceivable material, from gilt bronze down to common soap.

“For the real cause of the decline [in prosperity] in Prussia,” says the London _Times_, “we must look to the military system of Germany. That system, as we have often pointed out, is the most costly in the world. By sending to the drill-ground for years all her best and most promising youth――by taking her most accomplished young men from the university, from the learned professions, from the factory or the laboratory, to fill the ranks of her army――she causes a greater interruption of trade, and lays a heavier burden on the nation, than that which the cost of the war has imposed on France.… In Germany all other interests are sacrificed to the needs of the greatest army ever supported by any state. The intellect of the nation is set to do military work with such rigor that civil pursuits are sensibly suffering. Trade is sacrificed in order that the country may be covered with troops drilled to the precision of machines. Military railways are made without regard to commercial necessities. So crushing is the blood-tax that crowds of the most stalwart peasantry and the most skilful artisans are crossing the Atlantic in spite of the depression of trade in America; and so soon as prosperity shall return to the United States the emigration from Germany may be multiplied two or three fold. Such is the price at which Germany bought the military dictatorship of Europe.”

Italy seems to be going from very bad to worse. The people groan under their burdens, and the successive ministries seem utterly incapable of coping with the difficulties by which they are beset on all sides. The telegram announcing the opening of the Italian Parliament on Nov. 20 tells us that in his speech from the throne Victor Emanuel, referring to the relations between church and state, said: “The extensive liberties granted the church ought not to impair public liberties. The government would therefore propose bills for rendering efficient the reservation in the laws respecting the Papal See.”

Here is an instance of the “extensive liberties” of the church. A report, dated March 14, informs us that “the fifty-sixth birthday of king Victor Emanuel, and the thirty-second of his eldest son, has been signalized in Rome by a ceremony of great interest. A new public library, which has been added to the Collegió Romano, and which has received the name of the king, was formally opened by the Minister of Public Instruction.” (We wonder if in the portfolio of the present Italian Minister of Public Instruction the good old commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” is written.) “He explained that on the very site of the new building the Jesuits had striven for the triumph of principles against which King Victor Emanuel’s career has been an unceasing battle.” (This statement is crushingly true.) “The library is also the monument of a victory in another respect, for it contains 650,000 volumes which belonged to the suppressed monasteries.”

What a victory! “The opening of such a building,” said the London _Times_, with unconscious irony, “appropriately marked the birthday of a king whose name will forever be connected with the greatest of all changes in the political fortunes of the Papacy.” It notices with keen regret in the same article that there is a lamentable tendency among Italians “to forget how much they owe to this king.” “Her [Italy’s] people cannot speak too gratefully of the king whose rare combination of courage and political sagacity has helped to give them back their self-respect as well as their nationality.”

Well, when Englishmen worship a Garibaldi and cherish a Mazzini, we may expect their leading journal to speak in this strain of a Victor Emanuel. The Mantegazza affair will be too fresh in the memory of our readers to need our using it as one of many instances showing the kind of man this model king is, and how likely the Italians are to remember “how much they owe” him. One of the things they owe him is the suppression of monasteries and convents. It must be rather bad when a journal like the London _Saturday Review_ considers it as on the whole rather a useless measure in its results. A strong effort is undoubtedly being made by the Italian government to destroy the Papacy and dam up the Catholic religion at every vent. Only do this, it says to its subjects: Kill off these religious societies from the face of the earth; and, as for yourselves, join what devil’s societies you please――for this is liberal Italy.

In assuming charge of the religious properties, however, the Italian government assumed also the liabilities attached, and it met with many strange mishaps. Wonderful to read are the accounts of some of those bills presented by worthy citizens to the government officials. The Dominicans for instance, are certainly not famed as being great eaters of flesh either in Italy or anywhere else. Yet here are the worthy Dominicans of Sta. Maria sopra Minerva, whose property was seized, charged by a modest butcher with a “little bill” of 20,000 fr. for butcher’s meat! This is only one of many such that were presented.

The first report of the Commission of Vigilance charged with the ecclesiastical property seized was presented early in the year. It showed that, according to the schedule laid before Parliament in the spring of 1873, there were then in Rome 126 monasteries occupied by 2,375 monks, and 90 convents occupied by 2,183 nuns――in all, 216 religious houses with 4,558 inmates, exclusive of hospitals and pensions under monastic supervision or direction, the colleges and the houses of the generals. Of these 216 houses 119 were seized and 44 others declared exempt from the operation of the law. The property that thus passed into the hands of the Commission was disposed of as property usually is――put up at auction for the most part; 250 lots were put up at 13,042,629 fr., and knocked down at 16,142,697 fr. The total value of the property thus seized is estimated at 61,161,300 fr. To complete the pleasing picture it only remains to add that the receipts of the Commission from July 22, 1873, when it began its operations, up to the end of 1875, were 11,116,376 fr., while the expenditure was 11,570,428 fr.

Meanwhile, the dispossessed monks were left at liberty to run about the world and seek for a living wherever they could find it, while the Commission of Vigilance manipulated their property. As for the nuns, provision was made that all of them who within three months after the publication of the law made express and individual requests to remain in the houses they occupied should be permitted to do so until the number in each house should be mercifully reduced by death to six, when the government might concentrate them elsewhere. Signor Nicotera, however, seems resolved to root them out altogether.

Such is Catholic Italy. The readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD have seen in a recent article[146] the tendency of the ecclesiastical policy of the Italian government. In this alone is it resolute. The country at large is as ill-governed as ever. The police are corrupt. In many districts life is still at the mercy of brigands, some of whom, as was recently shown, have their allies among those moving in the best circles of society. Scandals thicken around throne and government. As for the new government, that steadfast friend of young Italy, the London _Times_, wrote thus as long ago as May 4: “The new Italian ministry came into power just a month ago, and it has already had to declare the impossibility of its own former programme, and to adopt both the measures and the practice of the government it overthrew and supplanted. It deals with public meetings, with the press, and with the telegraphic office as conservatives, and even the Pope, had done before; and, what is more, it finds that if it is to save Italian finance from a downward career, it has no choice but to adopt the Grist-tax, which was the one particular crime of its predecessors.… The Left is disappointed and sullen. The populace of the country towns is furious. For some years the owners, the occupiers, and the tillers of land have found that ‘unification’ and representation are costly privileges. The fact is now brought home to them; and when all classes in an agricultural district are of one mind, they are apt to express themselves roughly.”

Like all petty persecutors, Switzerland shows itself the most virulent in its attack on the rights of conscience. Great Powers try to devise some pretext at least for their persecutions. Switzerland is troubled by no such scruples as this. The laws are strained to the utmost to punish Catholics, and, when they will not precisely fit the case, they are made to fit as speedily as possible. Indeed, law there has become a farce. The correspondent of the _Journal des Débats_, which is noted for its solid opposition to the Catholic Church, draws a lively picture of the proceedings at the “election” of an “Old Catholic” pastor; and as it is characteristic of a thousand things that are constantly occurring in Switzerland, we give it at length. The letter is dated Sept. 20: “The confessional contest continues at Geneva. I won’t trouble you with the details of the skirmishes which occur every day. That would be monotonous. As a _résumé_, here is what passes from month to month: A Catholic commune has a church, a _curé_, a parish, and one hundred electors. Fifteen or twenty of these declare themselves liberal Catholics. They demand a _curé_ who shall be elected by the parishioners, as the law requires. But the party chiefs do not always find a liberal clergyman to order. Plenty present themselves, it is true, but for the most part they are more liberal than Catholic, and more libertine than liberal. The Superior Council wishes for honest men only, who shall not be too ignorant, who are good speakers, with a conscience, if possible, and capable of making a good show. But this is a combination of qualities hard to find in those who go out from the Roman fold. As soon as they have found one whose recommendations are of the best, they write to the twenty electors: ‘We have found your man; vote away to-morrow.’ They vote; the eighty Roman Catholics go not to the ballot-box, therein obeying the stupid order received from Rome, and the _curé_ is elected. From that out the church and the parish are his. All he has to do is to take possession. The keys are demanded from the mayor. The mayor refuses to give them up. He is recalled; the gates are forced, and liberal Catholicism is duly installed in the holy place, where nothing is left but the four walls. So clean has been the picking that the new-comers cannot even find a bell. Whereupon the eighty Roman Catholics, with their wives, children, and friends, gather together in a barn around their _curé_, now become a martyr, while the official priest, installed in the church of the commune, preaches to a congregation of two――the gendarme and the rural guard. He has not even the benches to preach to, for they have all been taken away. In addition, he is pestered by the zealots of the opposite party, who insult him in the street, steal his vegetables, and eat his rabbits. To console himself he marries, which at least brings him a female parishioner.

“Behold what passes from month to month. But to be serious: It is in this way that three-fourths of the revolutions begin. The liberal electors are for the most part infidels; but they have children whom they send to catechism. There were more than nine hundred of these this year. Behold a future flock detached from Rome. Moreover, there are foreigners who second the movement. A fairly large number of young girls have already made their First Communion in the liberal churches. Many marriages have taken place there.”

In Spain the Carlists were utterly defeated by overwhelming numbers and faithlessness on the part of many of their chieftains early in the year. Don Carlos escaped, and the insurrection was at an end. While Spain was shifting from hand to hand, and presenting to the world a hopeless picture of internal disorder, we supported the cause of a resolute man who had certainly a strong and brave following, not all confined to the North; whose views of government were far more liberal than they were represented to be by his foes; who knew the meaning of morality; who displayed great capacity in welding into a formidable army a set of undisciplined hordes whose personal character was above suspicion; who, as kings’ claims go, had a strong claim to the Spanish crown, supported to this day by a formidable party in Spain; and who, had he once grasped the power of the throne, would not have been a likely man to relinquish it. What Spain wants to-day is a ruler, and we believe Don Carlos would have ruled the country wisely and well. We were always open, however, to just such a solution of the Spanish difficulty as has actually taken place. In our review of the year 1872, while saying that we did “not expect to find Amadeo’s name at the head of the Spanish government that day twelvemonth,” we added: “a good regent, not Montpensier, might bring about the restoration of Don. Alfonso; but where is such a regent?” Pavia did the work, and if the young king can only be surrounded by good advisers he need dread no domestic foe. He is undoubtedly the lawful king of the nation, and, as such, all good men are bound to support him. But Spain is still so uncertain that it is open to almost any surprise. Its debt is enormous. When Queen Isabella was driven from the throne, the capital of the debt was $1,250,000,000. To-day it is about $3,500,000,000 which represents in startling fashion what a country gains by revolution and the clash of dynasties.

Space does not allow of entering more largely into the internal affairs of Europe, or even of glancing at the disturbed condition of affairs in the states of South America, which is only a reflex of European life in its general and worst phases. With a brief mention of a few of the memorable dead, we pass on to consider the question which is uppermost in men’s minds to-day.

For the Catholic, during the past year, one name overshadows all――that of Cardinal Antonelli, whose official life in the service of his Holiness was a long and severe battle against overwhelming odds. The wonder is, not that he failed in the end but that he stood so long. He, together with his illustrious chief, was a true friend of liberty, but not of that liberty which means disorder. This he was to the end of his days, as is shown by his admiration for our own Republic and his rejoicing at the victory of the Union. His life was spent in storms; and in days when physical force takes all things into its hands, his was the gigantic task to beat back the flood, as he succeeded in doing for almost a quarter of a century. His name will be memorable not only in Catholic annals but in European history, and his example for steadfast courage, unwavering faith, and unswerving devotion to the chair of Peter one of the most conspicuous in all time. Another holy and venerable man, renowned in a different way――Cardinal Patrizzi――followed him close. Another man who has graven his name on the century, and who was, perhaps, the brightest intellectual light that the New World has yet given to the faith――Dr. Brownson――went out with the year. As his career and work have been treated at length in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, we need say no more of him here. His bright and promising daughter, Sarah (Mrs. Tenney), the author of the _Life of Prince Gallitzin_ and other works, followed him recently. The name of Francis Deák stands alone among the list of secular statesmen. His life teaches the value of patience against hope, and of persistent but lawful agitation for the rights and liberties of peoples. He went to his grave amid the tears of a nation and the sorrow of a world, a patriot of patriots and a Catholic of Catholics.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.

Russia, Austria, and England have been almost completely wrapped up in the Eastern difficulty, which we do not pretend to be able to solve, and which we doubt if any man could solve, however read in the secrets of European cabinets. Never was a question more shifting in its character, more unexpected in its surprises, more delicate to touch, more difficult to adjust. Time was when short work might have been made of it. Here are the facts: A nation steeped in corruption, foreign in every sense to Europe, which has steadfastly refused to enter European life and thought and action, occupying one of the fairest regions only to pollute the very dust where heroes trod, and which the ashes of saints once consecrated. Christian principalities and peoples are subject and made to pay tribute to this power, which has only strength enough to be cruel, and energy enough to sin. It is needless to point out what would be the action of Europe were Europe only one in faith. Its very faith would have revolted against such a people in such a place, and beyond doubt the Turks would have had the alternative of becoming subject to Christian rule or of leaving Christian shores.

But these thoughts enter not into the calculations of governments which are themselves no longer Christian. They approach the subject like robbers before whom is spread out a rich booty, and the question is, Who shall have the biggest share? Russia is resolved to have it; Austria trembles for her frontier; England sees all that she fought for in the Crimea slipping from her grasp, and is left without courage to fight and without a friend to help her.

It would take a volume to follow out all the intricacies of this affair, and at the end we should only be left at the very starting-point. If we may hazard an opinion, we believe that there will be no war, at least this winter. As for the alarm at the anticipated occupation of Constantinople by Russia――while, if the Russian Empire be not dissolved before the close of the present century, by one of the most terrific social and political convulsions that has ever yet come to pass, that occupation seems to lie very much in the order of possibilities――we doubt much whether it will occur so soon as people think. England is not the only rival of Russia. The alliance of the emperors is nothing more than an alliance _de convenance_ which would snap at any moment. Russia herself has recently given notable example of what value she sets on troublesome treaties, when she has the power to throw them aside. It would seem to us difficult for Russia to occupy Constantinople without first mastering and garrisoning Turkey; and Turkey is an empire of many millions, whom fanaticism can still rouse to something like heroic, as well as to the most cruel and repulsive, deeds. These millions, even if they would, could not well be transported to Asia at a moment’s notice. But even granting all this, granting Russia the governing power――and it will have that or nothing――in what now is Turkey, how would its more immediate neighbors, Austria and Germany, regard so enormous an accession of power to an empire that already grasps the East and West in its hands, that is brave, enterprising, aggressive, daily growing in intelligence,[147] as a nation one in religion, and subject to the will of one man, whose presumptive heir is the bitter foe of Germany? The religion of Russia is opposed to that of all Europe, with the exception of Greece. Russia is greedy, strong, poor, and cruel. So cold a nation, that has not yet quite thrown off the shell of barbarism, drifting down into one of the fairest European provinces, would take a century, at least, to thaw into civilization. Indeed, the possibilities that would arise from such a movement are beyond foreshadowing. Yet people who talk so glibly of Russia seizing Constantinople never seem to regard them. We may be very sure, however, that they are regarded by powers who, in such an event, would be neighbors and necessary rivals of Russia; and that they, while they are in a position, as to-day Germany is, to forbid trespass, will be very careful how far they allow a people to advance who, given an inch, take a country. Germany, it is believed by many, wants Austria. With Austria as part of Germany, Germany might well defy Russia, and the ambition of founding a consolidated empire extending from the borders of France to the borders of Russia, from the North Sea to the confines of Italy, seems to us worthy of the mind of Prince Bismarck. And it might have been, were he safer at home; but it needs something more powerful than blood and iron to frame and consolidate such an empire. It needs peace, unity of sentiment, unity of interests, unity of faith, the assurance of liberty, none of which Germany possesses to-day. Indeed, the chancellor himself has disavowed such designs, fearing that the welding of Austria into Germany would give the Catholics the preponderance in the empire which they now lack. Certain it is that some agreement has been made between the emperors which has imparted an ominous neutrality to Germany, and under which troubled and enfeebled Austria is in the eyes of all observers restive. But under all these combinations of the great European Powers there frowns the spectre of socialism, with allies wherever men are aggrieved, and which will not down for all the artillery of empires. From it an outburst may be expected at any moment, in the quarter most unexpected, and in situations the most critical. Its power cannot be weighed, measured, or calculated upon. It works in the dark, yet universally. It is as strong in the Southern States of America as in Europe. Its excesses shock all men for a time, but it feeds on discontent; and discontent to-day possesses the world. It can only be met and conquered by the Christian conscience, but it has long been the effort of kings to destroy that conscience, to deprive it of light, and render it a passive agent in the hands of force. Thus are empires for ever digging their own graves.

And what is the outlook? Bleak indeed to the eye of the world, but bright to the eye of faith. Throughout the pontificate of our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., the church has been treading the weary way of the Cross. The world is only to be won to Christ by suffering and sacrifice. Christ himself no longer suffers in the flesh, but in his mystical spouse, the church. “When I shall be lifted up,” he said, “then will I draw all men to me.” It is the same with his spouse. She has had her hour of earthly triumph; she has had her agony; she has felt the kiss of many a Judas on her cheek; Sadducee and Pharisee alike hate her; she has been betrayed by her own into the hands of her enemies; she has been led before the rulers of this world, and they have pronounced, each in his way, sentence upon her, and the sentence is death. She has been delivered up to the hands of the rabble, mocked, derided, bruised, crowned with thorns, forced to bear her own cross. She has mounted to the very height of Calvary. Her garments have been stripped from her, and, naked, she stands before the world. The consummation is at hand. Despoiled of all things, and lifted up between earth and heaven, a spectacle to God, to angels, and to men, she draws all eyes to her, while the executioners, under the very shadow of the Cross, gamble for her garments. Free from all the trappings of this world, deserted, abandoned of men, it is then that the divinity within her shines forth with naught to dim its brightness. When Christ yielded up his spirit into the hands of his Heavenly Father, darkness covered the earth, the veil of the Temple was rent, the dead walked the streets of Jerusalem, and an earthquake shook the world. Nature was all confusion, and from that very hour began the victory of the Cross. Is not a like scene before us to-day? The darkest hour is on us; the future is God’s.

[145] This letter was written on January 19, 1876, consequently previous to the complications which have since arisen in Eastern Europe, and which, if war break out, would of necessity considerably add to “the wants of the Empire in 1877.”

[146] “How Rome stands To-day,” CATHOLIC WORLD, November, 1876.

[147] The Report of the Russian Education Department for 1875 showed, excluding Finland, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, 22,768 elementary schools, with 754,431 males and 185,056 females, and 1 school to 3,924 inhabitants. In the German provinces, there is 1 school to 2,044 persons, 1 scholar to 15 males and 24 females. In the Gymnasia, where the pupils have the option of learning French or German, 11,382 prefer German and 8,508 French, the preponderance for German being almost entirely furnished by the pupils who entered during the two years preceding. This latter fact we take to be a sign of the times.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE MARTYRS OF THE CITY OF ROME. By the Rev. Henry Formby. London: Burns & Oates. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1877.

We can do no more now than call the attention of our readers to this exceedingly beautiful little work, advance sheets of which lie before us. It is full of admirable illustrations of scenes in the lives of the early martyrs, and nothing could be better adapted as a Christmas present for Catholic children.

THE NORMAL HIGHER ARITHMETIC. Designed for advanced classes in common schools, normal schools, high schools, academies, etc. By Edward Brooks, A.M. Published by Sower, Potts & Co., Philadelphia.

This excellent text book contains more than the average number of practical examples. This fact, considered in connection with the intelligent and exhaustive treatment of commercial arithmetic, commends the book to teachers in need of a manual for drill purposes. Besides, most of the material is new, and the author brings to his task a greater command of language than seems to have been possessed by the older authors, thus ensuring clearness and variety of statement. The treatment of exchange shows the peculiar merits of the volume to advantage.

A large portion of the first half of the volume is devoted to a scientific treatment of arithmetic. In many respects this is waste labor. No use can be made of it in the class-room. Who, for example, stops to consider the properties of the number eleven? Less science and more practice would mend the first two hundred and fifty pages. This done, and the answers carefully corrected, the book will rank first of its class.

EXCERPTA EX RITUALI ROMANO, PRO ADMINISTRATIONE SACRAMENTORUM, AD COMMODIOREM USUM MLSSIONARIORUM. Baltimori: apud Kelly, Piet et Socios, 1876.

This new edition of the ritual is an improvement upon previous ones in the beauty and clearness of the print. In other respects no changes have been made, except in the paging.

We notice a misprint, “Suspice” for “Suscipe,” on p. 159. There may be others, but hardly can be any of importance.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIV., No. 143.――FEBRUARY, 1877.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.

FREDERIC OZANAM.[148]

Ozanam’s name and writings were made known to the portion of the English-reading world interested in the Oxford movement by the brilliant pages of the _British Critic_ more than thirty years ago, while he was still in the bloom of his youthful fame and success as a professor of the Sorbonne. The preface to his biography says that he is not widely known in England, and the same is probably true of America, speaking in reference to non-Catholics. Among Catholic scholars here, and we fancy in England also, his name and works are well known and in high repute. They deserve, nevertheless, to be better known and more highly honored. There is scarcely a purer or more brilliant career to be found recorded in the annals of Catholic literature in this century than his. He was the founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul――a sufficient title to honor and gratitude. He was a model of moral loveliness and Christian virtue, a type of the true Catholic gentleman, adorning a high sphere in society, and at the same time heartily devoted to the welfare of the humblest, the poorest, and even the most degraded and vicious classes. He was a thoroughly learned man in his own department, a captivating writer, a master of the minds and hearts of the studious youth of France, a knightly champion of the faith without fear and without reproach, an author of classical works of peculiar and enduring value. The charm of his private, personal character, as a child, a friend, a husband and father, a member of the social circle, equals the lustre of his public career. Spotless and fascinating from the beginning to the end of his life, the bright and winning grace of the figure which he presents in the history of his life receives dignity and pathos from the suffering which overshadowed and eclipsed his light before its meridian was attained. He was born in 1813; his professorship at the Sorbonne filled the space between his twenty-seventh and thirty-ninth years of life――that is, from 1839 to 1852――and he died the next year at the age of forty, after seven years of repeated attacks of illness and a continued decline. We will pass in rapid review the incidents of this brief but fruitful career, and endeavor to place before our readers a reduced sketch of the character and work of Frederic Ozanam, as faithfully and artistically portrayed by his accomplished biographer.

The family records of the Ozanams trace their origin to Jeremiah Hozannam, a Jew, who was prætor in Julius Cæsar’s thirty-eighth legion, and received the township of Boulignieux, near Lyons, as his share in the military partition of the conquered Gallic territory. His lineal descendant, Samuel Hozannam, was converted by St. Didier in the seventh century. The name was altered to Ozanam by the grandfather of the subject of the present notice. Dr. Ozanam, Frederic’s father, was a distinguished man, and both of Frederic’s parents were persons of remarkable virtue and piety. He was born in Milan, but educated at Lyons, every possible care being taken of his intellectual, moral, and religious culture. In childhood and youth he was delicate, precocious, exemplary in morals and religion, extremely diligent and successful in his studies, and every way admirable and lovable in character. At one time during his boyhood he was tormented by temptations against faith, which were so rife, and to a multitude of the studious youth of France so dangerous, at that epoch. To him they were not dangerous, but salutary; for they had no other effect except to stimulate him to a study of the rational evidences of the Catholic religion, and to leave in his heart a vivid and tender sympathy for the victims of doubt and error. After a very thorough course of classical study under an eminent teacher――the Abbé Noirot――which he completed at seventeen years of age, Frederic Ozanam was placed in a lawyer’s office at Lyons, where he remained one year, employing all his leisure time in linguistic and literary studies. Before completing his nineteenth year he was sent to study at the great Law-School of Paris, where he remained six years, after which, at the age of twenty-five, he was admitted to the bar and to the degree of Doctor in Letters, taking the next year his degree of Doctor of Laws. Ozanam had studied well his jurisprudence, and was perfectly competent to practise his profession, or even to hold a chair as professor in a law-school. This was not, however, his vocation, and he had little taste or inclination for such a life. His legal career was, therefore, very brief and only an episode in his life. In respect to his true vocation he had many doubts and anxieties. He was extremely averse to the thought of marriage, and, being so fervently religious, he naturally felt certain predispositions toward the sacerdotal or monastic state. He visited the _Grande Chartreuse_, corresponded with his friend Lacordaire, and held many consultations with his director. The final result was that he chose the profession of literature, and married, with the full and hearty approbation of his friend and counsellor, the Abbé Noirot. His chief end in choosing his profession was the advancement of the cause of religion and the church; and the generous aspirations, directed by the most elevated and enlightened views, which developed into so glorious and successful, albeit in time so brief a fulfilment, already preoccupied his mind and heart from the time that he was seventeen years old.

In point of fact, he had really found his vocation at that time, and, notwithstanding his apparent divergence to the legal profession and his various waverings of purpose, he actually began to prosecute it steadily by his studies and by such active efforts as his age and condition permitted, from that early but prematurely ripe period of his life. The programme of his studies and literary labors is laid down in a letter to a friend, written when he was seventeen years old. Without neglecting his professional studies, he was able, thanks to his wonderful mental gifts, his retentive memory, and his habits of intense, continuous application, as well as to the definiteness and unity of the scope and plan which he followed, to acquire that solid and accurate erudition which furnished the material fused and moulded into such beautiful forms by the fire of his eloquence and the constructive art of his imagination.

The state of things among men of science and letters, and the youth studying at the great schools, when Frederic Ozanam went to Paris, was, in a religious aspect, most dreary. His father had feared to send him there on account of the infidelity and immorality with which the whole atmosphere was poisoned, but had at last resolved to trust to the firmness of his principles and the purity of his character. His trust was fully justified. During his student-life Ozanam began, in concert with a few other young men like-minded with himself, that counter-revolution or crusade for the restoration of the old religion of France, among the young students and also among the working-men of Paris, which we devoutly trust will end in the fulfilment of De Maistre’s prophecy that within this present century France will be once again completely Christianized.

There is nothing more melancholy in all history, after the apostasy of Juda from the standard of her Lion, than the lapse of France from her fidelity to the cross and to the vows of that national baptism in the deepest, purest waters of Catholicity, from which she derived her life, her strength, and her unparalleled glory in Christendom. It is like the fall of Solomon, so beautiful, so wise, so royal in magnanimity and splendor, so favored of God, so renowned as the builder of the Temple and the palaces of Sion, degrading those later years which ought to have been crowned with a venerable majesty by turning his heart to strange women and to the abominations of the heathen. It is a grief almost without consolation, and accompanied by surprise and indignation, that a people like that of France, and especially its intelligent and educated portion, living amid the monumental glories of their Catholic history, could be insensible to their own honor, mock at all which makes their nation venerable, destroy the noble work of their ancestors, and, like the Israelites defiling themselves with the base heathen of Chanaan, turn away to the worship of the fetich of the Revolution. How much more deeply must the bosoms of those Frenchmen who are not degenerate be stirred by such emotions! There were always among the sons of Israel of old elect souls, the true children of the promise, such as Joseph, Gideon, Samuel, David, Isaias, Daniel, Judas Machabeus, who burned with zeal and holy enthusiasm for the cause of the God of their fathers; and they never ceased to rise up when they were most needed until the final apostasy of the nation. The people of France have never apostatized from Christ as a body, although a great multitude of apostates have deserted the faith and loyalty of their ancestors, and the revolution which they stirred up under the traitorous banner of Voltaire, “the wickedest, the meanest, and the most unpatriotic Frenchman of the last century,”[149] has swayed to a great extent the politics and education of France for a hundred years. Paris has gone far beyond France in this road of apostasy, but even there impiety has never gained a complete and lasting conquest. On the contrary, martyrdom, heroic charity, and intellectual valor in the sacred cause have made it their most illustrious palestra, and, we trust, have expiated the guilt of that peerless city, and averted the doom which would seem to await it if the divine justice should exact the due meed of retribution.

Among the _élite_ of the youth of France, the class most immediately and universally exposed to the deadly influence of impious literature and education and withdrawn from the control of the clergy, gifted and pure souls have arisen, filled with the inspiration of genius and religion, like Daniel and his companions in the captivity, who have escaped the violence of fire and stopped the mouths of lions. First among these is Chateaubriand, who in his old age honored Frederic Ozanam with his special friendship and was loved reverently by him in return. Notwithstanding a short period of defection from the faith, and considerable faults in his character and writings, Chateaubriand deserves to be called the father of the new generation of Catholic youth in France. There is no similar autobiography of more exquisite charm than the history of that childhood and youth in which this great man shows us how he was trained and formed to that peculiar type of genius which so captivated, and to a great extent re-formed in a Catholic mould, the intellectual and imaginative youth of France. Lamartine deserves a considerable meed of recognition, also, for services of the same general nature, though he was far less true and constant to his first loyalty. Victor Hugo promised in the beginning to devote a genius of a much higher order than either of these two eminent men possessed to the true welfare of his country and mankind, but unhappily was seduced by the fell spirit of the Revolution. Even he shows a reaction from the unmitigated, fanatical hatred of the Catholic past of France and Christendom which animates the worst section of the anti-Catholic sect. The moderates or liberals, the men of compromise between the revolutionary section and some kind of vague natural religion or philosophy under a spiritual or semi-Christian semblance, who have had the predominance at Paris in government, education, and the general leadership of the public affairs of France, since the time of the First Empire, have also belonged to a half-way party, in which the effect of resurging Catholicity is visible. They have been allied with the outside row of Catholics, who were either only nominally such, or, if really, inconsistent and weak in their allegiance to the church. Their position presented, therefore, a much weaker and more easily assailable front to Catholic aggression than one more extreme and openly revolutionary would have done. Nevertheless, the young world of Paris students were as effectually, and more quietly and irresistibly, alienated from real faith in the religion of their baptism, and every principle or duty of practical Christian morals and piety, by their utterly secular and free-thinking education in the public schools, so long as no counter-influence was brought to bear upon them, as if the Catholic religion had been proscribed by penal laws. It was possible, however, to bring this influence to bear upon them. The liberty granted to indifferentism, infidelity, and atheism might be made use of to the advantage of Catholicity. In the schools where free thought and free expression were a law, the possessors might be invaded and overthrown by intellectual and moral weapons, if there were found aggressors able to wield them and bold enough to enter the arena. On such a battle-ground, where the field is in the domain of history and philosophy, where reason is umpire, and where facts and arguments, eloquence and logic, appeals to the intellect and the heart, the lessons of the past and the examples of those men to whom the verdict of time――the most impartial of judges――has decreed an apotheosis, are the arsenal of the combatants, the Catholic cause must win, if its champions are worthy of their cause.

When Frederic Ozanam came to Paris the other side had the field to themselves, like the challengers of Ashby-de-la-Zouche on the morning of the tournament, before the young Ivanhoe rode into the lists. The venerable Sorbonne, that ancient shrine of sacred learning, had become a theatre, where shallow, rationalistic philosophers like Jouffroy declaimed against revelation and the Catholic Church. Ozanam soon found a small number of resolute, high-spirited young men like himself, who had been well trained at home in their religion and were determined to adhere to it faithfully. Under his leadership they began to send in objections to the statements and arguments of their infidel professors, which necessarily commanded some attention and respect and had influence with their fellow-students. Jouffroy himself, at the hour of death abjured infidelity, received the Sacraments devoutly, and declared that one half-page of the catechism was worth more than all the philosophical systems. It was at this time that Ozanam founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The Abbé Lacordaire, the Abbé Gerbet, and other eminent priests of Paris, and even the archbishop, interested themselves in the band of young Catholic students, and under their guidance the career of their leader, Frederic Ozanam, became, during his whole student-life, a truly noble and successful apostleship. Thus the way was prepared for him to carry on the same work in a much more efficacious manner as a professor at the Sorbonne.

In the year 1839 Ozanam, being then twenty-six years of age, a professorship of philosophy at Orleans and one of commercial law at Lyons were offered him, and the latter appointment accepted. He resigned it, however, after one year, in order to accept the position of assistant-professor of foreign literature at the Sorbonne. At this time an additional professorship of foreign literature at Lyons was offered to him, which would have secured to him, together with the law-professorship, an income of $3,000 a year. He was just about to be married to a young lady of Lyons. Nevertheless, he chose the position of assistant to the profesor of foreign literature at the Sorbonne, although it was a precarious one, and brought him an income of less than $500, in order that he might be better able to carry out the one noble purpose to which he had devoted his life. Together with his professorship at the Sorbonne he held also, for a few years, another at the _Collége Stanislas_, which he was obliged to relinquish when, in 1844, on the vacancy of the chair of foreign literature at the Sorbonne, he received the appointment to fill it from the government. For all these early and brilliant successes he was in great measure indebted to the warm friendship and patronage of M. Cousin and M. Villemain, a fact most honorable to these distinguished men, who, as is well known, were leaders of the rationalist school, yet nevertheless, like the eminent Protestant, M. Guizot, really carried out in respect to Catholics their professions of liberality. M. Ozanam continued to fulfil his duties at the Sorbonne during twelve years, with some considerable interruptions caused by illness. His published works are chiefly composed of the substance of the lectures which he delivered.

The great idea which was before the mind of Ozanam from the period of his early youth was, the justification of the Catholic religion by the philosophy of universal history. Eventually, he was led to concentrate his attention principally upon the period embraced between the fifth and fourteenth centuries, with especial reference to the German empire and to the mediæval philosophy reflected in the poems of Dante, whose strong attachment to the German party in Italy is well known, though perhaps not so generally well understood. Frederic Schlegel has said: “It is pre-eminently from the study of history that all endeavors after a higher mental culture derive their fixed centre and support, viz., their common reference to man, his destinies and energies. History, if it does not stop at the mere enumeration of names, dates, and external facts; if it seizes on and sets forth the spirit of great times, of great men, and great events, is in itself a true philosophy, intelligible to all, and certain, and in its manifold applications the most instructive. Then history, if not in itself the most brilliant, is yet the most indispensable link in that beautiful chain which encompasses man’s higher intellectual culture; and history it is which binds the others more closely together. It is the great merit of our age to have renovated the study of history, and to have cultivated it with extraordinary zeal. Within the last two or three decades alone so much has been achieved and produced in this department, that historical knowledge has been perhaps as much extended in that short space of time as formerly in many centuries.”[150] The scope and solution of universal history are found in the history of Christianity viewed in connection with the Judaic and patriarchal epochs of revealed religion which preceded the advent of the Messias. The most important portion of Christian history is that which relates to Western Christendom, the European family of nations which grew up under the immediate spiritual and temporal authority of the popes. This was the true _civiltà cattolica_, the millenial kingdom of Christ on earth, whose rise, progress, and gradual decadence occupied the space between the fifth and sixteenth centuries, whose remnants are all that has any moral grandeur or value in the modern age, whose restoration and triumph under a new form are the only future hope of humanity.

The foundations of heresy and infidelity are laid in the falsification and perversion of history, and in the general ignorance of historical facts which opens the way for sophists to spin their webs of lies around the deluded minds of the multitude. To find some other source of the greatness, virtue, happiness, evolution in the line of its destiny, already actually exhibited in its history by the human race, especially its elect portion, and still possible in futurity, besides the revealed religion and Catholic church of God, is the problem of the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-theistic sophists. Germany is their principal territory, the Gath and Ascalon of the Philistines who defy the armies of the Living God with their weapons of erudition and reasoning that are like a weaver’s beam. From the days of the old secular and ecclesiastical princes of Germany who revolted against the supremacy of Rome, down to Luther, his associates and successors, even to our modern German sophists, apostates and persecutors; the pretence of an autochthonous culture has been set up for Germany with a degree of pride, arrogance, and insolence which has no parallel, and is frequently so offensive and boastful as to be ridiculous not only in the eyes of the rest of the world but in those of all sensible and catholic-minded Germans. Christianity is considered by men of this school as the cause of a decline from the autocthonous civilization. War with the Christianity of the Latin races, and a return to unalloyed Teutonism, are regarded as the conditions of a magnificent future development, political, scientific, and literary, which shall create a German empire in every respect supreme mistress of the modern world.

Ozanam’s chief object was to combat this claim by showing, not that Germany has nothing to be proud of and no greatness to aspire after, but that she is indebted for her past and present glory, and must be indebted for any fulfilment of a glorious destiny in time to come, to Christianity and Roman unity, without which the Germans would have remained always, and will again become, barbarians. We must refer the reader to Miss O’Meara’s interesting pages for a fuller account of the way in which Ozanam prepared himself for his task, and afterwards fulfilled it by his lectures on German history.

Schlegel had given him a brilliant example of the way in which history can be brought up to that high standard of scientific, ethical, and literary excellence which is set forth in the quotation we have made above from his lectures. The value and practical utility of the ideas there presented and illustrated so nobly by the literary career of Ozanam cannot be too much insisted upon. History is emphatically the modern field most necessary and advantageous for Catholic polemics. The history of particular epochs, of special classes and orders in society, of individual men of mark, of institutions, of branches of science, art, or learning――in a word, of every kind of topic which can be made distinct and interesting by being localized, limited in respect to time, or otherwise so brought within clear and defined boundaries that it becomes vivid and real to the intellect and imagination――is that which we have specially within our intention. Moreover, the charms of style are essentially requisite. Happily, we have begun to supply the dearth of such books in the English language,

## partly by such as are originally written in English, partly by

translations. John Henry Newman has given us a certain quantity of historical writing worthy of comparison with “Livy’s pictured page,” and justly meriting for him the title, so felicitously invented by an Italian critic, of “the Claude Lorraine of English literature.” The accomplished authoress of _Christian Schools and Scholars_ is another skilful miner in the gold-fields of Catholic history; and Mrs. Hope, also, has shown in her volumes on the conversion of the Teutons and Anglo-Saxons how specially adapted to labor successfully in this department are cultivated women. Montalembert’s _Monks of the West_ is an unrivalled masterpiece, as all know; and if we were to catalogue all the various pieces of historical composition on similar topics to be found in recent European literature, enough of them would be found to make a small library. All books of this kind in the English language would, however, make but a small collection, merely enough for a nucleus of a library of Catholic historical literature. The educated and reading classes in England and the United States have been, within a very recent period, shockingly ignorant of the history of all except a few nations during a few epochs, in regard to which they have received a certain amount of information from popular works, mixed up with a great amount of error and misrepresentation. There has doubtless been an improvement slowly taking place for the last thirty years, and becoming continually more rapid as it advances. Yet, rating this improvement at the highest value it can possibly be imagined to have, the amount of knowledge, especially in regard to the real, genuine history of Christendom, which is current among the readers of only English books, or even accessible to them, is lamentably small. Even the most of those who are supposed to know something of foreign literature may, without injustice, be taxed with the same lack of information. We consider, therefore, that the example of Ozanam is one which has a special fitness in it to allure and stimulate those whose vocation it is to give instruction, by lectures or writings, to a zealous imitation. There are Australian and Californian mines waiting for those who will work them, in which those who have not the ability to dig out great masses of the golden ore may find nuggets and gold-dust in abundance to increase the common treasure in general circulation. Historical works of original and thorough research are wanted. Where translations from German, French, and Italian works suffice, let them suffice, and original authors take up new topics. Would that, even by the easy method of translation from foreign languages, our English historical literature might be enriched, and that the taste for solid reading were sufficiently diffused to enable enterprising publishers to employ the hundreds of persons able and willing to undertake this work! Besides these more extensive historical works, there is a great need for others of lesser magnitude, for which the materials already exist in abundance. All that is necessary to make these rich materials available is, that they be worked up by those who possess the art of conveying instruction and imparting delight to inquisitive minds by the skilful use of their vernacular idiom in a way suited to the capacity and taste of their listeners or readers. Teachers in colleges and schools who are able to lecture to their pupils will, in our opinion, stimulate their minds to thought and study much more easily and efficaciously by lectures on topics of this kind than by adhering exclusively to the mere class routine. And we venture to suggest also to those who give lectures to literary associations or general audiences, that they would do well to exchange their usually trite and abstract topics of vague and general declamation for specific and individual subjects taken from the historical domain. We may say the same to those who undertake to write books, or articles for the periodicals. And here it occurs to our memory to refer to certain historical and biographical articles which have appeared in some of our magazines as specimens and illustrations. The _Civiltà Cattolica_ has published a long series of brief but remarkably accurate and graphic historical sketches of the lives and reigns of the Sovereign Pontiffs, under the title of _I Destini di Roma_. _The Month_ has repeatedly given short articles of the same kind, either singly or serially, which are perfect models of the popular historical style. Our children and young people, and indeed all people whatever who can be induced to hear or read anything instructive, with the exception of a small class of severely-disciplined minds, must be charmed in order to be taught. Truth must be made visible; in concrete, distinct, and brilliant pictures, images, representations of actual realities, living examples; as a splendid form in symmetrical figures. This is the reason why works of imaginative genius are so keenly relished by the multitude, and especially those fictitious narratives called novels and romances, whose particular form is most easily apprehended by the common imagination. Fiction, in so far as it is constructed according to the rules of true art, is but a shadow of real life. The reality is far more interesting. Compendiums and textbooks must indeed be dry, and they are necessary, as grammars and dictionaries are both extremely dry and extremely necessary. But, besides these dry skeletons of history, we need other books in which the epic and lyric harmony and dramatic life of man’s variegated action on the earth are reproduced――works which bear the same relation to dry annals that the _Æneid_ or the _Cid_ sustain to Latin and French grammar. They should be composed with such a charm of style that an intelligent boy or girl would eagerly take them under a tree of a fine summer-day, and beguile delightfully a long afternoon in their perusal, if they are for juvenile readers; and if they are of a more ambitious aim, that they allure their readers to burn the midnight oil over their pages. Nor would we exclude historical romances from the category of useful and instructive literature, if they are constructed in conformity to the truth of history and inculcate wholesome moral lessons.

It is an error to consider literature as merely a means of instruction for a secular purpose or of transitory pleasure, and to confine the effort at cultivating the spiritual faculties in view of the soul’s everlasting destiny, to the use of means directly religious. This is one form of the erroneous doctrine that the temporal order ought to be separated from the spiritual order, and therefore education be secularized. If there are any who think that the clergy have no interest in any but their own technical, professional studies, and that catechisms, didactic sermons, ascetic books, and biographies of saints written in that formal method which is so inexpressibly unnatural and tedious, with virtues tied up in separate bundles and commonplace dissertations overloading the narrative, are the only and sufficient means of salvation, we might say to them: Look at the Bible, and study the method which the divine Wisdom adopted. It is a book of history, poetry, eloquence; with little of professedly abstract, didactic instruction. It is an inspired literature, and the sermons of our Lord even are thrown into a popular and concrete form which addresses the imagination more directly than the understanding. The Bible, as well as nature, reason, and experience, teaches us the practical lesson that for the young and for the multitude object-teaching is the proper and only successful method. The divine philosophy, as well as the human, must be taught by example, and history is philosophy teaching by examples. In the history of Christendom, both public and private, the sacred history of the Old and New Testament is continued. The church is the spouse of Christ. The Evangelists paint the picture of the bridegroom, and Catholic historians of the bride. To win admiration and love for her, it is enough to represent her as she is.

Frederic Ozanam was inspired with this idea, which was infused into his soul by the Holy Spirit who consecrated him to his high vocation. He devoted himself to his literary and historical labors as a professor at the Sorbonne, not for the sake of science, fame, or any earthly advantage or emolument, but as an apostle of the Catholic religion; that he might win the studious youth of Paris to love Catholic truth and return to the church of their ancestors. For fifty years no Catholic lecturer, speaking as a Catholic, had been heard in that ancient, desecrated temple of the Christian philosophy of the glorious days gone by of France. The voice of Ozanam was heard, without the slightest flattening of its Catholic tone, with no timid reticence of his Catholic principles, and it captivated that crowd of turbulent, unbelieving youth by its magic eloquence. His biographer tells us:

“No man in his position was ever so much beloved in Paris; it was almost an adoration. After hanging upon his lips at the Sorbonne, bursting out every now and then, as if in spite of themselves, into sudden gusts of applause, and then hushing one another for fear they should lose one of the master’s words, his young audience would follow him out of the lecture-hall, shouting and cheering, putting questions, and elbowing their way up for a word of recognition, while a band of favored ones trooped on with him to his home across the gardens. They never suspected what an additional fatigue this affectionate demonstration was to the professor, already exhausted by the preceding hour and a half’s exertion, with its laborious proximate preparation. No matter how tired he was, they were never dismissed; he welcomed their noisy company, with its eager talk, its comments and questions, as if it were the most refreshing rest. There was, indeed, only one reward that Ozanam coveted more; this was when some young soul, who had come to the lecture in doubt or unbelief, suddenly moved by the orator’s exposition of the faith, as it was embodied or shadowed forth in his subject, opened his eyes to the truth, and, like the blind man in the Gospel, cried out, ‘giving thanks.’

“One day, on coming home from the Sorbonne, the following note was handed to him: ‘It is impossible that any one could speak with so much fervor and heart without believing what he affirms. If it be any satisfaction――I will even say happiness――to you to know it, enjoy it to the full, and learn that before hearing you I did not believe. What a great number of sermons failed to do for me you have done in an hour: you have made me a Christian!… Accept this expression of my joy and gratitude.’ _You have made me a Christian!_ Oh! let those who believe and love like Ozanam tell us what he felt, what joy inundated his soul when this cry went forth to him.”[151]

Ozanam’s authority over the students was never more strikingly manifested than on the occasion of the excitement caused by the public announcement which the celebrated historian Lenormant made of his conversion to Christianity. He had been an infidel, then a waverer between scepticism and faith, for years before he declared himself on the Catholic side. The leaders of the infidel party stirred up the students who attended his course of historical lectures to violent demonstrations of hostility. Ozanam espoused his cause with the most chivalrous courage, and took his place by the side of M. Lenormant in the lecture-hall. When the storm of yells, hisses, hootings, and blasphemous outcries burst forth in a deafening tumult, he sprang to his feet beside the lecturer with an attitude and a glance of indignant defiance which evoked at once from the fickle mob of youths a counter-storm of violent applause. A scornful gesture hushed them into a sudden silence, broken only by the thunder of Ozanam’s invectives and the eloquence of his appeals to their honor and the principles of liberty which they professed to respect, but had so grossly violated. He mastered them completely, and M. Lenormant then proceeded to deliver his lecture without interruption. The next day, however, through the influence of those consistent advocates of toleration, Michelet and Quinet, the course was closed by an order of the government.

The active labors of Ozanam were by no means restricted to his department of duty as a professor. He was a zealous leader in Catholic associations, a frequent contributor to the journals, an untiring workman in the cause of practical charity and all undertakings for the improvement of the class of artisans and laborers. It is impossible to make any accurate estimate of the actual results of his efforts in the cause of religion and humanity. In the words of his biographer: “The work that he accomplished in his sphere will never be known in this world. God only knows the harvest that others have reaped from his prodigal self-devotion, his knowledge, and that eloquence which so fully illustrated the ideal standard of human speech described by Fénelon as ‘the strong and persuasive utterance of a soul nobly inspired.’ For Ozanam was not merely a teacher in the Sorbonne――he was a teacher of the world; and his influence shone out to the world through the minds and lives of numbers of his contemporaries who did not know that they were reflecting his light.”

What is awaiting France we know not. The world, but especially all Catholics throughout the whole extent of the church’s domain in the world, have watched with intensest interest the events which have occurred in France since the reign of Pius IX. began under such unwonted and marvellous auspices, and has continued so much beyond the period of human expectation. They have never ceased to pray for France, to sympathize with the heroic efforts of genuine French patriots, the true children of Charlemagne and St. Louis, and to watch anxiously for the time when the prognostic of the learned and eloquent Dr. Marshall shall be fulfilled: “_When France falls upon her knees, let the enemies of France begin to tremble._” The blood of three martyred archbishops of Paris, the blood of Olivaint and his noble fellow-victims, the blood of Pimodan and those generous youth who fell at Castelfidardo, the chivalry of Lamoricière and La Charrette, the vows of the pilgrims of Lourdes and Paray-le-Monial, the valiant struggles of the champions of the faith, the prayers and sacrifices of that crowd of the noblest daughters of France which fills her renovated cloisters, cannot surely remain for ever powerless to lift the dark cloud which overhangs the kingdom of the _fleurs-de-lis_. There has been enough of the blood of the just poured out in France within the last century to redeem not only France but Christendom. If Christendom is to be regenerated, France must first come forth renewed out of her second baptism in blood and fire. The cry of anguish, though not of despair, which she sends up to heaven by the mouth of her eloquent spokesman, the bishop of the city of Joan of Arc, “_Où allons nous?_” must be answered: “We go to victory over traitors within and enemies without, and our triumph shall be that of the Catholic Church.”

Frederic Ozanam had once said to the young men of a literary circle: “Let us be ready to prove that we too have our battle-fields, and that, if need be, we can die on them.” In point of fact, he did really sacrifice his own life in the fulfilment of his task. Such a delicate physical constitution could not naturally long survive the intense, continuous strain to which it was subjected by a spirit which exercised a relentless despotism over the body. In a letter to his brother Charles he tells him, by way of encouraging him to follow his example, that in 1837, when he was preparing his examination for the higher degrees, he had, during five months, worked regularly ten hours, and during the last month fifteen, daily, without counting the time spent in classes. With much more _naïveté_ than good sense, he observes that “one has to be _prudent_, so as not to injure one’s health by the pressure; but little by little the constitution grows used to it. We become accustomed to a severe active life, and it benefits the temper as much as the intellect.” Notwithstanding the remonstrances of friends, he continued almost the same extent of application to study, until his health gave way entirely; and even during the journeys he was obliged to take for relaxation he rather varied the kind of labor in which his restless mind engaged than exchanged it for rest and recreation. His first severe illness attacked him only four years after he began lecturing at the Sorbonne. This was followed at intervals by other attacks, and a general failure of health which obliged him to intermit his courses and take several journeys in France, Italy, England, and Spain, during which he gathered the materials of some of the most delightful of his minor works. It is a curious and characteristic incident of his visit to England, worth recording, that he was turned out of Westminster Abbey by the pompous beadle, whom all tourists must well remember, for kneeling down to pray at the tomb of Edward the Confessor. His last lecture at the Sorbonne was given some time during the spring of 1852. It was a dying effort. He had persisted in dragging himself to the lecture-hall while a remnant of strength remained, in spite of the entreaties of friends and medical advisers. At length he had been forced to take to his bed, exhausted with weakness and consumed by fever. His cruel and unreasonable pupils clamored at the deprivation of the intellectual banquet to which they had been accustomed, and, with the inconsiderate spirit of youth, accused him of neglecting his duty through self-indulgence. Ozanam heard of this, and, in spite of all remonstrances, he rose from his bed, was dressed and taken in a carriage to the Sorbonne. Pale and haggard, unable to walk without support, but with an eye blazing with unwonted fire, and a voice clear and shrill as a silver clarion, he sang his death-song amid enthusiastic applause.

As the peroration of his last speech and of his life he exclaimed: “Gentlemen, our age is accused of being an age of egotism; we professors, it is said, are tainted with the general epidemic; and yet it is here that we use up our health; it is here that we wear ourselves out. I do not complain of it; our life belongs to you; we owe it to you to our last breath, and you shall have it. For my part, if I die it will be in your service.” With ardent but foreboding congratulations and applauses, which all felt to be farewells, the students of the Sorbonne heard and saw the last of Ozanam. The finale of his career had been reached; his coursers touched the goal, and the wreath and palm were decreed by acclamation to the hero who bore them away to die. The next morning it was feared that he might not survive ten days. He lived, however, about sixteen months longer, wandering in company with his wife and little daughter, from Eaux-Bonnes to Biarritz, from Biarritz to the Pyrenees, to Spain, and at last to Italy, then to Marseilles, where he closed his earthly life on the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, 1853, surrounded by his relatives and friends, and by his brothers of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. His published works fill eleven volumes of considerable size, and for a just appreciation of their character and value we refer the reader to the twenty-fifth chapter of Miss O’Meara’s biography.

We have endeavored to excite rather than to allay the curiosity of our readers, by merely designating the salient points of a life which is crowded with a great variety of traits and incidents such as make up a subject worthy to be handled by a skilful artist in the painting of character. We have not by any means exhausted the material furnished by the intelligent and graceful narrator of Ozanam’s life, or even touched upon those personal and private details of his domestic history which lend so poetic a charm to the story of his public career. Those in whom we have awakened an interest for one who presents the living ideal of a perfect Catholic layman in an exalted sphere of action, will defraud themselves grievously if they fail to make themselves more fully acquainted with it by the perusal of his biography. The author, although she now appears for the first time under her own proper name, is already known by her _Life of Bishop Grant_, published under the _nom de plume_ of Grace Ramsay, and is a daughter of Dr. O’Meara, the author of _Napoleon in Exile; or, a Voice from St. Helena_. Her contributions to the pages of this magazine have been numerous and always considered as among the best of our literary articles. In the work we are reviewing she has done justice to the high estimate we had previously formed of her merit as a writer, and to her subject, the one most suited to call forth her power which she has thus far attempted. Besides a full knowledge of her subject; that ardent glow of admiration for the hero of her story which is so requisite, and is one of the special charms of portraits of noble men drawn by a feminine hand; and graphic power regulated by delicate and correct taste in delineation and description, the author has shown remarkable tact and good sense in respect to all those questions which have caused division and discussion between different Catholic parties in France. Without suppressing any part of the history of M. Ozanam and his period, or attempting to throw a veil over any of his opinions which involved him in the domestic controversies then existing, and not yet settled, respecting the relations of the Catholic cause and national politics, she has judiciously avoided taking the part of an advocate, and preserved the quiet, impartial attitude of a historian. We have occasionally noticed some evidences of haste, and neglect to put the last finishing touches upon the construction of sentences or the details of the narrative. We are also at a loss to understand the author’s motive for using certain French words, such as _angoisse_ and _découragement_, rather than the corresponding Englishman terms. For the incorrect title on the back of the cover, _Life and Works of F. Ozanam_, we suppose the publisher is accountable; for the author has entitled her own work very properly on the title-page, _Frederic Ozanam, Professor at the Sorbonne: His Life and Works_――a phrase whose meaning is essentially changed by the inversion of its parts, and made to convey the impression that the complete works of Ozanam are contained in one small volume, together with his life. Apart from this blemish, which can be easily corrected, the mechanical execution of the work is neat and tasteful. The _Life of Ozanam_ is another gem added to our small cabinet of treasures by the skill and industry of a gifted, cultivated woman. We trust the success of Miss O’Meara’s first appearance under her own name will encourage her to new efforts, and stimulate other women similarly gifted to follow her example by laboring in a department of literature for which they are specially competent. The example of Frederic Ozanam, mirrored in her clear, impartial pages, presents its own native, intrinsic beauty and splendor as a model for pure, disinterested, high-souled Catholic young men who aspire towards an ideal of true intellectual and moral greatness which is elevated and at the same time attainable in the laical state and a secular profession. It is to be hoped that the publication of this _Life_ will make the Catholic students of England and the United States generally acquainted both with Ozanam’s beautiful character and with his thoroughly erudite, yet classically elegant and attractive, works on the history and literature of the middle ages.

[148] _Frederic Ozanam, Professor at the Sorbonne: His Life and Works._ By Kathleen O’Meara. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas. 1876.

[149] Lady Georgiana Fullerton.

[150] _Lectures on Modern History._ Bohn’s Ed. pp. 1-3.

[151] P. 200.

AMID IRISH SCENES.

II

“I do love these ancient ruins: We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some rev’rend history; And, questionless, here in this open court, Which now lies naked to the injuries Of stormy weather, some lie interred who Loved the church so well and gave so largely to ’t They thought it should have canopied their bones Till doomsday.”

“There is a joy in every spot Made known in days of old New to the feet, although each tale A hundred times be told.”

Who has not heard of the Rock of Cashel――Cashel of the Kings? “The first object,” exclaimed Richard Lalor Sheil, “that in childhood I learned to admire was that noble ruin, an emblem as well as a memorial of Ireland, which ascends before us, at once a temple and a fortress, the seat of religion and nationality; where councils were held, where princes assembled; the scene of courts and of synods; and on which it is impossible to look without feeling the heart at once elevated and touched by the noblest as well as the most solemn recollections.” From whatever side the traveller approaches the ancient metropolis and residence of the kings of Munster, the first object to meet his eye is the Rock, which lifts itself above the surrounding country, as proud to wear its monumental crown. From the earliest times this hill seems to have been dedicated to religion. Its Round Tower, which is still entire, would lead us to associate it with the pagan rites of the ancient Irish; and the tradition which designates the Rock as the place where the kings of Munster were proclaimed confirms this view. It is certainly associated with the early dawn of Christianity in Ireland; for St. Patrick, St. Declan, St. Ailbe, St. Kiran, and other holy men held a synod in Cashel.

St. Patrick’s visit was in 448; he baptized Prince Ængus and held solemn feast in Cashel of the Kings “till all the land was clothed with Christ.” Here on the Rock he gave the shamrock its immortal fame:

“From the grass The little three-leaved herb, stooping, I plucked, And preached the Trinity.”

Without entering into the controversy concerning the origin of the Round Towers, we will take Cormac’s Chapel to be the most ancient Christian ruin on the Rock.

This stone-roofed church was built, as is generally supposed, by Cormac McCullenan, the famous king-bishop, who began to reign in the year 902. But Petrie is of opinion that we owe this chapel to Cormac MacCarthy, King of Munster, and that it is the Teampul Chormaic of whose solemn consecration by the archbishops and bishops of Munster, in presence of the priests, princes, and people, the Annals of Innisfallen make mention in 1134.

However this may be, all agree that the chapel is one of the most curious and interesting specimens of early Christian architecture in Ireland. Like all the stone-roofed chapels of the primitive Irish Church, it is divided into nave and chancel, with a tall, square tower at their northern and southern juncture. Within the southern tower, which on the outside is ornamented with six projecting bands, there is a stone staircase leading to apartments above the chapel said to have been occupied by King Cormac. These rooms receive the light through windows which are circular on the outside, but square within, and were heated by hot air, conveyed into them through flues in the wall――the first instance known to us of the use of a method of warming houses generally thought to be of very recent invention. The doorways leading into the chapel are in its northern and southern walls, and are richly adorned with columns, capitals, mouldings, and sculptured figures. On the lintel of the northern entrance there is a group in basso-relievo representing a Centaur in the act of shooting a lion which is about to devour some smaller animal that is crouching at its feet. This is supposed to represent the contest between paganism and Christianity for the possession of Ireland during the repeated invasions of the Danes.

The cathedral stands between the Round Tower and Cormac’s Chapel, embracing them in such way that they all seem to be but parts of one magnificent ruin. This church, which consists of a choir, nave, and transepts, with a square tower in the centre, was built by Donald O’Brien, King of Limerick, in the year 1169. Its greatest length from east to west is two hundred and ten feet, and the breadth of the transepts is a hundred and seventy feet. It is both a fortress and a church――true symbol of the perfect union of the national and the religious spirit in Ireland. The walls, which are of great thickness, are hollow, so as to afford a safe passage from one part of the building to another in case of danger. At the western end, instead of the great doorway usually found in churches, there is a massive square guard-tower of great height, resembling the fortified castles which are common throughout the kingdom.

This formerly contained a vaulted apartment having no exterior windows, and but one small entrance. Over this vault was the great room of state, which could be reached only by stairs within the walls, barely wide enough to admit one person. The roof was surmounted by battlements and a parapet. The monuments whose ruins crown the Rock of Cashel were all built before the Saxon had set foot in Ireland, and it is impossible to look upon them without admiration for the men who called them into existence. They certainly had little to learn, in architecture at least, from the rude Norman barons who, taking advantage of the internal feuds which distracted the people, overran and subjugated the country.

It was in the year 1101 that Murtogh O’Brien, King of Munster, convened a great assembly of the clergy and people of Ireland at Cashel, “and made such an offering as king never made before him――namely, Cashel of the Kings, which he bestowed on the devout, without the intervention of a laic or an ecclesiastic, for the use of the religious of Ireland in general.” We have a letter of St. Anselm to Murtogh O’Brien, in which he praises him for his excellent administration of the kingdom. His successor, Cormac MacCarthy, by whom the chapel was built, was the intimate friend of St. Malachi.

Driven from his throne by Turlough O’Conor, King of Connaught, he refused to take up arms to regain it, but withdrew from strife and placed himself under the direction of this great saint. In his society he led a penitential life, taking no nourishment but bread and water, and wholly absorbed in heavenly contemplation. After some years he was replaced upon the throne, and, in gratitude, built two churches at Lismore, where he had been the companion of St. Malachi, and one at Cashel of the Kings.

The most famous of the bishops of Cashel was Cormac McCullenan, who was at the same time King of Munster, and who has been considered as the founder of the chapel on the Rock which still bears his name. In his reign, which began in 902, the throne of Cashel had become almost in every respect the equal of that of Tara. No longer content with his own provincial resources, he put forth a claim to tribute from the whole southern half of Ireland. This involved him in war with the people of Leinster, who, supported by the supreme monarch, met Cormac in battle and routed his army. The king himself was slain, and his body was conveyed to Cashel for interment.

In the northern wall of the chapel there is a recess, once filled by a sarcophagus which is now in the cathedral. Upon the slab which covered this tomb the name of Cormac, King and Bishop of Munster, was inscribed in Irish characters. Within the tomb itself, when opened some years ago, there was found a bronze crosier with gilt enamel, of great beauty and exquisite finish, which from its form and style of workmanship there is good reason for believing to be as old as the chapel itself; and this has led Petrie and other Irish antiquarians to maintain that King Cormac MacCarthy was also a bishop, though the tradition is that the tomb is not his, but that of the great Cormac McCullenan.

After Murtogh O’Brien’s gift of Cashel to the church in the year 1101, its bishops gained in importance and power. In the latter half of the twelfth century the see was filled by Donald O’Heney, who was of the royal family of the Dalcassians. The Four Masters declare that he was the fountain of religion in the western part of Europe, that he was second to no Irishman of his day in wisdom and piety, and that in the Roman Law he was the most learned doctor in the whole kingdom. He took

## part in a council held in 1097, in which Waterford was erected into a

bishopric, and died in the following year.

In 1152 Pope Eugene III. sent Cardinal Paparo as legate to Ireland with authority to confer the pallium upon four of the Irish prelates. One of these was Donat O’Lonargan, Archbishop of Cashel, during the lifetime of whose immediate successor Henry II. invaded Ireland. He landed at Waterford on the 18th of October, 1171, with five hundred knights and four thousand men-at-arms, and appeared rather as a protector than as an enemy of the Irish people. From Waterford he marched with his army to Lismore, and thence to Cashel. Early in the following year, by his order, a synod was held in Cashel for the purpose of regulating ecclesiastical matters in Ireland. The chief pretext, as is known, for the Norman invasion was the correction of abuses in the Irish Church, and it was ostensibly with a view to effect this that the council was called. Its decrees have been preserved by Giraldus Cambrensis, the eulogist of Henry and the enemy of the Irish, and, far from confirming the prevailing notion concerning the existence of grave disorders, they furnish the strongest argument in favor of the purity of the Irish Church at that time; and even had there been serious abuses, the murderer of St. Thomas of Canterbury was, one would think, hardly a fit instrument for doing away with them.

Giraldus himself, the avowed partisan of the English and the author of innumerable falsehoods relating to Irish history, was forced to admit that the clergy were faithful in the discharge of their spiritual duties, pre-eminent in chastity, and remarkable for their exceeding abstinence from food.

“The clergy,” he says, “of this country are very commendable for religion, and, among the divers virtues which distinguish them, excel and are pre-eminent in the prerogative of chastity. They attend also diligently to their psalms and hours; to reading and prayer; and, remaining within the precincts of the churches, do not absent themselves from the divine offices to the celebration of which they have been appointed. They likewise pay great attention to abstinence and sparingness of food; so that the greatest part of them fast almost every day until dusk, and until they have completed all the canonical offices of the day.”

As an off-set to this confession, drawn from him unwillingly, he accuses the Irish clergy of drinking at night more than is becoming (_plusquam deceret_), but does not go the length of saying that they drank to inebriation, which, indeed, would be altogether incompatible with the virtues which he is forced to admit they possessed. Felix, Bishop of Ossory, who was present when Giraldus made this statement, resented as false his allusion to the indulgence of the Irish clergy in wine. But, even taking the account of Giraldus in its full extent, we must admit that the Irish priests, at the time of the Norman invasion, had nothing to learn from the example of the ecclesiastics who had followed the conquerors from England; and we are inclined to hold with Lanigan that there was in that day no church in Christendom in which there were fewer abuses.

It was to Maurice, Archbishop of Cashel, who died in 1191, that Giraldus made the objection that Ireland had never had any martyrs. “It is true,” replied the archbishop; “for, though the Irish are looked upon as barbarous and uncultivated, yet have they always paid reverence and honor to priests; nor have they ever raised their hands against the saints of God. But now there is come amongst us a people who know how and are accustomed to make martyrs. Henceforth Ireland, like other nations, shall have her martyrs.”

Giraldus has himself recorded this retort as a sharp saying. His heart would have failed him could he have looked into the future and beheld the whole people weltering in their martyr-blood; the sword always uplifted ready to strike, the land made desolate, the populous cities empty, the solemn cathedrals in ruins, the monasteries sacked and burned, until Ireland, that made no martyrs for Christ, became, for him, the great martyr-nation of all time. Cashel itself was to have its martyrs, chosen some of them from among its archbishops. Maurice Fitzgibbon, of the noble family of the earls of Desmond, filled this see when Elizabeth ascended the throne. His birth was not more eminent than his virtue. Every effort was made by the queen to induce him to prefer honors to conscience. But in vain. He spurned the royal favor which could be obtained only by the sacrifice of his faith, was arrested for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and thrown into prison in Cork, where, after years of suffering and cruel treatment, he died on the 6th of May, 1578. His successor was Archbishop O’Hurley, who, through his mother, Honora O’Brien, was descended of the house of Thomond. A wretched informer was set to watch him, but, through the timely warning of a friend, he escaped just as he was on the point of being delivered into the hands of the officers of the government, and found an asylum in the castle of Slane. His place of refuge was soon discovered, and Lord Slane was ordered under the heaviest penalties to bring the archbishop with the least possible delay to the Castle of Dublin. On his trial he was put to torture, in the vain hope that his excruciating sufferings might bring him to renounce his faith. In the midst of his torments his only sister was sent into his prison to add her prayers to the cruelties of his tortures. He implored her to fall upon her knees and ask pardon for so great a crime. As a last resort he was offered pardon with the promise of high honors if he would yield. The heroic martyr replied that when he had health to enjoy the world, such things had not power to move him; and now that he was weak and broken, it would be folly to deny his God for pleasures which he could not enjoy. Sentence was then passed upon him, and on the 6th of May, 1583, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, he was dragged to the place of public execution in Stephen’s Green, and there hanged. His head was then cut off, and his body quartered and placed upon the four gates of the city.

The first Protestant Archbishop of Cashel was the notorious Miler Magragh, who apostatized during the reign of Elizabeth, and whom Camden calls “a man of uncertain faith and credit, and a depraved life.” During the fifty-two years of his occupancy of this see he squandered its revenues, alienated its lands, and, lest the memory of his misdeeds should perish, took care to erect in the cathedral a monument to himself to recall to succeeding generations the lavish manner in which he spent the ill-gotten goods of apostasy and servility. The epitaph, which he wrote himself, records among other things that for fifty years he worshipped England’s sceptre and pleased her princes. When Donald O’Brien’s grand cathedral passed into the hands of Protestant bishops, it began to be neglected. In 1647 Lord Inchiquin, one of Cromwell’s generals, laid siege to it, and, after a severe bombardment, took it by storm. Twenty priests who had taken refuge in the castle retired into the vault, and the soldiers, not being able to break in the door, brought turf and made a fire, by which they were either roasted or suffocated. The western tower, which was directly exposed to the battery of Inchiquin, was greatly damaged, and after the capture the roof of the cathedral was blown off with cannon. When the troubled times of the Commonwealth had passed away, the choir was again fitted up and used for religious worship, until in 1749 the Protestant Archbishop Price abandoned this hallowed sanctuary altogether, leaving it to the mercy of time and the elements. The groined arch underneath the belfry was broken down, and the bells were carried off to Fethard and Clonmel. The interior of the church was filled with the fragments of the fallen roof, beneath which were buried tombstones, capitals, corbels, and pillars; and the noble Rock where for ages the heroes and saints of Ireland had dwelled and prayed, abandoned of men, was given up to the owl and the bat. In 1848, while the people were dying from hunger, the great tower, that had been battered by Cromwell’s cannon, opened, and the southern half fell to the ground with a terrific crash; but so excellent was the mortar which had been used in the building that it remained firm while the stones were shattered. The walls of the cathedral still stand firm and unshaken as the Rock on which they are built. There is no nobler ruin in Great Britain. The abbeys of Melrose, Dryburgh, and Holyrood are contemptible when compared with the Rock of Cashel. Even in its fallen state it has the lofty bearing of a king.

“They dreamed not of a perishable life Who thus could build.”

When Cromwell beheld it he exclaimed: “Ireland is a country worth fighting for.”

A fairer country, in truth, could not easily be found than that which unfolds itself beneath the eye of the traveller who ascends the pentagon tower of the ancient castle of the kings of Munster. To the west the Golden Vale expands in tracts of emerald and gold; to the east rich pastures and well-cultivated uplands gradually rise towards the distant hills of Kilkenny; and on the north and the south the glorious prospect is bounded by the Slieve Bloom and Galty Mountains. In the distance, under the hill of Knockgrenagh, is the ruin which sheltered Sarsfield the night before he fell upon and destroyed the siege-train of William of Orange, which was on its way from Cashel to Limerick. In the vale under the Rock lies the noble ruin of Hore Abbey, originally founded by Benedictine monks, but transferred in 1272, by Archbishop McCarvill, to the Cistercians. He also united with it the hospital for lepers built by David le Latimer in 1230, the ruins of which may still be seen standing in a field on the road to Cahir. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth, having expelled the monks, gave the abbey with its appurtenances to Henry Radcliffe, and to-day only the roofless walls remain. While the Penal Code was in vigor no Catholic was allowed to dwell within the limits of the town of Cashel. At present, in a population of six thousand, there are but a hundred and eighty Protestants. Nevertheless, the venerable ruins of the Rock are still in the hands of the dignitaries of the Church of England. It is certainly a short-sighted and unwise policy which thus commits the ancient sanctuaries of Ireland, so dear to the hearts of her people, to the custody of those who look upon them as relics of a superstitious faith, and prize them only as trophies of conquest. The Irish people cling to memories and are governed more than others by their affections; and so long as the English government persists in maintaining a state of affairs which constantly places before their eyes the wrongs and outrages of which they have been the victims, so long will they be restless and dissatisfied.

To continue to allow an ecclesiastical establishment, which has never been and can never be anything else than a political contrivance for the humiliation and oppression of the Irish people, to retain possession of these shrines of religion, is a wanton insult to the double love they bear to their country and their faith. It was this twofold love, flowing in one channel, that upheld them in all the dark centuries of woe; and now that brighter days have come, England cannot fail to recognize the increasing strength of Irish patriotism and Irish faith.

Let the Rock of Cashel, with its holy ruins, its sacred tombs of kings and bishops, be given back to the people to whom it belongs. It is valueless except for its associations, and these associations are without value to the persons in whose hands it is allowed to remain. Let the glory of other days come back to these sacred walls. Millions of Catholics in the United States would consider it an honor and a privilege to be permitted to rebuild this sanctuary of God. Again on the holy mount let the lamp of Christ’s real presence burn as glowed the light that for a thousand years burned before St. Bridget’s shrine. Let the swelling notes of the deep-toned organ lift again the soul to God, while mitred bishops and surpliced priests, with all the believing throng, sing forth the song of thanks and praise. In the resurrection of a people, in the new rising of a faith, let this temple, given back to God and to Ireland, stand as a commemoration.

Seven miles north of Cashel, and three miles south of Thurles, on the banks of the river Suir, lie the ruins of the Abbey of Holy Cross. A convent was built on this spot at a very early period of the Christian history of Ireland. The fame of the sanctity of the monks attracted members to the community, and also pilgrims from a distance. In 1169, two years before the Norman invasion, Donald O’Brien, King of Limerick, accompanied by a brilliant retinue, visited the place, and was led by his devotion to found and endow the abbey. The charter of foundation, one of the witnesses to which was Maurice, Archbishop of Cashel, of whom we have already made mention, opens with these words: “Donald, by the grace of God, King of Limerick, to all kings, dukes, earls, barons, knights, and Christians of whatsoever degree, throughout Ireland, perpetual greeting in Christ.” This charter was afterwards confirmed by the English kings John, Henry III., Edward III., and Richard II. The abbey received its name from the possession of a portion of the true cross which was given in 1110, by Pope Pascal II., to Donough O’Brien, King of all Ireland and grandson of Brian Boru. Princes and bishops were eager to enrich this monastery, and the fame of the miracles wrought by the sacred relic drew to it crowds of worshippers. With increasing wealth, the buildings grew in splendor and extent. The church is built in the form of a cross, with nave, chancel, and transept. At the intersection of the cross there is a lofty square tower, and in the transepts two beautifully-groined chapels. In the monastery there were eight dormitories for the monks, besides numerous chambers for the entertainment of visitors attracted by devotion; for the laws of hospitality were never forgotten. The abbot, who was mitred, was a peer of Parliament and secular lord of the county of “The Cross of Tipperary.” When Henry VIII. suppressed the great abbeys of Ireland, he granted Holy Cross, with its temporalities and also the spiritual jurisdiction, to James, Earl of Ormond and Ossory, whom he regarded with special favor. Elizabeth confirmed this grant to Thomas, Earl of Ormond, who, though educated in the Anglican schism, became a Catholic several years before his death, and left his estates to Earl Walter, a stanch defender of the faith.

The monks who had been expelled from the abbey still lingered in its neighborhood, in the hope that they might somehow be permitted to return and end their days in the sacred cloisters in which they had given to God the best part of life. At times they met by night within the hallowed enclosure to offer up the divine Sacrifice; and when Mary ascended the throne, they once more took possession, but were again expelled by Elizabeth, and finally dispersed. The cells, dormitories, and guest-chambers, so long consecrated to meditation and all holy exercise, were converted into stables for the housing of cattle. The church, which contained the tombs of many noble families, escaped desecration, but not the ravages of time and neglect. From the year 1580 to the close of the century no priest dared appear in public throughout the province of Munster, and even the most careful disguises were not sufficient to hide them from the fury of their enemies; but in 1600 Hugh O’Neil turned his army towards the south of Ireland, and, proceeding by slow marches, finally encamped “at the gate of the monastery of Holy Cross.”

“They were not long there,” say the Four Masters, “when the holy Rood was brought to them, and the Irish gave large presents, alms, and offerings to its conservators and monks in honor of Almighty God; and they protected and respected the monastery, with its buildings, the lands appropriated for its use, and its inhabitants in general.”

The monks remained in possession of the abbey for several years, and for the first time since its suppression in 1536 an abbot of Holy Cross was chosen. The succession was kept up till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and expired in the first dark years of the Penal Code with Thomas Cogan, the last of the abbots of Holy Cross, who died on the 10th of August, 1700, and was buried in the choir of the old church, in the tomb where the bones of his predecessors are awaiting the day of resurrection.

O gray walls, sacred ruins of Holy Cross! ye have a spirit’s feeling, and work upon the soul till it forgets all glad and pleasant scenes to blend with the gloom and desolation that have come to abide with you. The gentle river still flows by, but where is the great strong life-current of faith and love that here was fed from God’s eternal fount? Cold are the burning lips of love that wore the pavement smooth; cold the great warm hearts that beat with highest impulse of divine charity. No more from their chalices mysterious monks drink deep love of God and men; no more at early morn is heard their matin song; no more to heaven ascends their evening hymn. Gone is the dim religious light that shone through mystic windows. The tapers are quenched, the belfries mute. No more floats on the breeze

“The heavenliest of all sounds That hill or vale prolongs or multiplies.”

The dead only are here, and around them the silence they so loved and broken walls, which, if they mourn not, make others grieve.

“Once ye were holy: ye are holy still; Your spirit let me freely drink and live.”

As a monastic ruin the Abbey of Holy Cross is, in the estimation of the people, second to no other in Ireland; and it owes this celebrity less to the beauty of its architecture than to the possession of the holy Rood.

The marble shrine in which this famous relic was preserved may still be seen in the southern transept of the church. The relic itself, at the time of the suppression of the abbey, passed into the hands of the Earl of Ormond, in whose family it remained for nearly a century, when Earl Walter gave it for safe-keeping to Dr. Fennell, who left it to James, second Duke of Ormond. It was finally deposited, in the early part of the present century, in a shrine in the chapel of the Ursuline Nuns at Blackrock, near Cork, where it is to remain “until such time as the church of the Holy Cross, with the monastery of Cistercian monks attached thereto, shall be rebuilt.”

Though Holy Cross is a ruin and in the hands of Protestants, the Cistercian Order still survives in Ireland in the monastery of Mount Melleray. It was, a few months ago, our privilege to pass a brief time in this sanctuary of religion, where the most unworldly life is made to subserve the highest social ends.

Mount Melleray is but a few hours’ ride from Cork. The excursion is made by railway to Youghal, an ancient town, once famous in Irish history, lying near the mouth of the Blackwater. At the entrance to its splendid and picturesque harbor, now almost entirely abandoned, there stands a ruined tower, which was formerly part of a convent of nuns who at night kept torches blazing in this lighthouse to enable vessels to enter port with safety. Near the town the house which Sir Walter Raleigh owned, and in which he lived for several years, is still pointed out to the traveller. In his garden here he planted in 1586 the first potatoes grown in Ireland.

A boat leaves Youghal twice a day and ascends the Blackwater as far as Cappoquin. The trip is made in about two hours. The scenery is unsurpassed even in Ireland. There is nothing finer on the Rhine. The river winds through fertile valleys with rich meadows and fields of waving corn, until a sudden turn brings us into the presence of barren mountains, which, in their desolation, seem to mock the smiling prospect below. From almost every jutting rock ruined castles or churches look down upon us. In these mountains above Cappoquin, and overlooking the Blackwater, lies the Trappist monastery of Mount Melleray.

Forty-five years ago a few poor monks, driven from their peaceful home, settled here in the midst of a dreary wilderness. They had obtained from the Protestant landlord of the place six hundred acres of mountain peat-land on a lease of ninety-nine years. No one but an Irish landlord would have thought of demanding rental for what had always been a desert, and, so far as he was concerned, might for ever remain a desert. The monks, however, paid him his price and set to work to make the desert bloom. On their land there was not a tree or blade of grass, and before they could begin to plough or dig they had to go over the ground and pick up the stones with which it was covered. But for them a life of solitude was to be a life of labor, and they were not discouraged. They knew that half the soil of Europe had been reclaimed and brought under cultivation by monks, whose lives were none the less consecrated to prayer and study. Half a century has not yet passed, and the barren waste is covered with rich fields of corn and green meadows. With their own hands the monks have built a large monastery and church, whose tall spire is seen from the whole surrounding country. In their gardens the finest vegetables grow, and in their dairy the best butter is made. A few years ago they opened a college, in which they give an excellent classical education to youths whose parents may not be able to pay the higher pensions of other institutions. The buildings are large and well provided with whatever is necessary to the health and comfort of the students; and the food, though plain, is of the best quality. A part of the monastery is fitted up for the accommodation of guests; and, as the hospitality of the monks is well known, they are rarely without visitors, drawn thither sometimes by curiosity, but oftener by the desire of spending a few days in solitude in communion with God. In the guests’ book we found the names of persons from almost every part of Europe and America. We have visited the monasteries of the Trappists in other countries, but nowhere else have we received the impressions made upon us at Mount Melleray. It was Edmund Burke who said that to his mind the Catholic Church of Ireland bore a closer resemblance than any other to the church of the apostles; and we could not help reflecting that these monks were more like the Fathers of the Desert than any men whom we had ever seen. How terrible is this place! How this life of honest religion lays bare the shams and pretexts with which weak and soft worldlings would hide the atheism of their faith! If God is all in all, and the soul more than the body, a Trappist is greater than a king. To these men the future world is more real than the present. The veil of time and space has fallen from their eyes; the immeasurable heavens break open, and God’s kingdom is revealed. Divine power of the love of Christ, which makes the desert beautiful, and solitude a perpetual feast! What heavenly privilege to forget the world and to be with God only; to turn from men, not in loathing or hate or bitterness, but with a heart as sweet as a child’s, and to follow Christ into the mount where the celestial glory encircles him! With St. Peter we exclaim: It is good to be here! A single day, O Lord! spent in thy tabernacles is more precious than a thousand years.

In this life in death is found a life the world dreams not of, as

“Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill the deepest notes of woe”;

as in the presence of the dying we see only the blackness and the gloom, when the soul already hears God’s angels sing, and beholds the light that never fades.

The highest joy is of the soul, and the more it lifts itself from flesh and earth the greater is its delight. In these solemn walls, with their silent monks clad in white, it seemed to us that we were upon the threshold of another world, far away from the ebb and flow of men’s affairs. We felt no more the feverish throb of the great world’s pulse, nor heard the noisy hum of commerce or the nations’ angry battle-cry. The blatant shout of Progress no longer deafened us. We were in the mood to ask ourselves: Is it not, after all has been said, progress towards death that men speak of? Do not all the lines along which they advance converge until they meet in the grave? But we crave life, not death. Is there no hope? Must we join the rabble, the common herd, that stands in wonderment in the world’s great toy-shop, eagerly peering at stones and metals and skins of beasts, gazing at blank walls and rattling machinery, and shouting: Ha! this is progress? Is there no room for the soul, no hope of life? Is mechanism all in all, and is all progress mechanical? Here, at least, were men who believed in the soul; who, despising all the counsels of fear and cowardice, had turned from the world and set their faces towards the life that is and is to be. They never speak except in prayer and psalmody. They rise in the night and spend hours in the thought of God and the soul. Silently they go forth to their work, and in silence return to pray. Their bed is a board, their food bread and coarse vegetables. And so from day to day and from year to year in their hearts they make the ascent to God.

It is easy for us to deride the life which we have not the courage or the strength to lead. These, at least, are men with brave hearts and great thoughts. They are not the creatures of circumstance, the slaves of routine, the self satisfied and unconscious victims of the universal tyrant. They are not held by bonds of flesh and blood. No mean ambition moves them. A king’s crown is but a bauble, like the toy of a child; and whatever ceases to be has no kindred with the soul that was not born to die. They wage battle for the possession of the infinite, and in the divine struggle take on the heroic mood that makes all things possible. And we who stood for a moment on this heavenly battle-ground, a looker-on, unfit to take part in such celestial warfare, would fain have lingered on the hallowed spot, knowing full well that the world to which we turned again has no happiness even to promise like that which is found in this holy mountain where God is seen and loved.

A STORY OF THE FAR WEST.

Gold City they had called it in its palmy days, though even then it was a city in name only. It was known as Gomorrah now; and its few inhabitants gloried in the title, for Edverson had struck a vein of gold there in the first flush of the mining fever, and a crowd of fortune-hunters flocked to the place, only to discover, when it was too late, that the first “lucky find” was the last. Then the tide of population ebbed away, leaving behind it the refuse――those who were too poor, too discouraged, too sunk in idleness or sin, to try for anything better. The houses were no more than shanties, which the women made no attempt to keep tidy; children lived and died there who never heard God’s holy name except in curses; to most of them even the day of the week was unknown.

Three men ruled the place, one by fear, one by kindness, one because he was tavern-keeper. They were familiarly known as the Lawyer, the Doctor, and the Parson. One day, worthy to be marked with red ink joyfully in the sad annals of Gomorrah, the Lawyer――most evil soul there, and most dreaded――announced his intention of going to England, and, when the next day dawned, he had departed with no more warning and with no word of farewell. Men, women, and children drew a long breath of relief, yet spoke of him for weeks afterwards in whispers and guarded words, as if they feared at any moment to see his hated presence among them once again, and feel his heel of iron on their necks.

One afternoon, early in November, his two associates sat together in the door-way of the tavern, the only decent dwelling within sight. He who was known as the Parson was a short, stout man, who boasted a collegiate and theological education of some sort, no one knew what, and a pastoral charge of five years, no one knew where. But it was a fact undisputed, either by himself or others, that he was now the very minister of Satan. Both he and the Lawyer knew how to sin as deeply as any one, but kept a kind of control over themselves. The man who was their boon companion, and yet hated them both with an impotent hatred, had no such power.

He was far superior to them in most respects. Gentle born, with wealthy surroundings, he had received a superior education, and gave promise of superior excellence in his profession, but had never been taught to curb a single passion. From one level to another he fell, till in Gomorrah he hid himself from all who had known him or his in his brighter days. Yet no man there was so liked and did so much to help as he. The love of his profession clung to him through everything, and it was impossible for him to see disease and accident without trying to alleviate the trouble. Boys and girls playing and quarrelling in the streets would stop the maddest sport, the bitterest fight, to help the Doctor home as he came reeling from the tavern, or to cover his face from the hot sun as he lay like a log by the roadside; would do it with a grateful remembrance of the time when “he nursed me in the fever” or “he splintered my broken leg”; and often he was saved from a midnight carousal by a call to some forlorn bedside, where he waited on filthy wretches with as quick skill and attention as once he had served the finest ladies in his great city home. No one knew how he hated the place in which he lived, and above all the man with whom he sat that autumn afternoon; but he had lost all hope of better things.

Through their gloomy silence and the clouds of tobacco-smoke the Parson and the Doctor beheld a sight which had not been seen in Gomorrah for many a day――the white cover of an emigrant wagon.

“Tom Townsend, from High Bend,” exclaimed Syles, “the Lawyer’s old chum there. Who’s he got with him?”

The Doctor made no reply, but stepped forward to meet the strangers. Behind the driver sat a young man with a good, kindly face, but lacking in practicality and force. On his arm he supported a woman, whose broad forehead, square chin, and firm mouth bespoke strong character, if one was able to think of that in noticing the serene holiness of the eyes and expression. Her face was pale as death.

“You’re wanted here, Doctor,” called the driver. “Here’s a case of chills and fever that’s not a common one, and I’ve seen ’em by hundreds.”

“Are you the Doctor?” the young man asked with a look of relief, as if he had heard of him before; and together they carried into the tavern and laid upon the settle the powerless form of the woman.

“Not this place!” the man exclaimed, lifting his head when he had laid his precious burden down. “Where is Mr. Dalzell’s house?”

“Mr. Dalzell?” the Doctor repeated. “I do not know what you mean.”

“Why, surely――yes, we must be right. He came from here, he said.”

“Who? What?” his hearers asked, with a grim suspicion in their hearts. “Where are you from, sir?”

“I am Reuben Armstrong, from Suffolk, England. A Mr. Dalzell sold me his house and claim in Gold City. Where are they?”

The Doctor’s eyes fell, and Syles slunk into the shadow of the door. It was long before they could make him understand the truth; and when at last he comprehended it, Syles stole out of his presence with a sense of shame such as he had never felt before, leaving the Doctor to give the almost heart-broken fellow the only reason for courage that he knew how to give him――to bear up bravely for his wife’s sake.

It was but too easy to grasp the sad story. Armstrong had been a well-to-do gardener, with a pleasant little house and a snug sum of money in the bank; but, as the Doctor inferred even then, he had married a woman much his superior in character and station, whose friends looked down upon him, and thought he could never do anything worthy of her. When the Lawyer told his plausible story and showed his well-planned map――when he described his possessions, to be sold at a very low figure, because, as the evil owner dared to affirm, he must be with his aged parents in Nottinghamshire during their declining years――Reuben was only too ready to drop into the net.

They told his wife――his “poor Esther”――nothing that night. Indeed, she was too ill to notice that they moved her from the tavern to the cabin next door, which was their home. In that tavern Reuben declared she should not stay one hour.

That night the first snows fell, shutting off Gomorrah for the winter from any intercourse with the outer world, and for weeks the Doctor strove against all odds to save Esther Armstrong’s life. But for her Reuben would soon have sunk to the level of his neighbors――not in sin, but in inertia. He seemed to have no courage left to begin life over again; he was sure that Esther must die, and then there would be no use of his living. He spent his time in watching beside her, doing everything about the house for her that was possible; refusing all help save the physician’s, and only accepting that because he could not avoid it.

When the Doctor came in to see Esther on the morning after her arrival, Reuben had made the room as comfortable as he could with the furniture which they had brought from home, and Esther was lying in her bed, everything white about her, and she herself looking more pure and white than even the falling snow without.

“Am I very ill?” she asked calmly; and before the grave eyes bent upon him the Doctor could return no answer but the truth.

“You are a very sick woman, Mrs. Armstrong,” he said, “but I hope we may see you pull through bravely yet.”

“Will you ask the priest to come to me?” she said.

The Doctor started to his feet and made a rapid stride across the room. It brought him face to face with a crucifix, a picture, and a rosary.

“Madam,” he said reverently――she seemed to him like a saint as she lay there――“do you know what sort of a place you are in? We have no such beings as priests here.”

“Oh!” she replied serenely, “you must mistake. Mr. Lazell certainly told us that there was one. We would never have come else.”

The Doctor bit his lip to keep back the oath which rose. “Mr. Lazell, as you call him, lied, madam.”

She asked no questions, but her searching eyes drew the truth from him. Sooner or later she must know all. Before that holy calm a tempting desire came over him to try how deep her religious feeling really was.

“Madam,” he said, “you call this place Gold City, but we know it as Gomorrah. There is no priest within miles of us. God isn’t here at all.”

She pressed her hands hard against her heart. He felt that she shrank from him inwardly.

“Is there any woman who will come to me?” she asked.

“There is not one who is fit to touch you,” he replied――“not one. We do not know what goodness is. You have been deceived into coming here. Now, if you love your husband, live for him; for nothing else can keep him from being like the rest of us.”

“You are mistaken,” she said gravely. “You do not know my husband. But, Doctor, if I must die, will you promise me to send in time for a priest?”

The Doctor bit back an oath. If “Mr. Lazell” had been there at that moment, not even Esther’s presence could have saved him from the hatred of nine wretched years kindled that day into relentless fury. The Doctor had known enough of Catholics at home――God help him! but his had been Catholic baptism in his babyhood――to fear the effect on her of what he had to say. Had it been of any use, he would have lied to her; but the next neighbor entering would have revealed all.

“There is no priest near us,” he replied, “and it is impossible to get one in the winter.”

She put her hand quickly to her heart again. “God’s will be done,” she said slowly; “God’s will be done” over and over and over again. They could not stop her. Reuben begged her to hear him, to rest, to grow calm, but it was of no avail. All day long, and far into the night, she tossed in fever, delirious always, but her holy self even in her delirium. Now she sang snatches of hymns; and now an exquisite strain of some old chant, which the Doctor had heard in great cathedrals, rose upon Gomorrah’s tainted air; but oftenest she called for a priest, or said: “God’s will be done.” Late that night the fever abated a little, and she opened her eyes calmly; but it was only to hear the clamor upon the night air of stamping feet, ringing sounds like tankards dashed on table or floor, the twang and clash of noisy instruments, scraps of vile song, brawls and oaths and blows.

“What is it?” she cried. “Where are we? Oh! I know”; and then sank into delirium again.

So for a week it lasted; then the fever died away, leaving her like a shadow. She made no complaint, never asked again for a priest, never spoke again of death; yet the Doctor knew, as well as if he had seen it, that hers was a broken heart. But another life was bound up with her life, and for its sake, as well as for Reuben’s, she tried and prayed to live. It was plain that her affection for her husband was intense; no matter what his weakness and imprudence had made her suffer, no one ever knew her fail in her honor and her love, and he seldom saw her otherwise than outwardly cheerful for his dear sake. What she endured perhaps only the Doctor truly fathomed, and his sounding-line was far too short. Reuben was too engrossed in her to care much personally for what passed about them; but the Doctor judged by what the place had been and was to him, even in his degraded life. Fallen as he was, he loathed it from the very bottom of his heart; still, with every gentlemanly instinct that was left in him, he shrank from the outcasts whom he lived with daily, though knowing himself to be fallen yet lower than they. By his own suffering, from which he did not try to escape; by his own horror of the pit whose vileness sickened him while still he chose to sink even deeper in it, he knew something of what it must be to Esther’s pure heart to live in Gomorrah. Something――that was all.

He and Reuben strove to keep sight and sound of evil from her; yet all their care could not banish at times strange visitors from her bedside――haggard women, flaunting women, all of them with evil tongues; no care could keep the children always from door or window, and often she saw, by frosty dawn or at high noon or in the early twilight, wild, wolfish eyes staring at her, gaunt fingers pointing, and heard children’s voices speak of her in terms wherewith oaths and low epithets were mixed――not through malice, but because they knew no other way.

No one knew what hours she lay awake by day and night in one agony of intercession; and she herself, praying often and hoping against hope for the sacraments to prepare her soul for death, never knew here into what union with her Lord that passion of prayer for souls was bringing her, as hour by hour the awful days wore on.

The Doctor saw her face, as it grew more sharp and thin, grow more holy, till he often felt unworthy to look upon it, and wondered how Reuben Armstrong had ever won a treasure of which it seemed to him no mortal man was worthy.

A poor, weak soul was Reuben’s, truly, in man’s sight. But God and the angels must have loved it with a special love. God knew how earnestly that sorrowful heart implored that the light of its eyes might be taken from it, if so Esther might escape from suffering and enter into peace; and when night shut him in with her alone, the angels heard how he strove to drown the riot next door by prayers and litanies beside her, till often he slept exhausted on the hard floor by her bed.

But the children most of all weighed heavily upon Esther’s soul. Even when she could not see them she heard their voices; even when she could not hear them, she fancied how their lives were spent, though even her keen fancy did not reach the whole of the painful truth; and as the birthday of the Holy Child drew nearer, she felt more keenly their ignorance of all sacred things, shuddered to think of her own child being born in such an atmosphere, then came to love those little ones as if they were her very own, and to plead for them with a mother’s insatiable pleading.

Eight days before Christmas they laid her baby in her arms and saw her smile a happy mother’s smile. Eight days they lived in trembling hope. On Christmas morning the Doctor saw the dreaded, unmistakable sign of fever. She had wakened very bright, Reuben said, and very early, with words of Christmas joy, as if she had forgotten where they were, and fancied it was home. Then some sound from the tavern had brought back the truth; there had come the quick pain at her heart, and then delirium. All day long she talked――there was no possibility of silencing her. She, so tender of others, now with no control over herself, laid her whole heart bare; and they, who thought they had known and prized her well, knew as if for the first time what a saint of God had been among them――prayers for her husband and for her baby, but not for them alone: prayers for every soul in that place of death; people named by name of whom they would have supposed she had never heard, but for whom she pleaded as if for her own flesh and blood; eager, loving, most frequent supplication for the little children; prayers for the very man who had lured them from their happy home; intensest pleading for pity and pardon for his and all these souls.

“Didst thou not die for them, Jesus, my Jesus――for them as well as for me? Save them with me, save them with me――with me, my Jesus! By thy Sacred Heart that broke for us, save us, have mercy on us!” And then, over and over, as if with some peculiar, long-sustained intention or compact, “Remember, O most pious Virgin Mary! Remember, remember!”

And there was one frequent supplication in which no name was mentioned, as if it were borne so constantly from her heart to the Sacred Heart that she had ceased to need to speak the name: “Gain thyself _that_ soul, my Jesus. By thy Cross, thy Heart, thy Mother, gain thyself _that_ soul.”

They heard only one petition for herself, but that so anguished, so desperate, that the strong man broke into sobs to hear it: one hungry cry for God’s holy sacraments, for God’s anointed priest, to come to her before her death, yet never uttered without a more intense prayer still――“My God, my God, _thy_ will be done, _thy_ will be done”; and even that was entirely merged at last in her prayers for those who had made her life one long agony at its close.

Suddenly she sat straight up in her bed, her eyes blazing as if with an unearthly, reflected light, her cheeks brilliant with more than the fever flush.

“Hark, hark, hark!” she said, with a ring of ecstatic joy through every word. “Do you not hear the sacring-bell? Kneel, all of you. The priest comes――comes with my Lord at last.”

Her eyes were fixed upon the door that no hand opened, yet she seemed to watch some one enter, and to see some one draw nearer, nearer to her, and she folded her hands reverently, and bent her head as if in adoration. They understood: she believed a priest was there; and they, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, of what she evidently was sure she saw and heard――they who watched her fell down upon their knees and hid their faces as in some divine presence. The next words that broke the stillness were the words of a dying penitent alone with a priest of God: “I confess to Almighty God and to you, my father.”

Steadily, as if for weeks she had prepared her soul for this in faith and penance, Esther Armstrong made her dying confession, with a contrition sore as if she were the lowest sinner in Gomorrah’s depths of sin, and then craved absolution humbly and in tears. When there was silence, and they dared to look at her, she was lying back among her pillows, whispering, “Forgiven, forgiven!”

They moved to give her nourishment, and the movement roused her, though not to recognition. She started up once more, lifting her hand.

“Hark, hark!” she said again. “Do you not hear him? He is saying Mass, and they sing sweetly as angels.”

All round the world, that Christmas day, one song of praise was rising, one pure offering was offered up to Him who was born and given for us on that day. Grand cathedrals were ablaze with lights and rich with bloom; far down the choir the altar tapers shone like stars through clouds of incense waving upward to the fretted roof, and the full tide of chant swelled high to join the chant of angels; in lowly chapel as in great cathedral the priest of God and the people of God adored the Holy Babe upon his Mother’s breast. In Gomorrah, in a decaying chapel, while oath and brawl sounded without, one soul heard seraphic music which no other ear could hear; one soul beheld a Priest whom no other eye could see――joined in his offering of the tremendous Sacrifice. For an hour, upheld by superhuman strength, she knelt upright, rapt in an ecstasy of spiritual communion that grew too deep for prayer. When the clock struck twelve, she said slowly, “_Ite missa est; Deo gratias_”; then, with a long-drawn, rapturous sigh, lay down again, but not as if she knew or remembered husband or child or friend.

The Doctor left her then, but at the close of the day he was summoned hastily, to see now without mistake that the battle of her life was almost ended.

“Stay with her, Doctor,” Reuben pleaded. “It’s a sore struggle. Try something more.”

“I can’t stay, man,” he answered. “There is no more to do. I’d give my right hand to save her; but I can’t see her suffer and be unable to help her. She’s the only white soul here, and now she is going.”

He turned to the bedside, and stood silently looking at the face with the dread shadow on it. Suddenly opening her eyes, her gaze fell first on him, and, startled out of her usual composure, she gave an irrepressible shudder. He understood what it meant. She had treated him always with perfect courtesy and confidence as her physician and true friend; he knew――for there had not been wanting those to tell him of it――that she had silenced with dignified rebuke the evil tales that more than one had tried to tell her of him, not because they disliked him, but because they loved to talk. But he knew also, what they did not, that in her pure heart she shrank from him, that his very presence was loathsome to her; and there had been times when, in her bodily weakness, she had been unable to control her aversion to his slightest touch. He had borne it quietly, humbling as it was, but it was doubly bitter to bear at the very last.

“I will bid you good-night, Mrs. Armstrong,” he said, trying hard to steady his voice. “You will not want me any more this evening, I think.”

“Good-by, Doctor,” she said, and he saw that she knew all.

“You will not want me,” he repeated mechanically.

“I want you――_there_,” she answered with a great effort. “Promise me that you will be there.”

He did not speak.

“Promise,” she repeated, and the tone brought back the memory of her prayers that morning. “I am dying――dying; and yet I cannot die. Night and day I prayed it: ‘Gain thyself _that_ soul, my Jesus. By thy Cross, thy Mother, thy broken Heart, gain thyself that soul.’ I prayed and prayed it; I am worn out with the praying, and yet I cannot die. Promise me to be there.”

The sweat stood on his forehead in great drops. “You do not know what you ask,” he cried. “There are sins enough upon me without adding that of a broken vow to you, and here. There is no saving a soul like mine.”

She did not answer him. She lifted up her eyes, away from him, away from earth, to God.

“Sacred Heart of my Jesus,” she prayed in agony, “win this soul, and let me die.”

For weeks he had kept himself sober and decent for her sake; now he had thought to rush out from her presence, to drown his grief in viler sin than ever; and, lo! she was still holding him, was binding eternal chains upon him, to draw him away from corruption unto God. As a physician he knew that it was a case where a mighty will alone was keeping life in a body nearly dead; it would have been an awful sight to see, even had he had no interest in it. She was living only to win him unto immortal life. Angels and devils may well have stood still before that struggle, where one dauntless soul at the point of death held Satan’s power at bay.

“I promise,” he said at last, as if the words were wrung from him. “But pray for me always.”

“The Mother of God prays for you,” she said with strange emphasis. “Call upon Jesus and Mary night and day. You will not need me.”

And then he saw that she needed him no longer, thought of him no longer, and he went away.

Reuben Armstrong shut and locked the door behind him. There was no more that science or skill could do. Now, for one brief hour, Esther was his alone. The eyes which the Doctor had seen grow dim to him lit up with untired affection as Reuben drew near the bed; a look of rest came over her, and she signed to him to lay her baby on her arm.

“My baby, my little Christmas baby,” she murmured tenderly. “Did the priest baptize her this morning, Reuben? Oh! how could you overlook it, dear? Then you must do it. Now――now!”

There was an excited ring in her voice, and Reuben hastened to do at once what he had felt from the first must soon be done; for the baby’s life evidently hung upon a thread. A few drops of water, a few divine words, and Esther’s eyes shone exultingly upon her child.

“She will never be anything but God’s child,” she said. “Oh! I am glad she cannot live. It is the other children, that are not his, that you must care for, Reuben.”

“No, no!” he cried. “No, Esther, I cannot live without you.”

“Listen, Reuben,” she said. Lying there with her child upon her arm, she looked like a vision of the Holy Mother herself, and when she spoke her voice had a tone in it which seemed divinely sweet. “Listen, Reuben. This place is God’s. He wants it. You must live and not die――_for him_.”

“O Esther!” he sobbed, “not without you――not without you.”

“Yes, Reuben, without me――all alone. My darling, my darling, save these little children’s souls for God.”

One greater than she spoke, on that holy night, through Esther’s lips, and touched and won her husband’s wounded heart.

“I will, Esther,” he sobbed. “I will try hard”; and even then, upon that solemn parting, as if to stamp the promise with an awful seal, the tavern clamor broke shrill and vile upon the Christmas air.

How long it was that she spoke no word――wrapped for the last time in her passion of intercession――Reuben did not notice; he only knelt on beside her, living upon every breath she drew. But, at the turn of the night, she looked full at him, clasped both his hands in hers, spoke so that the voice and the words rang in his heart through all his after-life――spoke not to him, but for him, and her words were those of the _Memorare_. Then, like one who has laid down for ever in most safe and tender keeping a heavy burden borne long and painfully, she crossed her hands upon her heart, but not now as if in pain; a look of glad surprise came upon her face.

“Hark!” she said. “He is coming _again_. My Lord and my God!”

When the Doctor entered Reuben’s cabin next morning, he found it in perfect order――the baby asleep in its cradle beside the hearth; Esther lying in a sort of funeral state, all done for her that could be done; and beside her knelt Reuben, whom the Doctor scarcely recognized at first for the change upon him. In that night he had become an old man, and his friend believed that but for the baby’s sake he would have died; yet, two days later, the baby died, and still Reuben lived.

* * * * *

“A poor fool!” people called him. He had lost all interest in temporal matters, seemed hardly to know the use of money, and barely supported himself by the odd bits of work which he did for the idle women from house to house. Soon, however, they discovered that he had one talent, and that was for managing children. A woman one day suggested to him that he should “bide at home, and mind some babies for ’em, to keep ’em out of harm’s way; and he might teach the five-year-olds their letters, too――being fit for naught else,” she added in a tone as clear as that she used for the other words; but Reuben did not mind.

The proposal met with general favor; the women promised to supply him with meals from their own poor tables, “better than he’d get hisself, anyhow,” they said; and that was all he needed to keep him through the winter.

It seemed at first sight a very forlorn life. Where others less careless and simple could have lived in comfort, he lived in cold and hunger; one by one everything which he had brought from his distant home disappeared――given away to people in distress, or yielded without question to exorbitant and unfounded demands. Yet that bare, poverty-stricken room grew to be the one fair place in Gomorrah. There, for long hours of the winter days, might be seen a cluster of children gathered about a man who seemed in some respects as much a child as any of them, and who taught them to be tidy and affectionate and good. A few learned their letters, but many learned their prayers, and the babies often said for their first word the name of Jesus, and all came to gaze lovingly upon the crucifix, and touch with pitying reverence the wounded hands and feet. Often the parents heard from childish lips the story of the Infant Saviour. No home now with a child in it where Sunday was not known. Men and women, large boys and girls, swore and fought in the streets still, but it soon became a rare sight to see a little child so forget itself; it would make Master Reuben sorry, and he said that it made the Heart of Jesus bleed. No one stopped him at such work; he was too poor a fool for them to mind him.

But he had another work with which they meddled much. The promise which the Doctor had made by Esther’s death-bed was not forgotten by him who made it, but it was broken again and again. His own lower nature which had ruled him all his life would have been enough, and more than enough, for such a man to struggle against; but, besides that, the fiends in human shape who peopled Gomorrah seemed leagued with invisible evil ones to work his utter ruin. They scoffed at his feeble efforts to do right; they lured him or they maddened him――it was all one to them――into the old haunts of temptation; and the very efforts which he made to escape, the very memory of Esther’s words and holy looks, the very thought of purity and self-control, seemed to make the evil deadlier and grosser, when, after sore struggle, he gave way.

And he did struggle, he did pray, poor soul! There were hours when he lay upon the earth in some cold hut or in the open air, fighting, it seemed to him, with no less than Satan’s self. But he had been a slave to self too long and too deliberately to be able to gain freedom easily. Scenes of the past rose before him; he knew himself in his true degradation. Sins about which a kind of lurid fascination can be thrown in books or real life for a time he saw more and more plainly in their actual shape and color, and it drove him mad with disgust and shame. Few were daring enough that winter to trust their sick folk to his skill. For days together he would join in riot and carousal, till _delirium tremens_ followed, and then strong men fled in fear before him.

But when that time came, and houses were locked tight and no one else dared face him as he went raging about the town, falling on the uneven streets, bruising and wounding himself, there was one who did go out to meet him. A tottering, feeble creature went meekly forth, stood in his path, took blows and curses without resistance, and presently――no one knew by what magic spell――led him to his own poor cabin and locked himself in with him alone.

That was the reason why Master Reuben never did what his tender and lonely heart yearned to do――to make a home for the orphan children of Gomorrah. No one but himself must be allowed to see what passed in his cabin while the Doctor was there; no one else must be exposed to the dangers he had to meet. But the room where they had watched the mysterious joy of Esther’s Christmas feast saw far other sights and echoed to far other sounds than angel music as the winter wore away. There were mornings when no children came to Reuben’s house, when some woman more pitiful, some man more brave than the others, crept near and laid food on the threshold, then fled away to tell in trembling of the cries they had heard as of some wild beast mad with fury, or some lost soul shrieking in the torment of despair. Sometimes, too, they told of blows or noises like a heavy fall; and often, when Reuben came among them again, he bore marks that proved the stories true, but they never learned the cause from him.

And he――as the winter passed, the only truly happy faces that Gomorrah saw were Reuben Armstrong’s and little children’s. By and by they heard him sing sweet carols and hymns and chants; he taught the children to sing with him, and used to lead them down the streets, and into the snowy fields, and to visit Esther’s grave, to the sound of holy song. People stopped in many an evil deed or word to listen; then left the word unsaid, the deed undone. It came to be a fashion in Gomorrah to stroll to Reuben’s cabin of a Sunday to see how joyfully the children kept the day. Nay, it was even known that once a whole party at the tavern had left their drinking-cups, to stand for an hour at the next door, listening to the music. Truly, good and evil were in strange contrast that winter in the almost forgotten place which had no intercourse with the outer world. There was a world, unseen, in which it was remembered night and day.

At length they asked Reuben why he looked so happy, and he answered: “It is almost spring. Then the priest will come.” And when they laughed and asked him how he knew, he answered simply: “God will send him.”

When the snow began to melt and the streams ran gayly down the hillside, and grass was green, one week, remembered for years after in that region, the whole place rang with the story of a carousal which even Gomorrah wondered at; the whole place waited to see whether the Doctor or Reuben would ever come forth alive from their self-imposed prison. When Reuben opened his door again, and gathered his children round him, there was a look of peculiar expectation on his face. He greeted each child with special gladness, and told one of the mothers that he was quite sure the priest was coming very soon, “for we need him a good deal now,” he said.

That afternoon there came into Gomorrah a man wearing the religious habit, and asked at the tavern if a Mrs. Armstrong was living in that place.

Syles stared at him blankly. “What do you know of her?” he said.

“I met some one,” the priest answered, “while on my way to the States, who begged me, if I ever came this way, to find such a woman and give her a message from him. Is she here?”

“Dead,” said Syles briefly.

“She had a husband. Where is he?”

“Next door with a madman. We leave him alone such times.”

“No, no, Parson,” said a lounger near by. “Where’ve ye been that ye haven’t heard? Doctor’s out of his fit to-day, and Reuben’s got his school again. I’ll take ye there, stranger. It’s a sight we’re proud of in Gomorrah.”

Out of the tavern into the filthy street, followed by a dozen or more wretches, the priest went sadly with a load upon his heart. The horrors he had seen already were enough to sicken him; he wondered what new evils he would meet with now of which Gomorrah was proud.

“They’re used to spectators,” said his guide. “We watch ’em as we like. Door or window――’tan’t no difference to them; we an’t particular here.”

It was a bare, small room, with a table and some benches, an empty fireplace, beside it a powerfully-built man trembling and crying by himself, like one unnerved by some long illness; on one wall was a print of the Blessed Babe and the Holy Mother, and below this was a crucifix. Facing these was a band of twenty little children in soiled and ragged garments, but with clean hands and faces, too absorbed by what was being said to them to heed what passed without. All eyes were fixed on a small man with a great fresh cut across his forehead and a bruised and very simple face.

“Yes, children,” he was saying, “it was the blessed child Jesus who was born on Christmas night. He loves us all very much indeed, and of course we all want to love him. Some time he is going to send his priest here to baptize you; then what will you all be?”

“God’s little children.” The answer rose sweetly and with a kind of merriment from every lip, and Reuben’s face shone.

“Surely, surely,” he said. “Now we will sing, because we love him and want to thank him. Yes, I know the song you want――‘The Three Poor Shepherds.’”

“We were but three poor shepherds, All keeping our flocks by night, When Monseigneur the blessed angel Came suddenly into sight――

“Came suddenly through the darkness, While a glory round him fell; I wot not if it were Michael Or the Angel Gabriel.

“But his voice was like a trumpet, So full, and glad, and true; ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘my children: There is good news for you――’

“‘Good news for men and maidens, A great, glad gift for them; For the faire Sire Christ, the blessed, Is born in Bethlehem.’

“Then a _Gloria in Excelsis_ They sang with glad accord; Peace and good-will to all mankind From the Sire Christ the Lord.

“And unto a lowly stable Silently went we three, And there the kine, each in its stall, Was on a bended knee.

“And there was Messire St. Joseph; And Mary the mother lay, With the Holy Child in swaddling bands, All on a cushion of hay.

“Each dumb beast looked in our faces, But never unbent the knee; Our sweet Ladye she raised her eyes And smiled full tenderly.

“‘Ah! faire Sire Christ,’ all humbly We cried with urgent plea, ‘Anneal us now of thy great mercie, For that we are so glad of thee.’

“‘For that we are glad and joyful That good days are begun, That the great God for a blessing Hath sent us his faire Childe Son.’

“Then Our Ladye the Holy Mary Took some wood in her hand, And crossed the pieces, and gave them, That we all might understand.

“And we kissed the token humbly, And bowed before the Childe; For we knew, like Monseigneurs the angels, That God had been reconciled.

“So joyfully and with gladness All softly we went our way, And with many an old _Te Deum_ We tell the tale to-day.”

Then once more, like a chorus which even the children just beginning to talk seemed to know in part:

“For that we are glad and joyful That good days are begun, That the great God for a blessing Hath sent us his faire Childe Son.”

The door opened slowly and a voice which all ears could hear said reverently, “_Pax vobiscum_.” The good days were begun.

Strange how calmly they all received him! Reuben never asked him how he came there; he had looked for him and prayed for him a long while, and he was there at last. God, of course, had sent him. One by one he brought the children to speak with him, and to have him pronounce on their fitness to be made God’s children; and the tears stood in the priest’s eyes as he listened to their simple, fearless answers, that witnessed to what Reuben’s work of faith had been. When they were gone away to their homes, which were far less homes to them than Reuben’s cabin was, Reuben came to the priest as simply as any one of them had come, and asked to be allowed to make confession.

“You’ll stay here and be good, Doctor,” he said soothingly. “I shall only be in the other room, and I’ve locked the door hard.”

The Doctor made a sort of moaning assent.

“He’s just had a very sad time,” explained Reuben, “and he needs you very much, father. By and by please let him speak to you.”

How wonderful to listen, in that place of revenge and murder, to Reuben’s quiet, brief confession――no complaints, no bitterness, no anger, except that for one day he had felt hatred toward some one, against whom, however, he brought no accusation, and for this sin he felt especial contrition.

“I met lately,” the priest said slowly, when the confession was finished, and marking with care the effect his words would have, “a man known sometimes as Lazell.”

Reuben gave a start as of joyful surprise, and would have spoken, but the priest continued:

“I saw him die a felon’s death upon the gallows.”

“No, no!” cried Reuben in distress――one might have supposed he had been told of a brother’s shameful death. “Oh! no, father.”

“It was a just punishment,” the priest replied.

“No, no!” cried Reuben. “You do not know this place. They do not have helps here like other people, or like me. Oh! but God saved his poor soul at the last?”

“He spoke to me,” said the priest, “of a woman named Esther Armstrong, to whom he had done a great injury. Was not that true?”

“He did not understand,” said Reuben with sorrowful compassion――“I am sure he did not understand what harm he did, because, you know, he _couldn’t_ have hurt _her_. And he did not see good women here; they have such hard times here, poor things.”

“He said he could not forget her――that something always reminded him of her. He begged me to find her out and ask her to forgive him.”

“She died,” said Reuben softly. “She forgave him. She prayed for him a great deal, I think.”

“God answered her, then,” the priest said. “I trust that he repented truly.”

A great light of joy woke upon Reuben’s face. “Then he will save the rest,” he exclaimed triumphantly.

“But you,” the priest asked――“do you forgive him?”

“I?” repeated Reuben with a puzzled look. “O father! it was very wrong of me; I was angry with him at first. But it was my fault, really, though Esther never blamed me; I was a poor fool, father, or I never should have brought her here.”

And so Reuben Armstrong took to himself his lifelong title humbly――so poor a fool, indeed, that he had forgotten that he had anything to forgive his fellow-men.

The next day Reuben saw his whole flock of little ones gathered into the Good Shepherd’s fold; and then the Holy Sacrifice was offered up, and Reuben’s soul was strengthened by the Divine Food.

The Doctor had sullenly refused to be present. Reuben found him, on his return, lying face downwards on the cabin floor, the picture of despair.

“There is no hope,” he said when Reuben knelt by him, and begged him to have recourse to confession. “I want drink――nothing but drink. I must have it. I cannot save myself.”

“That’s true enough,” said Reuben. “You can’t, and I can’t, but God can. You keep saying that I don’t know everything about you, and that nobody does, and that God will never forgive you. But he has sent his priest at last, and you need not be afraid to say anything to him. You must not hide anything, and he has the power to hear it and tell you what God says.”

Like one driven to a last resort, the Doctor turned to the waiting priest, and Reuben in the next room gave thanks and prayed, while, in the place where a saint had made her last confession, this man, who was indeed of “the scum of sinners,” made his first.

Truly, the Sacrament of Penance is a divine and awful thing. God grant that they who vilify and reject and misrepresent it know not what they do! The burden of souls which a missionary priest in the far West has to bear in the confessional is a tremendous one; this priest had been in prison-hulks of Australia, and through all the mining regions of California and Arizona, yet had never met a case so desperate as that before him now, where hope seemed so hopeless, the power for better things so nearly overcome. But the poor penitent, as one by one without reserve he revealed the sins so long kept secret, as well as those that were known of men and noised abroad, felt keen relief through all the degradation, tasted somewhat of the sweetness hid in this sacrament of blessed bitterness, won from it that strength which is a better thing to have than joy or consolation, met there and knew there Him “at whose feet Mary Magdalene came to kneel in the house of Simon the leper.”

“I am going away, Reuben,” the Doctor said that night, abruptly and sadly. “Yes,” seeing the other’s look of surprise, “there is hope for me, perhaps, but not here.”

“Away?” Reuben repeated. “Away from me? I thought I’d have you always, Doctor.”

“To be the hurt and the trouble I have been to you?” said the Doctor, deeply touched. “No, no, Reuben, I cannot keep my promise here. I must leave the past entirely, and the old associates, and go where I can repent――if I ever can. There is no such thing as an easy repentance for me.” And Reuben felt in his tender heart, once more to be bereaved, that the words were true.

When the priest left Gomorrah the next day, promising that it should not be forgotten, one went with him for whom no other hope remained but the total surrender of will and liberty, the total crucifixion of the flesh. Reuben heard from him once, in the course of his journey, then all tidings ceased; but he was too simple and too busy to wonder at it, too full of faith to doubt the final triumph. His character was not like Esther’s; the burden of souls could never be to him what it had been to her; God led him by a different path from that she trod in pain.

But in a lonely monastery, high up among frowning rocks and perpetual snows, a man who had come to it from far across the seas lived, for a few sad years, a life of deepest penance. Never by day or night did the battle with evil cease, yet over him there seemed to be by day and night a special heavenly care. That lonely cell was haunted constantly by visions of the past, by temptations that were maddening, by thoughts and words of evil import, which an increasing approach to holiness made flesh and heart shrink to recall. No sign of the cross, no prayer, no penance, could banish them. Pursued, haunted, tempted to the very end, yet to the very end he called on Jesus, Mary, and to the very end the answer came.

None but those whose lives were one of close union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus dared minister at that death-bed, learning there, in fear and trembling, new lessons of the hideousness of sin, and of the power which an evil life can give to Satan in the hour of death. But again and again they heard the poor lips whisper, “I deserve it, I deserve it; I thank God”; they saw the weak hands cling to the crucifix, the glaring eyes gaze in their anguish upon the Word made flesh; and he who endured to hear the last confession brought to him afterward, with awed and pitying reverence, the Body of the Lord. It was no saint, no life-long, scarred, victorious warrior of the Cross, whom they laid to rest at last, his hard fight done; yet over that body――which, even in their snow-clad region, they had to hurry to its burial――they dared to give God thanks in humble faith for another sinner ransomed.

Humbly and faithfully, in far-away Gomorrah, Reuben Armstrong lived to a good old age his poor fool’s life; and men and women came to look with gentle reverence upon the feeble form which went in and out among them on errands of daily mercy, never tiring. By and by the neighbors learned to know the place by a better name than the evil one which it grew to hate rather than glory in. “It cannot be so very bad,” they said, “when there are such good children in it.” And as from time to time a priest came there, he always found one more soul desirous for confession, or one more child or grown person ready for holy baptism, and Reuben never again knelt alone to receive holy Communion.

When the Doctor went away, Reuben opened his heart and home to the vagrant orphans, and there, some years after, he welcomed gladly the miserable Parson, more pitiably needy than any of them. “Master Reuben’s baby” they called him, and Reuben often told exultingly how good and obedient he was. No one envied him his charge――unless it was the angels, who share in such blessed work.

A railroad runs through the town now, and it is becoming a place of some importance――poor enough and bad enough, alas! but stamped outwardly and openly with the sign of the Cross. For over Esther’s grave loving hands have reared a little chapel――a constant token that the offering of her broken heart has been accepted, that her dying prayer has been _remembered_.

And there, troubled by no doubts and haunted by no fears, weak in body and weaker still in intellect, but very strong in his immortal soul, Reuben waits patiently and happily till his work is done.

THREE LECTURES ON EVOLUTION.

We live in a time when scientific men seem to acquire celebrity almost in proportion as they succeed in perverting the conclusions of natural science so as to make them contradict revealed truth. At this we are not surprised; for the management of the interests of science has lately fallen, to a great extent, into the hands of an anti-Christian sect, which is either unable to understand or unwilling to recognize the testimony that nature bears to the existence, power, and wisdom of its Creator, and to the veracity of his word. To this sect Professor Huxley belongs. They call him “a great scientist” and “a great philosopher”; and people invite him to lecture; and a certain press hastens to publish his thoughts, that the world may learn how religious dogmas can be swept away by “scientific” discoveries, and especially by “scientific” reasonings. Unfortunately for Prof. Huxley, his lectures on the _Evidences of Evolution_, which are the last effort of his mind, are as deficient in logic as most of his other productions. In other words, the conclusions of the lecturer are not legitimate, and the premises themselves are not always exempt from objectionable features. We hardly need tell our readers that neither any Christian dogma has been swept away by these lectures nor any evolution established, except in so far as the lectures themselves may be considered as an evolution of sophistry.

In the first of his three lectures Prof. Huxley begins with a false statement of facts:

“It has taken long indeed, and accumulations of often fruitless labor, to enable men to look steadily at the glaring phantasmagoria of nature, to notice her fluctuations and what is regular among her apparent irregularities; and it is only comparatively lately, within the last few centuries, that there has emerged the conception of a pervading order and definite force of things, which we term the course of nature. But out of this contemplation of nature, and out of man’s thought concerning her, there has in these later times arisen that conception of the constancy of nature to which I have referred, and that at length has become the guiding conception of modern thought. It has ceased to be almost conceivable to any person who has paid attention to modern thought that chance should have any place in the universe, or that events should follow anything but the natural order of cause and effect.”

The truth is that “modern thought” has had no part whatever in the discovery of the constancy of nature. This discovery is as old as mankind. All ancient philosophers, even before Aristotle, knew the constancy of the natural laws, and this knowledge has never died away, that modern thinkers should claim the honor of reviving it. The same is to be said of “the conception of a pervading order and definite force of things,” as we find that old Greek and Latin books are full of this conception, which is likewise common to all our mediæval writers, and, indeed, to all reasonable men. That “chance” could have no place in the universe was so well known to the ancients that Cicero emphatically declared any man to be silly who would suspect the possibility of the contrary.[152] Hence no person ever needed “to pay attention to modern thought” to conceive that chance could have no place in the government of the world. Finally, that events cannot but follow “the natural order of cause and effect” is the oldest of scientific truths, and the first principle of scientific reasoning. A lecturer who pretends that we owe these truths to “modern thought” shows no respect for his audience. On the other hand, if “modern thought” is so poor and barren that it envies the scientific claims of past generations, and stakes its reputation on fiction and plagiarism, what can we say of the wisdom of the modern thinker who affords a ground for arguing that “modern thought” stands convicted of dishonesty as much as of incapacity?

The professor a little later says:

“Though we are quite clear about the constancy of nature at the present time and in the present order of things, it by no means follows necessarily that we are justified in expanding this generalization into the past, and in denying absolutely that there may have been a time when evidence did not follow a first order, when the relations of cause and effect were not fixed and definite, and when external agencies did not intervene in the general course of nature. Cautious men will admit that such a change in the order of nature may have been possible, just as every candid thinker will admit that there may be a world in which two and two do not make four, and in which two straight lines do not enclose a space.”

This sentence shows that we are dealing rather with an empiricist than with a natural philosopher. Why should not the constancy of nature at the present time justify our conviction that nature has been no less constant in the past? Surely, if we proceed only empirically, the facts of the present will teach us nothing certain as to the facts of a remote and unknown past. But it is remarkable that this purely empirical method would leave us equally uncertain as to the facts of the future, though modern scientists assure us that “the future must be similar to the past.” The truth is that no valid induction can be made from mere facts without the aid of a rational principle as the ground of our generalization. If such a principle is certain, our inference is certain; and if the principle is only plausible, our inference will be plausible in the same degree. Now, have we not a certain principle from which the constancy of nature can be demonstrated with no reference to particular time? We have such a principle. We infer the constancy of nature from the constancy of the agencies by which the physical order is ruled. All elementary substances are permanent; their matter and their active power are never impaired; the law of their activity is as fixed and definite as their permanent constitution; and therefore they do not, and they cannot, act at present in a different manner from that in which they have acted from the beginning, or from that in which they will act as long as they last. This is the principle by which we are fully justified in extending the constancy of nature to all antiquity and to all futurity, and in averring that such a constancy is not an accidental result of circumstances, but a necessary consequence of the principle of causality.

But Mr. Huxley seems not to understand this principle. He imagines a time when the relations of cause and effect may not have been fixed and definite, and even conceives the possibility of a world in which two and two do not make four. This is modern thought indeed; for we do not believe that any indication can be found of a similar thought having ever been entertained in past ages. But we would ask: If in a certain world two and two did not make four, how could Mr. Huxley know that they make four in this world? And if the relations of cause and effect had at any given time remained vague and indefinite, how could he account for the fact that they are now definite and fixed? For the relation of cause and effect consists in this: that the impression produced by the cause is the exact equivalent of the exertion made in its production; and he who imagines a time when such a relation was not fixed and definite must assume that an effect can be greater than the exertion in which it originates, or that the exertion can be greater than the impression it produces. But if so, on what ground can the professor affirm that the relation of cause and effect has now become fixed and definite? We see the effect, but we cannot see the exertion; we see the fall of a body, but we cannot see the action of gravity. How, then, can Mr. Huxley ascertain that the action of gravity is neither greater nor less than the momentum impressed on the body? Thus the relation of cause and effect, in his theory, cannot be known; and mechanical science becomes impossible. In the same manner, if, in another world, two and two do not make four, mathematics are an imposition.

The lecturer says also that there may have been a time “when external agencies did not intervene in the general course of nature”; but we believe that this must be a _lapsus linguæ_; for, as he does not admit that external agencies do now intervene in the general course of nature, to say that the case may have been exactly the same in all remote times is not to adduce a reason of the supposed disturbance of the relations of cause and effect, of which he is speaking, nor would it serve to limit, as he wishes, our “generalization.” The context, therefore, shows that what the lecturer intended to say was that there may have been a time when external agencies _did_ intervene in the general course of nature. In fact, however, he said the contrary. Perhaps the professor, considering that he was speaking to an American audience with whose religious opinions he was little acquainted, thought it wise to give such a turn to his phrases as to avoid all profession of belief or disbelief in the existence of a Creator. But, however this may be, the idea that God’s intervention in the course of nature would disturb the relation of cause and effect is quite preposterous; for if God intervenes, his action carries with itself its proportionate effect, while the actions of other causes maintain their natural relations to their ordinary effects. When a man raises a stone from the ground, does he disturb the relation of cause and effect? or does he abolish gravitation? Certainly not. Gravity continues to urge down the body, while it is raised; but the effect corresponds to the combined actions of the two distinct causes. Now, the same must be said of God’s intervention with natural causes. The effect will always correspond to the combined causalities; and therefore the relation of the effect to its adequate cause remains undisturbed.

To assume, as the lecturer does, that at the present time God has ceased to intervene in the course of nature, is to assume something for which there is not the least warrant. God’s intervention in the course of nature is continuous; for without it nature can neither act nor exist for a single moment, as every one knows who is not absolutely ignorant of philosophy. But this is not all. God, seeing that men try to blind themselves to the fact of his intervention in the ordinary course of nature, gives us in his mercy not unfrequent proofs of his intervention by works so far above nature that no effort of scientific infidels can evade their testimony. These works are _miracles_. “Modern thought” denies miracles, as irreconcilable with the “constancy of nature”; but the history of the church is full of well-authenticated miracles, and there are to-day living in different countries thousands of unexceptionable witnesses who can testify that miracles are, even now, an almost daily occurrence among the Christian people. We, too, admit “the constancy of nature,” but we are not so dull as to interpret this constancy as modern thought strives to interpret it. It is the _laws_ of nature that are constant, not the _course_ of nature; the former alone are connected with the essence of things and are immutable; the latter depends on accidental conditions, and can be interfered with not only by God, but even by man, as daily experience shows. Hence the intervention of external agencies does not impair the constancy of nature, and the argument of modern thinkers against the possibility of miracles falls to the ground.

Mr. Huxley, after stating that the question with which he has to deal is essentially historical, affirms that “there are only three views――three hypotheses――respecting the past history of nature.” The first hypothesis is that

“The order of nature which now obtains has always obtained; in other words, that the present course of nature, the present order of things, has existed from all eternity. The second hypothesis is that the present state of things, the present order of nature, has had only a limited duration, and that at some period in the past the state of things which we now know――substantially, though not, of course, in all its details, the state of things which we now know――arose and came into existence without any precedent similar condition from which it could have proceeded. The third hypothesis also assumes that the present order of nature has had but a limited duration, but it supposes that the present order of things proceeded by a natural process from an antecedent order, and that from another antecedent order, and so on; and that on this hypothesis the attempt to fix any limit at which we could assign the commencement of this series of changes is given up.”

Of these three hypotheses, the first is discarded by the lecturer as untenable, because “circumstantial evidence absolutely negatives the conception of the eternity of the present condition of things.” In this we agree with him, not only on account of geological evidence, but also, and principally, because the world is mutable, and therefore contingent; which proves that it must have had a beginning. It is remarkable that he denies the eternity of the present condition of things, but does not deny the eternity of matter. Modern thought could not admit of such a denial; because, if matter is not eternal, the admission of a Creator becomes unavoidable.

The second hypothesis the professor calls the “Miltonic” hypothesis, and he proceeds to explain why he calls it so:

“I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise in your minds that I should have spoken of this as Milton’s hypothesis rather than I should choose the terms which are much more familiar to you, such as ‘the doctrine of creation,’ or ‘the Biblical doctrine’ or ‘the doctrine of Moses,’ all of which terms, as applied to the hypothesis to which I have just referred, are certainly much more familiar to you than the title of the Miltonic hypothesis. But I have had what I cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which I have pursued. For example, I have discarded the title of the hypothesis of creation, because my present business is not with the question as to how nature has originated, as to the causes which have led to her origination, but as to the manner and order of her origination. Our present inquiry is not why the objects which constitute nature came into existence, but when they came into existence, and in what order. This is a strictly historical question, as that about the date at which the Angles and Jutes invaded England. But the other question about creation is a philosophical question, and one which cannot be solved or approached or touched by the historical method.”

Then he gives his reasons why he avoids the title of Biblical hypothesis:

“In the first place, it is not my business to say what the Hebrew text contains, and what it does not; and, in the second place, were I to say that this was the Biblical hypothesis, I should be met by the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, who, in recent times, have absolutely denied that this doctrine is to be found in Genesis at all. If we are to listen to them, we must believe that what seem so clearly defined as days of creation――as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no mistake――that these are not days at all, but periods that we may make just as long as convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent with that phraseology to believe that plants and animals may have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out of similar rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand by and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations.” (At these last words the audience is said to have laughed and applauded.) “In the third place, I have carefully abstained from speaking of this as a Mosaic doctrine, because we are now assured upon the authority of the highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the church, that there is no evidence whatever that Moses ever wrote this chapter or knew anything about it. I don’t say――I give no opinion――it would be an impertinence upon my part to volunteer an opinion on such a subject; but that being the state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is well for us, the laity, who stand outside, to avoid entangling ourselves in such a vexed question.”

Then the lecturer makes a short refutation of Milton’s hypothesis, and concludes his first lecture by promising to give in the following lectures the evidences in favor of the hypothesis of evolution.

It seems to us that the whole of the preceding reasoning is nothing but plausible talk, and that the explanations of the lecturer lack sincerity. First, he pretends that the “doctrine of creation” is a philosophical question, which cannot be solved by the historical method. Why can it not? Creation is no less a historical than a philosophical fact. The book in which we read it is a historical book, more than three thousand years old, whose high authority has been recognized by the wisest men of all past generations, and whose truthfulness has been confirmed by monuments of antiquity and by the study of profane histories. If, then, Prof. Huxley was truly anxious to follow the historical method, why did he not compare the details given in Genesis about the manner and order of the origination of nature with the manner and order suggested by geological discoveries? On the other hand, if the question was to be treated by the historical method, was it wise to appeal to a poet as the best interpreter of history?

As to the philosophical treatment of the doctrine of creation, we are glad to see that the professor has had the good sense of abstaining from it. This forbearance on his part was imperative for many reasons, and especially because, as appears from some expressions of his, he was quite incompetent to judge of the doctrine on its philosophical side. He says that it is not his present business to investigate “the causes which have led to the origination of nature,” nor to inquire “why the objects which constitute nature came into existence”; as if there were any other _why_ besides the will of the Creator, or any other _causes_ besides his omnipotence. But Mr. Huxley seems afraid of a Creator; hence he does not speak of a God, but of “causes” and “external agencies”; nor does he mention creation, but only “origination.” Vain efforts! For, if nature has had an origination, it either originated in something or in nothing: if in nothing, then such an origination is a real creation; if in something, then such an origination was only a modification of something pre-existing contingently (for nothing but the contingent is modifiable), whose existence must again be traced to creation. Had the lecturer honestly followed the historical method, he would have boldly started with those profound words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” and he would have found a solution, no less philosophical than historical, of his question.

These remarks go far to show that the professor’s reasons for ignoring the Biblical history (which he, of course, calls the “Biblical _hypothesis_”) are mere pretexts. Surely it was not his business to explain the Hebrew text; but this is no excuse. The only point which had a real importance in connection with the question at issue was whether the so-called _days_ of creation were natural days of twenty-four hours or periods of a much greater length. Now, this point could have been investigated with the Latin or the English text as well as with the Hebrew. Moreover, since “many eminent scholars,” and even “men of science,” as he states, have absolutely denied that the doctrine of the six natural days is found in Genesis at all, was it not plain that the geological epochs, wholly unknown to Milton, could not be considered as contradicting the Biblical record, but might rather coincide with that narrative, and help us to clear up some obscure phrases which we read in it? Prof. Huxley pretends that, if we listen to these eminent scholars and men of science, “we must believe that what seem so clearly defined as days of creation are not days at all, but periods that we may make just as long as convenience requires.” This is, indeed, the conclusion we draw from a full discussion of the subject; but we should like to know on what ground the professor assumes that the Genesis speaks _so clearly_ of natural days. It is the contrary that is _clearly_ implied in the language of the sacred writer; for it is evident that the three days which preceded the creation of the sun could not be natural days of twenty-four hours; and since their length has not been determined by the sacred writer, we are free “to make them just as long as convenience requires.” This reason, which may be strengthened by other expressions in the context, and by many other passages of the Bible where the word _day_ is used indefinitely for long periods of time, led many old interpreters, St. Augustine among others, to deny what Prof. Huxley so confidently asserts about the _clearness_ of the Scriptural testimony in favor of natural days. The professor evidently speaks of a subject which he has never studied, with the mischievous purpose of creating a conflict between science and faith.

What shall we say of his amusing hint at the “marvellous flexibility” of the Biblical language? Though greeted with _applause and laughter_ (by an audience that knew nothing about the Hebrew language), such a hint was a blunder. It is not the flexibility of the language that has ever been appealed to as the ground of different interpretations; it is the extreme conciseness of the narration, and the omission of numerous details, which might have proved interesting to the man of science, but which had nothing to do with the object pursued by the sacred writer. For the aim of the writer was to instruct men, not on science, but on the unity of God and his universal dominion. On the other hand, all languages have numbers of terms which can receive different interpretations; and the very word _day_, which the lecturer takes to mean _so clearly_ twenty-four hours, is used even by us in the sense of an indefinite length of time. We say, for instance, that _to-day_ anti-Christianity is rampant, just as well as that _to-day_ it has rained; and we hope that Professor Huxley will not on this account find fault with the English language, or sneer at its “marvellous flexibility.”

Finally, the professor says that he spoke of the Miltonic theory rather than of the “Mosaic doctrine,” because “we are now assured upon the authority of the highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the church, that there is no evidence whatever that Moses ever wrote this chapter or knew anything about it.” This allegation is not creditable to the judgment of the lecturer.

The Genesis is the undoubted work of Moses, as all ancient and modern scholars, both Jew and Christian, testify. If, however, Professor Huxley, upon the authority of his perverse or ignorant critics and of the rationalistic dignitaries of a false church, believes the contrary, it does not follow that the historical method obliged him to substitute the Miltonic theory for the Biblical history under pain of “entangling himself in a vexed question.” If there was a vexed question, he could discard it with a word. Nothing prevented him from speaking of “_what is styled_ the Mosaic doctrine.” The truth is that the professor labored all along to demolish the Mosaic doctrine under the name of Miltonic hypothesis, thinking, no doubt, that by this artifice he might just say enough to satisfy his friends the free-thinkers, without shocking too violently the public mind. The artifice, however, proved unsuccessful; and if the professor has seen the criticism passed on his lectures by the American press, he must now have acquired the conviction that the Miltonic hypothesis did not deserve the honor of a scientific refutation.

In his second lecture Mr. Huxley begins to deal with the evidences of evolution. He points out that such evidences are of three kinds――viz., _indifferent_, _favorable_, and _demonstrative_. The first two kinds he is prepared to examine at once, whilst the third he keeps in reserve for his last lecture. One might ask what an “indifferent evidence” is likely to mean. For, if any fact has no greater tendency to prove than to disprove a theory, such a fact does not constitute “evidence” on either side. This, of course, is true; but, in the language of the professor, “indifferent evidence” designates those facts which are brought against his theory, and which he believes to admit of a satisfactory explanation without abandoning the theory. Thus he relates how

“Cuvier endeavored to ascertain by a very just and proper method what foundation there was for the belief in a gradual and progressive change of animals, by comparing the skeletons of all accessible parts of these animals (old Egyptian remains)――such as crocodiles, birds, dogs, cats, and the like――with those which are now found in Egypt; and he came to the conclusion――a conclusion which has been verified by all subsequent research――that no appreciable change has taken place in the animals which inhabited Egypt, and he drew thence the conclusion, _and a hasty one_, that the evidence of such fact was altogether against the doctrine of evolution.”

Again, the professor states that the animal remains deposited in the beds of stone lining the Niagara “belong to exactly the same forms as now inhabit the still waters of Lake Erie”; and these remains, according to his calculation, are more than thirty thousand years old. Again:

“When we examine the rocks of the cretaceous epoch itself, we find the remains of some animals which the closest scrutiny cannot show to be in any respect different from those which live at the present time.” “More than that: At the very bottom of the Silurian series, in what is by some authorities termed the Cambrian formation, where all signs appear to be dying out, even there, among the few and scanty animal remains which exist, we find species of molluscous animals which are so closely allied to existing forms that at one time they were grouped under the same generic name.… Facts of this kind are undoubtedly fatal to any form of evolution which necessitates the supposition that there is an intrinsic necessity on the part of animal forms which once come into existence to undergo modifications; and they are still more distinctly opposed to any view which should lead to the belief that the modification in different types of animal or vegetable life goes on equally and evenly. The facts, as I have placed them before you, would obviously contradict directly any such form of the hypothesis of evolution as laid down in these two postulates.”

Here, then, we have facts which “contradict directly” any form of _necessary_ evolution. Now let us see how the professor strives to turn them into _indifferent evidences_ of _spontaneous_ evolution. He says:

“Now, the service that has been rendered by Mr. Darwin to the doctrine of evolution in general is this: that he has shown that there are two great factors in the process of evolution, and one of them is the tendency to vary, the existence of which may be proved by observation in all living forms; the other is the influence of surrounding conditions upon what I may call the parent form and the variations which are thus evolved from it. The cause of that production of variations is a matter not at all properly understood at present. Whether it depends upon some intricate machinery――if I may use the phrase――of the animal form itself, or whether it arises through the influence of conditions upon that form, is not certain, and the question may for the present be left open. But the important point is the tendency to the production of variations. Then whether those variations shall survive and supplant the parent, or whether the parent form shall survive and supplant the variations, is a matter which depends entirely on surrounding conditions.”

From this theory the lecturer concludes that the facts above mentioned as contradicting the doctrine of evolution are “no objection at all,” but belong to that class of evidence which he has called indifferent. “That is to say,” as he explains, “they may be no direct support to the doctrine of evolution but they are perfectly capable of being interpreted in consistency with it.” This is to tell us that Darwin, in order to evade the testimony of numerous facts which contradict evolution, had to resort to a very bold but gratuitous assumption. In fact, on what ground can he pretend that all living forms have a tendency to vary from one species to another, and that such a tendency may be proved by observation, when we have so many facts which prove that such a tendency has not shown itself for thousands and tens of thousands of years? As yet, no case of evolution from one species to another has been ascertained; and it surely requires a peculiar evolution of logic to affirm, in the presence of such a known fact, that the tendency to vary may be proved by observation. That there may be varieties within the range of one and the same species is a well-known truth; this is what observation has abundantly proved. But Mr. Darwin pretends that the tendency to vary is not confined within the range of the species, but extends from one species to another, so as to produce not only individual and accidental modifications, but also essential changes and differentiations; and this is what observation has hitherto been unable to prove. Thus the professor’s appeal to the Darwinian hypothesis is quite illogical, as it is nothing but a begging of the question.

It is singular that Professor Huxley himself, after telling us that the tendency to vary is proved by observation, immediately refutes his own assertion by showing that the whole theory of evolution rests on no actual observation, but on the mere hope of some possible observations which the future may keep in reserve for its triumph. Here is what he says:

“The great group of _lizards_, which abound so much at the present day, extends through the whole series of formations as far back as what is called the Permian epoch, which is represented by the strata lying just above the coal. These Permian lizards differ astonishingly little――in some respects――from the lizards which exist at the present day. Comparing the amount of difference between these Permian lizards and the lizards of the present day with the prodigious lapse of time between the Permian epoch and the present age, it maybe said that there has been no appreciable change. But the moment you carry the researches further back in time you find no trace whatever of lizards, nor any true reptile whatever, in the whole mass of formations beneath the Permian. Now, it is perfectly clear that if our existing palæontological collections, our existing specimens from stratified rock, exhaust the whole series of events which have ever taken place upon the surface of the globe, such a fact as this directly contravenes the whole theory of evolution, because that postulates that the existence of every form must have been preceded by that of some form comparatively little different from it.”

So far, then, as existing specimens of palæontology are concerned, everything “directly contravenes the whole theory of evolution”; that is to say that observation, far from proving the theory, tends to disprove it. The lecturer, however, not dismayed by this crushing evidence, appeals to “the whole series of events” which must have preceded the epoch of the oldest existing specimens; and he invites us to take into consideration “that important fact so well insisted upon by Lyell and Darwin――the imperfection of the geological record.” No doubt the geological record is imperfect; but this imperfection cannot be made the ground of an argument in favor of evolution. To make it such would be like interpreting the silence of a witness for positive information. Prof. Huxley saw this, and, anticipating the objection which was sure to rise in the minds of his hearers, made an effort to evade it by saying: “Those who have not attended to these matters are apt to say to themselves, ‘It is all very well; but when you get into difficulty with your theory of evolution, you appeal to the incompleteness and the imperfection of the geological record’; and I want to make it perfectly clear to you that that imperfection is a vast fact which must be taken into account with all our speculations, or we shall constantly be going wrong.” The reader will notice how bluntly the lecturer ignores the drift of the objection. The objection is: “When you appeal to the remotest epochs, about which geology gives us so very scanty information, you appeal to _the unknown_; and this is a very singular method of answering that series of _known_ facts which directly contravene the theory of evolution.” The answer of the professor is: “You have not attended to these matters. Do you think that the geological record is perfect? I tell you that it is most imperfect and incomplete, and I am going to show that such is the case.” This answer confirms the objection, and shows that the theory of evolution is illogical.

The professor then mentions “the tracks of some gigantic animal which walked on its hind legs,” and remarks that, although untold thousands of such tracks are found upon our shores, yet “up to this present time not a bone, not a fragment, of any one of the great creatures which certainly made these impressions has been found.” And he concludes: “I know of no more striking evidence than this fact affords from which it may be concluded, in the absence of organic remains, that such animals did exist.” Of course they did exist; but their existence is no argument against those innumerable facts which bear positive witness against the theory of evolution. And yet the lecturer ventures to say:

“I believe that having the right understanding of the doctrine of evolution on the one hand, and having a just estimation of the importance of the imperfection of the geological record on the other, would remove all difficulty from the kind of evidence to which I have thus adverted; and this appreciation allows us to believe that all such cases are examples of what I may here call, and have hitherto designated, negative or indifferent evidence――that is to say, they in no way directly advance the theory of evolution, but they are no obstacle in the way of our belief in the doctrine.” That a long series of positive facts establishing the fixity of species during a great many thousand years are no obstacle in the way of our belief in an opposite theory, owing to the mistiness of all older geological records, which allows us to dream of facts contrary to the course of things, ascertained by constant observation, is an idea which “modern thought” may consider brilliant, but which common sense absolutely rejects.

In the remaining part of this second lecture Mr. Huxley deals with the evidence of intermediate forms: “If the doctrine of evolution be true, it follows that animals and plants, however diverse they may be, must have all been connected together by gradational forms, so that from the highest animals, whatever they may be, down to the lowest speck of gelatinous matter in which life can be manifested, there must be a sure and progressive body of evidence――a series of gradations by which you could pass from one end of the series to the other.” Let us remark, by the way, that the phrase “the highest animals, _whatever they may be_,” comprises rational animals――that is, all mankind; which would imply that our rational soul should be traced “to the lowest speck of gelatinous matter” as its first origin. We need not dwell here on this absurdity. The professor confesses that “we have crocodiles, lizards, snakes, turtles, and tortoises, and yet there is nothing――no connecting link――between the crocodile and lizard, or between the lizard and snake, or between the snake and the crocodile, or between any two of these groups. They are separated by absolute breaks.” Such being the case, it would seem that the professor had a sufficient ground for denying the theory of evolution altogether. But, no; whilst confessing that there is “no connecting link,” he pretends that we must show that no connecting link has _ever_ existed. His words are:

“If, then, it could be shown that this state of things was from the beginning――had always existed――it would be fatal to the doctrine of evolution. If the intermediate gradations which the doctrine of evolution postulates must have existed between these groups――if they are not to be found anywhere in the records of the past history of the globe――all that is so much a strong and weighty argument against evolution. While, on the other hand, if such intermediate forms are to be found, that is so much to the good of evolution, although … we must be cautious in assuming such facts as proofs of the theory.”

The wisdom of this last caution is undeniable; but is there not a contradiction in the phrases “there is no connecting link” and “the intermediate forms may be found”?

He then proceeds to show some osteologic relations by which birds and reptiles seem to be connected, but from which, as he concedes, no proof of the theory of evolution can be formed, and he concludes in the following words: “In my next lecture I will take up what I venture to call the _demonstrative evidence_ of evolution.” Let us, then, give up all further examination of the second lecture, and proceed to a short inquiry upon the kind of evidence condensed in the third.

We must say at once that the evidence contained in the whole of this third lecture neither directly nor indirectly demonstrates that one species of animals has been evolved out of another species. Granting that the animal remains described by the professor correspond entirely to his description of them, and waiving all question about the correct interpretation of the same, we shall merely pass in review the logical process by which such remains are made to give testimony to the Darwinian view.

In the exordium Mr. Huxley assumes, as a point already established in his second lecture, that the evidence derived from fossil remains “is perfectly consistent with the doctrine of evolution.” We have seen that this is not true. The professor, entirely forgetful of all the facts which he himself had acknowledged to “directly contravene the whole theory of evolution,” insists on the relations between birds and reptiles and their intermediate forms. “We find,” he says, “in the mesozoic rocks animals which, if ranged in series, would so completely bridge over the interval between the reptile and the bird that it would be very hard to say where the reptile ends and where the bird begins.” And he adds that “evidence so distinctly favorable as this of evolution is far weightier than that upon which men undertake to say that they believe many important propositions; but it is not the highest kind of evidence attained.” If we ask the professor why this evidence is not the highest, he will give us this reason:

“That, as it happens, the intermediate forms to which I have referred do not occur in the exact order in which they ought to occur if they really had formed steps in the progression from the reptile to the bird; that is to say, we find these forms in contemporaneous deposits, whereas the requirements of the demonstrative evidence of evolution demand that we should find the series of gradations between one group of animals and another in such order as they must have followed if they had constituted a succession of stages in time of the development of the form at which they ultimately arrive. That is to say, the complete evidence of the evolution of the bird from the reptile should be of this character, that in some ancient formation reptiles alone should be found, in some later formation birds should first be met with, and in the intermediate formations we should discover in regular succession forms which I pointed out to you, which are intermediate between the reptile and the birds.”

This answer proves not only that the evidence alleged is not the highest kind of evidence in favor of evolution, but also that the evidence conflicts with the hypothesis of evolution in such a manner as to cut the ground from under the feet of the lecturer. For if the intermediate forms between the reptile and the bird are contemporaneous with the reptile and the bird, it follows that the bird has not been evolved from the reptile through those intermediate forms. It is therefore in vain that Mr. Huxley appeals to this evidence as “so distinctly favorable to evolution.”

The body of the lecture consists of an attempt to show, from the osteology of the genus _Equus_, that our modern horse proceeds from the _Orohippus_. The lecturer first describes the characteristics of the horse, using the term “horse” in a general sense as equivalent to the technical term _Equus_, and meaning not only what we now call the horse, but also asses and their modifications――zebras, etc. He invites us to pay a special attention to the foot and the teeth of the horse; and then he reasons as follows:

“If the hypothesis of evolution is true, what ought to happen when we investigate the history of this animal? We know that the mammalian type, as a whole, that mammalian animals are characterized by the possession of a perfectly distinct radius and ulna-two separate and distinct movable bones, We know, further, that mammals in general possess five toes, often unequal, but still as completely developed as the five digits of my hand. We know, further, that the general type of mammals possesses in the leg not only a complete tibia, but a complete fibula. The small bone of the leg is, as a general rule, a perfectly complete, distinct, movable bone. Moreover, in the hind-foot we find in animals in general five distinct toes, just as we do in the fore-foot. Hence it follows that we have a differentiated animal like the horse, which has proceeded by way of evolution or gradual modification from a similar form possessing all the characteristics we find in mammals in general. If that be true, it follows that, if there be anywhere preserved in the series of rocks a complete history of the horse――that is to say, of the various stages through which he has passed――those stages ought gradually to lead us back to some sort of animal which possessed a radius, and an ulna, and distinct complete tibia and fibula, and in which there were five toes upon the fore limb no less than upon the hind limb. Moreover, in the average general mammalian type, the higher mammalian, we find as a constant rule an approximation to the number of forty-four complete teeth, of which six are cutting teeth, two are canine, and the others of which are grinders. In unmodified mammals we find the incisors have no pit, and that the grinding teeth as a rule increase in size from that which lies in front towards those which lie in the middle or at the hinder part of the series. Consequently, if the theory of evolution be correct, if that hypothesis of the origin of living things have a foundation, we ought to find in the series the forms which have preceded the horse, animals in which the mark upon the incisor gradually more and more disappears, animals in which the canine teeth are present in both sexes, and animals in which the teeth gradually lose the complication of their crowns, and have a simpler and shorter crown, while at the same time they gradually increase in size from the anterior end of the series towards the posterior.”

The professor then proceeds to show that all these conditions are fulfilled:

“In the middle and earlier parts of the pliocene epoch, in deposits which belong to that age, and which occur in Germany and in Greece, to some extent in Britain and in France, there we find animals which are like horses in all the essential particulars which I have just described, … but they differ in some important particulars. There is a difference in the structure of the fore and hind limb, … but nevertheless we have here a horse in which the lateral toes, almost abortive in the existing horse, are fully developed.”

This horse is the _Hipparion_.

In the miocene formations “you find equine animals which differ essentially from the modern horse … in the character of their fore and hind limbs, and present important features of difference in the teeth. The forms to which I now refer are what are known to constitute the genus _Anchitherium_. We have here three toes, and the middle toe is smaller in proportion, the lower toes are larger … and in the fore arm you find the ulna, a very distinct bone,” etc., etc.

Lastly, in the oldest part of the eocene formation we find the _Orohippus_, which is the oldest specimen of equine animals:

“Here we have the four toes on the front limb complete, three toes on the hind limb complete, a well-developed ulna, a well-developed fibula, and the teeth of simple pattern. So you are able, thanks to these great researches, to show that, so far as present knowledge extends, the history of the horse type is exactly and precisely that which could have been predicted from a knowledge of the principles of evolution. And the knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in the anticipation that when the still lower eocene deposits and those which belong to the cretaceous epoch have yielded up their remains of equine animals, we shall find first an equine creature with four toes in front and a rudiment of the thumb. Then probably a rudiment of the fifth toe will be gradually supplied, until we come to the five-toed animals, in which most assuredly the whole series took its origin.”

To say plainly what we think of this long argumentation, we believe that it demonstrates nothing but the eminent talkative faculty of the lecturer. It all comes to this: Unmodified mammals have five fingers and five toes, whereas the modern horse has only one. Therefore the modern horse is but a modification of a pre-existing form, and is to be traced to the _hipparion_, the _anchitherium_, the _orohippus_, and other more ancient forms which we have not yet discovered, but which we hope to discover hereafter. Now, this style of reasoning is simply ridiculous.

First, even granting all the premises of the professor, the conclusion that one species is derived from another by evolution would still remain unproved. For who told Prof. Huxley that the animal remains on which he bases his argument belong to different species, and not to different varieties of one and the same species? Surely, a greater or less development of one or two bones cannot be considered a sufficient evidence of specific difference; for we know that even in the same variety there may be a different development; as in the hound, which sometimes possesses a spurious hind toe, and in the mastiff, which occasionally shows the same peculiarity. Hence the professor has no right to assume that the horse, the hipparion, the anchitherium, etc., are animals of different species; and therefore his argument has nothing to do with the evolution of one species from another.

Secondly, to assume without proof that “unmodified mammalia” have five fingers and five toes is to assume without proof the very conclusion which was to be demonstrated; for it is to assume that the modern horse, which has neither five fingers nor five toes, is not an unmodified mammal, but a product evolved by some more ancient form. Now, this is what logicians call _petitio principii_.

Thirdly, what does Prof. Huxley mean by _unmodified_ mammalia? What are they? For, in his theory of evolution, every animal is a _modification_ of a preceding form, and the whole series of living beings contains nothing but _modified_ organisms. To find, therefore, an unmodified mammal, it would be necessary to find the _first_ of all mammals from which all other mammals of the same class have proceeded. This first mammal is still to be discovered, as the professor concedes. How, then, could he know that the unmodified mammal has five fingers and five toes? And if he did not know this, how did he assume it as the very ground of his pretended demonstration?

Fourthly, how does Prof. Huxley know that the horse proceeds from the hipparion, the hipparion from the anchitherium, and the anchitherium from the orohippus? Of this he knows nothing whatever. He has no other ground for his assertion, except the different ages to which those deposits belong: but a difference of age does not prove that the older is the parent of the younger. Alexander the Great existed before Annibal, Annibal before Cæsar, Cæsar before Napoleon. Will our professor infer from this that Napoleon was the lineal descendant of Alexander the Great?

Fifthly, it is not true that “the history corresponds exactly with what one could construct _a priori_ from the principles of evolution.” The principles of the theory of evolution demand that the more complex organisms be considered as evolved from the less complex, and the more developed as evolved from the less developed; for, according to the theory, the further we go back towards the origin of life, the nearer we approach the “protoplasm” or the “gelatinous matter.” It would therefore be more in accordance with the theory of evolution to say that the five-toed animals must have proceeded from animals possessing a simpler and less developed organism, and that the horse is the parent of the hipparion, and of the anchitherium and of the orohippus, which is quite contrary to geological evidence. Hence geological evidence flatly contradicts the principles of evolution. In other terms, if mammalia of different species have been evolved from one another, those animals whose organism is more developed must be more modern. Now, the orohippus has an organism more developed than that of the horse. Therefore the orohippus, by the principles of the theory, is more modern than the existing horse. But geological evidence shows the contrary. Therefore geological evidence directly conflicts with the principles of evolution.

Sixthly, the whole argument of the professor may be condensed in the following syllogism: If the theory of evolution is true, then we must find such and such fossils. But we find such and such fossils. Therefore the theory of evolution is true. By this form of reasoning one would prove anything he likes. Thus, for example, we might say, if Professor Huxley has graduated at Yale College, New Haven, he must know the English language. But he knows the English language. Therefore he has graduated at Yale College, New Haven. The fallacy consists in supposing that such and such fossils could not be found, except in the hypothesis that evolution is true. Hence, to avoid the fallacy, the conditionate proposition should have been inverted――that is, it should have been: If we find such and such fossils in such and such deposits, then the theory of evolution is true. But this proposition could not be assumed without proofs.

But, says the lecturer:

“An inductive hypothesis is said to be demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance with it. If that is not scientific proof, there are no inductive conclusions which can be said to be scientific. And the doctrine of evolution at the present time rests upon exactly as secure a foundation as the Copernican theory of the motion of the heavenly bodies. Its basis is precisely of the same character――the coincidence of the observed facts with theoretical requirements. As I mentioned just now, the only way of escape, if it be a way of escape, from the conclusions which I have just indicated, is the supposition that all these different forms have been created separately at separate epochs of time; and I repeat, as I said before, that of such a hypothesis as this there neither is nor can be any scientific evidence; and assuredly, so far as I know, there is none which is supported, or pretends to be supported, by evidence or authority of any other kind.”

These sweeping assertions are all founded on the assumption that the facts have been shown to be in entire accordance with the hypothesis. But we have shown that the facts contradict the hypothesis. It is therefore a scientific necessity to deny the hypothesis. Moreover, scientific hypotheses are not proved by the mere coincidence of the observed facts with theoretical requirements; it is necessary to show, further, that the observed facts cannot be reconciled with a different theory. Hence, even if the professor had shown the agreement of the facts with his hypothesis, he would still have had no right to conclude in favor of his hypothesis on that ground alone; for he would have been obliged to show also that the Mosaic theory does not agree with those facts. What he says about “the only way of escape” is a vain boast, which has no real importance except in as much as it may serve for rhetorical effect. We have no need of seeking a way of escape; for we still follow our own old way, which remains unobstructed. We need not “make the supposition that all different forms have been created at separate epochs of time,” though they may have been so created; nor do we require “scientific evidence” of the truth of creation, for we have sufficient Biblical and philosophical evidence of it; nor do we want evidence of certain distinct or “separate” creations, for we have this evidence in the Book of Genesis. If any one needs “a way of escape,” it is the professor himself, who has ventured to defend a theory equally condemned by the Mosaic history of the origin of things and by the characteristic peculiarities of the geological remains which he has produced. As for us, even if it were proved that the horse, the hipparion, the anchitherium, and the orohippus are animals of different species, nothing would oblige us to admit that these animals have been created “at separate epochs of time”――that is to say, in different Scriptural days; for these days, or epochs, are each sufficiently long to encompass the events to which the geological record bears testimony. On the other hand, were we to assume that such animals have been created at separate epochs of time, we do not see on what ground the professor could refute such a conjecture. He might say, of course, that there is no “scientific evidence” for the supposition; but we might reply that there are many facts which science must accept on other than scientific evidence; and we might even maintain that those fossil remains on which the lecturer has founded his pretended demonstration are themselves a _primâ facie_ evidence in favor of said supposition. But the supposition is not needed, as we have remarked.

The professor concludes his lecture thus: “I shall consider I have done you the greatest service which it was in my power in such a way to do, if I have thus convinced you that this great question which we are discussing is not one to be discussed, dealt with, by rhetorical flourishes or by loose and superficial talk, but that it requires the keenest attention of the trained intellect, and the patience of the most accurate observer.”

These words were applauded by the audience, and we too are glad to applaud. But we may be allowed to doubt if the lecturer, in dealing with the question of evolution, has shown much respect for the maxim which he proclaims. We do not mean, of course, that Professor Huxley’s intellect is untrained, or that his scientific observations are inaccurate, but we think we can safely say that his logic is not as accurate as his scientific observations, and that his trained intellect is apt to relish sham arguments and superficial talk. When a man can gravely express the opinion that “there may be a world where two and two do not make four,” the intellect of that man makes a poor show indeed; nor does it make a better show by assuming that “there may have been a time when the relation of cause and effect was still indefinite.” In like manner, when a man in the discussion of a historical question ignores all historical documents except those which he thinks favorable to his views; when he strives to evade the evidence of certain facts which cannot be reconciled with his theory; or when he brings as a proof of the theory what under examination is found to clash with the principles of the same theory, we must be excused if we cannot admire his logic.

The lecturer’s misfortune is that he is a victim of that proud and absurd system of knowledge which is named “modern thought.” The apostles of this system strive to suppress God. The universe, according to them, is not necessarily the work of an intelligent Being. Give them only a few specks of “gelatinous matter,” and they will tell you that nothing else is required to account for the origin of life, intellect, and reason. If you say that this is impossible, because the effect cannot be more perfect than its causality, they will inform you that the words _cause_ and _effect_, though still tolerated, are becoming obsolete, just as the ideas which they express. If you ask, How did the “gelatinous matter” itself originate? they will let you understand that their science cannot go so far as to attempt a clear answer; because, as Prof. Huxley adroitly puts it, “the attempt to fix any limit at which we should assign the commencement of the series of changes is given up.” This suffices to form a just estimate of the scientific hypotheses concocted by the leaders of “modern thought.” We are apt to boast of our superior knowledge: but it is one of the disasters of our time that the absurd theories of such a perverted science find ready acceptance among educated men.

[152] _Quis est tam vecors, qui ea quæ tanta mente fiunt, casu putet posse fieri?_――Who is so silly as to believe that things so wisely ruled can be the effect of chance?

UP THE NILE.