VI.

England has undertaken the Abyssinian expedition to preserve her _prestige_ in the East, and she is determined to gain her point. The dusky King Theodore, pretended descendant of Solomon, cannot complain that he has not received diplomatic notice. When the German who brought him the British ultimatum, told him that if he did not deliver up the prisoners he would have both the armies of England and France against him--"Let them come," said Theodore, "and call me a woman if I do not give them battle." We know not if there be more of folly or of intrepid valor in this proud answer. In fact, notwithstanding the narrations of some travellers, naturally suspected of exaggeration, the Ethiopians have no idea of the military power of the Western nations, and their king may believe that he is a match for them.

{279}

The Bay of Adulis, usually so silent, is now swarming with ships. There were in it, a short time ago, seventy vessels, without counting those of the Arabians and East-Indians. The English have built two quays to assist the debarkation of troops. The English have the Snider gun, which they pretend to be superior to the Chassepot rifle. They have even forty elephants to frighten Theodore. One of them, an elephant of good sense if ever there was one, behaved himself so badly at the debarkation of the troops, that he was sent back to Hindostan.

England is determined to succeed. Instead of borrowing, she has levied a tax of ten millions of dollars. She will need at least six times that amount before the end of the war. Every English prisoner to be freed will cost at least ten millions. But her object is not merely the freeing of the prisoners, though she asserts that it is. She has to provide water for sixty-five thousand men and many beasts on the plains of Zullah, where, in default of natural fresh water, the troops drink a distillation of sea water. They need every day one hundred and eighty thousand quarts to drink; and this quantity has been provided at the enormous cost of twenty thousand dollars for every twenty-four hours. To transport the munitions of war, mules were bought and brought to Zullah from Egypt, Turkey, Spain, and France. The English soldiers, not knowing at first how to manage them, tied them with hay ropes. Many of the mules ate the ropes, escaped into the desert, and were lost. A railroad has been built, running from the sea to Sanafe, the first border station of Ethiopia, a distance of almost one hundred miles.

The line of march has been well chosen. The English could have crossed the plains of Tigray, which are level and oppose no obstacle; and then crossed through Wasaya without meeting any noteworthy difficulty except the river Takkaze, and Mount Lamalmo. Farther on, at Dabra Tabor, where Theodore usually resides, they might have chosen either the plains of the Lanige, or the cool and verdant hills of the Waynadaga territory as the sites of their encampment. But this route is not the shortest. Besides, the Wasaya begins to be unhealthy in the month of May, and there is no forage as far as Wagara.

The shorter route, which the English have taken, is by Agame and Wag. On those elevated plateaux they may keep all their energy, and they will find a territory less ravaged by civil war, and good pastures. The distance from Zullah to Magdala is about the same as from Paris to Lyons. But artillery is with difficulty transported over many of the gullies on the route; and perhaps for the elephants it will be found impracticable. But the leader of the expedition, Sir Robert Napier, will not balk at these details. He will push rapidly on to Delanta before the rainy season, which begins about the 10th of July. According to the prisoners, if he should invest Magdala at the beginning of May, the want of water would soon force the garrison to surrender. If the first rains have fallen before his arrival, the English will occupy Tanta among the Wara Haymano, and from that point open fire on Magdala. Soldiers living in huts, without casemates or caverns, could not stand a day against the English guns. In, any case, Magdala, the great Ethiopian fortress, will be taken, and it will remain to be seen whether the troops will march to Dabra Tabor to burn the camp of King Theodore, and kill him, or make him prisoner. {280} Nevertheless, the use of diplomacy will not be despised. When Theodore put M. Rassam in prison, with great protestations of friendship, he promised him his liberty on the arrival of certain machines and expert workers. England sent both to Massowah, but required first the liberation of the prisoners without having used any of those forms which render a contract binding in the eyes of the Abyssinians. On his side, Theodore did not understand the value of a simple signature. Besides, he had been deceived by Plowden, who denied his character of consul, and cheated by the denials of the Protestant missionaries as to their attempts to proselytize the native Christians. He did not, therefore, believe the protestations of the English. The want of a sensible agent caused the failure of this negotiation, which might have succeeded if more skilfully conducted. Moreover, the English army, on entering the Tigray, issued a proclamation, of which the _Times_ published a literal copy, as ridiculous in _Amariñña_ dialect as in English. Besides, the language used is almost unknown in Agama, where this document has been published. The English officers do not seem to have known that a proclamation is never published in Ethiopia in a written form. But what will King Theodore, the pretended descendant of Solomon, do? It is difficult to answer this question. The natives report that Theodore is often out of his senses when he drinks brandy, which the "_pious laymen_" of the Protestant mission zealously manufacture for his _spiritual_ comfort. From the very beginning of his reign, Plowden informs us that he manifested symptoms of insanity. The English prisoners tell us more explicitly that Theodore himself informed them that his father was insane, and that he believed himself attacked with the same disorder. Several traits in his conduct toward the prisoners, and the massacre of one hundred of his own soldiers in his camp, on mere suspicion, give gravity to the assertions. If this be true, England has declared war against an adversary unworthy of her dignity. In case of defeat, the only refuge for Theodore is to retreat to his native province of Quara, on the border of a terrible desert, breathing pestilence on all the region around. Woe to the English soldiers if they attempt to follow him thither!

Of all the ancient empire of Yasu the Great, that Ethiopian Louis XIV., Theodore has only Quara, that he can call his own. His governors of the Tigra have been expelled by rebels, or have made themselves independent of his authority. Gojjan has proclaimed its independence; Wag also has risen in arms; Suria is free, and gives asylum to all refugees. Yet these are regions but recently subjected to the conquering arms of Theodore. Tissu Gobaze rules the lower Tigray, Wasaya, Walguayt, Simen, Wazara, and as far as Dambya, where Gondar stood before Theodore destroyed it.

What then is left to this unfortunate tyrant, resisted at home by numberless insurgents, and threatened by foreign force with destruction? The Awamas, whose rights he has respected because they know how to defend themselves, but who will seize the first opportunity to rebel; Tagusa, Acafar, Alafa, and Meca stretching along the Tana, but which he has made solitudes by his systematic pillage; and finally Bagemdir, that beautiful portion of the country, which obeys him with regret. {281} A disease, a slight cheek, or a courageous peasant, would be sufficient to destroy Theodore, that royal meteor, which, after shining for a few years, will soon be extinguished in the night of oblivion. Considering the greatness of the English preparations, we are led to suspect that she has the intention of holding Northern Ethiopia after conquering it. Appearances seems to favor this conjecture, and no matter what the English journals may say, the idea is not of French origin. Plowden urged its realization in his official letters thirteen years ago; Cameron is in favor of it; and General Coghlan timidly hints its practicability in his military monograph on Ethiopian affairs. The English have been masters of Aden for the last thirty years, and they wish to make the Red Sea an English lake. They desire Ethiopia; for from it they could invade Egypt, where "King Cotton" would rule in all his glory. They allege the case of Algiers annexed to France in justification of their project. But let it be observed that Charles X., who ransomed at his own expense, the Greek slaves sold in the markets of Constantinople and in Egypt, could not allow the Dey of Algiers alone to keep French, Spanish, and English Christians in bonds; while the English have never done anything to prevent the slave-trade in Abyssinia. Many Christian slaves are annually bought within gunshot of the British ships on the Red Sea, to be brutalized in Mussulman harems. _England has never made an effort to stop the traffic there_. Can we blame King Theodore then, who, according to his degree of intelligence and power, wished to put an end to this inhuman commerce, for saying with at least as much modesty as her majesty's government has at command, "Which of us two is the greater barbarian?"

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New Publications.

St. Columba, Apostle of Caledonia. By the Count de Montalembert, of the French Academy, New York: Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau street. 1868.

Irish ecclesiastical history is something unique in the world, and presents to us the spirit of Christianity run into an entirely new and original mould. The Celtic race, whose most perfect and completely actualized type exists in the people of Ireland, is a singular specimen of humanity, as it used to be in the primitive ages just after, and perhaps long before the flood, preserved, continued, and apparently incapable of being destroyed or changed, in the midst of other races of totally opposite character. The sudden and entire conversion of this people to Christianity, and the invincible tenacity with which it has clung to its first faith, together with the marked individuality of the expression which it has given to the Christian idea, form a phenomenon in history which cannot be too much studied or admired. It was a happy moment for Ireland when that Chevalier Bayard of Catholic literature, the Count de Montalembert, felt his chivalrous soul moved by the story of her ancient princely monks and dauntless, adventurous apostles, and set himself to the task of writing a work which unites all the romantic, poetic charm of the lyric strains of her bards, with the accuracy and minuteness of her monastic chronicles. {282} His narrative, partly owing to the nature of his subject, and

## partly to his own genius, is like the _Scottish Chiefs_ and

the _Waverley Novels_. The most striking, original, and grand of all the characters depicted by him in that part of the _Monks of the West_ which is devoted to Ireland, is St. Columba or Columbkill. This great man, who was by birth heir to the dignity of Ard-righ, or chief king of Ireland, the founder of Iona, and the apostle of Scotland, is the favorite saint of the Irish people after St. Patrick. He is a more thoroughly Irish saint than the great apostle of Ireland, who was the father and founder of the Irish people as a Christian nation, but was himself, probably, by birth and extraction a Gallo-Roman. A warrior, a poet, a chieftain, a monk, a statesman, an apostle, and, it is supposed, a prophet; the most intensely devoted and patriotic lover of his native island, perhaps, that ever lived; and yet sentenced by his stern old hermit confessor to perpetual banishment from it; the life of Columba overflows with all the materials of the most romantic and heroic interest.

The Life of Columba, whose title is placed at the head of this notice, is, as we have implied already, a monograph extracted from the great work on the _Monks of the West_, by Montalembert. It is a small book of only 170 duo-decimo pages, and therefore readable by almost everybody who ever reads anything better than newspapers and dime novels. It is, above all others, a book for every one, young or old, who has Celtic-Catholic blood in his veins. It is time now to use that English language which was forced by the haughty conqueror upon the Irish people, from a cruel motive which God has overruled for their glory and his own, as the means of diffusing the treasures hidden hitherto, so to speak, under a _cromlech_. Those who put this unwilling people into a compulsory course of English, little thought what a keen-edged weapon they were placing in their hands, and training them to use. They could not foresee what use would be made of it by Curran, O'Connell, Thomas Moore, Bishop Doyle, and Father Meehan. The possession of the English language places the Irish people in communication with the whole civilized world, without depriving them of their rich patrimony of traditional lore, legend, and song. It is incumbent on all who love the faith, and sympathize with the wrongs and hardships, of the Irish people, to strain every nerve to increase the number and diffuse the circulation of books, in which this religious and patriotic tradition may be perpetuated. Wherever the Irish people are, in Ireland, England, America, Australia, they are deriving their intellectual nutriment more and more from English books; and thus, in proportion as they become readers, are coming under the influence of writers who write in the English language. It is most important, therefore, for those who are charged with the responsibility of watching over their religious, moral, and intellectual culture, to see to it that their minds are not flooded with an excess of purely secular literature, which has in it no mixture of the Catholic tradition. The greatest danger and misfortune of our rising generation of Catholics in America is the lack of this tradition in historical, poetic, and romantic literature. Even those who are the descendants of parents and progenitors of the old Catholic stock, must necessarily lose by degrees all vivid sentiment of any other nationality than the American, and be more influenced by the _genius loci_ than by any other genius, whether Celtic or Teutonic. The danger to be guarded against is a peril of becoming so much Americanized as to be reduced to a _caput mortuum_ in the process. An American citizen, without faith and religion, even though he may be born and live in Boston, is involved in the consequences of original sin as well as others. It is no gain to transform a poor, simple, believing, fervent Catholic immigrant, in the second or third generation, into an intelligent, well fed, healthy animal, with a comfortable farm and the elective franchise, but with no more soul than the man with the muck-rake in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, or those dirty heathen in the suburbs of the holy city of New York, who spend their Sundays in weeding cabbages. {283} This deleterious change must be prevented, not only, by purely spiritual means, but also by preserving and fostering as much as possible the natural bonds which connect our youth of Catholic origin with the traditions of their ancestry. Hence, we are in favor of multiplying and circulating as much as possible those books which relate the history of the Catholic Church of Ireland, of her saints and prelates, her gallant chieftains and noble martyrs, her sufferings and persecutions. The English Catholic tradition, and the Scottish, are unfortunately broken. A dreary gap of three centuries intervenes between the present and the Catholic past; but in Ireland the continuity is perfect from the fifth century to the present moment. This is the great artery of life to the Catholic Church of the British empire and its colonies, and it must not be severed. There is an intense sympathy between the people of the United States and the people of Ireland. This is chiefly a sympathy with their oppressed condition as a people, and with their just demands for expiation and redress for the wrongs they have suffered from the hands of the British government. It would be prudent for the gentlemen of the English parliament to take note of this, and to be wise in time, by conceding all those rights and privileges at once with a good grace, which Ireland is sure to obtain sooner or later, whether parliament is willing or unwilling. This merely political sympathy will, we trust, prepare the way for a higher and holier sympathy with the faith, the constancy, the invincible fortitude of the Irish people as a Catholic nation, the Spartans of a sacred Thermopylae, who have immolated themselves to save the faith. It is time that the American public should learn what is the _Irish Version of the History of the Reformation_. This presupposes a previous knowledge of the first planting and cultivation of Christianity. When it is seen that the Irish fought and died for the very same religion which was planted among them by their first apostles, it will be easy to judge of the claims which the religion of Elizabeth and Cromwell had upon their submission. The labors of Montalembert are therefore invaluable, as bringing to light the hidden treasures of Irish ecclesiastical history, and in all his great work there is no chapter to be found more charming than the biography of the great patriarch of Iona. We conclude with the eulogium which Fintan, a contemporary monk, pronounced upon St. Columba in an assembly of wise and learned men, and which is justified by the history of his life. "Columba is not to be compared with philosophers and learned men, but with patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The Holy Spirit reigns in him; he has been chosen by God for the good of all; he is a sage among all sages, a king among kings, an anchorite with anchorites, a monk of monks; and in order to bring himself to the level even of laymen, he knows how to be poor of heart among the poor; thanks to the apostolic charity which inspires him, he can rejoice with the joyful, and weep with the unfortunate. And amid all the gifts which God's generosity has lavished on him, the true humility of Christ is so royally rooted in his soul that it seems to have been born with him."

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Ecce Homo. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. Strahan & Co., London. G. Routledge & Sons, 416 Broome street, New York. 1868.

On the day of writing this notice, Mr. Gladstone is introducing his motion for overthrowing that monstrous iniquity, the Irish Establishment. We feel, consequently, especially well-disposed toward him. Nevertheless, with all our respect for his talents and character, we cannot help being reminded of his illustrious countryman, that great ornament of the sea-faring profession. Captain Bunsby. Our English brethren, when they take up solid topics, appear to think laborious dulness and tedious obscurity the evidence of deep learning and sound judgment. Their essays are like those of collegians, who affect to write on political or philosophical subjects in an extremely old-mannish, old-cabinet-minister-like style. {284} This is remarkably the case with the venerable university dons who advocate rationalistic opinions. The style of arguing adopted by these worthy and dignified gentlemen bears a striking resemblance to the movements of one who is carefully wending his way among eggs. As an instance, we may cite the _Essays and Reviews_, perhaps the dullest book ever written, unless the _Treatises on Sacred Arithmetic and Mensuration_, by Dr. Colenso, may be thought worthy to compete for the prize. The _Ecce Homo_ is not to be placed in precisely the same category. It is, nevertheless, in our humble opinion, a very vague, wearisome, and unsatisfactory book. We cannot account for its popularity in any other way than by ascribing it to the restless, sceptical, misty state of the English mind on religious subjects; the uneasy desire to find out something more than it knows about Christianity and its author. After eighteen centuries have rolled by, the question. Who is Jesus Christ? still remains a puzzle to all those who will not submit to learn from the teacher commissioned by himself. The author of _Ecce Homo_ has endeavored to throw himself back to the time and into the period of the disciples of Christ, to examine with their eyes his words and actions, and from these to abstract a mental conception of his true character. What that conception is, remains as much a puzzle as the gospels themselves are to a rationalist, or the Exodus to Dr. Colenso. The language of _Ecce Homo_ is certainly irreconcilable with the definitions of the Catholic Church respecting the divine personality of Christ. Some of its statements respecting the nature of the work accomplished by him on the earth, and the evidence thereby furnished of his divine mission, are forcible and valuable, and perhaps to rationalists, Unitarians, and doubters, the work may be useful. No one, however, who understands Catholic theology, and believes in the true doctrine of the Incarnation, can read it without a strong sentiment of repugnance and dissatisfaction. Mr. Gladstone, nevertheless, although professing to accept the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation, undertakes the defence of the book, and even apologises for its most offensive passages. By doing this he shows that he himself does not grasp the full meaning of the formulas to which he gives his assent; and although he is not a rationalist, yet, from perpetual contact with them, and the influence of that halting, inconsequent state of mind produced by Anglicanism, he has acquired something of that dark-lantern style of which we have spoken above. There are gleams of light and passages of beauty here and there, especially on those pages where the author treats of the Greek Mythology as an imperfect effort to realize the idea of Deity incarnate in human form. As a whole, the essay, which is a mere review of another book, was well enough for a magazine article, but not of sufficient importance to warrant its publication in book form. Every person who acknowledges the true divinity of Jesus Christ while rejecting the authority of the Catholic Church, stands in a position logically absurd, and is therefore incapable of adequately advocating the cause of Christ and Christianity against the infidelity of the age. No one but a Catholic, endowed with genius, and fully imbued with the spirit of Catholic theology, can ever write in a satisfactory manner upon the Life of Christ, so as to meet that demand which causes the abortive efforts of unbelievers and half-Christians to find such an extensive circulation.

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On the Heights. A Novel. By Berthold Auerbach. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.

This volume, professing to be a translation from the German, is most thoroughly permeated with German _mysticism_; one can hardly give it the dignified name of theology. It carries one back in its bewildering metaphysics to the days of _The Dial_, when every girl of eighteen belonging to a certain clique, was devouring Bettina's correspondence with Goethe, and listening with rapt soul to lectures on "Human Life," from the oracular lips of a favorite seer; discourses utterly beyond the comprehension of the maiden's papa, but which she understood perfectly.

{285}

We are led to wonder, in our republican ignorance, if people in court life converse and act in the stilted, theatrical manner in which they are here represented; every person being what in these days would be called "highly organized." In this particular, and in the tedium and repetition of court detail, we were forcibly reminded of the voluminous works of Miss Mühlbach, with this difference, that _On the Heights_ makes no historical claim.

There are, however, very many sweet touches of nature in the book, gems of thought; and now and then a rare pearl of good counsel, near which, in reading, one involuntarily draws a pencil-line, that they may be found again. Maternal love is beautifully portrayed, both in high and low life, in the queen, and in the foster-mother of the prince.

The author evidently, knows but little of the Catholic faith, and less of its results, since the life of the _religieuse_ is continually referred to (with a slight sneer) as "_a life in which nothing happens_."

We close this volume with a sensation of weary sadness; there seems to run through its pages "the cry of that deep-rooted pain, under which, thoughtful men are languishing," like the distant tones of an AEolian harp wafted on the night breezes. There is a reaching forth in these mystic yearnings for the good, the true, and the _enduring_, which the priceless gift of faith alone brings to the weary and heavy-laden, in submission to God's appointed teacher, the church.

The mechanical execution of the work is excellent, the type clear, and the double-columed pages furnish a vast amount of reading in a small compass.

------

Chemical Change in the Eucharist. From the French of Jacques Abbadie. By John W. Hamersley, A.M.

Jacques Abbadie was born in Switzerland, in 1654; "studied at Saumur," writes Mr. Hamersley in his preface, "was doctorated at Sedan, and installed pastor of the French (Huguenot) Church of Berlin, at the instance of Count d'Espence."

He left his pastorate, became chaplain to Marshal Schomberg, and came to England with William of Orange in 1688. After Schomberg's death, in the battle of the Boyne, Abbadie was presented to the deanery of Killaloo, in Ireland, where he died in 1727.

His book against transubstantiation in the Eucharist, is such as might be expected from the literary leisure, taste, learning, and piety of one of Schomberg's exemplary camp-followers. We read the book with the hope of finding some objection in it worth a refutation; but we have found nothing but the stale, oft-refuted arguments of Protestants against the real presence. Led by the title of the work, _Chemical Change in the Eucharist_, we expected to meet some profound chemical discoveries that should at least seem to contradict Catholic belief. But there is not one. There is not even an allusion which would show the author to be conversant with chemistry or any of the natural sciences. Abbadie argues against the Catholic exegesis of the sixth chapter of St. John, and against the words of consecration, "This is my body," in the usual Protestant way. He insists that Christ's words are to be taken figuratively; while Catholics claim that they are to be taken literally.

One general answer will do for all heterodox interpretations of Scripture on this and on other points. If Protestants urge that private reason is the supreme judge of Scripture, how can they deny to Catholics the right to use it? And if the private judgment of Catholics finds that Christ spoke of a real presence in the Holy Eucharist, and that his words are to be taken in their plain, literal signification, why should Protestants object? In point of fact, Catholics do admit private judgment, properly understood, in the interpretation of Scripture. They affirm that the interpretation of the church or of the fathers is identical with the rational exegesis. {286} The interpretation of Protestants is _not_ a rational interpretation, and does not give the true sense of Scripture. They misinterpret the Scriptures by an _abuse_ of private judgment. They gratuitously assume that Catholic interpretation is contrary to the rational sense of the Bible; while Catholics hold that their interpretation alone is rational. As a prudent, sensible man, when he meets with a difficult passage in Homer or Sophocles, consults the best commentators to aid him in discovering the true sense; so, for a much greater reason, should a Christian seek an authoritative explanation of those hard passages of Holy Writ "which the unstable and unlearned wrest to their own destruction." One who denies that there are difficult texts in Scripture can never have read it. From the first text of Genesis to the last in the Apocalypse, the Scripture is replete with difficulties, which even the most learned commentators do not always succeed in explaining.

All Abbadie's scriptural arguments against the real presence may be, therefore, met with one remark. He explains certain texts in a figurative sense. Catholics, however, interpret them to mean what they plainly and literally express. Catholics do not need in this case to appeal to the authority of the church or to the fathers. Christ says, "This is my body;" Catholics believe him. Christ says, "My flesh is meat indeed;" Catholics believe his words. Abbadie and his sect admit that Christ says, "This is my body;" that he affirms his flesh to be meat indeed; yet they will not believe him. Who authorizes them to contradict the express words of Christ? We ask _impartial_ reason to judge between Catholic and Protestant in this controversy.

But where Abbadie shows his complete ignorance of the first elements of the higher sciences is in "Letter Fourth" of his book, p. 98. We quote from Mr. Hamersley's translation. "_All our ideas of faith rely solely on sense;_ and their value to us is measured by its certainty; and to faith, which is a conviction of divine truth, there are four essentials: God exists; he is truthful; he has revealed himself; each mystery of our faith appears in such revelation. Sir--it is noteworthy--that the _senses are the sole channels of all those truths, and their_ SOLE _vouchers_." Again, "Thus the _senses are the media of all evidence_." (P. 99.) The materialism of d'Holbach, Cabanis, Helvetius, and Condillac is identical with this doctrine of the doughty dean of Killaloo. If the senses "_are the sole channels of truth_," instead of being the mere occasions of reflection, then the whole order of intelligible ideas, the ideas of God, spirit, and cause, are illusions. The senses can only tell us the sensible or phenomenal. Now, as the ideas of God, cause, spirit, truth, justice, goodness, substance, etc., are all supersensible, they cannot come from the senses. If the senses "_are the media of all evidence_," the only things we can know are modes or phenomena, colors, forms, sounds, etc. The senses tell us nothing more. We must, therefore, deny the existence of God, of truth, of goodness, cause, substance, etc.; and turn atheists, pantheists, sceptics, or materialists, as all who logically follow out Abbadie's or Locke's metaphysics really become. The philosophy of the warlike chaplain of Schomberg's army is thus shown to be essentially immoral.

Did Mr. Hamersley know this when he translated the book? We think not, for he is evidently too innocent of logic and too ignorant of truth to be able to understand fully even the arguments of the superficial dean of Killaloo.

We shall make good our assertion by quoting a few of Mr. Hamersley's own references: "In 1845, the pope made the Immaculate Conception a part of the Roman creed and a condition of salvation." (P. 113.) The gentleman probably was thinking of the pope's decree of 1852.

"A.D. 597, Gregory I. instructs St. Augustine to accommodate the ceremonies of the church to heathen rites." (P. 125.).

"The Maronites, _originally Monothelites_, protected by the Emperor Heraclius, are now incorporated in the church of Rome." (P. 126.)

{287}

"A.D. 1295, Boniface VIII. confines ex-pope Celestine V. in _a cell about the size of his body_, lest he may elect to resume the pontificate he has resigned--guards him night and day with 6 knights and 30 soldiers. Celestine dies of cruelty." (P. 129.)

"Gregory VII. threatens to anathematize all France, unless King Philip _abandons simony_. (P. 135.) This was one of Gregory's _crimes_ in the judgment of Mr. Hamersley.

"Alexander VI. (Borgia) is elected pope--his Holiness is forthwith _adored by the cardinals_:" (P. 143.) What idolatry!

"_Penance--a sacrament by which venial sins, committed after baptism, are forgiven._" (P. 146.)

"The Nestorians were excommunicated A.D. 431, for holding, among other views, two natures of Christ."

"The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, confirmed the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, which the church had repudiated." (P. 148.)

As instances of schisms in the church, the _learned_ translator cites the following: "Dominicans and Franciscans--on immaculate conception." "Thomists and Scotists--efficacy of grace and immaculate conception." "Jesuits and Jansenists--on the doctrine of grace." (P. 150.)

"Dec. 17, 1866, the _leading Romanists of the Council of Baltimore_ invite the pope by letter to visit the United States." (P. 157.)

"Jesuit pestilence." (P. 159.) "_Plague-spots--Roman Catholic churches and institutions_." (P. 160.) This is a good instance of Mr. Hamersley's rhetoric.

"The Papal Church in the United States _has recently adopted the title of Roman Catholic_." Evidence: "It appears in large iron gilt letters over the gate of the asylum in Fifth avenue, New York--_Roman Catholic Male Orphan Asylum_." (P. 160.) _This is one of the plague-spots_!

These are but a few of the literary beauties to be found in Mr. Hamersley's additions to Abbadie. A Catholic could afford to smile at both the original and his translator, if, unfortunately, there were not found many persons so credulous as to believe their falsehoods. The original work of Abbadie is tolerable. He attempts to argue; and we have no doubt his military logic was satisfactory enough to the square-headed soldiers of Schomberg's army. Besides, when Abbadie wrote, civilization had not arrived at such a degree of progress as it has now attained. But Mr. Hamersley writes his falsehoods _now_. His ignorance and fanaticism, of which we have culled but a few of the many instances in his book, _are of our own day_. We cannot understand why he should repeat them, since there is hardly any moderately educated Protestant who does not know that most of his allegations are false. If there be any so dull or fanatical as to believe them, we feel for them more of pity than contempt.

In conclusion, we regret that the translator does not show as much good sense or taste in choosing the subject as the publishers manifest in the binding and printing of the work. We are sorry to see such fine print wasted on a bad, worthless book. Mr. Hamersley could have found nobler themes in foreign literature, even though they might be the productions of Protestants, to exercise those talents as a translator which he has failed to show as a lover of truth, a logician, or a man of good sense.

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Life in the West; or, Stories of the Mississippi Valley. By N. C. Meeker, Agricultural Editor of the New York _Tribune_. New York: Samuel R. Wells.

"A long residence in the Mississippi Valley, frequent journeys through its whole extent, and years of service as the Illinois correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, have furnished the materials for the following stories." Hence, it is almost unnecessary to state that their claim to our careful consideration rests upon something more substantial than the fact of their being pleasingly told, varied in incident, and unobjectionable in tone. Their real worth, and it is not slight, arises from this, that they are made the agreeable medium of conveying much valuable information concerning "life in the West;" no less the hardships unavoidably to be endured by the emigrant, the difficulties to be overcome, and the dangers to be encountered, than his almost assured ultimate triumph.

{288}

Of general interest, but designed especially for those intending to emigrate, is the appendix, containing a brief description of the soil, climate, products, area, and population of each State and territory lying in the great Valley of the Mississippi; and also the locations of the several land-offices where application must be made and all needful information can be obtained.

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Mozart: A Biographical Romance. From the German of Heribert Rau. By E. R. Sill. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1868.

A poor translation of a frothy production. On the first page, the child, Mozart, is called a "three-years-old son." Mr. Sill evidently does not know that a three-year-old is English for colts and heifers. Mozart's sister is also denominated a "seven-years-old." The writer, if Mr. Sill has translated him correctly, is exceedingly ignorant, or worse. On page 54 we read: "They sought the pope's chair," (that is, the worshippers crowding to St. Peter's for the services on Maundy-Thursday,) "partly because it was the fashion, partly because they wanted to be on hand to see everybody else do it, and partly because, to an Italian, a hundred days' absolution in advance is always a pleasant and convenient thing to have." The recitation of the Tenebrae, in the evening, is called, on page 58, "the performance of Mass." Would it not be well for our enterprising publishers in this enlightened country, to employ a proof-reader who has received a passable education?

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The Great Day; or, Motives and Means of Perseverance after First Communion. Translated from the French by Mrs. J. Sadlier. New York, 1868.

A pretty and good little volume, intended for a gift to children, as a memento of the happy day of their first communion. We have only one criticism to make, which is, that its tone of thought is too foreign. We wish that the accomplished translator had made use of the original French only, as matter from which to compile a delightful little book under this title, (a task which she could so admirably perform,) suitable, in the freshness of its thought, to the minds of American children. In lieu, however, of the wished-for better book of Mrs. Sadlier's, we heartily recommend this present volume to the attention of all pastors, parents, and superintendents of Sunday-schools, who will find in it, we are sure, just what very many of them have long desired to procure as a worthy memento for "The Great Day."

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Tales from the Diary of a Sister of Mercy. By C. M. Brame. New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1868.

We all remember _Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician_, by Dr. Warren, and the intense interest everybody felt in these sketches of the tragic scenes with which the persons whose profession leads them among the sick, the suffering, and the dying are familiar. This book is on a similar plan, and is composed of graphic descriptions of what a Sister of Mercy may be supposed to see and observe in her charitable ministrations. The light of the Catholic religion thrown in among these painful, tragic scenes, relieves their shadows, and leaves a more healthful impression on the mind; in short, becoming their pathetic effect. Those who love sensation stories will find their taste gratified in this volume, and, at the same time, may be able to derive from it some good moral and religious lessons.

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We regret that a notice of _The First Report of the Catholic Sunday-School Union_ was crowded out of the columns of this number. It will appear in our next.--Ed. C. W.

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The Catholic World.

Vol. VII., No. 39.--June, 1868.

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Edmund Campion.

In the spring of 1580, Elizabeth being then queen of Great Britain, and England being in the midst of the turmoil which accompanied the final establishment of Protestantism as the religion of the realm, two expeditions set out from Rome, to restore the faith in the British isles. One consisted of two thousand armed soldiers, enlisted as a sort of crusaders, and animated by the papal blessing and the promise of indulgences, not to speak of the visions of worldly glory and profit which even soldiers who fight under consecrated banners are apt to find alluring. The other was composed of less than a score of missionaries, Jesuits, secular priests, and others, whose most enticing prospect was one of martyrdom. The soldiers were to land in Ireland and help the rebellion of the Geraldines. The missionaries were to penetrate in disguise into England, and exercise the ministry of the proscribed and persecuted faith in the secrecy of private houses and hidden chambers.

Looking at the history of those times in the light of subsequent experience, it seems hard to account for the policy which could imperil not only the lives of the missionaries, but the cause of the church, by complicating the peaceful embassy of the priests with the mission of war and insurrection. For it was no secret that the troops came from Rome, and that large subsidies from the Roman treasury were sent with them. Associated with them, too, went an eminent ecclesiastic. Dr. Saunders, with the functions of a legate. We must remember, however, that the accession of Elizabeth had never been popularly acquiesced in. Her legitimacy had never been generally acknowledged. Her reign thus far had been a series of rebellions. The party which opposed her had a fair title to the character of belligerents, and the continental powers which espoused their cause were only doing what, by the customs of the age, they had a perfect right to do. The pope had issued a bull, excommunicating the queen, absolving her subjects from their oath of allegiance, and even forbidding them to obey her; and although he had afterward so far modified the bull as to permit the English people to recognize her authority, _rebus sic stantibus_, "while things remained as they were," he had never ceased, in conjunction with other European powers, to promote attempts in Ireland and elsewhere to overthrow her and place the Queen of Scots upon the throne. {290} At this distance of time, with a line of successors to ratify Elizabeth's title to the crown, and the fact of their failure arguing against the insurgents, it is easy to condemn the papal policy; but we must remember that affairs bore a different aspect then; that Elizabeth's right to the throne was open to question; and that the Catholic faith which she was striving to suppress was still the faith of a large majority of the English people.

We have little to do, however, with this Irish expedition. It was a miserable failure, and its only effect was, to aggravate the sufferings of the Catholics and expose the missionaries to increased danger. Our purpose in this article is rather to trace the history of the more peaceful and strictly religious embassy, so far as it bore upon the life of the illustrious martyr from whom it derives its chief renown.

Edmund Campion, [Footnote 55] the son of a London bookseller, was born on the 25th of January, 1539, (O. S.,) the year which witnessed the commencement of the English persecution, of which he was destined to be a victim, and the solemn approval of the Society of Jesus, of which he was to be the first English martyr. At St. John's College, Oxford, where he was educated and obtained a fellowship, he was so much admired for his gift of speech and grace of eloquence, that young men imitated not only his phrases but his gait, and revered him as a second Cicero. It was the year after he obtained his fellowship that Queen Mary died and Elizabeth succeeded to the throne. The new sovereign allowed but a few weeks to pass before she manifested her preference for the Protestant doctrines; yet there was no attempt at first to force the heresy upon the university of Oxford, her Majesty wisely trusting to the insidious influences of time, persuasion, and high example to bring the students and professors over to her views. It is no great wonder, perhaps, that Campion, intoxicated by the incense of adulation and enervated by the worldly comfort of his position, shut his eyes to the dreadful gulf of heresy into which the English Church was drifting, and seemed hardly to realize the necessity which was being forced upon him of choosing between God and the queen. He was not required for some years to take any oath at variance with his fidelity to the church. So he gave up the study of theology, to which he had hitherto devoted himself, and applied his mind to secular learning. He was a layman, and controversy might be left to the priests. When he took his degree in 1564, he was induced to subscribe to the oath against the pope's supremacy, and by the statutes of his college he was also compelled to resume the study of divinity; yet he still managed to stave off important questions and to confine his reading to the old settled dogmas which had no direct bearing upon the questions of the day.

[Footnote 55: _Edmund Campion: A Biography_. By Richard Simpson. 8vo, pp. 387. London: Williams & Norgate. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.]

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The time came, at last, when the theological neutral ground had been thoroughly explored, and Campion turned to the Fathers. In their venerable company he seemed to grow more thoughtful and conscientious. The problem of his life now was not how he could postpone serious considerations, and shake off religious responsibility, but how he could reconcile true principles with false practice; how he could remain in the Established Church of England, and yet hold to all the old Catholic doctrines which the Establishment denied. His position, in fact, was almost identical with that of the modern Tractarians, and his college at Oxford was the home of a party which entertained nearly the same opinions. There was one of the Elizabethan bishops, Cheney of Gloucester, who, having retained a good deal of the orthodox faith, sympathized heartily with Campion's aspirations and perplexities. He was the actual founder of the school represented in later times by Newman and Pusey, and he had fixed upon Campion to continue and perfect the work after he himself had passed away. The bishop persuaded our young scholar to take deacons' orders, so that he might preach and obtain preferment. But the effect of this step upon Campion was such as Cheney little anticipated. Almost immediately troubles beset his mind. He found his new dignity odious and abominable. The idea of preferment became hateful to him. He wished rather to live as a simple layman, and in 1569 he resigned his appointments at the university and went to Dublin, where it seemed that a more agreeable career awaited him. A project was then afoot for restoring the old Dublin university founded by Pope John XXI., but for some years extinct. The principal mover in the matter was the Recorder of Dublin and Speaker of the House of Commons, James Stanihurst, a zealous Catholic, and the father of one of Campion's pupils. In his house Campion received a generous welcome, and there he remained for a while, leading a kind of monastic life, and waiting for the opening of the new seminary, in which he hoped to find congenial employment. The scheme fell through, however, and the chief cause of its failure was the secret hostility of the government to Stanihurst, and the Lord-Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, who were most actively concerned in it, and to Campion, who was to have the principal share in its direction. Campion was not yet reconciled to the church, but he was already distrusted as a papist, and only saved from arrest by the protection of Sidney. Such protection, however, could not avail him long. The rebellion of some of the English Catholic nobles, the publication of the pope's bull against Elizabeth which Felton had posted on the Bishop of London's gates, and the designs of the king of Spain upon Ireland, had roused a persecution, and Campion was one of those especially designated to be arrested. The Lord-Deputy found means to warn him a few hours before the officers arrived, and he saved himself by flight. For two or three months he dodged the pursuivants about Ireland, lurking in the houses of his friends, and working, in the intervals of the pursuit, at a _History of Ireland_, which he had begun while lodging with Stanihurst. At last, seeing that he must soon be captured if he remained on the island, and fearing to compromise the friends who gave him shelter, he resolved to return to England, and accordingly, in the disguise of a lackey, took ship at the little port of Tredagh, near Dublin. The officers came on board to search for him, and questioned everybody on the vessel except the fugitive himself. They seized the manuscripts of his history, and then went away, cursing "the seditious villain Campion." He reached England in time to witness the trial of Dr. Storey, who was executed for the faith in June, 1571. {292} We are told nothing of the progress of his conversion after he left Oxford, but by this time it was complete, and he had resolved to repair to the English college at Douai, there to fit himself for more effective labors in the Catholic cause. In mid-channel the ship in which he had taken passage was overhauled by an English frigate, and Campion, having no passport, and being, moreover, suspected and denounced by his fellow-passengers as a papist, was taken off and carried back to Dover. The captain appropriated all his prisoner's money, and then set out to conduct him to London. It was soon evident, however, that the officer cared more for the purse than the captive; and without a word being said on either side, Campion understood that he might run away provided he said nothing about the money. This was enough. He escaped in one direction while his guard pretended to pursue him in another; and having obtained a fresh supply of money from some of his friends, succeeded at last in making his escape over to France.

He staid long enough at Douai to complete his course of scholastic theology and to be ordained sub-deacon. After the lapse of a little more than a year, he resolved to go to Rome with the purpose of becoming a Jesuit. His biographers generally attribute this determination to the remorse which he still felt on account of his Anglican deaconship; but Mr. Simpson is inclined to lay rather more stress upon a disagreement between Campion and Dr. Allen, the president of Douai College, upon political questions. The friendly and even affectionate relations of these two eminent men were never interrupted; but Dr. Allen had many opinions which his disciple could not share. Campion, devoted as he was to the church and the Holy See, was always loyally obedient to the civil powers of his native country, save when the laws were in conflict with his conscience. Allen, who had been many years in exile, was a devoted servant of Philip of Spain, and was thick in the plots for the overthrow of Elizabeth and the various schemes for foreign invasion. It is not impossible that a divergence of sentiment on some such point as this may have influenced Campion's decision, if not wholly, at least in part. However it was, the two friends bade each other an affectionate farewell, and the future martyr, in the guise of a poor pilgrim, set out afoot for Rome. In shabby garments, dusty and footsore, he entered the holy city in the autumn of 1572, only a few days before the death of St. Francis Borgia, third general of the Society of Jesus. A successor to the saint was not chosen until April, 1573, and meanwhile Campion had to wait. He was the first postulant admitted by the new general. Father Mercurianus, and soon afterward he was sent to Brünn in Moravia to pass his novitiate. In a letter which he wrote to his brethren there, after he had taken his vows, we find a pleasing picture of the humble and happy life which he spent in that retreat. "O dear walls!" he exclaims, "that once shut me up in your company! Pleasant recreation-room, where we talked so holily! Glorious kitchen, where the best friends--John and Charles, the two Stephens, Sallitzi, Finnit and George, Tobias and Gaspar--fight for the saucepans in holy humility and charity unfeigned! How often do I picture to myself one returning with his load from the farm, another from the market; one sweating stalwartly and merrily under a sack of rubbish, another under some other toil! ... {293} I have been about a year in religion, in the world thirty-five; what a happy change if I could say I had been a year in the world, in religion thirty-five!" There is something very touching and instructive in the record of his first years in the Society of Jesus; and the chroniclers of his order, who reckon it among the chief glories of the brotherhood in Bohemia that the English martyr received his religious training among them, and taught them at the same time by his illustrious example, have set down that record with careful and affectionate minuteness. How the man whom Oxford had revered as a guide was content in a moment to become the humblest of pupils; how he by whom the young nobility of England had set the fashion of their thought, their reading, their elocution, their very walk and manner, was happy in the privilege of being allowed to put on a dirty apron, roll up his sleeves, and scour saucepans in the scullery--these are the chief points in the story of his life at Brünn, and afterward at Prague, whither he was sent to teach rhetoric. It is a strange life to read about, yet it probably differed little from the ordinary life of his brethren in religion, and hundreds of Jesuit houses to-day exhibit no doubt the same model of industry, devotedness, and humility. For a certain number of hours daily he was in the class-room; when his pupils went to play, he went to wash dishes in the kitchen. He was called upon for poems, orations, and sacred dramas, to celebrate the college festivals; for funeral discourses on the death of great persons. He taught catechism to the children; he visited the hospitals and prisons; he preached; he heard confessions; he spent incredible pains in preparing the young Jesuits for the work of disputing successfully with heretics when they should be sent out to their various fields of duty. His brethren were amazed that any one man should have strength to carry so many burdens. He seems, however, to have borne up well under them. "About myself," he writes to Father Parsons, "I would only have you know that from the day I arrived here I have been extremely well--in a perpetual bloom of health, and that I was never at any age less upset by literary work than now, when I work hardest. We know the reason. But, indeed, I have no time to be sick, if any illness wanted to take me." It was while Campion was thus occupied at Prague, that Sir Philip Sidney, who had known him at Oxford, came over from England as ambassador. The young nobleman had many an interview with his old friend, and seems to have awakened in Campion a strong hope of his conversion--a prospect to which his friends and political associates were by no means blind; for they watched him so closely that the interviews between the ambassador and the Jesuit were not managed without a great deal of difficulty. Campion writes to one John Bavand, commending "this young man, so wonderfully beloved and admired by his countrymen," to the earnest prayers of all good Catholics. He saw what an effect upon the faith in England the conversion of a nobleman of Sidney's brilliant parts and distinguished position must have, and the re-establishment of the faith in his native island was something which he had especially at heart. His letters are full of anxiety on this score. He speaks of catching and subduing his recreant countrymen "by the prayers and tears at which they laugh;" but we find no political allusions, and it is plain enough that, in the various schemes for Catholic insurrections and for foreign invasions, he had neither share nor heart. {294} He had been between five and six years at Prague when he was summoned to Rome to take part in the mission about to be sent forth for the conversion of England. The little band of heroes comprised Dr. Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, who had long been residing on the continent, several English secular priests, old men who had been in exile, and young men fresh from their studies, a few zealous laymen, and three Jesuits, Campion, Parsons, and a lay brother named Ralph Emerson. To assist them in their labors, collect alms for them, and find safe hiding-places, a Catholic Association had just been organized in England by George Gilbert, a young man of property, whom Father Parsons had converted in Rome the preceding year. The Jesuits were furnished with a paper of instructions for their guidance.

Father Parsons was a younger man than Campion, and had been a shorter time than he in the Society; yet there were good reasons why he should be appointed the superior in the mission. He was not only zealous and devout, but he had a good knowledge of men and affairs, he was well versed in the ways of cities; he was adroit, versatile, and prudent; and he was somewhat familiar with the schemes of the pope and other Catholic powers against the government of Elizabeth. A knowledge of these secret designs would have been but a sorry safeguard had he fallen into the hands of the authorities of the crown, and the consciousness must have heightened his sense of the danger incurred in the expedition; but Parsons had all the courage of a martyr, though he did not win a martyr's crown. The party left Rome on the 18th of April, 1580, and were not more than fairly started on their journey when the English Secretary, Walsingham received from his spies a full description of them and a list of their names.

Passing through Geneva, they resolved to have an interview with Theodore Beza; and the account of it gives a curious picture of the state of society in those times, and of the manner in which theological controversy mingled with the ordinary affairs of life. The travellers made no secret of their religion, though they disguised their persons and calling. Campion dressed himself as an Irish servant, waiting on Mr. John Pascal, a lay gentleman of their party, and the only one who failed in the final day of trial. Sherwin, one of the secular priests, used to relate with uncontrollable merriment how naturally Campion played his part. Beza, under one pretext or another, got rid of them as politely as possible, and promised to send to their inn an English scholar of his, the son of Sir George Hastings. Instead of young Hastings, there came his governor, Mr. Brown, and a young Englishman named Powell, and we have a strange account of the priests disputing hotly in the streets of Geneva with the two Protestants until almost midnight, and challenging Beza to a public controversy, with the proviso that he who was justly convicted in the opinion of indifferent judges should be burned alive in the market-place! Powell had known Campion at Oxford, so the _soi-disant_ servant kept out of his sight, and when the former gentleman offered to accompany the missionaries a little way on their road next morning, Campion was sent forward in advance. But meeting on the road a minister studying his sermon, the temptation was too strong for the enthusiastic Jesuit, and he buckled with him at once. {295} The rest of the party came up while they were still at it, hammer and tongs, and Powell recognized Campion, and saluted him with great affection. After that, the missionaries made a pilgrimage of eight or nine miles over difficult paths to St. Clodovens in France, by way of penance for their curiosity.

We have said that Parsons was privy to some of the political expeditions against England; but he had no knowledge of the one which set out about the same time that he did, and the news, which he learned on his arrival at Rheims, filled him with dismay. The queen had issued a proclamation which plainly indicated a purpose to proceed against the Catholics with increased severity, and the peril of the undertaking had become greater than ever. It does not appear, however, that one of the company faltered. Dr. Goldwell had been obliged to turn back and defer his voyage--which, indeed, he never made at all; but others joined the mission, and among them was a fourth Jesuit, Father Thomas Cottam. At Rheims, the party broke up to find their way across to England by different routes. Campion, Parsons, and Brother Ralph Emerson were to go by way of St. Omer, Calais, and Dover. Parsons crossed first, disguised as a soldier returning from the Low Countries, and in his captain's uniform passed inspection so easily and was so well treated by the searcher at Dover that he bespoke that officer's courtesy for his friend, "Mr. Edmunds, a diamond-merchant," who was shortly to follow him. He reached London without trouble; but his dress was outlandish, and people were unusually fearful and suspicious, so he was turned away from the inns. He knew of a Catholic gentleman, however, who was held in the Marshalsea prison for his faith, and he applied to see him. Through him he was brought into communication with George Gilbert and the Catholic Association, who had apartments in the house of the chief pursuivant, where up to this time, thanks in part to the connivance of influential friends, they had managed to have a daily celebration of Mass.

Father Parsons had induced the friendly searcher at Dover to send over a letter for him to "Mr. Edmunds," at St. Omer, bidding him make haste to London with his diamonds, and Campion, as soon as he received it, set out with Brother Ralph. But, in the mean time, the English officers had grown more strict; the searcher had been reprimanded for letting certain persons pass who were supposed to be priests; and there was a report, moreover, that a brother of Dr. Allen was coming over, and his description agreed pretty well with Campion's appearance. The two Jesuits were accordingly arrested and taken before the mayor; but they were dismissed after a short detention, and the next day were welcomed by the association in London.

This pious club was such an admirable illustration of the truth that the salvation of souls is not the exclusive duty or privilege of the priesthood that we may spare a moment from our survey of Campion's life to glance at its history and character. The missionary career is open to all. Members of religious orders, secular priests, men of the world, soldiers, lawyers, shop-keepers, doctors, laborers, farmers, the beggars on the street, the fashionable lady in her carriage--we can all do something for the advancement of the great cause; and if we only knew how to systematize our efforts, how to economize our zeal, the Catholic Association of Campion's day is an evidence of the enormous service we might render to the church. {296} The founder of the association, George Gilbert, had been anxious, immediately after his conversion, to expend his first fervor in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but Father Parsons persuaded him rather to return to England and spend his money there in advancing the Catholic cause. He drew together a number of young men of his own rank in life and with somewhat of his own spirit. They hired rooms together; they bribed officers whose vigilance they could not elude; they gave shelter to priests; they furnished places for the celebration of Mass; they kept the Catholics in communication with each other; they supplied the missionaries with money; and they organized the tours which the priests made through the country. The Catholics were beset with spies, and the government held out strong inducements to weak brethren to betray their pastors. It was necessary, therefore, that the priests should be extremely cautious to whom they trusted themselves; and since they could not carry credentials, it was necessary, too, that the gentlemen who harbored them should be quite sure whom they were receiving. This perfect intelligence could only be obtained by a thorough organization of the Catholic gentry; and it was not the least part of the duty of the association to see that, whenever a priest travelled, some one should be with him as at once an endorser and a guide. It was their part, likewise, to undertake the preliminary work of converting heretics. In those fearful times a doubting Protestant could not be admitted to see a priest until he had given some evidence of the sincerity of his search after truth. The members of the club took him in hand first, and brought him to the priest when they felt it to be safe.

When Campion reached the asylum of their rooms in London, Parsons had already gone on a tour in the country, leaving word for his companion to await his return. There was a great desire among the Catholics who had learned of the arrival of the missionaries to hear the famous preacher with whose eloquence years ago Oxford had resounded, but it was no easy matter to find a place where he might speak in safety. At last, arrangements were made for a sermon in the servants' hall of a private house, and there, while trusty gentlemen watched all the avenues of approach, Campion delivered a discourse with which all the Catholic circles of London were soon ringing. The faithful and the wavering rushed to him in crowds. The government got wind of what was going on, and redoubled their exertions to entrap him. Several priests were captured, and many Catholics were thrown into prison. The danger of remaining in London soon became too pressing to be disregarded. So, after a council had been held, several questions of discipline settled, and each man's special work assigned, the priests all went away to different parts of the kingdom.

The pursuit was much hotter after Campion than after any of his brethren, and it was intensified by the imprudence of a Catholic layman who had allowed a document entrusted to his care by the missionary, to be made public. This was a paper drawn up by Campion on the eve of the separation of their little company, setting forth the reasons of their coming to England, and inviting the Protestants to a public conference. It was intended to be used only in case he should be arrested; but Thomas Pounde, to whom, for greater surety, he had given a copy, thought it too good to be kept entirely secret, and thus it soon came to the hands of the government. {297} This, of course, increased their anxiety to capture a man whom, by his personal influence, his eloquence, and his still brilliant reputation at Oxford, they felt to be especially dangerous. Proclamation followed proclamation; the pursuivants were unceasing in activity; spies were sent into every quarter of the kingdom; some of the Catholics themselves were corrupted; watchers were set about the houses of the principal Catholic gentlemen. Many a time was the Mass or the sermon interrupted by the coming of the officers and the priest compelled to take refuge in the woods. Once, when the pursuivants came upon him suddenly at the house of a private gentleman, a maid-servant, to make them think he was merely one of the retainers, affected to be angry with him and pushed him into a pond. The disguise was effectual, and the good father escaped.

All this while he was engaged in writing his famous book against the Protestants, known as the _Decem Rationes_. It was finished about Easter, 1581, and sent to London for the approval of Parsons, who had a private printing-press in a hidden place, whereat he had already published certain writings of his own. By great efforts a number of copies were got ready for the commencement at Oxford in June; and when the audience assembled at the exercises, they found the benches strewed with the books, to the reading of which they gave far more attention than to the performances of the students. The title-page bore the imprint of Douai, but the government was not long in ascertaining by the examination of experts that the work had been done in England.

Campion had gone to London while his book was passing through the press, to superintend the correction of the sheets; but the danger was now so imminent that Parsons ordered him away into Norfolk, in company with Brother Ralph Emerson. The two fathers rode out of the city together at daylight on the 12th of July, and, after an affectionate farewell, parted company, the one going to the north, the other back into the town.

The Judas who was to betray him, however, was on the alert. This was one George Eliot, formerly steward to Mr. Roper in Kent, and latterly a servant of the widow of Sir William Petre. He was a Catholic, but a man of bad character, and had been for some time a paid informer to the Earl of Leicester. How he knew of Campion's visit to Lyford is not certain; but he had been looking for him at several Catholic houses in the neighborhood, and on the 16th, armed with a warrant and attended by a pursuivant in disguise, he presented himself at the gate just as Mass was about to begin, and applied for admission. One of the servants knew him for a Catholic, but little suspected his real character; so with much ado he got leave to pass in, having first sent off the pursuivant to a magistrate for a _posse comitatus_. He heard the Mass, he heard Campion's sermon; but he was afraid to make the arrest until the magistrate arrived. As soon as the service was over, he hurried off. The company--comprising some sixty persons besides the members of the household--were at dinner when word was brought that the place was surrounded by armed men. After a long search, Campion and three other priests were found concealed in a closet, and taken prisoners.

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The prisoners were carried up to London and committed to the Tower, making their entrance into the city through the midst of a hooting mob, Campion leading the procession with his elbows tied behind him, his hands tied in front, his feet fastened under his horse's belly, and a placard on his hat, inscribed "_Campion, the seditious Jesuit_." The governor, Sir Owen Hopton, at first placed Campion in the narrow dungeon known as "Little-ease," in which one could neither stand nor lie at length. He remained there until the fourth day, when, with great secrecy, he was conducted to Leicester's house, and courteously received by the earl and several other persons of mark, and shortly found himself in the presence of the queen. He gave a truthful account of his motives in coming to England; he satisfied Elizabeth, as it would appear, of his loyalty; and could he have accepted the conditions proposed to him, he might have been dismissed with honors and riches. As it was, Hopton received orders to treat him more leniently. It was now the purpose of the government to coax him into compliance.

Failing to shake his constancy, the next thing was to destroy his reputation. It was given out that he was on the point of recanting; that he had betrayed his friends; that he had divulged the names of the gentlemen who harbored him. To give color to these charges, a great many Catholics were arrested, in consequence, it was said, of Campion's confession. For a while these infamous charges, fortified with plausible confirmation, were generally believed; but it was soon ascertained that the betrayal had been wrung from some of Campion's companions on the rack. To render the missionary contemptible, it was thought necessary to answer his challenge for a public disputation in some way or another, and a large number of the most eminent Anglican divines were appointed to meet him in a public hall and discuss the chief points of controversy. They had all the time they wanted to prepare, free access to libraries, and every possible favor. Campion was not informed of the arrangement until two hours before the assembly opened. Then, with his limbs still smarting from the torment of the rack, he was placed in the middle of the room, without books, without even a table to lean upon, with no assistance whatever, except the assistance of heaven. The dispute continued several days. It was distinguished, as might have been supposed, by gross unfairness and bad language on the part of the Protestants, while Campion conciliated all honest-minded listeners, not only by the acuteness of his answers, but by his mild and affectionate spirit. Though he had been educated to a familiarity with dialectics, and lived in a day when controversy was an almost universal passion, he was far from being a disputatious man, and the _odium theologicum_ had no place in his warm and tender heart. With all the advantage given to the Protestant side, it was evident that the Catholics were profiting by the conferences, and the government abruptly closed them. But it was too late. Campion's fame was restored; the slanders against him had been refuted; and the popular enthusiasm broke forth in ballads, of which Mr. Simpson gives a sample.

Nothing remained now but to try him for treason. It was first proposed to indict him for having on a certain day in Oxfordshire traitorously pretended to have power to absolve her majesty's subjects from their allegiance, and endeavored to attach them to the obedience of the pope and the faith of the Roman church; but this was too plainly a religious prosecution. {299} A plot was therefore forged, which it was pretended that Campion, Allen, Morton, Parsons, and fourteen priests and others then in custody, had concerted at Rome and Rheims to dethrone the queen and raise a civil war. On this charge Campion, Sherwin, Cottam, and five others, were arraigned at Westminster Hall on the 14th of November. When Campion was called upon, according to custom, to hold up his hands in pleading, his arms were so cruelly wounded by the rack that he could not lift them without assistance. The trial took place on the 20th. The principal witnesses for the crown were George Eliot and three hired wretches named Munday, Sledd, and Caddy, who pretended to have observed the meetings of the conspirators at Rome; but their testimony was so weak, and the answers of Campion so admirable, that when the jury retired it was generally believed in court that the verdict must be one of acquittal. Court and jury, however, had been bought beforehand. The prisoners were all found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Then Campion broke forth in a loud hymn of praise, "_Te Deum laudamus_" and Sherwin and others took up the song, until the multitude were visibly affected.

After he had been remanded to the Tower, the traitor Eliot came to his cell, and Campion received him so sweetly, forgiving his offence, and offering to provide for him an asylum with a Catholic noble in Germany, whither he might escape from the odium and danger which haunted him at home, that the keeper, who witnessed the interview was induced by it to become a Catholic. The few days which intervened between conviction and death were passed by the holy man in fasting and other mortifications. The execution was appointed for the 29th of November. Campion, Sherwin, and Briant were to suffer together. At the execution Campion was interrupted by a long dialogue respecting his alleged treason, and subjected to a great deal of questioning. Somebody asked him to pray for the queen. While he was doing so, the cart was drawn away, amid the tears and groans of the multitude, and his body left dangling in the air.

So ended the good fight. Sherwin and Briant met their fate with like joy and constancy, and many another good priest and devoted layman trod afterward in the same awful but glorious path. And as it has been since the days of St. Stephen, the blood of the martyrs proved the seed of the church. Henry Walpole estimated that no fewer than ten thousand persons were converted by the spectacle of Champion's death. That is probably an exaggeration; but it is certain that the execution had a marked effect upon the progress of the faith in England, and covered the Anglican clergy with an odium from which they were long in recovering.

Of the life by Mr. Simpson, upon which we have so freely drawn for the materials of this hasty sketch, we must not close without a word of praise. Written originally for a monthly periodical, and long interrupted by the failure of that publication, it lacks the neat finish and compactness which the author would probably have given it, had it been composed under more favorable circumstances. But it has evidently been prepared with great industry; it is written in a good style; and with a little judicious pruning and rearrangement, it will make one of the most interesting of modern religious biographies.

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{300}

The Catholic Sunday-School Union. [Footnote 56]

[Footnote 56: _First Report of the Catholic Sunday-School Union_, of the city of New York. January 1, 1868.]

Few of the evidences of the zealous spirit which is stirred up in these latter days, have given us more unfeigned pleasure than the information which this report conveys. The Sunday-School Union began as all Catholic works begin, has prospered thus far as they prosper, and will share in their triumph. A few earnest souls, observing how much more good could be accomplished in the catechism-classes if the exercises and methods of teaching were made more systematic and co-operative, met together, on the evening of July 9th, 1866, debated the subject, formed resolutions, went to work, and now the catechetical education of the 20,237 children reported from eighteen Sunday-schools of this city, (about one half of the whole number,) is practically under the control of this admirable association. The good fruits of their labors are already noticeable in the more regular attendance of the children, the conferences of teachers for mutual instruction and encouragement, the better regulated programme of exercises, and the increased interest manifested in the schools by all who are in any way connected with them.

The competent knowledge which our people, as a mass, have of their religion, of the dogmas of faith--knowledge which they are bound to have under pain of sin--and that other "knowledge unto salvation" which is shown in the faithful performance of their Christian duties, depends, as all know, upon the catechetical instruction they receive in youth. Priests may preach sermon after sermon, and each and every such discourse may be well calculated to enlighten the mind and move the heart; but as a rule, all sermons nowadays suppose the hearers to be already in possession of Christian principles, and disciplined to the practices of a Christian life. Sound and thorough catechetical instruction is, then, one of the primary duties of a pastor of souls. That each pastor should assume the whole of this labor to himself is simply impossible. Those of the laity who by their character and education are fitted to be his coadjutors in this pastoral duty, must therefore be called upon to aid him in it. The time when it is feasible to assemble children together for religious instruction is on Sunday. Hence the Sunday-school and its corps of lay teachers; both of necessity, as experience has shown, for every parish, if the people are to have, as they ought to have, a befitting knowledge of their religion--if they are to be indoctrinated with its spirit, and receive its ministrations by a devout, conscientious attendance upon its worship, and a due appreciation of, and worthy preparation for, the holy sacraments.

The first thought which naturally presents itself in reference to these lay coadjutors of the clergy, is that of their competence and fitness to teach. We do not care to send our children to be educated by any and every schoolmaster. We not only ask, Is he capable? but we ask, Who is he, and what is he? If these questions may be very properly put concerning a teacher of geography and arithmetic, we may be pardoned for asking them concerning one who professes to teach Christian doctrine and morality. {301} Is he well versed in the truths of faith himself, and, if you please, what is his own moral character?

The Sunday-school is an excellent institution, a necessary institution in our times; but if it is to be of any value, teachers, who are in the first place competent for the task, and who in the second place are practical Christians, must be secured. In small parishes, the pastor may possibly find a sufficient number who possess all the requisite qualifications, (although, so far, our experience has been to the contrary,) but in large and populous parishes, such as are found in all our cities, it is plain that a sufficient number are not easily obtained for the purpose, nor will those who are in all respects fitted for the work and are ready to answer the call of the pastor, be able to control and reduce the heterogeneous elements of a city Sunday-school to any order or regular observance of rules laid down by the pastor, or devised by themselves, without mutual co-operation, counsel, and a systematic organization. Besides, into a corps of such teachers, who are not themselves subjected to some organized form of association, persons wholly incompetent or deficient in moral standing will intrude, and prove either a hinderance to others, or do positive harm.

When chance-comers offer their services as teachers in his Sunday-school, it is difficult if not impossible for the pastor to examine them in order to test their knowledge before accepting them, and it may be equally difficult for him to find out what may be their moral worth. Their daily lives are, as a rule, better known to the members of his congregation than they are to him. In the ill-regulated voluntary system which has hitherto been so common amongst us, many evils have resulted from this which were unavoidable. Teachers of religion ought to be themselves good exemplars of it. Children learn at the Sunday-school a good deal more than the verbal answer to as many questions as are printed in the catechism. Those who occupy the office of teacher exert a moral influence over the children. Example is the master-teacher, and bad example will teach (we are sorry to say) quite as well as good example. You cannot gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. During the time that a man or woman is engaged in conversation with children, much of his or her own character is infused into the minds of their youthful companions by words, gestures, looks, and manner. Shall I permit my children to be thus placed one whole hour every week, under the influence of an ignorant man, a non-practical Catholic, and possibly a person of vicious habits and of vulgar demeanor--a person whom I could not allow my children to converse with at all, in the street or elsewhere, outside of the Sunday-school room? Certainly not. I must have some guarantee that my children shall have such associations as I can approve of, as well in the Sunday-school as in any other place where they may happen to be.

One who might make such reflections as the foregoing need occupy no higher position in society than that of being a good Christian, watchful over the souls of his little ones, and anxious to guard them from contamination with persons ignorant of the faith in which he wishes them to be educated, or such as by their personal want of piety are certain to damage the growth of it in the souls of the children he presumes to instruct.

{302}

If we mistake not, these considerations were in part those which animated the zealous and worthy founders of the Sunday-School Union, whose first report lies before us. This appears to us in the pages of the report, especially under the head of "objects." We quote:

"The objects of the Sunday-school Union are of a religious, educational, and social character. The fundamental object is, of course, the benefit and improvement of the Sunday-schools; the secondary end is the association of the Catholic young men of the city, in a manner sanctioned by religion, for purposes of mutual acquaintance and improvement, and the creation of a common tie of sympathy and interest, such as should exist between them as members of the same, One, Holy, and Universal Church. By the comparisons of systems, and experience, and through the increased opportunities of receiving advice and counsel from the clergy, improvements have been introduced in many of the schools, and the teachers have been led to take greater interest in their duties."

We need only quote to ourselves the trite old proverb, that "Birds of a feather," etc., to feel assured that the "Union" will remove in great part the dangers arising from incompetence and unfitness on the part of teachers, to which we have alluded. The leading spirits of an association of this kind will impress their own character upon the whole body, and we have the utmost confidence that such persons will be of the right stamp, young men of solid piety, of sufficient knowledge, and animated by the highest and purest motives. They will draw to them other young men of like character and dispositions with themselves. Association will stimulate exertion, promote harmony, and be productive of the best and happiest results; not only for the children, but, what is of no little moment to us, for the young men themselves.

Under their intelligent direction the Sunday-school will assume a higher standard of religious education. It has too long been deemed sufficient to teach the children the catechism as one teaches parrots, getting them to repeat a certain answer to a given question, without stopping to consider if the scholars have any intelligent apprehension of the meaning of either question or answer. We remember being present in a Sunday-school when the following instruction was overheard by us:

Sunday-School Teacher. "Are we bound to obey the commandments of the church?"

Boy. "A--a, because--a--" (gives it up.)

Teacher, (speaking as rapidly as a clerk of the Senate, and looking everywhere but at the pupil.) "Yes, because Christ has said to the pastors of his church, he that hears you hears me, and he that despises you despises me." (Then with a savage look at the child,) "Now, sir!"

Boy,(whining.) "Yes, sir--because--here's you and here's me. He despises you and he despises me."

Boy's ears cuffed with the catechism.

Yet it must be confessed that the recitation of the answer by the teacher was pretty faithfully imitated by the child, who aimed at catching a certain number of sounds and repeating them, without thinking of their meaning.

It is very well that the children should learn to recite portions of the catechism which they have learned by rote; but this will not suffice to give them an intelligent comprehension of the truths of religion. There is hardly a question and response in the catechism which does not need some additional explanation and illustration suited to their capacities. {303} This is no easy task, and one that might well engage the highest cultivated minds. Teachers must therefore themselves be taught. No one can impart that which he does not possess. We are glad, therefore, to see that one of the objects of our Sunday-School Union is of an "educational" character.

The object which is denominated "religious" is also of primary importance. The Sunday-school teacher is a teacher of religion in more senses than in imparting a mere verbal knowledge of the doctrines of religion. It comes properly within his sphere to edify his pupils by holy words, good counsel, and good example. If he does not so edify them, he will infallibly do the contrary. Our experience leads us to assert that there is no middle term here between edification and disedification. He who has no words of holiness and sweet Christian counsel in his mouth, is pretty sure of having words and counsel which smack of the world and its ungodly principles. Let no one imagine that he can assume for the time and occasion the tone, speech, and manner of a good, pious Christian, if he be not one in reality. Children have the keenest scent for hypocrisy. They instinctively mark and loathe a Pecksniff or a Chadband. The lessons of piety, the words of kindly warning or encouragement, the appeals to their Christian sentiment, falling from the lips of men who have no solid piety, and whose ordinary daily life is little better than that of a respectable heathen, if as good, will have no other effect than to excite the sceptical sneers of youths who are not to be deceived by sham appearances.

Our Sunday-schools, therefore, urgently demand the aid of "religious" teachers; we mean teachers who are practical Christians themselves, and carry out in their lives the lessons they are desirous of teaching others. They need teachers who are more than Catholics by profession. In a Sunday-school which is fortunate enough to possess teachers of religion who are men of living faith, devout, prayerful, scrupulous, and exact in the performances of their religious duties, exhibiting in their manner a deep reverence for holy things, modesty, patience, benignity, earnestness, and zeal for the glory of God, there will the children also be found exact types of their spiritual instructors.

The Sunday-School Union will form a corps of just such men. It will find itself composed of members who are moved by the Holy Spirit of God to take some part in this important work, and who will engage in it as a labor of love, in the spirit of sacrifice and apostolic zeal. They will, for the most part, bring hearts well prepared for it; but the Union will itself do much toward sustaining and advancing the spiritual good of its members. The most noble spectacle to be presented in this world of temptation and sin, is a band of young men, strong in the faith and loyal to the holy traditions of religion emulating each other in the practice of virtue and works of Christian charity. Such is the spectacle which this association is striving to present to our eyes, and our prayers should not be wanting that God may strengthen them and enlarge the sphere of their holy labors.

The third object spoken of is the "social" character which the Union proposes. We think we understand this, and have already hinted at it. They aim at making the tone of their association high and select. And this is a point worthy of our reflection. Children naturally imitate the manners of their elders,

## particularly of those with whom they are associated in the

capacity of pupils. {304} Let the teacher be rough, boorish, and uncouth in his deportment, negligent in his personal appearance, unceremonious and irreverent in the church, unguarded in his language, of an ungoverned temper, tardy in his attendance, and distracted in his instructions, you will find that the class of which he has unfortunately the charge will very soon be an exact copy of himself. We commiserate the Sunday-school where even one such teacher is to be found. He and his ill-regulated and worse-behaved class are a positive hinderance to the good order of the whole school, and the sooner he is got rid of the better. The Union, by its power of associating like to like, will eliminate this worthless class of individuals, and substitute in their stead punctual, earnest, courteous, self-denying, and reverent-minded teachers, whose very presence in the Sunday-school will be an example of deportment becoming the Christian and the gentleman, commanding respect, obedience, and attention on the part of all the scholars, and the esteem of his fellow-teachers. What affection, too, the children instinctively bestow upon such!

The love for these young souls, of which their heart is full, is abundantly reciprocated, and the influence for good which such teachers have is beyond measure. They are regarded by these little ones of Christ in their true light, as coadjutors of the pastor, and their admonitions are received with humble and loving obedience. "O ma!" says a little child to its parent on returning from Sunday-school, "we have the nicest teacher in the world, _so_ good, and he knows _so_ much, and he is _such a gentleman!_" Yes; children are quick of observation--none quicker; and when they have found one who presents all the qualities which should distinguish a worthy teacher, they from that moment begin to count the hours which will intervene until they shall have the happiness of meeting him again. If we aim at having first-class Sunday-schools, which will not only teach the children their catechism, and encourage them in the practice of virtue, but also elevate and refine their manners, and educate them in that, for which, after all, Catholic children are remarkable, namely, Christian politeness, we must secure teachers who, like the teacher of the little child mentioned above, are _so_ good, know _so_ much, and are _such gentlemen!_ We have every confidence that the Sunday-School Union, by its "social" character, will bring this about.

We are making no invidious reflections, and would feel pained to think we should be thus adjudged. We presume to speak from experience. We know something of Sunday-schools, and of their working in small and large parishes, in the city and in the country. We have had to feel the many difficulties which a pastor has to surmount in this matter. We aim at encouraging and bidding God speed to an enterprise which we know is needed, and which we are certain cannot fail of producing incalculable good.

Among other works which the Union proposes, is that of establishing Sunday-schools for colored children. That zealous and apostolic priest, the Rev. Father Duranquet, of the Society of Jesus, did not shrink from adding this to his many other labors when it presented itself to him in the course of his ministry. But just such a power was needed as the Sunday-School Union affords to reach these much-neglected children, and bring them under the influence of the Catholic religion, to care for those of that class who are of her household, to insure a lively, personal, loving interest being taken in them, and thus to show that our holy church is the church of all the people, of white and black, of bond and free. {305} We bless God for this effort of theirs. It is very near and dear to our own heart. The world sneers and scoffs at them, but there is no caste in the Catholic Church, and they are, as well as we, souls for whom Christ died.

The Catholic priest and the Catholic Sunday-school teacher can do more for them, we know, than all the so-called philanthropists from Dan to Beersheba. God forbid that we should turn aside from this labor and leave these precious souls to perish!

The Sunday-School Union is formed exclusively of men. "The female teachers," says the report, "are invited to all the public lectures and discourses, and to participate in as many of the undertakings of the Union as possible." This is all very proper. We know, however, that the ladies have hitherto taken rather the, shall we say, lion's share in the hardest of the undertakings to which the young men of the Sunday-School Union can possibly devote their energies, which is, the work of teaching. In most parishes they have far outnumbered the male teachers. We refrain from making any comparison of their efficiency. For ourselves, we say we do not know how we could possibly have got along without them, nor do we see how their aid can be dispensed with in the future. We are not aware that the Sunday-School Union has any such intention. The ladies do a good by their presence which we of the stronger, rougher sex may not hope to accomplish, besides being the fittest persons to teach the female classes. We are sure that they will cheerfully abide by any rules and regulations laid down by the Union, and do their utmost to carry out any suggestions made to them for the better conducting of their classes. We are not afraid of their resisting the powers that be. But why may they not also meet together for mutual encouragement, instruction, and edification? We shall look for some movement of this kind before long.

As for the Union itself, we look upon it not as a simple local expedient to meet a local want. It has a national interest, and sooner or later must find imitation in all our large cities and towns. We hope soon to hear that such has been the case in many other places, and then the influence of such associations will be increased in the ratio of the union of their separate and distinct bodies, at least, such an union as we trust and pray will soon be exhibited in all great Catholic works in this country--the assembly of their members for mutual acquaintance, cooperation, and debate, in a National Catholic Congress. The good that is done, the power that is elicited from assemblies of this kind, is well known to all our readers who have perused our articles on the Catholic Congress of Malines, in former numbers of _The Catholic World_. The Sunday-School Union would do well to consider this matter in the light of their own interest. In their union they have found strength. Let them seek to extend their efforts by encouraging, in so far as they are able, any such associations as may be started, or are in operation, in other places, inviting a correspondence and offering all their aid, looking forward, at the same time, to a union with them on a larger and general basis, and to the discussion of their mutual interests in a grand congressional assembly.

{306}

We trust that our remarks will be received in the spirit in which they are meant. They have been prompted by the deep, heart-felt interest which we feel in the subject, and the entire sympathy which we have for the noble, holy, Christian work to which our friends have devoted their energies. They have not begun too soon. Every year thousands of our children, in this city of New York alone, leave school to engage in various occupations, where they are thrown into the society of youths of all religions and of no religion. Protestantism has practically no influence over children, and generally leaves them to shift for themselves, and pick up what scraps of religion they may.

Unfortunately, the mass of them, being totally ignorant of the blessings and comfort of the Catholic faith, and not having had any very cheerful experience of religion as it has been presented to them by the bald, repulsive, unchild-like nature of Protestantism, break away from its restraints, and run wildly into the deserts of rationalism or infidelity. Poor children! our hearts bleed for them. But, while we pity them, let us not forget that they are to be the daily associates of our own lambs of the flock. How necessary, then, that we should strive by every effort to prepare ours for the dangers to which they will be exposed by giving them, while we may, a thorough knowledge of their holy faith, and send them forth guarded by a panoply of virtue, accustomed to a regular attendance upon the divine offices of the church, and to a frequent reception of the Holy Sacraments. Let it be our aim to dismiss each and every child from our Sunday-schools a loyal, devout, intelligent Catholic, whose faith is firm as a rock, and whose soul is bright and pure with the indwelling grace of God. Our blessed Lord, the lover of little children, will not fail to remember our care of those of whom He said: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

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Sonnet On "Le Recit D'une Soeur," By Mrs. Augustus Craven.

Whence is the music? Minstrel see we none; Yet, soft as waves that, surge succeeding surge, Roll forward--now subside--anon emerge-- Upheaved in glory o'er a setting sun, Those beatific harmonies sweep on: O'er earth they sweep from utmost verge to verge, Triumphant Hymeneal, Hymn, and Dirge, Blending in everlasting unison. Whence is the music? Stranger! These were they That, great in love, by love unvanquished proved: These were true lovers, for in God they loved: With God these spirits rest in endless day. Yet still, for love's behoof, on wings outspread Float on o'er earth betwixt the angels and the dead.

Aubrey de Vere.

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{307}

Nellie Netterville; or, One Of The Transplanted.

## Chapter VI.

The party from the tower came on meantime at a rapid rate; and, peeping cautiously from behind her hiding-place, Nellie saw that they had already reached the foot of the hill where she and her grandfather stood awaiting their approach. The lady--even at that distance Nellie fancied she could see that she was young and pretty, and, though clad in the saddest and strictest of Puritanic attire, anything but a Puritan in her looks and bearing--rode in front, with the military-looking personage, described already, upon one side, and a younger cavalier, with the air likewise of a soldier, on the other, while a couple of followers brought up the rear. At first the three foremost of the party rode abreast, but, as the up-hill path began to narrow, the lady pushed her horse ahead so as to lead the way, and Nellie could hear one of her companions shouting to her to ride cautiously until she had turned the sharp corner of rock behind which Nellie herself was at that moment standing. The warning came, as warnings often _do_ come, too late by a single second. It could have scarcely reached the lady's ears ere she had dashed round the corner, and her horse, wild and unmanageable enough already, plunged violently at the unexpected apparition of Nellie and her grandfather on the other side. If the path had not widened considerably at that spot, the struggle must have ended fatally, and even as it was, Nellie expected every moment to see both horse and rider roll over the edge of the precipice to which the heels of the former were in such fearful proximity.

The lady, however, sat him to perfection, and after a short, sharp struggle for the mastery, she succeeded in forcing him to rush at a wild gallop straight down the path leading to the valley, the only safe course of action she could possibly have adopted.

Her companions had by this time reached the spot where Nellie had watched the contest, and the younger of the two was about to spur his horse on to the rescue, when his older and wiser companion shouted to him to forbear.

"Let her be, Ormiston! Let her be!" he cried. "She knows well enough what she is about, my Ruth. And you will but infuriate her horse by following at his heels."

Thus adjured, the young man, addressed as "Ormiston," had no choice but to remain quiet. He drew in bridle, therefore, beside his chief, and watched as patiently as he could the down-hill gallop of the lady. The result fortunately justified the confidence of the elder horseman. No sooner had she reached the wide bottom of the glen below, than she checked her horse suddenly, and turning him almost before he had time to suspect her intentions, galloped him up the hill again with such right good-will that he was glad enough to stop and breathe of his own accord by the time she had rejoined her companions.

Relieved from all anxiety on her account, the old Cromwellian officer, for such his scarf and embroidered shoulder-belt announced him, turned the vials of his wrath, as even the best men will upon such occasions, upon those who, however unwittingly, had been the cause of the disaster. {308} In the present case Nellie and her grandfather were only too evidently the offenders, and the storm was accordingly sent full upon their heads. They were still standing in the recess formed by the shoulder of the retreating bank, and as Nellie, by an unconscious movement of girlish timidity, had retired behind Lord Netterville, he formed for a moment the chief figure in the group. Thoroughly roused and wakened up at thus finding himself unexpectedly face to face with his arch enemies, the old man stood out upon the foreground like a picture, his eyes sparkling, his white hair falling on his shoulders, and a grave and noble pride in his very attitude which belied alike the meanness of his apparent station and the disfigurement of his stained and travel-worn attire. The latter indeed consisting entirely of the so-called "Irish weeds," the Cromwellian officer naturally enough concluded him to be a native, and addressed him, accordingly, in such terms of contemptuous abuse as it was too often the Saxon fashion of those unhappy times to bestow upon the Celt.

"How now, thou 'Irish dogg'? How hast thou dared, thou and thy wench, to cross our path, and so put the life of the Lord's elect in danger? Give place at once and let us pass, if thou wouldst not that I should do unto thee as I did at Tredagh, where my sword, from the rising even to the setting of the sun, wrought the vengeance of the Lord on an idolatrous and misguided people."

Lord Netterville, during this agreeable harangue, had stepped right into the centre of the path, so that the other could hardly have passed him without a struggle, and he barely awaited its conclusion ere, with eyes flashing fire, he violently retorted:

"'Irish dogg!' sayest thou? Learn, thou unmannerly Saxon churl, that my blood is as English perhaps more so than thine own; and certainly from a nobler fountain! I am of the English pale," he continued, drawing himself up to his full height, and gaining in dignity what he lost in passion, "and one of no mean standing in it either--a Netterville of the old Norman race, since the days of the first Plantagenet."

"Lord Netterville--father!" said the young Amazon in a low voice, pushing her horse forward and touching the officer's shoulder with her riding-whip in order to attract his attention. "It must be the Lord Netterville of whom there was some question, I remember, when you were in negotiation for these lands."

"Ha, wench! thou also to blaspheme!" he cried, turning furiously upon her. "Knowest thou not that there is but one Lord, and that the pride of them that assume his titles stinks in his nostrils like the burning pitch of Tophet? And thou," he added, addressing himself to Lord Netterville, "in vain dost thou boast of thy race or lineage; for whatever they once were, they have, I doubt not, been so often renewed in the blood of the Irish as to have little or naught left of English honesty or honor to bestow upon their owner."

"Little or much!" cried the old lord furiously, "if thou, black dog of Cromwell as thou art, will but dismount and bid one of thy lackeys put a sword into my hands, I will show thee that, in spite of my seventy years and odd, I have still enough of English manhood left to chastise impertinence, wherever or in whomsoever I may chance to find it."

"Sir," cried Nellie, terrified at the turn affairs were taking, and placing herself between the disputants, "there is no need for all these taunting words and bandying of harsh challenges. {309} In peace have we come hither, and we do but seek to possess our own in peace--their honors, the commissioners at Loughrea, having assigned to us our residence amidst these mountains."

"Residence!" cried the officer, roused at once into a far more bitter and personal feeling than the sort of proud contempt, which was all that he had hitherto deigned to bestow upon the strangers. "Residence among these mountains, dost thou say? Nay, then, young maiden, thou hast mistaken thy mark, and that most widely, since all these lands, as far as the eye can see--even this land of Murrisk, which we English call the 'Owles,' with its upper and its lower barony as well--have been made over to me already, as mine own inheritance, the land which the Lord hath given (for the laborer is worthy of his hire) as the fruit of long service in the battle-field."

"This is my grandfather. Lord Netterville, and we are, as he has rightly told you, of the old English of the pale," said Nellie, making one step nearer in order to present her certificate. "At first, in common with the other inhabitants of Meath, we were to have been sent into the more eastern baronies of Connaught; but the numbers set down for transplantation to those parts having been found greater than could be accommodated on the land, we were assigned at last our portion in the same barony of Murrisk."

The officer looked at first as if greatly inclined to refuse the paper which she held up for his acceptance; but suddenly changing his intention, he snatched it rudely from her hand, and ran his eye over the contents.

"Humph! ha!" he continued to mutter as he read; and then turning to Nellie, he said in a voice in which, toned down as it was to an affectation of cold indifference, her quick ear detected, nevertheless, a lurking tone of triumph.

"This certificate bears a date, as I see, of some three months earlier in the year. How, then, is it, maiden, that it was not presented sooner?"

"It is five months to-day since we left our home--our pleasant home in Meath," said Nellie sadly; "and "much of that time was spent perforce at Loughrea. At first we were kept there in sore suspense as to the settlement of our just claim for land, and after that we were detained by sickness. Our servant fell ill and died of the plague; my grandfather suffered also much from the same malady, and he has in some measure recovered from it; it has, alas! reduced him from a hale and hearty old age, to the wreck--mind and body--that you see before you. In this way our scanty stock of money was soon exhausted, and when at last he was fit to travel, we had to sell our horses and the best part of our wearing apparel, in order to satisfy the debts incurred during his illness; after which there was nothing for it but to finish the journey as best we could on foot."

"How marvellous are the mercies of the Lord--the mercies which he has laid up for them that fear him," cried the officer, turning triumphantly toward his companions, and yet shrinking, in spite of himself, beneath the angry glances shot at him from the blue eyes of his daughter. "Surely his hand and his wisdom are visible in this matter," he added, in a less openly exultant manner; "for look ye, maiden, had you and the man you call Lord Netterville come hither at the time when, according to the date of your certificate, you should have done, you might, peradventure, have found no one to dispute possession with ye. {310} But behold! instead of that, the Lord hath vexed and troubled ye; he hath forced ye to tarry, even as he forced his rebellious people to tarry in the wilderness; he hath afflicted ye with sickness; he hath even visited ye with death, in order that I, his servant and soldier on the battle-field, might go up and take peaceable possession of that land which ye vainly fancied to be all your own."

"But are not these the very lands--a portion of the barony of Murrisk--which are set down in our certificate?" said Nellie, not even yet comprehending thoroughly the greatness of the impending blow. "How, then, noble sir, do you speak of them as yours?"

"Yea, and indeed," replied the officer, "these are of a certainty those very lands. Nevertheless, maiden, thou hast yet to learn that, if thou hast a certificate, I also am provided with a debenture, signed and delivered to me two months ago. Consequently, my order on the estate being of a later date, doth override and make void thine own, which, moreover, on looking closer, I do perceive to be merely a _de bene esse_, a poor make-shift for the time being, until something more permanent could be assigned thee."

"God help us, then!" cried Nellie; utterly overwhelmed by this last announcement. "God help us, then, and pardon those who have trifled so cruelly with our fortunes! Strangers we are, and without a place whereon to lay our heads; what then is to become of us in these deserted mountains?"

"Thou shouldst have looked to all that ere coming hither," he answered harshly; "as matters are at present, I would counsel thee to return to Loughrea at thy quickest speed, and to seek some other grant of land from their honors the commissioners, ere all that which is left in their hands has been absolutely disposed of."

"We cannot," said Nellie in a tone of hopeless sorrow, which, save that of the old fanatic himself, touched the hearts of all who heard her. "Look!" she added, turning, and with a sudden wave of the arm indicating Lord Netterville, who, utterly exhausted by his late excitement, was leaning against the bank in a half state of stupor. "Look at that old man, and tell me how is he to retrace his footsteps? Hope, indeed, aided him on his journey hither, but what hope is left to give him courage to go back?"

"As I have already said, thou shouldst have looked to all that ere undertaking such a journey," he answered shortly, and preparing to ride forward; for he saw that in his daughter's face which made him feel sure that she would not remain much longer silent. "And now get you both hence at once, I counsel ye; for my choler is apt to rise in the presence of the enemies of the Lord, and I may not much longer be able to restrain my hand from striking--"

"Strike, if you will, but hear me!" cried Nellie, springing forward so suddenly that she had caught hold of his bridle-rein ere he was even aware of her intention. "If yonder tower is indeed your home, give him a night's shelter in it--only one night--a single night--that he may rest from his weary travels."

"Nay, by the sword of Gideon, not even for an hour!" he cried furiously. "Let go, maiden, let go! or I will strike thee as if thou wert a mad dog in my path."

But Nellie was by this time driven to desperation, and she would not let go. She clung to the bridle-rein, crying out, "Only one night--one little night. {311} God is my witness that if there was but so much as a peasant's hut within reach, I would die sooner than ask such a favor at your hands."

Nearly as frantic with passion as she was with despair, he forced his horse to rear again and again, in order to compel her to let go; but finding, at last, that he could not shake her off, he raised his riding-whip, and it would have fallen heavily on her shoulders if, by a similar and almost simultaneous movement, Ormiston and his daughter had not hastily interfered.

"Major Hewitson!" cried the former in a warning voice--and, "Father, you shall not! you dare not!" cried the girl, spurring her horse eagerly forward, and utterly regardless of the fact that its heels were actually grazing the edge of the precipice as she tried to wrest his whip from her father's grasp.

All the tenderness of the man's heart was wrapt up in his daughter, and even in the midst of that moment of mad passion he saw her danger, and cried out:

"Have a care, child, have a care! or you and your horse will be over the precipice ere you know what you are doing."

"Throw away your whip then, or I will back him over it with my own hands," she cried passionately; "for I would sooner perish at once than see my own father strike a helpless girl like myself."

"Send the Irish beggar hence at once then, will you?" he answered furiously, flinging away his whip as he spoke, and, tearing his rein by main force from Nellie's grasp, he galloped rapidly down the hill.

Instead of following him, the girl backed her horse further into the recess in order to make room, and then waved her hand with the gesture of an empress to the others to pass on. With the exception of Ormiston they all obeyed, and no sooner had they got to a little distance than she flung herself off her horse, and, tossing the reins to her companion, threw herself into the arms of the astonished Nellie, exclaiming:

"O my God, my God! and these are the deeds that we do in thy name! When wilt thou arise and come to judgment?"

"Nay, grieve not thus, dear lady," said Nellie, generously forgetting her own great wrongs at the sight of such voluntary humiliation. "You at any rate have no cause to grieve, for willingly you have done no wrong."

"Call me not lady; I am but a girl, a woman like yourself; only"--she added with a touch of pride so like humility that it was almost as beautiful--"only, probably, of meaner nature, and certainly of less lofty lineage. What can I do for you? Alas! alas! why do I ask, for what _can_ I do? Shelter, except in my father's house, I have none to offer; and in that, after what he has said just now, I could not even ensure your lives."

Here the young officer, who had by this time dismounted and approached the girl, endeavored to insinuate his purse into her hands; but she shook her head impatiently, and said, "Money! money! of what use can money be in such wilds as these?"

Nevertheless, on second thoughts, she took the purse, and would, perhaps, in a hesitating, shame-faced sort of way, have offered it to Nellie, if the latter had not said decidedly:

"As you say, dear lady, it would be worse than useless. Neither are we beggars. We did but seek what we thought to be our own. And now," she added sadly, "we ask still less--even that which the very beggars are thought to have a right to claim--but a shelter for a single night."

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"And even that I cannot give you," said the girl disconsolately; "but at least," she added suddenly, in a brighter tone, "I think I can tell you where to find that." She pointed with her whip to a narrow path branching off a little lower down the hill, and leading apparently in the direction of the sea. "Follow that path--it is neither long nor difficult--and it will lead you to the waters of the creek below. At the very foot of the hill, where the path ends, you will find a hut; if empty, it will at least give you shelter; if otherwise, its owner will, I doubt not, make you welcome. He ought at least," she added quickly, "for he also has lost something. Trust me, you are not the only ones whom we have robbed for the achievement of our own greatness. Farewell! and if ever you pray for your enemies, put us among the worst and foremost."

She turned to her horse as she finished speaking. Her companion would fain have aided her to mount; but putting him pettishly on one side, she leaped into the saddle without assistance, and galloped back by the road which she had come. The officer, thus repulsed, bowed respectfully to Nellie, and then, remounting his own horse, followed in the same direction. She cantered on, however, as if unconscious of his existence, merely urging her horse to a quicker speed, in order to escape him--a manoeuvre which he took care, by imitating, to render useless. Finding, at last, that he would not be shaken off, she pulled up suddenly, and said angrily, and without even deigning to look round:

"Why do you follow me? Why do you dog my footsteps? Ride back to my father, will you? He is of your own creed and calling, and will better appreciate your society that I can."

"Nay, Ruth," he was beginning, but she interrupted him almost fiercely--

"Call me by my own name if you wish that I should answer you. To you at least, and to the world, I will still be Henrietta, though at my father's hands I am compelled to submit to this mummery of a change of name."

"Well, then, Henrietta," he answered quietly, but very gravely, "believe me, I did not mean to anger you. I said 'Ruth,' because that name is so often on your father's lips that it has begun to come almost naturally to mine. I would not willingly anger you at any time, and least of all, just now, when, in spite of what I must call your unkind waywardness toward myself, I love and worship you, as I never did before, for that nobleness of nature which recoils, at any cost, from all that savors of injustice."

"Carry your love and worship elsewhere, then, for I will have none of it," she said, evidently in nowise mollified by his apology. "What should I care for your good opinion? Do you not feel in your heart of hearts, or must I tell you, that we are divided, as far as the north pole from the south, in our most intimate convictions, and that what you and my father call religion I consider as fanaticism--or that something which is worse than fanaticism, or almost than crime--hypocrisy."

"You cannot believe what you are saying," he answered, now indignant in his turn; "you know how well and truly I have loved you, and you cannot believe that I am a hypocrite; you cannot--you could not--you would not so dishonor me in your thoughts--you who have promised to be my wife!"

{313}

"I retract that promise, then," she answered passionately, "wholly and entirely I retract it. Never, so help me God, will I become the mother of a race of fanatics, who will find, for such deeds as we have seen done today, their pretext in religion."

"Henrietta!" he cried, the blood rushing to his temples, "you cannot be in earnest!"

"See if I am not!" she answered coldly. "Ride back to my father now, and let me go my ways alone to the tower."

"I will go to him, Henrietta; but it will only be to tell him that I am about to return to my appointment in Dublin--unless, indeed," he added, with a lingering hope of reconciliation--"unless, Henrietta, you retract."

"I never retract," she answered shortly.

"Then, farewell!" he said, with a half movement, as if he would have taken her hand."

"Farewell!" she answered, affecting not to see his offered hand, and shaking the reins loose on her horse's neck.

Ormiston turned his horse's head in the opposite direction, and went forward a few paces; then he stopped and looked after his late companion. She was moving on, but slowly, and like one lost in thought. Stirred by a sudden honest impulse of regret, he turned and followed her. Henrietta heard him, and instantly checked her horse, as if determined not to suffer him to ride any longer at her side.

"Henrietta!" he said.

"What would you?" she asked sullenly.

"Only unsay that one word, 'hypocrisy,' and let things be as they were before."

"I never unsay what I have said," she answered coldly.

"Neither do I," he retorted, now angry in earnest; "and I swear to you that I will see you no more until under your own hand and seal you retract, of your own accord, what you have said to-day, and tell me to return."

"Farewell, then, for ever," she replied, with rather a bad assumption of indifference--"for ever, if so it must be."

"Farewell," he answered, without, however, as even in that moment Henrietta noticed, adding the ominous "for ever." "Farewell, and God forgive you for so trifling with the honest heart that loves you, and has loved you from your childhood. Some day--too late, perhaps--you will do me justice."

And so they parted.

## Chapter VII.

Left to herself, Nellie Netterville sat down to collect her scattered senses. The situation in which she found herself needed, in truth, a calm sense and courage, not often the heritage of petted girlhood, in order to bear up successfully against its difficulties. Happily for herself, the brave Irish girl was possessed of both in no common degree, and the trials and troubles of the last few months had ripened these faculties into almost unnatural maturity. The tale she had just told to Major Hewitson was free of the smallest attempt at exaggeration, being, in fact, rather under than over the measure of the truth. Lord Netterville, in common with many another unfortunate gentleman of the English Pale, had been kept dancing attendance on the commissioners at Loughrea until both hope and money failed him. {314} The absence of home comforts told heavily upon a frame already weakened by age and sorrow; and just at the moment when he could least bear up against it, he was attacked by the plague, or some disease analogous to the plague, which at that very time was making most impartial havoc among the native Irish and their foes. Thanks to an iron constitution, he recovered, but he rose from his sickbed, if not absolutely a child in mind, yet as utterly incapable of aiding Nellie by advice, or of steering his own way unassisted through the troubled waters on which his ill fate had cast him, as if he had been in very deed an infant. His servant was already dead, therefore the whole responsibility of their future movements devolved upon his granddaughter. She proved herself, fortunately, not altogether unequal to the occasion, never losing sight for a moment of the purpose which had brought her to Loughrea, and tormenting the commissioners until, less moved by her youth and helplessness than by a desire to rid themselves of her troublesome importunities, they gave her the certificate which she had shown to Major Hewitson, and which, as he had instantly perceived, was rendered worse than useless to its possessor by the fact of its being merely a temporary arrangement. Ignorant alike of Latin and law language, Nellie had, naturally enough, supposed it to be a permanent appointment; and, selling their horses and every article of value in her possession, in order to pay the debts contracted at Loughrea, she had made the rest of the journey on foot, leading, soothing, and encouraging the old man as if he had been a child, and buoying up his courage and her own by fanciful descriptions of that home in the far west, where she trusted his last days might be passed in peace. She had tried to deceive _him_; she never attempted to deceive _herself_ as to the nature of their future prospects; yet unpleasant as her anticipations had been, they were so much more agreeable than the terrible realities upon which she had just stumbled, that she felt for a few moments, as she sat there alone among the hills, as if the very gates of an earthly Paradise had been closed against her. But it was no moment for the indulgence of such natural regrets. She looked at her grandfather, and felt that his life was in her hands. She remembered, too, her promise to her mother to be son as well as daughter to his age; and sternly and tearlessly, for tears were too weak an expression for such desolation as she was feeling then, she set herself to consider what her next move ought to be. Food and shelter for the old man--(and it needed not another glance at his pale face to tell her how much both were needed) food and shelter--these must be her first object. It would be time enough after they had been secured to decide as to the feasibility of a return journey to Loughrea. She rose, and drawing her hood, which, in her struggle with Major Hewitson, had fallen back upon her shoulders, once more over her head, she took her grandfather by the hand, and led him quietly and silently down the path pointed out to her by Henrietta. It had originally been a sheep-path, and proved far less difficult than she had expected, winding gradually round the hills until it reached a sort of creek or estuary formed by the inrushing, for a couple of miles, of the waters from the bay beyond. It was a lonely, but a lovely spot, and Nellie's heart beat more calmly as she paused to listen to the soft rocking of the waters in their inland bed, and to feel the fresh breeze which they brought from the ocean playing on her heated brow. {315} There were no visible signs near her of that human habitation of which Major Hewitson's daughter had so confidently spoken; but at last, after having searched the landscape steadily in all directions, she thought she saw something like a blue curl of smoke rising out of a sort of mound, which, at first sight, seemed neither more nor less than a cairn of unusually large dimensions, nearly hidden by clumps of gorse and heather at least six feet high, and bushy and luxuriant in proportion. On nearer inspection, however, it proved to be a hut, such a hut as even to this day may be sometimes seen in the wildest parts of the wild west, rounded at the gables, built of rough stones, rudely yet solidly put together, and with a roof laid on of fern and shingle, carefully secured from the violence of the western winds by bands of twisted straw. A hole in this roof stood proxy both for window and for chimney, and the doorway was literally doorless. A sort of grass mat hung across it from the inside, being evidently considered by the inhabitants as ample protection against cold and wet, the only foes which extreme poverty has got to boast of.

For five seconds, at the very least, Nellie stood gazing on this frail barrier with a feeling as if it would require more than human courage to announce her presence to the human beings (she knew not whether they were friends or enemies) who might be stowed away behind it. At last, with a shaking hand, she drew back a small corner of the matting, and, without daring to look in, saluted the possible inmates, as the natives of the country salute each other to this day in Irish, "God save all here!" There was no answer, and, lifting the curtain a little higher, she looked in.

The hut was empty, though a few embers burning on the floor gave sufficient evidence of its having been recently inhabited. Of furniture, save a single wooden settle, Nellie could discover none; but a gun was standing upright against the opposite wall, and near it hung a very Spanish-seeming mantle, looking as much out of place in that miserable abode as its owner would probably have done if he had been there to claim it. The solitude, and the sight of that gun and mantle, made her feel far more nervous than she would have felt if a dozen of the natives of the soil had been congregated within. It seemed to imply some mystery, and, to the helpless, mystery always has a touch of fear about it. Moreover, it made her suddenly conscious that she was an intruder, an idea which would never have come into her head if her possible hosts had been of that frank-hearted race to whom the virtue of hospitality comes so easily that it does not even occur to them to call it "virtue." On the other hand, her grandfather's pale face and sunken features seemed to plead with her against all unseasonable timidity. Hastily, therefore, and as though she were about to commit a theft, she put aside the matting, drew the old man inside, and then replaced the screen as carefully as if she hoped in this manner to hide her audacious proceedings from the owner of the hut--or rather, if the truth must be told, from the owner of the mysterious mantle. This first step fairly taken, Nellie suddenly grew brave, and resolving to make the most of their impromptu habitation, she drew the settle nearer to the fire, and made Lord Netterville sit down upon it.

{316}

The sight of the embers seemed to revive the latter, less perhaps from any need he felt of its warmth on that bright sunny day than from the home-like associations which it awakened in his mind. He smiled a wintry smile, with more of old age than of gladness in it, and stretched forth his withered hands to warm them in the blaze. Then, as if suddenly waking up for the first time to a perception of his being foodless, he asked Nellie if supper would soon be ready, for that in truth he was well-nigh starving. Starving he must have been, that poor Nellie knew well enough already; for they had exhausted their scanty stock of food that very day, and he had tasted nothing since the early dawn. She soothed him, however, and besought him to have yet a little patience, and then, with a desperate resolution to appropriate to his use whatever of food the hut might happen to contain, she commenced a careful examination of its hidden nooks. There were, of course, neither shelves nor cupboards, or anything, indeed, which even suggested the idea of provisions having been ever kept there; but at last, when she had almost begun to give up the search in despair, she espied something like the handle of a basket peeping out from beneath a bundle of firewood which lay heaped in one corner of the hut upon the floor. Pouncing upon this at once, she discovered that it contained a couple of sea-trout, upon which the owner of the mansion had probably intended making an early dinner, for they were already prepared for broiling. With renewed energy Nellie took a handful of dried brushwood, and threw it upon the half-extinguished fire, after which she proceeded, in her new character of cook, to lay, in a very leisurely and scientific manner, the fish upon the embers. So engrossed was she in this occupation, that she never perceived that the mat curtain over the doorway had been once more lifted up, and that some one was watching her proceedings from the outside. This some one was a man, apparently about twenty-five or thirty years of age, with a figure rather above than below the middle height, and a face which, full of energy and expression as it was, was by no means regularly handsome, though the large, Murillo-looking eyes by which it was lighted up deceived casual beholders into a conviction that it was.

He was clad in a garb which might have belonged to the native fishermen of the coast, yet no one could have mistaken him for other than a gentleman and soldier, as he stood there, holding back the screen of matting, and gazing, with a look curiously compounded of amusement and annoyance, at the scene presented by the interior of the cottage. The latter feeling, however, was evidently in the ascendant--so much so, indeed, that he had actually made a half-movement, as if to retreat and leave the hut to its uninvited occupants, when something--was it a glimpse of Nellie's delicate profile, as she stooped over the glowing embers?--induced him to change his mind, and stepping quietly over the threshold, he dropped the screen behind him with an energy and good-will which seemed to indicate that, instead of his premeditated flight, he had made up his mind to accept with a good grace, and perhaps even to enjoy, this unexpected addition to his society. The sound of the falling mat warned Nellie of the advent of a stranger, and, crimson with shame and fear, she stood up to receive him. He gazed upon her steadily, the half-feeling of annoyance, still visible on his clouded brow, yielding gradually to a look of intense but reverent admiration, and removing his fisherman's cap from his head, he bowed courteously, and said in English:

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"God save all here, and a hundred thousand welcomes also, if, as I apprehend, you are fugitives like myself from tyranny and injustice."

There was an indescribable tact and courtesy in the way in which he combined this announcement of his being the master of the hut with a frank and ready welcome to his unknown visitants, which made Nellie feel at once that she had to do, not only with a man of gentle birth but of high and polished breeding also. Yet this fact seemed for the moment rather to add to her difficulty than to decrease it, and secretly wishing that the fish could be made, by some magical process, to disappear from the embers upon which it was comfortably broiling, she placed herself as much as she could between it and the stranger as she stammered out her apology for intrusion. Did he see the fish? and did he guess at the petty larceny she had just committed? Nellie fancied she saw something like an amused look in his eye, which made her feel hot and cold by turns with the consciousness of discovered guilt, but the rest of his features wore no smile, nothing but an expression of kind and courteous sympathy as he eagerly interrupted her excuses--

"Say no more, dear lady, say no more, trust me I have not now to learn for the first time to what dire straits the sad necessity of these days of woe may bring us. And, therefore, to all who come to this poor hut, but more especially to those who, for honor and for conscience sake, have laid down wealth and power elsewhere, I have but one word--one greeting, and that is the old Irish one, of a hundred thousand welcomes."

"A hundred thousand welcomes!" repeated a feeble, quivering voice close to the stranger's elbow. He turned and looked for the first time steadily at Lord Netterville, of whose presence up to that moment he had been barely conscious. The old man had risen from his seat, and stood smiling and bowing courteously, evidently thinking he was doing the honors of a home, of which--however humble--he was yet the undoubted master.

"Our house is poor, sir," he went on, "once, indeed, we boasted of a better; but let that pass. Such as it is--such as our enemies have made it--you may reckon assuredly upon meeting an Irish welcome in it."

"Sir," whispered Nellie through her tears, fearing lest the stranger might break in too rudely on the old man's delusion. "He is old--he has been ill--he fancies he has reached his home; you must excuse him."

The unknown turned his eyes upon the girl with a look so full of reverent sympathy, that it went straight to her heart, never afterward to be effaced from thence. She felt that her grandfather would be safe in such kindly hands, and was turning quietly away when Lord Netterville, still enacting his fancied character of host, threw a handful of dry wood upon the fire, and the blaze that instantly ensued fell full upon his features, which had hitherto been barely visible in the gloom. The stranger started violently.

"Good God!" he cried, in a tone of irrepressible astonishment. "Is it possible that I see Lord Netterville, and in such a plight?"

"You know my grandfather, then?" cried Nellie joyously, feeling as if the stranger must have been sent by Providence especially to help her in the hour of her utmost need. "You know my grandfather?"

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"I ought, at any rate," he answered, with a sad smile, as he took Lord Netterville's proffered hand. "For we fought together and were beaten at Kilrush; my first battle, and, as I suppose, his last."

"Ha!" cried the old man, "Kilrush! Kilrush! who speaks to me of Kilrush? Were you there, sir? Time must have played sad tricks upon my memory then, for, truth to say, I do not recognize you."

"Nay, my good lord," said the stranger soothingly, "it would be stranger still if you had done so, for I was but a beardless boy in those days. Nevertheless, I remember _you_, Lord Netterville, and surely you cannot have altogether forgotten the cheer we gave when you, a tried and veteran soldier, rode up to serve with us as a volunteer in the regiment of your gallant son."

"I remember! I remember!" cried the old man eagerly. "It was a bright and glorious morning, and we charged them gallantly--a bright and glorious morning, but with a sad and bloody ending. Alas! alas!" he added, his voice falling suddenly from its trumpet-like tone of exultation to an old man's wail of sorrow. "Alas! alas! how many of the best and bravest that we had among us lay dead and trampled in the dust, as we withdrew from that fatal field."

He bowed his head upon his breast, and remained for a little while absorbed in thought, and Nellie took advantage of the pause to say:

"You knew my father, sir? You must have known him if you were near Lord Netterville at Kilrush; for father and son charged side by side, and were seldom, as I have since been told, ten minutes out of each other's sight during the whole of that bloody battle."

"Knew your father? Yes, dear lady--if your father was, as I suppose, Colonel Netterville--I knew him well. He was the bosom friend of my uncle and namesake, Roger Moore of Leix, who placed me in his regiment when I joined the Irish army."

"Roger Moore of Leix," cried Nellie, a flash of enthusiasm lighting up her face; "Roger Moore--the brave--the gifted--the first leader in a noble cause, whose very name was a battle-cry, and whose followers rushed into fight, shouting for 'God--our Lady--and Roger Moore!' Yes, yes; he was my father's friend. I remember even when I was a child how he used to talk about him. And _you_," she added, with a sudden change of voice and manner, and placing both her hands in his, "_you_, then, are that Roger Moore, the younger, in whose arms my poor father died."

"At the battle of Benburb," said Moore, in a low voice; "a glorious battle--well fought, and well won, and yet for ever to be regretted, for the loss of one of Ireland's bravest and most faithful soldiers."

"Grandfather," cried Nellie, suddenly withdrawing her hands from Roger, and blushing scarlet at the inadvertence of her own action which had placed them in his, "this is Captain Moore, who bore my wounded father out of the press of battle, and to whom we are indebted for that last and loving farewell which he sent to us in dying."

But instead of replying with an eagerness corresponding to her own, Lord Netterville gazed vacantly upon the stranger, evidently without the slightest recollection of his name or person, and repeated, in a low mechanical voice, his previously-muttered welcome.

"He does not remember!" said Roger. "Alas! alas! for that bright intellect, once cloudless as a summer's noon!"

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"Hush, hush!" whispered Nellie. "Recollection is beginning to return." And Lord Netterville did, in fact, seem to be making a languid effort at gathering up his scattered thoughts, for he looked at Roger, and said feebly:

"You knew my son, sir?--you knew my son?--then, indeed, you are very welcome. He was a brave boy, and fought for his king and country--fought and fell--on the field of--the field of--the name--which I thought never to forget--has almost escaped me."

"Benburb," Roger ventured to interpose.

"Benburb! Ay, that was the very name--Benburb!--my memory does not fail me, sir; but I have been much tried of late--or we rode too far this morning--for I feel very faint."

He tried to draw back from the fire as he spoke, but he tottered, and would have fallen if Roger had not caught him by the arm, and made him sit down upon the settle.

"He is faint for want of food," said Nellie hastily; "we have been wandering all day among the hills, and he has not broken his fast since morning."

Roger did not answer, but signing to her to support Lord Netterville, he went straight to some invisible cranny in the walls of the hut, and drew thence a bottle of strong cordial. Pouring a little of this into a broken mug, he made the old man swallow it, and then stood beside him, anxiously watching the result. Happily it was favorable--in a few minutes Lord Netterville revived, the color returned to his wan cheek, and turning to Nellie, he asked her, in a half-whisper, "if supper would soon be ready?" Shyly, and blushing scarlet, Nellie nodded an affirmative, and forgetting all her previous shame in anxiety for her grandfather, she was about to resume her office as cook, when, with a half-smile on his face, Roger Moore put her quietly aside.

"Nay, Mistress Netterville, remember that I am master here, and that I forbid you to lay hands upon that fish? I have always been cook in my own proper person to the establishment, and I cannot allow you to supersede me in the office."

"Forgive me!" said Nellie, tears starting to her eyes, and half fancying in her confusion that he was angry in earnest. "I could not help it, for he was starving."

"Do not misunderstand me, I entreat you," said Roger, in a voice of deep and real feeling; "I should be a brute if I objected to anything you have or could have done; I only meant that I objected to your continuing in that office; for so long as the daughter of my old colonel is under my roof, (even though it be but a poor mud sheeling,) she shall do no work, with my good-will, unfit for the hands of a princess." He busied himself while speaking in drawing forth, from that same recess in which he had found the cordial, some thin oaten cakes, a few wooden platters, and one or two knives and spoons of such massive silver, that Nellie could not help thinking they were as much out of keeping with the rest of the furniture as Roger himself appeared to be with the hut, of which he was doing the honors in such simple and yet such courtly fashion. He would not even let her hold the platter upon which he placed the fish as he took it from the embers, and he himself then brought it to Lord Netterville, and pressed him, as tenderly as if he had been a child, to partake of this impromptu supper.

{320}

The old man yielded, nothing loath, and so, indeed, did his grandchild; for, though very fair to look at, no goddess was poor Nellie, but a young and growing girl with the healthy appetite of sixteen. She accepted, therefore, Roger's invitation without the smallest affectation of reluctance, and sitting down on the floor beside her grandfather, shared the contents of his platter with innocent and undisguised enjoyment. With all her sense and courage, she was as yet in many things a perfect child, yielding as easily as a child might do to the first ray of sunshine that brightened on her path, and accepting the happiness of the present moment as unrestrainedly as if never even suspecting the shadows that were lurking in her future. Now, therefore, that she felt her grandfather was in safe and helpful keeping, she threw off the sense of responsibility which had weighed her down for months, and became almost gay. Color rose to her wasted cheek, light sparkled in her eyes, and she responded to Roger's efforts to make her feel comfortable and at home, with such innocent and unbounded faith in his wish and power to befriend them, that he vowed an inward vow never to forsake her, but to guard her, as if she had been in very deed his sister, through the trials and dangers of her unprotected exile. When their meal was over, and while her grandfather slumbered in the quiet warmth of the peat-fire, she told Roger Moore her story, simply and briefly as she might have told it to a brother, beginning at her departure from her ancestral home, and ending with her encounter with the English strangers among the mountains.

"It is Major Hewitson," said Roger, "in whose favor I have been despoiled of my old home. Major Hewitson and his pretty daughter 'Ruth,' as he chooses to call her, in order to blot out the fact that her name is Henrietta, and that she had a popish queen for her godmother. She forgets it not herself, however," he added, with a smile; "for her mother was of noble race, and they say that she is a true cavalier at heart, and pines like a caged bird in the network of demure fanaticism which her father has twined around her."

"She has a lovely face and a kind and honest heart, for certain," said Nellie. "She knows you also, now I think of it; for she it was who directed me to this hut, with a hint that I should here find a friend."

"Did she?" said Roger, with genuine fervour. "Nay, then, for that one good deed I needs must pardon her, that she, or her father for her, have robbed me of my inheritance. And now I think of it," he added, with a touch of sly malice in his smile, "you also, if you came hither to seek land, must have been bound on the same errand; for both these baronies, 'Umhall uaghtragh' and 'Umhall ioghtragh,' is the country of the O'Mailly's, and, in right of my grandmother, my own."

Nellie blushed scarlet. "Alas!" she said, "I knew not whither or to whom they sent us; but sure am I, at all events, that we never would have accepted of any home at the expense of its rightful owners."

"Nay," said Roger, "I did but jest. Would indeed that it was to you I had been compelled to yield it! In spite of that fact you should have had, I promise you, a right royal welcome. And now I must needs explain. This sheeling, you must know, is not really my home. It is but a temporary refuge, of which I have two or three along the coast; for I have fought battles enough against England's new-fangled government to have deserved the honors of outlawry at her hands. {321} My life consequently has been none too safe at any time these six months past, and now that yonder gray-haired fanatic, who would ask nothing better than to seal his title in my blood, has got possession of these lands, it is of course less secure than ever. My most permanent home, however, is on an island, facing the bay on this side, and washed by the waters of the Atlantic on the other. It is poor enough, God knows, yet capable of giving better accommodation than such a hut as this is. Will you and your grandfather be content to share it with me?"

Tears rushed into the dark eyes of Nellie.

"Providence is good," she answered simply--"Providence is very good, and gives us friends when we least expect them."

"Well, then, it is a bargain," cried Roger gayly; "and now. Mistress Netterville, come and see the craft in which you will have to make the voyage."

He pulled down the "mysterious mantle" as he spoke, and Nellie saw that, instead of covering the bare wall as she had imagined, it merely concealed an opening into an inner and smaller portion of the hut, built right over the creek, and made to answer the purpose of a boat-house. Into this the water rushed, so as to form a basin deep enough for the floating of a boat, and one accordingly lay safe within it, concealed by the overhanging roof from observation on the outside.

It was not flat-bottomed like the native craft, but had been evidently built both for strength and speed by one who understood his business, and its chief cargo at this particular moment seemed to be a quantity of luxuriant heather.

To this Roger pointed with a smile. "If I were a Highlander," he said, "you might suspect me of second-sight; for I have gathered, without thinking of it, double the usual quantity of heather, that which we outlaws perforce use for bedding. I hope you will not mind roughing it a little."

"I have roughed it a good deal within the last few months," said Nellie, "and I do not think you will find me difficult to please. Is the boat quite safe? I have never been out on the real sea before."

"Safe!" said the young man, with a little pardonable pride in his dark eyes. "I built her myself, and she has weathered more than one bad storm since the first day that I sailed her. I call her the 'Grana Uaille,' after the stout old chieftainess whose island kingdom I inhabit, and which, with the other lands of which Major Hewitson has robbed me, I inherit from my grandmother. But the sun is getting low. Do you not think we had better start at once, and get the voyage over before night-fall?"

To this Nellie gladly assented, and between them they conducted Lord Netterville to the boat. Roger arranged the heather so as to form a sort of couch, and, with the mantle thrown over him to protect him from the damp, the old man found himself so comfortable that he settled himself quietly for slumber. Then Roger put up his sail, and with a fresh and favorable wind they glided down the creek.

Nellie would not lie down, but she sat back in the boat with a lazy kind of gladness in her heart, which, rightly interpreted, would probably have been found to mean perfect rest of body and mind. Such rest as she had not felt for months! The waters widened as they approached the bay, and Nellie marked each new feature in the scene with an interest all the keener and more enjoyable, that everything she saw was so unlike anything she had ever seen before. {322} Accustomed as she had been to the tamer cultivation of her native country, the savage grandeur of that wild west, with its poverty in human life, its wealth in that which was merely animal, took her completely by surprise, and she gazed with unwearied interest, now on the undulating ranges of blue mountains which crossed and recrossed each other like network against the sky, then on the broad, black tracts of peat and bog land which covered the country at their feet like a pall; listened now to the bittern and plover as they answered each other from the marshes, then to the shrill screams of the curlews as they rose before the boat, darkening the air with their uncounted numbers; or she watched a heron sweeping slowly homeward from its distant fishing-ground--or a grand old eagle soaring solemnly upward, as if bent on a visit to the departing sun; and her delight and astonishment at last reached their climax in the apparition of a seal, which, just as they cleared the creek, popped its head up above the waves, leaving her, in spite of Roger's laughing assurances to the contrary, well-nigh persuaded that she had seen a mermaid. The wind continuing steady, Roger shook out his last remaining reef, and, responding gayly to the fresh impulse, the boat sprang forward at a racing pace. They were in Clew Bay at last, and Nellie uttered a cry of joy--never had she seen anything so beautiful before. Masses of clouds, with tints just caught from the presence of the sun, soft greens and lilacs, and pale primrose and delicate pearly white, so clear and filmy that the evening star could be seen glancing through them, hung right overhead, shedding a thousand hues, each more beautiful than the other, upon the bay beneath, until it flowed like a liquid opal round its multitude of tribute isles. Opposite, right in the very mouth of the harbor, stood Clare Island, all alight and glowing, as if it were in very deed the pavilion of the setting sun, which, as it sank into the waves beyond it, wrapped tower, and church, and slanting cliff, and winding shoreline, in such a glory of gold and purple as made the old kingdom of Grana Uaille look for the moment like a palace of the fairies. Nellie was still straining her eyes for a glimpse of the Atlantic on the other side, when the deep baying of a hound came like sad, sweet music over the waters, and Roger slightly touched her shoulder. They were close to the island; in another moment he had run his boat cleverly into the little harbor and laid her alongside the pier. A huge wolf-dog, of the old Irish breed, instantly bounded in, nearly oversetting Nellie in his eagerness to greet his master.

Roger laid one restraining hand on the dog's massive head, and removing his cap with the other, said, smiling courteously:

"You must not be afraid of Maida, Mistress Netterville, she is as gentle as she is strong, and has only come to add her voice to her master's, and to bid you welcome to the outlaw's home."

## Chapter VIII.

Nellie slept that night the peaceful slumbers of a child; but the habits of long weeks of care were not to be so easily shaken off, and the first ray of sunshine that found its way through the narrow window of her chamber roused her from her well-earned repose. {323} Her first impulse was, as it had ever been of late, to spring from her couch with a painful sense of hard duty to be accomplished that very day; her next was to thank God with all the fervor of a young and innocent heart for the haven of safety into which he had guided her at last. Then she lay back upon her pillow, and, yielding to the delightful consciousness that there was now no immediate call upon her for exertion either of body or mind, glanced languidly round the dimly-lighted room, and endeavored to make a mental inventory of its contents. It was a square chamber, forming the second story of the old tower in which Roger had taken up his abode, and which was all that was yet remaining of the old stronghold of Grana Uaille. The apartment had evidently no furniture of its own to boast of, but, having been used as a sort of lumber-room, was abundantly supplied with articles brought hither from more favored mansions. Nellie soon perceived that much of this so-called lumber was of the costliest description, and represented probably the sum total of all that had been saved from the wreck of Roger's fortune. There were cabinets of curious workmanship, a table carved in oak as black as ebony, a few high-backed chairs of the same material, ornaments in gold and silver, some of ancient Celtic manufacture, others in their more delicate workmanship bearing marks of artistic handling, which, even to Nellie's unaccustomed eye, betrayed their foreign origin. There were pictures, too, most of them with the dark shadow of a Spanish hand upon them, and swords, bucklers, weapons, and armor of all kinds, old and new, defensive and offensive, piled up here and there in picturesque confusion in the corners of the turret. Nellie had been amusing herself for some minutes scanning all these treasures over and over, and guessing at their various uses, when her attention became suddenly riveted upon a huge coffer with bands and mouldings of curiously-wrought brass, which stood against the wall exactly opposite to the foot of her bed. She was still quite girl enough to be willing to amuse herself by imagining all sorts of impossibilities respecting the contents of this mysterious looking piece of furniture, and she was watching it as anxiously as if she half expected it to open of itself, when the door of the chamber was cautiously unclosed, and the old woman, who represented the office of cook, valet, and everything else in Roger's establishment, crept up to her bedside as quietly as if she fancied her to be sleeping still.

"God's blessing and the light of heaven be on your sweet smiling face," she ejaculated, as Nellie turned her bright, wide-open eyes with a grateful smile upon the old hag. "Lie still a bit, a-lannah, lie still, and take a sup of this fresh goat's whey that I have been making for you. It will bring the color, may be, into your pretty cheeks again; for troth, a-lannah, they are as pale this morning as mountain roses, and not at all what they should be in regard to a young and well-grown slip of a lassie like yourself."

Nellie took the tempting beverage, which Nora presented to her in an old-fashioned silver goblet, readily enough; but checking herself just as she was about to put it to her lips, she said, gayly:

"Thanks, a thousand times, my dear old woman, but I do not feel that I need it much, and this whey would be the very thing for my poor old grandfather. He was always accustomed to something of the sort in the days when we were able to indulge ourselves in such luxuries."

{324}

"Lord bless the child!" said the delighted Nora. "If she isn't as gay as a bird in its mother's nest this morning, for all the weary worry of her last night's travels. But there's no need to be sparing of the whey, my honey, for sure I've a good sup of it left on purpose for the old lord as soon as ever he awakens. So drink up every drop of this, if you wouldn't have the master scold me; for he sent it up himself, he did, and it's downright mad he'd be if it came back to him and it not empty."

Something in this speech, or in old Nora's way of making it, caused the blood, the absence of which she had been just deploring, to rush once more into Nellie's cheek; and perhaps it was partly to hide this weakness that she took the goblet without another word, and drained it to the dregs, playfully turning its wrong side up as she gave it back to Nora, in order to show her how thoroughly her directions had been complied with. Made happy on this important point, the old woman trotted gayly out of the room, and then Nellie rose, half-reluctantly, it must be confessed, and commenced the duties of the toilet. They were simple enough in her case, yet difficult, also, from their very simplicity. Her hair, long and smooth and shining, was easily enough disposed in braids, which, folded tightly round her head, gave a grace and elegance to her appearance none of the fantastic head-gear then in vogue could possibly have imparted; but when she came to inspect the habiliments she had worn the day before, and which perforce she must wear again that day, she became painfully, and, perhaps for the first time, fully conscious of the dilapidations which time and travel had wrought upon them. In vain she rubbed out mud and grass stains, in vain she plied her needle. The garments absolutely defied her skill, and, painfully conscious of the fact, she was about perforce to don them as they were, when Nora burst into the room with a look of gladness on her face, which vanished, however, to do her justice, as completely as if it had never been, at the sight of poor Nellie, shame-faced and sad, vainly trying to smooth her rags into something like decent poverty around her.

"God help you, a-cushla!" she cried in a tone of unfeigned compassion, laying at the same time her withered hand upon the tattered kerchief which Nellie was trying to fold round her stately shoulders. "God help ye! and is this all that them black scum of Saxon robbers left ye when they turned ye out upon the wide world to seek your fortune?"

"It cannot be helped," said Nellie with a little choking in her voice, though she tried hard to veil it beneath an assumption of indifference. "And after all, these rags do but make me seem what in fact I am--a beggar. Only I hope," she added, with a little nervous laugh, "I hope that Colonel O'More" (she had learned his military rank and his real name, Moore being only its Saxon rendering, the night before from Nora) "will not be utterly disgusted this morning when he finds out to what a pauper he extended his hospitality last night."

"The colonel? Is it the master that you mean? The master be disgusted! Ah! now, listen to me, asthore, and don't be filling your head with them ugly fancies; for you may just take my word for it, and don't I know every turn of his mind as well as if I was inside of it? You may just take old Nora's word for it, that he worships the very ground you tread on, and would, too, all the same, if you had never a brogue to the foot or a kirtle to the back. {325} Beggar, indeed! Why, could not he see for himself last night that you had been just robbed and murdered like out of your own by them thieving Saxons, and wasn't it for that very reason that, before he went off to his fishing this blessed morning, he gave me the key of that big black box, and says--says he, 'Nora, my old woman, I have been thinking that the young lady up-stairs has been so long on the road that may be she'll be in want of a new dress like; so, as there is nothing like decent woman-tailoring to be found in the island, maybe she'll condescend to see if there's anything in my poor mother's box that would suit her for the present.' And troth, my darling," old Nora went on, "it's you that are going to have the pick and choice of fine things; for she was a grand Spanish lady, she was, and always went about among us dressed like a princess."

Nora had opened the box at the beginning of this speech, and with every fresh word she uttered, she flung out such treasures of finery on the floor as fully justified her panegyric on the deceased lady's wardrobe.

Nellie soon found herself the centre of a heap of thick silks and shiny satins, and three-piled velvets and brocaded stuffs, standing upright by virtue of their own rich material, and of laces so delicate and fine, that they looked as if she had only to breathe upon them in order to make them float away upon the air like cobwebs.

She was quite too much of a girl as yet to be able to resist a close and curious examination of such treasures; nevertheless, her instinct of the fitness of things was stronger than her vanity, and there was an incongruity between these courtly habiliments and her broken fortunes, which made her feel that it would be an absolute impossibility to wear them. Selecting, therefore, a few articles of linen clothing, she told old Nora that everything else was far too fine for daily wear, and began, of her own accord, to restore them to their coffer. Not so, however, the good old Nora. That _any_ thing could be too fine for the adornment of any one whom "the master" delighted to honor, was a simple absurdity in her mind; and she became so clamorous in her remonstrances, that Nellie was fain to shift her ground, and to explain that she was bent at that moment upon "taking a long ramble by the sea-shore, for which anything like a dress of silk or satin (Nora's own good sense must tell her) would be, to say the least of it, exceedingly inappropriate."

At these words a new light seemed to dawn upon the old woman's mind, and, plunging almost bodily down into the deep coffer in her eagerness to gratify her _protégé_, she exclaimed, "So it's for a walk you'd be going this morning, is it? and after all your bother last night! Well, well, you are young still, and would rather, I daresay, be skipping about like a young kid among the rocks than sitting up in silks and satins as grave and stately as if you were a princess in earnest. Something plain and strong? That's what you'll be wanting, isn't it, a-lannah? Wait a bit, will you? for I mind me now of a dress the old mistress had made when she was young, for a frolic, like, that she might go with me unnoticed to a 'pattern.' And may I never sin if I haven't got it," she cried, diving down once more into the coffer, and bringing up from its shining chaos a dress which, consisting as it did simply of a madder-colored petticoat and short over-skirt of russet brown, was not by any means very dissimilar to the habitual costume of a peasant girl of the west at the present hour. {326} Nora was right. It was, as ladies have it, "the very thing!" Stout enough and plain enough to meet all Nellie's ideas of propriety, and yet presenting a sharp contrast of coloring which (forgive her, my reader, she was only sixteen) she was by no means sorry to reflect would be exceedingly becoming to her clear, pale complexion, and the blue-black tresses of her hair. It was with a little blush of pleasure, therefore, that she took it from the old woman's hand, exclaiming, "Oh! thank you, dear Nora. It is exactly what I was wishing for--so strong and pretty. It will make me feel just as I want to feel, like a good strong peasant girl, able and willing to work for her living; and, to say the truth, moreover," she added, somewhat confidentially, "I should not at all have liked making my appearance in those fine Spanish garments. I should have been so much afraid of the O'More taking me for his mother."

The annunciation of this grave anxiety set off old Nora in a fit of laughing, under cover of which Nellie contrived to complete her toilette. Madder-dyed petticoat, and, russet skirt, and long dark mantle, she donned them all; but the effect, though exceedingly pretty, was by no means exactly what she had expected; for Nora, turning her round and round for closer inspection, declared, with many an Irish expletive, which we willingly spare our readers, "That dress herself how she might, no one could ever mistake her for anything but what she really was, namely, a born lady, and perhaps even, moreover, a princess in disguise." With a smile and a courtesy Nellie accepted of the compliment, and then tripped down the winding staircase of her turret, took one peep at Lord Netterville as he lay in the room below, in the "calliogh" or nook by the hearth, which, screened off by a bent matting, had been allotted to him as the warmest and most comfortable accommodation the tower afforded, and having satisfied herself that he was still fast asleep, stepped out gayly into the open air. She was met at the door by "Maida," who nearly knocked her down in her boisterous delight at beholding her again, and she was playfully defending herself from the too rapturous advances of her four-footed friend when Roger ran his fishing-boat alongside the pier, and, evidently mistaking Nellie for some bare-footed visitor of Nora's, called out in Irish:

"Hilloa, ma colleen dhas! run back to the tower, will you, and tell Nora to fetch me down a basket, and you shall have a good handful of fish for your pains, for I have caught enough to garrison the island for a week."

Guessing his mistake and enchanted at the success of her masquerade, Nellie instantly darted into the kitchen, seized a fishing-creel which was lying near the hearth, and rushed down to the pier. Roger was still so busy disentangling the fish from the net in which he had caught them, that he never even looked at Nellie until he turned round to place them in her basket. Then for the first time he saw who it was whom he had been so unceremoniously ordering about upon his commission. Had Nellie been rich and prosperous, he would probably have laughed and made exceedingly light of the matter; but poor, and almost dependent on his bounty as she was, he flushed scarlet to the forehead, and apologized with an eager deference, which was not only very touching in itself, but very characteristic of the sensitive and generous-hearted race from which he sprung. {327} "But, after all," he added, in conclusion, smiling and laying his finger lightly on the folds of Nellie's mantle, "after all, how could I dream that, her weeks of weary wandering only just concluded, Mistress Netterville would have been up again with the sun, looking as fresh and bright as the morning dew, and masquerading like a peasant girl?"

"But I am not masquerading at all," said Nellie, laughing, and yet evidently quite in earnest. "I am as poor as a peasant girl, and mean to dress like one, ay, and to work like one too, so long as I needs must be dependent upon others."

"Not if I am still to be master here," said Roger, very decidedly, taking the fishing-creel out of her hands. "Like a wandering princess you have come to me; and like a wandering princess I intend that you shall be treated, so long as you condescend to honor me by your presence in this kingdom of barren rocks."

"But the fish," said the laughing and blushing Nellie; "in the meantime, what is to be done with the fish? Nora will be in pain about it; for she told me last night that there wasn't a blessed fish in the bay that would be worth a 'thraneen' if only half-an-hour were suffered to elapse between their exit from the ocean and their introduction to her kitchen."

"Nora is quite right," said Roger, responding freely to the young girl's merry laugh; "and it has cost me both time and pains, I do assure you, to impress that fact upon her mind. But Maida has already told her all about it; and here she comes," he added, as he caught a glimpse of the old woman descending leisurely toward the pier. "So now we may leave the fish with a safe conscience to her tender mercies, and, if you are inclined for a stroll, I will take you up to yonder rocky platform, from whence you will see the Atlantic, as unfortunately we but seldom see it on this wild coast, in all the calm glories of a summer day."

To Be Continued.

--------

{328}

Mexico, By Baron Humboldt [Footnote 57]

[Footnote 57: _Essai politique sur le Royaume de Nouvelle-Espagne_. 2 vols. fol. Chez F. Schoell. Paris.]

Some old books, like some old married couples, deserve a second celebration. Fifty years are surely long enough to wait for a rehearsal of nuptials; and a married pair who can for a half-century live at peace with themselves and the public, respected and esteemed, receive a merited recognition and a pleasing recompense. Books that have circulated with an equal longevity and enjoyed universal appreciation, have also their rights for a share of the cakes and ale. If the old people have only a new coat and a new gown, they look young again; if the old favorite volumes are honored with a fresh binding, their backbones seems strengthened. It is charming to witness an ancient dame clinging to the side of her equally ancient husband for time almost out of mind; and it has a home look to find two venerable tomes, called Volume One and Volume Two, supporting and comforting each other on the same shelf in the library. When one of the aged who have trudged on through life together drops off, how soon the second follows after; and when one book is lost or destroyed, its companion pines away in dust, if not in ashes, till, finally neglected, it mysteriously disappears.

But Baron Humboldt's two folios on New Spain or Mexico indicate that time, as yet, has written no wrinkles on their brow. They are good for another lease of life of equal length; their high state of preservation has imparted a healthy appearance; and perhaps grandchildren hereafter will be delighted to make their acquaintance. On the present occasion, the compliments of the season, and of the editor, must be extended to them. And in the interchange of courtesies, let us hear what they have to say for themselves. It is somewhat surprising in modern times that Humboldt's folios on Mexico should have retained so long their pre-eminence. The baron wrote upon subjects wherein our knowledge is continually increasing, where important changes are daily made by new discoveries, and where a constant demand is kept up for new books. His great essay is devoted to branches of political and social sciences, which in their nature are progressive sciences,--geography, topography, economical and commercial statistics. But in the case of the baron, an exception is found in the general law in relation to the rise, reign, and fall of standard authorities. His supremacy in the department of Mexico was established in the first decade of the present age; it may not be destroyed in the last. Yet one fact is truly remarkable: his essay was published in 1811 in Paris, in the most imposing and expensive form, in two volumes in folio; it had been anxiously expected; it was instantly translated into all the modern languages of Europe; it was received with eulogiums and commendations; but no second edition was ever called for. This singular fate of a performance so much extolled, and still quoted, needs some explanation; and in giving this, the interest manifested abroad in the situation of Mexico must also be explained; for in truth, the popularity of the essay was, for the most part, due to the importance of and attention bestowed upon that rich province of the king of Spain on the western shores of the Atlantic. {329} Mexico had been a resplendent gem in the Spanish crown from the time of the conquest by Cortez in 1521; it had been the envy of rival nations, and often the prize which they desired to win from its rightful sovereign. England was eager to supply its market with African slaves, in order to gain access to its ports, and thereby stimulate the contraband trade. France was perpetually on guard at the Bahamas to capture its bullion fleets, bearing their precious cargoes from Vera Cruz to Cadiz. The Dutch defeated the best of Spanish admirals, and carried off the richest spoils; while all three, English, French, and Dutch cruisers, partly privateers, partly public armed vessels with their piratical captains and crews, in times of profound peace made private war on every ship sailing under the flag of Castile. The capital of that far-off country was described in the last century as one of the wonders of the modern world. We read in _Spence's Anecdotes_, that a travelled gentlemen who had seen several of the most splendid courts abroad, stated in the presence of Mr. Pope, the poet, that he had never been struck so much with anything as by the magnificence of the City of Mexico, with its seven hundred equipages and harness of solid silver, and ladies walking on the paseo waited upon by their black slaves, to hold up the trains, and shade with umbrellas their fair mistresses from the sun. But this New Spain had nothing attractive beyond its wealth; it had no arts, sciences, or history; no literature, poetry, or romance. With the death of Hernando Cortez, these had died out. No one desired more on these subjects. But everybody wished to learn all that could be learned of its prolific revenues, and of its enormous resources in the precious metals, then supplying the commerce of all nations with coin. Nothing was talked of, listened to, or considered, when discussing the condition of that country, except its vast production of silver. "Thank you," said Tom Hood, when dining with a London Amphictyon, who was helping his plate too profusely, "thank you, alderman; but if it is all the same to you, I will take the balance in money." Interest in Mexico was taken in nothing else.

It must be remembered that credit in commerce is of recent origin, and paper currency of still more recent creation. Both, comparatively speaking, were in their infancy at the close of the last century. Precious metals were then the sole, or at least the great, medium of commercial exchanges; and consequently, silver and gold performed a more important part in the markets than they do now. They were more highly appreciated and sought after. Then it was, that the Mexican mines yielded the far greater portion of the total product; and, of course, the control of these mines was supposed to afford the control of the commerce of the world. Economists and statesmen, therefore, turned their gaze upon that strange land beyond sea, as the only land in that direction worthy of their notice. But the notice bestowed upon it was absorbing. Napoleon, availing himself of the imbecility of the king of Spain, and of the venality of the Prince of Peace, endeavored to divert the Mexican revenues from the royal House of Trado at Seville to the imperial treasury of France. Ouvrard, also, the most daring speculator in the most gigantic schemes under Napoleon, the contractor-general for the armies and navy of the French empire, undertook, on his own responsibility, to enter into a private partnership with the Spanish sovereign to monopolize the trade of Mexico, and divide equally the profits. {330} Napoleon assented to this arrangement; English bankers took part in the negotiation; and the British government under William Pitt gave it their sanction and aid. Yet, strange to relate, all this transpired while England was at war with France and Spain, and a British fleet blockaded the harbor of Vera Cruz. These hostile nations were drained of money, and wanted an immediate supply. France had anticipated the public revenues to meet the imperial necessity; the Bank of England had stopped specie payments; Madrid was threatened with a famine from a series of failures in the crops at home, and no funds were in the royal coffers to purchase wheat abroad. Thus all were clamorous for coin, which Mexico only could produce. It was known that fifty millions of silver dollars were on deposit in the Consulado of Vera Cruz, awaiting shipment to Spain; and it was well known, also, that, if shipped, the greater portion of the amount would soon find its way to Paris and London. In this state of affairs, the emergency became so pressing upon the belligerents, that their war policy was compelled to succumb; the blockade was raised and the bullion exported. We shall not soon forget how a similar exigency in the late war compelled the Lincoln administration to permit provisions being furnished to the Confederates, in order to procure cotton to strengthen our finances. Cotton was king of commerce in 1864, Silver was king in 1804.

England, at the same time, was meditating seriously upon the resources and riches of New Spain. Aware of the importance attached by the British cabinet to the subject, Dumouriez, the distinguished French republican exile, then in London, addressed Mr. Windham, the Secretary of War and for the Colonies, a paper advocating its conquest. The general called attention to the fact that, once in English occupancy, "the commerce of the two seas will be in your hands; the metallic riches of Spanish America will pour into England; you will deprive Spain and Bonaparte of them; and this monetary revolution will change the political face of Europe." It seems Mr. Windham entertained the project, and referred it to Sir Arthur Wellesley. In the sixth volume of the _Wellington Supplementary Dispatches_, the proposition is examined.

While such was the state of public opinion in Europe, finding expression daily in high quarters, and of which the above are only isolated examples, Humboldt undertook his scientific expedition to Spanish America, and was preparing his great essay on New Spain. He landed in Mexico in March, 1803, and remained in the country for one year, engaged in the study of the physical structure and political condition of the vast realm, and in the investigation of the causes having the greatest influence on the progress of its population and native industry. But no printed work could be found to aid him in his researches with materials, and therefore he resorted to manuscripts in great numbers, already in general circulation. He had also free, uninterrupted access to official records; records which for the first time were permitted to be examined by a private gentleman. Finally, he embodied his topographical, geographical, statistical, and other collections, into a separate work on New Spain, "hoping they would be received with interest at a time when the new continent, more than ever, attracts the attention of Europeans." {331} The original sketch was drawn up in Spanish for circulation, and from the comments thereon, he informs us, he "was enabled to make many important corrections." The _Essay_ reviews the extent and physical aspect of the country; the influence of the inequalities of surface on the climate, on agriculture, commerce, and defence of the coasts; the population, and its divisions into castes; the census and area of the intendencias--calculated from the maps drawn up by him from his astronomical observations; its agriculture and mines, commerce and manufactures; the revenues and military defences. But Humboldt very candidly confesses, as incident to such an undertaking, that, "notwithstanding the extreme care which I have bestowed in verifying results, no doubt many serious errors have been committed." It can be readily imagined what attention was given in Europe to the first rude sketch of statistics published by him in 1804-5, The cupidity and ambition of merchants, statesmen, and military men were aroused by this first authentic revelation of Mexican revenues and resources. All nations were anxious to learn more; all classes of people listened in wonder to this true account respecting the prodigious production of the precious metals. In this pleasing excitement, Humboldt was preparing his complete _Essay_, to satisfy the public desire. Having learned caution from the inaccuracies pointed out in his first rough publication, he was in no great haste to send forth the final result of his labors. Thus, he waited for four or five years; and, unfortunately for his own profit, he waited too long. The interest in Mexico had gone by; the golden visions of its boundless opulence had vanished; its fascinations, that had charmed for years, like some castle raised by magic in a night, resplendent with gems of ruby, amethyst, and jasper, had passed away; the spell of enchantment was broken. For the rebellion burst out in 1810, and commerce, revenues, industry, all perished in the general ruin it created. It was now, in common estimation, one of the poorest colonies of Spain; and what cared the public for more Spanish poverty beyond the Atlantic, when too much of it already was visible in the peninsula? The great _Essay_, therefore, when finally published, was not purchased with impatient eagerness; it fell flat on the market. For Mexico was now ruined, the public thought; and so does the public continue to think, even unto the present day. Thenceforth, Mexican antiquities only were attractive. The _Edinburgh Review_, in 1811, writing on the essay, commences: "Since the appearance of our former article on this valuable and instructive work, a great and, for the present at least, lamentable revolution has taken place in the countries it describes. Colonies which were at that time the abode of peace and industry have now become the seat of violence and desolation. A civil war, attended with various success, but everywhere marked with cruelty and desolation, has divided the colonists, and armed them for their mutual destruction. Blood has been shed profusely in the field and unmercifully on the scaffold. Flourishing countries, that were advancing rapidly in wealth and civilization, have suffered alike from the assertors of their liberties and from the enemies of their independence." The _Quarterly Review_ did not notice the _Essay_, making no sign of its existence.

{332}

It is true, some learned gentlemen gave a look into the work, and scientific men studied it well. But the learned and scientific were only a small, select number in the general mass of readers; and Humboldt had not designed his information for, and waited not the approbation of, the select alone, but of all classes alike that could read. Europe closed the map of Mexico when the revolution broke forth, and shut out all further inquiry into its political and industrial condition. Then it was that, instead of a cordial greeting with open arms at every fire side, which Humboldt reasonably anticipated for his production, the door was almost rudely slammed in his face. He never forgot that treatment of the book; he never wrote more upon Mexico; never furnished to the learned or unlearned a new edition, with emendations and corrections, notes and new maps. As it went from the hands of the author then, we receive it now.

At the moment, however, when Europe closed the map, America for the first time seriously opened it; and just in proportion with receding time, as Mexico has faded into insignificance from European view, in the same proportion with advancing time has Mexico loomed up into importance with us. They refused to Humboldt then the high consideration his _Essay_ merited; we bestow upon him now more respect and veneration than his _Essay_ deserves. To the European mind, Humboldt's New Spain was Mexico no more; to the American, Mexico is the same New Spain--changed, to be sure, but still the land for enterprise and riches. It was not altogether unknown to us before our revolution. It had a consideration while the States were English colonies; for Northern merchants sometimes smuggled into its ports, and sometimes, too, our fillibusters buccaneered on its coasts, like other loyal English subjects sailing under "the brave old English flag." When our revolution came, aid was invoked from Spain as well as from France; for the Spanish sovereign had a personal insult to avenge on the British, and Spanish supremacy on the seas to maintain. But Spain, though willing, had, first of all, to concentrate her fleets. One armada was contending with the Portuguese in South America; another was

## acting as convoy for the galleons, with cargoes of silver,

proceeding from Mexico to Spain. Treaties with Portugal were hastily patched up, and "the ordinanza of free trade" liberated the convoy from protecting the ships laden with the silver. The policy of that ordinance Humboldt, and many respectable Mexican writers after him, have much misunderstood; and they are greatly mistaken in their estimate of its beneficial effects on mining prosperity. After the United States became an independent nation, Spain, in order to be rid of the Louisiana incumbrance, which was dependent upon the revenues of Mexico for support, transferred that territory to France; and Napoleon, in turn, sold it to the American government. But did its boundaries extend to the Sabine or the Rio Grande, on the south? And did they extend to the Russian Pacific possessions on the north? These were uncertain questions, and hence from this purchase originated those many diplomatic complications, and no less numerous domestic controversies, which have been the fruitful source of change in cabinets and of defeats of national parties, with the downfall of not a few distinguished men. Hence, also, the first settlements in Texas; next the American colonists, and the question of annexation; the war with Mexico; the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the acquisition of California. Before these measures were decided, however, Colonel Burr had already, with his band of adventurers, undertaken that mysterious enterprise in the same direction, whose object seems to have been as vague as the boundaries to be invaded were uncertain. {333} Ouvrard, also, had solicited and effected the co-operation of leading merchants in Northern cities, in his joint speculation with the king of Spain, for the vast Mexican commercial scheme. And herein was given the great impulse to amassing those large private fortunes, by Mr. Gray of Boston, Mr. Oliver of Baltimore, Mr. Girard of Philadelphia, and the Parish family. Subsequently came the Mexican revolution, protracted for twelve years, during which period the commerce of that country, previously a Spanish monopoly, was completely under the control of Americans. At the close of the Napoleon wars Spain desired the monopoly restored, in order to transfer it to France. This movement called forth, in favor of free commerce, the celebrated message announcing the Monroe doctrine. The message gave umbrage to Russia in reference to her American possessions, and fixed their ultimate destiny. It also forced England to disclose her claim for the first time, and to exhibit her title to the Vancouver country south of the Russian--a title until then unheard of and unknown to American statesmen. The Missouri Compromise grew out of the acquisition of Louisiana, and its repeal grew out of the acquisition of California. As a supplement to the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was concluded the treaty for the Messilla Valley, which negotiation sprung from a mistake in Humboldt's maps, faithfully copied by Disturnell, in giving a wrong location, in longitude and latitude, to El Paso on the Rio Grande. The invasion of Mexico by France in 1862, nearly kindled a desolating war between the United States and the French empire. Unforeseen obstacles, however, induced Louis Napoleon to pause in the conquest; for he had, in its inception, been deceived respecting the condition of Mexico and the Mexican people, and misled as to the easy development by France of the abundant resources of the country. The moral support, moreover, extended to the liberal party by the American government compelled the French to abandon an expedition which was properly appreciated in all its imposing magnitude by the emperor, but which so many to this day do not comprehend.

No one can fail to be astonished in contemplating the large space occupied by Mexico in American affairs; the immense acquisition of territory made from within her ancient landmarks; the princely private fortunes accumulated from her commerce; the vast treasures discovered in her former mines; the rich agricultural crops gathered from her Louisiana valley, her Texas loamy soil, and her California plains; while, upon the margin of the Mississippi river, a city, created by Mexican aid and contributions, has grown into an opulent mart of commerce, surpassing all other American cities in the value of its exports, in the happy era of our greatest prosperity. Nor can that prosperity ever return until New Orleans once more becomes the leading emporium for the outlet of the great staples of this republic. It is no less surprising to recall the fate of so many statesmen, and others of mark, who have risen to distinction, or who have been forced to retire, from questions growing out of their policy toward Mexico. {334} It is no longer disputed that the first fatal error of the first Napoleon was his invasion of Spain, thereby to control the Mexican revenues; perhaps it will soon be conceded that the first fatal error of Louis Napoleon was, in too closely following in the footsteps, in the same direction, of his illustrious uncle. Colonel Burr, the Vice-President of the United States, from his ill-starred adventure, fell into disgrace and sunk into an infamous notoriety. General Wilkinson, once upon the military staff of Washington, was both the accomplice and ruin of Burr, and died in obscurity in a voluntary exile. The Missouri Compromise destroyed the aspirations of many Northern statesmen who opposed its adoption, and shattered the popularity of others who afterward advocated its repeal. The question of annexing Texas was the fatal rock upon which were wrecked the hopes of President Van Buren for renomination; it defeated Mr. Clay; it elected Mr. Polk. In succession to the presidency, were elected General Taylor and General Pierce, from their distinguished positions in the war with Mexico. To the like cause, Colonel Frémont was indebted for his popular nomination, nearly crowned with success. Winfield Scott was made a Brevet Lieutenant-General for his meritorious services in the Mexican campaign, and many of the greatest generals in the recent strife, both Federal and Confederate, received their first practical lessons in the art of war on the same distant field. To all of these historical celebrities, the crude statistics or the elaborate _Essay_ of Humboldt were well known; for Humboldt's publications were the only source of authentic information on Mexico of much value. Other foreign authors, who followed after, copied extensively from him, and native writers have not failed to quote from the same source. But although foreign authors have drawn more from the _Essay_, they have been less circumspect in verifying the accuracy of its statements; while the Mexican writers, availing themselves sparingly of extracts, sometimes, at least, favor the public with interesting corrections. Travellers too often have given us too much of Humboldt. Indeed, it may be said, they have fed upon him; they have imbibed him with their pulque, and taken him solid with their toasted tortilla. His _Essay_ has been pulled apart leaf by leaf, to be reprinted page after page in their, for the most part, ephemeral productions. Humboldt in pieces has been dished up to suit all customers. An oyster could not be served in more varieties of style. Even foreign embassies have supplied some of these literary cooks. None of them seemed to know that man, even in Mexico, must have more than Humboldt. In a fervid imagination, they thought he could be improved upon, by reducing the _Essay_ to sublimated extracts. But Doctor Samuel Johnson hinted, long ago, that extracts from a work are as silly specimens of its author as was that by the foolish old Greek, who exhibited a brick from his house as a specimen of its architecture. Mr. Prescott, on the contrary, in his celebrated history of the Conquest, with his usual discriminating judgment, has properly availed himself of the _Essa_y to afford his readers a vivid and veracious picture of the natural configuration of the country. And to understand the country properly, this is the primary lesson to be attentively studied. But it is much to be regretted that Mr. Duport, in his standard French work on the production of its precious metals, was misled by errors existing in the maps accompanying the _Essay_. In consequence, he has made serious mistakes in describing its geological structure, in the run and inclinations of the strata in the silver rock, in the silver-bearing region.

{335}

Whoever desires to comprehend the political condition and the industrial or commercial resources of Mexico, ought to commence as Humboldt commenced. It is only through a strict investigation of its material interests that Mexico can be understood. To begin with an examination of its political history is to begin where the labor should end. Mexico, for three hundred years, was a colony, and, like other colonies, had no history, no policy of its own; no armies, no navies, no wars; nothing of statesmanship peculiar to itself; for all were absorbed in the history of the mother country. When emerging from a colonial chrysalis, it did not become a nation; it may be somewhat doubted if it has even yet reached that position. As a republic, its federal government has been without a policy, its administrations without stability, its finances without an exchequer; its armies unable to conquer abroad, or contend with foreign invaders at home; it has no navy; it is almost destitute of all the essential elements that constitute a people. True, Mexico has had great vicissitudes of fortune, with changes, frequent changes, and for the most part violent overthrows, of the federal rulers. But these convulsions have produced no serious results. The storms passed over without indications of wide-spread disaster. Sunshine came again without any visible improvement; no signs of increasing intelligence, no symptoms of decay to the superficial observer; for these petty conflicts originated in personal motives, and so ended. Having no political object, they are devoid of grave consideration, of any interest or profit. Their civil wars have been of regular periodical return, but these wars are of no more historical significance than the wars of the Saxon Heptarchy. Mexico, for many reasons, must still be contemplated, while a sovereign nation, as she was viewed when a viceroyalty of Spain. The country now appears in Christendom as an enigma full of strange anomalies. In the erroneous estimation of most men, it is hastening on to ruin and decay: calamities that came upon the people in their revolt from Spain, and which will cling to them until their race is extinct. The royal finger of scorn, too, is pointed at the republic, as a reproach and warning to all republican governments of their ultimate failure. It would be vain to waste time on its political records, to elucidate Mexican questions. These annals are dumb. But to the mountains, the mines, the mills, where the rich minerals are produced and industry is developed, the inquirer must go to find out what Mexico really is. In observing the people in their private pursuits, he will imperceptibly be led to comprehend their political institutions. In daily contact with the distinct classes, divided into castes, he will in like manner be soon conversant with the most noted men. Enigmas will vanish upon nearer approach and on closer inspection; anomalies will no longer embarrass. Perhaps previously formed opinions may be shocked, rudely assailed, and demolished. He may see many lingering remnants of Astec superstition in one caste, where they often disobey the priest; and much affectation of infidelity in another, where they kneel as suppliants at the confessional to crave a blessing. He will perceive marks of seeming decay everywhere, amid indications of progress. The federal government will be pronounced not only bad, but bad as government in a republic can be; yet will he find some consolation in knowing that the viceregal government was far worse. In the dregs of a popular polity, some protection for the people will be manifest, which was denied under a king. {336} He will hear Spain, on all sides, spoken of with reverence and respect; he will soon understand, on all sides, that Spaniards are detested. He will be gratified with the cordial welcome bestowed upon Americans; and wonder at the common hatred, in all classes, to the United States. While he is aware that millions upon hundreds of millions of dollars, from outlying provinces torn from the nation, have been yielded to their neighbor on the north, he will also discover that the heart of the Mexican territory has not been reached. Nor need he be surprised when the truth is revealed, that the Liberal executive will sooner forget the hostile invasion by France, than forgive the moral support extended to the native cause by that American neighbor.

On the whole, he may conclude that the Mexicans, after all, are somewhat rational and sensible, not entirely deficient in refinement and intelligence, or in energy and industry. But these opinions can only be formed by pursuing the method of Humboldt, and bearing his elaborate production in mind. By constant comparison of his statements with more recent publications from the Mexican press on the same subjects, not only greater accuracy in details will be reached, along with later information, but the advancement in knowledge and wealth will be made apparent. It is thus a just estimate of Mexico at present with Mexico of the past can be formed; and while many imperfections in the parts of the _Essay_ will be detected, no one can fail to admire and appreciate its general excellence.

--------

One Fold.

"And there shall be one fold."

Disciple.

"One Fold! Good Lord, how poor thou art, To have but one for all! Methinks the rich with shame will smart To stand in common stall With ragged boors and work-grimed men; And ladies fair, with those who when They pray have dirty, hands. Dost think the wise can be devout When, close beside, an ignorant lout With mouth wide-gaping stands?

{337}

I would thou wert a richer Lord, And could an hundred folds afford Where each might find his place. Look round, good Lord, and thou wilt see Most men the same have thought with me, And herd with whom they best agree In fashion, creed, and race."

Master.

"Good child, thou hast a merry thought! But folds like mine cannot be bought, Nor made at fancy's will. If any find my fold too small 'Tis they who like no fold at all, The same who heed no shepherd's call, Whom wolves will find and kill. _My_ fold alone is close and warm, Shielding its inmates from all harm-- Its pastures rich and sweet. Hither, with gentle hand, I bring The peasant and the crownèd king Together at my feet. Here no man flings a look of scorn At him who may be baser born, For all as brothers meet. The wise speak kindly to the rude; The lord would not his slave exclude; Proud dames their servants greet. My fold doth equally embrace The men of every clime and race, And here in peace they rest. Here each forgets his rank and state. And only he is high and great Who loveth me the best. The rich, the poor, the bond, the free, The men of high and low degree, My fold unites in one with me-- With me, the Shepherd, called The Good, Who rules a loving brotherhood. Therefore, in that my fold is one, Believe me, it is wisely done."

------

{338}

Translated From The French Of M. Vitet.

Science And Faith.

Meditations On The Essence Of The Christian Religion, By M. Guizot.

Some time ago political life seemed to be the prominent occupation in France. M. Guizot was then cautiously defending his opinions, and was really wearing out his energy and his life in this work. At that time, we have heard it wished more than once, not that the struggle should cease, but that death might not surprise him with his mind occupied solely with these passing events. He needed, as a last favor and at the end of an ambitious career, some years of quiet and retreat to meditate upon the future, and to revive the faith of youth by the lessons of riper years. He required this for himself, for the interest of his soul. Nothing then foretold that he would soon be engaged in the arena of metaphysical and religious controversy. The disputes about these questions seemed almost lulled to sleep. Not that doubt and incredulity had surrendered their arms; they followed their accustomed work, but without noise, without parade, and without apparent success. This was a truce which had allowed Christian convictions to become reanimated, to increase, and to gain ground. The proof of this was seen in those gloomy days, when the waves of popular opinion, which threatened to destroy, bent, completely subdued and submissive and with an unlooked-for respect, before sacred truths and the ministers of religion. This was the natural result of that bitter struggle which had lasted for fifteen years. The aggressors could not undertake two sieges at one time, and so political power became the target against which all their efforts were directed.

It is not the same now. Power is protected by an armor which has disheartened its adversaries; and the more surely it is guarded, the more exposed and compromised are other questions, which equal or even exceed it in importance. The spirit of audacity and aggression compensates itself for the forced forbearance from politics, imposed upon it by the political power. It sees that in religious matters the ground is not so well protected; it feels more at ease there and not nearly so hard pushed. From this fact there arises a series of bold attacks of a new order, which scandalize the believing, and astonish the most indifferent, when they think for a moment of the preceding calm. It is no longer men or ministers, it is not a form of government, it is God himself whom they attack? We do not ask that the government should place the least restriction on the rights of free thought, even should it be to the advantage of the truths that we venerate the most. We desire to state the fact, and nothing more. It may be that these attacks are not important enough to cause as much anxiety as they have done. {339} They are passionate, numerous, and skilfully arranged; but they cannot shake the edifice, and will serve rather to strengthen it, by summoning to its aid defenders who are more enlightened, and protectors who are more vigilant. Still, they are a great source of trouble. The restlessness, the distress, and the vague fears that the agitation of political affairs seemed alone capable of producing, now arise in the heart of the domestic circle and in the depths of the individual soul from these new discussions. It is not personal interests that are now risked, but souls that are in danger; and if the crisis is apparently less violent and intense, it is really graver and more menacing, and no one can remain neutral in the struggle.

And so M. Guizot wishes to take a part, and has entered the fray. He is of the number who, at certain times and upon certain subjects, do not know how to be silent. In politics he held back and he forbore. He saw the events, but he did not say what he thought of them. His debt in politics is now amply paid; all the more since he owed it to himself, as well as to his cause, to reestablish the real sense, the true physiognomy of the things he did. He had to explain clearly his views, his intentions, his acts; to interpret them and to comment upon them, we can almost say, to finish them during his own life; to give the true key to his future historians; in a word, to write his own _memoirs_. This was his duty, and he has acted rightly in not delaying it. It was not less for other ends, and in the design of a greater work, that he wished for twenty years' solitude and repose at the end of his life. His desire was heard. The days of calm and retreat have come, not, perhaps, at the time that he desired, and still less under conditions that he would have chosen, but for his glory they are such that he can well think them fruitful, worthy, valuable, full of vigor and of ardor. Happy autumn! when the recollections of the world and the echoes of political strife are only the recreation of a soul incessantly engaged with more serious problems. It is in these heights, in these serene regions, while he is questioning himself on his destiny and on his faith, that war has come to seek him; not the personal war of former times, but another kind of war, less direct and more general, yet perhaps more provoking. He is not the man to refuse the contest. Under the weight of years that he bears so well, stronger, more resolute, younger than ever, he has entered the arena; he will be militant until the end.

What will he do? What is his plan? What position will he take? The volume which is before us is an answer to these questions. It is only a first volume; but it is complete in itself, it is a work that one cannot study too closely, nor diffuse too widely. The developments, the additions, and the supplements which the three remaining volumes will soon add to the work, will, without doubt, make it still more comprehensive and solid; but as it is now, we consider it, without any commentary whatsoever, to be a most effective reply to the attacks which have recently been levelled against Christian doctrines, or, to speak more correctly, against the essence of all religion.

Before entering into the work, let us say something of the manner in which it is written. We are not going to speak of the author's style. We would announce nothing new to the world by saying that M. Guizot, when he has time and really tries, can write as well as he speaks. {340} His pen for many years has followed a law of progress and of increasing excellence. He has shown in these _Meditations_ a new skill, perhaps higher than in his _Memoirs_ even, in the art of clothing his ideas in excellent language; learnedly put together, yet without effort or stiffness, true in its coloring, sober in its effects, always clear and never trivial, always firm and often forcible. Something more novel and more characteristic appears in this book. It is in reality a controversial work, but a controversy which is absolutely new. It is more than courteous, it is an _impersonal_ polemic. The author has, certainly, always shown himself respectful to his opponents; he has ever admitted that they could hold different opinions from his in good faith; and even at the rostrum, in the heat of contests, his adversaries were not persons, they were ideas; but the people he disputed with were always, without scruple, called by their names. Here it is different; there is not a single proper name, the war is anonymous. In changing the atmosphere--in passing, if we can be allowed the expression, from earth to heaven, or, at least, from the bar to the pulpit, from politics to the gospel, he changes his method and takes a long step in advance. He endeavors to leave persons entirely out of consideration, for they only embarrass and embitter the questions. He forgets, or at least he does not tell us, who his adversaries are; he refutes them, but he does not name them.

Is not this discretion at once, good manners and good taste? It is also something more. Without doubt, by speaking only of ideas and not of those who maintain them, one loses a great means of effective action. In abstract matters, proper names referred to here and there are a very powerful resource--they arouse and excite attention, they give interest and life to the argument; but what is gained on one hand is frequently lost on another. The use of proper names, though it may have nothing to provoke irritation, still always incurs the danger of causing the debate to degenerate into a personal dispute. The questions are reduced to the capacity of those who sustain them. Better take a plainer and more decided path, and keep persons completely out of view. M. Guizot has done well. In no part of his book is there reason to regret the vivacity and attraction of a more direct polemic; whilst the urbanity and the omission of names, without really changing or diminishing the questions, spread a calm gravity throughout the work, almost a perfume of tolerance, which gains the reader's confidence and disposes him to allow himself to be convinced. It is true that this kind of polemics can only be maintained when greatness of thought compensates for the lack of passion. It is necessary to take wing, mount above questions, conquer all and enlighten all. Such is the character of these _Meditations_. The comprehensiveness of his views, the greatness of his plan, and the clearness of his style, alike impress upon it the seal of true originality.

It is not a theology that M. Guizot has undertaken; he has not written for doctors; he discusses neither texts nor points of doctrine; he does not attempt to solve scholastic difficulties; still less does he wish to mingle in the discussion of incidental events, to descend to the questions of to-day, and to follow, step by step, the crisis which agitates the Christian world at this time. He has grappled with more weighty and more permanent questions. {341} He wishes to show clearly the truth of Christianity in its essence, in its fundamental dogmas, or rather in its simplicity and innate greatness, without commentary, interpretation, or human work of any kind, and consequently before all disunion, schism, or heresy. He has tried to expose the pure idea of Christianity, so that he can be more able to demonstrate its divine character.

Such is his intention. What has he done to attain it? The book itself must answer this question. But in these few pages how can we speak of it? How can we analyze a work when one is tempted to quote every paragraph? And on the other hand to give many extracts from a book, is only to mutilate it and give an incorrect idea of its real value. Let us only try, then, to say enough to inspire our readers with the more profitable desire of studying M. Guizot himself.