IV.

At this moment the door-handle was touched on the outside, and M. Rouvière sprang hastily from his chair and stationed himself with his back to the fire, looking very straight and stiff and aggressive. The door slowly opened and Mme. Dupuis entered, pushing out, at the same time, the unfortunate cat which was trying to slip in with her.

“No, no, pussy,” said the lady, “you got yourself turned out, and you must stay out. O the naughty men!” she exclaimed, laughingly, as she closed the door, “they have been smoking.”

“Have we been smoking?” said Rouvière, sniffing. “Bless me! I really believe we have; it shows how absent-minded one can be. I hadn’t perceived it, so absorbed were George and I in our great project.”

“What project?” asked madame as she took off her hood and cloak. “Are you going to stay with us, M. Rouvière?”

“Not exactly,” replied the guest, “but for George and me the result is the same. Are you good at guessing riddles, madame?”

“You are not going to take George away with you, are you?” asked the wife, her brown eyes resting firmly on his.

“With your permission, dear lady,” answered Rouvière, bowing with ironical politeness.

“No, no, it cannot be!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, with a forced, flickering smile, looking at him inquiringly and speaking low and hurriedly. “You will think me very silly to take a joke so seriously, but I cannot help it. You are playing with my life-spring. Tell me—I pray you tell me, dear M. Rouvière, that you are _not_ going to take my husband away.”

“I shall certainly leave his heart with you, my dear lady,” answered the triumphant friend, “but it is a fact that I am going to carry off his body for a while. The long and the short of it is this: for some time past George has been meditating a return to the land of the living, and he is glad to seize this opportunity to start at once, thus obviating all minor hindrances.”

Mme. Dupuis listened silently, her eyes cast down; she had not taken a seat since her entrance into the room, and she continued standing, leaning against an arm-chair in front of her guest.

“It is true, then,” she murmured when Rouvière ceased speaking.

“Do you hear him?” cried her tormentor, laughing, as a heavy thump was heard on the floor of the room above them. “The madcap! what a row he is making up there with his trunk. He’s dragging it about as if it were a triumphal car. Come, now, madame, you really ought not to feel surprised that, after living thirty consecutive years in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, a man like George....”

“Do not trouble yourself to enter into any explanations—I understand,” interrupted Mme. Dupuis dryly. “Where are you taking him?”

“Why, to tell the truth, my dear lady, everywhere; first....”

“For how long a time?” again interrupted the victim.

“How long? Well, a year, perhaps, or two years ... at most. Ah! my dear Mme. Dupuis, what pleasant hours he is preparing for you,” continued M. Rouvière, who waxed each minute more and more vainglorious and jubilant. “How vastly will your remarkable collection of curiosities be enriched by his few months of travel! He will bring you back a dozen authentic reliquaries, and as many rosaries, blessed by the Holy Father himself ... _propria manu_! What say you to that?”

But Mme. Dupuis had ceased to listen; she had thrown herself into the arm-chair before her and was weeping bitterly. “O my God! my God!” were the only words she spoke between her sobs.

“Good!” growled Rouvière, scowling at the unhappy woman—“the elegiac style. Come, now,” he continued, making a step towards her and forcing himself to speak gently—“come, now, my dear lady, you are not reasonable. What is all this crying about? A journey. A journey don’t kill a man; am not I a proof of that? And, good God! sailors’ wives—what do they do? Really, this is too bad; you are placing _me_ in a most annoying position, madame,” suddenly changing his gentle tone to one of vexation. “You are rendering my mission excessively painful.”

“Excuse me, sir,” sobbed the stricken wife, raising her wet face for a moment. “You see I ... I can’t....” She could not go on.

M. Rouvière began to pace the room angrily; his tactics were at a loss, and he found his task more difficult than he had anticipated; the little “_provinciale_” did not resemble the old Indian vixen as much as he had imagined. Presently he stopped in front of the weeping lady. “You are doing, madame,” said he sternly, “precisely what I was instructed to tell you George wishes to avoid.”

“Shall I not see him before he goes?” asked Madame Dupuis with a frightened look, half-rising from her seat as she spoke.

“You shall see him, if you can recover your equanimity,” replied Rouvière; “if you cannot, it will be better for you and for him not to meet. His resolution is not to be changed.”

“Oh! I will be calm, I promise you,” exclaimed the wife, great drops flowing fast down her pale cheeks; “in a few minutes ... give me a few minutes more.... I cannot ... all at once.... O God! merciful God!” Again she wept despairingly.

“I am compelled to make the remark, madame,” observed Rouvière harshly, “that all this despair is quite out of proportion with the cause. The deuce take it! I’m not carrying your husband off to the war.”

“No, no; I believe that he will come back again,” sobbed Mme. Dupuis, trying to wipe away her tears.

“You are a pious woman, madame, and now’s the hour to show your piety. Religion does not consist in only going to church. You are not to think of yourself solely in this world.”

“But you see, M. Rouvière,” replied the good little woman, making a great effort to control her emotion, “he’s not accustomed, like you, to a life of continual fatigue; his health is more delicate than you suspect. You will take care of him,” she added, suddenly seizing her enemy’s right hand with both of hers—“you will take care of him, will you not?”

“Why, certainly, madame, certainly,” answered Rouvière a trifle more gently; “you may rely on me for that. I promise to bring him back to you as fresh and rosy as any lad in Cotentin. I give you my word of honor. You understand me, do you not? But now, I beg you, let us have no more tears, especially no scene at parting.”

“I will do all you wish me to do.” And Mme. Dupuis forthwith smiled tearfully on the hard, cold man who had so wantonly upset her happiness.

“Look,” she cried presently, as she wiped away the last hot drops, “it can’t be perceived that I have been crying.”

“That’s right, madame; that’s the way! I’ve great esteem for strong, single-hearted women; for wives who are truly Christian and self-sacrificing. And now that you’ve recovered your calmness, allow me to repeat to you that there really never was any reason for such great grief. What is a year? Gracious heavens! it is nothing. You will probably spend six months of it with your daughter, and the remaining six months you will pass here in the midst of your remembrances. George will not be more than half absent, for everything around you will bring him constantly before you; you will meet him at every step!”

“Take care, sir, take care!” said Mme. Dupuis, shaking her head at him with a faint smile, “lest, while you seek to comfort me, you increase the pain, ... which you cannot understand!”

“I beg your pardon, madame; I understand it perfectly,” replied Rouvière, an angry gleam lighting up his eyes for an instant, “and I thought that I was proving to you that I do.”

“O sir! believe me, I wish to cast no reflection either on your intelligence or your kindness; be quite sure of that!”

“Madame!” exclaimed the gentleman.

“But there _are_ things,” continued Mme. Dupuis, giving at last free utterance to her feelings—“there _are_ things which are _not_ to be _guessed_. Have you thought how different your life has been to ours? You have been very wise; you have never allowed your heart to be bound by any of those ties whose number and strength are only recognized when they come to be broken. Yes, you may well say that everything here, the very hearthstone itself, forms a part of our united lives, of our remembrances, making our very thoughts the same. Everything around us loves us, everything is dear to us.... So, at least, I believed until now! A few minutes ago how dearly I prized the simple objects this room contains—all so familiar to us both during so many years, all bearing traces of our habits; each one reminding us of the projects, the pleasures, the sorrows we have shared together! And now they are nothing to me—they _can_ be nothing to me but the ruins of a false happiness, the wrecks of a dream!”

“Really, madame, you exaggerate strangely,” replied Rouvière coldly; “admitting that this journey throws a shade over the present, the past, at least, remains intact.”

“You are mistaken, sir,” returned Mme. Dupuis. “This journey is doubtless not much in itself, but it answers cruelly a question which I have been accustomed to ask myself in secret nearly all my life: Is George happy? No, he was not happy; I alone was happy. I know the truth at last! He was resigned”—she struggled a moment to contain her emotion—“but he was not happy. And yet my heart—I feel it, I am sure of it—was worthy of his; in every other respect I was inferior to him, and I felt it bitterly. What companionship could a mind like his find in the conversation of a poor, provincial girl, ignorant of everything, knowing nothing but how to love him?”

“You undervalue yourself,” remarked her attentive listener; “as for me, I declare that the more I know you, the better I appreciate George’s choice of a wife.”

“You flatter me, M. Rouvière,” replied Mme. Dupuis, smiling; “you see me unhappy, and you are generous. I will be so too, and forgive you all the pain you have occasioned me.... I have hated you for years.”

“Me? Impossible! What had I done to deserve it? But first tell me”—and his voice was quite kind and gentle—“you feel better now, do you not? I don’t know how it is, but really you look ten years younger!”

“Possibly,” said Mme. Dupuis, with a quiet smile; “I think that I am a little feverish—so much the better!”

“Come, come, cheer up! And tell me, now, what painful part have I played in your existence?”

“Well, M. Rouvière,” she began calmly, but became more and more excited as she went on, “I need scarcely tell you that every woman, from the very morrow of her wedding-day, finds herself in presence of a formidable rival—her husband’s _unmarried_ life. Nor need I explain how difficult is the task to make him forget all that he has given up for his wife; how almost impossible it is to allay his regret for the golden age that is gone—regret which grows stronger as those past days recede farther and farther into the distance and youth fades away. I, sir, soon perceived that _your_ name, incessantly on his lips, was George’s favorite symbol of lost pleasures—the incarnation of all the illusions of by-gone years. In his dear thoughts _you_ represented liberty, adventure, and the days of fleeting sorrows and of infinite hopes; while _I_—I was positive life, paltry domestic economy, and daily anxiety. _I_ was prose and _you_ were poetry. It was with you then that I had to struggle, and I did so with all my strength and with all my soul. Alas! it was in vain; you were stronger than I. Each day George grew more thoughtful, and it seemed to me as if every one of those moments of sadness was a triumph for you. How often have I wept secret tears over my defects, here, seated by this hearthstone, or under the willow-trees in our little garden! But I was young then, and God took pity on me and gave me my daughter, and you were overcome. Now”—her voice fell and she paused a moment—“now the angel of our home is gone, and victory is once more yours.”

“Who knows?” replied Rouvière, his voice strangely hoarse and trembling. “The last word is not yet spoken. You are going to see George. Speak to him. You can still prevent his journey.”

“I have promised you that I will not try to do so,” she answered gently.

“But I give you back your promise!” cried her guest vehemently. “I will not be your evil genius. I am abrupt, madame, selfish too, sometimes—that’s a bachelor’s profession, you know; but I am not bad—pray, believe it.”

“I do believe it,” she replied, looking him frankly and smilingly in the eyes, “but I know George. All my efforts would be useless; they would irritate him, and nothing more. Besides, even if, by dint of tears, I could keep him at home, I would not do it now. I should only be adding another new and bitter regret to those which have already poisoned his life. And my heart would seem to reproach me with my victory every time that I saw him silent or sad. No; he must go!”

“All you say is true—too true,” said Rouvière after a short pause. “There is nothing to reply; you are right. But depend on me, madame, to shorten his absence.”

“I will depend on you; thank you.” She rose from her seat as she spoke and offered her hand to him. The repentant guest clasped it in both of his and kissed it, bowing low as he did so. At the same moment a loud noise as of something falling down the stairs, followed by a great confusion of tongues, was heard outside.

“My God! what is the matter?” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, pale as death. “It is he; I hear his voice!”

She rushed towards the door, but before she could reach it her husband entered, boiling over with passion, and followed by Marianne.

“You’re an awkward dunce! Be silent, I command you!” he shouted, as the maid tried to excuse herself. “You can’t make me believe that you find this trunk, which has nothing but a few shirts in it, too heavy for you to carry. The stupid creature,” he continued, turning to his wife, “actually let my trunk roll from the top to the bottom of the staircase!”

“Well, the fact is,” cried Marianne, “ever since you told me that you were going to Rome I’ve lost all strength in my arms and legs. I’ve no strength at all. Going to Rome, indeed! What next?”

“The woman is crazy,” said Dupuis, red with indignation. “What business is it of yours, I should like to know?”

“I don’t say that it’s my business,” replied the maid, who was as red and angry as her master, “but, all the same, it’s a queer idea to leave mistress here all alone, at her age too, while you go to Rome. You’ll be lucky if you find her again when you come back. _I_ won’t answer for it.”

“Marianne, take care!” cried Dupuis, who had listened, speechless with amazement, to his old servant’s impertinence. “You must see that I am far from pleased.”

“I’m not surprised at that,” returned she; “you’re not pleased with others, because you’re not pleased with yourself. That’s always the way.”

“I dismiss you from my service,” cried her master, in a fury.

“Go down stairs directly, Marianne,” said her mistress sternly.

“I dismiss you,” repeated Dupuis; “though they should be the last words I have to speak in my own house, they shall be obeyed. I dismiss you from my service! It is your fault also, my dear Reine,” he added when the maid had gone from the room; “you allow your servants to be too familiar with you. You see the consequence. I hope you understand that I have dismissed that woman?”

“Yes, George,” answered the lady gently; “I will settle her wages to-morrow morning, if you do not change your mind.”

“Change my mind!” exclaimed her husband. “Am I accustomed to change my mind every five minutes? Am I a weathercock, or do you deem me so weakened by age that I can submit to be lectured by my own servants?”

“I beg you, dear, not to say another word on the subject. She shall go away to-morrow. But I want to know, George, if you have all you need. Let me look into your trunk, will you? Men don’t know much about wearing-apparel, and when one is travelling the merest trifle that is missing suffices to put one out of sorts for the whole day. I know that you can buy whatever you want, but where’s the use when you can avoid it? And then, too, I wish to make you think of me all the time, you gadabout!”

“Do as you like, love,” said George; “here are the keys.”

“Well, Tom,” he continued, when the lady had closed the door behind her, “it seems to me that she received the news very well indeed.”

“Perfectly; do you know, George, your wife possesses some great qualities?”

“I know she does,” returned Dupuis, looking inquisitively at his friend’s serious, almost downcast countenance.

“She is shy and excessively timid, and that does her wrong,” went on Rouvière.

“I told you so, my dear friend,” cried Dupuis eagerly. “She was afraid of you at dinner. Now, I would bet any sum that, the ice once broken, you hardly recognized her.”

“It is true. Under the influence of deep emotion—for I will not conceal that she was at first very much affected—she found expressions, directly from her heart, which astonished me.”

“She has plenty of heart, that’s certain!” exclaimed the gratified husband.

“And you may add,” said his friend, “that she possesses a most refined and elevated mind.”

“I know it, Tom—I know it well!” cried Dupuis with delight. “I’m not a blockhead, hey? Do you suppose that I should have married her, if I had not known all that? And if it had to be done again, I should do it again. I am not only happy in the woman I have chosen, Tom, but I am proud of her! She has some slight defects—I see them as well as any one—but, bless me! of what consequence is a little awkwardness, or perhaps a few parish prejudices, when you find in the same woman the most self-sacrificing tenderness, the most exquisite good sense and uprightness, the most fervent and unassuming piety—in short, all the virtues that can captivate an honest man?”

“Ha! ha!” laughed Rouvière, slapping him caressingly on the shoulder. “An honest man—there you are! Well, well! all right.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dupuis, astonished.

“I mean,” replied Rouvière, “that the conclusion of your little speech is perfectly clear: thinking better about our journey, and estimating more coolly the value of the treasure that remains in the house, you have lost the courage to leave it. In short, you are about to let me go away alone.... I can understand perfectly that it should be so.”

“But I swear ...” cried Dupuis.

“Say no more, say no more,” interrupted his friend. “I understand it all perfectly, I tell you.”

“You _mis_understand, you mean,” said Dupuis angrily. “I have never, for one moment, forgotten my wife’s good qualities, but, were she ten times the saint she is, it is not less true that I have been living the life of a snail. Good heavens! I shall be better able to appreciate her many virtues when no consciousness of intellectual degradation is present to spoil my enjoyment.”

“You are too absurd, George! You make me laugh with your ‘intellectual degradation.’”

“You did not laugh half an hour ago,” retorted Dupuis, “when you depicted it in colors ... well, in colors which not even your friendship for me could soften.”

“Is it possible that you did not perceive that I was jesting? How singular it is that there’s not an intelligent man in France who, if he is condemned to live in the provinces, far from Paris, does not fancy that he is becoming idiotic! I had a presentiment that you suffered from this monomania, and I amused myself by exciting it. I had been drinking, you know; let that be my excuse.”

“However that may be,” answered Dupuis, a cold, stubborn expression stealing over his face and fixing itself there, “I am more than ever resolved to travel; if I hesitated before, I do so no longer. I confess that I was afraid of the effect my intention would produce on my wife, but her calmness removes all my scruples.”

“Listen to me, George, I beg you,” replied his friend earnestly: “don’t trust too much to appearances; your wife affects a firmness she is far from feeling. I know....”

“_You know_!” interrupted Dupuis. “You know that you begin to think that I shall be in your way, and so you want to cast me over.”

“No, George, no—nothing of the kind. You don’t understand me. I sincerely believed, from what you said, that you had changed your mind. I thought that I was anticipating your wishes in giving back your promise to go with me. But if you really persist in your intentions, all right ... I am delighted.”

“Here are the horses,” bawled Marianne, opening the door suddenly and then shutting it with a bang.

“That old woman would take my life, if she could,” said Rouvière, laughing. “Now, then,” he continued, taking up his cloak, “let’s gird up our loins. By the bye, I think I remember that you never can sleep in a coach.”

“I beg your pardon, I can sleep perfectly well.”

“So much the better. _Allons!_ Bravo! Are the horses put to, I wonder? Does this window look out upon the street?” Rouvière opened the sash as he spoke, but closed it quickly. “What a wind! It’s terrible—cold enough to split a rock! Now I think of it, one of the glasses of the post-chaise is broken. I’m afraid you’ll be frozen to death, George.”

“Don’t trouble yourself about me,” replied Dupuis, putting on his overcoat. “I can bear cold like a Laplander.”

“All right!”

The clock at this moment struck nine, and Madame Dupuis entered the room, carrying a soft India shawl suspended from her arm. The poor lady was very pale.

“Everything is ready,” she said with a trembling voice, “and here are your keys, dear. You will see that I have added some few little things that you had forgotten. And here is a comforter for you. I’ve cut my old cashmere shawl in two, and half of it will be very nice to wrap round your throat; it is very warm.”

“How foolish of you to cut up your shawl!” cried Dupuis. “However, since ’tis done, I accept; but it really was very foolish of you.”

“Here is the other half for you, M. Rouvière,” said madame, presenting it with a kind smile.

“For me!” cried Rouvière, taking it from her with respectful eagerness. “Thank you, thank you most sincerely!”

“You will remember your promises, will you not?” asked the lady gently, fixing her eyes on his.

Rouvière bowed and turned away abruptly.

“You will write to our daughter, George? You will not fail?”

“I will write to her—to both of you—often, often,” answered George in a husky voice, and pulling his travelling-cap over his eyes.

“The 12th of January!” suddenly exclaimed Rouvière, who was warming his feet at the fire, while he examined an almanac placed on the chimney-piece. “Is it really the 12th of January to-day?”

“It really is,” replied Mme. Dupuis. “Why do you ask? Is there any

## particular remembrance attached to that date?”

“It is a date which interests me only,” replied Rouvière in a tone of infinite sadness. “Five years ago this very evening, almost at this same hour, I was passing through an ordeal I shall never forget. Now, George, _are_ you ready?” he added with abrupt impatience.

“What kind of an ordeal? What had happened to you? An accident?” asked George, with intense interest.

“No, not an accident, but I was very ill, which is always a misfortune—and ill in an inn, which is horrible.”

“People are ill everywhere,” remarked Dupuis sententiously.

“True; but the impressions made on you by sickness and death vary according to the circumstances in which they surprise you; you can scarcely conceive how much, unless you have had the experience.”

“Pshaw! death is death under all circumstances; it is always equally unpleasant!” cried Dupuis.

“Ah! you think that.... I should like to have seen you.... Well, I’ll tell you my story. It happened at Peschiera, on the Lago di Guardia—a lovely country; we’ll pass through it, and I’ll show you the house. I was detained there by a fever of a somewhat pernicious character. All went on well, however, during eight days—for I was delirious the whole time, and knew nothing of what was passing—till one fine evening, the evening of the 12th of January, when I suddenly came to myself, so weak in body, so anxious in spirit, and at the same time with such an extraordinary lucidity of mind that I felt convinced I was at the point of death. I have passed through many bitter moments in the course of my life—cruel moments—which nevertheless I can think of now with a kind of pleasure; but when I recall to mind my awakening in that inn-chamber, a cold shiver runs through me; I shudder!”

Rouvière paused as Marianne entered the room; Mme. Dupuis signed to her imperatively not to interrupt, and the maid remained standing near the door.

“What did you see that could make such a fearful impression on you?” asked George, moving a little nearer to his friend.

“Nothing very horrible; only some people who were waiting for me to die, an old woman and a young doctor who were conversing together in a corner, and a priest who was kneeling at the foot of my bed.

“They formed to my eye a picture whose accessories were the dirty, faded curtains of the couch on which I was stretched and the tarnished, heterogeneous furniture of a lodging-house. But the ignoble surroundings, the preparations for death even, caused me no emotion; what revolted me—stirred up my very soul to protest—was the neglect, the brutal lack of charity—saving the presence of the priest—the desolate isolation, the void of all human sympathy in which I _realized_ that I was at that moment dying. How distinctly I can recollect the pitiful, suppliant look with which I gazed around me, as if trying to interlink the life that was escaping me with _any_, the slightest, earthly object; as if seeking to discover some sign of interest, of pity even, in the impassible faces which looked so calmly on me! My agonized heart longed for _any_ trifle—a picture, a vase, a chair—which had _known_ me, and to which I could say farewell. But all was strange.”

“Death never _can_ be agreeable,” remarked Dupuis crabbedly. “When the last hour is upon us it is dismal to be alone, I don’t say the contrary; but I can’t see that it is more cheerful to be surrounded by a weeping family.”

“I think that you would have felt as _I_ felt then,” replied Rouvière with melancholy gravity; “the death which God has ordained for men—the death which most men die, which finds consolation and resignation in the tears of tender regret shed by loving friends—that death appeared to me, in my solitary agony, like a sweet, untroubled feast.... I made many a singular reflection that night! But come, George, are you ready?”

“When you will; ... but, first, what were your reflections?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I lost somewhat of my self-sufficiency. And then I congratulated myself a little less on the path I had chosen for my life’s journey. Why not say it? The book of life seemed suddenly to be opened before me, and I read on every page, traced by God’s own hand, the words ‘duty and sacrifice.’ I had rejected that law. Hitherto I had only seen its hardships; now I recognized its benefits. I had avoided its bonds that I might live independently, and exile and isolation had been my lot. I had fancied that, by escaping the usual dull routine of humble duties, I should win for myself a happiness unknown—pleasures inconceivable to the vulgar crowd. Alas! I found that I had experienced nothing save a loveless youth, a solitary old age, and an unlamented death. Then, George—_then_ I understood what an erroneous price we pay for the indulgence of our selfishness.”

“Were you long in this agitated state?” asked Dupuis.

“Long enough for it to be indelibly impressed on my memory,” replied his friend. “When the young physician perceived that I was looking at him, he arose and approached me, and I felt the touch of his hand, cold and indifferent as his heart. I pushed it away and closed my eyes. And then a vision of my father’s death-bed flashed before me, distinct and clear. I saw again, grouped around it, the faithful friends of his youth—our ancient servants, the old doctor, the white-haired priest, and, dearest of all, my mother, my good mother. They leaned over him, they wiped his damp brow, they smiled at him through their tears; they had gladdened his life, and they were beside him now, to cheer and sustain him as he passed away! My dried-up heart melted within me as I gazed on this vision of a scene I had long since ceased to recall, and I burst into tears; they saved me!”

Rouvière stopped, overpowered by his emotion, and, covering his eyes with his hand, leant forward against the mantle-shelf.

“These recollections are too painful,” said Dupuis gently.

“They _are_ painful,” replied Rouvière, his voice hoarse and trembling, “and everything I see around me here awakens them. Oh! how alike these old houses are,” he continued, speaking to himself and looking around the room. “All this is familiar to me. There stood my mother’s little work-table near the window, just as that is—I always found her seated at it when I came home for a holiday—and there, in the chimney-corner, was the great arm-chair in which my father always sat. And the family portraits looked down from the walls just as these do. There, as here, the trace of two lives closely entwined, never to be separated, was visible everywhere. Why did I not learn by their example? Why was I compelled to drag my weary, vagrant life, my unceasing remorse, all over the wide world, ere I could comprehend that they were happy? Did _they_ know that they were happy? I doubt it. How often I have heard my father speak with envy of the very pleasures I have found so hollow! How often they confided to me their mutual grievances! And yet when one went the other could not stay. Dear old father! dearest mother!”

“My dear friend!” whispered George.

“And I,” continued Rouvière, with increasing emotion—“I sold their home as soon as it was empty—I had the heart to do that! I sold the room where I was born; I sold all our family traditions; I sold the ancient, faithful friendships which seemed to adhere to the house and soil. I alienated my patrimony.... I riveted the chain of egotism I was so eagerly forging. I did my work well; no kind care, no friendly companionship will ever be the solace of _my_ old age. I have nothing to offer in return—not even the bribe of a legacy. I cannot even buy back that humble home; my last days may not be sheltered by those walls whose very shadows I have learned to love. I may not even die there. Come! let us go,” he added with vehemence, dashing away the tears which suddenly inundated his face.

“Yes, Tom, we will go”—and George seized his friend’s hand—“we will go, if you refuse to accept a brother’s place by my fireside. And you, Reine,” he said, turning to his wife, “dry your tears and forget this hour’s ingratitude. It was the first; it shall be the last!”

“O George, my husband!” sobbed the sweet little woman as she gave him the kiss of pardon; then, approaching Rouvière with gentle grace, she said softly and beseechingly:

“Will not the happiness you have restored to us tempt you to remain with us? We should be so glad to share it with you!”

“Madame, dear, good friends,” stammered the guest.... “O George! you have caught me in the very snare I spread for you.”

He sank into a chair, overcome by his emotion, while George and Reine stood by him, clasping his hands in theirs. “Oh!” sighed he at last, “it is too sweet a dream for such a forlorn wretch as I am.”

“He will stay with us!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis joyfully.

“And I will go and make his bed in the best blue chamber,” cried Marianne, wiping her eyes with her apron. The poor girl had been standing quietly near the door, an involuntary listener, during almost the whole of Rouvière’s confession.

“What! the deuce! Marianne!” growled Rouvière, rising hastily from his seat.

“I’m going to make your bed, sir!” cried Marianne, in great good-humor.

“Very well, then; but don’t let the head be lower than the heels, my good creature, as you house-maids generally manage it. Slope it down gently from head to foot, mind you, and....” He stopped a moment, then smilingly resumed: “Make it as you will, Marianne; I’m sure it will be first-rate. You see,” he added, turning toward his hosts when Marianne had left the room, “how this disgusting egotism crops up incessantly; ... you must try to cure me of it. Oh! what a rest I’m going to have now,” he exclaimed as he threw himself on the sofa.... “Madame, dear madame, will you do me a favor? I know what the pains of exile are by sad experience—pray, let the cat come in!”

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THE RECENT PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION AND CONGRESS.

This convention, which met in Boston on the 3d of October and continued in session for twenty days, was the triennial “Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” The bishops sat in a house by themselves and conducted their proceedings in secret, following in this the precedent of the Anglican Church as well as the custom of the Roman Catholic Church in its provincial and plenary councils. The House of Deputies consisted of one hundred and eighty clergymen and one hundred and eighty laymen, representing forty-five dioceses, and eight clergymen and eight laymen representing eight “missionary jurisdictions.” These sat in public, and a verbatim report of their proceedings is before us. Among the lay delegates were several gentlemen of national fame—the Hons. John W. Maynard, of Pennsylvania; Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, the Democratic candidate for the Vice-Presidency at the recent election; John W. Stevenson, of Kentucky; John W. Hunter and L. Bradford Prince, of Long Island; Gen. C. C. Augur, U. S. Army; Daniel R. Magruder and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland; Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts; General J. H. Simpson, U. S. Army; Hamilton Fish, Cambridge Livingston, and W. A. Davies, of New York; Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio; and Geo. W. Thompson and Richard Parker, of Virginia. It is not probable that any of the other sects could marshal laymen like these to sit in its councils. We mention their names because the list affords some explanation of the fact that the social and political influence of the Protestant Episcopalians is vastly out of proportion to their numerical strength. At a preliminary session, the bishops and deputies being together, Dr. Williams, the Bishop of Connecticut, preached a sermon in which he introduced a subject that subsequently occupied much of the attention of the convention—“the most threatening social evil of our time, the growing lack of sympathy between different classes and individuals of such classes.” “To-day,” he said, “we see great chasms opening everywhere because of this, which threatens church and state alike with sad disaster.” And he added:

“I think those chasms are more entirely unrelieved and ghastly in this country than in almost any other. I know that we have not been wont so to think or speak, and I know that to say this involves some chance of incurring severe displeasure; but I fully believe it to be true. In most lands there are things—I speak of things outside of Christian sympathies and labors—that somewhat bridge over these threatening severances. There are ancient memories; ancestral offices and ministries that in their long continuance have almost become binding laws; relations, long enduring, of patronage and clientship; and many other things besides. With us—we may as well face the fact—those things have, for the most part, no existence. The one only helping thing we have—still apart from what was just alluded to—is political equality. And how much virtue has that shown itself to have in pressing exigencies and emergencies? When, all at once, in the late summer months, that yawning chasm opened at our feet which appeared to threaten nearly everything in ordinary life, how little there seemed to be to turn to! There stood on either side contending forces in apparently irreconcilable opposition, and everywhere we heard the cry about rights! rights! rights! till nothing else was heard. If some few voices dared to speak of duties they were lost in the angry clamor. And yet those voices must be heard. Those words about duty on the one side and the other must be listened to, if ever we are to have more than an armed truce between these parties—a truce which may at any time burst out into desolating strife.”

Dr. Williams’ remedy was, of course, that the Protestant Episcopalians should teach the people their duties. To do this, however, they must first get the hearing of the people. But this is just what they have failed to get, and will always fail in getting—certainly so long as they provide fine churches with eloquent preachers for the rich, and a very different order of preachers and churches for the poor. The Catholic Church, before whose altars all distinctions of earthly rank and position disappear, can and does teach the people what their duties are, and she does it with effect, since her priests speak with authority and by virtue of an incontestably divine commission—two things quite unknown among the sects. This is what Rev. Hugh Thompson felt and acknowledged when, in the Episcopal Church Congress held in this city, he said:

“What is the worth of a church in this world except as a moral teacher—except this: to get the Ten Commandments kept on earth? The church canons are usually busy with questions affecting garments, gestures, postures, and the orthodoxy of the Prayer-Book, but rarely do we find any moral legislation. There are plenty of instructions to the clergy and bishops, and we are led to think what a wicked lot of people these clergy and bishops must be to need all these laws, and what a good and pious laity we must have when they have no need of such legislation! The church gives no real expression of opinion on the complicated questions of marriage, so that one minister may bless a union while another would not do so under any circumstances. Is it right that the church should evade such responsibilities as these? The church must place itself plainly on record. The church must be to a millionaire and beggar the same, must demand equal justice for all—for the railway president and the railway brakeman, for the worshipper in the gilded temple and in the ordinary meeting-house. Such a church, with the courage and fearlessness and ability to tell and enforce the eternal truth, without fear or favor, is what this country is waiting for, and would have an influence here unequalled since the days of Athanasius.”

The first two days of the convention were spent chiefly in rather unseemly discussions upon a proposition to print fifteen hundred copies of Dr. Williams’ sermon, to appoint a committee “to consider the importance of the practical principles enunciated in it,” and in attempts to begin a debate upon three amendments to the constitution proposed three years ago by the last convention. Much interest was excited by some remarks by the Rev. Dr. Harwood, of Connecticut, who thought that one of the most pressing duties of the convention would be the invention of a method whereby clergymen who had grown tired of their work might be retired without incurring disgrace. It is curious to observe how the Catholic doctrine, “once a priest always a priest,” still lingers among the laity of this Protestant body, while its clergymen, or some of them, seem anxious to destroy it. Dr. Harwood complained that although at present the regulations of his church permitted any clergyman to “withdraw from the ministry for causes not affecting his moral character,” nevertheless “somewhat of a stigma rests upon the man, and people may even point to his children and say, ‘There go the children of a disgraced clergyman.’” This state of things was found to be “a grievous burden”; for there were numbers of good fellows who feel that “they are out of place in the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church,” and who still continue in that service because they fear to incur disgrace by leaving it. Dr. Harwood drew a pitiful picture of the condition of these unhappy persons: “They may have changed their minds about some doctrine; they may believe too much or too little; they may be drifting towards a blank unbelief or towards a wretched superstition; they may feel that they have mistaken their calling and cannot do their work, for neither their hearts nor their minds are in it.” We agree with Dr. Harwood that his church would be better off without such parsons; and it is sad to record that his proposition, looking towards the adoption of a cheap and easy, although “honorable,” method of getting rid of them, was not finally successful.

On the third day of the convention the Rev. Dr. De Koven, of Wisconsin, brought forward the question of changing the name of the Protestant Episcopal Church. This proposition was made in the interest of that section of it which follows the Anglican ritualists. This section has a real or affected horror of the word “Protestant”; its members wish to persuade themselves that they are Catholics—and the wish is very natural and most praiseworthy—but they are resolved never to seek the reality and yield to the living authority of the Catholic Church. In order to avoid this submission, they set up the claim that they are themselves the Catholic Church, or rather “a branch” of it. To make this claim a little less absurd the elimination of the word “Protestant” would be advisable; and for some time past, it appears, an industrious propaganda for this purpose has been carried on. Certain of the bishops, many of the clergymen, and a number of the journals of the Protestant Episcopalians have been enlisted in the proposed “reform,” and its advocates mustered all their forces in the convention. Dr. De Koven introduced the matter by reading a paper adopted in the diocese of Wisconsin last June, and moving a resolution. The paper was as follows:

“_Whereas_, The American branch of the Catholic Church universal [_sic_] includes in its membership all baptized persons in this land; and

“_Whereas_, The various bodies of professing Christians, owing to her first legal title, do not realize that the church known in law as the ‘Protestant Episcopal Church’ is, in very deed and truth, the American branch of the one Catholic Church of God; therefore, be it

“_Resolved_, That the deputies to the General Convention from this diocese be requested to ask of the General Convention the appointment of a constitutional commission, to which the question of a change of the legal title of the church, as well as similar questions, may be referred.”

Dr. De Koven accordingly presented a motion for the appointment of this commission and moved its reference to the Committee on Constitutional Amendments. The absurd side of the assumptions made in the preamble is apparent; but the ridicule and scorn which they excite should not blind one to the arrogant claim therein set up. It is laughable to assert that a sect with less than 270,000 communicants, and with a history of less than a century, claims as its members all the baptized persons in the United States, including seven or eight millions of Roman Catholics; it is still more ludicrous to be told that the reason why we and all the other “baptized persons” do not recognize this sect as our mother the church is that up to this time she has chosen to call herself by a false name. The name—the name’s the thing wherewith to catch the conscience of the people! Let us only call ourselves something else, and then “all the baptized persons in this land”—Papists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, and all the rest—will hasten to exclaim, “Our long-lost mother! Behold your children!” This is the ludicrous side of the business, and it is funny enough. The serious side of it is the fact that a claim so arrogant should be seriously presented in a convention composed of respectable, and in some cases eminent, American gentlemen. Let us see what became of it.

Dr. De Koven’s motion immediately caused an animated debate. An attempt to get rid of it by laying it on the table was lost; and after a disorderly and heated discussion, in which the president seemed occasionally to lose his head, the motion for reference to the committee was carried. On the eighth day of the session the committee, through Mr. Hamilton Fish, reported that it was “inexpedient to institute any commission to revise and amend the constitution of the church,” for the reason, among others, that such a commission would be unlimited in its powers and might upset everything. On the tenth day another committee, to whom had been “referred certain memorials and papers looking to a change in the legal title of the church,” reported that such a change might impair the legal right of property in the several dioceses, and that it would be better to make no change. The two reports came up for decision on the twelfth day of the session, and the ball was opened by Dr. De Koven in a long and clever speech. He proposed the adoption of a new resolution providing for the appointment of a commission to consider and report upon the best method of “removing apparent ambiguities,” and “the setting forth our true relations to the Anglican communion as well as to the whole Catholic Church.” He drew a very curious and not at all a pleasant picture of his church as at present constituted. So far as the laity are concerned, anybody may be a lay member, if he “merely goes to church a few times a year” and pays money for the support of the minister. “He need not be baptized; he need not be confirmed; he need not be a communicant. He may even be Jew, Turk, or infidel, if you please, _provided he has the money qualification which makes up the franchise of the church_.” Here, indeed, is a pitiable state of things; a society composed of unbaptized persons can scarcely be called a Christian association. “Underneath it all,” Dr. De Koven went on to say, “lies this money qualification. The parish elects its vestry, and its vestry need not be communicants. The vestry and parish elect the lay delegates to the diocesan convention, and they need not be communicants. The diocesan convention elects the lay members of the standing committees, and they need not be communicants.” The truth is that the ruling laymen of the sect need not be, and probably are not, Christians at all, and that they “run the machine” for social and political purposes, just as they would manage a club or a political party. If the laymen are of this stripe, what can be said of the priests? “Like people, like priest,” said Dr. De Koven; “As you go through the land and witness the sorrow, the trials, the degradation of the parochial clergy, you are quite well aware that underneath all lies this simoniacal taint.” The bishops are almost in as sad a state. Their councils of advice are the standing committees; these may be composed of unbaptized men, and the bishops have no voice in their nomination; and “thus you have the marvellous spectacle of a bishop sitting at the head of his diocesan synod, but bound by laws which that synod (possibly composed of non-Christians) makes, and in the making of which he has had no voice whatever, either of assent or dissent.” It could scarcely be supposed, however, that evils so great as these would be removed simply by a change of name, and Dr. De Koven found himself at last willing to admit as much. He was willing, he said, to go on for a while longer with the old name, although as long as it was retained such evil consequences would follow. But he insisted that “the day will come when this church shall demand, not that an accident of its condition, not that a part of its organization, should represent it to the world, but that its immortal lineage shall represent it.”

The church may demand what it pleases, and may call itself by whatever name it chooses to invent; but its history is written and cannot be changed. Men will always know that it is the daughter of that creature whose father was Henry VIII. and whose nursing mother was Queen Elizabeth. A delegate from Illinois pleaded for the change of name, for the reason that he was tired of saying on Sundays, “I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” and all the rest of the week, “I believe in the Protestant Episcopal Church.” Mr. Hamilton Fish declared that it was “too late to change the name of Protestant Episcopal,” and that if the sect was not Protestant it was nothing. His great objection, however, was that if the change were made the church would be in danger of losing its property. Finally, on the thirteenth day of the session, the resolution for the appointment of the constitutional committee to consider this and other changes was voted down by a vote of 16 to 51; and a separate resolution, that no change should be made in the name of the church at present, was carried by an almost unanimous vote.

The convention also touched upon marriage and divorce, but rather gingerly. The House of Bishops passed a resolution repealing the present canon on this subject, and adopting the following in its place:

“SECTION 1. If any persons be joined together otherwise than as God’s Word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful.

“SEC. 2. No minister of this church shall solemnize matrimony in any case where there is a divorced wife or husband of either party still living, and where the divorce was obtained for some cause arising after marriage; but this canon shall not be held to apply to the innocent party in a divorce for the cause of adultery, or to parties once divorced seeking to be united again.

“SEC. 3. If any minister of this church shall have reasonable cause to doubt whether a person desirous of being admitted to holy baptism, or to confirmation, or to the holy communion, has been married otherwise than as the word of God and discipline of this church allow, such minister, before receiving such person to these ordinances, shall refer the case to the bishop for his godly judgment thereupon; _provided_, however, that no minister in any case refuse the sacrament to a penitent person _in extremis_.

“SEC. 4. No minister of this church shall present for confirmation or administer the holy sacraments to any person divorced, for any cause arising after marriage, or married again to another in violation of this canon, or during the lifetime of such divorced wife or husband; but this prohibition shall not extend to the innocent party where the divorce has been for the cause of adultery, nor to any truly penitent person.

“SEC. 5. Questions touching the facts of any case arising under this canon shall be referred to the bishop of the diocese, or, if there be a vacancy in the episcopate, then to some bishop designated by the Standing Committee, who shall thereupon make enquiry by a commissionary or otherwise, and deliver his godly judgment in the premises.

“SEC. 6. This canon, so far as it affixes penalties, does not apply to cases occurring before its taking effect, according to canon iv., title iv.”

From the Roman Catholic point of view there are at least two objections to this canon. There is no authority pointed out whereby it may be decided what it is that “God’s word doth allow” respecting marriage; and the permission for the re-marriage of one of the parties in a divorce is repugnant to the rule of the church, and could not for a moment be assented to by any one who holds the Catholic and Christian doctrine of marriage. In the debate upon the canon it was urged that the second section could not be enforced among the Indians nor among the negroes; and some of the clergymen objected to the section which provides for the reference of doubtful cases to the bishop. Especial ridicule was cast upon the sixth section, which, as one delegate expressed it, asserts that “the longer a man has continued in sin the less sin he has.” More than one clerical delegate, on the other hand, lifted up his voice in favor of “greater freedom in the matter,” and they drew pathetic pictures of the sad condition of a woman divorced from her husband for incompatibility of temper, for example, and, under this canon, unable to marry again. But at length the canon was passed.

Our readers can scarcely be expected to take much interest in the other proceedings of the convention. There was a debate, lasting through several days, upon a proposed canon for the creation and development of orders of deaconesses, or “sisterhoods,” in imitation of our own societies of holy women. The bishops wished to retain strict control over these possible organizations; the lower house desired them to be left quite free, or subject only to the supervision of the parish clergyman. The two houses could not agree, and the matter was dropped. A still more tedious debate arose from propositions for the adoption of a “shortened service,” lay preaching, and the permissible use of the English Lectionary. There was very little talk about dogma; and it is noticeable that the quarrels between the Ritualists and the Evangelicals were kept entirely suppressed during the convention. The only doctrinal breeze which animated the gathering was caused by the introduction of a paper by Mr. Judd, of Illinois, which, on the whole, is so queer that we reproduce it here:

“_Whereas_, A majority of the bishops of the Anglican communion at the Lambeth Conference, held in the year of our Lord 1867, while solemnly ‘professing the faith delivered to us in Holy Scripture, maintained in the primitive church and by the fathers of the English Reformation,’ did also ‘express the deep sorrow with which we view the divided condition of the flock of Christ throughout the world, ardently longing for the fulfilment of the prayer of our Lord, “that all may be one,”’ and did furthermore ‘solemnly record’ and set forth the means by which ‘that unity will be more effectually promoted’; and

“_Whereas_, The Lambeth declaration was not only signed by all the nineteen American bishops then and there present, but the whole House of Bishops, at the General Convention of 1868, also formally resolved that they ‘cordially united in the language and spirit’ of the same; and

“_Whereas_, Our fervent prayer, daily offered, ‘that all who profess and call themselves Christians may hold the faith in unity of spirit,’ cannot receive fulfilment unless there be a clear and steadfast clinging to ‘the faith once for all delivered to the Saints’; and

“_Whereas_, The restoration of this ‘unity of spirit’ in the apostolic ‘bond of peace’ among all the Christian people, for which we thus daily pray, ought also to be the object of our most earnest efforts; and

“_Whereas_, This unity manifestly cannot be restored by the submission of all other parts to any one part of the divided body of Christ, but must be reached by the glad reunion of all in that faith which was held by all before the separation of corrupt times began; and

“_Whereas_, The venerable documents in which the undisputed councils summed up the Catholic faith are not easily accessible to many of the clergy, and have never been fully set forth to our laity in a language ‘understanded of the people’; therefore

“_Resolved_, by the House of Deputies of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, That a memorial be presented to the Lambeth Conference at its second session, expressing our cordial thanks for the action of its first session in 1867, in which it enjoined upon us all the promotion of unity ‘_by maintaining the faith in its purity and integrity, as taught by the Holy Scriptures, held by the primitive church, summed up in the creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed general councils_’; and, in furtherance of the good work thus recommended and enjoined, we humbly request the said Lambeth Conference, by a joint commission of learned divines, or otherwise, to provide for the setting forth of an accurate and authentic version, in the English language, of the creeds and the other acts of the said undisputed general councils concerning the faith thus proclaimed by them, as the standards of orthodox belief for the whole church.

“_Resolved, also_, That the House of Bishops be respectfully requested to take order that this memorial shall be duly laid before the next session of the Lambeth Conference by the hand of such of its members as may be present thereat.”

The debate on this paper was somewhat amusing. It was pointed out that rather serious consequences might follow the general dissemination of “an accurate and authentic version, in the English language, of the creeds and the other acts of the said undisputed general councils concerning the faith”; and the awful question was asked, “Who is to decide how many undisputed councils there have been?” But at last the preamble and resolution were adopted, and we congratulate our Protestant Episcopalian brethren upon that decision. Many of them—clergymen as well as laymen—said they did not know what even the first six œcumenical councils had decided. If they now acquire this knowledge, they will learn enough to convince them that they are living in heresy, and that their first duty is to seek for admission into the church.

“The Church Congress,” which commenced its sessions in New York on the 30th of October and continued to sit for four days, was in some degree a supplement to the “convention.” At the congress, however, nothing was to be _done_; affairs were simply to be talked about. In four days much can be said: the papers read and the speeches made before the Congress will make a large volume when collected. A Catholic would arise from their perusal with a feeling of profound melancholy. He would see the blind leading the blind and tumbling into the ditch. In Protestantism the opinion of one man is as good as that of another; views the most discordant may be expressed on the same platform, and there is no arbiter to pronounce with infallible voice what is truth. In the congress, for instance, several of its clerical members took occasion to lavish praises upon the Roman Catholic Church—one of them declared that the true spirit of the Roman Catholic Church had always been “tender, true, and noble”; another, a bishop, extolled the work of our missionaries among the Indians, saying that they “had done the best work,” and that their conduct was in glorious contrast with that of the missionaries of the sects, who acted too often like “carpet-baggers.” These declarations did not prevent other members when speaking from indulging in bitter denunciations of “Romanism.” Bishop Potter, at the opening of the congress, warned the members that they must not expect to settle anything; the only good to be expected from their discussions was such as might follow the interchange of opinion. A discussion on church architecture was ended by a minister who said that churches should be built wholly with respect to acoustics, and that the ideal church would be a plain hall where the voice of the preacher could be distinctly heard. The question of the relation of the church to the state and to society was discussed at much length—some of the speakers arguing for a union of church and state, and others advocating strict abstinence on the part of the church from all political affairs. Bishop Littlejohn, of Long Island, declared that

“The most urgent duty of the church to the nation was first to vindicate its moral fitness to sway all in and around it. It should show that its charter was divine. It should be able to say to the grosser personality of the nation, ‘Come up higher; this is the way, walk ye in it.’ The first duty of the church to the national life was to put its own house in order. Again, the church having elevated itself to the level whence it had a right to teach and authority to guide, its habitual attention should not be diverted from its great duties to society and to the nation. The church’s best work was at the root and upon the sap of the social tree of life, not with the withered and dead branches. It was here that the church was to exercise its highest functions upon society and upon the nation. Let it keep before it that one of its highest duties was to show, both to society and the individual, that they did not derive their personality from each other, but from God. There was a warrant for such teaching, for it rested upon a theological principle. Humanity, in the genuine whole and in the individual man, had its foundation in Christ, and, therefore, for each there was infinite sacredness, even in Christ himself. But the church had instructions for society, and especially for American society. It had some teaching for those who in dreams and in revolutions cried out for liberty, equality, and fraternity. By how many was this cry raised, even to those who would have no sloping sides, no top, but all bottom to the social pyramid! It seemed that that was a cry which the church might answer. Liberty, equality, fraternity! The land was full of false idols under those names. The perversion was of man; the movement itself was of God. The perversion could be brought about by forgetting the movement itself. God in Christ not only willed that all men should be free and equal, but he told them in what sense and how they were to become so. It was by the ministry of the word, not by the sword, not by the law, not by abstract speculation, that man was to learn what these things were for which he so thirsted. Modern society and the Gospel must be reconciled, and to do this there was no competent authority except the church.”

Bishop Littlejohn, when speaking of “the church,” has in his mind his own body. That society can never accomplish the work he points out; men know that it has no authority to teach them, and those who speak in its name speak with divided and inconsistent voices. The church of God, however, can do this work and is doing it. She has no need “to vindicate her moral fitness” or to “elevate herself to the level whence she has a right to teach and authority to guide.” She had all this done for her eighteen hundred years ago, when her divine charter was given her. And that charter never has been and never will be revoked.

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THE _CIVILTA CATTOLICA_ ON THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ROME.

There is no European periodical which treats of the great political movements of the day with more complete knowledge and consummate ability and sagacity than the _Civiltà Cattolica_, especially in respect to all that has a bearing on the Roman question. In the number of October 6 an article of great interest takes up the topic of the fortifications around Rome and Civita Vecchia which have been ordered by the Italian government, and casts some light on the motives which have induced the persons at the head of Victor Emanuel’s administration to adopt this extraordinary measure.

The pretext put forth, that it is necessary to protect Rome against armed invasion by the reactionary party of the _clericals_, is so ridiculous that it has deceived no one, but has excited the ridicule even of the Italian liberals. But one probable and credible reason can be given for an undertaking involving such a great expenditure at a time when the finances of the state are in such a wretched condition. This reason is that the measure has been undertaken by the dictation of Bismarck, in virtue of a secret treaty between Prussia and Italy, and in view of a proposed war of the two combined powers against France. The Italian kingdom was set up, as is well known to all, by Napoleon III. for the sake of using its alliance and employing its military power to the advantage of the French Empire. The control of this convenient instrument was, however, wrested from the unfortunate emperor by his conqueror and destroyer, Bismarck, who has continued to govern not only William and his empire, but Victor Emanuel and his kingdom, to the great and increasing disgust of the majority of Italians, including a large portion even of the liberals. The intention of Bismarck to seize upon the speediest convenient opportunity of making a new invasion of France has been too openly manifested to admit of any doubt. The execution of this purpose has been delayed at the instance of Russia, in order to leave that power more free and unembarrassed for its great enterprise of destroying the Ottoman Empire and taking possession of Constantinople. In the Bismarckian scheme the war against the Papacy and the Catholic Church, against France and Austria, is all one thing, with one motive and end—the exaltation of the infidel Teutonic empire on the ruins of Latin Christianity and civilization; and the possession of Constantinople by the Russians as the capital of another great schismatical empire, dividing with Prussia the hegemony of the world, harmonizes with this scheme, as planned long ago by the two astute and powerful chancellors, Gortchakoff and Bismarck.

The papers have been saying of late that Bismarck, whose ambitious mind triumphs over the shattered nerves and dropsical body which seem soon about to become the prey of dissolution, has been lately threatening Europe with a general war for the coming vernal equinox. This means, of course, that he is preparing an equinoctial storm of “blood and iron” to mark for ever in history the close of his own career as the beginning of a new European epoch. The sagacious writer in the _Civiltà_ considers the order for fortifying Rome and Civita Vecchia as a strong confirmation of the fact of a military alliance between the anti-Christian government of Italy and the Bismarckian empire, and of the probability of an approaching war by the two allied powers against France. He prudently abstains from carrying his prognostics any further, wittily observing that it would be proof of a scanty amount of brains if he were to attempt anything of the kind. We can easily understand that, for men writing and publishing in Florence, a certain caution and reserve are necessary in the open, explicit expression of the hopes and expectations which they know how to awaken in other minds by a significant silence. Nevertheless, as we happily enjoy more liberty of speech than is conceded to Italians when they happen to be _clericals_, we will run the risk of passing for a man of “scarso cervello,” and give utterance to a few of the conjectures which sprang up in our own mind upon reading the remarks of our able contemporary.

Both the Bismarckian and the Cavourian political fabrics are in a precarious condition. It is perhaps less desperate to undertake a hazardous enterprise on the chance of success than to remain quiet with the certainty of being swept away by the current of coming events. Nevertheless, the ruin may be hastened, and even directly brought about, by the very means which are used to avert the crisis, if the undertaking is really desperate. Perhaps the _bête noir_ which harasses the sleepless nights of the Prussian, which the servile Italian minister threatens upon the people grumbling at their excessive taxation, which the political apes of French radicalism pretend to dread, may be the nightmare of a prophetic dream. As the unhappy victims of a divine fate in the Greek tragedies accomplish the direful woes foretold at their birth by the very means used to avert them, the accomplices in the anti-Christian conspiracy may bring upon themselves the catastrophe they seem to fear—a reactionary movement in which they will be submerged. If Italy consents to incur the unknown risks of an alliance with Prussia, and play the part of a subservient tool to the insane ambition of Bismarck, one of the consequences may be that her speedily and falsely constructed unity will be shattered. Russia is at present too deeply engaged in her deadly struggle with Turkey to be either a formidable ally or enemy to any other great power for some time to come, even if she comes off victorious in the end. In respect to Russia, Austria has now her favorable, perhaps her last, opportunity to secure her own stability and equality by a repression of her other antagonist, Prussia. An invasion of France makes Austria, with her army of one million, the natural ally of France. There are urgent motives which might draw England into the same coalition. And what is there improbable in the conjecture that one of the great events in such a war would be the occupation of the Pontifical States by the allied troops, and the restoration of the pontifical sovereignty? If the Pope recovers his royal capital well fortified, the advantage of the fortifications will be his, and make him more secure in future against lawless invasion of banditti.

We are not at all certain that a prospective triumph of Russia bodes so much good to the party of anti-Christian revolution as many suppose. The interest, the safety even, of that empire requires of her that she should exert all her power, and co-operate with every other legitimate power exerted in Europe, to put down Freemasonry and restore the Christian political order in the civilized world. It is very probable that when the European congress meets, after the present cycle of wars, to pacificate Europe and readjust the equilibrium of nations, neither Gortchakoff nor Bismarck will be numbered among living statesmen; and that the catalogue of disasters by which the enemies of the Holy See are punished will be so far completed for the present century, as to serve a salutary purpose in warning and instructing the rising and coming statesmen and sovereigns of Christendom.

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SONNET.

There is a castle of most royal state, Wherein no warder watches from the walls, Nor groom nor squire abides in court or halls: Silent are they, grass-grown and desolate. A thousand steeds a thousand knights await, Sleeping, all harnessed, in the marble halls Until the Appointed One upon them calls, Winding the horn that hangs beside the gate. Then shall the doors fly open, and the steeds Neigh, and the knights leap, shouting, to the selle, And they shall follow him and do such deeds All men must own him master. But the spell Who knows not and, uncalled, essays the horn, Falls at the fated doors and dies forlorn.

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THE IRISH HEDGE-POETS.

The music of the ancient Irish has been preserved because no interpreter was needed to translate its beauties into another tongue. The poetry which accompanied the music has well-nigh perished, and what remains attracts but little attention. For this there are two reasons: the students of Celtic literature have been few, and of those who have endeavored to translate its poetry into English there are but one or two who have succeeded in any fortunate degree in retaining the spirit and beauty of the original. The best as well as earliest collection of Irish poetry is Hardiman’s _Minstrelsy of Ireland_, but it is accompanied by feeble and conventional translations. A literal translation of the poetry would make this a most valuable collection for the general reader; as it stands, it is only of worth to those who can read the original Irish. Several other collections, smaller and of less value, are in existence, but a real and full collection of Irish poetry has yet to be made. We are aided in the present article by two small volumes entitled _Munster Poetry_, collected by John O’Daly, a well-known Dublin bookseller and antiquarian, and translated, the first series by the unfortunate James Clarence Mangan, and the second by Dr. George Sigurson. They do not attempt to deal with the general subject, but only profess to be a collection of popular poetry current in Munster from eighty to one hundred years ago, and composed by the last of the Irish bards who sang in their native tongue, and were called “hedge-poets.”

The race of bards or hedge-poets—whichever title may be preferred—who sang in their native language virtually became extinct at the beginning of the present century. The history of their lives, as well as most of their poetry, exists only in tradition, and, but for a few incomplete collections, would soon vanish for ever. It is not too late, however, to form some picture of them, and the value of their poetry is such as to make us deeply regret that no more has been preserved. And, even without intrinsic merit, the national poetry of a people is always worth preserving.

During the eighteenth century, as is well known, the Celtic Irish were at a very low stage of political fortune. The entire subjugation of Ireland, for the time, occurred at the battle of Limerick. The flower of the army of Sarsfield followed its gallant leader to the plains of Minden, and made the reputation of their race as soldiers under the French banners. Those who remained in Ireland were crushed into outward subjection. The tyranny of the conquerors, exasperated by the doubtful and desperate struggle, placed no bounds to the humiliation which it endeavored to inflict. The penal laws were cruel and barbarous beyond those of any nation on record. All intellectual as well as religious education was denied the Irish people, and it was only by stealth that they could gratify their thirst for either.

The spirit of the Celtic population was crushed, but not degraded. They were conquered, and were aware that another struggle was hopeless for the present. None the less they preserved all their national feelings. The language of the common people in their daily intercourse was Irish; their only pride was in Irish tradition, and their only poetry was in the same melodious tongue. This continued long after English was the language used for business. It must not be supposed that, although the Celtic Irish were poor and deprived of all religious and political rights, they were entirely ignorant or uncultivated. The average Irish peasant of the last century was likely to have more learning than his English compeer. The hedge-schoolmaster was abroad in the land, and the eagerness with which Irish peasant lads sought for knowledge under difficulties was only second to the fervency of their religious faith under persecution. The education was not of the most valuable or practical cast in all particulars, but that it was cultivated so earnestly is the highest proof of the undegraded character of the people. The hedge-schoolmasters were more learned in Latin than in science, and taught their pupils to scan more assiduously than to add. The traditionary Irish history, the exploits of Con of the Hundred Battles, and the prophecies of Columbkille were expounded more

## particularly than the battles of Wolfe or Marlborough or the speeches

of Chatham. This was but natural. The Irish then felt no share in English victories or interest in English literature. Poetry was especially a branch of learning in those days as it has never been since. The hedge-schoolmasters were often poets as well as pedagogues, and the amount of verse produced of one sort or another was enormous. Much of it was naturally worthless, but among the crowd of poetasters was here and there a poet who had the heart to feel and the tongue to express the woes of his country and the passions of his own heart in the language of nature. The hearts of the people answered them, and their memories treasured their songs. They were no longer bards entertained in the halls of the great. They were the wandering minstrels of the poor, but some of them were genuine poets whose power and grace were visible under every disadvantage.

In considering the fragments of this poetry three things must be kept in mind: first, that it has been preserved mostly by oral tradition; secondly, that it is translated from a language whose idiom is especially hard to be rendered into English; and, thirdly, that the lyrical form imposes additional difficulties in adequate rendering. By far the larger number of the productions of the hedge-poets are of an allegorical cast. The poet in a vision sees a queenly maiden, of exquisite beauty and grace, sitting lonely and weeping on some fairy rath by moonlight, by the side of some softly-flowing stream, or by the wall of some ruined castle of ancient splendor. He is at first confounded by her beauty. Then he takes courage at her distress, and asks whether she is Helen of old who caused Troy town to burn, or she that was the love of Fion, or Deirdre, for whom the sons of Usnach died. These are the three types of beauty almost invariably used. The lady replies, in a voice that “pierces the heart of the listener like a spear,” that she is neither of these three; she is Kathleen ni Ullachan, or Grauine Maol, Roisin Dubh, the Little Black Rose, or Sheela na Guira, these being the figurative names for the female personification of Ireland. She laments to the poet’s ear that her heroes brave, her Patrick Sarsfield, her John O’Dwyer of the Glens, are driven across the seas, and that she is the desolate slave of the Saxon churls. Then she rises into a strain, half-despairing, half-exulting, that the heroes will soon return with help from the hosts of France and Spain; that the fires of the Saxon houses shall light every glen, and the “sullen tribe of the dreary tongue” be driven into the sea; that God shall soon be worshipped once more on her desolate altars, and the kingly hero, her noble spouse, her prince of war, shall once more clasp her to his arms and place three crowns upon her head. This is the outline of almost every one of these patriotic visions, and it will be seen at once how beautiful was the conception and how capable of exhibiting the highest pathos. The Irish minstrels had to sing of their country in secret, for the ear of the conquering race must not hear of their hopes and fears. In this disguise they would give voice to their patriotic passion as to an earthly mistress, and their country’s woes and hopes could be imparted with a double intensity. This personifying the country in the form of a beautiful and desolate woman is not peculiar to Irish poets, but seems the form of expression for the passionate patriotism of all oppressed countries. It is common to the Italian, the Polish, and the Servian poets.

In the description of the beauty of the forlorn maiden one poem bears a great resemblance to another, and those beauties which are peculiar to Irish girls are her distinguishing features; thus, the long, flowing tresses, the _coolun_, or head of fair locks, is often most beautifully painted.

“Her clustering, loosened tresses Flowed glossily, enwreathed with pearls, To veil her breast with kisses And sunny rays of golden curls” —_Sheela ni Cullenan_, by Wm. Lenane.

“Her curling tresses meet Her small and gentle feet. Her golden fleece—the pride of Greece, Might shame those locks to greet.”

“The dew-drops flow down Her thick curls’ golden brown.” —_The Drooping Heart_, by MacColter.

“Sunbright is the neck that her golden locks cover.” —_The Cuilshon._

“Her hair o’er her shoulders was flowing In clusters all golden and glowing, Luxuriant and thick as in meads are, the grass-blades That the scythe of the mower is mowing.” —_The Vision of Conor Sullivan._

From these specimens it may be guessed that either blonde beauty was more common among Irish maidens than now, or that its rarity made it doubly prized. It appears to have been as much in demand as in these days, which have witnessed the grand rage for fair locks at the expense of bleaching-irons and Pactolian dye. It is only occasionally that some poet dares to express his preference for _cean dubh dheelish_—the dear black head.

The pure brow of wax in fairness and radiance is not forgotten:

“Whose brow is more fair than the silver bright; Oh! ’twould shed a ray of beauteous light In the darkest glen of mists of the south.”

—_The Melodious Little Cuckoo._

Narrow eyebrows finely arched were a peculiar mark of distinction. For the eyes there is almost a whole new nomenclature of comparison and compliment. The peculiar and most often repeated color is “green,” which is the uncompromising English translation of the delicate Irish epithet which means

“The grayest of things blue, The greenest of things gray”

—that shade of the most beautiful and brilliant eyes well known to Spanish as well as Irish poets, and which Longfellow and Swinburne have not hesitated to describe by the naked and imperfect English adjective. This is the way in which one of these ignorant minstrels expresses what he means, and renders it with a new grace:

“I gave you—oh! I gave you—I gave you my whole love; On the festival of Mary my poor heart you stole, love, With your soft green eyes like dew-drops on corn that is springing, the music of your red lips like sweet starlings singing.” —_Fair Mary Barry._

A beautiful and apt comparison for the sweet, rosy bloom, nowhere found in such perfect charm as in Ireland, was the apple blossom and the berry.

“On her cheek the crimson berry Lay in the lily’s bosom wan.”

—_Sheela ni Cullenan._

“The bloom on thy cheek shames the apple’s soft blossom.”

Among the finest and most delicate comparisons, however, is this:

“Like crimson rays of sunset streaming O’er sunny lilies her bright cheeks shone.”

The fair one’s bosom is declared to be like to the breast of the sailing swan, to the thorn blossoms, to the snow, to the summer cloud, in a variety of beautiful expressions:

“Her bosom’s pearly light Than summer clouds more bright, More pure its glow than falling snow Or swan of plumage white.” —_Beside the Lee_, by Michael O’Longen.

“Her breast has the whiteness That thorn-blossoms bore.”

Her hands are pure and white as the snow, and never without being accomplished in the art of embroidery. There is scarcely a poem in the whole collection in which the skill of the heroine in this particular is not mentioned. She does not play upon the harp. That was a manly profession. Embroidery was the fashionable accomplishment for Irish ladies, and the maiden who typified Ireland must be pre-eminent in it.

“Her soft, queenly fingers Are skilful as fair, While she gracefully lingers O’er broideries rare. The swan and the heath-hen, Bird, blossom, and leaf, Are shaped by this sweet maid Who left me in grief.”

The voice was that of the thrush singing farewell to the setting sun, the cuckoo in the glen, or the lark high in air. Bird-voiced was the universal epithet. The branch of bloom, the bough of apple-blossoms, was the whole lovely creature.

Such were the beauties and accomplishments of the heroines of the hedge-poets, largely, doubtless, derived from the earlier bards, but often exclusively their own. They were chiefly applied to the ideal figure who represented in her beauty and her sorrow their forlorn country, but sometimes to the earthly mistress of flesh and blood whose smiles they sought. Seldom anything so natural and so delicate is to be found in any national poetry. The false and artificial compliments of English amatory poetry, equally with the overstrained comparisons of Oriental verse, seem tasteless and tawdry beside these simple blossoms of nature. They give out health and perfume, while the English love-songs are like wax, and the gorgeous verse of the East is, like its vegetation, magnificent but often odorless.

Those poems which we have described form much the larger portion of the remains of the hedge-poets; but there are others, devoted purely to love, to satire, and to lamentation. There are some which are a sort of dialogue and courtship in rhyme. The minstrel “soothers” the damsel with all the arts of his flattering tongue. He calls her by every sweet name he can think of; tells how deep is his passion and how renowned he will make her by his verse. The rustic coquette replies with a recapitulation of all his faults and failings, his poverty, his fondness for drink, his disgrace with all his relations, and his general unfitness for the yoke of matrimony, and then very often yields to his flattery and goes away with him; or else she listens to his string of endearments without a word, and then dismisses him with stinging contempt. Sometimes the bard sits down in sorrow, generally in a tap-room over an empty glass, and details the charms of the fair one who has wrought his woe; or sometimes, though rarely, it is one of the opposite sex, who has been driven from home by the curses of her kindred, and, sitting by the roadside, tells her tale of woe or despair. Such cases, however, are infrequent, and the general purity of both theme and verse is worthy of all praise. The number of lamentations is much less than would naturally be expected among a people whose vehemence of grief is noted, and where the _keener’s_ extemporaneous mourning reached such a height of impassioned eloquence. From whatever reason, but few appear to have been preserved. Those that are, however, are characterized by profound strength and pathos. The _keen_ of Felix MacCarthy for his children is one of the saddest lamentations ever put into verse. It is entirely too long for quotation, but these two verses, describing the mother’s appearance and grief, will show something of its genuineness and power:

“Woe is me! her dreary pall, Who royal fondness gave to all, Whose heart gave milk and love to each— Woe is me! her ‘plaining speech”

“Woe is me! her hands now weak With smiting her white palms so meek. Wet her eyes at noon, and broken Her true heart with grief unspoken.”

A lament for Kilcash, or rather for its patroness, is also very powerful.

The romantic love-tales are few in comparison with the number among the Irish street-ballads of to-day. The rich young nobleman who falls in love with the pretty girl milking her cow, and the fair lady of great estate who picks out her lover from the tall young men in her own service, make but few appearances. The only ballad of this kind in the collection is not after the usual pattern. The heir to “land and long towers white” certainly falls in love with a rustic maiden, but, instead of flying with him on his roan steed and becoming mistress of his castle, she tells him with great prudence that he will find other maidens better suited to his degree:

“I’m not used at my mother’s to sit with hosts, I’m not used at the board to have wines and toasts, I’m not used to dance-halls with music bold, Nor to couches a third of them red with gold.”

And, in spite of his fervent and eloquent protestations, she refuses to go with him.

Such are the themes and characteristics of the last age of Celtic poetry in Ireland. If we have failed to show that the minstrels who sang in such poverty and oppression had natural genius of a high order, we have not accomplished our purpose. We think that true poetry is visible in almost all that remains of their productions. Like all sectional and class poets, they resembled each other very much. The same species of imagery, the same terms of thought and peculiar epithets, were common to them as to the Troubadours, the Scandinavian minstrels, and to all other classes of poets singing to a confined audience and having little or no acquaintance with other forms of poetry. It is through them alone that the voice of the Irish people of their day can be heard. All other forms of the expression of the oppressed race have perished. In the music and poetry of Ireland is made manifest, so that the dullest ear cannot mistake it, the sorrow of a nation in bondage, tinging all mirth, all hope, and all love with an indefinable cadence of melancholy as plainly as in the real outbursts of lamentation and despairing cries of woe.

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RELIGION ON THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA.

The marvellous success of the indomitable Stanley has attracted the attention of all to Africa, that region of mystery, marvel, and malaria. The Catholic would naturally learn something of the work of the church in that continent, and of the religious condition of its population. But the subject is too vast for anything less than a large volume, and it will be more profitable to confine our attention to the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar. This region has a double interest. Zanzibar is the starting-point of almost every Central African expedition. Thence Livingstone, Speke and Grant, Cameron, and Stanley on two occasions, have struck into the interior and made valuable discoveries. It is also the old centre of the East African slave-trade, which, though it has received a severe check, is not yet abolished. Moreover, Zanzibar is a microcosm—a little world in itself. There one meets with the Arab, the Hindoo, the Persian, the Malagashi, the Banian, the Goa Portuguese, the negro, and the European.

The most important portion of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s territory is the islands of which Zanzibar is the chief. The name was once applied to the whole coast, and it is probable that that must have been the meaning of Marco Polo when he says (on hearsay evidence) that the island of Zanzibar is two thousand miles round. The term is supposed to signify the “Land of the Blacks.” The island is in about 6° south latitude, 48 miles long by 18 broad. It is separated from the mainland by a strait only 20 miles in breadth. As one approaches Zanzibar from the north the coast appears bare, rocky, and surrounded by low cliffs. Here dwell some wild people, almost completely cut off from the more civilized portion of the inhabitants, and following debasing and degrading superstitions. But as we sail southwards, between the island and the main, the shore becomes low and flat, the beach covered with sand of silvery whiteness, and the whole backed by rising ground not more than 300 feet high, on which grow in rich abundance cocoanut and other feathery-leaved palms. Soft breezes, laden with sweet odors from the groves of spice-trees, blow from the shore. The island is rich in fruits; mangos, oranges, limes, pummalos or shaddock, pineapples, jack-fruit, guavas, bananas, and cashew abound. But about four years ago a hurricane visited Zanzibar for the first time; almost all the dhows in the harbor were wrecked, many lives were lost, and the greater part of the trees were destroyed. On one estate known to the writer only four per cent. of the trees remained standing, and the ground, strewn with palms, was a lamentable sight.

At the entrance of Zanzibar harbor are several beautiful islands of emerald green. One of these, called French Island, is used as a burial-place for Europeans, and many wooden crosses and boards mark the last resting-place of seamen of the British navy, cut down by the fever which is so fatal on this coast. The heat is not excessive, seldom rising to 90°, but there is a feeling of depression in the atmosphere, and a short residence in this climate serves to take the energy out of most people.

Now we arrive at the city of Zanzibar, the most important place in East Africa. Its name, in the native language, is Unguja. For miles before reaching the city we have seen large white, square buildings close to the shore—the country residences of wealthy Arabs. The appearance is very pleasing, and so is that of the city from the sea, as similar houses stand near it. These are the English, French, American, and German consulates, over which wave the flags of their respective nations; also the sultan’s palace, the custom-house, and residences of rich Arabs and Hindoos. They are built of coral covered with the whitest plaster, only relieved by regular rows of windows, the brightness reflected from these houses being almost blinding. But on entering the town you cease to wonder at the bad name it has earned. With scarcely an exception Zanzibar is a heap of rubbish; the narrow lanes, or paths which do duty for streets, are surrounded by low hovels formed of earth plastered over wooden frames, roofed with palm-leaves, and possessing no means of ventilation but the doorway, the interior being consequently dark, stifling, and filthy. Many buildings have been allowed to go to utter ruin, and the very mosques are hardly presentable. But the bazaars form the sight of the city. They are, perhaps, a little wider than the other thoroughfares, and the fronts of the houses are occupied by small stalls, on which are piled articles the most incongruous—soap, fish, plantains, cotton goods, medicine, oil, etc. In the midst is seated, cross-legged, a fat old Banian, stripped to the waist, with his naked foot in a basket of grain, or a pretty dark-eyed girl with a ring in her nose. The market produce of all kinds is heaped on the ground without any attempt at order, and, as every one present is screaming at the top of his voice in his own language, the Babel of tongues is complete.

The government is in the hands of the Arabs. This people have from time immemorial had trading-stations on the coast, but Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1499, and the Portuguese soon superseded the Arabs and held the coast for a couple of hundred years, when the Arabs succeeded in dislodging them, and they are now confined to Mozambique and Quilimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi.

Remains of Portuguese forts are scattered up and down the shores of the mainland, and the writer assisted once in whitewashing Vasco da Gama’s column at Melinda, which makes an excellent harbor mark. Near the fort at Zanzibar numerous Portuguese cannon, cast in a European arsenal in the present century, lie on the ground, a proud trophy for the Arabs and a humiliating spectacle for Europeans. Fifty years ago Sayid Said, the Imaum of Muscat, visited Zanzibar and fixed his residence there. At his death one of his sons succeeded to his African and another to his Arabian possessions, the former paying an annual tax of forty thousand dollars to the Imaum. Sayid Barghash, the present sultan, succeeded his brother Sayid Majid seven years ago. He had previously been exiled to Bombay at the instance of the English, whose _protégé_ Majid was. His policy has been one of economy and retrenchment. Though the government may be called an absolute monarchy, yet it answers rather to the old feudal constitutions of Europe in the middle ages, the sultan being checked by members of his own and other powerful families.

The Arab statute-book is the Koran interpreted by what may be called the priesthood. But witchcraft is a great power, not only with the heathen but also with Mahometans, in Africa, and, after consulting his sheiks and sherifs, the sultan often has recourse to the heathen Mganga. One is reminded of the Witch of Endor, Pharao’s magicians, and many of the old superstitions which we find recorded in the ancient Hebrew Scriptures.

The population of the city may be one hundred thousand, and that of the remainder of the island rather more; but one cannot decide this with any accuracy, as it is against Moslem principles to take a census. Who are they to count the favors of God? Of the mongrel population of Zanzibar the Arab is the dominant race, though there are few, if any, pure Arabs—sometimes that name being applied to a man as black as a negro. But the better class of them are fine, handsome men, splendidly dressed, and very dignified and self-possessed. They are ignorant, however, bigoted, supercilious, and licentious. They are also very indolent and have few redeeming features. Lower classes of Arabs there are, who are soldiers, sailors, traders, and so on, and from them are drawn the villains who carry on the iniquitous slave-traffic.

There are about seven thousand British subjects—Banians and other Indian peoples. The commerce of the East African coast is chiefly in their hands, and they are the bankers and represent the moneyed interest. Those owning slaves are in danger of losing them, if the British consul discover the fact; but it is hardly possible for them not to trade in slaves, as they are always sold with landed properties, and without them labor could hardly be obtained.

Most of the army, which numbers nine hundred, is composed of Belooches, who are a motley set of rascals, brutal, lazy, and cowardly. But somehow they contrive to live, and arm themselves too, on three dollars a month, and seem to be pretty prosperous. The artillerymen are Persians—tall, handsome men with black moustaches, high black sheepskin caps, green tunics, and loose trowsers. But their battery, which is full of small brass and iron guns overlooking the sea, is a poor affair, ridiculous from a military point of view, and better adapted for firing salutes than for purposes of warfare.

There are about two thousand men from the Comoro Islands, but no one seems to have anything good to say of them.

The mass of the population is composed of blacks from the east coast. These are almost entirely slaves, and are made to work for the support of the lazy Arabs. A person acquainted with the country easily distinguishes members of the different tribes from each other; they may be known by the tribe marks—mostly punctures in the forehead—and by their general appearance. The slaves are capable of much endurance; the writer once paid thirty or forty slave women eight cents each for a day’s work, which consisted of walking thirty miles, carrying weights on their heads half the way. They did not seem at all exhausted after this arduous task. Great cruelties are perpetrated in the capture of the slaves and in conveying them to Zanzibar, but, as a rule, they are treated fairly enough when once they are received into a family, being allowed one day a week to work for themselves, besides other extra time.

There are only sixty or seventy white people—American, English, Scotch, French, and German—but without them the commerce of the place would collapse. The chief exports are spices, ivory, ebony, cocoanuts, and gum-copal. The imports are cotton fabrics, pocket-handkerchiefs of bright colors, crockery, etc.

The climate of Zanzibar is healthier than that of the mainland, though it is quite bad enough; the wonder is that any one can live there. The city lies very low, almost surrounded by a shallow lagoon, over which the water flows at every tide, leaving a deposit of reeking filth. No attempt at drainage has been made; sanitary reform is totally unknown; and the smell of the beach caused Livingstone to suggest that the name should be changed to Stinkibar. The year before the great hurricane there was a cholera epidemic which is supposed to have killed ten thousand people. Strangely enough, the Europeans, who mostly suffer much from fevers, were totally exempt, and the natives got the notion that the devil, who gave them the cholera, was afraid to attack the redoubtable _Myungoo_; so they sometimes whitewashed a man who showed symptoms of the disease, to cheat the devil, but the devil refused to be cheated so easily. The physical is far superior, however, to the moral condition of Zanzibar; in fact, the place is a Sodom where morality is unknown.

To arrive at an idea of the religious condition of the peoples it is necessary to consider each race separately, and try to understand their habits and modes of thought. First let us take the negro—the most numerous class. Even so we shall be generalizing for the different tribes and nations of the interior, as distinct from each other and the races of Europe.

The writer has had considerable opportunities of judging of the black man, having served in a British man-of-war engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade, and having for some time been in charge of an establishment of liberated slaves—mostly boys. The negro character is a strange series of contradictions, and it takes some time to understand him. He is profoundly conscious of his inferiority. An English officer adopted a little slave boy taken from a dhow, and we taught him a few elements of religion, which he eagerly grasped. Amongst others he was much struck by the idea of a future state. One day he was being chaffed: “Ah! you nigger—thick lips—flat nose,” when he replied: “If I’m a good nigger, after I die I shall get up again, not black then, but white as you are.” It was a long time, though, before he could believe that a negro could rise again, though it did not seem unreasonable to him for an Arab or white man to rise.

Passing with this same boy, Mumbo, through a graveyard at Zanzibar, he pointed to a grave. “Who’s there?” he said. “Arab man,” I answered, recognizing it to be so from the concrete with which the grave was covered. “He get up again?” “Yes,” I replied, after which the boy was thoughtful and silent for a while. “Who’s buried there?” he repeated, pointing to a grave marked by a wooden cross. “A Msungu” (white man), I answered. “He get up again?” “Yes.” Another pause. “And who’s there?” the boy again asked, pointing to a mean grave unmarked by cross or stone. “A nigger man,” said I. “He get up again?” But on replying in the affirmative he would not believe it, and continued obstinately sceptical for some time.

Selfishness seems to be the most prominent feature of the negro character. Civilized people mask the repulsive feeling, but not so the black. Everything is for himself and his own present sensual gratification. They have not a particle of gratitude, and if you show them kindness or give them a present it is considered a sign of weakness, and their contempt for their benefactor is apparent. There is no word expressive of thanks in the Swahili language, though the “Santa” of the Arab, accompanied by a bow, the right hand placed on the heart, is most graceful and pleasing. On taking charge of the boys’ house, in the benevolence of my heart I invested in numbers of stalks of bananas—a large one can be obtained for eight cents—and distributed them. But no word of thanks was heard, and the boys began to consider fruit as a right, and to grumble if it were not forthcoming; so I grew rather disgusted and discontinued scattering largesse amidst such a graceless set. Neither do they show much affection. This, perhaps, is hardly to be wondered at, as the slave-traffic, which has existed from time immemorial, must, by constantly separating families, have weakened and almost destroyed all ties of kindred. A gentleman well acquainted with the people told me that the only known affection amongst them was that between a son and his mother. Several slave boys whom we had liberated and kept on board the ship, on our leaving the coast were wisely sent on shore to the mission, only the one of whom I have previously spoken remaining. He wept piteously and sobbed himself to sleep. We were touched, and fancied that, after all, we had formed too low an estimate of the negro, till on waking he appeared to have completely forgotten his friends, and never spoke of them again. It then appeared that his grief had been purely selfish; for, as he phrased it, he would have no one “to skylark with.” “What will you give me?” is the view a negro takes of his neighbor, and in this the Ki-Swahili, and even the Arab, very much resemble him. One’s ear soon grows familiar with the cry of “Lata paca”—“Bring pice”—pice being little Indian copper coins which form the currency at Zanzibar. This question is asked you in the streets or country roads, not merely by the poor, but even by well-to-do people. I was one day walking home from a feast to which I had been invited by the proprietor of a sugar plantation—a Swahili man. These people are mulattoes, partly Arab, but mostly negro. They are Mahometans and call themselves Arabs. We had been hospitably _fêted_, and I was accompanied by a brother of my host, a nice-looking young fellow, upright as a dart—as they all are—and dressed in the graceful long white linen robe which they always wear. He was proceeding to his home, a well-built stone house, but before leaving me I was astonished at his asking in Swahili for a few pice! Doubting my ears, I asked a boy who understood English what he had said, and he told me that I had not mistaken his meaning; so I gave him two or three coppers, and he went away well pleased.

Negroes are very improvident, like most savage races. They take no thought for the morrow—not from faith, but from utter recklessness. They are also fond of desertion for the mere sake of change. Slaves sometimes leave their masters and hire themselves out for a year or two to some one else, returning afterwards as if nothing had happened, and receiving no punishment, the master fearing that he might revenge himself on him or desert again, and also arguing that it is his nature and that no better can be expected of him. I was once on a shooting party in the Kingani River, and placing one of the boats in charge of a quartermaster, left with him a Seedee boy, or black seaman, to clean the jaws of a hippopotamus that I had shot on the previous day. I went up the river in the other boat with the remaining seamen for a day’s shooting, and on my return in the evening was informed that the black had decamped, and we never saw any more of him. In the ship he was receiving about four times as much pay as he could possibly earn elsewhere, and, in addition to this, he left clothes and money behind. Yet we afterwards learnt that before leaving the vessel he had told his friends of his intention to run.

The negro is, in Africa as elsewhere, exceedingly indolent, and, nature having provided him with abundance of the necessaries of life, he indulges his laziness to the full when he possibly can—that is, in his native country or at Zanzibar, if he can manage to possess a few slaves to work for him.

He is also obstinate and headstrong. Going on shore on the beautiful island of Pemba, north of Zanzibar, to trade for provisions, they were uniformly refused us, whatever price we offered. Yet next day the natives brought the things to the ship, some miles from the shore, and offered them for sale. A little bit of a boy was so obstinate that he would not obey orders unless he chose, even if thrashed with a rhinoceros-hide whip; neither did he flinch nor utter a cry under punishment. But when he left the ship, where he had been petted by the sailors, being sent to the French Mission, he was so disgusted that the first thing he did was to roll on the beach and completely destroy his new clothes, and the missionaries were compelled to restore him his old sailor costume. Still he sulked, and when I left they had not managed to get him to speak.

Negroes are subject to sudden fits of fury almost amounting to madness, and then they cry, shout, vociferate, and argue in the most ridiculous manner. They love to eat and are very greedy, but are still more fond of drinking, and in their own country begin the day by copious potations of beer. However, at Zanzibar drunkenness would be punished by imprisonment; and that is no trifle, the prisoners being placed in a yard enclosed by four walls, and receiving no food, unless they have a friend to bring them some. They are also exceedingly depraved, and, when brought into contact with the semi-civilization of the coast, they become, if anything, worse than before. A stranger is astonished at the cool manner in which they enter a strange house, if they see the door open. They place their spear in a corner, set themselves in the best place, and talk till they are tired (they are especially fond of hearing themselves talk), when they rise and leave. It is no good trying to exclude them; their curiosity must be satisfied, and they insist on seeing and learning about everything—examining and handling your clothes and asking the value of each article.

Negroes have the redeeming feature of being mostly good-tempered and pleased by a very little. They delight in a joke, yet their wit is of the most elementary character. They are exceedingly fond of music; neither does its unvaried monotony pall on them. I once passed an old man amusing himself by drumming with two sticks on a plank; returning after some hours, I found him continuing the performance, which he had evidently kept up all the time. You will see them on a moonlight night, or even in the daytime, dancing and flinging their limbs about in the most ridiculous and ungraceful manner to the tune of tomtoms and fifes; yet they keep perfect time. A circle is formed, and a performer waltzes rapidly around the inner space, looking up to the sky, till she becomes giddy and falls into the arms of her friends. Whatever work they are engaged in, these people always sing, and in the streets you constantly hear the chant of porters, who carry tusks of ivory or bales of goods slung between two of them on a pole which rests on their shoulders.

The East African negro has been completely debased by centuries of oppression and slavery. “All the good qualities appear crushed out of the African race,” said an experienced missionary at Zanzibar to me. Their religion is the same as that of the natives of the west coast—fetichism. I believe this word is derived from the Portuguese _feitiço_, a doing—that is, of magic. Nature has colored the black man’s thoughts, but not with the sublime and beautiful. He sees nothing in nature but the terrible, vast, threatening, and hostile. The dense jungle with huge trees, concealing poisonous snakes, fierce lions, and spotted leopards; the fever-breeding swamp; the devastating cyclone—these have produced a feeling of dread, helplessness, and terror on his debased mind. He has but a very vague, unformed idea of a Supreme Being, and does not at all conceive of the spiritual and eternal side of man. To him death is destruction. Yet he believes that the ghost of the departed person remains, and he always imagines it to be harmful and hostile. In fact, he is for ever in terror of ghosts and witchcraft, and his religion consists in the propitiation of natural objects. The African’s creed may be reduced to two articles: the first demonology, or the existence of spectres of the dead; the second witchcraft, or black magic. Their native superstitions the slaves carry with them to Zanzibar or wherever they are taken, and so deeply rooted are these beliefs in their minds that I have often been surprised to hear negroes who have been Protestant Christians for years, and daily attending public Christian worship, speak of witchcraft in ordinary conversation as much as a matter of course as they would of any every-day occurrence. For instance, missing some pice from my drawers, I asked my servant to find out who had taken them. He replied that he could not do so, but that a man had been there years ago who “made plenty witchcraft”; he would have told me, but now he was gone. Some very good Christian boys, as I was walking with them one day, suddenly dropped their voices and told me that it was a “plenty bad place.” I imagined that fever or ague was intended, as it was low, marshy ground; but no such thing. They had once witnessed some “witchcraft” or other there.

There are _Mganga_—wizards and witches—who are partly impostors and

## partly dupes of their own imagination. To these people the negroes have

recourse in any calamity or sickness. Their office is to transfer the evil from which they suffer to some one else. Of course payment is the preliminary—no pay, no work. And an African must have present payment; he attaches no value to promises of future reward, though ever so near. These Mganga endeavor to entice ghosts from possessed persons and transfer them to some inanimate object, striving to effect it by music, dancing, and drinking. Thus, they nail pieces of cloth to trees to coax the devils into them. Epileptic fits are very common, and it is not astonishing that they should regard them as the effect of seizure by some external agent. On the mainland they attempt to discover the workers of magic by most cruel ordeals.

There are also rain-makers. It does not require an exceptionally weatherwise person to infer what the weather will be in a country of regular monsoons and seasons; still, they sometimes make a mistake, and then the false prophets have to escape as best they can.

The Arabs have the utmost contempt for the negroes, and, so far from trying to convert them, purposely leave them to perdition; if they made them Mahometans they would be their equals, and this they do not at all desire.

Such is the character and religious belief of these unhappy people. We will see later on what the church can do for them, but in this inquiry one important subject must be considered—that is, the slave-trade. Slavery on the White Nile is admirably described by Sir Samuel Baker in his _Nile Basin_, and it is much the same on the east coast. The petty native chieftains are constantly at war with each other, the object being plunder. They try to surprise a neighboring village at night, fire it, and surround it with armed men. As the luckless inhabitants rush out to escape from the flames, their enemies shoot down the men and seize the women and children for slaves, carrying off the cattle. Sometimes a thieving Arab slaving party joins one chief who has a grudge against a neighboring village, assisting him to destroy it in the manner just described and sharing the plunder. The Arabs then manage to quarrel with their allies, and so obtain their goods also.

As long as this state of things exists mission work in the interior will be impossible. The Protestant English mission, under Bishop Mackenzie, some years ago established itself in the interior near the Zambesi, and gathered together some hundreds of natives whose improvement they hoped gradually to effect. But a powerful tribe attacking the one amongst which they dwelt, they had to perform the uncongenial task of driving off the invaders with their rifles. Their friends were saved for the time, but many of the missionaries had died from fever, and the small remainder was obliged to retire. Shortly after this the tribe with which they had been was swept away and destroyed. The slave-trade naturally prevents all progress and the increase of population. It also weakens all family ties, parents killing their offspring if they are in want. Great cruelties are practised, not only in the capture of slaves, but in their transit to the place of destination. The Arabs are very improvident, and sometimes, having failed to provide sufficient food for their caravan, they leave some of the slaves in the desert to starve, not even removing the yokes by which they are fastened together. I was told of a woman who was carrying a bale of cloth, and on the journey gave birth to a child. She could not carry both the baby and the goods; the latter were the more valuable, so the infant was brained against the nearest tree and left on the ground.

About four years ago a treaty was signed between the Sultan of Zanzibar and the British government, by which the importation of slaves was prohibited, but the Arabs were permitted to retain the slaves they already possessed. Strong pressure had to be brought to bear on the Arabs to compel them to sign this treaty; but even now a considerable traffic is carried on by the east coast with Arabia, Pemba, and Madagascar. The negroes are crowded into the slave-dhows, and their sufferings from hunger and filth must be extreme on a voyage. Many die and are thrown overboard, and the remainder land in a miserably reduced condition. But the household slaves are treated kindly and well fed; this the owner finds politic, or the slave might desert. They are addressed as “Ndugu-yango”—“My brother”—and considered part of the family.

There are two sorts of slaves in the islands—the Muwallid, or domestic, born in slavery, and the wild imported slave. The former class are much better treated than the others. Even young captured slaves are not so tractable as they, but the older ones are very obstinate and contrary and given to thieving and disorder. Sometimes in revenge they attempt the life of their master or try to get him into serious trouble, yet they are seldom punished for it, any more than with us a vicious animal would be. They are slaves, and it is their nature, and they themselves give this as their excuse when convicted of the most abominable crimes. But slaves often rise to a very important position; and as Abraham sent his servant to Mesopotamia to negotiate his son’s marriage, so slaves are entrusted by their masters with the command of trading caravans to the interior, they preferring to remain comfortably at home. Free negroes have been known to sell themselves for slaves, and, when asked about it, to reply: “What can a dog do without a master?” Also, slaves often own slaves of their own. The pilot of Zanzibar, an official of some importance called Buckett, was a slave, and, when seen habited in a naval officer’s old coat and a handsome turban on his head, he appeared a person of much distinction.

It is difficult to see how slavery can be kept up at Zanzibar, now that importation is forbidden; for the annual loss from death and desertion is thirty per cent., and the average annual importation a few years ago was estimated at thirteen thousand. Slavery, as it has been there, is an abominable institution and a complete bar to improvement.

Though the negro is so ignorant, superstitious, and debased, yet it has been abundantly shown that he is capable of improvement. I once visited the well-ordered estate of Kokotoni, in the north of Zanzibar Island, the property of Capt. Fraser. I found it in charge of an intelligent Scotchman, who said that they had about five hundred laborers resident on the plantation—half men and half women. They required them all to marry, gave them cottages, provision, grounds, and two dollars and a half each per month, and they were an orderly and well-conducted people. The overseer had taught them different trades—as that of wheelwright, necessary for the work of the estate—and, though they sometimes deserted in true negro fashion, yet the truants were sure to return again.

At Zanzibar and Bagomoyo, twenty-five miles off on the mainland, at the mouth of the Kingani River, the Société du Saint-Esprit, the parent house of which is in Paris, have most flourishing establishments. The town house is in the centre of Zanzibar, its corrugated iron roof, towering above the neighboring buildings, being a conspicuous object. On entering you will be greeted in good French by very civil negro boys dressed in blue blouse and trowsers and wearing a black glazed hat. They will conduct you to a spacious sitting-room decorated with pictures of religious subjects, and before long the superior, Père Etienne, appears. He is a tall, slight man, and has not lost the cavalry swagger which he acquired as captain in a Lancers regiment, and which forms a strange contrast to his black soutane. He is a most affable and agreeable priest, and conducts one round the interesting establishment. There is a beautiful little chapel on the first floor, and when I was last in it the walls were being stencilled. In the workshops trades are taught to the boys by the lay brethren, such as working in metals, carpentering, and boat-building. The pupils belong to the mission, they having been either handed over to it by the British consul from captured slave-dhows, or purchased by the mission in the slave-market in the old times before slavery was abolished. At Bagomoyo there is a still larger establishment under the care of Père Horner, where about ten clergy and the same number of sisters have charge of an agricultural colony on which are several hundred Christian negroes. At first the mission did not mean to Christianize the natives, thinking that they were so degraded that it would take several generations to raise them to that point; but they found them capable of more than was originally expected. The mission establishment is half a mile from the town of Bagomoyo, which contains about five thousand people, but it has the appearance of a small town itself. The grounds are laid out in a most orderly manner; it is a pleasure to walk along the straight, well-kept paths between fields of maize, millet, and sweet potatoes.

The captain of the ship in which I served was one day up the Kingani River in his boat, accompanied by a young Alsatian lay brother from the mission. Shooting a hippopotamus cow, the calf, only a week or two old, would not leave the mother’s carcase, and the captain, who had to return to his ship, giving money to the brother, advised him to obtain assistance and catch the little animal, which he presented to the mission. A few months after, as we were visiting the good fathers, the lay brother took us to a large tank surrounded with a fence, which they had formed for the accommodation of the hippopotamus. Standing at the gate, the brother called the animal by name, and it came snorting out of the water, ran up to its master, looking up into his face, and followed us about the garden and into the house like a dog. Here he was fed from a bottle with flour and milk. He was taken to the Zoölogical Gardens at Berlin shortly afterwards, and must have sold for at least six thousand dollars. Hippopotami are inimical to the crops of rice which grow near the rivers, as they come on shore in the night and devour enormous quantities of the young tender shoots, so that the fields have to be carefully watched. But more dangerous animals are found on the coast, and Père Horner told us a story of a huge lion which had carried off several of their cattle. They constructed a trap of a deserted hut, into which they enticed the animal, which, finding himself imprisoned, aroused all the establishment from their midnight slumbers by his roarings. He was shot by one of the brethren.

The fathers give their guests a good dinner of many courses in true French style, but one should not conclude, as does Stanley in his _How I Found Livingstone_, that champagne is their ordinary beverage. On the contrary, when I was there they could offer us nothing but a little white rum which had been sent them from our ship, and the champagne with which they welcomed Mr. Stanley was some of a small present which they had received.

Their mode of work is undoubtedly the true one: to get a certain number of negroes, isolate them as much as possible from the licentious society of their heathen brethren, and hope of them to form the nucleus of a future Christian population.

The Church of England has a mission at Zanzibar, and has also some settlements on the mainland; and as I had several friends there, I know something about it from personal observation, and regret that its members are not Catholics, for a more devoted set of workers it would be hard to find. They have a house on a _shamba_, or estate, two miles from the town, in which there are a number of liberated slave boys, who are instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and are taught such trades as carpentering and field labor. Dr. Steere, the third bishop of this mission, which was set on foot by the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge at the instance of Livingstone, is a linguist, being the authority on Swahili, the language commonly spoken at Zanzibar and on the coast. He has written a Swahili grammar, and translated into the language great parts of the Bible, prayers, hymns, and school-books, and these are excellently printed in the mission press by some of the pupils, a few of whom he took to England to perfect themselves in the trade at a large London printing establishment. All the printing done in Zanzibar is their work. They have a beautiful chapel, where there are daily morning and evening services, and these are attended by all the establishment; and I am told that many of the boys show great devotion, kneeling for a quarter of an hour together in the chapel. I am inclined to fear, though, that the African Anglican’s notion of religion is something which will propitiate an angry, hostile power—in fact, a relic of demonology. “Our Father” has no meaning to one who had perhaps been sold to an Arab by his parent for a bowl of rice. Two miles beyond the English mission’s boys’ house is a similar establishment for girls under the charge of women. The girls look fatter and healthier than the boys, a large proportion of whom are affected by the terrible skin diseases so prevalent amongst the blacks.

The mission had a devoted young clergyman there some years ago, who, being possessed of large means and wealthy friends, purchased the old slave market in Zanzibar, on which a handsome stone church with groined roof, and different school buildings, were erected. But he sacrificed his life, as most of the workers of this mission have done, by his zeal, and fell a victim to fever; his funeral was attended by parties from the English men-of-war in the harbor, and by some of the Catholic missionaries, and many of the European residents who wished to pay a last tribute of respect to the memory of a brave and devoted, if mistaken, man. He once told me that some of his pupils asked him a very pertinent question: Why, if the Christian religion was one, the French and English missions were not united? He evaded it by replying that they taught in English, but the others in French! When his death was announced in England a young clergyman, who had formerly worked in the same mission, was preaching for it in an English church and exhorting his hearers to give money and, if possible, their personal services to the cause. He was astonished afterwards at a young woman presenting herself and offering herself for the work. Neither pictures of fever, discomfort, nor death could deter her from going to Zanzibar, as I believe she afterwards did.

Bishop Steere used to give a weekly address in the native language in the city of Zanzibar to any who chose to attend, and I have heard that the rich Arabs used to flock to it in crowds, coming to the bishop’s house afterwards to discuss the different Christian doctrines of which they had heard. But if any Arab became a Christian he would probably be assassinated by his comrades, so great is their bigotry. Singularly, the part of the Bible which has most interest for an Arab is the genealogies; for, as is well known, they are most careful in preserving such records, even of their very horses.

The Mahometan residents at Zanzibar and on the coast, both Arab and Ki-Swahili, go to school at seven years of age, and in two or three years learn to write, and read the Koran. They are also taught a few prayers and hymns and some Arab proverbs, and this completes their education. In two points a good Moslem puts ordinary Christians to shame—in prayer and temperance. In the East one often sees even the poorest people prostrating themselves towards Mecca on their praying-mat, and repeating the accustomed prayers at the stated hours, which occur five times a day. I have seen a naked black laborer praying in a coal-lighter during an interval of work. One is reminded of the quaint old Belgian cities, where it is common to see female figures, in their long black cloaks, kneeling before a crucifix in some open space. Temperance the Arab rigidly observes; and how can one expect them to become Christians when they daily witness the drunkenness of white seamen? In fact, this objection has been urged upon me by natives, and the answer which one makes, that our religion does not permit drunkenness, is not satisfactory to them. “If we got drunk,” they say, “our sultan would put us in prison.”

Strict Mahometans are very Pharisaical. We once had great trouble with a Mahometan priest or schoolmaster who visited our ship. He refused the coffee which we offered him because it was made by a Christian, and would only condescend to drink some lime-juice out of a glass which we assured him had never been used, and even this beverage had to be prepared by his own servant. Some Arab gentlemen who accompanied him and dined with us, being prevented from eating anything that we had cooked, could get nothing but oranges.

The Hindis are a sect of Mahometans who are not recognized by the Arabs, but the exact nature of their differences I have not been able to learn. Neither could I arrive at the religion of the Banians. Their mortality at Zanzibar is very great, and you may daily see processions of Banian men going to the beach beyond the town, where they raise a funeral pyre of wood, on which their deceased friend is consumed, the remains being washed away by the rising tide.

On the coast the people are much the same as those who inhabit the island of Zanzibar. There are the lazy, cowardly Belooch soldiers and their families, and these swashbucklers are thoroughly despised and hated. The towns are ruled by headmen, who are subject to the Sultan of Zanzibar, but who enrich themselves by extortion. The Washenzi are day-laborers, and are barbarians from the interior. Banians are always found prospering in trade. The Ki-Swahili—which means people of the coast, degenerate Arabs—are ignorant and vicious. They have a great fear and hatred of the white man, particularly of the English, whom they called _Beni Nar_—Sons of Fire. They think that, if once the white man’s foot has been placed on the land, he is sure to obtain possession of it in the end; and in this they are not far mistaken. The Wamrina are a coast clan even more debased and vicious than the latter people, and they appear to have little reason. They are cowardly and cautious, but very cunning, and, as most of the inhabitants in those parts, lie habitually, even when there is no object to be gained thereby.

There are a number of small towns on the coast from Magadoxo, a little north of the equator, to Kilwa, the great slave-mart in the south. The chief ones are Brava, Lamu, Marka, Melinda, and Mombas. At both of the latter are Portuguese remains, and at Mombas is a Protestant mission which at the time of my visit had been established thirty years, and had cost a large amount of money, but had apparently done very little good. The celebrated Dr. Krapf, who had been four years in Abyssinia, was the first to go there, starting from Zanzibar. This was in 1844. He was the first to draw up a Ki-Swahili grammar, in which he was assisted by Dr. Rebmann, who arrived two years afterwards. Their journeys from Mombas, which is situated in 4° south latitude, are well known. They discovered Kilima Njaro, a snow-clad mountain 22,814 feet high, only 3° south of the equator, and what they heard from the natives of vast lakes in the interior, where nothing but sandy deserts had hitherto been supposed to exist, led to the famous travels which have exposed a new world to the wondering eyes of men and opened up new fields for the glorious labors of the missionary.

Dr. Rebmann was living near Mombas at the time of my visit, though old and blind, and, I hear, has since died. I did not see him, though I started to do so with one of the missionaries. I was so disgusted by this man’s narrow sectarianism in the midst of heathendom—he commencing to abuse the mission of his own church at Zanzibar—that I preferred to spend the night on the river in a boat with our seamen rather than, with my friends, accompany him to the Rabai Mission. We came across a pamphlet written by them for their English supporters, containing a lot of pious texts: “Come over and help us”; “The fields are white to the harvest”; “A wide door and effectual is open,” and so on; but it struck us as being great nonsense. However, I am told that they have since that started a large establishment of liberated slaves. The Wesleyans have a mission in the neighborhood, but of them I know nothing, as we did not visit them.

The Sultan of Zanzibar visited England two years ago, offered to place his dominions under British protection, and has exerted himself to put a stop to the slave-trade, though he fought hard against its abolition at first, as from it he derived the principal part of his revenue. If a stop could be put to this evil and peace established in the interior, a splendid field for mission-work would be the result, the black having such respect for the superior knowledge and intellect of the white man that many tribes would receive the missionary with a hearty welcome.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY, WITH A VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE ROMAN WORLD AT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. By George P. Fisher, D.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

Dr. Fisher has taken up a line of argument of great interest and importance, which has employed the minds and pens of a number of able writers before him, but which cannot be too frequently or copiously treated. The author informs us in his preface that he has prepared the work as now published from a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute of Boston. The principal portion of his argument presents precisely what is needed by a large number of educated persons in New England, especially in Boston, where a reckless, extravagant rationalism and neologism, borrowed from Germany, are rapidly undermining all belief in the genuineness, historical truth, and doctrinal authenticity of our earliest Christian documents, together with those of Judaism. This modern infidelity saps the historical basis of Christianity, that it may be free to criticise it as a theory, a mere natural phenomenon, a phase of human evolution. Any one who turns their own historical and critical methods against these sceptics does good service to truth. We are pleased to recognize the many merits, both in respect to matter and diction, in the essay of the learned professor. The five chapters on the Roman policy, and Greco-Roman religion, literature, philosophy, and morals, are admirable. The geographical accuracy and distinctness with which, as on a map, the Roman Empire is graphically delineated, makes a characteristic and noteworthy feature of this part of the work, which is enriched with a great number of happy classical quotations. The succinct review of historical Judaism during the important but much-neglected period of five centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ is interesting and valuable. A very able critical defence of the genuineness of the New Testament history, of the truth of the miracles and resurrection of our Lord, his superhuman character and divine mission, completes a solid and unanswerable argument for the historical basis of Christianity as a divine and supernatural religion.

The author has shown the convergence of all the lines of movement drawn in the past history of the world towards the moment of Christ’s appearance. This is one of the strongest proofs of his divine mission, inasmuch as it shows that the Author and Ruler of the world is also the Author of the Christian religion. The complement to the argument should point out the divergence of the lines from the same point through the post-Christian times, and the work of human regeneration historically fulfilled—the second and even greater proof of the divine legation of Christ. The author shows very conclusively that those destructive critics and sceptics who deny the true historical idea of Christ as presented in the New Testament take away all sufficient cause for the effect produced in Christianity.

The foundation for a complete argument from cause to effect and effect to cause, in the relation between the historical idea of Christ and the historical idea of his regenerating work, is laid by establishing his supernatural character, mission, and works. Thus far Dr. Fisher gives us complete satisfaction. When he proceeds to develop his own conception of the true Christian idea—the plan, namely, of human regeneration, and the means for executing the plan—we do not find it complete and adequate. As compared with the view heretofore prevalent among evangelical Protestants, it is, nevertheless, a marked approximation to the Catholic idea. We consider that Dr. Fisher’s argument requires a complement, in order to make the historical circle embracing all ages and centred in Christ perfect in its circumference. To explain our statement and adduce reasons for it would require many pages, and we must for the present refrain from anything beyond a mere expression of our judgment.

There is only one passage which we have thus far noticed in a perusal of nearly the whole of Dr. Fisher’s volume which has jarred upon our feelings as out of tune with his prevalent mode of philosophical candor and historical justice. On page 238 it is written: “Pharisaism, like Jesuitism, is a word of evil sound, not because these parties had no good men among them, but because prevailing tendencies stamped upon each ineffaceable traits of ignominy.”

We are persuaded that in the great number and variety of studies which have absorbed his time and attention the writer of the foregoing passage has never found leisure to read the books which would give him the true notion of the institute and history of the Jesuits. We give him credit for great sincerity and love of truth, and yet we cannot help thinking that there is still a remnant of prejudice left in his mind, which in this case causes, to use his own words, “groundless, gratuitous suspicion, such as, in the ordinary concerns of life, is habitually repelled by a healthy moral nature.”

As a production of learning, philosophical thought, and literary taste, the _Beginnings of Christianity_ deserves, in our opinion, a place among the best works of New England scholars. We will close this notice by an extract which shows the philosophical and religious tone and quality of the great argument presented in the volume:

“When we look back upon the ancient philosophy in its entire course, we find in it nothing nearer to Christianity than the saying of Plato that man is to resemble God. But, on the path of speculation, how defective and discordant are the conceptions of God! And if God were adequately known, how shall the fetters of evil be broken and the soul attain to its ideal? It is just these questions that Christianity meets through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. God, the head of that universal society on which Cicero delighted to dwell, is brought near, in all his purity and love, to the apprehension, not of a coterie of philosophers merely, but of the humble and ignorant. There is a real deliverance from the burden of evil, achieved through Christ, actually for himself and potentially for mankind. How altered in their whole character are the ethical maxims which, in form, may not be without a parallel in heathen sages! Forgiveness, forbearance, pity for the poor, universal compassion, are no longer abstractions derived from speculation on the attributes of Deity. They are a part of the example of God. He has so dealt with us in the mission and death of his Son. The cross of Christ was the practical power that annihilated artificial distinctions among mankind and made human brotherhood a reality. In this new setting, ethical precepts gain a depth of earnestness and a force of impression which heathen philosophy could never impart. We might as well claim for starlight the brightness and warmth of a noon-day sun” (p. 189). This fine passage is supplemented by two condensed statements in another place, that the end in view of the plan of Jesus was “the introduction of a new life in humanity,” and the plan itself “the establishment of a society of which he is the living head” (p. 467). This really comprehends the whole Christian Idea in germ. Its true and perfect evolution, and an accurate commentary upon it, would present a complete philosophy of Christianity.

DE DEO CREANTE: Prælectiones Scholastico-Dogmaticæ quas in Collegio S.S. Cordis Jesu ad Woodstock, Maxima Studiorum Domo Soc. Jesu in Fœd. Americæ Sept. Statibus, habebat A.D. MDCCCLXXVI.-VII., Camillus Mazzella, S.J., in eod. Coll. Stud. Præfectus et Theol. Dogm. Professor. Woodstock, Marylandiæ: Ex Officina Typographica Collegii. 1877. 8vo, pp. xxxv.-935.

This treatise is a complete exposition and defence of the Catholic doctrine on creation and its kindred topics as handed down in the church by tradition from the earliest ages to the present day. As the title of the book indicates, the subject is considered not merely from a dogmatic point of view; all the errors of the ancients as well as of their modern imitators being taken up in turn and refuted. A glance at the general divisions of the work will show the wide range of topics treated: I. “De Creatione Generatim”; II. “De Angelica Substantia”; III. “De Hominis Origine et Natura”; IV. “De Hominis Elevatione ad Statum Supernaturalem”; V. “De Humanæ Naturæ Lapsu”; VI. “De Hominis Novissimis.”

Each of these subjects is developed with the greatest detail. Take, for example, the seventeenth proposition in the third disputation, on the origin of the human race. In the introductory remarks to this proposition the author first explains our descent from Adam, the first man, according to revelation, and then devotes some ten pages to a concise but thorough exposition of Darwinism and its companion errors. After this he lays down the following thesis: “Primi parentes, prout ex divina revelatione constat, non modo quoad animam, sed etiam quoad corpus, immediate a Deo conditi sunt. Quam certissimam veritatem frustra evertere aut infirmare nituntur qui nunc audiunt Transformistæ: principium enim quod assumunt arbitrarium est, atque experientiæ repugnans; media, quæ assignant, ad transformationem efficiendam sunt insufficientia; probationes, demum, quas adducunt, nihil omnino evincunt.” This he proves directly by a large array of arguments from the Holy Scriptures, the fathers and the doctors of the church. He then proceeds to show the untenableness of the opposite theories, demonstrating that animals can only be propagated by others of the same species; that the ablest practical scientists of the day have acknowledged the arbitrariness of the transformation theory, and that many have proved it contrary to known facts; that the means suggested by the evolutionists are insufficient to explain the origin of man, etc., etc. He introduces a large and well-marshalled army of quotations from American, British, and Continental scientists to back up his position.

The divisions of the work and the order in which they are treated lay no claims to originality, which the author has very sensibly considered as worse than out of place in a theological text-book, since it tends only to perplex the student and to introduce confusion into the schools of divinity. The fate of writers who have, even in our own day, adopted a different course proves clearly the correctness of this view. Nevertheless, the method pursued in the treatment of particular questions is at once novel and useful, and, as far as we know, peculiar to Father Mazzella. As a general rule, theological writers, after having briefly explained the meaning of the proposition and touched on the errors of their adversaries, enter at once on the demonstration. This done, they devote a great deal of space to the solution of difficulties and the refutation of objections; and it is on this last point especially that they rely for making the sense of their thesis clear. Father Mazzella has adopted a different mode of proceeding. The development of each of his propositions contains two distinct parts: in the first he presents a complete exposition of the subject-matter in all its bearings; in the second he proves the point at issue. He starts out by giving a summary of the decisions of the church regarding the question under discussion. Then, if there be any diversity of opinion amongst Catholic doctors, he explains each system and notes the degree of probability contained in it. Finally, he proceeds to the exposition of contrary errors or heresies, and of the various senses, false and true, in which the doctrine may be interpreted. All this opens the way to the second part, in which the thesis is proved from Scripture, the fathers, and reason, and the few difficulties that perhaps remain are answered.

This manner of developing a subject seems to us to confer a twofold benefit on the student: it gives him a clear and comprehensive conception of the positive doctrine, and at the same time supplies him with general principles by means of which he may readily solve any new objections that may chance to arise in discussion. It is not sufficient for the young theologian to have learned by heart a number of proofs, and the answers to the long string of difficulties given in his text-book. He must be imbued with the whole spirit of Catholic doctrine, and thus he will form within himself a new theological _sense_, if we may use the expression, by which he can easily discern what is consonant with, and what is repugnant to, the truths contained in the deposit of faith. Such is the result aimed at in Father Mazzella’s method. Hence he devotes but little space to the answering of objections; for he has already disposed of them in the exposition of his thesis. Most difficulties, in fact, arise from a misunderstanding of Catholic doctrine; hence it is plain that they must readily disappear, if the dogmas of the church be clearly explained.

As is proper for a theologian, the author makes abundant use of Scripture and tradition. Whilst avoiding all needless excursions into the fields of philology and hermeneutics, he does not refuse to handle the difficulties brought from these sciences. An instance of this is his vindication of the true sense of the famous [Greek: eph ô]—_in quo_—in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Whenever the question under discussion has been defined by the church, the decrees are carefully given and explained. We frequently find a series of definitions on the same subject, taken from councils held at various periods, proving the wonderful unity of the church’s teaching in various ages. Father Mazzella makes frequent use of the fathers and great scholastic writers. He generally quotes them word for word, thus ensuring conviction as to their real opinion, and familiarizing the reader with their peculiar modes of thought and expression, taking care, however, to explain all obscurities in the text.

Every student of theology is aware of the importance of mental philosophy in our days, when the repugnance of the supernatural to reason is so loudly and boldly asserted. Hence the author constantly appeals to it, but is careful to admit only such opinions as are approved by the authority of the schools, taking as his guides only St. Thomas and the ablest commentators of the Angelic Doctor, especially Suarez.

In the third disputation the author has made the natural sciences come to the aid of theology, especially when treating of the Mosaic cosmogony, of the origin and antiquity of the human race, etc. Certain devotees of modern experimental science, whose principles are built on mere hypotheses, and who insist on our taking mere possibilities as established facts, have declared a deadly war against revelation. It is difficult to convince such men of their errors by appealing to pure reason; for they are in a remarkable degree wanting in the logical faculty. You can overcome them only by opposing facts to facts, and by proving that their own pet studies contradict their theories. This Father Mazzella has aimed at doing; and he supports his position by bringing forward a mass of facts and disclaimers from the latest writings of the ablest scientists. The style is clear, simple, and straightforward—a most necessary quality in a book of the kind. Difficult terms are always explained, and neither order nor precision is ever sacrificed to a show of learning or rhetorical skill.

MODERN PHILOSOPHY, FROM DESCARTES TO SCHOPENHAUER AND HARTMANN. By Francis Bowen, A.M., Alford Professor of Natural Religion and Moral Philosophy in Harvard College. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.

The preface of Prof. Bowen prepossesses us at once in his favor. “No one,” says he, “can be an earnest student of philosophy without arriving at definite convictions respecting the fundamental truths of theology. In my own case, nearly forty years of diligent inquiry and reflection concerning these truths have served only to enlarge and confirm the convictions with which I began, and which are inculcated in this book. Earnestly desiring to avoid prejudice on either side, and to welcome evidence and argument from whatever source they might come, without professional bias, and free from any external inducement to teach one set of opinions rather than another, I have faithfully studied most of what the philosophy of these modern times and the science of our own day assume to teach. And the result is that I am now more firmly convinced than ever that what has been justly called[89] ‘the dirt-philosophy’ of materialism and fatalism is baseless and false. I accept with unhesitating conviction and belief the doctrine of the being of one personal God, the creator and governor of the world, and of one Lord Jesus Christ in whom ‘dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’; and I have found nothing whatever in the literature of modern infidelity which, to my mind, casts even the slightest doubt upon that belief.... Let me be permitted also to repeat the opinion, which I ventured to express as far back as 1849, that the time seems to have arrived for a more practical and immediate verification than the world has ever yet witnessed of the great truth that the civilization which is not based upon Christianity is big with the elements of its own destruction” (pp. vi., vii.).

These are sound and wise words, which we welcome with peculiar pleasure as emanating from a chair in Harvard University. The scope of _Modern Philosophy_ is more restricted, as the author distinctly premises, than the general title indicates. The authors whose systems are discussed _ex professo_ are Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Pascal, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann. There is also a general discussion of those great topics of metaphysics, the origin of ideas and the nature of the universals, of the freedom of the will and of the system of positivism, with an exposition of the relation of physical to metaphysical science. It is quite proper for the learned professor to select a particular range in modern philosophy for his lectures, but we respectfully submit that a less general title would have been more accurately definitive of his real object, and that he identifies too much the course of European thought with the direction of certain classes of thinkers. The revival of the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas in modern times is certainly worthy of notice, and is exercising a strong and decisive influence on modern European thought. The questions of ideology and the universals can hardly be adequately presented without consideration of their treatment by the able modern expositors of scholastic philosophy. We do not agree with Mr. Bowen in his estimate of Descartes, or in his general views of the superiority of modern to ancient and mediæval philosophy. Neither are we in accordance with his special views of ideology. Nevertheless, we recognize a current of very sound and discriminating thought throughout his whole course of argumentation, which tends always toward the most rational and Christian direction, taking up the good and positive elements which it meets with on the way, and rejecting their contraries. The author seems to have a subtle intellectual and moral affinity for the highest, most spiritual and ennobling ideas of the great men of genius, both heathen and Christian. Plato, Malebranche, and Leibnitz seem to be those with whom he is most in sympathy. His most marked antipathy is shown for the degrading pessimism of Schopenhauer. We feel sure, from the tone of his reasoning and the quality of his sentiments, that he would find the greatest pleasure in the perusal of the writings of such Catholic philosophers as Kleutgen, San Severino, Liberatore, Stöckl, and perhaps more than all of Laforet, on account of his Platonizing tendencies.

Mr. Bowen’s style is remarkably and elegantly classic. He throws a literary charm and glow over his discussions and expositions of abstruse ethical and metaphysical topics which we do not often find, except in the works of Italian authors, although some who write in English are beginning to cultivate this style, in which logical severity is combined with rhetorical grace. No one could write with more modesty and suavity of manner, or in a more calm and amiable temper. We hope this truly excellent volume, in such contrast with the common run of jejune and debasing trash which passes for science and philosophy, will be very much read, especially in the neighborhood of Boston, where it is sadly needed.

HISTORY OF THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE PORTUGUESE DOMINIONS. By the Rev. Alfred Weld, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This able work of Father Weld throws a flood of light on a very sad and gloomy page of history. Never was the Society of Jesus so fearfully tried and persecuted, and never did its virtues shine more conspicuously, than in the period referred to by the author—that is, during the twenty years preceding the entire suppression of the order by Clement XIV. in 1773.

We behold its holy and self-sacrificing members spreading themselves over the New as well as the Old World, making countless conquests for Christ, bearing every hardship and danger in order to teach the truths of faith to the most barbarous tribes and peoples, planting the standard of the cross in the most distant regions, and watering the seed of the Gospel by their blood. Wherever they went they gave evidence, in their own persons, of the highest apostolic virtues.

God could not but bless the efforts of such disinterested and self-sacrificing followers of his divine Son, and their labors were crowned with astonishing success. Take, for example, the history of their missions in Paraguay. No brighter or more cheering picture was ever displayed to the world than the fatherly government of the Jesuits over these poor children of the forest. Here civilization and religion went hand in hand, and peace and prosperity reigned. But the very success of the missionaries raised up against them powerful and bitter enemies. The more saintly they were, the more envy they excited; the more learned and influential, the more jealousy arose, until at last their enemies vowed their destruction.

Chief among those enemies, and most powerful in his opposition, was Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal, the chief minister of state under Joseph I., King of Portugal. Having, by sycophancy, flattery, and deception, made himself master of this weak sovereign, and always finding means to prevent his evil designs from becoming known, he labored to destroy the authority of the Holy See throughout the kingdom of Portugal, and to establish, as nearly as possible, a national church. He saw that the faithful Society of Jesus would be an insuperable obstacle in his way. He accordingly determined on its destruction, or, if he could not effect this, at least its expulsion from the Portuguese dominions. Knowing the high esteem in which the learned body was held throughout Europe by kings, princes, nobles, and people, and, above all, by each succeeding Sovereign Pontiff, he made use of every means, and means always the most malicious, in order to destroy the character and influence of the Jesuits. There was no insinuation too low, no instrument too vile, no slander too base, of which he did not make use to effect their injury and ruin. He spread throughout Europe, especially in the principal courts, the grossest libels (many of them written by himself) against the society, and all under the hypocritical plea of serving religion, law, and order. Every species of tyranny that human malice, aided by a deeper malice, could invent or call into being to injure the glorious institute founded by that great soldier of Christ, St. Ignatius, Pombal exercised.

During his ministry nine thousand innocent persons, many of whom were of the noblest families in the kingdom or ecclesiastics of the highest character, were condemned either to prison or to death, without any trial, and often without even knowing the cause for which they were deprived of their life or liberty.

The sufferings of the poor Jesuits, many of whom had spent the chief portion of their lives as apostles in South America and had been brought back in chains to the dungeons of Portugal, were of the most harrowing description. Not a few died in their wretched prisons, and the few that survived at the end of eighteen years, when they were released by order of the Queen, were but miserable wrecks of their former selves.

On the day of the queen’s coronation, May 13, 1777, Francis da Silva, Judge of the Supreme Court, pronounced his memorable address, in which he thus denounces, in the name of the whole nation, the tyranny from which they were just freed: “The blood is still flowing from the wounds with which the heart of Portugal has been pierced by the unlimited and blind despotism from which we have just ceased to suffer. He (Pombal) was the systematic enemy of humanity, of religion, of liberty, of merit, and of virtue. He filled the prisons and the fortresses with the flower of the kingdom. He harassed the public with vexations and reduced it to misery. He destroyed all respect for the pontifical and episcopal authority; he debased the nobility, corrupted morals, perverted legislation, and governed the state with a sceptre of iron, in the vilest and most brutal manner that has ever been seen in the world.”

All the machinations of this politician are laid bare, and his miserable agents in this fearful persecution exposed to view, in this work of Father Weld. He does not ask us to take for granted his simple declarations, but fortifies every position which he takes by the clearest and most undeniable proofs. He has had access to authentic documents, which he has put to the best use. His style is clear and forcible, and in the arguments which he uses and the proofs with which he sustains them he gives us a noble, just, and triumphant vindication of the great society of which he is a member.

In reading this work we could not but call to mind the prophecy of St. Ignatius that “the heritage of the Passion should never fail the society”—“A prophecy,” says the Protestant writer Stewart Rose, “fulfilled up to this time; for they (the Jesuits) are still, as for three hundred years past, indefatigable in the saving of souls, perversely misrepresented and stupidly misunderstood.”

ANTAR AND ZARA, AND OTHER POEMS, MEDITATIVE AND LYRICAL. By Aubrey De Vere.

THE FALL OF RORA, AND OTHER POEMS, MEDITATIVE AND LYRICAL. By the same. London: Henry S. King & Co. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

These two volumes “comprise the author’s secular poetry previous to the ‘Legends of St. Patrick’ (1872), together with many poems composed before that date, though not published.” “His religious poems will be collected later in a separate volume.”

_Antar and Zara_, with many shorter pieces, first appeared in the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. It was in those pages that the writer made Mr. De Vere’s acquaintance; and not a few of our readers, probably, are indebted to the same source for their introduction to the great Catholic poet of the day. To such it will be a welcome surprise, as it is to us, to find his cultured muse so prolific. The variety of themes, too, within these volumes affords a frequent ramble “to fresh fields and pastures new.” The poet himself has travelled. With Byron, he has “stood on the Alps,” and pondered in the “City of the Soul,” and basked in the “eternal summer” that “yet gilds the Isles of Greece.” At home, again, he has sung Erin’s glories and woes as though he had taken down the old Bardic harp from “Tara’s walls.”

As a poet, however, he shows the influence of two other great masters than Byron and Moore—though some of his Irish ballads remind us of the latter. He is chiefly a disciple of Wordsworth, while he has studied to good purpose the scholarly verse of Tennyson. With most imitators of Tennyson the classic perfections of the Laureate are turned to mere affectations. Not so with Mr. De Vere, who is equally a scholar himself. This scholarly taste, indeed, would have prevented him, we are sure, from adopting Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction, even had Tennyson never arisen to recall English poetry from the loose, inaccurate style into which his great predecessors, with the exception of Coleridge, had thrown so much splendid thought.

This conviction of ours regarding the combined influence of Tennyson and Wordsworth on our author’s poetry is confirmed by the discovery that _Antar and Zara_ is dedicated to the former by “his friend”; and, again, of the sonnet “Composed at Rydal, September, 1860,” with the two following sonnets “To Wordsworth, on Visiting the Duddon.” _Antar and Zara_, particularly in the shorter metre of _Zara’s_ “song,” is eminently Tennysonian. For example:

“He culled me grapes—the vintager; In turn, for song the old man prayed: I glanced around; but none was near: With veil drawn tighter, I obeyed.

“‘Were I a vine, and he were heaven, That vine would spread a vernal leaf To meet the beams of morn and even, And think the April day too brief.

“‘Were he I love a cloud, not heaven, That leaf would spread and drink the rain; Warm summer shower and dews of even Alike would take, and think them gain.

“‘It would not shrink from wintry rime Or echoes of the thunder-shock, But watch the advancing vintage-time, And meet it, reddening on the rock.’”

And again:

“Dear tasks are mine that make the weeks Too swift in passing, not too slow: I nurse the rose on faded cheeks, Bring solace to the homes of woe.

“I hear our vesper anthems swell; I track the steps of Fast and Feast; I read old legends treasured well Of Machabean chief or priest.

“I hear on heights of song and psalm The storm of God careering by; Beside His Deep, for ever calm, I kneel in caves of Prophecy.

“O Eastern Book! It cannot change! Of books beside, the type, the mould— It stands like yon Carmelian range By _our_ Elias trod of old!”

Here are the sonnets:

“COMPOSED AT RYDAL,

“SEPT, 1860.

“The last great man by manlier times bequeathed To these our noisy and self-boasting days In this green valley rested, trod these ways, With deep calm breast this air inspiring breathed. True bard, because true man, his brow he wreathed With wild-flowers only, singing Nature’s praise; But Nature turn’d, and crown’d him with her bays, And said, ‘Be thou _my_ Laureate.’ Wisdom sheathed In song love-humble; contemplations high, That built like larks their nests upon the ground; Insight and vision; sympathies profound, That spann’d the total of humanity: These were the gifts which God pour’d forth at large On men through him; and he was faithful to his charge.”

“TO WORDSWORTH, ON VISITING THE DUDDON.