4 
 
1 
 
SHORT STUDIES 
 
 ON 
 
 GEEAT SUBJECTS. 
 
 FOURTH SERIES. 
 
SHORT STUDIES 
 
 ON 
 
 GREAT SUBJECTS. 
 
 BY y 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. 
 
 LATE FELLOW OP EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 FOURTH SERIES. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 
 
 1883. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
/ 
 
 ///i 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The present volume concludes the series which I have 
 called "Short Studies on Great Subjects." The topics 
 discussed are not, indeed, all great, and some are insignifi- 
 cant ; but I selected the title on account of the unity of pur- 
 pose which is present throughout. The Essays have been 
 written at intervals, as occasion or my own general work 
 suggested, during the last thirty years, and they contain 
 my thoughts, cast in various forms, on the problems with 
 which the present generation has been perplexed. We 
 have lived through a period of change — change spiritual, 
 change moral, social, and political. The foundations of 
 oui most serious convictions have been broken up; and 
 the disintegration of opinion is so rapid that wise men 
 and foolish are equally ignorant where the close of this 
 waning century will find us. We are embarked in a cur- 
 rent which bears us forward independent of our own wills, 
 and indifferent whether we submit or resist ; but each of 
 us is sailing in a boat of his own, which, as he is hurried 
 on, he can guide or leave to drift. The observations and 
 experiences of a single voyager who is drawing near the 
 end of his own journey may have an interest for others 
 who are floating down the same river, and are alike unable 
 to conjecture whither they are bound. 
 
 J. A. F. 
 
 Onslow Gardens, 
 November 6, 1882. 
 
 36 
 
 T 
 
CONTENTS. 
 -■ ♦ - - 
 
 PAQB 
 
 Life and Times of Thomas Becket 1 
 
 The Oxford Counter-Reformation ...... 151 
 
 Origen and Celsus 237 
 
 A Cagliostro of the Second Century 282 
 
 Cheneys and the House of Russell 312 
 
 A Siding at a Railway Station 352 
 
LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS BECKET.^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Among the earliest efforts of the modern sacerdotal party 
 in the Church of England was an attempt to reestablish 
 the memory of the martyr of Canterbury. The sacerdotal 
 party, so far as their objects were acknowledged, aspired 
 only to liberate the Church from bondage to the State. 
 The choice of Becket as an object of adoration was a tacit 
 confession of their real ambition. The theory of Becket 
 was not that the Church had a right to self-administration, 
 but that the Church was the supreme administrator in this 
 world, and perhaps in the next ; that the secular sword as 
 well as the spiritual had been delivered to Peter ; and that 
 the civil power existed only as the delegate of Peter's suc- 
 cessors. If it be true that the clergy are possessed in any 
 real sense of supernatural powers ; if the " keys," as they 
 are called, have been actually granted to them ; if through 
 them, as the ordinary and appointed channel, the will of 
 God is alone made known to mankind — then Becket was 
 right, and the High Churchmen are right, and kings and 
 cabinets ought to be superseded at once by commissions of 
 
 1 Materinh for the History of Thomas Btcket, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. Edited by James Craigie Robertson, Canon of Canterbury. Pub- 
 lished under the direction of the Master of the Rulls. 1876. 
 
2 Life and Times of 
 
 bishops. If, on the other hand, the clergy are but like 
 other orders of priesthoods in other ages and countries — 
 mere human beings set apart for peculiar functions, and 
 tempted by the nature of those functions into fantastic no- 
 tions of their own consequence — then these recurring con- 
 flicts between Church and State resolve themselves into 
 phenomena of social evolution, the common sense of man- 
 kind exerting itself to control a groundless assumption. To 
 the student of human nature the story of such conflicts is 
 always interesting — comedy and tragedy winding one into 
 the other. They have furnished occasion for remarkable 
 exhibitions of human character. And while Churchmen 
 are raising up Becket as a brazen serpent, on which the 
 world is to look to be healed of its incredulities, the incred- 
 ulous world may look with advantage at him from its own 
 point of »'iew, and, if unconvinced that he was a saint, may 
 still find instruction in a study of his actions and his fate. 
 
 We take advantage, then, of the publication of new ma- 
 terials and the republication of old materials in an accessible 
 form to draw a sketch of Becket as he appears to ourselves ; 
 and we must commence with an attempt to reproduce the 
 mental condition of the times in which he lived. Human 
 nature is said to be always the same. It is no less true 
 that human nature is continuously changing. Motives 
 which in one age are languid and even unintelligible have 
 been in another alive and all-powerful. To comprehend 
 these difi'erences, to take them up into his imagination, to 
 keep them present before him as the key to what he reads, 
 1.8 the chief difficulty and the chief duty of the student of 
 history. 
 
 Characteristic incidents, particular things which men rep- 
 resentative of their age indisputably did, convey a clearer 
 idea than any general description. Let the reader attend 
 to a few transactions which occurred either in Becket's life- 
 time or immediately subsequent to it, in which the principal 
 actors were persons known to himself. 
 
Thomas Becket. 3 
 
 We select as the first a scene at Martel near Limoges in 
 the year 1183. Henry Plantagenet, eldest son of Henry 
 the Second, Prince of Wales as we should now call him, 
 called then " the young king," for he was crowned in his 
 father's lifetime, at that spot and in that year brought his 
 disordered existence to an end. His career had been wild 
 and criminal. He had rebelled against his father again 
 and again; again and again he* had been forgiven. In a fit 
 of remorse he had taken the cross, and intended to go to 
 Jerusalem. He forgot Jerusalem in the next temptation. 
 He joined himself to Lewis of France, broke once more 
 into his last and worst revolt, and carried fire and sword 
 into Normandy. He had hoped to bring the nobles to his 
 side; he succeeded only in burning towns and churches, 
 stripping shrines, and bringing general hatred on himself. 
 Finding, we are told, that he could not injure his father as 
 much as he had hoped to do, he chafed himself into a fever, 
 and the fever killed him. Feeling death to be near, he sent 
 a message to his father begging to see him. The old Henry, 
 after past experience, dared not venture. The prince (I 
 translate literally from a contemporary chronicler) — 
 
 then called his bishops and religious men to his side. He con- 
 fessed his sins first in private, then openly to all who were pres- 
 ent. He was absolved. He gave his cross to a friend to carry 
 to the Holy Sepulchre. Then, throwing ofE his soft clothing, he 
 put on a shirt of hair, tied a rope about his neck, and said to 
 the bishops — 
 
 " By this rope I deliver over myself, a guilty and unworthy 
 sinner, to you the ministers of God. Through your interces- 
 sion and of his own ineffable mercy, I beseech our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who forgave the thief upon the cross, to have pity on 
 my unhappy soul." 
 
 A bed of ashes had been prepared on the floor. 
 
 " Drag me," he went on, "by this rope out of this bed, and 
 ^ly me on the ashes." 
 
 The bishop did so. They placed at his head axvl at his k'et 
 tv'o large square stones, and so he died. 
 
4 Life and Times of 
 
 There is one aspect of the twelfth century — the darkest 
 crimes and the most real superstition side by side coexisting 
 in the same character. 
 
 Turn from Martel to Oxford, and go back seventeen 
 years. Men who had so little pity on themselves were as 
 pitiless to others. We quote from Stowe. The story is 
 authenticated by contemporary chroniclers. 
 
 1166. There came into England thirty Germans, as well men 
 as women, who called themselves Publicans. Their head and 
 ruler, named Gerardus, was somewhat learned; the residue very 
 rude. They denied matrimony and the sacraments of baptism 
 and the Lord's Supper, with other articles. They being appre- 
 hended, the king caused a council to be called at Oxford, where 
 the said Gerard answered for all his fellows, who being pressed 
 with Scripture answered concerning their faith as they had been 
 taught, and would not dispute thereof. After they could by no 
 means be brought from their errors, the bishop gave sentence 
 against them, and the king commanded that they should be 
 marked with a hot iron in the forehead and whipped, and that 
 no man should succor them with house-room or otherwise. 
 They took their punishment gladly, their captain going before 
 them singing, "Blessed are ye when men hate you." They 
 were marked both in the forehead and the chin. Thus being 
 whipped and thrust out in winter, they died with cold, no man 
 relieving them. 
 
 To the bishops of Normandy Henry Plantagenet handed 
 the rope to drag him to his death-bed of ashes. Under 
 sentence from the bishops of England these German here- 
 tics were left to a fate more piteous than the stake. The 
 privilege and authority of bishops and clergy was Becket's 
 plea for convulsing Europe. What were the bishops and 
 clergy like themselves? We will look at the bishops 
 assembled at the Council of Westminster in the year 1176. 
 Cardinal Hugezun had come as legate from Rome. The 
 council was attended by the two archbishops, each accom- 
 panied by his suffragans, the abbots, priors, and clergy of his 
 province. Before business began, there arose dira lis ef 
 
Thomas Becket. 6 
 
 contentio, a dreadful strife and contention between these 
 high personages as to which archbishop should sit on the 
 cardinal's right hand. Richard of Canterbury said the right 
 was with him. Roger of York said the right was with him. 
 Words turned to blows. The monks of Canterbury, zealous 
 for their master, rushed upon the Archbishop of York, flung 
 him down, kicked him, and danced upon him till he was 
 almost dead. The cardinal wrung his hands, and charged 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury with having set them on. 
 The Archbishop of York made his way, bruised and bleed- 
 ing, to the king. Both parties in the first heat appealed to 
 the pope. Canterbury on second thoughts repented, went 
 privately to the cardinal, and bribed him to silence. The 
 appeal was withdrawn, the affair dropped, and the council 
 went on with its work. 
 
 So much for the bishops. We may add that Becket's 
 friend John of Salisbury accuses the Archbishop of York, 
 on common notoriety, of having committed -the most infa- 
 mous of crimes, and of having murdered the partners of his 
 guilt to conceal it.^ 
 
 As to the inferior clergy, it might be enough to quote the 
 language used about them at the conference at Montmiraux 
 in 1169, where their general character was said to be atro- 
 cious, a great number of them being church-robbers, adulter- 
 ers, highwaymen, thieves, ravishers of virgins, incendiaries, 
 and murderers.^ For special illustration we take a visita- 
 tion of St. Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury in the year 
 1173, undertaken by the pope's order. The visitors re- 
 ported not only that the abbot was corrupt, extravagant, 
 and tyrannical, but that he had more children than the pa- 
 triarchs, in one village as many as ten or twelve bastards. 
 
 1 John of Salisbury to the Archbishop of Sens, 1171. The Archbishop 
 vf York is spoken of under the name of Caiaphas. 
 
 '■^ " Quum tamen clerici immundissimi et atrocissimi sunt, utpote qui 
 ex magna parte sacrilegi, adulteri. praedones, fures, raptores virginum, in- 
 cendiarii et homicidae sunt." — J(^hn of Salisbury to the Bishop of Exeter. 
 Letters, 1169. 
 
6 Life and Times of 
 
 " Velut equus Mnnit in foeminas,* they said, " adeo impudens 
 ut libidinem nisi quam publicaverit voliiptuosam esse non 
 reputet. Matres et earundem filias incestat pariter. For- 
 nication is abusum comparat necessitati." This precious ab- 
 bot was the host and entertainer of the four knights when 
 they came to Canterbury. 
 
 From separate pictures we pass to a sketch of the condi- 
 tion of the Church of England written by a monk of Christ 
 Church, Canterbury, a contemporary of Becket, when the 
 impression of the martyrdom was fresh, and miracles were 
 worked by his relics every day under the writer's eyes. 
 The monk's name was Nigellus. He was precentor of the 
 cathedral. His opinion of the wonders of which he was the 
 witness may be inferred from the shrug of the shoulders 
 with which, after describing the disorders of the times, he 
 says that they were but natural, for the age of miracles was 
 past. In reading him we feel that we are looking on the 
 old England through an extremely keen pair of eyes. We 
 discern too, perhaps, that he was a clever fellow, constitu- 
 tionally a satirist, and disappointed of promotion, and we 
 make the necessary allowances. Two of his works survive, 
 one in verse, the other in serious prose. 
 
 The poem, which is called Speculum Stultorum ( " The 
 Looking-Glass of Fools") contains the adventures of a 
 monk who leaves his cloister to better his fortunes. The 
 monk is introduced under the symbolic disguise of an ass. 
 His ambition is to grow a longer tail, and he wanders un- 
 successfully over Europe, meeting as many misfortunes as 
 Don Quixote, in pursuit of his object. Finally he arrives 
 at Paris, where he resolves to remain and study, that at all 
 events he may write after his name magister artium. The 
 seven years' course being finished, he speculates on his fut- 
 ure career. He decides on the whole that he will be a 
 bishop, and pictures to himself the delight of his mother 
 vvhen she sees him in his pontificals. Sadly, however, he 
 
Thomas Becket. 7 
 
 soon remembers that bishops were not made of such stuff 
 as learned members of the universities. Bishops were born 
 in barons' castles, and named as children to the sees which 
 they were to occupy. " Little Bobby " and " little Willy " 
 were carried to Rome in their nurses' arms before they 
 could speak or walk, to have the keys of heaven committed 
 to them. So young were they sometimes that a wit said 
 once that it could not be told whether the bishop elect was a 
 boy or a girl.^ An abbey might suit better, he thought, and 
 he ran over the various attractions of the different orders. 
 All of them were more or less loose rogues, some worse, some 
 better.2 Qn the whole the monk-ass concluded that he 
 would found a new order, the rules of which should be com- 
 pounded of the indulgences allowed to each of the rest. The 
 pope would consent if approached with the proper tempta- 
 tions ; and he was picturing to himself the delightful life 
 which he was thenceforth to lead, when his master found 
 him and cudgelled him back to the stable. 
 
 More instructive, if less amusing, is the prose treatise 
 Contra Curiales et Officiales dericos ("Against Clerical 
 Courtiers and Officials"), dedicated to De Longchamp, 
 Bishop of Ely, Coeur de Lion's chancellor, who was left in 
 
 1 " Ante prius patrem pvimum matremque vocare 
 
 Quam sciat, aut possit stare vel ire pedes, 
 Suscipit ecclesise claves animasque regeudas. 
 
 In cunis positiis dummodo vagit adhuc 
 Cum nutrice sua, Romam Robekimus adibit, 
 
 Quern nova sive vetus sportula tecta feret ; 
 Missus et in peram veniet Wilekinus in urbem, 
 
 Curia Romana tota videbit eum. 
 Impuberes pueros pastores ecclesiarum 
 
 Vidimus effectos pontificesque sacros. 
 Sic dixit quidam de quodam pontificando, 
 
 Cum princeps regni solicitaret eum: 
 *Est puer, et nondum discernere possumus utrum 
 
 Foemina vel mas est, et modo praesul erit.' " 
 
 Satirical Poems of the Twelfth Century, vol. i. p. 106. 
 
 2 " Omnes sunt fures, quocunque charactere sacro 
 Signati veniant magnif centque Deum." 
 
8 Life and Times of 
 
 charge of the realm when Richard went to Palestine. De 
 Longchamp's rule was brief and stormy. It lasted long 
 enough, however, to induce Nigellus to appeal to him for a 
 reform of the Church, and to draw a picture of it which ad- 
 mirers of the ages and faith may jDrofitably study. 
 
 At whatever period we get a clear view of the Church of 
 England, it was always in terrible need of reform. In the 
 twelfth century it has been held to have been at its best. 
 Let us look then at the actual condition of it. 
 
 According to Nigellus, the Church benefices in England, 
 almost without exception, were either sold by the patrons 
 to the highest bidders, or were given by them to their near 
 relations. The presentees entered into possession more 
 generally even than the bishops when children. 
 
 Infants in cradles (says Nigellus) are made archdeacons, that 
 out of the mouths of babes and sucklings praise may be per- 
 fected. The child is still at the breast and he is a priest of the 
 Church. He can bind and loose before he can speak, and has 
 the keys of heaven before he has the use of his understanding. 
 At an age when an apple is more to him than a dozen churches, 
 he is set to dispense the sacraments, and the only anxiety about 
 him is a fear that he may die. He is sent to no school. He is 
 idle and is never whipped. He goes to Paris to be polished, 
 where he learns " the essentials of a gentleman's education," 
 dice and dominoes, et ccBtera quce sequuntur. He returns to Eng- 
 land to hawk and hunt, and would that this were the worst ! but 
 he has the forehead of a harlot, and knows not to be ashamed. 
 To such persons as these a bishop without scruple commits the 
 charge of souls — to men who are given over to the flesh, who 
 rise in the morning to eat, and sit down at evening to drink, 
 who spend on loose women the offerings of the faithful, who do 
 things which make their people blush to speak of them, while 
 the/ themselves look for the Jordan to flow into their mouths, 
 and expect each day to hear a voice say to them, " Friend, go 
 up higher." 
 
 Those who had no money to buy their way with, and no 
 ^•iends to help them, were obliged to study something. 
 
Thomas Becket. 9 
 
 Having done with Paris they would go on to Bologna, and 
 3ome back knowing medicine and law and speaking pure 
 French and Italian. Clever fellows, so furnished, contrived 
 to rise by pushing themselves into the service of bishop or 
 baron, to whom " they were as eyes to the blind and as feet 
 to the lame." They managed the great man's business; 
 they took care of his health. They went to Rome with his 
 appeals, undertook negotiations for him in foreign courts, 
 and were repaid in time by prebends and rectories. Others, 
 in spite of laws of celibacy, married a patron's daughter, 
 and got a benefice along with her. It was illegal, but the 
 bishops winked at it. Others made interest at Rome with 
 the cardinals, and by them were recommended home. 
 Others contrived to be of use to the king. Once on the 
 road to preferment the ascent was easy. The lucky ones, 
 not content with a church or two, would have a benefice in 
 every diocese in England, and would lie, cheat, " forget God, 
 and not remember man." Their first gains were spent in 
 bribes to purchase more, and nothing could satisfy them. 
 Fifteen or twenty rectories were not enough without a stall 
 in each cathedral. Next must come a deanery, and then 
 an archdeaconry, and then " peradventure God will yet add 
 unto me something more." 
 
 The " something more " was of course a bishopric, and 
 Nigellus proceeds to describe the methods by which such of 
 these high offices were reached as had not been already as- 
 signed to favorites. The prelates expectant hung about the 
 court, making presents, giving dinners, or offering their ser- 
 vices for difficult foreign embassies. Their friends meanwhile 
 were on the watch for sees likely to be vacant, and inquir- 
 ing into their values. The age and health of the present 
 occupants were diligently watched ; the state of their teeth, 
 their eyes, their stomachs, and reported disorders. If the 
 accounts were conflicting, the aspirant would go himself to 
 the spot under pretence of a pilgrimage. If the wretched 
 bishop was found inconveniently vigorous, rumors were 
 
10 Life ci'nd Times of 
 
 spread that he was shamming youth, that he was as old as 
 Nestor, and was in his dotage ; if he was infirm, it was said 
 that men ought not to remain in positions of which they 
 could not discharge the duties ; they should go into a clois- 
 ter. The king and the primate should see to it. 
 
 If intrigue failed, another road was tried. The man of 
 the world became a saint. He retired to one or other of 
 his churches. He was weary of the earth and its vanities, 
 and desired to spend his remaining days in meditating upon 
 heaven. The court dress was laid aside. The wolf clothed 
 himself in a sheepskin, and the talk was only of prayers and 
 ostentatious charities. Beggars were fed in the streets, the 
 naked were clothed, the sick were visited, the dead were 
 buried. The rosy face grew pale, the plump cheeks be- 
 came thin, and the admiring public exclaimed, " Who was 
 like unto this man to keep the law of the Most High ? " 
 Finally some religious order was entered in such a manner 
 that it should be heard of everywhere. Vows were taken 
 with an affectation of special austerities. The worthy per- 
 son (who cannot see and hear him ?) would then bewail the 
 desolations of the Church, speak in a low sad voice, sigh, 
 walk slowly, and droop his eyelids ; kings were charged 
 with tyranny, and priests with incontinency, and all this 
 that it might be spoken of in high places, that, when a see 
 was vacant at last, it might be said to him, " Friend, go up 
 higher ; ' he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.' " 
 
 " Such," said Nigellus, " are the steps in our days by which 
 men go up into the house of the Lord." By one or other 
 of these courses success was at last attained ; the recom- 
 mendation of the Crown was secured, and the nomination 
 was sent to the chapter. But the conge d'elire was not yet 
 peremptory. The forms of liberty still retained some 
 shadow of life in them, and fresh efforts were required to 
 obtain the consent of the electors. The religious orders 
 were the persons used on these occasions to produce the re- 
 quired effect; and flights of Templars, Cistercians, Carthu- 
 
Thomas Becket. 11 
 
 sians, hurried to the Cathedral city to persuade the canons 
 that the pastor whom they had never seen or never heard 
 of, except by rumor, had more virtues than existed together 
 in any other human being. Nigellus humorously describes 
 the language in which these spiritual jackals portrayed their 
 patron's merits. 
 
 He is a John the Baptist for sanctity, a Cato for wisdom, a 
 Tully for eloquence, a Moses for meekness, a Phineas for zeal, 
 an Abraham for faith. Elect him only, and he is all that you 
 can desire. You ask what he has done to recommend him. 
 Granted that he has done nothing, God can raise sons to Abra- 
 ham out of the stones. He is a boy, you say, and too young 
 for such an office ; Daniel was a boy when he saved Susannah 
 from the elders. He is of low birth ; you are choosing a succes- 
 sor to a fisherman, not an heir to Coesar. He is a dwarf; Jere- 
 miah was not large. He is illiterate ; Peter and Andrew were 
 not philosophers when they were called to be apostles. He can 
 speak no English ; Augustine could speak no English, yet Au- 
 gustine converted Britain. He is married and has a wife ; the 
 apostles ordered such to be promoted. He has divorced his 
 wife ; Christ separated St. John from his bride. He is immoral ; 
 so Avas St. Boniface. He is a fool; God has chosen the foolish 
 things of this world to confound the wise. He is a coward; St. 
 Joseph was a coward. He is a glutton and a wine-bibber ; so 
 Christ was said to be. He is a slugo-ard ; St. Peter could not 
 remain for an hour awake. He is a striker; Peter struck 
 Malchus. He is quarrelsome ; Paul quarreled with Barnabas. 
 He is disobedient to his superiors ; Paul withstood Peter. He is 
 a man of blood; Moses killed the Egyptian. He is blind; so 
 was Paul before he Avas converted. He is dumb; Zacharias was 
 dumb. He is all faults, and possesses not a single virtue; God 
 will make his grace so much more to abound in him. 
 
 Such eloquence and such advocates were generally irre- 
 sistible. If, as sometimes happened, the Crown had named 
 a person exceptionally infamous, or if the chapter was ex- 
 ceptionally obdurate, other measures lay behind. Govern- 
 ment officers would come down and talk of enemies to the 
 commonwealth. A bishop of an adjoining see would hint 
 
12 Life and Times of 
 
 at excommunication. The canons were worked on sep- 
 arately, bribed, coaxed, or threatened. The younger of 
 them were promised the places of the seniors. The seniors 
 were promised fresh offices for themselves, and promotion 
 for their relations. If there were two candidates and two 
 parties, both sides bribed, and the longest purse gained the 
 day. Finally the field was won. Decent members of the 
 chapter sighed over the disgrace, but reflected that miracles 
 could not be looked for.^ The see could not remain vacant 
 till a saint could be found to fill it. They gave their voices 
 as desired. The choice was declared, the bells rang, the 
 organ pealed, and the choir chanted Te Deum. 
 
 The one touch necessary to complete the farce was then 
 added : — 
 
 The bishop elect, all in tears for joy, exclaims, " Depart from 
 me, for I am a sinful man. Depart from me, for I am unworthy. 
 I cannot bear the burden which you lay upon me. Alas for 
 my calamity! Let me alone, my beloved brethren — let me 
 alone in my humble state. You know not what you do." .... 
 He falls back and affects to swoon. He is borne to the arch- 
 bishop to be consecrated. Other bishops are summoned to 
 assist, and all is finished. ^ 
 
 The scene now changed. The object was gained, the 
 mask was dropped, and the bishop, having reached the goal 
 of his ambition, could afford to show himself in his true 
 colors. 
 
 He has bound himself (goes on Nigellus) to be a teacher of 
 his flock. How can he teach those whom he sees but once a 
 year, and not a hundredth part of whom he even sees at all? 
 If any one in the diocese wants the bishop, he is told the bishop 
 is at court on affairs of state. He hears a hasty mass once a 
 
 1 "Non sunt haec miraculorum tempora." 
 
 2 Now and then it happened that bishops refused to attend on these 
 occasions, when the person to be consecrated was notoriously infamous. 
 Nigellus says that one bishop at least declined to assist at the consecra- 
 tion of Roger, Archbishop of York. 
 
Thomas Becket. 13 
 
 day, non sine tcedio (not without being bored). The rest of his 
 time he gives to business or pleasure, and is not bored. The 
 rich get justice from him ; the poor get no justice. If his met- 
 ropolitan interferes with him, he appeals to Rome, and Rome 
 protects him if he is willing to pay for it. At Rome the abbot 
 buys his freedom from the control of the bishop ; the bishop 
 buys his freedom from the control of the archbishop. The 
 bishop dresses as the knights dress. When his cap is on you 
 cannot distinguish him at council from a peer. The layman 
 swears, the bishop swears, and the bishop swears the hardest. 
 The layman hunts, the bishop hunts. The layman hawks, the 
 bishop hawks. Bishop and layman sit side by side at council 
 and Treasury boards. Bishop and layman ride side by side into 
 battle.^ What will not bishops do? Was ever crime more 
 atrocious than that which was lately committed in the church at 
 Coventry ? ^ When did pagan ever deal with Christian as the 
 bishop did with the monks? I, Nigellus, saw with my own eyes, 
 after the monks were ejected, harlots openly introduced into the 
 cloister and chapter house to lie all night there, as in a brothel, 
 with their paramours.^ Such are the works of bishops in these 
 days of ours. This is what they do, or permit to be done ; and 
 so cheap has grown the dignity of the ecclesiastical order that 
 you will easier find a cowherd well educated than a presbyter, 
 and an industrious duck than a literate parson. 
 
 So far Nigellus. We are not to suppose that the state of 
 the Church had changed unfavorably in the twenty years 
 
 1 Even in the discharge of their special functions the spiritual character 
 was scarcely more apparent. When they went on visitation, and children 
 were brought to them to be confirmed, they gave a general blessing and 
 did not so much as alight from their horses. Becket was the only prelate 
 who observed common decency on these occasions. " Non enim erat ei 
 ut plerisque, immo ut fere omnibus episcopis moris est, ministerium con- 
 firmationis equo insidendo peragere, sed ob sacramenti venerationem equo 
 desilire et stando pueris manum imponere." — Mateiiah for the History 
 of Thomas Becket, vol. ii. p. 164. 
 
 2 In the year 1191, Hugh, Bishop of Coventry, violently expelled the 
 monks from the cathedral there, and instituted canons in their places. 
 
 3 " Testis mihi Deus est quod dolens et tristis admodum refero quod in 
 ecclesia Coventrensi oculis propriis aspexi. In claustro et capitulo vidi 
 ego et alii nonnuUi ejectis monachis meretrices publico introductas et tota 
 nocte cum lenouibus decubare sicut in lupanari." 
 
14 Life and Times of 
 
 which followed Becket's martyrdom, or we should have to 
 conclude that the spiritual enthusiasm which the martyrdom 
 undoubtedly excited had injured, and not improved, public 
 morality. 
 
 The prelates and clergy with whom Henry the Second 
 contended, if different at all from those of the next genera- 
 tion, must have been rather worse than better, and we cease 
 to be surprised at the language in which the king spoke of 
 them at Montmiraux. 
 
 Speaking generally, at the time when Becket' declared 
 war against the State, the Church, from the Vatican to the 
 smallest archdeaconry, was saturated with venality. The 
 bishops were mere men of the world. The Church bene- 
 fices were publicly bought and sold, given away as a provi- 
 sion to children, or held in indefinite numbers by ambitious 
 men who cared only for wealth and power. The mass of 
 the common clergy were ignorant, dissolute, and lawless, 
 unable to be legally married, *and living with concubines in 
 contempt or evasion of their own rules. In character and 
 conduct the laity were superior to the clergy. They had 
 wives, and were therefore less profligate. They made no 
 pretensions to mysterious power and responsibilities, and 
 therefore they were not hypocrites. They were violent, 
 they were vicious, yet they had the kind of belief in the 
 truth of religion which bound the rope about young Henry's 
 neck and dragged him from his bed to die upon the ashes, 
 which sent them in tens of thousands to perish on the Syr- 
 ian sands to recover the sepulchre of Christ from the infi- 
 del. The life beyond the grave was as assured to them as 
 the life uppn earth. In the sacraments and in the priest's 
 absolution lay the one hope of escaping eternal destruction. 
 And while they could feel no respect for the clergy as men, 
 they feared their powers and reverenced their office. Both 
 of laity and clergy the religion was a superstition, but in the 
 laity the superstition was combined with reverence, and 
 implied a real belief in the divine authority which it sym- 
 
Thomas Bechet. 15 
 
 bolized. The clergy, the supposed depositaries of the su- 
 pernatural qualities assigned to them, found it probably 
 more difficult to believe in themselves, and the unreality re- 
 venged itself upon their natures. 
 
 Bearing in mind these qualities in the two orders, we 
 proceed to the history of Becket. 
 
16 Life and Times of 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Thomas Becket was born in London in the year 1118.* 
 His father, Gilbert Becket, was a citizen in moderate cir- 
 cumstances.^ His name denotes Saxon extraction. Few 
 Normans as yet were to be found in the English towns con- 
 descending to trade. Of his mother nothing authentic is 
 known,^ except that she was a religious woman who brought 
 up her children in the fear of God. Many anecdotes are 
 related of his early years, but the atmosphere of legend in 
 which his history was so early enveloped renders them all 
 suspicious. His parents, at any rate, both died when he 
 was still very young, leaving him, ill provided for, to the 
 care of his father's friends. One of them, a man of wealth, 
 Richard de I'Aigle, took charge of the tall, handsome, clever 
 lad. He was sent to school at Merton Abbey, in Surrey, 
 and afterwards to Oxford. In his vacations he was thrown 
 among young men of rank and fortune, hunting and hawk- 
 ing with them, cultivating his mind with the ease of con- 
 scious ability, and doubtless not inattentive to the events 
 which were going on around him. In his nursery he must 
 have heard of the sinking of the White Ship in the Chan- 
 nel with Henry the First's three children. Prince William, 
 his brother Richard, and their sister. When he was seven 
 years old, he may have listened to the jests of the citizens 
 
 1 Or 1117. The exact date is uncertain. 
 
 2 "Nee omniao infimi" are Becket's words as to the rank of his 
 parents. 
 
 3 The story that she was a Saracen is a late legend. Becket was after- 
 wards taunted with thelowness of his birth. The absence of any allusion 
 to a fact so curious if it was true, either in the taunt or in Becket's reply 
 to it, may be taken as conclusive. 
 
Thomas Becket. 17 
 
 at his flither's table over the misadventure in London of the 
 cardinal legate, John of Crema. The legate had come to 
 England to preside at a council and pass laws to part the 
 clergy from their wives. While the council was going 
 forward, his Eminence was himself detected in re meretricid^ 
 to general astonishment and scandal. In the same year the 
 Emperor Henry died. His widow, the English Matilda, 
 came home, and was married again soon after to Geoffrey 
 of Anjou. In 1134 the English barons swore fealty to her 
 and her young son, afterwards King Henry the Second. 
 The year following her father died. Her cousin, Stephen 
 of Blois, broke his oath and seized the crown, and general 
 distraction and civil war followed, while from beyond the 
 seas the Levant ships, as they came up the river, brought 
 news of bloody battles in Syria and slaughter of Christians 
 and infidels. To live in stirring times is the best education 
 of a youth of intellect. After spending three years in a 
 house of business in the city, Becket contrived to recom- 
 mend himself to Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. The 
 archbishop saw his talents, sent him to Paris, and thence to 
 Bologna to study law, and employed him afterwards in the 
 most confidential negotiations. The description by Nigellus 
 of the generation of a bishop might have been copied line 
 for line from Becket's history. The question of the day was 
 the succession to the crown. Was Stephen's son, Eustace, 
 the heir ? Or was Matilda's son, Henry of Anjou ? Theo- 
 bald was for Henry, so far as he dared to show himself. 
 Becket was sent secretly to Rome to move the pope. The 
 struggle ended with a compromise. Stephen was to reign 
 for his life. Henry was peaceably to follow him. The 
 arrangement might have been cut again by the sword. But 
 Eustace immediately afterwards died. In the same year 
 Stephen followed him, and Henry the Second became king 
 of England. With all these intricate negotiations the fut- 
 ure martyr was intimately connected, and by his remarkable 
 *alents especially recommended himself to the new king. 
 
18 Life and Times of 
 
 No one called afterwards to an important position had better 
 opportunities of acquainting himself with the spirit of the 
 age, or the characters of the principal actors in it.^ If his 
 services were valuable, his reward was magnificent. He 
 was not a priest, but again precisely as Kigellus describes, 
 he was loaded with lucrative church benefices. He was 
 Provost of Beverley, he was Archdeacon of Canterbury, he 
 was rector of an unknown number of parishes, and had stalls 
 in several cathedrals. It is noticeable that afterwards, in 
 the heat of the battle in which he earned his saintship, he 
 was so far from looking back with regret on this accumula- 
 tion of preferments that he paraded them as an evidence of 
 his early consequence.^ A greater rise lay immediately 
 before him. Henry the Second was twenty-two years old 
 at his accession. At this time he was the most powerful 
 prince in Western Europe. He was Duke of Normandy 
 and Count of Anjou. His wife Eleanor, the divorced queen 
 of Lewis of France, had brought with her Aquitaine and 
 Poitou. The reigning pope, Adrian the Fourth, was an 
 Englishman, and, to the grief and perplexity of later gene- 
 rations of Irishmen, gave the new king permission to add 
 the Island of the Saints to his already vast dominions. 
 Over Scotland the English monarchs asserted a semi-feudal 
 sovereignty, to which Stephen, at the battle of the Standard, 
 had given a semblance of reality. Few English princes 
 
 1 Very strange things were continually happening. In 1154 the Arch- 
 bishop of York was poisoned in the Eucliarist by some of his clergy. 
 *'Eodem anno Wilhelmus Eboracensis archiepiscopus, proditione clerico- 
 rum suorum post perceptionem Eucharistiae infra ablutiones liquore lethali 
 infectus, extinctus est." (Hoveden, vol. i. p. 213.) Beckct could not fail 
 to have heard of this piece of villainy and to have made his own reflectiona 
 upon it. 
 
 2 Foliot, Bishop of London, told him that he owed his rise in life to the 
 king. Becket replied : " Ad tempus quo me rex ministerio suo prasstitit, 
 archidiaconatus Cantuarensis, praepositura Beverlaci, phirimje ecclesice, prae- 
 bendse nonnulla?, alia etiam non pauca quae nominis mei erant possessio 
 tunc temporis, adeo tenuem ut dicis, quantum ad ea qua; mundi sunt con- 
 tradicunt me fuisse." 
 
Thomas Bechet. 19 
 
 have commenced their career with fairer prospects than the 
 second Henry. 
 
 The state of England itself demanded his first attention. 
 The usurpation of Stephen had left behind it a legacy of 
 disorder. The authority of the Crown had been shaken. 
 The barons, secure behind the walls of their castles, limited 
 their obedience by their inclinations. The Church, an im- 
 perium in imperio, however corrupt in practice, was aggres- 
 sive as an institution, and was encroaching on the State 
 with organized system. The principles asserted by Greg- 
 ory the Seventh had been establishing themselves grad- 
 ually for the past century, and in theory were no longer 
 questioned. The power of the Crown, it was freely ad- 
 mitted, was derived from God. As little was it to be 
 doubted that the clergy were the ministers of God in a 
 nearer and higher sense than a layman could pretend to be, 
 holding as they did the power of the keys, and able to pun- 
 ish disobedience by final exclusion from heaven. The prin- 
 ciple was simple. The application only was intricate. The 
 clergy, though divine as an order, were as frail in their in- 
 dividual aspect as common mortals, as ambitious, as worldly, 
 as licentious, as unprincipled, as violent, as wicked, as much 
 needing the restraint of law and the policeman as their sce- 
 ular brethren, perhaps needing it more. How was the 
 law to be brought to bear on a class of persons who claimed 
 to be superior to law ? King Henry's piety was above sus- 
 picion, but he was at all points a sovereign, especially im- 
 patient of anarchy. The conduct of too many ecclesiastics, 
 regular and secular alike, was entirely intolerable, and a 
 natural impatience was spreading through the country, with 
 which the king perhaps showed early symptoms of sym- 
 pathizing. Archbishop Theobald, at any rate, was uneasy 
 at the part which he might take, and thought that he 
 needed some one at his side to guide him in salutary courses. 
 At Theobald's instance, in the second year of Henry's reign, 
 Becket became Chancellor of England, being then thirty- 
 seven years old. 
 
20 Life and Times of 
 
 In his new dignity he seemed at first likely to disappoint 
 the archbishop's expectations of him. Some of his biog- 
 raphers, indeed, claim as his perpetual merit that he op- 
 posed the hestias curice, or court wild beasts, as churchmen 
 called the anticlerical party. John of Salisbury, en the 
 other hand, describes him as a magnificent trifiei, a scoiiier 
 of law and the clergy, and given to scurrilous jesting at 
 laymen's parties.-^ At any rate, except in the arbitrariness 
 of his character, he showed no features of the Becket of 
 Catholic tradition. 
 
 Omnipotent as Wolsey after him, he was no less magni- 
 ficent in his outward bearing. His dress was gorgeois, his 
 retinue of knights as splendid as the king's. His hospitaxl- 
 ties were boundless. His expenditure was enormous. How 
 the means for it were supplied is uncertain. The revenue 
 was wholly in his hands. Tlie king was often on the conti- 
 nent, and at such times the chancellor governed everything. 
 He retained his Church benefices — the archdeaconry of 
 Canterbury certainl3^ and probably the rest. Vast sums 
 fell irregularly into Chancery from wardships and vacant 
 sees and abbeys. All this Becket received, and never ac- 
 counted for the whole of them. Whatever mi<rlit be the 
 explanation, the wealthiest peer in England did not main- 
 tain a more costly household, or appear in public with a 
 more princely surrounding. 
 
 Of his administration his adorinoj and admirini^ biofj- 
 rapher, the monk Grim, who was present at his martyr- 
 dom, draws a more than unfavorable picture, and even 
 charges him with cruelty and ferocity. "The persons that 
 he slew," says Grim, " the persons that he robbed of their 
 property, no one can enumerate. Attended by a large com- 
 pany of knights, he would assail whole communities, destroy 
 
 1 "Dum magnificis erat nngator in curia, dam legis videbatur con- 
 temptor et cleri, dum scurriles, cum potentioribus sectabatur ineptias, mag- 
 nus habebatur, clarus erat et acceptus omnibus." — John of Salisbury to 
 the Bishop of Exeter. Letters, 1166. 
 
Thomas Becket. 21 
 
 cities and towns, villages^ and farms, and, without remorse 
 or pity, would give them to devouring flames." ^ 
 
 Such words give a new aspect to the demand afterwards 
 made that he should answer for his proceedings as chancel- 
 lor, and lend a new meaning to his unwillingness to reply. 
 At this period the only virtue which Grim allows him to 
 have preserved unsullied was his chastity. 
 
 In foreign politics he was meanwhile as much engaged as 
 ever. The anomalous relations of the king with Lewis the 
 Seventh, whose vassal he was for his continental dominions, 
 while he was his superior in power, were breaking continu- 
 ally into quarrels, and sometimes into war. The anxiety of 
 Henry, however, was always to keep the peace, if possible. 
 In 1157 Becket was sent to Paris to negotiate an alliance 
 between the Princess Margaret, Lewis's daughter, and 
 Henry's eldest son. The prince was then seven years old. 
 the little lady was three. Three years later they were 
 actually married, two cardinals, Henry of Pisa and William 
 of Pavia, coming as legates from the pope to be present on 
 the august occasion. France and England had been at that 
 time drawn together by a special danger which threatened 
 Christendom. In 1159 Pope Adrian died. Alexander the 
 Third was chosen to succeed him with the usual formalities, 
 but the election was challenged by Frederic Barbarossa, 
 who set up an antipope. The Catholic Church was split in 
 two. Frederic invaded Italy, Alexander was driven out of 
 Eome and took shelter in France at Sens. Henry and 
 Lewis gave him their united support, and forgot their own 
 quarrels in the common cause. Henry, it was universally 
 admitted, was heartily in earnest for Pope Alexander. 
 The pope, on his part, professed a willingness and an anx- 
 iety to be of corresponding service to Henry. The knig 
 
 1 "Quantis autem necem, quantis rerum omnium proscriptionem intu- 
 lerit, quis enumeret ? Valida namque stipatus militum manii civitates ag- 
 gressus est. Delevit urbes et oppida; villas et prgedia absque miserationis 
 mtuitu voraci consumpsit incendio."— Materials for the History of Thomas 
 Becketf vol. ii. pp. 364, 305. 
 
22 Life and Times of 
 
 considered tlie moment a favorable one for taking in hand 
 the reform of the clergy, not as against the Holy See, but 
 with the Holy See in active cooperation with him. On this 
 side he anticipated no difficulty if he could find a proper 
 instrument at home, and that instrument he considered him- 
 self to possess in his chancellor. Where the problem was 
 to reconcile the rights of the clergy with the law of the 
 land, it would be convenient, even essential, that the chan- 
 cellorship and the primacy should be combined in the same 
 person. Barbarossa was finding the value of such a combi- 
 nation in Germany, where, with the Archbishop of Cologne 
 for a chancellor of the Empire, he was carrying out an ec- 
 clesiastical revolution. 
 
 It is not conceivable that on a subject of such vast im- 
 portance the king should have never taken the trouble to 
 ascertain Becket's views. The condition of the clergy was 
 a pressing and practical perplexity. Becket was his confi- 
 dential minister, the one person whose advice he most 
 sought in any difficulty, and on whose judgment he most re- 
 lied. Becket, in all probability, must have led the king t& 
 believe that he agreed with him. There can be no doubt 
 whatever that he must have allowed the kins; to form his 
 plans without having advised him against them, and without 
 having cautioned him that from himself there was to be 
 looked for nothing but opposition. The king, in fact, ex- 
 pected no opposition. So far as he had known Becket 
 hitherto, he had known him as a statesman and a man of 
 the world. If Becket had ever in this capacity expressed 
 views unfavorable to the king's intentions, he would not 
 have failed to remind him of it in their subsequent contro- 
 versy. That he was unable to appeal for such a purpose to 
 the king's recollection must be taken as a proof that he 
 never did express unfavorable views. If we are not to sup- 
 pose that he was deliberately insincere, we may believe that 
 he changed his opinion in consequence of the German 
 Bchism. But even so an honorable man would have given 
 
Thomas BeclceU 23 
 
 his master warning of tlie alteration, and it is certain tliat 
 he did not. He did, we are told, feel some scruples. The 
 ecclesiastical conscience had not wholly destroyed the hu- 
 man conscience, and the king had been a generous master 
 to him. But his difficulties were set aside by the casuistries 
 of a Roman legate. Archbishop Tlieobald died when the 
 two cardinals were in Normandy for the marriage of Prince 
 Henry and the Princess Margaret. There was a year of 
 delay before the choice was finally made. Becket asked 
 the advice of Cardinal Henry of Pisa. Cardinal Henry 
 told him that it was for the interest of the Church that he 
 should accept the archbishopric, and that he need not com- 
 municate convictions which would interfere with his ap- 
 pointment. The}'' probably both felt that, if Becket de- 
 clined, the king would find some other prelate who would 
 be more pliant in his hands. Thus at last the decision was 
 arrived at. The Empress Matilda warned her son against 
 Becket's dangerous character, but the warning was in vain. 
 The king pressed the archbishopric on Becket, and Becket 
 accepted it. The Chief Justice Richard de Luci went over 
 with three bishops to Canterbury in the spring of 1162 to 
 gain the consent of the chapter ; the chapter yielded not 
 without reluctance. The clergy of the province gave their 
 acquiescence at a council held afterwards at Westminster, 
 but with astonishment, misgiving, and secret complaints. 
 Becket at this time was not even a priest, and was known 
 only to the world as an unscrupulous and tyrannical minis- 
 ter. The consent was given, however. The thing was 
 done. On the 2d of June (1162) Becket received his 
 priest's orders from the Bishop of Rochester. On the od 
 he was consecrated in his own cathedral. 
 
24 Life and Times of 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Becket was now forty-four years old. The king waa 
 thirty. The ascendency which Becket had hitherto exer- 
 cised over his sovereign through the advantage of age was 
 necessarily diminishing as the king came to maturity, and 
 the two great antagonists, as they were henceforth to be, 
 were more fairly matched than Becket perhaps expected to 
 find them. The archbishop was past the time of life at 
 which the character can be seriously changed. After forty 
 men may alter their opinions, their policy, and their con- 
 duct ; but they rarely alter their dispositions ; and Becket 
 remained as violent, as overbearing, as ambitious, as un- 
 scrupulous, as he had shown himself when chancellor, 
 though the objects at which he was henceforth to aim were 
 entirely diffei-ent. It would be well for his memory were 
 it possible to credit him with a desire to reform the Church 
 of which he was the head, to jDurge away the corruption of 
 it, to punish himself the moral disorders of the clergy, while 
 he denied the rig] t to punish them to the State. We seek 
 in vain, however, for the slighest symptoms of any such 
 desire. Throughout his letters there is not the faintest 
 consciousness that anything was amiss. He had been him- 
 self amongst the grossest of pluralists ; so far from being 
 ashamed of it, he still aimed at retaining the most lucrative 
 of his benefices. The idea with which his mind was filled 
 was not the purity of the Church, but the privilege and 
 supremacy of the Chrrch. As chancellor he had been at 
 the head of the Stat* under the king. As archbishop, in 
 the name of the Church, he intended to be head both of 
 State and king ; to place the pope, and himself as the 
 
Thomas Beeket. .> 25 
 
 pope's legate, in the position of God's vicegerents. When 
 he found it written that " by me kings reign and princes 
 decree judgment," he appropriated the language to himself, 
 and his single aim was to convert the words thus construed 
 into reality. 
 
 The first public intimation which Beeket gave of his in- 
 tentions was his resignation of the chancellorship. He had 
 been made archbishop that the offices might be combined ; 
 he was no sooner consecrated than he informed the king 
 that the duties of his sacred calling left him no leisure for 
 secular business. He did not even wait for Henry's return 
 from Normandy. He placed the great seal in the hands of 
 the chief justice, the young prince, and the barons of the 
 Exchequer, demanding and receiving from them a hurried 
 discharge of his responsibilities. The accounts, for all that 
 appears, were never examined. Grim, perhaps, when ac- 
 cusing him of rapine and murder, was referring to a sup- 
 pression of a disturbance in Aquitaine, not to any special 
 act of which he was guilty in England; but the unsparing 
 ruthlessness which he displayed on that occasion was an 
 indication of the disposition which was disjolayed in all that 
 he did, and he was wise in anticipating inquiry. 
 
 The king had not recovered from his surprise at such 
 unwelcome news when he learned that his splendid min- 
 ister had laid aside his magnificence and had assumed the 
 habit of a monk, that he was always in tears — tears which 
 flowed from him with such miraculous abundance as to evi- 
 dence the working in him of some special grace,^ or else of 
 some special purpose. His general conduct at Canterbury 
 was equally startling. One act of charity, indeed, he had 
 overlooked which neither in conscience nor prudence shoull 
 have been forgotten. The mother of Pope Adrian the 
 Fourth was living somewhere in his province in extreme 
 
 1 " Ut putaretur possessor irrigui superioris et inferioris." The "supe- 
 rior" fountain of tears was the love of God ; the "inferior " was the feai 
 Hf hell. 
 
26 Life and Times of 
 
 ])Overty, starving, it was said, of cold and hunger. The see 
 of Canterbury, as well as England, owed much to Pope 
 Adrian, and Becket's neglect of a person who was at least 
 entitled to honorable maintenance was not unobserved at 
 Rome. Otherwise his generosity was profuse. Archbishop 
 -Theobald had doubled the charities of his predecessor, 
 Becket doubled Theobald's. Mendicants swarmed about 
 the gates of the palace ; thirteen of them were taken in 
 daily to have their dinners, to have their feet washed by 
 the archiepiscopal hands, and to be dismissed each with a 
 silver penny in his pocket. The tears and the benevolent 
 humiliations were familiar in aspirants after high church 
 offices ; but Becket had nothing more to gain. What 
 could be the meaning of so sudden and so startling a trans- 
 formation ? Was it penitence for his crimes as chancellor ? 
 The tears looked like penitence ; but there were other 
 symptoms of a more aggressive kind. He was no sooner 
 in his seat than he demanded the restoration of estates that 
 his predecessors had alienated. He gave judgment in his 
 own court in his own favor, and enforced his own decrees. 
 KniMits holdinc][ their lands from the Church on military 
 tenure had hitherto done homage for them to the Crown. 
 The new archbishop demanded the homage for himself. 
 He required the Earl of Clare to swear fealty to him for 
 Tunbridge Castle. The Earl of Clare refused and appealed 
 to the king, and the archbishop dared not at once strike 
 so large a quarry. But he showed his teeth witli a 
 smaller offender. Sir Willliam Eynesford, one of the 
 king's knights, was patron of a benefice in Kent. The 
 archbishop presented a priest to it. The knight ejected 
 the archbishop's nominee, and the archbishop excommuni- 
 cated the knight. Such peremptory sentences, pronounced 
 without notice, had a special inconvenience when directed 
 against persons immediately about the king. Excommuni- 
 cation was like the plague; whoever came near the infected 
 body himself caught the contagion, and the king might be 
 
Thomas Bechet. 27 
 
 poisoned without his knowledge. It had been usual in 
 these cases to pay the king the courtesy of consulting him. 
 Becket, least ef all men, could have pleaded ignorance of 
 such a custom. It seemed that he did not choose to ob- 
 serve it.-^ While courting the populace, and gaining a 
 reputation as a saint among the clergy, the archbishop was 
 asserting his secular authority, and using the spiritual 
 sword to enforce it. Again, what did it mean, this inter- 
 ference with the rights of the laity, this ambition for a 
 personal following of armed knights ? Becket was not a 
 dreamer who had emerged into high place from the cloister 
 or the library. He was a man of the world intimately 
 acquainted with the practical problems of the day, the most 
 unlikely of all persons to have adopted a course so marked 
 without some ulterior purpose. Henry discovered too late 
 that his mother's eyes had been keener than his own. He 
 returned to England in the beginning of 1163. Becket 
 met him at his landing, but was coldly received. 
 
 In the summer of the same year, Pope Alexander held a 
 council at Tours. The English prelates attended. The 
 question of precedence was not this time raised. The Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury and his suffragans sat on the pope's 
 right hand, the Archbishop of York and his suffragans sat 
 on the pope's left. Whether anything of consequence 
 passed on this occasion between the pope and Becket is not 
 known : probably not ; it is certain, however, that they 
 met. On the archbishop's return to England the disputes 
 between the secular and spiritual authorities broke into 
 open conflict. 
 
 The Church principles of Gregory the Seventh were 
 
 1 *' Quod, quia rege minime certiorate archiepiscopus fccisset, maxi- 
 mam ejus indignationem incurrit. Asserit enim rex juxta dignitatem 
 regni sui, quod nullus qui de rege teneat in capite vel minister ejus citra 
 ipsius conscientiam sit excommunicandus ab aliquo, ne si hoc regem lateat 
 lapsus ignorantia communicet excommunicato ; comitem vel baronem ad 
 se vpuientom in osculo vel consilio admittat." — MattJiew Paris, Chronica 
 Majtrva^ vol. ii. p. 222, 
 
28 Life and Times of 
 
 making their way through Europe, but were making their 
 way with extreme slowness. Though the ceUbacy of the 
 clergy had been decreed by law, clerical concubinage was 
 still the rule in England. A focaria and a family were 
 still to be found in most country parsonages. In theory the 
 priesthood was a caste. In practice priests and their flocks 
 were united by common interests, common pursuits, com- 
 mon virtues, and common crimes. The common law of 
 England during the reigns of the Conqueror's sons had re- 
 fused to distinguish between them. Clerks guilty of robbery 
 or murder had been tried like other felons in the ordinary 
 courts, and if found guilty had suffered the same punish- 
 ments. The new^ pretension was that they were a peculiar 
 order, set apart for God's service, not amenable to secular 
 jurisdiction, and liable to trial only in the spiritual courts. 
 Under the loose administration of Stephen the judges had 
 begun to recognize their immunity, and the conduct of the 
 lower class of clergy was in consequence growing daily 
 more intolerable. Clergy, indeed, a great many of them 
 had no title to be called. They had received only some 
 minor form of orders, of which no sign was visible in their 
 appearance or conduct. They were clerks only so far as 
 they held benefices and claimed special privileges ; for the 
 rest, they hunted, fought, drank, and gambled like other 
 idle gentlemen. 
 
 In the autumn of 1163 a specially gross case of clerical 
 offence brought the question to a crisis. 
 
 Philip de Broi, a young nobleman who held a canonry 
 at Bedford, had killed some one in a quarrel. He was 
 brought before the court of the Bishop of Lincoln, where 
 he made his purgation ecclesiastico jure — that is to say, he 
 paid the usual fees and perhaps a small fine. The relations 
 of the dead man declared themselves satisfied, and Philip 
 lie Broi was acquitted. The Church and the relations 
 might be satisfied ; public justice was not satisfied. The 
 ?lieriff of Bedfordshire declined to recognize the decision, 
 
Thomas Bechet. 29 
 
 and summoned the canon a second time. The canon in- 
 sulted the sheriff in open court, and refused to plead before 
 him. The sheriff referred the matter to the king. The 
 king sent for Philip de Broi, and cross-questioned him in 
 Becket's presence. It was not denied that he had killed a 
 man. The king inquired what Becket was prepared to do. 
 Becket's answer, for the present and all similar cases, was 
 that a clerk in orders accused of felony must be tried in the 
 first "instance in an ecclesiastical court, and punished accord- 
 ing to ecclesiastical law. If the crime was found to be of 
 peculiarly dark kind, the accused might be deprived of his 
 orders, and, if he again offended, should lose his privilege. 
 But for the offence for which he was deprived he was not 
 to be again tried or again punished ; the deprivation itself 
 was to suffice. 
 
 The king, always moderate, was unwilling to press the 
 question to extremity. He condemned the judgment of the 
 Bishop of Lincoln's court. He insisted that the murderer 
 should have a real trial. But he appointed a mixed com- 
 mission of bishops and laymen to try him, the bishops hav- 
 ing the preponderating voice. 
 
 Philip de Broi pleaded that he had made his purgation 
 in the regular manner, that he had made his peace with the 
 family of the man that he had killed, and that the matter 
 was thus ended. He apologized for having insulted the 
 sheriff, and professed himself willing to make reasonable 
 reparation. The sentence of the commission was that his 
 benefices should be sequestered for two years, and that, if 
 the sheriff insisted upon it, he should be flogged. 
 
 So weak a judgment showed Henry the real value of 
 Becket's theory. The criminal clerk was to be amenable 
 to the law as soon as he has been degraded, not before ; and 
 it was perfectly plain, that clerks never would be degraded. 
 They might commit murder upon murder, robbery upon 
 robbery, and the law would be unable to touch them. It 
 could not be. The king insisted that a sacred profession 
 
80 Life and Times of 
 
 should not be used as a screen for the protection of felony. 
 He summoned the whole body of the bishops to meet him 
 in a council at "Westminster in October. 
 
 The council met. The archbishop was resolute. He 
 replied for the other bishops in an absolute refusal to make 
 any concession. The judges and the laity generally were 
 growing excited. Had the clergy been saints, the claims 
 advanced for them would have been scarcely tolerable. 
 Being what they were, such pretensions were ridiculous. 
 Becket might speak in their name. He did not speak their 
 real opinions. Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux, came over to use 
 his influence with Becket, but he found him inexorable. To 
 risk the peace of the Church in so indefensible a quarrel 
 seemed obstinate folly. The Bishop of Lisieux and several 
 of the English prelates wrote privately to the pope to en- 
 treat him to interfere. 
 
 Alexander had no liking for Becket. He had known 
 him long, and had no belief in the lately assumed airs of 
 sanctity. Threatened as he was by the emperor and the 
 antipope, he had no disposition to quarrel with Henry, nor 
 in the particular question at issue does he seem to have 
 thought the archbishop in the right. On the spot he dis- 
 patched a legate, a monk named Philip of Aumone, to tell 
 Becket that he must obey the laws of the realm, and submit 
 to the king's pleasure. 
 
 The king was at Woodstock. The archbishop, thus com- 
 manded, could not refuse to obey. He repaired to the 
 court. He gave his promise. He undertook, bond fide et 
 sine malo ingenio^ to submit to the laws of the land, what- 
 ever they might be found to be. But a vague engagement 
 of this kind was unsatisfactory, and might afterwards be 
 evaded. The question of the immunities of the clergy had 
 been publicly raised. The attention of the nation had been 
 called to it. Once for all the position in which the clergy 
 were to stand to the law of the land must be clearly and 
 finally laid down. The judges had been directed to inquire 
 
Tliomas Becket. 31 
 
 into the customs which had been of use in England under 
 the king's grandfather, Henry the First. A second council 
 was called to meet at Clarendon, near Winchester, in the 
 following January, when these customs, reduced to writing, 
 would be placed in the archbishops' and bishops' hands, and 
 they would be required to consent to them in detail. 
 
 The sj^iritual power had encroached on many sides. 
 Every question, either of person, conduct, or property, in 
 which an ecclesiastic was a party, the Church courts had 
 endeavored to reserve for themselves. Being judges in 
 their own causes, the decisions of the clergy were more sat- 
 isfactory to themselves than to the laity. The practice of 
 appealing to Rome in every cause in which a churchman 
 was in any way connected had disorganized the whole course 
 of justice. The Constitutions (as they were called) of Clar- 
 endon touched in detail on a variety of points on which the 
 laity considered themselves injured. The general provi- 
 sions embodied in these famous resolutions would now be 
 scarcely challenged in the most Catholic country in the 
 world. 
 
 1. During the vacancy of any archbishoi^ric, bishopric, 
 abbey, or priory of royal foundation, the estates were to be 
 in the custody of the Crown. Elections to these prefer- 
 ments were to be held in the royal chapel, with the assent 
 of the king and council. 
 
 2. In every suit to which a clerk was a party, proceed- 
 ings were to commence before the king's justices, and these 
 justices were to decide whether the case was to be tried be- 
 fore a spiritual or a civil court. If it was referred to a spir- 
 itual court, a civil officer was to attend to watch the trial, 
 and if a clerk was found guilty of felony the Church was to 
 cease to protect him. 
 
 3. No tenant-in-chief of the king, or officer of his house- 
 hold, was to be excommunicated, or his lands laid under an 
 interdict, until application had been first made to the king, 
 or, in his absence, to the chief justice. 
 
32 Life and Times of 
 
 4. Laymen were not to be indicted in a bishop's court, 
 either for perjury or other similar offence, except in the 
 bishop's presence by a lawful prosecutor and with lawful 
 witnesses. If the accused was of so high rank that no 
 prosecutor would appear, the bishop might require the 
 sheriff to call a jury to inquire into the case. 
 
 5. Archbishops, bishops, and other great persons were 
 forbidden to leave the realm without the king's permission. 
 
 6. Appeals were to be from the archdeacon to the bishop, 
 from the bishop to the archbishop, from the archbishop to 
 the king, and no further; that, by the king's mandate, the 
 case might be ended in the archbishop's court. -^ 
 
 The last article the king afterwards explained away. It 
 was one of the most essential, but he was unable to main- 
 tain it ; and he was rash, or he was ill-advised, in raising a 
 second question, on which the pope would naturally be sen- 
 sitive, before he had disposed of the first. On the original 
 subject of dispute, whether benefit of clergy was to mean 
 impunity to crime, the pope had already practically decided, 
 and he could have been brought without difficulty to give a 
 satisfactory judgment upon it. Some limit also might have 
 been assigned to the powers of excommunication which 
 could be so easily abused, and which, if abused, might lose 
 their terrors. But appeals to the pope were the most lucra- 
 tive source of the pojje's revenue. To restrict appeals was 
 to touch at once his pride and his exchequer. 
 
 The Constitutions were drafted, and when the council 
 assembled were submitted to Becket for approval. He 
 saw in the article on the appeals a prospect of recovering 
 Alexander's support, and he again became obstinate. None 
 of the bishops, however, would stand by him. There was a 
 general entreaty that he would not reopen the quarrel, and 
 he yielded so far as to give a general promise of conform- 
 
 1 The Constitutions were seventeen in all. The articles in the text are 
 an epitome of those which the Church found most objectionable. 
 
TJiomas Becket. 33 
 
 ity.'^ It was a promise given dishonestly — given with a con- 
 scious intention of not observing it. He had been tempted, 
 he afterwards said, by an intimation that, if he would but 
 seem to yield, the king would be satisfied. Becket was a 
 lawyer. He could not really have been under any such 
 illusion. In real truth he did not mean to be bound by the 
 language of the Constitutions at all, but only by his own 
 language, from which it would be easy to escape. The 
 king by this time knew the man with whom he had to deal. 
 The Constitutions were placed in writing before the bishops, 
 who one and all were required to signify their adherence 
 under their several hands and seals. 
 
 Becket, we are innocently told by his biographer Grim, 
 now saw that he was to be entrapped. There was no en- 
 trapping if his promise had been honestly given. The use 
 of the word is a frank confession that he had meant to 
 deceive Henry by words, and that he was being caught in 
 his own snare. When driven to bay, the archbishop's fiery 
 nature always broke into violence. "Never, never," he 
 said; " I will never do it so long as breath is in my body." ^ 
 In affected penitence for his guilty compliance, he retired to 
 his see to afflict his flesh with public austerities. He sus- 
 pended himself ab altaris officio (from the service of the 
 altar) till the pope should absolve him from his sin. The 
 Bishop of Evreux, who was present at Clarendon, advised 
 him to write to the pope for authority to sign. He pre- 
 tended to comply, but he commissioned a private friend of 
 
 1 Foliot, however, says that many of the bishops were willing to stand 
 out, and that Becket himself advised a false submission (Foliot to Becket, 
 Giles, vol. i. p. 381.) 
 
 2 Sanctus archiepiscopus tunc primum dolum quem fuerat suspicatus ad- 
 vertens, interposita fide quam Deo debuit ; " Non hoc fiet," respondit, 
 " quam diu in hoc vasculo spirat hpec anima." Nam domestici regis secu- 
 rum fecerant archiepiscopum quod nunquam scriberentur leges, nunquam 
 illarum fieret recordatio, si regem verbo tantum in audientia procerum 
 honorasset. Ficta se conjnratione seductum videns, ad animam usque 
 iristabatur." — Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, vol. ii. p. 
 382. 
 
 3 
 
34 lAfe and Times of 
 
 his own, John of Salisbury, who was on the continent, to 
 prepare for his reception on the flight which he already 
 meditated from England, and by all methods, fair and foul, 
 to prevent the pope and cardinals from giving the king any 
 further encouragement. The Bishop of Lisieux, on the 
 other hand, whose previous intercession had decided the 
 pope in the king's favor, went to Sens in person to persuade 
 Alexander to cut the knot by sending legatine powers to 
 the Archbishop of York, to override Becket's obstinacy 
 and to consent in the name of the Church instead of him. 
 
 John of Salisbury's account of his proceedings gives a 
 curious picture of the cause of God, as Becket called it, on 
 its earthly and grosser side. 
 
 The Count of Flanders (he wrote to the archbishop) is most 
 anxious to help you. If extremity comes, send the count word, 
 and he will provide ships. ^ Everything which passed in Lon- 
 don and at Winchester (Clarendon) is better known here than 
 in England itself. I have seen the King of France, who un- 
 dertakes to write to the pope in your behalf. The feeling to- 
 wards our king among the French people is of fear and hatred. 
 The pope himself I have avoided so far. I have written to the 
 two cardinals of Pisa and Pavia to explain the injury which 
 will ensue to the Court of Rome if the Constitutions are up- 
 held. I am not sanguine, however. " Many things make 
 against us, few in our favor. Great men will come over here 
 with money to spend, quam nunquam Roma confempsit (which 
 Rome never despised). The pope himself has always been 
 against us in this cause, and throws in our teeth that after all 
 which Pope Adrian did for the see of Canterbury you are al- 
 lowing his mother to starve in cold and hunger." ^ You write 
 that if I cannot succeed otherwise I may promise two hundred 
 marks. The other side will give down three or four hundred 
 sooner than be defeated,^ and I will answer for the Romans that 
 
 1 "Naves enim procurabit si hoc necessitas vestra exegerit, et ipse ante, 
 ut oportet, p»aemoneatnr." — Joannis Sarisbiriensis Epistolw, vol. i. p. 188. 
 
 2 *' Cujus mater apud vos algore torquetur et inedia." 
 
 8 " Sed scribitis, si alia via non patuerit, promittainus ducentas marcas 
 At certe pars adversa antequam frustretiu' trecentas dabit aut quadriugeu- 
 tas." 
 
Thomas Becket. 35 
 
 they will prefer the larger sum in hand from the king to the 
 smaller in promise from you. It is true we are contending for 
 the liberties of the Church, but your motive, it will be said, is 
 not the Church's welfare, but your own ambition. They will 
 propose (I have already heard a whisper of it) that the pope 
 shall cross to England in person to crown the young king and 
 take your place at Canterbury for a while. If the Bishop of 
 Lisieux sees the pope, he will do mischief. I know the nature 
 of him.^ 
 
 Though the archbishop was convulsing the realm for the 
 sacred right of appeals to Rome, it is plain from this letter 
 that he was aware of the motives by which the papal deci- 
 sions were governed, and that he was perfectly ready to 
 address himself to them. Unfortunately his resources 
 were limited, and John of Salisbury's misgivings were con- 
 firmed. The extraordinary legatine powers were conceded 
 not to the Archbishop of York — it was held inexpedient to 
 set York above Canterbury — but to the king himself. To 
 Becket the pope wrote with some irony on hearing that he 
 had suspended himself. He trusted the archbishop was not 
 creating needless scandal. The promise to the king had 
 been given with good intentions, and could not therefore 
 be a serious sin. If there was anything further on his con- 
 science (did the pope suspect that the promise had been dis- 
 honest?), he might confess it to any discreet priest. He 
 (the pope) meanwhile absolved him, and advised, and even 
 enjoined, him to return to his duties. 
 
 The first campaign was thus over, and the king was so 
 far victorious. The legatine powers having arrived, the 
 Constitutions were immediately acted upon. The number 
 of criminals among the clergy happened to be unusually 
 large.^ They were degraded, sent to trial, and suffered in 
 the usual way by death or mutilation. "Then," say Beck- 
 
 1 John of Salisbury to Becket (abridged). Letters, vol. i. p. 187. 
 
 2 " Sed et ordinatorum inordinati mores inter regem et archiepiscopum 
 auxere malitiam, qui solito abundantius per idem tempus apparebant, pub- 
 "cis irretiti criminibus." — MateAah, etc., vol. ii. p. 385. 
 
36 Life and Times of 
 
 et's despairJDg biographers, " was seen the mournful spec- 
 tacle of priests and deacons who had committed murder, 
 manslaughter, theft, robbery, and other crimes, carried in 
 carts before the king's commissioners, and punished as if 
 they had been ordinary men." The archbishop clamored, 
 threatened, and, as far as his power went, interfered. The 
 king was firm. He had sworn at his coronation, he said, to 
 do justice in the realm, and there were no greater villains 
 in it than many of the clergy.^ That bishops should take 
 public offenders out of custody, absolve them, and let them 
 go, was not to be borne. It was against law, against usage, 
 against reason. It could not be. The laity were gener- 
 ally of the king's opinion. Of the bishops some four or five 
 agreed privately with Becket, but dared not avow their 
 opinions. The archbishop perceived that the game was 
 lost unless he could himself see the pope and speak to him. 
 He attempted to steal over from Sandwich, but the boatmen 
 recognized him midway across the channel and brought him 
 back. 
 
 1 " In omni scelere et flagitio nequiores." 
 
Thomas Becket. 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The pope had sent legatine powers to the king, and the 
 king had acted upon them ; but something was still wanting 
 for general satisfaction. He had been required to confirm 
 the Constitutions by a bull. He had hesitated to do it, and 
 put off his answer. At length he sent the Archbishop of 
 Rouen to England to endeavor to compromise matters. 
 The formal consent of the Church was still wanting, and in 
 the absence of it persons who agreed with the king in prin- 
 ciple were uneasy at the possible consequences. The clergy 
 might be wicked, but they were magicians notwithstanding, 
 and only the chief magician could make it safe to deal with 
 them. In the autumn of 1164 the king once more sum- 
 moned a great council to meet him at Northampton Castle. 
 The attendance was vast. Every peer and prelate not dis- 
 abled was present, all feeling the greatness of the occasion. 
 Castle, town, and monasteries were thronged to overflowing. 
 Becket only had hesitated to appear. His attempt to es- 
 cape to the continent was constructive treason. It was 
 more than treason. It was a violation of a distinct promise 
 which he had given to the king.-^ The storm which he had 
 raised had unloosed the tongues of those who had to com- 
 plain of his ill-usage of them either in his archbishop's 
 court or in the days when he was chancellor. The accounts 
 had been looked into, and vast sums were found to have 
 been received by him of which no explanation had been 
 given. Who was this man, that he should throw the coun- 
 try into confusion, in the teeth of the bishops, in the teeth 
 (as it seemed) of the pope, in the teeth of his own oath 
 1 Foliot to Becket, Giles, vol. ii. p. 387. 
 
38 Life and Times of 
 
 given solemnly to the king at Woodstock ? The Bishop of 
 London, in a letter to Becket, charged him with having 
 directly intended to commit perjury.-^ The first object of 
 the Northampton council was to inquire into his conduct, 
 and he had good reason to be alarmed at the probable con- 
 sequences. He dared not, however, disobey a peremptory 
 summons. He came, attended by a large force of armed 
 knights, and was entertained at the monastery of St. An- 
 drews. To anticipate inquiry into his attempted flight, he 
 applied for permission on the day of his arrival to go to 
 France to visit the pope. The king told him that he could 
 not leave the realm until he had answered for a decree which 
 had been given in his court. The case was referred to the 
 assembled peei's, and he was condemned and fined. It was 
 a bad augury for him. Other charges lay thick, ready to 
 be produced. He was informed officially that he would be 
 required to explain the Chancery accounts, and answer for 
 the money which he had applied to his own purposes. His 
 proud temper was chafed to the quick, and he turned sick 
 with anger.^ His admirers see only in these demands the 
 sinister action of a dishonest tyranny. Oblique accusations, 
 it is said, were raised against him, either to make him bend 
 or to destroy his character. The question is rather whether 
 his conduct admitted of explanation. If he had been un- 
 just as a judge, if he had been unscrupulous as a high offi- 
 cer of state, such faults had no unimportant bearing on his 
 present attitude. He would have done wisely to clear him- 
 self if he could ; it is probable that he could not. He re- 
 fused to answer, and he sheltered himself behind the release 
 which he had received at his election. His refusal was not 
 allowed ; a second summons the next day found him in his 
 
 1 Foliot says that at Clarendon Becket said to the bishops, " It is the 
 Lord's will I should perjure myself. For the present I submit and incur 
 perjury, to repent of it, however, as I best may." — Giles, vol. i. p. 381. 
 Foliot was reminding Becket of what passed on that occasion. 
 
 2 "Propter iram et indignationem quam in animo conceperat decidit in 
 gravem a^gritudinem." — Hoveden, vol. i. p. 225. 
 
Thomas Becket, 39 
 
 bed, which he said that he was too ill to leave. This was 
 on a Saturday. A respite was allowed him until the fol- 
 lowing Monday. On Monday the answer was the same. 
 Messenger after messenger brought back word that the 
 archbishop was unable to move. The excuse might be true 
 — perhaps partially it was true. The king sent two great 
 peers to ascertain, and in his choice of persons he gave a 
 conclusive answer to the accusation of desirinff to deal un- 
 fairly with Becket; one was Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, 
 the king's uncle, who as long as Becket lived was the best 
 friend that he had at the court ; the other was the remark- 
 able Robert, Earl of Leicester, named Bossu (the Hunch- 
 back). This Robert was a monk of Leicester Abbey, 
 though he had a dispensation to remain at the court, and so 
 bitter a papist was he that when the schismatic Archbishop 
 of Cologne came afterwards to London he publicly insulted 
 him and tore down the altar at which he had said mass. 
 Such envoys would not have been selected with a sinister 
 purpose. They found that the archbishop could attend if 
 he wished, and they warned him of the danger of trying the 
 king too far. He pleaded for one more day. On the Tues- 
 day morning he undertook to be present. 
 
 His knights, whose first allegiance was to the Crown, had 
 withdrawn from the monastery, not daring or not choosing 
 to stand by a jn-elate who appeared to be defying his sover- 
 eign. Their place had been taken by a swarm of mendi- 
 cants, such as the archbishop had gathered about him at 
 Canterbury. He prepared for the scene in which he was 
 to play a part with the art of which he was so accomplished 
 a master. He professed to expect to be killed. He rose 
 early. Some of the bishops came to see and remonstrate 
 with him : they could not move his resolution, and they re- 
 tired. Left to himself, he said the mass of St. Stephen in 
 which were the words : " The kings of the earth stood up, 
 and the rulers took counsel together against the Lord and 
 against his anointed." He then put on a black stole and 
 
40 Life and Times of 
 
 cap, mounted his palfrey, and, followed by a few monks and 
 surrounded by his guard of beggars, rode a foot's pace to 
 the castle preceded by his cross-bearer. 
 
 The royal castle of Northampton was a feudal palace of 
 the usual form. A massive gateway led into a quadrangle ; 
 across the quadrangle was the entrance of the great hall, 
 and at the upper end of the hall doors opened into spacious 
 chambers beyond. The archbishop alighted at the gate, 
 himself took his cross in his right hand, and, followed by a 
 small train, passed through the quadrangle, and passed up the 
 hall, " looking like the lion-man of the prophet's vision." ^ 
 The king and the barons were in one chamber, the bishops 
 in another. The archbishop was going in this attitude into 
 the king's presence, that the court might see the person on 
 whom they dared to sit in judgment ; but certain " Temp- 
 lars " warned him to beware. He entered among his breth- 
 ren, and moved through them to a chair at the upper end of 
 the room. 
 
 He still held his cross. The action was unusual ; the 
 cross was the spiritual sword, and to bear it thus conspica- 
 ously in a deliberative assembly was as if a baron had 
 entered the council in arms. The mass of St. Stephen had 
 been heai'd of, and in the peculiar temper of men's minds 
 was regarded as a magical incantation.^ The Bishop of 
 Hereford advanced and offered to carry the crofcb for him. 
 Foliot, Bishop of London {filiiis hujus scecidi, " a son of 
 this world ") said that if he came thus armed into the court 
 the king would draw a sharper sword, and he would see 
 then what his arms wonld avail him. Seeing him still ob- 
 stinate, Foliot tried to force the cross out of his hands. 
 The Archbishop of York added his persuasions ; but the 
 Archbishop of York peculiarly irritated Becket, and was 
 
 1 "Assumens faciem hominis, faciem leonis, propheticis illis animali- 
 bus a proiiheta descriptis similliinus." — Herbert of Bosham. 
 
 2 If was said to have been-done per artem magicam et in contemptu 
 regis. (Hoveden.) He had the eiicharist concealed under his dress. 
 
Thomas Becket. 41 
 
 silenced by a violent answer. " Fool thou hast ever been," 
 said the Bishop of London, " and from thy folly I see plainly 
 thou wilt not depart." Cries burst out on all sides. 
 " Fly ! " some one whispered in the archbishop's ear ; " fly 
 or you are a dead man." The Bishop of Exeter came in 
 at the moment, and exclaimed that unless the archbishop 
 gave way they would all be murdered. Becket never 
 showed to more advantage than in moments of personal 
 danger. To the Bishop of Exeter he gave a sharp answer, 
 telling him that he savored not the things of God. But he 
 collected himself. He saw that he was alone. He stood 
 up, he appealed to the pope, charged the bishops on peril of 
 their souls to excommunicate any one who dared to lay 
 hands on him, and moved as if he intended to withdraw. 
 The Bishop of Winchester bade him resign the archbishop- 
 ric. With an elaborate oath (cum interminahili juratione) 
 he swore that he would not resign. The Bishop of Chi- 
 chester then said : " As our primate we are bound to obey 
 you, but you are our primate no longer ; you have broken 
 your oath. You swore allegiance to the king, and you 
 subvert the common law of the realm. We too appeal to 
 the pope. To his presence we summon you." "I hear 
 what you say," was all the answer which Becket deigned to 
 return. 
 
 The doors from the adjoining chamber were now flung 
 open. The old Earl of Cornwall, the hunchback Leicester, 
 and a number of barons entered. " My lord," said the Earl 
 of Leicester to the archbishop, "the king requires you to 
 come to his presence and answer to certain things which will 
 then be alleged against you, as you promised yesterday to 
 do." " My lord earl," said Becket, " thou knowest how 
 long and loyally I served the king in his worldly aflTairs. 
 For that cause it pleased him to promote me to the office 
 which now I hold. I did not desire the office ; I knew my 
 infirmities. When I consented it was for the sake of the 
 king alone. When I was elected I was formally acquitted 
 
42 Life and Times of 
 
 of my responsibilities for all that I had done as chancellor. 
 Therefore I am not bound to answer, and I will not an- 
 swer." 
 
 The earls carried back the reply. The peers by a swift 
 vote declared that the archbishop must be arrested and 
 placed under guard. 
 
 The earls reentered, and Leicester approached him and 
 began slowly and reluctantly to announce the sentence. 
 " Nay," said Becket, lifting his tall meagre figure to its haugh- 
 tiest height, " do thou first listen to me. The child may not 
 judge his father. The king may not judge me, nor may you 
 judge me. I will be judged under God by the pope alone, 
 to whom in your presence I appeal. I forbid you under 
 anathema to pronounce your sentence. And you, my breth- 
 ren," he said, turning to the bishops, "since you will obey 
 man rather than God, I call you too before the same judg- 
 ment-seat. Under the protection of the Apostolic See, I 
 depart hence." 
 
 No hand was raised to stop him. He swept through the 
 chamber and flung open the door of the hall. He stumbled 
 on the threshold, and had almost fallen, but recovered him- 
 self. The October evening was growing into twilight. The 
 hall was thronged with the retinues of the king and the 
 barons. Dinner was over. The floor was littered with 
 rushes and fragments of rolls and broken meat. Draughts 
 of ale had not been wanting, and young knights, pages, and 
 retainers were either lounging on the benches or talking 
 in eager and excited groups. As Becket appeared among 
 them, fierce voices were heard crying, " Traitor ! traitor ! 
 Stop the traitor ! " Among the loudest were Count Hame- 
 lin, the king's illegimate brother, and Sir Ranulf de Broc, 
 one of the Canterbury knights. Like a bold animal at bay, 
 Becket turned sharply on these two. He called Count Ha- 
 melin a bastard boy. He reminded De Broc of some near 
 kinsman of his who had been hanged. The cries rose into 
 a roar ; sticks and knots of straw were flung at him. An- 
 
Thomas Becket. 43 
 
 other rash word, and he might have been torn in pieces. 
 Some high official hearing the noise came in and conducted 
 him safely to the door. 
 
 In the quadrangle he found his servants waiting with his 
 palfrey. The great gate was locked, but the key was hang- 
 ing on the wall ; one of them took it and opened the gate, 
 the porters looking on, but not interfering. Once outside 
 he was received with a cheer of delight from the crowd, and 
 with a mob of people about him he made his way back to 
 the monastery. The king had not intended to arrest him, 
 but he-<;ould not know it, and he was undoubtedly in danger 
 from one or other of the angry men with whom the town 
 was crowded. He prepared for immediate flight. A bed 
 was made for him in the chapel behind the altar. After a 
 hasty supper with a party of beggars whom he had intro- 
 duced into the house, he lay down for a few hours of rest. 
 At two in the morning, in a storm of wind and rain, he stole 
 away disguised with two of the brethren. He reached Lin- 
 coln soon after daybreak, and from Lincoln, going by cross 
 paths, and slipping from hiding-place to hiding-place, he 
 made his way in a fortnight to a farm of his own at Eastry, 
 near Sandwich. He was not pursued. It was no sooner 
 known that he was gone from Northampton than a procla- 
 mation was sent through the country forbidding every man 
 under pain of death to meddle with him. The king had 
 determined to allow the appeal, and once more to place the 
 whole question in the pope's hands. The Earl of Arundel 
 with a dozen peers and bishops was dispatched at once to 
 Sens to explain what had happened, and to request Alex- 
 ander to send legates to England to investigate the quarrel 
 and to end it. The archbishop, could he have consented to 
 be quiet, might have remained unmolested at Canterbury 
 till the result could be ascertained. But he knew too well 
 the forces which would be at work in the papal court to 
 wait for its verdict. His confidence was only in himself. 
 Could he see the pope in person, he thought that he could 
 
44 Life and Times of 
 
 influence him. He was sure of the friendship of Lewis of 
 France, who was meditating a fresh quarrel with Henry, and 
 would welcome his support. His own spiritual weapons 
 would be as effective across the Channel as if used in Eng- 
 land, while he would himself be in personal security. One 
 dark night he went down with his two companions into 
 Sandwich, and in an open boat crossed safely to Grave- 
 lines. At St. Omer he fell in with his old friend Chief 
 Justice de Luci, who was returning from a mission to the 
 court of France. De Luci urged him to return to England 
 and wait for the pope's decision, warning him of the con- 
 sequences of persisting in a course which was really treason- 
 able, and undertaking that the king would forgive him if he 
 would go back at once. Entreaties and warnings were alike 
 thrown away. He remained and dispatched a letter to the 
 pope saying briefly that he had followed the example of his 
 holiness in resisting the encroachments of princes, and had 
 fled from his country. He had been called to answer before 
 the king as if he had been a mere layman. The bishops, 
 who ought to have stood by him, had behaved like cow- 
 ards. If he was not sustained by his holiness, the Church 
 would be ruined, and he would himself be doubly con- 
 founded. 
 
Thomas BecJcet, 46 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The king and the English bishops looked with reason- 
 able confidence to the result of their appeal. Becket had 
 broken his promise to accept the Constitutions, and had so 
 broken it as to show that the promise had been given in 
 conscious bad faith. He was a defaulting public officer. 
 He had been unjust as a judge. He had defied the Crown 
 and the estates of the realm. He had refused to answer for 
 his conduct, and had denied his responsibilities. He had 
 deserted his post, and had fled from the realm, although the 
 king's proclamation had left him without the excuse that he 
 was in fear of personal violence. He was an archbishop, 
 and possessed, in virtue of his office, of mysterious powers 
 which the laity had not learned to defy. But the pope was 
 superior to him in his own sphere, and on the pope the king 
 naturally felt that he had a right to rely. The Earl of 
 Arundel with the other peers, the Archbishop of York, and 
 the Bishops of London, Chichester, and Exeter, were 
 chosen as envoys, and were dispatched immediately on the 
 dissolution of the Northampton meeting. They crossed 
 the Channel on the same night that Becket crossed, and 
 after a hasty and unsatisfactory interview with Lewis at 
 Compiegne they made their way to Sens. Becket ought to 
 have met them there. But Becket preferred to feel his 
 ground and make friends in France before presenting him- 
 self. He was disappointed in the Count of Flanders, who 
 declined to countenance him. He escaped in disguise over 
 the French frontier, and addressed himself to Lewis at Sois- 
 sons. Lewis, who meant no good to Henry, received him 
 warmly, and wrote in his favor to the pope. At the French 
 
46 Life and Times of 
 
 court he remained till he saw how matters would go at 
 Sens, sending forward his confidential friend, Herbert of 
 Bosham, to watch the proceedings, and speak for him to the 
 pope and cardinals. 
 
 He might have easily been present himself, since Herbert 
 reached Sens only a day after the arrival of the English 
 ambassadors. The bishops stated their case. They laid the 
 blame of the quarrel on the archbishop's violence. They 
 explained the moderation of the king's demands. They 
 requested the pope's interposition. The Earl of Arundel 
 followed in the name of the English barons. He dwelt on 
 the fidelity with which the king had adhered to the Holy 
 See in its troubles, and the regret with which, if justice was 
 denied them, the English nation might be compelled to 
 look elsewhere. He requested, and the bishops requested, 
 that Becket should be ordered to return to Canterbury, and 
 that a legate or legates should be sent with plenary powers 
 to hear the cause and decide upon it. 
 
 Seeing that the question immediately before the pope did 
 not, turn on the Constitutions, but on the liability of the 
 archbishop to answer for his civil administration, the king 
 was making a large concession. Many cardinals had their 
 own good reasons for being on the the king's side, and, if left 
 to himself, the pope would have been glad to oblige a valu- 
 able friend. But to favor Henry was to offend Lewis under 
 whose shelter he had taken refuge. The French bishops 
 were many of them as violent as Becket himself The 
 French people were on the same side from natural enmity 
 to England, and Pope Alexander was in the same difficulty 
 in which Pope Clement found himself three (centuries later 
 between Henry the Eighth and Charles the Fifth. He said 
 that he could form no resolution till he had heard what 
 Becket had to say. He suggested that the English envoys 
 should wait for Becket' s arrival ; but it was uncertain 
 when Becket might arrive ; his French friends were gather- 
 ing in their rear, and might intercept their return. A pro- 
 
Thomas Becket. 47 
 
 kracted stay was impossible, and they again pressed for a 
 legate. Alexander agreed to send some one, but without 
 the ample powers which the envoys desired. He reserved 
 the final decision for himself. 
 
 The influences by which the papal court was determined 
 were already too grossly notorious. A decision given in 
 France would be the decision which would please the King 
 of France. The envoys went home, taking with them a 
 complimentary nuncio from the pope, and they had some dif- 
 ficulty in escaping an attempt to waylay and capture them. 
 
 They had no sooner gone than Becket appeared at Sens. 
 He was received with no great warmth by the pope, and 
 still more coldly by the cardinals " whose nostrils the scent 
 of lucre had infected."^ French pressure, however, soon 
 produced its effect. He had come magnificently attended 
 from Soissons. His cause was openly espoused by the 
 French nation. At his second interview, on his knees at 
 Alexander's feet he represented that he was the victim of 
 his devotion to the Holy See and the Catholic faith. He 
 had only to yield on the Constitutions to be restored at 
 once to favor and power. The Constitutions were read 
 over, and he asked how it was possible for him to acknowl- 
 edge laws which reduced the clergy into common mortals, 
 and restricted appeals to the last depositary of justice on 
 earth. 
 
 Herbert of Bosham states that the pope and cardinals 
 had never yet seen the Constitutions, but had only heard of 
 them. This is simply incredible, and, like many other 
 stories of this interesting but interested writer, is confuted 
 by the facts of the case. John of Salisbury had said that 
 the proceedings at Clarendon were better known on the con- 
 tinent than in England. They had been watched in France 
 for almost a year with the closest attention. Bishops and 
 abbots had gone to and fro between the pope and the Eng- 
 lish court with no other object than to find some terms ol 
 1 " Quorum nares odor lucri infecerat." 
 
48 Life and Times of 
 
 compromise. It is not conceivable that after sending an 
 order to Becket to submit, after Becket had first consented, 
 had then suspended himself for the sin of acquiesence, and 
 had been absolved by Alexander himself, the Holy Father 
 should never have acquainted himself with the particulars 
 of the controversy. It is no less incredible, therefore, that, 
 after hearing the Constitutions read, the pope should have 
 severely blamed Becket, as Herbert also says that he did, 
 for having ever consented at all. Be this as it may, the 
 Constitutions found no favor. Parts of them vrere found 
 tolerable, but parts intolerable, especially the restriction of 
 the appeals. Again the pope took time for reflection. 
 English money had secured a powerful faction among his 
 advisers, and they were not ungrateful. Henry, they said, 
 would no doubt modify the objectionable articles; and it 
 was unsafe to alienate him at so dangerous a time. In pri- 
 vate they sharply blamed Becket for having raised so inop- 
 portune a storm ; and but for his own adroitness the arch- 
 bishop would have been defeated after all. Once more he 
 sought the pope's presence. He confessed his sins, and he 
 tempted Alexander with the hope of rescuing the nomina- 
 tion to the see of Canterbury from secular interference. 
 He had been intruded into Christ's sheepfold, he said, by the 
 secular power ; ^ and from this source all his subsequent 
 troubles had arisen. The bishops at Northampton had bade 
 him resign. He could not resign at their bidding, but he 
 threw himself and his office on his holiness's mercy. He 
 had accepted the archbishopric uncanonically. He now re- 
 linquished it, to be restored or not restored as the pope 
 might please. 
 
 It was a bold stroke, and it nearly failed. Many cardi- 
 
 1 " Ascendi in ovile Christi, sed non per ipsum ostium: velut quern non 
 canonica vocavit electio, sed terror publicae potestatisintrusit." — Materials 
 for the History of Thomas a. Becket, vol. ii. p. 243. But all these accounts 
 of conversations must be received with caution. The accounts vary irrec- 
 oncilably; and the enthusiasm of the biographers for their master and his 
 cause infects every line of their narrative. 
 
Thomas Becket, 49 
 
 nals saw in the offer a road out of the difficulty. Terms 
 could now be arranged with Henry, and Becket could be 
 provided for elsewhere. For some hours or days his friends 
 thouoht his cause was lost. But the balance wavered at 
 last so far in his favor that the sacrifice was not permitted. 
 He was not, as he had expected, to be sent back in triumph 
 to England supported by threats of interdict and excommu- 
 nication to triumph over his enemies. But he was reinstated 
 as archbishop. He was assigned a residence at the Cister- 
 cian monastery of Pontigny, thirty miles from Sens ; and 
 there he was directed to remain quiet and avoid for the 
 present irritating the king further.^ 
 
 The king was sufficiently irritated already. The support 
 which Lewis had given to Becket meant too probably that 
 war with France was not far off. Becket himself was virt- 
 ually in rebellion, and his character made it easy to foresee 
 the measures which he would adopt if not prevented. The 
 posts were watched, strangers were searched for letters. 
 English subjects were forbidden to introduce brief, bull, or 
 censure either from the pope or from the archbishop. The 
 archbishop's estates were sequestrated. Were he allowed 
 to retain his large income and spend it abroad, he would 
 use it to buy friends among the cardinals. The see was 
 put under administrators — the rents, so Henry afterwards 
 swore, were chiefly laid out in management, and the surplus 
 was distributed in charity. The incumbents of the arch- 
 bishop's benefices being his special creatures were expelled, 
 and loyal priests \vere put in their places. Another harder 
 measure was adopted. All his relations, all his connections 
 and dependents, except a few who gave securities for good 
 conduct, were banished from England, four hundred of 
 them, men, women, and children. Either it was feared the 
 
 1 The answer supposed to have been given by the pope, permitting him 
 to use the censures, belongs to the following year. It refers to the seques- 
 tration of the Canterbury estates, and this did not take place till after Becket 
 had been settled at Pontigny. 
 4 
 
60 Life and Times of 
 
 archbishop would employ them to disturb the country, or it 
 was mere vengeance, or it was to make Becket an expen- 
 sive guest to Lewis. 
 
 All this Becket was obliged to bear with. Armed as he 
 was with lightnings, he was forbidden to make use of them. 
 Nay, worse, the pope himself could not even yet be de- 
 pended on. Angry as he was, the king wrote to propose 
 that Alexander should visit him in England, or, if this were 
 impossible, that the pope, Lewis, and Henry should meet in 
 Normandy and take measures together for the common 
 welfare of Christendom. Henry had no wish to join Bar- 
 barossa if he could help it ; and neither the pope nor Lewis 
 could wish to force him. If such a meeting came off, it was 
 easy to foresee the issue. John of Salisbury, who was 
 Becket's agent at the French court, when he heard what 
 was intended, wrote that it must be prevented at all haz- 
 ards. In terms not very complimentary to the holy father's 
 understanding, the archbishop implored Alexander to con- 
 sent to no meeting with the King of England, except one 
 at which he should himself be present. " The king," he 
 said, " is so subtle with his words that he would confound 
 the apostolic religion itself. He will find the weak points 
 of the pope's character, and will trip him up to his destruc- 
 tion." 1 
 
 The King of France (John of Salisbury wrote to Becket) ad- 
 mits that he fears to urge the pope to use the censures in your 
 behalf. If this be so now, how will it be when our king is here 
 in person, arguing, promising, and threatening with the skill 
 which you know that he possesses ? He has secured the Count of 
 Flanders — the countess, like a prudent matron, is thinking of 
 marriages for her children — and has sent him three hundred ells 
 of linen to make shirts. The Archbishop of Rheims is the count's 
 
 dear friend I advise you, therefore, to trust in God and 
 
 give yourself to prayer. Put away thoughts of this world ; pray 
 
 1 " Sed et citius poterit apostolica circumveniri religio ex varietate ver- 
 borutn regis .... et si rex infirmiora domini papae prjenoverit exitus via- 
 rum suarum obstruet offendiculis." — Materials, vol. ii. p. 346. 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 61 
 
 and meditate. The Psalms will be better reading for you than 
 philosophy; and to confer with spiritual men, whose example 
 may influence your devotion, will profit you more than indulg- 
 ing in litigious speculations. I say this from my heart: take it 
 as you please. 
 
 These words show Becket to us as through an inverted 
 telescope, the magnifying mist blown away, in his true out- 
 lines and true proportions. The true Becket, as the pope 
 knew him, was not the person peculiarly fitted to be the 
 Church's champion in a cause which was really sacred. 
 John of Salisbury thought evidently at this time that there 
 was no longer any hope that the archbishop would really 
 succeed. He wished, he said in a letter to the Bishop of 
 Exeter, to make his peace with the king. He could not 
 desert the archbishop, but he was loyal to his sovereign. 
 He called God to witness how often he had rebuked the 
 archbishop for his foolish violence.-^ He could not promise 
 that he would quit his old master's service, but in all else he 
 would be guided by the Bishop of Exeter's advice. 
 
 1 " Novit enim cordium inspector quod ssepius et asperius quam aliquia 
 mortalium corripuerim dominum archiepiscopiun de his in quibus ab initio 
 dominura regem et suos zelo quodam inconsultius visus est ad amaritudi- 
 nem provocasse," etc. — Letters, vol. i. p. 203, ed. Giles. 
 
62 Life and Times of 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Meanwhile the quarrel between Becket and the King 
 of England became the topic of the hour throughout 
 Europe. Which was right and which was wrong, what the 
 pope would do or ought to do, and whether England would 
 join Germany in the schism — these questions were the 
 theme of perpetual discussions in council and conclave, 
 were debated in universities, and were fought over at con- 
 vent and castle dinner-tables. Opinions were so divided 
 that, in a cause which concerned Heaven so nearly, people 
 were looking for Heaven to give some sign. As facts were 
 wanting, legend took the place of them, and stories began to 
 spread, either at the time or immediately after, of direct 
 and picturesque manifestations of grace which had been 
 vouchsafed in Becket's favor. It was said that when dining 
 with Pope Alexander he had twice unconsciously turned 
 water into wine. At Pontigny he had been graciously 
 visited by our Lady herself. He had left England ill pro- 
 vided with clothes. His wardrobe was in disorder ; his 
 drawers especially, besides being dirty, were in holes. He 
 was specially delicate in such matters, and was too modest 
 to confess his difficulties. He stayed at home one day alone 
 to do the repairs himself. He was pricking his fingers and 
 succeeding indifferently, when our Lady — who, as the biog- 
 raphers tell us, had been taught to sew when she was at 
 Nazareth — came in, sat down, took the drawers out of the 
 archbishop's hand, mended them excellently, and went as 
 she had come. The archbishop had not recognized his 
 visitor. Soon after a singular case of church discipline was 
 referred to his decision. A young Frenchman, specially 
 
Thomas Becket, 53 
 
 devoted to the Virgin Mary, had built a chapel in her honor 
 not far from Pontigny, had placed her image over the altar, 
 and had obtained ordination himself that he might make his 
 daily offerings there. But he neither would nor could re- 
 peat any mass but the mass of the Virgin. The authorities 
 reprimanded him but to no purpose. Our Lady filled his 
 soul, and left no room for any other object. The irregular- 
 ity was flagrant — the devotion was commendable. Becket 
 was consulted as to what should be done, and Becket sent 
 for the offender and gently put before him that he was 
 making a scandal which must positively cease. The youth 
 rushed away in despair, and flung himself before our Lady's 
 imaiie, declarinjj that his love was for her and for her alone. 
 She must save him from interference, or he would pull the 
 chapel down and do other wild and desperate things. The 
 eyes of the image began to smile, the neck bent, the lips 
 opened. " Have no fear, carissime," it said : " go to the 
 archbishop. Entreat again to be allowed to continue your 
 devotions to me. If he refuses, ask him if he remembers 
 who mended his drawers." We may guess how the story 
 ended. 
 
 With tales of this kind floating in the air, the first year of 
 Becket's exile wore out, the pope giving uncertain answers 
 to the passionate appeals which continued to be made to him, 
 according to the fortune of the Emperor Frederick in Italy. 
 Frederick being at last driven out of Lombardy, the pope 
 recovered heart, and held out brighter prospects. He sent 
 Becket permission to excommunicate the persons in occu- 
 pation of his estates and benefices, and he promised to ratify 
 his sentence if opportunely issued. He did not permit, but 
 also did not specially forbid, him to excommunicate the 
 king, while Lewis, with Becket's knowledge, and in the 
 opinion of the cardinals who came afterwards to inquire 
 into his conduct, at Becket's direct instigation, prepared to 
 invade Normandy. Henry, well informed of what was 
 coming, began now to turn to Germany in earnest. By 
 
54 Life and Times of 
 
 the advice of his barons, as he said, he wrote to Reginald, 
 Frederick's archbishop chancellor, to tell him that he was 
 about to send an embassy to the pope to demand that he 
 should be relieved of Becket, and that the Constitutions 
 should be ratified. If justice was refused him, he and his 
 people were prepared to renounce their allegiance to Alex- 
 ander and to unite with Germany.^ The chancellor was 
 himself invited to England to arrange a marriage be- 
 tween the Princess Matilda and the Duke of Saxony. A 
 decided step of this kind it was thought might bring the 
 pojDe to his senses. 
 
 Separation from Rome, indeed, was the true alternative : 
 and had the country been prepared to follow Henry, and 
 had Henry himself been prepared at the bottom of his mind 
 to defy the pope and the worst that he could do, the great 
 schism between the Teutonic and Latin races might have 
 been antedated, and the course of history been changed. 
 But Henry was threatening with but half a heart, and the 
 country was less prepared than he. In Germany itself, the 
 pope in the end proved too strong for the emperor. In 
 England, even WicklifFe was premature. With all its enor- 
 mous faults, the Roman Catholic organization in both coun- 
 tries was producing better fruits on the whole than any 
 other which could have been substituted for it ; and almost 
 three centuries had yet to pass, bringing with them accumu- 
 lating masses of insincerities and injustices, before Europe 
 could become ripe for a change. A succession of Beckets 
 would have precipitated a rupture, whatever might be the 
 cost or consequences ; but the succeeding prelates were 
 men of the world as well as statesmen, and were too wise to 
 press theories to their logical consequences. 
 
 The Archbishop of Cologne came to London with the 
 
 taint of his schism upon him. The court entertained him. 
 
 The German marriage was arranged. But Henry received 
 
 a startling intimation that he must not try the barons too 
 
 1 Giles, vol. i. p. 316. 
 
Thomas Bechet. 55 
 
 far. They had supported him in what they held to be 
 reasonable demands to which the pope might be expected 
 to consent. They were not ready to support him in a re- 
 volt from Eome, even though disguised behind the name of 
 an antipope. The hunchbacked Earl of Leicester refused 
 Barbarossa's chancellor the kiss of peace in open court at 
 Westminster, and on his departure the altars at which the 
 schismatic prelate had said mass were destroyed.^ 
 
 Alexander meanwhile had written to Foliot, directing 
 him and the Bishop of Hereford to remonstrate with the 
 king, to entreat him to act in conformity with his past repu- 
 tation and to put an end to the scandal which he had caused, 
 hinting that if Henry persisted in refusing he might be un- 
 able to restrain the archbishop from excommunicating him. 
 The two bishops discharged their commission. " The king," 
 Foliot replied to the pope, " took what we said in excellent 
 part. He assured us that his affection towards your holiness 
 remained as it had been, but he said that he had stood by 
 you in your misfortunes, and that he had met with a bad 
 return. He had hindered no one from going to you on 
 your invitation, and he meant to hinder no one. As to 
 appeals, he merely claimed that each case should be first 
 thoroughly heard in his own courts. If justice could not 
 be had there, appeals to Rome might remain without ob- 
 jection from himself. If the emperor was excommunicated, 
 he promised to break off correspondence with him. As to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, he had not been expelled 
 from England ; he had left it of his own accord, and might 
 return when he pleased. To the Church, now as always, 
 he wished to submit his differences with the archbishop." 
 
 If this was not all which the pope might expect, Foliot 
 advised him to be contented with it. " The king," he con- 
 tinued, "having consented to defer to the Church, considers 
 that right is on his side. Let your holiness therefore be- 
 ware of measures which may drive him and his subjects into 
 1 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, 1165. 
 
56 Life and Times of 
 
 revolt. A wounded limb may be healed ; a limb cut off is 
 lost forever. Some of us may bear persecution on your 
 account, but there will not be wanting those who will bow 
 their knee to Baal. Men can be found to fill the English 
 sees who will obey the antipope. Many, indeed, already 
 wish for the change." -^ 
 
 The pope, who did not understand the English character, 
 was as much disturbed as Henry could have desired to see 
 him. He found that he had encouraojed Becket too far. 
 He wrote to press upon him that the days were evil ; that 
 he must endeavor to conciliate the king ; that he must on 
 no account excommunicate him, or lay England under in- 
 terdict, or venture any violent courses, at any rate before 
 the ensuing Easter.^ He wrote affectionately to Henry 
 himself. He thanked the two bishops with the utmost 
 warmth, and expressed himself delighted with the accounts 
 which he received of the king's frame of mind.^ The Arch- 
 bishop of Rouen and the Empress Matilda had written to 
 him to the same purpose, and had given him equal pleasure. 
 If Foliot could bring about a reconciliation, he would love 
 him forever. Meanwhile he would follow Foliot's advice 
 and keep Becket quiet. 
 
 A very slight concession from Becket would now have 
 made an arrangement possible, for Henry was tired of the 
 quarrel. He invited the Norman prelates to meet him at a 
 conference at Chinon. The archbishop was expected to 
 attend, and peace was then to have been arranged. In this 
 spirit the Bishop of Hereford addressed the archbishop him- 
 self, entreating him to agree to moderate conditions. Far 
 away was Becket from concessions. He knew better than 
 the pope the state of English feeling. He was in corre- 
 spondence (it is likely enough) with the Earl of Leicester. 
 At all events he must have heard of Leicester's treatment 
 
 1 Foliot to the Pope, 1165. Hoveden (ed. Giles), vol. i. p. 231. 
 
 2 Giles, vol. i. p. 324. 
 
 * " Gaudemus et exultamus super ea devotione ejusdem regis." 
 
Thomas Bechet, 57 
 
 of Reginald of Cologne. He knew that in fearing that 
 England would go into schism the pope was frightened by 
 a shadow. He had not defied king, peers, and bishops at 
 Northampton that the fight should end in a miserable com- 
 promise. Sharply he rebuked the Bishop of Hereford for 
 his timid counsels. " For you," he said, " I am made anath- 
 ema, and when you should stand by me you advise me to 
 yield. You should rather have bidden me draw the sword 
 of Peter and avenge the blood of the saints. I mourn over 
 you as over my firstborn. Up, my son. Cry aloud and 
 cease not. Lift up your voice, lest God's anger fall on you 
 and all the nation perish. I grieve for the king. Tribula- 
 tion impends over him. They have devoured Jacob and 
 laid waste his dwelling-place." ^ 
 
 To John of Salisbury Becket announced that his patience 
 was exhausted, that when Easter was passed he would be 
 free, and that in his own opinion he ought to forbear no 
 longer. He desired to know how far his friend agreed 
 with him. John of Salisbury was more prudent than his 
 master. " Precipitate action," he said, " may expose you to 
 ridicule and ruin. You ask my advice. I recommend you 
 not to rely on the Holy See. Write to the empress mother, 
 write to the Archbishop of Rouen and the other prelates. 
 Tell them you are ready to obey the law and go back if 
 you are treated with justice. The adversary will not agree 
 to conditions really fair, but you will have set yourself right 
 with the world. Should the king be more moderate than I 
 think he will be, do not stand upon securities. Content 
 yourself with a promise under the king's hand and the as- 
 surance of the empress mother. Do not try the censures. 
 You know my opinion about this, and you once agreed with 
 me. The king is not afraid of excommunication. The bish- 
 ops and most of the clergy have stood by him ; some may 
 be with us in heart, but they are not to be depended on." ^ 
 
 1 Becket to the Bishop of Hereford, Hoveden. I am obliged greatly to 
 compress the diffuse rhetoric of the archbi>hop. 
 
 2 John of Salisbm-y to Becket, April, 1166 (abridged). 
 
58 Life and Times of 
 
 Becket, like most persons of his temperament, asked ad- 
 vice without meaning to follow it. He addressed the king 
 in a letter which Herbert describes as being of extreme 
 sweetness. It was to entreat him to let loose the bride of 
 Christ whom he held in captivity, and to warn him that if 
 he persevered in his wicked ways, " Christ would gird his 
 sword upon his thigh," and would descend from heaven to 
 punish him. Inflated language of this kind was not general 
 at that time. It was peculiar to Becket, and we need not 
 be surprised that it produced no effect on Henry. He went 
 to Normandy to the Chinon conference immediately after 
 Easter, 1166, hoping there to meet Becket and speak with 
 him and with the other prelates as with reasonable men. 
 He did not find Becket there, but he found a second letter 
 from him, which from a saint would have tried the temper 
 of a more patient sovereign than Henry, and from a man 
 whom he had known so lately as a defaulting chancellor 
 and unscrupulous politician was insolent and absurd. After 
 reproaching the king for allowing him to live on the charity 
 of Lewis of France, the archbishop proceeded : — 
 
 You are my king, my lord, and my spiritual son. As you are 
 my king, I owe you reverence and admonition ; as you are my 
 lord, I owe you such obedience as consists with the honor of 
 God; as you are my son, I owe you the chastisement which is 
 due from the father to the child. You hold your authority from 
 the Church, which consists of clergy and laymen. The clergy 
 have sole charge of things spiritual : kings, earls, and counts 
 have powers delegated to them from the Church, to preserve 
 peace and the Church's unity. Delegated from the Church, 1 
 say. Therefore it rests not with you to tell bishops whom they 
 may excommunicate, or to force clergy to their answers in secu- 
 lar courts, or to interfere with tithes, or do any of those things 
 to which you pretend in the name of custom. Remember your 
 coronation oath. Restore my property. Allow me to return to 
 Canterbury, and I will obey you as far as the honor of God and 
 the Holy See and our sacred order permits me. Refuse, and be 
 
Tliomas Becket. 69 
 
 assured you will not fail to experience the severe displeasure of 
 Almighty God.^ 
 
 This letter appears to have been placed in Henry's hands 
 immediately before he met the Norman bishops. On en- 
 tering the conference he was ill with agitation. Persons 
 present said that he was in tears. He told the bishops that 
 Becket was aiming at his destruction, soul and body. He 
 said they were no better than traitors for not protecting 
 him more effectually from the violence of a single man.^ 
 The Archbishop of Rouen protested against the word " trai- 
 tors." But it was no time for niceties of expression. War 
 with France was on the point of breaking out, and Becket, 
 it was now plain, meant to give it the character of a sacred 
 war by excommunicating Henry. Easter was past: he 
 was free to act, and clearly enough he meant to act. The 
 Bishop of Lisieux advised an instant appeal to the pope, 
 which would keep Becket's hands tied for the moment. 
 He and another bishop rushed off to Pontigny to serve the 
 notice on him. They arrived too late. Before launching 
 his thunderbolts Becket had gone to Soissons, there to pre- 
 pare for the operation. 
 
 At Soissons were to be found in special presence the 
 Blessed Virgin and St. Gregory, whose assistance the arch- 
 bishop considered would be peculiarly valuable to him ; and 
 not they only, but another saint, Beatus Drausius, the 
 patron of pugilists and duellists, who promised victory to 
 intending combatants on their passing a night at his shrine.^ 
 
 1 Becket to the King, May, 1166 (abridged). 
 
 2 " Tandem dixit quod omnes proditores erant, qui eum adhibitS. opera 
 et diligentia ab unius hominis infestatione nolebant impedire." 
 
 3 " Archiepiscopus noster in procinctu ferendae sententite constitutus iter 
 arripuerat ad urbem Suessionum orationis causa, utBeatoeVirgini, cujusibi 
 meraoria Celebris est, et Beato Drausio, ad quern confugiunt pugnaturi, et 
 Beato Gregorio Anglicanae EcclesiiB fundatori, qui in eudem urbe requiescit, 
 agonem suum precibus commendaret. Est autem Beatus Drausius gloriosis- 
 simus confessor qui, sicut Franci et Lotharingi credunt, pugiles qui ad me- 
 moriam ejus pernoctant reddit invictos." — Jolin of Salisbury to the Bishop 
 of Exeter. Letters, vol. i. p. 227, ed. Giles. 
 
60 Life and Times of 
 
 Becket gave St. Drausius three nights — or perhaps one 
 to each saint — and thus fortified he betook himself to 
 Vezelay, where at Whitsuntide vast numbers of people 
 assembled from all parts of France. There from the pulpit 
 after sermon on Whitsuntide, with the appropriate cere- 
 monies of bells and lighted candles quenched, he took ven- 
 geance at last upon his enemies. He suspended the Bishop 
 of Salisbury. He cursed John of Oxford and the Arch- 
 deacon of Ilchester, two leading churchmen of the king's 
 party. He cursed Chief Justice de Luci, who had directed 
 the sequestration of his see. He cursed Ranulf de Broc 
 and every person employed in administering his estates. 
 Finally he cursed every one who maintained the Constitu- 
 tions of Clarendon, and he released the bishops from their 
 promise to observe them. A remnant of prudence or a re- 
 port of the king's illness led him partially to withhold his 
 hand. He did not actually curse Henry, but he threatened 
 that he shortly would curse him unless he repented, 
 
 In high delight with himself the archbishop issued a 
 pastoral to the bishops of England telling them what he 
 had done, talking in his usual high style of the rights of 
 priests over kings and princes, and ordering them at their 
 souls' peril to see that the sentence was obeyed. He wrote 
 at the same time to the pope inclosing the terms of the 
 excommunication, his condemnation of the Constitutions, 
 and the threats which he had addressed to the king. These 
 threats he declared his intention of carrying into effect un- 
 less the king showed speedy signs of submission, and he 
 required Alexander in a tone of imperious consequence to 
 confirm what he had done. 
 
 On the arrival of the censures in England the bishops 
 met in London and determined on a further appeal to the 
 pope. They addressed a unanimous and remarkable re- 
 monstrance to him, going into the origin of the quarrel, in- 
 sisting on the abominable conduct of many of the clergy, 
 the necessity oi reform, and the moderation which the king 
 
Thomas Becket. 61 
 
 had shown. ^ The Constitutions which he had adopted they 
 declared to have been taken from the established customs 
 of the realm. If they appeared objectionable, his holiness 
 need but point to the articles of which he disapproved, and 
 they should be immediately altered. The archbishop's un- 
 called-for violence had been the sole obstacle to an arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 With this letter and others from the king an embassy 
 was dispatched to Rome, John of Oxford, whom Becket 
 had personally excommunicated, being significantly one of 
 its members. 
 
 Pending the result of the appeal, the English bishops in 
 a body remonstrated with Becket himself. They reminded 
 him of his personal obligations to the king, and of the 
 dangers which he was provoking. The king, they said, 
 had listened coldly hitherto to the advances of Germany. 
 But these good dispositions might not last forever. For 
 the archbishop to scatter curses without allowing the per- 
 sons denounced an opportunity of answering for themselves, 
 was against reason and precedent; and they had placed 
 themselves under the protection of his holiness. 
 
 Becket was not to be frightened by threats of German al- 
 liance. He knew better. He lectured the bishops for their 
 want of understanding. He rebuked them for their coward- 
 ice and want of faith. The Bishop of London had recalled 
 to him unpleasant passages in his own past history. The 
 tone of Foliot as well as his person drove Becket wild. He 
 spoke of the Bishop of London as an Ahitophel and a Doeg. 
 
 Your letter (he replied to him) is like a scorpion with a sting 
 in its tail. You profess obedience to me, and to avoid obe- 
 dience you appeal to the pope. Little will you gain by it. You 
 have no feeling for me, or for the Church, or for the king, whose 
 
 i " Qui cum pacem regni sui enormi insolentium quorundam clericorum 
 excessu iion mediocriter turbari cognosceret, clero debitam exhibens rever- 
 entiam eorundem excessus ad ecclesiaj judices retulit episcopos, ut gladiua 
 gladio subveniat." — Ad Alexandrum Pontijjcem. Hoveden, vol. i. p. 266. 
 
62 Life and Times of 
 
 soul is perishing. You blame me for threatening him. What 
 father will see his son go astray and hesitate to restrain that 
 son ? Who will not use the rod that he may spare the sword ? 
 The ship is in the storm : I am at the helm, and you bid me 
 sleep. To him who speaks thus to me I reply, " Get thee be- 
 hind me, Satan!" The king, you say, desires to do what is 
 right. My clergy are banished, my possessions are taken from 
 me, the sword hangs over my neck. Do you call this right? 
 Tell the king- that the Lord of men and angels has established 
 two powers, princes and priests — the first earthly, the second 
 spiritual; the first to obey, the second to command. He who 
 breaks this order breaks the ordinance of God. Tell him it is 
 no dishonor to him to submit to those to whom God himself 
 defers, callino- them g-ods in the sacred writings. For thus he 
 speaks: " I have said ye are gods; " and again, " I will make 
 thee a God unto Pharaoh;" " Thou shalt take nothing from the 
 gods " (^. e. the priests).^ .... The king may not judge his 
 judges ; the lips of the priest shall keep wisdom. It is written, 
 " Thou shalt require the law at his mouth, for he is the angel of 
 God." 
 
 The Catholic Church would have had but a brief career 
 in this world if the rulers of it had been so wild of mind as 
 this astonishing martyr of Canterbury. The air-bubble, 
 when blown the fullest and shining the brightest, is nearest 
 to collapsing into a drop of dirty water. John of Salisbury, 
 sympathizing with him and admiring him as he generally 
 did, saw clearly that the pope could never sanction so pre- 
 posterous an attitude. " I have little trust in the Church 
 of Rome," he said. " I know the ways of it and the needs 
 of it too well. So greedy, so dishonest are the Romans, 
 that they use too often the license of power, and take dis- 
 pensations to grant what they say is useful to the common- 
 wealth, however fatal it may be to religion." ^ 
 
 1 " Non indignetur itaque dominus noster deferre illis quibus omnium 
 Summus deferre non dedignatur, deos appellans eos saepius in sacris lite- 
 ris. Sic enim dicit, 'Ego dixi, Dii estis,' etc.; et iterum, 'Constitui te 
 deuni Pharaouis,' ' Et diis non detrahes,' i. e. sacerdotibus," etc. — Becket 
 to Foliot. Hoveden, vol. i. p. 261. 
 
 2 "Nee de ecclesia Romana, cujus mores et necessitates nobis innotu- 
 
Thomas Becket, 63 
 
 The first practical effect of the excommunication was the 
 recoil of the blow upon the archbishop's entertainers. In 
 the shelter of a Cistercian abbey in France, an English 
 subject was committing treason and levying war against his 
 sovereign and his country. A chapter of the Cistercian 
 Order was held in September. King Henry sent a message 
 to the general, that, if his abbot continued to protect Becket, 
 the Cistercians in England would be suppressed, and their 
 property confiscated. The startled general did not dare to 
 resist ; a message was sent to Pontigny ; in the fluttered 
 dovecote it was resolved that Becket must go, and it was a 
 cruel moment to him. A fresh asylum was provided for 
 him at Sens. But he had grown accustomed to Pontigny, 
 and had led a pleasant life there. On his first arrival he 
 had attempted asceticisms, but his health had suffered, and 
 his severities had been relaxed. He was out of spirits at 
 his departure. His tears were flowing. The abbot cheered 
 him up, laughed at his dejection, and told him there was 
 nothing in his fate so particularly terrible. Becket said that 
 he had dreamt the night before that he was to be martyred. 
 " Martyrdom ! " laughed the abbot ; " what has a man who 
 eats and drinks like you to do with martyrdom ? The cup 
 of wine which you drink has small affinity with the cup of 
 martyrdom." " I confess," said Becket, " that T indulge in 
 pleasures of the flesh. Yet the good God has deigned to 
 reveal my fate to me." -^ 
 
 Sad at heart, the archbishop removed to Sens ; yet if the 
 pope stood firm, all might yet be well. 
 
 ernnt, multum confido. Tot et tantse sunt necessitates, tanta aviditas et 
 in-.probitas Romanorum, ut interdum utatur licentia. potestatis, procuret- 
 que ex dispensatione quod reipublicai dicitur expedire, etsi non expediat 
 religioni." — To Becket. Letters, 1166. 
 1 " ' Ergo martyrio interibis ? Quid esculento et temulentoet martyri? 
 Nou bene conveniunt, nee in una sede morantur, 
 calix vini quod potas et calix martyrii.' 'Fateor,' inquit, * corporeis vo« 
 luptatibus indulgeo. Bonus tamen Dominus, qui justilicat impium, in- 
 digno dignatus est revelare uiystcrium.' " — Materiids, vol. i. p. 51. 
 
64 Life and Times of 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The archbishop's letters show conclusively that the Con- 
 stitutions were not the real causes of the dispute with the 
 king. The king was willing to leave the Constitutions to 
 be modified by the pope. The archbishojj's contest, lying 
 concealed in his favorite phrases, " saving my order," " sav- 
 ing the honor of God," was for the supremacy of the Church 
 over the Crown ; for the degradation of the civil power into 
 the position of delegate of the pope and bishops. All 
 authority was derived from God. The clergy were the di- 
 rect ministers of God. Therefore all authority was derived 
 from God through them. However well the assumption 
 might appear in theory, it would not work in practice, and 
 John of Salisbury was right in concluding that the pope 
 would never sanction an assumption which, broadly stated 
 and really acted on, would shake the fabric of the Church 
 throughout Europe. Alexander was dreaming of peace 
 when the news reached him of the excommunications at Ve- 
 zelay. The news that Chief Justice de Luci had hanged 
 500 felonious clerks in England would have caused him less 
 annoyance. Henry's envoys brought with them the bishops' 
 appeal, and renewed the demand for cardinal legates to be 
 sent to end the quarrel. This time the pope decided that 
 the legates should go, carrying with them powers to take off 
 Becket's censures. He prohibited Becket himself from 
 pursuing his threats further till the cardinals' arrival. To 
 Henry he sent a private letter — which, however, he per- 
 mitted him to show if circumstances made it necessary — 
 declaring beforehand that any sentences wliich the arch- 
 
 I 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 65 
 
 bishop might issue against himself or his subjects should be 
 void.-"^ 
 
 The humiliation was terrible ; Becket's victims were free, 
 and even rewarded. John of Oxford came back from Rome 
 with the Deanery of Salisbury. Worst of all, the cardinals 
 were coming, and those the most dreaded of the whole 
 body. Cardinal Otho and Cardinal William of Pavia. One 
 of them, said John of Salisbury, was light and uncertain, the 
 other crafty and false, and both made up of avarice. These 
 were the ministers of the Holy See, for whose pretensions 
 Becket was fighting. This was his estimate of them when 
 they were to try his own cause. His letters at this moment 
 were filled with despair. " Ridicule has fallen on me," he 
 said, "and shame on the pope. I am to be obeyed no 
 longer. I am betrayed and given to destruction. My de- 
 position is a settled thing. Of this, at least, let the pope 
 assure himself: never will I accept the Cardinal of Pavia for 
 my judge. When they are rid of me, I hear he is to be 
 my successor at Canterbury." ^ 
 
 Becket, however, was not the man to leave the field while 
 life was in him. There was still hope, for war had broken 
 out at last, and Henry and Lewis were killing and burning 
 in each other's territories. If not the instigator, Becket was 
 the occasion, and Lewis, for his own interests, would still be 
 forced to stand by him. He was intensely superstitious. 
 His cause, he was convinced, was God's cause. Hitherto 
 God had allowed him to fiiil on account of his own deficien- 
 cies, and the deficiencies required to be amended. Like 
 certain persons who cut themselves with knives and lancet?, 
 he determined now to mortify his flesh in earnest. When 
 settled in his new life at Sens, he rose at daybreak, prayed 
 \n his oratory, said mass, and prayed and wept again. Five 
 times each day and night his chaplain flogged him. His 
 food was bread and water, his bed the floor. A hair shirt 
 
 1 The Pope to Henry, December 20, 1166. 
 
 2 Becket's Letters, Giles, vol. ii. p. 60. 
 
 5 
 
66 Life and Times of 
 
 was not enough without hair drawers which reached his 
 knees, and both were worn till they swarmed with vermin.^ 
 The cardinals approached, and the prospect grew hourly 
 blacker. The pope rebuked Lewis for the war. The op- 
 portunity of the cardinals' presence was to be used for res- 
 toration of peace. Poor as Becket was, he could not ap- 
 proach these holy beings on their accessible side. "The 
 Cardinal of Pavia," said John of Salisbury, "thinks only of 
 the king's money, and has no fear of God in him. Cardinal 
 Otho is better : Romanus tamen et cardinalis (but he is a 
 Roman and a cardinal). If we submit our cause to them, 
 we lose it to a certainty. If we refuse we offend the King 
 of France." The Cardinal of Pavia wrote to announce to 
 Becket his arrival in France and the purpose of his mission. 
 Becket replied with a violent letter, of which he sent a copy 
 to John of Salisbury, but dispatched it before his friend 
 could stop him. John of Salisbury thought that the arch- 
 bishop had lost his senses. " Compare the cardinal's letter 
 and your answer to it," he said. " What had the cardinal 
 done that you should tell him he was giving you jDoison ? 
 You have no right to insult a cardinal and the pope's legate 
 on his first communication with you. Were he to send 
 your letter to Rome, you might be charged with contu- 
 macy. He tells you he is come to close the dispute to the 
 honor of God and the Church. What poison is there in 
 this ? He is not to blame because he cautions you not to 
 provoke the king further. Your best friends have often 
 given you the same advice." 
 
 With great difficulty Becket was brought to consent to 
 
 1 Myths gathered about the state of these garments. One day, we are 
 told, he was dining with the Queen of France. She observed that his 
 sleeves were fastened unusually tightly at the wrist, and that something 
 moved inside them. He tried to evade her curiosity, for the moving 
 things were maggots. But she pressed her questions till he was obliged 
 to loosen the strings. Pearls of choicest size and color rolled upon the 
 table. The queen wished to keep one, but it could not be. The pearls 
 were restored to the sleeve, and became maggots as before. — Materials, 
 vol. ii. p. 296. 
 
Thomas Becket. 67 
 
 see the cardinals. They came to him at Sens, but stayed 
 for a short time only, and went on to the king in Nor- 
 mandy. The archbishop gathered no comfort from his 
 speech with them. He took to his bell and candles again, 
 and cursed the Bishop of London. He still intended to 
 curse the king and declare an interdict. He wrote to a 
 friend, Cardinal Hyacinth, at Rome, to say that he would 
 never submit to the arbitration of the cardinal legates, and 
 bidding him urge the pope to confirm the sentences which 
 he was about to pronounce.-^ He implored the pope him- 
 self to recall the cardinals and unsheath the sword of Peter. 
 To his entire confusion, he learned that the king held a 
 letter from the pope declaring that his curses would be so 
 much wasted breath. 
 
 The pope tried to soothe him. Soft words cost Alex- 
 ander nothing ; and, while protecting Henry from spiritual 
 thunders, he assured the archbishop himself that his power 
 should not be taken from him. Nor, indeed, had the vio- 
 lence of Becket's agitation any real occasion. Alexander 
 wished to frighten him into submission, but had no inten- 
 tion of compromising himself by an authoritative decision. 
 Many months passed away, and Becket still refused to 
 plead before the cardinals. At length they let out that 
 their powers extended no further than advice, and Becket, 
 thus satisfied, consented to an official conference. The meet- 
 ing was held near Gisors, on the frontiers of France and 
 Normandy, on the 18th of November, 1167. The arch- 
 bishop came attended by his exiled English friends. With 
 the cardinals were a large body of Norman bishops and 
 abbots. The cardinals, earnest for peace if tliey could bring 
 their refractory patient to consent to it, laid before him the 
 general unfitness of the quarrel. They accused him of in- 
 gratitude, of want of loyalty to his sovereign, and, among 
 other things, of having instigated the war.^ 
 
 1 Giles, vol. ii. p. 86. 
 
 2 "Imponens ei inter ctetera quod excitaverat guerram regis Franco- 
 rum." — Materials, vol. i. p. 66. 
 
 
 
68 Life and Times of 
 
 The last charge the archbishop sharply denied, and Lewia 
 afterwards acquitted him also. For the rest he said that the 
 king had begun by attacking the Chu^^ch. He was willing 
 to consent to any reasonable terms of arrangement, with 
 security for God's honor, proper respect for himself, and 
 the restoration of his estates. They asked if he would recog- 
 nize the Constitutions ; he said that no such engagement had 
 been required of his predecessors, and ought not to be re- 
 quired of him. " The book of abominations," as he called 
 the Constitutions, was produced and read, and he challenged 
 the cardinals to affirm that Christian men should obey such 
 laws. 
 
 Henry was prepared to accept the smallest concession ; 
 nothing need be said about the Constitutions if Becket 
 would go back to Canterbury, resume his duties, and give 
 a general promise to be quiet. The archbishop answered 
 that there was a proverb in England that silence gave con- 
 sent. The question had been raised, and could not now be 
 passed over. The cardinals asked if he would accept their 
 judgment on the whole cause. He said that he would go 
 into court before them or any one whom the pope might 
 appoint, as soon as his property was restored to him. In 
 his present poverty he could not encounter the expense of 
 a lawsuit. 
 
 Curious satire on Becket's whole contention, none the 
 less so that he was himself unconscious of the absurdity ! 
 He withdrew from the conference, believing that he had 
 gained a victory, and he again began to meditate drawing 
 his spiritual sword. Messengers on all sides again flew off 
 to Rome, from the king and English bishops, from the car- 
 dinals, from Becket himself. The king and bishops placed 
 themselves under the j^ope's protection should the arch- 
 bishop begin his curses. The Constitutions were once more 
 placed at the pope's discretion to modify at his pleasure. 
 The cardinals wrote charging Becket with being the sole 
 cause of the continuance of the quarrel, and, in spite of his 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 69 
 
 denials, persisting in accusing him of having caused the war. 
 Becket prayed again for the cardinals' recall, and for the 
 pope's sanction of more vigorous action. 
 
 He had not yet done with the cardinals ; they knew him, 
 and they knew his restless humor. Pending fresh resolu- 
 tions from Rome, they suspended him, and left him inca- 
 pable either of excommunicating or exercising any other 
 function of spiritual authority whatsoever. Once more he 
 was plunged into despair. 
 
 Through those legates, he cried in his anguish to the 
 pope, "We are made a derision to those about us. My 
 lord, have pity on me. You are my refuge. I can scarcely 
 breathe for anguish. My harp is turned to mourning, and 
 my joy to sadness. The last error is worse than the first." 
 The pope seemed deaf to his lamentations. The suspen- 
 sion was not removed. Plans were formed for his transla- 
 tion from Canterbury to some other preferment. He said 
 he would rather be killed. The pope wrote so graciously 
 to Henry that the king said he for the first time felt that 
 he was sovereign in his own realm. John of Salisbury's 
 mournful conviction was that the game was at last played 
 out. " We know those Romans," he sighed : " qui munere ■ 
 potentior est, potentior est jure. The antipope could not 
 have done more for the king than they have done. It will 
 be written in the annals of the Holy See that the herald of 
 truth, the champion of liberty, the preacher of the law of 
 the Lord, has been deprived and treated as a criminal at 
 tlie threats of an English prince." 
 
 It is hard to say what influence again turned the scale. 
 Perhaps Alexander was encouraged by the failures of Bar- 
 barossa in Italy. Perhaps Henry had been too triumphant, 
 and had irritated the pope and cardinals by producing their 
 letters, and speaking too frankly of the influences by which 
 the holy men had been bound to his side.^ In acceptmg 
 Henry's money they had not bargained for exposure. They 
 1 John of Salisbury, Letters, vol. ii. p. 144, ed. Giles 
 
70 Life and Times of 
 
 were ashamed and sore, and Becket grew again into favor. 
 The pope at the end of 1168 gave him back his powers, 
 permitting him to excommunicate even Henry himself un- 
 less he repented before the ensuing Easter. The legates 
 were recalled as Becket desired. Cardinal Otho recom- 
 mended the king to make his peace on the best terms which 
 he could get. Jphn of Salisbury, less confident, but with 
 amused contempt of the chameleonlike Alexander, advised 
 Henry, through the Bishop of Poitiers, to treat with the 
 archbishop immediately, nee mediante Romano episcopo, nee 
 rege Francice nee opera eardinalium, without help either of 
 pope, of French king or cardinals. Since Becket could not 
 be frightened, Alexander was perhaps trying what could be 
 done with Henry ; but he was as eager as any one for an 
 end of some kind to a business which was now adding dis- 
 grace and scandal to its other mischiefs. Peace was ar- 
 ranged at last between Lewis and Henry. The English 
 king gave up a point for which he had long contended, and 
 consented to do homage for Normandy and Anjou. The 
 day after Epiphany, January 7, 1169, the two princes met 
 at Montmirail, between Chartres and Le Mans, attended by 
 their peers and prelates. 
 
 In the general pacification the central disturber was, if 
 possible, to be included. The pope had sent commissioners, 
 as we should call them — Simon, prior of Montdieu, Engel- 
 bert, prior of Val St. Pierre, and Bernard de Corilo — to 
 advise and, if possible, guide Becket into wiser courses. 
 The political ceremonies were accomplished, Lewis and 
 Henry were reconciled amidst general satisfaction and en- 
 thusiasm. Becket was then introduced, led in by the 
 Archbishop of Sens, the son of the aged Theobald, Count of 
 Blois. Henry and he had not met since the Northampton 
 council. He threw himself in apparent humility at the 
 king's feet. " My lord," he said, "•' I ask you to forgive me. 
 I place myself in God's hands and in yours." ^ At a pre- 
 
 1 " Miserere mei, domine, quia pono me in Deo et vobis ad honorem Dei 
 et vestrum." 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 71 
 
 liminary meeting the pope's envoys and the French clergy 
 had urged him to submit without conditions. He had in- 
 sisted on his usual reservation, but they had objected to 
 saving clauses. He seemed now inclined really to yield, so 
 Herbert de Bosham says, and Herbert whispered to him to 
 stand firm. 
 
 " My lord king," said Henry, after Becket had made his 
 general submission, " and you my lords and prelates, what I 
 require of the archbishop is no more than that he will ob- 
 serve the laws which have been observed by his predeces- 
 sors. I ask him now to give me that promise." Becket no 
 longer answered with the reservation of his order : he 
 changed the phrase. He promised obedience, saving the 
 honor of God. 
 
 " You wish," replied Henry, powerfully disappointed and 
 displeased, " to be king in my place. This man," he con- 
 tinued, turning to Lewis, " deserted his Church of his own 
 will, and he tells you and all men that his cause is the cause 
 of the Church. He has governed his Church with as much 
 freedom as those who have gone before him, but now he 
 stands on God's honor to oppose me wherever he pleases, 
 as if I cared for God's honor less than he. I make this 
 proposal. Many kings have ruled in England before me, 
 some less, some greater than I am ; many holy men have 
 been Archbishops of Canterbury before him. Let him be- 
 have to me as the most sainted of his predecessors behaved 
 to the least worthy of mine, and I am content." 
 
 The king's demand seemed just and moderate to all pres- 
 ent.^ The archbishop hesitated. Lewis asked him if he 
 aspired to be greater than acknowledged saints. His pred- 
 ecessors, he said, had extirpated some abuses but not all. 
 There was work which remained to be done. He was 
 stopped by a general outcry that the king had yielded 
 enough ; the saving clause must be dropped. At once, at 
 the tone of command, Becket's spirit rose. Priests and 
 1 " Rem justam et modestam visus est omnibus postulare." 
 
72 Life and Times of 
 
 bishops, he answered defiantly, were not to submit to men of 
 this world save with reservations ; he for one would not do 
 it. 
 
 The meeting broke up in confusion, A French noble 
 said that the archbishop was abusing their hospitality, and 
 did not deserve any longer protection. Henry mounted his 
 horse and rode sadly away. The pope's agents followed 
 him, wringing their hands and begging for some slight ad- 
 ditional concession. The king told them that they must 
 address themselves to the archbishop, Let the archbishop 
 bind himself to obey the laws. If the laws were amiss, 
 they should be modified by the pope's wishes. In no 
 country in the world, he said, had the clergy so much liberty 
 as in England, and in no country were there greater villains 
 among them. For the sake of peace he did not insist on 
 terms precisely defined. The archbishop was required to 
 do nothing beyond what had been done by Anselm. 
 
 Becket, however, was again immovable as stone. Lewis, 
 after a brief coldness, took him back into favor. His power 
 of cursing had been restored to him. The doubt was only 
 whether the pope had recalled the safeguards which he had 
 given to the king. The pope's agents, on the failure of the 
 conference, gave Henry a second letter, in which Alexander 
 told him that, unless peace was made, he could not restrain 
 the archbishop longer. Again representatives of the vari- 
 ous parties hurried off to Rome, Becket insisting that if the 
 pope would only be firm the king would yield, Henry em- 
 barrassing the pope more completely than threats of schism 
 could have done by placing the Constitutions unreservedly 
 in his hands, and binding himself to adopt any change 
 which the pope might suggest. Becket, feverish and impa- 
 tient, would not wait for the pope's decision, and preferred 
 to force his hand by action. He summoned the Bishops of 
 London and Salisbury to appear before him. They ap- 
 pealed to Rome, but their appeal was disregarded. Appeals, 
 as Becket characteristically said, were not allowed in order 
 
Thomas Becket. 73 
 
 to shield the guilty, but to protect the innocent. On Palm 
 Sunday, at Clairvaux, he took once more to his bell and 
 candles. He excommunicated the two bishops and every 
 one who had been concerned with his property — the Earl 
 of Norfolk, Sir Ranulf de Broc, whom he peculiarly hated, 
 Robert de Broc, and various other persons. The chief 
 justice he threatened. The king he still left unmentioned, 
 for fear of provoking the pope too far. 
 
 Harassed on both sides, knowing perfectly well on which 
 side good sense and justice lay, yet not daring to declare 
 Becket wrong, and accept what, after all that had passed, 
 would be construed into a defeat of the Church, the unfort- 
 unate Alexander drifted on as he best could, writing letters 
 in one sense one day and contradicting them the next. On 
 the surface he seemed hopelessly false. The falsehood was 
 no more than weakness, a specious anxiety to please the 
 king without offending the archbishop, and trusting to time 
 and weariness to bring about an end. There is no occasion 
 to follow the details of his duplicities. Two legates were 
 again sent — not cardinals this time, but ecclesiastical law- 
 yers, Gratian and Vivian — bound by oath this time to 
 cause no scandal by accepting bribes. As usual, the choice 
 was impartial ; Gratian for Becket, Vivian for the king. 
 So long as his excommunications were allowed to stand, 
 Becket cared little who mi^ht come. He added the chief 
 justice to the list of the accursed, as he had threatened to do. 
 He wrote to the Bishop of Ostia that, the king's disposition 
 could only be amended by punishment. The serpent head 
 of the iniquity must now be bruised, and he bade the bishop 
 impress the necessity of it upon the pope. Gratian was 
 taken into Becket's confidence. Vivian he treated coldly 
 and contemptuously. According to Herbert and Becket's 
 friends, Gratian reported that the king was shifty and false, 
 and that his object was to betray the Church and the arch- 
 bishop. Henry himself declared that he assented to all that 
 they proposed to him, and Diceto says that the legates were 
 
74 Life and Times of 
 
 on the point of giving judgment in Henry's favor when the 
 Archbishop of Sens interposed and forbade them. In the 
 confusion of statement the actions of either party alone can 
 be usefully attended to, and behind the acts of all, or at 
 least of the pope, there was the usual ambiguity. Alexander 
 threatened the kmg. He again empowered Becket to use 
 whatever power he possessed to bring him to submission, 
 and he promised to confirm his sentences.-^ As certainly he 
 had secret conferences at Rome with Henrj'^'s envoys, and 
 promised, on the other hand, that the archbishop should not 
 be allowed to hurt him. Becket, furious and uncontrollable, 
 called the Bishop of London a parricide, an infidel, a Go- 
 liath, a son of Belial ; he charged the Bishop of Hereford 
 to see that the sentence against Foliot and his brother of 
 Salisbury should be observed in England. Henry, on the 
 other hand, assured Foliot of protection, and sent him to 
 Rome with letters from himself to pursue his appeal and 
 receive absolution from the pope himself. The Count of 
 Flanders interposed, the Count of Mayence interposed, but 
 without effect. At length on the 18 th of November, the 
 anniversary of the conference with the cardinals at Gisors, 
 Henry and Lewis met again at Montmartre outside Paris, 
 Becket and his friends being in attendance in an adjoining 
 chapel. Gratian had returned to Rome. Vivian was pres- 
 ent, and pressed Lewis to bring the archbishop to reason. 
 Lewis really exerted himself, and not entirely unsuccess- 
 fully. Henry was even more moderate than before. The 
 Constitutions, by the confession of Becket's biographer, 
 Herbert, who was with him on the spot, were practically 
 abandoned. Henry's only condition was that the archbishop 
 should not usurp the functions of the civil power; he, on 
 his part, undertaking not to strain the prerogative. Becket 
 dropped his saving clause, and consented to make the prom- 
 ise required of him, if the king would restore his estates, 
 and give him compensation for the arrear rents, which he 
 1 " Quod ea quae statuerit non mutabuntur." 
 
Thomas Bechet. 75 
 
 estimated at 20,000/. Lewis said that money ought not to 
 be an obstacle to peace. It was unworthy of the archbishop 
 to raise so poor a difficulty. But here, too, Henry gave 
 way. An impartial estimate should be made, and Becket 
 was to be rejDaid. 
 
 But now, no more than before, had the archbishop any 
 real intention of submitting. His only fear was of offend- 
 ing Lewis. The Archbishop of Sens had gone to Rome to 
 persuade the pope to give him legatine powers over Hen- 
 ry's French dominions. The censures of the Church might 
 be resisted in England. If Normandy, Anjou, and Aqui- 
 taine were laid under interdict, these two spiritual conspir- 
 ators had concluded that the king would be forced to sur- 
 render. Becket was daily expecting a favorable answer, 
 and meanwhile was protracting the time. He demanded 
 guarantees. He did not suspect the king, he said, but he 
 suspected his courtiers. John of Salisbury had cautioned 
 him, and the pope had cautioned him, against so indecent a 
 requisition. Lewis said it was unreasonable. Becket said 
 then that he must have the kiss of peace as a sign that the 
 king was really reconciled to him. He probably knew that 
 the kiss would and must be withheld from him until he had 
 given proofs that he meant in earnest to carry out his en- 
 gagements. The king said coldly that he did not mean, and 
 had never meant, to injure the Church. He was willing to 
 leave the whole question between himself and the archbishop 
 either to the peers and prelates of France or to the French 
 universities. More he could not do. The conference at 
 Montmartre ended, as Becket meant that it should end, in 
 nothing. 
 
 He sent off dispatches to the Archbishop of Sens and to 
 his Roman agents, entirely well satisfied with himself, and 
 bidding them tell the pope that Normandy had only to be 
 laid under interdict, and that the field was won. Once 
 more he had painfully to discover that he had been building 
 on a quicksand. Instead of the interdict, the pope sent 
 
76 Life and Times of 
 
 orders to the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of 
 Nevers to absolve a second time the victims whom he had 
 excommunicated at Clairvaux. Instead of encouragement 
 to go on and smite the king with the spiritual sword, he 
 received a distinct command to abstain for another interval. 
 Last of all, and worst of all, the pope informed him that at 
 the king's request, for certain important purposes, he had 
 granted a commission, as legate over all England, to his 
 rival and enemy the Archbishop of York. The king's 
 envoys had promised that the commission should not be 
 handed to the Archbishop of York till the pope had been 
 again consulted. But the deed was done. The letter had 
 been signed and delivered.-^ The hair shirt and the five 
 daily floggings had been in vain then ! Heaven was still 
 inexorable. The archbishop raved like a madman. " Satan 
 was set free for the destruction of the Church." " At Rome 
 it was always the same. Barabbas was let go, and Christ 
 was crucified." " Come what might, he would never sub- 
 mit, but he would trouble the Roman Church no more." ^ 
 
 1 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, pp. 249, 250. 
 
 2 Becket to Cardinal Albert. Giles, vol. ii. p. 251. 
 
Thomas Bechet, 77 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 Becket had now been for more than five years in exile. 
 He had fought for victory with a tenacity which would 
 have done him credit had his cause been less preposterous. 
 At length it seemed that hope was finally gone. At the 
 supreme moment another opportunity was thrust into his 
 hands. Henry's health was uncertain ; he had once been 
 dangerously ill. The succession to the English crown had 
 not yet settled into fixed routine. Of the Conqueror's sons 
 William had been preferred to Robert. Stephen sup- 
 planted Matilda ; but the son of Stephen was set aside for 
 Matilda's son. To prevent disputes it had been long de- 
 cided that Prince Henry must be crowned and receive the 
 homao;e of the barons while his father was still livincr. 
 
 The pope in person had been invited to perform the cer- 
 emony. The pope had found it impossible to go, and 
 among the other inconveniences resultino- from Becket's 
 absence the indefinite postponement of tliis coronation had 
 not been the lightest. The king had been reluctant to in- 
 vade the acknowledged privilege of the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, and put it oiF from year to year. But the country 
 was growing imjoatient. The arclibishop's exile might now 
 be indefinitely protracted. The delay was growing danger- 
 ous, and the object of the commission for which the king 
 had asked, and which the pope had granted to tlie Arch- 
 bishop of York, was to enable the Archbishop of York to 
 act in the coronation ceremony. The commission in its 
 terms was all that Henry could desire ; the pope not only 
 permitted the Archbishop of York to officiate, but enjoined 
 him to do it. Promises were said to have been given that 
 
78 Life and Times of 
 
 it was not to be used without the pope's consent; but in 
 such a labyrinth of lies little reliance can be placed on state- 
 ments unconfirmed by writing. The pope did not pretend 
 that he had exacted from the English envoys any written 
 engagement. He had himself signed a paper giving the 
 Archbishop of York the necessary powers, and this paper 
 was in the king's hands.-*- The coronation was the symbol 
 of the struggle in which Becket was now engaged. The 
 sovereign, according to his theory, was the delegate of the 
 Church. In receiving the crown from the hands of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, the sovereign formally admitted 
 his dependent position ; and so long as it could be main- 
 tained that the coronation would not hold unless it was per- 
 formed either by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by the 
 pope himself, the sovereign's subject state was a practical 
 reality. 
 
 Becket saw the favorable moment, and instantly snatched 
 at it. He had many powerful friends in England among 
 the peers and knights. The lay peers, he says in his let- 
 ters, had always been truer to him than the clergy, they 
 on their part ha-nng their own differences with the crown. 
 Pie had ascertained that the coronation could not be post- 
 poned ; and if he could make the validity of it to depend 
 on his own presence, he might redeem his past mortifica- 
 tions, and bring Henry to his feet after all. He knew Al- 
 exander's nature and set his agents to work upon him. He 
 told them to say that if the coronation was accomplished 
 without his own presence the power of the Roman see in 
 England was gone ; and thus, when all seemed lost, he 
 gained the feeble and uncertain pope to his side once more. 
 In keeping with his conduct throughout the whole Becket 
 difficulty, Alexander did not revoke his previous letter. He 
 left it standing as something to appeal to, as an evidence of 
 his goodwill to Henry. But he issued another injunction to 
 
 1 Giles, vol. ii. pp. 257, 258. The commission quoted by Giles is evi- 
 dently the same as that to which the pope referred in his letter to Becket 
 
Thomas Becket. 79 
 
 jhe Archbishop of York, strictly forbidding him to officiate ; 
 and he inclosed the injunction to Becket to be used by him 
 in whatever manner he might think fit. The Archbishop 
 of York never received this letter. It was given, we are 
 told, to the Bishop of Worcester, who was in Normandy, and 
 was on the point of returning to England. The Bishop of 
 Worcester was detained, and it did not reach its destination. 
 So runs the story ; but the parts will not fit one another, 
 and there is a mystery left unexplained.-^ This only is 
 certain, that the inhibition was not served on the Arch- 
 bishop of York. Rumor may have reached England that 
 such a thing had been issued ; but the commission which had 
 been formerly granted remained legally unrevoked, and on 
 the 18th of June Prince Henry was crowned at West- 
 minster in his father's presence by the Archbishop of York 
 and the Bisho^DS of London, Durham, Rochester, and Salis- 
 bury. 
 
 It was easy now for Becket to represent to Alexander 
 that the English bishops had rewarded his kindness to 
 them by defying his positive injunctions. To the super- 
 stitious English barons the existence of the inhibition threw 
 a doubt on the legality of the coronation, and as men's 
 minds then were, and with the wild lawless disposition of 
 such lion cubs as the Plantagenet princes, a tainted title 
 would too surely mean civil war. By ill-fortune offence 
 was given at the same time to Lewis, who considered that 
 his daughter should have been crowned with her husband, 
 and he resented what he chose to regard as a wilful slight. 
 
 1 It would appear from a letter of John of Salisbury that the prohibi- 
 tory letter had been purposely withheld by Becket, who was allowing 
 himself to be guided by some \(S\q xiaticinla or prophecies. John of Salis- 
 bury writes to him (Letters, vol. ii. p. 236): "Memineritis quantum peri- 
 culum et infortunium ad see traxerit mora porrigendi .... prohibito- 
 
 rias Eboracensi archiepiscopo et episcopis transmarinis Subtilitatem 
 
 >estram vaticinia quae non erant a Spiritu dehiscrunt Vaticiuiis 
 
 ergo renunciemus in posterum, quia nos in hue parte gravius infortunia 
 perculerunt." 
 
80 Life and Times of 
 
 The pope was told that the coronation oath had been al- 
 tered, that the liberties of the Church had been omitted, 
 and that the young king had been sworn to maintain the 
 Constitutions of Clarendon. Becket made the most of his 
 opportunity ; mistakes, exaggerations, wilful lies, and cul- 
 pable credulity did their work effectively ; Lewis went to 
 war again, and invaded Normandy ; the pope, believing 
 that he had been tricked and insulted, commanded Henry 
 to make peace with the archbishop under threat of instant 
 personal excommunication of himself and an interdict over 
 his whole dominions. Henry flew back from England to 
 Normandy. In a month he dispelled the illusions of Lewis, 
 and restored peace. It was less easy to calm Alexander, 
 who regarded himself, if not openly defied, yet as betrayed 
 by the breach of the promise that the commission to the 
 Archbishop of York should not be used without a fresh 
 permission from himself. Henry knew that a sentence of 
 excommunication against himself, and an interdict over his 
 French dominions, was seriously possible. The risk was 
 too great to be incurred without another effort to compose 
 the weary quarrel. The archbishop, too, on his side had 
 been taught by often repeated experience that the pope 
 was a broken reed. Many times the battle seemed to have 
 been won, and the pope's weakness or ill-will had snatched 
 the victory from him. He had left England because he 
 thought the continent a more promising field of battle for 
 him. He began to think that final success, if he was ever 
 to obtain it, would only be possible to him in his own see, 
 among his own people, surrounded by his powerful friends. 
 He too, on his side, was ready for a form of agreement 
 which would allow him to return and repossess himself of 
 the large revenues of which he had felt the want so terribly. 
 More than once he and Henry met and separated without a 
 conclusion. At length at Freteval in Vendome, on St. 
 Mary Magdalen's day, July 22, an interview took place in 
 the presence of Lewis and a vast assemblage of prelates 
 
Thomas Becket. 81 
 
 and knights and nobles ; where, on the terms which had 
 been arranged at Montmartre, the king and the archbishop 
 consented to be reconciled. The kiss which before had 
 been the difficulty was not offered by Henry and was not 
 demanded by Becket ; but according to the account given 
 by Herbert, who describes what he himself witnessed, and 
 relates what Becket told him, after the main points were 
 settled, the king and the archbishop rode apart out of hear- 
 ing of every one but themselves. There the archbishop 
 asked the king whether he might censure the bishops who 
 had officiated at the 'coronation. The king, so the arch- 
 bishop informed his friends, gave his full and free consent. 
 The archbishop sprang from his horse in gratitude to the 
 king's feet. The king alighted as hastily, and held the 
 archbishop's stirrup as he remounted. These gestures the 
 spectators saw and wondered at, unable, as Herbert says, 
 to conjecture what was passing till it was afterwards ex- 
 plained to them. 
 
 That the king should have consented as absolutely and 
 unconditionally as Becket said that he did, or even that he 
 should have consented at all in Becket's sense of the word, 
 to the excommunication of persons who had acted by his 
 own orders and under a supposed authority from the pope, 
 is so unlikely in itself, so inconsistent with Henry's conduct 
 afterwards, that we may feel assured that Henry's account 
 of what took place would, if we knew it, have been singu- 
 larly different. But we are met with a further difficulty. 
 Herbert says positively that the conversation between 
 Becket and the king was private between themselves, that 
 no one heard it or knew the subject of it except from 
 Becket's report. Count Theobald of Blois asserted, in a 
 letter to the pope, that in his presence (me prcesente) the 
 archbishop complained of the conduct of the English prel- 
 ates, and that the king empowered him to pass sentence on 
 them. Yet more remarkably, the archbishop afterwards at 
 Canterbury insisted to Reginald Fitzurse that the king's 
 6 
 
82 Life and Times of 
 
 promises to him had been given in the audience of 500 
 peers, knights, and prelates, and that Sir Reginald him- 
 self was among the audience. Fitzurse denied that he heard 
 the king give any sanction to the punishment of the bish- 
 ops. He treated Becket's declaration as absurd and incred- 
 ible on the face of it. The Count of Blois may have 
 confounded what he himself heard with what Becket told 
 him afterwards, or he may have referred to some other 
 occasion. The charge against the king rests substantially 
 on Becket's own uncorrected word ; while, on the other 
 side, are the internal unlikelihood of the permission in it- 
 self and the inconsistency of Becket's subsequent action 
 with a belief that he had the king's sanction for what he 
 intended to do. Had he supposed that the king would ap- 
 prove, he would have acted openly and at once. Instead 
 of consulting the king, he had no sooner left the Freteval 
 conference than he privately obtained from the pope letters 
 of suspension against the Archbishop of York and the 
 Bishop of Durham, and letters of excommunication against 
 the Bishops of London, Salisbury, and Rochester ; and 
 while he permitted Henry to believe that he was going 
 home to govern his diocese in peace,-^ he had instruments 
 in his portfolio which were to explode in lightning the mo- 
 ment that he set foot in England, and convulse the country 
 once more. 
 
 1 " Archiepiscopus pacem mecum fecit ad voluntatem meam." 
 
Thomas Becket. 83 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 By the terms of tlie peace of Freteval, the archbishop 
 fras to be restored to his estates and dignity. He on hia 
 part had given assurances of his intentions with which 
 Henry had professed himself satisfied. Private communi- 
 cations had passed between him and the king, the nature of 
 which is only known to us through the archbishop's repre- 
 sentations to his friends. Tliat the reconciliation, however, 
 was left incomplete, is evident both from Becket's conduct 
 and from Henry's. The king had made the return of his 
 favor conditional on Becket's conduct. Either he did not 
 trust Becket's promises, or the promises were less ample 
 than he desired. 
 
 Immediately after the interview the king became danger- 
 ously ill, and for a month he believed that he was dying. 
 Becket returned to Sens, and sent messengers to England 
 to young Henry announcing his approaching return, and 
 requesting that his estates should be made over at once to 
 his own people. The messengers were instructed privately 
 to communicate with his English friends, and ascertain the 
 state of public feeling. The young king named a day on 
 which the trust should be made over to the archbishop's 
 officials, and advised that the archbishop should remain for a 
 while on the continent, and endeavor to recover his father's 
 confidence. The messengers reported that he had many 
 staunch supporters, the Earl of Cornwall among them ; but 
 they were unanimously of opinion that it would be unwise 
 for the archbishop to reappear at Canterbury so long as the 
 old king's distrust continued. The peace of Freteval, there- 
 fore, was obviously understood to have been inconclusive by 
 
84 Life and Times of 
 
 all parties. The inconclusiveness was made still more ap- 
 parent immediately after. 
 
 At the beginning of September, Henry had partially re- 
 covered. The archbishop sent John of Salisbury and Her- 
 bert of Bosham to him to complain of the delay with the 
 estates. He had been watched, perhaps, more closely than 
 he was aware. The king knew nothing as yet of the in- 
 tended excommunication of the bishops. But he knew 
 Becket's character. He felt it more than probable that 
 mischief was meditated. He said that he must wait to see 
 how the archbishop conducted himself. 
 
 Passionate as usual, the archbishop complained to the 
 pope ; he intimated that only his holiness's orders pre- 
 vented him from revenging his ill-treatment. Prudence, 
 however, told him that if he was to make an effective use 
 of the excommunications which the pope had trusted to him, 
 he must for the present restrain himself. Twice again he 
 saw the king at Tours, and afterwards at Amboise. Henry 
 was reserved, but not unkind. The archbishop had pro- 
 fessed a wish for peace. If his behavior after his return 
 to England proved that he was in earnest in these profes- 
 sions — if he remained quietly in his province, and made no 
 further disturbances — the king said that he was prepared 
 to show him every possible kindness. 
 
 The king needed no more complete justification of his 
 suspicions than an expression which Becket used in relating 
 this conversation to his friend Herbert. " As the king was 
 speaking," he said, " I thought of the words : * All these 
 things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship 
 me.' " It is evident on the face of the narrative that the 
 king never gave the conscious sanction to violent measures 
 against the bishops, which Becket pretended afterwards 
 that he had received. In answer to his complaints at 
 Amboise, Henry may have told him that the rights of the 
 Bee of Canterbury should be assured, and that, if those 
 rights had been impaired, satisfaction should be made to 
 
 J 
 
Thomas Bechet. 85 
 
 him. To this last conference, and to some such words as 
 these, the Count of Blois may have referred in his letter to 
 the pope. But Becket and his friends put a construction 
 upon the promises which none knew better than they that 
 Henry did not intend. It is as certain that Becket's own 
 professions were no less equivocal — that when he spoke of 
 peace he was thinking only of a peace of which he was" to 
 dictate the terms, and that he had already determined to 
 reopen the war on a new stage on the instant of his return 
 to his cathedral. 
 
 But the return was now determined on, be the conse- 
 quences what they might. The English bishops had their 
 friends among the cardinals. In the course of the autumn 
 it became known in England that the archbishop had ap- 
 plied for censures against the bishops, and that the pope 
 had granted them. They advised the king to insist that 
 Becket should bind himself by some more explicit engage- 
 ments before he should be allowed to land, that he should 
 be examined especially as to whether he had any letters of 
 excommunication from Rome, and that if he were in pos- 
 session of such letters he should surrender them. Henry 
 preferred to trust to the archbishop's honor, or to the 
 watchfulness of the wardens of the ports. He was weary 
 of the struggle. Doubtless he had his misgivings, as the 
 bishops had ; but he had made up his mind that the experi- 
 ment should be tried, with, on his part at least, a faithful 
 discharge of his own engagements. 
 
 The archbishop had gone to Rouen in November to set- 
 tle accounts with creditors who had advanced him money. 
 He had meant to see Henry once more, but Henry wrote 
 to say that the delay of his return had led to disquieting 
 rumors which ousht not to continue. He desired the arch- 
 bishop to go back to Canterbury at once ; and, that he 
 might be subjected to no inconvenience on landing, he sent 
 John of Oxford, whose person was well known, to accom- 
 pany and protect him. John of Oxford's instructions were, 
 
86 Life and Times of 
 
 after seeing Becket safe at Canterbury, to go on to the 
 young king and give orders for the immediate restoration 
 of the property of the see. 
 
 The die was cast. The archbishop resolved to go. 
 There was abundant disaifection in England. In the spring 
 of this very year the king had been obliged to suspend the 
 sheriffs in every county, and ultimately to remove many of 
 them, for extortion and oppression.^ The clergy were 
 lukewarm in his interests ; but there were better reasons 
 for relying upon the nobles. The king had thrust a bridle 
 in their mouths, restraining what they called their liberties, 
 and many of them, as was afterwards proved, were ready 
 to make common cause with the Church against the Crown. 
 The archbishojD was perfectly right in exj^ecting to find 
 among the laity a party who would stand by him. He 
 went once more to Sens to take leave of his entertainers. 
 After an affectionate parting with Lewis and the Queen of 
 France, retaining still his old taste for magnificence, he 
 rode down to the coast with an escort of a hundred cavaliers, 
 and there once more, separated from him but by a few hours' 
 sail, lay the white cliffs of England. 
 
 It was thought likely, if it was not known for certain, 
 that Becket would bring with him letters from the pope, 
 and the introduction of such letters, if to the hurt of any 
 English subject, was against the law, without a written 
 license from the king. The duty of the wardens of the 
 ports was to search the persons and the baggage of any one 
 whom there was ground for suspecting, and on reaching the 
 coast Becket learned that the three prelates who were to be 
 excommunicated, the Sheriff of Kent, Sir Ranulf de Broc, 
 and Sir Reginald de Warenne, one of the council of the 
 young king, were waiting for him at Dover to ascertain 
 whether he was the bearer of any such explosive missile. 
 The future martyr was not select in his language. " Arch- 
 devils," "priests of Baal," " standard-bearers of the Balaam- 
 
 1 Benedict. 
 
Thomas BecJcet, 87 
 
 ites," " children of perdition,'* were the common phrases 
 with which he described the unfortunate bishops who were 
 thus trying to escape their sentences. To outwit their vigi- 
 lance, a day or two before he meant to sail, he sent over a 
 boy in a small vessel whose insignificant appearance would 
 attract no attention. The boy or nun (for there is reason 
 to suppose that the bearer was a woman disguised) pre- 
 sented himself suddenly before the Archbishop of York in 
 St. Peter's Oratory at Dover, placed the letter of suspension 
 in his hands, and disappeared before he had time to learn its 
 contents. In the same hour, and by the same instrument, 
 the still more terrible letters of excommunication were 
 served on the Bishops of London and Salisbury. Their 
 precautions had been baffled. The shots had been fired 
 which opened the new campaign, and the mark had been 
 successfully hit. Sir Ranulf de Broc searched the town 
 with a drawn sword for the audacious messenger, but the 
 messenger had vanished. 
 
 It would have gone ill with Becket had he landed in the 
 midst of the storm which the delivery of the letters instantly 
 kindled. The ground of the censures was the coronation of 
 the young king. To excommunicate the bishops who had 
 officiated was to deny the young king's title to the crown. 
 The archbishop had come back then, it seemed, to defy the 
 government and light a civil war. The next morning, when 
 he and his fiiends were examining the vessel in which they 
 were about to embark, an English boat ran into the harbor. 
 Some one leaped on shore, and, coming straight to Herbert, 
 told him that if the archbishop went to Dover he was a dead 
 man ; the excommunications had set the country on fire. 
 A rapid council was held. Several of the priests were 
 frightened. The certain displeasure of the king was ad- 
 mitted with a frankness which showed how little Becket 
 really supposed that Henry would approve what he had 
 »ione. Becket asked Herbert for advice. Herbert, always 
 the worst adviser that he could have consulted, said that 
 
88 Life and Times of 
 
 they must advance or fall into disgrace. Let the archbishop 
 go boldly forward, and he would tread the dragon under 
 his feet. The worst that could befall him was a glorious 
 martyrdom. 
 
 Much of this fine language may have been an after- 
 thought. The archbishop, when a choice of conduct lay 
 before him, was certain to choose the most rash. He de- 
 cided, however, to avoid Dover, and on the morning of the 
 1st of December he sailed up the river to Sandwich, with 
 his cross raised conspicuously above the figure-head of his 
 shijj. Sandwich was his own town. The inhabitants were 
 lieges of the see, and a vast and delighted crowd was gath- 
 ered on the quay to receive him. The change of destination 
 was known at Dover Castle. Sir Reginald de Warenne, 
 the Sheriff of Kent, and Ranulf de Broc, had ridden across, 
 and had arrived at Sandwich before the archbishop landed. 
 John of Oxford hurried to them with the king's orders that 
 the archbishop was to be received in peace. They advanced 
 in consequence without their arms, and inquired the mean- 
 ing of the excommunication of the bishops. To their 
 extreme surprise, they were told that the letters had been 
 issued with the king's knowledge and permission. To so 
 bold an assertion no immediate answer was possible. They 
 pointed to his train, among whom were some French clergy. 
 Strangers coming into England without a passport were 
 required to swear allegiance for the time of their stay. 
 The sheriiF said that the priests must take the usual oaths. 
 Becket scornfully answered that no clerk in his company 
 should take any oath at all. He declined further conversa- 
 tion, and bade them come to him after two days to the pal- 
 ace of Canterbury if they had more to say. 
 
 Becket passed the remainder of the day at Sandwich. 
 The next morning he set out for his cathedral. Seven 
 years he had been absent, and for all those years his name 
 had been a household word in castle and parsonage, grange 
 and cabin. In England people sympathize instinctively 
 
Thomas Bechet. 89 
 
 nrith every one who opposes the Crown, and between Sand- 
 wich and Canterbury Becket was among his own tenants, to 
 whom he had been a gentler master than Ranulf de Broc. 
 The short winter day's ride was one long triumphal proces- 
 sion. Old men, women, and children lined the roads on their 
 knees to beg his blessing. Clergy came at the head of their 
 parishioners with garlands and banners. Boys chanted 
 hymns. Slowly at a foot's pace the archbishoj) made his 
 way among the delighted multitudes. It w^as evening before^ 
 he reached Canterbury. He went direct to the cathedral. 
 His face shone as he entered, " like the face of Moses when 
 he descended from the mount." He seated himself on his 
 throne, and the monks came one by one and kissed him. 
 Tears were in all eyes. " My lord," Herbert whispered to 
 Him, " it matters not now when you depart hence. Christ 
 has conquered. Christ is now king." " He looked at me.'* 
 says Herbert, " but he did not speak." 
 
 Strangely in that distant century, where the general his- 
 tory is but outline, and the colors are dim, and the lights 
 and shadows fall where modern imagination chooses to 
 throw them, and the great men and women who figured on 
 the world's stage are, for the most part, only names, the 
 story of Becket, in these last days of it especially, stands out 
 as in some indelible photograph, every minutest feature of 
 it as distinct as if it were present to our eyes. We have the 
 terrible drama before us in all its details. We see the actors, 
 we hear their very words, we catch the tones of their voices, 
 we perceive their motives; we observe them from day to 
 day, and hour to hour ; we comprehend and sympathize 
 with the passions through the fierce collision of which the 
 action was worked out to its catastrophe. The importance 
 pf the questions which were at issue, the characters of the 
 chief performers, and the intense interest witli which {hey 
 were watched by the spectators, raise the biographies and 
 etters in which the story is preserved to a level of literary 
 excellence far beyond what is to be found in all contempo- 
 rary writings. 
 
90 lAfe and Times of 
 
 The archbishop slept in his desolate palace. No prepara- 
 tions had been made for him. The stores had not been 
 laid in. The barns and byres were empty. Ranulf de Broc 
 had swept up the last harvest, and had left tlie lands bare. 
 In the morning (December o) de Wareune and the sheriff 
 reappeared with the chaplains of the three bishops. They 
 had been led to hope, they said, that the archbishop would 
 come home in peace. Instead of peace he had brought a 
 tword. By scattering excommunications without notice, he 
 was introducing confusion into every department of the 
 realm. The very crown was made dependent on the arch- 
 bishop's will. The law of England was reduced to the arch- 
 bishop's edicts. Such a assumption could not and would not 
 be allowed. The excommunication of the bishops was a 
 direct blow at the authority of the young king. For the 
 archbishop's own sake they advised him, and in the king's 
 name they commanded him, to take the censures off, or a 
 time might come when he would regret his violence too late 
 to repair it. 
 
 Until the issue of the sentences against the three bisliops, 
 Alexander had not committed himself to any positive act in 
 Becket's favor, and it had been to compromise the papacy 
 distinctly in the quarrel that the pope's letters had been 
 thus immediately discharged. Recket answered that the 
 excommunications had been issued by the supreme pontiff, 
 and that he could not undo the work of his superior. He 
 admitted, with exasperating satire, that he was not dis- 
 pleased to see his holiness defend the Church with his own 
 hands. To punish men who had broken the law was not 
 to show contempt of the king. He had himself complained 
 to the king of the bishops' conduct, and the king had prom- 
 ised that he should have satisfaction. For the rest he ac- 
 knowledged no right in the king or any man to challenge 
 his conduct. He bore the spiritual sword, and did not mean 
 to vshrink from drawing it against sinners, whatever might 
 De the inconvenience. If the bishops would take an oath to 
 
Thomas Bechet. 91 
 
 lubmit to any sentence which the pope might pass upon 
 them, he would strain a point and absolve them ; without 
 such an oath, never. 
 
 The answer was carried to Dover. Folio t and the Bishop ot 
 Salisbury were willing, it was said, to have sworn as Becket 
 prescribed. The archbishop declared that he would spend 
 the last farthing that he possessed rather than yield to such 
 insolence. The young king was at Winchester.^ De Wa- 
 renne hastened to him to report Becket's behavior, and 
 probably to ask instructions as to what the bishops should 
 do. They crossed eventually to the old king's court in 
 Normandy, but not till after a delay of more than a fort- 
 night at Dover. Obviously the conduct which they were 
 to pursue was carefully canvassed and deliberately resolved 
 upon. Becket himself, too, found it prudent to offer ex- 
 planations, and send the Prior of Dover after De TYarenne 
 to Winchester to report the archbishop's arrival, and to ask 
 permission for him to present himself From the rapidity 
 with which events now passed, the prior must have ridden 
 night and day. Young Henry being still under age, the 
 archbishop's messenger was received by his guardians, whom 
 he found in towering indignation. The excommunication 
 was regarded as an invitation to rebellion, and had Henry 
 died in August there undoubtedly would have been rebellion. 
 " Does the archbishop mean to make pagans of us, with his 
 suspensions and curses?" they said; "does he intend to 
 upset the throne ? " The prior asked to be allowed to see 
 the young king himself. He assured them that the arch- 
 bishop had meant no injury to him. No one in the realm 
 besides his father loved the prince more dearlj'. The dis- 
 pleasure was only that other hands than those of the primate 
 had placed the crown upon his head. He repeated the 
 Btory that the old king knew what was to be done to the 
 bishops. He trusted that the youjig king would not refuse 
 lo receive a person who only desired to do him loyal service. 
 
 1 Not Woodstock, as is generally said. William of Canterbury, with 
 special reference to localities, says Wintoiiia. 
 
92 Life and Times of 
 
 The court was evidently perplexed by the confident as- 
 sertions with respect to Henry. The Earl of Cornwall 
 advised that Becket should be allowed to come ; they could 
 hear from himself an explanation of the mystery. Geoifrey 
 Ridel, the Archdeacon of Salisbury, happened, however, to 
 be present. Ridel was one of Henry the Second's most 
 confidential advisers, whom Becket had cursed at Vezelay 
 and habitually spoke of as an archdevil. He had been inti- 
 mately acquainted with the whole details of the quarrel from 
 its commencement, and was able to affirm positively that 
 things were not as Becket represented. He recommended 
 the guardians to consult the king before the archbishop was 
 admitted ; and the Prior of Dover was, in consequence, dis- 
 missed without an answer. 
 
 The archbishop had committed himself so deeply that he 
 could not afford to wait. Hi's hope was to carry the coun- 
 try with him before the king could interfere, or at least to 
 have formed a party too strong to be roughly dealt with. 
 The Prior of Dover not having brought back a positive 
 prohibition, he left Canterbury professedly to go himself to 
 Winchester : but he chose to take London in his way ; it 
 was easy to say that he had been long absent ; that his flock 
 required his presence ; that there were children to be con- 
 firmed, candidates for the priesthood to be ordained — holy 
 rites of all kinds, too long neglected, to be attended to. 
 There was no difficulty in finding an excuse for a circuit 
 through the province ; and the archiepiscopal visitation as- 
 sumed the form of a military parade. Few as the days had 
 been since he had set his foot on the English shore, he had 
 contrived to gather about him a knot of laymen of high 
 birth and station. Quidam illustres, certain persons of dis- 
 tinction, attended him with their armed retainers, and, sur- 
 rounded by a steel-clad retinue with glancing morions and 
 bristling lances, the archbishop set out for London a week 
 after his return from the Continent. Rochester lay in his 
 ^ay. Rochester Castle was one of the strongholds which 
 
Thomas BeckeU 93 
 
 he had challenged for his own. The gates of the castle re- 
 mained closed against him, but the townsmen received him 
 as their liege lord. As he approached Southwark the cit- 
 izens poured out to greet the illustrious Churchman who 
 had dared to defy his sovereign. A vast procession of three 
 thoxisand clergy and scholars formed on the road, and went 
 before him chanting a Te Deum ; and this passionate dis- 
 play had a deliberate and dangerous meaning which every 
 one who took part in it understood. To the anxious eyes 
 of the court it was a first step in treason, and in the midst 
 of the shouts of the crowd a voice was distinguished, saying, 
 " Archbishop, 'ware the knife ! " 
 
 It was on December 13 that Becket reached London 
 Bridge. He slept that night close by, at the palace of 
 the old Bishop of Winchester. His movements had been 
 watched. The next morning Sir Jocelyn of Arundel and 
 another knight waited on him with an order from the court 
 at Winchester to return instantly to Canterbury, and to 
 move no more about the realm with armed men. The arch- 
 bishop had not ventured so far to be frightened at the first 
 hard word. He received Sir Jocelyn as a king might re- 
 ceive a rebel feudatory. With lofty fierceness he said he 
 would go back at no man's bidding if Christmas had not 
 been so near, when he desired to be in his cathedral.^ " May 
 I not visit my diocese ? " he demanded. " Will the king 
 drive off the shepherd that the wolf may tear the flock ? 
 Let God see to it ! " Arundel said that he had come to 
 deliver the king's commands, not to dispute about them. 
 " Carry back, then, my commands to your king," said the 
 archbishop.^ " Your commands ! " Arundel retorted ; " ad- 
 dress your commands to those of your own order." Turn- 
 ing sternly to the young lords in the archbishop's suite, 
 
 1 " Spiritu fervens respondit se nuUatenus propter inhibitionem banc 
 regressunini, nisi quia tunc jam festus tarn solemnis urgebat dies quo ec- 
 tlesiae suae abesse noluit." 
 
 * "Si et mandata mea regi vestro renunciaturi estis." —William of 
 Canterbury. 
 
94 Life and Times of ' 
 
 Qe bade them remember their duties, and rode off with his 
 companion. 
 
 To obey was to lose the game. Instead of obeying, 
 the archbishop went on to Harrow, a benefice of his own 
 into which an incumbent had been intruded by the Crown. 
 From Harrow he sent for the old Abbot of St. Albans, and 
 dispatched him to Winchester with a list of complaints. 
 At the same time, and to learn the strength of the party at 
 court which he supposed to be ready to stand by him, he 
 sent a monk — apparently William of Canterbury, who tells 
 the story — on a secret and dangerous mission to the Earl 
 of Cornwall. The monk went disguised as a physician, 
 Becket bidding him write word how things were going. 
 The words in which he gave the order show his intention 
 beyond possibility of question. The pretended physician 
 was to go velut alter Cushy, and Cushy was the messenger 
 who brought word to David that the Lord had avenged 
 him of his enemies, and that the young king Absalom was 
 dead.^ 
 
 The Earl of Cornwall was well-disposed to Becket, but 
 was true to his king and his country. When the rebellion 
 actually broke out, three years after, the Earl of Cornwall's 
 loyalty saved Henry's crown. He was willing to befriend 
 the archbishop within the limits of law, but not to the 
 extent upon which Becket counted. He received the dis- 
 guised monk into his household ; he examined him closely 
 as to the archbishop's intentions. He would perhaps have 
 allowed him to remain, but a servant of the young king 
 recognized the man through his assumed character as one 
 of Becket's immediate followers, two days after his arrival. 
 The earl bade him begone on the instant, and tell his mas- 
 ter to look to himself; his life was in peril. 
 
 The Abbot of St. Albans had travelled more slowl;^ 
 The discovery was a bad preparation for his reception. 
 Sir Jocelyn of Arundel had brought back Becket's insolent 
 1 2 Samuel xviii. 31. 
 
Thomas Becket. 95 
 
 answer, and the open disobedience of the order to return to 
 Canterbury could be construed only as defiance. To the 
 alarmed guardians it seemed as if an insurrection might 
 break out at any moment. The abbot found the court at 
 Breamore, near Fordingbridge, in Hampshire. He was 
 admitted, and he presented his schedule of wrongs, which, 
 after all, was trifling. The archbishop's clergy were forbid- 
 den to leave the realm. He had been promised restitution 
 of his property, but it had been given back to him in ruins. 
 His game had been destroyed; his woods had been cut 
 down ; his benefices were detained from him. As a last 
 outrage, since his return Sir Eanulf de Broc had seized a 
 cargo of wine which he had brought over with the old 
 king's permission. The vessel in which it had arrived had 
 been scuttled, and the crew had been incarcerated. God 
 was injured when his clergy were injured, the abbot said, 
 and in Becket's name he demanded redress. 
 
 The abbot had spoken firmly, but in language and man- 
 ner he had at least recognized that he was a subject address- 
 ing his sovereign. A priest in his train, with Becket's own 
 temper in him, thundered out as the abbot had ended: 
 " Thus saith the Lord Primate, ' Let man so think of us as 
 ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 
 If justice be not done as right demands, ye need not doubt 
 that we will do our part and use the powers which God has 
 committed to us.' " The fierce message was delivered 
 amidst scowling groups of knights and nobles. Hot youths 
 clenched their fists and clutched their dagger-hilts. A 
 courtier told the bold priest that, but for the honor of the 
 king's presence, he should suffer for his insolence. Sir 
 Reginald de Warenne, who was present, said, " The bows 
 are bent on both sides." The Earl of Cornwall, fresh from 
 his conference with Becket's secret messenger, muttered, 
 " Ere Lent there will be wild work in England." 
 
 The archbishop was still at Harrow when the abbot came 
 oack with an account of his reception. Many things the 
 
96 Life and Times of 
 
 abbot must have been able to tell him which have been left 
 unrecorded. Thus much, at any rate, must have been made 
 plain — that the archbishop could not count on any imme- 
 diate armed intervention. For the moment, at least, he 
 would be left to face alone the storm which he had raised. 
 The best that he could now hope to effect would be to bury 
 himself and his enemies in common ruin. He foretold his 
 fate to the abbot, and, resisting entreaties to spend Christ- 
 mas at St. Albans, went back to Canterbury, where he had 
 still work before him which could be accomplished only in 
 his own cathedral. 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 97 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The story now turns to Henry's court in Normandy. 
 Between Soutliampton and the Norman coast communica- 
 tions were easy and rapid ; and the account of the arrival 
 of the censured bishops, with the indignant words which 
 burst from the king at the unwelcome news which he heard 
 from them for the first time, is an imperfect legend in 
 which the transactions of many days must have been epit- 
 omized. 
 
 The bishops did not leave England till the 20th or 21st 
 of December,^ and before their appearance the king must 
 have heard already not only of the excommunications and 
 of the daring misuse of his own name, but of the armed 
 progress to Loudon, of the remarkable demonstration there, 
 of the archbishop's defiance of the government, of the mis- 
 sion of the Abbot of St. Albans, of the threats of the priest, 
 and of the imminent danger of a general rebellion. Dur- 
 ing the first three weeks of this December many an anxious 
 council must have been held in the Norman court, and many 
 a scheme talked over and rejected for dealing with this im- 
 practicable firebrand. What could be done with him ? No 
 remedy was now available but a violent one. The law 
 could not restrain a man who claimed to be superior to law 
 and whose claims the nation was not prepared directly to 
 deny. Three centuries later the solution would have been 
 a formal trial, with the block and axe as the sequel of a 
 judicial sentence. Ecclesiastical pretensions were still for- 
 midable under Tudors, but the State had acquired strength 
 
 1 Herbert says that they arrived at Bayeux paucis diebus ante natalem 
 Domini. 
 
 7 
 
98 Life and Times of 
 
 to control them. In our own day the phantom has been 
 exorcised altogether, and an archbishop who used Becket's 
 language would be consigned to an asylum. In Becket's 
 own time neither of these methods was possible. Becket 
 himself could neither be borne with, consistently with the 
 existence of the civil government, nor resisted save at the 
 risk of censures which even the king scarcely dared to en- 
 counter. A bishop might have committed the seven deadly 
 sins, but his word was still a spell which could close the 
 gates of heaven. The allegiance of the people could not be 
 depended upon for a day if Becket chose to declare the 
 king excommunicated, unless the pope should interfere ; 
 and the pope was an inadequate resource in a struggle for 
 the supremacy of the Church over the State. It was not 
 until secular governments could look popes and bishops in 
 the face, and bid them curse till they were tired, that the 
 relations of Church and State admitted of legal definition. 
 Till that time should arrive the ecclesiastical theory was 
 only made tolerable by submitting to the checks of tacit 
 compromise and practical good sense. 
 
 Necessities for compromises of this kind exist at all 
 times. In the most finished constitutions powers are as- 
 signed to the different branches of the State which it would 
 be inconvenient or impossible to remove, yet which would 
 cause an immediate catastroj)he if the theory were made 
 the measure of practice. The Crown retains a prerogative 
 at present which would be fatal to it if strained. Par- 
 liament would make itself intolerable if it asserted the 
 entire privileges which it legally possesses. The clergy in 
 the twelfth century were allowed and believed to be minis- 
 ters of God in a sense in which neither Crown nor baron 
 dared appropriate the name to themselves. None the less 
 the clergy could not be allowed to reduce Crown and barons 
 into entire submission to themselves. If either churchman 
 or king broke the tacit bargain of mutual moderation which 
 enabled them to work together harmoniously, the relations 
 
Thomas Bechet. 99 
 
 between the two orders mio;ht not admit of more satisfac- 
 tory theoretic adjustment ; but there remained the resource 
 to put out of the way the disturber of the peace. 
 
 Fuel ready to kindle was lying dry throughout Henry's 
 dominions. If Becket was to be allowed to scatter excom- 
 munications at his own pleasure, to travel through the 
 country attended by knights in arms, and surrounded by 
 adoring fools who regarded him as a supernatural being, it 
 was easy to foresee the immediate future of England and 
 of half France. To persons, too, who knew the archbishop 
 as well as Henry's court knew him, the character of the 
 man himself who was causing so much anxiety must have 
 been peculiarly irritating. Had Becket been an Anselm, 
 he might have been credited with a desire to promote the 
 interests of the Church, not for power's sake, but for the 
 sake of those spiritual and moral influences which the 
 Catholic Church was still able to exert, at least in some 
 happy instances. But no such high ambition was to be 
 traced either in Becket's agitation or in Becket's own dis- 
 position. He was still the self-willed, violent, unscrupulous 
 chancellor, with the dress of the saint upon him, but not 
 the nature. His cause was not the mission of the Church 
 to purify and elevate mankind, but the privilege of the 
 Church to control the civil government, and to dictate the 
 law in virtue of magical powers which we now know to 
 have been a dream and a delusion. His personal religion 
 was not the religion of a regenerated heart, but a religion 
 of self-torturing asceticism, a religion of the scourge and the 
 hair shirt, a religion in which the evidences of grace were 
 to be traced not in humbleness and truth, but in the worms 
 and maggots which crawled about his body. He was the 
 impersonation, not of what was highest and best in the 
 Catholic Church, but of what was falsest and worst. The 
 fear which he inspired was not the reverence willingly 
 offered to a superior nature, but a superstitious terror like 
 that felt for witches and enchanters, which brave men at 
 Uie call of a higher duty could dare to defy. 
 
100 Life and Times of 
 
 No one knows what passed at Bayeux during the first 
 weeks of that December. King and council, knights and 
 nobles, squires and valets must have talked of little else 
 but Becket and his doings. The pages at Winchester laid 
 their hands on their dagger-hilts when the priest delivered 
 his haughty message. The peers and gentlemen who sur- 
 rounded Henry at Bayeux are not likely to have felt more 
 gently as each day brought news from England of some 
 fresh audacity. At length a few days before Christmas, the 
 three bishops arrived. Two were under the curse, and 
 could not be admitted into the king's presence. The Arch- 
 bishop of York, being only suspended, carried less contami- 
 nation with him. At a council the archbishop was intro- 
 duced, and produced Alexander's letters. From these it 
 appeared not only that he and the other bishops were de- 
 nounced by name, but that every person who had taken any 
 part in the young king's coronation was by implication ex- 
 communicated also. It is to be remembered that the king 
 had received a positive sanction for the coronation from 
 Alexander ; that neither he nor the bishops had received 
 the prohibition till the ceremony was over ; and that the pro- 
 hibitory letter, which it is at least possible that the king 
 would have respected, had been kept back by Becket himself. 
 The Archbishop of York still advised forbearance, and 
 an appeal once more to Rome. The pope would see at 
 last what Becket really was, and would relieve the country 
 of him. But an appeal to Rome would take time, and 
 England meanwhile might be in flames. " By God's eyes," 
 said the king, " if all are excommunicated who were con- 
 cerned in the coronation, I am excommunicated also." 
 Some one (the name of the speaker is not mentioned) said 
 that there would be no peace while Becket lived. With 
 the fierce impatience of a man bafiied by a problem which 
 he has done his best to solve, and has failed through no 
 fault of his own, Henry is reported to have exclaimed: "Is 
 his varlet that I loaded with kindness, that came first to 
 
Thomas Becket. 101 
 
 court to me on a lame mule, to insult me and my children, 
 and take my crown from me ? What cowards have I about 
 me, that no one will deliver me from this lowborn priest ! " 
 It is very likely that Henry used such words. The greatest 
 prince that ever sat on throne, if tried as Henry had been, 
 would have said the same ; and Henry had used almost the 
 same language to the bishops at Chinon in 1166. But it is 
 evident that much is still untold. These passionate denun- 
 ciations can be no more than the outcome of lono^ and in- 
 eifectual deliberation. Projects must have been talked 
 over and rejected ; orders were certainly conceived which 
 were to be sent to the archbishop, and measures were de- 
 vised for dealing with him short of his death. He was to 
 be required to absolve the censured bishops. If he refused, 
 he might be sent in custody to the young king, he might be 
 brought to Normandy, he might be exiled from the English 
 dominions, or he might be imprisoned in some English 
 castle. Indications can be traced of all these plans; and 
 something of the kind would probably have been resolved 
 upon, although it must have been painfully clear also that, 
 without the pope's help, none of them would really meet 
 the difficulty. But the result was that the knights about 
 the court, seeing the king's perplexity, determined to take 
 the risk on themselves, and deliver both him and their 
 country. If the king acted, the king might be excommuni- 
 cated, and the empire might be laid under interdict, with 
 the consequences which every one foresaw. For their own 
 acts the penalty would but fall upon themselves. They did 
 not know, perhaps, distinctly what they meant to do, but 
 something might have to be done which the king must con- 
 demn if they proposed it to him. 
 
 But being done unknown, 
 He would have found it afterwards well done. 
 
 Impetuous loyalty to the sovereign was in the spirit of 
 the age. 
 
102 Life and Times of 
 
 Among the gentlemen about his person whom Henry 
 had intended to employ, could he have resolved upon the 
 instructions which were to be given to them, were four 
 knights of high birth and large estate — Sir Reginald Fitz- 
 urse, of Somersetshire, a tenant in chief of the Crown, whom 
 Becket himself had originally introduced into the court ; Sir 
 Hugh de Morville, custodian of Knaresborough Castle, and 
 justiciary of Northumberland ; Sir William de Tracy, half 
 a Saxon, with royal blood in him ; and Sir Richard le 
 Breton, who had been moved to volunteer in the service by 
 another instance of Becket's dangerous meddling. Le Bre- 
 ton was a friend of the king's brother William, whom the 
 archbishop had separated from the lady to whom he was 
 about to be married, on some plea of consanguinity. Sir 
 William de Mandeville and others were to have been joined 
 in the commission. But these four chose to anticipate both 
 their companions and their final orders, and started alone.-^ 
 Their disappearance was observed. An express was sent 
 to recall them, and the king supposed that they had re- 
 turned. But they had gone by separate routes to separate 
 ports. The weather was fair for the season of the year, 
 with an east wind perhaps ; and each had found a vessel 
 without difficulty to carry him across the Channel. The 
 rendezvous was Sir Ranulf de Broc's castle of Saltwood, 
 near Hythe, thirteen miles from Canterbury. 
 
 The archbishop meanwhile had returned from his adven- 
 turous expedition. The young king and his advisers had 
 determined to leave him no fair cause of complaint, and had 
 sent orders for the restoration of his wine and the release 
 of the captured seamen ; but the archbishop would not wait 
 
 1 Mandeville came afterwards to Canterbury, and being asked what he 
 had been prepared to do if he had found the archbishop alive, he said 
 'Hhat he would have taken the archbishop sharply to task for his attacks 
 upon his sovereign : if the archbishop had been reasonable, there would 
 have been peace; if he had persisted in his obstinacy and presumption, 
 beyond doubt he would have been compelled to yield." Mandeville, indis- 
 putably, had direct instructions from the king. — Materials, vol. i. p. 126. 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 103 
 
 for the State to do him justice. On Christmas Eve he was 
 further exasperated by the appearance at the gate of his 
 palace of one of his sumpter mules, which had been brutally 
 mutilated by Sir Ranulf de Broc's kinsman Robert. " The 
 viper's brood," as Herbert de Bosham said, " were lifting up 
 their heads. The hornets were out. Bulls of Bashan com- 
 passed the archbishop round about." The Earl of Corn- 
 wall's warning had reached him, but " fight, not flight," was 
 alone in his thoughts. He, too, was probably weary of the 
 strife, and may have felt that he would serve his cause 
 more effectually by death than by life. On Christmas day 
 he preached in the cathedral on the text " Peace to men of 
 good will." There was no peace, he said, except to men 
 of good will. He spoke passionately of the trials of the 
 Church. As he drew towards an end he alluded to the pos- 
 sibility of his own martyrdom. He could scarcely articu- 
 late for tears. The congregation were sobbing round him. 
 Suddenly his face altered, his tone changed. Glowing with 
 anger, with the fatal candles in front of him, and in a voice 
 of thunder, the solemn and the absurd strangely blended in 
 the overwhelming sense of his own wrongs, he cursed the 
 intruders into his churches; he cursed Sir Ranulf de Broc; 
 he cursed Robert de Broc for cutting off his mule's tail ; 
 he cursed by name several of the old king's most intimate 
 councillors who were at the court in Normandy. At each 
 fierce imprecation he quenched a light, and dashed down 
 a candle. "As he spoke," says the enthusiastic Herbert, 
 "you saw the very beast of the prophet's vision, with the 
 face of a lion and the face of a man." He had drawn the 
 spiritual sword, as he had sworn that he would. So expe- 
 rienced a man of the world could not have failed to foresee 
 that he was provoking passions which would no longer 
 respect his office, and that no rising in England would 
 now be in time to save him. He was in better spirits, it 
 was observed, after he had discharged his anathema. The 
 Christmas festival was held in the hall. Asceticism was a 
 
104 Life and Times of 
 
 virtue which was never easy to him. He indulged his natu- 
 ral inclinations at all permitted times, and on this occasion 
 he ate and drank more copiously than usual. 
 
 The next day Becket received another warning that he 
 was in personal danger. He needed no friends to tell him 
 that. The only attention which he paid to these messages 
 was to send his secretary Herbert and his crossbearer Alex- 
 ander Llewellyn to France, to report his situation to Lewis 
 and to the Archbishop of Sens.^ He told Herbert at part- 
 ing that he would see his face no more. 
 
 So passed at Canterbury Saturday, Sunday, and Mon- 
 day, the 26th, 27th, and 28th of December. On that same 
 Monday afternoon the four knights arrived at Saltwood. 
 They were expected, for Sir Ranulf with a party of men- 
 at-arms had gone to meet them. There on their arrival 
 they learned the fresh excommunications which had been 
 pronounced against their host and against their friends at 
 the court. The news could only have confirmed whatever 
 resolutions they had formed. 
 
 On the morning of the 29th they rode with an escort of 
 horse along the old Roman road to Canterbury. They 
 halted at St. Augustine's Monastery, where they were en- 
 tertained by the abbot elect, Becket's old enemy, the scan- 
 dalous Clarembald. They perhaps dined there. At any 
 rate they issued a proclamation bidding the inhabitants re- 
 main quiet in their houses, in the king's name, and then, 
 with some of Clarembald's armed servants in addition to 
 their own party, they went on to the great gate of the 
 archbishop's palace. Leaving their men outside, the four 
 knights alighted and entered the court. They unbuckled 
 their swords, leaving them at the lodge, and, throwing 
 gowns over their armor, they strode across to the door of the 
 hall. Their appearance could hardly have been unexpected. 
 
 1 One of his complaints, presented by the Abbot of St. Albans, had been 
 that his clergy were not allowed to leave the realm. There seems to have 
 been no practical difficulty. 
 
Thomas Bechet. 105 
 
 ft was now between three and four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 They had been some time in the town, and their arrival 
 could not fail to have been reported. The archbishop's 
 midday meal was over. The servants were dining on the 
 remains, and the usual company of mendicants were waiting 
 for their turn. The archbishop had been again disturbed at 
 daybreak by intimation of danger. He had advised any of 
 his clergy who were afraid to escape to Sandwich ; but none 
 of them had left him. He had heard mass as usual. He 
 had received his customary floggings. At dinner he had 
 drunk freely, observing, when some one remarked upon it, 
 that he that had blood to lose needed wine to support him. 
 Afterwards he had retired into an inner room with John of 
 Salisbury, his chaplain Fitzstephen, Edward Grim of Cam- 
 bridge, who was on a visit to him, and several others, and 
 was now sitting in conversation with them in the declining 
 light of the winter afternoon till the bell should ring for 
 vespers. 
 
 The knights were recognized, when they entered the hall, 
 as belonging to the king's court. The steward invited them 
 to eat. They declined, and desired him to inform the arch- 
 bishop that they had arrived with a message from the Court. 
 This was the first communication which the archbishop had 
 received from Henry since he had used his name so freely 
 to cover acts which, could Henry have anticipated them, 
 would have barred his return to Canterbury forever. The 
 insincere professions of peace had covered an intention of 
 provoking a rebellion. The truth was now plain. There 
 was no room any more for excuse or palliation. What 
 course had the king determined on ? 
 
 The knights were introduced. They advanced. The 
 archbishop neither spoke nor looked at them, but continued 
 talking to a monk who was next him. He himself was 
 sitting on a bed. The rest of the party present were on the 
 floor. The knights seated themselves in the same manner, 
 and for a few moments there was silence. Then Becket's 
 
106 Life and Times of 
 
 black, restless eye glanced from one to the other. He 
 slightly noticed Tracy ; and Fitzurse said a few unrecorded 
 sentences to him, which ended with " God help you ! " To 
 Becket's friends the words sounded like insolence. They 
 may have meant no more than pity for the deliberate fool 
 who was forcing destruction upon himself. 
 
 Becket's face flushed. Fitzurse went on : " We bring 
 you the commands of the king beyond the sea ; will you 
 hear us in public or in private?" Becket said he cared not. 
 " In private, then," said Fitzurse. The monks thought 
 afterwards that Fitzurse had meant to kill the archbishop 
 where he sat. If the knights had entered the palace, 
 thronged as it was with men, with any such intention, they 
 would scarcely have left their swords behind them. The 
 room was cleared, and a short altercation followed, of which 
 nothing is known save that it ended speedily in high words 
 on both sides. Becket called in his clergy again, his lay 
 servants being excluded,-^ and bade Fitzurse go on. " Be it 
 so," Sir Reginald said. " Listen then to what the king says. 
 When the peace was made, he put aside all his complaints 
 against you. He allowed you to return, as you desired, 
 free to your see. You have now added contempt to your 
 other offences. You have broken the treaty. You have 
 allowed your pride to tempt you to defy your lord and mas- 
 ter to your own sorrow. You have censured the bishops 
 by whose administration the prince was crowned. You 
 have pronounced an anathema against the king's ministers, 
 by whose advice he is guided in the management of the 
 Empire. You have made it plain that if you could you 
 would take the prince's crown from him. Your plots and 
 contrivances to attain your ends are notorious to all men. 
 Say, then, will you attend us to the king's presence, and 
 there answer for yourself? For this we are sent." 
 
 The archbishop declared that he had never wished any 
 \aurt to the prince. The king had no occasion to be dis- 
 1 " Laicis omnibus exclusis. " 
 
Thomas Becket. 107 
 
 pleased if crowds came about him in the towns and cities 
 after having been so long deprived of his presence. If he 
 had done any wrong he would make satisfaction, but he 
 protested against being suspected of intentions which had 
 never entered his mind. 
 
 Fitzurse did not enter into an altercation with him, but 
 continued : " The king commands further that you and your 
 clerks repair without delay to the young king's presence, 
 and swear allegiance, and promise to amend your faults." 
 
 The archbisliop's temper was fast rising. " I will do 
 whatever may be reasonable," he said, " but I tell you 
 plainly the king shall have no oaths from me, nor from 
 any one of my clergy. There has been too much perjury 
 already. I have absolved many, with God's help, who had 
 perjured themselves. ■'■ I will absolve the rest when He 
 permits. 
 
 " I understand you to say that you will not obey," said 
 Fitzurse ; and went on in the same tone : " The king com- 
 mands you to absolve the bishops whom you have excom- 
 municated without his permission {absque licentid sua)." 
 
 " The pope sentenced the bishops," the archbishop said. 
 " If you are not pleased, you must go to him. The affair is 
 none of mine." 
 
 Fitzurse said it had been done at his instigation, which 
 he did not deny ; but he proceeded to reassert that the king 
 had given him permission. He had complained at the time 
 of the peace of the injury which he had suffered in the 
 coronation, and the king had told him that he might obtain 
 from the pope any satisfaction for which he liked to ask. 
 
 If this was all the consent which the king had given, the 
 pretence of his authority was inexcusable. Fitzurse could 
 scarce hear the archbishop out with patience. " Ay, ay ! " 
 said he ; " will you make the king out to be a traitor, then ? 
 The king gave you leave to excommunicate the bishops 
 
 1 He was alluding to the bishops who had sworn to the Constitutions of 
 Clarendon. 
 
108 Life and Times of 
 
 when they were acting by his own order ! It is more than 
 we can bear to listen to such monstrous accusations." 
 
 John of Salisbury tried to check the archbishop's impru- 
 dent tongue, and whispered to him to sj^eak to the knights 
 in private: but when the passion was on him, no mule was 
 more ungovernable than Becket. Drawing to a conclusion, 
 Fitzurse said to him : " Since you refuse to do any one of 
 those things which the king requires of you, his final com- 
 mands are that you and your clergy shall forthwith depart 
 out of this realm and out of his dominions, never more to 
 return.-'- You have broken the peace and the king cannot 
 trust you again." 
 
 Becket answered wildly that he would not go — never 
 again would he leave England. Nothing but death should 
 now part him from his church. Stung by the reproach of 
 ill-faith, he poured out the catalogue of his own injuries. 
 He had been promised restoration, and instead of restora- 
 tion he had been robbed and insulted. Ranulf de Broc had 
 laid an embargo on his wine. Robert de Broc had cut off 
 his mule's tail, and now the knights had come to menace 
 him. 
 
 De Morville said that if he had suffered any wrong he 
 had only to appeal to the council, and justice would be 
 done. 
 
 Becket did not wish for the council's justice. " I have 
 complained enough," he said ; " so many wrongs are daily 
 heaped upon me that I could not find messengers to carry 
 the tale of them. I am refused access to the court. Nei- 
 ther one king nor the other will do me right. I will endure 
 it no more. I will use my own powers as archbishop, and 
 no child of man shall prevent me." 
 
 1 " Hoc est prseceptum regis, ut de regno et terra quae ipsius subjacet 
 imperio cum tuis omnibus egrediaris ; neque enim pax erit tibi vel tuorura 
 cuiquam ab hac die, quia pacem violasti." These remarkable -words are 
 given by Grim, who heard them spoken. After the deliberate fraud of 
 which Becket had been guilty towards the pope in suppressing the 
 nhibitor}'^ letter addressed to the Archbishop of York, Alexander might 
 oerhaps have beei' induced at last to approve of such a measure. 
 
Thomas Bechet. 109 
 
 ** You will lay the realm under interdict, then, and ex- 
 communicate the whole of us ? " said Fitzurse. 
 
 " So God help me," said one of the others, " he shall not 
 do that. He has excommunicated over-many already. We 
 have borne too long with him." 
 
 The knights sprang to their feet, twisting their gloves 
 and swinging their arms. The archbishop rose. In the 
 general noise words could no longer be accurately heard. 
 At length the knights moved to leave the room, and, ad- 
 dressing the archbishop's attendants, said, " In the king's 
 name we command you to see that this man does not 
 escape." 
 
 '' Do you think I shall fly, then ? " cried the archbishop. 
 " Neither for the king nor for any living man will I fly. 
 You cannot be more ready to kill me than I am to die. . . . 
 Here you will find me," he shouted, following them to the 
 door as they went out, and calling after them. Some of 
 his friends thought that he had asked De Morville to come 
 back and speak quietly with him, but it was not so. He 
 returned to his seat still excited and complaining. 
 
 " My lord," said John of Salisbury to him, " it is strange 
 that you will never be advised. What occasion was there 
 for you to go after these men and exasperate them with 
 your bitter speeches ? You would have done better surely 
 by being quiet and giving them a milder answer. They 
 mean no good, and you only commit yourself." 
 
 The archbishop sighed, and said, " I have done with ad- 
 vice. I know what I have before me." 
 
 It was four o'clock when the knights entered. It was 
 now nearly five ; and unless there were lights the room 
 must have been almost dark. Beyond the archbishop's 
 chamber was an ante-room, beyond the ante-room the hall. 
 The knights, passing through the hall into the quadrangle, 
 and thence to the lodge, called their men to arms. The 
 great gate was closed. A mounted guard was stationed 
 outside with orders to allow no one to go out or in. The 
 
110 Life and Times of 
 
 knights threw off their cloaks and buckled on their swords. 
 This was the work of a few minutes. From the cathedral 
 tower the vesper bell was beginning to sound. The arch- 
 bishop had seated himself to recover from the agitation of 
 the preceding scene, when a breathless monk rushed in to 
 say that the knights were arming. " Who cares ? Let 
 them arm," was all that the archbishop said. His clergy 
 were less indifferent. If the archbishop was ready for 
 death they were not. The door from the hall into the 
 court was closed and barred, and a short respite was thus 
 secured. The intention of the knights, it may be pre- 
 sumed, was to seize the archbishop and carry him off to 
 Saltwood, or to De Morville's castle at Knaresborough, or 
 perhaps to Normandy. Coming back to execute their pur- 
 pose, they found themselves stopped by the hall door. To 
 burst it open would require time ; the ante-room between 
 the hall and the archbishop's apartments opened by an oriel 
 window and an outside stair into a garden. Robert de 
 Broc, who knew the house well, led the way to it in the 
 dark. The steps were broken, but a ladder was standing 
 against the window, by which the knights mounted, and 
 the crash of the falling casement told the fluttered group 
 about the archbishop that their enemies were upon them. 
 There was still a moment. The party who entered by the 
 window, instead of turning into the archbishop's room, first 
 went into the hall to open the door and admit their com- 
 rades. From the archbishop's room a second passage, little 
 used, opened into the northwest corner of the cloister, and 
 from the cloister there was a way into the north transept of 
 the cathedral. The cry was, " To the church. To the 
 church." There at least there would be immediate safety. 
 
 The archbishop had told the knights that they would 
 find him where they left him. He did not choose to show 
 fear, or he was afraid, as some thought, of losing his martyr- 
 dom. He would not move. The bell had ceased. They 
 reminded him that vespers had begun, and that lie ought to 
 
Thomas Becket. Ill 
 
 be in the cathedral. Half yielding, half resisting, his friends 
 swept him down the passage into the cloister. His cross 
 had been foro^otten in the haste. He refused tc stir till it 
 was fetched and carried before him as usual. Then only, 
 himself incapable of fear, and rebuking the terror of the 
 rest, he advanced deliberately to the door into the south 
 transept.-^ His train was scattered behind him, all along 
 the cloister from the passage leading out of the palace. As 
 he entered the church cries were heard from which it be- 
 came plain that the knights had broken into the arch- 
 bishop's room, had found the passage, and were following 
 him. Almost immediately Fitzurse, Tracy, De Morville, 
 and Le Breton were discerned, in the dim light, coming 
 through the cloister in their armor, with drawn swords, and 
 axes in their left hands. A company of men-at-arms was 
 behind them. In front they were driving before them a 
 frightened flock of monks. 
 
 From the middle of the transept in which the archbishop 
 was standing a single pillar rose into the roof. On the 
 eastern side of it opened a chapel of St. Benedict, in which 
 were the tombs of several of the old primates. On the 
 west, running, of course, parallel to the nave, was a lady 
 chapel. Behind the pillar steps led up into the choir, 
 where voices were already singing vespers. A faint light 
 may have been reflected into the transept from the choir 
 tapers, and candles may perhaps have been burning before 
 the altars in the two chapels — of light from without through 
 the windows at that hour there could have been none. See- 
 ing the knights coming on, the clergy who had entered with 
 the archbishop closed the door and barred it. " What do 
 
 1 Those who desire a more particular account of the scene about to be 
 described should refer to Dean Stanley's essay on the murder of Becket, 
 which is printed in his Antiquities of Canterbury. Along with an exact 
 knowledge of the localities and a minute acquaintance with the contempo- 
 rary narratives, Dr. Stanley combines the far more rare power of histor- 
 ical imagination, which enables him to replace out of his materials an ex- 
 »ct picture of what took place. 
 
112 Life and Times of 
 
 you fear ? " he cried in a clear, loud voice. " Out of the 
 way, you cowards ! The Church of God must not be made 
 a fortress." He stepped back and reopened the door with 
 his own hands, to let in the trembling wretches who had 
 been shut out among the wolves. They rushed past him, and 
 scattered in the hiding-places of the vast sanctuary, in the 
 crypt, in the galleries, or behind the tombs. All, or almost 
 all, even of his closest friends, William of Canterbury, Ben- 
 edict, John of Salisbury himself forsook him to shift for 
 themselves, admitting frankly that they were unworthy of 
 martyrdom. The archbishop was left alone with his chap- 
 lain Fitzstephen, Robert of Merton his old master, and Ed- 
 ward Grim, the stranger from Cambridge — or perhaps with 
 Grim only, who says that he was the only one who stayed, 
 and was the only one certainly who showed any sign of cour- 
 age. A cry had been raised in the choir that armed men 
 were breaking into the cathedral. The vespers ceased ; the 
 few monks assembled left their seats and rushed to the edge 
 of the transept, looking wildly into the darkness. 
 
 The archbishop was on the fourth step beyond the central 
 pillar ascending into the choir when the knights came in. 
 The outline of his figure may have been just visible to 
 them, if light fell upon it from candles in the lady chapel. 
 Fitzurse passed to the right of the pillar, De Morville, 
 Tracy, and Le Breton to the left. Robert de Broc and 
 Hugh Mauclerc, another apostate priest, remained at the 
 door by which they entered. A voice cried, '•' Where is the 
 traitor ? Where is Thomas Becket ? " There was silence ; 
 such a name could not be acknowledged. " Where is the 
 archbishop?" Fitzurse shouted. "I am here," the arch- 
 bishop replied, descending the steps, and meeting the knights 
 full in the face. " What do you want with me ? I am 
 not afraid of your swords. I will not do what is unjust." 
 The knights closed round bim. "Absolve the persons 
 whom you have excommunicated," they said, " and take off 
 the suspensions." " They have made no satisfaction," he 
 
 I 
 
Thomas Becket. 113 
 
 answered ; " I will not." " Then you shall die as you have 
 deserved," they said. 
 
 They had not meant to kill him — certainly not at that 
 time and in that place. One of them touched him on the 
 shoulder with the flat of his sword, and hissed in his ears, 
 " Fly, or you are a dead man." There was still time ; with 
 a few steps he would have been lost in the gloom of the 
 cathedral, and could have concealed him in any one of a 
 hundred hiding-places. But he was careless of life, and he 
 felt that his time was come. " I am ready to die," he said. 
 " May the Church through my blood obtain peace and 
 liberty ! I charge you in the name of God that you hurt 
 no one here but me. The people from the town were now 
 pouring into the cathedral ; De Morville was keeping them 
 back with difficulty at the head of the steps from the choir, 
 and there was danger of a rescue. Fitzurse seized him, 
 meaning to drag him off as a prisoner. He had been calm 
 so far ; his pride rose at the indignity of an arrest. " Touch 
 me not, thou abominable wretch ! " he said, wrenching his 
 cloak out of Fitzurse's grasp. " Off, thou pander, thou ! " ^ 
 Le Breton and Fitzurse grasped him again, and tried to 
 force him upon Tracy's back. He grappled with Tracy and 
 flung him to the ground, and then stood with his back 
 against the pillar, Edward Grim supporting him. Fitzurse, 
 stung by the foul epithet which Becket had thrown at him, 
 swept his sword over him and dashed off his cap. Tracy, 
 rising from the pavement, struck direct at his head. Grim 
 raised his arm and caught the blow. The arm fell broken, 
 and the one friend found faithful sank back disabled against 
 the wall. The sword, with its remaining force, wounded 
 the archbishop above the forehead, and the blood trickled 
 down his face. Standing firmly, with his hands clasped, he 
 bent his neck for the death-stroke, saying in a low voice, 
 " I am prepared to die for Christ and for His Church." 
 
 1 "Lenonem appellans." In extreme moments Becket was never able 
 to maintain his dignity. 
 8 
 
114 Life and Times of 
 
 These were his last words. Tracy again struck him. He 
 fell forward upon his knees and hands. In that position 
 Le Breton dealt him a blow which severed the scalp from 
 the head and broke the sword against the stone, saying, 
 " Take that for my Lord William." De Broc or Mauclerc 
 — the needless ferocity was attributed to both of them — 
 strode forward from the cloister door, set his foot on the 
 neck of the dead lion, and spread the brains upon the pave- 
 ment with his sword's point. " We may go," he said; " the 
 traitor is dead, and will trouble us no more." 
 
 Such was the murder of Becket, the echoes of which are 
 still heard across seven centuries of time, and which, be the 
 final judgment upon it what it may, has its place among the 
 most enduring incidents of English history. Was Becket 
 a martyr, or was he justly executed as a traitor to his sover- 
 eign ? Even in that supreme moment of terror and won- 
 der, opinions were divided among his own monks. That 
 very night Grim heard one of them say, " He is no martyr, 
 he is justly served." Another said, scarcely feeling, per- 
 haps, the meaning of the words, " He wished to be king 
 and more than king. Let him be king, let him be king." 
 Whether the cause for which he died was to prevail, or 
 whether the sacrifice had been in vain, hung on the answer 
 which would be given to this momentous question. In a 
 few days or weeks an answer came in a form to which in 
 that age no rejoinder was possible, and the only uncertainty 
 which remained at Canterbury was whether it was lawful 
 to use the ordinary prayers for the repose of the dead man's 
 soul, or whether, in consequence of the astounding miracles 
 which were instantly worked by his remainsj the pope's 
 judgment ought not to be anticipated, and the archbishop 
 ought not to be at once adored as a saint in heaven. 
 
Thomas Becket. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Martyr for the Church of Christ, or turbulent incen- 
 diary justly punished for his madness or presumption ? 
 That was the alternative which lay before the judgment of 
 the Christian world. On the response which would be 
 given depended interests which stretched far beyond the 
 limits of Becket's own island home. How vast were the 
 issues, how possible was an unfavorable conclusion, may be 
 seen in the passionate language in which Benedict of Can- 
 terbury describes the general feeling, and relates the influ- 
 ences by which alone the popular verdict was decided in 
 the archbishop's favor. 
 
 Our crowned head was taken from us, the glory of angels and 
 of Angles. We were orphans who had lost their father. The 
 mother Church was desolate, and her children were not lament- 
 ing. She sought for some to comfort her, yet found she none. 
 She was weeping, and her children were glad. Our own noble 
 monastery was speechless, and cruel mockers said it was well 
 done. The brethren mingled their bread with tears, but they 
 kept silence. Had not light risen upon us from on high, we 
 had been lost forever. Praised be He who looked upon us in 
 the day of our affliction! All generations shall now call us 
 blessed. When the martyr was slain our young men saw 
 visions, our old men dreamed dreams; and then came the mira- 
 cles, and we knew that God had exalted the horn of his anointed 
 one. 
 
 The sheep were scattered: the hirelings had fled. There had 
 not been found a man who would stand beside the lord of Can- 
 terbury against the workers of iniquity. The second part of 
 Christendom bad gone astray after the idol Baal, the apostate, 
 the antipope. Who can say what the end might not have 
 been? In the blood of the martyr of Canterbury the Most 
 
116 Life and Times of 
 
 High provided an expiation for tlie sins of tlie world. The 
 darkness passed away before the splendor of the miracles. The 
 seed of the word sprang up. Unnumbered sinners are con- 
 verted daily, and beat their breasts and turn back into the fold. 
 Our anointed Gideon had his lamp in a pitcher : the clay of 
 the earthly body was broken, and light shone out. The schis- 
 matic Octavian was at once condemned^and Pope Alexander 
 was established in Peter's chair. If Alexander had not been 
 our true father, the martyr who adhered to him would have 
 been defiled by the pitch which he had touched. His miracles 
 prove that he had not been defiled. No man could do such 
 wonders unless God was with him. 
 
 And as he died for the Universal Church, so especially he 
 died for the Church of Canterbury. Let his successor not aban- 
 don the rights which our holy martyr defended. Let him not 
 despise the law of the Church, or depart from obedience to Pope 
 Alexander. Let his holiness be glad that in these last times, 
 and in the ends of the earth, he has found such a son. Let the 
 children of Canterbury rejoice that the consolation of such 
 miracles has been vouchsafed to them. Let the whole earth 
 exult, and they that dwell therein. On those who walked in 
 darkness the light has shined. The fearful shepherds have 
 learned boldness; the sick are healed; the repenting sinner is 
 forgiven. Through the merits of our blessed martyr the blind 
 see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the 
 dead are raised up, the poor have the Gospel preached to them. 
 In him all the miracles of the Gospel are repeated, and find their 
 full completion. Four times the lamps about his tomb have 
 been kindled by invisible hands. An innocent man who was 
 mutilated by the executioner called on the martyr for help and 
 is restored : new eyes and new members have been granted to 
 him. Never anywhere, so soon after death and in so brief a 
 time, has saint been made illustrious by so many and so mighty 
 tokens of God's favor. ^ 
 
 Miracles come w^hen they are needed. They come not 
 
 of fraud, biio they come of an impassioned credulity which 
 
 creates what it is determined to find. Given an enthusiastic 
 
 <3esire that God should miraculously manifest Himself, the 
 
 1 Materials^ vol. ii. p. 21 (abridged). 
 
Thomas Bechet. 117 
 
 religious imagination is never long at a loss for facts to 
 prove that He has done so ; and in proportion to the mag- 
 nitude of the interests at stake is the scale of the miraculous 
 interposition. In the eyes of Europe, the cause in which 
 Becket fell was the cause of sacerdotalism as against the 
 prosaic virtues of justice and common sense. Every super- 
 stitious mind in Christendom was at work immediately, gen- 
 erating supernatural evidence which should be universal 
 and overwhelming. When once the impression was started 
 that Becket's relics were working miracles, it spread like 
 an epidemic. Either the laws of nature were suspended, or 
 for the four years which followed his death the power and 
 the wish were gone to distinguish truth from falsehood. 
 The most ordinary events were transfigured. That version 
 of any story was held to be the truest which gave most 
 honor to the martyr. That was the falsest which seemed 
 to detract from his glory. As Becket in his life had repre- 
 sented the ambition and arrogance of the Catholic Church, 
 and not its genuine excellence, so it was his fate in death to 
 represent beyond all others the false side of Catholic teach- 
 ing, and to gather round himself the most amazing agglom- 
 erate of lies. 
 
 The stream which was so soon to roll in so mighty a 
 volume rose first in the humble breast of Benedict the 
 monk. After the murder the body was lifted by the 
 trembling brotherhood from the spot where it had fallen, 
 and was laid for the night in front of the high altar. The 
 monks then sought their pallets with one thought in the 
 minds of all of them. Was the archbishop a saint, or was 
 he a vain dreamer ? God only could decide. Asleep or 
 awake — he was unable to say which — Benedict conceived 
 that he saw the archbishop going towards the altar in his 
 robes, as if to say mass. He approached him trembling. 
 " My lord," he supposed himself to have said, " are you 
 not dead ? " The archbishop answered, " I was dead, but I 
 have risen again." " If you are risen, and, as we believe, a 
 
118 Life and Times of 
 
 martyr," Benedict said, " will you not manifest yourself to 
 the world?" The archbishop showed Benedict a lantern 
 with a candle dimly burning in it. " I bear a light," he 
 said, " but a cloud at present conceals it." He then seemed 
 to ascend the altar steps. The monks in the choir began 
 the introit. The archbishop took the word from them, and 
 in a rich, full voice poured out, " Arise, why sleepest thou, 
 O Lord ? Arise, and cast us not forth forever." 
 
 Benedict was dreaming; but the dream was converted 
 into instant reality. The word went round the dormitory 
 that the archbishop had risen from the dead and had ap- 
 peared to Benedict. The monks, scarcely knowing whether 
 they too were awake or entranced, flitted into the cathedral 
 to gaze on the mysterious form before the altar. In the 
 dim winter dawn they imagined they saw the dead man's 
 arm raised as if to bless them. The candles had burnt out. 
 Some one placed new candles in the sockets and lighted 
 them. Those who did not know whose hand had done it 
 concluded that it was an angel's. Contradiction was un- 
 heard or unbelieved ; at such a moment incredulity was 
 impious. Rumors flew abroad that miracles had already 
 begun, and when the cathedral doors were opened the 
 townspeople flocked in to adore. They rushed to the scene 
 of the murder. They dipped their handkerchiefs in the 
 sacred stream which lay moist upon the stones. A woman 
 whose sight had been weak from some long disease touched 
 her eyes with the blood, and cried aloud that she could 
 again see cleai'ly. Along with the tale of the crime there 
 spread into the country, gathering volume as it rolled, the 
 story of the wonders which had begun ; and every pious 
 heart which had beat for the archbishop when he was alive 
 was set bounding with delighted enthusiasm. A lady in 
 Sussex heard of the miracle with the woman. Her sight, 
 too, was failing. Divinitus inspirata, under a divine in- 
 spiration, which anticipated the judgment of the Church, 
 she prayed to the blessed martyr St. Thomas, and was in- 
 
Thomas Bechet. 119 
 
 stantly restored. Two days later a man at Canterbury who 
 was actually blind recovered his sight. The brothers at the 
 cathedral whose faith had been weak were supernaturally 
 strengthened. The last doubter among them was converted 
 by a vision. 
 
 In the outside world there were those who said that the 
 miracles were delusion or enchantment ; but with the scoffs 
 came tales of the retribution which instantly overtook the 
 scoffers. A priest at Nantes was heard to say that if strange 
 things had happened at Canterbury the cause could not be 
 the merits of the archbishop, for God would not work mira- 
 cles for a traitor. As " the man of Belial " uttered his 
 blasphemies his eyes dropped from their sockets, and he 
 fell to the ground foaming at the mouth. His compan- 
 ions carried him into a church, replaced the eyeballs, and 
 sprinkled them with holy water, and prayed to St. Thomas 
 for pardon. St. Thomas was slowly appeased, and the 
 priest recovered, to be a sadder and a wiser man. 
 
 Sir Thomas of Ecton had known Becket in early youth, 
 and refused to believe that a profligate scoundrel could be a 
 saint. -^ Sir Thomas was seized with a quinsy which almost 
 killed him, and only saved his life by instant repentance. 
 
 In vain the De Brocs and their friends attempted to stem 
 the torrent by threatening to drag the body through the 
 streets, to cut it in pieces, and fling it into a cesspool. The 
 mob of Kent would have risen in arms, and burnt their 
 castle over their heads, had they dared to touch so precious 
 a possession. The archbishop was laid in a marble sarcoph- 
 agus before the altar of St. John the Baptist in the crypt. 
 The brain which De Broc's rude sword had spread out was 
 gathered up by reverent hands, the blood stains were scraped 
 off the stones, and the precious relics were placed on the 
 stone lid where they could be seen by the fiiithful. When 
 the body was stripped for burial, on the back were seen the 
 
 1 "Martyrem libidinosi et nebulonis elogio notans." — Williara of Can- 
 terbury. Materials, vol. i. 
 
120 Life and Times of 
 
 marks of the stripes which he had received on the morning 
 of his death. The hair shirt and drawers were found 
 swarming [scaturientes) with vermin. These transcendent 
 evidences of sanctity were laid beside the other treasures, 
 and a wall was built round the tomb to protect it from 
 profanation, with openings through which the sick and 
 maimed, who now came in daily crowds for the martyr's 
 help, could gaze and be healed. 
 
 Now came the more awful question. The new saint was 
 jealous of his honor: was it safe to withold his title from 
 him till the pope had spoken ? He had shown himself 
 alive — was it permitted to pray for him as if he were dead ? 
 Throughout England the souls of the brethren were exer- 
 cised by this dangerous uncertainty. In some places the 
 question was settled in the saint's favor by an opportune 
 dream. At Canterbury itself more caution was necessary, 
 and John of Salisbury wrote to the Bishop of Poitiers for 
 advice : 
 
 The blind see (he said), the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the 
 lame walk, the devils are cast out. To pray for the soul of one 
 whom God had distinguished by miracles so illustrious is injuri- 
 ous to him, and bears a show of unbelief. We should have 
 sent to consult the pope, but the passages are stopped, and no 
 one can leave the harbors without a passport For ourselves, 
 we have concluded that we ought to recognize the will of God 
 without waiting for the holy father's sanction. ^ 
 
 The pope's ultimate resolution it was impossible to doubt. 
 The party of the antipope in England had been put an end 
 to by the miracles. Many people had begun to waver in 
 their allegiance, and now all uncertainty was gone. It was 
 universally admitted that these wonders displayed in favor 
 of a person who had been on Alexander's side conclusively 
 
 1 John of Salisbury to the Bishop of Poitiers. Letters, vol. ii. pp. 257, 
 258 (abridged). How John of Salisbury was able to write both to the 
 Bishop of Poitiers and to the Archbishop of Sens, if he was unable to write 
 to Rome because the passages were stopped, does not appear. 
 
Thomas Bechet. 121 
 
 decided the question.^ Alexander would do well, however, 
 John of Salisbury thought, to pronounce the canonization 
 with as little delay as possible 
 
 The epidemic was still in its infancy. The miracles al- 
 ready mentioned had been worked in comparative privacy 
 in the first few weeks which succeeded the martyrdom. Be- 
 fore the summer the archbishop's admirers were contending 
 with each other in every part of Europe which could report 
 the most amazing miracles that had been worked by his 
 intervention or by the use of his name. Pilgrims began to 
 stream to Canterbury with their tales of marvel and their 
 rich thanksgiving offerings. A committee of monks was 
 appointed to examine each story in detail. Their duty was 
 to assure themselves that the alleged miracle was reality 
 and not imagination. Yet thousands were allowed to pass 
 as adequately and clearly proved. Every day under their 
 own eyes the laws of nature were set aside. The aperture 
 in the wall round the tomb contracted or enlarged according 
 to the merit of the visitants. A small and delicate woman 
 could not pass so much as her head through it to look at 
 the relics. She was found to be living in sin. A monster 
 of a man possessed by a devil, but honestly desirous of sal- 
 vation, plunged through, body and all. The spectators 
 (Benedict among them, who tells the story) supposed it 
 would be necessary to pull the wall down to get him free. 
 He passed out with the same ease with which he had 
 entered. But when the monks told him to repeat the ex- 
 periment, stone and mortar had resumed their properties. 
 
 The blood gathered on the handkerchiefs from the pave- 
 ment had shown powers so extraordinary that there was a 
 universal demand for it. The difficulty from the limitation 
 of quantity was got over in various ways. At first it ex- 
 
 1 *' Dubitatur a plurimis an pars domini papse in quS, stamus de justiti^ 
 niteretur, sed earn a crimine gloriosus martyr absolvit, qui si fautor erat 
 pchismatis nequaquam tantis miraculis coruscaret." — To the Archbishop 
 of Sens. Letters, vol. ii. p. 263. 
 
122 Life and Times of 
 
 hibited a capacity for self-multiplication. A single drop 
 might be poured into a bottle, and the bottle would be 
 found full. Afterwards a miraculous fountain broke out in 
 the crypt, with the water from which the blood was mixed. 
 The smallest globule of blood, fined down by successive 
 recombinations to a fraction of unimaginable minuteness, 
 imparted to the water the virtues of the perfect original. 
 St. Thomas's water became the favorite remedy for all dis- 
 eases throughout the Christian world, the sole condition of 
 a cure being that doctor's medicines should be abjured. The 
 behavior of the liquid, as described by Benedict, who re- 
 lates what he professes to have continually seen, was eccen- 
 tric and at first incomprehensible. A monk at the fountain 
 distributed it to the pilgrims, who brought wooden boxes 
 in which to carry it away. When poured into these boxes 
 it would sometimes effervesce or boil. More often the box 
 would split in the pilgrim's hand. Some sin unconfessed was 
 supposed to be the cause, and the box itself, after such a 
 misfortune, was left as an offering at the tomb. The split- 
 ting action after a time grew less violent, and was confined 
 to a light crack. One day a woman brought a box which 
 became thus slightly injured. The monk to whom she gave 
 it thought it was too good to be wasted, and was meditating 
 in his own mind that he would keep it for himself. At the 
 moment that the wicked thought formed itself the box flew 
 to pieces in his hands with a loud crash. He dropped it, 
 shrieking that it was possessed. Benedict and others ran 
 in, hearing him cry, to find him in an agony of terror. The 
 amusement with which Benedict admits that they listened 
 to his story suggests a suspicion that in this instance at least 
 the incident was not wholly supernatural.-^ Finding boxes 
 liable to these misfortunes, the pilgrims next tried stone 
 bottles, but with no better success — the stone cracked like 
 the wood. A youth at Canterbury suggested tin ; the burst- 
 
 1 " Hoc miraculum tam joco et risui multis extitit quam admirationi." 
 — Materials, vol. ii. 
 
Thomas Beclcet, 123 
 
 « 
 
 ing miracle ceased, and the meaning of it was then per- 
 ceived. The pilgrims were intended to carry St. Thomas's 
 water round the world, hung about their necks in bottles 
 which could be at once secure and sufficiently diminutive for 
 transport. A vessel that could be relied on being thus 
 obtained, the trade became enormous. Though the holy 
 thing might not be sold, the recipient of the gift expressed 
 his gratitude by corresponding presents; and no diamond 
 mine ever brought more wealth to its owners than St. 
 Thomas's water brought to the monks of Canterbury. 
 
 As time went on the miracles grew more and more pro- 
 digious. At first weak eyes were made strong; then sight 
 was restored which was wholly gone. At first sick men 
 were made whole ; then dead men were brought back to 
 life. At first there was the unconscious exaggeration of 
 real phenomena ; then there was incautious embellishment. 
 Finally, in some instances of course with the best inten- 
 tions, there was perhaps deliberate lying. . To which of 
 these classes the story should be assigned which has now 
 to be told the reader must decide for himself. No miracle 
 in sacred history is apparently better attested. The more 
 complete the evidence, the more the choice is narrowed to 
 the alternative between a real supernatural occurrence and 
 an intentional fraud. 
 
 In the year which followed Becket's death there lived 
 near Bedford a small farmer named Aylward. This Ayl- 
 ward, unable to recover otherwise a debt from one of his 
 neighbors, broke into his debtor's house, and took posses- 
 sion of certain small articles of furniture to hold as security. 
 The debtor pursued him, wounded him in a scuffle, and car- 
 ried him before the head constable of the district, who 
 happened to be Aylward's personal enemy. A charge of 
 burglary was brought against him, with the constable's sup- 
 port. Aylward was taken before the sheriff. Sir Richard 
 Fitzosbert, and committed to Bedford Gaol to await his 
 trial. The gaol chaplain in the interval took charge of his 
 
124 Life and Times of 
 
 soul, gave him a whip with which to flog himself five times a 
 day, and advised him to consign his cause to the Virgin, 
 and especially to the martyr Thomas. At the end of a 
 month he was brought before the justices at Leighton Buz- 
 zard. The constable appeared to prosecute ; and his own 
 story not being received as true, he applied for wager of 
 battle with his accuser, or else for the ordeal of hot iron. 
 Through underhand influence the judges refused either of 
 these comparatively favorable alternatives, and sentenced 
 the prisoner to the ordeal of water, which meant death by 
 drowning or else dismemberment. The law of the Con- 
 queror was still in force. The penalty of felony was not 
 the axe or the gallows, but mutilation ; and the water ordeal 
 being over, which was merely a form, Aylward, in the pres- 
 ence of a large number of clergy and laity, was delivered 
 to the knife. He bled so much that he was supposed to be 
 dying, and he received the last sacrament. A compassionate 
 neighbor, however, took him into his house, and attended 
 to his wounds, which began slowly to heal. On the tenth 
 night St. Thomas came to his bedside, made a cross on his 
 forehead, and told him that if he presented himself the next 
 day with a candle at the altar of the Virgin in Bedford 
 Church, and did not doubt in his heart, but believed that 
 God was able and willing to cure him, his eyes would be 
 restored. In the morning he related his vision. It was 
 reported to the dean, who himself accompanied him to the 
 altar, the townspeople coming in crowds to witness the prom- 
 ised miracle. The blinded victim of injustice and false 
 evidence believed as he was directed, and prayed as he was 
 directed. The bandages were then removed from the empty 
 eye sockets, and in the hollows two small glittering spots 
 were seen, the size of the eyes of a small bird, with which 
 Aylward pronounced that he could again see. He set off 
 at once to offer his thanks to his preserver at Canterbury. 
 The rumor of the miracle had preceded him, and in London 
 he was detained by the bishop till the truth had been in- 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 125 
 
 quired into. The result was a deposition signed by the 
 Mayor and Corporation of Bedford, declaring that they had 
 ascertained the completeness of the mutilation beyond all 
 possibility of doubt. 
 
 Very curiously, precisely the same miracle was repeated 
 under similar conditions three years later. Some cavil had 
 perhaps been raised on the sufficiency of the evidence. The 
 burgesses of a country town were not, it may have been 
 thought, men of sufficient knowledge and education to be 
 relied upon in so extraordinary a case. The very ability 
 of a saint to restore parts of the human body which had 
 been removed may have been privately called in question, 
 and to silence incredulity the feat was performed a second 
 time. There appeared in Canterbury in 1176 a youth 
 named Rogers, bringing with him a letter fi*om Hugh, 
 Bishop of Durham, to the prior of the monastery. The 
 letter stated that in the preceding September the bearer 
 had been convicted of theft, and had been mutilated in the 
 usual manner. He had subsequently begged his living in 
 the Durham streets, and was well known to every one in 
 the town to be perfectly blind. In this condition he had 
 prayed to St. Thomas. St. Thomas had appeared to him 
 in a red gown, with a mitre on his head and three wax 
 candles in his hand, and had promised him restoration. 
 From that moment his sight began to return, and in a short 
 time he could discern the smallest objects. Though, as at 
 Bedford, the eyes were modicce quantitatis, exceedingly 
 minute, the functions were perfect. The bishop, to leave 
 no room for mistake, took the oaths of the executioner and 
 the witnesses of the mutilation. The cathedral bells were 
 rung, and thanksgiving services were offered to God and 
 St. Thomas. 
 
 So far the Bishop of Durham. But the story received a 
 further confirmation by a coincidence scarcely less singular. 
 When the subject of the miracle came to Canterbury, the 
 judge who had tried him happened to be on a visit to the 
 
126 Life and Times of 
 
 monastery. The meeting was purely accidental. The 
 judge had been interested in the boy, and had closely ob- 
 served him. He was able to swear that the eyes which he 
 then saw were not the eyes which had been cut out by the 
 executioner at Durham, being different from them in form 
 and color.^ 
 
 When the minds of bishops and judges were thus affected, 
 we cease to wonder at the thousand similar stories which 
 passed into popular belief. Many of them are childish, 
 many grossly ridiculous. The language of the archbishop 
 on his miraculous appearances was not like his own, but was 
 the evident creation of the visionary who was the occasion 
 of his visit ; and his actions were alternately the actions of 
 a benevolent angel or a malignant imp. But all alike were 
 received as authentic, and served to swell the flood of illu- 
 sion which overspread the Christian world. For four years 
 the entire supernatural administration of the Churcl] econ- 
 omy was passed over to St. Thomas ; as if Heaven designed 
 to vindicate the cause of the martyr of Canterbury by 
 special and extraordinary favor. In vain during those 
 years were prayers addressed to the Blessed Virgin; in 
 vain the cripple brought his offerings to shrines where a 
 miracle had never been refused before. The Virgin and 
 the other dispensers of divine grace had been suspended 
 from activity, that the champion of the Church might have 
 the glory to himself. The elder saints had long gone to 
 and fro on errands of mercy. They were now allowed to 
 repose, and St. Thomas was all in all.^ 
 
 1 Materials, vol. i. p. 423. 
 
 2 William of Canterbury mentions the case of a man in distress who 
 prayed without effect to the Virgin. "Hujusmodi prec us," he says. 
 " saepius et propensius instabat; similiter et aliorum sanctorum suffragia 
 postulabat, sed ad invocationem sui nominis non exaudierunt, qui retro 
 tempora sua glorlficationis habuerunt, ut et sua tempora propitiationis 
 martyr modernus haberet. Pridem cucurrerant quantum potuerunt et 
 quantum debuerunt signis et prodigiis coruscantes : nunc tandem erat et 
 novo martyri currendum, ut in catalogo sanctorum mirificus haberetur, 
 
Thomas Becket, 127 
 
 Greater for a time than the Blessed Virgin, greater than 
 the saints! — nay, another superiority was assigned to him 
 still more astounding. The sacrifice of St. Thomas was 
 considered to be wider and more gracious in its operation 
 than the sacrifice on Calvary. Foliot, Bishop of London, 
 so long his great antagonist, was taken ill a few years after 
 the murder, and was thought to be dying. He was speech- 
 less. The Bishop of Salisbury sat by him, endeavoring to 
 hear his confession before giving him the sacrament. The 
 voice was choked, the lips were closed ; he could neither 
 confess his sins nor swallow his viaticum^ and nothing lay 
 before him but inevitable hell, when, by a happy thought, 
 sacrament was added to sacrament — the wafer was sprin- 
 kled with the water of St. Thomas, and again held to the 
 mouth of the dying prelate. Marvel of marvels ! the tight- 
 ened sinews relaxed. The lips unclosed ; the tongue re- 
 sumed its ofiice ; and when all ghostly consolation had been 
 duly offered and duly received, Foliot was allowed to re- 
 cover. 
 
 " martyr full of mercy ! " exclaims the recorder of the 
 miracle, " blessedly forgetful art thou of thy own injuries, 
 who didst thus give to drink to thy disobedient and rebel- 
 lious brother of the fountain of thy own blood. O deed 
 without example ! act incomparable ! Christ gave his 
 flesh and blood to be eaten and drunk by sinners. St. 
 Thomas, who imitated Christ in his passion, imitates Him 
 also in the sacrament. But there is this difference, that 
 Christ damns those who eat and drink Him unworthily, or 
 takes their lives from them, or afflicts them with diseases. 
 The blessed Thomas, doing according to his Master's prom- 
 ise greater things than He, and being more full of mercy 
 than He, gives his blood to his enemies as well as to his 
 friends ; and not only does not damn his enemies, but calls 
 
 Domino dippensante quae, a quibus, et quibus temporibus fieri debeant. 
 Eo namque ciirrente et mapjna spatia transcurrcnte, illis tanquam Vetera- 
 uis et emeritis interim debebatur otium." — Materials, vol. i. p. 290. 
 
128 Life and Times of 
 
 them back into the ways of peace. All men, therefore, maj 
 come to him and drink without fear, and they shall find sal- 
 vation, body and soul." ^ 
 
 The details of the miracles contain many interestir.g pict- 
 ures of old English life. St. Thomas was kind to persons 
 drowned or drowning, kind to prisoners, especially kind to 
 children. He was interested in naval matters — launching 
 vessels from the stocks when the shipwrights could not 
 move them, or saving mariners and fishermen in shipwrecks. 
 According to William of Canterbury, the archbishop in his 
 new condition had a weakness for the married clergy, many 
 miracles being worked by him for a focaria. Dead lambs, 
 geese, and pigs were restored to life, to silence Sadducees 
 who doubted the resurrection. In remembrance of his old 
 sporting days, the archbishop would mend the broken wings 
 and legs of hawks which had suffered from the herons. 
 Boys and girls found him always ready to listen to their 
 small distresses. A Suffolk yeoman, William of Ramshott, 
 had invited a party to a feast. A neighbor had made him 
 a present of a cheese, and his little daughter Beatrice had 
 been directed to put it away in a safe place. Beatrice did 
 as she was told, but went to play with her brother Hugh, 
 and forgot what she had done with it. The days went on ; 
 the feast day was near. The children hunted in every cor- 
 nei of the house, but no cheese could be found. The near- 
 est town was far off. They had no money to buy another 
 if they could reach it, and a whipping became sadly prob- 
 able. An idea struck the little Hugh. " Sister," he said, 
 " I have heard that the blessed Thomas is good and kind. 
 Let us pray to Thomas to help us." They went to their 
 beds, and, as Hugh foretold, the saint came to them in their 
 dreams. " Don't you remember," he said, " the old crock 
 in the back kitchen, where the butter used to be kept?" 
 They sprang up, and all was well. 
 
 The original question between the king and the arch- 
 1 Materials, vol. i. pp. 251, 252. 
 
Thomas BeckeU 129 
 
 bishop still agitated men's minds, and was still so far from 
 practical settlement that visions were necessary to convei* 
 the impenitent. A knight of the court, who contended for 
 the Constitutions of Clarendon, and continued stubborn, was 
 struck with paralysis. Becket came and bade him observe 
 that the Judge of truth had decided against the king by 
 signs and wonders, and that it was a sin to doubt any fur- 
 ther. The knight acknowledged his error. Others were 
 less penetrable. The miracles, it was still said, might be 
 deceptive ; and, true or false, miracles could not alter mat- 
 ters of plain right or wrong. Even women were found who 
 refused to believe ; and a characteristic story is told, in 
 which we catch a glimpse of one of the murderers. 
 
 A party of gentlemen were dining at a house in Sussex. 
 Hngh de Morville was in the neighborhood, and while they 
 were sitting at dinner a note was brought in from him ask- 
 ing one of the guests who was an old acquaintance to call 
 and see him. The person to whom the note was addressed 
 read it with signs of horror. When the cause was ex- 
 plained, the lady of the house said, " Is that all ? What is 
 there to be alarmed about ? The priest Thomas is dead : 
 well, why need that trouble us ? The clergy were putting 
 their feet on the necks of us all. The archbishop wanted 
 to be the king's master, and he has not succeeded. Eat 
 your victuals, neighbor, like an honest man." The poor 
 lady expressed what doubtless many were feeling. An ex- 
 ample was necessary, and one of her children was at once 
 taken dangerously ill. The county neighbors said it was a 
 judgment ; she was made to confess her sins and carry her 
 child to Canterbury to be cured, where, having been the 
 subject of divine interposition, he was " dedicated to God " 
 and was brought up a monk. 
 
 Through the offerings the monastery at Canterbury be- 
 came enormously rich, and riches produced their natural 
 effect. Giraldus Cambrensis, when he paid a visit there a 
 few years later, found the mo; ks dining more luxuriously 
 9 
 
130 Life and Times of 
 
 than the king. According to Nigellus, the precentor of the 
 cathedral, their own belief in the wonders which they daily 
 witnessed was not profound, since in the midst of them 
 Kigellus could write deliberately, as the excuse for the 
 prevalent profligacy of churchmen, " that the age of mir- 
 acles was past." It was observed, and perhaps commented 
 on, that unless the offerings were handsome the miracles 
 were often withheld. So obvious was this feature that 
 William of Canterbury was obliged to apologize for it. 
 " The question rises," he says, " why the martyr takes such 
 delight in these donations, being now, as he is, in heaven, 
 where covetousness can have no place. Some say that the 
 martyr, when in the body, on the occasion of his going into 
 exile, borrowed much money, being in need of it for his 
 fellow exiles, and to make presents at court. Being unable 
 to repay his creditors in life, he may have been anxious 
 after death that his debts should be discharged, lest his 
 good name should suffer. And therefore it may be that all 
 these kings and princes, knights, bishops, priests, monks, 
 nuns, all ages and conditions, are inspired by God to come 
 in such troops and take so many vows on them to grant 
 pensions and annuities." ^ 
 
 There is no occasion to pursue into further details the 
 history of this extraordinary alliance between religion and 
 lying, which forced on Europe the most extravagant sacer- 
 dotalism by evidence as extravagant as itself. By an ap- 
 propriate affinity the claims of the Church to spiritual 
 supremacy were made to rest on falsehood, whether uncon- 
 scious or deliberate, and when the falsehood ceased to be 
 credible the system which was based upon it collapsed. 
 Thus all illusions work at last their own retribution. Eccle- 
 siastical miracles are not worked in vindication of purity of 
 life or piety of character. They do not intrude themselves 
 into a presence to which they can lend no increase of beauty 
 and furnish no additional authority. They are the spurious 
 1 Materials, vol. i. p. 327. 
 
Thomas Becket. 131 
 
 offspring of the passion of theologians for tlieir own most 
 extravagant assumptions. They are believed, they becom* 
 the material of an idolatry, till the awakened conscience of 
 the better part of mankind rises at last in revolt, and the 
 fantastic pretensions and the evidence, alleged in support of 
 them depart together and cumber the world no more. We 
 return to authentic history. 
 
132 Life and Times of 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 When the news of the catastrophe at Canterbury arrived 
 in Normandy, the king was for a time stunned. None 
 knew better than he the temper of his subjects on the pres- 
 ent condition of the dispute with the Church. The death 
 of the great disturber was natural, and may, perhaps, have 
 been inevitable. Nevertheless, if the result of it as seemed 
 too likely to be the case, was his own excommunication 
 and an interdict on his dominions, a rebellion in Normandy 
 was certain, and a rebellion in England was only too prob- 
 able. Firm as might have been his own grasp, his hold on 
 his continental duchies was not strengthened by his English 
 sovereignty. The Norman nobles and prelates saw their 
 country sliding into a province of the island kingdom which 
 their fathers had subdued. If they were to lose their inde- 
 pendence, their natural affinity was towards the land with 
 which they were geographically combined. The revolu- 
 tionary forces were already at work which came to maturity 
 in the next generation, and if Normandy and Anjou were 
 laid under interdict for a crime committed in England and 
 for an English cause, an immediate insurrection might be 
 anticipated with certainty. The state of England was 
 scarcely more satisfactory. The young princes, who had 
 been over-indulged in childhood, were showing symptoms 
 of mutiny. The private relations between an English sov- 
 ereign and his family were not yet regarded as the prop- 
 erty of his subjects ; the chroniclers rarely indulged in de- 
 tails of royal scandals, and the dates of Henry's infidelities 
 are vaguely given. Giraldus says that he remained true to 
 his queen till she tempted her sons into rebellion, but Elea- 
 
Thomas BecJcet. 133 
 
 nor herself might have told the story differently, and the 
 fire which was about to burst so furiously may have been 
 long smouldering. As to the people generally, it was evi- 
 dent that Becket had a formidable faction among them. 
 The humpbacked Earl of Leicester was dead, but his son, 
 the new earl, was of the same temper as his father. The 
 barons resented the demolition of their castles, which the 
 king had already begun, and the curtailment of their feudal 
 authority. An exasperating inquiry was at that moment 
 going forward into the conduct of the sheriffs. They had 
 levied tax and toll at their pleasure, and the king's inter- 
 ference with them they regarded as an invasion of their 
 liberties. Materials for complaint were lying about in 
 abundance, and anything might be feared if to the injuries 
 of the knights and barons were added the injuries of the 
 Church, and rebellion could be gilded with a show of sanc- 
 tity. The same spirit which sent them to die under the 
 walls of Acre might prompt them equally to avenge the 
 murder of the archbishop. Henry himself was a repre- 
 sentative of his age. He, too, really believed that the 
 clergy were semi-supernatural beings, whose curse it might 
 be dangerous to undergo. The murder itself had been ac- 
 companied with every circumstance most calculated to make 
 a profound impression. The sacrilege was something, but 
 the sacrilege was not the worst. Many a bloody scene had 
 been witnessed in that age in church and cathedral ; abbots 
 had invaded one another at the head of armed parties ; 
 monks had fought and been killed within consecrated walls, 
 and sacred vessels and sacred relics had been carried off 
 among bleeding bodies. High dignitaries were occasionally 
 poisoned in the sacramental wine, and such a crime, though 
 serious, was not regarded as exceptionally dreadful. But 
 Becket had but just returned to England after a formal rec- 
 onciliation in the presence of all Europe. The King of 
 France, the Count of Flanders, and the Count of Blois had 
 pledged their words for his safety. He had been killed in 
 
134 Life and Times of 
 
 his own cathedral. He had fallen with a dignity, and even 
 grandeur, which his bitterest enemies were obliged to ad- 
 mire. The murderers were Henry's own immediate attend- 
 ants, and Henry could not deny that he had himself used 
 words which they might construe into a sanction of what 
 they had done. 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, who when young had seen and 
 spoken with him, has left us a sketch of Henry the Second's 
 appearance and character more than usually distinct. Henry 
 was of middle height, with a thick short neck and a square 
 chest. His body was stout and fleshy, his arms sinewy and 
 long. His head was round and large, his hair and beard 
 reddish-brown, his complexion florid, his eyes gray, with 
 fire glowing at the bottom of them. His habits were ex- 
 ceptionally temperate; he ate little, drank little, and was 
 always extremely active. He was on horseback, at dawn, 
 either hunting or else on business. When off his horse he 
 was on his feet, and rarely sat down till supper time. He 
 was easy of approach, gracious, pleasant, and in conversation 
 remarkably agreeable. Notwithstanding his outdoor habits 
 he had read largely, and his memory was extremely tena- 
 cious. It was said of him, that he never forgot a face 
 which he had once seen, or a thing which he had heard or 
 read that was worth remembering. He was pious too, Gir- 
 aldus says, pietate spectabilis. The piety unfortunately, in 
 Giraldus's eyes, took the wrong shape of an over-zeal for 
 justice, which brought him into his trouble with the Church, 
 while to his technical "religious duties" he was less atten- 
 tive than he ought to have been. He allowed but an hour a 
 day for mass, and while mass was being said he usually 
 thought of something else. To the poor he was profusely 
 charitable, " filling the hungry with good things, and send- 
 ing the rich empty away." He was largus in publico, parvus 
 in privato ; he spent freely in the public service and little 
 on himself. As a statesman he was reserved, seldom show- 
 ing his own thoughts. He was a good judge of character, 
 
Thomas Becket. 135 
 
 rarely changing an opinion of a man which he had once 
 formed. He was patient of opposition, and trusted much to 
 time to find his way through difficulties. In war he was 
 dangerous from his energy and his intellect. But he had no 
 love for war, he was essentially a friend of peace, and after 
 a battle could not control his emotion at the loss of his men. 
 " In short," Giraldus concludes, " if God had but elected 
 him to grace and converted him to a right understanding of 
 the privileges of his Church, he would have been an incom- 
 parable prince." -^ Such was Henry, the first of the Eng- 
 lish Plantagenet kings, a man whose faults it is easy to 
 blame, whose many excellences it would have been less easy 
 to imitate — a man of whom may be said what can be 
 aflHrmed but rarely of any mortal, that the more clearly his 
 history is known the more his errors will be forgiven, the 
 more we shall find to honor and admire. 
 
 He was at Argeuteuil when the fatal account was brought 
 to him. He shut himself in his room, ate nothing for three 
 days, and for five weeks remained in penitential seclusion. 
 Time was precious, for his enemies were not asleep. Lewis 
 and the Archbishop of Sens wrote passionately to the pope, 
 charging the king with the guilt of the murder, and insist- 
 ing that so enormous an outrage should be punished at once 
 and with the utmost severity. The Archbishop of Sens, 
 on his own authority as legate, laid Normandy under inter- 
 dict, and Alexander, startled into energy at last, sent per- 
 sons to the spot to confirm the archbishop's action, and to 
 extend the censures over England. Henry roused himself 
 at last. He dispatched the Archbishop of Rouen and two 
 other bishops^ to explain what had happened, so far as ex- 
 planation was possible ; and as the danger was pressing and 
 bishops travelled slowly, three other churchmen, the Abbot 
 
 1 Giraldus, vol. v. p. 301, etc. 
 
 2 The Bishop of Worcester was one of them. The Bishop of Worcester 
 '.ould explain to the pope why his inhibitory letter on the coronation had 
 never been delivered in Euiiland. 
 
136 Life and Times of 
 
 of Valaise and the Archdeacons of Lisieux and Salisbury, 
 pushed on before them. On their first arrival these envoys 
 were refused an audience. When they were admitted to 
 Alexander's presence at last, the attempt at palliation was 
 listened to with horror. Two of Becket's clergy were at 
 the papal court, and had possession of pope and cardinals, 
 and it appeared only too likely that at the approaching 
 Easter Alexander himself would declare Henry excommu- 
 nicated. By private negotiations with some of the cardinals 
 they were able to delay the sentence till the coming of the 
 bishops. The bishops brought them a promise on Henry's 
 part to submit to any penance which the pope might enjoin, 
 and to acquiesce in any order which the pope might pre- 
 scribe for the government of the clergy. An immediate 
 catastrophe was thus averted. Cardinals Albert and Theo- 
 doric were commissioned at leisure to repair to Normandy 
 and do what might be found necessary. To the mortifica- 
 tion of Lewis the censures were meanwhile suspended, and 
 the interdict pronounced by the Archbishop of Sens was not 
 confirmed. 
 
 Henry on his part prepared to deserve the pope's forgive- 
 ness. Uncertain what Alexander might resolve upon, he 
 returned to England as soon as he had recovered his energy. 
 He renewed the orders at the ports against the admission 
 of strangers and against the introduction of briefs from 
 Rome, which might disturb the public peace. He then at 
 once undertook a duty which long before had been enjoined 
 upon him by Alexander's predecessor, and had been left too 
 long neglected. 
 
 Ireland had been converted to the Christian faith by an 
 apostle from the Holy See, but in seven centuries the Irish 
 Church had degenerated from its original purity. Customs 
 had crept in unknown in other Latin communions, and 
 savoring of schism. No regular communication had been 
 maintained with the authorities at Rome ; no confirmation 
 of abbots and bishops had been applied for or paid for. At 
 
Thomas Becket. 137 
 
 a council held in 1151 a papal legate had been present, 
 and an arrangement had been made for the presentation of 
 the palls of the four Irish archbishoprics. But the legate's 
 general account of the state of Irish affairs increased the 
 pope's anxiety for more vigorous measures. Not only 
 Peter's pence and first fruits were not paid to himself — not 
 only tithes were not paid to the clergy — but the most 
 sacred rites were perverted or neglected. In parts of the 
 island children were not baptized at all. Where baptism 
 was observed, it more resembled a magical ceremony than 
 a sacrament of the Church. Any person who happened to 
 be present at a birth dipped the child three times in water 
 or milk, without security for the use of the appointed words. 
 Marriage scarcely could be said to exist. An Irish chief 
 took as many wives as he pleased, and paid no respect to 
 degrees of consanguinity.-^ Even incest was not uncom- 
 mon ^ among them. The clergy, though not immoral in the 
 technical sense, were hard drinkers. The bishops lived in 
 religious houses, and preferred a quiet life to interfering 
 with lawlessness and violence. The people of Ireland, ac- 
 cording to Giraldus, who was sent over to study their char- 
 acter, were bloodthirsty savages, and strangers who settled 
 among them caught their habits by an irresistible instinct. 
 But Ireland, religious Ireland especially, had something in 
 its history which commanded respect and interest. A thou- 
 sand saints had printed their names and memories on Irish 
 soil. St. Patrick and St. Bride had worked more miracles 
 than even the water of St. Thomas. Apostles from Ireland 
 had carried the Christian faith into Scotland, into Iceland, 
 and into Scandinavia. 
 
 The popes felt the exclusion of so singular a country 
 from the Catholic commonwealth to be a scandal which 
 ought no longer to be acquiesced in. In 1155 Pope Adrian 
 
 1 "Plerique enim illorum quot volebant uxorcs habebant, et etiam cog- 
 natas suas gennanas habere solebant sibi uxores." — Benedict, vol. i. p. 28. 
 
 2 "Xon iucestus vitaiit." — Giraldus Cambreiisis, vol. v. p. 138. 
 
138 Life and Times of 
 
 had laid before Henry the Second the duty imposed on 
 Christian princes to extend the truth among barbarous 
 nations, to eradicate vice, and to secure Peter's pence to 
 the Holy See ; and a bull had been issued, sanctioning and 
 enjoining the conquest of Ireland.^ 
 
 Busy with more pressing concerns, Henry had put off 
 the expedition from year to year. Meanwhile, the Irish 
 chiefs and kings were quarrelling among themselves. 
 MacMorrough of Leinster was driven out, and had come to 
 England for help. The king hesitated in his answer ; but 
 volunteers had been found for the service in Sir Robert 
 Fitzstephen, Sir Maurice Prendergast, Sir Maurice Fitz- 
 gerald, Earl Richard Strigul, with other knights and gen- 
 tlemen who were eager for adventure ; and a Norman 
 occupation had been made good along the eastern coast of 
 Munster and Leinster. The invasion had been undertaken 
 without the king's consent. He had affected to regard it 
 with disapproval ; and the Irish of the west, rallying from 
 their first panic, were collecting in force to drive the in- 
 truders into the sea. The desirableness of doinoj somethinsr 
 to entitle him to the pope's gratitude, the convenience of 
 absence from home at a time when dans^erous notices mii^ht 
 be served upon him, and the certainty that Alexander would 
 hesitate to pronounce him excommunicated when engaged 
 in a conquest which, being undertaken under a papal sanc- 
 
 1 Irish Catholic historians pretend that tlie bull was a Norman forgerj'. 
 The bull was alleged to have been granted in 1155: in 1170 it was acted 
 upon. In 1171-72 a council was held at Cashel, in which the reforms de- 
 manded by Pope Adrian were adopted, and the Irish Church was remod- 
 elled, and a report of the proceedings was forwarded to Alexander the 
 Third. In 1174 a confirmation of the original bull was published, profess- 
 mg o^ have been signed b}' Alexander. In 1177 Cardinal Vivian came 
 as vjgate from Rome, who, in a synod at Dublin, declared formally in the 
 pope's name that the sovereignty of Ireland was vested in the English 
 king, and enjoined the Irish to submit sub posnd anathematis. It requires 
 some hardihood to maintain in the face of these undisputed facts that the 
 pope was kept in ignorance that the island had been invaded and con- 
 quered under a sanction doubly forged, and that Cardinal Vivian was 
 either a party to the fraud, or that when in Ireland he never discovered it. 
 
T7tomas Beeket. 13S 
 
 tion, resembled a crusade, determined Henry to use the 
 opportunity, ^nd at last accomplish the mission which 
 Adrian had imposed upon him. After his return from 
 Normandy, he passed rapidly through England. He col- 
 lected a fleet at Milford Haven, and landed at Waterford 
 on October 18, 1171. All Ireland, except the north, at 
 once submitted. The king spent the winter in Dublin in a 
 palace of wattles, the best lodging which the country could 
 afford. In the spring he was able to report to Alexander 
 that the obnoxious customs were abolished, that Catholic 
 discipline had been introduced, and that the Irish tribute 
 would be thenceforward punctually remitted to the papal 
 treasury. 
 
 Could he have remained in Ireland for another year, the 
 conquest would have been completed ; but in April he was 
 recalled to meet the two cardinals who had arrived in Nor- 
 mandy to receive his submission for Becket's death. The 
 Irish annexation was of course a service which was permit- 
 ted to be counted in his favor, but the circumstances of the 
 murder, and Henry's conduct in connection with it, both 
 before and after, still required an appearance of scrutiny. 
 Not the least remarkable feature in the story is that tl«3 
 four knights had not been punished. They had not been 
 even arrested. They had gone together, after leaving Can- 
 terbury, to De Morville's Castle of Knaresborough. They 
 had been excommunicated, but they had received no further 
 molestation. It has been conjectured that they owed their 
 impunity to Becket's own claim for the exclusive jurisdic- 
 tion of the spiritual courts in cases where spiritual persons 
 were concerned. But the wildest advocates of the immuni- 
 ties of the Church had never dreamed of protecting laymen 
 who had laid their hands on clerks. The explanation was 
 that the king had acted honorably by taking the responsi- 
 bility on himself, and had not condescended to shield his 
 own reputation by the execution of men whose fault had 
 been over-loyalty to himself Elizabeth might have re- 
 
140 Life and Times of 
 
 membered with advantage the example of her ancestor 
 when she punished Davison, under circumstances not wholly 
 dissimilar, for the execution of the Queen of Scots. 
 
 The king met the cardinals at Caen in the middle of 
 May. At the first interview the difficulty was disposed of 
 which was most immediately pressing, and arrangements 
 were made for a repetition of the ceremony which had been 
 the occasion of the excommunication of the bishops. Prince 
 Henry and the Princess Margaret were ao;ain crowned at 
 Winchester on the 27th of August by the Archbishop of 
 Rouen and the Bishops of Evreux and Worcester, the same 
 prelates who had gone on the mission to Rome. At 
 Avranches on the 27th of September, at a second and more 
 solemn assembly, the king confessed his guilt for the arch- 
 bishop's death. He had not desired it, he said, and it had 
 caused him the deepest sorrow ; but he admitted tliat he had 
 used words which the knights had naturally misconstrued. 
 He attempted no palliation, and declared himself willing to 
 endure any penalty which the cardinals might be pleased to 
 impose. 
 
 The conditions with which the cardinals were satisfied 
 implied an admission that in the original quarrel the right 
 had lain with the king. All the miracles at Canterbury 
 had made no difi^erence in this essential point. The king 
 promised to continue his support to Alexander as long as 
 Alexander continued to recognize him as a Catholic sov- 
 ereign — as long, that is, as he did not excommunicate him. 
 He promised not to interfere with appeals to Rome in ec- 
 clesiastical causes, but with the reservation that if he had 
 ground for suspecting an invasion of the rights of the crown, 
 he might take measures to protect himself. He promised 
 to abandon any customs complained of by the Church 
 which had been introduced in his own reign ; but such 
 customs, he said, would be found to be few or none. He 
 pardoned Becket's friends ; he restored the privileges and 
 the estates of the see of Canterbury. For himself, he took 
 
Thomas BecJcet, 141 
 
 the cross, with a vow to serve for three years in the Holy 
 Land, unless the pope perceived that his presence was 
 needed elsewhere. Meanwhile he promised to maintain 
 two hundred Templars there for a year. 
 
 On these terms Henry was absolved. Geoffrey Ridel and 
 John of Oxford, Becket's active opponents, whom he had 
 twice cursed, were promoted to bishoprics. The four knights 
 must have been absolved also, since they returned to the 
 court, and, like their master, took the vows as Crusaders. 
 The monastic chroniclers consign them to an early and 
 miserable death. The industry of Dean Stanley has dis- 
 covered them, two years after the murder, to have been 
 again in attendance on the sovereign. Tracy became Jus- 
 ticiary of Normandy, and was at Falaise in 1174, when 
 William the Lion did homage to Henry. De Morville, 
 after a year's suspension, became again Justiciary of Nor- 
 thumberland. Fitzurse apparently chose L-eland as the 
 scene of his penance. A Fitzurse was in the second flight 
 of Norman invaders, and was the founder of a family known 
 to later history as the MacMahons, the Irish equivalent of 
 the Son of the Bear. 
 
 But Henry was not yet delivered from the consequences 
 of his contest with Becket, and the conspiracy which had 
 been formed against him under the shelter of Becket's name 
 was not to be dissolved by the spell of a papal absolution. 
 Lewi's of France had taken up Becket's cause, not that 
 felonious clerks might go unhanged, but that an English 
 kincf misrht not divide his own land with him. The Earl 
 of Leicester had torn down Reginald of Cologne's altars, 
 not alone because he was an orthodox Catholic, but that, 
 with the help of an ambitious ecclesiasticism, he might 
 break the power of the crown. Through France, through 
 England, through Normandy, a combination had been 
 formed for Henry's humiliation, and although the pope no 
 longer sanctioned it, the purpose was deeply laid, and could 
 not lightly be surrendered. 
 
142 Life and Times of 
 
 Unable to strike at his rival as a spiritual outlaw, 
 Lewis found a point where he was no less vulnerable in the 
 jealousy of his queen and the ambition and pride of his 
 sons. His aim was to separate England from its French 
 dependencies. He, and perhaps Eleanor, instig£>,ted Prince 
 Henry to demand after the second coronation that his 
 father should divide his dominions, and make over one part 
 or the other to him as an independent sovereign. The 
 king of course refused. Prince Henry and his wife escaped 
 to Lewis per consilium comitum et haronum Anglice et Nor- 
 manni(B qui patrem suurn odio hahehant} The younger 
 princes, Richard and Geoffrey, followed them ; and a coun- 
 cil was held at Paris, where the Count of Flanders the 
 Count of Boulogne, William the Lion, and the Earl of 
 Huntingdon from Scotland, and the English and Norman 
 disaffected nobles, combined with Lewis for a general attack 
 upon the English king. England was to rise. Normandy 
 was to rise. William was to invade Northumberland. The 
 Count of Flanders was to assist the English insurgents in 
 the eastern counties. Lewis himself was to lead an army 
 into Normandy, where half the barons and bishops were 
 ready to join him. The three English princes, embittered, 
 it may be, by their mother's injuries, swore to make no 
 peace with their father without consent of their allies. 
 
 For a time it seemed as if Henry must be overwhelmed. 
 Open enemies were on all sides of him. Of his professed 
 friends too many were disloyal at heart. The Canterbury 
 frenzy added fuel to the conflagration by bringing God 
 into the field. The Earl of Norfolk and Lord Ferrars rose 
 in East Anglia. Lewis and young Henry crossed the 
 frontier into Normandy. The Scots poured over the Tweed 
 into Northumberland. Ireland caught the contagion unin- 
 vited; the greater part of the force which had remained 
 there was recalled, and only a few garrisons were left. 
 Had Alexander allowed the Church to lend its help, the 
 
 1 Benedict. 
 
Thomas Bechet. 143 
 
 king must have fallen ; but Alexander honorably adhered 
 to his engagement at Avranches. 
 
 The king himself remained on the continent, struggling 
 as he best could against war and treason. Chief Justice de 
 Luci and Humfrey de Bohun faced the Scots beyond New- 
 castle, and drove them back to Berwick. In the midst of 
 their success they learned that the Earl of Leicester had 
 landed in Norfolk with an army of Flemings. They left 
 the north to its fate. They flew back. Lord Arundel 
 joined them, and the old Earl of Cornwall, who befriended 
 Becket while he could, but had no sympathies with rebel- 
 lion. They fell on the Flemings near Bury St. Edmunds, 
 and flung them into total wreck. Ten thousand were 
 killed. Leicester himself and the rest were taken, and 
 scarce a man escaped to carry back the news to Grave- 
 lines.-^ 
 
 The victory in Norfolk was the first break in the cloud. 
 The rebellion in England had its back broken, and waver- 
 ers began to doubt, in spite of the miracles, whether God 
 was on its side. Bad news, however, came from the north. 
 The Scots flowed back, laying waste Cumberland and 
 Northumberland with wild ferocity. At the opening of 
 the summer of 1174 another army of French, Flemings, 
 and insurgent English was collected at Gravelines to re- 
 venge the defeat at Bury, and this time the Earl of 
 Flanders and Prince Henry were to come in person at the 
 head of it. 
 
 An invasion so leAd and countenanced could only be re- 
 sisted by the king in person. The barons had sworn alle- 
 giance to the prince, and the more loyal of them might be 
 uncertain in what direction their duties lay. Sad and 
 stern, prepared for the worst, yet resolute to contend to the 
 last against the unnatural coalition, Henry crossed in July 
 to Southampton ; but, before repairing to London to col- 
 lect his forces, he turned aside out of his road for a singular 
 and touching purpose. 
 
 1 October 16, 1173. 
 
144 Life and Times of 
 
 Althongli the conspiracy against which he was fighting 
 was condemned by the pope it had grown nevertheless too 
 evidently out of the contest with Becket, which had ended 
 so terribly. The combination of his wife and sons with his 
 other enemies was something off the course of nature — 
 strange, dark, and horrible. He was abler than most of 
 his contemporaries, but his piety was (as with most wise 
 men) a check upon his intellect. He, it is clear, did not 
 share in the suspicion that the miracles at the archbishop's 
 tomb were the work either of fraud or enchantment. He 
 was not a person who for political reasons would affect 
 emotions which he despised. He had been Becket's friend. 
 Becket had been killed, in part at least, through his own 
 fault; and, though he might still believe himself to have 
 been essentially right in the quarrel, the miracles showed 
 that the archbishop had been really a saint. A more com- 
 plete expiation than the pope had enjoined might be neces- 
 sary before the avenging spirit, too manifestly at work, could 
 be pacified. 
 
 From Southampton he directed his way to Canterbury, 
 where the bishops had been ordered to meet him. He 
 made offerings at the various churches which he passed on 
 his way. On reaching Harbledown, outside the city, he 
 alighted at the Chapel of St. Nicholas, and thence went-^ on 
 foot to St. Dunstan's Oratory, adjoining the wall. At the 
 oratory he stripped ofi^ his usual dress. He put on a hair 
 penitential shirt, over which a coarse pilgrim's cloak was 
 thrown ; and in this costume, with bare and soon bleeding 
 feet, Henry, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of 
 Normandy, and Count of Anjou, walked through the streets 
 to the cathedral. Pausing at the spot where the archbishop 
 had fallen, and kissing the stone, he descended into the 
 crypt to the tomb, burst into tears, and flung himself on the 
 ground. There, surrounded by a group of bishops, knights, 
 and monks, he remained long upon his knees in silent 
 
 1 July 12. 
 
Thomas Bechet. 145 
 
 prayer. The Bishop of London said for him, what he had 
 said at Avranches, that he had not commanded the murder, 
 but had occasioned it by his hasty words. When the bishop 
 ended, he rose, and repeated his confession with his own 
 lips. He had caused the archbishop's death ; therefore he 
 had come in person to acknowledge his sin, and to entreat 
 the brothers of the monastery to pray for him. 
 
 At the tomb he offered rich silks and wedges of gold. 
 To the chapter he gave lands. For himself he vowed to 
 erect and endow a religious house, which should be dedi- 
 cated to St. Thomas. Thus amply, in the opinion of the 
 monks, reconciliari 7neruit, he deserved to be forgiven. 
 But the satisfaction was still incomplete. The martyr's 
 injuries, he said, must be avenged on his own person. He 
 threw off his cloak, knelt again, and laid his head upon the 
 tomb. Each bishop and abbot present struck him five times 
 with a whip. Each one of the eighty monks struck him 
 thrice. Strange scene ! None can be found more charac- 
 teristic of the age ; none more characteristic of Henry Plan- 
 tagenet. 
 
 The penance done, he rose and resumed his cloak ; and 
 there by the tomb through the remainder of the July day, 
 and through the night till morning, he remained silently 
 sitting, without food or sleep. The cathedral doors were 
 left open by his orders. The people of the city came freely 
 to gape and stare at the singular spectacle. There was the 
 terrible King Henry, who had sent the knights to kill their 
 archbishop, sitting now in dust and ashes. The most in- 
 genious cunning could not have devised a better method of 
 winning back the affection of his subjects ; yet with no act 
 of king or statesman had ingenious cunning ever less to do. 
 In the morning he heard mass, and presented offerings at 
 the various altars. Then he became king once more, and 
 rode to London to prepare for the invader. If his humilia- 
 tion was an act of vain superstition. Providence encouraged 
 him in his weakness. On the day which followed it William 
 
 10 
 
146 Life and Times of 
 
 tke Lion was defeated and made prisoner at Alnwick. A 
 week later came news that the army at Gravelines had 
 dissolved, and that the invasion was abandoned. Delivered 
 from peril at home, Henry flew back to France and flung 
 Lewis back over his own frontier. St. Thomas was now 
 supposed to be fighting for King Henry. Imagination be- 
 comes reality when it gives to one party certainty of vic- 
 tory, to the other the anticipation of defeat. By the spring 
 of 1175 the great combination was dissolved. The princes 
 returned to their duty ; the English and Norman rebels to 
 their allegiance ; and with Alexander's mediation Henry 
 and Lewis and the Count of Flanders were for a time once 
 more reconciledc 
 
Thomas BecJcet, 147 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Though the formal canonization of Becket could not be 
 accomplished with the speed which his impatient friends 
 demanded, it was declared with the least delay which the 
 necessary forms required. A commission which was sent 
 from Rome to inquire into the authenticity of the miracles 
 having reported satisfactorily, the promotion of the arch- 
 bishop was immediately decreed, and the monks were able 
 to pray to him without fear of possible irregularity. Due 
 honor having been thus paid to the Church's champion, it 
 became possible to take up again the ever-pressing problem 
 of the Church's reform. 
 
 Between the pope and the king there had never really 
 been much dilFerence of opinion. They were now able to 
 work harmoniously together. A successor for Becket at 
 Canterbury was found in the Prior of Dover, for whose 
 good sense we have a sufficient guarantee in the abhorrence 
 with which he was regarded by the ardent champions of 
 Church supremacy. The reformation was commenced in 
 Normandy. After the ceremony at Avranches the cardinals 
 who had come from Rome to receive Henry's confession held 
 a council there. The resolutions arrived at show that the 
 picture of the condition of the clergy left to us by Nigellus 
 is not really overdrawn. It was decided that children were 
 to be no more admitted to the cure of souls — a sufficient 
 proof that children had been so admitted. It was decided 
 that the sons of priests should not succeed to their father's 
 oreferments — an evidence not only of the habits of the 
 incumbents, but of the tendency of Church benefices to be- 
 come hereditary. Yet more significantly the guilty bargains 
 
148 Life and Times of 
 
 were forbidden by which benefices were let out to farm, 
 and lay patrons presented incumbents on condition of shar- 
 ing the offertory money ; while pluralist ecclesiastics, of 
 whom Becket himself had been a conspicuous instance, were 
 ordered to give a third, at least, of their tithes to the vicars. 
 At the close of the war, in 1175, a similar council was held 
 at Westminster under the new primate. Not only the 
 Avranches resolutions were adopted there, but indications 
 appeared that among the English clergy simony and license 
 were at a yet grosser point than on the Continent. Bene- 
 fices had been publicly set up to sale. The religious houses 
 received money for the admission of monks and nuns. 
 Priests, and even bishops, had demanded fees for the ad- 
 ministration of the sacraments ; while as regarded manners 
 and morals, it was evident that the priestly character sat 
 lightly on the secular clergy. They carried arms ; they 
 wore their hair long like laymen ; they frequented taverns 
 and more questionable places ; the more reputable among 
 them were sheriffs and magistrates. So far as decrees of a 
 council could alter the inveterate habits of the order, a 
 better state of things was attempted to be instituted. In 
 the October following, Cardinal Hugezun came from Rome 
 to arrange the vexed question of the liability of clerks to 
 trial in the civil courts. . The customs for which Henry 
 pleaded seem at that time to been substantially recognized. 
 Offenders were degraded by their ordinaries and passed 
 over to the secular judges. For one particular class of 
 offences definite statutory powers were conceded to the 
 State. The clergy were notorious violators of the forest 
 laws. Deer-stealing implied a readiness to commit other 
 crimes, and Cardinal Hugezun formally consented that or- 
 ders should be no protection in such cases. The betrayal 
 of their interests on a matter which touched so nearly the 
 occupation of their lives was received by the clergy with a 
 scream of indignation. Their language on the occasion is 
 an illustration of what may have been observed often, be- 
 
Thomas Becket. 149 
 
 fore and since, that no order of men are less respectiul to 
 spiritual authority when they disapprove its decrees. 
 
 " The aforesaid cardinal," wrote Benedict and Walter of 
 Coventry, " conceded to the king the right of impleading the 
 clerks of his realm under the forest laws, and of punishing 
 them for taking deer. Limb of Satan that he was ! merce- 
 nary satellite of the devil himself! Of a shepherd he was 
 made a robber. Seeing the wolf coming, he fled away and 
 left the sheep whom the supreme pontiff had committed to 
 his charge." ^ 
 
 The angry advocates of ecclesiastical license might have 
 spared their passion. The laws of any country cannot be 
 maintained above the level of the average intelligence of 
 the people ; and in another generation the clergy would be 
 free to carry their cross-bows without danger of worse con- 
 sequences than a broken crown from the staff of a game- 
 keeper. " Archbishop Richard," says Giraldus, " basely 
 surrendered the rights which the martyr Thomas had fought 
 for and won, but Archbishop Stephen recovered them." 
 The blood of St. Thomas had not been shed, and the martyr 
 of Canterbury had not been allowed a monopoly of wonder- 
 working, that a priest should be forbidden to help himself 
 to a haunch of vension on festival days. In the great 
 Charter of English freedom the liberties of the Church were 
 comprehended in the form, or almost in the form, in which 
 Becket himself would have defined them. The barons paid 
 for the support of the clergy on that memorable occasion by 
 the concession of their most extravagant demands. Ben- 
 efit of clergy thenceforward was permitted to throw an en- 
 chanted shield, not round deer-stealers only, but round 
 thieves and murderers, and finally round every villain that 
 could read. The spiritual courts, under the name of liberty, 
 were allowed to develop a system of tyranny and corrup- 
 
 1 " Ecce membrum Satanoe ! ecce ipsuis Satanoe conductus satelles ! qui 
 tarn subito factus de pastore raptor videns lupum venientem fugit et dimisit 
 ■»ve3 sibi a summo pontifice coinmissas." 
 
150 Life and Times of Thomas Beeket. 
 
 tion unparalleled in the administrative annals of any time 
 or country. The English laity were for three centuries 
 condemned to writhe under the yoke which their own cred- 
 ulous folly had imposed on them, till the spirit of Henry 
 the Second at length revived, and the aged iniquity was 
 brought to judgment at the Reformation. 
 
THE 
 
 OXFORD COUNTER-REFORMATION.^ 
 
 [GOOD WORDS. 1881.] 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 My DEAR . You remind me of a promise which I 
 
 have left too long unfulfilled. We had been looking over 
 some of your old family papers, and we had found among them 
 a copy of the once famous Tract 90, scored over with pen- 
 cil marks and interjections. The rocket which had flamed 
 across the sky was now a burnt-out case. It was hard to 
 believe that the whole mind of England could have been so 
 agitated by expressions and ideas which had since become 
 so familiar. We were made to feel how times had changed 
 in the last forty years ; we had been travelling on a spiritual 
 railroad, and the indifference with which we turned the 
 leaves of the once terrible pamphlet was an evidence how 
 far we had left behind our old traditionary landmarks. 
 Mysteries which had been dismissed as superstitions at the 
 Reformation, and had never since been heard of, were now 
 preached again by half- the clergy, and had revolutionized 
 the ritual in our churches. Every county had its Anglican 
 monasteries and convents. Romanism had lifted up its head 
 again. It had its hierarchy and its cardinals ; it was a power 
 
 1 These letters were originally published before the appearance of IMr. 
 Mozley's Reminiscences of the Oxford Movement. I have not found it 
 necessary to make any alterations. 
 
152 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 in Parliament, and in the London salons. The fathers con- 
 fessors were busy in our families, dictating conditions of mar- 
 riages, dividing wives from husbands, and children from 
 parents. 
 
 By the side of the revival of Catholicism there was a cor- 
 responding phenomenon of an opposite and no less startling 
 kind. Half a century ago any one who openly questioned 
 the truth of Christianity was treated as a public offender and 
 was excommunicated by society. Now, while one set of men 
 were brinofinof back media^valisra, science and criticism were 
 assailing with impunity the authority of the Bible ; miracles 
 were declared impossible ; even Theism itself was treated 
 as an open question, and subjects which in our fathers' time 
 were approached only with the deepest reverence and solem- 
 nity were discussed among the present generation with as 
 much freedom as the common problems of natural philos- 
 ophy or politics. 
 
 Both these movements began within a short distance of 
 one another, and were evidently connected. You asked me 
 to write down what I could recollect about their origin, 
 having had, as you supposed, some special opportunities of 
 knowing their history. I hesitated, partly because it is not 
 agreeable to go back over our own past mistakes, partly be- 
 cause I have ceased to feel particular interest in either of 
 them. For myself, I am convinced that they are roads both 
 of them which lead to the wrong place, and that it is better 
 for us to occupy ourselves with realities than fret our minds 
 about illusions. If the Church of Rome recovers power 
 enough to be dangerous, it will be shattered upon the same 
 rocks on which it was dashed three centuries ago. The 
 Church of England may play at sacerdotalism and masque- 
 rade in mediaeval garniture ; the clergy may flatter one an- 
 other with notions that they can bind and loose the souls of 
 their fellow-Christians, and transform the substance of the 
 sacramental elements by spells and gestures ; but they will 
 not at this time of day persuade intelligent men that the 
 
The Church of England Fifty Years Ago. 153 
 
 bishops in their ordination gave them really supernatural 
 powers. Their celebrations and processions may amuse 
 for a time by their novelty, but their pretensions deserve 
 essentially no more respect than those of spirit-rappers, and 
 the serious forces of the world go on upon their way no more 
 affected by them than if they were shadows. 
 
 As little is it possible to hope much from the school of 
 negative and scientific criticism. For what science can tell 
 us of positive truth in special subjects we are infinitely 
 thankful. In matters of religion it can say nothing, for it 
 knows nothing. A surgeon may dissect a living body to 
 discover what life consists in. The body is dead before he 
 can reach the secret, and he can report only that the materi- 
 als, when he has taken them to pieces and examined them, 
 are merely dead matter. Critical philosophy is equally at 
 a loss with Christianity. It may perhaps discover the doc- 
 trines of the creed in previously existing Eastern theologies. 
 It may pretend to jDrove that the sacred records were com- 
 posed as human narratives are composed; that the origin 
 of many of them cannot be traced ; that they are defective 
 in authority; that the evidence is insufficient to justify a 
 belief in the events which they relate. So far as philosophy 
 can see, there may be nothing in the materials of Christian- 
 ity which is necessarily and certainly supernatural. And 
 yet Christianity exists, and has existed, and has been the 
 most powerful spiritual force which has ever been felt 
 amons: mankind. 
 
 If I tell the story which you ask of me, therefore, I 
 must tell it without sympathy, either way, in these great 
 movements. I cannot, like " the sow that was washed," 
 return to wallow in repudiated superstition. If I am to be 
 edified, on the other hand, I must know what is true in 
 religion ; and I do not care about negations. In this re- 
 spect I am unfit for the task which you impose on me. It 
 is perhaps, however, occasionally well to take stock of our 
 mental experience. The last forty or fifty years will be 
 
154 Tlie Ojcford Counter- Reformation. 
 
 memorable hereafter in the history of English opinion. 
 The number of those who recollect the beginnings of the 
 Oxford revival is shrinking fast ; and such of us as survive 
 may usefully note down their personal recollections as a 
 contribution, so far as it goes, to the general narrative. It 
 is pleasant, too, to recall the figures of those who played 
 the chief parts in the drama. If they had not been men 
 of ability they could not have produced the revolution that 
 was brought about by them. Their personal characters 
 were singularly interesting. Two of them were distinctly 
 men of real genius. My own brother was at starting the 
 foremost of the party ; the flame, therefore, naturally burnt 
 hot in my own immediate environment. The phrases and 
 formulas of Anglo-Catholicism had become household words 
 in our family before I understood coherently what the stir 
 and tumult was about. 
 
 We fancy that we are free agents. We are conscious of 
 what we do ; we are not conscious of the causes which make 
 us do it ; and therefore we imagine that the cause is in our- 
 selves. The Oxford leaders believed that they were fight- 
 ing against the spirit of the age. They were themselves 
 most completely the creatures of their age. It was one of 
 those periods when Conservative England had been seized 
 with a passion for Reform. Parliament was to be reformed; 
 the municipal institutions were to be reformed; there was 
 to be an end of monopolies and privileges. The constitu- 
 tion was to be cut in pieces and boiled in the Benthamite 
 caldron, from which it was to emerge in immortal youth. 
 In a reformed State there needed a reformed Church. 
 My brother and his friends abhorred Bentham and all his 
 works. The Establishment in its existing state was too 
 weak to do battle with the new enemy. Protestantism was 
 the chrysalis of Liberalism. The Church, therefore, was to 
 be unprotestantized. The Reformation, my brother said, was 
 a bad setting of a broken limb. The limb needed breaking 
 a second time, and then it would be equal to its business. 
 
The Church of England Fifty Years Ago. 155 
 
 My brother exaggerated the clanger, and underestimated 
 the strength which existing institutious and customs possess 
 so long as they are left undisturbed. Before he and his 
 friends undertook the process of reconstruction, the Church 
 was perhaps in the healthiest condition which it had ever 
 known. Of all the constituents of human society, an estab- 
 lished religion is that which religious men themselves should 
 most desire to be let alone, and which people in general 
 when they are healthy-minded are most sensitive about al- 
 lowing to be touched. It is the sanction of moral obliga- 
 tion. It gives authority to the commandments, creates a 
 fear of doing wrong, and a sense of responsibility for doing 
 it. To raise a doubt about a creed established by general 
 acceptance is a direct injury to the general welfare. Dis- 
 cussion about it is out of place, for only bad men wish to 
 question the rule of life which religion commands ; and a 
 creed or ritual is not a series of propositions or a set of out- 
 ward observances of which the truth or fitness may be prop- 
 erly argued ; it grows with the life of a race or nation ; it 
 takes shape as a living germ develops into an organic body ; 
 and as you do not ask of a tree, is it true., but is it alive, so 
 with an established Church or system of belief you look to 
 the work which it is doing. If it is teaching men to be 
 brave and upright, and honest and just ; if it is making 
 them noble-minded, careless of their selfish interests, and 
 loving only what is good, the truth of it is proved by evidence 
 better than argument, and idle persons may properly be 
 prohibited from raising unprofitable questions about it. 
 Where there is life, truth is present, not as in propositions, 
 but as an active force, and that is all which practical men 
 need desire. 
 
 Thus in stern and serious ages, the religion of every coun- 
 try has been under the charge of the law, and to deny it has 
 been treated as a crime. When the law has become re- 
 laxed, public opinion takes its place, and, though offenders 
 are no longer punished, society excommunicates them. If 
 
156 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 religion were matter of speculation, they would be let 
 alone ; but so long as it is a principle of conduct, the com- 
 mon sense of mankind refuses to allow it to be trifled with. 
 
 Public opinion was in this sense the guardian of Chris- 
 tianity in England sixty years ago. Orthodox dissent was 
 permitted. Doubts about the essentials of the faith were 
 not permitted. In the last century, in certain circles of soci- 
 ety, scepticism had for a time been fashionable ; but the 
 number of professed unbelievers was never great, and infidel- 
 ity was always a reproach. The Church administration had 
 been slovenly ; but in the masses of the people the convic- 
 tions which they had inherited were still present, and were 
 blown into flame easily by the Methodist revival. The 
 Establishment followed the example and grew energetic 
 a^ain. The French Revolution had friorhtened all classes 
 out of advanced ways of thinking, and society in town and 
 country was Tory in politics, and determined to allow no 
 innovations upon the inherited faith. It was orthodox 
 without being theological. Doctrinal problems were little 
 thought of. Religion, as taught in the Church of England, 
 meant moral obedience to the will of God. The speculative 
 part of it was accepted because it was assumed to be true. 
 The creeds were reverentially repeated ; but the essential 
 thing was practice. People went to church on Sunday to 
 learn to be good, to hear the commandments repeated to 
 them for the thousandth time, and to see them written in 
 gilt letters over the communion-table. About the powers 
 of the keys, the real presence or the metaphysics of doctrine, 
 no one was anxious, for no one thought about them. It was 
 not worth while to waste time over questions which had no 
 bearing on conduct, and could be satisfactorily disposed of 
 only by sensible indifference. 
 
 As the laity were, so were the clergy. They were gen- 
 erally of superior culture, manners, and character. The 
 pastor in the " Excursion " is a favorable but not an ex- 
 ceptional specimen of a large class among them. Others 
 
The Church of England Fifty Years Ago. 157 
 
 were country gentlemen of the best kind, continually in 
 contact with the people, but associating on equal terms 
 with the squires and the aristocracy. The curate of the last 
 century, who dined in the servants' hall and married the 
 ladies'-maid, had long disai)[)eared, if he had ever existed 
 outside popular novels. Not a specimen of him could have 
 been found in the island. The average English incumbent 
 of fifty years ago was a man of private fortune, the younger 
 brother of the landlord perhaps, and holding the family 
 living ; or it might be the landlord himself, his advowson 
 being part of the estate. His professional duties were his 
 services on Sunday, funerals and weddings on week-days, 
 and visits when needed among the sick. In other respects 
 he lived like his neighbors, distinguished from them only by 
 a black coat and white neckcloth, and greater watchfulness 
 over his words and actions. He farmed his own glebe ; he 
 kept horses ; he shot and hunted moderately, and mixed ii] 
 general society. He was generally a magistrate ; he attended 
 public meetings, and his education enabled him to take a 
 leading part in county business. His wife and daughters 
 looked after the poor, taught in the Sunday-school, and 
 managed the penny clubs and clothing clubs. He himself 
 was spoken of in the parish as " the master " — the person 
 who was responsible for keeping order there, and who knew 
 how to keep it. The laborers and the farmers looked up 
 to him. The " family " in the great house could not look 
 down upon him. If he was poor it was still his pride to 
 bring up his sons as gentlemen ; and economies were cheer- 
 fully submitted to at home to give them a start in life — at 
 tlie university, or in the army or navy. 
 
 Our own household was a fair representative of the order. 
 My father wa^ rector of the parish. He was archdeacon, 
 he was justice of the peace. He had a moderate fortune of 
 his own, consisting chiefly in land, and he belonged, there- 
 fore, to the " landed interest." Most of the magistrates' 
 work of the neighborhood passed through his hands. If 
 
158 The Oxford Counter- Reformation. 
 
 anything was amiss, it was his advice which was most 
 sought after, and I remember his being called upon to lay a 
 troublesome ghost. In his younger days he had been a hard 
 rider across country. His children knew him as a contin- 
 ually busy, useful man of the world, a learned and culti- 
 vated antiquary, and an accomplished artist. My brothers 
 and I were excellently educated, and were sent to school 
 and college. Our spiritual lessons did not go beyond the 
 Catechism. We were told that our business in life was 
 to work and to make an honorable position for ourselves. 
 About doctrine, Evangelical or Catholic, I do not think that 
 in my early boyhood I ever heard a single word, in church 
 or out of it. The institution had drifted into the condition 
 of what I should call moral health. It did not instruct us 
 in mysteries, it did not teach us to make religion a special 
 object of our thoughts ; it taught us to use religion as a 
 light by which to see our way along the road of duty. 
 Without the sun our eyes would be of no use to us ; but if we 
 look at the sun we are simply dazzled, and can see neither 
 it nor anything else. It is precisely the same with theolog- 
 ical speculations. If the beacon lamp is shining, a man of 
 healthy mind will not discuss the composition of the flame. 
 Enough if it shows him how to steer and keep clear of 
 shoals and breakers. To this conception of the thing we 
 had practically arrived. Doctrinal controversies were sleep- 
 ing. People went to church because they liked it, because 
 they knew that they ought to go, and because it was the 
 custom. They had received the Creeds from their fathers, 
 and doubts about them had never crossed their minds. 
 Christianity had wrought itself into the constitution of their 
 natures. It was a necessary part of the existing order of 
 the universe, as little to be debated about as the movements 
 of the planets or the changes of the seasons. 
 
 Such the Church of England was in the country 4is- 
 tricts before the Tractarian movement. It was not perfect, 
 but it was doing its work satisfactorily. It is easier to alter 
 
The Church of Ejiglancl Fifty Years Ago. 159 
 
 than to improve, and the beginning of change, like the be- 
 ginning of strife, is like the letting out of water. Jupiter, 
 in Lessing's fable, was invited to mend a fault in human 
 nature. The fault was not denied, but Jupiter said that man 
 was a piece of complicated machinery, and if he touched a 
 part he might probably spoil the whole. 
 
 But a new era was upon us. The miraculous nineteenth 
 cejitury was coming of age, and all the world was to be re- 
 made. Widely as the improvers of their species differed as 
 to the methods to be followed, they agreed in this, that im- 
 provement there was to be. The Radicals wanted to make 
 an end of Toryism and antiquated ideas. Young Oxford 
 discovered that if the Radicals were to be fought with suc- 
 cessfully the old weapons would not answer, and something 
 was wanted " deeper and truer than satisfied the last cen- 
 tury." Our English-speaking forefathers in the last cen- 
 tury it seems were poor creatures, yet they had contrived 
 to achieve considerable success in most departments of hu- 
 man affairs. They founded empires ; they invented steam- 
 engines ; they produced a Chatham, a Clive, a AVarren 
 Hastings, a Washington, a Franklin, a Nelson — a longer 
 list of illustrious names than there is need to mention. 
 Their literature might not equal the Elizabethan, but it 
 was noteworthy in its way. A period which had produced 
 Pope and Swift, Sterne and Fielding, Johnson and Gold- 
 smith, Hume and Gibbon, Butler and Berkeley, was not 
 so entirely shallow. Men had fixed beliefs in those days. 
 Over the pool of uncertainties in which our own generation 
 is floundering there was then a crust of undisturbed convic- 
 tion on which they could plant their feet and step out like 
 men. Their thoughts, if not deep, were clear and precise ; 
 their actions were bold and strong. A good many years, 
 perhaps a good many hundreds of years, will have to pass 
 before as sound books will be written again, or deeds done 
 with as much pith and mettle in them. " The something 
 deeper and truer " would be more easily desired than found, 
 
160 The Oxford Countcr-Beforriiation. 
 
 but the words well convey the inflation with which the 
 Catholic revivalists were going to their work. Our age 
 perhaps has a mistaken idea of its consequence. All its 
 geese are swans, and every new enemy is a monster never 
 before heard of. The " Edinburgh Review " and Brough- 
 am, and Mackintosh and the Reform Ministry, and Low 
 Church philosophy and the London University were not so 
 very terrible. But as the windmills were giants to the 
 knight of La Mancha, so the Whigs of those days were to 
 young Oxford apostles the forerunners of Antichrist. In- 
 fidelity was rushing in upon us. Achilles must rise from 
 his tent, and put on his celestial armor. The Church must 
 reassert herself in majesty to smite and drive back the proud 
 ao^^ressive intellect. 
 
 The excitement was unnecessary. The sun was not ex- 
 tinguished because a cloud was over its face. Custom, tra- 
 dition, conservative instinct, and natural reverence for the 
 truth handed down to it, would have sufficed more than 
 amply to meet such danger as then existed. In a little 
 while "The Edinburgh" became the most orthodox of jour- 
 nals, and Brougham an innocent apostle of natural theology. 
 Liberalism let well alone would have subsided into its place. 
 But it was not so to be. Achilles was roused in his wrath ; 
 and the foe whom he was to destroy was roused in turn, 
 and has not been destroyed. The two parties were the 
 counterparts one of the other ; each was possessed with 
 the same conceit of superiority to their fathers and grand- 
 fathers ; each in its way supposed that it had a mission to 
 reconstruct society. The Radicals believed in the rights 
 of man, the progress of the species, and intellectual eman- 
 cipation. To them our ancestors were children, and the 
 last-born generation were the ancient sages, for they had 
 inherited the accumulated experience of all past time. I2s- 
 tablished institutions represented only ignorance. The 
 older they were, the less fitted they were, from the nature 
 of the case, for modern exigencies. 
 
The Church of England Fifty Years Ago. 161 
 
 In talk of this kind there was one part sense and nine 
 parts nonsense. The Oxford School confronted it with a 
 position equally extravagant. In their opinion truth was 
 to be found only in the earliest fathers of the Church ; the 
 nearer that we could reach back to them, the purer we 
 should find the stream. The bottom of the mischief was 
 the modern notion of liberty, the supposed right of men to 
 think for themselves and act for themselves. Their business 
 was to submit to authority, and the seat of authority was 
 the Church. The false idea had made its appearance in 
 England first under the Plantagenet kings, in the Constitu- 
 tions of Clarendon, the mortmain and premunire statutes. 
 It had produced the Reformation, it had produced Puritan- 
 ism and regicide. It now threatened the destruction of all 
 that good men ought to. value. The last century had been 
 blind ; our own fathers had been blind ; but the terrible 
 reality could no longer be concealed. The arch enemy was 
 at the door. The Test Act was repealed. Civil disabilities 
 were taken off Dissenters. Brougham had announced that 
 henceforth no man was to suffer for his religious opinions. 
 Irish bishoprics were being suppressed. Lord Grey had 
 warned the bishops in England to set their houses in order, 
 and was said to have declared in private that the Church 
 was a mare's nest. Catholic emancipation was equally mon- 
 strous. Romanists, according to the theory as it then stood, 
 might be Churchmen abroad, but they were Dissenters in 
 England and Ireland. War was to be declared at once, 
 war to the knife against the promoters of these enormities. 
 History was reconstructed for us. I had learnt, like other 
 Protestant children, that the pope was Antichrist, and that 
 Gregory VII. had been a special revelation of that being. 
 I was now taught that Gregory VII. was a saint. I had 
 been told to honor the Reformers. The Reformation became 
 the great schism, Cranmer a traitor, and Latimer a vulgar 
 ranter. IMilton was a name of horror, and Charles I. was 
 canonized and spoken of as the holy and blessed martyr St. 
 11 
 
162 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 Charles. I asked once whether the Church of England was 
 able properly to create a saint. St. Charles was immedi- 
 ately pointed out to me. Similarly we were to admire the 
 non-jurors, to speak of James III. instead of the Pretender ; 
 to look for Antichrist, not in the pope, but in Whigs and 
 revolutionists and all their works. Henry of Exeter, so 
 famous in those days, announced once in my hearing that 
 the Court of Rome had regretted the Emancipation Act as 
 a victory of latitudiuarianism. I suppose he believed what 
 he was saying. 
 
 Under the sad conditions of the modern world the Church 
 of England was the rock of salvation. The Church, needing 
 only to be purged of the elements of Protestantism which 
 had stolen into her, could then, with her apostolic succes- 
 sion, her bishops, her priests, and her sacraments, rise up, 
 and claim and exercise her lawful authority over all persons 
 in all departments. She would have but to show herself in 
 her proper majesty, as in the great days when she fought 
 with kings and emperors, and now, as then, the powers of 
 darkness would spread their wings and fly away to their own 
 place. 
 
 These were the views which we used to hear in our home- 
 circle when the Tracts were first beginning. We had been 
 bred, all of us, Tories of the old school. This was Toryism 
 in ecclesiastical costume. My brother was young, gifted, 
 brilliant, and enthusiastic. No man is ever good for much 
 who has not been carried off his feet by enthusiasm between 
 twenty and thirt}" ; but it needs to be bridled and bitted, and 
 my brother did not live to be taught the difference between 
 fact and speculation. Taught it he would have been, if 
 time had been allowed him. No one ever recognized facts 
 more loyally than he when once he saw them. This I am 
 sure of, that when the intricacies of the situation pressed 
 upon him, when it became clear to him that if his concep- 
 tion of the Church, and of its rights and position was ti'ue 
 at all, it was not true of the Church of England in which 
 
The Church of E7igland Fifty Years Ago. 1G3 
 
 he was born, and that he must renounce his theory as vis- 
 ionary or join another communion, he would not have " min- 
 imized " the Roman doctrines that they might be more easy 
 for him to swallow, or have explained away plain proposi- 
 tions till they meant anything or nothing. Whether he 
 would have swallowed them or not I cannot say ; I was not 
 eighteen when he died, and I do not so much as form an 
 opinion about it ; but his course, whatever it was, would 
 have been direct and straightforward ; he was a man far 
 more than a theologian ; and if he had gone, he would have 
 gone with his whole heart and conscience, unassisted by sub- 
 tleties and nice distinctions. It is, however, at least equally 
 possible that he would not have gone at all. He might 
 have continued to believe that all authority was derived 
 from God; that God would have His will obeyed in this 
 world, and that the business of princes and ministers was to 
 learn what that will was. But prophets have passed for 
 something as well as priests in making God's will known ; 
 and Established Church priesthoods have not been gener- 
 ally on particularly good terms with prophets. The only 
 occasion on which the two orders are said to have been in 
 harmony was when the prophets prophesied lies, and the 
 priests bore rule in their name. 
 
 The terminus, however, towards which he and his friends 
 were moving had not come in sight in my brother's life- 
 time. He went forward, hesitating at nothing, taking the 
 fences as they came, passing lightly over them all, and sweep- 
 ing his friends along with him. He had the contempt of an 
 intellectual aristocrat for private judgment and the rights of 
 a man. In common things a person was a fool who pre- 
 ferred his own judgment to that of an expert. Why, he 
 asked, should it be wiser to follow private judgment in re- 
 ligion? As to rights, the right of wisdom was to rule, and 
 the right of ignorance was to be ruled. But he belonged 
 himself to the class whose business was to order ratlier 
 than obey. If his own bishop had iuterfered with him, 
 
164 Tlie Oxford Countcr-Befonnation. 
 
 his theory of episcopal authority would have been found 
 inai:>plicable in that particular instance. 
 
 So the work went on. The Church was not to be a Wit- 
 ness only to religious truth ; it was first to repent of its sins, 
 disown its Protestantism, and expel the Calvanistic poison ; 
 then it was to control politics and govern all opinion. Mur- 
 murs arose from time to time among the disciples. If the 
 Keformation was to be called an act of schism, were we not 
 on the road back to Rome ? Shrewd observers were heard 
 to say that the laity would never allow the Church of Eng- 
 land to get on stilts. The Church was grafted on upon the 
 State, and the State would remain master, let Oxford say what 
 it pleased. But the party of the movement were to grow 
 and fulfil their destiny. They were to j)roduce results of in- 
 calculable consequence, yet results exactly opposite to what 
 they designed and anticipated. They were to tear up the 
 fibres of custom by which the Establishment as they found 
 it was maintaining its quiet influence. They were to raise 
 discussions round its doctrines, which degraded accepted 
 truths into debatable opinions. They were to alienate the 
 conservative instincts of the country, fill the clergy once 
 more with the conceit of a priesthood, and convert them 
 into' pilot fish for the Roman missionaries. Worst of all, 
 by their attempts to identify Christianity with the Catholic 
 system, they provoked doubts, in those whom they failed to 
 persuade, about Christianity itself. But for the Oxford 
 movement, scepticism might have continued a harmless spec- 
 ulation of a few philosophers. By their perverse alterna- 
 tive, either the Church or nothing, they forced honest men to 
 say, Let it be nothing, then, rather than what we know to 
 be a lie. A vague misgiving now saturates our popular 
 literature ; our lecture rooms and pulpits echo with it ; and 
 the Established religion, protected no longer from irrever- 
 ent questions, is driven to battle for its existence among the 
 common subjects of secular investigation. Truth will pre- 
 
The Church of England Fifty Years Ago. 1G5 
 
 vail in the end, and the trial, perhaps, must have come at 
 one time or other. But it need not have come when it did. 
 There might have been peace in our days, if Achilles had 
 remained in his tent. 
 
 You shall have the story of it all in the following letters. 
 
166 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THE TRACTARIANS. 
 
 My dear . I have told you that the Tractarians' 
 
 object, so far as they understood themselves, was to raise 
 up the Church to resist the revolutionary tendency which 
 they conceived to have set in with the Reform Bill ; that 
 the effect of their work was to break the back of the resist- 
 ing power which the Church already possessed, and to feed 
 the fire which they hoped to extinguish. I go on to explain 
 in detail what I mean. 
 
 When I went into residence at Oxford my brother was 
 no longer alive. He had been abroad almost entirely for 
 three or four years before his death ; and although the at- 
 mosphere at home was full of the new opinions, and I heard 
 startling things from time to time on Transubstantiation and 
 suchlike, he had little to do with my direct education. I 
 had read at my own discretion in my father's library. My 
 own small judgment had been satisfied by Newton that the 
 Pope was the Man of Sin ; and Davison, to whom I was 
 sent for a correction, had not removed the impression. I 
 knew the " Fairy Queen " pretty well, and had understood 
 who and what was meant by the False Duessa. I read 
 Sharon Turner carefully, and also Gibbon, and had thus 
 unconsciously been swallowing antidotes to Catholic doc- 
 trine. Of evangelical books properly so called I had seen 
 nothing. Dissent in all its forms was a crime in our house. 
 My father was too solid a man to be carried off his feet by 
 the Oxford enthusiasm, but he was a High Churchman of 
 the old school. The Church itself he regarded as part of 
 
The Tractarians. 167 
 
 the constitution ; and the Prayer-book as an Act of Parlia- 
 ment which only folly or disloyalty could quarrel with. 
 My brother's notion of the evangelical clergy in the Estab- 
 lishment must have been taken from some unfortunate 
 specimens. He used to speak of them as " fellows who 
 turned up the whites of their eyes, and said LawdP We 
 had no copy of the " Pilgrim's Progress " in the house. 
 I never read it till after I had grown up, and I am sorry 
 that I did not make earlier acquaintance with it. Specula- 
 tions about the Church and the sacraments went into my 
 head, but never much into my heart ; and I fancy, perhaps 
 idly, that I might have escaped some trials and some mis- 
 fortunes if my spiritual imagination had been allowed food 
 which would have agreed with it. 
 
 In my first term at the university, the controversial fires 
 were beginning to blaze, but not as yet hotly. The author- 
 ities had not taken the alarm, but there was much talk and 
 excitement, and neither the education nor the discipline of 
 the place was benefited by it. The attention of the heads 
 and tutors was called off from their proper business. The 
 serious undergraduates divided into parties, and the measure 
 with which they estimated one another's abilities was not 
 knowledge or industry, but the opinions which they severally 
 held. The neo-Catholic youths thought themselves espe- 
 cially clever, and regarded Low Churchmen and Liberals as 
 fools. It was unfortunate, for the state of Oxford was cry- 
 ing out for reform of a different kind. The scheme of 
 teaching for the higher class of men was essentially good, 
 perhaps as good as it could be made ; incomparably better 
 than the universal knowledge methods which have taken its 
 place. But the idle or dull man had no education at all. 
 His three or four years were spent in forgetting what he had 
 learnt at school. The degree examination was got over by 
 a memoria technica., and three months' cram with a private 
 tutor. We did pretty much what we liked. There was 
 much dissipation, and the whole manner of life was need- 
 
1G8 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 lessly extravagant. We were turned loose at eighteen, 
 pleasures tempting us on all sides, the expense of indulgence 
 being the only obstacle ; and the expense for the first year 
 or two was kept out of sight by the eagerness of the trades- 
 men to give us credit. No dean or tutor ever volunteered 
 to help our inexperience. The prices which we paid for 
 everything were preposterous. The cost of living might 
 have been reduced to half what it was if the college authori- 
 ties would have supplied the students on the co-operative 
 system. But they would take no trouble, and their own 
 charges were on the same extravagant scale. The wretched 
 novice was an object of general plunder till he had learnt 
 how to take care of himself. I remember calculating that I 
 could have lived at a boarding-house on contract, with every 
 luxury which I had in college, at a reduction of fifty per 
 cent. In all this there was room and to spare for reforming 
 energy, and it may be said that the administration of the 
 university was the immediate business of the leading mem- 
 bers — a business, indeed a duty, much more immediate 
 than the unprotestantizing of the Church of England. But 
 there was no leisure, there was not even a visible desire to 
 meddle with concerns so vulgar. Famous as the Tractarian 
 leaders were to become, their names are not connected with 
 a single effort to improve the teaching at Oxford or to mend 
 its manners. Behind the larger conflict which they raised, 
 that duty was left untouched for many years ; it was taken 
 up ultimately by the despised Liberals, who have not done 
 it well, but have at least accomplished something, and have 
 won the credit which was left imprudently within their 
 reach. 
 
 The state of things which I found on coming up was, 
 thus, not favorable to the proper work of the place. In 
 general there was far too little intercourse between the 
 elder and the younger men. The difference of age was not 
 really very great, but they seldom met, except in lecture- 
 rooms. If an undergraduate now and then breakfasted 
 
The Tractarians. 169 
 
 with his tutor, the undergraduate was shy, and the tutor 
 was obliged to maiutaiu by distance and dignity of manner 
 the superiority which he might have forfeited if he allowed 
 himself to be easy and natural. I myself, for my brother's 
 sake, was in some degree an exception. I saw something 
 from the first of the men of whom the world was talking. 
 I might have seen more, but I did not make the most of my 
 opportunities. I wished to be a disciple. I thought I was 
 a disciple. But somehow I could never feel in my heart 
 that what they were about was of the importance of which 
 it seemed to be, and I was little more than a curious and 
 interested spectator. 
 
 Nor, with two exceptions, were the chiefs of the move- 
 ment personally impressive to me. Isaac Williams I had 
 known as a boy. He was an early friend of my brother's, 
 and spent a vacation or two at my father's house before I 
 went to school. His black brilliant eyes, his genial laugh, 
 the skill and heartiness with which he threw himself into 
 our childish amusements, the inexhaustible stock of stories 
 with which he held us spell-bound for hours, had endeared 
 him to every one of us ; and at Oxford to dine now and then 
 with four or five others in Williams's rooms was still one of 
 the greatest pleasures which I had. He was serious, but 
 never painfully so; and though his thoughts ran almost en- 
 tirely in theological channels, they rose out of the soil of his 
 own mind, pure and sparkling as the water from a mountain 
 spring. He was a poet, too, and now and then could rise 
 into airy sweeps of really high imagination. There is an 
 image in the " Baptistery " describing the relations between 
 the actions of men here in this world and the eternity which 
 lies before them, grander than the finest of Keble's, or even 
 of Wordsworth's : — 
 
 Ice-chained in its headlong tract 
 Have I seen a cataract, 
 All tliron<:jhont a wintry noon, 
 Hanging in the silent moon ; 
 
170 The Oxford Coiintcr-Bcformation. 
 
 All throughout a sunbright even, 
 Like the sapphire gate of Heaven; 
 Spray and wave, and drii:)pings frore, 
 For a hundred feet and more 
 Caught in air, there to remain 
 Bound in winter's crystal cliain. 
 All above still silent sleeps. 
 While in the transparent deeps, 
 Far below the current creeps. 
 Thus, methought men's actions here, 
 In their headlong full career, 
 "Were passing into adamant ; 
 Hopes and fears, love, hate, and want. 
 And the thoughts, like shining spray, 
 Which above their pathway play. 
 Standing in the eye of day. 
 In the changeless heavenly noon. 
 Things done here beneath the moon. 
 
 Fault may be found with the execution in this passage, 
 but the conception is poetry of the very highest order. 
 But Williams was of quiet, unobtrusive spirit. He had 
 neither the confidence nor the commandinfj nature which 
 could have formed or led a party. The triumvirs who 
 became a national force, and gave its real character to the 
 Oxford movement, were Keble, Pusey, and John Henry- 
 Newman. Newman himself was the moving power ; the 
 two others were powers also, but of inferior mental strength. 
 Without the third, they would have been known as men 
 of genius and learning ; but their personal influence would 
 have been limited to and have ended with themselves. 
 Of Pusey I knew but little, and need not do more than 
 mention him. Of Keble I can only venture to say a few 
 words. 
 
 He had left residence at the time I speak of, but the 
 " Christian Year " had made him famous. He was often in 
 Oxford as Professor of Poetry, and I was allowed to see 
 him. Cardinal Newman has alluded in his " Apologia " to 
 the reverence which was felt for Keble. He is now an 
 
 1 
 
Tlic Tractarians. 171 
 
 acknowledged Saint of the English Church, admired and 
 respected even by those who disagree with his theology. 
 A college has been founded in commemoration of him which 
 bears his name ; and the " Christian Year " itself has passed 
 through more than a hundred editions, and is a household 
 word in every family of the Anglican Episcopal communion, 
 both at home and in America. It seems presumptuous to 
 raise a doubt about the fitness of a recognition so marked 
 and so universal. But the question is not of Keble's piety 
 or genuineness of character. Both are established beyond 
 the reach of cavil, and it would be absurd and ungracious to 
 depreciate them. The intellectual and literary quality of 
 his work, however, is a fair subject of criticism ; and I am 
 heretical enough to believe that, although the " Christian 
 Year " will always hold a high place in religious poetry, it 
 owes its extraordinary popularity to temporary and accidental 
 causes. Books which are immediately successful, are those 
 which catch and reflect the passing tones of opinion — all- 
 absorbing while they last, but from their nature subject to 
 change. The mass of men know little of other times or 
 other ways of thinking than their own. Their minds are 
 formed by the conditions of the present hour. Their great- 
 est man is he who for the moment expresses most completely 
 their own sentiments, and represents human life to them 
 from their own point of view. The point of view shifts, 
 conditions alter, fashions succeed fashions, and opinions 
 opinions ; and having ourselves lost the clue, we read the 
 writings which delighted our great-grandfathers with won- 
 der at their taste. Each generation produces its own proph- 
 ets, and great contemporary fame, except in a few extraor- 
 dinary instances, is revenged by an undeserved completeness 
 of neglect. 
 
 Very different in general is the reception of the works of 
 true genius. A few persons appreciate them from the first. 
 To the many they seem flavorless and colorless, deficient in 
 all the qualities which for the moment are most admired. 
 
172 Titc O.rford Countcr-Rr formation. 
 
 They pass unnoticed amidst the meteors by which they are 
 surrounded and eclipsed. But the meteors pass and they 
 remain, and are seen gradually to be no vanishing coruscations, 
 but new fixed stars, sources of genuine light, shining serenely 
 forever in the intellectual sky. They link the ages one to 
 another in a common humanity. Virgil and Horace lived 
 nearly two thousand years ago, and belonged to a society of 
 which the outward form and fashion have utterly perished. 
 But Virgil and Horace do not grow old, because while 
 society changes men continue, and we recognize in read- 
 ing them that the same heart beat under the toga which 
 we feel in our own breasts. In the Roman Empire, too, 
 there were contemporary popularities ; men who were wor- 
 shipped as gods, whose lightest word was treasured as a pre- 
 cious jewel — on whose breath millions hung expectant, who 
 had temples built in their honor, who in their day were a 
 power in the world. These are gone, while Horace remains, 
 — gone, dwindled into shadows. They were men, perhaps, 
 of real worth, though of less than their admirers supposed, 
 and they are now laughed at and moralized over in history 
 as detected idols. As it was then, so it is now, and always 
 will be. More copies of " Pickwick " were sold in five 
 years than of " Hamlet " in two hundred. Yet " Hamlet " 
 will last as long as the " Iliad ; " " Pickwick," delightful as 
 it is to us, will be unreadable to our great-grandchildren. 
 The most genial caricature ceases to interest when the thing 
 caricatured has ceased to be. 
 
 I am not comparing the " Christian Year " to Pickwick, 
 but there are fashions in religion as there are fixshions in 
 other thino;s. The Puritans would have found in it the 
 savor of the mystic Babylon. We cannot tell what Eng- 
 lish thought will be on these subjects in another century, 
 but we may know if we are modest that it will not be 
 identical with ours. Keble has made himself a name in 
 history which will not be forgotten, and he will be remem- 
 bered always as a person of singular piety, of inflexible 
 
The Triidarians. I'^S 
 
 integrity, and entire indifference to what is called fame or 
 worldly advantages. He possessed besides, in an exceptional 
 decrree, the gift of expressing himself in the musical form 
 which is called poetical. It is a form into which human 
 thought naturally throws itself when it becomes emotional. 
 It is'the only form adequate to the expression of high intel- 
 lectual passions. However powerful the intellect, however 
 generous the heart, this particular faculty can alone convey 
 to others what is passing in them, or give to spiritual beauty 
 a body which is beautiful also. The poetic faculty thus 
 secures to those who have it the admiration of every person ; 
 but it is to be remembered also that if the highest things can 
 alone be fitly spoken of in poetry, all poetry is not neces- 
 sarily of the highest things ; and if it can rise to the grand- 
 est subjects, it can lend its beauty also to the most common- 
 place. The prima donna wields the spell of an enchantress, 
 though the words which she utters are nonsense ; and poetry 
 can make diamonds out of glass, and gold out of ordinary 
 metal. Keble was a representative of the devout mind of 
 England. Religion, as he grew to manhood, was becoming 
 self-conscious. It was passing out of its normal and healthy 
 condition as the authoritative teacher of obedience to the 
 commandments, into active anxiety about the speculative 
 doctrines on which its graces were held to depend. Here, 
 as in all other directions, the mental activity of the age was 
 making itself felt. The evangelical movement was one 
 symptom of it. The revival of sacramentalism was another, 
 and found a voice in Keble. But this is all. We look in 
 vain to him for any insight into the complicated problems 
 of humanity, or for any sympathy with the passions which 
 are the pulses of human life. With the Prayer-book for his 
 guide, he has provided us with a manual of religious senti- 
 ment corresponding to the Christian theory as taught by tlie 
 Church of England Prayer-book, beautifully expressed in 
 lani^uage which everyone can understand and remember. 
 High Churchmanship had been hitherto dry and formal ; 
 
174 The Oxford Countcr-Eeformation. 
 
 Keble carried into it the emotions of Evangelicalism, while 
 he avoided angry collision with Evangelical opinions. Thus 
 all parties could find much to admire in him, and little to 
 suspect. English religious poetry was generally weak — 
 was not, indeed, poetry at all. Here was something which 
 in its kind was excellent ; and every one who was really re- 
 ligious, or wished to be religious, or even outwardly and from 
 habit professed himself and believed himself to be a Christian, 
 found Keble's verses chime in his heart like church bells. H 
 
 The " Christian Year," however, could be all this, and 
 yet notwithstanding it could be poetry of a particular period, 
 and not for all time. Human nature remains the same ; 
 but religion alters. Christianity has taken many forms. In 
 the early Church it had the hues of a hundred heresies. 
 It developed in the successive councils. It has been Roman, 
 it has been Greek, it has been Anglican, Lutheran, Calvin- 
 ist, Arminian. It has adjusted itself to national character- 
 istics ; it has grown with the growth of general knowledge. 
 Keble himself, in his latest edition, is found keeping pace 
 with the progress of the times, and announcing that the 
 hand as well as the heart receives the mystic presence in 
 the Eucharist. He began to write for Church people as 
 they were sixty years ago. The Church of England has 
 travelled far since 1820. The " Highest" rector then alive 
 would have gone into convulsions if his curate had spoken 
 to him about " celebrating " mass. The most advanced 
 Biblical critic would have closed the Speaker's Commentary 
 with dismay or indignation. Changed opinions will bring 
 change of feelings, and fresh poets to set the feelings to 
 music. The " Christian Year " has reigned without a rival 
 through two generations, but " the rhymes " are not of the 
 powerful sort which will " outlive the Pyramids," and the 
 qualities which have given them their immediate influence 
 will equally forbid their immortality. 
 
 The limitations of Keble's poetry were visible in a still 
 higher degree in himself. He was not far-seeing ; his mind 
 
Tlie Tractarians. 175 
 
 moved in the groove of a single order of ideas. He could 
 not place himself in the position of persons who disagreed 
 with him, and thus he could never see the strong points of 
 their arguments. Particular ways of thinking he dismissed 
 as wicked, although in his summary condemnation he might 
 be striking some of the ablest and most honest men in Eu- 
 rope. If he had not been Keble he would liave been called 
 (treason though it be to write the words) narrow-minded. 
 Circumstances independent of himself could alone have 
 raised him into a leader of a party. For the more deli- 
 cate functions of such an office he was constitutionally unfit, 
 and when appealed to for advice and assistance by disciples 
 who were in difficulties his answers were beside the purpose. 
 He could not give to others what he did not himself possess. 
 Plato, in the Dialogue of the lo, describes an ingenious 
 young Athenian searching desperately for some one who 
 would teach him to be wise. Failing elsewhere, he goes 
 to the poets. Those, he thought, who could say such fine 
 things in their verses would be able to tell him in prose 
 what wisdom consisted in. Their conversation unfortu- 
 nately proved as profitless as that of the philosophers ; and 
 the youth concluded that the poetry came from divine in- 
 spiration, and that when off the sacred tripod they were but 
 common men. Disappoiutment could not chill the admira- 
 tion which the inquirer would continue to feel for so ven- 
 erable a teacher as Keble, but of practical light that would 
 be useful to him he often gathered as little as the Athenian. 
 Even as a poet Keble was subjective only. He had no 
 variety of note, and nothing which was not in harmony 
 with his own theological school had intellectual interest 
 for him. 
 
 To his immediate friends he was genial, affectionate, and 
 possibly instructive, but he had no faculty for winning the 
 unconverted. If he was not bigoted he was intensely preju- 
 diced. If you did not agree with him there was something 
 morally wrong with you, and your " natural man " was pro- 
 
176 The Oxford Counter-Bcformation. 
 
 voked into resistance. To speak habitually with authority- 
 does not necessarily indicate an absence of humility, but 
 does not encourage the growth of that quality. If there 
 had been no " movement," as it was called, if Keble had 
 remained a quiet country clergyman, unconscious that he 
 was a great man, and uncalled on to guide the opinions of 
 his age, he would have commanded perhaps more enduring 
 admiration. The knot of followers who specially attached 
 themselves to him show traces of his influence in a dispo- 
 sition not only to think the views which they hold sound in 
 themselves, but to regard those who think differently as 
 their intellectual inferiors. Keble was incapable of vanity 
 in the vulgar sense. But there was a subtle self-sufficiency 
 in him which has come out more distinctly in his school. 
 
 I remember an instance of Keble's narrowness extremely 
 characteristic of him. A member of a family with which he 
 had been intimate had adopted Liberal opinions in theology. 
 Keble probably did not know what those opinions were, but 
 regarded this person as an apostate who had sinned against 
 light. He came to call one day when the erring brother 
 happened to be at home ; and learning that he was in the 
 house, he refused to enter, and remained sitting in the porch. 
 St. John is reported to have fled out of a bath at Ephesus 
 on hearing that the heretic Cerinthus was under the roof. 
 Keble, I presume, remembered the story, and acted like the 
 apostle. 
 
 The inability to appreciate the force of arguments which 
 he did not like saved him from Rome, but did not save him 
 from Roman doctrine. It would, perhaps, have been better 
 if he had left the Church of England, instead of remaining 
 there to shelter behind his high authority a revolution in its 
 teaching. The mass has crept back among us, with which 
 we thought we had done forever, and the honorable name of 
 Protestant, once our proudest distinction, has been made 
 over to the Church of Scotland and tlie Dissenters. 
 
 Far different from Keble, from my brother, from Dr. 
 
The Tractarians. Ill 
 
 Pusey, from all the rest, was the true chief of the Catholic 
 revival — John Henry Newman. Compared with him, they 
 were all but as ciphers, and he the indicating number. The 
 times I speak of are far distant ; the actors and the stormy 
 passions which bubbled round them are long dead and for- 
 gotten among new excitements. Newman, too, for many 
 years had di'opped silent, and disappeared from the world's 
 eyes. He came out again in a conflict with a dear friend of 
 mine, who, on my account partly (at least, in reviewing a 
 book which I had written), provoked a contest with him, 
 and impar congressus Achilli seemed to have been foiled. 
 Charles Kingsley is gone from us. English readers know 
 now what he was, and from me or from any one he needs 
 no further panegyric. In that one instance he conducted 
 his case unskilfully. He was wrong in his estimate of the 
 character of his antagonist, whose integrity was as unblem- 
 ished as his own. But the last word has still to be spoken 
 on the essential question which was at issue between them. 
 The immediate result was the publication of the famous 
 "Apologia," a defence jDcrsonally of Newman's own life 
 and actions, and next of the Catholic cause. The writer of 
 it is again a power in modern society, a prince of the Church ; 
 surrounded, if he appears in public, with adoring crowds, fine 
 ladies going on their knees before him in London salons. 
 Himself of most modest nature, he never sought greatness, 
 but greatness found him in spite of himself. To him, if to 
 any one man, the world owes the intellectual recovery of Ro- 
 manism. Fifty years ago it was in England a dying creed, 
 lingering in retirement in the halls and chapels of a few half- 
 forgotten families. A shy Oxford student has come out on 
 its behalf into the field of controversy, armed with the 
 keenest weapons of modern learning and philosophy ; and 
 wins illustrious converts, and has kindled hopes that Eng- 
 land herself, the England of Elizabeth and Cromwell, will 
 kneel for absolution again before the father of Christendom. 
 Mr. Buckle questioned whether any great work has ever 
 12 
 
178 Tlic Oxford Counter- Reformation. 
 
 been done in this world by an individual man. Newman, 
 by the solitary force of his own mind, has produced this ex- 
 traordinary change. What he has done we all see ; what 
 will come of it our children will see. Of the ma«:nitude 
 of the phenomenon itself no reasonable person can doubt. 
 Two writers have affected powerfully the present genera- 
 tion of Englishmen. Newman is one, Thomas Carlyle is 
 the other. But Carlyle has been at issue with all the 
 tendencies of his age. Like a John the Baptist, he has stood 
 alone preaching repentance in a world which is to him 
 a wilderness. Newman has been the voice of the intel- 
 lectual reaction of Europe, which was alarmed by an era of 
 revolutions, and is looking for safety in the forsaken beliefs 
 of the ages which it had been tempted to despise. 
 
 The " Apologia " is the most beautiful of autobiographies, 
 but it tells us only how the writer appeared to himself. We 
 who were his contemporaries can alone say how he appeared 
 to us in the old days at Oxford. 
 
Johi Henry Newman, 1T9 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 
 
 My dear . My present letter will be given to a 
 
 sincrle figure. When I entered at Oxford, John Henry 
 Newman'' was beginning to be famous. The responsible 
 authorities were watching him with anxiety; clever men 
 were looking with interest and curiosity on the apparition 
 among them of one of those persons of indisputable genius 
 who was likely to make a mark upon his time. His appear- 
 ance was striking. He was above the middle height, slight 
 and spare. His head was large, his face remarkably like 
 that of Julius Csesar. The forehead, the shape of the ears 
 and nose, were almost the same. The lines of the mouth 
 were very peculiar, and I should say exactly the same. I 
 have often thought of the resemblance, and believed that 
 it extended to the temperament. In both there was an 
 original force of character which refused to be moulded by 
 circumstances, which was to make its own way, and become 
 a power in the world; a clearness of intellectual perception, 
 a disdain for conventionalities, a temper imperious and wil- 
 ful, but along with it a most attaching gentleness, sweetness, 
 singleness of heart and purpose. Both were formed by 
 nature to comiuand others ; both had the faculty of attract- 
 ing to themselves the passionate devotion of their friends 
 and followers; and in both cases, too, perhaps the devotion 
 was rather due to the personal ascendency of the leader 
 than to the cause which he represented. It was Caesar, not 
 the principle of the empire, which overthrew Pompey and 
 the constitution. Credo in Newmannum was a common 
 
180 The Oxford Coimtcr-Bcformcdion. 
 
 phrase at Oxford, and is still unconsciously the faith of nine- 
 tenths of the English converts to Rome. 
 
 When I first saw him he had written his book upon the 
 Arians. An accidental application had set him upon it, at a 
 time, I believe, when he had half resolved to give himself to 
 science and mathematics, and had so determined him into a 
 theological career. He had published a volume or two of 
 parochial sermons. A few short poems of his had also ap- 
 peared in the " British Magazine," under the signature of 
 " Delta," which were reprinted in the " Lyra Apostolica." 
 They were unlike any other religious poetry which was then 
 extant. It was hard to say why they were so fascinating. 
 They had none of the musical grace of the " Christian Year." 
 They were not harmonious ; the metre halted, the rhymes 
 were irregular, yet there was something in them which seized 
 the attention, and would not let it go. Keble's verses flowed 
 in soft cadence over the mind, delightful, as sweet sounds are 
 delightful, but are forgotten as the vibrations die away. New- 
 man's had pierced into the heart and mind, and there re- 
 mained. The literary critics of the day were puzzled. They 
 saw that he was not an ordinary man ; what sort of an ex- 
 traordinary man he was they could not tell. " The eye of 
 Melpomene has been cast upon him," said the omniscient (I 
 think) " Athena3um";^ "but the glance was not fixed or 
 steady." The eye of Melpomene had extremely little to do 
 in the matter. Here were thoughts like no other man's 
 thoughts, and emotions like no other man's emotions. Here 
 was a man who really believed his creed, and let it follow 
 him into all his observations upon outward things. He had 
 been travelling in Greece; he had carried with him his 
 recollections of Thucydides, and while his companions were 
 sketching olive gardens and old castles and picturesque har- 
 bors at Corfu, Newman was recalling the scenes which those 
 
 1 Perhaps it was not the Athenceum. I quote from memory. I remem- 
 ber the passage from the amusement which it gave me; but it was between 
 forty and fift}' j'cars ago, and I have never seen it since. 
 
Jolin Henry Nciuman. 181 
 
 harbors had witnessed thousands of years ago in the civil 
 wars which the Greek historian has made immortal. There 
 was nothing in this that was unusual. Any one with a well- 
 stored memory is affected by historical scenery^ But New- 
 man was oppressed with the sense that the men who had 
 fallen in that desperate strife were still alive, as much as he 
 and his friends were alive. 
 
 Their spirits live in awful singleness, 
 he says, 
 
 Each in its self-formed sphere of light or gloom. 
 
 We should all, perhaps, have acknowledged this in words. 
 It is happy for us that we do not all realize what the words 
 mean. The minds of most of us would break under the 
 strain. 
 
 Other conventional beliefs, too, were quickened into start- 
 ling realities. We had been hearing much in those days 
 about the benevolence of the Supreme Being, and our cor- 
 responding obligation to charity and philanthropy. If the 
 received creed was true, benevolence was by no means the 
 only characteristic of that Being. What God loved we 
 might love ; but there were things which God did not love ; 
 accordingly, we found Newman saying to us, — 
 
 Christian, would'st thou learn to love ? 
 First learn thee how to hate. 
 
 Hatred of sin and zeal and fear 
 
 Lead up tlie Holy Hill ; 
 Track them, till charity appear 
 
 A self-denial still. 
 
 It was not austerity that made him speak so. No one was 
 more essentially tender-hearted. But he took the usually 
 accepted Christian account of man and his destiny to be 
 literally true, and the terrible character of it weighed upon 
 him. 
 
 Sunt lacrymae rerum et meutera mortalia tangunt. 
 
182 Tlu Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 He could be gentle enough in other moods. " Lead, kindly 
 Light," is the most popular hymn in the language. All of 
 us, Catholic, Protestant, or such as can see their way to no 
 positive creed at all, can here meet on common ground and 
 join in a common prayer. Familiar as the lines are, they 
 may here be written down once more : — 
 
 Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom 
 
 Lead Thoii me on. 
 The night is dark, and I am far from home, 
 
 Lead Thou me on. 
 Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
 Far distant scenes — one step enough for me. 
 
 I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou 
 
 Should'st lead me on. 
 I loved to choose and see my path ; but now 
 
 Lead Thou me on. 
 I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, 
 Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years. 
 
 So long Thy power hath blest us, sure it will 
 
 Still lead us on, 
 O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
 
 The night is gone, 
 And with the morn those angel faces smile 
 Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. 
 
 It has been said that men of letters are either much less 
 or much greater than their writings. Cleverness and the 
 skilful use of other people's thoughts produce works which 
 take us in till we see the authors, and then we are disen- 
 chanted. A man of genius, on the other hand, is a spring 
 in which there is always more behind than flows from it. 
 The painting or the poem is but a part of him inadequately 
 realized, and his nature expresses itself, with equal or fuller 
 completeness, in his life, his conversation, and personal pres- 
 ence. This was eminently true of Newman. Greatly as 
 his poetry had struck me, he was himself all that the poetry 
 was, and something far beyond. I had then never seen so 
 
John Henry Newman. 183 
 
 impressive a person. I met him now and then in private ; 
 I attended his church and heard him preach Sunday after 
 Sunday ; he is supposed to have been insidious, to have led 
 his disciples on to conclusions to which he designed to bring 
 them, while his j)ui'pose was carefully veiled. He was, on 
 the contrary, the most transparent of men. He told us 
 what he believed to be true. He did not know where it 
 would carry him. No one who has ever risen to any great 
 height in this world refuses to move till he knows -where he 
 is going. He is impelled in each step which he takes by a 
 force within himself. He satisfies himself only that the step 
 is a right one, and he leaves the rest to Providence. New- 
 man's mind was world-wide. He was interested in every- 
 thing which was going on in science, in politics, in literature. 
 Nothing was too large for him, nothing too trivial, if it threw 
 light upon the central question, what man really was, and 
 what was his destiny. He was careless about his personal 
 prospects. He had no ambition to make a career, or to rise 
 to rank and power. Still less had pleasure any seductions 
 for him. His natural temperament was bright and light ; 
 his senses, even the commonest, were exceptionally delicate. 
 I was told that, though he rarely drank wine, he was trusted 
 to choose the vintages for the college cellar. He could 
 admire enthusiastically any greatness of action and charac- 
 ter, however remote the sphere of it from his own. Gur- 
 wood's " Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington " came out 
 just then. Newman had been reading the book, and a friend 
 asked him what he thought of it. " Think ? " he said, " it 
 makes one burn to have been a soldier." But his own subject 
 was the absorbing interest with him. Where Christianity 
 is a real belief, where there are distinct convictions that a 
 man's own self and the millions of human beings who are 
 playing on the earth's surface are the objects of a supernat- 
 ural dispensation, and are on the road to heaven or hell, 
 the most powerful mind may well be startled at the aspect of 
 things. If Christianity was true, since Christianity was true 
 
184 Tlie Oxford Counter-Ecformation. 
 
 (for Newman at no time doubted the reality of the revela- 
 tion), then modern England, modern Europe, with its march 
 of intellect and its useful knowledge and its material prog- 
 ress, was advancing with a light heart into ominous condi- 
 tions. Keble had looked into no lines of thought but his 
 own. Newman had read omnivorously ; he had studied 
 modern thought and modern life in all its forms, and with 
 all its many-colored passions. He knew, of course, that 
 many men of learning and ability believed that Christianity 
 was not a revelation at all, but had been thrown out, like 
 other creeds, in the growth of the human mind. He knew 
 that doubts of this kind were the inevitable results of free 
 discussion and free toleration of differences of opinion ; and 
 he was too candid to attribute such doubts, as others did, to 
 wickedness of heart. He could not, being what he was, 
 acquiesce in the established religion as he would acquiesce 
 in the law of the land, because it was there, and because the 
 country had accepted it, and because good geueral reasons 
 could be given for assuming it to be right. The soundest 
 arguments, even the arguments of Bishop Butler himself, 
 went no farther than to establish a probability. But relig- 
 ion with Newman was a jDersonal thing between himself and 
 his Maker, and it was not possible to feel love and devotion 
 to a Being whose existence was merely probable. As Car- 
 lyle says of himself when in a similar condition, a religion 
 which was not a certainty was a mockery and a horror ; and 
 unshaken and unshakable as his own convictions were, 
 Newman evidently was early at a loss for the intellectual 
 grounds on which the claims of Christianity to abstract 
 belief could be based. The Protestant was satisfied with 
 the Bible, the original text of which, and perhaps the Eng- 
 lish translation, he regarded as inspired. But the inspira- 
 tion itself was an assumption, and had to be proved ; and 
 Newman, though he believed the inspiration, seems to have 
 recognized earlier than most of his contemporaries that the 
 Bible was not a single book, but a national literature, pro- 
 
John Henry Newman. 185 
 
 duced at intervals, during many hundred years, and under 
 endless varieties of circumstances. Protestant and Catholic 
 alike appealed to it, and they could not both be right. Yet 
 if the differences between them were essential, there must 
 be some authority capable of deciding between them. The 
 Anglican Church had a special theology of its own, profess- 
 ing to be based on the Bible. Yet to suppose that each 
 individual left to himself would gather out of the Bible, if 
 able and conscientious, exactly these opinions and no others, 
 was absurd and contrary to experience. There were the 
 creeds ; but on what authority did the creeds rest ? On the 
 four councils ? or on other councils, and, if other, on which ? 
 Was it on the Church ? and, if so, on what Church ? The 
 Church of the fathers ? or the Church still present and 
 alive and speaking ? If for living men, among whom new 
 questions were perpetually rising, a Church which was also 
 living could not be dispensed with, then what was that 
 Church, and to what conclusions would such an admission 
 lead us ? 
 
 With us undergraduates Newman, of course, did not enter 
 on such important questions, although they were in the air, 
 and we talked about them among ourselves. He, when we 
 met him, spoke to us about subjects of the day, of liter- 
 ature, of public persons and incidents, of everything which 
 was generally interesting. He seemed always to be better 
 informed on common topics of conversation than any one 
 else who was present. He was never condescending with 
 us, never didactic or authoritative ; but what he said carried 
 conviction alonjj with it. When we were wrong- he knew 
 why we were wrong, and excused our mistakes to ourselves 
 while he set us right. Perhaps his supreme merit as a 
 talker was that he never tried to be witty or to say striking 
 things. Ironical he could be, but not ill-natured. Not a 
 malicious anecdote was ever heard from him. Prosy he 
 could not be. He was lightness itself — the lightness of 
 elastic strength — and he was interesting because he never 
 
186 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 talked for talking's sake, but because he had something real 
 to say. 
 
 Thus it was that we, who had never seen such another 
 man, and to whom he appeared, perhaps, at special advan- 
 tage in contrast with the normal college don, came to regard 
 Newman with the affection of pupils (though pupils, strictly- 
 speaking, he had none) for an idolized master. The sim- 
 plest word which dropped from him was treasured as if it 
 had been an intellectual diamond. For hundreds of young 
 men Credo in Newmannuni was the genuine symbol of 
 faith. 
 
 Personal admiration, of course, inclined us to look to him 
 as a guide in matters of religion. No one who heard his 
 sermons in those days can ever forget them. They were 
 seldom directly theological. We had theology enough and 
 to spare from the select preachers before the university. 
 Newman, taking some Scripture character for a text, spoke 
 to us about ourselves, our temptations, our experiences. 
 His illustrations were inexhaustible. He seemed to be 
 addressing the most secret consciousness of each of us — as 
 the eyes t)f a portrait appear to look at every person in a 
 room. He never exaggerated ; he was never unreal. A 
 sermon from him was a poem, formed on a distinct idea, 
 fascinating by its subtlety, welcome — how welcome ! — 
 from its sincerity, interesting from its originality, even to 
 those who were careless of religion ; and to others who 
 wished to be religious, but had found religion dry and 
 wearisome, it was like the springing of a fountain out of 
 the rock. 
 
 The hearts of men vibrate in answer to one another like 
 the strings of musical instruments. These sermons were, I 
 suppose, the records of Newman's own mental experience. 
 They appear to me to be the outcome of continued medita- 
 tion upon his fellow-creatures and their position in this 
 world ; their awful responsibilities ; the mystery of their 
 nature, strangely mixed of good and evil, of strength and 
 
John Henry Newman. 187 
 
 weakness. A tone, not of fear, but of infinite pity, runs 
 through them all, and along with it a resolution to look 
 facts in the face ; not to fly to evasive generalities about 
 infinite mercy and benevolence, but to examine what revela- 
 tion really has added to our knowledge, either of what we 
 are or of what lies before us. We were met on all sides 
 with difficulties ; for experience did not confirm, it rather 
 contradicted, what revelation appeared distinctly to assert. 
 I recollect a sermon from him — I think in the year 1839 — 
 I have never read it since ; I may not now remember the 
 exact words, but the impression left is ineffaceable. It was 
 on the trials of faith, of which he gave different illustra- 
 tions. He supposed, first, two children to be educated to- 
 gether, of similar temperament and under similar conditions, 
 one of whom was baptized and the other unbaptized. He 
 represented them as growing up equally amiable, equally 
 upright, equally reverent and God-fearing, with no outward 
 evidence that one was in a different spiritual condition from 
 the other ; yet we were required to believe, not only that 
 their condition was totally different, but that one was a 
 child of God, and his companion was not. 
 
 Again, he drew a sketch of the average men and women 
 who made up society, whom we ourselves encountered in 
 daily life, or were connected with, or read about in news- 
 papers. They were neither special saints nor special sin- 
 ners. Religious men had faults, and often serious ones. 
 Men careless of religion were often amiable in private life, 
 — good husbands, good fathers, steady friends, in public 
 honorable, brave, and patriotic. Even in the worst and 
 wickedest, in a witch of Endor, there was a human heart 
 and human tenderness. None seemed ofood enough for 
 heaven, none ^o bad as to deserve to be consigned to the 
 company of evil spirits, and to remain in pain and misery 
 forever. Yet all these people were, in fact, divided one 
 from the other by an invisible line of separation. If they 
 were to die on the spot as they actually were, some woukl 
 
188 The Oxford Comitcr-Rcforination. 
 
 be saved, the rest would be lost, — the saved to have eter- 
 nity of happiness, the lost to be with tlie devils in hell. 
 
 Again, I am not sure whether it was on the same occasion, 
 but it was in following the same line of thouglit, Newman 
 described closely some of the incidents of our Lord's pas- 
 sion ; he then paused. For a few moments there was a 
 breathless silence. Then, in a low, clear voice, of which the 
 faintest vibration was audible in the farthest corner of St. 
 INIai-y's, he said, " Now, 1 bid you recollect that He to whom 
 these things were done was Almighty God." It was as if an 
 electric stroke had gone through the church, as if every person 
 present understood for the lirst time the meaning of what he 
 had all his life been saying. 1 suppose it was an epoch in 
 the mental history of more than one of my Oxford contem- 
 poraries. 
 
 Another sermon left its mark upon me. It was upon evi- 
 dence. I had supposed up to that time that the chief events 
 related in the Gospels were as well authenticated as any 
 other facts of history. I had read Paley and Grotins at 
 school, and their arguments had been completely satisfactory 
 to me. The Gospels had been written by apostles or com- 
 panions of apostles. There was suiRcient evidence, in 
 Paley's words, " that many professing to be original wit- 
 nesses of the Christian miracles had passed their lives in 
 labors, dauirers, and sufferinjjs in attestation of the accounts 
 which they delivered." St. Paul was a further and indepen- 
 d(Mit authority. It was not conceivable that such men as St. 
 Paul and the other apostles evidently were should have con- 
 spired to impose a falsehood upon the world, and should 
 have succeeded in doing it undetected in an age exception- 
 ally cultivated and sceptical. Gibbon I had studied also, 
 and had thought about the five causes by which he explained 
 how Christianity came to be believed ; but they had seemed 
 to me totally inadequate. I was something more than sur- 
 prised, therefore, when I lieard Newman say that Hume's 
 argument against the credibility of miracles was logically 
 
John Henry Neivman. 189 
 
 sound. The laws of nature, so far as could be observed, 
 were uniform, and in any given instance it was more likely, 
 as a mere matter of evidence, that men should deceive or be 
 deceived, than that those laws should have been deviated 
 from. Of course he did not leave the matter in this posi- 
 tion. Hume goes on to say that he is speaking of evidence 
 as addressed to the reason ; the Christian religion addresses 
 itself to faith, and the credibility of it is therefore unaffected 
 by his objection. What Hume said in irony Newman 
 accepted in eainest. Historically, the proofs were insulli- 
 cient, or sufficient only to create a sense of probability. 
 Christianity was apprehended by a faculty essentially differ- 
 ent. It was called faith. But what was faith, and on what 
 did it rest ? Was it as if mankind had been born with but 
 four senses, by which to form their notions of things exter- 
 nal to them, and that a fifth sense of sight was suddenly con- 
 ferred on favored individuals, which converted conjecture 
 into certainty ? I could not tell. For myself, this way of 
 putting the matter gave me no new sense at all, and only 
 taught me to distrust my old ones. 
 
 I say at once that I think it was injudicious of Newman 
 to throw out before us thus abruptly an opinion so ex- 
 tremely agitating. I explain it by supposing that here, as 
 elsewhere, his sermons contained simply the workings of 
 his own mind, and were a sort of public confession which he 
 made as he went along. I suppose that something of this 
 kind had been passing through him. He was in advance of 
 his time. He had studied the early fathers ; he had studied 
 Church history, and the lives of the saints and martyrs. He 
 knew that the hard and fast line which Protestants had 
 drawn at which miracles had ceased was one which no his- 
 torical canon could reasonably defend. Stories of the exer- 
 cise of supernatural power ran steadily from the beginning 
 to the latest period of the Church's existence; many of them 
 were as well supported by evidence as the miracles of the 
 New Testament; and if reason was to be the judge, no 
 
190 The Oxford Co writer -Eef or mation. 
 
 arbitrary separation of the age of the Apostles from the 
 age of their successors was possible. Some of these stories 
 might be inventions, or had no adequate authority for them ; 
 but for others there was authority of eye-witnesses ; and 
 if these were to be set aside by a peremptory act of will as 
 unworthy of credit, the Gospel miracles themselves might 
 fall before the same methods. The argument of Hume was 
 already silently applied to the entire post-apostolic period. 
 It had been checked by the traditionary reverence for the 
 Bible. But this was not reason ; it was faith. Perhaps, 
 too, he saw that the alternative did not lie as sharply as 
 Paley supposed, between authentic fact and deliberate fraud. 
 Legends might grow ; they grew every day, about common 
 things and persons, without intention to deceive. Imagi- 
 nation, emotion, affection, or, on the other side, fear and 
 animosity, are busy with the histories of men who have 
 played a remarkable part in the world. Great historic 
 figures — a William Tell, for instance — have probably had 
 no historical existence at all, and yet are fastened indelibly 
 into national traditions. Such reflections as these would 
 make it evident that if the Christian miracles were to be 
 believed, not as possibly or probably true, but as indis- 
 putably true — true in such a sense that a man's life on 
 earth, and his hope for the future, could be securely based 
 upon them — the history must be guaranteed by authority 
 different in kind from the mere testimony to be gathered 
 out of books. I suppose every thinking person would now 
 acknowledge this to be true. And we see, in fact, that 
 Christians of various persuasions supplement the evidence in 
 several ways. Some assume the verbal inspiration of the 
 Bible ; others are conscious of personal experiences which 
 make doubt impossible. Others, again, appeal justly to the 
 existence of Christianity as a fact, and to the power which it 
 has exerted in elevating and humanizing mankind. New- 
 man found what he wanted in the living authority of the 
 Church, in the existence of an organized body which had 
 
JoImi Henry Newman. 191 
 
 been instituted by our Lord Himself, and was still actively- 
 present among us as a living witness of the truth. Thus 
 the imperfection of the outward evidence was itself an argu- 
 ment for the Catholic theory. All religious people were 
 agreed that the facts of the Gospel narrative really hap- 
 pened as they were said to have happened. Proof there 
 must be somewhere to justify the conviction ; and proof 
 could only be found in the admission that the Church, the 
 organized Church with its bishops and priests, was not a 
 human institution, but was the living body through which 
 the Founder of Christianity Himself was speaking to us. 
 
 Such, evidently, was one use to which Hume's objection 
 could be applied, and to those who, like Newman, were pro- 
 vided with the antidote, there was no danger in admitting 
 the force of it. Nor would the risk have been great with 
 his hearers if they had been playing with the question as 
 a dialectical exercise. But he had made them feel and 
 think seriously about it by his own intense earnestness ; and, 
 brought up as most of them had been to believe that Chris- 
 tianity had sufficient historical evidence for it, to be sud- 
 denly told that the famous argument against miracles was 
 logically valid after all, was at least startling. The Church 
 theory, as making good a testimony otherwise defective, 
 was new to most of us, and not very readily taken in. To 
 remove the foundation of a belief, and to substitute another, 
 is like putting new foundations to a house, — the house 
 itself may easily be overthrown in the process. I have 
 said before that in a healthy state of things religion is con- 
 sidered too sacied to be argued about. It is believed as a 
 matter of duty, and the why or the wherefore is not so 
 much as thought about. Revolutions are not far off when 
 men begin to ask whence the sovereign derives his authorify. 
 Scepticism is not far off when they ask why they believe 
 their creed. Wo had all been satisfied about the Gospel 
 history ; not a shadow of doubt had crossed the minds of 
 one of us ; and though we might not have been able to give 
 
192 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 a logical reason for our certitude, the certitude was in us, 
 and might well have been let alone. I afterwards read 
 Hume attentively ; and though old associations prevented 
 me from recognizing the full force of what he had to say, 
 no doubt I was unconsciously affected by him. I remember 
 insisting to a friend that the essential part of religion was 
 morality. My friend replied that morality was only possi- 
 ble to persons who received power through faith to keep the 
 commandments. But this did not satisfy me, for it seemed 
 contrary to fact. There were persons of great excellence 
 whose spiritual beliefs were utterly different. I could not 
 bring myself to admit that the goodness, for instance, of a 
 Unitarian was only apparent. After all is said, the visible 
 conduct of men is the best test that we can have of their 
 inward condition. If not the best, where are we to find a 
 better ? 
 
Tract XC. and its Consequences. 193 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 TRACT XC. AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 My dear . After I had taken my degree, and 
 
 before I re-entered upon residence as fellow, my confi- 
 dence in my Oxford teachers underwent a further trial. I 
 spent some months in Ireland in the family of an Evangeli- 
 cal clergyman. I need not mention names which have no 
 historical notability. My new friends were favorable speci- 
 mens of a type which was then common in Ireland. The 
 Church of England was becoming semi-Catholic. The 
 Church of Ireland left Catholicism to those to whom it 
 properly belonged. It represented the principles of the 
 Reformation. It was a branch of what Mr. Gladstone has 
 
 called the Upas-tree of Protestant ascendency. Mr. 
 
 and the circle into which I was thrown were, to begin with, 
 high-bred and cultivated gentlemen. They had seen the 
 world. Some of them had been connected with the public 
 movements of the time. O'Connell was then in his glory. 
 I heard Irish affairs talked of by those who lived in the 
 midst of them. A sharp line of division among the people 
 distinguished the Protestants from the Catholics. The 
 Protestants were industrious and thriving. Mendicancy, 
 squalor, and misery went along with the flocks of the priest, 
 whether as cause or effect of their belief, or in accidental 
 connection with it, I could not tell. The country was out- 
 wardly quiet, but there were ominous undertones of disaffec- 
 tion. There were murders now and then in the mountains, 
 and I was startled at the calmness with which they were 
 spoken of. We were in the midst of the traditions of 1798. 
 13 
 
194 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 My friend's father had been attacked in his palace, and the 
 folios in the library bore marks of having been used to 
 barricade the windows. He himself spoke as if he was 
 living on a volcano ; but he was as unconcerned as a soldier 
 at his post, and so far as outward affairs went he was as 
 kind to Catholics as to Protestants. His outdoor servants 
 were Catholics, and they seemed attached to him ; but he 
 knew that they belonged to secret societies, and that if they 
 were ordered to kill him they would do it. The presence 
 of exceptional danger elevates characters which it does not 
 demoralize. There was a quiet good sense, an intellectual 
 breadth of feeling in this household, which to me, who had 
 been bred up to despise Evangelicals as unreal and affected, 
 was a startling surprise. I had looked down on Dissenters 
 especially, as being vulgar among their other enormities ; 
 here were persons whose creed differed little from that of 
 the Calvinistic Methodists, yet they were easy, natural, and 
 dignified. In Ireland they were part of a missionary garri- 
 son, and in their daily lives they carried the colors of their 
 faith. In Oxford, reserve was considered a becoming fea- 
 ture in the religious character. The doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity were mysteries, and mysteries were not to be lightly 
 
 spoken of. Christianity at was part of the atmosphere 
 
 which we breathed ; it was the great fact of our existence, 
 to which everything else was subordinated. Mystery it 
 might be, but not more of a mystery than our own bodily 
 lives and the system of which we were a part. The prob- 
 lem was to arrange all our thoughts and acquirements in 
 harmony with the Christian revelation, and to act it out 
 consistently in all that we said and did. The family devo- 
 tions were long, but there was no formalism, and everybody 
 took a part in them. A chapter was read and talked over, 
 and practical lessons were drawn out of it ; otherwise there 
 were no long faces or solemn affectations ; the conversations 
 were never foolish or trivial ; serious subjects were lighted 
 up as if by an ever-present spiritual sunshine. 
 
Tract XC. and its Consequences. 195 
 
 Such was the new element into which I was introduced 
 under the shadow of the Irish Upas-tree ; the same uniform 
 tone being visible in parents, in children, in the indoor ser- 
 vants, and in the surrounding society. And this was Prot- 
 estantism. This was the fruit of the Reformation which 
 we had been learning at Oxford to hate as rebellion and to 
 despise as a system without foundation. The foundation of 
 it was faith in the authority of Holy Scripture, which was 
 supposed to be verbally inspired ; and as a living witness, 
 the presence of Christ in the heart. Here, too, the letter 
 of the word was allowed to require a living authentication. 
 The Anglo-Catholics at Oxford maintained that Christ was 
 present in the Church ; the Evangelicals said that he was 
 present in the individual believing soul, and why might they 
 not be right ? So far as Scripture went they had promises 
 to allege for themselves more definite than the Catholics. 
 If the test was personal holiness, I for my own part had 
 never yet fallen in with any human beings in whose ac- 
 tions and conversation the spirit of Christ was more visibly 
 present. 
 
 My feelings of reverence for the Reformers revived. 
 Fact itself was speaking for them. Beautiful pictures had 
 been put before us of the mediaeval Church which a sacrile- 
 gious hand had ruthlessly violated. Here on one side we 
 saw the mediaeval creed in full vitality with its fruits upon 
 it which our senses could test; on ,the other, equally active, 
 the fruits of the teaching of Luther and Calvin. I felt that 
 I had been taken in, and I resented it. Modern history 
 resumed its traditionary English aspect. I went again over 
 the ground of the sixteenth century. Unless the intelligent 
 part of Europe had combined to misrepresent the entire 
 period, the corruption of Roman Catholicism had become 
 intolerable. Put the matter as the Roman Catholics would, 
 it was a fact impossible to deny, that they had alienated half 
 Europe, that the Teutonic nations had risen against them 
 in indignation, and had substituted for the Christianity of 
 
196 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 Rome the Christianity of the Bible. They had tried, and 
 tried in vain, to extinguish the revolt in blood, and the na- 
 tional life of modern England had grown up out of their 
 overthrow. With the Anglo-Catholics the phenomena were 
 the same in a lighter form. The Anglo-Catholics, too, had 
 persecuted so far as they dared ; they, too, had been narrow, 
 cruel, and exclusive. Peace and progress had only been 
 made possible when their teeth were drawn and their nails 
 pared, and they were tied fast under the control of Parlia- 
 ment. History, like present reality, was all in favor of the 
 views of my Evangelical friends. 
 
 And if history was in their favor, so were analogy and 
 general probability. Mediaeval theology had been formed 
 at a time when the relations of matter and spirit had been 
 guessed at by imagination, rather than studied with care 
 and observation. Mind it was now known could only act 
 on matter through the body specially attached to it. Ideas 
 reached the mind through the senses, but it was by method 
 and sequence which, so far as experience went, was never 
 departed from. The Middle Ages, on the other hand, be- 
 lieved in witchcraft and magic. Incantation could call up 
 evil angels and control the elements. The Catholic theory 
 of the Sacraments was the counterpart of enchantment. 
 Outward mechanical acts which, except as symbols, had 
 no meaning, were supposed to produce spiritual changes, 
 and spoken words to produce, like spells, changes in mate- 
 rial substance. The imposition of a bishop's hands con- 
 ferred supernatural powers. An ordained priest altered 
 the nature of the elements in the Eucharist by consecrating 
 them. "Water and a prescribed formula regenerated an in- 
 fant in baptism. The whole Church, it was true, had held 
 these opinions down to the sixteenth century. But so it 
 had believed that medicine was only efficacious if it was 
 blessed ; so it had believed that saints' relics worked mira- 
 cles. Larger knowledge had taught us that magic was an 
 illusion, that spells and charms were fraud or folly. The 
 
Tract XC. and its Conseque7ices. 197 
 
 Reformers in the same way had thrown off the notion that 
 there was anything mysterious or supernatural in the clergy 
 or the Sacraments. The clergy in their opinion were like 
 other men, and were simply set apart for the office of teach- 
 ing the truths of religion. The Sacraments were symbols, 
 which affected the moral nature of those who could under- 
 stand them, as words or pictures, or music, or anything else 
 which had an intelligible spiritual meaning. They brought 
 before the mind in a lively manner the facts and principles 
 of Christianity. To regard them as more was superstition 
 and materialism. Evangelicalism had been represented to 
 me as weak and illiterate. I had found it in harmony with 
 reason and experience, and recommended as it was by per- 
 sonal holiness in its professors, and general beauty of mind 
 and character, I concluded that Protestantism had more to 
 say for itself than my Oxford teachers had allowed. 
 
 For the first time, too, among these good people I was in- 
 troduced to Evangelical literature. Newton and Faber had 
 given me good reasons when I was a boy for believing the 
 Pope to be the man of sin ; but T had read nothing of Evangel- 
 ical positive theology, and books like the " Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress " were nothing less than a revelation to me. I do not 
 mean that I could adopt the doctrine in the precise shape in 
 which it was presented to me, that I was converted, or any- 
 thing of that kind ; but I perceived that persons who rejected 
 altogether tlie theory of Christianity which I had been 
 taught to regard as the only tenable one, were as full of the 
 spirit of Christ, and had gone through as many, as various, 
 and as subtle Christian experiences as the most developed 
 saint in the Catholic calendar. I saw it in their sermons, 
 in their hymns, in their conversation. A clergyman, who 
 was afterwards a bishop in the Irish Church, declared in 
 my hearing that the theory of a Christian priesthood was a 
 fiction ; that the notion of the Sacraments as having a me- 
 chanical efficacy irrespective of their conscious effect upon 
 the mind of the receiver was an idolatrous superstition ; 
 
198 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 that the Church was a human institution, which had varied 
 in form in different ages, and might vary again ; that it was 
 always falUble ; that it might have bishops in England, and 
 dispense with bishops in Scotland and Germany; that a 
 bishop was merely an officer ; that the apostolical succession 
 was probably false as a fact — and, if a fact, implied noth- 
 intr but historical continuity. Yet the man who said these 
 thino-s had devoted his whole life to his Master's service — 
 thought of nothing else, and cared for nothing else. 
 
 The opinions were of no importance in themselves ; I was, 
 of course, aware that many people held them ; but I real- 
 ized now for the first time that clergymen of weight and 
 learning in the Church of England, ordained and included in 
 its formularies, could think in this way and openly say so, 
 and that the Church to which Newman and Keble had 
 taught us to look as our guide did not condemn them. 
 Clearly, therefore, if the Church equally admitted persons 
 who held the sacramental theory, she regarded the ques- 
 tions between them as things indifferent. She, the sover- 
 eign authority, if the Oxford view of the Church's functions 
 was correct, declared that on such points we might follow 
 our own judgment. This conclusion was forced home upon 
 me, and shook the confidence which I had hitherto continued 
 to feel in Newman. It was much in itself, and it relieved 
 me of other perplexities. The piety, the charity, the moral 
 excellence in the circle into which I had been thrown were 
 evidences as clear as any evidence could be of a living faith. 
 If the Catholic revivalists were right, these graces were but 
 natural virtues, not derived through any recognized channel, 
 uncovenanted mercies, perhaps counterfeits, not virtues at 
 all, but cunning inventions of the adversary. And it had 
 been impossible for me to believe this. A false diamond 
 may gain credit with eyes that have never looked upon the 
 genuine gem, but the pure water once seen cannot be mis- 
 taken. More beautiful human characters than those of my 
 Irish Evangelical friends I have never seen, and I have never 
 
Tract XC. and its Consequences. 199 
 
 seen since. Whatever might be the " Notes of the Church," 
 a holy life was the first and last of them ; and a holy life, it 
 was demonstratedly plain to me, was no monopoly of the 
 sacramental system. 
 
 At the end of a year I returned to Oxford. There had 
 been a hurricane in the interval, and the storm was still 
 raging. Not the University only, but all England, lay and 
 clerical, was agitating itself over Tract XC. The Anglican 
 Church had been long ago described as having a Catholic 
 Prayer-book, an Arminian clergy, and Calvinistic Articles. 
 When either of the three schools asserted itself with empha- 
 sis the others took alarm. Since the revolution of 1688 
 Church and clergy had been contented to acquiesce in the 
 common title of Protestant ; by consent of high and low 
 the very name of Catholic had been abandoned to the Ro- 
 manists ; and now when a Catholic party had risen again, 
 declaring that they and they only were true Church of Eng- 
 land men, the Articles, not unnaturally, had been thrown in 
 their teeth. All the clergy had subscribed the Articles. The 
 Articles certainly on the face of them condemned the doc- 
 trines which the revivalists had been putting forward. 
 Weak brothers among them were beginning to think that 
 the Articles had committed the Church to heresy, and that 
 they ought to secede. There were even a few who con- 
 sidered that their position was not so much as honest. I 
 recollect the Professor of Astronomy saying to me about 
 this time that the obligation of a Tractarian to go to Rome 
 was in the ratio of his intellectual obtuseness. If he was 
 clever enough to believe two contradictory propositions at 
 the same time, he might stay in the Church of England ; if 
 his capacity of reconciliation was limited, he ought to leave 
 it. It was to soothe the consciences of these troubled spirits 
 that Tract XC. was written. As their minds had opened 
 they had recognized in the mass, in purgatory, in the au- 
 thority of tradition, in infallibility of councils, doctrines 
 which down to the schism had been the ancient faith of 
 
200 The Oxford Counter -Reformation. 
 
 Christendom. The Articles seemed distinctly to repudiate 
 them ; and if these doctrines were true the body which 
 rejected them could be no authentic branch of the Church 
 Catholic. Newman undertook to remove this difficulty. He 
 set himself to " minimize " what the Articles said, just as in 
 later years he has " minimized " the decree of Papal infallibil- 
 ity. He tells us that he cannot understand a religion which 
 is not dogmatic ; but he too finds tight-lacing uncomfortable ; 
 and though he cannot do without his dogma, it must mean as 
 little as possible for him. He argues, in the first place, that 
 the Articles could not have been intended to contradict the 
 canons of the Council of Trent, as was popularly supposed, 
 because they had been composed several years before those 
 canons were published or the Council itself completed. Sec- 
 ondly, that they were directed not against Catholic doctrines, 
 but against the popular abuses of those doctrines. They con- 
 demned " masses ; " they did not condemn the mass. They 
 condemned the Romish doctrine of purgatory ; but the Rom- 
 ish was not the Greek, and there might be many others. 
 Finally, the Articles were legal documents, and were to 
 be interpreted according to the strict meaning of the words. 
 We do not interpret an Act of Parliament by what we know 
 from other sources of the opinions of its framers ; we keep 
 to the four corners of the Act itself. Newman said that we 
 had as little occasion to trouble ourselves with the views of 
 individual bishops in the sixteenth century. 
 
 The English mind does not like evasion ; and on its first 
 appearance the Tract was universally condemned as dis- 
 honest. Very good people, my Irish friends among them, 
 detested it, not for the views which it advocated, but as 
 trifling with truth. I could not go along with them, partly 
 because it had become plain to me that, little as they knew 
 it, they themselves had at least equally to strain the lan- 
 guage of the Baptismal Service, and of one of the three 
 absolutions ; partly because I considered Newman's argu- 
 ments to be legally sound. Formula^ agreed on in councils 
 
Tract XC. and its Consequences. 201 
 
 and committees are not the produce of any one mind or of 
 any one party. They are compromises in which opposing 
 schools of thought are brought at last to agree after many 
 discussions and alterations. Expressions intended to be 
 plain and emphatic are qualihed to satisfy objectors. The 
 emphasis of phrases may remain, but the point emphasized 
 has been blunted. The closer all such documents are scru- 
 tinized the more clear becomes the nature of their orioin. 
 Certainly, if the Catholic theory is correct, and if tlie Holy 
 Spirit really instructs mankind through the medium of coun- 
 cils, and therefore through decrees which have been shaped 
 in a manner so human, one can but wonder at the method 
 that has been chosen. It seems like a deliberate contriv- 
 ance to say nothing in seeming to say much ; for there are 
 few forms of words which cannot be perforated by an acute 
 legal intellect. But as far as Tract XC. was concerned, 
 public opinion, after taking time to reflect, has pronounced 
 Newman acquitted. It is historically certain that Elizabeth 
 and her ministers intentionally framed the Church formulas 
 so as to enable every one to use them who would disclaim 
 allegiance to the Pope. The English Catholics, who were 
 then more than half the nation, applied to the Council of 
 Trent for leave to attend the English Church services, on 
 the express ground that no Catholic doctrine was denied in 
 them. The Council of Trent refused permission, and the 
 petitioners, after hesitating till in the defeat of the Armada 
 Providence had declared for the Queen, conformed (the 
 greater number of them) on their own terms. They had 
 fought for the Crown in the civil wars ; they had been de- 
 feated, and since the Revolution had no longer existed as a 
 theological party. But Newman was only claiming a posi- 
 tion for himself and his friends which had been purposely left 
 open when the constitution of the Anglican Church was 
 formed. 
 
 But religious men do not argue like lawyers. The 
 Church of England might have been made intentionally 
 
202 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 comprehensive three centuries ago, but ever since 1688 it 
 had banished Popery and Popish doctrines. When the 
 Catholics were numerous and dangerous, it might have been 
 prudent to conciUate them ; but the battle had been fought 
 out since, and a century and a half of struggles and con- 
 spiracies and revolutions and dethroned dynasties were not 
 to go for nothing. Compromise might have dictated the 
 letter of the Articles, but unbroken usage for a hundred 
 and fifty years had created a Protestant interpretation of 
 them which had become itself authoritative. Our fathers 
 had risked their lives to get rid of Romanism. It was not 
 to be allowed to steal into the midst of us again under false 
 colors. So angry men said at the time, and so they acted. 
 
 Newman, however, had done his work. He had broken 
 the back of the Articles. He had given the Church of our 
 fathers a shock from which it was not to recover in its old 
 form. He had written his Tract, that he might see whether 
 the Church of England would tolerate Catholic doctrine. 
 Had he waited a few years, till the seed which he had sown 
 could grow, he would have seen the Church unprotestantiz- 
 ing itself more ardently than his most sanguine hope could 
 have anticipated, the squire parsons of the Establishment 
 gone like a dream, an order of priests in their places, with 
 an undress uniform in the world, and at their altars " cele- 
 brating" masses in symbolic robes, with a directory to guide 
 their inexperience. He would have seen them hearing con- 
 fession, giving absolution, adoring Our Lady and professing 
 to receive visits from her, preaching transubstantiation and 
 purgatory and penance and everything which his Tract had 
 claimed for them ; founding monasteries and religious orders, 
 washing out of their naves and chancels the last traces of 
 Puritan sacrilege ; doing all this in defiance of courts of law 
 and Parliaments and bishops, and forcing the authorities to 
 admit that they cannot be interfered with. It has been a 
 great achievement for a single man ; not the less so that, 
 although he admitted that he had no right to leave the 
 
Tract XC. and its Consequences. 203 
 
 Churcli in which he was born unless she repudiated what he 
 considered to be true, he himself would not even pause to 
 discern whether she would repudiate it or not. 
 
 But Newman, though he forbids private judgment to 
 others, seems throughout to retain the right of it for his own 
 guidance. He regarded the immediate treatment of the 
 message which he had delivered as the measure of his own 
 duty. His convictions had grown slowly on himself; they 
 were new to the clergy, unpalatable to the laity, violently at 
 variance with the national feelings and traditions. Yet the 
 bishops were expected to submit on the spot, without objec- 
 tion or hesitation, to the dictation of a single person ; and 
 because they spoke with natural alarm and anxiety, his mis- 
 givings about the Catholicity of the Church of England 
 turned instantly into certainties, and in four years carried 
 him away over the border to Popery. 
 
 It is evident now, on reading Newman's own history of 
 his religious opinions, that the world, which said from the 
 beginning that he was going to Rome, understood him bet- 
 ter than he then understood himself, or, perhaps, than he 
 understands himself now. A man of so much ability would 
 never have rushed to conclusions so precipitately merely on 
 account of a few bishops' charges. Excuses these charges 
 might be, or explanations to account for what he was doing ; 
 but the motive force which was driving hira forward was the 
 overmasterinoj "idea" to which he had surrendered himself. 
 He could have seen, if he had pleased, the green blade of 
 the Catholic harvest springing in a thousand fields ; at pres- 
 ent there is scarcely a clergyman in the country who does 
 not carry upon him in one form or other the marks of the 
 Tractarian movement. The answer which he required has 
 been given. The Church of England has not only admitted 
 Catholic doctrine, but has rushed into it with extraordinary 
 enthusiasm. He miglit be expected to have recognized that 
 his impatient departure has been condemned by his own 
 arguments. Yet the " Apologia " shows no repentance nor 
 
204 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 explains the absence of it. He tells us that he has found 
 peace in the Church of Rome, and wonders that he could 
 ever have hoped to find it in the English Communion. 
 Very likely. Others knew how it would be from the first. 
 He did not know it ; but if the bench of bishops had been 
 as mild and enduring as their present successors, it would 
 have made no difference. 
 
 Newman was living at Littlemore, a village three miles 
 from Oxford, when I came back from Ireland. He had 
 given up his benefice, though still occasionally preaching 
 in St. Mary's pulpit before the University. He was other- 
 wise silent and passive, though his retirement was suspected, 
 and he was an object of much impertinent curiosity. For 
 myself he was as fascinating as ever. I still looked on him 
 — I do at this moment — as one of the two most remarka- 
 ble men whom I have ever met with ; but I had learnt from 
 my evangelical experiences that equally good men could 
 take different views in theology, and Newmanism had ceased 
 to have exclusive interest to me. I was beginning to think 
 that it would be well if some of my High Church friends 
 could remember also that opinions were not everything. 
 Many of them were tutors, and tutors responsible for the 
 administration of the University. The discipline was lax, 
 the undergraduates were idle and extravagant ; there were 
 scandalous abuses in college management, and life at the 
 University was twice as expensive as it need have been. 
 Here were plain duties lying neglected and unthought of, 
 or, if remembered at all, remembered only by the Liberals, 
 whom Newman so much detested. Intellectually, the con- 
 "troversies to which I had listened had unsettled me. Diffi- 
 culties had been suggested which I need not have heard of, 
 but out of which some road or other had now to be looked 
 for. I was thrown on my own resources, and began to read 
 hard in modern history and literature. Carlyle's books came 
 across me ; by Carlyle I was led to Goethe. I discovered 
 Lessing for myself, and then Neander and Schleiermacher. 
 
Tract XC. and its Consequences. 205 
 
 The " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," which 
 came out about that time, introduced modern science to us 
 under an unexj^ected aspect, and opened new avenues of 
 thought. As I had perceived before that the Evangelicals 
 could be as saint-like as Catholics, so now I found that men 
 of the highest gifts and uuimpeached purity of life could 
 differ from both by whole diameters in the interpretation 
 of the same phenomena. Further, this became clear to 
 me, that the Catholic revival in Oxford, spontaneous as it 
 seemed, was part of a general movement which was going 
 on all over Europe. In France, in Holland, in Germany, 
 intellect and learning had come to conclusions from which 
 relimon and conscience were recoilino^. Pious Protestants 
 had trusted themselves upon the Bible as their sole founda- 
 tion. They found their philosophers and professors assum- 
 ing that the Bible was a human composition — parts of it 
 of doubtful authenticity, other parts bearing marks on them 
 of the mistaken opinions of the age when these books were 
 written ; and they were flying terrified back into the Church 
 from which they had escaped at the Reformation, like os- 
 triches liiding their heads in a bush. 
 
 Yet how could the Church, as they called it, save them ? 
 If what the philosophers were saying was untrue, it could 
 be met by argument. If the danger was real, they were 
 like men caught in a thunderstorm, flying for a refuge to a 
 tree, which only the more certainly would attract the light- 
 ning. Catholics are responsible for everything for which 
 Protestants are responsible, plus a great deal besides which 
 Protestants rejected once as lies, and the stroke will fall 
 where the evidence is weakest. Christianity, Catholic and 
 Protestant alike, rests on the credibility of the Gospel 
 history. Verbal inaccuracies, if such there be, no more 
 disprove the principal facts related in the Gospels than 
 mistakes in Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion prove 
 tiuit there was never a Commonwealth in Ensland. After 
 all is said, these facts must be tested by testimony, like all 
 
206 The Oxford Counter-Befo')nnation. 
 
 other facts. The personal experiences of individuals may 
 satisfy themselves, but are no evidence to others. Far less 
 can the Church add to the proof, for the Church rests on the 
 history, not the history on the Church. That the Church 
 exists, and has existed, proves no more than that it is an 
 institution which has had a beginning in time, and may have 
 an end in time. The individuals of whom it is composed 
 have believed in Christianity, and their witness is valuable 
 according to their opportunities, like that of other men, but 
 this is all. That the Church as a body is immortal, and has 
 infallible authority antecedent to proof, is a mere assump- 
 tion, like the tortoise in the Indian myth. If the facts 
 cannot be established, the Catholic theory falls with the 
 Protestant ; if they can, they are the common property of 
 mankind, and to pile upon them the mountains of incredi- 
 bilities for which the Catholic Church has made itself an- 
 swerable, is only to play into the hands of unbelievers, and 
 reduce both alike to legend. 
 
 Still, the reaction was a fact, visible everywhere, espe- 
 cially in Protestant countries. The bloody stains on the 
 Catholic escutcheon were being painted over. The savage 
 massacres, the stake at Smithfield, and the Spanish auto-da- 
 fe, the assassinations and civil wars and conspiracies at which 
 we had shuddered as children, were being condoned or ex- 
 plained away. Hitherto it had been strenuously denied that 
 the Oxford movement was in the direction of Rome ; it was 
 insisted rather that, more than anything else, Tractarianism 
 would tend to keep men away from Rome. No Protestant 
 had spoken harder things of the Roman see and its doings 
 than Newman had, and I was still for myself unable to be- 
 lieve that he was on his way to it. But the strongest swim- 
 mers who are in the current of a stream must go where it 
 carries them, and his retirement from active service in the 
 Church of England showed that he himself was no longer 
 confident. 
 
The Lives of the Saints. 207 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 My dear . I said in my last letter that at the time 
 
 at which Newmau withdrew from Oxford to Littlemore 
 there was nothing to lead us generally to suppose that he 
 meditated secession. Tract XC, in spite of the outcry, 
 had not been condemned by any legally constituted courts 
 No existing law had been broken by it, and there was no 
 likelihood of fresh Parliamentary legislation. He had in 
 fact won the battle. He had established his principle. If 
 he chose to hold and teach his Catholic doctrines as a mem- 
 ber of the Church of England, it was clear that he would not 
 be driven out of it. If he had meant to leave the Church of 
 England, Tract XC. would have been gratuitous and an 
 impertinence. 
 
 Thus, when it was announced that he was to bring out a 
 series of biographies of distinguished English saints, the pro- 
 posal seemed to fall in with the theory of the continuity of 
 the mediaeval and the existing English Church. The great 
 names upon the Calendar belonged not to Rome, but to us ; 
 they were part of our national history, and when I was my- 
 self asked to assist, the proposal pleased and flattered me. I 
 suppose now that the object was to recommend asceticism, 
 and perhaps to show that the power of working miracles had 
 been continued in the Church until its unity was broken. 
 But no such intention was communicated to us. We were 
 free to write as we pleased, each on our own responsibility. 
 For myself I went to work with the assumption which I 
 thought myself entitled to make, that men who had been 
 
208 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 canonized had been probably good men, and at least remark- 
 able men. It was an opportunity for throwing myself into 
 medieeval literature, and studying in contemporary writings 
 what human life had really been like in this island, in an age 
 of which the visible memorials remained in churches and 
 cathedrals and monastic ruins. 
 
 I do not regret my undertaking, though I little guessed 
 the wilderness of perplexities into which I was throwing my- 
 self. I knew that I was entering a strange scene, but antici- 
 pation is not sensation, nor had anything which I had hitherto 
 read prepared me completely for what I should find. The 
 order of nature, whether always unbroken or not, is gener- 
 ally uniform. In the lives of the Christian saints the order 
 of nature seems only to have existed to give holy men an 
 opportunity of showing their superiority to material condi- 
 tions. The evidence is commonly respectable. The biogra- 
 pher may be a personal friend, or at least the friend of a 
 friend ; yet not " Jack the Giant- Killer " or the " Arabian 
 Nights " introduces one more entirely into a supernatural 
 world. When a miracle occurs, the unbeliever is astonished ; 
 the believer, who records the story, sees no more than he 
 expects. He looks only to the object, and if the motive is 
 sufficient, the more marvellous the event the more likely it 
 is to have occurred, and the less it requires proof or critical 
 examination. If a sceptic dares to doubt, it is only that he 
 may be the more utterly confounded. The accounts are 
 given gravely, as if they were of real facts, without grace, 
 without imagination, without any of the ornamental work of 
 acknowledged invention, — the sublime and ridiculous mixed 
 together indiscriminately, with the ridiculous largely predom- 
 inating. Was it possible that such stuff could be true ? or 
 even intended to be taken for truth ? Was it not rather mere 
 edifying reading for the monks' refectories ; the puerile ab- 
 surdities thrown in to amuse innocently their dreary hours ? 
 Was it not as idle to look for historical truth in the lives of 
 the saints as in " Amadis de Gaul " or " Orlando Furioso " ? 
 
The Lives of the Saints. 209 
 
 It seemed so, and yet it seemed not so. For the great 
 saints (or for the small saints where they had founded re- 
 lio-ious houses) there were special commemorative services, 
 in which their most grotesque performances were not for- 
 gotten. It was not easy to believe that men specially called 
 reli"-ious, and who considered truth to be one of the duties 
 which religion prescribed, could thus deliberately consecrate 
 what they knew, and would admit, to be lies. There is a 
 class of composition which is not history, and is not con- 
 scious fiction — it was produced in old times ; it is produced 
 in our times ; it will be produced wherever and as long as 
 human society exists — something which honestly believes 
 itself to be fact, and is created, nevertheless, by the imagina- 
 tion. The stories of the Edda were not felt to be false 
 when they were sung in old Danish halls. The genuine 
 myth is not invented — is not written — but grows. It be- 
 gins from a small seed, and unfolds into form as it passes 
 from lip to lip. It is then assigned by tradition to a par- 
 ticular person. " The story I tell you came from So-and-So," 
 says some one, wishing to give it credibility. " He was on 
 the spot and saw or heard it." " So-and-So " may never 
 have heard of it ; but the story may still survive and carry 
 his name along with it as a further legend. Now, and 
 always, remarkable persons become mythical. Anecdotes 
 are told of them, almost always inaccurate ; words are as- 
 signed to them which they never spoke. Smaller lumi- 
 naries are robbed to swell the greatness of the central orb. 
 We, in these days of equality, disbelieve in exceptional 
 heroes, as the Middle Ages believed in them. Disbelief 
 shows itself in scandal. There is a pleasure in finding that 
 an eminent man is but a mortal after r11, and proof of weak- 
 ness can be discovered if it is wanted. Great qualities, on 
 the other hand, are magnetic, and every report, good or 
 evil, true or false, about persons possessed of them is likely to 
 stick. Hero-woi'ship and saint-worship are honorable forms 
 of a universal tendency ; but it is idle to expect from wor- 
 14 
 
210 The Oxford Counter-Eeforination. 
 
 shippers an accurate investigation into fact. Evidently the 
 stories which I was studying were legends, though in sober 
 prose — legends which were never examined into, because 
 it would have been a sin to doubt them. There was one 
 sceptic even among the apostles ; but St. Thomas was held 
 up as an example to be shunned. According to the doc- 
 trines of the Church the spirit of belief was angelic, the 
 spirit of doubt was devilish ; and thus in devout ages, and 
 in the devout atmosphere of convents and monasteries, the 
 volume of spiritual wonders grew unchecked. To balance 
 evidence and compare the degrees of it is mere waste of 
 time. The evidence of such witnesses is worth nothing, un- 
 less they can be produced and cross-examined. The child 
 when he has first seen a conjurer, the disciple who has been 
 at a spiritualist's seance, cannot report faithfully what has 
 passed immediately under his eyes. To have seen some- 
 thing which he cannot understand delights him, and he de- 
 scribes it with the unconscious omissions and exaggerations 
 which make a natural explanation impossible. So it was with 
 the hagiologist. He tells his story in good faith. Perhaps 
 we have the authentic narrative of an eye-witness. Yet the 
 only fact of which we can feel assured is that he believed, 
 or professed to believe, that the subject of it worked mira- 
 cles. He has a conviction, to begin with, that holy men 
 had powers of this kind, and therefore it was a matter of 
 course that these powers should have shown themselves. 
 Cliaracter is no protection. We may assume that Anselm, 
 for instance, would report nothing which he did not suppose 
 to be true ; but piety, which is a security for good faith, is 
 none against credulity ; or perhaps, if we could have asked 
 Anselm, we should have found that his very notion of truth 
 was not our notion ; that he meant by truth, truth of idea, 
 rather than literal truth of fact. Intellect, again, is no pro- 
 tection. Among the saints' biographers are found the great- 
 est names in the Church. Athanasius wrote a life of St. 
 Anthony ; Bede wrote a life of St. Cuthbert. It is not too 
 
Tlic Lives of the Sahits. 211 
 
 much to say that both these distinguished men, and the 
 thousand smaller men who followed in their tracks, were 
 possessed, and that things which were not appeared to them 
 as things that were. So it is in our own time. The pious 
 Catholic tells us that he cannot resist the evidence for the 
 liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius ; that is, any num- 
 ber of witnesses can be brought to declare that they have 
 seen it. If the smallest civil action in an English court 
 of justice turned on the liquefying of blood under similar 
 circumstances, and a thousand witnesses swore they had 
 seen it, the evidence would go for nothing, unless the sub- 
 stance called blood had been examined and analyzed by 
 competent chemists, and the process repeated in the pres- 
 ence of trained observers. Ordinary spectators see phe- 
 nomena every day which to them are equally inexplicable, 
 at Maskelyne and Cooke's. Miracles, authenticated by the 
 same kind of testimony, and the same degree of it, are 
 worked at Lourdes and at Knock, and at saints' shrines, 
 and at mesmeric doctors' reception rooms. The testimony of 
 credulous and ignorant people in such cases is simply worth- 
 less, and the multiplication of nothing remains nothing 
 still. As to St. Januarius, it is noticeable that a mira- 
 cle, closely resembling that which modern Catholics be- 
 lieve, used to be worked in the same Neapolitan territory in 
 the Roman times. Horace, describing the various stations 
 at which he stopped on his way from Rome to Brindisi, 
 says, — 
 
 Dehinc Guatia Lymphis 
 Iratis extriicta dedit risusque jocosque, 
 Dum fiamma sine thura licpiescere limine sacro 
 Persuadere cupit. Credat Judaeus Apella, 
 Non ego — namque Deos didici securuni agere cevum ; 
 Nee siquid miri faciat natura Deos id 
 Tristes ex alto coeli dimittero tecto. 
 
 Cardinal Newman, with the Jew Apella, would have 
 believed in the supernatural li(iuefaction of the incense. 
 Horace in like manner would '^ laugh and jest " at St. Janu- 
 
212 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 arius. It is not a matter of proof but of temperament. 
 Why should we allow our convictions on the most serious 
 of subjects to be influenced by evidence which we should 
 not dare to admit if we were deciding a common civil or 
 criminal case ? 
 
 For an intending biographer this was a serious discovery. 
 I could not rej^eat what I fouud written, for the faith was 
 wanting. A spiritualist many years after assured me that 
 I could work a miracle myself if I had but faith. Could I 
 but have faith in the Great Nothing all things would be 
 possible for me — but, alas ! I had none. So with the lives 
 of the saints. St. Patrick I found once lighted a fire with 
 icicles, changed a Welsh marauder into a wolf, and floated 
 to Ireland upon an altar stone. I thought it nonsense. I 
 found it eventually uncertain whether Patricius was not a 
 title, and whether any single apostle of that name had so 
 much as existed. After a short experiment I had to retreat 
 out of my occupation, and let the series go on without me. 
 But the excursion among the Will-o'-the-wisps of the spir- 
 itual morasses did not leave me as it found me. I was 
 compelled to see that in certain conditions of mind the 
 distinction between objective and subjective truth has no 
 existence. An impression is created that it is fit, right, or 
 likely that certain things should take place, and the outward 
 fact is assumed to correspond with that impression. When 
 a man feels no doubt, he makes no inquiry, for he sees no 
 occasion for it ; yet his conviction is as complete as the 
 most searching investijjation could have made it. His own 
 feeling that something is true is to him complete evidence 
 that it is true. True it may be ; and yet not true in the 
 sense which he attaches to the word. There are several 
 kinds of truth. There is the truth of pure mathematics, 
 which is perfect as long as it concerns lines or figures which 
 exist only as abstractions. There is the truth of a drama 
 like " Hamlet," which is literary invention, yet is a true 
 picture of men and women. Tliere is the truth of a fable. 
 
The Lives of the Saints. 213 
 
 There is the truth of an edifying moral tale. There is the 
 truth of a legend which has sprung up involuntarily out of 
 tlie hearts of a number of people, and therefore represents 
 something in their own minds. Finally, there is the dull 
 truth of plain experienced fact, which has to be painfully 
 sifted out by comparison of evidence, by observation, and, 
 when possible, by experiment, and is held at last, after all 
 care has been taken, by those who know what truth of fact 
 means, with but graduated certainty, and as liable at all times 
 to revision and correction. The distinction, commonplace 
 as it seems, was forgotten by the hagiologists. It is forgot- 
 ten, for that matter, by most historians. All men, when 
 their feelings are interested, believe what they wish to 
 believe, or what their preconceptions represent to them as 
 internally probable. Theologians avow that other methods 
 besides examination of evidence are required to establish 
 the truths of faith. The truths of faith must be held with 
 absolute certitude. The truths of science, the most assured 
 of them, are held only as high probabilities ; and the evi- 
 dence has therefore to be supplemented by emotion, imagi- 
 nation, and speculative reasoning, introduced from adjoining 
 provinces. Cardinal Newman describes in his " Grammar 
 of Assent " the process by which probabilities are converted 
 into certainties; with the help of it he can justify his own 
 belief in the miracle at Naples. He can create antecedent 
 likelihoods which dispense with completeness of proof, or 
 remove antecedent unlikelihoods which call for fuller and 
 more minute proofs. It is the theory on which, uncon- 
 sciously held, the crop of legends in the Catholic Church has 
 grown for century after century, and is growing now luxu- 
 riant as ever. It is the theory on which Our Lady is be- 
 lieved to be showing herself in France, in Ireland, or more 
 recently to the Anglican monks at Llantony. It is not a 
 theory by which any truth was ever discovered that can be 
 tested, and sifted, and verified by experiment, or applied to 
 the practical service of mankind. 
 
214 The Oxford Counter-Ec/orination. 
 
 And this leads me to say a very few words on a subject 
 to which I alluded in an earlier letter ; the question that 
 rose fifteen years ago between Cardinal Newman and Charles 
 Kiugsley. Mr. Kingsley, writing impetuously as he often 
 did, said that the Catholic clergy did not place truth among 
 the highest virtues, and he added that Father Newman 
 acknowledofed it. Father Newman asked him when he had 
 acknowledged it, and a controversy followed in which Kings- 
 ley, instead of admitting, as he ought to have done, that he 
 had spoken unadvisedly and in too sweeping terms, defended 
 himself, and defended himself unsuccessfully. Kingsley, in 
 truth, entirely misunderstood Newman's character. New- 
 man's whole life had been a struggle for truth. He had 
 neglected his own interests ; he had never thought of them 
 at all. He had brought to bear a most powerful and subtle 
 intellect to support the convictions of a conscience which was 
 superstitiously sensitive. His single object had been to dis- 
 cover what were the real relations between man and his 
 Maker, and to shape his own conduct by the conclusions at 
 which he arrived. To represent such a person as careless 
 of truth was neither generous nor even reasonable. But 
 Newman as little understood his adversary. He was not 
 called on, perhaps, to look far into a subject which did not 
 concern him. He had been attacked, as he thought, wan- 
 tonly. He struck back ; and he struck most effectively. 
 
 Kingsley, however, had passed through his own strug- 
 gles. He, too, had been affected at a distance by the agita- 
 tions of the Tractarian controversy. He, like many others, 
 had read what Newman had written about ecclesiastical 
 miracles. The foundations of his own faith had been dis- 
 turbed. He was a man of science ; he knew what evidence 
 was. He believed that Newman's methods of reasoning 
 confounded his perceptions of truth, disregarding principles 
 which alone led to conclusions that could be trusted in other 
 subjects, and which, therefore, he could alone trust in reli- 
 gion. His feelings had been, perhaps, embittered by the 
 
The Lives of the Saints. 215 
 
 intrusion of religious discord into families in which he was 
 interested, traceable all of it to the Oxford movement. He 
 himself had determined to try every fact which was offered 
 for his belief by the strict rules of inductive science and 
 courts of justice ; and every other method appeared to him to 
 be treason to his intellect, and to reduce truth, where truth 
 of fact was before everything essential, to the truth of fable, 
 or fiction, or emotional opinion. This was at the bottom of 
 his mind, however unguardedly he expressed himself. He 
 was an orthodox Protestant. The outward evidence for the 
 Gospel history was strong in itself. It was supplemented 
 by the effect which Christianity had produced in the world, 
 by the position which it had assumed, and the renovation 
 which it had produced in the human heart and character. 
 It was supplemented in himself by personal experience. 
 He has told me of answers which he had received to his 
 prayers. But this, as he was well aware, was evidence to 
 himself alone. He stood, practically, on the broad ground 
 that religion, that the fear of God, was alone able to make 
 alive the nobler part of man's nature. This was plain mat- 
 ter of outward exi^erience which the whole history of the 
 world could verify. To him, when he was placed as a 
 clergyman in the Church of England, the fear of God was 
 bound up with the form of religion established in his own 
 country. He knew as well as any one that human errors 
 were continually forcing themselves into the popular creeds. 
 There had been changes in the past, there might be changes 
 in the future ; meanwhile, he held fast himself by the Eng- 
 lish Church as it had been purified by the Reformers in the 
 sixteenth century. In his opinion, to take up again the tra- 
 ditions and beliefs which had been then abandoned, was to 
 return like the dog to his vomit — a thing impossible to do 
 sincerely, a thing impious to attempt to do in wilfulness or 
 fancy, and certain to avenge itself by a contemptuous rejec- 
 tion of all religion whatever. The Puritans had white- 
 washed the churches, broken the windows in which the 
 
216 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 miracles of the saints had shone in glorious colors, replaced 
 the pictures on the walls with plain texts from Scripture. 
 They would have no lies either taught or suggested in God's 
 house, whatever might be done elsewhere. The Catholic 
 reaction, with its decorations, its choral services, its celebra- 
 tions, its vestments, its wardrobe of devotional machinery, 
 was similarly detestable to Kingsley. If the creed was true, 
 DO tone of voice could be too plain and simple in repeating 
 facts of such infinite importance. To leave it to be chanted 
 by a parcel of boys in surplices could but suggest at last 
 that it was not true, as facts are true ; but was on the level 
 of sonof or legend like a ballad of Robin Hood. Newman's 
 influence had begun the wild dance, and Kingsley had 
 always thought of him with a kind of resentment. 
 
 But enous^h of this. I return to the lives of the saints 
 and their effect upon myself. The conclusion which I had 
 drawn was that ecclesiastical biographers had composed 
 their stories with the freedom of epic poets, and that reli- 
 gious truths resembled rather the truths of poetry than the 
 truths of history. I had been taught by Newman that there 
 was no distinction in kind between the saints' miracles and 
 the miracles in the Bible. The restoration of the dead man 
 to life by touching Elisha's bones corresponded to the 
 cures performed by relics. The changing the water into 
 wine, the coin in the fish's mouth, the devils in the swine, 
 the calming of the storm on the lake, the walking on the 
 sea, were stories which, if we met anywhere but where they 
 were, we should call legends ; while the power of the saints, 
 like that of apostles and prophets, was exerted chiefly in 
 healing the sick and raising the dead to life. 
 
 The parallel had been forced upon us to gain credibility 
 for the marvels of ecclesiastical history ; but it was natural, 
 it was inevitable, that the alternative possibility should now 
 suggest itself, that all supernatural stories were legendary 
 wherever we found them. Hume's argument, we had been 
 already told, was intellectually correct. It was more likely, 
 
Tlie Lives of the Saints. 217 
 
 as a mere question of human probability, that men should 
 deceive or be deceived, than that the continuity of nature 
 should have been disturbed. Faith, we had been also told, 
 was to come to the assistance of reason, and reverse the 
 conclusion ; but faith was not made more easy when the 
 burden which it was to carry was enlarged by these volumi- 
 nous additions. The authenticity and inspiration of the 
 Gospels had been assumed till quite recent times as a fact 
 as certain as our own existence. To question either had 
 been forbidden by the law of the land, and bibhcal criticism 
 had been as impotent as the investigations into the preten- 
 sions of holy persons whom the Church had predetermined 
 to canonize. So long as the belief remained unshaken, any 
 answer sufficed for objections. But the case was now al- 
 tered. Great German scholars had come to a widely differ- 
 ent conclusion. Very able men of unblemished character, 
 here at home and elsewhere, were doubting about it ; and 
 this could no longer be concealed. 
 
 To frighten us off, their personal character had been 
 libelled. I had been brought up to believe that not even a 
 Dissenter could be a really good man, and that unbelievers 
 were profligates seeking only an excuse for indulging their 
 wicked passions. Such arguments are spectres formidable 
 while they produce fear, but provoking reaction and even 
 indignation when the ghost is found to be but a stuffed figure 
 streaked with phosphorus. It is a very serious thing when 
 a man is brought to recognize that truths, which he has been 
 taught to look upon as undisputable, are not regarded as 
 truths at all by persons competent to form an independent 
 opinion. Such questions need not have been raised in this 
 country. The Oxford revivalists had provoked the storm, 
 but had no spell which would allay it. They did not try to 
 allay it. They used it for their own cause. Those whom I 
 had known best were now far on their way to Rome. " Either 
 us or nothing," they said. " You see where reason leads 
 you. You see what has come of the Reformation. If you 
 
218 The Oxford Counfxr-Reformation. 
 
 do not believe in the Church Catholic and Apostolic, you 
 have no right to believe in God — and the Church Catholic 
 is the Church of Rome." 
 
 So my friends argued. I could not myself admit the alter- 
 native. Difficulties there might be, but they told as heavily 
 against Catholics as against Protestants. If the historical 
 foundations of Christianity were shaken, the Church of Rome 
 vras in as much danger as the Church of England or the Church 
 of Scotland. It was in more danger, from the additional load 
 of incredibilities which the Protestants had flung from them. 
 
 As a matter of experience Catholic countries had bred 
 more infidels than Protestant countries. Voltaire and the 
 Encyclopoedists had been pupils of the Jesuits. Vergniaud 
 and Barbaroux, Danton and Robespierre, had been taught as 
 children to pray to the Virgin and the saints. Charles Kings- 
 ley had solid ground under his feet compared with the gilded 
 clouds on which the Catholic enthusiasts imagined that they 
 were floating into security. 
 
 Newman himself never talked in this wild way. He was 
 too conscious of his own obligation to his early teaching. 
 Protestantism did, as a fact, sustain the belief in Christian- 
 ity, whether its reasonings were sound or unsound ; and he 
 was too wise, too seriously in earnest, to press the logic of 
 alternatives. He was glad that people should believe any- 
 how, and he had never fallen into the scornful note in which 
 Evanofelicals had been scoffed at. But what he said and 
 what he wrote tended practically to the same end. He was 
 surrendering himself to an idea, and was borne along by it 
 as if he were riding on a nightmare. Soon after we heard 
 that he had himself gone over. He had gone, it seems to 
 me (after reading all that he has said about it in the " Apo- 
 logia"), as men go when under a destiny, not because their 
 intellect has been convinced by evidence and argument, but 
 because they are impelled by some internal disposition which 
 they suspect while they deny it. His friends might have 
 taken the plunge with a light heart. They had been living 
 
The Lives of the Saints. 219 
 
 in an enchanted circle of thoughts and formulas, and their 
 minds for long had never strayed beyond them. Newman's 
 intellect was keen and clear as ever. He at least knew 
 what he was about. It might have occurred to him to ask 
 when the resolution was once taken, " What am I not doing, 
 if it is all a dream ! " 
 
 My eldest brother had left to us younger ones, as a char- 
 acteristic instruction, that if we ever saw Newman and 
 Keble disagree, we might think for ourselves. The event 
 which my brother had thought as impossible as that a double 
 star should fly asunder in space, had actually occurred. We 
 had been floated out into mid-ocean upon the Anglo-Catho- 
 lic raft, buoyed up by airy bubbles of ecclesiastical senti- 
 ment. The bubbles had burst, the raft was splintered, and 
 we — I mean my other brother and myself — were left, like 
 Ulysses, struggling in the waves. 
 
 I need not trouble you with our particular fortunes. I 
 shall have to write you one more letter, and I shall tell you 
 then the little which need be said of my own experiences. 
 It was thouglit that when Newman went he would create a 
 secession like that of the Free Kirk in Scotland. This was 
 a mistake. With him, either before or immediately after, a 
 few men did go of known ability : Hope Scott, Frederick 
 Faber, Ward of the " Ideal," the two Wilberforces, Robert 
 and Henry, and two or three others. The rest, inconsider- 
 able in numbers, were Newman's personal disciples, undis- 
 tinguished save by piety of life. The seed has grown since, 
 and is still growing, chiefly in families of the better classes, 
 as they are called, among people who have money enough 
 to live upon and nothing to do. Among them the effect 
 has been very wide, and to appearance not salutary. Wives 
 have quarrelled with their husbands, and husbands with 
 wives ; the son has been set against the father, and the 
 father against the son ; thousands of households have been 
 made miserable by young people dissatisfied with their 
 spiritual condition, and throwing themselves upon Catholic 
 
220 The Oxford Counter-Rcformatio7i. 
 
 priests because they require, as they fancy, something 
 deeper and truer " than was enough for the last century." 
 Great lords and ladies, weary of the emptiness of their lives, 
 have gone to the Church of Rome for a new sensation. Con- 
 version has become fashionable. With the help of Ireland 
 the Catholics have simultaneously become a power in Par- 
 liament. Cardinals and Monsiguors are to be seen in 
 London drawing-rooms. Convents and monasteries are 
 multiplying. A Catholic tide is still flowing, and no one 
 yet can say how far it may rise. It has affected at present 
 the idle and the ignorant, and has left untouched the indus- 
 trious and intelligent ; but the influence on society has been 
 very considerable. 
 
 More remarkable, and infinitely more mischievous, has 
 been the general influence of the Tractarian movement on 
 the Church of England. It was thought at first that New- 
 man's secession had destroyed the party which he had 
 called into being. The shepherd was smitten and the sheep 
 were scattered. The Evangelicals could say that they had 
 been right from the first. Catholic principles led to Rome ; 
 they had no place in a Protestant Church. But for the 
 clergy sacerdotalism had a fatal attraction : it gave them 
 professional consequence; they thought that they could 
 keep their wives and their livings and yet recover and wield 
 again their old spiritual authority. They rallied from their 
 confusion ; they brightened up their churches ; they revo- 
 lutionized their rituals. In learning they were more than a 
 match for their Low Church antagonists. The courts of 
 law were appealed to in vain. The more the history of the 
 Reformation was studied, the more plain became the origi- 
 nal intention that Catholics who would abjure the Pope 
 should be comprehended under the Anglican formulas. The 
 Low Church had had their innings ; the High Church have 
 now their turn. Had we to live again through the struggle of 
 1829, we should no longer speak of Catholic emancipation, 
 but of Roman Catholic. The change in the meaning of the 
 
Tlie Lives of the Saints. 221 
 
 word marks the change in popular opinion. Externally 
 the Ritualists have won the battle. They too have their 
 absolutions and their masses, and their monks and nuns and 
 miracles and the rest; and it has been decided that they 
 may keep them. But what a price has the victory cost ! 
 The nation has ceased to care what the clergy say or do. 
 The Church of England, as part of the constitution of the 
 country, has ceased to exist. Political latitudinarianism 
 goes on upon its way. The barriers of privilege fall before 
 it. The Third Estate of the realm can no more stay the 
 stream of change than a rush can stay the current of a river. 
 As the Church has become " Catholic," the honored name 
 of Protestant has passed to the Nonconformist. The laity 
 stand aloof, indifferent and contemptuous. The thinking 
 part of it has now a seriousness of its own and a philosophy 
 of its own which has also grown and is growing. The old 
 order of things might have remained indefinitely had it been 
 left undisturbed; but the controversy has undermined its 
 traditions. Questions have been provoked which now must 
 have a real answer. The clergy magnify their office, but 
 the more they make of themselves the less is their intel- 
 lectual influence. The great body of the English people, 
 which is Protestant to the heart, will never allow their pre- 
 tensions ; and while they are discussing among themselves 
 the nature of their supernatural commission, they are driv- 
 ing science and criticism to ask if there is anything in the 
 world supernatural at all. The storm will die away, agita- 
 tion is wearisome, and we may subside into a dull acquies- 
 cence even with the travestie of ecclesiasticism which is now 
 in possession of the field. But the active mind of the coun- 
 try will less and less concern itself with a system which it 
 despises. A ritualist English Church will be as powerless 
 over the lives of the people as the Roman augurs over the 
 Rome of Cicero and Caesar ; and centuries will pass before 
 religion and common sense will again work together with 
 
222 The Oxford CounUr-Re formation. 
 
 the practical harmony which existed between them in the 
 days of Whately and Arnold, and Hare and Sedgwick. 
 
 This is the substance of what I have to say to you, and 
 here I might end; but something is still left which will re- 
 quire another letter. 
 
The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 223 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 My dear . My narrative is ended. I have told 
 
 you what I can personally remember of the origin and 
 course of the Tractarian movement. I have now to add 
 a few more words about the remarkable man whose name 
 has been so often mentioned in these letters. I said that I 
 thought he had been possessed with a particular idea. His 
 own words will explain what I conceive that idea to have 
 been. Cardinal Newman is the one thinker of commanding 
 intellect who has advised us to seek shelter from the dis- 
 tractions of this present age in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 A passage in the " Apologia " is a photograph of his inmost 
 heart, and explains the premisses of which this is the con- 
 clusion. It is long, but it is so beautiful that the reader 
 who has never seen it before will wish that it was longer. 
 I will say afterwards, in my poor language, why I for one 
 could not go with him, but preferred to steer away into the 
 open ocean. I believed that it was a siren's song, and that 
 the shore from which it came had been strewn for centuries 
 with the bones of the lost mariners who were betrayed by 
 such enchanting music. 
 
 Starting with the being of God (which is as certain to me as 
 the certainty of my own existence, though when I try to put the 
 grounds of tliat certainty into logical shape, I find a difficulty in 
 doing so, in mood and figure, to my satisfaction), I look out of 
 myself into the world of men, and there I see a siglit which fills 
 me with unspeakable distress. The world seems simply to give 
 the lie to that great truth of which my whole being is so full ; 
 and the effect upon me is in consequence, as a matter of necessity, 
 as confusing as if it denied that I am in existence myself. If I 
 
224 The Oxford Coimter-Beformation. 
 
 looked into a mirror and did not see my face, I should have the 
 sort of feeling which actually comes upon me when I look into 
 this living busy world and see no reflex of its Creator. This is 
 to me one of the great difiiculties of this absolute primary truth 
 to which I referred just now. Were it not for the voice speak- 
 ing so clearly in my conscience and my heart, I should be an 
 Atheist, or a Pantheist, or a Polytheist, when I looked into the 
 world. I am speaking for myself only, and I am far from deny- 
 ing the real force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn from 
 the general facts of human society ; but these do not warm me 
 or enlighten me ; they do not take away the winter of my deso- 
 lation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me, 
 and my moral being rejoice. The sight of the world is nothing 
 else than the prophet's scroll, full of lamentation, and mourning, 
 and woe. 
 
 To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various 
 history, the many races of men, their starts, their fortunes, their 
 mutual alienation, their conflicts ; and then their ways, habits, 
 governments, forms of worship, their enterprises, their aimless 
 courses, their random achievements and acquirements, the im- 
 potent conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint and 
 broken of a superintending design, the blind evolution of what 
 turn out to be great powers or truths ; the progress of things as 
 if from unreasoning elements, not towards final causes; the great- 
 ness and littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his short dura- 
 tion, the curtain hung over his futurity ; the disappointments of 
 life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, the pervading idola- 
 tries, the corruptions, the dreary, hopeless irreligion, that condi- 
 tion of the whole race so fearfully yet exactly described in the 
 Apostle's words, "Having no hope, and without God in this 
 world ; " all this is a vision to dizzy and appall, and inflicts upon 
 the mind a sense of profound mystery which is absolutely beyond 
 human solution. 
 
 What shall be said of this heart-piercing, reason-bewildering 
 fact ? I can only answer that either there is no Creator, or this 
 living society of men is, in a true sense, discarded from his pres- 
 ence. Did I see a boy of good make and mind, with the token 
 on him of a refined nature, cast upon the world without provi- 
 sion, unable to say whence he came, his birthplace or his family 
 connections, I should conclude that there was some mystery con- 
 
Tlie Oxford Counter-Reformation. 225 
 
 nected with his history, and that he was one of whom, for one 
 cause or another, his parents were ashamed. Thus only should 
 I be able to account for the contrast between the promise and 
 condition of his being. And so I argue about the world ; if there 
 be a God, since there is a God, the human race is implicated in 
 some terrible aboriginal calamity. It is out of joint with the 
 purposes of its Creator. This is a fact, a fact as true as the fact 
 of its existence ; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically 
 called original sin becomes to me almost as certain as that the 
 world exists, and as the existence of God. 
 
 And now, supposing it were the blessed and loving will of the 
 Creator to interfere in this anarchical condition of things, what 
 are the methods which might be necessarily or naturally involved 
 in his object of mercy ? Since the world is in so abnormal a 
 state, surely it would be no surprise to me if the interposition 
 were of necessity equally extraordinary, or what is called miracu- 
 lous. But that subject does not directly come into the scope of 
 my present remarks. Miracles as evidence involve an argument ; 
 and I, of course, am thinking of some means which does not im- 
 mediately run into argument. I am rather asking what must be 
 the antagonist by which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy 
 of passion, and the all-corroding, all-dissolving scepticism of the 
 intellect in religious inc£uiries. I have no intention at all to deny 
 that truth is the real object of our reason ; and that if it does not 
 attain to truth, either the premiss or the process is in fault ; but 
 I am not speaking of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact 
 and concretely in Mien man. I know that even the unaided 
 reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the 
 immortality of the soul, and in a future retribution. But I am 
 considering it actually and historically, and in this point of view 
 I do not think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards 
 a simple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however 
 sacred, can stand against it in the long run ; and hence it is that 
 in the Pagan world when our Lord came, the last traces of the 
 religious knowledge of former times was all but disappearing 
 from those portions of the world in which the intellect had been 
 active, and had had a career. 
 
 And in these latter days in like manner, outside the Catholic 
 Church, things are tending with far greater rapidity than in that 
 old time, from the circumstances of the age, to Atheism in one 
 15 
 
226 The Oxford Coitnter-RefoT7>iation. 
 
 shape or another. What a scene, what a prospect does the whole 
 of Europe present at this day ! And not only Europe, but every 
 government and every civilization through the world which is 
 under the influence of the European mind. Specially, for it most 
 concerns us, how sorrowful, in the view of religion, even taken in 
 its most elementary, most attenuated form, is the spectacle pre- 
 sented to us by the educated intellect of England, France, and 
 Germany ! liovers of their country and of their race, religious 
 men external to the Catholic Church, have attempted various 
 expedients to arrest fierce human nature in its onward course, and 
 to bring it into subjection. The necessity of some form of religion 
 for the interests of humanity has been generally acknowledged ; 
 but where was the concrete representative of things invisible, 
 which would have the force and the toughness necessary to be a 
 breakwater against the Deluge 1 
 
 Three centuries ago, the establishment of religion — material, 
 legal, and social — was generally adopted as the true expedient 
 for the purpose in those countries which separated from the 
 Catholic Church, and for a long time it was successful ; but now 
 the crevices of those establishments are admitting the enemy. 
 Thirty years ago ^ education was relied upon. Ten years ago 
 there was a hope that wars would cease forever, under the influ- 
 ence of commercial enterprise and the reign of the useful and fine 
 arts. But will any one venture to say there is anything anywhere 
 on this earth which will afford a fulcrum for us whereby to keep 
 the earth from moving onwards ? 
 
 The judgment which experience passes on establishments, on 
 education, as a means of maintaining religious truth in this anar- 
 chical world, must be extended even to Scripture, though Scripture 
 be divine. Experience proves surely that the Bible does not an- 
 swer a purpose for which it was never intended. It may be acci- 
 dentally the means of the conversion of individuals ; but a book, 
 after all, cannot make a stand against the wild, living intellect of 
 man ; and in this it begins to testify, as regards its own structure 
 and contents, to the power of that universal solvent which is so 
 successfully acting upon religious establishments. 
 
 Supposing, then, it to be the will of the Creator to interfere in 
 human affairs, and to make provision for retaining in this world 
 a knowledge of Himself, so definite and distinct as to be proof 
 1 This was written in 1865. 
 
The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 227 
 
 against the energy of human scepticism ; in such a case — I am 
 far from saying that there was no other way — but there is 
 nothing to surprise the mind, if He should think fit to introduce 
 a power into the workl invested with the prerogative of infalli- 
 bility in religious matters. Such a provision would be a direct, 
 immediate, active, and prompt means of withstanding the diffi- 
 culty; it would be an instrument suited to the need; and when 
 I find that this is the very claim of the Catholic Church, not only 
 do I feel no difficulty in admitting the idea, but there is a fitness 
 in it which recommends it to my mind. And thus I am brought 
 to speak of the Church's infallibility as a provision adapted by 
 the mercy of the Creator to preserve religion in the world; and 
 to restrain that freedom of thought which of course in itself is 
 one of the greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue it from its 
 o-wai suicidal excesses. And let it be observed that neither here 
 nor in what follows shall I have occasion to speak of the revealed 
 body of truths, but only as they bear upon the defence of natural 
 religion. I say that a power possessed of infallibility in religious 
 teaching is happily adapted to be a working instrument in the 
 course of human affairs for smiting hard and throwing back the 
 immense energy of the aggressive intellect ; and in saying this, 
 as in the other things that I have to say, it must still be recol- 
 lected that I am all along bearing in mind my main purpose, 
 which is a defence of myself. 
 
 It has been said that reason is the faculty which finds rea- 
 sons for what we wish to believe, and the saying is true in so 
 far as it implies that there are in every human being emo- 
 tional and mental tendencies which suggest the premisses of 
 arguments, dispose the lights and shadows in which external 
 facts shall appear, and make conclusions appear to one per- 
 son to be satisfactorily made out when to another they shall 
 seem resting upon air. I believe that the passage which you 
 have just read explains Newman's history. When he came 
 to see the condition of the world into which he was thrown 
 the aspect of it was unspeakably distressing. His whole 
 efforts have been spent in finding a solution of the problem 
 which would make existence on such terms less intol- 
 erable. 
 
228 The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 
 
 On the same broad ground on which Cardinal Newman 
 places himself, I will shift the lights, and let the shadows 
 fall the other way. Following his own analogy of the out- 
 cast boy, I will suppose a reasonable being with foculties 
 limited like ours, with a belief in God like ours, but with 
 no more immediate knowledge, suddenly introduced from 
 another planet into our own earth, confronted with the phe- 
 nomena which Cardinal Newman describes, and asked for 
 an explanation of them, consistent with his religious convic- 
 tion. Would such a being infer that the race which he was 
 studying was implicated in some terrible aboriginal calam- 
 ity? I do not see how the inference would help him. I 
 think if he was wise he would feel his inability to give any 
 explanation at all. But I suppose that before attempting 
 the problem he would look into the past history of the earth, 
 and into the various races of animated beings by which it 
 was occupied. lie would see that man is only the highest 
 of many varieties ; that he is made on the same type as a 
 larsfe class of other animals ; that as their bodies are a 
 clumsy likeness of man's body, so their minds are a clumsy 
 likeness of his mind. If he looked into the habits of these 
 animals he would find no law among them but violence, no 
 rif^ht but strength ; no sign of disinterested affection, no ob- 
 ject save the gratification of hunger or lust ; the will and 
 appetite of each creature only held in check by the will and 
 appetite of other creatures more powerful ; one generation 
 exactly like another, with no capacity for looking forward, 
 or accumulating knowledge and experience. 
 
 Turnino- next to man, he would observe, too, that he had 
 the same animal nature. In many countries he would see 
 that the habits of man were scarcely superior to those of 
 the beings below him, that he was savage and ignorant as 
 they, and that his progenitors from immemorial time had 
 lived in the same way. Going back to the earliest traces of 
 human life, the rude flint instruments, the cave dwellings, 
 and such other memorials as survive, he would infer that 
 
The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 229 
 
 the primitive men everywhere had been as the savages are 
 now, the nature which they shared with other animals en- 
 tirely predominating; that not a vestige was to be found of 
 any higher civilization which had once existed and had de- 
 cayed ; that the lower animals had come into being for many 
 ages before man ; that man himself had risen slowly from 
 the animal's level to the position which he now occupies. 
 Supposing then Cardinal Newman to have drawn a fair 
 picture of the world as it stands at present, would the in- 
 quirer be likely to think that the human race was like a 
 boy of whom its parents were ashamed ? He would be un- 
 able to form the slightest idea why or how such a race had 
 been created ; but he would see that in addition to the qual- 
 ities of other creatures men had capacities of memory, of 
 moral sense and reason ; that having been furnished with 
 these capacities, they had been left to raise themselves by 
 their own exertions ; and that by fits and starts, sometimes 
 springing forward, sometimes even seeming to recede, they 
 had made their way to their existing state, a state falling far 
 short of imaginary perfection, but far elevated also above 
 the point from which they had set out ; the defects only 
 proving that the victory of the higher over the lower nature 
 was still incomf)lete. He would see that man with all his 
 faults had not only been able to acquire a knowledge of 
 Nature, but had learnt to rule the elements, to make the 
 lightning carry his messages, and persuade fire and water 
 to bear him over sea and land ; that he had learnt to 
 rule his own appetites, to form notions of justice, to feel 
 love and compassion, and indignation at wrong; that he had 
 even raised his eyes to heaven, and had formed conceptions 
 which had grown purer and more spiritual as his knowledge 
 extended of his Maker's will and nature. 
 
 I am nut the least pretending that this has been the actual 
 history of man in this planet, but it is unquestionably the 
 opinion which a stranger would form coming into it from 
 without, and drawing his inferences from the facts which 
 
230 Tlu Oxford Counter-Eeformation. 
 
 he would find. Far from thinking that the being whose 
 nature he was studying was suffering from some fundamen- 
 tal calamity, he would conclude rather that man was in a 
 state of discipline for the exercise of his powers, and slowly, 
 through conscience and intellect, was rising to a knowledge 
 of God. Man sins, it is true, and sin is an offence against 
 God ; but it is an offence only because the being capable of 
 it has acquired a conception of a moral law. By the law 
 sin entered ; and the self-reproach of the sinner is the recog- 
 nition of his obligations. The actions which are sinful in 
 us are not sinful in themselves, but only in reference, as 
 Butler says, to the nature of the agent. Murder and in- 
 cest, robbery, cunning, rage, a*nd jealousy are not sinful in 
 animals. They tear each other in pieces, and we find from 
 their anatomical structure that they were intended to do it. 
 Man as an animal inherits the same dispositions ; as an 
 intellectual and moral being he has conquered them par- 
 tially if not yet entirely, and so far from giving signs that 
 he has fallen from any higher state, analogy and reason 
 would rather suggest that he was on the way to a higher state. 
 
 This, I say, is the impression which an indifferent sj^ec- 
 tator would be at least as likely to form about mankind 
 and their situation, as to think with Cardinal Newman that 
 mankind were outcasts, that their intellect was their most 
 dangerous enemy. 
 
 Leaving the spectator then, let me go on for myself. 
 Cardinal Newman says that the intellect is naturally scepti- 
 cal ; that it destroyed the faith of the old world ; that it is 
 destroying still more rapidly the faith of modern society, 
 and that religion can only be saved by some power which 
 can smite the intellect back and humble it. Is this true ? 
 Is it not ratlier true that the intellect is the enemy only 
 of falsehood ? That if it keeps watch over religion, if it is 
 jealous of novelties and unpi'oved assertions, if it instinc- 
 tively dreads lies, and lies in religion most of all because 
 such lies are most mischievous, it is because experience 1ms 
 
The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 231 
 
 shown that without unceasing watchfulness religion degener- 
 ates into suj^erstition^ and that of the cankers which corrupt 
 human character superstition is the worst. 
 
 Religious knowledge has grown like all other knowledge. 
 Partial truths are revealed or discovered. They are thouo-ht 
 to be whole truth, and are consecrated as eternal and com- 
 plete. We learn better, we find that we were too hasty, 
 and had mistaken our own imaginations for ascertained 
 realities. " No truth, however sacred," Cardinal Newman 
 says, "can stand against the reason in the long run, and 
 hence it is that in the pagan world, when our Lord came, 
 the last traces of the religious knowledge of former times 
 was all but disappearing from those portions of the world 
 where the intellect was active and had had a career." What 
 is the fact ? In the early stages of the Greek and Roman 
 nations certain opinions had been formed about the gods ; 
 and certain religious services had been instituted. In these 
 traditions there was much that was grand and beautiful ; 
 there was much also that was monstrous and incredible. As 
 civilization developed itself both conscience and intellect 
 protested and declared that the pagan theology could not 
 be wholly true. If the Olympian gods existed, they were 
 not beings whom it was possible to reverence ; and the 
 established creed having broken down, men were left face 
 to face with nature, to learn from fact what the Divine ad- 
 ministration of this world really was. They might be at a 
 loss for an answer, and the grosser natures among them 
 might be demoralized by absolute unbelief; but the diffi- 
 culty itself had risen not from impiety but from piety. 
 They had become too enlightened to attribute actions to the 
 gods which they despised or condemned in one another. 
 Was this scepticism ? It was a scepticism then which was 
 shared by the apostles, who called the heathen gods devils. 
 As Tennyson says — 
 
 There lies more faith in honest doubt, 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds. . 
 
232 The Oxford Counter-Beformation. 
 
 The unbelief in the Roman Empire, when our Lord came, 
 was a Prceparatio Evangelica. Great and good men disbe- 
 lieved, not because they hated religion and wished to be rid 
 of it, but because they would not call evil good, nor paradox 
 a sacred mystery. The recognition that certain things were 
 not true was the first step towards acceptance of what was 
 true; and the ready hearing which Christianity met with 
 proves the eagerness with which light was being looked for. 
 Horace is a typical Roman of the intellectual sort, an 
 Epicurean, and an unbeliever in the established religion. 
 Horace says — 
 
 Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas. 
 Hinc omne principium, hue refer exitum. 
 
 Di multa neglecti dederunt 
 
 Hesperise mala luctuosye. 
 
 This is not the language of acquiescence in atheism. 
 Christianity grew because the soil was ready prepared, be- 
 cause the intellect "had had a career," and had broken the 
 back of superstition. The teachers of a new religion would 
 have had but a short shrift in the days when Calchas could 
 sacrifice Iphigenia. Special doctrines of the Christian faith 
 had even begun to form independent of it. In Caesar's time 
 few cultivated men believed in a future life,. Under the 
 Antonines the most intellectual men of their asje had come 
 to believe it ; and intellect had led them to the gate of the 
 Christian Church. As it was in the first century so it had 
 been in the sixteenth. Again the truth had been crusted 
 over with fictions. Again the intellect rose in protest, and 
 declared that incredibilities should not be taught any longer. 
 But they cleared away the falsehood as they broke the 
 painted windows in the churches, only that the clear light 
 of heaven mio;ht shine the brighter. Even Cardinal New- 
 man himself has been, perhaps unwillingly, under the same 
 influence. He professes horror at the thought of an auto- 
 da-fe, and personally is unable to believe that such offerings 
 
The Oxford Counter-Reformation. 233 
 
 could be approved of by such a being as he supposes God to 
 be. But these " acts of faith " were once regarded as right- 
 eous and necessary by the infallible authority which is to 
 prevent us from thinking for ourselves. 
 
 The human intellect, I believe, will never voluntarily part 
 with truth which has been once communicated. It hates 
 lies, lies especially which come to it armed with terror in the 
 place of argument. Possibly, in some instances, when it has 
 found truth itself in bad company, its suspicions may have 
 been roused without occasion. Falsehood, it has been said, 
 is no match for truth, but it may be more than a match for 
 truth and authority combined. Between men of intellect and 
 priesthoods there has seldom been good agreement. Each 
 regards the other as intruding upon his special domain. 
 Priests and prophets went on ill together under the old 
 dispensation. The prophet denounced the priest as a ritu- 
 alist. The priest murdered the prophet with the help of 
 popular superstition. 
 
 But Cardinal Newman tells us that intellect is unbeliev- 
 ing, that it needs to be smitten back and humbled, and that 
 he finds the Catholic Church peculiarly constituted for the 
 purpose. God is estranged from the world. He takes pity 
 on its lost state by establishing in the Church a special rep- 
 resentative of Himself. We know how it is with mankind 
 generally, from the want of religion which appears in their 
 conduct. If the Church is to show us how to live better, we 
 may, we must, expect to find in the Church not a teacher 
 only but an example, for if it be no better than the world, 
 then we have the same reason for supposing God to be 
 estranged from the Church. Cardinal Newman refers us 
 especially to the condition of the countries which separated 
 from Rome in the sixteenth century. Are the countries 
 which remained in the Papal communion superior morally 
 to those who left it? The bishops and priests had the edu- 
 cation of France entirely in their hands after the Revocation 
 of the Edict of Nantes. The result was the generation who 
 
234 The Oxford Coimter-Rcformation. 
 
 made the Reign of Terror and abolished Christianity. Ger- 
 many and England and America are not all which they ought 
 to be ; but is Catholic Ireland much better, or Catholic Spain ? 
 or Italy, which till a few years ago was more Catholic than 
 either of them ? 
 
 We have Church history, for now eighteen hundred years ; 
 or, if we choose to put it so, from the constitution of the 
 Israelite nationality. What the Israelites were their own 
 records testify. So far as conduct went they were like other 
 nations. They had good kings and bad, good priests and bad, 
 true prophets and false. They had their periods of idolatry. 
 They had their periods of outward repentance and ceremo- 
 nial punctiliousness. But when truth came among them, 
 they had no special power of recognizing it, nor special will 
 to welcome it. The heads of the Church rejected our Lord : 
 the publicans and sinners received him. Of the ten lepers 
 who were cleansed, nine went to the priests : one only gave 
 glory to God, and he was a Samaritan. The priest and 
 Levite passed by the wounded man ; the Samaritan had 
 mercy on him. In Christian times the depositories of the 
 infallibility which is to keep intellect in order have been the 
 popes and bishops, speaking through their councils and act- 
 ing throuo-h the ecclesiastical courts. When we look into the 
 accounts of what these persons were, we find the same in- 
 equalities which are to be met with in all combinations of men, 
 and in all human institutions; here, as elsewhere, we find 
 saints and sinners : in one generation noble endeavors after 
 holiness ; in another worldliness, luxury, intrigue, ambition, 
 tyranny, even ferocious cruelty. Unless Catholic writers 
 have combined to calumniate their mistress, Rome was as 
 venal under the popes as Jugurtha found her under the 
 Republic ; and the Church courts were a byword for 
 iniquity in every country in Europe. The religious orders, 
 which were founded expressly to exhibit a pattern of saintly 
 life, became too corrupt to be allowed to continue in exist- 
 ence. When the printing-press was invented, and the Bible 
 
T/ie Oxford Counter-Reformation. 235 
 
 came to be read by the people, the contrast was so violent 
 between religion as exhibited in the New Testament and 
 religion as taught and exercised by the infallible Church that 
 half Europe broke away from it. Cardinal Newman's theory 
 implies that tlie Keformation was the rebellion of the intel- 
 lect against the spiritual authority which was in charge of it. 
 The authority must have done its work but ill if it had bred 
 a generation of apostates. The Holy See when it found its 
 power endangered behaved as ordinary human potentates 
 behave on such occasions, and potentates not of the best 
 kind. She filled Europe with wars. She stirred princes to 
 massacre their subjects. The rack, the gibbet, and the stake 
 were her instruments of persuasion as long as she had strength 
 to use them. When her strength began to fail, she tried con- 
 spiracy and murder ; and only now, in these late times, when 
 the despised intellect has created a tribunal to which she 
 is answerable in the public opinion of mankind, has she 
 reformed her own manners and attempted to explain away 
 her atrocities. 
 
 Well for her that these sad methods have been abandoned. 
 Were the Church to treat but one man or woman in these 
 days of ours as three centuries ago she treated tens of thou- 
 sands, she would be rent in pieces by the common indigo-na- 
 tion of the entire human race. As it is, she remains doino- 
 the work which is still appointed foj- her. But if an institu- 
 tion with such a history behind it is an exceptional instrument 
 to bear witness to God's existence ; if it be the voice through 
 which alone He speaks to man, and makes known His na- 
 ture and His will ; then the attempt to understand this 
 world, and what goes on in it, had better be abandoned in 
 despair. 
 
ORIGEN AND CELSUS. 
 
 When the seed of the forest tree begins to germinate, and 
 the cotyledons burst their ligaments and lift themselves into 
 light, the growing plant thenceforward gathers its nutriment 
 out of the air. The massive trunk of the oak which has 
 stood for a thousand years, is composed chiefly of vapors 
 absorbed through the leaves and organized into fibre by 
 the cunning chemistry of nature. Some few mineral sub- 
 stances enter into its composition, and are taken up out of 
 the soil through the roots. But these grosser elements are 
 slight in comparison with those of more ethereal origin; 
 how slight, may be measured by the handful of dust which 
 remains when the log has been consumed in the furnace, 
 and the carbon and hydrogen have returned to the source 
 from whence they came. An animal is formed of the same 
 materials, and is developed by analogous laws. A single 
 cell with the force called life in it collects a congregation of 
 gaseous atoms, and out of the atoms fashions a man. Men, 
 again, are taken hold of by a further action of the living 
 principle, and are formed into families and nations, societies 
 and institutions ; each held together by vital force, and dis- 
 solving when the force disappears. But all of them, indi- 
 viduals and nations alike, are made out of atoms lent to 
 tliem for a while out of the aerial envelope of the globe, to 
 be reclaimed after a brief incarnation. The smallest urn 
 suffices to preserve such remnants of a man as cannot be 
 decomposed into vapor. 
 
238 Origen and Cdsus. 
 
 Spiritual organizations are the counterpart of the material. 
 Intellect and imagination are forever scattering in millions 
 the seeds of aspirations or speculations. From time to time 
 some one out of these millions is "brought to bear," and 
 becomes a theory of politics, a system of philosophy, a tra- 
 dition, a poem, or a creed. The idea is the life ; the organ- 
 *ized form is assimilated out of the opinions and desires 
 already floating in the minds of mankind. Some root in 
 fact there may be. But the facts which can be seen, and 
 handled, and verified by experience, are infinitesimally small. 
 Accidental conditions may be needed to quicken an idea 
 into an active force. But when once the idea has begun to 
 grow, and organic tissue to be formed, the sole source of 
 nourishment is again the spiritual — air. 
 
 It was once supposed that man was made of clay ; that 
 all things which had visible form and bulk were formed out 
 of elements possessing a property of solidity ; that air could 
 not become solid, nor solids become air ; and much illusory 
 physiology was based on this hypothesis. There has been 
 similar waste of labor and ingenuity in looking for histori- 
 cal facts as the basis of national traditions. The facts which 
 we discover will not account for the consequences which 
 seemed to erow of them. The Romans traced their Romu- 
 lus to the gods ; the modern popular historian regards Romu- 
 lus as a robber shepherd ; but he has still to explain whence 
 the idea came which developed the shepherd's descendants 
 into an imperial race ; and when he looks for his reasons in 
 the " soil," in the circumstances of their situation, he is like 
 a man who would find the secret of the tree in its ashes, or 
 would explain the lifting of the Himalayas by a force which 
 would not elevate a mole-heap. The philosophy of history 
 is gradually discerning that the amount of fact discoverable 
 in early legends is extremely small, and that when discov- 
 ered it is extremely unimportant. Legends are perceived to 
 have risen out of the minds, and characters, and purposes of 
 the people to whom they belong, and are only interesting 
 
Origen and Celsus. 239 
 
 as tliey show what those minds, and characters, and pur- 
 poses were. In like manner, theological critics are throw- 
 ing away valuable effort over the facts supposed to underlie 
 the origin of Christianity. They forget the simile of the 
 grain of mustard-seed to which the kingdom of heaven was 
 compared by Christ himself; and they seek for the living in 
 the dead. They sift the Gospel to separate the true from 
 the false. They desire to ascertain precisely the events 
 which occurred in Palestine eighteen or nineteen centuries 
 ago ; and such events as survive the process, and can be ac- 
 cepted after passing through the critical crucible, will be but 
 ash or charred cinders. The truth, as it was, can never be 
 discovered. The historical inquirer can look only through 
 the eyes of the early Christian writers ; and those writers 
 neither saw as he sees, nor judged as he judges. The his- 
 torical inquirer sees with the eye of reason ; the early Chris- 
 tian saw with the eye of faith. The historical inquirer is 
 impartial ; the early Christian was enthusiastic and prepos- 
 sessed. The historical inquirer demands evidence such as 
 would satisfy a British jury in a criminal case ; to the early 
 Christian the life, and death, and resurrection of Christ were 
 their own evidence, each detail of it the symbol of some 
 spiritual reality, and every event of it intrinsically probable 
 as it availed for the edification and elevation of the human 
 soul. Thus the data do not exist to establish an evidential 
 conclusion. The early Christians did not inquire, and 
 therefore have left no record of inquiry. St. Paul was con- 
 verted by a vision. The vision was sufficient for him, and 
 he pointedly abstained from examining witnesses or strength- 
 ening his conviction by outward testimony. To us the ulti- 
 mate fact is the existence of belief — belief created by such 
 evidence as was convincing to the minds of the first converts. 
 The evidence was sufficient for them, but they did not 
 argue as we argue; their methods of inference were not 
 our methods of inference ; we can see only Christianity 
 coming into existence as a living force ; and, as of the oak 
 
240 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 tree, we do not ask, Is it true or is it false? we ask. Is it 
 alive ? so with Christianity, we see a spiritual germ, quick- 
 ened suddenly into active being, which grew and took pos- 
 session of the human race, overthrowing every other force 
 with which it came into collision, and eventually revolution- 
 izing the entire character of human thought and energy. 
 Life is not truth merely, but it is, as Plato says, to iTTLKetva 
 rrj<s aX-qOu'X'i, something above truth and more than truth ; 
 a force in visible operation wliich remains a mystery to the 
 intellect; and it is immortal, not as the properties of the 
 circle are immortal, but as it propagates itself in eternal 
 descent, body after body which it has animated successively 
 perishing, but forever reorganizing itself anew in fresh and 
 developed forms. The individual oak tree grows old. Its 
 functions become torpid. Its boughs clothe themselves more 
 scantily with leaves. It ceases to expand. At length it de- 
 cays, and is resolved into the elements. But it has dropped 
 its acorns from its branches, and in the acorn it lives again, 
 in a new body, the essential qualities unchanged, the unes- 
 sential and accidental passing away into other combinations. 
 The Christianity of the first century was, and yet was not, 
 the Christianity of the fourth century. The Christianity of 
 the fourth century was, and yet was not, the Christianity of 
 feudal Europe. The Christianity of feudal Europe died at 
 the Reformation, and was born again in Protestant Chris- 
 tianity. Even things which we call dead are still subject to 
 the eternal laws of change. Forces are forever at work, 
 integrating and disintegrating the atoms of which the in- 
 organic world is composed. Only in the intellectual abstrac- 
 tions of geometry, or in numbers which have no existence 
 save in the conceptions of the intellect, do we find proposi- 
 tions of which we can predicate with certainty unalterable 
 truth. Whatever ha«! its beinoj in time and space is under 
 the conditions of transiency ; but the transient is interpen- 
 etrated with life ; every living thought which has quick- 
 ened into vital organization, and has developed into flower 
 
Origen and Celsus. 241 
 
 and fruit, renews its energies while time endures ; and, in 
 the strictest sense of the words, the gates of death do not 
 prevail against it. 
 
 Religion, as a rule of life, neither is, nor can be, a record 
 of events which once occurred on a corner of this planet. It 
 is the expression and statement of our duties to one another, 
 and of our relations to the Sovereign Power which has called 
 us into existence. And these duties and these relations are 
 not conditions which once were or which will be hereafter. 
 They are conditions of our present being, as much as what we 
 call the laws of nature. For the laws of bodily health we are 
 not dependent on the observations of Galen, or the history of 
 the plague at Athens. We learn from present experience, as 
 Galen himself learnt, and we refer to the records of the past 
 only as a single chapter in the vast volume of our instruc- 
 tions. The evidence of the truth of religion is not the testi- 
 mony of this or that person who saw, or thought he saw, 
 long ago, something which seemed to him an indication of a 
 supernatural presence. The evidence is the power which 
 lies in a religion to cope with moral disease, to conquer and 
 bind the brutal appetites and intellectual perversities of man, 
 and to lift him out of grossness and self-indulgence into 
 higher and nobler desires. This was what Christianity 
 effected as no creed or system of philosophy ever did before 
 or has done since, and Christianity was thus, as Goethe de- 
 clares, beyond comparison the grandest work which was ever 
 accomplished by humanity. It is a height, he says, from 
 which, having once risen to it, mankind can never again 
 descend ; and thus of all studies the most interesting to us 
 is that of the conditions under which so extraordinary a 
 force developed itself. 
 
 Within historical times the earth has never seen — let us 
 hope it may never see again — such a condition of human 
 society as prevailed in the Roman Empire during the cen- 
 turies which elapsed between the Crucifixion and the con- 
 version of Constantino. When we look back over distant 
 16 
 
242 Origen and Cclsus. 
 
 periods the landscape is foreshortened, and we discern but 
 the elevated features of it. The long level intervals, where 
 common life was the most busy, are lost to us almost entirely. 
 We have the list of emperors, with their various achieve- 
 ments ; the light falls into the palaces ; we catch glimpses of 
 questionable palace ladies, of intriguing favorites, and ambi- 
 tious statesmen ; we see the dagger, cord, or poison cup which 
 removed prince after prince to make room for his successor 
 with horrid uniformity. We read of invasions by barbarians, 
 of fierce battles on the Danube, or the Euphrates, and the 
 frontier advancing or receding. The units which form the 
 sum of mankind we do not see ; they are of small significance 
 save to themselves and their families. In hundreds of mil- 
 lions they play their little parts upon the stage, and pass away 
 and are forgotten because no one cares to notice or speak of 
 them. Yet it is of these multitudes that humanity consists, 
 and by the thoughts obscurely working in the minds of them 
 the destinies of humanity are eventually controlled. In the 
 centuries of which I speak ten generations of men were born 
 and lived and died. The empire was sprinkled with cities, 
 towns, villages, and farmsteads, all thronged like anthills, and 
 in a fair state of outward civilization. Political discontent 
 was rare and easily suppressed. Order was moderately main- 
 tained, and was disturbed only by occasional bands of robbers. 
 Men of fortune resided on their estates, shot and hunted, 
 went to the watering-places in hot weather, and kept 
 their yachts. Merchants and manufacturers made money. 
 Artisans and shopkeepers pursued their various trades. 
 Peasants tilled their wheatfields or their vineyards. School- 
 masters or family tutors drilled the boys. State-j)aid pro- 
 fessors taught in the universities. Philosophers wrangled. 
 Priests presided in the shrines and temples, and held pro- 
 cessions and celebrations on holydays. Peace, quiet, in- 
 dustry, was everywhere, with an air of grace and harmonious 
 culture ; and below the surface was a condition of morality, 
 at least among the educated classes, which words cannot 
 
Origen and Celsus. 243 
 
 describe or modern imagination realize. IMoral good and 
 moral evil were played with as fancies in the lecture rooms ; 
 but they were fancies merely, with no bearing on life. The 
 one practical belief was that pleasure was pleasant. By 
 pleasure was meant the indulgence of the senses ; and the 
 supremest enjoyment which art and philosophy combined 
 to recommend, was the most loathsome and unmentionable 
 of vices. The poor may have been protected from the 
 worst contamination by the necessities of hard work, the 
 ignorant by the simplicity of their understanding. But 
 so far as culture " cast its shadow," the very memory 
 disappeared that there was any evil except bodily pain, or 
 any good save in sensuality. The supreme deity led the 
 way in impurity. The inferior divinities followed the ex- 
 ample, which descended from them into the palace of the 
 emperors. Adrian and Antinous were but another, and 
 alas ! more real, Zeus and Ganymede. The Stoics preached 
 austerity ; the Academics, virtue ; the Platonists, the aspira- 
 tion after the ideal. Stoics, Academics, Platonists, were as 
 vicious in practice as the pampered legionary who scoffed 
 at their speculations. In the schools of Athens, where the 
 most gifted youths in the Empire came to be educated in 
 the worship of the beautiful, the professors illustrated their 
 lessons by the practical corruption of their pupils. Freely 
 as Lucian scattered his sarcasms over all classes of society 
 except the lowest, he reserves his choicest arrows for the 
 philosophers. Of all kinds of men who had fallen under 
 the range of Lucian's eye, the philosophers were the worst. 
 The nearest in infamy after them, and but a single degree 
 better, were the priests and ministers of the established re- 
 ligion. Men of ability had long ceased to believe in the 
 Olympian gods. Men of ability. Epicureans all or most of 
 them, believed in nature and natural laws. They believed 
 in experience, they believed in what their senses told them 
 — what lay beyond they regarded as a dream. But reli- 
 gion was still a convenient instrument to preserve the peace 
 
244 Origen and Celsiis. 
 
 of the Empire. The majority of mankind were fools, and 
 would continue fools. The belief in imaginary supernatural 
 beings, who might reward or punish in another world, was 
 a check on the passions of the strong, a consolation to the 
 weak in their sufferings. Even if superstition was mis- 
 chievous in itself it could not be eradicated. The accepted 
 traditions therefore were preserved and treated with affected 
 respect. The more outrageous features were softened into 
 allegory. The new creeds and deities with which the spread 
 of the Empire brought the Romans in contact were pro- 
 tected and patronized, and enthusiasm and religious excite- 
 ment were allowed play within reasonable limits. The 
 mysteries of Ceres and Dionysus superseded the old Temple 
 worship. Serapis was admitted to equality with the Olym- 
 pians. The Caesars were taken into heaven and carried up 
 their favorites with them. For the most part there was an 
 outward show of decency, but the creed was a conscious 
 imposture. The ceremonial became infected more and more 
 with the general impurity, and the Mysteries, which per- 
 haps originally arose from a desire for something purer and 
 better, became a veil at last for the most detestable orgies. 
 When Adrian's " favorite " Antinous died, the Egyptians 
 built a town and shrine in his honor, and Antinopolis 
 became a scene of miracles as constant as those at Lourdes. 
 At this point religion had perhaps reached its nadir — lower 
 than this it has never descended upon earth. The degrada- 
 tion was now as complete as the genius of evil could make 
 it. The shocked conscience of mankind, never wholly 
 extinct, was already kindling into resentment ; and as in 
 political catastrophes revolution is nearest when tyranny is at 
 its worst, so in moral putrefaction the germs are quickening 
 of a new order of things. There is this difference only, that 
 the overthrow of a government is swift and sudden ; the 
 regeneration of character is slow and deliberate. Politi- 
 cal convictions disappoint expectation. The enthusiasm of 
 revolt is a conflagration which expires when the fuel is 
 
Origen and Celsus. 245 
 
 consumed. A religious revolution advances steadily in the 
 hearts of mankind, and each step that is gained is a conquest 
 finally achieved. Lucian was able to see that some vast 
 religious change was approaching ; but Lucian could not 
 discern the direction from which it was cominfj. Chris- 
 tianity was working in a sphere too low for him. Spiritual 
 regeneration begins naturally among the poor and the humble, 
 for it begins in the strata of society which are least corrupt. 
 First individuals are found intent on reformingr their own 
 wretched lives, with no thought of converting the world. 
 Individuals gather circles about tliem. The circles spread 
 and lay down rules for themselves and simple formulas of 
 doctrine. The material lies scattered everywhere ready to 
 organize. The supreme idea which can assimilate it is 
 found at last, but not immediately. There are false starts : 
 spurious seed is sown with the good, and springs up as 
 weeds. Tentatively, gradually, and after severe competi- 
 tion, the fittest survives. 
 
 From the moment of the final conquest of Asia by the 
 Romans, when the Asiatic and European philosophers were 
 brought in contact, an intellectual fermentation had been 
 active. Theosophic theories were formed in infinite variety, 
 some fanciful and withering in a season ; some strong, like 
 Manicheism, and protracting a vigorous existence for centu- 
 ries. Enthusiasts, impostors, prophets, started up, " boasting 
 themselves to be somebody." Enchanters, magicians, necro- 
 mancers, dealers with spirits, were everywhere making fame 
 and fortune out of sick souls pining for knowledge of the 
 invisible world. The most illustrious of these Caeliostros of 
 the old world, Apollonius of Tyana and Alexander of Aboni- 
 tichus, blazed into a splendor which shone over the whole 
 Empire. 
 
 Into the midst of this strange scene of imposture, profli- 
 gacy, enthusiasm, and craving for light, Christianity emerged 
 out of Palestine with its message of lofty humility. The quack 
 prophets claimed to be gods or sons of God. They carried 
 
246 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 their credentials with them in the form of pomp and power. 
 They worked miracles, they invited fools to worship them, 
 and in return they promised the faithful infinite rewards of 
 gold and pleasure. The teachers of Christianity called them- 
 selves also apostles of a son of God ; but their Son of God 
 was a village carpenter, who had lived in sorrow and had 
 died on the cross, and their message was a message never 
 heard before on earth. It was to invite their fellow-men to 
 lead new lives, to put away sin, to separate themselves from 
 the abominations of the world, to care nothing for wealth and 
 to be content with poverty, to aim only at overcoming, each 
 for himself, his own sensuality and selfishness ; to welcome 
 pain, want, disease, everything which the world most shrank 
 from, if it would assist him in self-conquest, and to expect 
 no reward, at least in this life, save the peace which would 
 arise from the consciousness that he was doing what God 
 had commanded. 
 
 Such a message naturally found readiest acceptance among 
 those whom ignorance had protected from philosophy ; who 
 had lived in hardship, and had been least enervated by what 
 was called pleasure. Rich men could not easily abandon 
 substantial enjoyments in pursuit of so imaginary an object 
 as the elevation of their characters. Men of intellect had 
 heard too much of sons of God, and had seen too many of 
 them, to attach significance to the alleged appearance of 
 another in Judasa. 
 
 The early Christian converts were those who had little to 
 part with, whose experiences of life were hard already, and 
 who found the hardness of their lot made more bearable by 
 the knowledge that want and sorrow were no evils, and 
 might be actually good for them. Intellectually they were 
 called on to believe nothing which in itself was difficult. 
 Such men knew nothing of science or of laws of nature. 
 The world as they knew it was a world already full of signs 
 and wonders. There was nothing wonderful in the coming 
 to earth of a Son of God, for the Jews had been told to 
 
rig en and Celsus. 247 
 
 expect Him; and the Gentiles believed that He had come 
 in the person of Augustus Coesar. A miracle was as little 
 improbable in itself as any other event. The heroes had 
 risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and were 
 seen as stars nightly in the sky. The only distinction 
 between the wonders of Christianity and the wonders which 
 they already believed, was that the spirits with whose oper- 
 ations they had been hitherto ftimiliar, were evil or mischiev- 
 ous spirits, or spirits at best indifferent to good. In the new 
 revelation the spirits of God were seen taking part in the 
 direction of human affairs, and defeating the powers of dark- 
 ness in their own world. Thus the doctrine announced was 
 precisely of the kind which the hearers were prepared to re- 
 ceive ; and it was preached in perfect good faith, because the 
 teachers were on the same intellectual level with their audi- 
 ence. They were men of noble natural disposition, natural 
 gifts, natural purity of mind, but they were unlearned. They 
 knew nothing of science or art, and, with the exception of 
 St. Paul, nothing of literature, nothing of politics, nothing 
 of the world around them. St. Paul had been well edu- 
 cated, yet his scientific knowledge had been carried only far 
 enouo-h to betray him into error, when he illustrated the 
 resurrection of the body from the growth of a grain of 
 wheat, which he supposed to die and rise again. Contem- 
 porary naturalists were as well aware then as now, that if 
 the grain was dead it would not rise again. 
 
 In its earliest stages the Church absorbed the common 
 superstitions of its day ; as converts multiplied, the circle of 
 its horizon widened, and it gathered into itself and remodelled 
 after its own likeness the prevailing speculations of the times 
 and the prevailing practices. The birth of Christ was fixed 
 at the winter solstice, when already a universal festival was 
 held for the birth of the sun and the beginning of the new 
 year. In place of the heathen mysteries there were the 
 Christian mysteries of the Sacraments. Philosophers said 
 that the root of evil lay in matter ; that the appetites which 
 
2\H Oriyai and Oclsus. 
 
 \v,{] (,(> sill wcrn jifD'clioim of tlio floHli, which histod n^ninHt 
 (ho Hpiiil. ( 'lirlsli;inily :i('('(1|)I(m1 jlic theory, ('Xj)la'm<!<l flic 
 fact hy AdiuiTH I'mII, jukI f\»iiii(l ;i rcincdy in the, vir<^iii-horu 
 body of Clirisl, vviiic.h, hciiig fifoiicr.itcd free from the clTocts 
 of Aduin'H HJii, niHuincd its juiiity, became the myHtical body 
 of the ('liiirch, Mild (lie food, tiiroiijjjli traiisid)Ht:u»ti:i.lion, of 
 th(>, bclicvci'. The; 'rriiiily was taUcii over from tlio IMaio- 
 iiisls, \vli(» liad already sliaped it into form. A sti'anij;e and 
 painlnl opinion liad spread out of rii<enieia. over tlie (Jrciok 
 an<l Ivoman world, lliat tin; ujods rciinircd, as a condition of 
 any special I'avoi", ihe sacrilieo of some; pare and innocent 
 himian victim. TiiiM dark belief had hvv.u tlie growth of 
 eompafaiively HM-ent centnries, bn( i( was laying- hold on the 
 popniar mind with in<!reasini:f fascinalion. It conld not be 
 eradicated, and it was reconcile(l to llu^ conscicMu^e in the 
 <loctrine of th(< (Christian atonenjcMit. TiViM'y j)oj)idar idea, 
 <^vei-y s|)ecidation lloaiini;- in lh(> spiritnal sky, was thns snc- 
 cessively seized, and, like a, elond lun'crsed, was transfonniul 
 into an imaijje of beanly. The ehambers of the mind W(»ro 
 not remo(l(>lled, hnt for each inii)ure or friij^htfnl occnpant, 
 some new inmale, some pure and elovatini; a[)iritual syndml, 
 was snhstirnte(l, intelUrctually analoijfous, and every fnnction 
 of hnmaii natnr(r — heart, conscienct^, n^ason, imaujinalion — 
 was i^iadnally enlisted in the war aujainst moral evil. 
 
 The a.i!;eH dilfer on(> from another: the believinu^ and the 
 s<'ienlilic (>ras sneceed each oIIkm" as systolic and diastole in 
 th(^ proujress of hnman dev(^lo|)ment. In b(dieviniif eras, 
 nations form thems(dves on h(M'oic. traditions. Leu^ends 
 Hha,|)e themselves into poetry, and aspirations after bea«ity 
 and ij;oodness bloom ont into art and relii^ion. Scientific 
 eras brim;; us back to reality and careful knowled<^e of facts; 
 but scepticism is fatal to the (Mithusiasm which |)rodnces 
 saints, and poiMs, and hero(\s. Then* would have be(>n no 
 *' Iliad" in an ai;"e which inipiired into the evidence for the 
 real existence of Priam or Achill(>s. There are two kinds 
 of truth: ther(> is the i;-en(>ral truth, the truth of the idea, 
 
Origen and Celsiis. 249 
 
 which forms the truth of poetry ; there is the literal truth of 
 fact, which is the truth of science and history. They corre- 
 spond to opposite tendencies in human nature, and never as 
 yet have been found to thrive together. 
 
 Without inquiry, without hesitation, by force of natural 
 affinity, Christianity grew and spread over the Empire, and 
 as surely there went with it and flowed out of it a complete 
 revolution in the relative estimate of the value of human 
 things. To a Roman or a Greek the greatest of evils had 
 been pain; to the Christian the greatest of evils was sin. 
 The gods of Paganism were called blessed, and were said to 
 be perfectly happy ; but they were happy because they were 
 unrestrained and could do whatever they pleased. The God 
 of Christianity was absolute perfection, and perfection meant 
 perfect obedience to law. From the lowest fibre of its roots, 
 the nature of a Christian — heart, intellect, imagination — 
 miderwcnt a complete transformation, a transformation which, 
 if real, no intelligent person could deny to be a change from 
 a worse condition to a better ; and it might have been ex- 
 pected that the Roman emperors would have given a warm 
 welcome to the power which was effecting such an alteration, 
 if on no higher ground, yet as saving trouble to the police- 
 man. Why did a government, usually so tolerant, make an 
 exception of the best deserving of its subjects? AVhy, as 
 was certainly the fact, was enmity to Christianity a charac- 
 teristic of the best emperors, not of the worst ? Why do we 
 find the darkest persecution in the reign, not of a Domitian 
 or a Commodus, but under the mild, just rule of a Trajan, a 
 Marcus Aurelius, a Severus, or a Diocletian ? 
 
 No more valual)le addition could be made to theological 
 history than an account of the impression made by Christian- 
 ity on the minds of cultivated Romans of the highest order 
 of ability, while its message was still new, before long ac- 
 ceptance had made its strangest features familiar, and before 
 the powers whicii it eventually exerted conimnndcd attention 
 and respect. Few such men, unfortunately, condescended to 
 
250 Origen and Cdsus. 
 
 examine its nature with serious care. Tacitus, Pliny, Lu- 
 cian, glanced at the Christians with contemptuous pity, as 
 victims of one more of the unaccountable illusions to which 
 mankind were subject. They were confounded at first with 
 the Jews ; and the Jews, as the Romans had found to their 
 cost, were troublesome fanatics whom it was equally diffi- 
 cult to govern or destroy. When the political constitution 
 of a nation is abolished, its lands taken from it, and its 
 people scattered, the atoms are usually absorbed into other 
 combinations, and the nation ceases to exist. The Romans 
 made an end of Jerusalem ; they levelled the Temple with 
 the ground ; so far as force could do it, they annihilated the 
 Jewish nationality. They were no nearer their end than 
 when they began. The bond of coherence was not political 
 but religious, and the Jewish communities dispersed through- 
 out the Empire burst occasionally into furious insurrections, 
 and were a constant subject of anxiety and alarm. The 
 Jews proper, however, were relatively few ; they made no 
 proselytes, and could be controlled ; but there had come out 
 from them a sect which was spreading independent of local 
 associations, making converts in every part of the world. If 
 not Jews, they were wonderfully like Jews ; a proselytizing 
 religion was a new phenomenon; and in an empire so little 
 homogeneous as the Roman, an independent organization of 
 any kind was an object of suspicion when it grew large 
 enough to be observed. The Christians, too, were bad citizens, 
 refusing public employment and avoiding service in the 
 army; and while they claimed toleration for their own creed, 
 they had no toleration for others ; every god bi.it their own 
 they openly called a devil, and so long as religion was main- 
 tained by the State, and the Empire was administered with 
 religious forms, direct insults to the gods could not readily 
 be permitted. Their organization was secret, and their 
 allegiance ambiguous, since they refused to take the custom- 
 ary oaths; while doubtless to intelligent men, who were 
 looking to the growth of accurate scientific knowledge for 
 
Origen and Cdsus. -^1 
 
 the amelioration of mankind, the appearance of a new and 
 vigorous superstition was provoking and disappomtmg. All 
 thrs we see, yet it still leaves much unexplained. It fails 
 to show us the motives which led Marcus Aurelius to per- 
 secute men whom his own principles must have compelled 
 him to admire. Some further insight may be gamed, how- 
 ever, from the fragments of a once celebrated work called 
 "A True Account," which have been preserved by Origen 
 in his answer to it. The author of this work is believed 
 to have been a distinguished Roman named Celsus, Marcus 
 Aurelius's contemporary. The book itself is lost. Nothing 
 remains of it save the passages which Origen extracted that 
 he mio-ht refute them; and thus we have no complete ac- 
 count "of what Celsus said. We have, like the geologist, 
 to restore an extinct organization out of the fossils of an 
 imperfect skeleton. But 'the attempt is worth makmg. 
 The remains of this lost production exhibit most curiously 
 the relations of the Christianity of the second century to the 
 intellectual culture of the time, and the causes, neither few 
 nor insignificant, which prevented men of high character 
 and attainments from embracing or approving it. 
 
 Of Celsus personally not much is known. He was an 
 Epicurean in opinion and belief; but the habits of men 
 were not governed by their philosophy, nor did the name 
 bear at that time the meaning which now attaches to it. 
 The Epicurean under Marcus Aurelius was the man of 
 science, and of Celsus we gather generally that he was a 
 clear-sighted, honest, proud, and powerful -minded man, un- 
 likely to concern himself with vice and folly. His method 
 of thought was scientific in the strictest modern sense. He 
 disbelieved evidently that the order of nature was ever 
 interrupted by supernatural interference. He had assured 
 himself that every phenomenon in the moral or material 
 world was the sequel of a natural cause. Epicurus had 
 taught him that constant unvarying laws, or groups of laws, 
 prevailed throughout the universe, that what appeared to 
 
252 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 be chance was only the action of forces not yet known to 
 us, and that every alleged miracle performed either by God, 
 angel, devil, or art magic, was a false interpretation of some 
 natural phenomenon, misinterpreted by ignorance or misrep- 
 resented by imposture. He considered that human affairs 
 could be best ordered by attention and obedience to the 
 teaching of observed facts, and that superstition, however 
 accredited by honorable objects or apparent good effects, 
 could only be mischievous in the long run. Sorcerers, char- 
 latans, enthusiasts, were rising thick on all sides, pretending 
 a mission from the invisible world. Of such men and such 
 messaofes Celsus and his friends were inexorable antao^onists. 
 The efforts of their lives were directed to saving mankind 
 from becoming the victims of a new cycle of folly. He 
 himself had written an elaborate treatise, which has been 
 lost, like his other writings, against the Eastern magicians. 
 Lucian dedicated to him his exposure of Alexander of Abo- 
 nitichus, the most impudent and the most successful of the 
 enchanters of the second century. "This sketch," says 
 Lucian, in the closing lines, " I have determined to address 
 to you, my dear sir, both to give you pleasure as a person 
 whom I hold in especial honor for the wisdom, truthfulness, 
 gentleness, justice, composure, and uprightness, which you 
 have displayed in your general conduct, and, again, which I 
 think will gratify you even more, in vindication of our 
 master, Epicurus, who was a saint indeed ; who was inspired 
 in the highest sense ; who alone combined, and taught others 
 to combine, the good with the true, and was thus the de- 
 liverer and saviour of those who would consent to learn 
 from him." 
 
 In this spirit Celsus composed his aXy]Or]<i A,oyo9, his 
 " True Account," against the Christians, in connection appar- 
 ently, from the political character of its concluding passages, 
 with the efforts of Marcus Aurelius to suppress them. The 
 book was powerful and popular, and it proved a real obstacle 
 to the spread of Christianity among the educated classes. 
 
Origen and Celsus. 253 
 
 Eighty years ^ at least after its publication the Church found 
 it necessary to reply, and Origen, the most gifted and accom- 
 plished of the Christian fathers, was selected for the task. 
 Origen's answer decided the controversy in the Church's 
 favor ; but in the reconsideration of the theological position 
 which has been forced upon the modern world, what Celsus 
 had to say has become of peculiar interest to us, and I have 
 endeavored to reconstruct, in outline, his principal positions. 
 His arguments lie under every disadvantage ; the order is 
 disarranged ; the objections are presented sometimes in his 
 own words, sometimes in paraphrases and epitomes, and are 
 brought forward in the attitude in which they could be most 
 easily overthrown. Often we are left to discover what he 
 must have said from the details of the rejoinder. His an- 
 tagonist was totally without humor, and when Celsus was 
 speaking in irony or condescending to prevailing weaknesses, 
 Origen supposed him to be giving his serious opinion ; and 
 again, a mind intensely earnest and religious is unfitted by 
 its very nature to comprehend scientific modes of thought. 
 Yet Origen was too high a man to condescend to wilful mis- 
 representation, or to do less than his very best to exhibit 
 faithfully the lines which he assailed. Notwithstanding 
 these inevitable drawbacks, a fair conception can still be 
 formed of the once celebrated " True Account." 
 
 The writer of it commences, or seems to commence, by 
 saying that he does not condemn the Christians for the 
 secrecy of their rites or for their barbarous origin. Secrecy 
 was forced on them by their position, and a foreign extrac- 
 tion was not in itself a crime. There was nothing censur- 
 able in their lives or habits, or in their refusal to worship 
 statues made by human artists, or to believe the legends of 
 the Grecian gods. Their fault was that they had erected 
 a new superstition of their own, which they maintained by 
 
 1 That is, if the opinion generally received is correct, that the Celsus 
 who composed the dyrfdrfs Xoyos was Lucian's friend. But the evidence is 
 not entirelv conclusive. 
 
254 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 the arts of common charlatans. A belief, Celsus admitted, 
 was not to be abandoned because the profession of it was 
 dangerous. A man with a soul in him longed necessarily 
 for truth, loved God above all things, and desired only to 
 know what God was and what God willed. But he must 
 take his intellect along with him, or he might fall into folly 
 and extravagance ; and Celsus complained that the Chris- 
 tians would neither reason nor listen to reason. " Inquire 
 nothing," they said. " Believe, and your faith will save 
 you. The world's wisdom is evil, and the world's foolish- 
 ness is insight." 
 
 Their origin, according to Celsus, was tolerably well 
 known. There were certain traditions common to all 
 nations respecting the creation of the world. These tra- 
 ditions Moses became acquainted with in Egypt. Moses, 
 who was probably a magician, introduced into them varia- 
 tions of his own. From Egypt he borrowed various reli- 
 gious rites. A number of shepherds took him for their 
 leader, and, under his guidance, they professed a belief in 
 one God, whom they called " the Most High," or Adonai, or 
 God of Sabaoth, or of Heaven. By these names they meant 
 the Universe, or what the Greeks called rw IttI Tracrt ©ew, 
 the God over all. Hence came the Jewish nation, and from 
 among them, now in these late years, there had risen a second 
 prophet, who was called " the son of God." 
 
 The majority of the Jews themselves had not admitted the 
 pretensions of the new claimant, and to explain the reason of 
 their refusal Celsus introduces an orthodox Jew, whom he 
 represents as thus addressing Christ : — 
 
 " You were born in a small Jewish village. Your mother 
 was a poor woman who earned her bread by spinning. Her 
 husband divorced her for adultery. You were born in secret 
 and were afterwards carried to Egypt, and were bred up 
 among the Egyptian conjurers. The arts which you there 
 learnt, you practised when you returned to your own people, 
 and you thus persuaded them that you were God. It was 
 
Origcn and Cclsus. 255 
 
 given out that you were born of a virgin. Your real father 
 was a soldier, named Panther.^ The story of your Divine 
 parentage is like the story of Danac. You say that when you 
 were baptized in Jordan a dove descended upon you, and 
 that a voice was heard from heaven declaring that you were 
 the Son of God. Who saw the dove? Who heard the 
 voice, except you and another who suffered as you suffered ? 
 The prophets have foretold that a Son of God is to come. 
 Granted. But how are we to know that they referred to you ? 
 They spoke of a glorious king who was to reign over the 
 world. You we know only as wandering about with publicans 
 and boatmen of abandoned character."^ You tell us that the 
 wise men o£ the East came at your birth to adore you ; ^ 
 that they gave notice to Herod, and that Herod killed all 
 the children in Bethlehem, to prevent you from becoming 
 king. You yourself escaped by going to Egypt. Is this 
 story true ? and if it be, could not the angels who had been 
 busy about your birth have protected you at home ? When 
 you grew up, what did you accomplish remarkable ? What 
 did you say ? We challenged you in the Temple to give us 
 a sign as your credential. You had none to give. You cured 
 diseases, it is said ; you restored dead bodies to life ; you fed 
 multitudes with a few loaves. These are the common tricks 
 of the Egyptian wizards, which you may see performed every 
 day in our markets for a few halfpence. They, too, drive 
 out devils, heal sicknesses, call up the souls of the dead, pro- 
 vide suppers and tables covered with dishes, and make things 
 seem what they are not. We do not call these wizards sons 
 of God ; we call them rogues and vagabonds." 
 
 1 Epiphanius Pays that Joseph's father was called Panther. John of 
 Damascus says that Panther was Mary's grandfather. The Talmud says 
 that he was Mary's husband. 
 
 2 Origen thinks that Celsus must have gathered this from an Epistle of 
 Barnabas, where the Apostles are spoken of as uvrep irdaav a/xapTiav 
 avoixcoTepoi. 
 
 8 Origcn says the wise men were magicians. Tlicir power depended on 
 some spirit or spirits. It ceased suddenly when Christ was born, and they 
 thus knew that something wonderful had happened. 
 
256 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 The Jew then turns to his converted countrymen. 
 
 "What madness can have possessed you," he says, " to 
 leave the law of your fathers ? Can you conceive that we, 
 who were looking fpr the coming of the Messiah, should 
 not have recognized him had this been he? His own 
 followers even were not convinced, or they would not have 
 betrayed and deserted him. If he could not persuade those 
 who daily saw and spoke with him, shall he convince you 
 now that he is gone ? Pie suffered, you pretend, to destroy 
 the power of evil. Have there been no other sufferers ? Was 
 he the only one? He worked miracles, you say, he healed 
 the lame and the blind, he brought the dead to life. But, 
 O light and truth, did he not himself tell you, is it not 
 written in your own books, that miracles could be worked 
 by impostors ? He calls Satan a master of such arts, so 
 that he admits himself that they are no evidence of divine 
 action. Are you to argue from the same works that one 
 man is God, and another a servant of Satan ? Why is one 
 a servant of Satan more than the other? To what can you 
 appeal ? You say he prophesied that he would himself rise 
 from the dead, and he did rise. The same is said of many 
 besides him. Zamolxis told the Scythians that he had 
 come back from the dead. So Pythagoras told the Italians. 
 Rhampsiuitus pretended to have played dice with Ceres in 
 Hell, and he showed a golden handkerchief which Ceres had 
 given to him. Orpheus, Protesilaus, Hercules, Theseus, all 
 are said to have died and risen again. But did any one ever 
 really rise? — really? — in the body in which he had lived? 
 Or shall we say that all these stories are fables, but that 
 yours is true ? Who saw your prophet after he rose ? An 
 hysterical woman or some of his own comj)anions who 
 dreamt of him or were deluded by their enthusiasm. All 
 the world were witnesses of his death. Why were none 
 but his friends witnesses of his resurrection ? Had he de- 
 sired to prove that he was God, he should have appeared 
 to his accusers and his judge, or he should have vaniehed 
 
Origcn and Celsus. 257 
 
 from the cross. We hope that we shall rise again in our 
 bodies and have eternal life, that he will be a guide and 
 example in the resurrection, and that one who is to come 
 will prove that with God nothing is impossible. Where is 
 your prophet now ? that we may see and believe. Did he 
 come among us that we might reject him? He was a 
 
 man such a man as truth shows him to have been and 
 
 common sense declares." 
 
 So far the Jew ; but after all, says Celsus, now speaking 
 in his own person, the controversy between Jews and Chris- 
 tians is but for the proverbial "ass's shadow;" for both 
 agree that the human race is to be redeemed by a Saviour 
 from heaven ; the only question between them is about the 
 person of this Saviour. 
 
 The Jews were a tribe of Egyptians who revolted from 
 the established religion. The Christians have revolted in 
 turn from them, and the cause in both cases has been the 
 same — a seditious and revolutionary temper. So long as 
 the Christians were few there was tolerable agreement 
 amono- them. As their numbers extended the mutinous 
 spirit displayed itself. Sect has formed after sect, each 
 condemning the other, till they have little left but the name 
 in common. Their faith rests on nothing but their hopes 
 and fears, and they have invented the most extraordinary 
 terrors. God forbid that they, or I, or any man should 
 cease to believe that wicked men will be punished hereafter 
 and good men rewarded.^ But the Christians have taken 
 this ancient doctrine, and distorted its meaning, and now 
 howl it out like the Corybantes, as if no one had ever heard 
 of it before. Their creed preserves its original Egyptian 
 stamp — grand and impressive without, and within ridicu- 
 lous. The Greeks say that the heroes became gods. The 
 
 1 A very remarkable confession, considering who made it — so remark- 
 able that it must be given in Celsus's own words : yttTyre tovtois etr] /jltit' 
 ifxol fi-ffT^ &\\cj} Tivl avQpwTTdiv a7r66ecrdai rh irepl rod KoXaad-qaaQai rovs 
 adiKovs Kol y^pCiv a^LcoOriaeaOai tuvs Bikuiovs d6yijLa. (Lib. iii- c 16.) 
 17 
 
258 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 Christians will not believe in the heroes, but insist that 
 Christ was seen after death by his friends when they saw 
 nothing but a shadow, and they are angry with us if we in 
 turn decline to believe them. Hundreds of Greeks are to 
 be found to this day who maintain that they have seen, and 
 often see, Esculapius busy about sick-beds. Aristeas of 
 Proconnesus disappeared mysteriously again and again, and 
 started up in all quarters of the world. Abaris travelled 
 on an arrow. Hermotimus of Clazomence could leave his 
 body and return to it. Cleomedes was locked into a box, 
 and when the box was opened he was gone. Men once 
 living and now deified have their temples everywhere. 
 There are the Emperor Adrian's lovers. Antinous works 
 miracles daily at Antinopolis. These we are to call fables ; 
 yet what we are told of Jesus we are expected to believe. 
 Those only can believe it who have determined that it shall 
 be regarded as true, and forbid inquiry and investigation. 
 The Christian teachers have no j)ower over men of educa- 
 tion, over men of knowledge and learning. They do not 
 address themselves to intelligence, they call human wisdom 
 folly. The qualifications for conversion are ignorance and 
 childish timidity. They are like the orators who gather 
 crowds about them in the market-places ; but you see no 
 sensible person there ; you see only boys and slaves and the 
 common materials of a city mob. Weavers or cobblers will 
 make their way into private houses ; so long as the heads 
 of the family are present, they say nothing; when they 
 have the field to themselves, they catch hold of the children 
 and women, and then produce their marvels. Fathers and 
 tutors are not listened to. Fathers and tutors, they say, 
 are mad or blind, unable to understand or do any good 
 thing, given over to vain imaginations. The weavers and 
 cobblers only are wise, they only have the secret of life, they 
 only can show the way to peace and happiness. If father 
 and tutor come back and find them there, the more timid 
 cease their instructions. Those who are bolder advise the 
 
Origen ami Celsus. 259 
 
 children to defy their parents. They whisper that till they 
 are alone they can teach them no more. They slink away 
 with them into the women's apartment, or bid them come 
 and learn the ways of perfection in their own workshops. 
 
 I speak bitterly about this, says Celsus, because I feel 
 bitterly. When we are invited to the Mysteries, the mas- 
 ters use another tone. They say, " Come to us, ye who 
 are of clean hands and pure speech, ye who are unstained 
 by crime, ye who have a good conscience towards God, ye 
 who have done justly and lived uprightly." The Christians 
 say, " Come to us, ye who are sinners, ye who are fools or 
 children, ye who are miserable, and ye shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven." The rogue, the thief, the burglar, the 
 poisoner, the spoiler of temples and tombs, these are their 
 proselytes. Christ, they say, was sent to save sinners ; was 
 he not sent to help those who have kept themselves free 
 from sin ? They pretend that God will save the unjust 
 man if he repents and humbles himself. The just man, who 
 has held steady from the cradle in the waj^s of virtue. He 
 will not look upon. We are to confess ourselves to be sin- 
 ners, and to pray and sob for pardon. The magistrate judges 
 by the truth, he does not listen to tears and lamentations. 
 Can God require such attitudes ? Are we to think of God 
 as a being who can be softened by appeals to his pity ? Why 
 are sinners to have the preference with Him ? When per- 
 sons with a proclivity to evil have formed evil habits, they 
 are notoriously past cure ; neither punishment nor tender- 
 ness will mend them. Surely those who are doing the best 
 for themselves are those who best deserve help from above. 
 It is pretended that well-conducted people are led astray by 
 self-conceit, and will not listen to reproof. But the Chris- 
 tians do not address the well-conducted. They address the 
 ignorance of the multitude ; they are like the drunkards 
 who accuse the sober of being drunk, or the half-blind 
 who tell those with eyes that they cannot see. They are 
 leading astray miserable men after visionary hopes, and 
 
260 Origen and Cclsus. 
 
 turning them from the knowledge of all that is really 
 good. 
 
 You say, Celsus goes on as if personally addressing the 
 converts, that God must come down to earth to judge man- 
 kind. The Jews say, that He will come. The Christians, 
 that He has come already. But why should God come 
 down ? To learn what mankind are doing ? He already 
 knows all things. Was it to set right what was amiss ? The 
 everlasting order of the universe does not need to be set 
 right. No link of it is broken or can be broken. Or per- 
 haps you think that He was without his due honor; that 
 He desired to learn who there were that believed in Him ; 
 that He would have us know Him for our salvation, that 
 those who would turn to Him might repent and be saved, 
 and those who rejected Him might be convicted of an evil 
 heart. Do you suppose that for all these ages God had left 
 man alone, and only now at last has remembered and visited 
 him ? You tell us nothing of God with any savor of truth 
 in it. You terrify fools by pictures of the horrors which 
 await the impenitent, pictures like the spectres and phantasms 
 which we are shown in the Mysteries. 
 
 You have gathered a doctrine out of the Greek legends 
 which you have not understood about cataclysms and con- 
 flagrations. The Greeks discovered that elemental catas- 
 trophes might be looked for in recurring cycles. The last 
 deluge was Deucalion's : now you think that it is the turn 
 of fire, and that God will come upon the earth as a consum- 
 ing flame. God, ray friends, is all-perfect and all-blessed. 
 If He leaves his present state, and comes down as a man 
 among men. He must pass from blessedness to unblessedness, 
 from perfection to imperfection, from good to bad, and no 
 such change is possible with Him. Change is the condition 
 of mortality. The immortal remains the same forever. He 
 cannot change without ceasing to be Himself He cannot 
 seem to change while He remains unchanged, for then He is 
 a deceiver. You Jews say, that when the world is full of 
 
Origen and Celsus. 261 
 
 vice and violence, God must send his angels and destroy it 
 as lie did in the first Deluge. You Christians say, that the 
 Son of God was sent on account of the Jews' sins ; that the 
 Jews crucified Him, and incurred heavier wrath than before. 
 You are like so many ants creeping out of their anthill, or 
 frogs sitting round a pond, or a congregiition of worms on a 
 mud-heap, discussing amoug themselves which have sinned, 
 and all claiming to have had the secrets of God revealed to 
 them. For us, they say. He has left the circuit of the sky. 
 Our interests only He considers, forgetting all other created 
 things : to us he sends messenger after messenger, and thinks 
 only how to attach us to Himself: we are God's children, 
 and are made in his likeness : for us earth, water, air, and 
 stars were created, to be our ministers : but some of us have 
 sinned, and now God must come, or send his Son, to burn 
 up the offenders, and give the rest of us frogs eternal life. 
 Such language would be less monstrous from the frogs than 
 from those who now use it. What are the Jews that they 
 claim so lofty privileges ? They were a colony of revolted 
 Egyptian slaves who settled in a corner of Palestine. In 
 their account of themselves they pretend that at the begin- 
 ning God made a man with his hands, and breathed life 
 into him. He then put him to sleep, took out one of 
 his ribs, and of the rib made a woman. Having thus created 
 these two. He gave them certain orders, which the serpent 
 tempted them to disobey, and thus crossed God's purpose 
 and got the better of Him. God having thus failed to make 
 His creatures loyal to Himself, after a time proposed to de- 
 stroy them. There was a Deluge, and a marvellous ark, in 
 which all kinds of living things were inclosed, with a dove and 
 a raven to act as messengers.^ The history of the Patriarchs 
 follows — children singularly born ; brothers quarrelling ; 
 
 1 The difficulty of conceivincr that such a multitude of creatures could 
 have been preserved in a vessel of the dimensions usually assi<rned to the 
 Ark, was a very old one. Ori^jen .c:ets over it by sayini? that the figures 
 were wrontrly given. The Ark, he says, was 90,000 cubits long, and 2,500 
 cubits wide. 
 
2G2 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 mothers plotting ; a youth cheating his father-in-law ; a 
 story of Lot and his daughters worse than the banquet of 
 Thyestes. One of the lads goes to Egypt, where he inter- 
 prets a dream, and becomes ruler of the country. His 
 family join him and settle there. The Jews and Christians 
 explain these legends into allegory, but it is all illusion to- 
 gether. God makes nothing which is liable to death. The 
 soul of man is God's work. The body of man is not his 
 work. The human body differs nothing from the body of a 
 bat or a worm. It is made of the same materials. It comes 
 to the same end ; all material things are mortal, and subject 
 to decay. The evil which men speak of is a necessary con- 
 dition of the universe. It is not in God ; it is in matter ; its 
 energy lies in corruption ; and life and death succeed each other 
 with an unchanging law of uniform succession. The world 
 was not made for man. Each organized creature is born and 
 perishes for the sake of the whole /cocr/xos. That which to 
 you seems evil may not be evil in itself To some other 
 being, or to the universe, it may possibly be good. Man 
 refers all things to himself and his own interests ; but the 
 rain from heaven was no more sent for him than it was sent 
 for the trees and herbs. The trees and herbs are of as much 
 benefit to the animals as to man. The animals might even 
 with better reason regard themselves as the special objects of 
 God's care. Man seeks his food with pain and toil. The 
 animals neither sow nor plough; the earth supplies them 
 freely with all that they need. Euripides may say, — 
 
 The day and night are ministers of man. 
 
 Why more of man than of ants and gnats, to whom night 
 brings sleep, and day the return of energy ? Are we lords 
 of the animals because we capture and devour them ? Do 
 not they equally chase and devour us ? And we must use 
 nets and weapons and hounds and huntsmen, while nature 
 has given weapons to them sufficient with no such assist- 
 ance. So far as nature goes it might be rather said that 
 
Origen and Celsus. 263 
 
 God had subjected man to beasts. Will a higher place be 
 claimed for man because he lives in cities and rules himself 
 by laws? So do ants and bees. They too have their chiefs, 
 their wars, their victories, their captured enemies : they have 
 their towns and suburbs, their division of labor, their punish- 
 ment for drones : they have cemeteries for their dead ; they 
 converse and reason when they meet on the road. To one 
 looking down from heaven no such mighty difference would 
 appear between the doings of men and the doings of ants. 
 The universe was no more made for man than for the lion, 
 the eagle, or the dolphin. One created being is not better 
 in itself than another. All are but parts of one great and 
 perfect whole, and this whole is the constant care of the 
 providence of God. He does not forget it and turn to it 
 at intervals when it has become corrupt. He is not angry 
 with it nor threatens to destroy it on man's account any 
 more than on account of apes and flies. Each thing in its 
 place fulfils its allotted work. 
 
 No God or Son of God has ever come down to this earth 
 or will come. The Jews profess to venerate the heavens 
 and the inhabitants of the heavens ; but the grandest, the 
 most sublime, of the wonders of those high regions they will 
 not venerate. They adore the phantasms of the dark, the 
 obscure visions of their sleep ; but for those bright and sliin- 
 ing harbingers of good, those ministers by whom the winter 
 rains and the summer warmth, the clouds and the liijhtninjjs 
 and the thunders, the fruits of the earth and all living things 
 are generated and preserved, those beings in whom God re- 
 veals his presence to us, those fair celestial heralds, those 
 angels which are angels indeed, for them they care not, they 
 heed them not. They dream of a God who will burn all 
 created things to cinders, and will raise up them to life again 
 in their fleshly bodies. It is not to gratify such appetites 
 of disordered minds that God presides in this universe. He 
 rules in justice and uprightness. To the soul He may grant 
 immortality. The flesh is but a perishing excrement which 
 
264 Origcn and C chits. 
 
 He neither will save nor, though you say that with Him 
 nothing is impossible, is able to save, for He is Himself 
 the reason of all things, and He cannot contradict his own 
 nature. 
 
 The Jews as a separate nation have their own institutions 
 and their own religion, and the Government does not inter- 
 fere with them. Different peoples have each their special 
 modes of thought and action, and it is good to preserve a 
 community in the form in which it has grown. It may be 
 too that the earth from the beginning has been partitioned 
 into spiritual prefectures, each under a viceroy of its own, 
 and that each province prospers best when left to its own 
 ruler. National laws and customs are of infinite variety, 
 and each nation prefers its own. If in this spirit the Jews 
 are tenacious of their traditions, they are not to be blamed ; 
 but if they pretend to the possession of special secrets of 
 knowledge, and refuse, as unclean, a communion with the 
 rest of mankind, they must be taught that their own dogmas 
 are not peculiar to them. They worship the God of heaven ; 
 the Persians sacrifice on the hill-tops to Dis, by whom they 
 mean the circle of the sky ; and it matters little whether we 
 name this Being Dis or " the Most High," or " Zeus," or 
 " Adonai," or " Sabaoth," or " Ammon," or with the Scythi- 
 ans " Papa." The Egyptians and the Colchi were circum- 
 cised before the Jews ; the Egyptians do not eat swine's 
 flesh, nor the flesh of many animals beside ; the Pythago- 
 reans toucli none. As to outward signs that God has any 
 special care for the Jews, what has become of them ? Not 
 knowing the truth and enchanted by vain ilhisions, they have 
 been swept away out of their country and bear the penalty 
 of their arrogance. 
 
 Allow that the Christians' master may have been some 
 angel : was he the first or the only angel that has come into 
 the world? The Christians themselves tell of many more 
 who, they say, rebelled and ai'e confined in chains in the 
 hollow of the earth, and they pretend that the hot springs 
 
Origen and Celsics. 265 
 
 are their tears. . Some of them imagine that the Demim-ous, 
 or Creator, was uot the Father of Christ, and that Christ 
 came to bring men from the Demiurgus to his Father. 
 There are the Simonians among them who worship Helen 
 or her master Helenus. Others derive themselves from 
 Marcel lina, others from Salome, others from Mariamne, or 
 from Martha. And there are, again, the Marcionites. Some 
 of these sects prostrate themselves in darkness before im- 
 agined demons with rites more abominable than the orgies 
 in the College of Antinous ; they curse each other with hor- 
 rid imprecations, and will yield no point for concord ; yet, 
 amidst their mutual reproaches, they all sing to the one 
 note, " The world is crucified to me, and I to the world ; " 
 " If you will be saved, believe, or else depart from us." 
 Who is to decide among them ? Are those who would be 
 saved to throw dice to learn to whom to attach themselves ? 
 Again, there are the Ophiatos, or serpent worshippers — a 
 tree of knowledge, with the serpent for the good spirit, and 
 with Demiurgus for the evil spirit. There are the prophetic 
 oracles, circles within circles, water flowing from the Church 
 on earth, virtues distilled from the Prunic Virgin,^ the soul 
 living, the sky slain that it might live again, the earth 
 stabbed with an altar knife, human beings sacrificed and re- 
 stored, death ceasing out of the universe when sin shall die, 
 the narrow road, the gates flying open of their own accord, 
 everywhere the tree of life, and the resurrection of the 
 flesh from off the tree — I suppose because their master 
 was crucified, and was himself a worker in wood. Had he 
 been thrown from a cliff, or into a pit, or been hanged ; had 
 he been a shoemaker, or a mason, or a smith, we sliould 
 have had the rock of life, the gulf of resurrection, the rope 
 of immortality, or the holy leather, or the blessed stone, or 
 the steel of charity. What nurse would not be ashamed to 
 tell such fables to a child ? 
 
 Then there are those who practise incantation and exor- 
 
 1 The celestial mother of the Valentinians. 
 
266 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 cism with diagrams and mystic numbers. I have seen books 
 with the names of spirits and formulas for spells in the hands 
 of some of their priests. An Egyptian once told me that 
 magic had power on fools and sensualists, but could touch 
 no one who was sound in mind and body. The Christians 
 dream of some antagonist to God — a devil, whom they call 
 Satanus, who thwarted God when He wished to benefit 
 mankind. The Son of God suffered death from Satanus, 
 but they tell us that we are to defy him, and to bear the 
 worst that he can do ; Satanus will come again and work 
 miracles, and pretend to be God, but we are not to believe 
 him. The Greeks tell of a war among the gods ; army 
 against army, one led by Saturn and one by Ophiucus ; of 
 challenges and battles ; the vanquished falling into the ocean, 
 the victors reigning in heaven. In the Mysteries we have 
 the rebellion of the Titans, and the fables of Typhon, and 
 Horus, and Osiris. The story of the devil plotting agaiust 
 man is stranger than either of these. The Son of God is 
 injured by the devil, and charges us when we are afflicted 
 to bear it patiently. Why not punish the devil, instead of 
 threatening poor wretches whom he deceives ? 
 
 Christ must needs suffer, you say, because it was so fore- 
 told. The oracles under whose guidance so many colonies 
 have been founded were nothing, but every word spoken or 
 not spoken in Judiea must be infallible. Prophets and di- 
 viners are to be found at the present day scattered every- 
 where. They are to be met with in temples, and camps, 
 and cities, with crowds gathered about them. " I am God," 
 they say, " or the Son of God, or the Holy Spirit, and I have 
 come because the world is to perish, and you, O men, are 
 like to perish, too, in your iniquities ; but I will save you ; 
 hereafter you will see me coming in the power of heaven ; 
 blessed are those who believe in me now ; the rest I will 
 burn with everlasting fire ; repentance will then be in vain ; 
 only those who now listen shall escape." Then they utter 
 some unintelligible nonsense from which any rogue or block- 
 
Origen and C chits. 267 
 
 head can extract whatever meaning pleases him. I have 
 myself spoken with some of these persons, who, when cross- 
 questioned, have confessed that they were impostors. If 
 prophets like these were to foretell that God was to fall 
 sick and die, must God fall sick and die because they say 
 so? What is incredible and unworthy may not be be- 
 lieved, though all mankind go mad and prophesy it. The 
 Jewish prophets, inspired by God, you say, foretold that 
 Christ would come to do tliis and that, and the prophets 
 could not err. God through Moses promised the Israelites 
 temporal prosperity and earthly dominion ; He bade them 
 destroy their enemies, sparing neither old nor young, and 
 threatened them with destruction themselves unless they 
 obeyed Him. The Son of God condemned riches, con- 
 demned ambition ; men were to care no more for food or 
 raiment than the ravens or the lilies ; they were to offer the 
 cheek to be smitten. It seems that either Moses was wrong 
 or Christ was wrong ; or are we to suppose that God 
 changed his own mind ? 
 
 You dream, perhaps, of another and better world, another 
 existence, as in some Elysian fields, where all riddles will 
 be solved and all evil be put away. You say unless God 
 can be seen in the form of a man, how are we to know 
 Him? How can anything be known, except by the senses? 
 You might see Him, if that was all, in the Greek temples. 
 But your words are the words of flesh, not of reasonable 
 men. Then only can you see God when you close the eyes 
 of the body and open the eyes of the intellect, and if you 
 need a guide upon the road, avoid the quacks and conjurers 
 who promise to show you ghosts. Put away your vain 
 illusions, your marvellous formulas, your lion and your 
 Amphibius, your God-ass and your celestial door-keepers/ 
 in whose names, poor wretches, you allow yourselves to be 
 persecuted and impaled. Plato says that the Architect and 
 Father of the Universe is not easily found, and when found 
 
 1 An allusion to some of the Gnostic heresies. 
 
268 Origen and Odsus. 
 
 cannot be made known to common minds. Go learn of 
 Plato how truth is sought for by those who are inspired 
 indeed. Hard and narrow is the way that leads to light, 
 and few can find it ; but through the efforts of the wise 
 we are not left wholly without some glimpse, without some 
 conception, of that awful and eternal being. Lost in the 
 flesh as you are and without pure vision, I know not if you 
 can follow me. That which is intelligible is perceived by 
 the mind. That which is visible is perceived by the eye. 
 The spirit apprehends the things of the spirit, the eye ap- 
 prehends the things of the eye ; and as the sun in this 
 visible Universe is not the eye and is not sight, but is the 
 power which enables the eye to see and enables all sensible 
 things which are the object of vision to be seen, so God is 
 not intellect, and is not spirit, and is not knowledge, but 
 through Him the spirit perceives, the intellect knows ; in 
 Him all truth and all objects of knowledge have their being; 
 and He Himself, by some ineffable agency, is seen above 
 them all. I speak as to men of understanding. It will be 
 well if you can follow me. The spirit you speak of, which 
 you pretend has come down to you from God to teach his 
 mysteries, is the same spirit which has made these truths 
 known to us. If you cannot comprehend, I bid you be 
 silent. Cover up your ignorance. Call not those blind 
 whose eyes are open, nor those lame who run ; and live as 
 you will in your body, which is the dead part of you. If 
 you must needs have some new doctrine, adopt some illus- 
 trious name, better suited to the dignity of a divine nature. 
 If Hercules and Esculapius do not please you, there was 
 Orpheus. He too died by violence. If Orpheus has been 
 taken by others, there was Anaxarchus, who was beaten to 
 death and mocked at his executioners. " Pound on," he 
 said, " you can pound the sheath of Anaxarchus, himself 
 you cannot pound." The men of science, you may tell me, 
 have appropriated Anaxarchus. Well, then, take Epictetus, 
 who, wlien iiis master was wrenching his leg upon the rack. 
 
Origcn and Cclsus. 2C9 
 
 smiled, and said he would break it, and, when he did break 
 it, said, " I told you so." Even the sibyl, whose poems you 
 interpolate with your own fables, you might have called a 
 dausrhter of God with a sort of reason. Your own le^jen- 
 dary heroes would have been more presentable than the one 
 whom you have chosen : your Jonah who was in the whale's 
 belly, or your Daniel in the lions' den. 
 
 You boast that you have no temples, no altars, no images. 
 The absence of such things is not peculiar to you. The 
 nomad Scythians and the Africans have none. The Per- 
 sians have none. The Persians say the gods are not like 
 men, and they will not represent them as men. Heraclitus 
 says that prayer to an image is like prayer to a house wall. 
 But you, in condemning images, are inconsistent with your- 
 selves, for you say that man was made in the image of God. 
 The images in the temples you pretend are images of genii. 
 If this be so, and if there be genii, why should not they be 
 adored ? Is not everything directed by God ?• Is not God's 
 providence over all ? Angels, genii, heroes, have they not 
 each their own law prescribed by God ? are they not minis- 
 tering spirits set over their several provinces according to 
 their degree ? and why, if we adore God, should we not 
 adore those who bear rule under Him ? 
 
 No man, you say, can serve many masters. This is the 
 language of sedition — of men who would divide themselves 
 from the society of their fellows, and would carry God along 
 with them. A slave cannot serve a second master without 
 wronging the first to whom he belongs. But God can 
 suffer no wrong. God can lose nothing. The inferior 
 spirits are not his rivals, that He can resent the respect 
 which we pay to them. In them we worship only some 
 attribute of Him from whom they hold authority, and in 
 saying that one only is Lord you disobey and rebel against 
 Him. Nor do you practise your own profession. You 
 have a second Lord yourselves, a man who lived and died 
 a few years ago ; you pretend still that in God's Son you 
 
270 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 still worship but one God ; but this is a subtle contrivance 
 that you may give the greater glory to this Son. You say 
 that in your " Dialogus Coelestis," " If the Son of Man is 
 stronger than God and Lord of God, who else can be Lord 
 of Him who is above God ? " ^ You have a God above the 
 heavens — Father of the son of man, whom you have chosen 
 to worship ; and to this son of man you give the glory of 
 God by pretending that he is stronger than God. You have 
 no outward services, because you prefer to be connected by 
 a secret bond among yourselves. The true God is the 
 common Father of us all. From us He needs nothing. He 
 is good, and in Him is no jealousy or malice. What hurt 
 can His most devoted servants fear from taking part in the 
 public festivals? If the images presented there be idols, 
 they are without power to injure. If they are spirits, they 
 are spirits sent from God, and deserve the honor and ser- 
 vice assigned to them by the laws. Y^'our customs require 
 you to abstain from the flesh of some of the animals which 
 are offered in sacrifice. Be it so. Abstain if you will from 
 the flesh of all animals. Pythagoras did the same. But if, 
 as you pretend, you will not be partakers with genii, are 
 the genii only present when the victims are slain ? The 
 corn and herbs which you eat, the wine you drink, the 
 water, and the very air you breathe, are they not all created 
 by the spirits that are set over them? Either you must not 
 live in this world at all, or you must offer your thanksgiv- 
 ings and prayers to the beings from whom you receive all 
 that you have. These supermundane and ethereal officials 
 may be dangerous if they are neglected or insulted. You 
 are onlj'^ in danger from them, you say, if you call them by 
 their barbarous names. You are safe if you keep to Latin 
 and Greek equivalents. You may curse a Zeus or Apollo 
 and strike him in the face, and he takes no notice. Alas, 
 my good people, we, too, can outlaw your spirit by sea and 
 
 1 The Dialogus Coelestis was perhaps a Marcionite book. Origen knew 
 nothing of it, and declined to be responsible for it. 
 
Origen and Celsus. 271 
 
 land ; we can take you who are his images and chain you 
 and kill you. And your Son of God, or whatever you 
 please to call him, is no less indifferent. We do not learn 
 that those who put him to death suffered anything extraor- 
 dinary. What has befallen since his end to persuade us 
 that your son of man was Son of God ? He was sent into 
 the world as God's ambassador. He was killed, his mes- 
 sage perished with him ; and, after all these generations, he 
 still sleeps. He suffered, you say, with his own consent. 
 May not those whom you revile suffer also with their con- 
 sent ? It is well to compare like with like. Is there no 
 evidence for the presence of God's Spirit in the established 
 religion ? Need I speak of the oracles ? the prophecies 
 announced from the shrines ? the revelations in the augu- 
 ries ? the visions of divine beings actually seen ? All the 
 world is full of these things. How many cities have been 
 founded at the bidding of an oracle ? How many rescued 
 from plague and famine ? How many have perished misera- 
 bly when the oracle's commands were neglected? Princes 
 have flourished or fallen. Childless parents have obtained 
 their wishes. The sick and maimed have recovered liealth 
 and strength. Blasphemers have gone mad confessing their 
 crimes. Others have killed themselves, or fallen into moi'tal 
 illness ; some have been slain on the spot by an awful sen- 
 tence out of the shrine. 
 
 You tell of the eternal torments which await the wicked. 
 You say no more than the interpreters of the Mysteries. 
 But the penalties which you pronounce against them, the 
 chiefs of the Mysteries pronounce against you. Why should 
 you be more right than they ? They and you are equally 
 confident in your message ; and they as well as you have 
 their miracles and prophecies. For your message in itself 
 (I do not speak to such of you as are troubled about a bodily 
 resurrection ; with them it is vain to reason), to those among 
 you who believe that the soul or intellect is immortal (intel- 
 lectual spirit, holy or blessed spirit, living spirit, effluence 
 
272 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 from incorporeal nature celestial and imperishable, name it 
 as you please), to those who believe that the wicked will 
 suffer everlastingly, and that the righteous will enjoy eternal 
 happiness in the presence of God^ I say that they believe 
 truly and well. Let them hold to this doctrine. May it never 
 be abandoned either by them or any man ! Perhaps for all 
 human beings some penal purgatory is necessary to purify 
 the soul from the passions and pollutions by which it has 
 been stained in its connection with the body. Mortals, Em- 
 pedocles tells us, must wander apart from bliss in countless 
 forms for 30,000 years, and are committed to the keepers 
 of the prison-house. One, however, of two things : either 
 you must recognize the usages of the commonwealth and 
 respect its ministers, or the commonwealth cannot bear your 
 presence. You must go from us and leave no seed be- 
 hind you, that the trace of you may be blotted off the earth. 
 If you choose to marry and rear children, and eat the fruit 
 of the ground and share in the common interests of life, you 
 must submit to the conditions, although they may not be 
 wholly to your taste. All of us have to bear with things 
 which we could wish otherwise. It is a law of nature, and 
 there is no remedy. You must pay honor to those who are 
 set over you. You must discharge the duties of this life 
 until you are released from the bonds of it. You cannot 
 have the benefits of society and refuse to share its obliga- 
 tions. In some places the religious customs may be extrava- 
 gant and superstitious, and wise men use their judgment 
 as to the credit which they attach to them. But if the 
 Romans were to listen to you, to abolish all their laws and 
 customs, and to worship only your Most High, or what you 
 may please to call Him, you will not pretend that He will 
 come and fight for them and defend them from their ene- 
 mies. According to you. He promised the Jews more than 
 this, yet he has done little either for them or for yourselves. 
 The Jews were to have ruled the world, and they have not 
 a yard of ground to call their own. You are only safe when 
 
Origen and Cclsus. 273 
 
 you keep concealed. If you are found you are executed. 
 God must never be forgotten either by day or night, either 
 in public or private, either in speech or action. Whatever 
 we do or leave undone, we should have God ever before our 
 minds, but we must obey also the princes and rulers of this 
 world, the powers, whatever they be, which have authority 
 here. I do not say that obedience is without limit. If a 
 servant of God be commanded to do some wrong act or 
 speak an irreverent word, he is bound to disobey. lie must 
 bear all torture and all death sooner than say or do what 
 God forbids : but if the order be to salute the Sun or sing 
 a hymn to Athene, he does but glorify God the more when 
 he praises God's ministers ; nor is it unlawful to swear 
 by the emperor, for to the emperor the world is given in 
 charge, and under him you hold all that you have. 
 
 A monarch is enthroned upon earth to whom God has 
 committed the sceptre. Refuse to acknowledge him, refuse 
 to serve under him in the state or the army, and he has 
 no choice but to punish you, because if all were to act as 
 you do he would be left alone and unsupported ; the empire 
 would be overrun by the barbarians, and all sound knowledge 
 would be destroyed, your own superstition along with it. 
 You have no fear, you say ; you can face the prospect ; you 
 are content to see ruler after ruler perish if only he will lis- 
 ten to you. If the rulers have any prudence they will first 
 make an end with you. Your notion that all the world can 
 be brought to one mind in religion, Asiatic, European, 
 African, Greek, and Barbarian, is the wildest of dreams. 
 It cannot be. The very thought reveals your ignorance. 
 Your duty is to stand by your sovereign, in the field, in the 
 council chamber, wherever he requires your service. Do 
 justly in your place as citizens, and make yourselves worthy 
 members of the commonwealth.^ 
 
 1 Origen says on this very important point that Christians will only 
 assist tlie Emperor with their own weapons. They will put on the armor 
 of God. They will pray for the suecess of the Imperial armies when the 
 18 
 
274 Oriyen and Celsus. 
 
 Such is the general bearing of this memorable treatise. 
 There must be large gaps in many parts where the connec- 
 tion is broken. The conclusion is abrupt. It was, perhaps, 
 a further development of the political aspect of the question, 
 which Origen thought it unnecessary to quote. In places 
 he seems to have misunderstood Celsus, in places to have 
 unconsciously done him injustice. Throughout we do not 
 know where we have the words of Celsus himself, and 
 where a paraphase of what Origen thought him to mean. 
 Occasionally where a paragraph appears to be quoted ver- 
 bally, it is unintelligible from want of context, and we are 
 driven to Origen's rejoinders to discover what Celsus is talk- 
 ing about. On the whole, however, the sketch which I have 
 given does, I believe, represent faithfully in a generalized 
 form the argument which obstructed for a century the prog- 
 ress of Christianity. The reply, which was long an arsenal 
 for Christian advocates, is as beautiful as it is voluminous. 
 It is the unfolding of the position of the Christian Church 
 towards the surrounding world in all its simplicity, its inno- 
 cence, and spiritual purity. Good men are not protected 
 from intellectual errors. Their thoughts are occupied with 
 higher subjects, and they attend, perhaps, less than others to 
 merely secular learning. When he is off his own ground 
 and attempts to answer Celsus on questions of fact, on science, 
 
 cause is a just one. The priests of the temples were excused from shedding 
 blood, and confined themselves to intercession. Christians abstained on 
 the same ground to keep their hands pure. They were willing to pray for 
 the confusion of the enemies of justice, and by defeating the evil spirits 
 who had caused a war they would benefit the Emperor more than they could 
 do by fighting with their hands. Serve under him as legionaries they would 
 not, however he might try to force them. 
 
 The Fathers were divided on the matter. Tertullian wavers, but inclines 
 to agree with Origen. Many Christians did as a fact serve in the Imperial 
 army. The complaint of Celsus, and Origen's defiant language eighty 
 years after, show, however, that their rule was to abstain; and we need no 
 further explanation of the "persecutions." Liability to military service 
 is a universal condition of citizenship, and no nation modern or ancient 
 would tolerate a refusal on the plea of conscience. 
 
Origen and Cclsus. 275 
 
 on history, on statesmanship, Origen is a child contending 
 with a giant. In the " True Account " we find tlie tone 
 and almost the language of the calm, impartial, thoughtful 
 modern European. We find the precise attitude in which a 
 sensible man in our own time would place himself towards 
 any new revelation which might present itself now, pre- 
 tending to be supported by miracles and interfering with 
 political obligations. Celsus was in advance of his age. 
 He was on an elevation from which he could survey the 
 past and current superstitions, and detect the origin of most 
 of them in ignorance or credulity. Origen replies to him 
 from the level of contemporary illusions, from which he 
 was as little free as the least instructed of his catechu- 
 mens. Celsus tells him that " names " are not things, that 
 names are but signs, and that different words in different 
 lano-ua^es mean the same object : that when religious 
 Greeks speak of Zeus, and Latins of Jupiter, and Persians 
 of Dis, and Jews of Jehovah, they all mean the common 
 Father of mankind. Origen answers that this cannot be, 
 because if the formula of the God of Abraham, the God of 
 Isaac, and the God of Jacob, was properly pronounced, mir- 
 acles were every day notoriously worked by it, while the 
 names of the other gods had no power at all. So through- 
 out his whole argument he assumed that the earth was full 
 of demons ; that the heathen gods were demons ; that the 
 oracles were inspired by demons ; that madness and disease 
 were possession by demons. The con j urers, whom Celsus and 
 Lucian knew to be charlatans and impostors, were to Origen 
 enchanters who had made a compact with Satan or had 
 gained a power over him by magical arts. Christianity was 
 encountering the mystery of evil on its own supernatural 
 platform, and putting .to flight with supernatural weapons 
 the legions of hell. Celsus had studied natural history 
 accurately and intelligently. Origen was on the same 
 ground as his contemporaries, and availed himself of popu- 
 lar errors to gain credibility for the Christian miracles. 
 
276 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 Thus he meets the objection to the virgin birth of Christ by 
 alluding to parthenogenesis among animals, and by assert- 
 ing that the vultures were an acknowledged instance of 
 it. Celsus understood the generation of human legends, 
 and knew their worth or worthlessness. Origen took what 
 he found. He parallels the angel's visit to Joseph with the 
 vision wliich forbade Aristou, Plato's father, to approach his 
 wife till the first child was born. He thought the stoi'y 
 worth producing, though he did not pledge himself to a be- 
 lief that it was true. He did not see that the readiness of 
 mankind to invent and receive such stories tended rather to 
 suggest in all instances an analogous origin for them in 
 human enthusiasm. To Origen the resurrection was not un- 
 exampled, because Plato says that " Heras, the son of Armi- 
 nius, had returned to life after being twelve days dead," and 
 " many others were known to have risen out of their graves 
 after they had been buried." And when Celsus asks why 
 Christ was seen only by his disciples after his resurrection, 
 Origen answers that after He had spoiled principalities and 
 powers, his body had peculiar properties and was only 
 visible to those who were in a proper spiritual condition. 
 
 Most persons would now admit that Celsus spoke with wise 
 diffidence when he hesitated at the assumption that the uni- 
 verse and all that it contained was created solely for the sake 
 of man. Origen is perfectly certain that God had no other 
 object. Sun, moon, and stars, and earth and everything 
 living upon it, were subordinated to man. In man alone, or 
 in reference to man, the creation had its purpose and mean- 
 ing. As to Adam and the story of Paradise, it was an alle- 
 gory. Adam was Adam, and he was also human nature. 
 Allegory was always a resource when other arguments were 
 wanting. The wholesale slaughter ©f the people of Canaan 
 enjoined upon the Israelites seemed to Celsus inconsistent 
 with the injunction to turn the cheek to the smiter. Origen 
 boldly answers that by the Canaanites were meant the 
 Israelites' own evil dispositions ; the children of Babylon 
 
Origcn and Cdsus. 277 
 
 who were to be dashed against the stones, were their own 
 wicked thoughts and inclinations, which they were ordered 
 to tear out and fling from them. A yet bolder flight of his 
 imagination was his escape from difficulties with the Ark. 
 The dimensions, he said, were wrongly given. The Ark, 
 which was a hundred years in building, was as large as an 
 enormous city. 
 
 But these illustrations give no true conception of Origen's 
 argument, and on the moral and spiritual side Origen was as 
 • completely victorious as Celsus was irresistible on the intel- 
 lectual. Celsus insisted that Christianity was identical in 
 character with a thousand other superstitions. Origen was 
 able to insist on the extraordinary difference, that neither 
 the philosophy of the schools, nor the mysteries, the festi- 
 vals, the rituals of the heathen gods availed to check the 
 impurity of society, or to alleviate the miseries of mankind, 
 and that vice and wretchedness disappeared in every house 
 into which the Gospel found an entrance. This was true ; 
 and it was a truth which outweighed a million-fold the skil- 
 fullest cavils of the intellect. A new life had come into the 
 world ; it was growing like the grain of mustard-seed by its 
 own vital force, and the earth was growing green under its 
 shadow. Such an argument was unanswerable. No other 
 creed could be pointed to from which any stream was flow- 
 ino^ of moral regeneration. Celsus taunted the Christians with 
 addressing: their message to the i"rnorant and the miserable. 
 " You cannot change the nature of fallen men," he said. 
 " Help those who are helping themselves, and leave fools 
 and sinners to gather as they sow." Nature, it is true, is 
 inexorable. Nature never pardons, and punishes mistake 
 as harshly as she punishes crime. The law of nature is 
 " woe to the weak," and human society follows nature's foot- 
 steps. Governed by a stern but wholesome instinct, society 
 insists that each individual sliall learn his duty for himself, 
 and shall be made to feel by sharp penalties the consequences 
 of his own transgressions. It is so, and it will be so. There 
 
278 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 is no danger that the world will ever become too merciful. 
 But against this hard enactment there jDleads in mitigation 
 the still soft voice of humanity, which in Christianity for 
 the first time became an effective power. The strong and 
 successful are not always the good ; the miserable are not 
 always the wicked ; and even for the wicked, pity claims to 
 be heard in mitigation of punishment. They did not make 
 the dispositions which they brought with them when they 
 were born. They did not wholly make the circumstances in 
 which those dispositions were fostered into habits. Com- 
 passion for the weak, the divinest attribute of God, now at 
 length began to control and limit the cruelty of nature ; 
 conscience, accepting another law for itself, has been com- 
 pelled by Christianity to submit to a higher rule of obligation. 
 Christianity abolished the gladiator shows and the fights 
 of men with wild beasts, which turned the spectators into 
 savage beasts themselves. More slowly, but yet surely, 
 Christianity has forbidden the strong to seize the helpless 
 and make them slaves, or to expose children to die lest 
 population should become redundant. The genius of Chris- 
 tianity has covered Europe with hospitals for the sick ; has 
 imposed on nations the duty of contending at their own cost 
 against plagues and famine ; has created a new virtue in 
 " charity," which was unknown to Aristotle ; and has as- 
 signed the highest place to it among human excellences. 
 Even to the poor sinner, the abandoned profligate, given 
 over as irredeemable by the man of the w^orld, and left to 
 perish, Christianity opened a window of hope ; for the lost 
 sinner there was the possibility of return ; peace, happiness, 
 redemption, recovered purity, were within his reach ; the 
 tyranny of evil might still be broken if he himself would 
 turn from it ; while the virtuous man, the man who with 
 real success was endeavoring to live well, was not left with- 
 out a message, as Celsus supposed. He was told to look 
 into his own painted sepulchre of a heart, to compare him- 
 self at his best with what he knew that he ought to be, and 
 
Origen and Cclsus. 279 
 
 to say, if he dared, that he, too, had no need of a merciful 
 judgment. The address of the "Evangel," the "good 
 news " to the publican and sinner, which called out the 
 scorn of the cultivated Roman, has introduced a principle 
 into human life which has revolutionized it from base to 
 summit. 
 
 As it was with humanity, so it was with licentiousness. 
 The " resurrection of Christ " was a formula more powerful 
 than the spell of an enchanter to cast out the devils of glut- 
 tony and bestiality. It was the eternal symbol of the death 
 to sin and the living to righteousness. " As Christ died in 
 the body and rose again," so Christians were bidden to put 
 to death the lusts that were in their flesh, and rise again to 
 purity. Philosophers might lecture in the schools in praise 
 of temperance. Philosophy had become an intellectual play- 
 thing ; it could not so much as expel the devil out of the 
 philosophers themselves, who, if we can believe Lucian, 
 were the most contemptible beings within the circuit of the 
 Empire. Nor had Lucian himself any power of exorcism, 
 or Celsus, or Marcus Aurelius : they had knowledge and 
 integrity ; they had large-minded statesmanship ; they might 
 lead pure lives themselves ; and they had a healthy scorn for 
 the degradation of most of their contemporaries. But they 
 possessed no spell to cast out the vicious self-indulgence of 
 their age. They could suggest no certain fears or hopes as 
 a motive for a better life. They could not reach the enthu- 
 siasm of emotion, which would choose a better life for its 
 own sake, independent of motive. The conscience of the 
 ignorant masses in the Empire was rising in indignation 
 against the depravity of the educated ; and neither able nor 
 much caring to examine the historical details of their belief, 
 the disciples of Cliristianity accepted it in its spiritual com- 
 pleteness, and flung themselves with all their souls into the 
 war with evil. 
 
 Their teachers were, like themselves, animated by the 
 same emotions, and reasoned from the same principles. 
 
280 Origen and Celsus. 
 
 They did not parade the critical proofs of this or that fact 
 mentioned in Scripture. They took the facts as they found 
 them, and turned them to a spiritual purpose. The early 
 Fathers were men often of the highest intellect ; but intel- 
 lect takes various forms ; they had not studied either human 
 history, or the world outside them, with the eyes of critics ; 
 intellect with them had been poured into the imagination ; 
 they saw, as poets see, the spiritual truth underlying the 
 actual, of which the actual is no more than a shelL It was 
 not for them to oppress their hearers with labored volumes 
 of evidence. " Believe," they said ; " faith alone will save 
 you ; " and Origen justly defended the bold position. Ante- 
 cedent belief is the only basis possible for action of any 
 kind. If we wait till we have considered all possibilities, 
 before and behind, till we have reflected on the fallibility 
 of our faculties, and allowed for the effect of emotion or 
 enthusiasm in biassing our judgment, life will be gone before 
 we have begun to live. "Believe," in substance said Origen 
 himself, " that sin is death, that to forsake sin is the resur- 
 rection to life. For the rest, the world is full of evil spirits, 
 trying everywhere to mislead or injure you ; but if there 
 are devils there are angels ; if there are enchanters there 
 are Christ and the saints." Christianity took up freely into 
 itself the popular theories, the popular modes of thought, 
 and assimilated them to its own likeness, as the growing 
 oak takes in carbon through its leaves and converts it into 
 fibre. It was not a new knowledge imparted authoritatively 
 by men of science. It was the organic development of a 
 new conviction which was taking hold of the hearts of 
 mankind. 
 
 Have we, then, no security that the facts of Scripture 
 history are literally and precisely true ? The question is 
 less important than it seems. The story of Newton and 
 the apple may be a legend. Yet none the less Newton 
 discovered and revealed the true law of gravitation. A 
 true religion, it cannot be too often repeated, is not a 
 
Origen and Celsics. 281 
 
 history, but a declaration of the present relation which 
 exists at all times between God and man. So certainly 
 the Fathers of the Church felt, or they would not have 
 treated Scripture facts with the freedom of allegoric inter- 
 pretation which we uniformly find in them. The " Iliad " 
 is in form a history, the play of " Hamlet " is in form a 
 history, and doubtless some historical facts lay at the 
 basis of both one and the other. But the exact incidents 
 which happened in the Troad or at Elsinore are irrelevant 
 to the truth of the "Iliad" or the truth of "Hamlet." 
 History is true or false, as it corresponds, or does not cor- 
 respond, to facts which occurred once, and never literally 
 repeat themselves. A play or a poem is true if it contains 
 a true picture of human nature ; and it embodies not a 
 single order of facts, or the inferences from a single order 
 of facts, but the faithful observation of all human phe- 
 nomena. Truth is thus of more kinds than one ; and the 
 truth which is of most importance to mankind is not the 
 truth of a particular fact which occurred once in time, 
 but the truth of the eternal facts of the constitution of 
 the universe, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 
 
A CAGLIOSTRO OF THE SECOND 
 CENTUKY. 
 
 In the Acts of the Apostles we meet with a class of per- 
 sons whose features have in our own times become again 
 familiar to us — quacks and conjurers professing to be in 
 communication with the spiritual world, and regarded with 
 curiosity and interest by serious men high in rank and au- 
 thority. Sergius Paulus was craving for any light which 
 could be given to him, and in default of better teaching had 
 listened to Ely mas the Sorcerer. Simon Magus, if we may 
 credit Catholic tradition, was in favor at the Imperial 
 Court of Rome, where he matched his power against St. 
 Peter's, and was defeated only because God was stronger 
 than the devil. The " curious arts " of these people were 
 regarded both by Christian and heathen as a real mastery 
 of a supernatural secret ; and in the hunger for information 
 about the great mystery with which the whole society was 
 possessed, they rose, many of them, into positions of extra- 
 ordinary influence and consequence. Asia Minor seems to 
 have been their chief breeding ground, where Eastern 
 magic came in contact with Greek civilization, and impos- 
 ture was able to disguise itself in the phrases of philosophy. 
 
 Apollonius of Tyana was the most remarkable of these 
 adventurers. His life, unfortunately, has been written by 
 believers in his pretensions ; and we have no knowledge 
 of what he looked like to cool observers. The Apollonius 
 of Philostratus is a heathen saviour, who claimed a com- 
 mission from heaven to teach a pure and reformed relig- 
 ion, and in attestation of his authority went about healing 
 the sick, raising dead men to life, casting out devils, and 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 283 
 
 prophesying future events which came afterwards to pass. 
 The interesting fact about ApoUonius is the extensive 
 recognition which he obtained, and the ease with which his 
 pretensions found acceptance in the existing condition of 
 the popuhir mind. Out of the legends of him little can be 
 gathered, save the barest outline of his history. He was 
 born four years before the Christian era in Tyana, a city 
 of Cappadocia. His parents sent him to be educated at 
 Tarsus in Cilicia, a place of considerable wealth and repute, 
 and he must have been about beginning his studies there 
 when St. Paul as a little boy was first running about the 
 streets. The life in Tarsus being too luxurious for Apollo- 
 nius's aspirations, he became a water-drinker and a vege- 
 tarian, and betook himself as a recluse to the temple of 
 iEsculapius at Mg^. ^sculapius, as the god of healing, 
 and therefore the most practically useful, had become the 
 most popular of the heathen divinities. He alone of them 
 was supposed to remain beneficently active, and even to 
 appear at times in visible form in sick-rooms and by sick- 
 beds. ApoUonius's devotion to -^sculapius means that he 
 studied medicine. On the death of his father he divided 
 his property among the poor, and after five years of retire- 
 ment he travelled as far as India in search of knowledge. 
 He discoursed with learned Brahmins there, and came 
 home with enlightened ideas, and with some skill in the 
 arts of the Indian jugglers. With these two possessions he 
 began his career as a teacher in the Roman Empire. He 
 preached his new religion, and he worked miracles to in- 
 duce people to believe in him. He was at Rome in Nero's 
 time, when Simon Magus and St. Peter are said to have 
 been there. Perhaps tradition has confused ApoUonius 
 with Simon Magus, or Simon Magus with ApoUonius. In 
 the convulsions which followed Nero's murder, being then 
 an old man, he attached himself to Vespasian in Egypt. 
 Vespasian, who was not without his superstitions, and him- 
 self had been once persuaded to work a miracle, is said to 
 
284 A Cagliostro of the Second Centura/, 
 
 have looked kindly on him and patronized him, and Apollo- 
 iiius blossomed out into glory as the spiritual adviser of the 
 Ves]3asian dynasty. The cruelties of Domitian estranged 
 him. He was accused of conspiring with Nerva, and of 
 having sacrificed a child to bribe the gods in Nerva's in- 
 terest. He was even charged with having pretended to 
 be a god himself. He was arraigned, convicted, and was 
 about to suffer, when he vanished out of the hands of the 
 Roman police, to reappear at Ephesus, where he soon after 
 died. 
 
 Clearly enough, we are off the ground of history in much 
 of this. If Apollonius died at Ephesus in Nerva's time, he 
 was a hundred years old at least, and must have been a 
 contemporary and neighbor of St. John, who is supposed to 
 have been writing his Gospel in the same city about that 
 very time. 
 
 However that may be, it is certain that after his death a 
 temple was raised to Apollonius at the place of his birth, 
 and Tyana became a privileged city. Similar honors were 
 assigned elsewhere to him as an evidence of the facility 
 and completeness with which he had gained credit for his 
 pretended divine commission. The truth about him is 
 probably that he was a physician, and had obtained some 
 real knowledge of the methods of curing diseases. In 
 India, besides philosophy and juggling, he may have learnt 
 to practise what is now called animal magnetism ; and find- 
 ing that he had a real power on the nervous system of h3^s- 
 terical patients, the nature of which he did not understand, 
 he may have himself believed it to be supernatural. With 
 these arts he succeeded in persuading his countrymen that 
 he was " some great one," " a great power of God ; " and 
 both in life and death, in an age when tlie traditionary re- 
 ligion was grown incredible, and the human race was crav- 
 ing for a new revelation, Apollonius of Tyana, among many 
 others, was looked upon through a large part of the Roman 
 Empire as an emanation of the Divine nature. Such 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 285 
 
 AT periods are the opportunities of false prophets. Mankind 
 when they grow enthusiastic mistake their hopes and im- 
 aginations for evidence of truth, and run like sheep after 
 every new pretender who professes to hold the key of the 
 mystery which they are so passionately anxious to pene- 
 trate. 
 
 Our present business, however, is not with the prophet 
 of Tyana. Apollonius left a school of esoteric disciples 
 behind him, with one of whom we are fortunately able to 
 form a closer acquaintance. Apollonius we see through a 
 mist of illusion. Alexander of Abonotichus we are able 
 to look at with the eyes of the cleverest man who was alive 
 on this planet in the second century. With the help of 
 Lucian's portrait of Alexander we can discern, perhaps, the 
 lineaments of Apollonius himself. We can see, at any 
 rate, what these workers of miracles really were, as well as 
 the nature of the element in which they made their con- 
 quests, at the side of, and in open rivalry with, the teachers 
 of Christianity. 
 
 A word first about Lucian himself. At the Christian 
 era, and immediately after it, the Asiatic provinces of the 
 Empire were singularly i:>roductive of eminent men. The 
 same intercourse of Eastern and Western civilization which 
 produced the magicians was generating in all directions an 
 active intellectual fermentation. The " disciples " were 
 " called Christians first at Antioch." It was in Asia Minor 
 that St. Paul first established a Gentile Church. There 
 sprang up the multitude of heresies out of conflict with 
 which the Christian creeds shaped themselves. And by 
 the side of those who were constructing a positive faith 
 were found others, who were watching the phenomena 
 round them with an anxious but severe scepticism, unable 
 themselves to find truth in the agitating speculations which 
 were distracting everybody that came near them, but with 
 a clear eye to distinguish knaves and impostors, and a reso- 
 lution as honorable as St. Paul's to fight with and expose 
 
286 A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 
 
 falsehood wherever they encountered it. Among these the 
 most admirable was the satirist, artist, man of letters, the 
 much-spokeii-of and little-studied Lucian, the most gifted 
 and perhaps the purest-hearted thinker outside the Church 
 who was produced under the Roman Empire. He was 
 born at Samosata on the Euphrates about the year 120. 
 He was intended for a sculptor, but his quick discursive in- 
 tellect led him into a wider field, and he spent his life as a 
 critic of the spiritual phenomena of his age. To Chris- 
 tianity he paid little attention. To him it appeared but as 
 one of the many phases of belief which were showing them- 
 selves among the ignorant and uneducated. But it was 
 harmless, and he did not quarrel with it. He belonged to 
 the small circle of observers who looked on such things 
 with the eyes of men of science. Cool-headed, and with 
 an honest hatred of lies, he ridiculed the impious theology 
 of the established pagan religion ; with the same instinct he 
 attacked the charlatans who came, like Apollonius, pretend- 
 ing to a Divine commission. He was doing the Church's 
 work when he seemed most distant from it, and was strug- 
 gling against illusions peculiarly seductive to the class of 
 minds to whom the Church particularly addressed itself. 
 Thus to Lucian we are indebted for cross lights upon the 
 history of times which show us how and why at that par- 
 ticular period Christianity was able to establish itself. His 
 scientific contemporaries were more antagonistic to it than 
 himself. The Celsus against whom Origen wrote his great 
 defence was probably Lucian's intimate friend. But if 
 Christianity was incredible and offensive to them, men like 
 Apollonius of Tyana were infinitely more offensive. Chris- 
 tianity was at most a delusion. Apollonius of Tyana they 
 hated as a quack and a scoundrel. Besides the treatise 
 which Origen answered, Celsus wrote a book against the 
 magicians. Lucian speaks of Apollonius in a letter to Cel- 
 sus as if they were both agreed about the character of the 
 prophet of Tyana, and had this book survived we should 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 287 
 
 have perhaps found a second picture there of Apollonius, 
 which would have made impossible the rash parallels which 
 have been attempted in modern times. The companion 
 picture of Alexander of Abonotichus, by Lucian himself, 
 happily remains. When the world was bowing down be- 
 fore this extraordinary rascal, Lucian traced out his his- 
 tory, and risked his own life in trying to explode the im- 
 posture. Though human folly proved too strong, and 
 Alexander died like Apollonius, with the supernatural au- 
 reole about him, Lucian, at the express desire of Celsus, 
 placed on record a minute account of the man, lucid to the 
 smallest detail. He describes him as a servant of the 
 devil, in the most modern sense of the word — not of the 
 prince of the power of the air, as a Christian Father would 
 have described him, with evil genii at his bidding, but of the 
 devil of lying and imposture with whom nowadays we are so 
 sadly familiar. He commences with an apology for touch- 
 ing so base a subject ; he undertakes it only at his friend's 
 request. Nor can he tell the entire story. Alexander of 
 Abonotichus was as great in rascaldom as Alexander of 
 ^lacedon in war and politics. His exploits would fill large 
 volumes, and the most which Lucian could do was to select 
 a few basketfuls from the dungheap and offer them as 
 specimens. Even thus much he feels a certain shame in 
 attempting. If the wretch had received his true deserts, 
 he would have been torn in pieces by apes and foxes in 
 the arena, and the very name of him would have been 
 blotted out of memory. Biographies, however, had been 
 written, and had given pleasure, of distinguished highway- 
 men ; and an account of a man who had plundered, not a 
 small district, but the whole Roman Empire, might not be 
 without its uses. 
 
 With these few words of contemptuous preface Lucian 
 tells his story ; and in a form still more abridged we now 
 offer it to our readers. 
 
 Abonotichus was a small coast town on the south shore 
 
288 A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 of the Black Sea, a few miles west of Sinope. At this 
 place, at the beginning of the second century, the future 
 prophet was brought into the world. His parents were in 
 a humble rank of life. The boy was of unusual beauty ; 
 and having no inclination to work and a very strong in- 
 clination for pleasure, he turned his advantages to abomi- 
 nable account. By and by he was taken up by a doctor who 
 had been one of Apollonius's disciples. The old villain 
 had learnt his master's arts. He understood medicine, 
 could cure stomachaches and headaches, set a limb, or assist 
 at a lying-in. But besides his legitimate capabilities, he 
 had set up for a magician. He dealt in spells and love- 
 charms ; he could find treasures with a divining rod, dis- 
 cover lost deeds and wills, provide heirs for disputed in- 
 heritances, and, when well paid for it, he knew how to mix 
 a poison. In these arts the young Alexander became an 
 apt pupil, and was useful as a sort of famulus. He learnt 
 Apollonius's traditionary secrets, and at the age of twenty, 
 when his master died, he was in a condition to practise on 
 his own account. 
 
 He was now thrown on the world to shift for himself. 
 But his spirits were light, and his confidence in himself was 
 boundless : as long as there were fools with money in their 
 pockets, he could have a well-founded hope of transferring 
 p:irt of it to his own. A provincial town was too small a 
 theatre of operations. He set off for Byzantium, the great 
 mart of ancient commerce, which was thronged with mer- 
 chants from all parts of the world. Like seeks like. At 
 Byzantium, Alexander made acquaintance with a vagabond 
 named Cocconas, a fellow who gained a living by foretell- 
 ing the winners at games and races, lounging in the betting 
 rings, and gambling with idle young gentlemen. By this 
 means he found entrance into what was called society. Al- 
 exander was more beautiful as a man than as a boy. Coc- 
 conas introduced him to a rich Macedonian lady, who was 
 spending the season in the city. The lady fell in love with 
 
A Cagllostro of the Second Century, 289 
 
 him, and, on her return to her country seat at Pella, car- 
 ried Alexander and his friend along with her. This was 
 very well for a time ; but the situation, perhaps, had its 
 drawbacks. Aspiring ambition is not easily satisfied ; and 
 the young heart began to sigh for a larger sphere. 
 
 In the midst of pleasure he had an eye for business. In 
 Macedonia, and especially about Pella, there was at this 
 time a great number of large harmless snakes. They came 
 into the houses, where they were useful in keeping down 
 rats and mice; they let the children play with them; they 
 crept into beds at night, and were never interfered with. 
 From this local peculiarity the story, perhaps, originated of 
 the miraculous birth of Alexander the Great. It occurred 
 to the two adventurers that something might be made of 
 one of these serpents. They bought a very handsome speci- 
 men, and soon after they left Pella, taking it with them. 
 
 For a while they lounged about together, carrying on 
 Cocconas's old trade, and expanding it into fortune-telling. 
 Fools, they observed, were always craving to know the 
 future, and would listen to any one who pretended to see 
 into it. In this way they made much money, and they 
 found the art so easy that their views went higher. 'They 
 proposed to set up an oracular shrine of their own, which 
 would take the place of Delphi and Delos. The pytho- 
 nesses on the old-established tripods were growing silent. 
 Apollo, it seemed, was tired of attending them, and inquir- 
 ers were often sent away unsatisfied. There was clearly a 
 want in the world, and Alexander and his friend thought 
 they saw their way towards supplying it. 
 
 The loss of oracles was not the whole of the misfortune. 
 The world was beginning to feel that it had even lost God. 
 The Greek mythology had grown incredible. The Epi- 
 cureans were saying that there was no such thing as Provi- 
 dence, and never had been. The majority of people were 
 still of a different opinion ; but they were uneasy, and were 
 feeling very generally indeed that if gods there were, they 
 
 19 
 
290 A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 
 
 ought to make tlieir existence better known. Here was an 
 opportunity, not only of making a fortune, but of vindi- 
 cating the great principles of religion and becoming bene- 
 factors of humanity. 
 
 Tiicy decided to try. Sleight of hand and cunning might 
 succeed when philosophy had failed. Was it said there 
 were no gods? Tliey would produce a god, a real visible 
 god, that men could feel and handle, that would itself speak 
 and give out oracles, and so silence forever the wicked un- 
 believers. So far they saw their way. The next question 
 was, the place where the god was to appear. Cocconas 
 was for Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. 
 It was a busy town, almost as full of merchants as Byzan- 
 tium, the population all engaged with speculation, and 
 money in any quantity to be made there. This was good 
 as far as it went. l)ut Chalcedon was too much in the 
 light. The pagan gods, as the shrewder Alexander knew, 
 were not fond of commercial cities. Christianity might 
 thrive there ; but caves, mountains, and woods, remote isl- 
 ands, retired provincial villages, suited better with Apollo 
 and -/Esculapius. Traders' wits were sharpened with busi- 
 ness, and they might be unpleasantly curious. The simple 
 inhabitants of the interior, Phrygians and Bithynians, Gala- 
 tians and Cappadocians, would be an easier prey where a 
 reputation had first to be created — and success depended 
 upon a favorable beginning. At his own Abonotichus, he 
 told Cocconas that a man had only to appear with a life 
 and drum before him, and clashing a pair of cymbals, and 
 the whole population would be on their knees before him. 
 
 The better judgment of Alexander carried the day. 
 Abonotichus itself was decided on as the theatre of opera- 
 tions. Cocconas, however, was allowed to introduce Chal- 
 cedon into the first act of the drama, ^sculapius, the best 
 believed in of the surviving divinities, was the god who 
 was to be incarnated. Joe Smith must have read Lucian's 
 story, and have taken a hint from it. In the temple of 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 291 
 
 Apollo at Chalcedon the bold adveuturers buried some 
 brass plates, bearing an inscription that Apollo and iEscu- 
 lapius were about to visit Pontus, and that -^sculapius 
 would appear at Abonotichus in a bodily form. The plates 
 were conveniently discovered, and became the talk of the 
 bazaars. Merchants going and coming spread the story. 
 Asia Minor was excited, as well it might be. At the favored 
 Abonotichus the delighted people resolved to build a temple 
 to receive the god at his coming, and they set to work at 
 once, clearing the ground for the foundations. 
 
 The train being thus well laid, Alexander had no further 
 need of a comjDanion. Cocconas was a vulgar type of rogue, 
 unfit for the decorous hypocrisies which were now to be 
 acted. He was left behind on some pretext at Chalcedon, 
 where he died, it was said from a snake-bite, and so drops 
 out of sight. The supreme performer returned, with the 
 field to himself, to his native town. Lucian describes him 
 as he then appeared : tall, majestic, extremely handsome, 
 hair long and flowing, complexion fair, a moderate beard, 
 partly his own and partly false, but the imitation excellent, 
 eyes large and lustrous, and a voice sweet and limpid. As 
 to his character, says Lucian, " God grant that I may never 
 meet with such another. His cunning was wonderful, his 
 dexterity matchless. His eagerness for knowledge, his ca- 
 pacity for learning, and power of memory were equally ex- 
 traordinary." 
 
 The simple citizens of Abonotichus, on the watch al- 
 ready for the coming of a god among them, had no chance 
 against so capable a villain. They had not seen him since 
 the wonderful days of his boyhood, when he had been 
 known as i\\Q famulus of an old wizard. He now present- 
 ed himself among them, his locks wildly streaming, in a 
 purple tunic, with a white cloak thrown over it. In his 
 hand he bore a falchion like that with which Perseus had 
 slain the Gorgon. He chanted a doggerel of Alexandrian 
 metaphysics, with monads and triads, pentads and decads, 
 
292 A Cayliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 playing in anagrams upon his own name. He liad learnt 
 from an oracle, he said, that Perseus was his mother's an- 
 cestor, and that a wonderful destiny had been foretold for 
 him. He rolled his beautiful soft eyes. With the help of 
 soap-wort he foamed at the mouth as if possessed. The 
 poor people had known his mother, and had no conception 
 of her illustrious lineage. But there was no disputing with 
 an oracle. Wliat an oracle said must be true. He was re- 
 ceived with an ovation, all the town bowing down before 
 him, and he then prepared for his next step. 
 
 The snake throughout the East was the symbol of 
 knowledge and immortality. The serpent with his tail 
 in his mouth represented the circle of eternity. The 
 serpent in annually shedding its skin was supposed to re- 
 new its life forever. A sect even of Gnostic Christians 
 were serpent-worshippers. From the time of tlie brazen 
 serpent in the wilderness, it was the special emblem of the 
 art of healing ; and if the divine physician ever appeared 
 on earth in visible shape, a snake's was the form which he 
 might be expected to assume. 
 
 The snake whicli liad been bought at Pella was now to 
 be applied to its purpose. The monster, for it was of enor- 
 mous size, had accompanied Alexander through his subse- 
 quent adventures. It had become so tame that it would coil 
 about his body, and remain in any position which he desired. 
 He had made a human face out of linen for it, which he 
 had painted with extreme ingenuity. The mouth would 
 open and shut by an arrangement of horsehair. The black 
 forked tongue sliot in and out, and the creature had grown 
 accustomed to its mask and wore it without objection. 
 
 A full-grown divinity being thus ready at hand, the in- 
 tending prophet next furnished himself with the e,gg of a 
 goose, opened it, cleared out the contents, and placed inside 
 a small embryo snake just born. This done, he filled the 
 cracks and smoothed them over with wax and white lead, 
 ^sculapius's temple was meanwhile making progress. The 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 293 
 
 foundations had been dug, and tliere were pits and holes, 
 wliich a recent rain liad filled with water. In one of tliese 
 muddy pools Alexander concealed his egg^ as he had done 
 the plates at Chalcedon, and the next morning he rushed 
 into the market-place in a state of frenzy, almost naked, a 
 girdle of gold tissue about his waist, hair streaming, eyes 
 flashing, mouth foaming, and the Perseus falchion wheeling 
 about his head. The crowd collected, at the sight of him, 
 frantic as himself. He sprang upon some mound or bench. 
 " Blessed," he cried, " be this town of Abonotichus, and 
 blessed be they that dwell in it! This day the prophecy is 
 fulfilled, and God is coming to take his place among us." 
 
 The entire population was out, old and young, men and 
 women, quivering with ho[)e and emotion. Alexander 
 made an oration in an unknown tongue ; some said it was 
 Hebrew, some Phoenician, all agreed that it was inspired. 
 The only words articulately heard were the names of 
 Apollo and JEsculapius. When he had done he set up the 
 familiar Psalm of the Sun God, and moved, with the 
 crowd singing in chorus behind him, to the site of the 
 temple. He stepped into the water, offered a prayer to 
 JEscuhipius, and then, asking for a bowl, he scooped his 
 eooj out of the mud. 
 
 " iEsculapius is here," he said, holding it for a moment 
 in the hollow of his hand. And then, with every eye fixed 
 on him in the intensity of expectation, he broke it. The tiny 
 creature twisted about his fingers. " It moves, it moves ! " 
 the people cried in ecstasy. Not a question was asked. To 
 doubt would have been impious. They shouted. They 
 blessed the gods. They blessed themselves for the glory 
 which they had witnessed. Health, wealth, all pleasant 
 things which the god could give, they saw raining on the 
 happy Abonotichus. Alexander swept back to his house, 
 bearing the divinity in his bosom, the awe-struck peo[)le 
 following. For a few days there was a pause, while the 
 tale of what had happened spread along the shores of the 
 
294 A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 Black Sea. Then on foot, on mules, in carts, in boats, 
 multitudes flocked in from all directions to the birthplace 
 of ^Esculapius. The roads were choked with them ; the 
 town overflowed with them. " They had the forms of 
 men," as Lucian says, " but they were as sheep in all be- 
 sides, heads and hearts empty alike." Alexander was ready 
 for their reception. He had erected a booth or tabernacle, 
 with a door at each end and a railed passage leading from 
 one door to the other. Behind the rail, on a couch, in a sub- 
 dued light, the prophet sat, visible to every one, the snake 
 from Bella wreathed about his neck, the coils glittering 
 amidst the folds of his dress, the tail playing on the ground. 
 The head was concealed ; but occasionally the prophet raised 
 his arm, and then appeared the awful face, the mouth mov- 
 ing, the tongue darting in and out. There it was, the ver- 
 itable traditionary serpent with the human countenance 
 which appears in the medioeval pictures of the Temptation 
 and the Fall. 
 
 The prophet told the spectators that into this mysteri- 
 ous being the embryo that was found in the Qgg had de- 
 veloped in a few days. The place was dark ; the crowd 
 which was pressing to be admitted was enormous. The 
 stream of worshippers passed quickly from door to door. 
 They could but look and give place to others. But a single 
 glance was enough for minds disposed to believe. The ra- 
 pidity of the creature's growth, so far from exciting sus- 
 picion, was only a fresh evidence of its miraculous nature. 
 The first exhibition was so successful that others followed. 
 The first visitors had been chiefly the poor; but as the 
 fame of the appearance spread, the higher classes caught 
 the infection. Men of fortune came with rich offerings ; 
 and so confident was Alexander in their folly that those 
 who gave most liberally were allowed to touch the scales 
 and to look steadily at the moving mouth. So well the 
 trick was done that Lucian says, " Epicurus himself would 
 have been taken in." " Nothing could save a man but a 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 295 
 
 mind with the firmness of adamant, and fortified by a 
 scientific conviction that the thing which he supposed him- 
 self to see was a physical impossibility." 
 
 The wonder was still imperfect. The divinity was there, 
 but as yet he had not spoken. The excitement, however, 
 grew and spread. All Asia Minor was caught with it. 
 The old stories were true, then. There were gods, after all, 
 and the wicked philosophers were wrong. Heavy hearts 
 were lifted up again. From lip to lip the blessed message 
 flew ; over Galatia, over Bithynia, away across the Bos- 
 l^horus, into Thrace and Macedonia. A god, a real one, 
 had been born at Abonotichus, with a serpent's body and 
 the face of a man. Pictures were taken of him. Imases 
 were made in brass or silver and circulated in thousands. 
 At length it was announced that the lips had given an 
 articulate sound. 
 
 " I am Glycon, the sweet one," the creature had said, 
 " the third in descent from Zeus, and the light of the world." 
 
 The temple was now finished. Proper accommodation 
 had been provided for ^sculapius and his prophet priest ; 
 and a public announcement was made that the god, for a 
 fit consideration, would answer any questions which might 
 be put to him. There was a doubt at first about the tariff. 
 Amphilochus, who had migrated from Thebes to a shrine 
 in Cilicia, and had been prophesying there for ten centuries, 
 charged two obols, or three pence, for each oracle ; but 
 money had fallen in value, and answers directly from a god 
 were in themselves of higher worth, ^sculapius, or Alex- 
 ander for him, demanded eight obols, or a shilling. Days 
 and hours were fixed when inquirers could be received. 
 They were expected to send in their names beforehand, and 
 to write their questions on a paper or parchment, which 
 they might seal up in any way that they pleased. Alex- 
 ander received the packets from their hands, and after a 
 day, or sometimes two days, restored them with the answers 
 to the questions attached. 
 
296 A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 People came, of course, in thousands. The seals being 
 apparently unbroken, the mere fact that an answer was 
 given of some kind predisposed them to be satisfied with it. 
 Either a heated knife-blade had been passed under the wax, 
 or a cast of the impression was taken in collyrium and a 
 new seal was manufactured. The obvious explanation oc- 
 curred to no one. People in search of the miraculous never 
 like to be disappointed. Either they themselves betray 
 their secrets, or they ask questions so foolish that it cannot 
 be known whether the answer is true or false. Most of 
 the inquirers came to consult ^sculapius about their health, 
 and Alexander knew medicine enough to be able generally 
 to read in their faces what was the matter with them. Thus 
 they were easily satisfied, and went away as convinced as 
 when they arrived. The names being given in beforehand, 
 private information was easily obtained from slaves or com- 
 panions. Shrewd guesses were miracles, when they were 
 correct, and one success outweighed a hundred failures. In 
 cases of difficulty the oracular method was always in re- 
 serve, with the ambiguities of magniloquent nonsense. The 
 real strength of Alexander was in his professional skill, 
 which usually was in itself all-sufficient. He had a special 
 quack remedy of his own, which he prescribed as a panacea, 
 a harmless plaster made out of goat's fat. To aspiring pol- 
 iticians, young lovers, or heirs expectant, he replied that 
 the fates were undecided, and that the event depended on 
 the will of ^sculapius and the intercessions of his prophet. 
 
 Never was audacity greater or more splendidly rewarded. 
 The gold ingots sent to Delphi were as nothing compared 
 to the treasures which streamed into Abonotichus. Each 
 question was separately paid for, and ten or fifteen were 
 not enough for the curiosity of single visitors. The work 
 soon outgrew the strength of a single man. The prophet 
 had an army of disciples, who were munificently paid. They 
 were employed, some as servants, some as spies, oracle 
 manufacturers, secretaries, keepers of seals, or interpreters 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 297 
 
 of the various Asiatic dialects. Each applicant received 
 his answer in his own tongue, to his overwhelming admira- 
 tion. Success brought ftesh ambitions with it. Emissaries 
 were dispersed througli the ICmpire spreading tlie fame of 
 the new prophet ; instigating fools to consult the oracle, 
 and letting Alexander know who they were and what they 
 wanted. If a slave had run away, if a will could not be 
 found, if a treasure had been secreted, if a robbery was un- 
 discovered, Alexander became the universal resource. The 
 air was full of miracles. The sick were healed. The dead 
 were raised to life, or were reported and were believed to 
 have been raised, which came to the same thing. To be- 
 lieve was a duty, to doubt was a sin. A god had come on 
 earth to save a world which was perishing in skepticism. 
 Simple hearts were bounding with gratitude ; and no devo- 
 tion could be too extreme, and no expression of it in the 
 form of offerings too extravagant, ^sculapius might have 
 built a throne of gold for himself out of the pious contribu- 
 tions of the faithful. 'Being a god, he was personally dis- 
 interested ; " gold and silver," he said through the oracle, 
 " were nothing to him ; he commanded only that his servant 
 the prophet should receive the honors due to him." 
 
 High favor such as had fallen upon Alexander could not 
 be enjoyed without some drawbacks. The world believed, 
 but an envious minority remained incredulous, and whis- 
 pered that the pi'ophet was a charlatan. The men of sci- 
 ence persisted that miracles were against nature, and that a 
 professing woiker of miracles was necessarily a rogue. The 
 Christians, to whom Lucian does full justice in the matter, 
 regarded Alexander as a missionary of the devil, and ab- 
 horred both him and his works. Combinations were formed 
 to expose him. Traps were cleverly laid for him, into which 
 all his adroitness could not save him from occasionally fall- 
 ing. But he had contrived to entangle his personal credit 
 in the great spiritual questions which were agitating man- 
 kind, and to enlist in his interest the pious side of pagan- 
 
298 A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 
 
 ism. The schools of philosophy were divided about him. 
 The respectable sects, Platonists, Stoics, and Pythagoreans, 
 who believed in a spiritual system underlying the sensible, 
 saw in the manifestation at Abonotichus a revelation in har- 
 mony with their theories. If they did not wholly believe, 
 they looked at it as a phenomenon useful to an age which 
 was denying the supernatural. 
 
 Alexander, quick to catch at the prevailing influences, 
 flattered the philosophers in turn. Pythagoras was made 
 a saint in his calendar. He spoke of Pythagoras as the 
 greatest of the ancient sages. He claimed to represent 
 him ; at length he let it be known privately that he was 
 Pythagoras. He gilt his thigh, and the yellow lustre was 
 allowed to be seen. The wise man of Samos was again 
 present unrecognized, like Apollo among the herdsmen of 
 Admetus. 
 
 The philosophers of the second century, if Lucian can be 
 believed, were not a lofty set of beings. They professed 
 sublime doctrines, but the doctrines had little effect on their 
 lives, and the different schools hated one another with genu- 
 ine sectarian intensity. The Pj^thagoreans were little bet- 
 ter than their rivals, but their teaching was more respecta- 
 ble. They insisted that men had souls as well as bodies. 
 They believed in immortality and future retribution, and 
 they had the sympathies with them of the decent part of 
 society. Alexander's instinct led him to them as the best 
 friends he could have ; and they in turn were ready to play 
 into his hands in their own interests. By their mystical 
 theories they were the natural victims of illusion. Opinions 
 adopted out of superstition or emotion cannot be encoun- 
 tered by reason. They are like epidemic diseases which 
 seize and subdue the mental constitution. They yield only 
 when they have spent their force, and are superseded by 
 other beliefs of an analogous kind. The spiritual w^orld is 
 ruled by homoeopathy, and one disorder is only cured by a 
 second and a similar one. 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 299 
 
 Thus supported, therefore, Pythagoras Alexander replied 
 to attempts at exposure by open defiance. Pontus, he said, 
 was full of blaspheming atheists and Christians ; ^scula- 
 pius was displeased that, after he had condescended to come 
 among his people, such wretches should be any longer toler- 
 ated ; and he demanded that they should be stoned out of 
 the province. A pious inquirer was set to ask after the 
 soul of Epicurus. JEsculapius answered that Epicurus was 
 in hell, lying in filth and in chains of lead. The Pythago- 
 reans clapped their hands. Hell, they had always said, was 
 the proper place for him ; and in hell he was ; the oracle 
 had declared it. 
 
 It is very interesting to find two classes of men, gen- 
 erally supposed to be so antagonistic as the men of science 
 and the Christians, standing alone together against the 
 world as the opponents of a lying scoundrel. The explana^ 
 tion of their union was that each of them had hold of a 
 side of real truth, while the respectable world was given 
 over to shadows. The Epicureans understood the laws of 
 nature and the principles of evidence. The Christians had 
 a new ideal of human life and duty in them, which was to 
 regenerate the whole race of mankind. It was thus fit and 
 ri<rht that they should work together against a wretch who 
 understood nothing but human folly and the art of playing 
 upon it, and against the gulls and idiots who were ready to 
 swallow any absurdity which surprised or flattered them. 
 
 The Epicureans were Alexander's most dangerous ene- 
 mies ; for they had friends in the higher circles of society. 
 Amestris, between Abonotichus and the Bosphorus, was the 
 seat of the provincial administration. Lepidus, the Roman 
 propra3tor, was a man of sense and culture. The town 
 took its intellectual tone from him, and was unfavorable 
 to the prophet's pretensions. Ingenious tricks had been 
 played upon him from that quarter with too much success; 
 and he had been driven to announce that for the future no 
 inquiries sent from Amestris would be entertained. Some 
 
300 A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 mockeries had followed. Alexander could not afford to let 
 the public enthusiasm cool, and mistakes for the future 
 must be avoided, ^^sculapius had hitherto communicated 
 with his worshippers in writing. When he uttered sounds, 
 it was in private to the prophet. To silence doubt, the ser- 
 pent was now to be heard directly speaking. A tube was 
 fitted, through which articulate noises could be made to 
 issue from the snake's mouth with the help of a confederate 
 behind the curtain. Select visitors only were admitted to 
 this especially sacred performance, and a liigh price had to 
 be paid for it. But the experiment was tried with perfect 
 SJiccess ; and the method was found to have its conveniences. 
 The word-of-mouth oracles were taken down and were 
 given afterwards to the world; but if mistakes had been 
 made, they could be altered before publication. An accident 
 of the kind happened shortly after, which might have been 
 disastrous if the original practice had been followed, but 
 which Alexander was able to turn into a brilliant success. 
 
 Severian, a Roman general, had been sent by the Em- 
 peror Verus to invade Armenia. He called at Abonoti- 
 chus on his way, to learn if he was likely to succeed, and 
 ^sculapius encouraged him with his own lips in bad 
 Hom<^ric verse. He had told Severian that he would sub- 
 due the Armenians, and return in glory to Rome with the 
 bay wreath on his temples and wearing the golden circlet 
 of Apollo. Severian, whether he believed ^sculapius or 
 not, went his way, lost his army, and was himself killed. 
 The oracle was immediately reversed. The line which 
 appeared in the published record was: " Go not against the 
 Armenians, where death and disaster await thee." Thus 
 out of "the nettle danger" Alexander "had plucked the 
 flower safety." The death of Severian was explained by 
 his neglect or defiance of the warning. In another way, 
 too, he showed his prudence. He made friends at the rival 
 shrines. jMonopolies, he knew, were odious and dangerous. 
 If -<3Esculapius spoke through him, Apollo spoke now and 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 301 
 
 then elsewhere. He would sometimes tell a patient that 
 he had no message for him, and that he must go for advice 
 to Claros or to the cave of the Branchidai. 
 
 Thus he continued to baffle his detractors, and to rise 
 from t^lory to glory. His fame reached the Imperial Court, 
 and to consult Alexander became the fashion in high 
 Roman society. Ladies of rank, men of business, intrigu- 
 iu<'- generals or senators, took into their counsels the 
 prophet of Abouotichus. Some who had perilous political 
 schemes on hand were rash enough to commit their secrets 
 to paper, and to send them, under the protection of their 
 seals, for the opinion of ^sculapius. The prophet, when 
 he discovered matter of this kind, kept the packets by him 
 without returning them. He thus held the writers in his 
 power, and made them feel that their lives were in his 
 hands. 
 
 And there were others in high position, men of thought 
 who were waiting for some kind of revelation, that sought 
 him out from purer motives. Rutilian, a senator, in favor 
 with the Emperor, a man of ability, who had passed his 
 life in the public service, and still held an important office, 
 adopted Alexander for his spiritual father. Rutilian was 
 a l*ythagorean of most devout temperament, assiduous in 
 prayers to the Invisible Being or Beings of whose exist- 
 ence he was assured. When he heard that iEsculapius had 
 come into the world, he had already a predisposition to be- 
 lieve, and was prevented only by public duties from flying 
 to learn if the news was true. He could not go to Pontus 
 himself, but he sent friends on whom he could rely, and 
 whose temperament resembled his own. The majestic ap- 
 pearance of the prophet, the inspired eyes, the rich, sweet 
 voice, awed them into immediate conviction. They were 
 shown wonders; but they liad believed before they had 
 seen, and they returned to Rome to exaggerate what they 
 had witnessed. Rutilian, receiving their report into his 
 own eager imagination, brought it out of the crucible again 
 
302 ^ Cagliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 transfigured yet more gloriously. He was a man of known 
 piety and veracity, incapable of conscious falsehood, true 
 and just in all his dealings. Astonished Rome could not 
 yet wholly surrender itself. Officers of the imperial house- 
 hold hastened over to see with their own eyes. It had not 
 occurred to them that they might see things which they 
 could not explain, yet that what they saw might be no 
 more than a trick. Men without scientific training who 
 trust their own judgment in such matters are the natural 
 prey of charlatans. These gentlemen came to Abonotichus. 
 They were received with the highest honors. Alexander 
 disjDlayed his miracles to them, made them handsome pres- 
 ents, and sent them home open-mouthed to glorify JEscu- 
 lapius and his prophet in the fullest confidence that they 
 were speaking nothing but the truth. Rutilian was tri- 
 umphant. He was now either relieved from office, or he 
 obtained leave of absence, and at last was able to throw 
 himself in person at the apostle's feet. He was sixty years 
 old at the time when the acquaintance began. His wife 
 was dead, and he had one only son. The first question 
 which he asked Alexander was about his boy's education. 
 Alexander told him that his teachers were to be Pythagoras 
 and Homer. The child died, and went to his tutors in 
 Hades ; and the prophet at the first step had given a con- 
 vincing proof of his inspiration. Lucian, in his contempt 
 of folly, half pardons Alexander when such a man as 
 Rutilian was so eager to be his dupe. The new disciple, 
 being a Pythagorean, believed iti preexistence. He asked 
 through what personalities he had himself passed already. 
 Alexander told him that he had been no less a person than 
 Achilles. After Achilles he had been Menander, and when 
 his present life was over he was to become immortal, and 
 live thenceforward as a sunbeam. Rutilian believed it all. 
 No absurdity was too monstrous for him ; while he on his 
 part was infinitely useful to Alexander. Few skeptics were 
 hardy enough thenceforward to question the character of 
 the friend of the Emperor's favorite. 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 303 
 
 Among his fern-ale adorers or connections, of whom 
 Alexander had as many as Brigham Young, there was a 
 girl whom he called his daughter, on the mother's side of 
 exalted parentage. Selene, or the Moon, had seen Alexan- 
 der sleeping like Endymion, had become enamoured of him, 
 and had descended to his embraces. The young lady he de- 
 clared to be the offspring of this celestial union. Rutilian, 
 being a widower, was informed that Selene and -^sculapius 
 had selected him to be her husband. He was delighted. He 
 believed the marriage to be an adoption into heaven. Like 
 Menelaus, he would never die, being the son-in-law of a 
 god, and the nuptials were celebrated with august solemnity. 
 
 Abonotichus after this became a holy city, a Mecca, a 
 place of pilgrimage. The prophet was a power in the 
 Empire, and began to surround himself with pomp and 
 display. Among other ceremonies he instituted a public 
 service in the temple in imitation of the mysteries of 
 Eleusis. That he was able to present such scenes with 
 impunity is a most curious illustration of the mental con- 
 dition of the time. 
 
 The service commenced with a procession of acolytes, 
 carrying torches, the prophet at their head, like the priests 
 of Ceres, giving notice to the profane to keep aloof, and 
 inviting the believers in JEsculapius to approach and take 
 part in the holy mystery. The profane whom he specially 
 meant were the Cin-istians and the atheists. The prophet 
 spoke ; the congregation answered. The prophet said, 
 "Away with the Christians!" The people replied, "Away 
 with the atheists ! " Those who presented themselves for 
 communion were examined first by Alexander to ascertain 
 tlieir fitness. If found unorthodox, they were excluded 
 from the temple. Tiie ceremonial then commenced. It 
 consisted of a series of tableaux. The first day was given 
 to representations of the lying-in of Latona, the birth of 
 Apollo, the marriage of Apollo and Coronis, with the issue 
 of it in the generation of JEsculapius. On the second day 
 
304 A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 there was the incarnation of " the sweet one," with the 
 Chalcedou plates, the goose egg, and the snake. Alexan- 
 der himself was the hero of the third. A new revelation, 
 it seems, had informed him of mysterious circumstances 
 attending his own comins; into the world. His mother 
 had been visited by Podalirius, iEsculapius's mythical son. 
 The temple was then brilliantly illuminated. The prophet, 
 after some preliminary gesticulations, laid himself down, as 
 Endymion, to sleep upon a couch. Selene, the Moon, per- 
 sonated by the beautiful wife of an officer of the imperial 
 court, who was the prophet's mistress, descended upon him 
 from the roof and covered him with kisses, the husband 
 looking on, delighted with the honor which had fallen 
 upon him. In the final scene, Alexander reappeared in his 
 priestly dress. A hymn was sung to the snake, the congre- 
 gation accompanying or responding. The choir then formed 
 into a circle and went through a mystic dance, the prophet 
 standing in the centre. 
 
 Tlie miraculous birth of Alexander, after being thus 
 announced, was made into an article of faith, which the 
 disciples were bound to receive. A difficulty arose which 
 had not been foreseen. If he was the son of a god, how 
 could he be Pythagoras ? and how came he by the golden 
 thigh ? He was equal to the occasion ; he was not Pythago- 
 ras, he said, and yet he was. He had the same soul with 
 Pythagoras ; for that soul was the Spirit of God, which 
 waned and wa;5 renewed like the moon. The Spirit de- 
 scended from heaven at special times and on special per- 
 sons, and again ascended when its purpose was attained. 
 The gold thigh was perhaps explained as its accompanying 
 symbol. 
 
 Having identified himself with the Pythagoreans, he 
 announced with authority the general truth of their doc- 
 trines. He insisted on an elevated morality, and directed 
 his disciples to abstain from sensual vices. The rules, 
 however, had no application to himself, and behind the 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Centur^, 305 
 
 veil he created a Cyprian paradise. His reputation being 
 so well established, the privilege of admission to the temple 
 rites was eagerly sought after. 
 
 The oracle, meanwliile, was active as ever, and now and 
 then by its mistakes produced frightful injustice. A Paphla- 
 gonian gentleman had sent his son to be educated at Alex- 
 andria. The boy had joined an expedition up the Nile, 
 where he fell in with some merchants on their way to the 
 Red Sea and India. Curiosity led him to accompany them ; 
 and his household in the city, who had charge of him, after 
 waiting for a while and finding that he did not come back, 
 concluded that he had been drowned in the river, and re- 
 turned to Paphlagonia with the news that the boy was dead. 
 The father consulted the seer of Abonotichus. Alexander 
 informed him that his son had been made away with by the 
 servants. The Roman governor was appealed to. The 
 word of Alexander, supported as he was by Rutilian, was 
 conclusive, and the unfortunate wretches were thrown to 
 the wild beasts. Soon after, the boy appeared, none the 
 worse for his journey ; and an indignant friend of the family 
 went to Abonotichus to expose the impostor before his 
 worshippers. Unfortunately, a superstition once established 
 is proof against commonplace evidence. Alexander only 
 answered by telling the congregation to stone the blas- 
 phemer, who was rescued when nearly dead by the inter- 
 position of a casual traveller. 
 
 Another adventure into which he fell might have been 
 more dangerous. The war of Marcus Aurelius with the 
 Marcomanni was the occasion of the celebrated story in 
 Christian mythology of the Thundering Legion. It is 
 difficult, and even impossible, to reconcile the account of 
 the war in the Christian legend with Lucian's description 
 of it ; but Lucian was alive at the time, and when he saj^s 
 that the Emperor was disastrously defeated, he is unlikely 
 to have been mistaken. Lucian says that Marcus Aure- 
 lius, before he began the campaign, applied to Alexander. 
 
 20 
 
306 ^ Cagliostro of the Second Century, 
 
 Alexander told him that if he devoted two lions to the gods 
 aud threw them into the Danube, there would be a glorious 
 victory and a happy peace. The lions swam the river, 
 landed on the opposite bank, and were immediately killed. 
 The Emperor lost a battle and many thousand men. Aqui- 
 leia itself nearly escaped being taken. 
 
 This catastrophe tried the faith even of Rutilian. Alex- 
 ander, however, told him that the gods had foretold a vic- 
 tory, but had not allowed him to know on which side the 
 victory would be. Rutilian resisted temptation and con- 
 tinued to believe. 
 
 Affairs, however, had become serious, when such a man 
 was allowed to play with the interests of the Empire. In- 
 telligent Romans went to Abonotichus to make inquiries, 
 and were so troublesome that iEsculapius had to interfere. 
 When a stranger arrived, the god decided whether he was to 
 be admitted to reside in the town. A suspicious visitor was 
 ordered to depart under penalties. At last, as a public 
 warning against the dangerous spirit of scepticism, Alex- 
 ander burnt a copy of the writings of Epicurus in the mar- 
 ket square, and threw the ashes into the sea. Lepidus of 
 Amestris, the Roman governor, made another effort. The 
 prophet was on his guard against laymen ; but a priest, it 
 was thought, might be more fortunate. A priest was sent, 
 but unluckily the priest was a fool and gave Alexander a 
 new triumph. He was granted an interview with " the 
 sweet one," and conversation followed which Lucian saw 
 hung up in a temple at Tium, written in letters of gold : — 
 
 Priest. Tell me, Lord Glycon, who art thou ? 
 
 Glycon. I am the young ^sculapius, the second and not the 
 first. This is a mystery, which may not be revealed. 
 
 Priest. How lono; wilt thou remain with us ? 
 
 Glycon. My time is a thousand years and three. Then I go 
 to the East to the barbarians. They also must hear my woi-d. 
 
 Priest. What will become of me after this life ? 
 
 Glycon. First thou wilt be a camel, and then a prophet like 
 Alexander. 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 307 
 
 The dialogue ended with a curse on Lepidus for his in- 
 quisitiveness and unbelief. 
 
 Other means failing, the adventure was next undertaken 
 by Lueian himself. Lucian was a friend of Rutilian. He 
 had many times remonstrated with him. He had en- 
 deavored to prevent his marriage. He had protested 
 against the countenance which Rutilian was lending to a 
 lying rogue. Rutilian pitied Lucian's hardness of heart, 
 and perhaps advised him to go to Abonotichus and exam- 
 ine for himself. Lucian, at any rate, went. Rutilian's 
 friendship secured him respectful treatment. Alexander 
 received him with extreme courtesy, and he admits that 
 the prophet's manners and appearance surprised and struck 
 him. But Lucian was fortified with a conviction that all 
 pretenders to supernatural powers were enthusiasts or im- 
 postors, that miracles had never been and could not be. He 
 tried -^sculapius with unusual questions. He asked him 
 first if the prophet wore false hair. He sealed his envelope 
 so skilfully that it could not be opened, and he received an 
 answer in an " unknown tongue." He discovered next 
 that the prophet had been sounding his valet as to Lucian's 
 object in coming to him. The valet was faithful, and 
 Lucian bade him tell Alexander that he was suffering from 
 a pain in his side. He then wrote, himself, on two slips of 
 paper, "What was the birthplace of Homer?" enclosed 
 them in two packets, and sealed them as before. The valet 
 informed the prophet that one referred to the pain, and 
 that the other was to ask whether his master should return 
 to Italy by land or sea. The replies were, first, an advice 
 to try Alexander's plaster ; secondly, an intimation that a 
 voyage would prove dangerous. These experiments would 
 have been enough for Lucian, but his object was rather to 
 convince his friend than himself, and he tried again. 
 
 This time he wrote, " When will the villanies of Alex- 
 ander be exposed ? " At the back of the envelope he made 
 a note that it contained eight questions, all of which he 
 
308 A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 
 
 paid for. The prophet was completely caught ; he returned 
 eight answers, the whole of them unintelligible ; and with 
 demonstration, as he thought, in his hands, Lucian went to 
 his friend. 
 
 He found his labor thrown away. Belief in the mar- 
 vellous does not rise from evidence and will not yield to it. 
 There is the easy answer, that infidels are answered accord- 
 ing to the impiety of their hearts, that the gods will not 
 and perhaps cannot work miracles in the presence of scep- 
 tics. Nothing came of this first visit except that Lucian 
 lost the regard of his friend whom Alexander warned 
 against him. But he had become interested in the matter ; 
 he determined to j^robe the mystery to the bottom. He 
 went to the governor and offered, if he could have security 
 for his life, to furnish him with proofs of the imposition 
 which would justify the interference of the police. 
 
 The governor gave him a guard of soldiers, and thus 
 attended he went to Abonotichus a second time. The 
 prophet was holding his levee. Lucian presented himself, 
 neglecting to make an obeisance, to the general scandal. 
 The prophet took no notice, but gave him his hand to kiss, 
 and Lucian bit it to the bone. The believers shrieked, and 
 Lucian would have been strangled but for his guard. Alex- 
 ander, however, to his surprise and real admiration, bore 
 the pain manfully. He told his friends that he and his god 
 had tamed ruder spirits than Lucian's ; he bade them all 
 retire, and leave him and his visitor together. 
 
 When they were alone, he asked Lucian quietly why a 
 person whose acquaintance he had valued, was determined 
 to be his enemy. Calmness is always agreeable. Lucian 
 never doubted for a moment Alexander's real character, 
 but the prophet interested him in spite of himself. That 
 he might study him at leisure, he accepted his overtures, 
 and even entered into some kind of intimacy with him. 
 He stayed for some days at Abonotichus. The worshippers 
 were astonished to find an open blasphemer admitted to 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 809 
 
 confidential intercourse with their chief ; and Alexander 
 undoubtedly succeeded, if not in disarming his guest's sus- 
 picions, yet in softening the vehemence of his dislike. He 
 was so clever, so well informed, apparently so frank and 
 open, that, as Lucian said, he would have taken in Epi- 
 curus himself. The search for evidence against him was 
 dropped, the governor's guard was sent home, and Lucian 
 after a prolonged visit accepted an offer from Alexander to 
 send him by water to the Bosphorus. The prophet placed 
 at his disposition one of his finest vessels, saw him on 
 board, loaded him with presents, and so dismissed him. 
 
 Keener-witted man than Lucian was not alive on earth ; 
 yet his wit had not saved him from being to some extent 
 deceived, and he had a near escape of paying with his life 
 for his credulity. He had not been long at sea when he 
 observed the pilot and crew consulting together. The crew 
 were insisting upon something to which the pilot would not 
 consent. The pilot at length came to him and said that 
 "Alexander's orders were that Lucian was to be thrown 
 overboard ; he had a wife and children, he had lived re- 
 spectably for sixty years, and did not wish in his old age to 
 stain his conscience with a murder. He could not go on 
 to the Bosphorus, but he would put his passenger on shore.'* 
 
 Lucian was landed in Bithynia. He was a person of 
 considerable public influence. He had powerful friends in 
 the province and at Rome. He was looked on favorably 
 by Marcus Aurelius himself. He laid his story before the 
 governor, not Lepidus, but another \ and Lucian, if any- 
 one, might be assured that what he said would receive at- 
 tention. But in an era of belief, reason and fact are power- 
 less ; the governor told him tl at if he could convict Alex- 
 ander on the clearest evidence it would be impossible to 
 punish him. Prophet he was in the opinion of the whole 
 country, and prophet he would remain. Lucian was as 
 little successful as his predecessors, and his interference 
 had gained him nothing except materials for the singular 
 
310 A Cagliostro of the Second Century. 
 
 account which he has left behind. Rutilian was abandoned 
 to fate and to the daughter of the Moon, and the glories of 
 the prophet of Abonotichus were established above the 
 reach of calumny. The Emperor bestowed distinctions on 
 him. The name of his town was changed. Coins were 
 struck, and now are extant, with " the sweet one's " face 
 on one side and Alexander's on the other. He lived to be 
 an old man, and died with his fame undimmed and the be- 
 lief in him unabated. What became of the snake, history 
 omits to tell. 
 
 The superstition did not break in pieces at once. The 
 oracle continued to prophesy after Alexander's death, and 
 there was a competition among the disciples as to which of 
 them was to succeed him. The favorite candidate was an 
 old physician, who, Lucian says, ought not to have been 
 found in such company. The dispute was referred at last 
 to Rutilian, who decided that no successor was needed. 
 Alexander was not dead, but was translated merely into a 
 better world, from which he still watched over his faithful 
 followers. 
 
 So ends this singular story, valuable for the light which 
 it throws on a critical epoch in human history, and espe- 
 cially on the disposition of the people among whom Paul 
 and Barnabas were taken for gods, and among whom Paul 
 founded his seven churches. Christianity exactly met what 
 they were searching for in an ennobling and purifying form, 
 and saved those who accepted it from being the victims of 
 sham prophets like Alexander. To persons so circum- 
 stanced, men of intellect like Lucian addressed themselves 
 in vain. The science of Epicurus was merely negative. 
 He might insist that miracles were an illusion, and that the 
 laws of nature were never broken ; but to the human heart 
 cravinir for liirht from heaven, and refusini; to be satisfied 
 without it, Epicurus had not a word to say, not a word of 
 what lay behind the veil, not a word which would serve for 
 guidance in the paths of ordinary duty. Intellect and ex- 
 
A Cagliostro of the Second Century, 311 
 
 perience may make it probable to thouglitful persons that 
 morality and happiness go together ; but when all is said, 
 clever men are found of a different opinion ; and if the hu- 
 man race had waited to recogi\ize the sanctions of moral 
 obligation till science had made out on what they rested to 
 its own satisfaction, the first steps out of barbarism would 
 never have been taken. Knowledge is a plant which grows 
 but slowly. Those who gather knowledge must live before 
 they can learn. How to live, therefore, how to distinguish 
 good from evil, press first for an immediate answer. And 
 the answer was given by conscience whole a;ons before re- 
 flecting intellect had constructed its theories of expediency 
 and the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 
 
 Out of conscience grows religion ; but religion when St. 
 Paul came was dead, and the educated multitudes in the 
 Empire were sitting by the body of it, unable to believe 
 that it was gone, and still passionately hoping that the si- 
 lent gods would again speak to them out of heaven. So in- 
 tense was the longing, that reason had abdicated its proper 
 function ; any plausible pretender could collect disciples in 
 millions ; and to an audience thus prepared to receive it, 
 Christianity was originally offered. Independence of phi- 
 losophy, the better sort of men hate evil and impurity ; their 
 instincts were recognized and justified in the new creed, 
 and they welcomed it as a reviving principle of moral life. 
 It did not save them from illusions which men of science 
 would have escaped. Holiness of life is no protection 
 aiTJiinst freaks of imairination ; God is so near to the be- 
 liever that he sees His action everywhere, and the hagiol- 
 ogy of the early Church is as full of legend as the pagan 
 mythology. The apocryphal gospels breathe a spirit to the 
 full as credulous as the story of the incarnation of Glycon 
 at Abonotichus ; with this essential and enormous difference, 
 however, that the credulity of the Christians was dominated 
 by conscience, and they detected a polluted impostor with 
 as sure an instinct as the most cultivated Epicurean. 
 
CHENEYS AND THE HOUSE OF RUS- 
 SELL. 
 
 ERASER'S MAGAZINE, 1879. 
 
 "The gardener and his wife," Mr. Tennyson tells us, 
 " laugh at the claims of long descent." If it be so, the 
 laugh is natural, for our first parents were " novi homines^ 
 and could not appreciate what they did not possess. Never- 
 theless, in all nations which have achieved any kind of 
 eminence, particular families have stood out conspicuously 
 for generation after generation as represeutatives of polit- 
 ical principles, as soldiers or statesmen, as ruling in their 
 immediate neighborhoods with delegated authority, and re- 
 ceiving homage voluntarily offered. They have furnished 
 the finer tissues in the corporate body of the national life, 
 and have given to society its unity and coherence. In 
 times of war they have fallen freely on the battle-field. In 
 times of discord and civil strife their most illustrious mem- 
 bers have been the first to bleed on the scaffold. An Eng- 
 lish family, it has been said, takes rank according to the 
 number of its members which have been executed. With 
 men, as with animals and plants, peculiar properties are 
 propagated by breeding. Each child who has inherited a 
 noble name feels a special call to do no dishonor to it by 
 unworthy actions. The family falls in pieces when its char- 
 acteristics disappear. But, be the cause what it may, there 
 is no instance, ancient or modern, of any long protracted 
 national existence where an order of aristocracy and gentry 
 is not to be found preserving their identity, their influence, 
 and their privileges of birth through century after century. 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 313 
 
 They have no monopoly of genius. A gifted man rises out 
 of the people, receiving his patent of nobility, as Burns said, 
 "direct from Almighty God." He makes a name and a 
 position for himself. But when the name is made, he hands 
 it on, with distinction printed upon it, to his children and 
 his children's children. More is expected from the sons of 
 eminent parents than from other men, and if the transmit- 
 ted quality is genuine, more comes out of them. It is not 
 talent. Talent is but partially hereditary, if at all. The 
 virtue that runs in the blood is superiority of courage or 
 character ; and courage and character, far more than clever- 
 ness, are the conditions indispensable for national leaders. 
 Thus without exception, in all great peoples, hereditary 
 aristocracies have formed themselves, and when aristocra- 
 cies have decayed or disappeared, the state has degenerated 
 along with them. The fall of a nobility may be a cause of 
 degeneracy, or it may only be a symptom ; but the phe- 
 nomenon itself is a plain matter of fact, true hitherto under 
 all forms of political constitution, monarchic, oligarchic, or 
 republican. Republics have held together as long as they 
 have been strung with patrician sinews ; when the sinews 
 crack, the public becomes a democracy, and the unity of 
 the commonwealth is shivered into a heap of disconnected 
 atoms, each following its own laws of gravitation towards its 
 imagined intere'^ts. Athens and Rome, the Italian Repub- 
 lics, the great kingdoms which rose out of the wreck of the 
 Roman Empire, tell the same story. The modern Spaniard 
 reads the records of the old greatness of his country on 
 the tombs of the Castilian nobles, and in the rnins of their 
 palaces. They and the glory of the Spanish race have de- 
 parted together. The Alvas and the Olivarez's, the Da 
 Leyvas and Mendozas may have deserved their fall ; but 
 when they fell, and no others had arisen in their places, 
 the nation fell also. Hitherto no great state has been able 
 to sustain itself in a front place without an aristocracy of 
 some kind maintained on the hereditary principle. On this 
 
314 Cheneys mid the House of Russell. 
 
 point the answer of history is uniform. The United States 
 may inaugurate a new experience. With the one exception 
 of the Adams's, the great men who have shown as yet in 
 American history have left no representatives to stand at 
 present in the front political ranks. There are no Wash- 
 ingtons, no Franklins, no Jeffersons, no Clays or Randolphs 
 now governing States or leading debates in Congress. How 
 long this will continue, how long the determination that all 
 men shall start equal in the race of life will prevail against 
 the instinctive tendencies of successful men to perpetuate 
 their names, is the most interesting of political problems. 
 The American nationality is as yet too young for conclu- 
 sions to be built on what it has done hitherto, or has for- 
 borne to do. We shall know better two centuries hence 
 whether equality and the ballot-box provide better leaders 
 for a people than the old methods of birth and training. 
 France was cut in pieces in the Revolution of 1793, and 
 flung into the Medean caldron, expecting to emerge again 
 with fresh vitality. The rash experiment has not succeeded 
 up to this time, and here too we must wait for what her 
 future will bring forth. So far, the nations which have 
 democratized themselves have been successful in producing 
 indefinite quantities of money. If money and money-mak- 
 ing will secure their stability, they may look forward hope- 
 fully — not otherwise. 
 
 We, too, have travelled far on the same road. We can 
 continue to say, " Thank God we have still a House of 
 Lords," but it is a House of Lords which is allowed to 
 stand with a conditional tenure. It must follow, it must 
 not lead, the popular will. It has been preserved rather 
 as an honored relic of a state of things which is passing 
 away, than as representing any actual forces now existing. 
 We should not dream of creating a hereditary branch of 
 legislature if we had to begin over again ; being there, we 
 let it remain as long as it is harmless. Nevertheless, great 
 families have still a hold upon the country, either from 
 
Cheneys a7id the House of Russell. 815 
 
 custom or from a sense of their value. Fifty years are 
 gone since the great democratic Reform Bill, yet the hered- 
 itary peers must still give their consent to every law which 
 passes. Their sons and cousins form a majority in the 
 House of Commons, and even philosophic Radicals doubt if 
 the character of the House would be improved without men 
 there whose position in society is secured, and who can 
 therefore afford to be patriotic. How long a privileged 
 order will hold its ground against the tendencies of the age 
 depends upon itself and upon the objects which it places 
 before itself. If those who are within the lines retain, on 
 the whole, a superior tone to those outside, and if access to 
 the patrician order is limited to men who have earned ad- 
 mission there by real merit, the Upper House will be left in 
 spite of ballot and universal suffrage, or perhaps by means 
 of them, for generations to come. But the outlook is not 
 without its ugly features, and should anything happen to 
 stir the passions of the people as they were stirred half 
 a century ago, the English peerage would scarcely live 
 through another storm. 
 
 Whatever future may be in store for them, the past at 
 any rate is their own, and they are honorably proud of 
 it. The Roman preserved in his palace the ashes of his 
 titled ancestors, and exhibited their images in his saloons. 
 Tlie English noble hangs the armor which was worn at 
 Flodden or Crecy in his ancestral hall. The trophies and 
 relics of generations are among the treasures of his family. 
 The stately portraits of his sires look down upon him from 
 the walls of his dining-room. When he dies, his desire is, 
 like the prayer of the Hebrews, to be buried in the sepul- 
 chre of his fathers. There only is the fitting and peaceful 
 close of a life honorably spent. There the first founder 
 of the family and his descendants rest side by side, after 
 time has ceased for each of them, to be remembered to- 
 gether by the curious who spell through their epitaphs, 
 and to dissolve themselves into common dust. Occasionally, 
 
316 CheneyB and the House of Russell. 
 
 as a more emphatic memorial, the mausoleum becomes a 
 mortuary chapel attached to some parish church or cathe- 
 dral. The original purpose was of course that a priest, 
 specially appointed, should say masses there immediately 
 close to the spot where their remains were lying. The 
 custom has outlived the purpose of it, and such chapels are 
 to be met with in Protestant countries as often as in 
 Catholic. The most interesting that I ever saw is that of 
 the Mendozas in the cathedral at Burgos. It is the more 
 affecting because the Mendozas have ceased to exist. 
 Nothing survives of them save their tombs, which, splendid 
 as they are, and of the richest materials, are character- 
 istically free from meretricious ornament. There lie the 
 figures of the proudest race in the whole nobility of Spain ; 
 knight and lady, prelate and cardinal. The stories of the 
 lives of most of them are gone beyond recovery, and yet in 
 those stone features can be read character as pure and grand 
 as ever did honor to humanity. If a single family could 
 produce so magnificent a group, we cease to wonder how 
 Spain was once the sovereign of Europe, and the Spanish 
 Court the home of courtesy and chivalry. 
 
 Next in interest to the monuments of the Mendozas, and 
 second to them only because the Mendozas themselves are 
 gone, are the tombs of the house of Hussell in the chapel 
 at Cheneys, in Buckinghamshire. The claims of the 
 Russells to honorable memory the loudest Radical will 
 acknowledge. For thre# centuries and a half they have 
 led the way in what is called progress. They rose with the 
 Reformation. They furnished a martyr for the Revolution 
 of 1688. The Reform Bill is connected forever with the 
 name of Lord John. To know the biographies of the 
 dead Russells is to know English history for twelve genera- 
 tions ; and if the progress with which we are so delighted 
 leads us safely into the Promised Land, as we are bound to 
 believe that it will, Cheneys ought to become hereafter 
 a place of pious pilgrimage. 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 817 
 
 The villasfe stands on a chalk hill rising from the little 
 river Ches, four miles from Rickmansvvorth, on the road 
 to Amersham. The estate belongs to the Duke of Bedford, 
 and is pervaded by an aspect of serene good manners, as if 
 it was always Sunday. No vulgar noises disturb the general 
 quiet. Cricket may be played there, and bowls and such 
 games as propriety allows ; but the oldest inhabit-ant can 
 never have heard an oath spoken aloud, or seen a drunken 
 man. Dirt and poverty are equally unknown. The houses, 
 large and small, are solid and substantial, built of red brick, 
 with high chimneys and pointed gables, and well-trimmed 
 gardens before the doors. A Gothic fountain stands in the 
 middle of the village green, under a cluster of tall elms, 
 where picturesque, neatly dressed girls go for the purest 
 water. Beyond the green a road runs, on one side of 
 which stands the church and the parsonage, on the other the 
 remains of the once spacious manor house, which was built 
 by the first Earl of Bedford, on the site of an old castle of 
 the Plantagenet kings. One wing of the manor house only 
 survives, but so well constructed, and of material so admi- 
 rable, that it looks as if it had been completed yesterday. 
 In a field under the window is an oak which tradition says 
 was planted by Queen Bess. More probably it is as old as 
 the Conquest. The entire spot, church, mansion, cottages, 
 and people, form a piece of ancient England artificially 
 preserved from the intrusion of modern ways. No land is 
 let on building lease in Cheneys to be disfigured by con- 
 tractors' villas. No flaring shops, which such villas bring 
 behind them, make the street hideous. A single miscel- 
 laneous store supplies the simple wants of the few inhabi- 
 tants — the bars of soap, the bunches of dip candles, the 
 tobacco in ounce packets, the tea, coffee, and sugar, the 
 balls of twine, the strips of calico. Even the bull's-eyes 
 and gingerbread for the children are not unpermitted, if 
 they are honestly made and warranted not to be poisonous. 
 So light is the business that the tidy woman who presides 
 
318 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 at the counter combines with it the duties of the post-office, 
 wliich again are of the simplest kind. All is old-fashioned, 
 grave, and respectable. No signs are to be found of com- 
 petition, of the march of intellect, of emancipation, of the 
 divine right of each man and woman to do what is good in 
 their own eyes — of the blessed liberty which the House of 
 Russell has been so busy in setting forward. The inhabi- 
 tants of Cheneys live under authority. The voice of the 
 Russell s has been the voice of the emancipator — the hand 
 has been the hand of the rulinof noble. 
 
 The Manor House contains nothing of much interest. 
 In itself, though a fragment, it is a fine specimen of the 
 mason work of the Tudor times, and if not pulled down 
 will be standing strong as ever when the new London 
 squares are turned to dust heaps. With its high-pitched 
 roofs and its clusters of curiously twisted chimneys it has 
 served as a model for the architecture of the village, the 
 smallest cottages looking as if they had grown from seeds 
 which had been dropped by the central mansion. 
 
 All this is pretty enough, but the attraction of the place 
 to a stranger is the church and what it contains. I had 
 visited it before more than once, but I wished to inspect the 
 monuments more closely. I ran down from London, one 
 evening in June, to the village inn, and in the morning, 
 soon after sunrise, when I was in less danger of having the 
 officious assistance thrust upon me of clerk or sexton, I 
 sauntered over to see if I could enter. The keys were kept 
 at an adjoining cottage. The busy matron was already up 
 and at her work. When I told her that I had special per- 
 mission, she unlocked the church door and left me to myself. 
 Within, as without, all was order. No churchwardens, it 
 was plain enough, had ever been allowed to work their will 
 at Cheneys. Nay, the unchallenged loyalty of the Bedford 
 family to constitutional liberty must have saved the church 
 from the visits of the Commissioners of the Long Parlia- 
 ment. On the walls are old Catholic brasses, one repre- 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 319 
 
 senting a parisli priest of the place with the date of 
 1512, and a scroll praying for mercy on his soul. Strange 
 to think that this man had said mass in the very place 
 where I was standing, and that the memory of him had 
 been preserved by the Russells, till the wheel had come 
 round again and a Catholic hierarchy had been again es- 
 tablished in England, with its Cardinals and Archbishops 
 and Bishops. Will mass be ever said in Cheneys again ? — 
 not the sham mass of the Ritualists, but the real thing ? 
 Who that looks on England now can say that it will not ? 
 And four miles off is Amersham, where John Knox used to 
 preach, and Queen Mary's inquisitors gathered their batches 
 of heretics for Smithfield. On the pavement against the 
 wall lies the stone figure of an old knight, finished only 
 from the waist upwards. The knight is in his armor, his 
 wife rests at his side ; the hands of both of them reverently 
 folded. Opening from the church on the north side, but 
 private, and not used for service, is the Russell Chapel. 
 Below is the vault where the remains lie of most of the 
 family who have borne the name for three centuries and a 
 half. 
 
 On a stone tablet over the east window are the words 
 " This Chapel is built by Anne, Countess of Bedford, wife 
 to John, Earl of Bedford, a. d. 1556." It was the year in 
 which Queen Mary was most busy offering her sacrifices 
 to persuade Providence to grant her an heir. The chapel, 
 therefore, by a curious irony, must have been consecrated 
 with Catholic ceremonies. 
 
 The earliest monument is the tomb of this Lady Anne ^ 
 and her husband, and is one of the finest of its kind in 
 Europe. The material is alabaster ; the pink veins in the 
 stone being abundant enough to give a purple tint to the 
 whole construction. The workmanship is extremely elab- 
 orate, and belongs to a time when the temper of men was 
 
 1 Through some blunder, she is described on the monument as Lady 
 Elizabeth. 
 
320 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 still manly and stern, and when the mediaeval reverence for 
 death was still unspoiled by insincerity and affectation. The 
 hands are folded in the old manner. The figures are not 
 represented as sleeping, but as in a trance, with the eyes 
 wide open. The faces are evidently careful likenesses ; the 
 Earl has lost an eye in action — the lid droops over the 
 socket as in life. His head rests on his corslet, his sword is 
 at his side. He wears a light coronet, and his beard falls low 
 on his breast. The features do not denote a man of genius, 
 but a loyal and worthy servant of the State, cautious, pru- 
 dent, and thoughtful. The lady's face is more remarkable, 
 and it would seem' from the pains which had been taken 
 with it that the artist must have personally known and ad- 
 mired her, while the Earl he may have known only by his 
 portrait. The forehead of the Lady Anne is strong and 
 broad, the nose large, the lips full but severely and ex- 
 pressively closed. She looks upward as she lies, with awe, 
 but with a bold heart, stern as a Roman matron. The 
 head is on a cusliion, but the Earl's baldric would have 
 formed as suitable a pillow for a figure so commanding and 
 so powerful. It is a pity that we know so little of this lady. 
 She was the daughter of Sir Guy Sapcote, of Huntingdon- 
 shire. Her mother was a Cheney, and through her the 
 Cheneys estate fell to its present owners. She had been 
 twice married and twice a widow when her hand was sought 
 by Sir John Russell. At that time she was in the house- 
 hold of Catherine of Arragon ; but she had no liking for 
 the cause which Catherine represented, or for Catherine's 
 daughter either. She died while Mary was still on the 
 throne, but in her will she gave a significant proof that she 
 at least had not bowed the knee when Baal was brought in 
 again. She bequeathed her soul to Almighty God, " trust- 
 ing only by the death and passion of his dear Son, Jesus 
 Christ, to be saved." " This is all that can be said of " the 
 mighty mother " of the Russells, to whose side they are 
 gathered as they fall ; but if the stern portrait speaks 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 321 
 
 truth, her sons have inherited gifts from her more precious 
 by far than the broad lands in Bedford and Huntingdon. 
 
 The Russells, or Rozels, are on the Battle Roll as having 
 come from Normandy with the Conqueror. They played at 
 their part under the Plantagenets, not without distinction, 
 and towards the end of the fifteenth century were a substan- 
 tial family settled at Barwick, in Dorsetshire. In the year 
 1506, John, son and heir of the reigning head of the house, 
 had returned from a tour on the continent, bringing back 
 with him accomplishments rare at all times with young, 
 proud Englishmen, and at that day unheard of save among 
 the officially-trained clergy. Besides his other acquisitions 
 he could speak French, and probably German. It happened 
 that in that winter the Archduke Philip, with his mad wife 
 Joanna, sister of Catherine of Arragon, was on his way 
 from the Low Countries to Spain. As he was going down 
 Channel he was driven by a gale into Weymouth, and hav- 
 ing been extremely sea-sick, he landed to recover himself. 
 Foreign princes are a critical species of guest. The rela- 
 tions of Henry VII. with Joanna's father, Ferdinand, were 
 just then on a doubtful footing. Prince Arthur was dead. 
 Catherine was not yet married to his brother Henry, nor 
 was it at all certain that she was to marry him ; and when 
 so great a person as the Archduke, and so nearly connected 
 with Ferdinand had come into England uninvited, the 
 authorities in Dorsetshire feared to let him proceed on his 
 voyage till their master's pleasure was known. A courier 
 was despatched to London, and meanwhile Sir Thomas 
 Trenchard, the most important gentleman in the neighbor- 
 hood, invited the whole party to stay with him at Wolver- 
 ton Hall. Trenchard was Russell's cousin. His own linguis- 
 tic capabilities were limited, and he sent for his young 
 kinsman to assist in the royal visitors' entertainment. 
 Russell went, and made himself extremely useful. Henry 
 VII., having pressed the Archduke to come to him at Wind- 
 sor, the Archduke carried his new friend along with him, 
 
 21 
 
322 Cheneys and the House of Russell. 
 
 and spoke so warmly of his talents and character to the 
 king that he was taken at once into the household. So com- 
 menced the new birth of the Russell house. Most men have 
 chances opened to them at one time or another. Young 
 Russell was one of the few who knew how to grasp oppor- 
 tunity by the forelock. He was found apt for any kind of 
 service, either with pen or sword, brain or hand. He went 
 with Henry VIH. to his first campaign in France. He 
 was at the siege of Therouenne, and at the battle of the 
 Spurs. For an interval he was employed in political negoti- 
 ations. Then we find him one of sixteen English knights 
 who held the lists against all comers at Paris on the mar- 
 riage of Louis XII. with the Princess Mary. In the war 
 of 1522 he lost his eye at the storming of Morlaix, and was 
 knighted for his gallantry there. Immediately afterwards 
 he was employed by Henry and Wolsey on an intricate and 
 dangerous service. Louis XII. was dead. The friendship 
 between England and France was broken, and Henry and 
 his nephew, the Emperor Charles V., were leagued together 
 against the young Francis. Charles was aiming at the con- 
 quest of Italy. Henry had his eye on the French crown, 
 which he dreamt of recovering for himself. Francis had 
 affronted his powerful kinsman and subject, the Duke of 
 Bourbon. Bourbon had intimated that if England would 
 provide him with money to raise an army, he would recog- 
 nize Henry as his liege lord, and John Russell was the 
 person sent to ascertain whether Bourbon might be trusted 
 to keep his word. Russell, it seems, was satisfied. The 
 money was provided, and was committed to Russell's care, 
 and the great powers of Europe made their first plunge 
 into the convulsions which were to last for more than a 
 century. Little did Henry and Charles know what they 
 were doing, or how often they would change partners before 
 the game was over. Bourbon invaded Provence, Sir John 
 Russell attending upon him with the English treasure. The 
 war rolled across the Alps, and Russell saw the great battle 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 323 
 
 fought at Pavia, where France lost all save honor, and the 
 French king was the prisoner of the Emperor. 
 
 Then, if ever, was the time for Henry's dream to have 
 been accomplished ; but it became too clear that the throne 
 of France was not at Bourbon's disposition, and that even 
 if he had been willing and able to keep his word, the Em- 
 peror had no intention of allowing him to keep it. Henry 
 and Wolsey had both been foiled in the object nearest to 
 their hearts, for Henry could not take the place of Francis, 
 and Wolsey, who had meant to be Pope, saw the Cardinal 
 de Medici chosen instead of him. So followed a shift 
 of policy. Charles V. was now the danger to the rest of 
 Europe. Henry joined himself with France against his 
 late ally. Francis was to be liberated from his Spanish 
 prison, and was to marry Henry's daughter. Catherine of 
 Arragon was to be divorced, and Henry was to marry a 
 French princess, or some one else in the French interest. 
 The adroit Russell, in Italy, was to bring Milan, Venice, 
 and the Papacy into the new confederacy. An ordinary 
 politician, looking then at the position of the pieces on the 
 European chess-board, would have said that Charles, in 
 spite of himself, would have been compelled to combine 
 with the German princes, and to take up the cause of the 
 Reformation. The Pope was at war with him. Clement, 
 Henry, and Francis were heartily friends. Henry had 
 broken a lance with Luther. Bourbon's army, which had 
 conquered at Pavia, was recruited with lanz-knechts, either 
 Lutherans or godless ruffians. Bourbon's army was now 
 Charles's ; and food being scanty and pay not forthcoming, 
 the duke was driven, like another Alaric, to fling himself 
 upon Rome, and storm and plunder the imperial city. It 
 is curious and touching to find Clement clinging in such a 
 hurricane to P^ngland and Henry as his surest supports. 
 Russell had been staying with him at the Vatican on the 
 eve of the catastrophe. He had gone home before the Ger- 
 mans approached, and missed being present at the most 
 
324 Cheneys and the House of Russell. 
 
 extraordinary scene in the drama of the sixteenth century, 
 when the Holy Fatfter, from the battlements of St. Angelo, 
 saw his city sacked, his churches pillaged, his sacred sister- 
 hoods outraged, his cardinals led in mockery on asses' 
 backs through the streets by wild bands, acting under the 
 order, or in the name, of the most Catholic King. 
 
 An attitude so extravagant could not endure. A little 
 while, and the laws of spiritual attraction had forced the 
 various parties into more appropriate relations. The di- 
 vorce of Catherine went forward ; the Pope fell back on 
 Catherine's Imperial nephew. England broke with the 
 Holy See, and the impulses which were to remodel the 
 modern world flowed into their natural channel?. Rus- 
 sell's friend, Thomas Cromwell, became Henry's chief min- 
 ister ; and Russell himself, though the scheme which he had 
 been employed to forward had burst like a bubble, still 
 rose in his sovereign's confidence. He was at Calais with 
 Henry in 1532 when Anne Boleyn was publicly received 
 by Francis. He was active in the suppression of the mon- 
 asteries, and presided at the execution of the Abbot of 
 Glastonbury. Again, when Anne Boleyn fell into disgrace, 
 Russell, who was now Privy Seal, was appointed with her 
 uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, to examine into the charges 
 against her. Through all the changes of Henry's later 
 years, when the scaffold became so near a neighbor of the 
 Royal closet, Russell remained always esteemed and trusted. 
 At the birth of the young Edward he was made a peer, as 
 Baron Rassell of Cheneys. The year after he received the 
 Garter. As Warden of the Stannaries he obtained the lands 
 and mines of the suppressed Abbey of Tavistock. When 
 his old master died he was carried on with the rising tide of 
 the Reformation ; he took Miles Coverdale for his chaplain, 
 and obtained the Bishopric of Exeter for him. At his 
 house in the Strand was held the conference on the Eucha- 
 rist, when the strangest of all human superstitions was ban- 
 ished for a time from the English liturgy. Lord Russell's 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell, 325 
 
 vigorous hand suppressed the Catholic rebellion in Devon- 
 shire. The Earldom of Bedford came next. His estates 
 grew with his rank. Woburn Abbey fell to him on easy 
 terms, for the Lords of the Council were first in the field, and 
 had the pick of the spoil. Faction never tempted him out 
 of the even road. He kept aloof from the quarrels of the 
 Seymours and the Dudleys. When Somerset was attainted, 
 the choicest morsel of Somerset's forfeited estates — Covent 
 Garden and " the seven acres " — was granted to the Earl 
 of Bedford. Edward's death was a critical moment. Bed- 
 ford, like the rest of his Council, signed the instrument for 
 the succession of Lady Jane Grey. Like the rest, he 
 changed his mind when he saw Lady Jane repudiated by 
 the country. The blame of the conspiracy was thrown on 
 the extreme Protestant faction. The moderate Liberals 
 declared for Mary, and by retaining their places and their 
 influence in the Council set limits to the reaction, and se- 
 cured the next succession to Mary's sister. Mary's Gov- 
 ernment became Catholic, but Russell continued Privy Seal. 
 A rebellion broke out in Devonshire ; this time a Protes- 
 tant one. Bedford was the person who put it down. His 
 last public act was to go with Lord Paget to Spain to bring 
 a Spanish husband home for his queen. He sailed with 
 Philip from Corunna. He was at the memorable landing 
 at Southampton, and he gave away his mistress at the mar- 
 riage at Winchester. A few months later he died, after 
 fifty years of service in the most eventful period of modern 
 English history. His services were splendidly rewarded, 
 and he has been reproached in consequence as a trimmer 
 and a time-server. But revolutions are only successful 
 when they advance on a line lying between two extremes, 
 and resulting from their compound action. To be a trim- 
 mer at such a time is to have discerned the true direction in 
 which events are moving, and to be a wise man in whom 
 good sense is stronger than enthusiasm. John Russell's lot 
 was cast in an era of convulsion, when Europe was split 
 
326 Cheneys and the House of Russell. 
 
 into hostile camps, when religion was a shuttlecock of fac- 
 tion ; Catholics and Protestants, as they were alternately 
 uppermost, sending their antagonists to stake or scaffold. 
 Russell represented the true feeling of the majority of Eng- 
 lishmen. They were ready to move with the age, to shake 
 off the old tyranny of the Church, to put an end to monas- 
 tic idleness, and to repudiate the authority of the Pope. 
 But they had no inclination to substitute dogmatic Protes- 
 tantism for dogmatic Catholicism. They felt instinctively 
 that theologians knew but little, after all, of the subject for 
 which they were so eager to persecute each other, and that 
 the world had other interests beside those which were tech- 
 nically called religious ; and on one point through all that 
 trying time they were specially determined, that they would 
 have no second war in England of rival Roses, no more 
 fields of Towton or Barnet. They would work out their 
 reformation, since a reformation there was to be, within the 
 law and by the forms of it, and if enthusiasts chose to break 
 into rebellion, or even passively to refuse obedience to the 
 law like More or Fisher, they might be admired for their 
 generous spirit, but they were struck down without hesita- 
 tion or mercy. Who shall say that the resolution was not 
 a wise one. or that men who acted upon it are proper ob- 
 jects of historical invective ? 
 
 The mission to Spain roimds off John Russell's story. 
 It commenced with his introduction to Philip's grandfather. 
 It ended with Philip's marriage to the English Queen. 
 Throughout his life his political sympathies were rather 
 Imperial than French, as English feeling generally was. 
 He was gone before the Marian persecution assumed its 
 darker character ; and until the stake became so busy, a 
 wise liberal statesman might reasonably have looked on 
 Mary's marriage with her cousin as promising peace for the 
 country, and as a happy ending of an old quarrel. 
 
 Lady Anne lived to complete the Cheneys chapel ; she 
 died two years after her husband, and the Russells were 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 327 
 
 then threatened with a change of fortune. The next Earl, 
 Francis — Francis " with the big head " — was born in 
 1528. His monument stands next that of his father and 
 mother, and is altogether inferior to it. The two figures, 
 the Earl himself and the Countess Margaret, are of alabas- 
 ter like the first, and, though wanting in dignity, are not in 
 themselves wholly offensive ; but according to the vile taste 
 of the seventeenth century, they are tawdrily colored in 
 white and red and gold, and are lowered from the worthi- 
 ness of sculpture to the level of a hair-dresser's model or 
 of the painted Highlander at the door of a tobacco shop. 
 Piety in England had by this time passed over to the Puri- 
 tans, and Art, divorced from its proper inspiration, repre- 
 sented human beings as no better than wearers of State 
 clothes. The Earl " with the big head " deserves a more 
 honorable portrait of himself, or deserves at least that the 
 paint should be washed off. He was brought forward early 
 in public life. He was Sheriff of Bedfordshire when he 
 was nineteen. He sate in the Parliament of 1553, when the 
 Prayer-book was purged of idolatry. In religion, taught 
 perhaps by his mother, he was distinctly Protestant, and 
 when his father died he was laid hold of as suspect by 
 Gardiner. He escaped and joined the English exiles at 
 Geneva. At the accession of Elizabeth he was called home, 
 restored to his estates, and placed on the Privy Council, and 
 when it pleased Mary Stuart, then Queen of France, to as- 
 sume the royal arms of England, and declare herself the 
 riarhtful owner of the Ensjlish crown, the Earl of Bedford 
 was sent to Paris to require that ambitious lady to limit 
 those dangerous pretensions and to acknowledge her cousin's 
 right. 
 
 Here it was that Bedford began his acquaintance with 
 JNIary Stuart ; an acquaintance which was to be renewed 
 under more agitating conditions. At Geneva, he had been 
 intimate with the leading Reformers, Scotch as well as Eng- 
 lish. When Mary began her intrigues with the Catholic 
 
328 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 party in England, Bedford was sent to Berwick as gov- 
 ernor, where he could keep a watch over her doings, and 
 be in constant communication with Knox and Murray. He 
 received and protected Murray at the time of the Darnley 
 marriage. Ruthven fled to him after the murder of Rizzio ; 
 and from Ruthven's lips Bedford wrote down the remark- 
 able despatch, describing the details of the scene in that 
 suite of rooms at Holyrood which has passed into our his- 
 torical literature. 
 
 The Queen of Scots was regarded at this time by the 
 great body of the English people as Elizabeth's indisputa- 
 ble heir. Catholic though she might be, her hereditary 
 right was respected as Mary Tudor's had been, and had 
 Elizabeth died while Darnley was alive, she would have 
 succeeded as easily as James succeeded afterwards. When 
 James was born, he was greeted on his arrival in this world 
 as a Prince of the Blood Royal, and Bedford was sent to 
 Stirling to the christening with fine presents and compli- 
 ments from his mistress. The shadow of the approaching 
 tragedy hung over the ceremony. Bedford was conducted 
 to the nursery to see the child in his cradle. Among the 
 gifts which he had brought was a font of gold, which held 
 the water in which James was made a Christian. Mary, in 
 return, hung a chain of diamonds on Bedford's neck ; never 
 missing an opportunity of conciliating an English noble. 
 But the English ambassador was startled to observe that 
 the Queen's husband seemed of less consideration in her 
 Court than the meanest foot-boy. The Queen herself scarce 
 spoke to him ; the courtiers passed him by with disdain. 
 Bedford set it down to the murder of Rizzio, which he sup- 
 posed to be still unforgiven, and he gave Mary a kindly 
 hint that the poor wretch had friends in England whom in 
 prudence she would do well to remember. Two months 
 after came Kirk o' Field, and then the Bothwell marriage, 
 Carberry Hill, Lochleven, Langside, the flight to England, 
 the seventeen years in which the caged eagle beat her wings 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 329 
 
 against her prison bars ; and, finally, the closing scene in 
 the hall at Fotheringay. 
 
 As his father had supported the rights of Mary Tudor, 
 so the second Earl would have upheld the rights of Mary 
 Stuart till she had lost the respect of the country. But 
 after Darnley's death the general sense of England pro- 
 nounced her succession to be impossible. Bedford stood 
 loyally by his own mistress in the dangers to which she 
 was exposed from the rage of the disappointed Catholics. 
 He was not one of the Lords of the Council who were 
 chosen to examine the celebrated Casket letters, for he was 
 absent at Berwick ; but he sate on the trial of the Duke of 
 Norfolk, and he joined in sending him to the scaffold. He 
 died in 1585, two years before Mary Stuart's career was 
 ended, but not before it was foreseen what that end must 
 be. One other claim must not be forgotten which the 
 second Earl possesses upon the memory of Englishmen, 
 The famous Drake was born upon his estate at Tavistock. 
 The Earl knew and respected his parents, and was god- 
 father to their child, who derived from him the name of 
 Francis. It was strange to feel that the actual remains of 
 the man who had played a part in these great scenes were 
 lying beneath the stones half a dozen yards from me. He 
 sleeps sound, and the jangle of human discords troubles 
 him no more. 
 
 He had two sons, neither of whom is in the vaults at 
 Cheneys. Francis, the eldest, was killed while his father 
 was alive, in a skirmish on the Scotch border. William 
 fought at Zutphen by the side of Philip Sidney. For five 
 years he was Viceroy of Ireland, which he ruled at least 
 with better success than Essex, who came after him. This 
 William was made Lord Russell of Thornhaugh, and 
 brought a second peerage into the family. Their sister 
 Anne was married to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, 
 the brother of Elizabeth's Leicester. 
 
 The third Earl, Edward, was the son of Francis who 
 
330 Cheneys and the House of Russell. 
 
 was killed in the north, and succeded his grandfather when 
 a boy of eleven. In him the family genius slept. He 
 lived undistinguished and harmless, and died in 1627, hav- 
 ing left unfulfilled even the simple duty of begetting an 
 heir. He was followed by his cousin Francis, son of his 
 uncle, Lord Thornhaugh, and the divided houses again be- 
 came one. 
 
 This Francis was called the wise Earl. He was a true 
 Russell, zealous for the Constitution and the constitutional 
 liberties of England. He had been bred a lawyer, and 
 understood all the arts of Parliamentary warfare. At the 
 side of Eliot, and Pym, and Selden, he fought for the 
 Petition of Right, and carried it by his own energy through 
 the House of Lords. Naturally he made himself an object 
 of animosity to the Court, and he was sent to the Tower 
 as a reward of his courage. They could not keep him as 
 they kept Eliot, to die there. He was released, but the 
 battle had to be waged with weapons which a Russell was 
 not disposed to use. When he was released Parliamentary 
 life in England was suspended. There was no place for a 
 Russell by the side of Laud and Strafford, and Bedford set 
 himself to improve his property and drain the marshes 
 about Whittlesea and Thoiney. If solid work well done, 
 if the addition of hundreds of thousands of acres to the soil 
 available for the support of English life be a title to honor- 
 able remembrance, this Earl ranks not the lowest in the 
 Cheneys pantheon. He and his countess lie in the vault, 
 with several of their children who died in childhood ; they 
 are commemorated in a monument not ungraceful in itself, 
 were not it too daubed with paint and vulgarized by gild- 
 ing. One of the little ones is a baby, a bambino swaddled 
 round with wrappings which had probably helped to choke 
 the infant life out of it. 
 
 The wise Earl died immediately after the opening of the 
 Long Parliament. William Russell, his eldest son, had 
 been returned to the House of Commons along with Pym 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 331 
 
 as member for Tavistock. The Bedford interest doubtless 
 gave Pym his seat there. His father's death removed him 
 from the stormy atmosphere of the Lower House, and he 
 was unequal to the responsibilities which his new position 
 threw upon him. Civil war was not a theatre on which 
 any Russell was likely to distinguish himself, and Earl 
 William less than any of them. The old landmarks were 
 submerged under the deluge. He was washed from side 
 to side, fighting alternately in the field for King and Par- 
 liament. He signed the Covenant in 1645, but he found 
 Woburn a pleasanter place than the council chamber, and 
 thenceforward, till Cromwell's death, he looked on and 
 took little part in public life. Charles twice visited him ; 
 once on his way back to Oxford after his failure at Chester, 
 and again in 1647 when he was in the hands of the army, 
 then quartered between Bedford and St. Albans. It was 
 at the time of the army manifesto, when the poor King 
 imagined that he could play off Cromwell against the 
 Parliament, and in fact was playing away his own life. 
 After the negotiations were broken off, Charles went from 
 Woburn to Latimers, a place close to Cheneys, from the 
 windows of which, in the hot August days, he must have 
 looked down on the Cheneys valley and seen the same 
 meadows that now stretch along the bottom, and the same 
 hanging beech woods, and the same river sparkling among 
 its flags and rushes, and the cattle standing in the shallows. 
 The world plunges on upon its way ; generation follows 
 generation, playing its part, and then ending. The quiet 
 earth bears with them one after the other, and while all 
 else changes, itself is changed so little. 
 
 This Earl was memorable rather from what befell him 
 than from anything which he did. He was the first Duke, 
 and he was the father of Lord William, whom English 
 constitutional history has selected to honor as its chief 
 saint and martyr. The Russell s were not a family which 
 was likely to furnish martyrs. They wanted neither 
 
832 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 courage, nor general decision of character, but they were 
 cool and prudent; never changing their colors, but never 
 rushing on forlorn hopes, or throwing their lives away on 
 ill-considered enterprises. 
 
 Lord William, or Lord Russell, as he should be called, 
 had perhaps inherited some exceptional quality in his 
 blood. His mother was the beautiful Anne Carr, daughter 
 of Carr, Earl of Somerset, the favorite of James L, and of 
 Frances Howard, the divorced wife of the Earl of Essex, 
 the hero and heroine of the great Oyer of poisoning, with 
 its black surroundings of witchcraft and devilry. The old 
 Earl Francis had sate upon their trial. He had been 
 horrified when his son had proposed to marry the child of 
 so ominous a pair. But Lady Anne was not touched by 
 the crimes of her parents. Her loveliness shone perhaps 
 the more attractively against so dark a background. Her 
 character must have been singularly innocent, for she grew 
 up in entire ignorance that her mother had been tried for 
 murder. The family opposition was reluctantly withdrawn, 
 and young Russell married her. 
 
 This pair. Earl William — afterwards Duke — and the 
 Lady Anne Carr, are the chief figures in the most osten- 
 tatious monument in the Russell chapel. They are seated 
 opposite each other in an attitude of violent grief, their 
 bodies flung back, their heads buried in their hands in the 
 anguish of petrified despair. They had many children, 
 medallions of whom are ranged on either side in per- 
 pendicular rows. In the centre is the eldest — the occa- 
 sion of the sorrow so conspicuously exhibited — whose 
 head fell in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The execution of this 
 medallion is extremely good ; the likeness — if we may 
 judge from the extant portraits of Lord Russell — is very 
 remarkable. The expression is lofty and distinguished, 
 more nearly resembling that of the first Countess than 
 that of any of her other descendants ; but there is a want 
 of breadth, and the features are depressed and gloomy. 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell, 333 
 
 It is a noble face, yet a face which tells of aspirations 
 and convictions unaccompanied with the force which could 
 carry them out into successful action. It stands with a 
 sentence of doom upon it, the central object in a group of 
 sculpture which, as a whole, is affected and hysterical. A 
 man so sincere and so honorable deserves a simpler me- 
 morial, but it is not uncharacteristic of the pretentiousness 
 and unreality which have been the drapery of the modern 
 Whigs — their principles good and true in themselves, but 
 made ridiculous by the extravagance of self-laudation. 
 
 Lord Russell's wife is a beautiful figure in the story, and 
 she lies by his side in the Cheneys vault. She was Rachel 
 Wriothesley, daughter of Lord Southampton ; her mother 
 being a De Rouvigny, one of the great Huguenot families 
 in France. The tragedy of Lord Russell scarcely needs 
 repeating. The Restoration was an experiment, to try 
 whether the liberties of England were compatible with the 
 maintenance of a dynasty which was Catholic at heart, and 
 was forever leaning, as far as the times would permit, to an 
 avowal of Catholic belief. Charles IT. had been obliged to 
 hide his real creed, and pretend to Protestantism as a con- 
 dition of his return. But the Catholic party grew daily 
 stronger. Charles had no son, and the Duke of York was 
 not Catholic only, but fanatically Catholic. Lord Russell 
 led the opposition in Parliament. He shared to the bottom 
 of his heart in the old English dread and hatred of Popery. 
 He impeached Buckingham and Arlington. He believed 
 to the last in the reality of the Popish plot, and he accepted 
 Gates and DangerHeld as credible witnesses. He carried a 
 bill prohibiting Papists from sitting in Parliament. If 
 Papists could not sit in Pailiament, still less ought they to 
 be on the throne, and the House of Commons, under his in- 
 fluence, passed the Exclusion Bill, cutting off the Duke of 
 York. Russell carried it with his own hands to the House 
 of Lords, and session after session, dissolution after dissolu- 
 tion, he tried to force the Lords to agree to it. No wonder 
 
334 Cheneys and the Rouse of Russell. 
 
 that the Duke of York hated him, and would not spare him 
 when he caught him tripping. When constitutional opposi- 
 tion failed, a true Russell would have been content to wait. 
 But the husband of Lady Rachel drifted into something 
 which, if not treason, was curiously like it, and under the 
 shadow of his example a plot was formed by ruder spirits 
 to save the nation by killing both the Duke and the King. 
 Lord Russell was not privy to the Rye House affair, but he 
 admitted that he had taken part in a consultation for put- 
 ting the country in a condition to defend its liberties by 
 force, and the enemy against whom the country was to be 
 on its guard was the heir to the crown. 
 
 Martyrs may be among the best of men, but they are 
 not commonly the wisest. To them their particular theo- 
 ries or opinions contain everything which makes life of im- 
 portance, and no formula ever conceived by man is of such 
 universally comprehensive character that it must be acted 
 upon at all hazards and regardless of time and opportunity. 
 The enthusiast imagines that he alone has the courage of 
 his convictions ; but there is a faith, and perhaps a deeper 
 faith, which can stand still and wait till the fruit is ripe, 
 when it can be gathered without violence. Each has its 
 allotted part. The noble, generous spirit sacrifices itself 
 and serves the cause by suffering. The indignation of the 
 country at the execution of Sidney and Russell alienated 
 England finally and fatally from the House of Stuart. Lord 
 Russell and his friend were canonized as the saints of the 
 Revolution, but the harvest itself was gathered by states- 
 men of more common clay, yet perhaps better fitted for the 
 working business of life. 
 
 Lord Russell's trial was attended with every feature 
 which could concentrate the nation's attention upon it. 
 The Duke of York was the actual and scarcely concealed 
 prosecutor. Lady Rachel appeared in court as her hus- 
 band's secretary. It is idle to say that he was unjustly 
 convicted. He was privy to a scheme for armed resistance 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 335 
 
 to the goverument, and a government which was afraid to 
 punish him ought to have abdicated. Charles Stuart had 
 been brought back bj the deliberate will of the people. As 
 long as he was on the throne he was entitled to defend both 
 himself and his authority. Lord Russell was not, like 
 Hampden, resisting an unconstitutional breach of the law. 
 He was taking precautions against a danger which he an- 
 ticipated, but which had not yet arisen. A government 
 may be hateful, and we may admire the courage which takes 
 arms against it ; but the government, while it exists, is not 
 to be blamed for protecting itself with those weapons which 
 the law places in its hands. 
 
 He died beautifully. Every effort was made to save him. 
 His father pleaded his own exertions in bringing about the 
 Restoration. But the Duke of York was inexorable, and 
 Lord Russell was executed. The Earl was consoled after 
 the Revolution with a dukedom. His mother. Lady Anne, 
 did not live to recover from the shock of her son's death. 
 Li the midst of her wretchedness she found accidentally in 
 a room in Woburn a pamphlet with an account of the Over- 
 bury murder. For the first time she learnt the dreadful 
 story. She was found senseless, with her hand upon the 
 open page, and she never rallied from the blow. 
 
 Lady Rachel lived far into the following century, and 
 was a venerable old lady before she rejoined her husband. 
 Once at least while alive Lady Rachel visited Cheneys 
 Chapel. Her foot had stood on the same stones where 
 mine were standing ; her eyes had rested on the same sculp- 
 tured figures. 
 
 " I have accomplished it," she wrote, " and am none the 
 worse for having satisfied my longing mind, and that is a 
 little ease — such desjree of it as I must look for. I had 
 some business there, for that to me precious and delicious 
 friend desired I would make a little monument for us, and 
 I had never seen the place. I had set a day to see it with 
 him not three months before he was carried thither, but 
 was prevented by the boy's illness." 
 
336 Cheneys and the House of Russell. 
 
 " She would make a little monument." And out of that 
 modest hope of hers has grown the monstrous outrage upon 
 taste and simplicity, which we may piously hope was neither 
 designed nor approved by the admirable Lady Rachel. 
 
 Lord Kussell had pressed his devotion to the cause of 
 liberty beyond the law ; another Russell has been accused 
 of treason to the sacred traditions of the family. Edward, 
 the youngest brother of the fourth Earl Francis, who lies 
 with the rest at Cheneys, had a son. who was one of the few 
 Russells that were famous in arms, — the Admiral who won 
 tlie battle of La Hogue, saved England from invasion, and 
 was rewarded with the Earldom of Orford. Admiral Rus- 
 sell, like Marlborough, notwithstanding his brilliant services, 
 was beyond doubt in correspondence with the Court of St. 
 Germains, and equally beyond doubt held out hopes to the 
 banished King that he might desert William and carry the 
 fleet along with him. The real history of these mysterious 
 transactions is unknown, and, perhaps, never will be known. 
 William was personally unpopular. His manner was un- 
 gracious. He was guilty of the unpardonable sin of being 
 a foreigner, which Englishmen could never forgive. A res- 
 toration like that of Charles II. seemed at one time, at least, 
 one of the chances which were on the cards ; and cautious 
 politicians may not have felt that they were committing any 
 serious violation of trust in learning directly from James 
 the securities for rational liberty which he was ready to 
 concede. The negotiation ended, however, in nothing ; and 
 it is equally likely that it was intended to end in noth- 
 ing. James's own opinion was that " Admiral Russell did 
 but delude the King with the Prince of Orange's permis- 
 sion." Jt is needless to speculate on the motives of con- 
 duct, which, if we knew them, we should be unable to enter 
 into. To the student who looks back over the past, the 
 element of uncertainty is eliminated. When the future, 
 which to the living man is contingent and dim, obscuring 
 his very duties to him, has become a realized fact, no effort 
 
Cheneys and the House of BusselL 33T 
 
 of imagination will enable the subsequent inquirer to place 
 himself in a position where the fact was but floating possi- 
 bility. The services both of Churchill and Russell might 
 be held great enough to save them from the censure of 
 critics, who, in their arm-chairs at a distance of two centu- 
 ries, moralize on the meannesses of great men. 
 
 The Admiral, at any rate, is not among his kindred in 
 the Cheneys vault. He was buried at his own home, and 
 his peerage and his lineage are extinct. 
 
 The Dukedom has made no difference in the attitude of 
 the Bedford family. A more Olympian dignity has sur- 
 rounded the chiefs of the house, but they have continued, 
 without exception, staunch friends of liberty ; advocates of 
 the things called Reform and Progress, which have taken 
 the place of the old Protestant cause; and the younger 
 sons have fought gallantly, like their forefathers, in the 
 front ranks of the battle. We may let the dukes glide by 
 wearing the honors which democracy allows to stand, be- 
 cause They are gradually ceasing to have any particular 
 meaning. We pass on to the last Russell for whom the 
 vault a* Cheneys has unlocked " its marble jaws ;" the old 
 statesman who filled so large a place for half a century in 
 English public life, whose whole existence from the time 
 when he passed out of childhood was spent in sharp politi- 
 cal conflict, under the eyes of the keenest party criticisms, 
 and who carried his reputation off the stage at last, un- 
 spotted by a single act which his biographers are called on 
 
 to palliate. 
 
 To the Tories, in the days of the Reform Bill, Lord 
 John Russell was the tribune of an approaching violent 
 revolution. To the Radicals he was the Moses who was 
 leading the English nation into the promised land. The 
 alarm "and the hope were alike imaginary. The wave has 
 gone by, the crown and peerage and church and primo- 
 geniture stand where they were, and the promised land, 
 alas 1 is a land not running with corn and wine, but run- 
 
 22 
 
388 Cheneys and the Rouse of Russell. 
 
 ning only with rivers of gold, at which those who drink are 
 not refreshed. To the enthusiasts of Progress the Reform 
 Bill of 1832 was to be a fountain of life, in which society 
 was to renew its youth like the eagle. High-born ignorance 
 was to disappear from the great places of the nation ; we 
 were to be ruled only by Nature's aristocracy of genius 
 and virtue ; the inequalities of fortune were to be read- 
 justed by a truer scale ; and merit, and merit onlj?^, was to 
 be the road to employment and distinction. We need not 
 quarrel with a well-meant measure because foolish hopes 
 were built upon it. But experienced men say that no one 
 useful thing has been done by the Reformed Parliament 
 which the old Parliament would have refused to do ; and 
 for the rest, it begins to be suspected that the reform of 
 which we have heard so much is not the substitution of a 
 wise and just government for a government which was not 
 wise and just, but the abolishment of government alto- 
 gether, and the leaving each individual man to follow what 
 he calls his interest — a process under which the English 
 people are becoming a congregation of contending atoms, 
 scrambling every one of them to snatch a larger portion of 
 good things than its fellow. 
 
 It is idle to quarrel with the inevitable. Each genera- 
 tion has its work to do. Old England could continue no 
 longer ; and the problem for the statesmen of the first half 
 of this century was to make the process of transformation 
 a quiet and not a violent one. The business of Lord John 
 Russell was to save us from a second edition of the French 
 Revolution ; and if he thought that something higher or 
 better would come of it than we have seen, or are likely to 
 see, it is well that men are able to indulge in such pleasant 
 illusions to make the road the lighter for them. The 
 storms of his early life had long passed away before the 
 end came. He remained the leader of the Liberal party in 
 the House of Commons during the many years in which 
 the administration was in the Liberal hands ; and he played 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 339 
 
 his part with a prudence and good sense, of which we have 
 been more conscious, perhaps, since the late absence of these 
 qualities. Lord John Russell (or Earl Russell as he be- 
 came) never played with his country's interests for the ad- 
 vantage of his party. Calumny never whispered a suspicion 
 either of his honor or his patriotism, and Tory and Radical 
 alike followed him when he retired with affectionate re- 
 spect. In Cheneys church there is no monument of him. 
 His statue will stand appropriately in the lobby of the 
 House, where he fought and won his many battles. It 
 may be said of him, as was said of Peel, that we did not 
 realize his worth till he was taken from us. In spite of 
 progress, we have not produced another man who can make 
 us forget his loss. 
 
 Here, too, beneath the stones, lies another pair, of whom 
 the world spoke much, and knew but little — Earl Russell's 
 young son, who died prematurely before his father, and 
 that son's still younger wife. Lord Amberley also was a 
 genuine Russell, full of talent, following truth and right 
 wherever they seemed to lead him ; and had life been 
 allowed him he too would have left his mark on his srener- 
 ation. He was carried away, it was said, into extreme 
 opinions. It is no unpardonable crime. His father, too, 
 in his young days, had admired Napoleon and the French 
 Revolution ; had admired many things of which in age he 
 formed a juster estimate. We do not augur well of the 
 two-year-old colt whose paces are as sedate as those of an 
 established roadster, who never rears when he is mounted, 
 or flings out his heels in the overflow of heart and spirit. 
 Oar age has travelled fast and far in new ways, tossing off 
 traditions old as the world as if they were no better than 
 worn-out rags ; and the ardent and hopeful Amberley 
 galloped far in front in pursuit of what he called Liberty, 
 not knowing that it was a false phantom which he was 
 following ; not freedom at all, — but anarchy. The wise 
 world held up its hands in horror \ a,s if any man \yas ey^r 
 
340 Cheneys and the Home of Russell. 
 
 good for anything whose enthusiasm in his youth has not 
 outrun his understanding. Amberley, too, would have 
 learnt his lesson had time been granted him. He would 
 have learnt it in the best of schools — by his own experi- 
 ence. Happy those who have died young if they have left 
 a name as little spotted as his with grosser faults and follies. 
 
 She, too, his companion, went along with him in his 
 philosophy of progress, each most extravagant opinion 
 tempting her to play with it. True and simple in herself, 
 she had been bred in disdain of unreality. Transparent 
 as air, pure as the fountain which bubbles up from below 
 a glacier, she was encouraged by her very innocence in 
 speculations against which a nature more earthly would 
 have been on its guard. She so hated insincerity that in 
 mere wantonness she trampled on affectation and conven- 
 tionality, and she would take up and advocate theories 
 which, if put in practice, would make society impossible, 
 while she seemed to me as little touched by them herself as 
 the seagull's wings are wetted when it plunges into the 
 waves. 
 
 The singular ways of the two Amberleys were the world's 
 wonder for a season or two. The world might as well have 
 let them alone. Tlie actual arrangements of things are so 
 far from excellent that young ardent minds become Radical 
 by instinct when they first become acquainted with the 
 world as it actually is. Radicalism is tamed into reason- 
 able limits when it has battered itself for a few years against 
 the stubborn bars of fact, and the conversion is the easier 
 when the Radical is the heir of an earldom. The Amber- 
 leys, who went farther than Lord Russell had ever done 
 in the pursuit of imaginary Utopias, might have recoiled 
 farther when they learnt that they were hunting after a 
 dream. Peace be with them. They may dream on now, 
 where the world's idle tattle can touch them no more. 
 
 The ghostly pageant of the Russells has vanished. The 
 silent hours of the summer morning are past, and the sounds 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell, 341 
 
 outside tell that the hamlet is awake and at its work. The 
 quiet matron must resume the charge of the church keys, 
 that intruders may not stray into the sanctuary unpermit- 
 ted. In Catholic countries the church doors stand open ; 
 the peasant pauses on his way to the fields for a moment of 
 meditation or a few words of prayer. The kneeling figures, 
 on a week day morning, are more impressive than Sunday 
 rituals or preacher's homily. It was so once here in Che- 
 neys, in the time of the poor priest whose figure is still on 
 the wall. Was the Reformation, too, the chase of a phan- 
 tom ? The freedom of the church at all events is no longer 
 permitted here in Protestant England. I, too, must go 
 upon my way back to the village inn, where — for such 
 things have to be remembered — breakfast and a young 
 companion are waiting for me. It is worth while to spend 
 a day at Cheneys, if only for the breakfast — breakfast on 
 fresh pink trout from the Ches, fresh eggs, fresh yellow 
 butter, cream undefiled by chalk, and home-made bread un- 
 touched with alum. The Russells have been the apostles 
 of progress, but there is no progress in their own dominion. 
 The ducal warranty is on everything which is consumed 
 here. 
 
 The sun was shining an hour ago. It is now raining ; it 
 rained all yesterday; the clouds are coming up from the 
 south and the wind is soft as oil. The day is still before 
 us, and it is a day made for trout fishing. The chapel is 
 not the only attraction at Cheneys. No river in England 
 holds finer trout, nor trout more willing to be caught. Why 
 fish will rise in one stream and not in another is a problem 
 which we must wait to understand, as Bret Harte says, iu 
 " another and a better world." The Ches at any rate is 
 one of the favored waters. Great, too, is the Duke of Bed- 
 ford — great in the millions he has spent on his tenants' 
 cottages — great in the remission of his rents in the years 
 when the seasons are unpropitious — great in the adminis- 
 tration of his enormous property ; but greater than all in 
 
842 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 the management of his fishing, for if he gives you leave to 
 fish there, you have the stream for the day to yourself. 
 You are in no danger of seeing your favorite pool already 
 flogged by another sportsman, or of finding rows of figures 
 before you fringing the river bank, waving their long wands 
 in the air, each followed by his boy with basket and gener- 
 ally useless landing net. " Competition " and " the great- 
 est happiness of the greatest number " are not heard of in 
 this antique domain. A day's fishing at Cheneys means a 
 day by the best water in England in the fisherman's para- 
 dise of solitude. 
 
 Such a day's privilege had been extended to me if I 
 cared to avail myself of it, when I was coming down to see 
 the chapel, and though my sporting days were over, and 
 gun and rod had long lain undisturbed in their boxes, yet 
 neither the art of fly-fishing, nor the enjoyment of it when 
 once acquired and tasted, will leave us except with life. 
 The hand does not forget its cunning, and opportunity be- 
 gets the inclination to use it. I had brought my fishing 
 case along with me. Shall I stay at the inn over the day 
 and try what can be done ? The rain and the prospect of 
 another such breakfast decide it between them. The water- 
 keeper is at the window — best of keepers — for he will ac- 
 cept a sandwich perhaps for luncheon, a pull from your 
 flask, and a cigar out of your case, but other fee on no con- 
 dition. The rain, he tells me, lias raised the water, and the 
 large fish are on the move, the May-fly has been down for 
 two days. They were feeding on it last evening. If the 
 sky clears they will take well in the afternoon ; but the fly 
 will not show till the rain stops. 
 
 The Cheneys fishing is divided in the middle by a mill. 
 Below the mill the trout are in greatest numbers, but com- 
 paratively small ; above them is a long, still deep pool where 
 the huge monsters lie, and in common weather never stir 
 till twilight. The keeper and 1 remember a summer even- 
 ing some years ago, when at nightfall, after a burning day, 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell. 343 
 
 the glittering surface of the water was dimpled with rings, 
 and a fly thrown into the middle of these circles was an- 
 swered more than once by a rush and scream of the reel ; 
 and a struggle which the darkness made more exciting. 
 You may as well fish on the high road as in the mill-230ol 
 when the sun is above the horizon, and even at night you 
 will rarely succeed there ; but at the beginning of the May- 
 fly season these large fish sometimes run up to the rapid 
 stream at the pool head to feed. This the keeper decides 
 shall be tried if the fly comes down. For the morning he 
 will leave me to myself. 
 
 Does the reader care to hear of a day's fishing in a chalk 
 stream fifteen miles from London ? As music to the deaf, 
 as poetry to the political economist, as a mountain land- 
 scape to the London cockney, so is chalk stream trout fish- 
 inor to those who never felt their finsrers tinsjle as the line 
 whistles through the rings. For them I write no further ; 
 let them leave the page uncut and turn on to the next 
 article. 
 
 Breakfast over, I start for the lower water. I have my 
 boy with me, home for the holidays. He carries the landing 
 net, and we splash through the rain to the mill. The river 
 runs for a quarter of a mile down under hanging bushes. 
 As with other accomplishments when once learnt, eye and 
 hand do the work in fly-fishing without reference to the 
 mind for orders. The eye tells the hand how distant the 
 bushes are, how near the casting line approaches them. If 
 a gust of wind twists it into a heap, or sweeps it towards a 
 dangerous bough, the wrist does something on the instant 
 which sends the fly straight and unharmed into the water. 
 Practice gives our different organs functions like the in- 
 stinct of animals, who do what their habits require, yet 
 know not what they do. 
 
 The small fish take freely — some go back into the water, 
 the few in good condition into the basket, which, after a 
 field or two, becomes perceptibly heavier. The governor. 
 
344 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 a small humble bee, used to be a good fly at Cheneys, and 
 so did the black alder. Neither of them is of any use to- 
 day. The season has been cold and late. The March 
 brown answers best, with the never - failing red -spinner. 
 After running rapidly through two or three meadows, the 
 river opens into a broad smooth shallow, where the trout 
 are larger, and the water being extremely clear, are spe- 
 cially difficult to catch. In such a place as this, it is use- 
 less to throw your fly at random upon the stream. You 
 must watch for a fish which is rising, and you must fish for 
 him till you either catch him or disturb him. It is not 
 enough to go below him and throw upwards, for tliougti he 
 lies with his head up-stream, his projecting eye looks back 
 over his shoulders. You must hide behind a bunch of 
 rushes. You must crawl along the grass with one arm only 
 raised. If the sun is shining and the shadow of your rod 
 glances over the gravel, you may get up and walk away. 
 No fish within siojht will stir then to the daintiest cast. 
 
 I see a fish close to the bank on the opposite side, lazily 
 lifting his head as a fly floats past him. It is a long throw, 
 but the wind is fair and he is worth an effort — once, 
 twice, three times I fail to reach him. The fourth I land 
 the fly on the far bank, and draw it gently off upon his 
 very nose. He swirls in the water like a salmon as he 
 sweeps round to seize it. There is a splash — a sharp jerk, 
 telling unmistakably that something has given way. A 
 large fish may break you honestly in weeds or round a rock 
 or stump, and only fate is to blame, but to let yourself be 
 broken on the first strike is unpardonable. What can have 
 happened? Alas, the red-spinner has snapped in two at the 
 
 turn — a new fly bought last week at 's, whose boast it 
 
 has been that no fly of his was ever known to break or bend. 
 
 One grumbles on these occasions, for it is always the 
 best fish which one loses ; and as imagination is free, one 
 may call him what weight one pleases. The damage is soon 
 repaired. The basket fills fast as trout follows trout. It 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell, 345 
 
 still rains, and I begin to think that I have had enough of 
 it. I have promised to be at the mill at midday, and then 
 we shall see. 
 
 Evidently the sky means mischief. Black thunder-clouds 
 pile up to windward, and heavy drops continue falling. But 
 there is a break in the south as I walk back by the bank — 
 a gleam of sunshine spans the valley with a rainbow, and 
 an actual May-fly or two sails by, which I see greedily 
 swallowed. The keeper is waiting ; he looks scornfully 
 into my basket. Fish — did I call these herrings fish ? I 
 must try the upper water at all events. The large trout 
 were feeding, but the fly was not yet properly on — we can 
 have our luncheon first. 
 
 How pleasant is luncheon on mountain-side or river's 
 bank, when you fling yourself down on fern or heather 
 after your morning's work, and no daintiest entree had ever 
 such flavor as your sandwiches, and no champagne was 
 ever so exquisite as the fresh stream water just tempered 
 fi'om your whisky flask. Then follows the smoke, when 
 the keeper fills his pipe at your bag, and old adventures are 
 talked over, and the conversation wanders on through an- 
 ecdotes and experiences, till, as you listen to the shrewd 
 sense and kindly feeling of your companion, you become 
 aware that the steep difference which you had imagined to 
 be created by education and habits of life had no existence 
 save in your own conceit. Fortune is less unjust than she 
 seems, and true hearts and clear-judging healthy minds are 
 bred as easily in the cottage as the palace. 
 
 But time runs on, and I must hasten to the end of my 
 story. The short respite from the wet is over. Down falls 
 the rain again — rain not to be measured by inches, but by 
 feet ; rain such as has rarely been seen in England before 
 this "asstas mirabilis" of 1879. It looks hopeless, but the 
 distance by the road to the top of the water is not great. 
 We complain if we are caught in a shower ; we splash 
 along in a deluge, in boots and waterproof, as composedly 
 
346 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 as if we were seals or otters. The river is rising, and, as 
 seldom happens with a chalk stream, it is growing dis- 
 colored. Every lane is running with a brown stream, 
 which finds its way at last into the main channel. The 
 highest point is soon reached. The first hundred yards are 
 shallow, and to keep the cattle from straying a high iron rail- 
 ing runs along the bank. Well I knew that iron railing. 
 You must stand on the lower bar to fish over it. If you hook 
 a trout you must play him from that uneasy perch in a rapid 
 current among weeds and stones, and your attendant must 
 use his landing net through the bars. Generally it is the 
 liveliest spot in the river, but nothing can be done there to- 
 day. There is a ford immediately above, into which the 
 thick road-water is pouring, and the fish cannot see the fly. 
 Shall we give it up? Not yet. Further down the mud 
 settles a little, and by this time even the road has been 
 washed clean, and less dirt comes off it. The flood stirs 
 the trout into life and hunger, and their eyes, accustomed 
 to the transparency of the chalk water, do not see you so 
 quickly. 
 
 Below the shallow there is a pool made by a small weir, 
 over which the flood is now rushing ; on one side there is 
 an open hatchway, with the stream pouring through. The 
 banks are bushy, and over the deepest part of the pool the 
 stem of a large ash projects into the river. Yesterday, when 
 the water was lower, the keeper saw a four-pounder lying 
 under that stem. Between the weir and the trees it is an 
 awkward spot, but difficulty is the charm of fly-fishing. The 
 dangerous drop fly must be taken off ; a drop fly is only fit 
 for open water, where there is neither weed nor stump. 
 The March brown is sent skimming at the tail of the cast- 
 ing line, to be dropped, if possible, just above the ash, and 
 to be carried under it by the stream. It has been caught in 
 a root, so it seems ; or it is foul somewhere. Surely no 
 fish ever gave so dead a pull. No ; it is no root. The line 
 shoots under the bank. There is a broad flash of white just 
 
Cheneys and the Rouse of Russell. 347 
 
 below the surface, a moment's struggle, the rod springs 
 straiofht, and the line comes back unbroken. The March 
 brown is still floating at the end of it. It was a big fish, 
 perhaps the keeper's very big one ; he must have beea 
 lightly hooked, and have rubbed the fly out of his mouth. 
 But let us look closer. The red-spinner had played false 
 in the morning ; ma}^ not something like it have befallen 
 the March brown ? Something like it, indeed. The hook 
 has straightened out as if, instead of steel, it had beeu 
 made of copper. A pretty business ! I try another, and 
 another, with the same result. The heavy trout take them, 
 
 and one bends and the next breaks. Oh ! — ! Well 
 
 for Charles Kingsley that he was gone before he heard of a 
 treason which would have broken his trust in man. You, 
 in whose praise I have heard him so often eloquent! You 
 who never dealt in shoddy goods. You who were faithful 
 if all else were faithless, and redeemed the credit of 
 Eno-lish tradesmen ! You had not then been in the school 
 of progress and learnt that it was the buyer's business to 
 distinguish good from bad. You never furnished your 
 customers with cheap and nasty wares, fair looking to the 
 eye and worthless to the touch and trial. In those days 
 you dealt with gentlemen, and you felt and traded like a 
 gentleman yourself. And now you, too, have gone the 
 way of your fellows. You are making a fortune, as you 
 call it, out of the reputation which you won honorably in 
 better days. You have given yourself over to competition 
 and semblance. You have entered for the race among the 
 sharpers and will win by knavery and tricks like the rest. 
 I will not name you for the sake of the old times, when 
 C. K. and I could send you a description of a fly from the 
 furthest corner of Ireland, and by return of post would 
 come a packet tied on hooks which Kendal and Limerick 
 might equal, but could not excel. You may live on un- 
 denounced for me ; but read C. K.'s books over again ; re- 
 pent of your sins, go back to honest ways, and renounce 
 
348 Cheneys and the House of Russell, 
 
 the new gospel, in which whosoever believes shall not be 
 saved. 
 
 But what is to be done ? Spite of the rain the river is 
 .now covered with drowned May-flies, and the trout are 
 taking them all round. I have new May-flies from the 
 same quarter in my book, but it will be mere vexation to 
 try them. Luckily for me there are a few old ones sur- 
 viving from other days. The gut is brown with age — but 
 I must venture it. If this breaks I will go home, lock 
 away my rod, and write an essay on the effects of the sub- 
 stitution of Political Economy for the Christian faith. 
 
 On, then, goes one of these old flies. It looks well. It 
 bears a mild strain, and, like Don Quixote with his helmet, 
 I will not put it to a severe trial. Out it shoots over the 
 pool, so natural-looking that T cannot distinguish it from a 
 real fly which floats at its side. I cannot, nor can that 
 laro^e trout in the smooth water above the fall. He takes 
 it, springs into the air, and then darts at the weir to throw 
 himself over. If he goes down he is lost. Hold on. He 
 has the stream to help him, and not an inch of line can be 
 spared. The rod bends double, but the old gut is true. 
 Down the fall he is not to go. He turns up the pool, he 
 makes a dart for the hatchway, — but if you can stand a 
 trout's first rush you need not fear him in fair water after- 
 wards. A few more efforts and he is in the net and on the 
 bank, not the keeper's four-pounder, but a handsome fish 
 which I know that he will approve. 
 
 He had walked down the bank pensively while I was in 
 the difficulty with my flies, m.editating, perhaps, on idle 
 gentlemen, and reflecting that if the tradesmen were knaves 
 the gentlemen were correspondingly fools. He called to 
 me to come to him just as I had landed my trout. He was 
 standing by the side of the rapid stream at the head of the 
 mill pool. It was as he had foretold ; the great fish had 
 come up, and were rolling like salmon on the top of the 
 water, gulping down the May-flies. Even when they are 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell, 349 
 
 thus carelessly ravenous, the clearness of the river creates 
 a certain difficulty in catching them in ordinary times, but 
 to-day the flood made caution superfluous. They were 
 splashing on the surface close to our feet, rolling about in 
 a negligent gluttony which seemed to take from them every 
 thought of danger, for a distance of at least three hundred 
 yards. 
 
 There was no longer any alarm for the tackle and it was 
 but to throw the fly upon the river, near or far, for a trout 
 instantly to seize it. There was no shy rising where sus- 
 picion balks the appetite. The fish were swallowing with 
 a deliberate seriousness every fly which drifted within their 
 reach, snapping their jaws upon it with a gulp of satisfac- 
 tion. The only difficulty was in playing them when 
 hooked with a delicate chalk-stream casting-line. For an 
 hour and a half it lasted, such an hour and a half of trout 
 fishino- as I had never seen and shall never see asfain. The 
 ease of success at last became wearisome. Two large 
 baskets were filled to the brim. Accident had thrown in 
 my way a singular opportunity which it would have been 
 wrong to abuse, so I decided to stop. We emptied out our 
 spoils upon the grass, and the old keeper said that long as 
 he had known the river he had never but once seen so 
 many fish of so large size taken in the Ches in a single day 
 by a single rod. 
 
 How can a reasonable creature find pleasure in having 
 performed such an exploit? If trout were wanted for 
 human food, a net would have answered the purpose with 
 less trouble to the man and less annoyance to the fish. 
 Throughout creation man is the only animal — man, and 
 the dogs and cats which have learnt from him — who kills, 
 for the sake of killing, what he does not want, and calls it 
 sport. All other animals seize their prey only when hun- 
 gry, and are satisfied when tlieir hunger is appeased. 
 
 Such, it can only be answered, is man's disposition. He 
 is a curiously formed creatuie, and the appetite for sport 
 
350 Oheneys and the House of Russell. 
 
 does not seem to disappear with civilization. The savage 
 in his natural state hunts, as the animals hunt, to support 
 his life ; the sense of sport is strongest in the elaborately 
 educated and civilized. It may be that the taste will die 
 out before " Progress." Our descendants perhaps, a few 
 generations hence, may look back upon a pheasant battue 
 as we look back on bear-baiting and bull-fighting, and our 
 mild offspring, instructed in the theory of development, 
 may see a proof in their fathers' habits that they come of a 
 race who were once crueller than tigers, and will congratu- 
 late themselves on the change. So they will think, if they 
 judge us as we judge our forefathers of the days of the 
 Plantagenets and Tudors, and both we and they may be 
 perhaps mistaken. Half the lives of men in mediaeval 
 Europe was spent in fighting. Yet from mediaeval Europe 
 came the knightly graces of courtesy and chivalry. The 
 modern soldier, wliose trade is war, yet hates and dreads 
 war more than civilians dread it. The sportsman's knowl- 
 edge of the habits of animals gives him a kindly feeling 
 towards them notwithstanding, and sporting tends rather to 
 their preservation than their destruction. The human race 
 may become at last vegetarians and water-drinkers. Astrsea 
 may come back, and man may cease to take the life of 
 bird, or beast, or fish. But the lion wil] not lie down with 
 the lamb, for lambs and lions will no longer be ; the eagle 
 will not feed beside the dove, for doves will not be allowed 
 to consume grain which might have served as human food, 
 and will be extinct as the dodo. It may be all right and 
 fit and proper : a world of harmless vegetarians may be the 
 appropriate outcome of the development of humanity. But 
 we who have been born in a ruder age do not aspire to rise 
 beyond tlie level of our own times. We have toiled, we 
 have suffered, we have enjoyed, as the nature which we 
 have received has prompted us. We blame our fathers' 
 habits ; our children may blame ours in turn ; yet we may 
 be sitting in judgment, both of us, on matters of which we 
 know nothing. 
 
Cheneys and the House of Russell, 351 
 
 The storm has passed away, the dripping trees are spark- 
 ling in the warm and watery sunset. Back, then, to our 
 inn, where dinner waits for us, the choicest of our own 
 trout, pink as salmon, with the milky curd in them, and no 
 sauce to spoil the delicacy of their flavor. Then bed, with 
 its lavender-scented sheets and white curtains, and sleep, 
 sound sweet sleep, that loves the country village and comes 
 not near a London bedroom. In the morning, adieu to 
 Cheneys, with its red gable-ends and chimneys, its venera- 
 ble trees, its old-world manners, and the solemn memories 
 of its mausoleum. Adieu, too, to the river, which, " though 
 men may come and men may go," has flowed and will flow 
 on for ever, winding among its reed beds, murmuring over 
 its gravelly fords, heedless of royal dynasties, uncaring 
 whether Cheney or Russell calls himself lord of it waters, 
 graciously turning the pleasant corn mills in its course, un- 
 polluted by the fetid refuse of manufactures, and travelling 
 on to the ocean bright and pure and uncharged with poison, 
 as in the old times when the priest sung mass in the church 
 upon the hill, and the sweet, soft matins bell woke the 
 hamlet to its morning prayers. 
 
A SIDING AT A RAILWAY STATION. 
 
 FRAZER'S MAGAZINE. 1879. 
 
 » 
 
 Some years ago I was travelling by railway, no matter 
 whence or whither. I was in a second-class carriage. We 
 had been long on the road, and had still some distance 
 before us, when one evening our journey was brought un- 
 expectedly to an end by the train running into a siding. 
 The guards opened the doors, we were told that we could 
 proceed no further, and were required to alight. The 
 passengers were numerous, and of all ranks and sorts. 
 There were third class, second, first, with saloon carriages 
 for several great persons of high distinction. We had 
 ministers of state, judges on circuit, directors, leading men 
 of business, idle young men of family who were out amus- 
 ing themselves, an archbishop, several ladies, and a duke 
 and duchess with their suite. These favored travellers 
 had Pullman cars to themselves and occupied as much room 
 as was allotted to scores of plebeians. I had amused my- 
 self for several days in observing the luxurious appurte- 
 nances by which they were protected against discomfort — 
 the piles of cushions and cloaks, the baskets of dainties, the 
 novels and magazines to pass away the time, and the pro- 
 found attention which they met with from the conductors 
 and station-masters on the line. The rest of us were a 
 miscellaneous crowd — commercial people, lawyers, artists, 
 men of letters, tourists moving about for pleasure or be- 
 cause they had nothing to do ; and in the third-class car- 
 riages, artisans and laborers in search of work, women look- 
 ing for husbands or for service, or beggars flying from 
 starvation in one part of the world to find it follow them 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station. 353 
 
 like their shadows, let them go where they pleased. All 
 these were huddled together, feeding hardly on such poor 
 provisions as they carried with them or could pick up at the 
 stopping-places. No more consideration was shown them 
 than if they had been so many cattle. But they were 
 merry enough: songs and sounds of laughter came from 
 their windows, and notwithstanding all their conveniences, 
 the languid-looking fine people in the large compartments 
 seemed to me to get through their journey with less enjoy- 
 ment after all than their poor fellow-travellers. These last 
 appeared to be of tougher texture, to care less for being 
 jolted and shaken, to be better-humored and kinder to one 
 another. They had found life go hard with them wherever 
 they had been, and not being accustomed to have every- 
 thing which they wished for, they were less selfish and more 
 considerate. 
 
 The intimation that our journey was for the present at 
 an end came on most of us as an unpleasant surprise. The 
 grandees got out in a high state of indignation. They 
 called for their servants, but their servants did not hear 
 them, or laughed and passed on. The conductors had for- 
 gotten to be obsequious. All classes on the platform were 
 suddenly on a level. A beggar-woman hustled the duchess 
 as she was standing astonished because her maid had left 
 her to carry her own bag. The patricians were pushed 
 about among the crowd with no more concern than if they 
 had been common mortals. They demanded loudly to see 
 the station-master. The minister complained angrily of the 
 delay ; an important negotiation would be imperilled by his 
 detention, and he threatened the company with the dis- 
 pleasure of his department. A consequential youth who 
 had just heard of the death of his elder brother was flying 
 home to take his inheritance. A great lady had secured, as 
 she had hoped, a brilliant match for her daughter; her work 
 ^ over, she had been at the baths to recover from the dissipa- 
 ^tion of the season; difficulty had risen unlocked for, and 
 
 23 
 
354 A Siding at a Railway Station, 
 
 unless she was at hand to remove it, the worst consequences 
 might be feared. A banker declared that the credit of a 
 leading commercial house might fail unless he could be at 
 home on the day fixed for his return : he alone could save 
 it. A solicitor had the evidence in his portmanteau which 
 would determine the succession to the lands and title of 
 an ancient family. An elderly gentleman was in despair 
 about his young wife whom he had left at home ; he had 
 made a will by which she was to lose his fortune if she 
 married again after his death, but the will was lying in his 
 desk unsigned. The archbishop was on his way to a synod 
 where the great question was to be discussed whether gas 
 might be used at the altar instead of candles. The altar 
 candles were blessed before they were used, and the doubt 
 was whether gas could be blessed. The right reverend prel- 
 ate conceived that if the gas tubes were made in the shape 
 of candles the difficulty could be got over, but he feared 
 that without his moderating influence the majority might 
 come to a rash decision. All these persons were clamoring 
 over their various anxieties with the most naive frankness, 
 the truth coming freely out, whatever it might be. One 
 distinguished looking lady in deep mourning, with a sad 
 gentle face, alone was resigned and hopeful. It seemed 
 that her husband had been stopped not long before at the 
 same station. She thought it possible that she might meet 
 him again. 
 
 The station-master listened to the complaints with com- 
 posed indifference. He told the loudest that they need not 
 alarm themselves. The State would survive the absence 
 of the minister. The minister, in fact, was not thinking 
 of the State at all, but of the party triumph which he ex- 
 pected ; and the peerage which was to be his reward, the 
 station-master said would now be of no use to him. The 
 youth had a second brother who would succeed instead of 
 him, and the tenants would not be inconvenienced by the 
 change. The fine lady's daughter would marry to her own 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station. 355 
 
 liking instead of her mother's, and would be all the happier 
 for it. The commercial house was already insolvent, and 
 the longer it lasted the more innocent people would be 
 ruined by it. The boy whom the lawyer intended to make 
 into a rich baronet was now working industriously at school, 
 and would grow up a useful man. If a great estate fell in 
 to him he would be idle and dissolute. The old man might 
 congratulate himself that he had escaped so soon from the 
 scrape into which he had fallen. His wife would marry an 
 adventurer, and would suffer worse from inheriting his 
 fortune. The archbishop was commended for his anxiety. 
 His solution of the candle problem was no doubt an excel- 
 lent one ; but his clergy were now provided with a harm- 
 less subject to quarrel over, and if it was adopted they 
 might fall out over something else which might be seriously 
 mischievous. 
 
 " Do you mean, then, that you are not going to send us 
 forward at all ? " the minister inquired sternly. 
 
 " You will see," the station-master answered with a curi- 
 ous short laugh. I observed that he looked more gently at 
 the lady in mourning. She had said nothing, but he knew 
 what was in her mind, and though he held out no hope in 
 words that her wish would be gratified, he smiled sadly, and 
 the irony passed out of his face. 
 
 The crowd, meanwhile, were standing about the platform 
 whistling tunes or amusing themselves, not ill-naturedly, at 
 the distress of their grand companions. Something con- 
 siderable was happening. But they had so long experienced 
 the ups and downs of things that they were prepared for 
 what fortune might send. They had not expected to find a 
 Paradise where they were going, and one place might be as 
 good as another. They had nothing belonging to them ex- 
 cept the clothes they stood in and their bits of skill in their 
 different trades. Wherever men were, there would be need 
 of cobblers and tailors, and smiths and carpenters. If not, 
 they might fall on their feet somehow if there was work to 
 be done of any sort. 
 
356 A Siding at a Railway Station, 
 
 Presently a bell rang, a door was flung open, and we 
 were ordered into a waiting-room, where we were told that 
 our luggage was to be examined. It was a large, barely 
 furnished apartment, like the salle d'attente at the Northern 
 Railway Station at Paris. A rail ran across, behind which 
 we were all penned ; opposite to us was the usual long table, 
 on which were piled boxes, bags, and portmanteaus, and be- 
 hind them stood a row of officials, in a plain uniform with 
 gold bands round their caps, and the dry peremptory man- 
 ner which passengers accustomed to deference so particu- 
 larly dislike. At their backs was a screen extending across 
 the room, reaching half way to the ceiling ; in the rear of 
 it there was apparently an office. 
 
 We each looked to see that our particular belongings were 
 safe, but we were surprised to find that we could recognize 
 none of them. Packages there were in plenty, alleged to 
 be the property of the passengers who had come in by the 
 train. They were arranged in the three classes — first, sec- 
 ond, and third — but the proportions were inverted : most 
 of it was labelled as the luggage of the travellers in fustian, 
 who had brought nothing with them but what they carried 
 in their hands ; a moderate heap stood where the second- 
 class luggage should have been, and some of superior qual- 
 ity, but none of us could make out the shapes of our own 
 trunks. As to the grand ladies and gentlemen, the innu- 
 merable articles which I had seen put as theirs into the van 
 were nowhere to be found. A few shawls and cloaks lay 
 upon the planks, and that was all. There was a loud out- 
 cry, but the officials were accustomed to it, and took no 
 notice. The station-master, who was still in charge of us, 
 said briefly that the saloon luggage would be sent forward 
 in the next train. The late owners would have no more 
 use for it, and it would be delivered to their friends. 
 
 The late owners ! Were we no longer actual owners, 
 then ? My individual loss was not great, and, besides, it 
 might be made up to me, for I saw my name on a strange 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station, 357 
 
 box on the table, and being of curious disposition, the sin- 
 gularity of the adventure made it interesting to me. The 
 consternation of the rest was indescribable. The minister 
 supposed that he had fallen among Communists, who disbe- 
 lieved in property, and was beginning a speech on the ele- 
 mentary conditions of society, when silence was called, and 
 the third-class passengers were ordered to advance, that 
 their boxes might be opened. Each man had his own care- 
 fully docketed. The lids flew off, and within, instead of 
 clothes and shoes and dressing apparatus and money and 
 jewels and such like, were simply samples of the work 
 which he had done in his life. There was an account-book, 
 also, in which was entered the number of days which he 
 had worked, the number and size of the fields, etc., which 
 he had drained and enclosed and ploughed, the crops which 
 he had reaped, the walls which he had built, the metal 
 which he had dug out and smelted and fashioned into arti- 
 cles of use to mankind, the leather which he had tanned, 
 the clothes which he had woven — all entered with punctual 
 exactness ; and on the opposite page, the wages which he 
 had received, and the share which had been allotted to him 
 of the good things which he had helped to create. 
 
 Besides his work, so specifically called, there were his 
 actions — his affection for his parents, or his wife and chil- 
 dren, his self-denials, his charities, his purity, his truth, his 
 honesty, or, it might be, ugly catalogues of sins and oaths 
 and drunkenness and brutality. But inquiry into action 
 was reserved for a second investigation before a higher 
 commissioner. The first examination was confined to the 
 literal work done by each man for the general good — how 
 much he had contributed, and how much society had done 
 for him in return ; and no one, it seemed, could be allowed 
 to go any further without a certificate of having passed this 
 test satisfactorily. With the workmen, the balance in most 
 instances was found enormously in their favor. The state 
 of the case was so clear that the scrutiny was rapidly got 
 
358 A Siding at a Hailway Station, 
 
 over, and they and their luggage were passed in to the 
 higher court. A few were found whose boxes were empty, 
 who had done nothing useful all their lives, and had sub- 
 sisted by begging and stealing. These were ordered to 
 stand aside till the rest of us had been disposed of. 
 
 The saloon passengers were taken next. Most of them, 
 who had nothing at all to show, were called up together, 
 and were asked what they had to say for themselves. A 
 well-dressed gentleman, who spoke for the rest, said that 
 the whole investigation was a mystery to him. He and his 
 friends had been born to good fortunes, and had found 
 themselves, on entering upon life, amply provided for. 
 They had never been told that work was required of them, 
 either work with their hands or work with their heads — in 
 fact, work of any kind. It was right, of course, for the 
 poor to work, because they could not honestly live other- 
 wise. For themselves, they had spent their time in amuse- 
 ments, generally innocent. They had paid for everything 
 which they had consumed. They had stolen nothing, taken 
 nothing from any man by violence or fraud. They had 
 kept the commandments, all ten of them, from the time 
 when they were old enough to understand them. The 
 speaker, at least, declared that he had no breach of any 
 commandment on his own conscience, and he believed he 
 might say as much of his companions. They were superior 
 people, who had been always looked up to and well spoken 
 of, and to call upon them to show what they had done was 
 against reason and equity. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the chief official, " we have heard this 
 many times ; yet as often as it is repeated we feel fresh 
 astonishment. You have been in a world where work is 
 the condition of life. Not a meal can be had by any man 
 that some one has not worked to produce. Those who 
 work deserve to eat ; those who do not work deserve to 
 starve. There are but three ways of living : by working, 
 by stealing, or by begging. Those who have not lived by 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station. 359 
 
 the first have lived by one of the other two. And no mat- 
 ter how superior you think yourselves, you will not pass 
 here till you have something of your own to produce. You 
 have had your wages beforehand — ample wages, as you 
 acknowledge yourselves. What have you to show ? " 
 
 " Wages ! " the speaker said. " We are not hired ser- 
 vants ; we received no wages. What we spent was our 
 own. All the orders we received were that we were not 
 to do wrong. We have done no wrong. I appeal to the 
 higher court." 
 
 But the appeal could not be received. To all who pre- 
 sented themselves with empty boxes, no matter who they 
 were, or how excellent their characters appeared to one an- 
 other, there was the irrevocable answer, " No admittance, 
 , till you come better furnished." All who were in this con- 
 dition, the duke and duchess among them, were ordered to 
 stand aside with the thieves. The duchess declared that 
 she had given the finest parties in the season, and as it was 
 universally agreed that they had been the most tedious, and 
 that no one had found any pleasure there, a momentary 
 doubt rose whether they might not have answered some 
 useful purpose in disgusting people with such modes of en- 
 tertainment ; but no evidence of this was forthcoming : the 
 world had attended them because the world had nothing 
 else to do ; and she and her guests had been alike unprofit- 
 able. Thus the large majority of the saloon passengers was 
 disposed of. The minister, the archbishop, the lawyer, the 
 banker, and others, who, although they had no material 
 work credited to them, had yet been active and laborious in 
 their different callings, were passed to the superior judges. 
 
 Our turn came next, — ours of the second class, — and a 
 motley gathering we were. Busy we must all have been, 
 from the multitude of articles which we found assigned to 
 us. Manufacturers with their wares, solicitors with their 
 lawsuits, doctors and clergymen with the bodies and souls 
 which they had saved or lost, authors with their books. 
 
360 A Siding at a Railway Station, 
 
 painters and sculptors with their pictures and statues. But 
 the hard test was applied to all that we had produced, — the 
 wages which we had received on one side, and the value of 
 our exertions to mankind on the other, — and imposing as 
 our performances looked when laid out to be examined, we 
 had been paid, most of us, out of all proportion to what we 
 were found to have deserved. I was reminded of a large 
 compartment in the Paris Exhibition, where an active gen- 
 tleman, wishing to show the state of English literature, had 
 collected copies of every book, review, pamphlet, or news- 
 paper which had been published in a single year. The 
 bulk was overwhelming, but the figures were only decimal 
 points, and the worth of the whole was a fraction above 
 zero. A few of us were turned back summarily among 
 the thieves and the fine gentlemen and ladies : speculators 
 who had done nothing but handle money which had clung 
 to their fingers in passing through them, divines who had 
 preached a morality which they did not practise, and fluent 
 orators who had made speeches which they knew to be non- 
 sense, philosophers who had spun out of moonshine systems 
 of the universe, distinguished pleaders who had defeated 
 justice while they established points of law, writers of 
 books upon subjects of which they knew enough to mis- 
 lead their readers, purveyors of luxuries which had added 
 nothing to human health or strength, physicians and 
 apothecaries who had pretended to knowledge which they 
 knew that they did not possess, — these all, as the contents 
 of their boxes bore witness against them, were thrust back 
 into the rejected herd. 
 
 There were some whose account stood better as having 
 at least produced something of real merit, but they were 
 cast on the point of wages ; modest excellence had come 
 badly off ; the plausible and unscrupulous had thriven and 
 grown rich. It was tragical, and evidently a surprise to 
 most of us, to see how mendacious we had been : how we 
 had sanded our sugar, watered our milk, scamped our car- 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station. 361 
 
 pentering and mason's work, literally and metaphorically ; 
 how in all things we had been thinking less of producing 
 good work than of the profit which we could make out of 
 it; how we had sold ourselves to tell lies and act them, 
 because the public found lies pleasant and truth expensive 
 and troublesome. Some of us were manifest rogues, who 
 had bought cheap and sold dear, had used false measures 
 and weights, had made cotton pass for wool, and hemp for 
 silk, and tin for silver. The American pedlar happened to 
 be in the party who had put a rind upon a grindstone and 
 had sold it as a cheese. These were jiromptly sifted out 
 and placed with their fellows ; only persons whose services 
 were on the whole greater than the pay which they had re- 
 ceived were allowed their certificates. When my own box 
 was opened, I perceived that though the wages had been 
 small the work done seemed smaller still, and I was sur- 
 prised to find myself among those who had passed. 
 
 The whistle of a train was heard at this moment coming 
 in upon the main line. It was to go on in half an hour, 
 and those who had been turned back were told that they 
 were to proceed by it to the place where they had been 
 originally going. They looked infinitely relieved at the 
 news ; but, before they started, a few questions had to be 
 put to them, and a few alterations made which were to 
 affect their future. They were asked to explain how they 
 had come to be such worthless creatures. They gave many 
 answers, which came mainly to the same thing. Circum- 
 stances had been against them. It was all owing to cir- 
 cumstances. They had been badly brought up. They had 
 been placed in situations where it had been impossible for 
 them to do better. The rich people repeated that they had 
 never been informed that any work was expected of them. 
 Their wants had all be^n provided for, and it was unfair to 
 expect that they should have exerted themselves of their 
 own accord when they had no motive for working. If they 
 had only been born poor all would have gone well with 
 
362 A Siding at a Railway Station. 
 
 them. The cheating tradesman declared that the first duty 
 of a shopkeeper, according to all received principles, was 
 to make money and better his condition. It was the 
 buyer's business to see to the quality of the articles which 
 he purchased ; the shopkeeper was entitled to sell his wares 
 at the highest price which he could get for them. So, at 
 least, it was believed and taught by the recognized authori- 
 ties on the subject. The orators, preachers, newspaper 
 writers, novel-writers, etc., etc., of whom there were a great 
 many, appealed to the crowds who came to listen to them, 
 or bought and read their productions. Tout le 7nonde, it 
 was said, was wiser than the wisest single sage. They had 
 given the world what the world wished for and approved ; 
 they had worked at supplying it with all their might, and 
 it was extremely hard to blame them for guiding them- 
 selves by the world's judgment. The thieves and vaga- 
 bonds argued that they had been brought into existence 
 without their consent being asked : they had not wished for 
 it ; although they had not been without their pleasures, 
 they regarded existence on the whole as a nuisance which 
 they would gladly have been spared. Being alive, how- 
 ever, they had to keep alive ; and for all that they could 
 see, they had as full a right to the good things which the 
 world contained as anybody else, provided they could get 
 them. They were called thieves. Law and language were 
 made by the property owners, who were their natural 
 enemies. If society had given them the means of living 
 honestly they would have found it easy to be honest. 
 Society had done nothing for them — why should they do 
 anything for society ? 
 
 So, in their various ways, those who had been " plucked '* 
 defended themselves. They were all delighted to hear that 
 they were to have another chance ; and I was amused to 
 observe that though some of them had pretended that 
 they had not wished to be born, and had rather not have 
 been born, not one of them protested against being sent 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station, 363 
 
 back. All they asked was that they should be put in a 
 new position, and that the adverse influences should be 
 taken off. I expected that among these adverse influences 
 they would have mentioned the faults of their own dis- 
 positions. My own opinion had been that half the mis- 
 doings of men came from congenital defects of character 
 which they had brought with them into the world, and 
 that constitutional courage, right-mindedness, and practical 
 ability were as much gifts of nature or circumstance as the 
 accidents of fortune. A change in this respect was of 
 more consequence than in any other. But with themselves 
 they were all apparently satisfied, and they required only 
 an improvement in their surroundings. The alterations 
 were rapidly made. The duchess was sent to begin her 
 life again in a laborer's cottage. She was to attend the 
 village school, and rise thence into a housemaid. The fine 
 gentleman was made a ploughboy. The authors and 
 preachers were to become mechanics, and bound appren- 
 tices to carpenters and blacksmiths. A philosopher, who, 
 having had a good fortune and unbroken health, had in- 
 sisted that the world was as good as it could be made, was 
 to be born blind and paralytic, and to find his way through 
 life under the new conditions. The thieves and cheats, 
 who pretended that their misdemeanors were due to pov- 
 erty, were to find themselves, when they arrived in the 
 world again, in palaces surrounded with luxury. The cup 
 of Lethe was sent round. The past became a blank. They 
 were hurried into the train ; the engine screamed and flew 
 away with them. 
 
 *' They will be all here again in a few years," the station- 
 master said, " and it will be the same story over again. I 
 have had these very people in my hands a dozen times. 
 They have been tried in all positions, and there is still 
 nothing to show, and nothing but complaints of circum- 
 stances. For my part, I would put them out altogether." 
 " How long is it to last ? " I asked. " Well," he said, " it 
 
364 A Siding at a Railway Station, 
 
 does not depend on me. No one passes here who cannot 
 prove that he has lived to some purpose. Some of the 
 worst I have known made at last into pigs and geese, to be 
 fatted up and eaten, and made of use in that way. Others 
 have become asses, condemned to carry burdens, to be beaten 
 with sticks, and to breed asses like themselves for a hundred 
 generations. All animated creatures tend to take the shape 
 at last which suits their character." 
 
 The train was scarcely out of sight when again the bell 
 rang. The scene changed as at a theatre. The screen was 
 rolled back, and we who were left found ourselves in the 
 presence of four grave-looking persons, like the board of ex- 
 aminers whom we remembered at college. We were called 
 up one by one. The work which had passed the first ordeal 
 was again looked into, and the quality of it compared with 
 the talent or faculty of the producer, to see how far he had 
 done his best ; whether anywhere he had done worse than 
 he might have done and knew how to have done ; while 
 besides, in a separate collection, were the vices, the sins, 
 the selfishnesses and ill-humors, with, in the other scale, the 
 acts of personal duty, of love and kindness and charity, 
 which had increased the happiness or lightened the sorrows 
 of those connected with him. These last, I observed, had 
 generally been forgotten by the owner, who saw them ap- 
 pear with surprise, and even repudiated them with protest. 
 In the work, of course, both material and moral, there was 
 every gradation, both of kind and merit. But while noth- 
 ing was absolutely worthless, everything, even the highest 
 achievements of the greatest artist or the greatest saint, fell 
 short of absolute perfection. Each of us saw our own per- 
 formances, from our first ignorant beginnings to what we 
 regarded as our greatest triumph ; and it was easy to trace 
 how much of our faults were due to natural deficiencies and 
 the necessary failures of inexperience, and how much to 
 self-will or vanity or idleness. Some taint of mean mo- 
 tives, too, some desire of reward, desire of praise or honor 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station. 365 
 
 or wealth, some foolish self-satisfaction, when satisfaction 
 ought not to have been felt, was to be seen infecting every- 
 thing, even the very best which was presented for scrutiny. 
 
 So plain was this that one of us, an earnest, impressive- 
 looking person, whose own work bore inspection better than 
 that of most of us, exclaimed passionately that, so far as 
 he was concerned, the examiners might spare their labor. 
 From his earliest years he had known what he ought to do, 
 and in no instance had he ever completely done it. He had 
 struggled; he had conquered his grosser faults; but the 
 farther he had gone, and the better he had been able to do, 
 his knowledge had still grown faster than his power of act- 
 ing upon it ; and every additional day that he had lived his 
 shortcomings had become more miserably plain to him. 
 Even if he could have reached perfection at last, he could 
 not undo the past, and the faults of his youth would bear wit- 
 ness against him and call for his condemnation. Therefore, 
 he said, he abhorred himself. He had no merit which could 
 entitle him to look for favor. He had labored on to the 
 end, but he had labored with a full knowledge that the best 
 which he could offer would be unworthy of acceptance. He 
 had been told, and he believed, that a high spirit, not sub- 
 ject to infirmity, had done his work for him, and done it 
 perfectly, and that if he abandoned all claim on his own ac- 
 count he might be accepted for the sake of what another 
 had done. This, he trusted, was true, and it was his sole 
 dependence. In the so-called good actions with which he 
 seemed to be credited, there was nothing that was really 
 good ; there was not one which was altogether what it 
 ought to have been. 
 
 He was evidently sincere, and what he said was undoubt- 
 edly true — true of him and true of every one. Even in 
 the vehemence of his self-abandonment a trace lingered of 
 the taint which he was confessing, for he was a polemical 
 divine ; he had spent his life and gained a reputation in 
 maintaining this particular doctrine. He believed it, but he 
 had not forgotten that he had been himself its champion. 
 
366 A Siding at a Railway Station, 
 
 The examiner looked kindly at him ; but answered, " We 
 do not expect impossibilities ; and we do not blame you 
 when you have not accomplished what is beyond your 
 strength. Only those who are themselves perfect can do 
 anything perfectly. Human beings are born ignorant and 
 helpless. They bring into the world with them a disposi- 
 tion to seek what is pleasant to themselves, and what is 
 pleasant is not always right. They learn to live as they 
 learn everything else. At first they cannot do rightly at 
 all. They improve under teaching and practice. The best 
 only arrive at excellence. We do not find fault with the 
 painter on account of his first bad copies, if they were as 
 good as could be looked for at his age. Every craftsman 
 acquires his art by degrees. He begins badly ; he cannot 
 help it ; and it is the same with life. You learn to walk 
 by falling down. You learn to live by going wrong and 
 experiencing the consequences of it. We do not record 
 against a man ' the sins of his youth ' if he has been hon- 
 estly trying to improve himself. We do not require the 
 same self-control in a child as in a man. We do not re- 
 quire the same attainments from all. Some are well taught, 
 some are ill taught, some are not taught at all. Some have 
 naturally good dispositions, some have naturally bad dis- 
 positions. Not one has had power ' to fulfil the law,' as 
 you call it, completely. Therefore, it is no crime in him if 
 he fails. We reckon as faults those only which arise from 
 idleness, wilfulness, selfishness, and deliberate preference of 
 evil to good. Each is judged according to what he has re- 
 ceived." 
 
 I was amused to observe how pleased the archbishop 
 looked while the examiner was speaking. He had himself 
 been engaged in controversy with this gentleman on the 
 share of " good works " in justifying a man, and if the ex- 
 aminer had not taken his side in the discussion he had at 
 least demolished his adversary. The archbishop had been 
 the more disinterested in the line which he had taken, as 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station, 367 
 
 his own " works," though in several large folios, weighed 
 extremely little ; and, indeed, had it not been for passages 
 in his early life — he had starved himself at college that 
 he might not be a burden upon his widowed mother — I do 
 not know but that he might have been sent back into the 
 world to serve as a parish clerk. 
 
 For myself, there were questions which I was longing 
 to ask, and I was trying to collect my courage to speak. I 
 wanted chiefly to know what the examiner meant by " natu- 
 ral disposition." Was it that a man might be born with a 
 natural capacity for becoming a saint, as another man with 
 a capacity to become a great artist or musician, and that 
 each of us could only grow to the limits of his natural 
 powers? And, again, were idleness, wilfulness, selfishness, 
 etc., etc., natural dispositions ? — for in that case — 
 
 But at the moment the bell rang again, and my own 
 name was called. There was no occasion to ask who I was. 
 In every instance the identity of the person, his history, 
 small or large, and all that he had said or done, was placed 
 before the court so clearly that there was no need for ex- 
 torting a confession. There stood the catalogue inexorably 
 impartial, the bad actions in a schedule painfully large, the 
 few good actions veined with personal motives which spoilt 
 the best of them. In the way of work there was nothing 
 to be shown but certain books and other writings, and these 
 were spread out to be tested. A fluid was poured on the 
 pages, the effect of which was to obliterate entirely every 
 untrue proposition, and to make every partially true prop- 
 osition grow faint in proportion to the false element 
 which entered into it. Alas ! chapter after chapter vanished 
 away, leaving the paper clean, as if no compositor had ever 
 labored in setting type for it. Pale and illegible became 
 the fine-sounding paragraphs on which I had secretly prided 
 myself. A few passages, however, survived here and there 
 at long intervals. They were those on which I had labored 
 least, and had almost forgotten, or those, as I observed in 
 
868 A Siding at a Railway Station, 
 
 one or two instances, which had been selected for special 
 reprobation in the weekly journals. Something stood to 
 my credit, and the worst charge of wilfully and intention- 
 ally setting down what I did not believe to be true was not 
 alleged against me. Ignorance, prejudice, carelessness ; 
 sins of infirmity — culpable indeed, but not culpable in the 
 last degree ; the water in the ink, the commonplaces, the 
 ineffectual sentiments : these, to my unspeakable comfort, I 
 perceived were my heaviest crimes. Had I been accused of 
 absolute worthlessness, I should have pleaded guilty in the 
 state of humiliation to which I was reduced ; but things 
 were better than they might have been. I was flattering 
 myself that when it came to the wages question, the balance 
 would be in my favor : so many years of labor — such and 
 such cheques received from my publisher. Here, at least, 
 I held myself safe, and I was in good hope that I might 
 scrape through. The examiner was good-natured in his 
 manner. A reviewer who had been listening for my con- 
 demnation was beginning to look disgusted, when suddenly 
 one of the walls of the court became transparent, and there 
 appeared an interminable vista of creatures — creatures of 
 all kinds from land and water, reaching away into the ex- 
 treme distance. They were those which in the course of 
 my life I had devoured, either in part or whole, to sustain 
 my unconscionable carcass. There they stood in lines with 
 solemn and reproachful faces — oxen and calves, sheep and 
 lambs, deer, hares, rabbits, turkeys, ducks, chickens, pheas- 
 ants, grouse, and partridges, down to the larks and sparrows 
 and blackbirds, which I had shot when a boy and made into 
 puddings. Every one of them had come up to bear 
 witness against their murderer ; out of sea and river had 
 come the trout and sahnon, the soles and turbots, the ling 
 and cod, the whiting and mackerel, the smelts and white- 
 bait, the oysters, the crabs, the lobsters, the shrimps. They 
 seemed literally to be in millions, and I had eaten them all. 
 I talked of wages. These had been my wages. At this 
 
A Siding at a Railway Station, 369 
 
 enormous cost had my existence been maintained. A stag 
 spoke for the rest. " We all," he said, " were sacrificed to 
 keep this cormorant in being, and to enable him to produce 
 the miserable bits of printed paper which are all that he 
 has to show for himself. Our lives were dear to us. In 
 meadow and wood, in air and water, we wandered harmless 
 and innocent, enjoying the pleasant sunlight, the light of 
 heaven and the sparkling waves ; we were not worth much ; 
 we have no pretensions to high qualities. If the person 
 who stands here to answer for himself can affirm that his 
 value in the universe was equivalent to the value of all of 
 us who were sacrificed to feed him, we have no more to 
 say. Let it be so pronounced. We shall look at our 
 numbers, and we shall wonder at the judgment, though we 
 shall withdraw our complaint. But for ourselves we say 
 freely that we have long watched him, — him and his 
 fellows, — and we have failed to see in what the superiority 
 of the human creature lies. We know him only as the 
 most cunning, the most destructive, and, unhappily, the 
 longest lived of all carnivorous beasts. His delight is in 
 killing. Even when his hunger is satisfied he kills us for 
 his mere amusement." 
 
 The oxen lowed approval, the sheep bleated, the birds 
 screamed, the fishes flapped their tails. I, for myself, stood 
 mute and self-condemned. What answer but one was 
 possible? Had I been myself on the bench I could not 
 have hesitated. The fatal sentence of condemnation was 
 evidently about to be uttered, when the scene became in- 
 distinct, there was a confused noise, a change of condition, 
 a sound of running feet and of many voices. I awoke ; I 
 was again in the railway carriage ; the door was thrown 
 open ; porters entered to take our things. We stepped out 
 upon the platform. We were at the terminus for which we 
 had been originally destined. Carriages and cabs were 
 waiting; tall powdered footmen flew to the assistance of 
 the duke and duchess. The station-master was standing 
 
370 A Siding at a Railway Station, 
 
 hat in hand, and obsequiously bowing; the minister's 
 private secretary had come to meet his right honorable 
 chief with the red despatch-box, knowing the impatience 
 with which it was waited for. The duke shook hands 
 with the archbishop before he drove away. " Dine with 
 us to morrow ? " he said. " I have had a very singular 
 dream. You sliall be my Daniel and interpret it for me." 
 The archbishop regretted infinitely that he must deny him- 
 self the honor ; his presence was required at the Conference. 
 " I, too, have dreamt," he said ; " but with your Grace and 
 me the realities of this world are too serious to leave us 
 leisure for the freaks of imagination." 
 
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