Mst?'/' . yf?t('W ■ ■ rim :■-. .. '■-'-" ' NECDOTES. ETC. &&&.'& -. ..... Kii o' ] (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.}' rn,- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 1 ^rb^r^ V TMJE CRWWIIXMM, 'no" i HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL STORIES, SKETCHES, ANECDOTES, ETC. COMPILED BY JAMES J. TREACY /32// NEW YORK: P. J. KENEDY, Excelsior Catholic Publishing House, 5 BARCLAY STREET, 1880. Copyright, 1880 P. J. KENEDY. K s i TO MAURICE F. EGAN, ESQ, IN APPRECIATION OP HIS DISTINGUISHED ABILITIES, THIS VOLUME IS KESPECTPULLY DEDICATED, BY HIS FRIEND THE COMPILER. INTRODUCTION. "Haec a quovis alio quam a me, colligi velim; a me, potius quam a nemine." The fact that the present volume consists of pieces calculated both to instruct and to edify, and which are not readily accessible to the general reader, sufficiently justifies its publication. It must certainly afford the utmost gratification to the devout Catholic to find here so many corroborations (though of an inferior kind) of the proofs of the divine character of his Holy Mother the Church. .Here will be found the constancy of the martyrs who generously poured out their blood for Christ, and thus served as a seed which through God's blessing fructified and pro- duced a hundred fold of new Christians. Here the reader beholds the Church which had been established in the blood of the Son of God amid the gloom and horrors of Calvary, and which had been confined in the catacombs, emerge like its Divine Founder, from its subterranean abode and break upon the world of Constantine in the radiance of a glorious resurrection. Also the saints of God, those oases in the desert of humanity, who, so admir- able in their chastity, their benevolence, and their charity, INTRODUCTION. have adorned every rank and condition of life, serving their Master by succoring the widow and the orphan and all on whom misfortune had fallen, they passed along as delightful sunshine cheering and consoling all whom they met in their blessed progress, despising the dangers of the ocean, the horrors of the pestilence, the perils of the battle-field, that they might faithfully accomplish the grand work of their Divine Lord. Here, too, he will see how the most mighty monarchs of the earth either bowed down dutifully before the Church's authority, or by their rebellion against it became the objects of divine vengeance and furnished terrific instances of exemplary punishment. The infidel philosophers of France who pretended forsooth! to he plus sage que les sages — those architects of ruin who in their insane career having overturned the edifice of social order, and rudely wrenched themselves from the holy and sanctified associations of the most glorious epoch of their national history, discovered that their boasted philosophy was but a pestilential vapor, which, although it could not drive God from His creation, could in its fatal gloom hide from His presumptuous and unbelieving creatures the light and glory of His celestial countenance. Here, too, Ireland, the Niobe of nations, stands before him in her present deplorable condition, and recalls the time when she was the island of saints and sages, when Western Europe flew thither to kindle at the fires that blazed in her monasteries the dying torch of learning. We cannot but regret that she is subject to England — to cold, heartless, tyrannical, cruel England. The mask of philanthropy, which England had so long worn, has been rudely torn away, INTRODUCTION. and now divested of her disguise she appears in all the hideousness of her native cruelty. With a great parade of mock benevolence, she would have the world believe that she was the patroness — the benefactress of Ireland, consoling her in her afflictions, alleviating her suffering, and strenuously striving to ameliorate her sad condition; while in reality she was wringing from Ireland the capital that should afford employment to an industrious people; she was cramping her energies, and by a diabolical in- genuity producing the terrible results of artificial famine. It would not be difficult for a sagacious political philosopher, like the illustrious Irishman, Edmund Burke, with the data of history before him, to prognosticate the tremendous retribution which a just Providence will in- evitably inflict on England for her criminal culpability in the government of Ireland; nor would it be hard for Burke to say when and how the poisoned cup which England has so long compelled Ireland to partake of, shall be returned at length in a just circulation to her own lips. " — nations keep a stern account Of deeds that tyrants do ; And guiltless blood to Heaven will mount, And Heaven avenge it, too !" Ireland conscious of the hollowness and falsity of Eng- lish professions, has turned her back upon her perfidious neighbor, and addressed her prayers for succor to the large-hearted American nation, who have responded in the most munificent fashion, surpassing even their characteristic generosity. Yes! the country of Washington, the States for whose independence the Irish fought against the British INTRODUCTION. oppressor, lias kindly hearkened to the sorrowful voice of Ireland, and tenderly and charitably stretched out her great arm over the broad Atlantic to relieve her sister in distress. May the Almighty bless America! and may the union now so happily subsisting between Ireland and America become cemented in the bonds of a closer and more affectionate connexion; may the hour speedily arrive when side by side with the Stars and Stripes of Columbia shall be seen the Green Flag of Free Erin proudly flying to the breeze of heaven, and may the two nations united in feeling become also united in the faith of God, who has called His children out of the darkness of unbelief into the admirable light of His divine revelation. J. J. T. Philadelphia, St. Patrick's Bay, 1880. CONTENTS. PA6B The God of Former Days. 7 St. Ignatius and his Companions 23 Joan of Arc,— Maid of Orleans 54 The Holy Land. 59 The Death of William the Conqueror. ... 62 The Roman Catholic Church. 66 The Nightingale's Return 68 Marshal MacMahon 69 Decision in Favor of Virtue. 71 The Genius of Christianity 72 Charity . ...» 75 La Harpe's Conversion. . 77 The Atheist Saying his Beads. 79 The Funeral Oration of the Prince of Conde. . 80 The Assumption . . .82 The Wdje of Marshal de Mouchy. . . 83 The Seige of Weinsberg. 84 The Parguinotes. . 85 The Rosary. 89 The Destruction of Pagan Rome. . .... 91 The Reasonings of an American Indian. . . .96 Pass that to tour Neighbor ... ... 98 The Discovery of America 100 Chivalry. 109 Napoleon's Marshals who Rose from the Ranks. . Ill Father Kircher's Globe. 114 Infidel Philosophy and Literature 115 O'Connell. 123 iii CONTENTS. PAGE Ireland in America. 126 Are There Several true Religions? .... 127 The Resignaton op Charles V 129 The Emperor Charles V. Performing his own Funeral Service 138 The Uncertainty op Death 140 God's Turn will Come 146 The Convent Dog. . . . , . . . 147 Michael Angelo and his Enemdes 149 Ireland in the Ages of Faith 150 The Fall and Disasters op the Jews 152 Testing the Musical Powers of Carolan. . . . 156 The Irish National 'Hymn for St. Patrick's Day. . 158 Extract from an Oration 160 To Maurice F. Egan. 163 The Penal Days 164 Character of Washington 165 King Richard and the Minstrel 167 The Studious Monks of the Middle Ages. . . . 149 The Affection and Reverence due to a Mother. . 170 Our Lady of Sorrow .171 Her Rosary of Wells 173 Marriage. . 174 When Night Comes on 177 Good-Night. . 178 There is Always Light in Heaven 179 The two Weeping Willows 179 The Blind Martyr 181 Religious Orders 193 The Glorious Retraction of Fenelon. . . . 195 The Patron of the Poor. 197 Mater Inviolata 199 There is Hope for Erin. 199 Ode to St. Isidore 201 The World . 202 Napoleon's Statue 203 Respect for Fenelon 204 CONTENTS. PAGE The Candid Culprit. . 205 The Most Ancient of Mausoleums 206 The Wonders of God in the Moral Order. . . . 207 Forgiveness of Injuries. . . . . . .211 A Hymn to the Queen of May 214 The Wonders of the Chisel 216 Sending Belief to Ireland 216 Phillips's Account of Curran 217 Sir Thomas More 219 Triumphal Entry of Constantine into Home. . . 220 The Face of Christ. 226 Partridge, the Almanac-Maker 227 Monks of St. Bernard 228 Sunday. 231 Eulogium on Communion. 233 Filial Piety 235 The Emperor Nicholas and Mr. O'Connell. . . . 238 Vienna Saved by the Poles 239 Antiquity of Fasting 240 The Broken Heart 245 Napoleon Turned Catechist. . . . . . 249 La Fayette and Marie Antoinette 250 Death of Marle Antoinette 252 The Battle of Dundalk. 254 The Miller's Portrait . 255 How they Kept the Bridge at Athlone. . . . 256 Songs of our Land. . . 259 The Charmed Serpent 261 Two Views of Nature 263 Rebuilding of the Temple 268 A Beautiful Idea 270 Beautiful Swiss Custom 271 The Bell is the Voice of God ...... 272 Letter to the Marquis Wellesley 273 Surrender of Grenada 274 Miss Nano Nagle 279 Last Hours of Mary Queen of Scots . . , .286 CONTENTS. PAGE The Sister op Charity ....,.;... 801 Old Ireland. . . 304 The Mother of the Kings 305 The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus 310 Lament of the Irish Mother . . . . . . 313 The Keligiotjs History of England 316 The Homeward Bound 332 The Disabled Soldier 334 The Battle of Lepanto . 342 Declaration of Irish Eights 349 The Wife 352 The Cross in the Wilderness 354 The Enchanted Island 358 The Apparitions at Knock 360 Old Cathedrals and Abbeys, * ... 371 Influence of Catholicity on Civil uberty. . . .377 HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL STORIES, SKETCHES, ANECDOTES, ETC. THE GOD OF FORMER TIMES. A CAPTIVE POPE. In the year 1813 a page, richly dressed, stood in an apartment in the Imperial Castle of Fon- tainebleau. He was a handsome youth of about fifteen years of age, a descendant of the old Counts de Rettrel. He was in the service of Napoleon I., and thus often had the honor of approaching the master of the world. But the countenance of the young man is shaded by an expression of pity and sadness. Tears are in his eyes, but by no word or move- ment does he betray the agitation of his heart. He remains upright and immovable as a sol- dier of the old guard. 7 8 A CAPTIVE POPE. His sorrow is evidently caused by the fate of a venerable old man who is resting in an arm- chair in the next room, for Joseph de Eettrel keeps his eyes continually directed to the half- opened door. This old man wears a white cassock, and car- ries no external signs of dignity ; his dress even looks poor in the sumptuous imperial apartment. His noble features bear the traces of deep sorrow, his face is pale and thin ; grief has furrowed his cheeks and sunk his eyes ; but a sweet serenity overspreads his face, and it is the holy resigna- tion of this martyr which touches the heart of the susceptible Joseph. The old man seems to be in prayer ; his clasped hands rest upon his breast, his head is slightly bent : and from the occasional illumination of his countenance he evidently feels the presence of the Most High. To the young page the apartment became a sacred place ; he was filled with respectful admir- ation, and he looked with a holy amazement at the Head of the Church, the Vicar of Jesus Christ ; for this old man is Pope Pius VII. who has for four years been the prisoner of Napoleon I. Suddenly the sound of arms is heard ; the noise approaches; a door opens; short steps glide over the carpet ; and a man, in the brilliant uniform of a Marshal of France, enters the room, but stops at the sight of the Pope in prayer. A CAPTIVE POPE. 9 This man is of low stature, his head is covered with black hair, his complexion is bronzed by the sun ; his features are fine and regular, his chin projects — that mark of an iron will. There is about him a look of singular power — imperious and penetrating ; in a word, the look of the conqueror of Europe, Napoleon I. After a rapid glance, Napoleon walked up to his august prisoner. Pius YII. raised his vener- able head, and viewed his oppressor with a smile. The page had placed a chair for the Emperor. " Pardon me, Holy Father, if I disturb your pious meditations," said Bonaparte, with a slight inclination of the head, "but the matter presses. There must be peace between the Emperor and the Pope. Do you find upon reflection that my pro- posal of yesterday is in accordance with your in- terests?" " With my personal interests, quite; but not with the duties of the Pope," replied Pius VII. " You put an end to the hard captivity I have endured for four years ; you secure to the Pope an annual income of two millions of francs. Very well ! But you do not restore the patri- mony of St. Peter : you retain Rome ; you retain all the States of the Church. I cannot consent to this spoliation. When Providence called me, in spite of my indignity, to become the Vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth, I took the oath taken by all Popes, that I would never consent to the spoli- 10 A CAPTIVE POPE. ation of the patrimony of St. Peter. I had rather die in captivity than break my oath and burden my conscience with such a crime !" " And I," replied the Emperor, haughtily, "I will never restore what I have conquered by force of arms. You ought not to be ungrateful," he continued, in a reproachful tone. " The Revolu- tion destroyed religion in France, the priests were driven away, or guillotined, the bishops' sees were abolished, the churches were devastated. I have restored all. Dioceses again have their bishops, parishes their clergy. The Church owes her restoration in France to me alone, and it is to me, the saviour and protector of religion, that the Pope now refuses his confidence. Such con- duct is imprudent, ungrateful," added the all- powerful monarch, with a threatening look. The august prisoner looked calmly at the piti- less soldier, then, while a gentle light shone from his eyes, " God only considers the intention, sire," he said, with grave dignity. "If it is for the love of truth and in obedience to the Almighty that you have re-established religion in France, the Lord will reward you. If you have carried out the designs of Providence without intending it, and of your own will, the Eternal owes you noth- ing." "The language of your Holiness is not clear. May I ask you to be more precise." A CAPTIVE POPE. 11 " My frankness will wound your Majesty," re- plied Pius, "but you have a right to ask for truth from the Pope ; and it is the duty of the Vicar of Christ, even when in chains and threatened with death, to fulfil his noble mission, which is to save souls and proclaim the truth." He was silent for a few minutes. He was evi- dently seeking for the form in which he could best speak the truth to the proud and often pas- sionate Emperor. Napoleon impatiently beat with his fingers the arms of the chair in which he sat. His eyes were fixed on the timid old man. The page in the ante-room listened with deep interest to a dialogue which remained deeply graven on his memory. ' 'Your Holiness feels, however, some repug- nance to communicating this precious truth to the Emperor," Napoleon exclaimed at last, in an impatient manner. "Here it is in a few words," replied the Pope. "Your Majesty is not ignorant of the causes of the Revolution, which has covered France with ruin. Things have but followed their natural course. For ninety years, an infidel philosophy, combined with atheistic science and a bad press, for the overthrow of social order. Religion was laughed at and given up to ridicule, and soon the seeds which had been sown in the hearts of the people began to produce fruit. The corruption 12 A CAPTIVE POPE. of morals, which began in the upper classes, de- scended to the lower. When France had thus turned away from Him who is the Master of Right, when she ceased to acknowledge God, the most terrible of Revolutions broke out. Order disappeared, the most horrible crimes were com- mitted, neither life, property, nor honor were respected, all became the prey of beings unworthy of the name of men. Then your Majesty appeared, richly endowed by God with strength and intel- lect. You restored order ; and because, sire, you acknowledge that religion is the foundation of order, that without submission to the Divine Will a social constitution cannot be maintained — you have recalled the priests from exile, and caused the Gospel of salvation to be again preached to degenerate France. Your Majesty employed a really prudent policy when you re-established the Church in France as the basis of a social order." "Now I understand your Holiness," cried the Emperor, smiling. " My conduct was merely in- spired by political calculations, apart from any religious considerations. I am not to expect any reward from heaven because I have acted not for God, but only for the Emperor. Yes," continued Napoleon, in a serious tone, "there must be a religion ; to govern a people without religion is absolutely impossible. I will never permit Chris- tian morals to be publicly outraged, and no wise statesman will ever permit it. He who allows the A CAPTIVE POPE. 13 Christian convictions of a people to be under- mined, will one day see the social edifice fall upon his head. Why then does your Holiness hesitate to conclude an alliance with the protec- tor of religion?" " Because you exact from the Pope an act against religion at the very moment when you profess to be its protector," replied the Pope. "I cannot take your view," said Napoleon. "The temporal sovereignty of the Pope is not an article of faith. On the contrary, it seems to me an obstacle to his completely fulfilling his spirit- ual mission. Renounce this sovereignty. Live free from all the cares of government under the protecting wings of the imperial Eagle." "Free in the talons of an eagle, sire?" said the prisoner, with a mournful smile. " To fulfil all his duties the Head of the Church must be independent. The Pope cannot be the subject of any monarch who might abuse his superiority and make use of the dependence of the Yicar of Christ for his own political purposes. Therefore did it please Providence to found the States of the Church." "It is really singular," said Bonaparte, a slight irony in his tone, "all the princes of Europe obey a sign of my will ; every nation bows before my victorious arms, and an old man, my prisoner, is the only person who rejects my friendship." 14 A CAPTIVE POPE. "Sire, pardon me. I, your old prisoner, conld but be nattered by the friendship of the Emperor; but the Pope is forced to tell you that what you ask is unjust, and doubly unjust because yon exact that he who is the supreme guardian of Christian faith and morals should approve and confirm your spoliation.'' "Splendid! admirable!" said the angry mon- arch. " The Vicar of Christ alone would permit himself thus to insult the Emperor to his face." "I am truly grieved, Sire, that you look upon what is simply the truth as an insult." "Better and better!" cried the master of Europe rising from his chair in great wrath. "We will leave this matter alone. You disdain my friendship — you shall feel my enmity." "Sire," replied the Pope, with resignation, "I place your threats at the foot of the Crucifix, and I leave it to God to avenge my cause, for it is His." "Chimeras!" replied the Emperor, with an air of contempt. "The God, whose cause you de- fend, is only a monstrous product of superstition and dreams." " Stop, Sire," interrupted the Pope raising his hand, " the God of former time still is." " What do you mean by that V 9 "He who has said ' the heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool,' is here present. He hears your blasphemies." A CAPTIVE POPE. 15 "No sermons ! Monsieur le Pape," cried Napoleon. "What do you mean by those words, ' the God of former days still is V Is it a threat?'' "Yes, a paternal warning, prompted by affec- tion." "You, no doubt, mean by that that the God of former times may execute the sentence of excom- munication which your Holiness has launched against me." "The sentence was pronounced according to the canons of the Church, against Napoleon Bona- parte, the Emperor of the French, a spoiler of the Holy See. Before God, Sire, all men are equal ; princes, like others, are bound to observe the divine laws." Napoleon laughed in a s fcrange way. He walked up and down the room with his sword clanking. "Ah! to say that — to me— the Yicar of Christ takes a liberty." ' ' Performs a duty, ' ' replied the Pope. ' ' Who is to remind the great ones of the earth of their duty, if it is not the Pope?" "Enough! enough!" cried Bonaparte, "you mistake the century ; we are no longer in the mid- dle ages." He walked up and down the room ; he was greatly troubled. "'The God of former times still is,' did you say ? What do you hope from this old divinity." 16 A CAPTIVE POPE. " I know that this faithful and almighty God keeps His promises." u And what has this faithful and almighty God promised you?" asked the Emperor ironically. " He has promised to His Church to protect her against all her enemies, and to maintain her till the end of time." "These are great promises. We shall sec. Well, as for me, I am not satisfied either with the Pope or with the Church, or with this God of former times. Perhaps I shall found of my own private authority a State Religion, which shall not have the Vicar of Christ for its head, but the Emperor." " You exaggerate your power, Sire." " I am all-powerful in Europe," cried the con- queror of nations, with pride. "It is only the obstinacy of one old man, who calls himself the Vicar of Christ, that I cannot overcome. Very well, let him die inflexible, in captivity." The Pope rose with a threatening look. A holy indignation animated his venerable features. " Sire, permit me to unfold some pages of history, and exhibit to you the power which will subdue you." The Emperor was struck at the sight of the old man, who stood before him like a prophet of the ancient law. His eyes were cast on the ground. " Speak, I hear you," he said. " You threaten that the Pope will die in captiv- A CAPTIVE POPE. 17 ity, that you will persecute, annihilate the Church, that you will substitute a State religion more docile to your will. What you desire, monarchs more powerful than you are have attempted in vain. What did the emperors of Rome effect by their persecutions, by the immolation of twelve millions of martyrs? Exactly the contrary of what they intended. Persecution was merely a hurricane which carried the seed of the divine word into the most distant countries, and the blood of the martyrs created more Christians. Whence arose this strange phenomenon ? Simply from this ; that the same God of former times, of whom your Majesty makes a mock, kept the word He has given to His Church to defend her against the pow- ers of hell. The Roman Emperors have perished, but the Church still stands. Turn over some later pages of history. Even in the middle ages more than one emperor raised his powerful hand against the Pope ; the Church and her head were subjected to terrible attacks. But the arm of God pro- tected the Church and destroyed her enemies. You yourself dragged my predecessor, Pius V., into captivity, and suffered him to die in prison. You have kept me in prison for four years, I have had to endure sufferings impossible to describe. And yet I live — yet I live to see how the hand of this God of former times will destroy you. Your measure is full, soon you will share the fate of all the persecutors of the Church." 18 A CAPTIVE POPE. The Pope sank exhausted into his chair. The Emperor stood before him, his arms folded, and contemplating the august old man with a savage look. The page in the ante- room trembled in every limb. The Holy Father was in his eyes as an ap- parition from a superior world, and Napoleon, with his terrible and sinister look, as a genius come forth from the abyss. "This is priestly arrogance carried to the far- thest limits," said the master of Europe, in anger. " The God of former times strikes only fools ; He has no power over a Caesar. It is you, Monsieur lePape, who will be crushed under my wrath. ' He turned and left the room in a rage. The night after this conversation, Napoleon could get no rest. He walked incessantly up and down his room, murmuring unintelligible words. But the page who watched at his door could over- hear these exclamations : "The God of former times destroy me ! Me? Oh ! I defy the God of former times. I defy the history of the past." Two years after this the Emperor Napoleon, once the master of the world, was himself a pris- oner in St. Helena. This is a desert and inhospita- ble isle. The shade of a wood is not to be found, and only here and there do cultivated spots occur. Rocks of volcanic origin rise on every side. It is a horrible prison in the midst of the ocean. A CAPTIVE POPE. 19 Near tne sea there is a weeping willow whose drooping branches afford shade to the august prisoner. Here he would be seated for hours look- ing out over the boundless ocean. To-day he is more gloomy than usual. Gene- ral Bertrand, the only friend who voluntarily shares his master's exile, and the young Count- page observed uneasily the sadness of the de- throned monarch. All at once the Emperor raised his eyes to the young man — " Joseph, were you not at the castle of Fontainebleau when Pius VII. predicted my destiny?" "Yes, Sire, I was." " Do you remember the interview?" " Yes, Sire; I can never forget it. The Pope in my eyes was not a mere mortal " "But?" "The representative of God upon earth." "Well said, young man. What, at that time, made me smile, at present appears only too de- serving of faith — the representative of God upon earth." The Emperor was silent, and his eyes again wandered over the sea. "And do you recollect the words of the Pope ?" "Perfectly, Sire. The Holy Father said:— 'The God of former times still is,' then he re- ferred to history, to show that both Christian 120 A CAPTIVE POPE. and pagan princes had persecuted the Church and ;the Popes, but that God had destroyed these persecutors, while the Church and the See of Peter continued." "AncL then, Joseph — and then " said Napoleon, as the young man stopped, undecided how to proceed. " He said that God would destroy your Majesty if you did not cease to oppress the Church, be- cause God has promised to defend His Church ■ and His representative on earth, and He is faith- ful to His promises." " Just so!" and the Emperor assented to the ex- actness of this recital by a movement of the head, "'Your measure is filled,' said Pius VII. , c soon you will share the fate of all persecutors of rthe Church.' " " The Pope was not a false prophet; my sceptre was broken by the All-Powerful, not by man. Madman that I was! Dazzled by the splendor of my success. The history of eighteen centuries ought to have taught me clearly that no power fcan attack the Rock of Peter without being ■broken on it. It is true; the God of former times still is, to crush the oppressors of him who repre- sents Him below. " I do not dispute, Sire," said Bertrand "that the unusual rigor of the winter, which surprised us in Russia, was the immediate order of God, but all was decided at Leipzig." A CAPT1 VE POPE. 21 "God is the arbiter of battles, General," said Napoleon firmly. "This solitude gives me time for reflection. Misfortune has made me more clear-sighted. My defeats, my fall, my captivity, are all the consequences of my enmity against the Head of the Church. Pius VII. is right; it is the Almighty, the Protector of the See of Peter, who has overturned my throne." Bertrand was silent, and the Emperor returned to his gloomy thoughts. After a long silence: "In Egypt I proclaimed a God without a Son," he said; " now, I attest the Divinity of Jesus Christ. A Jew, who was looked on as the son of a carpenter, gives Himself out as God, as the greatest of Beings, the Creator of all things. He proves His Divinity by numerous miracles. But, in my eyes, the success of Jesus Christ proves His Divinity more than His mira- cles. What were the conquests of Alexander the Great compared with those of Christ ? Noth- ing, absolutely nothing, even if Alexander had conquered the world, for his conquests endured not; they passed away. Jesus, on the contrary, conquered, and has attached to Himself, not a nation, but the whole human race. These con- quests have been extended for eighteen hundred years, and to all appearance will continue to ex- tend till the end of the world. And what part of a man is it that Jesus Christ conquers ? It is the part that it is the most difficult to gain — the 22 A CAPTIVE POPE. heart : what is often asked for in vain by the wise man of a small number of friends, by the father of his children, by the husband of his wife, by the brother of his brother — the heart, the affections, this is what Jesus has been gaining for eighteen hundred years from millions of men. Is not this a wonder above wonders ? Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, with all their genius, have gained noth- ing like it. They conquered all the world, but they did not succeed in gaining hearts. But the hearts of millions of men have belonged to Christ for eighteen hundred years ; millions of men have suffered martyrdom for Him ; millions of men accept His yoke with pleasure, and for His sake bear the hardest privations. By this, the greatest of His miracles, we are constrained to acknowl- edge the Divine Word, the Creator of the world. " You know, General," continued Napoleon, " I have been able to inspire multitudes to die for me, but for this, my presence, the electricity of my look, my voice, were required ; I do not pos- sess the secret of perpetuating my name and affection in the heart. Here I am at St. Helena. Where are my courtiers ? Where are my friends ? Two or three only, whose fidelity will immortalize them, share my exile. Soon my body will return to earth, and become a prey to worms. What a gulf between this misery and the eternal reign of Christ, preached, loved, adored, throughout the world. He has lived in thousands of hearts, ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 23 through thousands of years. That is not death : it is life. The reign of Christ unanswerably proves His divinity, and if Jesus Christ is God, the work which He has founded — His Church — is divine. His Almighty arm will protect her, and no power of hell will prevail against her. Oh, that I could cry to all those who have received power on the earth, * Respect the representative of Jesus Christ ; do not attack, nor oppress the Pope, or you will be crushed by the avenging hand of God, who protects the See of St. Peter.' " Napoleon was silent. A gust of wind bent the willow, and the ocean's waves, striking the rock, seemed to break forth into sounds of approbation at the words of the Emperor. ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND HIS COM- PANIONS. On the dawn of the day on which, in the year 1534, the Church of Rome celebrated the feast of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady, a little company of men, whose vestments bespoke their religious character, emerged in solemn procession from the deep shadows cast by the towers of Notre Dame over the silent city below them. In a silence not less profound, except when broken 24 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. by the chant of the matins appropriate to that sacred season, they climbed the Hill of Martyrs, and descended into the Crypt, which then ascer- taiDed the spot where the Apostle of France had won the crown of Martyrdom. With a stately though halting gait, as one accustomed to military command, marched at their head a man of bronzed complexion, bald-headed, and of middle stature, who had passed the meridian of life ; his deep-set eyes glowing as with a perennial fire from beneath brows which, had phrenology then been born, she might have portrayed in her loftiest style, but which without her aid, announced a com- mission from on high to subjugate and to rule man- kind. So majestic, indeed, was the aspect of Ig- natius Loyola, that during the sixteenth century few if any of the books of his order appeared with- out the impress of that imperial countenance. Be- side him in the chapel of St. Denys knelt another worshipper, whose manly bearing, buoyant step, clear blue eye, and finely-chiselled features, con- trasted strangely with the solemnities in which he was engaged. Then in early manhood, Fran- cis Xavier united in his person the dignity befitting his birth as a grandee of Spain, and the grace which should adorn a page of the Queen of Cas- tile and Arragon. Not less incongruous with the scene in which they bore their parts, were the slight forms of the boy Alphonso Salmeron, and of his bosom friend, Jago Laynez, the destined ST. IGNA Tim LO TOLA AND COMPANIONS. 25 successor of Ignatius in his spiritual dynasty. With them Nicholas Alphonso Bobadilla, and Simon Rodriguez — the first a teacher, the second a student of philosophy — prostrated themselves before the altar, where ministered Peter Faber, once a shepherd in the mountains of Savoy, but now a priest in holy orders. By his hands was distributed to his associates the seeming bread, over which he had uttered words of more than miraculous efficacy ; and then were lifted up their united voices, uttering, in low but distinct articu- lation, a vow, at the deep significance of which the nations might have well rejoiced. Never did human lips pronounce a vow more religiously observed, or pregnant with results more mo- mentous. Descended from an illustrious family, Ignatius had in his youth been a courtier and a cavalier, and if not a poet, at least a cultivator of poetry. At the siege of Pampeluna his leg was broken. Books of knight-errantry relieved the lassitude of sickness, and when these were exhausted, he be- took himself to pious books. In the lives of the Saints the disabled soldier discovered a new field of emulation and of glory. Compared with their self -con quest and their high rewards, the achieve- ments and the renown of Roland and of Amadis waxed dim. Compared with the peerless damsels for whose smiles Paladins had fought and died, how transcendently glorious the image of feminine 26 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. loveliness and angelic purity which had irradiated the hermit's cell and the path of the wayworn pilgrims! Far as the heavens are above the earth would be the plighted fealty of the knight of the Virgin Mother beyond the noblest devotion of mere human chivalry. Nor were these vows unheeded by her to whom they were addressed. Environed in light, and clasping her infant to her bosom, she revealed herself to the adoring gaze of her champion. He rose, suspended at her shrine his secular weapons, performed there his nocturnal vigils, and; with returning day retired to con- secrate his future life to the glory of the Virgo Deipara. Standing on the steps of a Dominican church, he recited the office of Our Lady, when suddenly heaven itself was laid open to the eye of the worshipper. That ineffable mystery, which the author of the Athanasian creed has so beautifully enunciated in words, was disclosed to him as an object not of faith but of actual sight. The past ages of the world were rolled back in his presence, and he beheld the material fabric of 4things rising into being, and perceived the mo- tives which had prompted the exercise of the creative energy. To his spiritualized sense was disclosed the actual process by which the Host is transubstantiated; and the other Christian verities which it is permitted to common men to receive but as exercises of their belief, now be- ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 27 came to him the objects of immediate inspection and of direct consciousness. For eight successive days his body reposed in an unbroken trance; while his spirit thus imbibed disclosures for which the tongues of men have no appropriate language. On his restoration to human society, Ignatius reappeared in the garb, and addressed himself to the occupations of other religious men. The first fruits of his labors was the book of Spiritual Ex- ercises. It was originally written in Spanish, and appeared in a Latin version. By the order of the present Pope, Loyola's manuscript, still remaining in the Vatican, has been again trans- lated. In this new form the book is commended to the devout study of the faithful by a bull of Pope Paul III., and by an Encyclical Epistle from the present General of the Order of Jesus. From the publication of the "Spiritual Exer- cises" to the vow of Montmartre, nine years elapsed. They wore away in pilgrimages, in the working of miracles, and in escapes all but mir- aculous, from dangers which the martial spirit of the saint, no less than his piety, impelled him to incur. In the caverns of Manresa he had vowed to scale the heights of "perfection" and it there- fore behooved him thus to climb that obstinate eminence, in the path already trodden by all the canonized and beatified heroes of the Church. But he had also vowed to conduct his fellow-pilgrims 28 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. from the city of destruction to the land of Beulah. In prison and in shipwreck, fainting with hunger or wasted with disease, his inflexible spirit still meditated over that bright, though as yet shape- less vision ; until at length it assumed a coherent form as he knelt on the Mount of Olives, and traced the last indelible foot- print of the ascend- ing Redeemer of mankind. At that hallowed spot had ended the weary way of Him who had bowed the heavens, and came down to execute on earth a mission of unutterable and matchless self- denial ; and there was revealed to the prophetic gaze of the future founder of the Order of Jesus, the long line of missionaries who, animated by his example and guided by his instructions, should proclaim that holy Name from the rising to the setting sun. At the mature age of thirty, possess- ing no language but his own, no science but thai? of the camp, and no literature beyond the biogra- phies of Saints, he became the self-destined teacher of the future teachers of the world. Hoping against hope, he returned to Barcelona, and there, as the class-fellow of little children, commenced the study of the first rudiments of the Latin tongue. Of the seven decades of human life, the bright- est and the best, in which other men achieve or contend for distinction, was devoted by Ignatius to the studies preparatory to his great undertak- ing. Grave professors examined him on the 1 "* ST IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 29 prselections, and, when these were over, ne sought the means of subsistence by traversing the Netherlands and England as a beggar. Un- heeded and despised as he sat at the feet of the learned, or solicited alms of the rich, he was still maturing in the recesses of his bosom designs more lofty than the highest to which the monarchs of the houses of Valois or of Tudor had ever dared to aspire. In the University of Paris he at length found the means of carrying into effect the cherished purposes of so many years. It was the heroic age of Spain, and the countrymen of Gon salvo and Cortes lent a willing ear to counsels of daring on any field of adventure, whether sec- ular or spiritual. His companions in study thus became his disciples in religion. Nor were his the commonplace methods of making converts. To the contemplative and the timid, he enjoined hardy exercises of active virtue. To the gay and ardent, he appeared in a spirit still more buoy- ant than their own. To a debauchee, whom noth- ing else could move, he presented himself neck- deep in a pool of frozen water, to teach the more impressively the duty of subduing the carnal appetites. Nay, he even engaged at billiards with a joyous lover of the game, on condition that the defeated player should serve his antagonist for a month ; and the victorious saint enforced the penalty by consigning his adversary to a month of secluded devotion. Others yielded at once 30 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. and without a struggle to the united influence of his sanctity and genius ; and it is remarkable that, from these more docile converts, he selected, with but two exceptions, the original members of his infant order. Having performed the initiatory rite of the Spiritual Exercises, they all made a vow on the consecrated Host in the Crypt of St. Denys, to accompany their spiritual father on a mission to Palestine ; or, if that should be im- practicable, to submit themselves to the Vicar of Christ, to be disposed of as missionaries at his pleasure. It was in the year 1506 that Francis Xavier, the youngest child of a numerous family, was born in the castle of his ancestors, in the Pyrenees. Robust and active, of a gay humor and ardent spirit, the young mountaineer listened with a throbbing heart to the military legends of his house, and to the inward voice which spoke of days to come, when his illustrious lineage should derive new splendor from his own achievements. But the hearts of his parents yearned over the son of their old age ; and the enthusiasm which would have borne him to the pursuit of glory in the camp, was diverted by their counsels to the less hazardous contest for literary eminence at the University of Paris. From the embrace of Aristotle and his commentators, he would, how- ever, have been prematurely withdrawn by the failure of his resources (for the Lords of Xavier were ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 31 not wealthy), if a domestic prophetess, his elder sister, had not been inspired to reveal his mar- vellous career and immortal recompense. For a child destined to have altars raised to his name throughout the Catholic Church, and Masses chanted in his honor till time should be no longer, every sacrifice was wisely made ; and he was thus enabled to struggle on at the College of St. Barbara, till he had become qualified to earn his own maintenance as a public teacher of philos- ophy. His chair was crowded by the studious, and his society courted by the gay, the noble, and the rich. It was courted, also, by one who stood aloof from the throDging multitude ; among them, but not of them. Miserable in dress, but of lofty bearing, at once unimpassioned and intensely earnest, abstemious of speech, yet occasionally uttering, in deep and most melodious tones, words of strange significance, Ignatius Loyola was gradually working over the mind of his young companion a spell which no difference of tastes, of habits, or of age, was of power to subdue. Potent as it was, the charm was long resisted. Hilarity was the native and indispensable element of Francis Xavier, and in his grave monitor he found an exhaustless topic of mirth and raillery. Armed with satire, which was not always playful, the light heart of youth con- tended, as best it might, against the solemn im- pressions which he could neither welcome nor 32 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. avoid. Whether he partook of the frivolities in which he delighted, or in the disquisitions in which he excelled, or traced the windings of the Seine through the forest which then lined its banks, Ignatius was still at hand to discuss with him the charms of society, of learning, or of nature ; but, whatever had been the theme, it was still closed by the same awful inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul V ' The world which Xavier had sought to gain, was indeed already exhibiting to him its accustomed treachery. It had given him amusements and applause ; but with his self-government had stolen from him his pupils and his emoluments. Ignatius recruited both. He became the eulogist of the genius and the elo- quence of his friend, and, as he presented to him the scholars attracted by these panegyrics, would repeat them in the presence of the delighted teacher ; and then, as his kindling eye attested the sense of conscious and acknowledged merit, would check the rising exultation by the ever- recurring question, "What shall it profit?" Improvidence squandered these new resources ; but nothing could damp the zeal of Ignatius. There he was again, though himself the poorest of the poor, ministering to the wants of Xavier, from a purse filled by the alms he had solicit- ed ; but there again was also the same unvarying demand, urged in the same rich though solemn ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 33 cadence, " What shall it profit f In the unre- laxing grasp of the strong man — at once forgiven and assisted, rebuked and beloved by his stern associate— Xavier gradually yielded to the fas- cination. He became, like his master, impassive to all sublunary pains and pleasures; and having performed the initiatory rite of the Spiritual Ex- ercises, excelled all his brethren of the Society of Jesus in the fervor of his devotion and the austerity of his self- discipline. John III. of Portugal, resolving to plant the Christian faith on the Indian territories which had become subject to the dominion or influence of his crown, petitioned the Pope to select some fit leader in this peaceful crusade. On the advice of Ignatius, the choice of the Holy Father fell on Francis Xavier. A happier selection could not have been made, nor was a summons to toil, to suffering, and to death, ever so joyously received. As the vessel in which Xavier embarked for India fell down the Tagus and shook out her reefs to the wind, many an eye was dimmed with un- wonted tears; for she bore a regiment of a thousand men to re-inforce the garrison of Goa; nor could the bravest of that gallant host gaze on the receding land without foreboding that he might never see again those dark chestnut forests and rich orange groves, with the peaceful convents and the long-loved homes reposing in their bosom. The countenance of Xavier alone beamed with 34 ST. IGNA TIUS LO TOLA AND COMPANIONS. delight. He knew that he should never tread his native mountains more; but he was not an exile. He was to depend for food and rai- ment on the bounty of his fellow-passengers; but no thought for the morrow troubled him. He was going to concert nations, of which he knew neither the language nor even the names; but he felt no misgivings. Worn by incessant sea-sick- ness, with the refuse food of the lowest seamen for his diet, and the cordage of the ship for his couch, he rendered to the diseased services too revolting to be described; and lived among the dying and the profligate the unwearied minister of consolation and of peace. In the midst of that floating throng, he knew how to create for himself a sacred solitude, and how to mix in all their pursuits in the free spirit of a man of the world, a gentleman, and a scholar. With the viceroy and his officers he talked, as pleased them best, of war or trade, of politics or navigation; and to restrain the common soldiers from gam- bling, would invent for their amusement less dan- gerous pastimes, or even hold the stakes for which they played, that by his presence and his gay discourse he might at least check the excesses which he could not prevent. Five weary months (weary to all but him) brought the ship to Mozambique, where an en- demic fever threatened a premature grave to the Apostle of the Indies. But his was no spirit to ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 35 be quenched or allayed by the fiercest paroxysms of disease. At each remission of his malady, he crawled to the beds of his fellow-sufferers to soothe their terrors or assuage their pains. To the eye of any casual observer the most wretched of mankind, in the esteem of his companions the happiest and the most holy, he reached Goa just thirteen months after his departure from Lisbon. At Goa, Xavier was shocked, and had fear been an element in his nature, would have been dis- mayed, by the almost universal depravity of the inhabitants. It exhibited itself in those offensive forms which characterize the crimes of civilized men when settled among a feebler race, and re- leased from even the conventional decencies of civilization. Swinging in his hand a large bell, he traversed the streets of the city, and implored the astonished crowd to send their children to him, to be instructed in the religion which they still at least professed. Though he had never been addressed by the soul-stirring name of father, he knew that in the hardest and the most dissolute heart which had once felt the parental instinct, there is one chord which can never be wholly out of tune. A crowd of little ones were quickly placed under his charge. He lived among them as the most laborious of teachers, and the gen- tlest and the gayest of friends; and then returned them to their homes, that by their more hallowed example they might there impart, with all the 36 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. unconscious eloquence of filial love, the lessons of wisdom and of piety they had been taught. No cry of human misery reached him in vain. He became an inmate of the hospitals, selecting that of the leprous as the object of his peculiar care. Even in the haunts of debauchery, and at the tables of the profligate, he was to be seen, an honored and a welcome guest ; delighting that most unmeet audience with the vivacity of his discourse, and sparing neither pungent jests to render vice ridiculous, nor sportive flatteries to allure the fallen back to the still distasteful paths of soberness and virtue. Strong in purity of pur- pose, and stronger still in one sacred remembrance, he was content to be called the friend of publicans and sinners. He had in truth long since deserted the standard of prudence, the off- spring of forethought, for the banners of wisdom, the child of love, and followed them through perils not to be hazarded under any less triumph- ant leader. Rugged were the ways along which he was thus conducted. In those times, as in our own, there was on the Malabar coast a pearl fishery, and then, as now, the pearl-divers formed a separate and a degraded caste. It was not till after a resi- dence of twelve months at Goa, that Xavier heard of these people. He heard that they were ignorant and miserable, and he inquired no far- ther. On that burning shore his bell once more ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 37 rang out an invitation of mercy, and again were gathered around him troops of inquisitive and do- cile children. For fifteen months he lived among these abject fishermen, his only food their rice and water, reposing in their huts, and allowing himself but three hours' sleep in the four-and- twenty. He became at once their physician, the arbiter in their disputes, and their advocate for the remission of their annual tribute with the government of Goa. The bishop of that city had assisted him with two interpreters, but his im- passioned spirit struggled, and not in vain, for some more direct intercourse with the objects of his care. Committing to memory translations, at the time unintelligible to himself, of the creeds and other symbols of his faith, he recited them with tones and gestures, which spoke at once to the senses and to the hearts of his disciples. All obstacles yielded to his restless zeal. He soon learned to converse, to preach, and to write in their language. Many an humble cottage was surmounted by a crucifix, the mark of its conse- cration; and many a rude countenance reflected the sorrows and the hopes which they had been taught to associate with that sacred emblem. "I have nothing to add," (the quotation is from one of the letters which at this same time he wrote to Loyola) " but that they who came forth to labor for the salvation of idolaters, receive from on high sucli consolations, that if there be 38 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. on earth such a thing as happiness, it is theirs." If there be such a thing, it is but as the check- ered sunshine of a vernal day. A hostile inroad from Madura overwhelmed the poor fishermen who had learned to callXavier their father, threw down their simple chapels, and drove them for refuge to the barren rocks and sand-banks which line the western shores of the strait of Manar. But their father was at hand to share their af- fliction, to procure for them from the viceroy at Goa relief and food, and to direct their confidence to a still more powerful Father whose presence and goodness they might adore even amidst the wreck of all their earthly treasures. It was a lesson not unmeet for those on whom such treasures had been bestowed in the most am- ple abundance ; and Xavier advanced to Travan- core, to teach it there to the Rajah and his courtiers. No facts resting on remote human testimony can be more exempt from doubt than the general outline of the tale which follows. A solitary, poor, and unprotected stranger, he burst through the barriers which separate men of different tongues and races : and with an ease little less than miraculous, established for him- self the means of inter changing thoughts with the people of the East. They may have ill-gathered his meaning, but by some mysterious force of sympathy they soon caught his ardor. Idol temples fell by the hands of their former wor- ST. ION A TIUS LO TOLA AND COMPANIONS. 39 shippers. Christian churches rose at his bidding ; and the kingdom of Travancore was agitated with new ideas and unwonted controversies. The Brah- mins argued— as the Church by law established has not seldom argued — with fire and sword, and the interdict of earth and water, to the en- emies of their repose. On the Coromandel coast, near the city of Mel- iapor, might be seen in those times the oratory and the tomb of St. Thomas, the first teacher of Christianity in India. It was in a cool and se- questered grotto that the apostle had been wont to pray ; and there yet appeared on the living rock, in bold relief, the cross at which he knelt, with a crystal fountain of medicinal waters gushing from the base of it. On the neighboring height, a church with a marble altar, stained, after the lapse of fifteen centuries, with the blood of the martyr, ascertained the sacred spot at which his bones had been committed to the dust. To this venerable shrine Xavier retired, to learn the will of Heaven concerning him. He maintained, on this occasion, for seven successive days an un- broken fast and silence — no unfit preparation for his approaching conflicts. Thirty years before the arrival of Xavier, Malacca had been conquered by Alphonso Albu- querque. It was a place abandoned to every form of sensual and enervating indulgence. Through her crowded streets a strange and solemn visitor 40 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. passed along, pealing his faithful bell, and earn- estly imploring the prayers of the faithful for that guilty people. Curiosity and alarm soon gave way to ridicule ; but Xavier's panoply was complete. The messenger of divine wrath judged this an unfit occasion for courting aversion or con- tempt. He became the gayest of the gay, and, in address at least, the very model of an accom- plished cavalier. Foiled at their own weapons, his dissolute countrymen acknowledged the irres- istible authority of a self-devotion so awful, re- lieved and embellished as it was by every social grace. Thus the work of reformation prospered, or seemed to prosper. Altars rose in the open streets, the confessional was thronged by peni- tents, translations of devout books were multi- plied ; and the saint, foremost in every toil, ap- plied himself with all the activity of his spirit to study the structure and the graceful pronun- ciation of the Malayar tongue. But the plague was not thus to be stayed. A relapse into all their former habits filled up the measure of their crimes. With prophetic voice Xavier announced the impending chastisements of Heaven ; and shaking off from his feet the dust of the obdurate cit}^, pursued his indefatigable way to Amboyna. That island, then a part of the vast dominions of Portugal in the East, had scarcely witnessed the commencement of Xavier's exertions, when a fleet of Spanish vessels appeared in hostile array ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 41 on the shores. They were invaders, and even corsairs ; for their expedition had been disavowed by Charles V. Pestilence, however, was raging among them ; and Xavier was equally ready to hazard his life in the cause of Portugal, or in the service of her afflicted enemies. Day and night he lived in the infected ships, soothing every spiritual distress, and exerting all the magical influence of his name to procure for the sick what- ever might contribute to their recovery or soothe their pains. The coals of fire, thus helped on the heads of the pirates, melted hearts otherwise steeled to pity ; and to Xavier belonged the rare, perhaps the unrivalled, glory of repelling an in- vasion by no weapons but those of self-denial and love. But glory, the praise of men, or frheir gratitude, what were these to him % As the Spaniards re- tired peacefully from Amlx b aa, he, too, quitted the half-adoring multitude, ^ horn hehadrescued from the horrors of a pirate's war,, and, spurning all the timid councils which would have stayed his course, proceeded, as the herald of good tidings, to the half barbarous islands of the neighboring Archipelago. " If those lands," such was his indignant exclamation, ' ' had scented woods and mines of gold, Christians would find courage to go there ; nor would all the perils of the world prevent them. They are das,tardly and alarmed, because there is nothing to be gained 42 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. there but the souls of men, and shall love be less hardy and less generous than avarice? They will destroy me, you say, by poison. It is an honor to which such a sinner as I am may not aspire; but this I dare to say, that whatever form of torture or of death awaits me, I am ready to suffer it ten thousand times for the salvation of a single soul." Nor was this the language of a man insensible to the sorrows of life, or really unaffected by the dangers he had to incur. "Believe me, my be- loved brethren," (we quote from a letter written by him at this time to the Society at Rome), "it is in general easy to understand the evangelical maxim, that he who will lose his life shall find it. But when the moment of action has come, and when the sacrifice of life for God is to be really made, oh, then, clear as at other times the meaning is, it becomes deeply obscure! so dark, indeed, that he alone can comprehend it, to whom, in His mercy, God Himself interprets it. Then it is we know how weak and frail we are." Weak and frail he may have been ; but from the days of St. Paul to our own, the annals of mankind exhibit no other example of a soul borne onward so triumphantly through distress and danger, in all their most appalling aspects. He battled with hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and assassination, and pursued his mission of love, with even increasing ardor, amidst the wildest war of the contending elements. At the ST IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 43 island of Moro (one of the gronp of the Moluccas) he took his stand at the foot of a volcano ; and as the pillar of fire threw up its wreaths to heaven, and the earth tottered beneath him, and the fir- mament was rent by falling rocks and peals of unintermitting thunder, he pointed to the fierce lightnings, and the river of molten lava, and called on the agitated crowd which clung to him for safety, to repent, and to obey the truth. Re- pairing for the celebration of Mass to some edi- fice which he had consecrated for the purpose, an earthquake shook the building to its base. The terrified worshippers fled ; but Xavier stand- ing in meek composure before the rocking altar, deliberately completed that mysterious Sacrifice. The history of Xavier now reaches an unwel- come pause. He pined for solitude and silence. He had been too long in constant intercourse with man, and found that, however high and holy may be the ends for which social life is cultivated, the habit, if unbroken, will impair that inward sense through which alone the soul can gather any true intimations of her nature and her destiny. He retired to commune with himself in a seclusion where the works of God alone were to be seen, and where no voices could be heard but those which, in each varying cadence, raise an uncon- scious anthem of praise and adoration to their Creator. There for awhile reposing from labors such as few or any other of the sons of men 44 ST IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. have undergone, he consumed days and weeks in meditating prospects beyond the reach of any vision unenlarged by the habitual exercise of be- neficence and piety. Scarcely four years had elapsed from the first discovery of Japan by the Portuguese, when Xavier, attended by Auger and his two servants, sailed from Goa to convert the islanders to the Christian faith. Much good advice had been, as usual, wasted on him by his friends. To Loyola alone he confided the secret of his confidence. "I cannot express to you," (such are his words) " the joy with which I undertake this long voyage; for it is full of extreme perils, and we consider a fleet sailing to Japan as eminently prosperous in which one ship out of four is saved. Though the risk far exceeds any which I have hitherto en- countered, I shall not decline it ; for our Lord has imparted to me an interior revelation of the rich harvest which will one day be gathered from the cross when once planted there." What- ever may be thought of these voices from within, it is at least clear that nothing magnanimous or sublime has ever yet proceeded from those who have listened only to the voices from without. But, as if resolved to show that a man may at once act on motives incomprehensible to his fellow mortals, and possess the deepest insight into the motives by which they are habitually governed, Xavier left behind him a code of instructions for ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 45 his brother missionaries, illuminated in almost every page by that profound sagacity which re- sults from the union of extensive knowledge with •acute observation, mellowed by the intuitive wis- dom of a compassionate and lowly heart. The science of self-conquest, with a view to conquer the stubborn will of others, the act of winning admission for painful truth, and the duties of fidelity and reverence in the attempt to heal the diseases of the human spirit, were never taught by uninspired man with an eloquence more gentle, or an authority more impressive. A long voyage, pursued through every disaster which the mal- evolence of man and demons could oppose to his progress (for he was constrained to sail in a pirat- ical ship, with idols on her deck and whirlwinds in her path), brought him, in the year 1549, to Japan, there to practice his own lessons, and to give anew example of heroic perseverance. Carrying on his back his only viaticum, the ves- sels requisite for performing the Sacrifice of the Mass, he advanced to Firando, at once the seaport 'and the capital of the kingdom of that name. Some Portuguese ships riding at anchor there, an- nounced his arrival in all the forms of nautical tri- umph — flags of every hue floating from the masts, seamen clustering on the yards, cannon roaring from beneath, and trumpets braying from above. Firando was agitated with debate and wonder; all asked, but none could afford, an explanation 46 ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. of the homage rendered by the wealthy traders to the meanest of their countrymen. It was given by the humble pilgrim himself, surrounded in the royal presence by all the pomp which the Euro- peans could display in his honor. Great was the effect of these auxiliaries to the work of an evan- gelist ; and the modern, like the ancient Apostle, ready to become all things to all men, would no longer decline the abasement of assuming for a moment the world's grandeur, when he found that: such puerile acts might allure the children of the world to listen to the voice of wisdom. At Meaco, then the seat of empire in Japan, the dis- covery might be reduced to practice with still more important success, and thitherwards his steps were promptly directed. At Amanguchi, the capital of INagoto, he found the hearts of men hardened by sensuality, and his exhortations to repentance were repaid by showers of stones and insults. They drove him forth half naked, with no provision but a bag of parched rice, and accompanied only by three of his con- verts, prepared to share his danger and his re- proach. It was in the depth of winter ; dense forests, steep mountains, half -frozen streams, and wastes of un- trodden snow, lay in his path to Meaco. An en- tire month was consumed in traversing the wilder- ness, and the cruelty and scorn of man not seldom adding bitterness to the rigors of nature. On ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 47 one occasion the wanderers were overtaken in a thick jungle by a horseman bearing a heavy pack- age. Xavier offered to carry the load, if the rider would requite the service by pointing out his way. The offer was accepted, but hour after hour the horse was urged on at such a pace, and so rapidly sped the panting missionary after him, that his tortured feet and excoriated body sank in seeming death under the protracted effort. In the extrem- ity of his distress no repining word was ever heard to fall from him. lie performed this dread- ful pilgrimage in silent communion with Him for whom he rejoiced to suffer the loss of all things ; or spoke only to sustain the hope and courage of his associates. At length the walls of Meaco were seen, promising a repose not ungrateful even to his adamantine frame and fiery spirit. But repose was no more to visit him. He found the city in all the tumult and horror of a siege. It was im- possible to gain attention to his doctrines amidst the din of arms. Chanting from the Psalmist — When Israel went out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from a strange people — the Saint again plunged into the desert, and retraced his steps to Amanguchi. Xavier describes the Japanese very much as a Roman might have depicted the Greeks in the age of Augustus, as at once intellectual and sen- sual voluptuaries ; on the best possible terms with themselves, a good-humored but faithless race, 48 ST. 1GNAT1 US LO TOLA AND COMPANIONS. equally acute aud frivolous, talkative and dispu- tatious — "their inquisitiveness," he says, "is incredible, especially in their intercourse with strangers, for whom they have not the slightest respect, but make incessant sport of them. ' ' Sur- rounded at Amanguchi, by a crowd of these bab- blers, he was plied with innumerable questions about the immortality of the soul, the movements of the planets, eclipses, the rainbow — sin, grace, paradise, and hell. He heard and answered. A single response solved all these problems. As- tronomers, meteorologists, metaphysicians, and divines, all heard the same sound, but to each it came with a different and an appropriate meaning. So wrote from the very spot Father Anthony Quadros four years after the event, and so the fact may be read in the process of Xavier's canonization. In such controversies, and in doing the work of an evangelist in every other form, Xavier saw the third year of his residence at Japan gliding away, when tidings of perplexities at the mother church of Goa recalled him thither ; across seas so wide and stormy, that even the sacred lust of gold hardly braved them in that infancy of the art of navigation. As his ship drove before the monsoon, dragging after her a smaller bark which she had taken in tow, the connecting ropes were suddenly burst asunder, and in a few minutes the two vessels were no longer in sight. Thrice ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 49 the sun rose and set on their dark course, the un- chained elements roaring as in mad revelry around them, and the ocean seething like a caldron. Xavier's shipmates wept over the loss of friends and kindred in the foundered bark, and shuddered at their own approaching doom. He also wept ; but his were grateful tears. As the screaming whirlwind swept over the abyss, the present Deity was revealed to His faithful worshipper, shedding tranquillity, and peace, and joy over the sanctuary of a devout and confiding heart. " Mourn not, my friend," was his gay address to Edward de Gama, as he lamented the loss of his brother in the bark; " before three days, the daughter will have returned to her mo ther. ' ' They were weary and anxious day s ; but, as the third drew towards a close, a sail appeared on the horizon. Defying the adverse winds, she made straight towards them, and at last dropped alongside, as calmly as the sea-bird ends her flight, and furls her ruffled plumage on the swelling surge. The cry of miracle burst from every lip ; and well it might. There was the lost bark, and not the bark only, but Xavier himself on board of her ! What thougli he had ridden out the tempest in the larger vessel, the stay of their drooping spirits, he had at the same time been in the smaller ship, performing there also the same charitable office ; and yet, when the two hailed and spoke to each other, there was but one Francis Xavier, and he 50 ST. IQNA TIUS LO TOLA AND COMPANIONS. composedly standing by the side of Edward de Gama on the deck of the "Holy Cross." Such was the name of the Commodore's vessel. For her services on this occasion, she obtained a sacred charter of immunity from risks of every kind.; and as long as her timbers continued sound, bounded merrily across seas in which no other craft could have lived. During this wondrous voyage, her deck had often been paced in deep conference by Xavier and Jago de Pereyra, her commander. The great object which expanded the thoughts of Pereyra was the conversion of the Chinese empire. Be- fore the "Holy Cross" had reached Goa, Pereyra had pledged his whole fortune, Xavier his influ- ence and his life, to this gigantic adventure. In the spring of the following year, the apostle and Pereyra sailed from Goa in the "Holy Cross," for the then unexplored coasts of China. As they passed Malacca, tidings came to Xavier of the tardy though true fulfilment of one of his predicitons. Pestilence, the minister of Divine vengeance, was laying waste that stiff-necked and luxurious people ; but the woe he had foretold he was the foremost to alleviate. Heedless of his own safety, he raised the sick in his arms and bore them to the hospitals. He esteemed no time, or place, or office, too sacred to give way to this work of mercy. Ships, colleges, churches, all at his bidding became so many lazarettos. ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 51 Mght and day lie lived among the diseased and the dying, or quitted them only to beg food or medicine, from door to door, for their relief. For the moment, even China was forgotten ; nor would he advance a step though it were to con- vert to Christianity a third part of the human race, so long as one victim of tne plague de- manded his sympathy, or could be directed to an ever-present and still more compassionate Com- forter. The career of Xavier was now drawing to a close; and with him the time was ripe for practising those deeper lessons of wisdom which he had imbibed from his long and arduous discipline. Again the " Holy Cross" prepared for sea; and the apostle of the Indies, followed by a grate- ful and admiring people, passed through the gates of Malacca to the beach. Falling on his face to the earth, he poured forth a passionate though silent prayer. His body heaved and shook with the throes of that agonizing hour. What might be the fearful portent none might divine, and none presumed to ask. A contagious tenor passed from eye to eye, but every voice was hushed. It was as the calm preceding the first thunder peal which is to rend the firmament. Xavier arose, his countenance no longer beaming with its accustomed grace and tenderness, but glowing with a sacred indignation, like that of Isaiah when breathing forth his inspired menaces 52 ST. IGNA TITJS L TOLA AND COMPANIONS. against the king of Babylon. Standing on a rock amidst the waters, he loosed his shoes from off his feet, smote them against each other with vehement action, and then casting them from him, as still tainted with the dust of that devoted city, he leaped barefooted into the bark, which bore him away forever from a place from which he had so long and vainly labored to avert her impend- ing doom. She bore him, as he had projected, to the island of Sancian. It was a mere commercial factory ; and the merchants who passed the trading season there, vehemently opposed his design of penetrat- ing farther into China. True he had ventured into the forest, against the tigers which infested it, with no other weapon than a vase of holy water ; and the savage beasts, sprinkled with that sacred element, had forever fled the place : but the mandarins were fiercer still than they, and would avenge the preaching of the saint on the inmates of the factory. Long years had now passed away since the voice of Loyola had been heard on the banks of the Seine urging the solemn inquiry, "What shall it profit." But the words still rung on the ear of Xavier, and were still repeated, though in vain, to his worldly associates at Sancian. They sailed away with their cargoes, leaving be- hind them only the " Holy Cross," in charge of the officers of Alvaro, and depriving Xavier of all ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA AND COMPANIONS. 53 means of crossing the channel to Macao. They left him destitute of shelter and of food, but not of hope. He had heard that the King of Siam meditated an embassy to China for the following year ; and to Siam he resolved to return in Alvaro's vessel, to join himself, if possible, to the Siamese envoys, and so at length to force his way into the empire. But his earthly toils and projects, were now to cease forever. The angel of death appeared with a summons, for which, since death first entered our world, no man was ever more triumphantly prepared. It found him on board the vessel on the point of departing for Siam. At his own re- quest he was removed to the shore, that he might meet his end with the greater composure. Stretched on the naked beach, with the cold blasts of a Chinese winter aggravating his pains, he con- tended alone with the agonies of the fever which wasted his vital power. It was a solitude and an agony for which the happiest of the sons of men might well have exchanged the dearest society and the purest of the joys of life. It was an agony in which his still uplifted crucifix reminded him of a far more awful woe endured for his de- liverance ; and a solitude thronged by blessed ministers of peace and consolation, visible in all their bright and lovely aspects to the now un- clouded eye of faith ; and audible to the dying martyr through the yielding bars of his mortal 54 JOAN OF ABC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS. prison-house, in strains of exulting joy till then unheard and unimagined. Tears burst from his fading eyes, tears of an emotion too big for utter- ance. In the cold collapse of death his features were for a few brief moments irradiated as with the first beams of approaching glory. He raised himself on his crucifix, and exclaiming, In te Domine, speram—non confundar in (sternum! he bowed his head and died.— Edinburgh Review. JOAN OF AEC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS. What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd -girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that — like the Hebrew shepherd- boy from the hills and forests of Judea — rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaug- urated his patriotic mission by an act, by a vic- torious act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pre- JOAN OF ARC, JHE MAID OF ORLEANS. 55 tender ; but so did they to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw V&emfrom a station of good-will, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose — to a splendor and a noonday prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a by-word amongst his posterity, for a thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang together with them the songs that rose in her native Domremy, as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She mingled not in the festal dances at Yaucouleurs which cele- brated in rapture the redemption of France. No ! for her voice was then silent. No! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl ! whom, from earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges for thy side, that never once — no, not for a moment of weakness — didst thou revel in the vision of coronets and honors from men. Coronets for thee! O no! Honors, if they come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood. Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, king 56 JOAN OF ARC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS. of France, but she will not hear thee ! Cite her by thy apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found en contumace. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her country — thy ear, young shepherd-girl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life ; to do — never for thyself, always for others ; to suffer — never in the persons of generous champions, al- ways in thy own ; that was thy destiny ; and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself. ' ' Life, ' ' thou saidst, "is short, and the sleep which is in the grave is long. Let me use that life, so tran- sitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long." This poor creature — pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious — never once did this holy child, as regarded herself relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death ; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators with- out end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artifi- JOAN OF ARC, HIE MAID OF ORLEANS. 57 cial restraints; these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, that she heard forever. Great was the throne of France, even in those days, and great was he that sat upon it; but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he that sat upon it, was for her; but, on the contrary, that she was for them ; not she by them, but they by her, should rise from the dust. G-orgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had the privilege to spread their beauty over land and sea, until, in another century, the wrath of God and man combined to wither them ; but well Joanna knew, early at Domremy she had read that bitter truth, that the lilies of France would decorate no garland for her. Flower nor bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for her. On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday, in 1431, being then about nineteen years of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conducted before midday, guarded by eight hun- dred spearmen, to a platform of prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets, supported by hollow spaces in every direction, for the cre- ation of air-currents. " The pile struck terror," says M. Michelet, " by its height.". . . There would be a certainty of calumny rising against her — some people would impute to her a willing- ness to recant. No innocence could escape that. 58 JOAN OF ARC, THE MAID OF ORLEANS, Now, had she really testified this willingness on the scaffold it would have argued nothing at all but the weakness of a genial nature shrinking from the instant approach of torment. And those will often pity that weakness most who in their own person would yield to it least. Mean- time there never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded circum- stances. It rests upon no positive testimony, and it has a weight of contradicting testimony to stem. . . What else but her meek, saintly de- meanor won, from the enemies that till now had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admiration? "Ten thousand men," says M. Michelet himself, ' ' ten thousand men wept ; and of those ten thou- sand the majority were political enemies." What else was it but her constancy, united with her angelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic English soldier — who had sworn to throw a fagot on her scaffold as Ms tribute of abhorrence that did so, that fulfilled his vow — suddenly to turn away a penitent for life, saying everywhere that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to heaven from the ashes where she had stood ? What else drove the executioner to kneel at every shrine for pardon to Ids share in the tragedy? And if all this were insufficient, then I cite the closing a^u of her life as valid on her behalf, were all other testi- monies against her. The executioner had been di- rected to apjply the torch from below. He did so. THE HOL Y LAND. 59 The fiery smoke rose up in billowy columns. A Dominican monk was then standing almost at her side. Wrapped up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs to seize her, even at that moment did this noblest of girls think only for him, the one friend that would not forsake her, and not for herself ; bidding him with her last breath to care for his own preservation but to leave her to God. That girl, whose latest breath descended in this sublime expression of self- oblivion, did not utter the wordrecanf, either with her lips or in her heart. No, she did not, though one should rise from the dead to swear it. — De Quincey. THE HOLY LAND. Hail, Holy Land ! Land of human sorrows and divine mercies ! Land of prophecy, country of God and man, our eyes now turn towards thee. At thy very name we feel an irresistible emotion, and the depths of our souls re-echo the accents of the royal psalmist: "O Jerusalem, may my right hand perish, if ever I forget thee !" But if we would speak worthily of Jerusalem, we must borrow the language of St. Bernard ; 60 THE HOLY LAND. "Hail, then, holy city, city of the Son of God: chosen and sanctified to be the source of our sal- vation ! Hail to thee, dwelling-place of the Great King, whence have emanated all the wonders of ancient and modern times which have rejoiced the world ! Queen of nations, capital of empires, see of patriarchs, mother of prophets and apostles, first cradle of our faith, glory and honor of Christianity! Hail, promised land, once flowing with milk and honey for thy first children, thou hast produced the food of life and the medicine of immortality for all future ages. Yes, city of God, great things have been spoken of thee !" Although now dead and withered, Jerusalem, like the prophet's bones, seems still to possess the virtue of giving life to the dead who touch her ancient remains. Her name, like the name of God, whence it is derived, is invested with a hidden pow- er, which at certain periods manifests itself like the electric spark, and diffuses a sacred emotion throughout every land ; and when the world goes astray, when it becomes exhausted, or slumbers in the shadow of death, this life-giving name awakens it, and the angel who descends into the pool of the holy city stirs the springs of life, and pours the heavenly sap once more through the veins of the human race. There has never been any great idea, or first prin- ciple, or heavenly inspiration, which has not arisen in the Holy Land before its diffusion THE HOLY LAND. 61 throughout the world. There, in the beginning, flowed the tears and the blood of sinful man ; there, under the mount of skulls,* are laid the remains of Adam and those of the mother of the living. Melchisedech came there to offer the sac- rifice of future reconciliation ; and under that high-priest's footsteps, according to the eternal decree, arose Salem, the city of peace. The three races of mankind — the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth — each in its turn mingled their ashes with those of the father of all men ; and thus around the first human grave, the primitive altar of mercy, was found the sacred field of the dead — that vast cemetery of the sons of men, which grad- ually enlarged its limits unto the uttermost parts of the earth. On this mystical altar flowed the blood of beasts, the blood of man, and the blood of God ; and from the summit of this altar, on the Holy mount, where Christ consummated His sac- rifice, Divine grace flowed forth upon the dead, and watered the dust of man, which will one day revive again.— M. V Abbe Batisbonne. * Calvary, " the place of skulls," on which was raised the cross of Christ, is said to contain the ashes of Adam and Eve. This assertion is by no means authentic ; but is founded on pious tradition which the Church has never con- demned. 62 L)EA TH OF WILLIAM THE CONQ UEROJR. DEATH OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, SEPT. 9, 1087. The death-bed of William was a death-bed of all formal devotion, a death-bed of penitence which we may trust was more than formal. The English Chronicler [William of Malmesbury], after weighing the good and evil in him, sends him out of the world with a charitable prayer for his soul's rest; and his repentance, late and fearful as it was, at once marks the distinction between the Conqueror on his bed of death and his successor cut off without a thought of peni- tence in the midst of his crimes. He made his will. The mammon of unrighteousness which he had gathered together amid the groans and tears of England he now strove so to dispose of as to pave his way to an everlasting habitation. All his treasures were distributed among the poor and the churches of his dominions. A special sum was set apart for the rebuilding of the churches which had been burned at Mantes, and gifts in money and books and ornaments of every kind were to be distributed among all the churches of England according to their rank. He then spoke of his own life, and of the arrangements which he wished to make for his dominions after his death. The Normans, he said, were a brave and uncon- quered race; but they needed the curb of a strong BE A TR OF WILLIAM THE CONQ UEROR. 63 * and a righteous master to keep them in the path of order. Yet the rule over them must by all law pass to Robert. Robert was his eldest born; he had promised him the Norman succession before he won the crown of England, and he had received the homage of the barons of the Duchy. Nor- mandy and Maine must therefore pass to Robert, and for them he must be the man of the French king. Yet he well knew how sad would be the fate of the land which had to be ruled by one so proud and foolish, and for whom a career of shame and sorrow was surely doomed. But what was to be done with England ? Now at last the heart of William smote him. To Eng- land he dared not appoint a successor; he could only leave the disposal of the island realm to the Almighty Ruler of the world. The evil deeds of his past life crowded upon his soul. Now at last his heart confessed that he had won England by no right, by no claim of birth; that he had won the English crown by wrong, and that what he had won by wrong he had no right to give to another. He had won his realm by warfare and bloodshed; he had treated the sons of the English soil with needless harshness; he had cruelly wronged nobles and commons; he had spoiled many men wrongfully of their inheritance; he had slain countless multitudes by hunger or by the sword. The harrying of Northumberland now rose up be- fore his eyes in all its blackness. The dying 64 DEA TH OF WILLIAM THE CONQ UEROR man now told how cruelly he had burned and plundered the land, what thousands of every age and sex among the noble nation which he had conquered had been done to death at his bidding.. The sceptre of the realm which he had won by so many crimes he dared not hand over to any but to God alone. Yet he would not hide his wish that his son William, who had ever been dutiful to him, might reign in England after him. He would send him beyond the sea, and he would pray Larifranc to place the crown upon his head, if the Primate in his wisdom deemed that such an act could be rightly done. Of the two sons of whom he spoke, Robert was far away, a banished rebel; William was by his bedside. By his bedside also stood his young- est son, the English iEtheling, Henry the Clerk. " And what dost thou give to me, my father?" said the youth. "Five thousand pounds of silver from my hoard," was the Conqueror's answer. "But of what use is a hoard to me if I have no place to dwell in?" "Be patient, my son, and trust in the Lord, and let thine elders go before thee." It is perhaps by the light of later events that our chronicler goes on to make William tell his youngest son that the day would come when he would succeed both his brothers in their do- minions, and would be richer and mightier than either of them. The king then dictated a letter to Lanf ranc, setting forth his wishes with regard to the BE A TH OF WILLIAM THE COJSTQ UEBOU. Qfr kingdom. He sealed it and gave it to Ms son William, and bade him, with his last blessing and his last kiss, to cross at once into England. William Ruf us straightway set forth for Witsand and there heard of his father' s death. Meanwhile Henry, too, left his father' s bedside to take for himself the money that was left to him, to see that nothing was lacking in its weight, to call together his comrades on whom he could trust, and to take measures for stowing the treasure in a place of safety. And now those who stood around the dying king began to implore his mercy for the captives whom he held in prison. He granted the prayer. . . . The last earthly acts of the Conqueror were now done. He had striven to make his peace with God and man, and to make such provision as he conld for the children and the subjects whom he had left behind him. And now his last hour was come. On a Thursday morning in September, when the sun had already risen upon the earth, the sound of the great bell of the metropolitan minster struck on the ears of the dying king. He asked why it sounded. He was told that it rang for prime in the Church of Our Lady. William lifted his eyes to heaven, he stretched forth his hands, and spake his last words: "To my Lady Mary, the Holy Mother of God, I commend my- self, that by her holy prayers she may reconcile ,Q6 TEE ROMAN CATEOLIG CEUBCE. me to her dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." He prayed, and his soul passed away. William, king of the English and duke of the Normans, the man whose fame has filled the world in his briand."— Charles I. White, D.D. CHARITY. (SUGGESTED BY DORE's " SPANISH BEGGARS.") Dona Inez was a lady, Very rich and fair to see, And her heart was like a lily In its holy purity ; Through the widest street in Cadiz Doha Inez rode one day, Clad in costly silk and laces, Mid a group of friends as gay. . Near the portals of a convent — From the Moors just lately won — Sat a crowd of dark-skinned beggars Basking in the pleasant sun ; One, an old man — he a Christian Blind to all the outward light — 76 CHARITY. Told his black beads, praying softly For all poor souls still in night. " I am but a Moorish beggar," Said a woman with a child ; " I am but a Moorish beggar, And the Moors jare fierce and wild. You may talk of Christian goodness — Christian Faith and charity, But Til never be a Christian ' Till some proof of these I see. Christians are as proud and haughty As the proudest Moor of all ; And they hate the men that hate them With a hate like bitter gall." "You judge rashly, my sister, In the words you speak tome." "I would be a Christian, blind man : Show me Christian charity ! " Lo ! here comes proud Doha Inez, Very rich and fair to see ; I am but a Moorish beggar, Will the lady come to me ? " No ! she will not, for she hateth All the children of the Moor. If she come, I tell you, blind man, I will kneel, and Christ adore !" LA HARPE \8_ CONVERSION. 77 Passing was the Lady Inez, When the dark group met her eye, And she leant from out her litter Smiling on them tenderly. " They are poor, they are God's children " Said a voice within her soul, And she lightly from her litter Stepped to give the beggars dole. Sneered, and laughed, and laughing wond- ered All the other ladies gay ; And the Lady Inez knew not She had saved a soul that day. ■From "Preludes" by Maurice F. Egan. LA HARPE' S CONVERSION. La Haepe was one of the most distinguished scholars of the last century, but at the same time one of the most impious philosophers. At the pe- riod of the Revolution he was arrested and thrown into prison. Alone there in a small room he began to reflect seriously, which had not happened to him, probably, for a long time. He also read some good books, amongst others the Psalms of David, the New Testament, and some others, but th*% 78 LA HARPE'S CONVERSION. did not completely change "him. One day, weary of that state of uncertainty in which he was, he took up unthinkingly a book that lay on his mantel-piece: it was the Imitation. He opens it at random, and his eyes fall just on these words : "My son, behold, here I am ! I come to thee, be- cause thou hast called me." He had no need of reading farther ; he was so impressed, so struck by these words, that he fell on his knees, his face to the ground, the tears streaming from his eyes. His breast heaved with sighs, he groaned and cried aloud, and broken incoherent words escaped him ; and, in the midst of that sweet revulsion of feeling going on within him, his mind recurred incessantly to the words, My son, behold here I am. La Harpe was converted, and, as God did not permit that he should perish on the scaffold, he devoted the rest of his life to making good books to counteract, as far as possible, the effect of the bad ones he had had the misfortune to write before. The beautiful words that made an impious philosopher a fervent Christian are found, my dear friends, in the third book, twenty-first chapter ; read them over sometimes, recalling to mind what I have just told you. — Guillois, Nouv. Explic. du Cat., 254. THE A THEIST SA TING HIS BEADS. 79 THE ATHEIST SAYING HIS BEADS. I confess to you, children, ifc is very convenient to play the sceptic and the free-thinker when peo- ple are well, and everything is going well with them ; but there are moments when, in spite of them, they return to better sentiments. The famous Volney was once on a voyage with some of his friends, off the coast of Maryland, in North America. All at once a great storm arose, and the little bark which bore the flower of the un- believers of both hemispheres, appeared twenty times on the point of being lost. In this im- minent peril every one began to pray ; M. de Volney himself snatched a rosary from a good woman near him, and began to recite Ave Marias with edifying fervor, nor ceased till the danger had passed. Some one approached him when the storm was over and said in a tone of good-natured raillery : " My dear sir, it seems to me that you were praying just now ; to whom, pray, did you address yourself, since you maintain that there is no God V ' "Ah! my friend,'- replied the philosopher, all ashamed, "one can be a sceptic in his study, but not at sea, in a storm." — Noel^ Catechisme de Rodez, L, 73. 80 FUNERAL ORATION. FUNERAL ORATION OF THE PRINCE OF CONDE. Come now, you people ; or rather, come, princes and lords ; and you, who judge the earth ; and you, who open to men the gates of heaven ; and you, more than all, princes and princesses, noble progeny of so many kings, lights of France, but to-day obscured, and covered with your grief as with a cloud ; come and see the little that re- mains to us of "so august a birth, of so much great- ness, of so much glory. Cast your eyes on all sides ; behold all that magnificence and piety could do, to honor a hero ; titles, inscriptions, vain marks of that which is no more ; figures which seem to weep around a tomb, and frail im- ages of a grief which time bears away along with all the rest ; columns which seem as if they would raise to heaven the magnificent testimony of our nothingness : and nought in fine is wanted, amid all these honors, but he to whom they are given. W &p, then, over these feeble remains of human life ; weep over that sad immortality which we give to heroes. But approach, in particular, you who run with so much ardor in the career of glory ; warlike and intrepid souls ! Who was more worthy to com- mand you % yet in whom have you found authority more gentle ! Weep, then, for this great captain, FUNERAL OEATION. 81 and say, with sighs. Behold him who was our leader in dangers ; under him have been formed so many renowned captains, whom his examples have raised to the first honors of war ; his shade could still gain victories ; and behold, now, in his silence, his very name animates, and at the same time warns us, that to find at death some rest from our labors, and not to arrive unprovided at our eternal dwelling, with the earthly king we must likewise serve the King of heaven. Serve, then, that King, immortal and so full of mercy, who will value a sigh and a glass of water given in His name, more than all others will ever do the effusion of all your blood ; and begin to date the time of your useful services from the day on which you shall have given yourself to a Master so be- neficent. For me, if it be allowed me, after all others, to come to render the last duties at this tomb, Prince, worthy subject of our eulogies and of our regrets, you shall live eternally in my memory ; your image shall there be traced, not with that boldness which promised victory ; no, I wil see nothing in you of that which is effaced by death. You shall have in this image immortal lineaments ; I shall there behold you such as you were at that last day under the hand of God, when His glory seemed already to appear to you. There I shall behold you more triumphant than at Fribourg and Rocroy ; and, ravished by a triumph so 82 THE ASS UMPTION. splendid, I shall repeat, with thanksgiving, these beautiful words of the beloved disciple: u And this is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith." Enjoy, prince, this victory ; enjoy it eternally by the immortal virtue of this sacri- fice. Accept these last efforts of a voice which was known to you. You shall put an end to all these discourses. Instead of deploring the death of others, great Prince, henceforward I will learn of you to render my own holy. Happy, if, warned by these white hairs of the account which I am to render of my ministry, I reserve for the flock which I ought to nourish with the word of life, the remains of a faltering voice and of an ardor which will soon be extinguished. — Bossuet. THE ASSUMPTION. I cannot think they love the Lord aright, Or by His promised spirit have been taught, Who from His mother derogate in aught, And grudgingly withhold her sovereign right, And find one speck upon her shield of light, And deem the sacred vessel which has brought Incarnate God into the world is naught But dust still soddening in the crypts of night. TEE WIFE OF MARSHAL BE MOUCHY. 83 "No ! rather let me cleave to what they say Who love the legends of the East to reap, That when Apostles on an August day Came to the spot where Mary fell on sleep, They found, where late her precious body lay, Naught but some fragrant lilies in a heap. — Earle. THE WIFE OF MAESHAL DE MOUCHY. Of all the victims who perished on the revolu- tionary scaffold in 1793, there are few who do not merit the admiration of all France. You may judge of this from the following fact: Marshal de Mouchy was sentenced to die on the scaffold; he mounted it courageously, pronouncing these em- phatic words: " At twenty I mounted the breach for my king, at eighty I mount the scaffold for my God." But listen: This venerable old man had been arrested, and conducted, like so many others, to the prison of the Luxembourg, in Paris. He was scarcely there when his wife went to join him. She is told that the accusation makes do mention of her; but she answers in a de- cided tone: "Since my husband is arrested, so am I." M. de Mouchy is brought before the rev- olutionary tribunal; she accompanies him. The public accuser warns her that he did not send 84 THE SE1QE OF WEINSBERO. for her. ' i Since my husband is summoned before your tribunal, so am I." At length, the famous Marshal is condemned to death, and the cour- ageous wife ascends the fatal cart with him. " But you are not condemned," says the execu- tioner to her. ' ' Since my husband is condemned, so am I." ISTo other answer could be drawn from this admirable woman, and it was found neces- sary to employ force to make her descend from the scaffold. Is not this what may be called the literal acceptation of those words of Our Lord: A woman shall leave Tier father and her mother, and cleave unto her husband f Oh ! happy are the families which have at their head a man and woman so well adapted to each other ! — Mlassier, Diet. Hist, d) Educ.^ I., 125. THE SEIGE OF WEINSBERG. The Duke of Wurtemburg had strongly op- posed the election of Conrad III., who was pro- claimed Emperor in 1138. That did not jjrevent the election from being confirmed. When the new monarch had assumed the diadem, the Duke of Wurtemburg refused to recognize him, and shut himself up in the fortress of Weinsberg, the strongest in the whole duchy of Wurtemburg. THE PARGUINOTES. 85 He was besieged there by the imperial army, but withstood for twelve days the attack of his sovereign with a bravery truly heroic. Afc length he was obliged to yield to superior strength. The Emperor, much exasperated, would have de- stroyed all before him ; he even intended to slaughter every living being. Nevertheless, on the remonstrances of his council, he pardoned the women, and permitted them to carry off what they most valued, but insisted on their leaving the town immediately. The Duchess availed her- self of this permission to save her husband's life; She took him on her back, and so quitted the town. All the other women did as much, and Conrad saw them go forth loaded with this pre- cious burden, the Duchess at their head. He could not withstand a sight so touching ; yield- ing to the admiration it caused him, he forgave the husbands for the sake of their wives ; the whole town was saved. — Filassier, Diet. Hist. d'Muc, I. s 229. THE PARGUHSTOTES. The small town of Parga, on the coast of Epirus, which maintained its independence for ages, under the protection of the Venetian republic, and which boldly contested for liberty for six months against 8(j THE PARGUINOTES. the Turks, was, by a treaty, in which the British nation was a party, ceded to their most inveterate and deadly enemies. This event took place in 1814. Stipulations of a favorable kind were made in be- half of the Parguinotes ; and it was agreed that every one, who would rather withdraw from his country, than trust to the faithless promises of Ali Pacha — for to him they were then ceded — was to have the privilege of retiring, and to have the value of his property paid to him by the Albanian tyrant. When the commissioners of Great Britain and the Porte first met to ascertain what portion of the natives chose to relinquish their country, or share in its disgrace, they were called one by one, with the greatest formality, before the two commis- sioners ; and all, without exception, declared that, rather than submit to the Ottoman authority, they would forever abandon their country, were they even to lose all they possessed. They added, that, in quitting the land of their birth, they Would dis- inter, and carry away the bones of their fore- fathers, that they might not have to reproach themselves with having left those sacred relics to the most cruel enemies of their race. One of the Parguinotes (named G-lanchi Zulla), who was deaf and dumb, being interrogated, in his turn, as to the course which he proposed to take, and having ascertained what was signified to him, indignantly turned to the Turkish commis- sioner, and by the most energetic and unequivocal THE PABG U1N0TES. 87 gestures, gave him to understand, that he would never remain under the dominion of the Pacha ! Three years afterwards, the Parguinotes were again assembled, and again expressed their deter- mination not to live under the yoke of the Turks. At length, in June, 1819, it was determined to enforce the cession ; and the British commissioner informed the Parguinotes, that, in conformity with the arrangements with Ali Pacha, a Turkish force was to enter their territory without delay. The Parguinotes having held a consultation, sent to inform the commandant, that, as such was the determination of the British commissioner, they had unanimously resolved, that should one single Turk enter their territory, before all of them should have had a fair opportunity of leaving it, they would put to death their wives and children, and then defend themselves against any force, Christian or Turkish, that should violate the pledge made to them, and that they would fight until one only should survive to tell the story. The English commandant, perceiving by their preparations, that their resolution was irrevoca- ble, despatched General Sir Frederick Adam to expostulate with them. The officer, on his ar- rival at Parga, observed a large fire in the public square, where the inhabitants had heaped to- gether the bones of their ancestors, collected from the churches and cemeteries. All the male population stood armed at the doors 88 THE PARG UWOTES. of their respective dwellings ; the women and children were within awaiting their fate ; a gloomy and awful silence prevailed. A few of the primates, with the protopata at their head, received General Adam on his landing, and assured him, that the meditated sacrifice would be immediately made, unless he could stop the entrance of the Turks, who had already arrived near their front- ier, and effectually protect their embarkation and departure. Fortunately, Sir Frederick Adam found means to prevail on the Turkish commandant to halt with his force. The embarkation then commenced, and alltheParguinotes proceeded to Corfu. The Turks, on their entrance, found Parga a desert ; and the only signal that marked their reception, was the smoke of the funeral pile, in which its late inhabitants had consumed the bones of their fore- fathers. The unfortunate emigrants waited at Corfu, as houseless wanderers, the distribution of the miserable pittance of £48 per head, which had been awarded to them, as a compensation for the los^ of their property, their social endear- ment^ ^nd their country THE BOSARY. 89 THE ROSARY ; Of all the forms of devotion to the Blessed Vir- gin, the Rosary recommends itself by its peculiar excellence. It unites the various merits of mental and of vocal prayer. The attention is recalled from the distracting cares of life, and directed heavenwards by the recital of one of those stu- pendous and incomprehensible acts of love which the Man-God displayed towards us, or of the heroic virtues and sublime dignity which He has bestowed on His Virgin Mother. And when the better feelings of nature are touched, and the mind lifted from the grovelling pursuits of earth, and the heart laid open for every salutary im- pression, then is the petition taught by the Re- deemer Himself, poured forth before the throne of mercy, and the ever Blessed Virgin is repeat- edly entreated to intercede for us, with her Son, that we may obtain the objects of that petition, as well as every other blessing. The prayer con- cludes by glorifying the three Persons of the God- head, and thus professing our faith in the leading tenet of Christianity. In this there is nothing over-refined or far- fetched. It is suited to the capacities of all. The Christian philosopher has delighted in its simple beauty, and the poor slave has solaced many a weary hour by reciting it, and thinking 90 THE ROSARY. over the glad tidings it announces, that those who are despised and trampled under foot by the law- less wantonness of power, are dearer far to the Re- deemer than the haughty and unfeeling tyrant ; that the path of sufferings, hallowed by the foot- steps of God, is the path to a glorious throne ; and that there is a world beyond the grave, where the injustice of this shall cease, and a crown of immortality be the reward of those who in meek resignation to the dispensations of their heavenly Father, have borne patiently the afflictions of this short and, at best, miserable existence. No wonder that such a form of prayer should have spread Throughout every kingdom of the globe. No wonder that every Catholic worthy of the name, takes care to teach it to his children, and recites it every evening in the bosom of his family. No wonder that during the last six cent- uries, countless millions have enrolled themselves in the association whose object it is to repeat this prayer, and to learn from it lessons of the purest and most exalted virtues. No wonder that the Church, exulting in their devotion, and consoled, amidst the deluge of iniquity that al- most covers the earth, by their regular attendance at the sacraments, their zeal for religion, their fraternal charity and unfeigned humility, should have profusely bestowed on them the treasures of merits confided to her keeping, by granting them numberless indulgences ; or that to their DESTR UGTION OF PA GAN ROME. Q 1 prayers she ascribes one of the most signal vic- tories of modern times, the victory which, at Lepanto, broke down the power of the Mussulman, and hindered the blind and sensual superstition of Mahommed from effacing every trace of civili- zation and piety on the earth. — Rev. J. P. Leahy. DESTRUCTION OF PAGAN ROME. c-ToTiLA, 1^ Gfoth," says Procopius (who served in the staff of Belisarius, and was his sec- retary), "determined to level Rome with the ground, and make the region where it stood a place of pasturage for flocks and herds." Prep- arations were made to overturn the monuments and trophies that still survived so many ravages, and to destroy the palaces and tern pies by fire. These he spared, at the instance of an embassy sc n" by Belisarius, from where he lay with the forces of the Greek Emperor at Ostia ; but the walls he caused to be in great part demolished, and carried away as captives the miserable remnant of the senate and the Roman people, with their wives and children. He suffered no one to remain behind, so that the city was a per- fect solitude. The Chronicle of Marcellinus adds, that for forty days and upwards Rome had no 92 DESTR UCTION OF PAGAN ROME. inhabitants but wild beasts and birds of prey. It was towards the close of this interval, that Belisarius felt a desire to visit and survey with his own eyes, the ruins of a place that had been the theatre of so much grandeur and renown ; and with this view, he sallied forth from the sea- port at the head of a strong squadron of his guards. A marble wilderness extended on every side, as far as the eye could reach, strewed with the ruins of Yitruvian villas, temples, and aqueducts ; the waste waters of the latter had filled all the valleys, and overflowed the low grounds of the Campagna, converting into marshes and mant- ling pools, those regions which, erewhile, had abounded with all the delights of the Hesperides. The thoroughfares of the nations were silent and lonely as the double line of tombs through which they passed. The towers and inscriptions over the gates had been torn down, and their bronze portals carried off in the plunder- train of the barbarian. The rock-built walls of Rome lay low ; and the tramp of their war-horses was muffled by the grass, as Belisarius and his troops rode under a succession of dismantled arches, down towards the forum, along the "sacred way." The fox looked out from the casements of the Palatine, and barked sharply at the intruders as they rode on ; wolves prowled through the vacant streets, or littered in the palace halls ; wild dogs DESTR UCTION OF PA OAN ROME. 93 hunted, in packs, through the great circus, through the baths, along the Campus Martius, and on to the gardens of Sallust and MercaBnas, through the promenades of the Suburra. Out- landish beasts — as if escaped from the menageries and keeps of the amphitheatres — lay sleeping and enjoying themselves in the sunshine of the por- ticoes, or tore one another to pieces, as the fac- tions had done of old, around the rostrum, and in the assembly-place of the people ; others growled and snarled, and gloated over the un- buried carcasses and whitening skeletons of the dead. Ravens and vultures desisted from feed- ing their sanguinary nestlings, to hoot the war- riors, as they wound slowly among the prostrate columns and entablatures of temples that en- cumbered the ascent to the capitol, or, starting from their perching-place on trophy and triumphal arch, hovered and flapped their sable wings above the plumage of their helmets. Once more, the Roman eagle soars above the Tarpeian tower — that eyrie from whence, for a thousand years, it had flown forth to carnage ; and the martial bugle makes the field of Mars resound again. But instead of the warlike response of legions — clamoring to be lead against the Samnite or the Parthian — there broke out a hideous medley of yells and howling, yelp, bark, and roar, out- topped by the shrill cries of ill-omened birds, startled from their roosts in the sanctuary recesses, 94 DESTR UCTION OF PA QAN HOME. and from the niches and corners of the senate house. The warriors listened for some human sound. In vain they listened, and listened again ! There was the Palatine, the forum, the capitol, the Campus Martius, and the Tiber, flowing under the beauteous summer sky beneath the Tarpeian cliff: but the legions, the emperors, the senate, and the Roman people, where were they \ When that savage uproar had at last sub- sided save a casual outbreak of a howl or bark reverberating dismally among the ruins, and along the valleys and the river banks, all within the boundaries of the seven hills was again as silent as the grave ! Never had mortal eye beheld a catastrophe more impressive. Fortune had turned back upon her steps, and made it her sport to reverse everything, upon that very scene, where, beyond all others, men had become elated with imagining that she had, at length, descended from her slippery globe forever, and fixed her perpetual sojourn. But it would seem as if she lured the Romans to the highest pinnacle of grandeur and felicity, only to render their downfall the more tremendous— had helped them to build up testimonials of boundless empire, and to stamp a character of eternity upon their works, merely that the vouchers of her own instability might endure forever. After being deified by the prostrate earth and having temples, and priests, and altars, conse- DESTR UGT10N OF PAGAN ROME. 95 crated for their worship, the emperors of Eome were led about as harlequins to grace the triumph and contribute mirth to the carousals of the Goths. The iron legions, that had trodden down the na- tions, had been trodden down in their turn. The slave had seen his tyrant lord a sup- pliant at his feet for life, at his gate for bread ; to escape from dignities, for which the Gracchi, the Scipios and Caesars had contended, men of patrician lineage had themselves branded and ranked as slaves. To be a Roman, once a distinction prouder than that of royalty, had be- come the vilest badge of infamy. The lords of palaces that resembled cities, and of estates that included kingdoms within their limits, saw them- selves without a home or a rood of land. "In this revolution, the sons and daughters of Roman consuls tasted the misery which they had so often spurned or relieved, wandered in tattered gar- ments through the streets of the city, and begged for the most sordid pittance, perhaps without success, before the gates of their hereditary man- sions ;" others expired- of famine upon silken couches, amid halls of more than regal splendor, or were led away (a lot still more insupportable) to minister to the rude conquerors, amid devas- tated villas and gardens, that reminded them of many a bright summer time passed in dalliance and enjoyment. To the very weft, the Fates had unravelled their most gorgeous tissue, and 96 THE AMERICAN INDIAN. from the ruins of the Palatine and the capitol, had abandoned the fame of kings, consuls and emperors to the scoffing winds. Even the memorials of her ancient glories served, and that not a little, to multiply and increase the calamities of Rome. The sight of them infuriated the barbarians. They made it a sacred duty to slaughter the craving multitudes they found loit- ering round and boasting alliances with monu- ments, intended to perpetuate the memory of the injuries and insults inflicted by their sires upon humanity ; and it would seem as if so many mil- lions had been gathered into one place, by allure- ments of largesses, shows, and every sensual in- dulgence, that the scythe of the destroyer might mow them down with the greater facility and ex- pedition. The metropolis of the nations had be- come their sepulchre ; and the soil of their pampered bodies fattened and almost filled up the valleys of the seven hills.— Dr. Miley. THE REASONING OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN. Speaking of the truth, "out of the Church there is no salvation," I remember a very amusing story, related by Father de Smet, the THE AMERICAN INDIAN. 97 famous American missionary. " Amongst the Indians converted on the frontiers of Canada," said he, "is a certain Jean Baptiste, of whose family I am ignorant. This Jean Baptiste had been formerly a thief. On his conversion, the Black Robe enjoined him to make restitution of two dollars to a Calvinist minister in the neigh- borhood. Our man presents himself at the min- ister s house, when the following dialogue ensues: * Well, what do you want V said the preacher. 4 Me rob you. Black Robe say to me, " Jean Baptiste, you give back the money." 'What money?' 'Two dollars; me bad savage, take from you — me now good Christian; me have the water of baptism on my head; me child of the Great Spirit. Here, take the money.' 'That is well. Steal no more. Good-day, Jean Baptiste.' * Good-day not enough ; me want something else.' 'And what do you want?' 'Me want a receipt.' * A receipt ! what need is there of a re- ceipt ? Did the Black Robe tell you to ask it ?' ' Black Robe say nothing; Jean Baptiste (point- ing at himself with his finger) want a receipt.' 'But what do you want with a receipt? You stole from me what you now give back; that is enough.' 'No, no, not enough; listen, you old, me young; you die first, me die after, you un- derstand?' 'I do not understand; what do you mean ?' 'Listen again; that will say much, that will say all. Me knock at the gate of heaven, the 98 PASS THAT TO TOUR NEIGHBOR. great chief, St. Peter, he open and he say, "That you, Jean Baptiste? what you want?" " My chief, me want to go in the lodge of the Great Spirit." "And your sins ?" "Black Robe he forgive them all." "But you rob the minis- ter — did you give back that money % You show me your receipt." Now you see how it is with poor Jean Baptiste, poor Indian with no receipt, he run all over hell to find you, because no sal- vation out of Black Robe's Church.'" — Daily Rewards (Recompenses hebdomadaires), No. CV., 29. PASS THAT TO YOUR NEIGHBOR. Regakding the sanctiiication of festivals, I will tell you a rather amusing anecdote which I read in the Magazin Pittoresque. The Duke of Brunswick, Charles William, who lived some threescore years ago, very properly attached great importance to the religious observance of Sundays and holydays. One day, he learns that some villagers had the bad habit of assembling at the time of divine service in a tavern, and spending in drinking all the time they should have passed hearing Mass and instructions, or assisting at Yespers. The exhortations of the ■oriest, even the remonstrances of the magistrates, PASS THAT TO YOUR NEIGHBOR. 99 had not been able to break these topers off their evil habit. The Duke, attired in a coarse overcoat, but- toned up to the chin, repairs one Sunday to the inn pointed out to him. Just as the bell was calling the faithful to church, arrives the troop of tip- plers, preceded by a large, heavy personage who, by his rubicund nose and flaming red face, might easily be recognized as the president of the jolly band. He sits down at the upper end of the table, and without a word said, places the duke beside him, not, however, without throwing a look of distrust on this guest, whom no one remembered having seen there before. Meanwhile the inn- keeper sets before the president an enormous pitcher of brandy. The latter takes it in his two hands, swallows a good draught and gives it to the Duke, saying : " Pass that to your neighbor !" The pitcher thus makes the circuit of the table, then returns to the president, who after having given it a cordial embrace, puts it again into cir- culation. Each guest lays hold of it in turn with right.good will, and hands it to the next saying : "Pass that to your neighbor." At the third round of the blessed pitcher, the duke rises in a fury, and, unbuttoning his overcoat, so as to let all present see his well known uniform and the insigna of royalty, then strikes the president wiih all his might, saying: "Pass that to your neighbor!" As the latter hesitated, the Duke seizes his sword and cries out so loud that no one 100 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. could possibly be mistaken: u Let any of you that strikes too light or too slowly beware of me, for I will make an example of him !" At these words, every arm rises, blows fall like rain from one end of the table to the other, five or six times in succession, till at length the Duke, satisfied with the punishment he had inflicted on this in- corrigible set of topers, leaves them to themselves and retires to his palace. They say, and I can easily believe it, that on the following Sunday, not one of them was tempted to go to the tavern; on the contrary, they were amongst the first to go to church, both at Mass and Vespers. — Maga- zin Pittoresque, 1844, p. 208. DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. Next morning, being Friday, the third day of August, in the year 1492, Columbus set sail, a little before sunrise, in presence of a vast crowd of spectators, who sent up their supplications to Heaven for the prosperous issue of the voyage, which they wished rather than expected. Col- umbus steered directly for the Canary Islands, and arrived there without any occurrence that would have deserved notice on any other occasion. DISCOVERT OF AMERICA. 101 But in a voyage of such expectation and impor- tance, every circumstance was the object of at- tention. . . . Upon the 1st of October they were, according to the admiral's reckoning, seven hundred and seventy leagues to the west of the Canaries. They had now been above three weeks at sea ; they had proceeded far beyond what former navigators had attempted or deemed possible ; all their prognos- tics of discovery, drawn from the flight of birds and other circumstances, had proved fallacious ; the appearances of land, which had from time to time flattered and amused them, had been alto- gether illusive, and their prospect of success seemed now to be as distant as ever. These re- flections occurred often to men who had no other object or occupation than to reason and discourse concerning the intention and circumstances of their expedition. They made impression at first upon the ignorant and timid, and extending by degrees to such as were better informed or more resolute, the contagion spread at length from ship to ship. From secret whispers or murmurings they proceeded to open cabals and public com- plaints. They taxed their sovereign with inconsid- erate credulity, in paying such regard to the vain promises and rash conjectures of an indigent for- eigner, as to hazard the lives of so many of her own subjects in prosecuting a chimerical scheme. They affirmed that they had fully performed their 102 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. duty by venturing so far in an unknown and hopeless course, and could incur no blame for re- fusing to follow any longer a desperate adventurer to certain destruction. . . . Columbus was fully sensible of his perilous sit- uation. He had observed, with great uneasiness, the fatal operation of ignorance and of fear in producing disaffection among his crew, and saw that it was now ready to burst out into open mu- tiny. He retained, however, perfect presence of mind. He affected to seem ignorant of their ma- chinations. Notwithstanding the agitation and solicitude of his own mind, he appeared with a cheerful countenance, like a man satisfied with the progress he had made, and confident of suc- cess. Sometimes he employed all the arts of in- sinuation to soothe his men. Sometimes he en- deavored to work upon their ambition or avarice by magnificent descriptions of the fame and wealth which they were about to acquire. On other oc- casions he assumed a tone of authority, and threatened them with vengeance from their sov- ereign if, by their dastardly behavior, they should defeat this noble effort to promote the glory of God and to exalt the Spanish name above that of every other nation. Even with seditious sailors, the words of a man whom they had been accus- tomed to reverence, were weighty and persuasive, and not only restrained them from those violent excesses which they meditated, but prevailed DISCO VER T OF AMERICA. 103 with them to accompany their admiral for some time longer. As they proceeded, the indications of approach- ing land seemed to be more certain, and excited hope in proportion. The birds began to appear in flocks, making towards the south-west. Col- umbus, in imitation of the Portuguese navigators, who had been guided in several of their discover- ies by the motion of birds, altered his course from due west towards that quarter whither they pointed their flight. But, after holding on for sev- eral days in this new direction, without any better success than formerly, having seen no object dur- ing thirty days but the sea and the sky, the hopes of his companions subsided faster than they had risen ; their fears revived with additional force ; impatience, rage, and despair appeared in every countenance ; all sense of subordination was lost. The officers, who had hitherto concurred with Columbus in opinion, and supported his author- ity, now took part with the private men ; they as- sembled tumultuously on the deck, expostulated with their commander, mingled threats with their expostulations, and required him instantly to tack about and turn to Europe. Columbus per- ceived that it would be impossible to rekindle any zeal for the success of the expedition among men in whose breasts fear had extinguished every generous sentiment. He saw that it was no less vain to think of employing either gentle or severe 104 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA. measures to quell a mutiny so general and so vio- lent. It was necessary, on all these accounts, to soothe passions which he could no longer com- mand, and to give way to a torrent too impetuous to be checked. He promised solemnly to his men that he would comply with their request, pro- vided they would accompany him and obey his command for three days longer, and if, during that time, land were not discovered, he would then abandon the enterprise, and direct his course towards Spain. Enraged as the sailors were, and impatient to turn their faces again towards their native coun- try, this proposition did not appear to them un- reasonable ; nor did Columbus hazard much in confining himself to a term so short. The pres- ages of discovering land were now so numerous and promising that he deemed them infallible. For some days the sounding-line reached the bottom, and the soil which it brought up indica- ted land to be at no great distance. The flocks of birds increased, and were composed not only of sea-fowl, but of such land-birds as could not be supposed to fly far from the shore. The crew of the Pinta observed a cane floating, which seemed to have been newly cut, and likewise a piece of tim- ber artificially carved. The- sailors aboard the JSfigna took up the branch of a tree with red ber- ries perfectly fresh. The clouds around the set- ting sun assumed a new appearance ; the air was DISCO VER Y OF AMERICA. 105 more mild and warm, and during the night the wind became unequal and variable. From all these symptoms, Columbus was so confident of being near land, that on the evening of the eleventh of October, after public prayers for success, he or- dered the sails to be furled, and the ships to lie to, keeping strict watch lest they should be driven ashore in the night. During this interval of sus- pense and expectation, no man shut his eyes, all kept on deck, gazing intently towards that quar- ter where they expected to discover the land, which had so long been the object of their wishes. About two hours before midnight, Columbus, standing in the forecastle, observed a light at a distance, and privately pointed it out to Pedro Guttierez, a page of the queen's wardrobe. Gut- tierez perceived it and calling to Salcedo, comp- troller of the fleet, all three saw it in motion, as it were carried from place to place. A little after midnight the joyful sound of " Land ! Land !" was heard from the Pinta which kept always ahead of the other ships. But having been so often deceived by fallacious appearances, every man was now become slow of belief, and waited in all the anguish of uncertainty and impatience for the return of day. As soon as morning dawned, all doubts and fears were dispelled. From every ship an island was seen two leagues to the north, whose flat and verdant fields, well stored with wood, and watered with rivulets, presented the 106 DISCO VER T OF AMERICA. aspect of a delightful country. The crew of the Pinta instantly began the " Te Denm," as a hymn of thanksgiving to God, and were joined by those of the other ships, with tears of joy and transports of congratulation. This office of gratitude to Heaven was followed by an act of justice to their commander. They threw them- selves at the feet of Columbus, with feelings of self-condemnation, mingled with reverence. They implored him to pardon their ignorance, incredul- ity, and insolence, which had created him so much unnecessary disquiet, and had so often obstructed the prosecution of his well -concerted plans ; and passing, in the warmth of their ad- miration, from one extreme to another, they now pronounced the man whom they had so lately reviled and threatened, to be a person inspired by Heaven with sagacity and fortitude more than human, in order to accomplish a design so far be- yond the ideas and conceptions of all former ages. As soon as the sun arose, all their boats were manned and armed. They rowed towards the island with their colors displayed, with warlike music, and other martial pomp. As they ap- proached the coast, they saw it covered with a multitude of people, wl om the novelty of the spectacle had drawn together, whose attitudes and gestures expressed wonder and astonishment at the strange objects which presented themselves to their view. Columbus was the first European DISCO VERT OF AMERICA. 107 who set foot on the new world which he had dis- covered. He landed in a rich dress, and with a naked sword in his hand. His men followed, and, kneeling down, they all kissed the ground which they had so long desired to see. They next erected a crucifix, and prostrating them- selves before it, returned thanks to G-od for con- ducting their voyage to such a happy issue. They then took solemn possession of the country for the crown of Castile and Leon, with all the formalities which the Portuguese were accus- tomed to observe in acts of this kind in their new discoveries. The Spaniards, while thus employed, were sur- rounded by many of the natives, who gazed in silent admiration upon actions which they could not comprehend, and of which they did not fore- see the consequences. The dress of the Span- iards, the whiteness of their skins, their beards, their arms, appeared strange and surprising. The vast machines in which they had traversed the ocean, that seemed to move upon the waters with wings and uttered a dreadful sound resembling thunder, accompanied by lightning and smoke, struck them with such terror that they began to respect their new guests as a superior order of beings, and concluded that they were children of the sun, who had descended to visit the earth. The Europeans were hardly less amazed at the scene now before them. Every herb and shrub and 108 DISCO VER T OF AMERICA. tree was different from those that flourished in Europe. The soil seemed to be rich, but bore few marks of cultivation. The climate, even to the Spaniards, felt warm, though extremely delight- ful. The inhabitants appeared in the simple in- nocence of nature. Their black hair, long and uncurled, floated upon their shoulders, or was bound in tresses on their heads. They had no beards, and every part of their bodies was per- fectly smooth. Their complexion was of a dusky copper color; their features singular rather than disagreeable, their aspect gentle and timid. Though not tall they were well shaped and active. Their faces and several parts of their bodies, were fantastically painted with glaring colors. They were shy at first, through fear, but soon be- came familiar with the Spaniards, and with trans- ports of joy received from them haw-bells, glass beads, or other baubles ; in return for which they gave such provisions as they had, and some cotton yarn, the only commodity of value which they could produce. Towards evening Colum- bus returned to his ship accompanied by many of the islanders in their boats, which they called canoes, and though rudely formed out of the trunk of a single tree, they rode them with surprising dexterity. Thus, in the first interview between the inhabitants of the old and new worlds everything was conducted amicably and to their mutual satisfaction. — Robertson. CHIVALRY. 109 CHIVALRY. The same spirit of enterprise which had prompted so many gentlemen to take arms in defence of the oppressed pilgrims of Palestine, incited others to declare themselves the patrons and avengers of injured innocence at home. When the final reduction of the Holy Land under the dominion of infidels put an end to these foreign expeditions, the latter was the only employment left for the activity and courage of adventurers. To check the insolence of over- grown oppressors ; to rescue the helpless from captivity ; to protect or to avenge women, orphans and ecclesiastics, who could not bear arms in their own defence ; to redress wrongs and remove griev* ances ; were deemed acts of the highest prowess and merit. Valor, humanity, courtesy, justice, honor were the characteristic qualities of chivalry. Men were trained to knighthood by a long pre- vious discipline ; they were admitted into the Order by solemnities no less devout than pompous, every person of noble birth courted that honor; it was deemed a distinction superior to royalty ; and monarchs were proud to receive it from the hands of private gentlemen. The singular institution, in which valor, gal- lantry, and religion were so strangely blended, was wonderfully adapted to the taste and genius of HO CHIVALRY. martial nobles : and its effects were soon visible in their manners. War was carried on with less ferocity when humanity came to be deemed the ornament of knighthood no less than courage. More gentle and polished manners were introduced when courtesy was recommended as the most amiable of knightly virtues. Yiolence and op- pression decreased when it was reckoned meritor- ious to check and to punish them. A scrupulous adherence to truth, with the most religious atten- tion to fulfil every engagement, became the distinguishing characteristic of a gentleman ; be- cause chivalry was regarded as the school of honor, and inculcated the most delicate sensibility with respect to these points. The admiration of those qualities, together with the high distinctions and prerogatives conferred on knighthood in every part of Europe, inspired persons of noble birth on some occasions with a species of military fanaticism, and led them to extravagant enter- prises. But they deeply imprinted on their minds the principles of generosity and honor. These were strengthened by everything that can affect the senses or touch the heart. The wild exploits of those romantic knights who sallied forth in quest of adventures are well known. The political and per- manent effects of the spirit of chivalry have been less observed. Perhaps the humanity which accompanies all the operations of war, the re- finements of gallantry, and the point of honor — NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS. m the three chief circumstances which distinguish modern from ancient manners — may be ascribed in a great measure to this institution, which has ap- peared whimsical to superficial observers, but by its effects has proved of great benefit to mankind. The sentiments which chivalry inspired had a wonderful influence on manners and conduct dur- ing the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fif- teenth centuries. They were so deeply rooted, that they continued to operate after the vigor and reputation of the institution itself began to decline. — Robertson. NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS WHO ROSE FROM THE RANKS. Among the most remarkable traits of the gen- ius of the great Napoleon, was the faculty he pos- sessed of intuitively discovering the merits of his subordinate officers, and the promptitude with which he availed himself of their talents by em- ploying them in the positions best suited to their respective capacities. This contributed in no small degree to those military successes which as- tonished his contemporaries, and which had no parallel in the history of the world. Never was a commander abler served, and never 112 NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS. had soldiers a more generous and discriminating leader. JSTo wonder that his memory is revered in France, notwithstanding all the terrible sacri- fices which his insatiable ambition called upon her to make in the name of glory. Nearly all Napoleon's most distinguished gen- erals were of humble origin, and rose from the ranks of the republican army by the force of that inborn genius which only great occasions like the French revolution can develop. Thus Bernadotte, the most fortunate of all those generals, and the only permanent monarch created by the revolution, was an attorney's son who at the age of fifteen enlisted as a private in the royal marines. When the revolution broke out, he had served ten years and was still but a ser- geant ; but four years after we find him a general of division, and his good fortune adhered to him until he was finally crowned king of Sweden. Massena, " the favored child of victory," was at first a sailor boy, and subsequently a full private, and had served fourteen years previous to the revolution, without obtaining a higher rank than that of sergeant, when he left the army in disgust at not being able to obtain a sub-lieutenancy. The revolution, however, recalled him, and from 1793 he was general of division. In 1796 he was with the army of Italy, and so effectual did Bonaparte con- sider his co-operation, that, on one occasion, he wrote to him : " Your corps is stronger than those NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS. H3 of the other generals ; your own services are equiv- alent to six thousand men/' On the same day that Napoleon became em- peror, Massena found himself a marshal of France. Michael Ney, the " bravest of the brave," was the son of a poor cooper ; at the age of seventeen he enlisted as a private in the hussars. In 1793 he was appointed lieutenant, and rose rapidly, until, in 1804, he was made marshal of France. But the campaign of 1806-7 raised the reputation of Ney more than all his preceding achievements, and obtained for him, with the unanimous voice of an army of heroes, the proud title which dis- tinguishes his name far more than that of " Prince of the Moskwa," which he subsequently won on the field which decided the fate of the ancient capital of Russia. Marshal Lannes, Duke of Montebello — the first man who crossed the " terrible bridge of Lodi," and who from his impetuous valor, was surnamed the "Ajax" of the French army, was the son of a poor mechanic, ,and was about to be bound ap- prentice to some humble calling, when he ran away and enlisted. He became one of Napoleon' s greatest favorites and most attached friends. Murat, by far the most remarkable of Napo- leon's marshals, and the greatest cavalry soldier the world has ever seen, was the son of a poor village inn-keerjer, and was at first intended for 114 FATHER KIRCHERS GLOBE. the Church, but he soon found his vocation, and en- listed into a chasseur regiment. He subsequently became King of Naples and brother-in-law to the Emperor. Andoche Junot, the son of a small farmer of Bussy-les-Forges, was born October 23, 1771. Of his military exploits nothing is known until the siege of Toulon, in 1793. Napoleon, then lieu- tenant of artillery, while constructing a battery under the fire of the English, having occasion to prepare a despatch, asked for some one who could use a pen. A young sergeant stepped out, and, leaning on the breastwork, wrote as he dictated. Just as he finished , a shot struck the ground by his side, and the paper was covered by the dust and loose earth thrown up by the ball. ' ' Good, ' ' said the soldier, laughing; "this time I shall have no need of sand." The cool gayety of this remark fixed the attention of Bonaparte, and made the fortune of the sergeant. FATHER KIRCHER'S GLOBE. A famous German astronomer, Father Kirch er, a Jesuit, wishing to convince one of his acquaint- ances who doubted the existence of a Supreme Being, made use of the following expedient : Just INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITEBATUBE. 115 when he was expecting a visit from this gentle- man, he caused a magnificent celestial globe to be placed in a corner of the room. Scarcely had the person entered, when he remarked the globe, and asked Father Kircher to whom it belonged. The astronomer replied that it did not belong to him, that it had no owner. " Of course," he added, 4 ' it must have come there by mere chance." " You are jesting now," said the visitor. But the Father insisted on it that he was perfectly serious. At last, when he perceived that his visitor began to show some annoyance, he took occasion to address him in these words: "You will not believe, and would even think it foolish to admit, that this little globe exists of itself , and is found by chance in the place where found." He knew not what answer to make to this so simple argument. He saw clearly how absurd it was to attribute to chance the admirable order which re ! gns throughout the universe.— (Schmid etBelet, Cat EisL.L, 54) INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. The infidel philosophy of the last age was the child of the Reformation. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, a sect of deists had sprung 116 INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. up in Protestant Switzerland. As early as the reign of James the First, Lord Herbert, of Cher- bury, commenced that long series of English deists, consisting of Chubb, Collins, Shaftesbury, Toland, and Bolingbroke, the friend of Voltaire. Bayle, who at the commencement of the eighteenth cen- tury, introduced infidelity into France, was a Pro- testant ; and so was Rousseau, the eloquent apostle of deism, and who did nothing more than develop the principles of Protestantism. Voltaire and his fellow- conspirators against the Christian religion, borrowed most of their weap- ons from the arsenal of the English deists; and the philosopher of Ferney was, in his youth, the friend and guest of Bolingbroke. So Protestant- ism, which often, though falsely, taunts the Catholic Church with having given birth to un- belief, lies, itself, clearly open to that imputation. Let us take a glance at the character of the leaders of the great anti-Christian confederacy in France. Bayle was a writer of great erudition, and ex- treme subtlety of reasoning. His " Dictionnaire |Philosophique" is, even at the present day, often consulted. Montesquieu, one of the most manly intellects of the eighteenth century, unfortun- ately devoted to the wretched philosophy of the day the powers which God had given him for a nobler purpose. His strong sense, indeed, and extensive learning, guarded him against the INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. H7 wilder excesses of unbelief ; but the absence of strong religious conviction left him without a compass and a chart on the wide ocean of polit- ical and ethical investigations. Kousseau was a man of the most impassioned eloquence and vigorous reasoning ; but a mind withal so sophistical, that, according to the just ob- servation of La Harpe, even truth itself deceives us in his writings. His firm belief in the existence of the Deity, and the immortality of the soul, as well as in the necessity of virtue for a future state of happiness, and some remarkable tributes to the Divinity, and the blessed influences of the Chris- tian religion, give, at times, to the pages of Rous- seau a warmth and a splendor we rarely find in the other infidel writers of the last century. Inferior to Rousseau in eloquence arid logical power, the sophist of Ferney possessed a more various and versatile talent. Essaying philos- ophy and history, and poetry — tragic, comic, and epic; the novel, the romance, the satire, the epi- gram, he directed all his powers to one infernal purpose — the spread of irreligion, and thought his labor lost as long as Christ retained one worshipper ! Unlike the more impassioned sophist of Geneva, rarely do we meet in his writ- ings with a generous sentiment or a tender emo- tion. But all that elevates and thrills human- ity—the sanctities of religion, the nobleness of virtue, the rjurity of the domestic hearth, the ex- 118 INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. pansiveness of friendship, the generosity of pat- riotism, the majesty of law, were polluted by his ribald jest and fiend-like mockery. "Like those insects that corrode the roots of the most precious plants, he strives," says Count de Maistre, "to corrupt youth and women." And it is to be observed that, despite the great progress of religion in France within the last fifty years; though the aristocracy of French litera- ture has long rejected the yoke of Voltaire, he still reigns in its lower walks, and the novel, and the satire, and the ballad, still feel his deadly in- fluence. The only truth which this writer did not assail, was th.o> existence of God ; but every other dogma of religion became the butt of his ridicule. A more advanced phase of infidelity was repre- sented by d'Alembert, Diderot, and others; they openly advocated materialism and atheism. In the Encyclopedia they strove to array all arts and sciences against the Christian religion. It was, indeed, a tower of Babel, raised up by man's im- piety against God. It was a tree of knowledge without a graft from the tree of life. In mathe- matics and physics only did d'Alembert attain to a great eminence. Diderot was a much inferior intellect, that strove to make up, by the phrenetic violence of his declamation, for the utter hollow- ness of his ideas. It was he who gave to Raynal that frothy rhetoric, and those turgid invectives INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITER A TURE. 1 1 9 against priests and kings, which the latter wove into his history of the European settlements in the East and West Indies. The great Buffon, though he condescended to do homage to the miserable philosophy of his day, yet, by the nobleness of his sentiments, as well as by the majesty of his genius, often rose superior to the doctrine he professed. Bernardine de St. Pierre was another great painter of nature. His better feelings at times led him to Christianity, but his excessive vanity drove him back to the opposite opinions. What shall I say of the remaining wretched herd of materialists and atheists, — a Baron d'Holbach, a Helve tins, a La Mettrie, a Cabanis, and others ? It has been well said by a great writer, that ma- terialism is something below humanity. And while debasing man to a level with the brute, it takes from him all the nobler instincts of his own nature ; it fails to give him in return those of the lower animals. So deep a perversion of man's moral and intellectual being we cannot conceive. We cannot realize (and happily for us we cannot) that awful eclipse of the understanding which denies God. We have a mingled feeling of terror and of pity, when we contemplate those miserable souls, that, as the great Italian poet, Dante, says, have lost the supreme intelligential bliss. When that great idea of God is extin- guished in the human mind, what remains to man ? 120 INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. Nature abhors a vacuum, said the old natur- alists ; with what horror then must we recoil from that void which atneism creates % — a void in the intelligence, a void in the conscience, a void in the affections, a void in society, a void in domestic life. The human mind is swung from its orbit; it wanders through trackless space ; and the reign of chaos and old night returns. What a lamentable abuse of all the noblest gifts of intellect, wit, and eloquence, imagination and reasoning ! And for the accomplishment of what purpose % For the overthrow of religion, natural and revealed religion, the guide of exist- ence, the great moral teacher, which solves all the problems of life, which tells our origin and destiny, our duties to our Creator and our fellow- creatures, the foundation of the family and of the State — religion, the instructress of youth, and the prop of age ; the balm of wounded minds, and the moderator of human joys; which controls the passions, yet imparts a zest to inno- cent pleasures ; which survives the illusions of youth, and the disappointments of manhood; consoles us in life, and supports us in death. Such were the blessings that perverted genius strove to snatch from mankind. Yet the time was at hand, when the proud Titans, who sought to storm Heaven, were to be driven back by the thunderbolts of Almighty wrath, and hurled down into the lowest depths of Tartarus. INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. \%\ But, even in regard to literature and science, the influence of this infidel party was most per- nicious. How could they understand nature, who rested their eyes on its surface only, but never pierced to its inner depths \ How could they un- derstand the philosophy of history, who denied the providence of God, and the free will of man % How could they comprehend metaphysics, who disowned God, and knew nothing of man's origin, nor of his destiny \ And, was an abject mate- rialism compatible with the aspirations of poetry \ Classical philology, too, shared the fate of poetry and of history ; and in education was made to give place to mathematics and the natural sciences. Hence, from this period dates the de- cline of philological studies in France. The men of genius of whom infidelity could boast, like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kousseau, Buffon, and d'Alembert, were men who had been trained up in a Christian country, had received a Christian education, and whose minds had been imbued with the doctrines and the ethics of Christianity and had partially retained these sentiments in •the midst of their unbelief. But, let unbelief sink deep into a nation's mind — let it form its morals, and fashion its manners — and we shall soon see how barbarism of taste and coarseness of habits will be associated with moral depravity and mental debasement. Look at the godless litera- ture of the French Republic from 1790 to 122 INFIDEL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE. 1805, and at that of the Empire down to 1814. What contemptible mediocrity of intellect ; what wretched corruption of taste ! But in the Catholic literature, which, after a long sleep revives under Napoleon, and afterwards under the Bourbons, what fulness of life, what energy do we not discover ! What brilliancy of fancy and fervor of feeling in Chateaubriand ! What depth of thought and majesty of diction in the philosopher, De Bonald ! What profound in- tuitions — what force and plausibility of style in the great Co ant de Maistre ! What vigorous ratio- cination—what burning eloquence, in De Lammen- nais before his fall ! What elevation of feeling and harmony of numbers in the lyric poet, Lam- artine ! Except in the semi-pantheistic school, represented by Victor Cousin and his friends, French infidelity in the present age, whether in literature or in philosophy, has no first-rate talent to display. Yet of this school, Jouffroy died re- penting his errors, and Victor Cousin himself has lately returned to the bosom of the Church. —Professor Robertson. O'CONNELL. 123 O'CONJSTELL. But give me the practical Catholic, the intellect- ual man ! Give me the man of faith. Give me the man of human power and intelligence, and the higher power, divine principle and divine love ! With that man, as with the lever of Archimedes, I will move the world. Let me speak to you, in conclusion, of such a man. Let me speak to you, of one whose form, as I beheld it in early youth, now looms up before me ; so fills, in imagination, the halls of my mem- ory, that I behold him now as I beheld him years ago, majestic in stature, an eye gleaming with intellectual power, a mighty hand uplifted, waving, quivering with honest indignation ; his voice thundering like the voice of a god in the tempest, against all injustice and all dishonor. I speak of Ireland's greatest son, the immortal Daniel O'Connell. He came. He found a nation the most faithful, the most generous on the face of the earth ; he found a people not deficient in any power of human intelligence or human cour- age ; chaste in their domestic relations, reliable to each other, and truthful — and above all, a peo- ple who, for centuries and centuries, had lived, and died, and suffered to uphold the Faith and the Cross. He came, and he found that people, after the rebellion of JSmety-Eight, down- trodden 124 O'CONNELL in the blood-stained dust, and bound in chains. The voice of Ireland was silent. The heart of the nation was broken. Every privilege, civil and otherwise, was taken from them. They were com- manded, as the only condition of the toleration of their existence, to lie down in their blood- stained fetters of slavery, and to be grateful to the hand that only left them life. He brought to that prostrate people a Christian spirit and a Christian soul. He brought his mighty faith in God and in God's Holy Church. He brought his great human faith in the power of justice, and in the omnipotence of right. He roused the people from their lethargy. He sent the cry for justice throughout the land, and he proved his own sin- cerity to Ireland and to her cause, by laying down an income of sixty tnousand dollars a year, that he might enter into her service. He showed the people the true secret of their strength himself. Thundering to-day for justice in the halls of the English Senate, on the morrow morning he was seen in the confessional, and kneeling at the altar to receive his God — with one hand leaning upon the eternal cause of God's justice, the other leaning upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Upheld by these, and by the power of his own genius, he left his mark upon his age ; he left his mark upon his country ! This was indeed, the ' ' Man of his Day!" the Chris- tian man, of whom the world stood in awe — faith- ful as a husband and father ; faithful as a friend ; VCONNELL 125 the delight of all who knew him \ faithful in his disinterested labors ! with an honorable, honest spirit of self-devotion in his country's cause ! He raised that prostrate form ; he struck the chains from those virgin arms, and placed upon her head a crown of free worship and free education. He made Ireland to be, in a great measure, what he always prayed and hoped she might be, "The Queen of the Western Isles, and the proudest gem that the Atlantic bears upon the surface of its green waters." Oh, if there were a few more like him ! Oh, that our race would produce a few more like him ! Our 0' Connell was Irish of the Irish, and Catholic of the Catholic. We are Irish and we are Catholic. How is it we have not more men like him \ Is the stamina wanting to us % Is the intellect wanting to us % Is the power of united expression in the interests of society wanting to us ? No ! But the religious Irishman of our day refuses to be educated, and the educated Irish- man of to-day refuses to be religious. These two go hand in hand. Unite the highest education with the deepest and tenderest practical love of God and of your religion, and I see before me, in many of the young faces on which I look, the stamp of our Irish genius ; I see before me many who may be the fathers and legislators of the Re- public, the leaders of our race, and the heroes of our common country and our common religion. — Father Burke. 126 IRELAND IN AMEBIC A. IRELAND IN AMERICA. Yes; if there be one passion that has outlived every other in the heart of the true Irishman, it is the inborn love for Ireland, for Ireland's great- ness, and for Ireland's glory. Our fathers loved it, and knew how to prize it, to hold it — the glory of the faith that has never been tarnished; the glory of the national honor that has never bowed down to acknowledge itself a slave. And my friends, the burden and the responsibility of that glory is yours and mine to-night. The glory of Ireland's priesthood; the glory of St. Columba; the glories of Iona and of Lindisfarne weigh upon me with a tremendous responsibility to be of all other men what the Irish priest and monk must be, because of that glorious history; the glory of the battle that has been so long fighting and is not yet closed; the glory of that faith that has been so long and so well defended and guarded; the glory of that national virtue that has made Ireland's men the bravest and Ireland's women the purest in the world — that glory is your inheritance and your responsibility this night. I and you, men, feel as Irishmen, and as Catholics, that you and I to-night are bound to show the world what Irishmen and Catholics have been in the ages before us, and what they intend to be in the ages to come — a nation and a ARE THERE SEVERAL TRUE CHURCHES? 127 Clmrch that has never allowed a stain to be fixed upon the national banner nor upon the national altar — a nation and a Church who, in spite of its hard fate and its misfortunes, can still look the world in the face; for on Ireland's virgin brow no stain of dishonor or of perfidy has ever been placed. In sobriety, in industry, in manly self- respect, in honest pride of everything that an honest man ought to be proud of — in all these, and in respect for the laws of this mighty country, lie the secret of your honor and of your national power and purity Mark my words! Let Ireland in America be faithful, be Catholic, be practical, be temperate, be industrious, be obedient to the laws; and the day will dawn, with the blessing of God, yet upon you and me, so that when returning to visit for a time the shores from which we came, we shall land upon the shores of a free and glori- ous and unfettered nation. — Father BurTce. ARE THERE SEVERAL TRUE CHURCHES? Theee is but one only true Church , and that is so evident that no one possessed of even ordinary good sense can anywise doubt it. Here are two or three little stories on the subject. A* Catholic priest and a Protestant minister were 128 ARE THERE SEVERAL TRUE CHURCHES? one day walking together; they chanced to meet a Jewish rabbi. "Hold," said the Protestant minister, laughing, "we three are of so many dif- ferent religions; now, which of us has the true one ?" " I will tell you that, ' ' said the rabbi; ' ' if the Messiah is not yet come, it is I; if the Messiah be come, it is this Catholic priest; but as for you, whether the Messiah be come or not, you are not in the right way." "I do not like those who change their religion," said a Protestant prince of Germany to the Count de Stolberg, recently converted to the Catholic faith. ' i JSTor I, either, ' ' answered the doctor, ' ' for if my ancestors had not changed, I should not have been obliged to return to Catholicity." And that is very true, my young friends; a Protestant who becomes a Catholic does not change his religion; he does but return to the way which his forefathers were wrong in quitting. An excellent answer was made, on this subject, by a French ambassador, ill at Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Some one asked him whether, in case he died there, he would not be sorry to have his ashes mingle with those of heretics. "No," he replied "I would only ask to have the earth dug a little deeper, and I should be amongst your ancestors, who were Catholics like myself." — Schmid et Belet, Cat. Hist, L, 303. RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. 129 RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. This great emperor, in the plenitude of his power, and in possession of all the honors which can flatter the heart of man, took the extraor dinary resolution to resign his kingdoms; and to withdraw entirely from any concern in business or the affairs of this world, in order that he might spend the remainder of his days in retirement and solitude. Though it requires neither deep reflection, nor extraordinary discernment, to discover that the state of royalty is not exempt from cares and dis- appointments ; though most of those who are exalted to a throne, find solicitude, and satiety, and disgust, to be their perpetual attendants, in that envied pre-eminence ; yet, to descend volun- tarily from the supreme to a subordinate station, and to relinquish the possession of power in order to attain the enjoyment of happiness, seems to be an effort too great for the human mind. Several instances, indeed, occur in history, of monarchs who have quitted a throne, and have ended their days in retirement. But they were either weak princes, who took this resolution rashly, and repented of it as soon as it was taken ; or unfortunate princes, from whose hands some strong rival had wrested their sceptre, and com- 130 RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. pelled them to descend with reluctance into a private station. Diocletian is, perhaps, the only prince capable of holding the reins of government, who ever re- signed them from deliberate choice ; and who continued, during many years, to enjoy the tran- quillity of retirement, without fetching one peni- tent sigh, or casting back one look of desire towards the power or dignity which he had abandoned. No wonder, then, that Charles-s resignation should fill all Europe with astonishment, and give rise, both among his contemporaries and among the historians of that period, to various conject- ures concerning the motives which determined a prince, whose ruling passion had been uniformly the love of power, at the age of fifty-six, when ob- jects of ambition operate with full force on the mind, and are pursued with the greatest ardor, to take a resolution so singular and unexpected. The Emperor, in pursuance of his determination, having assembled the states of the Low Countries at Brussels, seated himself, for the last time, in the chair of state ; on one side of which was placed his son, and on the other his sister, the queen of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, with a splendid retinue of the grandees of Spain, and princes of the empire standing behind him. The president of the council of Fianders, by his command, explained in a few words, his intention RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. 131 in calling this extraordinary meeting of the state. He then read the instrument of resignation by which Charles surrendered to his son Philip all his territories, jurisdiction, and authority in the Low Countries ; absolving his subjects there from their oath of allegiance to him, which he required them to transfer to Philip, his lawful heir ; and to serve him with the same loyalty and zeal that they had manifested during so long a course of years, in support of his government. Charles then rose from his seat, and leaning on the shoulder of the Prince of Orange, because he was unable to stand without support, he addressed himself to the audience ; and, from a paper which he held in his hand, in order to assist his memory; he recounted with dignity, but without ostenta- tion, all the great things which he had undertaken and performed, since the commencement of his administration. He observed, that from the seventeenth year of his age, he had dedicated all his thoughts and attention to public objects, reserving no portion of his time for the indulgence of his ease, and very little for the enjoyment of private pleasures ; that either in a pacific or hostile manner, he had visited Germany nine times, Spain six times, France four times, Italy seven times, and the Low Countries ten times, England twice, Africa as often, and had made eleven voyages by sea. That while his health permitted him to dis- 132 RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. charge his duty, and the vigor of his constitution was equal in any degree to the arduous office of governing dominions so extensive, he had never shunned labor nor repined under fatigue ; that now when his health was broken, and his vigor exhausted by the rage of an incurable distemper his growing infirmities admonished him to retire. Nor was he so fond of reigning, as to retain the sceptre in an impotent hand which was no longer able to protect his subjects, or to render them happy ; that instead of a sovereign worn out with diseases, and scarcely half alive, he gave them one in the prime of life, accustomed already to govern, and who added to the vigor of youth all the attention and sagacity of maturer years. That if during the course of a long administra- tion, he had committed any material error in government ; or if under the pressure of so many and great affairs, and amid the attention which he had been obliged to give to them he had either neglected or injured any of his subjects, he now implored their forgiveness. That for his part, he should ever retain a grateful sense of their fidelity and attachment, and would carry the remembrance of it along with bim to the place of his retreat, as his sweetest consolation, as well as the best reward for all his services ; and in his last prayers to Almighty God would pour forth his ardent wishes for their welfare. RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. 133 Then turning towards Philip, who fell on his knees and kissed his father' s hand, ' ' If , " said he, " I had left yon by my death this rich inheritance to which I had made such large additions, some regard would have been justly due to my memory on that account ; but now, when I voluntarily resign to you what I might have still retained, I may well expect the warmest expression of thanks on your part. "With these, however, I dispense ; and shall consider your concern for the welfare of your subjects and your love of them, as the best and most acceptable testimony of your gratitude to me. It is in your power, by a wise and virtuous administration, to justify the extraordinary proof which I give this day of my paternal affection, and to demonstrate that you are worthy of the confidence which I repose in you. "Preserve an inviolable regard for religion; maintain the Catholic faith in its purity ; let the laws of your country be sacred in your eyes ; encroach not on the rights and privileges of your people ; and if the time shall ever come when you shall wish to enjoy the tranquillity of private life, may you have a son endowed with such qualities that you can resign your sceptre to him with as much satisfaction as I give up mine to you." As soon as Charles had finished this long ad- dress to his subjects, and to their new sovereign, 134 RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. he sunk into the chair exhausted and ready to faint with the fatigue of so extraordinary an effort. During his discourse, the whole audience melted into tears ; some from admiration of his mag- nanimity ; others softened by the expressions ot' tenderness towards his son, and of love to his people ; and all were affected with the deepest sorrow at losing a sovereign who had distinguished the Netherlands, his native country, with partic- ular marks of his regard and attachment. A few weeks after the resignation of the Nether- lands, Charles, in an assembly no less splendid, and with a ceremonial equally pompous, resigned to his son the crowns of Spain, with all the territories depending on them, both in the old and in the new world. Of all these vast possess- ions, he reserved nothing for himself but an annual pension of a hundred thousand crowns, to defray the charges of his family and to afford him a small sum for acts of beneficence and charity. Nothing now remained to detain him from that retreat for which he languished. Everything having been prepared some time for his voyage, he set out for Zuitberg in Zealand, where the fleet had orders to rendezvous. In his way thither, he passed through Ghent ; and after stopping there a few days, to indulge that tender and pleasing melancholy, which arises in the mind of every man in the decline of life, RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. 135 on visiting the place of Ms nativity, and viewing the scenes and objects familiar to him in his early youth, he jmrsued his journey, accompanied by his son Philip, his daughter the archduchess, his sisters the dowager queens of France and Hun- gary, Maximilian his son-in-law, and a numerous retinue of the Flemish nobility. Before he went on board, he dismissed them, with marks of his attention or regard; and tak- ing leave of Philip with all the tenderness of a father who embraced his son for the last time, he set sail under convoy of a large fleet of Spanish, Flemish, and English ships. His voyage was prosperous, and agreeable ; and he arrived at Laredo in Biscay, on the eleventh day after he left Zealand. As soon as he landed, he fell prostrate on the ground ; and considering himself now as dead to the world, he kissed the earth, and said, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked I now return to thee, thou common mother of mankind." From Laredo he proceeded to Valladolid. There he took a last and tender leave of his two sisters ; whom he would not permit to accompany him to his solitude, though they entreated it with tears; not only that they might have the consola- tion of contributing, by their at tendance and care, to mitigate or to soothe his sufferings, but that they might reap instruction and benefit, by join- ing with him in those pious exercises, to which 136 BESIGNATION OF CHABLES V. he had consecrated the remainder of his days. From Valladolid, he continued his journey- to Plazencia in Estremadura. He had passed through that city a great many years before ; and having been struck at that time with the delight- ful situation of the monastery of St. Justus, be- longing to the order of St. Jerome, not many miles distant from that place, he had then observed to some of his attendants, that this was a spot to which Diocletian might have retired with pleasure. The impression had remained so strong on his mind, that he pitched upon it as the place of his retreat. It was seated in a vale of no great ex- tent, watered by a small brook, and surrounded by rising grounds, covered with lofty trees From the nature of the soil, as well as the temperature of the climate, it was esteemed the most health- ful and delicious situation in Spain. Some months before his resignation, he had sent an architect thither, to add a new apart- ment to the monastery, for his accommodation , but he gave strict orders that the style of the building should be such as suited his present station, rather than his former dignity. It con- sisted only of six rooms, four of them in the form of friars' cells, with naked walls ; the other two, each twenty feet square, were hung with brown cloth, and furnished in the most simple manner. They were on a level with the ground ; with a door on one side into a garden, of which Charles RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. 137 himself had given the plan, and had filled it with various plants, which he purposed to cultivate with his own hands. On the other side, thev com- municated with the chapel of the monastery, in which he was to perform his devotions. Into this humble retreat, hardly sufficient for the comfortable accommodation of a private gen- tleman, did Charles enter, with twelve domestics only He buried there, in solitude and silence, his grandeur, his ambition, together with all those vast projects, which, during half a century, had alarmed and agitated Europe ; filling every king- dom in it, by turns, with the terror of his arms, and the dread of being subjected to his power. In this retirement, Charles formed such a plan of life for himself as would have suited the con- dition of a private person of a moderate fortune. His table was neat but plain ; his domestics few ; his intercourse with them familiar : all the cum- bersome and ceremonious forms of attendance on his person were entirely abolished, as destructive of that social ease and tranquillity which he courted, in order to soothe the remainder of his days. As the mildness of the climate, together with his deliverance from the burdens and cares of government procured him, at first, a considera- ble remission from the acute pains with which he had been long tormented, he enjoyed, perhaps, more complete satisfaction in this humble soli- 138 FJJNEBAL SEB VICE OF CHARLES V. tude than all his grandeur had ever yielded him. The ambitious thoughts and projects which had so long engrossed and disquieted him, were quite effaced from his mind. Far from taking any part in the political transactions of the princes of Europe, he restrained his curiosity even from any inquiry concerning them ; and he seemed to view the busy scene which he had abandoned, with all the contempt and indifference arising from his thorough experience of its vanity, as well as from the pleasing reflection of having disentangled him- self from its cares. — Robertson. CHAELES V. PERFORMS THE FUNERAL SERVICE FOR HIMSELF. About this time [August 1558], according to the historian of St. Jerome, his thoughts seemed to turn more than usual to religion and its rites. Whenever during his stay at Yuste any of his friends, of the degree of princes or knights of the fleece, had died, he had ever been punctua] in doing honor to their memory, by causing their obsequies to be performed by the friars. The daily masses said for his own soul were always accompanied by others for the souls of his father, mother and wife. But now he ordered further FUNERAL SERVICE OF CHARLES V. 139 solemnities of the funeral kind to be performed, in behalf of these relations, each on a different day, and attended them himself, preceded by a page bearing a taper, and joining in the chant, in a very devout and audible manner, out of a tattered prayer-book. These rites ended, he asked his confessor whether he might not now perform his own funeral, and so do for himself what would soon have to be done for him by others. Regla replied that his majesty, please God, might live many years, and that when his time came these services would be gratefully rendered without his taking any thought about the matter. "But," persisted Charles, "would it not be good for my soul V The monk said that certainly it would ; pious works done during life being far more effi- cacious than when postponed till after death. Preparations were therefore at once set on foot; a catafalque, which had served before on similar occasions, was erected ; and on the following day, the 30th of August, as the historian relates, this celebrated service was actually performed. The high altar, the catafalque, and the whole church shone with a blaze of wax- lights ; the friars were all in their places, at the altars, and in the choir, and the household of the emperor attended in deep mourning. "The pious monarch himself was there, attired in sable weeds, and bearing a taper, to see himself interred and to celebrate his own obsequies." While the solemn mass for 140 UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH. the dead was sung he came forward and gave his taper into the hands of the officiating priest, in token of his desire to yield his soul into the hands of his Maker. High above, over the kneeling throng and the gorgeous vestment, the flowers, the curling incense, and the glittering altar, the same idea shone forth in that splendid canvas whereon Titian had pictured Charles kneeling on the thres- hold of the heavenly mansions prepared for the blessed. — Maxwell. UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH. Death, though most terrific, is made omnipo- tently awful by the uncertainty of the moment it may come. No man can count upon tne certainty of one day — one hour — one minute — one second — one second ! ! ! Not to know but in one second our soul may be summoned into the presence of God, to give an account of our lives — in one second to have our fate determined for all eternity ! This thought is sufficient to mar the pleasures of the most exalted station on earth, and to humble the proudest spirit that ever appeared amongst men — this salutary thought ought to fill the soul with decided love and fear of God. In one second each of us may be deprived of all we possess — UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH. 141 health, friends, wealth, life — in one second buried in the dust, a lifeless corse— shunned by the whole world — the terror of all the living — the horror even of those we loved best. Great Ruler of the world — Master of all things — Mighty Father of all the living— in what a condition of depend- ence hast ^thou placed the human race ! With what imploring entreaty should they unceasingly petition heaven for aid, when the entire human population cannot command one second of time for their own ! Great Lord ! this world ceases to be beautiful, when the pale shadow of decay every- where darkens its flowers and obscures its bright sun. Lord ! life, without the hope of eternity, is no boon, since it is wrenched from the young bride in her early joy, and snatched from youth and beauty just as they have culled the flowers to make a wreath for the summer. Oh, what is this world ! In childhood everything looks gay and smiling, and unconscious youth sees every path strewed with flowers — yet death, that lurks in the breath, stops it before its prime, and lays it in the tomb. If we reach manhood, who is there that, with one glance of the past, does not see the companions of his youth taken from his side ? No room in which the dismal shadow of death has not fallen — no chair from which he does not miss some friend — and if we be so fated as to escape ourselves till old age, is not life perhaps worse than death — left 142 UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH. alone like a tree in a forest, which has escaped the rage of the tempest % Does not the wreck about us place in our view one universal tomb — does not everything round the old man give a bitter taste of death — is not even the home of the old man a grave — death on every side % Is not this the tomb % Just like a winter sun setting dimly behind the storm-clouds of the west, and throwing a grey , half light on the cold, hoary churchyard, in the cold evening of life, as we sink from this world, the small spark that still remains only serves to give to existence a colder aspect, and to make the state of old age and the state of the grave nearly the same. All the wealth of this world cannot purchase one moment of time. This world, then, with all its titles, and grandeur, and power, is a dream which ends with this life. Though it is hard to bear adversity, yet an humble state is certainly less dangerous than an Exalted one — the taste of death is less bitter to the poor than to the rich ; it is hard to feel want here — true ; but how bear the bleak churchyard ? it is painful to be passed by in cold contempt by the great — true ; but how bear the horrors of the tomb % we grieve when we are deprived of society— true ; but Father of the living and the dead ! how shall the voluptuous bear the rot of the grave ? Their bodies will lie for centuries — yes, many a century will roll its unvarying course over our fallen pride— many a UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH. 143 rising sun will pour its morning splendor over our green graves — many a setting sun will shed its departing lustre over our forgotten ashes — and ages will pass on, and generations will rise and fall, and kingdoms and empires be remodelled, and grow up and decay, and the sun will a thou- sand times begin and end his course, while the cold sleep of death, heavy death, will still reign for ages over our mouldering dust, in deep, and dismal, and unbroken silence. To be sure, you say, God made this world, and we must live here according to His will. True, He did; He made society, and we must live in it — true, He did so; innocent amusements cannot hurt the soul — true, they cannot — so we say — agreed? agreed. I must agree — we are in this world, and we must taste it — so we say — true; but, after all this fine reasoning, go to the vaults of the dead for an hour — see the lamps flickering along the frightful passages — look at the mounting of the coffins as they glare and glisten in death — see the coffins piled in their dreary recesses — read on the mouldering breastplate the names of the young and beautiful — pause at each recess, and see each family of coffins as they lie in death together — feel the taste and the smell of death on the cold, damp air— don't go away — and wait — wait till all the lamps are extinguished — hear the heavy iron door closed and locked — and listen to the echo of the bolt reverberating along the dark 144 UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH. arches — and give one look again into the silent abode of the dead, where they are to sleep for ages, and then, standing at the door, and looking in still, talk of the amusements of society. I say there is no man living, with a heart alive to im- pressions, could enjoy society with these images before him — he must despise the world if he have common feeling — I defy him to feel otherwise. This was the the feeling of the saints — the feeling by which they saved their souls — and to the absence of this feeling we may trace our indif- ference, our coldness, perhaps the irreligion of the great bulk of mankind. The feelings of a soul just quitting this world, and entering into the next, cannot be told. "Every view before it is infinite — God, eternity — its hopes infinite if it be holy — it looks at heaven — its fears infinite if it be in mortal guilt, because it gazes on the deep, deep abyss. Like an atom in the midst of space, after it rises from the plunge of death — like an atom, it appears in the midst Of surrounding infinity — like one ray of light com- pared with the golden flood of all creation — like one ray of light, its bright essence appears before the ethereal glory of heaven. Immortal soul ! what a change from the confinement in deceased human flesh, when set free as thought through the illimitable empire of God ! It sees the eternal gates of heaven open wide, which Jesus Christ, at His death, commanded never again to be closed: UNCERTAINTY OF DEATH. 145 myriads of suns burn on the eternal hills of Para- dise; and light, like streaks of gold, covers the skies with effulgent lustre over the throne of God. What language can tell the multitudinous loss of a soul banished from God — flung from heaven as far as omnipotent Power can cast it — suffering" a torture conceived in God's anger and excited by almighty rage — dwelling at an infinite distance from heaven, where no ray of light can ever reach it from far distant creation — tossed on a burning ocean, where there is no relief — surrounded by tempests of fire, where the black wave rolls for- ever in swollen terror, without ever breaking on a friendly shore — where the voice of lamentation is ever heard — where despair, rage, agony, blas- phemy, are the feelings that rend the undying feeling of the eternal victim. God of Justice ! what a destiny awaits the soul of man — what in- comprehensible and fathomless terrors are sud- denly revealed to the dying and impenitent sin- ner — death, eternity, condemnation, banishment, omnipotent wrath, and hell. Against those enlarged terrors there is only one remedy— Religion. This sublime, supernatural, and holy principle raises the soul above all fear —all danger— as the glorious sun lifts the dew from the sluggish morass to soar aloft in the skies in gilded majesty. Religion raises the soul from earth to heaven, to dwell with God forever in 146 GOD'S TURN WILL COME. bright and eternal glory, Grace is the imperish- able life of the soul — its immortal ornament — ren- dering it glorious in undying happiness. Religion triumphs over death, and smiles at the grave — it is a light that illumines the short, dark pass- age between this world and the next, and con- ducts the soul in security after the convulsive shock of dissolution, till it sees God in eternity — it is the voice of the Saviour, communicating to the soul heavenly confidence, and, with the om- nipotent authority of heaven's Ruler, command- ing it to rise from the tomb, and to follow Him to paradise. Religion, therefore, not only takes away all terrors from the grave, but, seen in its true character, makes death a delightful resource, inasmuch as it paves the way to a bright and immortal country. — Dr Cahill. GOD'S TURN WILL COME. " I will laugh at the destruction of those who have laughed at me during their life." These frightful words were pronounced, my dear friends, by God Himself, and many, many times have the impious seen their fulfilment. Hear what befel d' Alembert, one of the philosophers most hostile to religion. He had been present at the death of THE CONVENT BOG. 147 his friend Voltaire, and had had the cruelty to prevent a priest from being called in. When he himself reached his last hour he felt so keenly the sting of remorse that he sent in all haste for the pastor of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. Condorcet, one of his friends, went out on pretence of going to seek him and returned in a few minutes, say- ing that he would come presently ; it was a lie, for he did not go. But d'Alembert, unable to wait, sent once more this perfidious friend, who again went out, walked about for some time, then returned saying that the priest would come very soon, but that for the moment he could not come, being engaged. This, too, was a falsehood ; the wretch was playing on d'Alembert. The latter, being a prey to the most fearful anguish sent a note by a faithful servant ; but alas ! he had not yet returned when d'Alembert breathed his last. This happened in Paris on the 29th of October, 1783. — Guillous, Exjplic. du Cat. THE CONVENT DOG. At a convent in France twenty paupers were served with a dinner at a certain hour every day. A dog belonging to the convent did not fail to be present at this regale, to receive the scraps which 148 TEE CONVENT DOG, were now and then thrown to him. The guests, however, were poor and hungry, and of course not very wasteful ; so that their pensioner did little more than scent the feast of which he would fain have partaken. The portions were served by a person at the ringing of a bell, and deliv- ered out by means of what in religious houses is called a tour — a machine like the section of a cask that by turning round exhibits whatever is placed on the concave side, without discovering the person who moves it. One day this dog, which had only received a few scraps, waited till the paupers were all gone, took the rope in his mouth, and rang the bell. His stratagem suc- ceeded. He repeated it the next day with the same good fortune. At length the cook, finding that twenty-one portions were given out instead of twenty, was determined to discover the trick, in doing which he had no great difficulty, for, lying in wait and noticing the paupers as they came for their different portions, and that there was no intruder except the dog, he began to sus- pect the truth, which he was confirmed in when he saw the animal remain with great deliberation till the visitors were all gone, and then pull the bell. The matter was related to the community, and to reward him for his ingenuity, the dog was permitted to ring the Dell every day for his dinner, on which some broken victuals were always afterwards served to him. MICHAEL ANGELO AND HIS ENEMIES. 149 HOW MICHAEL ANGELO CONFOUNDED HIS ENEMIES. Michael Angelo, that celebrated painter and sculptor of Florence, having remarked, during his stay in Rome, the jealousy he had inspired in Raphael and several other artists, composed priv- ately a Bacchus playing witli a Satyr. He had spared nothing to make this piece of sculpture worthy of his well-known skill ; but he took care to conceal his name at the bottom and to break off an arm of his statue ; after these precautions he blackened it with soot and buried it in a vineyard where he knew the foundations of a house were soon to be dug out. Nearly a year after the work- men employed on these foundations having ac- tually discovered this unknown statue, carried it to the Pope. The artists all praised the magnificence of this work, and immediately agreed on its high antiquity. Michael Angelo alone seemed to be of a contrary opinion ; he even began to point out numerous defects in this masterpiece. The ques- tion gave rise to warm discussion. Raphael maintained that the statue was perfection itself and that it was impossible to estimate its price ; "only," he added, "it is a great pity that its arm is broken off and lost." Then, in order to con- found this jealous rival, Michael Angelo went in search of the arm he had kept, showed his name 150 IRELAND IN THE AGES OF FAITH. engraved on the base of the statue, and related its origin. His enemies went away quite confused for having fallen so completely into the snare so adroitly laid for them by Michael Angelo. These poor artists drew only shame from a fact which sheds imperishable glory on their rival. — Schmid et Belet, Cat Hist., III., 334. IRELAND IN THE AGES OF FAITH. Amid the struggles and efforts which filled up the ages from the overthrow of the old order of things, down to the establishment of the new, that species of mysticism which was connected with martyr- dom, had ample opportunities for development. Christianity had had all the time necessary to take firm and deep root throughout the whole extent of the Roman empire. Now, when the inundations had come down from the North, it had to contend with a new species of heathenism ; and then again, when the tempestuous invasion had rolled up from the South, it had to combat with that new species of Judaism, which the sons of the desert had fash- ioned. Equally severe was the struggle which arose between the different confessions of Chris- tianity, when Arianism encountered the old Catho- lic doctrine ; especially when the sectarian spirit, IRELAND IN THE A GE8 OF FAITH. 151 united to policy, urged the Yandal kings in Africa to the wildest and most fanatical persecution. In all these struggles, thousands of victims bled ; but their faith stood by their side to minister con- solation ; and the same mystical enthusiasm, which, on the bloody path of martyrdom, had raised their predecessors above themselves, did not deny them its aid. All not engaged in the combat took refuge in the ark of the Church, which, amid the mighty swell of waters floating hither and thither, guarded the treasures concealed within it, and while, amid the general tumult of the times it secured a peaceful asylum to religious meditation, it continually promoted the contemplative, as well as heroic, martyrdom. Such an asylum was found, from the middle of the fifth century, in the green Emerald Isle, the ancient Erin, whose secluded situation and watery boundaries, as they had once served to protect her from the disorders of the Roman empire, now sheltered her from the storms of the migration of nations. Thither, seeking protection w T ith St. Patrick, the Church had migrated to take up her winter quarters, and had lavished all her blessings on the people, who gave her so hospitable a reception. Under her influence, the manners of the nation were rapidly refined ; monasteries and schools flourished on all sides ; and as the former were distinguished for their austere discipline and ascetic piety, so 152 FALL AND DISASTERS OF THE JEWS. the latter were conspicuous for their cultivation of science. While the flames of war were blazing around her, the green isle enjoyed the sweets oi repose. When we look into the ecclesiastical life of this people, we are almost tempted to believe "*that some potent spirit had transported overthQ sea, the cells of the valley of the Mle, with all their hermits, its monasteries, with all their in- mates, and had settled them down in the Western Isle ; an isle, which, in the lapse of three cen- turies, gave eight hundred and fifty saints to the Church ; — won over to Christianity the north of Britain, and soon after, a large portion of the yet pagan Germany ; and, while it devoted the ut- most attention to the sciences, cultivated, with especial care, the mystical contemplation in her religious communities, as well as in the saints whom they produced. — Garres. FALL AND DISASTERS OF THE JEWS. In the general slaughter to which the inhabitants of Jerusalem were consigned, eleven hundred thousand perished by the sword, and the rest were doomed to all the horrors of captivity. In the history of Josephus, we discover the literal ap- plication of the ancient prophecies to the disasters FALL AND DISASTERS OF TEE JEWS. 153 of Jerusalem. " Howdoth the city sit solitary that was full of people ! My eyes have failed with weeping, when the sucklings fainted away in the streets, and breathed out their souls in the bosom of their mothers. The voice of howlings is heard ; the cedar is fallen, and its glory is laid waste. The streets of the city are silent, and darkness and desolation are on its den forever." Yes ; such was the miserable condition to which the Jews were reduced after the destruction of their city, that they were prohibited from com- ing within a certain distance of its ancient bound- aries. The Romans feared that a place, so long the theatre of supernatural agency, would inspire the Jews with the hope of reviving their former glory. Hence, ]ike their progenitors at Babylon, the Jews were doomed to sigh their distant devo- tions towards Sion ; or obliged, as we are told by St. Jerome, to purchase, from the avarice of the soldiers, permission to undertake a sorrowful pilgrimage to the ruins of their former temple. Still they cherished some lingering hope of its res- toration. After having rejected the true Messiah, who had proved His mission by miracles the most incontestable, this unfortunate nation became the dupe of a succession of impostors, who ros-e and disappeared, flattering them with hopes of con- quest, which were suddenly dissipated. Now, deluded by Judas, the Gaulonite, and again by Barchochebas, who severally pretended to be the 154 FALL AND DISASTERS OF THE JEWS. promised deliverer of Israel, they strove to shake off the yoke of the Romans, which was but laid still more heavily upon them. The fanaticism of Barchochebas and his followers provoked the ven- geance of Adrian, who inflicted the severest chas- tisements on that devoted race. Without a single ray of hope to cheer the gloom of despondence, save what they derived from the passing and delusive meteor of some false prophet, they languished until the reign of Julian, who reassured their drooping spirits, by a promise of rebuilding their temple, and restoring their scat- tered nation. Tempted by the encouragement, which was held out to them in the year 361, they assembled from the remotest countries, to give their aid to the project. In their zeal to restore their ancient worship, they sacrificed every other consideration ; and the enthusiasm of the child- ren of Abraham was enlisted in the service of the imperial apostate. But the hand of the Almighty defeated the rash and impious project ; and, like the architects of Babel, the workmen were scattered by the vengeance of Heaven. There is no fact in ancient history better attested than the miraculous interposition, which sus- pended the rebuilding of the Jewish temple. Independently of the authorities of St. Chrys- ostom and St. Gregory Nazianzen, the circum- stances are thus told by Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan historian : " Whilst Alypius, assisted by FALL AND DISASTERS OF THE JEWS. 155 the governor of the province, urged with vigor and diligence the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundation, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner, obstinately and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the undertaking was abandoned." But, whilst the infidel tortures his invention by unavailing sophistry, the enlightened Christian beholds, in the frustrated attempts of Julian, the completion of the Redeemer's prediction. In- stead of ascribing to chance or accident, the balls of fire that issued from the earth and scorched and smote the workmen, he beholds, in them, the effects of the divine wrath, thus described by the psalmist : "Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together against the Lord, and against his Christ. Let us break their bonds asunder ; and let us cast away their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in the heavens, shall laugh at them : and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and trouble them in his rage." —Dr. MacHale. 156 THE MUSICAL PO WEBS OF CAROL AN. TESTING THE MUSICAL POWERS OF CAR- OLAN. The Irish Orpheus, Carolan, seems, from the description we have of him, to have been a genuine representative of the ancient bards. Though blind and untaught, yet his attainments in music were of the highest order. At what period of his life Carolan commenced as an itiner- ant musician is not known ; nor is it ascertained whether, like many others, he n'eut abord d? autre Apollon que le besoin, or whether his fondness for music induced him to betake him- self to that profession. Dr. Campbell, indeed, seems to attribute his choice of it to an early dis- appointment in love. But wherever he went, the gates of the nobility and gentry were thrown open to him, and a distinguished place was as- signed him at table. Carolan thought the tribute of a song due to every house where he was enter- tained, and he seldom failed to pay it, choosing for his subject either the head of the family, or the loveliest of its branches. Indeed on every occasion, the emotions of his heart, whether of joy or grief, were expressed in his harp. Many a favorite fair has been the theme of a beautiful planxty ; and as soon as the first excess of grief for the loss of his wife had subsided, he composed a monody on her death, teeming with harmony and poetic beauties. THE MUSICAL PO WEBS OF CAROLAN 157 The fame of Carolan soon extended over Ireland, and, among others, reached the ears of an emin- ent Italian music master in Dublin, who, putting his abilities to a severe test, became convinced how well his reputation was merited. The Italian singled out an excellent piece of music, but in several places either altered or mutilated the piece, although in such a manner as that no one but a real judge could make the discovery. It was then played to Carolan, who bestowed the deepest attention on the performance, although he was not aware of its being intended as a trial of his skill, or that the critical moment was then at hand which was to determine his reputation. When it was finished, and Carolan was asked his opinion, he declared that it was an admirable piece of music ; but, said he, very humorously, in his own language, ta se air chois air bacaighe ; that is, here and there it limps and stumbles. He was then requested to rectify the errors ; and this he did immediately, to the astonishment of the Italian, who pronounced Carolan to be a true musical genius. 158 IRISH NATIONAL HYMN IRISH NATIONAL HYMN FOR SAINT PATRICK'S DAY Though the veil of sorrow o'er Erin lies, Like a black cloud on lovely summer skies ; Though her ancient crown decks a stranger' s brow, And her golden harp strings are silent now ; Though ruin rule upon her green -robed towers, And misery around her thickly show'rs ; Though Freedom bleeds upon her verdant plains, And Slavery 'round her winds his galling chains, Is there a land — howe'er by fortune blest — More dear than she to any Irish breast ? Is there a land, on which all blessings smile, More dear to us than thou, our mother isle? What favored land holds o'er our hearts the sway Of Erin dear, on this St. Patrick's Day \ Why now recall to mind thy glories fled, Or mention here the names of heroes dead % Why say no Roman dared to touch thy shore, When earth seemed small for Roman eagles' soar % Why say religion found in thee a home, And Erin ne'er could win thy heart from Rome? IRISH NATIONAL HYMN. 159 Why say that learning borrowed light from thee, And thou of Europe seemedst the sun to be % Art thou less dear beneath thy gloom and tears, Than if crowned with the glory of former years? Are thy sons less faithful than in by-gone times, When thy halo beamed on the most distant climes % Sorrow nor age can make our love decay, Green is it now, on this "St. Patrick's Day. On the altar's step, on the flinty stone, Where the North- snows fa]l, and the South- streams moan, For the aged priest, for the mountaineer, For the lowly peasant, for the noble peer, For the student young, who preserves the fire He caught from the heart of his Irish sire, In the distant lands where the Celtic race Shows its stalwart form and its manly face, Thy name, O Erin, is the noble theme, (The long-lost Paradise thou now dost seem) : Thy ancient glories from the grave arise, And thou shines t brightly before all eyes. O let us, then, whatever tyrants say, Proclaim our love on this St. Patrick's Day. Behold Erin now, as yet she shall be, Lighting with glory the dark-swelling sea; 160 AX EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION. See smiles like the sun on her radiant face, Cheering the hearts of her wide-scattered race, See the gay glance which on earth she bestows, And mark how the eye of each proud Celt glows ; See Freedom robe her with the brightest beams, And sweet Plenty bloom by her holy streams; See her temples rise, as in days of yore; Hear the sacred songs swell from shore to shore; O Lord on high, her from dark evil save; Cast blessings rare on her Thy faithful slave; Bless those who speak, if but one word they say For Erin green, on this St. Patrick's Day. — Treacy. AN EXTEACT FROM AN" ORATION. Circumscribed as we are, I say nothing of the massacres of the faithful Irish ; I say nothing of the bloody atrocities of Cromwell at Drogheda, where he sold most treacherously the gallant garrison, or at Wexford, where his brutal soldiers massacred the unprotected women that crowded around the great cross craving mercy ; I say nothing of the children strangled with their mother's hair ; I say nothing of the artificial fam- ine that compelled the parent to devour the ten- AIT EXTRA GT FROM AN ORA TION. 161 der, unconscious child ; I do not dwell upon the wretchedness of dying by the roadside, while the tyrant passes by and regards the almost lifeless form with scorn and aversion ; I do not wait to tell you of the graves to which your brave fathers were hurried — those graves which the foe has desecrated ; I do not direct your attention to those old abbeys which the hand of the rav- ager has torn down ; I do not look at those altars — the altars where your free forefathers sought comfort — those altars which have been trampled upon by the f oeman — which have been destroyed by the miscreant servants of a bloody Henry, a despotic Elizabeth, or a ruthless Cromwell. Our race is indestructible, it would seem, for despi te persecution it will exist and prosper. To- day, this emblem of nationality and religion which I wear at my breast (the shamrock) is worn by Irishmen everywhere. To-day, from sea and continent and island, and lake and moun- tain, the children of the Emerald Isle direct their glances to their " own loved island of sorrow." To-day they ponder on the grievance of their race. To-day the full recollection of the dire oppression of which they have been the victims is revealed to them. To-day they long for the freedom of their down-trodden Erin. As Irish- men, we proclaim ourselves sons of St. Patrick. If we be truly sensible of the great honor to which we are born, we ought to endeavor to show our- 162 AN EXTRA CT FROM AN OR A TION. selves worthy children of our noble father. The religion which he committed to the care of our forefathers, has been by them faithfully trans- mitted to us. The greater our devotion towards our faith, the nearer we approach St. Patrick. Appreciate your faith, love its dogmas, proclaim its excellency, practise its morality, instil its prin- ciples into the minds of your children, and teach them by your #xample to revere and prize it. You are the children of St. Patrick, who pleads for you in heaven ; you are engaged in the same warfare as that in which he won his crown. You are descendants of those pure and stainless char- acters, that united the fiery chivalry of the knight to the meek and benign demeanor of the monk. From the ruined castles which these men so bravely defended, from the plain of Clon- tarf where Brien clipped the wings of the Danish Raven; from the verdant dale where the flag of "God and our Lady" was proudly unfurled, from the mounds of earth, beneath which the dust of our valiant progenitors lies entombed, from the eight hundred and fifty saints that in three centuries shone like diamonds upon the face of the land, a voice calls upon you to love your country, to love your brethren, to love your God. — Treacy. TO MA UBICE F. EGA2T. 163 TO MAURICE F. EGAN. Can' st thou expect me here to paint The feelings stamp' d upon my soul ? Or dost thou think that words can tell, How warm the waves that through it roll? ~No, words have not the power to show The love I bear my dearest friends, — Time in his march alone will prove That my warm friendship never ends. There is a rock by England's shore, On which a Saint hath left his tread, Which time nor waves, though both combine, Can e'er efface— I one time read : A brilliant lamp, beside a tomb, In Palestine forever burns, Its tongue of fire, so bright, so pure, Towards the departed ever turns ; Not like the rock, both hard and cold, My heart will bear the thought of Thee, But like the lamp, 'twill glow, and turn To thee— dear friend— where'er thou' It be. — Treacy. 164 THE PENAL DA Y8. THE PENAL DAYS. "Oh, weep those days, the penal day's, When Ireland hopelessly complained." — Dams. Weep not beside a martyr's grave, Weep not o'er hunted virtue true ; Weep not the hour that proved man brave- Though blood lent hill and dale its hue. Why should we weep the penal times That showed our country's love of Right? Let us forget the tyrants' crimes, And sing the stars of Erin's night When peaceful bloomed our garden land, The hermit and the monk arose, And every vale heard virgin-band Sing love of God, at evening's close ; But when our air with war was red, From cells and caves Truth's soldiers came, And every rock a glory shed Around some Irish martyr's name. We must not weep the penal days That sanctified our hills and plains ; We must not shudder when we gaze At men that feared nor death nor chains. In blood and tears, 'neath penal laws, Saint Erin's heart was purified ; For holy Faith, and Freedom's cause, Our martyred nation grandly died. — Treacy CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. 165 CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. No matter what may be the birthplace of such a man as Washington, no climate can claim, no country can appropriate him : the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eter- nity, his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin $ if the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet when the storm passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared; how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet it revealed to us ! In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if nature was endeavoring to im- prove on herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies prepar- atory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances no doubt there were; splendid exemplifications of some single qualifi- cation : Csesar was merciful, Scipio was conti- nent; Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely master-piece of the Grecian artist to ex- hibit in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master. As a general, he marshalled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience. As a statesman, he enlarged the IQQ CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON. policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage ; and snch was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman, he almost added the character of the sage. A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood ; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason ; for aggression commenced the contest, and a country called him to the com- mand ; liberty unsheathed his sword ; necessity stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here, history might doubt what station to assign him ; whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowned his career, and banished hesitation. Who like Washington, after having freed a country, resigned her crown, and retired to a cottage rather than reign in a capitol ? Immortal man ! He took from the battle its crime, and from the conquest its chains ; he left the victorious the glory of his self-denial, and turned upon the vanquished only the retribution of his mercy. Happy, proud America ! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy ! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism ! — Phillips. KING RICHARD AND THE MINSTREL. 167 KING RICHARD AND THE MINSTREL. The singular manner of discovering the situa- tion of King Richard the First, when a prisoner to Leopold, Duke of Austria, which Fauchet relates from an ancient chronicle, is thus related in Mrs. Dobson's Literary History of the Trouba- dours: A minstrel, called Blondel, who owed his fortune to Richard, animated with tenderness towards his illustrious master, was resolved to go over the world till he had discovered the destiny of this prince. He had already traversed Europe, and was returning through Germany, when, talking one day at Lintz, in Austria, with the innkeeper, in order to make this discovery, he learned that there was near the city, at the entrance of a forest, a strong and ancient castle, in which there was a prisoner, who was guarded with great care. A secret impulse persuaded Blondel that this prisoner was Richard. He went immediately to the castle, the sight of which made him tremble. He got acquainted with a. peasant, who went often there to carry provisions ; questioned, and offered him a considerable sum to declare who it was that was shut up there ; but the good man, though he readily told all he knew, was ignorant both of the name and quality of the prisoner. He could only inform him, that he was watched 168 SING RICHARD AND THE MINSTREL. with the most exact attention, and was suffered no communication with any one but the keeper of the castle, and his servants. He added, that the prisoner had no other amusement than look- ing over the country through a small grated win- dow, which served also for the light that glim- mered into his apartment. He told him that this castle was a horrid abode ; that the staircase and the apartments were black with age, and so dark, that, at noon-day, it was necessary to have a lighted flambeau to find the way along them. Blondel listened with eager at- tention, and meditated several ways of coming at the prison, but all in vain. At last, when he found that, from the height and narrowness of the window, he could not get a sight of his dear master, who, he firmly believed, was there, he bethought himself of a French song, the last couplet of which had been composed by Eichard, and the first by himself. After he had sung, with a loud and harmonious voice, the first part, he suddenly stopped, and heard a voice, which came from the castle window, "Continue, and finish the song." Transported with joy, he was now assured it was the king, his master, who was confined in this dismal castle. The chronicle adds, that, one of the keeper's servants falling sick, he hired himself to him, and thus made himself known to Richard ; and, in- forming his nobles, with all possible expedition, ONES OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 169 of the situation of their monarch, he was released from his confinement, on paying a large ran- som. THE STUDIOUS MONKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. But for the monks, the light of liberty, and literature and science had been forever extin- guished; and for six centuries there existed for the thoughtful, the gentle, the inquiring, the de- vout spirit, no peace no security, no home but the cloister. There, learning trimmed her lamp ; there, contemplation plumed her wings , there, the traditions of art preserved from age to age by lonely studious men kept alive in form and color the idea of a beauty beyond that of earth — of a might beyond that of the spear and the shield — of a divine sympathy with suffering humanity. To this we may add another and a stronger claim to our respect and moral sympathies. The pro- tection and the better education given to women in these early communities; the venerable and distinguished rank assigned to them, when as governesses of their order, they became in a man- ner dignitaries of the Church ; the introduction of their beautiful and saintly effigies, clothed with all the insignia of sanctity and authority into the 170 AFFECTION DUE TO A MOTHER t decoration of places of worship and books of de- votion — did more perhaps, for the general cause of womanhood than all the boasted institutions of chivalry. — Mrs. Jameson, THE AFFECTION AND REVERENCE DUE TO A MOTHER. What an awful state of mind must a man have attained, when he can despise a mother's counsels! Her very name is identified with every idea that can subdue the sternest mind; that can suggest the most profound respect, the deepest and most heartfelt attachment, the most unlimited obe- dience. It brings to the mind the first human being that loved us, the first guardian that pro- tected us, the first friend that cherished us; who watched with anxious care over our infant life, whilst yet we were unconscious of our being ; whose days and nights were rendered wearisome by her anxious cares for our welfare; whose eager v eye followed us through every path we took; who gloried in our honor, who sickened in heart at our shame; who loved and mourned, when others reviled and scorned; and whose affection for us survives the wreck of every other feeling within. When her voice is raised to inculcate religion, or UB LAD Y OF SOBBO W. 171 to reprehend irregularity, it possesses unnum- bered claims to attention, respect and obedience. She fills the place of the eternal God; by her lips that God is speaking; in her counsels He is con- veying the most solemn admonitions; and to dis- regard such counsel, to despise such interference, to sneer at the wisdom that addresses you, or the aged piety that seeks to reform you, is the surest and the shortest path which the devil him- self could have opened for your perdition. I know no grace that can have effect; I know not any authority upon earth to which you will listen, when once you have brought yourself to reject such advice. Nothing but the arm of God, that opens the rock and splits the mountain, can open your heart to grace, or your understanding to correction.— Rev. J.