Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886

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Title: Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886

Author: Various

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE, VOLUME 15, NO. 1, JANUARY 1886 ***

Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net.

DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE

_A Monthly Journal_

CONTAINING

TALES, BIOGRAPHY, EPISODES IN IRISH AND AMERICAN HISTORY, POETRY,
MISCELLANY, ETC.

_AN EXTREMELY INTERESTING VOLUME._

* * * * *

VOL. XV.

JANUARY, 1886, TO JULY, 1886.

* * * * *

BOSTON:

THOMAS B. NOONAN & COMPANY.

1886.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes have
been moved to the end of the chapters. This issue only contains January,
1886.

* * * * *

Contents.

An Affecting Incident at Sea, 32.
Alone, 42.
A Midnight Mass, 42.
Abolishing Barmaids, 80.
A Valiant Soldier of the Cross, 132.
A Child of Mary, 144.
A Christmas Carol, 165.
A Silly Threat, 173.
A Chapter of Irish History, 223.
About Critics, 256.
A Thought for Easter, 460.

Bay State Faugh-a-Ballaghs, 229, 347.
Blaine on Britain, 438.
Before the Battle, 550.

Crown and Crescent, 79.
Christianity in China, 81.
Capital and Labor--Strikes, 232.
Columbus and Ireland, 368.
Chanson, 406.
Canossa at Last, 522.
Chinese Labor, 505.

Dead Man's Island: The story of an Irish Country Town, 33, 145.
Drunkenness in Old Times, 351.
Deaths of the Apostles, 460.
Decrees of the Third Plenary Council, 529.
Death of Rev. Father Ryan, 570.

Encyclical Letter of Our Most Holy Lord Leo XIII,
by Divine Providence, Pope, 1.
Encyclical Proclaiming the Jubilee, 259.
England and her Enemies, 264.
Echoes from the Pines, 310.
Emmet's Rebellion, 335.
Emmet's Love, 435.
Early Irish Settlers in Virginia, 523.
Etoile du Soir, 501.

Four Thousand Years, 80.
Faro's Daughters, 82.
Frau Hütt: A Legend of Tyrol, 308.
Farewell, my Home, 345.
Father Matt, 497.

Gladstone at Emmet's Grave, 61.
Gerald Griffin, 62, 139.
George Washington, 142.
Give Charity while you Live, 333.
Gladstone, 536.

His Eminence John Cardinal McCloskey, with Portrait, 18.
Harvard College and the Catholic Theory of Education, 31.
Honor to the Germans, 57.
Historical Notes of Tallaght, 405.
Hancock and the Irish Brigade, 411.
Heroism, 542.
Home Rule, 565.

Interest Savings Banks, 228.
Ireland: A Retrospect, 266.
Ingratitude of France in the Irish Struggle, 277.
Instances of Divine Vengeance, 445.
Ireland our Mother Land, 447.

Juvenile Department, 83, 179, 270, 373, 469, 552.
John Scotus Erigena, 306.
John C. Schayer, 568.

Knights of Labor, 433.

Low-necked Dresses, 367.
Leo the Great, 466.

Mary E. Blake, 139.
Musings from Foreign Poets, 312.
Much-a-Wanted, 339.
Mixed Marriages, 344.
Miss Mulholland's Poems, 369.
Major-General John Newton, 401.
May Ditty, 465.
"My Victim:" A Tale, 506.

Notes on Current Topics, 97, 193, 289, 385, 481, 573.
Notices of Recent Publications, 105, 205, 301, 381, 397, 487, 585.

Order of the Buried Alive, 30.
Obituary, 107, 207, 302, 398, 496, 586.
Our Neighbors, 168.
Our Gaelic Tongue, 222.
O'Connell and Parnell, 278.
Our New Cardinal, 359.
Orders of Knighthood, 366.
Our Saviour's Personal Appearance, 414.

Private Judgment a Failure, 72.
Priests and People Mourning, 74.
Personal, 104, 300, 396, 493, 584.
Parnell's Strength, 172.
Pen Sketches of Irish Litterateurs, 209.
Pneumonia, 462.

Rev. Father Fulton, S. J., 71.
Rapidity of Time's Flight, 178.
Reminiscences of the Battle of Kilmallock, 503.
Rev. Father Scully's Gymnasium, 537.
Rabies (Hydrophobia), 543.

Sing, Sing for Christmas, 32.
Southern Sketches, 125, 215, 113, 440, 516.
Senator John J. Hayes, 235.
Saints and Serpents, 237.
Seeing the Old Year Out, 370.
Sir Thomas Grattan Esmond, Bart., 415.
St. Rose, 434.
Shamrocks, 440.
Sorrowing Mother, 515.
Science and Politics, 502.

The Pope and the Mikado, 29.
The Hero of Lepanto, 44.
The Church and Progress, 49.
Tracadie and the Trappists, 59.
The Humorist, 96, 210, 306.
The Columbian Army of Derry, 113.
The Penitent on the Cross, 120.
The Celt on America, 121.
The Late Father Tom Burke, 166.
The Old Year's Army of Martyrs, 170.
The Pope on Christian Education, 174.
Te Deum, 176.
The Poems of Rosa Mulholland, 248.
The Celts of South America, 258.
The Welcome of the Divine Guest, 305.
The Ursuline Convent of Tenos, 316.
The Church and Modern Progress, 328.
The Annunciation, 339.
The Ten-Commandment Theory, 346.
The Paschal Candle, 352.
The Irish as Conspirators, 362.
The National Catholic University, 407.
Thot's of Ireland, 423.
The Middogue, 424.
The Passion, 430.
The Holy Mass, 446.
The Instruments of the Passion, 464.
The New Era, 465.
Terrence V. Powderly, 561.
The Keegan Challenge Fund, 564.
The Providence Cathedral, 546.
Three Decisions, 551.

Useful Knowledge, 95, 209, 305.

Vindication, 58.

What English Catholics are Contending For, 276.
William J. Onahan, 467.

* * * * *

[Illustration: HIS EMINENCE JOHN CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY.

See page 18.]

DONAHOE'S MAGAZINE.

* * * * *

Vol. XV.

BOSTON, JANUARY, 1886.

No. 1.

* * * * *

"THE future of the Irish race in this country, will depend largely upon
their capability of assuming an independent attitude in American
politics."--RIGHT REV. DOCTOR IRELAND, _St. Paul, Minn._

[Illustration: Coat of Arms]

Encyclical Letter

OF OUR MOST HOLY LORD LEO XIII., BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE,

CONCERNING THE CHRISTIAN CONSTITUTION OF STATES.

TO ALL THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC
WORLD, IN THE GRACE AND COMMUNION OF THE APOSTOLIC SEE,

LEO PP XIII.

_Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction._

The work of a merciful God, the Church looks essentially, and from the
very nature of her being, to the salvation of souls and the winning for
them of happiness in heaven, nevertheless, she also secures even in this
world, advantages so many and so great that she could not do more, even
if she had been founded primarily and specially to secure prosperity in
this life which is worked out upon earth. In truth, wherever the Church
has set her foot she has at once changed the aspect of affairs, colored
the manners of the people as with new virtues and a refinement unknown
before--as many people as have accepted this have been distinguished for
their gentleness, their justice, and the glory of their deeds. But the
accusation is an old one, and not of recent date, that the Church is
incompatible with the welfare of the commonwealth, and incapable of
contributing to those things, whether useful or ornamental, which,
naturally and of its own will, every rightly-constituted State eagerly
strives for. We know that on this ground, in the very beginnings of the
Church, the Christians, from the same perversity of view, were
persecuted and constantly held up to hatred and contempt, so that they
were styled the enemies of the Empire. And at that time it was generally
popular to attribute to Christianity the responsibility for the evils
beneath which the State was beaten down, when in reality, God, the
avenger of crimes, was requiring a just punishment from the guilty. The
wickedness of this calumny, not without cause, fired the genius and
sharpened the pen of Augustine, who, especially in his _Civitate Dei_,
set forth so clearly the efficacy of Christian wisdom, and the way in
which it is bound up with well-being of States, that he seems not only
to have pleaded the cause of the Christians of his own time, but to have
triumphantly refuted these false charges for all time. But this unhappy
inclination to complaints and false accusations was not laid to rest,
and many have thought well to seek a system of civil life elsewhere than
in the doctrines which the Church approves. And now in these latter
times a new law, as they call it, has begun to prevail, which they
describe as the outcome of a world now fully developed, and born of a
growing liberty. But although many hazardous schemes have been
propounded by many, it is clear that never has any better method been
found for establishing and ruling the State than that which is the
natural result of the teaching of the Gospel. We deem it, therefore, of
the greatest moment, and especially suitable to our Apostolic function,
to compare with Christian doctrine the new opinions concerning the
State, by which method we trust that, truth being thus presented, the
causes of error and doubt will be removed, so that each may easily see
by those supreme commandments for living, what things he ought to
follow, and whom he ought to obey.

It is not a very difficult matter to set forth what form and appearance
the State should have if Christian philosophy governed the commonwealth.
By nature it is implanted in man that he should live in civil society,
for since he cannot attain in solitude the necessary means of civilized
life, it is a Divine provision that he comes into existence adapted for
taking part in the union and assembling of men, both in the Family and
in the State, which alone can supply adequate facilities for _the
perfecting of life_. But since no society can hold together unless some
person is over all, impelling individuals by efficient and similar
motives to pursue the common advantage, it is brought about that
authority whereby it may be ruled is indispensable to a civilized
community, which authority, as well as society, can have no other source
than nature, and consequently God Himself. And thence it follows that by
its very nature there can be no public power except from God alone. For
God alone is the most true and supreme Lord of the world, Whom
necessarily all things, whatever they be, must be subservient to and
obey, so that whoever possess the right of governing, can receive that
from no other source than from that supreme chief of all, God. "_There
is no power except from God._" (Rom. xiii. 1.) But the right of ruling
is not necessarily conjoined with any special form of commonwealth, but
may rightly assume this or that form, provided that it promotes utility
and the common good. But whatever be the kind of commonwealth, rulers
ought to keep in view God, the Supreme Governor of the world, and to set
Him before themselves as an example and a law in the administration of
the State. For as God, in things which are and which are seen, has
produced secondary causes, wherein the Divine nature and course of
action can be perceived, and which conduce to that end to which the
universal course of the world is directed, so in civil society He has
willed that there should be a government which should be carried on by
men who should reflect towards mankind an image as it were of Divine
power and Divine providence. The rule of the government, therefore,
should be just and not that of a master but rather that of a father,
because the power of God over men is most just and allied with a
father's goodness. Moreover, it is to be carried on with a view to the
advantage of the citizens, because they who are over others are over
them for this cause alone, that they may see to the interests of the
State. And in no way is it to be allowed that the civil authority should
be subservient merely to the advantage of one or of a few, since it was
established for the common good of all. But if they who are over the
State should lapse into unjust rule; if they should err through
arrogance or pride; if their measures should be injurious to the people,
let them know that hereafter an account must be rendered to God, and
that so much the stricter in proportion as they are intrusted with more
sacred functions, or have obtained a higher grade of dignity, "_The
mighty shall be mightily tormented._" (Wisd. vi. 7.)

Thus truly the majesty of rule will be attended with an honorable and
willing regard on the part of the citizens; for when once they have been
brought to conclude that they who rule are strong only with the
authority given by God, they will feel that those duties are due and
just, that they should be obedient to their rulers, and pay to them
respect and fidelity, with somewhat of the same affection as that of
children to their parents. "_Let every soul be subject to higher
powers._" (Rom. xiii. 1.)

Indeed, to contemn lawful authority, in whatever person it is vested, is
as unlawful as it is to resist the Divine will; and whoever resists
that, rushes voluntarily to his destruction. "_He who resists the power,
resists the ordinance of God; and they who resist, purchase to
themselves damnation._" (Rom. xiii. 2.) Wherefore to cast away
obedience, and by popular violence to incite the country to sedition, is
treason, not only against man, but against God.

It is clear that a State constituted on this basis is altogether bound
to satisfy, by the public profession of religion, the very many and
great duties which bring it into relation with God. Nature and reason
which commands every man individually to serve God holily and
religiously, because we belong to Him and coming from Him must return to
Him, binds by the same law the civil community. For men living together
in society are no less under the power of God than are individuals; and
society owes as much gratitude as individuals do to God, Who is its
author, its preserver, and the beneficent source of the innumerable
blessings which it has received. And therefore as it is not lawful for
anybody to neglect his duties towards God, and as it is the first duty
to embrace in mind and in conduct religion--not such as each may choose,
but such as God commands--in the same manner States cannot, without a
crime, act as though God did not exist, or cast off the care of religion
as alien to them or useless or out of several kinds of religion adopt
indifferently which they please; but they are absolutely bound, in the
worship of the Deity to adopt that use and manner in which God Himself
has shown that He wills to be adored. Therefore among rulers the name of
God must be holy, and it must be reckoned among the first of their
duties to favor religion, protect it, and cover it with the authority of
the laws, and not to institute or decree anything which is incompatible
with its security. They owe this also to the citizens over whom they
rule. For all of us men are born and brought up for a certain supreme
and final good in heaven, beyond this frail and short life, and to this
end all efforts are to be referred. And because upon it depends the full
and perfect happiness of men, therefore, to attain this end which has
been mentioned, is of as much interest as is conceivable to every
individual man. It is necessary then that a civil society, born for the
common advantage, in the guardianship of the prosperity of the
commonwealth, should so advance the interests of the citizens that in
holding up and acquiring that highest and inconvertible good which they
spontaneously seek, it should not only never import anything
disadvantageous, but should give all the opportunities in its power. The
chief of these is that attention should be paid to a holy and inviolate
preservation of religion, by the duties of which man is united to God.

Now which the true religion is may be easily discovered by any one who
will view the matter with a careful and unbiassed judgment; for there
are proofs of great number and splendor, as for example, the truth of
prophecy, the abundance of miracles, the extremely rapid spread of the
faith, even in the midst of its enemies and in spite of the greatest
hindrances, the testimony of the martyrs, and the like, from which it is
evident that that is the only true religion which Jesus Christ
instituted Himself and then entrusted to His Church to defend and to
spread.

For the only begotten Son of God set up a society on earth which is
called the Church, and to it He transferred that most glorious and
divine office, which He had received from His Father, to be perpetuated
forever. "_As the Father hath sent Me, even so I send you._" (John xx.
21.) "_Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the
world._" (Matt. xxviii. 20.) Therefore as Jesus Christ came into the
world, "_that men might have life and have it more abundantly_" (John x.
10), so also the Church has for its aim and end the eternal salvation of
souls; and for this cause it is so constituted as to embrace the whole
human race without any limit or circumscription either of time or place.
"_Preach ye the Gospel to every creature._" (Mark xvi. 15.) Over this
immense multitude of men God Himself has set rulers with power to
govern them; and He has willed that one should be head of them all, and
the chief and unerring teacher of truth, and to him He has given the
keys of the kingdom of heaven. "_To thee will I give the keys of the
kingdom of heaven._" (Matt. xvi. 19.) "_Feed My lambs, feed My sheep._"
(John xxi. 16, 17.) "_I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not
fail._" (Luke xxii. 32.) This society, though it be composed of men just
as civil society is, yet because of the end that it has in view, and the
means by which it tends to it, is supernatural and spiritual; and,
therefore, is distinguished from civil society and differs from it;
and--a fact of the highest moment--is a society perfect in its kind and
in its rights, possessing in and by itself, by the will and beneficence
of its Founder, all the appliances that are necessary for its
preservation and action. Just as the end, at which the Church aims, is
by far the noblest of ends, so its power is the most exalted of all
powers, and cannot be held to be either inferior to the civil power or
in any way subject to it. In truth Jesus Christ gave His Apostles
unfettered commissions over all sacred things, with the power of
establishing laws properly so-called, and the double right of judging
and punishing which follows from it: "_All power has been given to Me in
heaven and on earth; going, therefore, teach all nations;... teaching
them to keep whatsoever I have commanded you._" (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19,
20.) And in another place He says: "_If he will not hear, tell it to the
Church_" (Matt. xviii. 17); and again: "_Ready to punish all
disobedience_" (2 Cor. x. 6); and once more: "_I shall act with more
severity, according to the powers which our Lord has given me unto
edification and not unto destruction._" (2 Cor. xiii. 10.)

So then it is not the State but the Church that ought to be men's guide
to heaven; and it is to her that God has assigned the office of watching
and legislating for all that concerns religion, of teaching all nations;
of extending, as far as may be, the borders of Christianity; and, in a
word, of administering its affairs without let or hindrance, according
to her own judgment. Now this authority, which pertains absolutely to
the Church herself, and is part of her manifest rights, and which has
long been opposed by a philosophy subservient to princes, she has never
ceased to claim for herself and to exercise publicly: the Apostles
themselves being the first of all to maintain it, when, being forbidden
by the readers of the Synagogue to preach the Gospel, they boldly
answered, "_We must obey God rather than men._" (Acts v. 29.) This same
authority the holy Fathers of the Church have been careful to maintain
by weighty reasonings as occasions have arisen; and the Roman Pontiffs
have never ceased to defend it with inflexible constancy. Nay, more,
princes and civil governors themselves have approved it in theory and in
fact; for in the making of compacts, in the transaction of business, in
sending and receiving embassies, and in the interchange of other
offices, it has been their custom to act with the Church as with a
supreme and legitimate power. And we may be sure that it is not without
the singular providence of God that this power of the Church was
defended by the Civil Power as the best defence of its own liberty.

God, then, has divided the charge of the human race between two powers,
_viz._, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine,
and the other over human things. Each is the greatest in its own kind:
each has certain limits within which it is restricted, and those limits
defined by the nature and proximate cause of each; so that there is, as
we may say, a world marked off as a field for the proper action of each.
But forasmuch as each has dominion over the same subjects, since it
might come to pass that one and the same thing, though in different
ways, still one and the same, might pertain to the right and the
tribunal of both, therefore God, Who foreseeth all things, and Who has
established both powers, must needs have arranged the course of each in
right relation to one another, and in due order. "_For the powers that
are ordained by God._" (Rom. xiii. 1.) And if this were not so, causes
of rivalries and dangerous disputes would be constantly arising; and man
would often have to stop in anxiety and doubt, like a traveller with two
roads before him, not knowing what he ought to do, with two powers
commanding contrary things, whose authority however, he cannot refuse
without neglect of duty. But it would be most repugnant, so to think, of
the wisdom and goodness of God, Who, even in physical things, though
they are of a far lower order, has yet so attempered and combined
together the forces and causes of nature in an orderly manner and with a
sort of wonderful harmony, that none of them is a hindrance to the rest,
and all of them most fitly and aptly combine for the great end of the
universe. So, then, there must needs be a certain orderly connection
between these two powers, which may not unfairly be compared to the
union with which soul and body are united in man. What the nature of
that union is, and what its extent, cannot otherwise be determined than,
as we have said, by having regard to the nature of each power, and by
taking account of the relative excellence and nobility of their ends;
for one of them has for its proximate and chief aim the care of the
goods of this world, the other the attainment of the goods of heaven
that are eternal. Whatsoever, therefore, in human affairs is in any
manner sacred; whatsoever pertains to the salvation of souls or the
worship of God, whether it be so in its own nature, or on the other
hand, is held to be so for the sake of the end to which it is referred,
all this is in the power and subject to the free disposition of the
Church: but all other things which are embraced in the civil and
political order, are rightly subject to the civil authority, since Jesus
Christ has commanded that what is Cæsar's is to be paid to Cæsar, and
what is God's to God. Sometimes, however, circumstances arise when
another method of concord is available for peace and liberty; we mean
when princes and the Roman Pontiff come to an understanding concerning
any particular matter. In such circumstances the Church gives singular
proof of her maternal good-will, and is accustomed to exhibit the
highest possible degree of generosity and indulgence.

Such, then, as we have indicated in brief, is the Christian order of
civil society; no rash or merely fanciful fiction, but deduced from
principles of the highest truth and moment, which are confirmed by the
natural reason itself.

Now such a constitution of the State contains nothing that can be
thought either unworthy of the majesty of princes or unbecoming; and so
far is it from lessening its imperial rights, that it rather adds
stability and grandeur to them. For, if it be more deeply considered,
such a constitution has a great perfection which all others lack, and
from it various excellent fruits would accrue, if each party would only
keep its own place, and discharge with integrity that office and work to
which it was appointed. For in truth in this constitution of the State,
which we have above described, divine and human affairs are properly
divided; the rights of citizens are completely defended by divine,
natural, and human law; and the limitations of the several offices are
at once wisely laid down, and the keeping of them most opportunely
secured. All men know that in their doubtful and laborious journey to
the ever-lasting city they have at hand guides to teach them how to set
forth, helpers to show them how to reach their journey's end, whom they
may safely follow; and at the same time they know that they have others
whose business it is to take care of their security and their fortunes,
to obtain for them, or to secure to them, all those other goods which
are essential to the life of a community. Domestic society obtains that
firmness and solidity which it requires in the sanctity of marriage, one
and indissoluble; the rights and duties of husband and wife are ordered
with wise justice and equity; the due honor is secured to the woman; the
authority of the man is conformed to the example of the authority of
God; the authority of the father is tempered as becomes the dignity of
the wife and offspring, and the best possible provision is made for the
guardianship, the true good, and the education of the children.

In the domain of political and civil affairs the laws aim at the common
good, and are not guided by the deceptive wishes and judgments of the
multitude, but by truth and justice. The authority of the rulers puts on
a certain garb of sanctity greater than what pertains to man, and it is
restrained from declining from justice, and passing over just limits in
the exercise of power. The obedience of citizens has honor and dignity
as companions, because it is not the servitude of men to men, but
obedience to the will of God exercising His sovereignty by means of men.
And this being recognised and admitted, it is understood that it is a
matter of justice that the dignity of rulers should be respected, that
the public authority should be constantly and faithfully obeyed, that no
act of sedition should be committed, and that the civil order of the
State should be kept intact. In the same way mutual charity and kindness
and liberality are seen to be virtues. The man who is at once a citizen
and a Christian is no longer the victim of contending parties and
incompatible obligations; and, finally, those very abundant good things
with which the Christian religion of its own accord fills up even the
mortal life of men, are acquired for the community and civil society, so
that it appears to be said with the fullest truth: "The state of the
commonwealth depends on the religion with which God is worshipped, and
between the one and the other there is a close relation and connection."
(_Sacr. Imp. ad Cyrillum Alexandr, et Episcopus metrop. ef Labbeum
Collect Conc._, T. iii.) Admirably, as he is accustomed, did Augustine
in many places dilate on the power of those good things, but especially
when he addresses the Catholic Church in these words: "Thou treatest
boys as boys, youths with strength, old men calmly, according as is not
only the age of the body, but also of the mind of each. Women thou
subjectest to their husbands in chaste and faithful obedience, not for
the satisfaction of lust, but for the propagation of offspring, and
participation in the affairs of the family. Thou settest husbands over
their spouses, not that they may trifle with the weaker sex, but in
accordance with the laws of true affection. Thou subjectest sons to
their parents in a kind of free servitude, and settest parents over
their sons in a benignant rule.... Thou joinest together, not merely in
society, but in a kind of fraternity, citizens with citizens, peoples
with peoples, and in fact the whole race of men by a remembrance of
their parentage. Thou teachest kings to look for the interests of their
peoples. Thou admonishest peoples to submit themselves to their kings.
With all care thou teachest to whom honor is due, to whom affection, to
whom reverence, to whom fear, to whom consolation, to whom admonition,
to whom exhortation, to whom discipline, to whom reproach, to whom
punishment, showing how all of these are not suitable to all, but yet to
all affection is due, and wrong to none." (_De Moribus Eccl. Cath._,
cap. xxx., n. 63.) And in another place, speaking in blame of certain
political pseudo-philosophers, he observes: "They who say that the
doctrine of Christ is hurtful to the State, should produce an army of
soldiers such as the doctrine of Christ has commanded them to be, such
governors of provinces, such husbands, such wives, such parents, such
sons, such masters, such slaves, such kings, such judges, and such
payers and collectors of taxes due, such as the Christian doctrine would
have them. And then let them dare to say that such a state of things is
hurtful to the State. Nay, rather they could not hesitate to confess
that it is a great salvation to the State if there is due obedience to
this doctrine." (_Epist._ cxxxviii., al. 5, _ad Marcellinum_, cap. ii.,
15.)

There was once a time when the philosophy of the Gospel governed States;
then it was that that power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had
penetrated into the laws, institutions and manners of peoples--indeed
into all the ranks and relations of the State; when the religion
instituted by Jesus Christ, firmly established in that degree of dignity
which was befitting, flourished everywhere, in the favor of rulers and
under the due protection of magistrates; when the priesthood and the
government were united by concord and a friendly interchange of offices.
And the State composed in that fashion produced, in the opinion of all,
more excellent fruits, the memory of which still flourishes, and will
flourish, attested by innumerable monuments which can neither be
destroyed nor obscured by any art of the adversary. If Christian Europe
subdued barbarous peoples, and transferred them from a savage to a
civilized state, from superstition to the truth; if she victoriously
repelled the invasions of the Mohammedans; if civilization retained the
chief power, and accustomed herself to afford others a leader and
mistress in everything that adorns humanity; if she has granted to the
peoples true and manifold liberty; if she has most wisely established
many institutions for the solace of wretchedness, beyond controversy is
it very greatly due to religion under whose auspices such great
undertakings were commenced, and with whose aid they were perfected.
Truly the same excellent state of things would have continued, if the
agreement of the two powers had continued, and greater things might
rightfully have been expected, if there had been obedience to the
authority, the sway, the counsels of the Church, characterized by
greater faithfulness and perseverance, for that is to be regarded as a
perpetual law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II.: "When the
kingdom and the priesthood are agreed between themselves, the world is
well ruled, the Church flourishes and bears fruit. But when they are at
variance, not only does what is little not increase, but even what is
great falls into miserable decay." (_Ep._ ccxxxviiii.)

But that dreadful and deplorable zeal for revolution which was aroused
in the sixteenth century, after the Christian religion had been thrown
into confusion, by a certain natural course proceeded to philosophy, and
from philosophy pervaded all ranks of the community. As it were, from
this spring came those more recent propositions of unbridled liberty
which obviously were first thought out and then openly proclaimed in the
terrible disturbances in the present century; and thence came the
principles and foundations of the new law, which was unknown before, and
is out of harmony, not only with Christian, but, in more than one
respect, with natural law. Of those principles the chief is that one
which proclaims that all men, as by birth and nature they are alike, so
in very deed in their actions of life are they equal and each is so
master of himself that in no way does he come under the authority of
another; that it is for him freely to think on whatever subject he
likes, to act as he pleases; that no one else has a right of ruling over
others. In a society founded upon these principles, government is only
the will of the people, which as it is under the power of itself alone,
so is alone its own proper sovereign. Moreover, it chooses to whom it
may entrust itself, but in such a way that it transfers, not so much the
right, as the function of the government which is to be exercised in its
name. God is passed over in silence, as if either there were no God, or
as if He cared nothing for human society, or as if men, whether as
individuals or in society, owed nothing to God, or as if there could be
any government of which the whole cause and power and authority did not
reside in God Himself. In which way, as is seen, a State is nothing else
but a multitude, as the mistress and governor of itself. And since the
people is said to contain in itself the fountain of all rights and of
all power, it will follow that the State deems itself bound by no kind
of duty towards God; that no religion should be publicly professed; nor
ought there to be any inquiry which of many is alone true; nor ought one
to be preferred to the rest; nor ought one to be specially favored, but
to each alike equal rights ought to be assigned, with the sole end that
the social order incurs no injury from them. It is a part of this theory
that all questions concerning religion are to be referred to private
judgment; that to every one it is allowed to follow which he prefers, or
none at all, if he approves of none. Hence these consequences naturally
arise; the judgment of each conscience is without regard to law;
opinions as free as possible are expressed concerning worshipping or not
worshipping God; and there is unbounded license of thinking and
publishing.

These foundations of the State being admitted, which at the time are in
such general favor, it easily appears into how unfavorable a position
the Church is driven. For when the conduct of affairs is in accordance
with the doctrines of this kind, to the Catholic name is assigned an
equal position with, or even an inferior position to that of alien
societies in the State; no regard is paid to ecclesiastical laws; and
the Church, which, by the command and mandate of Jesus Christ, ought to
teach all nations, finds itself forbidden in any way to interfere in the
instruction of the people. Concerning those things which are of mixed
jurisdiction, the rulers of the civil power lay down the law at their
own pleasure, and in this manner haughtily set aside the most sacred
laws of the Church. Wherefore they bring under their own jurisdiction
the marriages of Christians, deciding even concerning the marriage bond,
concerning the unity, and the stability of marriage. They take
possession of the goods of the clergy because they deny that the Church
can hold property. Finally, they so act with regard to the Church that
both the nature and the rights of a perfect society being removed, they
clearly hold it to be like the other associations which the State
contains, and on that account, if she possesses any legitimate means of
acting, she is said to possess that by the concession and gift of the
rulers of the State. But if in any State the Church retains her own
right, with the approval of the civil laws, and any agreement is
publicly made between the two powers, in the beginning they cry out that
the interests of the Church must be severed from those of the State, and
they do this with the intent that it may be possible to act against
their pledged faith with impunity, and to have the final decision over
everything, all obstacles having been removed. But when the Church
cannot bear that patiently, nor indeed is able to desert its greatest
and most sacred duties, and, above all, requires that faith be wholly
and entirely observed with it, contests often arise between the sacred
and the civil power, of which the result is commonly that the one who is
the weaker yields to the stronger in human resources. So it is the
custom and the wish in this state of public affairs, which is now
affected by many, either to expel the Church altogether, or to keep it
bound and restricted as to its rule. Public acts in a great measure are
framed with this design. Laws, the administration of States, the
teaching of youth unaccompanied by religion, the spoliation and
destruction of religious orders, the overturning of the civil
principality of the Roman Pontiffs, all have regard to this end; to
emasculate Christian institutes, to narrow the liberty of the Catholic
Church, and to diminish her other rights.

Natural reason itself convinces us that such opinions about the ruling
of a State are very widely removed from the truth. Nature herself bears
witness that all power of whatever kind ultimately emanates from God,
that greatest and most august fountain. Popular rule, however, which
without any regard to God is said to be naturally in the multitude,
though it may excellently avail to supply the fires of many
blandishments and excitements of many forms of covetousness, yet rests
on no probable reason, nor can have sufficient strength to ensure public
security and the quiet permanence of order. Verily things under the
auspices of these doctrines have come to such a pass that many sanction
this as a law in civil jurisprudence, to wit, that sedition may rightly
be raised. For the idea prevails that princes are really nothing but
delegates to express the popular will; and so necessarily all things
become alike, are changeable at the popular nod, and a certain fear of
public disturbance is forever hanging over our heads.

But to think with regard to religion, that there is no difference
between unlike and contrary forms, clearly will have this issue--an
unwillingness to test any one form in theory and practice. And this, if
indeed it differs from atheism in name, is in fact the same thing. Men
who really believe in the existence of God, if they are to be consistent
and not ridiculous, will, of necessity, understand that the different
methods of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict, even on
the most important points, cannot be all equally probable, equally good,
and equally accepted by God. And thus that faculty of thinking whatever
you like and expressing whatever you like to think in writing, without
any thought of moderation, is not of its own nature, indeed, a good in
which human society may rightly rejoice, but, on the contrary, a fount
and origin of many ills.

Liberty, in so far as it is a virtue perfecting man, should be occupied
with that which is true and that which is good; but the foundation of
that which is true and that which is good cannot be changed at the
pleasure of man, but remains ever the same, nor indeed is it less
unchangeable than nature herself. If the mind assent to false opinions,
if the will choose for itself evil, and apply itself thereto, neither
attains its perfection, but both fall from their natural dignity, and
both lapse by degrees into corruption. Whatever things, therefore, are
contrary to virtue and truth, these things it is not right to place in
the light before the eyes of men, far less to defend by the favor and
tutelage of the laws. A well-spent life is the only path to that heaven
whither we all direct our steps; and on this account the State departs
from the law and custom of nature if it allows the license of opinions
and of deeds to run riot to such a degree as to lead minds astray with
impunity from the truth, and hearts from the practice of virtue.

But to exclude the Church which God Himself has constituted from the
business of life, from the laws, from the teaching of youth, from
domestic society, is a great and pernicious error. A well-regulated
State cannot be when religion is taken away; more than needs be,
perhaps, is now known of what sort of a thing is in itself, and whither
tends that philosophy of life and morals which men call _civil_. The
Church of Christ is the true teacher of virtue and guardian of morals;
it is that which keeps principles in safety, from which duties are
derived, and by proposing most efficacious reasons for an honest life,
it bids us not only fly from wicked deeds, but rule the motions of the
mind which are contrary to reason when it is not intended to reduce them
to action. But to wish the Church in the discharge of its offices to be
subject to the civil power is a great rashness, a great injustice. If
this were done order would be disturbed, since things natural would thus
be put before those which are above nature; the multitude of the good
whose common life, if there be nothing to hinder it, the Church would
make complete, either disappears or at all events is considerably
diminished, and besides, a way is opened to enmities and conflicts--how
great the evil which they bring upon each order of government the event
has too frequently shown.

Such doctrines are not approved by human reason, and are of the greatest
gravity as regards civil discipline, the Roman Pontiffs our
predecessors--well understanding what the apostolic office required of
them--by no means suffered to go forth without condemnation. Thus
Gregory XVI., by Encyclical Letter, beginning _Mirare vos_, of August
15, 1832, inveighed with weighty words against those doctrines which
were already being preached, namely, that in divine worship no choice
should be made; and that it was right for individuals to judge of
religion according to their personal preferences, that each man's
conscience was to himself his sole sufficient guide, and that it was
lawful to promulgate whatsoever each man might think, and so make a
revolution in the State. Concerning the reasons for the separation of
Church and State, the same Pontiff speaks thus: "Nor can we hope happier
results either for religion or the government, from the wishes of those
who are eagerly desirous that the Church should be separated from the
State, and the mutual good understanding of the sovereign secular power
and the sacerdotal authority be broken up. It is evident that these
lovers of most shameless liberty dread that concord which has always
been fortunate and wholesome, both for sacred and civil interests." To
the like effect Pius IX., as opportunity offered, noted many false
opinions which had begun to be of great strength, and afterward ordered
them to be collected together in order that in so great a conflux of
errors Catholics might have something which, without stumbling, they
might follow.

From these decisions of the Popes it is clearly to be understood that
the origin of public power is to be sought from God Himself and not from
the multitude; that the free play for sedition is repugnant to reason;
that it is a crime for private individuals and a crime for States to
observe nowhere the duties of religion or to treat in the same way
different kinds of religion; that the uncontrolled right of thinking and
publicly proclaiming one's thoughts is not inherent in the rights of
citizens, nor in any sense to be placed among those things which are
worthy of favor or patronage. Similarly it ought to be understood that
the Church is a society, no less than the State itself, perfect in kind
and right, and that those who exercise sovereignty ought not to act so
as to compel the Church to become subservient or inferior to themselves,
or suffer her to be less free to transact her own affairs or detract
aught from the other rights which have been conferred upon her by Jesus
Christ. But in matters however in complex jurisdiction, it is in the
highest degree in accordance with nature and also with the counsels of
God--not that one power should secede from the other, still less come
into conflict, but that that harmony and concord should be preserved
which is most akin to the foundations of both societies.

These, then, are the things taught by the Catholic Church concerning the
constitution and government of the State. Concerning these sayings and
decrees, if a man will only judge dispassionately, no form of Government
is, _per se_, condemned as long as it has nothing repugnant to Catholic
doctrine, and is able, if wisely and justly managed, to preserve the
State in the best condition. Nor is it, _per se_, to be condemned
whether the people have a greater or less share in the government; for
at certain times and with the guarantee of certain laws, such
participation may appertain, not only to the usefulness, but even to the
duty of the citizens. Moreover, there is no just cause that any one
should condemn the Church as being too restricted in gentleness, or
inimical to that liberty which is natural and legitimate. In truth the
Church judges it not lawful that the various kinds of Divine worship
should have the same right as the true religion, still it does not
therefore condemn those governors of States, who, for the sake of
acquiring some great good, or preventing some great ill, patiently bear
with manners and customs so that each kind of religion has its place in
the State. Indeed the Church is wont diligently to take heed that no one
be compelled against his will to embrace the Catholic Faith, for as
Augustine wisely observes: "_Credere non potest homo nisi volens._"
(_Tract._ xxvi., _in Joan._, n. 2.)

For a similar reason the Church cannot approve of that liberty which
generates a contempt of the most sacred laws of God, and puts away the
obedience due to legitimate power. For this is license rather than
liberty, and is most correctly called by Augustine, "_libertas
perditionis_" (_Ep._ cv., _ad Donatistas._ ii., n. 9); by the Apostle
Peter, "_a cloak for malice_" (1 Peter ii. 16), indeed, since it is
contrary to reason, it is a true servitude, for "_Whosoever committeth
sin is the servant of sin._" (John viii. 34.) On the other hand, that
liberty is natural and to be sought, which, if it be considered in
relation to the individual, suffers not men to be the slaves of errors
and evil desires, the worst of masters; if, in relation to the State, it
presides wisely over the citizens, serves the faculty of augmenting
public advantages, and defends the public interest from alien rule, this
blameless liberty worthy of man the Church approves, above all, and has
never ceased striving and contending to keep firm and whole among the
people. In very truth, whatever things in the State chiefly avail for
the common safety; whatever have been usefully instituted against the
license of princes, consulting all the interests of the people; whatever
forbid the governing authority to invade into municipal or domestic
affairs; whatever avail to preserve the dignity and the character of man
in preserving the equality of rights in individual citizens, of all
these things the monuments of former ages witness the Catholic Church to
have always been either the author, the promoter, or the guardian.

Ever, therefore, consistent with herself, if on the one hand she rejects
immoderate liberty, which both in the case of individuals and peoples
results in license or in servitude; on the other she willingly and with
pleasure embraces those happier circumstances which the age brings; if
they truly contain the prosperity of this life, which is as it were a
stage in the journey to that other which is to endure everlastingly.
Therefore what they say that the Church is jealous of, the more modern
political systems repudiate in a mass, and whatever the disposition of
these times has brought forth, is an inane and contemptible calumny. The
madness of opinion it indeed repudiates; it reproves the wicked plans of
sedition, and especially that habit of mind in which the beginnings of a
voluntary departing from God are visible; but since every true thing
must necessarily proceed from God, whatever of truth is by search
attained, the Church acknowledges as a certain token of the Divine mind.
And since there is in the world nothing which can take away belief in
the doctrines divinely handed down and many things which confirm this,
and since every finding of truth may impel man to the knowledge or
praise of God Himself, therefore whatever may happen to extend the range
of knowledge, the Church will always willingly and joyfully accept; and
she will, as is her wont in the case of other departments of knowledge,
studiously encourage and promote those also which are concerned with the
investigation of nature. In which studies, if the mind finds anything
new, the Church is not in opposition; she fights not against the search
after more things for the grace and convenience of life--nay, a very foe
to inertness and sloth, she earnestly wishes that the talents of men
should, by being cultivated and exercised, bear still richer fruits; she
affords incitements to every sort of art and craft, and by her own
virtue directing by her own perfection all the pursuits of those things
to virtue and salvation, she strives to prevent man from turning aside
his intelligence and industry from God and heavenly things.

But these things, although full of reasonableness and foresight, are not
so well approved of at this time, when States not only refuse to refer
to the laws of Christian knowledge, but are seen even to wish to depart
each day farther from them. Nevertheless, because truth brought to light
is wont of its own accord to spread widely, and by degrees to pervade
the minds of men, we, therefore, moved by the consciousness of the
greatest, the most holy, that is the Apostolic obligation, which we owe
to all the nations, those things which are true, freely, as we ought, we
do speak, not that we have no perception of the spirit of the times, or
that we think the honest and useful improvements of our age are to be
repudiated, but because we would wish the highways of public affairs to
be safer from attacks, and their foundations more stable, and that
without detriment to the true freedom of the peoples; for amongst men
the mother and best guardian of liberty is truth: "_The truth shall make
you free._" (John viii. 32).

Therefore at so critical a juncture of events, Catholic men, if, as it
behooves them, they will listen to us, will easily see what are their
own and each other's duties in matters of _opinion_ as well as of
_action_. And in the formation of opinion, whatsoever things the Roman
Pontiffs have handed down, or shall hereafter hand down, each and every
one is it necessary to hold in firm judgment well understood, and as
often as occasion demands openly to declare. Now, especially concerning
those things which are called recently-acquired _liberties_, is it
proper to stand by the judgment of the Apostolic See, and for each one
to hold what she herself holds.

Take care lest some one be deceived by the honest outward appearance of
these things; and think of the beginnings from which they are sprung;
and by what desires they are sustained and fed in divers places. It is
now sufficiently known by experience of what things they are the causes
in the State; how indiscriminately they bring forth fruit, of which good
men and wise rightly do repent. If there should be in any place a State,
either actual or hypothetical, that wantonly and tyrannically wages war
upon the Christian name, and it have conferred upon it that character of
which we have spoken, it is possible that this may be considered more
tolerable; yet the principles upon which it rests are absolutely such
that, of themselves they ought to be approved by no man.

Now action may be taken in private and domestic affairs, or in affairs
public. In private life, indeed, the first duty is to conform one's life
and manners to the precepts of the Gospel, and not to refuse, if
Christian virtue demands, something more difficult to bear than usual.
Individuals, also, are bound to love the Church as their common mother;
to keep her laws obediently; to give her the service of due honor, and
to wish her rights respected, and to endeavor that she be fostered and
beloved with like piety by those over whom they may exercise authority.
It is also of great importance to the public welfare diligently and
wisely to give attention to the duties of citizenship; in this regard,
most particularly, with that concern which is righteous amongst
Christians, to take pains and pass effective measures so that public
provision be made for the instruction of youth in religion and true
morality, for upon these things depends very much the welfare of every
State. Besides, in general, it is useful and honorable to stretch the
attention of Catholic men beyond this narrower field, and to embrace
every branch of public administration. Generally, we say, because these
our precepts reach unto all nations. But it may happen in some
particular place, for the most urgent and just reasons, that it is by no
means expedient to engage in public affairs, or to take an active part
in political functions. But generally, as we have said, to wish to take
no part in public affairs would be in that degree vicious, in which it
brought to the common weal neither care, nor work; and on this account
the more so, because Catholic men are bound by the admonitions of the
doctrine which they profess, to do what has to be done with integrity
and with faith. If, on the contrary, they were idle, those whose
opinions do not, in truth, give any great hope of safety, would easily
get possession of the reins of government. This, also, would be attended
with danger to the Christian name, because they would become most
powerful who are badly disposed towards the Church; and those least
powerful who are well disposed. Wherefore, it is evident there is just
cause for Catholics to undertake the conduct of public affairs; for they
do not assume these responsibilities in order to approve of what is not
lawful in the methods of government at this time; but in order that they
may turn these very methods, as far as may be, to the unmixed and true
public good, holding this purpose in their minds, to infuse into all the
veins of the commonwealth the wisdom and virtue of the Catholic
religion--the most healthy sap and blood, as it were. It was scarcely
done otherwise in the first ages of the Church. For the manners and
desires of the heathen were divergent as widely as possible from the
manners and desires of the Gospel; for the Christians had to separate
themselves incorrupt in the midst of superstition, and always true to
themselves, most cheerfully to enter every walk in life which was open
to them. Models of fidelity to their princes, obedient, where lawful, to
the sovereign power, they established a wonderful splendor of holiness
everywhere; they sought the advantage of their neighbor, and to all
others to the wisdom of Christ; bravely prepared to retire from public
life, and even to die if they could not retain honors, nor the
magistracy, nor the supreme command with unsullied virtue. For which
reason Christian customs soon found their way, not only into private
houses, but into the camps, into the senate, even into the imperial
palace. "We are of yesterday and we fill your everything, cities,
islands, castles, municipalities, councils, the very camps, the rank and
file of the army, the officerships, the palace, the senate, the forum,"
(_Tertullian Apol._, n. 37), so that the Christian faith, when it was
unlawful publicly to profess the Gospel, was not like a child crying in
his cradle, but grown up and already sufficiently firm, was manifest in
a great part of the State.

Now, indeed, in these days it is as well to renew these examples of our
forefathers. For Catholics indeed, as many as are worthy of the name,
before all things it is necessary to be, and to be willing to be,
regarded as most loving sons of the Church; whatsoever is inconsistent
with this good report, without hesitation to reject; to use popular
institutions as far as honestly can be to the advantage of truth and
justice; to labor, that liberty of action shall not transgress the
bounds ordained by the law of nature and of God; so to work that the
whole of public life shall be transformed into that, as we have called
it, a Christian image and likeness. The means to seek these ends can
scarcely be laid down upon one uniform plan, since they must suit places
and times very different from each other. Nevertheless, in the first
place, let concord of wills be preserved, and a likeness of things to be
done sought for. And each will be attained the best, if all shall
consider the admonitions of the Apostolic See, a law of conduct, and
shall obey the Bishops whom "_the Spirit of God has placed to rule the
Church of God_." (Acts xx. 28). The defence of the Catholic name, indeed
of necessity demands that in the profession of doctrines which are
handed down by the Church the opinion of all shall be one, and the most
perfect constancy, and from this point of view take care that no one
connives in any degree at false opinions, or resists with greater
gentleness than truth will allow. Concerning those things which are
matters of opinion, it will be lawful, with moderation and with a desire
of investigating the truth, without injurious suspicions and mutual
incriminations. For which purpose, lest the agreement of minds be broken
by temerity of accusation, let all understand: that the integrity of the
Catholic profession can by no means be reconciled with opinions
approaching towards _naturalism_ or _rationalism_, of which the sum
total is to uproot Christian institutions altogether, and to establish
the supremacy of man, Almighty God being pushed to one side. Likewise,
it is unlawful to follow one line of duty in private and another in
public, so that the authority of the Church shall be observed in
private, and spurned in public. For this would be to join together
things honest and disgraceful, and to make a man fight a battle with
himself, when, on the contrary, he ought always to be consistent with
himself, and never, in any the least thing or manner of living, decline
from Christian virtue. But, if inquiry is made about principles, merely
political, concerning the best form of government, of civil regulations
of one kind or another, concerning these things, of course, there is
room for disagreement without harm. Those whose piety, therefore, is
known on other accounts, and whose minds are ready to accept the decrees
of the Apostolic See, justice will not allow accounted evil because they
differ on these subjects; and much greater is the injury if they are
charged with the crime of having violated the Catholic faith, or are
suspected, a thing we deplore done, not once only. And let all hold this
precept absolutely, who are wont to commit their thoughts to writing,
especially the editors of newspapers. In this contention about the
highest things, nothing is to be left to intestine conflicts, or the
greed of parties, but let all, uniting together, seek the common object
of all, to preserve religion and the State.

If, therefore, there have been dissensions, it is right to obliterate
them in a certain voluntary forgetfulness; if there has been anything
rash, anything injurious, to whomsoever this fault belongs let
compensation be made by mutual charity, and especially in obedience to
the Apostolic See. In this way Catholics will obtain two things most
excellent; one that they will make themselves helps to the Church in
preserving and propagating Christian knowledge; the other that they will
benefit civil society; of which the safety is gravely compromised by
reason of evil doctrines and inordinate desires.

These things, therefore, Venerable Brethren, concerning the Christian
constitution of States and the duties of individual citizens, we have
dwelt upon; we shall transmit them to all the nations of the Catholic
world.

But it behooves us to implore, with most earnest prayers, the heavenly
protection, and to beg of Almighty God these things which we desire and
strive after for His glory and the salvation of the human race, whose
alone it is to illumine the minds and to quicken the wills of men and
Himself to lead on to the wished for end. As a pledge of the Divine
favors, and in witness of our paternal benevolence to you, Venerable
Brethren, to the Clergy, and to all the people committed to your faith
and vigilance, we lovingly bestow in the Lord the Apostolic Benediction.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the first day of November, in the year
of Our Lord MDCCCLXXXV., of Our Pontificate the Eighth.

LEO PP. XIII.

* * * * *

VENERABLE BEDE records: "It was customary for the English of all ranks
to retire for study and devotion to Ireland, where they were hospitably
received, and supplied gratuitously with food, books and instruction."

His Eminence John Cardinal McCloskey.

ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK, CARDINAL PRIEST OF THE TITLE OF SANCTA MARIA
SUPRA MINERVAM.

The waning days of the year 1885 witnessed the peaceful decline, and the
happy Christian death, of one of the most remarkable men of the Irish
race in this country. His glorious obsequies in the magnificent
Cathedral which he completed and dedicated, produced a deep impression
on all classes, nor was there ever witnessed a greater and more
unanimous concord than pervaded the tributes of respect from the press
and pulpit of the land to this prince of the Catholic Church.

In a modest dwelling on Fort Greene, Brooklyn, fronting the road that
led to Newtown Turnpike, John McCloskey was born on the 10th of March,
1810, while deep snow covered the fields far and wide, and ice choked
the rapid current of the East River. His father, George McCloskey, had
emigrated to this country from the county Derry, some years before, with
his wife, and by industry, thrift and uprightness was increasing the
little store of means which he had brought to the New World. The boy was
not endowed with a rugged frame, and few could promise either mother or
child length of days. Yet she lived to behold him a bishop.

Brooklyn was then but a suburb of the little city of New York; it did
not number five thousand inhabitants, and the scanty flock of Catholics
had neither priest nor shrine. The child of George McCloskey, was taken
to St. Peter's Church, New York, to be baptized, by the venerable Jesuit
Father Anthony Kohlmann. As he grew up he crossed the East River on
Sundays with his parents to attend that same church, then the only one
in New York; it has just celebrated the centenary of its organization,
as a congregation, and the life of the great Cardinal, which faded away
just before that event, covers three quarters of its century.

George McCloskey was one of the few energetic Catholics, who, about
1820, started the movement which led to the erection of St. James on Jay
Street, and gave Brooklyn its first Catholic Church and future
Cathedral. Meanwhile, his son carefully trained at home, was sent to
school at an early age; gentle and delicate, he had neither strength nor
inclination for the rough sports of his schoolmates; but was always
cheerful and popular, studying hard and winning a high grade in his
classes. Till the church in Brooklyn was built, the boy and his mother
made their way each Sunday to the riverside to cross by the only
conveyance of those days, in order to occupy the pew which the
large-hearted George McCloskey had purchased in St. Peter's, for in
those days pews were sold and a yearly ground rent paid. When St.
Patrick's was opened, an appeal was made to the liberal to take pews in
that church also, and again the generous George McCloskey responded to
the call, purchasing a pew there also.

This whole-souled Irish-Catholic built great hopes on the talents of his
son, and intended to send him to Georgetown College, of which Father
Benedict Fenwick, long connected with St. Peter's, had become president.
But in the providence of God he was not to see him enter any college;
while still in the prime of life, he was seized with illness, which
carried him to the grave in 1820. Mrs. McCloskey was left with means
which enabled her to carry out the plans of her husband; but as Father
Fenwick had left Georgetown, she acted on the advice of friends, and
sent her son to the College of Mount St. Mary's, which had been founded
near Emmittsburg, by the Rev. John Du Bois, a French priest, who,
escaping the horrors of the Revolution in his own country, and the
sanguinary tribunals of his old schoolmate, Robespierre, had crossed the
Atlantic to be a missionary in America.

Mount St. Mary's College, when young McCloskey entered it after the
summer of 1821, consisted of two rows of log buildings; "but such as
have often been in this country, the first home of men and institutions
destined to greatness and renown." Humble as it was externally, however,
the college was no longer an experiment; it had proved its efficiency as
an institution of learning. Young McCloskey entered on his studies with
his wonted zeal and energy, and learned not only the classics of ancient
and modern times, but the great lesson of self-control. Blessed with a
wonderfully retentive memory, a logical mind that proceeded slowly, not
by impulse, his progress was solid and rapid; his progress in virtue was
no less so; every natural tendency to harsh and bitter judgment, or
word, was by the principles of religion and faith checked and brought
under control. If, in after life, he was regarded universally as mild
and gentle, the credit must be given to his religious training, which
enabled him to achieve the conquest.

A fine stone college was rising, and with his fellow-students he looked
forward with sanguine hope to the rapidly approaching day, when the
collegians of Mount St. Mary's were to tread halls worthy of their _Alma
Mater_, their faculty and themselves. Its progress was watched with deep
interest, when, in the summer of 1824, the students were roused one
Sunday night by the cry of fire. An incendiary hand had applied the
torch to the new edifice. No appliances were at hand for checking the
progress of the flames; professors, seminarians, and collegians labored
unremittingly to save their humble log structures destined to be for
some time more the scene of their studious hours.

McCloskey joined in the address of sympathy which the pupils of Mount
St. Mary's tendered to their venerated president. He beheld the energy
and faith of that eminent man in the zeal with which he began the work
anew, and completed the building again before the close of another year.
Thus the talented young Catholic boy from New York State learned not
only the lore found in books, but the great lessons of patience,
self-control, correspondence to the will of God. Before he closed his
college course, he saw Dr. Du Bois, called away from the institution he
had founded to assume, by command of the successor of St. Peter, the
administration of the diocese of New York. The good work continued under
Rev. Michael De Burgo Egan as President, and John McCloskey was
graduated, in 1828, with high honors. At that time Mount St. Mary's had
in the seminary twenty-five or thirty aspirants to the priesthood, and
in the college nearly one hundred students. The early graduates of the
Mount are the best proof of the thorough literary course followed there,
as well as the thorough knowledge and love of the faith inculcated.

Young McCloskey returned to the home of his mother in Westchester
County, N. Y., and looked forward to his future career in life. As often
happens, a family bias, or wish, rather than the judgment of the young
man himself, induces the first step. John McCloskey was to become a
lawyer. We are told that he began the study of Coke and Blackstone, of
the principles of law and the practice of the courts, in the office of
Joseph W. Smith, Esq., of New York. But the active mind was at work
solving a great problem. A fellow-student at college, his senior in
years, brilliant, poetic, zealous, had resolved to devote his life and
talents to the ministry, and had more than once portrayed to young
McCloskey the heroism of the priestly life of self-devotion and
sacrifice. The words of Charles C. Pise and his example had produced an
impression greater than was apparent. McCloskey meditated, prayed and
sought the guidance of a wise director. Gradually the conviction became
deep and firm that God called him to the ecclesiastical state. He closed
the books of human law, renounced the prospects of worldly success, and
resolved to prepare by study and seclusion, by prayer and self-mastery,
for the awful dignity of the priesthood.

The next year he returned to Emmittsburg to enter the seminary as a
candidate for holy orders from the diocese of New York. He was welcomed
as one whose solid learning, brilliant eloquence, deep and tender piety,
studious habits and zeal made it certain that he must as a priest render
essential service to the Church in this country. As a seminarian, and,
in conjunction with that character, as professor, he confirmed the high
opinion formed of him, and at an early day Bishop Du Bois fixed upon him
as one to fill important positions in his diocese.

From the moment that he took possession of his See the Rt. Rev. Dr. Du
Bois had labored to give New York an institution like that which he had
brought to so successful a condition in Maryland, reckoning as nought
the advance of years and the heavy duties of the episcopate. It was not
till the spring of 1832, that he was able to purchase a farm at Nyack,
in Rockland County, as the site for his seminary and college. To preside
over it, he had already selected his seminarian, John McCloskey, whom he
summoned from Emmittsburg. The visitation of the cholera, however,
prevented the progress of the undertaking, although the school was
opened. The corner-stone was laid on the 29th of May, 1833, and the
erection of the main building was carried on till the second story was
completed, when the bishop appealed to his flock to aid him by their
contributions.

On the 24th of January the old Cathedral in New York witnessed the
solemn ceremony of an ordination, and the Rev. John McCloskey was raised
to the dignity of the priesthood. The young priest was stationed at
Nyack; but his eloquent voice was heard and appreciated in the churches
of New York City. The first sermon which the young priest preached after
his ordination is an index of the piety and devotion which guided him
through life. It was on devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and was
delivered in the church reared in New York in honor of the Mother of
God.

In the summer of 1834, the little chapel at Nyack, adjoining the rising
college, was ready for dedication; but before the institution could be
opened, the virulent declamations of a Brownell had inflamed the minds
of the ignorant peasantry in that neighborhood with religious hatred,
and the college was denounced as an evil to be prevented. The torch of
the incendiary soon laid the edifice in ashes.

The project of a seminary and college was thus indefinitely deferred,
although Bishop Du Bois, with characteristic determination, resolved to
rebuild the blackened ruins and raise the college anew. So confident was
he of success, that he would not appoint Rev. Mr. McCloskey to any
parochial charge, reserving him to preside over the diocesan institution
on which he had set his heart. In order to fit himself for the position,
the young priest begged his bishop to permit him to proceed to Rome in
order to follow for two years the thorough course of theological studies
in the Gregorian University, thus profitably employing the time that
would necessarily be required to fit the institution for the reception
of pupils.

As Bishop Du Bois saw the wisdom of the suggestion, he consented, and
early in 1835 Rev. John McCloskey reached the Eternal City, and enrolled
himself among the distinguished pupils like Grazrosi, Perrone, Palma,
Finucci, who were then attending the lectures of Perrone, Manera, and
their associate professors. One who knew Rome well, and knew the late
Cardinal well, wrote: "What advantage the young American priest drew
from them has ever since been seen in the remarkable breadth and
correctness and lucidity of his decisions in theological matters,
whether coming before him in his episcopal duties, or brought up for
discussion in the episcopal councils which he has attended. His words,
calm and well considered, have ever been listened to with attention, and
generally decided the question. But, beyond the mere book learning, so
to speak, of ecclesiastical education, he gained a knowledge of the
ecclesiastical world, nowhere else attainable than in Rome. Brought in
contact with the students of the English College, under Dr. (afterwards
Cardinal) Wiseman, of the Irish College under Dr. (afterwards Cardinal)
Cullen, of the Propaganda under Monsignor (afterwards Cardinal) Count de
Reisach, of the Roman Seminary, and of other colleges, he came to know
many brilliant young students of various nationalities, alike in faith
and in fervent piety, yet dissimilar in the peculiar traits of their
respective races. He formed friendship with many who have since made
their mark in their own countries. The young American priest, so
polished and gentlemanly in his address, so modest and retiring, and yet
so full of varied learning, so keen of observation, and so ready, when
drawn out, with unexpected and plain, common-sense, home thrusts, was
fully appreciated among kindred minds of the clergy of Rome, and of
other countries visiting Rome. Though avoiding society as far as he
could, and something of a recluse, he was welcome in more than one noble
Roman palace. But it was especially in the English-speaking circle of
Catholic visitors each winter to Rome, that he was prized. Cardinal
Weld, ever an upholder of Americans, anticipated great things yet to be
done by this young priest, and loved to present him to the Cliffords,
the Shrewsburys, and other noble English-speaking Catholics, as a living
refutation of the accounts of Americans and American manners, just given
to the English world by Mrs. Trollope."

Among this English-speaking colony in Rome he found abundant occasion
for the exercise of his ministry, such was the confidence inspired by
his piety and learning. Among those placed under his direction was Mrs.
Connolly, an American convert, who, in time, founded in England a
teaching community of high order, the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus,
which has now many houses in England and the United States.

At the expiration of the time assigned for his studious sojourn in Rome,
Rev. Mr. McCloskey left the Eternal City, well fitted, indeed, to assume
the directorship of the seminary. He travelled with observant eye
through Northern Italy, Austria, Germany and France, then crossed to the
British Isles, visiting England and Scotland. His tour enabled him to
meet old friends and to win new ones; as well as to learn practically
the condition of the church in all parts of Europe.

When he returned to New York in 1838 he found that Bishop Du Bois had,
overcome by difficulties and trials, finally abandoned his projected
seminary; and now desired to assign him to parochial work. With the
well-trained priest to hear was to obey. Yet the position of the bishop
was one of difficulty. An uncatholic national feeling had been aroused
some years before in New York, assuming under Bishop Connolly all
obsequiousness to that prelate and zeal for his honor; under Bishop Du
Bois its whole power was wielded against him; and as few of the leaders
in the movement were practical Catholics, appeals to their religious
sense fell unheeded.

The parish offered to Rev. Mr. McCloskey presented difficulties of its
own. The last pastor, his old friend and brother-collegian, Rev. Charles
C. Pise, had indiscreetly aroused a deep and bitter feeling against
himself, and the hostile party in the congregation was led by a man of
learning and real attachment to his religion, though of little
self-control. For the Rev. Mr. McCloskey to assume the pastorship of St.
Joseph's required no little courage. He was as obnoxious on some grounds
as his predecessor, being like him American by birth, trained at
Emmittsburg under Bishop Du Bois. In this conjuncture the Rev. John
McCloskey displayed what must be recognized as the striking virtue of
his character, the highest degree of Christian prudence, and with it and
through it, courage, firmness and self-control. He repaired to the post
assigned to him by his bishop, and entered upon the discharge of his
duties. The Trustees ignored his appointment utterly, made no
appropriation for his salary, took no steps to furnish his house, so
that he had not even a table to write upon. "But," as His Grace
Archbishop Corrigan well says, "the young priest was equal to the
emergency. He discharged his duties as sweetly, as if there never had
been a suspicion of dissatisfaction; he prepared his sermons as
carefully, as if the best audience New York could afford were there to
listen." His parish extended up to the line of Harlem; but he complained
neither of his treatment, nor of the labor of the day and the heat; and
men ready and anxious to complain, found that they had to do with a
priest who gave them not a tittle to bear before the people as a
grievance to complain about. The clouds vanished so completely that the
people forgot there had ever been any. In a few years one of those who
had received him with the greatest distrust, had grown to appreciate him
so highly as to address him as a priest "whose unaffected piety as a
Christian Divine, splendid talents as an effective preacher, extensive
acquirements as an elegant scholar, and dignified, yet amiable, manners
as an accomplished gentleman, have long been the admiration, the
ornament and the model of his devoted flock."

The project for which Bishop Du Bois had summoned his young seminarian
from the Mount was at last carried out in 1841 by the vigorous head and
hand of Bishop Hughes. The diocese of New York had its Seminary and
College at Fordham. It was a remarkable tribute to the merit and ability
of the Rev. John McCloskey, that Bishop Hughes, though the diocese had
been joined by many able and learned priests, still turned to him to
fill the post for which Bishop Du Bois had selected him when but a
seminarian. Yet he was now a parish priest, and the tie between him and
his flock had grown so close that both feared that it might be sundered.

He undertook the organization of the Seminary and College, retaining his
pastoral charge to the consolation of his flock. The result justified
the selection. His power of organization, his knowledge of the wants of
the times, of the duties of teacher and pupil, were thorough. The
institution was soon in successful operation, and the seminarians were
edified by the piety, regularity and unalterable calmness of the
Superior, who was always with them at their morning meditation, and
always with them at exercises of devotion, his perfect order and system
preventing all confusion, foreseeing and providing for all.

After placing the new institutions on a firm basis, he resigned the
presidency to other hands, and resumed his duties at St. Joseph, to the
delight of his flock. It was, however, really because Bishop Hughes
already determined to solicit his elevation to the episcopate, that he
might enjoy his aid as coadjutor in directing the affairs of the
diocese, which were becoming beyond the power of one man to discharge.
In the Fifth Provincial Council, of Baltimore, held in May, 1843, Bishop
Hughes laid his wishes before the assembled Fathers, and the appointment
of Rev. John McCloskey, as coadjutor of New York, was formally solicited
from the Sovereign Pontiff by the Metropolitan of Baltimore and his
suffragans. At Rome there was no hesitation in confirming the choice of
a clergyman whose merit was so well known, and on the 30th of September,
Cardinal Fransoni wrote announcing that the Rev. John McCloskey had been
elected by the Holy Father for the See of Axiere, and made coadjutor to
the Bishop of New York.

The consecration took place in old St. Patrick's Cathedral on the 10th
of March, 1844, and the scene was the grandest ever till then witnessed
in New York, The Rt. Rev. John Hughes, Bishop of New York, assisted by
Bishop Fenwick, of New York, once administrator of the diocese, and
Bishop Whelan, of Wheeling, consecrated three bishops, the Rt. Rev.
Andrew Byrne, Bishop of Little Rock, the Rt. Rev. William Quarter,
Bishop of Chicago, and the Rt. Rev. John McCloskey, Bishop of Axiere,
and coadjutor of New York.

From the pulpit of the Cathedral, the venerable Dr. Power, addressing
the newly consecrated coadjutor, said: "One of you I have known from his
boyhood. I have seen the youthful bud of genius unfold itself; and I
have seen it also in full expansion; and I thank God I have been spared
to behold it now blessing the house of the Lord. Rt. Rev. Dr. McCloskey!
it must be gratifying to you to know, that if the choice of a coadjutor
of this diocese had been given to your fellow-laborers in the vineyard,
it would certainly have fallen upon you."

It was surely no ordinary merit, that won the Rev. John McCloskey such
universal esteem. To have been chosen for the same responsible post by
men so different in mind and feelings as Bishops Du Bois and Hughes, to
be at once the choice of Bishop Hughes and a body of priests among whom
great divisions had existed, and great differences of nationality,
education and inclination prevailed, was something wonderful and
unparalleled.

His elevation to the episcopate did not withdraw Bishop McCloskey from
the church of his affection, that dedicated to the Spouse of Mary. Here
his throne was erected, and the congregation rejoiced in the honor and
dignity conferred upon him, and through him on their church. He then
began the discharge of the episcopal duties devolved upon him by the Rt.
Rev. Bishop of the See. The earliest was the dedication of the Church of
the Most Holy Redeemer in New York City. From that we can mark his
course confirming in all parts of the diocese, dedicating churches, and
ordaining to the priesthood, two of the six first ordained by him on the
feast of the Assumption of Our Lady in 1844, still surviving hoary with
long years of priestly labor, Rev. Sylvester Malone and Rev. George
McCloskey. But the weightier and important duties connected with the
administration are unrecorded. The most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore in
his funeral sermon on Cardinal McCloskey said truly: "The life of the
Cardinal has never been written and never can be. And this is true of
every Catholic prelate. He can never have his Boswell. The biographer
may relate his public and official acts. He may recount the churches he
erected, the schools he opened, the institutions of charity and religion
which he established; the priests he ordained, the sermons he preached,
the sacraments he administered, the laborious visitations he made, but
he can know nothing of the private and inner life which is 'hidden with
Christ in God.' That is manifest to God's recording angel only. The
biographer knows nothing of the bishop's secret and confidential
relations with his clergy and people, and even with many who are alien
to his faith. He is the daily depository of their cares and anxieties,
of their troubles and afflictions, of their trials and temptations. They
come to him for counsel in doubt, for spiritual and even temporal
assistance. Were a bishop's real life in its outward and inward fulness
published, it would be more interesting than a novel."

Even with the aid of so untiring a coadjutor as Dr. McCloskey, Bishop
Hughes found the diocese too large to be administered with the care that
all portions required. When the Sixth Provincial Council convened at
Baltimore, in May, 1846, which he attended with his coadjutor, he urged
a division of his diocese, the necessity of which Bishop McCloskey could
attest. New Sees were proposed at Albany and Buffalo. Pius IX., yielding
to the request of the Fathers of the Council of Baltimore, erected the
dioceses of Albany and Buffalo. Bishop McCloskey was translated from the
See of Axiere to that of Albany, and the diocese committed to his care
comprised the portion of New York State north of the forty-second
degree, and lying east of Cayuga, Tompkins and Tioga counties.

He took possession of his diocese early in the summer, making St. Mary's
his pro-cathedral, till the erection of his cathedral, of which he laid
the corner-stone soon after his arrival. A visitation of his diocese
followed, and then began the work of developing the Catholic interests
in the portion of the State. His diocese contained forty-four churches,
and about as many clergymen, with but few institutions of education or
charity. Its progress was steady, solid and effectual. He added new
priests, well chosen and trained, introduced the Fathers of the Society
of Jesus, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Christian Brothers, the
Ladies of the Sacred Heart. His Cathedral was completed and was
recognized as one of the greatest ornaments of the city; but all
extravagance was avoided and discouraged. Churches were reared suited to
the means of the flock, and the tepid, careless and indifferent were
recalled to their Christian duties, till the diocese assumed a new
spirit. None but those who lived there, and witnessed the progress, can
form a conception of what Bishop McCloskey accomplished while he gave
the best period of his life to the diocese of Albany.

More than a hundred churches, and nearly a hundred priests, with
schools, academies, hospitals, asylums, were the fruits of the Catholic
life aroused by his zeal.

As Bishop of Albany he took part in the Seventh Provincial Council of
Baltimore in 1849; the first Plenary Council, in 1852; and the first of
New York, 1854. In all these his prudence and wisdom deeply impressed
his associates, as many of them have testified. In his diocese his
relations to his clergy in his Synod, and in occasional directions,
showed a gentle consideration for others, which overcame all obstacles.

On the death of Archbishop Hughes, to whom he had long since been named
successor, the voice of the bishops of the Province, as well as the
desire of the clergy and people of the diocese, solicited from the Holy
See the promotion of Bishop McCloskey, and the successor of St. Peter
soon pronounced the definitive word. He returned to New York just as the
terrible civil war came to a close; and the paralyzed country could look
to its future. Under his impulse the new Cathedral was completed and
dedicated with a pomp never yet witnessed in the Western World. The
State of New York for some years had suffered from a want of churches;
but amid a war draining the wealth and blood of the country, it would
have been rash to attempt to erect them when all value were fictitious.
Now, under the impulse of the quiet and retiring Archbishop, old
churches were enlarged; new parishes were formed and endowed with
churches; schools increased in number and efficacy. While increasing the
number of his parochial clergy both in numbers and in the thorough
education he so highly esteemed, Archbishop McCloskey gave the religious
orders every encouragement, and introduced others. Communities of
religious women, for various forms of charity, also found a hearty
support from him. In the administration of the diocese, and the
direction of these communities, he displayed his wonted wisdom in
selecting as his Vicar General, the Rev. William Quinn, whose ability of
a remarkable order had already been tested.

Archbishop McCloskey took part in the Second Plenary Council of
Baltimore, in 1866, whose acts are such a code of doctrine and
discipline. "Of it he was a burning and a shining light," said
Archbishop Gibbons. "He was conspicuous alike for his eloquence in the
pulpit, and for his wisdom in the council chamber. I well remember the
discourse he delivered at the opening session. The clear, silvery tones
of his voice, the grace of his gestures and manner, the persuasive
eloquence and charm of his words are indelibly imprinted on my memory
and imagination. Just before ascending the pulpit, a telegram was handed
to him, announcing the destruction by fire of his Cathedral. He did not
betray the slightest emotion, notwithstanding the sudden and calamitous
news. Next morning I expressed to him my surprise at his imperturbable
manner. "The damage," he replied, "is done, and I cannot undo it. We
must calmly submit to the will of Providence.""

The decrees of the Plenary Council, with those of the Council of New
York, were promulgated by him in a Synod held by him at New York, in
September, 1868.

The next year he was summoned to attend a General Council at Rome, the
first held in the church since the Synod of Trent. The Council of the
Vatican had been equalled by but few in the number of bishops, by none
in the universality of the representation. Before modern science had
facilitated modes of travel and communication, the area including those
who attended was comparatively limited. To the Vatican Council, however,
they came not from all parts of Europe only, but from Palestine, India
and China; from the Moslem States of Africa; the European colonies; the
negro kingdoms of the interior; America sent her bishops from Canada and
the United States; the Spanish republics, Australia and the islands of
the Pacific even had their bishops seated beside those of the most
ancient Sees. Here Archbishop McCloskey was a conspicuous figure,
respected for learning, experience, the firmness with which he held the
opinion he mildly but conclusively advanced. In the committee on
discipline his wisdom excited the highest admiration of the presiding
cardinal.

When the impious seizure of Rome made the sovereign Pontiff a prisoner
in the Vatican, the proceedings of the council were deferred to better
days, which the Church still prayfully awaits. Archbishop McCloskey
returned to his diocese; but the malaria of the Campagna had affected
his health, never rugged, and shattered some years previously by a
railroad accident, on a journey required by his high office. But he
resumed his accustomed duties, inspiring good works, or guiding and
supporting them like the Catholic Protectory, the Catholic Union of New
York, and its branch since developed to such wide-reaching influence,
the Xavier Union.

The impression which he had produced at Rome, from his early visit as a
young priest to his dignified course in age as a Father of the Council
of the Vatican, led to a new and singular honor, in which the whole
country shared his honor. In the consistory held March 15, 1875, Pope
Pius IX. created Archbishop McCloskey a Cardinal Priest of the Holy
Roman Church, his title being that of Sancta Maria supra Minervam, the
very church from which Rt. Rev. Dr. Concanen was taken to preside over
the diocese of New York as its first bishop. The insignia of the high
dignity soon reached the city borne by a member of the Pope's noble
guard and a Papal Ablegate. The berretta was formerly presented to him
in St. Patrick's Cathedral, April 22, 1875. According to usage he soon
after visited Rome and took possession of the church from which he
derived his title. He was summoned to the conclave held on the death of
Pope Pius IX., but arrived only after the election of Pope Leo XIII., to
whom he paid homage, receiving from his hands the Cardinal's hat, the
last ceremonial connected with his appointment.

After his return he resumed his usual duties, but they soon required the
aid of a younger prelate, though all his suffragans were ever ready to
relieve their venerated Metropolitan by officiating for him. He finally
solicited the appointment of the young but tried Bishop of Newark as his
coadjutor, and Bishop Michael Augustine Corrigan was promoted to the
titular See of Petra, October 1, 1880. Gradually his health declined and
for a time he was dangerously ill; but retirement to Mount St.
Vincent's, where in the castellated mansion erected by Forrest, he had
the devoted care of the Sisters of Charity, and visits to Newport seemed
to revive for a time his waning strength. His mind remained clear, and
he continued to direct the affairs of his diocese, convening a
Provincial Council, the acts of which were transmitted to Rome. "The
Cardinal's fidelity to duty clung to him to the end. He continued to
plead for his flock at God's altar, as long as he had power to stand.
Even when the effort to say Mass would so fatigue him that he could do
nothing else that morning, he continued, at least, on feast days, to
offer the Holy Sacrifice. He said his last Mass on the Feast of the
Ascension, 1884." At the Plenary Council in Baltimore, at the close of
that year, the diocese was represented by his coadjutor.

From the time of his last Mass he was unable to read or write; unable to
move a single step without assistance. In this condition he lingered,
sinking by a slow and gradual decline, but preserving his serenity and
the full possession of his mental faculties. "None of those around him,"
says Archbishop Corrigan, "ever heard the first syllable of complaint.
It was again his service of the Lord, such as our Lord ordained it. To
those who sympathized with him in his helplessness, the sweet answer
would be made: 'It is God's will. Thy will, O Lord, be done on earth as
it is in heaven.' Fulfilling God's will, he passed away, calmly and in
peace, as the whole course of his life had been, and without a struggle;
'the last words he was able to utter, being the Hail Mary.'"

The death of our first American Cardinal, October 10th, 1885, called
forth from the press, and from the clergy of other denominations, a
uniform expression of deep and touching respect. He had won many moral
victories without fighting battles; his victories left no rancor.
Everywhere at Catholic altars Masses were offered for the repose of his
soul, and when the tidings crossed the Atlantic, the solemn services at
Paris and Rome attested the sense of his merit, and of the Church's
loss.

His funeral in New York was most imposing. Around the grand Cathedral,
as around a fretted rock of marble, surged the waves of people, like a
sea. The vast interior was filled, and beneath the groined roof he had
reared, lay, in his pontifical vestments,--the hat, insignia of his
highest dignity, at his feet,--the mild and gentle and patient Cardinal
McCloskey, his life's work well and nobly ended.

The solemn Mass, the deep tones of the organ, the Gregorian notes of the
choirs moved all to pray for the soul of one whose life had been given
to the service of God. The Archbishop of Baltimore, the Most Rev. James
Gibbons, pronounced the funeral discourse, and then the body was laid
beside those of his predecessors in the crypt beneath.

A month later, and again the _Dies Iræ_ resounded through that noble
monument of his love for religion. The Month's Mind, that touching
tribute which our Church pays her departed, called forth from the Most
Rev. Michael A. Corrigan, who knew him so well and so intimately, words
full of touching reminiscences.

Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, S. C., who knew him so intimately, thus
described him a few years ago before the hand of disease had changed
him. "In personal appearance the Cardinal is about five feet ten inches
in height, straight, and thin in person and apparently frail, though his
chest is full, and the tones of his voice when preaching are clear and
far reaching. His features are regular and finely chiselled. The brow is
lofty, the nose thin and straight, the eyes keen, quick and penetrating;
the thin lips, even in repose, seeming to preserve the memory of a
smile; the whole expression of the countenance, one of serious thought
and placid repose. Yet you feel or see indications of activity ready to
manifest itself through the brows, the eyes or the lips. In fact his
temperament is decidedly nervous; and if you observe the natural
promptness and decision of his movements, you might almost think him
quick and naturally impetuous. There could be no greater mistake; or, if
he is such by natural disposition, this is one of the points where his
seminary training has taught him to control and master himself. The
forte of his character is his unchanging equanimity. And yet there must
have been in him a wondrous amount of nervous energy to enable him to
survive very serious injuries to his frame in early life, and to endure
the severe physical labors of an American bishop for thirty years....
Piety, learning, experience, zeal--every bishop should have these as a
matter of course. He has more. In address, gentle, frank and winning, he
at once puts you at ease, and makes you feel you are speaking to a
father or a friend in whom you may unreservedly confide. Soft and
delicate in manners as a lady, none could ever presume in his presence
to say a word or do an act tinged with rudeness, still less indelicacy.
Kind and patient with all who come to him, he is especially considerate
with his clergy. To them he is just in his decisions, wise in his
counsels and exhortations, ever anxious to aid them in their
difficulties. Tender and lenient as a mother to those who wish to do
right, and to correct evil, he is inflexible when a principle is at
stake, and can be stern when the offender is obdurate. Notoriety and
display are supremely distasteful to him. He would have his work done,
and thoroughly done, and his own name or his part in it never mentioned.
He studiously avoids coming before the public, save in his
ecclesiastical functions, or where a sense of duty drives him to it. He
prefers to work quietly and industriously in the sphere of his duties.
Here, he is unflagging, so ordering matters that work never accumulates
on his hands through his own neglect."

The Pope and the Mikado.

The following is the text of the letter addressed by His Holiness to the
Mikado of Japan:--

_To the Illustrious and Most Mighty Emperor of All Japan, LEO PP. XIII.,
greeting._

August Emperor:

Though separated from each other by a vast intervening expanse of space,
we are none the less fully aware here of your pre-eminent, anxious care
in promoting all that is for the good of Japan. In truth, the measures
Your Imperial Majesty has taken for the increase of civilization, and
especially for the moral culture of your people, call for the praise and
approval of all who desire the welfare of nations and that interchange
of benefits which are the natural fruit of a more refined culture,--the
more so that, with greater moral polish, the minds of men are more
fitted to imbibe wisdom and to embrace the light of truth. For these
reasons we beg of you that you will graciously be pleased to accept this
visible expression of our good-will with the same sincerity with which
it is tendered.

The very reason, indeed, which has moved us to despatch this letter to
Your Majesty, has been our wish of publicly expressing the pleasure of
our heart. For the favors which have been vouchsafed to every missionary
and Christian, we are truly beholden to you. By their own testimony we
have been made acquainted with your grace and goodness to both priests
and laymen. Nothing truly, in your power, could be more praiseworthy as
a matter of justice or more beneficent to the common weal, inasmuch as
you will find the Catholic religion a powerful auxiliary in maintaining
the stability of your Empire.

For all dominion is founded on justice, and of justice there is not a
principle which is not laid down in the precepts of Christianity. And
thus, all they who bear the name of Christian, are above all
enjoined,--not through fear of punishments, but by the voice of
religion,--to reverence the kingly sway, to obey the laws, and not to
seek for ought in public affairs save that which is peaceful and
upright. We most earnestly beseech you, therefore, to grant the utmost
freedom in your power to all Christians, and to deign, as heretofore, to
protect their institutions with your patronage and favor. We, on our
part, shall suppliantly beseech God, the author of all good, that he may
grant your beneficial undertakings their wished-for outcome, and may
bestow upon Your Majesty, and the whole realm of Japan, blessings and
favors increasing day by day.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the twelfth day of May, 1885, in the
eighth year of Our Pontificate.

Order of the Buried Alive.

The order of the Buried Alive in Rome, the Convent of the Sepolte Vivo,
is a remnant of the Middle Ages in the life of to-day. _The London
Queen's_ correspondent had the privilege of an entrance within, one
after another, of the five iron doors, and talking with the Mother
Superior through the thick swathing of a woollen veil, but ordinary
communication with the convent is carried on through the "barrel," which
fills an opening in the wall. Over the barrel is written: "Who will live
contented within these walls, let her leave at the gate every earthly
care." You knock at the barrel, which turns slowly around till it shows
a section like that of an orange from which one of the quarters has been
cut.

You speak to the invisible sister, who asks your will; and she answers
you in good Italian and cultivated intonation. You hear the voice quite
distinctly, but as if it was far, far away. She is really separated from
you by a slender slice of wood, but she is absolutely invisible. Not the
smallest ray of light, nor the smallest chink is visible between you and
her. Sound travels through the barrel, but sight is absolutely excluded.
These nuns live on charity, keeping two Lents in the year--one from
November to Christmas, the other the ordinary Lent of Catholic
Christendom. Living, therefore, on charity, they may eat whatever is
given to them, saving always "flesh meat" during the fasting time.

If you take them a cake or a loaf of bread, a roll of chocolate bonbons,
a basket of eggs, it is all good for them. They must be absolutely
without food for twenty-four hours before they may ask help from the
outside world; and when they have looked starvation in the face, then
they may ring a bell, which means: "Help us! we are famishing!" Perhaps
you take them nothing eatable, but you place on the edge of the cut
orange, by which you sit, some money, demanding in return their
"cartolini," or little papers.

The barrel turns slowly round, then back again, and you find on the
ledge, where you had laid your lire, a paper of "cartolini." These are
very small, thin, light-printed slips, neatly folded in tiny packets,
three to each packet, which, if you swallow in faith, will cure you of
all disease. After your talk is ended, the barrel turns around once more
and presents its face as of an immovable and impenetrable-looking
barrier. One of the pretty traditions of Rome is, that each sister has
her day, when she throws a flower over the convent wall as a sign to her
watching friends that she is still alive. When she has been gathered to
the majority, the flower is not thrown, and the veil has fallen forever.

Harvard College and the Catholic Theory of Education.

Slowly, but with unmistakable certainty, the logic of the Catholic
teaching regarding true education is forcing itself upon non-Catholic
minds. Day by day some prominent Protestant comes boldly to the front
and declares his belief that education must be based upon religion. One
of the latest accessions to this correct theory is President Eliot, of
Harvard College, who declared at a recent meeting of Boston
schoolteachers that,--

"The great problem is that of combining religions with secular
education. This was no problem sixty or seventy years ago, for
then our people were homogeneous. Now, the population is
heterogeneous. Religious teaching can best be combined with
secular teaching and followed in countries of heterogeneous
population, like Germany, Austria, France and Belgium, where
the government pays for the instruction, and the religious
teachers belonging to different denominations are admitted to
the public schools at fixed times. That is the only way out of
the difficulty.... I see, growing up on every side, parochial
schools--that is, Catholic schools--which take large numbers of
children out of the public schools of the city. That is a great
misfortune, and the remedy is to admit religious instructors to
teach these children in the public schools. This is what is
done in Europe. And all those who are strongly interested in
the successful maintenance of our public school system will
urge the adoption of the method I have described for religious
education."

These are strong words, and coming from such a source cannot fail to
have their legitimate result. The fearlessness and sincerity of
President Eliot in thus stating his position on this most important
subject merits the appreciation of every American, Catholic or
Protestant.

We add in connection with the above, the remarks of the _Christian
Advocate_, a Protestant paper published at San Francisco, Cal.:--

"The course which the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, in this
country, are taking in regard to the education of children is,
from their standpoint, worthy of praise. They see that in order
to keep their children under the rule of the Church, they must
keep them from the public schools, where they think Protestant
influence predominates. Therefore they are providing for them
in their parochial schools and academies at an extra expense
that does credit to their zeal and devotion. Their plans are
broad, deep and far-reaching, and they are a unit in the
prosecution of them. They are loyal to their convictions,
making everything subservient to the interests of their
religion. Understanding, as they do, the importance of moulding
character in the formative period, they look diligently after
the religious culture of their children. In all this they are
deserving of commendation, and Protestants may receive valuable
hints from them of tenacity of grip and self-denying devotion
to their faith."

An Affecting Incident at Sea.

Seldom have passengers by our great Atlantic steamers witnessed so
solemn and impressive a scene as that at which it fell to the lot of the
passengers in the outward voyage of the Inman liner, "City of Chester,"
to assist. It appears that one of the passengers was a Mr. John Enright,
a native of Kerry, who, having amassed a fortune in America, had gone to
Ireland to take out with him to his home in St. Louis three young nieces
who had recently become orphans. During the passage Mr. Enright died
from an affection of the heart; and the three little orphans were left
once more without a protector. Fortunately there were amongst the
passengers the Rev. Father Tobin, of the Cathedral, St. Louis; the Rev.
Father Henry, of the Church of St. Laurence O'Toole, St. Louis; and the
Rev. Father Clarkson, of New York. Father Henry was the Celebrant of the
Mass of Requiem; and Colonel Mapleson and his London Opera Company, who
were also on board, volunteered their services for the choir. They
chanted, with devotional effect, the _De Profundis_ and the _Miserere_;
and Madame Marie Roze sang, "Oh, rest in the Lord," from "Elijah." The
bell of the ship was then tolled; and a procession was formed, headed by
Captain Condron, of the "City of Chester." The coffin, which was
enveloped in the American flag, was borne to the side of the ship, from
which it was gently lowered into the sea. The passengers paid every
attention to the orphans during the remainder of the voyage, at the
termination of which they were forwarded to the residence of their late
uncle in St. Louis.

Sing, Sing for Christmas.

Sing, sing for Christmas! Welcome happy day!
For Christ is born our Saviour, to take our sins away;
Sing, sing a joyful song, loud and clear to-day,
To praise our Lord and Saviour, who in the manger lay.

Sing, sing for Christmas! Echo, earth! and cry
Of worship, honor, glory, and praise to God on high;
Sing, sing the joyful song; let it never cease;
Of glory in the highest, on earth good-will to man.

Dead Man's Island.

THE STORY OF AN IRISH COUNTRY TOWN.

T. P. O'CONNOR, M. P.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE DOOMED NATION.

A passion of anger and despair swept over Ireland when it was at last
announced that Crowe had sold the pass. For some days the people were in
the same dazed and helpless condition of mind that followed the potato
blight of '46. In that terrible year one of the strange and most
universally observed phenomena was that the people looked, for days
after the advent of the blight that brought the certainty of hunger and
death, silent and motionless and apathetic. And so it was now, when
there came a blight, less quickly, but as surely, destructive of
national life and hope. There was a dread presentiment that this was a
blow from which the nation was not destined to recover for many a long
day, and though they could not reason about it, the people had the
instinctive feeling that the rule of the landlord was now fixed more
tightly than ever, and that emancipation was postponed to a day beyond
that of the present generation.

The landlords appreciated the situation with the same instinctive
readiness and perception. At once the pause which had come in the work
of eviction was broken, the plague raged immediately with a fierceness
that seemed to have gained more hellish energy and more devilish cruelty
from its temporary abatement. The roads were thick with troops of people
rushing wildly from their homes and fleeing from their native country as
from a land cursed alike by God and by man. Mat Blake, passing along
from Dublin to Ballybay, was almost driven to insanity by the sights he
saw at the different sections along the way.

Every station was besieged by vast crowds of the emigrants and their
friends. There are few sights so touching as the sight of the parting of
Irish families at a railway station. The ties of family are closer and
more affectionate than anybody can appreciate who has not lived the life
of an Irish home. The children grow up in a dependence on their parents
that may well seem slavery to other peoples. The grown son is still the
"boy" years after he has attained manhood's years, the daughter remains
a little girl, whom her mother has the right to chide and direct and
control in every action. Such ties beget helplessness as well as
affection, and the Irish peasant still regards many things as worse than
death, which, by peoples of less ardent religious faith, are regarded
more philosophically.

When Mat looked at the simple faces of those poor girls, at the
bewildered look in the countenances of the young men, and thought of
how ignorant and helpless these people were, he could understand the
almost insane anguish of their parents as they saw them embark on an
ocean so dark and tempestuous and remote as the crowded cities of
America, and Mat could penetrate down into the minds of his people and
see with the lightning flash of sympathy the dread spectre that tortured
the minds, filled the eyes, and darkened the brows of the Irish parents.

Station after station, it was always the same sight. The parting
relatives were locked in each other's arms; they wept and cried aloud,
and swayed in their grief.

"Cheer up, father; God is good."

"Ah, Paddie, my darlint, I'll never see ye agin."

"Oh mother, dear, don't fret."

"May God and His Blessed Mother in heaven protect my poor girl."

Then more kisses through the carriage windows.

The guards and porters frantically called upon the people to stand back;
they clung on, careless of danger to life and limb; and as the black,
hideous, relentless monster shot away they rushed along the line; they
passed into the fields, and waved handkerchiefs, and shouted the names
of the parting child or sister or brother; until at last the distance
swallowed up the train and its occupants, and then they returned to
homes from which forever afterwards the light had passed away.

Such were the scenes which Mat saw, and when he got to Ballybay station
there was that look on his face which to any keen observer would have
revealed much in the Irish character and afforded the key to many
startling episodes in Irish history. It was a look at once of infinite
rage and infinite despair; it spoke of wrong--hated, gigantic, at once
intolerable and insurmountable. One sees a similar impress in the faces
of Irishmen in Massachusetts, though the climate of America has reduced
the large, loose frame to the thin build of the new country, and has
bleached the ruddy complexion of Ireland to a sickly white or an ugly
yellow; it is the look one can detect in the faces of the men who dream
of death in the midst of slain foes and wrecked palaces; it blazes in
the eyes of Healy, as with sacrilegious hand he smites the venerable
front of the mother of Parliaments.

Mat had come to Ireland for the Easter recess; he had drawn out of the
savings bank a few pounds of the money he had placed there for the
furnishing of the house which he destined for Mary and Betty Cunningham.
He longed to have a share in punishing the perjured traitor who had
betrayed the country. The sights he had seen along the route satisfied
him as to the temper of the people, and he entered Ballybay secure in
the hope that if the traitor had been raised by the town to the
opportunity of deceiving the people, he would be cast into the dust by
the same hand.

He had not been long in the town when he found that he had wholly
misconceived its spirit. The one feeling that seemed to dominate all
others, was that the acceptance by Crowe of office meant another
election; and another election meant another shower of gold.

In his father's house he found assembled his father and mother, and Tom
Flaherty and Mary. They were discussing the election, of course, and
this was how they discussed it.

"I always thought Crowe was a smart fellow," said Fleming. "There's one
thing certain; he'll have plenty of money now, and as I have always
said, 'I'm a Protestant,'" and then Mat repeated his characteristic
saying.

"Do you mean to say," said Mat, with a face fierce with rage and
surprise, "that you'd vote again for Crowe, after his treason?"

"And why shouldn't he vote for him?" asked Mat's mother, in a voice
almost as fierce as his own. "Isn't he a Government man, and doesn't
every one know that the people who can do anything for themselves or
anybody else in Ireland are Government men?"

Mat, fond as he was of his mother, felt almost as if he could have
killed her at that moment; he could not speak for a few minutes for
rage. At last he almost shrieked, "If there was any decency in Ballybay
Crowe would never leave the town alive."

"Ah! the crachure!" said Tom Flaherty.

"Ah! the crachure! Why shouldn't he look out for himself; shure, isn't
that what we're all trying to do? God bless us."

Mary glanced uneasily at Mat, but he refused to look at her; she seemed
for a moment spoiled in his eyes by her kinship with this polluted and
degraded creature. His father gave him a wistful glance, but said
nothing. Whenever there was a tempest between his wife and his son he
remained silent.

And so this was how Ballybay regarded the great betrayal! Mat felt
inclined to throw himself into the Shannon, and have done with life as
quickly as he was losing hope and faith.

He took a look once more at the bare and squalid streets and gloomy
people; and then at the frowning castle and the passing regiment of the
English garrison; and he despaired of his country.

But he had come to help in the fight against Crowe; and after the
involuntary tribute of this brief interval of despondency, he at once
set to work. After many disappointments he found a few men who shared
his views of the situation, and a committee was formed to go out and ask
Captain Ponsonby to stand once more; for though Mat hated the politics
of Ponsonby, he thought any stick was good enough to beat the foul
traitor with. Captain Ponsonby consented, and so the contest was
started. The _Nation_ newspaper sent down several of its staff; the old
Tenant Right Party held meetings, asked that Ballybay should do its
duty, and save the whole country from the awful calamity of triumphant
treason. Everything was thus arranged for a struggle with Crowe that
would test all his powers, backed though he was by the money and the
influence of the Government.

Mat's speeches, the articles in the newspapers, and the vigorous efforts
of the few honest men in the town, had at last roused Ballybay until it
began to share some of the profound horror and indignation which the
action of Crowe had provoked throughout the country generally. There was
but one more thing necessary, and the defeat of Crowe was certain; if
the bishop joined in the opposition, there was no possibility of his
winning.

All Ireland waited in painful tension to see what the verdict of the
bishop would be. Mat heard it before anybody else, for a young curate
who lived in the College House with the bishop, and was a fierce
Nationalist, gave Mat a daily bulletin; the bishop resolved to support
the Solicitor-General.

At first nobody would believe the tale; but the next day it was put
beyond all doubt, and Mat was almost suffocated by his own wrath as he
saw the "Seraph," with his divine face, arm in arm with the perjured
ruffian that had brought sorrow to so many thousands of homes.

Mat fought on, but it was no longer with any strong hope of winning. His
face grew darker every day, and the lines became drawn about his eyes,
for there was another struggle going on in his mind at this moment, as
well as the political contest in which he was engaged.

The reader may remember the monitor of the school in which Mat was a
pupil when the eviction of the widow Cunningham took place. The monitor
was now the teacher of the National School, and Mat and he had begun to
have many colloquies.

Michael Reed was regarded as a very sardonic and disagreeable person by
most of the people of Ballybay. His hatchet face seemed appropriate to a
man who never seemed to agree with the opinion of anybody else, who
sneered, it was thought, all round, who laughed when other people wept,
and who derided the moments of exultant hope. He had always been among
those who hated and distrusted Crowe, and Mat, who was intolerant
himself, rather avoided him, while he still had faith in the traitor.
But the wreck of all his illusions sent him repentant to Reed, and they
had many conversations, in which Mat found himself listening willingly
and after a while even greedily, to ideas that a short time before he
would have been himself the first to denounce as folly and madness.

The idea of Reed was that the only way to work out the freedom of
Ireland was by force of arms. Mat at first was inclined to laugh at the
idea; but an impressionable and vehement nature such as his was ill
calculated to cope for a lengthened time with a nature precise, cold,
and stubborn like that of Reed. Strength of will and tenacity of opinion
make their way against better judgment, especially if there can be no
doubt of the sincerity of the man of such a temper, and the rigid eye,
the proud air, and the whole attitude of Reed spoke, and spoke truly, of
a life of absolute purity, and of a fanaticism of Spartan endurance.

There was one consequence of the acceptance of the ideas of Reed, and
from this, with all his devotion and rage and sorrow for the pitiable
condition of his country, Mat still shrank. A revolutionary could not
marry or be engaged to marry; for what man had the right to tie to his
dark and uncertain fate the life of a woman--perhaps of children?

The defeat of Crowe would once more restore faith to the people in
constitutional resources, and would save them from the cynicism and
apathy which might require a revolutionary movement to rouse them once
more to hope and action. And thus in fighting against Crowe, Mat now
felt as if he were fighting not merely for his country, but for his own
dear life.

Then if Crowe were defeated, Mat could return to his work in London, and
resume his efforts in carrying out the sacred purpose of raising his
father and mother from poverty; for of marriage he could not think
unless he were in a position to help his father and mother more than he
had done hitherto. If he ever dared to think of marriage otherwise,
there came before him the gaunt image of his mother pointing to her
faded and ragged workbox with its awful pawn-tickets and bank bills.

It was while he was in the midst of this fierce and agonizing struggle
that Mat was called hurriedly one day to the house of Mary, by the news
that Mrs. Flaherty had been taken very ill, and was supposed to be
dying.

Mat came to the house, endeared to him by so many memories and hopes,
trembling, and with a cold feeling about his heart. Why was it that he
started back with a pang when he saw Cosgrave in the house before him?
Why at that moment did there rush again over his whole soul that awful
image which swept over him before? Why in imagination did he stand at
night on a wild heath, shivering and alone?

"What brought Cosgrave here?" he asked of Mary sharply.

"Oh!" said Mary, "he came to tell us that he had been made a J. P."

"So he has attained his pitiful ambition," said Mat sharply. "It's
through sneaks like him that scoundrels like Crowe are able to betray
the country."

"Oh, never mind the low creature," said Mary, with a look of infinite
contempt, that Mat was surprised to find very soothing.

He went up stairs. A look at the face of Mrs. Flaherty showed him at
once that the alarm was not a false one--she was evidently dying.

There was the old look of patient affection in her tender face, and
there was another look, too, which Mat could not misunderstand. It was a
look of wistful appeal, half-uttered question, of a fond but tremulous
hope.

And it added to the misery of that dark hour that Mat could say nothing,
and that he had to let that true and deeply-loved soul pass out of life
with its greatest fear unsatisfied, and its brightest hope unassured.
For Mat could not utter a decisive word.

Between him and the speech there stood two shadows, potent, dark, and
resistless--his mother pointing to her workbox, and Reed pointing to a
revolver.

Mary stood beside the bed tearless.

"Doesn't Mary bear up well?" said Mat in surprise to her blubbering
father.

"Mary doesn't cry," said her father; "she frets," and in these words Mat
thought the whole character of the girl was summed up.

Mrs. Flaherty died on Thursday; the polling was on the following day.
Mat was still under the impression of the dark and painful scene when
the new excitement came. He hoped against hope to the last, went about
the town like one insane, and spoke in his passion of country even to
O'Flynn, the pawn-broker, and of honor to Mat Fleming, and then waited
at the closing hour to hear the result. The result was:--

Crowe 125
Ponsonby 112

Mat turned pale, and almost fell, his head swam, his heart seemed for a
moment to have stopped. He would not yet acknowledge it in so many
words; but the sentence still kept ringing in his ears, "Thy doom is
sealed, thy doom is sealed."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE STORY OF BETTY CUNNINGHAM.

The disaster which swept over all Ireland through the final success of
the treachery of Crowe raged soon after in Ballybay. The town had been
reduced by successive misfortunes to a condition so abject that one
calamity was sufficient to completely submerge the greater portion of
its inhabitants. Mr. Anthony Cosgrave, J. P., signalized the event by
driving out the few tenants who still remained on the properties he had
bought. He turned all his land into pasture, for this was the prosperous
era of the graziers, and cattle were rapidly transformed into gold.
Other landlords pursued similar courses, and within a couple of years,
ten thousand people had been swept from the neighborhood around.

The calamity reached down to the very lowest stratum, and touched depths
so profound as the fortunes of the widow Cunningham and her daughter
Betty.

It had now become habitual for the widow and her daughter to remain for
a couple of days with barely any food. One night they were sitting
opposite each other on the bare floor of the railway arch in which they
had for several years found refuge, staring at each other with the
blank, wild gaze of hunger. There was a terrible pang at the heart of
the mother on this night of nights. Throughout all her long years of
struggle two great thoughts still remained burning in her soul, and in
spite of poverty and hunger that soul still remained afire. One was
vengeance on Cosgrave for the long train of woes through which she
herself had passed, and the other was the protection of her child.

With that profound reverence for female honor which is still one of the
best characteristics of the Irish poor, she had seen the growth of her
beautiful daughter with a love mixed with terror, and guarded her child
as the tigress watches by her lair. Her own life had long since ceased
to be dear to her. She walked for hours through the streets, she pleaded
for custom, she smiled under insult, she bore rain and hail and snow, in
hope of the fulfilment of this great passionate purpose--to keep her
daughter pure.

The misery of the last six months had been aggravated by the dread,
growing in intensity with every hour, that all this endurance would be
in vain, that behind the wolf of hunger there stalked the more cruel
wolf of lust, and that her daughter was doomed. On this subject not a
word passed between the two women, for the delicacy of feeling which
marks even the humblest grade of Irish life sealed their lips; but the
dread was always there in the mother's heart, pursuing her as a
nightmare through the long watches of the darkness, and haunting her
every moment as wearily she carried her basket through the streets in
the day.

"Buy a few apples, yer honor, for God's sake," she often said to a
passer-by, in a tone that might have struck one as menacing, or at least
as entirely disproportionate to the urgency of the appeal; but in every
such prayer for pence the mother felt that she was crying for her child,
and her child's soul, and her accents came from the very anguish of her
mother's heart.

On this night--it was about a month after the election of Crowe--the two
sat together, buried in their own sad thoughts. They were suddenly
aroused by the floor becoming inundated, and at once knew what to
expect. The Shannon periodically rose above its banks outside Ballybay,
and then its waters overspread the "Big Meadows," and the railway arch
underneath which the widow and her daughter had taken refuge was, as
will be remembered, close to these Meadows.

They rose and rushed from the spot. They were now absolutely homeless,
without even a place on which to lay their heads. They went further on
to another railway arch, and at last slept. When the mother awoke in the
morning she was alone.

At this period a Ballybay landlord, afterwards destined to figure
largely in the social life of Ireland, had just come of age. Thomas
McNaghten was perhaps the handsomest Irishman of his day; tall,
broad-shouldered, muscular. He had a physique as splendid as that of the
race of peasants from whom his father sprang; while from the gentler
race of his mother he derived features of exquisite delicacy and the
complexion of a lily-like pink and white. He afterwards ran a career of
mad dissipation that made his name a by-word even among the reckless and
debauched class to which he belonged, and died a paralytic before he was
forty. But at the period of our story, he was still in the full strength
and the first flush of manhood. He had cast his eyes on Betty
Cunningham, and had held out to her bribes that seemed to unfold to the
girl visions of untold wealth. The innate purity of the maiden had
hitherto been proof against the direct influences of poverty and
wretchedness and the advances of her tempter. But at last the combined
intensities of hunger and despair became his allies.

Three weeks after her desertion of her mother Betty Cunningham was drunk
in one of the public-houses, which were frequented by the soldiers
quartered in Ballybay. The fatal progress of the Irish girl who has
fallen is more rapid than in any other country. Society, always cruel to
its hapless victims and its outcasts, in Ireland is fanatically and
barbarously savage. Betty was driven out from every house! People
shuddered as she passed. She lay under hedges, her bed was often in the
snow. To Ballybay she was as much an object of loathing and of horror as
though she were some wild beast that men might lawfully destroy.

The girl herself had no compensation for all this dread outlawry. The
Traviatas of other lands are painted for us in gilded saloons, with
costly wines in golden goblets, and noble lovers sighing for their
smiles. But Betty, outcast, hungry, and houseless, had not one second's
enjoyment of life. The faith in which she had been trained still held
its grip upon her, and neither vice nor drink nor human cruelty could
relax its grasp. She was a sinner against Heaven's most sacred law; and
after brief life came death, and after death eternal torment. Pursued by
this ever-present spectre she drank and drank, and awoke more wretched
than ever, and then she drank again.

She would sometimes seek refuge from her burning shame and from her
tortured soul in fierce revolt. She rolled in mad delirium through the
streets, yelled the blasphemies in the shuddering ears of Ballybay,
fought the police who came to arrest her, developed, in short, into a
raging demon. Her face became bloated, her expression horrible to
witness. One day, as she passed through the streets in one of these
frenzies, she met Mat Blake. She shivered in every limb, and a pang, as
from the thrust of a dagger, passed through her heart. But she attempted
all the more to steel her nerves, and to harden her face. She raised her
eyes and glared, but the eyes fell, and she slunk away.

And thus it was that Mat saw, for the first time since his return to
Ballybay, the gentle, timid, lovely girl who had once willingly stood
between him and death.

A few minutes afterwards, Betty's mother appeared. Her features bore the
traces of the deepest grief that had yet assailed her. All pride had
gone from that once imperious face; she was a stooped, shame-faced, old
woman. As Mat looked at her there rushed before his memory the many
momentous hours of his life with which that face was bound up, his days
of childhood in her prosperous home, his association with her daughter,
and the glad hours during the first election of Crowe, when life was
still full of glorious hope, and she had dashed the glad vision with the
first breath of suspicion and anticipated evil.

They looked at each other silently for a moment, and then she shook her
head, and with a look of infinite grief in her eyes, said to him--

"Ah, Master Mat, it was the hunger did it; it was the hunger did it."

By a trick of memory Mat recollected that these were the words he had
heard on that day, long ago, when Betty had rescued Mary and himself
from the enraged bull.

One thing Mat had noticed as Betty Cunningham had passed; it was that
amid the wreck of her beauty one feature still remained as strangely
witching as ever. The soft eyes had not lost their delicacy of hue, nor
had the evil passions of her soul deprived them of their gentle look.
Those who mentioned her, and she was not an uncommon topic among the men
of the town, still spoke of Betty's beautiful eyes.

At last there came a temporary change in her fate. A branch of the Mary
Magdalene Asylum was established in Ballybay for the rescue of fallen
women, and she was one of the first to enter. But her temper, spoiled by
excesses and disappointment, fretted under the restraint. She quarrelled
with the nuns, and one night she fled. Then the revival in all its
fierce vigilance of the old spectre of eternal punishment made her more
infuriate than ever. She drank more deeply, cursed more fiercely, was
oftener in the police-cell, and Ballybay loathed her more than ever.

One morning--it was a Christmas morning--Mat was walking with his father
in the "Big Meadows." Snow had fallen heavily the night before; and as
they passed a bush, they saw the impress of a woman's form; it was
evident that an unhappy being had there spent her Christmas Eve.

"My God!" said Mat, "a woman has slept there."

Mat's father was the kindest and most humane being in all the world, but
"Serve the wretch right!" was his comment.

Her story wound up in a tragic climax. One night she made more violent
resistance than ever to the attempts of the police to arrest her, and
when she was at last captured, she was torn and bleeding. They put her
into a cell by herself; she could be heard pacing up and down with the
infuriate step of a caged tiger. The policeman on duty afterwards told
how he had heard her muttering to herself, and that he thought he caught
the words, "These eyes! These eyes! They have undone me! They have
undone me!" Soon afterwards he heard a wild, unearthly shriek that froze
his blood. He rushed into the cell, and there, horrible, bleeding....
But I dare not describe the sight.

* * * * *

Betty Cunningham was taken once more into the Mary Magdalene Asylum. Her
voice was trained, and after some years she sang in the choir. A strong
hush always came over the chapel when her voice was heard. People still
told in whispers the terrible story of the blind lay sister; and Mat,
sitting in the chapel years afterwards, was carried over the whole
history of her career and his own and that of Ballybay generally as he
listened to her rich contralto singing second to the rest. He had always
thought that there was something wondrously pathetic, at least in sacred
music, in the voice that sings seconds, and the impression was confirmed
as he listened to the blind girl's accompaniment to the other voices;
low when they were loud, sad when they were triumphant, following
painfully their quicker steps with that ever plaintive protest and soft
wail--fit image of life, where our highest joys are dogged by sorrow's
quick and inevitable step.

Conclusion next month.

* * * * *

CHARITY's mantle is often made of gauze.

Alone.

"CANST thou watch one hour with me?"
How long since fell these words from Thee?
Before Thy blood-wept vigil in dark Gethsemane,
How many since to Thee have bent the knee?
And yet too few, for here, O Lord! art Thou;
Deserted? No! for angels crowding to Thee bring
Sweet, holy homage to their God, their King.
While--as Thy chosen ones forgetful slumbered--
Thy people passeth on the road unnumbered,
With never a thought of Thee, O God, beside.
'Tis well, O Lord! 'tis well for human kind,
Thy love is ever wondrous, great and wide,
Thy heart with golden mercies ever glowing,
Thy reaping not always Thy people's sowing.

DESMOND.

A Midnight Mass.

From the French of Abel d'Avrecourt, by Th. Xr. K.

In the height of the Reign of Terror, my grandmother, then a young girl,
was living in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. There was a void around her
and her mother; their friends, their relatives, the head of the family
himself, had left France. Mansions were left desolate or else were
invaded by new owners. They themselves had abandoned their rich
dwellings for a plain lodging-house, where they lived waiting for better
times, carefully hiding their names, which might have compromised them
in those days. The churches, diverted from their purpose, were used as
shops or manufactories. All outward practice of religion had ceased.

Nevertheless back of a sabot-maker's shop in the Rue Saint-Dominique, an
old priest who had taken up his father's humble trade, used to gather
some of the faithful together for prayer; but precaution had to be
observed, for the hunt was close, and the humble temple was exactly next
door to the dwelling of one of the members of the revolutionary
government, who was an implacable enemy of religion.

It was then a cold December night; midnight Mass was being celebrated in
honor of the festival of Christmas. The shop was carefully closed, while
the incense was smoking in the little room back of it. A huge chest of
drawers on which a clean, white cloth had been spread, served as altar.
The priestly ornaments had been taken from their hiding-place, and the
little assembly, composed of women and a few men, was in pious
recollection, when a knock at the door, like that of the faithful,
attracted attention.

One of the worshippers opened the door; a man hesitatingly entered. The
face was one to which all were unaccustomed in that place. To some,
alas! it was a face too well known; it was that of the man who had in
the public councils shown himself so bitter against gatherings of the
faithful, and whose presence, for that reason, was more than ever to be
dreaded at such a moment.

Nevertheless the majesty of the sacrifice was not disturbed, but fear
had seized on all the attendants; did not each of them have reason to
fear for himself, for his family, and for the good old pastor, in even
greater danger than his flock?

With severe, but calm, cold air, the member of the convention remained
standing until the end of Mass and communion, and the farther the
ceremony progressed, the more agitated were all hearts in the
expectation of an event which could not but too well be foreseen.

When all was over, in fact, when the lights were hardly extinguished,
the congregation cautiously slipped out one by one; then the stranger
approached the priest who had recognized him, but who remained stoically
calm. "Citizen priest," he said, "I have something to say to thee."

"Speak, my brother; how can I be of service to you?"

"It's a favor I must ask of thee, and I feel how ridiculous I am. The
red is coming up into my face and I daren't say any more."

"My bearing and my ministry nevertheless are not of the kind to disturb
you, and if any feeling of piety leads you to me--"

"Eh? That's exactly what it isn't. I don't know anything about religion;
I don't want to know anything about it; I belong to those who have
helped to destroy yours; but, for my misfortune, I have a daughter--"

"I don't see any misfortune in that," the priest interrupted.

"Wait, citizen, thou shalt see. We people, men of principles, we are the
victims of our children; inflexible towards all in the maintenance of
the ideas which we have formed for ourselves, we hesitate and we became
children before the prayers and the tears of our children. I have then a
daughter whom I have reared to be an honest woman and a true citizeness.
I thought I had formed her to my image, and here I was grossly deceived.

"A solemn moment is approaching for her. With the new year, she marries
a good young fellow, whom I myself selected for her husband. Everything
was going right; the two children loved each other,--at least I thought
so,--and everything was ready for the ceremony at the commune, when,
this evening, my daughter threw herself at my feet, begging me to
postpone her marriage.

"Surprised at first, I lifted her to her feet.

"'What! you don't love your intended?' I asked her.

"'Yes, father,' she replied, 'but I don't want to get married yet.'

"Pressed with questions on this strange caprice, she finally confessed
her girlish idea. She wanted to wait, hoping that a day would come when
she could get married, and have her union blessed in the church. My
first burst of anger having passed, I cannot tell you all the fine
reasons she gave me to obtain from me a thing so contrary to my rule of
conduct. The marriage of her dead mother had been performed in the
church; her memory required that pious action; she would not think
herself married if it was not at the foot of the altar; she would prefer
to remain single the rest of her days.

"She said so much, mingling her entreaties and tears with it all, that
she vanquished me. She even showed me the retreat which a few days ago I
would not have discovered with impunity to you all. I have come to seek
thee out, and now I ask thee: Thou hast before thee thy persecutor: wilt
thou bless according to thy rite, the marriage of his daughter?"

The worthy priest replied:--

"My ministry knows neither rancor nor exclusion; I am glad, besides, for
what you ask of me; only one thing grieves me, and that is that the
father should be hostile to his daughter's design."

"Thou mistakest: I understand all sentiments. That of a girl who wants
to be married as her mother was, seems to me to be deserving of respect,
and just now, I saw, there is something touching which I cannot explain
in your ceremonies, and it has made me better understand her thought."

A few days later the same back shop contained a few intimate and
conciliating friends who were attending a wedding. We need not say that
from that day, whether through change of principles or through
gratitude, the member of the revolutionary government was secretly the
protector of the little church which could live on in peace, unknown to
its persecutors.

The Hero of Lepanto.

PART II.

"Every nation," it has been said, "makes most account of its own, and
cares little for the heroes of other nations. Don John of Austria, as
defender of Christendom, was the hero of all nations." He was the hero
of "the battle of Lepanto which," as Alison remarks, "arrested forever
the danger of Mahometan invasion in the south of Europe." As De Bonald
adds, it was from that battle, that the decline of the Turkish power
dates. "It cost the Turks more than the mere loss of ships and of men;
they lost that moral force which is the mainstay of conquering nations."

It is not necessary in this sketch of the life of Don John, to enter
into any details about the tedious negotiations which preceded the
coalition of the naval forces of Spain, Venice, and the Pope. Suffice it
to say, that repulsed from Malta by the heroism of the Knights of St.
John, the Turks next turned their naval armaments against Cyprus, then
held by the Venetians. Menaced in one of her most valuable possessions,
the Republic of Venice, too long the half-hearted foe of the Turks,
turned in her distress, for help to the Vatican and to the Escorial. St.
Pius V. sat in the See of Peter. He turned no deaf ear to an appeal that
seemed likely to bring about what the Roman Pontiffs had long desired--a
new crusade against the Turks. Philip the Second, ever wary, ever
dilatory, more able than the Pope to assist Venice, was less ready to do
so. Spain would willingly have done what she could to destroy the
Turkish power, but her monarch was not sorry to humble Venice, even to
the profit of the infidel. So diplomatic delays and underhand intrigues
delayed the relief of Cyprus, and the standard of the Sultan soon was
hoisted over the walls of Famagusta--to remain there until replaced in
our times--thanks to the wisdom of a great statesman--by the "meteor
flag of England."

The terror caused by the fall of Cyprus, brought about after many
negotiations, a league between the Republic, the Papacy, and the Spanish
monarchy. A mighty naval armament was to be gathered together, and its
commander was to be Don John of Austria. His success in subduing the
Moriscoes naturally designated him, in spite of his extreme youth, for
this high command. His operations, indeed, had been so far chiefly on
land, but in the sixteenth century, a man might one day command a
squadron of cavalry and on the next, a squadron of galleys. General and
admiral were convertible terms. There was, indeed, some division of
labor. Sailors navigated and soldiers fought the ship. And, as there is
more resemblance between the row-galleys of Don John's epoch and the
steam driven vessels of our times than there is between these and the
ships which Nelson and Collingwood led to victory, perhaps we shall
return to the old state of things and again send our soldiers to sea!

To return, however, to our hero, who has meanwhile subdued the Moriscoes
and returned to Madrid before setting out to take command of the great
fleet at Messina. One, however, there was who did not return with the
Prince to Madrid, one who was no longer to be his "guide, philosopher,
and friend." The faithful Quijada had been struck by a musket-ball in a
fight at Seron, in which Don John himself, in rallying his troops, had a
narrow escape. After a week of suffering, the brave knight expired in
the arms of his foster-son, February 24, 1570. "We may piously trust,"
says the chronicler,[A] "that the soul of Don Luis rose up to heaven
with the sweet incense which burned on the altars of St. Jerome at
Caniles; for he spent his life, and finally lost it, in fighting like a
valiant soldier of the faith."

Before relating the episodes of the great victory of Lepanto, it will
not be inopportune to glance at one of the great evils, that of slavery,
which the Turkish power entailed on so many thousands of Christians.
Nowadays, thousands of travellers pass freely, to and fro, from the
Straits of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal, and from one part of the
Mediterranean to another. Our markets are supplied with fruits and
vegetables from Algiers. Our Sovereign has no fears, except as to
sanitary arrangements, when she sojourns on the northern shores of the
Mediterranean. A cruise in an unarmed yacht on its waters is the
pleasantest of pastimes. It is, therefore, hard for us to conceive what
three centuries, nay, even three generations since, were the fears of
those who dwelt along the coast of Southern France, of Spain, and of
Italy, or, who, as pilgrims, merchants, or sailors navigated the blue
waters of the inland sea. Every year, even after the battle of Lepanto,
and still more before it, the corsairs of the northern coasts of Africa
scoured the Mediterranean and carried into captivity hundreds of
Christians, of all ages, nations, and of both sexes, from vessels they
encountered or from villages along the shores of France, Italy, or
Spain. Hence it is, that to this day, those shores are studded with the
ruins of castles and forts, erected as defences against those corsairs.
So great was, however, their boldness that even as late as the
seventeenth century, Algerian pirates ventured as far as "the chops of
the Channel."

When we read the annals of those religious orders devoted to the
redemption of captives, we can more fully realize the terrible extent to
which the Christian slave trade was carried by the infidels. As
Englishmen, we do well to cherish the memory of Wilberforce. As
Catholics we should not forget the religious men who risked all,
slavery, disease, and death, to rescue Christians from the chains of
slavery. Let us recall to mind a few facts about them. One single house
of the Trinitarians, that of Toledo, during the first four centuries of
its existence, ransomed one hundred and twenty-four thousand Christian
slaves. The Order of Mercy, during a similar period, procured freedom
for nearly five hundred thousand slaves. As to the number of slaves in
captivity at one time, it may be mentioned that Charles the Fifth
released thirty thousand by his expedition against Tunis, and about half
as many were set free by the battle of Lepanto. It was estimated that in
the Regency of Algiers, there was an average of thirty thousand slaves
detained there. As late as 1767, in Algiers itself, there were two
thousand Christians in chains. Of such slaves many were women, many mere
boys and girls. And as late as 1816, Lord Exmouth, after the bombardment
of Algiers, set many Christian slaves free. It is, as we said, hard to
realize that in times almost within the memory of living men, Christians
toiled in chains for the infidel, in the way some may have seen depicted
by pictures in the Louvre. Similar pictures are kept in the old church
of St. Giles, at Bruges, where a confraternity existed for the
redemption of captives. This association is still represented in the
parochial processions, by a group of children. Some are dressed as
white-robed Trinitarians, leading those they have redeemed from slavery.
Others are gorgeously attired as Turkish slave owners; others represent
Turkish guards, leading Christian slaves, coarsely garbed and bound with
chains. Happily Lepanto made such sights as these the processions of
Bruges commemorate, of less frequent occurrence, until at length they
have been relegated to pageantry, and the once powerful Turk is simply
suffered to linger on European soil, because the jealousies of Christian
nations will not allow of his expulsion.

Salamis, Actium, Lepanto and Trafalgar are the four greatest naval
battles of history and of these Lepanto was perhaps the greatest.
Salamis turned back the invasion of the East; Actium created the Roman
empire; Trafalgar was the first heavy blow dealt against a despotism
that threatened to strangle Europe. Lepanto, however, saved Europe from
a worse fate--the domination of the Turk. The name of this great victory
is derived from the picturesque town, with its mediæval defences still
left, of Naupaktos which the modern Greek designates as Epokte, and the
Italian as Lepanto. The engagement, however, was in reality fought at
the entrance of the Gulf of Patras, ten leagues westward from the town.

The facts of the fight of the seventh of October--a Sunday--of the year
1571, are so well-known, that we need merely recall to the memory of our
readers the leading features of the contest. Spain, Venice, Genoa,
Malta, and the Papal States were represented there, but "the meteor flag
of England" was not unfurled in sight of the Turkish, nor were the
fleurs-de-lys to be seen on the standards that gaily floated from the
mast-heads of the great Christian armada. England, alas! was in the
clutches of a wretched woman, and France was on the eve of a St.
Bartholomew's Massacre, and for all that France and England cared, at
that time, Europe might have become Mahommedan.

Don John led the centre of the long line--three miles in length--of
galleys, while on his right, Doria the great Genoese admiral, from whose
masts waved the cross of St. George; and on the left, the brave
Barbarigo, the Venetian, his flank protected by the coast commanded.
Against the wind, the sun shooting its bright rays against the ships,
the Turkish fleet, in half-moon formation, two hundred and fifty great
galleys and many smaller craft, carrying one hundred and twenty thousand
men, slowly advanced "in battle's magnificently stern array." The brave
Ali Pacha led the van.

As the hostile fleets met, the two admirals exchanged shots. At noon,
the Christians, among whom was one of the greatest soldiers and one of
the ablest authors of that age--Farnese and Cervantes--knelt to receive
absolution from their chaplains, and then rose up to fight. In many a
quiet village away in the Appenines, or in the Sierras of more distant
Spain, the Angelus was ringing, and many a heartfelt prayer was aiding
the Christian cause, then a wild cry arose from the Moslem fleet and
"from mouth to mouth" of the cannon the "volley'd thunder flew." The
combat deepened and became hand to hand. The two admirals ships grappled
together in a deadly struggle. Don John, foremost in the fray, was
slightly wounded. At a third attempt, Ali Pacha's galley was boarded,
captured, himself slain, and the Standard of the Cross replaced the
Crescent. Victory! Victory! was the cry from one Christian ship to
another. In less than four hours, the Turkish ships were scattered,
sunk, or burning, until darkness and storm drove Don John to seek
shelter in port, and hid the wreckage with which man had strewn the sea.
The Christian loss was eight thousand, the Turkish four or five times
greater. Don John hastened to console and comfort his wounded. Did he
not, perchance, visit, on his bed of suffering, the immortal Cervantes?
After the wounded, he turned to his prisoners, whom he treated with a
generosity to which the sixteenth century was little accustomed.

One there was, let us not forget it, who not bodily present, had a
lion's share in the victory. A second Moses, with uplifted hands, St.
Pius V., had prayed God and Our Lady, to aid Don John's arms. "The night
before the battle, and the day itself, aged as he was, and broken with
disease, the Saint had passed in the Vatican in fasting and prayer. All
through the Holy City the monasteries and the colleges were in prayer
too. As the evening advanced, the Pontifical treasurer asked an audience
of the Sovereign Pontiff on an important matter. Pius was in his
bedroom, and began to converse with him; when suddenly he stopped the
conversation, left him, threw open the window, and gazed up into heaven.
Then closing it again, he looked gravely at his official, and said,
"This is no time for business; go, return thanks to the Lord God. In
this very hour our fleet has engaged the Turkish, and is victorious." As
the treasurer went out, he saw him fall on his knees before the altar in
thankfulness and joy."

The great writer, from whom we have taken the above account of St. Pius
the Fifth's supernatural knowledge of the victory, remarks "that the
victories gained over the Turks since are but the complements and the
reverberations of the overthrow at Lepanto."

Here we may take leave of the hero of Lepanto, leaving him in the midst
of his glory, receiving the thanks of Christendom, from the lips of a
Saint--its Supreme Pontiff. We need not follow Don John of Austria on
his expedition against Tunis--a barren conquest his too imaginative mind
dreamed of converting into a great African empire. Nor need we follow
him when he goes, disguised as a Moorish page, accompanied by a single
cavalier, to undertake the bootless task of pacifying the revolted
Netherlands. The incidents and intrigues of this task rather belong to
the history of the Low Countries than to the story of our hero. In the
midst of them, worn out by too ardent a spirit, or stricken by an
epidemic, Don John expired, in his camp near Namur, at the early age of
thirty-two, on October 1, 1578. The task of saving a part of the
revolted provinces to the Spanish crown, he left to the strong arm and
genius of his cousin Alexander Farnese.

Don John's desire was to be buried beside his father in Spain. His body,
says Strada, was dismembered and secretly carried across France, onwards
to Madrid, where it was, as it were, reconstructed and decked with armor
to be shown to Philip, who might well weep at such ghastly display. The
heart of the hero is kept, to this day, behind the high altar of the
Cathedral of Namur.

Generous, high-spirited, courageous, he was a true knight-errant, the
"last Crusader whom the annals of chivalry were to know; the man who had
humbled the crescent as it had not been humbled since the days of the
Tancreds, the Baldwins, the Plantagenets." Endowed with a brilliant
imagination, he dreamed of founding an African empire, and it faded away
as the mirage of some oasis amid the deserts of the dark continent. With
his sword, he thought to free, some day, Mary Queen of Scots, from her
prison, and to place her on the throne held by Elizabeth. But the object
of his ravings died on the scaffold, while he himself passed away,
leaving behind him little more for history to record than that he was
the brilliant young soldier--the Hero of Lepanto.

W. C. R. in _Catholic Progress_.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Hita, "Guerras de Granada," quoted by Prescott, "Philip" II., III.,
133.

The Church and Progress.

One of the favorite mottoes of revolutionists consists in the formula,
"The Catholic Church is opposed to the progress of the age;" and the
general tone of the day's literature, apt in adopting popular cries,
criticises the Church as the arch-opponent of every effort of the human
intellect. The foundation of this charge may be broadly rested on two
counts, radically differing in their nature, and which I may be allowed
to state thus: First, there is a large class nowadays, and this genus is
always especially rampant and noisy, that uses the current shibboleths,
"Civilization," "Liberty," "Equality," "Fraternity," etc., either with
sinister designs beneath them, or, if dupes,--and it amounts to the same
in the long run,--then without at all knowing what those words mean.
With that large vision that usually characterizes her in matters even
not of faith, and which makes her hated by political quacks and mad
sciolists, the Church detects the real objects and aims of these
innovators, and is not afraid of facing obloquy by condemning them in
spite of their false banners. For this attitude we have no excuse to
offer; we glory in it, and regard it as a sign of that innate divine
energy and life imparted to her by the source of all life and power. The
second count on which this charge is based may be found in the utterance
of private Catholics, or in that of prelates and bodies, in the latter
of whom is lodged a power that extorts obedience, it is true, and ought
always to be treated with respect, but which can claim to act in no
infallible manner, and which, in pronouncing on matters outside the
domain of faith, must rest upon the suggestions of reason and external
evidence alone. For instance, Catholics are often confronted with
extracts from this or that author, or the pronouncements of this or that
provincial council, and asked to say whether, after that, the Church may
pretend not to be opposed to the natural aspirations of man? These
objectors do not, or will not, see that the Church, by enlarging the
domain of her teaching to cover all things with the mantle of
infallibility, would most effectually crush the action of the human
intellect, which was meant for use, not rust, which must be allowed
something to act upon, and which in independent action is bound to rush
into a variety of differences according to the bent of the individual
mind. However, to answer thus merely opens up a multitude of questions,
and launches one into a sea of chaos, across which he will have to sail
without chart or compass. Accordingly, I usually answer that these
various utterances of individuals and provincial bodies are not
infallible; that the only utterance absolutely binding on the conscience
of the Catholic is that of a general council with the Pope at its head,
or that of the Pope speaking _ex cathedra_; and that all the other acts
of men or bodies, high or low, are subject in their degrees to human
infirmity, though we are to receive them with respect and judicious
obedience, and that at most they are but temporary in time and limited
in space.

No idea could be more extravagant or more unjust than that usually
entertained by Protestants on our doctrine of the Pope's infallibility.

They imagine that a Catholic dares not utter a word upon any subject
until the Pope has spoken. Or, if they advance beyond this, that he
dares not say anything about religion except what comes direct from
Rome. Or, if they can stretch their imagination to realize that the Pope
speaks only after discussion, that we must look to have our every word
snatched at, and a damper put upon us, before we have well begun. This
last is the central objection of intelligent Protestants, who know well
that it will never do to fly in the face of facts like their more
ignorant neighbors. They have taken the trouble to examine the
definition of the dogma; and it cannot be denied that to their minds it
does bear this sense. Any one familiar with the minute despotism of
those thousand little Protestant Popes, the reverend offspring of the
"Reformation," would see at once what a charter such authority would put
in the hands of a set of Chadbands only too eager to use it. Enlightened
Protestants have begun to feel the burden of this one idea,
dead-dragging officialism, and to kick against it. They are probably
religious men, by which I mean men with devout minds, who earnestly feel
the need of belief. They become inquirers, run through the sects nearest
at hand, and finally come before the Church and gaze upon her. Written
on her front they see "Infallibility." Here lies their stumbling-block.
They begin to question. Arguments are exhausted on each side, and if
they be deeply imbued with the knowledge that there is a God, with the
consciousness thence following of their fallen nature, and with an
ardent hope to re-unite themselves to God, they will admit, perhaps, the
truth of the dogma, viewed in the abstract. But they will say, how will
it work in practical affairs? Judging by their former experience, they
will picture the Pope as a thousand Protestant preachers rolled into
one, and invested with an authority undreamed of before, and using that
authority to tyrannize over the least thoughts of men. What room, they
will exclaim, will men have to advance in the arts and science, not to
speak of development of doctrine, if this incubus is to rest upon them,
and weigh them down, and terrify them into silence and inaction?

The best answer to this is doubtless an enlarged view of Catholic
Christendom, from the earliest times down, for in that period the Pope
did possess the prerogative of infallibility, though it has only
recently been defined as a dogma. Here it must be recollected that I am
not arguing; it would be mere presumption in me to attempt a scientific
exposition altogether out of my power. Suffice it to say, that
theologians have exhausted the inward reasonings upon it, and though I
am not able to set them forth, I am at least convinced by them. Still
the concrete world remains, and things are to be seen in them from
historical and exterior aspects. It is this last which strikes the
imagination most, and to all men a ready test. Minds have various ways
of approaching the truth; and right reason has a way of arguing and
apprehending simply impossible to men in bulk and to myself. For which I
have thought it not unuseful to draw out my way of viewing the
historical aspects of the Church in relation to the progress and freedom
of man; and perhaps many will look at the subject from a similar
standpoint.

Why I believe in God I cannot express in words. Only I know there is an
inward monitor constantly reminding me of that fact, vividly impressing
it on my imagination, and punishing me with the lash of remorse when I
do wrong. I have never doubted when the matter was brought home to my
mind. Still, there are periods when this intense conviction has been
clean wiped out of me; else, how could I have sinned, as I know I have
done, and feel this keen remorse? I do not see how men can sin with the
full consciousness that a God of truth, purity, and justice is looking
upon them with terrible eyes. This is the reason for my faith;
conscience is the charter of my belief. Far be it from me to deny the
arguments drawn by great intellects from the outward course of events,
and which appeal, perhaps, to most minds, as evidence of a Creator and
Sustainer of the universe. I can only say they do not touch me, nor
cause the revivified life to relieve the winter of my desolation, and
the leaves and buds of the new spring to bloom within me. For when I
look forth into the world, all things--even my own wretched life--seem
simply to give the lie to the great truth which possesses and fills my
being. Consider the world in its length and breadth, its contradictory
history, its blind evolution, the greatness and littleness of man, his
random acquirements, aimless achievements, ruthless causes, the triumph
of evil, the defeat of good, the depth and intensity and prevalence of
sin, the all-degrading idolatries, the all-defiling corruptions, the
monstrous superstitions, the dreary irreligion--is not the whole a
picture dreadful to look upon, capricious as chance, rigid as fate, pale
as malady, dark as doom? How shall we face this fact, witnessed to by
innumerable men in all ages and times, as the natural lot of their kind?
Much more so when suffering falls upon us, as it does inevitably on all,
and forces upon us an attempt to solve the riddle of our chaotic
existence?

There is only one way out of the difficulty. If there is a God, the
source of all truth and goodness, how else can we account for this
desperate condition of his highest creation, except we admit man's
fallen condition? It is thus that the doctrine of original sin is as
clear to me as is the existence of God.

But, now, supposing that God intended to interfere with this state of
things, and to draw his prodigal children to Him again, would it not be
expected that He would do so in a powerful, original, manifest, and
continuous new creation set amid His old? So intensely is this felt,
that atheists have drawn an argument from it against the Creator, and
their feeling is expressed by Paine, when he says, that if there be a
revelation from God, it ought to be written on the sun. So it should; so
it is. So was it gloriously shining forth once, in a city set upon a
hill, full of noon-day splendor, and visible to the eyes of all. Still
is it there, discernible to the eye of faith; but clouds obscure the sun
on occasions, and the miserable doings of the sixteenth century have hid
its light to uncounted millions.

And, now, where shall I find that shining light, that overcoming power,
which my reason tells me to expect? I quote the words of one who sought
for many years and at last found:--

"This power, viewed in its fulness, is as tremendous as the giant evil
which has called it forth. It claims, when brought into exercise in the
legitimate manner, for otherwise, of course, it is but dormant, to have
for itself a sure guidance into the very meaning of every portion of the
Divine Message in detail, which was committed by our Lord to His
Apostles. It claims to know its own limits, and to decide what it can
determine absolutely and what it cannot. It claims, moreover, to have a
hold upon statements not directly religious, so far as this, to
determine whether they indirectly relate to religion, and, according to
its own definitive judgment, to pronounce whether or not, in a
particular case, they are consistent with revealed truth. It claims to
decide magisterially, whether infallibly or not, that such and such
statements are or are not prejudicial to the Apostolical _depositum_ of
faith, in their spirit or in their consequences, and to allow them, or
condemn and forbid them accordingly. It claims to impose silence at will
on any matters, or controversies, of doctrine, which on its own _ipse
dixit_ it pronounces to be dangerous, or inexpedient, or inopportune. It
claims that whatever may be the judgment of Catholics upon such acts,
these acts should be received by them with those outward marks of
reverence, submission, and loyalty, which Englishmen, for instance, pay
to the presence of their sovereign, without public criticism upon them,
as being in their matter inexpedient, or in their manner violent or
harsh. And lastly, it claims to have the right of inflicting spiritual
punishment, of cutting off from the ordinary channels of divine life,
and of simply excommunicating those who refuse to submit themselves to
its formal declarations. Such is the infallibility lodged in the
Catholic Church, viewed in the concrete, as clothed and surrounded by
the appendages of its high sovereignty; it is, to repeat what I said
above, a supereminent prodigious power sent upon earth to encounter and
master a giant evil."[B]

Such is the weapon placed by divine power in the hands of the Church for
her conflict with the world. And this being so, the inquiring
Protestant, after realizing its tremendous nature and scope, will draw
back perplexed, imagining that a weight like it would crush the human
intellect. He does this only because he loses sight for the moment of
the terrible power of the earth giant. The human intellect is no baby,
weakening under every stroke; it is a tough, wild, elastic energy,
struggling up in every direction, and is never more itself than when
suffering beneath the blows of heaven. Moreover, its natural tendency is
to explain away every dogma of religious truth, from the lowest to the
highest. In that old pagan world this natural process is to be seen.
Everywhere that human genius opened up a way for itself, and had a
career, the last remnants of primeval truth were well-nigh banished.
Look, too, at the educated intellect of the non-Catholic world to-day.
Genius, talent, eloquence, and art, what are they in England, Germany
and France, if we may not describe them as simply godless? Why is this?

Now turn your gaze on the Middle Ages, and observe the difference. It is
scarcely necessary to say that in those times the Church was
pre-eminent, not only having the spiritual power, but often also the
secular. If she had wished it, she could have crushed out every form of
inquiry, and firmly established herself as the one and only source of
all truth. But she did not do it. Never since the world began were such
daring inquiries set on foot, such subtile propositions offered, such a
vast and varied display of the human intellect in all the departments of
theology. The office she claimed was that of arbiter; and surely nothing
was more reasonable. A man would work out some original view or
deduction; he hoped it was true, but could not be certain; he would put
it forth; it would be taken up by an opponent, come before some
theological authority of minor note, pass on to some university, be
adopted by it and opposed by some other; higher authorities would be
appealed to, and at last the subject would appear before the Holy See.
Then, perhaps, no decision would be made, or a dubious one, or minor
details would be rectified, and so the whole matter sent back for a new
discussion. Years and years would pass before anything like a final
decision would be reached; and then, when every defect had been rubbed
off, and every minute bearing of the matter evolved, the Church would
either reject it, or adopt it, and stamp it with the seal of dogma. I
say this is an epitome of doctrinal development in the Catholic Church.
If there is any one thing more manifest in her ecclesiastical history
than others, it is her extreme slowness and caution in final
pronouncement, and the general wise treatment with which she has
fostered the growth of mental development, so excellent in itself, so
erratic in its courses, and so needful of her strong guiding hand.

Indeed, it has been used as a reproach against her that Rome has
originated nothing. It is true. It was not her function. She was
instituted as the guardian of the Apostolical _depositum_ of faith, over
which, of course, her control was supreme; and her jurisdiction was to
extend over all other subjects, because they necessarily touched this.
But without citing other names, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas
stand forth as the formers of the western intellect. Men saintly in
character they were, but they had no special relations to the central
See, and were only fallible mortals like the rest of their fellows; yet,
as I say, they are to be counted the very originators of modern
Christian thought. Rome did nothing but stamp their teachings with the
seal of her approval. So was it throughout. Her work has been to check
and balance the erratic courses of the human mind, allowing it free play
within certain limits, but firmly preventing its suicidal excesses. How
tenderly has she dealt with schismatics; how forbearing has been her
conduct in regard even to the worst heretics; patiently hearing all they
had to say, allowing the force of their plea where it was possible, and
only casting them out when they proved incorrigible.

Most Protestants suppose that whereas there are two religious principles
at work in Christianity, private judgment, and authority, they have all
the private judgment, while we are weighed down by an unmitigated
authority. Nothing could be more false. This aspect of Christianity is
complete without them; they represent simply a negation, and no positive
force at all. Show me the doctrine that Protestantism has originated,
and it will then deserve to be treated in a philosophical manner. It
has had no innate life, nothing to develop from, and has simply withered
down from the first, until now the advance guard of it has reached the
shadowy ground of natural religion, and Mr. James Antony Froude, its
special champion in its past acts, can write that it is dead. On the
contrary, when I view the external aspect of Catholicism as a whole, I
behold within it the active forces of life at work from the first. The
human intellect is no passive instrument, merely being filled by the
reception of faith, but a living organism, feeling a void in it for
faith when it has it not, and eagerly receiving and digesting it when it
comes. Forthwith it begins a process of development, explaining,
proving, modifying, enlarging, in all the various ways that suit the
multiplicity of man's nature. This process is observable in all times
and places, as the inevitable outcome of civilization. Barbarous nations
do not reason, but receive their religion as an outer cloak; as they
stagnate in all things else, so also in their creeds. Witness the Turks.
Intellectually, morally, religiously, they are the same as they were six
hundred years ago; and unless overthrown from the outside, they will
probably so remain to the end of time. No heresy has arisen amongst
them; no progress in civilization is to be marked; no change even in
decline; for power is relative, and the Moslem empire is weak now only
in comparison with the vigorous young empires of the West. But the
action of civilization is different. Under its influence States are in
constant movement, changing from day to day. The change may be good in
this detail, and bad in that; it may on the whole be for the good, or it
may on the whole be for evil. But what I say is the distinct mark of
civilization, as contrasted with barbarism, is emphatically and simply
change; change, in the natural order, is its law. For the intellect is
alive and vigorous, seizing on everything within its scope, shaping it
by its individual bent, and, hemmed as it is by walls of sense,
naturally rushing into error on every side. These are effects of private
judgment, and they are not less to be seen in the whole Catholic world,
from its beginning until, to-day, than anywhere else; but Catholics have
had a safeguard against the rebellious and suicidal excesses of fallen
reason, and this safeguard is the infallibility of the Church.

The meaning and scope of that infallibility has been given in words
fitter than mine. Viewing the nature of things on the whole, and then
taking it for granted that God has made a revelation, and intended it to
be set up and maintained alongside of and within a civilization anxious
to get rid of it, what more reasonable to be expected than that an
infallible abiding authority should be His human instrument. It is a
thing we should be led to expect if it did not exist; as is fully proved
by Paine's saying about its being written on the sun. How convincingly,
then, is the truth forced home on us, when we do learn that there is an
institution that exactly fulfils our foregone conclusion!

So far as theory goes, the infallibility of the Church can be a burden
to none; so far as actual facts go, it has not demonstrably, to my
knowledge, acted as a damper on intellectual effort, but merely as the
restrainer of its excesses.

I shall be quite candid in giving my views on this inexhaustible
subject, merely letting them stand for what they are worth, and knowing
full well that there are depths in it, as in all things else, not to be
sounded by me. And I shall now go on to state what are the real
difficulties and burdens to me, as to many other Catholics perhaps, in
this doctrine of infallibility; always premising that ten thousand
difficulties do not make one doubt. And here some may be inclined to say
that, as touching the papal headship of it, the evil deeds of many Popes
and their apparently immoral lives, do inevitably tend to throw
discredit on it as being lodged in them. But let all that can be said be
admitted; what then? Why, I answer, David was a man after God's own
heart, and stood nearer to Him as being inspired than any Pope as being
infallible; yet one of God's Prophets could say to him, "Thou art the
man!" The lesson of which is not to judge men's inner lives entirely by
outward facts, as the young and inexperienced are too apt to do. Our
Blessed Lord foretold scandals to come in the very sanctuary of His
dwelling, and we know the doom pronounced upon those by whom they come.
And if we view the action of these individuals in relation to the
Apostolical _depositum_, we can actually draw thence an argument awful
as it is startling. These Popes, so frail as men, were yet wise as the
Vicars of Christ; never have they dared lay hands on the faith committed
to their care.

The difficulty lies in another direction. As has already been explained,
the Church claims infallibility only in matters of faith; but a little
reflection will show us that there are many things not coming directly
under this head yet appertaining to it. In these latter she claims
unquestioning outward obedience at least. Thus she has the right to
determine when any scientific theory or other controversy bears upon
matters of faith, or has a dangerous tendency to do so; also to check
the usurpation of State, when they begin to reach in this direction; and
in the exercise of this prerogative she is not guarded from error. I
have already shown how slow, cautious and gentle, has been her dealing
on the whole with controversies that do relate to faith; much more so
has she been in the kindred but outer domain. Still, to our fallible
reason, it may sometimes appear that she acts hastily and wrongly in
forbidding certain things. She forbids at one epoch what she allows in
another; tacitly withdrawing the former condemnation. This, I repeat,
_is_ a difficulty, and, stated baldly thus, must often perplex even
Catholics.

But let our opponents be as candid as I have been. Let them admit--what
is no more than a fact--that this prerogative of the Church has been
exercised very seldom; and that even on the most of these occasions, the
Church has in the end proved to be in the right, and the supposed martyr
in the wrong. Things are not to be judged simply in themselves, but a
course of events prove them; and there is a season for all matters, and
a season when they are not in order. This right or power is a necessity
to every constituted body of whatever kind. A State, for instance, may
wrongly condemn a man for some offence; but that is no argument against
the State having the right of judging in such matters, even if it must
incur the danger of wrong judgment once more. If this prerogative were
taken from the Church, all outside the simple domain of faith would fall
into a mere chaos. Now, let the man who holds that this would be as it
should be, let him consistently carry out his doctrine into all the
concerns of life, and a hideous chaos would be the result. Has not such
been the result in religious matters outside the Catholic Church? And as
chaos has resulted there from revolt against the constituted authority,
so would it be in society at large, were the theory consistently carried
out. To say that non-infallible exercise of authority should, on account
of occasional error, be resisted and overthrown, is simply suicidal; and
an objection founded on it is no more than an objection founded on the
fact of evil in man's nature, of which it is a necessary part. And into
this bottomless pit of doubt I for one do not purpose to fall.

Let the problem, then, be fully grasped. It is to secure sufficient
liberty and a stable authority. Freedom in itself is a good; but such is
man's fallen nature, that it cannot be enjoyed without a partial
sacrifice of itself, which it yields up to authority. This becomes the
domain of authority, and the two interact on each other. So much is
clear; but conflicts arise, and the precise issue is, not exactly
between the two, but as to where their boundaries meet. We Catholics
believe that we hold the solution in our hands, and I shall now merely
state how I look at it, admitting, of course, that I may be in
incidental error.

The conflict is supposed to lie now between science and the Church.
Well, stated simply I would say, let scientists become theologically
founded, and let theologians become scientists. At first blush this may
sound like a paradox; but it is not. If theologians would honestly
strive to master scientific theories, there would be less danger of
hasty action on their part. Many of them would not stand committed, as
they do, to a condemnation of evolution, while on the other hand it was
not their business to sanction it; and if scientists had not allowed
themselves to become narrow-minded in their studies, they would not have
similarly placed themselves in a false position by trying to make their
legitimate discoveries bear upon matters not within their range. The
point is, that a Catholic, whether scientist or theologian, should not
allow himself to be alarmed by the rash utterances of individuals; but,
conscious of a right purpose and true faith, pursue his track to the
end, knowing that natural truth cannot clash with supernatural; if at
times it appears so, then he knows that this is only temporary, and that
in the end difficulties will clear away. Charity on each side will go a
long way. However, I think the Church has forborne remarkably in these
matters, not committing herself to any precise attitude, but awaiting
the issue of the struggle. No idea could be falser than that the
scientist would hamper himself in submitting to the Church. Quite
otherwise. He would, by this step, secure a central pillar of support,
and thence venturing could go further than any of them now dream of. The
separation of science and the Church is the distinctive evil of the day.
Both would gain, in strength and freedom, by a union, and the progress
of the next century would thus redouble that of this.

HUGH P. MCELRONE.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] Newman's "Apologia," pp. 274, 275.

Honor to the Germans.

Letters from those missionaries in Annam, who have escaped the fate
which has befallen so many of their flocks, agree in charging the
representatives of France with a negligence, which, under the
circumstances, assumes the very gravest aspect. Père Dourisboure, for
instance, writing from the Seminary at Saïgon, where he has taken
refuge, declares that the presence of French vessels at some of the
ports, and the firing of a few shots without hurting any one, would have
been the means of saving the lives of some thirty thousand Christians,
and securing their homes and possessions against injury. Formerly, he
says, the mandarins contented themselves with putting missionaries and
the leading converts to death; but this time, the persecution and hatred
of France, rather than of Christianity, has been the cause of what can
only be called a war of extermination, and France has done nothing for
those who have suffered for their supposed loyalty to her. When the news
of the massacre at Qui-Nhon, where there were seven thousand Christians,
reached Mgr. van Camelbeke, he at once requested the commandant of the
_Lyon_, which was lying at that port, to see to the safety of Father
Auger and Father Guitton; but that officer replied that his instructions
would not allow him to fire a single shot in defence of the missionaries
or the native Christians, and all representations and entreaties on the
subject proved ineffectual. In this difficulty aid came from an
unlooked-for quarter. Deserted by their own countrymen, the missionaries
applied to the captain of a German merchantman, which was in the port,
and the request being acceded to, two of the Fathers and five German
sailors rowed ashore, armed to the teeth, to arrange for the escape of
as many Christians as possible. They were met by three mandarins, one of
whom was the bitterest enemy of the Christians. These the sailors
captured and put in irons on board their vessel, and secure in the
possession of these hostages, they proceeded to bring off some seven
hundred Christians, the utmost number which the ship could contain,
forcing the natives to assist in the work. One of the mandarins was then
sent ashore charged with a message that any act of violence against the
Christians would be visited upon the two who remained in the custody of
the Germans. Père Dourisboure's narrative ceases with the safe arrival
of the seven hundred Christians at Saïgon; but we may well hope that the
brave Protestant sailors on their return to Qui-Nhon found that their
device had proved effectual.

* * * * *

A WRITER in the _New York Commercial_ gives facts and figures to prove
that there is no quarter of the globe so much in need of missionary
enterprise as New England. The Puritans have ceased to be a churchgoing
people.

Vindication.

From the German of Reinick.

"Why lingerest here in the greenwood,
All day in a childish dream,
Toying with leaves and flowers,
Watching the wavelets gleam,
While a world grown old and hoary
With the spirit of change is rife,
And the outworn past and the present
Are grappling in deadly strife?"

Still here will I dwell in quiet,
Tho' without the tempests rave;
And while all things reel and totter,
Will seek me an oaken stave,
Plucked from a tree that has weathered
The storms against it hurled,
While into the dust are crumbling
The props that uphold the world.

Yes, I'll choose this silent garden
Tho' around me deserts lie,
And bask in the ancient glories
Of earth and sea and sky.
While alone on dark thoughts of ruin
Your pulseless bosoms brood,
I'll build me a bower of roses,
And rejoice in my solitude.

"Rejoice! Verily we've forgotten
The sound of so strange a word;
Nowadays notes of scorn and anger
May well in youth's songs be heard;
For the woes of our earthly existence
Should find a voice in your rhyme,
Since the word of the poet is ever
The mirror of his time."

No, no, in the heart of the poet
Can no scornful spirit live--
He is wroth at human baseness,
Can over the sorrows grieve
That round this old earth are woven
Like some fateful web of doom,
And he weeps that bright gleams of radiance
So seldom pierce the gloom.

But whenever a ray out-flashes,
Drink it in with heart and mind,
And a hopeful premonition
Of the future in it find:--
Rejoice, when the sun is shining!
Joy purifies the breast,
And whoso with pure heart rejoiceth,
Even here below is blest!

"What! you believe in the bliss of Heaven
In a happiness yet to be?
Your faith, like your other emotions,
Is mere childish fantasy.
Remain as you have been ever,
A child from your very birth,
Unworthy with men to hold counsel
On the woes and the welfare of earth."

Yes, I believe in the word of promise,
I believe in each holy word,
In the power that clothes the lily,
And that feeds the nestling bird;
"Be like unto children, of such is
God's Kingdom." Ah! well, in sooth,
If all were as little children
In purity and in truth!

To the weal and the woe of the nations
I do not seal my breast,
Tho' my Motherland is dearer
To me than all the rest.
If to fold universal being,
'Neath its wings the mind aspires,
Still the heart needs narrower limits
For the growth of its sacred fires.

REV. JOHN COSTELLO.

* * * * *

JULES JANIN, a witty French writer, nicknamed lobsters "Naval
Cardinals." He probably imagined that lobsters in the sea are as red as
they are when served on our tables or placed in the windows of our
fishmonger's shops. Curiously enough sailors call the ships used to
carry our red-coated soldiers from one part of the world to another,
lobster-boxes.

Tracadie and the Trappists.

The flourishing village of Tracadie, in the county of Antigonish,
Eastern Nova Scotia, well sustains for its French inhabitants, the
prestige, as industrious husbandmen, which their ancestors'
contemporaries established in Western Nova Scotia--the land sung of by
Longfellow in his "Evangeline;" and the much-vaunted superiority of the
Anglo-Saxon, reads like a melancholy sarcasm, in the face of the fact
that the lands from which the inoffensive Acadians were mercilessly
hunted, are, to-day, far, very far, removed from the teeming fertility,
which charmed the land-pirates in the last century. Simple-minded folks
are wont to say, that the lands of the dispersed Acadians, languish
under a curse, nor need we, of necessity, dissent from this theory, if
we consider the manifestation of the curse to be shown, in a lack of
skill, or industry--or mayhap both--in the descendants of those who
profited by that infamous transaction. Certain it is, that these lands
are now much less fertile than of yore.

Arriving at Tracadie, as we drive from the Eastern Extension Railway
Station, we notice as a curious coincidence of alliteration, the sign,--

+-------------------+
| HALF-WAY HOUSE. |
| H. H. HARRINGTON. |
+-------------------+

and remark that with the super-addition of "_Halt Here_," the signboard
would be an unique curiosity.

Leaving the hospitable farmhouse of Mr. DeLorey, on a bright October
Sunday, after hearing Mass in the neat and commodious parish church
dedicated to St. Peter, a pleasant drive of three miles, bring us to the
Trappist Monastery of _Our Lady of Petit Clairvaux_, the buildings of
which are of brick, and form a quadrangle, of which one side has yet to
be erected.

Ringing the porter's bell we are admitted and handed over to Brother
Richard, the genial and amiable guest master, who is most assiduous in
his attentions to us.

The monastery was founded as a Priory, early in the present century by
Father Vincent, a native of France, and was raised to the dignity of an
abbey nine years ago, when the present Abbot, Father Dominic, was
consecrated. The community at present number thirty-seven, of whom
sixteen are priests and choir-religious, the remaining twenty-one being
lay brothers; the monks being chiefly Belgians, with a few from
Montreal, and a few from this vicinity.

The abbey is surrounded by four hundred acres of land, tolerably
fertile, though rough in part, and has excellent limestone quarries--the
monks burning as much as one hundred barrels of lime at once in their
kiln; they also manufacture all the bricks required for the multifarious
works which are incessantly in progress. Their domain is well watered
by a stream upon which the indefatigable monks have had a mill erected.
At the date of our visit, they had just finished a new dam composed of
immense blocks of limestone, and had almost completed a new and larger
mill--to supersede the old one--and which in addition to the ordinary
grist grinding will also be utilized, simultaneously, for carding,
sawing boards, and sawing shingles. The new mill has dimensions of 150 x
40 ft., and the main barn 220 x 40 ft. The latter building now
accommodates fifty heads of horned cattle, including some Jersey
thoroughbreds and Durhams and six horses. We were also shown some
Berkshire thoroughbred pigs, enormous, unwieldy brutes, one rather
youthful porker being estimated to weigh nearly six hundred pounds.

The monks make a large quantity of butter, all the year round, the sale
of which forms an important item of their revenue. The abbey has made
its repute all through the surrounding country, and it is scarcely
possible to over-estimate the benefit of this _model_ farm to the
inhabitants of adjacent lands; combining as it does the latest
improvements in agriculture with the untiring industry of the Trappist
Monk. For several years, their grist-mill was the only one for a great
distance, and even now wheat is brought in, for grinding, from a radius
of fifteen miles.

The monks contain among themselves all the trades necessary to their
well-ordered community, _ex-gr_ two blacksmiths, two tailors, two
millers, a baker, shoemaker, and doctor, not forgetting the wonderful
Brother Benedict, who is at once architect, carpenter, mason and
clockmaker. In the last-mentioned capacity his ingenui

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