The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872
by Various · English · Gutenberg #48889 · 2,955,175 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872
Author: Various
Release date: May 6, 2015 [eBook #48889]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48889
Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Carol Brown, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CATHOLIC WORLD, VOL. 14, OCTOBER 1871-MARCH 1872 ***
[Transcriber's Note:
This text includes characters that require UTF-8 (Unicode) file
encoding:
œ (oe ligature)
Καλὴ δὲ καὶ ἡ τῶν Αὐσκίων (Greek)
“ ” (curly quotes)
° (temperature degree sign)
If any of these characters do not display properly or if the
apostrophes and quotation marks appear as garbage, make sure your text
reader’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8).
You may also need to change the default font.
Additional notes are at the end of the book.]
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
A
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
VOL. XIV.
OCTOBER, 1871, TO MARCH, 1872.
NEW YORK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE,
9 Warren Street.
1872.
JOHN ROSS & COMPANY,
PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS,
27 ROSE ST., NEW YORK.
CONTENTS.
Affirmations, 682
Afternoon at St. Lazare, An, 683
Air, Travels in the, 757
American Catholic Bishops, Clarke’s Lives of the, 562
Arcueil, The Martyrs of, 613
Association, The International, 694
Authority in Matters of Faith, 145
Catholic Libraries, On, 707
Catholicity and Pantheism, 376, 830
Chateau Regnier, 520
Christianity and Positivism, 1
Civilization, Egyptian, According to the Most Recent
Discoveries, 63
Clarke’s Lives of the American Catholic Bishops, 562
Color--Its Poetry and Prose, 279
Cooper’s An Englishman in China, 322
Cosmic Philosophy, The, 633
Craven’s Fleurange, 651, 813
Döllinger Scandal, The, 248
Duties of the Rich in Christian Society, The, 577, 753
Egyptian Civilization According to the Most Recent Discoveries, 63
Elements of our Nationality, The, 91
Elinor’s Trial, 790
Englishman in China, An, 322
Executive Document No. 37; or, Several Calumnies Refuted, 665
Faber, Dr., The Princeton Review on, 400
Faith, Authority in Matters of, 145
Fleurange, 651, 813
Foxvilles of Foxville, The, 604
_Fraction du Centre_ in the German Parliament, The, 269
France, Recent Events in, 289
Gambetta, M., Letter of Mgr. Dupanloup to, 849
Ghost Story of the Revolution, A, 261
God is our Aid, 364
History, The New School of, 549
Holy Father, On the Present Condition of the, 777
House of Yorke, The, 16, 158, 305, 473, 582, 738
International Association, The, 694
Island of Saints, The, 335
Lake George, A Week at, 78
La Roquette, The Place Vendôme and, 127, 233, 347
Lasserre’s Our Lady of Lourdes, 100
Lateau, Louise, The Stigmata and Ecstasies of, 171
Late General Convention of the P. E. Church, 506
La Vendée, One Christmas Eve in, 447
Leper of the City of Aosta, The, 767
Letter of Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, to M. Gambetta, 849
Liquefaction of the Blood of St. Januarius, The, 32, 200, 391, 526
Lourdes, Our Lady of, 100
Lucas Garcia, 49, 189
Maistre’s Leper of the City of Aosta, 767
Mammoth Cave, A Visit to, 621
Martyrs of Arcueil, The, 613
Modern Opera, 415
Nationality, The Elements of Our, 91
New School of History, The, 549
On Catholic Libraries, 707
On the Present Condition of the Holy Father, 777,
One Christmas Eve in La Vendée, 447
Opera, Modern, 415
Our Lady of Lourdes, 100
Owen on Spiritism, 803
Pantheism, Catholicity and, 376
Papal Infallibility, Popular Objections to, 597
Philosophy, The Cosmic, 633
Place Vendôme, The, and La Roquette, 127, 233, 347
Poetry and Prose of Color, 279
Popular Objections to Papal Infallibility, 597
Positivism, Christianity and, 1
Princeton Review on Dr. Faber, 400
Protestant Episcopal Church, Late General Convention of the, 506
Protestant Rule of Faith, The, 488
Recent Events in France, 289
Religious Movement in Germany, and the _Fraction du Centre_
in the German Parliament, 269
Revolution, A Ghost Story of the, 261
Rich, Duties of the, 577, 753
Riot of the Twelfth, The, 117
Rome, St. Cecilia’s Day in, 646
Rule of Faith, The Protestant, 488
St. Cecilia’s Day in Rome, 646
St. Januarius, Liquefaction of the Blood of, 32, 200, 391, 526
St. Lazare, An Afternoon at, 683
Saints, The Island of, 335
Several Calumnies Refuted, 665
Spiritism, Owen on, 803
Stigmata, The, and Ecstasies of Louise Lateau, 171
Study of Sacred History, 421
Thoughts for the Women of the Times, 467
Travels in the Air, 757
Uncivil Journal, An, 721
Valentine, 214
Venite Adoremus, 557
Visit to Mammoth Cave, A, 621
Week at Lake George, A, 78
Who is to Educate Our Children?, 433
Women of Our Times, Thoughts for the, 467
Yorke, The House of, 16, 158, 305, 473, 582, 738
POETRY.
Annunciation, The, 812
Bethlehem, 487
Broad School, The, 525
Convert, A, 30
Dante’s Purgatorio (New Translation), 503
Evening Clouds, 15
Ever, 472
Epiphany, Our, 632
Lamartine’s The Wayside Spring (Translation), 213
Last Days of Oisin, The Bard, 845
Legends of Oisin, The, 185, 343
Limitation, 414
Martyrdom of St. Agnes, The, 828
Memory, A, 304
Mountain, The, 278
New Outspoken Style, The, 596
Our Epiphany, 632
Purgatorio, Dante’s (New Translation), 503
St. Agnes, The Martyrdom of, 828
True Faith, 232
Uhland’s Evening Clouds (Translation), 15
Veiled, 620
Wayside Spring, The, 213
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
American Home Book of In-Door Games, Amusements, and
Occupations, 720
Antidote to “Gates Ajar,” 572
Arians of the Fourth Century, The, 857
Augustine, Aurelius, Works of, 281
Bayle’s Pearl of Antioch, 719
Benni’s Tradition of the Syriac Church of Antioch, 428
Beecher’s Life of Jesus the Christ, 428
Biographical Sketch of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan, 143
Brightley’s Leading Cases on the Law of Elections, 431
Catholic Directory, Almanac, and Ordo, Sadliers’, 1872, 720
Catholic Choir, Peters’s, 283
Catholic Family Almanac, Illustrated, 284
Cineas; or, Rome under Nero, 429
Collection of Leading Cases on the Law of Elections in the
U. S., 431
Congregation of St. Paul, Sermons by the Fathers of, 576, 716
Critical Greek and English Concordance of the New Testament, 286
Curci’s Taking of Rome by the Italian Army, 718
Dahlgren, Ulric, Memoir of, 859
Doane’s Passion Play, 576
East and West Poems, 575
Essays Critical and Historical, 427
Florence O’Neill, 718
Formby’s Pictorial Bible and Church History Stories, 284
Fourfold Sovereignty of God, 427
Four Great Evils of the Day, 286
Gates Ajar, Antidote to, 572
Graduale de Tempore et de Sanctis, 287
Grand Demonstration in Honor of the XXVth Anniversary of the
Election of Pius IX., 287
Hallahan, Mother Margaret Mary, Biographical Sketch of, 143
Harte’s East and West Poems, 575
Harsha’s Life of John Bunyan, 287
Hastings and Hudson’s Greek and English Concordance of the
New Testament, 286
Hewit’s Light in Darkness, 282
Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits, 144
Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac, 284
Japan in Our Day, 720
Johonnot’s School Houses, 143
Julia, Life of Mother, 285
Lenten Sermons, 860
Letters of Mme. de Sévigné, 430
Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 430
Life of Card. Howard, 715
Life of Jesus the Christ, 428
Life of John Bunyan, 287
Life of Mother Julia, 285
Light in Darkness, 282
Lord’s Prophetic Imperialism, 574
Macaronic Poetry, 717
McCorry’s Mount Benedict, 144
Manning’s Fourfold Sovereignty of God, 42
Manning’s Four Great Evils of the Day, 286
Manual of Piety, 288
Martyrs of the Coliseum, 288
Memoir of Ireland, A, 719
Meehan’s Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries, 719
Montagu’s Letters, 430
Montalembert’s Monks of the West, 283
Morgan’s Macaronic Poetry, 717
Mount Benedict; or, The Violated Tomb, 144
Newman’s Arians of the Fourth Century, 857
Newman’s Essays Critical and Historical, 427
Nieremberg’s Of Adoration in Spirit and Truth, 143
O’Connell’s Memoir of Ireland, 719
O’Reilly’s Martyrs of the Coliseum, 288
Of Adoration in Spirit and Truth, 143
Palmer’s Life of Card. Howard, 715
Pearl of Antioch, The, 719
Peters’s Catholic Choir, 283
Pictorial Bible and Church History Stories, 284
Pius IX., Grand Demonstration in Honor of the Election of, 287
Preston’s The Vicar of Christ, 571
Prisoners of St. Lazare, The, 573
Prophetic Imperialism, 574
Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries, 719
Rose’s Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits, 144
Sadliers’ Catholic Directory, Almanac, and Ordo, 1872, 720
St. Lazare, The Prisoners of, 573
School-Houses, 143
Segneri’s Lenten Sermons, 860
Sermons by the Fathers of the Congregation of St. Paul, 576, 716
Sévigné’s Letters, 430
Smith’s American Home Book, 720
Spouse of Christ, The, 860
Stewart’s Florence O’Neill, 718
Taking of Rome by the Italian Army, 718
Taylor’s Japan in Our Day, 720
The Internationale--Communism, 859
Tissandier’s Wonders of Water, 720
To and From the Passion Play, 576
Tradition of the Syriac Church of Antioch, 428
Vessels of the Sanctuary, The, 860
Vicar of Christ, The, 571
Villefranch’s Cineas, 429
Wonders of Water, 720
Works of Aurelius Augustine, 281
THE 1
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XIV., No. 79.--OCTOBER, 1871.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
REV. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington, D. C.
CHRISTIANITY AND POSITIVISM.[1]
Dr. McCosh had acquired a considerable reputation among Presbyterians
in his own country and ours, by several philosophico-theological works
he had published, before he was invited to become the president of the
New Jersey College at Princeton, one of the most distinguished
literary institutions of the Union. It had an able president, also a
Scotsman, in Dr. Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration,
and a devoted champion of American independence, and, though a
Presbyterian, a sturdy defender of civil and religious liberty. Dr.
McCosh comes to the presidency of the college with a high literary and
philosophical reputation, and comes under many advantages, and its
friends expect him to contribute much to raise still higher its
character, and place it on a level with Harvard and Yale, perhaps even
above them.
There is some ability and considerable knowledge displayed in the
volume of lectures before us, though not much originality. The author
professes to take the side of Christianity against the false and
mischievous theories of such men as Sir William Hamilton, of
Edinburgh, J. Stuart Mill, Huxley, Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and
others, whom he classes as belonging to the Positivist school. We have
every disposition in the world to think and speak well of the volume,
and to give it full credit for every merit it may claim. It is
directed against our enemy even more than against his. Positivism is
the most open, frank, honest, and respectable antagonist Christianity
or Catholicity has had in modern times, and, we may add, the ablest
and the most logical, especially as represented by avowed Positivists.
In fighting against us, positivism fights against our Presbyterian
doctor, so far as he retains any element of Catholic truth, and there
is no good reason why his war against it should not tend as far as it
goes to the same end as ours. Positivism can be opposed and 2
Christianity defended only on Catholic ground; and so far as Dr.
McCosh really does either, he must assume our ground and serve in our
ranks, or at any rate be on our side; and it would be churlish in us
to reject or underrate his services because in certain other matters
he is against us, or is not enrolled in our ranks.
It is certain that in these lectures, which show marks of much hard
mental labor, the author has said many good things, and used some good
arguments; but having truth only in a mutilated form, and only his
private judgment to oppose to the private judgment of Positivists, he
has been unable to give a full and conclusive refutation of
positivism. As a Protestant trained in Protestant schools, he has no
clear, well-defined catholic principles to which he can refer the
particular truths he advances, and the special arguments he urges for
their unity and support. His book lacks unity, lacks the mental grasp
that comprehends in its unity and universality the whole subject,
under all its various aspects, or in its principle, on which it
depends, and which explains and justifies it. His book is a book of
particulars, of details, of general conclusions drawn from particular
facts and statements, like all Protestant books. This is not so much
the fault of the author perhaps as of his Protestantism, which, since
it rejects catholicity and has nothing universal, is essentially
illogical, and can deal only in particulars or with individual things.
The contents of the book are referred to no general principle, and the
particular conclusions drawn are of little value, because isolated,
each standing by itself instead of being reduced to its principle and
co-ordinated under its law. The author lacks the conception of unity
and universality; he has particulars, but no universals--variety, but
no identity--multiplicity, but no unity, except in words. This is a
great defect, and renders his work inconclusive as an argument, and
exceedingly tedious to the reader as well as the reviewer. This defect
runs all through the author’s philosophy. In his _Intuitions of the
Mind_, there is no unity of intuition, but a variety of isolated
intuitions--no intuition of principle, of the universal, but simply
intellectual apprehension of supersensible particulars, as in _The
Human Intellect_ of Prof. Porter, who is a far abler man than Dr.
McCosh.
We are utterly unable to analyze these lectures, reduce their
deliverances to a universal principle, which, if accepted, is decisive
of the whole controversy they attempt to settle, or if rejected proves
the whole worthless. Then we complain of the author for the indignity
he offers to Christianity by suffering the Positivists to put it on
the defensive, and in attempting to prove it against positivism.
Christianity is in possession, and is not called upon to defend her
right till strong reasons are adduced for ousting her. Consequently,
it is for those who would oust her to prove their case, to make good
their cause. The Christian controversialist at this late day does not
begin with an apology or defence of Christianity, but attacks those
who assail her, and puts them on their defence. It is for the
scientists, or Positivists, who oppose the Christian religion, to
prove their positivism or science. It is enough for the Christian to
show that the positivism or alleged science is not itself proven, or,
if proven, that it proves nothing against Christ and his church. Dr.
McCosh seems to have some suspicion of this, and occasionally attempts
to put positivism on its defence, but he does it without laying down 3
the principle which justifies it; and in doing it he renders it
useless, by immediately running away after some pet speculation of his
own, which gives his opponent ample opportunity to resume the
offensive.
Dr. McCosh, also, more than half agrees with the Positivists, and
concedes that the religious society, as such, has no right to judge of
the bearings of the conclusions of the scientists on religion. “All
this shows,” he says, pp. 5, 6, “that religious men _qua_
religious men are not to be allowed to decide for us the truths of
science. Conceive an Œcumenical Council at Rome, or an Assembly of
Divines at Westminster, or an Episcopal Convocation at Lambeth, or a
Congregational Council at Plymouth, or a Methodist Conference in
Connecticut (why not say Baltimore?) taking upon it to decide for or
against the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, or the grand doctrine
established in our day of the conservation of force and the
correlation of all the physical forces, on the ground of their being
favorable or unfavorable to religion!” This concedes to the
Positivists that science is independent of religion, and that religion
is to be accepted or rejected as it does or does not accord with
science, and wholly overlooks the fact that religion is the first
science, and that nothing can be true, scientifically or otherwise,
that is contrary or unfavorable to religion. Religion is the word of
God, and every religious man says with the inspired apostle, “Let God
be true, and every man a liar.”
Dr. McCosh, of course, cannot say this, for, having no infallible
authority to define what is or is not religious truth or the word of
God, he is obliged to place religion in the category of opinions which
may or may not be true, and therefore to deny it as the law for all
intelligences. Supposing God has appointed an authority, infallible
through his gracious assistance, to teach all men and nations his
religion, or the truth he has revealed, and the law he commands all to
obey, this authority must be competent to decide whether any alleged
scientific discoveries are or are not favorable to religion, and must
necessarily have the right to decide prior to all scientific
investigation. If this authority decides that this or that theory is
unfavorable to religion, we as religious men must pronounce it false,
and refuse to entertain it. Dr. McCosh, as a Presbyterian or
Protestant, would have no right to say so, but the Catholic would have
the right, and it is his duty to say so; because religion is
absolutely true, and the supreme law for reason as well as for
conscience, and what is or is not religion, the authority unerringly
decides for him. Nothing that is not in accordance with the teachings
of religion can be true in science any more than in religion itself,
though many things may be true that are not in accordance with the
opinions and theories held by religious men.
The moment the Christian allows that the authority is not catholic;
that it is limited and covers only one part of truth; and that there
is by its side another and an independent authority, another and
independent order of truth, he ceases to be able to meet successfully
the Positivists; for truth is one, and can never be in opposition to
truth--that is, in opposition to itself. Religion, we concede, does
not teach the sciences, or the various facts with which they are
constructed, but it does judge and pronounce authoritatively on the
inferences or conclusions scientific men draw from these facts, or the
explanations they give of them, and to decide whether they are or are 4
not consistent with her own teachings. If they are inconsistent with
the revealed word, or with what that word implies, she pronounces them
false; and, if warranted by the alleged facts, she pronounces the
alleged facts themselves to be misinterpreted, misapprehended,
misstated, or to be no facts. Her authority is higher than any
reasonings of men, than the authority even of the senses, if it comes
to that, for nothing is or can be more certain than that religion is
true. We cannot as Catholics, as Christians, make the concession to
the Positivists the Presbyterian doctor does, that their science is an
authority independent of religion, and not amenable to it.
Dr. McCosh, we think, is unwise, in a controversy with Positivists, in
separating natural theology, as he calls it, from revealed theology.
The two are only parts of one whole, and, in point of fact, although
distinguishable, have never existed separately at any epoch of
history. The existence of God, the immateriality of the soul, and the
liberty of man or free-will, are provable with certainty by reason,
and are therefore truths of philosophy, but they were not discovered
by unassisted reason or the unassisted exercise of our natural powers
before they were taught to our first parents by the Creator himself,
and have never been held as simple natural truths, unconnected with
supernatural instruction or some reminiscences of such instruction.
Natural theology, or philosophy, and revealed theology form one
indissoluble whole, and Christianity includes both in their unity and
catholicity. In defending Christianity against positivism, which
denies both, we should defend both as a whole; because the natural is
incomplete and unable of itself alone to satisfy the demands of
reason, which is never sufficient for itself; and the truths necessary
to complete it and to solve the objections to the being and providence
of God are not obtainable by reason alone or without the light of
revelation. We may assert and prove miracles as a fact, but the
objections of Positivists to them cannot be scientifically answered
till we have proved that they have their law in the supernatural
order. The inferences we draw from miracles will not be appreciated or
allowed by men who deny the supernatural and reduce God to nature.
The author in reality has no method, but he begins by attempting to
prove the being of God, then the existence of mind in man, and the
reality of knowledge, and finally, in the second part, that the life
of Christ was the life of a real personage, and proves the reality of
his religion. He offers only one argument to prove that God is, and
that is the well-known argument from design, which he bases on the
principle that every effect has its cause. He does not develop this
argument, which has been so fully done by Paley and the _Bridgewater
Treatises_, but simply asserts its sufficiency. There are marks of
design in adapting one thing to another throughout the universe, which
can be only the effect of the action of an intelligent designer.
Giving this argument all possible force, it does not carry the author
in his conclusion beyond Plato or Aristotle, neither of whom was
properly a theist. Plato and Aristotle both believed in an intelligent
mind in the universe, operating on an eternal uncreated matter,
forming all things from pre-existing materials, and arranging them in
an artistic order. The argument from design can go no farther, and
this is all that is proved by Paley’s illustration of the watch, which 5
would be no illustration at all to a mind that had no intuition or
conception of a designer. Neither Plato nor Aristotle had any
conception of a creator or supermundane God. Whether the intelligent
mind has created all things from nothing, or has only formed and
disposed all things from pre-existing matter, as the soul of the
world, _anima mundi_, is what can never be determined by any
induction from the alleged marks of design discoverable in the
universe.
We therefore hold, and have always held, that this famous argument,
the only one the Baconian philosophy admits, however valuable it may
be in proving or illustrating the attributes or perfections of God,
when God is once known to exist, is inconclusive when relied on alone
to prove that God is, or is that by which the mind first obtains the
idea. It may serve as a corroborative argument, but of itself alone it
cannot originate the idea in the mind, or carry one beyond an
intelligent soul of the world, or the pantheism of Plato and
Aristotle, and of all Gentile philosophy, except the school of
Leucippus and Democritus, followed as to physics by Epicurus--unless
we must also except the sceptics, Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus. We
think, therefore, the author has damaged the cause of Christianity,
instead of serving it, by risking it on a single argument, by no means
conclusive to his purpose. A weak and inadequate defence is worse than
no defence at all.
The principle that every effect has a cause, on which the author bases
his argument, is no doubt true; but we must know that the fact is an
_effect_ before we can infer from it that it has or has had a cause.
Cause and effect are correlative terms, which connote one another;
but this is no proof that this or that fact is an _effect_; and
we cannot pronounce it an effect unless we know that it has begun to
exist; nor even then, unless we have the intuition of cause; and no
intuition even of a particular cause suffices, unless we have
intuition of a universal cause. It is not so simple a thing, then, to
pronounce a given fact an _effect_, and to conclude that there is
between it and something else, the relation of cause and effect. It is
precisely this relation that Hume, Kant, Thomas Browne, Sir William
Hamilton, Dr. Mansel, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, Huxley, Herbert
Spencer, and all the so-called Positivists deny or relegate to the
region of the unknowable. Dr. McCosh does not refute them, by assuming
and arguing from the principle; he simply begs the question.
Now, we venture to tell our learned and philosophic author that his
whole argument for natural theology falls to the ground before a mind
that has no intuition of the relation of cause and effect, that is not
previously furnished with the knowledge of design and of a designing
cause. Hence, from the alleged marks of design and adaptation of means
to ends, it is impossible to infer a designer. When the watch was
presented for the first time to the untutored savage, he looked upon
it as a living thing, not as a piece of artificial mechanism
constructed by a watchmaker. He must know that it is a piece of
artificial mechanism before he can conclude man has made it. There
falls under our observation no more perfect adaptation of means to
ends than the octagonal cell of the bee. Does the bee work by design
in constructing it? Does the beaver work by design, by intelligent
design, in building its dam and constructing its house? It is generally 6
held that the bee as well as the beaver works by instinct, or by a law
of its nature, as does the swallow in building its nest. This proves
that a designer cannot be inferred from the simple facts observed in
nature, as the Positivists maintain. This is the condemnation of the
so-called inductive philosophy. The induction, to be valid, must be by
virtue of a principle already held by the mind, intuitively or
otherwise, and therefore can never of itself supply or give its
principle, or by itself alone obtain its principle. God is not an
induction from the facts observed in nature; and the Positivists have
shown, demonstrated so much, and have therefore shown that observation
and induction alone can give no principle, and, therefore, end in
nescience--the termination of the so-called _philosophie positive_.
Dr. McCosh is not wholly insensible to this conclusion, and seeks to
escape it by proving that there is a mind in man endowed with the
capacity of knowing things as they are. But if the existence of the
mind needs to be proved, with what can we prove it? By consciousness,
the author answers; but that is a sheer paralogism, for consciousness
is simply an act of the mind, and presupposes it. God can no more be
an induction from the facts of consciousness than from the facts of
nature. In either case, the God induced is a generalization; in the
one case, the generalization of nature, and, in the other, the
generalization of consciousness. The former usually goes by the name
of atheism, the latter by the name of egoism.
Dr. McCosh very properly rejects Hamilton’s and Mansel’s doctrine of
the pure relativity of all knowledge, and Herbert Spencer’s doctrine
that all knowledge is restricted to the knowledge of phenomena or
appearances, though conceding that appearances are unthinkable without
a reality beyond them, but that the reality beyond them, and which
appears in them, is itself unknowable; and maintains truly that we
know things themselves, both sensibles and supersensibles. We know
them, he contends, by intuition, or a direct looking on or beholding
them by the simple intellectual force of our minds. Of this we are not
so certain, for we do not ourselves know by intuition why salt is
bitter and sugar sweet, and we think the doctor knows things
themselves only in so far as he excepts their essence or substance,
and confounds the thing with its properties, or its accidents, as say
the schoolmen, in which case he makes no appreciable advance on Mr.
Herbert Spencer. I know the appearances and the sensible properties of
bread, but I do not know its essence or substance. Has the
Presbyterian doctor, who seems to have a holy horror of Catholicity,
invented a philosophy for the express purpose of combating with
apparent reason the mystery of transubstantiation, by making it
conflict with the positive testimony of the senses and the human
intellect?
But let that pass. The intuition the doctor recognizes is empirical
intuition, and intuition of particular or individual things, not of
principles, causes, relations. And from the knowledge of those
individual things, he holds that man rises by generalization and
abstraction--that is, induction--from one degree of knowledge to
another, till he finally attains to the knowledge of God distinct from
the world, and clothes him with infinite perfections. Yet the good
doctor claims to be a philosopher, and enjoys a high reputation as
such. None of these individual things, nor all of them together, are
God, or contain him; how, then, from them, supposing you know them, 7
rise scientifically to him? and what by abstraction and generalization
is that to which the mind attains? Only their generalization or
abstraction, which as a creation of the mind is a nullity. He, like
Hamilton, in this would make philosophy end in nescience.
We, of course, hold that we apprehend and know things themselves, not
phenomena merely, and as they are, not as they are not--that is, in
their real relations, not to us only, but in the objective world. But
to know things as they are, in their real objective relations, or to
know them at all, demands intuition of them, in their contingency or
in their character of creatures or effects--that is to say, as
existences, not as independent, self-existent beings, which they are
not. And this is not possible without the intuition of the necessary,
of real being, on which they depend and from which they are derived.
When I say a thing is an effect, I say it has been caused, and
therefore, in order to say it, I must have intuition of cause; and if
I say of a thing that it is a particular cause, I deny that it is a
universal cause, which I could not do without the intuition of
universal cause. So when I say of a thing it is contingent, I simply
deny it to be necessary being, and I could not deny a thing to be
necessary being if I had no intuition of necessary being. If the
author means by abstracting and generalizing our knowledge of things
or individual existence, distinguishing this ideal intuition, or the
intuition of real necessary and universal being--what philosophers
sometimes call necessary ideas--from the intuition of things or
contingent existences, along with which it is presented in thought, and
as the necessary condition of our apprehending them, and by reflection
and contemplation ascertaining that this ideal, necessary and
universal, is really God, though not intuitively known to be God, we
do not object to the assertion that we rise from our knowledge of
things to the knowledge of God himself. What we deny is that God can
be concluded from the intuition or apprehension of things. We rise to
him from the ideal intuition, or intuition of the real and necessary,
which enters the mind with the intuition of the things, and without
which we never do or could have intuition of them, any more than they
could exist without the creative act of real and necessary being
creating them from nothing and sustaining them in existence; but it
needs to be disengaged by a mental process from the empirical
intuition with which it is presented.
This ideal intuition is not immediate and direct intuition of God, as
the pseudo-ontologists contend, and which the church has condemned;
but is intuition under the form of necessary, universal, eternal, and
immutable ideas--of that which the mind, by reasoning, reflection, and
contemplation, proves really is God. What misleads the author and so
many others who use the argument he uses, is that the intuition of
real and necessary being, and the intuition of contingencies, are
given both in the same thought, the one along with the other, and most
minds fail to distinguish them--which is done, according to St.
Thomas, by the _intellectus agens_, in distinction from the
passive or receptive intellect--and hence they suppose that they
conclude the ideal intuition from the empirical intuition. This is
decidedly the case with Dr. McCosh. The learned doctor admits
intuitions, but only intuitions of individual existences--what we
call empirical intuitions--whether causes or effects, not intuition of 8
the ideal; and hence his argument for the existence of God proves
nothing, for the universal is not derivable from the particular, the
necessary from the contingent, nor being from existences. Had he
recognized that along with, as its necessary condition, the intuition
of the particular there always is the intuition of the universal,
etc., he would have placed theology against positivism on an
impregnable foundation. The necessary ideas, the universal, the
eternal, the immutable, the necessary, connoted in all our thoughts,
cannot be simply abstractions, for abstractions have no existence _a
parte rei_, and are formed by the mind operating on the concrete
object of empirical intuition. As these ideas are objects of
intuition, they are real; and if real, they are either being or
existences. But no existences are or can be necessary, universal,
eternal, immutable, for they depend to be on another, as is implied in
the very word existence, from _ex-stare_. Then they must be being,
and identifiable in the one universal, eternal, real, and necessary
being, and distinguishable from existences or things, as the creator
from his creatures, the actor from the act.
We have said that the ideal intuition is not intuition of God, but of
that which is God; we say now that the ideal intuition is not formally
intuition of _ens_ or being, as erroneously supposed by some to
be maintained by Gioberti and Dr. Brownson, but of that which is
_ens_. The process of demonstrating that God is consists in
identifying, by reflection and reasoning, the necessary ideas or ideal
intuition with real, necessary, universal, eternal, and immutable
being, and real and necessary being in which they are all identified
with God. This process is demonstration, not intuition. When I say, in
the syllogism, the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises, I
have intuition of the necessary, else I could not say it; but I have
not intuition of the fact that the necessary is being, far less that
it is God. This is known only by reflection and reasoning, disengaging
the ideal from the empirical. The idea must be real, or there could be
no intuition of it, but if real, it must be being; if being, it must
be real and necessary being; and real and necessary being is God. So
of all the other necessary ideas. As the intuition is of both the
ideal or necessary and the contingent in its principle, and in their
real relation, it gives the principles of a complete demonstration of
the being of God as creator, and of the universe as the effect of his
creative act, and therefore of the complete refutation of pantheism.
The vice of Dr. McCosh’s argument is that it proceeds on the denial of
ideal intuition, and the assumption that being, God, is obtainable by
generalization and abstraction from the individual things given in
empirical intuition. It is not obtained by reflection from them, but
from the ideal intuition, never separable from the empirical.
This process of proving that God is may be called the ideal process,
or the argument from universal and necessary ideas intuitively given.
It is not _a priori_, because the ideal is held by intuition; nor
is it an argument from innate ideas, as Descartes held; nor--since
really objective, and present to the mind--is it an argument from the
primitive beliefs or constituent principles of human nature, as Dr.
Reid and the Scottish school maintained, and which is only another
form of the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas; or an argument drawn
from our own _fonds_, as Leibnitz imagined, or from the _a priori_ 9
cognitions or necessary forms of the intellect, as Kant held, and
which is only the doctrine of the Scottish school of Reid and Stewart
differently stated; but from principles or data really presented in
intuition, and along with the empirical intuition of things. It
places, therefore, the being of God on as firm a basis and renders it
as certain to the understanding as our own existence, or as any fact
whatever of which the human mind has cognizance; indeed, renders it
absolutely certain and undeniable. But while we say this, and while we
maintain that the ideal intuition is given along with the empirical
intuition, with which our author confounds it, and from which
philosophy or natural theology disengages it, we by no means believe
that the race is indebted to this ideal or metaphysical process--which
is too difficult not only for the Positivists, but for their great
opponent, Dr. McCosh--for the origin of their belief in God. All ages
and nations, even the most barbarous and savage tribes, have some sort
of belief in God, some religious notions which imply his existence;
and, hovering above the various Eastern and Western mythologies, we
find the belief in one God or the divine unity, though neglected or
rejected for the worship of inferior gods or demons, or the
elements--that is, the worship of creatures, which is idolatry, since
worshipped as God. The ignorant savage, but a grade above the beasts,
has never risen to the conception of God or of the Great Spirit from
the contemplation of nature, nor has he attained to religious
conceptions by a law of his nature or by instinct, as the bee
constructs its cell or the beaver its dam.
It is very true, nothing more true than that “the heavens show forth
the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands,”
but to him only who has the idea of God or already believes that he
is. Nothing more true than God can be traced in all his works, or that
“the invisible things of him, even his eternal power and divinity, are
clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the
things that are made,” but only by those who have already learned that
he is, are intent on answering the question, _Quid est Deus?_ not
the question, _An sit Deus?_ Hence we so far agree with the
traditionalist, not indeed that the existence of God cannot be proved
by reason prior to faith, but that, as a fact, God revealed himself to
man before his expulsion from the garden; and the belief, clear and
distinct or dim and confused, in the divine being, universally
diffused among all races and conditions of men, originated in
revelation and is due to the tradition, pure or impure, in its
integrity or mutilated and corrupted, of the primitive revelation made
by God himself to man. In this way the fact of the universality of the
belief in some form is a valid argument for the truth of the belief,
and we thus obtain a historical argument to corroborate the already
conclusive ideal or metaphysical argument, the principles of which we
have given.
We bear willing testimony to the good-will and laudable intention of
our author, but we cannot regard him as able, with his mutilated
theology and his imperfect and rather superficial philosophy--though
less superficial than the philosophy generally in vogue among British
and American Protestants--to carry on a successful war against the
Positivists. We are almost tempted to say to him:
Non tali auxilio nec defensoribus istis
Tempus eget.
He is too near of kin to the Positivists themselves, and adopts too 10
many of their principles and conclusions, to be able to battle
effectively against them. No doubt he urges much that is true against
them, but his arguments, as far as effective, are inconsistent with
his position as a Protestant, and are borrowed from Catholicity, or
from what he has retained from Catholic instruction and Catholic
tradition, not from his Protestantism. Having no authority but his own
private interpretation of the Scriptures to define what is or is not
Christianity, he knows not how much or how little he must defend
against the Positivists, or how much or how little he is free to
concede to them. He practically concedes to them the Creator. He
defends God as the efficient cause, indeed, but not as Creator,
producing all things by his word from nothing. He would seem to hold
it enough to defend him as the organizer and disposer of materials
already furnished to his hand. God does not seem to him to be his own
_causa materialis_. He works on a pre-existing matter. He constructs,
the author concedes, the existing worlds out of “star-dust,” or
disintegrated stars, without telling us who made the stars that have
dissolved and turned to dust, and without bearing in mind, or without
knowing, that Christianity teaches us that “in the beginning God
_created_ the heavens and the earth,” and therefore could not have
formed them out of “star-dust” or any other material.
The Protestant divine accepts and defends Darwin’s theory of the
origin of species by “natural selection,” though he does not believe
that it applies universally, or that man has been developed from the
ape or the tadpole. He denies that Huxley’s protoplasm can be
developed from protein, or life from dead matter; maintains that all
life proceeds from a living organism, that the plant can spring only
from a seed, and the animal only from a living cell or germ; and yet
concedes that some of the lower forms of organic life may spring or
may have sprung from spontaneous generation, and even goes so far as
to tell us that some of the most eminent of the fathers held or
conceded as much. What becomes, then, of the assertion that life
cannot be evolved from dead matter? He would seem to hold or to
concede that man lived, for an indefinite time, a purely animal life,
before the Almighty breathed into his nostrils and he became a
spiritual man, and quotes to prove it St. Paul’s assertion that “not
first that which is spiritual, but that which is animal; afterwards
that which is spiritual” (1 Cor. xv. 46). He seems, in fact, ready to
concede any and everything except the intelligent Mind recognized by
Plato and Aristotle, that has arranged all things according to a
preconceived plan, and throughout the whole adapted means to ends. He
insists on efficient causes and final causes, but hardly on God as the
_causa causarum_ or as the _causa finalis_ of all particular final
causes.
Throughout, as we have already remarked, there is a want of unity and
universality in his philosophy, as there necessarily must be in his
Protestant theology, and a sad lack of logical consistency and order,
or co-ordination. His world is a chaos, as is and must be the
Protestant world. Herbert Spencer undertakes to explain the universe
without God, or, what is the same thing, with an absolutely unknowable
God, which is of course an impossibility; but he has a far profounder
intellect and a far more logical mind than Dr. McCosh. He is
heaven-wide from the truth, yet nearer to it than his Presbyterian
critic. His logic is good; his principles being granted, his 11
conclusions, though absurd, cannot be denied. His error lies in his
premises, and, if you correct them, your work is done. He will correct
all details, and arrive at just conclusions without further
assistance. But Dr. McCosh is one who, however much he may talk about
them, never reduces his doctrines to their generic principles, or
reasons from principles. He is a genuine Protestant, and cannot be
refuted in refuting his principles, which vary with the exigencies of
his argument, and are really no principles at all, but must be refuted
in detail; and when you have convinced him twice three are six, you
have still to prove that three times two are also six.
Now, such a man--and he is, perhaps, above the average of Presbyterian
divines--is the last man in the world to attempt the refutation of
positivism. No Protestant can do it. Indeed, all the avowed
Positivists we have known regard Protestant Christianity as too
insignificant a matter to be counted. It is too vague and fluctuating,
too uncertain and indefinite, too unsubstantial and intangible, too
unsystematic and illogical, to command the least respect from them.
They see at a glance that it is too little to be a religion and too
much to be no-religion. It cannot, with its half affirmations and its
whole denials, stand a moment before an intelligent Positivist who has
a scientific cast of mind. The Positivist rejects the church, of
course, but he respects Catholicity as a logical system, consistent
with itself, coherent in all its parts, and for him there is no _via
media_ between it and positivism. If he were not a Positivist, he
says openly, he would be a Catholic, by no means a Protestant, which
he looks upon as neither one thing nor another; and we respond that,
could we cease to be a Catholic, we should be a Positivist, for to a
logical mind there is no medium between the church and atheism. The
middle systems, as Protestantism, Rationalism, Deism, etc., are
divided against themselves, and cannot stand, any more than a house
divided against itself. Their denials vitiate their affirmations and
their affirmations vitiate their denials. They are all too much or too
little.
The Positivists reject for what they call the scientific age both
theology and metaphysics. They believe in the progress of the race,
and indeed in all races, as does Dr. McCosh. They distinguish in the
history of the human race or of human progress three epochs or
stages--first, the theological; second, the metaphysical; and third,
the scientific. Theology and metaphysics each in its epoch were true
and good, and served the progress of man and society. They have now
passed away, and the race is now entering the scientific age, which is
the final stage, though not to last forever; for when the field of
science is exhausted, and all it yields is harvested, the race will
expire, and the world come to an end, as having no more work to do. It
will be seen there is here a remarkable difference between the real
Positivists, or believers in Auguste Comte, and our author and his
Protestant brethren. The Positivists never calumniate the past, but
seek to appreciate its services to humanity, to acknowledge the good
it did, and to bury it with honor, as the children of the New
Dispensation did the Old, when it had lived its day. One of the finest
appreciations from the point of view of humanity of the services of
the mediæval monks we have ever read is from the pen of M. E. Littré,
the chief of the French Positivists, and one of the most learned men
of France. It said not all a Catholic would say, but scarcely a word 12
that could grate on a Catholic ear. Dr. McCosh also believes in
progress, in the progress of our species, and, for aught we know, in
the progress of all species and genera, and that we outgrow the past;
but he takes pleasure only in calumniating it, and like a bad son
curses the mother that bore him. Because he has outgrown his nurse, he
contends the nurse was of no use in his childhood, was a great injury,
and it would have been much better to leave him to himself, to toddle
about at will, and toddle into the fire or the cistern, as he saw
proper.
Now, we think, if one believes in the progress of the species or the
perfectibility of man by development or by natural agencies, the
Positivist doctrine is much the most reasonable as well as far the
most amiable. Its effect, too, is far better. We--we speak
personally--owed much to the doctrine, which we borrowed not from
Comte, but from Comte’s master, Saint-Simon, the influence of which,
under the grace of God, disposed us to return to the old church. It
softened the animosity, the bitter hatred, toward the past which we
had inherited from our Protestant education, and enabled us to study
it with calm and gentle feelings, even with gratitude and respect, and
disposed us to view it with impartiality and to appreciate it with
justice. Studying the past, and especially the old church which we had
complacently supposed the race had outgrown as the man has outgrown
the bib and tucker of his childhood, in this new and better mood, we
soon discovered that there was much more in the past than we had ever
dreamed of, and that it was abundantly able to teach us much more than
we or any of our Protestant contemporaries supposed; and we were not
long in beginning to doubt if we had really outgrown it, nor in
becoming convinced that, instead of outgrowing it, we had fallen below
it; that the old church, the central institution of the world, was as
needful to us now as in the beginning; and that, in comparison with
the full noonday light which beamed from her divine countenance, the
light in which we had hitherto walked, or stumbled, rather, was but a
fading twilight, nay, midnight darkness.
Of course we differ far more from positivism than does Dr. McCosh, but
we can as Catholics better discriminate than he what is true and just
in them, and better understand and refute their errors or false
principles, because we have the whole truth to oppose to them, not
merely certain fragments or disfigured aspects of truth. It is only
Catholics who can really set right the class of men Dr. McCosh wars
against. Protestants cannot do it. When Theodore Parker published his
_Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion_, we had not--we speak
personally again--outgrown the Protestantism in which we had been
trained. We set about refuting him, and we saw at once we could not do
it on Protestant grounds, and we planted ourselves on Catholic ground,
as far as we then knew it, and our refutation was a total failure
except so far as we opposed to the _Discourse_ the principles of the
Catholic Church. Dr. McCosh has tried his hand in the volume before us
against Theodore Parker and the Free Religionists, and with no success
save so far as he abandons his Protestantism and quietly appropriates
the arguments of Catholics, to which he has no more right than he has
to his neighbor’s horse. It was hardly generous in the learned doctor,
while using their arguments--and they were the only arguments that
availed him anything--to turn upon Catholics and twit them of 13
“ignorance and superstition.” Was he afraid that people might discover
the source whence he drew the small stock of wisdom and truth he
displayed?
We might have made Dr. McCosh’s lectures the occasion of presenting a
formal refutation of positivism, but we had already taken up from time
to time the false principles, the errors and untenable theories and
hypotheses, which his lectures treat, and refuted them, so far as they
are hostile to Christianity, far more effectively, in our judgment,
than he has done or could do. He may be more deeply versed in the
errors and absurd hypotheses of the false scientists of the day, who
are laboring to explain and account for the universe without creation
and Providence, than we are; but we have not found in his volume
anything of any value which we have not ourselves already said, and
said too, perhaps, in a style more easily understood than his, and in
better English than he ordinarily uses. Our readers could learn
nothing of positivism from him, and just as little of the principles
and reasonings that Christianity is able to oppose to it. He writes as
a man who measures the known by what he himself knows, and is now and
then out in his measurement.
Dr. McCosh, also, adopts rather too depreciatory a tone in speaking of
our countrymen, especially considering that he has but just come among
us, and knows us at best only imperfectly. We own it was no striking
indication of American intelligence and judgment the importation of
him to preside over one of the best Protestant American institutions
of learning and science; but men often loom up larger at a distance
than they are when seen close by, and there is no country in which
bubble reputations from abroad more speedily collapse than our own.
The doctor will find, when he has lived longer among us, and becomes
better acquainted with us, that if England is nearer Germany, German
speculations are known to Americans and appreciated by them at least
as soon as they are by Englishmen or Scotsmen. Kant, Fichte,
Schelling, Hegel, were known to American scholars before there was
much knowledge of them in England or Scotland. The English and Scotch
are now just becoming acquainted with and are carried away by theories
and speculations in philosophy which had been examined here, and
exploded more than thirty years ago by Americans. The doctor
underrates the scholarship and intelligence even of his American
Presbyterian friends, and there are scholars, men of thought, of
science, general intelligence, in the country many degrees above
Presbyterians, respectable as they are. Presbyterians are not by any
means the whole American people, nor the most advanced portion of
them. They are really behind the Congregationalists, to say nothing of
“the ignorant and superstitious” Catholics, whose scholars are in
science and learning, philosophy, theology, especially in the history
of the church, it is no boast to say, superior to either, and know and
understand better the movements of the age, intellectual, moral,
social, and political theories, crotchets, and tendencies of the
present, than any other class of American citizens. It takes more than
a Dr. McCosh, although for a time a professor in Belfast, Ireland, to
teach them more than they already know.
We pass over the second part of the lectures, devoted to Apologetics,
as of no importance. One needs to know what Christianity is, and to
have clearly in his mind the entire Christian plan, before one can
successfully defend it against the class of persons the author calls 14
Positivists. This is more than the author knows, or as a Protestant
can know. His Christianity is an indefinite, vague, variable, and
uncertain opinion, and he has no conception at all of the Christian
plan, or what St. Paul calls “the new creation.” No doubt the miracles
are provable by simple historical testimony by and to one who knows
nothing of the Christian plan, or of its supernatural character; but
to the unbelievers of our time it is necessary to set forth, in its
unity and catholicity, the Christian _schema_, if we may be allowed
the term, and to show that miracles themselves have their reason or
law in the divine plan or decree, and are no more anomalies, in
relation to that plan or decree, or _ex parte Dei_, than are earthquakes
and volcanoes. It is only in this way we can satisfy the demand for
order and regularity. The unbeliever may not be able to resist the
testimony which proves the miracle a fact, but till we show him that
in a miracle the natural laws are not violated, or that nature does
not go out of her course, as he imagines, we cannot satisfy him that
he can yield to the miracle without surrendering his natural reason,
and the law and order of the universe.
Now, this the Protestant cannot do; and though he might adduce the
historical evidences of Christianity satisfactory to a simpler age, or
to minds, though steeped in error, yet retaining from tradition a full
belief in the reality of a supernatural order, he cannot as a
Protestant do it to minds that deny that there is or can be anything
above nature, and that refuse utterly to admit the supernatural order,
which the miracles manifest, or that reject miracles, not because the
testimony is insufficient, but because they cannot be admitted without
admitting the reality of the supernatural. The prejudice against the
supernatural must be removed as the preliminary work, and this can be
done only by presenting Christianity as a whole in its unity and
catholicity, and showing that, according to it, the supernatural or
Christian order enters into the original decree of God, and is
necessary to complete what is initial in the cosmos, or to perfect the
natural order and to enable it to fulfil the purpose for which it
exists, or realize its destiny or final cause, in which is its
beatitude or supreme good. This done, the prejudice against the
supernatural is removed, miracles are seen to be in the order, not
indeed of nature, as Carlyle pretends, but in the order of the
supernatural, and demanding only ordinary historical testimony to be
proved, and consequently Hume’s famous argument against miracles,
refuted by no Protestant that has protested against it, shown to have
no force.
Now, this requires a profound knowledge of Christianity, which is not
attainable by private judgment from the Scriptures, or outside of the
infallible authority of the church with which the revelation of God,
the revealed word, is deposited as its guardian and interpreter. M.
Migne, indeed, admits some treatises written by Protestants into his
collection of works he has published under the title of _Evangelical
Demonstration_, which are not without their merit, but are valuable
only on certain points, and on those only so far as they rest on
Catholic principles and use Catholic arguments. Christianity being
supernatural, a revelation of the supernatural, it, of course, while
addressed to natural reason, cannot be determined or defined by
natural reason, and can be determined or defined, preserved or 15
presented, in its purity and integrity, only by an authority
supernaturally instituted and assisted for that very purpose. Even
what the author calls natural theology, since it is only initial, like
the cosmos, is incomplete, and, though not above natural reason, needs
the supernatural to fulfil it, and therefore the supervision and
control of the same supernaturally instituted and assisted authority
to preserve it from error, from a false development, or from assuming
a false direction, as we see continually occurring with those who have
not such an authority for guide and monitor. Hence, even in matters
not above the province of natural reason, natural reason is not a
sufficient guide, or else whence come those errors of the Positivists
in the purely scientific order the learned doctor combats with so many
words, if not thoughts--with so many assertions, if not arguments?
Hence, since Protestants have no such authority, and make it their
capital point to deny that anybody has it, it follows that they are
unable to present any authoritative statement, or any statement at
all which an unbeliever is bound to respect, of what Christianity
really is, or what is the authentic meaning of the term. They can give
only their private views or opinions of what it is, and these the
unbeliever is not bound to place in any respect above his own,
especially since they vary with every Protestant sect, and, we may
almost say, with every individual Protestant who thinks enough to have
an opinion of any sort. Even if they borrow Catholic traditions,
Catholic principles, and Catholic doctrines and definitions, these in
their hands lose their authoritative character, and become simply
opinions resting on private reason. They can present as Christianity
nothing authentic to be defended by the Christian, or to be accepted
or rejected by the unbeliever. Clearly, then, Protestants are in no
condition to manage apologetics with acute, scientific, and logical
unbelievers; and if we wanted any proof of it we could find it, and in
abundance, in the volume before us.
[1] _Christianity and Positivism._ A Series of Lectures to
the Times, on Natural Theology and Apologetics, delivered in
New York, January 16 to March 20, 1871, on the “Ely
Foundation” of the Union Theological Seminary. By James
McCosh, D.D., LL.D., President of the College of New Jersey,
Princeton. New York. Carter & Brothers. 1871. 16mo, pp. 369.
----------
EVENING CLOUDS.
A TRANSLATION OF UHLAND’s “ABENDWETTER.”
I see the clouds at eventide
All in the sunset floating wide,
Clouds now in gold and purple dyed
That hung so dark and hoary:
And my dreaming heart says, Wait!
A sunset comes, though come it late,
That shall life’s shadows dissipate,
Light up its clouds in glory.
----------
THE HOUSE OF YORKE. 16
CHAPTER XIV.
BREAKING THE ICE.
Shortly after Mr. Rowan’s baptism, a miniature avalanche of letters
reached the Yorke family. Mrs. Rowan-Williams wrote to Edith, in a
very scrawly hand, in lines that sloped down, in a depressing manner,
toward the southeastern corner of the page: “Do come and make me a
visit, now that Dick is at home. You have no idea how handsome, and
good, and smart he is. Mr. Williams thinks the world of him; and as to
Ellen--well, it wouldn’t become me to say what I think. But it’s of no
use for her to try. Now, do come. This is the twentieth time I have
asked you. We will go everywhere, see all that is worth seeing, and
you shall be waited on like a lady, as you are.
“So the old clay bank has slipped down again, and the bushes have
tumbled into the mud, and the men have piled their lumber over the
ashes of my poor home. O Edith! my heart is buried under those boards.
Thank you, dear, for going to see it for me.”
Dick wrote: “Which is Mohammed, and which is the mountain? I must see
you, and if you cannot come here, I shall go to Seaton, though that
would not be easy for me to do now. Besides, I want you to see your
namesake. I have not long to stay, for the ship is about ready to
start, and we take our cargo in at New York. It would be almost like a
soldier deserting his army on the eve of battle for me to go away now.
Do come if you can. It seems to me that you must wish to.”
This young man, we may remark, has got quite beyond the model
letter-writer and the practice of penmanship. He writes quite in his
own way, and is a very creditable writer, too. He has also a fair
education, and can converse more intelligently on most subjects of
general interest than many a young man for whom education has done its
best. When Dick Rowan spoke, he said something, and one never heard
from his lips inanities, meanness, nor malice. Neither did he say much
of such things, even in condemnation. He looked on them with a sort of
wonder, a flitting expression of disgust, then forgot all about them.
His time had been too much occupied, his mind too busy for trifling.
He had studied constantly and methodically, and the little library in
his cabin on board ship was a treasury of science, art, and
_belles-lettres_. So far as it went, it was the library of a man
of cultivated mind. His life, too, had educated him, and been a
perpetual commentary on, or illustration or refutation of, his books.
The phenomena of the sea he had studied not merely as a sailor, but as
a student of natural history. Whatever culture can be derived from the
intelligent visiting of foreign countries, without going into society
there, that he had. He had not spent his time about wharves, and
ships, and sailors’ boarding-houses. Aside from his own tastes, he
never forgot that he was aspiring toward a girl who, if she should
visit these lands, would walk in palaces. Therefore, whatever was 17
famous in nature or art in those places, he sought and examined. Many
a traveller who fancied himself perfectly cultivated brought away less
pleasant and valuable information than this sailor from the cities
they had both visited. Moreover, Dick had studied hard to acquire
something of the language of every port he stopped at, and was already
able to speak French and Italian with ease, if not with elegance. The
elegance he did his best to improve by reading the best authors in
those languages, and by a few lessons in pronunciation, when he could
find time. Therefore, Miss Edith Yorke’s friend and correspondent was
by no means one whom she had reason to be ashamed of.
But the Rowans were not the only ones who insisted on Edith’s visiting
Boston at this time. Miss Clinton dictated a letter to Mr. Yorke, and
Carl, suppressing his laughter, wrote it: “I have sent three times for
that girl, and this is my last invitation to her. Why is she not
allowed to come? Has she nothing to wear? I enclose a check for a gown
and a pair of shoes. When she reaches here, I will give her what she
may need to make her decent. Or is it that Amy Yorke is jealous
because her own daughters are not invited? If one of them must come as
company for Edith, I will pay her passage up, but I don’t want her
here. She can go to Hester’s or Alice Mills’s. Melicent has too
ridiculous an idea of her own consequence, and Clara is too sharp and
impudent. Bird has read me her book, and I think it a very
disagreeable book. She had better learn to cook and mend her
stockings, and let writing alone.”
“Have you finished?” the old lady asked, as Carl, with pen suspended,
looked up from his writing.
“Yes!”
“Then sign my name.”
“Shall I write ‘yours respectfully’ or ‘yours affectionately’?” Carl
asked, with perfect gravity.
“Neither!” she replied curtly. “Sign my name without any compliment.”
“May I add a few lines for myself?” the young man asked, when he had
signed the name as directed. “There is a whole page left.”
“Yes.” The answer was given very softly, and a smile of singular
sweetness flitted across the old lady’s face as she looked at the
writer. Miss Clinton was very fond of Carl, in a tyrannical,
tormenting, selfish way, and liked nothing so much as to have him ask
favors of her.
He wrote rapidly a few minutes, and was about closing the letter, when
she stopped him. “Read me what you have written,” she said.
Carl blushed slightly, and hesitated. “It was not written to read to
you,” he answered.
“No matter, it will be all the more interesting,” she persisted. “Read
it! You read mine.”
Carl hesitated yet a moment longer, then, casting his eyes up to the
ceiling, read, as if he saw it written, in the painting there, a
preposterous eulogy of Miss Clinton, with a minute account of her
cat’s health.
“I won’t have it!” she cried out. “Read what you have written there,
or give it to me, and Bird shall come and read it. If you were a
decent writer, I should have eyes enough left to read it myself.”
Carl dropped his laughing manner. “Miss Bird will write a letter for
you,” he said, and was about holding the one he had in the flame of a
taper, when she stopped him. “Oh! send it as it is, since you are so
stubborn; though I haven’t a doubt that you have written the most 18
dreadful things of me.”
The Yorkes were highly amused by this letter. “You see, Edith, she is
a dragon,” her uncle said. “You will have to carry yourself very
gingerly.”
“I am not sure that is the best way to keep the peace with her,” Mrs.
Yorke remarked. “It would do with some, but she grows more overbearing
with indulgence. If she were touched by sweetness and submission, it
would be different. I have thought of late years that such persons are
benefited by a firm resistance.”
Clara also wrote: “Let mamma come with Edith, and stay at my house, of
course. It is really a shame that she has never visited me in the city
yet. Come right away, and we will all go back to Seaton together. You
should come for poor Carl’s sake, to cheer him up a little, if for
nothing else, for he must lead a miserable life with that awful old
woman. You would not have believed he could be so patient. Indeed, he
would have left long ago, if it had not been for the hope of bringing
you all back here again. If he were the only one in question, he would
not stay a day.”
Miss Mills also wrote in the same strain, and the result of it all was
that the invitations were accepted, with a difference. “I will stop at
Miss Clinton’s, since you think it better,” Edith said to her aunt.
“But I must see a good deal of the Rowans.”
“Certainly, dear,” Mrs. Yorke replied. “But say as little as possible
of the Rowans to Miss Clinton. It will only make her disagreeable.
Hester will be happy to see the young man and his mother, and since he
is a Catholic, I should think that Alice might be civil to him.”
Her invitation accepted, Miss Clinton began to look at the dark side.
“Are you sure that the girl is not very green, Carl,” she asked. “I
detest country manners.”
“Oh! she is very green--very!” was the reply.
Carl sat looking out into the garden, unconscious that his companion
was observing him curiously.
“Are you in love with that girl?” she asked after a moment.
Bold and hardened as she was, she started and shrank at the glance he
gave her. No words could have been more haughty and repelling.
“Well,” she said pettishly, “you need not look daggers at me, if the
question is not to your liking. You are not obliged to answer it.”
He looked out the window again, and said nothing. “She shall learn to
keep her claws off me,” he thought.
No one but himself knew what a price Carl Yorke was paying for his
expected inheritance. The ceaseless irritation and annoyance, the
enforced giving up of his studies, and those literary labors which now
seemed to him his vocation, and the constant confinement, were almost
more than he could bear. But one thought supported him, and that was
that he should some day be able to restore his family to their lost
home, and to pursue those plans of his own which their reverses had
interrupted.
He was also, not quite unconsciously, gaining something better than
gold. He was seeing all the deformity of selfishness, and the
unloveliness of that wit whose chief power is to wound. In asking the
bitter questions, What is this woman living for? what good does her
life do the world? echo had repeated the same questions in his own
soul--What are you living for? what good does the world derive from 19
your being in it? What in him and in others had been vices or faults,
veiled with a certain decorum so as to look almost like virtues, in
this woman’s character were stripped of the veil, and showed in all
their native hatefulness. Here, too, were free-thinking and atheism
_au naturel_, without the crown on their brows, the lustre he had
fancied their faces radiated, and without their airy grace. He saw a
scoffer, and it was as though he saw a devil. He had not the
consolation of thinking her really worse than himself, for he could
not shut his eyes to the fact that the difference between them had
been in manner, not in essence. He had shown more good taste and
delicacy, that was all.
“After all,” he thought, as he sat there that day, looking out the
window, “however it may be with men, women need religion. I would not
trust a woman without it. I will not retract my saying that religion
is a strait-jacket, and intended only for those who cannot stand
straight without it, but I begin to think that we are all of us
partial lunatics.”
“I have heard say that parlor means a place to parle in,” remarked
Miss Clinton presently.
“The orioles are building in this tree,” Carl said, quite as though
nothing unpleasant had happened.
She tossed her head. What did she care about orioles?
“How blood will show, both good blood and bad,” she said with the air
of one who has just discovered a great truth. “Wealth, associates,
travel, occupations, education, neither will efface the signature. The
original stamp remains in spite of circumstances.”
At the beginning, Carl scented battle, but he assumed an air of great
cheerfulness. “You are quite right,” he said. “That great _parvenu_,
Adam, and that still more frightfully new person, his wife, have left
an indelible stain upon their progeny. We can see it to this day,
faintly in some, more strongly marked in others. And, on the other
hand, that prince of the _ancien régime_, Lucifer--”
“Nonsense!” interrupted Miss Clinton. “I was going to say, if you can
stop your most disagreeable and disrespectful mocking--I was going to
say that you have some of the Bohemian lounging ways of your father,
though you never saw him, and though you have been under the training
of Charles Yorke since your babyhood.”
“Do you think I have my father’s ways?” Carl asked, with an air of
delight. “How glad I am! No one else ever told me so, and I was afraid
I might be all Arnold. My mother is, of course, an angelic lady; but
some of her family have had traits which--really--well, I should a
little rather not inherit. And so you think me like my father? Thank
you!”
“The Arnolds and the Clintons, sir, are families from whom you may be
proud to inherit anything!” the old lady cried, beating the table with
her fan. “They were among the _élite_ of Boston and New York when
this country was a British province. We had colonial governors and
judges, sir, when your father’s people were painting signs and
door-steps. It is rather late in the day, young man, for you to have
to be told what my descent is!”
She stopped, choking with anger.
The young man seemed to be much interested in this recital. “Indeed!”
he said, “this is very delightful to know, and it makes such a
difference! Though I had always understood that your descent had been
very--precipitous!”
Miss Clinton glared at him, unable to utter a word, and seemed only 20
just able to restrain herself from throwing her snuff-box at him.
He rose wearily, and went out of the room, having half a mind to run
away altogether.
But ah! who met him at the door, bringing sunshine and peace in her
fair face, holding out two dear little hands, and scattering with a
word all his annoyance?
“Dear Carl,” Edith said, “are you really glad to see me--really glad?”
“How could you imagine such a thing?” he replied.
“Then I will go back to Seaton again. Good-by!”
She took a step toward the street-door, only a step, both her hands
being strongly held.
“You forget, then, silvern speech and golden silence,” the young man
said.
“No,” she replied. “But solid silver is better than airy gold. If
people say kind things to you, then you are sure, and have something
to remember; but looks fade, and you can think that you mistake, or
mistook. Oh! I like silence, Carl, but it must be a silence that
follows after speech. That is the sole golden silence.”
“I am glad to see your face and hear your voice once more, Edith,” he
said seriously. “I have many a time longed for both.”
“Dear Carl!” she exclaimed. “But what is that I hear? Is it a parrot?”
Carl laughed. “Hush! It is Miss Clinton. She is calling out to know
who has come. We will go in and see her.”
Miss Clinton had one pleasant expression, and that was a smile, when
she was so delighted by something out of herself as to forget herself.
This smile brightened her face as she watched the young couple
approach her, hand in hand. She leaned back in her chair, and
contemplated Edith, without thinking of returning her greeting.
“I’m sure that is a golden silence,” Carl said, laughing. “But what do
you think of her, aunt? She likes to have people speak first, and look
afterward.”
“You are welcome, dear!” the old lady said softly, and extended her
hand, but without leaning forward. To take it, therefore, Edith had to
come very near, and was drawn gently down to the footstool by Miss
Clinton’s chair.
The old lady took off the girl’s hat, and dropped it on to the carpet,
then studied her face with delight. She loosened one of the braids of
hair wound around her head, and held it out to a sunbeam to see the
sparkle of it. She pushed it back from the face. “Did you ever see
such ears?” she said to Carl. “They are rose-leaves! There must be a
large pearl hung in each. She drew her finger along the smooth curve
of the brows. “A great artist and physiognomist once told me that such
brows show a fine nature. Broken brows, he said, indicate
eccentricities of character, brows bent toward the nose a tyrannical
disposition, heavy brows reserve and silence, but this long, smooth
brow versatility and grace. Read Lavater if you want to know all about
eyebrows.” She took the cheek, now glowing with blushes, in the hollow
of her hand, and held the eyelids down to admire the lashes. “They
make the eyes look three shades darker than they really are. But what
color are the eyes? They are no color. Did you ever see a shaded
forest spring, Carl? These eyes are as limpid.”
“Oh! please don’t!” the girl begged, trying to hide her face. 21
“My dear, I shall call you Eugénie, and shall adore you,” Miss Clinton
continued. “I hope they have not told you horrible stories about me,
or that, if they have, you will not believe them. People are fond of
saying that I am sharp, but I quote Victor Hugo to them, ‘_La rose
du Bengale, pour être sans épines, est aussi sans parfum._’ A
character without any sharpness would be like an ocean without salt.
Temper sweetens. When any person is recommended to me as of a very
mild and placid position, never getting angry, I always say, Keep that
person out of my sight! Yes, I shall call you Eugénie. I dislike the
Edith on account of old Mrs. Yorke. She and I always quarrelled, dear.
We were what some one has called ‘intimate enemies.’ But I don’t mean
to quarrel with her grand-daughter. You have your father’s eyes and
hair, Eugénie, but your mother’s features. I hope you have not her
disposition. She was too positive, and, besides, she ran away with
another woman’s beau.”
Edith drew back, and stood up, turning to Carl.
“There! she is angry the first thing,” the old lady cried. “No danger
of anybody’s thinking her _sans épines_. Take her down to get
some breakfast, Carl.”
“Dick Rowan is here,” Edith said, as the two went down-stairs; “and he
is a Catholic; and he has a new ship which he has named for me.”
There was no reply. They were going through the shady entry, and, if
the young man frowned at the news, the frown was not seen.
“Aunt Amy has gone to Hester’s,” Edith went on. “She got over the
journey nicely, and wants to see you very soon. She will send Hester
up to see me presently. I am too tired to go out to-day, would you
believe it? You see, travel was so new to me that I could not sleep. I
stayed on deck as long as I could, then I listened all night. It
seemed so strange to be on the water, out of sight of land.”
Later, while the young traveller was resting in the chamber assigned
her, a visitor entered gently, unannounced. “I thought I might come,
dear,” Miss Mills said.
Edith raised herself, and eagerly held out her arms. The lady embraced
her tenderly, then dropped, rather than sat down, in a chair by the
bed. She looked with a strange mingling of feelings on this child of
her lost lover. When she recognized the tint of his hair and eyes in
Edith’s, she bent toward her with yearning love; but then appeared
some trait of the mother--a turn of the head, a smile unconsciously
proud, an exquisitely fine outline of feature; and, at sight of it,
that wounded heart shrank back as from a deadly enemy. The interview
was friendly, and even tender, and engagements were made for future
meetings; but the lady was glad to get away. The sight of Robert
Yorke’s child had wakened all the sleeping past, and for a time the
years that had intervened since her parting with him faded like a
mist. Since that day, more than one power, at first pride, later
religion, had strengthened her, had raised up new hopes and new joys;
but they were not the sweet human hopes and joys that every man and
woman looks naturally for; they were those born of struggle and
self-denial. She had lived truly and nobly, but she was human; and
to-day her humanity rose, and swept over her like a flood.
Miss Mills locked herself into her room, and for once gave herself up 22
to regret. It was no ordinary affection which she mourned. It had
entered her heart silently, and been welcomed like an angel visitant;
it had been held sacred. She had watched it with awe and delight as it
grew, that strange, beautiful, terrible power! How complex it had
become, entering into every feeling, every interest! How it had
changed and given a new meaning to life, and a new idea and
comprehension of herself!
Then, when it had got to seem that she alone was not a complete being,
but only about to become perfect--then destruction came.
“Jove strikes the Titans down,
Not when they set about their mountain-piling,
But when another rock would crown their work.”
If the foundation merely of an edifice be overthrown, there is hope
that it may be rebuilt; but destruction overtaking when the topmost
height is almost attained is destruction indeed.
In the evening a knock was heard at the chamber door, which she had
all day refused to open, a note was pushed under the door, and a
servant waited outside for her to read it. She rose wearily, lighted
the gas, and glanced over the lines. “I am sorry you have headache,
sorry for you and for me. Edith is talking with Mr. Rowan, and I am,
consequently, _de trop_. There is no one I care to see to-night
but you. Send me word if you are better.”
“Tell him to wait,” she ordered, and, hastily dressing for a walk,
went down. The front parlor was not lighted, but she saw him sitting
by a window there. “Come out!” she said. “I wanted to go to the
chapel, and you are just in time.”
Scarcely a word was spoken as they went through the streets together.
They entered the chapel, and turned aside into a shady corner. Carl
sat, and his companion, too exhausted to kneel, sat beside him. In a
room near by, a choir was singing that most beautiful of hymns--
“Jesus, lover of my soul.”
“Alice,” Carl whispered, “that is enough to break one’s heart!”
Her tears broke forth afresh. “No, Carl, it is enough to heal a heart
already broken.” She listened, and looking toward the altar, repeated
over and over,
“Other refuge have I none.”
The solitude and quiet were soothing to both--the sense of a divine
presence more than soothing to her who had faith in it.
They had not been there long when a gentleman came up the aisle with a
firm, but light step, passed by without noticing them, and knelt down
just before them. Carl sat and gazed at him in astonishment. That Dick
Rowan should outwardly and publicly conform to the church, for Edith’s
sake, was not surprising, but that he should come privately to the
chapel to pray was inexplicable. Could it be that a brave, manly
fellow like this could sincerely believe?
Utterly unconscious of observation, the sailor knelt there motionless,
with his face hidden in his hands, and when Carl’s companion whispered
to him, and they both went out, that figure had not stirred.
Edith Yorke’s friend began at once to show her what was notable in the
city; but, as often happens, what they considered worth seeing
disappointed the neophyte, and what they passed without notice she
would fain have paused to look at. Inexperienced persons who have read
much usually overestimate the magnitude of the wonders they have not
seen. What young traveller, entering for the first time a city, ever
found its houses as palatial, its streets as superb, its monuments as 23
grand, as fancy had pictured them?
“Everything looks so much smaller and more shabby,” Edith confessed
privately to Dick Rowan. “Trees and waters are finer than any pictures
of them that I have seen, and faces that speak and smile are more
beautiful than any painted ones. Only some pictures of Italian scenes
delight me. Now, Dick, please do not be shocked when I tell you that I
quite long to stop and look at the organ-grinders and their monkeys,
and to gaze in at the shop windows. But I can’t, you know, for that
would make Carl and Hester and Miss Mills ashamed of me.”
The result of this confidence was that, dressed to attract as little
attention as possible, these two friends set the others aside, and
went on long tramps together. They paid not much attention to the
finer sights, but dived into all sorts of byways. They looked in at
shop windows, at birds and shells and jewels, and more than one
shopkeeper was smilingly pleased to display his best wares at the
young lady’s shy request, though informed beforehand that she did not
mean to buy. They watched the organ-grinders and their monkeys to
their hearts’ content; they amused themselves with the _gamins_,
and held various conversations with them; they were bountiful to
street-beggars. Ragged urchins were astonished by showers of candy
that seemed to descend from heaven on their heads, poor little weeping
outcasts were asked to tell their griefs, and listened to with tender
sympathy, tears perhaps rising into one pair of eyes that looked at
them. Sometimes a wretched pauper, walking with downcast face through
the street, felt something touch his hand and leave a bit of money
there, and looked up to see a lady and gentleman just passing, and one
sweet face glance momentarily back with a smile at once arch and
pitying. “Shall I ruin you, Dick?” Edith asks gleefully. “I have
ruined myself; but that didn’t take long. My poor little money is all
gone. Are you very rich?”
“Oh! immensely!” Dick replies. “I have chests of gold. Give away as
much as you wish to.”
One blind man gone astray long remembered how a soft hand took one of
his, and a firm hand the other, and his two guides led him home,
inquiring into his misfortune by the way, and commiserating him more
tenderly than brother or sister ever had.
“It is so sad to have all the beautiful world shut out,” said the
sweet voice out of the dark. “But one might, I think, see heavenly
things the more plainly.”
The poor man never lost himself afterward, but he looked blindly, and
listened to hear once more those two voices, and to feel the clasp of
those two hands, one soft as charity, the other strong as faith. And
since they never came to him again, to his imprisoned soul it seemed
as though heavenly visitants had led him, and spoken sacred words for
him to remember. These two young creatures, out of the happy world of
the rich and prosperous, were not afraid of soiling their hands or
their clothes, and did not look on the poor as they did on the
paving-stones.
“O Dick!” Edith said in one of those walks, “I do not wonder that the
Lord could not stay in heaven when he saw the misery of earth, and
knew that there was no comfort even in another world for it. What a
trial it must have been for him to sit above there, and hear all the
cries of pain that went up, and see all the weeping faces that were
raised. Why, Dick, it seems to me that if I could see and know at 24
once all the suffering there is to-day in this one city, it would kill
me. I wish we could do something besides play, as we do. Perhaps we
ought to work all our lives for the wretched, you and I; who can
tell?”
“Yes!” the young man replied slowly, and was silent a moment,
thinking. “That idea comes into my mind sometimes,” he added. “I
always fancy that the poor and the wicked look at me in an asking way,
differently from what they do to others, as if they expected me to do
something for them. It may be only because they see how I look at
them. I never see one but I think, How should I feel if that were my
father or my mother? But I don’t know what great work I could do. My
life seems mapped out.”
Sometimes their expeditions were merrier. They went to the Back Bay
lands, then not filled in, and stood so close to the railroad tracks
that the passing trains blew in their faces. “I like strength and
force,” Edith said; “and I like the wind in my face. It would be
pleasant to ride in a car with an open front, and the engine on
behind. Does it not seem like that in a ship at sea, Dick?”
“Better than that,” he answered, his eyes brightening. “For at sea you
have a clear track, and can fly on without stopping or turning out for
anything.”
“Now, let’s go and see that large building,” the girl said. “Isn’t it
fine to go about in this way? You are Haroun-al-Raschid, and I am
anybody, and we are exploring our capital. We are, perhaps, invisible.
Stop a minute. There are fishes in this ditch. I am going to catch one
with a crooked pin.”
They looked at the large building, Chickering’s piano-forte factory,
and Dick described foreign buildings to his companion, and described
so vividly and so simply that the structures seemed to rise before her.
He was remarkably gifted in this respect. His clear eyes took in the
general effect, and caught here and there a salient point to give it
character and sharpness, and his descriptions were never blurred by
superfluous words, or by imagination, which often destroys the
outlines of tangible things by its perceptions of their intangible
meaning.
One morning they went to Mass to receive communion together. The
morning was lovely, the spring green all freshness, the birds singing,
the sun stealing goldenly through a faint mist. Edith rose happy, and
everything added to her happiness. It was delightful to have some one
to go to Mass with. It only now occurred to her that she had been
lonely in her religion.
“I hope that I shall make a good communion,” she said to herself, as
she began to dress. “What should I do? Let me think! If I had a house
of my own, rather a poor little place, and some one I loved and
honored were coming to visit me, I should first make my house clean.
Then I should adorn it all I could, and prepare a little feast. I have
no servant, I will say, and must do everything myself. I am rather
glad of that, for I can show my good-will so. I will not mind getting
on my knees to scrub out the darkest corners. But I must let in light
to see where to cleanse. Come, Holy Spirit! enlighten my soul, and let
no darkness remain where a sin can hide itself. Then comes my
confession; but what poor things confessions are! I wish I could say,
I accuse myself of having broken all the ten commandments of God, and
the six commandments of the church, and of having committed the seven
deadly sins, and every sin that could be committed, and each a 25
thousand times over. Then I should be sure to get them all in. But
Father Rasle says that, if our dispositions are good, the sins we
forget, or do not understand, are included and forgiven with those we
confess. As when a woman sweeps her room, she sweeps out, perhaps,
some things she does not see. Well, say that my house is clean, what
have I to adorn it with?” She paused with the brush half-drawn through
her hair, and the first sunbeams, shining in her face, shone on
gathering tears. She recollected herself, and went on with her
dressing. “Such a bare reception! Nothing to offer! How about faith,
hope, and charity? I believe everything, I could believe a thousand
times more; but even the devils believe, Father Rasle says. I don’t
know whether I hope in the right way. Hope is a hard virtue to manage.
Do I love him? Yes! Even though I do wrong, still I love him. It is no
sign that you do not love a person, even if you do things to vex him.
What good work can I do to-day? I will read Miss Clinton to sleep, and
let Bird go out. That will be something, because I would rather go out
myself. And I will ask Miss Clinton if I may read a paper to her. That
will be awfully hard, for she will stare at me, and then laugh in that
way that makes me want to run out of the room. And I will--yes--no--will
I? Yes, I will try to kiss her, if I possibly can. She would be
pleased; but I shouldn’t be. Those will be like little daisies at the
doorstep when he comes in. But my house is bare yet. If only I had
some pain to offer!”
Her eyes chanced to fall on a coil of picture-cord, and the sight of
it gave her a new and startling thought. She paused a moment, then,
rising, pulled her curtains close, opened the door to assure herself
that there was no one in the corridor outside, then shut the door and
locked it. This done, she looped and knotted the cord into a
discipline--ah! not in vain had she once asked Father Rasle what that
was. Her hands trembled with eagerness while she fastened the five
lashes together. Then, with one glowing upward glance, she knelt, and
brought the discipline, with the full force of her arm, round across
her shoulders. A faint cry followed the first blow, and the blood
rushed crimson over her face and neck. “O Lord! I did not mean to cry
out!” she whispered, and listened, and struck again, and yet again.
“One for each of the five wounds, one for each of the times he prayed
in the garden.” She paused, and dropped forward with her face on the
floor, writhing in silent pain. “Now, one for each station of the way
of the cross.” Tears ran down her cheeks, but her strong young arm and
heart did not falter. “Now, a decade of the rosary.”
Sobbing, half-fainting, she rose after a while, and hid the precious
pencil, with which she had painted a picture for the wall of her
little reception-room.
“I must put on something extra, so that the blood shall not show
through my dress,” she said; but, looking to wipe away the blood,
behold! not a drop was there, but only long welts of red and white
crossing her fair shoulders.
Edith hid her face, with a _feeling_ of utter humiliation and
grief. She had been agonizing under the blows which had produced only
a few marks, and yet fancying that she imitated him whose flesh had
been torn by the lash, and whose blood had flowed in streams. “I can
do nothing, nothing! I am silly and presumptuous,” were the thoughts
with which she finished her preparation to go out. 26
But, trivial as her penance had been, it brought humility, and a
deeper sense of the sufferings of our Lord.
A servant who was washing the steps as Edith went out, smiled
gratefully to the pleasant greeting of the young lady, and looked
after her as she went down the street. The servants, all Catholics,
were very proud and fond of this young Catholic in their Protestant
household.
“Since I cannot do anything,” Edith pursued, as she walked on toward
the church, “I will ask the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph to come
first, and be in my house when the Lord shall enter. He will be
pleased to find them there. Then, when the time comes, I will go and
meet him at the door; but how dreadfully ashamed I shall be! I shall
not dare to look up, but I shall say, ‘Welcome, Lord!’ and kneel down,
and kiss his feet. Then, if there is anything more to be done, he will
do it, for I can do nothing. How odd it is that I should feel so
ashamed at having him come to me, and yet should want him to come! I
wouldn’t put it off for anything.”
Dick was waiting inside the chapel-door for her. He pointed her to a
confessional, then took his place near the altar. When it came time
for communion, they knelt side by side, but retired again to different
seats.
How long Edith knelt there she did not know. She had covered her face
with her hands, shutting out the sight of all about her, and her soul
had entered a new scene. There was a simple, small room, bare save for
two vague, luminous presences, one at either side, lighting the place.
There was an open door, with vines swinging about it, and a half-seen
picture of verdure, and deep blue heavens outside. Up through that
pure, intense color stretched two lines of motionless winged forms, as
if they bowed at either side of a path down which one had come. Within
the door, under the vines, stood the Lord, and she was prostrate on
the floor, with her arms clasped around, and her lips pressed to, his
feet. She did not look up, and he did not speak nor stir, but his
smile shone down through all her being. Let it last so for ever!
The tinkling of a bell awoke her as from a sound sleep--a flicker, as
of flames in the wind, moved those heavenly lines of receding faces,
and Edith lifted her head, and recollected where she was, seeming to
be suddenly transported back there from a distance. The priest was
carrying the host away from the altar of the chapel up to the church.
He held the sacred burden clasped closely to his breast, and bent his
head slightly toward it. He looked at it as he walked, yet chose his
steps with care. He wrapped around it the golden veil, of which the
fringe glistened like fire as he moved. No mother could carry a
sleeping infant more tenderly.
Edith stretched out her hands, with a momentary feeling of
bereavement, for the Lord was going away. “Oh! take my heart with
thee!” she prayed.
The lights disappeared, the sound of the bell grew fainter up the
stairs, and ceased. She sighed, then smiled again, and became aware of
Dick sitting at the furthest end of the bench, and waiting for her.
They went out by separate aisles, and met at the door.
“I would like to have followed up into the church, and waited till he
was at rest again, and seen where they lay him,” Edith said after a 27
while.
Dick smiled quietly, and said nothing. He was looking quite pale, but
bright. She made no comment on his looks, thinking that the communion
was the cause of his emotion.
They went to the public gardens before going home. It was very lovely
there. The mists of the morning had slowly gathered themselves into
detached clouds, and they scarcely moved, the air was so still. The
trees and the many pink flowers about glistened with dew.
Edith began to love her quietude, and grow merry, but with an angelic
merriment. “Do you think that the Lord came down to the garden only at
evening?” she asked. “I think he came at early morning, unless he
stayed all night--morning is so beautiful! How alive everything is!
You can almost see eyes in the flowers. See the swans on the water.
They float like clouds in the sky. Fancy a pink swan in a large blue
lake, throwing up sprays as white as snow over his bosom! Do you think
that the earth was any more beautiful when it was first made? Is it
not lovely now?”
There was no answer in words, but the young man’s eyes, glancing
about, were eloquent, and his smile was one of peaceful delight.
“Come,” the girl said, “let’s play that this is really the Garden of
Eden, and that you and I are just taking our first walk in it,
wondering over everything. Let us look at ourselves in the water, and
see if we are as beautiful as all the rest.”
He smiled at the childish fancy, took the hand she offered him, and
went with her over the water. The swans passed by, and sent ripples
over their mirror, but it was clear enough to give back the image of a
sweet oval face with bright eyes and lips, and of another face more
richly tinted, peach-colored with sun and wind, with eyes that
sparkled, and white teeth that laughed through a chestnut beard.
“Adam,” said the woman, “thou art more stately than the palm, and
thine eyes have beams like the sun. Let us praise the Creator who hath
formed thee in his own image!”
Dick’s hand and voice trembled, his face grew red in the water, then
grew pale. “Eve,” he said, “thou art whiter and more graceful than the
swan, and, while thou art speaking, the birds listen. I praise him who
has given thee to me to be mine alone and for ever--my mate in this
world and in the next.”
Speaking, his light clasp grew tight on her hand.
The face and throat that had shown swan-white in the water grew
rose-red, then disappeared as Edith started back.
“How could I look forward to anything else, Edith?” the young man
exclaimed desperately. “I have never dreamed of any other life. I have
worked, and studied, and hoped for you. What! will you turn away from
me now, for the first time? God have mercy on me!”
She did not utter a word at first. She was too much confounded. It was
to her as though the friend she had so long known had been suddenly
snatched from her side, and a stranger like, and yet unlike, him put
in his place. This man with the pallid face and trembling voice was
not Dick Rowan. She wanted to get away from him. But after a step or
two she turned back again.
“Who would have thought it?” she said, looking at him anxiously, as
though half hoping that the whole was a jest.
“Who would have thought anything else?” he replied, taking courage. 28
She turned away again, but he walked on beside her. It was too late to
withdraw. Having spoken, he must say all.
“I think you were the only person who did not see what I lived for,”
he said.
“But it is nonsense!” she exclaimed.
“We have always known each other. We are like brother and sister. Is
it only strangers who marry?” he asked.
“Marry! Fie! I never thought of such a thing!” she said angrily.
“Won’t you please think of it now, Edith?” he asked, in a voice so
gentle and controlled that it recalled her own self-possession. “This
has been the great thought of my life. It made me ambitious, for your
sake. I am a Catholic, thank God! and a sincere one, but it was love
of you that led me to study and think on that subject. When my life
hangs in the balance, I am sure you will at least stop to think,
dear.”
She looked at him, but he did not return her glance. His eyes were
fixed on the ground, and it really seemed as though his life did hang
in the balance.
“I’d like to stop and talk about it a little while, Dick,” she said.
“Sit here. Now, be reasonable, and I will not be cross again. Forgive
me! I was so surprised, you know; for I have been studying all my
life, and never thought about this. Now, it seems to me, Dick, that I
shall never want to be married to any one whatever. I shall live with
Aunt Amy, and, when she is dead, I will go into a convent, or, if I
should have money, will do something for the poor, perhaps. If you
want to have me with you, some time I can go on a voyage in your ship,
and you can always come to see me when you come home. Won’t that do?”
He smiled faintly.
“Oh! thank you!” she said, greatly relieved.
“Has any one else ever spoken to you in this way, Edith?” he asked,
looking at her searchingly.
“Oh! no,” she answered with decision. “I am not at all engaged, or
anything like it. No one ever cared anything about me. And I hope you
are satisfied now, Dick. It is very well for people to marry who are
afraid of losing each other; but we can live close by when we grow
old, or perhaps in the same house.”
“I have disturbed and troubled you, Edith,” the young man said after
awhile, “but I could not help it. There must be a beginning to
everything, and I had to make a beginning of this. I don’t expect you
to treat it seriously now, but I want you to think of it. It seemed
right that I should speak, or some one else might speak while I am
gone, and take you away from me.”
“But I should never think of having any one else, if you want me,” she
replied with perfect conviction. “I may not ever marry at all, but, if
I do, you will have the first chance.”
Dick Rowan’s whole face caught fire. “Why, darling!” he exclaimed
joyfully, “do you mean that?”
She was astonished and pleased at the effect of her words, “Truly,”
she answered. “You know very little of me if you do not know that I
have always considered myself to belong more to you than to any one
else.”
They had now reached Miss Clinton’s door, and there they parted
without more words.
But Edith’s indecision was of shorter duration than either she or her
friend had anticipated. The subject was so foreign to her thoughts 29
that at first she had comprehended nothing, and had received Dick
Rowan’s avowal in a most childish manner. But a few hours’
consideration had set the whole in a different light. She went down to
Hester’s as soon as dinner was over, and asked for her aunt. Mrs.
Yorke was in her own room, writing a letter, and she only glanced up
with a smile as her niece entered.
“All well at Miss Clinton’s?” she asked, folding the letter.
“Yes, very well.”
“Anything new?”
“Miss Clinton told me last night that her will is made, leaving
everything to Carl, and that, if I marry to suit her, I am to have her
jewels, shawls, and laces. I do not want them, though I would rather
have fresh new things for myself, if they are not so rich.”
“Whom does she wish you to marry?” Mrs. Yorke asked, directing her
letter.
“She did not say,” Edith replied in a constrained voice, looking down.
Mrs. Yorke glanced at her niece, then put her arm out and drew her
close. “You have something to tell me, dear,” she said.
Edith began to tremble. “Yes, Aunt Amy. Dick Rowan has been talking to
me this morning, and, if you and Uncle Charles are willing, and if I
should ever marry any one, I am going to marry him.”
Mrs. Yorke’s brows contracted slightly, rather with anxiety than
displeasure. “Dear child, are you sure of yourself?” she asked. “One
may have a very great affection for a person, and not be willing to
marry him. Don’t be hasty. Take time to think of it till he shall come
back again. If you promise, you may regret it. I must say, dear, I
think it selfish of him to speak so when you have seen nothing but
birds and books, and do not know your own mind.”
Edith raised her head from her aunt’s shoulder. “Oh! Dick isn’t
selfish, and he only asked me to think of it, and to know that he
wanted me.”
It was useless to oppose. After a little more talk, Mrs. Yorke
promised to consent if both were of the same mind after a year. “And
now, Edith, I have concluded to start for home to-morrow, and I want
to see Carl right away.”
She did not say that she had only come to this conclusion since Edith
had entered her room.
“And I also wish to see Mr. Rowan,” she added. “Did he not mean to
consult me?”
“Oh! yes,” Edith said eagerly. “He is coming up this evening; and,
Aunt Amy”--very hesitatingly--“don’t let me be married for a great
while, till I am twenty-five, at least. Of course,” looking up
quickly, as if some doubt had been expressed--“of course, I think the
world of him, and don’t wish to marry any one else; but I cannot,
_cannot_ hurry.”
Mrs. Yorke had a long conversation with her niece’s lover, that
evening, and laid down the law rather severely to him. No one but
Edith, herself, and Mr. Yorke were to know of his proposal. “I do not
wish her to be talked about, and assigned to any one, when nothing is
decided,” she said. “It is for that purpose that I am taking her away
so soon, to prevent talk. If, when you come home next year, she wishes
it, and nothing has happened to raise any new objection, I shall not
oppose you.”
He sat a moment silent. He asked nothing better than he had got; but
his proud spirit rebelled at the manner in which the promise was
given. He was tolerated because they could not help themselves. 30
“Do you agree to that?” she asked, after waiting a moment.
“Certainly!” he replied. “I forgot to say so, and to thank you,
because, excuse me! I was thinking how much poorer an offering is a
man’s whole heart and faithful allegiance than a full purse.”
“If you had millions, it would make no difference, Mr. Rowan,” Mrs.
Yorke said hastily, her color rising. “If I am not cordial in
welcoming you into this relation, my reasons are not mercenary, nor--”
her manner softened--“nor because I do not respect and like you.”
She held her hand out to him. He bent gallantly over it, murmured a
word of thanks, and took leave without saying any more.
He was willing, almost glad, that Edith should go home. He welcomed
any stir and progress in events which would seem to pass the time more
quickly along. Let him get over his year of probation, and, during it,
be separated from her, if they chose. Her doubt and trouble in their
new relations troubled him. When he should come again, all would be
settled. He was full of hope and triumph, and far removed from
jealousy. She had said that she should not think of marrying any one
but him; and what Edith said was as sure as sunrise.
TO BE CONTINUED.
----------
(IN MEMORIAM.)
A CONVERT.
1856.
(These lines express the feelings of one, now at rest, who was loved
and honored by all who knew him--including, probably, those who cast
him off.)
I.
Ah me! my alienated friends,
Whose friendship, like a branch half-broke,
With all its mildewed blossoms bends,
And piecemeal rots;--how kind the stroke
That bond--your bondage--sent to sever!
Yet, can I wish it? Never, never!
II.
I hear them tread your festal floors:
When now the lights no longer burn,
Alone I haunt your darkened doors:
The guests are gone; yet I return:
In dreamless sleep outstretched you lie:
I dream of all the days gone by.
III. 31
Against myself your part I take:
“I was of those whose spring is fair;
Whom men but love in hope, and wake
To find (youth flown) the worse for wear:
’Gainst the defaulter judgment goes:
I lived on trust, and they foreclose.”
IV.
And many times I say: “They feel
In me the faults they spare to name;
Nor flies unjust the barbèd steel,
Though loosened with a random aim.”
Officious zeal! for them I plead
Who neither seek such aid, nor need.
V.
Give up thy summer wealth at last,
Sad tree; and praise the frost that bares
Thy boughs, ere comes that wintry blast
Which fells the grove that autumn spares.
There where thou lov’st thou liv’st! Bequeath,
Except thy bones, no spoils to death!
VI.
To others sovereign Faith exalts
Her voice from temple and from shrine:
For me she rears from funeral vaults
A cross that bleeds with drops divine;
And Hope--above a tombstone--lifts
Her latest, yet her best of gifts.
AUBREY DE VERE.
----------
THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS. 32
NO. II.
When was this liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius first seen by
men? It is not easy to answer the question. Some Neapolitan writers
have maintained that it occurred probably on the very day when the
remains of the sainted bishop were first solemnly transferred to
Naples. For then, naturally and as a matter of course, the vials of
the blood must have been brought into close proximity with the relics
of the head. And this proximity, now intentionally brought about at
each exposition, seems to be ordinarily the necessary and sufficient
condition for the occurrence of the liquefaction. Others, however,
prefer to be guided by positive historical evidence, and have come to
a different conclusion. There is in existence a life of the saint
written in or near Naples, about the year 920. It combines historical
accounts and later legends, and evidently omits nothing which the
writer thought would promote veneration toward the saint. It is
diffuse on the subject of miracles. There is also in existence a
panegyric of the saint, written perhaps half a century earlier still.
No mention whatever is made in either of them of this Liquefaction. We
may, therefore, conclude that in the year 920 it was not known. Four
hundred and fifty years later, it was known, and had been known so
long as to be reputed of ancient standing. About 1380, Lupus dello
Specchio wrote the life of St. Peregrine of Scotland, who came to
Naples about the year 1100, and died there probably about 1130. In
that life it is stated that St. Peregrine came to witness this
celebrated and continual miracle--_quotidianum et insigne miraculum_.
Now, it may well be that the author, writing about two hundred and
fifty years after the death of St. Peregrine, had access to documents
and evidences clearly establishing this fact, although such documents
do not now exist, five hundred years later, or, at least, have not as
yet been exhumed from some dusty library, where they may be lying
unnoticed. Or, on the contrary, it may possibly be that in 1380 Lupus
believed that the miracle, so regular in its occurrence at his day,
had regularly occurred since the year of the translation of the body,
and took it as a matter of course that St. Peregrine had witnessed it;
and so put that down among the facts of his life. But this, even
though a harsh criticism, and one we think unwarranted, if not
excluded, by the words of the life, would imply at least that, in
1380, the Liquefaction had occurred for so long a time that men had
ordinarily lost the memory of its commencement.
Maraldus the Carthusian, who accompanied his abbot Rudolph to the
coronation of Roger, King of Sicily, as historiographer, tells us in
his _Chronicon_--or perhaps his continuator--how, in 1140, Roger
visited Naples, and how there he venerated the relics of the head and
of the blood of St. Januarius. The Liquefaction is not mentioned in so
many words. But these relics would not have been singled out from all
others in the city, and made so prominent, without some special 33
reason--a reason, perhaps, so well known and so obvious that it did
not occur to the writer to state it explicitly, any more than to say
that the king venerated the relics in the daytime and not at night.
The learned and critical Bollandists, who have carefully weighed all
that can be said on this question, incline to hold that the
Liquefaction commenced somewhere between the years 900 and 1000. Prior
to the century between those years, St. Januarius had been ranked
among the minor patrons of the church of Naples. After that century,
he holds the most prominent place and rank in their calendar. This
change is unusual and important, and must have been based on some
sufficient reason. The most probable one under the circumstances--if
not the only one that can be assigned--is that during that century the
Liquefactions became known. The contemporary records of Naples for
that time were very few; for it was a period of incessant warrings,
devastations, and tumults. Those that did exist probably perished in
the not unfrequent destruction of the monastic libraries. Still, some
venerable manuscript may even yet come to light, telling us how on
some festival day, or day of supplication, the relics were all on the
altar, the vials of the blood near to the head; how some of the crowd
that prayed before the altar saw that the blood in the vial had become
liquid; how the wonderful thing was spoken of and seen by many; how,
on other occasions, it occurred again and again; until at last it came
to be regularly looked for, as a part, and the most wonderful part, of
the celebration.
After 1400, the notices of the Liquefaction are more frequent. Æneas
Sylvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II.) gives an account of it.
Robert Gaguin, the old French historian, narrating the journey of
Charles VIII. into Italy, mentions his visiting Naples in 1495, and
his witnessing and examining this miracle of the Liquefaction.
In 1470, Angelo Catone, a physician of Salerno, who devoted the later
years of his life to literature and to travelling, has written a brief
but clear account of it. Picus de la Mirandola, the wonder of his age,
has also left his testimony as an eye-witness.
It is needless to say that, since the invention of printing and the
multiplication of books, we have numberless accounts of it from
travellers and authors, in Latin, Italian, German, Polish, English,
French, Spanish, and every language of Europe.
Ever since September, 1659--ten years after the opening of the new
_Tesoro_ chapel--an official diary has been kept in it, recording
day by day the expositions of the relics; in what state and condition
the blood was found when extracted from the _armoire_, or closet;
after the lapse of what length of time the change, if any, occurred;
what was its course and character; in what condition the blood was,
when safely replaced in its closet in the evening; and, generally, any
other facts of the day which the officers charged with this duty
deemed worthy of note.
There are also printed forms in blank to the same effect, which one of
them fills out and signs in the sacristy attached to the
_Tesoro_, and distributes each day of exposition to those who desire
them. We have several in our possession.
Another diary is kept in the archiepiscopal archives. It was commenced
long before that of the _Tesoro_. We had an opportunity of looking
over it. Down to the year 1526, it seems to be made up from previous
documents and extracts from various authors. In 1526, it assumes the 34
character of an original diary. Here and there come intervals during
which it appears not to have been regularly kept on. These omissions
would be supplied from other sources, when, after a time, the diary
would be resumed. From 1632 it is complete. We have before us a
manuscript abstract of it, from which we will quote hereafter.
The church of Naples celebrates three festivals of St. Januarius each
year; the feast proper of the saint, commemorating his martyrdom; the
feast of the translation, commemorating the transfer of his body from
Marcian to Naples; and the feast of the patronage, a votive one of
thanksgiving. We take them up in the order of time as they occur each
year.
I. The first Sunday of May is the feast of the translation. On the
preceding Saturday--the vigil, as it is termed--a solemn procession,
during the forenoon, bears the bust containing the relics of the head
of the saint from the cathedral to the church of Santa Chiara, or St.
Clare. In the afternoon, another more imposing procession conveys the
reliquary of the blood to the same church, in which the liquefaction
is then looked for. About sunset, both relics are borne back in
procession to the cathedral and _Tesoro_ chapel, and at the proper
hour are duly locked up. On the next day, Sunday, they are brought
out, first to the altar of the _Tesoro_ chapel, and thence, after a
couple of hours, to the high altar of the cathedral. In the afternoon,
at the appointed hour, they are again brought back to the _Tesoro_
chapel, and are duly replaced in their closet, or _armoire_. The same
is repeated on Monday, and on each succeeding day of the octave up to
the following Sunday, inclusive. Thus, for this festival in May there
are _nine_ successive days of exposition. And, inasmuch as in the mind
of the church the vigil, the feast, and the octave are all united
together, as the celebration of one festival in a more solemn form, so
we naturally look on those nine expositions not as isolated and
distinct, one from the other, but as in some way connected together
and united to compose a single group.
The feast and its vigil are found in ancient calendars of the church
of Naples. The octave was added about the year 1646, on the occasion
of completing and consecrating the new _Tesoro_ chapel, the work and
the pride of the city. The processions on the vigil were at first
directed to such churches as the ecclesiastical authorities might from
time to time select, to meet the convenience or the wishes of the
faithful. In 1337, eight special churches were designated to which in
an established order of succession the processions would thereafter go
in turn each year. In 1526, it was stipulated between the city
authorities and the archbishop that they should instead go in turn to
six municipal halls, or _seggie_, as the Neapolitans styled them,
belonging to as many civic bodies or corporations, which united, in
some complex and ancient way, in the municipal government of the city:
that is, to the chapels or churches attached to these _seggie_. This
regulation was strictly followed until the year 1800. The old mediæval
usages and liberties had by that time become weakened or had died out
under the influence of modern centralization. The several old civic
corporations of Naples, if they existed at all, existed only in name.
The halls or _seggie_ had lost their original importance and standing.
A new regulation seemed necessary. From 1800 down, the procession of 35
the vigil has gone each year to the church of Santa Chiara.
II. On the 19th of September occurs the Feast of St. Januarius, the
chief or proper festival of the saint, commemorating his life of
virtue and his glorious death by martyrdom under Diocletian. It is
traced back to the earliest martyrologies and calendars of the church;
even those of the Greek schismatic church have preserved it. In
Naples, St. Januarius being the patron saint of the city, this
festival is, of course, one of high rank, and has an octave. Opening
on the nineteenth, and closing on the twenty-sixth of September, it
gives each year _eight_ days more, on each one of which the relics are
brought forth about 9 A.M., and are placed on the main altar of
the _Tesoro_ chapel, and, about 11 A.M., are carried thence out to
the high altar of the cathedral, whence again in the evening they are
regularly brought back to the _Tesoro_ chapel, to be replaced for the
night in their proper closets. On each day, the liquefaction is looked
for. The reason already given in the case of the May octave applies
here also. These eight days of exposition are not eight isolated or
distinct days, without any connection. They should rather be looked on
as forming a second group.
III. On the 16th of December is celebrated the feast of the Patronage
of St. Januarius. This is a single day festival in annual thanksgiving
for many favors received, and especially for the preservation of
Naples, two centuries and a half ago, from the fate of Herculaneum and
Pompeii.
Naples lies almost under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, that terrible
volcano which, after slumbering peacefully for an unknown number of
ages, renewed its fearful and destructive eruptions in A.D. 79,
203, 462, 512, and more than fifty times since. The burning gas or the
smoke from its crater has risen miles into the air, and has spread
like a dark cloud scores of miles on one side or the other. It has
thrown up stones, which fell in showers of lapilli ten miles away. Its
ashes have been borne to Tunis and Algiers in Africa, and to Tuscany,
to Illyria, and to Greece in other directions. Once they clouded the
sky and filled the air even in Constantinople. Streams of molten lava
have flowed down its sides, filling valleys that were broad and deep,
and sending in advance a sulphurous atmosphere and a glowing heat
which destroyed all animal and vegetable life, even before the fiery
stream itself touched plant, tree, or animal. They roll on slowly, but
so inflexible and irresistible that no work or art of man can stay the
movement or control its course. Everything in its path is doomed to
utter destruction. _Resina_, between Naples and the mountain, has been
destroyed and rebuilt, it is said, seven times; _Torre del Greco_,
near by, nine times. Other places have perished as did Herculaneum and
Pompeii. On every side of the mountain, so fair to look on when
peaceful, so terrible in its wrath, one may follow for miles on miles
these ancient currents, radiating from the centre. Here the hard, dark
rock rings, as iron would, under your horse’s hoof. There, what was
once a death-bearing stream of lava has been covered by time with a
rich soil, on which vines and olives flourish. By the shore, you may
see where they reached the water, and have added leagues of rough
volcanic rock to the land.
Naples has often been violently shaken, and sometimes seriously
injured; has often been in imminent peril, but never was utterly 36
destroyed. This brilliant capital, uniting in herself all that Italian
taste admires of beauty and luxury--“_Vedi Napoli, e muori_”--lives
with a sword of Damocles ever suspended over her. Each night as they
retire the Neapolitans may shudder if they cast a thought on the
possible horrors of the night they have entered on or what the morrow
may bring them.
But men become callous even to such dangers as these, when often
threatened and seldom felt. We can conceive how thoroughly all thought
of them had died out in 1631, when Vesuvius, in a long unbroken sleep
of one hundred and ninety-four years, had allowed six generations of
Neapolitans to grow up and pass to their graves without any experience
of its power. Earthquakes, explosions, flames, smoke, and streams of
fire were all forgotten. Towns and villages, and gardens and
vineyards, were dotting the base of the mountain or climbing its
pleasant and fertile slopes. And among the many charming scenes in the
neighborhood of Naples, there were then none more sweet and charming
than those of the narrow tract between the city and Mount Vesuvius.
So it was on the morning of Tuesday, the 16th of December, 1631. Yet
fair as was the scene on which the sun rose that day, it was to be
greatly changed ere night. Early in the morning, the citizens were
startled and somewhat alarmed by a very perceptible tremulousness of
the earth under their feet. It increased in violence as the hours
rolled on, and the atmosphere too, December though it was, became
sultry and close. The inhabitants of the beautiful villas and the
farmers and country laborers, who had felt the trembling of the earth
and the closeness of the atmosphere more sensibly than the citizens,
and who saw at once that it was caused by the mountain, commenced to
flee with their families for safety into the city. About 9
A.M. a cry of affright went up from the city and the country, as
suddenly the mountain shook and roared as if in agony. All eyes turned
to the summit of Vesuvius, only yesterday so fair and green. A huge
turbid column of smoke was seen swiftly springing upward from its cone
toward the sky. High up, it spread out like the top of a mighty pine
or palm. The lightning flashed through this rolling, surging,
ever-increasing mass as it rapidly expanded on every side. By 11
A.M., Naples lay under the dark and fearful cloud which shut out
the heavens and darkened the day. The incessant trembling of the earth
was perceptibly increasing in violence. Men felt that they were at the
beginning of they knew not what terrible tragedy, before which they
felt themselves utterly powerless.
The ever-open churches were soon crowded with fear-stricken
suppliants. The cardinal archbishop at once directed religious
services to be commenced in them all, and to be continued without
intermission. In the hours of the afternoon there would be a
procession through the streets near the cathedral, in which the relics
of St. Januarius would be borne. Men prayed to be spared from the
impending doom. The trembling earth might open to swallow them; the
tottering houses might fall and crush them; or the mountain, whose
sullen roar, like that of an angry monster, they heard amid and above
all other sounds, might destroy them in some other more fearful way.
They prayed and did penance, like the Ninivites of old. They sought to
prepare their souls for the death which might come to many of them. 37
To the gloom and horrors of the dark cloud of smoke, spread as a
funeral pall over the city, was added, later in the day, a pouring
rain. The water came down heated and charged with volcanic ashes.
Night arrived, more terrible than the day. The continuous trembling of
the earth had indeed ceased; but, instead, there came sharp, quick
shocks of earthquake, four or five of them every hour, vastly
increasing the danger of those who remained in their houses.
Out-of-doors was the pouring rain and the intense darkness, rendered
more fearful by the intermittent electric flashings of the cloud
overhead. The few oil-lamps in the streets gave little light; some had
not been lighted, others had been extinguished. The narrow streets
sounded with shrieks of alarm and prayers for mercy. They were filled
with those who chose rather the darkness, the rain, and the mud under
foot, than the danger within their own chambers. And all through the
city might be descried entire families grouped together, and, by the
light of torches or lanterns, making their way to some church--for,
all through the terrible hours of that long night, the churches still
remained open and thronged, and the services still continued. Day came
at length, if the dim, misty light could be called day. It brought no
relief beyond its saddening twilight. All hearts were depressed and
filled with gloomy forebodings. All felt that only by the mercy of God
could they be rescued.
At 10 A.M. there came two shocks of earthquake severer than any
that had preceded them. The waters of the bay twice receded, leaving a
portion of the harbor bare, and twice rolled back furiously, rushing
over the piers and quays, and passing into the lower streets of the
city. A hoarse and violent roar was heard from the mountain. It was
soon known that the sea of lava within its bowels had burst for itself
a channel-way out through the northern side, and was pouring down in a
rapid stream, widening its front as it spread into seven branches, and
advancing directly towards the city. _Portici_ and _Resina_, near the
mountain, or, rather, on its lower slope, were seen quickly to perish.
Portions of Torre del Greco and of Torre dell’Annunziata shared the
same fate. It seemed to the affrighted Neapolitans, as they looked on
the fiery streams pouring onward, resistless and inflexible, in their
course of destruction, that death was coming to them by fire, more
terrible far than death by water or by earthquake.
Meanwhile, the hour at last arrived fixed for this day’s procession.
The archbishop was to take part in it, and would himself bear the
reliquary of the blood of St. Januarius. The clergy of the city would
precede and accompany him, and the municipal authorities would walk in
procession behind. Thousands were in the cathedral and would follow
after, and tens of thousands crowded the streets through which its
route lay. A common feeling filled all hearts alike; they prayed
earnestly, if ever they did--for their lives, and their homes, their
all was at stake.
The rain had ceased, but the dark cloud still hung overhead, and the
ashes were still falling, and the air was close and sulphurous. As the
procession issued from the cathedral, and while the archbishop stood
yet in the square in front of it, a blaze of sunlight beamed around.
The sun itself they did not see, but his beams found some rift in the
mass of smoke surging overhead, and struggled through, throwing, for a
few moments, a glow of golden effulgence down on the cathedral and the 38
square, and the groups that stood or knelt within it. The effect was
electric. “It is a miracle! our prayers are heard!” was the cry that
burst from the multitude. In a few moments the light was gone; but,
with cheered and hopeful hearts, the procession moved on through the
crowded streets to the gate of the city, looking directly towards
Vesuvius and the advancing streams of lava. Here an altar had been
prepared in the open air, psalms were chanted, prayers and litanies
succeeded, and the archbishop, ascending the steps of the altar, stood
on the platform, and, holding aloft the reliquary of the blood, made
with it the sign of the cross towards the blazing mountain, and all
prayed that God, through the intercession of their great patron saint,
would avert the dreaded and dreadful calamity.
Ere the archbishop descended from the altar, all were aware that an
east wind had sprung up, and that the smoke and cinders and ashes were
being blown away over the sea. The mountain grew calmer, and at once
ceased to pour forth such immense supplies of molten lava. The dreaded
stream, no longer fed from the copious fount, soon slackened its
movement--ceased to advance towards them--and, before their eyes, was
seen to grow cold, and solid, and dark. When that procession, on its
return, reached the cathedral, the sun was shining brightly and
cheerfully. Well might they close with a solemn _Te Deum_, for Naples
was saved. Outside of the city, five thousand men, women, and children
had perished, and ruin was spread everywhere; within the city, not one
building had fallen, not one life had been lost.
The eruption continued for some months after, but in a moderated form.
The danger to the city was not renewed.
Therefore, in 1632, and in each year since, the sixteenth of December
has been a memorable and a sacred day for Naples. It became the
festival of the _Patrocinio_, or Patronage of St. Januarius. For a
century and a half, it was kept as a religious holy-day of strictest
obligation. But the sense of gratitude dies out equally with the sense
of dangers from which we escaped in the distant past. Whether this was
the cause, or whether it was deemed proper to yield to the so-called
industrial notions that have prevailed in more modern times, we cannot
say; but, for three-quarters of a century back, if we err not, this
festival in Naples ranks only as one of devotion. For a number of
years, its celebration was even transferred to the Sunday following.
In 1858, it was transferred back to the day itself, and is now
celebrated invariably on the sixteenth of December. On that day, the
relics are taken from their closet and borne to the altar of the
_Tesoro_, and thence to the high altar of the cathedral. After Mass,
and the recitation of a portion of the divine office, they are borne
in solemn procession through several streets in the vicinity of the
cathedral, and, on the return, are brought again to the high altar,
where there is the exposition of the relics with the usual prayers;
and the liquefaction is looked for for the _eighteenth_ regular time
each year.
If the weather be rainy, the procession goes merely through the aisles
and nave of the large cathedral and back to the high altar.
This feast has taken the place of another single-day festival,
formerly celebrated on the fourteenth of January, and now merged in 39
this votive feast a month earlier.
Beyond these ordinary and regularly established expositions, other
special or extraordinary ones have been occasionally allowed,
sometimes at the request of distinguished strangers, who visited
Naples mostly in winter, and could not wait for the recurrence of the
regular festival; sometimes to allow learned and scientific men,
earnest in the cause of religion, to examine the liquefaction more
closely and quietly than they could do amid the concourse of so many
thousands on the regular days; and, sometimes, for special and urgent
reasons of devotion or public need, as was that of December 16, 1631,
of which we have just given the account. These extraordinary
expositions were more frequent and more easily allowed two or three
centuries ago than in later years. In fact, the latest one of which we
can find any record occurred in 1702. Pope Pius IX. himself, during
his exile in Gaeta, near Naples, waited for a regular day--September
20, 1849--to witness the liquefaction.
On a number of religious festivals during the year, it is customary to
take out the bust of St. Januarius, containing the relics of his head,
and to place it, with other relics of the saints kept in the
cathedral, on the altar. To do this, it is, of course, necessary that
the city delegate with his keys should be in attendance, and should
co-operate with the canon or clergyman sent by the archbishop with his
keys. Together they open the closet in which, under two locks, is kept
the bust, and which, our readers will remember, is built in the
massive masonry wall of the _Tesoro_ chapel, immediately behind its
main altar, and adjoining the similar closet in which is preserved the
reliquary with the ampullæ, or vials, of the blood. As this reliquary
of the blood is not to be taken out on these occasions, its closet is
ordinarily left untouched. But, in some rare instances, it has been
opened, and due record made of the state in which the blood was then
seen to be. At some other times, also, the door has been opened by
special favor, that strangers might at least take a similar view, if
they could not be present at an exposition. We have the record of
nineteen times altogether since 1648, when the door was opened for one
or the other of these reasons, the last time being June 11, 1775, when
the blood was seen _hard_. However, as to the number of such minor
examinations, we apprehend that we should speak with some hesitation.
There may have been many more of which we have not just now at hand
sufficient information.
We have spoken of the official diary of the _Tesoro_ chapel,
commencing in 1659, and of the archiepiscopal diary, commencing as a
diary in 1526, and both continuing, the latter with some _lacunæ_ in
its earlier portions, down to the present time. Of course, different
hands have penned its pages as years rolled on; and it is curious and
amusing to note their differences of character as shown in their
styles. Even in so plain a matter as recording, day after day and year
after year, the state and condition of the blood when extracted from
its closet, the occurrence and character of the liquefaction, the
prominent or important facts of each day, and in what condition the
blood was when replaced at night in its closet--points which it was
the duty of all to record--personal traits are unwittingly manifested.
One writer evidently was fond of ecclesiastical ceremonies, and he is 40
exact in recording the character of the High Mass and of the
processions: who and how many walked in them, how many altars were
erected on the route through the streets, etc. Another was more of a
courtier, and he carefully mentions the presence of cardinals,
viceroys, ambassadors, princes, and eminent personages. A third was
devoted to prayer, and his entries breathe his spirit of devotion in
many a pious ejaculation. One tells you of a new musical _Te Deum_
that was sung. Another had a painter’s eye, and never fails to name,
with minute precision, the varying shades of color seen in the blood.
Another still, with more of a mathematical turn, is equally exact in
setting forth to the very minute the times of the liquefactions which
he records; while others, again, performed their duty in a more
perfunctory style.
On the whole, these diaries are to us most interesting and unique, as
well for the length of time they cover, and the evident sincerity and
earnestness of the writers in stating faithfully what they
saw--sometimes to their own astonishment or sorrow, sometimes with
joy--as also for the wonderful character of the facts themselves which
are recorded.
Of the archiepiscopal diary, we possess a manuscript abstract, kindly
written out for us. From its pages we have made a summary of all the
expositions of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples from the year 1648
to 1860, which we present to our readers in tabular form. We group
them together in octaves, for the reasons already given, and because
in that form several peculiarities are clearly seen which, perhaps,
otherwise would disappear.
We give, first, three tables for the vigil, feast, and octave in May.
The first one shows the state of the blood when taken out from its
closet, giving to each day a column, and recording in each column the
various conditions of the blood, distinguishing them as: 1. Very hard;
2. Hard; 3. Soft; 4. Liquid, with a hard lump in the liquid; 5. Hard
and full; 6. Full, when, on account of that fulness, it could not be
known whether the dark mass of blood within was solid or fluid; 7.
Liquid. A second table will set forth, under a similar arrangement,
the various lengths of time which elapsed from the taking out of the
reliquary of the _ampulla_ from its closet until the liquefaction
was seen to commence. After enumerating the instances in which the
time is clearly determinable, another line indicates the times when
the liquefaction is set down as gradual, sometimes because the time
was not clearly seen, sometimes, perhaps, because the recording was
perfunctory. We add another line, embracing the various occasions when
the diary either omits recording or indicating the time, or does so,
vaguely or in such terms as “_regular_, _very regular_,
_promptly_, _punctually_, _most punctually_, _without unusual delay_,
_without anything new_.” We subjoin to this table other lines, showing
on what days and how often the blood remained always fluid; or always
fluid with a hard floating lump; or always hard; or always full, and
so full that liquefaction was not detected. A third table, similarly
arranged, will show in what condition the blood was when locked up at
night in its closet. We also give three similar tables for the feast
and octave of September, and similar accounts for the December
festival and for the extraordinary expositions.
_May, 1648, to May, 1860, inclusive--213 Years._ 41
TABLE I.
STATE OF BLOOD AT THE OPENING OF THE CLOSET.
---------------------+------+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
MAY. |Satur.|Sun.|Mon.|Tues.|Wed.|Thur.|Fri.|Satur.|Sun.
---------------------+------+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
Very hard | 2 | -- | 1 | 1 | 2 | -- | 2 | 2 | 2
Hard | 156 |119 |207 | 203 |168 | 139 |123 | 113 | 113
Soft | 4 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 6
Liquid, with hard lump| 40 | 74 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | -- | -- | --
Hard and full | 3 | -- | -- | 1 | 6 | 9 | 13 | 15 | 17
Full | -- | -- | -- | 4 | 33 | 56 | 68 | 75 | 73
Liquid | 8 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | --
---------------------+------+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
TABLE II.
TIMES OF THE LIQUEFACTIONS.
-------------------+------+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
MAY. |Satur.|Sun.|Mon.|Tues.|Wed.|Thur.|Fri.|Satur.|Sun.
-------------------+------+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
Under 10 minutes | 88 | 67 | 85 | 44 | 27 | 23 | 18 | 16 | 16
Under 30 ” | 49 | 28 | 63 | 73 | 46 | 46 | 44 | 35 | 37
Under 60 ” | 18 | 9 | 8 | 36 | 42 | 25 | 19 | 17 | 13
Under 2 hours | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 11 | 7
Under 5 ” | 1 | 7 | -- | -- | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3
Over 5 ” | 1 | -- | 1 | -- | -- | -- | 2 | 2 | 4
Gradual | 1 | 40 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | -- | -- | --
Vague or omitted | 26 | 45 | 54 | 55 | 54 | 52 | 51 | 53 | 56
Always liquid, | | | | | | | | |
with hard lump | 17 | 1 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | --
Always full | -- | -- | -- | 4 | 33 | 56 | 68 | 75 | 73
Always hard | 1 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | --
Always liquid | 6 | 12 | -- | -- | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2
-------------------+------+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
TABLE III.
STATE OF THE BLOOD WHEN LOCKED UP AT NIGHT.
----------------------+-----+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
MAY. |Satur.|Sun.|Mon.|Tues.|Wed.|Thur.|Fri.|Satur.|Sun.
----------------------+-----+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
Liquid | 131 |203 |204 | 174 |145 | 130 |122 | 121 |130
Liquid, with hard lump| 77 | 10 | 4 | -- |-- | -- | -- | -- | --
Liquid and full | -- | -- | 5 | 35 | 33 | 25 | 21 | 14 | 8
Full | -- | -- | -- | 4 | 33 | 56 | 68 | 75 | 73
Soft | 3 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | -- | -- | 1 | --
Hard | 2 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1
Hard and full | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 1 | 1 | 1
----------------------+-----+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+------+----
These tables present the course of the expositions for two hundred and
thirteen times each of the nine days, in all, 1,917 expositions. They
do not set forth the changes in color, in frothing and ebullition, in
minor increases or diminutions of volume, and in occasional
hardenings, of all which we shall treat further on.
_From September, 1648, to September, 1860--212 Years._ 42
TABLE I.
STATE OF THE BLOOD ON OPENING THE CLOSET.
---------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
SEPTEMBER. | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26
---------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Hard | 117| 191| 190| 191| 187| 189| 191| 195
Hard and full, (_probable_)| 24| --| --| --| --| --| --| --
Hard and full | 58| --| --| --| --| 2| 1| 1
Soft | 1| --| 1| --| --| 1| 1| --
Full | --| --| 1| 1| 2| 2| 2| 2
Liquid | 12| 21| 20| 20| 23| 18| 17| 14
---------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
TABLE II.
TIMES OF THE LIQUEFACTIONS.
----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
SEPTEMBER. | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26
----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
Under 10 minutes| 35 | 32 | 62 | 59 | 59 | 51 | 51 | 55
Under 30 ” | 64 |101 | 78 | 76 | 78 | 83 | 79 | 84
Under 60 ” | 19 | 24 | 17 | 21 | 10 | 18 | 21 | 15
Under 2 hours | 19 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 7
Under 5 ” | 27 | -- | -- | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | --
Over 5 ” | 13 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | --
Vague or omitted| 23 | 30 | 28 | 30 | 32 | 35 | 33 | 35
Always liquid | 12 | 21 | 21 | 20 | 22 | 18 | 17 | 14
Always full | -- | -- | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2
----------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
TABLE III.
STATE OF THE BLOOD WHEN LOCKED UP AT NIGHT.
---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
SEPTEMBER. | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26
---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
Liquid | 212 | 211 | 211 | 210 | 206 | 208 | 209 | 202
Liquid and full| -- | 1 | -- | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8
Always full | -- | -- | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2
Hard | -- | -- | -- | -- | 1 | -- | -- | --
---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------
These tables give two hundred and twelve expositions for each day, and
thus for the whole group a second aggregate of 1,696 expositions. They
do not, any more than the preceding ones, give an account of the
changes to which the blood is subject, in color, frothing, or minor
increase or decrease of volume. These points will be considered in
their proper place.
The festival of the patronage on the 16th of December, established in
1632, has been celebrated 228 times down to 1860.
I. On opening the closet or safe the blood was found as follows:
Very hard, 2
Hard, 214
Soft, 1
Hard and full, 10
Liquid, 1-228
II. The variations as to times of liquefaction were as follows:
Immediately or under half-hour, 26
Under 1 hour, 29
” 2 ” 41
” 5 ” 42
Over 5 hours, 26
Always hard, 43
” full, 3
” liquid, 1
Vague or omitted, 17-228
III. The condition of the blood, when put up, was as follows: 43
Liquid, 131
” with lump, 46
Soft, 5
Hard as found, 43
Full, 3-228
The extraordinary expositions were 43 in number. Of these 20 may be
grouped with the December exposition, having occurred in the months of
November, December, January, and February.
The blood was found: Very hard, 1; hard, 13; soft, 5; and liquid, 1.
The times of liquefaction were: Under 10 minutes, 15 times; under 30
minutes, 1; under 5 hours, 1; remaining liquid, 1. Of course, on all
the 20 days it was put up liquid.
Nineteen days may be in the same way connected with the May
celebration, as they are distributed through the months of March,
April, May, and June.
The blood was found: Very hard, 1; hard, 13; soft, 4; liquid, 1. The
times of the liquefaction were: Under 10 minutes, 10 times; under 30
minutes, 3; under 60 minutes, 1; under 2 hours, 1; under 5 hours, 1;
time not indicated in the diary, 2; and it remained liquid, 1. On
every occasion it was put up in a liquid condition.
Four other times there were extraordinary expositions in July and
September. Twice the blood was found hard and liquefied within half an
hour each time, and twice it was found liquid.
Nineteen instances are recorded in which for various reasons the
closet was opened and the reliquary seen in its place. Four times the
blood was found very hard; six times it was hard; twice it was soft;
four times it was liquid, and three times the condition is not
recorded.
These tables present an aggregate of no less than 3,884 expositions
within a little more than two centuries, of which number no less than
3,331 were marked by a complete or partial liquefaction. The
exceptions are of various classes. The most numerous one comprises 320
cases, in which the ampulla, or vial, was found in the morning and
continued during the entire exposition of that day so completely full,
that it was impossible for an ordinary observer to say whether the
blood liquefied or not.
The writer of the diary says on this point, A.D. 1773: “When the
vial is full, some signs are at times observed indicative of a
liquefaction, chiefly a wave-like motion when the vial is moved. But
as this can only be seen from the rear (that is, as the light shines
on it or through it from the opposite side), and only on close
inspection and by practised eyes, and is not visible to ordinary
observers standing in front, it is not here noted down as a
liquefaction.” In the diary of the _Tesoro_ chapel, which we cannot
now consult, they are probably recorded as liquefactions.
The next largest class of exceptions consists of the 171 cases in
which the blood was found liquid in the morning, and was replaced in
the closet in the evening still in a liquid condition. We should
observe that not unfrequently in such cases the fluid mass became
congealed or even hard during the day and liquefied again. Even when
this does not happen, there are so many other and frequent changes as
to color, to frothing, or to ebullition, and to change of volume by
increase or decrease, that, even without the occurrence of
liquefaction, the fluid blood presents many wonderful characteristics.
Thus in our synopsis we have counted the octave of September, 1659, as
presenting seven days during which the blood was found and remained
liquid. The diary, taking up that octave day by day, states, that on 44
the 19th of September the blood was found liquid, and, the reliquary
being placed near the bust, there commenced an ebullition of the blood
marked with froth. This continued, off and on, during the day. On the
20th the blood was again found liquid, and the ebullition and the
frothing were repeatedly renewed as on the preceding day. On the 21st
the blood was a third time found liquid, and on this day the
ebullition was more continuous and violent. The 22d and the 23d and
the 24th were marked by the same phases. The blood was always found
liquid, and each day the ebullition was repeatedly resumed and
sometimes was violent. On the 26th the blood was found in a soft or
jelly-like state. It soon liquefied entirely, and during the day
became covered with froth. The 26th--the eighth and last day--was like
the first. The blood was again found liquid, and the ebullition was
resumed, yet more moderately.
The two remaining classes, which our tables present as exceptions,
will also suffer diminution if accurately examined. There are 44
instances in which the blood was found _hard_, and continued hard to
the end of the exposition. Yet the diary records on several occasions
the presence of one or more fluid drops, sometimes of yellowish serum,
sometimes of reddish blood, which could be made to run to and fro on
the surface of the hardened mass, and continued to be seen for hours,
or sometimes even until the close of the day.
As for the 18 other instances in which the blood was found partly
liquid and partly solid, the solid part floating as a globe in the
fluid portion, and in which the same state of things was seen during
the day and lasted until the closing, it must be observed that
generally, if not always, this floating solid mass gradually
diminishes by a partial liquefaction or increases in bulk by a partial
hardening. Sometimes both these changes succeed each other during the
day. In view of these facts, it would seem that these 18 cases, so far
from being looked on as exceptions, should on the contrary be rather
set down as special forms of the liquefaction.
No mere tabular summaries, like those presented above, can give the
salience which they demand to certain unusual facts and to many
ordinary but striking characteristics which should not be overlooked.
For this it is necessary to go back to the diaries themselves, and to
trustworthy historical notices of the miracle.
On Saturday, May 5, 1526, the vigil of the feast of the translation,
the liquefaction is recorded to have taken place as usual in the
_Seggia Capuana_, to which the processions were directed that day. On
the next day, the feast, the blood was found hard, and it continued
hard during the entire exposition. The octave had not yet been
established. It continued hard all through the octave of the
succeeding September, as also in January, May, and September of 1527,
and again in January, May, and September of 1528, and in January,
1529. The liquefactions were resumed on Saturday, May 1, and continued
on the next day, the feast, and regularly during the September
celebration. Thus, for nearly three years the blood remained hard and
solid, without liquefying at any time.
The Neapolitans connect this unusual fact with the anger of God and
his judgments, as manifested in the terrible pestilence which broke
out in their city in 1526, and came to an end only in the early months
of 1529, after causing 60,000 deaths in the single year 1527, and, 45
together with the war then raging, as many more in the ensuing year
1528.
Again, in 1551, in 1558, and in 1569, there was no liquefaction. On
the contrary, for the two years 1556 and 1557, and again for the two
years 1599 and 1600, and a third time for the single year 1631, the
blood was always found liquid when brought forth for exposition, and
never at any time was seen to become solid. Since the last-named year,
it has occurred, in ten different years, that the blood was found and
continued liquid during the whole of a single octave in a year; but
never in both octaves. It never continued hard for an entire octave at
any time, although at some few times the liquefaction occurred only on
the second, the third, or the fourth day of the celebration; or, on
the contrary, it was found and continued liquid for one, two, or three
days at the commencement, and was found hard only on the second,
third, or fourth morning. At the votive festival of December 16, it
has repeatedly remained hard. The table numbers 44 such cases. Of
these only 5 occurred in the first 150 years after the institution of
the feast; the remaining 39 all occur in the last 78 years. This the
Neapolitans explain by the special character of the festival. The
other festivals have been instituted in honor of the saint; this one,
to show their gratitude as a city for favors received repeatedly
through his intercession. Hence, when vice is rife in the city, and
especially when sins against religion abound, their professions of
gratitude are wanting in the most necessary quality to make them
acceptable; and the displeasure of heaven is marked by the withholding
of the miraculous liquefaction.
Departures like these from the ordinary course, or any extraordinary
delay in the liquefaction, or certain appearances of color in the
blood, which they traditionally dread, fill the people with alarm and
sorrow. From the many instances in the diary we give two, as showing
this practical connection between the liquefaction and the religious
feelings of the Neapolitans.
“1732, Dec. 16.--The blood was taken out, hard. Hard it continued
until after compline (the afternoon service). The people were waiting
for the miracle with great anxiety. Wherefore, instead of taking back
the relics (to the _Tesoro_ chapel) at the usual hour, they remained
on the high altar (of the cathedral) until after 21 o’clock (2.30 P.M.);
and the church being crowded with people, they recited the litanies
several times. Rosaries were said, and sermons were preached. But the
saint did not yield, which caused great terror; and everybody was
weeping. So things were up to 24 o’clock (5.30 P.M.) At that hour, a
Capuchin father in the church again stirred up the people to sincere
contrition for their sins, and to acts of penance. While they were
doing this, all saw that the blood was of a sudden entirely
liquefied--a great consolation to all. The _Te Deum_ was sung; and
then, only at half-past one of the night (7 P.M.), the relics were
taken to the _Tesoro_ chapel.”
“1748, May 7, Tuesday.--The blood was brought out hard. After 16
minutes, it liquefied. During the day it rose so high as to fill the
vial completely. From the 8th to the 12th, the vial was always full,
and the blood was seen to be one-half black, the other half
ash-colored, for which reasons his majesty came a second time to see
it, on Sunday afternoon (12th). When the king had left the
_Tesoro_, his eminence returned to pray to the saint to vouchsafe some
sign of the miracle before the closing up (it was the last day of 46
the octave). In the meantime the vast crowd strove to melt him by
their cries and their tears. His eminence, having made his way out of
the chapel with great difficulty, sent for a noble Capuchin, called
Father Gregorio of Naples, who, in a most fervent sermon, exhorted the
people to acts of faith and of sorrow for their sins. He then
commenced reciting with them the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. During
the recitation thereof, the blood was seen to sink half a finger, and
to commence to move. Who can describe the weeping and the fervor? The
_Te Deum_ was sung; and the blood was put up, being at nearly its
normal level, of its natural color, and with some froth.”
No wonder the Neapolitans love St. Januarius as _their_ patron saint
when he thus yields to their fervent entreaties and prayers what was
not granted to the pious curiosity of the king; nor, for this occasion
at least, to the prayers of his eminence the cardinal archbishop.
The following briefer entries of our diary breathe the same spirit:
“1714, May 5, Saturday.--The miracle took place at once. On Sunday,
after an hour and a half. During this octave, the blood showed a
thousand changes, liquefying, hardening, and increasing in volume many
times a day, in an unusual manner. God knows what will happen!”
“1718, Sept. 19.--The blood was taken out hard. After a quarter of an
hour, it completely liquefied. During all this octave the miracle
never delayed as much as an hour. This was truly a happy octave. There
were no great changes; only a slight increase in volume.”
It is tantalizing to pore over the diary. At times you almost fancy
that you have seized the very process of liquefaction. Thus on one day
you read: “The blood was brought out, being hard and at its ordinary
level. After fifteen minutes, a drop of serous humor, of a
light-yellow color, was seen to move about on the hard mass. At the
expiration of an hour and fifty-six minutes, the blood became liquid,
with a large spherical lump floating in it. There was the usual
procession through the streets, his eminence joining in. At 21½
o’clock (about 3 P.M.) the lump liquefied. The blood was put up,
entirely liquid and at its ordinary level.” (Dec., 1771.) You think
you see the steps of the process. First the drop of yellowish serum;
then a partial liquefaction, leaving a lump of solid matter; this
gradually decreasing for three hours and a half, until it entirely
disappears, and the whole mass is fluid. If you read the following,
you may feel surer that you are on the right track: “The blood came
out hard and at its ordinary level. At the end of half an hour, there
was seen to run about on the hard mass a particle of serous matter,
inclining to a yellowish color. So it stood during the procession,
which was outside, through the streets, his eminence the cardinal
archbishop taking his place in it. So it was when the reliquary was
brought back to the _Tesoro_. At 23½ o’clock (about 5 P.M.) this
serous matter changed into blood. But the mass still remained hard.
Words cannot tell with what earnestness and fervor the ecclesiastics
and the people continued at prayer. Finally, at 24¼ o’clock (5.45 P.M.)
the mass loosened in the vial; and half an hour later, that is, after
eight hours and fifty minutes of waiting, the liquefaction took place,
a small lump remaining solid and floating. So it was put up.” (Dec., 47
1768.) Notwithstanding the change of the character of the yellowish
serous drop in the last cited instance into red blood, and the great
difference of the times when the liquefaction took place, there is a
certain degree of correspondence between the two cases--enough perhaps
to arrest the attention and excite expectations. But all to no
purpose. Such a drop was seen on seven or eight other days, lasting a
couple of hours or for the entire day, without any liquefaction
following. And in three thousand three hundred and odd cases of
liquefaction, we have failed to find a third one in which such a drop
is noted to have preceded the liquefaction.
In fact, the modes of liquefaction are as various as we can imagine,
and as remarkable as the fact itself. Sometimes the liquefaction
occurs or commences at once, with little or no delay. At other times,
it is delayed for a quarter or for half an hour, for one, two, or
three hours or more. Sometimes, though very rarely, it has been
delayed nine or ten hours. All this is clearly seen in the tables.
Not unfrequently the change from solidity to fluidity, whether
occurring early or late, has been instantaneous, and for the whole
mass at once--_in un colpo d’occhio_. Sometimes it is gradual, lasting
before its completion over many hours; nay, sometimes the ampulla is
replaced in the closet for the night before its entire completion, a
greater or a smaller portion still remaining solid.
Sometimes the entire mass liquefies; at other times, only a portion.
When this is the case, the unliquefied portion generally floats as a
solid lump or globe in the liquid part. Sometimes, however, one side
of the mass was liquefied; while the other remained solid, and firmly
attached to the glass. Sometimes again, as in May, 1710, the portion
next to the glass all around remained solid, thus forming, as it were,
an inner cup, inside of which the other portion moved about in quite a
fluid condition. Sometimes, during the process of gradual
liquefaction, the upper part is quite liquid, while the lower part
remains for a time hard and immovable in the bottom of the vial; or,
again, the lower part liquefies first, and the upper portion,
remaining hard, is seen either as a floating globe or as a lump
attached for a time to the sides of the ampulla. And once, at least,
the upper portion and the lower portion both remained solid and
attached to the vial, while the middle portion was quite fluid.
We have already said something of the various degrees of liquefaction.
Sometimes the blood is as fluid as water, flowing readily and leaving
no coating after it on the glass. And, at other times, it may be
somewhat viscous; and, if the reliquary be inclined from side to side,
may leave behind a dark or a vermilion film on the inner sides of the
ampulla.
There are likewise degrees of hardness. Sometimes the blood is only
very viscous and grumous, or jelly-like. In the tables we call it
_soft_. At other times, the diary notes it as hard, _duro_; very hard,
_durissimo_; or even hard as iron, _duro come ferro_. When hard, it is
attached firmly to the glass ampulla. Yet on two occasions, at least,
the hard lump could move within, showing that it was then detached.
After having become liquid, or even when the blood was found liquid in
the morning, it has often hardened during the ceremonial of the day,
and then liquefied anew. One of the extracts we have quoted above
refers to the frequent occurrence of this variation in 1714. But 48
throughout the diary we find similar instances, where it hardened and
remained hard for a few moments only or for one or two hours, during
the public ceremony. This was sometimes repeated two or three times in
a single day.
There is a special case, in which the mass hardens so frequently, and
with such regularity, that it must not be omitted. We refer to the
custom of suspending the ceremony for a few hours during the middle of
the day. The Italians are very fond of a _siesta_ in the early
afternoon of a hot and oppressive summer day. Accordingly, unless
there be something unusual to excite them, they are accustomed, on the
later days of the octave in May, and sometimes of September, to yield
to their beloved habit. The church grows very thin soon after mid-day.
A few dozen pious souls may perhaps remain for their private
devotions--about the number one would almost always find in the
ever-open churches of an Italian city. Under these circumstances, the
exposition is suspended. The reliquary, if on the high altar of the
cathedral, is carried back to the _Tesoro_ chapel, and is placed on an
ornamental stand or tabernacle on the altar; and a silk veil is thrown
over the whole. The door in the metal-work railing under the arch
leading out into the cathedral is locked; and the clergy may retire,
one or two remaining on watch. The reliquary continues on the stand,
unapproached, but still visible, through the railing, to those in the
cathedral. At 3½ or 4 P.M. the clergy return to resume the exposition;
and the church is again full. The blood is very frequently found hard
at that hour, and liquefies anew, as in the morning. This intermission
and the attendant hardening and liquefaction seem to the Neapolitans
so much a matter of course that we find no mention whatever of it in
the diary, save the single notice that, on one day, although the veil
had been omitted, the hardening nevertheless took place. The
scientific men from Italy and from France and Belgium who have studied
the liquefaction at various dates, all unite in commenting on this
fact of the hardening of the blood during these mid-day intermissions,
and in considering it, under a physical point of view, as a fact of
the highest importance in deciding the character of the liquefaction.
There are other special circumstances under which the blood has not
liquefied, or, having liquefied, has suddenly hardened again. The
presence of open scoffers, or of declared enemies of the church, has
sometimes seemed to have this effect. In 1719, Count Ulric Daun was
viceroy in Naples. On Saturday, May 6, he came with many German
officers lately arrived in Naples to witness the liquefaction, in one
of the churches to which the procession went, as we have already
explained, and in which the liquefaction was first expected. The
viceroy with his personal staff was of course in his official
_loggia_ or gallery. The foreign officers were clustered together
within the sanctuary. Some of them were Catholics, some Protestants.
The blood was hard when brought to the altar, and remained hard and
unliquefied for a long time. The viceroy at length sent an aid, with a
command to all the officers to withdraw and stand outside the
sanctuary. They obeyed, of course. “Scarcely was this done--the
heretic officers thus withdrawing--when, in an instant, the entire
mass became perfectly liquid, to the great joy of all. It was a
miracle of miracles!” Some of the Protestants became Catholics 49
immediately.
_Putignani_ and _Celano_ mention another fact. We quote from the
former, who was a canon of the cathedral and present at the time on
service. “While the relics were out at the high altar of the
cathedral, there came many nobles from beyond the Alps, who wished to
do homage to the saint and to witness the liquefaction. The blood was
extremely fluid just then, and the reliquary was being presented to
those around, in turn, to be kissed. In an instant the blood became
hard and dry in the hands of the canon. Those near by, stupefied by
this new prodigy, stood, as it were, nailed to the floor. Then the
canon, moved by an interior impulse, raised his voice, and said aloud:
‘Gentlemen, if there be any heretic among you, let him retire.’
Immediately, one of the strangers quietly withdrew. Scarcely had he
withdrawn, when the blood was liquid again, and was bubbling.”
Putignani adds: “The same thing is said to have happened on other
occasions.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
----------
LUCAS GARCIA.
FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.
II.
Seven years passed in this manner. Lucia was fifteen, and had
blossomed into one of those exquisite and fragile creatures that, in
hot climates, appear so rarely and vanish so soon. Lucas, who was
twenty, had developed admirably. He was a youth of manly appearance,
and so judicious and industrious that farmers and managers of
haciendas employed him in preference to others. Both inherited their
mother’s type--the oval face, fine aquiline nose, large and expressive
black eyes, small mouth, adorned with perfect teeth, broad high
forehead, and the bearing of mingled grace and nobility that
distinguish the Andalusian.
Their father had yielded completely to the influence of _La Leona_,
who absorbed his living, and had made him a drunkard in order to rule
him the more effectually. Too enervated and lazy to enter upon a new
path, he went on selling his possessions to satisfy the woman’s
exactions, as an exhausted stream continues to flow in the channel it
made when it was full and strong, without either the will or the force
to open another. From the time that Lucas was able to work, he had
maintained the house alone, with that mysterious day’s wages of the
laborer which God seems to bless, as he did the loaves and fishes
destined to feed so many poor people. Else, how the _peseta_,
sometimes two reals[2] a day can support husband, wife, generally half
a dozen robust children; an old father or mother, or widowed
mother-in-law, clothe them all and the head of the family in a very
expensive manner,[3] pay house-rent and the costs of child-birth, 50
sickness, and unemployed days; and still yield the copper they never
refuse to _God’s-namers_,[4] is a thing past comprehension, and
belongs to the list of those in which, if we see not the finger of God
or his immediate intervention, is because we are very thoughtless or
voluntarily blind.
Lucas, who loved his sister above all things, seeing her entirely
neglected by her father, had assumed over her the sort of tutelage,
recognized and incontestable among the people, which belongs to the
eldest brother--a tutelage which is annexed to the obligation of
maintaining younger brothers and sisters if they are fatherless. This
obligation and right instinctive do not constitute a law, nor are they
laid down in any code, but are impressed by tradition on the heart,
and have, no doubt, given rise to the institution of entails.[5] Lucas
presented, also, the uncultivated type of those chivalrous and
poetical brothers that Calderon, Lope, and other contemporary writers
have given us in their delightful pictures of Spanish manners as
models of nobility, delicacy, and punctilious honor.
As for Lucia, she was, as her mother had been, loving, impressible,
and yielding. She regarded her brother with the deepest affection, in
which respect mingled, without lessening its tenderness.
One evening, when several neighbors, who tenanted Juan Garcia’s house,
were met together in the yard, one of them--it was the kinswoman of
the departed Ana--said:
“Have you heard the news? It is reported that _La Leona’s_ husband is
dead. What do you say to it?”
“That _La Leona_ is just now singing:
‘My spouse is dead, and to heaven has flown,
Wearing the thorns of a martyr’s crown,’”
replied one of the neighbors.
“There will be talk enough, woman, if it is true,” replied the first
speaker.
“Well, what do you want me to say? I feel it for one.”
“I feel it for _two_,” added a third, laughing.
“That is what I feel most,” continued the kinswoman. “It is reported
already that Juan Garcia is going to marry with the rag of a widow.”
Woman! will you hold your tongue?”
“No; and I say more: I say that I don’t doubt it; for the wretch has
him down, and holds him from beneath, so that she can put him to the
torture with “thou must swallow this, or I will lay on thee with
that.’”
“True enough,” observed the other, “she has made a fool of him with
drink; and, not satisfied with giving him wine, which is natural and 51
the legitimate child of the soil, she poisons him with bad brandy.”
“The kite will get everything away from him by degrees, till she
leaves him stuck, like a star lizard, to the bare wall,” added
another; “for she is more covetous than greediness, that ‘walks one
hand along the ground, and the other in the sky, and, with its mouth
wide open, that nothing may go by.’”
“She’ll be Juan’s third wife, and may die like the other two, and the
four children he has under the sod. He must have some deadly
exhalation about him, like a snake.”
“Kill _La Leona_! As if that would be possible! It’s my opinion that
Death himself couldn’t do it, with a century to help him. There was
the cholera, that carried off so many good people; it never approached
her door.”
“The she-rake has no end of luck.”
At this moment Lucas entered. It was Saturday evening, and he had come
to spend the Sunday at home.
“Lucas,” asked his kinswoman, “do you know that _La Leona_ is a widow,
and they say that your father is going to marry her?”
A thunder-bolt could not have hurt Lucas more suddenly than did these
words; nevertheless, he maintained his composure while he answered:
“Either you are dreaming awake, Aunt Manuela, or age is getting the
better of your understanding.”
“Don’t fling my age into my face, _Luquecillo_,”[6] said the good
woman, who was jocose. “I would rather you called me sly fox; it is
permitted to say _old_ only in the company of wines and parchments.”
“Well, then, why were you born so long ago? But don’t come to me with
your troubles.”
“Publish your decrees in time, my son, for this one is in everybody’s
mouth.”
“They may say what they please behind my back. Regiments can’t capture
tongues and thoughts, but no one is going to speak against my father
when I am present.”
“I’ll lay you something, Lucas, that he’ll marry!”
“That will do, Aunt Manuela; you know the saying, ‘Stop jesting while
jesting is pleasant.’”
Like all men of stem nature, Lucas, when in earnest, had in him a
something that imposed respect: the women were silent, and he went
into his own dwelling.
He did not speak to his sister of the matter that occupied his
thoughts so painfully, but, after giving her the money he had brought,
remained a while talking cheerfully and affectionately with her, and
then went in search of his neighbor, Uncle Bartolo.
He knew that the guerilla, on account of his age and good judgment,
and because he had been his grandfather’s friend, exercised great
influence over his father, and could think of no one so suitable to
confide in, and implore to interfere in the matter, and dissuade Juan
Garcia, if, indeed, he entertained it, from such an outrageous
project.
“Hola! What brings _Luquillo_ with the step of a Catalan and face of a
blacksmith?” exclaimed the old man, as Lucas entered.
The youth told his errand.
Uncle Bartolo, having heard him to the end, shook his head, as he
remarked: “Lucas, the proverb says, ‘Between two millstones one had
best not put his thumbs;’ but--well, for your sake and Lucia’s, the
pretty dove! I will do what you ask, even if I lose--and I shall, for
certain--your father’s friendship. I tell you though, beforehand 52
that interference will do no good.”
“But, uncle, that which is never attempted is never done.”
“Have I not told you I would try? You shall never say that you sought
me and did not find me. I only want to remind you that counsels are
thrown away upon the foolhardy, and perfumes upon swine. And to tell
the truth, I would rather tackle one of those highwaymen of last year
than your father; notwithstanding that the she-bandit has taken and
done for him as easily as a spider would vanquish a fly.”
Our old warrior went, the next day, to see Juan Garcia, whom he found
indisposed.
“Hola! Juan,” he cried, as he entered, how are you?”
“Not so well as I might be, uncle,” responded the invalid. “And you?”
“As well as can be, since I am a man of the old times, and not sorry
for it: better suited beneath white hairs than white sheets. But,”
continued the guerilla, who in his long career had never studied
diplomacy nor learned the art of preambling, “let us come to the
point; for one needn’t go by the bush where there’s a high-road; they
tell me, though I don’t want to believe it, that you are going to
marry.”
Juan contracted his brows, and replied:
“And if I have never told any one so, how could they tell it to you?”
“Answer one question with another, to avoid committing thyself,” is a
rule of rustic grammar that the people have at their fingers’ ends.
Uncle Bartolo proceeded:
“It’s easy to see how; you are thinking of it; and people nowadays are
so sharp that they divine the thoughts. So that we may as well be
plain--it is what you mean to do. Tell the truth, now.”
“The truth!” responded Juan, availing himself of another subterfuge.
“Then, though--because I was not prepared to tell it--I have not
complied with the church this year, I am to tell it to you! No, sir!
‘He that reveals his secret, remains without it.’”
“It is plain enough from your crafty answer that your mind is made up.
So you needn’t deny it, nor put me off with palaver.”
“The thing is yet in the blade, and to be nibbled at,” replied Juan.
“Do you know, Christian, what you are about? For the beginning of a
cure is a knowledge of the sickness.”
“Yes, sir, I have my five senses counted.”
“Yes, Juan, four of them useless, and one empty. But, my son, you know
me well, is it not so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are sure that I am your friend?”
“I don’t say no to that, Uncle Bartolo.”
“And you know the proverb says, ‘An old ox draws a straight furrow’?”
“Agreed, Uncle Bartolo; we know that kind of wisdom years give, for we
are told that the devil is knowing not because of his devilship, but
because he is the _old one_.”
“Well, that being so, you will heed what I say.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“And you will consider my advice?”
“What is the meaning of all this advanced guard, Uncle Bartolo? Why do
you sift and sift without falling through the sieve?”
“To fall with all my weight in saying this, and no more: ‘Don’t you
marry, Juan Garcia!’”
“Why not? if you would please tell me.” 53
“Don’t marry, Juan Garcia!”
“Uncle Bartolo, don’t leave your counsels like foundlings in the
hospital, without father or mother. I must not marry-the reason?”
“Juan, ‘where there has been familiarity, let there be no contract.’”
“If it were as you intimate, I ought to marry; for, if this woman has
lost respect through me--”
“Stop, Juan; that’ll do! Don’t come to me with your ‘_mea culpas_.’
There is always a pretext for wrong-doing. But you know very well that
the woman has not lost respect through you. Nobody loses what he never
had.”
“Uncle Bartolo, by what I shave off, but that you comb gray hairs, and
were my father’s friend--_Vive Dios!_--”
“Tut, tut, man! Don’t get excited, and talk nonsense! I did not come
here to poke you up, nor to pick a quarrel, but with a very good
intention; and, as the friend I am to you, to prevent your making an
atrocious fool of yourself. Have you considered your children, and the
kind of step-mother you are going to give them?”
“If she will be a wife good enough for their father, it appears to me
that she will be a good enough step-mother for them; especially as,
where they are concerned, what I do is right.”
“Right! Now you are like the Englishman, Don ‘Turo, that killed an
urraca for a partridge, and then said ‘all right.’ Take notice, Juan,
that they are not likely to be willing to live under that woman’s
flag. You are going to alienate them from you, and, ‘withdraw thyself
from thine own, God will leave thee alone.’”
“They will not be willing to live under her! What are you saying, sir?
We shall see, however. ‘Where the sea goes, the waves go.’”
“Well, Juan, we shall see that Lucas, who is high-minded, will not
consent to let his sister live with a woman of evil note.”
“The note I have put upon her, I will take from her. Do you
comprehend? And Lucas will be very careful not to set himself up to
crow while I live. There cannot be two heads, and, ‘in sight of the
public stocks, street-criers keep their mouths shut.’”
“Think, Juan, that your son should be the staff of your old age. You
may provoke him so far that he will leave you some day without
warning.”
“Let him go; I have the means to maintain myself, and my wife and
daughter.”
“Ah! Juan, what have you left? Juice don’t run out of a sucked orange.
As if that woman had not swallowed your slice of field and olive-yard,
leaving you nothing but the house; and that will go the same way the
field and orchard went. As for making a living--you have thrown
yourself away; your back is getting stiff already, and ‘to old age
comes no fairy godmother.’ Where, then, are those ‘means’ to come
from? What you are going to do is get entangled in debts; and, let a
man be as honest as he will, ‘if he owes and doesn’t pay, all his
credit flies away.’”
“_La Leona_ has a gossip at the port that is a contrabandist; he is
going to take me for a partner.”
“_Only this was wanting!_” exclaimed the old man indignantly. “_You!
you take to the path!_[7] Does Barabbas tempt you, Juan Garcia? Have
you lost your senses entirely, or are you fooling me? Sure enough, 54
‘he that goes with wolves will learn to howl.’ Don’t you know that the
devil takes honest gains and dishonest, and the gainer with them? But
let us keep to the matter in hand. Juan, the woman has a bad name that
neither you nor the king, if he tried, could take from her. She is bad
of herself; and neither you nor the bishop, if he set his heart on
doing it, could make her good. Moreover, ‘a rotten apple spoils its
company.’”
“Go on with the bad! ‘Against evil-speaking there’s nothing strong’;
but, if she appears good to me, we are all paid.”
“Juan, ‘look before you leap.’ You have not the excuse of youth for
your indiscretion; you are more than forty years old.”
“And have more than forty _arrobas_[8] of patience, Uncle Bartolo.
_Candela!_ I have long sought and never found a friend that would
offer me a sixpence, and have found, without seeking, one that gives
me advice.”
“Well, my son, your soul is in your palm,” said Uncle Bartolo, rising.
“Remember that there was not wanting a friend to give you good
advice--a man of ripe brain, who warned you of the future--for this
marriage is going to be the perdition of your house. And, remember
what I tell you now, a day is coming when you will have eyes left you
only that you may weep.” With these words, Uncle Bartolo went his way.
“Son,” said he to Lucas, who had waited for him in his house, “it was
lost labor, as I foretold. But go, now, and mind what I say. Submit to
what can’t be helped, and don’t be stiff-necked, for you’ll surely
come out loser. The rope breaks where it is slenderest. You are his
son, and the authority belongs to him. You will only be kicking
against the goad.”
Lucas went back to the country and to work with a heavy heart. When he
returned home on the following Saturday, he learned that the bans of
his father’s marriage were to be published the next morning for the
first time. Grief made him desperate, and he resolved, as a last
recourse, to speak himself.
We have already hinted at the cool and formal relation that existed
between these two--thanks to the neglect the abandoned man had shown
his children. For some time past, the excellent character of Lucas and
the good name it had gained him had inspired Juan Garcia with that
bitter sentiment which rises in the heart of a man who possesses the
legal and material superiority, against the subordinate to whom he
feels himself morally inferior--a sentiment of hostility that is apt
to manifest itself in despotism.
“Sir,” said the son, speaking with firm moderation, “they have been
telling me that you are going to marry.”
“They have been telling you what is quite true.”
“I hoped that it was not true.”
“And why? if I might ask.”
“On account of the woman they say you are going to have.”
“She is not, then, to your taste; and you think, perhaps, that I ought
to have advised with you?”
“No, sir, not with me--I am of small account; but with some one that
has more knowledge and judgment than I.”
“So, then, it appears to you,” said Juan, with repressed ire, “that
your father needs counsel?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Lucas calmly, “when he has a young daughter, and
is going to give her a step-mother.”
“For fear he might give her one that would eat her up, like the 55
_Cancon_?”[9]
“No, sir, no; we understand now that people are not swallowed like
sugared anises.”
“Or make her work, being herself industrious, and not willing to sit
hand upon hand like a notary’s wife?”
“It is not that, sir; Lucia is not afraid of work. She knows that work
is the honor of the poor.”
“Or, perhaps, keep her at home like a chained dog?”
“No, sir; I am not thinking of that; for my sister, though brought up
without a mother, is modest, and not a girl to be seen at the street
door or with a hole in her stocking. She is used to the shade, but--”
“But what? Have done!”
“That which this woman will give her is evil, and may be her ruin.”
Juan Garcia, who had with difficulty restrained himself, rushed upon
his son, as the latter uttered these words, with his hand uplifted to
strike. Lucas, perceiving the action, quickly inclined his head, and
received upon it the blow that had been aimed at his face.
“God help me, father! what have I done to be chastised? Have I said
anything wrong? Have I been wanting in respect to you? Father, just
before my mother--heaven rest her!--died, she said to me, ‘Lucas,
watch over your sister.’ I promised her that I would, and have kept my
promise.”
“She meant,” replied Juan, somewhat softened by the memory of the
mother evoked by her son, “she meant in case Lucia should be left
without me. But, while I live, which is it that has the authority over
my daughter?”
“Father, for the love of the Blessed Virgin, leave her to me! I will
support her.”
“Are you in your senses?”
“For God’s sake, don’t separate us! I will work with all my might to
maintain us both.”
“Separate you! Nobody has thought of doing it. You will come with her
to my house.”
“No, sir.”
“How is that? What do you mean by ‘no, sir’? Do you think you have a
right to call your father to account? Is it not enough for you to know
what his hands decide? Perhaps you would like to have another proof of
what they are able to do?”
“My father may kill me, and I shall neither open my lips nor forget my
duty; but--make me live with that woman--never!”
“We shall see about that, insolent upstart!”
“Yes, we shall see,” said Lucas, as he went sorrowfully out.
Lucas was gifted with one of those noble and delicate natures that
humble themselves in victory and grow firm in defeat; that is alike
incapable of noisy elation in triumph, or pusillanimous abjection when
prostrate. But the determination of his character was degenerating
into stubbornness, as it always happens when will forsakes the
guidance of reason to follow the promptings of pride. Therefore,
though he had not, in the slightest degree, failed in the strict
respect that morality enforces, neither the threats of his father nor
love for his sister could shake the resolution he had taken in that
decisive interview. On leaving his father’s presence, he went in
search of Lucia, whom he found weeping. For a long while neither
spoke: brother and sister mutually comprehending the cause of the
profound depression of the one and the tears of the other. 56
“If mother could open her eyes!” at last exclaimed Lucia.
“They whose eyes God has closed have no wish to open them again in the
world,” replied Lucas; “but remember, that from heaven she always has
hers fixed upon her daughter. I cannot help you; for, though I have
tried my best to keep you under my flag, I have not succeeded:
because, heart’s dearest, there is no power in the world that can
oppose a father’s.”
“But I am to do only what you tell me, Lucas, for my mother left me to
you,” sobbed the girl.
“Well, then, pay attention to what I am going to say.
“Bear your cross with patience; for that is the only way to make it
lighter. Be a reed to all storms, but an oak to temptation. Never turn
from the right path, though it be steep and sown with thorns. Always
look straight before you, for he that does not do this never knows
where he will stop. As for this woman who is going to be your father’s
wife, give her the wall; but remember that she is bad, and neither
join yourself to her nor talk with her, except with reserve and when
you must.”
“Shall you do the same, Lucas?”
“I--I shall act as God gives me understanding.”
Nothing was seen of Lucas on the day of Juan’s marriage, and it was in
vain that they looked for him: he had disappeared. Juan, who left no
means untried to ascertain his son’s whereabouts, learned some days
later, from a muleteer who come from Tevilla, that he had enlisted.
The father felt indignant at the contempt thus shown for his
authority, and sorry to lose an assistant in his son: but found
consolation in freedom from the immediate presence of an interested
witness whose censure like the fog, without form, voice, or action,
penetrated him with an uncomfortableness from which there was no
escape.
Lucia went to live with her stepmother, and it is hardly necessary to
relate what she had to endure; in particular from the daughters of the
latter, who, being both foolish and ugly, naturally disliked one who
was beautiful and wise; for she had commenced by playing with
sweetness the role of Cinderella that her brother had recommended.
But, little by little, the continual friction was wasting her
patience, and indignation, repressed discontent, and rancor were
beginning to find place in her heart. She wished, sometimes, to
humiliate, by her advantages, those who were continually humiliating
her, and grew presuming and fond of admiration. So it is that evil
seeds spread and multiply with prodigious rapidity: one suffices to
open the way and prepare the ground for the rest.
While these things were passing, a regiment of cavalry, commanded by
one Colonel Gallardo, came, and took up its quarters in Arcos.
Gallardo was rich, well-born, had been good-looking, and a great
coxcomb. He was still the latter; with the kind of conceit that is
often the result of living in the atmosphere of adulation that
surrounds the possessors of money and command--an atmosphere that
intoxicates many, making them overbearing and insolent, and apt to do,
with great impertinence, things that would not be tolerated in others.
While authority is thus misunderstood, it is hardly to be wondered at
that it has lost its ancient prestige, and is hated and set at naught.
Authority should be consecrated to its mission, and, with its
advantages, accept its responsibilities, the first of which is to give 57
good example. Do those in place really think they owe the masses
nothing?--that these are, at once, mothers to nourish, and incensories
to deify them? Shall we ever go back, morally, to those remote times
when men were both worthy and self-respecting, and neither admitted
flattery nor refused to rule its reverence; for the latter was never
so despised as it is at present; the former never so cringing.
But to return to Colonel Gallardo, who has given margin to those
reflections.
This admirable person added to his other pretensions that of youth in
its flower. His own having already gone to seed, the result was that,
instead of appearing the young cock, he suggested the idea of a very
old chicken. By grace of the peruke-maker, which, as everybody knows,
consists in creating ringlets where there is no hair, he wore curled
locks. He encased himself in a French corset, which gave him a
slenderness a sylph might have envied. It was an article of his belief
that amorous conquests were as creditable to a soldier as military
ones; and he considered a little hare-brainedness in a man and a spice
of coquetry in a woman the proper seasoning, for each respectively.
These things, united with vanity enough to fill the space left vacant
in his heart and brain by the absence of other qualities, made of
Colonel Gallardo one of those characters that are detestable, without
being malevolent and ridiculous, though they do not provoke mirth.
This cavalier, a bachelor, of course, like all of his stamp, had
lodgings opposite the house of _La Leona_, whose daughters were
not long in becoming acquainted with his attendants.
The preludes to acquaintanceship were couplets worded and sung with
the evident intention of opening a flirtation. The soldiers took the
initiative, singing to the music of their _guitarillos_:[10]
“If your person can be won
By valor in the field,
Here’s a man with sword in hand
Will sooner die than yield.”
Another followed:
“If for a rustic’s love
You slight a soldier bold,
Base metal you will have
Instead of shining gold.”
To which the girls replied in a similar strain, declaring that they
found it difficult to have patience with “these men of the fields,”
whom they describe as “persecutors of the ground” and “sepulchres of
_gazpacho_.”
Neither was the colonel behindhand in becoming enamored of the beauty
of Lucia; nor was he the man to dissimulate his sentiments. And, alas!
Lucia herself had ceased to be the discreet and modest maiden, who
would once have shrunk offended from demonstrations that could not
fail to give occasion for scandal.
The hopes of our decorated aspirant, who soon learned the interior
circumstances of this family, rose high in view of the antecedents of
the step-mother and the unhappy lot of the young girl. But he deceived
himself. For, though vanity had led Lucia beyond the limits of
prudence, she receded from corruption with all the energy of the
honorable blood she had inherited from her mother. This resistance
exasperated the step-sisters, who, wishing both to be rid of Lucia and
to see her undone, hoped that the colonel would take her away with
him, and laid a plan to accomplish the result they desired. Having 58
previously concerted with the lover, they carried out their project in
the following manner: One night, when Lucia had gone to her room, and
sat combing down her beautiful hair, the door opened suddenly, and
admitted the colonel, hidden to the eyes in cloak and slouched hat,
and accompanied by the daughters of _La Leona_ in giggling triumph.
They had hardly introduced him into the chamber, when, with jests and
bursts of laughter, they turned and ran out, closing the door behind
them and drawing the bolt.
Too much overwhelmed with indignation, terror, and shame to think of
any means of escape, the unfortunate girl covered her face with her
hands and remained silent. The colonel, also, who had been led by
_La Leona_ to think that it would not be difficult to propitiate Lucia
by tender and gallant speeches, found himself without words in the
presence of grief so real and so mute. For, unless a man is totally
base, no amount of daring will enable him wholly to overcome the
respect that innocence inspires.
“Am I, then, so disagreeable to you,” said Gallardo at last, drawing
nearer to Lucia--“I who have no wish but to please you?”
“Lucas! Lucas! O my brother!” cried the girl, bursting into sobs.
“I wil
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/48889