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THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

f

BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH
CHANDOS STREET, LONDON

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

THIRD SERIES.

VOL. VI

JULY— OCTOBER.

MDCCCLXXXI.

LONDON: BURNS & OATES.

DUBLIN : M. H. GILL & SON.

BALTIMOEE; KELLY, PIET & CO.

18SL

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

JULY, 1881.

Art. I.— the KELIGIOUS PRESS.

The Newspaper Press Directory. Thirty-sixth Annual
Issue. London : C. Mitchell & Co. 1881.

A WRITER in the " Saturday Review/' a few weeks ago,
delivered himself concerning newspapers in general, in
terms which drew down upon his devoted head the fiercest
wrath of the whole journalistic world. " Excessive newspaper
reading, ■'' he said, ^^ is a sure destroyer of mental health. Its
effect is to corrupt the judgment, to weaken the sense of mental
discrimination, to discourage intellectual initiative, and gene-
rally to deaden the mental powers by substituting a habit of
mechanical for a habit of intelligent reading. A very little
yielding to this disposition,^' he goes on, " will produce, even in
cultivated men, a habit which may almost be said to be worse
from an intellectual point of view than the habit of not reading
at all." Some such reflection as this must necessarily strike every
thoughtful man, as he turns over the pages of the volume the title
of which we have placed at the head of this article. Two hundred
and thirty-six closely printed pages of imperial 8vo, wholly
devoted to particulars concerning the newspapers of the United
Kingdom, afford a sufficiently striking evidence of the enormous
interests involved in the newspaper press, and testify to the
readiness of the people of this country to absorb a practically
unlimited quantity of literature of this description. That this is
an altogether healthy state of things, and a sign of the growing
intelligence of the nation, is certainly open to question. The
weary speakers who return thanks for the toast of " The Press,"
at the fag end of municipal and other banquets, of course rejoice
over it, and triumphantly point to the enterprise, and industry,
and cultivated public feeling of which it is the sign. Yet there
VOL. VI. —NO. I. [Third Series.] b

a The Religious Press.

are some amongst us who are sufficiently lieretical to think that
the " Saturday" Reviewer did not go quite far enough in his
condemnation of excessive newspaper reading, and who trace to
it no small part of that decay of patriotism, of public spirit, and
of private morality, as well as of that increasing frivolity and
want of serious aim in life which are so unhappily characteristic
of the present day. A people who, like the Athenians of old,
spend their lives '' either in telling or hearing some new thing ''
— in other words, in gossiping — are not likely to be animated b}^
very high aims, or guided by any very intelligent standard. And
to the great mass of newspaper readers their favourite literature
is only another form of gossip. Perhaps one in ten may read the
leading articles, and study the telegrams with intelligence,
but the rest look only at those portions of the paper which
contain what may be most accurately described as gossip — and
sometimes as gossip of the worst kind; police reports, reports of
proceedings in the law courts — and especially those of the Court
in which Sir James Hannen daily puts asunder those whom God
is supposed to have joined — accidents and offences, and all the
little trivial scraps of news which are forgotten as soon as read,
and which have not the slightest interest for, and do not in the
smallest degree concern any save the actors in the events recorded.
But the matter has an even graver side than this. On all
sides it is lamented, and especially in Protestant communities,
that faith appears to be decaying. Nor can there be much doubt
that outside the pale of the Catholic Church religion is becoming
year by year a less potent influence. The outward forms remain
but the soul has departed. In the Church of England fashion
appears to be the prevailing power A hundred years ago the
fashion was what is now called "high and dry^^ Churchmanship.
The clergy were simply country gentlemen, who on Sundays put
on a surplice, and read prayers and a sermon ; whilst on week-
days they farmed, hunted, shot, fished, and took their part in
county business like any other laymen. Then followed the wave
of Evangelical reaction, when the great mass of the clergy
did their best to inspire their people with aspirations after
holiness by the light of a curiously narrow and mistaken
creed. It was natural that a recoil should follow, and that the
excessive individualism, which is the leading characteristic of the
so-called Evangelical party, should lead the more thoughtful
amongst them to endeavour to realize the essentially corporate
character of the Christianity they professed. The result was the
publication of *^ Tracts for the Times,^^ with the inevitable sequel
— the submission to the Church of some of the greatest
intellects in the Anglican body. As Lord Beaconsfield has said,
that secession inflicted a blow upon the Church of England

The Religious Press. 3

beneath which she yet reels. It certainly had the effect of
intensifying the differences which notoriously exist amongst the
members of that very miscellaneous body. The after effects of the
"Tracts'' have been peculiar. Those who accept their teaching
carefully refrain, save in very rare instances, from carrying it to
its logical consequences, while those who reject it drift year by
year farther from what it is the fashion to call " the old Evan-
gelical standards/' and now form what they are pleased to
describe as the " Broad Church party '' — a sect, the principal
article of whose creed seems to be the absurdity of having a
creed at all, and whose Christianity is of so remarkable a type as
wholly to abandon the supernatural element in it. All these
varying parties have their organs in the press, as have also the
multitude of the sects into which Protestantism outside the
Church of England is divided ; and their wranglings and bitter-
ness do not, certainly, afford the impartial looker-on a very
exalted idea of the effect of such religious teaching as is supplied
from the pulpits of the Establishment and of the various dis-
senting bodies. No one, in fact, can make a study of these
so-called "religious'' newspapers, without arriving at a tolerably
definite opinion that the tendency towards unbelief, which is so
eminently characteristic of the present day, is due in no small
degree to the operations of these prints. In the following pages
we propose to examine their leading characteristics with as much
impartiality as is possible under the circumstances.

Excluding four organs devoted to the interests of the Catholic
Church, the religious papers published in London are, it appears
from Messrs. Mitchell &Co.'s valuable guide, thirty-six in number.
Eleven of these represent the varying parties into which the
Protestant establishment is divided; two are organs of the
Baptists ; one proudly describes itself as the organ of Noneon-
ibrmity, and takes for its motto the words "The Dissidenee of
Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant Religion •/'
Wesleyanism has three organs; Quakerism and Judaism each
two ; and Presbyterianism, Primitive Methodism, and Unitarian-
ism each one. Besides these, eight papers describe themselves as
* Unsectarian,'"' — by which word we may understand excessively
sectarian — and two as " Protestant," one of w^hich " endeavours
to unite all on the common ground of Protestantism, and seeks
to bring forward the common danger of Bomanism," while the
other is a "non-Sectarian Evangelical Protestant'' journal, which
reports sermons, lectures, and general religious intelligence.

Of the " Ecclesiastical Gazette " nothing need be said in this
place. It is the official organ of the Church of England, and
is not a newspaper save in the most limited sen e of the term. It
is published on the Friday after the second Tuesday in every

b2

4 The Religious Press.

month, and though nominally issued at the price of sixpence, its
circulation is almost purely gratuitous, copies being sent free of
charge to every bishop and other dignitary of the Church of England
and to every beneficed clegyman of the same body. The contents
are not of overwhelming interest to the general reader, consisting
as they do, mainly of official documents relatino^to the Establish-
ment, with occasionally an original paper of almost ostentatious
colourlessness on some matter of general interest. The
" Guardian " is a far more important and far more widely read
organ. Established at the beginning of 1846 as the organ of
that section of the Church of England which describes itself as
" Anglo-Catholic," it speedily assumed a position as organ of
the country clergy, much in the same way as the " Field ^' is
accurately described as " the Country Gentleman^s Newspaper.^'
There is hardly a country-house in the kingdom where the latter
organ of '^ Sports, Pastimes, and Natural History '' is not
delivered with Sunday morning's letters, and where it does not
beguile the tedium of Sunday afternoon. In the same way there
is hardly a country parsonage which is not enlivened on Thurs-
day by the handsome broadsheet of the " Guardian.^' The first
number of this journal appeared on the 21st of January 1846, in
the height of the Corn-Law struggle, and at the time when the
relations of Great Britain with Ireland, and with the United
States on the Oregon Question, were in a painfully strained con-
dition. It is not very easy to understand from the opening
leading article what line the conductors intended to take in
politics ; the only point about which there was no uncertainty
being that the paper was neither Whig nor Radical. Eventually
it developed into a Peelite organ, but the phrases of the first
number hardly point in that direction. When a Minister is de-
scribed as " mysterious and intangible — alienating supporters but
commanding votes — not liked, not venerated, but felt to be indis-
pensable— ready to retire, but nobody would dare to take his
place, and all would be sixes and sevens until he got back again ^^
— when, we say, a newspaper speaks of a Minister in such terms,
it can hardly be said that it uses the language of a warm
supporter. By the time the '' Guardian '* had reached its four-
teenth number, a sort of settlement had been arrived at. A new
series was commenced, the size of the sheet was greatly enlarged,
and the " Guardian " is found to be pronouncing the shibboleth
of Free Trade with quite the orthodox accent. Its ecclesiastical
tendencies speedily became very strongly marked, and more space
was given to articles and correspondence on these subjects, the
tone being uniformly that of the more orthodox Church of Eng-
land type. Thus, in the second number of the new series, may be
found an elaborate attack upon the Evangelical Alliance, written

The Religious Press. 5

we are bound to confess, with both force and wit, for their
attempt to construct a new " creed of Christendom/'' On the
lines thus laid down the " Guardian '"' has continued to flourish
for five-and-thirty years. So long as Sir Robert Peel lived it
supported him ; so lono^ as the Peelites continued to exist as a
party it was distinctly Peelite ; when that party was reduced to
one member, in the person of Mr. Gladstone, it transferred its
entire allegiance to him. The clients of the " Guardian '^ do not
invariably relish the devotion of their organ to the extremely
versatile statesman who for the present sways the destinies of
England; and it is not a little amusing to observe the complaining
tone in which some of them protest when they find an apology
for an unusually flagrant piece of tergiversation or high handed-
ness on his part forced as it were down their throats. Still, how-
ever, they accept it — "reluctantly and mutinously,'^ as Lord
Macaulay said of the Tories who supported Peel; for the
" Guardian " is necessary to the English clergy. It is
not only a most useful organ for communication between
various members of that body, but it is written in a style whica
gentlemen and men of education can readily tolerate. The poli-
tical leaders are readable, intelligent and moderate in tone, and
the leaders on ecclesiastical subjects are, from the point of view of
the moderate "High Anglican,''' irreproachable. Of course mis-
takes are made from time to time. Thus, when Bishop Reinkens
and the new sect of " Old Catholics " were guilty of making
a new schism in the Church, both he and they found a warm
apologist in the " Guardian,'^ whilst the proceedings of the Vatican
Council were attacked in a fashion which proved very satisfactorily
the justice of the claim of the Church of England to the title of
Protestant. For the rest the " Guardian — allowing for all
diff*erences of opinion — is by no means an unfavourable specimen
of newspapers of this particular class. The tone of culture and
urbanity by which it is characterized is precisely that which
might be expected in the homes of the English clergy, and if at
times there is a certain air of patronage in its references to the
adherents to the ancient faith of Christendom it is redeemed by
the indubitable scholarship of most of its contributors, and by the
efforts which they are visibly making towards a higher life and a
more complete creed than that which they now possess. That it
is politically given over to Gladstonism need surprise no one who
is aware of the peculiar fascination which that statesman exercises
over those with whom he is brought into contact, and especially
those who were trained in the schools of Oxford, and who have
sat at the feet of Peel.

The " Record " is a paper of a very difierent character. It may
fairly be described as the organ of " The Clapham Sect " — as it

6, The Feligioits Pre,9s.

was the fashion to call the "Evangelical Party " (so called) in the
Church of England in the earlier years of the present century.
The paper is understood to have taken its origin in certain con-
versations held over the dinner-table of a well-known city mag-
nate (Mr. A. Hamilton) in the year 1825, at which the friends of
William Wilberforce were wont to assist. The first number was
not, however, published until the 1st of January, 182S, after being
heralded by a prospectus of a length \\hich might have been
expected from a sect which lays the extreraest stress on what it
is pleased to style "the ordinance of preaching." This wonderful
document commences with a general dissertation on "the varied
and extensive influence of the newspaper/' and goes on to ask
whether "the parent or the master of a family can indulge a reason-
able hope that the constantly repeated history of vice and crime,
told with all its disgusting details, and without any serious
expression of horror at its enormities, will leave no pernicious
impression on the minds of those whom Providence has committed
to his care?" Having answered this question entirely to their
own satisfaction, the promoters of the " Record '' go on to say
that they consider it a duty to establish a journal which shall give
the news of the day "unaffected by the disgusting and dangerous
character of thore baneful ingredients which circulate in intimate,
though certainly not inseparable, union '' with it. An editor had,
we learn, been appointed for this purpose, who — happy man ! —
was to w^ork under the control of a committee of management. On
the lines thus laid down, the "Eecord"" has been issued twice a
week, from Tuesday, the 1st of January, 1828, up to the present
time, and its theological views remain exactly what they were at
the beginning. The first piece of original writing which was
published by this journal, was a violent attack on the Catholic
Bishops and Clergy of Ireland, and an apology for those conver-
sions "by the bribe of a bonnet or a pair of shoes/' which the
writer actually treats as so much a matter of course as not even
to require contradiction. The same kind of thing is to be found
in the "Record'^ of to-day; but of late years this journal has
awakened to the fact that the narrow teaching of the " Clapham
Sect " is menaced quite as much from the side of intellectual
activity, as from that of ecclesiastical supremacy. The Catholic
Church, it is beginning to see, is not the only opponent of
Calvinism, though, as becomes a paper of zealously Protestant
principles, it naturally traces everything to which it takes objection
to the influence of " Popery/' The result is somewhat curious,
since the " Record ^' would seem to trace the vagaries of the party
who indulge in what the late Prime Minister called a " Masquerade
Mass,^' to the direct influence of the Vatican, and at the
same time to refer to the same malign power the peculiar scepticism

I

The Religions Press. 7

of Professors Tyndall and Huxley. The Conservatism of the
" Record " is, indeed, unimpeachable, but its zeal is not always
according to knowledge. Only a few years ago a very remarkable
illustration of the kind of thing which finds favour in "EvangelicaP'
and Protestant circles was afforded by this paper. When the
Great Eastern — most unlucky of steam-ships — was launched, it
may be remembered that there was a very terrible accident. Some
of the machinery broke down, and several of the workmen were
horribly injured in consequence, some six or seven being carried
away in a dying condition. Coincidently with this accident came
the news, first, that the directors of the company by whom the
ship had been built, had — from what motive has never been ex-
plained— decided to change the name of the ship from Great
Eastern to Leviathan ; and, secondly, that the ship itself, in
process of launching, had stuck upon the " ways,'^ and could not
be got off. Straightway the " Record "^ published what was
perhaps the most remarkable leading article of the year. The
readers of this instructive paper were informed with the utmost
gravity that the accident in question was a direct manifestation of
the Divine wrath on account of the change in the name of the
ship. "With all deep theologians,''^ said the '^Record,'"' "Leviathan
is a Scriptural synonym for devil.^'' On this notion the " Record''^
built perhaps the most amazing argument ever seen in a newspaper,
even of the type now under consideration. There was some clumsy
jocularity, which to men of the world outside the charmed circles
of Evangelicalism certainly appeared somewhat profane, about
the Almighty having "put a hook in the nose" of Leviathan,
but the argument of the writer was — nakedly stated — that the
Creator was so angry with his creatures for having given to a big
ship a name which in the opinion of "deep theologians'^ is a
synonym for that of the author of Evil, that he caused a dreadful
accident to happen, by which a number of working-men, who had
nothing whatever to do with the change of the ship's name, lost
their lives, while their equally innocent families were plunged into
undeserved distress and suffering. This view of the Divine nature
and purposes appears to be that most in favour with the readers
of the "Record ;'" for, though not so openly stated, it is in the
main identical with that which usually underlies the interpre-
tations of current events which are to be found in its leading
articles.

If, however, the " Record'^ is a somewhat violent, and to dis-
interested observers a somewhat profane organ of " Evangelical
Protestantism,'-* it is surpassed in these respects by its contem-
porary the " Rock.'' This journal — which, by the way, was said
at one time to be edited by an Irish Orangeman and Presbyterian,
but which is now in the hands of an Anglican clergyman — was

8 The Religious Press.

started at the beginning of 1868, in support of the Protestant
character of the then " United Church of England and Ireland."
Its opening address, which is of the usual type of extreme Protes-
tantism, declares that its province is '^ to appeal to the masses of
this great Empire in defence of Christianity as it came fresh and
pure from the lips of its Divine founder, and from the oracles of
God ; and as it was restored at the Reformation by those Protes-
tant confessors who sealed their protest against Rome, and their
faith in the Redeemer, by the blood of martyrdom/'' But the
'' Rock '' aspires to an even higher part than that of merely
defending the faith : it carries the war into the enemy^s camp ;
only, as the enemy is not at all likely to read its diatribes, it is
hard to see what other effect they can have than that of intensify-
ing party feeling, and making its Protestant readers more bitter
than they were before. " It will be ours, too," this opening ad-
dress goes on, '^to wage a warfare of reason and fiict and argument
against the corrupt teachings and traditions of the Roman
Church ; against the principles and practices of Ritualism, and
against the dangers and the delusions of that Rationalism which
seeks to set the intellect of man above his soul, and does violence to
human reason by its misapplication.^' The way in which the
work is to be accomplished appears in the first number. Under
the heading of "Topics of the Week'' there are series of para-
graphs directed against the Irish Bishops and the English High
Churchmen. Roman " difficulties " are dealt with in a remark-
ably comprehensive and simple manner. The writer has g^ot hold
of a copy of the creed of Pope Pius IV., over the thirteenth
article of which he makes merry in the following fashion : —

As the Roman Church does not pretend to be the mother of the
Jewish Church the declaration must mean that she is the mother and
mistress of all Christian Churches. To be the mother and mistress of
all Christian Churches is to admit the existence of other Christian
Churches. Therefore, a member of the Roman Church must admit as
a fact that there are other Christian Churches besides the Roman
Church. But he is bound to believe, as a point of faith, that the
Roman Church is the mother and mistress of all Christian Churches.

Such stuff as this appears to suit the readers of the "Rock,"
for articles of the same kind are constantly published in its
columns. On matters of fact the " Rock " is equally untrust-
worthy. Thus in the same article we find the statement that
"A Christian Church was planted in England either by Paul
himself, or by one of the Apostles, before Paul went to Rome;
and, as a fact, England was in no way indebted to Rome for her
Christianity.'' The reader of the "Rock" is often puzzled
to know which to admire most — the i«:norance or the

The Religious Press. 9

audacity of this accuser of his brethren. The "poetry''
of the first number affords an opportunity of judgin^^ to what
extent the boast of the opening address is justified — that
the " Rock" is devoted to "the advancement and maintenance of
the truth as enshrined in the Word of God/' The name of the
paper, it will be remembered, is an allusion to that conferred by
our Lord upon S. Peter; and accordingly the first number
appropriately enough contains what is called a "Reformation
Ballad," with the title of "The Foundation Rock/' After
quoting the words of our Lord the balladist goes on —

Peter thou art, but not on such a Rock

Can I upbuild that fabric vast and tall,
Which, rising heavenward, shall the lightnings mock,

And stand secure when storms and tempests fall.

No flesh-foundation could its weight upbear,

No creature strength could those rude shocks sustain.

Still less the frail one, who will soon declare

He knows me not when one dark cloud shall rain.
* * * *

The later issues of the "Rock'' fully bear out the promise of the
earlier. Thus, in that for the 4th of March last, we find that this
veracious print coolly identifies the obstructives in the House of
Commons with "the Romish members;" and this in the face of
the fact that Mr. Parnell is a Protestant of a rather marked
type. It is only fair to say, however, that the " Rock " is quite
as bitter against the Ritualistic party in the Anglican Church,
whom its contributors accuse in no measured terms- of
" doing the work of Rome," and of desiring to propagate " the
immoral teaching inculcated by the Jesuits, and criminal aims
of that society." Some idea of the Christian charity and gentle
tolerance of this faithful exponent of modern Protesfcantism may
be formed from a letter in the number for the 4th of March
above-mentioned. Speaking of the rival Anglican Societies — the
Church Association, wliich has prosecuted the Ritualistic clergy,
and the English Church Union, which has found the funds for
their defence — the writer says that he has " no patience with
those who affect to treat the English Church Union and the
Church Association as a pair of equal delinquents. As well might
they speak of the London thieves and the London police as
equally disagreeable sets of people."

What the " Rock " does for the Low Church party, the
*' Church Times " does for its opponents of the Ritualistic clique
of Anglicans. The great object of this journal is to prove that
the Establishment is a true branch of the Catholic Church; and

10 The Religious Press.

this object it aims at attaining by attacks upon the Anglican
bishops of a most amusingly ferocious kind, by habitual and
systematic abuse of the ^' Reformers/' from Luther and
Melancthon down to Cranmer and Ridley, by dissertations
upon points of ritual and the shape of vestments, and finally
by savage attacks upon the Catholic Church in matters of both
doctrine and practice. The tone of the paper is habitually one of
anger and ill-temper, as if the writers were conscious of being in an
utterly fiilse position, and did not quite know how to get out of it ;
while, as regards scholarship and urbanity, the utter absence of
those qualities is apt to lead the reader to believe that the contents
of this paper must be the production of what Sidney Smith —
whom tlie Whigs would have made a bishop but for his inveterate
habit of joking — was wont to ciU "wild curates/^ It would be
easy to compile a " Florilegium '' of no ordinary beauty from the
issues of this journal during the last few years ; but a few quota-
tions from the numbers published during the present year may
serve to show what manner of print it is which finds favour
with the extremer members of the Ritualistic school of Anglicans.
First, as regards the bishops. It might be thought that these
officials of the Establishment would receive an almost unlimited
amount of reverence and obedience from men who derive their
.orders from them, and who constantly profess to depend upon
the validity of the Anglican succession as a proof of their
own '^Catholic" position. The very reverse, is, however, the
case. The *^ Church Times ^' has hardly words strong enough to
express its loathing and contempt for those whom it professes to
believe the guardians of the faith, and the bulwarks of the
Church. Times without number it has repeated that '' whenever
any real difficulty has occurred in which the Church has been in
danger of losing her spiritual privileges, the main body of the
bishops have been on the adverse side ;"* that '^ the chief obstacles
to church reform have been the bishops ; '^f and that the bishops
lead and encourage the people to do wrong. Sometimes the
journal is facetious at the expense of the bishops. Thus, a corre-
spondent writes to say that being at S. Paul's on a certain
Sunday, he counted fifteen sleepers in a congregation of iifty
persons ; on which we have the bracketed remark : " Our corre-
spondent forgets Bishop Claughton was preaching. — Ed.^'J Some-
times the bishops are instructed in their duties, or rather the
clergy are taught how to behave to their ecclesiastical superiors.
It would appear that some of the bishops have made a rule not
to confirm catechumens until they have attained the age of
puberty. This the " Church Times " considers to be wrong, and

* Jan. U, 1881. f Feb. 18. I Feb. 25.

The Religious Press. 11

accorclino-ly advises its clerical readers that 'Mf the child is ready
and desirous to be confirmed, but is deprived of that blessing by
the arbitrary and illej^al conduct of the bishop, it is clearly the
duty of the parish priest to admit such child to Holy
Communion." The vahie of the opinions of the paper on the
state of the Catholic Church may be estimated from the fact
that one of its most important contributors is that Dr.
Littledale who had the courage to say that the Vatican Decrees
were '^a lie," and that those who promulgated them knew
them to be such. One gem may, however, fairly find a place
here. It is from a letter signed '^Archer Gurnev," and dated
from ''The Vicarage, Rhayader, Feb. 10th, " 1881." The
substance of the letter itself is an attempt to demonstrate
that ''we are living in the Time of the End" — a theory
which the writer endeavours to support by a number of specula-
tions quite worthy of Dr. Cumming "of Scotland,'^ as Pope
Pius IX. described him. This wonderful production ends
thus : —

Now of all unfulfilled events it behoves us to speak with modesty ;
but what should this be if not CathoHc Reunion on the basis of
the worship of the Lamb ? The corrupt system which has so long
possessed itself of the mighty Latin Church is doomed to speedy
overthrow, and that forbidden giving of the heart's affections to the
creature, which Scripture calls spiritual fornication, will be found no
more. No longer will our Lord's abiding work as the High Priest and
Lamb that was slain, in Heaven, and Heaven's kingdom be merged in
antedated judgeship ; no longer will Mary and Joseph be regarded as
mediators between Him and us ! The Jerusalem of the wonderful
16th chapter of Ezekiel will remember her ways and be ashamed
when she shall receive her sisters, the elder and the younger (the
Greek and the Anglican), so that she may never more open her mouth
because of her shame when he is pacified towards her, saith the Lord
God.*

There is only one word by which an educated man of average
common-sense is likely to describe writing of this kind, and that
is, rigmarole; to which a man of devout habit of mind might
be tempted to prefix the epithet profane. The extraordinary
part of the matter is, however, that people who write and read
stuff of this kind should imagine that they are in any sense of
the word Catholic, and that they should — as they certainly do —
expect that the Church should make advances to them in the
hope of securing their valuable support.

Akin to the '' Church Times " is the " Church Review," a
little print whose first number was issued on New Year's Day,

* '' Church Times," Feb. 25, 1881.

12 The Religious Press.

1861, at the price of sixpence, but which now appears at the more
modest figure of a penny. The object of the paper, as originally
announced, was not to supply news, but '' to provide those who
have neither the time nor the means for a search into original
sources with a repertory of arguments, ready for use, in defence
of the Catholic Faith as the English Church has received it from
the beginning/' Party spirit was earnestly and even eagerly dis-
avowed, and a sort of undertakino^ was oriven that information
and opinion would be obtained from all sources, whether "Roman,
Greek, or Lutheran/^ Above all things, the reader was assured that

" this is no commercial speculation The gain which is set

forth as the one aim and end of the undertaking is the vindication
of *the Faith as it was once delivered to the saints/ ^^ At the
outset the paper was in many respects an imitation of
the '' Saturday Review," while it had a sort of quasi-official
character as the organ of the English Church Union. Whilst the
original form was maintained the character of the paper stood
deservedly very high amongst those which represent the Anglican
body. Its articles were scholarly and well written, and tlie re-
views of new books were done with very considerable ability.
Since it has been converted into a penny weekly paper it has,
however, fallen off somewhat seriously. Its politics remain
what they were — Conservative, but not violently so — and in
religious matters its tone is distinctly less truculent than the
excitable " Church Times/^ There is also a most commendable
absence from its pages of those rancorous diatribes with which
the readers of the latter organ are but too familiar. Even here,
however, illustrations may occasionally be found of the hatred
and distrust with which the Ritualistic party regard their Bishops.
For instance, it would seem that the Bishop of Rochester has
thought fit to make some alterations in the arrangements for the
services in a church in his diocese. Even on the most pronounced
of Anglican theories, it might be thought that in so doing Dr.
Thorold was strictly within his right, but according to the
" Church Review,^^"^ his nominee is engaged in the " work of
destruction of the souls of the late congregation and the fabric of
the Church/^ Better things than this might have been expected
from a paper which is not, like the ^' Church Times," the organ of
that most anomalous political party, the "High Church
Radicals."*^

The "English Churchman" is a highly respectable paper,
published at the comparatively high price of threepence, and
representing the Anglican party commonly known as the "high
and dry." Its leading articles can hardly be described as brilliant,

* '■ Church Review," March 4, 1881.

The Religious Press. 13

but there is a fine old-fashioned '' port-winey " flavour about them
— if such an expression may be allowed — which is by no means
disagreeable. The writers are perfectly satisfied with their posi-
tion as representatives of the via media school. They have no
great sympathy with the Ritualists — in fact they distrust them
and their works — but at the same they have an almost equal
distaste for the Low Church clergy, and a hatred for Protestant
dissenters of every type. Thus, in the number for the 3rd of
February last, we find an article on '' The Situation/' suggested
hy a letter from Dr. Pusey which had just appeared in the
^' Times.^' The concluding sentences define the position of the
paper with so much clearness that it is impossible to do better
than quote them. After pointing out the difficulties arising from
tlie deficiencies of the Low Church party, and the excesses of the
Ritualists, the article calls upon the Anglican bishops " to express
clear (sic) and without circumlocution, the plain requirements of
the Prayer Book .... which at any rate would secure the
support of the great mass of the faithful clergy and laity .'■* The
article ends with the following sentences : —

At present a church closed from Sunday to Sunday, or opened for
one half-hearted and dismal service, is not only an anachronism, but a
breach of Church order and an insult to common sense ; while it is
equally manifest that a function such as that at St. Alban's, Holborn,
is only possible by a non-natural interpretation of the Prayer Book,
and by reading back into the Communion office a great deal which,
whether wisely or not, was, on well-authenticated occasions, delibe-
rately omitted from it — to say nothing^of the insertion of other matters
which never found a place in it. Here, we believe, lies the ho])e of a
pacific settlement; not in giving way to either school of extremists,
but in levelling up and levelling down until we reach a little nearer to
the golden mean which is the Church's praise and glory.

If so eminently respectable an organ of a religious party can
have an object of hatred, it must be found in the Protestant
dissenter, for whom it would seem that the "English Church-
man'^ entertains feelings very much akin to those with which
the typical fine lady of half a century ago regarded a spider or a
toad. Unfortunately, the paper, for some reason best known to
itself, entertains a similar distaste for the Catholic Church, which
it expresses in a manner sometimes gratuitously offensive. In
the number already quoted is a paragraph on the Hospital Sun-
day Fund, which is about as unfair and unjust as anything can
be. The opening sentence refers to "the interested and successful
efforts of the English Nonconformists, secretly supported .... by
our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, to prevent the introduction of
any questions as to religious belief in the approaching census,'^ and
the paragraph then goes on to make sneering reference to the fact

14 The Religions Press.

that of the £28,000 reeeived at the Mansion House, "only £500
(came) from the Roman Catholics, £2,000 from the Independents,
and d^l,100 from the Baptists." The reference to the Protestant
sects may be left out of the question. At the same time the writer
must have known that such a coalition as that which he suijcrests
is impossible ; that Catholics have infinitely more to gain than
to lose from the diffusion of the truth on these subjects ; and,
finally, that the collections on Hospital Sunday in London
afford no test whatever of the amount of charity bestowed by
Catholics on the poor and the suffering.

Unhappily the " English Churchman " appears to delight in
ostentatious displays of its Protestant character, which are by
no means invariably in the best taste. What can educated and
intelligent Englishmen think of such passages as those which we
are about to quote, save that, in spite of all the talk of the last
few years about the "Catholic" character of the English Esta-
blishment, it is still as Protestant as ever, and that the spirit
which prevailed in the days of Henry VIII. is, in religious
matters, the spirit which prevails to-day ? Speaking of the
reply of the Catholic aichbishops and bishops to Mr. Parnell,
the " English Churchman " says :^

.... the Irish Roman Catholic Hierarchy, as regards the land
agitation, have made up their minds, and they and their flocks will
support Mr. Parnell. They may not altogether like him as their
leader, but he is in position — therefore the man for the time; and,
though nominally a Protestant, he has some special advantages and
claims to support. O'Connell was educated by the Jesuits, and alto-
gether a supporter of the Roman Catholic Church far more agreeable
to the priests than Mr. Parnell ; but O'Connell is not in the field, and
they must take what they can get. They are on the whole very well
served. The priests and Mr. Parnell are agreed, and it will not be
by their cons.mt should order and industry be restored to Ireland.

We turn the page and find a letter copied from that influential
organ of public opinion, the " Maidstone and Kentish Journal,"
on *^The Old Catholic Cause in Germany," with which it is
needless to say the "English Churchman" is in full sympathy.
The style, taste and character of this production may be esti-
mated from a single sentence. " Can any patriotic English-
man, German, or Swltzer, consent to accept the re-union of
Christendom on the terms of taking his orders from and kissing
the toe of an Italian"! The succeeding number of the same
journal contains an article on the " Church and Popular Culture,"
apropos of a speech of Bishop Magee of Peterborough, which

* Feb. 24, 1881. f Ibid.

Tlte Religious Press. 15

affords a fair example of the knowledge which the writers in this
paper bring to the discussion of matters in which Catholics are
concerned. After speaking of the appearance of Monsignor Capel
on the platform^ the writer goes on to say that " the ordinary
Roman priest in this country, trained, it may be, in a foreign
seminar}^, seldom exercises any influence over his flock apart from
that of which he is the centre in his purely spiritual capacity/'"^
Of the taste of the conductors of the paper an opinion may be
formed from the fact that the number in which the above sapient
sentence appears contains an article quoted from the '^ E-ecord,^^
devoted to violent abuse of the members of the Society of Jesus,
on the occasion of their establishing themselves in the Cliannel
Islands after their expulsion from France by the Republican
Government.

Of the remaining journals published in the interest of the
Anglican Church but little need be said. They are not, perhaps,
remarkable for brilliancy or for special ability, but they are not
absolutely offensive, and as a rule are marked by a more reverent
and charitable spirit than the polemical organs to which reference
has just been made. The '^ Literary Churchman,'' which appears
every alternate Friday, contains articles on the religious questions
of the day, which are treated from a stand-point of moderate
High Churchmanship, but its main reliance is upon its reviews,
which as a rule are full, scholarly and accurate. The subjects
treated, it is perhaps hardly necessary to say, are usually those
connected with religion and education. The '^National Church"
is the organ of the Church Defence Association, and is published
monthly. Its raison d'etre is the defence of the Establishment
qua Establishment against the attacks of those Protestant dis-
senters who so continually clamour against its pretensions to
speak in the name of the nation and to enjoy the endowments
which have been placed at its disposal. "Church Bells ''^ is
a harmless and well-intentioned little weekly paper of no very
marked character, but in many respects more resembling a care-
fully written tract than anything else — a remark which may be
fairly applied to the one paper remaining on the list, the little
weekly miscellany called " Hand and Heart,'' with which the list
of Anglican papers, properly so called, closes.

The organs of Protestant dissent — or rather perhaps of political
dissent — which come next upon the list, belong to a very different
category from those which have just been under consideration.
In some of them, at all events, there is very little even of the
pretence of religion, and most of them are distinguished by a
bitter and intolerant spirit. Of these organs the typical repre-

* " Enghsh Churchman," March 3, 1881.

16 The Religious Press.

sentative is unquestionably the ^' Nonconformist/^ a paper started
in 1841 as the oro-an of those dissenters who '• conscientiously '^
refused to pay Church Rates. Its founder and first editor
was the late Mr. Edward Miall, a gentleman who started
in life as a dissenting preacher of the Independent — or,
as they now prefer to call themselves, " Congregationalist^' —
sect at the thriving town of Ware in Hertfordshire. In 1841,
Mr. Miall, being then in his thirty-second year, abandoned
the Congregational ministry, though he continued occasionally to
preach in various dissenting chapels until about the year 1852,
when he was returned to the House of Commons as member for
Rochdale. At the general election of 1857 he was unseated, but
when Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country in 1868, he again
succeeded in obtaining a seat — this time for Bradford — which he
retained until the dissolution in 1874. During the whole of this
period he edited the " Nonconformist," and his labours in
connection with that journal were so cordially appreciated, that
that when it was evident that the fall of Mr. Gladstone's first ad-
ministration vras merely a question of weeks, his admirers raised
a sum of no less than 10,000 guineas, which was presented to him
at a luncheon at the Crystal Palace on the 18th of July, 1873.
It will thus be evident that the paper with which Mr. MialFs name
is associated is a representative one in no common degree, and that
it may fairly be taken to speak the mind of that middle class, which
according to some fervid orators is the backbone of the nation, and
from which the great body of English Dissenters are drawn.

It is hardly necessary to say that the " Nonconformist " is
something more than liberal in politics. Mr. Miall was described
as " in favour of Manhood Suffrage," and as '^ utterly opposed to
the principle of religious endowments" — though we believe neither
he nor his admirers have at any time shown the slightest dis-
position to surrender the small properties with which the piety of
their ancestors has endowed themselves. His op'ening address laid
down the principles of dissent with sufficient clearness. Up to the
period when the "Nonconformist" started on its career, dissenters
had, he told them, " fought for themselves, rather than for the
truth." The time had therefore come when they must "abandon
the ground of expediency, and resolutely take up that of prii>ciple"
— when they must " aim not so much to right themselves,
as to right Christianity." When one considers ex quonam
ligno the average British dissenter is cut, it must be owned that
there is something exquisitely ludicrous in the notion of the
Christian faith needing to be "righted" by the exertions of the
ministers, deacons, and congregations of Salem, and Zion, and
Little Bethel. The next line, liowever, lets the world into
the secret. " The union of Church and State is the real evil

The Religious Press. Ij7

against which their efforts must be directed/' It was not always
thus with the sects. Two centuries earlier, Puritanism had risen
in its unloveliness to complete the work begun a century before
by the " Reformers," but the votaries of that creed had not the
smallest objection to the union of Church and State, or to the
possession of endowments. All that they wanted was to have
the endowments for themselves, and that obtained they at once laid
'•'heavy burdens and grievous to be borne'' upon the people,
until the one genius whom Puritanism has produced declared
that " new Presbyter was but old priest writ large."

In the earlier days of its career the efforts of the '^ Noncon-
formist " were chiefly directed against the imposition of Church
Rates. The attack upon Church Rates was, however, only an affair
of outposts, and Mr. Miall frankly avowed as much in his opening
address. The great object of the Protestant Dissenters is a poli-
tical one, and few of them now care to disguise the fact. But
when the " Nonconformist " first made its appearance it was
thought desirable to conciliate the religious Dissenters by the
assertion that the policy of the paper was " based upon New
Testament principles,'' which, as interpreted by Mr. Miall, appear
to embody the whole Radical programme. First and foremost in
the list naturally comes the disestablishment and disendowment
of the Established Church, and that end has been steadily kept in
view during the whole existence of the " Nonconformist." It
cannot be said that the controversy has been waged with any
particular fairness or courtesy. At the outset there was a good
deal of the disagreeable and untruthful talk about " tithe-fed
parsons," " priestism," and similar matters, while the fallacy that
endowments bestowed upon the Establishment by private libe-
rality become forthwith " national property," was from the first
elevated into an article of faith. In 1865 and 1872 a new system
of tactics was adopted. One of the favourite themes for Radical
and dissenting declamation is, as every student of the daily press
knows full well, the iniquity of *' ticketing " the people of this
country with their religious belief, by requiring it to be stated
in the Census Returns. Why this reluctance should exist in view
of the reiterated boasts of their numbers made by Protestant
Dissenters it is not very easy to see, but the fact remains, and the
censuses of 1861 and 1871 have been — like that of the present
year — taken without these important figures. A clumsy attempt
was made in 1851 to obtain some idea of the relative numbers of
the different sects by counting the congregations, but the
figures were notoriously incorrect and untrustworthy, and though
Mr. Horace Mann of the Registrar-General's office, duly manipu-
lated them in the interests of the political Dissenters, no weight
has at any time been attached to them. In the years above-

voL. VI. — NO. I. [Third Series.] c

18 The Religious Press.

mentioned a bright idea seized the conductors of the '' Noncon-
formist." The Dissenters had effectually prevented a really
effective and accurate religious census from being taken — why
should they not take a census of their own, which might not be
perfectly accurate, but would prove by infallible figures the justice
of their pretension to speak in the name of the great mass of the
people of England? So said, so done. The arrangement was a
very simple, and, at the same time a most ingenious one. It
consisted simply in taking certain areas, limited in a curiously
arbitrary fashion, and counting the number of seats provided
within those areas by the Established Church, by Catholics, by
Jews, and by Dissenters of every type from Congregationalists
and Baptists down to Sweden borgians and Latter-day Saints.
The results were supposed to show the relative proportions of the
various sects, whilst by contrasting the notoriously doubtful
figures of 1851 with those of these manipulated censuses, it was
easy to show that the sects had gained much more largely
than either the Catholic Church or the Establishment. To do
this of course it was necessary to manipulate the figures a good
deal, and that was accomplished by taking, in some towns, the
Parliamentary Borough, and in others the Municipal Borough,
as the area of inquiry, while in cases where the addition of
certain suburbs — as at Cardiff — would have materially altered the
aspect of affairs, they were carefully left out. If to these facts be
added the exaggerations of some figures and the studious under-
stating of others, it will be obvious that these statistics are valu-
able only for party purposes. So notorious and so monstrous
was their false witness, however^ that we believe they have never
been referred to as authorities, even in the meetings of the
•' Liberation Society."

In the course of the year 1880 the ^'Nonconformist" ab-
sorbed the " English Independent," for several years the recognized
organ of the Congregational body. Notwithstanding this fact,
however, it has to a great extent lost the character of a religious
newspaper. It records, it is true, the doings of that much
be-puffed organization, ^' The Dissenting Deputies," the meetings
of the " Liberation Society," and those of such bodies as the
Congregational Chapels Building Society," but there is com-
paratively little religious intelligence, and the leading articles are
not to be distinguished, save perhaps by their acerbity of tone,
from those of the secular press. It is hardly necessary to
say that it supports Mr. Gladstone with intense ardour, and that
it finds abundant reason for satisfaction with the present con-
dition of public affairs.

The Baptist denomination boasts two weekly organs, both of
which are published at the price of a penny. The elder is the

The Religious Press. 19.

" Freeman/' which describes itself as a '^ Journal of Religion,
Literature, Social Science, and Politics." It was established at
the beginning of 1853, and it advertises itself as "A high-class
weekly journal, representing all sections of the Baptist Church."
It need not be added that, while its religious influence is
chiefly confined to the doings of the sect it represents, its
politics are vehemently radical. The tone of the correspondence —
much of which turns upon the rite of Baptism as administered in
the sect — is often unpleasantly flippant, while the erudite
dissensions on the word /3a7rrt^a> do not afibrd a very high
opinion of the scholarship of the sect. The other organ of the
Baptists bears the name of the sect as its title, and audaciously
takes for its motto the words '^One Lord, one Faith, one
Baptism."" Considering that in this little sect alone there
are, according to the R-egistrar- General's Returns, no fewer
than thirteen sub-divisions — that some are Arians, some
Calvinists, some Armenians, some Antinomians, and some ob-
servers of the Seventh Day of the week — it might have been
thought that the last thing of which Baptists would boast
would be their unity. The " Baptist"*^ was projected in 1873, to
meet what was then held to be an acknowledged want amongst
the members of the denomination. It is, of course, Liberal
in politics, but there is very little reference to eternal matters in
its columns, the bulk of the space being occupied with reports of
sermons, and with the general news of the sect. Considerable space
is given to correspondence, the subject lately being, as in the
'^Freeman,'' the right form of baptism. It is difficult in the
extreme for those outside " the denomination '' to understand the
importance which the Baptists attach to this matter. No
one ever doubted that the |3a7rri Jw means to " dip " or " plunge
under " as the Baptists with a vast show of learning contend ;
but they cling to their piece of ritual— the only fragment
as it would seem which they have left to them — as tenaciously
as a High Church curate clings to his chasuble, or an
Evangelical minister to his Geneva gown. For the rest,
the tone of the paper is at the worst harmless, and if
there is something too much about the doings of the Salvation
Army, and of the various societies connected with Mr. Spurgeon's
tabernacle over against the Elephant and Castle, there is at least
a wholesome absence of bigotry and spite which might be
imitated with advantage by many more pretentious organs. At
the same time it might be as well to suggest to the conductors of
the paper, that amongst the duties inculcated upon the early
Christians that of courtesy was not forgotten. It is not
quite courteous, on the part of the dissidents from the old
faith, to speak of Catholics as '^Papists" and " Romanists/ ■*

c 2

20 The Religious Press.

and they may be well assured that there are thousands of people,
as non-Catholic as themselves, to whom words like these are
needlessly offensive.

Of all the dissenting sects, that of the Methodists is perhaps
the most powerful, from the simple fact that it owes its origin to
a master of organization. John Wesley was in many ways a
genuinely great man. He was curiously narrow-minded ; he was
grossly superstitious ; he was overbearing and autocratic in an
extraordinary degree. But he seems to have had an intuitive
perception of the needs of his time, and of the proper way in
which to encounter them. That time was not ripe for the restora-
tion of Catholic order and of the Catholic faith, but it was quite
prepared for the institution of a system which might render
something approaching to religion acceptable to the masses of the
people, for whom the moribund Establishment had done nothing,
or next to nothing, during the whole of the eighteenth century.
When Wesley came, with his lean ascetic face and sensational
religionism, the common people heard him gladly. All might,
however, have been lost, had it not been for the fact that his
genius for organization made of the Methodist sect what was
practically, so far as this world is concerned, a veritable Church.
At the outset the sect was but an off- shoot from the Anglican
Establishment, and was — in theory at all events — dependent upon
the ministers of that Establishment for everything save those
pious exercises of prayer, hymn- singing, and exhortation in which
the true-born Methodist delights. Wesley then stepped in, and
the system was settled under which the whole body of Methodists,
was divided into classes. Every member of the sect belonged to
a " class ^' : each class had its "class leader,'^ who collected from
those under his charge the weekly penny, which was duly handed
over to the " superintendent " of the district, and by him trans-
mitted to head -quarters, thereto be disposed of according to the
orders of the founder of the Society. As a recent writer has
remarked " if Louis XIV. could say with truth L'Etat cest moi,
so with even greater accuracy could John Wesley say of the
Society which bears his name that it was himself, and that
none had the right to interfere with it.'' That view Wesley
maintained, with the result of establishing a body which at the
present moment is, next to the Catholic Church, the most powerful
in Christendom, especially in the United States. In England
the various sects which call themselves after the name of Wesley
form a community second in numbers only to the Established
Church itself. In America, where for many years Methodism was
practically the only religion of the people, the Methodist body
is one of the strongest in existence. With its pseudo " bishops,^'
" church officers," " superintendents," " class leaders " and

The Religious Press. 21

"pastors/' the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States
is a body which cannot be left out of account in considering
the religious position of the New World.

In England the Methodist body has never attained the pro-
portions of the same Society in the United States, and — as is
perhaps not altogether a matter for surprise — Methodism has
never obtained a hold upon the educated classes. The very poor
who want an emotional religion are sometimes attracted by the
forms and the principles of the sect; but the cultured and
refined are repelled by its wild enthusiasms and show no
anxiety for edification out of the mouths of the inspired cobblers
and tinkers who fill the ranks of the Methodist ministry. John
AVesley kept himself fairly aloof from this class during his life-
time, but his brother Charles — the " sweet singer " of the sect —
lived for many months with an illiterate and fanatical brazier in
Little Britain, and his example has been followed by not a few
of the later Methodists. The result may be seen in their litera-
ture. Methodism is represented in the periodical press by four
weekly papers, and it is not saying anything uncharitable to
describe these organs as amongst the feeblest, even of the religious
newspapers. The oldest of these journals is the " Watchman ^^ — a
paper which made it first appearance on the 7th of January,
1835. It was started with the assurance that the profits
arising from its sale should be devoted to the support of some
public institution. How far this pledge has been redeemed it
is of course impossible to say, but in any case the charitable
institution in question must have done very well during
the last five-and-forty years, since, judging by the adver-
tisements, the " Watchman '' is a very satisfactory property,
commercially speaking. The principles of the paper may
best be judged by a paragraph from the opening address,
which will possibly serve better than any elaborate dissertation
to explain in t e phrase of the great dissenter, John Foster,
*' the aversion oi' men of taste to Evangelical religion.'''

The principles on which this publication will be conducted will be
such, as without giving to it a formally theological or religious
character, may yet at all times harmonize with the great principles
laid down in Holy Scripture, and with the authorized principles and
usages of the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion. Accordingly, in directing
his course, the editor will contemplate as his "cynosure" that moral
providence of God by which He governs the nations. While on the
one hand it is not to be forgotten that the present is one of those grand
climacterics of the world on which important revolutions of opinion, and
transitions to new stages of the social state, are found deeply to affect
the character and stability of existing institutions. On the other hand,
in the conducting of this newspaper, it will be remembered that there

££ The Religious Press.

are, after all, in connection with that ''kingdom which cannot
be moved," principles which, in the best and highest sense, are
at the same time reforming and conservative and which, if need be, will
prove to be resuscitating also ; since, even on the supposition of events
the most appalling in prospect to a patriotic mind, they would survive
the wreck of civil order, and reorganize society on a permanent founda-
tion. It is not intended to be maintained that the spirit of change,
which so strongly marks the present age, is all darkness, and its oppo-
site all light ; nor will the desire for legitimate reform be confounded
with a passion for lawless revolution. But taking his station on the
tower of that heavenly truth, which is perfect and immutable, and thus
raised above the tumult of these various conflicts which may at any
time distract the public mind, it will be the object of the "Watchman"
not only to keep a diligent look-out upon the movements of society,
and to make regular and accurate reports of them, but also, on all fair
occasions, to interpose among the combatants with " words of truth
and soberness," such as may serve to soothe and moderate their spirit ;
and especially whenever, as appears to be partly the case at present,
conflicting parties, weary with contention, languish for repose, it will
be his concern to seize the golden opportunity, and to throw off their
attention from mere party politics, to things of everlasting and

universal obligation But, in all cases, the principal aim of the

journal will be to encourage that moral "preparation of the heart,"
which is so favourable to a right use of the understanding ; and to
place all public affairs in that same light in which alone the far less
complicated and uncertain interests of private life can be fairly
estimated — the clear and solemn light of eternity.

The earlier numbers of the " Watchman ^^ were moderately
Conservative in tone, but disfigured by the verbosity and
"' cant " which mark the passage quoted above. They are, more-
over, anything but pleasant reading, from the fact that, at the
time when the paper was first started, the Methodist body was in
the throes of one of those periodical convulsions which
wait like a Nemesis on all sects. Column after column was
occupied with the disputes of " Dr. Warren and his party/'
with complaints against " an individual most falsely styling him-
self a follower of John Wesley, and who (sic) has for years been
well known in the Circuit as a promoter of strife and contention
both in Church and State, and whose vulgar abuse and outrageous
violence towards the Ministers of Christ are such as must make
it apparent, even to his own partisans, that he is wholly destitute
of that piety to which he has made such high but delusive pre-
tensions/' On the other hand, the early numbers of the
'* Watchman '^ contain a host of advertisements expressive of the
'' high sense " which the Methodists of that day entertained for the
Rev. Jabez Bunting, for whose "intellectual and moral character,
and for the value and disinterestedness of his labours in the cause
of Wesleyan Methodism,^' it would, it appears, be difficult to say

The Religious Press, 28

too much. Of the amenities of Protestant controversy, the earlier
numbers of the " Watchman ^' afford some interesting specimens.
Of late years it has changed its character to a somewhat
remarkable extent. In politics it still professes Liberal-Conser-
vatism, but the former quality is much more conspicuous
than the latter; while its religious tendencies are distinctly less
sectarian than they were when it first started on its career. It
is interesting to note bow from time to time even a journal so
distinctly Protestant as this, is compelled to admit the power and
influence of the Catholic Church. To its credit, it has never joined
in the anti-religious warfare which some of the sects have waged
during the last half century, and the representatives of the
Wesleyan body will usually be found in the same division lobby
with Catholics when religious education is under discussion.
Latterly this subject has been taken up with considerable energy,
and those who care to turn over the files of the " Watchman '^ will
find abundant reason for hopefulness with regard to the future of
Wesleyanism. Sectarian though they may be, the followers of
John Wesley are very obviously impressed with the fact that
Sectarianism pure and simple unquestionably leads to contempt
for and defiance of all religion, and that the only hope for religion
lies within the fold of the Church. A recent number of this
paper contains a letter from Dr. J. H. Rigg, the Principal of the
W^esleyan Training College for Elementary Schoolmasters, and a
member of the London School Board. This letter is remarkable
for the indirect testimony which it affords, first, to the rapidly
increasing power and influence of the Church in the United States ;
and, secondly, to the uneasiness with which Protestants, who
are honestly religious view the flood of infidelity which is
gradually over-spreading those countries where the principle of
authority is condemned, and where "the right of private judg-
ment"" is most freely exercised. The official organ of the
American Methodist body — the " New York Christian Advocate "
— has, it seems, devoted a long article to the religious condition of
the city of St. Louis, and Dr. Rigg, from his personal experience,
endorses the statements of his American contemporary. It
appears that in that city, which numbers 350,000 inhabitants,
" Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion/'' that the " Un-
sectarian common Schools of America have become absolutely
godless;" that the people of St. Louis have to "submit to a
godless system of education controlled and enforced by bar-room
politicians, infidels, and atheists/' and that " there is not a dis-
tinctively Protestant religious school in St. Louis, excepting one
little institution belonging to the Episcopalians.^^ Two or three
sentences from Dr. Rigg^'s letter may be added in this place in
order to illustrate the charity of Protestant dissenters, and the
amenities of controversy as understood by the Wesleyan body.

24 The Religious Press.

We have (says the writer) 45,000 in the churches of all denominations,
and 120,000 in the saloons on the Sabbath day. Koman Catholicism

(he adds) is an angel of mercy as compared with those saloons

With few exceptions the leading churches are huddled together in a
small compass in the wealthiest portion of the city. The down- town
population is left to the Catholics, the police, and the devil.

One fact only remains to be noticed in connection with the
" Watchman/-' and that is the great number of quack medicine
advertisements which adorn its columns. Religious newspapers
generally profit by advertisements of this kind, but the " Watch-
man '' is unusually fortunate in securing them.

Another organ of the Wesleyan body is the " Methodist
Kecorder/^ a penny sheet, which was started in 1861, with the
avowed intention of " presenting, from week to week, a complete
body of Wesleyan intelligence." The paper presents few features
of special interest. Its terminology is of course that of the sect
it represents, and its politics may be concisely described as
Gladstonian. Like the '' Watchman," it contains a good many
advertisements of quack medicines, and it is further distinguished
by its custom of printing at length the sermons preached on the
occasion of the funerals of conspicuous members of the sect. The
'* Methodist" — a third journal of the same type — dates from 1874,
and is chiefly remarkable for its very aggressive Protestantism.
The point aimed at is not very high, and a study of the columns of
the paper is not likely to impress the reader with a very exalted
opinion of the intellectual capacity of the modern Methodist.
Much the same verdict will probably be given by the majority of
readers with reference to the remaining Methodist publication on
our list — the ''Primitive Methodist." As its name imports, this
is the organ of that sect of the Methodist body which is most ad-
dicted to the practice of those extravagances which have brought it
into disrepute with sober-minded and reasonable people. It is
hardly necessary to say that it is intensely Protestant in tone, or
that in politics it is as ardently Radical. If the Church is
mentioned, it is always in terms which imply that the enlightened
Primitive Methodists consider her as on a level with the heathen ;
while if the Conservative party or the House of Lords comes into
question it is always with expressions which appear to be borrowed
from the vocabulary of those Sunday papers which are the
discredit of English journalism.

The most remarkable of the religious newspapers is, however,
the " War Cry '^ — the organ of that " Salvation Army" whose
erratic doings not unfreqently bring them into more or less violent
collision with the police, and with the populace of our large towns.
The social position of these persons maybe estimated from two

i

The Religious Press. 2 5

facts : one that their liead-quarters are in the not very savoury
region of the Whitechapel Road ; the other that, like the secret
societies of Foresters, Buffaloes, Odd Fellows, and their kindred,
they appear to take an immense delight in absurd titles, and in
the wearing of uniforms and decorations. The kind of religion
which is preached by the leaders of this singular organization may
be readily comprehended by the study of a few numbers of its
favoured organ. In the first place the hierophants of the sect
appear to lay great stress on their having been originally persons
of very bad character, and at best of the lowest rank in life. Each
number of the " War Cry " contains the portrait and biography
of one of the leaders of the movement, and during the first three
months of the present year the personages thus commemorated have
been as follows : Abraham Davey, an agricultural labourer, edu-
cated as a Protestant dissenter of some unspecified type; Henry
Reed, of Launceston, Tasmania, who, if not a convict, seems as
though he ought to have been one; Tom Payne, a '^ converted
pot-boy;^' "Captain (Mother) Shepherd," born a Baptist and utterly
without education, who lived a vicious life for many years until
" converted "" by the preaching of " Dowdle, the converted railway
guard;" "Captain" George Taberer, the converted drunkard;
" Captain" Polly Parks, an ex-nursery maid ; " Captain" Thomas
Estill, an ex-seaman, not wholly unknown to the police; "Captain"
Roe, the converted horse-jockey; "Captain " Wilson, the reformed
Manchester drunkard ; " Captain " Hanson, a foremast man,
who appears to have been the most respectable of the
party; and, lastly, " Mrs. Captain" Howe, apparently an ex-maid-
servant. The second point about these worthy people is, that,
apart from their fantastic designations as members of the
" Salvation Army," they are extremely fond of adopting fancy
titles and eccentric signatures. Thus, in the number of the
" War Cry " for the 13th of January there is a letter, the signature
to which is literally as follows ; " Private W. Stephens, the blood-
washed coachman of the Stroud Corps." In that for the 3rd of
February is a piece of Welsh poetry, which is signed " William
Davies, the happy Welshman,'^ and similarly eccentric signatures
may be found in every number.

A third point which will strike the dispassionate reader of this
paper is the astonishingly free-and-easy way in which the
" Salvation Army " deal with matters of which commonplace
Christians speak, if not " with bated breath and whispering
humbleness,'^ with at least reverence and humility. Richter is
said to have remarked that no man could be described as trulv
religious who was not on such friendly terms with his religion
that he could make a joke of it. Whether the saying was not in
itself a somewhat indifferent jest may be open to question. At

26 The Religious Press,

the same time, it is beyond question that the " hot-gospellers "
of the Salvation Army talk about the most sacred things with an
irreverence which can only be described as shocking. No small
amount of space is taken up with pious parodies of popular songs.
"E,ule Britannia^' becomes "Rule Emanuel :^^ —

When Christ the lord at God's command,
In love, came down to save the lost,

The choir of heaven, with golden harps,
Praised Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Chorus.

Rule Emanuel, Emanuel rules the waves.
Christians never shall be slaves.

The "Blue Bells of Scotland '^ is distorted into a hymn begin-
ning—

Oh, where ! and, oh where can I now a Saviour find ?
'^ Weel may the keel row " becomes the " Newcastle Anthem ^^ —

Oh, we're all off to glory, from glory to glory,
We are all off to glory, to make the heavens ring.

And so forth. The specimens already given will show pretty
clearly the type of literature represented by the "War Cry." The
news is given in paragraphs of the same character. We quote
one which has for head-line : " Sheerness. Major Moore to
the front. All night with Jesus.

Our Chatham comrades ran over, and the salvation jockey and his
lieutenant gave some soul- stirring speeches. We could see that
many were too badly wounded to get over it without going to the
Great Physician. But the meeting that followed, called " an all-night
with Jesus," beggared description. From one to two o'clock Tuesday
morning there could not have been less than 100 souls (saints and
sinners) struggling and wrestling with the Lord, who had promised a
clean heart. For about half-an-hour we felt we were in Heaven ; the

Spirit of God was upon us We do want a barracks of our own.

Will not some one who loves God and souls send Captain Davey a
good donation towards one. The Almighty pays 100 per cent, for all
that is given out of pure love to Him. Send it along.

The appeal with which this paragraph closes is eminently
characteristic of the paper in which it appears. The begging is
constant, and apparently very successful. By the figures which
are published from week to week, it would seem that the circula-
tion of the "War Cry" is about 5,000, and the leader of the
movement acknowledges from week to week contributions of from

I

The Religious Press. 27

£%^ to £h^. Where the balance-sheets are to be seen is not
stated, nor is the total of each week^s contributions given; but we
have, instead, a strenuous protest against unprincipled imitators
who — in the words of the cheap tailors — ''are guilty of the
untradesmanlike falsehood of representing themselves as the same
concern '' : —

In reply to numerous inquiries, we desire it to be distinctly under-
stood that we have nothing whatever to do with the American
Christian Army, or the Christian Army, or the Gospel Army, or the
Christian Mission Army (neither at Kipley or Castlelbrd).

And we will not be held responsible in any way for the debts or
doings of either of these societies, or any other imitation.

We have no connexion with persons styling themselves the Halle-
lujah Army in Ireland or elsewhere, and invite information of persons
stating they are in connexion with us.

The interests of the Presbyterians are cared for in the " Weekly
Review,^'' a four-penny journal of moderately Liberal politics which
dates from the spring of 1 862. As a matter of course, the greater
part of the space in this paper is occupied by the doings of the
body in whose name it speaks, but some portion of it is reserved
for leading articles and for occasional poetry of a somewhat
advanced type of Protestantism. There is a fine intolerance
about some of these productions which is very characteristic of
the country of John Knox, while the terminology is exactly what
might be expected amongst people who have put what they call
" Sabbath -keeping" in the place of almost all religious duties,
and who have substituted the hearing of polemical sermons for
the duty of Christian worship. The spirit of the following
piece of verse is worthy of the Covenanters themselves : —

British Law must control our Papal Priests.*

If any Papal Cleric be inclined
To show his canine teeth, no man, I hope,
Would urge our Government to tell the Pope
That such a snarler ought to be confined.
What ! shall we miserably creep behind
The Papal petticoat, and scream " Ahoy !
Good mother, rid me from that naughty boy !"
For shame, is that the measure of your mind !
Our ruling men must manage our affair.
And not go whining to a foreign priest ;
When any double-dealing knave will dare
To violate our statutes in the least.
Let him be put beneath the judge's care,
And dealt with so that truth may be increased.

* "Weekly Eeview," March 12, 1881.

28 The Religious Press.

The expression of these lines might perhaps be improved, but
there is no possibility of misunderstanding the spirit which
dictates them, and that spirit, it is lamentable to say, pervades
the entire paper.

The Unitarian " Inquirer '^ is a paper of a very different type.
Its tone is almost ostentatiously tolerant, and there is a
superciliousness about its leading articles which, to the non-
Unitarian mind, is sometimes intensely exasperating. At the
same time it must be admitted that there is an air of culture
about the paper, which is by no means frequently to be met with
in the organs of the dissenting sects.

Of the other religious papers — so-called — it is not necessary
to say much, Quakerism boasts a couple of organs in the weekly
press — the " British Friend " and the " Friend — but neither of
them presents any very salient features. The Hebrew community
are also represented by two newspapers, the " Jewish Chronicle "
and the " Jewish World," two journals which serve, if they serve
iio other purpose, to prove that the people of what it is the fashion
to call " the ancient faith '''' have hardly altered in about two
thousand years, and that there are amongst them a quite sufficient
number of those qui negant esse resurrectionem. These papers
are, however, of very small interest as compared with those which
describe themselves as " unsectarian,''-' and which are carried on
in the interests of the dissenting sects. A writer in '*' Macmillan's
Magazine " recently described these organs at some length, and
it would be difficult to add much to his account of them. The
"Christian World," the "Christian," the "Christian Herald,"
and the " Fountain," appear to be written by dissenting ministers
of the lower type — and what they are Mrs. Oliphant has told
the world once for all in her inimitable novels, " Salem Chapel "
and " Phoebe Junior " — for the edification of the young ladies and
gentlemen of a " serious " turn of mind, who serve behind the
counters of the shops in provincial towns, and who form the
back-bone of the congregations of the dissenting chapels in the
provinces. The stories which they contain are somewhat dull,
and the articles which adorn them are not, as a rule, of a kind to
attract people of refined taste, but there is an abundance of
sectarian spite and jealousy, which, it is not unfair to suppose,
makes up for deficiencies in other respects. Two points only
remain to be noticed. The first is, that these papers appear, as
a rule, to live by the advertisements of quack medicines, quack
tea, quack jewellery, and quack pictures ; the second, that the
most widely-circulated of all — or at all events the one wbicli
professes to enjoy the widest circulation — is given up to specula-
tions on the prophecies of the Old Testament and the Apocalypse.
Of these matters it requires a certain sense of humour to speak

The Extent of Free Will. 29

with temper. When, however, we find a "clergyman of the
Church of England " — whose name, by the way, does not appear
in the " Clergy List '' — complacently predicting the destruction
of the. world as imminent on the strength of his reading of
certain passages in the prophecies of Daniel, and talking with
similar complacency of the ^' followers of the Scarlet Woman
of Babylon," our laughter is apt to have a rather sardonic
quality about it. Nor, in view of the fact that those who
believe in the peculiar theology of these journals are amongst
the most devout of Sabbatarians, is it possible to regard with
entire complacency the trivial circumstance that one at least of
them is openly sold on Sundays within the walls of that ^'Temple"
of which its editor is the hierophant.

On the whole, a survey of the so-called religious press of England
is not flattering to the national pride. Amongst the organs of the
Establishment may be found the representatives of the half dozen
sects into which that body is divided; but in no one is it
possible to discover that Catholic spirit which it was the hope
of the Tractarians of 1830 to revive. The Low Church party
appear to delight in journals whose actual raison d'etre is
their opposition to the Catholic faith, and which in their
violent Protestantism not unfreqently lose sight of the decencies
of controversy. The papers which represent the interests of
Protestant dissent are not much wiser or less virulent ; whilst
some of them are, as a matter of fact, examples of what
journalism should not be. Yet these are papers of the widest
circulation ; and it is to their readers and supporters that is now
committed the final decision of all matters concerning the real
government of the country.

Art IL— THE EXTENT OF FREE WILL.

WE need not, we hope, remind our readers that our present
succession of articles has for its purpose the establishing
securely on argumentative ground — particularly against con-
temporary Antitheists — the Existence of that Personal and
Infinitely Perfect Being, whom Christians designate by the
name " God." Hardly any premiss (we consider) is more
effective for this conclusion, than the existence of Free Will
in man, as irrefragably proved by reason and experience. We
have accordingly been proceeding of late with a series bearing
on this particular theme. We drew out, in April, 1874, our
general line of argument on the subject ; and we examined

80 The Extent of Free Will

successfully (pp. 347-360) all the objections against Free Will
which we could find adduced by Mr. Stuart Mill and by Dr.
Bain. Dr. Bain replied to this article : and we rejoined in
April, 1879 ; adding some supplementary remarks in October
of the same year. Dr. Bain briefly returned to the controversy
in the Mind of January, 1880, and we answered him in the
April number of the same periodical :* nor (as he informs us in
a most courteous private letter) does he intend to continue the
controversy further. In the April number of Mind there
also appeared an elaborate criticism of our whole argument,
from the pen of Mr. Shad worth Hodgson ; which we answered
at length in our number of last October. Mr. Hodgson briefly
replied in the Mind of last January, and we are quite willing to
leave him the last word for the present. More than one Catholic
of weight has expressed to us a wish that we would press on
more rapidly with the general chain of our Theistic argument ;
and we would defer, therefore, our reply to our last opponent,
till the chain is completed. Meanwhile we can desire nothing
better, than that fair-minded and impartial thinkers shall judge
for themselves, how far anything now said by Mr. Hodgson
tends to invalidate the arguments we had adduced for our own
conclusion.

The ground we have taken up (as our readers will remember)
has been this. Determinists maintain, that the same uniformity
of sequence proceeds in the phenomena of man's will, which
otherwise prevails throughout the phenomenal world ; that every
man, at every moment, by the very constitution of his nature,
infallibly and inevitably elicits that particular act, to which the
entire circumstances of the moment (external and internal)
dispose him. We have argued in reply, that, — whereas un-
doubtedly each man during far the greater part of his waking
life is conscious of a "spontaneous impulse,'' which is due
to his entire circumstances of the moment, and results infallibly
therefrom — he finds himself by experience nevertheless able again
and again to resist that impulse. He is able, we say, to put
forth at any given moment what we have called ^' anti-impulsive
effort '" and to elicit again and again some act indefinitely
different from that to which his spontaneous impulse solicits
him.

Here our position stands at present ; and it contains all which
is necessary, in order that the fact of Free Will may possess its
due efficiency in our argument for Theism. Nevertheless, in
order to complete the scientific treatment of Free Will, a
supplementary question of great importance has to be con-

* This paper was appended to the Dublin Review of July, 1880.

I

The Extent of Free Will. 81

sidered : a question, moreover, which Dr. Bain expressly
challenged us to face. During how large a period of the day,
in what acts, under what conditions, is any given human being
able to exercise this gift of Free Will ? And we are the rather
called on not to shrink from this question, because the very
course of reasoning which we have been obliged to adopt against
the Determinists, — unless it be further developed and ex-
plained— might be understood (we think) to favour a certain
tenet, with which we have no sympathy whatever : a tenet,
which we cannot but regard as erring gravely against reason,
against sound morality, and against Catholic Theology. The
tenet to which we refer is this : that my will is only free at
those particular moments when, after expressly debating and
consulting with myself "^ as to the choice I should make between
two or more competing alternatives, I make my definite resolve
accordingly. This tenet is held (we incline to think) more or
less consciously by the large majority of non-Catholic Libertarians;
and even many a Catholic occasionally uses expressions and
arguments, of which we can hardly see how they do not imply
it. Now we are especially desirous that Catholics at all events
shall see the matter in (what we must account) its true light.
Our present article then may in some sense be called intercalary.
We shall not therein be addressing Determinists at all, or pro-
ceeding in any way with our assault on Antitheism ; except of
course so far as such assault is indirectly assisted by anything
which promotes philosophical unanimity and truth among the
body of orthodox believers. It is Catholics alone whom we
shall directly and primarily address ; and indeed — as regards
the theological reasoning which will occupy no very small
portion of our space — we cannot expect it of course to have
any weight except with Catholics. But we hope (as we pro-
ceed) to deal with each successive question on the ground of
philosophical, no less than theological, argument. Nor will
our philosophical arguments imply any other controverted
philosophical doctrines, except only those which we consider
ourselves to have established in our previous articles. We
consider, therefore, that our reasoning has a logical claim on the
attention — not of Catholics only — but of those non-Catholics
also, who are at one with us on the existence of Free Will and
on the true foundation of Ethical Science. Still (as we have
said) our direct and primary concern will be throughout with
Catholics.

The tenet which we desire to refute (as we have already

* We purposely avoid the word " deliberating," because it has led (we
think) to much contusion of thought.

32 The Extent of Free Will.

explained) is this : that a man is only free at that particular
moment when — after expressly debating and consulting with
himself as to the choice he shall make between two or more
competing alternatives —he makes his definite resolve in one or
other direction. The thesis which we would oppose to this
(as we said in answer to Dr. Bain's inquiry) may be expressed
with sufficient general accuracy by affirming, that each man is
free during pretty nearly the whole of his waking life. The
controversy, which may be raised between these two widely
different views, is our direct controversy on the present occasion ;
and the thesis we have just named is our direct thesis. But it
will be an absolutely necessary preliminary task, to exhibit
(what we may call) a map of man's moral nature and moral
action. This preliminary task will occupy half of our article ;
and when it is finished, we shall have gone (we consider) con-
siderably more than half way towards the satisfactory exposition
and defence of our direct thesis itself. Moreover, we hope that
this preliminary inquiry will be found by our readers to possess
some interest, even apart from the conclusion for the sake of
which we introduce it. It will be necessary indeed to discuss
incidentally one or two points, which have been warmly debated
in the schools ; and we have need, therefore, at starting to solicit
the indulgence of our readers, for any theological error into
which we may unwarily fall. At the same time we shall do
our very best to avoid any such error. And at all events we
shall confidently contend in due course, that as regards the
direct point at issue — the extent of Free Will — we are sub-
stantially following the unanimous judgment of standard Catholic
theologians. Without further preface then, we embark on our
preliminary undertaking.

I. We begin with the beginning. It is held as a most
certain truth by all Libertarians, both Catholic and other, that
no human act of this life can be formally either virtuous or
sinful — 'Can be worthy either of praise or blame — unless it be a
j-ree act ; and only so long as it continues free. On this truth
we have spoken abundantly on earlier occasions, and here need
add no more. Whenever, therefore, in the earlier part of this
article, we speak of acts as " virtuous " or " sinful '■' — we must
alvyays be understood as implying the hypothesis, that they are
at the moment free. How far this hypothesis coincides with
fact — how large a part of human voluntary action is really free
— this is the very question on which, before we conclude,
we are to set forth and defend what we account true doctrine.
Meanwhile let it be distinctly understood, that where
there is no liberty, acts may be '' materially '' virtuous or

Tlie Extent of Free Will. 83

sinful ; but they cannot be " formally " so, nor deserve praise
or blame.

II. " Nemo intendens ad malum operatur/^ There is no
attractiveness whatever to any one in wrongdoinj^ as such; nc^
human being does — or from the constitution of his nature can —
do wrong, precisely because it is wrong. This is the absolutely
unanimous doctrine of Catholic theologians and philosophers.
It deserves far fuller exposition than we have ]iere space to give
it ; but a very few words will suffice to show, how clearly
experience testifies its certain and manifest truth. Take the
very wickedest man in the whole world, and get him to fix his
thoughts carefully on such topics as these : ^' How exquisitely
base and mean to ruin the friend that trusts me ! " " How
debasing, polluting and detestable is the practice of licentious-
ness V^ " How odious and revolting are acts of envy and
malignity ?^ Will it be found that such considerations spur
him on to evil actions ? that the baseness, meanness, odiousness
of an evil action is an additional motive to him for doing it ?
On the contrary, he knows to the very depth of his heart
how fundamentally different is his moral constitution. He
knows very well that, if he could only be got to dwell on
such a course of thought as we have just suggested, he would
assuredly be reclaimed ; and for that very reason he entirely
refuses to ponder on the wickedness of his acts. It is their
pleasurableness, not their wickedness, which stimulates him to
their performance.

III. Accordingly, it is the universal doctrine of Catholic
theologians and philosophers, that all ends of action which men
can possibly pursue are divisible into three classes : '' bonum
honestum ; " *' bonum delectabile ^' ; " bonum utile/' Let us
explain what we understand by this statement. Virtuousness*
— pleasurableness — utility — these are the only three ends, which
men can possibly pursue in any given action. Whatever I am
doing at any particular moment, I am doing either (1) because
I account it "virtuous'"' so to act; or (2) because I seek
'^pleasurableness '^ in so acting; or (3) because I regard the
act as '"useful,'' whether to the end of virtuousness or of
pleasurableness; or (4) from an intermixture of these various
motives. This is plainly the case : because I have not so much,
as the physical power of doing what is wicked because it is
wicked ; and the only motive therefore, which can possibly

* For our own part — and with great deference to those excellent and
thoughtful CathoUcs who think otherwise — the more we reflect, the more
confidently we hold that "virtuousness " is an entirely simple idea. We
argued for this conclusion — which to us seems a vitally important one —
in January, 1880.

VOL. VI. — NO. I. {Third Series.'] d

34 The Extent of Free ^Yill

prompt my wrong action^ is the pleasurableness \vlilcli I thence
expect to derive.

Or let us put the same truth in a clifFeient shape. My
V absolute" end "^ of action must in every case — by the very
necessity of my mental constitution. — be either virtuousness,
or pleasurableness^ or the two combined : but there are various
"intermediate" ends at which I may aim, as being "useful''
to the attainment of my " absolute " ends.

At the same time it is abundantly clear on a moment's con-
sideration, that if this division is to be exhaustive — under the
term " pleasurableness " must be included, not bodily pleasurable-
ness alone, but intellectual, ffisthetical, or any other: the delight of
reading a beautiful poem, or of gazing on sublime scenery, or of
grasping a mathematical, philosophical, or theological demonstra-
tion. Then again the malignant, the envious, the revengeful
person finds delight in the sufferings of his fellow-men. Lastly,
it is further clear, that "pleasurableness" includes very pro-
minently " negative" pleasurableness — viz., the escape from pain,
grief, ennui.

We have spoken on an intermixture of ends ; but a few more
words must be added to elucidate that subject. On some
occasion, under circumstances entirely legitimate, I largely assist
some one who has fallen under heavy misfortune. Let us first
suppose, that I do this exclusively because I recognise how
virtuous it is to render such assistance. Yet the act may cause
me intense pleasure — the pleasure of gratifying my compassion —
because of God's merciful dispensation, which has so largely
bound up pleasurableness with the practice of virtue. So far is
clear. But now it is abundantly possible — indeed it probably
happens in a very large number of cases — that this pleasurable-
ness may be part of the very end which motives my external
act. If this be so, the more convenient and theologically
suitable resource is (we think) to account the will's movement
as consisting of two different simultaneous acts. Of these two
acts, the one is directed to virtuousness, to pleasurableness the
other : the one (as will be seen in due course) is virtuous ; the
other (as will also be seen) may indeed be inordinate and so
sinful, but need not be sinful at all.

Something more should also be said on that special end of
action, virtuousness. It is laid down by various theologians
(see Suarez, " de Gratia," 1. 12, c. 9, li. 1; Mazzella, "De
Virtutibus Infusis," n. 1335) that acts truly virtuous, though

* We purposely avoid saying "ultimate'^ end ; because we are inclined
to think that much confusion has arisen from the different senses which
have been driven to the term " linis ultimus."

The Extent of Free Will. 35

'done without tlioufi^lit or even knowledge of God^ are referred
to Him nevertheless "innately/^ '^ connaturally/' "by their
own weight.'^ And Suarez gives a reason for this (" De
Ultimo Fine/^ d. 3, s. 6^ n. 6). Such an act, he says, is pleasing
to God; and is capable of being referred to Him, even though in
fact not so referred.* This explanation must be carefully borne
in rnind ; because otherwise various theological statements, on
the obligation of referring human acts to God, might be im-
portantly misunderstood. Then — going to another particular —
S. Thomas {e.g. t^ 2^*^ q. 23 a. 7, c.) speaks of virtuousness as
'* vervmi bonum,'^ in contrast with " bonum apparens/' He
-contrasts again '^ bonum incommutabile ""^ with " bonum com-
mutabile :" a matter on which much amplification might be
given, had we the space.

Here, moreover — to avoid serious misconception — we must
carefully consider the particular case of what may be called
" felicifie " possessions. There is a large number of such pos-
sessions, which it is entirely virtuous and may sometimes even
be a duty for me to pursue or desire, not as means to any ulterior
end, but simply as an integral portion of my happiness. f So
theologians speak of " caritas egra nos '' " amor nostri " —
either of which phrases we may translate "self-charity" — as
designating one particular virtue : the virtue of promoting my
•own true happiness. Immeasurably the foremost, among these
possible feliciiic possessions, stands (we need hardly say) my
own permanent happiness, considered as a whole and not as
confmed to its earthly period. But there are very many others
also. Such are, e.g., my permanent earthly happiness ; bodily
health; equable spirits; competent temporal means; happy
family and social relations ; a good reputation among my fellow-
men ; a sufficient supply of recreations and amusements ; intel-
lectual power; poetical taste; sufficient scope for the exercise of
such power and such taste, and generally for what modern
philosophers call "self-development ;'"' &c. &c. Now as regards
all these, except the first, it appertains no doubt to higher perfec-

* See also d. 2, s. 4, n. 5.

t We here use the word " happiness " and its co-relative " felicifie,"
in ^vhat we take to be its ordinary use throughout non-theological
writings. Theologians no doubt — as we shall explain in due course —
use the word "feHcitas" in a fundamentally different sense. But we
jsuppose that, in ordinary parlance, "my own happiness " always means
*' my own sum of enjoyment." 'No doubt the word suggests far more
prominently the higher, more subtle, more mental sources of enjo3^ment,
than those which are lower and more animal ; but the probahle reason
of this is, that cultured persons — who in the last resort fix linguistic
usage — recognise the former class as being indefinitely more pervasive,
permanent, satisfying, than the latter.

d2

36 The Extent of Free Will.

ticn (as Suarez observes"^) that a man desire tbem only so far as
they may be instruments of virtue. Still they may virtuously be
loved and (iC so be) pursued for no ulterior end, but merely as
constituent parts of my happiness, and as the objects of self-
charity. Yet it might appear on the surface that, in pursuing
my own happiness, I cannot conceivably be aiming at any other
end, except that of mere pleasurahleness ; and this is a mis-
conception, which it is important to clear up. A very few
words will enable us to do so.

Let us take, as a particular instance, the blessing of health.
I am lying on my sick-bed in pain of body and depression of
mind. I recognise that I may quite virtuously aim at the
recovery of my health — not merely as a means for more effec-
tually serving God, or more successfully gaining my own
livelihood, or the like, — but simply as an integrating part of my
happiness. Accordingly I pursue this virtuous end of self-
charity. As a matter of conscience, I adopt regularly the pre-
scribed.remedies, however distasteful at the moment ; and I fight
perseveringly against my natural tendency towards availing
myself of those immediate gratifications, which may retard my
recovery. What is my end in such acts ? Precisely the virtuous-
ness which I recognise to exist, in pursuing health as an integral
part of my earthly happiness. I am grievously tempted, for
the gratification of present (negative) pleasurableness, to neglect
my more permanent happiness : and I recognise it as virtuous to
resist such gratification. It is extremely probable indeed that
these acts, directed to virtuousness, will be simultaneously accom-

* In the Foundation of the Exercises " such indiffei"ence of affection
is recommended towards created things not prohibited, as that we should
not rather seek health than sickness, nor prefer a long hfe to a short one.
But at once this objection occurs — viz., that health and life are among
those things, which a man is bound by precei)t to preserve and seek by
such methods as are virtuous and becoming. Consequently [so the objec-
tion proceeds] such indifference is not laudable, as would be exhibited in
not seeking health rather than sickness.

[Eeply.] " The good of life and [again] of health is no doubt among
those things, which may be desired for their own sake ; that is, as being
of themselves suitable to nature and necessary to a certain integrity
thereof, for the sake of which [integrit}'] they are virtuously desired
without relation to any ulterior end. Therefore a man's affections may,
without any sin, not be entirely indifferent concerning those goods con-
sidered in themselves. Nevertheless it appertains to greater perfection,
that we love not these goods except as they are instruments of virtue.
.... And the same thing may be said concerning all those goods which
are such that, though they may be rightly loved for their own sake,
nevertheless a man has it in his power to make a good or bad use of
them. For in regard to virtues — of which a man cannot make a bad
use — such indifference is not laudable." — Suarez, Be Rcllgionc Societatis
Jesu, 1. 9, c. 5, n. 11.

The Extent of Free Will. 37

panied by ether acts, tending to (negative) pleasurableness as
their end; wherein I eagerly desire to be free from all this
suffering and weariness of soul. But this is no more than a
phenomenon, which (as we just now explained) continually occurs
in the case of other virtuous acts, and is by no means confined
to these acts of self-charity. Now, however, take an opposite
picture. In my state of sickness I am a very slave to (negative)
pleasurableness ; I give myself up without restraint to my
present longing for escape from my present anguish; 1 wantonly
retard my recovery, by shrinking from immediate pain; I do
nothing on principle, but everything on impulse. Here certainly
none of my acts are directed to virtuousness, but all to (negative)
pleasurableness. There is this fundamental and most unmistak-
able contrast between the two cases. In the former, the thought
that I act virtuously by aiming at my recovery is constantly
in my mind, prompting me to correspondent action; whereas
in the latter case such thoughts of virtuousness arc only con-
spicuous by their absence. And exactly the same kind of
contrast may be shown, as regards my method of pursuing those
other felicific possessions which admit of being pursued at all.
Moreover, it should not be forgotten, that my desire itself of
a felicific possession may very easily indeed become inordinate
and therefore sinful : as will be explained towards the conclusion
of our article.

IV. We have been speaking of those ends, at which a human
being can aim. It is plain, however, that an end, which has
once been " explicitly ^' intended, may continue vigorously to
influence my will, though it is no longer explicitly in my mind.
When such is the fact, theologians say that it is " virtually ''
pursued. And the fact here noted is of such very pervasive im-
portance in the whole analysis of man's moral action, that we
are most desirous of placing it before our readers as emphatically
and as accurately as we can. Lst us give then such an illustra-
tion as the followinjx. I start for the nei^^hbourino: town on
some charitable mission ; and (as it happens) there are a great
many different turns on my road, which I am quite as much in
the habit of taking, as that particular path which leads me
securely to the town. I have not proceeded more than a very
little way, before my mind becomes so engaged with some
speculative theme, that I entirely lose all explicit remembrance
of the purpose with which I set out. Nevertheless, on each
occasion of choice, I pursue my proper path quite as a matter of
course, and so arrive safely at my journey's end. It is very plain,
then, that my original end has in fact been influencing me
throughout ; for how otherwise can we possibly account for the
fact, that in every single instance I have chosen the one right

38 The Extent of Free Will.

course ? Will you say that my liahit of going' to the town
accounts for it ? Not at all ; because we have supposed that
there is uo one of the alternative paths which I have not been
quite as much in the habit of pursuing as that which leads to-
the town. My original end then has motived my act of walk-
ing quite as truly and effectively, after I have ceased explicitly
to think about that end, as it did when it was most conspicuously
present on the very surface of my mind. But, whereas^ during
the first few minutes of my walk, my pursuit oi' that end was
"explicit^" — during the later period it has been changed from
"explicit" into 'S'irtual."

So much on the word " virtual." Dr. AYalsh, the President
of Maynooth, in his recent work " De Actibus Humanis " (nn.
71-81) j"^ most serviceably recites the various psychological
theories adopted by various Catholic theologians for the elucida-
tion of this term. He thus, however, sums up (n. 81) the con-
clusions on which all are agreed: '^An intention," they say,
" which has previously been elicited, inflows ' virtually' into, the
[subsequent] action, so long as the agent, being sui compos and
acting hamanly — although he be not [explicitly] t thinking of
his previous intention — nevertheless is in such disposition of
mind, that (if asking himself or asked ])y others what he is doing,
and^why) he would at once [supposing him rightly to umlerstand
what passes in his mind] J allege liis previous intention, and
answer: 'I do this for the sake of that.' ^' Elsewhere (n. 669)

* If it he not impertinent for one in our position to express even a
favourable judgment on the labours of such an authority, we would say
how inestimably valuable this volume appears to us. Extremely valuable
for its own sake, when we consider how full it is both of unusual learning
and singularly fresh and independent thought ; but still more valuable,,
as an augury of more extended treatment being hereafter given to the
" De Actibus," than has in recent times been the case. It has always
seemed to us a very unfortunate circumstance, that the " De Actibus "
has of late been exclusively treated as a part of Moral Theology. We
would submit that its dogmatic importance also, as introductory to the-
" De Gratia," is very great. But a result (we think) of the circumstance
to which we are adverting, has been that those portions of the treatise,,
which are not wanted for the Confessional, have been left unduly in the
back-ground.

We hope largely to avail ourselves of Dr. Walsh's labours in what
follows. And we would also do what we can towards drawing attention
to three papers on " Probabilism," from the same writer's pen, which ap-
peared last autumn in the Irish Ecclesiastical Ilccord. We should
venture to describe them as forming quite an epoch in the study of
Moral Theology.

t We add the word " explicitly " because Dr. Walsh avowedly in-
cludes Lugo's theory in his summary ; and Lugo holds that in all such
cases there is implicit thought of the end previously intended.

X We add this qualification on our own responsibility.

The Extent of Free Will. 3,9

Dr. Walsh quotes with approval, from S. Bonaveiiture, an
equally excellent definition. " Acts/' says the Saint, '^are then
said to be 'virtually' referred'' to some end, "when the pre-
ceding intention " of pursuing; that end " is tlie true cause of
those works which are afterwards done."

As to the psychological theories recited by Dr. Walsh — with
very sincere deference to his judgment, we cannot ourselves but
adhere to Lugo's, which he rejects in n. 77. That great theo-
logian holds, that whenever the " virtual" intention of some end
motives my action, an " actual " intention thereof is really
present in my mind, though but implicitly. And we would
submit that the very definition of the word '^ virtual," given by
Dr. Walsh, substantiates the accuracy of this analysis. Take an
instance. I foresee that in half an hour's time I shall very pro-
bably be disappointed of some enjoyment, which I earnestly de-
sire. I well know how grievous is my tendency to lose my
temper under such a trial ; and accordingly I at once resolve to
struggle vigorously against this tendency should the occasion
arrive. This resolve is founded on some given virtuous motive,
or assemblage of virtuous motives ; in order to fix our ideas, let
us suppose that it is founded exclusively on my pondering the
virtuousness oi' patience. The occasion does arrive in due course ;
and my previous explicit intention now " virtually " infxuences
my successful resistance to temptation. It is Lugo's doctrine,
that (supposing such to be the case) my will is 'now influenced
by the virtuousness of patience, no less really and genuinely
than it was half-an-hour ago when I made my holy resolve.
The only difterence (he considers) between the two cases is, that
then I thought of that virtuousness " explicitly," whereas now
I do but think of it '* implicitly." This conclusion seems to us
certainly true ; and we would thus argue in its favour.

Dr. Walsh lays down as the unanimous judgment of theo-
logians, that (in the supposed circumstances) if I ask myself
why I resist the temptation, my true answer will be, "I do
this for the sake of that :" or, in other words, " I resist the
temptation, for the sake of carrying out my previous resolve."
Bat my previous resolve was (by hypothesis) founded exclusively
on the virtuousness of patience ; and therefore my present re-
sistance is founded on the self-same motive. That motive was
then indeed present to my mind explicitly, and now it is present ~
no more than implicitly. But the motive of action in either
case must surely be the very same.

Or, take S. Bonaventure's explanation of the word " virtual."
The preceding resolve, he says, has been '' the true cause " of
my present action. But who will say that my explicit resolve
to practise one given virtue has (wdien occasion arises) been

40 The Extent of Free Will

tlie ^^ true cause'' of my practising, oiot that virtue, but some
other? ^

We do not deny that, according to Lugo's doctrine, a
"virtual^' intention may very frequently motive an act, without
having been preceded by a corresponding ^' explicit ''' intention
at all. But we do not see any difficulty in this conclusion.
And indeed we should point out that, for our own purpose, the
preceding paragraphs have not been strictly necessary. If
indeed we were building on theological statements concerning
"virtual intention,"" it would be strictly necessary to inquire
what theologians onea7i by that term. But our own argument
is logicall}^ untouched, if we simply say that (in what follows)
we ourselves at least shall consistently use the term " virtual
intention,''' as simply synonymous with " implicit/'

We wish we had space to pursue this whole theme of
"virtual" or ''implicit'" intention, at a length worthy of its
pre-eminent importance ; but we must find space for an illustra-
tive instance. Some considerable time ago men of the world
were in the habit of using much indecent language in mutual
conversation : while nevertheless they thought it thoroughly
ungentlemanly so to speak in the presence of ladies. We will
suppose two gentlemen of the period to be talking with each
other, while some lady is in the room, occupied (we will say) in
writing a letter. They are wholly engrossed, so far as they are
themselves aware, v/ith the subject they are upon ; politics, or
the Stock Exchange, or sporting. They are not explicitly
thinking of the lady at all ; and yet, if they are really gentle-
men, her presence exercises on them a most real and practical
influence. It is not that they fall into bad language and then
apologize ; on the contrary, they are so restrained by her presence
that they do not dream of such expressions. Yet, on the other
hand, no one will say that the freedom of their thought and
speech is explicitly perceived by them to be interfered with.
Their careful abstinence then from foul language is due indeed
to an intention actually present in their mind ; the intention,
namely, of not distressing the lady who is present. Yet this
intention is entirely implicit ; and they will not even become
aware of its existence, except by means of careful introspection.
And this, we would submit (if we may here anticipate our
coming argument), is that kind of practical remembrance and
impression concerning God's intimate presence, which it is of
such singular importance that I preserve through the day.
What I need (we say) is a practical remembrance and impression,

* In which of its many senses S. Bonaventure here uses the word
" cause," there is no need to inquire.

i

The Extent of Free Will. 41

which shall really inflow into my thouo'hts and powerfully
influence them ; while nevertheless it shall he altogether implicit,
and shall therefore in no percept ihle degree affect my power of
applying freely and without incumbrance to my various duties
as they successively occur. And this indeed is surely the very
blessing which a Catholic supplicates, when he prays each
morning that '' a pure intention may sanctify his acts of the

But this very prayer itself is sometimes perverted into what
we must really call a mischievous superstition. A certain notion
seems more or less consciously to be in some persons' minds_, of
which it is absolutely necessary to show the entire baselessness,
if we would exhibit a conspectus of man^s moral action with any
kind of intellicjibleness and availableness. The Catholic is tau"ht
to pray in the morning that a pure intention may sanctify his
actions of the day as they successively take place. But a notion
seems here and there to exist, that these successive actions have
already been sanctifled hy anticipation, in his morning oblation
of them. This strange notion assumes two diiferent shapes,
and issues accordin^rly in one or other of two importantly distinct
tenets. One of these tenets we will at once proceed to consider ;
while the other will And a fit place for discussion a few pages
further on.

Some persons then have apparently brought themselves to
think, that if in the morning I offer to God all my future acts
of the da}', I therebjr secure beforehand the virtuousness of all
those which are not actually evil in object or circumstance. I
secure this virtuousness, they think, because by my morning^s
good intention I secure, that the same good intention shall
virtually motive themi when they actually occur. But, as Billuart
demands (Walsh, n. 668), "if any one, who has in the morning
offered his acts to God, be afterwards asked (when he is dining
■or walking) for what reason he dines or walks, who will say
that such a man can truly answer, ' I am doing so in virtue of
my intention made this morning. '^ And the following passage
from r. Nepveu, S.J., is so admirably clear on the subject, that
we can add nothing of our own to its unanswerable argument : —

When this intention is so far removed from the time of action as
happens if one is contented with offering one's actions in the morning,
there is reason for fear that this intention will gradually become fainter
and even come entirely to an end , . . . so that it shall not ivfiow at
all into the action. Moreover — since we have a profound depth of
self-love — unless we bestow great attention on ourselves and much
vigilance on all our [interior] movements, it is difhcult to prevent the
result, that there escape from us a thousand .... movements of
vanity ; sensuality ; desire to please mankind and ourselves ; in fact

42 The Extent of Free Will.

a thousand human respects ; which are so man?/ retractations of our
morning intention, and therefore destroy it entirely. — L'esprit de
Christianisme, pp. 95, 96.

V. In order that some given act be virtuous, theologians
commonly require that its virtuousness be directly intended ;
though such intention of course need be no more than '' virtual."
Dr. Walsh says (n. 397) that this proposition is maintained by
all theologians except a very \'q\y (paucissimos) ; and its truth
is most manifest on grounds of reason. Take an illustration.
I am very desirous (for some special purpose) of conciliating the
favour of my rich neighbour A. B. Among other things which
I do to please him, I repay him a small sum he had lent me ;
and I make him a present of some picture, to which he took
a fancy when he was paying me a visit. My one motive for both
these acts is precisely the same — viz., my desire to be in his
good books. Suppose it were said that — v/hereas the second
of these two acts may be indifferent — the first at all events is
virtuous under the head of justice, because the repayment of a
debt is an act of that virtue : every one would see that such a
statement is the climax of absurdity.

On the other hand (as Dr. Walsh proceeds to point out) it is-
by no means requisite — in order to the virtuousness of an act —
that its virtuousness be at the moment the absolute end of my
action. Suppose I give alms to the deserving poor, in order
that I may gain a heavenly reward. Here the virtuousness of
almsgiving is directly intended ; for it is that very virtuousness,.
which is my means towards my retribution : yet this virtuous-
ness is (by hypothesis) desired only as a means, and not as the
absolute end of my action. Most persons will at once admit,
that such an act is a truly virtuous act of almsgiving. On the
other hand suppose I give alms, merely in order that my outward
act may become known and help me to a seat in Parliament —
it would be (as we have said) the climax of absurdity to allege
that my act of almsgiving is virtuous as such.

There is one class of actions however, which claims further
attention. Suppose I do some act entirely for the sake of
pleasurableness ; but, before doing it, I carefully ponder v/hether
the act be a morally lawful one, being resolved otherwise to-
abstain therefrom. Dr. Walsh (n. C23) refers to this case, and.
quotes Viva on it; but we do not think that Viva quite does
justice to such an act as he supposes. He holds that such an act
is neither virtuous nor sinful, but indifferent. We think he
would have been much nearer the truth, had he said that it is
virtuous. But the true account of the matter (we think) is as
follows. In this, as ir. so many other cases, the wilFs move-
ment may be decomposed into two simultaneous acts. One of

The Extent of Free Will. 43.

these acts is; "I would not do wliat I am doing-^ were it opposed
to morality 'J' and this is obviously; most virtuous. As to the
other act — the mere pursuit of pleasurableness — under such
circumstances^ we submit, it is neither virtuous nor sinful, but
indifferent.

This will be our appropriate place for considering the second
tenet, concerning the matutinal oblation of my day^s acts, to
which we have already referred. According to the first tenet
on this subject — the tenet which we have already criticized — ■
this obligation secures the result, that my morning intention
shall really motive all my subsequent acts of the day, one by one,
which are not actually evil in object or circumstances. This is
to be sure a most singular notion ; but some persons seem to
hold another, indefinitely more amazing. They seem to hold,
that even though the morning intention do not in fact
motive these acts, nevertheless it makes them intrinsically
virtuous. This allegation seems to us so transparently unreason-
able, that we feel a real perplexity in divining, how any one
even of the most ordinary thoughtfulness can have dreamed of
accepting it. AVe quite understand that God, by His free
appointment, may bestow gifts upon a human being, in con-
sideration of what is not virtuous in him at all; as, e.g., in an
infant's reception of Baptism, or the Martyrdom of the Holy
Innocents. And we understand the doctrine, held (we fancy)
by many Protestants, that some act, not intrinsically virtuous,
is often extrinsically acceptable to God. But we really do not
see how it is less than a contradiction in terms to say, that a
given act is made intrinsically virtuous, by a certain circumstance
which is no intrinsic part of it whatever. Yesterday afternoon
I elicited a certain act ; and this afternoon I elicit another,
v/hich is precisely similar to yesterday's in every single intrinsic-
circumstance without exception. Yet the act of yesterday
afternoon forsooth was virtuous, whereas the act of this afternoon
is otherwise ; because yesterday raorning I made an oblation of
my day^s acts, and this morning I made no such oblation.
You may as well say that my evening cup of tea is sweet, because
I put a lump of sugar into the cup which I drank at breakfast-
Lugo gives expression to this self-evident principle, by taking
the particular case of temperance at meals. You and I are both
at dinner ; our will is directed (suppose) in precisely the same
way to precisely the same ends ; and our external acts also are
precisely similar. Yet it shall be judged that you are eating
virtuously and I otherwise, because in the morning you referred
your acts to God and I did not. No doubt your morning'' &
oblation may have giv^en you great assistance in making your
present act intrinsically virtuous, by facilitating your present

44 The Extent of Free Will.

reference of that act to a good end. Bat the act is intrinsicallv"
affected by what is intrinsic_, not by what is extrinsic. And so
Lugo points out ; assuming the theological principle, that no
act is meritorious which is not intrinsically virtuous. " He who
in the morning refers all his acts to God — if afterwards, when
he is at dinner, is in just the same state of mind as though he
had not elicited that matutinal intention, and if his action of
eating does not arise from that matutinal intention or from some
other good and virtuous one — that man no more merits through
his present act, than he would if he had never formed such pre-
ceding intention if at all/' C' De PenitentijV d. 7, n. ;39.)
Sporer states the same proposition very earnestly and em-
phatically ; adding, that such is the common doctrine of
theologians. He does not mention indeed so much as one on
the opposite side. (" De Actibus," n. 22.)

On this profoundly practical doctrine, we cannot better con-
clude our remarks than by citing the noble passage from Aguirre,
with which Dr. Walsh concludes his volume (nn. 69U-692.) It
refers however — as our readers will observe — not to a virtuous
intention generally, but to that particular virtuous intention
which motives an act of sovereign love.

Wherefore before all things I admonish — and entreat all theologians
to inculcate and preach as a most "wholesome doctrine — that each
man endeavour, with the whole earnestness and fervour of his mind,
to practise continuously and assiduously (so far as this fragile and
mortal life permits) the exercise of referring explicitly himself and
all his thougiits, alTections, words, and works to God, loved for His
own sake. For he should not be content if once or [even] at various
times in the day he do this ; but he ought frequently to insert
[explicitly into his daily life] that sacrifice of mind, which is far
more acceptable to God than all other homages in the matter of the
moral virtues.

YI. Passing now to another matter — how are we to measure
the degree of virtuousness or sinfulness, in virtuous and sinful
acts respectively ? It is evident that this consideration must
proceed, in the two respective cases, on principles fundamentally
different: for in a virtuous act its virtuousness must of necessity
be directly intended; whereas in a sinful act its sinfulness cannot
by possibility be intended at all as an absolute end. We will
take the two classes therefore separately.

As to virtuous acts — it is held (we suppose) by all theologians
that, cccteris 2)ccrihus, an act is more virtuous, in proportion as
it is directed to virtuousness with greater vigour and efficacity.*

* Yv^e find it somewhat hard to find out in what sense theologians use
the word "intensio." Do they use it to express "vigour," efficacity "?
or do they rather use it to express "effort"? The two ideas arc very

The Extent of Free Will. 45

We have said '^ CDeteris paribus/^ because one kind of vlrtuous-
ness may be higher than another. A comparatively remiss act,
e.g., of sovereign love (being really such) may be more virtuous
than a far more vigorous act of some particular virtue ; of justice,
or temperance, or beneficence.

As regards the degree of evil in evil acts — we incline to think
that theologians have given far too little methodical attention to
the subject. For ourselves, we submit that any given act is
more morally evil, in proportion as its pursuit of pleasurableness
is more inordinate ; more morally unprincipled, if we may so
speak ; in proportion as the act is more widely removed from
subjection to Grod''ri AYill and the Rule of Morals; in proportion
as the transgressions of God's Law are more grievous, which
such an act would (on occasion) command. In proportion as this
is the case, its agent is said to ''place his ultimate end in
creatures^'' more unreservedly and more sinfully. However, to
set forth in detail — still more to defend — what we have stated,
would carry us a great deal too far.^

But, at last is it true, that all acts are either virtuous or the
reverse? In other words, are there, or are there not, individual
acts, which are neither morally good nor bad, but "indifferent ''?
This is the famous controversy between. Thomists and Scotists,
which Dr. Walsh (nn. 588-67o) treats with quite singular com-
pleteness and candour ; insomuch that his whole discussion pre-
sents (to our mind) one of the most profoundly interesting studies
we ever fell in with. He has established (we think) quite
triumphantly, that acts may be directed to pleasurableness as to
their absolute end, without being on that account sinful. AVe
will briefly express our own opinion on the whole matter, by
submitting, (1 ) that very many acts are directed to pleasurableness
as to their absolute end, yet without any vestige or shadow of

distinct. Consider, e.g., a tlow, possessing some certain fixed degree of
intrinsic force or efficacity ; just sufficient (let ns say) to overcome a
certain definite obstacle. A very strong man Avill deal forth such a blow
without any " effort " or trouble whatever. A weaker man must put
forth some exertion for the purpose. A still weaker must exert his whole
strength. A child, even if he does exert his whole strength, finds himself
nnabie to accompHsh it. In like manner two different acts, elicited by
tv/o different persons, may be directed to some given virtuous end with
approximately equal " firmness," " tenacity," " vigour," " efficacity ;" and
yet one may cost the agent quite immeasurably more " effort" than the
other. Is it "vigour" "efficacity" — or on the other hand "effort" —
which theologians call " intensio ?" We incline to think that commonly
— yet not quite universally — they use the word in this latter sense. But
we should be very glad of light on the subject from some competent
quarter.

* Something more, however, is said on the subject towards the end of
our article.

46 The Extent of Free Will.

inordination ; and (2) that though such acts are commonly not
virtuous, there is no ground whatever for accounting them
sinCiil."^

VII. Here, in order to prevent possible confusion of thought,
it will be better to recapitulate four propositions, among those
Avhich we have been adv^ocating iu the course of our article.

(1) By the very constitution of man's nature, every act of the
human will is by absolute necessity, during its whole continu-
.ance, intrinsically directed (whether explicitly or virtually) to
virtuousness, or to pleasurableness, or to some intermixture of the
two, as to its absolute end. But it may pursue of course inter-
mediate ends, as '^ useful " towards those ends which are absolute.

(2) No act is virtuous unless it directly aims at virtuousness
as such ; and of course therefore it remains virtuous, only so long

* We cannot, "however, follow Dr. Walsh in his view (nn. 674-688) of
S, Thomas's doctrine on this subject. He considers S. Thomas to teach
(see n. 675) that acts may be actually virtuous and referable to God,
which are not directed to virtuousness as such. For our ovvn part we
altogether agree with F. Murphy of Carlow College — who contributes to
the Irish Ecclesiastical Record of Dec. 16, 1880, a very appreciative
review of Dr. Walsh's volume — that the latter writer "has not estabhshed
his view of S. Thomas's teaching." " In nearly every one of the passages
cited," adds F. Murph}?-, " or in the immediate context, S. Thomas most
distinctly mentions ends which every Thomist would denominate good."
This remark does not indeed apply to all the passages cited by Dr.
Walsh in n. 683, note, where the Angelic Doctor describes virtue as con-
sisting in a mean. But as regards all these passages, without exception,
we submit that S. Thomas is quite manifestly siqjposlng throughout a
real aim at virtuousness on the agent's part. " I am desiring to pursue
the course of virtue ; and I inquire therefore (in this or that individual
•case) what is the true mean wherein virtue consists." For ourselves — -
with very great deference to Dr. Walsh — the only passages which we can
consider to need any special attention, are the two from the " De Malo,"
cited in nn. 686, 687. On these passages we would submit the following
reply to Dr. Walsh's argument.

F. Mazzella has considered them (along with several others from S.
Thomas) in his important volume " De Yirtutibus Infusis," n. 1350 ; and
he by no means understands them as Dr. Walsh does. According to Dr.
Walsh, S. Thomas teaches in them (1) that an act, not directed to
virtuousness as such, may nevertheless be free from inordination and
referable to God; then (2) that such an act, if elicited by one in
habitual grace, is meritorious of supernatural reward. According to
F. Mazzella — what S. Thomas teaches is, that an act (otherwise faultless)
— which is directed indeed to impersonal virtuousness (hommi honestum)
as its end, but which is neither explicitly nor virtually referred to God
— that such an act (if elicited by one in a state of grace) is meritorious of
supernatural reward. Now this latter doctrine may or may not be theo-
logically true; it may or may not be S. Thomas's ordinary doctrine ; but
at all events it is fundamentally different from that which Dr. Walsh
ascribes to the Angelic Doctor, and is entirely unexceptionable so far as
regards any ground of natural reason. And we submit that, without
travelling one step beyond the two articles to which Dr. Walsh refers.

The Extent of Free Will. 47

.as that aim continues. But such aim need not be explicit :
sufficient if it be virtual.

(3) Acts which are explicitly or virtually directed to pleasur-
ableness as to their absolute end^ are either *•' inordinate "'■' or not.
If they are, they are sinful ; if they are not — and if they are not
otherwise faulty in object or circumstances — they are commonly
indifferent."

(t) The morning oblation of my acts to God is a most
auspicious and effective commencement of a well-spent day. It
is the first link of a potentially continuous chain ; and most
powerfully tends to effect that those acts be successively directed
to virtuousness^ when they come to be elicited in due course.
But if an act be not in fact so directed_, all tlie morning oblations
in the world cannot suffice to make it virtuous. Nay, if I offer
my acts to God every hour of every day, such oblation could not

we can establish conclusively the correctness of F. Mazzella's interpreta-
tion. We turn then to the earlier article of the two : " De Malo," q. 2,
a. 5, c. We italicise a few words.

" If we speak of an individual moral act," says S, Thomas, " every
particular moral act is of necessity either good or bad, because of some
circumstance or other. For it cannot happen that an individual act be
done without circumstances, which make it either right or wrong {rectum
vel indircdum). For if anything be done when it should (oportet),
and where it should, and as it should, such an act is ordinate and good ;
but if any one of these fail, the act is inordinate and bad. And this
should most of all be considered in the circumstance of the end. For what
is done because o^ just necessity and pious utility, is done laudably, and
the act is good. But what is destitute of just necessity and pious utility
is accounted * otiose,' .... and an ' otiose ' word — much more an
'otiose' act — is a sin" according to Matt. xii. 36.

Nothing then can well be more express than S. Thomas's statement,
that every act, not directed to a virtuous end, is " inordinate " and " a
sin." We have already said in the text, that we cannot ourselves here
follow the Angelic Doctor, because we admit a very large numbar of
indifferent individual acts. But S. Thomas's meaning is surely indis-
putable. No doubt, later theologians would say, that acts done for the
sake of impersonal virtuonsness are " innately," " connaturally," " by their
own weight," referred to God ; whereas S. Thomas speaks of them as
not referred to God at all. But F. Mazzella points out (n. 1350) that
S. Thomas and many others of the older theologians were not in the
habit of using the more modern language on this head. And of course it
is nothing more than a question of language.

We hope our readers will pardon this digression. The question is a
vitally practical one ; and it is of much importance clearly to understand
what is S. Thomas's doctrine thereon.

* We say " commonly " because we wish to avoid the speculative con-
troversy, whether an act can be virtuous, which is directed indeed to
virtuonsness as to an intermediate end, but to mere pleas urableness as to
its absolute end. The exact meaning we give to the word "inordinate,"
is exj^lained towards the end of our article. And we there also treat of
two certain condemned propositions, not unfrequently alleged in con-
troversy against the doctrine which we follow.

48 The Extent of Free JVill.

infallibly secure that my acts be virtuous during- the interval.
That my iict of eleven o'clock is offered to God, does not infallibly
secure that my act of ten minutes past eleven be intrinsically
directed to virtuousness ; and if it be not so directed, it is not
virtuous.

VIIT. This will be our most convenient place for exhibiting
the well-known distinction between " Liberty of exercise ^' and
" Liberty of specilication.^' I do not at this m.oment possess Free
Will at all, if I do not possess at least the power of acting or
abstaining from action as I shall please.'^ If I have so much
power of choice as this and no more, I have at least " Liberty of
exercise." But as regards the very f^reat majority of my free
acts, I do possess more power than this. I possess the power —
not only of either actin<j^ or abstaining from action — but of act-
ing in this or that given direction as I shall please. We have
deferred to this place our notice of the fundamental distinction
here set forth, because by far its best illustration will be found
in what now follows.

IX. All Catholic theologians and philosophers hold, that the
thought of '^ beatitude " and again of " generic goodness [honum
in communi] *' imposes on the will necessity of sioecijica.tion.
Whether on the other hand such thought do or do not impose
necessity of exercise, this is disputed ; and Suarez for one
answers in the negative. (See, e.g.y '^Metaph.," d. 19^ s. 5.) Eut it
is very important carefully to examine the true signification of
that common dictum, on which all are agreed ; because it has at
times (we think) been mischievously misunderstood. Firstly
then as to beatitude.

Let us suppose that an imaginary state of privilege be proposed
to me as possible, in which on the one hand I shall enjoy a very
large amount of mental and physical enjoyment : while on the
other hand I shall be entirely free from suffering of every kind;
in which accordingly there shall be absolutely no pain of un-
gratified wish, or of remorse, or of self-discontent. But let us
further suppose that this state of privilege should involve no
exemption from sin ; that I should be involved in habits of
pride, vain-glory, sensuality, and indeed general indifference to
God's will. We are not here meaning for an instant to imply
that such a state of privilege is possible, consistently with the
constitution of human nature ; or again consistently with God's
methods of government : but still the supposition contains no
contradiction in terms, and may therefore intelligibly be made.
Would the thought of such a privilege as this impose on my will

* So in the well-known Catholic definition, "protest agere et ncn

ar/cyc.'"

The Extent of Free Will, 49

necessity of specification ? God forbid ! Manifestly I have
abundant proximate power to elicit an act, whereby I shall
repudiate and detest such a possible prospect ; and I am bound
indeed by strict obligation to abstain from all complacency in
the thought of it.

On the other hand, let an imaginary state of privilege be pro-
posed to me as possible, in which I shall be exempt, not only
from sin, but from all moral imperfection ; in which I shall elicit
continuous and vigorous acts of theological and other virtues ;
but in which nevertheless I shall be a victim to severe continuous
suffering, both mental and physical. No one will doubt that I
have full power (to say the least) of earnestly deprecating such a
future.

But now, lastly, let us suppose that an imaginary state of
privilege is proposed to me as possible, in which secure provision
shall be made both for unmixed virtuousness and unmixed
pleasurableness ; in which there shall neither be moral imper-
fection, nor yet pain and suffering. Such a state of privilege
would be termed by Catholic theologians a state of " beatitude,^'
in the widest range they give to that term. We may call it
'^ generic^'' beatitude ; and it is distinguished from more definite
beatitudes, as the genus is distinguished from the species. Thus
there is a certain definite beatitude, which God has proposed to
mankind in raising them to the supernatural order : this is
" supernatural " Beatitude, and its special characteristic is the
Beatific Vision. There is another definite beatitude, which God
would have proposed to mankind had he left them in the state
of pure nature : see Franzelin on '^ Reason and Faith,'' c. 3, s. 4.
There is again perhaps another, which will be enjoyed by
the souls in Limbus. But these, and any further number of
more definite beatitudes, are but different cases of that beatitude
which we have called '^ generic.''^ It is plain moreover that all
these several beatitudes agree with each other in their negative
characteristic — viz., that they exclude all moral imperfection and
all suffering : whereas they may differ indefinitely on the positive
side, as regards the kind or degree of virtuousness and pleasurable-
ness which they respectively contain."^ But it is on generic
beatitude, and not on any of these particular beatitudes, that we
are here principally to speak.

* We need hardly remind our readers, that, even within each one of
these more definite beatitudes, there is a large inequality of individual
endowment. One person in heaven e.g. enjoys indefinitely more of
supernatural Beatitude than another.

But it is remarkable, as a matter of theological expression, that the
soul of Christ — notwithstanding its unspeakable suffering — is always
spoken of as having been " Beata " from the very moment of its creation,
on account of its possessing the Beatific Vidon. Anl this circumstance

VOL. VI. — NO. I. [Thirl Series. ] e

50 The Extent of Free Will.

We say, then, in accordance with all Catholic theologians and
philosophers, that the thought of generic beatitude imposes on
my will necessity of specification. A mementos consideration
will show the obvious certainty of this truth. If — when think-
ing of beatitude — I am not under necessity of specification, I
have the power of preferring to it some other object. But what
can such object possibly be ? By the very constitution of my
nature I am physically unable to pursue or- desire any absolute
end, except only virtuousness and pleasurableness ; while both
virtuousness and pleasurableness are included in beatitude, with-
out any admixture whatever of their contraries. There is much
then in the thought of that privilege to attract me, and absolutely
nothing to repel me. It may be objected indeed, that the
thought of virtuousness is repulsive to many persons, because
they have learned to associate it with the thought of irksome-
ness. But those who are thus minded, are not really con-
templating beatitude at all : they are not contemplating a state,
from which all irksomeness is as stringently excluded as all sin.

A similar objection indeed may be put in a much stronger
shape, but answered at once on the same identical principle. It
may be said that the thought of Supernatural Beatitude itself is
very far from imposing on men^s will necessity of specification.
There are many excellent Catholics, who entirely take for granted
indeed that the Beatitude of heaven is one of unspeakable
delight ; and who yet, as regards their own conception of that
Beatitude, would vastly prefer some happiness more nearly
resembling their earthly enjoyments. Nay it may perhaps even
he said that, excepting eternal punishment itself, few imagin-
able prospects of a future life would be more formidable to them,
than the promised heaven as invested with that shape in which
their imagination depicts it : so intimately does their imagina-
tion associate the thought of continually gazing on God, with
the notion of something dreary, weary, monotonous. Such men
are most assuredly under no necessity of specification, in the
desire (as they exhibit it) of future beatitude. But then this is
only because their picture of that beatitude fundamentally
differs from its oric^inal : because their intellect and ima^^ination
fail adequately to realize, how peremptorily the Beatific Vision
will exclude the most distant approximation to dreariness,
weariness, monotony. This case therefore presents no difficulty

indeed furnishes another instance of the fact on which we are especially
insisting — viz., that the theological term "beatitude " is very far indeed
from synonymous with the EngHsh word " happiness " as commonly
used. The sense ordinarily given by theologians to the term " beatitude "
is— we submit with much confidence— substantially identical with that
exhibited in our text.

The Extent of Free Will. 51

whatever, even on the surface, in the way of our accepting the
theological statement, that the thought of true beatitude — super-
natural or natural — imposes on my will necessity of specification.
A more plausible objection however to that statement is the
following.

Beatitude — so the objector may • urge — ^is presented to my
mind in a certain concrete shape ; and I may easily enough
desire greater virtuousness or greater pleasurableness, than
happens to be be included in that presentation. To this objec-
tion, however, also the reply is not far to seek. (1) I do not
the less desire beatitude in the very shape in which it is pre-
sented to my intellect, because I also desire something more.
And (2) that "something more" is not something different
from beatitude ; but beatitude itself in higher kind or greater
degree. We need hardly add, that those who shall be in the
actual enjoyment of beatitude, will necessarily be preserved from
all emotions of discontent or repining.

Suarez, however, and some other theologians, add that the
thought of beatitude does not impose on my will necessity of
exercise. "When that thought presents itself, I am free to abstain
(they think) from deliberately eliciting any correspondent act of
will whatever. But we need not enter on this controversy,
which is of most insignificant importance.

So much on "beatitude;'-' and very little more need be added
on the similar term "generic goodness.'^ Goodness — in the
sense here relevant — is simply " that which is able to attract
the human will ;" " that which can be made an end of human
action or desire." Goodness therefore (as has already been ex-
plained) is exhaustively divided into (1) "virtuousness;" (2)
"pleasurableness;" (3) "utility" towards either of the two
former ends. But this fact — though otherwise of great import-
ance— is entirely beside the present question, and need not here
be taken into account. Our argument is simply this. If it were
true that the thought of generic goodness does not impose on
my will necessity of specification, this statement would precisely
mean, that I have the power to pursue or desire some other end,
in preference to pursuing or desiring goodness. But this sup-
position is a direct contradiction in terms ; because " goodness,"
by its very definition, includes every end which man is able to
pursue or desire. The thought then of " generic goodness" may
or may not impose on my acts necessity of exercise ; but most
certainly does impose on them necessity of specification.

X. We are thus led to consider a common theological state-
ment, than which hardly any other perhaps in the whole science-
needs more careful examination and discrimination. Words are
often used by the greatest theologians^ which seem on the surface

b2

52 The Extent of Free Will

to mean (1) that the thought of '^ felicity '' imposes on the will
of all men necessity of specification ; nay (2) further, that what-
ever else they desire, they desire only as a "means to felicity ; (3)
lastly (and most amazingly of all) that this is a truth quite
obvious on the surface of human nature. Now if such language
as this be understood in the sense it may well present to an
ordinary reader, we should say for our own part that such a
doctrine, concerning man's desire of felicity, might with far
greater plausibility be called self-evidently false than self-
evidently true. Is it self-evidently impossible then, that even
in the smallest matter I can prefer virtuousness to happiness,
if I suppose the two to clash ? Is it self-evidently impossible
that I can obey God because of His just claims on me, without
thinking of my own felicity at all ? Is it self-evidently im-
possible, that I can act justly to others, except as a means to my
own enjoyment ? Is every sinner under the impression that sin
is his best road to happiness ? Or, in other words, is every
sinner necessarily an implicit heretic? But we need not pursue
the picture into further details. We may be very certain that
this is not what can have been meant by theologians. Our pur-
pose here is to explain what they intend by language which
admits of such gross misapprehension.*

Firstly then we would point out, that the word " felicity " is
always used in theology as synonymous with '^beatitude ;^^
and that thus its sense is importantly different from that of the
English word " happiness,'^ as commonly used. This latter
word (as we have already incidentally pointed out) commonly
expresses "my sum of enjoyment/' quite distinctly from the
question of virtuousness or sin. But S. Thomas, e.g.^ defines
'^ beatitude " as " perfect and sufl&cing good '' (P 2*^^ q. 5, a.
3, c.) : would he describe happiness, irrespective of virtuousness,
as " perfect and sufficing good '^ ? In the very next article
indeed he expressly answers this question; for he says that
"felicity'' on earth (so far as it can be attained) ^'principally
consists in virtuous action [in actu virtutis] .''' Other theo-
logians speak similarly. Arriaga, e.g., divides " felicity '^ into
'' moral" and " physical :'' the former signifying virtuousness,
and the latter enjoyment (^'De Beatitudine Naturali,'' n. 27).
Theologians then do not say that man's motive of action is always
desire of his own happiness. At the utmost they say no more,
than that it is always desire of his own beatitude — i.e., desire of
a certain complex blessing — which includes the virtuous no less
than the pleasurable.

* On what seems to us the true doctrine concerning men's desire of
happiness — and again on their obligation of pursuing that happiness —
we would refer to Dr. Ward's "Philosophical Introduction," pp. 402-423.

The Extent of Free Will. 53

These remarks, however, of themselves by no means meet the
full difficulty of the case. For a very large number of the
greatest theologians say, not only that the thought of beatitude
imposes on my will necessity of specification, but also that my
desire of beatitude is the one primary source of all my actions.
Yet — objectors will ask on hearing sucli a statement — can
this be maintained ? Is it really true that all human acts are
motived by desire of beatitude ? The impure man indulges in
forbidden pleasure ; the envious or malevolent man rejoices in
his neighbour's suffering ; the irreligious man detests God's Law,
as imposing on him an intolerable yoke. Is it really true that
these three men first form to themselves a picture of beatitude
in any sense of that term; and that their respective sins are
motived by their desire of such beatitude? Or even in the case
of a good man, is it really true that every act of grateful loyalty
to his Redeemer, of obedience to his Creator, of zeal for the
salvation of souls, is preceded (either explicitly or implicitly) by
a mental picture of his own beatitude ? To all these questions
we reply, that no such inferences are necessarily involved in the
theological dictum, that "men do everything for the sake of
beatitude/^ A large number of the greatest theologians interpret
the dictum as simply meaning this : "■ Every one of my acts,"
they say, '' is directed to the attainment of some good or other,
be it virtuous or pleasurable. But the sum of all such good con-
stitutes beatitude : therefore every one of my acts is interpre-
tatively referred to beatitude, because it is actually referred to a
solid portion thereof. ^''^

We conclude, that there is no one absolute end whatever of
all human action ; but on the contrary that as many absolute
ends are possible, as there are possible exhibitions whether of
the virtuous or the pleasurable. No doubt God is hy right my
one exclusive Ultimate End ; or, in other words, I act more
perfectly, in proportion as I come nearer to a state in which all
my acts are ultimately referred to Him, whether explicitly,
virtually, or connaturally. (On the last adverb see our preceding
n. III.) But, as a matter of fact, it need hardly be said that
the number of human actions is enormously great, which are
motived quite otherwise.

XI. We now arrive at the last of our necessary preliminaries.
Those acts on which our argument will principally turn, are those
which are " perfectly voluntary.'^ Here, therefore, we must ex-
plain what we mean by " perfectly voluntary.'" Two conditions
are necessary, in order that an act may have that attribute. The

* Dr. "Ward, in his "Philosophical Introduction" (pp. 410-415), quotes
passages to this effect from Suarez, Vasquez, Yiva : but he might have
added indefinitely to the number of his authors.

64 The Extent of Free Will.

will must be in a certain given state ; and the act itself must
possess certain given characteristics. We will consider succes-
sively these two conditions.

Firstly then, the will must be in a certain given state. It
must be " sui compos ;'' or (as we may translate the expression)
*' self-masterful." This condition is so familiar to the experience
of allj that a certain general description of it will amply suffice.
We may say then that my will at this moment is " self-master-
ful/-' if I possess the proximate power of regulating my conduct
by steady and unimpassioned resolve. This condition is, of course,
unfulfilled, if I am asleep ; or intoxicated ; or in a swoon ; or
otherwise insensible. Or (2) so violent a storm of emotion may
be sweeping over my soul, that I have no proximate power to
prevent this emotion from peremptorily determining^ my conduct.
Or (3) I may be in what may be called a state of invincible
reverie ; I may be so absorbed in some train of reflection, that
nothing can disturb my insensibility to external objects, except
some (as it were) external explosion. During such periods, my
will entirely fails of being " self-masterful.^^ At other periods
again, it may fail of being entirely '^ self- masterful :^^ I may be
half asleep ; or half intoxicated ; or my emotions or my reverie
may leave me no more than a most partial and imperfect power,
of proximately regulating my conduct by steady and unim-
passioned resolve. All this is so clear, that we need add nothing
further thereon.

But it is of great importance to our direct theme, that we
set forth systematically how fundamental is the distinction in
idea, between my will being ^^ self-masterful," and being " free."
Nothing is more easily conceivable, than that at the moment I
have on one hand full proximate power of regulating my conduct
by steady and unimpassioned resolve ; while yet on the other
hand that this resolve (should I form it) be inevitably determined
for me, by what a Determinist would call " the relative strength
of motives." In fact, Determinists hold just as strongly as
Libertarians, the broad and momentous distinction of idea
which exists, between the will being " free '^ on one hand, and
on the other hand no more than ^' self-masterful.'^

Here then is the first condition necessary, in order that my
act be "perfectly voluntary :" my will must at the moment be
entirely "self-masterful."' On the other hand, when we say
that some given act is " perfectly voluntary,^' we mean that
it is (1) "explicit;^' and (2) (what we will here call) "mature.''*

* We do not forget that some theologians use the phrase " perfectly
voluntary " as synonymous with " free." But we think our own sense of
the term is much the commoner, and also much more appropriate and
convenient.

The Extent of Free Will 55

Let us consider these two elements successively. The latter is
very easily explained; but the former will need our careful
attention.

In order to make clear what is meant by " explicit '^ acts — and
again by " explicit ^' thoughts — our best plan will be to pursue
a course somewhat resembling that (see our preceding n. IV.)
whereby Dr. Walsh explains what is meant by " virtual.^' If
we ask any given man what he is doing at any given moment,
he will pretty certainly be ready with an answer. '' I am
conning my brief for to-morrow's sitting/^ says the lawyer. ^' I
am trying a new kind of steam-plough," says the farmer. "I
am pursuing the fox/^ says the sportsman. '' I am standing in
expectance of buyers," says the shopman. '^I am watching this
furnace/^ says the stoker. '•' I am attending to my opponent's
speech, that I may answer it/' says the M.P. " I am driving
down to my man of business,^' says the country gentleman.
And so on indefinitely. In all these cases, of course, there may
be other acts of will or intellect simultaneously proceeding; but
the prompt answer given to our question shows (to use a very
intelligible expression) what is on the surface of each man's
mind. Now an '^ expUcit " act means precisely an act '^ which
is on the surface of my mind."

For the sake of illustration, let us pursue the last instance
which we gave. I am driving down to my man of business.
This may most properly be called an '^ act,'' because it began
with an order I gave to my coachman, which I can revoke at
iiny moment. As I proceed, I look dreamily from my carriage
window at the various objects which present themselves; these
objects summon up an indefinite number of associations, in
regard both to the present and the past; silent processes of
thought ensue, and an ever-varying current of emotion ; acts of
repentance ; of yearning ; of complacency ; of grief ; of anxiety ;
follow each other in rapid succession. Still no one of these so
rises to the surface of my thoughts, that it would furnish my
spontaneous answer to a friend who should ask me what is my
present employment. By careful mental analysis I may observe
a very large number of the thoughts, emotions, volitions, which
are peopling my mind ; but still none of these thoughts, emo-
tions, volitions, furnish spontaneously my reply to the proposed
question. They are mental phenomena, of which I am truly
"conscious" indeed; but which, nevertheless, are '^implicit''
phenomena.

On the other hand my mental procedure may be quite diiferent
from this. As I drive along, I concentrate my energies on the
examination of some scientific problem ; on pressing various data
to their legitimate conclusion ; on harmonizing the various

56 The Extent of Free Will.

truths which I have already acqiured. Under these circum-
stances, if I were asked what is my present employment, I should
spontaneously answer that I am occupied in this scientific investi-
gation. This scientific investigation then is my '' explicit '■' act ;
and my carriage drive has sunk into the position of " implicitness/'
Or it may be again, that both acts are on the surface of my mind
and explicit ; so that my spontaneous answer to the question —
'^ what is my present employment" ? — would enumerate both of
the two. And what we have said on this particular instance, is
applicable to ten thousand other cases, in which one or two
*' explicit " acts may be accompanied by an indefinite number of
" implicit ^' thoughts or acts simultaneously proceeding.

But it is not only that the explicit act is often accompanied
by implicit acts or thoughts : one important element of the ex-
plicit act itself — we refer to its end or motive — is much more
commonly implicit. Go back to our barrister studying his brief.
What is the animating motive which impels him to this labour ?
Perhaps he is merely prompted by that virtuousness or pleasure-
ableness or union of the two, which he recognizes in the due
performance of his routine duties. Perhaps he is stimulated by
prospects of ambition ; by the thought of rising to fame and
eminence. Perhaps he is aiming at the due permanent support
of wife and children. Perhaps again these various ends are
simultaneously (in whatever proportion) inflowing into his
work. Lastly, if he is a devout and interior Christian, the
thought of God's approval may probably enough supply his
absolute end of action ; though various intermediate links con-
duce to this absolute end. But whatever be the absolute end
which he is effectively and continuously pursuing, only at rare
intervals will it become explicit. For the most part the study of
his brief so exclusively occupies the surface of his mind, that no
other thought can share that prerogative. Naj^, his end of
action may even vary from time to time, without his being
aware of the fact ; though of course he might become aware of
it by sufficiently careful introspection.

So much then for explicit acts ; but one further explanation
must most carefully be borne in mind. Explicit acts need not
be '^ reflected on.'' Explicit acts (as we have explained) are acts
which are on the surface of my mind ; but they need not be
direct objects of my explicit thought. What the barrister ex-
plicitly contemplates, is his brief with its contents : he does not
in general explicitly contemplate his study of that brief. Let
us briefly elucidate this important distinction.

The great majority of my tiioughts (whether explicit or im-
plicit) have for their object somewhat external to my mind. I
am contemplating my chance of success at the bar; or the

The Extent of Free Will. 57

probable price of money in the immediate future ; or Mr. Glad-
stone's Irish land bill ; or the beauty of this poetry, or music, or
scenery ; or the mysteries of God and Christ. But if I am
psychologically disposed, a certain small number of my thoughts
will have for their object my own mental phenomena. These
thoughts may be called "reflexive," Ijecause in eliciting them
I '' turn back''-' my attention on myself.* Acts of the will then,
which are the object of these reflexive thoughts, may be called
acts '^ reflected on." They are not only " explicit," but some-
thing more ; they are actually at the moment reflected on by
me as such.

We must here introduce two explanations of terminology.
Firstly, Catholic theologians often speak of " full advertence to an
act," or "to the substance of an act." As we understand the
matter, they precisely mean by this, that the act is what we have
called " explicit." Most certainly they do not necessarily mean,
that the act is "reflected on;" and that there is a reflexive
thought in my mind which has such act for its object.

What we have said concerning " full advertence to an act,"
or " the substance of an act,'' applies of course equally to
virtuous and sinful acts. It must be carefully distinguished from
that " full advertence" to the " malitia" of a sinful act, which
so many theologians (rightly or wrongly) maintain to be required
for commission of mortal sin. On the latter we shall speak
before we conclude.

Our second terminological explanation refers to the word
" consciousness." Sometimes this word is used, as though I were
not " conscious " of any except " explicit " acts ; nay, some-
times as though I were not "conscious" of any acts, except
those "reflected on." W^e think that a different usage from
this is far more appropriate and convenient. We shall say that
every act, elicited by my soul, is one of which I am " conscious."
We may obviously divide this term — consistently with our previous
remarks — into consciousness " implicit," " explicit," and " re-
flected on." But we are disposed to think that no one, or hardly
any one, consistently uses the word " consciousness " in a sense
different from ours. When by introspection I have come to
observe the existence in my mind of some given implicit act or
thought — we think almost every one will say that I detect
simultaneously, not only the act or thought itself, but also my
(hitherto latent) "consciousness" of that act or thought.

So much on the " explicitness " of acts. But (as we have said)
in order that they be "perfectly voluntary," it is further neces-

* They are called by Catholic writers, " actus reflexi;" but, curiously
enough, the term "reflex acts" is commonly used by contemporary
Dhilosophers in a sense quite extremely opposite.

.58 The Extent of Free Will

sary that tliey be " mature/' When any thought whatever of
the virtuous or the pleasurable is proposed to me by my in-
tellect^ my will in the first instant is attracted to the end so
proposed,, without itself having (if we may so speak) any voice
in the matter. Even after the first instant, a further period
elapses, before my will has had opportunity to put forth its full
power in the way of acceptance or repudiation. It is not then
until this second period has come to an end, that the act becomes
(what we have called) ^^ mature." It is when an " explicit '^ act
has become " mature," that theologians call it " perfectly de-
liberate.^' For our own part (as we have already said) we think
it better to avoid the word '' deliberate ^' as much as possible ;
because we are disposed to think that the particular question,
which is our direct theme in this article, has been indefinitely
obscured by an equivocal use of that term.

No act, therefore, is '^perfectly voluntary," unless my will at
the moment possess full self-mastery ; nor unless the act itself
be (1) explicit and (2) mature. If an act (1) is " implicit," or
(2) merely "inchoate " — it belongs to a different category.

We have now sufficiently prepared our way for treating our
direct theme, the extent of Free Will. Concerning our own
doctrine — at this early stage of our argument w^e need say no
more than this. According to our view of the matter — whereas
throughout the day I am almost continuously engaged in one
perfectly voluntary act or other — all these acts are not voluntary
only, but also perfectly free. They possess this liberty, not only
at starting, but uninterruptedly during their whole course ; inso-
much that I am my own master, and responsible for my course
of action, during pretty nearly the whole of my waking life.
We do not mean indeed that my action at any given moment
is always either formally virtuous or formally sinful ; because (as
we have already explained) we recognize the existence of many
acts which, even materially, are indifierent. But we do say that
(speaking generally) there is not any absence of liberti/j which
would prevent such acts from being formally virtuous or sinful
during their whole continuance. This is the doctrine, which in
due course we are to illustrate and defend. But we must first
dispose of that most divergent tenet, to which we have so often
referred, and which it is the direct purpose of our article to
assail.

There is a large number then of firmly convinced Libertarians
— especially in the non-Catholic world — who are earnestly opposed
to our doctrine ; and who consider that a man's possession of
Free Will is a more or less exceptional fact in his daily life. They
hold that I do not possess Free Will, except at those particular

The Extent of Free Will. 59

moments, in which I have expressly consulted and debated with
myself between two or more competing alternatives, and have
just made a choice accordingly. " Shall I resist this evil
thought/'' I have just asked myself, "or shall I not resist it?^'
" Shall I adopt this course of life, which promises better for my
spiritual interests and worse for my secular ; — or shall I adopt
that other, which promises better for my secular interests and
worse for my spiritual ?^' I have just made my choice between
these two alternatives, and in making it I was free. But when
this express self-debate and self- consultation have come to an
end, then (according to these philosophers) my Freedom of Will
has also for the time ceased.

This theory has always impressed us as most extraordinary ;
and we have been in the habit of thinking, that it has largely
originated in an equivocal sense of the word " deliberate.'''' Men
constantly say, and with undoubted truth, that no act can be
perfectly free, unless it be ^'perfectly deliberate" — i.e., unless
it be " explicit ^^ and ^' mature." But the verb ^' to delil3erate ''■'
is often used as synonymous with to '^ debate and consult with
one's self;" and this sense — though fundamentally different
from the former — is not so entirely heterogeneous from it, as to
prevent the possibility of confusion. A " deliberate act " comes
almost unconsciously to be taken as meaning, " an act which has
been deliberated on ;" and thus a notion has grown up, that no
other kind of act is really free. But whatever may be the origin
of the tenet which we criticize, we do not deny that its advocates
may adduce one argument at least in their own favour, which is
not entirely destitute of superficial plausibility. I cannot be
free at this moment in eliciting any given act — so far all Liber-
tarians are agreed — unless I have the proximate power at this
moment, either to do it, or to abstain from doing it, as I may
please. But — so the argument may proceed — I have not this
proximate power, unless I have been just now expressly con-
sulting with myself between these two alternatives. We shall
not fail in the sequel to give this reasoning due attention.

Such however being our opponents' argument — they are
obviously led to a further conclusion, from which indeed (we
believe) they by no means shrink. E\ren at the period of my
internal debate and self-consultation, I have been no other-
wise free, than as regards the particular alternatives which have
competed for my acceptance. Let us suppose, e.g., that I have
long since firmly resolved to pursue a systematically inimical
<Jourse, against some one who has oflfended me. At this moment
I debate with myself — not at all whether I shall desist from my
injurious machinations — but only whether I shall adopt this
particular method of aggression or some other. Our opponents

60 The Extent of Free Will.

would hold, that my resolve of assailing him is not at the
moment a free resolv^e at all ; because on that question I have
been holding with myself no express consultation whatever. I
am only free just now — they consider — in my election of the
particular mine which I shall spring against him. This is a:
most obvious result of their theory ; nor are we aware that they
at all disavow it.

As we are throughout primarily addressing Catholics, we will
begin by briefly considering this tenet in its theological aspect.
And firstly let us consider its bearings on our Blessed Lady^s-
Free Will. Theologians point out in detail, how continuous
throughout each day were her merits, while she remained on
earth ; and how unspeakably elevated a position she has thereby
attained in heaven. Now if her merits were continuous, her
exercise of Free Will must have been continuous also. Yet
how often did she debate and consult with herself, on the choice
which she should make between two or more competing alterna-
tives? Never, we suppose, except in those comparatively most
rare instances, when she did not certainly know what course at
some given moment God preferred her to take. All the acts,
e.g., wherein, faithful to grace, she avoided imperfection — were
destitute of liberty, and destitute therefore of merit. For no
Catholic will of course dare to say, that she ever debated and
consulted with herself, whether she should or should not elicit
some given action, known by her as the less perfect alternative.

But the theological objection is even immeasurably graver, in.
the case of Jesus Christ. It is simply impossible that even once,
while upon earth, He should have debated and consulted with
Himself between two or more competing alternatives. This
supposition, we say, is simply impossible : because at every
moment He knew, in the Beatific Vision, what act His Father
desired at His hands ; and most assuredly did not debate or con-
sult with Himself, whether or not He should elicit that act
accordingly. Consider in particular His freely-acccomplished
death for the salvation of mankind. Did He debate and consult
with Himself, whether He should die? But if He did not, then
(according to our opponents) He was not free in dying ; and
man's redemption remains unaccomplished. We do not indeed
at all forget how many difficulties the theologian encounters, in^
harmonizing the various truths connected with our Lord's Freej
Will in dying. But any one, who has studied the discussions oi
this question, will thus only receive a stronger conviction thai
he could well obtain in any other way, how absolutely unhearc
of and undreamed of among theologians is that theory on thj
supposed limits of Free Will, which it is our direct purpose to
attack.

The Extent of Free Will. 61

And we are thus led to express theological citations on the
suhjecfc. We will select a very few out of* the large number
adducible; but they shall be amply sufficient to show beyond
the possibility of doubt, how profoundly at variance is this theory
with the voice of standard Catholic theologians.

There is no more authoritative writer just now on Moral
Theology, than F. Gury; and his treatise has of course received
great additional importance, since F. Ballerini has chosen it for
his text-book. Now in the seventeenth edition of Gury's work,
on which Ballerini founded his own of 1861, occurs the follow-
ing singularly express statement. '^Although," says Gury,
" the Free and the Voluntary are mutually distinguishable in the
abstract [in se distinguantur], in man during his earthly course
[in ho mine viatore] they are in reality not distinguished : be-
cause man, during his earthly course, while sui compos, never
acts under necessity/^ According to this statement, then, all
human acts are free, except, e.g., when the agent is asleep, or
otherwise incapable of truly voluntary action. And F. Ballerini
made on this no adverse comment whatever.

In his edition of 1875 we find F. Gury's words slightly
modified. They now run thus —

Although the Free and the Voluntary are distinguished in the
abstract — as is plain from the Definition of the two — nevertheless in
those acts in which man on this earth tends to his end, they are in
fact never separated : for whenever any act is voluntary, it is free ;
and vice-versa. The reason is, because (as S. Thomas says) in those
acts which are directed to [man's] ultimate end, nothing is found so
bad as to contain no admixture of good ; and nothing so good as to
suffice in all respects [for satisfaction of desire]. Now the only thing
which the will has not the power to abstain from willing, is that which
has the unmixed quality of good [completam boni rationem habet] :
such is perfect beatitude, or [man's] ultimate end ; for the sake of
which all [other] things are desired.

Here, it will be seen, F. Gury is making a distinction, which
he had not made in his earlier editions, between those acts on
one hand which men perform as conducive to their ultimate end,
and those acts on the other hand in which they aim immediately at
that ultimate end itself. It will be further seen, that, as regards
these latter acts, Gury regards them as subject to necessity of
exercise, no less than to necessity of specification. But as re-
gards that vast number of perfectly voluntary actions, which
are directed immediately to some other end than that of my
own beatitude — Gury pronounces that they are certainly free.
Yet the enormous majority of such actions during the day are
indubitably elicited, without express self-debate and self-con-
sultation.

62 Tlie Extent of Free Will

Ballerini^ in his edition of 1878^ cites at length the passage of
S. Thomas to which Gury refers ; and then adds this remark :
*' Which doctrine — accordant as it is no less with Right Reason
than with the Catholic Faith — shows plainly in what light a
certain recent philosophy is to be regarded^ which (under the
title of " The Limits of Human Liberty ") introduces without
any ground {inaniter invehif] innumerable acts, in which
[forsooth] man on earth (being otherwise sui comipos) is supposed
to \)Q necessitated y What the "modern philosophy'^ is, here
so severely censured by F. Ballerini, — we confess ourselves
entirely ignorant ; but we should say from his context, that it
must be some Catholic philosophy. Ballerini himself at all
events is plainly full of suspicion, as to any philosophy which
would circumscribe " human liberty '' by undue " limits.''^

Let us now pass to standard theologians of an earlier period ;
or rather to Suarez, who (as will be immediately seen) may
stand as representing them all. Suarez then holds ("De
Oratione,^^ 1. 3, c. 20, n. 5) that those acts of love, which holy
men elicit in a state of ecstasy, are free : sometimes with liberty
of specification, always with liberty of exercise. No one will
say that holy men in a state of ecstasy expressly debate and
consult with themselves, whether they shall continue their acts
of love or no. And presently (n. 8) Suarez adds : " It is tlie
common axiom, of theologians that, externally to the Beatific
Vision, the will is not necessitated in exercise by force of any
object which is but abstractively known, however perfectly" —
i.e., which is not known in the Beatific Vision. According to
Suarez, then, it is the common axiom of theologians that no
object necessitates the human will, except only God as seen
face to face in heaven. It might indeed be a matter of reason-
able inquiry how far so simply universal a statement — concerning
the whole body of theologians — is consistent with the fact, that
many theologians consider the will to be even under necessity
of exercise, when the thought of beatitude is proposed in thi»
life. There is no reason however for us to undertake such
inquiry. We need nothing for our own purpose, except to show
how unheard of among theologians is the particular notion which
we are directly combating ; and this fact is most abundantly
evident from our citations.

We should add that Suarez (" De Bonitate et Malitia
Actionum Humanarum/' d. 5, s. 3, nn. 22-35 ; " De Gratia,^^ 1. 12,
e. 21) makes plain how admitted a truth it is with theologians,
that an act protracts its virtuousness or sinfulness — in other
words, preserves its freedom — during the whole of its continuance."^

* The discussions in Moral Theology concerning the " number " of *
sins, sometimes (we incline to fancy) produce a certain misapprehension.

The Extent of Free Will. 63-

From the ground of theological authority^ we now proceed to
the ground of reason. And, in arguing with our present oppo-
nents, we are to take for granted the truth of those doctrines,
and the validity of those arguments, which they hold and adduce
in common with ourselves. Now in our articles against De-
terminism, we laid very great stress on that ineradicable con-
viction of their own Free Will, which is common to all mankind ;
a conviction which is the more remarkable, because so very few
can look at their own habitual conduct with satisfaction, if they
choose carefully to measure it even by their own standard of
right. All Libertarians agree with us on this matter ; and lay
stress on the fact to which we refer, as furnishing (even though
it stood alone) a conclusive proof of Free Will. They say — no
less than we say — that on such a subject the common sense and
common voice of mankind are an authority, against which there-
lies no appeal. In arguing then against thenif we have a right
to assume the principle to which they themselves assent ; we
have a right to assume the peremptory authority due, on this
subject, to the common judgment of mankind. We now there-
fore proceed to maintain that — when our opponent's theory is
embodied in concrete fact and translated into e very-day practice
— the very doctrine of Determinism is less repulsive to the
common sense and common voice of mankind, than is their
doctrine on the limits of Free Will. We will explain what vre
mean, by a short succession of instances.

We will begin with one, to which we just now referred in a
different connection. Let us suppose that I have long resolved
on a course of grave enmity against some one who has offendedi
me ; and that I have long with entire consistency acted on that
resolve. It has become indeed an inveterate habit with me —
a first principle (as it were) of conduct — so to act ; and as to
raising the question with myself, whether I shall or shall not

It is sometimes perhaps uiiconscionsly supposed, that if — during some
given period — A's sins are more numerous than B's of the same kind, A
may presumably be considered to have sinned more grievously than B
during the same period. But the very opposite inference is quite as
commonly the true one. A perhaps interrupts his sinful action from
time to time, and again renews it ; while B continues his evil course un-
intermittently and unrelentingly. We need hardly point out, that in
such a case (gravity of the sinful action being equal) B formally commits
far more of mortal sin than A, precisely because A's sins are more
" numerous." The number of instants, during which A merits increased
eternal punishment, is much smaller than the number of instants
during which B does so. Yet B's sinful instants make up what in the
Confessional is only counted as one sin ; while A's— from the very
fact of their having been interrupted — count as many. On the other
hand, we do not forget that (as Suarez somewhere observes) the fresh
starting of a mortally sinful act involves a certain special malitia of
its own.

U The Extent of Free Will.

continue in the same groove, — I should as soon raise the ques-
tion with myself, whether I shall or shall not continue to support
my children whom I tenderly love. At this moment, however,
I am debatino^ and consulting between two different methods of
assailing my foe which suggest themselves ; and I am calculat-
ing which of the two will inflict on him the heavier blow.
Under these circumstances our opponents must say, that I am
free indeed in my choice between these two evil machinations ;
but that I am strictly necessitated to carry out my original
resolve of injuring him in what way I can. I am strictly neces-
sitated at this moment so to act — if our opponents theory be
accepted — because at this moment I have been as far as possible
from consulting and debating with myself on this particular
question. But if I am necessitated so to act, I cannot of course
incur any formal sin thereby. In other words, I no more commit
formal sin at this moment by pursuing his ruin to the bitter end,
than I commit formal sin by giving my daughter a new bonnet in
proof of my affection.

Those Catholics, who are more or less implicated in the theory
which we are opposing, sometimes seek to evade the force of
our objection by a singular reply. They reply, that (under the
supposed circumstances) though my earnest resolve of crushing
my enemy be not directly free, yet it is free "in causa; in its
cause.'' They argue therefore, that they can consistently call
my present resolve formall}'' sinful, because they consider that
resolve to be "free in its cause/' But what is meant by this recog-
nized theological expression ? There is no doubt whatever about
its meaning. My resolve — they must mean to say — was "directly^'
free at its outset, because then I did debate and consult with
myself whether I should or should not form it. Moreover at
that time of outset, I was well aware that, if I formed such a
resolve, the issue would in all probability be a long continuance
of my revengeful action. Consequently (they urge) I then
incurred the formal guilt of my subsequent evil machinations.
Well, the whole of this is entirely true ; but then it is no less
entirely irrelevant. Indeed their making such an answer, is but
an unconscious attempt to throw dust into the eyes of their
critic. For we are not now discussing with our opponents the
moral quality of that evil action — now so long past — which I
elicited in forming my detestable resolve. We are discussing with
them the moral quality of my prese'?!^ evil volition ; wherein I
apply myself to the vigorously carrying out that earlier resolve,
without any pause of self-debate and self-consultation. And
their theory must compel them to admit, that this volition is
destitute of liberty, and exempt therefore from sin. According
to their tenet (w^e say) I am as exempt from formal sin in

The Extent of Free Will. 65

continuing my settled plan of revenge, as though I were engaged
in hymning the divine praises, or in spiritually assisting a sinner
on his death-bed.

As an opposite picture — before we proceed to the case of
saintly Catholics, let us take a more ordinary specimen of
human virtue. Let us look, e.g., at such a person as the
excellent Elizabeth Fry; and such a work as her reformation
of the Newgate female prisoners. "The pleasures, which
London affords to the wealthy, were at the disposal of her
leisure. But a casual visit paid to Newgate in 1813 revealed
to her the squalor and misery of the wretched inmates. She
succeeded in forming a society of ladies, who undertook to
visit the female prisoners. The most hardened and depraved
evinced gratitude; and those who had hitherto been un-
manageable, became docile under her gentle treatment.""^ One
cannot suppose that she entered on this noble enterprise with-
out much planning, self-debate, self-consultation : and in the
'planning it, our opponents will say that she was free. But
when her heart and sou) became absorbed in her glorious
work — when she no more dreamed of debating with herself
whether she should discontinue it, than of debating with her-
self whether she should include dancing lessons in her
course of instruction — then, forsooth, her Free Will collapsed.
Thenceforth there was no more formal virtue in her noble
labours, than if instead thereof she had spent her husband's
money in equipages and dress, and had enjoyed in full " the
pleasures which London offers to the wealthy.'-'

In truth — on this amazing theory — there can be no such
thing as confirmed laudableness or confirmed reprehensibleness
of conduct. When my habit of virtue or of sin is confirmed,
I no longer, of course, commonly debate or consult with my-
self whether I shall act in accordance with its promptings;
and, not being free therefore on such occasions, I cannot by
possibility act either laudably or reprehensibly.

Then consider the devout and interior Catholic who labours
day by day and hour by hour that his successive acts be virtually
and energetically referred to God. He may spare himself
the pains (if our opponents' theory hold) as far as regards any
supposed laudableness which can thence accrue. If indeed he
were weak-kneed and half-hearted in his spiritual life — if he
were frequently debating and consulting with himself whether
he should trouble himself at all with referring his acts to God —
then he might no doubt from time to time elicit acts formally
virtuous. But it is far otherwise with a fervent Catholic.

♦ Slightly abridged from Walpole'a "History of England," vol. i. p. 202.
VOL. VI. — NO. T. [Third Series.'] e

66 The Extent of Free Will

Again and again he is too much immersed in the thought of
God to think reflexively about himself. He dwells on the
mysteries of Christ ; he makes corresponding acts of faith,
hope, and love ; he prays for the Church ; he prays for his
enemies ; he prays for the various pious ends which he has at
heart ; and his thoughts are entirely filled with such holy con-
templations. Who will be absurd enough to say that this holy
man has all this time been expressly debating with himself
whether he shall or shall not cease from his prayers and medita-
tions ? Yet, except so long as such debate continues, he possesses,
forsooth, no liberty; and his prayers are no more formally good
and meritorious, than if he were in bed and asleep.

Surely such a view of things as we have been exhibiting
is one which would inexpressibly shock any reasonable man who
should contemplate it in detail. And yet we cannot for the life
of us see how the consequences, which we have named, fail to
follow in their entirety from that theory on the limits of Free
Will, which we so earnestly oppose. Now, on a question so
profoundly mixed up with every man's most intimate experience,
it is not too much to say that the universal testimony of mankind
is a conclusive proof of truth. Moreover (as we have already
pointed out), the adverse testimony of mankind is a consideration
which inflicts a blow of quite singular force on those particular
thinkers with whom we are just now in controversy. They
press the adverse testimony of mankind, as conclusive against
Deter minists ; and we in our turn press it, as even more conclu-
sive against themselves.

Such is the first reply which we adduce against our opponents.
Our second is the following : — The main argument — it will be
remembered — by which we purported to establish Free Will
was based on man^s experienced power of putting forth anti-
impulsive eftbrt. We here assume that our present opponents
agree with us on the validity of our reasoning on this head :
because, of course, it was in our earlier papers, and not in this,
that the proper opportunity occurred for vindicating the efficacy
of our earlier argument. So much then as this we may consider
to be common ground between our present opponents and our-
selves— viz., that whenever I put forth '^ anti-impulsive effort,^'
—in that moment at all events I possess Free Will. Let us
proceed then to point out how very frequently it happens that I
am putting forth (perhaps very successfully) these anti-impul-
sive efforts, on occasions when 1 do not dream of debating and
consulting with myself whether I shall put them forth. I have
received, e.g., some stinging insult ; I have offered it to God ; I
have firmly resolved (by His grace) steadfastly to resist all
revengeful emotions thence arising. I make this resolve once

The Extent of Free Will. 67

for all : and I no more dream of debating with myself whether
I shall continue to act on it, than of debating with myself
whether I shall in due course eat my dinner. Yet how frequent
— at first perhaps almost unintermitting — are my anti-impulsive
efforts. Again and again — while I am engaged in ray daily
occupations — the thought of the insult I have received sweeps
over my 'soul like a storm, awakening vivid emotions in corre-
spondence. As every such successive emotion arises, I exert
myself vigorously to oppose its prompting. But the most
superficial glance will show that such exertion is, very far
oftener than not, put forth spontaneously, unhesitatinsrly,
eagerly ; without any admixture whatever of self-debate and
self-consultation. Nay, it is precisely in proportion as this may
be the case — in proportion as the element of self-debate and
self-consultation is more conspicuously absent — in such very
proportion that particular argument for my possessing Free Will
becomes more obviously irresistible, which is based on the
promptitude and vigour of my anti-impulsive effort.

Thirdly, another consideration must not be omitted, which
does not, indeed, rise in the way of argument above the sphere
of probability, but which (within that sphere) is surely of
extreme weight. There is no question on which the infidels of
this day profess themselves more profoundly agnostic, than
this : What is the meaning, the drift, the significance of man^s
life on earth? Is life worth living? And if so, on what
grounds? Theistic Libertarians most justly claim it as an
especial merit of their creed, that it supplies so intelligible
and effective an answer to this question. This life (they say)
is predominantly assigned by God to man, as a place of proba-
tion; such that on his conduct here, depend results of unspeak-
able importance hereafter. Yet, according to those particular
Libertarians with whom we are now in controversy, man's
probation is at last confined to certain rare and exceptional
passages of his earthly existence. Even of that normal period,
during which his will is most thoroughly self-masterful, active,
energetic, supreme over emotion — during which he devises
and carries out his chief schemes, develops his most fertile
resources, manifests and moulds his own most distinguishing
specialties of character — very far the larger portion is entirely
external to this work of probation, which one would expect
to find so pervasive and absorbing. During far the greater
portion of this period (we say) our opponents are required by
their theory to account him destitute of Free Will ; unworthy
therefore of either praise or blame; incapacitated for either
success or failure in his course of probation.

It is quite impossible that a theory, so paradoxical and

!• 2

68 The Extent of Free Will.

startling, could have found advocates among men undeniably
able and thoughtful, had there not been at least some one super-
ficially plausible argument adducible in its favour. We have
already said that there is one such argument ; and we have no
more imperative duty in our present article than fairly to
exhibit and confront it. We will suppose an opponent then to
plead thus —

'^ I am not free at this moment, unless I have the proximate
" power at this moment, either to do what I do or to abstain
^' from doing it. But I cannot have this proximate power of
" choice, unless I have what may be called a 'proximate warning/
'^ nor can I have this, unless I have expressly in my mind the
'^ two alternatives between which I am to choose. I promised my
" daughter that, the next time I went to the neighbouring town,
" I would bring her back some stamped note-paper. Well, here
'^ I am, close to the stationer's shop ; but I have clean forgotten
'^ all about my promise. No one will say that, under these cir-
" cumstances, I have proximate power of choice as to getting the
" note-paper. Why not ? Because I have received no proximate
" warning. Let the remembrance of my promise flash across
" my mind, this affords the condition required. In like manner,
*' if I am expressly debating and consulting with myself at this
" moment whether I shall do this act or abstain from it — here is
'^ my proximate warning. But if I am not thus expressly
" debating and consulting, then I have no proximate warning at
*' all, nor proximate power of choice."

Now, in replying to this, we will confine our discussion to
perfectly voluntary acts. Our contention, as a whole, is, that all
perfectly voluntary acts are perfectly free ; and that all imper-
fectly voluntary acts have a certain imperfect freedom of their
own. But assuredly no one who is convinced of the former
doctrine will stumble at the latter; and we need not trouble
ourselves therefore with specially arguing in its favour. Then,
for our own part, we follow Suarez in thinking that even as re-
gards men's desire of beatitude — however accurately they may
apprehend that blessing — they possess therein full liberty of
exercise* And accordingly we hold (as just set forth) that all
perfectly voluntary acts in this life, without exception, are per-
fectly free. This then being understood, the sum of the answer
we should give to the argument above drawn out, is this : and we
submit our view with profound deference to the judgment of
Catholic theologians and philosophers. I possess an intrinsic
continuous sense of my own Free Will : and this sense amply

* This particular question seems to us so devoid of practical importance
that there is no necessity of giving reasons for our opinion.

The Extent of Free Will. 69

suffices to give me the proximate warning required for proximate
power of choice. Now therefore to exhibit this statement in
greater detail^ and to defend it by argument.

It is commonly said by Libertarians^ whether Catholic or non-
Catholic, that mane's Free Will is a simple and unmistakable
fact of experience. Arriaga, e.g.y considers it to be so immediate
an object of perception, that you can as it were touch it with your
hand (quasi manu palpare). And indeed a very common
expression is, that men are " conscious '' of their own Free Will.
Mr. Stuart Mill objected to this use of language. '^ We are
conscious,'' he said, " of what is, not of what will or can be/'
In April, 1874 (pp. 351-2), we admitted, that on the verbal
question, we are disposed here to agree with Mr. Mill y^ though
he had himself in a former work (by his own confession) used the
word " consciousness '' in the very sense to which he here
objected. He had used the word, as expressing "the whole of
our familiar and intimate knowledo^e concernino^ ourselves."
However, we willingly accepted Mr. MilFs second thoughts, in
repudiation of his first thoughts; and we have throughout
abstained from using the word " consciousness^' in the sense to
which he objected. " We will ourselves," we added, " use the
word 'self- intimacy' to express what is here spoken of." We
will not then say that I am " conscious " of my own Free Will,
but that I have a " self-intimate continuous sense thereof.'^ So
much on the question of words; and now for the substance of
what we would say.

How is this self- intimate continuous sense engendered, of
the power which I have over my own actions? Let us first
consider, by way of illustration, another self-intimate con-
tinuous sense of power, which I also indubitably possess : my
sense of my power over my own limbs. When I was first
born, I was not aware of this power; but my unintermittent
exercise thereof has gradually given me a self-intimate con-
tinuous sense of my possessing it. A student — let us suppose —
has been sitting for three hours on the edge of a cliff at his
favourite watering-place, immersed in mathematics. A little
girl passes not far from him, and falls over the clifi", to the great
damage of her clothes, and some damage of her person. Her
mother reproaches the mathematician for not having prevented the
accident ; though probably enough he may have quite a sufficient
defence at his command. But suppose what he does say were
precisely this : " I could not reach your child without moving ;
" and in the hurry of the moment, I really did not remember

* We have spoken on the meaning of this word " conscious" in a pre-
vious page.

70 The Extent of Free Will.

" that I had the power of moving. I must tell you that it was
" full three hours since I last had moved my legs ; and you
'' cannot be surprised therefore that my remembrance of my
*' possessing the power to move them was none of the freshest/'
The mother would feel that he was here adding insult to injury.
Had she scientific words at her command, she would energeti-
cally press on him the fact, that his sense of his power over his
limbs is not a fitful, intermittent sense, liable to temporary sus-
pension ; but on the contrary is such a continuous self-intimate
sense, as would have most amply sufficed had he possessed any
genuine inclination to move.

Now as to the still more important power which I possess—
the power of resisting my wilFs spontaneous impulse — my ex-
perience of it (no doubt) did not begin for (say) a year or two
after I had habitually experienced my power over my limbs.
But when once it did begin, it was called into almost as
frequent exercise. If I received a good moral and religious
education — that very statement means, that I was repeatedly
summoned to the exercise of anti-impulsive effort, in the in-
terests of religion and morality. If I received no such educa-
tion— the circumstances of each moment nevertheless brought
with them after their own fashion a lesson, entirely similar as
regards our present argument. My life would have been simply
intolerable, had I not a thousand times a day energetically
resisted my vvilPs spontaneous impulse, in order to avert future
suffering and discomfort, or in order to avoid the displeasure of
those among whom I lived. This proposition we assume, from
our previous articles on the subject. In accordance then with
the well-known laws of human nature, I acquired by degrees (as
I grew up) a self-intimate continuous sense, that I have the
'power of resisting at pleasure my spontaneous impulse; or (in
other words) that my Will is Free. My notion of acting at all
with perfect voluntariness has become indissolubly associated
with my notion of acting freely, I have a self-intimate con-
tinuous sense that I am no slave to circumstances, whether
external or internal; that I have true control over my own
conduct; that I am responsible for my own voluntary acts. The
very consciousness that I am acting voluntarily^ carries with it
the sense that I am acting freely. This self-intimate sense
suffices to give me proximate warning at each instant of per-
fectly voluntary action ; and so suffices to give me a true
proximate power of choice — whatever I may be about at the
moment — between continuing to do it and abstaining therefrom.

Before going further, let us examine what we have now said»|
by the test of plain facts ; and let us once more resort to our old
illustration of the revengeful man. I am firmly resolved to

The Extent of Free Will. %l

inflict on my enemy whatever suffering I can ; for such indeed
is my rooted and inveterate principle of conduct : but I am
debating with myself what Triethod of aggression will just now
be most conducive to my end. Now we say this. If I believe
in Free Will at all, and if I choose to think about the matter at
all, I cannot possibly persuade myself that the doctrine of
" limited ^^ Free Will here holds good. I cannot possibly per-
suade myself that I am free indeed at this moment in my choice
between these particular machinations; but that my general
resolve of crushing him is a necessitated act, for which I incur no
present responsibility. We really do not think that any one,
capable of self-introspection, would here even dream of any state-
ment contrary to ours, except under extremest pressure of a
paradoxical theory. But if I cannot possibly persuade myself
that my resolve is necessitated — this is merely to say, in other
words, that I invincibly recognize within myself the proximate
power of choosing at this moment to abandon such resolve.

In truth the cases are by no means rare, in which it is most
obvious on the surface — in which no one can by possibility doubt —
that I have most abundant proximate power of choice, without
any debate or self-consultation. The whole psychology of habit
(as we have already implied) is here directly to our purpose. I
have acquired a deeply-rooted habit of forgiveness, and receive a
stinging insult. Spontaneously and instinctively — as soon as my
will obtains even a very moderate degree of self-mastery — I select
between the two alternatives, of succumbing or not succumbing
to my violent emotion. I select the virtuous alternative; I fight
successfully God's battle in my soul ; I should be utterly ashamed
of myself if I condescended to self-debate and self-consultation.
It is precisely because I do not so condescend, that 1 have more
proximate power (not less) of making my effective choice between
the two alternatives.

It may be said, no doubt, that this sense of proximate power
given me by an acquired habit is not continuous; for it is only
at comparatively rare intervals that any one given acquired habit
has occasion of exhibiting its efficacy. Still other instances are
easily found in which my self-intimate power does continue unin-
termittently. Consider, e.g.^ my self-intimate sense of the power
which I possess, to talk correct English, or to practise correct
spelling. Consider a groom's self intimate continuous sense, that
he possesses the power of riding; or a law-clerk's, that he possesses
the power of writing legibly. Again, a very conspicuous instance
of what we mean is afforded by the phenomena of gentlemanliness.
One who has lived all his life in thoroughly gentlemanly society,
has a continuous self-intimate sense of his power to comport him-
self like a gentleman throughout every event of the day. Or let

72 The Extent of Free Will

us adduce a very different illustration. Suppose I am suffering
under some affection in the neck, which makes this or that posture
intensely painful. At first it does not happen so very unfrequently,
that I accidentally assume the posture and incur the penalty.
But as time advances, I obtain by constant practice the desired
knack, of so movinj^ myself as to avoid pain ; and the possession
of that power is speedily followed, by my self-intimate continuous
sense of its possession.

The sum then of what we have been saying is this. On one
hand the self-intimate continuous sense of possessing this or that
proximate power, is by no means an uncommon fact in human
nature. On the other hand it is established by due introspection
— and easily explicable also by recognized psychological laws —
that men do possess this self-intimate continuous sense of their
proximate power, either to acquiesce in their spontaneous impulse
of the moment, or to resist it. In other words, they possess a self-
intimate continuous sense of Free Will ; a sense which at every
moment gives them proximate warning of their responsibility.

Such — we are convinced — is substantially true doctrine, con-
cerning the extent of Free Will ; and we only wish we had space
to enter on its more complete and detailed exposition. One theo-
logical objection however occurs to us, as possessing a certain
superficial plausibility ; an objection, founded on that very doctrine
which we alleged against our opponents — viz., the doctrine of our
Blessed Lady^s interior life. If men^s self-intimate sense of
liberty is founded on their repeatedly experienced power of
resisting spontaneous impulse — how (it may be asked) can she
have acquired it, who was never even once called on or permitted
to resist spontaneous impulse ? But the answer is obvious enough.
Those most noteworthy characteristics, which so conspicuously
distinguished her interior life from that of ordinary mortals, did
not arise (we need hardly say) from the fact that her nature
differed from theirs; but from a cause quite different. They
arose from the fact that — over and above that perfection of
natural and supernatural endowments with which she started —
God wrought within her a series of quite exceptional Providential
operations : operations, which preserved her infallibly from sin ;
from concupiscence ; from moral imperfection ; from interruption
of her holy acts and affections. If this continuous sense of Free
Will therefore were required for the formal virtuousness of her
acts, it is included in the very idea of God's dealings with her,
that He either directly infused this sense into her soul, or other-
wise secured for her its possession. And if it be further inquired
how her possession of Free Will was consistent with the fact, that
her unintermittently virtuous action was infallibly secured — i
nothing on this head need be added to the most lucid explanation

The Extent of Free Will. 73

given by Suarez and other theologians. For our own purpose
however we should further explain, that though she possessed
Free Will — as did our blessed Lord — we do not for a moment
mean to imply that she was in a state of probation. And we
should also add, once for all, that what remarks we have farther
to make in this article will not be intended as including our
Blessed Lady within their scope, but only as applying to other
human persons.

We have now completed all which strictly belongs to our direct
theme; and must once more express that we put forth all our
remarks with diffidence and deference, submitting them to the
judgment of Catholic theologians and philosophers. But we
would further solicit the indulgence of our readers, while we
touch (as briefly as we can) two further subjects, which are in
somewhat close connection with our theme ; which throw much
light on it; and which are in some sense necessary as its comple-
ment. No one can more regret than we do, the unwieldy length
which thus accrues to our article. But the course of our series
will not bring us again into contact with the two subjects to which
we refer ; and if we do not enter on them now, we shall have no
other opportunity of doing so. We cannot attempt indeed to do
them any kind of justice ; or to set forth in detail the arguments
which seem to us adducible for our doctrine concerning them.
Still we are very desirous of at least stating the said doctrine ; in
hope that other more competent persons may correct and complete
whatever is here mistaken or defective.

The first of these two subjects concerns the relation between
Free Will and Morahty. And at starting let us explain the sense
of our term, when we say that, during certain periods, a man
has a "prevalent remembrance" of this or that truth. A mer-
chant, e.g.y is busily occupied at this moment on 'Change. There
are certain general principles and maxims of mercantile conduct,
which he has practically learned by long experience, of which he
preserves a "prevalent remembrance" throughout his period of
professional engagement. This does not mean that he is actually
thinking of them all the time; but that he has acquired a certain
quality of mind, in virtue of which (during his mercantile trans-
actions) these various principles and maxims are proximately
ready, to step (as it were) into his mind on every approximate
occasion. Or to take a very different instance. A fox-hunter,
while actually in the field, preserves a " prevalent remembrance "
of certain practical rules and sporting axioms — on the practica-
bility, e.g.y of such or such a fence — which again and again saves
him from coming to grief. Now this " prevalent remembrance ''
may, in some cases — instead of being confined to particular periods

74 The Extent of Free Will. ^

— become '' pervasive ^^ of a man's whole waking life. Let us
take two instances of this, similar to two which we have already
given in a somewhat diiferent connection. The thoroughly-
gentlemanly man enjoys all day long a "pervasive remembrance""
of the general laws and principles which appertain to good
breeding. And one who for many years has had a malady in his
neck possesses all day long a " pervasive remembrance" of what
are those particular postures which would give him pain. This
does not mean, either that the gentlemanly man or again the
neck-affected man never for one moment forgets himself; but it
does mean, that the instants of such forgetfulness are comparatively
verj'- ^Qw.

This terminology being understood, we submit the following
proposition : — As all men on one hand, throughout all their long
periods of perfectly voluntary action, possess a self- intimate sense
of their Free Will; so on the other hand, during the same
periods, they preserve a " pervasive remembrance" of two car-
dinal truths. These two truths are (1) that virtuousness has a
paramount claim on their allegiance ; and (2) that pleasurable-
ness (whether positive or negative) will incessantly lead them
captive, whenever they do not actively resist it. We have already
said, that we have no space here for anything like a due exhibition
of the arguments adducible in support of our statement ; and as
regards, indeed, the second of our two cardinal truths, we suppose
every one will be disposed readily enough to accept it. As
regards the former of our truths — that virtuousness has a para-
mount claim on men^s allegiance — we have of course nothing to
do here with proving that it is a truth. This task we consider
ourselves to have abundantly performed on more than one earlier
occasion ; and we would refer especially to our article on " Ethics
in its bearing on Theism," of January, 1880. Again, we are not
for a moment forgetting, that men differ most widely from each
other (on the surface at least) as to what are those particular acts
and habits which deserve the name of " virtuous." Still, we
have maintained confidently, on those earlier occasions, that the
idea " virtuousness," as found in the minds of all, is one and the
same simple idea ; and that virtuousness, so understood, is really
recognized by all men, as having a paramount claim on their
allegiance. What we are here specially urging is, that (through-
out their period of perfectly voluntary action) all men — even the
most abandoned — preserve a '^ pervasive remembrance" of this
truth.

We have already explained how entirely impossible it is on the
present occasion to attempt any adequate exhibition of the argu-
ments adducible for our doctrine; but such considerations as the
following are those on which we should rely : — Firstly, let it be

The Extent of Free Will 75

observ^ed how indefinitely large is the number of moral judgments
which succeed each other in every one^s mind throughout the
day. "I am bound to do what I am paid for doing." " K. be-
haved far better than L. under those circumstances." " M. is
really an unmitigated scoundrel." '^ No praise can be too great
for N.'s noble sacrifice." '' How base it was of O. to tell me those
lies." " What cruel injustice I received at the hands of P." It
is not merely men that live by moral rule and look carefully after
their consciences who are quite continually thus speaking; but
the general rough mass of mankind. Even habitual knaves and
cheats are no less given than honest people to censure the
conduct of others as being unjust, oppressive, mendacious, or
otherwise immoral. " There is " moral '* honour " and moral
dishonour " among thieves." The notion of right and wrong, in
one shape or other, is never long absent from any one's thoughts ;
even his explicit thoughts. Then, secondly, let those psychical
facts be considered, which have led ethical philosophers of the
intuitionist school to insist on "the still small voice of con-
science;" the instinctive efforts of evil men to stifle that voice ;
the futiHty of such eff'orts, &c. &c.* We are entirely confident
that such statements are most amply borne out by experienced
psychical facts; though we cannot here enter on the inves-
tigation.

If the doctrine be accepted which we have here put forth,
assuredly it throws most important light on man^s moral consti-
tution. My self-intimate sense of Free Will — we have already
seen — gives me unintermittent information of my responsibility
for my acts one by one. But now further the Moral Voice, which
I can so constantly hear within me — in emphatic correspondence
with that information — gives me full proximate warning, by
what standard I am to measure those acts. On the one hand, I
am free to choose ; while on the other hand I ought to choose
virtuously. The claims of virtuousness — the attractions of
pleasurableness — these are (as one may say) the two poles
between which my moral conduct vibrates. Either motive of
action is legitimate within its sphere, but one of the two right-
fully claims supremacy over the other. And my self-intimate
sense of Free Will unfalteringly reminds me that I am here and
now justly reprehensible and worthy of punishment, so far as I
rebel against the higher claim, under solicitation of the lower
attractiveness.

* So (as one instance out of a thousand) F. Kleutgen speaks : " Con-
science," he says, " does not always so speak and raise its voice, as to take
from man the power of turning from it and refusing to listen." " It is often
in man's power to abstain from entering into himself and lending his ear
to that voice," &c. &c. We quoted the whole of F. Kleutgen's very
remarkable passage, in October, 1874, pp. 44:-450.

76 The Extent of Free Will

The second subject on which we desire to touch, is a certain
thesis concerning the kind and degree of advertence required for
mortal sin. That tenet concerning the extent of Free Will,
which it has been our direct purpose to oppose, is very seldom
(if indeed ever) applied by Catholics to their appraisement of
virtuous actions. One never hears, e.g., that a holy man^s prayer
is necessitated, and therefore destitute of merit, because he has
not been just debating and consulting with himself whether he
shall or shall not continue it. But there are two classes of occa-
sion (we think) on which the tenet of limited Free Will does at
times (consciously or unconsciously) find issue. One of these is
when the Catholic defends Free Will against Determinists ;
under which circumstances he is sometimes tempted by the
exigencies of controversy to minimize his doctrine : and on this
matter we have now sufficiently spoken. The other occasion is,
when question is raised concerning the advertence required for
mortal sin. Here then alone would be ample reason for our
wnshing not to be entirely silent on this grave theological question.
But (by a curious coincidence) there is another reason, altogether
distinct, which makes it pertinent that we enter on this particular
subject. For the thesis to which we have referred, if consistently
carried out, would place in a quite extraordinarily and prepos-
terously favourable light the moral position of those infidels, who
are our immediate opponents throughout our present series of
articles.

Some Catholics then seem to hold, that no mortal sin can
be formally committed, unless (1) the agent explicity advert
to the circumstance, that there is at least grave doubt whether
the act to which he is solicited be not mortally sinful; and
unless (2) — after having so adverted — he resolve by a perfectly
voluntary choice on doing it.^ Now we admit most heartily,
that here is contained an admirable practical rule, as regards a
large class of persons whom Moral Theology is especially required
to consider. Take a Catholic who is ordinarily and normally
averse to mortal sin, and who regularly frequents the Con-
fessional. Such a man may be certain that some given past
act, which tends to give him scruple, was not formally a
mortal sin unless (at the time of doing it) he explicitly adverted
to the circumstance, that there was grave doubt at least
whether the act were not mortally sinful. But the thesis of
which we are speaking seems sometimes laid down — not as
supplying a test practically available in certain normal cases —

* Such seems the obvious sense of Gury's exposition : " De Peccatis,"
n. 150. S. AlphonsTis and Scavini use far more guarded language.
Suarez gives a most thoughtful treatment of the matter: "De Yoiuntario,"
d. 4, s. 3. But we have no space for citing the dicta of theologians.

The Extent of Free Will, 77

but as expressing a necessary and universal truth. If this he
the thesis really intended — our readers will readily understand
oar meaning, when we said just now that it seems intimately
connected with that tenet of limited Free Will, which we have
been so earnestly opposing. In the first place there is on the
surface a very strong family likeness between the two theories.
Then, further, we are really not aware of any reasoning by which
the " explicit advertence '' theory can be defended, unless its
advocates assume the tenet of unlimited Free Will. But how-
ever this may be — we would entreat theologians duly to consider
some few of the consequences which would result, if the
"explicit advertence" thesis were accepted. We will begin
with the case of those Antitheistic infidels, who are at this time
so increasing in number and aggressiveness.

The Antitheist then would not be accounted capable of mortal
sin at all. What Catholics call ''sin,^' is something most
definite and special. " Sin" — in the Catholic^s view — is separated
by an absolutely immeasurable gulf from all other evils what-
ever ; insomuch that all other evils put together do not approach
to that gravity, which exists in even one venial sin. But the
whole body of Antitheists (we never heard of one exception) en-
tirely deny that there can be any such " malitia^' as this, in any
possible or conceivable act. It is simply impossible then —
as regards any act in the whole world which the Antitheist may
choose to commit — that he shall (before committing it) have
asked himself whether it were mortally sinful. And con-
sequently— according to the thesis we are criticizing — it is simply
impossible that any act in the whole world, which he may
choose to commit, can be formally a mortal sin.

Consequently no such thing is possible to any human being,
as gravely culpable ignorance of God. Ignorance of God (according
to Catholic doctrine) cannot be gravely culpable, unless it result
from the formal commission of mortal sin ; and Antitheists
(according to this thesis) are unable formally to commit mortal
sin. Now we are very far from wishing here to imply any
special doctrine, concerning invincible ignorance of God : few
theological tasks (we think) are just now more urgent than a
profound treatment of this whole question. But that there is
not, and cannot possibly be, any ignorance of God which is not
invincible — this our readers will confess to be a startling pro-
position. We submit, however, that it follows inevitably from
the thesis before us.

From Antitheists let us proceed to Theistic non-Catholics.
Suarez quotes with entire assent S. Augustine's view, that the
two causes which, immeasurably more than any other, keep back
a non-Catholic from discerning the Church's claims, are (1)

78 The Extent of Free Will.

pride and (2) worldliness.* Yet in regard to these two classes of
sins — which (in the judgment of S. Augustine and of SuarezJ
spread so subtle a poison through man's moral nature, and so signally
dim man's spiritual discernment — how can the thesis which we
are opposing account them mortally sinful at all ? What proud
man ever reflected on his pride ? What worldly man on his
worldliness ? Suppose, e.g., a man considered himself to reflect
on the fact that he is eliciting a mortally sinful act of pride :
all men would be at once sure that it is his very humility which
deceives him. He who is at this moment committing what is
materially a mortal sin of pride, most certainly does not dream
that he is so doing ; and still less does he explicitly advert to the
circumstance. Or consider some other of the odious characters
to be found in the non-Catholic world. Take, e.g., this typical
revolutionary demagogue. He is filled with spite and envy,
towards those more highly placed than himself. He consoles
himself for this anguish, by inhaling complacently the senseless
adulation of his dupes. He gives no thought to their real
interest — though he may persuade himself that the fact is other-
wise— but uses them as instruments for his own profit and
aggrandizement. How often does this villain reflect on his
villainy from one year's end to another ? God in His mercy
may visit him with illness or affliction : but otherwise the
thought never occurs to him, that he is specially sinful at all. Yet
would you dare to deny, that during a large part of his earthly
existence he is formally committing mortal sin ? And remarks
entirely similar may be made on the whole catalogue of those
specially odious offences^ which are built on fanaticism and self-
deception.

And now, lastly, we would solicit theologians to consider, how
such a thesis as we are considering will apply even to those
Catholics who absent themselves from the Confessional and are
confirmed sinners. Look at our old case of the revengeful man.
My resolve of injuring my enemy in every way I can has
become, by indulgence, a part (one may say) of my nature ; and
I am at this moment immersed in some scheme for inflicting on
him further calamity. I have been profoundly habituated, these
several years past, to set the Church's lessons at defiance, and to
commit mortal sin without stint or scruple. In consequence of

* " Heresy is found in a man after two different fashions — viz., either
as himself author of the heresy, or as persuaded by another. And it
does not arise after the former fashion, except either from pride or from
too great affection for earthly and sensible objects : as Augustine says.
But he who is drawn by another into heresy, either imitates [the heresiarcli
himself] in pride and worldliness; or else is deceived ignorantly and
through a certain simplicity." — Be Amissione InnocentioB, c. 2, s. 17.

The Extent of Free Will. 79

this, I no more explicitly advert to the fact that I am sinnint^
mortally in my revengeful resolves — than I explicitly advert to
the fact that I am passing* through certain streets^ on my daily
trodden road from my office to my home. Now there is no
Catholic, we suppose, who will not admit, that I continue to be
formally committing a large number of mortal sins, during all
this protracted course of vindictiveness. But how can such an
admission be reconciled with the thesis which we are opposing?

Now take an importantly different instance. I am just
beginning an habitually wicked life. I secretly retain some large
sum, which I know to be some one else^s property ; or I enter
into permanent immoral relations with another person. I cannot
get the fact out of my head, and so I am always reflecting on my
sinfulness ; while I still cannot make up my mind to amend. I
formally therefore commit mortal sin, at pretty well every
moment of my waking life. Time however goes on ; and in due
course I become so obdurate, that I do not reflect for a moment,
from week's end to week's end, on the circumstance that I am
setting God's Law at defiance. Let us briefly contrast these
two periods. Suppose, e.g., I make my definitive resolution of
remaining in sin, on March 12, 1871; and since that day have
not once made any real effort to reform. Then compare the
moral life which I led on March 13, 1871, with that which I
led on March 13, 1881. On the earlier day I was, beyond the
possibility of doubt, formally committing mortal sin almost every
moment of the day, during which I was not asleep or tipsy;
because I was constantly reflecting on my wicked life, and pur-
posing to continue it. Now my acts of March 13, 1881, taken
one by one, are assuredly far more wicked than those of March
13, 1871. Suarez ("De Peccatis," d. 2, s. 1, n. 3) lays down as
the commonly admitted doctrine, that " the deformity of mortal
sin consists in this — that through such sin the sinner virtually
and interpretatively loves the creature more than he loves God.''
But if, in my acts of March 13, 1871, I was virtually and inter-
pretatively loving the creature more than I loved God — who wijl
doubt that, in those of March 13, 1881, I am doing this same
thing very far more signally and unreservedly? And if the
former acts therefore were mortally sinful, much more are these
latter. Yet, according to the adverse thesis, these latter acts are
not mortally sinful at all ; because my detestable obduracy is now
so confirmed, that I do not even once explicitly advert to the
circumstance, how wicked is my course of life.

Such are a few instances which we would press on the attention
of theologians, as exhibiting results which ensue from the thesis
we deprecate ; and many similar ones are readily adducible. We
submit with much deference, that a satisfactory solution of the

80 The Extent of Free Will.

whole difficulty cannot be found, unless that doctrine he borne in
mind which we just now set forth, concerning (1) men^s self-
intimate sense of Free Will ; and (2) the constant urgency of the
Moral Voice speaking within them. But before entering directly
on this argument, we will distinctly express two propositions ;
which otherwise it might possibly be supposed that we do not
duly recognize. First — there cannot possibly be mortal sin in
any act, which is not "perfectly voluntary;" and we have fully
set forth in our preceding n. xi. how much is contained in
this term " perfectly voluntary/' Secondly — no one can
commit mortal sin, except at those times in which he pos-
sesses full proximate power of suspecting the fact. When we
come indeed to treat the particular case of Antitheistic infidels,
we shall have to guard against a possible misconception of this
statement; but to the statement itself we shall entirely adhere.
So much then having been explained, we will next try to set
forth, as clearly as is consistent with due brevity, the principles
which (as we submit) are truly applicable to the moral apprecia-
tion of such instances as we have just enumerated.

We begin with the revengeful Catholic, who is well aware
indeed of the circumstance that his vindictive machinations
are mortally sinful : but who is so obdurate in his sin, that he
gives no explicit advertence to their sinful character. If those
doctrines which we advocate are admitted — concerning his
self-intimate sense of Free Will, and the constant monitions of
his Moral Voice — he has evidently, during almost the whole
period occupied by these revengeful machinations, full proximate
power of explicitly adverting to their sinfulness. There may
be occasional moments of invincible distraction ; and at those
moments (we admit) his formal commission of mortal sin
temporarily ceases; but these surely cannot be more than
exceptional, and recurring at rare intervals. And such as we
have here given, would be substantially (we suppose) the
account given by all Catholic thinkers ; for all Catholics surely
will admit, that his successive machinations are for the most
part (even if there be any exceptional moment) imputed to the
agent as mortally sinful.

We now come to the second instance. A Catholic (we have
supposed) has plunged into some mortally sinful mode of life ; at
first he has been tormented all day long by remorse of con-
science ; but in due course of obduration, has entirely ceased to
reflect on his deplorable state. Now in order to solve both this
and the other difficult cases which we just now set forth, it is neces-
sary (we think) not only to bear in mind the doctrines which we
have already exhibited concerning men's self-intimate sense of
Free Will and the monitions of their Moral Voice — but another

The Extent of Free Will, 81

doctrine also entirely distinct. We may call this the doctrine of
" inordination." It is one on which recent theologians (we
venture to submit) have not sufficiently insisted;^ but which
is of most critical importance on such questions as we are now
discussing. It has been expressed and illustrated with admirable
force by the late F. Dalgairns, in that chapter of his work on
" The Blessed Sacrament," which is called '* Communions of the
Worldly ;" a chapter which we earnestly hope our readers will
study as a whole in the present connection. We can here
only find room for a very few of the relevant passages.

Christianity holds as a first principle, that God is to be loved above
all things ; in such a sense that if a creature appreciatively loves any
created thing more than God, he commits a mortal sin (second edition,
p. 359).

When the afiection for an earthly object or pursuit for a long time
together so engrosses the soul, as to superinduce an habitual neglect
of God and a continued omission of necessary duties, then it is very
difficult for the soul to be unconscious of its violation of the First
Commandment, or (if it is unconscious) not to be answerable to God
for the hardness of heart which prevents its actual advertence {ih.^.

We will suppose a merchant entirely engrossed in the acquisition of
riches. No one will say that to amass wealth is in any way sinful. It
has never come before him to do anything dishonest in order to in-
crease his property, and he has never formed an intention to do so.
Nevertheless, if his heart is so fixed on gain, that his affection for it is
greater than his love of God — even though he has formed explicitly
no design of acting dishonestly — he falls at once out of the state of
grace. Let him but elicit from his will an act by which he virtually
appreciates riches more than God, that act of preferring a creature to
God (if accompanied by sufficient advertence) is enough of itself to

constitute mortal sin The First Commandment is as binding

as the Seventh ; and a man who does not love God above all things, is
as guilty as the actual swindler or thief {ih. p. 360).

And in p. 317 F. Dalgairns adduces theological authority for
his doctrine. We should be disposed to express it thus. Any
one (we should say) is at this moment materially committing
mortal sin, if he is eliciting — towards this or that pleasurable end
— some act of the will so inordinate, that by force of such act, he
would on occasion violate a grave precept of God, rather than
abandon such pleasure. And he formally commits mortal sin,

* All theologians admit that no divine precept can possibly be violated,
except througb the sinner's inordinate attachment to creatures. But we
venture to think that the tendency has of late been to dwell too exclusively
on the violation of precept ; and not to exhibit in due prominence the
attachment to creatures. S. Thomas's treatment of such matters is em-
phatically different (we think) in its general tone.

VOL. VI. — NO. I. {Third SeTies.J a

82 The Extent of Free Will.

if he elicits such an act while he possesses full proximate power
to suspect its being mortally sinful.

Or let us exhibit our doctrine in the concrete. No one (as
has been so repeatedly pressed in this article) can possibly offend
God, except for the sake of this or that pleasure ; and every one
therefore who commits mortal sin, is ipso facto preferring some
pleasure to God. At this moment I am gravely calumniating an
acquaintance, in order to gratify my vain -glory by being more
highly thought of than he is. Here are two concomitant
mortal sins; related to each other, as respectively the "com-
manding " and " commanded '' act [" actus imperans : '^ " actus
imperatus ^^] . The " commanding '^ act is my mortal sin of vain-
glory; the "commanded" act is my mortal sin of calumny.
But how comes the former to be a mortal sin ? There is no sin
whatever in my mere desire of being highly thought of by my
fellow-men. True; but that desire is "gravely inordinate '^ —
"a mortal sin of vain-glory " — if it be such, as to command what
is objectively a mortal sin, rather than lose the pleasure at which
it aims."^ But now observe. I may, the next minute, altogether
forget the particular man whom I have been calumniating ; and
the " commanded" mortal sin may thus come to an end. But
this is no reason in the world why my " commanding" mortal
sin — my sin of vain-glory — should change its character. If it
were mortal sin before — and if there be no change in its
intrinsic qualities — it continues to be mortal sin now.
Wherein does its mortally sinful character consist ? In this :
that hy force of my present act, I should on occasion gravely
offend God, rather than lose the pleasure at which I am aiming;

* " If love of riches so increase that they may be preferred to charity ;-^
in such sense that, for the love of riches, a man fear not to act in opposi-
tion to the love of God and his neighbour; — in this case avarice will be a
mortal sin. But if the inordination of the man's love [for riches] stop
within this limit ; in such sense that, although he loves riches too much,
nevertheless he do not prefer the love of them to the love of God, so that
he do not .will for their sake, to do anything against God and his neigh-
bour—such avarice is a venial sin,"S. Thomas, 2* 2** q. cxviii. a. 4.

" Inordination of fear is sometimes a mortal sin, sometimes a venial.
For if any one is so disposed that — on account of that fear whereby he
shrinks from danger of death or from some other temporal evil— lie would
do something prohibited or omit something commanded in the Divine Law
— such fear will be a mortal sin." — lb. q. cxxv. a. 3.

•' If the inordination of concupiscence in gluttony imply aversion from -a
man's Ultimate End," accipiatur secundum aversionem a Fine Ultimo," so
gluttony will be a mortal sin. Which happens, when a man cleaves to the
pleasurableness of gluttony as to an end, on account of which he despises
God : being prepared to violate the Precepts of God, in order to obtain
such gratifications." — Ih. q. cxlviii. a. 2.

F. Ballerini savs (on Gury, vol. i. n. 178) that S. Thomas's " Secunda
Secundaa " " ought never to be out of the Confessor's hands."

The Extent of Free Will. • 83

or (in other words) that, hy eliciting my present act of vain-
glory, I appreciatively prefer to God the being highly thought of
by my fellow -men.

Here then we are able to explain what we mean, by '^inordi-
nate^' desire of pleasurableness. The particular given act —
wherein I desire the pleasure which ensues from good opinion of
my fellow-men — may be of three different characters, which it i$
extremely important mutually to distinguish. It may (1) be
such, that — by force of such act — I would rather gravely offend
God, than lose the pleasure in question : in which case the act is
" gravely inordinate," and (at least materially) a mortal sin. Or
it may be (2) such that — by force of such act — I would rather
offend God venially (though not gravely) rather than lose the
pleasure : in which case the act is " venially inordinate " and
" venially sinful." Or, lastly — however strong my act of desire
may be — yet it may not be such that, by force of it I would
offend God in any way rather than lose the pleasure. In this
latter case, the act is not " inordinate" at all ; not properly called
" vain-glory " at all ; nor (as we should say) possessing any
element whatever of sin.*

It will be remembered also, that that " gravely inordinate "
act, which is materially a mortal sin, is not one formally, unless
the agent possesses full proximate power of suspecting this fact.

* In the early part of our article we referred with entire assent to Dr.
Walsh's argument in favour of the doctrine here assumed, that an act may
be directed to pleasurableness as to its absolute end, yet without inordina-
tion. But there are two condemned propositions, often cited against this
doctrine, which we ought expressly to notice. They are the 8th and 9th
condemned by Innocent XI. (Denz, nn. 1025, 6) : " Comedere et bibere."
&c., " Opus conjugii," &c." On the former of these, we need do no more
than refer to Dr. Walsh's remarks from n. 638 to n. 641 ; with
which we unreservedly concur. On the latter, what we would say
is substantially what Viva says : The constitution of lapsed human
nature being what it is — there is one most definitely marked out
class of pleasurable ends, which tend to exercise so special and abnor-
mal influence over a man's will, that his pursuit of them will quite
infallibly be " inordinate" (in our sense of that term) unless it
be kept in check by being subordinated to some virtuous end. Now it is
obvious that those who (like ourselves) affirm this, may utterly repudiate
the proposition condemned by Innocent XI. ; and yet entirely hold that
general doctrine concerning indifierent acts, which we have exhibited in our
text. It may be well to add, that F. Ballerini (on Gury, vol. ii. n. 908) has
some valuable remarks concerning the virtuous ends which may be pursued
in that particular class of acts to which we refer.

Another theological remark. The distinction which we have made,
between the " inordinate" and " non-inordinate" pursuit of a pleasurable
end, is closely connected (if indeed it be not identical) with the recognized
theological distinction, between pleasure being sought as the " ^nis positive
ultimua" and " negative ultimus" respectively. (See Dr. Walsh, n. 479 ;
and Ballerini on (jury, vol. i. n. 28.)

G 2

84 The Extent of Free JVill

In our view, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the momen-
tousness of this whole doctrine, for the true moral appreciation,
whether of those outside the Church, or of obdurate sinners
within her pale. To avoid prolixity, however, we will only
consider it in detail, as applicable to the obdurate Catholic whom
we were just now describing. He has sank into so abject and
degraded a moral condition, that he appreciatively prefers pretty
nearly every passing pleasure to God. There is hardly any
gratification, at all to his taste, from which he would abstain,
rather than gravely offend God. In other words — as the day
proceeds — almost every act which he elicits is gravely inordinate
and mortally sinful.

The only question to be further raised concerning him is,
whether these repeated gravely inordinate adhesions to pleasure
are in general formally, no less than materially, mortal ; or,
in other words, whether he have full proximate power of
suspecting their true character. And of this — as a general
fact — there can (we conceive) be no fair doubt. We are
throughout supposing him not to have abandoned the Faith. It
is plain that a Catholic, who for years has absented himself from
the Confessional — who is living in what he fully knows to be
the persistent and unrelenting violation of God's Laws — has an
abiding sense all day long, how degraded and detestable is his
mode of acting. He feels all day long that he " is drinking in
sin like water ;" though he would of course be unable to
express in theological terms his protracted course of evil. "^

Some of our readers may be disposed at first sight to regard
this view of things as startling and paradoxical, because of the
large number of instants during which it accounts such men to

* It might be thought at first sight, that there is some similarity between
the doctrine which we have submitted in the text concerning obdurate
sinners, and that advocated by Pascal in his "Fourth Provincial Letter."
But in truth the full doctrine which we would defend is the very extreme
contrary to Pascal's. The direct theme of his Fourth Letter— as laid down
in the title — is " Actual Grace;" and he reproaches the Jesuits for main-
taining, that " God gives man actual graces under every successive temp-
tation." For our own part — not only we cleave most firmly to the doctrine
here denounced by Pascal — but we are disposed to go further. We are
strongly disposed to accept the Fifteenth Canon of the Council of Sens ;
and to affirm, that" not even a moment passes" while a man is sui coawpos
" in which God does not stand at the door" of his heart, " and knock" by
His supernatural grace.

We need hardly say, that the Council of Sens was not Ecumenical ; but
Suarez speaks of its decrees as possessing very great authority. Of
course this is not the place for a theological discussion concerning the
frequency of Actual Grace. But our readers will observe the close con-
nection of our theological doctrine, with the doctrine which we have
defended in the text, on the constant urgency of man's Moral Yoice in the
natural order.

The Extent of Free Will. 85

be formally committing mortal sin. But to our mind, it is
precisely on this ground that any other view ought rather to be
considered startling and paradoxical ; as we pointed out a page or
two back. The unrepentant novice in sin (before his conscience
became obdurate) was most indubitably committing mortal sin
during pretty nearly the whole of his waking life. It would
surely be startling and paradoxical indeed, if his acts ceased to be
mortally sinful, merely because (through a course of unscrupulous
indulgence) he has come to treat his indifference to God^s Com-
mandments as a simple matter of course.

This doctrine of '^ grave inordination^' is (as we just now said)
entirely applicable to solving the other difficulties we have men-
tioned ; to appreciating the sins of pride and worldliness so widely
found among non-Catholic Theists ; to appreciating the various
sins of fanaticism and self-deception ; and, lastly, to appreciating
also the moral position of Antitheistic infidels. It would occupy
however, considerable space duly to develop and apply the
doctrine for this purpose ; and we must therefore abandon all
attempt at doing so. In regard indeed to the last-named class,
a certain theological point needs to be considered : because it
mav be suo^o^ested that — since mortal sin derives its characteristic
malignity from its being an offence against God — those who deny
His Existence cannot possibly commit it. This whole matter
however has been amply discussed by theologians, since a certain
proposition was condemned concerning " Philosophical Sin.^^ For
our own part therefore we will but briefly express our own
adhesion to those theologians — of whom Viva may be taken as a
representative instance — who hold, that the recognition of acts
as being intrinsically wicked, is ipso facto a recognition of them
as being offences against the paramount claims of God as rightful
Supreme Legislator ; and that this recognition suffices for their
mortally sinful character.

Otherwise what we have generally to say. about these Anti-
theists is this. We assume the truth of our own doctrine, as
exhibited in the preceding pages. But if this doctrine be true —
if God have really granted to all men a self-intimate sense of
Free Will — if He have really endowed them with an ineffaceable
intuition of right and wrong — if He is constantly pleading within
them in favour of virtue — He has, by so acting, invested them
with a truly awful moral responsibility. And it is perfectly
absurd to suppose, that a set of rebels can evade that respon-
sibility, by the easy process of shutting their eyes to manifest
facts. It will fall within the scope of the article which we pro-
pose for next January, to show in detail the monstrous inconsis-
tency which exists between the doctrine which these unhappy
men theoretically profess, and that which they practically imply

86 The Reorganization of Our Army,

in their whole habitual unstudied language concerning human
action.

In concluding our lengthy discussion, we must once more say-
how entirely we submit all that we have suggested to the judg-
ment of theologians. We indulge the hope however, that — even
where we may have unwarily fallen into error — we shall never-
theless have done good service, by obtaining for some of the
points we have raised more prominent and scientific considera-
tion, than (we think) they have hitherto received.

And there is a further matter concerning Free Will, on which
a word must be added. One principal argument of Determinists
is, that the Free Will doctrine would on one hand make psycho-
logical science impossible; while on the other hand it would
derange the whole practical machinery of life, by proclaiming the
inability to predict future human actions. Now it might be
thought that what we have now been urging on the extent of
Free Will, must strengthen the Determinist objection. But facts
are not so at all. The chief passages in which we replied to it
appeared in April, 1867, pp. 288-290; and in April, 1874, pp.
353-4. And if our readers will kindly refer to those pages, they
will see that our answer is as simply applicable in defence of our
own present thesis, as in defence of any more limited Libertarian
theory which can possibly be devised.

Here at length we bid farewell (for a considerable time at least)
to the Free Will controversy. We hope to have a paper ready for
next January, on "Agnosticism as such.'' And we hope to begin
it by a few pages — mainly taken from OUe Laprune's invaluable
work on " Moral Certitude" — in which we shall consider what
are those principles of investigation, which lead to the establish-
ment of certain knowledge on those all-important religious^
truths, which are within the sphere of human reason.

W. G. Ward.

Art. III.— the REORGANIZATION OF OUR ARMY.

"VrO one gifted with the ordinary amount of observation, an(
JLi who has watched for a series of years the course of publii
events in England, can come to any other conclusion than that'
in the matter of administrative reforms we are the most in-
judicious of civilized nations. No amount of abuses, and no
quantity of exposures respecting abuses, seem to have any
influence on the public mind for a long series of years. Things
are allowed to go their own way, no matter how much evil they

The Reorganization of Our Army, 87"

entail. We seem to trust a good deal to chance, and the rest to
Providence, in affairs which require only a little energy and a
small amount of reform to set right. No matter what may be
the amount of evil which a want of reform may cause, we are con-
tent to " let things slide/' as the Americans say : and to con-
gratulate ourselves on the supposed fact that " they will last our
time." And so, until some flagrant case occurs in which national
honour, or a large sum of money, or human life is forfeited to our
apathy, we let matters take their owncourseand shift for themselves.
At last a crisis arrives. For some reason or other we recognize
distinctly that we have been persistently following a road whicl*
must lead us on the wrong direction. Then comes the reaction.
We rush into impossible reforms with as much persistency as we
before continued on the wrong track. Every charlatan who has
a theory of his own to propound is listened to ; and the greater
the change from what has been to what is to be, the more firmly
are we impressed with the idea that at last the right and true
way of arriving at the desired end has been found.

No better illustration of the foregoing could be found than in
all that regards the reorganization of the army. For nearly half
a century — from the end of the great war with France in 1815,
until 1871-72 — no army reform, or change of any sort or kind
with regard to the services, was even so much as thought of by our
military authorities. Abuses in the service existed, as they will,
and must, exist in all human institutions, and were by no means
few in number. From time to time these were pointed out by
men of experience in the army, and changes of a decided, although
not a sweeping, character were advocated. It was urged again
and again by writers in various magazines and newspapers, that
a body of officers who not only obtained their first commissions,
but also subsequent promotion, without any kind of examination
— not even a medical one — as to their fitness for the service, was
an anomaly, which made ours the laughing-stock of other armies.
It was argued that to appoint a man to a regiment of cavalry
because he could pay £840 for his cornetcy, or to a corps of infantry
because he or his friends could command the sum of £450, was a
practice by no means in keeping with the spirit of the age. It
did not need much argument to prove that the rule by which, when
an officer became senior of his rank, and a vacancy taking place in
the rank above him, he could not be promoted unless he was pre-
pared to pay down a considerable sum of money lor his step, the
next officer below him passed over his head, was not exactly a
regulation which did our army much credit. These, and many
other abuses which had in the course of time become law, were
denounced as requiring immediate alteration ; but all to no
purpose whatever. The rule of the War Office and Horse Guards

88 The Reorganization of Our Army.

seemed to be that '^ whatever is, is right /^ and all sorts of
reforms were denounced as inadmissible. At last the change
came. It was only in 1849 that certain very mild examinations
were made indispensable, both for those who were appointed to
the army, and such as obtained promotion in the service. Nearly
ten years later — after the Crimean War — these examinations were
made harder than before ; but still there was nothing to complain
of in the ordeal which officers had to go through. After a time
an alteration came, and, to use a vulgar expression, it came with
a rush. The Franco- German War of 1870-71 surprised others
besides the great nation that lost so much of its former prestige
in that memorable struggle — if, indeed, that can be called a
struggle, in which victory from the very first is with one army,
and during which every week, nay, every day, adds to the laurels
those troops had already gained. The Germans carried everything
before them from the day they set foot in France ; and the rest of
Europe bore testimony to the truth of the saying, that '^ nothing
succeeds like success.^'' In England, army reform and army reor-
ganization became simply a national mania. We tried our best to
make our troops as like as possible to those of Germany. With one
simple exception, every change we attempted was a mistake, every
reform a most decided blunder. The abolition of the purchase
system was certainly a step in the right direction; the only
wonder being that so great a national disgrace had been allowed
to remain part and parcel of our military code until the nine-
teenth century was upwards of seventy years old. Already,
although barely a decade has passed since what may be called
"the Banker's Book qualification,^' for appointments to, and for
promotions when in, the service has been abolished, we look back
with wonder that such a rule could ever have existed, and with
still greater amazement that earnest men could ever have been
found who were strongly opposed to its being done away
with. But here our praise of army reform during the last
ten years must cease. With the single exception of the
abolition of purchase, all that has been efiected in the way of
change has simply and gravely deteriorated the service in every
possible way. And not only this. If we are to judge of the future
by the past, the time is not very far distant when we shall have
no army at all ; or, at any rate, when the greatly diminished
number and quality of our troops will reduce us to the level of a
third-class European kingdom and power.

On the 11th of May last, the Aldershot division of the army
paraded before Her Majesty. The nominal strength of thisi
division — the strength on paper — is 10,500 of all ranks.
There were present on this occasion two troops of Horse
Artillery ; two regiments of Heavy Dragoons, and one of

The Reorganization of Out Army. 89

Hussars ; five batteries of Foot Artillery ; one mounted and one
dismounted company of Engineers, and ten battalions of Infantry.
If all the different corps there had been of the strength which
they are supposed, and are said to be, there would not have been
less than between 10,000 to 12,000 men on parade. But for reasons
of which we shall make due mention presently, the whole division
mustered but 5,712 of all ranks, or not so many men as a single
German or French brigade would have done, and about 3,000
fewer than the ten infantry regiments present would have had on
parade a few years ago, before the short service system came
into vogue. To call some, nay, with two exceptions, any of the
infantry corps that paraded before the Queen on the above-named
occasion by the name of regiments, would be simple irony.
Thus, of a nominal strength of some 1,500 men and horses, the
three cavalry regiments only mustered 869 sabres ; whilst of
between 7,000 and 8,000 men that ought to have been present
with the ten infantry battalions, there were less than 4,000, all
told.* Of all these ten corps there were only two— viz., the 2nd
battalion of the 18th Hoyal Irish, and the 93rd Highlanders,
which mustered in anything like respectable numbers, the former
having 673, the latter 536 men under arms. On the other hand,
the 32nd Light Infantry, which has on its rolls 673 men, could
only muster 283 on parade; the famous 42nd Highlanders only
290 out of 610; and the 1st battalion of the 2nd Queen^s not
more than 287 out of 640. And yet this was a parade before
Her Majesty, at which every available soldier would be present.

The question naturally arises, where were the other men who
ought to have been under arras on this occasion ? The answer
requires some little knowledge of what is behind the scenes of
regimental life in these days. The fact is, that under our
present military system we do not, and cannot, get recruits to
fill up the cadres of our regiments, and are obliged to make shift
as occasion demands. When a battalion is ordered on foreign
service it is almost certain to be under the strength required for
a corps in the field. It is therefore made up by volunteers from
other regiments, and in nineteen cases out of twenty, it embarks
for India, the Cape, or wherever it may be going, with at least
half of its men who do not know their ofiicers, who do not
know each other, and whose officers do not know them. Surely
it is not a harsh thing to say that most, if not all, the several
small defeats we have met with of late years in different parts
of the world may be justly attributed to this cause?

Another reason for the paucity of soldiers in our ranks is, that
by far the greater number of the recruits we get are too young

* Standard, May 12, 1881.

90 The Reorganization of Our Army,

at the time of being enlisted to go through any really hard
work ; and are unable even to take their place in the ranks as
drilled men at a parade until they have been several months in
barracks, and have been well fed, well clothed, and well cared for.
When they first join the service they have, in point of fact, not
the physical strength to go through their duties. They are in
reality not men, but boys — boys whose youth and childhood have
been passed in poverty, and who require to go through a period
of bodily training before they are able to learn their drill, use of
the rifle, marching, and other work which they have to be taught.
Even as it is, we have only to look at the vast majority of men
who now fill our ranks to see that they are much too young to
endure any real physical hardship. This, it may be said, is a
fault that time will mend ; but according to the present rules of
the service just as a man becomes fit for hard work — just at the
time when he begins to be what our soldiers were in the days that
they could " go anywhere and do anything ^' — his term of
service in the ranks is over, and he must join the reserve. He is
by this time just about twenty-four years of age. He has for
some six years profited by the good feeding and regular habits
which barrack life forces him to observe. He is commencing to
be, and to feel like, a man. Hitherto his life has been one of train*
ing; now he is trained and ready for service. In India or any of
the colonies he would be simply invaluable. It was regiments of
men as he is now, and as he will be for the next fifteen years,
who performed the wonderful feats of marching under Nott, and
Pollock, and Gough, in former campaigns in Afghanistan, the
Punjaub war, and the great Indian Mutiny. But just as the
soldier has attained what may be called the commencement of
his usefulness, he is told that his services " with the colours" are :
at an end. He may, it is true, remain a few years longer with
his corps, but he is at liberty to join the reserve. As a matter
of course he does so. Men of his age and his class are always
ready and glad to change. He leaves his regiment just as he is
becoming an efficient soldier ; perhaps is sent home from India
just as he begins to be acclimatized to the country, and, having
learnt from his own experience what to eat, drink, and avoid, has
become ten times as valuable to the State as he was when he
landed in the East. He joins the reserve, and is supposed, by a
fiction of the War Office, to be ready at any moment to re-enter
the ranks and take his place once more as a soldier. But what is
the unvarnished truth ? In nineteen cases out of twenty, the
man who joins the reserve is of no more use to his country than
if he had emigrated to the Antipodes. He has been just long
enough a soldier to unfit him for civil life; he is too old to learn
any trade, as the chances are he was too young to do so before

The Reorganization of Our Army. ^1

he enlisted. He is not allowed to re-enlist in the array ; he knows
nothing, and becomes what our American cousins call "a loafer/'
AVere he permitted to rejoin the army, as in most cases he
desires to do, he would yet become a useful soldier ; but, as I
said before, he is not allowed to do so. His vacancy is filled by
some weakly lad who requires a couple of years good feeding
before he is fit for anything. Whole battalions are on parade
barely strong enough in numbers to pass for three, instead of ten,
companies each ; and when an Afghan or a South African war
comes upon us, we have to send out regiments composed, not of
men and officers who have known each other and worked together
for years, but of soldiers gathered from different corps, who pro-
bably never saw their commanders, nor their commanders them,
before they embark for foreign service.

And for what reason — with what intention — is this sacrifice of
the active service made for the reserve? We used to get on well
enough in former days, when there was no such thing as a reserve
in our military vocabulary. We fought through the Peqinsula,
at Waterloo, in India, in the Crimea, and always with a success
which was unknown in any other army in the world. Our men
knew their officers, and their officers knew them. Many years
ago I went through three campaigns in India with an English
regiment, and witnessed what British soldiers can endure, what
hardships they can go through, and what they can do when hand
to hand with an enemy. I was afterwards, as a special corre-
spondent of the press, all through the Franco-German war, from
what may be called the first serious battle, at Worth, to the capitu-
lation of Sedan ; and later, at several of the engagements near
Orleans and on the Loire. And I have no hesitation in saying that
I would risk all I have, and all I hope to have in this world, nay
my very life, upon the fact that our troops, as they used to be,
would fight and conquer either a French or a German force
at the odds of three to one against them. What, then, could
be the object of making such a change in our military
organization as that which, some eight years ago, was ordered
by the military authorities? The simple fact is, that when
certain so-called military reformers, who, for the misfortune
of the nation, have considerable influence at the War Office,
saw the results of the late war in France, they were seized
•with a complaint that has, not inaptly, been termed "The
German Army on the Brain." They saw how the German
troops had carried all before them, and jumped at the conclu-
sion that the best thing they could do was to make the English
army as like the legions of Prussia, of Saxony, and of Bavaria,
as they possibly could. If they had had the power they would
have introduced a system of general conscription : but they

92 The Reorganization of Our Army.

found it utterly impossible to do so. The country will stand a good
deal in the way of strange legislation, but compulsory service is
what never did, and never will, be accepted by Englishmen. No
other country in the whole world gives, or ever gave, a tenth of the
number of volunteers for service that we do ; but our fellow
countrymen would never be compelled to take service. However, if
these gentlemen could not have conscription, they were resolved
to have everything else that Continental armies rejoice in ; and of
these, the first and chief would be limited enlistment, and a
Reserve Force which could be called under arms when wanted at
a day^s notice.

Now, in my humble opinion, there are two insurmountable
objections to both these alterations in our military organizations.
To begin with, our army is infinitely more a Colonial, or an Indian
force than it is a European one. We don^t want a large number
of troops, either to keep revolutionists in order, or to be prepared
against foreign invasion. What we do require are steady, seasoned
battalions, ready to embark for any part of the world at a day's
warning, composed of men who can do us good service in any
war which may take place in our Indian Empire or any of
our Colonies. Other countries have quite different wants from
ours. With the single exception of Algeria, neither France,
Germany, Italy, nor Austria, has any foreign land which it has
to protect and keep in order by means of their own troops.
They have to be prepared against invasion from other powers,
and to be ever ready to repel an enemy. With them conscrip-
tion, the training of young men to the use of arms, and the
necessary consequences of a reserve, are matters of vital import-
ance. For them a reserve is a reality as well as a necessity.
Their peasants, and even their working men, seldom, if ever, leave
the district, the village — nay, rarely the very house — in which they
were born. But it is far otherwise with us. The English
working man is by nature, to say nothing of inclination, a
wanderer on the face of the earth. He may be a native of
Liverpool or Manchester. If he finds work in the town he was
born in, he remains there ; if not, he goes to Newcastle, or comes
to London, or perhaps emigrates to Canada, the States, Australia,
or New Zealand. In Germany, France, and all other European
countries, every citizen is registered, and if he changes his
abode he must give notice of the same to the authorities, unless
he has passed the age when he is liable to be called on to serve.
When the war of 1870 broke out, Germans who were in business,
or serving as clerks in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, New
Orleans, and San Francisco, were summoned by telegrams to the
different German consuls, to report themselves at the head-
quarters of their respective corps d'armee, and with a few very

The Reorganization of Our Army, 9^

rare exceptions they did so. Their different whereabouts in the
furthest off foreign lands were as well known as if they had
never left the immediate neighbourhood of Berlin, Munich,
Frankfort, or Bremen. I remember, after the terrible battle of
Worth was over, and MacMahon^s corps d'armee was in full
retreat for the Vosges, assisting a German corporal of dragoons,
who was fearfully wounded, and who asked me to procure a priest
to give him the last sacraments. I did so, and in less than half
an hour after receiving the Viaticum he expired. But before
his death he gave me a letter to post to his wife at San Francisco,
and asked me to write and tell her he had died as a Catholic
ought. This same gentleman — for by his manners and con-
versation he showed himself to be such, and he spoke English
almost as well as I did — told me that he had been for some years
at the head of a prosperous firm in the Far West of America ;
that he was, however, still liable to be called on to serve in the
army, as he belonged to the reserve. He had been summoned
to Cologne by a cable telegram to his consul in San Francisco,
and had obeyed the order. Had he not done so he would have
forfeited all his civil rights as a German citizen. And he
informed me — what I afterwards found to be the case — that there
were some hundreds of his fellow-countrymen who, like himself,
had come from different parts of the world to take up arms at
the call of the Government. Would Englishmen, Irishmen, or
Scotchmen submit to be so ruled ? I think not. We are ready
enough to enlist for any thing, for any service, or for any
danger, but it must be of our own free will that we do so.
And unless an Army Reserve can be counted upon to the extent
of at least ninety per cent, as certain to turn up when wanted, it
is of no use whatever in the day of trouble. An officer on
ManteuffeFs staff told me that throughout the different German
camps, the average of reserve men who did not put in an
appearance, when called upon to join their respective regiments
when the war broke out, was a fraction under three per cent. ;
I wonder how many there would be of our English Reserve who
would answer their names if called upon to take up arms. It
would not be from cowardice that they failed; but sinaply
because they had gone away and could not be found.

No ; what we wanted in the way of reorganization of our army
was not a mere bad imitation of the German system, but certain
amendments and reforms suitable for our own wants. The base
upon which our regimental system is built is the esprit de corps,
which only those who have been in active service, and have done
years of regimental duty, do, or can understand. That esprit
de corps the late reorganization of the army has all but, if not
quite, destroyed. The reason is very plain to those who are, or

^4 The Reorganization of Our Army.

who have heen, behind the scenes. Unfortunately for the country
our army reformers are, with few exceptions, staff officers, the
majority of whom know little or nothing of regimental work ; and
what little experience they may have had of it they seem to take
a pride in forgetting. With them — or at any rate with most of
them — the army, and all that belongs to it, exists upon paper.
Their pride is in their " Returns," " Reports," " General Orders,^'
and '^ Field States,^' not in the men, the horses, or the drill of
their companies, troops, squadrons, or regiments. Had the re-
organization of the army been the work of officers with regimental
experience, it would have been a very diffierent affair from the
" meddle and muddle " changes which the service has been sub-
ject to for the last ten years, and of which the end seems as far
from being visible as ever. But, so long as the tax-paying public
is pleased with the condition of our troops, what right has any
one to grumble ? With the exception of the Ariny and Navy
Gazette there was not a single London paper that did not publish
a gushing article about the review before Her Majesty on the
11th May last. Some persons may perhaps be of opinion that
this praise of what was simply a display of our national military
weakness only showed ignorance of the subject. As a matter of
course the day will come — in such cases it always does — when
the series of blunders which our military chiefs have sanctioned
will be made clear to the general public, and then the scare will
in all probability bring about changes which will be, if possible,
worse than the evils now complained of. And yet that would be
difficult. If the most complete division of the British army at
home — the force we should look to in the event of any sudden
war — cannot muster for a parade before the Queen of England
more than 5,700 men out of a nominal strength of 10,500, where
is it possible to look for troops in the day of national trials or
troubles ?

As regards regimental officers, the reorganization of our army-
has, if possible, done more harm and worked more effectually to
destroy the old esprit de corps which was so marked throughout
the service, than has been the case with the rank and file. The
abolition of the purchase system was, as I have said before, a
reform which can hardly be too much praised. If the War
Office had then left matters alone, regimental promotion would
by degrees have regulated itself. But there seems to have
been, and there is still, a dreadful fright lest officers should remain
in the service too long. With a view to prevent this, two regu-
lations have been adopted, which would do credit to the bitterest
enemy this country ever had, for they have gone far, and will go
further still, to destroy the efficiency of the service, to make
officers discontented with their lot, and to increase the want of

The Reorganization of Our Army-. 95

personal knowledge which the commissioned ranks used to have
of their men^ and which the rank and file formerly had of their
officers. The two rules I allude to are : first, that which makes
it obligatory for the commanding officer of a regiment to retire
upon half-pay after he has commanded his corps for five years ;
and, secondly, that which forces every captain of the age of forty
to leave the service, take his pension, and, although barely in his
prime, to become an idle man for the rest of his life. It would
be very difficult to say which of these regulations has done, or
will hereafter do, more harm — which of the two is more calculated
to subvert and destroy that love of the corps which was the
distinguishing mark of ninety-nine out of every hundred regi-
mental officers in the British army. To begin with, it requires
no great experience of army life to know that it takes a com-
manding officer at least a couple of years before he feels confidence
in himself, and is able to command the regiment with credit to
himself and advantage to the service. In the English army the
officers of a corps live in almost perfect equality when ofi" duty.
The only exception to this rule is the commanding officer. When
the senior major of a corps succeeds to the chief post in that corps,
it takes him some little time — some few months, or perhaps a
year — before he can, without ofi"ending his former associates and
comrades, cast ofi" all intimacy with them. It is also necessary
for a commanding officer to be for some time at the head of a
regiment before he can command that respect for his orders and
wishes that is essential to his command being a success. To
direct well a regiment of cavalry, or a battalion of infantry, to
acquire a personal knowledge of all the officers and men, and
work the whole complicated machine with credit and efficiency,
is not an undertaking in which any man can be guided by the
mere rules and regulations of the service. To do so well, seems
to come as a matter of course to some officers, whilst there are not
a few who would never, no matter what amount of experience
they had, get through their task with advantage to themselves
or the service. With some men the command and direction of
their fellows seems to come naturally, but there are others who
never can, and never will, acquire the art. Amongst regimental
officers the opinion is almost universal that five years at the head
of a regiment is much, too long a time for a bad commanding
officer, and far too short a period for a good one.

Most unfortunately for the British army, the ruling idea of
those who have had the reorganization of the service in their
hands seems to have been that everything can be done by rule
and regulation, and that it is as easy to make a commanding
officer efficient by printed orders as it is to determine of what colour
the facings of a uniform or the length of a sword-belt ought to

96 The Reorganization of Our Army.

be. There never was — there never could — be a greater mistake
as regards the command of those, no matter to what rank in life
they belong, who form the component parts of our regiments.
With Germans, hard military laws that admit of no deviation
whatever, may work well ; but they never will do so with English,
Irish, or Scotchmen. A good commanding officer can no more
be made by "The Mutiny Act/' or "The Queen's Regulations/'
than an able statesman can be formed by studying the volumes
of Hansard, or by reading the leading articles of the Times.
To command a corps well and efficiently an officer must not only
serve a training to the work ; he must possess in no small degree
qualifications which will enable him to see that all men are not
alike, and that the rule over that complicated machine called a
regiment requires judgment, tact, and discretion in no ordinary
degree. There are some men who seem specially cut out for the
berth and responsibilities of command, whilst there are others who
never would acquire the needful qualifications if they were left,
not five, but twenty-five years at the head of a corps.

There are some commanding officers upon whom this five years'
rule falls especially hard. Take, for instance, the cases of Colonel
Alexander of the 1st Dragoon Guards, and of Lord Ralph Kerr
of the 10th Hussars. The former of these two officers obtained
command of his regiment in December, 1876. At the end of
1878, or very early in 1 879, the corps was ordered out to the Cape,
where it has been ever since, broken up into detachments, a
portion of it having been since sent on to India. In December
of the present year, Colonel Alexander, a man still in the prime
of life, must resign his command and go on half pay, after having
virtually only had his regiment together for two years. As a
matter of course every corps that goes on field service like that
in South Africa gets more or less, so to speak, out of form, and
has to be in a great measure reformed, and has to be redrilled and
remounted when it goes back into quarters. If all goes well at
the Cape, and the services of the 1st Dragoon Guards can soon
be dispensed with. Colonel Alexander will have just begun to get
his regiment into working order once more, when he must lay
down his command, and, after an active regimental work extend-
ing over thirty-four years, retire into private life, and become an
idle man for the rest of his days.

The case of Lord Ralph Kerr is, in some respects, even harder
than that of Colonel Alexander. This officer went to India with
his corps in 1873. The effects of the climate obliged him to
come home on sick leave in 1876, and whilst at home he
succeeded to the command of his regiment. He had not
recovered from his illness when the 10th was ordered up to the
Afghan frontier, and Lord Ralph at once set out from England

The Reorganization of Our Army, 97

to join. He has been with the regiment ever since; but his
five years' command has come to an end, and before these lines
are in print, on the 31st of May, he will have to retire on half-pay,
although barely forty-five years of age; to leave a regiment in
which he knows every officer and every trooper, and which he
commanded with great credit to himself during a very difficult
period in the field.

I have selected the cases of these two officers as peculiarly
hard, partly on account of their respective regiments being
amongst the first in the Army List, but chiefly because they have
both done good service in the field. There are, however, many
others whose treatment is equally hard, whose reward for long
and faithful service is that they are forced into idleness whilst
yet comparatively young men, and just as their experience in
regimental life and work might be of the greatest use to the
service and to their country.

Some persons might object to the principle I have laid down —
viz., that five years is much too long a time for a bad commanding
officer to be at the head of a corps, and far too short a period for
an efficient and really good man to hold that position. It
might be asked who shall, and who can, decide to which category
a commanding officer belongs. To this I reply, of what use is a
General of Brigade, or Division, if he cannot class the command-
ing oflScers who come under his notice ? There are such things as
half-yearly and annual inspections. Reports to the War Office and
the Horse Guards must surely be of some service and use in show-
ing the authorities who are, and who are not, fit and suitable men
to command corps. An eflScient colonel can hardly hide his light
under a bushel, nor can an inefficient one make himself appear
other than what he really is. If he attempts to do so, there is
always the corps he commands as evidence against him. English-
men— Celts, as well as Saxons — are much the same, whether they
form part of the House of Lords, of the House of Commons, of the
professional classes, of the labouring multitude, of the crew of a
vessel, or of the officers or men of a regiment. They are the
easiest people in the world to rule with a little management, but
utterly impossible to govern by hard and forced regulations, like
the Germans, and many other European nations. Everything
depends upon the individual who rules them. If he is judicious
and wise all goes well ; if otherwise, everything goes wrong. I
have seen — as every man who has served any time in the army
must — in the same cantonments in India, and in the same
garrison or camp at home, two regiments living under the same
rules, governed by the same regulations, and doing exactly the
same duty. In the one all would be harmony amongst the
officers, and good order and discipline amongst the men ; in the

VOL. VI. — NO. I. [Third Series.'] h

98 The Reorganization of Our Army.

other all would be discord and annoyance and worry in the
commissioned ranks, with an utter absence of what a regiment
ought to be in the barrack rooms. And yet in both corps the
mess and barrack rooms were recruited from amongst the same
classes. The reason of such a great difference was that the
commanding officer of one regiment was an efficient man, whilst
he who was at the Lead of the other was exactly the reverse.

I have dwelt at some length upon the question of command-
ing officers, because I believe that it is upon their qualifications
that the efficiency of the whole army depends. If all regiments
could be well and judiciously commanded, the army which they
compose would be perfect. And in exact proportion as they are
well or ill commanded, the service is efficient or otherwise. At
the same time it is utterly impossible to lay down any rules or
regulations by which good commanding officers can be secured.
And, as every one of any regimental experience knows well, men
fitting and suitable for the post are not so plentiful as might be
imagined. In a word, and to repeat what I have said before, five
years is much too long a time to entrust a regiment to the care
of a weak, inefficient, and above all an injudicious, colonel ; and
far too short a period for one who has the needful qualifications.
I have more than once seen a corps which has been well com-
manded fall away in six months, or less, from perfect efficiency
to exactly the contrary, and this because it had changed a very
good for an exceedingly indifferent commander. The five years
rule — the rule which makes it imperative upon a commanding
officer to retire upon half-pay at the end of five years — is so well
calculated to injure the service that it almost seems as if it had
been invented by some arch-enemy of this country.

And the same may be said of the new regulation which
obliges any captain who has attained the age of forty, and has not
yet been presented to a majority, to retire upon a pension. To
begin with, the fact of making age an absolute test of efficiency
or otherwise, is itself of a very great fallacy. This, too, is one of
those hard-and-fast rules which we have copied from the Germans,
but which are utterly unsuited to our race and the nature of
Englishmen. There are many men of thirty, who, owing to a defec-
tive constitution, intemperate living, or other causes, are, in point of
fact, older than others who were born ten, or even fifteen years
before them. Slow promotion amongst officers is no doubt bad,
but it is one of those things which correct themselves; and to
avoid which, such an injustice as the one I have pointed out is
rather too high a price to pay. Every officer would, as a matter
of course, like to obtain the rank of major as quickly as possible.
If he is not promoted before he is forty years of age it may be
set down.as pretty certain that the fault is not his own. To punish

^he Reorganization of Our Army. 99

him for his misfortunes — to set him adrift on the world on a small
pension, at an age when he is too old to learn any new calling —
is a piece of injustice of which we have few examples in British
law. What between captains who are forty years of age, and
colonels who have commanded corps for five years, we shall soon
be like some of the far west States of America, where it is quite
exceptional for any one in civil life not to have military rank ;
where the hack carrias^e is driven by a " colonel/' and a " captain "
waits on you at the table d'hote dinner, and a " major'' will take
a few cents for holding your horse.

But there is another very large class of persons to whom these
rules of compulsory retirement from the army ought not to be
without interest. Whab does the British taxpayer say to the
increased, and yearly increasing, number of officers, who, although
fully able, and^ in almost every case, most anxious to remain at
their posts, are forced to take a pension, or to retire on half-pay ?
It is calculated that during the present year no fewer than fifty
colonels whose five years of command have expired will be obliged
to do this, and that about one hundred and fifty captains, who have
attained the age of forty, but who have not yet been promoted to
majorities, will be made to take their pension. Let this go on
for a few years, and our half-pay list will be very much larger
than it was at the end of the war with France — more numerous,
in fact, than the list of officers on full- pay.

Nor is this all. Let any one dine at a regimental mess, or mix
for a few days with the officers of any corps, and he will at once
perceive what a tone of discontent with the present, and of fear for
the future, exists in the service. Everlasting, never-ending
change of rules, regulations, and warrants, seems to be the order
of the day at the War OflSce; so much so that no one knows or
can form any idea what a day may bring forth. An ofiicer has,
let us say, entered the service at nineteen or twenty years of age.
At thirty-six or seven he finds himself well up the list of captains,
but knows that it will be at least five or six years before he
can be promoted to a majority. In olden days he would have
looked upon himself as a very fortunate individual ; but now he
is of all men the most miserable. He is unhappy by anticipation,
for be is aware that in two or three years, as the case may be, he
will be obliged to retire from a service that it is his pride and his
glory to belong to, in which he has spent the best years of his life,
and in which he hoped to gain honours and reward in his old age.
He is still young ; but he is obliged to leave his regiment, and to
be an idle man for the future. It is true that the time when he
must do this is still a year or two ofi"; but the anticipation of the
evil renders him inefficient for present duties ; or at any rate he
does not perform his work with the same zeal and activity as be

h2

100 The Reorganization of Our Army.

used to. And as there are two or three captains who come under
this rule in almost every regiment — two or three men who see
that they must become idlers on the face of the earth long years
before old age shall have overtaken them — who will say that the
service in general is not affected for the bad by such a rule?
1 was always an enemy of the old purchase system, and believe that
it was an excellent thing for the army when it was abolished; but
candour compels me to admit that, with all its many drawbacks
and imperfections^ promotion by purchase did not bring about any-
thing like as many evils as the compulsory retirement of captains
when forty years of age has done and will yet do. A more un-
wise or unjust regulation it would, indeed, be difficult for the brain
of man to devise. Like the rest of our new rules for the re-
organization of the army, it would really seem as if the destruction
of all esprit de corps, and of whatever has hitherto made our
regiments what they are, and not the greater efficiency of the
service, was what those aimed at who framed the greater number
of the regulations which have appeared since 1871-72 — which
was about the time when our military authorities became
inoculated with an intense admiration of the German army,
and, so far as can be judged by their actions, determined to
make our own a bad imitation of that service.

It seems that we are now on the eve of another change in
what has in the last decade been altered, and re-altered, so often.
The old familiar names and numbers of our regiments are to be
done away with, and the army is now to be divided into what
are to be called " territorial regiments/^ To criticize too severely
a scheme that has yet to be tried would be unfair. But this new
reorganization of the service bears upon the face of it not a little
that is in every way most objectionable. To begin with, it is a
removal of old landmarks, old designations, and old titles by
which almost every regiment in the service has been known for
the best part of a century, and some for even longer. Again, it
seems almost like a bad practical joke, in so small a country as
the United Kingdom, to designate regiments as belonging exclu-
sively to one district, or town, or country. As I said before, the
classes from which the rank and file of our army are recruited
are wanderers over the country, and very often over the whole
earth. An illustration of this occurred to a friend of mine last
year. He was watching a Scotch militia regiment at Church
parade, and was surprised to see that, out of some six hundred and
odd men, upwards of a hundred were marched to the Catholic
Chapel. He said to one of the officers that he had no idea there
were so many Catholics in a Scotch Lowland country, but was
told that of those on their way to hear mass, not more than five
or six were Scotchmen, the rest being one and all Irish. And so

The Reorganization of Our Army, 101

it is with every battalion, either of regulars or auxiliary troops in
the land. Such a thing as a regiment of* which_, not all, but even
a considerable portion, belong to the same county, does not
exist ; and I question whether it ever will. Our army is one of
volunteers. It is not, and never will be, raised by conscription.
We must take our men as we can, and as we find them willing
to enlist. To imagine that a London artisan will join a regiment
any th€ more readily because it is called " The Royal Middle-
sex;''' or that a Preston mill-hand, out of work, will prefer "The
Lancashire^'' to "The Yorkshire," or "The Lincolnshire^'
regiment, is sheer folly. If the War Office authorities take upon
themselves to direct that men are only to be enlisted for the
corps which bears the name of the town, or shire, or district of
which they are natives, the result will simply be that our
recruiting will come to a standstill, and we shall not even get as
many men as we do now. My own experience, which extended
over fourteen years in the service, half spent in an infantry and
half in a cavalry regiment, taught me that the best men we used
to get for the army were those who came from a distance to
enlist, and not those who joined the regiments stationed in the
towns where they resided. And still better — of a better class —
were those who enlisted for the old local Indian regiments, and
who cast in their lot with corps that were permanently stationed
in a far-off land.

If, instead of the many new fangled organizations which have
been ordered during the past ten years, the War Office had spent
a fourth of the money that has been wasted upon attempting to
Germanize our army, in giving our men better pay and providing
good pensions for them in their old age, the service would be in
a very different condition from what it now is. Our recruits
ought not to enlist before they are twenty years of age, and their
engagement ought to be for at least .fifteen years. A trained,
drilled, and disciplined soldier of from thirty to thirty-five years
of age is worth two, if not three, of the raw lads, without stamina
or strength, who now fill our ranks, and who leave the service to
join that military myth called "The Reserve,'"' just as they come
to an age when they can do good work. This is more
especially the case in India, where, until a soldier is acclimatized,
he is almost useless for real active service. I remember many
years ago, when on service in Upper Scinde with the 40th
Kegiment, a sudden order being given for the corps to proceed at
once to relieve a native infantry detachment that was surrounded
by the enemy. Before starting, the commanding officer ordered
that all men who had not been two years in India should be left
behind with the sick. We marched out of camp about 5 p.m.,
and in sixteen hours had reached our destination, a distance of

102 The Reorganization of Our Army,

fifty-two miles off. It was terribly hard work. For twenty odd
miles our route was across a desert, in which not a drop of water
was to be found. We halted every hour, and twice daring the
night stopped long enough to make some coffee for the men. The
result of the precaution taken by our commanding officer was
that in a battalion eight hundred strong, there were only eleven
men who had to fall out during the whole march; and of these it
was discovered that four had only been out of hospital a very
few days, but had managed to join their companies before the
regiment marched. Could such a feat be performed by any of
the battalions filled with mere lads, as all our regiments have
been since the Limited Enlistment Act came into full operation ?
To this question there can be but one answer.

In a country like England, where industrial enterprises are so
numerous, and where there is a constant demand for steady
middle-aged men to fill various situations of trust — situations in
which education of a high standard is not essential — it would not
be difficult to provide for our discharged soldiers. The London
Corps of Commissionaires is a proof of this. And it is a standing
shame to our Government that something of the kind has never
yet been taken in hand by the War Office. Moreover, veterans
who have done their work ought not to be left without a pension
which would provide them with every reasonable comfort when
they get old.

Another anomaly — or, to speak more plainly, a great national
disgrace, and a decided hindrance towards our ever recruiting the
quantity and the quality of men which we might otherwise enlist
for the service — is the way in which our soldiers' wives, and, still
worse, their widows, are treated. It is acknowledged that the
best soldiers we have are the married men ; or at least such used to
be the case before the present system of enlisting mere boys and
sending them away before they become men came into force. We
used to, and we do still for that matter, allow a certain number
of the men to marry. But when these had to be ordered abroad
with their regiments, their wives and children were left to the
mercy of the charitable, or to the care of those who liked to look
after them. To their credit be it said, the present Government
has intimated that a provision for soldiers^ wives and children
will be included in the army estimates for the present year ; a
measure that has certainly not been determined upon before time.
Had this been done twenty or thirty years ago a vast deal of
money that has been lost through desertions, and the punish-
ments brought about by that offence, would have been saved to
the country. Even as it is there is no certain provision of any
kind for the widows and orphans of soldiers who die in the
service; but it is to be hoped that, if the mania for Germanizing

The Reorganization of Our Army. 103

the service comes to an end^ and common sense prevails, we shall
see these poor women and children saved from having to go on
the parish when their husbands and fathers die, or are killed, in
the service of their country.

If we may put any faith in the old adage, that '^ what every-
body says must be true,'' no man in England is more opposed to
the reorganization of the service on the German system than
the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief of the British
army. And it must be admitted that, wherever and whenever
the Duke has had an opportunity during the last few years, he has
given utterance to words which, when one reads between the lines,
i'ully corroborate what the world believes his views to be. One
thing His Royal Highness has several times — and once, in par-
ticular, at a dinner given at the Mansion House about eighteen
months ago — insisted upon. It is, as I said before, that our
army is not like that of any other European nation. The army
corps, divisions, brigades, and regiments of other nations, to say
nothing of their system of conscription and the men they have
on reserve, are formed for the purpose of defending their
own frontiers from the invasion of their neighbours. Our
regiments, on the other hand, are almost entirely kept up
for the purpose of maintaining our colonies, and preserving
the latter in our possession, free from internal as well
as external foes. Our forces at home are recruiting depots,
from which our troops in India and the other parts of the
Empire are, so to speak, to be fed. When a regiment
comes home it remains in the United Kingdom a certain
number of years for the purpose of regaining its strength and
numbers, and qualifying for service abroad. Nothing is more
improbable — I might almost say impossible — than an invasion of
this country by any foreign Power. But, supposing for an
instant that such an event did happen, it is not only upon our
regular troops that we should depend. To begin with, the
enemy would find a very awkward adversary to contend with
in the fleet. But should the invader land on our shores,
what would be the result ? This same question, almost in these
very words, was put to me by a German officer the day after the
taking of Sedan, when he and so man}^ of his fellow-countrymen
were drunk with the insolence of victory. And what I said to
that individual — who was polite enough to tell me that before
many years were over these Islands would have to submit to the
German legions as France had been forced to do — I repeat here,
viz., that tkousands might invade this country, but barely units
would ever return alive. To say nothing of a militia, volunteers,
and the regulars we have at home, the nation would rise as one man,
and those we could not kill in battle, our very women and children

104 The Reorganization of Our Army,

would poison in the food they eat and the water they drank.
When talking of the defence of our country, we should not forget
that the volunteers form a body of men most admirably adapted
for this work. It is all very well lor a certain school of military
Germanizers — men who believe that every soldierlike ordinance
in this world comes forth from Germany — to despise and sneer
at a force of men who give up so much of their time to learn the
art of soldiery and the means of using their rifles. But from
what I have seen of the much-be-praised soldiers who invaded
France with such success, I would rather have fifty average
English or Scotch volunteers behind me in the event of a deadly
struggle, than twice that number of Prussians, Bavarians, or
Saxons. There is no institution, military or civil, that foreigners
wonder at, and admire so much, as our volunteers ; and yet there
is no body of men kept so much in the background. The
authorities seem never tired of washing our dirty linen in
the shape of battalions only two or three hundred strong
before the whole world, but they appear to shun showing
strangers a body of men who, when the conditions under which
they engage, their numbers, and their proficiency in their work,
are taken into consideration, must certainly be regarded as the
finest and most patriotic body of men that any country has ever
seen. Of these, as indeed of all our forces, whether regular,
militia, or volunteers, may we truly apply the words of Marshal
(General) Soult to a relative of mine, who was taken prisoner by
the French on the retreat to Corunna. " Your men,^' said the
marshal, speaking of the English troops, ^' have one quality
which will always make them good soldiers under all circum-
stances— they invariably obey their ofiicers."

That a certain amount of reorganization was, and is still,
required in our army there can be no doubt whatever. Every
human institution must from time to time be more or less
changed or reformed. But in England we have made the great
mistake of taking as what we should imitate military institutions,
with which our own have little, if anything, in common. A
German and an English soldier are no more like each other than
an English farm labourer is like an Italian vine- dresser. On this
part alone of my subject a volume of considerable size might be
written. Take a single instance of the discipline in the two
armies. I remember seeing, a few hours after the battle of Worth
was over, a party of German infantry paraded for guard duty.
One of the men had his belts dirty, or his accoutrements in bad
order, upon which the oflScer inspecting the detachment%'ery coolly
slapped the offender's face. Would such a thing be possible in
our own service ? And yet there has been introduced into our
military system during the last ten years anomalies which, to an

The Reorganization of Our Army, 105

English military man, are nearly as outrageous as this. Take, for
instance, certain pages whicli have been officially inserted in
our " Army List" for the last few years, headed " Mobilization
of the Forces at Home/^ Let no Englishman, on any account, who
has a spark of patriotism in him, allow any foreign friend who
understandsEnglish tosee this extraordinary document, which reads
like a bad joke, or an untimely squib on the army. In it will
be found a very pretty distribution of no less than eight — purely
imaginary — '^ Army Corps;" but with this trifling shortcoming,
namely, that these Corps have imaginary divisions, which have —
also imaginary — brigades ; and the latter are chiefly composed of
regiments stationed anywhere in the kingdom. One example of
this will be enough. I have before me a list of " The First Army
Corps," of which the head-quarters are at Colchester. In the
first brigade of the First Division, the three battalions which
compose the brigade are certainly stationed at Colchester. But
as regards the second brigade of the same Division, the three
battalions are stationed at Fermoy, Castlebar, and at Buttevant !
Again, the first brigade of the Second Division of the same corps
has its head-quarters at Chelmsford ; but the three battalions
composing that brigade are at the Curragh, at Tipperary, and at
Birr."^ And this is called the ^^ Mobilization of the Forces at
Home." Let us hope that when the scheme of the new territorial
army is matured it will be found free from such follies and
absurdities as what I have here pointed out.

Want of space prevents me from even giving an outline of what
has been, and what ought to be, done with regard to the reorganiza-
tion of our Indian army. It was my lot, after an absence of twenty
years from the East, to revisit that country in 1875-76, as one
of the Special Correspondents with His Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales. What I saw of our. army there as it is, and
as compared with what it was in former days, I will, with the
permission of the Editor, give an account of in a fature Number
of this Ileview. For the present I can only hope to have made
it pretty clear that the reorganization of our Home Forces, so
far, and in the direction it has been carried out up to the present
time, is, to say the least of it, in every way simply a series of
military blunders.

M. Laing Meason.

See Hart's "Army List," January, 1881, p. 6Q.

( 106 )

Art. IV.— recent WORKS ON THE STATE OF
GERMANY

IN THE FIFTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY,
BY GERMAN AUTHORS.

HISTORICAL literature in Germany has for some time past
been stamped with a certain hostile exasperation ai^ainst
the Catholic Church, which will remain for some years a blot on
the profound erudition of a country we are accustomed to look
upon as a centre of learnin^^. The unity of Germany effected
since the war of 1870-1871 cannot be considered the direct
cause of certain erroneous exaggerations in matters of history :
yet the two facts are really connected.

It is no secret that at the proclamation of the Empire on the
victorious conclusion of the war, Pius IX. made the first advances
towards friendly relations with the new Imperial throne ; it is
also known that these advances were received with coldness, not
to say contempt, at the Court of Berlin, and that the German
Government lent all its power to protect and foster a schism in
the Catholic Church by at once granting a pension of several
thousand thalers to Dr. Reinkens, elected bishop by a few
hundred Catholics who protested against the dogma of the
Infallibility.

Several writers, following in Dr. Reinken's footsteps, have
devoted their energies to seeking proofs that a protestation
against the Church, which might appropriately be styled " Old
Catholicism,'^ existed a hundred years ago, and continued through
all the Middle Ages ; and that, beginning at Claudius of Turin
and Hincmar of Rheims, the line of ^' Old Catholic" bishops
has never been interrupted. Truly these historians see '' Old
Catholicism^'' everywhere — in the antagonists of Gregory VII.
as well as in those of Boniface VIII.

Daring the last three years we have been gaining ground.
The troubled waters are settling into calm, and from the still
deep have risen a series of writers who, lifting their voice, have
proclaimed certain historical facts too long hidden, and certain
details relating to the Church and to civilisation never known
till to-day.

Their works, far from being controversial, are but a simple
exposition of facts, related with the truthfulness of a conscientious
historian, and grouped with the eye and appreciation of an artist.
They acknowledge frankly the faults of eminent men, regardless
of their rank in history. They describe, they paint, they de-
lineate with photographic minuteness even, but they do not

Recent Works on the State of Germany. 107

disguise. This straightforwardness, which commends itself
specially to the English mind, can in the end, indeed, but prove
favourable to the Church and to the civilized and duly instructed
section of mankind.

The appreciation of the public is proved by the fact that Dr.
Janssen^s"^ work, which we here place first, has run through five
editions in three years. The title of his work is " History of the
German People from the end of the Middle Ages/H The second
volume appeared in 1879, and continues the history of civiliza-
tion down to the year 1525, including the great social disturbance
occasioned by the " Reformation" and other causes.

Other works have been published quite lately containing certain
biographical details which Dr. Janssen could only glance at, and
they form an admirable amplification of his History of the German
People and their Civilization. The Abbe Dacheux, rector of
Neudorff-bei-Strassburg, has written the biography of John
Geiler,]; the famous preacher who lived at the end of the fifteenth
century. Herr Holier, professor at the University of Prague,
and the Abbe Lederer, have given us the biography of two men,
renowned church-administrators in the fifteenth and beginning
of the sixteenth centuries. Professor Hofler, after devoting
several years to the study of his subject, has published the bio-
graphy of Hadrian VI., a native of Holland. § The Abbe
Lederer, in answer to a question given at an examination by the
Wurzbourg University, wrote the life of John, Cardinal Torque-
mada, the great upholder of the Papacy in its struggle against
the decrees of the Councils of Constance, Basle, &c. &c.||

Lastly, Herr Pastor, Doctor of Historical Science, and '^ privat
docent^^ at the University of Innsbruck, publishes a work in
which he describes the efforts made by Charles V., in the first

* The Abbe Janssen, professor at Frankfort, has just been raised by
Leo Xni. to the dignity of Apostolic Protonotary.

t " Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, seit deni Ansgange des Mittelal-
ters." Erster Band : Deutschlands allgemeine Zustande beim ausgang des
Mittelalters ; 6^ Autiage. Zweiter Band: vora Beginne der politisch-
kirchUchen Revolution bis zum Ausgang der socialen Revolution von
1525. Preiburg im Breisgau : Herder'sche Yerlagshandlung, 1880 and
1879. 1st vol., price 6 mks. 60 ; 2nd vol., price 6 mks. 30.

J " A Catholic Reformer at the end of the Fifteenth Century : John
Geiler, of Kaisersberg, Preacher at the Cathedral of Strassburg, 1478-
1510. A Study of his Life and Times." Paris : Ch. Delagrove; Strass-
burg: Derivaux, 1876. Price, 7 mks. 50.

§ " Pabst Adrian VI., 1522-1523," von Constantin Ritter von Hofier.
Wien : Wiihelm Braumiiller, 18^0.

II " Der Spanische Cardinal Johann von Torquemada sein Lebon und
sein Schriften," gekroiite Preisschrift von Dr. Stephan Lederer, Katholis-
cher Pfarrer. Freiburg im Breisgau : Herder'sche Verlaghandlung, 1878.
3 mks. 40.

108 Recent Works on the State of Germany.

place, to reunite within the pale of the Church the Princes and
States threatened with schism from the lime of Lather's preaching.
The work of this promising young author is the chronological
complement of Dr. Janssen^'s history ; it does not, however, in the
least forestall the promised continuation in four volumes of the
former work. The title of Herr Pastor's work is, " Eflbrts for
Reunion.'"''^

Other Catholic authors have by their several writings com-
pleted the study of this particular period ; as, for instance, the
Abbe Gams in the third volume of his " History of the Church in
Spain ;-"t the first volume of which appeared in 1862, and the last
in 1879.

We will now take a hasty glance at the advance made in
historical research as represented by the works mentioned above.
We will first point out how each is the complement of the others.

Dr. Janssen's aim in his first volume is to exhibit the grand
qualities of the fifteenth century, and to prove that, in spite of
abuses and errors prevalent in various classes of society, art and
science flourished, the piety of the middle class was very intense,
preaching of the Word of God was frequent and general, schools
and education were prosperous. This is the bright side of the
period. In the second volume he proves that the religious and
social disturbance caused by the so-called " Reformation " put a
sudden stop to the advance of civilization.

The Abbe Dacheux^s aim is different. His hero, John Geiler,
was born at Schaff'hausen, in Switzerland, in 1445, and died at
Strassburg in 1510, after having officiated as preacher at the
Cathedral from 1478. He did not live to see the effects of the
Lutheran " Reforniation," but he devoted his whole life to the
real reform of abuses which had crept into church administration,
as well as into the liberties and privileges of the great secular
princes. John Geiler was a living protest against all the irregu-
larities of his time. In his works, preaching and life we have
presented to us the dark side of the latter half of the fifteenth
century.

In the same way Herr Pastor fills up the sketch contained in
Dr. Janssen's second volume (1523-1525), Dr. Janssen de-
scribes, with fearful truth, the consequences of the revolution
in the beginning of the sixteenth century, while Herr Pastor
unfolds a more consoling and refreshing canvas depicting the

* " Die Kirchlicheu Reunibnsbestrebungen, wahrend der Regierung
Karls Y. aus der quellen dargestellt." Freiburg im Breisgau : Herder'sche
Yerlagshandlung, 1879. Mks. 7.

t " Die Kirchengeschichte von Spanien." Dritter Band : 1® Abtheilung
(1055-1492) 187(5 ; 2^ Abtheilung (1492-1879) 1879. Regensburg : Joseph
Manz. 460 & 570 pp. ; each vol. 9s.

Recent Woi^ks on the State of Germany. 109

efforts made by the Emperor and the Sovereign Pontiffs to pacify
the Empire and the Clmrch, and to restore peace and prosperity
to States " on which the sun never set/' These efforts, never-
theless, were often quite barren. In the midst of this turmoil
and agitation, surrounded by the intrigues of the French Court,
by the fearful boldness and cynicism of Luther, the aspirations —
too often ambitious — of the Court at Madrid, rises up the grand
figure of Hadrian VI., as painted by Herr Hofler. Hadrian,
who was the victim of political complications engendered by the
Reformation, and who in a reign of two years was crushed under
the weight of cares imposed upon him by men who, detesting
heresy, would yet not forego their own cupidity and worldly
ambition ; was borne down by his labours for the restoration of
peace, which he sought with a disinterestedness very different
from that of the Emperor.

We will now give some details in explanation of these gene-
ralities, and taking Dr. Janssen's work as a centre we will group
around it the works of the other writers.

In the first book (pp. 1-132) our author describes the state of
learning in Germany at the period of the invention of printing,
and takes Cardinal Nicholas Krebs, a native of Cues on the
Moselle, near Treves, and known under the name of Cusanus, as
the typical representative of the time. This famous man was, as
a Church reformer, the counterpart of John Geiler; but as a man
of science he was his superior, for at one and the same time he
gave a fresh impetus to the study of theology and philosophy,
to physics and mathematics, being himself, meanwhile, engaged
with politics. His method, propagated in the name of the Holy
See, was a reform inaugurated by the reorganization and restora-
tion of existing institutions, and not by their destruction; by
warring against the passions by faith and science.

Nicholas took part in the Council of Basle, of disastrous renown,
in the reign of Eugenius IV (1431). He was then Dean of St.
Florian's at Coblentz, and was called to the Council by the
president, Julian Cesarini. On his side was John of Torquemada,
who distinguished himself by his eloquence in the defence of the
rights and prerogatives of the Papacy.^ These three men soon
abandoned all idea of effecting a reform in the Church by means
of this Council; but making one more effort to prevent the schism,
Cusanus and Torquemada went to Mayence, 1439, and later, in
1446, to the Diet at Frankfort, in order to make terms with the
Opposition. Thanks to these efforts, which were seconded by ^neas
Silvius Piccolomini (formerly a defender of the Council of Basle),
by Sarhano, Bishop of Bologna, and by Carvajal (who later on

* See Lederer, " Torquemada," pp. 25 seq., 123 seq. ^

110 Hecent Works on the State of Germany.

played an important part daring the Pontificate of Hadrian VI.)—
thanks to the united efforts of these men an agreement was con-
cluded, the result of which was that Sarhano in a short time
ascended the Papal throne, taking the name of Nicholas, and was
recognized by all parties as the legitimate Pope.

Nicholas Cusanus, renowned as a reformer and peacemaker,
was no less remarkable as a man of science. Living a hundred
years before Copernicus, he attributed the movement of rotation
and progression to the earth. He was among the greatest of
the older " humanists^^ in the real signification of the word, and
was a worthy disciple of the " Brethren of Common Life,'^ whom
we shall refer to later on. He died in the year 1466, and was
called by Trithemius '' the angel of light and peace." This is
the man chosen by Dr. Janssen as the type of this period.

Our author goes on to show that printing favoured the cause of
Cusanus, and of the true Reformation. The clergy utilized on
all sides the new invention to spread the Word of God and good
reading. Some printers received patents of nobility ; monastic
printing-presses rose as hy magic, and. in less than fifty years all
the large towns in Europe possessed printing machines. London
and Oxford had some by 1477, and as early as 1475 Rome
had twenty. In 1500 one hundred editions of the "Vulgate"
had been printed. Most convents possessed copies of the Bible
in the vulgar tongue, and by the time Luther appeared thousands
of them were scattered throughout Germany. The "Imitation
of Christ " was printed fifty-nine times before the beginning of
the sixteenth century.

Catalogues were now drawn up of all the different works in
type. The new printing-presses brought to light ancient national
poems, all kinds of popular tales, popular treatises on medicine,
rhymed versions of the Bible, &c. &c. Dr. Janssen observes
that the fruits of the new invention were evidently offered not
only to persons of fortune, but to the mass of the people. One
of the most famous centres of printing was the town of Nurem-
berg, which sent forth works to all parts of Europe. In 1500
it had a depot at Paris, and the eagerness to obtain copies of the
classical authors was such that the arrival of every fresh waggon-
load of books witnessed a hand-to-hand struggle for their pos-
session.

In the next chapter Dr. Janssen describes the state of the
elementary schools and of religious knowledge. This is no less
interesting or appropriate to the author-'s plan, which is to give
us a picture of the social and religious life of the people rather
than a narrative of their exploits in the battle-field or of their
seditious revolts ; these last are sufficiently referred to for their
influence and pernicious results to become apparent. We still

Recent Works on the State of Germany. Ill

possess some school-books belonging to this period, which give
us some idea of the state of education — reading- books, catechisms
in Low German, '' Mirrors of the Soul/' Other books, contain-
ing rules for good behaviour and the art of living, are no less
characteristic of the times. To those named by the author we
would add a book of Lambertus Goetman,^ entitled, '^ The Mirror
for Young Men'' f^Spyegel der Jonghers "), published in 1488
in Flemish ; then the '^ Mirror for Youth " (" Spyegel der
Joucheyt").t

A proof of the great esteem in which schoolmasters were held
is that, according to Dr. Janssen's computation, the salaries they
received were relatively higher than what are given in these
days. To impute to this period neglect of elementary education
is, therefore, a mistake. There was no lack of means whereby the
lower classes could obtain primary teaching, but ignorance pre-
vailed often amongst the higher classes, who devoted their lives,
many of them, to hunting and warfare.

The same may be said with respect to religious teaching, sermons,
the study of the Eible, &c. Up to the present time certain
writers have considered Luther as the '^revealer" of the Holy
Scriptures to a senseless world. A celebrated artist, the late
Herr Kaulbach, of Munich, has, in a picture on the landing of
the Museum staircase at Berlin, represented Luther standing on
a pedestal, surrounded by the eminent men of the Middle Ages.
He is holding the Bible on high in the attitude of a prophet
announcing a new era to the world, in the discovery of the Word
of Jesus Christ. We shall see more clearly later on what became
of this Divine Word.

Concerning the sermons of the fifteenth century, Dr. Janssen
and the Abbe Dacheux have met on the same ground. They
each give us a series of proofs showing the importance attached
to preaching by clergy and laity. The Al)be Dacheux names
some Alsatian writers whose discourses have come down to us —
Creutzer, Ulrich Surgant, Oiglin, Sattler, Wildegk, and many
others (p. 5, &c.). Not to be present at the Sunday sermon was
looked upon as a real sin. Priests who neglected to instruct
their flocks in the Holy Scriptures were threatened with excom-
munication (p. 30). The number of preachers at Nuremberg,
for example, was quite proverbial, and we may boldly conclude,
writes Hipler, the author of " Christliche Lehre" (^' Christian

* On this author maj* be consulted : Buddingh, " Geschiedenia
van het ondervvys en de opweding" ("History of Teaching and of
Education"), Gravenhage, 1843. Also Schotel, " Nederlandsche Volks
Boeker" (" Dutch Popular Books"). Haarlem : 1878, II., 219.

t See an extract from this work : P. Alberdingk Thijm, " Spiegel van
Nederlandsche Letteren" (*' Mirror of Flemish Literature"), II., p. 74, &c.

112 Recent Works on the State of Germany.

Teachinor "), that in Prussia preacliing was more frequent before
than after Luther's time. It may even be calculated that, at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, forty thousand copies of tlie
sermons of some preachers had been distributed. Catechetical
writings were not less numerous; and it is absurd to state that
false ideas, say of the doctrine of indulgences, were held by the
people because of their lack of instrnction (p. 41). Our author
here takes occasion to notice the remarkable work of J. Geffken,*
*' Der Bildercatechismus des 15 Jahrhunderts und die cateche-
tischen Hauptstiicke in dieser Zeit bis auf Luther," Leipzig, 1855
(Picture Catechisms, with explanatory chapters, from this time
till Luther). Lastly, we will mention, as works of instruction,
the so-called '^ Plenaria," or collections of Epistles and Gospels,
with explanations and reflections.

Professor Alzog published at Freiburg, in 1874, a biblio-
graphical pamphlet on this subject, and seine then every year
brings to light fresh discoveries of " Plenaria.'''-f' To these we
might add the Flemish and Dutch editions — e.g., one of Peter
Yan Os, Zwolle, 1488, a *' Plenarium of the Canons Regular of
Schoonhoven," 1505; another published by Vorsterman : Antwerp,
1591, &c.

Our author goes on to relate how education was greatly
influenced by the schools of the Confraternity of Gerard Groete
(Bruders van bet gemeine leven, Fratres vitae communis).
Brothers of Common Life, natives of the Netherlands, where they
had spread, especially in the north. They soon extended over
a great portion of Germany.^ Patronized by Eugenius IV.,
Pius II., Sixtus IV., many great humanists came forth from their
schools,§ and Nicholas Cusanus was, as we have already remarked,
one of their disciples.

The propagators of the study of the Humanities became, some
of them, the instigators of the Reformation. Dr. Janssen, how-
ever, would not wish them to be all ranked alike. He proves

* Wackernagel, " Kleinere Schriften," i. 345, may be consulted on the
custom in Italy of illustrating the sermon by pictures shown from the
pulpit. See also, R. Cruel, " Geschichte der deutschen Predigt im
Mittelalter" (" History of Preaching in Germany during the Middle
Ages"). Desmoid. 16s.

t See " Historisch-politische Blatter" of MM. Jorg & Binder of Munich
of the year 1875.

X Dachenx, p. 342.

§ Consult on this subject: 1st, Delprat, *' Yerhandeling over de Broeder-
schap van C Groete" (Treatise on the Confraternity of G. G.), Arnhem,
1846, or the German translation of Monike. 2nd, Gerard de Groote
a precursor (?) of the Reformation in the fourteenth century from
unpublished documents by G. Bonet. Maury : Paris, 1878. See likewise
Dacheux, p. 441.

Recent Works on the State of Germany. 113

with much acumen (and this is one of the characteristic features
of his work) that the first humanists were far from foreseeing
that their successors in the sixteenth century would ahuse the
study of pagan civiUzation to make war on Christian doctrines.
He makes, therefore, a distinction, and divides the History of the
Humanists from 1450 to 1550 into two periods. To the first
belong Cusanus (p. 13) and the celebrated Rudolph Agricola, a
native of Laflo, near Groningen, in Holland, one of the founders
of the study of the classics in Germany, but also a fervent
Catholic.

Dr. Janssen names a series of learned men in Westphalia
of the same stamp as Agricola, who obtained distinction by
founding or organizing schools, the strict discipline of which
would in these days seem little in harmony with the " Humani-
ties/' This picturesque sketch of the organization of the schools
of that period is most interesting at the present day when a special
study is made of school discipline and the use of the ferule.* In
connection with Agricola we must not omit to mention James
Wimpheling, of Schlettsbade, in Alsatia, that famous representa-
tive of sound learning, who received the title of " Teacher of
Germany" (Erzieher Deutschlands). He was educated in the
far-famed school of his native town in company with John Geiler
of Kaisersberg, John of Dalberg, and some seven or eight
hundred other scholars (p. 64 ; Dacheux, p. 443) .

The sixteen universities of Germany,t four of which had just
been founded, were no less well attended. Men of all ages and
of all ranks were to be found there. The young prince sat by
the side of the aged priest. The clergy were most numerously
represented. The professors at Vienna numbered almost as
many as they do now (p. 78). We will here note the name
of the Carthusian monk, Werner Kolewinck, who for virtue and
learning was a shining light at Cologne. He has left us a series
of theological works, as also a sketch of the " History of the
World,'' which ran through thirty editions in the space of
•eighteen years. This history was translated into French, and
printed in Spain. Though not formally attached to the univer-
sity at Cologne he used to give public lectures there, at which

* See, especially, the books mentioned by Dr. Janssen, p. 63,
'' SchuUeben" (School-life), and p. 293, " Beten und Arbeiten" (Prayer
and Work). To these I would add : Yan Berkel, " Ein Hollandsch dorp "
(A Dutch Yillage); in the Eeview, " Dietsche Warandi" revised by J. A.
Alberdingx Thijm, i. 312; and the article, "Ein Schoolmeester" (A
Schoolmaster), by the editor, in the same collection ii. 52, with illustra-
tions ; Schotel, " Vaderlandsche volksboeken" (Popular National
Books, i. 199, &c.).

t Europe counted forty-six universities at this period.
VOL. VI. — NO. I. [Third Series.] i

114 Recent Works on the State of Germany,

the professors themselves were wont to attend. Of still greater
fame was John Reuchlin as professor of Latin and Greek at
Basle and Heidelberg. At his side shone the illustrious John
of Dalberg (later on bishop) and a host of learned men skilled in
Eastern lore, especially in the study of Hebrew, amongst whom
we will only mention the celebrated John Trithemius^ Abbot of
Sponheim_, near Kreuznach (born 1462, at Tritheim, on the
Moselle), to whom flocked the youth and men of learning from
all the neighbouring States. Trithemius was in correspondence
with the most famous theologians, mathematicians, lawyers and
poets of his time. He was esteemed alike for his learning, great
virtue, and excellent social qualities. Together with John Geiler
and Cusanus he may be styled a precursor of the Reformation in
the same sense as all those may be designated who gave them-
selves up to the work of reorganizing certain ecclesiastical insti-
tutions or the rectifying of abuses. Trithemius was a zealous
reformer of Benedictine monasteries. With views as practical as
they were enlightened he recommended the method of study
of S. Thomas Aquinas as the most suitable for young students.
He has bequeathed us a general and scientific literary history
of the sacred authors — a work which stands alone and is of great
scholastic value. At the instigation of John Geiler he also
wrote a remarkable ^'^ History of Germany" (^'^ Epitome rerum
Ger m anicarum") . *

Our author sketches for us TJlrich Zasius, the celebrated lawyer,
Gregory Reisch, the mathematician, Heinlin of Stein, preacher at
the Cathedral of Basle, Regio Montanus, the astronomer, and
many others, representatives of an encyclopaedia of science. A few
of such names would be quite sufficient to prove the thesis of
Dr. Janssen, that the fifteenth century, in spite of its gloomy
side and of the moral degradation of the universitiesf was far
from being a period of scientific decay.

All these men were humanists of the right sort. The young
humanists of the beginning of the sixteenth century held quite
opposite views ; they made war on the Church and on the
Empire in the name of liberty, and of pure taste for the
literature of pagan antiquity. J But they had no inclination to
side with Luther. Proud of their acquired knowledge they
would not accept the decree that faith alone sufficed for salvation,
and that philosophy was the work of Satan — tenets promulgated
by Luther.

Our author now reviews the state of the Fine Arts. Paul
Giovio, the biographer of Hadrian YI.^ with many other Italians,
declared that Germany surpassed their own country in the matter

* Dacheux, p. 432. f Hofler, p. 17, seq. % See Pastor, p. 125.

Recent Works on the State of Germany. 115

of architecture (p. 139). Dr. Janssen gives us an account of
the painting, sculpture, gold and iron work, embroidery and
engraving, as also of the principal representatives of these divers
arts.

The name of Hans Memling, the celebrated painter, gives us
occasion to remark that, whereas Dr. Janssen supposes him to
have been born at Memline, a village near Aschaffenbourg in
Bavaria (p. 168), Mr. James Weale, an English archaeologist,
believes that he was born in the Dutch province of Gueldres,
and that his parents came from Medemblick in Holland.
Among the celebrated artists of this period the names of Albert
Durer and Holbein are, of course, not forgotten. Our author
does not fail to direct our attention to certain humorous
tendencies in the modelling art of the Middle Ages; he remarks
truly that " it is only in ages of lively faith, of deep interior
life, and of strong will-power that real humour is developed.^'

Referring to the different manners and customs of the people —
dances, games, costumes, head-gear — our author describes their
variety, picturesqueness, and charm. Further on, in the chapters
on industrial life, commerce, and finance (pp. 343-370), he
notices the excessive luxury that prevailed in dress, as well among
the working-classes as among the citizens, insomuch that various
sumptuary laws were passed at the Diets of the Empire — e.^.,
against the use of gold and costly stuiFs. Geiler of Kaisersberg
used to inveigh against this extreme luxury and lack of modesty
in dress ; he devotes a long chapter to this subject in his " Navis
Fatuorum.^'"^

Dr. Janssen compares the music of this period to the archi-
tecture of the same time. This is a true comparison as regards
the compositions of some of the musicians, whose complicated
productions recall the exaggerated style, overcharged with
ornamentation, of the fifteenth century — as, for example,
Ockenheim ; but the simplicity, freshness, and tenderness of the
popular songs of the fifteenth century resemble more nearly
the less affected architecture of the thirteenth century, or else
the Roman style with its grandly simple lines. Gothic archi-
tecture was in its decline in the fifteenth century, whilst music
as an art was being further developed and perfected.

Our author does not forget to notice such general literature of
this time as popular prose works and chronicles, books of travels,.
&c. He commends specially the sacred and profane dramas, and;
describes the play called " Antichrist.^' This piece, which has-
been studied with much interest in these days, represents all the
vicissitudes and dangers of a monarches position, and the quick

* See Dacheux, p. 213.

I 2

116 Recent Works on the State of Germany.

growth of evil passions in one destined to reign. The wicked
spirit is there represented under the name of Antichrist, and
chooses for his victim the Emperor of Germany. The end of the
play shows us the last- mentioned personage struck with
lightning at the very moment he is intending to display all his
magnificence.

Dr. Janssen calls attention to the humorous features of the
theatrical representations. All the droll parts were given to the
devil, and therefore it often happened that the principal role in
the piece fell to his share ; whole acts were played throughout by
him and his companions. In France this was called " diablerie "
(devilry).

To the authors named by Dr. Janssen who have studied this
subject, we might add the late Abbe Lindemann, Rector of'
Niederkruchten, on the Dutch frontier (author of an extract in
German, from the Abbe Dacheux's monograph on John Geiler),
who in his " History of German Literature " gives a clear and
rather complete sketch of dramatic art in the Middle Ages.*

Dr. Janssen concludes this chapter by a glance at the charac-
teristic work of Sebastian Brandt, called "Narren Schiff" (The
Ship of Fools), a humorous satire, in which the author lashes
every abuse of the age, and persons of every rank who counte-
nanced them. He was John Geiler^s favourite author; they
were contemporaries, and worked for the same end by different
means — Geiler preached and Brandt wrote. The Abbe Dacheux
has done well to give a long extract from this work at the end
of his monograph. We see therein how two reformers expose
and scourge the same social vices ; the contempt for holy things,
for religious customs, for Indulgences; the habit of frivolous
swearing, pluralism in church benefices, every kind of profanity,
deceit, adultery, &c., &c.t

Lastly, in the third and fourth books of the first volume. Dr.
Janssen sketches the economic, judicial and political state of
Germany at the end of the Middle Ages : 1st, agriculture,
industry, commerce, and finance ; 2nd, the position of Germany

* We would call the attention of our English readers to the " Geschichte
des Drama" of B. Klein, an extensive work, in the twelfth and thirteenth
vols, of which is given the history of the English Theatre. These might
with advantage be worked up in an English form rather than translated.
The above work, still unfinished, does not at present comprise the history
of German Drama.

+ Sebastian Brandt also wrote a " Lives of the Saints," only four
copies of which are known to be extant. One of these is in the
private library of the Abbe F. X. Krauss, professor of Church History
at the University of Freiburg im Brisgau. It is a quarto volume. These
words are written on the last page : " Zu eren der wirdige Muter Gotes
Beschlus discs Wercks Sebastian Brandt."

Becent Works on the State of Germany. 117

in its relations with other countries^ its constitution, and laws,
German and Roman.

The riof-hts of the territorial lords as reo^ards their tenants were
very complicated at the end of the Middle Ages ; but speaking
generally the privileges of the holders of fiefs and of land
had not been lessened, and the possession of the greater portion
of the land lay with the vassals instead of with their lords, who
seemed only to have a claim on service and contributions. These
holdings had assumed the character of independent possessions.
It is generally asserted that the War of the Peasants, which
we shall speak of later on, was caused by the intolerable oppression
of the tillers of the soil. We do not wish to deny that there were
exceptional instances of this kind, but it has been proved that the
general features of the agricultural class in the fifteenth century
vere quite patriarchal in character, and gave no pretext for revolt.
It was the religious revolution, and the discontent excited by the
preachers of (so-called) liberty, that made the greater portion of
the people rise in rebellion.

The author reviews agricultural life and occupations, the
relative value of country produce, and of the commerce and in-
dustries of the town. He compares commercial articles with pro-
visions. A pound of saffron, for example, was worth as much as
a cart-horse ; a fat ox was cheaper than a velvet cloak of the most
ordinary quality; a pound of sugar cost more than twice as
much as a sucking-pig.

Then follows an account of the cultivation of gardens and wine,
the home lives of the peasants, and their wages. An ordinary
working man could earn in a week the value of a sheep and a
pair of shoes ; and in twenty-four days he could earn a large
measure of rye, twenty-five stock-fish, a load of wood, and three
ells of cloth. Was he to be pitied ?

Then comes a sketch of industrial pursuits, of the state of the
clubs and guilds of the artisans, their customs and rights, their
assemblies — e.g., the "Tailors^ Congress'''' at Oppenheim, in
Frankfort-on-Maine — the produce of their handicrafts, their
chef-cVoeuvres] the commerce and history of the Hanse,* the
centre of European commerce — which had reached its apogee in
the fifteenth century. A thousand curious and interesting
details but little known are here noted down — for instance, the
adulteration of food and workmen's strikes. In a word, a picture
of the people as perfect and finished as one of those of the

_ * Here the author would have us remark the etymology of the expres-
sion pound sterHng, which means simply, pound easterling. In England
the merchants of the Hanse were called " easterlings" (orientals). The
current coin in England svas for a long tinie Hanseatic money.

11(S Recent Works on the State of Germany,

old masters, mentioned in the first part of the volume, is here
put before us.

Our author does not forget to disclose the dark side of the
period ; the increase of riches and of life-comforts, financial
speculations and usury ; the taking advantage of small traders by
wealthy merchants, and the discredit brought on commerce
thereby; the profligacy, apparent in dress, against which
Diets legislated, and preachers protested in vain. Amongst the
latter was Geiler of Kaisersberg, who followed in the lead of
Sebastian Brandt, as related by Abbe Dacheux in his mono-
graph (p. 213).

Lastly, in the fourth book our author discusses the influence
exercised by the Roman law on the ancient customs and habits
of the German people. He works out the opinion that the
introduction of Roman law proved an obstacle to the justice
sought by the towns or guilds, and that it gave them into the
hands of the territorial princes.*

The principle of German as of canon law was that every
proprietor should use his property according to justice and
morality. This principle was opposed to usury and to the
artificial raising of the prices of provisions. According to
Boman law each individual has the liberty and right to consult
his own interest regardless of the need of others. This funda-
mental idea is in direct opposition to the moral principle of
Germanic law. Wimpheling calls the Roman law a series of
lying and sophistic artifices ; and Trithemius designates it as a
new slavery (p. 495).

The introduction of Roman law singularly encouraged the
desire of gain, and lawyers were soon denounced as the worst
interpreters of law and justice. A most characteristic sign of
the aversion entertained by the people for the learned men of
law. is the fact that in several agreements and compromises
belonging to the second half of the fifteenth century, we find the
several parties consenting that in case of any differences arising
between them, or of any errors being discovered in the agree-
ment, they would employ neither a doctor, licentiate, nor master
in law to decide the question ; " for these,^' said they, '' seek for
and create defects where none exist.""

All the burghers thought alike ; contemporary writers tell us
that the lawyers were considered a greater evil than the " Free
Lances," these last only taking possession of material property,
and not interfering with men's souls.

It was only princes who, for reasons of absolutism, favoured
the introduction of the Roman law, yet were they warned that

* Compare the opinion of Wimpheling. Janssen, i. p. 489.

Recent Worhs on the State of Germany. 119

this legal chaos would some day lead to revolution. ('^ Chaos sanc-
tionum humanarum ; perplexitas vetemm et novorum jurium.'''')^

After a short political sketch of the German monarchy of the
Middle Ages^ of the importance of imperial free towns (Reich-
stadte), &c., our author reverts to the reforms proposed by
Nicholas Cusanus mentioned above. He relates the efforts of
Nicholas to divide the Empire into twelve circles, each to have
its imperial tribunal, composed of an. ecclesiastic, a nobleman,
and a burgher. Cusanus recommended the creation of a standing
army, in order to strengthen the imperial power, and to be a
safeguard against foreign princes ; but his efforts were in vain,
and the imperial authority declined, to the great detriment of
the realm, whilst the power of the feudal princes increased
(p. 466). This proved one of the great evils of the succeeding
century. t The representatives of towns lost their influence, and
the towns became dependent on the territorial lords. This was
the case in the Mark of Brandenburg.

By the introduction of Roman law even legal science lost its
importance. The new study introduced into the universities
-a petty, wrangling spirit, which was condemned by the most
learned men of ihe time — a Reuchlin^ Wimpheling, and others
(p. 477). A storm of satire fell upon the new organization, but
in vain ; the ambition of emperor and prince forbade any con-
tinuous opposition. Absolutism in Germany was too well favoured
by the new law.

Francis I., King of France, wished meanwhile to become an
absolute sovereign in his realm, and to add imperialism to royalty.
He assumed the imperial insignia before setting out for Italy and
the conquest of Naples. This was the signal for the endless war-
fare that filled all the reign of Charles V., and was the great cause
of the unceasing anxiety of Hadrian VI., J a Pope as holy as he was
learned, who had ascended the Pontifical throne without the aid
of nepotism, or of imperial favour.

Maximilian strove in vain to introduce measures of reform at
the different Diets. " The representatives of th^ Empire," says
Trithemius, '^ are quite accustomed now to yield up nothing to
the Empire, and to ignore entirely their promises. Therefore,
Maximilian no longer holds the power to defend justice, or to
punish those who betray the peace of the State. We are con-
tinually in a state of civil war'' (p. 860).

Maximilian was powerless to prevent the ancient glory of the
Empire from being humbled j his efforts to reorganize the tri-
bunals were badly supported; the princes did their utmost to pro-

* Wimpheling, " Apologia," bk. 49. Jansseu, i. p. 495.
t Hofler, p. 247, seq. I Hofler, " Adrian VI." p. 92.

120 Recent Works on the State of Germany.

mote disturbances; the States constantly opposed his projects of
reform, and refused their assistance in his war with the Repubhc
of Venice, and for a proposed expedition against the Turks.
Luther, protected out of policy by Frederic, the Elector of
Saxony, was just peering above the horizon. Germany had to
fight on all sides against the civil foes who were undermining
her prosperity. Lastly, it is well known that after the death of
Maximilian, when a new emperor had to be chosen, Joachim,
Elector of Brandenburg, " the father of all cupidity ,^^ headed the
party that wished to hand over the Empire to the King of France.

In spite of treachery, of the profligacy engendered by luxury,
of the abuses among the clergy, and of the vices of the young
humanists, which sapped the foundations of German prosperity,
charitable institutions were ever increasing, religious life among
the people did not lose in intensity, and by the efforts of Nicholas
Cusanus provincial synods were held in many dioceses. Yet it is
through the canons of these very synods that we learn the state
of the Church in general, and the almost universal depravity.
The learned Wimpheliug, an impartial spectator of events, ex-
claims : " I take God to witness that I know, in the Khenish
dioceses, an infinite number of ecclesiastics of solid learning, and
of irreproachable life — prelates, canons, vicars — all pious, generous,
and humble/^ Eut, unfortunately, these exceptions only confirm
the rule, or, if not the rule, the examples contrary to those
Wimpheling refers to.

It was against this worldly spirit, which had penetrated into
the higher classes, and, through them, had filtered through to the
clergy, high and low, that John Geiler raised his voice. The
laity ,^ by privileges which they well knew how to obtain, had
gained an unheard-of influence in the nomination of rectors and
vicars, whose moral dignity sufi^ered not a little under the secular
yoke. It is, then, the dark side of society, the very opposite
view to Dr. Janssen^s, which the life of Geiler unfolds before us.
We will now see how the Abbe Dacheux treats the situation in
the life and writings of his hero.

We have already noticed how the Abbe Dacheux and Dr.
Janssen have met on the same ground in discussing certain facts
in the history of the fifteenth century; for instance, the preaching,
the style of sermon, the manner of teaching. With details of
this kind the Abbe Dacheux opens his work on John Geiler, and
his special aim is to make known the excellence of the preachers
of Alsace, the field in which his reformer laboured most.

* See Lederer, "Johann v. Torquemada," Freiburg: Herder, 1879,
pp. 40, 52 ; and Dacheux, " John Geiler," pp. 100, 156, 205, 209.

Recent Works on the State of Germany. 121

John Geller was born at Scliaffhausen, in Switzerland, in
1445 ; his father settled in Alsace, where he had obtained the
post of registrar to the Council of Ammerswihr. After having
sketched for us his first years of study, our author shows us how
Geiler became famous by his preaching. He was chosen to fill
the post of preacher at the University of Freiburg, but shortly
afterwards the towns of Basle, Warzburg and Strassburg, dis-
puted the honour of electing to their Cathedral pulpit a preacher
of such eloquence, such immovable steadfastness, and such irre-
proachable life. Indeed, the office of preacher at Strassburg
Cathedra] was created for Geiler by Bishop Robert, of Bavaria,
but the opposition of certain competitors succeeded in hindering
the strictly official employment and adequate remuneration of
Geiler till 1489.-^ Although he acknowledged all that Robert of
Bavaria had done for him, Geiler would not allow his personal
gratitude to obscure his judgment, or to interfere with the great
aim he had proposed to himself. Almost his first remarkable
sermon was the discourse at the funeral of Bishop Robert. With
intent to depict the morals of the age, and to offer sage counsels
to Robertas successor, he drew in striking words the principal
faults of the deceased. In the form of a dialogue with the soul
of the bishop he reproaches him with luxurious living, with
haughtiness, with vanity, praising meanwhile his administration.
He then draws the picture of a worthy bishop holding it up as
an example to Albert of Bavaria, Robertas successor. This style
of reproach and manner of counsel might be compared to that
employed by the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, Bernardino Carvajal,
in a discourse addressed to the Sovereign Pontiff, Hadrian VI., at
his presentation to the Sacred College at Rome, August 29, 1522.
The bishop, desirous of reading a serious lesson to some of his
colleagues — to the body of cardinals of the time of Leo X., and
to the adherents of the schism under Julius II., rehearsed to the
new Pontiff all the woes of the Church and the causes which
produced them ; the simony of the Popes ; their want of
intellect, knowledge and good will; their being elected to the
Papal throne by men indolent and vicious. " Happily,^' said the
bishop, " those times are now past and gone.^^ Nevertheless he
thought it expedient to propose to the newly-elected Pontiff
several articles which as Pope he should observe : to protect
liberty of voting ; to introduce reforms according to the prescrip-
tions of the holy canons : to embrace poverty, &c. Sccf*

To come back to Geiler. His discourse was the first of a series
preached against the abuses of the age.

The new bishop found in him a zealous auxiliary for the exe-

* Chap. xvii. p. 405. f Hofler, " Pabst Adrian YI." p. 192.

122 Recent Worhs on the State of Germany.

cution of his projects of reform, and when he convoked a synod
•of the clergy in liis diocese, Geiler was invited to pronounce the
opening discourse. In it Geiler reproves the clergy for their
rapacious and eager grasping at temporal goods ; he compares
them to leeches and to wild beasts. He speaks with no less con-
tempt of the treasures of the rich, and especially of the use to]
which they put them ; for instance, buying Church preferments
for their sons. Truly the princes "■ lorded it over the prelates
within their lands,^^ as John of Torquemada said in a discourse
preached before the Council of Basle against the decree which had
for its aim to abolish Papal rights over ecclesiastical nominations
(^' decretum irritans")* Geiler reproaches the clergy with the abuse
of canonical penances, with laxity in giving dispensations, with
every description of iniquity committed in the towns, with the
disorders allowed in the cathedrals, which were turned into public
places where the people laughed and chattered and gave comio
representations.

It cannot be denied that Geiler in some matters was too great
a rigoristj and hence it often happened that those he reproved
did not hear him very patiently.

One day in the year 1500 he inveighed in his sermon against
the magistrate for not repressing with more energy the disorders
and profanations committed by the burghers. The magistrate,
meaning to call the preacher to order, sent him two delegates to
demand an account of his bold words. Geiler answered by a
pamphlet containing, in twenty-one articles, a scheme of adminis-
tration afterwards famous, and disinterred by the author of this
work.

In these articles Geiler reproaches the magistrate with the
spoliation of the clergy and the poor in his opposition to certain
bequests ; with countenancing gambling, and allowing it to go
-on in the houses of the town councillors, who dedicated the revenue
derived therefrom to the giving of banquets. Another article
treats of the too great licence allowed in the frequenting of
ale-houses, and of the non-observance of feast days. Geiler
then complains that the gifts made to the Cathedral are taken
for municipal requirements, and that the administration evinces
the greatest parsimony in regard to the hospital, where the poor
and other inmates are neglected and badly fed, though the insti-
tution is richer than the whole Cathedral Chapter. He com-
plains of the excessive contributions exacted from the clergy,
the encouragement given to murder by the non-punishment of

* See Lederer, " Johann v. Torquemada," p. 52. Compare Dacheux,
pp. 100 and 156 : " If there are bad priests it is because you (the princes)
wish for sach." Compare also pp. 205 and 209 on the " Chevaliers
-Fanfarons."

Recent Works on the State of Germany. 1 23

homicide, &c. &c. Lastly, he protests against the use of torture,
as contrary to the laws of the Church.

From the beginning Geiler had the happiness of seeing that
his preaching bore salutary fruit. The courage and boldness
with which he poured forth his reproaches made the guilty
tremble. The burghers were forbidden to hold profane assemblies
in the Cathedral, the magistrates to hold court there, and the
children to play at church services. A custom which prevailed
on certain festivals — swearing by the members of God'^s body*
was forbidden, and men were prohibited from entering the
convents of women, &c. (p. 71). It cannot be denied that,
influenced by him, religious life in convents received a new
impulse (p. 196). It was through his intercession with the
bishop and the Pope''s Nuncio that condemned criminals who
were really penitent were allowed to receive the Holy Eucharist,
which hitherto had been denied them, and was again after the
siege of Strassburg by Louis XIV. On the protest of Geiler
priests were more generally admitted into the hospitals, the doors
of which had hitherto been often closed upon them (p. 56).

May we not attribute the measures taken by Albert of Bavaria
for the reformation of certain abuses, partly to the funeral dis-
course pronounced over his predecessor Robert? Is it not also
evident that Geiler was invited to preach at the opening of the
diocesan synod, on the understanding that he was to show up
these same abuses among the clergy? This liberty of speech, of
which he made full use, is a proof that the minds of men were
drawn towards him ; and this power of attraction was in itself a
success. After the death of Albert of Bavaria Geiler pronounced
an exhortation before the Chapter previous to the election of a
successor ; in this instance, we know not which to admire most,
the courage of the preacher or the good-will of his audience,
amongst which sat five bishops, the Marquess of Baden, the
Prince of Bavaria, and many other territorial lords, relatives of
the late bishop. These all listened to the preacher as to a
prophet preaching penance, for Geiler, passing over in silence the
virtues of the deceased prelate, inveighed against the sins and pre-
varications of church-dignitaries and secular princes. By the
unanimous voice of the Chapter, of which the five bishops formed
a part, the man whom Geiler had pointed out as the most worthy
successor of Albert was elected. This was William, Count of
Honstein, one of the youngest canons of the Cathedral (page 480).
William had the courage and modesty to listen to the exhorta-

* This custom had spread even to the JSTetherlands. In the Mystery
Plays the demons swore after that fashion, by the members of the Body
of Jesus Christ. See, for example, the Miracle Play, called " Ls Sacre-
ment de Nieuwervaert," p. 84, published at Leunarden (Suringar).

124 Recent Works on the State of Germany,

tions of Geiler, pronounced in a funeral discourse five days later,^
and addressed to every bishop given up to indolence, avarice, anr
luxury ; the preacher concluded by entreating the newly-elected^
not to walk in the footsteps of such, but to meditate on the Holy
Scriptures, to destroy in his heart all attachment to the world,j
and never to divert the riches of the Church from their righl
destination.

The Emperor Maximilian held Geiler in great esteem. H<
consulted him on matters of the highest importance, and askec
him to draw up a kind of rule of conduct to guide him in the
government of his subjects. Such was his respect for the eminent
preacher that he would never allow him to remain uncovered in
his presence.

Lastly, Geiler-'s contemporaries agreed that the conduct of the
clergy showed signs of amendment. Wimpheling, though severe
in his judgment on the clergy, could discern a daily increase in
the num])er of virtuous and learned ecclesiastics (pp. 136, 140,
n. 167).

This improvement did not, it must be admitted, grow or
deepen; neither did it spread throughout Germany. As soon as
Luther appeared on the scene, the old passions of cupidity, in-
dolence, indiH'erence, added to unbelief, seemed to revive. Dr.
Janssen attributes all this perverse influence to the so-called
" Eeformation," but unfortunately the germs of it existed long
before. The learned and saintly Nausea, Bishop of Vienna, wrote,
in 1527 : " Who is to blame for all these abuses that have crept
into the Church ? It is we who are to blame — and all of us." lie
points to the clergy as the origin of grave errors. "That is why,^'said
he, "the clergy should first be reformed."* Geiler, therefore, had
not yet converted the world — no one imagined he had — and though
his labours bore great fruit, his ardent zeal remained unsatisfied.
He wished to see the diocese of Strassburg, at least, turn there
and then from worldly ways, indecent dress, luxurious feasting ;
he insisted that the rich, eitlier through avarice or the prodi-
gality which impoverished them, should no longer seek Church
emoluments in the shape of canonries for their sons ; that the
accumulation of Church benefices should cease ; that dispensations
of all kinds should be granted with more circumspection, &c. &c.

We have remarked that John Geiler went to extremes some-
times, but we must here note that his exaggeration lay rather in
the form and in the expressions he used, than in his ideas them-
selves. Allowance should be made for his expressions, often
strong and coarse, by taking into account the age in which they
were used — the fifteenth, and the beginning of the sixteenth

* *' De Reformanda Ecclesia," quoted by Herr Pastor, p. 287.

Recent Works on the State of Germany. 125

centuries, when a popular style of speech was used in the pulpit,
as elsewhere^ much more than it is now. The coarseness of Geiler's
expressions cannot be compared with that found in the discussions
between Luther"^ and his adversaries, and this fault of style con-
tinued till a much later period. We find, for instance, Charles IX.
of Sweden, writing to Christian IV. of Denmark, to decline a
duel, in language coarser than the coarsest used now. The last
phrase of this letter runs : " This is our answer to thy coarse
letter" C^^auf deinen groben Brief ^^f). Yet modern times were
close at hand !

Geiler's rigorism is apparent in his opposition to the dispensa-
tion given for the use of butter and eggs. He knew this custom
already existed in the fourteenth century in the diocese of Cologne
and Treves, but he opposed it because he saw it fostered the
cupidity of the clergy (the '^ turpis lucri cupiditas " of Albert of
Bavaria, p. 483) .J The avarice of the bishops had unfortunately
become proverbial. The saying : " Es ist aber um gelt zu thun ""
(it is a question of money) referred to every fine inflicted for
disorders of all kinds, concubinage, &c., &c. Geiler considered
this cupidity as one of the principal causes of decay in the Church.
" It is the mother of dissolution," said he ; '' it leads to the accu-
mulating of benefices, and to all those intrigues for misleading
the Pope, from whom these exemptions and ecclesiastical fines
proceed. By the sale of benefices the most learned and worthy
priests, who had spent twenty years in teaching theology, were
thrust aside to make way for candidates whose nomination was
more lucrative. §

Geiler, however, was sometimes too severe in his strictures
on this and other points. For instance, when he reproaches the
Papacy with always demanding supplies to fit out expeditions
against the Turks. Even the Abbe Dacheux acknowledges
this (p. 249), and goes on to state some facts which prove
how much the Popes did, from Calixtus III. (1455) to
Alexander VI., who died in 1503, to promote the war against
the Osmanli.^'ll In 1481 it was feared in Rome that the city itself
would before long be taken by the Turks.^ Janssen and Hofler both
insist upon the exertions made by the Popes against the Infidels.

* See and compare Hofler, p. 261 ; and Luther's " Commentary on the
Epistle to the Galatians," p. 377.

t See Gfrover, " Gustav Adolph," b. i. ch. i. p. 39, n., quoted by
Holberg, " Danische Reichshistorie," ii. 661.

X In his work, " Peregrineti," Geiler speaks with more moderation
about fasting. Dacheux, pp. 255, 290.

§ Compare Wimpheling, quoted p. 122, n. 2.

II Compare Lederer, p. 268.

\ Dacheux, p. 294, n.

126 Recent Worhs on the State of Germany.

The former cites (i. 555, n.) a work written by Hegewisch, a
Protestant, and professor at the University of Kiel, towards the
end of the eighteenth century, who, in his '' History of the
Emperor Maximilian,^^ brought to light the efforts made by the
Popes to organize a war against the Turks who threatened the
German Empire. These efforts of the Koman Pontiffs were, as
a rule, rendered futile by the indifference of the princes ; for
instance, those made by Pius II., aided by Cardinal Torquemada."^
Herr Hofler in his turn gives undeniable proofs of the labours
and anxieties of Hadrian YI. (p. 485) caused by the - advance
of the Turkish army, which advance Francis I. contemplated
with satisfaction.

To return to our '^Reformer."" Geiler attributed the pro-
hibition against nuns reserving some small portion of their
fortune on entering a convent to the cupidity of certain autho-
rities. The introduction of Roman law, which helped consider-
ably to change tlie face of Germany, he considered, and with
greater truth, to be a stimulus to cupidity. Many young men
threw up their theological studies thinking to find in the law a
more direct road to fortune, or else they took service at Rome,
then looked upon as the California of the idle (p. 116).

We should exceed the limits of this Article were we to try to
indicate all the interesting points of the Abbe Dacheux''s work.
It has already been reviewed by the critics of Germany, Prance,
and other countries, who have noticed the striking features of a
work which is a study of the innermost life and personal history
of Geiler, rather than an account of the general movement of the
period. In such a manner should we have liked to enter into
Geiler^s relations with his friends, especially with the Schott
family — a real picture, given in the thirteenth to sixteenth
chapters.

Fault has been found with the author for giving too many
details of general history which had but small connection with
Geiler himself. We are not of this opinion, for the Abbe Dacheux,
in connecting the events of Geiler's life with the history of his
age, only makes his sketch more attractive, and, indeed, more
useful to our purpose, which is to give here an account, not of the
advance made in the biographical details of this period, but of
the progress made in discoveries relating to history taken as a
whole, and of the coalescing causes productive of certain events.
As is truly remarked by Dr. Janssen, the sermons of John Geiler
are a real mine of knowledge, wherein to learn the popular life- .
of that period (I. 263). One chapter might have been omitted
by the author without breaking the harmony of his work ; we

* Lederer.

The Revision of the Neiv Testament. 127

refer to chapter XIV.^ the " History of the Convent of Klingen-
thal," which seems rather superfluous.

We will conclude this review bv cono^ratulatino^ the Abbe
Dacheux on the subject he has chosen, on the conscientious-
ness and perspicacity with which he has treated it, and on
his style. We would also commend the typographical excellence
of the work and its price. We would wish to see it translated
into English. Historical truth would thereby be the gainer.
John Geiler died in 1510, at the moment Luther was beginning
to preach a reform very different to the one Geiler had longed
for. We shall next pass on to the events which took place at the
beginning of the sixteenth century.

P. Alberdingx Thijm.

akt. v.— the eeyision of the new testament.

1. The New Testament, translated out of the Greek : being

the Version set forth, a.d. 1611, compared with the most
Ancient Authorities and Revised^ a.d. 1881. Oxford
University Press. 1881.

2. H KAINH AIAeHKH. The Greek Testament, with the

Readings adopted by the Revisers of the Authorized
Version. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1881.

3. Considerations on the Revision of the English Version of

the New Testament. By C. J. Ellicott, Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol. London: Longmans. 1870.

^. On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament. By
J. B. LiGHTFOOT, D.D. London : Macmillan. 1872.

5. Biblical Revision : its Necessity and Purpose. By

Members op the American Revision Committee. London:
Sunday School Union.

6. Corapanion to the Revised Version of the English New

Testament. By Alexander Egberts, D.D. London :
Cassell, Petter & Co.

7. Vainorum Teacher's Bible. London : Queen^s Printers.

1880.

THE English Bible has been likened to one of our old
Cathedrals, not only in the beauty and majesty of its
outlines, but also in the fact that it was originally Catholic. As
in a much restored Cathedral, it is not easy to say what is old
and what is new, how much belonged to Catholic times or how

128 The Revision of the New Testament.

much has been altered since; so it is with the oft-revised
English Bible. Professor Blunt, in his " Plain Account/' says
that the foundation was certainly Catholic, being based on some
version older than that of Wycliffe. Here, of course, he is at
variance with most modern Protestant critics, who do not care to
look back further than Tyndale. But he has Sir Thomas More to
support him, and also the express statements of Cranmer and
Fox, " who lived three hundred years nearer to the time they
wrote of, were acute men, and recorded facts within their own
knowledge." Had the Reformers spared the University and
Monastic Libraries, we should have more evidence on the point.
Again, it may be held that King James's Version is only the
" Great Bible" twice revised ; and that was Catholic, at least in
its fourth edition, that of 1541, which was ''oversene and
perused at the commandment of the kinges hyghnes, by the
right reverende father in God Cuthbert (Tunstall) bysshop of
Duresme and Nicholas (Heath) bysshop of Rochester." The
Great Bible was published when England was still Catholic;
it was approved by Catholic bishops, who assured the King
that it supported no heresy, and it found a home in the Catholic
Churches of England when Mass was still oifered at their altars.
This Bible was revised by the Elizabethan bishops in 1568,
and, in 1611, after a more lengthened revision, it appeared
again in the world as King James's " Authorized Version,"
and was passed off as a New Translation. Nor did people
suspect how much even this last revision was due to Catholic
influences. There is little doubt that the complaints of Catholics
about corrupt translations, expressed by Dr. Gregory Martin
in his '' Discoverie of Manifold Corruptions," combined with
the King's hatred of the Genevan Bible and its notes suggestive
of tyrannicide to bring about the revision. And in that
revision King James's revisers were more largely influenced
by the Rheims translation than they cared to own. Dr.
Moulton, in his " History of the English Bible," says, " that the
Rhemish Testament has left its mark on every page of the
work" (p. 207). The Preface to the New Revision of 1881
acknowledges that King James's Bible " shows evident traces of
the influences of a Version not specified in the Rules, the
Rhemish, made from the Latin Vulgate, but by scholars con-
versant with the Greek Original."

Catholics may therefore be said to have a deep vested interest
in what concerns the English Bible. It is true that Father
Faber called it one of the great strongholds of heresy in this
country. Still the same might be said of the old cathedrals and
parish churches. Besides, whatever affects the religious life of
the nation must have an interest for Catholics^ a mournful

The Revision of the New Testament. 1&9

interest tliough it may be. Cardinal Newman, in his ^''Grammar

of Assent," says :

Bible lieliglon is both the recognized title and the best description
of English religion. It consists, not in rites or creeds, but mainly in
having the Bible road in the Church, in the family, and in private.
Now, I am far indeed from undervaluing that mere knowledge of
Scripture which is imparted to the population thus promiscuously. At
least, in England, it has to a certain point made up for great and grievous
losses in its Christianity. The reiteration again and again, in fixed
course in the public service, of the words of inspired teachers under
both Covenants, and that in grave majestic English, has in matter of
fact been to our people a vast benefit. It has attuned their minds to
religious thoughts ; it has given them a high moral standard ; it has
served them in associating religion with compositions, which, even
humanly considered, are among the most sublime and beautiful
ever written ; especially it has impressed upon them the series of
Divine Providences in behalf of man from his creation to his end,
and, above all, the words, deeds, and sacred sufferings of Him, in
whom all the Providences of God centre (p. 56).

Therefore any genuine effort, honestly made, to purify the
text-book of English religion from errors, and to make it more
comformable to the Divine originals, must enlist the sympathy of
Catholics. If Church restoration serves the cause of Catholic
truth, may we not expect the same of Bible revision ? History
proves that the Catholic Church in England was injured in the
estimation of the people, mainly by corrupt translations. The
so-called Reformation was an heretical appeal from the Church
to the Bible, but to the Bible as translated by heretics, and in
their translation there was no Church to be found, but only
'' congregation," no bishops and priests, but only " overseers"
and '* elders." Popular Bible religion was first schooled in the
Calvinistic Genevan Bible of 1560, with its anti- Catholic notes.
What wonder if, as it grew up, it spoke the language of
Puritanism, and called the Pope anti-Christ and the Catholic
Church the Beast. As Elizabeth could tune her pulpits, so could
heretics phrase their Bibles. They stole the Scriptures from the
Church, and then the Church from the Scriptures. Had the
Bible been honestly translated and fairly interpreted, little harm
would have come of the appeal. The Scriptures would have
borne testimony of the Church, as they do of her Divine
Founder. As the works of God cannot contradict the words
of God, so the Inspired Word cannot be at variance with
the Living Voice of the Holy Sprit, in the Church of Christ.

In the long struggle for existence between the various transla-
tions. King Jaraes''s Bible prevailed according to the law of
natural selection ; it was the survival of the fittest. But it was

VOL. Yi. — NO. I. [Third Series.] K

130 The Revision of the New Testament.

not till Queen Anne's reign that it obtained so firm a place in the
affection of the nation. Had the Long Parliament been a little
longer^ Anglican bishops at least would have been saved the
trouble of further revision. Still it could hardly be denied that
the Authorized Version was very imperfect. The greatest Hebrew
scholar of his day said "he would rather be torn to pieces than
impose such a version on the poor churches of England.^' Bishop
Lowth showed how defective was the Old Testament, from the
fact that it rested entirely on the Masoretic text. The infallibility
of the vowel points invented by the Masora in the sixth century
was then a cardinal point in the creed of those who rejected the
Church's authority. And in the New Testament it is well known
that the translators had before them only the imperfect text of
Stephens and Beza. How empty, then, was the boast of
Protestants that their Bible was better than the Catholic because
it was a translation from the original Hebrew and Greek, whilst
the Catholic version was simply from the Latin Vulgate 1 A^i h
their imperfect text they could hardly be said to have had the
originals at all, and it is pretty certain that the Vulgate as a
whole is the closest approximation to the original attainable eitlier
then or now. In point of fidelity, the esssential matter in
Scripture translation, the Douai Bible is as superior to King
James's as it is inferior in its English. For, as Dr. Dodd says,
" its translators thought it better to offend against the rules of
grammar than to risk the sense of God''s Word for the sake of a
fine period/' Dr. Moulton acknowledges that " the translation
is literal and (as a rule, if not always) scrupulously faithful and
exact Only minute study can do justice to its faithful-
ness, and to the care with which the translators executed their
work/'"^ Another defect in the Authorized Version is the want
of grammatical precision. It mistakes tenses, ignores synonymes,
and has no appreciation for article or particle. Here, again, the
Kheims has the advantage, at least as concerns the Greek article.
To quote Dr. Moulton again :

As the Latin language has no definite article, it might well be
supposed that of all Enghsh versions the Rhemish would be the least
accurate in this point of translation. The very reverse is actually
the case. There are many instances (a comparatively hasty search
has discovered more than forty) in which of all versions, from
Tyndale's to the Authorized, inclusive, this alone is correct in regard
to the article (p. 188).

Another defect of King James's Revision was the neglect of the
principal of verbal identity. The Revisers of 1881 admit —

* " History of the English Bible," pp. 185-188.

The Revision of the New Testament. 131

That this would now be deemed hardly consistent with the require-
ments of faithful translation. They seem to have been guided by the
feeling that their Version would secure for the words they used a
lasting place in the language ; and they express a fear lest they should
" be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great
number of good English words," which, without this liberty on their
part, would not have a place in the pages of the English Bible. Still
it cannot be doubted that they carried this liberty too far, and that the
studied avoidance of uniformity in the rendering of the same words,
even when occurring in the same context, is one of the blemishes in
their work.

But the most serious fault of all is that the Authorized
Versions contains absolute errors. Thomas Ward, in 1737, gave
a list of some in the columns of his " Errata.'^ Many of these
were corrected in the editions 1763 and 1769. Dr. Ellicott, in
the Preface to the '^ Pastoral Epistles/'' says :

It is vain to cheat our souls with the thought that these errors are
either insignificant or imaginary. There are errors, there are inac-
curacies, there are misconceptions, there are obscurities, not, indeed, so
many in number or so grave in character as some of the forward
spirits of our day would persuade us ; but there are misrepresenta-
tions of the language of the Holy Ghost, and that man who, after
being in any degree satisfied of this, permits himself to bow to the
counsels of a timid or popular obstructiveness, or who, intellectually
unable to test the truth of these allegations, nevertheless permits him-
self to denounce or deny them, will, if they be true, most surely at
the dread day of final account have to sustain the tremendous charge
of having dealt deceitfully with the inviolable Word of God.*

Considering that this is the candid confession of an AngUcan
Bishop, Protestants have set to work to revise their Bible none
too soon.

Perhaps it may be not uninteresting to give one or two speci-
mens of not very successful attempts at revision or improved
translation which have been made from time to time. Dr. Eadie
and Professor Plumptre give many examples. "The young lady
is not dead,'^ " A gentleman of splendid family, and opulent
fortune had two sons," " We shall not pay the common debt of
nature, but by a soft transition,''' &c. These are from "Harwood^s
Literal Translation of the New Testament," made, as the author
claims, with '' freedom, spirit and elegance ! " The next is from
a version which is the reverse of elegant. Describing the death
of Judas, it says: "Falling prostrate, a violent internal spasm

* '* Pastoral Epistles," p. xiii.

K %

132 The Revision of the New Testament.

ensued, and all his viscera were emitted/' " Blessed are you
amongst women and blessed is your incipient offspring."
Another enterprising reviser published the Gospels in a dramatic
form. The great Franklin tried his hand at a new version of
the Book of Job, and by his conspicuous failure rejoiced the
soul of Mr. Matthew Arnold, who says :

I well remember how, after I first read it, I drew a deep breath of
relief, and said to myself, "After all, there is a stretch of humanity
beyond Franklin's victorious good sense."*

The Baptists made a translation of the New Testament, and
St. John became " the immerser,'' and our Lord was made to
say, "I have an immersion to undergo/' In another version
repentance was translated " change of mind," and thus the
precept "do penance'' was made very easy of fulfilment —
"change your mind." The Unitarians brought out a transla-
tion which was very Arian. These attempts would have made
all serious revision impossible, had not " The Five Clergymen,"
of whom Dr. EUicott was one, showed that it was quite possible to
combine more accurate rendering with due regard for the old
version.

Convocation took up the matter seriously in 1 870, but the two
Provinces could not agree. The Convocation of Canterbury were
eager for the work, but the Northern Assembly did not think it
opportune. One dignitary thought that to revise the English
Bible would be " like touching the Ark." Another right reverend
prelate deprecated " sending our beloved Bible to the crucible to
be melted down." A third thought they had better wait till the
" Speaker's Commentary " was finished, which was like Cranmer's
famous saying about the Bishop's Bible — that it would be ready
*' the day alter Doomsday." Certainly there was good reason to
hesitate before undertaking such a serious task as amending the
English Bible, the pillar and ground of the popular creed. The
estimate of probable change was high — possibly some 20,000
emendations in the New Testament alone, many of them affect-
ing the text itself. Dr. Thirlwall spoke of favourite proof-texts
disappearing from their present prominence in current homiletical
teaching. Dr. EUicott said that there "were passages not a few
which revision would certainly relieve from much of their present
servitude of misuse in religious controversy." Dr. Owen had said
long before that Walton's various readings in his Polyglott would
make men papists or atheists. And Lord Panmurehad solemnly
declared at a public meeting at Edinburgh " that the prospect of

* " Culture and Anarchy," p. 44<.

The Revision of the Few Testament, 133

a new version is fraught with the utmost danger to the Protestant
liberties of this country, if not to the Protestant religion itself,"

Undaunted by these terrors, the Convoeation of Canterbury
settled down to do the work by itself, the University Presses
finding the money as the price of copyright. The work was Ui
be done by its own members, but liberty was given " to invite
the co-operation of any eminent for scholarship, to whatever
nation or religious body they may belong." Two committees were
to be formed, one for each Testament, and rules for guidance were
drawn up. To make as few changes as possible ; to go twice over
the ground ; changes to be settled by vote, the majority to have
the text, the minority the margin. The rules were mainly copied
from those given to the Revisers of 1611, except in the matter
of voting. It must be confessed that " Gospel by ballot " is an
essentially modern idea. About fifty Revisers were selected in
England and thirty in America — Churchmen, Presbyterians,
Baptists, and Methodists. Cardinal Newman and Dr. Pusey
were invited, but declined to attend. Convocation, regardless of
Christian sentiment, also invited to their aid Mr. Vance Smith,
a Unitarian, who may be a distinguished scholar, but is certainly
no Christian, and they gave him a place, not in the Old Testa-
ment committee, but in the New, which was unpardonable. The
Anglo-American " Septuagint,^^ with a few spare men in case of
accidents, was now complete — a somewhat heterogeneous body cer-
tainly, with doctrinal differences as wide as the Atlantic dividing
them, but empowered by Convocation to revise the Gospel, and to
settle the Bible of the future.

Now, it must be remembered that since the year 1611, a new
science has been born into the world, called Textual Criticism —
a science which professes to enable men of sufficient self-
confidence to determine with absolute certainty, by the aid of
a small number of MSS., hardly legible, what the text of the
Scripture really is. This science, at least in the opinion of its
professors, quite compensates for the loss of the inspired
Autographs, and by its aid the textual critic has no difficulty
in telling amidst thousands of various readings, what the
sacred writer really wrote. This would be an unmixed blessing
to the religious world, if textual critics could but agree one
with another. That each critic should have his own theory
of recension, and his own view of the age and genealogy of
different MSS., is not to be wondered at. But that no two
critics can agree upon a plain matter of fact is certainly
surprising. To take an instance from the much-disputed
reading of 1 Timothy iii. 16. If we ask what is the reading
of one particular MS., the Codex Alexandrinus in the British
Museum, one critic says it is ** God," another says it is

tBis The Revision of the New Testament

"indisputably the relative pronoun." All turns upon the
presence or absence of a faint line. One distinguished critic
•examines with a ^'strong lens" and says the disputed line is
really the sagitta of an epsilon on the other side of the vellum.
Another, equally distinguished, who says he has eyes like
microscopes, saw two lines, one a little above the other."^

What, then, has textual criticism done for the New Testament?
It has destroyed the oldTextus Receptus, but it has failed to con-
struct another in its place. Since the days of Griesbach every
critic of any textual pretensions makes a text for himself.
Lachmann, Scholz, Tregelles and Tischendorf have published
their texts. Dr. Westcott and Dr. Hart have just published
another, the result of twenty years* toil.

Here, then, lay the chief difficulty of the revision of the New
Testament. King Jameses Revisers had an easy task — simply
to translate the text that Pope Stephens, as Bentley calls him,
had fixed for them. But the Revisers of ] 881 had first to find
the text and then make the translation. Like Nabuchodonosoi's
wise men, they were required first to find the dream and then
make out the interpretation. If they have failed, the blame
must rest not upon them, for they could hardly be expected to
be all Daniels, but upon the Church which set them to such a
task. To any one who knows what textual criticism is, how
dubious in its methods, how revolutionary in its results, it is
amazing that any Church calling itself Christian should hand
over the Sacred Scriptures, the very title-deeds of its existence,
to the chance voting of critics, who are scholars first and
Christians afterwards, and some not Christians at all. That
it should give to these men power over the Word of God,
to bind and loose, to revise and excise, to put in and leave out,
to form the text as well as to give the interpretation. Yet this
has been done by that Church, which made it an article of its
creed that other Churches had erred and that nothing was to
be believed but what was found in Scripture and could be proved
thereby !

After ten and a half years of discussing and voting in
407 sessions, the Anglo-American Septuagint have finished the
first part of their work — the New Testament. The committee of
the Old Testament will require three or four years more. King
James's Bible occupied nearly three years. But then the New
Revision has been gone over seven times and has twice crossed
and recrossed the Atlantic. On the 17th of May the much-
travelled, oft- revised version was published to the world, both the

* Scrivener's " Textual Criticism," p. 554 ; Ellicott's ^' Pastoral
Epistles," p. 103.

The Revision of the New Testament. 135

Enj^llsh Translation and the Greek Text, as they read it. That
day will be ever memorable in the calendar of the Church of
England, but whether as a feast or a fast, time alone will show.
Perhaps, as in the case of the Greek Septuagint, it may be both.
The Kevisers claim for their work, by the mouth of their great
oracle, Dr. EUicott, the credit of " thoroughness, loyalty to the
Authorized Versions, and due recognition of the best judgments of
antiquity." That it has been thorough is proved by the number
of emendations, which are considerably in excess of the estimate
first given. These number about nine to every five verses in
the Gospels, and fifteen to every five in the Epistles. In other
words, there are some 20,000 corrections, fifty per cent, being
textual. Considering they were bound by express rule " to
introduce as few alterations as possible into the text of the
Authorized Version,'^ this is pretty thorough. What will the
good people in England and Scotland think who believe in the
verbal inspirativ^n of the English Bible, looking upon it as the
pure, authentic, and unadulterated Word of God ? It seems to
us that the revision is too thorough for the popular mind, and
not thorough enough for the educated. The more advanced
suggestions from the American committee, appended to the
Revised Version prove this. By loyalty to the Authorized
Version we presume Dr. Ellicott means that they have not
spoilt its '^ grave majestic English," or broken the charm of " the
music of its cadences " or marred the " felicities of its rhythm.''
Now this is just what they have done, and what they could not
help doing with their minute verbal literalism. Still they need
not have written bad grammar, as the author of '^ The Dean^s
English" shows that they have done. Deep study of the Greek
grammar has perhaps made them forget tji^ir own. As to the
claim about "a due recognition of the best judgments of
antiquity," Dr. Ellicott admits that though " not equally patent it
will rarely be looked for in vain." On the contrary, we think
that it is conspicuous by its absence. Again, he claims that it is
" no timid revision, without nerve enough to aim at compara-
tive finality." A revision which leaves out some forty entire
verses and makes twenty thousand changes cannot be charged
with timidity. But ''comparative finality " is another matter.
It is an illusion to suppose that finality can be attained by petty
compromises with rationalism. Now textual criticism is a tool
belonging to rationalism. The Revisers have borrowed it to help
them to revise their Bible. They have used the tool sparingly,
but they have taught others to use it, who will be less gentle.
With a Variorum Bible and good eyesight, even an ignorant man
can revise his Bible for himself; and soon there will be no Bible
to revise. In the first days of Protestantism private judgment

186 The Revision of the New Testament

fixed what the Scripture meant ; now textual criticism settles
what Scripture says; and shortly " hij^her criticism" will reject
text and meaning alike. What has happened iu Germany will
happen in England.

We have next to examine the New Version in detail to see how
it will affect Catholic truth. In the first place, there are several
important corrections and improved renderings. The Revisers
have done an act of justice to Catholics by restoring the true
reading of 1 Cor. xi. 27, "Whosoever shall eat the bread or
drink the cup/' &c., and thus removing a corruption which Dean
Stanley owned was due " to theological fear or partiality/' They
have removed from their version the reproach of Calvinism by
translating St. Paul correctly. Beza^s well-known interpolation
in Heb. x. 38, " any man/' brought in to save righteous Cal-
vinists from supposing they could ever fall away, has disappeared.
But perhaps the most surprising change of all is John v. b9. It
is no longer " Search the Scriptures/' but *' Ye search /' and
thus Protestantism has lost the very cause of its being. It has
also been robbed of its only proof of Bible inspiration by the
correct rendering of 2 Tim. iii. 16, *^ Every Scripture inspired of
God is also profitable/' &c. The old translation appears in the
margin, a minority of the translators apparently adhering to it.
Marriage is no more a necessity for eternal salvation in all men.
The Apostles have now power to "forgive" sins, and not simply
to " remit " them. " Confess therefore your sins " is the new
reading of James v. 16, and the banished particle has returned to
bear witness against Protestant evasion. Some amends, too,
have been made to Our Blessed Lady. She is declared by the
Angel who spoke to St. Joseph to be " the Virgin " foretold by
Isaias, and she is "endued with grace," at least in the margin.
Why could they not have softened the apparent harshness of our
Lord's word in John ii. 4, when, as Dr. Westcott owns, " in the
original there is not the least tinge of reproof, but an address of
courteous respect, even of tenderness?"

But there are several points to v/hich we must take exception.
For instance, to say in Phil. ii. 6, that Christ " counted it not a
prize to be on an equality with God" is bad translation and
worse divinity. They have spoilt St. Paul's description of charity
by calling it "love/' thus falling back into Tyndale's error, which
Lord Bacon praised the Bheims translators for correcting. As
they have sinned against Charity, so also have they wronged
Faith by calling it "the assurance of things hoped for" (Heb.
XI. 1). In the same Epistle they have translated the same word
viroaraaig in three difierent ways, as substance, confidence, and
assurance. In Our Lord's commission to St. Peter (John xxi. 17)
they have chosen the weak word "tend" as the equivalent of

The Revision of the New Testament. 137

iroijuiaiva ; yet in Matthew ii. 6, where the Prophet applies the
same verb to Christ, they render it '^be Shepherd over," and in
the Apocalypse it is " rule.'' The same word Paraclete is
rendered Comforter in St. John's Gospel, but Advocate in his
Epistle. For fear lest they should countenance the Catholic
doctrine of relative worship, the dying Jacob in Heb. xi. 21 is
still left " leaning upon the top of his staff," and is made a hero
of faith for so doing ! It was expected that the Revisers, in
deference to modern refinement, would get rid of hell and
damnation, like the judge who was said to have dismissed hell
with costs. Damnation and kindred words have gone, but hell
still remains in the few passages where Geheima stands in the
original. A new word, " Hades,'' Pluto's Greek name, has been
brou^'ht into our lano-uacre to save the old word hell from over-
work. The Rich Man is no longer in "hell" he is now '^ in
Hades ;" but he is still " in torment." So Hades must be Pur-
gatory, and the Revisers have thus moved Dives into Purgatory,
and Purgatory into the Gospel. Dives will not object ; but what
will Protestants say ?

Nor have they been more happy in their treatment of the
Lord's Prayer. St. Jerome's experience with the Psalms might
have taught translators that it is not wise to alter an accustomed
prayer for the sake of a slight gain in accuracy. People always
resent interference with the form of words they have learnt from
their childhood. The balance, if there is an}^ in favour of a mas-
culine instead of the old neuter renderino^ is too slig^ht to warrant
the rendering "Deliver us from the evil one.'' The Syriac
version supports the rendering, and so do some of the Greek
Fathers. The article. Bishop Middleton says, is here quite im-
partial. The Latin bears either interpretation, and the Catholic
Church in her explanation of the "Our Father" in the Tridentine
Catechism gives both. The question about " our daily bread,''
whether it is to-day's or to-morrow's, is more difficult. There
seems to have been some hard voting on the point. Dr. Light-
foot and his supporters were out- voted and driven into the margin
to pray for " bread for the coming day." Ittlovgioq is a word
which occurs but once in the New Testament ; it has a doubtful
etymology and more than one meaning. ■ The old Latin had
qiiotidianuvfi, but St. Jerome changed it into supers ubstantialem
in St. Matthew's version, whilst he left St. Luke's unchanged.
St. Bernard forbade Heloise to adopt the former word, and
Abelard wrote to defend her.

The Revisers have striven to remedy the ignorance of their
predecessors in the matter of Greek synonymes and have thus
brought out distinctions obliterated in the Authorized Version.
The four living creatures of the Apocalypse are no longer " beasts."

1 .3S The Revision of the Few Testament.

• Temple and sanctuary are distinguished. The compounds
of Kpivuv are no longer mixed so confusedly. Devils are car
fully marked off from demons; children from babes. "Be n(
children in mind ; howbeit in malice be ye babes, but in mi
be men''"' (1 Cor. xiv. 20). In this and a multitude of instances
the Revisers have shown scholarship, But possibly the poverty
of our language did not allow them to bring out the difference
between (piXdv and ayawav; or between (5apog and ^opriov
(Gal. vi. 2, 6). So St. Paul must needs go on giving contra-
dictory advice.

We miss some of the oddities of the old version ; still the new
is not without some peculiarities to make up. The mariners in
St. Paul's voyage do not " fetch a compass ;" the Apostles no
longer keep their "carriages^' (Acts xxi. 15). "Old bottles*'
are changed into "wineskins/' candles into lamps, the thieves
have become " robbers," the birds of the air have lost their
"nests'' and now have only ** lodging-places." David is no
longer a time-server (Acts xiii. 36), but the Baptist's head is
still in the " charger." " Banks " have at last found a place in
the Gospel. The man who scandalizes, or rather " makes to
stumble/' a child will find it "profitable for him" to have
"a millstone turned by an ass" hanged about his neck; at least
BO the margin puts it (Matt, xviii. 6). " The woman ought to
have a sign o/ authority on her head, because of the angels ; but
the margin reads "over her head" (I Cor. xi. 11). It will no
longer be open to doubt about the sex of " Euodia and Syntyche,
who are exhorted " to be of the same mind in the Lord/' for it
is expressly added "help these women" (Phil. iv. 2).

It was hardly perhaps in human nature to expect a committee
made up for the most part of married clergymen to forego a text
so dear to them as 1 Cor. ix. 5. A^eXtpj) is rightly rendered &
" believer/' but in their eyes yvvri could have no other meaning
than wife. Yet Dr. Wordsworth might have taught them that
aStX^jiv yvvaiKa meant simply a Christian woman, and might have
ehuwn them by the testimony of Tertullian, whom he quotes,
that St. Peter was the only Apostle who was married. Possibly, too,
a correct translation mig^ht have been thought detrimental to
Protestant Societies for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

Again, preachers will grieve to find that they have been robbed
of a favourite text, and that Agrippa is neither " almost " nor
" altogether a Christian." Total abstainers will learn that they
are to " be no longer drinkers of water /' and vegetarians will
be disgusted to find that their lentil pottage, so appetizing to
the hungry Esau, is changed into "a morsel of meat."

The Revisers have thought good to make certain changes in
the Apostolic College. They have discovered hitherto unsus-

The Revision of the New Testament, 139

peeted relationship between Judas the Traitor and the Apostle
Simon the Zealot. In John vi. 71, Judas is called the " son of
Simon Iscariot/^ On the other hand, they have deprived the
Apostle St. Jude of the honour of being " the brother of James/'
and so of the authorship of the Epistle.

The American Revisers are like the disciples St. Paul found at
Ephesus, who did not know that there was a Holy Ghost. They
suggest that the word should everywhere be changed into Holy
Spirit. This suggestion was not accepted, and was banished to
the limbo of rejected American suggestions. But Mr. Vance
Smith blames the English committee for their conduct, and says
that " they have not shown that judicial freedom from theological
bias which was certainly expected of them.-" The American
Kevisers are quite above reproach on this point. So great is their
freedom from dogmatic prejudice that they suggested the removal
of all mention of the sin of heresy — heresies in their eyes being
only " factions/' They desired also that the Apostles and
• Evangelists should drop their title of Saint, and be content to be
called plain John, and Paul, and Thomas. This results, no doubt,
from their democratic taste for strict equality, and their hatred of
titles even in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is certainly sur-
prising to find these gentlemen a little over-particular in the
matter of St. Peter's scant attire when he jumped overboard.
They wished to add a marginal note to the effect that St. Peter
" had on his under-garment only.'' On another point also, not
we think of any great importance, the American Bevisers have
thought it necessary to express dissent from their English
brethren. And this in regard to the fate of the herd of swine,
into which the devils entered and drove headlong into the lake.
The English Kevisers say they were " choked," but the American
verdict is different ; they would bring them in as " drowned." It
will thus be seen that these gentlemen combine the greatest
doctrinal breadth with most minute scrupulosity of detail. See-
ing how ill their suggestions have been received by their English
brethren, who are still under the yoke of antiquated conservatism,
it is quite possible that next time they will revise their own Bible
for themselves according to their own unfettered ideas.

In regard to proper names it seems to us that the Revisers have
taken a most unwarrantable liberty with the language of the
New Testament. They say " our general practice has been to
follow the Greek form of names, except in the case of persons
and places mentioned in the Old Testament : in this case
we have followed the Hebrew" (Preface, p. xviii). In other
words, they have thought themselves competent to teach Apostles
and Evangelists how to spell proper names ! St. Matthew wrote
Aram and Salathiel, but he should have written, as the New

140 The Revision of the New Testament.

Version correctly puts, Ram and Shealtlel. St. Luke mistook
Juda for Joda, and St. James seems not to have known that the
right name of Elias was Elijah. Unless it should turn out that
the Revisers were really inspired to correct the New Testament
as well as the Universal Church, we think them guilty both of
great presumption and a gross blunder. These modern scribes
would make the Gospel yield to the Law, and the Church bow to
the synagogue. They prefer the silly pedantry of a few wrong-
headed Reformers of the sixteenth century to the practice of
Christendom in every age. Are they ignorant of the fact that
the inspired writers of the New Testament took their quotations
as well as their proper names, not from the Hebrew, but from
the Greek Septuagint ? To be consistent, they should have
corrected the quotations too; perhaps they may yet do so on
further Revision.

•Lastly, we come to the most serious point of all — viz., the
passages the Revisers have thought proper to leave out
altogether. So far it has been a question of translation and
of names, but here the vital integrity of Sacred Scripture is
affected. By the sole authority of textual criticism these
men have dared to vote away some forty verses of the Inspired
Word. The Eunuch's Baptismal Profession of Faith is gone ;
the Angel of the Pool of Bethesda has vanished; but the
Angel of the Agony remains — till the next Revision. The
Heavenl}^ Witnesses have departed, and no marginal note
mourns their loss. The last twelve verses of St. Mark are
detached from the rest of the Gospel, as if ready for removal
as soon as Dean Burgon dies. The account of the woman taken
in adultery is placed in brackets, awaiting excision. Many
other passages have a mark set against them in the margin to
show that, like forest trees, they are shortly destined for the
critic's axe. Who can tell when the destruction will cease ?
What have the offending verses done that textual critics should
tear them from their home of centuries in the shrine of God's
Temple ? The sole offence of many is that the careless copyist of
some old Uncial MS. skipped them over. Some, again, have been
swallowed up by "the all-devouring monster Omoio-Teleuton''
— the fatal tendency which possesses a drowsy or a hurried
writer to mistake the ending of a verse further down for the
similar ending of the verse he copied last. The Angel of
Bethesda may have cured "the sick, the blind, the halt and
the withered,'' but modern science has no need of his services,
for it has proved, without identifying the site, that the spring
was intermittent and the water chalybeate. But our intelligent
critics forgot to get rid of the paralytic, whom the Lord cured,
and as long as he remains in the text his words will convict

The Revision of the New Testament HI

fchem of folly. To take another instance. In many places in
the Gospels there is mention of "prayer and fasting." Here
textual critics suspect that "an ascetic bias" has added the
fasting; so they expunge it, and leave in prayer only. If an "ascetic
bias" brought fasting in, it is clear that a bias the reverse of
ascetic leaves it out. St. Luke's second-first Sabbath (vi. 1)
puzzled the translators, so they reduced it to the rite of an
ordinary Sabbath by omitting the perplexing word dtvrEpoTrptortit.
Yet one of the fundamental rules of textual criticism, and they
have only two or three, says, "ardua lectio praestet proclivi."
Perhaps the reading here was too " hard " for the translators,
and so they changed the rule. We have no patience to discuss
calmly their shameful treatment of the " Three Heavenly
Witnesses.'"' The Revisers have left out the whole verse in
1 John V. 7, 8, without one word of explanation. Surely no
one but a textual critic could be capable of such a deed. Nor
would any one critic have had the hardihood to do such a thing
by himself. It required the corporate audacity of a Committee of
Critics for the commission of such a sacrilege. But textual critics
are like book-worms — devoid of light and conscience, following
the blind instincts of their nature, they will make holes in the
most sacred of books. The beauty, the harmony, and the poetry
of the two verses would have melted the heart of any man who
had a soul above parchment. Fathers have quoted them,
martyrs died for them, saints preached them. The Church of
the East made them her Profession of Faith ; the Church of the
West enshrined them in her Liturgy. What miserable excuses
can these Revisers have for such a wanton outrage on Christian
feeling? They cannot find the words in their oldest Greek
MSS.i The oldest of them is younger than the Sacred Auto-
graphs by full three hundred years, and the best of them is full
of omissions. Most of them are copies of copies ; and in families
of MSS., if the father sins by omission, all his children, whether
uncial or cursive, must bear the loss. The textual critics of the
seventeenth century left out the second half of the 23rd verse of
the 2nd chapter of this very Epistle of John, because it was not
found amongst the few MSS. which formed the slender stock-in-
trade of Incipient Textual Criticism. Since then older and
better MSS. have been added, containing the missing sentence ;
and the critics of the nineteenth century have been forced to
restore to the Sacred Text what their fathers stole. Who knows
but that another Tischendorf may arise, and find in some secluded
monastery of the Nitrian Desert a MS. older than the Sinaitic,
containing the " Heavenly Witnesses ?" But true critics, who
are not merely textual, know that there is a higher criterion of
genuineness than MS. authority. There is what Griesbach

142 The Revision of the New Testament

calls an ''interna bonitas;^^ there is what Bengel calls an
'^ adamantina cohserentia/' which he says, speaking of this very
passage, "compensate for the scarcity of MSS." But our
enlightened Revisers contend that the passage is a gloss of St.
Augustine's, which has slipped from the margin into the text,
when nobody was lookina;. How, then, did TertuUian and St.
Cyprian quote the words a century before ? How is it that the
Santa Croce " Speculum," which Cardinal Wiseman thought
to be St. Augustine's own, gives the words three separate times as
the words of Scripture? It is beyond dispute that the Old
Latin Version, made in the first half of the second century, and
revised by St. Jerome in the fourth, contained the words. Still,
they persist, the Peshito Syriac omits them. So does it omit
four entire Epistles, to say nothing of the Apocalyse. Yet
St. Ephrem, who certainly knew what was in the Syriac
Bible, quotes, or rather alludes to the words. But they say
the Fathers did not make much use of the words against
the Arians. There is many another handy verse, the genuine-
ness of which no one doubts, though the Fathers never cited it.
The Fathers were not always quoting Scripture with chapter and
verse, like modern Bible-readers and tract-distributors. But here is
a fact, worth more in point of evidence than a cart-load of
quotations. In the year 483, at the height of the great Vandal
persecutions, four hundred African bishops in synod assembled
drew up a Confe.ssion of the Catholic Faith containing the
disputed text. This Confession they presented to the Arian
Hunneric, King of the Vandals. Many of them sealed their
testimony in their blood. About fourteen hundred years later
some two dozen Anglican prelates, aided by Methodist preachers.
Baptist teachers, and one Unitarian, assembled in synod at West-
minster to revise the New Testament, and without a semblance of
persecution they yielded up to modern unbelief a verse which
Catholic bishops held to the death against Arianism. These men
are worse than the ancient Vandals, who only killed the bishops,
but did not mutilate the text of Sacred Scripture. In this
Socinian age the world could better spare a whole bench of
Anglican bishops than one single verse of Holy Writ which
bears witness to Christ's Divinity and the mystery of the Blessed
Trinity. Well might Strauss ask the question in one of our
English periodicals, ''Are we Christians ?'' Well may M. Renan
cross the water to lecture England on the origin of Christianity.
But these modern excisers have committed a blunder as well
as a crime. They stealthily cut out the verse, but they have
joined the pieces so clumsily that any one can detect the fraud.
As the passage now stands in their version is without sense,
though they foist in the word "agree'' to smooth over the

The Revision of the New Testament. 143

difficulty. *'The witness of God'^ in the following verse is
meaningless without the Heavenly witnesses. Their new-made
Greek text will make schoolboys wonder how the first Greek
scholars of the day could have so forgotten their syntax as to
try and make a masculine participle agree with three neuter
nouns. The Article too, as Bishop Middleton foretold, will
reproach them with a half measure, for they should either have
kept both verses in or cut both out. Yet strange to say these
Revisers have no shame, no remorse for what they have done.
One of them likens what they have done to getting rid of a
perjured witness ! Another talks calmly of the Revisers being in
Paradise, and this after they have dared to take away from the
words of him who prophesied that God would take away such
men's part from the tree of life and out of the Holy City.

Cardinal Franzelin concludes his masterly defence of the Three
Heavenly Witnesses with a remark as true as it is sad. Pro-
testants, he says, have given up the verse because they have first
given up the doctrine it supports. St. Jerome says that after a
certain council which left the word Homousion out of its Creed,
the world awoke and shuddered to find itself Arian. On the 17th
of May the English-speaking world awoke to find that its Revised
Bible had banished the Heavenly Witnesses and put the devil in
the Lord's Prayer. Protests loud and deep went forth against the
insertion, against the omission none. It is well, then, that the
I Heavenly Witnesses should depart whence their testimony is no
j longer received. The Jews have a legend that shortly before the
t destruction of their Temple, the Shechinah departed from the
i Holy of Holies, and the Sacred Voices were heard saying, " Let
us go hence."" So perhaps it is to be with the English Bible,
the Temple of Protestantism. The going forth of the Heavenly
Witnesses is the sign of the beginning of the end. Lord
Panmure's prediction may yet prove true — the New Version will
be the death-knell of Protestantism. But one thing is certain, that,
as in the centuries before the birth of Protestantism, so after it
is dead and gone the Catholic Church will continue to read in
her Bible and profess in her Creed that " there are Three who give
testimony in Heaven and these Three are One."

We have spoken of the admissions, the peculiarities, and the
omissions of the newly Revised Version. It only remains to express
l^^r deep anxiety as to its effect upon the religious mind of
^^Higland and Scotland. It cannot but give a severe shock to
ijWoose who have been brought up in the strictest sect of Protes-
ts tantism. Their fundamental doctrine of verbal inspiration is
undermined. The land of John Knox will mourn its dying
Calvinism. The prophets of Bible religion will find no sure word,
from the Lord in the new Gospel. But assuredly the Broad Church

144 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa,' J

will widen their tents yet more, and rejoice in the liberty where-
with Textual Criticism has made them free. Already one of their
great oracles, himself a Reviser, has declared that Inspiration " is
not in a part but in the whole, not in a particular passage but in
the general tendency and drift of the complete words.'' And he
teaches a new way to convert the working-classes from their
unbeliefl "The real way/' he says, "to reclaim them is for the
Church frankly to admit that the documents on which they base
their claims to attention are not to be accepted in blind obedience,
but are to be tested and sifted and tried by all the methods that
patience and learning can bring to bear.'' Then Heaven help
the poor working man if his sole hope of salvation lies in the new
Gospel of Textual Criticism ! But what will those think who,
outside the Catholic Church, still retain the old Catholic ideas
about Church and Scripture? How bitter to them must be the
sight of their Anglican Bishops sitting with Methodists, Bap-
tists, and Unitarians to improve the English Bible according to
modern ideas of Progressive Biblical Criticism ! Who gave these
men authority over the written Word of God? It was not
Parliament, or Privy Council, but the Church of England acting
through Convocation. To whom do they look for the necessary
sanction and approval of their work, but to public opinion ? One
thing at least is certain, the Catholic Church will gain by the
New Revision, both directly and indirectly. Directly, because
old errors are removed from the translation ; indirectly, because
the " Bible-only " principle is proved to be false. It is now at
length too evident that Scripture is powerless without the Church
as the witness to its inspiration, the safeguard of its integrity, and
the exponent of its meaning. And it will now be clear to all
men which is the true Church, the real Mother to whom the
Bible of right belongs. Nor will it need Solomon's wisdom to
see that the so-called Church which heartlessly gives up the
helpless child to be cut in pieces by textual critics cannot be the
true Mother.

>e««S4&S«««a

Art. VI.— CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN EQUATORIAL
AFRICA.

1. To the Central African Lakes and Back. By Joseph

Thomson, F.R.G.S. London. 1881.

2. Les Missions Catholiques. Lyon.

IT is now nearly twenty years since a European traveller
crossing a series of swelling heights, all tufted with sheeny
plumes of plantain and banana, saw before him a great unknown
Ireshwaier sea which no white man had ever looked upon before.

{

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 14<5

It proved to be the mi^^hty reservoir which feeds with the
gathered raini'all of a vast tropical region the mysterious current
of the White Nile, at a distance of three thousand miles from
the point where it discharges the volume of its waters into the
Mediterranean. This equatorial sea washes the shores of a strange
but powerful kingdom, Uganda, or the Land of Drums, which,
thus isolated in the remote heart of Africa, possesses nevertheless
a certain amount of relative civilization. Rejoicing in the
exuberant bounty of tropical Nature, it is rich in fat herds and
luscious fruits, and supports a numerous and thriving population
in perennial and never-failing plenty. Self-sufficing and self-
subsisting, as it has nothing to desire, it has also nothing to fear
from the world without, and is sufficiently organized to resist
internal disorder or external attack under a form of government
bearing a shadowy resemblance to the feudal despotisms of
mediaeval Europe. Its ruler, the Kabaka, or Emperor, Mtesa,
holds barbarous State in his palisaded capital, attended by files
of guards, by obsequious courtiers, by pages swift as winged
Mercuries to convey his orders, and by the terrible " Lords of
the Cord,'^ or State executioners, ready on the merest movement of
his eyelids to draw sword on the designated victim and send his
severed head rolling to the tyrant^s feet. This redoubtable
potentate, who at the time when the first English traveller.
Captain Speke, visited his Court, was scarcely more than a boy
in years, combines all the furious passions of the African race
with a high degree of nervous excitability. The result is an
electric temperament, in which outbursts of sunny geniality are
liable to be interrupted, like those of the tropical sky, by sinister
caprices equally swift and sudden. On an excursion to an
island in the lake on which the above-mentioned explorer
accompanied him, one of the women of his train offered the
youthful despot a tempting fruit she had plucked in the woods.
Instead of accepting it, he turned on her in a paroxysm of
bestial rage and ordered her for immediate execution, nor did the
terrible incident appear to mar for a moment his enjoyment of
the day's pleasure.
^H When Mtesa declares war against an enemy, 150,000 warriors
^Hn their savage bravery of paint and feathers muster under their
^Hespective chiefs, and defile past the royal standard in the
^^•anther-like trot which is their marching style ; while a canoe
^^Keet 230 strong, manned by from 16,000 to 20,000 rowers and
pWlpearmen, appears to join the naval rendezvous upon the lake.
Tributary monarchs do homage to the powerful sovereign of

ijganda as their liege lord ; neighbouring states send embassies
a invoke his alliance ; and his great vassals, each in his own
rovince ruling with delegated authority equal to his own,
,„„., .

146 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa,

cower and tremble in his presence like the most abject of
slaves.

Seated in his chair of State, his feet resting on a leopard skin,
and clad in no unkingly fashion in a gold embroidered coat over
an ample snowy robe, a Zanzibar sword by his side, a tarbouche
or crimson fez upon his closely shaven head, his aspect is not
without a certain impressiveness conferred by the sense of
conscious power. His mobile bronze features have something of
the terrible fascination with which the association of slumbering
ferocity invests the repose of a wild beast, and few even of white
men conscious of all the prestige of civilization to sustain them,
have met without a feeling of involuntary awe the glance of the
large vivid eyes, in whose glooming shadows lurk such suggestions
of latent fury. The whole scene of his Court, with the discordant
clangour of wild music, the braying of ivory horns, roll of drums,
and shrill dissonance of fifes, the prostrate forms within, the
acclaiming thousands outside, the guards motionless as monu-
mentnl bronzes, presents a combination of outlandish strangeness
bewildering to the European visitor; while the picturesque
costumes, white mantles of silky-haired goatskin, clay-coloured
robes of bark-cloth draping dark athletic forms — for all are
decently clad, and the law prescribes a minimum of covering
without which the poorest may not stir abroad* — furnish elements
of pictorial effect not often found in African life. A rude but
powerful society is here made manifest, and something like the
raw material of civilization may be found in this land of primitive
plenty and comfort beneath the equator.

Nor is the king a mere untutored savage ; his demeanour is
not wanting in dignity, and both he and his principal courtiers
have acquired a foreign language, in addition to their native
tongue, both speaking and writing the Kiswaheli,t or Arab
dialect of the Eastern coast. Mtesa has even some claim to
rank among royal authors, for he has certain tablets, made of thin
slabs of Cottonwood, which he calls his '' books of wisdom," on
which he has noted down the results of his conversations with
the European travellers who have visited his Court. A strange
volume would these reminiscences of the African monarch prove,
should they, in these days of universal publication, find their way
to the printing press !

The ruler of Uganda has always shown a marked preference

* Even Captain Grant's knickerbockers were not considered sufficiently
decorous for an appearance at Court in Uganda.

t The African languages are largely inflected by the use of prefixes
altering the sense of the words, thus : — IT means country, as U-B,undi;
M, a single native, as M-Rundi ; Wa, people; Ki, language, as Wa-
Ganda, Ki-Ganda, the people and language of Uganda.

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 147

for the society of white men, whose visits supply his only form
of intellectual excitement. Astute and imaginative, he has
•Ireams of material advantages from their friendship, and is
anxious for European alliances against Egypt, whose advances
towards his northern frontier have made him uneasy as to the
chance of an attack. Thus policy and inclination combine to
make him desirous of attracting foreigners to his dominions.
He either feigns or feels a deep interest in theological discus-
sions, and has coquetted with more than one alien creed. A
Mussulman teacher, Muley-bin-Salim, previous to Stanley's visit
in 1875, had acquired a certain influence over his mind, and
effected a considerable improvement in his morals. Since then,
he has abandoned the use of the strong native beer which fired
his blood to madness, and has consequently been somewhat more
humane in his conduct. His subsequent apparent leaning to
Christianity roused Mr. Stanley's zeal with the desire to secure
so valuable a convert : the translation of a portion of the Bible
prepared for his benefit by the enterprising American traveller,
seemed to make some impression on him, and his request for
missionaries excited the emulation of Christendom in his behalf.
The missionaries have gone ; Catholic and Protestant divines have
expounded their doctrines in his presence, but Mtesa is still a
pagan, and by the last accounts more indomitably fixed in his
old beliefs than ever. Fitful as a child, though now in mature
manhood, he catches at each new form of excitement to satisfy
the cravings of his quick and eager intelligence ; then comes a
change of mood, and the restless, undisciplined nature turns in
another direction. Such is the man on whose caprices depend
the spiritual destinies of Equatorial Africa.

We must now transport the reader from Uganda and its Court
to a different scene, whose connection with it, not at first very
obvious, will develop later on. On the heights of El-Biar stood,
in the year 1868, an unpretending dwelling, overlooking
the blue bay of Algiers, and the town solidly white in the
sunshine, as though sculptured from a marble quarry on the
hillside. There, three lads, just issuing from childhood, were
undergoing a course of preparation for the arduous task to which
they had spontaneously consecrated themselves, and which was„
indeed, nothing less than the apostolate of Africa. From such
a small beginning has grown in the thirteen years since past, a
numerous and active religious body, now taking a leading part
in the regeneration of the continent which gave it birth.

The story of the Algerian Missions belongs to what may be
called the romance of religion. It is told by Mgr. Lavigerie^
Archbishop of Algiers, in a letter published serially in numbers
ofLes Missions GatholiqueSj extending from the 4th of March to

L 2

148 Catholic Missions in Eqvxitorial Africa,

the 6th of May, 1 881, in which he reviews the question of the
evangelization of Africa.

The French conquest of Algeria in 1830 restored to Christianity
that portion of the soil of Africa/but the authorities, fearing to excite
against them the spirit of Mussulman fanaticism by any appearance
of proselytism, strictly limited the ministrations of the clergy to
their own fellow-countrymen, the European settlers, and forbade
all interference with the religion of the natives. Thus, though
the Trap pists"^ established themselves, in 1843, at Staoueli, tlie
scene of the first French victory, and showed the Arabs by their
example what wealth of produce might be extracted from their
soil under careful cultivation, though the Jesuits were allowed to
open schools for the native children in Kabylia, no preaching of
Christian doctrine was admitted in combination with the secular
and practical lessons taught by these Orders. Many of the
Algerian clergy, nevertheless, entertained the hope that the
French occupation was destined to lead to the introduction of
Christianity into Africa; and posted thus at the gate of the great
heathen continent, they held themselves in readiness until a way
should be opened for them to enter it. Mgr. Lavigerie tells us
that this expectation alone induced him to give up an episcopal
see in France for the missionary diocese of Algiers. It was
the misfortunes of the natives during a dreadful famine, which
in 1868 devastated the country, that first brought them into
somewhat closer relations with the French clergy, and led to the
need being felt for a body of men fitted by special training
to deal with them. The terrible character of this catastrophe
may be inferred from the fact, that within a few months a fifth
of the population perished in the districts where it prevailed. The
Arab met his fate with his usual apathetic resignation to the
inevitable, covered his head with the folds of his white bernouse,
muttered, "Kismet" and died. But the dearth of material
sustenance was the harvest-home of charity. All through the
country thousands' of native children were left a prey to star-
vation, bereft of parents and kinsfolk, orphans of the famine.
The Archbishop sent out his priests and nuns into the streets
and highways, organized relief expeditions to remote places,
despatched his emissaries far and wide to collect all these
helpless derelicts of sufiering humanity, and bring them into the
archiepiscopal palace in Algiers. The quest was a productive one.
Soon the streets of the city witnessed a sad spectacle, as mules,
ambulances, and waggons began to arrive with their piteous
freight— children of all ages, in every stage of emaciation and

* One of their principal crops is the geranium, indigenous to the soil,
and cultivated over large tracts to be manufactured into perfumes in the
south of France. They have also introduced the culture of the vine.

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 149

inanition, many already beyond the reach of human aid. There
ensued a curious scene, for the little creatures, even in the last
extremity of suffering, manifested the liveliest terror at finding
themselves in the hands of the Ronmis — Christians, or Roman
Catholics — vvho, they had been taught to believe, lived by sucking
the blood of children. These fears were however quickly dis-
sipated by the tender solicitude of their kind captors, and they
soon reconciled themselves to their new home.

When results could be ascertained, the Archbishop found
himself at the head of a family of two thousand orphans,
with the whole charge of their education and maintenance
thrown upon him. He joyfully accepted the responsibility, for
the rescued little ones were objects of special interest to him, not
only as so many young lives preserved by his instrumentality, but
also as the possible seed of Arab Christianity in the future. But
in the care of his orphanages and other institutions originating
like them in the famine, he much required the help of an eccle-
siastical body specially trained for intercourse with the natives, as
the French clergy, rigorously excluded from all ministrations among
them, were unacquainted even with their language. We shall
let him tell in his own words how this need was supplied, as if in
miraculous answer to his wishes, by a totally unexpected offer
from M. Girard, Superior of the Ecclesiastical Seminary of Kouba,
who had long shared his desires for the evangelization of the
natives.

On that day then (writes Mgr. Lavigerie), this venerable son of
St. Vincent de Paul, in every way worthy of such a spiritual father,
appearing before me with three pupils of his seminary, said: ^' These
young men are come to offer themselves to you for the African
apostolate — with God's grace, this will be the beginning of the work
we have so much desired." I seem to see him, as with his white
head bowed he knelt before me, with his three seminarists, and begged
me to bless and accept their devotion. I did indeed bless them,
filled at once with astonishment and emotion, for I had received no
previous intimation of this offer ; and coinciding exactly with the
anxieties occupying my mind at the moment, it seemed to me almost
like the result of supernatural interposition. I bade them rise and be
seated ; I interrogated them at length ; I brought forward, as was my
duty, all possible objections. They answered them, and my consent
was at last given to a trial by way of experiment.

Thus it was that the work began in humble fashion, from elements
to all appearance the most feeble ; an aged man already on the verge of
the grave, three young men, or, more properly speaking, three children
scarcely entered upon life.

I was incapable, as I have already said, of devoting myself to the
task of their training, and yet it was indispensable, for a special
vocation, to separate them from the great seminary. Providence itself

150 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa,

provided me with the means of doing this, by sending to Algiers, in
search of a mild climate, two saintly religious, both since dead. One
belonged to the Jesuit Society, the other to that of the Priests of Saint
Sulpice. At that very time they had been asking me for some duty
compatible with their declining strength. I established them with our
three seminarists in a humble house which was to be let on the
heights of El-Biar overlooking Algiers from the south. There, in
former days, the French army coming from Staoueli compelled this
ancient nest of Mussulman pirates to conclude the struggle, and throw
open to the civilized world the gates of barbarism. Such was the
first noviciate.

From this insignificant beginning the institution of Algerian
missionaries grew and extended so rapidly as to number at the
present time a hundred priests, in addition to lay-brothers and
a hundred and thirty postulants and novices. Their mother-
house is the Maison-Carree near Algiers, memorable as the
scene of the heroic end of forty French soldiers, who, at the
time of the invasion, surrounded and overpowered by a Mussul-
man force, were offered life and protection if they would em-
brace Islamism, and refusing to abjure their religion, were shot
down to a man. Here the missionaries have now quite a little
colony, as dependencies of various kinds are grouped round the
central building.

Among the first charges confided to them were naturally the
orphanages, the objects of Mgr. Lavigerie^s special solicitude.
He had long had a plan in connection with them, which many
at first deemed chimerical, but which has been so successfully
carried out, as not only to fulfil the end immediately in view, but
to furnish the model of a system imitated wherever practicably
in all subsequent missionary enterprise in Africa. This was to
provide for the future of his orphan proteges, by forming them
into independent communities, encouraging marriages between
the girls and young men he had reared, and establishing the
youthful couples as they thus paired ofi", in dwellings prepared
for them on a tract of land purchased expressly, and divided into
allotments sufficient each for the support of a family.

Thus have been called into existence the Christian villages of
St. Cyprien and Ste. Monique, situated at a distance of 180
kilometres from Algiers on the railway which runs from that
city to Oran, along what was in former times the line of the
great highway of an older civilization, leading from Carthage to
the Pillars of Hercules. The passing traveller sees groups of
white dwellings embowered in carob trees and eucalyptus, clus-
tered round a little church on the brown hillside; below the
Chelif winds like a silver ribbon through the plain, into which
jut the lower spurs of the mountains of Kabylia. If he ask a'

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 151

European travelling companion the name of one of these little
Christian colonies in the wilderness, he will be told it is St.
Cyprien du Tighsel, so called from a rivulet running close by.
But should he, in straying through the wild mountains to the
south, put the same question to a wandering Arab, he will
receive a different answer, and will hear it described in more
poetic language, as the " village of the children of the marabout,'*
for so is Mgr. Lavigerie styled among the natives.

The interior arrangements of these little hamlets are charac-
terized by an air of neatness and comfort, contrasting favourably
with the squalor of the ordinary Kabyle village. Next to this
peculiarity, what will most strike a stranger will probably be
the extreme youth of all the inhabitants. No withered crone is
to be seen guiding the movements of the children playing at the
house-doors; no grey-haired elders are there to counsel the
younger men at their avocations. To their spiritual fathers
alone can they look for guidance and direction, for the Algerian
missionaries are here in their field of activity among the natives.

But the great gala of the inhabitants is when the Arch-
bishop comes in person to visit the colonies he has planted. The
little ones, who already begin to abound in every youthful house-
hold, stand in no awe of the ecclesiastical dignity of '^ Grand-
papa Monseigneur,'' as the good prelate loves to hear them
call him, for these children of his charity in the second gene-
ration are the spoiled pets of his paternal affection. He cannot
even bear to have them excluded from the little church when he
goes there to hold solemn service, though the addition of such
very juvenile members to the congregation introduces an un-
mistakable element of distraction into its devotions. The Arabs
and Kabyles from the mountains in the neighbourhood, when
they come to make acquaintance with their Christian fellow-
countrymen, are struck with admiration and wonder at what
they see. "Never," they exclaim, holding up their hands in
astonishment, " would your own fathers, if they had been alive,
have done so much for you as the great marabout of the
Christians 1"

The visits of these natives have given rise to a further exten-
sion of the work of beneficence. It is an invariable rule of the
Order of the Algerian Missionaries to tend with their own hands
all the sick who come before them; and as the fame of their
medical skill extended through the mountains, patients began to
flock into them from far and wide. Those who were present
when these poor infirm creatures collected, with imploring
gestures, round the Fathers, dressed too in the native costume,
seemed to see one of the scenes of the New Testament re-enacted
before their eyes.

152 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa,

But many of these sufferers required prolonged care, which
the missionaries, living at great distances from their homes,
were unable to bestow on them. Then Mgr. Lavigerie, ever
inventive in good works, began to revolve a new idea, that of
erecting, in the village of St. Cyprien, a hospital for natives,
where they should be received and tended gratuitously. There
were of course great difficulties in the way of such an under-
taking, primarily and principally the necessity of raising a very
large sum of money before it could, in common prudence, be
even set on foot. But this difficulty was unexpectedly over-
come by the munificent help of General Wolff, commandant of
the division of Algiers, who, having at his disposal a considerable
military fund destined for charities among the natives, made it
over to the Archbishop to be used in carrying out his project.
The remainder of the sum required was raised by public sub-
scription ; and the hospital, dedicated to St. Elizabeth, the patron
saint of Madame Wolff, became an accomplished fact.

It was inaugurated on the 5th of February, 1876, with a scene
of picturesque festivity, when Mgr. Lavigerie dispensed hospitality
on a Homeric scale of liberality, not only to a large number of
visitors brought by special train from Algiers and entertained
within doors in European fashion, but also to the Arabs of the
neighbouring tribes. These wild guests assembled in thousands,
and picnicked in the open air, feasting in primitive style on sheep
and oxen roasted whole, suspended above great fires on wooden
poles run through their headless carcases. A thousand Arab
cavaliers executed the " fantasia,'^ their national tournament,
seeming like so many demon horsemen as they wheeled to and
fro in mad career, uttering savage war-cries, flinging spears and
rifles into the air, and catching them as they fell, breaking into
squadrons, re-uniting, chasing, and flying, like clouds of sand
swept along by the whirlwind of the desert. The Frankish
visitors enjoyed this performance, viewed from a safe distance,
more than they did the simulated attack on the train, with which
the same wild horsemen had saluted their arrival in the morning,
and which was represented with a realistic force somewhat trying
to feminine nerves.

It was but a few weeks previous to this joyous celebration
that the Algerian missionaries, hitherto occupied only with these
works among the natives under French rule, had undertaken the
first of the more distant enterprises with which their Order was
destined to be widely associated. Three of their number started
for Timbuctoo, with orders to found there a Christian colony, or
die in the attempt. Pere Duguerry, their Superior, accompanied
them to the confines of Algeria, and last saw them as they rode
off on camel-back into the desert, intoning the Te Deum in

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 153

chorus. Weeks passed without any news of them, and then
vague rumours of their death began to circulate among the
nomad population of the Northern Sahara. Time confirmed
these sinister reports, and their bodies were finally discovered by;
some ostrich hunters, more than thirty days' march from the
coast, on the southern edge of the Sahara, some distance from
the caravan route. They are believed to have been massacred by
the savage Touaregs, or Isghers, who recently annihilated the
French exploring expedition under Colonel Flatters. Yet the
Algerian missionaries at present wandering among these same, or
kindred tribes, in search of a favourable locality in which to
establish themselves, have met with a pacific and even cordial
reception. The attempt to advance in the direction of Timbuctoo,
has, however, for the present been abandoned.

A new field of enterprise has been opened to the Algerian Mis-
sions by an agency unconnected in itself with any religious
objects. In 1877 was founded, under the stimulus supplied by
the narratives of a series of travellers, the International African
Association, consisting of ten States, under the presidency of the
King of the Belgians, for the systematic and combined explora-
tion of the continent. According to the programme of this new
crusade against barbarism, as its founders termed it, its destined
field of operations is bounded on the east and west by the two
seas, on the south by the basin of the Zambesi, and on the north
by the recently conquered Egyptian territory, and the indepen-
dent Soudan. Through this vast and imperfectly explored
region, the Association designs to establish permanent stations of
supply, where travellers can be sheltered, and caravans refitted,
and Ujiji, Nyangwe, and Kabebe, or some other point in the
dominions of the Muata Yanvo, have been designated as among
the points most suitable for the purpose.

It is no longer (writes Mgr. Lavigerie) a matter of isolated explorers,
but of regular expeditions, in which money is not spared any more
than men. Thus, under a vigorous impetus, an uninterrupted chain
of stations is being established from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika,
where the Belgian explorers have founded their central establishment
of Karema ; while on the west Stanley is ascending the course of the
Congo, and forming depots along its shores. The day is then not far
distant when the representatives of the International African Associa-
tion, coming from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, will meet on the
lofty plateaux where the two great rivers of Africa, the Nile and the
Congo, take their rise.

But (as he goes on to say) the Church must have her part in
this work of civilization, and must not let herself be anticipated
ill these new countries by all the other European influences to
which they will soon be thrown open. It was not long before the

154 Catholic Missions in EquaioHal Africa.

death of Pius IX. that Cardinal Franchi, Prefect of the Propaganda,
directed his attention to the labours of the Brussels Conference,
and their probable effect on the future of a country nearly as large
as Europe, and containing a population estimated by some at a
hundred million souls. The heads of all the principal Missions
in Africa were consulted, and were unanimous in recognizing the
greatness of the religious interests at stake, but the difficulty
was to find a body of men sufficiently zealous and trained lor
labour in this new field, who had not already undertaken other
engagements requiring all their energies and resources. This
was the case with all the old-established religious congregations
in Africa, which had each its own sphere of operations and could
not abandon it for a fresh experiment, and the Algerian Missions,
newly-organized, full of fervour, and comparatively free from the
claims of other duties, were the only ones available for the new
undertaking. For, while their numbers had continued steadily
to increase, many of the charges which had been their first care,
had now ceased to provide them with full occupation ; and the
orphanages, in particular, at the lapse of nine or ten years from
their foundation, had nearly fulfilled their function, as the
children of the famine were, as we have seen, being otherwise
provided for.

Thus the priests of the Society were able to accept unhesitat-
ingly the charge of the Missions to Equatorial Africa, as soon as
it was proposed to them ; and in an address to the Holy See
declared their joyful readiness to devote themselves to the cause.
But the Pontiff who had called them to their arduous task was
not destined to speed them on their way. Two of the Algerian
missionaries arrived in Rome in January, 1878, as a deputation
from the Order, to lay their declaration of acceptance at the feet
of Pius IX., and receive his final benediction and instructions ;
but his death intervened before he had signed the decree autho-
rizing the commencement of their task. The fulfilment of the
intentions of his predecessor in this respect was one of the first
acts of the Pontificate of Leo XIII., and the rescript giving effect
to them is dated the 24th of February, four days only after his
accession. The territory confided to the Missions thus created
is identical with that selected as its scene of operations by the
International Association, and extends across the entire width
of the continent of Africa, from ten degrees north to fifteen south
of the line. Four missionary centres, intended later to become
Vicariates Apostolic, have been created ; two on Lakes Nyanza
and Tanganyika ; one at Kabebe, in the territory of the Muata
Yanvo, and one at the northern extremity of the course of the
Congo. Most of the?e stations will occupy the same points as
those selected by the European explorers, whose track across

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Ajrica. 155

Africa the Algerian missionaries will thus precede or follow. In
order that they might be first in the field and anticipate tlie
teachers of any other form of Christianity, it was the special
desire of the Pope that they should start without delay, and
accordingly, on the 25th of March, a month after the signature of
the decree, the little band were on their way to Zanzibar.

They numbered ten, of whom five, P^res Pascal, Deniaud,
Dromaux, Delaunay, and Frere Auger, were destined for the
Mission of Lake Tanganyika ; and an equal number, Peres
Livinhac, Girault, Lourdel, Barbot, and Fr^re Amance, for that
of the Victoria Nyanza. Our readers are doubtless aware that a
special ceremony of adieu is prescribed by the liturgy to celebrate
the departure of missionaries for a distant station. At the close
of the service all present, beginning with the ecclesiastic of highest
dignity, advance to kiss the feet of the new apostles, messengers of
that Gospel of Peace, surely nowhere more needed than in the
torn and bleeding heart of Africa.

The Algerian Missionaries who sailed from Marseilles at the
end of March, landed at Zanzibar on the 29th of April. Then
began those scenes of feverish bustle and anxiety attending the
process of organizing a caravan for the interior, in which the tra-
vellers were aided by the energetic co-operation of Pere
Charmetant, Procureur-General of their Society, come to speed
them with his help and advice on the first stages of their journey.
The whole success of an African expedition depends on the
character of the men chosen to compose it, and especially on the
efficiency of the head-men, whose influence over their subordi-
nates is analogous to that of the officers of a regiment over the
rank and file. The caravan, whether for trade, exploration, or
rehgious colonization, is always constituted in the same way,
and generally comprises two distinct categories of men. The
first are the Wangwana, negroes of Zanzibar, of whom we read
80 much in all narratives of African travel, engaged to form the
armed escort of the party, and termed askaris, from the Arabic
word, aschkar, a soldier. They are a jovial, pleasure-loving
crew, vain and light-hearted, averse to discipline, and liable to
sudden panics and fitful changes of mood. They have, however,
their counterbalancing virtues, and, when headed by a leader who
inspires them with confidence, are capable of prolonged endurance
of toil and suff'ering, and of courageous fidelity to their employer.

The second class are the porters, or pagazis, of the expedition,
generally consisting of Wanyamwezi, natives of the province of
Unyamwezi, lying to the east of the great Lake district. Being
in a lower stage of civilization than the Wangwana, they have
the greater measure of both good and bad qualities implied by
that difference, are wilder and more unmanageable, but, on the

156 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. -

other hand, less enervated by vices and excesses than the more
self-indulged natives of the coast. For this reason they are
superior as porters, as their greater hardihood and exemption
from disease enables them better to bear the continuous strain of
carrying a heavy load through a long march.

In addition to these two classes of men, there are in every
expedition a certain number of kirangozis, or guides, whose
duty it is to head the different sections of the column on the
march, keep order in the ranks, and select the route, and who
may be compared to the non-commissioned officers in a regiment.
They carry lighter loads than the rank and file, and are dis-
tinguished by the fantastic brilliancy of their apparel, by plumed
head-dresses, flowing scarlet robes, and the skins or tails of
animals worn as decorations. Preceded by a noisy drummer-boy,
and led by these barbaric figures, the long serpentine file of an
African caravan forms a sufficiently picturesque spectacle, as
emerging from the reeds or jungle, it winds over open ground to
some village on its road.

But the hiring and selection of his native followers is not
the only care that engages the traveller preparing for an African
expedition. As no form of coin is current in the interior, he
has to take a bulky equivalent in the shape of goods, for the
expenses of his entire force along the way ; and the purchase,
assortment, and classification of his varied stock-in-trade is a task
of some difficulty. Chaos seems come again ; while in a room
strewn with all the litter of a packing-house, with shreds of
matting, fragments of paper, and the wreck of tin boxes and
wooden cases, black figures keep coming and going depositing
the most miscellaneous loads, of which bales of unbleached cotton,
striped and coloured cloths, glass beads of every size and
hue, and coils of brass wire, are the most conspicuous. In the
midst of this scene of confusion, with a Babel of tongues and
clatter of hammers going on all round, and at a temperature of
80° Fahr., each load has to be arranged and numbered, its con-
tents enumerated, and its place in the catalogue carefully
assigned. Such is the task that awaits the traveller at Zanzibar.

The goods most in use are merikani, a strong white cotton,
of American manufacture, as its name implies ; kaniki, a blue
cloth ; and satini, a lighter and more flimsy fabric. These are
reckoned by the doti, a measure of about four yards, and are
used by the natives in such elementary forms of clothing as they
affect.

Beads, manufactured in Venice for the African market, must
be chosen with special reference to the prevailing fashion among
the tribes they are intended for, as each has its own special pre-
dilection. Diff'erent varieties are exported to the opposite coasts

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 157

of Africa, so that finding some of the natives of the interior in
the possession of a particular sort was a suflBcient proof to
Livingstone that he had crossed, so to speak, the watershed
between the two great streams of traffic, and arrived from the
east, at the region whose products are borne to the Atlantic.
The caprices of savage taste are sometimes as fleeting as those of
European fashion, and the lust and youngest African explorer,
Mr. Thomson, tells us in his narrative, how he transported to
the shores of Lake Tanganyika a cargo of a special form of these
glass wares, which his head man Chumah had on his last visit
seen in great request there, but the fancy for which had in the
interval so completely passed away, that the traveller found them
utterly useless.

Brass wire, a somewhat ponderous form of metallic currency,
is also in great vogue among the African fashionables as an
ornament for their persons ; so much so, that in the spirit of the
French proverb, II faut souffrir pour etre belle, they are content
to carry immense loads of it round their necks, arms, or ankles,
with a view to increasing their attractions.

In addition to these ordinary wares, the Fathers had provided
themselves with various ornamental cloths to propitiate the
chiefs ; and Mgr. Lavigerie, with a special view to the taste of
the great potentates Mirambo and Mtesa, had commissioned a
friend in Paris to ransack the bazaars of the Temple for the cast-
off finery of the Second Empire, and lay in a stock of the State
robes of ex-senators and ministers. This was done, and a result
was hoped for as satisfactory as that which had once ensued from
presenting an American Indian Chief with the second-hand
uniform of the beadle of St. Sulpice, which he wore, as his sole
garment, on the occasion of the next solemn festival, and thus
attired took part in the procession, to the great edification of all
beholders.

The organization of the missionary caravan was much more
rapidly accomplished than that of most similar expeditions ; and
the preparations in which months are usually spent were com-
pleted in a few weeks. Three hundred pagazis were engaged at
a hundred francs a head to act as carriers to Unyamwezi, whence
the two Missions were to take separate roads, the one to Lake
Tanganyika, and the other to the Victoria Nyanza. The entire
baggage of the party weighed a hundred quintals, and the
separate loads about 35 kilos, each. When the askaris, or guards,
and all supernumeraries were reckoned, the force numbered five
hundred men.

The Algerian Fathers were much assisted by the co-operation
of the Missionaries of the Holy Ghost at Zanzibar and Baga-
moyo, where their admirable establishments, founded by Pere

158 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

Horner, since dead, form the admiration of all travellers. They
have proceeded on the plan of ransoming children from the slave
dealers, training them to some trade or industry, and establishing
them in rural colonies under their own immediate care. One
of the lay- brothers is an experienced mechanical engineer,
having studied in the most celebrated workshops in Europe, that
of Krupp among others, and the Mission is consequently able to
execute orders for the construction or repairs of machinery in the
best way. In 1873, Sir Bartle Frere, in his official report, spoke
of these establishments in the following terms : — " I should find
it impossible to suggest the slightest improvement in this
Mission in any direction. I shall cite it as a model to be
followed by those who at any time desire to civilize and Chris-
tianize Africa." The Fathers have recently established an inland
station at Mhonda, among the mountains, eleven days' march
from the coast, at a height of a thousand metres above the sea,
where they have been well received by the natives.

It was on the 16th of June, 1878, that the Algerian Mission-
aries took leave of these kind friends and fellow-labourers, and
set out on their long road from Bagamoyo to the Great Lakes. In
addition to their human carriers, they took with them twenty
asses, the only beasts of burden which withstand the fatal efiects
of the tsetse bite. The path taken was the ordinary caravan
route followed by Arab trade with the interior, and by constant
traffic rendered safe for a well -equipped party, unless it should
become entangled in the hostilities frequently going on between
the natives. The greatest annoyance to which travellers through
this part of the country are liable is the constant exaction of
hongo, or tribute, on the part of every petty chief through whose
territory they pass, and their diaries are little else than a
narration of the delays and vexations caused by incessant
negotiations with these grasping savages. On the latter part
of the route a fresh centre of disturbance has of late years been
created in the country by the growing power of Mirambo, 'Hhat
terrible phantom,^' as Stanley calls him, whose name is a bugbear
to travellers and traders. Originally a petty chief of Unyamwezi,
he has rendered himself formidable by gathering around him all
the elements of disorder and violence so prevalent in African
society ; and his predatory bands, known as Ruga-Rugas, are
dreaded alike by foreigners and natives. Their raids keep the
country in a ferment, and some of their light skirmishers are
constantly lying in wait in the jungles to pick up stragglers from
the caravans. The Arabs are, however, the objects of his special
enmity, and he is in general more favourably disposed to
Europeans.

The first marches of the missionary caravan lay through the

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 159

rlcli but unwholesome lowlands that line the coast, where the
damp soil, soaked with moisture after the masika, or rainy
season, is a hot-bed of fever, exhaling poisonous miasma. All
the travellers suffered more or less from the effects of the
climate, which they tried to counteract by powerful doses of
quinine and other remedies. The landscape displayed the glories
of African vegetation, and the dense foliage of the forests sheltered
tropical birds, and was the home of black and white monkeys,
which bounded chattering from tree to tree. The road the
travellers followed is but a narrow track along which the column
wound in single file, sometimes plunging through matted under-
wood and dense cane-brakes, sometimes with the loads carried by
the men just showing above a sea of rank tall grass, waving as
high as their heads on either side. Wherever this path forked,
the leaders of the party broke off a branch and laid it across
the opening of the false turn as a signal to those who came
after to avoid it. Rivers and streams had to be crossed either on
the slippery trunk of a tree felled so as rudely to bridge them
over, or by wading through the current where a practicable ford
occurred. The first trifling misadventure in the camp occurred
on June 18, and is narrated in the diary of the missionaries,
published serially in Les Missions Catholiques.

Just as we were sitting down to dinner under a tree, a few steps
away from the camp, all the men of our caravan, askaris and pagazis,
rushed to arms, uttering furious cries. We ran to the scene of tumult
and found that the camp had caught fire, and that the conflagration
was rapidly approaching our baggage. Our first care was to extinguish
it, which we did, with the aid of the soldiers, but the shouts and
tumult continued. The pagazis cocked their guns, uttering wild
shrieks and threatening to fire on the soldiers. The fight was then
between the Wangwana askaris and the Wanyamwezi pagazis. At
last, by dint of preaching peace, and desiring weapons to be laid aside,
we succeeded in restoring order. We -then learned the cause of all
this disturbance. An askari had lost the stopper of his powder flask,
a pagazi had picked it up and kept it. The theft discovered, the two
men had come to blows, and the contagion of their wrath and fury
had soon spread to the entire caravan. Happily the incident had no
serious consequences.

The ordinary day^s march of ah African expedition is neces-
sarily short, as it represents only a portion of the day's work per-
formed by the men. It is generally got over very early in the
morning, beginning at five o'clock, so that the halting place is
reached by ten or eleven, before the sun has attained its full
power. The preparations for encamping then commence, fire-
wood and water have to be procured, and the men proceed to con-
struct huts for themselves of an umbrella-shaped frame-work of

160 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

boughs, thatched with bundles of lon^ grass fastened together
at the top. Others meantime are busied in lighting the fires, in
cooking, or in setting up the tents of the travellers, and other-
wise attending to their comfort. It is an extraordinary instance
of the physical endurance of the men, that frequently on arriving
at an encampment, apparently completely exhausted by a long
march, they will, after a short rest, spring up, and begin one
of their wild and furious dances, spending the night in a perfect
frenzy of movement instead of sleeping off the fatigues of the

Sometimes in the evening the Kirangozis (guides) address
orations to their men in the style of that quoted by Stanley, in
" How I found Livingstone/^

" Hearken, Kirangozis ! Lend ear, O Sons of the Wanyamwezi !
The journey is for to-morrow. The path is crooked, the path is bad.
There are jungles where more than one man will be concealed. The
Wagogo strike the pagazis with their lances ; they cut the throats of
those who carry stuff and beads. The Wagogo have come to our
camp ; they have seen our riches ; this evening they will go to hide
in the jungle. Be on your guard, O Wanyamwezi! Keep close
together ; do not delay ; do not linger behind. Kirangozis, march
slowly, so that the weak, the children, the sick, may be with the
strong. Rest twice on the road. These are the words of the master.
Have you heard them. Sons of the Wanyamwezi ?"

A unanimous cry replies in the affirmative.

" Do you understand them ?"

Fresh affirmative cries.

" It is well." Night falls, and the orator retires into his hut.

The missionaries had to encounter more than one threatened
mutiny in their camp, the men demanding increased pay or
other indulgences, and on one of these occasions eight of the
soldiers were dismissed and sent back to the coast. The ineffi-
ciency of their caravan leader threw the task of keeping order
among the mixed and barbarous multitude of their followers
principally on the Fathers, and the incompatibility of this office,
entailing the necessity of energetic remonstrances and threats,
with the dignity of their priestly character, suggested the idea,
since carried out, of requesting ex-Papal Zouaves to accompany
future missionary caravans, in order to enforce military discipline
in their ranks.

On Sundays the caravan was halted, and the missionaries pre-
pared to celebrate Mass, with all the pomp and solemnity possible
under the circumstances. In the principal tent an altar was
erected, decorated with ornaments bestowed by Mgr. Lavigerie
and sundry religious societies, while above it hung two banners
embroidered by the Carmelite Nuns of Cite Bugeaud, near

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 161

Algiers. In this little sanctuary in the wilderness, High Mass
was chanted by the Fathers, in sight of their dark-skinned
heathen followers, who watched through the open door of the
tent, in wonder not untinctured with superstitious awe, the cere-
mony which they had been told was the white man^s most
solemn rite of prayer.

On arrival in camp on the 5th of Jul}^, a soldier called Mabruki,
failed to answer to the roll-call, and two of his comrades were
sent back in search of him : he had carried off with him a whole
piece of merikani and some articles belonging to the other
soldiers, and was found in a village on the route, whence he was
ignominiously brought back prisoner by the search party. His
comrades tried him by a sort of drum-head court-martial, dis-
missed him from their ranks, and, after administering a flogging,
sent him on his way back to the coast.

The party were now entering a wilder and more mountainous
country, infested by wild animals, as described in the journal of
July 6.

We passed through the village of Kikoka, now completely abandoned
on account of the neighbourhood of lions. We were close to a camp
where five or six members of a caravan had been devoured by these
animals barely a month before.

Lions are one of the dangers of the journey from Zanzibar to the
Great Lakes. They sometimes join together in packs of six or eight
to hunt game. Some animals show fight against them successfully.*
Lions never venture to attack the adult elephant, and even fly before
the buffalo, unless they are more than two to one. In general they
do not attack caravans, and never in the day-time. At most, a hungry
lion may spring upon and carry off a straggler while passing through
the brakes and jungles. But it is otherwise at night. When the
lions scent the caravan from afar, particularly if it contain goats
or beasts of burden, they approach and announce their vicinity by
terrific roars. Nevertheless, in a well-enclosed camp there is no
danger ; the lions never attempt to clear the obstacles, and marskmen
from behind the palisades can pick them off with almost unfailing
aim. There is danger only when the camp is not completely enclosed,
or when those inside go out to attack them. Then, if the lions are
in force, they seldom fail to make some victims. This, no doubt, was
what had happened to the caravan that had preceded us at Kikoka.

Some considerable streams intersected this part of the route,
and as the rude tree-trunk bridges by which they were crossed
afforded no footing to the asses, the only way found practicable
for getting these animals across was to fasten a long rope round

* These details agree with those given by the German explorer, Dr.
Holub, in his recent book, " Seven Years in South Africa."
VOL. VI.— .NO. I. [Third Series.] u

162 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

their necks^ by which ten men standing on the opposite shore
hauled them by main force through the current. This process,
which lasted some hours, had to be frequently repeated during
the journey.

At intervals along the road the caravan came upon traces of
the unsuccessful attempt made by the English missionaries of
Ujiji to introduce transport by oxen into this part of Africa, in
the shape of waggons abandoned by their owners in the villages
they passed through, as the draught beasts had gradually suc-
cumbed to tsetse bite, fatigue, or the effects of feeding on unwhole-
some grasses. Approaching the village of Mpuapua on the 26th
of July, they saw the English flag flying over a building w^hich
proved to be the residence of the Protestant missionaries perma-
nently stationed there. They exchanged visits and other
courtesies with these gentlemen, who charged themselves with
the conveyance of their letters to Zanzibar.

A short time after leaving this station, the caravan had its first
painful experience of a tirikeza, or forced march, across a parched
and waterless desert, where rest can only be purchased at the
price of endurance of thirst. Starting at six in the morning,
they entered on a sandy plain, twelve leagues in breadth, which
must be crossed in eighteen hours. At mid-day a short halt was
made, after which they pressed on again till seven in the evening.
Overpowered with fatigue, all lay down to sleep in the open air,
round large fires, for neither huts nor tents were set up, and at
five in the morning they had to start again, reaching at nine the
inhabited country where they stopped for two days^ rest.

They had now crossed the frontier of Ugogo, a mountainous
plateau, forming the water-shed between the Indian Ocean and
the Great Lakes. Hitherto the missionaries had met with no
annoyance from the natives, and had not had to pay hongo, or
tribute, once since leaving the coast. They were now to have
a difierent experience, and found themselves surrounded at every
moment by swarms of filthy and unsavoury savages, whom
even the exertions of the soldiers could not succeed in banishing
from the camp. Every movement of the wasunga, or white men,
was watched with intense curiosity, but in a spirit of ridicule
instead of admiration. Reeking with rancid butter, and clad
only in a scrap of greasy cotton or sheep-skin, the Wagogo are
anything but pleasant neighbours at close quarters; and a crowd
of them in a small tent, jabbering and making fixces at every-
thing they saw, was an infliction that might gladly have been
dispensed with. They enlarge the lobes of their ears by inserting
pegs into them, to which they attach various articles of use or
ornament, and are thus provided with a substitute for a pocket, a
convenience they are precluded from the use of by the scantiness

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 163

of their apparel. In some cases this portion of the ear is so
elongated by the weights attached to it as to reach to the
shoulder. Provisions were cheap in Ugogo, ten egg^ being
given in exchange for a single pin; but, on the other hand, the
travellers had now to submit to a series of exorbitant demands
on the part of every village potentate whose territory they passed.
These extortions amounted to hundreds of yards of cotton, with
other goods in proportion, and were everywhere the subject of
"wearisome negotiations, and the cause of interminable delays.
Thus it was twenty-one days before the caravan cleared this
notorious province, lightened, in its passage, of nearly all the
goods brought from the coast.

But the Fathers had to deplore, in Ugogo, a greater loss than
that of their material resources, for it was here that the first
•serious misfortune overtook the little band, in the death of one
of its most devoted members. Pere Pascal, the destined Superior
of the Mission of Lake Tanganyika, had suffered from slight
attacks of fever, at intervals since leaving the coast, but his
-cheerful spirit and courage had sustained him in battling against
the malady. As too often happens, however, in these malarious
illnesses, the successive attacks increased instead of diminishing
in intensity, and from the 14th of August he became very ill,
jpassing restless nights with continual high fever. Nevertheless,
when the caravan was starting on the morning of the 17th,
though scarcely able to stand, and delirious at intervals, he
insisted on mounting his ass, so as to leave the litter to one of
his sick comrades. This was his last march ; he grew so rapidly
worse at the next halting-place that he could no longer be moved,
and died at three in the afternoon of the 19th, without any
appearance of suffering towards the close. His companions
consoled themselves by recalling his many virtues, particularly
the humility and charity for which he had been specially
remarkable. On one occasion, in Algeria, he picked up a little
Arab boy, abandoned by his parents to die, and covered with
sores from head to foot, carried him home, and nursed him with
the greatest tenderness. The child was beyond cure, but the
good Father's care soothed his last hours, and the example of
his charity won the heart of his charge to Christianity before he
died.

Lest a death in the camp should be made the pretext for
further exactions, the Fathers determined to transport the
remains of Pere Pascal by night, beyond the inhospitable frontier
of Ugogo, which was now close at hand. At midnight then,
ifter assembling for a last prayer of adieu, a little funeral band
Parted in the darkness to seek a suitable place of sepulture. They
found it in the great forest skirting the confines of Ugogo, and,

M 2>

1 64( Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

penetrating for about seven or eight kilometres into its depths,
buried the remains of their valued companion in that inaccessible
tropical wilderness_, marking the spot with a small wooden cross.

The travellers were now approaching the end of the first stage
of their journey, where, in IJnyanyembe, the roads to Lakes Vic-
toria and Tanganyika divide, and the Missions destined for their
respective sliores would have to part company. They entered
this province on the 12th of September, but were detained there
many months, from the necessity of waiting for fresh supplies,
those they had brought with them having been exhausted by the
exactions of Ugogo. The contract, too, with the pagazis who
had accompanied them from the coast, expired here, and these
men were now back in their native country, Unyamwezi, the
Land of the Moon, of which Unyanyembe, the Land of Hoes,
is but a province. At the meeting point of the two caravan
routes has sprung up the settlement of Tabora, which, like most
of the localities in Equatorial Africa whose names have become
familiar to the European reader, such as Ujiji and Nyangwe, are
not native towns, but Arab colonies. Traders of that nation
from the coast have gradually settled at these points in the
interior, either for increased facilities of commerce, or because
social disabilities, such as debt or crime, have rendered it desirable
for them to be out of reach of civilization. Most of these immi-
grants have prospered, and some possess hundreds of slaves, flocks,
herds, and other belongings. They have built roomy flat-roofed
houses surrounded by the huts of their dependents, the w^hole
generally enclosed by a strong stockade. Even in Stanley's time
there were sixty or seventy such stockades in Tabora, and the
number has probably increased since. Although these Arab settlers
introduced a certain type of civilization, their morality is not
calculated to raise the lowest African standard, and they are
always inimical to Christianity, as a menace to the slave trade,
one of their principal sources of profit.

Their presence at Tabora, however, was of use to the mission-
aries, as it enabled them to negotiate a loan and purchase goods
to start for their further journey. It was not till the 12th of
November that the caravan for Uganda, with Pere Livinhac at
its head, was able to set out once more, while the Tanganyika
Mission, in which Pere Deniaud had succeeded Pere Pascal as
Superior, was delayed, by the difficulty of obtaining fresh porters,
until the 3rd of December. After a march, diversified only by the
usual accidents of the way, by varieties of weather and land-
scape, by the more or less friendly dispositions of the Sultans
through whose territory they passed, and their several degrees of
rapacity in the matter of hongo, as well as by frequent alarms and
scares of raids from the followers of Mirambo, the first party on

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 165

the 30th of December arrived at last in sight of their goal, and
saw the grey Nyanza show like a film of gossamer against the
softly veiled horizon. Calm and smiling in the equatorial sun-
shine that gilded its green shores, there lay the mysterious lake
from which flows the mysterious river, the clue to so many
enigmas, the key to the speculation of ages, the unveiled secret
so long shrouded in the heart of Africa.

In three hours the missionaries were at Kaduma, a little village
of scattered huts under the shade of clusters of trees by the
shore of the lake. Some of them were accommodated in a hut,
where still lay, covered with dust, various trifles, the relics of its
last occupant, an English missionary of the name of Smith, who
had died there some time before. The other Fathers were lodged
under their tent. A fresh series of delays was in store for them
before they could reach Uganda, still separated from them by the
greatest diameter of the lake; and it was finally decided to send
Pere Lourdel, the best Arabic scholar of the party, with the lay-
brother, to Mtesa's court, to prepare the way for the
others, and beg him to send canoes to fetch them. On
the 19th of January, 1879, the two envoys accordingly
set forth in a crazy boat, which they themselves had to
patch up, ibr their long coasting voyage round the lake.
It lasted nearly a month, but was accomplished without accident,
and at last, on the 17th of February, 1879, the first of the
Algerian missionaries was face to face with the great potentate of
Equatorial Africa. Mtesa was ill at this time, and almost con-
stantly lying down, but he received the missionaries graciously, as
he does all European strangers. There were five Protestant
missionaries already at his capital, and there was at first some
difficulty in their relations with the French priests, but they
became afterwards very friendly with them. Mtesa assigned a
lodging to Pere Lourdel, sending him daily supplies of food, as is
his custom with strangers visiting his dominions, and despatched
immediately twenty canoes, under the guidance of Fr^re Amance,
to bring the rest of the party to Rubaga.

They meantime had a weary time of waiting at Kaduma, in
anxious uncertainty as to their future fate. The monotony of
their lives was broken by the arrival, on the 14th of February, of
two Englishmen on their way to join the Mission of Uganda.
They exchanged visits with the Fathers, and the negroes were
much astonished to hear the Wasunga, or white men, speaking
to each other in Kiswaheli, the universal medium of communica-
tion throughout Equatorial Africa, where it plays the same part
that French does on the continent of Europe. Mr. Maclvay, the
head of the Mission of Uganda, arrived soon after with a flotilla
of boats to convey the new recruits to their destination, but

166 Gatliolic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

there was no sign of any means of transport for the Algerian
Fathers.

They saw the people of Kaduma hold a dancing-festival in
honour of the new moon, and were present at the wedding of the
chiePs son^ in honour of which Pere Barbot manufactured him a
necklace of various coloured Leads, to his great delight.

They suffered considerable annoyance from the theft by some
of their soldiers of the gorgeous robes intended as a propitiatory
offering to the King of Uganda; but they were fortunately
recovered by the Arab Governor of Tabora, who sent them to
their rightful owners by a caravan from Unyanyembe, which
reached Kaduma on the 20th of April. A still more agreeable
surprise was in store for them, in the shape of a packet of letters
from Europe, delivered by the same agency, and containing for
the poor exiles good news from home.

At last, on Whitsun eve, the 31st of May, the long-desired
flotilla appeared on the horizon, and a few days later the welcome
event of the embarkation of the party took place. The discipline
of Mtesa's men was so excellent that nothing was stolen from
their baggage on the way ; and on the 19th of June, exactly a year
after they had left Bagamoyo, they landed in Uganda on the
north-western shore of the Victoria Nyanza. The king was
favourably disposed towards them, and the well-chosen presents of
Mgr. Lavigerie tended to confirm him in his gracious mood.
The presence of so many rival missionaries in his capital had
given him an opportunity for indulging his favourite passion for
theology, and he had already, on Monday, the 8th of June, presided
at a triple conference, in which the representatives of Protest-
antism, Catholicity, and Islamism disputed before him on the
merits of their respective creeds. A strange and interesting
scene must have been the dark interior of that grass-thatched
hall in the heart of Equatorial Africa, where the fierce-eyed
pagan monarch, master of the future of half a continent, sat as
umpire between the champions of three rival religions competing
for his acceptance and support.

The balance turned for the moment in favour of Catholicity,
for Pere Lourdel, by his cure of Mtesa from a very serious illness,
had gained some influence over his mind. The intrigues of the
Arabs contributed to the same end ; for, dreading beyond all
things the hostility of England to the slave trade, they excited
the king^s jealous susceptibility against the missionaries of that
nation by insinuating that they had in view the eventual
annexation of his dominions. Nor was the wily African
without an ulterior object in the favour he showed the new
arrivals at bis court, for he shortly began to sound them on the
possibility of a French alliance with Uganda, the powerful

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 167

protection of some European state being one of the favourite
dreams of his uninstructed but imaginative mind.

It was about six months after the arrival of the mis-
sionaries, that a sudden and inexplicable reaction in E-ubaga,
the capital of Uganda, seemed for a time to threaten a serious
persecution of the Christian teachers, but in an equally unex-
phiined fashion this momentary change of mood has again passed
away without producing any effect. Emin Bey, Governor of the
Egyptian Equatorial Provinces, communicated to Petermann's
Miitheilungcfi, of November, 1880, the contents of a letter
recently received by him from Uganda, describing a great council
held by the king on the 23rd of December previous, where it was
resolved to prohibit the teaching of the French and English
missionaries alike, and to decree the penalty of death "against
any native receiving instruction from them. Mahometanism
was also condemned, and all good subjects were recommended to
adhere to the belief of their fathers. It was unanimously
declared that no teaching was required in Uganda, the only
improvement desirable being " that guns, powder, and per-
cussion caps, should be as plentiful as grass.''"' These resolutions
were promulgated amid public rejoicings, with firing of guns
and general acclamations, yet they have ever since remained a
dead letter. The most recent letters from the Algerian mis-
sionaries in Rubaga, published in Les Missions Gatholiques, of
May 20, 1881, help perhaps to explain this inconsistency by
showing us that politics in Uganda are not quite so simple as
they at first sight appear. They tell us that Mtesa, despite his
seemingly absolute power, is really controlled and hampered by
the great chiefs who form his court and lead his armies. Among
these formidable vassals there is evidently a conservative party
opposed to innovation and vehemently inimical to European
influence, for we are told that they go so far as to threaten the
Kabaka, bidding him to go away with his white men, while they
will raise one of his children to the throne. The pressure of this
section of his chiefs was evidently sufficiently strong to force
the acceptance of the anti-Christian decree on the king, but not
as yet to compel its execution. The existence of such a party,
however, shows one of the dangers to which the missionaries
and their converts may at any moment become liable by a
sudden change in the political situation of the country.

On the other hand, the Algerian Fathers see in the feudal
organization of Uganda a prospect of facilities for their teaching.
The great nobles holding the government of their respective pro-
vinces immediately of the king, transmit again their authority to
a number of sub-chiefs or lesser vassals ruling over smaller
districts, and bound to follow their superior's standard in the

168 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa,

field, each with his contingent of armed retainers. It is con-
jectured that this aristocratic class, including of course the king
of Uganda, is descended from the Abyssinian Christians who came
as conquerors at some remote epoch to the shore of the great
Nyanza, and brought there the comparative civilization whose
tradition still remains. It is through these powerful nobles,
with their hereditary superiority to the ordinary negro, that the
missionaries hope gradually to extend their influence in the
country and reach the lowest orders, the slaves, or ivadou, grouped
in villages on the great estates.

As regards the material aspects of the Mission, the King pre-
sented the Fathers immediately with a piece of land, and sent
workmen to build a house on it, constructed, like all the native
dwellings, of reeds and grass. Strange visitors to the country,
being considered as royal guests, are supplied daily with pro-
visions. The banana furnishes almost the entire food of the
population, and is cooked in various ways ; plucked green, and
wrapped in its own leaves, it is steamed and eaten as a vegetable,
or ground after being dried, is used as flour. A sweet fermented
drink called raaramha, is made from its juice, and a similar
beverage, merissa, is extracted from the plantain. The prin-
cipal intoxicant, however, used in Uganda as in other parts of
Africa, is pomhe, a species of beer brewed from millet or other
grain.

Mtesa^s keen intelligence does not prevent him from being a
slave to superstition ; he trembles before the chief sorcerer, and
worships fetishes and other idols. On the other hand he asked
the Fathers for a catechism in Kiswaheliy and seems capable of
reasoning logically on the truths it contains. He asked Pere
Lourdel one day if it were true, as Mr. Mackay had informed
him, that in France baptism was administered to sheep and oxen,
thinking the assertion so ridiculous that he added he thought
the Protestant missionary must be mad to make it. Pere
Lourdel charitably preferred to conclude that Mtesa had mis-
understood him.

On Easter eve, the 27th of March, 1880, the Algerian Fathers
reaped the first fruits of their labours, in the baptism of four
native catechumens, and on the following Whitsun eve. May
15th, an equal number of converts was received into the
Church. The most interesting of these was a young soldier
named Foulce, eighteen years of age, son of the great chief or
tributary king of Usoga, called Kahaha ana Massanga (king of
the elephant tusks), from the quantity of ivory he furnishes to
his suzerain. His son^s conversion originated in the missionaries'
cure of a very bad injury to his hand, averting the amputation
of a finger, which, according to the code of the country, would

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa, 169

have entailed degradation from the caste of the nobility to that
of the slaves. He had been violently prejudiced against the
Christians by the Mussulmans^ whose teaching he had previously
sought, but without being satisfied by it^ and a sudden enlighten-
ment of his mind seemed to urge him to demand baptism and
instruction. The difficulties were placed before him — the possi-
bility of persecution^ the renunciation of polygamy; but he
declared he had weighed them well, and was prepared for all
sacrifices. His father, though still a Pagan, favours and pro-
tects the missionaries in every way.

Mtesa, though generally reluctant to allow strangers to settle
anywhere save in his capital, was prevailed upon by Pere
Livinhac to allow the missionaries of the second caravan, which
reached Lake Nyanza in April, 1880, to establish themselves in
a tributary province of Uganda called Uwya, recommending
them to the authorities there as his I'riends. They have thus
two stations in this region, with fair prospects of success under
the shadow of his powerful protection.

The Tanganyika branch of the expedition is differently circum-
stanced, as there is in their district no one chief with paramount
authority at all comparable to that of Mtesa on the Nyanza.
Having started from Tabora nearly a month later than their
<;ompanions (on the 3rd of December, 1878), they sighted Lake
Tanganyika on the 24th of January following, after a march
through a country where tribute was demanded in the name of
Mirambo, and where charred huts and devastated fields bore
•eloquent testimony to the destructive power of the great brigand
chief. Ujiji, a long straggling Arab settlement by the shore,
its low, fiat-roo(ed houses scattered amonfj- maize fields and
banana groves, with here and there a stately oil or cocoa-palm
tossing aloft its plumy crown, was their first abode.

Here letters from Seyd Barghash, Sultan of Zanzibar, to
Muini-Heri, the Arab governor, secured them the protection of the
authorities, and having had assigned to them as their residence the
same house occupied by Mr. Stanley during his visit, they
proceeded to instal themselves in it, to have some necessary
repairs executed, and to fit up a room as a little chapel. They
directed their attention meantime to fratherin<x information as to
the neighbouring country, and learned that while the districts
south of the lake were completely depopulated by the ravages of
Mirambo's outlaws, the Ruga-Rugas, there was a healthy and
populous region to the north, where a promising opening might
be found for a station. Kabebe, the capital of the Muata Yanvo,
one of the points already selected for missionary occupation, was
described by Hassan, secretary to Muini-Heri, who had visited
it, as distant five months^ journey from Ujiji, and inhabited by

170 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

an amiable but savage population ; the latter epithet being-
interpreted by the Fathers to mean that there were no Arabs
amongst them.

From Mr. Hore, agent for the English Church Missionary
Society at Ujiji, the Algerian Fathers received all possible
kindness and assistance ; and, with the single exception of Mr.
Mackay at Uganda, who showed a spirit of hostility towards
them, they bear testimony to the friendly dispositions manifested
by the English missionaiies wherever they came in contact with
them.

Though all real authority in Ujiji is vested in the Arab gover-
nor, there is also a titular native sultan, who lives at some dis«
tance from the shore, as his gods have forbidden him to look upon
the sea (Lake Tanganyika). This is one of many curious native
superstitions connected with the lake, several of which, collected
by Mr. Stanley, embody traditions of its origin in a sudden
catastrophe submerging an inhabited country. A stupendous
water-filled chasm in the mountain system of Equatorial Africa,
Lake Tanganyika has long offered problems to science, which the
recent explorations of Mr. Thomson seem to have at last answered
satisfactorily. The cause of the mysterious tide, under the
influence of which it was seen to wax and wane through cycles
of years, and the moot point of the escape of its waters into the
Congo, through the marshy inlet known as the Lukuga Creek,
had been, as our readers may remember, a subject of controversy
between such distinguished explorers as Commander Cameron
and Mr. Stanley. On the latter point, indeed, the careful survey
made by the American traveller, in combination with the con-
tinued rise of the waters of the lake, was, as to the actual state
of things then existing, conclusive in the negative. He, how-
ever, hazarded the bold conjecture, since proved correct, that
this was but a temporary phase of the lake, and that the current
of its out-flow, which had once run through the then stagnant
and obstructed channel of the Lukuga, would do so again, as
soon as the accumulation of water was sufiicient to clear away
the obstructions choking its mouth. This was what in point of
fact occurred in the summer of 1879, when the lake suddenly
burst through these impediments, scoured out its former channel,
and discharged through it a volume of water sufficient to cause
an inundation on the Congo, sweeping away trees and villages
below its junction with that river.

Mr. Thomson believes this out-flow, which had sensibly
diminished in the interval between his first and second visits, to
be only periodical, and dependent on the amount of rainfall
received by the lake, which is so closely hemmed in by high
mountains as to drain a very limited district in proportion to its

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 171

vast area, and in exceptionally dry seasons to give off in evapora-
tion as much as it receives. The rapid accumulation of soil and
vegetation at the mouth of the Lukuga then forces up the level
of the water, until after a series of wet years it breaks through
the barrier once more. How this natural phenomenon was used
to excite superstitious animosity to the French missionaries we
shall see a little farther on.

After a voyage of exploration undertaken by Pere Deniaud to
select a favourable site for the Mission, Ujiji being unfitted for it
both from its unhealthy situation and its subjection to Arab rule,
Ruraongue, in Urundi, some distance to the north, was finally
decided on, and thither the Fathers migrated in June, 1879.
They thus describe their situation.

Urundi presents one great advantage — it is healthier than Ujiji.
There are tolerably high hills and mountains, and we have the air of"
the lake, which is very fresh. I am now completely recovered from
the fatigues of the journey, and for more than a month have had no
fever.

It is a pity that I have not the gift of poetry to describe our station.
I write to you under the shade of a tufted tree on the slope of a hill,
fifty metres from the shore. Before us spread the peaceful waters of
Tanganyika with a crowd of fishing boats. Farther away we can
distinguish through a light haze the point of the great island of
Muzima, and even the mountains of the opposite shore. To right and
left, in every direction, extend well-cultivated fields of manioc,
interspersed with bananas and oil palms ; in the distance in our rear
are lofty mountains with dwellings at their feet, but uninhabited, and
often bare even to their lower slopes ; the heat moderate, imder 3G'
degrees within doors, and 24 to 25 without, thanks to a breeze from
the lake.

The country is described as well cultivated, producing in
abundance manioc, bananas, sweet potatoes, and beans. The
construction of the Mission House \vent on apace.

Our house, or rather cabin, is completed; but how poor is our
workmanship. It has but produced a shed, walled and thatched with
straw, with one side left open to admit air and light. This side, which
is 25 metres in length, is closed at night by means of mats, which are
lifted by day. The natives come from long distances, showing great
admiration, and remaining long in contemplation of this monument of
architecture. We have goats and sheep, and shall soon have cows. We
are turning up the ground; and I, with a daring but inexperienced hand,
am sowing large tracts with wheat and corn. Corn is only cultivated
by two Arabs at Ujiji, and sold at a price which forbids its purchase,
except for seed, and the use of the altar. The Arabs only sow their
wheat at the approach of the dry season, and are obliged to irrigate it
at great cost of labour. We have, therefore, tried another system.

172 CatJwlic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

But an object of much greater interest than our farming is the care
of our ransomed children, and we have been fortunate in beginning
our Mission with them. They are very promising, are most docile to
all our desires, and have no serious faults. One danger is their
running away, as happened in the case of a man and boy without any
reason whatever.

But trouble came upon the little colony thus cheerfully toiling
in the wilderness. In the month of December, 1879, their house
was totally destroyed by a hurricane^ and when they were about
rebuilding it, the Sultan forbade the work and desired them to
leave the country. Pere Deniaud, who was then at Ujiji,
applied to Muini Heri, the effective ruler of the whole district, and
he sent his nephew, Bana-Mkombe, with the Superior, as an envoy
to the Sultan. The latter, when asked the motive of his change
of conduct, explained that he had been told by the Wajiji that the
white men were sorcerers in possession of fatal poisons, and that
they would drain off the lake through the Lukuga, by throwing
medicines on the water, but that he had desired them to be
expelled without the smallest injury to their persons or property.

Bana-Mkombd had no difficulty in refuting these reports,
which doubtless arose from the sudden flushing of the Lukuga
channel in the manner above described, coincidently with the
arrival of the Fathers. They were finally re-established on a
more permanent footing, to the great joy of the natives, who
considered them thenceforward as their friends, and executed a
splendid war-dance in their honour.

Pere Deniaud had on his way opened negotiations for the
establishment of a second missionary station in the province of
Massanze, farther south, and promised the Sultan of that country
to send him white men without delay.

But for these new operations reinforcements for the little
missionary staff were required, and a second caravan was already
on its way to join them, having started from Algiers in June,
1879. It was accompanied by six ex-Zouaves as lay-auxiliaries,
according to the suggestion made by one of the first missionaricF.
Of the total of eighteen of which this fresh expedition consisted,
only ten survived to reach their fellow-workmen at the Great
Lakes, eight having died on the road — one, a lay-brother, mortally
wounded in a combat with the Buga-Rugas.

A third, caravan, numbering fifteen missionaries, started last
November to follow in their footsteps, and on the 8th of March,
1881, were establishing themselves at Mdaburu, about half-way
from Lake Tanganyika to the sea. The Society of Algerian
Missionaries has, in a word, in two years and a half, sent forty-
three missionaries into Equatorial Africa, a number representing
heroic efforts on the part of the little fraternity, but lamentably

Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa. 173

insufficient in comparison with the vast field to be reaped. The
districts of Lake Tanganyika, and the Victoria Nyanza have
already been created Pro-Vicariates Apostolic, and it is designed
to establish two new missionary centres, one in the territory of
the Muata Yanvo, accessible from Ujiji, and another on the
Northern Upper Congo, to be reached from the West Coast.

The reader who has followed the details of such a series of
journeyings as we have essayed to describe, will scarcely require
to be told of the immense cost involved in them, and will receive
without surprise Mgr. Lavigerie^s statistics on the subject.
Every missionary established in the centre of Africa represents,
he tells us, an outlay of thirty thousand francs, and within the
last three years, on the mere foundation and creation of these
missions, a sum of eight hundred thousand francs has been
expended. The Protestant Missions are, indeed, still more costly,
as they dispose of five millions sterling a year, and their liberal
outlay at all stages of the journey was found by the Algerian
Fathers to have largely increased the cost of travelling by the
same road. Fortunately, the charity of Christendom is never
exhausted in such a cause, but all its efforts are required to carry
out so gigantic an enterprise.

It would seem that Mgr. Lavigerie^s efforts for the evangeliza-
tion of Africa were inspired equally by zeal for the spread of
Gospel truth, and by horror at the cruelties of the slave-trade,
some of the victims of which were occasionally met with in
Algiers, and against whose iniquities he makes eloquent protest.
He dwells at length on the revolting miseries inflicted on the
slave caravans, and goes on to say : —

Amongst the young negroes torn by our efforts from these infernal
tortures, there are some who for long periods afterwards awake every
night uttering the most horrible cries. They see again in hideous
nightmares the atrocious scenes they have gone through.

Four hundred thousand negroes are annually the victims of
this scourge, and it is sometimes said that if the traveller follow-
ing in its habitual track were to lose all other reckoning, he
would find sufficient guide-posts to mark the path in the shape
of the human bones blanching in decay.

The loyal exertions of Seyd Barghash have almost annihilated
the export slave-trade from the East Coast, but for its continuance
in the interior let the two following pictures from Mr. Thomson^s
pages speak : —

Half-way up the ascent a sad spectable met our eyes — a chained
gang of women and children. They were descending the rocks
with the utmost ditficnlty, and picking their steps with great care,
as, from the manner in which they were chained together, the fall of

174 Catholic Missions in Equatorial Africa.

one meant, not only the fall of many others, but probably actual
strangulation or dislocation of the neck. The women, though thus
chained with iron by the neck, were many of them carrying their
children on their backs, besides heavy loads on their heads. Their
faces and general appearance told of starvation and utmost hardship,
and their naked bodies spoke with ghastly eloquence of the flesh-
cutting-lash. Their dall despairing gaze expressed the loss of all hope
of either life or liberty, and they looked like a band marching to the
grave. Even the sight of an Englishman raised no hope in them ; for
unfortunately the white man has more the character of a ghoul than
of a liberator of slaves in the far interior.

Saddest sight of all was that of a string of little children, torn from
their home and playmates, wearily following the gang with bleeding,
blistered feet, reduced to perfect skeletons by starvation, looking up
with a piteous eye, as if they beseeched us to kill them. It was out of
my power to attempt releasing them. The most I could do was to stop
them, and give the little things the supply of beans and ground-nuts
I usually carried in my pocket.

At a later stage of his journey he came upon another of these
miserable spectacles.

Camped at Mtowa, we found a huge caravan of ivory and slaves
from Manyema, awaiting, like ourselves, means of transport across lake
(Tanganyika). There were about 1,000 slaves, all in the most miser-
able condition, living on roots and grasses, or whatever refuse and
" garbage " they could pick up. The sight of these poor creatures was
of the most painful character. They were moving about like skeletons
covered Avith parchment, through which every bone in the body

might be traced We learned that they had had a frightful march,

during which two-thirds fell victims to famine, murder, and disease, so
that out of about 3,000 slaves who started from Manyema only 1,000

reached Mtowa The poor wretches were carrying ivory to Ujiji

and Unyanyembe, to be there disposed of, along with themselves, for
stores to be taken back to Nyangwe.

Yet the writer describes the Arabs conducting these caravans
as kindly and humane men in all other relations of life — surely
the strongest proof of the brutalizing effect of such traffic on all
engaged in it.

One might have expected that the sight of such scenes would
have predisposed the youthful traveller to take a favourable view
of the conduct of men whose very presence is a protest against
them. Yet Mr. Thomson speaks of the Catholic missionaries
in a tone of censorious acrimony very different from that of.
most African explorers. On one occasion^ in a village not far
from Lake Tanganyika, he came on a party on their way to join
the station in that district, and, making his way into their tent,
unannounced and uninvited, while they were having such poor

A Recent Contribution to English History. 175

repast as the circumstances admitted of, lie took occasion to
•criticise all their arrangements_, including their food. He speaks
of them as " French peasants/^ severely condemning P^re
Deniaud for inducing them to leave their homes, apparently
quite unaware of their character as missionaries. It is to be
hoped Mr. Thomson may learn with more experience of life greater
sympathy with the aims and motives of others, as it would be a
pity if a spirit of intolerance and self-sufficiency were to mar
ihe many fine qualities which enabled him to do his own work
in Africa so creditably and well.

Ungenerous criticism of this kind is indeed in many quarters the
•only recognition bestowed on the Catholic missionary's labours in
the cause of humanity, and the meed of human praise reaped by
him is at best but small. The motives which sustain the ordinary
traveller are in his case non-existent. His discoveries will evoke
no applause from the learned, his adventures no sympathy from
the multitude, his life's work will be obscure to the end, his
name unknown, his death unchronicled. In the remote deserts
where he has cast his lot scarce a word of appreciation from the
world without ever reaches him to cheer the lonely hours when,
amid the depressing influences of his surroundings, he seems to be
labouring in vain ; for European civilization, absorbed in the
whirl of its own busy round, can spare no thought to those who
by African lakes and streams are working at the noblest task
possible to man here below — the moral regeneration of his fellow
man.

Mimm^

Art. VII.— a RECENT CONTRIBUTION TO ENGLISH

HISTORY.

The History of the Holy Eucharist in Grecct Britain. By
T. E. Bridgett. Two vols. C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1881.

HISTORY is no longer the simple narrative of facts that it used
to be — ad narrandum non ad probandum ; the exhibi-
tion of concurrent events just as they happened en masse, if we
may so say ; a panorama of the contemporaneous political and
religious and social and domestic life of nations at a glance.
The spirit of subdivision, characteristic of the times, has changed,
completely changed, the old summary character of history.
The keen analytical temper of the day has thrown men back
on the past to scrutinize and mark off and draw out each
constituent part, each separate feature of human society, in
order to discover and to estimate at its true worth each

176 A Recent Contribution to English History,

separate motive power in the development and growth of nations
that has contributed to make them such as they are in the
present. Buckleys " History of Civilization/^ Lecky's "History
of European Morals/'' Freeman^'s " Historical Geography/^ each
in its turn and measure is an example of this. Stubb''s "Con-
stitutional History of England '' is a still better example. And
the history that is before us, the " History of the Holy Eucharist
in Great Britain '^ is the best example of all. It is the history
of one single doctrine in its results on the individual life and the
public character of the various races — Britons, Picts, Scot, Saxons^
Anglo-Normans, English and Scotch — that during a period of
more than a thousand years successively peopled this island and
assisted the slow formation of the English nation.

A more fitting title than the one adopted could not have been
chosen for this work. And yet it is open to misconception. It
is just possible that it will mislead people and give them an
impression of something too doctrinal to be generally interesting,,
of something very abstract and learned and dogmatic, or con-
troversial, or pious : more suitable for the study of theologians
or the meditation of religious than for the general reading of
ordinary laymen. This is just what it is not. It is learned, yes.
There is something of dogma in it and something of controversy
too. And moreover it is pious, since that may truly be called
pious which, though marred by the record of much irreverence,
is essentially a narrative of the piety of England in connection with
the Blessed Sacrament, the Mysterium Fidei,t\ie object of supreme
adoration, during all the centuries that followed the adoption of
Christianity by our forefathers down to the hour when the revolt
of lust and greed and pride overthrew the altar of sacrifice and
extinguished the lamp of the old Church throughout the length
and breadth of the land. But so far from being a dry theological
dissertation, a mere abstract, dogmatic, controversial treatment
of the great central rite of the Catholic religion, it is, as we
have already said, a history of the Holy Eucharist in its effects
on the individual and public life of a nation ; and it is so full of
real personal interest, so full of varied biographical and historical
incident; it sets forth in so fresh and striking a way the
important civilizing, educating influence of the faith of the
English people in the Eucharistic Presence, that it will enable
many to see, who have never seen before, how singularly one-
sided and incomplete that estimate of our national growth and
development must be that, heedless of the operation of this par-
ticular belief in early times, overlooks the fact that the Holy

A Recent Contribution to English History. 177

Eucharist was the origin and sanction of some of the great
principles of our national prosperity, as well as a bond of union
between the rulers who enunciated and upheld them and the
ruled for whose benefit they were in the first instance chiefly
established.

A few years ago it would have been impossible to produce
such a history. The difficulties that stood in the way, great as
they must have been now, would have been simply insur-
mountable then. And, indeed, notwithstanding the publication
of the Rolls Series, of the Annals and Memorials and State
Papers, of the Ecclesiastical and Conciliar Documents, of the
critical studies of all the various antiquarian and archaeological
societies that have been laid under contribution for it, it is
surprising that it has been possible even now. A moment^s re-
flection will show why. The old Chroniclers were indiff^erent
to e very-day events. The routine of life, the quidquid agunt
homines, had few attractions for them, little power to arrest
their attention and claim a place in their records for future
generations. Scandal itself — Et quando uberior vitiorum copia ?
— had a better chance of immortality at the hand of the scribe
than a regularly recurring round of worship which everybody
was bound to know and everybody was bound to practise.

Why should the annalist describe what everyone knew and daily
witnessed ? It would have seemed as natural to chronicle the daily
rising of the sun and the effect of its rays upon the world. Indeed,
there is a singular analogy between what is said of the weather and
of the Blessed Sacrament. The annalists place on record how there
was an earthquake throughout England in 1089, how a comet with
two tails appeared in 1097, and mock suns in 1104 ; how at
one time the Thames was almost dried up, and how at another it
overflowed its banks ; how thunder was heard on the feast of the
Holy Innocents in 1249, while snow fell at the end of May in 1251,
They tell of eclipses, murrains, severe winters, droughts, signs and
portents. But they never describe the verdure of spring, the genial
heat of summer, the fruitfulness of autumn ; they never describe the
full river flowing peacefully, or the midnight skies covered with
brilliant stars. In the same way, if a church is burnt in an incursion
of the enemy, if a murder is committed within the walls of the sanc-
tuary, if the sacred vessels are stolen from the altar, if the holy rites
cease during an interdict, such events are chronicled. But the daily
service of the church, the fervent communions, the prayers poured out
before the altar, the acts of faith and charity — all these, as a matter of
course, are scarcely heeded.

Yet not for an instant must it be supposed that the " History
of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain " is unduly concerned with
the dark side of the picture ; that evil is more prominent than

VOL. VI. — NO. 1/ ITJiird Series.} n

178 A Recent Contribution to English History,

good in it ; that irreligion and sacrilege perpetually cast their
deep shadows across its pages. Abuses and crimes have their
place, for the author does not suffer from ' the endemic per-
ennial fidget about giving scandal/ and think that ' facts should
be omitted in great histories, or glosses put upon memorable
acts, because they are not edifying? '"^ But the sanctuary in which
a murder was committed evidences something more enduring
than the crime that profaned it ; the stolen vessels betoken
something more general than the sacrilegious theft that desecrated
them ; the interdicted rites witness to something more habitual
than the disorders that led to their suspension. And it is just
this something, the sustained faith of ages in its highest mani-
festations and noblest issues that Father Bridgett has mainly
occupied himself with, till from the homes of the serf and the free-
man, from the haunt of the wretched leper, from the quadrangle
of the cottage, from the lecture-hall of the university, from the
camp of the soldier, from the cell of the hermit and recluse, from the
cloisters of the monastery and convent, from the courts of justice,
from the legislative assemblies of the nation, from the council-
chamber of the bishop, from the palace of the sovereign, he has
brought a vast concourse of witnesses, men and women, bearing
testimony to one all-pervading belief, which, penetrating the
whole fabric of society, domestic, social, and political, ennobled life,
stayed crime, and found a royal utterance in the Cathedrals and
Abbeys that are still the wonder and glory of our land, and that
— in spite of all the scientific knowledge of this age of discoveries,
in spite of all our mechanical appliances, of all the skill of our
artizans, of all the ceaseless industry of our operatives, unspoiled
by the enforced idleness of Saints' days, so distressing to the
enlightened, far-reaching wisdom of political economists — no
architect can now approach in beauty of proportion and form,
and no workman can surpass in strength and perfection of
masonry.

II.

Beginning with the early British Church, we find the scant
though clear proofs of a belief in the Real Presence identical with
the belief of the Catholic Church at the present day, and conse-
quently a belief utterly opposed to the tenets of Protestantism,
gradually augmented by side lights from Brittany, and finally
completed by the full radiance of the Gallo-Roman and Frankish
Church, with which the Armorican Church was in close union,
and which, in turn, the Armorican united to the sister Church
of Great Britain and Ireland. This chapter. Side Lights from

* Card. Newman, "Historical Sketches."

A Recent Contribution to English History. 179

Brittany, is a very important one, and is, besides, an admirable
instance of the historical acumen of Father Bridgett and of the
critical and constructive method employed throu^^hout his book.
A few words of Tertullian^s, written in 20^, as many of
Origin's, a few more of St. Jerome's, St. John Chrysostom's
explicit statement that, ^even the British Isles have felt the
power of the Word ; for there, too, churches and altars
(^v(na<rT{]pia, a word of special significance, used as it is by St.
John Chrysostom in the numberless passages of his works where
he maintains the doctrines of the Real Presence and of Sacrifice)
have been erected ;' the fact that the Council of Aries, held in
the year 314, at which canons were enacted, regarding the
uniform observance of Easter according to the decision of the
Bishop of Rome, the consecration of bishops, and the inviolability
of the sacrament of marriage, was attended by the Bishops of
York and London and Caerleon; a brief mention, here and there,
by Hhe ascetic and keenly religious' Gildas, of the most holy
sacrifice, the heavenly sacrifice (saorosancta sacrificia, coeleste
sacrijiciunfi) called mass or missa, then as now, and one or two
of his canons treating of the Eucharistic Rite, with special
reference to the penances incurred by carelessness in the
administration of it, together with his lament over the unworthy
lives of certain of the clergy, " raw sacrificantes et nunquam
puro corde inter altaria stantes/' this is the sum of what we
know expressly concerning the faith and practice of the British
Church in relation to the Blessed Sacrament before the landing
of St. Augustine in 597. Definite, unmistakeable, suflRcient
evidence, it is true, for those who know how to read it aright,
yet really how scanty viewed apart from what it implies. But
when we cross the w^ater, and are landed on that little corner of
territory, cut off by geographical position, as well as socially
and politically isolated from the rest of Gaul, we are presented
with a store of facts, which, though it has not been totally
ignored hitherto, has, nevertheless, been so little heeded that
modern historians have failed to realize that it belongs directly
to the history of the Church in this country, and bears expressed
on its beliefs and practices rarely more than implicitly or
indirectly conveyed to us by the passing allusions of ancient
historians.

That the Britons from Great Britain founded a small independent
kingdom in Armorica a century before Clovis and his Franks passed
the Rhine, is now. Father Bridgett, using the words of M. de
Courson, the learned historian of ancient Brittany, says, as
uncontested a fact as the existence of the sun in the heavens ;
though Breton writers, under Henry III. and Louis XIV., had to
expiate in the Bastile their temerity in maintaining such a

N 5i

180 A Recent Contribution to English History.

proposition. From that time down to the invasion of Britain by
the Saxons in the fifth century^ there appears to have been a
constant emigration of Britons to Gaiil ; and afterwards it
increased to so great an extent that the whole body of the
inhabitants of Western Armorica came to look upon themselves
as British or of British origin. And the British emigrants of the
fifth century did w^hat Gaulish missionaries on the borders of
Lower Brittany had failed to do. They covered Armorica and
the islands round about the main-land with monastic and eremitical
settlements., rescued by their preaching and example the original
inhabitants from the idolatory of Druidism, converted them to
Christianity; and so both rendered the fusion of the two peoples,
alike in race and language, and differing only in religion, com-
plete, and completed the establishment of the continental British
Church.

Leaving aside the lives of the saints venerated in Brittany as
involving disputes about dates and authenticity. Father Bridgett
draws his facts concerning the religious practices of this off-shoot
of the Mother Church in Great Britain from two principal sources,
viz., Gallic Councils legislating for the British Church and con-
temporary Gallic writers.

The conciliar evidence is very remarkable and of the first
importance. Keeping well in view the political and geographical
isolation of the Britons in Gaul, analogous to the isolation
of their brethren in Great Britain after the Saxon invasion, Father
Bridgett advancing from council to council gradually unfolds an
uninterrupted and growing intercommunion of the Gallic and
British Churches, until at last we come to see that the detailed
information which we possess regarding the Eucharistic Rite as
celebrated in other parts of Gaul is applicable to Brittany and
through Brittany to our own country, Great Britain, which kept
up such close relations with the British Church of the emigration,
united by ecclesiastical organization to the province of Tours,
that two of its Churches, one at Canterbury in the south-east, the
other at Withern in the north-west — the only two whose early
dedications have come down to us — were dedicated to St. Martin
of Tours. From the first Provincial Council of Tours, opened on
the octave day of the Feast of St Martin in 461 under the
presidency of St. Perpetuus, in which a British bishop took part,
Mansuetus episcopus Britanorum interfui et subscripsi,
on to the provincial synod held at Tours in 567, ecclesiastical
legislative measures, canons and decrees were enacted regarding
abuses amongst the clergy similar to those reprobated in
unmeasured language by Gildas, which leave no doubt of
the antiquity of the discipline of clerical celibacy and its close
if not indissoluble connection with belief in the ileal Presence.

A Recent Contribution to Emjlish History. 181

For example, the first council named insists on the absolute
necessity, not merely of conjugal chastity, but of viri^inal
chastity, or at least of continence, for the ministers of the
altar " who at all times must be ready with all purity to
offer sacrifice.'^ And although it so far mitigates the rigour
of earlier councils as to admit to communion those who,
having been married previous to their ordination, were unwilling
%o observe this discipline, it interdicted their admittance to the
higher grades of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and forbid them the
ministry of their respective functions. It must be borne in mind
that Mansuetus, the bishop of the Britons, subscribed the canons
of this Council, which are therefore a witness to the discipline of
celibacy, and also to the motive of it, in Britain as well as in
Gaul. The excommunication of Macliarus is perhaps a still
stronger proof of the ordinance in Brittany. Macliarus was a
British prince. After he had been tonsured and consecrated
bishop, seeing a chance of succeeding to the throne, he let his
hair grow, and took back his wife, from whom, on becoming a
cleric, he had been separated. For this, according to St.
Gregory, of Tours, he was excommunicated by the rest of the
British bishops. Another council, held under the presidency of
of St. Perpetuus, at Vannes, in Brittany, accentuates the motive
of the decrees of the Council of Tours enjoining celibacy four
years previously; it forbids all deacons and sub-deacons from
being present at marriage feasts and dances, then conducted with
much indecency, " in order that they may not defile their eyes and
ears consecrated for the sacred mysteries." And further, the
synod assembled at Orleans in 511, and attended by Modestus,
bishop of Vannes, marks the increasing and ever-watchful care to
maintain due reverence for the '* sacred mysteries ^' by its twenty-
sixth canon, which forbids anyone to leave the church during
the celebration of Mass. Then, whilst the attendance of two
British bishops, St. Paternus, of Avranches, and St. Sampson, of
Dol, at a council held in Paris, in 557, shows continued harmony
between the two churches of Brittany and Gaul in the inter-
communion of the saints of both countries, we find just ten
years after at a provincial synod at Tours, the bishops of Tours and
Rouen and Paris and Nantes and Chartres and Mans, and one
or two others engaged on measures to stay the action of political
causes at that time moving the Britons to seek independence of
a see that had become Prankish territory, and at the same time
lamenting bitterly the necessity that compelled them to renew
the decree, obliging the clergy married previous to ordination^
very numerous in those days, to live apart from their wives.
"Who could have believed that a man who consecrates the Body
of the Lord would be so wickedly bold had not such abuses arisen

182 A Recent Contribution to English History,

in these last days as a punishment for our sins ? " These strong
words, Father Bridgett points out, '' were not directed against
concubinage, nor against attempts to marry after ordination —
for tliere was no question at all on such matters — but against a
continuance in a lawful marriage after the voluntary separation
promised in ordination/'

Conciliar evidence, however, though interesting and of great
consequence, necessarily partakes of something of the abstract,
dry character that inevitably attaches to legislative measures
and enactments of the past dealing with classes and bodies of
men; but scarcely are we conscious of it in this case before
the whole subject is vivified by the personal narrative of the
two contemporary authors who throw direct light on the Church
of Brittany in early times, and we are carried away by the real
interest of biographical incident. Fortunatus, bishop of Poictiers,
the friend of St. Felix and the Secretary of Queen Badegund,
writing an inscription to be engraved on a golden tabernacle
or tower for the preservation of " the priceless pearl, the Sacred
Body of the Lamb Divine;" poor Ursulfus suddenly regaining
his sight while assisting at Mass one Sunday, duTn esset ad
pedes Domini et cum reliquo populo missaruTii solemnia
spectaret, so that he could go up to the altar to receive com-
munion without a guide, ad sanctum altare communicandi
gratia ; the cripple placed at the tomb of St. Martin cured on
the feast of the saint, at the end of Mass, when the people began
to receive the body of the Bedeemer; men and women going
into the Church at all hours and prostrating themselves in prayer
before the high altar ; the old woman trimming the lamps before
nightfall; the priest Severinus decking his Church with garlands
and lilies, and Queen Badegund with the Abbess Agatha
wreathing Christ's altar with flowers at Easter-time ; the solemn
oath taken before the altar with the hand sketched over it, just
as it was in Gildas's time ; the obligation of the dominical Mass,
and Severinus having said Mass at one church riding every
Sunday twenty miles to celebrate a second ; the widow attend-
ing daily the Mass she caused to be said for a whole year for her
dead husband; the sermon of St. Csesarius, bishop of Aries,
rebuking the people for leaving the church before the sermon —
some to go home, some to talk and laugh and quarrel outside —
and urging them to wait till the mysteries are ended, since
though they could have prayers said and the Scriptures read in
their own houses, only in the Church could the oblations be
made and the Body and Blood of Christ consecrated, consecra-
tionem vero corporis vel sanguinis Domini non alibi, nisi in
Domo Dei, aiidire vel videre poteritis ; all this and much more
besides gives an insight into the British Church such as was

A Recent Gontrlbufion to English History, 18?J

hitherto deemed unattainable, whilst it utterly breaks down
the theories of a pure British Church, untainted by the Romish
corruptions of the invocation of saints and the adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament; and reads like a chapter out of the history
of the middle ages rather than one of those far-away-times best
known through political historians as the dreary ages of
barbarism with all their horrid accompaniment of bloodshed and
lust and rapine.

III.

Unquestionably many of the apparitions and visions and
miracles recorded of the first centuries of Christianity, are cal-
culated to irritate and it may be shock, not only those who con-
stitutionally lack the broad humanity of Terence, but those
also, who more richly endowed have nevertheless been so
narrowed by the bigotry of their bringing-up, and the cramp-
ing nature of their intellectual surroundings in after life, that
they cannot give a patient consideration to anything so opposed
to their preconceived notions of what ought to be, as that God
should be able or willing to suspend the Laws of Nature at the
prayer of one of his creatures. Such as these cannot fail to be
arrested by the calm, philosophical spirit with which Father
Bridgett, using, as he was bound to do, the important matter con-
tained in what a less conscientious historian would have been
specially tempted in these days to put aside or slur over as
legendry uncertainties if not something worse, insists that,
whether or not the miracles and visions of early historians be
considered delusions or impostures, they are at least consonant
with the customs of the period, and must be accepted as evidence
of the belief of the times. And certainly no unbiassed judge
could deny that incidents like that related by Adamnan of the
youth of St. Columba ^ may be fairly adduced as evidence of a
state of mind amongst the Northern Picts, either arising from an
habitual sense of God's omnipotence engendered by their belief
in transubstantiation, or at least as a proof that such a doc-
trine could have met with little resistance on account of its
intrinsic difficulties if for other reasons it was proposed for
acceptance.'

But the history of the Holy Eucharist, in the Scottish and
Pictish Churches, does not all run along the smooth lines of
miracle. It has its stern side there as well as in the Church of
Apostolic times. Another incident, preserved by the same Adam-
nan, discloses the repressive power of the Blessed Sacrament in
its connection with the working of the penitential system.
Libanus, an Irishman, slew a man and afterwards violated a
solemn oath. He went over to lona^ made a full confession ^o

184 A Recent Contribution to English History.

St. Columba, and swore that he was willing to fulfill any
penance to atone for his sins. The Saint required him to live in
exile, but in monastic service, for seven years, and at the end of
that time to return to him during Lent, ' Ut in Paschali solem-
nitate altarium accedas et Eucharistiam sumas.'' And this repres-
sive power becomes more and more apparent the further we advance
in the history before us : a power that often it has been impossible
for those outside the Catholic Church to realize either because
from having adopted a most unfortunate method of metaphorical
interpretation, which plays havoc with the plainest words, they
have utterly misunderstood the language concerning the central
Rite of the Apostolic Church in all times and in all places, or
else because they have deliberately shut their own eyes to its
true meaning and veiled it for others who looked to them for
guidance.

To those who share the conviction of Venerable Bede that the
Catholic Church has never erred and never can err, because she is
the Spouse of Christ and has received the Holy Ghost for her dowry,
there is no need to prove that the early Church was one in faith
regarding the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar with the Church of
to-day, and for them it will be enough to know that the Scots and
Picts were in communion of worship with the Anglo-Saxons, and
both with the Church of Rome, to be sure that, when St. Gregory
planned a new hierarchy for Great Britain in the sixth century, the
same faith was preached, the same sacrifice offered, as when Pius IX.
and Leo XIII. divided the island in the present century. Nor ought
it to be difficult to convince any unprejudiced mind of this identity of
faith by the identity of language on the subject of the Eucharist. A
modern Catholic reading the "Life of St. Columba, "written by Adamnan
m 696, or the " Ecclesiastical History of England," written by Bede in
7 36, will find every formula familiar to himself, and expressing his
laith exactly as well as adequately. Protestants, on the contrary,
whether Calvinists, Zwinglians, Lutherans, or High Church Angli-
cans, are uneasy at such language, carefully avoid it themselves, and
sometimes even distort or evade it when making quotations. To give
one example. Bede relates that King Ethelbert gave St. Augustine
the old church of St. Martin, and that "in this they began to meet,
to chant psalms, to offer prayers, to celebrate masses (missas faceve)^
to preach, and to baptize." * In relating this Carte says they preached
and performed " other acts of devotion ; " Collier that they " preached,
baptised, and performed all the solemn offices of religion ; " Churton
that they "administered the sacraments."

Such vague expressions show well enough a want of sympathy with
Bede even as regards so simple and venerable an expression as Mass.
How much less then would Protestants use or understand the various
periphrases so familiar to Bede and to all our early writers, as the

* Bede, i. 26.

A Recent Contribution to English History. 185

celebration of the most sacred mysteries, the celestial and mysterious
sacrifice, the offering of the Victim of salvation, the sacrifice of the
Mediator, the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, the memorial
of Christ's great passion, the renewal of the passion and death of the
Lamb ! All these expressions are used by Bede ;* and for the Blessed
Sacrament itself (as distinct from the rite of offering it to God) —
besides the more common designations Hostia and Sacrificiura (in the
vernacular Housel) — they would speak of the saving Victim of the
Lord's Body and Blood, the Victim without an equal, a particle of
the sacrifice of the Lord's offering. These expressions are also found
in Bede. Adamnan the Scot speaks of the sacrifice of mass, the
sacrificial mystery, the mysteries of the most holy sacrifice ; and he
tells us of the priest at the altar who performs the mysteries of
Christ, consecrates the mysteries of the Eucharist, celebrates the
solemnities of masses.*)"

If we turn to the writings of Eddi, or St. Boniface, or St. Egbert, or
to the decrees of early councils, we find the same or similar phrases,
varied in every possible way to express a mystery, the sublimity of
which was beyond human utterance. A multitude of verbs were in
common use to designate the action of the priest at the altar. " Missam
cantare " or " canere" might designate the whole action, though with
special allusion to the vocal prayers. " Missam facere," " offerre,"
" celebrare," "agere," would also refer to the whole divine action;
''conficere,""imniolare," "libare," regarded the Hostia,or Victim, which
was our Lord's Body and Blood or our Divine Lord Himself; and
the secret operation by which the bread and wine were changed into
our Lord's Body and Blood was indicated by every word by which
transubstantiation can be expressed, among which we find " transferre,"
" commutare," " transcribere," " transformare.'' " convertere."

After this it is difficult to conceive that there are still
Protestants who affirm that transubstantiation was unknown to
the Anglo-Saxon Church, and was not introduced into England
till the Norman Conquest, when by the influence of the two Italo-
Norman primates, Lanfranc and Anselm, it supplanted the ancient
and pure Protestant or quasi-Protestant doctrine that up to that
date had prevailed. But this is not all. Declarations exist of
Anf^lo-Saxon belief in a change of Substance so plain, so
explicit, that there is no gainsaying them : —

* See Lingard, "Anglo-Saxon Church," i, ch. 7. The expressions will be
found in his history and homilies : " celebratis missarum solemniis "
(iii. 5), " victimam pro eo (defuncto) sacrae oblationis offerre " (iv 14),
" oblfttio hostiae salutaris, sacrificium salutare " (iv. 22), " sacrificium
Deo victimae salutaris offerre " (iv. 28), " corpus sacrosanctum et pretio-
sum agni sanguinem quo a peccatis redempti sumus denuo Deo in pro-
f'ectum nostrae salutis immolamus." — Horn, m Vig. Pasch.

t " Sacrificate mysterium," " sacrosancti sacrificii mysteria," " munda
mysteria," " sacra Eucharistiae celebrare mysteria," " missarum solemnia
peragerc," " m} steria conficere," etc—Vita S. Col. ii., I., i. 40, 44, iii. 17.

186 A Recent Contribution to English History.

Would any one, for instance, mistake the meaning of the following
letter addressed to a Catholic priest ? '^ I beg you will not forget
your friend's name in your holy prayer. Store it up in one of the
caskets of your memory, and bring it out in fitting time when you
have consecrated bread and wine into the substance of the Body and
Blood of Christ." Are not these words explicit? Well, they were
indeed used in writing to a Catholic priest, but it was more than a
thousand years ago, and he who used them was Alcuin,* the disciple
of Bede. And Alcuin's scholar, Aimo, writing in a.d. 841, says,"]"
" That the substance of the bread and wine, which are placed upon the
altar, are made the Body and Blood of Christ, by the mysterious
action of the priest and thanksgiving, God effecting this by his divine
grace and secret power, it would be the most monstrous madness to
doubt. We believe then, and faithfully confess and hold, that the
substance of bread and wine, by the operation of divine power — the
nature, 1 say, of bread and wine are substantially converted into
another substance, that is, into Flesh and Blood. Surely it is not
impossible to the omnipotence of Divine Wisdom to change natures
once created into whatever it may choose, since when it pleased it
created them from nothing. He who could make something out of
nothing can find no difticulty in changing one thing to another. It is
then the invisible Priest who converts visible creatures into the
substance of His own Flesh and Blood by His secret power. In this
which we call the Body and Blood of Christ, the taste and appearance
of bread and wine remain, to remove all horror from those who receive,
but the nature of the substances is altogether changed into the
Body and Blood of Christ. The senses tell us one thing, faith tells
us another. The senses can only tell what they perceive, but the
intelligence tells us of the true Flesh and Blood of Christ, and
faith confesses it."

I would observe that Aimo does not say that the senses are deceived ;
on the contrary, he says that they convey true messages to the mind —
" sensus carnis nihil aliud renuntiare possunt quani sentiunt " — but
that the mind would be deceived if it formed its usual judgment on
their testimony. The senses tell us nothing about substance, the
existence of which is known by reason. And reason judges rightly,
as a general rule, that where the accidents of bread and wine appear,
there is also the substance. But reason does not tell us that this is
necessarily so. There is always this tacit exception — unless by God's
omnipotence it is otherwise. And God's revelation tells us that in
the case of the consecrated bread and wine it is otherwise ; that the
natural substance is not there, but is converted into {transubstantiatur)
the substance of our Lord's Flesh and Blood.

Now it is obvious that so long as this language is ignored or

^ Alcuin, Ejp. 36, ad Paulinum Patriarcham Aquilensem.

t Tractates Aimonis, apud D'Achery. Spicileg. t. i. p. 42, ed. 1723.
The full Latin text is given by Dr. Eock, " Church of our Father," vol. i.
p. 21, to whom I am indebted for this passage.

A Recent Contribution to English History. 187

misunderstood or glossed over, the faith that it indicates is
ignored likewise, and consequently the immense power that such
a faith was in the world for restraining evil, coping with the
wild passions of man in the wildest and most passionate of
times, rousing the dormant intellect of a rude race, and bringing
about the civilization of our country. The offering of the Mass
was esteemed the characteristic and highest function of the
priesthood ; a man could not be ordained priest or deacon unless of
approved life and properly instructed, and once ordained a priest he
was obliged to live in perpetual celibacy. The Mass itself was the
great centre round which the life of the nation revolved. The king
was not crowned, the witan was not assembled, the battle was
not fought, the church was not consecrated, the nuptial contract
was not entered upon, the monk and nun were not professed, the
Abbot or Abbess was not installed, the dead were nob buried
tinless the blessino^ of God had first been souo^ht in the Mass. If
a crime were committed, the celebration of the Holy Sacritice was
suspended until the evil-doers had been brought to justice. St.
Dunstan himself would not say Mass on Whitsunday until the
terrible punishment, i.e^y the loss of a hand, had been executed
on the false coiners : —

" They injure all classes, rich and poor alike, bringing them to shame,
to poverty, or to utter ruin. Know then that I will not offer sacrifice
to God until the sentence has been carried out. As the matter con-
cerns me, if I neglect to appease God by the punishment of so great
an evil, how can I hope that He will receive sacrifice from my hands ?
This may be thought cruel, but my intention is known to God. The
tears, sighs, and groans of widows and orphans, and the complaints of
the whole people, press on me and demand the correction of this evil.
If I do not seek as far as in me lies to soothe their affliction, I both
offend God who has compassion on their groans, and I embolden
others to repeat the crime."

How is it possible to over-estimate the repressive power of
faith in the Real Presence, with such examples as this before us ?
Here was the prime minister of the king, the man who has left
the progressive and constructive stamp of his mind on the laws
of Edgar as well as on the ecclesiastical laws of the period,*
refusing before all the people, on the solemn feast of Pentecost,
to begin the Mass until justice had been satisfied and the course
of evil stopped. And if it be denied that his sacrifice implied
the full-orbed doctrine of the Real Presence upheld by the
Catholic Church of to-day, we have only to turn to the
beautiful account of the Saint's last Mass and death written by
his contemporary, Adelard, for a refutation of the error : —

♦ "Memorials of St. Dunstan " (Rolls Series, 1874-). Introd. pp. cv, cvi.

188 A Recent Contribution to English History^

" On Ascension Day, 988," he says, "Dunstan preached as he had
never preached before ; and as his Master, when about to suffer, had
spoken of peace and charity to His disciples, and had given His Flesh
and Blood for their spiritual food, so too did Dunstan commend to God
the Church which had been committed to him, raising it to heaven by
his words, and absolving it from sin by his apostolic authority. And
offering the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, he reconciled it to God.
But before the Holy Communion, having given as usual the blessing
to the people, he was touched by the Holy Ghost, and pronounced the
form of benediction with unusual grace. Then having commended
peace and charity to all, while they looked on him as on an angel of
God, he exclaimed : ^ Farewell for ever.'

*' The people were still listening eagerly to his voice and gazing
lovingly on his face, when he returned to the holy altar to feed on his
Life ; and so, having refreshed himself with the Bread of Life, he
completed this day with spiritual joy.

" But in that very day the column of God began to totter, and as his
sickness increased he retired to his bed, in which the whole of the
Friday and the Friday night, intent on celestial things, he strengthened
all who came to visit him. On the morning of the Sabbath {i.e. the
Saturday), when the matin song was now finished, he bids the holy
congregation of the brethren come to him. To whom again com-
mending his soul, he received from the heavenly table the viaticum of
the sacraments of Christ, which had been celebrated in his presence,
and, giving thanks to God for it, he began to sing : ' The merciful
and gracious Lord hath made a memorial of His wonders. He hath
given meat to them that fear Him.' And with these words in his
mouth, rendering his spirit into his Maker's hands, he rested in peace.
Oh ! too happy whom the Lord has found watching ! "

Faith in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar was moreover the
real life of another chief factor of civilization among the Celts
and Saxons. It was the keystone of the penitential system of
the Church, without which. Father Bridgett says, the whole
arch of the system would have crumbled to pieces : —

A second great principle of civilization among our Celtic and Saxon
forefathers was the penitential discipline of the Church. This was for
ages both the supplement and the support of the civil law, and was
the principal means both of preventing crimes and of punishing male-
factors. But if you take away the hope of receiving Holy Com-
munion, you take away the keystone from the whole arch of this
system, and it would have crumbled to pieces. The necessity of
receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord on the one hand, the danger
to the soul of doing this without the requisite purity on the other,
could alone have induced men to undergo purifications so hard to
human nature. And be it remarked that the Church, during this
period, dealt not only with sin as an offence to God, but as a crime
against society. Her discipHne took the place, in a great measure, of
civil penalties. While the Church punished crime by penance, the

A Recent Contribution to English History. 189

State could leave the matter almost entirely in her hands. When the
penitential system became less severe, civil penalties became more
rigorous. Or we may perhaps say with equal truth — for in this
matter there were mutual action and reaction — when the State, by
advance in unity and organization, became competent to deal with
crimes against itself, the Church willingly relaxed her penitential
discipline, lest the same crimes should be twice punished. But
certainly, during the period now under review, the chief agent in the
repression and punishment of crime was the Blessed Sacrament of the
Altar, as giving life to the exhortations, admonitions, and maternal
corrections of the Church.

And whenever men fell away altogether into bad courses, when
vice and wrong-doino^ were rampant in the land, the old cry of
Gildas, raro sacrificantes, was again heard. Neglect of Mass
was the invariable accompaniment of broken vows, of luxury
and intemperance : " Male morigerateclerici,elatione et insolentia
ac luxuria praeventi, adeo ut nonulli coram dedignarentur missas
suo ordine celebrare, repudiantes uxores quas illicite duxerant,
et alias accipientes, gulae et ebrietati jugiter dediti.''''

Equally remarkable with what we have called the repressive
power of the Holy Eucharist is its creative power, its power oF
bringing forth positive good, and good not solely in the spiritual
and moral order of things but also the temporal and political.

The Anglo-Saxon dominion spread the blight of slavery over
England. Christianity met it by teaching the spiritual equality
of all mankind redeemed by the Blood of Christ, and destroyed it
'by the practical results of such teaching. The serf and the lord
iknelt before the same altar, and both alike were privileged and
•fcound to receive the same communion. On Sundays the master
Jknd the slave met in the same church to fultil the same
iobligation, imposed without distinction on both, of being present
»Bt the Supreme act of worship, the Sacrifice of the Mass. On
Sundays, the day consecrated in great measure by the dominical
obligation, the bondsman could neither work for himself nor be
eompelled to work for his master ; whilst at the great festival
times of Christmas, Easter, and the Assumption, though the
master could no longer enforce his usual right to the toil of his
serf, the serf was free to labour for himself, and often earned
sufficient not only to render his life less miserable, but even to
purchase, in the course of time, his own freedom. If a master led
his female slave into a breach of chastity, he was bound to give
her freedom as well as to do six months penance himself. And
of all the forms of emancipation obtaining in those days, that
before the altar of the Church, '' sacrosancta altaria, sacrificii
coelestis sedem," as it had been known from the days of Gildas,
was the most frequent ; almost all the existing records on the

190 A Recent Contribution to English History .

subject are taken from the margins of Gospels or other books
belonging to religious houses, and the few references in the
laws imply emancipation at the altar. Once emancipation
gained, no bar stood in the way of the humblest serf in the
land aspiring to the priesthood, in the ranks of which the
highest and the lowest classes met on a footing of absolute
equality. And the sons of slaves, not of plebians only, were received
into the companionship of Ninians, Wifrids, Egberts, Columbas,
all members of royal houses or noble families. " The enslaved
shall be freed, the plebians exalted, through the orders of the
Church and by performing penitential service to God. For the
Lord is accessible. He will not refuse any kind of man after
belief, among either the free or plebian tribes ; so likewise is the
Church open for every person who goes under her rule." So ran
the Brehon Laws, supporting a lofty democracy, a noble
radicalism that will never be surpassed or equalled, though it be
trampled upon and reviled by modern counterfeits that arrogate
the name and usurp its place.

How far such teaching was at first opposed in Saxon times it
would be hazardous to say ; but it is a clearly established fact
that having gained a footing it did not maintain its ground
without a struggle against the spirit of the world in Norman
times. Repeated attempts were made under our Norman kings
to exclude slaves from the priesthood. One of the Constitutions
of Clarendon, rejected by St. Thomas of Canterbury, as opposed
to the rights of the Church, was that no serfs son could be
admitted to holy orders. And the Church, in vindicating her
own prerogatives, and upholding the rights of the poor and
lowly in the reign of Richard II., was fronted with the prayer
of the Commons to the king, "that no naif or villain shall
place his children at school, as has been done so as to advance
their children by means of the clerical state," and was opposed in
the same spirit by some of the colleges of the universities who
actually shut their gates in the face of the bondsman. Never-
theless the Church triumphed, and bishops^ registers show that,
down to the Reformation, emancipation previous to ordination
was a common occurrence.

After all that has been said lately about oaths, their use and
meaning and expediency, we follow with special interest their
import and influence on the early life of the nation, bound up
as they were with the most solemn and awful rites of religion.
In the days of Howel the Good, when a judge was elected, he
was taken to church by the king's chaplain, attended by twelve
principal officers of the court, to hear Mass. At the end of
Mass he had to swear by the relics, and by the altar, and by the
consecrated elements placed upon the altar, that he would

A Recent Contribution to English History. 191

never deliver a wrong judgment knowingly. Two centuries later
we find that an oath was taken at Cirencester not only, tactis
sacrosanctis Evangeliis, but, super sacramentum sanctum.
Earlier still than Howel the Good, the dooms of Ine, king of
Wessex, ordained that greater weight should attach to the oath
of communicants than to that of others. About the same
time the Saxon laws of Wihtred required that, ' a priest clear
himself by his sooth in his holy garment before the altar, thus
saying, "I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not.^' In like
manner a deacon. Let a clerk clear himself with four of his
fellows, and he alone with his hand on the altar, let the others
stand by; and so for the king's thane, the ceorl, and the
stranger, and let the oath of all these be incontrovertible.^
Hence belief in the Real Presence was one of the great safe-
guards of the integrity of an oath, whatever the occasion of it
might be. It brought before the most careless, in a way there
was no evading, a whole system of rewards and punishments
present and future ; it brought a man into the unseen world; it
brought him face to face with the hidden God, Deus ahsconditus.
And what is happening now that that faith is deliberately and
explicitly spurned by the sovereign the moment a king or
queen succeeds to the sway of this Empire? Disbelief in the
necessity of veracity, disbelief in the sanctity of the oath,
disbelief in the existence of God Himself, is following surely, if
slowly, step by step. And whereas formerly the oath of a clerk,
or thane, or ceorl, or stranger, taken with his hand resting on
the altar was incontrovertible, now, no sooner has a witness
been brought into court and sworn, as it is called, ^than he is
treated by the opposing barrister as if he had come purposely to
perjure his soul and to confound justice/

IV.

The exultant prologue of the old Salic Law reaches the
crowning point of the glories of the Frankish people when it
proclaims their freedom from heresy. All their beauty and
boldness and bravery are but as so many steps leading up to
this, ' ad catholica fide nuper conversa et immunis ab herese.'^
It is noteworthy that the Church of the kindred Teutonic race
that conquered Britain, the Anglo-Saxon Church, could boast of
precisely the same characteristic freedom from heresy. So that
when Lanfranc, the first archbishop of Canterbury of Norman
appointment, left the field of his encounters with the shifty,
scoffing, sharp-tongued Berengarius, in the very heat of the

* *' Lex Salica." Prologus. Ed. Merkel.

192 A Recent Contribution to English History.

controversy, and assumed the government of the English Church,
he — the acute and profound defender of the Real Presence, who
had unswervingly affirmed the doctrine of Transubstantiation in
the clearest and most precise terms in France — though his rule
was not without severity, though he deposed bishops and abbots,
though he did not spare the ignorance of the islanders he had
come amongst, could bring no charge of heresy against his new
flock. The Norman invasion was so totally different from the
invasions of the Saxons and Danes because the new conquerors
were one in faith with the vanquished nation. The English,
monks and laity, hated their victors. The Church of Glaston-
bury was the scene of sacrilege and bloodshed, originating in a
feud between the Norman Abbot and the Saxon Monks. But
the cause of the feud was no matter of doctrine, simply the
monks would not abandon their Gregorian chant. If the
victors, full of the controversy that was raging in the land they
had just quitted, had attempted to impose on the Anglo-Saxon
Church a novel faith, as over and over again it has been asserted
they did, history would have been full of the fierce resentment
that springs from the jealousy of religious innovation. As it is
not a single favourer of the Berengariau heresy is mentioned
in English History.

With the gradual quieting down of the country after the Con-
quest, and the amalgamation of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman
people, the Cathedrals and Abbeys and parish Churches of the
Anglo-Norman Church gradually rose and covered the land.
And in the thirteenth century so great was the zeal for splendid
buildings in which to celebrate the Divine Mysteries, that the
Council of London presided over by the Pope's legate, Otho,
in 1237, decreed that 'Abbots and rectors must not pull down
old churches in order to build better ones without leave of the
bishop, who will judge of the necessity or expediency.' The
same Council enjoined that all churches were to be consecrated
' because in them the Heavenly Victim, living and true, namely,
the only begotten Son of God, is offered on the altar of God for us
by the hands of the priest.' Princes, prelates and people vied with
one another in their zeal for the glory and beauty of God's House.
Everything that was richest and most costly w.-^^ committed to
the guardianship of the bishop or abbot for the Church. As
Eadfrid, the fifth Abbot of St. Alban's, in the time of King
Edmund the Pious, had manifested his faith in the Eucharistic
Presence by the offering of a beautiful vessel, cyphum desidera-
bilem, for the Blessed Sacrament, so Robert, the eighteenth
Abbot, v/ho died in 1166, marked his belief by the gift of a
precious vessel under a silver crown; and his successor, Simon,
caused to be made by Brother Baldwin, the goldsmith, a vessel

A Recent Contribution to English History. 193

'most admirable of pure red gold with gems of inestimable value
set about it/ which King Henry II. hearing of, ' gratefully and
devoutly sent to St. Albans a most noble and precious cup in
which the shrine theca, immediately containing the Body of
Christ, should be placed.' Eustace of Ely, one of the three
bishops who published the great interdict in the reign of John,
gave to his Church a gold pyx for the Eucharist. Eustace, Abbot
of Flay, who was sent to England in 1200 by the Pope, fre-
quently admonished priests and people that a light should be
kept burning continually before the Eucharist in order that He
who enlightens every man who cometh into this world might for
this temporal light grant them the eternal light of glory.
William S ted man ' settled a wax taper to burn continually day
and night for ever before the Body of our Lord in the chancel of
the Church of St. Peter, of Mancroft, Norwich.' And this
daily, hourly reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, Father
Bridgett traces in the munificence of our ancestors down through
the centuries, in examples drawn from chronicles and wills of
generation after generation, till we come to what indeed is the
most touching of all : the will of Agnes Badgcroft, a Benedictine
nun. The poor creature was driven from her religious home, the
dissolved Abbey of St Mary's, Winton, by the tyranny of
Henry. Yet she was loyal to the end to her vows and her faith.
And when she died in Mary's reign, by her will, June 30, 1556,
she bequeathed " my professed ring to the Blessed Sacrament for
to be sold and to buy a canopy for the Blessed Sacrament in the
Church of St. Peter's, Colbroke."

Living in the midst of all the multitudinous religious discords
of the present day, breathing whether we will or no the very
atmosphere of theological dissension and strife, it is exceedingly
difficult to seize the full meaning of Father Bridgett's picture of
the Anglo-Norman Church, though it is worked out to the very
least detail of its outward manifestation in material magnificence
and of its moral aspect in the spiritual life of the peop le.Yet unless
we do fully compass it, it is scarcely too much to say that we can
have no real insight into one of the greatest events of the time, the
famous interdict of Pope Innocent III. The picture of the Anglo-
Norman Church brings into view a mighty nation bound together
in perfect concord by the strong tie of religious unity. It
is a complete exemplification of the unitive power of the Holy
Eucharist. It introduces us to a whole people brought together on
an equal footing in one great act of faith and worship which was
at once their highest privilege and their gravest obligation ; the
first care of their daily life, their hope in death, and a bond of
union with those that had left them for another world. Richard I.
in his better days used to rise early and seek first the kingdom

VOL. VI. — NO. I. [Third Series.} o

194 A Recent Contribution to English History.

of God, never leaving the cliurch until all the offices were ended.
William the Conqueror heard Mass daily, and assisted at matins
and vespers and other Canonical hours ; and when dying he had
at his own request been taken to the Priory of St. Gervase, with
floods of tears for the terrible destruction of Mantes and his pre-
vious barbarities in Northumberland, he begged that he might
receive Holy Communion from the hands of the Archbishop of
Kouen. When St. David, King of Scotland, felt that his end
was approaching, he had himself carried by the clergy and
soldiers into his oratory to receive for the last time the most holy
mysteries before the altar. Henry III., according to Walsingham,
was wont '^ every day to hear three Masses with music {cum
notd), and not satisfied with that, was present at many low masses
besides ; and when the priest elevated the Lord^s Body, he used
to support the priest^s hand and kiss it. It happened one day
that lie was conversing on such matters with St. Louis, King of
the French, when the latter said that it was better not always to
hear Masses, but to go often to sermons. To whom the English
king pleasantly replied that * he would rather see his friend fre-
quently than hear another talking of him however well.^ Henry's
son,^ Edward I., was so distressed at the neglect of Mass by his
daughter, after her marriage with John of Brabant, that he caused
large alms to be made to atone for it. And the neglect and the
atonement are thus handed down to us in the wardrobe book of
the year : * Sunday, the ninth day before the translation of the
virgin [i.e., the Assumption), paid to Henry, the almoner, for
feeding 300 poor men, at the King's Common, because the Lady
Margaret, the King's daughter, and John of Brabant, did not
hear Mass, 36<s. Id.,' a sum equal to £27 of our money ; and
besides this John of Brabant was obliged by his father-in-law to
give an additional sum in alms. The renowned Bishop of Lincoln,
Robert Grosseteste, had to cope with grave abuses, not because
the nobles neglected Mass, but because they insisted on having it
said privately for the benefit of their own households, a privilege
accorded solely to royalty. Henry of Estria, Prior of Canterbury,
who died in 1330, having been prior for forty-seven years, '^at
last in his ninety-second year, during the celebration of Mass,
after the elevation of the Lord's Body, on the 6th of the ides of
April, ended his life in peace.' St. ^Ired, Abbot of Bievaux,
for ten years grievously afflicted with bodily infirmities, fought
against them so long as he could stand in order to say Mass,
though for the last year of his life after the daily effort, ex-
hausted, he would lie for an hour on his bed, motionless and
speechless. Then when Edward I. wrote to the Archbishop of
York to announce the death of Queen Eleanor and beg for
prayers and Masses, ^ that as she herself could no longer merit.

A Recent Contribution to English History, 195

she might be helped by the charitable prayers of others/ the
Archbishop wrote to the King that the number of Masses he had
ordered to be offered for the Queen^s soul in the parish churches
and chapels where there were priests celebrating amounted to
47^528; and that he had also granted forty days' indulgence to
all who said a Fater and an Ave for the repose of her soul. As
the Masses were to be said every Wednesday for the space of one
year, and would amount to 47,528, a simple calculation reveals
that at the end of the thirteenth century the number of priests in
the archdiocese of York alone was no less than 914. And finally,
to put a limit to proofs that might be multiplied almost endlessly,
the example of William of Kilkenny, Bishop of Ely, who left two
hundred marks to his church to find two chaplains to celebrate
perpetually for his soul, shows that those who were continually
besought to supplicate for the souls of others were careful to
provide against the neglect of their own.

Now the interdict of Innocent III. means the arrest of the
whole of this part of the common life of England for more than
six years. The threat of it startled even the shameless King,
who brought it upon the country, and he vowed that if it were
published he would banish the clergy from the land, mutilate
every Italian in the realm he could lay hands on, and confiscate
the property of every man who should obey it. But the interdict
was published, and correcting the inaccuracies of Mr. Greene's
account of it, and supplying what was wanting to the brevity of
Dr. Lin gardes. Father Bridgett gives us a view of its effects such
as no historian has succeeded in doing before.

The interdict of Innocent III. was no ordinary interdict — if a
measure so exceptional can ever in any sense be rightly termed
ordinary. It surpassed in the severity of its clearly-defined
prescriptions all those of a later date. From the 23rd of March,
1208, 5lass ceased, the altars were stripped and the churches were
closed throughout the land ; espousals could not be contracted
nor marriages celebrated ; infants were to be baptized, but only
at home ; the dying might make their confession, but they could
not receive the Eucharist or Extreme Unction ; the dead could
not be buried in consecrated ground ; friends might lay them
wherever they pleased outside the churchyards, especially where
passers-by would be moved by the sight, but no priest could be
present at the burial ; the bodies of the clergy, inclosed in sealed
cofiins or in lead, might be placed in the trees of the churchyard
or on its walls, but even bishops themselves who died during the
interdict, so long as it lasted, remained unburied.

When it came to the Pope's hearing that some of the Cister-
cians, not considering themselves comprised in the general terms of
the interdict — theirspecial privileges requiring a particular mention

o 2

196 A Recent Contribution to English History.

of them to be made — had begun to say Mass, Innocent, without
blamino" the monks, charged the bishops to determine whether
this partial non-observance was likely to cause scandal, or to make
the Kino* think that he, the Pope, would relent if John persisted
in his contumacy. If it were calculated to do so, they were to
restrict at once the liberty claimed by these religious.

In January, ]209, Cardinal Langton sought and obtained
permission for Mass to be celebrated once a week secretly in all
the conventual churches, where up to that time the interdict had
been obeyed, in order ' that the virtue of this most Divine Sacra-
ment may obtain a good end to this business.' Permission was also
granted to the Cardinal and to the three Bishops of London,
Ely and Worcester to have Mass said for themselves and their
households should they be summoned to England by the King.
But a further entreaty of the Cistercians for something more
than the general concession to monastic orders of a weekly
Mass was firmly, though kindly, refused. They urged every
argument likely to avail, Innocent^s own, for the concession he
had already made, included. But the Pope remained fixed in his
refusal. ' Although,' he wrote, ' you very piously believe that
the immolation of the Saving Victim will bring about more
speedily the desired ending to this business, yet we hope that if
you bear patiently this undeserved pain, " the Spirit who asketh
for you with unspeakable groanings," will all the more quickly
obtain a happy issue from Him, who by bearing a pain not due,
and by paying what he had not taken, hath redeemed us, even
our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore we pray and beseech you,
beloved sons, that remembering that this affair is now almost at
its end, you will not disturb its progress, but that you will well
weigh what we have written for God's sake and for ours, who
with a most fervent charity are zealous for you and your order,
and who hold it in veneration ; and that bearing your present
troubles in patience you will give yourselves to prayer to God
that He would so soften the author of this guilt as to absolve
those who bear the pain ; and be certain that, for the undeserved
pain you bear, a worthy recompense is in store for you, not only
from God but from us also.'

History as a rule is so busy with the turbulent doings of the
barons, and so intent on the conduct of the great personages of
the struggle, that we lose sight of the multitude of Religious,
and of the bulk of the people and secular clergy cut off from
everything that made life worth living to them. Such words as
* the disgrace and horrors of the interdict' fall upon almost deaf
ears, so vague and abstract have the circumstances and the spirit
of our own times rendered them. Sermons in Music Halls, if
Music Halls had been in those days, though delivered by the

A Recent Contribution to English History. 197

most eloquent or popular preacher, would never have compensated
for the loss of Mass to the poorest congregation of mediaeval
England. It is just this view of the matter that Father
Bridgett's account of the interdict supplies. Together with the
increasing restlessness of the religious orders under its gloomy-
restrictions, we feel the secret disaffection that was spreading
amongst the people, when, contrary to all the expectations of the
Pope, John — envying Mahommedan nations who knew no
restrictions of morality, and had no Pope to vindicate God's
rights and the rights of God's people — so far from yielding,
hardened himself more and more against God and man; gave
himself up to every kind of brutual indulgence ; is said to have
even sought help from the Emperor of Morrocco with an offer
of renouncing Christianity; pillaged churches and confiscated
the goods of the churchmen who resisted him ; and carried his
impious defiance of interdict and excommunication alike to such
lengths that when he chanced to see a very fat stag brought in,
he cried out with a laugh, ' He had a good life, and yet he never
heard Mass.' No wonder that the terrible verdict of the King's
contemporaries — ^Eoul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the
fouler presence of John' — has passed into the sober judgment
of history.^

Dr. Lingard, with certainly less than his usual perspicacity,
esteems the interdict ' a singular form of punishment by which the
person of the King was snared, and his subjects, the unoffending
parties, were made to suffer.' Father Bridgett shows a wider
grasp of the subject. He has appreciated and exhibits the fact
that, though far less guilty than the King, England as a nation
was at the time far from innocent :

' A mediaeval monarch, however despotic, could not be con-
sidered apart from his people, as if they bore none of the respon-
sibility of his acts. When it suited their own interests the
barons could be bold enough both to counsel and to resist their
sovereigns. The feudal system put no standing army in the
pay and obedience of the King. It left him dependent on the
fidelity of his great vassals. If kings were bold to do evil, it
was because they were pushed on by evil counsellors among the
clergy and the laity, were surrounded by docile agents, and
counted on the co-operation or connivance of their people. What
were the great excommunications and interdicts of the Middle
Ages but lessons in constitutional government given to kings and
people alike, teaching them that they were responsible to and
for each other? If the innocent suffered with the guilty, that is
the very condition of human society.'

* J. E. Green, " History of the English People."

198 A Recent Contribution to English History.

And then more pointedly justifying the Pope for an act that
has been variously misrepresented and misinterpreted as part of
a crafty or ambitious policy, difficult of vindication on the
grounds of either equity or justice, he sums up this section of
his subject :

' The crimes of the country attained their climax in John, one
of the vilest of our kin^s ; and there was no injustice in requiring
the whole nation to unite in expiating his guilt.

^Besides this, if we would form a right conception of the great
interdict of 1208, we must remember that an interdict is not
an ordinary punishment of ordinary crimes. It is a solemn pro-
test against outrages to the liberty and majesty of the Church.
She is established by God as the Queen of the nations as well as
their mother. She has a right to hide her countenance when she
is insulted. She had a right to demand reparation. Pope
Innocent exercised no tyranny. He withdrew from the English
nation nothing to which it had a right. He confiscated none of
its riches, he abridged none of its liberties. It was as a super-
natural society, as a baptized people, as a part of the Church of
which he under Christ was supreme ruler, that he humbled the
nation, or called upon it to humble itself, by the withdrawal of
God^s presence. He judged it better that the Churches should
be closed even for years than that they should be opened for the
pompous but sacrilegious ministrations of the enslaved and
corrupted priesthood which John would have created. It was
better, as he wrote to the Cistercian Abbots, that the Holy Spirit
should, with ineffable groans, plead in the hearts of desolate
men, than that Masses should be offered in the presence of
impenitent sinners.

^ The obstinancy of the King, and perhaps the sins of the
nation, made the interdict far longer than the Pope had antici-
pated. He had hoped that a short vigil would be followed by a
glad festival. It was not his fault if the vigil was of unexampled
length. It was a war, and partook of a war's chances. Inno-
cent chose it, it would seem, as a milder measure than excom-
munication.

' Having once entered upon it he had no choice but to fight it
out to victory, even though the victory could not be gained
without a far more terrible and prolonged contest than he had
expected, and though he was obliged to add at least those other
spiritual penalties from which he had shrunk at first.

* The interdict lasted six years and three months ; for though
the King had been absolved from his excommunication, and High
Mass and Te Deum were sung in the Cathedral of Winchester
on the 20th July, 1213, yet reparation was not made by him,
nor the interdict removed from the country, until July 2nd, 1214>

A Recent Contribution to English History. 199

" Efc factum est gaudium magnum in universa Ecclesia
Anglicana." '"^

V.

Clearly the interdict derived its unconquerable operative power
from the faith of the people, not from the faith of the Sovereign,
and it was a faith that, as we observed just now, had never been
breathed upon much less shaken by the wind of heresy. William
of Newborough, writing at the end of the twelfth century,
rejoiced that England had ever remained free from every heretical
pestilence though many other parts of the world were afflicted by
various forms of its disturbing presence. " The Britons indeed,''^
he wrote, " produced Eelagius, and were corrupted by his doctrine.
But since Britain has been called England no contagion of
heresy has ever infected if And for nearly two centuries after
William of Newborough wrote, England remained free. And
even when the metaphysical subtleties of Wycliffe and the frenzy
of the Lollards against the Holy Eucharist first made its dreadful
disintegrating power felt, heresy had no wide-spread influence,
it did not exert a national influence. Great as the mischief it
did was, it could not alienate the masses from their old faith.

' Ten years after the death of Wycliffe the fanaticism of the
Lollards emboldened them to present a petition to Parliament,
which, though then rejected, is remarkable as being the first
mention in that assembly of a heresy which was, in the course of
centuries, to be adopted by it as a test of the allegiance to the
Crown and Protestant Church. '' The false Sacrament of
Bread,-*' says this petition, " leads all men, with a few exceptions,
into idolatry ; for they think that the Body of Christ, which is
never out of heaven, is, by virtue of the priest's words, essentially
enclosed in a little bread which they show to the people." f

'There was much corruption of morals, much scepticism in
England, at that time among the higher classes, much misery
and ignorance in the lower orders, yet the nation was not yet
prepared to reject the faith of centuries and cut itself off from
Christendom. There was a sturdy common-sense view which,
prevailed over the metaphysical subtleties of Wycliffe and which
is thus exposed by Netter : '^ Are then all infidels who are not
Wyclifiites ? All— Greeks, Illyrians, Spaniards, Erench, Indians,
Hungarians, Danes, Germans, Italians, Poles, Lithuanians,
English, Irish, Scotch — all the innumerable priests and bishops
throughout the world all blind, all infidels ? And has the whole
Church throughout the world now at length to learn from this

* Thomas Wykes, p. 58, EoUs Series. f Wilkins, iii. 221.

200 A Recent Contribution to English History.

John Wicked-life"^ what Christ meant in the Gospel when he
gave His Body in the Eucharist ? And did Christ thus leave
His spouse, the Church of the whole world, deprived of the
possession of the true faith, in order to cleave to this Wycliffian
harlot? Surely the portentous ambition of this new sect is
alone deserving of eternal punishment. You wretched, deluded
men, does it really seem to you a trifle to believe in Christ as
you profess to do, and to disbelieve in His Church ? To believe
in Christ the Head and to sever from Him His mj'stic body ?
To begin the creed with, I believe in God, and to terminate your
counter-creed with, I deny the Catholic Church ?" ''f

Granted that the Lollard negations prepared the way for 'the
wider and ever- widening negatives called by the general name of
Protestantism,' that they did not take real hold of the masses is
abundantly proved in many a chapter of the History of the Holy
Eucharist, embracing the generations that came and went before
the Reformation ' was forced on an unwilling people.' And to
show that they did not affect the choice specimens of human
wisdom and virtue, we have only to recall the names of men and
women like Robert Grosseteste, the upholder of our national
liberties ; William of Wykeham, the illustrious Bishop of Win-
chester ; Elphinstone of Aberdeen, churchman, lawyer, and
statesman ; Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother
of Henry VII. and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford ;
John Fisher, the great patron of learning, Bishop and Cardinal ;
Thomas More, Chancellor of England and martyr.

John's character and acts proved ' that what is called the
Reformation — that is to say, the perpetual and self-imposed
interdict of the Catholic religion in England — might have come
some centuries earlier than it did had it only depended on the
will of kings. Such men as Rufus and John were quite as willing
as Henry VIII. to sacrifice the souls of their people to the grati-
fication of their own avarice, lust, and hate. Remedies such as
that made use of by Innocent were possible in the thirteenth
century, but would have been found useless in the sixteenth.
They depend for their eflRcacy on the strength of faith, not merely
in one country, but throughout Christendom. When a great
number have come to be of the opinion of John, that temporal
prosperity is more important than religion, and boast how well a
country can get on without Mass — like John's fat buck — then
it would be an idle threat to deprive them of what they already
disregard.'

* "A Joanne, coofnomento impise vitas." If my translation is correct,
this pnn on Wycliffe's name must have been well known in England,
since the Latin wonld convey no meaning to any but an Englishman.

t Thomas Netter (Waldensis), " Doctrinale Eidei," iii. 35.

Of a National Return to the Faith. 201

How in the sixteenth century so great a number came to be of
the opinion of John as to bring about the tremendous revolution
that made the national faith of centuries a penal offence Father
Bridgett does not tell us. Passages such as the one last cited
foreshadow and anticipate the momentous epoch in the History
of the Holy Eucharist when the doctrine of the Real Presence
was reviled as a blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit,
when the offering of Mass by a Catholic priest was punished
with a cruel death, and the repudiation of it was required
as the price of social preferment or of civil liberty ; but
that is all. The volumes we have been rapidly glancing
through bring us down to the Reformation, and there they
stop. Happily the reason is not far to seek, nor disconcert-
ing when found. In a notice prefixed to the first volume the
author tells us that he had collected materials to complete his
History to the present day ; but when he found that a third
volume would be required to treat adequately the Reformation and
post- Reformation periods, he thought it better to make the early
and mediaeval periods complete in themselves, and he has done so.
And moreover he promises the third volume. It cannot well be
more important than the two volumes before us. But if we have
not shown that it will be of very great importance as the com-
pletion of a work that has hitherto been wanting to the popular
apprehension of our national history, we have gravely failed in
our duty.

Art. VIII.— on SOME REASONS FOR NOT

DESPAIRING OF A NATIONAL RETURN TO

THE FAITH.

[This Paper luas read by the writer before the Academia of
the Catholic Religion.']

A MOST able and thoughtful Paper on the conversion of
England, which was read by an Academician at the last
session in June last, elicited from several members, including the
present writer, the expression of an opinion more favourable to our
wishes than that to which he inclined. The accomplished author of
that Paper appeared to believe that, whereas there were many signs
of a growing tendency on the part of individuals, alarmed at the
swift and wide-spread movement of this age and country tow^ards
disbelief in all and every form of supernatural religion, to fall
back on the Catholic Church as the alone adequately tutelary
system of historic and doctrinal Christianity, yet anything like

202 On some Reasons for not Despairing of a

a national return to the faith of our fathers seemed hardly to be
possible. It is with the hope of being able to marshal a few-
facts and draw from them some inferences less unfavourable to
our wishes, that I make the following remarks, which I trust
may serve as topics on which we may have the advantage of
reading others more competent to treat of such matters.

1. My first topic in mitigation of the less hopeful view is a
historic consideration to which in the ardour of controversy we
may perhaps have not been quite fair. I mean the fact that the
first lapse of the national establishment of religion under Queen
Elizabeth was the w^orst. The tone of the Anglican formularies
and that of their defenders since that lapse has been on the
whole an improving tone. Compare the uniform downward
tendency of the other separatists of the sixteenth century in this
andin other lands with that of the Established religion, and you will
see a marked contrast. " Lutherans,^^ says John Henry Newman,
" have tended to rationalism ; Calvinists have become Socinians ;
but what has it become ? As far as its formularies are concerned,
it may be said all along to have grown towards a more perfect
Catholicism than that with which it started at the time of its
estrangement ; every act, every crisis which marks its course,
has been upwards. It never was in so miserable case as in
the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth. At the end of Elizabeth''s
there was a conspicuous revival of the true doctrine."* It is true
that these are the words of an illustrious writer who was at that
timean Anglican; but I think the facts are as he states, however
differently we, and no doubt he himself now, would estimate their
value and importance. I also conceive him to be speaking, as I
do now myself, of Anglicanism in the restricted official sense of
the term. Similarly, what a vast improvement in the doctrine
and tone of the " Caroline ■" Divines over those of the so-called
Heformation ! and though the storms of the great rebellion for a
time swept all before them, these were more akin to an external
persecution, affecting rather the outward conditions of the
establij-hment of religion than its inward and spiritual character.
In the next century, again, the Socinian elements in the
Protestant Church may be fairly said to have been checked, if not
eliminated, by her own action ; and the eighteenth century will
figure in the minds of orthodox Anglicans, nay, of fair-minded
historians, rather as that of Butler, and Wilson, and Home, than as
that of Tillotson,Warburton, Newton, Hoadley, and their successors
and imitators. The undisturbed Erastianism of the last age, again,
has in its turn gradually given-way to the higher conception of the

* J. H. Newman, Catholicity of the English Church: "Hist. and Crit.
s," vol. ii. p. 55.

National Return to the Faith. 303>

Church and her office which is now current among Anglicans. If,
for instance^ we compare an assize sermon preached at the begin-
ning of this century by a very able and excellent man^ whose name
and principal work is still familiar to elderly Oxonians, Mr. Davison,
some time Fellow of Oriel, with such compositions at the present
day, we shall see what a great advance has been made in the interval
of some sixty or seventy years. In the discourse alluded to, the
preacher, speaking of the importance of some public authoritative
instrument for teaching and impressing, warning, or fortifying
the public mind, never once directly or indirectly alludes to the
Church as a divine, or even as a human, institution directed to
this end j but speaks of human and civil law" as their " most
certain instruction/^ as furnishing them with "at least some stock
of ideas of duty,^' and as their '^plainest rule of action.'' I have
said not even indirectly does he allude to the Church, but this
is incorrect ; for I find in the same passage (by Newman in his article
on Davison) the following fine apostrophe : ^' As if the Mother
of Saints were dead or banished, a thing of past times or other
countries, he actually applies to the law of the land language
which she had introduced, figures of which she exemplified the
reality, and speaks of the law as ' laying crime under the
interdict and infamy of a public condemnation."'' (Ih., p. 409).
Lastly, let me remind you that whereas in the first age of
Anglican Protestantism the universal and unchallenged belief
in the real absence of our Lord on her altars was fitly symbolized
by the sordid table and side-benches placed lengthways in the
body of the churches, now I believe I am right in saying that,,
with scarce an exception, and irrespective of the parties and
their shades of belief, or unbelief, which divide the Anglican
Establishment, all Anglican Churches contain a communion-table
placed altarwise, and, in a very large number of instances, intended
and contrived to look more or less like a real altar. If we assume this
fact to have but a slender, or even no, dogmatic significance,,
still the fact remains, and, like other facts, has to be accounted
for. I believe that the origin of the upward tendency in this
as in other particulars is distinctly to be traced in the Anglican
canons of 1603, and again in those of 1661.

2. Next I will remark on the distinct increase of religious
practice which characterizes this latter half of the nineteenth
century. I remember that one of the broad issues which
challenged my attention when first, some forty years ago, I
began to think of the religious question, was the palpable fact
that, whatever might be the alleged superior purity of Protestant
doctrine over that which it supplanted, in point of religious
practice there was no question the so-called Keformation was a
vast decline from the ante-Eeformation standard. The mere fact

204 On some Reasons for not Despairing of a

that the pre-Reformation churches were always open, on feast
day and on feria, that the services succeeded each other from
early dawn till noon-tide, and that they were attended hy
crowds of people of all ranks and conditions, whereas after the
religious revolution the churches remained shut, the great
service which brought men to them was abolished, and the times
seemed to have come on this land which God foretold by the
mouth of His prophet when all his solemnities and festival
times should cease, "^ this mere fact is a prima facie condem-
nation of the whole so-called reformation of religion. Well,
whatever stress we justly lay on it, we must in equity proportion-
ately mitigate when, as at the present time, we see a vast
number of churches once more^opened and frequented, and a
most remarkable increase of services, so as in some places to
imitate the Catholic use of churches in the repetition at frequent
intervals of the Holy Mass ; nor only so, but the services thus
repeated are specially those in which that dim and shattered
image of the Eucharistic sacrifice, which the so-called Reformers
substituted for it, is repeated, as if in emphatic repudiation of
the Anglican article, which denounces the reiteration of the Mass
as an abuse to be by all means and for ever done away. More-
over, not only has an extraordinary revival of church services
and church frequentation and observance characterized this time,
but the ritual, as we all know, has undergone such a change in the
Catholic direction as would have simply astounded our imme-
diate progenitors if, as is the case in rare instances still, they had
survived to behold the change. Even in my own recollection
the service and ritual of the Ansjlican Church throufjhout the
land has under^rone an astonishino^ revolution. Instead of a
huge pile of woodwork often entirely obscuring the squalid
communion-table and its deserted septum, and containing, on
three stories, receptacles for a preacher above, a praying minister
in the middle story, and a very ** pestilent fellow," called a
" clerk,'''' on the ground-floor, it is now universally the case that
the preaching and praying desks, cut down from their some-
time lofty estate to a moderate height, or even disappearing
altogether, leave the altar not only visible, but dominating the
chancel and whole church. The '*^ clerk," with his grosteque
utterance and costume, is an extinct species, and the duet
between the parson and this functionary, which represented the
devotions of the whole congregation, is heard no more. Then
as to the administration of the supposed sacraments and
sacramentals of the Establishment, a no less momentous change
has taken place. Even distinctly low Church and dissenting

* Osee ii. 11.

National Return to the Faith. 205

ministers adopt a solemnity and an accuracy of gesture and
rubrical observance such as Archbishop Laud prescribed for the
most part in vain to his clergy, while in their dress and
deportment the clergy of the Establishment exhaust every
device in their unwearied efforts to reproduce the exact type of
a Catholic ecclesiastic. Nor is this confined to the clergy or to
the Establishment. The tone of the public mind, too, when we
can trace its action in obiter dicta, and, as it were, off its guard on
the subject of religion, is clearly different from what it was
some fifty or sixty years ago. I open, for instance an old
Monthly Revieiv of the year 1822, and I find in an article
on a town in Switzerland the following expression : speaking
of Geneva, the writer says : " A free government, the same
religion, and similar tastes, render Geneva attractive to the
English.'''' I concede that in a review or essay treating of
religion such an expression might be found now either in
deprecation or in applause, according to the bias of the writer ;
but I submit that, intention apart, it would not occur to any
one nowadays to assume that Genevan Calvinism is our national
religion. So, again, if you read Maitland's preface to the collected
edition of his Essays, you will see that he elaborately addresses
himself to show that it is not inexcusable for a Protestant clergy-
man to be fair and equitable in treating of Catholic times, and
persons, and things. Nowadays the Surtees, and many other such
societies, publish year by year Catholic documents which are most
damaging to historic Protestantism without a word of apology.
The fact is, that they themselves, and we through them, have taken
most of the chief Protestant positions — for instance, and notably,
the summary polemic view that the Pope is anti- Christ. None
but a few old women (of both sexes) make any attempt to defend
them, and the public mind tacitly consents to browse in the grass-
grown embrasures and unroofed casemates of many an exploded
Protestant transitional fortress. I do not forget the plea that
this is in part indifferentism ; but I believe the temper of mind
which leads men to such inquiries and such publications is not
that of indifferentism but something better and higher in the
greater number.

Here also we must mention the astonishing sums of money,
representing in a vast number of instances the most real and the
most unobtrusive self-denial and sacrifice, lavished on the fabrics
of the ancient churches throughout the land, or expended in the
erection of new and magnificent imitations of them. Altars of
almost unrivalled splendour, stained glass, marl)le and mosaic
wall-surfaces, rich pavements, gorgeous metal-work, paintings of
the loftiest ideal and most artistic beauty, carvings in wood and
in stone, are to be found renewed or created in every church.

206 On some Reasons for not Despairing of a

from the cathedral down to the village chapehy ; while instead of
the paltry or misshapen monuments in wood or stone, without
sign in letter or in symbol of Christianity or of any religion at
all, the graves of the dead are surmounted by beautiful monu-
ments breathing in form and inscription the faith and hope of
the Christian, nay even of the Catholic, with regard to the
departed.

3. But, further : to pass from these more direct evidences of
an upward, or Catholic, tendency in the national religion, surely
it is worth our notice how certain causes not only in their nature
not conducive to such results, but positively such as would lead
to adverse and contrary effects, seem to have been and are still
being overruled by a force superior to the conscious intuitions of
men in an opposite sense. First of these I would mention the
religious movements of the last and present centuries represented
by the names of Wesley, Whitfield, Law, Veim, Wilberforce,
Thornton, Simeon, and the rest. Surely it is evident, on the one
hand, that short of the miraculous (of which we are not now speak-
ing), a religious movement, properly so-called, a stirring of the
dry bones of the National Establishment and revival of any kind
of personal religion by the direct operation of Catholic teaching
and teachers, was nevermore entirely out of the question in England
than when the last Stuart sovereign was reigning, and her brother
and afterwards her nephew were plotting and being betrayed by
worthless political gamblers ; and, on the other hand, it is more
evident still that Wesley and those I have just named had nothing
less at heart than the propagation of the Catholic faith : yet if
the Almighty has decreed the recall of England to the faith, but
still, in accordance with His usual moral governance of the
world, does not reveal His right hand by miracle, what other way
could there be for breaking up the dead and slumberous lethe of
that age and country save by such agencies as those whose
genesis and history is summed in those men's names ? Time
would not suffice, nor is it necessary here, to point out how they
broke up the long-deserted and weed-grown fields, not yet ripen-
ing to the harvest, of our fatherland, raising before the eyes of a
generation sunk in so much ignorance and sloth concerning
heavenly things, a vision, vivid though incomplete, of the
Personal, nay, of the Incarnate, God, whose name and office were
then well-nigh effaced from the national mind and conscience.
They delivered a message, tinctured indeed with error, and
unbalanced, but earnest, and sanctioned by lives of self-denying
purity, and full of the unseen and eternal things of which their
times had lost at once the knowledge and the appetite — the
great message of ^^ justice and judgment to come,'' the pleadings
of conscience, and the presages of eternal loss or gain. More-

National Return to the Faith. 207

over, they delivered it divested of any such colour as would have
deprived it at once of every chance of success ; and this not as
an economy, but bond fide as " the ivhole counsel of God" as
they so often say.

Without this preliminary stirring of the national mind, what
would have availed the scattered fragments of Catholic truth
lying buried in formularies and liturgy, which the High Church-
men of a later age were to order and arrange again, and to build
up amidst the scoffs of many and the mistrust of all — nay, even of
themselves — into the ideal of the true and only City of God, as
yet seemingly so far off, and yet so near to them ? The beatitude
of the Divine hunger and thirst for a justice as yet unknown,
would have been prematurely bestowed on such as those who
began, and of whom some still survive, the Oxford movement,
unless it had been preceded by the deep sense of spiritual need,
and love of a Personal E/cdeemer, aroused in them by these
Calvinistic but earnest and pious men. Their writings and
examples were the food of young souls, as yet unfitted for a
stronger meat by the prejudice of birth and of education. Thus
Wesley, and the rest, whose work was to become a running sore
in the body-politic of Anglicanism, and the Evangelical school
within it, who have long since degenerated into mere anti-
Catholic fanatics, seem to me to have prepared the way for a
movement which they neither contemplated nor would have
approved if they could have foreseen it.

4. But now let us look for a similar paradox in a totally
different direction. In the last century the whole of our litera-
ture was, as has been often said, in one conspiracy against the
Catholic religion. The writings of our classical authors, from
Pope — himself a Catholic, but half-drowned in the torrent of con-
temptuous ignorance of Catholic things around him — downwards,
either entirely ignored, or grossly misrepresented and inveighed
against, the truth, and a whole jargon of invective was invented
and served up, in season and out of season, in large or small doses,
to denounce, ridicule, and contemn the Church, and especially the
Church of the middle and later ages.

The fierce persecution of the last two centuries had indeed
begun to relax, and State prosecutions, the axe and the stake, had
well-nigh become things of the past a hundred years ago ; but the
gross violence of the mob made itself felt by the Catholics of
London in 1780, in a way which showed plainly how well the
people had learned to hate the faith from which their fathers had
apostatized. Moreover, a new impetus and a more specious show
of reason had been given to the irreligion of the educated
classes by the French Freethinkers, whose efforts tvere soon to be
crowned with portentous effects in France. Milton and Hobbes

208 On some Reasons for not Despairing of a

were the philosophic parents of the French materialists and
doctrinaires_, who, in their turn, gave us our Bolingbrokes,
Humes, and Gibbons, and Paynes, and so many more impugners
of dogmatic and historic Christianity, while in the political order
our Whig statesmen and legislators were deeply tainted with the
French irreligion, which suited their aims as well as it did their
vices.

In the very noontide of this condition of things there appears
suddenly, without assignable cause or antecedent, a group of
writers who, yielding to none of their contemporaries in personal
conviction of the entire error and absurdity of Catholic doctrine,
nevertheless produce a new literature, destined in a short time to
effect a very wide- spread and complete reaction of sentiment and
feeling in the cultivated mind of the nation. Southey, learned,
brilliant and absorbing; Scott, picturesque, scenic and genial;
Coleridge, profound, original, seductive ; Wordsworth, the pensive
interpreter of Nature, her prophet and her priest — one and all true
poets, rise up each in his place, and with one consent break forth
with a strain of such harmony that no one that has ears to hear
but must confess their song has some common origin. Whether
they will it or not, they are the mouthpieces of a Spirit mightier
than themselves, and instruments in a scheme beyond their ken
and their intention. Thus, early in this century, as some of us can
remember, the enthusiasm and ardour of our childhood or our
youth were rallied, not as our fathers had been to the side of
pagan virtues and formed on pagan examples, but to the great
ideal of Christendom, its chivalry, its high enterprise, its pic-
turesque beauty, its soul-stirring mixture of a splendid and
mysterious religion, with all the shifting accidents by flood and
field that form the favourite ground whereon young imaginations
delight to expatiate. It was in vain that the very authors them-
selves strove, in foot-note or appendix, to keep up in their readers
the orthodox Protestant traditions as to the folly and iniquity of
mediaeval belief and mediaeval practice ; their poetic estro was too
strong for them, and while they tried to swell the chorus of the old
malediction, lo ! they " blessed us '' altogether with anew estimate;^
at least in feeling and sentiment, of those things and persons we had
been so carefully trained to hate and to mistrust. Would Mait-
land''s ^'Dark Ages,^^ and a host of similar books which now
cover the tables and shelves of every drawing-room and book
club throughout the country, ever have been written, unless they
had been preceded by such poems as " Roderick the Goth,'''
"Marmion/^ and " Cristabel,'' or such novels as "The Abbot,^^
"The Monastery,'' " Kenilworth,'' " Waverley," and so forth?
I trow not. And now, if English youth, you may depend on it,
have no lon^^er the same estimate as that with which we begun

National Return to the Faith. 209

life, of such names as '^ priests/^ " monks/^ '^ nuns/' " monas-
teries/'' " cloisters/' and the like, why is it but because we were
tauo^ht a truer one, not by the grave and authoritative teaching
of Catholic educators, for we had none, but by the pens of such
queer Christians as Robert Southey, LL.D., or Samuel Taylor
Coleridge or Walter Scott. It matters not whether Southey^s
learning, or Coleridge's metaphysics, or Scott^s antiquarian lore
had either much or little to do with their literary success — what I
dwell on is that they "made their running," as the phrase is, on
ground hitherto so despised and rejected as that of the Middle
Ages, by an appeal primarily directed to the most '^forward and
obtrusive ''' of all our faculties. This I esteem a stroke of Provi-
dence. If God is light and truth, heresy is both error and dark-
ness too, and surely nowhere is it more conspicuous than in
England that the strength of heresy lies in the ignorance of the
people with regard to spiritual truths, in which more than in
any other branch of human science contempt is the sure gauge
of ignorance, as knowledge is the parent of esteem and reverence.
Now, though we must admit that the mass of our people are still
sunk in gross ignorance, and seem incapable of illumination in
spiritual things, yet there is an advance even among them in
places where High Church clergy have been at work for many
years in school and church. Nor must we forget that this literary
movement was manifestly the parent of similar ones in the other
forms of poetry. Architecture, painting, music, have all since
received a similar inspiration and impulse. It is an exception to
a general rule that a Catholic bishop (Milner), and a Catholic
architect (Augustus Welby Pugin), had a share, and a very large
one, in the revival of a due respect and admiration for mediaeval
art : in both cases they were preceded by non-Catholics — viz., the
Protestant Canon Nott, of Winchester, and the Quaker Rickman.
But this touches on a separate topic, on which I would fain say a few
words later. I will here only mention, in passing, a reflection which
admits of much and interesting development — viz., the influence
of the revival and spread of mediaeval Christian ideas upon our
language ; in which you will most probably have noticed that a
number of words have of late obtained a footing which were
unknown, or, if known, then misapplied, a generation or two ago.
Nor is it unworthy of notice that as the isolation and consequent
stupid insular pride of the last age was an agent for evil in
making us contemn all foreigners and foreign things, and therein
of course the faith which had become strange to us, so now the
contact with our neighbours and the ditfusion of their tongue is
productive of some good by familiarizing us with the knowledge
and phraseology of their religion. I pass to another topic.

5. While our romantic poets were in their childhood or nonage
VOL. VI. NO. I. [Third Series.] p

210 On some Reasons for not Desjmiring of a

a neighbouring country was passing through the throes of a
revolution which a century has scarcely sufficed to play out. An
astonishing enthusiasm fell upon well-nigh the whole governing
classes of the French people. A systematic attack had been
planned and carried out by a band of clever specious sophists
on all the existing institutions of the country ; the disciples
of Voltaire, of Diderot, of D^Alembert, of Yolney, and J. J.
Rousseau, and so many niore, were to be found on the steps
of the throne, in the senate, and in the magistrature — nay, in the
assemblies of the clergy itself. The scheme had been contrived
with a wonderful cunning; the kings of a whole continent, who'
were themselves a chief aim of the conspirators, were trained in
the school of the new philosophy, and made use of as cat's-paws to
carry out their nefarious views ; infidel and philosophic ministers
led them on step by step to destroy the power which had been
their only possible stay and support. The Church"'s vanguard,
that illustrious society whose privilege it is to be the first object
of the hatred of the enemies of God and His Church, was dis-
banded and driven for shelter from the dominions of Catholic
kings to those of the schismatical and heretic sovereigns of Eastern
and Northern Europe. Then came the end : the Church itself
in France, and wherever France had sway or influence, was clean
abolished, and a vast number of her bishops and pastors vv'ere
thrown on our neighbouring shores. Scarcely a family of note
or position throughout the land, but received some of these
sufferers into its intimacy. Either as guests and inmates, or as
laborious and successful teachers, they found access to the interior
of that boasted fortress — the Englishman's house and home. Eight
thousand French ecclesiastics were sheltered among us ; and,
thanks be to God, to know them was to esteem and to love them.
Besides good people had some hopes that kindness might convert
them from frog-eating, popery, and wooden shoes. True they
were Papists, but this vice was a vice of origin over which they
had no control ; idolatrous, massing priests or bishops, performers
of strange rites in a " tongue not understanded of the people ; "
but perhaps if they now came in contact with the pure Gospel,
and beheld its fruits in the sanctities of English homes, wlio
could tell whether they would not see the error and darkness of
their way, and embrace the true Protestant religion as by law
established? French — that is contemptible ; Popish — that is
abominable ; eaters of vermin and worshippers of stocks and
stones they were by the disadvantage of birth and prejudice of
education ; but then they were certainly well-bred and refined,
devoted and loyal subjects of their king, and sufferers in his
cause. Moreover, they played whist, and played it well ; these
were not small merits, and perchance were destined to develop.-

National Return to the Faith. 211

Under the fostering influence of British food and port wine,
their appetite for kickshawSj religious as well as culinary, would
surely fail. His Majesty gave up his red-brick palace at
Winchester to house nine hundred of these worthy ecclesiastics,
and the University of Oxford set its press to work and turned
out, for the use of the Gallic clergy in exile ('^ in usum cleri
Gallicani exulantis"), a very neat edition of the New Testament —
" Vulgatse Editionis^' — at once a generous evidence of good-will
and a possible means of converting them to a purer faith, since,
as all men knew, the main cause of the protracted existence of
Popery was their ignorance and dread of reading the Scriptures.
This view, by the way, must have received a check by the fact that
the book bore on its title-page that it was brought out ^^cura et
studio quorundam ex eodem clero Wintonise commorantium.^^
These examples on the part of an eminently Protestant king
and university were largely followed, and so it came to pass that
Mr. and Mrs. Bull and their young folks throughout the land
obtained an unexpected ocular proof that the cherished belief
about Popish priests was, to say the least, exaggerated, if not
erroneous. Neither horns nor hoofs had they : this was certain,
and, language and dietary apart, they were, after all, found to be
tolerable " good fellows."''

Well, time went on, and the poor emigres got thinner and
thinner, and many that had come here till the storm should be
overpast, laid their anointed bodies in the old, once Catholic,
churchyards of England, to. await there the resurrection of the
just, and thus took possession of our land in the name of justice
and of faith ; but still the revolutionary tornado swept relentlessly
over fair France without sign of abatement. Meanwhile, what is
this stir and sound of footfalls in the little chapels served by
" Mushoo," the French abb^ ? In back courts of great cities,
or in outhouses of remote country-places, l(3nt or let to the
exiled nobility still mourning for the torrents of blue blood
which flood their native land, Mr. Bull is credibly informed
that '^ Mushoo's '^ flock is increased and increasing. Hundreds
and thousands, nay, tens and hundreds of thousands, of emigrants
are flocking into England : but now it is not the powdered and
gentle noble who is to invade his drawing-room, and even place
his polite legs beneath the yet more polished shadow of Mr. B.'s
sacred and inviolable mahogany, but only poor frieze-clad Paddy,
useful, cheap, hard-working and merry ; contemptible, of course,
because he is not English — and all but Englishmen are con-
temptible— and a degraded priest-ridden Papist. O ! what would
Mr. Bull have said, if he had been told that these are to become
the flock who alone would render it possible that in a brief half-
century, the names and functions of a Catholic hierarchy should

p 2

212 On some Reasons for not Despairing of a

spread like a net over all England, the augury and presage of a
" second spring " ! Meanwhile, in the poorest quarters of our
cities, a Catholic population grows up, and the English people
have learnt to see in the dreaded Popish priest no foreign political
agent, but only a quiet, hard-worked clergyman, with a definite
work of mercy and love to fulfil, rewarded not by State emolument,
but only by the gratitude and affection of his people. Poor they
are, these Irish, and alas! too often not exemplary, nay, scandalous^
if you will, in their lives ; every workhouse and every gaol knows
them, and the Protestant wealth and power and fanaticism of the
nation buys the weak and breaks down the strong, in many and
many an instance ; but still, it is the great wave of Irish emigra-
tion, Irish faith, and love, and zeal, which has carried the Ark of
God, His Name, His Priesthood, and His adorable Presence, to
many a resting-place in town and country-side, where they had
been unknown for three dreary centuries. Now, the reason why
I couple these two emigrations together, is not merely because
they synchronize — which is also a symptom of a Divine disposition
to my mind — but because they resemble each other in the matter
of causality so far as this, that neither of those causes to which
they are referable — viz., the French Revolution in the one case,
and Orange rule and corruption in the other — were placed by their
respective authors, to say the least, with any intention or wish
whatsoever to produce, however remotely, any results favourable
to the propagation of the Catholic religion in England, or any-
where else.

6. And if you will allow me but one other illustration of this
sort of discrepancy between man's intentions and God's results,
where can I better find it than in the history of that later stage
of the religious movement of our times, to which so many of us
directly owe the benefit of conversion to the Faith ? Who, in-
cluding the Right Honourable Edward Smith Stanley, M.P., and
Orange Under-Secretary for Ireland in 1833, would have supposed
that by the suppression and amalgamation of certain useless
Protestant Bishoprics in Ireland, he and his Tory compeers, were
evoking a spirit in certain quiet college precincts in Oriel and
Merton Lanes, and thereabouts, which was so soon to rend their
old garments with new patches, and burst their old bottles with
new wine ; a spirit as subtle as it is potent, a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of so many hearts, past, present, and to
come?

Space warns me to say but a very few words on some remain-
ing topics, of which the first shall be the martyrdoms and
sufferings of our Catholic forefathers. If we reflect merely on
the undoubted fact that, as was said of old, ''the blood of
martyrs is the seed cf the Church,'' it would seem that our land

I

National Return to the Faith. 213

which was so copiously watered with that fecundating dew, would
certainly some day reap a great harvest from it; but I venture
to think that a circumstance connected with the great majority
of these martyrdoms gives us a special ground for hoping that
this harvest of conversion would take a national or political form.
I mean the circumstance that almost all the Elizabethan martyrs,
and those of the succeeding reigns also, seem to have been
inspired to express in their last moments ardent feelings of loyal
adherence to the civil power which was so cruelly misused. No
doubt this was a protest on their part against the false account
which the persecutors tried to give of the cause of their sufferings,
Tliey were alleged to be traitors and to be suffering as such, and
not as martyrs to the old faith, and so they loudly protested that
this was a calumny, as indeed it was ; but I look on it also as
the registration before God and man of their willingness to suffer
if their blood might by Him be accepted as crying from English
ground for the conversion of the nation and polity in whose
name and by whose ruler this v/rong was being inflicted on them.
7. Next, as to conversions to the faith at the present time,
I would remark that I am not disposed to think the number of
conversions which we know are occurring at the present time, is
such as to constitute a great ground of hope of the national
return, merely from the point of view of number. Though
absolutely considerable, relatively speaking to the whole popula-
tion of the country, the number is but small ; yet here again
there is a circumstance not without significance. A " nation ''' is
not constituted by a mere mob or aggregation of people without
organization or ordered common life. To make the nation there
must be a government, and whatever form it takes must be the
result of the adhesion of the great moral corporation whicb
embody the primary ideas and functions of civil order. Property,
education, law, reliu^ion, legislation and administration, relations
with other nations, and the means of repelling force by force,
represent the chief characteristic interests of a civilized people,
and find their expression in the great moral bodies or mem-
bers of the State. If conversions not relatively numerous were
confined to one or other only of these moral corporations, no doubt
there would be so far no room for hopeful anticipations as to a
national return to the faith; but if, on the other hand, such
conversions, though few, were distributed through the whole of
these interests or corporations, and form a group, as it were, of
specimens of each and all, they put on another character and
give just cause for other inferences. S. Thomas teaches that the
test of a genuine national adhesion to, or rejection of, a given
government, is not the test of mere numbers, but that of the
mind of the great constituent moral members of the State.

214 On some Reasons for not Despairing of a

Hence the existence of Catholics who are so, not by what is
called the accident of birth, but by conviction and at the price
of sacrifice have become Catholics, in any proportion in each of
these members, is pro fanto an argument for the possible return
of the whole. Now which of our classes in the hierarchy of
civil order is quite free from the return of " Popery " ? Neither
the senate nor the house of knights and burgesses returned by
shire or city or borough to Parliament, nor the established
Church, nor the Universities, nor the bar and magistrature, nor
the colleges of physicians, nor the army, nor the navy, nor the
diplomatic service, nor any other branch of the public adminis-
tration— all and each have paid and are paying Peter's pence in
Jcind — the souls which his net is ever ready to gather out of the
deep. It has been objected that, as some one put it, we have
converted "Scottish duchesses but no English grocers," that
is, that the middle and lower classes afford no contingent of con-
versions in proportion to their numbers. I grant it is so at
present; but, on the other hand, I see that with a great show of
independence, there are no people so accessible to aristocratic
influence as the English, and no society in which a perpetual
and wide process of natural selection from the lower strata goes
.on so constantly and rapidly. I see it in the past and I see
more of it in the future. Thread your way through the carriages of
the great to Mrs. Metals' afternoons in Park Lane, and you.may
see not one but many besides herself, whose genealogy is, if not
forgotten yet forgiven, not only for their wealth's sake but for
that of their real culture and refinement. They are recruits of
the classes who recruit us, and their roots reach low down.
Moreover, if it is true that hitherto these conversions are found
only in the upper strata of our society, and as yet no signs appear
of a mass movement — surely we must not forget that it was
from above, from the noble and wealthy, that the ruin and decay
of faith began, and unless (which is not alleged) our race and
nation are completely changed in the last three centuries, it is by
an analogous process that they are likely to be restored. Besides,
it is not true that our converts are not only personally typical
and representative, but also for the most part influential, so that
scarcely one but can trace to his or her influence the further
result of one or more other conversions to the faith. I say "her"
because the influence of mothers is so wide and so enduring, and
the proportion of female converts is said by our adversaries to be
unduly large. I trust, and I thank God, that such is indeed
the case.

8. Next I would mention as a ground for hopes of a national
return the instincts of the faithful in all countries. It is a well
known maxim of the spiritual writers that when God wills to

National Return to the Faith. 215

bestow a grace He prompts holy people to ask it of Him by
ardent and persistent prayer and mortification. I am not now-
speaking so much of that more external leading whereby He
causes His elect to repay services rendered to Him by intercession ;
of this we all know many instances have been afforded by the
devout cloistered and uncloistered souls in France, who repaid,
and are still repaying, the hospitality of England during the
Revolution by ardent prayer for her conversion — I mean rather to
allude to those instances, of which the number is no doubt great
though to us unknown, of holy men and women who had no
personal knowledge or connection with our country, but yet were
moved to pray all their life long for her return, such as were in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the holy nun, Maria
Escobar, and the saintly lady Theresa de Carvajal in Spain, or in
the last century Saint Paul of the Cross in Italy. Similarly I
would refer to the instincts of the Holy See in such acts as the
erection of the Hierarchy in 1850; or, again, in the nomination,
unparalleled in all history, of three Englishmen to the Cardinalate
at one time, and of no less than eight English-speaking Cardinals
within our own memory. Whence are these promptings, and
what can be the meaning of them ?

Let me advert here to the objection urged from the present
aspect of a very large section of the community who form what
is called the extreme High Church, or Ritualist School of
Anglicans. I grant that they present an aspect of apparently
increasing hostility to the Catholic Church which is at first dis-
couraging to our hopes, raised as they were some quarter of a
century ago to a high pitch by the early results of the Tractarian
movement; but, once more, the miraculous apart, how is it
conceivable that the frozen soil, hardened by three centuries of
neglect and error, should break forth into one vast garden of
fruits and flowers in the course of less than one half-century of
partial and uncertain thaw ? To expect this seems to me to
mistake the whole teaching of our history, and to substitute for
the warranted and sober inference from facts, a heated, fanciful
theory which it is as easy to demolish as it was pleasant to build
up. If there is one truth which I seem to see broadly written
on the past Reformation history of our religion and country it is
this — that the wisdom and goodness of God are as conspicuous
in regard to us as are His justice and chastisement and judgments
for our national sins ; and that in nothing are the former more
evident than in the Divine attribute o^ patience as shown in the
long waiting for us, both individually and collectively, to return
to Him. No one alleges, either that the Almighty is bound to bring
back our nation by miracle, or that He is actually doing it by that
means. Now, whatever may be the destiny of individual souls

216 On some Reasons for not Desj^airing of a

(of which we know nothing) _, it is certain that if a large number
of the Ritualists, say some thousands, were at once to submit to
the Church, the movement,, whatever its final results may now be,
would in that case, humanly speaking, end ; for no conscientious
adherent oF Anjjlicanism would continue in a course which would
thus have been demonstrated to lead directly to Rome. I believe
that the hope of a national return is, on the contrary, wrapped up
in a gradual, almost insensible, extension to the whole people of
a knowledge of Catholic doctrine, so that when the hour of God's
decree is come, and the conditions required are ready, they may
yield themselves to the impulse of His illuminating and fostering
grace, and that this extension can only be effected, as it is now-
being effected, by the instrumentality of causes operating for the
most part and at present^ outside the visible corporation of His
Church.

9. And here let me call your attention to the fact, which I think
is evident, that the direct influence of the Visible Church in
England is remarkably absent in the various movements
(especially those of a preparatory kind) on which we have
touched. Even in the case of the emigres it does not appear
that they w^ere what is called " proselytizers ;" they contented
themselves with letting the light of a fameless example shine
before men, and they conquered, where they conquered at all,
more by endurance of contradiction and outrage than by aggres-
sive or demonstrative act or speech. I heard but the other day
of an instance, in the person of a poor eTYiigre priest who, being
recognized by three fanatical youths as a foreigner and Papist,
was by them actually put to death by drowning in the Thames,
near Reading. As he disappeared beneath the waters, he raised
his hands to Heaven and audibly prayed that God would not let
his murderers die without knowing the truth. Two of them died
soon after; but the third, to the amazement of his relations,
insisted on seeing a priest on his death-bed, and then narrated to
him these facts, and implored to be instructed in the Catholic
faith, stating that the remembrance of his victim's meek end and
prayer had never left him; and accordingly he was able to make
his abjuration^ and died' a Catholic, and in the best dispositions.
Other such instances may be known, but as a rule it is true to
say, that all the modern conversions are owing to the immediate
operation of the Holy Ghost on minds and souls, and that we
have had but little or no direct impression made upon us by the
Catholic Church in England. It would seem as if no person or
persons w^ere to be wholly credited with a work so eminently that
of God's Holy Spirit. I do not overlook certain great names,
chiefly of converts, who have had a direct influence on others,
which must be in all our minds as exceptions to this statement :

National Return to the Faith. 217

I only say tliey are exceptions, and that the usual mode of God's
later dealings with this nation, has been like the building of a
house not made with hands : and further, that I see in this mode
itselfj a ground of wider hopes, and greater confidence.

But to sum up. I have mentioned, I think, nine several
grounds for entertaining a reasonable, if sanguine, hope of our
being as a nation restored to the faith. 1. There is the upward
tendency of official Anglicanism as a system, and as a history for
the first epoch of its lapse. 2. There is the present marked in-
crease of religious observance throughout the land, as contrasted
with all previous times since the so-called Reformation. 3.
There are the irregular but earnest religious movements of the
last century. 4. There is the literary rehabilitation of the
Christian and mediaeval idea by our romantic poets. 5. There is
the consequence of the French and Irish migrations into England.
6. The profuse martyrdoms and other sufferings for the faith,
and their special character as State prosecutions. 7. The typical
and influential character of the conversions of the latter years.
8. The instincts of the Church in prayer, and of the Holy See
in provision, for a national conversion'. 9. The absence of direct
Catholic influence in most of the modern conversions, on the
nation. Now I am not conscious of exaggerating the impor-
tance of these topics, but, of course, they are not all of equal
importance, and I can quite understand that to some minds
some will seem to have little or no weight. What, however,
I conceive to be of weight is their collective force. For
instance, take the direction of cumulation. The first five con-
siderations seem to have this force visibly impressed on them as
a series or whole. If Anglicanism had an upward tendency, it
is not possible to disconnect it from an increase of religious
observance as a fruit thereof: if that fruit exists it has an antece-
dent history which is supplied by the religious movements of the
last century and of this, and if they later took that form of a
reaction favourable ta Catholic ideas which they now present, that
reaction was rendered possible by the revival of the mediaeval
ideas in literature, and by the accidents of the French and Irish
immigrations at the same time. Then, again, looking to the
Tiatural connection of cause and effect, we are struck by seeing
an absence of such a connection in most of the subjects men-
tioned : a bloody persecution of the Church and an infidel
philosophy in one country, and a corrupt Protestant ascendancy
in another, do not seem likely a iwiori to conduce to the advance
of Catholicity in a third. Nor, again, would it seem probable
that the first harbingers of a return on the part of many to truer
and juster, and therefore kinder, thoughts of the Church, her
ministers, her doctrines, and her practices, should be found in

21 S On some Reasons for not Despairing of a

the persons of a learned Protestant_, a dreamy Germanized
metaphysician, and a Scottish Presbyterian lawyer. Napoleon
the First is said to have exclaimed, " Give me the making of a
nation^s songs and you give me the nation/' Our lake poets and
Scottish novelists wrote our songs, and they turned out to be
Catholic psalms, though they v/ere written by the waters of
-Babylon. So again the recrudescence of Calvinistic fanaticism
in the last age and in this, outside and inside the Establishment,
would seem not likely to pave the way for the Oxford movement,
which nevertheless it did. It is this kind of overrulino^ of thiniis
to an end which seems quite foreign to their natural result which
is embodied in so many proverbs like the French ^'lliortime pro-
"pose, mais Dieiu dispose,'^ and which, must be in the experience
of every thoughtful person''s interior consciousness as regards
themselves.

As to my three last topics, they touch on other and higher
grounds of confidence; for every martyrdom was a special grace
of God, not only in the constancy of the martyr, but in each and
all of its circumstances; so is each conversion, and so are the
instincts of the Holy Church of God and of His Vicar. But in all
and through all that I have so feebly attempted to recall to you
I think I see the evidence of a great design — a merciful resolve
in the inscrutable counsels of the Most High to lead us back as
a nation to Him. It would be beside the object of this Paper
were I to allude to the means within our reach for the furthering
of this end ; and, indeed, it may be said that the tendency of my
remarks would be rather to encourage us to stand aside and see
the work of God accomplished by Him without our interven-
tion. My feeling, however, is not such ; for surely that which
is true of the progress of the spiritual life within each soul
is equally true of the aggregate souls of a race or nation
— viz., that whereas we should believe that it is God alone
who can and will convert, and sanctify, and perfect, we
should act as if all depended on our own activity and perse-
verance. Nor can I admit any contradiction or opposition between
the two convictions — that God, who sweetly and strongly dis-
poses all things according to His will, designs the ultimate
conversion of our nation, and that we have our share to perform
in the fulfilment of the same, however subordinate and limited
the sphere of our co-operation. In conclusion, I will say that I
think we must all agree that we can hardly conceive it possible
that we should be destined to a national return without national
humiliation. May it not be that the humiliation lies in this, that
every trace and vestige of our old Catholic polity is destined to
destruction before the new structure is to rise again ? If^ as I
have tried to show, the building up is eminently Divine, the

National Return to the Faith, 219

destruction is eminently human, and, whether in motive or
in result, such as no Catholic can consistently admire or take part
in. It was an opposite course of action — forced, we may admit,
by the circumstances of the time upon Catholics, which tended
as much as anything to impair their influence on the upper classes
of Protestants a generation or two ago. Even forty years ago
Newman could enumerate among the reasons holding back good
Protestants from sj^mpathy with Catholics "as a church, the
spectacle of their intimacy with the revolutionary spirit of the
day" ("Essays," vol. ii. p. 71) . I well remember that feeling, ilnd
I think we must deprecate giving any just cause for it now,
though we may see in the acts of the destroyers just judgments
of God, and the inevitable consequences of a national departure
from His law.

What do we see about us at this moment ? We see a Govern-
ment which has subjected us as a nation to a profound humilia-
tion, by forcing a professed and emphatic atheist and blasphemer
into the national council, and, too probably, the nation accepting
that humiliation. It was in that assembly that the rejection of
Christ^s Vicar and all his authority was made to be thenceforth the
foundation of our national religion and law, three hundred years
ago. We are indeed draining that cup to the dregs ! In one
sense it is the beginning of the end : we can go no lower. May
it be so in another and happier sense 1 Amidst the ruin and
wreck of our institutions, where the Christian character of the
State, nay, even the basis of natural religion is compromised,
and by a necessary consequence the national establishment of
religion, the privileged classes, the landed proprietary, and
hereditary rights, including the Crown and its succession, are
piece-meal destroyed — all of which seems to be now visibly loom-
ing at no great distance in the future — may the right hand of
God once more build up the walls , of Jerusalem, and His light
shine upon the island, sometime of His saints, as in the days of
yore — the days of Alfred and of Edward : " reposita est ha3C spes
in sinu meo ! '^

►J( James, Bishop of Emmaus.

s^SSS**©™-

220 )

Art. IX.— MR. GLADSTONES SECOND LAND BILL.

1. The Land Law (Ireland) Bill. Session of 1881.

2. Report of Her Majesly's Commissioners of Inquiry info

the Working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland)
Act, 1870j and the Acts Amending the same. Together
with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices.

3. Preliminary Report fror)i Her Majesty's Commissioners on

Agriculture. Together with Minutes of Evidence.

IT has again fallen to the lot of Mr. Gladstone to make a
great effort for the pacification of Ireland by the re-adjust-
ment of the relations of landlord and tenant in that distracted
country. More than ten years have elapsed since the Land Act
of 1870 came into operation^ and so lately as the spring of last
year its author spoke with pride and satisfaction of the effects
that it had produced. " It gave a confidence/' he said, " to the
cultivator of the soil which he never had before /^ and, after
alluding to the distress in some parts of the country, he con-
tinued :

The cultivation of Ireland had been carried on for the last eight
years under cover and shelter of the Land Law, with a sense of
security on the part of the occupier — with a feeling that he was
sheltered and protected by the law, instead of feeling that he was
persecuted by the law. There was an absence of crime and outrage,
with a general sense of comfort and satisfaction such as was unknown
in the previous history of the country.*

It is not a little remarkable that, before a year had passed,
the great leader of the Liberal party found himself constrained
to reconsider the action of the law which he thus eulogizes, and
to propose to Parliament a measure for the further shelter and
protection of the Irish tenantry. The explanation of this
change of opinion is to be found in the troubled events of the
past year, and its justification in the Reports of the several Com-
missioners which we have placed at the head of this Article.
Even the Conservative majority of the Commissioners on
Agriculture, including the Lukes of Richmond and Ruccleuch,
bear the following testimony to the necessity of again dealing
with the Land Question in Ireland : —

* Mr. Gladstone's Speech to the Edinburgh Liberal Club : TimeSf
April 1, 1880.

Mr. Gladstones Second Land Bill. 221

Bearing in mind the system by which the improvements and equip-
ments of a fiirm are very generally the work of the tenant, and the fact
that the yearly tenant is at any time liable to have his rent raised in
consequence of the increased value that has been given to his holding by
the expenditure of his own capital and labour, the desire for legislative
interference to protect him from an arbitrary increase of rent does not
seem unnatural ; and we are inclined to think that, by the majority of
landowners, legislation, properly framed to accomplish this end, would
not be objected to. With a view of affording such security, " fair
rents," "fixity of tenure," and ^' free sale," popularly known as
the " three F's," have been strongly advocated by many witnesses,
but none have been able to support these propositions in their integrity
without admitting consequences that would, in our opinion, involve an
injustice to the landlord.

The minority Report of the same Commission, and the several
Reports of Lord Bessborough, Baron Dowse, the O'Conor Don,
Mr. Shaw, and Mr. Kavanagh, while they differ as to the form
that legislation should assume, all agree in the expediency of
some check being placed on the power of raising rent in an
arbitrary manner. We may, therefore, summarily dismiss the
objection that no Land Bill is necessary, and pass at once to the
consideration of the proposed measure, and the agricultural con-
dition of the people who hope to be benefited by it.

Mr. Gladstone, in his speech introducing the Bill, on the 7th
of April, spoke of it as "■ the most difficult and complex
question with which, in the course of his public life, he had
ever had to deal/^ and even his marvellous powers of
exposition, and mastery over details, failed to impress the mind
with the conviction that the difficulties had been overcome, or
the complexities simplified. The perusal of the Bill itself
corroborates this conclusion. We miss the clear enunciation of
principle, the courageous recognition of right, the outspoken
message of reform which are absolute essentials of a great and
connected work ; and which are never absent where the evil is
clearly discerned, and mercilessly dealt with. Considering at
present merely the form of the Bill, it leaves the impression of
being the joint product of several minds, taking very different
views of the policy to be adopted. This is probably to be
explained by the necessity of conciliating opposite parties by
concessions scarcely in harmony with the general plan. Not
alone landlords and tenants in Ireland, but the several sections
of the Liberal party, and even, to some extent, the Olympian
Upper Chamber, had to be considered in the drafting of
the Bill; and, in some places, it almost seems as if the im-
possibility of pleasing all sides compelled the draftsman to
take refuge in deliberate obscurity. Ambiguity of language

323 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

and occasional inconsistencies add considerably to the intrinsic
difficulty of the subject. The multitude of provisoes and con-
ditions is perfectly bewildering. It resembles more a Treaty of
Peace than an Act of Parliament. Free sale is conferred, and
immediately a procession of sub-clauses takes back the gift.
Fair rent is defined, and the definition is forthwith qualified by
repugnant and incomprehensible explanations. Fixity of
tenure is flaunted before the eyes of the tenant, while ejectment
for breach of statutory conditions is whispered in the ear of the
landlord. In fact, it is throughout a legislative illustration of
the fable in which the cow yields an ample store of milk, but
invariably ends by kicking over the pail. Some defects may,
of course, be supplied in Committee ; but, as a general rule, the
effect of the piecemeal consideration that measures receive in
that stage is to increase rather than to diminish their com-
plexity.

Before proceeding to discuss — we will not say the principles,
but the contents of the Bill, it is of the first importance that
we should sketch in dispassionate outline the real state of the
case between landlord and tenant, so as to bring to the attention
of our readers the points in which reform is required ; and we
shall then be in a position to appreciate what is effected by the
measure, and to determine whether it ought to satisfy the
legitimate aspirations of the tenant.

The difficulty of forming an impartial judgment is, we must
admit, greatly enhanced at the present moment by the condition
of the country, and the remark obviously applies with additional
force to the difficulty of legislation. No one dreams of laying
down rules of diet and hygiene for a patient in the delirium of
fever, or the prostration of early convalesence ; yet this is
practically what the legislature is called upon to do in the case
of Ireland. We trust that the political excitement, the revolt
against law, the social disorder, may pass away with time ; but
the effects of legislation must necessarily be permanent, whether
for good or evil.

It cannot be repeated too often that the land question in
Ireland is far more a social than a legislative problem. The
relations of landlord and tenant, depending rather on status
than on contract or tenure, are interwoven with the whole
structure of society to such an extent, that an alteration of the
legal conditions may produce unexpected and startling results.
This must always be the case where agriculture is the only
available outlet for the energies of the population, and where
land acquires in consequence an artificial and factitious value.
We may exemplify this by referring to what occurred on th
passing of the Incumbered Estates Act in 1848. The acknow

Mr, Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 223

ledged evil then was an insolvent proprietary — the desideratum,
the attraction of capital. The measure produced the effects
that were anticipated and desired. Capital flowed in, and
land, to the value of more than £50,000,000 has been sold
by the Court, The insolvent owners of large estates were re-
placed by many small capitalists. But beyond this the legis-
lature had not looked; if they could have foreseen the evils that
resulted they would probably have paused. The purchasers,
having expended their money in land speculation, naturally
looked for a profitable return ; they were unfettered by ties of
sympathy with the occupiers, and the result was the establisli-
inent of the commercial spirit. Nothing more disastrous could
have been devised by the ingenuity of demons. The influx of
capital; instead of benefiting the cultivation of the soil, merely
satisfied the cravings of creditors and incumbrancers, and trans-
ferred the peasantry to the serfdom of new masters. This is
what the Bessborough Commission writes on the subject : —

Most of the purchasers were ignorant of the traditions of the soil —
many of them v/ere destitute of sympathy for the historic condition of
things. Some purchased land merely as an investment for capital,
and with the purpose — a legitimate one so far as their knowledge ex-
tended— of making all the money they could out of the tenants by
treating with them on a purely commercial footing. A semi-authori-
tative encouragement was given to this view of their bargains by the
note which it was customary to insert in advertisements of sales under
the Court — " The rental is capable of considerable increase on the
falling in of leases."

The unexpected results of the Land Act of 1870 also illus-
trate the same position. Although it was carefully disguised,
and frequently denied, the tenant acquired under that Act a
something which he did not possess before. What was the
social result? The banks and money-lenders were not slow to
discover that the tenant had an available security to offer, and
accordingly supplied his improvidence with loans at exorbi-
tant interest. Three or four abundant harvests in succession
deluded all parties into the belief that prosperity was perma-
nent, and when the cycle of bad seasons returned, no corn had
been gathered into the barns, no provision made for the time of
scarcity, the inflated credit collapsed, the banks and money-
lenders pressed for payment, and the farmers discovered too
late that they had been living on their capital.

It was more especially in Ulster, where the conditions of land
tenure differ from those prevailing in the rest of Ireland, that
the social operation of the Land Act was unsatisfactory. What
is popularly known as the Ulster Custom was legalized by that
Act; but the attempt to give it the force of law destroyed in

224 3Ir. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

many cases its beneficent operation. Before the Act the Custom
worked well, because it rested on public opinion and mutual
good-will. The landlord refrained from raising the rent so as to
destroy the selling value of the tenant-right ; and the tenant, on
the other hand, submitted cheerfully to the "office rules,'"' which
limited the price which he should receive for his interest. But
the passing of the Land Act changed all this. The landlord
found that what he had permitted through indulgence, was then
demanded as of right ; and in return acted up to the limits of
the law. He raised the rent on every transfer of the holding, so
as to keep the tenant-right within reasonable bounds. The
amicable relations which had previously subsisted were seriously
impaired, and what seemed a boon to the tenant turned out to
be a disturbance of the social equilibrium. In these instances
which we have adduced the introduction of capital was neutral-
ized by the loss of the sympathetic, but impoverished, landlord :
the gift of tenant-right was prodigally lavished on the usurer,
and the attempt to transform custom into law proved that the
dealings of men are more likely to be harmonious when con-
ducted on the voluntary principle than when they are restrained
by legislative interference.

It must be conceded that in asserting the Irish land question
to be a social rather than a legal problem, we are removing
hope to an indefinite distance ; for, if a law is harsh and unjust,
it may be repealed ; but, if society contains elements of discord,
they can only be removed by the slow growth of time. How can
we resist, however, the conclusion that the present laws relating
to land furnish only an insignificant factor in Irish misery and
discontent, when we consider that very similar laws operating in
England are accompanied by peace and prosperity ? Indeed
the law is, in some respects, more favourable to the tenant in
Ireland than in England. The Duke of Richmond's Com-
mission reports that the Land Act '^ offers to tenant-farmers and
cottiers in Ireland, as compared with those in England and
Scotland, exceptional privileges of occupation ■/' and the report
of the O'Conor Don contains the following recognition of the
same fact : —

So fiir as the mere occupation of land is concerned, I do not know
that the position of affairs is worse in Ireland than in other countries ;
on the contrary, I believe it would be found that, regarding the occu-
pier as a mere hirer of land, his legal rights are superior, and his
security greater, than in most other countries in Europe ; whilst his
practical rights — those recognised by the majority of landlords, and
enjoyed by the majority of tenants — are in excess of the rights or the
security ordinarily given elsewhere.

The paradox that the Irish tenant is thus exceptionally

Mr. Gladstones Second Land Bill. 225

favoured, and is yet represented as a martyr to the injustice of
the landlord class, is only to be explained by looking beyond
the statute-book into the actual conditions of Irish tenancy.
The occupier of the soil has never in Ireland regarded his
position as what the law defined it to be. The tenant-at-will
looked on eviction as an outrage : and the leaseholder, on
the expiration of his lease, was rarely called on to surrender
his farm. This view received the sanction of public opinion,
and was generally acquiesced in by the landlords. Custom, in
fact, regulated the tenure and occupation of land — law was
a superior power occasionally called in to get rid of the tenant ;
but the assertion of the legal right of eviction has always been
condemned as an extremely harsh measure.

The Irish tenant always considers himself as the owner of
his farm, speaking invariably of " TYiy land,^' while the rent,
and the rent alone, is the landlord's due. This must be care-
fully borne in mind in considering the question of tenants'
improvements ; for, by the law of Ireland as it existed until
1870, as by the law of England to the present day, if a tenant
chose to build, knowing that he had but a limited interest,
the landlord could resume the occupation of the farm
without paying compensation for the money thus rashly ex-
pended. It is matter of every- day occurrence in England for
the landlord to acquire a vastly improved property on the ex-
piration of building leases. The almost fabulous fortunes of
some English dukes have received enormous accessions from
windfalls of this kind, yet the lessees of houses in Portland
Place or Belgrave Square do not complain of confiscation at
the inconvenient period when the ninety-nine years come to
an end. But the circumstances under which the Irish tenant
expends his money and labour on his holding are completely
different. In the first place, he lias, as a general rule, no lease
for a long term, but instead, the implied right of perpetual
occupancy. Secondly, the landlord acquiesces in this mode of
dealing, and it would be inequitable for him to stand by until
the improvements had been effected, and then to seize them
under colour of law. And lastly, the nature of the tenant's im-
provements is very frequently such that they are absolutely indis-
pensable for the proper cultivation and occupation of the farm.
Now, is it the fact that in Ireland the greater part of the im-
provements have been made by the tenants ? The answer is
not doubtful ; and we shall take it from the Reports of the
Commissioners : —

A.S a fact, the removal of masses of rock and stone, which in some
parts of Ireland incumber the soil, the drainage of the land, and the
erection of buildings, including their own dwellings, have generally

VOL. VI. — NO. I. [Third Series.] Q

S26 . Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

been effected by tenants' labour, unassisted, or only in some instances
assisted, by advances from the landlord.*

It seems to be generally admitted that the most conspicuous
difference between the relations of landlord and tenant as they exist in
Ireland, and in England and Scotland, is the extent to which in Ireland
buildings are erected and improvements are made by the tenant and
not by the landlord. f

In a country like Ireland, where the dwelling houses, farm build-
ings, and other elements of a farm, including often the reclamation
from the waste of the cultivated land itself, have been, and must, in
our opinion, continue to be for the most part the work of the tenants ;
this condition of things (raising rents) has created injustice in the past,
and is fatal to the progress so much needed for the future. J

Still more explicit information is furnished by a table that
has been recently published by the Land Committee ; and, as
it is based on returns obtained from landowners, we may trust
it not to understate the case in their behalf. The information
is derived from 1,629 estates, comprising- upwards of 6,000,000
acres, and may therefore be accepted as fairly representative of
the agricultural condition of the country. On 11*01 per cent,
of this large number of acres the improvements have been
made entirely at the landlords' expense ; on 26-62 per cent,
they have been made entirely by the tenant ; and on 62*37
per cent, partly by the landlord and partly by the tenant.
These figures are in the nature of an admission; and they
certainly place in a striking light the prevailing custom of
tenants' improvements, since they can only boast of about
one-tenth being the work of the landlord alone.

The Land Act of 1870 first recognized the equitable right of
the outgoing tenant to compensation for the improvements
and reclamations that he had made ; and it seems to us, looking
at the question with impartial judgment, and by the light that
has been thrown upon it by full discussion, a matter at once
humiliating and astounding that so just a contention was so
long resisted.

The value of a tenant's improvements is only one element in
the calculation of tenant-right. There is yet another, which, if
not so obvious, is quite as practical. Suppose the case of a
farm occupied for years by the same tenant, without any
material improvements having been effected. Has he, or ought
he to have, any tenant-right ? By the written law the landlord
has the power of turning him out, but by the prevailing custom
he is entitled to remain so long as he pays his rent. This

* "Bessborough," par. 10. t "Richmond," p. 5.

X Separate Report of the minority of the Commissioners on Agri-
culture, generally referred to as " Lord Carlingford's Report," p, 20.

Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill, 227

practical fact of continuous occupation must be recognised. It
is not the case of hiring a piece of land to make a greater or less
pecuniary profit; the possession of a farm in Ireland means
subsistence, if not comfort. It is as much an assured position,
won in the battle of crowded life, as when a barrister or phy-
sician succeeds in establishing a practice. In a country where
the only resource of the great majority is the cultivation of the
soil, the actual possession of land is a valuable inheritance.
Regarding the question from another point of view, it seems,
at first sight, somewhat hard that a landowner cannot part with
the possession of ten or twenty acres of land without creating
rights that were never contemplated by the parties, and giving
occasion for claims more or less destructive of his rights of
property. Such cases are, however, exceptional. In the vast
majority of lettings the land has never been in the occupation
of the owner as a farmer on his own account; and we may
therefore treat the case that has been suggested as occurring so
seldom as to constitute only a theoretical grievance.

The Land Act endeavoured, by imposing a fine on the
capricious eviction of a tenant, to prevent the evils that
result from arbitrary disturbance. Now, the principle involved
in this enactment is precisely what we have endeavoured to ex-
plain as the second element of tenant-right — the expectancy
of continued occupation arising from the custom, and the cir-
cumstances of the country. Although the fine has not been
heavy enough to secure, in all cases, the tenant from eviction,
yet it cannot be ignored in calculating his practical interest in
his farm.

It is not unusual to speak and write of Ireland as if through-
out its entire area it was homogeneous in misery, and uniform
in its system of land tenure. Nothing can be farther from the
truth, and no mistake could be more mischievous. There is
scarcely any country in which greater differences can be found
than prevail in Ireland between the conditions of the tenants in
different provinces, and even on different estates; and this
variety adds considerably to the difficulty of legislating effectively
for the more distressed classes. We may roughly divide the
country into three parts with reference to the circumstances of
agricultural holdings. (1) The Province of Ulster, where the
custom of tenant-right has long prevailed, and is now recognized
by law ; (2) the larger part of Leinster, especially the counties of
the Pale, where the English system is partly in vogue; and (3) the
Southern Counties of Leinster and the Provinces of Connaught
and Munster, which are the head-q-uarters of famine, discontent,
improvidence, and outrage. It does not lie within the scope of
this article to trace in detail the conditions of land tenure in

228 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill,

these three divisions ; but we may briefly indicate their principal
peculiarities. The Ulster Custom of tenant-right consists in the
recognized right of sale by an outgoing tenant to the new comer
of his beneficial interest in the farm, subject in general to
certain limitations, varying on difi'erent estates. In some cases
the custom is absolutely uncontrolled, and the landlord is then
but little removed from a mere rent-charger, while the tenant is
the real owner of the fee. The former has no voice in the
selection of his tenant, and is liable to have a worthless and im-
provident rogue foisted on him in that capacity. He cannot
raise the rent, even if the value of land should rise, and he has
to look on with the best grace he can assume, while the tenant
right is sold for fabulous sums. On most estates, however,
there exist Office Kules, so framed as to restrict the tenant-right
within reasonable limits. Under these the landlord generally
possesses a veto as to the purchaser, and some price is fixed,
— three, five, or seven pounds per acre, or a certain number of
years' rent — as the maximum which the incoming tenant is to
be allowed to pay. It is almost unnecessary to mention that
the object of thus limiting the price is to save the landlord's
rent from being encroached on ; for the interest on the capital
sunk as purchase money is as much rent as the half-yearly
payments made to the landlord. We may observe, by the way,
that this principle does not always seem to be steadily borne in
mind, and many persons who are in favour of limiting the
competition re?if, do not seem to recognize the similar necessity
of controlling the com.petition ^nV^ of a tenancy.

So vehement is the desire to obtain land in Ulster, that it
very commonly occurs that, over and above the maximum price
allowed by the Office Rules, a large sum is surreptitiously paid
to the outgoing tenant. One price is agreed on in the presence
of the agent, while another is paid behind his back, and the new
tenant enters on the cultivation of his farm with crippled
resources, if not deeply in debt.

It is a curious circumstance that the origin of the Ulster
Tenant- Right is involved in considerable obscurity. Accord-
ing to some authorities, its establishment dates from the
plantation of that part of the kingdom by James I., when
the grants to settlers contained a condition to give *^ certain
estates to their tenants at certain rents •/' while others,
including Judge Longfield, consider that it rapidly assumed
its present form in the last decade of the last century.
The advantages of the custom are that it confers prac-
tical fixity of tenure, secures to the landlord the payment
of all arrears of rent on a change of tenancy, and gives the
tenant such an interest in his farm as stimulates his energies by

Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 229

the sense of ovvnersliip. On the other hand it is not without
drawbacks. The tenant requires a double capital — the price
payable for the tenant-right, and the money necessary for work-
ing the farm. His solvency is diminished, and the temptation
to borrow on improvident terms is almost irresistible. If a
man fails he certainly has the price of his tenant-right to fall
back on ; but he has to give up his farm and disappear into
space. Lastly, the vagueness of the custom, which is a sort of
equilibrium between the two conflicting forces — rent-raising by
the landlord, and sale by the tenant — throws us back in the end
on mutual understanding and harmonious relations between the
parties.

We have dwelt at some length on the peculiarities of the
Ulster usages, because that Province is generally pointed to as
the beau ideal of what Ireland ought to be, and it has even
been suggested that the custom should be extended by statute
to the rest of Ireland. It would be of course possible to create
a Parliamentary tenure resembling the Ulster Custom in its
essential features ; but we must remember that in Ulster itself
the usages are so various in different places as to deprive the
expression, " Ulster Custom,^' of all precise and definite mean-
ing ; and, further, it does not come within the power even of
an Act of Parliament, to create, on the instant, friendly feelings
between embittered foes.

The second agricultural division of Ireland — that in which, to
a certain extent, the English mode of farming prevails — requires
scarcely any notice ; since there the practice of farmers har-
monizes with the principles of law. Status does not control
contract, or regulate the terms of occupancy. As a rule the
tenant has taken the land with the " improvements '' already
made ; and, if he has a lease, he is ready to surrender possession
at the expiration of his term. The landlord has furnished the
farm as a " going concern ;' and the fiirst principles of hiring
an article for use apply in such cases, to the exclusion of
artificial doctrines of partnership between landlord and tenant.
It is certainly rather hard on landlords who have done
everything which the majority neglect, to be subjected to
a uniform system of legislation with their needy and grasping
brethren. It is impossible, however, to separate one class from
the other ; for, although we have referred to one Province as
peculiarly the land of English farming, yet even there the
practice is by no means universal, and in other parts of Ireland
exceptional cases exist in which everything that can be done for
the benefit of their tenants, and the improvement of their farms,
has been effected by the beneficent owners.

If we turn from the two Provinces whose condition we have

230 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill,

attempted to describe, to the remaining moiety of the island, a
miserable and dispiriting spectacle presents itself. It is there,
in Connaught and Munster, that the Irish Land Question starts
forward in ghastly prominence. A state of things exists in
some parts of those Provinces — for even there, fortunately, we
find degrees of misery — that shames our boasted civilization.
The dwellings of the people are often not fit for the beasts of
the field, their food barely sufficient for subsistence, their
clothing for decency. The land, from which in wretchedly
small plots they strive to extract the means of living, is a barren
and unfruitful soil, half-reclaimed bog and stony waste. Their
agriculture, it is needless to say, is of the most primitive order ;
and their husbandry is confined to the simple operations of
planting and digging their potatoes. They eke out the scanty
produce of their miserable holdings by migrating to England
and Scotland, where they work as harvest labourers, at wages
that must seem to them splendid remuneration. These they
carefully hoard, and bring back to pay their rents and supply
their needs for the rest of the year.

The various Commissioners have not ignored the position of
these farmers of the West, who furnish one of the most anxious
and difficult problems that it is possible to imagine. The
majority Report of the Duke of Richmond's Commission, refer
to them in the following terms : —

"With reference to the very small holders in the Western districts
of Ireland, we are satisfied that with the slightest failure of their crops
they would be unable to exist upon the produce of their farms, even
if they paid no rent. Many of them plant their potatoes, cut their
turf, go to Great Britain to earn money, return home to dig their
roots and to stack their fuel, and pass the winter, often without occu-
pation, in most miserable hovels.

And the Report of Lord Bessborough's Commission is not
couched in more hopeful language : —

The condition, it says, of the poorer tenants in numerous parts of
Ireland, where it is said they are not able, if they had their land gratis,
to live by cultivating it, is by some thought to be an almost insoluble
problem.

Professor Baldwin, in his evidence before the Richmond Com-
mission, states that there are at least 100,000 farms too small
for the support of the occupiers, and that it is absolutely neces-
sary to " lift'' 50,000 families, that is to say, to give them the
alternative of migrating or emigrating. W' e must not dwell at
too great length on the actual condition of the Irish tenantry,
for our principal object in this article is to give some account
of the Land Bill which has been presented to Parliament; but

Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 231

it would have been impossible to deal with that subject in a
satisfactory manner without having tirst described the status
of the tenants in the several parts of the country, upon whose
interests the Bill is intended chiefly to operate. This we have
endeavoured to do, and have shown that there exists considerable
diversity in the positions of tenant-farmers in the different Pro-
vinces— a complication which enhances tenfold the difficulty in
the way of legislation.

There is one other subject to be considered, and one question
to be answered, before we pass to the consideration of the Bill.
We must know precisely what the evil is that is now to be re-
dressed, and ask the tenant-farmer, "What is it that you
desire ?'' We once more obtain our information, and receive
an answer to the interrogatory from the Reports of the Com-
missioners. In the words of Mr, Kavanagh (" Report/' p. 55)
" the question of rent is at the bottom of every other, and is
really, whether in the North or South, the gist of the grievances
which have caused much of the present dissatisfaction.^' Pro-
fessor Bon amy Price, who was rather roughly handled by Mr.
Gladstone for his adherence to the abstract principles of Political
Economy, has to admit that " great abuses have occurred in
violent and unreasonable raisings of rent by some landowners."
The Report of Lord Carlingford, and the minority of the Rich-
mond Commission who sided with him, contains the following •
passage ; —

We have had strong evidence, both from our Assistant Commis-
sioners, Professor Baldwin and Major Robertson, and from private
witnesses, that the practice of raising rents at short and uncertain in-
tervals prevails to an extent fully sufficient to shake the confidence of
the tenants, and to deter them from applying due industry and outlay
to the improvement of their farms. ,

We might easily multiply quotations from the Reports and
evidence, all tending to the same conclusion, but we will content
ourselves with one more taken from the 19th paragraph of the
" Bessborough " Report. After alluding to the advantages con-
ferred on the tenants by the Land Act, it continues : —

It has, however, failed to afford them adequate security, particu-
larly in protecting them against occasional and unreasonable increases
of rent. The weight of evidence proves, indeed, that the larger estates
are, in general, considerately managed ; but that on some estates, and
particularly on some recently acquired, rents have been raised, both
before and since the Land Act, to an excessive degree, not only as
compared with the value of land, but even so as to absorb the profit of
the tenant's own improvements. This process has gone far to destroy
the tenant's legitimate interest in his holding. In Ulster, in some cases, it

232 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

has almost '' eaten up " the tenant right. Elsewhere, where there is
no tenant right, the feeling of insecurity produced by the raising of
rent has had a similar effect.

We are now in a position to assert that the chief, if not the only,
grievance from which the Irish tenant suffers, is the liability to
have his rent unfairly raised, and, in default of payment, to be
ejected without compensation. His legitimate demand is, Give
me security against the imposition of an unfair rent, and against
capricious eviction. Considering that freedom of contract in
respect of land cannot be said to exist in Ireland, this demand
does not seem unreasonable, and accordingly the several Reports
are unanimous in recommending the fixing of rents by some
independent authority.

It might seem probable to persons reading the foregoing
extracts, that the Commissioners would proceed to condemn the
greed and rapacity of Irish landlords, in taking advantage of the
dependent position of their tenants for the purpose of unduly
raising their rents ; but nothing of the kind ! On the contrary,
the Bessborough Commission says that " the credit is indeed
due to Irish landlords, as a class, of not exacting all that they
were by law entitled to exact,'^ and Lord Carlingford bears
testimony that '^upon many, and especially the larger estates,
the rents are moderate and seldom raised, and the improve-
ments of the tenants are respected." The other Commissioners
adopt similar opinions, and even Mr. Gladstone declared, empha-
tically, that the landlords of Ireland '^ have stood their trial, and
they have been as a rule acquitted."

Now, the plain meaning of all this is that, though the land-
lords have, as a body, behaved well, yet there have been found
some black sheep amongst them. One instance of unfair rent-
raising, one harsh case of eviction, spreads like wildfire through
a whole Barony, shakes public confidence, and annihilates the
sense of security which it may have taken years to establish. It
is unsafe, according to Mill, to ignore the influence of imagina-
tion, even in Political Economy ; and if the conclusions of the
Commissioners are correct, imagination is working awful havoc
with the condition of Ireland. The fear of an increase of rent,
and the consequential eviction, generates a sense of insecurity,
which paralyzes the naturally active energies of the tenant, and
produces '' a general feebleness of industry and backwardness of
agriculture." This dark cloud, impressing his imagination with
the dread of coming misfortune, ought to be dissipated at any
cost. The landlord must be prevented from indefinitely ^' screw-
ing up " the rent, and the occupying tenant must be protected
from his own desires.

Mr. Gladstone justifies " searching and comprehensive legisla-
tion" for Ireland by three reasons : — (1) The existence of

Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill, 233

« land-hunger.'^ (2) The failure of the Act of 1870, or, as he
prefers to put it, the " partial success" of that measure. (3)
The harshness of a limited number of landlords. These three
reasons, though grouped together, and insisted on with equal
force by the Premier, are not all equally extensive in their appli-
lication, nor do they all unite to justify the whole of his present
proposals. Thus, it is difficult to understand how " land-hunger"
is to be removed by increasing the attractiveness of occupancy,
and conferring, to a certain extent, the boon of fixity of tenure
on the present holder. We presume, however^ that this " land-
hunger" is to be satisfied by the reclamation of waste lands, and
by removing those whose appetite is strongest to the corn prai-
ries of Manitoba; while the "tenure clauses" of the Bill may be
assumed to be covered by the last two of his reasons. It may be
considered a dangerous proceeding to legislate for a few hard
cases; and, no doubt, an enlightened public opinion, and the
gradual improvement of social relations, would do more to
restrain the unjust exercise of arbitrary power, than the vain
and futile attempt to impose countless restrictions on freedom
of contract. It is a remarkable circumstance that Mr. Glad-
stone did not allude to the unsettled state of the country, the
popular disaffection and disloyalty, the resistance to legal pro-
cess, the existence of murder, outrage, and anarchy as potent
reasons for reconsidering the question of land-tenure in Ireland.
He did not repeat his warning, uttered in the debate on the
ill-fated Compensation for Disturbance Bill, that the country
was within " a measurable distance from civil war," possibly
because he thought that the " measurable distance^' had become
infinitesimal. But enough as to the reasons for introducing
fresh legislation ; let us pass to the examination of the measure
itself.

The Bill, which consists of fifty clauses, with numberless sub-
clauses, and even in some cases a further analysis of sub-
clauses into subordinate categories, is divided into seven parts.
The first contains what may be called the Tenure Clauses ; the
second relates to the intervention of the Court ; the third pro-
vides for the exclusion of the Act by the agreement of the
parties ; the fourth supplements in some particulars the three
preceding parts ; the fifth, not very logically, groups together
acquisition of land by the tenants, reclamation of waste, and
emigration ; the sixth deals with the constitution of the Court
and the Land Commission ; and the seventh furnishes a glossary
of terms, an enumeration of excluded tenancies, and rules for
determining when a present is to be considered as becoming a
future tenancy. From this bare outline it will be seen that a
wide range of subjects is treated, some of which might well have
been reserved for fuller development in separate measures.

234 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

That the Bill is not easy reading will be readily taken for
granted^ and the difficulty in understanding some of its pro-
visions is, we must candidly confess, very considerable. We
find " present " and " future tenancies," ^'tenancies to which this
Act applies,''^ " tenancies subject to statutory conditions/'
"judicial leases,'^ and " fixed tenancies/Mntroduced for the first
time as terms of art. And, as the practical rights of the parties
depend on tlie distinctions involved in these expressions, each
clause has to be read microscopically in order to determine the
future conditions of tenure. This is not the form which a
great popular pronouncement should assume. Simplicity is of
the first importance, but we find, instead, a cloud of techni-
calities, 'and scarcely a single clause capable of being safely
interpreted without the assistance of a court of construction.
To furnish occasion for perpetual litigation and acrimonious
controversy is not, in our opinion, any advance towards a settle-
ment of this vexed question ; and, at all events, even if the
substance of the measure be all that could be desired, this
complicated form militates considerably against its chances of
success. We should have preferred the enunciation of a few
general principles, to the overwrought details and cumbrous
scrupulosity of the present Bill. If there is really anything
seriously amiss with the Land Laws of Ireland, it ought to be
possible to set it right in less than twenty-seven folio pages. If
the tenant has, as a matter of fact, an interest in his holding
which the law does not sufficiently protect, by all means let it
be recognized by legislation. If it is desirable to confer upon
him something which he has not hitherto possessed, let it
be granted to him, and compensation paid to those injuriously
affected. But the present measure carefully avoids the respon-
sibility of definition, and merely places landlords and tenants in
a position to commence a ruinous conflict by competition sales,
and litigious proceedings.

The very first clause of the Bill contains the provisions as to
the sale of the tenant^s interest. It is enacted that, " the
tenant for the time being of every tenancy to which this Act
applies may sell his tenancy for the best price that can be got
for the same,^^ subject, however, to the following restrictions : —

(1) The sale is to be made to one person only, unless the
landlord consents. (2) The tenant must give notice to the
landlord of his intention to sell, and thereupon, (3) the landlord
may exercise his right of pre-emption at a price to be settled,
if necessary, by the Court. (4) The landlord may refuse on
reasonable grounds to accept the purchaser as tenant. And
instead of leaving the reasonableness of the landlord's refusal
as an open question for the Court, the clause proceeds to enu-
merate, in somewhat mysterious language, particular examples

M7\ Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 235

of '' reasonable grounds/^* We have, first, " insufficiency of
means, measured with respect to the liabilities of the tenancy/'
Insufficiency of means to pay down the purchase money of the
tenancy would be comprehensible, but the tenancy being '' the
tenant's interest in his holding,^' no liabilities attach to it.
Does "liabilities of the tenancy '^ mean the requirements of
the holding, as farm stock and utensils ; or merely the rent
that is payable in respect thereof ? We really cannot discover
any meaning in this '*' reasonable ground,'^ except — and this is
only the result of guessing — that the purchasing tenant, after
paying his purchase money, must have a clear capital sum suffi-
cient for the working of the farm. The second ground of veto,
" the bad character of the purchaser,^' seems likely to give rise to
much ill-feeling, and to raise delicate questions for the decision of
the Court. The issues to be tried by the chairman will involve
him in a roving inquiry through the purchaser's entire life.
His relatives, his friends and foes, the publican, the priest and
the policeman, may all be called to give material evidence.
And what is " bad character ? " We can recognize extreme
cases, but we find a difficulty in drawing a precise line. To be
consistent, the Bill ought to give a right of ejectment against
all " bad characters," but this it fails to do. Surely a more
ludicrous provision was never inserted in an Act of Parliament.
The next " reasonable ground '' is " the failure of the purchaser
already as a farmer," and the last, '^any other reasonable and
sufficient cause.'' We do not know whether there is any subtle
intention in requiring a ^' cause " to be both reasonable a7id
sufficient in order to furnish a " reasonable ground; " but if so,
it is too refined a distinction to have much practical importance.

In a Declaration on the subject of the Land Bill, signed by
all the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland — to which we shall
have occasion frequently to refer — it is pointed out that " the
grounds set forth in the Bill on which a landlord may refuse to
admit as tenant the purchaser of a holding — as well as the right
of pre-emption conferred on the landlord — interfere seriously
with the tenant's right of free sale." It is, indeed, clear that
the right of sale conferred by this clause falls very far short of
the free sale which the tenant desires ; and we think that,
instead of a veto, the landlord might rest satisfied with the
power of obtaining from the Court, in proper cases, an injunc-
tion to restrain the sale.

We have always considered that the importance of free sale
was exaggerated ; for what ihe Irish tenant, as a rule, wants, is

* While these sheets were passing- throagh the press, the committee
determined on striking out these limitations of the discretion of the Court;
and as the Bill now stands, what is recommended in the text is prac-
tically enacted.

236 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

not to sell, but to keep his land. A small sum of money is no
compensation to him for the loss of his farm, and the disruption
of old associations. If the tenant possesses, or ought to possess,
any property in his holding, the right of assignment — an in-
separable incident of all property — should certainly be attached
to it. The more straightforward policy for the legislature to
adopt would be, however, to define and declare the right of
property, and allow the right of sale to follow as a matter of
course. But the authors of this Bill shrank from the con-
sequences of enacting that the tenant should be a joint-owner
with his landlord, and preferred to give him a right of selling —
What? Presumably, what is his own to sell, the improvements
that he has made, and his right of continuous occupancy, so far
as it is secured by the fine on capricious eviction, and by the
provisions of this Bill. The power of selling a vague and
indefinable tenant-right seems calculated to introduce a practice
of reckless trafficking in land which cannot but prove injurious to
the interests of the agricultural community. The tenant may sell
for a " fancy'^ price ; the landlord can scarcely treat this as
a reasonable ground for objecting to the purchaser, but if he
accepts the newcomer as tenant, the latter, who is still a
" present tenant/^ may apply to the Court to fix his rent,
" having regard to his interest in the holding," that is to
say, to the exorbitant price which he has recently paid for
the tenant-right. This, we must say, opens up a vista of acri-
monious conflict that seems perfectly endless.

We shall next consider the provisions of the Bill with
reference to the question of " fair rent •/' but, inasmuch as the
" present" tenant occupies in this respect a somewhat favoured
position compared with the tenant of a " future tenancy," we
must first examine the grounds of this distinction, and point
out as accurately as we can the occasions on which a tenancy
changes its tense.

The reason for placing present and future tenants on a different
footing was, no doubt, that the former being in actual occupa-
tion, were not considered as free agents in contracts relating to
the land which they occupied, and in which they had sunk all
their capital, to which they had devoted a life-time of labour,
and which possessed in their eyes a 'pretium affedionis over
and above its actual value. The future tenant, in bargaining
for the possession of a farm, is supposed to be influenced by
none of these motives ; and may, therefore, be trusted to manage
his affairs in a strictly commercial spirit. But after the lapse
of years, where will the difference be? The "present^' and
the " future " tenant will then be occupying adjacent farms
under precisely similar conditions, except such as the law

Mr, Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 237

imports as the privileges of tlie former. Both will then have,
possibly, expended their capital and labour on the land; to both
alike their homes will have become endeared by a thousand
sweet associations, and every argument that can now be adduced
for affording additional protection to the present tenant, will
then apply with equal force to every occupier of the soil. The
Irish Bishops place in the forefront of their Declaration, the
demand that the position of the two classes of tenants shall be
assimilated ; and there is no recommendation contained in that
important document in which we more heartily concur. It
would vastly simplify the complicated scheme of the Bill, and
save the agricultural community of the future from the heart-
burnings attendant on unequal privileges. It must not be
supposed, however, that the expression, '^ present tenancy " is
limited to the persons now actually in occupation of land. It
requires a violent break in the devolution of title to originate a
future tenancy. And the circumstance, that the number of
future tenants will be for some time very limited, renders the
distinction even more invidious. The devisee, the purchaser,
the foreclosing mortgagee, the executor, and the assignee in
bankruptcy of a present tenant, wiU all be, to the end of time,
present tenants ; and it is manifest that the reason that has
been given for distinguishing the two classes does not in any
sense extend to the tenants of a remote future. The only ways
in which future tenancies can come into existence are, first,
when a sale takes place on account of a breach of contract by
the tenant ; and, secondly, when the landlord, having resumed
possession, re-lets the land. But there is the following qualifi-
cation of the latter, namely, that if the landlord exercises his
right of pre-emption under the first clause of the Bill, he is for
fifteen years from the passing of the Act rendered incapable of
creating a "future tenancy.'^ This must be regarded rather as a
discouragement of the landlord's right of pre-emption than as a
provision in favour of existing tenants. The breaches of con-
tract which may give rise, by means of a forced sale, to future
tenancies, are violations of what are called "Statutory Condi-
tions," to which we shall presently refer. It is enough to state
here that they are a somewhat stringent set of covenants that
are to be implied by virtue of the Act in every case where a
statutory term is conferred. If the tenant violates any of these
conditions, for example, does not pay his rent, or sub-lets, he
may be compelled to sell his holding, and the purchaser will
then become a future tenant. This being the way in which the
majority of such tenancies will arise, it is clear that their
increase will be very slow, for these sales will take the place of
ejectments, and will possibly be even less numerous. And at

238 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

the present rate it would take some thousands of years to
exhaust the 600,000 holdings in Ireland. It is safe, however,
to assert that centuries will elapse before the last '^ present
tenant " disappears from the land.

A " fair rent " is assuredly a plausible demand, but unfortu-
nately the word, " fair " has as many different meanings in any
particular transaction as there are human beings engaged in it
with conflicting interests. This is what renders the determina-
tion of a " fair rent " a problem of such exceptional difficulty;
and this it is that has drawn down upon Clause 7, which
attempts the determination of that unknown quantity, a perfect
storm of unfavourable criticism. That it should be allowed to
remain in its present form is not possible ; but what Amend-
ments the Government are prepared to adopt has not yet been
declared. By this Clause every tenant of a " present tenancy'^
— and this is his chief privilege — may apply to the Court to fix
his rent, or, in the exact words of the Bill, '^ to fix what is the
fair rent to be paid.^' If it had stopped there the Clause would
have been complete in itself, an absolute discretion being reposed
in the Chairman. It goes on, however, to define, and perishes
in the attempt. " A fair rent/' it says, '^ means such a rent as
in the opinion of the Court, after hearing the parties and con-
sidering all the circumstances of the case, holding, and district,
a solvent tenant would undertake to pay one year with another."
This definition is also complete in itself, but clashes with the
delegation to the Judge of an unfettered discretion; for we
have here, neither more nor less than the much abused " com-
petition rent," and this certainly differs from the '' fair rent,"
intended by the authors of the Bill. It is also to be noticed
that by the very terms of the Clause, a " solvent " applicant
could never succeed in getting his rent reduced, for it is the
rent which he not only " would undertake," but has undertaken
to pay one year with another. The most extraordinary part of
the Clause is yet to come. We have had a '^ fair " rent and a
*^ competition" rent introduced, and they are not only different
in amount, but they are both capable of being ascertained, the
one depending on the opinion of the Judge, the other being a
question of fact to be ascertained by evidence. That being so,
no amount of " provisoes" or qualifications can logically alter
the one into the other, but that is what Clause 7 now proceeds
to attempt. We shall quote this concluding proviso in full, for
no description could do justice to its drafting.

Provided that the Court, in fixing such rent, shall have regard to
the tenant's interest in the holding, and the tenant's interest shall be
estimated with reference to the following considerations, that is to
say —

Mr, Gladstones Second Land Bill. 239

(a.) In the case of any holding subject to the Ulster Tenant Eight
Custom or to any usage corresponding therewith — with reference to
the said custom or usage ;

(b.) In cases where there is no evidence of any such custom or
ygage — with reference to the scale of compensation for disturbance by
this Act provided (except so far as any circumstances of the case shown
in evidence may justify a variation therefrom), and to the right (if
any) to compensation for improvements effected by the tenant or his
predecessors in title.

A practical man might have little difficulty in determining
what would be a fair rent to pay, or what a solvent tenant as
a fact would undertake to pay ; but, when such a proviso as
this has to be construed, we can anticipate nothing but con-
fusion and uncertainty. We can scarcely conceive so much
obscurity of language arising, except as the fitting medium for
obscurity of thought. If there had been a policy, or a principle,
it would surely have come forth with perfect clearness. We
cannot undertake to solve this legislative conundrum, but we
may indicate a few of the difficulties in the way of solution ;
and, takint^ principle as our guide, we may venture to suggest
what the definition of " fair rent '^ should have been. One of the
most obvious and striking difficulties in the interpretation of
the clause is this : something is manifestly to be deducted from
the full competition rent, because the tenant possesses an
interest in the holding, and it would be unjust that he should
pay rent for what was his own property. The rent, however, is
a periodical payment, the tenant^s property a capitalized sum.
Until the rate of interest is fixed, the problem remains indeter-
minate. What annual deduction is to be made in respect of an
! ascertained capital sum? If we' suppose the case of a tenant
' who has purchased the tenancy applying under this Clause to
have his rent fixed, we must assume that in general his
"interest in the holding'' would be assessed at the purchase
money which he had paid. The deduction from his rent, how-
ever, cannot be made to depend on whether he has borrowed
the money at four, five, or ten per cent.; and if not at the rate
of interest he pays, or if he has provided the purchase money
out of his own resources, how is the rate to be fixed ? This
may appear a trivial point, but it illustrates the vagueness that
pervades the necessary process of calculation. Again, the
tenant's interest is to be estimated with reference " to the
lie of compensation for disturbance.'* That scale, however, is
id on the hypothesis that the tenant is dispossessed ; under
lis Clause he is to continue in occupation ; moreover, that scale
only prescribes certain maximum payments beyond which the
CJourt cannot go, and the circumstances of the eviction have to

240 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

be taken into account in determining tlie compensation to be
paid; but if there is no eviction there are no circumstances
which the Court can regard, and, therefore, no means of esti-
mating, for a totally different purpose, the amount which the
Court would have awarded if there had been a " disturbance."
Lastly, and this objection strikes at the root of the principle of
"compensation for disturbance/' the higher the rent the
greater is the compensation which the landlord has to pay. But
it is manifest that the higher the rent, the less is the balance of
profitable interest belonging to the tenant, and the less the
deduction that should be made from a competition rent in
respect of such interest. A rack-rented tenant who has made
no improvements possesses no real interest in his holding, which
would, or ought to fetch any price under Clause 1 ; yet, if he is
evicted, the compensation which he may receive is larger than
what might be awarded to a man who had a large margin of
profit in the cultivation of his farm. This is comprehensible as
a penal clause against rack-renting landlords, but when it is
adopted as a standard for the adjustment of continuing con-
tracts we must admit that we fail altogether to see the force of
its application.

The question of fair rent, we believe, might be confidently
left to the determination of any competent tribunal, and the
attempt to assist the discretion of the Court by a legislative
declaration of principle is only calculated to impede justice
and foster litigation. There is no tenant in Ireland, it must be
remembered, who does not himself know whether his rent is
fair or not, and a complicated Clause, with endless provisoes and
mystifications, is just the thing to tempt the speculative tenant
to try his chance with the Court. Universal litigation is an
evil to be avoided if possible. The appeal to the Court ought
to be discouraged except in hard cases. It should not be made
an ordinary incident in the tenure of land, for we are fully con-
vinced that the prosperity and progress of the country depends
more upon the introduction of happier relations between land-
lords and tenants, forbearance on the one side, industry and
good-will on the other, than on any paltry reductions, or it
may be increases, in the amount of rent. But if the legislature
is not satisfied to leave to the Court a full and uncontrolled
discretion as to the fixing of a fair rent, and insists on laying
down some guiding principle to regulate its decisions, we think
that sub-clause 9, of this Clause indicates the direction which
such interference should take. That sub-clause gives power to
the Court to fix "a specified value for the holding.'^ It means,
we presume, the " tenancy," or tenant's interest in the holding,
for it goes on to declare that^ in case the tenant is desirous of

n

Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 2il

selling during the statutory term, the landlord may resume
possession on payment to the tenant of the amount so fixed.
Now this sum is clearly the ascertained value of the tenant's
property. Why should not the Court be empowered in all
cases to ascertain this value, and deduct, from the full or com-
petition rent, interest at four or five per cent, on tliis capital
sum? This, it seems to us, would meet all objections. The
tenant would no longer be required to pay rent for what was in
reality, if not in law, his own property ; and the duties of the
Court would be reduced to the ascertainment of facts, and a
simple arithmetical calculation.

Let us now turn to the subject of Fixity of Tenure, and
seek to extract from the tangled network of this Bill an answer
to the question, How far is the tenant secured in his holding ?
Security we have seen is his chief desideratum, security not only
against eviction, but also against arbitrary raising of rent. The
latter is provided against, after a fashion, by the Clause which
we have just been engaged in discussing; but it is obviously of
no use to fix the rent unless you also secure the continued
enjoyment of the farm. The fine on capricious eviction imposed
by the Land Act of 1870 was intended to operate in this direc-
tion. That it did, to a great extent, carry out the intentions of
the legislature in that behalf we have little doubt ; yet, in
particular instances, as appears from the evidence before the
Commissioners, the greedy incoming tenant not only paid the
fine for getting rid of his predecessor, but also offered an
increased rent to the landlord. Accordingly, the scale has been
raised by this Bill to a prohibitory standard. Thus, for
example, whenever the rent is under £30 the compensation may
amount to seven years' rent, an allowance which has been
hitherto limited to a £10 valuation; and at the other end of the
scale the change is still more marked. No matter how large a
act of land may be included in the tenancy, a fine of three
ears' rent may be awarded against a landlord. Under the
and Act, on the contrary, only one year's rent was payable
when the holding was valued above £100, and in no case could
the compensation exceed £250. It is clear that the stringency
of these provisions ought to secure their object ; for, certainly,
the landlords as a class could not afford to pay such heavy sums
for the gratification of a whim. There is one serious blot in the
proposed scale of compensation for disturbance to which we
desire to call attention. It proceeds per saltum, and at the
limiting figures of each class the amount payable to a tenant
is suddenly diminished. An alteration of a shilling in his rent
may reduce his compensation from seven to five years' rent.
This was avoided in the Act of 1870 by a somewhat crabbed
VOL. vi.~No. I. [Third Series.] r

242 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

•clause enabling him to claim under any lower class^ his rent
being reduced in proportion for the purposes of calculation.
Let us illustrate this point by an example. Suppose that there
are two tenants, the one paying £29, the other £30 a year as
the rents of their respective farms. Now, under the proposed
scale, the former could claim seven years' rent, or a sum of £203,
while the latter, who pays a higher rent, could under no circum-
stances obtain more than five years' rent, or £150. The same
sudden inequality prevails in the transition from every class
into the next. There is, in fact, a want of continuity in the
assessment of compensation which in particular cases works
injustice. This, we think^ ought to be amended by enabling a
tenant to claim under any lower class, his rent being reduced
by a proportion to the maximum limit of the class under which
he claims. This mode of securing the tenant's position, is
however, only an indirect provision; the more important
scheme of the Bill in relation to fixity of tenure remains to be
-considered.

The " statutory term " is fixed at fifteen years ; and for those
fifteen years the conditions of tenure are to be unalterable.
The rent cannot be raised, and the tenant cannot be evicted,
■except for breach of the ''statutory conditions." Now this
statutory term may arise in two ways ; either when the landlord
attempts to raise the rent if the tenant agrees to the increase,
or when the ''fair rent " is fixed by the Court. In both cases
there is absolute fixity for fifteen years. But what happens on
the expiration of that term ? Mr. Gladstone is reported to have
stated that " at the end of that period the tenant will of course
give up his holding.""^ We are unable to discover in the Bill
any such provision ; and, indeed, it would be out of harmony
with the entire scheme of the measure. It is expressly pro-
vided by Clause 7, sub-clause 1 1, that " during the currency of
a statutory term an application to the Court to determine a
judicial rent " shall only be made durnig the last twelve months
of the statutory term. It leaves undefined the position of
the tenant who permits the statutory term to expire without
making any application ; but we cannot doubt that such a tenant
will be still a " present tenant," and, as such, entitled to have
his rent revised by the Court. This view is confirmed by the
preceding sub-section, which provides that " a further statutory
term shall not commence until the expiration of a preceding
statutory term, and an alteration of judicial rent shall not take
place at less intervals than fifteen years." We believe the
intention is to confer upon the tenants holding statutory terms

* Times, April 8, 1881.

Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 243

indefinite " fixity of tenure/^ subject to the statutory conditions,
-and also subject to periodical revision of rent; but it is curious
that so vital a point as this should be left to be discovered by
inference, instead of being expressly stated. Still more extra-
ordinary is it that the position of lessees should not be accurately
defined. The forty-seventh Clause exempts existing leases from
the operation of the Act, the express terms of those written
'Contracts being allowed to regulate the conditions of the
tenancy. But at the expiration of the term, is the lessee to
give up his farm without compensation, or is he a tenant of a
^' present ■" or a " future tenancy ? '' If he is to give up posses-
sion in accordance with the usual covenant in that behalf, a
large number of occupiers will be excluded from the benefit of
Bill ; a class, too, quite as necessitous, and as much in need of
protection, as the tenants from year to year. If, on the other
hand, he is to become an ordinary tenant, whether present or
future, considerable difficulty arises as to the terms on which he
is to hold his farm. The rent may have been fixed on the
granting of the lease many years ago at a figure by no means
representing the present letting value of land, and, moreover,
it may have been reduced in consideration of covenants in the
lease, or by reason of the payment of a fine. It would, there-
fore, be inequitable to treat the tenancy as continuing upon the
sole condition of paying a rent which had been determined with
reference to totally different circumstances. The difficulty
might be met by allowing either party in case of disagreement
to apply to the Court to fix a fair rent under Clause 7, as if the
lessee were an ordinary tenant of a '^ present tenancy." This
is substantially the recommendation made by the Bishops in
their Declaration. They also advance the opinion that '' tenants
holding under leases made since the passing of the Land Act,
1870, should have the right to submit them for revision to the
Court, both as to amount of rent and other conditions.'^ This,
we regret to say that we cannot support in its entirety, since it
seems an unwarrantable interference with existing contracts ;
but, possibly, some provision might be inserted giving the
tenant the option of surrendering his lease, assuming the
position of a '^ present tenant,'^ and applying to have his rent
fixed for the statutory term.

The provisions of the Bill on the subject of fixity of tenure
are ingenious and satisfactory, at all events as applied to the
ordinary yearly tenancies, which constitute the great majority
of Irish lettings. We must now briefly refer to the " statutory
conditions," or implied covenants of the new tenure. The
first is that the " tenant shall pay his rent at the appointed
time." This, at first sight, appears to require the strictest

244) Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

punctuality on the part of the tenant if he is to avoid committing
a breach of the statutory conditions, and thereby rendering
himself liable to the penal consequences ; but when we
remember that in ejectment for non-payment of rent the tenant
has six months in which to redeem, we anticipate little
difficulty in the practical working of this hard and fast rule.
The next is that the tenant shall not commit "persistent waste/'
by dilapidation of buildings, or deterioration of the soil, after
notice has been given to him to desist. Then follow provisions
for securing the landlord's right of mining, quarrying, cutting
timber, making roads, and sporting. Little exception has been
taken to the justice of the foregoing conditions ; not so as to
the last two in the series, which are that the tenant shall not,
without the consent of the landlord, sub-divide, or sub-let ; and
that he shall not do any act whereby his holding becomes vested
in a judgment creditor or assignee in bankruptcy. As to the
former, it is thought desirable by many persons that in the
case of large holdings, the occupier should be at liberty to
assign a part, not less, say, than thirty acres, provided he also
retains in his own hands a farm of a similar extent. It is
argued that, in a country like Ireland, where '' land hunger ''
prevails to such an extraordinary degree, every facility should
be given for the accommodation of as many persons as the
land will hold. From this view we respectfully dissent. The
acknowledged evil of Irish tenure is the wretchedly insufficient
farms on which multitudes of the inhabitants strive to exist.
That lies at the root of all Ireland's miseries ; and the natural
causes tending in the direction of continuous sub-division are
so powerful, that they do not require to be assisted by
legislation. There are nearly a quarter of a million holdings in
Ireland under fifteen acres, and most of these are cultivated in so
slovenly a manner that, by moderately good farming, the
occupier might actually double his income.^ We are as bitter
enemies to " clearances " and " consolidations '* as any tenant
in Ireland, but we are averse, on the other hand, to deliberately
sowing the seeds of destitution and famine. The condition
which forbids the tenant from doing any act whereby his holding
becomes vested in a judgment creditor or assignee in bankruptcy,
seems calculated to give rise to curious " triangular duels.'''
The tenancy, like all the other property of a bankrupt, confining
our attention to that case, passes to the assignee ; but not being
in possession he is not a tenant. He has to take steps to
compel a sale or surrender. In the meantime the landlord is
entitled to treat the tenancy as determined by the breach of

* See Professor Baldwin's Evidence before the ilichmond Commission^
2,867 etseq.

Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 245

the statutory condition, but if he brings ejectment the tenant
is expressly authorized to sell, and being a bankrupt it is not
easy to see how he can confer a title on a purchaser. Similar
interesting questions will probably arise when a judgment
•creditor or mortgagee attempts to enforce his security ; but we
have dwelt sufficiently long on the proposed fixity of tenure and
its conditions, and must now pass to the other scarcely less
important provisions of the Bill.

One striking result of the changes introduced by the tenure
clauses is, that in future ordinary leases will be so much waste
paper, unless indeed the farm is valued at d£150 or upwards, and
the parties expressly exclude the operation of the Act. The
third part of the Bill, however, introduces what is called a
*' judicial lease." It must be for a term of at least thirty-one
jears, and be approved by the Court on behalf of the tenant.
This is practically the only way in which leases can hencefor-
ward be granted by the landlord, or accepted by the tenant;
and amounts to an admission that freedom of contract no longer
■exists in Ireland.

The " fixed tenancy '' is one more form which the relations of
landlord and tenant are permitted to assume. It seems to
•amount to a perpetuity, the landlord's reversion being converted
into a rent-charge, which "may or may not be subject to re-
Taluation by the Court." It is somewhat inconsistently declared
that it shall not be deemed "a tenancy to which this Act
applies," and yet the "Statutory Conditions" are imported as
'defining the terms of the tenancy. If any of these are violated,
the landlord may recover the premises in ejectment ; but, surely,
it cannot be intended that the evicted tenant should have none of
the privileges of an ordinary tenant as to the sale of his tenancy.
It is also noticeable that complete silence prevails as to the
*' quality " of the fixed tenancy. Is it a freehold or a chattel ?
The answer is of course important, not only as aff'ectino^ the
rights of a deceased tenant^s representatives, but also in respect
•of electoral qualifications, and fiscal liabilities.

It is with pleasure that we turn from the tenure clauses of
this complicated measure, to its other provisions, which, at all
events, can be understood without difficulty. Part five includes
the subjects, " Acquisition of Land by Tenants," " Eeclamation
of Land," and " Emigration ; " whose only logical connection is
tliat they all involve an application of public money. We
can only aff'ord a brief notice of these important contributions to
the settlement of the Land Question, but a few words will suffice
to place before our readers the main outlines of their provisions.
The land Commission is authorized to advance to purchasing
tenants three-fourths of the purchase-money of their holdings ;
and, what is perhaps still more important, it can buy an estate

246 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

in gloho, and re-sell in suitable parcels. These powers are, of
course^ hedged round with provisions to secure the State from
eventual loss, and the experience of the sales under the Church
Act points to the conclusion that serious defalcations are not to
be anticipated. We rejoice to see that the Commission is to-
have power to indemnify the tenant against incumbrances, or
doubtful titles ; and that the sales may be negotiated at a fixed
percentage, according to a scale to be settled from time to time.
These provisions will do much to facilitate the practical working
of the scheme, and to avoid the rocks on which the " Bright
Clauses " of the Land Act suffered shipwreck. The advances to
the tenants are to be paid back by an annuity of five per cent,
on the sum advanced, payable for thirty- five years. The con-
ditions annexed to holdings while subject to the payment of this
annuity, are not so onerous as those contained in the Land Act ;
for the tenant can sell at any time, with the consent of the Com-
mission, and without such consent when half the burthen has
been discharged; and the absolute forfeiture incurred by a
tenant under the former Act, on alienation, or sub-division, is
replaced by a sale of the interest thus attempted to be dealt with.

The reclamation of waste lands is a subject of such interest
and importance that it might well furnish the occasion for
separate consideration. The provisions of the Bill seem to us
meagre in the extreme. One clause attempts to deal with this
complicated problem, and the method adopted is to authorize
the Board of Works, with the consent of the Treasury, to make
advances to companies formed for the purpose of reclaiming
waste, drainage, or other works of agricultural improvement.
As the Government advance is not to exceed the amount actually
expended out of its own moneys by the company, it is clear that
the success of the scheme will depend on private enterprise, and
on the somewhat remote prospects of remunerative return.
Under these circumstances we anticipate that it will prove
almost wholly inoperative.

The subject of emigration is still more crudely treated. The
Bishops of Ireland condemn, in no measured language, all
attempts to foster the already strong incentives impelling the
Irish peasantry to leave their native shores. They say, in the
Declaration, to which we have previously referred : —

We cannot but regard emigration, and every Government scheme,
however well intended, that would encourage it, as highly detrimental
to Irish interests.

In the face of this authoritative denunciation, we think the
Government would act a prudent part in suffering Clause 26,
the only one relating to this subject, to drop quietly out of the
Bill. Emigration, no doubt, now exists as a fact that cannot
be ignored, and the circumstances under which the emigrants-

M7\ Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 247

land in a foreign country are highly detrimental to their moral
and material welfare. Much of the evil that falls on the
individuals might, we believe, be averted by the voluntary exodus
of entire communities; but no measure of success could be
commanded against the express disapproval of the Clergy, by
whom alone the scheme could be worked to a prosperous issue.
It is tantalizing to read of tracts of vacant land needing only
the rudest plough, the very simplest husbandry, to suffer trans-
formation from a desert into a cornfield, and then turn our eyes
on the barren wastes of Connaught, overcrowded with a starv-
ing population ; but we repeat that without the hearty
co-operation of the Priests it is worse than useless to attempt
the exportation of the peasantry.

There is another subject which, although not included in the
Bill, is of pressing importance. We allude to the existing
arrears of rent. There are great difficulties in the way of deal-
ing with this question in such a manner as to afford practical
relief where it is absolutely necessary, and at the same time to
avoid violating the principles of natural justice. We are con-
fronted by a state of circumstances in which some men cannot,
and others will not, pay the rents which they have contracted to
pay. Any measure devised for the purpose of dealing with this
subject should be so framed as to permit of a sound discretion
being exercised in the discrimination of these two classes. We
have no sympathy with the well-to-do farmer who merely avails
himself of the existing agitation to avoid payment of his j ust
habilities ; and who, after compelling his landlord to incur the
odium of extreme measures, at the last moment draws from his
pocket the bundle of notes which he should have paid over some
months before. But there is also, undoubtedly, a large class
of tenants who have suffered by the agricultural distress to such
an extent that they are not able to pay at once the arrears of
rent due to their landlords, and for these some provision ought
to be made. We do not see our way to recommending a total
extinguishment of all arrears, for that would be to confound
the prosperous and the necessitous tenants in one enactment ;
and, moreover, would be open to the charge of bare-faced con-
fiscation of the landlords' rights. But the subject may be treated
in one of two ways. Either the Court may be authorized to
capitalize arrears where it sees that the tenant is uuable to pay ;
or the Treasury might advance the necessary sums to liquidate
existing claims. In both cases the capital sums might be paid
off by an annuity extending over a certain number of years.
Without some such provision, we feel assured that the Land
Bill of this Session will fail, in its immediate effects, as a message
of peace to Ireland.

We have not alluded to the machinery by which this important

248 Mr. Gladstone's Second Land Bill.

measure is to be worked; yet, as a practical question, very
much of its success must depend on the spirit in which it is
administered. It is to be feared that the part of the Bill dealing
with the constitution of the Court and of the Land Commission
will not prove by any means satisfactory. The Court that is to
take cognizance of the numerous and important questions that
may arise between landlord and tenant is the Civil Bill Court
of the county where the holding is situated. The Judges of
these Courts — the County Court Judges — have been recently
reduced in number from thirty-three to twenty-one, and their
time is already fully occupied by the discharge of their existing
duties. Moreover, in the exercise of their jurisdiction under
the Land Act, they have failed to impress the tenant farmers of
Ireland with that confidence in their impartiality, which is
above all things necessary as a condition of success in a Court
of Arbitration. We would not, for a moment, be understood as
impugning the perfect fairness and uprightness of those func-
tionaries, but it so happens that their decisions have tended to
impress the tenants with the belief that the law was framed in
the interests of the landlords. Again, the Land Commission,
which is constituted a Court of Final Appeal from the decisions
of the Chairman, is composed of three persons, described in the
Bill as A.B., CD., and E.F., one of whom is to be a Judge of the
Supreme Court. But as the salary attached to the office is
only two thousand pounds, it is manifestly the intention of the
Government that the judicial member of the Commission shall
continue to hold office in his former capacity. If the Land
Commission is to be anything more than a dignified nonentity
we do not see how any of its members can discharge other
functions. Considering the vast and unrestrained powers that
are vested in this body, powers involving an adjudication on the
rights of all the landowners and tenants in Ireland, it is of
the highest importance that their character and position should
be such as to furnish a guarantee, not only for impartiality,
but also for the highest administrative and judical capacity.
These Commissioners hold their appointments at the pleasure
of the Crown, and are removable without compensation or
retiring allowance. A considerable part of the actual work of
the Commission, will, no doubt, be performed by the Assistant
Commissioners, whose appointment by the Lord Lieutenant the
Bill contemplates ; and as all the powers of the Commissioners,
without limit or qualification, may be delegated to a single
Assistant Commissioner, it is too apparent that the Bill is open
here to the grave charge of entrusting the most delicate and
difficult functions to a tribe of underpaid, and consequently
inefficient, functionaries.

We must now conclude our criticisms on this important

Mr, Gladstone's Second Land Bill. 249

measure. Our readers will understand that, while we deplore
the unnecessarily cumbrous form in which it has been cast, we
find in its substantive proposals much that is calculated to
improve the relations of landlords and tenants in Ireland.
Its central position, that an independent tribunal should be
-charged with the revision of rent is of cardinal importance, and
recognizes one of the unhappy necessities of Irish land tenure.
Its treatment of the other F's is not so satisfactory. The
attempts to create, in various ways, fixity of tenure, are com-
plicated and highly artificial ; while the clause dealing with free
sale is so mutilated by conditions and provisoes that it can be
expected to do little more inaugurate a new era of struggle and
strife.

The prospects of the measure becoming law are, as we write,
still somewhat remote. More than two months have elapsed
since it was introduced, and almost every Government night
has been occupied with its discussion. In spite, however, of the
energy with which it has been pushed forward, the Committee
is still engaged on the first Clause of the Bill ; and when the
House adjourned for Whitsuntide, after thirteen sittings devoted
to the Bill, only six lines had been considered in Committee.
Upwards of fifteen hundred Amendments, were, shortly after the
second reading of the Bill, placed on the paper, of which only an
inconsiderable number have as yet been disposed of; and
unless some practical mode of sifting the chaff from the grain
is discovered, the time that will be consumed in their discussion
will be almost interminable. Mr. Gladstone has already thrown
out a significant hint that under certain circumstances it may
be necessary to propose " urgency '^ ; but it is difficult to see
how this dictatorial policy could be adopted in the case of a
•complicated measure like this, every line of which requires the
most careful consideration, without infringing the rights of
Parliamentary discussion. The hint, however, has not been
thrown away, and already the Liberal members have met and
filtered down their amendments, with the result of relieving the
paper of at least one hundred ; and there can be little doubt
that it will also have a salutary tendency towards checking
loquacity and incipient obstruction.

There is only one thing certain, that the Government are
pledged to their Bill, and will adopt any legitimate means to
force it through all its stages. We trust, in the interests of all
parties, that no factious opposition may arise in the course of
the discussion to impede its progress ; for it is now clear to all
impartial minds, that the sooner a fair and equitable adjustment
of the Land Question is arrived at, the better chance there will
be of a restoration of peace and goodwill among all classes in
Ireland.

( 250 )

Itotias of Catlj0lk Coiifetntal ^niobial^.

GERMAN PERIODICALS.

By Dr. Bellesheim, of Cologne.

1. TheKathoUk.

THE March issue of the Katholih contains a very able exposition,
contributed by Professor Bautz, of Munster University, on
Luke xxii. 43, "apparuit angelus confortans eum." In the same
issue I commented on the pamphlet published in January, 1881, at
Rome, by Cardinal Zigliara, " II Dimittatur e la spiegazione datane
dalla Congregazione dell' Indice pel Cardinale Tommaso Maria
Zigliara, dell' Ordine dei Predicatori." It is generally known that
the Congregation of the Index, when some works of the learned
Abbate Rosmini were submitted to its examination, gave the decision
" dimittantur." Rosmini is an eminent writer, whose philosophical
system is still largely supported in Italy. The decision of the Congre-
gation originated a bitter strife amongst Catholic philosophers in
Italy. The meaning of the word, " dimittantur," some contended,^
was as much as a testimony or a " passport" of orthodoxy ; whilst
others interpreted it as only a permission given for a certain time, but-
which, in other circumstances, might be withdrawn. A year ago,
June 21, 1881, the Congregation solemnly declared the sense of the
word " dimittatur " to be, "opus quod dimittitur, non prohiberi."
Cardinal Zigliara, who is a learned theologian and acute philosopher,
displays much knowledge of theology, history, and canon law in
establishing this explanation of the holy Congregation. He begins by
explaining the various form of approbation given by the Church to
Catholic books ; such approbation is either definitive, or elective, or
permissive. A " definitive " approbation is stamped with a dogmatical
character ; once bestowed on a book, it cannot be withdrawn. 'The
" elective " approbation means that the Church chooses a book, or a
sentence, in preference to another one. It does not give dogmatical
authority to a theological work ; it is based on the knowledge which
the authorities in the Church possess, " hie et nunc." This appro-
bation is far more than a simple permission. Nevertheless, as our
author appropriately points out, it does not exceed the limits of what
is more or less likely. Hence, it might happen that a sentence held to
be only probable, might, by a process of development, come to be
held as certain, and obtain from the Church a definitive approbation ;
whilst, on the other hand, opinions less probable might eventually
turn out to be erroneous, and then, although formerly permitted,
-would no longer be permitted by the authorities. Lastly, comes what

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals, 251

is styled the " permissive " approbation. It is no real approbation,
as in the two former cases, since it does not contain any judgment as
to whether or not errors exist in a book ; it claims only a mere
negative importance ; the work which is permitted or dismissed is not
prohibited. Cardinal Zigliara clearly shows that the " dimittatur "'
does not in the least imply a definitive, nor any elective approbation.
The Cardinal also establishes the truth of his thesis from eccesiastical
history. As early as the fifth century. Pope Gelasius pointed out
the aforesaid approbations by distinguishing three sorts of books.
Firstly, the books of the Bible inspired by the Holy Ghost, together
with dogmatical decrees of the Po|)es and oecumenical councils;
secondly, the works of the holy fathers; and thirdly, a class of books
which he permits the faithful to read, whilst reminding them of
St. Paul's words, "Omnia probate, quod bonum est tenete." A
sample of the third class of books was shown in the works of Eusebius
ofCaesarea. The same distinction is established by Cardinal Turre-
cremata in his explanation of cap. " Sancta Romana ecclesia," dist. 75.
In the last part of his pamphlet our author answers two important
questions, largely discussed in Italy by Rosmini's supporters and
adversaries. 1. May books that have been only permitted, be re-
examined and impugned by Catholic authors who are unable to agree
with them ? 2. May the Church withdraw the permission given in
favour of a Catholic book as soon as certain weighty reasons call on
her to do so 1 Both questions are answered in the affirmative by the
Cardinal. I may also call the reader's attention to the learned work
in which all questions bearing on the " Dimittatur " are exhaustively
treated. Its title is " Seraphini Piccinardi, De approbatione S. Thomse,"
Patavii: 1G83.

2. Historisch-politiscJie Blatter. — The March number contains a
critique of the recent edition of Cardinal Contarini's correspondence
from the celebrated diet of Ratisbone, 1541, published by Dr. Pastor^
of Innsbruck University. We are indebted for it to the kindness
of Cardinal Hergenrother, who, on being appointed keeper of the
secret archives of the Holy See, admitted Dr. Pastor to the immense
treasures heaped up there from all parts of the Catholic world.
Contarini's correspondence, long' searched for in vain, was finally
found in Vol. 129 of that part of the Vatican Archives which bears
the name, " Bibliotheca Pia." Of its importance no words need be
said. German Protestant historians for centuries have been accus-
tomed to claim the papal nuncio Contarini for the Protestant Re-
formation. It cannot be denied that Contarini, owing to his indulgent
and meek character, did his utmost to bring over to the Catholic
Church the champions of Protestantism sent to Ratisbone — Melanc-
thon, Bucer, and Sturm — but it would be totally inconsistant with all
historical truth to claim him for the Reformation. His orthodoxy,
his zeal for the Apostolic See, as well as his kindness and forbear-
ance towards the Church's disobedient sons, are clearly testified by
the recentlv discovered letters dragged out from the dust of three^

252 Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals,

centuries. Contarini strongly opposed tlie opinions of the Protestant'
theologians about the real presence, and constantly blamed them for
their ambiguous terms. Those unhappy men were most anxious not
to offend their secular princes, and for fear of disagreeing with them,
dared not bring forward their real opinions. The one who was sunk
in the deepest slavery was Melancthon. Contarini's letters leave no
doubt about it ; the Reformer sighed under the cruelty of the Duke of
Saxony, and was afraid of losing his life.

The March and April numbers contain the concluding articles on
the " Wanderings of Jansenism through Europe." Next to France
and Germany, we meet with the pestiferous influence of the sect in
Italy and Portugal. A very stronghold of Jansenism in Northern,
Italy was the University of Pavia. To prove to Italian Catholics at
Milan the orthodoxy of the new creed, a work was published in 1786
— "Del Cattolicismo della chiesa d'Utrecht." It was triumphantly
replied to by Canon Mozzi, in his " Storia delle Rivoluzioni della
chiesa d'Utrecht," a w^ork of great learning, and still well worth
reading. The last article examines the influence of Jansenism in
Portugal. The Nuncio Pacca — afterwards Cardinal — -who repre-
sented the Holy See in Portugal from 1795 till 1802, soon learned
how detrimental an influence had been brought to bear on Portuguese
Catholics by Jansenism. It there enjoyed the protection, not only
of the Government, but also of certain members of the higher clergy,
amongst whom we cite the Bishop of Viseu, Don Francesco Mendo
Trigozo, who ascribed the translation of the Jansenistic Catechism of
Montpellier to a " special act of God's Providence," declaring that he
would be guilty of sin if he did not introduce it into his diocese. The
sect, the Cardinal says, by its hypocritical behaviour, has succeeded in
persuading the governments to believe that its adherents are the
most faithful subjects of the Church, and the most sincere defenders
of the rights of the governments against the so-called encroachments of
the Roman Court. The Government most unfortunately trusted
such assertions ; hence there was sown that seed from which sprang
so many disasters in those countries.

The second May issue criticizes a very important book, which may
fitly be styled a definitive sentence on a question eagerly discussed for
some years amongst Catholics, viz., " Who is the author of the ' Imi-
tation of Christ 1 ' " The book bears the title, " Thomas a Kempis, als
Schryver der Navolging van Christus gehandhaafd door P. A.
Spitzen, oud-hoogleraar te Woormond, pastor te Zwolle. Utrecht :
1881." It is indeed curious, that in the recent dispute about Thomas
a Kempis and Abbot Gersen no voice has been heard from the very
country which for centuries was commonly held to have given birth
to the author of the ^' Imitation." Spitzen, the parish priest of Zwolle,
has broken the silence, and has succeeded in establishing two im-
portant facts : A person called Giovanni Gersen never existed ;
Thomas a Kempis is the author of the " Imitation." Spitzen brings
forward six facsimiles of the most important manuscripts of the
"^' Imitation," and by palgeographical reasons utterly destroys the opinion

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals, 253

about manuscripts of it dating from the beginning of the fourteenth
century. There are, on the contrary, evident proofs that the oldest
manuscript codex of the " Imitation" is not older than the middle of the
fifteenth century. But far more weighty are the historical witnesses
bearing testimony for Thomas a Kempis. The chief one quoted by
Spitzen is the " Chronicon Windisheimense," in which John Busch calls
Thomas author of the " Imitation." This testimony is unimpeachable,
since Busch, himself a member of the same congregation as Thomas,,
was deputed also to be its official historian. John Gerardyn, a
member of the Convent of the Holy Apostles at Utrecht (1466) who
transcribed the " Chronicon," calls Thomas author of the " Imitation."
In every century those scholars who were most competent stood
for Thomas ; but Abbot Gersen is only a fabricated person. What
gave rise to the fabrication, and how it came down to us from the
seventeenth century, is so convincingly shown by Spitzen, that
further serious dispute we may well consider to be mere waste of time.

ITALIAN PERIODICALS.

La Scuola Cattolica. 28 Febbrajo, 1881.
1. — The Roman Malaria.

THE Scuola Cattolica concludes its treatment of the subject of the
Roman Malaria in its February number by replying to the
following questions : — 1. Is it possible to restore the Agro Romano to
a healthy state ? 2. Is the malaria chargeable on the Pope-kings ?
Proof had already been adduced to establish incontrovertibly that the
malaria has its origin in physical causes. But are those causes
removable, or capable of being counteracted ? Upon the answer must
depend the question whether or no blame is imputable to the Papal
Government, which failed to remove or counteract them. The writer
goes on to show that the draining of the Agro, a w^ork frequently
attempted unsuccessfully by the Popes, involves a very complicated
problem. The higher grounds — all, in short, above the sea level —
could be drained, it is true, by means of canals which would draw off
the water from all the marshy depressions ; but this would effect
nothing towards restoring the district to a sanitary state, so long as the
great focus of infection remained in the low grounds of the Delta,
viz., the accumulation of stagnant and putrescent waters shut in by
the sand hills from the sea, and beneath its level. The Commissioners
appointed by the present Italian Government, after discussing pro-
jects for either emptying or filling up these lagunes, seem to consider
that the only plan which recommends itself as feasible under the cir-
cumstances is to fill these basins, and thus raise their level above that
of the sea. Signer Canevari has calculated that it would require
ninety millions of cubic metres of earth for this purpose. A notion
of the gigantic nature of such an enterprise may be formed from the
fact that this mass would be equivalent to fifty-five mountains of earth,
each of them as large as the Vatican Basilica. But whence is it all to

:^54 Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals.

-come ? Here is the difficulty. One way would be to turn the Tiber
into these pools, which would gradually fill them up by its deposits.
'That is, after all the great antecedent hydraulic preparations have
been made, it is computed that fifty years would be required for the
process itself. The other idea, which was originally that of P.
Secchi, is to transport the soil from hills levelled fo the purpose.
'This could only be done by the aid of steam carriage, which would
involve an enormous outlay ; but without this it would' be folly to
think of it. Granting that one or other of these plans would be
feasible — and that would be to grant far too much, considering the
doubtful language of scientific men, not to speak of the many practical
•difficulties which would beset its execution, and render its completion
extremely problematic — what accusation can be grounded on these
hypothetical projects against the Pope-kings for not having hitherto
accomplished a work, the very idea of which would be chimerical but
for the progress which science has made in our days, both in mechani-
cal and in hydraulic departments, and the discovery of steam power
for its application ? But such is the common way of dealing with
matters where the Popes are concerned ; no account is taken of times
and seasons, of the circumstances amidst which their lives were cast,
or the knowledge and means at their disposal ! It appears, moreover,
that one or more of the Commissioners regard the project of rendering
the Agro Bomano salubrious as any way a sheer Utopia, because the
malaria exhales, not from these stagnant basins alone, but from many
neighbouring marshes — the whole coast from Gaeta to Spezia being
of that character more or less. For further reasons of an adverse
nature to the successful realization of the work in question, we must
refer the reader to the article itself. We think he will conclude that
it is rather premature, not to say altogether absurd, to raise a shout
of triumph as to the contrast presented between the achievements of
revolutionary Italy and those of the preceding Pontifical rule.

2. The Bight of Asylum for Regicides, and the Impotence of Modern
Society. 30 Aprile, 1881.

SINCE the commencement of this century there have been not less
than sixty-seven cases of regicide attempted or accomplished.
Have these crimes been brought upon sovereigns through their fault,
or are they imputable to the wickedness and lawlessness of subjects?
"Whatever answer may be given to this question — and probably the
blame is divisible between the two — certain it is, that regicide in its
present form and frequency is a dark product of modern society under
the fatal influence of Liberalism. Our European statesmen, moved by
the late assassination of the Eussian Czar, have been led to a conclu-
sion, long ago obvious to Catholics, viz., that one of the causes of this
crime is the abuse of the right of asylum. How, indeed, can any
■check be put upon it if the culprit finds everywhere a place of refuge 1
He has not far to go. Belgium and France are often at his service,
JEngland always, while Switzerland, occupying a central situation with

Notices of Catholic Continental' Periodicals, 255

respect to the nations whicli are most disquieted, not only offers a
;secure retreat, but is itself an active focus of conspiracy. Now, it
is in contemplation to agree upon some international law which shall
■restrict this right of asylum. Will these statesmen succeed? The
-writer thinks that they will not, and even cannot. Impotence, both
^political and moral, is against their project. For agreement there must
•be union. Now the union, if such it can be called, which subsists
;among the European States is«not one of organism, but is the offspring
•of their mutual jealousy. Suspicious watchfulness of each other is
their habitual attitude ; there is no uniting bond between them,
nothing to form the ground of a common agreement or common action.
In this essentially discordant state of things who is to define the right
•of asylum, and get its limitations accepted ? And, above all, where is the
iSanction of a decision to be sought, without which no stipulation is worth
more than the parchment on which it is written ? When civil society
was not, as now, the society of " progress," but a Christian republic, a
■common bond of union did exist. There was a law — that of the Church
— which commanded universal respect, and there was a common
Father of all, a living interpreter and judge of that law, whose sen-
tence often terminated the gravest differences, and was successful in
•obtaining a homage to justice and right from both prince and people.
The so-called Holy Alliance was an abortive attempt at a substitute
for the Christian unity of past times with its venerated court of appeal.
This device proved an utter failure in either stemming the revolution
or preserving the peace of Europe. In the present day the only means
of coming to an agreement which the European States possess is diplo-
macy, with all its arts, its subterfuges, its jealous espionage and
•duplicity. Eegicides will be able to continue their atrocious plots
against princes long before diplomacy will be able to lay the first
foundation stone of a new international legislation for their protection
-and that of society.

There might be one way of escape from this political impotence
if each State would consent to accept the judicial sentences of the
others, so that, when any individual was condemned as a regicide, it
would suffice to give authentic notice thereof in order to the delinquent
being handed over by the State in which he had sought refuge ; in
other words, that regicides should be universally condemned, so that
the right of asylum should no longer shield from justice a crime so
menacing to public peace. But can the modern powers be brought to
^gree in such a measure ? Their moral impotence, which is substan-
tially the root of their political impotence, forbids this agreement.
Regicide is, in fact, practically regarded in many of the States as simply
a, political offence, and under this head it is not considered to come
under the conditions of extradition. The writer is, therefore, of opinion
that the prevailing corruption of principles will hinder modern society
from pronouncing a decision which would place it in the category of
murder. Amongst Catholics, of course, there is no question as to the
oriminality of regicide. No one, be he prince or subject, can be law-
fully put to death by private authority ; neither is it lawful to kill even

256 Kotices of Catholic Continental Periodicals.

a manifest tyrant, because of the peril of the consequences which ensue-
to states from such an act. Hence Catholics reckon the murder of a
sovereign as a worse crime than an ordinary murder. If, therefore,
the European governments were Catholic, all could be satisfactorily
provided for, and nothing would be easier than to apprehend the regi-
cide wherever he had taken refuge. Princes may accordingly thank
themselves if their death is so often compassed, for it is they who
have headed the wicked war against the Church, the only instruc-
tress of true principles and the fountain of just laws. But the logic of
Liberalism, which they have favoured, leads inexorably to the present
appalling state of things. This the writer proceeds ably to demon-
strate, but space forbids our following his argument in detail. As an
instance of the extreme but logical result of the doctrine of the
people's sovereignty, and their indefeasible right, as expressed by a
majority — a principle accepted with more or less prominence in al]
European States except Eussia and Turkey — he reminds us of the late
amnesty accorded in France to the deported Communists, who had been
guilty of the most flagrant and sanguinary deeds, from which measure
we are led to deduce that murder, arson, and robbery are no longer
judged to be crimes by the French nation if committed during a sedition.
But what is to hinder the sovereign people, by the mouth of its repre-
sentatives, from deciding to-morrow that even that condition is not
needed ? Regicides are as yet in the minority, but they call them-
selves the leaders of progress, and confidently assert that the future is
theirs. You hang us to-day, they say, but to-morrow we shall have
statues erected to us. All Liberal Europe is treading the same path
in which France has made such advanced progress, and, had it been
possible that the Nihilists should have succeeded and attained to power
in Russia, there can be little doubt but that the other governments
would have made up their minds to enter into amicable relation with
the new administration.

But even as matters stand, and supposing that all were agreed in
reckoning regicide to be a crime, our statesmen would have to
renounce many other principles beside the indefeasible right of
majorities to rule all points, principles which, thanks to them, widely
prevail in modern society, before they could succeed in limiting the
right of asylum. For instance, the doctrine which they have so
largely acted upon, of the end justifying the means, that of accepting
accomplished facts ; the imposture called non-intervention, devised by
Napoleon III., who never acted upon it when it suited his policy to
disregard it ; but, above all, the intense selfishness and egotism erected
into a system under the name of utilitarianism, which makes states
regard only their own immediate and narrow interests, would have to
be given up. The useful and the expedient have supplanted God and
His law. The treaty of Westphalia, which dethroned religion,
sanctioned utilitarianism in politics. Crimes had been committed in
all ages, but henceforth they were committed on system.

After noticing several other influences at work which would defeat
the proposed object, the writer finally alludes to the physical impotence.

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals. 257

as he styles it, which would render its success utterly nugatory, so
long as it shall continue to exist. What avails to prosecute the
regicide while you train up regicides in your bosom ? Take away
the causes which form them, or you will be physically impotent against
this crime. In one word, it is indispensable to return to God, to
Christianity-^that is, to true Christianity, which is Catholicism.
Society has need of* a complete system, and that is to be found only in
Catholicism. But if you do not will the means, you never can attain
the end ; therefore is modern society, in spite of its pride and its
boasting, impotent against the crime which dismays it — such is the
sentence which it has merited by its many iniquities.

FRENCH PEEIODICALS.
Bevue des Questions Historiques. Avril, 1881. Paris.

POPE ALEXANDER VI. is the subject of a long and careful
article from the pen of M. Henri de I'Epinois. The subject is
a sadly familiar one in controversial and anti- Catholic literature, but
the Article is noteworthy in one or two ways. It is a compendious
resume of the most recent works, whether expressly on the career of
this Pope, or in which it has received any special treatment. Also, it is
marked in its tone by great discrimination and freedom from prejudice.
Though the writer would rejoice to be called Ultramontane, his
Article deliberately lends confirmation to the popular bad opinion of
Alexander VI., quite as frequently as it seeks to soften that opinion
towards the more favourable, truth. Impartiality, not bias, and zeal
entirely guided by respect for historical truth — these qualities
marking a truly Catholic study of the life of such a Pontiff, recom-
mend it very powerfully, as likely to promote the cause of our holy
religion with earnest enquirers. The saying^ of Count Joseph de
Maistre : " Les Papes n'ont besoin que de la verite," is gladly accepted
by M. de I'Epinois as a motto — it is, indeed, he says, a first principle
of their history.

The first thing that may strike a reader who has been accustomed
to hear modern Catholic historical writing condemned as one-sided, is,
that for unflinching condemnation of this unworthy Pope, and for
judgment characterized by what he may have fancied was " Protestant
honesty," there is no need to travel beyond the pages of some of our
standard Ultramontane authors. The present Cardinal Hergenrother
calls him an " immoral and wicked Cardinal," and an " unworthy
Pope," whose death "freed Christianity of a great scandal." Only, of
course, neither Cardinal Hergenrother nor any other Catholic author
argues for the need of impeccability because of infallibility, or con-
founds the morals of a Pope with his oflSce, or fancies that the Pontiffs
of Christ's Church need show otherwise than His apostles did, among
whom the crime of Judas in no wise dimmed the glory of the faithful
eleven. " The faults" of Alexander VI., writes M. de I'Epinois,
VOL. VI. — NO. I. [Third Series.] s

258 Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals,

*'will not trouble the faith of a Christian The Chnrcli

lives in the world, and is served by men subject to all the weaknesses
of their time, but the Divine element in her continues unassailable,
indefectible; the worst Popes have never opposed to the Faith any

decree that could change it It would seem that the

character of infallible vicars of Jesus Christ is resplendent in them
with new brilliance. It would appear natural that a Pius V. or a
Pius IX. should never decree anything contrary to faith or morals,
because they would have simply to transfer into words the working
of their own pure lives and chaste thoughts ; but if a Pope who is
the victim of human passions has never altered the truth, in that
we have a fact not natural, but clearly bespeaking a divine guidance."
Thus, whilst the human personality of the Popes may fall a victim,
the Divine character stands out the more clearly from the darkness.
But, alas, the evil lives of her priests and children is often chastised
in their successors. Alexander VI. explains Luther. " History
properly studied — the history of Alexander VI. more than any other
— is the justification of Divine Providence."

One point to be carefully observed, however, and it is distinctly
shown from the best authorities in M. de L'Epinois's article — is that
the life of Alexander VI. was by no means so black as it has been
painted. " It would appear," says Mr. Kawdon Brown, quoted by the
writer, " that history took the Borgia family as a canvas on which to
bring together era tableau the debaucheries ofthe fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries." And Alexander VI., culpable doubtless, was made a scape-
goat ; the passions and spite of his numerous enemies have exaggerated,
insinuated, invented against him. Much of the documentary evidence,
the writer warns us, contains trustworthy details mixed up with anec-
dotes exaggerated, or altered, or gratuitously invented. It must not be
forgotten how much political rancour mixed itself at that time with
religious feeling and judgments, and how unworthy were the lives of
the men who grew indignant about a Pope whose fault was to be too
much of their own description. So far may this characteristic of
society at that time impair the weight of its testimony, so uncertain
and difficult of explanation is much of that testimony, that it is by no
means impossible to undertake a defence of even Alexander VI. This
task, two recent authors. Fathers OUivier and Leonetti, have confidently
attempted. In the dedication of his book to St. Peter, Father Leonetti
calls Alexander the " piu oltraggiato " of the Apostle's successors. In
Bumming up the result of his long arti:le, M. de I'Epinois says
that he cannot accept the conclusions of those — as M. Cerri, Dandolo,
Father Ollivier — who have tried to prove that Eodriguez Borgia
was legitimately married before he received Orders, or of Father
Leonetti, v/ho has transformed the sons of that Cardinal into his
nephews ; on these points he is of the opinion, which he quotes, of the
learned Jesuit editors ofthe CmYM, that Alexander cannot be justified ;
^' he had several children, four or five after he was bishop and cardinal,
one whilst he was Pope." The second and third section of the article
where these points are discussed are manifestly the result of wide and

Notices of Books. 25ft

careful reading. But the public life of Cardinal Borgia was marked
by prudence, zeal, tact, success in the missions confided to him: "Sa vie
publique n'a guere merite que des eloges." The question whether
or not his election was simoniacal is fully discussed in Section V. of
this Article.

That Cardinal Borgia expended large sums of money, and promised
benefices to the Cardinal electors, and that he promised reforms which
he never attempted, appears too true ; " but he has been accused,
without proof, of nameless debaucheries, and of having turned the
Vatican into a theatre of horrible orgies." He vigorously pursued
the turbulent feudatories of the States of the Church, assuring to the
States their modern constitution, a work which Julius II. only com-
pleted ; but he has been accused without proof of premeditated treasons,
and of being the accomplice of assassins. The summary justice of
CaBsar Borgia w?s unfortunately the custom of the time. That which
is not doubtful, which was public in the conduct of Alexander VI.,
truly his grande passion^ was his desire to aggrandize his children, his
nepotism. The accusation that Alexander VI. poisoned the Sultan
Djemm, is far from being proved — " n'est nullement prouvee ;"
neither did he poison Cardinal Orsini, as may be learned from the
express testimony of witnesses friendly to the Orsini family. He did
much for the spiritual interests of the Church, detailed in section X.
M. de I'JEpinois promises in a future study to consider the question why,
if Alexander was zealous for the reform of the Church, he did not
second the efforts of Savonarola. Lastly, was the death of this unfor-
tunate Pope due to poison intended for others? Muratori rejected this
as a fable, and new documents have confirmed the justice of his
rejection. Alexander died of fever. The suspicions of poison, from
the rapid decomposition of his body, point only to effects natural
enough in the month of August. These are only assertions — the
reader will find in the able article itself seventy pages of proofs and
authorities.

Itotias of §0olis.

♦
The Cat ; an Introduction to the Study of Backboned Animals^ especially
Mammals. By St. Georqe Mivart, Ph.D., F.R.S. London :
John Murray. 1881.

THE cat may be studied from various points of view ; but Professor
Mivart's large and admirably brought out volume of some 600
pages, is calculated to invest that animal with a respectability which
it was hardly suspected to possess. The writer's object, in this mono-
graph, seems to be, to enable those who are not going to be doctors to
attain to a thorough acquaintance with anatomy and physiology. That
there are many such persons anxious to learn cannot be doubted for
a moment. There are numbers of priests, for example, who are well

s 2

260 Notices of Boohs.

aware that the more completely they know these two sciences, the
more easily and safely do they walk in their professional duties ; and
no student of metaphysics, whether priest or layman, can afford to
overlook the questions raised by materialistic writers in reference to
brain, nerve and tissue, or to despise the assistance which modern in-
vestigations offer in determining the relations between spirit and body.
Non -professional students of man's anatomy — that is to say, all but
those who are studying for the medical profession — have hitherto
been too effectually deterred by the supposed necessity of attending
dissections of the human subject in a public dissecting room. Priests,
especially, have naturally found it to be out of the question to mix
with medical students and attend demonstrations in a public hall.
This is the reason why Professor Mivart has chosen the Cat.

A fresh description of human anatomy is not required, and would be
comparatively useless for those for whom the work is especially intended.
For a satisfactory study of animals (or of plants) can only be carried on
by their direct examination — the knowledge to be obtained from reading
being supplemented by dissection. This, however, as regards man, can
only be practised in medical schools. Moreover, the human body is so
large that its dissection is very laborious, and it is a task, generally at
first unpleasing, to those who have no special reason for undertaking
it. But this work is intended for persons who are interested in zoology,
and especially in the zoology of beasts, birds, reptiles and fishes, and not
merely for those concerned in studies proper to the medical profession
(Pref. viii.).

Cats are easily to be had ; they are not too large ; and they are so
sufficiently like man, as to limbs and other larger portions of the
frame, that almost all the advantages to be gained from human
dissection may be obtained by the dissection of the cat. This volume,
indeed, is intended as an introduction to the natural history of the whole
group of backboned animals ; we have definitions of all needful terms,
and all those explanations which an introductory handbook is ex-
pected to afford, combined with that vividness of illustration which
results from studying these things in a concrete example.

With the technical part of this most opportune book we shall not
be expected to concern ourselves deeply. We have chapters on form,
skin, skeleton, muscles, on the alimentary and nervous systems, the
organs of respiration and circulation, and all the other subjects con-
nected with physiology proper as exemplified in the cat. It may be
observed, however, that Professor Mivart has dealt with the
technicalities of his subject in so clear and intelligible a fashion that
the non-professional reader will not find it difficult to follow him. If
we turn, for instance, to chapter vii., on the cat's organs of circulation,
we find a readable and useful account of the blood, the arteries, the
veins, the heart, &c. In the chapter on respiration we find it easy to
understand all about the voice and its production. Under the nervous
system we learn the structure of the eye, and so on. But this book,
besides being an excellent hand-book for a student of physiology, is
also the production of a philosophic writer who has thought much on

Notices of Books, 261

most of those higher problems which are now being discussed on all
sides under the heads of psychology, descent and development. It
will be recognized by all instructors of Catholic youth, and by
students themselves, that it is no common advantage to have a first-
class textbook of physiology, written by a Catholic writer who has
already won from the public the privilege of being listened to even on
questions of far higher import. The chapter entitled, the Psychology
of the Cat, contains, under a title which may astonish some and
amuse a few, a most valuable and orginal lesson on the distinction
between the mental powers of even the highest animals and the in-
tellectual gifts of man. The author had already treated the subject at
length in his "Lessons from Nature," from the fourth chapter to the
seventh ; and to those who have read that thoughtful work there is not
so much in this chapter which is new. The list of the different kinds
of language is repeated ; but, on the other hand, we have a much
more extended list of the various " powers " which exist in man
and in the brutes. Professor Mivart sums up the cat's active powers
under eighteen heads, among which he includes what he terms
"organic inference " and " organic volition." "Organic inference,"
he defines as the power " of so reviving complex imaginations, upon
the occurrence of sensations and images, as to draw practical conse-
quences." It is obvious that it is the use of the words " inference "
and " drawing of consequences " which has to be guarded and ex-
plained. The problem is, to admit that the animal sees a consequent
without seeing the consequence. As there is, without doubt, an in-
superable difficulty in forcing new terms into the language, we
presume no attempt can be made to establish a double set of terms for
"knowledge," the one expressing what is known by sense without
intellect, the other by intellect making use of sense. Under these
circumstances, perhaps. Professor Mivart's expression " organic
inference," or " drawing practical inferences " — though the phrases
somewhat startle a scholastic — need not be objected to. His explana-
tion is extremely clear and well put. He says : —

All the actions performed by the cat are such as may be understood to
take place without deliberation or self-consciousness. For such action it
is necessary, indeed, that the animal should sensibly cognize external
things, but it is not necessary that it should intellectually perceive their
being ; that it should feel itself existing, but not recognize that existence ;
that it should feel relations between objects, but not that it should
apprehend them as relations ; that it should remember, but not inten-
tionally seek to recollect ; that it should feel and express emotions, but
not itself advert to them ; that it should seek the pleasurable, but not
that it should make the pleasurable its deliberate aim (p. 373).

In fact, as he adds, all the mental phenomena displayed by the cat
are capable of explanation without drawing at all upon that list of
peculiarly " human " gifts which Professor Mivart gives on the preced-
ing page. This, we consider, is the true way in which to meet the
men who are always bringing up cases of miraculous dogs and reason-
ing cats. The question is, can these actions, which every one admits

262 Notices of Books.

to have an outward resemblance to actions whicli man would do under
similar circumstances, be explained without calling in reason proper,
or the abstractive and universalizing power ? If they can — and we
maintain they can — then they are of no weight whatever in proving
that the mental powers of man and brute differ only in degree, and
not in kind. Professor Mivart enforces his views by the consideration
of the question of language. He enters at some length into the
question of what the soul of an animal is. He considers that there is
innate in every living organism below man, a distinct, substantial,
immaterial entity, subsisting (of course) indivisibly. This he calls
the Psyche — soul, or form. The animal soul has no actual existence
apart from the matter which it vivifies. Yet it is the animal, par
excellence; the matter of which the animal is composed beingbut '^ the
subordinate part" of that compound but indissoluble unity — the living
animal. And as the soul of the living creature has no separate existence
from the matter in which it energizes, so when that material envelope, or
rather, sphere of occupancy, is dissolved (by death) the " soul" ceases
to exist at all. This is Thomistic teaching pure and simple. Professor
Mivart even uses the word "form ;" though it will be observed how
skilfully he translates scholastic technicalities into modern English.
He does not pursue the subject as far as some of his readers would
have desired ; he does not inquire whence comes the " psyche" of an
animal, and whither it goes. The distinguished Dominican Professor,
Dr. A. Lepidi, of Louvain, is of opinion that the souls of animals are
produced immediately by divine interference in each case, either
having been created all simultaneously, when the world was made, or
being provided at conception, as soon as the body is sufficiently
organized to receive them. His reason for this supposition appears to be
the difficulty of every other hypothesis. " Matter," he says, quoting
St. Thomas of Aquin, " cannot produce the immaterial." This idea of
perpetual creation will, to many, appear unnatural. Does God inter-
fere with his creative power whenever a fly is born, or an insect of an
hour begins its brief existence ? But the truth is, that this
" interference " is universal, and is not exceptional or miraculous, but
law and Nature. Everything that exists — presuming everything to be
a composite — seems (to judge by effects) to have a " form" quite
different from the resultant of its mechanical elements. Men of
science deny this ; but we are coming back to it again. These
" forms " do not exist in Nature, apart or tangible. They seen, to
come in, to spring out, to be set up, at the moment matter is organized
or prepared in a certain fashion. Similarly, at a certain step in the
process of dissolution, they disappear and recede into non-existence.
If it be thus with chemical forces, and with plants, much more truly
is it so with beings whose operations, being immaterial, demand an
immaterial " form " or principle. So that animals, plants, and even the
rocks and the water, begin to be by a sort of " creation " — the sudden
bursting into being of a potent energy which was waiting undeveloped
in those same recesses whence came the world itself. These energies
die out as they come. In spite of the ingenious speculation of

• Notices of Books. 263

Balmez, that the souls of animals are not destroyed, but are used again
and again for the ''information " of fresh materials, it seems more true
to the scheme of Nature to say they disappear. Their production is not
creation proper, if we reserve the word creation either for the produc-
tion of things without pre-existing conditions, or for the production of
the image and likeness of the Maker ; and neither is their dissolution
annihilation.

In his concluding chapter on the " Pedigree and Origin of the Cat,"
Professor Mivart repeats and enforces those views on Natural Selection
and on Origin which he has so ably developed in his " Genesis of
Species." His conclusion is well known. He admits that " environ-
ment," and " surrounding agencies," and " indefinite tendencies," have
had much to do with development ; but he insists that an internal
force or " form," or soul, has played the chief part in the world's
transformations.

The idea of an internal force is a conception which we cannot escape if
we would adhere to the teaching of Nature. If, in order to escape it, we
were to consent to regard the instincts of animals as exclusively due to
the conjoint action of their environment and their physical needs, to what
should we attribute the origin of their physical needs — their desire for
food and safety, and their sexual instincts ? If, for argument's sake,
we were to grant that these needs were the mere result of the active
powers of the cells which compose their tissues, the question but returns —
Whence had these cells their active powers, their aptitudes and needs ?
And, if by a still more absurd concession, we should grant that these
needs and aptitudes are the mere outcome of the physical properties of
their ultimate material constituents, the question still again returns, and
with redoubled force. That the actual world we see about us should ever
have been possible, its very first elements must have possessed those
definite essential natures, and have had implanted in them those internal
laws and innate powers which reason declares to be necessary to account for
the subsequent outcome. We must then, after all, concede at the end as
much as we need have conceded at the outset of the inquiry (p. 525).

The book may be earnestly recommended, both as an admirable text-
book and as a clear, sound, and courageous exposition of philosophical
principle on matters regarding which every educated Catholic is bound
to be fairly informed.

Tkt Pvlpit Commentary. Edited by the Rev. Canon H. D. M. Spencer^
M.A., and the Rev. Joseph S. Exell. Genesis and 1 Samuel,
2 vols. London : C. Kegan Paul & Co. 1880.

WE presume that by a " Pulpit Commentary " ia meant a com-
mentary intended especially for the use of preachers. Now
preachers do not want long dissertations on roots and readings ; they
want the results rather than the processes of critical discussion. They
look for a concise explanation of the Scripture text, with such
comments as may best help them to adapt it to popular instruction.
{Suggestive thoughts, spiritual maxims, apt illustrations, pithy sayings
of the Fathers, telling anecdotes — these form the concentrated food tor
which the preacher yearns ; the milk and water can be easily obtained.

?6|j Notices of Books.

Judging of the present work by the volumes which have yet appeared,
it fails to fulfil the special requirements of a Preacher's Commentary.
The exposition of the text is certainly the best part. A great deal of
matter is there condensed into a very small compass. But the greater
part of the work is made up of what are called homiletics and homilies,
a distinction by no means clear, or uniformly understood by the
various contributors. These consist mainly of sermon notes and plans
of sermons ; in other words, of homiletical matter in different stages of
preparation, from the highly wrought period to the merest outline.
Of solid dogmatic teaching there is scarcely a trace ; but of vague
Christianity, and virtue in general, there is more than enough. Plati-
tude is heaped on platitude, and the whole mass endlessly divided and
sub-divided. Let any one read but a few pages of these bulky volumes
and he will understand what Sydney Smith meant by " being preached
to death." There is more real suggest! veness in one chapter of
" Cornelius a Lapide " than in a whole volume of the " Pulpit Com-
mentary." Then, owing to its defective plan, the work when completed
will be too large and too dear for any but the beneficed preachers of a
well-endowed Church. There is not much of the old " No Popery"
style, once so dear to Protestant preachers. Perhaps this may explain
the intellectual poverty of the homiletical portion, for it used to be
said of most Protestant preachers that unless they denounced the Pope
they would have nothing to say. Still the old feeling must find
expression, be it ever so feeble. Catholic commentators are called
Popish writers. One homilist, dpropos of Saul's kingship, exclaims —

What a calamity it has been to the Latin Church to have an alleged
vicar of Christ on earth ! The arrangement quite falls in with the craving
for a spiritual ruler who may be seen, and the uneasiness of really
unspiritual men under the control of One who is invisible. So there is a
Popedom, which began indeed with good intentions and impulses, as did
the monarchy of Saul, but has long ago fallen under God's displeasure
through arrogance, and brought nothing but confusion and oppression
on Christendom. We are a hundred times better without such a vice-
gerent. Enough in the spiritual sphere that the Lord is king (1 Samuel,
p. 243).

But perhaps the most offensive thing to Catholics is the constant
iteration of the heresy of justification by faith only, in passages which
look as if they had been borrowed from the Tract Society. For
instance, —

The root of a Christian life is belief in a finished redemption ; not belief
that the doctrine is true, but trust in the fact as the one ground of hope.
Hast thou entered on God's call ; entered the ark ; trusted Christ ; none
else, nothing else ? Waitest thou for something in thyself ? Noah did
not think of fitness when told to enter. God calleth thse as unfit. Try
to believe ; make a real effort (Genesis, p. 147).

The Book of J oh : a Metrical Translation, with Introduction and Notes.
By H. J. Clarke, A.K.C. London : Hodder & Stoughton. 1880.

THIS is a devout and painstaking eff'ort to make the full beauty of
this divine poem more apparent to English readers. The
translation is made directly from the Hebrew, and the rhythmical parts

Notices of Boohs. 265

are set in blank verse. Whether this is any real advantage is doubt-
ful. In metrical translations, gain in rhythm is often compensated by
loss in accuracy. Nor is Mr. Clarke's blank verse very poetical. He
is too fond of long words and stilted phrases — e.g.^ " vociferate thy
plaint," " adumbrates," &c. The prose of the authorized version is
sometimes more poetical than Mr. Clarke's verse ; as for instance, in
the oft-quoted description of death, — " Where the wicked cease from
troubling and the weary are at rest," (ch. iii. v. 17) — rendered by
Mr. Clarke thus, — " The wicked there desist from raging, and the
weary rest." On the other hand it must be admitted that through the
help of modern scholarship a more intelligible rendering is given to
some of the obscurer passages. The work of the miner in the twenty-
eighth chapter is thus described, —

Thus man has put
An end to darkness, and extends his search
Far down to depths remote, in qaest of stone.
In gloom enshrouded and death's shade concealed.
Down from the region where abodes are found
He digs a shaft. Forgotten by the foot
That treads above them, there the miners swing :
Eemotc from men, they dangle to and fro.
From out the earth then comes forth sustenance (pp. 67, 68).

One great fault in Mr. Clarke's translation is that he spoils Job's
prophecy of the Bodily Resurrection by rendering the twenty-sixth
verse (ch.xix) " and, from my flesh released^ shall I see God." In a
note he defends himself, on the ground that the literal translation is
"from my flesh." Yet the context shows that this phrase, though
ambiguous in itself, must here mean " in my flesh," for it goes on to
speak of the eyes of his flesh. And as Dr. Pusey says, " unless he
had meant emphatically to assert that he should from his flesh behold
God after his body had been dissolved, the addition of ' from my
flesh ' had been not merely superfluous but misleading. For the
obvious meaning is * from out of my flesh,' as the versions show."*
Nor is it satisfactory to find that Mr. Clarke thinks that the author
was Hesron, the Ezrahite, in the time of Solomon, thus ignoring all
that Prof. Lee has done to prove the extreme antiquity of the book.

A Handbook to Political Questions of the Day. Being the Argu-
ments on Either Side. By Sidney C. Buxton. London:
J. Murray. 1880.

THE author has ranged under such headings as " Disestablish-
ment," "Compulsory Education," " Ballot," "Permissive Bill,"
the main arguments that have been advanced pro or con. By argu-
ment he understands what logicians call middle-term ; his book is, in
tact, a repertory of middle terms to which the statesman may refer
when composing his speech, or by help of which the student may see
at a glance the pith of the contention on either side, and thus more

* •• Lectures on Daniel," p. 509.

266 Notices of Boohs.

effectually form an estimate of the merits of the question. No opinion
is expressed on the merits of any question ; nothing is given but the
bare argument of advocate and opponent, evidently stated with the
utmost brevity ; a short introduction, giving statistical or historical
information necessary to a proper understanding of the topics, is all
the author allows himself in addition. There can be little doubt that
the book will be useful ; it will save much hurried searching through
past parliamentary and other speeches, and it supplies as much
explanatory matter as will perhaps just save a speaker, pressed for
time and forgetful or ignorant, from betraying in his speech either
ignorance or a bad memory. But the information is too scant to put
one mi courant on the questions it treats, and even the arguments are
most often stated so briedy that to see their full bearing on the point
requires special knowledge and trained habits of reasoning. A quota-
tion of one or two arguments, as they are here stated, will readily
and sufficiently acquaint the reader with the character of this
volume.

The proposal [to withdraw all religious teaching from Board Schools]
is supported on the grounds : — 1. (By some) that it is beyond the province
of the State to recognize any religious teaching. 2. (By others) that,
though the State may recognize religious teaching, it may not use the
nation's money in encouraging the teaching of that which part of the
nation objects to or disbelieves. 3. That the necessary religious teaching
can be given out of school hours, and in Sunday schools.

Some other reasons follow, and then the grounds are stated on which
the present permissive power of giving unsectarian religious teaching is
upheld. Three of these are given, chosen not consecutively but
cbiefly for their brevity.

b. That the State ought not to hold aloof from all recognition of
religious teaching.

6. That the religious scruples of all are protected by the Conscience
Clause.

7. That rehgious hatreds are softened by the system^ of bringing
children of different denominations under one common religious teaching.

The aim of the author, to be perfectly impartial in the statement of
opposite views, has apparently been kept in view throughout ; on this
scpre little fault can be found. But there is not, as has been said,
sufficient fulness of detail and explanation — only, in fact, enough to
make one conscious how extremely valuable a fuller " Handbook" on
the same lines would really be.

Since this notice was written we observe that a second, and now a
third, edition of this Handbook have been published, each containing an
addition of "subjects" that have successively risen into importance
— among those of the third edition being the '' three F's." There is
evidently a greater demand for such a book than the brief and unde-
veloped character of its contents would have led us to anticipate. At the
same time, if such a Handbook is to keep abreast of the pressing need
there should be at least a yearly edition.

Notices of Books, 267

A Bygone Oxford. By Francis Goldie, S.J. London : Burns and
Gates. Oxford : Thomas Shrimpton and Son. 1881.

TO many persons a period spent in Oxford has supplied all the remain-
der of their lives with, at least, a perception of what is elevated and
romantic, in which they might otherwise have been deficient. There
are, of course, those to whom their prospects in the schools, as there
are others to whom the sports of their age and of the place, are so
simply absorbing, that the noble objects by which they are surrounded
are passed by unheeded. But this must surely be a rare case, and, if
we may judge of the amount of the appetite by the amount of the
pabulum provided, interest in material Oxford has not been wanting
since the beginning of this century, and is now fairly at its height.
That in the regard paid to Oxford, as in all attempts at art apprecia-
tion by so inartistic a people as ourselves, there should be much
blundering, was to be expected. What with the neo-Classic and the
neo- Gothic, the Oxford of William of Wykeham and William of
Waynflete is sadly overlaid, and the literary expositors of Oxford
constrain themselves to speak with respect of such very dissimilar
structures as the venerable fame of St. Frideswide, the tower of
Magdalen, the spire of All Saints, the library of Oriel, the Taylor
building, and the University Museum. With some, Oxford is enveloped
in a sort of nebulous haze with a landscape fore-ground, and the
salient features of the place are dissolved into some such chance-
medley as the poet's mise-en-scene : —

A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade !

We have often pleased ourselves by fancying what form a work on
Catholic Oxford would assume — a work that should by its very nature
exclude the pedantry and mannerism with which the worshippers of
Laud on the one hand, and of Arnold on the other, have surrounded
the subject of this far-famed university, and that should moreover be
free from the dilly-dallying of the merely Picturesque school. It was
therefore with much interest that we met in a room in Oxford some
two years back the very persons who seemed best fitted for the exe-
cution of such a task, and the hope sprang up in our mind that the
desire we had long entertained was about to find its fulfilment. An
important instalment is presented in Father Goldie's work entitled
" A Bygone Oxford," which is full and satisfactory for the ground it
covers — the history and antiquities of the monastic foundations. Even
upon the theme of the existing establishments. Father Goldie's work
enters. St. Frideswide's is now Christ Church ; the Benedictine
Gloucester Hall, Worcester College; the Cistercian St. Bernard's,
St. John's College. Durham College, the feeder in Oxford of the great
northern monastery, as re-founded in Queen Mary's time by Sir Thomas
Pope, of Tittenhauger, under the name of Trinity, is a very interesting
link between the ancient and modern colleges, and as the first home of
Cardinal Newman in the university, has in the present century esta-

268 Notices of Books.

Wished a fresh title to fame. On the other hand, Osney Abbey, which
belonged — as did St. Frideswide's — to the Canons Regular, has utterly
perished ; so has Cistercian Eewley, to the indignation of good old
Dr. Johnson, as recorded by the faithful Boswell, who also witnessed
the displeasure of the Sage at the wreck of the cathedral and monas-
teries of St. Andrews. The great French Dominican, Lacordaire,
speaks finely of the preservation of the reliques of antiquity at Oxford.
But Father Goldie leads us, where we have often trod unbidden,
through sordid St, Ebbe's, to view the site of the Dominican
monastery, which, like its Franciscan neighbour, has altogether disap-
peared. We see that a contemporary twits Father Goldie with
bringing Henry the Eighth upon the stage as a modern Philistine.
So far is he from doing so, that the only comparisons he institutes are
with Herod and Nero, the ancient monarchs whom he resembled,
except, indeed, as he out-Heroded them in the number of his victims.
Father Goldie's work is an excellent one, and will, we hope, meet with
the success it deserves. One or two minor points we have noted for
correction. The stained glass window, with a figure of Bp. King, and
a representation of Osney, is not in the north but in the south aisle of
Christ Church. The " Thomas" in the last line of page 16 is a very
evident misprint for " William." It is awkwardly said on page 11,
that the Lady Chapel of Osney " was projected at the east end"
where '' projected" (simply) is the meaning. Father Goldie says in
his concluding sentence, that sorrow must come uppermost in the mind
of his readers. St. Augustine speaks in his Confessions of the worth-
lessness and mischief of theatrical representations that excite to sorrow
merely, and not to the relief of the suffering portrayed. But as the
disastrous spoliation and confiscation and destruction recorded by
Father Goldie really happened, we trust that his readers may be
stirred up to aid, by every means in their power, the cause of the
Church in Oxford, as the proper reparation for the outrages of the
kings and nobles, and consenting Commons, of former days. Thus it
shall not be said of them : " Non ... ad subveniendum provocatur
auditor, sed tantum ad dolendum incitatur."

Delia Vita di Antonio Rosmini-Serhati. Memorie di Francesco Paoli,
Ditta G. B. Paravia e Comp. Roma, Torino, &c. 1880.

A LIFE of the eminent servant of God and great genius, Father
Antonio Rosmini, was absolutely required. We have one
here, at last, though it is still in a foreign idiom. Rosmini was
a man who feared God alone, and who lived at a time when there was
much to stir up the wrath of an honest heart in the land of his birth.
He has spoken many bold and remarkable words, and it is no wonder
if he, and his philosophy, and his Institute, have had much to contend
against. This Life, and the important and elaborate work " Degli
Universale secondo la teoria Rosminiana," by Bishop Ferre, of
which we have received three volumes, and an interesting volume of
*' Conferenze sui doveri ecclesiastici," by the founder himself (Speirani

Notices of Books. 269

e figli, Torino, 1880), will make it more easy to estimate his work,
his character, aud his teaching. To this we hope to return at no
distant date. Meanwhile the Life before us is modestly and elegantly
written, is very complete, and very well put together. We hope it
may find a translator.

The Lusiad of Camoens. Translated into English Spenserian Verse
by Robert Ffrench Duff. Lisbon : Lewtas. London : Chatto
and Windus. 1880.

MR. FFRENCH DUFF'S translation was begun, he tells us, when
he was " fast approaching his seventieth year " as a solace and
occupation in hours of leisure from business. Under these singular
circumstances it is impossible not to admire the writer's literary taste
and perseverance, and it is difficult not to speak leniently of short-
comings in a work thus accomplished. If we state that Mr. Ffrench
Duff'a translation has little chance of superseding in public estimation
that of Mr. Aubertin, or even that of Mr. Mickle, we are encouraged
to be thus outspoken by the writer's own courageous assertion :
" Should my labours meet with a cold reception from the public (and
I am very far from entertaining any great expectation), I shall be amply
rewarded and consoled by the pleasure which they have afforded me."
The Spenserian form of verse is what distinguishes this translation of the
" Lusiad ;" but it appears to us that just because of the choice of this
form, the translation is not so successful as it might otherwise have
been. The unity of the stanza has apparently led the writer into
frequent verbiage and weakening prolixity, whilst a want of care
about grammatical construction often adds obscurity thereto. There
are frequent changes of nominative and of tense, with the object
doubtless of securing rhymes, but often to the detriment of clearness.
A short extract will afford one example of where Mr. Ffrench Duff,
who professes to be more literal in his translation than was Mr.
Mickle, has failed to bring out the image (an image taken from the
favourite bull-fight) of the original with nearly Mickle's success. But
the real poetic fire, the terseness and vigour of the latter translator
more than compensate for the drawback that he is not very faithful.
We set his translation in juxta-position rather than any other,
because it is likely long and deservedly to remain the popular one.
His additions, too, are no great offence, when they are distinguished,
as they are in the excellent edition in Bohn's library, by being set in
itaUcs.

So when a joyful lover, from the ring

All stained with blood, espies a lovely dame
To whom his ardent hopes and wishes cling,

And the rage of the bull has for his aim

With runs, signs, jumps and shouting to inflame ;
At bay, the furious brute looks proudly round,

With eyelids closed by wrath, and quivering frame,
He clears the space, at one tremendous bound,
His foe he wounds, gores, slays and tramples on the ground.

270 Kotices of Books*

The gunners in the boats now open fire

With steady aim from all their dreadful guns,
The leaden bullets scatter ruin dire,

The cannon's loud report rebounds, and stuns ;

Throughout the Moorish ranks cold terror runs,
And chills the blood, for well they know the die

Is cast for all, but each the danger shuns ;
From certain death the men in ambush fly
Whilst those who show themselves remain to fight and die.

(Duff's Translation, Canto I., p. 32.)

Thus, when to gain his beauteous charmer's smile,

The youthful lover dares the bloody toil,

Before the nodding bull's stern front he stands,

He leaps, he wheels, he shouts, and waves his hands :

The lordly brute disdains the stripling's rage,

His nostrils smoke, and, eager to engage.

His horned brows he levels with the ground,

And shuts his flaming eyes, and wheeling round

With dreadful bellowing rushes on the foe,

And lays the boastful gaudy champion low.

Thus to the sight the sons of Lusus sprung.

Nor slow to fall their ample vengeance hung :

With sudden roar the carabines resound.

And bursting echoes from the hills rebound ;

The lead flies hissing through the trembling air.

And death's fell dsemons through the flashes glare, &c.

(Mickle's Translation, Book I. p. 23. Edit. Bell & Sons, 1877.)

Politicians of To-day ; a Series of Personal Sketches. By T. Wemyss
Reid. In Two Volumes. London : Griffith & Farran. 1880.

THESE Sketches are somewhat too sketchy for the dignity of a two-
volume book. They were written originally for the columns of
a provincial newspaper, to supply that " personal " information that
curiosity now so urgently asks about great or notorious people ; and
this fact explains the thinness of style. Mr. Reid professes that he
writes as a Liberal, but with an endeavour *' to be just to all, and
ungenerous to none." This is no doubt the case ; but in such chatty
sketches as these, where there is a large quantity of sentiment and
rhetoric, and comparatively little acute criticism or fact, and the latter
entirely as seen from a special point of view, there is as much that
we dissent from as that we agree with. But of the writer's honesty '
and desire to be fair we have proof enough. His sketch of Prince
Bismarck is far more reserved than that of M. Gambetta. the latter
being, indeed, a picture of eflTulgent brightness, in which the recog-
nition of errors is only as the recognition of spots on the sun. Of
course the sketches of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield stand in
sharp contrast, but even the latter is measured and fair in comparison
with such " liberal " estimates as the biography by Mr. T. P. O'Connor.
On what principle of selection the subjects of these sketches have
been chosen is not apparent. They contain the Prince of Wales,

Kotices of Books. 271

" Punch," and " The Speaker " of the House, and a score of English
politicians, from the Prime Minister down to such men as Mr. Edward
Jenkins and Mr. Parnell ; but of notable foreign names we have only
Gambetta, Bismarck, and GortschakofF. In the sketch of Mr. Parnell
there is an estimate of Obstructionism that we have not seen before,
and our readers will doubtless forgive the length of the extract. Mr.
Reid wrote, it should be remembered, in October, 1879, but even
then he regarded " systematic obstruction as one of the gravest of all
offences," warned Mr. Parnell that his is " a game at which two can
play," and severely censured his extra-Parliamentary utterances.

It must be something of a shock to the stranger who enters the House
of Commons imbued with these ideas, to lind that these redoubtable
Obstructives, in outward manner and appearance, do not differ very
greatly from their most respectable colleagues on the Conservative
benches. They are not armed either with the national shillelagh or the
transatlantic revolver ; they do not wear their hats akimbo, like some
worthy gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House ; and if you have
occasion to speak to them, you need not tremble for your safety. There
is not one among them who will not give you a very civil answer to any
legitimate inquiry you may address to him. The stranger therefore, need
not feel nervous if fortune should bring him into close proximity to Mr.
Parnell or Mr. O'Donnell. They are by no means so black as they have
been painted. They may bark, it is true, but they never bite — except in a
strictly Parliamentary or Pickwickian fashion. Having got rid of his fears
on this point, the visitor, whose mind has been filled with pictures derived
from the London correspondence of Tory newspapers, probably finds
himself greatly bewildered by what he sees and hears during a debate.
It is an Obstructive debate, and to-morrow morning it will be described
in the Parliamentary reports as "Another Scene," whilst able editors
and indignant descriptive writers in the Reporters' Gallery will enlarge
upon the enormity of the conduct of Messrs. Parnell and Co. Yet this
is what the intelligent stranger actually sees of the "scene" in question : —
A gentleman rises from his seat below the gangway on the Opposition
side of the House, and in mild and measured accents, slightly flavoured
with the suspicion of a brogue, calls attention to an undoubted defect in a
clause of the Bill under discussion. It is, let us suppose, a measure
affecting the colonies. " Will the Right Hon. Baronet, Her Majesty's
Secretary of State for the Colonies, kindly explain to me the meaning
of this clause, which appears to be drawn, in very vague and ambiguous
language ?" There is nothing in this simple question that seems calcu-
lated to provoke anybody to anger; yet no sooner has it fallen from the
lips of the speaker, than a prolonged shout of " Oh !" rises from a
hundred throats on the Tory side of the House. Amid this shout, a tall
gentleman rises from the Treasury Bench, and in a very testy, if not
positively insulting, fashion, tells his interrogator that he cannot answer
nis question. His manner, if not his words, conveys the idea that none
but a fool could have put such an inquiry, and that it is beneath the
dignity of a Minister to pay any attention to it. There is a roar of cheer-
ing from the Conservative side, amidst which the Colonial Secretary
drops into his seat with a supercilious smile upon his face. The
(beers change into howls when the gentleman who asked the question
.^^ets up agam. For a few moments the disorder is so great that he
cannot be heard. "Order, order!" cries the Chairman, in measured
tones ; and there is a slight diminution in the noise, during which the

27^ Notices of Books.

Obstructionist— for this bland, gentlemanly personage positively belongs
to that terrible body — manages to utter a single sentence. " Order,
order !" again cries the Chairman, and he follows up the words by rising
to his feet. Instantly, according to the rules of the House, the person
who is speaking must sit down and wait the presidential deliverance.
"I must point out to the hon. Member," says Mr. Raikes, in his most
dignified manner, *' that he is not in order in referring to a question
which is not at this moment before the Committee." Loud Ministerial
cheering greets' this declaration. Again the Obstructionist rises, and

essays to speak. " But, sir " he says, and then such a storm of jibes,

yells, and groans burst forth from the crowded benches opposite to him,
that there is no possibility of the rest of his sentence being heard. " Sir,
I rise to order," cries a Tory, who springs to his feet evidently in a state
of suppressed fury, and again the unfortunate Obstructive has to sit
down. " I wish to know, sir," pursues the new comer, " whether the
hon. gentleman has accepted your ruling, sir ?" And again the war-cry
goes forth from the Conservative side. ]^ow, however, it is caught up
by answering cheers from the Home Rulers. Amid the tumult, the
Obstructive once more rises. " Sir, I am not aware that I have disputed

yDur ruling, but I wish to observe " It is all in vain. Yells of "With--

draw, withdraw," ring through the House. The unfortunate speaker
grows red in the face, and at last shouts out a demand to know whether
he may not be allowed to finish his sentence. " No !" comes in a sten-
torian voice from a seat immediately behind the Ministerial bench.
Then up springs another Obstructive, who has been infected by the
general excitement, and who, in a voice tremulous with passion, calls
upon the Chairman to protect the speaker from unparliamentary inter-
ruptions. And so the scene goes on for five or ten or even twenty minutes,
until the storm ceases as suddenly as it began, and it is found that it
has all been based upon a misunderstanding ; that the Obstructive never
used the words which the Chairman thought he heard him use, and that
consequently he has never been out of order at all.

This is scarcely an exaggerated description of one of these so-called
" scenes" with the Obstructives. That those Members who belong to the
little party, have been guilty of many most foolish and unjustifiable
actions, cannot, I think, be denied ; but nothing is more certain than
that the manner in which they are habitually treated by Conservative
Members is the cause of no small part of that obstruction of business,
the whole responsibility for which is laid upon their shoulders. I have
no call to defend Mr. Parnell and his comrades (vol. ii. p. 253).

Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor. By the Rev. Henrt
Fanshawe Tozer, M.A., F.R.G.S. London: Longman, Green,
and Co. 1881.

THIS very interesting volume of travels has a double claim to
notice : it is from the pen of a scholar and an experienced
traveller — one who has learned to observe and to write down of his
observations just what gives interest and profit to the general reader.
And further, Mr. Tozer sailed from Constantinople for Asiatic Turkey
in July, 1879, little more than a year after England had undertaken the
" Eastern Protectorate." A report, therefore, from such an observer
concerning the state of the country itself, and of the peoples inhabiting
Asia Minor and Armenia, made at such a moment^ must excite interest.

Notices of Boohs. 273

How far is the rule of Turkey over those once historical nations of Asia
Minor " oppressive and corrupt ?" What do the peoples themselves
think — if they care at all — about English protection ? But there is still
another cause of interest attaching to the localities over which Mr.
Tozer travelled — that of religion. At the present day, what is the
condition of Mahometanism and of Christianity among Turks, Greeks,
Armenians, Kurds, and other intermixed nationalities ? On all these
topics the author has something to say that is worth hearing ; and on
the subject of religion is fair, and free from the stupid bias and the
unquestioning assumption of superiority that characterize too many
English travellers.

It would appear that no small amount of courage, or at least of
determination, was needful to carry Mr. Tozer beyond the merely first
step in his projected tour. The French Consul, then acting for
England, at Samsoun assured him that the roads were " thoroughly
unsafe, owing to the Circassians and other brigands." The same story
met him in nearly every place, whilst a former traveller through
Asiatic Turkey told him before he started, " You will find less to eat
than in European Turkey, and more things that will eat you." Mr.
Tozer, however, was neither robbed nor eaten, and returned to give
his readers a trip scarcely less pleasant than his own.

At Amasia the pasha told Mr. Tozer that out of 15,000 men of that
district who had gone to the Russo-Turkish war, only one in ten had
returned. The same story was told him elsewhere. From the same
pasha he first heard that representatives of England were coming to
all great towns of the interior in Asia Minor and Armenia. Many
of these he met — military men always — and he thus expresses in clear
terms his conviction concerning them : —

Such men must always be of service in a country like Turkey, for
their presence is a protest against wrongdoing, and they are feared for
their uprightness and their power of reporting misdeeds at head-quarters.
The only misfortune connected with their appointment was the circum-
stance under which it was made, for, following as it did in the wake of
the assumption by England of a protectorate of the Asiatic provinces of
Turkey, it gave rise to the most exaggerated expectations on the part of

the natives Abuses it was thought were soon to come to an end

and a period of prosperity to begin. Of course these hopes were doomed
to disappointment as soon as it was found that the English ofiicials had
no administrative functions whatsoever (p. 31).

Anatolia is described as a " very rich and productive land," fine
crops, necessaries of life cheap ; " almost anything might be made of
it under a good Government." Government far from good, however ;
justice venal — decisions going to highest bidders ; taxes heavy ; pashas
usually corrupt, often ignorant, buying their ofifice of the Grand Vizier,
and often changed — three of them in the year, some years, in Amasia
(one of the most important sandjaks in Turkey), each comer having
ousted his predecessor by overbidding.

The whole population was now thoroughly disgusted with the Govern-
ment, so much so that all of them, the Turks included, would gladly
VOL. VI. — NO. T. [Third Series,] t

274 Notices of Books.

welcome any European Power tliat would step in. Towards Eussia
especially there was an excellent feeling, mainly owing to the favourable
treatment of the Turkish prisoners during their detention in that country.
Those who returned said : " The Eussians fed us well, and gave us good
clothes and boots ; they are the very people to suit us as governors."
Were it not for the long-standing feeling of goodwill towards England,
they would all go over to the side of Eussia. I give this information as
the result of the observation of intelligent residents. Part of it we had
afterwards, in some degree, to correct, and the condition of the people
was certainly represented in too favourable colours ; but, on the other
hand, some of its most startling statements we had occasion ourselves to
verify (p. 42).

This leaning towards Eussia is several times manifested to Mr. Tozer
in villages and towns of Asia Minor : in Armenia he was frequently
told " the hopes of the Armenians are now fixed on England." We
must be content to merely indicate Mr. Tozer's excellent descriptions
of Kaiserieh ; of his ascent and circuit of Mount Argaeus ; of the
monastic rock-dwellings and rock-hewn churches of Gueremeh, where
*' the whole valley had once been the abode of a vast monastic com-
munity ;" of the Armenian monasteries of Surp Garabed (St. John
the Baptist), near Kaiserieh at one end of his route, and near Mush
at the other. The latter, named also Changeli, or " the place of bells,"
" occupies a small table of ground, with steep slopes both above and
below it, at a height of 6,000 feet above the sea." We had intended
to quote his glowing descriptions of Mount Ararat, as seen by him
some thirty miles off from a ridge, itself eight or nine thousand feet
high ; his account of the Kurds, their villages and religion ; and finally
his visit to the monastery of Sumelas, of which there is a very sug-
gestive wood engraving — but readers will not regret going to Mr.
Tozer's volume for them.

Demonology and Devil-Lore. By Moncure Daniel Conway, M.A.
Second Edition. Two Vols. London : Chatto and Windus. 1880.

"FTNLESS it were for the purpose of airing his large acquaintance
\j with Sanskrit and Oriental literatures, or of both puzzling and
tiring his readers, we cannot see why Mr. Conway has devoted two
large volumes to prove his thesis.

It has been my purpose (he says) to follow the phantasms which man
has conjured up from obstacles encountered in his progressive adaptation
to the conditions of existence on his planet. These obstacles, at first
mainly physical, have been imaginatively associated with preternatural
powers so long as they were not comprehended by intelligence or mastered
by skill. In the proportion in which they have been so understood and
mastered, their preternatural vestments have to some extent been reduced
to shreds, preserved among the more ignorant as " survivals," while in
other cases they have been inherited and \Vorn by the next series of
unmastered obstructions or uncomprehended phenomena. The adapta-
tion of man to his physical environment antedates his social, moral, and
religious evolutions ; consequently the phantasms that fade from his
outer world have a tendency to pass into his inner world, undergoing

Notices of Books. S75

■such modifications as enable them to describe the pains and perils which
beset his progress beyond mere animal needs and aims.

There is as much real reasoning in this ex cathedra utterance as in
any part of the book ; rationalistic hypotheses fitting wonderfully into
evolutionist prejudices are elevated into fact because of their appro-
priateness; all accounts of the origin of evil, whether Indian, Scan-
dinavian, or Hebrew, are myths, the proof that they are myths being
the sufficient one that they can be translated into mythical form by
modern ingenuity. Our author is in this last respect a victim of a
mania that is, we hope, already beginning to be laughed at. In this
month's Frazer (March) there is an article entitled " John Gilpin as
a Solar Hero," in which the author assumes as a premiss that every
cultured reader knows that all our legends and fables are forms of the
solar myth, and he then proceeds to show how ^' John Gilpin " is only
yet another description of what the ancients called " solis iter."
However learned and however ingenious Mr. Conway's explanations
may be, there are few of them that are not properly replied to in the
•old school form, "quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur." There are
two things that deter us from entering any further into a criticism of
this long and complex statement of a case — it would only offend
•Catholic ears to quote any of the passages in which such sacred sub-
jects as our Lord's Incarnation, or His Holy Mother's Immaculate
Conception are spoken of, and of course they are necessarily included
in a discussion of the Fall. Next, the author either takes for granted
that the supernatural does not exist ; and then, as we fancy, he
ought first to give a sufficient reason for the persistent and similar
recourse of all ages and nations to the supernatural ; or, if he admits
«ome supernatural element in the history of the world, his method
is too wanting in critical appreciation to let us see when he is
-seriously repeating a story as probable and when ridiculing it : just
;as in Mark Twain's volumes of travels, we can never draw the hard-
•and-fast line between description and grotesque fun. Can the author,
for example, be serious when he says, " In Russia the pigeon, from
being anciently consecrated to the thunder-god, has become the emblem
of the Holy Ghost, or Celestial fire," &c, ? Is St. John's <«£• Treptcrrepai/,
then, a Russian or other myth ? It may be highly scientific (certainly
highly soothing) to have reduced the devil to a phantom ; but there
may be a weakness for myths as childish as the weakness for pre-
ternatural explanations of obstacles to progressive adaptation.

The Intermediate Education History of England. Part I. to a.d.
1485. By Edmond Wren, M.A. London. Dublin : M. H. Gill
and Sons. 1881.

THE main object of this English History is, the author tells us, to
supply Irish schools with a manual " free from all passages of
offence and misstatement," and at the same time " fully abreast with
the knowledge and requirements of the time " — a truly noble object for
a Catholic author at the present day. Such a work need not demand
original research ; the present one professes to be based on the best

T 2

276 Notices of Books.

authorities, and conspicuous use has been made of Lingard, Freeman,
and Stubbs. Two main requirements should be paramount with the
writer of such a work ; absolute soundness of statement, and next,
such an exposition of safe information as will easily live in the memory
of the scholar, and help to the formation of a taste for history. It is
beyond doubt that the needs of "cramming " cannot be consulted, if
the latter requirement is to be met. Cramming demands an accumu-
lation of dates, facts, names, tersely worded reflections ; in the acquire-
ment of which dry bones little leisure remains for thought of the
growing, living form of history proper. Even in the choice of details,
a skilful historian will by choosing those that are characteristic, or by
grouping together seemingly diverse tendencies, give them unity in
the young mind and consequent influence over his further studies.
Mr, Wren's book, therefore — highly condensed foreign and domestic,
legislative and constitutional history; formulated, dated, amply
supplied with tables, chronological and genealogical, and extending in
340 octavo pages only to a.d. 1485 — being tested as a " handbook to
students preparing for the annual examinations of the Board of
Intermediate Education," may be no other than it ought to be, the
said examination being surely a cruelty to young minds, and a parody
on the qualifying " intermediate." The boy or girl who has mastered
this handbook, and passed in it, ought forthwith to be presented with a
professorship. Histories used to be read in schools. This one, in
many parts, would be nearly as unreadable as a dictionary, from the
compression into a page of so much heterogenous matter — the stringing
together of desultory events. Let it be added, however, that this
character of the book will be considered generally at the present
moment a great advantage, and that it has apparently been assumed
from conviction of the author that he should meet a demand rather
than guide practice into another channel. It is a result of dire
necessity therefore that there is little dramatic grouping in Mr. Wren's
pages, and that many of those vivid pictures of an event that
characterizes a period or person once and for ever to the young
reader, are abbreviated to baldness, or omitted to make way for names
and figures. In a Catholic history one would have liked to meet
St. Gregory and the Saxon slaves, an incident not beneath one of
Mr. Green's best descriptive efforts; we miss, too, such striking
passages as the old Ealdorman's speech to Eadwine on the Gospel of
Paulinus — ^passages worth (for " education " in remote history) any
amount of monotonous lists of names and dates of battles — too often
petty fights, mere robber maraudings — or of such details as the table
of Egbert's descent from Woden.

These exceptions having been taken, not to Mr. Wren's book, but to
the present method of teaching history, w^e may pass to the other
requirement for a textbook for Catholics, soundness of statement.
We mean not correctness only, but " sound "-ness — the true ring of
both words and expressions. We should have liked this book better if
there had been a perceptible Catholicity about its style : less of the
complexionless character of Lingard.

Notices of Books, 277

Thomce Vallavrii Inscriptiones. Accedit Osvaldi Berrinii. Appendix
de Stilo Inscriptionum. Augustje Tavrinorvm ; Lavrentivs Ro-
manvs. 1880.

THIS is not a book for the general reader. Even if we restrict the
term general to those who have received a liberal education ;
how few of these will ever feel tempted or constrained to write a Latin
inscription ? But, again, even if a Latin inscription had to be composed,
how few scholars would fancy they needed for the task in addition to
their classical knowledge a special treatise *' De stilo inscriptionum"
and a large collection of examples occupying five hundred quarto
pages ? Would they not be tempted to say, forcibly but not very
originally, with erudite Oswald Berrinius, beginning his ninth chapter
" De Scriptura Inscriptionum," " Parvis sane de rebus hoc (caput) est ?"
It will readily be admitted, however, by classical scholars, that not a
few inscriptions are written year by year which have little flavour of
Livy or the Appian Way about them, and that consequently concerning
these chapters and examples we may add — again with Berrinius —
" sed quas nosse non parvi interest." The large number of works on
inscriptions — many of them of considerable size, as, e.g.^ the " Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum" — show how much the subject engages the
attention of scholars. There is a certain art in writing an epitaph or
*' inscription," as truly as there is special poetic art in the construction
of a sonnet. There is a choice of names of words and of things ; a
dignity of style ; a subtle combination of brevity and clearness ; a
significant rhythm and measure of lines ; certain forms of abbreviation
— in an inscription that is artfully constructed. To teach these is the
object of the treatise " De Stilo," which forms a solid appendix to this
book, of nearly a hundred and fifty pages quarto. To illustrate these
by examples of singular grace and art, the publisher has issued this
collection — in all, seven hundred and fifty in number — of Thomas
Vallaurius. These are arranged under various headings, Inscriptiones
Sacrae, Honorarise, Funerum Publicorum, &c. Each class presents
features peculiar to itself. Perhaps we shall do best to quote an example
(pp. 478, 9) from the last division of this collection, in which a few
existing inscriptions " vitiis deformatae" are rewritten according to the
requirements of art.

In fronte cedis 8. CaroU.

D . CAROLI . TEMPLO

REX . CAROLVS . ALBERTVS . P . F . A .

LAPIDEVM . ERONTEM . ADDIDIT

MARIA . CHRISTINA . BORB . AVGVSTA

STATVIS . EXORNAVIT

ORDINE . DECVRIONVM . ET . PIORVM

OPERIS . ADIVTORE

Thus corrected :

TE3IPLVM . CAROLINIANVM

REX . CAROLUS . ALBERTVS . P . F . A

LAPIDEO . FRONTE . VESTIVIT

^78 Notices of Books.

MAHIA . CHRISTINA . BORBONIA . AVG .

STATVIS . EXO.RNAVIT

ORDINE . DECVRIONVM . ET . CIVIYM . PIETATE

SVrPRAGANTIBUS

We cannot too highly commend the treatise of O. Berrinius to all
scholars ; the amount of information not easily to be found elsewhere
here methodically arranged — on such points as modes of spelling-
proper names, &c. — will be very useful beyond the mere needs of
inscription writing.

We must briefly refer to one section of Yallaurius' collection that
will have an interest to Catholics quite different from the technical
one, and recalling perhaps the Catacomb inscriptions of Pope Damasus.
It is headed " Fasti Eervm Gestarum a Pio IX. Pontifice Maximo
ab an. 1846 ad an. 1868," and the inscriptions commemorate the most
salient events in the life of the great pontiff; forming a pithy but clear
outline of his public life. Then follows a section containing nearly
one hundred and fifty inscriptions, " pro incolumitate Pii IX. P. P. Italo-
rum vota/' from various cities, towns, societies and even individuals :
earlier ones wishing for him the years of Peter, later ones rejoicing
that he had lived beyond them. Lastly we must notice a third section
relating to the same subject: " Album Italorum Pio IX. Pont. Max..
oblatum an. millesimo octingentesimo ex quo Petrus et Paulus Apostoli
martyrium Roma? ' fecerunt," and containing more than eighty in-
scriptions from Rome, Milan, Terracina, Corneto and other Italian
cities and towns. We are greatly tempted to quote examples, but must
resist. The book is dedicated to the present Holy Father, " cultori
et vindici studiorum optimorum, " and is elegantly printed and very
carefully edited.

The Life of Father John Gerard, of the Society of Jesus. By John
Morris of the same Society. Third Edition, rewritten and en-
larged. London : Burns & Oates. 1881.

THE quick demand for a new edition of such a book as this, is, we
take it, a very good sign of the times. The perusal of it
can scarcely fail of some distinct measure of good result with both
Catholic and other readers. The one will feel fresh love and enthu-
siasm for their faith at sight of the heroism and sufferings of such
men as Father Gerard ; the other will, we fancy, esteem less a cause
that struggled so pertinaciously, in close imitation of pagan persecution,
against the meek and the unoffending, and that has survived to see-
them in its decay returning to take new root in the land.

Those who already know Father Morris's work in either of the
former editions Avill only need to be told that this one has been
written and very much enlarged. Every step of the work, as it
proceeds, is supported by contemporary documents or testimony ; and
it is just this character which gives the book its great charm. Documents
surviving — one often marvels how — in State Paper or other offices, and

Notices of Boohs. 27^

in Colleges of the Society abroad, have been consulted, and collated
with a patience that excites surprise ; — everywhere notes of authorities
bear evidence to the stability of the text, whilst this latter is frequently
interrupted to make way for letters written by the actors in the scene,
the quaint old spelling adding to their value. When we add that the
autobiography of Father Gerald enters largely into the narrative, it
will be easy to believe that this volume is redolent in numerous ways
of the period it covers, and revives a most instructive picture of the
habits, the home-life, and the feelings of Englishmen during the
quarter of a century from 1580 to 1606.

It is not, however a mere collection of documents — far from it.
Father Morris has, with great skill and mastery of his materials, woven
them into a narrative that is at once clear, interesting and authentic.
Notes at the conclusion of some of the chapters go more into details
in the elucidation of difficult or obscure points ; they may thus, if the
reader choose, be passed by, and the narrative pursued in pleasant
quietude. We shall not refer to the long-disputed knowledge of the
Gunpowder Plot by Fathers Garnet and Gerard further than to say
that chapter the thirty- first gives ample evidence as to Father Gerard's
own innocence, and that the notes to that chapter, dealing with some
assertions of Canon Tierney and Dr. Lingard, ought to be read by all
history students of that event.

A word ought injustice to be said of the publishers' part in this
excellent book ; its outward appearance is elegant — a style of binding
that is new to us. Not only are paper and type excellent, but, what is
vastly more important, the text is wonderfully free from typographical
errors; The clearly printed copies — by the Woodbury process — of
old prints ; one a chart of the Tower of London ; the others views
of Louvain and Liege, are very interesting ; the one of the Tower
especially so. We sincerely wish Father Morris's book, the result
doubtless of long and assiduous labour, all the success it deserves.

Urin. Verses, Irish and Catholic. By the Eev. Matthew Eussell, S.J.
Dublin : M. H. Gill and Son. 1881.

THE many admirers of Father Russell's former volumes, " Emmanuel"
and " Madonna," will not be disappointed with this one, although
the pieces of which it is composed are short and less pretentious. The
character of the verses is very varied, but, as a rule, rather secular than
sacred, and this fact is accounted for (no " excuse " is needed) by their
having been written, in great part, before the author was a priest.
Most of the poems, too, are Irish in subject, and are characterized by
illustration and incident drawn from Irish life at home — this gives
them a charm that we are sure numerous children of Ireland in distant
countries will appreciate. We can find space for only one short quo-
tation (p. 11) ; a stanza from the pleasant descriptive piece : " The Irish
Farmer's Sunday Morning." The family have just sat down to Sunday's
breakfast :

280 Notices of Boohs.

Before the sire an egg, one only, lies,

Laid by as good a duck as ever swam \^
Whereof the top, removed 'neath wistful eyes,

Regales his little pet, his youngest lamb —
Her with the flaxen curls and eyes so calm.
Before the sire the loaf-breadf too, is laid

To be dispensed in slices thin, like ham :
For it, alas ! the hard-earned pence were paid ;
The gulf still left is filled with coarser sort, home-made.

A little prose poem, ** The Sleepy Carthusian," appears at the end of
the volume, and would be, even if alone, worth the purchase of the book.
It has already appeared in the pages of the Irish Monthly, and is a
very happy translation from the French : those who duly appreciate the
lesson shining through the quaint story, will, with the Spectator, pro-
nounce the piece " a veritable gem."

Les Registres d'' Innocent /F., Recueil des Bulles de ce Pape. Publiees ou
analysees d'apres les Manuscrits Originaux du Vatican et de la
Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris. Par Elie Berger. Paris :
E. Thorin.

MTHORIN, the enterprising publisher to whom we are indebted for
. so many useful works, has just undertaken to bring out a com-
plete edition of the Bulls issued by Pope Innocent IV. The collection,
when it is completed, will be of the most valuable character as a
source of information on the history of the Middle Ages Created Pope
on the 24th of June, 1243, after the death of Celestine IV., who had
occupied the Holy See for a space of only sixteen days. Innocent IV.
may be regarded almost as the successor of Gregory IX., whose policy
he continued in his relations with the Empire. He reigned during
eleven years and a half, and the acts of his administration are of so
important a nature that they fully deserved a separate and carefully
annotated publication. The ensemble of the Papal Bulls connected
with Innocent IV. amounts to about eight thousand six hundred ; the
first five years of the original regesta, the eighth, and all the following
ones are preserved in the Vatican archives ; the sixth forms part of
the treasures belonging to the Paris National Library ; the seventh is
lost. M. Berger, already known by several scholarly publications, is
the editor of the work we are announcing here ; and although the
preface is not to be issued till the last fasciculus of the first volume,
we can form, to a certain extent, a tolerably correct idea of the nature
and plan of the publication from the introductory part now before
us. Each Bull is preceded by a short resume, and represented by one
or more quotations of various lengths, according to the character and
importance of the document; sometimes the entire Bull is given.

* Ducks' eggs commend themselves more to the rustic palate than eggs of a
milder flavour.

t As contra-distinguished from griddle-bread.

Notices of Books. 281

Between the years 1248 and 1254, several Bulls were not registered;
these are omitted by M. Berger, who has merely reprinted the docu-
ments forming part of the regesta. The pieces which have been
already included in Potthast's well-known collection are analysed
from that work, and the present editor has consulted the disqui-
sition or memoir published some time ago by M. Haureau in the
" Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits," tome xxiv. part 2, under the fol-
lowing title : Quelques Lettres d'Innocent IV. : Extraits des Manuscrits
-de la Bibliotheque Nationale. It is well known also that La Torte du
Keis had caused copies to be made of certain of the original Bulls ;
these copies are at the Bibliotheque Nationale {fonds Moreau), and
have been collated by M. Berger ; they are comprised in the following
volumes : No. 1194 (1st and 2nd years of the Pontificate) ; No. 1195
(3rd year); No. 1196 (6th year); No. 1197 (5th year) ; No. 1198-
1200 (6th year) ; No. 1201 (8th and 9th years) ; No. 1202 (10th year) ;
No. 1203 (11th and 12th years).

The best way, perhaps, of giving to our readers an idea of M.
Berger's work will be to transcribe one of the entries, and for that
purpose we have selected a short document printed on page 68 ; —

384 au Latran, 4 Decembre, 1243.

Causam Dominici, Ulixbonensis canonici, quem Burgensis episcopus, tunc
Oxoniensis episcopus, ab Ecclesia de Marvilla amoverat, et postea excom-
municaverat, infrascriptis committit (Reg. an. ], No. 382, fol. 64 verso.)

*' Petro Gondisalvi arcJddiacono, . . . cantori et magistro Bartt \_olomeo^
canonico, CoUmhricensibus Constitutus in praasentia — Dat. Laterani, ii.
Nonas Decembris, anno primo.

Exposuit Dominicus, canonicus Ulixbonensis, quod Burgensis tunc
Oxoniensis Episcopus, receptis a Gregorio IX. Uteris in, quibus manda-
batur ei ut ipsum et quosdam alios a rege Portugalise beneficiis ornatos
spoliaret, ipsum sine judicio nee ostensis papae litteris ab ecclesia de
Marvilla amovisse, de qua quidem Dominicus se vreocem appellationis ad
Sedem Apostolicam emisisse contendit ; episcopus vero appellatione spreta
executionis sententiam promulgavit. Dominico ad ultimum excommu-
nicato et jubente Innocentio per Reinardum poenitentiarium pontificium
a preedicta sententia ad cautelam jam antea absolute, raandat supra-
scriptis papa ut processus contra eum intentos, si corvenerit, irritos
denuntient, si autem bene judicatum fuerit, confirment.

In the original regesta the names of certain persons are almost uni-
versally omitted, and two dots inserted instead, thus : ". . Archiepiscopo
Terraconensij' ". .ahbati sancti Johannis Farmensis,''^ etc. The index,
which is to complete the work, will give, as much as possible, the names
thus left out purposely by the Registratores. M. Berger has enjoyed
the great advantage, during a residence of four years at Rome, of the
assistance and encouragement of several eminent savants connected
with the Vatican library and the archives ; he thanks especially in his
introductory note the Cardinals Pitra and Hergenrother, Professor
Balan and Monsignor Ciccolini. The fasciculus we have thus been
noticing, printed on fine paper and in bold type, in two columns
quarto, gives us sheets 1-16 of the first volume, and includes Bulls
1-747 ; the first document is dated Anayni, July 2, 1243 ; the last,
^Civita Castellana, June 21, 1244. Gustave Masson.

282 Notices of Books.

Histoire dvb Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris, avec le Journal
de ses Actes. Vol. III. Paris : Hachette.

IN our last number we reviewed briefly the first two volumes of
M. Wallon's " Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire," promising to
return to it as soon as the next instalment was published ; we have
now to notice the third volume, and to draw the attention of our readers
once more to the horrors of sans-culottism let loose upon society. Two-
months only, Germinal and Floreal, of the year II., have sufficed to
supply the contents of a thick octavo, but at that epoch both the
tribunals and the guillotine were hard at work, and the trial of the
obscurest individual, however quietly it was despatched, necessitated
a number of questions, reports, evidence and documents of various
kinds which represented an enormous amount of paper. In M. Wallon's
third volume the trials refer to incriminated persons belonging to
every class of society, clerks, soldiers, clergymen — both, assei^mentes and
insemientes — noblemen, ladies, &c. ; Lavoisier and the farmers-general
of the taxes ; Malesherbes ; the victims of Verdun, whom Victor Hugo
immortalized in one of his most beautiful odes, at a time when he had
not joined the clique of Messrs. Paul Bert, Spuller, Gambetta & Co. ;
last, but not least, Madame Elisabeth, the sainted sister of Louis XVI.
Whilst examining these melancholy remains of an epoch of madness,
one thing strikes us very forcibly — namely, the attitude and the fate
of the wretched creatures who, forswearing their principles, in order
to save their lives, and endeavouring to prove the genuineness of their
new-fledged republicanism by exaggerated zeal, found that cowardice
was generally a brand of reprobation, even at the bar of the com-
mittee of public safety, and that neither Fouquier-Tinville, nor
Saint- Just, set any value on the support of men who had lost all feel-
ing of decency and honour.

The trial and death of Madame Elisabeth belong to the period in
the Reign of Terror when Robespierre had got rid, as he supposed, of
all his rivals, and was exercising unlimited power throughout France ;
the festival of the Supreme Being had just been decreed, the existence
of God and the immortality of the soul were proclaimed as the faith
of regenerated France, and with his hands still reddened by the blood
of the Girondists and the Hebertists, Barnave, Danton and Camiile
Desmoulins, the new dictator was setting fire to the " hydra of
atheism." Many people, as M. Wallon remarks, might have supposed,
and probably did suppose, that the time had come at last for closing
the era of terrorism, and stopping the monotonous work of the guillo-
tine ; the preamble to the decree of Floreal proved, alas ! that more
blood was about to be shed, and that Robespierre did not yet feel quite
secure in the enjoyment of his power. The existence of Madame
Elisabeth was an insult to the Republic, under the regime then pre-
vailing ; it was the easiest thing in the world to find against any
person already condemned beforehand, charges, witnesses, proofs of
guilt. Chauvrau-Lagarde, who had been appointed counsel for the
princess, had barely time allowed him to collect his thoughts, and
to settle the succession of his arguments ; he knew that the task

Notices of Books. " 283-

entrusted to him was hopeless, but he did his duty and did it
nobly, regardless of the frightful consequences it necessarily entailed.
The episode which M. Wallon has chiefly dwelt upon in his volume
is the trial of Danton and his co-accused ; it is undoubtedly one of
the most interesting in the whole history of the Eevolution, because it
marks the beginning of a reaction towards more moderate views, re-
action which Danton and Camille Desmoulins especially would have-
brought to a successful issue, had they displayed greater energy in
their opposition to Robespierre. Public opinion was expressing itself
with considerable frankness as to the real character of the ultra-radicals :
Marat's reputation had lost much in the imagination of the people ;.
the groups of citizens in the boulevards, and the other places of resort,
discussed freely the probable destiny of Santerre, Henriot, Chaumette,
and the other acolytes of Robespierre and Saint-Just ; immediate
action became indispensable, the enrages, as they were called, did not
lose a minute, and the result was the adjournment till the 9th
Thermidor of the downfall of Jacobinism. M. Wallon has now to-
relate to us the last acts of the revolutionary tribunal, and we have
QO doubt that his concluding volume will more than realize the promise
^iven in those we have already reviewed. Gustave Masson.

'Etudes Sociales et JEconomiques. Par Augustin Cochin, precedees d'une-
Notice par M. le Due de Broglie, de I'Academie Frangaise.
8vo. Paris : Didier.

LIKE Frederic Ozanam and Count de Melun, M. Augustin Cochin
belonged to the band of noble thinkers who saw in Christianity
ilone the means of rescuing society, and French society more especially,
from the destruction which threatened it, and who opposed to the
irrogant pretensions of modern radicalism the wholesome doctrines of
:he Word of God. He occupied several important posts during the
Second Empire, and rendered signal services to his country after the
lisaster of Sedan and the downfall of Napoleon III. ; the touching and
eloquent letter addressed by him to M. Thiers is one of the most
nteresting pieces justijicatives in the biographical memoir for which we
ire indebted to Count de Falloux.

M. Cochin had written much, not from any desire of obtaining
iterary distinction, but because as president or secretary of industrial
md charitable societies, he found himself obliged to draw up reports,
'-ompose lectures, and avail himself generally of the press to vulgarize
iound notions on political economy and other kindred subjects. These
'arious pamphlets and brochures will, we are glad to see, be collected
md reprinted, the first volume being the one we are now noticing,
ntroduced by an excellent notice, the author of which, the Due de
broglie, was one of M. Cochin's most intimate friends, and his colleague
nd coUaborateur in many associations. To a large proportion of our
eaders the very name of this gentleman may not be even known ; we
liall therefore venture, without any apology, to translate a portion of
he Due de Broglie's preface, for it is useful to see how, in the most
difficult times, God raises witnesses for himself, and men who make

284 Notices of Boohs,

it the business of their lives to direct society into the only path which
leads to real happiness.

... He was a consummate master of the art of bringing near one
another in sympathetic communionan orator and hearers who are separated
by their habits of life and their early education. ]So one, I believe, has
ever equallled him on that ground. Familiar without being trivial, always
raising the thoughts of his audience without soaring above their intellectual
capacity, knowing how to move them, and yet never appealing to any
unwholesome passion, he dismissed them proud of having ^ enjoyed the
noblest of pleasures, never regretting the modesty of their social condition.

But it was necessary for him to throw a great deal of variety into his
address, whilst discussing the same ideas and treating the same principles :
on one occasion, the theatre of these short and urgent allocutions was one of
those societies of Christian apprentices or workmen, abodes of quiet where
young men, inspired by a courageous faith, came to seek fresh strength for
the purpose of resistingthe more efficaciously against corrupt surroundings ;
the next day, at a railway terminus, or a workshop, he had to speak to
one oL' those motley crowds gathered together by the nature of their toil,
and who only put in common their material wants. To the former class,
to the young Christians who constituted his chosen family, M. Cochin
used to say that it is not enough to feel honoured by the name of Christian ;
believers should grace their profession, not merely by being better than
others, but by showing themselves more skilful. The best way, he used
to say, of putting to silence the taunts of false or half-science, was to
be in their lives more eager to realize the progress which science has intro-
duced even in the sphere of manual arts. With the others he followed a
different course ; by showing to them a warm and intelligent sympathy,
by sharing their ambition, and above all their legitimate affections, he
tried to make them appreciate the holy principle which animated him, andto
show to them the amount of charm, of purity, and peace, which religion
would bring to their fireside. Thus, by a discrimination no one would have
expected, he spoke more especially to some of the necessity of intellectual
development, whilst with the others he appealed chiefly to the heart. But
if the means differed, the result was always the same : to make of good
Christians the best workmen, and to transform into Christians all good
workmen.

Such being the character of M. Cochin, we may easily imagine what
a loss French society suffered, when, in 1872, it pleased God to take
him to Himself. The essays collected in this volume are five in
number : they treat respectively of, 1st, The Condition of French
Workmen ; 2nd, Social Reform in France ; 3rd, Co-operative Societies ;
4th, Provident Institutions ; 5, The History of the Looking-Glass Manu-
facture of Saint Gobain from its Origin (1665) to the Year 1865. Ad
appendix of illustrative notes terminates the work.

GUSTAVE MaSSON.

jStude sur le Traite du Libre Arhitre de Vauvenargues. Par L' Abbe M
MoRLAis.. Paris : Thorin.

YAUVENARGUES has obtained as a moralist, and especially as t
writer, a celebrity which is universally acknowledged, even b^
those who are the least disposed to endorse his opinions; and in the list
which includes the names of Montaigne, Pascal, La Bruyere and L;

Notices of Boohs, 285

Rochefoucauld, he holds a place so much the more eminent because he
stands alone in his views of human nature ; and, by a strange com-
bination of Jansenist notions with the philanthropy so fashionable
during the last century, he endeavours to rehabilitate us in our own
opinion. Montaigne was a sceptic ; the great Port Royal thinker, the
hero of the Fronde, and the author of the " Caracteres," are strong
pessimists, each one, it is true, from a different point of view;
Vauvenargues, on the contrary, places himself at the standpoint of
optimism, and his great aim is to find a motive for our actions, a
golden rule, if we may so say, without being obliged to have recourse
to Christianity. The most extraordinary thing, however, is that, after
all, his doctrine is a kind of fatalism tempered by important concessions
made to the naturalist views and humanitarian (we beg pardon for thi*!
word) aspirations of his contemporaries. Man, he says to his opponents,
is born in sin ; he is incapable of knowing the truth and of doing
good ; he is a fallen creature, deserving nothing but maledictions. Why
then crush him under this terrible weight ? Why make his weakness
a cause of accusation ? Why call him to account for crimes of which
he is not responsible ? He is a mere instrument in the hands of God,
true ; but this very fact is his title of glory. Far, then, from ciirsing
him we should encourage him, and admire the great things which God
accomplishes by him. God, we are often told, abandons to evil those
whom He has not predestinated, and condemns those whom He does
not draw to Himself; but His justice is not ours, He is an incompre-
hensible God, Deus abscondifus. It has pleased Him to enlighten
some and to blind others. This last clause, we see, is as thoroughly
fataHst as the most express declarations of Saint Cyran and Singlin,
but Vauvenargues finds in it a motive, not of depreciating man, but
rather of exalting him, because he looks upon him as commissioned by
the Almighty to carry out His will and realize His purposes.

If we study carefully the writings of Vauvenargues, we find in him

a strong resemblance, on the one hand with Pascal, and on the other

with Descartes ; this circumstance has been very well brought out by

M. I'Abbe Morlais. Like Pascal, he is chiefly anxious about moral and

religious truth ; like him he deems scientific acquirements and mere

erudition as very worthless compared with the knowledge of man and

of man's destiny. " We apply oiirselves," he says, "to the study ot

chemistry, of astronomy, to erudition, as if the sciences were the

most important. O blind madness ! Is glory a name ? Is virtue an

or ? Is faith a mere phantom ? What do I want to know ? What

es it behove me to be acquainted with ? (" Discours Preliminaire,"

i >t partie.) The point of similarity which we find between Vauve-

trgues and Descartes is an intense longing for certainty, an irresistible

xiety to throw o£E the bondage of scepticism and to find a safe sub-

i utum for the elements of our knowledge. He would fain eliminate

' hristianity, but he cannot do so, and although he never expressed

mself on the truth of revealed religion with the decision and the

plicit frankness of a believer, still he managed to bring down upon

^ devoted head the wrath of Voltaire, who would not admit that

I

286 Notices of Boohs.

•Christianity 2^x16. philosophy had anything in common. "Ne pent or
pas admirer I'Etre supreme," exclaimed the Ferney deist, " sans etr(
-capiscin ?"

M. I'Abbe Morlais has, we think, done excellent work by the pub'
lication of his essay j it is divided into two parts. The author begin;
by a short account ol Vauvenargues, considered as a moralist, showing
what was the original side of his character, and how far he yielded t(
the influence both of the writers of the seventeenth century, and of hi
own contemporaries ; a complete analysis of the " Traite du libre arbitre
terminates this portion of the work. The second is devoted to j
discussion of principles; it deals with the question of determinisn
examined in all its bearings, and concludes by asserting the principL
of the freedom of the will against the predestinarian errors of certaii
theologians on the one side, and the sophistries, on the other, 0
modern scientists who would reduce man to the degrading position of;
mere machine, irresponsible, destitute therefore of merit, and no mor'
-accountable for his acts than a stone or a cunningly devised piece 0
machinery. Gustave Masson.

Cloister Songs and Hymns for Children. By Sister Mary France
Clare. London : Burns & Gates. Dublin : Gill & Son. 1881

THIS volume of songs, hymns, and translations is from the activ
pen of the " Nun of Kenmare," and will find a ready we]
•come wherever her numerous works are known and admired. AJ
though the pieces are over eighty in number and on a great variet
of themes, there is a distinct bond of union in the religious ton
pervading them, and in the object they share in common, of excitin
or fostering sentiments of piety. Some of the hymns have alread
been indulgenced — one to S. Brendan by the Bishop of Kerry, an
two others, to SS. Patrick and Brigid, by the Archbishop of Westminste]
The hymn portion of the book, therefore, scarcely comes within th
province of criticism. Let it suffice that, although all the pieces ai
not of equal merit — although in a few of them an impassioned readin
might reveal piety rather than poetry — yet on the whole they are bot
poetical and good. Some of the small faults that might be found (
construction, metre, &c., would, it can scarcely be doubted, have bee
found by the talented authoress herself if she had cared for the lahc
limce Or, perhaps, she feared to mar by artful processes the effect (
spontaneous effusions that she intended should speak to, as the
sprang from, the heart. Of the lighter songs, if that may be saic
the best is, " The Bell-Tower ;" but it is too long for quotation. *' TI:
Bells of Kenmare," suits better our limited space.

THE BELLS OF KENMARE.
I.

The bells in the steeple
Are calling the people.
Are calling the people to prayer.

Notices of Boohs. 287

From tlio mountains rebounding,
The echo resounding
Fills all the sweet vale of Kenmare.

II.

Up where the heather

And furze grow together,
Where the gold-crested wren and the plover are found,

The shepherd boy listens,

While his bright grey eye glistens.
As their melody f alleth and ringeth around.

And the old men, amazed,

Say the great God be praised.
Who maketh such music resound through the air ;

And the women, upraising

Their hands, are all praising
The good priest who gave them the Bells of Kenmare.

IV.

Now clanging and clashing.

Now thundering and dashing,
And waking the echoes for miles far away ;

Now stealing and pealing,

Their sweet notes revealing,
Like the murmur of song, heard by sunset's last ray.

Far out on the ocean.

With tremulous motion,
Their jubilant clamour they bear.

From the topmast, the sailor

Shouts Home is near, hail her,
For I hear the sweet Bells of Kenmare.

VI.

So glad is the gladness.

So sad is the sadness
Of these musical bells as they swing through the air,

You know not if weeping

Or joy is in keeping
With the music that rings from the Bells of Kenmare.

The Prophecies of Isaiah : a New Translation, with Commentary and
Appendices: By the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., Fellow and
Lecturer of Balliol College, Oxford, and Member of the Old
Testament Revision Company. Vol. IL London : C. Kegan,
Paul & Co. 1881.

WE have already expressed a very strong opinion on the high
merits of this commentary in reviewing the first volume.
Ihe second and concluding volume is in every way worthy of that

288 * Notices of Boohs.

which preceded it. It carries to the end an exposition marked by the'
same fulness of learning ; learning which is never ostentatiously dis-
played, but is always subservient to the illustration of the text. But,
besides this, the second volume contains essays of extreme interest on
Messianic prophecy in general, and the Messianic prophecies of Isaiah
in particular. They will well repay the study of the theologian, for
they are theological, and not merely critical and philological ; though,
of course. Biblical theology, if it deserves the name, must be founded
on a careful study of the text in its grammatical and historical sense.
It is about this part of Mr. Cheyne's book that we now desire to speak..

We are convinced that he has given very valuable help to the student
of Christian evidences, and, as Catholics, we feel bound to welcome
such good work done in so Christian a spirit. On many other subjects
treated of we should like to say something ; and on a few of these we
shall touch briefly. But we are writing a notice, not an article, and
we must make a selection.

The Christian argument from prophecy is most certainly one of the
" things that cannot be shaken," but, like other arguments, it needs,
and it will repay, careful study. We have long thought that when a
student has made himself familiar with the text of the Hebrew Bible
he should begin with the minute investigation of the prophetical
writings, and that for the following reason. The study of the
historical books is encumbered with numberless questions as to date
and authenticity ; we cannot, of course, assume the traditional theory
as to their origin in controversy with many of those who diifer from
us, and complicated theories must be mastered and examined before
even the present position of the question can be understood. With
the projjhets it is otherwise. Here, too, controversy as to date and
authenticity does exist, and very important questions are raised,
e.g., on the unity of the books ascribed to Isaias, Micheas, and Zacha-
rias, or on the date at which Joel's prophecy was written. Still, the
ground occupied by controversy of this sort is comparatively narrow,
and the questions raised, momentous as they are, are not nearly so
momentous as those on, e.g., the origin of the Leviticai legislation. It
is easier, then, with regard to the prophets, to be sure that we are
reasoning from admitted premises, and to secure sure footing for
subsequent historical enquiry. Still, putting aside all questions of
date and authorship ; putting aside even the grammatical difficulties,
which in the early prophets are often very serious, much toil must be
undergone before we can really understand the '' Christian element "
in the prophets. Different aspects of revelation are seized by different
prophets ; the revelation itself was developed in many portions ; and
from many sides. There is a development of doctrine in the Old
Testament, and nothing can be more luiscientific than to look on pro-
phetic writings as one book, because the same Spirit spoke in all the
writers. Moreover, it may well happen that when we have been
accustomed from childhood to the prophecies of Christ, we feel as if
the words had lost their edge when we come to study them for the
first time in their context and connection. We find the words which

Notices of Books. 289

we used to refer to Christ, scarcely imagining that they admitted of
another reference, embedded in a context which seems to contradict
the Messianic interpretation. Look, for example, at some of the
Psalms expressly referred to Christ in the New Testament. In
Psalm Ixix. we have the prophecy of the reproaches which fell on
Christ, the vinegar given Him for His thirst, the " familiar friend "
who turned against Him. But, on the other hand, verse vi, runs,
" Thou knowest my folly, and my transgressions are not hid from
Thee," and the imprecations in the latter part of the Psalm seem to
jar with the Messianic interpretation. So, again, in Psalm xli., we have,
on the one hand, the striking words applied to our Lord Himself, in
John xiii. 18, to the treachery of Judas: "The man with whom
I was at peace, in whom I trusted^ who eat My bread, hath lifted up
his heel against Me ; " and, on the other hand, the sufferer depicted in
the Psalm confesses his own sin ( " heal my soul for I have sinned
against Thee,") and asks God's help to " repay " his enemies. In
Psalm Ixxii. we have the promise of a king who is to be feared and
honoured while sun and moon endure; but still, although this descrip-
tion will not suit a mere mortal, it might be argued that many
other details — such as the prayer which is to be continually made for
him, his rule from " sea to sea," &c., fit in better with an idealized
description of the Jewish monarchy than with the spiritual reign of
Christ. Just the same difficulties meet us in the writings of the
prophets. Thus, in Isaiah, the child to be born of the Virgin (apart
from all difficulties as to the translation of the most important word)
seems to be promised, not for the distant future, but for the exigencies
of the time in which the prophet lived. The " servant of the Lord," so
prominent in the later chapters, and who answers so wonderfully to the
picture which the Gospels give of the teaching and suffering Christ,
is yet undoubtedly identified with the people in xlii. 19, xliii. 10 ;
while in xli. 8, 9, xliv. 1, 2, 21, xlv. 4, and xlviii. 20, it is "the
kernel of the nation, the spiritual Israel."

A deeper study removes those difficulties, confirms belief in the
argument from prophecy, and, more than this, convinces us that there
is a fuller and deeper meaning than we had imagined before in j;he
ancient saying, *' The New Testament is latent in the Old." We find
that the whole history of Israel is regarded by the prophets as a pre-
paration for the Messianic blessings of the future. Because the
Messias was to spring from the seed of Abraham, because he was
to spring from the tribe of Juda, therefore it was impossible to
separate altogether the ideas of salvation through Christ from salva-
tion through Israel and through the royal line of Juda ; nor need we
wonder if the prophets sometimes do not separate the ideas at all.
There is an organic connection, as Hupfield puts it (though the theory
so put is not adopted by him) between type and anti-type ; and the
history of Israel has been compared to a pyramid which culmmates in
Christ. We have (1) the general promise that Israel is to be the salva-
tion and the light of nations; (2) this promise is limited to a chosen
and spiritual seed, to the Israel according to the spirit, which Israel

VOL. VI.— NO. I. [Tliivd Bevies.'] , u

290 Notices of Boohs.

is the servant of tlie Lord, and is often personified as a suffering indi-
vidual ; (3) the conception of the spiritual and suffering Israel is
specially, in Psalm xxii. and Isaiah liii.^ narrowed still further, and a
single person is pointed out. His deliverance is a cause of more than
national blessings (see the latter part of Psalm xxii.) ; his soul is offered
as a trespass- offering (see Isaiah liii.) ; and in minute details the history
of his sufferings corresponds to the Passion of Christ. Following out
another (we may say the other) line of prohecy, we find promises
made to David and his seed, and a universal dominion promised to
them (as in Psalm ii.) ; one future king is pointed out, and (as in Psalm
Ixxii.) superhuman attributes are ascribed to him, while in Isaiah he
is distinctly said to be " the mighty God." In that familiar Psalm — so
familiar to us from its constant recurrence in the Vesper Office — " Dixit
Dominus Domino meo," the two lines of prophecy meet together, and the
Messias is portrayed at once in his regal and in his priestly dignity.*

We may notice three points in which Isaiah illustrates the super-
natural character of, and rises to the sublimest height of, Hebrew
prophecy.

More clearly than any other writer in the Old Testament he limits
the promise to the spiritual Israel. Abraham is the source of
blessing, but it is the few genuine believers who are Abraham's
representatives. " There is no peace to the wicked." " A redeemer
shall *come to Sion, and to those that have turned from rebellion in
Jacob: it is the utterance of the Lord" (lix. 20). This is well
brought out by Mr. Cheyne, and shews how thoroughly the exegesis
of St. Paul in its central point is justified by a careful reading of
Isaiah. It would be interesting, if space allowed, to compare the
doctrine of election (so Ewald, if we remember right, ventures to
call it), as it appears in Joel.

Next, as to the divinity of the Messias, w^e have the remarkable
prophecies, ch. viii. — x. The maiden whom the prophet sees is
already with child, and the infant is to be called Immanuel, " God with
us." When the announcement of the mysterious birth takes place,
the first streak of light is seen in the heavens. The kings of
Damascus and Israel are leagued against Judah, but before the
infant who is to be born comes to the age when an ordinary child
knows the difference between good and evil, the power of these
kings will be broken, and Ahaz will see that he had no cause to fear
them. But worse evils are in store. The Assyrians are to replace
the Israelites and the Syrians. " The stretching of his wings {i.e., the
Assyrian host), will fill thy land, O Immanuel " (viii. 6). Immanuel
Himself is to share in the troubles of His people. His food is to be
" milk and honey," i.e.^ as is plain from the end of chapter vii., He

* Observe that, even if we assume the existence of Maccabean Psalms,
Ps. ex. cannot apjjy to a Maccabean prince. Their proper dignity was a priestly
one — and so Jonathan took the title of high-priest, and acted as king. But the-
hero of Ps. ex. is first a king, then a priest. The priesthood is attributed to a
king, not vice versa. Besides, the Maccabees were in no sense princes " after
the order of Melchisedeck. "

Notices of Books. 291

■will feed on such fare because Assyrian devastation has put an end
to agriculture.* But the Assyrian might can avail nothing against
the design of God. The counsels of the people shall be broken, for
'^ God is with us" (viii. 10). Then the prophet connects the
coming deliverance Avith Galilee of the Gentiles, the very district
which had fallen into the rapacious hands of the Assyrian king,
Tiglath Pileser, and the prophet breaks into the rapturous strain of
prophecy : " A Child is born to us, a Son is given to us, and the
government is on His shoulder, and His name is called Wonderful,
Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."

This is a fair account ; at least we have done our best to conceal
and to exaggerate nothing. Surely, no unprejudiced reader can fail
to see the marvellous nature of the prophecy, and its more mar-
vellous fulfilment in Christ. His mysterious birth, His perpetual
care for His people, the peaceful character of His dominion, His
Divinity, are clearly set forth. Moreover, apart from the exegetical
authority of the New Testament, the connecting of the Messias with
Galilee, and Christ's actual life there, furnish, to say the least,
an extraordinary coincidence; and Mr. Cheyne points out the
interesting- fact that the Jews, in consequence of this prediction,
expected the Messias to appear there. Difficulties there certainly are.
The. child's birth seems to synchronize with the overthrow of Syria,
His youth with the Assyrian invasion, and His manhood with the
triumph of God's people. We should think it perfectly reasonable,
supposing these difficulties to be insuperable, for a man to say : " I
cannot resist the strong grounds for acknowledging a true prediction
here, and I accept the fact in spite of minor difficulties." But we
believe that the difficulties can be explained. The prophet sees the
mother, who is already with child, but he sees her in vision. Nowhere
does he fix the historical epoch at which the child is to reach the
ordinary age of reason. Only hefore that date, he tells Achaz, " The
land shall be forsaken, the land at the two kings of which thou art
horribly afraid." True, it is Immanuel's land which is to be over-
shadowed by the Assyrian. But then, in the counsel which God
revealed to His servant the prophet, Israel existed chiefly as a pre-
paration for Immanuel ; and just because Immanuel was to be born of
Judah, all the devices of the nations against the latter were to be
shattered and broken. True, Immanuel was to share in the oppression
of His people (for we may fairly take the *' milk and honey," the only
food to be obtained when vineyards and cornfields were wasted, as a
poetical description of humiliation under the hands of a foreign foe).
But our Lord did, in a special degree, experience deprivation of
regal splendour, and actual injustice from foreign enemies; and the
Assyrian invasion was the beginning and the type of all subsequent
oppression. We advance this interpretation with some diffidence.

* We are convinced that " milk and honey" here can have no other meaning,
and we will only ask the reader averse to this interpretation carefully to examine
the context.

U 2

292 Notices of Boohs,

No doubt the words of Isaiah would naturally convey a different im-
pression as to the date of the Messianic deliverance when addressed
to his contemporaries. But they would understand the deliverance
itself very imperfectly : and there is nothing extravagant in supposing
that the full light of Christian revelation, which has enabled us to
understand the substance, also clears up the details of the prophecy.

On the third point, the suffering Messias, we must not linger long.
Mr. Cheyne traces with admirable precision the way in which, in
various parts of the Old Testament, notably in the Book of Job, the
Jewish mind was habituated to the idea of an innocent sufferer ; how
the sufferings of the just were connected, in Psalm xxii., with general
deliverance ; and how, lastly, in Isaiah liii., the riddle is solved, since
the servant of the Lord is afflicted for our peace, and actually lays
down His soul as a " trespass-offering. '^ There can be no reasonable
doubt that it is an individual sufferer who is before the prophet's mind ;
so much so that Ewald is driven to the theory that chapter liii. is a
fragment incorporated in his work by the author of Isaiah xl.-lxvi.,
describing a martyr who died, in the persecution of Manasses. But
where in the Old Testament theology can we find any trace of the
belief that a martyr could (1) offer his soul in sacrifice, (2) justify
many, (3) live after death, and see the work of the Lord prosper in his
hands ?

We will only call the reader's attention to excellent notes on the
personality of the Holy Ghost, and on the Fatherhood of God, in
Isaiah, and proceed to make a brief suggestion on a matter connected
with the question on the unity of authorship. The new " covenant,"
Mr. Cheyne says, is mentioned seven times in Isaiah xi. — nowhere in the
rest of the book, as in Amos and Hosea. " The idea of the original
covenant, broken by Israel, and renewed by Jehovah, is specially cha-
racteristic of Jeremiah The occurrence of the phrase in Isaiah

xl.-lxvi., is certainly difficult to explain on the assumption that Isaiah
was the author of these chapters." It may, perhaps, be worth while
to remember, on the other side (1) that the ''eternal covenant" is a
phrase of frequent occurrence in the Pentateuch, where it is used, c.g.^
in Genesis ix. 10 — one of the so-called Elohistic portions of the cove-
nant with Noe; it is also used of the Sabbath in Exodus xxxi. 16.
In Isaiah xxiv. 5, when the writer transports himself in spirit to the
time of the exile, the phrase is used probably as in Genesis ix. 16.

(2) In Isaiah xl.-lxvi., the '^perpetual covenant" is employed (Iv. 3,
Ixi. 8), to indicate a Messianic covenant really perpetual. This cove-
nant was also-really new; but in the latter Isaias it is never so called,

(3) In Jeremiah (xxxi, 31) this covenant is expressly called
" new," and the marks which distinguish it from the old are fully
stated. It is at least conceivable that this was the course in which
the idea and the terminology were developed.

In conclusion, we have only to thank Mr. Cheyne for the kind way
in which, at the beginning of this, he speaks of our criticism on his
former volume.

W.,E. Addis.

Notices oj Books. 298

Hindu Philosophy: The Sdnkhya Kdrikd of Is Wara Krishna ; an Expo-
sition of the System of Kapila. By John Davies, M.A. (Cantab.)

Hindu Foetry. Containing a new edition of " the Indian Song of
Songs," from the Sanskrit of the Gita Govinda of Jayade Va.
Two books from " the Iliad of India" (Mahabharata). " Pro-
verbial Wisdom," from the Shlokas of the " Hitopadesa," and
other Oriental Poems. By Edwin Arnold, M.A.

Eastern Proverbs and Emblems illustrating old Truths. By the
Rev. J. Long, Member of the Eoyal Asiatic Society, F.R.S.
London: Trubner. 1881.

WE have received from Messrs. Trubner these three new volumes of
their Oriental Series. The first is the most important of them,
and is of the utmost value to students of Hindu metaphysics. It is a
translation, carefully executed, and illustrated by very learned and
thoughtful annotations of Iswara Krishna's exposition of Kapila's
system, regarding which we may here present the following extract
from Mr. Davies's Preface.

The system of Kapila maybe said to have only an historical value ; but
on this account alone it is interesting as a chapter in the history of the
human mind. It is the earliest attempt on record to give an answer,
from reason alone, to the mysterious questions which arise in every
thoughtful mind about the origin of the world, the nature and relations
of man, and his future destiny. It is interesting, also, and instructive to
note how often the human mind moves in a circle. The latest German
philosophy, the system of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, is mainly a
reproduction of the philosophic system of Kapila in its materialistic part,
presented in a more elaborate form, but on the same fundamental lines.
In this respect the human intellect has gone over the same ground that it
occupied more than two thousand years ago ; but on a more important
question it has taken a step in retreat. Kapila recognized fully the
existence of a soul in man, forming, indeed, his proper nature — the absolute
Ego of Fichte — distinct from matter and immortal; but our latest
philosophy, both here and in Germany, can see in man only a highly
developed physical organization. " All external things," says Kapila,
" were formed that the soul might know itself and be free." *' The study of
psychology is vain," sa^'-s Schopenhauer," " for there is no Psyche."

Mr. Arnold's beautiful translation of the " Indian Song of Songs,"
is so well known to, and so highly appreciated by, all who are interested
in Indian literature, that we need no more here than express our
satisfaction at its reappearance in its present form. The two books
from the " Iliad of India," now for the first time translated, by which
it is accompanied, will doubtless experience, as they deserve, a like
favourable reception.

Mr. Long's collection of " Eastern Proverbs and Emblems," though
evidently well intentioned, and the fruit of much learning, must be
pronounced to be a dull book upon an interesting subject.

The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, Dissenting Minister. Edited
by his friend, Reuben Shapcott. London : Triibner. 1881.

THIS is a melancholy book ; all the more Lelancholy for the power
both of literary expression and of human feeling with which it is

294 Notices of Boohs.

written. We do not know how far the story it tells is real. It is by way of
being the autobiography of a man who is educated (the word is hardly
applicable, but it may pass) for the ministry of some dissenting sect,
and who, as his intellectual horizon widens, gradually loses, one by one,
those incoherent beliefs in which he had grown up, and, finding nothing
better to replace them — the Catholic Church, with her large and
scientific theology, and the marvellous adaptation of her worship to
the needs of the human heart, he seems not even to have heard of —
passes into the blackness and desolation of utter scepticism. The fol-
lowing passage may serve as a specimen of the volume :

Nakeder and nakeder had I become with the passage of every year,
and I trembled to anticipate the complete emptiness to which, beforelong,
I should be reduced. What the dogma of immortality was to me I have
already described, and with regard to God I was no better. God was ob-
viously not a person in the clouds, and what more was really firm under
my feet than this — that the universe was governed by immutable laws ?
These laws were not what is commonly understood as God, nor could I
discern any ultimate tendency in them. Everything was full of contra-
diction ; on the one hand was infinite misery ; on the other there were ex-
quisite adaptations producing the highest pleasure ; on the one hand the
mystery of a life-long disease, and on the other the equal mystery of the
unspeakable glory of the sunrise on a summer's morning over a quiet
summer sea. I happened to hear once an atheist discoursing on the follies
of theism. If he had made the world he would have made it much better.
He would not have racked innocent souls with years of torture, that
tyrants might live in splendour. He would not have permitted the earth-
quake to swallow up thousands of harmless mortals, and so forth. But,
putting aside all dependence upon the theory of a coming rectification of
such wrongs as these, the atheist's argument was shallow enough. It
would have been easy to show that a world such as he imagines is un-
thinkable, directly we are serious with our conception of it. On whatever
lines the world maybe framed, there must be distinction, difference; a higher
and a lower ; and the lower, relatively to the higher, must always be an
evil. The scale upon which the higher and lower both are makes no
difference. The supremest bliss would not be bliss if it were not definable
bliss, that is to say, in the sense that it has limits marking it out from
something else not so supreme. Perfectly uninterrupted infinite light,
without shadow, is a physical absurdity ; I see a thing because it is
lighted, but also because of the differences of light, or, in other
words, _ because of shade ; and without shade the universe would
be objectless, and, in fact, invisible. The atheist was dreaming
of shadowless light — a contradiction in terms. Mankind may be
improved, and the improvement may be infinite, and yet good and evil
must exist. So ! with death and life. Life without death is not life, and
death without life is equally impossible." — (p. 109.)

The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church. By F. E. Warren,
Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. London : Henry Frowde.
1881.

THIS volume contains many choice morsels, and a good deal of
general information which, though not new, will fully repay
perusal. Its main interest, however, lies in a Mass taken from the
" Stowe " Irish Missal.

Not ices of Books. 293

We have at once to observe tliat Mr. Warren would have been
more of a historian had he been less of a polemic. Throughout his
book he seeks an opportunity for stating that the Celtic practices
point to an Eastern rather than a Roman origin, and that the Celtic
churches were strangers to Papal Supremacy. He maintains that the
discipline in these churches was introduced from the East, only in-
directly through France. But he ought to have asked himself how it
is that the Gallican Church never dreamed of doing, on the alleged
•difference of discipline, what others do — viz., disputing Roman
Supremacy. The river ought not to rise higher than its source. The
Celtic Churches have not more solid grounds to go on than the
Gallican Church.

Apart from the doctrinal aspect, we hasten to notice some of the
historical mistakes in Mr. Warren's volume. 1. It is stated in page 127,
that " no passage is discovered referring to the use of incense." Now,
we maintain that its use is prescribed in a very old form for consecra-
tion of a church. O'Donovan, in his "■ Irish Grammar," alludes to its
archaic turns, and O'Curry states that its Irish is beyond the reach of
all printed dictionaries. This tract taken from the Irish Pontifical is
found in the "Leabhar Breac." The passage runs thus : — " And the in-
cense is offered iu the small vessel in front of the altar while they sing
* Let my prayer be directed as incense,' &c."* I may observe that the
form of consecration not alluded to by Mr. Warren is perfect, except
one or two chasms which can be filled in from the context. 2. In
page 23 it is stated, that " the reception of a nun into a Celtic
monastery included, in addition to the ceremony of crowning, the
formal presentation of a white dress, which is not in the present
Pontifical." We are surprised how it could be said that mention of a
crown and dress is not made in the Pontifical in connection with the
veiling of a nun, as the rubric and praj^er speak of the corona^ or
torques, and of the dress which she is to put on after having received
it and a veil blessed by the bishop. 3. It is not correct (o state in
page 146, that " there is no direct evidence of the practice of fasting
for communion." In a very old tract in the " Leabhar Breac," fasting is
enjoined, Nullus cantet nisi jejunus.] Nor was the injunction confined
to the celebrant. A writer, who had objected that it was not so at the
first institution of the Eucharist, as the apostles partook of it after
eating the paschal lamb, goes on to defend and account for the
opposite practice in his day.f 4. It is stated in pp. 148-9, that
'' confession of sins was public rather than private, optional rather than
■compulsory." Now, in an eighth century tract it is stated that " one
of the four things not admitted to penance in the Church of Erin is
the disclosing the confession."§ It is plain that if the confession were
public there would have been no need of enjoining secrecy under such
a terrible sanction. It is equally obvious that confession was not
optional ; for it was laid down that " every one desirous of a cure for

* ''Leabhar Breac," p. 277, col. 1. f Ibid R I.A. copy, p. 248, col. 1.
X Ibid., p. 50, col. 2. § Ibid. p. 10, col. 2.

296 Notices of Boohs.

his soul must make a humble and sorrowful confession, and that, as
the wounds of the body are shown to a physician, so, too, the sores of
the soul must be exposed; and as he who takes poison is saved by
vomit, so the soul is healed by confession.* 5. It is stated in page
108, that " there is no instance recorded of the modern practice of
praying to departed saints." What becomes of the famous eighth-
century litany to the Immaculate Virgin ? Why, in the Stowe Missal
which was under Mr. Warren's eye when writing, there are prayers to
the saints. Their intercession is asked in folio 28& : " Omnium quoque
sanctorum pro nobis Dominum Deum nostrum exorare dignentur."
Again, in folio 39a, the prayers of the martyrs are asked for the living
and dead : " Orent pro nobis sancti martyres et pro defunctis." 6. In
page 6 it is stated, that " customs and ritual peculiar to the ancient
Church of the country existed long after the eighth century, namely,
the commencement of Lent, on the first Monday of Lent." With all
respect, this was not peculiar to any of the Celtic churches. We learn
on the authority of Dom. Mabillon that for centuries Lent began on a
Monday in the Roman Church. f 7. It is asserted, in page 140, that
" there does not appear to have been a daily Eucharist in the Celtic
Church, but only on Sundays," &c. Now, the contradictory is estab-
lished by Celtic documents. Thus, in the " Leabhar Breac " we read,
" As it was profitable formerly to believe in the Divinity under the
lowly form of humanity, so is it now to believe in it under the
appearance of bread. Jesus Christ blesses and sanctifies the poor
elements every day."]: So again, an Irish writer, commenting on the
Lord's Prayer, after giving several explanations of the petition, " Give
us this day our daily bread," says that ^' it could signify the body and
blood of Christ, which the faithful receive in the Sacrament every daij
from the dish of the Lord — that is, from the holy altar. "§

Facts relied on by Mr. AVarren for opposition to Eome, when
properly understood, lead up to connection with it, and dependence on
it. In good truth a volume might be filled with evidence in favour of
a direct connection between Roman and Celtic practices. At the same
time, it may be admitted that many practices in the Latin Church had
an Eastern origin. Even traces of an Eastern origin may be seen in
parts of the Mass j and there was a time when, previous to the Eastern
schism, as a mark of union and affection, the lessons and canticles were
from time to time read in Greek in the Western Church. But though
every bit of discipline in the Western Church were to have come frorii
the East to us, as did come Christianity and the first Roman pope, still
it would not affect in the least the belief of catholics in the Papal
Supremacy.

S. M.

* *' Leabhar Breac," p. 257, col. 2.
+ "Mus. Ital." vol. 11. p. 127. + "Leabhar Breac," p. 257, col. \.

§ Ihid. p. 249, col. L

Notices of Boohs. 297

Sancti Bonaventurce Orel. Minor. Episc. Card, et Eccl. Doct. Seraph.
Breviloqiimm, adjectis illustrationibus ex aliis operibus ejusd. doct.
depromptis, &c. Opera et studio P. Antonii Makiae a Yicetia,

► Kefor, Prov. Venetae Lector. Theol. et Ministri Provincialis.
Editio altera ab auctore recognita. Friburgi Brisgoviae : Herder.
1881.

Lexicon Bonaventunanum PhilosophicO'Theologicum, in quo termini
theologici, distinctiones et effata prajcipua Scholasticorum a
Seraphico Doctore declarantur. Opera et studio P.P. Antonii
Mariae a Yicetia et Joannis a Rubino. Venetiis : Typographia
^miliana. 1880.

A LTHOUGH the Franciscan Fathers of the Convent of Onarachi,
j\. near Florence, are busily occupied in the preparation of a new
and critical edition of Saint Bonaventure's Works, we are, neverthe-
less, deeply indebted to Father Antonio of Vicenza for his new
edition of the immortal ^' Breviloquium." Catholics, and I may add,
Protestants of the old orthodox party, are unanimous in praise of this
theological compend.

The judgment passed on it by Professor Bauragarten-Crusius is
well known in Germany. The " Breviloquium," he said, is the " all but
best theology of the middle ages." Indeed, it seems as if the
Seraphic doctor had concentrated into this small volume the most
sublime theology of all his other works. Hence his style is sometimes not
without difficulty for the student, whilst every page contains a world
of the deepest ideas, which he, in a masterly manner, deduces from
first principles of philosophy and theology. The treasures of the
" Breviloquium "require, therefore, a solid commentary and elucidatory
notes. Commentaries drawn from other works of the saint will, beyond
any doubt, be all the more acceptable, as they show his theological
system and terminology, and make the author supply his own key to
the difficulties of the " Breviloquium," Father Maria Antonio has done
his work in a manner that will commend itself to all Catholic divines.
In the first place, the accuracy of the text deserves a special mention.
It was not printed until the best editions of the European libraries had
been consulted. Every page of this edition testifies to the learned
Father's ability and diligence. Secondly, the editor has accompanied
the text by foot notes gathered from the Councils of Trent and the
Vatican, from decrees of Popes, and decisions of Roman congregations.
The important letters of Leo XIII., commenting on the sacrament of
matrimony, the disastrous theories of socialism, and the value of the
litudy of philosophy are largely quoted. In explaining Sc. Bonaven-
ture's treatise on the creation of the world, our editor very appropri-
ately shows the impossibility of reconciling the Seraphic doctor's
opinion with Mr. Darwin's system.

The reader will be aware of the fact that, during the contests of some
Catholic scholars in our century, St. Bonaventure has been brought
forward as a champion of Ontologism ; but very wrongly, as every-
body may learn from the comments, pp. 126-128, taken from

298 Notices of Books,

2 dist. 3, p. 2, a. 2, q. 2, where our saint formally lays down the
principle that our natural cognition of God starts from the contempla-
tion of the world surrounding us : " Deus cognoscitur per creaturaa
tantum a viatoribus." Each chapter of this edition is followed by
copious quotations from other works of the saint ; and each of the seven
parts of the " Breviloquium" is enriched with special " tables," giving
at a glance the v/hole of the subjects treated. Elaborate indices are also
added, and much facihtate the use of the volume.

The same editor, in conjunction with Father Eubino, gives us the
"Lexicon Bonaventurianum," the value of which will be fully appre-
ciated after the publication of the new edition of the saint's works.
It is composed of three parts : the first explains philosophical terms ;
the second, "distinctions;" the third, "effata," or " theoremata."
Any one wishing to study St. Bonaventure successfully, could scarcely
find more trustworthy guides than these two volumes.

Bellesheim.

Die geJieimen Gesellschaften in Spanien und Hire Stellung zur Kirche
unci Staat; von ihrem Eindringen in das K'dnigreich bis zum Tode
Ferdinand's VII. Von Dr. Heinrich BRiJCK, Professor
der Theologie am bischoflichen Seminar zu Mainz. Mainz :
Kirchheim. 1881. (History of the Secret Societies in Spain,
and their position towards Church and State.)

CATHOLICS, not only in Germany, but all over the world, will
read this book with great interest. It affords plenty of informa-
tion about the destructive agency of secret societies, and clearly shows
what sort of fate is reserved for Governments that despise the teachings
of the Catholic Church, and trust to the counsels and guidance of her
most bitter enemies. In the introduction our author gives most
accurate details about the first arrival and propagation of the secret
societies in Spain; afterwards he treats, in four chapters: (1), the
struggles of those societies to obtain influence (pp. 14-74) ; (2), the
dominion of the secret societies (pp. 74-124) ; (3), persecution and sup-
pression of the Church by means of the secret societies (pp. 125-2 61) ;
(4), the secret societies after the re-establishment of the Government, to
the death of Ferdinand VII. Professor Briick, as a true historian,
never brings forward his own opinion, but he makes the leading
Spanish statesmen and the freemasons themselves the dramatis
personce of his work. That work is the more valuable because of a
most rare collection of Spanish books referring to the period, which
he has had the good fortune to employ in its composition. I may
mention the " Biblioteca de Religion 6 sea Coleccion de obras contra la
incredulidad y errores de estos ultimos tiempos," which comprises not
less than twenty-five volumes. Also, the " Historias de las Sociedades
Secretas, antiguas y modernas en Espaiia y especialmente de la Franc
Masoneria, por Vincente de la Fuente ;" and the " Coleccion eclesiastica
Espaiiola comprensiva de los Breves de N. S., notas del Nuncio,
representaciones de los Obispos." The results of the author's able

Notices of Boohs, 299

quiry are : (1), that the Spanish revolutions under Ferdinand VII. were
the work of the secret societies, who employed for their anti-religious
purposes high officers of the army ; and that the bulk of the Catholic
people did not consent in the least ; (2), that what the societies aimed
at was the oppression of the Catholic Church ; (3), inquiring into the
•causes which most helped the revolutionary agency of the secret
societies, we find that, besides the great irregularities in the public
administration, it was the JEnglish Government which unremittingly
protected the revolution in Spain. But the more cruel the hard-
ships which the Church and priests had to undergo, the more do
the zeal, doctrine, and apostolic patience of the defenders whom God
raised up to her claim our admiration. The bishops were ably supported
by the Nuncio Giustiniani, who, as a clever canonist, unveiled the
sophisms resorted to by the Government in their decrees against the
liberties of the Church. It is curious that in the Church politics of
Spain, as originated by Gallicanism, Jansenism, and Napoleonism, no
attempt was made to introduce civil marriage 5 this gloomy institu-
tion, however, is to be obtruded on the Spanish Church of our own
day. We cannot but earnestly recommend this excellent historical
work. Bellesheim.

Lex Salica : The Ten Texts ivith The Glosses, and The Lex Emendata.
Synoptically Edited by J. H. Hessels. With Notes on the
Frankish words in the " Lex Salica," by H. Kern, Professor of
Sanskrit in the University of Leiden. London : John Murray.
1880.

FEW historical materials have remained in a more unsatisfactory
condition than the laws of the barbarian nations which occupied
the various members of the ruined Western Empire. There has been
no lack of editions, and there is generally no lack of manuscripts ; but
the very multitude and dispersion of these latter have made it, until
quite recent times, a difficult, if not impossible task for an editor not
merely to master, but even to ascertain, the extant material. Though
numerous and ancient, the manuscripts not infrequently come from
the hands of scribes who did not understand what they were cojDying,
whilst the legal texts themselves varied in the course of time to meet
changed conditions.

The " Lex Salica," to facilitate the study of which the volume under
notice has been issued, is amongst the most important of these popular
laws. An eminent jurist has not hesitated, indeed, to assert that its
principles pervaded all the legal systems of Western Europe in the
Middle Ages, found their way with the Normans into England, and
hereby, in the length of centuries have penetrated, through the
<Jolonial empire of Britain, into every part of the world. There may
be sceptics who will not credit the seer in so far reaching a vision.
But the importance of the document is incontestable as presenting the
liveUest picture of the social and political state of those Franks

300 Notices of Boohs.

designated Salian, in contradistinction to their riverain brethren, who
conquered, made themselves a home in, and gave their name to, ancient
GauL

When it is said that (setting aside Hube's j^rint of a single MS. of
no very special value, and one or two reprints of less account) within
the last forty years four editions of the " Lex Salica " have appeared
(those of Pardessus, Waitz, Merkel and Behrend) ; that a fifth by Dr.
Alfred Holder, of Carlsruhe, is in course of publication ; and that
a sixth has been for some time in preparation for the '' Monumenta
Germanise," the appearance of Mr. Hessels' volume may seem to
require a justification, which is to be sought, — and, we venture to
think, will be amply found — in a review of the aims of the various
editors, and the different means adopted to meet the difficulties which
an editor of the " Lex " has to contend with. These difficulties are two-
fold : First, the varying divisions of the subject matter in the various
" families " of manuscripts, and in the different manuscripts of the
same family ; secondly — and this is much more serious — the great and
continual discrepancy between the several texts of the same passage,
complicated again by almost incredible blunders of the scribes to an.
extent which, at times, necessitates a patient comparison one with
another of half-a-dozen corrupt texts before a tolerable, not to say
probable, meaning can be extracted from them.

The adoption of ordinary editorial methods in a case like this must
result in the constitution of a text more or less arbitrary, supported
by an array of various readings so intricate as to be unintelligible.
This very practical consideration induced Pardessus, who was the first
to undertake, or rather publish the results of, an examination of the
manuscripts themselves on an extensive scale, to select eight texts
which he printed in full, one after another, in a quarto volume in
1843. Waitz had regard in his edition to the four manuscripts only
which are agreed to represent the earliest extant redaction, and
attempted to construct therefrom a text which should come, as near as
possible, to the lost original. Merkel's and Behrend's editions, though
hardly exceeding the size of a pamphlet, are not restricted like that of
Waitz to a single class of manuscripts, but are intended in the smallest
possible space to take account of the various families, and include as
appendices later edicts and capitulars and other relative documents.
Both are meant primarily for the use of the professor and his pupils
in the schools. Merkel adopted in general Pardessus's first text for
his print of the " Lex " as a whole. This was followed by the additions
and most important variants of the other texts, each text being taken
separately by itself. Behrend's edition avoided the defects of this faulty
and very inconvenient arrangement by bringing together the additions
and a selection of various readings in their proper place under
each titulus and section to which they belong. Holder, whose work
is not completed, has reverted to the method of Pardessus, inasmuch
as he prints the text of each important manuscript in full ; but instead
of binding up all in a single volume, he devotes a separate fasciculus
to every one (sometimes to two), and his exactitude in detail goes to

JS^otices of Boohs. 301

the point of giving what is equivalent to a facsimile reproduction of
the MSS.

The drawbacks of each of these plans for minute and independent
examination and study are evident. Pardessus and Holder do, indeed,
contemplate affording the material itself sufficiently full and complete ;
but in neither case is the essential condition fulfilled of presentino- in
one view all the various forms in which each passage of the "Lex" has
come down to us. Mr. Hessels has carried out what others have
desired to do, but despaired of doing, on account of typographical
(among other) difficulties. His quarto gives (every two pages being
divided into nine columns) in one view the eight texts in full of Par-
dessus, on a recollation of the manuscripts, with the necessary various
readings, — the whole reduced to the order of the texts of the oldest
redaction. The ninth column is devoted to " observations," — in the
main, a series of useful references to parallel passages of other of
the popular laws. To state so much gives an altogether inadequate
idea of the pains taken by the editor to bring something of clearness
into an intricate document, which cannot but be troublesome to deal
Avith. The general disposition, and the particular arrangements of the
Tolume, betoken a nice consideration of the best means of easing the
labours of the scholar who would undertake a study of the "Lex
Salica." The type is small, but admirably clear ; the various readings
are conveniently distributed. The general introduction, and the pre-
liminary observations to the prologues and various appendices, whilst
studiously concise and business like, say all that is necessary for the
immediate purpose. The reproduction of the MSS. is not so minute
as that of Dr. Holder ; that it is reasonably sufficient for all possible
purposes may appear from the fact that the letters represented in the
manuscripts by contractions are given in the print in italics ; whilst
the texts issued contemporaneously by Holder afford a proof, which
cannot but be gratifying to Hessels, of his own general exactitude.
Reference is facilitated by the numbering of each column of text ; the
index is remarkably full (125 small print quarto columns, as compared
with 27 octavo pages in Behrend's edition) and is not the least useful part
of the volume ; though called glossarial, it is not an index of meanings,
but rather a index of reference to the passages in the " Lex " where each
word is to be found, in fact a verbal concordance. Lastly, the notes
of Professor Kern on the so-called " Malberg Glosses," occupying
about a third part of the book, form a sort of perpetual commentary
on these, almost the only extant, remains of ancient dialect of the
Salian Franks, and carry forward the investigations of which the first
fruits were recorded in his work on the subject published in
1869.

Mr. Hessels professedly limits himself to the task of supplying
materials and fiicilities for a thorough study of the " Lex Salica," and
disclaims all intention of giving " what is usually called a ' critical '
edition." This latter, in fact, he does not give. For such an edition
we must doubtless look to that which is now preparing for the " Monu-
menta." Withouc presuming to detract beforehand from the value of

302 Notices of Boohs. ^

this future edition, we yet cannot but express a conviction that the-
utility of Mr. Hessels' volume to those who have occasion to occupy
themselves seriously with this most important of the barbarian laws,
will outlast the appearance of any edition, however critical and however-
extensive the apparatus on which it may be based.

Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous. By Abram J. Ryan
(" Father Ryan"). Baltimore : John B. Piet. 1880.

THIS handsome volume of ''Poems "is introduced to us by tAvo
"Prefaces" — one by the author, the other by the publisher.
The publisher may not, possibly, be a critic ; one would hardly think.
he is. His preface is extremely laudatory, and would lead us to think
that Father Ryan has already taken a high place among the Immortals.
The writer says that " for years the name of Father Ryan has been a
household word ; it is known wherever the English language is
spoken, and everywhere it is reverenced as the appellation of a true
child of song." "These Poems," he says, " have moved multitudes;
they have thrilled the soldier on the eve of battle, and quickened the
matrial impulses of a chivalric race ; they have soothed the soul-
wounds of the suffering ; and they have raised the hearts of men in
adoration and benediction to the great Father of all." This is enthu-
siastic language, and it makes one feel that, if it is all true, one is not
quite au niveau with the poetical literature of the day. But when we
turn to Father Ryan's " Preface," the honest, outspoken estimate he-
makes of himself rather re-assures us. " These Verses." he says (" which
some friends call by the higher title of Poems — to which appellation
the author objects), were written at random — off and on, here, there,
anywhere — ^just when the mood came, with little study, and less of
art, and always in a hurry." These words give us a true insight into
these Poems. They are the thoughts of a poetical nature thrown off
at random, and without much labour. But perhaps it is for this
reason that there is more soul and fire in many of them, and that they
drop sparks that kindle and glow into the hearts of those who read.
"We may say, without fear of exaggeration, of Father Ryan, what a bril-
liant poet of our day says of Collins, that he has in him "a pulse of
inborn music, irresistible and indubitable ;"and we can understand why,
in a time of excitement and under the thrill of the trumpet-blast of
war, the people of South America should feel that Father Ryan's
verses gave expression to their heart-throbs.

We give a specimen of his patriotic verses, entitled

"THE SWORD OF ROBERT LEE."

Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright,

Flashed the sword of Lee !
Far in the front of the deadly fight,
High o'er the brave in the cause of Right,
Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light.

Led us to victory.

J

Notices of Books. 308

Out of its scabbard, where, full long,

It slumbered peacefully,
Boused from its rest by the battle's song.
Shielding the feeble, smiting the strong,
Guarding the right, avenging the wrong,

Gleamed the sword of Lee.

Forth from its scabbard, high in air

Beneath Virginia's sky —
And they who saw it gleaming there,
And knew who bore it, knelt to swear
That where that sword led, they would daro

To follow — and to die.

Out of its scabbard ! Never hand

Waved sword from stain as free,
Nor purer sword led braver band,
Nor heroes bled for a brighter land,
Nor brighter land had a cause so grand,

Nor cause a chief like Lee !

Forth from its scabbard ! How we prayed

That sword might victor be ;
And when our triumph was delayed,
And many a heart grew sore afraid.
We still hoped on while gleamed the blade

Of noble Robert Lee.

Forth from its scabbard all in vain

Bright flashed the sword of Lee ;
'Tis shrouded now in its sheath again.
It sleeps the sleep of our noble slain,
Defeated, yet without a stain,

Proudly and peacefully.

Some of the "religious" verses have a vividness, and a warmth of
devotion, and a beauty about them that have come straight out of
the heart of the priest. We may venture to say, witiiout fear of
error, that these "Poems" of the Priest-Poet of America will be very
acceptable to many readers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Catholic Controversy: a Reply to Dr. Littledale's ^^ Plain Reasons."
By H. I. D. Eyder, of the Oratory. London : Burns & Oates.

1881.

" TT is much more easy," as Fr. Ryder justly remarks, "to catch
JL popular approval by the brilliancy of an assault, than to command
it by the steady virtues of a defence." The work which he had
before him was one of extreme difficulty, and we must frankly con-
fess that we thought it well-nigh impossible for anyone to execute it in
a satisfactory way. Dr. Littledale's " Plain Reasons " is a repertory of
almost every charge that can be made against the Catholic Church.
The charges are made with a coarseness and exaggeration which often
overshoots its mark ; and, as Fr. Ryder shows, Dr. Littledale displays
a reckless disregard for accuracy. Still, it needed no small skill to say
so much ill of the Church in so small a compass. Dr. Littledale's style,

30 i Notices of Boohs,

if coarse, is not without incisiveness and nervous force ; there is an
affectation of learning and a tone of confidence in his hook which
cannot have failed to influence many of his readers. He wished to
leave on the rainds of the general Protestant public an impression
very damaging to the Catholic Church, and in this no doubt he has
succeeded. 'Anex^i rbv fxiadov avTov. He has his reward out.

We repeat, it seemed an impossible thing to write an effective
answer. It is a wearisome affair to expose a long series of exaggera-
tions, suppressions of the truth, historical blunders, and the like. The
accusation is usually short and stinging, the answer is apt to be long
and dull. However, Fr. Ryder has succeeded in a task which might
well have been judged desperate, and no competent person will doubt
that he deserves the warmest thanks of educated Catholics. He has
done an enduring service to the Church in England, and a translation
of his little book would prove of signal utility in Germany, and perhaps
in France.

To begin with, he has entirely demolished Dr.Littledale's credit. This,
in our opinion, is the least important of the services he has rendered.
Still, it was well worth doing, for the " Plain Reasons " have been issued
in a stereotyped edition by the Society for Promoting Christian Know-
ledge ; they have been used against us freely enough already, and pro-
mised to become the favourite manual of Protestant controversy. The
demolition is as thorough as any demolition can be. Fr. Ryder has
tracked his adversary through garbled quotations, exposed his ignor-
ance on points of Catholic theology which he presumes to discuss, and
his recklessness in inventing and repeating baseless calumnies. We
need not say how much labour it must have cost to do this ; and while
thanking Fr. Ryder for the laborious learning which he has brought
to bear on his opponent, we cannot help congratulating the former on
the good fortune which has attended him. It was not possible for
Dr. Littledale to produce sound arguments against joining the
Church ; still, he might of course have succeeded in raking up cases of
real scandal, and so contrived to help Protestant prejudice, without
sinning against historical truth. As it is, a strange fatality appears to
have attended Dr. Littledale. He collects his materials from Fathers,
mediaeval writers, modern newspapers ; but from whatever source his
statements profess to come, he seldom fails to blunder ludicrously.

Besides this, " Catholic Controversy'' is one of the most interesting
books we ever opened. It cannot fjiil to absorb the attention of the
reader, and no intelligent person with a slight interest in such matters
will be able to lay it down till he has perused it from end to end.
This extraordinary fascination — for we can call it nothing else — is due
partly to the charm of style, which is at least as trenchant as Dr.
Littledale's ; while it has a grace, a fertihty of happy illustration,
and an unfailing urbanity of tone, to none of which qualities Dr.
Littledale can make any claim. It must also be attributed to the fact
that, whereas the " Plain Reasons" is a mere heap of accusations
thrown together without system or order, Fr. Ryder begins with a
luminous treatise on the Papal prerogative as exhibited in Scripture
and tradition ; and even when he is obliged to answer a great number of

r

Notices of Boohs. 305

detailed charges, he cleverly contrives to write a series of short essays
on the devotions, casuistry, &c., of the Church. It is marvellous how-
much matter is packed into these little tractates, how fully and how
profoundly each subject is examined. Indeed, in many instances the
matters are put in a new light, and valuable contributions are made to
theological inquiry. Nothing can be better than the little essay on
the use of the Holy Scriptures, image-worship, or the Catholic idea of
sanctity. It is a triumph of art to have raised controversy to so high
a level, and to have made defence so much more brilliant than attack.
But the reason which gives the highest value to Fr. Ryder's book
is that it is the best manual of controversy which has appeared in
England (or elsewhere, for what we know). It is well called "Catholic
Controversy," for it contains an answer, plain, accurate, and decisive,
to most of the charges current against the Church. Nearly every
priest (and many a layman, now-a-days) is constantly questioned
about the false decretals, anti-popes, the independence of the British
Church, &c, &c. Often, even, a well-read man does not know where
to turn for the answer he needs. Fr. Eyder has supplied the deside-
ratum. His book ought to be in the hands of every priest and of
every educated convert. *' Good wine needs no bush," and to com-
mend Fr. Ryder's book to those who have seen it would be waste of
words. But we write in the hope of inducing our readers to look at
it for themselves. If the book is not bought up with avidity and
enthusiasm, it speaks little either for the discernment or the gratitude
of English Catholics. Protestants have made the most of a bad cause,
still more badly argued. We ought to see that we make the most of a
first-rate manual of controversy written in defence of our faith, and
evidently the result of long and self-denying toil. We ought to add,
that the publishers have done their part of the work admirably.

It is perhaps a clumsy addition to this notice, still we wish to take
this opportunity of adding two remarks of our own on Dr. Littledale's
scholarship — the first relating to the meaning of the word Peter, the
second to the division of the Decalogue.

Dr. Littledale writing, we think, in the Contemporary, charged Mr.
Arnold with Ultramontane audacity, and, indeed, with dishonesty, for
asserting that irirpos meant " rock," whereas it signifies '' stone," TreVpd
being the word for rock. It may be worth while to make an extract
from Meyer's " Commentary," not only because Meyer's reputation for
scholarship is of the highest, but because he gives proof: "TrcVpos —
appellativum— thou, art a rock. The form Trerpos occurs also in classical
writers, and that not only in the signification stone (whatever the
distinction between irerpos and nerpa may be in Homer), but also in
that of rock. (Plato, Ax. 371, E.— 2i(rv(/)ov Tr^rpos, Soph., Phil. 272.
O. C. 19. 1591. Pind., Ncm. 4, 46. 10, 126.) Jesus declares Peter
to be a rock," &c. &c. We don't think Meyer can be accused of
audacity for stating the plain facts of the Greek language. At all
events, he cannot be accused of Ultramontane audacity.

" The English division of the Ten Commandments," says Dr. Little-
dale (" Plain Reasons," p. 122), " according to which polytheism is for-
voL. VI. — NO. I. [Third Series.] x

306 Notices of Books.

bidden in the First Commandment, and idolatry in the Second, is that
of the Jews." If Dr. Littledale had studied the criticism of the Old
Testament even superficially, he would have been aware that it is
nothing of the kind. Perhaps it once was that of the Jews, for it is
recognized by Philo and Josephus, though there is no proof that this
mode of division was ever imiversally received in the Jewish Church.
But (1) the Talmud, the Targum of Jonathan, and the Rabbinical com-
mentators generally, reckon "ten words" of which the first is the preface
— " I am the Lord thy God," &c., the second the prohibition of poly-
theism and idolatry. This division is maintained by the Jews at the
present day, so that on the point at issue the Jews agree, and have for
anyhow over 1200 years, agreed with us, not, as Dr. Littledale says, with
Cah'inists and Anglicans. Moreover, the modern Catholic division is
the only one consistent with the Hebrew text, as usually found in
MSS. and printed copies. The text of the Decalogue is divided into
ten sections, each parted off by a setuma, and these sections correspond
precisely with our Catholic division. These sections are admitted to
be very ancient, to be older even than the Masoretic text, and the Pro-
testant scholar, Kennicott, found them so marked in 460 out of 694
MSS. which he collated. The facts as here given are familiar to Hebrew
scholars. They will be found in the Commentaries of Kalisch, Ruohl,
and Keil. The first is a very learned Jew, the second a learned
Rationalist, the third a learned Protestant of the Conservative school.
All of them are opposed to the Catholic mode of division, but they
know their business, and most assuredly would decline to go to work
like Dr. Littledale. W. E. Addis.

The Life of Christ. By S. Bona venture. Translated and Edited by
the Rev. W. W. Hutching s, M.A., Sub-warden of the Plouse of
Mercy, Clewer. London: Rivingtons, 1881.

¥E regard with mixed feelings the dealings of Anglican editors
wdth the writings of Catholics. We are, of course, very glad that
such writings should be made accessible in any degree " to those who
are without." On the other hand, in their passage through heretical
intellects they invariably suffer, even if they escape the distortion and
perversion which are euphemistically called " adaptation." Mr.
Hutchings' version seems to have been executed with care and with
honesty of purpose. But the spirit in which he has approached his
task may be sufficiently inferred from the following sentence in his
Preface : "Here and there," he tells us, "an expression has been slightly
modified, or left out, with regard to the Mother of our Lord. Even
the title, * Mother of God,' though it has the authority of a General

Council, has not been inserted It cannot be denied that the

M-armth of S. Bonaventure's character, and his passion for
mysticism, betrayed him into expressions of excessive devotion
towards the Blessed Virgin in some of his works'' (Int., p. xvi.). Now
we put it to Mr. Hutchings — we trust we may do so without offence —
who is he that he should presume to sit in judgment upon a Saint and
Doctor of the Church ? and lay to the charge of God's elect either
" excess " or *' deficiency " of devotion ?

THE

DUBLIN REVIEW,

OCTOBER, 1881.

AiiT. I.— THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUHY.
Part. IV.

1. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, "iiy

Leslie Stephen. In Two Volumes. London: 1876.

2. History of England in the Eighteenth Century. By

William Edward Hartpole Lecky. Vols. I. and II.
London: 1878.

3. The Works of Lord Macaulay. In Eight Volumes. Edited

by Lady Trevelyan. London : 1873.

4. Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise. Par H. Taine. Five

Volumes. Second Edition. Paris : 1869.

5. Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest

Period to 1803. By Cobbett, Wright, and others. In
Thirty-six Volumes. London : 1806—1836. .

6. The Works of the Rev. John Wesley. In Fourteen Volumes,

London: 1829.

7. The Constitutional History of England from the Accession

of Henry VII. to the Death of Oeorge II. By Henry
Hallam. In Three Volumes. Eighth Edition. London :
1855.

8. The Constitutional History of England since the Accession

of Qeorge III 1760—1860. By Sir Thomas Eeskine
May, K.C.B. In Three Volumes. Sixth Edition. London :.
1878.

I APPROACH in this paper the last portion of a task to
which I set myself two years ago. I shall now endeavour
to complete, in such rough outline as is possible to me here,
the survey upon which I then entered of the political and
VOL. VI. — NO. II. IThird Series.'] y

308 The Eighteenth Century.

spiritual history of Europe during the hundred years between
the English and the French Revolutions — that is to say, be-
tween 1G88 and 1788. It is not one of the least of the disadvan-
tages of dealing with so large a subject in a periodical publi-
cation, that a writer is obliged either to repeat himself, or to
impose upon his readers references to what he has previously
written — references which, from lack of leisure or patience, are
seldom, in fact, made. I prefer the first of these alternatives,
and choose rather to risk the reproach of wearying by '* a twice-
told tale " than to present the several instalments of my essay
without the elucidations which may be necessary for rightly
judging of my argument. My general principle is this : that in
looking at history large views alone are safe and scientific. A
great writer has well remarked that much which passes current
under that name is " a tissue of dry and repulsive nomenclature.'''
It is not too much to say that the matter which forms the staple
of the older annalists and chroniclers is really the portion of the
past which is of the least importance to us. Wars, treaties,
dynasties, are not the most noteworthy phenomena of the
public order. Not only religion, laws, literature, manners, but
«ven trade, agriculture, and the inventions and discoveries of
the physical sciences, are of more account than the battles, the
diplomacy, the generation of monarchs. It has been the work of
the last hundred years to revolutionize, among much else, the
writing of history ; to turn it from a mere narrative into a
science. One effect of this change has been greatly to enlarge
the task of the historian. . It is not enough that he should pre-
sent correctly the facts — the salient facts, that is — of the epoch
with which he concerns himself. He must present them in their
due proportion and proper collocation, and point to their signifi-
cance. The civilization of a people is but its history expressed
in its manners. The phenomena of national life are but the
visible manifestations of the spirit which animates society. To
pass from phenomena to ideas, beneath ^Hhe garment of time''
to find the " time spirit " — such is now the high argument to
which the historian must address himself. This has been well
pointed out by one who had a peculiar right to be heard upon
such a subject, and whose words I gladly borrow to supplement
and authorize my own.

When you have the facts which history furnishes [writes the late
Mr. Brewer] there is yet something more required, a power of insight
into these facts and their meaning which, if not native, is only to be
acquired by patient and humble study. History is thus a part of
that great revelation which all arts, all science, and all literature is
gradually unfolding before our eyes. It is helping us, like these
other branches of philosophy, to see things as they are ; it is help-

The Eighteenth Century, 309

ing to disencumber us of those images and delusions— that slavery
to present sense and present objects — which stand between us and
the truth. Nay, more, it is bringing us to the knowledge of what
is true, permanent and substantial, apart from the mere outward
forms and phantoms we are so apt to mistake for it ; enabling us
to disengage the errors, dogmas, and systems of men from the
truths which they sought to maintain ; to see a light in the thickest
darkness, an order, not of human but divine appointment, vindi-
cating itself among the loudest clamours and deepest confusions of
our race.*

Such were some of the thoughts present to my mind when I
began to write about the Eighteenth Century. " To grasp its
■dominant ideas, and to view its transactions in the light of
them/'' was, as it seemed to me, the only way of forming a true
-conception of its history. And throughout the continent of
Europe the ideas dominant appeared to be those introduced or
rather reaffirmed four hundred years asro. " I resrard the
•eighteenth century," I wrote, ''^as the closing years of a period
in the history of Europe ; as the years in which the ideas
Animating that period are to be seen in their ultimate develop-
jment and final resolution. I speak of the period which began with
'the movement known, according as one or another of its aspects
(is contemplated, as the Protestant Reformation, the E/Cvival of
Letters, the Rise of the New Monarchy, and which ended with
the French Revolution — a period which may, with much pro-
priety, be designated the Renaissance Epoch. For this movement
was essentially a re-birth, and what was re-born was Materialism."
I went on to observe how this character is written upon it, as
in every other department of human life, so especially upon its
politics and its philosophy, and how in the public order its most
perfect type is presented to us in its Absolutist Monarchies,
modelled upon the Louis Quatorze pattern, and in the intel-
lectual province in the teaching of the French Encyclopaedists.
The Eighteenth Century, I remarked, was emphatically le siecle
Frangais. ^' Everywhere, throughout the continent of Europe,
while the monarchs of the age, following the example of Louis
the Fourteenth, were triumphing over the last remains of
mediaeval liberty, and carrying to its complete development the
Csesarism which is the political idea of the Renaissance, its
intellectual idea, embodied in the doctrines of the philosophes,
issued in ferocious animalism." So much must suffice here as to the
nature and scope of my argument. Those who would follow it
in detail I must refer to the papers in which I have traced the
progress of the Renaissance idea, first in the public order, and then

* "Enghsh Studies," p. 381.

Y 2

310 : The Eighteenth Century.

in the philosophical, throughout continental Europe during the
last century. I now turn to our country. I shall in the first
place point out how remarkable a contrast it presents to the
general course of European development ; and secondly, I shall
inquire to what cause our happiness in this respect is due.

Lord Stanhope introduces his well-known historical work"^ by
instituting a comparison between the era of the Georges in
England and the era of the Antonines in Eome. I do not know
whether the analogy is very felicitous ; but certainly we may say-
that the whole period of our history with which I am here con-
cerned— the century between 1688 and 1788 — and not merely
that portion of it with which Lord Stanhope deals, has, in
common with the age of the philosophic Caesars, the notes
of material greatness and successful war. And we may yield
full assent, too, to his proposition, that with us this prosperity
did not depend upon the character of a single man. Home, so long
accustomed to conquer others, had made "a shameful conquest of
herself" long before the time of the Antonines ; and underneath
the fallacious glories of a benevolent despotism, the bases of the
public order were swiftly and irretrievably decaying. The founda-
tions whereon the greatness of our country rested in the last
century, were ancient free institutions, which as it advanced
were continuously strengthened, consolidated, and developed.
From 1688 to 1788 the history of England is essentially the
history of the sure growth of constitutional freedom, of civil and
religious liberty. It is indeed a general law that

checks and disasters
Live in the veins of actions highest reared ;

and the progress of our country in the epoch of which I
am writing is no exception to this law. Thus the age of
Anne was in few particulars a period of improvement : in not
a few it was certainly a period of retrogression. Mr. Lecky
reckons, and I think with justice, the Schism Act passed in
1714 to crush the seminaries of Dissenters, and to deprive
them of the means of educating their children in their own
religious opinions, " one of the most tyrannical measures enacted
in the Eighteenth Century."! And he added, what is un-
doubtedly true, that during the latter years of the Queen's reign,
political and religious liberty were in extreme danger. So, too, the
first twenty years of George lll.'s reign were full of the struggles
of that monarch to increase his prerogative, struggles which, as Sir

* " The History of England from the Peace of Utreckt to the Peace of
Versailles, 1713-1783." By Lord Mahon. In seven volumes. Third
edition. 1853.

t " History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. i. p. 95.

The Eighteenth Century, ' ^11

Erstiae May judiciously observes, produced "the fiercest turbu-
lence and discontent amongst the people, the most signal failures
in the measures of the government, and the heaviest disasters to the
state/'"^ and which had scarcely any other result. But these and
other checks in the development of constitutional freedom were but
transient. As the century goes on, we find the general effect of legis-
lation to be the better assurance and more complete development
of the freedom which is the immemorial heritage of the
English people. It opens with the famous Act for Declaring
the Rights and Liberties of the Subject (1 W. & M. c. 2),
commonly known as the Declaration of Right. It closes with
the solemn acknowledgment made to the Peers on behalf of
the Prince of Wales in the debates upon the Regency Bill, that
*' he understood too well the sacred principles which seated the
House of Brunswick on the throne ever to assume or exercise
any power, be his claim what it might, not derived from the will
of the people, expressed by their representatives and their lord-
ships in Parliament assembled.'-'f And throughout it we find
the same homage paid to those ^*^ sacred principles," not merely
as a rhetorical flourish, but as a reality, expressed in legislation,
embodied in institutions, permeating the political life of the
country. The Act of Settlement of 1701 was the supplement to
the Declaration of Right, which established the Crown upon a
strictly Parliamentary tenure, and effectually disposed of the
superstition that the nation was the property of a particular
family by virtue of an immediate divine right ; while the kindred
-figment of passive obedience received a mortal wound by the
excision from the oath of allegiance of the clause asserting, in
direct opposition to the Great Charter, that the subject might in
no case take up arms against the sovereign. The practice of
strictly appropriating the revenue according to annual votes of
supply, begun in 1689, and ever since continued, has, in Mr.
Hallam's phrase, secured " the transference of the executive
authority from the Crown to the two Houses of Parliament, and
especially the Commons f' the " body which prescribes the
application of the revenue, as well as investigates at its pleasure
every act of the administration."! Hardly a less effective
guarantee of constitutional government was afforded by the
legislation of 1689 regarding the military forces of the Crown.
By the Bill of Rights it is declared unlawful to keep any forces
in time of peace without the consent of Parliament. This con-
sent, by an invariable and wholesome usage, is given only from

* " ConstitutionalHistory," c. i. p. 59. .

t Quoted in Sir Erskine May's " Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 1»U.

X ** Constitutional History," vol. iii. p. 117.

312

The Eighteenth Century.

year to year in the Mutiny Act. " These are the two effectual '
securities against military power : that no pay can be issued to*
the troops without a previous authorization by the Commons in
Committee of Supply^ and by both Houses in an Act of Appro-
priation, and that no officer or soldier can be punished for dis-
obedience, nor any court-martial held, without the annual enact-
ment of the Mutiny Bill. Thus it is strictly true that if the-
King were not to summon Parliament every year, his army would
cease to have a legal existence, and the refusal of either House
to concur in the Mutiny Bill would at once wrest the sword out ^
of his grasp.'-** Nor has the great guarantee for a pure adminis-
tration of justice — the complete independence of its dispensers —
been less carefully and effectually secured. In 1701 the judge?
ceased to be removable, even in theory, at the pleasure of the-
Crown. An Act was passed in that year providing that they
should hold office during good behaviour, subject only to removal
upon the joint address of both Houses of Parliament: while in
1760 it was further enacted that their commissions should no-
longer be determined by the demise of the Crown. Of the
ameliorations introduced into our jurisprudence I can here notice
only two : the abolition by the Bill of Eights of the dispensings
power — the favourite instrument whereby monarchical abso-
lutism made void the law; and the regulation of the law-
regarding treason, by a statute passed in 1695, the effect of which,
and of the complementary Act of Queen Anne, was to put an
end for ever to the shedding of innocent blood in political trials.
The institution of cabinet government, and the existing method
of ministerial responsibility, must in strictness be dated from the
reign of George I., although homogeneous administrations had
been the rule since 17 OS. And if we consider the Parliamentary-
constitution of the country, while there can be no question that,
the composition of the Lower Chamber was theoretically
indefensible, there can be as little question that it practi-
cally worked well. "This House,'' remarked Pitt, in his
Reform speech in 1783, "is not the representative of the people
of Great Britain. It is the representative of ruined and exter-
minated towns, of noble families, of wealthy individuals, of'
foreign potentates."t True. But let us hear Mr. Gladstone on.
the other side : —

"Before 1832 the Parliamentary constitution of our fathers," he-
writes, "was full of flaws in theory, and blots in practice, that could»|
not bear the light. But it was, notwithstanding, one of the Avonders.

* " Constitutional History," vol. iii. p. 149.

t An allusion to the Indian princes, whose agents bought boroughs
at their employers' cost. The Nawaub is said to have had, at one time,,
eight nominees in the House of Commons.

The Eighteenth Century » 313

of the world It was a mosaic, like that cabinet, the cabinet of

Lord Chatham, the composition of which has been embedded by the
eloquence of Mr. Burke in the permanent literature of the country. The
forms and colours of the bits that made it up were, indeed, yet more
curious. It included every variety of franchise, from pure nomination by
an individual, down or up to household suffrage, say I'rom zero to what is
deemed infinity. It gave to the aristocracy and to landed wealth the
preponderance, of which the larger part has now been practically
handed over to wealth at large. Subject always to this confession, it
made an admirable provision for diversity of elements, for the repre-
sentation of mind, for the political training (from youth upwards) of
the most capable material of the country." — The Nineteenth Century ^
November, 1877, p. 540.

But above and beyond all this, the people of England
breathed the air and were filled with the spirit of political
freedom. A limited monarchy, an independent magistracy,
responsible ministers, Parliamentary control of the finances and
of the army, are after all but the guarantees and instruments of
liberty. They secure it if it exists; they provide for its
systematic exercise. But they do not create it ; they do not
even restore it when it has become extinct. As Goethe some-
where remarks, " free government is only possible where men
have learnt to govern themselves." A rising chain of corporate
energies pervading the body politic is the true training ground for
the development of individuality and for the acquisition of the
aptitudes and habits of civic freedom, while it supplies the best
check upon the domination of the central power. Liberty is
impossible in any country when you have nothing but the State
on the one hand and the individual on the other — even if it should
rain ballot boxes. It may exist in its plenitude among a
people where universal sufirage has never been heard of, and the
electoral franchise is in the hands of a few. In England, at
the middle of the last century, out of a population estimated at
eight millions, only some hundred and fifty thousand voted in
the elections for members of Parliament. But throughout the
kingdom there reigned that general political sense, engendered
by ages of local self government and unfettered discussion of
public affairs, which make the true difference between a free and
servile people, and without which what it is the fiishion to call a
plebiscite is merely a gigantic hypocrisy, the expression of millions
of perjuries. In "1695 the Act subjecting the Press to a censor-
ship expired and was not renewed, and thenceforth that " liberty
of unlicensed printing," for which the lofty eloquence of Milton
had pleaded in vain, took its place among the rights of the subject,
and was soon discerned by our statesmen to be '' the greatest
engine of public safety," " the safeguard of all other liberties/''

514 The Eighteenth Century.

It was the special and unique glory of England in the last cen-
tury that her sons enjoyed freedom of thought and speech upon
the most important concerns of society. Then, as now, our
•country was '' dear for her reputation through the world,'' as

The land where, girt by friend or foe,
A man may speak the thing he will.

And this was and is the very life of British liberty.*

"English freedom," as Charles James Fox told the House of
Commons with equal eloquence and truth, " does not depend upon the
executive government, nor upon the administration of justice, nor upon
any one particular or distinct part [of our institutions], nor even upon
[constitutional] forms, so much as it does on the general freedom of
speech and of writing. Speech ought to be completely free, the press
ought to be completely free. What I mean is that any man may write
and print what he pleases, though he is liable to be punished if he abuses
that freedom. This is perfect freedom. For my own part, I have never
heard of any danger arising to a free state from the freedom of the press
or freedom of speech ; so far from it, I am perfectly clear, that a free
state cannot exist without both. It is not the law that is to be found in
books that has constituted the true principle of freedom in any country
at any time. No ! it is the energy, the boldness of a man's mind, which
prompts him to speak not in private, but in large and popular assemblies,
that constitutes, that creates in a state the spirit of freedom. This is
the principle which gives life to liberty; without it the human character
is a stranger to freedom. As a tree that is injured at the root, and
the bark taken off the branches, may live for a while — some sort
of blossom may still remain — but wdll soon wither, decay, and
perish ; so take away the freedom of speech or of writing, and the
foundation of all your freedom is gone. You will then fall, and be
degraded and despised by all the world for your weakness and your
folly, in not taking care of that which conducted you to all your fame,
your greatness, your opulence, and prosperity."!

* I am, of course, writing in view of the real and actual. I am by no
means asserting that in a bygone or an ideal society, recognizing the re-
straints of the supernatural order in its primary laws and with its religious
unity unbroken, the truest liberty of the press might not be best secured
by an ecclesiastical imprimatur. But it is idle to discuss such a Y>omt in
an age when those restraints find no place in civil polity, and that unity
exists only as a recollection or a dream. As Bishop Von Ketteler has
admirably observed, "The world may arrange its relations with the
Church once more in medieeval fashion, if through the mercy of God it
returns once more to the unity of religious conviction. Till then another
foundation is necessary." (" Soil die Kirche allein rechtlos sein ?'*
p. 30.) Catholics, of all men, cannot afford to mistake the hour of the
political clock, or to forget that they are living in the nineteenth century
— not in the thirteenth or the twenty-sixth.

t " Pari. Hist.," vol. xxxii. p. 419. I have taken the liberty to condense
a good deal : in fact, I have j^resented rather a mosaic than an extract
from the speech.

The Eighteenth Century. 315

There is, it is true, one department of human liberty in which,
<iuring the last century, we tind most grievous restrictions still
existing in this country, and that the most precious department,
for as Milton well asks, " Who can be at rest, who can enjoy
anj^thing in this world with contentment, who hath not liberty
to serve God and save his sour-*? In 1688, indeed, the Tolera-
tion Act was passed, which relieved from the penalties of
Elizabethan and Stuart legislation persons dissenting from the
Established Church, provided they took certain oaths and made
certain declarations as to the Trinity, the Sacred Scriptures,
Supremacy and Allegiance, and subscribed a denial of Transub-
stantiation. But this measure left intact the Test and Corpora-
tion Acts, whereby dissidents from the State religion were
disqualified for public life. Nor did it extend any relief to
Catholics. Still, crude and unsatisfactory as this measure now
seems to us, it was supremely distasteful to the High Tories of
the last century, and was in great danger of being repealed
during the closing years of Queen Anne, when the spirit which
found expression in the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts
was rampant. " The effect of these measures," Lord Stanhope
writes, " was to reduce the Protestant Dissenters to great humilia-
tion and depression," and it was not until 1718 that the measure
introduced by the ancestor of that peer brought them relief from
the worst of their grievances. '^ The Test and Corporation Acts,
however, remained upon^the Statute Book a hundred and nine years
more, but remained only like rusty weapons hung in an armoury,
trophies of past power, not instruments of further aggression or
defence. An Indemnity Bill passed every year from the first of
George II. (there were some, but very few exceptions) threw
open the gates of all offices to Protestant Dissenters, as fully as
if the law had been repealed, and if they still wished its repeal
it was because they thought it an insult, not because they felt it
^s an injury. '^"^ Catholics were in a far worse case. Not only
was the persecuting legislation of the Tudors and Stuarts retained
in the Statute Book, but fresh laws were enacted against us ; laws
which, as Mr. Lecky well observes, " constitute the foulest blot
upon the Revolution." It may suffice here to cite the account
of them given by that able and impartial writer : —

To omit minor details, an Act was passed in 1699 by which any
Catholic priest convicted of celebrating Mass, or discharging any
sacerdotal function in England (except in the liouse of an ambassador),
was made liable to perpetual imprisonment ; and, in order that this
law might not become a dead letter, a reward of £100 was offered for
-conviction. Perpetual imprisonment was likewise the punishment to
which any Papist became liable who was found guilty of keeping a

* "History of England from the Pea^e of Utrecht," vol. i. p. 330.

816 The Eighteenth Century.

school, or otherwise undertaking the education of the young. No parent
might send a child abroad to be educated in the Catholic faith, under
penalty of a fine of £100, which was bestowed upon the informer.
All persons who did not, within six months of attaining the age of
eighteen, take the oath, not only of allegiance but also of supremacy,
and subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation, became in-
capable of either inheriting or purchasing land, and the property
they Avould otherwise have inherited passed to the next Protestant
heir. By a law which was enacted in the first year of George I., all
persons in any civil or military office, all members of colleges, teachers,
preachers, and lawyers of every grade, were compelled to take the
oath of supremacy, which was distinctly anti- Catholic as well as the
oath of allegiance, and the declaration against the Stuarts. By the
same law, any two Justices of the Peace might, at any time, tender
to any Catholic the oaths of allegiance and supremacy if they regarded
him as disaffected. They might do this without any previous com-
plaint, or any evidence of his disaffection ; and if he refused to take
them he was liable to all the penalties of recusancy, which reduced
hiln to a condition of absolute servitude. A popish recusant was
debarred from appearing at court, or even coming within ten miles of
London, from holding any office or employment, from keeping arms in
his house, from travelling more than five miles from home unless by
licence, under pain of forfeiting all his goods, and from bringing any
action at law or suit in equity. A married woman recusant forfeited
two-thirds of her jointure or dower, was disabled from being executrix
or administratrix to her husband, or obtaining any part of his goods,
and was liable to imprisonment, unless her husband redeemed her by
a ruinous fine. All Popish recusants, within three months of convic-
tion, might be called upon by four Justices of the Peace to renounce
their errors, or to abandon the kingdom ; and if they did not depart,
or if they returned without the king's licence, they were liable to the
penalty of death. By this Act the position of the Catholics became
one of perpetual insecurity. It furnished a ready handle to private
malevolence, and often restrained the Catholics from exercising even
their legal rights. Catholics who succeeded in keeping their land were
compelled to register their estates, and all future conveyances and
wills relating to them. They were subjected by an annual law to a
double land-tax, and in 1722 a special tax was levied upon their
property.*

It is melancholy to consider how little, during the period with
which I am concerned, was done for our relief. The only two
measures of redress, indeed, which are worthy of mention, are an
Act of 1716, which partially prevented sales by Catholiss of their
real estate from being questioned, and an Act of 1778, whereby
a new oath was devised for our benefit. It made no reference to
the Pope^s spiritual authority, but only denied to his Holiness
temporal or civil jurisdiction in this realm. And upon taking

* " History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. i. p. 275.

!

The Eighteenth Century, 317

it. Catholics were allowed to inherit or purchase land, and to say
or hear Mass without a penalty. It must not be supposed, how-
ever, that there were wanting among our rulers men of large
and generous views, who, long before 1778, would have extended
to us this or a greater measure of relief. Thus, in 1718, a
scheme for greatly mitigating the severity of the penal laws
against us, was proposed by Lord Stanhope ; and, to go back
still further, it is certain that nothing would have been more
agreeable to William III., both as consonant with his own wise
principles of polity, and as acceptable to the Pope and Emperor,
to whom he was under such great obligations, than the extension
to his Catholic subjects of the same measure of religious freedom
which he was able, in spite of Tory opposition, to secure to-
Protestant Nonconformists. "No measure,""' as Hallam justly
observes, " would have been more politic, for it would have dealt
to the Jacobite cause a more deadly wound than any which
double taxation or penal laws were able to eti'ect."' And that
was, probably, one of the main reasons why^ the High Tories
persistently opposed it. So far as the Whigs were concerned, it
is quite certain that their hatred of Catholicism was rather
political than religious. They saw it, not as it had existed in the
middle ages — the mother and nurse of civil freedom — but as it
was presented to them in contemporary France, Italy and Spain,
the accomplice and instrument of despotism : they saw it in the
light in which James II. had exhibited it, as the object for which
he had sought to overthrow the ancient liberties of England.
The worst foes of Catholics at that period, as indeed, often before
and since, have been those of their own household. Their cause
was identified in the popular mind — and not unreasonably — with
that of the worst of kings ; the shepherd of the people whose
favourite under-shepherds were, Jeffreys and Kirke : the vassal
of the tyrant who had revoked the Edict of Nantes and ordered
the dragonades. Still, as a matter of fact, terrible as is the
show which the anti-Catholic legislation in force up to 177S
makes in the Statute Book, there can be no question that the
position of the small and unpopular remnant that adhered to the
ancient faith in this country, was iar better than that of their
brethren in any foreign Protestant land, except Holland and the
dominions of the HohenzoUerns, and infinitely superior to that
of the Protestant minority in any Catholic State. " It is cer-
tain,"" writes Mr. Lecky— and the facts well warrant his assertion
— '^hat during the greater part of the reigns of Anne,
George I., and George II., the Catholic worship in private
houses and chapels was undisturbed, that the estates of Cathclics
were regularly transmitted from father to son, and that they had
no serious difficulty in educating their children. The Govern-

^18 The Eighteenth Century.

ment refused to put the laws against the priests into execution,
and legal evasions were employed and connived at."^ In Ireland
it was very different, as we all know too well, and are likely to i
know even better by the teachings of bitterest experience. For i
the stern law holds good of nations as of individuals, ^^What-
soever a man soweth that shall he also reap :" and the full harvest!
of the Irish penal laws is by no means gathered in as yet. There
is absolutely no parallel to them in the annals of religious persecu-
tion. For the object with which they were devised was not to I
crush a sect, but to deprive a nation of the most sacred rights of
human nature, and to condemn it to spiritual death by a prolonged]
agony of torture. It is not necessary that I should dwell uponj
i:he details of this horrible legislation. William III., there is
good ground to believe, contemplated, and would gladly have
carried out, a very different policy. " Touched by the fate of a
gallant nation that had made itself the victim to French
promises," writes an authorityf whom there is no reason for sus-
pecting, '^the Prince of Orange, before the decisive battle of
Aghrim, offered to Irish Catholics the free exercise of their
religion, half the churches of the kingdom, half the employments,
civil and military too, and the moiety of their ancient properties.-"
The offer was not accepted; could not, indeed, have been accepted in
the circumstances of the time ; and such terms, which, favourable
as they were, fall far short of the requirements of justice, have never
^gain been tendered to the Irish nation. " The victorious party,''
as Hallam writes, " saw no security but in a system of oppression.''
It was, however, under the last of the Stuarts that this system
attained its complete proportions, and was developed in its full
ferocity. The accession of Anne was followed by the enactment
of the abominable Statute, which, under the pretence of pre-
venting "the further growth of popery/' reduced the people of
Ireland to a condition in many respects worse than that of
Muscovite serfs. From the accession of the House of Hanover'
their position improved ; slowly and intermittently indeed, but
surely. The Statute of the sixth year of George I., asserting the
right of the English Parliament to bind the people and kingdom
of Ireland, was, it is true, an odious mark of degradation ; but
it certainly did not affect for the worse the actual government of
the country. It is certain, too, that under George II. there was a
considerable revival of Irish manufactures and commerce. By
the middle of the century Catholic worship was practically
tolerated. In 1778 an Act was carried the value of which is

* " History of England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. i. p. 304.

t Swift's Works. Scott's edition, vol. xviii. p. 13. The authority is
Sir Charles Wogan, in a letter addressed to Swift, where he relates this
•offer to have been made to his uncle Tyrconnel, by William.

The Eighteenth Century. 319'

sufficiently evidenced by Mr. Fronde's complaint, that it ^'is the
first in the series of measures, yet perhaps unended, which are
called justice to Ireland.-"^ It enabled Irish Catholics once
again to acquire an interest in the lands of their fathers, although
only "for a term of 999 years/' It was followed in 1782 by
the Catholic Relief Act, by which the Catholic people of Ireland
were enabled to buy, sell, and bequeath, like anyone else, and so
recovered their civil rights, although still excluded from political
life. In the same year the Act of George I. was repealed, and
the Irish Parliament — not, it must be owned, a body which
awakens much enthusiasm — obtained the sole right to make laws
for their country.

Such, in brief outline, is the constitutional progress achieved
in these islands during the hundred years which preceded the
French Revolution. Rough and imperfect as the sketch is, it is
enough to indicate that England was treading, in the political
order, a path diametrically opposite to that of continental Europe.
And whatever blots there may have been upon our polity, it
shows like utter whiteness beside the darkness of the house of
bondage in which the rest of mankind languished. We can
easily understand the enthusiam which English freedom awakened
in the breasts of the most accomplished and clear-sighted of
foreign observers. It is no wonder that Voltaire, superficial as
was his acquaintance with the actual working of our Constitution,
found our country the only one in the world where the monarch
was powerful for good and impotent for evil, where the nobles
lacked alike vassals and insolence, and the people shared in the
government without prejudice to order.f It is no wonder that
Montesquieu, who visited England in 1729, described our system
as the " living incarnation of the spirit of liberty .'^J It is no
w^onder that d'Argenton, writing some years later,§ discerned in
the influence and example of England a formidable danger to
French absolutism. '' II souffle d'Angleterre," he observes, '^ un
vent philosophique : on entend murmurer ces rriots de liberte, de
rdpublicanisme ; deja les esprits en sont penetres : et Ton sait k.
quel point I'opinion gouverne le monde.'''

* " The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," book vi. c. i.

t *' Lettres snr les Anglais," Lettre viii.

% "Esprit des Lois," Book xix. c. 27; and he elsewhere writes:—
" LAngleterre est a present le plus libre pays qui soit au monde, je n'en
excepte aucune republique ; je I'appelle libre, parceque le prince n'a le-
pouvoir de faire aucun tort imaginable a qui que ce soit, par la raison
que son pouvoir est controle et borne par un acte .... Quand un homme-
en Angleterre aurait autant d'ennemis qu'il a de cheyeux sur la tete, il
ne lui en arriverait rien. C'est beaucoup, car la sante de I'ame est aussi
necessaire que celle du corps."

§ In Jan. 1754.

S20 The Eighteenth Century.

And now let us turn to the intellectual order. It was in 1688
that Locke first published his famous essay,"^ which, as I have
•shown in previous papers^t did more than anything else to shape
the course of continental thought. Here I may, perhaps, be
allowed to cite the following passage from one of them :

No doubt earlier thinkers held many or all of the opinions which
were most distinctive of him. But Locke was the first to formulate,
■systematize, and popuhirize the theory which we find in the " Pjssay on
the Human Understanding." His system is the logical embodiment of
the principle of self; of that doctrine of the independence and all sufii-
ciency of the human reason which is the raison d'etre, the soul of
Protestantism. He claims that the individual — the centre of his
system — shall comprehend and explain everything, and accept no
principles until " fully convinced of their certainty ;" and in this, as
he judges, " consists the freedom of the understanding." With him the
senses are all in all. They are not merely the windows through which
the soul looks out on the external world, but the actual sources of
cognition. The mind is not the active judge, but the passive recipient
of their impressions. The will is not, in truth, freej for him, nor is
it an instrument of knowledge ; neither is faith an intellectual act, its
object truth, its result certitude. His method is purely physical, and
■everything in our compound nature wlfiich does not come within its
scope — the immaterial, the supersensual, the mysterious — he ignores.
That there is any sentient power in man, inherent and independent
of sensation, any dicrdrjais r?}? ylrvxrjs, any sensus intimus, our first and
surest source of knowledge, he does not understand. He puts aside
those " prima principia quorum cognitio est nobis innata,"§ of which
St. Thomas speaks ; he knows nothing of what a grave author of his
own age denominates " rational instincts, anticipations, prenotions, or
sentiments, characterized and engraven in the soul, born with it, and
growing up with it."|| These things belong to a region of our nature
which he did not frequent, and he dismisses them as dreams, not
understanding that, in truth —

we are such stuff
As dreams are made of :

^nd thus, the ideal and spiritual world shut off, he conceives of man
(to use Coleridge's words) '' as an animal endowed with a memory of
appearances and facts," and from that point of view unfolds his theory
■of the Human Understanding. He is the St. Thomas of Renaissance

* In an abridged form, in Leclerc's " Bibliotheque Universelle." It
appears in its completeness in 1690.

t See the first of these studies on the eighteenth century in the Dublin
Eeview, April, 1879, and the third in January, 1880.

X T mean he does not recognize freewill as a " spiritual supersensuous
force ill man."

§ " De Mente," Art. 6 ad 6 m. ^

II Sir Matthew Hale's "Primitive Origination of Mankind," p. QQ.

I

The Eighteenth Century. 321

thought — the initiator of the sceptical movement in the ultimate phase
which bolder and more logical minds worked out.

But as I go on to show, his own appli-cation of his method
was partial and inconsistent, nor was it in this country that it
reached its full development. In Mr. Leslie Stephens' words^
"the sceptical movement passed from England to France/''
where Locke's Essay became, as Heine expresses it, " the Gospel
of the philosophes — the Gospel they swore by." He is the
very source and fount whence Voltaire and Rousseau and Diderot,
^nd the whole tribe of the Encyclopaedists, who were to be the ulti-
mate exponents of the Renaissance principle of scepticism, derived
their doctrines which, ruled, in the mind of continental Europe,
ijh.vough.out the si^cle Frangais. Meanwhile, in England we have
the spectacle of the repudiation of his own spiritual offspring by the
introducer of the new philosophy. Toland and Tindal, Collins
andWoolston, were undoubtedly, in their different degrees, but the
logical unfolders of Locke's doctrine, and the consistent followers
of his method. And the earliest of these writers avowed and
gloried in this fact, much to his master's indignation and disgust.
Toland's "Christianity not Mysterious" appeared in 1696, and,
as Mr. Stephens tells us, the author " attempted to gain a place in
social and literary esteem by boasting of intimacy with Locke, and
by engrafting his speculations upon Locke's doctrines. Locke
emphatically repudiated this unfortunate disciple, whose personal
acquaintance with him was slight, and whose theories he alto-
gether disavowed."! There can be no question that Locke was as
sincere as he was inconsistent, and there can be as little question
that " his inconsistency recommended him to his countrymen.'*
The English mind throughout the last century was entirely out of
sympathy with the sceptical movement, and — singular contrast
to France !— the intellectual leaders of the country, Newton and
Bentley, Clarke and Butler, Berkeley and Addison, Swift and
Pope, Johnson and Burke, were upon the other side. The four
<3hief names to be set against these are Bolingbroke and Shaftes-
bury, Hume and Gibbon. Of these Hume — with the single
.exception of Swift, perhaps — the keenest intellect and acutest
logician of the century, was undoubtedly the greatest, but he
attracted very few readers.]: Moreover, his corrosive scepticism
is veiled under a semblance of respect for Christianity, and his

^ " English Thought in the Eighteenth Century," vol. i. p. 89.

t Ibid., p. 93.

X " His first book ' fell dead-born from the press.' Few of its successors
liad a much better fate. The uneducated masses were, of course, beyond
his reach. Amongst the educated minority he had but few readers, and
amongst the few readers, still fewer who could appreciate his thoughts." —
*' English Thought in the Eighteenth Century," vol. i. p. 1.

322 The Eighteenth Century.

" Dialogues on Natural Religion," in which his real opinions find
most explicit expression, did not appear until after his death,
which took place in 1776. It was in that year that Gibbon
published the first two volumes of his " Decline and Fall,^'' and
the indignation with which they were received showed how uncon-
genial to the English mind were the views which they presented
regarding the rise and spread of Christianity. It was not until
a later period than that with which I am now concerned that this
work exercised much influence in this country. The two earlier
writers on the sceptical side whom I have mentioned are intel-
lectually of much less account than these. Bolingbroke was
indeed in his day a very considerable figure, not only in the
political, but also in the literary world. But I suppose that Pope
summed up the general verdict about him, when he pronounced
him to be " a very great wit and a very indifierent philosopher. '•"
It was in the poet^s own beautiful " Essay on Man '■' that the
fatalism and naturalism which his friend called Theism, relieved
by poetical ornament and a mild infusion of orthodoxy, affected
the public mind most largely, and not, as I venture to think,
altogether injuriously. The influence of Shaftesbury was more
direct, and apparently more detrimental. "Mr. Pope,^^ writes
Warburton in one of his letters to Hurd, " told me that to his
knowledge tli,e 'Characteristics^ had done more harm to Revealed
Religion than all the works of infidelity put together.'^^ It may
well be doubted, however, whether that work reached a very
extensive circle of readers, and to me, I own, it is inconceivable
that its teaching should have deeply afiected any man. Shaftes-
bury, if I may compare him with an eminent living writer, a
very long way his superior, occupies in the speculative thought of
the eighteenth century much the same place as that which is
occupied by Mr. Matthew Arnold in the speculative thought of
the nineteenth. The terminology of the two of course differs.
In the place of the " sweetness and light '' now confidently recom-
mended to men as '' the sovereign^st thing on earth '*'' for the
"inward bruise" of human nature, our ancestors a hundred and fifty
years ago were exhorted to " cultivate the beautiful and the true.^"
Instead of '^ a power not ourselves, a stream of tendency that
makes for righteousness,'^ the superior person of the last century
prophesied to mankind of " a universal harmony.''' But the dif-
ference seems to be merely on the surface : the doctrine sub-
stantially the same; and we may be pretty sure that in the
kind and extent of the influence now exercised by the gospel ot
"culture^' we have an approximately correct measure of the
kind and extent of the influence exercised by the philosophy

* Letter xvii.

The Eighteenth Century. 323

which, as its accomplished chief declared, was only '^ good breed-
mct carried a step higher/'^ If Pope was right in his judgment
that Shaftesbury's " Characteristics '' did more harm to Revealed
Religion than '•' all the works of infidelity put together,'* it may
be reasonably concluded that the mischief effected by " the works
of infidelity'' was not very widespread. And, indeed, there is a vast
amount of evidence that the professed assailants of Christianity
quite failed to read the general mind. I do not think that any
competent critic will dissent from the conclusion expressed by Mr.
Mark Pattison in his very carefully written essay on "Tendencies of
ReligiousThought in England from 1688 to 1750," that "although
a loose kind of Deism might be the tone of fashionable circles,"
"disbelief of Christianity was by no means the general state of the
public mind ;" that "notwithstanding the universal complaint of
the High Church party as to the prevalence of infidelity, this
mode of thinking was confined to a small section of society." M.
Taine notes that "^ in the time of Johnson pubHc opinion was
enlisted on the side of Christianity. "t And Burke, writing in
1790, while acknowledging that the authors "whom the vulgar,
in their blunt homely style, call atheists and infidels," "made some
noise in their day," testifies that "at present they repose in
lasting oblivion." "Who, born within the last forty years,''
he continues, " has read one word of Collins and Toland, and
Tindal, of Cliubb and Morgan, and that whole race that called
themselves Freethinkers ? Who now reads Bolingbroke? Who
ever read him through ? Ask the booksellers of London what is
become of all these lights of the world ? In a few years their
few successors will go to the family vault of all the Capulets.^J
Such was the striking difierence in the eighteenth century
between the popular mind in England and in France. The
barber who in Paris exclaimed to a customer, — " Ah, monsieur,

* It may be well to subjoin here the following somewhat different
estimate formed by Mr. Leslie Stephen — "The third Lord Shaftes-
bury is one of the writers whose reputation is scarcely commensurate with
the influence which he once exerted. His teaching is to be traced through
much of our literature, though often curiously modified by the medium
through which it has passed. He speaks to us in Pope's poetry and in
Butler's theology. All the ethical writers are related to him, more or less
directly, by sympathy or opposition. During his life, he and his friend
Lord Molesworth were the chief protectors of Toland and Tindal, and
Bolingbroke took many hints from his pages. ^ The power is perhaps due
less to his literary faculty, for in spite of his merits, he is a wearisome
and perplexed writer, than to the peculiar position which he occupied in
speculation, and which at once separates him from his contemporaries, and
enabled him to be a valuable critic and stimulator of thought." — English
Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 18.

t " Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise," 1. iii. c. 6.

X " Reflections on the French Revolution."
VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series.} z

324 The Eighteenth Century,

je ne suis qu'un miserable perruquier ; mais (proudly) je ne crois
pas en Dieu plus qu''un autre/'' would have been impossible in
London. It is curious, too, and noteworthy, that in this
country the weapons used a<2^ainst the continuators of the
sceptical movement which Locke immediately initiated, were
almost all fabricated in the armoury of that thinker. While
the Yrench philosophes resorted to him for arguments against the
Christian religion, British divines learnt of him to defend it.
His treatise on the " Reasonableness of Christianitv," is the first of
the apologies and rumours of apologies which did duty for theology
with the English clergy throughout the eighteenth century, and of
which we have the best and maturest fruit in Paley's writings.* It
was rather as the father of such as make evidences, than as '' the
founder of the analytical philosophy of the human mind,^'' that
his influence was chiefly felt in England. To prove that
religion was (as he had alleged) " reasonable,^^ and then to
establish the genuineness and authenticity of the ancient docu-
ments upon which they relied for a knowledge of it : such was
the end and aim which the clergy, ambitious of adding to the
literature of their profession, almost invariably proposed to them-
selves, until the rise of the Evangelical school. And, like Mr.
Thwackum, when they said religion, they meant the Christian
religion, and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant
religion, and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church
of England. They were, in fact, the professional defenders of the

* The anonymous writer of the " Brief Memoir of the Author " pre-
fixed to Paley's Works (Teggr's Edition, 1835) observes : — " It has been
the peculiar merit of Paley to have produced a series of works which
calls forth the highest tribute of our veneration and respect, whilst
yet they present no claims to great originality and genius." But con-
siderable originality and genius are manifested in what is certainly the
most valuable of them — his " Natural Theology ;" and I note with pleasure
the testimony to its enduring value borne by Sir William Thomson, in his
Address to the British Association in 1871. " I feel profoundly convinced,'*
this very competent authority told his hearers, " that the argument of
design has been greatly too much lost sight of in recent zoological
speculations. Reaction agaiust the frivolities of teleology, such as are
to be found, not rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on
Paley's ' Natural Theology,* has, I believe, had a temporary effect of turn-
ing attention from the solid, irrefragable argument so well put forward in
that excellent old book. But overpowering proof of intelligence and
benevolent design lies all around us ; and if ever perplexities, whether
metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they *i
come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through
nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living
beings depend upon one ever-acting Creator and Ruler." I may observe
that Paley's evidential writings do not fall within the period with which
I am concerned. His *' View of the Jjvidences " was published in 1794 ;
his " Natural Theology " in 1802.

The Eighteenth Century, 325

ecclesiastical system by law established, whereby they had
their gain, and they conceived of it chiefly as a system of
moral police. There was one writer among them indeed who
took higher ground ; who set himself seriously and dispassion-
ately to look in the face the tremendous problems of man^s
destiny, and to find their solution, not in what Johnson called
'^ the Old Bailey theology," which put the Apostles on their trial
for forgery and acquitted them, but in the voice of conscience as
the revelation of those "unwritten and eternal laws" of which the
tragic poet speaks, that are graven on the fleshly tables of man's
heart. To me, Butler, with his profound feeling of the " im-
measurable world," the steady unflinching gaze of his *' open
eyes " that " desire the truth," into the abysmal mysteries
which underlie human life, his unswerving resolve to speak
neither more nor less than that he knew, to testify what he
had seen and nothing else, stands out as the sole heroic figure
in the somewhat motley crowd of British apologists.

But Butler's immediate influence does not seem to have been
great. Nor, indeed, can it be said that his ultimate influence
has been entirely in support of the cause which he set himself to
defend. As to the other evidence — writers who flourished in the
hundred years with which I am concerned, there is perhaps not
one of them whose labours had much appreciable result beyond
that of putting money in his purse and securing for himself
ecclesiastical preferment. Warburton, upon the whole, probably,
the most considerable of them, may stand for a type of the rest.
He considered his demonstration of thd Mosaic religion to " fall
very little short of mathematical certainty." Most of the
other apologists thought the same of their performances : their
" Trials of the Witnesses," their " Essays on Truth," their
"Appeals to Common Sense," and the like. But to all of them
a remark of Mr. Leslie Stephen, versus the Warburtonians may
be fairly applied. They all display the same " unwillingness to
face the final questions." They give us nothing but bare logo-
machy. It is quite certain that they made no deep impression
upon the public mind, although its sympathies were with them.
The great mass of Englishmen regarded them and their demon-
strations, which did not demonstrate, much in the same way as
Mr. Tennyson's " Northern Farmer" regarded the homilies ot*
his Parson : —

An' I hallus corned to 's choorch afoor moy Sally wur dead,
An' 'eerd un a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock * ower my yeitd,
En' I niver knaw'd whot a mean'd but I thowt a 'ad summut to saay,
An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said, an' I corned awaiiy.

* Cockchafer.

Z %

326 Tlie Eighteenth Century,

It was not by these " deep divines'^ that religion as a real
living energy, potent to cleanse the hearts and to rule the lives
of men, was preserved in England during the last century ; not
by these, but by a set of men whom they stigmatised as enthu-
siasts, and against whom they manifested an aversion no less
strong than that which they displayed towards Papists and Free-
thinkers. It is not easy to over-estimate the spiritual darkness
and moral degradation which had crept over the country
within a quarter of a century after the Revolution of 1688. I
cannot here enter upon a detailed inquiry as to the causes to which
thi& is attributable. The natural tendency of Protestantism is
towards a shadowy Theism and a brutal animalism. But above
and beyond this there can be no doubt that the depression of the
High Church element in the Anglican Establishment had greatlv
impaired it as a moral power in the country. The expulsion of
the Non-jurors, the silencing of Convocation, the Latitudinarian
policy of the House of Hanover, significantly illustrated by the
promotion of Hoadly to the Bishopric of Bangor, the year
after George I.'s accession, did much to water down the
orthodoxy and to weaken the spiritual influence of Anglicanism.
Then, again, the degradation of the Eucharistic rite of the
Established Church into a legal test, denlt a deadly wound to
religion itself through its most sacred ordinance. A form of
godliness indeed remained and was jealously cherished — as much,
perhaps, out of popular hatred against Catholic and Puritan as
for any other reason. But its power seemed to have passed
away, and as some keen observers judged, to have passed away
for ever. Thus Voltaire, who visited England in 1726, when
. the Unitarian Controversy was being agitated, wrote : — " Le
parti d'Arius prend tres-mal son temps de reparaitre dans un age
oii tout le monde est rassasie de disputes et de sectes.^' And he
adds, with evident satisfaction, — " On est si tiede a present sur
tout cela qu'il n^y a plus guere de fortune k faire pour une
religion nouvelle ou renouvellee.'' It was in that year that John
Wesley was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, and began the
movement in which he laboured so abundantly until his death
in 1791. As he tells us in the preface to his sermons, he found
that " formality, mere outside religion,^' had '^ almost driven
heart religion out of the world."" To bring that " heart religion''
back was the work to which he devoted his life, and for which
he counted not his life dear. To speak in detail of his work
would take me far beyond my present limits. I can do little
more here than quote certain words of my own written elsewhere
two years ago : —

" Among the figures conspicuous in the history of England in the
last century," I observed, " there is perhaps none more worthy of

The Eighteenth Century. 327

careful study than that of John Wesley. Make all deductions you
please for his narrowness, his self-conceit, his extravagance, and still
it remains that no one so nearly approaches the fulness of stature of
the great heroes of Christian spiritualism in the Early and Middle
Ages. He had more in common with St. Boniface and St. Bernardine
of Sienna, with St. Vincent Ferrer, and Savonarola, than any religious
teacher whom Protestantism has ever produced. Nor is the rise of the
sect which has adopted his name — ' the people called Methodists,' was
his way of designating his followers — by any means the most important
of the results of his life and labours. It is not too much to say that he
and those whom he formed and influenced chiefly kept alive in England
the idea of a supernatural order during the dull materialism and selfish
coldness of the eighteenth century."*

But the point with which I am here concerned is that
this great and fruitful revival of " the religion of the heart/' (in
V>^esley's phrase), would have been, humanly speaking, impossible,
had it not been for the hold which '' the mere outside religion"
still maintained. It was not in the character of an opponent of
the National Church, but as its true and faithful son, that
Wesley commended himself to the people. To its Articles, its
formularies, its ritual, its discipline, he unfeignedly, nay,
zealously adhered ; he desired neither to fall short of them nor
to overpass them. He was perfectly loyal to them, and his
burning desire to make them living realities to " a generation
of trifleiV^ (as he expressed himself), was the supreme evidence
of his loyalty. And so in one of his sermonsf before the
University of Oxford he insists that the question wherewith he
is concerned is not of *' peculiar notions ; '' not " concerning
doubtful opinions of one kind or another ; but concerning the
undoubted fundamental branches, if such there be, of our common
Christianity.'^ And he goes on to appeal solemnly to the
authorities of the University, " in the fear and in the presence
of the great God before whom both you and I shall shortly
appear.'^

" Ye venerable men,'' he pleads, " who are more especially
called to form the tender minds of youth, to dispel thence the
shades of ignorance and error, and train them up to be wise unto
salvation, are you filled with the Holy Ghost ? With all those fruits
of the Spirit which your important office so indispensably requires ?
Is your heart whole with God ? Full of love and zeal to set up His
kingdom on earth ? Do you continually remind those under your
care that the one rational end of all our studies is to know, love, and
serve ' the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent V Do

* This passage is taken from an article of mine in the Fortnightly
Beview of July, 1879.

t Preached in 1744. '

828^ The Eighteenth Century.

you inculcate upon tliem, day by day, that love alone never faileth
(whereas whether there be tongues,they shall fail, or philosophical know-
ledge, it shall vanish away) ; and that without love all learning is but
splendid ignorance, pompous folly, vexation of spirit ? Has all you
teach an actual tendency to the love of God, and of all mankind for
his sake ? Have you an eye to this end in whatever you prescribe,
touching the kind, the manner, and the measure of their studies ;
desiring and labouring that, wherever the lot of these young soldiers
of Christ is cast, they may be so many ' burning and shining lights
adorning the Gospel of Christ in all things V And permit me to ask,
Do you put forth all your strength in the vast work you have under-
taken ? Do you labour herein with all your might ? Exerting every
faculty of your soul? Using every talent which God hath lent you,
and that to the uttermost of your power ? Let it not be said that I
speak here as if all under your care were intended to be clergymen.
Not so ; I only speak as if they were all intended to be Christians."

Such was the spirit in which John Wesley entered upon his
mission. And the allegiance, ignorant as it was, of the masses
to the National Church and the Cliristian religion supplied him
with the fulcrum whereon he worked. The lever with which
he moved the popular mind was the principle of faith. He
appealed to what his hearers already believed, really however
otiosely, and to their hopes and fears thence resulting, declaring
unto them Him whom they ignorantly worshipped. And so
England listened to a message which had been little heard in the
land since the great schism of the sixteenth century. For the
message of John Wesley and his disciples was substantially that
of the Catholic preachers of the Middle as of the Apostolic
Age : the announcement of a supernatural order as a reality, and
the prime reality : the proclamation of "justice, chastity, and
judgment to come :'' the call to penance. They

" declared that maiikind was a guilty and outcast race, that sin was a
misery, that the world was a snare, that life was a shadow, that God
was everlasting, that His law was holy and true, and its sanctions
certain and terrible ; that He also was all merciful, that He had ap-
pointed a Mediator between Him and them, who had removed all
obstacles, and was desirous to restore them, and that He had sent
themselves to explain how. They expostulated with the better sort
on the ground of their instinctive longings and dim visions of some-,
thing greater than the world. They awed and overcame the passionate
by means of what remained of heaven in them, and of the involuntary.*!
homage which such men pay to the more realized tokens of heaven in.
others. They asked the more generous-minded whether it was not;
worth while to risk something on the chance of augmenting and
perfecting those precious elements of good which their hearts still
held ; and they could not hide, what they cared not to ' glory in,' their
own disinterested sufferings, their high deeds, and their sanctity of

The Eighteenth Century. 329

life. Thus they spread their nets for disciples, and caught thousands
at a cast ; thus they roused and inflamed their hearers into enthusiasm.
So they preached, and so they prevailed, using, indeed, persuasives of
every kind as they were given them, but resting at bottom on a
principle higher than the senses or the reason."*

But this great and fruitful revival of spiritual religion would, as I
have observed (humanly speaking) have been impossible, had it not
been for the hold which the Established Church still maintained
upon the mind of the country. The very success of the Methodist
preachers is a sufficient proof how much vitality, under the
appearance of death, still lurked in the national creed, with its
large fragments of Catholic truth, instinct, like relics, with
supernatural power. The Protestant prelates of the age — the
Warburtons and Lavingtons — were no more at fault in scenting
Popery in the new preachers, than were the Sumners and Maltbys
of our own day in detecting the same taint in Tractarianisra.
Not indeed that the Methodists had any conscious leaning to-
wards Catholicism. So far were they from it that their founder
in one place records his opinion that " no Romanist can expect to
be saved according to the terms of the covenant of Jesus Christ,'^-|-
But they were, in Lacordaire's admirable phrase, "children
unknown to their mother, though borne in her womb." Tlie
reality of grace, its direct and sensible influence upon the human
soul, the supreme excellence and importance of the spiritual and
supernatural order, the contemptibleness and illusoriness of the
phenomenal world, tenets which were of the essence of medieval
faith, an"d which the religious revolution of the sixteenth century
cast out in order to lead the world back — as it has in great part
led it — to Naturalism and Materialism, were also of the essence
of original Methodism. M. Tdiwa notes, with a naivete of
surprise which is very winning, the phenomenon — to him un-
accountable— that the ^^sap re-entered the old dogmas dried up
for five hundred years.-" Consummate master of words as he is,
he seems to be at a loss for expressions adequately to convey his
surprise that Wesley, '' a scholar and an Oxford student,'" " be-
lieved in the deviV — not merely from the teeth, outwards, but
in his heart : "saw the hand of God in the commonest event of
life :' "fasted and Wearied himself until he spat blood and almost
died.^J '"What could such a man/Mie aslcs, 'Miave done in

* Cardinal E'ewman's " Lectures on Jdstification," p. 268. The words
cited form part of a description of the procedure of the Apostles. (" The
Apostles then proceeded thus.") It is noteworthy that they so aptly
apply to the Methodist preachers of the last century.

t " Journal," 1739.

X " La Litterature Anglaise," 1. iii. 3c. I do not know how
M. Taine computes his " five hundred years" above mentioned. But that
is his affair.

330 The Eighteenth Century.

France in the eighteenth century ?" What he did in England
we have seen. And the fact that he did it is to my mind a
sufficient proof how little our people were affected by any intel-
lectual movement parallel to that which was destroying the very
root of spiritualism in the French nation, and which was to issue
in the monstrous spectacle of a great country, which held the
first rank in Christendom, while Christendom was, making public
profession of Atheism .

It appears to me then that when we survey the eighteenth
century, we may truly say —

in the world's volume,
Our Britain seems as in it, but not of it.

Both in the political and in the spiritual order, England stands
apart from the rest of Europe. While m the nations of the
Continent the last remains of medieval liberty were disappearing
before renascent Csesarism, and Christianity, the best pledge of
liberty because an incomparable instrument of morality, was
being sapped by the sensualistic philosophy, with us " freedom
slowly broadened down,^' and the greatest spiritual movement of
modern times breathed new life into the religion of the country.
And this we owe mainly, as it seems to me, to the Revolution of
1688. When Williamlll. landed at Torbay, England was on the
very verge of despotism. The course of our history during the
two centuries that Tudors and Stuarts had borne sway in the land,
was, upon the whole, a steady progress towards absolutism. The
Puritan Rebellion checked it for a brief season. But Charles II.
was actuated by substantially the same spirit as Charles I. ; and
when death struck him down in the midst of his buffoons and con-
cubines, he was upon the point of attaining that independence of
constitutional restraints at which he had ever aimed. The dullness
of his successor saved English liberty. James II. was as lacking
in the tact and knowledge of men which his brother possessed
in so eminent a degree, as in those personal gifts which con-
stituted not the least effective instrument whereby Charles II.
attained his ends. He contrived, with a fatuity for which I
know not where to find a parallel, to array against himself the
strongest feelings of Englishmen — nationality, political indepen-
dence, legality, Protestantism. He stood, as he told the Spanish
Ambassador, to win or lose all. He lost, and his loss was the
incalculable gain of the English nation. What we gained in the
])olitical order was the preservation of our medieval liberties,* and

* Upon this subject some very just remarks will be found in Archbishop
Spalding's Essay on Civil Liberty. " What did the Revolution of 1688
effect F" the most reverend prelate inquires. And he answers : " It did
no more than restore to England the provisions of her Catholic Magna

The Eighteenth Century, 331

the hanishment from our country of the Renais^iance idea of
monarchy. The Bill of Rights, as Lord Cliatham happily
expressed it, merely ''vindicated the English Constitution/'
*' Except in the article of the dispensing power/' writes Hallam,
" we cannot say, on comparing the Bill of Rights with what is
proved to be the law by statute, or generally esteemed to be
such on the authority of our best writers, that it took away any
legal power of the Crown, or enlarged the limits of popular and
Parliamentary privilege.""*^ And as he elsewhere expresses it,
the Revolution of 1688 was the triumph of those principles which
in the present day are denominated liberal or constitutional over
absolute monarchy. But, as Lord Macaulay points out : —

The Declaration of Right, though it made nothing law which had not
been law before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious
Ireedom to the Dissenter, of the law which secured the independence
of the judges, of the law which limited the duration of Parliaments, of
the law which placed the liberty of the press under the protection of
juries, of the law which prohibited the slave trade, of the law which
abolished the sacramental test, of the law which reformed the repre-
sentative system, of every good law which may hereafter, in the
course of ages, be found necessary to promote the public weal and to
satisfy the demands of public opinion. f

Such was our gain in the political order, and it is closely con-
nected with our gain in the spiritual. There is a strong sym-
pathy, an intimate connection between atheism and despotism,
whether the tyrant be one or legion, an autocrat or a mob. Both
are the expression, in different orders, of the same principle — the
principle of materialism. Both involve the negation of the
value and rights of the spiritual side of man^s nature. The
theory of Hobbes was the fitting complement of the practice of
the Stuarts, and was no less uncongenial to the mass of English-
men. For as Milton, who knew his countrymen well, has noted,
** The Englishman of many other nations is least atheistical,
and bears a natural disposition of much reverence and awe
towards the Deity ."J There is a true instinct in the popular
mind which teaches it that the cause of civil and spiritual liberty
is in truth identical. Hence it is that a priesthood which sinks into
the flatterer and tool of Absolutism is sure to lose its hold upon
the heart and conscience of the people. Beneath its sacred vest-
ments they discern the royal or imperial livery. They recognize

Charta, which instrument during the three hundred years preceding the

Reformation had been renewed and extended at least thirty times. . . . .

It did no more than repair the ravages committed by Protestantism on

the Constitution during the previous one hundred and fifty years, and to

restore that Constitution to its ancient CathoHc integrity" (p. 31).

* " Constitutional History," vol. iii. p. 105.

t " History of England," vol. ii. p. 397.

% •' Reason of Church Government," Book 1. c. 7.

332 The Eighteenth Century.

the words of Balac although proceeding from the mouth of
Balaam. The French clergy supply us with only too signal an
illustration of this truth. From the hour in which (to use the
emphatic expression of Innocent XI.) they betrayed the sacred
cause of the liberties of the Church to Louis XIV., they forfeited
not only the affection, but even the respect of their countrymen,
to the incalculable loss of the French nation. They identified
their cause with the cause of Caesar. And they fell with Caesar.
Even now that identification subsists in the popular mind,
and supplies the chief pretext for the attacks made upon the
Church by the so-called Liberals of contemporary France — the
true descendants of the Jacobins, whose liberty, as Burke dis-
cerned, was not liberal. But while the French Episcopate were
perpetrating the semi-apostasy of the Four Articles, the Protes-
tant Bishops of this country were animated by a very different
spirit. Although the mere creatures of the civil ruler which (as
Elizabeth had reminded one of their order) had made, and could
unmake them, although committed by their servile . doctrines of
immediate divine right and passive obedience to abject submis-
sion to the royal will, they dared to stand up against the
exercise of a power which they believed to be contrary to the
laws and hostile to the religion of their country. " We have two
duties to perform," Ken told the King, "our duty to God and
our duty to your Majesty. We honour you, but we fear God."
The words awoke an echo throughout the country. The inferior
clergy followed the lead of the Prelates, and the people followed
their pastors.

*' Never had the Church been so dear to the nation," writes the his-
torian, " as on ... . that day. The spirit of Dissent seemed to be
extinct. Baxter, from his pulpit, pronounced an eulogium on the Bishops
and parochial clergy. The Dutch minister .... wrote to inform the
States General that the Anglican Priesthood had risen in the estimation
of the public to an incredible degree. The universal cry of the Non-
conformists, he said, was, that they would rather continue to lie under
the penal statutes than sejiarate their cause from that of the prelates."*

The effect of the trial of the seven Bishops was to identify the
Established Church with the nation in a way in which it never
had been identified since the change of religion under Henry YIIL;
to present the Anglican clergy, for the first and last time, as the
friends and defenders of English liberty, and to purchase for
them a century of popularity. And the fact that, for many years
after, the majority of them were in opposition to the new Govern-
ment which they had in no small degree contributed to intro-
duce, was far from injuring that popularity ; for it was a manifest
token of their independence. Their action might be illogical, but it

Lord Macaulaj's " History of England," vol. ii. p. 154.

I

The Eighteenth Century, 333

possessed a persuasiveness beyond that of the finest syllogism.
It appealed to the deepest feelings and truest instincts of English-
men. Nor is it easy to over-estimate the advantage which
accrued to the nation from this rehabilitation of its clergy in
public esteem. The degradation of the spiritualty in the general
estimate is invariably accompanied by the degradation of tlie
creed which they represent. You cannot in practice separate
between the cause of religion and the cause of the ministers of
religion. They present themselves as *^ ambassadors for God.-"
And contempt of the messengers surely leads to contempt of the
message. The preservation and increase of the hold of religion
and its ministers over the mind and affections of the English
nation may then, as it seems to me, be undoubtedly reckoned
among our gains by the Revolution of 1688. But this was not
the only gain of the nation in the spiritual order. It was the
overthrow of the Stuarts which made the great Methodist move-
ment possi^ile. It is only in a free country that such associations
as those founded by John Wesley can be formed. Try to picture
an analogous movement in the eighteenth century in France, where
individual freedom lay crushed under monarchical despotism, and
the spiritual life of the people was strangled by the Gallican
liberties ! And the importance of the work which has been done
by Methodism for England, done not only directly, but also and
still more, indirectl}^, cannot easily be over-estimated. I do not
think it too much to say that we owe it mainly to Methodism
that while France is at heart Voltairean, England is still at heart
Christian, however maimed and imperfect its Christianity may
be. "Methodism/* writes a French critic of great name, not likely
to be prejudiced in its favour, "Methodism has changed the face
of England. Yes; EngLmd as we know it at this day, with its
chaste and grave literature, its biblical language, its national
piety, with its middle classes in whose exemplary morality lies
the true strength of the country, this England is the work of
Methodism."*

And now let me, in conclusion, say one word to meet an objec-
tion which may reasonably be urged against a Catholic writer
who takes the view which I have put forward, of the Revolution
of 1688. It may be said that, after all, James 11. was a Catholic:
that one of his objects undoubtedly was to advance the Catholic
religion; and that the vast majority of English and Scotch
Catholics, as well as the Catholic nation of Ireland, sympathized
with his cause. All this must be admitted. But I do not see
that it touches my argument. I have been considering the last
of our Catholic kings, not from a religious, but from a political

* Scherer : "Melanges d'Histoire Religieuse," p. 207.

33^ The Eighteenth Century.

point of view. A man may be a very sincere Catholic and a very
jDoor statesman. And can anyone who sets himself to consider
the question in the light of the facts and analogies of history,
suppose that had James II. succeeded in his machinations against
English liberty, the Catholic cause would have been eventually
the gainer ? In his day the anti-Catholic tradition was deeply
rooted in the English mind. And the time had passed when the
religion of a nation could be changed by the will of a Sovereign.
A few more converts might have been made of the calibre of most
of those who followed him into Catholic communion : men whose
honour was less than doubtful, and women whose reputation was
more than cracked. But in the long run the result would
inevitably have been that instead of '^ a revolution in due course of
law^' — to use the Duke of Wellington^'s phrase — we should have
had a Revolution uncontrolled by law, for our laws would have
perished : a Revolution of which a general proscription of Papists
would undoubtedly have been a marked feature. And so the last
state of the Catholic religion in this country would have been
worse than the first. Doubtless, we should all have been
Jacobites had we lived in those days. It is as Clough asks —

What do we see 1 Each man a space

Of some few yards before his face.

The broader and truer view of political struggles is, .as a
general rule, hidden from the generation engaged in them,
and revealed only to posterity. But there is one notable,
exception to the rule. It is mere matter of fact that in " the
l)rincely line of the Roman Pontiffs" a larger and more pre-
scient mind has ruled than can be traced in any secular dynasty;
in any school of statesmen wise merely with the wisdom of
this world. As Cardinal Newman has happily said : — '' If ever
there was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who
has confined himself to the practicable, and has been happy in
his anticipations, whose words have been facts, and whose com-
mands prophecies, such is he, in the history of ages, who sits
iVom generation to generation in the chair of the Apostles, as the
Vicar of Christ and the Doctor of His Church."* And so at the,
momentous period of our national history of which I am speaking,,
we find the illustrious Pontiff" who then sustained the care of all.
the Churches — surely one of the greatest figures in the annals of
the Papacy — we find Innocent XI. disapproving strongly of the •]
policy of James II., and sustaining with all his influence the cause
of William for the rescue of our perishing liberties. -f It is, of

* " Idea of a University," p. 13.

t Perhaps I may be allowed to repeat here the following note appended
to Part I. of this Essay :—" Much exceedingly valuable information on
this subject will be found in the seventh volume of Droysen's ' Geschichte
der Prussische Politik.' It has long been known that Innocent saw with

The Eighteenth Century. 335

course, extremely improbable that Innocent was actuated by any
special regard, for our constitutional rights, or indeed, that he pos-
sessed much information about them. It was that " eve for the

times,'' of which Cardinal Newman speaks, that guided him

that prophetical presage, too amply justified by the event, as to the
ultimate issue of the system of monarchical absolutism which
found its type in Louis XIV. His policy, as we know, was
openly blamed then by many of his spiritual children, and
secretly wondered at by many more. But now, surely, we may
confess its wisdom : now, when England stands out as well
nigh the only country in Europe in which the framework of
society still rests upon the foundations — never overthrown in
this nation — of Christianity and freedom, in which " civil and
religious liberty '' is not an empty phrase but a solid fact.

Now, if ever [wrote Lord Macaulay in 1848, and his words come
to us with no less weight at the present time], we ought to be
able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was
made by our foreiathers against the House of Stuart. All around
us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Govern-
ments, which lately seemed likely to stand during ages, have been
on a sudden shaken and overthrown. The proudest capitals of
Western Europe have streamed Avith civil blood. All evil passions,
the thirst of gain and the thirst of vengeance, the antipathy of
class to class, the antipathy of race to race, have broken loose from the
control of divine and human laws. Fear and anxiety have clouded the
faces and depressed the hearts of millions. Trade has been suspended,
and industry paralyzed. The rich have become poor; and the poor have
becomepoorer. Doctrines hostile to all sciences, to all arts, to all industry,,
to all domestic charities, doctrines which, if carried into effect, would
in thirty years undo all that thirty centuries have done for mankind,
and would make the fairest provinces of France and Germany as savage
as Congo or Patagonia, have been avowed from the tribune and
defended by the sword. Europe has been threatened with subjuga-
tion by barbarians compared with whom the barbarians who marched
under Attila and Alboin were enlightened and humane. The truest
friends of the people have with deep sorrow owned that interests more
precious than any political privileges were in jeopardy, and that it might
be necessary to sacrifice even liberty in order to save civilization.
Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never
been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license
and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the
strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental
throne. And if it be asked what has made us to differ from others,
the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly
seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in
the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution

Eleasure the downfall of James. But Professor Droysen's researches
ave thrown a flood of light upon the Pontift''s share in bringing about
that event."

S36 The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples.

in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of
servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the
authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our
streets, for the happiness of our homes, our gratitude is due, under
Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long
Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.*

W. S. Lilly.

SO^^SS^^M

Art. II.— the CHRISTIAN EMPERORS AND THE
PAGAN TEMPLES.

1. L'Art Pdien sous les Empereurs Chretiens. Par Paui

Allaud. Paris : Didier et Cie. 1879.

2. Histoire de la Destruction du Poganisme en Occident. Pai

A. Beugnot. Deux tomes. Paris : Firnain-Didot. 1835.

3. Bullettino.di Archeologia Cristiana, 1867,1868. Del Com^

mendatore Giov. B. De Rossi. Roma.

MPAUL ALLARD has done great service to the Church
, by bringing out in sharp relief the benefits which the
human race owes to the action of Christian principles. He did
this very effectively in the case of slavery, and in his last work
he has vindicated the Church from the charge of fanaticism with
regard to the monuments of Pagan art. He thus contrasts
favourably with Beugnot, whose work, full as it is of most
valuable information, is disfigured by his evident inclination to
credit any story which tells to the disadvantage of Christian
prelates, and his sympathies with Paganism rather than with
Christianity, The same spirit may bo traced in our own Dean
Milman,and of course in Gibbon. We could wish that M. Allard
would undertake to re-write the '' History of the Destruction of
Paganism.' ' He has the advantage of all the sources of in-
formation of which M. Beugnot has made such use, while he
has also at hand the vast additional matter which the scientific
labours of De Rossi have brought within the reach of all students
of Christian Archaeology. His work on Pagan Art shows how
well he is able to apply these varied materials, and the admirable
Christian spirit with which he writes wins our confideuce and
respect.

In the present article we propose to deal with only a portion
of the great subject of the Christian treatment of Pagan art.
Far from attempting to epitomize the volumes of Beugnot, we

» «

History of England," vol. ii. p. 397.

I

The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples, 337

shall not follow the history even to the extent to which M.
Allard goes, but confine ourselves to the treatment of the Pagan
temples by the Christian emperors up to the time of the capture
of Rome by the Goths.

The greatest revolution that ever took place in the history of
the world is the conversion of the Roman empire from heathenism
to Christianity, and every phase of that revolution is full of the
deepest interest. At the death of Augustus there was not so
much as one Christian in the world ; at the death of Constantine,
323 years later, more than half the then known world was
Christian. And this revolution was effected by means which are
even more worthy of attention than the fact itself To use the
eloquent words of the Comte de Champagny : —

Where is there any mention of an insurrection, a league, or a
riot among the Christians ? Here was no one of the ordinary cir-
cumstances of a revolution. Those who were proscribed, concealed
themselves, or fled ; those who were arrested, suffered death without
resistance. And this is repeated thousands of times, and each suc-
ceeding age saw it repeated more frequently. Every time that
force resolved to destroy it found a greater number to be des-
troyed. Insomuch that, at last, this war, in which one party only
inflicted death and never suffered it, while the other party only
suffered and never inflicted it, ended in the triumph of the party
which died over that which slew. The sword fell shivered against
breasts which offered themselves to it.

And this event stands by itself in the history of the worlds This
universal resignation, this courage, so heroically, so constantly passive;
and still more this triumph, won only by dying, has no single parallel
in history. No sect, no religion, has ever encountered the sword with
the absolute passiveness which was the characteristic of the primitive
Christians ; or if there has been any one which ever practised it,
that one has been crushed. Christianity alone, so far as I can learn,
has ever submitted itself in this manner ; Christianity alone, most
unquestionably, has ever gained such a victory by so submitting itself.*

But was the victory gained by this more than mortal patience
used as nobly as it had been won ? Did the Christians when
they came into power use that power for the welfare of the
human race, or did they take advantage of it to persecute those
who had oppressed them so long and so cruelly ? Looking at the
broad facts of history, we may safely affirm that they did use it
nobly, because the few exceptions that a close examination brings
to light, disappear at the distance at which we must stand if we
would take in the whole of the fourth and fifth centuries at a glance.
The Fathers of the Christian Church knew how to combine a
supreme hatred of idolatry with a tender compassion for the
idolators themselves. Nay, they went further. They knew how

* " Cesars," iii. p 486.

338 The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples.

to gather out and preserve, for the benefit of future generations,
all that was really good and worth preserving in Pagan literature,
Pagan art, and even in Pagan social and religious practices.
Our subject at present is the treatment of the heathen temples
by the laws enacted by Christian emperors, under the influence
of the Fathers of the Christian Church.

The temples were the very seat and stronghold of heathen
idolatry. Their altars and statues were the very instruments of
that impious worship in which the Christians believed that the
heathen offered sacrifice to devils and not to God. It would
have been a very pardonable revenge if the Christians had utterlv
demolished every temple and altar and statue that bore the name
of those false gods in whose honour they had been so cruelly
persecuted. Such an act might have been justified by zeal for
the spiritual welfare of the surviving Pagans, as well as justice
to their own martyred brethren. When Henry VIII. wished to blot
out the memory of the Pope from the minds of Englishmen he
had no scruple in destroying almost all the MSS. in which his
name was mentioned, however richly they were illuminated.
When Cromwell wished to annihilate prelacy he had no scruple
about smashing painted windows and rich carving in churches
and cathedrals. Why should the Christians of the fourth century
have had any tenderness towards the symbols of a still living
and vicious idolatry ? It seems so natural to conclude that they
would be thoroughgoing Iconoclasts that few readers are dis-
posed to question the assertion of Gibbon, that "The zeal
of the emperors was excited to vindicate their own honour and
that of the Deity ; and the temples of the Roman world were
subverted about sixty years after the conversion of Constantine.^^"^

I shall bring evidence to prove that this assertion is very far
from being borne out by facts of history. The historian passes
on to an eloquent plea for these buildings. He says : —

Many of these temples were the most splendid and beautiful
monuments of Grecian architecture, and the emperor himself was
interested not to deface the splendour of his own cities, or to diminish
the value of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be
suffered to remain as so many lasting trophies of the victory of
Christ. In the decline of the arts they might be usefully converted
into magazines, manufactories, or places of public assembly ; and
perhaps, when the walls of the temple had been sufficiently purified
by holy rites, the worship of the true Deity might be allowed to
expiate the ancient guilt of idolatry.f

The course which Gibbon, and Milraan,J following in his

* Yol. V. p. 92. t Yol. V. pp. 104, 105.

X " History of Christianity," Bk. III. c. 7, vol. ii. p. 171.

The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples. 339

footsteps, pathetically wish had been adopted, was, as we shall,
see, the precise method followed by the Christian emperors.

To begin with Constantine himself. The ecclesiastical his-
torians, in gratitude for the benefits which the first Christian
emperor conferred upon the Church, were somewhat disposed to
exaggerate the extent to which he discouraged idolatry.
Theodoret tells us that " he enacted laws prohibiting sacrifices

to idols, and commanded churches to be erected • The

temples of the idols were closed."* Socrates says : " He either
closed or destroyed the idolatrous temples, and exposed the
images which were in them to popular contempt.^'f But else-
where he tells us, with some inconsistency, that " Constantine
set up his own statues in the temples.'"{ Sozomen says :§
" The worship of false gods was universally prohibited ; and
the arts of divination, the dedication of statues, and the
celebration of Grecian festivals, were interdicted." These,
however, were all writers of the fifth century, and Zosimus,
the pagan historian of the same period, who regarded Chris-
tianity as the cause of all the calamities that were befalling the
Roman Empire, and Constantine as ^the guilty apostate from
the gods of Rome, records that emperor's contempt for the
heathen gods, but says nothing of the sweeping enactments
mentioned by the writers we have quoted.

Eusebius, indeed, the contemporary and devoted friend and
panegyrist of Constantine, says : ^' His subjects, both civil and
military, throughout the empire, found a barrier everywhere
opposed against idolatry, and every kind of sacrifice forbidden." ||
And again: '^He issued successive laws and ordinances for-
bidding any ta ofi^er sacrifice to idols, to consult diviners, to
erect images."^ But Eusebius has enabled us to explain these
by preserving Constantine's own words, in a letter addressed
by the emperor ''to the people. of the Eastern provinces," in
which, after setting forth his own faith, he breaks out into
a devout prayer to God^ the Lord of all : — •

Under Thy guidance have I devised and accomplished measures
fraught with blessing ; preceded by Thy sacred sign, I have led armies
to victory ; and still, on each occasion of public danger, I follow the
same symbol of Thy perfections, while advancing to meet the foe.
My own desire is, for the general advantage of the world and all
mankind, that Thy people should enjoy a life of peace and undis-
turbed concord. Let those, therefore, who are still blinded by error,
be made welcome to the same degree of peace and tranquillity which
they have who believe. For it may be that this restoration of equal

* " H. E." i. 2. t Ibid. i. 3. X Ibid. i. 18.

§ Ibid. i. 8. II " Vita Const." iv. 23. % Ibid. iv. 25.

VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series.] a a

340 The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples.

privileges to all will have a powerful eiFect in leading them into the
path of truth. Let no one molest another in this matter, but let
everyone be free to follow the bias of his own mind. Only, let men
of sound mind be assured of this, that those only can live a life of
holiness and purity whom Thou callest to an acquiescence in Thy
holy laws. With regard to those who will hold themselves aloof
from us, let them have, if they please, their temples of lies ; we have
the glorious edifice of Thy truth, which Thou hast given us as our
native home (fcara (f)v<Ttv). . . . Only let all beware lest they inflict
an injury on that religion which experience itself testifies to be pure
and undefiled.

Henceforward, therefore, let us all enjoy in common the privileges
placed within our reach — I mean the blessing of peace ; and let us
endeavour to keep our conscience pure from aught that might in-
terrupt and mar this blessing It is one thing voluntarily to

undertake the conflict for immortality, another to compel others to do
so from fear of punishment.

These are our words ; and we have enlarged upon these topics more
than our ordinary clemency would have dictated, because we were
unwilling to dissemble or be false to the true faith ; and the more so
since we understand there are some who say that the rites of the
heathen temples, and the powers of darkness, have been entirely re-
moved : we should, indeed, have earnestly recommended such removal
to all men, were it not that the rebellious spirit of those wicked errors
still continues obstinately fixed in the minds of some, so as to dis-
courage the hope of any general restoration of mankind to the ways
of truth.*

In perfect keeping with these tolerant sentiments is an edict
of A.D. 319, in which Gonstantine says : "You who think it con-
duces to your advantage, go to the public altars and shrines, and
celebrate the solemnities of your own accustomed rite : for we do
not forbid the offices of the bye-gone use to be practised in the
free light of day.^f

These words were intended to reassure the Pagans ; for in this
same year Gonstantine had issued a most severe edict against
divination in private houses. An aruspex, convicted of entering
a private house to practise his sorceries was condemned to be
burned alive, and those who had called him in to forfeit their
goods and to be banished. It must be remembered that the laws
of the XII. Tables decreed death to those who practised divina-
tion in secret, and the Emperors Tiberius and Diocletian had
both enforced this penalty, so that Gonstantine was in this
matter only following in the steps of his predecessors. Two years
afterwards he explained more distinctly the kind of divination

* " Yit. Const." ii. 55, 56, 59, 60.
t " Cod. Theod." IX. xvi. 2.

Tlie Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples. 341

which he condemned;* and in that same year, 321, he wrote
to Maxim us, prefect of Home, to order the consultation of the
haruspices, in case of any public buildings bein^ struck by light-
ning, in " conformity with ancient custom/' in order to see
what that event portends.f The fact is, Constantine had
accepted the title and office of Pontifex Maximus, and per-
formed many acts as chief of the Pagan priesthood. The Pagan
Zosimus says : " He made use of the sacred rights of our fathers,

not out of reverence, but rather of necessity And when a

national festival occurred on which the army ought to have gone
up to the capitol, he turned away from the sacred temple-worship,
amidst the violent abuse of the crowd all along the way, and the
hatred of the senate and people/'J This shows us what a
difficult position he occupied, and how unlikely it was that he
should exasperate his Pagan subjects by a wholesale destruction
of their temples. De Rossi has shown that the vestibule of the
present Church of SS. Cosmas and Damian is a round temple of
Romulus, dedicated by Fabius Titianus, prefect of Rome, in
3'39, to Constantine himseir.§ The emperor accepted the
dedication of a similar offering of the people of Spello, in
Umbria, in 333, on the condition "that the temple dedicated
to our name shall not be polluted by the frauds of any conta-
gious superstition/^]] When he died, Eutropius says : *' Inter
divos meruit referri/'^ The Pagans placed him among their
gods, and celebrated festivals in his honour. Divo Con-
stantino AvGUSTO appears on monumental inscriptions put up
in honour of a prince who had said :** " I recoil with horror from
the blood of sacrifices, from their foul and detestable odours, and
from every earth-born magic fire ; for the profane and impious
superstitions which are defiled by these rites have cast down and

* Beugnot points out that there were among both Greeks and Romans
two distinct kinds of divination — " One was legal and public, the othei*
secret and generally forbidden. The first was called by the Greeks

Bcovpyia ; the second, yorjreia Divination, or theurgic magic, was a

divine art, which had for its end the perfecting of the mind and purifying
of the soul. The persons so favoured as to arrive at avro^ia, a state in
which they had intimate converse with the gods, believed themselves
endued with their omnipotence. Goetic magic, or sorcery, professed by
men who had only commerce with the evil demons, was regarded as
mischievous and provocative of crime. The adepts of this latter art
lived, they said, in places underground ; and the obscurity of night, black
victims, bones, or whole carcases of the dead, comported with the horrid
nature of their art. They cut the throats of infants, and sought in the
entrails of human victims their prognostications of the future."— Op. cit.
torn. i. p. 81.

t " Cod. Theod." XVL xi. 1. X Lib. iL c. 29.

§ "BuUettino, 1867," p. 68. il Ibid. p. 69.

t " Brev." X. 8,

aa2

842 The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples,

consiorned to perdition, many, nay whole nations of the gentile
world/'*

But how are we to understand the repeated testimonies of
Christian historians that Constantine destroyed heathen temples?
We must remember that the Roman senate had forbidden the
Bacchanalian rites a century before the Christian era, that Tiberius
had destroyed the temple oflsis at Rome, and thrown her image
into the Tiber, on account of the fraud and immorality that were
carried on there. So Constantine could, without really inter-
fering with the liberty of Pagan worship, root out many of the
principal dens of heathen iniquity. For instance, Eusebius tells
us : —

There was a grove and temple, apart from the beaten and frequented
road, at Aphaca, on part of the summit of Mount Libanus, and dedicated
to the foul demon known by the name of Venus. It was a school of
wickedness for all the abandoned votaries of sensuality and impurity.
Here men undeserving of the name forgot the dignity of their sex
.... here, too, unlawful commerce of women, .... with other
horrible and infamous practices, were perpetrated in this temple, as in
a place beyond the scope and restraint of law. Meanwhile, these evils
remained unchecked by the presence of any observer, since no one of
fair character ventured to visit such scenes. These proceedings, how-
ever, could not escape the vigilance of our august emperor, who, having
himself inspected them with characteristic forethought, and judging that
such a temple was unfit for the light of heaven, gave orders that the
building, with its offerings, should be utterly destroyed. Accordingly,
in obedience to the imperial command, these engines of an abandoned
superstition were immediately abolished, and the hand of mihtary force
was made instrumental in purging the impurities of the place. f

For a similar reason Constantine destroyed the temple of Venus
at Heliopolis, in Phcjenicia, and some other hotbeds of vice. No
doubt, the statues with which he adorned his new city of Con-
stantinople were taken from heathen temples ; but in this he was
only following the example of almost every Roman conqueror.
Constantine, however, made it very evident that these beautiful
specimens of Grecian sculpture were valued solely for their artistic
merit, and by no means as objects of adoration. Zosimus in-
dignantly tells us how Constantine transported the image of
Rhea, the mother of the gods, from its shrine at Mount Dindymus,
and set it up in his new capital, but disrespectfully removed the
lions, the symbol of her power, and altered the arms of the statue \
so as to give the goddess the attitude of a suppliant.!

Constantius, in 358, went much further than his father, and
prohibited public as well as private divination, even in the
temples, and confounded the great colleges of the augurs with

* ";Vit." iv. 10. t iii. 15. X ii. 30.

The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples. 343

the vulgar fortune-tellers, forbidding all divination under penalty
of death. In the following year Julian, as Caesar, countersigned
a decree, pursuing diviners even in the antechambers of the princes.
In 341, Constantius went further still, and promulgated a law
saying : " Let all superstition cease, let the insanity of sacrifices
be abolished. For whosoever, contrary to the law of the holy prince
our Father, in this command of our clemency, shall venture to
offer sacrifices, fitting vengeance shall be taken upon him.''*
In 346, he issued another still more stringent edict : —

In all places, and in every city, let the temples be closed forthwith,
and access being forbidden to all, license to sin be denied their
abandoned votaries. It is our will that all abstain from the sacrifices.
That if any one shall perpetrate anything of this kind he shall be laid
low by the avenging sword. We decree that his goods shall be con-
fiscated, and rulers of provinces shall be similarly punished if they
neglect to avenge such misdeeds. f

Two years later, in 356, Constantius, as sole emperor, decreed :
" We order capital punishment to be inflicted on those who are
convicted of having assisted at sacrifices or worshipped idols.-" J

These laws sound very terrible, but history does not record a
single instance of their having been put in execution. Gibbon
confesses : —

Had the Pagans been animated by the undaunted zeal which possessed
the minds of the primitive believers, the triumph of the Church must
have been stained with blood ; and the martyrs of Jupiter and Apollo
might have embraced the glorious opportunity of devoting their lives
and fortunes at the foot of their altars. But such obstinate zeal was
not congenial to the loose and careless temper of polytheism. The
violent and repeated strokes of the orthodox princes were broken by
the soft and yielding substance against which they were directed ;
and the ready obedience of the Pagans saved them from the pains
and penalties of the Theodosian Code. Instead of asserting that
the authority of the gods was superior to that of the emperor, they
desisted, with a plaintive murmur, from the use of those sacred rites
which their sovereign had condemned.§

However, it is l)y no means clear that these laws of Constantius
were ever enforced. The Pagan Zosimus distinctly says that until
the time of Theodosius people " had still the liberty of access to
the temples, and of propitiating the gods according to the cus-
toms of their fathers.'']] Some have thought that these laws
were never really promulgated, but only entered on the statute
book, and brought to light when the Theodosian Code was com-
piled. Constantius was the violent persecutor of St. Athanasius

* " Cod. Theod." XVI. x. 1. t Ibid. x. 4.

% Ibid. 6. § " DecHne and Fall," vol. v. pp. 118, 119.

II iv. 29.

344* The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples.

and the Catholics, and it is quite possible he may have wished to
prove his orthodoxy by issuing these sanguinary edicts against
the Pagans. Henry VIII., after breaking off from the Pope,
tried to reassure his subjects, and perhaps himself, by the '^ Six
Bloody Articles -" and Louis XIV., at the height of his quarrel
with Rome, thought to remove all suspicions by the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes.

In any case, these edicts did not affect the temples themselves.
In 346, Constantius, in a Rescript to the Prefect of Rome,
directed : —

Although all superstition must be thoroughly rooted out, yet ii
is our will that the edifices of the temples, which are outside the
walls, be preserved intact and uninjured. For since some of them
are centres for public games, races, or wrestling matches, it is not
proper to destroy the opportunities afforded by them to the Roman
people to enjoy the celebration of their ancient amusements.*

In 356, Constantius came to Rome himself; and the only act
hostile to paganism which is recorded of his visit is, that in the
Senate House, before making a speech to the senators, he ordered
the altar of victory to be removed from the hall. Symmachus
says-f that " through all the streets of the city he followed the
senate, who were filled with joy. He beheld with unruffled coun*
tenance the shrines, he read the names of the gods inscribed on
the pediments, he inquired particularly into the origin of the
various temples, and showed his admiration for their builders."

In 361, Julian was acknowledged by the whole empire, and
threw off the mask, and proclaimed himself a Pagan. All was
ready to his hand. He had only to dust the altars and statues,
and to bring in the processions of priests and victims. Externally,
it was easy enough, but the imperial dreamer found it impossible
to call back to life the dead spirit of heathenism.

Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep

From one whose dreams are Paradise
Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,
And day peers forth with her blank eyes :

So faint, so fleet, so fair,

The powers of earth and air
Fled from the folding-star of Bethlehem ;

Apollo, Pan, and Love,

And even Olympian Jove
Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them.

Our hills, and seas, and streams.

Dispeopled of their dreams.
Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears,

Wailed for the golden years. J

• * " Cod. Theod." XYI. x. 3. f " Epist."x. 61. % Shelley's '' Hellas."

The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples. 345

The temples were deserted, the ceremonies forgotten. People
sneeringly asked, " what was the use of slaughtering so many
thousands of bullocks and myriads of white birds ?^^ The oracles
could not be got to speak, and in vain did the infatuated em-
peror '^sacrifice his splendid qualities of warrior and states-
man to the realization of an archaeological fancy/'"^ But if
he could not resuscitate heathenism, he could sanction, and
even command, the most odious persecution of the Christians.
Though he failed to persuade the heathen priests to chant psalms
in honour of the gods, and to preach moral discourses in imita-
tion of the Christians, yet he could let loose all the diabolical
spite that the idolaters felt against the faithful. In numberless
places throughout the empire, especially in those localities where
the temples had been destroyed, the Pagans took vengeance, not
on the buildings devoted to Christian worship, but on the bodies
of living Christians, particularly the clergy and monks and
nuns. Sozomenf gives a frightful account of the tortures
inflicted by the Pagans of Heliopolis and Baalbec on Christian
virgins, in revenge for Constantine having demolished the temple
of Venus there ; and although we cannot fairly accuse Julian
of commanding these and similar atrocities at Alexandria,
Gaza, Arethusa, and many other places,^ yet when an em-
peror receives official intimation of the barbarous murder
of a number of his subjects, and scornfully remarks, " Is the
blood, after all, so very pure? Is it a great matter that one
Greek should kill ten Galileans ?"§ we cannot hold him guilt-
less of bloodshed. One part of his persecution was very curious.
Julian prohibited Christians from studying Pagan classical
authors, in hopes of stunting the intelligence of the Chris-
tians. Some learned Christians tried to supply the deficiency
by composing works of their own. Sozomep tells us|| that
ApoUinarius, a Syrian, "employed his great ingenuity and
learning, in which he even surpassed Homer [•! !] in the pro-
duction of a work in heroic verse on the antiquities of the
Hebrews. He also wrote comedies in imitation of Menander,
tragedies resembling those of Euripides, and odes on the model
of Pindar." The great St. Basil, Archbishop of Csesarea, in Cap-
padocia, a fellow-student with Julian, at Athens, was one of those
who most earnestly insisted on the importance of Christian youths
studying Pagan literature, but he warned them to study it with
caution, and said : "As when we gather flowers from a rose bush
we guard against the thorns, so in reading these writings we must
gather what is useful, and avoid what is banefulZ-'lf

* AUard, p. 48. f " H. E." v. 10.

I Ibid. cc. 9, 10, 11. § " St. Greg. Naz. Orat. v. cent. Jul." 93.

II " H. E." V. 18. t " De leg. libr. Gentil."

846 The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples.

To return to the temples. Julianas mad career was soon cut
short. Jovian, during his seven months' reign, recalled from
banishment St» Athanasius, and other bishops exiled by Julian,
and proclaimed freedom of worship to all ; but the Pagan
temples and sacrifices again fell into disuse, if we may trust the
authority of Socrates.

In 364, he was succeeded by Valentinian in the West and
Valens in the East. Of the latter, Theodoret says : '' Valens gave
licence to all to worship what they pleased, and only opposed those
who defended the Apostolical doctrines. Throughout the whole of
his reign, fire burned upon the altar of idols, libations and
sacrifices were offered to them, and festivals in their honour
were held in the market-place. Those who celebrated the orgies
of Bacchus were seen running about the streets clad in skins, and
worked up to madness, tearing dogs to pieces, and committing
other excesses, inculcated by the lord of the festival.^'* In
the West his brother, Valentinian, is said, by Ammianus Mar-
cellinus, to have '* disturbed no one, nor commanded that any one
should worship either this or that; nor did he by threatening
interdicts bow down the necks of his subjects to that which he him-
self worshipped, but left these matters undisturbed, as he found
them.'''t He removed the edicts against nocturnal sacri-
fices and magical conjuring. But, in 371, he expressly decreed :
"I do not rank augury among the interdicted malpractices. I
do not regard as culpable either this art or any religious obser-
vance established by our ancestors. The laws enacted by me from
the beginning of my reign are proofs of this. They grant to
each one liberty to follow such worship as he wishes. I do not
condemn augury itself; I only forbid it mingling itself up with
criminal practices .^''f He made some laws about the temples, in
order to prevent collision between the faithful and the heathen.
He forbad Christians to be guardians of heathen temples ; and
in the case of disused temples, he revoked the measures by which
their revenues were handed over to Pagan priests, and turned
them to his own privy purse. §

Publius Victor gives a list of the temples standing in Rome
in the time of Valentinian, divided according to the fourteen
regions. In all, they number 152 temples, and 183 small
chapels, asdiculce. At this time no heathen temple in Home is
known to have been transformed into a Christian church. ||

In Smith's valuable " Dictionary of Christian Antiquities ''
we read : " It is stated by Anastasius Bibliothecarius, that in

* "H. E." V. 21. t XXX. 9.

, X " Cod. Theod." IX. xvi. 9. § Ibid. X. i. 8.

jl Beugnot, liv. v. ch. 3, gives a full list of them.

The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples. -347

the reign of Valentinian, an emperor whose Arian sympathies
divided and weakened the Christian party, Paganism assumed so
aggressive a demeanour that the clergy were afraid to enter the
churches or the public haths."*

In our own copy of Anastasius this circumstance of the clergy
not being able to enter the churches or baths is stated to have
occurred in the reign of Constantius, on the occasion of his
coming to Rome, exiling Felix, and restoring Liberius. Hence,
it would seem that the violence was on the part of the Arians,
and not of the Pagans. M. AUard has followed Beugnot, from
whom the author of the article cited above has evidently drawn
his information ; but we venture to consider the mistake to have
arisen from Beugnot having seen a corrupt copy of the *' Liber
Pontificalis/^

St. Augustine was a youth of twenty at the beginning of
Valentinian^s reign, and he describes Paganism as in full liberty^.
He asks of the Pagans, in the second book of the " De Civitate
Dei :"—

Why their gods took no care to reform their infamous morals ? . . . .
It belongs to gods, who were men's guardians, to send prophets openly
to threaten punishments to evil-doers, and promise rewards to those
who live rightly. When did -the temples of those gods ever echo
with such warnings in a clear and loud voice ? I, myself, when I
was a young man, went to the spectacles and sacrilegious entertain-
ments. I saw the raving priests, and heard the singers. I took
pleasure in the shameful plays in honour of their gods and goddesses, of
the virgin Caelestis, and of Berecynthia, the mother of them all. And
on the solemnity consecrated to her purification, there were sung
before her couch, publicly, by the most wicked players, things so foul
that it would not be decent for — I don't say the mothers of the gods —
but for the mothers of any senators, or of any honest men ; nay, for

the mothers of those very players themselves, to hear If those

are sacred rites, what is sacrilege ? If this is purification, what is
pollution?!

It is well for us sometimes to be reminded of the abominations
from which Christianity has delivered us !

In 375 Valentinian died, and his son Gratian succeeded him.
Gratian was the first Christian emperor who refused the insignia
of the Pontifex Maximus, saying : " Such a vestment would
not be becoming for a Christian.'^]: Thus, in him Paganism ceased
to be the state religion. However, he proclaimed free toleration
to all to assemble in their houses of prayer, except the three
heretical sects of the Eunomians, Photians,and Manichees. The
altar of victory, which had been replaced in the senate house, he

* Yol. ii. p. 1538, " Paganism." f '* De Civ. Dei," ii. 4

t Zosimus, iv. 36.

348 The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples.

ordered to be removed. In the East, in 380, Theodosius decreed :
'^ We will that all the nations subject to our sway be of that
religion which the divine Apostle Peter delivered to the
Romans."*

In 382, Gratian ventured upon a more decisive blow at
Paganism. He confiscated all the landed property of the temples.
He revoked all the civil and political honours associated with the
priesthood, and the public honours paid to the vestal virgins
for many centuries. He left them the right of receiving gifts
and legacies, and did not suppress sacrifices, nor close temples,
nor strip them of their treasures. Even the annona templorum
still continued to be paid.f

In 383, Gratian was murdered at Lyons, by the troops of the
usurper Maximus, while Valentinian II., Gratian^s brother,
found a powerful friend and protector in Theodosius the Great,
who, in 385, issued an edict against divination in every temple,
either by day or night; and^in 388, had the question solemnly
debated in the senate, " whetner the worship of Jupiter or that of
Christ should be the religion of the Romans." |

The arguments for the ancient idolatry had been eloquently
stated by the learned Prefect of Rome, Symmachus, and the
orator Libanius ; but St. Ambrose, who had been a statesman
before he was Bishop of Milan, had eff'ectually fortified the mind
of the emperor, and the senate decreed, by a large majority, the
degradation of the heathen gods.

In 391, Theodosius published an edict : '* Let no one pollute
himself with sacrifices, let no one slay a harmless victim, let no
one approach the shrines, nor purify the temples, nor lift up his
eyes to idols made by human hands. '"'§ He went further; and in
392, legislated against the household gods, and decreed : " All
places where it shall be proved that the smoke of incense has
burned, if they shall be proved to be the property of those who
have offered the incense, shall be confiscated to our treasury .""H

Theodosius has been said to have decreed the demolition of the
temples. Theodoret says it of him, as he said it of Constantine,
but no such law appears in the Code. We shall give some in-
stances in which certain temples in the East were demolished by
order of the emperor, but there is no trace of any general law to
that effect having gone forth at all, much less of its having affected
Rome in the West.

Perhaps the best reflection of Christian public feeling in the
West, during the reign of Theodosius, is to be found in the

* " Cod. Theod." XYI. i. 2. t Zosimus, iv. 65.

t -Gibbon, c. xxxviii. vol. v. p. 100. § " Cod. Theod." XVI. x. 10.

II Ibid. sec. 12.

The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples, 349

writings of Prudentius, the Christian poet, who contends
vigorously against Symmachus, the champion of Paganism.
His poems are full of zeal against idolatry, hut they do not
imply any wish to see the temples, or even the images of the gods
destroyed. On the contrary, in his poem on the " Martyrdom
of St. Lawrence,^' Prudentius represents the Christian hero on his
burning bed of death, looking forward to the days when idolatry
should be no longer the religion of the Romans : —

Video futurum principem
Quandoque, qui servus Dei
Tetris sacrorum sordibus
Servire Komam non sinat.

Qui templa claudet vectibus
Valvas eburnas obstruat,
Nefasta damnet limina
Obdens aenos pessulos.

Tunc pura ab omni sanguine
Taadem vitebunt marmora ;
Stabunt et aera innoxia,
Quae nunc habentur idola.

I see a Prince one day shall
come, the servant of God, who
will not suffer Rome to be a slave
to the foul uncleanness of sacri-
fices.

He will close the temples with
bars, block up their ivory doors,
will condemn their ill-fated
thresholds, and make fast their
brazen bolts.

Then, pure from all blood, at
length the marbles will shine out,
and those bronze [statues] will
stand harmless which are now
esteemed as idols.

Zosimus relates a story about the Princess Serena, niece and
adopted daughter of Theodosius, which gives us a good idea of
the feeling of both Christians and Pagans at this period : —

When Theodosius came to Rome [he says] and stirred up in the
minds of all a contempt for the sacred worship, he refused to supply
the public grant for sacrifices ; both priests and priestesses were driven
out, and the shrines were left destitute of all sacrifice. Then Serena,
laughing at these things, wished to look at the temple of the mother
of the gods, and saw on the neck of the statue of Rhea an ornament
worthy of the sacredness of that goddess. She took it off the statue,
and put it on her own neck. Just then came in an old woman, the
last of the vestal virginsj and upbraided her to her face for her
impiety ; and she so insulted her that Serena commanded her attendants
to drive her out of the place, and she went away calling down every
kind of evil for such impiety to come upon Serena, her husband, and
children. But Serena took no account of these curses, and went out
of the temple, priding herself greatly on her necklace ; yet many a
time, both sleeping and waking, was she haunted by the coming death
that had been denounced to her.*

He goes on to describe how the unfortunate princess had to
stretch forth that neck, which had worn the jewel of the goddess,

* V. 38.

350 The Christian F'lnperors and the Pagan Temples.

to the cord oF the executioners^ who strangled her while Alaric
was at the gates of Rome.

This story sets before us the temples still intact, with the
images of the ^ods still adorned with jewels, objects of curious
attention to Christians, whose treatment of them was sharply
watched by the adherents of the old superstition. Many of the
temples were not even closed ; they were favourite lounges for the
people, and the emperor did not wish to interfere with harmless
amusements. Thus, at Edessa, at the request of the prefect,
Theodosius ordered the principal temple to be re-opened. " It
is a building formerly much frequented," he said, " and common
both to assemblies and to popular resort, and the statues placed
in it are said to be esteemed more for their artistic value than for
their divinity. We decree, by the authority of our public council,
that it be always open."*

We have said that there were temples certainly demolished by
express orders from Theodosius. At Alexandria the Bishop had
obtained the grant of a certain temple, and converted it into a
Christian church. In clearing it out they found in the secret
recesses of the temple a number of ridiculous and obscene objects,
which Theophilus, a man of intemperate zeal, had publicly exposed
in the forum to the derision of the Christians. The Pagans,
furious at this exhibition, attacked the Christians, slew numbers
of them, carried others captive into the great Temple of Serapis,
which they fortified, and where they tortured their prisoners to
death with great cruelty. The prefect, and general of the troops,
in vain endeavoured to induce them to lay down their arms.
The matter was referred to Theodosius, and both Pagans and
Christians agreed to abide by his decision. The Emperor granted
free pardon to the insurgents, even to those who had shed
Christian blood, but he commanded the demolition of the Pagan
temples. The great Serapeion, and all the other temples at
Alexandria, were accordingly destroyed. The temple of Jupiter
at Apamea was demolished on account of the immoralities con-
nected with it ; but the Pagans revenged' themselves by murdering
Marcellus, the bishop, who had been particularly active in pro-
curing the order for its destruction. In many places temples
were destroyed by the populace, often under the leadership of
the Christian clergy. In Gaul, St. Martin of Tours especially
distinguished himself in this destruction of the strongholds of
idolatry. St. Augustine writes if —

They say we are enemies of their idols. May God so grant and
give all into our power, as He hath already given us that which we

* " Cod. Theod." XYI. x. 8.
t St. Aug. " Serm. in Matt." (13 Oxf.)

Tlie Christian Fmperors and the Pagan Temples. 351

have broken down ! . . . . When the power has not been given us we
do not do it ; when it is given we do not neglect it. Many Pagans
have these abominations on their own estates ; do we go and break
them in pieces ? No ; for our first efforts are that the idols in their
hearts should be broken down. When they, too, are made Christians
themselves, they either invite us to so good a work, or anticipate
us They think that we are looking out for the idols every-
where, and that we break them down in all places where we have
discovered them. How so ? Are there not places before our eyes in
which they are ? And yet we do not break them down, because God
has not given them into our power. When does God give them into
our power ? When the masters of those things shall become Christians.
The master of a certain place has just lately wished this to be done.
.... We preach against idols ; we take them away from the hearts
of men ; we are persecutors of idols ; we openly profess it. Are we
then to be the preservers of them ? I do not touch them when I have
not the power ;• I do not touch them when the lord of the property
complains of it ; but when he wishes it to be done, and gives thanks
for i:, I should incur guilt if I did it not.

In Spain, the Councils of the Church expressly forbade such
destruction, and decreed : — " If any one shall break idols in pieces,
and shall be slain for so doin^^, he shall not be reckoned as a
martyr, for such conduct is not found written in the Gospel, nor
was ever done by the Apostles."*

In Rome, Pa^^anism was still strong enough among the
patrician families to hope for a revival of its lost power. In
392, after the murder of Valentinian 11., the rhetorician
Eugenius was set up as emperor, and the senate voted that the
property of the temples should be restored to the heathen priests ;
and a MS. poem appended to the works of Prudentius, dis-
covered in 1867 in the National Library at Paris, by M. Leopold
Delisle, explained by M. de Rossi, describes the details of this
last Pagan revival .f Rome was transformed into one vast
temple, and submitted to a three months' lustration. All the
gods and goddesses, Roman and foreign, had their festivals
celebrated with a pomp that had not been known since the days
of Aurelian, and the Consul, Nicomachus Flavianus, threw him-
self with extraordinary zeal into every device for propitiating
the ancient gods. The Christians in too many instances yielded
to the snares that were laid to entrap them into a participation
in these idolatrous rites. But at last, in 394, Theodosius
advanced to the passes of the Alps. His vanguard eagerly
snatched the golden thunderbolts from the statues of Jupiter,
which the foolish Flavian had placed to guard the passes, and in

* " Cone. Eliber." can. 60.
t See " Ballettino Di Archeol. Crist." 1868, pp. 51-58 ; 61-73. -

352 The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples. M

Flavian's defeat and death perished the last hopes of Pagan
Eome. Theodosius entered the city in triumph, but never was
a victory so gently used. Not a drop of blood was shed. Not
a senator was dispossessed. The very sons of Eugenius,
Asbogastus and Flavian, were permitted to retain their municipal
offices, and Theodosius expressed his regret that Flavian had
perished in battle. But the laws against heathen sacrifices were
now put into execution, even in Rome itself, and the, annona
templorum was henceforth suppressed. We hear nothing of the
demolition of temples or the destruction of statues. Theodosius
is represented by Prudentius to have expressed to the senate
almost the very thought of Gibbon, that *^ these stately edifices
might be suffered to remain as so many lasting trophies of the
victory of Christ."

Marmora tabenti respergine tincta lavate,

O Proceres, liceat statuas consistere puras

Artificum magnorum opera ; hgec pulcherrima nostras

Ornamenta fiant patrias, nee decolor usus

In vitium versae monumenta coinquinet artis.

Contr. Symmach, 501, &c.

When Theodosius died, in 395, his sons Arcadius and Honorius
were only fourteen and seven years old, but their guardians,
Rufinus and Stilicho, the latter of whom had married Serena,
the niece of Theodosius, governed the empire; and in the West
Stilicho carried out the conciliatory policy of the last great
Roman emperor. The insolence of the Pagans, who regarded
the laws of Theodosius as dead with him, obliged Stilicho, in the
name of Honorius, to issue, in 399, an edict, which says : — '' As
we have already by a wholesome law done away with sacrifices
and profane rites, &c.''* And yet, up to the very year in which
Rome was besieged by Alaric, inscriptions still extant attest that
votive tablets to the heathen gods were set up with impunity in
public places.f In 404, the poet Claudian describes the appear-
ance of Rome as full of splendid shrines, and the temples still in
all their glory. The gods of stone, of marble, of bronze, of silver,
of gold, were standing upon their pedestals — even the jewels with
which Pagan credulity adorned them remained on their necks
and arms. When Zosimus charges Stilicho with stripping off
the gold from the doors of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, he
bears testimony to the general integrity of the temples, as Serena's
exploit attests the general immunity of the statues from pillage.

* " Cod. Theod." XYI. x. 17.

t Thus: — "lOVI OPTIMO CAPITOLINO SACRVM M. NVMMIVS M. F. PAL.
HILARIVS V. C. PRAEF. YKB. EX V.F. COER PRO SALVTE NVMMIAE VAHALENAE."

Hilarius was made Prefect of Eome in 408. — Beugnot, torn. ii. p. 17.

The Christian Emperors and the Pagan Temples. 353

We have now reached a period of sixty-seven years from the
death, and more than ninety years from the conversion of
Constantine, and we have seen how far from the truth is
Gibbon^s assertion " that the temples of the Roman world were
subverted about sixty years after the conversion of Constantine/'
We have traced the legislation of the Christian emperors, and
we have seen throughout that legislation two leading principles.
First, the desire to undermine and overthrow the vast fabric of
superstition and moral corruption which was inseparably con-
nected with idolatry ; and secondly, to preserve, in the interests of
art and civilization, the stately edifices, and even the beautiful
statues which had been used in Pagan worship.* We do not
mean to pretend that these were their sole, or even chief motives
of action. But, taking their policy as a whole, we can see these
two principles running through it. " No more sacrifices,"
decreed Honorius in 399, " but let the ornaments of the cities be
respected."" Except the unlucky necklace taken by Serena, the
jewels remained on the idols of Rome until they were seized, in
408, to purchase a short respite from Alaric. But when the
Gothic conqueror returned, in 410, and Rome fell under the
successive barbaric invasions, statues and temples became mingled
in a common ruin, aud the remains which still astonish travellers
were saved from destruction chiefly by the care of the Popes.
, Even Gibbon admits that, " of the Christian hierarchy, the
Bishops of Rome were commonly the most prudent and least
fanatic; nor can any positive charge be opposed to the meri-
torious act of saving and converting the majestic structure of the
Pantheon."t

Our space will not permit us to trace their history any further.
We have been obliged to omit many important details in the
story, and we must refer our readers to the pages of M. Allard,
whose work we have done little more than epitomize, for a complete
survey of the subject. But if we have succeeded in disproving
the assertions of Gibboi), we shall have done something towards
clearing up the policy of the Christian emperors towards the
Pagan temples.

W. R. Brownlow.

. [The substance of this Paper was delivered as a Lecture before
the Torquay Natural History Society, on January 3, 1881.]

* See Allard, p. 69.
t " Decline and Fall," vol. xii. p. 408.

( ^^54 )

aet. III.— literature eor the young.

I. Periodical Literature.

1. The Catholic Children's Magazine, London & Dublin :

James Daffy.

2. The Juvenile Missionary Keepsake. London : J. Snow.

8. The Juvenile Missionary Magazine. Edinburgh : Oliphant
&Co.

4. The Band of Rope Review. London : S. W. Partridge & Co.

5. Little Folks. London : Cassell, Patter & Galpin.

6. Golden Childhood. London : Ward, Lock & Co.

7. Little Wide Aivake. London : Routledge & Sons.

8. The Boys' Own Paper. London : " Leisure Hour '^ Office.

9. The Girls' Own Paper. London : "Leisure Hour'^ Office.

10. Union Jack. London : Griffith & Farran.

11. Every Boy's Magazine. London : Routledge & Sons.

12. Every GirVs Magazine. London : Routledge & Sons.

13. Boys of England. London.

" TTTHAT is the charm, of childhood T' asks Mgr. Dupanloup,
YV in his well-known work, " L'Enfant/^ when he is about to
sum up his impressions after twenty-five years' experience of educa-
tion ; and he gives the answer of a venerated friend of his own : —
it is not alone the fascination of simplicity and candour, not
alone the charm of innocence ; there is an attraction yet beyond :
'' This it is : children are the joy of the present — but, above all,
they are the hope of the future/' The hope of the family is in the
new generation, entrusted with its name and honour, and guarded
with lavish love. The hope of the State is in the children of its
subjects ; they are the future " people " on whom the strength
and prosperity of the nation depends; it watches them sedulously
so that they be taught after its own heart, in these degenerate
days mainly with the view of making them peaceable subjects
and efficient toilers and spinners for the common good. But
more than all, they are the hope of the Church, the heirs of her
faith, her sanctity, her traditions ; her future rests with them.
Therefore our hope is in them perpetually, as they come fresh and
pliant, full of the ardour of young life, peopling our homes and
filling our schools. Whatever concerns them is of vital interest.
As the heirs of Christ, there is no greater work than to guard
them, no greater calamity than that one of them should perish.

Literature for the Young. 3 5 o

no greater mystery in the world than the tremendous issues
hidden under their present littleness— littleness of knowledge,
where yet there may be mental power to lead other minds cap-
tive— littleness of experience, where the life may yet become
part of the whole world's experience — bodily littleness, wherein
are locked the secrets of human souls, whose influence will touch
hundreds of others, ere the new generation melts out of the
world's sight into eternity, leaving the world's face in some way
changed for their coming here and for their passage thither.
It is this thought of the future — as well as the responsibility
where there is question of the impressionable souls of the young
— that gives almost an awful importance to what otherwise might
seem but trifles concerning children. There can be nothing trifling
where their welfare is touched. They are in our keeping to be,
as we trust, the strength of the Church, and the seed of her
glory in successive faithful generations unto remotest time. The
child is the hope of the future.

This fact is thoroughly, realized by the enemies of Code's king-
dom. In the full appreciation of it, all attacks upon the Church
are planned. These are not the days of physical torture, but of
a more terrible and subtle force — legalized moral persecution; and
the first brunt of it is directed by the new laws of every anti-
Christian government against the faith of the children in the
schools, and against the freedom of Christian teaching. When
at the orders of the Municipal Council of Paris, the Prefect
of the Seine caused the crucifixes to be torn down from the
schoolroom walls and carted away like rubbish to be destroyed,
the action was a type of the whole plan adopted by Govern-
ments warring against the Church. Their first aim is not to
deprive Catholics of political rights, nor at once to banish the
clergy, nor to silence their voice in the pulpit, nor to close
churches, nor to enforce a pledge of infidelity as the proof of loyalty
to the State. All these measures, in modified forms, may come
afterwards, but the world has grown older and wiser since the
attacks upon religion were begun with such open defiance. To
take the cross away out of the children's sight, to banish the
Crucified as a stumbling-block, a remnant of mediaeval foolishness,
interfering with secular learning and social progress ; to hope that
outside the godless schoolroom in due time the obsolete doctrines
swept oUt thence will be destroyed as worthless; this is the aim
and these the tactics of the persecutors of our day, whether in
revolutionized Italy, or in the French war against ''clericalism,
the enemy," or in the Kulturkampf beyond the Rhine. Even
the free Eepublic of the United States has developed a taint of
the same worldly wisdom, and lays hands upon the children's
souls to barter them for national prosperity. American citizens may

VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series.} b b

356 Literature for the Young.

boast liberty in all else, but in this burning question of schools and
educationCatholicshavetocomplainof their greatest wrong, forced,
as they are, to pay taxes for the support of godless schools from
which they must steadily refuse to receive any benefit for their
children under pain of disloyalty to the Church. In England the
same central ground of contention is indicated by the increasing
cry for secular education. In Ireland the struggle on the same
ground is for life or death; and it is chiefly against the children
that the war of cruel kindness is waged by every proselytizing
agency. In a word, wherever men are found, the battle-ground
of to-day is no other than that of education. All the world is
realizing the truth of the value of securing the possession of the
first dawn of young intelligence. We are not alone in regarding
children as the hope of the future. They are so regarded by
every creed and faction, down to the Atheist and the Utilitarian,
the Communist and the Nihilist. And from all rival claims of
error it is our solemn charge to keep the children that are the
hope of the Church, and to win others that as yet are strangers
to the ** mighty Mother \^' and so vast a work as this unceasing
guardianship must be carried on with a zealous use of every
means that can aid towards success— an earnest use of every
invention and device, even the least, so long as it can add some-
thing; towards makino^ such a success secure.

Looking back at the first years of life, everyone must be able
from experience to see in a vivid light the strange double process
of which all education consists, and the consequent difiiculty of
guiding as well as teaching. The instruction deliberately given
during hours of study does not make up half the sum of what
the child is, perhaps quite unconsciously^ learning. Unasked
impressions crowd fast upon the young mind, as soon as it is
capable of observing and remembering, and in most cases the art
of reading is no sooner taught than self-education begins. From
every page of print there may be arising what might hastily be
called chance influences, to make upon the mind that found them
for itself a deeper mark than any formal lessons. As the old
proverb says, " Many things grow in the garden that were never
sown there ; " and a large proportion of the chance seeds are
sown by casual reading. Especially with boys, reading becomes
quickly a new active living power, and with many it is an insati- j
able appetite only satisfied for the moment, and continually in
need of fresh food. The necessity of suitably gratifying the
reading taste of the young has led to the formation of an
immense and varied literature meant specially for their use.
Upon its nature depends to a great extent what we have called
their self-education. By rights, it ought to be in religious
tendency, if not completely in the spirit of the child^s own faith,

Literature for the Young . 357

at least never hostile to it : in moral tone an indirect supplement
to the direct teaching alread}?- received : in instruction a simple
recreative development of what is learned in study hours. Now,
it is at once clear that in a Protestant country, where there is to be
found every kind of creed, and too often no creed, Catholic teach-
ing cannot hope to find a development of itself in the general litera-
ture with which our children are surrounded in their free time.
It may seem to some but a small work to supply more suitable
reading and harmless amusement for the recreation hours of our
children, and an insignificant study to criticize their literature at
length. But the self-education of the young is influenced by
this reading, and therefore it may be an active agency either for
their harm or for their welfare ; and to repeat again what we
set out by asserting — when these children, apparently and
individually so insignificant in the world, are in reality the world's
centre of contention and the hope of the Church, nothing that
concerns their welfare can be called trifling. As Lacordaire says
of all merely ephemeral work of the pen, "The drop of water
that flows towards the sea has done its part in the forming of the
river, and the river never ends." Literature for children's leisure
is one of the many streams that ought to meet in one, in the con-
tinual striving of the Church to secure by all devices the welfare
of her little ones. Not a drop of water — not a single page
fraught with good — flows hither without acquiring the importance
of a part of that which goes on for ever. In a word, literature
for the young is one of the constant factors in the great work of
education ; and if its prevailing tendencies are against Catholic
teaching, it follows that there is existing, in the most subtle form
that can reach a child's intelligence, the influence of non-Catholic
or anti-Catholic education— a form that can afiect any child, a
form that cannot be restricted to the bounds of a school, but that
can find its way into Catliolic homes and schools, to make the
elements of untrue views and of false education intermingle with
our jealously guarded Catholic education. We believe that a
survey of works for the young will prove that there is a great
deficiency of Catholic literature of this kind, and that only the
most guarded use can be made by Catholic children of the non-
Catholic literature which is in many ways as inviting as it is
abundant.

Of late years a juvenile periodical literature has sprung up— a
completely modern growth ; and, without special investigation
no one can form an idea of the extent of this section of children's
reading. The list of such publications is constantly varying;
but we may safely say that upwards of eighty magazines for the
young are always in existence, showered weekly and monthly
from the English printing-press, some struggling for life, by far

B B 2

358 Literature for the Young.

the greater number securely established with an immense circle
of readers, and many of the most popular circulating, not alone
by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands. We shall first
consider this wide branch of juvenile literature — the periodicals.
Their influence is vast, because, once established, it is continuous
and ever fresh. And here we may remark that the idea of secular,
or almost entirely secular, papers for children arose chiefly from
the fact of the success attained first by sectarian publications.
The Protestant Sunday School committees and missionary
centres had previously been at work. It may almost be said that
theirs was the initiative of the present form of periodicals for
children. Nor have they ever let out of their hands their large
share in this great means of influence. Every sect has used it
untiringly from the outset of the movement until now.

We have stated that there are upwards of eighty magazines
for the young ; and an analysis of a carefully made list will give
some idea of this seemingly small and simple, but really most
influential, department of literature. The periodicals may be
divided into three classes : — Protestant ma^^azines dealino: with
religious subjects : magazines of chiefly secular reading, meant
for all children : magazines intended for boys. And we should
add another class, those intended for girls, if it was not that such
magazines, though becoming numerous, are not yet half so
numerous, nor so widely read, nor of such active influence as
those published for boys. Of the periodicals, whose fluctuating
number we have stated roundly as always beyond eighty, we
must reckon a very large proportion as either distinctly religious,
or entirely coloured with Protestantism ; and the conductors of
these show an amazing energy in their production, circulating
them in many cases gratuitously by the hundred. In this class
we count a group of flourishing periodicals issued by the Band of
Hope : Sunday Readers, Sunday Friends, Bible Companions, and
Sunday- School Magazines, too many to name: the Children's
Jewish Advocate, devoted to obtaining the prayers and pence of
little Gentiles for the conversion of the Jews : magazines of
dissenting bodies, such as the Children's Record of the Free
Church of Scotland, the Primitive Methodists' Juvenile
Magazine, the Wesleyan Sunday School Magazine, the
Children's Magazine of the United Presbyterian Church, and
many others : magazines chronicling for children the working
and result of foreign missions, such as the Juvenile Missionary
Keepsake, the Juvenile Missionary Herald, the Juvenile
Missionary Magazine : a vast number of periodicals, such as
Sunshine, The Children's Friend, Winsome Words, avowedly
freighted with religious instruction, and ornamented with texts,
though not bearing distinctively religious names.

Literature for the Young. 359

The magazines for boys had been long in existence, as well as
the Gospel magazines, when one of the most enterprising
publishing firms brought out, with brilliant success, a secular, or
almost entirely secular, magazine for all. They had perceived
and responded to the need of children for recreative reading not
continually impregnated with direct religious and moral instruc-
tion ; and this new development of children's literature has led
to the formation of a body of chiefly secular entertaining
periodicals for children, a purely English and entirely recent
growth. With very rare exceptions, they contain a certain
amount, more or less, of some form of religious teaching ; but
this is quite subordinate in quantity, inserted simply to avoid the
exclusion of religion, and not to assert sectarian doctrines; and
the circulation depends upon the non-religious matter, on literary
excellence, and attractiveness of illustration. These periodicals,
with their constant flow of entertainment and amusement, form
part of the recreative reading of most English children. Much
of the modern fiction for the young first appears in their pages ;
and there is expended upon them an amount of literary labour
and talent, artistic skill and publishing capital, fully equal to
what is required in producing high-class magazines for mature
minds.

The periodicals intended for boys have a vigorous existence.
They sprang into being long before the juvenile monthlies and
weeklies for more general reading. They have necessarily been
kept distinct by the special nature of the tastes and occupations
of growing lads ; and they have an immense popularity because
of the reading appetite almost universal among boys, even
among the book-haters of the schoolroom.

We should like to add to this enumeration another class utterly
distinct from all the rest, and rivalling the best of them. We
should like to speak of the need felt by Catholics for an excellent
periodical literature for children, a continuous ever-fresh supply
of reading protected and inspired by the Catholic spirit. We
should like to count up the Catholic periodicals for the young ;
or, better still, to count the circulation of one such paper by
hundreds of thousands, as our rivals do. But our record of this
fourth class is very short. There is no list to be made, no circu-
lation of hundreds of thousands yet to be boasted, no possibility
of rivalry as yet with non-Catholic competitors in their own
field. There is but one Catholic periodical for the young, and
that is of recent appearance— jT/ie Catholic Children's Magazine.
We are far from censuring what is but the result of our mis-
fortune. It is well known that Catholics labour under heavy
difficulties in forming a literature of their own. What is true of
by far the greater number of individuals amongst us, is equally

360 Literature for the Young.

true of all collectively. The ravages of the Reformation^ the
disfavour in which the Catholic name has been held in every class
and position, the banishment of Catholics from public life till
some fifty years ago, the clinging prejudice still attaching to us
in the minds of the bulk of our fellow-countrymen — all this leaves
us in the United Kingdom powerful in numbers, but, in these
days when money is strength, comparatively powerless through
lack of it, and through our manifold needs as a community.
Considering the broad original causes of this poverty of a vast
body, our very powerlessness is something to glory in. Never-
theless, it is something that stands in our way in every under-
taking, little and great. It bars the progress of our higher
literature, makes it timorous and narrow in scope, and stunts
our literature for the young. Yet this last division is of so little
cost arid of such universal necessity, that we may well plead for a
small individual sacrifice to be made everywhere to ensure its
increase. If we take note of the use made of the printing-press
by every diminutive and varying sect, and if we realize that the
Catholic body is vastly numerous, while their children have tastes
and requirements generally the same because of the unity of faith
and teaching— we are prompted to ask if we Catholics have not
it in our power by individual effort and united action to create
and foster a new guardian influence for the young, a truly great
Catholic literature, in itself so excellent and efficient as to exclude
the teaching of strangers from our children, and to hold its own
even in a sphere beyond, in competition with the best juvenile
literature of the day. For the present, Catholic periodical litera-
ture of this kind is only at the beginning of its career and
struggling against many difficulties. The Catholic Ghildren's
Magazine ought yet in time to be in every way equal to the non-
Catholic magazines brought out by the best firms. The vast
number of our Catholic children renders such a success eventually
possible. But this depends not upon the conductors, but upon
the support it receives ; and as the nucleus ot our periodical
literature for the young, • it ought to receive an ardent and
universal support.

Before proceeding to the question, What ought literature for
the young to be ? — we shall glance at the non-Catholic literature
already in existence, and see whither it is tending. And after
examining the character and tendencies of periodicals, we shall* I
turn to the vast mass of literature that takes the form of separate
and complete volumes. If we choose periodical publications
first, it is because we believe there are few who realize either the
extent and the power of that kind of reading, or the use that
might be made of such an organization in Catholic hands : and
also because one established magazine may do more harm or

Literature for the Young. 361

good than a Imndred separate publications. The bound volumes
of the magazine, especially among boys and girls, have all the
influence of complete books; they are given and treasured, read
and re-read. But over and. above this the magazine has a
peculiar power ; the current numbers make it a living power,
with security of life for years to come. It is a welcome persua-
sive voice, having new things to say, though with sameness of
character and aim, and secure of an audience to listen so long as
it chooses to speak.

Our first object, then, is to examine the character and tendencies
of the existing literature for the young. To begin at once at
the lowest end of the scale, there is a class of periodicals better
known to police magistrates than to respectable households ; —
we should not refer to such publications at all, if it were not to
give a striking example of the effect that may be produced upon
young minds by the reading furnished in their own periodicals.
Everyone has heard of the "penny awful;" and it is not to be
confounded with the flimsy journal of comparatively harmless
sensational fiction, numberless varieties of which exist, and one
of which was aptly described to us by a bright youth as '^ not a
penny awful — no, a penny stupid !''' The effect of the worst
class of juvenile journals seems to break out at times like an
epidemic among the boys of London. Some romance of a
highwayman's career has intoxicated them with its lawless spirit.
Their hero is a thief and a cut-throat ; but he has preternatural
strength and agility, and he lives a roving life of good fortune,
with a madness of animal spirits, and a diabolical gift of cunning
to outwit the peaceable. And forthwith the suburbs become
infested with secret societies of pigmy highwaymen, who find
their ignoble last chapter of romance in the police-court dock, and
pass on to the prosaic realities of life, with dishonest proclivities,
familiarity with the gaol and the oakum yard, and a distorted
standard of right and wrong to send them back thither again in
haste. It is hard to believe that every variety of crime may be
bred among the ignorant and ardent for adventure, by a closely
printed fly-sheet that to educated eyes would read as the silliest
description of mingled impossiblity, nonsense, and evil ; but it
is, unfortunately, a fact that cheap literature catches hold of the
poor lads in great cities with a stronger grasp than the School
Board, for all its compulsory machinery. The lowest class of
juvenile periodical literature may be called awful in the strict
sense of the word. These halfpenny and penny sheets of fiction
have debased and falsified consciences, blinded the first prompt-
ings of reason, blighted numberless lives at their beginning, and
helped to swell the criminal class with men who niight otherwise
have lived in honest labour and rectitude of conscience.

363 Literature for the Young.

There is a long distance to be traversed upward from this
lowest level of pernicious journals before we reach even the low
level of exciting absurdities, vulgarity, occasional anti-Catholic
venonr and hinted profanity, such as are to be met with in many
weekly papers of the class of the Boi/s of England. The
character of all these may be inferred from noting the peculiarities
of a. volume of that most popular representative of the whole
class. " English Jack among the Afghans ;' *^ The White Tiger
Chief of the Zulus /'' *' For Vengeance, or the Doom of Russian
Tyrants ,^^ are some of the gems of fiction, set off by such a
vision of chivalry as may be imagined from the names of Coeur
de Lion and Malvoisin, Lady Christabel, the Lady Adeliza, and
the terrible Coupe-Gorge. In such journals wicked baronets
abound in quantities sufficient to turn all the reflecting youth of
England into indignant Radicals. The whole history of these
great personages is related in short paragraphs, consisting some-
times of one momentous word or two, but generally long enough
to admit a spice of slang. The heroines are glorious beings,
admired to distraction on every page. They have marvellous
attributes, such as "intensely brilliant violet eyes.'' They are
superior to the ordinary usages of society, and apostrophize their
persecutors as " Sir Baronet \" With a nature supposed to be
admirable in proportion as it is magnificently passionate, they
aie as ready to "plunge a weapon'* into the heart of the said Sir
Baronet, as their boyish cavaliers are ready to fight anyone, and
risk life with certainty of escape, three times a day. Altogether
it is a state of things calculated to make our chivalrous labouring
lads and shop-boys eager for anything from a five minutes' fight
to a marriage for life during the mature years from fifteen to
twenty. But there is greater mischief possible tlian the substitu-
tion of insolent vulgarity for manliness, imbecility for chivalry,
a false idea of a world of feverish passion and wdd adventure,
instead of the truth of this grand, hard-working world of life.
There is other evil often done beyond all this. For instance, we
glance at the opening of a chapter, and feel inclined to smile at
the entrance of the usual knightly stranger attired in a heavy
muffling cloak, and a large hat pulled over his brow — so as to
escape observation ; but when we read on, and find that he has
come to a monastery in search of an imprisoned and cruelly-
treated boy; we have no inclination to laugh at the ludicrous
side of such ignorance, when the other side is so detestable. In
the case we are citing as an example, the visit of the disguised
knight leads up to chapters which are one tissue of coarse attack
upon the Catholic monastic system; and to call it misrepresentation
would be to use a mild word for the reckless manner in which the
homes of monks are represented to the young as based upon a

Literature for tlte Young. 363

substratum of dungeons and wine-cellar?, and the monks them-
selves as either gourmands or cruel hypocrites. When we have
said that the murder of one of the priests of the monastery is
cause for rejoicing for the boy hero (who is supposed to be a
brother of the order!), we have said enough, but not half what
might be said, to condemn the whole production. And it may
be taken as a type of the evil that circulates in some of the
widest read of this class of magazines for boys.

The existence of such literature and its extensive sale prompted
the managers of Sunday Schools, Protestant clergymen, and
others interested in religious education, to bring out what we may
call the various missionary and '' Evangelical magazines, partly
to counteract the ill effects of other cheap literature, but still more
to further their own cause. Unhappily some of these at once
became mischievous agents in the propaganda against the common
enemy. Catholicity — in their broad attack more often styled
Popery. A glance at their pages makes it clear that next to
impressing upon their readers certain platitudes about salvation
through believing on Christ, the grand object is to cry down the
Catholic Church, to make everything Catholic distrusted and
abhorred. One of them, the Primitive Methodist's Juvenile
Magazine, contents itself with such side thrusts as are contained in
its complacent rejoicing that May games and May poles, and all
such wickedness, have vanished before the light of Sunday
schools and Bible classes. Another, the Juvenile Missionary
Keepsake, goes further and more roughly. It is ready to drag up
every infamous falsehood that was ever coined against us, and it
tells all with the most consummate ignorance, such as would
provoke nothing but a smile if it concerned anything less serious
than the poisoning of young minds arid hearts. On one page
there is an account of child-stealing from the Waldenses by the
Catholics of Northern Italy ; and it is stated that the stolen boy is
usually immured in a convent, where he is weaned from the love of
his parents, and told that '4f he prays to crosses and images he
will go to heaven, but that if he does not he will go to hell.''' This,
decidedly, is putting doctrine in a nutshell ; and it is the account
of Catholic doctrine that has helped to form for many children the
groundwork of lifelong prejudice. On another page, with equal
accuracy, indulgences and fasting are defined ; a kidnapped boy
is taught " to buy indulgences or pieces of paper signed by the
Pope, declaring the sins forgiven : to fast, or eat only fish, fowl,
and vegetables, on a great many days in the year.'' But the
absurd and mischievous reaches its climax in the story supposed
to be the life of an apostate monk escaped from Italy. Alter a
medley of absurdities about the enforced obedience of the youth
as a novice in a monastery of Benedictines and Cistercians (I) the

364 Literature for the Young.

extreme is reached when the young RafFaele is sent back to the
Jesuit school to be broken perforce into the monastic spirit. The
force of fabrication could no further go ; and we subjoin a few
lines as a specimen of the information imparted in the charitable
pages of some of the London Missionary magazines : —

Now, though the Inquisition, or Holy Office, as it was often mis-
called, is destroyed, the persecuting spirit of Popery remains the same,
and the Jesuits are foremost in the work. Many works of darkness
and cruelty are still wrought in secret, and in Italy the power of the
Pope and priesthood is so great that more persecution can be carried
on without detection, than, perhaps, in any other country. Raffaele
knew 'that, having disobeyed and defied them, he had everything to
fear. When he slept, he dreamed of daggers, and axes, and the rack,
of burning piles, and heated irons ; and woke in terror.

The final touch of the article is too ridiculous to be reprehen-
sible. The Bible has been the turning-point of the apostate's
career; and the little ones are persuasively told that "a number
of good men called colporteurs " are now employed to sell Bibles
to the people of France. What else the colporteurs sell beside
Bibles, is a question best not asked in Sunday Schools.

When we turn to another of these publications — the Juvenile
Missionary Magazine, printed in Edinburgh — the entertainment
provided and the information upon Catholic subjects are of the
same kind; and the moral is even more tersely stated. For
example, in this magazine devoted to foreign missions, our chance
openings brought us to an article on missionary life in Spain.
The dangers of a Protestant missionary's life in a Catholic land are
here painted in glaring colours. The threatened kidnapping of
his child, anonymous letters hinting that he will soon leave a
mourning family, men, dagger in hand, waiting outside his
chapel at night — these are the perils and horrors which he
imagines and reports for the edification of little English children.
Further, he declares positively that the priests, " the slavish serfs
of the Pope," would, no doubt, '' gladly roast missionaries now"
if only they could, as in the days of the Inquisition ; and in the
midst of this rampant nonsense he suddenly sobers us by drawing
from his unique experience a moral for credulous youth : — " We
cannot sufficiently detest and abhor that spurious and corrupt
form of religion called Popery, It is anti-Christian, degrading,
and debasing.^' It may serve as an index of the evil work done by
such periodicals, to state that the magazine, which printed these
words, circulates at the rate of nearly half a million a year, a
large number of copies being distributed gratis. It is, of course,
probable that many copies of these productions find an innocent
and useful fate like that proverbial of the tracts and Bibles sent

Literature for the Young. 365

to China ; but the winged seed of ill-weeds fills the air wherever
such publications are being issued broadcast.

The magazines of religious reading brought out by many
Protestant sects and societies are far higher and better than these.
In presence of the materialism of our time, and the sinking of
thousands of the working classes in large towns to a godless life
of monotonous low-levelled thoughts and animal instincts — when
we see workers, whosoever they be, simply striving to make the
name of God known, revered, and loved, we are prompted to call
to mind the words once spoken to the murmuring disciples, " He
that is not against you, is for you." There is, of course, much
error in these publications, much Evangelical doctrine, much that
is untrue to Catholic ears, a vast amount that is unpractical.
But surely they are " for us," if they contain no hostility to the
Church, no misrepresentation of our faith, no sowing the seed of
prejudice, and if they are in no way forced upon our children,
but are devoted to giving some view — the best they can — of a
supernatural life, and teaching prayer and hope in a region outside
the reach of Catholic teaching. Many of the magazines —
notably the little magazine called Sunshine — for Sunday Schools
and Sunday reading, are of this nature; and some ol the temperance
- organs, such as the Review of the Band of Hope — the Protestant
Total Abstinence Society for the young. They are laborious,
. praiseworthy efforts, and we can have nothing to say against them,
and much to say for them, so long as they are actuated by charity
towards others, and honest adherence to doing their own work
for God's sake, according to their light. As regards Catholic
children, we need not explain that this literature is quite apart
from their use. However good in aim and in spirit, the mere
fact that such publications are at once religious and un-Catholic,
proves them to be injurious if they are used in Catholic hands.
The doctrine is false in the light of the fulness of truth; the
system of instruction is different. The views of sin, atonement,
righteousness, justification, salvation, are all at variance with
Catholic teaching — and all the more dangerous if the error is
almost imperceptible. The advocacy of placing the whole Bible
in children's hands, for accurate study, is opposed to the prudence
of the Catholic system. And as to the test of religious knowledge
(i.e., knowledge of the Bible), we find in prize competitions
questions asked which Catholic children — familiar with the life
of our Lord and the Old Testament narrative and magnificently
rich in the doctrinal wisdom of faith — would smile at, instead of
answering.. Before passing on we cannot refrain from noting a
few of these questions as a curiosity of Bible study : —

A gesture of the body, mentioned by the prophets, denotes grief in
one passage and imports gladness in another : give the two verses.

366 Literature for the Young.

What description have we of the clothing to be worn in the King-
dom of Glory ?

Where do we read of a nation without any intelligence ?

Where do we read that fifty men set out in all directions to seek a
corpse ?

The prize competitions are a striking feature of these, and of
all magazines for the young. The prizes vary — perhaps watches,
guineas, or books, more or less valuable ; and thereby children,
are stimulated to attain proficiency in all sorts of tournaments
of knowledge and wit, from such Bible questions as these, and
Bible acrostics, down to the writing of simple letters to the
editor; and from the composition of essays to the devising of
stories to explain a picture — the last an excellent training of the
invention and imagination.

Passing on to magazines not avowedly religious, we find a
large number which give a copious supply of texts, and moral
tales of the distinctly and obviously moral type. These form
the transition link between the religious and the chiefly secular
magazines. A step nearer to entirely non-religious reading,
there is a class of magazines which give most of their space to
matter of secular interest, and reserve a page or' two under some
such special heading as " Our Sunday School,^"* or '^ Sunday After-
noons.'"' To this class belong many of the most thriving juvenile
magazines, headed by Little Folks (perhaps the most success-
iul of all such publications, though only in existence since 1871),
and Golden Childhood, a, still younger serial, but a rival not
to be despised. No matter how bright and pleasant these
magazines are in their general information and. their excellent
fiction of child-life, we must always be prepared to find in them
something of Protestant teaching. Their intention is laudable —
to amuse and instruct without excluding from recreation hours
the thought of God and His service ; but, as we have already
said, the religious instruction is mingled with error, and even
where it avoids questions of doctrine and gives sacred history or
descriptive geography of the Holy Land, rather than moral
instruction, there is an un-Catholic tone, and the right spirit
ior Catholic children is wanting. We must also be prepared to
come across crooked views of history seen with refracted light
through a Protestant medium — biographies of the Reformers,
studies of the girlhood of Elizabeth, and canonization of the
Martyr King. At the same time, in looking over these magazines
we could not but rejoice at the earnestness of their religious tone
in these days of growing unbelief, and the painstaking manner
in which, with sight set firmly towards His Divinity, the life of
Christ is described with an attractive simplicity. For example,
in' Golden Childhood, in the midst of childish fun and bright

Literature for the Young, 367

tales for cliilJren, we came upon a careful, studious, and touchinj^
description of the Passion, such as in its tenderness, simplicity,
and reverence, must have drawn from many youn^ ej^es tears of
compassion very dear to God. The truth of all this havlnj^ been
"for us and for our sins:'' the moral. Don't do even little
things to displease Him now : appear in their own place with
the telling effect of truth and earnestness. The want of the
Catholic view was, indeed, conspicuous in «ome points, such as
in the reference to the " half-conscious Victim " before the
crucifixion, and the estimate of the last agony as six hours ; but
the whole spirit of the paper was so true and touching, that no
one could doubt that such efforts are pleasing to the Lover of
little children. We know that magazines of this kind circulate
largely among Catholic families. Their letterpress is so excel-
lent, judged by a purely literary standard, their tone so healthy,
their amusing qualities so bright and prominent, that in the
dearth of a similar fund of general entertainment of our own,
our children naturally welcome them. But there must be a
constant guard kept over such pages — even the most reliable — a
vigilance to exclude the erroneous religious element ; and the
special articles for Sunday reading, which, however good for those
that have no better resource, can do no good, and may do much
harm, to the minds of children who enjoy the fulness of doctrinal
truth, and the unerring moral guidance of the Church. A
whole page of such reading may be carelessly passed over
as '' what any child might read — nothing in it but what is
good" — and on the first line of the next there may be one of
those chance statements such as we have noted, apt to set a child
wrong by an un-Catholic view or an unapproved belief, or merely
by the Protestant wording of a truth that ought to be familiar
to the mind only in the form in which it is known to the house-
hold of the faith. Others among these magazines have no
special religious reading, no mention of religion except in some
broad, unexceptionable sentiment in a poem, and they appear to
be entirely devoted to matters of secular interest. Nevertheless,
even there may be found some of the leaven from which we
would guard our children. Thus, there could hardly be a paper
at first sight more free from anything objectionable or erroneous
than that which bears the name of Aunt Judy^s Magazine ;
and true to its name it is redolent of amusement of all kinds, with
hardly a mention of even the vaguest religious sentiment. Occa-
sionally in a poem there enters an expression of religious thought,
quietly sanctifying the gaiety of the surrounding pages. We
subjoin, as an example, a few verses of this kind to show the
character of soundness and safety which one half-page may win
for the whole from unsuspecting eyes. This "Prayer" is, in

368 Literature for the Young.

fact^ so excellent in meaning, that it reminds us of nothing^ so
much as the spirit of St. Ignatius, and the very simplicity of its
earnestness seems to break the words apart.

Lord, grant to me a nobler aim

Than things of earth ;
Let usefulness to Thee, not selfish fame,

Give all my efforts birth.

Long have I studied, toiled, and striven

To make me wise ;
Forgetting that our talents are but given

For Thee to exercise.

Thou gavest — Thou canst take away —

Grant them me still,
To use them for Thy glory — day by day

Refresh with grace my will.

Let me not tire, but knowledge gain,

Knowledge of Thee —
Live unto Thee, and work for Thee I'd fain —

Forgive the past— and strengthen me.

We are inclined after reading this to pass the whole to children
with fearless delight, knowing that they will be the better and
happier for those verses, even while they are occupied with "The
Doleful Ditty of the Dumpy Duck," or elsewhere, " How three
Kittens went out Mousing.' ' But what is our disappointment
when we discover, lurking in the same pages, one of those chance
remarks which would wound a Catholic child to the quick. A
traveller in Spain, describing a church, speaks of the tawdry
" Virgen del Pilar" and the " disgusting" ex votos representing the
diseased limbs that had been healed ; and he characterizes the
whole as exactly like what the ancient Greeks did at the shrines
of Venus and other pagan divinities. With a guide at hand, such
passages might easily be passed over, or for older children some
word of explanation given as to the customs here attacked ; but
everyone knows that children unsuspiciously explore their books
lor themselves; and such passages as this would not only hurt
the sensitive nature of a heart devoted to its heavenly Queen
and to the Church, but a little speck might be left that would
fester, and long after in some other form come to light disturbing
the heart-'s peace. But it must be understood that in thus making
mention of passages out of certain magazines of general reading,
we have no intention of censuring them beyond the rest. The
fact is, those of this class selected for examination are some of
the highest and most nearly free from enmity towards our faith.
We draw attention to them, only with the purpose of proving that

Literature for the Young. 369

even with the very best there is unceasing supervision necessary,
if they are used by Catholic children. Nor must we rely upon the
discernment of the young readers themselves to avoid what is
distasteful to them. However well they may understand the
doctrines and devotional customs of the Church, and however
secure may be their loyalty of heart in believing still as true or
good what they may not understand or could not at the moment
defend against the argument of older wit — we are false to our
trust if we are foolhardy in the exposure of this faith and loyalty
to premature trial. The dripping of water will make some im-
pression at last upon the rock itself; and drops of error, if they
be continually felt, can hardly fail to leave some mark.

The magazine called Little Wide Awake has somewhat
changed its character during the last two years, becoming a
notable exception to the rest by the absence of direct religious
teaching. In matter it is mostly suitable for little children, but
its literary and artistic excellence makes it one of the most attrac-
tive of these publications. For instance, one of Mrs. Moles-
worth's tales therein, '^Hoodie,'"' contains some of the best pictur-
ing we have seen of child-life. Hoodie, five years old, praying
sometimes and thinking of solemn things, is a flesh-and-blood
child still, a refreshing exception to many heroines of juvenile
fiction, who appear as sickly, sanctimonious beings, miniature
Anglican saints, or precocious revivalists. We subjoin a few pas-
sages from the story, choosing our fragments from a portion
where the religious element is most shown : —

" I think God is vezzy kind (says the volatile wilful Hoodie) for,
you know, I said my prayers to Him last night to send birdie back
again, so He must have told him to come. P'raps He sent a' angel to
show birdie the way. I'm going to be vezzy good now, Cousin
Magdalen, awful good, alvays, 'cos God was kind and sent birdie back.
WonH God be glad ? . . . . I wouldn't have tried so much if He
hadn't sent birdie back, but now I'm going to try awful hard."

" But, Hoodie dear, even if God hadn't sent birdie back, it would
have been right to try as hard as ever you could," said Magdalen.
" That's what I wish you could understand^ — even when God doesn't
do what we ask Him, we should try to please Him. For He loves us
just the same, better than if He did what we ask, for He knows that
sometimes what we ask wouldn't be good for us. I don't think you
understand that, Hoodie dear. You think when your mother, or
Martin perhaps, doesn't do all at once what you ask, that it is because
they don't love you. You mustn't feel that way, dear, either about
your friends here, or about God, your best friend of all." Hoodie
looked up, rather puzzled.

Still the difficult explanation had been given wonderfully
well. Afterwards when the cat and bird tragedy comes, and

370 Literature for the Young,

Hoodie holds in her hands the bird dying of fright, she forgets
the lesson, and says to the maid with tearless eyes : — " Is he
dead?^^

" Yes, Miss Hoodie, dear," said Lucy, softly stroking the ruffled
feathers ; '' he is dead, but, oh dear. Miss Hoodie, it isn't so bad as if
the cat had torn and scratched him all over. You should think of
that." But Hoodie could think of nothing in the shape of comfort.
.... " Take hira and bury him," she said. " He can't love me any
more, so take him away. All the loving's dead. He was the only
thing that loved me. I won't try to be good any more. God is very
unkind." " Miss Hoodie !" exclaimed Lucy, considerably shocked.

But Hoodie is capable of better things than this. Her sister
has caught an illness through her disobedience, and here is the
charming picture of a little child's repentance. The same servant
coming to the unfastened door of the room where she had left
Hoodie alone, is surprised to hear some one talking.

Lucy stopped a minute to listen. The voice was Hoodie's own.
She was kneeling in a corner of the room, and the words Lucy over-
lieard were these — " Maudie is worser," Hoodie was saying, " and if
she keeps getting worser, she'll die. And it wasn't Maudie's fault that
she got the affection (infection) fever. It was Hoodie's fault. Oh !
please, dear God, make Maudie better, and Hoodie won't mind if she
gets the fever, 'cos it was her fault. Hoodie's been so naughty, and
poor Maudie's good. And everybody loves Maudie, but nobody can
love Hoodie. So please, dear God, make Maudie better," and then she
ended in her usual fashion, " for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." Lucy
stood, holding her breath, at tlie door. When she saw that Hoodie
got up from kneeling, and sat quietly down on her chair again, she ,
ventured to enter the room. Hoodie looked at her rather suspiciously.
" Lucy," she said, with a touch of her old imperiousness, " 1 think
you should amember to knock at the door."

We were inclined to approve as entirely harmless to Catholic
children the whole serial which contained this charming volume
with the more charming '' Hoodie" (although alas ! little
Hoodie w^as no Catholic child ; but, on turning the pages of
the former volumes, it was painful to find in the very same serial
that now looks so harmless, " Scraps of English History,"
broadly describing the Beformation as the purifying of the
Church from the corruptions introduced by the Popes of Rome,
glorifying even Cranmer as a martyr, telling how "the people of
England turned with abhorrence from such cruelties, and felt an
aversion for the Boman Catholic Church in whose name they
were practised,'^ stating, after all this, nothing whatever of the
blood-stained side of Elizabeth's reign ; and even stooping to the
unfairness of characterizing for children the Gunpowder Plot
conspirators as " a number of Boman Catholic gentlemen.'^

Litevature for the Young, 371

After such a discovery as this, and also the appearance in back
volumes of Protestant New Testament History, we can only say
once again — thous^h it were for the fiftieth time — that one
harmless and excellent volume of a periodical is no guarantee for
the nature of the other volumes, and that for our Catholic children
the one guarantee of safety is Catholic editorship.

For somewhat older heads, that are still the green heads pro-
verbially found on young shoulders, there are periodicals adapted
to follow the tastes of growing boys and girls up to the age of
twenty, or even farther. Best known among these are The Boys'
Oiun Paper and The Girls^ Own Paper, issued from the office of
the Leisure Hour ; and Every Boy's Magazine and Every Girl's
Magazine, issued by one of the oldest firms, which has brought
out a century^s books for the young. There is also a recent
publication, the Union Jack, consisting chiefly of high-class tales
of adventure, travel, and school-life, and edited and supported
from the beginning by such well-known writers for boys as the
late Mr. Kingston and Messrs. Ballantyne and Henty. We shall
have a few words to say about some of these magazines, and this
must bring to a close our survey of non-Catholic periodical
literature for the young. With very few exceptions — (in the
touching of religious subjects) — the Girls' Own Paper is every-
thing that a girl could desire. From school-life and play up to
the management and furnishing of the house, it contains infor-
mation for all ages, instruction, and healthy fiction. But here
again we cannot approve without exception. It is true. Catholic
girls can receive notaint of un-Catholic ideas from the advice about
Sunday School teaching ; but the whole spirit of the religious
element will be indicated by quoting one paragraph from an
article on the reading of " the god of Books ;" — the only good
thing in the article is the suggestion that to g^t help from Bible
reading, there should be prayer for light beforehand.

Consult His Word if you want to know what you are, and if you
want to know God's will concerning yourself. .... Now, an intelli-
gent reading of the Bible requires a great deal of study. Not that
the most ignorant of what this world calls learning are not competent
on that account to receive and to hold fast the vital truths of our
religion ; for, as Horsley says, the most illiterate Christian, if he will
but read his English Bible in a proper manner, can not only attain all
that practical knowledge which is essential to salvation, but by God's
blessing will become learned in everything relating to his rehgion, in
such a degree that he will not be liable to be misled either by the
refuted arguments or the false assertions of those who endeavour to
engraft their own opinions upon the oracles of God.

We would also notice an article on Christmas, contributed by
no less a dignitary of the Church of England than the Archbishop
VOL. VI.— NO. II. [r/iircZ Series.] c c

372 Litemture for the Young.

of Canterbury^ in which occurs a strano^ely blind statement —
none other than that the Christmas cribs of " Roman Catholic
countries " have " a tendency to give a somewhat low idea of
what the Lord Jesus Christ is in His Divine Majesty," and that
they certainly may be and have been used "to withdraw the
mind from Christ Himself to the worship of the human mother/'
And this is stated, although it is first admitted that, " after all,
these representations may in a certain stage of knowledge and
feeling have much the same effect as some noble picture of the
Holy Family,, executed by a great painter, has on the educated

and refined Under quite different circumstances to

ours they may be helps to devotion.'^ After this, where is the
consistency of the Archbishop of Canterbury ? He must either
condemn the great masters of painting or the Christmas cribs.
The humble church crib was never more praised than by such
dispraise.

The companion magaz^ine of the same firm. The Boys' Otun
Paper J has recently made itself notorious by side-cuts of hostility
to our religion. In other respects it promised to be for boys
what the Girls' Own is for their sisters, a repertory of amusement
and of all they desire to learn in leisure hours from the holiday
business of school years up to the hard work of after-life. The
hostility to our faith and the glimpses of bigotry are greatly to
be regretted in pages that otherwise would be so popular. How
completely a good thing is spoiled, may be gathered from the
words of a well-known priest on the London mission, whose letter
of warning recently appeared in the Catholic press : — " I regret
greatly that the writers who contribute to this popular magazine
do not confine themselves to the truth concerning Catholic
doctrines and devotions, but indulge in unfair and false state-
ments, which reveal their own ignorance,, prejudice, and bigotry.
Some months ago I addressed a remonstrance to the Editor, and
pointed out to him the evil of allowing such a style of writing.
It appears that my remonstrance was unheeded, for in this May
number I find a passage as offensive to Catholics as it is untrue.
It is my duty, therefore, to give this word of warning against
The Boys' Oivn Paper, which fails to respect the feelings of
Catholics, and does not adhere to the truth in speaking of them."
These are words that might apply to many another magazine of
seemingly innocuous general reading. As for the Union Jack,
since it was first unfurled under W. H. Kingston's leadership, we
may be sure of the strength and bravery of the heroes, the hair-
breadth escapes and dashing adventures which they were all
fortunate enough to find. There is little or no mention of
religion. The stories are meant to amuse, not to give moral
instruction^ unless it be in honesty, bravery, honour, and the

Literature for the Young. 373

natural virtues of strong-limbed youth. Where religion is
introduced,^ it is of the school of muscular Christianity, "it may
teach that it is noble and Christian to forgive an enemy and to
repay his evil-doing with good ; but it is freely implied— as it is,
indeed, implied and accepted in a moral sense among the bulk of
the world's full-grown boys — that, previous to the time for
forgiveness, there is a point of insult at which the muscular
Christian must choose between pugilism and dishonour, between
revenge and a cowardly Christianity. Still the Union Jack is
acknovvledged to be the periodical least likely to offend the
Catholic faith and spirit of our boys ; and the editor has lately
given a very gratifying promise that, as it is " unconnected with
any religion or sectarian association/' no attack upon the
professors of any creed will for a moment be permitted in its
pages. The third of the popular magazines for boys — Every
Boy's Magazine (and Annual) is unequal in attractiveness to the
Union Jack; and though it contains nothing of religion, it has
not yet, so far as we are aware, given any guarantee. Published
by the same firm. Every Girl's Magazine (and Annual) is at times
impregnated with an unpractical, sentimental religion, and it is
capable of drawing as companion portraits the lives of Sir
Thomas More and of John Wesley !

From all this survey of juvenile periodicals, and from a close
examination of many journals that space does not allow us even
to name, the resulting impression is — that non-Catholic literature
of this kind is vast in extent, and strong in all valuable and
attractive qualities : that it contains. an almost universal element
of un-Catholic religious teaching and a strong anti-Catholic bias :
that it is, therefore, at the same moment sure to be largely and
almost necessarily used in Catholic families, and sure to carry
thither (unless there be great vigilance) an element of false
education. Now, it lies in the hands of Catholics— not our hw
writers, but the whole body — to secure for the little ones of the
Church a new influence for good, a worthy periodical literature
of their own. The only thing needed is a sufficiency of patient
support for the first efforts that are being made, and we would
predict with certainty a Catholic juvenile periodical, or cluster
of periodicals, that would in every way equal and out-distance
non-Catholic competition. We say "patient support'' is
required, because the beginning of every great work is a small
and a weak beginning, and those who have most at heart the
success of the present Catholic Children's Magazine, will be. the
most ready to acknovvledji^e with us that it is yet small and weak
as compared with the need which it is destined to fill. But, how-
ever small, it is highly promising. The series of studies of
"Eugenie de Guerin/' and the monthly letter of the little

c c a

374 Literature for tie Young.

readers' " Friend/' are in themselves sufficient promise of what
might be; but these are far from bein^^^ all the signs of possible
strength. We heartily wish for the day when the welcome of
all Catholics for this persevering first effort will have caused it
to develop into one of the largest^ best, and widest circulating
of Irish and English periodicals ; for we feel certain that such
an ever-fresh recreative influence would be an immense power for
good among the whole number of our Catholic children. If it
does not hold that position now, and if it cannot rival non-
Catholic magazines, the simple reason is because Catholics are as
yet slow to assist in the work. In such a case as this obviously
it is not the excellence of the matter that will ensure circulation,
when its place is already occupied by un-Catholic literature; it
is, on the contrary, the circulation that, under the same manage-
ment, would change small beginnings into excellence.

As to this question of excellence, if we examine in what con-
sists the attractiveness of non-Catholic periodicals for the young,
we shall easily distinguish three great qualities, beside the merits
of illustration, which is merely a matter of capital and cost, in
these days of high art in black and white. The three qualities
we would note are : the elements of amusement, of information,
of truth to Nature. In every recreative book that is meant for
young readers the presence of what they call " fun^^ is positively
necessary. If man is a laughing animal, much more so is the
boy ; but there is the gre.il distinction that they do not laugh at
the same things. For the man and for the boy, w^it and humour
are represented by very (■iff'erent ideas; and there will be no
success in amusing the young unless the child's standard of|
humour is well known, and yet the man's standard of humour
indicated. Even in causing a laugh there may be an improve-
ment of taste, an unsuspiciously received germ of instruction ;
but unless somehow the laugh be caused, the free hours will be
given elsewhere, and the book will be voted dry. Our Pro-
testant contemporaries have long ago perceived this necessity,
and the brightness of childhood's ready smile is provoked in
every corner of their pages, and constantly watched for in their
fiction. As to the second quality — information — we do not for a
moment mean to advocate that periodicals should turn into lesson
books ; in that case, the periodicals would turn before long into.,
waste paper. But there are certain topics on which boys an(
girls thirst for information, topics for the most part peculiarlj
associated with their own life, or with the life of imaginatioi
which mingles with it. They want to know about boat-building
and chess, bicycling and bowling, crewel work and singi
travelling and mountaineering, how famous men and womei
were actually boys and girls once, and how life goes on all th(

Literature for the Young: 375

world over. All they want to know makes a medley far worse
than this, because it is a thousandfold more various; and the
whole is the outcome of that curiosity which is one of the
strongest traits of the character of most children. Kept within
bounds, a child's curiosity often is the energizing power in educa-
tion. Without some evidence of this quality, children are
what is commonly called dull; their mental life is like the
life of a polyp contentedly fastened to a rock, and accepting all
that comes within his circle of tentacles, but not troubled by
feeling that there must be a good deal of the world farther away.
The faculty of curiosity is as closely mingled as that of ambition
with the desire to learn. If curiosity is ill directed and if it
becomes a ruling power, we may expect the same evil that results
from the abuse of any other faculty; but there is no reason why
it should not be used for <>:ood within due limits. During: the
hours of recreative reading, or, as we have called them, the hours
of self-education, the child's curiosity is generally most active.
That it be turned to good, and satisfied usefully without
being allowed in simple hunger to seek the satisfaction of
pernicious reading — all this depends greatly upon the attractive-
ness and the value of well-chosen information in the periodicals
that belong to the young. In those periodicals they take a
peculiar interest, becoming not only readers of the magazine, but
having an individual connection with it, by correspondence with
the editor. This again is a great power for good. For instance,
the editor of Sunshine is a hard-working clergyman well known
in London as a friend of the working classes, simply seeking to
brighten their lives, and using such expedients as his magazine
and his floral services in a chapel full of flowers ; Sunshine itself
is but a very small, well-intentioned ray; but he boasts of a
correspondence with some thousands of young readers all the
world over. Is not such a correspondence as this in Catholic
hands a thing to be expected and hoped for? Lastly, we have
noted a necessary element of success — truth to life; and this chiefly
applies to fiction. We do not alone mean that fiction should be
a description of persons and incidents given in such a natural
manner as to be in effect like a reflection of some lives that have
been lived somewhere — a reflection true in all characters and
events, not with the truth of what actually has been, but of what
actually may be. This truth the fiction ought to possess, but
we would indicate another kind of truth also. The stories of
young lives ought to answer truly to the real conscious life of the
child's heart. It ought to be vigorous, for vigour is in the nature
of everything young ; and fiction without strength will no more
captivate the boy or girl, than weak fiction of a more mature sort
will entertain an older mind. It ought to be elevating in tone

376 Literature for the Young,

but not necessarily religious. Unless it be fiction grafted on to
Church history, or introducing the characters of canonized saints,
there is no reason why religion should ever fill the greater part
of the pages. And stories containing but little mention of
religion are often of the very highest benefit to young readers.
We add this remark, because there is forced upon us from long
examination of this subject, the truth that Catholic writers for
the young are apt through very zeal to make their own work less
effectual. They are individually anxious to give religious instruc-
tion and direct moral teaching ; whereas, what is wanted most is,
not direct teaching, but that unceasing undercurrent of true
Catholic spirit, which cannot fail to be present in even the most
purely secular work of a Catholic mind. Books for the young
need not be spiritual books ; for the most part they ought not
to be spiritual books, unless we want to drive our boys and girls
to seek all their recreative reading in the works of Protestants.
Those boys and girls, be it always remembered, are growing up
to give to God an active service, which will not by any means
consist entirely of prayers and devotions. To a great extent their
prayer, the prayer that is commanded to be offered always, will be
their life — life with its contact with the world on every side : its
meeting and journeying on with crowds of other faces in different
relationships : its hard trials, sometimes apparently of the most
unsanctifying kind and the most unromantic aspect : its daily
round of duties little and great : its recurring, tormenting
uncertainty as to what is duty at all and what is not. Out of
such commonplace stuff as this is made, in the lives of most men
and women, the precious life offering that the touch of God turns
to the pure gold of His service. And for such lives the child-like
fictions of childhood, the brave tales of boyhood, ought to be made
part of the preparation. If they be true to their end, they will
have much more to do with secular matters than with religious,
just as the child will have in after-life more labour and ordinary
talk than devotional converse in every day. Faith, prayer, and
devotion are taught elsewhere ; the reading of the recreation
hour ought not always teach them directly — and fiction seldom.
Its real work is to show the outer side of lives as faith ought to-
mould them : to implant in the generous nature of the young the
thought of duty, the patient resolve to suffer, the hope of having,
if need be, the glorious strength of great self-sacrifice. To^
teach these things indirectly is to teach the life-prayer that
speaks to God in actions, not words. But what is indirect
teaching, and how is it to be conveyed? We answer, it is to be
conveyed by example. True fiction will give in unlimited
aspects the story of noble examples ; and, in proportion as it is
true, it will appeal to the reader-'s faculty of imitation. Fenelon

Minor Poets of Modern France, 377

says of this faculty of imitation, that it has been implanted in the
young in order that they may be easily bent towards what is
shown to them of good. What is any worthy fiction, but an
exposition of the good that has been done and that may be done
in ordinary life? To show it is enough; we need not in words
bid the generous and ardent to copy. They lov« to imitate ; and
imitation is easy for their plastic minds and their lives of unformed
habit. Very often to teach spirituality is to spoil a story ; to
make it simply a picture of good, drawn by a Catholic hand and
heart, is to leave in it the fascination of an abiding good example.
We have been prompted to add these words by our sense that in
juvenile fiction the spirituality is often introduced to the
detriment of the vigour and power of the story itself. And we
have purposely wandered away from our distinct province — perio-
dical literature — because we wish these remarks to apply, not to
Catholic periodicals, but to Catholic juvenile fiction, wherever it
appears. We shall never rally all children together, never win
the playful little ones, never, above all, arrest the attention of
growing boys, until it is well understood that Catholic, literature
is to be a united power, not a succession of individual efibrts.
When our writers are content to work simply for the exclusion
of evil ; when they are content to teach by good hardy stories,
without aiming at spirituality in every chapter ; when they are
content not to teach directly, or not to teach at all, but to amuse;
when they find their different work, some treading the higher
paths of direct religious teaching, others humbly luring the little
ones near or keeping them anyhow from following false paths —
when, as we say. Catholic writers appreciate this great work and
accomplish it with the esprit de corps of a body who are ready to
choose individual sacrifice for the sake of gaining united success —
then, and then only, we shall be in a fair way to possessing a
Catholic juvenile literature worthy of our numbers, and worthy
of the love of the Church for the souls of the young.

Art. IV.— minor poets OF MODERN FRANCE.

IN approaching the subject of the Modern Poets of France, our
feelings are not unlike those of a person who, on entering a
vast aviary, is called upon to give an account of his garrulous
surroundings and their varied song. A countless number of small
birds warble, each on his separate twig, while here and there only,
mounting above the croak of the raven, the screech of parrots.

378 Minor Poets of Modem France.

and the cooing of doves (for pigeons are plentiful), the clear,
strong notes of some sweet songster charm the bewiklered ear and
dominate the general din. In each case, whether of the winged
or wingless warblers, two general characteristics which present
themselves are multitude and, with regard to the larger number,
mediocrity. Volumes of verses — poems, odes, and even sonnets,
for the most part excellently written — pour in rapid succession
from the press : and yet nothing can be much more profitless and
disappointing than the examination of these productions usually
proves to be.

Never, perhaps, since the time of the Welsh Druids was the
science of rhythm more carefally studied than it is at the present
day. Is a strophe wanted ? A hundred versifiers are ready with
it at once, admirably finished, delicately turned, charmingly
coloured, and having only one defect — it lacks substance — it
wants an idea.

The chief principle of the new poets seems to be to avoid hav-
ing any principle in particular ; and that they must have no credo^
is their one belief. According to them, poetry must admire every-
thing alike, have no enemies, make no war against evil, admit no
distinctions between vice and virtue. In fact, the only Ibrms of
enmity, more or less veiled or violent, that we have found among
the new poetic generation have been invariably against one or
another of three objects — the Catholic Church, Chastity, and the
Prussians : otherwise their dogma is that Poetry ought to be as
plastic as Sculpture itself, or rather that it is merely a jewelled
robe in which noble forms or vile may alike be draped. Its true
and ancient purpose, that of leading the mind upward to the
Source of all Beauty by the charm of beautiful language clothing
lofty thoughts, if not forgotten, is discarded and despised, and,
instead, its sole ambition is the Picturesque. One result of
this worship of the picturesque has been ^o lead certain of its
devotees, into sheer paganism — in the same way that with us
Mr. Edwin Arnold has apparently been landed in Buddhism by
his cultus of Siddartha.* And where these poets do not worship
Jupiter, Pan, and, above all, Venus, they usually worship nothing :
they have no enthusiasm for what is great, no aspiration for

* We should be sorry to misjudge the talented author of " The Light
of Asia ;" but our impression is received from the concluding lines of his
work — addressed to Buddh : —

Ah ! Blessed Lord ! 0 high Deliverer !

Forgive this feeble script which doth thee wrong,

Measuring with little wit thy lofty love.

Ah ! lover ! brother ! guide ! lamp of the law !

I take my refuge in thy name and thee !

I take my refuge in thy law of good !

I take my refuge in thy order !

Minor Poets of Modern France. 879

what is noble, no scorn for what is mean, no appreciation of un-
selfishness and sacrifice. The chief feature of their highly-finished
verses is that they are featureless; and their generic mark, a com-
plete indifference to all that is grand, lofty, or sacred.^

To find a reason for the general (we do not say universal)
mediocrity of the contemporary poetry of France, we must briefly
glance back to an earlier period than that to which the remainder
of our article is intended to reach.

The events of 1830, which came upon the country in the full
current of her poetical movement, affected this as they affected
every other department of literature and art. All remaining
barriers of conventionality and restraint were swept away, the
spirit of Utopianism, everywhere abroad, took especial possession
of the poets, naturally more predisposed than others to receive it ;
and from every craft that rode the shimmering sea of poesy the
ballast was thrown overboard, Vvrhile every yard of canvas was
unfurled. Many, even of those who, until then, had accepted
the salutary check of Catholic rule, shaken in their obedience to
the principle of authority, fell a prey to the general intoxication ;
rationalism, under forms the most diverse, speedily made itself
master of the field ; and it was not until the next period of
revolution — eighteen years later — that this effervescence began to
subside. One outcome of this movement was the severance of
the links connecting one school with another, as well as the rapid
disintegration of the schools themselves. Thus, the romanticism
which had occupied so large a place in art and literature, split,
like the liberalism and eclecticism of the time, into endless sub-
divisions ; enthusiasm cooled, rivalries and dissensions multiplied,
and each individual, eager for renown at the expense of his
neighbours, sought to be himself regarded as a centre and head.

This dissolution of the schools increases the difficulty of our
subject — not an easy one in itself — since, instead of classes, we
have to deal with a number of isolated poets. A few general
features, nevertheless, are still discernible in the respective camps
of the rationalists and revolutionists, the colourless or indif-
lierent, and the essentially Catholic writers. To the last-named
group belong nearly all the provincial poets, and more particu-
larly the Christian bards of Brittany and the minstrels of Pro-
vence. The order in which the representatives of these groups

* " This indifference of the poets," writes M. Leon Gautier, " appears
to me a real danger — one of the forms of Satanism. I prefer open and
violent enemies to these too placid admirers of chiaro-oscuro, .... an
energumen making a furious onset against the Church, rather than a
poet or painter gracefully fixing his eyeglass, to stare now at the Imma-
culate Virgin, now at Juno, in order to discover which of the two is the
more picturesque." — Fortraits lAtUraires, p. 422. Paris : Gaume.

380 Minor Poets of Modern France.

and their subdivisions will here come under notice, is, for the
most part, determined rather by chronology, or some affinity to
another individual or class, than by merit.^

Immediately after the Three Days of July, appeared the
avenging "^ Iambics '' of Auguste Barbier, revealing talents of
no ordinary stamp. " La Curee" satirized the place-hunters who
profited by a Revolution to devour the prey they had not taken ;
" Pldole^^ attacked the literary worship of Napoleon and the
idolatry of success ; " La Popularite'' rebuked the men in power
who sought to win favour with the people at the price of the
public good; and " Melpomene '\was an eloquent censure of the
disgraceful scenes allowed to be represented on the stage. These
" Iambics," full of energy and heat, are a combination of the
satire and the ode; but their movement, imagery, and rhythm,
establish a wide difference between this winged poesy and the
older form of the didactic satire.

Having scourged the crying abuses of his day, the poet threw
away the rod. His subsequent writings, although appreciated
by men of taste, have added nothing to his reputation : he still
remains the Poet of the Iambics, and his true title to fame is the
fact of his having introduced this new style of poetrj^ into French
literature. This style has been feebly imitated, as well as greatly
exaggerated, by Earth el emy, and Mery of Marseilles. Notwith-
standing his strong individuality, Barbier was the representative
of a class. He belonged to the higher branch of the rationalistic
school, with Viennet, Pougerville, Bignan, Mmes. de Girardin,
Desbordes-Valmore, Tastie {" La Muse du Foyer"), Elisa Mer-
coeur (" La Muse de Nantes'^), and Delphine Gay (" La Muse de
la Patrie"), all of whom ibllowed more or less closely in the track
of Berano:er.

Contemporary with Barbier appeared a poet of more brilliant
though unequal talents, who, too often, of " noblest gifts made vilest
using." This was Alfred de Musset, born in 1810, the son of
a literary man, a disciple of Rousseau.

At the opening of his career, Lamartine, Hugo, and de Vigny,
were in the zenith of their fame, and, except by a small circle of
admiring friends among the jeunesse doree, for whom he wrote, he
remained unnoticed during the fourteen years in the course of

* Lest it should excite surprise that Victor Hugo has no place in the
present article, we will mention that it is our intention to deal only with
the mass of modern French poets who are, for the most part, compara-
tively unknown in England. Victor Hugo is already historical, and we
have no need to add another to the numberless reviews of which his
works, whether those which reflect the early splendours of his genius, or
its subs'-^quent decline, have been the subject. Besides, to have admitted
him into these few pages would have been putting an albatross into a
hen-coop — he would have taken up all the room.

Minor Poets of Modern France. 381

which all his principal works were published ; nor would he ever
have been raised by public opinion to the pedestal he afterwards
occupied, had not the tone of public morality become lowered,
together with the public taste. At this period, the spiritualism
which had prevailed during the Restoration was yielding before
Platonism and Pantheism, either avowed or latent ; the lofty and
refined criticism of M. Villemain was set aside for the debased
moral tone of Sainte-Beuve, and every department of literature
bore witness in itself to the general decadence of ideas. Lamartine
deteriorated after his ^^ Chute d'un Ange ;'^ Hugo after his
"Burgraves;'' and de Vigny, the soldier-poet, whose earlier
notes, ringing with faith and loyalty, were the delight of the
Quartier St. Germain, until, untuned by false philosophy and
unbelief, they lost all their sweetness, and died away in bitter
complainings into a hopeless silence — de Vigny had long ceased
to sing when, in 1844, de Musset first came into vogue.

Notwithstanding his talents, many of the earlier poems of de
Musset are objectionable even in manner, and are far more
objectionable in matter. In his eagerness to be thought original,
he was often merely singular, and he sought out and revelled in
scandalous subjects, as if, from dread of being commonplace, he
studiously avoided all that was moral. The shameless verses of
the ''Contes d'Espagne et d'ltalie'' are not simply shameless,
but at the same time an envenomed attack upon morality as
such. Andyet here and there, amid the surrounding darkness, there
■flashes out a spark of true poetic fire, as if to show the brilliancy
of the talent thus degraded. But the key-note of all his earlier
-productions was the sensualism which made him the precursor of
the swarm of " realistic '' versifiers who, with fresh defilements,
have followed in the same foul track. Byron was his chosen
model, and his *' Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle" is only "Don
Juan" in another form. "Don Paez,'' as also " Mardoche/'
" Rafael," " Dalte," all have more or less resemblance to the
universal scoffer in whom the author had impersonated his own
pride. Byron has, in fact, exercised a baneful influence upon tlie
present as well as the passing generation of French poets, who
have sedulously imitated his ferocious delight in railing at every-
thing and respecting nothing, and are infected by the same
mania for singularity which prefers to indulge in solitary despair
rather than in hope shared with others.

In course of time, however, a better spirit seemed striving for
the mastery in de Musset. Life, as it passed on, dispelled
many illusions, and he began, though fitfully, to aspire after a
higher ideal. We find his wanton Muse weeping on the thresh-
hold of the Eden of true love; his incredulity bitterly bewailing
loss of faith, and his railing breaking forth into sobbing.

382 Minor Poets of Modern France,

Glimpses of all this may be discerned in some of the exquisite
lines of the "Nuits de Mai/' in the little poems, '^La Coupe et
les Levres/' "A quoi revent les Jeunes Filles T' '^ Namouna/' and
some others ; for, infected as he was by the moral and intellectual
anarchy of the times, he had, nevertheless, a confused instinct of
the greatness of the human soul, which can only be filled by the
Infinite ; and the hunger of his unsatisfied spirit seems to cry
out from the midst of his gay and mocking song. His lines to
Voltaire seem to breathe a sort of despairing vengeance against
the infidel who had led the way to unbelief: —

Dors-tu content, Voltaire, et ton hideux sourire,
Voltige-t-il encor sur tes os decharnes ?
Ton siecle etait, dit-on, trop jeune pour te lire ;
Le notre doit te plaire, et tes hommes sent nes.
II est tombe sur nous, cet edifice immense
* . Que de tes larges mains tu sapais nuit et jour ;

La mort devait t'attendre avec impatience,
Pendant quatre-vingts ans que tu lui fis ta cour ;
Vous devez vous aimer d'un infernal amour,
Ne quittes tu jamais la couche nuptiale.

* # # #

Pour t'en aller tout seul, promener ton front pale
Dans un cloitre desert ou dans un vieux chateau ?
Que te disent alors tons ces grands corps sans vie,
Ces murs silencieux, ces autels desoles.
Que pour I'eternite ton soufiie a depeuples ?
Que te disent les Croix ? Que te dit le Messie ?
Oh ! saigne-t-il encor, quand, pour le declouer,
Sur son arbre tremblant comme une fleur fletrie,
Ton spectre dans la nuit revient le secouer ?

Then, after describing the death, without faith or hope, of Rolla,
he continues : —

Arouet ! Voila I'homme
Tel que tu I'as voulu. G'est dans ce siecle-ci,
C'est d'hier seulement qu'on pent mourir ainsi.

* * * ■ *
Et que nous reste-t-il, a nous, les Deicides?
Pour qui travaillez-vous, demolisseurs stupides?

* * * *
Vous vouliez faire un monde, eh bien, vous I'avez fait.
Votre monde est superbe et votre homme est parfait.
Les monts sont niveles, la plaine est eclaircie,
Vous avez sagement taille Tarbre de vie ;
Tout est bien balaye sur vos chemins de fer ;
Tout est grand ; tout est beau: mais^ on meurt dans

votre air.

Minor Poets of Modern France, 383

These poems are in the writer's latest manner. '^ RoUa" is a
transition from his former style to that of the stanzas to Malibran,
tlje " Treize Juillet/' and '^'L'Espoir en Dieu ''—poems full of
hope for the future, although this hope was not to be realized.
In 1857, at the age of forty-seven, Alfred de Musset died. In
the sonnet with which we close these remarks of which he is the
subject, he had already written the epitaph, as it were, of his dead
pleasures. But even this lament, doubtless as sincere in its
penitence as in its desolateness, seems less like the cry of a
returning prodigal than the groan of a weary roue — although of
one who, in the twilight, is groping in the right direction to find
his home.

J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie,
Et mes amis et ma gaicte ;
J'ai perdu jusqu'a la fierte
Qui faisait croire a mon genie.

Quand j'ai connu la verite,
J'ai cru que c'etait una amie ;
Quand je I'ai comprise et sentie,
J 'en etais deja degoute.

Et pourtant elle est eternelle

Et ceux qui se sont passes d'elle >

Ici-bas ont tout ignore.

Dieu parle ; il faut qu'on lui reponde.
Le seul bien qui me reste au monde
Est d'avoir que]quetbis pleure.

One of the few poets whose writings have invariably tended to
raise the moral tone of the time, is M. Alcide de Beauchesne,
an author faithful to the principles of his native Brittany-
religion, loyalty, and freedom. After reading his " Souvenirs
Poetiques," Charles Nodier said of him that he was "a partisan
of the classics carried away by an ardent sensibility, and a friend
of the romantics restrained by purity of taste'' — a judgment
which he has done nothing to cancel.

His"Livre des Jeunes Meres," which, like the " Marie" of
Brizeux, consists of a number of detached pieces, follows the child
from infancy to its First Communion. These poems, in pro-
gressive order as to subject, become more serious and meditative
in style and tone as with years the heart and mind develop, and
the child learns to choose between good and evil, right and
wrong; the Creator and the Destroyer. Thus, Christianity has
a larger part in the " Livre des Jeunes Meres," than in' the
'' Livre des Mercs" of Victor Hugo.

Another placid and didactic poet, though w^andering in far
more perilous paths than the last-named, is Victor de Lapuade,

^84 Minor Poets of Modern France.

who began his career at Lyons in 1841. His mother was his
first ideal, and his poems are full of her. This Cliristian matron
had, however, the pain of seeing her son led astray for a time by
the false philosophies of the day, but from these, as he owns in
the volume he dedicates to her, he was finally rescued by her in-
fluence and prayers.

Du savoir orgueilleux j'ai trop subi le charme ;
De la seule liaison acceptant le secours,
Je demandai ma force aux sages de nos jours,
Leur sagesse a laisse men coeur faible et sans arme.

Si pourtant j'evitai Feceuil le plus fatal,
Ces chutes ou perit meme la conscience ;
Si je discerne encore et deteste le mal,
Ah ! ce n'est pas un don de rhumaine science !

Des perilleux sen tiers si je sors triomphant
C'est que mon coeur, toujours docile a vos prieres,
Laisse en vos douces mains et cherit mes lisieres,
O ma Mere ! et qu'enfin je reste votre enfant.

Like Brizeux, Laprade vvas tempted by the Utopian theory,
which taught that the final absorption of evil by good is the
result to be effected by social progress and " the co-operation of
the liberty of the individual with the labour of the Infinite" —
the '' Infinite'^ meaning simply Nature in all her manifestations;
and this panthei.-tic phase of thought runs through several of his
earlier poems, being particularly marked in his " Psyche" and
" Hermia." '' Hermia^^ is a doubtful sort of being, who appears
to the poet in the guise of a half-clad nymph or female, issuing
from a bush, and —

Inattentive a I'homme, ayant une famille
Partout ou la nature vegete et fourmille,

so far descends from intellectual to vegetable life as to lose in
winter the power of mental exertion, out of sympathy with the
stoppage of the sap. This being is intended to symbolize the
powerful and magnetic influence exercised by Nature over the
human heart, a species of fascination which in this and other
poems is developed and debased into a species of refined and ener-
vating sensualism. When, however, Laprade awoke from his
Pythagorean dreams, it was to become, what he has ever since con-
tinued— a distinctly Christian poet. In his verses called "Le
Bapteme de la Cloche,''^ after regretting his wasted time, he
adds : —

Alors tu parleras, voix de la vieille Eglise,
Voix comprise de tons, comme un appel humain ;
Et tu m'eveilleras, et mon ame indecise,
S arrachant au desert, prendra le vrai chemin.

Minor Poets of Modern France, 385

The " Poemes Evangeliques," excellent as they are in intention,
and occasionally in treatment, are only a fresh instance of the
impossibility of worthily translating the Gospel narrative into
verse. Attempts of this kind, moreover, are worse than unsatis-
factory when the poet elaborates the Sacred Text with additions
and ideas of his own. These additions are unpardonable, and in
the poem entitled "La Tentation/^ revolting. In the ^'Sym-
phonies,"*' which deal with the mutual action of external Nature
and the human mind, there is often a delicacy of touch which re-
calls Alfred de Musset. Their theme is for the most part a com-
plaint that, when the illusions of youth are dispelled, the bright-
ness of Nature also is no more. In the " Symphonic du Torrent,"
we have the following colloquy. The herdsman first addresses the
poet: —

Je cherche autour de nous ces gemissantes voix,
Et ces mornes tableaux et ce deuil que tu vois.
Un large rayon d'or flotte sur les fougeres,
L'alouette s'egaye en ses notes leg^res,
La cloche tinte au ecu de mes taureaux joyeux
Et les pres, tout en fieur, rejouissent mes yeux.

The poet answers ; —

La Nature se plaint Sa voix, terrible ou tendre,
Parle d'une soufFrance a qui sait bien I'entendre ;
Tout menace ou gemit. — De la source du torrent,
Le flof, qui va gronder, s'ecoule en murmurant,
Comme un soupir sans fin qui remplit tout I'espace,
Dans les sapins tremblants le vent passe et repasse :
Et meme aux plus beaux jours, la voix qui sort des mers,
Atteste un mal obscur dans leurs gouffres amers.

Which of the two is right — the poet or the herdsman ? Both :
since each expresses the feeling which Nature awakens in his
heart ; each invests her with the brightness or gloom of his own
spirit, and then depicts her in light or shade as she appears to
him ; and this is poetry. The other Symphonies we prefer are,
"L^'Alpe Vierge/'' "La Benediction Nuptiale sur la Montague,"
"Le Bucheron,''' "L'IdeaV' " Au Pied de la Croix,'' "La Source
Eternelle,'' and "Le Fruit de la Douleur." Of all these the poems
entitled "Les Deux Muses'' and " Fausta" are unworthy. The
blind Myrtho is very tender to the failings of the heathen Muse,
though (half apologetically) giving the prize to the Christian;
and " Fausta" is in no way comparable to " Berthe" in " Scenes
Pastorales," in whom we have a picture of honest toil and Chris-
tian simplicity and virtue. In " Pernette,-" the author's manner
is neither less lyric nor less descriptive than in his former poems
of a different category^ but the characters are not sufficiently true

386 Minor Poets of Modern France.

to Nature to awaken interest, or to possess any of the freshness of
a real pastoral. The excellent reflexions, — moral, political, and
religious, of Pernette and Pierre are all made in the cultured dic-
tion of M. de Laprade himself; and while the heroine delivers her
long and well-turned discourses, we see in the speaker, not a robust
young countrywoman, busy all the week in the labours of her
house and farm, but the '' Psyche '' of former years.

Dignity and sobriety are perhaps the chief characteristics of
M. de Laprade as a poet; it would be difficult to find in his
writings one impassioned or enthusiastic line. His self-posses-
sion is almost too complete : and yet it may have gone far to
obtain the repeated marks of distinction his works have received
from the Academic Fran9aise, of which he was elected a member
on the death of Alfred de Musset — a poet in almost every respect
a contrast to his successor. The following lines, in which he
abjures his youthful and somewhat Druidic reverence for the oak,
occur in the Poem recited at the Institute on the occasion of his
installation : —

Fais tes adienx a la folle jeunesse :
Cesse, o reveur abuse trop souvent,
De souhaiter que la feuille renaisse
Sur tes rameaux desseches par le vent,

Ce doux feuillage obscurcissait ta route,
Son ombre aidait ton coeur a s'egarer:
La feuille tombe, et, sillonnant la voiite,
Un jour plus pur descend pour t'eclairer.

Oui ! si les bois, I'ombrage aime du chene,
Ont trop cache la lumiere a mes yeux,
Soufflez 6 vents que Dieu sitot dechaine,
Feuilles, tombez : — laissez-moi voir les cieux !

Laprade, Theuriet, and Lemoyne are amono^ the last and
most moral representatives of the Romantics, and belong to the
class of poets who, not content to be a passive echo of external
sounds, or simple copyists of material Nature, prefer rather to
interpret her through their own impressions and sensations than
depict her simply line for line, after the method of the photo-
graphic category, in which M. Aicard is a prominent member.
The "Chemin des Bois" of Theuriet, and/^ Les Charmeuses''' of
Andre Lemoyne, are examples of their embodiment of feeling in
form, or rather of their mingling of something personal and
human with the subject of outward Nature. The stanzas of the
latter poet on the nightingale will help to explain what we
mean : —

Le rossignol n'est pas un froid et vain artiste
Qui s'ecoute cliauter d'une oreille egoiste,

Minor Poets of Modern France. 387

Emerveill^ du timbre et de I'ampleur des sons;
Virtuose d' amour pour charmer sa couveuse,
Sur le nid restant seule, immobile et reveuse,
II jette a plein gosier la fleur de ses chansona.

Ainsi fait le poete inspire. Dieu I'^nvoie

Pour qu'aux humbles de coeur il verse un peu de joie.

C'est un consolateur emu. De temps en temps,

La pauvre humanite, patiente et robuste,

Dans son rude labeur, aime qu'une voix juste

Lui chante la chanson divine du printemps.

Among the poets whose tendency is rather towards a literal
than an interpretative style of description must be ranked M.
Calemaed de la Fayktte, a writer who was acquiring literary
fame in Paris, when an inheritance fell to him in Haute Loire.
He quitted the capital to live in the country, where his poetic in-
clinations combining with his taste for agricultural pursuits,
resulted in the production of the " Poeme des Champs.^' This
poem, divided into eight books, comprises descriptions, reflexions,
episodes, and legends — all excellent in intention, agreeable in
treatment, but wanting condensation ; and yet, in spite of this
defect, many of his lines are suggestive of Virgil, of whom he is
a devoted admirer.

Epris du doux Virgile et plein de ses le9ons,
J' aime les pres touffus et les grasses moissons,
J'aime toute culture et tout ce qui renferme,
Petit monde ignore, le chalet ou la ferme.

But the poet's love of Nature has not led him into the Pan-
theism so much in vogue among his brethren. His poem opens
with the name of his Creator ; and, in the course of his narrative,
he describes, with loving hand, the cultus of Our Lidy, the
popular traditions he meets with, as well as Christian belief.

Moi, je reve une France agricole et chretienne.

At the same time, M. de la Fayette is evidently a practical
man, who lives in the heart of his subject. All is circum-
stantially portrayed, and we have in verse the trial of a model
plough, or the characteristics of a particular breed of cattle-—
themes apparently unmanageable except by the authors of agri-
cultural reports, and in the most unmitigated prose.

Calemard de la Fayette never renders himself liable to the
criticism passed by Buffon on certain writers of his time who
sang of " Les Jardins," " Les Saisons," and " Les Mois," as if
they had never seen a garden, or a season, or a month. He
never shrinks from calling a spade a spade, although none of his
predecessors, for more than a century, had ventured to call a

VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series.] d d

388

Minor Poets of Modern France,

thing by its right name. Lalanne, for instance, could never
bring himself to speak of a peacock or a goose; the one is
"L'oiseau sur qui Junon sema les yeux d^Argus/' and the other,
" L'aquatique animal, sauveur du Capitole /' even a cage, is, " Un
toit d^osier, oil penetre le jour,^** and a cat, " L'animal traitre et
doux, des souris destructeiir.'^ And besides this pedantic circum-
locution, mistakes were made as to the habits and characteristics
of animals — mistakes into which no loving observer of Nature
such as M. de la Fayette would have fallen. In every respect the
improvement is striking when his poems are compared with all
others upon rural and agricultural subjects, whether written in
the present century or the last. It is difficult to select for quota-
tion one passage more than another amid the descriptions of
seed-time and harvest — of forest, field, and farm, breezy land-
scapes or glowing skies which mature the ripening grape. We
will give the portrait of the pure-breed Mezenc, which might be
almost taken Irom the third book of the Georgics.

Portant haut, bien campe sur un jarret d'acier,
Trapu, tout pres de terra, encore un peu grossier ;
Croupe long-temps etroite, et deja suffisante ;
Le rein large et suivi, Tencolure puissante,
Le garret s'evasant en un large plateau,
L'epaule nette, et forte a porter un chateau,
La poitrine, en sa cage, ample et si bien a Taise,
Qu'il faudrait Tadmirer dans une bete anglaise ;
Sobre et fort : patient et dur, bon travailleur,
A ce point qu'un Salers a peine fut meilleur ;
Lent a croitre, mais apte a la graisse k tout age ;
Tel est le pur Mezenc,"^ Taureau demi-sauvage,
Et tel void Gaillard, roi de mes basses-cours,
Sultan de mon troupeau, connu dans les concours,
Laureat de renom, vainqueur en deux batailles,
Et qui n'est pas plus fier ay ant eu deux me dailies.

!Fran90IS Ponsard, anative of Vienna, in Dauphiny, and a
writer of secondary merit, is regarded as the poet of fusion be-
tween the Classics and Romantics. By his admirers he was
designated '^ Chief of the School of Good Sense;" why, is not
clearly apparent, unless on account of his caution, as a rule, in
avoiding boldness and originality. " Lucrece,'''' with which, in
1843, he began his public career, reads less like a production
of his own than a correct and flowing translation from the Latin,
while its flowery periods recall Kacine. By degrees, however, he
laid aside periphrase, and in his anxiety to imitate antique sim-
plicity frequently adopted a style rude almost to coarseness and

* A mountain of the country.

Minor Poets of Modern France. 389

encumbered with political dissertations of wearisome prolixity.
Three years after " Liicrece'^ appeared the drama of *' Agnes de
Meranie," which, although far inferior in talent to the dramas of
Victor Hugo, excels them in faithful delineation of mediaeval life.
With regard, however, to the action of the Church, the author's
judgment is less equitable than that of M. Legouve, who treats
the same subject in his drama of ^' Les Deux Reines.'^

The chef d' cevuvre of Ponsard is his " Charlotte Corday." This
tragedy, with every intention to be classic, is three-fourths
romantic. Full of life and movement, its characters and events
are given with rigorous accuracy, having been carefully studied
by the writer, in the newspapers and other contemporary docu-
ments of 179-3. In the dialogue between Charlotte Corday and
Barbaroux, from which we extract a passage, the individualities
of Marat, Robespierre, and Danton are described with no less
truth than skill.

Barbaroux.

Certes, je hais Danton ; Septembre est entre nous,
Tout lui semble innocent par la victoire absous ;
L'audace et le succes, voila sa loi supreme,
De sa propre vigueur il s'enivre lui-meme ;
Et montant d'un exces a des exces plus grands,
11 sert la Hberte comme on sert des tyrans.
Mais enfin ce n'est pas un homme qu'on meprise,
Madame ! il est puissant ; dans les moments de crise
II trouve d'un coup d'oeil le moment opportun ;
C'est un homme d'Etat cach^ sous un tribun

Charlotte Corday.
Et Robespierre ?

i Barbaroux.

Oh ! lui, c'est chose difFerente ;
Ame seche et haineuse, et vanite souffrante,
Dans tous ses ennemis il voit ceux de I'Etat,

Et dans sa prop"re injure, un public attentat

Laborieux rheteur, son travail incessant
D'un effort acharn^ cherche un genie absent.
.... Lorsque Danton agit, Robespierre d^clame
Ses lieux communs sans ordre et ses phrases sans ame.

* # * ♦ * *

Mais Marat ! ce bandit qui dans le sang se vautre,
Sans l'audace de I'un et sans la foi de I'autre,
Qui tue avec bonheur, par instincts carnassiers,
Qui preche le pillage aux appetits grossiers,
Quoi que d'autres aient fait, il fait bien pire encore :
Eux dechirent la France, et lui la deshonore . . .

DD 2

390 Minor Poets of Modern France,

Un visage livide et crisp^ par le fievre,

Le sarcasme fixe dans un coin de la levre,

Des yeux clairs et per9ants, mais blesses par le jour,

Un cercle maladif qui creuse leur contour

Un regard eiFronte qui provoque et defie

L'horreur des gens de bien dont il se glorifie,

Le pas brusque Qt coupe diW pale scelerat,

Tel on se peint le meurtre et tel on voit Marat.

— Que fait il ? Ou vit-il ? et de quelle maniere ?

— Tantot il cherche I'ombre et tantot la lumiere,
Selon qu'il faut combattre ou qu'il faut egorger,
Present pour le massacre, absent pour le danger :
Mais le combat fini, c'est alors qu'il se montre.
C'est rheure de la proie. Alors si Ton rencontre
Un homme, les bras nus, le bonnet rouge au front,
Sabres et pistolets pendus au ceinturon,

Si cet homme applaudit pendant que Ton ^gorge

Les mallieureux vaincus dont la prison regorge,

C'est Marat ! . . . . C'est Marat ! — Pour le peindre d'un trait,

II m'a dit de sang-froid, tout comme il le ferait,

Que I'unique moyen de calmer nos terapetes,

C'est d'abattre deux cent soixante mille tetes !

The gleam of comedy thrown into the scene of the old emigre in
the second act is a striking departure from the ""unity of gloom^^
— if, to the famous Three Unities we may venture to add another,
held to be indispensable to classic French tragedy. And again,
in the change of mood in Charlotte Corday, when, at the moment
of striking Marat^ she sees a little child : —

Que la voix des enfants, que I'aspect de leurs jeux
Eendent vite le calme k nos coeurs orageux !
C'est comme un pur matin dont la fraiche rosee
Descendrait lentement sur ma tete apaisee

This natural intermingling of light and shadow would have
been inexorably repudiated by the old school^ whose tragic heroes,
with scowling brows, rolling eyes, and alarming hoarseness, were
always ferocious or always in despair.

The subsequent works of Ponsard shew a steady decline. The
attraction exercised upon all poets and artists by ancient Greece
having led him to study Homer, the result was a strong feeling
of irritation against the pretended inaccuracies of '^ L'Aveugle"
of Andre Chenier, which he proceeded to correct by publishing a
version of his own — closely literal, conscientious, and cold, but,
in spite of its verbal accuracy, completely failing to render the
spirit of Homer with the faithfulness of the poet whom he sought
to improve upon. NeverthelesF, in spite of its imperfections
(which have been surpassed in the more recent, and also more

Minor Poets of Modern France. 391

servilely exact, translation by M. Leconte Delisle*), it was a
most praiseworthy endeavour to raise the tone of the modern
French drama.

After " Ulysses'' Ponsard attempted comedy, for which he was
singularly unfit. His " L^Honneur et TArgent^' is solemn and
tedious — overburdened with the republican philosophy and "in-
dependent morality^' of " Rodolphe," who figures as the " Ariste"
of the piece. And yet it is in one of the interminable tirades of
this ponderous personage, that the following beautiful lines occur :

La Vertu, qui n'est pas d'un facile exercice,

C'est la perseverance aprds le sacrifice ;

Cost, quand le premier feu s'est lentement eteint,

La resolution qui survit a I'instinct,

Et, seule devant soi, paisible, refroidie,

Par un monde oublieux n'etant plus applaudie

A travers Jes dedains, I'injure et le degoftt,

Modeste et ferme, suit son chemin jusqu'au bout !

'' La Bourse," which succeeded " L'Honneur et P Argent," is
little else than an inferior copy of the latter. In '^ Horace et
Lydie" the author glorifies immorality, in " Le Lion Amoureux^'
he glorifies the Revolution, and in ^' G-alilee" he calumniates and
attacks the Church. Of Ponsard's works, " Lucrece'^ " Agnes
de Meranic," and " Charlotte Corday," will live, as being works
of conscientious labour, and, in spite of some serious blemishes,
abounding in real beauty and worth. The rest had better not
have been written, and will soon be forgotten, if they are not
forgotten already.

Provincial poetry — that, namely, which aims especially at ren-
dering the customs and spirit of a province, and which is distinct
from the local and historical ballads — is of recent growth in
France. The chief merit of Romanticism was, that it first un-
caged poesy, gave it air and freedom, and, removing every barrier,
encouraged its flight, in no matter what direction. Thus for
fifty years past the individuality of the various provinces, which
had been unable to break through either the classic uniformity of
the seventeenth century or the abstract philosophy of the
eighteenth century, has been gradually resuming its place in the
literature of the country. Two provinces, more than any others,
have contributed to this result— Bretagne and ProvenCe; and this
because, more than any others, they have preserved, amid the

* In this not a few lines occur which are on a par with the folio wring :—

" . . . . Tel^maque !
C'est le plus accompli des jeunes gens d'lthaque "
—an unpardonable platitude in French, although our Milton has made
good his right to his " AccompUshed Eve."

392 Minor Poets of Modern France.

levelling effects of modern civilization, the habits, ideas, and
traditions of the past. These two strong corners of France are,
as it were, the two poles of her genius : for if Bretagne is linked
by race and tenacity of customs and associations to that Celtic
world which constitutes the foundation of French nationality,
Provence, on the other hand, is, by all its antecedents, closely
connected with ancient Greece and Kome.

Of the little clan of Breton and Vendean poets who have be-
come known since the Restoration, de la Villemarque, Brizeux,
Turquetty, and Grimaud, are the most deserving of note, not only
for their poetical merit, but as being also the most emphatically
provincial — the truest interpreters of the race whose boast and
glory it is to be " Catholique et Breton toujours."

M. Hersart de la Villemarqu^ is already too well known
amongst us for it to be needful to do more than mention his
" Barzas-Breiz,^^ in which, as also in several subsequent works, he
has translated and elucidated by an extremely interesting com-
mentary the popular poetry of his province, from Druidic times
to the present ; its historical and legendary folklore, the sacred
poesy of its cloisters, and its *' Grand Mystere de Jesus" — a
Miracle Play of the Middle Ages. As, therefore, " the Walter
Scott of Brittany'^ has occupied himself rather in rescuing the
precious but perishing fragments of the past than in publishing
the original poems which his too-great modesty detains in the
library drawers of Keranske, we pass on to the most gifted as
well as most prolific of his Breton contemporaries.

Julien-Auguste-Pj^lage Brizeux, " the Bard of Arvor" was
born at Lorient in 1803. . His family was of Irish extraction, and
he loved Ireland next to his native Brittany, often associating
the one with the other in his poems ; —

Car les vierges d'Eir-inn et les vierges d'Arvor,
Sent des fruits detaches du meme rameau d'or.

From a very early age he shewed a strong atfection for his
Province : not for Lorient, built by the English East India
Company in 1715, and devoid of character, but for the wild
beauty of the Morbihan,* the primitive manners and ancient
language of '^ la Bretagne Bretonnante," of whose sons he himself,
in his lofty simplicity and energy of character, was a worthy
type.

Oui ; nous sommes encor les hommes d'Armorique,

La race courageuse et pourtant pacifique !

Comme aux jours primitifs la race aux longs cheveux,

Que rien ne peut dompter quand elle a dit, " Je veux I"

* He was the fellow-towiisman of M. de Beauchesne, between whom
and himself there was occasionally a fraternal interchange of verses.

Minor Poets of Modern France. 393

Nous avons un coeur franc pour detester les traitres !
Nous adorons Jesus, le Dieu de nos ancetres !
Les chansons d'autrefois, toujoars nous les chantons.
Oh ! nous ne sommes pas les derniers des Bretons !
Le vieux sang de tes fils coule encor dans nos veines,
O terre de granit recouvert de chenes !

Brizeux appearing for a brief space in the literary reunions at
the close of the Restoration, was claimed by the Romantics as
one of themselves, but his originality and independence of mind
preserved him from the mannerism into which they had fallen.
Notwithstanding all that has been advanced to the contrary, he
was a Catholic poet, and the more emphatically so after his
recovery from the doubts and questionings with which, during
his long sojourn in Paris, the new philosophy of the day had
obscured the faith which it never destroyed. Besides the love
of Grod and of his country, the young poet had grown up with
one of those childish friendships which often afterwards develop
into a warmer feeling; and Marie is the subject of a series of
poems with regard to which M. de la Villemarque not long ago
said to us, '* Vous avez \h la fine fleur de la poesie." In these
poems we have, in all their freshness, the simple eclogue, the
plaintive elegy, and the tender idyl, which, like the birds and
dragon-Hies, fluttered into life amid the woods and streams of
Basse- Bretagne^ Here, for example, is an eclogue : —

Chaque jour vers midi, par un ciel chaud et lourd,
EUe arrivait pieds nus a I'Eglise du Bourg.
Dans les beaux mois d'ete, lorsqu'au bord d'une haie,
On reveille en passant un lezard qui s'effraie ;
Quand les grains des epis commencent a durcir,
Les herbes a secher et i'airelle a noircir.
D'autres enfants aussi venaient de leur village ;
Tons, pieds nus, en chemin ecartant le feuillage
Pour y trouver des nids, et tons a leur chapeau
Portaient ces nenuphars qui fleurissent sur I'eau.

The temporary taint of scepticism appears in the stanzas to
" Doubt/' those to the memory of George Farcy, the " Hymn to
Liberty,'' and others of the same date — all written during his
stay in Paris. There also he wrote with detestation of the
Revolution by which,

Dans un marais de sang, ici la France antique
Disparut ! un roi saint, son Spouse, sa soeur,
Un poete au coeur d'or.

Thus, at Paris, where his principal relations were with Beau-
chesne, Turquetty, Sainte-Beuve, and particularly with de Yigny,
he contracted, together with an exalted admiration for liberty, a

894 Minor Poets of Modern France.

profound abhorrence of the Revolution and its crimes. During
his "' exile " in the capital and its neighbourhood, his heart was
ever turning homeward, and he thought longingly of the sim-
plicity and piety of his native province, in contrast to "these
civilized country- parts" (immediately round Paris) which have
'' no religion, no arts, no costumes, no language, no longer that
amount of ignorance which keeps within the boundary of right
and good, nor yet the knowledge which leads back to it." In
" Le Pays," one af the many poems he wrote at this time, which
breathe the same spirit, he writes.

Oh \ ne quittez jamais, c'est moi qui vous le dis,
Le devant de la porte ou ron jonait jadis,
L'eglise oii, tout enfant, et d'une voix legere,
Vous chantiez k la Messe aupres de votre mere.

And, again, in the poem of " Le Barde ": —

Morne et seul je passais mes jours a m^attrister,

Mais I'esprit du pays m'est venu visiter,

Et le son de sa voix semblait le chant des brises

Qui sifflent dans la lande aux bords des pierres grises.

" Cette nuit" (the spirit of an ancient bard is speaking

to the poet),
" Cette nuit le jeune homme est triste ; la cite
Le retient dans ses murs comme en captivite ;
Seul pres de son foyer, voyant le bois qui fume,
II pense au sombre Arvor tout entoure de brume \
II entend la mer battre au pied de Log-On^,
Et la nue en pleurant passer sur Comana ....
Adieu !'^ — L'Ombre palit. — " Sur tes vitres mouillees
Comme le vent se plaint! — Bruyantes et gonflees,
Les sources vers la mer vont degorger leurs eaux,
Et les rocs de Penn-marc'h d^chirent les vaisseaux.
Par tes vers, 6 Chretien I calme done ces flots sombres,
Car le Christ a ravi leur force aux anciens Nombres."*
It was also at Paris that the graceful poem called " Le Chemin

du Pardon " was written ; it begins by a kind of dialogue between

youths and maidens on the way.

Ou courez.-vous ainsi, pieuses jeunes filles.

Qui passez deux a deux sous vos coiffes gentilles ?

Ce tablier de soie et ce riche cordon

Disent que vous allez toutes quatre au Pardon.

Laissez-nous, laissez-nous ponrsuivre notre route,
Jeunes gens : nous allons ou vous allez, sans doute ;
Et ces bouquets de mil, au bord des vos chapeaux,
Disent assez pourquoi vous vous faites si beaux.

* Alluding to Ar Rannou, or the Druidic *' Series" See the " Barzas
Breiz/' of M. de la Yillemarqne, p. 2.

Minor Poets of Modern France, 395

When, after an absence of some years, the poet returned to
Brittany, his arrival was no sooner known in the village than the
inhabitants went to welcome him by singing his " Kanaouen ar
Yretoned,^' or Song of the Bretons, beginning, " We are always
Bretons : Bretons, the stalwart race." His first meeting with
Marie after his return is described with the touching simplicity
of unconscious pathos. It was at the village fete : —

.... La messe terrainee, a grand bruit cette foule

Sur la place du lieu comme une mer s'ecoule

Devant Tun des inarchands, bientot trois jeunes filles,

Se tenant par la main, rougissantes, gentilles,

Dans leurs plus beaux habits, s'en vinrent toutes trois,

Acheter des rubans, des bagnes et des croix.

J'approchai. Faible coeur, 6 coeur qui bats si vite,

Que la peine et la joie, et tout ce qui I'excite

Arrive desormais, puisque dans ce moment

Tu ne t'es pas brise sous quelque battement !

Marie ! — Ah ! c'etait elle, elegante, paree ;

De ses deux soeurs enfants, soeur prudente, entouree.

* # * *
Men ancienne Marie encor plus gracieuse ;
Encor son joli cou, sa peau brune et soyeuse ;
Legere sur ses pieds ; encor ses yeux si doux,
Tandis qu'elle sourit regardant en dessous ;
Et puis devant ses soeurs, a la voix trop legere,
L'air calme d'une epouse et d'une jeune mere.
Comme elle m'observait : " Oh !" lui dis-je en breton,
" Vous ne savez done plus mon visage et mon nom ?
Mai, regardez-moi bien ; car pour moi, jeune belle,
Vos traits et votre nom, Mai, je me les rappelle.

De chez vous bien des fois je faisais le chemin."
" Mon Dieu ! c'est lui !" dit-elle, en me prenant la main.
Et nous pleurions. Bientot j'eus appris son histoire;
Un mari, des enfants, c'etait tout. Comment croire
A ce triste roman qu'ensuite je contai ?

* # * *
II fallut se quitter. Alors aux deux enfants
J'achetai des velours, des croix, de beaux rubans,
Et pour toutes les trois une bague de cuivre,
Qui, benite a Kemper, de tout mal vous delivre ;
Et moi-meme a leur cou je suspendis les croix,
Et, tremblant, je passai les bagues a leurs doigts.
Les deux petites soeurs riaient ; la jeune femme,
Tranquille et sans rougir, dans la paix de son ame,
Accepta mon present ; ce modeste tresor,

Aux yeux de son epoux elle le porte encor ;
L'epoux est sans soup9on, la femme sans mystere :
L'un n'a rien a savoir, I'autre n'a rien a taire.

396 Minor Poets of Modern France,

During his absence, Marie^ who had never returned her poet's
devotion with more than a sisterly affection, married, as he tells
us, " Un jeune homme," who, —

Natif du meme endroit, travailleur, econome,

En voyant sa belle ame, en voyant son beau corps,

L'aima ; les vieilles gens firent les deux accords.

But we must not so linger over the poem of " Marie " as to
leave no space for " Les Bretons," every page of which is full of
graphic touches of Breton life, its antique customs, its local be-
liefs, its hereditary habits of thought. Here, also our chief
difficulty is that of choice, and our chief temptation that of
quoting too much. The following extract is from the poem
called " Les lies ": —

. Une chaine d'ilots au de rochers a pic
De Saint-Malo s'etend jusqu'a I'lle d'HoBdic ;
lies durant six mois s'enveloppant de brume,
De tourbillons de sable et de flocons d'ecume.

* * * *

La tristesse est partout sur ces iles sauvages
Mais la paix, la candeur, la foi des premiers ages ;
Les champs n'ont point de borne, et les seuils point de cle,
Les femmes d'un bras fort y recoltent le bl^ ;
De la sortent aussi, sur des vaisseaux de guerre,
Les marins de Bretagne, effroi de 1' Angleterre.

After describing the hospitality and patriarchal simplicity oi
the inhabitants of the isles, the poem continues : —

C'etait un samedi. Le lendemain, voila,
Des qu'au soleil levant la mer se devoila,
Que tous les gens d'Hasdic, enfants, hommes et femmes,
Se tenaient sur la greve a regarder les lames :
" Ah !" disaient-ils la mer est rude, le vent fort,
Et le pretre chez nous ne viendra pas encor !
Ensuite ils reprenaient d'un air plein de tristesse ;
*'Ceux de Houad* sontheureux, ils ont toujours la Messe !"
Et, sans plus esperer, graves, silencieux,
Sur leur ile jumelle ils attachaient les yeux.
"A genoux !" dit soudain le Chef, " voici qu'on hisse
Le Pavilion de Dieu : c'est I'heure de I'Office."
Alors vous auriez vu tous ces bruns matelots,
Ces femmes, ces enfants, priant le long des flots.
Mais, comme les pasteurs qui regardaient I'Etoile,
■ Les yeux toujours fixes sur la lointaine voile,
Tout ce que sur I'autel le pretre accomplissait,
Le saint drapeau d'une ile a I'autre I'annon^ait.
Ingenieux appel ! Par les yeux entendue,
La parole de Dieu traversait I'etendue ;

Minor Poets of Modern France, 397

Les lies se parlaient ; et comme sur Jes eaiix,
Tous ces pieux marins cousultaient leurs signaux.

In his love of Nature, of his native country, and, we might
add, of his " Marie," Brizeux may be called the Burns of Brittany ;
but the Scottish poet, in spite of some exquisite exceptions, is, as
a rule, more plebeian both in feeling and manner than the Breton
bard of the same rank of life, whose natural refinement was
further purified by his faith.

Amour ! Religion ! Nature ! ainsi men ame
Aspira les rayons de votre triple flamme,
Et dans ce monde.obscur ou je m'en vais errant,
Vers vos divins soleils je me tourne en pleurant,
Vers celle que j'aimais et qu'on nommait Marie
Et vers Yous, 6 men Dieu, dans ma douce patrie !

Besides " Marie" and " Les Bretons," Brizeux published '^ Les
Ternaires, ou la Fleur d'Or,^' '^ Histoires Poetiques," "Primel et
Nola," and " La Poetique Nouvelle." His poem of " Les
Bretons" was crowned by the Academie, and a slender pension,
which constituted all his resources, was awarded him by the
Ministry of Public Instruction. His writings were too Christian
and too pure to secure the popularity won by writers of, it may
be, more power, but of less merit. He accepted poverty rather
than sacrifice his dignity. His one half-owned ambition to be
received as an Academician was never gratified, although his
works entitle him to a place in the foremost rank of the French
poets of our time. We must forbear to quote more of the poems
we had marked, even of " Les Deux Bretagne,^' written on the
occasion of a meeting of the Bards, a kind of Breton Eisteddfod,
and beginning : —

Vou3 qui venez si loin pour embrasser les fr^res,
Parlez nous du pays oil naquirent nos peres.
Notre Bretagne a nous, le sol que nous aimons,
Rappelle-t-ii encor le berceau des Bretons ?

But we end this too long and yet imperfect notice of Brizeux
with four lines of his last poem, the '' Elegie de la Bretagne," in
which he betrays a presentiment that his course was near its
close.

Vingt ans j*ai chante. . . . Mais, si mon oeuvre est vaine,
Si chez nous vient le mal que je fuyais ailleurs,
Mon ame montera, triste encor mais sans haine,
Vers une autre Bretagne, en des mondes meilleurs.

There is a sadness in the thought that the poet to whom " de-
parture" (from his country) "was despair," died in 1858 at
Montpellier, far from his home and people.

398 Minor Foets of Modern France,

Emile Grimaud, a Vendean, was cradled amid the heroic
memories ot* the Catholic and Royalist war. When a child in
his mother's arms, he was shown the spot where Cathelineau,
"the saint of Anjou," gave up his soul to God; that, too, where
Charrette was shot; that where "Monsieur Henri ^' fell, the
youthful generalissimo of the Vendean army, who said to his
men, " If I advance, follow me ; if I turn back, slay me ; if I
die, avenge me \" Such were the associations which, from child-
hood, filled his mind, and these early and deep impressions
resulted, later, in his poems, entitled " Les Vendeens." These
poems, though detached, have a natural connection from their
unity of subject. Their general character is that of a chronicle
in rhyme, pervaded by considerable feeling, a religious tone
throughout, and a realization of the contrast between the beauty
and repose of Nature and the violent and impassioned action of
man. Another characteristic is their sympathy with all that is
noble, whether in friend or foe. The enthusiasm of the poet for
the defenders of the royalist standard does not hinder his appre-
ciation of real greatness in adherents of the tricolor. Thus he
celebrates the merchant Haudaudine, the " Regulus of Nantes,^'
who, failing in the mission with which he was entrusted, returned
to his royalist captors.

Haudaudine, toi seul, toi seul ! rien ne t'arrete.

Ta parole est sacree. . . . Qui ! retourne a Charrette.

H^ros lui-meme, il sait comprendre les heros.

Va. Dans les Vendeeas ne crains pas des bourreaux !

His maledictions are all reserved for the base, the criminal, and
the cowardly — for wretches who, like Carrier and his crew, deci-
mated La Vendee on the scaffold, on the blood-stained shore, or
in the murderous boats, and led on their troops to the butchery
of a noble population.

Of F. M. LuzEL,^ another of the Breton group, it is difficult to
say much. His poems being all written in the language of his
native Armorica, the prose translation by which they are accom-
panied cannot give a fair idea of their merit. It is natural that,
at a time when over-increasing facilities of communication are
fusing all parts of France into one commonplace amalgamation,
there should arise on the part of those races which as yet preserve
their individuality, a strong resistance against the causes at work
to deprive them of all their remaining characteristics. It should
be borne in mind, however, that Brizeux only succeeded in making
his Brittany known and loved by writing his poems in French
as well as in Breton. M. Luzel, in his faith, his love of antique

* *' Bepred Breizad. Poesies Bretonnes." Paris, Hachette.

Minor Poets of Modern France, . 399

simplicity, and his hatred of " the Saxon/' might be living
in the time of the Combat of the Thirty, while his fire and
spirit are worthy of the lays which boast that Basse-Bretagne is
a country unequalled in the world, and the Breton tongue the
most melodious of any yet known to man.

One of the most curious facts connected with the modern poetry
of France^ is the awakening of the ancient dialects of the country
to renewed vigour. While, in Brittany, de la Villemarque,
Brizeux, and, it must be added, the lexicographer, Le Gonidec,
were restoring their Celtic tongue to its ancient purity. Jasmin,
" the greatest troubadour of the nineteenth century," was charm-
ing the South with the music of his poems in his native Gascon.

Jasmin was born at Agen in ] 799. His real name was Jacques
Boe ; but he inherited a sobriquet given to his grandfather, and
rendered it dear to his countrymen and famous throughout
France. His father was a poor tailor, who had a taste for rhyming,
and his mother, a laundress, " with a heart of gold." Though
industrious, they were very poor, and one day, when there was no
food in the house for her family of nine, the mother sold her
wedding-ring to buy them bread. The Cure of the parish, who
always showed them great kindness, sent Jacques to school. The
poet expressed his gratitude to this good priest, the Abbe Mira-
ben, in . his '^Nouveaux Souvenirs," " Preste at co dJ'or, qui
trounes dins lou ciel,^ &c. (Priest with the heart of gold, now
throned in Heaven, if through the stars thou look'st sometimes
on me, thou know'st that, after forty years, I still hold fast all I
have ever learnt from thee) . When eighteen, Jasmin opened a
barber's shop at Agen on the tree-shaded promenade called the
Gravier, and soon afterwards married. His young wife, Mag-
nounst, whom he lovingly portrays in his poem of " Fran9ou-
neto," though proud of her husband's talents, feared they would
interfere with his trade, and made a point of hiding his paper
and ink, and destroying every pen she found. It was this deter-
mined conduct on her part which chanced to make Jasmin known
to the literary world. Charles Nodier, then in the height of his
popularity as a literary critic, was at Agen in 1832. One day,
his attention being attracted by sounds of a lively dispute in a
barber's shop, he entered to ascertain the cause, and found a
pretty young woman energetically protesting, but receiving from
her husband no further satisfaction than peals of laughter. On
learning the cause of this singular discussion, Nodier asked to see
the verses. Then, at once perceiving that he had found a true
poet, he advised the wife to let her husband write in peace.
Magnounet was satisfied, and the peace-maker and the poet
were ever afterwards friends.

A collection of poems soon appeared under the characteristic

400 Minor Poets of Modern France.

\

title of " La Papillotas/' These were for the most part charivari
songs in the style of " Le Lutrin/^ but with more freshness and
sparkle than the verses of Boileau. It was after their publication
that an accidental circumstance gave Jasmin the clue to that
perfection attained in his later and more important poems_, in
which, by dint of persevering labour, he produced works not only
full of truth and Nature, but also of ease and eloquence, in which
no care or effort was apparent.

During a fire which broke out one night in Agen, a youth of
the people, having witnessed an appalling scene, described it to
Jasmin, who immediately afterwards arrived on the spot. " I
shall never forget him," said the poet; " he was Corneille ; he
was Talma ! Next day, I spoke of him in some of the best
houses of Agen, and he was sent for and asked to relate the
occurrence. He did so ; but the fever of emotion had died out : he
was difi'use, affected, and exaggerated; he tried to he impressive,
hut touched no one. It then'struck me that in moments of strong
feeling we are all laconic and eloquent, full of vigour and con-
ciseness of speech and action ; — true poets, in fact, when we are
thinking nothing ahout it. I felt, also, that by dint of pains and
patience, a poet might attain to all this hy thinking about it.''
In this just observation we have the key to the method followed
by Jasmin in the composition of his subsequent . poems,
"L'Abuglo" (1835), " rran90uneto," " Maltro I'lnnoucento,"
" Las Dus Frays Bessous," and " La Semmano d'un Fil "
(1849).

The language in which Jasmin wrote is the Proven9al-Ilomane
of the South of France — the first-formed of those tongues which
sprang from the Latin after the confusion of barbaric times,
and which reached its classic perfection in the twelfth century,
but was devastated early in the next by the Albigensian wars.
From this period it gradually decayed into patois : a patois being
defined by Sainte-Beuve as either " an ancient language which
has suffered misfortune, or a new language which still has its fortune
to make." This mutilated dialect has had its successive poets in
Beam, at Toulouse, in the Kouerque, and elsewhere; but these
poets made no effort to restore their language to its primitive
purity nor to extend its purely local horizon. When Jasmin
began to write in the patois of Agen, he found it, though still
harmonious, greatly impaired by French innovations, contrary
both in essence and form to the genius of the tongue. He first
cured himself of the use of the extraneous expressions to which
he had always been accustomed, and then, to borrow his own word,
" disencrusted" his language from the effects of two centuries
of civilizing influences. His success was complete. His dialect,
that of no place in particular, is of classic purity, and yet,

Minor Poets of Modern France. 401

whether for Gascony, Provence, or Languedoc, it is the livin«^
tongue of all.

" L'Abuglo," or " The Blind Girl of Castel-CuiUe," is already
well-known in England from Longfellow's translation. When,
in 1835, Jasmin recited this poem before the Academy at Bor-
deaux, the impression produced was indescribable. The personal
appearance of the poet, his expressive countenance and gestures,
the passion and pathos of his voice, increased the effect of his
musical lines. The chorus, " Las carreros diouyon flouri/' he did
not recite, but sang. Many of those present did not understand
Gascon, nevertheless, the whole assembly was in tears.

This poem established the author^s reputation throughout all
the South of France. Wherever he went, he was overwhelmed
with attentions and marks of honour. None of these ovations,
however, turned his head ; and to those who would have per-
suaded him to seek fortune as well as fame by taking up his abode
in Paris, he would answer, "Everything suits me vvhere I am —
the earth, the skies, the air. To sing of joyous poverty, one
must be poor and joyous.^' And he remained true to his deter-
mination, fully content with the " little silver rill '' which flowed
in from his humble trade in a sufficient amount to enable him to
build himself a little home on one of the prettiest hills near Agen.
This abode he called "Papillote," and carved over the door,
Beroy mes goy — " Beauty to me is joy." His poem of " Ma
Vigne,^' which describes this home, in the midst of its garden, its
orchard, and its vines, is truly Horatian. " For a chamber, I
have a mere den ; nine cherry-trees form my wood, ten rows of
vines my promenade. The peach-trees, if not many, are all my
own. I have two elms and two springs. How rich I am !
Would that I could depict this land of ours, beloved of Heaven V

The ladies of Agen disputed the honour of having their hair
dressed by the poet. Often a guitar was at hand. He was easily
persuaded to sing his delicious songs : the household would as-
semble to listen. " His voice was so melodious,'^ said his country-
men, " that you would have thought it pleno d'aouzelous " — full
of little birds. The hours flew away, and Jasmin would return
home in the evening, having dressed only one lady's hair.
Magnounet, therefore, put her veto upon this unprofitable prac-
tice. Her husband ceased to be coiffeur de dames, and found his
finances improved by this decision. His wife, moreover, fore-
seeing his brilliant career, lightened his work as much as possible,
and when it was done, let him dream under the trees as much as
he pleased. He was in the habit of reading his poems to her,
finding that her good sense and hatred of affectation made her an
excellent critic.

One of his most touching pieces is that called "Maltro

402 Minor Poets of Modern France.

I'Innoneeiito/' ''Crazy Martha^' (as she would be called in
Eng-land) was a poor woman, who for thirty years lived in Agen
on public charity, only leaving her forlorn abode when driven
forth by hunger. Often, in their cruel thoughtlessness, children
would call out, '^Martha! a soldier !" and she fled in terror —
wherefore, we learn from her veritable history, as told by the
poet with more fulness of delicate detail than we have space to
quote. We give the main features of the story.

In a cottage almost hidden among the trees, on the banks
kissed by the clear waters of the Lot, a young girl thought, or
prayed, or moved restlessly about the room ; for, in the village
near, the conscription was going on, and the drawing of the lots
would decide her own fate as well as that of another.

Her friend Annette, who was in the same case as herself, came
in. Alarmed at Martha's paleness, she tried to cheer her, and
advised her to take the matter easily, quoting herself as an ex-
ample : " If Joseph goes, I may shed a few tears ; but I shall
wait for him without dying." To pass the time, the two girls,
'' L'Aimant et la Legere," draw cards, to learn the fate of their
lovers. The game is well described. At the moment the fatal
Queen of Clubs turns up, the sound of drums and fifes announces
the joyous return of the youths who have escaped conscription.
Amongst them Annette sees Joseph. Jacques is not there. A
fortnight later, Annette and Joseph are married, and the weeping
Jacques takes leave of Martha. Without father or mother, he
has no one in the world to love but her, and he promises, if spared
by war, to return and make her his own for life. This brings the
poem to its first '^ pause." The second part opens with the return
of May — " Estoumat loumes deMay" — which is described with
all the ardent love of Nature inherent in the poets of the South.
Amid the songs of gladness and the general joy one voice alone
is as plaintive as it is sweet — the voice of the
Martha.

Las hiroundelos soun tournados,

Bezi mas dies al niou, lassus,

Nou las an pas desseparados

Amb'elos coumo nous-aou dus !

"The swallows are come back," she sings, "I see my two
there in their nest above. No one has parted them, as we two
are parted ! Ah ! they fly down, shining and beautiful, and
with the ribbon Jacques tied round their necks upon my fete
last year, when from our joined hands they pecked the golden
flies we caught for them. . . . Stay with me, little birds so dear
to Jacques; — my room looks sunwards; — stay with me; for oh,
I long so much to speak of him ! "

But day by day she fades away, and before long the priest

1

Minor Poets of Modern France, 40 »S

asks the prayers of the faithful for the dying girl. A kind old
uncle, divining the cause of her wasting fever, whispers in her
ear a few words which inspire her with new life and courage.
She recovers. He sells his little vineyard, and with the sum it
brings, Marthe works long and bravely until she has saved
almost enough to buy her lover's discharge. Her uncle dies.
She sells the house. The sum is complete, and she hastens
with it to the Cure, begging him to write to Jacques and tell
him that he is free, but not to say to whom he owes his freedom
— '^ that he will surely guess."

The third part of the poem begins with a loving description of
the country priest. Jacques had to be found. It was no easy
matter during the great wars of Napoleon to discover, in the
midst of an army, a soldier without a name, and who had not
been heard of for three years. However, the good Cure, re-
solved as he was to leave no stone unturned, was sure to suc-
ceed. Meantime, Marthe, happy and hopeful, worked on, " in
order that, having already given her all, she might still have
more to give." Her generous deed, hidden until now, began
to be whispered abroad from meadow to meadow, and the folk
of all the country round fell in love with the steadfast maiden.
She was serenaded at night ; in the morning she found her
door hung with garlands, and in the day young girls came,
with friendly eyes, bringing presents to the faithful fianc^e^
One Sunday, after Mass, she sees the Cure coming to her with
a letter. Jacques is found ; the letter is from him. He does,
not guess who is his deliverer, but imagines (for he is a found-
ling) that his mother has declared herself, and obtained his dis-
charge. Thus, he will have surprise upon surprise when he
knows all, in eight days'* time; — for on Sunday he will come.

The long week of waiting passes away at last. Then, after
Mass, all the people leave the church, only to assemble at the
turn of the high road, and there await his arrival as if he were
some great lord. Marthe, happy and beautiful, stands by the
aged priest; and both are smiling. There is nothing in the
middle, nothing at the end of the long straight road, except only
the shadows torn in pieces by the sun. But we will quote the
French translation as being closer to the original :

Eien au milieu, rien au fond de ce sillon plat,

Kien que de rorabre dechiree a morceaux par le soleil.

Tout d'un coup un point noir a grossi : il se remue. ...

Deux hommes .... deux soldats . . . . le plus grand, c'est lui ! . . ,

Et ils s'avancent tons deux. . . . L'autre, quel est celui-lk ?

II a I'air d'une femme Eh ! e'en est une, etrangere;

Qu'elle est belle ; gracieuae ! Elle est mise en cantiniere.
Une femme, mon Dieu, avec Jacques I Ou va-t-elle ?
VOL. VI.— NO. II. [Third Series,] e e

404 Minor Poets of Modern France.

Martlie a les yeux sur eux, triste comme une morte.

Meme le Pretre ; meme I'escorte,

Tout fremit, tout est muet, eux deux s'avancent davantage. . . .

Les voici a vingt pas, souriants, hors d'haleine.

Mais qu'est-ce maintenant ? Jacques a I'air en peine.

11 a vu Marthe .... tremblant, honteux, il s'est arrete. . . .

Le Pretre n'y tient plus : de sa voix forte, pleine,

Qui epouvante la peche,

^^ Jacques, quelle est cette femme ? ^^
Et comme un criminel, Jacques baissait la tete :
*' La mienne, Monsieur le Cure ; la mienne. Je suis marie.^^
Un cri de femme part. Le Pretre se retourne.

Ce cri vient de I'eiFrayer.
'•'■ Ma fille, du courage ! Ici-bas il faut souffrir ! "
Mais Marthe point du tout ne soupire.
On la regarde. lis avaient peur qu'elle n'allat en mourir.
lis se trompent : elle n'en meurt jjas : il parait qu'elle s'en console

YllQjixe Jacques gracieusement.
Puis, tout a coup elle rit : elle rit convulsivement.
Helas ! elle ne pouvait plus maintenant rire autrement.

La pauvre fille ^tait folle !

Jasmin was never so happy as when utilizing his talents for]
any good and charitable work ; never so pathetic as when depictinj^
the sufferings of the poor. Far, however, from encouraging the]
latter in those feelings of envy and discontent flattered by modern]
socialism, he sang to them of courage and hope. " See ! The
rich grow better ! It is for us to defend the chateaux our fathers
wished to demolish ! It is the glory of a nation to shield its'
choicest and best/^ On the other hand, he did not fail to]
remind the rich of their duties. " He who would have honey,!
must protect the bee;'' and, *' He who digs around the roots
shall make the tree-tops blossom." The general aim of Jasmin
in his poems was to paint the manners and the people of the
South, and he does so with the hand of a master. His subjects
are well chosen, treated with breadth, and at the same time with
wonderful delicacy of touch. His sympathies are invariably
given to worthy and noble objects, — to all that is generous and,
holy and true; and though he never wastes aline on fancied]
miseries, or a tear on worthless woes, his tender compassion is
prompt for real suffering and sorrow. His sensitiveness on be-j
half of the indigent, for instance, appears in his " Carital,^Jj
written and recited for the poor of Tonneins, and in which hel
says :

N'es pas prou, per tia la mizero,

Qu'en passan, d'un ay re doulen,

Jeten dus sos dins la carrero
Al paoure espeilloundrat que bado di talen (&c.).

Minor Poets of Modern France. 405

Ce n'est pas assez, pour tuer la misere,
Qu'en passant, d'un air apitoye,
lis jettent deux sous dans la rue
Au pauvre deguenille qui ouvre la bouclie de faim.

Qu'ils s'en aillent I'hiver quand il gele, qu'il gresille,
Dans ces maisonnettes encombrees de famille ;
Et s'ils voient le manoeuvre, au visage reveur,
Dire a ses enfants qui pleurent :

"Ah ! pauvrets, que le temps est dur ! "
Oil ! que la charite, la, sans etre aper^ue,

Tombe ! mais sans bruit, sans sonner.

Car il est amer de la recevoir

Autant qyHil est doux de la donner !

Jasmin wrote a series of poems for charitable purposes. He
was called upon ou all sides, until^ like a Troubadour of the
Middle Ages, he spent much of his life on pilgrimage from place
to place. Everywhere he was received with the greatest enthu-
siasm,— deputations, triumphal arches, or, as at Damazan, by a
procession of maidens strewing the road with flowers while
they sang the chorus, adapted for the occasion,

Las carreros diouyon flouri,
Tan gran poeto bay sourti,
Diouyon flouri, diouyon grana,
Tan gran poeto bay passa.

In 184*2, he visited Paris, where the modest hotel at which he
stayed was so besieged by visitors of distinction that the hotel-
keeper charged Jasmine's son with having deceived him, his father
being " plainly some prince in disguise." At Court, he was
welcomed by the Duchess of Orleans with a quotation from one
of his own poems : —

Brabes G-ascons,

Ey plaze di bous beyre.

Approcba bous."^

But amid the applause he everywhere received at Paris, he
longed for his simple life at. home, and would not be persuaded to
remain long in the capital. On his second . visit, some years
later, the Archbishop of Paris, during a soiree at the house of the
Marquis de Barthelemy, presented him with a golden branch,
inscribed, *' A Jasmin le plus grand des Troubadours." His
works were crowned by the Academic Fran^aise : he was made
Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur at the same time as
Balzac, Souli^, and Alfred de Mussetjf and the Order of St.

* " Brave Gascon, it gives me pleasure to see you here. Draw hear !"
t The Minister of Public Instruction wrote to him: — "Your deeds
equal your talents. You. build churches ; you succour the indigent ;

406 Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics,

Gregory the Great was conferred on him by Pope Pius the
Ninth.

It was for the ruined Church of Vergt, near Pe rigor d, that he
recited one of his happiest compositions, *^La Gleyzo Descapelado''
' — the unroofed clmrch.

I was naked; and never can I forget how, in my boyhood, the
Church many a time clothed me. Now, in my manhood, I find
her bare, and I would cover her in my turn. O give, then, give,
all of you, that I may have the joy of doing once for her what she
has so often done for me !

The tower of the Church of Vergt is called " le clocher de
Jasmin/' and his name is carved upon it. The last acts of Jasmin,
whom Lamartine called, '^ the truest of modern poets,^' were for
the poor and suffering, and his last poem, an Act of Faith. After
his holy death,* Cardinal Donnet, of Bordeaux, spoke of him as
the " St. Vincent de Paul of Poesy /^ and the comparison has a
peculiar fitness. The poems of Jasmin reveal in their author the
soul of a child, the heart of a woman, and the strong and sober
intellect of a man. Their most sparkling gaiety is always pure,
arid their seriousness never degenerates into morbid gloom. The
stream, whether in sunshine, or shade, flows on, fresh, full, and
clear, into the boundless sea. j

AiiT. v.— ARCHBISHOP LANFRANC AND HIS
MODERN CRITICS.

I PROPOSE to weave a few discursive pages, which shall relate,
directly or indirectly, to Archbishop Lanfranc, a character
whom it has, of late years, been rather the fashion to decry; and I
address myself to the task, not as his apologist, not as his admirer,
not as his votary, but as hoping to show how very materially our
estimate of men who lived in a very different age and under very
different circumstances from our own may be modified by the labor
improbus which busies itself with TYiinutice that lie along the
paths of historical inquiry.

The net result of the generally received accounts of Lanfranc is
pretty much as follows : — That, despite the advantages of noble^
birth and polite education, an education which set him secure
from the worst dangers peculiar to court and camp, he had so far

you have made your gifts a beneficent power ; and your muse is a Sister
of Charity." In fact, between 1825 and 1854, Jasmin gave no less than
twelve thousand " Eeadings" for benevolent purposes.
* He died in 1854.

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics. 407

neglected his highest interests as, when between forty and fifty
years of age, to be unable to say his prayers, and that only when
in peril of death from cold, from hunger, and from the beasts of
the forest, was he alarmed into the resolution of leading a better
life; that, delivered from his terrible danger, he retired to a
cloister, whence, after some years, he only too willingly emerged
to do what might be possible to a monk, but would have been
impossible to a man of honour ; that, having thus won the con*
fidence of William, then Duke of Normandy, and subsequently
King of the English, he devoted himself ever after to the service
of that prince, and signalized his tenure of the archiepiscopal see
of Canterbury by conduct, which, however pleasing to his patron,
was unfriendly to the English people and disloyal to the Apos*
tolic See.

And, first, as to an inconsiderable detail, the social advantages
of his birth. In a letter to Queen Margaret of Scotland [Ep. 61]
he speaks of himself as ignobilis. The description is absolute
and unqualified — '' hominem extraneum, vilem, ignohilemJ^
Orderic, however, who was very precise in matters of this kind,
and was for many reasons unlikely to make mistakes in this par-
ticular instance, tells us that he was "ea? nohili parenteld ortus,
Papice civibus." The solution of the difficulty is, I apprehend,
very simple. The meaning of the substantive nobilis is one and
invariable; the meaning of the adjective nobilis is manifold. John
Gilpin was not a nobilis, but he was a citizen of credit and re-
nown ; and being a citizen of credit and renown was precisely
what Orderic and his contemporaries would have described by the
phrase nobilis civis. Our Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths
was not at its institution designed to comprise none but men of
birth ; and yet its constituent members, though not nobiles, were
all of them, no doubt, nobiles aurifabri, and the Corporation
itself a nobile collegium aurifabrorum. In short, a nobilis
miles is a gallant knight ; a nobilis ecclesia, a venerable church ;
a nobilis sonipes, a prancing steed ; a nobilis senator, a wor
shipful alderman, or an honourable member, or a noble lord; a
nobilis civis a worthy citizen ; a nobilis grammaticus, a ripe
scholar ; and so on ; the meaning of the adjective ever varying in
accordance with that of its substantive, just as the colour of the
chameleon changes with the food on which that reptile feeds.

Lanfranc's relations at Pavia were, nobiles cives; but they
were not nobiles. They would seem also to have been men of
robust physique, and no one phrase could more aptly express these
two \(\QViS t\\ixn th2it o'l nobilis parentela.

But enough of this. More important considerations await us
in respect of Lanfranc's career, first as monk and then as prelate.
The story of his conversion from the secular state to the religious.

408 Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern CHtics.

as told in Gilbert Crispin's '^Lil'e of Abbot Herlwin/'' differs some-
what from the account preserved in the " Chronicon Beccense -/^
but the two narratives are easily harmonized. According to most
of our modern writers the resultant of the two n.arratives is to
this effect. After a brilliant and successtul career at Avranches
in the quality of public lecturer on the liberal arts Lanfranc set
forth, no one knows why, on a journey to Kouen, inflated with
intellectual pride, and worldly-minded to the core. All went well
until one evening when, having- crossed the river Kisle, he fell
amongst thieves, who stripped him naked and tied him to a tree.
It had not been their first intention to treat him thus, but only to
rob him of what he had about him ; which cannot have been much
if, as Sir F. Palgrave has it, he "tramped^' instead of riding ; but
he annoyed them by offering them his cloak, which they had
been generous enough to remit him. So then, the common ac-
count continues, they stripped him naked, and beat him, and tied
him to a tree. They likewise tied his clericus or clerk to another
tree. According to some, it was as night approached, according
to others, it was as day drew nigh, that he took it into bis head
to say his prayers, when he found, to his confusion, that he did
not know them. "II voulut reciter par cceur quelques prieres^
vocales, et il fut confus de n'en savoir aucune/' so says the Pere-
Longueval; and so say numberless others, down to M. de-
itemusat, who informs us that "Perudit_, le jurisconsulte, le
philosophe Lanfranc ne savait pas une priere par cceur,'' and to-
M. de Crozals, who only the other day wrote as follows : — *^Le
savant professeur ne trouve dans sa memoire aucune priere. Jamais,
jusque la il n'avait mis ses pensees k Dieu."" And, of our own
contemporaries here at home, the Dean of St. PauFs says that
he " could remember nothing, neither psalm nor office," whilst
the less merciful Mr. Freeman describes him as "ignorant of
Scripture and Divine things •/' and Dean Hook, least accurate
and least merciful of all, not satisfied with confusing the twO"
accounts, ties him to the tree, naked, but with his cap on his head
— a. new and original translation of cajpija — and unable to repeat
a single "prayer, psalm, or hymn," so careless had he been of
*^ the affairs of his soul V But I must continue the story as.
usually told. The ungodly professor, mortified and alarmed at.
finding that he was little better than a heathen, now proposed a
sort of compromise to heaven. Let God deliver him, and he
would turn monk. The deliverance was granted ; and no sooner
were his own bonds loosed than he untied his clerk and — i^roh
pudoT — presented himself in naturalihus, naked but not
ashamed, naked and without apology, to the abbot of the nearest
monastery, Herlwin, Abbot of Le liec.

Npw, the truth is that Lanfranc, so far from being eaten up.

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics, 409.

with pride and all the rest of it, when he set forth on his memo-
rable journey, had long indulged a very different frame of mind.
He was already bent upon leaving the world, as the most earnest
people of the time were wont to do ; and had only delayed, as
being uncertain whether to live as a recluse, as a monk, or as a
hermit. He had had enough of crowded lecture-rooms and
rounds of applause, and was resolved that, should he choose the
cloister in preference to the hospice or the hermitage, he would
enter some obscure little monastery, none of whose inmates was
by any means likely to know who he was ; and all this, not from
satiety of renown, but because half-and-half sacrifices are ot'little
value, if any.

To suppose that such a man, after such convictions undergone,
and after such a resolution taken, should know so little of Divine
things as not to be able to say a single prayer, is really too
ridiculous.

He had not crossed the Risle when the robbers waylaid him ;
he was ultra fiuvium Bislam to the historians who wrote at
Le Bee, and therefore on the western side, the side towards
Avranches. Neither did the robbers tie him to a tree naked.
Is time so precious that none of us have ever yet stopped to reflect
what the consequences of such exposure from sunset to dawn would
be in such a climate as that of Normandy, and in the damp air of
the basin of the Risle ? Is time so precious that we have all
forgotten how Virgil words his precept to plough and to sow
when the winter's cold has so far abated that you may do so
without special protective covering ?

I do not remember to have come across any passage, in so
much as I know of the literature of Lanfranc's contemporaries
and near successors, in which the word nudus must of necessity
mean naked ; aud 1 fail to see why that literature, if it be worth
reading at all, should not be read with the same sort of care as
we bestowed on the Georgics when we were at school. St.
Anselm in one of his dialogues {De Casu Diaholi, I.) speaks of
a monk without his frock as nudus ; and Guibert of Nogent
(De Vita Sua, IX.) employs the word to describe a knight
without his armour — nudum se eorum misericordice proposuit.
What the robbers did was to keep the old cloak (vetus chlamys)
which Lanfranc had offered them, in the vain hope of recovering
the bulk of his baggage ; but they stripped him of nothing, and
nudus is the very word by which to describe a man who has
been deprived of the protective covering with which he had in-
tended to keep off the keen night air.

And now for his carelessness about his soul, and his ignorance
of Scripture a|nd Divine things, of psalms and hymns and offices.
It was evening when he was tied to the tree ; and tied to that

410 ArchhisJiop Lav franc and his Modern Critics.

tree he stood, wearied, famished, and in danger of death, '' re-
volvinc^ the sad vicissitude of things/' and the vanity of human
ambition. He could but guess, and vaguely guess, the passage
of the hours, unless, indeed, the overhanging foliage was sparse
enough, and the night clear enough, for him to see something of
the firmament. Still, the hours passed away, until, to his joy,
the faintest, tenderest gleam of reviving day lived in the sky,
when, with the devotion of a man who was already a monk at
heart, he began to recite the two monastic offices of what are
now called matins and lauds, but were then termed laudes
Hocturnce and laudes raatutince. These I need not particularly
describe; suffice it to say that, apart from hymns, versicles,
responses, and antiphons, they comprise, as described in the '' Rule
of St. Benedict,^' in addition to the Te Deum, the Benedicite,
and the Benedictus, no less than one-and-twenty psalms and two
lessons out of St. Paul's Epistles. All this the half-dead captive
endeavoured to recite from memory, and failed ; and because he
failed, we are to believe that he tried to pray, and tried in vain ;
and knew nothing of his Bible. We might as well be told that
there are twenty thousand Protestant clergymen in England and'
Wales who know not how to pra}^, because they cannot do an
hour's duty without a book. And the mistake is the more;
inexcusable, as the terms employed in Milo's narrative arej
technical terms of clear, precise, and unmistakable meaning
terms as clear, precise, and unmistakable as the '* saying]
office " of the Catholic, and the " doing duty " of the Pro-
testant; and, last and worst of all, terms with which
students of the contemporary literature can scarcely fail to
be familiar. There are no less than six of them : — (1)
laudes debitor, (2) laudes debitas 'persolvere, (3) laudis
officia persolvere, (4) servire tibi ; and in the sequel, (5) officia
nocturna, (6) laudis sacrijicium persolvere. Here are a few
passages in illustration of them :— (1) " Quudam tempore ....
adveniente hora qua laudibus lauderetur Deus surgit h lecto et ad
ccclesiam ire disposuit^'' [''Vita Roberti Regis," Migne,cxli.922A].
(2) "Nocturnas laudas fraterna dewotio per solver a f ["Vita B.
Odonis,^' cxxxiij. 97c]. (3) "Factum est cum quodam nocte
matutinis laudibus persolvendis inheressef ["V. B. Idse.," civ.
443c] . (4) " Circa horam tertiam .... debitum officium soU,
vente" ["V. B. Emmerammi," cxli. 979b]. (5) " Nocte quodai
priusquam fratres ad debitce servitutis offucium processissent '
("V. B. Simeonis Crespeiens,''' clvi. 1217c].

But these are mere technical details, it will be objected. Pre*
oisely so. Herein lies their value. It is much more satisfactory]
to have commonplaced a few passages which make proof con-]
elusive, than to uphold my contention by arguments which might

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics. 411

fail to carry conviction. At what particular point in his one-
and- twenty psalms, his hymns, his canticles and his lessons, the
poor exhausted captive broke down, 1 know not ; but he would
not have attempted the task had he not had good hope of suc-
•ceeding ; and the fiction that the future Archbishop of Canter-
bury had spent his life to the age of five-and-forty years in a
condition worse than pagan is exploded !

I resume the history. Lanfranc, finding that he could not do
what many an experienced monk would, under like circumstances,
have found impossible, now breathed his famous vow. This was
scarcely done when he heard the sound of travellers, called to
them for help, was extricated from his bonds, and directed to
what he wanted, the poorest, meanest and humblest monastery
in the neighbourhood. He descended the hill-side, crossed the
river by means of a bridge, or more probably a ferry, called Pons
Altoi — whence the present Pont-Authou, where there is a railway
station friendly to the antiquary — and in a few minutes was in
the presence of Abbot Herlwin.

The details of his reception are foreign to the purpose of this
paper, and must be passed over. But there is a curious little
tradition still surviving at Le Bee which I may be forgiven for
perpetuating.

In the parish church of Le Bee, whither the body of Le
Bienhenreux Hellouin was, at the Revolution, transported i'rom
the neighbouring monastery, there are two portraits, of consider-
ably less than life-size, on one of the walls. They can scarcely be
two hundred years old, but they would seem to be reproductions of
older work, either very rude or very indistinct. At the feet of
•one of the figures, and dressed as a cleric, is a person of dwarfish
dimensions, as in ancient works of art, that assign a diminished
size to the subordinate subjects in the piece. On seeking infor-
mation about the pictures from an aged inhabitant of the place,
who had often heard the story of the dissolution told at the
domestic hearth, 1 was answered as follows : — "One is Monsieur
Lanfranc, the other is St. Anselm. They were brought here
from the abbey at the dissolution. It is a long time since 1 last
-saw them, for I am very old and my sight is going; but you can see
for yourself which is which. Celui avec la Sainte Vierge en face
•est St. Anselme; I'autre avec le petit h cote est Monsieur Lan-
franc. Le petit est son clerc.'' What is the meaning of this?
I thought. Monks do not usually have a clerk in attendance on
them ; but supposing " Monsieur Lanfranc '' to have had a clerk
-of his own, how comes the clerk into the picture? Whereupon,
I bethought myself of the clericus who accompanied the professor
. on his eventful journey, and who, as there is every reason to
Relieve, shared his lot and became a monk at Le Bee ; but 1 said

412 Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics,

nothing. " Yes," resumed my aged friend, ^'^c'est son petit clerc-
ce jeune homme k cote de lui ;" and then, led on by what train
of thought I could not at the moment divine, continued : '' On,
dit que la premiere fois que Monsieur Lanfranc disait la Sainte
Messe, c'etait un petit oiseau qui faisait les reponses/^ My first
idea was that oiseau may have been the clerk's nickname ; but
anxious not to impair the evident genuineness of the story, asked
no further questions^ and let the conversation turn to other sub-
jects connected with the famous abbey. " The first time Mon-
sieur Lanfranc said mass a little bird made the responses/-'

Now, whereas monks sing their office in common, they, in the
majority of cases, say mass assisted by a server, whose duty it
is to " say the responses/^ Hence, as it seems to me, the pre-
sent form of the story, which, explained by this consideration, is
singularly interesting. The truth would seem to be that the
first time that Lanfranc said office, or rather tried to say it, as
though he were already a monk — without a book, that is to say —
his only companion was the petit clerc ; and a very sorry partici-
pator in the sacred effort must that petit clerc have been, un-
ambitious of the monastic state, unpractised in this particular
exercise, and more dead than alive. When, then, his master sang
beneath his tree of durance, "Adjutorium nostrum in nomine
Domini,'^ some neighbouring thrush, or other bird, already waking
to the dawn, piped its full throat of song, and sustained the
cheery accompaniment so long as the captive was able to pursue the
theme. It was an age which some of us call superstitious, and
an incident like this,once related — an incident suck as must deeply
have touched any heart in any time — such an incident once related
was not likely to fade from the domestic tradition of a convent^ |
which counted but one more illustrious name than Lanfranc' s-
amongst its members. This is a little thing, but it has seemed
worthy of record ; and slight poetic touches such as these, which^
provided only they are credible, or even, when not credible, have-
been believed from the immemorial past, possess a charm which-
nothing can replace and few of us would willingly forego.

Now to more serious subjects.

The perfection of Lanfranc's renunciation of human applause?]
consisted in his quest of a convent, where he felt sure his name
must, if anywhere, be unknown, and in his resolution, when on(
allowed to dwell there, of maintaining his incognito. None kne\
his secret but Herlwin, who was too true a monk and too true
gentleman to betray it ; whilst Herlwin's disciples, none of thei
men of culture, and few, if any of them, men of birth, knew as
little of Lantranc, the great scholar, as in nearer times a Somer*
setshire squireen or a Wiltshire ploughman, can have known ol
a Bentley, a Porson, or a Parr ; and amusing stories are told of

Archhishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics. 4ia

the fictitious lessons which he took in readini^ Latin, and of the
docility with which he allowed the prior to " correct'' his lono"
syllables into short, in such words as docere.

At last, and after about some three years, the secret, no one
knows how, got abroad; learned Normandy was in a furore of
excitement ; the secluded valley of Le Bee was thronged with
curious and eager visitors; for the dead was alive, the'^lost was
found; and, willing or unwilling, Lanfranc must be made to
lecture again. Herlwin commanded; and, ere long, the exterior
schola of his convent was crowded with auditors from the social
and intellectual aristocracy of all northern Christendom. This
was in or about the year 1045.

It is impossible to ascertain the date at which that intimacy
between Duke William and the illustrious teacher was established
which was to prove so important a factor in the history of our
country. Lanfranc came to Le Bee in or about 1042 ; he began
to lecture in or about 1045 ; but when it was that he and the Prince
established their friendship none can say. In 1050, the Duke
laid siege to the Castle of Brionne, whither his kinsman, Guy of
Burgundy, had retired after the battle of Val-es-Dunes, and was
thus employed for three years. During this enterprise against a
stronghold which lay within four miles of Le Bee, numerous and
ample opportunities for converse must have been afforded to the
two men, each of whom possessed a greatness which the other
could not fail to recognize; and when, after Count Guy's surren-
der, William set to work to repair the damage sustained by the
fortress, which, with its adjacent domain, was now kept in his
own hand, it is by no means impossible that the Lombard assisted
him in his architectural undertaking.

Scarcely, however, was that work began, when Duke William,,
in consummating his matrimonial alliance with Matilda of Flan-
ders, provoked a danger which was destined to imperil his friend-
ship with Lanfranc. That alliance had been contemplated as
early as the year 1 049, when Pope Leo IX., in the Synod of
Rheims, forbad Count Baldwin V. to give his daughter in mar-
riage to William the Norman, and forbad William the Norman
to make the young lady his wife. Some four or five years after
this prohibition, when Leo IX. was, if not already dead, yet in
captivity and powerless, the Duke brought his uncanonical bride
to Rouen. Leo died in 1054, and the Holy See remained vacant
for about a year, so that no pontifical utterances can have reached
William before the midsummer of 1055 ; and, whatever the date
at which the new Pope, Victor IL, may have remonstrated with
him, we know enough of the Norman aptitude for trusting to-
the chances which attend procrastination to render it probable
that the thunderbolt the Duke had provoked was averted until

414 Archbishop Zanfranc and Ms Modern Critics,

Victor's death, an event which took place in the summer of 1057.
Then followed the short pontificate of Stephen IX., and then an
interval of nine months; after which, in the December of 1058,
the tiara was placed on the head of Nicholas II. Now, whether
it was Stephen or Nicholas that laid Normandy under interdict
for the offence of its prince, has not, as yet, been ascertained; it
was probably the latter. Anyhow, the interdict, as all the world
knows, was removed by him in 1059, and removed at the instance
of Lanfranc.

Now, Lanfranc's action in inducing the Pope to remove the
interdict, and give validity to the marriage, has been censured
as a piece of tergiversation, which, however possible to the con-
science of a monk, would have been impossible to the honour of
a gentleman; because, so it is contended, he could not have
pleaded the Duke's cause with the Pope had he not changed, or
pretended to change, his opinion about the lawfulness of the
marriage ; and because, so it is insinuated, he would not have
changed, or pretended to change, his opinion on the lawfulness
of the marriage, if it had not been worth his while to do so.
^' Lanfranc," says Mr. Freeman (iii. 103) "was again admitted

to William's full favour, confirmed by the kiss of peace

But Lanfranc was required to withdraw his opposition to the
Duke's marriage, and even to make himself the champion of his
■cause. A man of scrupulous honour, according to modern ideas
of honour, would not have accepted such an office. But modern
ideas of honour differ from monastic ideas of conscience.''

This impertinent rhetoric about monks and gentlemen, and
honour and conscience, need not delay us, for it is enough to
know that the lawfulness of William's marriage was not a matter
of opinion but a matter of fact. I must, however, distinctly say
that I cannot find any authority for the assertion that any such
requirement was made of Lanfranc as that attributed by Mr.
Freeman to Duke William. It is an invention of Mr. Freeman's.

The truth is, that in taking Matilda to wife, Duke William
had not only disobeyed the Pope Leo's prohibition, but had vio-
lated the canon law, of which that prohibition was the assertion.
vStrange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that no one, so
far as I am aware, has taken the pains to ascertain what really
was the law of consanguinity which Duke William had violated.
All sorts of theories have been propounded ; but the facts of the
•case have not been investigated.

"Matilda's mother," says Mr. Freeman (iii. 650), " had been

married, or rather betrothed, to William's uncle I am

not canonist enough to say whether this would have been an
impediment to a marriage between Richard's nephew and Adela's
daughter;" and again (iii. 90), "It is by no means easy to see

Archbishop Zanfranc and his Modern Critics. 415^

any reasonable grounds for the prohibition on any of the usual
theories of affinity/' On these sentences I need do no more than
remark — (1) That it requires no profound knowledge of canon
law to consult such works as treat of cases like that of the
betrothal of Matilda's mother to William's uncle ; (2) That our-
quest in these and like cases should be, not for reasonable grounds,
but for legal ; (3) That the usual theories are not the only theories
that have ever been held; and finally, that the lawful impedi-
ment was, after all, that of consanguinity, not that of affinity. In
another place, Mr. Freeman says (iii. 650), "Failing Richard the
Good, I cannot suggest any other common ancestor for William
and Matilda." To this the answer is obvious. An uncle is not
an ancestor.

In sheer despair, then, of any better solution, our highest
living authority on the history of the eleventh century, falls back
upon a modified form of the theory advanced by Mr. Stapleton,
in the year 1846, and never as yet, so far as I am aware, refuted.
That theory was that Matilda was already another man's wife at
the time of her betrothal to Duke William. Mr. Freeman, how-
ever, prefers to think that she was at the time a widow. But,
whether wife or widow, both Mr. Stapleton and Mr. Freeman
make her the wife or the widow, as the case may be, of a noble
Fleming by the name of Gerbod, and the mother of two children..
" The panegyrists of William,-" says the second of these authori-
ties (iii. 85), " keep out of sight the fact revealed to us by a com-
parison of several documents and incidental statements, that
Matilda was the mother of a son and a daughter, of whom
William was not the father." Why none but the panegyrists
should be charged with such reticence I will not inquire. " She
had already," he continues, " been married to Gerbod, a man of

distinction in Flanders. To him she bare two children

Gerbod and Gundrada It is quite certain that the bride

of William was already the mother of two children by another

man Mr. Stapleton has, I think, convincingly made out

that Matilda was, before her marriage with William, the mother
of Gerbod and Gundrada." This idol of clay was set up in the
year 1846. It has stood for five and thirty years. It is time it
should be overthrown. I mean to overthrow it.

With Gerbod, the suppositious son of Matilda, we need not
concern ourselves; it will suffice to confine our attention to
Gundrada or Gundrade, This lady, whose tomb may be seen in
Southover Church, Lewes, was the wife of William of Warenne,.
the first of his race who bore the title of Earl of Surrey ; and it
is on the evidence of certain documents concerning the Priory of
Lewes that she is asserted to have been a child of Queen Matilda.
In one of these documents, William the Conqueror, says " pro-

416 ArchbisJwp Zanfranc and his Modern Critics.

animae Gundradse filiEe mese f and in another, Earl

William, Gundrade's husband, employs these words, ^' pro salute
•dominse mese Matildis reginse, matris uxoris mese/' Mr. Staple-
ton and Mr. Freeman accept the second statement; but the brief
they hold compels them to reject the first. Gundrade was
Matilda's child, they say, but not William's ; for if the Conqueror,
and not Gerbod, was her father, their contention is at an end.
I, on the other hand, am bold enough to accept both statements.
But before treating of the Lewes documents it will be both con-
venient and proper to show how it was that William and Matilda
were consanguinei.

1. Bishop Yves, of Chartres, forbad the marriage of Robert,
Count of Meulan, with Elizabeth, the daughter of Hugh-le-Grand,
on the ground of consanguinity, for he had been informed that
one of the contracting parties was in the fourth, and the other in
the fifth, degree of descent from a common ancestor. Their con-
sanguinity was nee ignota nee remota ; and he refused to allow
the union to be blessed in his diocese unless proof should first be
^iven him that one or other of the contracting parties was as far
removed from their common ancestor as the eighth de<2:ree : " Nisi
primum m praesentia nostra consanguinitas hsec septimum
gradum excessisse legitime fuerit comprobata" (Ivonis Carnot,
Epise. Ep. 45). Unquestionably, Bishop Yves is not an author
with whom Englishmen have much concern. The works, how-
ever, of Archbishop Anselm contain a similar case. 2. This
great prelate, with whom Bishop Yves was contemporary, ibrbad,
€arly in the twelfth century, the marriage of King Henry's
-daughter with a certain baron of the king's, on the ground of
consanguinity, and explained that one of the parties was in the
fourth, and the other in the fifth, degree of descent from the
-common ancestor. And writers better known to Mr. Stapleton
and Mr. Freeman than even St. Anselm have something to tell
us on the subject ; as Orderic (lib. xi.), who (3) informs us that
Henry I. forbad the marriage of his nephew, William Clito, with
a daughter of Foulque, Count of Anjou, on the ground that the
young gentleman was descended by five, and the object of his
ambition by six, degrees from a common progenitor, Duke
B/ichard I.

And now I may be permitted to express my astonishment that
writer after writer, and historian after historian, should have spent
no one knows how much precious time in beating about the bush,
instead of once for all finding out, by consulting an Acta
Concirwrum,what was the canon law which William and Matilda
were alleged to have violated. For, over and over again, do we
find in the acts of councils held in the eleventh century the
assertion and the enforcement of what was then the law of

I

ArchhisJiop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics, 417

Christendom, that man and woman within seven descents of a
•common ancestor mig^ht not be joined toi2jether in matrimony;
^s when Nicholas II. himself decreed, " Si quis infra septimum
consanguinitatis gradum uxorem habet . . . . ab episcopo suo
eam dimittere canonice compellatur si verb obedire noluerit
excommunicatur.'-' And Lanfranc, in 1075, ordained : " Ut nuUus
de propria cognatione .... uxorem accipiat quoad asqueparentata
«x alterutra parte ad septimum gradum perveniat."'^ (Migne,
cl. 52 d).

Surely, if in cases like this we wish to ascertain the law we
know where to find it.

Duke William was in the fifth degree of descent from Duke
Bollo, who, in his turn, was, in the opinion of the best modern
genealogists, the grandfather of Adela, the queen of Hugh Capet
iind great-grandmother of Matilda. Thus, they had a common
ancestor at the distance of five degrees from each. These may
have had some other ancestor in common within the assigned
seven degrees. But not until it shall be proved that they had
none, may we venture to say that all the contemporary canonists,
and all the contemporary historians who treated of the subject,
were mistaken in declaring them to be consanguinei.

And now, needless though it be to do so, let me give a moment^s
attention to the allegation that, prior to her engagement to
Duke William^ Matilda had been married to Gerbod the Fleming,
and had borne him ' a daughter, Gundrade, known in history as
■Gundrade, Countess of Warenne.

I am absolutely certain of two things : (1) That Matilda had
never been married to Gerbod of Tournay ; and (^) That the
Countess Gundrade was not Matilda's daugher ; and I say all
this in few and categorical words, because I wish to do justice
to the conviction that, in dealing with so remote an age as the
•eleventh century, no pains we may take in endeavouring to learn
all that there is to learn of such collateral subjects as the con-
temporary canon law, the contemporary modes of speech, the
contemporary technicalities of phrase, the contemporary oninutice
of no matter what custom, art or science, is likely in the long
run to have been thrown away.

One of the Lewes documents calls Matilda Gundrade's mater,
the others call Gundrade Matilda's ^i^m, and I accept both state-
ments. But Matilda was the godmother, not the mother, of
■Gundrade. It was quite in accordance with the custom of the
time that a godmother should be designated mater, and a god-
child, ji^m. Fater, mater, filius,filia, were the ordinary words
for expressing the spiritual relationship contracted at the bap-
tismal font. Here are a few instances : —

1. We are told of Archbishop Halinard, who governed the

418 Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics.

diocese of Lyons early in the eleventh century^ that in his child-
hood he was loved with paternal affection by Walter, Bishop of
Autun, cujus filius erat in baptismate (Migne, cxlii. 1337 a),.
Here, it is true, we have the qualifying words in baptismate ; but
not so always. 2. Thus, Sfc. Anselm (Ep. i. 18), styles himself the
filius of his maternal uncles; and there is every reason to believe,
from other and independent sources, that he was their godson.
3. The same great prelate, writing to a dignified clergyman in
France (Ep. iii. 1U6) who had been ofiered a bishopric, says, "^ If
the Bishops of Chartres and Paris, who were your patres, and were
charged with your education, concur in the election, you should
not hold back.'' 4. In the correspondence of St. Yves, of Chartres,.
there is a letter (Ep. 178) to the clergy of Dol, in which that
prelate speaks of a certain Wulgrin as his filius ; whilst in another
written upon the same occasion, he says of the same Wulgrin,
*^eur)i defonte suscepimus" 5. In the year 1051, the Emperor
Henry III. wrote to St. Hugh, of CI uny, begging him to be god-
father (ut de sacro fonte susciperes) to his infant son. The abbot
complied with the request ; and some years later the child's
mother, upon the death of the Emperor, wrote to Hugh, im-
ploring his prayers for him. '^ Pray,'"* she said, " for the soul of
my husband and for your filius— filium vestrum (Migne, clix.
850 B.C.).

These five cases concur to render it certain that Gundrade may
have been Queen Matilda's godchild ; and by the well known law
of spiritual affinity, William the Conqueror's filia as well a&
Matilda's. I must next prove that she cannot have been Matilda's
child in the natural order. Now, it is a curious and remarkable
fact that the nobleman to whom I just now alluded as having
been forbidden by St. Anselm to marry the daughter of Henry I.
was none other than a son of Gundrade herself; so that, if Gun-
drade had been Queen Matilda's child, the proposed alliance be-
tween Gundrade's son and King Henry's daughter would have
been an alliance between first cousins. But no one in those
days was likely to dream of such a union ; and had so scandalous
a project been entertained, it would have been treated uncere-
moniously enough by a man like St. Anselm. His letter to the
king is extant ; and that letter shews past all doubt that Matilda's
grandson and Gundrade's daughter were not first cousins,
"Quserit consilium celsitudo vestra {i.e. Henry 1.) quid sibi
faciendum sit de hoc quia pacta est filiam suam dare Guillielmo
de Warenna, cum ipse et filia vestra ex una parte sint cognati in
quarta generatione et in altera in sexta. Scitote absque dubio
quia nullum pactum servari debet contra legem Christianitafcis,
lUi autem, si ita propinqui suntj nuUo modo legitime copulari
possunt'' (Kp. iv. 84).

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics. 419

These are Hot the words of a man writing about first cousins.
The common ancestor of the princess and her suitor was not
Queen Matilda but the father or the mother — possibly both — of
Gunnor, the mistress of Richard Sanspeur, the great grandfather
of William the Conqueror. William of Jumieges gives the
pedigree (viii. 37) in these words : " Neptes " plures prsedicta

Gunnor habuit Una earum copulata est patri primi

Guillielmi de Warenna/^

By so slight a fact, then, as the conventional meaning attached
in the eleventh century to the words pater, mater, filius and filia,
may an elaborate theory like Mr. Stapleton's — a theory accepted
in France by M. Le Prevost, and in England by Sir Francis
Palgrave and Mr. Freeman — be shaken to its foundation. St.
Anselm^s letter to Henry I. scatters it to the four winds. •

The reader will, I trust, forgive this digression about the real
relation of Gundrade* to Queen Matilda, for the canonical bar to
the legality of her union with William of Normandy, the impedi-
ment, was, after all, as we have seen^ their common descent within
seven degrees from Duke Rollo, or some other personage. As to
Lanfranc, if he spoke about the alliance at all, he could but speak
against it : and so far from constituting himself the champion of
what he had just opposed, what he did was, when, after an in-
terval of five years, Normandy was visited with an interdict, ta
get that interdict removed from those who had not offended ; and
to obtain a commutation of the punishment incurred by the
offenders. We shall next be told that when the Secretary of State
supplicates the crown to commute sentence of death he constitutes
himself the champion of murder !

May I, before proceeding to the archiepiscopal career of Lan-
franc, venture upon a word or two concerning the services which
he rendered to art in Normandy and in England ?

In the days of Lanfranc^s youth and early manhood, Pavia
stood conspicuous, and probably foremost, amongst the cities of
Northern Italy for political and commercial enterprise ; and none
of them could rival it in wealth and magnificence. Chief amongst
its hundred and thirty churches was the wonderful structure
of San Michele, the building of which, as we now know it, was not
improbably executed under Lanfranc's very eyes, and which, as a

* Who Gundrade really was is not- our present concern ; hut the follow-
ing extract from the Bermondsey Register [Harley, 231], may be of in-
terest to genealogists; — "a.d. m.xc.viij*. — Hoc anno Ricardus Guet
frater ComitissaD Warenna3 dedit manerium de Cowyk monachis de Ber-
mondeseie cum pertinentibus suis." There is a like entry in the Ber-
mondsey Chronicle [Lansdowne, 229]. See Dugdale, " Monast." v. 86, and
Domesday Book [Essex, Shering, Quickbury]. The manor was held ot
Richard's brother-in-law, the Earl of Warenne.

VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series.] v r

420 Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics.

typical model of ecclesiastical architecture, was to Lorabardy
what, towards the close of the century, the Abbey Church of St.
Stephen at Caen, and its copy, the Church of Christ at Canter-
bury, were to be to Normandy and to Enjyland. The front of
San Michele, it is true, is not flanked with towers, like that of
St. Stephen's ; but each of the churches is a basilica, each marks
the beginning of a new epoch, and each is, in a multitude of
respects, so like the other as to suggest that they were erected by
one and the same school of builders. The flanking towers at
Caen may have been introduced into the design by Lanfranc ;
but, apart from these, the fa9ade of St. Stephen^s exhibits a con-
formity of design to that of San Michele which can scarcely be
accidental. The interiors differ, it is true ; the nave of the
Norman church being twice as long and half as high again as
that of the Lombard ; but there is the same resemblance between
the two as we find in members of the same family, some of whom
are tall and graceful, whilst others are short and square-built.
The ground plan of the two buildings presents a remarkable re-
semblance^ In each the width of the western limb is some
seventy- two feet ; and the bays of nave and aisle in the one
are precisely, or almost precisely, of the same dimensions as the
bays of nave and aisle in the other ; whilst the similarity of type
in choir and transept is past all question. Nor is this all. The
nave at Pavia was originally ceiled like a proper basilica ; but
the ceiling at Pavia was soon replaced by a vaulted roof, and
precisely the same change was made at Caen. And, once more,
the triforium of San Michele is not so much a triforium as a
spacious gallery capable of holding stands for the accommodation
of spectators on occasions of solemn concourse ; and the same
peculiarity marks St. Stephen^s.* San Michele was to Lombardy
what Westminster Abbey was to England ; and there can be little
doubt that the ducal church at Caen was originally destined to
a like pre-eminence in Normandy. On the whole, therefore, there
seems to be ground for believing, not only that we owe it to
Lanfranc that St. Stephen's Abbey is what it is, but that, had
it not been for Lanfranc, the characteristic architecture of ecclesi-
astical Normandy might have had no existence. Hence the
interest excited by his erection of the ducal abbey ; hence the
interest, perhaps greater still, excited by his earlier work at Le
Bee. Alas ! and a thousand times, alas ! that that opus per-
grande should have perished. It was, doubtless, built upon the
plan of one of the churches in his own Pavia, and built by fellovv-

* I need scarcely say that it had been the custom to crown the kings
of Lombardy at San Michele. This was done on a suggesium or tribune
of timber, erected for the purpose, in the body of the church. (See
Homualdus de Sancta Maria : "Flavia Papia Sacra," i. 29.)

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modem Critics. 421

•citizens ; and I suspect, from numerous gleanings gathered from
his correspondence, and from other sources of information, that a
colony of Lombard builders settled at his instance in Normandy,
.and not content with erecting memorials of their skill at Le Bee,
at Caen, and probably at Ouche, taught Englishmen to build, by
their work under his auspices at Canterbury, at Rochester, and
on many of the archiepiscopal estates, and, after his death, in the
Tower of London and Westminster Hall.

My theory is a new one. May I be permitted to dwell on it
for a moment?

Muratori, in his " Rerum Italicarum Scriptores,^'"* has preserved
an account of Pavia, which, although written two centuries after
Lanfranc's death, gives a multitude of details, then already
ancient, concerning the city, such as afford most interesting illus-
tration of the career of the great scholar and architect. Thus, it
tells us of the sapienteSj or council of government, of which some
of his kinsmen were members ; and of the consulatus justitice,
^n office held by his father, the consules justitice being appointed
•ad respondendum de justitid civili et ad causas delegandas.
It tells us also of the traditional eloquence of the Pavian sapientes,
a quality inherited in singular measure and amplitude by the son
of Lanfranc's father ; an eloquence which had provoked the re-
mark, " Mentiuntur qui dicunt Romanes in linguis spicula non
habere/' It gives us some idea of the intercourse which the
navigation of the Po enabled the citizens of Pavia to sustain with
the East, in its Greek names for articles of domestic furniture, in
the Greek inscriptions upon its coins, and in the religious offices
performed in some of its churches by two choirs, one of which
sang in Greek and the other in Latin ; and thus of the sources
whence Lanfranc drew his knowledge of the language of Aris-
totle and Plato — -a knowledge so profound as to constitute him
its restorer in the West; And, as regards architecture, the
account contains not a little in corroboration of the theory that
Pavia had long been the centre of an architectural influence all
its own. It informs us that, by the close of the thirteenth cen-
tury, all, or nearly all, of the churches of Pavia had vaulted
roofs ; that all, or nearly all, of their towers were furnished with
peals of bells; that the multitude and variety of the church bells
•of Pavia were, even then, a distinctive characteristic of the city ;
that San Michele and San Pietro de Coelo Aureo were, even in
that day, famous for their stateliness of dimension, and larger
than many a cathedral elsewhere. It particularizes a church
which was not so much one as two, whence, perhaps, the double-
naved churches of Normandy. It informs us that, with one ex-

* " De Lavdibus Papise." Muratori, xi.

F F £

422 Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics.

ceptjon, all the churches of Pavia had three doors in the western
front, and that not only all its churches, but nearly all its altars-
were orientated. Whence, then, the peals of church bells, of
which, if a letter of St. Anselm's may be taken in evidence,.
Lanfranc was peculiarly fond ? Whence the basilican form of
Lanfranc's churches? Whence their transepts and apsidal choirs ?
Whence their three western doorways ? Whence, again, the low
central tower of St. Stephanas ? whence that church's singular
triforium ? whence its moulded piers, if not from Pavia ? How
much of his metropolitan church at Canterbury was transplanted
from Pavia it would be impossible to determine ; but if the ceiling
of St. Stephen followed the example of the ceiling of San Michelc'
in giving place to a vaulted roof, the ceiling of the Canterbury
basilica was not improbably an inspiration suggested by that of
San Pietro de Coelo Aureo. It was, I suspect, to Pavia, and to
Pavian commerce with the orient, that our forefathers owed the
splendour of Christ Church, Canterbury; a work in which, as
William of Malmesbury informs us, costly as were the trans-
marine materials of the structure, the adornments lavished on it
by the hands of the goldsmith were costlier still, the sacred
vestments vying with the hangings, and these, in their turn,
rivalled by the frescoes on the walls — frescoes whose sumptuous
magnificence led on the eye of the beholder, ravished, to the ceil-
ing that crowned and completed all.

But in transplanting the architecture of his native city"^ to our
sombre clime, Lanfranc was more than a mere imitator. Nqn
tetigit quod non ornavit. He gave the distinctive characteristics
of Pavian art a new home, first in Normandy, then in England ;
but in doing so he enhanced them with the stamp of his own
orginal and aspiring genius. The ponderous solemnity of Pavia
was by that genius converted into the stately majesty of William's
abbey, and the severe grace of Matilda's ; and churches deemed
prodigies of size in his own city would have looked almost
humble if set side by side with his new interpretations of them
in Normandy and England. The type was the same, but it was
a type transfigured; and by making his triforia half as high
again, and his clerestories twice as high again as those designed
by his fathers, he gave the romanesque of Normandy and England
their distinctive attributes of hardy elevation and solemn
grandeur.

* In crediting Lanfranc with the introduction of a Pavian type of
the Lombard romanesque into Normandy and England, I do not wish it
to be inferred that there was no Lombard romanesque in Normandy
before his time. The Lombard St. William — St. William sii^ra rec/ulam
— had preceded him in the duchy by half a century. It might be in-
teresting to compare William's work at Dijon and Fecamp, with Lanfranc's
at Caen, Canterbury, Lympne, Lyminge and Harrow.

Archbishop Zanfranc and his Modern Critics. 42S

II And now for his public life in our own country. Comments have
been made upon this portion of his career, designed to prove an
alleged contempt for the English people, an alleged servility to
William the Conqueror, and an alleged disloyalty to the central
^^ee of Christendom.

^B If we are to believe his modern critics. Archbishop Lanfranc
p^Sisliked, despised and hated the poor English, and pursued even
I the best of them with an unrelenting prejudice which the gates
of Paradise itself were insufficient to hold in awe. Thus, M.
Thierry says : " The foreign prelates, with Archbishop Lanfranc at
their head, lost no time in declaring .that the Saxon saints were
j no true saints, and the Saxon martyrs no true martyrs. Lanfranc
tried to degrade St. Elphege by making light of his beautiful
and patriotic death'^ ('^ Conquete de TAugleterre," ii. 132).
Had Lanfranc^s contemporaries thought thus of him they would
never have credited him with the declaration that Earl Waltheof
was a martyr. But M. Thierry is not alone. Mr. Freeman
€ays [iii. 441] : " An admiring monk has left a tale on record
which shows how little reverence the stranger felt for the holiest
of his native predecessors, and how he was brought to a better
xnind ;'"' and " he took on him to doubt'' the sanctity of Elphege.
And M. de Remusat, thoroughly merciless, has thought fit to say
(" Vie deSt. Anselme,'' p. 86] : '^ La politique se mela avec leurs

entretiens. Lanfranc avait adopts la theorie de la conquete

La reaction remonta plus haut encore. II enteprit meme de
contester h des saints de la nation anglaise leur beatitude eter-
nelle." These gentlemen find it convenient to say nothing of all
that Lanfranc did for St. Dunstan, for St. Oswald, for the royal
St. Ethelburg, and in their zeal hurry on to a conclusion about
his treatment of St. Elphege, for which there is no warrant.
"What Lanfranc doubted was, not the holiness of Elphege, but
the propriety of giving the title of saint and the designation of
martyr to one who, however holy, had not died for the name
of Christ, nor even, as it happens, in the cause of his country ;
and the contrasts which have been paraded between dying for
dogma and dying for patriotism are from first to last very fine
rhetoric of Mr. Freeman's all thrown away. The true account of
the case is simple enough. The English monks at Canterbury
accounted Elphege a saint because he chose to die at the hands
of the Danes rather than pay a ransom for his life. '^The
Pagans who, to employ the English idiom, were envious at him
and hated God, having taken him prisoner, nevertheless, out of
reverence for his person, ofiered him the alternative of redeeming
himself, and demanded an enormous sum of money for his ransom.
But, as it was impossible for him to raise the sum required with-
out having recourse to his vassals, some of whom would thus

424 Archhishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics.

have been impoverished, and others reduced to shameful beggary,.
he chose to lose his life rather than save it at such a cost.
'Now then/^' continued Lanfranc, addressing Anselm, who was
at that time Abbot of Le Bee, " 'I am anxious to hear your
opinion upon this/^' Anselm^s reply shows us what was the
real difficulty. It was this. Does a dominus terrenus, who
prefers to die rather than distress his vassals by requiring of them,
what the law allows him to require of them, a ransom ad redi-
mendum corpus, thereby merit the title of saint and fche desig-
nation of martyr ?

By the middle of the eleventh century it had long been the
fashion to assign the palm of martyrdom to any pious person of
consideration who had died a violent death. Little King Ken elm
was put to death by his sister; he was accounted a martyr.
Little King Edward, son of Edgar, was put to death by his step-
mother ; he was accounted a martyr.* In the Flemish monastery
of St. Bavon the relics were preserved of an " Adrianus martyr^''
and a " Sanctus Livinus," of whom nothing was knoWn, save that
the first had been " h latrone interemptus/' and the second, " a
viris malignis interemptus." The famous hermit of Einsiedeln
was thought to have deserved the palm-branch by meeting his-
death at the hands of a couple of housebreakers. And I will
venture to say that if Lanfranc had encouraged this sort of
random theology he would liave been censured by the very
gentlemen who have maligned him for opposing it.

It may, indeed, be objected that the cases just adduced are not
analogous to that of Archbishop Elphege. Here, then, is one
which admirably illustrates it : St. Mayeul, Abbot of Cluny, was
once taken captive by Saracens in the mountainous country on this
side of Mont Genevre. The captors demanded .a ransom for him
and his companions, and asked him if he had means at command
for paying one. He had no property of his own^i he replied, but
he had tenants who could help him ; whereupon the ransom was
appraised at a thousand pounds of silver, and a messenger
despatched to Cluny, with a letter from Mayeul containing these
words : " Nunc vero, si placet, pro me et his qui mecum sunt
capti redemptionem mittite.^' The money was raised, and the
captives set at liberty. But if St. Mayeul had chosen to die^
rather than apply to his tenants for help, would he therefore have
been a martyr? By no means. We say '^no,^^ and we say it
with some confidence ; but the bulk of Englishmen in the eleventh
century would have said " yes," and with equal confidence.

In Anselm's opinion, a man who would die rather than scan-
dalize his neighbours, even though the scandal should come from
his assertion of an unquestioned legal right, must be a man ot

* The names of St. Edward and of St. Meinrad occur in the present
Homan Martyrology, but without the title of Martyr.

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics. 425

jroic holiness ; Elphege therefore deserved the title of Saint.

lis is the jewel of the case. Unlike Abbot Mayeul, Archbishop

Blphege could not have claimed his legal right without doing

:ievous harm^ corporal and spiritual, to others ; and, rather than

such harm, he died. This is the jewel of the case ; and it was

lanfranc who set finger on the jewel. Anselm, it is true,

[luminated it with all the keen light of his transcendent genius,

it Lanfranc had first placed it before him. In Anselm's

idgment, then, Elphege was a saint because of his heroic holi-

less. But he was a martyr also, because he had died for justice,

^ust as the Baptist had in olden time died for truth. No sooner,

then, did Lanfranc hear his friend's exposition of the merits of

Elphege than, so far from " contesting^' them, he conceived a

devotion for his predecessor which was simply enthusiastic, and,

not satisfied with causing the history of his life and martyrdom

to be compiled, had the story set to music, probably in the form

of hymns and antiphons, for use in the choir of Canterbury

Cathedral.

When in Rome, a year or two ago, I was fortunate enough to
light upon a fragment of a Mass in honour of St. Elphege. Its
composition is so remarkably in Lanfranc's own style that I will
make bold to ask permission to publish a portion of it in these
pages :—

.... aeterne Deus. In cujus amoris virtute beatissimus martyr
Elfegus hostem derisit, tormenta sustinuit, mortem suscepit. Quique
ab ecclesia tua tanto gloriosior praadicatur, quanto sui [per] devo-
tionem officii bino moderamine effulsit : Ut in uno creditum sibi
populum tibi Domino Deo conciliaret ; in altero semetipsum in
odorem suavit [at] is sacrificium oiFerret ; in utroque Filii tui Domini
nostri Jesu Christi fidelis imitator existeret : Qui pro omnium salute
tibi seterno Patri suo pieces effudit, et peccati typographum quod
antiquus hostis contra nos tenuit proprii sanguinis effusione delevit.
Et ideo, &c.

If I may so express myself, this singularly rhythmical and
melodious preface almost sings itself. I am fortunate, indeed, to
have lighted on it, for it must surely be Lanfranc's.

Many a long hour have I spent in trying to divine what it
can be that has induced our modern writers to romance as they
have done about .this case of St. Elphege, and can think of
nothing ; unless, indeed, it be that the word isti in the opening
sentence of Lanfranc's exposition of it to Anselm has misled
them : — " Angli isti inter quce degimus instituerunt sibi quos-
dam quos colerent sanctos/' We were taught at school that iste is
frequently employed in a sarcastic or contemptuous sense ; but,
true as this may be of the golden age of Latin literature, it is
the very opposite of true of the time in which Lanfranc lived.

426 Archbishop Zanfranc and his Modern Critics.

By the eleventh century iste was already replacing hie, and pre-
paring the way for the esto of the Spanish, and the qnesto of the
Italian, languages, neither of which possesses a word derived
from the other pronoun. Thus, in Lanfranc's "Decreta,^' a postulant
for confraternity is required to say : ^' Peto per misericordiam Dei
ct vestram et omnium istorum seniorum [e di tutti questi signori)
societatem et beneficium hujus monasterii.'^ And as to sar-
casm, it has none. Witness the prayer : " Defende qusesumus
Domine istam ab omni adversitate familiam," &c., and the pious
ejaculation, "Iste est Deus mens, et glorificabo eum//

So, one by one, do the charges against this man of masculine
piety, of prodigious learning, of rare and exquisite taste, and of a
heart peculiarly sympathetic, dissolve in the crucible. So do I
take heart to pursue the subject.

The accusations laid against Archbishop Lanfranc of servility
to the crown and disloyalty to the tiara, are so intricatelj'- inter-
woven by writers of all schools with other and vaster subjects,
that it would be an endless task to do justice to them by quota-
tions. 1 can but summarize them in brief and tempered phrase.

It has been urged, in the first place, that, had not Lanfranc
been a servile minister to William the Conqueror, the Red King
could not have said what on a famous occasion he did to St.
Anselm : "Your predecessor would not have dared to speak thus
to my father.''^ A slight attention to dates will do much to
pulverize this objection. Abbot Paul, of St. Albans, died in the
November of 1092. In the following February, Anselm begged
the king to institute abbots to certain monasteries, which he,
not improbably, named ; but, as the three months, by the end of
which vacancies were by canon law to be filled, had by this time
elapsed since the death of Abbot Paul, the Abbey of St. Alban's,
the first and most famous in the kingdom, must needs have been
foremost in the mind, if not first on the tongue, of each of the
interlocutors. ^' What business is that of yours ?'^ replied the
king ; " are not all abbeys mine ? You do as you please with
your manors ; and I shall do what I like with my abbeys.^^ To
whom Anselm : " Yours, indeed, they are, to protect and guard
in your quality of advocatus ; not yours to invade and lay
waste ;" and more to the same effect. " I tell you what," re-
joined the Prince, '' what you say is excessively offensive. Your
predecessor would never have presumed to speak like that to my
father." Whereupon, Anselm said, " I would rather you be
angry with me than God with you -/' and so saying, rose and
left the room.

Now, had Anselm been a man to bandy words with the despot,
his predecessor might have been saved the stigma set on him by
the Red Prince and accepted in these times. For, curiously

I

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics. 427

enough, William the Conqueror had, before Abbot Paulas ap-
pointment, treated St. Albans Abbey precisely as William Rufus
was now doing ; keeping it in his hand, that is to say, cutting
-down the timber on its estates, and reducing its tenantry to
poverty and misery ; " so much so,"*' adds Matthew Paris, " that
if Lanfranc had not put a tight rein on him, and brought him
to order by his correptiones, the whole establishment would very
soon have been destroyed past all hope of recovery/' This is
conclusive. The Red King's mendacious reproach was merely a
trick common enough to low-class minds ; I mean, the trick of
anticipating the true reproach which they have themselves
deserved, and the comparison with better men which they have
themselves provoked.

Over and over again, during the contest with Henry I. on
investiture and homage, do we find these naggling and invidious
comparisons between Anselm and his immediate predecessor.
The comparisons were worthy of the men that made them, but
had no justification in the conduct of the earlier prelate. On the
contrary, there is scarcely a detail in Lanfranc's conduct to which
exception has been taken — scarcely a detail, I mean in his con-
duct, whether towards Pope or king — for which an eclaircisse-
ment and a justification may not be found in Anselm's action
under like circumstances.

In 1071, Lanfranc went to Rome for the pallium. Whilst he
was therCj the Pope, Alexander IL, invited him to return in
the winter of the following year and spend three months with
him. The Christmas of 1072 came, but no Archbishop of
•Canterbury. In the following spring, however, Lanfranc wrote
a very remarkable letter to the Pontifi*, imploring him to relieve
him of the burden of the archiepiscopate, and enforcing his peti-
tion with a picture of the general demoralization of England — a
demoralization which made his life a burden to him. As to the
Pope's invitation, he says, " God is my witness, and the angels
are my witnesses, that I could not have come to you without
grave inconvenience, both physical and moral, and tliat on
many accounts, which cannot be briefly explained in a letter^,"
and concludes by asking the Pope to pray that the king may be
blessed with '' long life, victory over his enemies, and — devotion
to the Church."

Now, scarcely had Anselm, some two and twenty years later,
eeeived his pallium, when he wrote just the same sort of letter to
'rban IL : " I cannot come to you. The din of war surrounds
s on all sides. We are in perpetual fear of invasion and
reachery." And then, later on in the letter, he begs precisely
as Lanfranc had begged in 1073, to be relieved of the intolerable
fardel of the archbishopric.

428 ■ Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics,

If, then, a half-hearted attachment to the Papacy kept Lanfranc
from going to Rome in 1073, why do we not say the same of
Anselm in 1095 ? We know enough of Anselm to feel convinced
that this would be a false account ; we certainly do not know
enough of Lanfranc to warrant us in believing, or even in sus-
pecting, that it is a true account.

Lanfranc's letter of the spring of 1073 can scarcely have
reached Rome before the death of Alexander; and Alexander
was succeeded by Gregory YIL, whose relations with the arch-
bishop seem to have been unclouded until the beginning of 1079.
In the spring of that year, however, he wrote Lanfranc a letter
of complaint ; it was either, he told him, a fond regret for the
late Pope, or fear of the King, or his own fault, that kept him
from coming to Rome when he knew that he was wanted there.
To all which Lanfranc replied that his august correspondent was
mistaken ; that his own conscience bore him witness of his loyalty
to the Holy See, and that, should he ever l)e able to see him, he
would convince him of the sincerity of these protestations. At
last, however, the Pope ascertained the real state of things, but
not I'rom Lanfranc, who excused himself on the score of age and
infirmity — he was now more than eighty years old — from under-
taking so long and wearisome a journey. Now, it is a remarkable
fact that Anselm made just the same sort of excuse to Urban 11.,.
in 1095, hinting, however, at the same time, not that the King
was unwilling to let him go and see the Pope, but that he seemed
to deem his presence in England indispensable. If, then_, Anselm
in 1095 was not disloyal to the Roman See in excusing rather
than accounting for the indefinite postponement of a visit to^
Urban II., it can scarcely be fair to take the contrary view of the-
like conduct in Lanfranc in 1081.

But, it may be said, Anselm broke loose at last^ and went to
Rome without the royal permission. Quite so. But Anselm
in 1097 was a much younger man than Lanfranc in 1081. In
1081, Lanfranc was some eighty-five years of age; in 1097
Anselm was only sixty-four. In 1097, Anselm was compelled to-
leave the country, things having been so. managed by the Red
King that he should first be driven out of England and then kept
out. This had not been the case with Lanfranc. And, once
more. Anselm in 1097 did not press his request for leave to go-
to Rome till a moment had arrived when the King was at peace
and back again in England ; a combination of circumstances of
which Lanfranc had not had the advantage.

The truth would seem to be that Lanfranc was every whit as-
true to the Papal See as Anselm ; but that, like Anselm, he
shrank from precipitating a rupture between Pope and King
upon a question of constitutional law. By the ancient law of

ArcUhisJiop Zanfranc and his Modern Critics, 429

England the primate was_, ex-officio, viceroy during the King's
absence from the country. So lon^, then, as England and
Normandy were under one prince, theinconvenience of protracted
absences from Rome might not improbably be continued ; but
when once the duchy should be separated from the kingdom the-
inconvenience might cease. . It might, indeed, then be per-
petuated without excuse drawn from constitutional usuage ; but,
meanwhile, prudence warned Lanfranc not to force upon the
Pope's notice an obstacle to his compliance to the Pope's wishes
which might come to an end in the natural course of things, but
which, so long as it lasted, served at any rate as a decent cloak to
the otherwise unconcealed, or at best the only too reasonably
suspected, design of the Conqueror to put new and unprecedented
fetters upon the liberty of the primate's movements. Should
that design be inherited by the Conqueror's successor to the
English crown, and flaunted by him, stripped of the excuse of
legality, a great and terrible conflict would then be inevitable ;
but, until such crisis should occur it was unquestionably his
wisdom to stave off the mischief. This I believe to be the clue
to the puzzle. If it commend itself to wifeer heads than mine
they will know how to follow it out. To read history upside
down or inside out is neither wise nor right, but there is a
sense in- which it is both right and wise to read history back-
wards; for it is both right and wise to interpret an earlier and
obscure group of facts by the light shed on them from a sub-
sequent and manifest group of facts in the same order. Not till
he was forced to it did Anselm solemnly challenge the Red
King's pretension arbitrarily to forbid visits from Primate to
Pope ; and if Lanfranc did not solemnly challenge the same pre-
tension of the Conqueror's, it is but fair to believe that he abstained
from doing so until abstention should be hopeless ; and absten-
tion was not hopeless so long as the Conqueror, detained in
Normandy, veiled his pretension under the plea that Lanf rune's
political functions required him to stay in England.

And now for the last charge. Gregory VII. died in the May
of 1085, and was succeeded by Victor III. ; but Victor III. was
never acknowledged, officially at least, by Lanfranc. After
Victor III. came Urban 11. ; but Urban II. was never acknow-
ledged, oflScially at least, by Lanfranc. Lanfranc died in the May
of i089. During the last four years, therefore, of his life, did
Lanfranc ignore the existence of his spiritual chief. Such is the

^charge.

I^B This looks bad. But let us be of good courage ; it is not so

^^Had as it looks.

^^H Gregory VII. — some of whose contemporaries persisted in

430 Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics,

not allow to pass unrebuked — died in the May of 1085, but no
efficient efforts were mad^Mor the appointment of a successor
until the following spring; and summer was already blazing over
Rome before Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, was elected to
the vacant throne with the name of Victor III. Within a few
days, however, of the election, the pontiff-elect resigned such of
the Papal insignia as he had consented to assume, and, for-
bidding the cross to be carried before him, retired to his monas-
tery. It was only in the spring of 1087 that he resumed the
purple, and only on the 9th of May that he consented to receive
consecration; events, the merest rumour of which cannot have
reached England before the end of July. Thus, more than two
out of the four years of Lanfranc's alleged defection are accounted
for.

But this is not all. Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, and already
for many years Papal Legate of all Gaul under St. Gregory,
scarcely heard of the consecration of Desiderius before news
reached him that the new Pope had abdicated and was dying, if
not dead. " He attempted to say Mass in St. Peter's a week after
his consecration, but was struck by the Hand of God. Where-
upon. ... he abdicated the Papacy — se ipse deposuit — and de-
sired that he might be carried to Monte Cassino and buried there,
not as pope but as abbot.""^ And the same sort of rumour would
seem to have reached Normandy, for Orderic, writing many years
after the event, says that he was taken ill a week after his conse-
cration, and died in the following August. He died, not in
August, but in September. It is needless to say more. Before
Lanfranc could receive any trustworthy intelligence, Victor III.
was on his death-bed at Monte Cassino, and William the Conqueror
on his death-bed at Rouen.

As the next Pope was not elected until the following March,
and as rumours of the fact would not have reached England be-
fore the following May, the May of 1088, the third year of
Lanfranc's alleged disloyalty is accounted for. Now, then, we
must pay a somewhat minute attention to dates.

On the 10th of April, 1088, the new Pontiff, Urban II., who
was then at Terracina, wrote an official announcement of his suc-
cession to Archbishop Lanfranc ; and we shall scarcely err if we
believe his letter to have reached England about the middle of
June, or between the middle and the end of June. It is to the
month of June, in the year 1088, that I wish to direct the reader's
attention. He will please to note this.

William Rufus had succeeded to the crown of England in the

* I take this from the archbishop's own account, transmitted by him to
the Marchioness Matilda.

Archbishop Lanfranc and his Modern Critics. 431

autumn of 1087, and had succeeded to it in virtue of a solemn
promise made to Lanfranc — a solemn promise which he violated at
or after the Whitsuntide of 1088; after which event he fiad na
further relations — at any rate, no further friendly relations — with
the primate, who died in 1089.

When, then, did William Rufus violate that solemn promise of
his ? How many days, or weeks, or months, after the Whitsun-
day of 1088 was it that he did so?

And, again, what was the occasion of his violation of that
solemn promise?

Eadmer says (''HistoriaNovorum^'), " He pledged his word and
his oath to Lanfranc that, should he be made king, he would in
every business observe justice, mercy, and equity throughout his
whole realm ; would defend the peace, liberty, and security of the
Church against all men, and would submit himseK per omnia et
in omnibus to Lanfranc^s direction and advice. But when once
firmly seated on the throne (i.e., after the pacification at the
Whitsuntide of 1088) he made light of his promise, and pursued
quite a different course. Lanfranc, perceiving this, took him
gently to task, and reminded him that he was scarcely keeping his
word. Whereupon he fired up, and exclaimed in a passion, ' What
living man can keep all his promises ?' From that moment, how-
ever .... he restrained himself somewhat, so long as the
Archbishop was alive.^'' And William of Malmesbury (" Gesta
Pontificum") traces the King's defection from rectitude to his
resentment against the barons who had risen against him at the
Easter of 1088. On the whole, then, it is scarcely to be ques-
tioned that the famous speech : " Who can keep all his promises ?'^
was made on the earliest occasion after the Whitsunday of 1088,
upon which subject of discord was mooted between the King and
the Primate. Whitsunday in 1088 fell on the 4th of June. The
Whitsuntide Court broke up between the 12th and the 19th. The
Pope^s letter reached England between the 15th and the 25th.

In the course of the summer news came to Anselm, at Le Bee,, of
the serious illness of Archbishop Lanfranc, and with the news
a request from the archbishop that he would conclude, or at any
rate initiate, a " contract with Lombards" (^'Sti. Anselmi,'' Ep. ii.
53). Now, if these Lombards were, as there can be little doubt,
a guild or company of Lombard masons, two questions arise:
What work can Lanfranc have had for them to do in England ?
and. When was such work undertaken by Lanfranc? The
answer to the first question is ready to hand in the fact that,
soon after the termination of the siege- of Rochester, in the May
of 1088, the King confirmed a grant made by Lanfranc to the
See of Rochester, upon condition that the recent damage done to-
the fortifications should be repaired and the castle placed in a

432 Archbishop Zanfranc and his Modern Critics,

condition of effective defence. The answer to the second question
is supplied by the fact that the signatures to the royal deed of
confirmation were appended in a full court, which must have
been the Whitsuntide court. So> then, if Lan franc's message
about the Lombard masons was sent to Le Bee, as Soon as pos-
sible after the execution of the royal deed of confirmation, and if
Lanfranc had meanwhile fallen ill, he must have fallen ill within
a few days, or at the utmost a few weeks, of the dissolution
of the Whitsuntide gathering of the magndtes regni. Now, it
was within a few days, or at the utmost a few weeks, of that
event that the letter of the new Pope reached England ; and I
suspect that the Pope's letter was the innocent cause of Lanfranc's
illness.

For, certainly, that letter was all that was needed to set the
already irate Prince in a blaze. His father had asserted, and he
was bent upon asserting, four claims, unknow^n to England before
the Conquest, upon ecclesiastical matters. One, and singularly
enough, the first recorded by Eadmer, related to the recognition
of a newly-appointed Pope ; another, and that the second re-
corded by Eadmer, related to the receipt of Papal letters ; the
third, to ecclesiastical synods; and the fourth, to the excom-
munication of tenants-in-chief. On the third and fourth no
casus belli could well have arisen at the time with which we are
concerned, the June of 1088 ; but a difference might well have
arisen upon the first and second. Urban's announcement of his
succession reached Lanfranc "between the middle and the end of
June, and that announcement was as a spark to dry fuel. If
Lanfranc read the letter without first showing it to the King, the
second of the claims upon which, as the event. showed, the King
was resolved to stake his all, was infringed. And even if he
showed it to the King before reading it, then, who and what was
an Archbishop of Canter biLiry that he should presume to give
advice to the Crown upon its contents ? Otto, Bishop of Ostia,
might be Pope, or Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna, might be
Pope ; but the subject was one for him to decide, and not an
Archbishop of Canterbury. It was thus that he spoke some
years later to Anselm ; and there can be no doubt that it was
thus he claimed the right to speak, and little that it was thus he
really spoke, to Lanfranc in the June of 1088.

On the whole, then, I suspect it was this letter of Urban's to
Lanfranc that provoked the terrible ire of the despot. In which
case, what better reply could Lanfranc make than remind the
despot of his promise ? " No man can keep all his promises,"
was the rejoinder.

Lanfranc was checkmated. It is hard to see what he could do.
We know, taught by subsequent events of that dark and cruel

The Religion of George Eliot. 433

Teign, that to have prolonged a discussion witli such a man, and
•with such a man in such a temper, would have been worse than
hopeless. What, then, was Lanfranc to do ? Bowed down with
incessant labours, and with a length of years which had surpassed
by a decade the longer span of life assigned us by the Psalmist,
the ancient prelate could but pray as he had prayed fifteen years
before, when, dark* as was the sky, it was brightness itself to the
storm he now saw gathering, and await the desired end. He
could but pray that, if it were God''s will, he might be released
from the prison-house of the flesh — de ergastulo hujus carnis
animam meam in sui sancti nominis confessione educat —
and leave the rest to God. The one lever by which he had
once hoped to repress the tyrant's omnipotence for mischief
had snapped in his hands, and there was no mending it. He
prayed as he had prayed ; and by the next Whitsuntide the
<}hair of St. Augustine, around which he had shed a new lustre,
stood vacant in his own glorious basilica at Canterbury.

If, then, these surmises be correct, Lanfranc, so far from being
disloyal to the See to which he owed his pallium and his juris-
diction, died in its cause ; and, so dying, accomplished a career
unique in its manifold splendour of unexampled intellectual
activity, and unrivalled literary conquest ; of self-surrender and
self-sacrifice, complete and absolute ; of exhaustless enterprise in all
that might conduce to the refinement and elevation of his half-
barbarous contemporaries in Normandy and in England ; of ex-
quisite prudence in the adjustment of rival claims vast and con-
flicting, and of single-hearted devotion to duty and to Heaven.

Martin Rule, M.A.

Art. VI.— the RELIGION OF GEORGE ELIOT.^

TWENTY volumes comprise George Eliot's message to her
generation ; but among them she has not reckoned the
first, as is publicly stated, of her literary undertakings. That
book itself we have never seen, and there may be some mistake
in ascribing it to her; or perhaps she did not suffer it to rank
with her remaining and wholly original works lest they, in so
startling a connection, should be seldom read. What was the
book, then ? Well, it appears that she first came forward with a
translation in her hand : — the version of a significant and mucli-

* The following paper was written mostly in March last, as an integral
part of the article on " The Genius of George Eliot," to which it now
iorms a conclusion.

434 The Religion of George Eliot,

criticized essay, known as '-TheLife of Jesus/' by Frederick Strauss..
And as we are taking up again our parable concerning this dead
great woman, it seems not undesirable to touch, at least, upon the
possibility of such a fact : for it strikes, we may say, the funda->
mental chord of her Credo, that ^' deep andante, moving in a bass
of sorrow '^ which rolls so mournfully through the music of her
writing. We need hardly remark that Strauss, in that first
edition of his, throws himself into the attitude of the Mythical
School ; and that its peculiarity lies in this : — it blows away, as
dust of a summer threshing-floor, all that is divine, miraculous, and
superhuman in the history of our Lord ; but upholds His moral
teaching so far as it offers to mankind a pattern of perfect conduct
and principles shining by their own light. For, as George Eliot
would tell us, there are such principles in the New Testament^
'^ that want no candle to show them :" and we may adore the
ethical beauty of the Beatitudes, though shrinking from the
belief of His disciples that *^ the Mouth which spake them was-
Divine.^' Thus the New Religion has decreed, and George
Eliot teaches.

But let us take heed how we fall in with a plausible miscon-
ception. It is often said that George Eliot and the multitude
whose oracle she is in Literature, are, as to their moral teaching
indeed. Christian, only not dogmatic or metaphysical : — that
they distinguish the Words of Christ from the Person of Christ,,
and are willing to receive whatsoever He has taught concerning
good and evil, and the sources of rectitude. But. is the new
Morality Christian? We fear it is not, either in the theory
which it lays down or the practice which carries it out. Unless
Quietism be Christian morality — the true teaching of our Lord —
Positivism is not Christian either. For, in the strange revolu-
tions of this dizzy world, the sublime, but absurd and im-
possible, aphorisms of Madame de Guyon, and the "Maximes
des Saints,'^ have found men and women to admire them, to make
them the sum of morahty, to set them above churches and
councils and all former systems of religion or of law, — though
these very men and women do not believe in God. Atheism and
Quietism have met together in the so-called Utilitarian doctrine
of Stuart Mill and the Altruism, the Religion of Sympathy,
wrought out by George Eliot. Wonderful enough, and yetj
true ! For the Quietist, believing in God, shaped his moral
system in the mould of that one principle which he termed Pure
Love, saying that we must love God simply and always and in every
sense for His own sake, not in any sense for ours ; that to ac
with a view to reward is something evil ; and that moral good
ness and moral perfection are the same. Other springs of humark
action, he said, there must be none but love. Now then, let u

The Religion of George Eliot, 435

imagine that the supreme object of morality is not God, is some-
thing* widely different : let us imagine there is no God for whose
sake we can act, but instead of God the Race to which we belong, —
Humanity, in its length and breadth, — surely, it is clear that we
may still exalt Love as the sole and absolute source of goodness ;
we may still condemn the motive that has mingled with it regard
for self. Religion will exist without an Infinite Living God, if
it can behold in His empty Throne the crowned figure of
Humankind, itself immortal though its members are doomed to
perish ; — as Apuleius said, *' Singillatim mortales, cunctim per-
petui:"— and then Religion will be reasonably anthropomorphic;
Adoration will have become sympathy ; and therein will be
viewed the finest exhibition and exercise of feeling within reach
of our spirit. Religion will be Morality, grounded on the per-
manent advantage of well-doing to us all, justified as Bentham
would justify it, by its inevitable sequel of happiness to us
all, and made glorious by the emotion it must needs evoke when
the individual casts away his life or his treasure in the cause of
good; — for the maintaining and preserving of that great human
society apart from which no individual can in fact exist. To
what a height of enthusiasm will not he ascend, who is the will-
ing martyr of Humanity ? Will he not count it his gain to draw
into the radiance, as it were, of one starry moment, all the scat-
tered light-beams of happiness and enthusiasm that might have
made beautiful the longest life ? Or, if he is so noble, will he not
exchange his pleasure and success, whatever he could dream or
hope to call his own, for that better time which he shall never
behold, for the good his example may make possible when himself
is mingled with the dust, and only his memory survives ?

We can fancy George Eliot arguing more passionately still, ask-
ing us, " Since the quality of mercy, in our poet's creed, is not
strained, is not on compulsion, why should the quality of love, of
benevolence, be strained either ? Though I despair of an Hereafter
for me, may not Pity subdue me to devise and compass an hour of
joy for the unborn whom I shall never know ? Cannot I forecast
some gleam in a happier future, where all that is best of me may
irradiate lives that were otherwise dim, troubled with clouds and
sadness ? Wise and tender is the great soul that fasts ' from
man^s meaner joy' to shape things lovable and helpful for ijbs
mortal fellows. If the house of clay must fall after a season into
ruin, why complain, and not rather staunch the wounds that are
now waiting for a brother's hand? Nature and Fate and
Wisdom are one : things cannot come to the best, but they are
made better when we love and cherish them. Let Optimism be
a dream of the moralist, an impossible Ideal, like the Beauty
which all artists worship and none have seen : but Meliorism,

VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series."] g g

436 The Religion of George Eliot.

the presentiment of a better state,, has for its irremovable basis
the facts of History, which tell us that mankind have ever
moved onward : that great faith

Is but the rushing and expanding stream
Of thought, of feeling, fed by all the past ;
For finest hope is finest memory.

Are you not charmed. Reader ? But, then, does it not seem
to you, also, that you have listened ere now to the praises of love
for the brethren and of the grandeur of martyrdom ? Are not these
the elder truths of that Christian message whereof George Eliot,
we say it unwillingly, is not the herald, but the antagonist ? Is
her teaching the Old Gospel or a new delusion ?

The answer we must seek in her writings. There she is ever
touching, to loud or to whispering modulations, the chord of divine
experience. Unless she can lay bare the soul she is not satisfied,
searching always into its deep convictions in regard to that wide
world on which, through mere sense and motion, dull lancet win-
dows of the body, it has been condemned to look out. As her per-
sonages come into the story she bids us mark how they are
affected towards that Infinite whicli is the presupposed prologue
in Heaven of every tale ; and, then, whether their own pulse
beats with the great heart of Humanity, or no. Have they
inherited or wrought for themselves a life " vivid and intense
enough to create a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human T'
She will praise them earnestly, as her manner of praising is apt
to be. But should their life appear to her only a narrow channel of
selfish desire? That she cannot forgive. All sin in her eyes is
frailty, save want of love. Kindred should mean kindness : this
is the forrti of her morality ; and she counts all things akin that
have the capacity of pain or pleasure implanted in their being.
Herein, too, she finds the ideal unity of her various epical com-
positions— the centre and circumference of that modern world
which is indeed the old, but has outgrown it.

For if that large Epic comes to utterance, whether in prose or
verse, that we still are desiring in vain, it will need an atmo-
sphere and medium suited to its nature, and will move about " in
worlds not realized,'^ if so be, but worlds that are ideally descried
as the antitype of the age we live in — the horizon of burning
light and distant glory, which is the sea-line of our farthest
aspirations. As the heroic dim universe of Homer grew into the
all-ruling republic, Imperial Rome, which Virgil beheld extend-
ing her triumphs " supra Garamantas et Indos " : as Rome
herself yielded, in the words of Suetonius, to an unconquerable
influence from Judsea, and became transfigured, whilst Europe
consecrated its Christian unity by a succession of sacred wars, by

The Religion of George Eliot. 437

the Crusades, and Dante arose to hymn the sacramental might
of Church and Empire — so are the modern states struggling
towards the Federation of the World, which shall end our long
Revolution. But where is the key to so intricate a problem? It
can only be a principle which is simple in idea, universal and
irresistible when applied to life. Humankind, the mysterious fact,
must seek light and perfection in Humanity, its Ideal. And who
has gazed on the Ideal ? Is it but a bare imagining — some golden
age to come — or has it not been realized in a King "with victory
diademed/' who is able to bring into one ^^ the children of God
that are scattered abroad?" Is our brotherhood in the first
Adam, that is to say, in Cain ? or in the second, which is
Christ ? Fallen Man is infinitely pathetic ; but he cannot, with
all his lamentation, rise again. By a skill delicately used we may

Summon up remembrance of things past,

And weep afresh love's long-since cancelled woe.

And so much George Eliot can accomplish. But whereon shall we
ground the hope that she clings to ? or how believe that when
she has canonized sympathy in a story, she has made us amends
for vanished religion ? Phantasmal gleams of past holiness may
show us where the Sun of Righteousness has gone down ; surely
they hold no promise of a coming day.

Keeping in mind the distinction we drew between the earlier
and the later group of her romances, we may assign as the
motive, the governing idea, of the first. Reminiscence, and of the
second. Aspiration. Their scenes are opposed in like manner ;
she began by sketching English Idylls, and passed on to study
our provincial towns and Italian capitals. She set over against
each other the modern North and the mediaeval South. But
however the alentoui' varies, or the incidents, her method has aU
the monotony of a treatise ; and it is only the change of names
and decorations — the variety of the masks which her characters
put on — that can hinder us from perceiving how few are the types
that she deals with. This lay of necessity in her plan, which was
remarkably bold, and, so far as we are able to judge, original.
Nothing less did she undertake than to bring within the range
of inductive science the four great Religions which have created
Modern Europe — Paganism, Judaism, Protestantism, and Catho-
licism. She did not wish to compare them in the articles they
profess, but to measure the living influence they have exercised
upon their disciples. It was her aim to extract from them all
the something which is innately divine in the spirit of man
and helps him to overcome his baser self, — the something which
sympathetic inquiry may distinguish from the accidents of
parentage and of bringing up.

G G 2

438 The Religion of George Eliot,

Thus would she carry into Eeligion a process of reasouing
which has yielded large results, and often belied expectation, in
many distinct fields of inquiry. She essays to write a chapter in
that hitherto little dreamt-of book, the Natural History of Man-
soul, as Bunyan would call it. Spiritual beliefs and aspirations,
strivings and sorrowings, of whatsoever kind, she will enter into,
she will act over again, hoping that in such earnest dramatizing
the character itself and its scientific worth may dawn upon her.
She will indulge no bias consciously, unless her feeling for those
that cannot agree amongst themselves be a bias too, only more
refined. She will say, with enthusiasm, that in the religious
utterances of the least enlightened Dissenter she finds more to
sympathize with than to condemn. She will write a sermon in
the character of a Methodist visionary, and will shed warm
tears while she writes, loving the tender spirit of that Dinah
Morris far more passionately than she rejects the creed which
inspired her. She will seem to forget her o\yn personality in the
great figure of her Florentine preacher, kindling into wrath and
prophetic emphasis with every word of his that she recalls, coun-
terfeiting the majestic tones of his voice, where he stands with
the Gospel message in the midst of a frivolous generation, and
honouring him as a martyr who would have sadly passed her by
as a heretic, or shrunk in horror from her praise as an atheist's.
She will imagine that a Hebrew workman, of thirty years ago,
may have had the calling to be a prophet like Amos or Ezekiel,
and will dower him with mournful eloquence and the grand I
sorrows of a heart which seeks all happiness for its people and
sacrifices its own domestic joy, nay, the breath of life itself, to d
hope which can find no issue. And whether it be Dinah Morris,
Fra Girolamo, or the Jew Mordecai, that she represents, her aim
is to reach the realities of religion beneath that outward garb
which may conceal whilst it seems to manifest them.

But though acting all characters she is not enamoured of their
several parts, except in so far as they contribute towards the same,
idea. This, where it affects the heart and life of man is, as we
have seen, self-forgetting love : what is it where it affects the
heart of things, that deep central mystery, God ? Is it still love ?
We cannot think so : for the emblem and universal token of love^
is joy — these two are but the outward and the inward aspects oi
one simple feeling. But George Eliot, when she gazes abroad^
contemplating that Infinitude is sadder than tears, more gloomy
than death ; her feeling is not union with it but alienatioi
Read the melancholy close of a chapter where she speaks in he^
own person, without a mask : —

Whilst this poor little heart was being bruised with a weight to^

The Religion of George Eliot. 439

heavy for it, Nature was holding on her calm inexorable way, in un-
moved and terrible beauty. The stars were rushing in their eternal
courses ; the tides swelled to the level of the last expectant weed ; the
sun was making brilliant day to busy nations on the other side of the
swift earth. The stream of human thought and deed was hurrying
and broadening onward. The astronomer was at his telescope ; the
great ships were labouring over the waves ; the toiling eagerness of
commerce, the fierce spirit of revolution, were only ebbing in brief
rest ; and sleepless statesmen were dreading the possible crisis of the
morrow. What were our little Lina and her trouble in this mighty
torrent, rushing from one awful unknown to another ? Lighter than
the smallest centre of quivering life in the water drop, hidden and
uncared for as the pulse of anguish in the breast of the tiniest bird
that has fluttered down to its nest with the long-sought food, and has
found the nest torn and empty.

Such is the comfort George Eliot, in her love, can offer us !
The ehild^s heart is crushed : the bird finds only that her brood
is taken, her nest a forlorn ruin. Once we were consoled for
these things : — " Consider the birds of the air, they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; and your Heavenly
Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they ?''
But with all her devotion to mankind George Eliot is unable to
imagine that, at the heart of things, there must be even a greater
love than hers. She cannot rise to a higher conception of the
world than that it is a system of laws self-administered, wheels
that turn of their own accord, and springs that set themselves
going. Though perpetual motion be impossible in a given in-
stance, she surmises it may be the method of Nature as a whole :
but, whilst reiterating that Existence is a mystery beyond our com-
prehension, she weeps to think there is an irresistible power which
is not life but death. The Supreme in her religion cannot create
what It will not destroy. Such a teaching as this, in the mouth of
Hartmann the Pessimist, in the hands of Hartmann the Nihilist,
may well be called Satanism. But George Eliot would soften its
harsh thunders, transposing them to the key of a resolute yet
melting sympathy — the feeling expressed in that profoundly human
exclamation of the French : " Quand meme V Well, these tears
of scientific knowledge and mystic nescience may move us to pity
the woman that lets them fall : they do not add to her unbelief the
grace of persuasion ; it remains as at first, horrible. What they
demonstrate is that, when the intellect denies God,the heart, which
cannot be soothed for the loss of its desire, must needs protest,
and break. To man, conscious that he is made to inherit not only
Time and Space, with their passing splendours and illusions of a
day, but Eternity and Infinitude, in their unspeakable perfection,
the despair of Hartmann is not more intensely forbidding than

MO The Religion of George Eliot

the hope of George Eliot. Who is this new Democritus that^ with
a eountenance whereon the tears are yet glistening", would encou-
rage us to do and dare, because the world may come to be less miser-
able than to-day, though the end is annihilation and the void
inane? Or, is it for my sake only that I believe in the love of God and
the Hereafter He promises ? Is it not for the sake of all that have
ever striven to do right ? And, forsooth, there is yet an unknown
Gilead, and balm for the incurable, though we have learnt now
for the first time that we are doomed to die, body and soul,
nation and individual, innocent and guilty, without rest for the
weary or judgment for the sinner! Is the universe, then, not a
system of reason made manifest to eye and ear, as Science trumpets
forth in the Uniformity of Law, the Conservation of Energy?
Or are we bidden to cherish a religious hypocrisy, blinding our eyes
to the awful doom that awaits us, and hiding the leprosy of our
unbelief in philanthropy, quiet sadness, and unprofitable patience ?
Be the Truth what it may, there must still be a scheme of life
imaginable whereby we shall know that Truth, and still by means
of it, not in despite of it, keep our hearts from breaking. Action,
without a term is impossible. How true are those lines of Cole-
ridge that have become famous in the Autobiography of Stuart.
Mill — and what Sceptic can refute them ? —

Life without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an Object cannot live !

Now let us look more closely into George Eliot's book of
religion, choosing such scenes as combined may enable us to
grasp it as a coherent whole.

We begin with the natural religion of her peasantry. These,
in our former article, we saw amid their Loamshire fields and
villages, in dale and hollow, picturesque beings though nowise
imaginary, the source and material of an infinite pleasant humour
which, to their knowledge, they had done nothing to provoke-
In them their author has brought home to us that primitive
rough simplicity of wants, that hard submissive ill-paid toil, that
childlike spelling-out of what Nature has written, which give
them their distinguishing touch, of the poetical. But their
Beligion? With their mothers' milk they have drunk in the
superstitions that no peasant, for all our coaxing or threatening,
can be induced to forswear. Their Religion is their own, and was
long one of those secrets that escape detection by lying under our
eyes. In Loamshire it neither taught itself according to the Book
of Common Prayer, nor was adapted to the teaching of Arminians
or Calvinists. It was the outcome of dateless instincts and customs
immemorial ; — a Paganism of native growth, at once vague in
expression and paramount in authority over Church and Bible,

The Religion of George Eliot. 441

grotesque, and yet sometimes affecting, giving more than an
occasional glimpse into deep truths. Its ripest illustration is
Lisbeth Bede. This ancient wom.an shows in the story a certain
rugged force and a directness of feeling that remind us of forgotten
times, like a boulder we may have stumbled upon in a cultivated
meadow — granite, half hidden among tall swathes of grass.
She is but a woman of the peasantry, and has no reading to
fritter away her natural power of apprehending the individual
things around her, and her duty towards them. Her eye is good
for comparisons ; and her language is not only clear but abounds
in imagery.

As for Lisbeth''s religion it is hereditary custom^ tenacious
of observances, and lending to them a sacramental efficacy,
a potency for good which they have of themselves apart
from the feeling or disposition of such as use them : — which is to
say that they are not sacraments but charms. The rites that
accompany birth and burial, the fanciful choice of the ground
where the dead may rest, the decent laying out and punctilious
mourning in garb and attitude, these are not a matter of conven-
tion, but have in them sacred meanings all the more venerable
and in their effect assured because their precise tenour cannot be
made clear. Like all the peasants and farming-folk of George
Eliot's creation, Lisbeth really worships as Dii Penates, or
household gods, the furniture of her home, over which she rules
as a witch in the daytime might rule her familiar, or as, in the
fairy tales, goblins and sprites are brought to do service where they
still excite dread and receive a deprecating homage. So it is that
Mrs. Tulliver worships, though with the ostentation of a more vulgar
class ; and her happiness, which Religion was powerless to give
or take away, cannot survive the sale of her best china. Even
gentle old Silas Marner, in his long seclusion Irom friends of the town
and the factory, falls into a quaint friendship with his loom ; and,
as though it had been a fetish of kindly helpfulness*, grieves over
the breaking of the serviceable brown jug whose smooth handle
had seemed every morning to invite his hold as he took it down
from its place to draw water. That is a pretty and a truthful
touch. It is Paganism, the timid or loving worship of that
Nature that is. so mysterious and mighty, and yet our daily
companion. It is the sense, we have said, of dependence upon
we know not what, softened by humble gratitude for the good
things, like the ai)- we breathe and the water we drink, which are
beyond all purchase and are a gift from the Invisible. Lisbeth,
and Silas, and the elder Tulliver, and kind Mr. Jerome, whilst
they are at home in the field of ripening corn or in the old-
fashioned garden, where the roses of York and Lancaster are
blowing, and the flower-beds encroach upon the fruit trees, have

443 The Religion of George Eliot,

in tlieir hearts a deep reverence for the elements, and feel after
the Mysterious whom they worship^ not within the walls of any
temple, but in the winds and the sky^ and the full stream of the
brook in Autumn ; they know Him in warnings and dreams of
the night; their Bible is the legendary tales of blessing and
chastisement, of strange visitations and detected murderers, told
around the glowing hearth on wintry evenings ; and it is there that
they believe, and grow convinced of the great law of righteous-
ness. There, too, the religion of the house-mother instils itself
into her sons and daughters, a dim yet welcome vision of
some fostering purity that descends out of Heaven upon her own
hearth and shines out in the order and cleanliness, the peace and
comfort, the fire-lit sanctities of home. For the solemn antique
Vesta, — that universal deity of an elder race than the Olympians,
— is the pure home-influence j and her symbol is the fire that
makes ready the meal of every day and gathers parents and
children about it in a hallowed ring. Show them now the
Church, under whose wing their homes are sheltered and to
whose heaven-pointing steeple their eyes, whenever they look up
from ploughing and reaping, are drawn ; tell them it is but a
larger home ; that the ever-living lamp may burn in its sanctuary
as the antitype of the gleam on their own hearthstone ; and that
they have been invited to a more sacred communion wherein the
bread they break holds divine virtues and gracious mysteries ;
how easy for them to discern the light of revelation in this
parable, whose elements are taken from the life they know !

But sixty or seventy years ago, in the days that George Eliot
describes, there was no visible relation between the peasant^s
allotted task from Monday morning till Saturday night, and
the scant ritual and stiff preaching that told him it was Sunday. -
A religion of sacraments, of things divine, touching him by their
outward show, of blessing and banning, of processions under the
open sky, with images and sacred standards, he could at once take
hold upon : but what was there to learn in the decorous duiness
and the moraHzing upon virtue, and the proving and disproving,
that must have seemed to be made for his betters alone since they
alone could tell what it nieant ? Nay, even Methodism, with its i
call to repentance and abstruse passionate preaching of redemption,-!
was incapable of rousing the genuine peasant ; he had not'
feeling enough to be drawn to consider his feeling : he was not^
to be convinced of sin ; and the fluency that preached without
book for an hour on end, instead of persuading him, filled him'
with vague suspicion as of something too clever to be good.'j
George Eliot has written but little of the darkness that over-'
hangs the bucolic conception of life and humanity ; for some^
reason she abstains from introducing the evil powers worshippedH

The Religion of George Eliot. 443

in all lands by the Christian country-folk who have not quite
ceased to be Pagan, for all their baptism of a thousand years; but
she is aware that, as the French proverb significantly whispers,
they mix a little water with the wine of their belief. She has
noted but not dwelt upon it. In that far-off time, she says,
speaking of nearly a hundred years ago, superstition clung easily
round every person or thing that was at all unwonted, or even
intermittent and occasional. " To the peasants of old times the
world outside their own direct experience was a region of vague-
ness and mystery ; and the process by which rapidity or dexterity
of any kind were acquired was so wholl}' hidden that they partook
of the nature of conjuring." What sense to such untutored ears
can the theory of Justification by Faith have conveyed ? New
passions, howsoever violent, must .have had to pierce their own
channels for escape in souls that lay fallow like these. But
propositions, novel or orthodox, were incomprehensible to them.

Still, life in the country cannot dispense with its caste of
artificers, its carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers, its farriers, and
wheelwrights : and their Religion is founded upon Art and Law,
upon measure, proportion, design, the shapino^ of things visible
to ends that are mentally conceived. In contrast to the simple
2:>easant, they can talk and argue ; but their active and more
human life permits them to gaze seldomer upon the wonder of
growth and decay under the mysterious influence of the wide sky
and the far distant sun. In the more sedentary arts they are
led on to meditation, their minds beino* at once disensrasjedenouo^h
to think of many things and capable of comparing and confront-
ing the aspects of reality which they discover in themselves.
It is a loss to literature that George Eliot never drew the
character in fall of the mystic weavers and shoemakers whom
she so deeply understood. The biography of a man resembling
that prophetic cordwainer, Jacob Behmen, — whose contemplative
brain mused, as he sat working in his leathern apron, upon all
the problems of Teutonic Pantheism that have since troubled
Germany and Europe — George Eliot might have given us that, a
book finely humorous and overflowing with her experience of
obscure dreamers worthy perhaps to rank with Spinoza, the instru-
ment-maker, in their pursuit of the Great Unknown. It is in this
class that we light upon the distinction clearly defined between
Mystic and Rationalist : and in this class, perhaps, we already
may discern the battlefield of the future, the lists where Faith
and Unfaith must contend until the. one shall have hurled the
other from his seat. George Eliot has cast the horoscope of the
comhatarits in her parable, for such it plainly is, of Adam Bede
and Dinah Morris.

But first she makes known to us the a<re of mere irrelisrion —

444 The Religion of George Eliot.

especially in tlie middle class — that moved upon a lower stage
than either the enthusiastic belief or the resolute denial that siic-
ceeded_, and in whose fiercer temperature we are breathing uneasily
to-day. What a dusty, unpoetical heathendom it was, that inward
life of the vulgar, money-grasping, plenteous- feeding multitude,
unfit to be named in the same hour with the grand old Paganisms
that ruled Greece and Scandinavia in heroic times ! A variation,
says George Eliot, of Protestantism, such as Bossuet did not
know — and such as his keenest argument w^ould never have
reached. Here is one of the pleasant satirical sketches that
George Eliot has given of it : and she witnesses to what she had
seen in a wider neio^hbourhood than that of St. O^^or's —

Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and the
Tullivers were of too specific a kind to be arrived at deductively from
the statement that they were part of the Protestant population of
Great Britain. Their theory of life had its core of soundness, as all
theories must have on which decent and prosperous families have
flourished : but it had the very slightest tincture of theology. It was
of a simple, semi-Pagan kind, but there was no heresy in it — if heresy
properly means choice — for they didn't know there was any other
religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run in
families, like asthma. How should they know? The vicar of their
pleasant rural parish was not a controversialist. The religion of the
Dodsons consisted in revering whatever was customary and respectable.
A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission of anything that was
becoming, or that belonged to that eternal fitness of things which was
plainly indicated in the practice of the most substantial parishioners,
and in the family traditions — such as, obedience to parents, faithful-
ness to kindred, industry, rigid honesty, thrift, the thorough scouring
of wooden and copper utensils, the hoarding of coins likely to disappear
from the currency, the production of first-rate commodities for the
market, and a general preference for what was home-made.

That sordid manner of living, irradiated by no sublime principles,
no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith, has lasted
down to our own time, but not without receiving more than one
rude shock : and it is now on the decline. For all things have their
season; and when the appointed moment struck, it seemed as though
a fresh breeze had sprung up far out at sea and was ruffling and
driving before it the mighty waters ; a shifting movement began to
creep over the dead surface of that wide-spread marsh; the fog lifted
here and there, and a corner of blue sky was seen reflected in the
pale ripples of the incoming tide. Such a breeze was the Metho-
dist preaching whereof George Eliot has tender reminiscences in
" Adam Bede " and " Silas Marner," and, it ma}^ be said, in
" EelixHolt," for the winning old Puritan Bufus Lyon is moulded
on the lines of that mvstic communion with the Highest. Such a

The Religion of George Eliot. 445

breeze was the Evangelical revival that converted George Eliot
herself when she was young, and has heeu so vividly depicted by
her in her *' Scenes from Clerical Life." Its aim was to change the
heathen frivolity of English men and women into an austere
•Christian discipline : to bring, as George Eliot says, into palpa-
ble existence and operation the idea of duty, recognizing that
there is something to be lived for beyond the mere gratification
of self.

Whatever, she continues, might be the weaknesses of the ladies at
Milby that pruned the luxuriance of their lace and ribbons, cut out
garments for the poor, distributed tracts, quoted Scripture, and defined
the true Gospel, they had learned this — that there was a divine work
to be done in life, a rule of goodness higher than the opinion of their
neighbours ; and if the notion of a Heaven in reserve for themselves
was a little too prominent, yet the theory of fitness for that Heaven
consisted in purity of heart, in Christlike compassion, in the subduing
of selfish desires. They might give the name of piety to much that
was only Puritanic egoism ; they might call many things sin that were
not sin : but they had at least the feeling that sin was to be avoided
and resisted, and colour-blindness, which may mistake drab for scarlet,
is better than total blindness, which sees no distinction of colour at all.

Certainly this is in sharp contrast with the thoughts of un-
converted Mrs. Patten in the days when Evangelicalism was just
beginning :

" Eh, dear," said Mrs. Patten, falling back in her chair, and lifting
up her little withered hands, '' what 'ud Mr. Gilfil say, if he was
worthy to know the changes as have come about i' the church these
last ten years ? I don't understand these new sort o' doctrines. When
Mr, Barton comes to see me, he talks about nothing but my sins and
my need o' marcy. Now, Mr. Hackit, I've never been a sinner. From
the fust beginning, when I went into service, I al'ys did my duty by
my empl'yers. I was a good wife as any in the county — never
aggravated my husband. The cheese-factor used to say my cheese
was al'ys to be depended on. I've known women, as their cheeses
swelled a shame to be seen, when their husbands had counted on the
cheese-money to make up the rent; and yet they'd three gowns to my
one. If I'm not to be saved, I know a many as are in a bad way."

Yes, there is no doubt she did. And to them the old Gospel
was a novelty and a scandal. Farmers and peasants at Hayslope
village went away unaiFeeted from the exquisite and pathetic
appeal of Dinah Morris ; and the town of Milby rose in a tumult
of respectable indignation against Mr. Tryan, the only apostolic
man it had ever set eyes on. The intellect, morality, and wealth
of Milby supported Mr. Dempster's dictum : " Depend upon
it, whenever you see a man pretending to be better than
his neighbours, that man has either some cunning end to serve,

446 The Religion of George Eliot,

or his heart is rotten with spiritual pride." Such a prelude to
her studies on Savonarola did George Eliot behold in an English
country town. But for herself she adds another famous name
to the many whose iirst awakening was due to the Evan-
gelical or Methodistic revival, and who afterwards escaped
from it into a diviner air, or else relapsed into a scepticism that
now thought itself wise and moral. Happier far had she lived and
died in the creed of Mr. Tryan, since we know that the his-
tory of Dinah Morris contains in its pages a sincere avowal by
George Eliot of the heio^hts to which, on wino:s of religious
aspiration, her spirit had once soared up.

Dinah herself is a pale weaver, with such a face as might make
one think of white flowers w^th light touches of colour on their
pure petals, and eyes that have no peculiar beauty beyond that of
expression, that do but look simple, candid, and gravely loving.
She has spent an uneventful life in the mill, where Nature, with
its tones of freshness and its multitudinous voices, cannot come in
and the days are like a process of passive purification for the soul,
which is thereby made fit to gaze upon the world unseen and the
mysteries that take it like a flood. George Eliot, as we have
said, discerns in the quietude of such a profession a soil wherein
certain instincts will grow towards the light, like the plant under-
ground that darkness blanches while the faintest gleam of bright-
ness draws it onward and upward. It is in this atmosphere
that the mystic thrives best; whereas amid the Boeotian fatness
of the country he would degenerate into a weed ^' that rots on
Lethe\s wharf." .Many an Independent chapel, up a back street,
has been filled like the chapel at Treby Magna, " by eager men
and women to whom the possession of exceptional religious truth
was the condition which reconciled them to a meagre existence,
and made them feel in secure alliance with the supreme ruler of
the world." And it is true indeed that there are many amongst
the myriads of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic
belief, something that will give patience and feed human love
even when the limbs ache with weariness. An intense life that
delights in spiritual drama, and might keep a diary of its expe-
rience— this alone will fascinate the feverish disputing imagina-
tion of the toilers in great modern cities, or will quell the
demon of dissipation that roams every night under flaring gas-
lamps. Dinah^s experience, though unchequered by the struggle
with passion, was high-wrought, absorbing the spirit. What
beauty and truth there is in her description of it ! —

I had felt no call to preach ; for when I'm not greatly wrought
upon, I'm too much given to sit still and keep by myself: it seems as
if I could sit silent all day long with the thought of God overflowing
my soul — as the pebbles lie bathed in the Willow Brook. For thoughts

The Religion of George Eliot. 447

are so great, aren't they, sir ? They seem to lie upon us like a deep
flood ; and it's my besetment to forget where I am and everything
about me, and lose myself in thoughts that I could give, no account of,
for I could neither make a beginning nor ending of them in words.
That was my way as long as I can remember ; but sometimes it
seemed as if speech came to me without any will of my own, and
words were given to me that came out as the tears came, because our
hearts are full and we can't help it.

Here is the greatness that we associate with religious enthu-
siasm when it is pure^ the light that seems to fall from translucent
spaces of the sky where merely human fancy sees naught but
vacancy and an immense silence. Yet the meditations of Dinah
Morris are fruitful in goodness : they react even upon the
unspiritual as affectionate service and care for their well-being.
No marvel, then, that she seems to stand aloft on the highest
pinnacle of the perfect life, as it was revealed to George Eliot :
for what is there that can vie with unsullied purity ? and Dinah
walked without swerving in faithful innocence, far from the
common way of sin. But we ask in amaze, what, then, was the
allurement that drew her down to earth again and persuaded her
that the love of Adam Bede was compatible with her own high
visions and ecstatic faith? Who can help comparing her life
and its close with the trial of another noble woman of George
Eliot''s — a woman who is meant as distinctly to be the type of
heroic failure as Dinah of heroic success ? We are thinking of
that Maggie Tulliver whom the readers of the " Mill on the Floss "
have recoo;nized as a sister entirely human. Sh.e is the Penitent
and Dinah is the Saint. She dies rather than break her plighted
word, though the world around laughs her to scorn as one that
with passionate subterfuges and the cunning of an overmastering
love has already broken it. Dinah violates no pledge to man,
and is ever the same innocent loving creature ; but instead of a
visionary whose dreams we revere she has become the joyful
mother of children ; and her lapse from the divine to the
domestic (which we could not well have anticipated at the opening
of "Adam Bede '^) is not, perhaps, a sin but a bathos. What is
the moral intended ? And why must unearthly yet most tender
beneficent visions fade into the light of common day ?

We believe George Eliot had a purpose. Her favourite Adam
Bede, to whom she gave the hand of Dinah as his fit re-
ward, is the figure of a calm wisdom that handles the resources of
life with courage and perseverance, with docility to the laws he

I cannot reverse, and is always manly enough to revere. He is no
fciend to visionary lights and warnings, neither does he welcome
Riraculousexplanations that take us directly to the Cause beyond

448 The Religion of George Eliot.

tion whicli is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen
in the region, of knowledge : it was the depth of his reverence
quite as much as his hard common-sense, which gave him his
disinclination to doctrinal religion, and he often checked Seth's
argumentative spiritualism by saying, "Eh, it^s a big mystery;
thee know'st but little about it/' And so it happened that Adam
was at once penetrating and credulous. If a new building had
fallen down, and he had been told that this was a divine judgment,
he would have said, " Maybe ; but the bearing of the roof and
walls wasn''t right, else it wouldn't ha'' come down/^ And so,
even if he did believe in dreams and prognostics, and bated his
breath a little when he told the story of the stroke with the
willow-wand, that was but traditional superstition due to his
peasant-blood. His own reflections on the strange rap at the
door are such as a modern man of science might have made : —
'^ Maybe there's a world about us as we can't see, but the ear's
quicker than the eye, and catches a sound from it now and then."
There speaks the peasant. But the man of science takes him
up : — " Some people think they get a sight on't too, but they're
mostly folks whose eyes are not much use to 'em at anything
else. For my part, I think it's better to see when your perpen-
dicular's true, than to see a ghost." In like manner his comfort
under affliction is belief in law, not prayer to the Heavenly
Father. He does not mean to be sceptical in religion ; but listen
to his spontaneous profession of faith : —

" There's nothing but what is bearable," he said to himself, " as
long as a man can work. The nature of things doesn't change, though
it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change. The square of
four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to
your weight, is as true when a man's miserable as when he's happy ;
and the best of working is, it gives you a grip hold o' things outside
your own lot." •

But Lisbeth, his mother, a true peasant, sought relief in moving
about the house, performing the initial duties to the dead, with the
awe and exactitude of religious rites : — and she felt as if the greatest
work of her life were to be done in seeing that her husband was
buried decently before her — under the white thorn, where once in a
dream she had thought she lay in the coffin, yet all the while saw
the sunshine above, and smelt the white blossoms that were so
thick upon the thorn the Sunday she went to be churched after
Adam was born. Shall we say that the mother was too super-
stitious and that the son was not enough so ? We had rather
point out how the elements of right religion lay near each, how
to acknowledge law does not defeat piety, and to discover mystery
and grace in ritual may be like catching the white sunlight in a
rainbow. But George Eliot, in this perfect piece of induction,

The Religion of George ElioL 4(L9

would have us prize the fortitude of Adam and the tenderness
of Lisbeth as severally iUustrations that law is noble and love is
divine : yet. when she utters that word divine she means only the
unalloyed human ; and her unwisdom is that she cannot assign
the law to an Infinite lleason nor the lov^e to an Eternal Spirit.
Nay, she would imply by her very description of Dinah that to
transcend the finite is a delusion, though when it is a pure soul
that deludes itself some shadowy glory wraps it round. And
thus the marriage of Dinah with Adam signifies the submission
of an inspired dreamer to mathematics and the assurances of
science. For ourselves, we are of those that look upon Dinah^s
marriage as, equally with Hetty Sorrel's reprieve, a blemish on
the otherwise unimpeachable beauty of their story, considered as
a production of art. Wisdom and the tragic piteousness both
demand that the catastrophe should correspond to the characters
involved ; nor can pardon and the sound of marriage-bells undo
the sin of Hetty, or annul the consecration of Dinah to that
virgin purity which clothed her with so grave and winning an
authority when she preached under leafy boughs or in the cell of
the condemned.

And this George Eliot herself acknowledged in recounting
auother''s history, whose innocence did not yield to Dinah^s, and
who twice, from a high sense of duty, gave herself in marriage.
Of Dorothea Brooke she has written that the determining acts
of her life were not ideally beautiful, that she was but a Saint
Theresa, foundress of nothing, and that such a fate is not unusual.
What a tone of sadness there is in the w^ell-known words ! —

Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic
life wherein there might be a constant unfolding of far-resonant
action ; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain
spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity;
perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept
into oblivion. ... To common eyes their struggles seerned mere
inconsistency and formlessness ; for these later born Theresas were
helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the
function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul. Their ardour
alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of woman-
hood ; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other
condemned as a lapse.

Well, we imagine that there is more of nobleness in these
"loving heart-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness,^^
than in the somewhat vulgar sunshine that filled Dinah
Morrises latter day. George Eliot, as time went by, lost the
confident security she had for a moment assumed as to that
plausible yet impracticable narrowing of our lives into a region
of knowledge clearly fenced off from a region of mystery. Such,

450 The Religion of George Eliot

indeed, is the cardinal point of Positive and Liberal teaching;
such is the basis of modern law-makino^: but it is more shifting
than the sands of Sahara or the ocean-tides. Science will never
bestow upon us that coherent social faith that she demands : it
is not a fruit that grows on the Tree of Knowledge whereof our
first mother ate. Either the revealed will of God has given it,
or the hopes of man are vain. But did not such a faith exist in
the age of Theresa ? And has it now been brought to an end ?
How do the saints make answer that have lived and wrought
their miracles of happiness since then ?

But look at this matter with the eye of an artist, and it will
be apparent why the conclusion of "Adam Bede" cannot satisfy
us. All the interest of Drama, that; is to say, of human life in
action upon a vast scale, turns on the conflict between free-will
and fortune, the arena being that inward theatre we call the
soul, whereof visible events are little more than the scenery and
the footlights. And the undying charm of dramatic presentation
lies in its attempting to solve a problem that reason seems to
pronounce insoluble : — namelj^, that a finite will should resist the
apparently infinite power that is bent on subduing it. Bat in
what does the subjugation of man essentially, and therefore
dramatically, consist ? Beyond question, in his surrender to evil.
Every drama is the story of Eden and the Serpent over again.
Now it has been laid down that a drama is either comedy or
tragedy, according to its conclusion , and that of these two kinds
tragedy is by its nature incomparably the more affecting.
Which, being interpreted, signifies that the issue of man''s
struggle with his evil destiny must be one of three, and three
only, that are possible. Either he yields, and according to the
degree of his resistance is the height of the tragic sorrow, the
magnitude of the tragic catastrophe : or he sufiers every loss save
only that of his integrity; he forfeits Happiness but keeps
Innocence ; and this is the tragedy of martyrdom : or, finally, he
overcomes Fortune and carries away the prize of triumphant
success, quits the stage both innocent and prosperous ; and no
magnificence of reward can hinder this third kind of drama
from lawfully bearing the name of comedy. Hence it was not
without reason that Dante distinguished his drama of Humanity
by a title which, to our careless moderns, must sound grotesque.
But Dante understood that there is in human apprehension
no power of associating happiness — the Paradise that concludes
his song — with the tragic. Nevertheless the tragic repre-
sentation of man is undeniably the noblest, and Dinah
Morris could have reached the crown of human perfection only
by suffering heroically. We may call this happiness, too, if we
will : but as George Eliot says ; — '^ This sort of happiness brings

The Religion of George Eliot, 451

so much pain with it that we can only tell it from mere pain by
its being what we would choose before everything else, because
our souls see it is good/' Do such words remind us of " Adam
Bede '* in its closing pages ? No, indeed. But they might
serve as a motto to the life of Maggie Tulliver. For is not her
last cry an agonized acceptance of the burden laid upon her, the
resolve to bear it, and bear it till death ? She was filled with
the vision of a lonely future, through which she must have carried
that burden of regret, upheld by no consolation, but only by
clinging faith. And had she known a compassionate stainless;
friend such as Dinah Morris, Maggie would have sued humbly
at her feet for help and pardon, content to be pardoned at last.
So Christian is the victory that she wins over evil, and so little-
is she conscious of it in her troubled yet dauntless spirit. And
in this manner, as we think, is Maggie Tulliver the most tragic-
figure that George Eliot has painted.

And now consider the religious phases through which she is-
made to pass. She has not been fettered in her development by
the superstition of her bucolic, irascible father, nor deadened inta
commonplace by the vulgar pettiness of her helpless mother..
Even the brother she worships cannot control her to his will, but
must allow her to fight the battle of her own thoughts, in the-
solitude which, from the dawn of reason until her last hour of
trial, is drawn by invisible influences around her. Eor she is a
mixed original nature, eager, susceptible, unsatisfied, quick to-
sufier because her feelings are keen, born therefore to perplex the
common judgment and succumb to an early and an evil fate.
She is no fiction, but has been taken from the life by one that
could probe all the fibres of her being and watch the currents of
her thought. With absolute fidelity to experience it is recorded
of her, that she had little more power of concealing the impres-
sions made upon her, than if she had been constructed of musical
strings. And again that her overwhelming sensibility to the
supreme excitement of music was only one form of that passionate-
sensibility — mark the phrase ; it is peculiar, and less than a
hundred years old — which belonged to her whole nature. This-
it was that merged her faults and her virtues in one another,,
made her affections sometimes an impatient demand, but also
prevented her vanity from taking the form of mere feminine
coquetry and device, and gave it the poetry of ambition. " If
life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie? Nothing-
but poverty and the companionship of her mother's narrow grief:*
— perhaps of her father's heart-cutting childish dependence." In
hat father's sick chamber, which was the centre of her world, we
re shown this rare creature full of longing for all that was
leautiful and glad ; thirsty for all knowledge, with an ear strain-

452 The Beligion of Oeorge Eliot.

ing after dreamy music that died away and would not come
near to her, with a blind unconscious yearning for something
that would link together the wonderful impressions of this
mysterious life, and give her soul a sense of home in it. Thrown
back upon herself at first by the peculiarities that none could
admire and only her father would humorously excuse — nay, by
the very style of her features and outward seeming, which, as it
failed to keep the average, was accounted almost a deformity in
the opinion of kinsfolk — she was afterwards yet more estranged
from them by the misfortunes that quenched all homely affection.
And so she moved on to her doom, unprotected from the discon-
tent which only one thing could have appeased — the sense thart
where she loved her love would meet with a frank and constant
return. Though born into the modern age, she was quite
primitive in her mode of apprehending it, naive, artless, and
. headlong, except when the very passion to which her soul vibrated
inspired her with loyalty towards the past. Upon such a nature,
before whose large horizon the world of everyday, of conventions
and concealments, sinks to a star of invisible magnitude. Religion
alone will have a saving influence. And in Religion Maggie
Tulliver was offered a refuge when forsaken and suffering. It
was not the coarse, effective scene-painting of Methodism, nor
the sentiment and gloom of Evangelicalism, that she was drawn
to. It was the Religion that is enshrined for ever in the
following of Christ. But George Eliot would have been for-
getful of her philosophy had she not interpreted that ancient
precious book as human rather than as divine. She does not
pause upon its devotion to Christ the King, though she must
needs remember that He is there the "pattern of sorrow, the
source of all strength.'' The gecret of life that would enable
Maggie to dispense with all other secrets — the sublime height to
he reached without aid from outward things — the insight, and
power, and conquest to be won by means entirely within her own
soul — what were they at last ? Why this : —

It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehende(5 solution of a
problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing
her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity of
the universe : and for the first time she saw the possibility of shifting
the position from which she looked at the gratification of her owi
desires — of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at her owi
life as an insignificant part of a divinely-guided whole.

'' How admirable ! '^ many have exclaimed. "How Christian !'^
And so the opening words are, in this passage, but not the conclu^
sion. The kernel of Christian teaching, the fortress of its endurancejj
is not Resignation ; it is Hope. And Hope makes Resignatioi

I

The Religion of .George Eliot 433

its willing handmaid, but itself rules and reigns. It does not
smite the miserable with that sharpest stroke which tells them that
they are insignificant and their sorrow of small account or none : for,
if the whole is divinely-guided, how can the parts be overlooked ?
"Is not that saying true, '^ Sic de maximis providus, ut non
•deficiat in minimis?" But she, George Eliot, may reply: —
■*' How, then, does the Imitation warn me that * All things pass
Away, and thou together with them ? ' " Yes, we have arrived
at the reason of our differing interpretations. For the Imitation
teaches that all things pass into a world eternal, to Heaven
•or to Hell : but George Eliot, that human life shall one day be

A quenched sun-wave,
The All- creating Presence for its grave.

It is a misconstrued asceticism which thus exalts the
temptation to despair — despair of immortality — into a
^reed, and makes life impossible by weakening the instinct
to live. But there is no sound of despair in the Imita-
tion. We, whose heirloom it is, may accept the touching recog-
nition that George Eliot has left of the impression it made on
her; we maybe glad to think it was the last book that her
•eyes rested upon. But let us beware of imagining that she could
have read it as we do. Her praise itself betrays a peculiar bias,
as though the prevailing mood of Thomas h Kempis were sadness,
and his innermost feeling grief. Here are the words, — affec-
tionate and grateful, but assuredly they lack something of the
•Christian ring : —

That small old-fashioned book, for which you need only pay six-
pence at a book-stall, works miracles to this day, turning bitter waters
into sweetness : while expensive sermons and treatises, newly issued,
leave all things as they were before. It was written down by a hand
that waited for the heart's prompting : it is the chronicle of a solitary
hidden anguish, struggle, trust, and triumph — not written on velvet
•cushions to teach endurance to those who are treading with bleeding
■feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of
human needs and human consolations : the voice of a brother, who,
ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced — in the cloister, perhaps,
with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting, and long
fasts, and a form of speech different from ours — but under the same
silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same
strivings, the same failure, the same weariness.

Perchance, had some pitying spirit led the steps of Maggie
'TuUiver, the steps of George Eliot, to the living Voice, had she
not merely lingered in the sound of its echo, far away, her story
would have concluded, after a decisive struggle, with the sweet

ILR'Z

454 The Religion of George Eliot,

Catholic epitaph " In Pace/' But as we are told, " her inherited
share in the hard-won treasures of thought was no more than
shreds and patches of feeble literature and false history/' And
what shall be our judgment of the religion which, when her need
was sorest, left her without a guide ? Unpitied, unfriended, dis-
heartened, she hurried forward to temptation and death. Some
respite was given her, indeed, between the season of early sorrows
and the final trial. So long as she could stay where the hand seemed
to direct her, that had marked so many a pregnant passage in the
Imitation, she was secure. The Valley of Humiliation is a shel-
tered spot, and its springing grass and tender-eyed daisies are-
withered by no storm winds. " That new inward life of hers
shone out in her face with a gentle soft light that mingled itself
as added loveliness with the gradually enriched colour and outline
of her blossoming youth." But the romantic episode, which
brought her a delicate artist lover in the person of Philip Wakem,
was soon to open among the grassy paths and under the waving
shadows of the ash and the fir trees, down in the Bed Deeps,
And, then, it was not hard to foretell that as soon as her own
feeling kindled into fervour, she would awake to find herself en-
tangled in threefold meshes of perplexity ; for love and friendship
and duty to her home would each demand satisfaction where all
could not conceivably attain it. " The great problem,"" says
George Eliot, " of the shifting relation between passion and duty
ean be quite clear to no one who is capable of apprehending it :" —
and Maggie TuUiver was endowed with a fatally keen appre-
hension ; she felt in turn with all those wliom, by an evil chance,,
her devotion, her impetuous need of sympathy had hurt, — not
only with Stephen Guest, but with Philip and Lucy, — nay, even
with that stern brother who loathed her, as embittering the
memory of their common childhood, and degrading his name. So.
much the more did she need counsel and enlightenment, the steady
guidance of a friend's hand, the strengthening bread of truth,
and not " that hard rind of it which is discerned by the unimagi-
native and the unsympathetic." For her temptation was as
overwhelming as her nature was exceptional.

It has often been made a difficulty in the " Mill on the Floss,"
that Maggie Tulliver's trial is at variance with the rest of the
story ; that she was too noble, and of a fibre too highly refined
to undergo the vulgar fatuity of being attracted by a charming
person and outward graces. This may be the received psychology
of to-day : but it is neither Greek nor Christian, and experience
does not tell in its favour. For let us compare, in this respect,
Maggie Tulliver with a famous classic heroine whom Euripides
and Bacine have made familiar to us, the passion-stricken Queen

The Religion of George Eliot, 455

»

at Troezen, Phaedra, who was wife to Theseus and the step-mother
•of Hippolytus. Did her irresistible passion, in the eyes of the
Grecian poet, imply a vile nature? No; he spoke of it as a
calamity sent from Artemis or Aphrodite, and held that it might
assail and even conquer the instinctive part of the soul, as leprosy
barks the body, whilst the spirit gr6w troubled within and would
have resisted, but was helpless, being drugged and spell-bound.
The very hugeness or monstrous disproportion of the feeling
thrust it out from the circle of things human, and it could not be
a sin of approved desire, but must be taken as an infection of the
blood raging at some deity's command. May not this as vividly
paint the love against which Maggie Tulliver struggled, as it paints
the fever of passionate desire wherein Phaedra was consumed? Of
course, that old Greek trembling before a hidden divinity has been
exchanged, by our moderns, for an inquiry into motives and ten-
dencies : but it does not appear that they know a great deal more
than Euripides. And before the change passed over Maggie
Tulliver, one had, we are told, a sense of uneasiness in looking at
her — a sense of opposing elements of which a fierce collision was
imminent, that would dissipate the hushed expression in her face
and the quietude, like a damp fire leaping out again when all
seemed safe. The moment of that transformation is given
wonderfully : —

These apparently trivial causes had the effect of rousing and exalting
her imagination in a way that was mysterious to herself. It was not
that she thought distinctly, or dwelt upon the indications that she had
been looked at with admiration ; it was rather that she felt the half-
remote presence of a world of love and beauty and delight, made up
of vague mingled images from all the poetry and romance she had
ever read, or had ever woven in her dreamy reveries. Her mind
glanced back once or twice to the time when she had courted privation,
when she had thought all longing, all impatience was subdued ; but
that condition seemed irrevocably gone, and she recoiled from the
remembrance of it. No prayer, no striving now would bring back
that negative peace : the battle of her life, it seemed, was not to be
•decided in that short and easy way — by perfect renunciation at the
very threshold of her youth. The music was vibrating in her still —
PurcelPs music, with its wild passion and fancy — and she could not
stay in the recollection of that bare, lonely past. She was in her
brighter aerial world again.

Out of the dim uncomprehended realm which we call imagina-
tion, the dream-universe, where passion, genius, ecstasy, the
mighty suggestions of good and of evil seem to have their brood-
ing nest, that taking fell upon the spirit of Maggie Tulliver,
.and she was a changed being. In the scenes of her temptation we

456 The Religion of George Eliot

cannot recognize her old self, nor could she, so strangely does a
struggle within the soul absorb and obscure the creature of every-
day and his normal manifestation whether of thought or feeling.
A violent earthquake will derange the landscape or new-mould its
features beyond what is credible : and is there any earthquake
comparable to the wrestling between a forbidden passion intensely
felt and the moral nature that has been exercised by years of
discipline? It is not a feeble or a vicious character, whose
apostasy from good fills the audience with shuddering pain : it is
the high recluse, the saint, who has been shaken by a tempest of
temptation until he sins half willingly, half desperately, and
loathes what he is in the remembrance of what he has been. Or
again, he does not fall in the court of his own conscience, but the
conduct that issues from the moral conflict bears so close a
resemblance to vice, that the distinction escapes all outward
judgments founded on a mere comparison of actions. Maggie
did not pass through the flames unscathed ; at certain moments,
we feel, the author makes us feel, that the lower self has, in
some degree which we cannot discriminate, subdued the higher
to its wish. The soul hangs in the balance more than once.
But there were things stronger in her than vanity or passion —
affection, and long deep memories of early discipline and effort,,
of early claims on her love and pity; and the stream of vanity
was swept along and mingled imperceptibly in that wider current*
It was Maggie who said, with the grave sadness of renuncia-
tion, " I desire no future that will break the ties of the past.^*"
And her faithfulness saved her. For when the great stress of
the 'temptation made itself felt within and without, when she
was quite enchan.ted and intoxicated, and the tempter urged that,
they must break the ties which were made in blindness, then,
she answered with deep and slow distinction, all the gathered
spiritual force of painful years coming to her aid in this extre-
mity, " I would rather die than fall into that. temptation/^ Her
choice was made, not calmly, we know, but rather as if on the-
rack ; but she chose well. George Eliot has written nothing
more beautiful, more convincing, than Maggie Tulliver's words
of submission to the supreme law of conscience : —

' ■*' O it is difficult," she said, " life is very difficult ! It seems right
to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling; —
but then such feelings continually come across the ties that all our
former life has made for us — the ties that have made others dependent
On us — and would cut them in two. If life were quite easy and.
simple, as it might have been in paradise, and we could always see
that one being first, towards whom ... I mean, if life did not make
duties ior us before love comes, love would be a sign that two people
ought to belong to each other. But I see — I feel it is not so now ;

The Religion of George Eliot, 457

there are things we- must renounce in life ; some of us must resigu
love. Many things are difficult and dark to me ; — but I see one thing
quite clearly — that I must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by
sacrificing others. Love is natural ; but surely pity and laithfulness
and memory are natural too. And tliey would live in me still, and
punish me if I did not obey them. I should be haunted by the
suffering I had caused. Our love would be poisoned. Don't urge
me ; help me — help me, because I love you."

What a noble, what an unanswerable deronstration that
the wide world and the universal spirit of man are built up in.
the likeness of an Absolute Righteousness, which cannot cihange
nor be persuaded, but is true to itself even at the cost of wrecked
lives and passionate agonies, of love and joy and beauty! The
great exemplar, then, the law which abrogates all other laws,
the rule of life from its beginning to its end, is Spiritual Holi-
ness. And yet, the woman that wrought this irrefragable argu-
ment, dreamt to herself that she did not believe in God ! What,
then, is God, if He is not that infinite law, which was not made
nor created, which transcends matter and is distinct from every
contingent spirit, and is of itself and everywhere and always ?
And since He is the living law, can He be only a name, an
opinion, an imaginary ideal, a term of our appointing to human
thought ? No, He is the Eternal Conscience, and not a grave
wherein darkness shall devour the All : —

Un centre de lumiere inaccessible est la,

Hors de toi comme en toi cela brille et brilla ;

C'est la-bas, tout au fond, en haut du precipice. —

Cette clarte toujours jeune, toujours propice.

Jamais ne s'interrompt et ne palit jamais;

Elle sort des noirceurs, elle eclate aux sommets,

Et toujours se refuse et sans cesse se donne.

After that appeal to the faithful mercies of the Unseen, vic-
tory was not easy, but defeat became almost impossible. Even
the lapses of instinctive feeling contributed to make duty seem a
thing desirable, for they brought with them remorse, vexation,
and a sickening sense of disappointment. Nay, the one hour of
yieldmg to the stronger presence that seemed to bear her along
without any will of her own, wherein memory was excluded, and
Stephen and herself were enveloped in the enchanted haze of
their voyage down the river, was soon redeemed by her accept-
ance of all its shame, her refusal of the prospect it alluringly held
out. Once more she chose death, or a requital of her sin that only
death could match in bitterness, rather than inflict more anguish
on her cousin and Philip Wakem. The consequences of a fall had
come before the outward act was complete : but her soul, though

458 The Religioji of George Eliot,

betrayed, beguiled, ensnared, could never deliberately consent to
a choice of the lower. Her yesterday was not to be revoked ; —
if she could have changed it now for any length of inward silent
endurance, she would have bowed beneath that cross with a sense
of rest. She accuses herself as sharply as a stranger might have
done, of having been weak and selfish, of forgetting to pray
earnestly for help ; she feels that there is no excuse for her, and
no reparation she can make. It is too late even not to have
caused misery; too late for everything, perhaps, except to rush
away from the last act of baseness — the tasting of joys that were
wrung from crushed hearts. She turns back home again, to be
cast out by her unpitying brother, to see in every face that her
reputation is lost, to seek peace under the shadow of the church
and be driven thence with ignominy, to be tempted once and
again in her loneliness, to battle with the old shadowy enemies
that were for ever slain and rising again, to all but give way,
not to the promise of joy in her own life, but to the dread of inflict-
ing fresh pain on the heart she was renouncing, to wait for the
light that came with prayer and remembrances of the long past,
to despair of her own strength and cast her burden on the Unseen
Pity that she knew would not forsake her even to the end, to
feel the rush of the swollen waters of the river about her knees,
to go forth alone on an errand of help and rescue over the great
floods, to find again her brother's love, to feel that he pardoned
her and took her to his heart, and in that supreme moment to
be rescued herself — for ever — by Death.

But how rescued ? The martyr's death is a victory if he
thereby transcends all that is finite and sensible, to pass into the
city which is divine and the infinite presence. This plenteous
sowing must grow into a golden harvest — How and Where ? The
only reward of noble doing, of miraculous divinely- protected
effort, is the assured perfection that it brings to pass the dominion
which the soul acquires once for all over itself, to know, and feel,
and achieve — What ? To die and be no more ? To make life a
little more endurable for those we leave behind, so that they
shall be spared our martyr-pains and come to an easy state
where effort and heroism alike shall be unknown ? If Conscience
is holy and inviolable, if Religion is the chief interest of life, if
renunciation is a duty and happiness, a finite and secondary good,
how can the chronicle end with Death ? Since we must submit our
inclination, our most subduing love, to Keason and the Moral
Law, that can only signify that Reason and the Moral Law do
govern all things. And how can we tell when the way of a !
thing is reasonable? Surely we never can, except when the
feeling of proportion between purpose and action, between energy '
and achievement, between ends and means, between faculty and

The Religion of George Eliot 459

object, between the spirit within and the world without, makes
itself evident. Grant that a life such as Magrsie TuUiver's has
its fine issues in harmonious existence beyond the grave, and her
«tory is one to touch the heart and content the reason. It is a
beautiful, well-spent, intelligible life, full of encouraging moralities
^nd worthy to be recorded. But deny immortality, and what
becomes of it ? Can the most exquisite art persuade us that,
were we mortal, this tragedy would not be a tale " full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing ? " Its meaning is borrowed from
the sequel ; and its charm is the tender equity of God, trying
His creature by many devices, and in the rich endowments
•of her spirit and the depth of her passionateness provid-
ing as many stops from which to draw sublimest harmonies
and the true undying music of the world. Does not the wisest
meditation rise to the strain of the Hebrew prophet ; —
*' Miseriajrdias Domini in seternum cantabo ? " And is not this
the Moral which, in spite of her unbelief, George Eliot is ever
pointing ?

Assuredly, her chief claim upon our admiration, as upon
our pity, is that she anxiously, passionately, incessantly aspires
to tell us of the Highest Good. The pathos of her stories ever
takes this religious colouring. Does not the real tragic terror of
them lie in her blindness to that light, which, like a sightless
marble statue, she holds up to the world in the lamp of her
genius but herself shall never see ? Her noble soul, though
turned to Atheism, kept some memories, a fading reminiscence,
•of the truth : and it is the recurring glimpse of holiness and
purity that takes us by the heart when we are moved by her
•exhortations to self-sacrifice, or touched to the quick by her
sadness. Is she not a fallen prophetess? One that, like Maggie
Tulliver, has been so intoxicated by some dreadful poison as to
grow dull to the vision of consoling good which once had seemed
her familiar grace ? An intellect, the paragon whereof, amongst
famous men and women is so far to seek, beautiful still with the
after-glow of what she deemed was the sunset of the Christian
age — such an intellect, fast growing chill and dark, can it fail
to win our pity? Her prophesying must needs have unfolded its
strain " in sad perplexed minors :'' for the minor key is dedicated
to exile and separation in all its tones, rendering the desolate
mood of the creature that is banished from God. So it is that
no writings in our literature surpass in melancholy those of
•George Eliot, save the bitter, malevolent, inhuman pages of
^wift. And Swift was profoundly sceptical. What was George
Eliot's sin against light? This, without laying themselves open
to the charge of idle curiosity, her readers might desire to know :
but it is unlikely they ever will. In her last composition.

460 The Religion of George Eliot,.

'' Theophrastus Such/' she forbids us to anticipate that, dying", she-
could leave behind a record of events that carried her away from
the beaten tracks.

Is it possible, she begins by asking, to describe oneself at once fully
and faithfully ? In all autobiography there is, nay, ought to be, an
incompleteness which may have the effect of falsity. We are each of
us bound to reticence by the piety we owe to those who have been
nearest to us and have had a mingled influence over our lives ; by the
fellow-feeling which Should restrain us from turning our volunteered
and picked confessions into an act of accusation against others, whO'
have no chance of vindicating themselves; and most of all by that
reverence for the higher efforts of our common nature, which com-
mands us to bury its lowest fatalities, its inevitable remnants of the
brute, its most agonizing struggles with temptation, in unbroken
silence .... Who has sinned more against these three duteous-
reticences than Jean Jacques ?

A feeling which we cannot but sympathize with has dictated
these lines, themselves a striking instance of the modest and
courteous spirit, we had almost said the timidity, which is so-
observable in George Eliot, when she directly addresses her
audience. But we are by no means sure that she can claim the-
right of sanctuary. Rousseau's Confessions are a shameful story ;
nor has any mortal gone to such infinite trouble to nail his own
ears in a monumental pillory, where all the w^orld may flout
him as he stands ceterna in basi. But is not this the worthiest
service he could have done his fellowmen, by narrating his life ta
refute his own creed ? "When we are melted at the glow of his-
sentimental rhetoric, and weakly are stooping to imagine that
^'Nature is made better by no Art,'' not even by the heaven-sent,
art of Christian living, how can we more speedily shake off the
illusion than by glancing a second time at the natural product,
unspoiled as he would say, which Kousseau afiirms to be —
himself? There is no way to sever the teacher of a new
religion from his teaching. It is more than permitted, it is
indispensable, that we should become intimately acquainted with
the bosom-thoughts and actual biography of the witnesses that are
now, in the name of Virtue as well as of Science, giving evidence
against Christianity. W^ien the heralds of Revelation were
angels and apostles, it must have been a simple thing to believe
them. But now? Who are Thomas Carlyle, and Auguste
Comte, and Giuseppe Mazzini, and George Eliot, and where is
the warrant of their mission ? Perhaps no one less than a second
Jesus Christ could be received as the author of that Higher
Synthesis of Humanism which, we are told, must succeed the
Gospel dispensation. Thoughtful pious men are still repeating

The Religion of George Eliot 461

the decisive question : — " Domine, ad quern ibimus?'^ Can George
Eliot answer ?

We trust we shall not seem to be writing bitterly — it is with
no tincture, indeed, of unkindly feeling — against one of whom
we read that she was "the greatest opponent ever elicited by
literature to all belief in the true source of strength and eleva-
tion for the lowly /•' that " she made her convictions no secret ,"
and that "her disbelief in Deity was absolute." Unhappy
woman ! Who can pity her in the measure of her need? Better
for such a one, perchance, were that dismal saying of hers true —
and could

The human sky

Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb

Unread for ever !

This, then, is why we feel that the soundest criticism of her
views, the most pregnant commentary upon them, would consist
in a plain unvarnished history of what George Eliot was»
That would enlighten us far more than winnowing and sifting her
written words, though we should fan them to their utmost fine-
ness. Such a history we never may read. But she did not
write so many volumes without pouring out her peculiar feelings in
them : and a large number of her pages have been taken by the
public as fragments of autobiography and personal disclosure,
not as mere dramatic compositions which throw no light on the
mind and spiritual make of their author. Especially in " Janet'&
Repentance," in "Adam Bede,'' and " The Mill on the Floss/' and
in certain passages of " Middlemarch," do we seem to recognize
these welcome utterances. Her character and the tenor of her life,
which, in spite of all efforts to the contrary, must have deter-
mined the centre whence her lights and shadows fell with their
peculiar difference, are here but slightly disguised. Not, indeed^
that we would dismiss George Eliot^s creed as simply " her
personal and private formula,^' — which is the opposite extreme
to that adopted by her unqualified eulogists, and is the refuge
of men who have lost their hold on primary truths, whether
of the conscience or the reason. A prophet that is bent on
founding a religion must live up to his own standard : does it
follow that his standard is but an algebraic symbol of his inclina-
tions and appetites ? George Eliot^s history is the key to her
religion : doubtless : yet this is not an exact counterfeit of that,,
we may be sure. Some of her principles were better than her
actions : and we should be surprised to hear that many of her
actions were not a denial in fact of her least defensible principles.
For we are happy to think it is not George Eliot's unbelief
that has won her a world of readers; neither will she be

462 The Religion of George Eliot,

remembered merely as a female Atheist, foundress of an impossible
religion and a great style in literature. Her growing fame,
paradoxical as we may fancy it, is a reward of her loyalty to
early impressions which were distinctly religious and ascetic.
Had she never been a Christian, she would never have exercised
the moral fascination, the heart-searching influence, which give
her writings their permanent and peculiar worth : she would have
been at a loss to comprehend the flgures which will be thought
her characteristic creations, Dinah Morris, Savonarola, Maggie
Tulliver, Dorothea, and their speaking contrasts — for contrast is
the chief instrument of an artist — Hetty Sorrel, Tito Melema,
E/Osamond Vincy. Her humour, we have seen, contradicts her
assumed philosophy and could not survive the triumph of
Altruism : so that we must claim, as grotesque or satire-loving
foundlings of the ancient faith, certain figures which might seem
alien to a sanctified place. But in the Gothic cathedral we
dwell with only a delighted sense of incongruity upon the
gargoyles, and satyrs, and impish heads, the stone spouts twisted
into an immortal pleasantry of expressiveness, the comic forms of
that mediaeval " Epic of the Beasts " which cannot be kept out of
the sacred choir, and will laugh in sly corners at us when we look
up from our devotions. To jest with the objects we love is no
sin but sometimes a prodigal tenderness, which would relieve
itself in such quaint humour. For the souPs flights towards the
Ideal — that " loftiest star of unascended Heaven " — must needs
be unequal. And so it is that, whether grave or humorous,
George Eliot cannot help reminding us that she once was a
believer. We strive in vain to recal one single passage of rare
moral power and elevation in all her writings that may not be
traced to its Christian source. She has translated into her own
compressed and energetic speech certain axioms which have long
been heard in church, but have not succeeded in keeping the
congregation altogether wakeful. Charity — a word which seems
to have fallen into universal disfavour, if we may judge by some
recent liberties taken with it — she renders by a fresh word, itself
of Greek origin, the word Sympathy, and thereby works miracles.
But her most famous secret is to say an old thing with the most
convinced air in the world that it never was said before. She is
in the right of it : not the sentence has grown old and idle, but
the hearers. Are not the good-tidings of Christianity " fresh as
-Starlight's aged truth,^' in a world which can listen with admir-
ing gratitude to George Eliot^s moralities and resolve to think
of them seriously? This, then, is her praise, that she declares
ber belief in " some divine power against evil — widening the
skirts of light, and making the struggle with darkness narrower ;''
that she protests against winning by another's loss, against

The Religion of Gem^ge Eliot, 463-

gratifying our own need of affection by treachery towards a
rival ; that she feels a quick and willing sympathy (we will not
mock the word) with every sweet human gladness and every
throb of grief; that she is deeply convinced (alas !) that the
sowing of sin is the reaping of sorrow ; that she shows a tender
forbearance with ignorant wrong-doing and unsightly goodness ;
that she has a large womanly heart, and^ however misguided, has
yet an unselfish devotion to the children of our Mother Earth :-. —
all this will explain, even if it cannot justify, the love and
reverence which her death elicited from a mourning throng.
But how could she have gained that vivid sense of joy in self-
sacrifice, or that keen apprehension of unworldly motives, had she
not been brought up in the hearing of saints and apostles, of
the New Testament? Neither would she have shrunk from
confessing it ; for even her philosohy did not oblige her to
repudiate the past. She dared to maintain, and felt it bitterly,
that " every change upon this earth is bought with sacrifice/"*
In her eyes to renounce the inherited religion of centuries was
not possible ; all that man could attempt was to blend it with
newly discovered elements which might serve as a scientific basis
to the structure of its morality, surer than the supernatural cloud-
work which was dissolving into air. Of course the change took
from her belief more than it left. Travestying the satiric line
of Milton we may assure ourselves, once for all, that the denial
of God and free-will is not Christianity : for.

New Fatalism is not old Faith writ large.

We may hold, too, that as anti-Christian feeling grows into a
fixed habit with her, George Eliot's books lose their charm.
She preaches, indeed, in season and out of season, as the end
draws nigh ; beating the pulpit with painful vehemence, and
becoming, as the Greek Grammar styles it, merely gnomic, a.
proser of proverbs and a tedious moralist. In the very blaze
and culmination of her genius she never allowed us to forget that
knowledge, scientific and abstract, informed her powers. But
as she came more and more into the creed of Humanism, which
has been exempUfied most winningly, to an artist's feeling, in
Goethe, she discovered a surprising affinity with that famous
poet as he was in old age. A sustained gravity and balance, a
highly-educated gentle reserve, an over-conscious arranging of
thought and expression, a fondness for symbolic ideas, an anxiety
to reach the rarest perfection of style with the formalism so often
resulting from it — these are notes of " Daniel Deronda," no less
than of the second part of "Wilhelm Meister,'^ and the
''Elective Attractions.'^ How much study may George Eliot
have spent on the fragmentary sayings in " Ottilie's Diary '' and

464 Prospects in Belgium,

the " Maxims in Prose " ? We cannot tell ; but the likeness t>r
her later style to Goethe^s betrays some unconscious imitation.
With the reigning fashion of "thinking in German/' she
became, as we might expect, more and more infected. But, to
the last, her Christian childhood keeps a certain influence over
lier feeling. It is the ritual of the Church, with its vast under-
lying, encompassing mysteries, that wakes into life again the men
and women of the fifteenth century, in ^' K-omola '' and " The
Spanish Gypsy.'' It is religious tenderness or indignation that
creates Armgart and Agatha. It is the old loyalty to tradition,
the self-renouncing love in the pursuit of an Ideal, "the hope of
another self which may lift our aching affection into the divine
rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want," it is the heart
that feels broken for its disregard of human sympathies — it is still
the hereditary religion and not the chill scepticism — from which we
derive a diminished yet real interest in the story of Mordecai
and Gwendolen Harleth, or the somewhat bitter- flavoured reflec-
tions of Theophrastus Such.

.William Barry, D.D.

Art. VII.— prospects IN BELGIUM.

TWELVE months have barely elapsed since that memorable
Allocution of the Holy Father was given to the world,
in which the irreligious policy of the Belgian Government, and,
above all, their crowning act of insolent injustice to the Holy
See, in breaking off, on vain and unfounded pretexts, the friendly
relations which had for half a century subsisted between the
civil and spiritual power, were eloquently condemned. Ever
vigilant for the welfare of those nations whose spiritual interests
are imperilled, ever ready to send messages of encouragement
and consolation to the pastors of the Church in their painful
contest against organized revolution, the Holy Father has again
had occasion to publicly address the sorely tried Catholics
■of Belgium. This time his words are not those of protest
against injustice, but of praise and encouragement for victories
gained over the enemies of God ; coupled with warnings against
possible dangers, counsels of charity, and gentle but firm rebuke
of those who would act under the influence of an impetuous but
misguided zeal, rather than in accordance with his own wiser
exhortations to prudence and moderation. The following is the
text of the document to which we allude — a letter addressed by

Prospects in Belgium, 465

Xieo XIII., on the 3rd of August last, to Cardinal Deschamps,
Primate of Belgium, and to the other bishops.

LEO XIII., POPE.

Dear Son and Venerable Brethren, health and Apostolic Bene-
diction !

During these last years the cause of Catholicism has undergone, in
Belgium, multiplied trials. We have, however, found comfort and
■consolation in the tokens of persistent love and fidelity which Belgian
Catholics have furnished us so abundantly whenever they have had an
occasion. And, above all, what has strengthened us, and still gives
us strength, is your signal attachment to our person, and the zeal
which you exert in order that the Christian people confided to your
<jare may persevere in the sincerity and unity of the Catholic Faith,
and may progress each day in its love for the Church of Christ and
his Vicar. It is pleasant for us to give special praise to your
solicitude in encouraging by all the means possible a good education
for the young, and in insuring to the children of the primary schools
a religious education established on broad foundations. Your zeal is
a,ppHed with equal watchfulness to all that tends to the advantage
of Christian education in the Colleges and Institutes, as well as to the
Catholic University of Louvain.

On the other hand, we cannot remain indifferent, or at peace, in
presence of events which would seem to imperil amongst Belgians the
good understanding between Catholic citizens, and to divide them
into opposing camps. It would be superfluous to recall here, the
causes and occasions of these differences, and the encouragement they
have met with where it ought least to have been expected. All these
details, Dear Son and Venerable Brethren, you know better than any
one ; and you deplore them with us, knowing perfectly that at no
other epoch could" the necessity of assuring and maintaining union
amongst Catholics be so great as at this moment, when the enemies
of the name of Christianity rage on all sides against the Church in an
unanimous attack.

Full of solicitude for this union, we point out the dangers which
threaten it arising from certain controversies concerning public law ;
a subject which, amongst you, engenders a strong difference of
feeling. These controversies have for their object the necessity or
opportuneness of conforming to the prescriptions of Catholic doctrine
the existing forms of government, based on what is commonly called
modern law. Most assuredly we, more than any one, ought heartily
to desire that human society should be governed in a Christian
manner, and that the divine influence of Christ should penetrate and
completely impregnate all orders of the State. From the commence-
ment of our Pontificate we manifested, without delay, that such was
our settled opinion ; and that by public documents, and especially by
the Encyclical Letters we published against the errors of Socialism,
and, quite recently, upon the Civil Power, Nevertheless, all Catholics,
if they wish to exert themselves profitably for the common good,

466 Prospects in Belgium.

should have before their eyes and faithfully imitate the prudent
conduct which the Church herself adopts in matters of this nature :
she maintains and defends in all their integrity the sacred doctrines
and principles of right with inviolable firmness, and applies herself
with all her power to regulating the institutions and the customs
of public order, as well as the acts of private life, upon these same
principles. Nevertheless, she observes in this the just measure of time
and place ; and, as commonly happens in human affairs, she is oftea
constrained to tolerate at times evils that it would be almost impossible
to prevent, without exposing herself to calamities and troubles still
more disastrous.

Moreover, in polemical discussions, care should be taken not to-
overstep those just limits that justice and charity alike mark out, and
not rashly to throw blame or suspicion upon men otherwise devoted
to the doctrines of the Church ; and, above all, upon those who in the
Church itself are raised to dignity and power. We deplore that this
has been done in your case. Dear Son, who, in your quality of
archbishop, administer the diocese of Malines; and who, for your
signal services to the Church, and for your zeal in defending Catholic
doctrine, have been judged worthy by our Predecessor of blessed
memory, Pius IX., to take a place in the College of most Eminent
Cardinals. It is manifest that the facility with which unfounded
accusations are levelled vaguely against one's neighbour, does injury
to the good name of others, and weakens the bonds of charity; and
that it outrages those *' whom the Holy Ghost has placed to govern the
Church of God." For this reason do we desire with all our power,
and hereby most seriously enjoin, that Catholics abstain from this
conduct. Let it suiEce to them to remember that it is to the Apostolic
See and to the Roman Pontiff, to whom all have access, that has been
confided the charge of defending everywhere Catholic truths, and
of watching that no error whatsoever, capable of doing injury to the
doctrine of faith and morals, or apparently in contradiction with it, be
spread or propagated in the Church.

In what concerns yourselves, Dear Son and Venerable Brethren, use
all your vigilance so that all men of science, and those, most especially,
to whom you have confided the charge of teaching youth, be of one
accord, and unanimous in all those questions upon which the teaching
of the Holy See allows no freedom of opinion. And as to points left
to the discussion of the learned, may their intellects, owing to your
inspiration and your advice, be so exercised upon them that the
divergences of opinion destroy not union of heart and concord of will.
On this subject the Sovereign Pontiff, Benedict XIV., our immortal
predecessor, has left in his Constitution " Sollicita ac provida," certain
rules for men of study, full of wisdom and authority. He has even
proposed to them, as -a model to imitate in this matter, St. Thomas
Aquinas, whose moderation of language and maturity of style are
maintained as well in the combat against adversaries, as in the expo-
sition of doctrine and the proofs destined for its defence. We wish to
renew to learned men the recommendations of our predecessor, and to

Prospects in Belgium, 467

point out to them this noble model, who will teach them not only the
manner of carrying on controversy with opponents, but also the
character of the doctrine to be held and developed in the cultivation
of philosophy and theology. On many occasions. Dear Son and
Venerable Brethren, we have expressed to you our earnest desire
of seeing the wisdom of St. Thomas reinstated in Catholic schools, and
everywhere treated with the highest consideration. We have likewise
exhorted you to establish in the University of Louvain the teaching
of higher philosophy in the spirit of St. Thomas. In this matter, as
in all others, w^e have found you entirely ready to condescend to our
wishes and to fulfil our will. Pursue then, with zeal, the task which
has been begun, and watch with care that in this same University the
fruitful sources of Christian philosophy, which spring from the works
of St. Thomas, be open to students in a rich abundance, and applied to
the profit of all other branches of instruction. In the execution of
this design, if you have need of our aid or our counsels, they shall
never be wanting to you.

In the meantime, we pray God, the Source of Wisdom, the Author
of Peace, and the Friend of Charity, to accord you His favourable help
in the present conjuncture, and we ask Him for all an abundance
of Heavenly gifts. As an augury of these graces, and as a sign of our
special benevolence, we accord, with a loving heart, our Apostolic
benediction to you, Dear Son and Venerable Brethren, to all your
Clergy, and to the people confided to your charge.

Given at Eome, at St. Peter's, the 3rd of August, 1881, the fourth
year of Our Pontificate. Leo XIII., Pope.

Undoubtedly, the most sif^nificant passages in this letter are
those which allude to the discussions raised by certain writers
upon points of constitutional law, and which, as has been seen
before, had already formed the subject of correspondence between
the Belgian Government and the Holy See. The Pope has now
passed a well-merited censure upon the little band of what may
be called Intransigeant Catholics — the Irreconcilables, who, in
the pursuit of their favourite theories, had done so much to
weaken the political force of the Catholics, and had paved the
way for the accession of the present Liberal Government to
power. The more immediate cause of this remonstrance from
Kome was the publication of the so-called "Dossier Dumont,-'^ to
which allusion was made in October of last year, and which
consisted of the private correspondence that had passed between
the ex-Bishop of Tournai and his politico-religious friends. Great
as iias been the scandal caused by the publication of these letters,
it has perhaps been compensated by the fact that it has provided
a means of exposing and putting an end to a state of things
which, if undiscovered and allowed to continue, would have been
productive of incalculable mischief to the Church in Belgium.
This clique of violent writers, who sought to be more Catholic

VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series.] 1 1

468 Prospects in Belgium.

than tlie Pope, had grouped themselves around Bishop Dumont
and the late Bishop 'of Liege, and under the plea of seeking to
conform the public law of the country to the doctrine of the
Church (regardless of that just measure of time and place
recommended by the Holy Father), devoted themselves to the
attempt to discredit all those Catholics — as ardent combatants for
the good cause as themselves — who were prepared to tolerate
certain manifest flaws in the constitution of their country for the
sake of the other and greater benefits it assured to religion.
Their letters, then, contained very little which would aid in
securing this ideal of State policy, but very much to prove that
their opponents, the overwhelming majority of the Catholic
party, were Liberals in disguise. Those who were the most
entitled to respect were often the least spared. The moderate
policy inaugurated by the Primate was described as the " acro-
batic feats (cabriole) of our dear Metropolitan ;" the influence of
" the Vannutellis (the late Nuncio and his brother) were on the
wane at Rome." The most distinguished professors of Louvain,
ecclesiastic and lay, were summarily characterized as teachers of
heresy, perverters of Catholic truth, &c. — personal piques and
jealousies lending a further sting to these insidious charges. The
Parliamentary Right, composed of men whose life's labour had
been devoted to the advance of the Catholic and Conservative
cause, were treated as the most dangerous foes of the Church,
their efforts ridiculed, and their actions, often dictated by the
most delicate considerations of policy, deliberately misrepresented.
The leading Catholic journals and reviews were censured as dan-
gerous reading. And yet this party could hardly claim a single
Catholic deputy or public man as representing its views, and was-
utterly powerless of itself to advance the cause which it proposed
to substitute for that of the recognized leaders of Catholic
thought. Hence ensued a grave danger for the faithful, who
began to inquire where, then, they were to look for inspiration;
and many might thus have been misled. The publication of
these documents, odious and discreditable as it was for the
Liberal politicians, who sought by printing them to reap advan-
tage for their cause, cannot therefore be looked upon altogether
as an unmixed evil, inasmuch as it has put a stop once for all to
the mischief. Leo XIII. has had an occasion of pronouncing
his decision. His words will undoubtedly be listened to, and the
misguided zealots whom he has been compelled to reprimand,
will, we are certain, devote their talents to defending the interests
of the Church in a more prudent manner. At the same time a
lesson will be given to the Liberals, whose policy it has always
been to represent the Church as hostile to the institutions of the
country. The voice of the Supreme Pontiff" has once again

Prospects in Belgium. 469

unmistakably pronounced that the Catholic Church is indifferent
to questions of dynasty or politics, and that good Christians
will always be conspicuous as patriotic citizens. It would be
well if the Radicals could say the same for themselves. The
union so much desired amongst Catholics is now, we trust,
established. As we shall see, it was never more needed; the
outlook is threatening; the enemies of the Church are concen-
trating all their forces in a supreme attack upon religion and the
social order, and the combined efforts of all honest men are
required to avert the disasters that successive Liberal victories
are bringing nearer every day.

In a former number of the Dublin Review we gave a summary
of the leading events which characterized the period of Liberal rule
in Belgium from the fall of M. Malou's ministry, in 1878, to the
rupture of diplomatic relations with the Holy See in the summer
of last year. Affairs have continued to follow the same course,
and the annals of the Liberal Government are only marked by the
further evolution of the violent and extreme party out of the old,
doctrinaire form of liberalism which had been all powerful in
previous cabinets. There were, it is true, long ago, evident
symptoms of this evolution ; and to a careful observer it has been
clear for many years that the tendency of the party was to
gravitate towards the irreligious and Radical programme of the
Masonic Lodges, to the exclusion of the teaching of the moderate
constitutional Liberals who were its nominal leaders. A new
point of departure has, however, been specially marked by the
recent conflict with the Holy See, and the actual line of separation
between the old and the new Liberals was then drawn. Although
the Government disavow officially all connection with the Secret
Societies and the Lodges, and deny in Parliament that they are
bound by any pledges to the aggressive Radicals who now form
so important an element of their party, it is manifest to the most
superficial observer that at heart they are quite at one with their
less responsible supporters ; that they look to them for inspiration
in their public acts, and that, even where the Cabinet seems to
disagree with the Extreme Left, the causes of that disagreement
must be sought on the ground of inopportuneness, and not of any
essential divergence of opinion. As a member of the Right not
long since remarked in the Chamber, M. Frere Orban and his
colleagues are the prisoners of the Radicals, and are bound by
their commands. When they venture to take another line of
conduct, it is only because positive constitutional prohibitions
stand in their way, or because the experience acquired in
governing has made tbem aware that to abruptly hasten
legislation in a Radical sense would be the signal for a reaction, by

II 2

470 Prospects in Bel glum.

suddenly openinf^ tlie eyes of the country to their real objects^
and so bring about the return to office of a Catholic Government.
For these reasons alone have they on rare occasions shown a
spirit of comparative moderation, and been content to consolidate
the advantages already gained before attempting to advance too
far. By avoiding to a certain extent sweeping measures, and only
taking a little at a time, they know that they will make it more
difficult for the Catholics on their return to power to undo their
work than if they effected at once reforms so radical that their
opponents would be justified, when again in office, in simply
repealing them. They have been satisfied with granting a half or
even less of what their friends have demanded, hinting clearly,
however, that the rest was only temporarily withheld, and that the
demand might be brought forward again in another session.
Apart from these reservations, the legislation of M. Frere Orban^s
cabinet during the last three years has been wholly sectarian ; its
only object has been the prosecution of the campaign against
Christianity devised in the reunions of the various Masonic
Societies that are now all but supreme in many parts of Eelgium,
To judge by the rapidity with which this evolution has been
effected, and the gigantic concessions already made to Kadicai
agitation, it can only be a question of time before the programme
of these societies is adopted in full. Doctrines, that some years
ago were scouted by most of the prominent Liberals themselves
as the wild and dangerous dreams of demagogues, have now
become incorporated into the creed of every good Liberal ; orators
who, at Freemason meetings, indulged in violent threats against
Catholicism and openly declared their aim to be the destruction of
religion, were then considered to be mere visionaries, or, at most,
as representing no more than their own private opinions. Many
of them have now become Ministers, and have already carried
some of their threats into execution. A i'ew hesitating disclaimers
on their part now will not, therefore, convince Catholics that what
has been already done is not the commencement only of a
continued system of persecution and oppression, or prevent them
from drawing the conclusion that, in a few years, the whole of that
programme will be adopted and recognized as the official exposition
of Liberal doctrine, especially when each session marks a further
step towards its realization. We can hardly then be treated as
alarmists in judging from the analogy of the past, and assuming
that the law of the Lodges is the law of the Government — the
Masonic programme, their programme. In former Parliaments,
Right and Left were in accord upon most of the great principles
of government, such as the necessity of a religious education for
the masses. The most advanced Liberals never ventured to
attack openly the Church, its doctrines or its practices. " Now,

Prospects in Belgium. 471

in 1879/^ we quote the Flandre LihSrale, '^Christianity
itself is criticized in Parliament ; its dogmas, miracles and code
of morals are at one moment turned into derision, and at another
held up to public execration/' Those who tlius deride Christianity
are the choice spirits of Freemasonry, its select representatives.

The organization of the Secret Societies in Belgium is perhaps
more perfect and extensive than in any other State of Europe.
The country is overrun with different clubs and lodges, all closely
connected with one another, and all directed towards the same
object. Without yielding in anything to their colleagues of
France and Italy in the matter of impiety, the Belgian associates
have a great advantage over them in point of cool-headedness and
calculation. There is much less of empty show and noisy
demonstration, their policy is more plausible, and their direct
influence is less seen. To the world generally they are social or
charitable clubs, from which politics are banished, and whose
influence is solely directed towards the furtherance of the material
and moral good of the people. To the latter general Ij^ they are
known as the Progress Club, the Lodge of Philanthropic Friends,
&c. ; and their representatives in the Parliamentary Tribune
scornfully deny that they interest themselves in any other
questions. In their more private meetings, and whenever
important decisions are to be taken by the Liberal party, however,
it has been impossible to conceal the fact 'that their advice is
sought and imposed upon the members of the Chamber.

If, however, less ostentatiously before the world than in other
countries, their influence has increased to an alarming extent, and
is still increasing. The Ministers, with their principal agents, are
chosen from their ranks : they have seized upon all the important
posts of trust, and jealously exclude men of independent opinion,
and Catholics alike. Their favourites are marked out for success
in every career and trade; and many Liberals, who would otherwise
hold aloof, are forced into these societies in order to retain their
influence. Their protection extends over the arts and the stage,
for there are painters and public singers whose success and
popularity, it is well known, have been largely contributed to by
the protection of the Lodges. Under their auspices have grown
up a host ot Radical and atheistical societies ; associations lor the
diffusion of infidel literature amongst the people ; societies for the
civil burial of the dead, members of which are obliged to sign a
promise engaging not to call in a priest to their death- beds, and
declaring in advance null and void any religious dis))ositions they
may take in their last moments ; meetings for the support of the
new communal schools, and other clubs of similar nature,iaU of
whose origin and aims are to be sought in the inspiration of
Freemasonry.

472 Prospects in Belgium.

This, however, is not all. Not only are the instruments of
Liberal Government chosen at the reunions of the Lodges ; it is
here also that the Parliamentary Bills are elaborated. Ten years
before the July law on Elementary Education was passed through
the Chambers, its principles had been foreshadowed and laid down
in a plenary meeting of the Antwerp lodges, and in. other
assemblies of Freemasons, where it was declared that the seculariza-
tion of education was the great pre- occupation of the craft.
When we see how fully this and other schemes have been carried
out, revolutionary and chimerical though they then seemed, can
we for a moment believe it to be the intention of the Secret
Societies to stop at the point which they have publicly declared
to be the foundation only of their design? The exclusion of religion
from the public schools can clearly be no more than the first step
to the official introduction of free thought, and the complete
suppression of Christianity. The object of Liberal policy is not
the fulfilment of the article of the constitution establishing
liberty and equality amongst religious creeds, as its advocates
would have us believe ; it lies far beyond this, and tends to no
less than making the negation of all revealed religion the basis
of modern government. To effect this it must absorb and
centralize in itself all public offices; it must exclude Chris-
tianity from all places of trust. To use the words of an exponent
of advanced Liberalism, the Flandre Liherale, '^ Those who surren-
der to priests the direction of their consciences as public men,
are unworthy to hold political or judicial functions in our free
Belgium. ^^ If at one time Liberal politicians held it sufficient
that the State should show itself impartial to all creeds, their
successors advocate now a very different doctrine ; the State, they
teach, must officially deny and renounce all beliefs. For the
present they will allow every man liberty to practise as an
individual whatever religion his conscience recommends him to
follow, but this must be an affair of his private life, and must not
be betrayed in any public act. In the place of the former dogmas
of Christianity the State is to create a code of positivist morality,
to be elaborated at some future time in the Lodges ; and to the
ancient law of God there is to succeed a religion of free-thought
as by law established. Several influential Masons have declared
this : one speaks of future rationalist Churches ; another, asks
whether it would not be well, in order to combat the Church with
equal arms, to draw up a harmonious system of positive doctrine
which shall resolve the great problems of modern society.

Having now devoted some space to the theory and sources of
Liberal legislation, we shall examine how far the action of the
Government and of public bodies have been in harmony with
them. Let us commence with proceedings in Parliament. The

Prospects in Belgium. 473

opening of the Session of the Legislative Chambers furnished an
occasion for the first manifestation of sectarianism since the
rupture with the Vatican — a manifestation as pretty and puerile
as it was odious. The Session of the Chambers commences each
year at the beginning of November^ and consequently almost
coincides with St. Leopold's Day — the King's patronal Feast.
From the time of the establishment of the dynasty it had been
the custom to chant a solemn Te Deiirti in the Cathedral of St.
Gudule, which was attended by the Queen and Royal Family,
the Diplomatic Corps, the Ministers, the civil and military
authorities in full uniform, and the two Chambers in a body.
The recurrence of the fete this year was a brilliant occasion for
making a display of irreligious sentiment and, once for all,
breaking off all connection between the Legislature and the
Church. When the letter of the Cure-Doyen of St. Gudule
was read to the House, informing the President of the Chamber
of the date and hour of the ceremony, and inviting the presence
of the deputies, a sudden scruple of conscience seized upon the
Liberal representatives. They discovered that for the last fifty
years, the representatives of the nation had fallen into a grave
constitutional error, and by assisting at the Te Deuvi on every
previous occasion had, unwittingly perhaps, lent themselves to a
clerical intrigue, and in a kind of way sanctioned the presence of
the State at a ceremony paid to a God of whose existence they,
as the representatives of a modern State, could not possibly take
cognizance. It was not too late, however, to rescue modern
society from this dangerous subjection to a supreme being ; and
accordingly, M. Goblet d'Alviella, an extreme Radical, rose to
move that, as the constitution had decreed the separation of
Church and State, it was a violation of that decree for the
Chamber to be officially represented at an act of worship of a
particular creed. His conscience therefore compelled him to
reply by a " non possumus ^' to the invitation of the dean.
Other speakers followed in the same sense, and the Ministers
supported thdir view. Even if, they said, such a proceeding could
be admitted by the] constitution — and the constitutional theory
had been soundly exposed by M. Goblet, — the dignity of the
State would forbid their official appearance at the cathedral
The clergy had placed themselves in direct antagonism with the
wishes of the nation; they had abstained from any participation
in the national rejoicings of the past year; it was, therefore, only
natural now that the representatives of the people should retaliate
by abstaining from taking part in a Catholic ceremony. To
reduce this sublime reasoning into other words — because the
Government was dissatisfied with the Catholic clergy, it was its
duty to decline to go and pray for the sovereign on his feast-day,

474 Prospects in Belgiuiii,

in a Catholic church, and the nation was bound to visit a supposed
C^rievance against the bishops upon God and the King. The
whole Liberal majority were of the same opinion as the above
orators, and it was voted that the Chamber should decline the
invitation. If any deputy cared, however, to go in plain clotlies
to the ceremony, he was quite free to do so, and the House would
not sit on that day. The new Minister of War, General Gratry,
showed on this occasion that he had deserved well of the confidence
which the majority had placed in him, and issued circulars, not
only to the military authorities at Brussels, but to those of all
the garrison towns, forbidding them to appear in uniform, or
otherwise than as private individuals, at any Te Deiimi which
might be sung on St. Leopold's Daj^ We may signal, in passing,
a further proof given by this, the Benjamin of the Cabinet, that
his devotion to liberal principles, and his rssolve to protect the
purity of the army from the contagion of clericalism, rise superior
to all vulgar considerations of courtesy or of what is fitting. It!
has been the habit, hitherto, on the occasion of the New Year, for
the officers in garrison in cathedral towns to pay a Ibrmal,
complimentary visit to the bishop. The practice of New Year''s
visiting is very widely observed in Belgium, especially in the
official world, and consequently this custom was one of mere
formal politeness, which it would have been disrespectful to omit.
This was not the view of the Minister of War, who summarily
put an end to these relations of courtesy', and saved his officers
from the dangers to which they had up to the present exposed,!
themselves, by a circular prohibiting the continuance of these
visits. Decidedly, General Gratry has done great things to save
modern society, and will jnstly claim a high place in the nevv
Positivist hierarchy whenever Christianity shall have been
thoroughly eradicated.

After the vote of the Chamber, measures were taken in order
that the magistrature and other public bodies should not appear
at St. Gudule's, or, at least, not in official robes. The Ministers
themselves, whose presence was necessitated by that of the Royal
Family, which had not shown itself actuated by the same loity
principles, but had resolved, as heretofore, to assist in State at the
Te Deumi, wished to attend in plain dress; but the simplest con-
siderations of propriety forced them to give way, and, in spite of
the promptings of their consciences, they were compelled to appear
in full uniform in a Catholic Church.

Thus St. Leopold'^s Day was secularized, and the dignity of the
Government vindicated — that is to say, in their own eyes; lor to the
common sense of the nation this inept manifestation of sectarianism
appeared in a very different light. Besides being an outrage
upon the feelings of a Christian people — of Protestants as much

Prospects in Belgium. 475

as Catholics — and an insult to the public conscience, it was
rightly condemned by all moderate men as a flagrant mark of*
disrespect to the king, for whose welfare the Te J)ewin was sung,
and upon whose religious convictions this insult to the Catholic
faith reflected. But the liberals were not even logical in their
impiety, for it was surely not enough to merely secularize the re-
joicings of the day ; as free and independent minds, under no
subjection to religious dog-ma, they could not celebrate the fete
at all; the constitution^ as they read it, would certainly never
recognize the Saint himself, and the 15th of November should
have brought no more associations to their mind than any other
day in the calendar.

We may judge by this, the first act of the Legislature, in what
spirit the Chamber was likely to enter upon the discussion of the
diplomatic rupture with Rome, which stood next on the order of
the day. In a former paper we treated at such length of all the
details of this incident that it would be superfluous to repeat the
arguments used by the Right in condemnation of the policy of
the Government. The result of the debate was a foregone con-
clusion, and in spite of the able reasoning of MM. Malou, Jacobs
and other Catholic leaders, who successively refuted each argument
brought forward by the Government, and established in the
clearest light the monstrous injustice of their proceedings, the
Left voted unanimously in favour of the Cabinet. On • this
occasion, as in the diplomatic correspondence itself, M. Frere
Orban was at great loss to explain the contradiction between
his assertions and the cancelled despatch of November 11,* and
in the end, when pressed to explain why, after knowing its
contents, he still credited the Holy See with opinions so diff'erent
from those it had expressed, was content with averring, as a fact
beyond the range of all doubt, that, when Cardinal Nina, at his
request, withdrew that despatch provisionally, he also clearly
" withdrew his thought " (avait retire sa peiisee). Withdrawing
a thought at another's request is a psychological process, familiar,
perhaps, to the new school of secular and positivist reasoning; but
to benighted Christians in all parts of the world it must seem
something novel, and wholly inexplicable. M. Frere Orban,
however, had nothing better to say, and as the majority were
quite ready to agree with any proposition he might lay down, it
was evident that one answer was as good as another. The Senate
was as pliable as the Chamber of Representatives, and a vote of
Left against Right gave the final sanction to the Premier's policy.

This question disposed of, the Ministers were free, not, as
might easily have been supposed, to devote themselves to the

* See Dublin Eeview, October, 1880.

470 FrosiJects in Belgium.

ordinary needs of the country, but to commence the system
of reprisals against the clergy which the Extreme Left had always
demanded, and which had been foreshadowed in M. Baraks speech
to the electors of Tournai, in July, 1880. Why reprisals, it may
be asked, and for what reasons ? The Government had already
declared war upon the Catholic Church ; it had secularized
primary instruction, and had virtually driven the clergy from the
public schools ; it had drained the pockets of the Catholic tax-
payers to build schools for the use of an infinite minority of the
people; it had openly outraged Catholic feelings in the insult
recently oifered to the Holy See ; it had held Catholicism up to-
hatred and derision, and now had finally repudiated Christianity
on the occasion of the Te Deum, even when it entailed passing a
slight upon the Royal Family. The Ministers had ridden rough-
shod over the free communal and municipal institutions of the
country; they had annulled their deliberations, disapproved their
budgets, and refused to recognize their lawfully elected magis-
trates. The official agents of the Cabinet had starved the poor
into surrendering their right of educating their children as they
pleased, and had dismissed functionaries and employes merely for
availing themselves of a privilege which these very legislators
had confessed themselves unable to take away. Why, then, talk
of reprisals? Surely some less insolent or cynical term might
have been chosen to define the further measures devised by the
oppressor against his victims. To understand what was really
in the minds of Ministers when they spoke of reprisals, we
must turn to La Fontaine and the oft-repeated apologue of
the '^ Wolf and the Lamb.'' The Catholic portion of the
nation had refused to be swallowed up by the Liberal sects-
that had seized upon the country. The clergy had declined to-
sanction, much less to support, schools from which religion had
been banished, and in which their power for good would be null.
Without, therefore, derogating either from the letter or the
spirit of the law, they had called upon their flocks to assist them
in preserving the faith, and had pointed out the dangers to
which the new legislation had exposed them. The Catholic
population had rallied at the call of their pastors, and had built
up and filled the Catholic schools. The burghers and independent
municipalities had resisted the encroachments of the central
Government, and had proclaimed their resolve to maintain their
privileges intact, and never to submit to become mere instruments
for registering the decrees of the Cabinet. The justice of their
cause, and the vigour of their resistance, were the only new
grounds of complaint against CathoHcs. The Government had
fondly hoped to make a far easier victim ; it had trusted that its
sophistical interpretation of constitutional doctrine would have
been admitted, and it had been deceived. It found the Church

Prospects in Belgium. 4-77

in Belgium to be possessed of a vitality which threatened to
reduce to nought all the devices of Freemasonry, and now the
Ministers had to imagine new modes of carrying out their
designs. The Catholics had sought to defend themselves, and
their refusal to be crushed was in Liberal eyes ample justification
for reprisals. What was to be the nature of these was the next
question for the consideration of the Government. The Extreme
Left demanded the most sweeping measures. The clergy had,
they said, largely contributed to the success of the Catholic
schools, out of the salaries paid them by the State. They there-
fore declared that it was necessary for the Government to
considerably reduce the Budget of Public Worship by diminishing
— firstly, the salaries of the metropolitan and the bishops; secondly,
by decreasing the number of the clergy subsidized by the State ;
and thirdly, by reducing the subsidy in amount. It was more
than doubtful whether the constitution would permit such a
reduction in the budget. A fundamental article of that pact
decreed that the support of the Catholic religion and the retri-
bution of its ministers were at the charge of the State, which
was to allow a grant sufficient to enable them to carry on their
ministration. There were two sources whence this obligation
might have been derived. In the first place, this Government
grant might be explained — and there are good reasons for
believing this to be the true origin of the article — as a debt
incurred by the State in consequence of the absorption of Church
lands into the national domain at the time of the French
Revolution — that is, as an indemnity guaranteed by the State for
the confiscation of the so-called " biens nationaux''' by the
Convention. On this view a reduction of the grant allowed
to the clergy would be nothing less than the repudiation of a
national debt. But viewing this, the 117th Article of the
constitution, as merely a recognition of the necessity of Govern-
ment retribution for the services rendered by the Catholic religion,
an equally forcible objection to the demand of the Radicals
arose. That Article expressly lays down that '^ the salaries and
pensions of the clergy are at the charge of the State ; the
necessary sums for meeting them are to be annually inscribed in
the budget." It is manifest from the wording of the Article,
that by the " necessary sums'^ is meant a proper and sufiicient
salary — one which would allow the recipient to live in the manner
his social position required. In the same way that the progress
in the material resources of the country and the increase of popu-
lation had called for an augmentation of the salaries of the
magistracy and the administration, justice and reason pointed to
an increase rather than a diminution in the Budget of Public
Worship, so as to proportion it to the larger spiritual requirements
of the time. During the fifty years of Belgian independence

478 Prospects in Belgium,

the population had almost doubled itself, and with this innrease
had sprung up naturally a demand for more priests and new
churches. At the same time the advance in the wealth of tlie
country had tripled the cost of living, and what in 1880 might
have been considered a very ample allowance for the support of
the clergy had now evidently been reduced to the limits of
covering the barest necessaries of life, if adequate even for that
purpose. To diminish the State grant now would therefore ]>e
virtuall}^ to expunge the 117th Article, for, as we have shown, it
would be utterly absurd to maintain that the " sums necessar}-^'
were in the year 1881 less than what they had been fifty years
before. The constitution would be violated both in its spirit
and in its letter by the proposed changes, the charges imposed
by the religious needs of the country would no longer be borne
by the State, whose grant would become a mere sum in aid, and
not the totality of those charges as the law directed. The logic
of this position was clearly acknowledged by the Ministers, who
reluctantly saw themselves compelled to differ from the Radical
section of the Chamber, and, in accordance with their usual
tactics, to seek a more tortuous way for attaining the same
object — viz., the financial embarrassment of the clergy. It was,
therefore, resolved that the Government should move the rejection
of the above proposals of MM. Janson, Goblet d^Alviella, and
others of the Extreme Left, for the present at least. The Cabinet
was willing to make very large concessions to- them, although
not in the exact form they desired; appearances must be in some
way saved. The Minister of Justice, in presenting his budget,
informed the House that he had certain amendments to propose,
adding, naturally, that they were dictated by considerations of
simple justice, and in no way prompted by a sentiment of angoi-
or hostility to the clergy. M. Bara, forgetting perhaps that his
threat of pushing things to the very end was still fresh in the
ears of the public, stated that he could not consent to reduce the
salaries of the bishops and the clergy, because such a measure
would look like retaliation for their recent conduct, and would be
undignified on the part of the Government. After this hypo-
critical disclaimer, he went on to urge that a consideration of
the principles of the constitution had convinced him, neverthe-
less, of the necessity of making the following amendments.
There was much that was just, he allowed, in the demands of
MM. Goblet and Janson, and it was for him an ungrateful task
to be forced to oppose his friends on the question of the reduction
of the bishops' salaries. The conduct of the episcopate had
given just cause for complaint, but he was unable to strike them
m the manner proposed. They could, however, be attacked as
well on another point, by striking the seminaries, which were

Prospects in Belgium, 479

their great political force. He would propose, then^ that the
grant made to the seminaries for the education of the clergy be
reduced to a merely nominal sum, and the scholarships founded
by Government be entirely suppressed. These establishments,
he said, were so wealthy that they could be carried on quite as
well without the help of Government. They were, moreover, a
fruitful source of evil to the State and modern society, a hotbed
of fanaticism and exaggerated clerical pretension, and furnished
to the Church the most violent opponents of the Government.
The latter could no longer reasonably support them, and this
amendment would " strike the bishops to the heart." These
statements appear rather conflicting; for, if, as M. Bara asserted,
the seminaries were well able to support themselves, it was deny-
ing the premises on which his argument for the suppression
of the grant was based to insist that his amendment would strike
the bishops to the heart.

The second proposal was to discontinue the grant hitherto
allowed to the communes and vestries for the construction and
repair of churches and sacred edifices. The Minister, still
maintaining, that he in no way sought to retaliate upon Catholics
for tlieir opposition to his policy, said that he could not but be
struck by the fact that a society which could build seven hundred
convents, and spend two millions upon its schools, was hardly in a
])Osition to require the aid of Government to repair its churches ;
it might well apply its superfluous resources to this purpose.
What, however, apparently did not strike M. Bara, was that in
using such an argument he was making an admission which cut
to. the very root of the whole policy of the Cabinet, and was
in itself sufficient to condemn it. If the Catholic Church was
possessed of such resources, it must evidently be because it
possessed the afi'ections of an immense proportion of the
population, and because the wealth and influence of the country
were placed at its disposal. In that one phrase about the
Catholic Schools the Minister conceded what Catholics had from
the beginning contended for — viz., that the recent legislation had
been made for a minority in the country, and was antipathetic to
a population large and rich enough to sacrifice two millions in
resisting it. A handful of rich proprietors, and a few thousand
priests, could never have raised such a sum in so short a time ; it
could only have been eff'e.cted by the collective efibrts of an entire
nation. Moreover, if the constitution had decreed that religious
creeds were to be supported by the State, he had spared the Right
the necessity of showing that the Catholic religion, having so
strong a hold lipon the country, was more than ever entitled to
that support. His reasoning might have been employed in
attacking the 117th Article, but as now advanced only proved

480 Prospects in Belgium.

that he was flagrantly violating the spirit of the law which he
professed so strenuously to uphold.

A third amendment suppressed the salary of foreign priests
engaged in ecclesiastical ministrations. As there were many
foreigners employed in the seminaries and elsewhere, whose
services were indispensable to the bishops, this measure was of no
small importance, and will doubtless have the effect desired by the
Government, of affording a certain pecuniary embarrassment to the
episcopate. In this manner, although their salaries remain in
theory intact, as a matter of fact these charges will practically be
deducted from their incomes. The stipend was also withdrawn
from all priests taking out a license to follow any other calling.
In this way the State grant would be withdrawn from clergymen
who were private schoolmasters ; and as many priests were now
forced by the banishment of religion from public instruction to act
as such, another tax would be imposed upon those who disapproved
of secular education for their children. At the same time a blovr
was struck at associations of Catholic students, and at Catholic
clubs established by the clergy, as the license taken out by the
priests directing them, for the sale of wines, tobacco, &c., would
now disqualify them for a grant from the Ministry of Justice.

Having submitted these amendments to the Chamber as a
first instalment of harassing legislation, M. Bara concluded by an
appeal to the irreligious passions of his friends. " We have,'"' he
exclaimed, " before us an army of priests who are attacking the
country, who seek to overturn all that constitutes our glory.
Now is the hour of national defence.''''

The pleading of the Minister of Justice was answered by the
ablest and most eloquent of the deputies of the Right. Mgr. de
Haerne, M. Thonissen, and others rose in turn to refute the
sophistical arguments advanced by the Government, and to expose
the real nature of the amendments. They were unconstitutional,
turning into mere travesty the original character of the funda-
mental pact, founded upon error, and justified by false assertions.
The specious reasoning brought forward against the endowment
of the seminaries was laid bare in all its hypocrisy. The teachers
in them, it was pointed out, were as necessary an element of the
religious life as the parish priests, and the blow directed against
them struck at the very essence of the 117th Article. Be logical,
it was said to the Government, or be honest and frank at least ;
if you wish to revise our constitutional compact, say so, and let us
defend it ; but do not, in this opportunist guise, seek to hide from
the country, which you fear, the real objects for which you are
striving, but which you dare not openly avow. As usual, however;
no attention was paid to these warnings ; the Left were summoned
there to vote reprisals and attack the clergy, not to hear the

¥

Prospects in Belgium, 481

counsels of reason or of peace. When the vote was taken, the
Chamber, satisfied with the concessions of the Government,
agreed to reject the amendments of the Irreconcileables, which
were consequently thrown out, but not without securing a very
respectable minority of Liberal votes. The movement started in
the K-adical ranks will undoubtedly gain fresh supporters, and it
is certain that every succeeding session will show the Government
making further and willing concessions to the cry for the total
abolition of the Budget of Public Worship. The manner in which
M. Bara had treated the proposal to reduce the salary of the
bishops indicated a desire to leave the question open, and gave the
Chamber clearly to understand that, when a convenient occasion
arose, he was quite ready to sacrifice his constitutional opinions.
He had taken great pains to prove that the State grant was in no
sense an indemnity for past spoliation of the Church, and could
not be considered in the light of a national debt. His indignant
rejection of the convincing arguments brought forward by
M. Tbonissen to the contrary, coupled with various threats
contained in his discourse, leave no doubt that the Government
are ready to go to any lengths in the system of " reprisals/'
consistent with the safety of their portfolios. At any rate, if the
Ministers do not find themselves strong enough to carry a
proposal for a revision of the constitution, their ingenuity will
discover various modes of curtailing little by little the " Budget
des Cultes,'' until it is reduced to utter insignificance. We need
hardly add that M. Bara's amendments when put to the vote were
carried by a large majority.

This discussion was concluded by the announcement of another
measure, which has created a most painful impression in the country.
This was the suppression of army chaplaincies, which had been
transferred to the Department of Justice from that of the
Minister of War, and which were to share the fate of the
seminaries. As this act required the consent of the Minister of
War, we may consider it under the head of his budget which
came on next for discussion. On this occasion the post of honour
was naturally confided to General Gratry, under the guidance
of M. Frere Orban himself. The Liberals looked, as usual, for
inspiration to the Republican cabinet of France. General Farre
and the officer& under his command had done glorious deeds
against the common enemy. The brilliant victories gained over
Benedictines and Dominicans; and, above all, the memorable
siege and capture of the Monastery of Frigolet, were illustrious
feats which filled the Belgium War Minister with emulation to
gain similar laurels for himself. Pending the time when he
might be able to send on his soldiers to the assault of convents, his
were to be the more pacific victories, but hardly less glorious,

482 Prospects in Belgium

I

over chaplains. General Farre had only been aLle to abolish
drums in the French army, which could hardly be connected with
clericalism, but he, General Gratry, had suppressed Te Deums,
and put an end to the courteous relations existing between the
clergy and the army. This was at least no small title to fame,
and he now stood forward to defend his administration. He
excused, by the necessity of national defence, the circulars to
which we have already referred, against the criticisms and well
founded complaints of Catholic speakers. He had determined,
he said, to exclude politics from the army (Catholics know what
this means. For politics read firstly, religion, and secondly, politics
that are not Liberal) ; he had also given his consent to the aboli-
tion of the army chaplaincies, which had become an abuse. At
a moment when Protestant Governments as those of England
and Germany, were giving increased facilities to their Catholic
soldiers for the exercise of their religious duties, the Belgian
Government thought fit to deprive its army, composed exclusively
of Catholics, of this right. The chaplain, it was argued on the
Liberal benches, mixed little with the soldiers, and when he did,
his influence was exerted only towards the furtherance of political
and clerical designs. His main duties were to give the sacraments
at Easter, and that the parish priest could do as well. This
iniquitous measure emanated solely from the War Office, and not
from the army itself. Indeed, it was well known at the
time that nearly all the generals and commandants who had
been consulted on the subject by the Ministry had pronounced
strongly in favour of retaining the chaplains. But this opinion,
from the authority most competent to speak upon the matter, of
course counted for nothing in the eyes oi* the Government.
Their object was not the good of the army, but its secularization,
and for this end they were resolved to forego no occasion of
rooting out Christianity. They were legislating, not for the
Belgian nation, but for the Liberal party, and the interests of
the latter were alone regarded. That the soldier should be left
without the consolations of religion at a moment when they were
most sorely needed was nothing to them. He would fight all the
better if he were " secularized ; '' and to Liberal eyes there could
be no fitter preparation for performing the duties be owed to his
country than the omission of those he owed to his God.

The vote upon General Gratry's budget gave rise to a scene
almost unprecedented in Parliamentary annals, and which is but
one out of many instances of the arbitrary and intolerant conduct
of the lladical majority. M. Woeste, a Catholic deputy, being
called upon to modify his abstention from the vote, declared that
he could not saction the approval in that vote of measures of
which the army itself disapproved. Upon this remark great

Prospects in Belgium, 483

clamour arose from the Liberal benches, the Left pronouncing
M. Woeste's words to be eminently seditious and revolutionary.
Upon a demand for explanation from the President of the
Chamber, M. Woeste consented to withdraw his words, although,
he still affirmed that it was under this belief that he had declined
to take part in the vote. As abstentionists are bound to give
reasons for so doing, nothing could be more correct than this
reservation. M. Guillery, the President, was clearly of this
opinion, since he at once expressed himself satisfied with the
explanation. Not so the Left, however, who, exasperated at this
mark of justice and impartiality on the part of their chairman,
demanded, through the mouth of the Premier himself, a formal
vote of censure. Upon M. Frere Orban persisting in his demand,
despite M. Guillery 's declaration that it was unlawful and contrary
to Parliamentary procedure, the latter resigned there and then
his office, rather than submit to so gross a violation of his
Presidential authority.

Never [he said] during the course of fifty years of Parliamentary
Government in Belgium, had a Chamber ventured to thus openly
disregard the ruling of the chair. M. Frere's motion is contrary
to all precedent ; he is at liberty to take a vote upon it if he wishes,
but not until I have resigned an office upon which such an affront has
been passed.

These honourable and dignified words reflect all the more credit
upon M. Guillery, he being himself an advanced Liberal, but
preferring, nevertheless, to resign the important post he occupied
rather than assent to such a flagrant breach of impartiality at
the dictate of his political friends. The Radicals were con-
sequently forced to seek elsewhere for a more pliant and less
scrupulous President.

The Budget of War being concluded, that of Public Instruction
vs^as introduced, and furnished a suitable occasion for the Right
to expose the miserable fiasco of the Public School Law of July,
1879, and to stigmatize at the same time the iniquitous and
harassing nature of that great piece of Liberal legislation. M.
Malou laid before the Chamber a cirefully compiled resume of the
state of public elementary education, with statistics of the school
population. This instructive document proved how complete had
been the success of the Catholic movement, and how utter the
failure of the system of godless education preconized by the
Cabinet, despite all the efforts made to intimidate the people.
Without entering into details, it may be well to lay before our
readers a brief abstract of the conclusions arrived at by M. Malou.
These showed that, in less than three years, out of the 2,500
communes of Belgium, there were only 567 in which Catholic

VOL. Yii. — NO. II. [Third Series.] k k

48#

Frospects in Belgium.

schools liacJ not been built. In the three provinces of Namnr,
Lieo:e, and Hainault, there remained these deficiencies to make
up ; in the rest of the country the Catholic organization had been
complete. As far as regarded the number of children frequenting
the schools of the clergy the result was astounding^ and could
testify to the hatred felt by the people for secular education.
The four provinces of East and West Flanders, Limburg, and
Antwerp, gave to the Catholic schools a majority of more than
80 per cent. ; in Brabant and Luxemburg a majority varying from
51 to 75 per cent.; whilst the three defective provinces could
count on very respectable minorities, ranging from 38 to 46 per
cent. The total proportion for the whole country was 61 per
cent for the Catholic, as against 39 per cent, for the Official
schools. In grouping these results by arrondissement, the failure
of the Government was still more conspicuous. The minimum
of the Catholic schools fell to 30 per cent, in one arrondissement
only ; it fell below that percentage for the Liberals in no less than
eighteen. In the populous districts of Roulers and St Nicholas,
the latter of which M. Malou represents in the Chamber, the
Official schools had obtained the conlidence of one per cent,
of the population. In Brussels itself, the Catholic schools
claimed 55,000 cliildren, against 46,000 frequenting the Liberal
establishments. From the minorities, it would be sufficient to
deduct the numbers of children whose parents were literally
forced by dread of starvation to place them there, to complete
the picture. But these statistics were not sufficient to satisfy
the pitiless logic of the able leader of the Opposition. After
censuring the odious means employed by the authorities to
counteract the efforts of the clergy, and to force their views upon
the poor, M. Malou proceeded to expose the financial blunders
and extravagance which the execution of the new law had
entailed. Since its promulgation, the sums expended by the
l)epartment of Public Instruction had been increased by eight
millions of francs, raised at the ruin of the communal finances.
The results obtained by this wanton squandering of the public
funds were what had been shown ; the public schools which, prior
to 1S79, had been prosperous and well attended, and were main-
tained at a relatively small cost, had seen the children dwindle
away until now they could not muster 40 per cent, of the children
receiving instruction. This retrograde movement would continue
in proportion as the Catholic organization was perfected ; and yet
the Government dared to ask for eight millions as the price of
indulging Liberal caprices. The charges of the official schools
imposed upon the population were literally in the inverse ratio
of their utility and the number of children to whom they afforded
the means uf education.

Prospects in Belgium, 485

M. Malou was followed by other deputies of the Right, who
added further details to his statistics, and completed the discom-
fiture of the Grovernment. The Left, unable to refute the
arguments brought against them, or upset these statistics in any
important point, were content to interrupt and question the
speakers, without bringing forward any solid argument in defence
of their budget, which was, none the less, voted by the whole
Liberal majority. The debate, however, has been of great utility,
and cannot fail sooner or later to rouse the country. It brought
out clearly that Belgium will have nothing to do with secular
education, and that the July Law has been condemned by those
who are the only real judges in the question — the fathers of
families whose interests are at stake, and whose verdict has been
unanimous and crushing. The voice of the people, which is here,
if ever, the "Vox Dei,^^ has unmistakably pronounced that
the nation will have nothing of the schemes of the Government;
and that, notwithstanding the grinding pecuniary exactions
imposed upon it, and the formidable persecution of officialism, it
is, and will remain, faithful to Christian and Catholic principles.
As if, however, this failure was not sufficiently disastrous, the
Ministers were prepared to extend their programme to inter-
mediate education. A new law was brought in and passed to
complete the secularization of intermediate schools begun in 1850.
This law is, in all essential points, the counterpart of that upon
primary instruction. It comes to the aid of the Government by
centralizing the control of the schools, and giving to the State
the power of arbitrarily increasing their number, independently of
the decisions of local authorities. The teachers are to be, hence-
forward, drawn exclusively from the Government normal schools —
that is to say, must consist of men brought up without religion,
and devoted to the secularization of their pupils. The speech of
M. Olin, one of the chief supporters of the Bill, is significant
enough, and avows openly what the Government concealed. In
reply to the objections brought forward by Catholics, who urged
that, if Liberals and freethinkers wished to found schools after
their own principles, they should at least fight upon equal terms,
and not monopolize the funds of the State, to the exclusion
of those who advocated freedom of instruction, he answered
that—

We have not the same resources. We have no jubilees nor
pilgrimages, no indulgences nor miracles. You are stronger than us,
and richer; therefore, competition on the ground of private instruction

is a mockery from which the Church alone derives benefit The

State must re-establish equality between the two opposing opinions,
and furnish schools for such as disapprove of those directed by
clericals.

K k2

486

Prospects in Belgium.

After this cynical avowal, further comment is needless.
Catholics are told in plain terms that they have the greater
influence in the State, and that the freethinkers are powerless to
do anything of themselves in educational matters ; therefore,
concludes Radical logic, the State must come to the aid of the
few, and legislate against the wants of the many. No " clerical '^
has ever made a more damning exposition of the nature and scope
of Liberal legislation.

So far the Liberal party in Parliament has been true to its
inspirers, and has redeemed the pledges given to the Lodo^es. A
glance at its action outside the Legislative Assembly will reveal
the same sectarian spirit at work everywhere. Foremost amongst
the allies of the Government in its irreligious campaign has been
the so-called " Commission d'Enquete.'''' This is the famous
Committee 'of Enquiry referred to in the Dublin Review of
last October, instituted ostensibly for the purpose of taking a
census of the school population, and ascertaining the methods
employed for drawing children both to the communal and the
free schools. This Commission has become, in the hands of the
deputies selected by the Chamber to represent it, a little Liberal
Inquisition, traversing the country, and holding sessions in every
province for the sole purpose of outraging the faith and harassing
the clergy and faithful. Composed exclusively of the most
fanatical and intolerant of the Radical deputies, it has divided
itself into a number of sub- committees, which have been told off
to make tours through the respective provinces, much in the
fashion of judicial circuits in this country. The odious, perse-
cuting spirit with which these committees have shown themselves
animated has been happily redeemed at times by the utter folly
and absurdity of their proceedings. For this reason, and also on
account of the gross partiality and violence of the inquisitors, it
is to be hoped that the Commission may be productive of as
much good as harm, in bringing home to the peasants and the
citizens of provincial towns the true character of their deputies.
The inquisitorial courts thus formed lost from the outset all
appearance of impartiality, and at once resolved themselves into
tribunals for judging the alleged offences of the clergy, the
Catholic burgomasters, and the free school committees. The
school census was at once put aside, and the instances of pressure
exerted by the authorities to force parents into sending their
children to the Government schools were not considered. As the
inquiry was to be conducted, as they resolved, on behalf of
Government, few or no witnesses were cited on the opposite side.
On the other hand, every imaginary grievance against the priests
has been carefully brought forward and magnified, only witnesses
in proof being admitted. In this respect the inquisitors have

Prospects in Belgium. 487

carried out their task in the full spirit of their instructions. The
questions put to the cures have been characterized by the i^rossest
insolence and the most openly averred partiality, diversified now
and then by the vulgarity and grotesque ignorance of religious
matters displayed by these would-be judges. They took advan-
tage of their position and their parliamentary immunity to indulge
in the most outrageous language towards the priests and Catholic
witnesses (?) brought before them, laying down the law to the
former as to the manner in which they should follow their sacred
calling, and the true nature of their duties as ministers of God.
After a short admonition in this sense, accompanied by a severe
rebuke upon the manner in which the accused had misinterpreted
those duties — coupled, perhaps, with a direct insult or an accu-
sation of mendacity when any defence was submitted — he was
dismissed, and the witnesses to prove the charges against him
were summoned. Any attempt to reply was at once checked as a
breach of respect to the court. The witnesses now called con-
sisted of all the idlers, do-nothings, and doubtful characters of
the commune, who were cited to testify to the violent language
used by the cure in his sermons against the Government and
their education law, and his attempts to interfere with the liberty
of conscience of his parishioners. It was quite immaterial that
the majority of these witnesses never entered any place of worship;
their hearsay evidence was accepted, and no one was called to
refute them. After these came the turn of the oflScial school-
masters and mistresses, and on these occasions full play was
given to the more diverting side of this extra-parliamentary
buffoonery. In some cases the court was gravely occupied with
the grievance of a schoolmistress who complained of the curd not
giving her sufficient holy water at the Asperges ; another declared,
on the other hand, that her parish priest gave her too much, to
the destruction of her bonnet and dress ; whilst a third complained
of the conduct of the Catholic school-children, who, she said, were
in the habit of tilting up her bench at Mass on Sundays. Some
schoolmasters were aggrieved because the places allotted to them
and their pupils at church were not sufficiently comfortable, and
contrasted unfavourably with those of the Catholic children.
But the palm of martyrdom was awarded to one unfortunate
teacher, who brought forward a sad tale of woe and persecution.
His villagers, egged on, he presumed, by the priests, refused to
supply his house with water, which he was consequently forced to
fetch himself, and finally broke off the handle of the pump to
which they had made him resort. These and other depositions
equally ludicrous were received and taken down in the minutes in
all seriousness by the inquisitors, who rarely troubled even to
inquire whether they were true. They would, on the contrary.

488

Prospects in Belgium.

seize the occasion to praise the constancy and heroism of these
devoted servants of their country, and wound up the proceedings
by a little discourse upon the shameful intolerance of the clergy.
The same farce was carried on in each district visited by the
Commission, and voluminous reports were prepared and published
by the Government. If by any fortunate chance these annals of
the Parliamentary Commission are preserved for posterity, they
will stand forth as a fitting monument to Radical tyranny and
imbecility. It is needless to add that the expenses of these
Parliamentary promenades, as well as of the publication of the
reports, are borne by the country ; and, as they are to be con-
tinued during each recess, they promise to furnish another heavy
item in the bill which the Government's theories upon education
have cost the unfortunate taxpayers.

Another system of legislation devised by the Government
of "National Defence,'^ is that of local administration carried on
by Special Commissioners. As we have already stated, many
of the communal administrations are both attached to the faith,
and unwilling to surrender their rights of self-government to the
centralizing tendencies of the Cabinet. Perhaps no tradition is
more cherished in the Flemish provinces than that of the inde-
pendence and autonomy of the communes in all matters that con-
cern their own administration. It happens constantly, therefore,
that the municipalities rebel against the arbitrary impositions
of the Government; they consider themselves the best judges
of the needs of their districts in the matter of schools, and refuse
to ruin their finances by building and endowing houses of educa-
tion on the vast scale decreed by the Ministry of Public
Instruction. Again, they have been in the habit of lending
public buildings belonging to their communes to religious or
charitable societies, and have not thought fit to alter this state
of things, where it has been of public utility, for the sake
of flattering the secularist propensities of the present Govern-
ment. In these cases the decisions of the town councils and
provincial deputations are annulled in the next issue of the
official MoniteuTf and two successive warnings are addressed
to the refractory administration. If the behests of the Cabinet
are not then complied with, the Minister of the Interior
authorizes a Special Commissioner, armed with extraordinary
powers from the Executive, to proceed to the offending district
and forcibly carry them out. The action of the Local Government
is for the time suspended, and the command of the police
transferred from the. Burgomaster to the Commissioner. In this
manner the Ministers have been enabled to overrule the lawful
decisions of the authorities on every occasion where it has suited
their pleasure. If an excommunicated person dies and is refused

Prospects in Belgium, 489

burial in the Catliolic cemetery, a Special Commissioner appears,
who orders the exhumation of the body, and effects its sacrilegious
interment in consecrated ground. If the Local Government
refuses to build a certain school the Special Commissioner is at
hand to see to its construction. Commissioners are despatched
to enforce the payment of the salaries awarded to the official
schoolmasters for the services rendered to the State in their
deserted schools. They are ready, whenever it is a question
of driving Catholic school-children from their classes held in thp
presbytery, for that, the Government says, is State property, and
cannot be used for such purposes. At other times they come
down to expel the religious orders from the hospitals and public
buildings, and to see that the town halls are never placed at
the disposal of Catholic associationSj especially of those devoted
to education. It will signify nothing if the communal council,
which surely possesses the best right of indicating the uses
to which its property may be put, has unanimously accorded such
a permission; the Special Commissioner thinks otherwise, and
his word is law. Since the State has no religion, it is a desecra-
tion for public property to be employed for the furtherance
of dogmatic teaching. As may readily be surmised, these
despotic and harassing measures have not always been enforced
without resistance on the part of the populace, unaccustomed to
this novel system of administration. Thus, at Bruges, the expul-
sion of the Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul from the civil
hospices of the town, where they had been installed for years with
the cordial assent of the municipality, and to the great profit
of the poor of the city, was opposed by an angry crowd of
workmen; and it was with difficulty that the Commissioner,
with the help of the police, which had previously been taken out
of the control of its lawful superior, the Burgomaster, effected his
task. At Heule, near Courtrai, the expulsion of a Catholic club
from the premises of a public hall, lent to it by the " Bureau de
Bienfaisance,^' was attended by actual bloodshed. The gendarmes,
provoked by the jeers of the infuriated populace, wantonly fired
upon the crowd, killing one man and mortally wounding another ;
and it was only the presence of mind of a curate of the parish
that prevented the people, maddened by this atrocious act, from
falling upon and massacring the Commissioner and his satellites.
It will be seen from this that the policy of liberty and progress,
inaugurated by the Government to save society from priestly
thraldom, is carried out only at the imminent risk of civil war.
A tribunal, composed of Liberal judges, has recently acquitted
the gendarmes and condemned the brave priest to a term of
imprisonment as the promoter of the riot !

Another system, frequently adopted for thwarting the action

.490 Prospects in Belgium,

of the local authorities, is the refusal to nominate Catholic
burgomasters. Where the composition of a municipal council
would force them to select an injfluential or popular Catholic for
the office, they prefer to create an interregnum, and leave the
town without any chief magistrate. Such is liberty under
Liberal rule !

The policy we have described is naturally only followed in the
case of municipal and communal councils where the majority is
Catholic. Where the council is Liberal the case is very different.
No warmer advocate of the merits of local self-government can be
found than the Minister of the Interior when he has to deal with
bodies composed of men of the same political opinions as himself.
Nothing is then illegal — the fullest measure of autonomy ought
then to be allowed to the magistrates chosen of the people. They
may tax the communes as heavily as they please ; they may
dispose of public property as they think fit ; they are at full liberty
to surrender public edifices to Masonic Societies and Liberal Clubs.
No Special Commissioner will appear to trouble the peaceful life
of the municipalities of those enlightened districts which have
recognized that clericalism is the foe of humanity, and are at war
with their bishop and their cure. This is, indeed, not surprising,
for the acts of the Commissioner himself are as nothing in com-
parison with those of the Councils chosen from amongst the well
beloved of Liberalism. Of these, the most conspicuous, both for
the importance of its functions and the ultra-Radicalism of its
members, is the Municipality of Brussels. The offspring of the
Liberal Association of the capital, and chosen by it, as we shall
see presently in referring to the nature and constitution of this
electoral agency, its sole end and object is the persecution of
Catholic interests. Under such conditions, and given the well-
known violence and fanaticism of the dominant Liberal clique in
Brussels, it is easy to surmise of what a type of administrators
this Council is composed, and in what spirit they set about their
work. In their endeavour to harass Catholics and advance the
Masonic propaganda, they totally ignore all principles of equity or
tolerance. The Government schools, all under their direction, are
completely secularized — the very name of God being banished
from them — and placed in the hands of masters who are avowed
Ireethinkers, whilst the most odious pressure is put upon the
employes of the town in order to force them into sending their
children to these schools. Those of the Catholics, on the other
hand, are subjected to every annoyance and persecution that the
Council can devise. Religious processions are stopped, and
Catholic meetings prohibited on the most futile pretexts of
danger to public order. Those organized by Liberals are aided and
encouraged. The privileges contemptuously refused to Catholic

Prospects in Belgium, 491

institutions are showered upon Atheistic and Radical associations.
I'he Catholic religion may be openly insulted and outraged in the
streets, as on the occasion of the disgusting carnival processions,
and the police will never be called upon to interfere ; but any
attempt at a Catholic demonstration is summarily put a stop to.
Indeed, a stranger knowing nothing of Brussels might imagine
himself in a town where atheism was established by law, and
Christianity barely allowed a certain toleration. It would be
tedious to bring forward in detail all the instances that might be
quoted in support of what we have advanced, but we shall cite
two typical examples of the odious and intolerant character of the.
tyranny exercised by the Brussels Ediles over their townsmen.
One of these is the case of the crechey or infant school, which was
orginally under religious surveillance, but has now been laicized in
the spirit of the law of 1879. The former directors have been
dismissed, and the little children under seven who frequent it have
been confided to guardians untainted by clericalism. This was
not enough in order to give a proof of the lengths to which
sectarian fanaticism can go ; a more flagrant display of impiety was
needed. Not long since two children died at the creche ; and,
either because the parents were dead, or too poor to pay the
expenses of their burial, the cost of the funeral fell upon the
authorities, who deemed the occasion propitious for a public
manifestation of their opinions. They therefore decreed the civil
interment of the two poor little babies ; and in order to surround
their action with greater publicity, went so far as to distribute
invitations to the workmen of the district to attend the impious
ceremony. This, to make a greater impression upon the people,
was carried out with great solemnity, but without any religious
rites whatsoever. Oue can hardly credit that such acts of wanton
and inhuman barbarity are possible, much less that they should be
authorized by the administration of a civilized capital, professedly
directed by honourable and impartial men. Yet the fact, as here
narrated, is notorious, and has never been disavowed by those
responsible for it, whilst it has met with unqualified approbation
in the organs of the Liberal press. Unhappily, the exertions of
the municipality in favour of heathen burial have too often been
crowned with success, and have resulted in a great increase in the
number of civil interments. The calculating and Satanic spirit
which prompts their infidel propaganda, manifests itself con-
spicuously in their conduct towards the lower classes. The town
has established the rule that it will only defray the cost of burial
of the indigent poor upon the condition of the funeral being
strictly civil, and refuses absolutely to allow anything for a
religious service. This proscription of Christianity, even in the
ciase of the dead, is defended on the customary plea of liberty of

49'^ Prospects in Belgium,

I

conscience, because the State, knowing no religion, cannot provide
funds for a funeral according to the rites of a particular creed !

The second example to which we have alluded is of an equally
detestable character. A few months ago a charitable society of
ladies applied for permission to hire, as they had done annually,
a portion of the park reserved for public concerts, and which had
never hitherto been refused to such societies as applied for the use
of it, on condition of their defraying the necessary expenses. The
committee of the association — one devoted to visiting and
relieving the poor in their own homes — followed the usual formality
of addressing a request to the Hotel de Ville for permission to use
the garden in question for a concert to be given in aid of their
funds. The answer returned by the municipality, through the
medium of the first " Echevin," is a model of bigotry and
intolerance.

In consequence [he writes] of abuses on former occasions, the
communal administration has been compelled to refuse, for the
future, the use of the public promenades and establishments to all
works of charity which are not of an exclusively public nature.
I regret to inform you that the assurance you have given that the
society distributes its relief in the most tolerant manner, and makes
no religious propaganda, is not in accord with certain items in your
accounts, which speak of sums expended on masses, first communions,
and sermons.

This answer is the more revolting because it was well known that
this society gave relief in the most impartial manner to the
poor of all creeds. It is only when a Christian society advances
a claim to enjoy equal rights with freemasons that the above
reasoning is employed; Catholic charity being proscribed as a
dangerous enemy of the public good. For, not only the same
piece of ground, but the whole park, and even the streets, are
constantly given over to Liberal Clubs and Masonic Lodges for
their public demonstrations, on the plea that they are philanthropic
bodies unconnected with any special religious creed; and more
than once the public has been excluded from its recreation ground
by reason of a fete given in support of the Liberal schools.
Indeed, there was no objection raised by the municipality to the
letting of a theatre under their direction, to a club which gave
a dramatic representation on Good Friday in aid of the Secular
Education Fund.

The Libeial municipalities of other large towns, as those of
Antwerp, Ghent, Liege, &c., are animated by the same spirit as
those of the capital. The theory of liberty of conscience em-
bodied in the Constitution, is only invoked where Catholics are
concerned, in order to rob them of their civic rights. They find

I

Prospects in Belgium. 4-93

everywhere, at the hands of the dominant s6ct, the same con-
temptuous disregard of justice, the same proscription of their
schools, the same refusal to allow their meetings and processions
to take place; whilst hostile demonstrations are unblushingly
sanctioned and encouraged. The town of Liege, only the other
day, rejected in the most insulting terms the request of the
Catholic School Committee that, on the occasion of the forth-
coming Royal visit, when there was to be a defile of the poor
school children before the king, the Catholic children might also
be permitted to appear and contribute their share of homage to
His Majesty. Infidels and Radicals were alone to have the
privilege of being loyal — the religious, the sober and the honest,
form a pariah class, that growing civilization must drive away
from the peaceful haunts of progressive Liberalism.

It may, perhaps, be asked, how such a state of things can
continue to exist in a free land. For instance, in Brussels, it
will be urged, granting that the Liberal party is in a majority,
the vast bulk of the population is still Christian. Why, then, do
the electors tolerate this system of persecution? What advan*
tages, our readers may ask, do the citizens obtain under the
present administration to compensate them for this odious mod^
of government ? Is it that the town is indebted to the autho-
rities of the Hotel de Yille for an excellent administration^
or for a prudent management of its finances? Is it the good
order and regularity with which public affairs are conducted that
induce the electors to overlook the other faults of their Ediles,
and prevent them from revolting against this system of legal
tyranny? Not at all so; the communal administration of the
capital is notoriously incapable. It is true the late burgomaster,
M. Anspach, redeemed in the eyes of some citizens the harsh
intolerance of his rule by numerous improvements in the way of
beautifying the town and adorning it with fine streets and
handsome buildings, and thus acquired during his lifetime great
popularity. But on his death it was revealed that this was
effected in a lavish manner, and at an expense out of all proportion
to the requirements and resources of the city. The same system
perpetuated by his successors has terminated in the financial ruin
of the metropolis. Exorbitant loans have been raised, the rates
and taxes have been tripled and quadrupled within the last few
years, and the town has paid for the privilege of being ruled by
its present Liberal Ediles with the unenviable distinction of
standing first amongst the capitals of Europe in the amount of
personal impositions levied upon the citizens. But not only this ;
the administration in the hands of incapable sectarians has
become totally disorganized ; the police, gas, water-works, sewage
commission are ail involved in a hopeless, and inextricable confu-

494 Prospects in Belgium, wM

sion. Gij^antie abuses have crept into all of these departments,
frauds and peculation are being brought to light every day, and
when those responsible for these abuses have resigned or been dis-
missed, their accounts and other compromising documents are not
to be found. The townspeople, who see the neglect and disorder
around them, and look for some equivalent for their ever-increasing
taxes, can find nothing but a vast addition to the primary and
middle class schools, to which the most respectable take care not
to entrust their children. The crowning scandal of all has
recently been brought to light, and is of such a disgraceful
nature that we may hope it will at last arouse the electors from
their apathy, and recall them to a better sense of their interests.
The burgomaster suddenly resigned his office, at a moment when
the Hotel de Ville was already in a state of complete disorgani-
zation. This resignation was provoked by the disclosure of one
of the most discreditable transactions ever connected with sL
public authority. He had sold a house which he had just
inherited from his family, to have it converted into a house
of ill fame_, in the success of which vile enterprise the contract
gave him an interest, and the College of Echevins (aldermen)
had been summoned to give the necessary licence for carrying out
the project. Since his resignation no one has been found td
succeed him, and the Corporation of Brussels now remains
without a burgomaster — the first Echevin performing the func-
tions of chief magistrate until the next election, when it is to
be hoped a better class of men will be entrusted with the
municipal government. So much for the ultra-Liberal munici-
pality of the capital. Those of the provincial towns, although
not disgraced by such glaring scandals, have, as a rule, proved
themselves equally blundering and incapable of transacting
business.

How, then, the reader may again ask, are we to explain their
existence ? The answer is not difficult to find. They are the
result of the system of caucus elections ; these administrations
are elected not by the people, but by the Liberal Associations to
which we shall now refer. Prominent amongst these, both for
its marvellous organization and the influence it exercises over the
electoral corps, is the Liberal Association of Brussels. This body
has all but entirely usurped into its hands the functions of the
electors. The Liberals, knowing that their only hope of retaining
power depends upon their union and discipline, have surrendered
to the chiefs of the party the task of selecting suitable candidates
and managing the business of elections. Availing themselves of
this necessity of centralized action, the Radical leaders have
established the so-called Liberal Association ; by their zeal and
activity they have won the confidence of the more important

I prospects in Belgium. 495

Liberal electors, and have, little by little, arrogated to tbemselves
the direction of the affairs of the party. Freemasonry has thrown
its weight into the balance, and has naturally exerted its vast
influence in favour of its most unscrupulous partisans. Thanks
to the apathy and indifference of the great mass of the citizens,
the political club thus formed has substituted itself for them as the
arbiter of elections. In case of any disobedience to its dictates,
the Liberal electors are threatened with the danger of a Catholic
representation ; any division in their ranks, any hesitation in
their votes, will open the door to reactionary candidates, and
expose the country to the designs of an ever-watchful clerical
party. Union is our sole force, it urges, therefore you Liberal
and neutral electors must obey us or be prepared to pass again ;
under the yoke of the priests. All Liberals who wish to rise in
their party have to bow down to the caucus ; for them there is
no other road to success. It may easily be imagined what an
ai?sociation of this nature can effect in a town like Brussels,
where a majority of the electors, if not actually Liberal by inclina-
tion, are indifferent as regards public affairs, and easily played
upon by the sophisms and calumnies propagated against the
Catholic party. They have remained passivelj^ under its tyranny,
and suffered themselves to have their eyes bandaged until it was
too late to shake off the yoke. At the present moment, the
electoral force of the capital, made up of some thirty thousand
voters, returning to the Chamber of Representatives alone
fourteen deputies — a ninth of the total representation of the
countrj' — has become a mere instrument for ratifying the decisions
of an Association, the supreme council of which only numbers
from three to five hundred men, but a small proportion of whom
are themselves electors. When an election for the Communal
Council or the Legislature is at hand, various meetings of the
Association are held, the chiefs only of the various sections being
summoned. The claims of the different candidates are here
discussed ; they address the assembly in turn, explain their pro-
grammes, and, in fact, go through all the forms of a competitive
examination in socialistic atheism. After being tested before the
different branches of the Association, a poll is taken — some three
hundred associates generally voting — and the candidate who
receives at the final poll the most votes is selected and gazetted
in the Liberal press as the candidate-elect of the Association, his
competitors being required to efface themselves. The contest
for the council, or the deputation, as the case may be, is now
virtually decided, the Association being content with addressing
a. circular to the citizens informing them of its decision, and
demanding their attendance at the polling booths to register and
put the legal sanction upon it. They are never for one moment

496 Frospeds in Belgium, |l

consultecl as ti whether they approve of the eanrlidate or not ;
they are considered to have resigned all liberty of choice in the
matter, and are summarily told to vote as desired. The result is
a foresrone conclusion ; the bulk of the electors are disheartened^
and dare not resist ; at the same time, they do not care to vote
for candidates who have never solicited their suffrages, and
of whom they have no means of formintr a judgment ; conse-
quently, only from a thousand to fifteen hundred of them go
to the poll at all on the day of the election, and these record their
votes as they have been directed. The same proceedings take
place in the other large towns which are blessed with Liberal
Associations modelled after that of the capital: and thus the
representatives of the nation are chosen, as far as the Liberal
party is concerned, by the suffrage of a clique of demagogues and
wire-pullers, possessed of the confidence of a mere handful of the
population. This, then, is the sohition of the problem, and gives
a reason for the otherwise inexplicable fact that a nation —
reputed free, and endowed in an eminent degree with sound
common-sense — has submitted to the incapable and disastrous
administration of the men who now preside over its destinies.
Here we have a striking example of the deplorable state
of things which may be brought about, when those who have
a right to vote forget that at times it may also be a duty,
and prefer, from want of energy, or a culpable sacrifice to party
principles, to abdicate their rights and leave the direction of their
country to a noisy minority. The leading spirits of the Liberal
Association know well that their opinions are not shared by any
considerable section of the nation, and that they can only hope
to enforce them on the country by returning to office men entirely'
subservient to themselves, and who will never murmur against
their behests. It is clear that they have not usurped the authority
of the electors for the sake of allowing freedom of judgment and
independence of action to the elected. Their main object being the
destruction of religion, cost what it may to the country, and the-
triumph of their sectarian doctrines upon the ruin of the ancient
order of things, it was evidently not to men of large and upright
views that their cause could be confided. Those who would only
use their influence for the good of the whole nation ; who were
capable, not only of recognizing, but of acting on the principle'
that good government consists in legislating for each and all,
and not only for such as thought with themselves, would clearly
refuse to be guided in public life by the narrow and petty policy
of a clique. Consequently, the Liberal Association has jealously
excluded such politicians from public affairs. And this is natural;
for to put power into the hands of those who were bent upon
legislating on the principles of justice, be they Liberals or.

Prospects in Belgium. 497

Catholics, would be a suicidal act, and the surest means of defeat-
ing its own ends. Its mandatories, therefore, must look only to
the advancement of Liberal principles ; common justice must be
justice for Liberals only; every consideration opposed to the
realization of the Radical programme, no matter how conducive
it may be to the moral and material good of the country, must
be set aside. In proof of our theory, it is only necessary to read
the accounts of the examinations which Liberal candidates have
undergone at the meetings of the Association. To go to Mass or
attend Easter duties was pronounced a disqualification for
political distinction. In April of last year the caucus rejected
tor a senatorial election three candidates; two because convicted
of having been to confession ; a third for having contributed to
the building of a church, nothwithstanding that he was able to
prove satisfactorily that he had only done so as a commercial
speculation, and that personally he never entered a place of
worship. At another election two. candidates presented themselves
before the Association, whose only possible claims to a seat in
the Chamber, were based upon the intensity of their hatred of
religion, neither offering to bring forward any other test of
capacity as a legislator. The choice eventually fell upon the
President of the Society " La Libre Pensee/'' although his
opponent eloquently pleaded that he also had a stake in that
noble society, and, moreover, that he had two sons, neither of
whom had ever been baptized? It is hardly necessary to say
more upon this subject, and our readers will no longer be surprised
that an administration composed of such despicable individuals
is not likely to give proof of any great ability in the management
of affairs. What precedes will be sufficient to show whither
Belgium Liberalism is tending, and in what utter ruin it must
involve the country if it is ever successful in attaining its ends.
We can conceive of no system of despotism more crushing than
this, no more complete destruction of all that constitutes the
true and healthy life of a nation. Local and provincial liberties,
the greatest safeguard of political freedom, have, as we have
seen, been virtually annulled; the real force of Representative
Government has been paralyzed, and its benefits transformed by
reason of the encroachments of the Liberal Associations upon the
rights of the elector. Yet this is only a first step ; the designs
of Freemasonry extend over a much wider field, and are directed
towards the establishment of a far more complete dominion, not
only over men's actions, but over their minds and souls. The
negro under the most cruel of masters, the most oppressed serf
in the darkest province of Russia, v/as a free man compared with
what the peoples of the Continent will become, unless they arouse
themselves and throw off the iron yoke which modern Liberalism

498 The Days of Creation. A Reply.

is fastening around them. The tyranny which it seeks to establish
is more harsh and grinding than any the world has yet witnessed; it
is one that seeks to interfere with what men think and say as much
as with what they do; its aim is to take the child from the custody
of its parents, to stamp out alike largeness of principle and
individuality of character, to reduce free nations to the veriest
associations of slaves, curbed under one degrading and inexorable
law. Reverence of God, loyalty to men, honour, virtue, are all
vain words; are ignored, if not prohibited, in the godless creed
which it is sought to substitute for the ancient precepts of Chris-
tianity ; the equality which it writes on its banner is not that
which would raise us by directing the human mind to imitate what
is higher and nobler, but what would fain lower everything to one
dead, unworthy level ; its fraternity would develop hatred ; its
liberty we have seen means slavery. Catholics are then called
upon to defend the noblest of causes ; they stand, almost alone,
the advocates of liberty and the true rights of man. The old
type of Liberalism, in lielgium as in France, is fast disappearing,
its follow.ers are rapidly dwindling under the exigencies of the
New School, and the struggle is being concentrated between
Radicals and Catholics. Upon -the latter devolves the task for
the future of upholding not only their faith, but the independence
of their country, and its political and municipal liberties. It is
well, perhaps, that it should be so ; now that the contest has been
confined to its real issues, we may hope that a day will arrive
when the triumph of the religious party will prove once for all
that in the modern state true progress can only be made in
maintaining the union of Government and Religion, andthat those
who are now unwittingly forging the chains with which the
Secret Societies seek to bind them, will finally acknowledge that a
recognition of the rights of God is the only guarantee for the
security of those of man.

M^S9g««e<

Art VIII.— the DAYS OF CREATION. A REPLY.

^^HE article in the Dublin Review of last April, entitled ''The
JL Days of the Week and the Days of Creation,^' has evoked a
sharp controversy and a voluminous correspondence in the pages
of the Tablet. Some critics have expressed their doubts and
fears regarding the orthodoxy of the writer. It is not necessary
I should enter into any explanation on this point ; such fears can
only be entertained by persons who are unacquainted with the
decisions of the Churchy the writings of S. Augustine, and the

The Bays of Creation, A Beply. 499

liberty allowed by the Church and by theologians on all questions
connected with the history of Creation^ concerning which the
Church has not thought fit to pronounce an authoritative
judgment. The subject treated of in the essay is one about which
the Fathers of the Church and Catholic theologians have freely
adoj3ted distinct and even opposite views. There is no attempt
in the essay to dogmatize, or to claim for the views therein
expressed any further assent than what may be gained by the
arguments by which they are supported. Much less is there any
wish to forestall or gainsay any decision which the Catholic
Church may at any future time think proper to pronounce on the
questions treated of in the essay, the Catholic Church being the
one divinely constituted and authoritative judge of the true
meaning of every portion of Holy Writ. Apart from the question
of orthodoxy or heterodoxy, objections have been raised of a more
legitimate nature against the explanation given in the Article.
Several correspondents have complained that the theory is set
forth without sufficient proof being advanced in its support. It
seems, at all events, in the opinion of some that my proofs lack
clearness : this I will endeavour to supply. A correspondent,
who signs himself " M./' writes to the Tablet on the 28th of
May :—

While recognizing the Bishop's explanation to be quite admissible
as an hypothesis, there are not a few who will desire some more distinct
proof than the article in the Dublin Keview affords, that his theory
is correct. " When it is said (the Bishop writes) that certain works
were performed on certain days of the week, nothing more is implied
than that those days are consecrated to the memory of the works
referred- to." Now, passing by the question whether or not anything
more is implied, there is some difficulty about discovering on what
precise argument, or arguments, the Bishop relies to demonstrate that
this at least is implied.

The argument on which I rely is twofold. First, I have
endeavoured to prove that the words of Moses admit of being so
interpreted ; therefore, the proposed interpretation onay be the
true one. Secondly, I have adduced a large body of evidence to
show that, while this interpretation removes all ground of conflict
between the words of Moses and modern science, it harmonizes, in
a most striking manner, with all that we know of the office, the
character, and the mission of Moses, with the manners and
customs of the people amongst whom he lived and for whose
instruction and guidance he wrote, with the particular class of
errors and dangers against which he had to contend, and the
truths he had to impress upon his people ; it is, moreover, in
harmony with science'as it was in the days when Moses wrote, and
Z'^ VI. — NO. II. [Third Series.] l l

500 The Days of Creation. A Reply.

in which he was learned. A similar mass of evidence has never
been adduced in support of any one of the various other interpreta-
tions which have hitherto been proposed. Since, therefore^ the
words of Moses "may be so interpreted, and since, when so
interpreted, they are found on the one hand to avoid all collision
with scientific facts, whilst on the other hand they are shown on
independent evidence to be in wonderful harmony with the persons,
manners, customs, and other circumstances of the time when they
were written, there is certainly grave reason for concluding that
the proposed meaning is the one intended by Moses himself. The
argument may not amount to a demonstration ; indeed, it may be
doubted whether demonstration is possible in a question of this
nature, but the evidence is strong in itself, and certainly stronger
than that adduced in support of any other interpretation.

In order to show that the words of Moses may be interpreted
in the manner indicated, I have had to establish two propositions.
The first is this : That if a statement asserting tliat a given event
took place on a certain day forms part of an historical narrative,
the ordinary usage of language requires us to accept that state-
ment in its literal sense, and as fixing the date on which that
event occurred ; but that it is otherwise if the statement occurs,
not in an historical, but in a ritual connection, as, for instance,
in a calendar of festivals, or in a liturgy, or in a sacred hymn;
for in such cases nothing more need be implied than that the
event is commemorated on the .day specified. This rule of inter-
pretation is supported in the essay by examples, the force of
which has remained unchallenged. Opponents of the essay have
restricted their objections to my second proposition — viz., that
the language of Moses regarding the six days of Creation does
not form part of an historical narrative, but occurs in a sacred
hymn or a ritual ordinance. This proposition is supported in the
essay both by the authority of learned men and by internal
evidence. Some further proofs I will adduce presently; but first I
shall ende^^vour to remove what seems to be a misconception of my
meaning when I have spoken of the words of Moses having been
used in a ritual connection. " We are told,^' writes the same
correspondent *'M.,^' ^Hhat the hymn with which Genesis opens
was connected in some way with the Jewish ritual. Is there no
scrap of evidence to show that the Jews did commemorate by some
ritualistic observance the creation of light ? A festival in the
Jewish Calendar, entitled *^The Epiphany^ (of light), would
seem the most suitable complement of this dedication of
Moses.''

I have included under the term " ritual"" all statements having
reference to, or arising out of, the religious observances of a people,
in contradistinction to statements that are strictly historical.

I

The Days of Creation. A Reply. 501

Thus the heathen dedication of the days of the week to the sun
and planets — ^the names of Sun-day , Moon-day, Mars-day, &c. —
is neither an historical nor astronomical arrangement. It was
made for reasons connected with the idolatrous rites of the
peoples. Hence, I call it a ritual arrangement. In like manner,
and for a similar reason, I have designated as a ritual arrange-
ment the dedication made by Moses. I am not aware that any
special festival among the heathens took its rise from the fact of
the first day of the week having been dedicated to thy sun : why^
then, should anything of the kind be sought for as a complement
to the dedication made by Moses ? Each dedication was a work
complete in itself, and there it ended. " Well, what came of it?"
inquires " M" I reply that the heathen dedication of each day of
the week to a false divinity became a powerful means of keeping
alive idolatry amongst the people. The counter dedication of
Moses was a powerful agent in the contrary direction. Nothing
more was expected to come of it, and nothing did. A festival of
^'The Epiphany" of light would not have been a fit complement
of the dedication of Moses. The great truth that Moses at
all times was anxious to press on the minds of the people was,
that God is the Creator of all things. He would not refer to
God as Creator of some particular thing (such, as light), unless
there were some special reason for doing so. The special reason
in the case of the dedication of the days of the week is obvious,
because (as explained in the essay) in no other way could he
dedicate each day of the week to the true God, and at the same
time distinguish one day from the other.

Turning to the objections directed against the assertion that
the words of Moses regarding the six days do not occur in an
historical but in a ritual connection; Exodus, it is urged, is
beyond doubt an historical book, and in Exodus we read (xx. 11): —
" In six days the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea, and
all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day,
therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.'^
The answer is, that Exodus is indeed an historical book, but
it contains other things besides history. The Canticle of Moses,
for instance, which is inserted in chapter xv., is undoubtedly
poetry, and must be construed according to the rules of poetry.
Many ritual ordinances are recorded in Exodus, and these (like the
Canticle) do not change their character because they happen to
be recorded in a book of history. Exodus is not a history of the
Creation of the world, but of the deliverance of the Israelites
out of Egypt. Amongst other things it records the promulgation
of the ten commandments, one of which enjoins that the seventh,
day of the week shall be kept holy. It is a ritual ordinance,
a special covenant between God and the Jewish people, which

LL 2

502

The Bays of Creation. A Reply.

ceased to be in force at the abrogation of the Jewish dispensation.
This has been clearly shown in the essay. The circumstance that
this ordinance is recorded in an historical book does not in any
degree alter the ritual character of the ordinance itself. The
words, "For in six days the Lord created heaven and earth,"
are not part of the history of Exodus, but form part of the
ritual ordinance therein recorded. The six and seventh days,
spoken of in verse 11, as the days in which God made the world ,
and then rested, are no other than those spoken of in verses 9 and
10 — viz., the days of the week : and when a ritual ordinance
recites that the first six days of the week are those on which God
worked, and that the seventh is the day on which He rested, the
statement must be interpreted like other ritual documents, that
those days are commemorative of those facts. The ordinance
does not cease to be a ritual ordinance by the fact of its being
recorded in a book of history.

To the arguments brought forward in the essay in proof of
the first chapter of Genesis not being an historical narrative but
a sacred hymn, I would add the following : A correspondent
who signs himself '^T.,''"' in the Tablet of May 14th, calls atten-
tion to the use made in Genesis of the word toledoth which
the Vulgate translates " generationes." Without entering upon
a discussion as to the various shades of meaning assigned by
scholars to this word, it is sufficient for our purpose to remark
that its import is always to announce a history of some kind.
The use made of it by the writer of Genesis deserves special
attention. He comprises the history of the Jewish people from
the beginning of the world down to the time when they
established themselves in Egypt, under ten sections, each of
which he prefaces by the words, '' These are the generations,"
toledoth, of so-and-so. The sections are as follows : —

1. "These are the generations of the heaven and the earth" —
Chap. ii. 4, to end of chap. iv. This section contains the history
of the Creation and the Fall.

2. *^This is the book of the generation of Adam" — Chap. v.
to chap vi. 8. A list of the descendants of Adam down to
Noe.

3. "These are the generations of Noe" — Chap. vi. 9, to chap,
ix. 29. The history of the deluge, and subsequent events,
down to the death of Noe.

4. "These are the generations of the sons of Noe" — Chaps.
X. to xi. 9. Enumeration of the descendants of the three so]
of Noe, and history of their dispersion.

5. "These are the generations of Sem" — Chap. xi. 10-26J
A list of the descendants of Sem down to Thare, the father o^
Abraham.

The Days of Creation, A Reply. 503

6. "These are the generations of Thare" — Chap. xi. 27 to
chap. XXV. 11. The history of Thare and his family — viz.,
Abraham, Nachor, Aran, and Lot. Ends with the death of
Abraham.

7. "These are the generations of IsmaeP — Chap. xxv. 12-19.
A brief account of Ismael, eldest son of Abraham.

8. " These are the generations of Isaac, the son of Abraham^^
— Chap. xxv. 19 to chap. xxxv. 29. The history of Isaac and
his family, from the time of the death of his father, Abraham,
down to his own death.

9. " These are the generations of Esau, the same is Edom"
— Chap, xxxvi. The history of the descendants of Esau.

10. " And Jacob dwelt in the land of Chanaan, wherein his
father sojourned, and these are his generations" — Chap, xxxvii.
1, to the end of Grenesis. The history of Jacob and his family,
from the time of the death of his father, Isaac, down to his own
death and the establishment of his sons in the land of Egypt.

Here, then, we see that the whole of Genesis is divided by its
author into ten distinct narratives, each of which is prefaced by
the heading, " These are the generations " of so-and-so. These
ten narratives, " generationes,-'-' toledoth, cover the whole of the
Book of Genesis, with the exception of the first chapter. If this
chapter be really an historical narrative of how the world was
created in six days, what would have been more appropriate than
the heading, " This is the book of the generations (toledoth) of
the heaven and the earth"? Yet this is the only portion of
Genesis to which such a title has been denied by its author.
Why so ? Surely for the very reason that it is not a narrative
or history, bat something quite distinct — viz., a dedicatory hymn.

In the essay I had said, " That which we call the first chapter
of Genesis forms, in reality, no portion of that book. It is a
composition complete in itself, and as totally distinct from all that
follows as the Epistle to the Romans is distinct from the Epistle
to the Corinthians, which is the next in order.*" I added, " Ther.e
is nothing, however, to prevent our supposing that Moses not
only wrote this hymn, but that he himself assigned to it the
position which it occupies at the head of his works.^' Thus the
only connection assigned between the hymn and the history was
one of order and juxtaposition, which might be due either to
Moses himself or to some later compiler of his works. The learned
Er. Corneli, S.J., professor of Sacred Scripture in the Gregorian
University in Home, in a kind and complimentary letter addressed
to me on the subject of my essay, has remarked that the interpre-
tation advocated in the essay is strengthened, rather than
weakened, if we regard the first chapter of Genesis as forming
an integral portion of the book. He regards the five books of

504^

The Days of Creation. A Reply.

the Pentateuch as parts of one continuous work, the arrangement
no less than the authorship of* which he assigns to Moses. In
that case, he remarks, the hymn contained in the first chapter
of Genesis forms a fitting poetic prologue to the whole work, and
the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy is its poetic epilogue.
There is force in this remark, and I certainly think that the
learned professor is right in claiming for the hymn a more inti-
mate connection with the rest of Genesis than I had ascribed to
it in my essay. It is a composition • complete in itself^ and was
probably written and in use before the history was begun, but it
was prefixed to the history by the author himself, as a fitting
prologue to the work of which it henceforward formed an integral
portion.

A critic has expressed astonishment that any Catholic should
call in question the fact of the first chapter of Genesis forming
an integral portion of that book, in opposition to what he con-
siders to be the express declaration of the Council of Trent. But
if he had carefully attended to the words of the Council, he would
have seen that his astonishment was not well grounded. The
Council declares that the five books of Moses, with all their parts,
as they are contained in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition, are to
be accepted as sacred and canonical: and so they are accepted
by every Catholic. But it does not declare that every portion of
those books, as they now stand in the Latin Vulgate, formed part
of the same books as they originally came forth from the hand
of the author. It is not an article of Catholic faith that Moses
wrote the account of his own death and burial. The thirty-fourth
chapter of Deuteronomy, in which these facts are recorded, is
acknowledged to have been added to the original book of Moses
by a later hand. But, whoever was the writer and whatever the
date at which the addition was made. Catholics accept that
chapter as sacred and canonical, because it forms part of the book
of Deuteronomy as contained in the old Latin Vulgate, every portion
of which the Sacred Council has declared to be sacred and canonical.
In like manner, the first chapter of Genesis, as contained in the
Vulgate, is undoubtedly sacred and canonical. But whether
Moses originally wrote it as a portion of that book, or as an
independent composition, which was afterwards prefixed to the
book, is a question which may be mooted salva fide.

I think I have said enough regarding the proof brought
forward in support of my first two propositions, from which I
have drawn the conclusion that the interpretation given by me
does no violence to the words of. Moses, and therefore "tnay
possibly be the true one. As for the large body of evidence
which I have brought forward in the essay to show that the pro-
posed interpretation harmonizes in a perfect way with all that we

Tlw Bays of Creation. A Reply. 505

know of Moses, his office, his mission, his learning, the times in
which he lived, and the people with whom he dealt, it has been
simply ignored by those who have assailed the essay. Yet it is
on this evidence the value of the proposed interpretation mainly
depends. For, if it be granted that a given interpretation may
be true, what stronger proof can be adduced that it is the actual
meaning intended by the author than to show the perfect
harmony of such an interpretation with all the author's surround-
ings? Such proof is indirect in its nature, but it gains force from
that very circumstance, provided the harmony be established on
a sufficiently wide scale. Assuredly the proofs set forth in the essay
to show the harmony between the proposed interpretation and
the surroundings of the author are such as cannot be adduced in
favour of any other interpretation.

There are some subordinate statements in the essay (writes
the correspondent " M.") that require confirmation ; one is the following :
"A day means the space of twenty-four hours in this as in other
portions of the writings of the same author." The Bishop's argument
requires that the premiss shall be accepted as a universal affirmative ;
but this is simply irreconcileable with such a text, for instance, as
Oenesis ii. 4: — " In the day that the Lord God made the heaven and
the earth," &c.

The words in the essay are not used as a premiss to an argu-
ment, but occur in the summing up at the close of the essay. All
that they are intended to imply is that, when Moses speaks of the
six clays J he is speaking of days of twenty-four hours, in the
ordinary sense of the word, and not of indefinite periods of
time, as the advocates of the *' period " theory maintain. There
is no intention to deny either that the word " day " in Genesis
ii. 4, is taken in the wider sense of time (as when we
speak of the "day of sorrow^' and the *^ day of joy"); or that
in Genesis i. 5, it is taken in the more restricted sense
of that portion of the day which is illumed by the light of
the sun. There was no reason why I should enter into these
details in the summing up of the essay. These are uses of a word
which are readily understood ; but they give no support to the
" period '' theory, which assumes that throughout the first chapter
of Genesis the definite statements of Moses concerning the six days
may be understood in the same indefinite sense as in chap. ii. 5.
For questions of this kind we must be guided by the usages of
mankind.

If I speak of " the day when the wild Northman ravaged the
-coasts of England,''^ everybody understands what I mean ; nor
would anybody suppose me to imply that the period of devastation
was limited to twenty-four hours any more than that the havoc

506 The Days of Creation. A Rei^ly.

was done by a single Northman. But if I were to state that four
days elapsed between the landing of Julius Csesar on the coast of
Britain and the landing of William the Conqueror; that the
Romans held Britain one day ; that on their departure the Saxons
got possession and held it from morning to evening of the second
day ; that from morning till evening of the third day it was held
by the Danes ; that on the fourth day the Saxons again got
possession, till, finally, on the fifth day the Normans conquered the
country and held it — such language would be judged to be con-
trary to all established usage ; nor could it be justified on the
ground that the word "day," as everybody admits, may sometimes
be used in the indefinite sense of a period of time.

The essay in the Dublin Review has caused alarm in the
minds of some of its critics. They regard it as truckling to
" modern theories." So long as Catholic writers, treating on
subjects which come within the limits or touch on the boundaries
both of revealed truth and of scientific research, are careful to keep
themselves informed of what has been decided in such matters by
the authority of the Church, and what has been left open to
inquiry by the same divinely appointed guide ; so long as they
do not advance their opinions on such grave matters rashly and
impertinently, but show grave and probable reasons in. support of
their views ; so long as they do not dogmatize or offend against
charity ; and so long as they unreservedly admit that on these,
as on all other questions, it belongs to the Church to judge of the
true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures, the discussion of
such questions in a scientific Catholic Review can give no just
cause for alarm. There would, be far more reason for alarm if
Catholic students and Catholic writers showed'apathy or contempt
of what are in truth among the burning religious questions of the
day. Many of the questions which have agitated the Church,
in former times, and which still remain of deep interest to
theologians, attract but little notice from the present generation
of mankind. The wonderful discoveries of modern science, on
the other hand, possess an immense fascination for all thoughtful
minds, both old and young. The conclusions at which scientific
men have arrived, concerning the early stages of our globe and
of our race, have undoubtedly the appearance, in more instances
than one, of being irreconcileable with what we find recorded in
Holy Scripture on these same subjects. These apparent contra-
dictions are a real stumbling-block in the path of many believers,
as well as of sincere inquirers after religious truth. It is the
office of the apologist to strengthen the faith of the former and
to aid the researches of the latter. Difficulties are not removed
and faith is not strengthened by a few flippant sneers directed
against scientific men^ or by a few platitudes about the liability

The Days of Creation. A Reply. 507

of all men to err. Instead of strenorthenins: the faith of vvaverers,
such treatment disgusts and repels men who have made them-
selves acquainted in any degree with the conscientious and
patient researches on which scientific men ground their facts and
theories. The only way in which the apologists of Revelation
can expect successfully to meet those theories is either by point-
ing out the fallacies, where fallacies exist, in the arguments of
scientific men, or by explaining how it is that the statements of
science and of Holy Scripture are not really at variance with
each other. It is not to be expected of the Christian Apologist
that he should be able to give a full and satisfactory solution
of every new difficulty as it arises, any more than that the
man of science should be able to assign at once the vera
causa of what he does not hesitate to accept as an un-
doubted fact. Both are often obliged to be content at first
with a tentative solution of the difficulty, and it frequently
happens that only after many failures the real solution is arrived
at. Hence the advantage of putting forward theories such as
the one propounded in the late essay in the Dublin Review.
Each new suggestion, if supported by reasonable arguments, even
if ultimately it be found untenable, tends to further the cause of
harmony and truth. The novelty of the theory is no argument
against its truth. If the explanations hitherto given of the first
chapter of Genesis prove to be unsatisfactory (and no one of them
has so far met with general acceptance), it stands to reason that
the true explanation, whenever it shall be forthcoming, must be
to some extent a new one. The writings of the Fathers of the
Church can only afford us limited aid in researches of this kind.
The objections we have to meet had no existence in their days ;
for they are founded on discoveries which, for the most part, do
not date further back than half a century. The Fathers and the
Scholastics met scientific objections with arguments drawn from
the science of their days. It would be unreasonable to regard as
satisfactory solutions of the problems of to-day answers which
were framed to meet problems of an entirely different nature.
New objections require new answers. " New wine they put into
new bottles" (Matt. ix. 17), and '^ Every scribe instructd in the
Kingdom of Heaven is like to a man that is a householder, who
briugeth forth from his treasury new things and old" (Matt,
xiii. 52).

►J^ William Clifford, Bishop of Clifton.

( 508 )

CONSTITUTION OF POPE LEO XIII.

KEGAKDING THE BISHOPS AND REGULAR MISSIONARIES IN
ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

LEO EPISCOPVS

SEEYYS SEEVOEYM DEI

AD PERPETVAM REI MEMORIAM.

ROMANOS Pontifices Decessores Nostros paterno semper caritatis
affectu inclytam Anglorum gentem fovisse, et monumentis snis
testatur historia, et felicis recordationis Piux IX., in Litteris
Universalis Ecclesia iii kalend. Octobris anno Incarnationis Dominicae
MDCCCL. datis, graviter ac diserte demonstravit. Quum aiitem per
eas Litteras episcopalem hierarchiam idem Pontifex inter Anglos
restitueret, cumulavit quodammodo, quantum temporum ratio sinebat,
ea benefacta quibus Apostolica Sedes nationem illam fuerat prosequuta.
Ex dioecesium enim restitutione pars ilia dominici gregis ad nuptias
Agni caelestis iam vocata, ac mystico Eius corpori sociata, pleniorem
veritatis atque ordinis firmitatem per Episcoporum gubernationem
et regimen rursus adepta est. JEpiscopi quippe, inquit S. Irenaeus,*
successionem liahent ah Apostolis^ qui cum Episcopatus successione
charisma veritatis cerium, secundum placitum Fatris, acceperunt ; atque
inde fit, quemadmodum S. Cyprianus monetf, ut Ecclesia super Epis-
copos constituatur, et omnis actus Ecclesiae per eosdem Praepositos
guheimetur.

Huic sane sapienti consilio mirifice respondit eventus ; plura
nimirum Concilia provincialia celebrata, quae saluberrimis legibus
religiosa dioecesium negotia ordinarunt : latius propagata in dies
catholica fides, et complures nobilitate generis et doctrina praestantes
ad unitatem Ecclesiae revocati : clerus admodum auctus : auctae
pariter religiosae domus, non modo ex regularibus ordinibus, sed ex
iis etiam recentioribus institutis, quae moderandis adolescentium
moribus, vel caritatis operibus exercendis optime de re Christiana et
civili societate meruerunt : constituta pia laicorum sodalitia : novae
missiones novaeque Ecclesiae quamplures erectae, nobili instructu
divites, egregio cultu decorae ; permulta etiam item condita orphanis
alendis hospitia, seminaria, collegia et scholae, in quibus pueri et
adolescentes frequentissimi ad pietatem ac litteras instituuntur.

Cuius quidem rei laus non exigua tribuenda est Britannicae gentis
ingenio, quod prout constans et invictum est contra vim adversam, ita ll|
veritatis et rationis voce facile flectitur, ut proinde vere de ipsis

* Adv. haer. lib. IV., cap. 26, n. 2.

+ Epist. 29 adlapsos.

Constitution of Pope Leo XIII. 509

dixerit Tertullianus Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo
subiecta* At praecipuum sibi laudis meritum vindicant cum assidua
Episcoporum vigilantia turn Cleri universi docilis ad parendum
voluntas, prompta ad agendum sollertia.

Nihilominus quaedam ex ipsa rerum conditione ortae difficultates
dissensusque inter sacrorum Antistites et sodales ordinum religiosorum
obstiterunt, quominus uberiores fructus perciperentur. llli enim,
cum praescripta fuisset per memoratas Litteras Praedecessoris Nostri
communis iuris observantia, rati sunt se posse omnia decernere quae
ad ipsius iuris executionem pertinent, quaeve ex generali Ecclesiae
disciplina Episcoporum potestati permissa sunt. Plures contra gravesque
causae prohibebant, ne peculiaris missionum disciplina, quae iam in-
veteraverat, repente penitus aboleretur. Ad has propterea difficultates
avertendas et controversias iiniendas Angliae Episcopi, pro sua in banc
Apostolicam Sedem observantia, Nos adiere rogantes, ut suprema
auctoritate Nostra dirimerentur.

Nos vicissim baud gravate eam postulationem excepimus, tum quia
nobilem illam nationem non minore quam Decessores Nostri bene-
volentia complectimur, tum quia nihil Nobis est antiquius, quam ut
sublatis dissidii causis stabilis ubique vigeat mutua cum caritate con-
cordia. Quo gravius autem et cautius a Nobis indicatio fieret, non
modo iis quae ultro citroque adducebantur iuribus et auctoritatibus
diligenter animum adiecimus, sed etiam sententiam perrogavimus Con-
gregationis specialiter deputatae aliquot S. 11. E. Cardinalium e duobus
sacris Consiliis, quorum alterum Episcoporum et Regularium negotiis
expediendis praeest, alterum christiano nomini propagando. Hi, cunctis
accurate exploratis quae in deliberationem cadebant, et rationum
momentis, quae afferebantur utrinque, religiose perpensis, fideliter
Nobis exposuerunt quid aequius melius de singulis quaestionibus
decernendum sibi videretur in Domino. Audito itaque memoratorum
Cardinalium consilio causaque probe cognita, supremum indicium
Nostrum de controversiis ac dubitationibus quae propositae sunt per
hanc Constitutionem pronunciamus.

Multiplex licet varieque implexa sit congeries rerum quae in dis-
ceptationem vocantur, omnes tamen ad tria potissimum capita commode
redigi posse arbitramur, quorum alterum ad familiarum religiosarum
exemptionem pertinet ab episcopali iurisdictione ; alterum ministeria
respicit, quae a regularibus missionariis exercentur ; tertium quaes-
tiones complectitur de bonis temporalibus deque usu in quem ilia
oporteat converti.

Ad regularium exemptionem quod attinet, certa et cognita sunt
canonici iuris praescripta. Scilicet quamvis in ecclesiastica hierarchia,
quae est divina ordinatione constituta, presbyteri et ministri sint
inferiores Episcopis, horumque auctoritate regantur ;| tamen quo
melius in religiosis ordinibus omnia essent inter se apta et connexa,
ac sodales singuli pacato et aequabili vitae cursu uterentur ; denique

* Lib. adv. iudaeos cap. 5. + Concil. Trid. sess 23, de sacram. ord. can. 7.

510

Constitution of Pope Leo XIII.

ut esset incremento et perfectloni religiosae conversationis * consultum,
hand immerito Komani Pontitices, quorum est dioeceses describere, ac
suos cuique subditos sacra pote state regundos adtribuere, Clerum
Eegularem Episcoporum iurisdictione exemptum esse statuerunt.
Cuius rei ]ion ea fuit causa quod placuerit religiosas sodalitates potiore
conditione frui quam clerum saecularem ; sed quod earum domus
habitae fuerint iuris fictione quasi territoria quaedam ab ipsis
dioecesibus avulsa. Ex quo factum est ut religiosae familiae. quas iure
communi et Episcopis propter hieraticum principatum, et Pontifici
maximo propter primatum Pontificium immediate subesse oporteret,|
in Eius potestate esse perrexerint, ex Episcoporum potestate per pri-
vilegium exierint. Quum autem re ipsa intra fines diocesium vitam
degant, sic huius privilegii temperata vis est, ut sarta tecta sit dioe-
cesana disciplina, adeoque ut clerus regularis in mulfcis subesse debeat
episcopali potestati sive ordinariae sive delegatae.

De hoc itaque privilegio exemptionis dubitatum est, num eo. mu-
niantur religiosi sodales, qui in Anglia et Scotia missionum causa
consistunt : hi enim ut plurimum in privatis domibus terni, bini,
interdum singuli, commorantur. Et quamvis Benedictus XIY. in
Constit. Apostolicum Ministeriiim, iii kalen. lunii anno Incarnationis
Dominicae mdccliii, memoratos missionarios regulares privilegio per-
frui declaraverit, subdubitandum tamen Episcopi rursus in praesens
existimabant, eo quod, restituta episcopali hierarchia, rem catholicam
ad iuris communis formam in ea regione gubernari oportet. lure autem •
communij constitutum est, ut domus, quae sodales religiosos sex
minimum non capiant in potestate Episcoporum esse omnino debeant.
Insuper ipse Constitutionis Auctor visus est ponere privilegii causam
in " publici regiminis legibus .... quibus coenobia quaecumque
prohibentur ; " hanc vero causam compertum est fuisse sublatam, quum
plures iam annos per leges illius regni liceat religiosis sodalibus in
collegia coire.

Nihilominus haec tanti non sunt, ut reapse privilegium defecisse
iudicemus. Nam quamvis hierarchiae instauratio I'aciat, ut res catholica
apud Anglos ad communem Ecclesiae disciplinam potentialiter revocata
intelligatur : adhuc tamen res ibi geruntur eodem fere modo atque in
missionibus geri solent. lamvero sacrum Consilium christiano nomini
propagando pluries declaravit, Constitutiones dementis VIII Quoniam
ix kal. lulii mdciii, Gregorii XV Cum alias xvi kalen. Septemb.
MDCXxii, Urbani VIII Romanus Pontijex v kalen. Septemb. mdcxxiv,
itemque Constitutiones Innocentii X non esse de domibus atque hospitiis
missionum intelligendas. § Ac merito quidem ; nam quum dubium
iamdudum fuisset propositum Clementi VIII, utrum religiosi viri ad
Indos missi in culturam animarum existimandi essent quasi vitam

* S. Gregor. M. Epist. III. Lib. IX,— Bened. XJV. Epist. Decret. Axjostolicce
servitutis, prid. Idus Mart. 1742.

t Concil. Vatic. Constit. Pastor aeternus, cap. 3.

+ Innocent. X Constit. Instaurandae, die 15 Octob. 1652. Constit. Ut in parvis,
die 10 Februar. 1654.

§ iS. Cong, de Prop, fide 30 lanuarii 1627 ; 27 Martii 1631 ; 5 Octobris 1655 ;
23 Septembris 1805 ; 29 Martii 1834.

[

Constitution of Pope Leo XIII. 511

degentes extra coenobii septa, proindeque Episcopis subesse Tridentina
lege iuberentur, Pontifex ille per Constitutionem Religiosoi^m quorum-
cumque vi Idus Novembris mdci decreverat eos " repiitandos esse tam-
quani religiosos viventes intra claustra" quamobrem " in concernen--
tibus curam animarum Ordinario loci subesse ; in reliquis vero non
Ordinario loci, sed suis superioribus subiectos remanere." Neque
aliud sensit indicavitque Benedictus XIV in suis Constitutionibus
Quamvis v kalen. Martii mdccxlvi ; Cum nuper vi Idus Novembris
MDCCLi, et Cum alias v Idus lunii mdccliii. Ex quibus omnibus
liquet, etiam hospitia ac domos quantumvis incolarum paucitate in-
frequentes huius, de quo agitur, privilegii iure comprehendi, idque
non in locis solum ubi Vicarii apostolici, sed etiam ubi Episcopi
praesunt ; de Episcopis enim in Constitutionibus, quas memoravimus,.
agebatur. Apparet insuper rationem potissimam exemptionis mis-
sionariorum regulariuni in Anglia non esse exquirendam in legibus
civilibus, quae coenobiis erigendis obessent ; sed magis in eo salutari
ac nobilissimo ministerio quod a viris apostolicis exercetur. Quod
non obscure Benedictus XIV significavit inquiens, " regulares Angli-
canae missioni destinatos illuc proficisci in bonum sanctae nostras
religionis." Eamdemque causam pariter attulerat Clemens VIII, cum
de sodalibus religiosis ad Indos profectis docuerat, ipsos antistitum
suorum iussu illuc concessisse, ibique sub disciplina praefecti pro-
vinciae versari *'ad praedicandum sanctum Dei evangelium et viam
veritatis et salutis demonstrandam." Hinc post sublatas leges sodalitiis
regularibus infensas, et hierarcliia catholica in integrum restituta,
ipsi Britannorum Episcopi in priori Synodo Westmonasteriensi testati
sunt, rata sibi privilegia fore, " quibus viri religiosi suis in domibus
vel extra legitime gaudent " quamvis " extra monasteria ut plurimum
degant."

Quamobrem in praesenti etiam Ecclesias catholicae apud Britannos
conditione declarare non dubitamus : Regulares, qui in residentiis
missionum commorantur, exemptos esse ab Ordinarii iurisdictibne,
non secus ac regulares intra claustra viventes, praeter quam in casibus
a iure nominatim expressis, et generatim in iis quae concernunt curam
animarum et sacramentorum administrationem.

Praecipuam hanc quam definivimus controversiam altera excipiebat
affinis, de obligatione qua teneantur Rectores missionum creditam
habentes animarum curam, eorumque vicarii, aliique religiosi sodales,
facultatibus praediti quae missionariis conceduntur, ut intersint iis
Cleri conventibus, quos collationes seu conferentias voCant, neque non
. Synodis dioecesanis. Cuius quaestionis vis et ratio ut intelligatur
praestat memorare quod in Concilio Westmonasteriensi Provinciali
iv praecipitur his verbis : " Si duo vel plures sint sacerdotes in
eadem missione, unum tantum primum designandum, qui gerat curam

animarum et administrationem Ecclesiae ceteros omnes curam

quam habent animarum cum dependentia a primo exercere."* Com-
perta itaque natura facti de quo agitur, et semota tantisper ea quaes-

* Dec. 10. n. 10.

512 Constitution of Pope Leo XIII.

tionis parte quae Synodos respicit, ambigi nequit, quin Eectores
inissionum adesse debeant iis Cleri coetibus, qui collation es dicuntur.
Namque eorum causa eadem ferme est ac parochorum ; paroclios
autem etiam regulares ea obligatione adstringi et docuitBenedictusXYI.
Constit. Firmandis § *6 viii. Idus Novembr. mdccxliv, et sacrum
Consilium Tridentinis decretis interpretandis pluries declaravit.*
Recta igitur in praedicta Synodo Westmonasteriensi fuit constitutum
"Ad suam collationem tenentur convenire, respondere parati, omnes
sacerdotes saeculares et regulares, salvis eorum iuribus, qui curam
habent animarum." Aliter dicendum videretur de vicariis, aliisque
religiosis viris apostolica munia obeuntibus. His enim integrum
quidem est de iure constituto a memoratis collationibus abstinere, prout
alias fuit a sacra Congregatione Concilii declaratum.| At Nos minime
praeterit Concilium Romanum habitum anno mdccxxv. auctoritate
Benedicti XIII. iussisse confessarios omnes etiam ex ordinibus regu-
laribus intra fines provinciae conimorantes coetus illos celebrare
" dummodo morales in eorum conventibus lectiones non habeantur."
Quum autem quod sine effectu geritur id geri nullo modo videatur,
sacrum Consilium christiano nomini propagando merito existimans
domesticas regularium collationes in quibusdam missionum locis parum
fructuosas ob exiguum sodalium numerum futuras, cunctis et singulis
illic munere perfungentibus imperavit, ut Cleri conventibus interes-
sent. Hisce igitur rationibus permoti declaramus, omnes missionum
rectores Cleri collationibus adesse ex officio debere, simulque decerni-
mus ac praecipimus ut iisdem intersint vicarii quoque, aliique religiosi
viri missionariis facultatibus concedi solitis instructi, qui hospitia, par-
vasque missionum domos incolunt.

De officio conveniendi ad Synodum explorata Tridentina lex est]: :
" Synodi quoque dioecesanae quotannis celebrentur, ad quas exempti
etiam omnes, qui alias, cessante exemptione, interessi deberent, nee
capitulis generalibus subduntur, accedere tenentur. Ratione autem
parochialium aut aliarum saecularium ecclesiarum etiam adnexarum,
debent ii qui illarum curam gerunt, quicumque illi sint, Synodo
interesse." Quam legem egregie illustravit Benedictus XIV.§ Neque
vero putamus cuiquam negotium facessere decretum Alexandri VIII.,
iii. kalen. Aprilis mdcxci quo cavetur, ut ad synodum accedant
Abbates, Rectores, Praefecti, omnesque antistites domorum religiosarum
quas Innocentius X. Episcoporum potestati subiecerat. Quum enim
Innocentianae Constitutiones viros apostolicos, qui in sacris missionibus
versantur, non attingant, facile intelligitur, neque decretum Alexandri
VIII. ad eos, de quibus modo apud Nos agitur, pertinere. Quare huic
posteriori quaestionis parti hoc unum respondemus ; standum esse
decretis Synodi Tridentinae.

Proxima est quaestio quae respicit appellationem ab interpretatione,
quam Episcopi ediderint, decretorum synodalium. Namque hisce

* Forosempronien. 5 Septemb. 1650 Lib. 19 Decret.

t Forosempronien. 12 Mali 1681 Lib. 53 Deer. fol. 258 Aquipendien. W.
SS. LL. 12 Martii 1718. Z Sess. 24 cap. 2. de reform.

§ De Synod, dioec. lib. 3 cap. 1 § ii.

I

Constitution of Poioe Leo XIII. ■ 513

decretis pareant oportet etiam religiosi sodales in iis quae ad curam
animarum et sacranientorum administrationem referuntur,* ceterisque
in rebus " in quibus eos Episcoporum iurisdictioni subesse canonica
praecipiunt instituta."f Prefecto dubitare non licet quin ab iis inter-
pretationibus ad Sedeni Apostolicam provocatio sit; " siquidem,
Gelasio l.\ et Nicolao I.§ auctoribus, ad illam de qualibet mundi parte
canones appellari voluerunt : ab ilia autem nemo sit appellare per-
missus." Quare liuius appellationis tantummodo vis et efFectus
potest in dubitationem adduci. At haec dubitatio facile tollitur,
si apta fiat causarum distinctio. Fas est nimirum Regularibus
appellare in devolutivo tantum, quoad inter pretationem decretorum,
quae de iure communi, sive ordinario sive delegate, Regulares etiam
afficiunt ; quo vero ad interpretationem aliorum decretorum etiam in ■
suspensivo. Authentica namque interpretatio quae manat ab Episcopis,
qui Synodorura auctores sunt, tanti profecto est, quanti sunt ipsa de-
creta. Ex quo illud omnino est consequens, licere religiosis sodalibus
a primo decretorum genere appellare eo iure et modo, quo
licet cuilibet e dioecesi appellare a lege communi, scilicet in
devolutivo. \\ At vero ad reliqua decreta quod attinet, ea certe lata
contra regulares vim rationemque legis amittunt : quare constat illos
sic exemptionem a iurisdictione episcopal! possidere uti ante posse-
derint ; donee Pontificis maximi auctoritate iudicetur, iure ne an secus
cum iis actum sit.

Hactenus de exemptionis privilegio; nunc de iis quaestionibus
dicendum, quibus ministeria quaedam per regulares exercita occasionem
praebuerunt. Excellit inter haec munus curationis animarum, quod
saepe, ut innuimus, religiosis viris demandatur intra fines ab Episcopis
praestitutos ; locus autem iis finibus comprehensus missionis nomine
designatur. lamvero de his missionibus disceptatum fuit, an et quo-
modo fieri possit ab Episcopis earum divisio, seu, ut dici solet, dis-
membratio. Nam qui Eegularium iura tuebantur, negabant hanc
divisionem fieri posse nisi legitimis de causis, adhibitisque iuris
solemniis quae praescripta sunt ab Alexandre III.IT et a Concilio Tri-
dentino.** Alia vero erat Episcoporum opinatio.

Perfect© si divisio fiat paroeciae veri nominis, sive antiquitus conditae,
sive recentiore memoria iure constitutae, dubitandum non est quin
nefas sit Episcopo canonum praescripta contemnere. At Britannicae
missiones generatim in paroecias ad iuris tramites erectae non sunt :
idcirco sacrum Consilium christiano nomini . propagando anno
MDCCCLXVI officium applicandi missam pro populo ad Episcopum per-
tinere censuit, propterea quod dioecesium Britannicarum non ea sit
constitution ut in veras paroecias dispositae sint. Itaque ad divisionem
missionis simplicis ea iuris solemnia transferenda non sunt, quae super
dismembratione paroeciarum fuerunt constituta; eo vel magis quod

* Concil. Trid. sess. 25 cap. 11 de regular.

f Innoc. IV. cap. I. de pnvilcg. in 6.

X Epist, 7 adEpisc. Dardan. ann. 495 Tom. 2 collect Harduini.

§ Epist. 8 ad Michael- Jmperat. Tom. 5 collect. Harduini.

II Bened. XIV. de Sined Dioec. Lib. 13 cap. 5 § 12.

^ Cap. ad audientiam de Eccles. aedific. "'* Sess. 2 1 cap. 4 de reform.

514

Constitution of Pope Leo XIII.

propter missionum indolem et peculiares circumstantias, numero plures
ac leviores causae possint occurrere, quae istarnm divisionem suadeant,
quam quae iure definitae sint ut fiat paroeciarum divisio. Neve quis
urgeat similitudinem quam utraeque inter se habent : cum enim
obligatio servandi solemnia iuris libertatem agendi coerceat,
ad similes causas non est pertralienda. Silentibus itaque hac super
re generalibus Ecclesiae legibus, necesse est ut Concilii Provincialis
Westmonasteriensis valeat auctoritas, cuius hoc decretum est : " Nou
obstante rectoris missionarii deputatione, licebit Episcopo de consilio
Capituli, intra limites missionis cui praeponitur, novas Ecclesias con-
dere ac portionem di^trictus iis attribuere, si necessitas aut utilitas
populi fidelis id requirat." Quae cum sint ita, ad propositam consul-
tationem respondemus : licere Episcopis missiones dividere, servata
forma sancta Concilii Tridentini,* quoad missiones quae sunt vere pro-
prieque dictae paroeciae ; quoad reliquas vero, ad formam Synodi 1
Provincialis Westmonasteriensis. "j" Quo melius autem missioni quae
divide-nda sit, eiusque administris prospiciatur, volumus ac praecipimus,
ut sententia quoque rectoris exquiratur, quod iam accepimus lauda-
biliter esse in more positum : quod si a religiosis sodalibus missio
administretur, Praefectus Ordinis audiatur ; salvo iure appellandi, si res
postulet, a decreto episcopali ad Sanctam Sedem i?i devolutivo tantum.
Peracta missionis, cui regulares praesint, dismembratione, alia non-
nunquam quaestio suboritur : utrum nempe Episcopus in praeficiendo
Jtectore missioni, quae nova erigitur, ipsos religiosos sodales ceteris
debeat praeferre. — Quamvis illi banc sibi praerogativam adserant,
obscurum tamen non est, baud leves exinde secuturas difRcultates et
ofFensiones. Ceterum in ea, de qua sermo est, nova erectione necesse
est alterutrum contingere ; nimirum ut paroecia veri nominis, aut mera
missio constituatur. Si primum fieret, per quam alienum esset ab Ec-
clesiae disciplina e religiosa familia arcessitum parochum praeferri ; sic .
enim iure quod modo viget arcentur regulares a parochi munere,
ut illud suscepturi venia Apostolica indigeant. Ad rem Benedictus XIV.
in Constit. Cum miper, vi Idus Novembris mdccli, " Quemadmodum,
inquit, negari nequit, ex veteri canonum lege, monachos et regulares
ecclesiarum parochialium regiminis capaces fuisse, ita certum nunc est
ex recentiori canonica disciplina interdictum esse regularibus paro-
cbiarum curam adsumere sine dispensatione Apostolica." Hinc
sacrum Consilium Tridentinis decretis interpretandisj' ad dubium " an
annuendum sit precibus Patrum Augustinianorum de nova paroecia
iisdem concedenda" rescripsit — negative et amplius — . Sin autem,
quod secundo loco posuimus, mera missio ergitur, ius certe non obest
religiosis viris ne inter eos eligatur rector ; ast ne iis quidem praeferri
obtantibus suffragatur. Eem itaque integram et in sua potestate
positam aggrediens Episcopus, libertate sua utatur oportet ; ubi enim .
iura silent, loco legis est Praesulis auctoritas; praesertim vero quod,
ut doctorum fert adagium, Episcopus intentionem habetin iure fundatam

* Cap. 4 sess. 21 de reform.
t De regimine congregationum seu missionum n. 5.
± In lanuen. disraembrationis xxv. lauuarii mdccclxxix.

Constitution of Pope Leo XIII. . 515

in rebus omnibus, quae ad dioecesim suam administrandam attinent.
Quamobrem praelatio quoad novam missionem, a Regularibus expetita,
aut nulla iuris subsidio fulcitur, aut in disertam iuris dispositionem
offendit.

Officium curationis animarum sedulitati Eegularium comniissuin
alias etiam dubitationes gignit ; eaeque loca spectant finibus compre-
hensa missionum quae ab ipsis reguntur. Coepit enim ambigi utrum
coemeteria et pia loca, intra fines illarum sita, Episcopus visitare possit.
Ast in coemeteriis facilis ac prona suppetit distinctionis adeoque
finiendge controversiae ratio. Nam si de coemeteriis agatur quae solis
religiosis familiis reservantur, ea plane ab Episcopi iurisdictione,
proindeque a visitatione exempta sunt ; cetera vero fidelium multi-
tudini communia, quum uno ordine haberi debeant cum coemeteriis
paroecialibus, iurisdictioni Ordinariorum siibsunt indubitate, ac
propterea optimo iure ab Episcopo visitantur, quemadmodum statuit
Benedictus XIV in Constit. Firmandis viii Idus Novembris mdccxliv.
Haud absimili distinctione de locis piis'quaestio dirimitur, ea secernendo
quae exempta sunt ab iis quibus praeest Episcopus sive ordinario
iure, sive delegato. De utrisque igitur, turn coemeteriis tum
piis locis, sententiam Nostram paucis complectimur pronunciantes ;
sacrorum canonum et constitutionum Apostolicarum praescripta
esse servanda.

Superioribus dubiis arcto iungitur nexu illud quo quaeritur an
Episcopis subesse debeant scholae pauperum, quae elementares etiam,
■primariae, puerorum nuncupantur ; est enim sanctissimum docendi
ministerium, et proximum piis locis ordinem tenent scholae de quibus
agendum est. Quo illae pertineant ex ipso nomine dignoscitur ;
intendunt nimirum ad puerilem aetatem primis litterarum elementis
primisque fidei veritatibiis, ac morum praeceptis apte instituendam :
quae quidem institutio omnibus est temporibus, locis et vitae generibus
necessaria, ac multum habet momenti ad universae societatis humanae,
nedum singulorum hominum, incolumitatem ; ex puerili enim institu-
tione pendet, ut plurimum, qua quis ratione sit reliquae aetatis spatium
acturus. Itaque quid a docentibus eo loci praecipue praestandum sit
sapienter Pius IX significavit scribens, " In hisce potissimum scholis
omiies cuiusque e populo classis pueri vel a teneris annis sanctissimae
nostrae religionis mysteriis ac praeceptionibus sedulo sunt erudiendi
et ad pietatem morumque honestatem, et ad religionem civilemque
vivendi rationem accurate formandi, atque in iisdem scholis religiosa
praesertim doctrina ita primarium in institutione et educatione locum
habere ac dominari debet, ut aliorum cognitiones, quibus inventus ibi
imbuitur, adventitiae appareant."* — Nemo exhinc non intelligit istam
puerorum institutionem in Episcoporum ofEciis esse ponendam, et
scholas, de quibus agitur, tam in urbibus frequentissimis, quam in
pagis exiguis inter opera contineri quae ad rem diocesanam maxime
pertinent.

Insuper quod ratio suadet lux historiae confirmat. Nullum quippe

* Epibt. ad Archiep. Friburg. Cum non sine 'maxima xiv liiU MDCCCLXlv.
Acta vol. 3.

VOL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series] . M M

516 Constitution cf Pope Leo XIII.

fiiit tempus quo singularis non eluxerit Conciliorum cura in huiusmodi
scholis ordinandis ac tuendis, pro quibus plura sapienter constituerunt.
Eorum nempe decretis prospectum est ut illas Episcopi in oppidis et
pagis restitui et augeri curarent,* puerique ad discendum admitte-
rentur, qualibet, si fieri posset, impensa remissa.f Eorumdem auctoritate
dictae leges, quibus alumni religioni ac pietati operam darent,|
definitae dotes et ornamenta animi, quibus magistros praeditos esse
oporteret,§ iisque imperatum, uti iurarent iuxta formulam catholicae
professionis :|| demum scholarum curatores cons'tituti qui eas adirent,
ac circumspicerent nequid inesset vitii aut incommodi, neve quid
omitteretur ex iis rebus, quas de illarum disciplina leges dioecesanae
sanxissent.^ Ad haec, quum Patres Conciliorum probe intelligerent
parochos etiam pastoralis ministerii compotes esse, partes baud exiguas
iisdem tribuerunt in scholis puerorum, quarum cura cum animarum
curatione summa necessitate iungitur. Placuit igitur in singulis
paroeciis pueriles scholas constitui,** quibus nomen est parochialihus
impositumrtt iussi sunt parochi munus docendi suscipere, sibique
adiutricem operam magistrorum et magistrarum adsciscere :W iisdem
negotium datum scholas regendi et curandi diligentissime :§§ quae
omnia si non ex fide integreque gesserint, officium deseruisse arguun-
tur,|||| dignique habentur in quos Episcopus animadvertat.^^ In unum
ergo collineant argumenta ex ratione et factis petita, ut scholae, quas
pauperum vocant, institutis dioecesanis et paroecialibus praecipuo lure
adnumerandae sint ; eaque de causa Britannorum Episcopi ad banc
usque aetatem in missionibus tam saecularibus quam regularibus
easdem pro potestate sua visitare consueverunt. Quod et Nos probantes
declaramus : Episcopos ius habere quoad omnia visitandi huiusmodi
scholas pauperum in missionibus et paroeciis regularibus aeque ac
in saecularibus.

Alia profecto causa est ceterarum scholarum et collegiorum, in
quibus religiosi viri secundum ordinis sui praescripta iuventuti
catholicae instituendae operam dare solent ; in hisce enim et ratio
postulat et Nos volumus firma atque integra privilegia manere quae

* Synod. I Provincial. Camerac. tit. de scholis, cap. 1 — Synod provinc. Mechlin,
tit. de scholis, cap. 2. + Synod. Namurcen. an. 1604 tit. 2 cap. 1.

X Synod. Antuerpien. sub. Mireo tit. 9 cap. 3.

§ Synod. Cameracen. an. 1550.

II Synod. II. Provinc. Mechlinien. tit. 1 cap. 3.

IT Synod. II. Provinc. Mechlinien. tit. 20 cap. 4. — Synod. Provin. Pragen.
an. 1860, tit. 2 cap. 7.

** Synod. Valens. an. 529, can. 1. — Synod. Nannet. relat. in cap. 3. de vit et
hon. clericor. — Synod. Burdigal. an. 1583 tit. 27.

++ Synod. I. Provin. Mechlin, tit. de scholis cap. 2. — Synod. Provin. Colocen.
an. 1863, tit. 6. — Synod. Provin. apud Maynooth anno 1875.

+J Synod. Nannet. sup. cit. — Synod. Antuerp, sup. cit. — Synod. Prov. Burdig,
an. 1850. tit. 6 cap. 3.

§§ Synod. Prov. Vienn. ann. 1858, tit. 6 cap. 8. — Synod. Prov. Ultraiec. an.«|
1865, tit. 3 cap. 2.

II II Synod. Prov. Colocen. an. 1863, tit. 6 cap. 5. — Synod. Prov. Colonien. aiu
1860, tit. 2 cap. 23.— Synod. Prov. Ultraiect. an. 1863, tit, 9 cap. 5.

HH Synod. 1 Prov. Cameracen. tit. de /Scholis, cap. 2.

Constitution of Pope Leo XIII. 517

illis ab Apostolica Sede collata sunt, prout aperte est declaratum anno
MDCCCLXXJV a sacro Consilio christiano nomini propagando, quam acta
expenderentur Concilii Provincialis Westmonasteriensis iv.*

Qimm res in vado sit quod ad scholas attinet et collegia regularium
iam constituta, adhuc tamen est in ancipiti, si de novis erigendis agatur.
De his enini quaeritur ; an et cuius super ioris venia sit impetranda ?
Porro cum latius ea dubitatio pateat et ecclesiarum quoque ac coeno-
biorum erectionem pertingat, omnia haec unius quaestionis et iudicii
terminis complectimur. Atque hie primo occurrunt Decretales veteres,
quibus est cautum ne quid huiusmodi quisquam institueret absque
Sedis Apostolicae licentia speciali."]" Postmodum Tridentina Synodus
in eodem genere quidquam operum fieri prohibuit " sine Episcopi, in
cuius dioecesi erigenda sunt, licentia prius obtenta :";]: quo tamen
Concilii decreto haud est superioribus legibus derogatum, veniam^ ab
Apostolica Sede impetrari iubentibus. Quapropter cum ea in re
liberius passim ageretur, Urbanus VIII§ pravam consuetudinem
emendaturus, opera eiusmodi improbavit tarn quae sine venia Episcopi,
quam quae sola illius *auctoritate susciperentur et veterum canonum
simul Conciliique Tridentini leges omnino in posterum sevari decrevit.
— Hue etiam spectavit Innocentius X in Constitut. Inataurandae
Idibus Octobris mdclii, qua praecipit ut nemo ex familiis
regularibus domes vel loco quaecumque de novo recipere vel
fundare praesumat absque Sedis Apostolicae licentia speciali." Quare
communis hodie sententia est, cui favet passim rerum iudicatarum
auctoritas, non licere Regularibus, tam intra quam extra Italiam,
nova monasteria aut conventus sive collegia fundare, sola Episcopi
venia impetrata, sed indultam quoque a Sede Apostolica lacul-
tatem requiri.|l lisdem insistens vestigiis sacrum Consilium chris-
tiano nomini propagando pluries decrevit, veniam Apostolicae Sedis et
Episcopi aut Vicarii Apostolici ecclesiis coUegiisque erigendis, etiam
in missionibus, ubi religiosi sodales domes sedesque habeant, esse
omnino necessarian!. *|[ His ergo de causis ad propositum dubium
respondemus : sodalibus religiosis novas sibi sedes constituere, erigendo
novas ecclesias, aperiendove coenobia, collegia, scholas, nisi obtenta
prius expressa licentia Ordinarii loci et Sedis Apostolicae, non licere.

Fieri solet utique subtilior inquisitio, an duplex ea venia sit im-
petranda, si non prorsus novum opus regularis famiUa moliatur ; sed
ea quae sunt instituta velit in alios usus convertere. Verum neque
obscura neque anceps erit futura responsio, si varies, qui accidere
possunt, casus distinguamus. Initio enim quis serio dubitet, an ea quae
pietatis religionisque causa instituta sunt liceat in usus a religione et

* Decret. 26.

+ Cap, Keligiosorum, § confirmatas de relig. domib. et cap. Ex eo de excess,
praelat. in 6,

X Concil. Trident, sess, 25 cap. 3 de Regular.

§ Constit. Bomanus Pontifex xiii. kalen. Septembris 1624.

II Bened. XIV, de Synod diocces. lib. 9, cap. 1, num. 9. — Monacelli formul.
legal, part 1, tit. 6, form. 19, num. 31.

IT Sac. Congreg. de Prop. Fide in coetibus habitis diebus 22 Mart. 1669
5 Nov. 1688, 1704, 1768 ; 23 Aug. 1858 ; 30 Maii 1864 ; 17 lulii 1865.

M M 2

518 Constitution of Pope Leo XIIL

pietate alienos convertere ? Eestat itaque tit de tribus hisce dumtaxat
quaeratur, "utrum nempe liceat dimovere de loco instituta alioque
transferre : aut immutare in usum consentaneum, qualis esset si schola
in ecclesiam, coenobium in collegium, in domum pupillis aegrotisque
recipiendis, vel vicissim mutaretur ; aut demum, priore usu retento,
novam causam sive usum inducere. lam vero quominus duo ilia prima,
privata ipsorum auctoritate, religiosi sodales efficiant, obstat decretum
Bonifacii VIII, qui eos vetuit " ad habitandum domos vel loca quae-
cumque de novo recipere, sen hactenus recepta mutare."* Eursus
qui fieri potest ex duobus illis alterutrum, nisi res recidat in funda-
tionem novam " Monasteriorum, CoUegiorum, domorum, conventuum
et aliorum Regularium locorum huiusniodi ? " Atqui id perfici pro-
hibuit Urbanus VIII per Constitutionem Romanus Pontifex, nisi
" servata in omnibus et per omnia sacrorum canonum et Concilii
Tridentini forma." Sic unum superest de quo contendatur ; num
priore usu retento, nova causa vel usus adiici valeat. Tunc autem
pressius rem urgere opOrtet et accurate dispicere, utrum ea inductio
alterius usus ad interiorem administrationem, disciplinamque domes-
ticam spectet, velut si tirocinium aut collegium studiorum causa
iunioribus sodalibus in coenobio constituatur ; an fines interioris
administrationis sit excessura, puta si inibi schola fiat aut
collegium quod pateat etiam alienis. Plane si dictos fines excesserit,
res redit ad alterutram illarum, quae a Bonifacio VIII et Urbano VIII
fieri pro libito, ceu diximus, prohibentur. Sin autem intra limites
domesticae disciplinae mutatio contineatur, suo certe iure Regulares
utentur ; nisi forte leges fundat'ionis obsistant. Ex quibus singillatim
perpensis manifesto colligitur : Religiosis sodalibus non licere ea quae
instituta sunt, in alios usus convertere absque expressa licentia Sedis
Apostolicae et Ordinarii loci, nisi agatur de conversione, quae, salvis
fundationis legibus, referatur dumtaxat ad internum regimen et dis-
ciplinam regularem.

Nunc ad illud progredimur controversiae caput, in quo de tempora-
libus missionum bonis disputatum' est. Ex liberalitate fidelium ea
parta bona sunt, qui cum sua sponte et voluntate dona largiantur, vel
intuitu missionis id faciunt, vel eius qui missioni praeest. lam si
missionis intuitu donatio contigerit, ambigi solet, an viri religiosi quibus
donum sit traditum, accepti et expensi rationem reddere Episcopo
teneantur. Atque istud quidem fieri oportere, sacrum Consilium
christiano nomini propogando super dubio proposito ob missiones
Britannicas religiosis Ordinibus sive Institutis commissas die xix.
Aprilis MDCCCLxix., rescripsit in haec verba: " 1. Missionarii regulares
bonorum temporalium, ad ipsos qua regulares spectantium, rationem
Episcopis reddere non tenentur. 2. Eorum tamen bonorum, quae
missioni, vel regularibus intuitu missionis trib)uta fuerunt^ Episcopi
ius habent ab iisdem missionariis regularibus, aeque ac a Parochis cleri
saecularis, rationem exigendi." Quo vero tabulis accepti et expensi
ratio constaret, ^acer idem Coetus die x. Maii anno mdccclxviii., in

* Cap. Cum ex eo de excess, praelat, in G.

Constitution of Pope Leo XIIL 519

mandatis dederat ut bona missionum diligenter describerentur,
ea secernendo quae propria missionum essent ab iis quae ad sodalitia
sodalesve singulos pertinerent.

Nihil enimvero in his decernendis vel praecipiendis est
actum, quod iuris commuuis doctrinis vulgatissimis apprime non
congruat. Nam quae vis oblatio parocho aut alteri Ecclesiae
Eectori data piae cuiusdam causae intuitu, ipsimet piae causae
acquiritur. Ex quo fit^ ut qui rem pecuniamve oblatam accepit
administratoris loco sit, cuius est illam erogare iuxta mentem et con-
silium largitoris.* Quoniam vero administrantis officio incumbit
rationes actus sui conficere, eique reddere cuius res gesta fuit,+ ideo
parochus vel Ecclesiae Rector facere non potest quin rationes reddat
Ordinario loci, cuius est iurisdictio et causae piae tutela.J At
missiones, de quibus apud Nos actum fuit, pleno iure ad Episcopum
pertinent ; hide ergo cuiusque oblationis earum intuitu collectae
rationes oportent exhibere. Neque haec ex eo infirmantur, quod
Urbanus II. in Concilio Claromontano, aliique post eum Romani Ponti-
fices decreverunt§ circa Ecclesias parochiales, quoad temporalia
Monasteriis injunctas, teneri vicarios respondere Episcopis de plebis
cura, de temporalibus vero non ita cum monasterio suo sint obnoxii :
siquidem seposita etiam ratione historica unde ea profecta est iuris
dispositio,! certum exploratumque est, in iis pontificiis decretis ac
litteris appellatione temporalium, beneficii fructus et quae beneficiati
personae adhaerent compendia significari.

Quocirca ea confirmantes quae a S. Congregatione de Propaganda
Fide rescripta et mandata sunt, statuimus, religiosos sodales, redditis
Episcopo rationibus, docere debere de pecunia, intuitu missionum sibi
ullata, et quantum de ea et quos in usus impenderintaeque ac mission-
arios Cleri saecularis, iuxta praedictas resolutiones eiusdem Congrega-
tionis die xix Aprilis mdccclxix, et Instructionem diei x Maii

MDCCCCLXVIII.

Tandem ne quis obrepat error aut dissensus in his quae modo
iussimus exequendis, detiniendum censemus quae pecuniae, quaeque
res viris religiosis oblatae intuitu missionum intelligantur. Namque
receptum est hac in re, spectari primum oportere quid largitor
voluerit ; quoid si non appareat, placuit, parocho vel rectori ecclesiae
collatam donationem praesumi.^ At multum ab hac regula reces-
sum est propter consuetudinem, quam quidam ecclesiastici iuris periti
fere communem evasisse docent, cuius vi " hodie pene solae oblationes
quae in Ecclesia sub missis ad altare fiunt et quae pro administratione

* Fagnan. in cap. Pastoralts, de Ids quae fiunt a Praelatis, n. 29 — Card. deLuca
ill Cone. Trid. discur. 18, n. 5— Reiffeust, Lib. 3 Decrct. tit. 30, n. 193.

t L. 1 § officio if. de tutdae et rat. distr. — L. 2 % et sane ff. de negot. gest. L.
Curator. L. Tutor Cod. de ncgot. gest.

X Sac. Cong. Concilii Nullius, seu Nonantulan. iurium parochialium 27 lunii
1744 ad dub. XII.

§ Lucius II. ad Prlorem S. Pancratil in Anglia, Alexander III. ad Monaster.
S. Armdphi, Lucius III. ad Superior. Praemonstrat, et ad Abbatissam S. Hilarii in
dioffcesi Fesulana. \\ Gonzal. Comment, in cap. I. de Cappel. Monach.

^ Arguni. ex cap. Pastoral. 9 de Jus quae fiunt a Praelet. cap. Transmissa, de
Verb. sign, ae praesertim cap. I. de Statu Monach.

520 Constitution of Pope Leo XIII.

sacramentorum, pro benedicendis nuptiis aiit mulieribus post partum,.
pro exequiis el sepulturis, aut aliis similibus functionibus specialiter
offeruntur, ad parochum spectant ; consuetudine reliquas ferme
omnes ecclesiis ipsis aut sacellis aut aliis certis finibus applicante. ""^
Praeterea si in parochum rectoremve, a quibus spiritualia adiumenta
fideles accipiuntj", baud inconcinne praesumi potest collata liberalitas,
ubi Ecclesia bonis praedita sit, per quae religionis decori et minis-
trorum tuitioni prospiciatur, longe aliud iudicium esse debet ubi earn
bonorum copiam Ecclesia non habeat, ac liberalitate fidelis populi
unice aut potissimum sustentetur. Tunc enim largitores putandi
forent voluisse consulere cultus divini splendori et religionis dignitati,
ea ratione et modo quern ecclesiastica auctoritas decerneret. Ideo
apud christianos primaevos lege cautum fuerat ut pecunia omnis done
accepta, inter Ecclesiam, Episcopum, Clericos et egenos divideretur.
Legis porro sese interponens auctoritas, si largitionum terapora et
causas praestituat, illud efficit quoque, ne fideles semper pro arbitrio
possint modum et finem designare in quem oblatam stipem erogari
oporteat ; nequit enim facere privatorum voluntas, ut quod a legitima
potestate in bonum commune praccipitur certo destituatur efFectu.
Haec Nobis considerantibus visi sunt prudenter et opportune egisse
Patres Concilii Provincialis Westmonasteriensis II, cum partim inter-
pretantes piam et aequam donantium voluntatem, partim ea, quae
Episcopis inest, utentes potestate imperandi pecuniae collationes
decernendique quo tempore et qua de causa conferri oporteat, statuerunt
in capite ie bonis ecclesiasticis, quid censendum sit intuitu missionis
collatum. lubet igitur ratio, itemque Nos constituimus, liac in re
religiosos ad leges Westmonasteriensis Synodi sese afFatim accommo-
dare oportere.

Sublatis controversiis cognitioni Nostrae propositis, confidimus,
curam a Nobis in iis componendis adhibitam eo valituram, ut ad tran-
quillitatem et incrementum rei catholicae in Anglia non leviter conferat.
Equidem pronunciation es Nostras ad iuris et aequitatis regulam
studiose religioseque exegimus, nee dubitamus quin in iis exequendis
par diligentia et religio eniteat illorum inter quos iudicium protulimus.
Sic enim fiet, ut Episcoporuni ductu et prudentia religiosi sodales
de Anglicis missionibus apprime meriti strenue et alacriter e laboribus
suis fructus salutis ferre pergant laetissimos, atque utrique (ut voce ut-
amur Gregorii Magni ad Angliae Episcopos) communi. . . consilio, con-
cordique actione quae sunt pro Christi zelo agenda disponant unanimiter,
recte seniiantj et quae senserint, non sihimet discrejyando perficiant.X
Concordiam banc postulat paterna caritas Episcoporum in adiutores
suos et mutua Cleri in Episcopos observantia ; banc concordiam flagitat
finis communis qui situs est in salute animarum iunctis studiis ac
viribus quaerenda ; banc eamden exigit necessitas iis resistendi qui

* ReifFenst. L. 3 Decretal, tit. 30 n. 193, Van Espen ius eccles. unlv. part 2^
sect. 4, tit. 2, cap. 10, nn. 20 et 21.

t Argura. ex cap. quia Sacerdotes 13 caus. 10 quaest. 1.
+ Apud Bedam Histor. Angl. II. 29.

Constitution of Pope Leo XIII, 521

catholico nomini infensi sunt. Haec vires gignit et infirmos quoque
pares efficit ad grandia quaeque gerenda ; haec signuni est quod sin-
ceros Christi discipulos ab iis disterniinat qui se tales esse mentiuntur.
Ad banc igitur singulos et universes enixe cohortamur in Domino,
rogantes cum Paulo ut impleant gaudium Nostrum, ut idem sapiant
eamdem caritatem liabentes, unanimes, idipsum sentientes.*

Demum ut firmiter ea consistant quae constituimus, volumus atque
decernimus, praesentes Litteras et in eis contenta quaecumque, etiam
ex eo quod praedicti religiosi sodales et alii quicumque in prae missis
interesse habentes cuiusvis status, gradus, ordinis et dignitatis existant,
seu alias specifica mentione digni iis non consenserint, nee ad ea vocati
et auditi, causaeque propter quas praesentes emanaverint sufficienter
adductae, verificatae et justificatae non fuerint, aut ex alia qualibet
etiam quantumvis iuridica et privilegiata causa, colore et capite
etiam in corpore iuris clauso, nullo unquam tempore de subreptionis
vel obreptionis, aut nuUitatis vitio seu intentionis Nostrae, vel interesse
habentium consensus, aliove quolibet, quantumvis magno et substan-
tiali, individuamque expressionem requirente defectu impugnari in-
fringi, retractari, in controversiam vocari, aut ad terminos iuris reduci,
seu adversus illas restitutionis in integrum aliudve quodcumque iuris
remedium intentari vel impetrari ; sed ipsas praesentes Litteras semper
firmas, validas et efiicaces existere et fore, quibuscumque iuris seu
facti defectibus, qui adversus illas ad effectum impediendi vel retard-
andi earum executionem quovis modo vel quavis de causa opponi
possent minime refragantibus, suos plenarios et integros eiFectus
obtinere, easque propterea, omnibus et singulis impedimentis penitus
reiectis, ab illis ad quos spectat, et pro tempore quandocumque spec-
tabit inviolabiliter servari ; sicque et non aliter in praemissis per quos-
cumque indices Ordinarios et delegates iudicari ac definiri debere, ac
irritum fore et inane si secus super his a quoquam quavis auctoritate
scienter vel ignoranter contigerit attentari.

Non obstantibus praemissis, et quatenus obus sit Nostra et Cancel-
lariae Apostolicae Kegula de iure quaesito non tollendo, aliisque
Apostolicis ac in Universalibus, ProvinciaHbus et Synodalibus Con-
ciliis editis constitutionibus et ordinationibus, nee non quorumcumque
Ordinum, Congregationum, Institutorum, et Societatum, etiam lesu,
et quarumvis Ecclesiarum et aliis quibuslibet, etiam iuramento, con-
firmatione Apostolica, vel quavis alia firmitate roboratis statutis et
consuetudinibus, ac praemissorum etiam immemoralibus, privilegiis
quoque, indultis et Litteris Apostolicis quomodolibet in contrarium
praemissorum concessis, editis et factis ac licet plures iteratis.
Quibus omnibus et singulis, etiamsi pro illorum derogatione
specialis forma servanda foret, tenores earumdem praesentibus pro
plene ac sufficienter expressis habentes ad praemissorum effectum dum-
taxat specialiter et expresse derogatum esse volumus, ceterisque con-
trariis quibuscumque.

Quocumque autem modo earumdem praesentium Litterarum

* PhiUp. ii. 2.

522 ' Pope Leo XIII. on Political Povjer.

exempla in Anglia publicata fuerint, volumus ut statim post huiusmodi
publicationem omnes et singulos quos concernunt vel concernent in
posterum perinde afficiant, ac si unicuique illorum personaliter inti-
matae ac notificatae fuissent.

Nnlli ergo hominum liceat paginam hanc Nostrarura decisionum,
declarationum, decretorum, praeceptorum et voluntatis infringere, vel
ei ausu temerari contraire. Si quis autem hoc attentare praesumpserit,
indignationem Omnipotentis Dei et Beatorum Petri et Pauli Aposto-
lorum Eius se noverit incursurum.

Datum Romae apud S. Petrum anno Dominicae Incarnationis
Millesimo octingentesimo octuagesimo primo Octavo Idus Maii Ponti-
ficatus Nostri Anno IV.

C. CAED. SACCONI Pro-Datarius~T. CARD.
MERTEL

Visa
De Curia I. De Aquila e Vicecomitibu&.
Loco ►J* Plumbi

Reg. in Secret, Brevium

I. Cugnonius.

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII. ON POLITICAL

POWER.

Venerahilibvs Fratrihvs Patriarchis Priniatibvs Ajxhiepiscopis et
Episcopis Vniversis Catholici orbis gratiam et commvnionem cvm
Apostolica sede habentibvs.

LEO PP. XIIL

VENERABILES FRATRES.

SALVTEM ET APOSTOLICAM BENEDICTIONEM.

Diuturnum illud teterrimumque bellum, adversus divinam Ecclesiae
auctoritatem susceptum, illuc^ quo proclive erat, evasit; videlicet in
commune periculum societatis humanae, ac nominatim civilis princi-
patus, in quo salus publica maxime nititur. — Quod liac potissimum
aetate nostra factum esse apparet. Cupiditates enim populares quam-
libet imperii vim audacius hodie recusant quam antea : et tanta est
passim licentia, tam crebrae seditiones ac turbae, ut iis qui res publicas
gerunt non solum denegata saepe obtemperatio, sed ne satis quidem
tutum incolumitatis praesidium relictum esse videatur. Diu quidem
data est opera, ut illi in contemptum atque odium venirent multitudini,-
conceptaeque flammis invidiae jam erumpentibus, satis exiguo inter-
vallo summorum principum vita pluries est aut occultis insidiis aut
apertis latrociniis ad internecionem expetita. Cohorruit tota nuper
Europa ad potentissimi Imperatoris infandam necem : attonitisque
adhuc prae sceleris magnitudine animis, non verentur perditi homines
in ceteros Europae principes minas terroresque vulgo iactare.

Pope Leo XIII. on Political Poiver. 523

Haec, quae sunt ante oculos, communium reruin discrimina, g'ravi
Nos sollicitudine afficiunt, cum securitatem principum et tranquillitatem
imperiorum una cum populorum salute propemodum in singulas horas
periclitantem intueamur. — Atqui tamen religionis christianae divina
virtus stabilitatis atque ordinis egregia firmamenta reipublicae peperit,
simul ac in mores et instituta civitatum penetravit. Cuius virtutis non
exiguus neque postremus fructus est aequa et sapiens in principibus et
populis tem])eratio iurium atque officiorum. Nam in Christi Domini
praeceptis atque exemplis mira vis est ad continendos tam qui parent,
quam qui imperant, in officio,- tuendamque inter ipsos earn, quae
maxime secundum naturam est, conspirationem et quasi concentum
voluntatum, unde "ignitur tranquillus atque omni perturbatione carens
rerum publicarum cursus. — Quapropter cum regendae Ecclesiae catho-
licae, doctrinarum Christi custodi et interpreti, Dei beneficiopraepositi
simus, auctoritatis Nostrae esse iudicamus, Venerabiles Fratres, publice
commemorare quid a quoquam in hoc genere officii catholica Veritas
exigat : unde illud etiam emerget, qua via et qua ratione sit in tam
formidoloso rerum statu saluti publicae consulendum.

Etsi homo arrogantia quadam et contumacia incitatus frenos imperii
depellere saepe contendit, numquam tamen assequi potuit ut nemini
pareret. Praeesse aliquos in omni consociatione hominum et commu-
nitate cogit ipsa necessitas ; ne principio vel capite, a quo regatur, des-
tituta societas dilabatur et finem consequi prohibeatur, cuius gratia
nata et constituta est. Verum si fieri non potuit, ut e mediis civita-
tibus politica potestas tolleretur, certe libuit omnes artes adhibere ad
vim eiuselevandam, maiestatemque minuendam ; idque maxime saeculo
XVI, cum infesta opinionum no vitas complures infatuavit. Post illud
tempus non solum ministrari sibi libertatem largius quam par esset
multitudo contendit ; sed etiam originem constitutionemque civilis
hominum societatis visum est pro arbitrio confingere. Immo recen-
tiores perplures, eorum vestigiis ingredientes qui sibi superiore saeculo
philosophorum nomen inscripserunt, omnem inquiunt potestatem a
populo esse ; quare qui cam in civitate gerunt, ab iis non uti suam geri,
sed ut a populo sibi mandatani, et hac quidem lege, ut populi ipsius
voluntate, a quo mandata est, revocari possit. Ab his vero dissentiunt
catholici homines, qui ius imperandi a Deo repetunt, velut a naturali
necessarioque principio.

Interest autem attendere hoc loco, eos, qui reipublicae praefu-
turi sint, posse in quibusdam caussis voiuntate iudicioque deligi
multitudinis, non adversante neque repugnante doctrina catho-
lica. Quo sane delectu designatur princeps, non conleruntur
iura principatus; neque mandatur imperium, sed statuitur a quo sit
gerendum. Neque hie quaeritur de rerum publicarum modis; nihil
enim est cur non Ecclesiae probetur aut unius aut plurium princi-
patus, si modo iustus sit et in communem utilitatem intentus. Quam-
obrem, salva iustitia, non prohibentur populi illud sibi genus comparare
reipublicae, quod aut ipsorum ingenio, aut majorum institutis mori
busque magis apte conveniat.

Ceterum. ad politicum imperium quod attinet, illud a Deo proficisci

524 Pope Leo XIII. on Political Power.

recte docet Ecclesia ; id enim ipsa reperit sacris Litteris et monumentis
christianae vetustatis aperte testatum; neque praeterea ulla potest
doctrina cogitari, quae sit magis aut rationi conveniens, aut princi^Duni
et populorum saluti consentanea.

Revera humani potentatus in Deo esse fontem, libri Yeteris Testa-
menti pluribus locis praeclare confirmant. Per me reges regnant^ ....
per me principes imperant, et j^otentes decernunt iustitiam.* Atque
alibi : Fraebete aures vos qui continetis nationes, .... quoniam data est
a Deo potestas vobis, et virtus ah Altissimo.^ Quod libro Ecclesiastici
idem continetur : In unamquamque gentem Deus praeposuit rectorem,\
Ista tamen, quse Deo auctore didicerant, paulatim homines ab ethnica
superstitione dedocti sunt ; quae sicut veras reruni species et notiones
complures, ita etiam principatus germanam formam pulcritudinemque
corrupit. Postmodo, ubi Evangelium christianum afFulsit, veritati
vanitas cessit rursumque illufl dilucere coepit, unde omnis auctoritas-
manat, nobilissimum divinumque principium. — Prae se ferenti atque
ostentanti Praesidi romano absolvendi condemnandi potestatem, Christus
Dominus, non haheres, respondit, potestatem adversum me idlam, nisi
tihi datum esset desuper.^ Quern locum S. Augustinus explanans,
Discamus, inquit, quod dixit, quod et per Apostolum docuit, quia non
est potestas nisi a Deo.\\ Doctrinae enim praeceptisque lesu Christi
Apostolorum incorrupta vox resonavit tamquam imago. Ad Eomanos,.
principum ethnicorum imperio subjectos, Pauli est excelsa et plena
gravitatis sententia : Non est potestas nisi a Deo ; ex quo tamquam ex
causa illud concludit ; Princeps Dei minister est.^

Ecclesiae Patres hanc ipsam, ad quam fuerant instituti, doc-
trinam profiteri ac propagare diligenter studuerunt. Non tribuainus,
S. Augustinus ait, dandi regni et imperii potestatem nisi vera Deo.'*'*'
In eamdem sententiam S. loannes Chrysostomus, Quod principatus sint
inquit, et quod alii imperent, alii subiecti sint, neque omnia casu et temere
ferantur . . . divinae esse sapientiae dico.jj Idipsum S. Gregorius
Magnus testatus est inquiens : Potestatem Imperatoribus ac regibus cae-
litus datam fatemur.W Immo sancti Doctores eadem praecepta etiam
natural! rationis lumine illustranda susceperunt, ut vel iis, qui rationem
solam ducem sequuntur, omnino videri recta et vera debeant. Et sane
homines in civili societate vivere natura iubet, seu verius auctor
naturae Deus : quod perspicue demonstrant et maxima societatis con-
siliatrix loquendi facultas et innatae appetitiones animi perplures, et
res necessariae multae ac magni momenti, quas solitarii assequi homines
non possunt, iuncti et consociati cum alteris assequuntur. Nunc vero^
neque existere neque intelligi societas potest, in qua non aliquis tem-
peret singulorum voluntates ut velut unum fiat ex pluribus, easque ad
commune bonum recte atque ordine impellat ; voluit igitur Deus ut in
civili societate essent qui multitudini imperarent. Atque illud etiam
magnopere valet, quod ii, quorum aucfcoritate respublica administratur,.

* Prov. viii. 15-16. + Sap. vi. 3, 4. % Eccl. xvii. 14.

§ loan. xix. 11. |i Tract, civi. in loan. n. 5. ^ Ad Rom. xiii. 1, 4.

** De Civ. Dei, lib. v. cap. 21. ft In epist. ad Rom. homil. xxiii. n. 1.

Fojpe Leo XIII, on Political Power, 525

debent cives ita posse cogere ad parendum, ut his plane peccatum sit
non parere. Nemo autem hominum habet in se aut ex se, unde possit
huiusmodi imperii vinculis liberam ceterorum voluntatem constringere.
Unice rerum omnium procreatori et legislatori Deo ea potestas est :
quam qui exercent, tamquam a Deo secum communicatam necesse est.
Unus est legislator et index, qui potest perdere et liherare."^ Quod
perspicitur idem in omni genere potestatis. Eam, quae in sacerdotibus
est, proficisci a Deo tarn est cognitum, ut ii apud. omnes populos
ministri et habeantur et appellentur Dei. Similiter potestas patrum-
familias expressam retinet quamdam effigiem ac formam auctoritatis
quae est in Deo, a quo omnis paternitas in coelis et in terra nominatur.-f
Isto autem modo diversa genera potestatis miras inter se habent
Bimilitudines, cum quidquid uspiam est imperii et auctoritatis, eius ab
uno eodemque mundi opifice et domino, qui Deus est, origo ducatur.

Qui civilem societatem a libero hominum consensu natam volunt,
ipsius imperii ortum ex eodem fonte petentes, de iure suo inquiunt ali-
quid unumquemque cessisse et voluntate singulos in eius se contulisse
potestatem, ad quem summa illorum iurium pervenisset. Sed magnus est
error non videre, id quod manifestum est, homines, cum non sint saliva-
gum genus, citra liberam ipsorum voluntatem ad naturalem com-
munitatem esse natos : ac praeterea pactum, quod praedicant, est aperte
commentitium et fictum, neque ad impertiendum valet politicae
potestati tantum virium, dignitatis, iirmitudinis, quantum tutela
reipublicae et communes civium utilitatis requirunt. Ea autem
decora et praesidia universa tunc solum est habiturus principatus, si
a Deo augusto sanctissimoque fonte manare intelligatur.

Qua sententia non modo verier, sed ne utilior quidem reperiri uUa
potest. Etenim potestas rectorum civitatis, si quaedam est divinae
potestatis communicatio, ob hanc ipsam caussam continuo adipiscitur
dignitatem humana maiorem : non illam quidem impiam et perabsurdam,
imperatoribus ethnicis divines honores affectantibus aliquando expeti-
tam, sed veram et solidam, eamque dono quodam acceptam beneficioque
divino. Ex quo subesse cives et dicto audientes esse principibus, uti
Deo, oportebit non tam poenarum formidine, quam verecundia maies-
tatis, neque assentationis caussa, sed conscientia otficii. Qua re stabit
in suo gradu longe firmius collocatum imperium. Etenim istius vim
officii sentientes cives, fugiant necesse est improbitatem et contumaciam,
quia sibi persuasum esse debet, qui politicae potestati resistunt, hos
divinae voluntati resistere; qui honorem recusant principibus, ipsi
Deo recusare.

Ad hanc disciplinam Paulus Apostolus Eomanos nominatim erudit ;
ad quos de adhibenda summis principibus reverentia scripsit tanta cum
auctoritate et pondere, ut nihil gravius praecipi posse videatur, Omnis
anima potestatibus sublimioribus subditasit: non est enim potestas nisi
a Deo : quae autem sunt, a Deo ordinatae sunt. Itaque qui resistit
wtestati, Dei ordinationi resistit. Qui autem resistunt, ipsi sibi damna-
ionem acquiruni .... Ideo necessitate subditi estote non solum

* Jacob, iv. 12. t Ad Ephes. iii. 15.

526

Pope Leo XII I. on Political Power,

propter iram, sed etiam propter conscientiam* Et consentiens est
Principis Apostolorum Petri in eodem genere praeclara sententia :
Suhiecti estote onini humanae creaturae propter Deum^ sive regi quasi
praecellenti, sive ducibus tamquam a Deo missis ad vindictam male-
factorum, laudem vero bonorum, quia sic est voluntas Dei.f

Una ilia hominibus caussa est non parendi, si quid ab iis postuletur
quod cum naturali aut divino iure aperte repugnet ; omnia enim in
quibus naturae lex vel Dei voluntas violatur aeque nefas est imperare
et facere. Si cui igitur usuveniat, ut alterutrum malle cogatur,
scilicet aut Dei aut principum iussa negligere, lesu Christo parendum
est reddere iubenti quae sunt Caesaris Caesari, quae sunt Dei Deo,X
atque ad exemplum Apostolorum animose respondendum : Obedire
oportet Deo magis quam hominibus.^ Neque tamen est, cur abiecisse
obedientiam, qui ita se gerant, arguantur; etenim si principum
voluntas cum Dei pugnat voluntate et legibus, ipsi potestatis suae
modum excedunt, iustitiamque pervertunt : neque eorum tunc valere
potest auctoritas, quae, ubi iustitia non est, nulla est.

Ut autem iustitia retineatur in impetio, illud magnopere interest, eos
qui civitates administrant intelligere, non privati cuiusquam commodo
politicam potestatem esse natam : procurationemque republicae ad
Titilitatem eorum qui commissi sunt, non ad eorum quibus commissa
est, geri oportere. Principes a Deo optimo maximo, unde sibi aucto-
ritas data, exempla sumant : eiusque imaginem sibi in administranda
republica proponentes, populo praesint cum aequitate et fide, et ad
earn, quae necessaria est, severitatem paternam caritatem adhibeant.
Huius rei caussa sacrarum Litterarum oraculis monentur, sibimetipsis
Eegi regum et Domino dominantium aliquando rationem esse redden-
dam ; si officium deseruerint, fieri non posse ut Dei severitatem uUa
ratione effugiant. AUissiinus interrogabit opera vestra et cogitationes
scrutabitur. Quoniami cum essetis ministri regni illius, non recte iudi-
castis, . . . horrende et cito apparebit vobis, quoniam indicium duris-
simum his qui praesunt fiet . . . Non enim subtrahet personam cuius-
quam Deus, nee verebitur magnitudinem cuiusquam ^ quoniam pusillum
et magnum ipse fecit, et aequaliter cura est illi de omnibus. Fortioribus
autem jortior instat c7'uciatio.\\

Quibus praeceptis rempublicam tuentibus ; omnis seditionum vel
caussa vel libido toUitur ; in tuto futura sunt lionos et securitas prin-
cipum, quies et salus civitatem. Dignitati quoque civiimi optime con-
sulitur : quibus in obedientia ipsa concessum est decus illud retinere,
quod est hominis excellentiae consentaneum. Intelligunt enim, Dei
iudicio non esse servum neque liberum ; unum esse Domihum omnium,
divitem in omnes qui invocant illum^ se autem idcirco subesse et
obtemperare principibus, quod imaginem quodammodo relerant Dei,
cui servire regnare est.

Hoc vero semper egit Ecclesia, ut Christiana ista civilis potestatis
forina non mentibus solum inhaeresceret, sed etiam publica populorum

* Ad Eom. xiii. 1, 2, 2.
§ Actor. V. 29.

t I. Petr. a. 13, 15.
Sap. vi. 4, 5, 6, 8.

X Matt. xxii. 21.
IT Ad Kom. X. 12.

[

Pope Leo XIII, on Political Power, / 527

vita moribusque exprimeretur. Quamdiu ad gubernacula reipublicae
imperatores ethnici sederunt, qui assurgere ad earn imperii formam,
quam adumbravimus, superstitione prohibebantur, instillare illam
studuit mentibus populorum, qui simul ac Christiana instituta susci-
perent, ad liaec ipsa exigere vitam suam velle debebant. Itaque
pastores animarum, exempla Pauli Apostoli renovantes, cura et
diligentia summa populis praecipere consuev.er nut, principibus et po-
testatibus suhditos esse, dicto ohedire :* item orare Deum pro cunc-
tis hominibus, sed nominatim pro regibus et omnibus qui in suhlimitate
sunt : hoc enim acceptum est corum Salvatore nostro Deo.^ Atque
ad banc rem omnino praeclara documentachristiani verteres reliquerunt:
qui cum ab imperatoribus ethnicis iniustissime et crudelissime vexa-
rentur, numquam tamen praetermiserunt gerere se obedienter et
submisse, plane ut illi crudelitate, isti obsequio certare viderentur.
Tanta autem modestia, tam certa parendi voluntas plus erat cognita,
quam ut obscurari per calumniam malitiamque inimicorum posset.
Quamobrem qui pro Christiana nomine essent apud 'imperatores publico
caussam dicturi, ii hoc potissimum argumento iniquum esse convince-
bant in christianos animadvertere legibus, quod in oculis omnium
convenienter legibus in exemplum viverent. Marcum Aurelium
Antoninum et Lucium Aurelium Commodum filium eius sic Athena-
goras confidenter alloquebatur : Sinitis nos, qui nihil mali patramus,
immo omnium .... piissime iustissimeque cum erga Deum, turn erga
impenum vestrum iios gerimus exagitari, rapi, fugari.X Pari mode
TertuUianus laudi christianis aperte nabat, quod amici essent Imperio
optimi et certissimi ex omnibus : Christianus nullius est hostis, nedum
Iiiiperatoris, quern sciens a Deo suo constitui, necesse est ut ipsum diligat
et revereatur et honoret et salvum velit cum toto romano imperio.^
Neque dubitabat affirmare, in imperii finibus tanto raagis numerum
minui inimicorum consuevisse, quanto cresceret christianorum. Nunc
pauciores hnstes habetis prae multitudine christianorum, pene omnium
cives christianos habendo.\\ Praeclarum est quoque de eadem re
testimonium in Epistola ad Diognetum, quae confirmat solitos eo
tempore christianos fuisse, non solum inservire legibus, sed in omni
officio plus etiam ac perfectius sua sponte facere, quam cogerentur
facere legibus, Christiani obsequuntur legibus quae sancitae sunt, et
suae vitae genere leges sup)erant.

Alia sane tum caussa erat, cum a fide Christiana, aut quoquo modo
ab officio deficere Imperatorum edictis ac Praetorum minis iuberentur :
quibus temporibus profecto displicere hominibus quam Deo maluerunt.
Sed in iis ipsis rerum adiunctis tantum aberat ut quicquam seditiose
facerent maiestatemve imperatoriam contemnerent, ut hoc unum sibi
sumerent, sese profiteri, et christianos esse et nolle mutare fideni uUo
modo. Ceterum nihil de resistendo cogitabant; sed placide atque
hilare sic ibant ad tortoris equuleum, ut magnitudini animi cruciatuum
magnitudo concederet. — Neque absimili ratione per eadem tempora

* Ad Tit. iii. 1. +1. Timoth. ii. 1-3. t Legat. pro Christianis.

§ Apolog. n. 35. 11 Apolog. n. 37.

528 Pope Leo XIII. on Political Power. .

christianorum vis institutorum spectata est in militia. Erat enim
militis christiani summam fortitudinem cum summo studia coniungere
disciplinae militaris : animique excelsitatem immobili erga principem
fide cumulare. Quod si aliquid rogaretur quod non esset honestum,
uti Dei iura violare, aut in insontes Christi discipulos ferrum con-
vertere, tunc quidem imperata facere recusabat, ita tamen ut discedere
ab armis atque emori pro religione mallet, quam per seditionem et
turbas auctoritati publicae repugnare.

Postea vero quam respublicae principes christianos habuerunt,
multo magis Ecclesia testificari ac praedicere institit, quantum in
auctoritate imperantium inesset sanctitatis : ex quo futurum erat, ut
populis, cum de principatu cogitarent, sacrae cuiusdam maiestatis
species occurreret, qua ad maiorem principum cum verecundiam turn
amorem impel] eret. Atque huius re caussa, sapienter providit ut
reges sacrorum soleranibus initiarentur quod erat in Testamento Veteri
Dei auctoritate constitutum. Quo autem tempore civilis hominum
societas, tamquam e minis excitata imperii romani, in spem christianae
magnitudinis revixit, Pontifices Romani, instituto imperio sacro, poli-
ticam potestatem singulari ratione consecraverunt. Maxima quidem
ea fuit nobilitatis ad principatum accessio : neque dubitandum quin
magnopere illud institutum et religiosae et civilii societati semper
spectavissent. Et sane quietae res et satis prosperae permanserunt
quamdiu inter utramque potestatem concors amicitia permansit. Si
quid tumultuando peccarent populi, praesto erat conciliatrix tranquil-
litatis Ecclesia, quae singulos ad officium vocaret, vehementioresque
cupiditates partim lenitate partim auctoritate compesceret. Similiter
si quid in gubernando peccarent principes, turn ipsa ad principes adire,
et populorum iura, necessitates, recta desideria commemorando,
aequitatem, clementiam, benignitatem suadere. Qua ratione pluries
est impetratum, ut tumultuum et bellorum civilium pericula prohibe-
rentur.

Contra inventae a recentioribus de potestate politica doctrinae magnas
iam acerbitates hominibus attulerunt, metuendumque ne extrema
malorum afferant in posterum. Etenim ius imperandi nolle ad Deum
referre auctorem, nihil est aliud quam politicae potestatis et pulcherri-
mum splendorem velle deletum et nervos incisos. Quod autem
inquiunt ex arbitrio illam pendere multitudinis, primum opinione fal-
luntur ; deinde nimium levi ac fiexibili fundamento statuunt principa-
tum. His enim opinionibus quasi stimulis incitatae populares cupidi-
tates sese efferent insolentius, magnaque cum pernicie reipublicae ad
coecos motus, ad apertas seditiones proclivi cursu et facile delabentur.
Revera illam, quam Reformationem vocant, cuius adiutores et duces
sacram civilemque potestatem novis doctrinis funditus oppugnaverunt,
repentini tumultus et audacissimae rebelliones praesertim in Germania
consecutae sunt: idque tanta cum domestici deflagratione belli et
caede, ut nuUus pene locus expers turbarum et cruoris videretur.
Ex ilia liaeresi ortum duxit saeculo superiore falsi nominis philo-
sopbia, et ius quod appellant novum, et imperium populare, .et
modum nesciens licentia, quam plurimi solam libertatem putant.

Pope Leo XIII. on Political Power, 529

Ex his ad finitimas pestes ventum est, scilicet ad Communismum, ad
Socialismum, ad Nihilismum, civilis hominum societatis teterrima
portenta ac pene funera. Atqui tamen tantorum malorum vim
nimis multa dilatare conantur, ac per speciem iuvandae niultitu-
dinis non exigua iam miseriarum incendia excitaverunt. Quae hie
modo recordamur, ea nee ignota sunt nee valde longinqua.

Hoc vero est etiam gravius, quod non habent principes in tantis
periculis remedia ad restituendam publicam disciplinam pacandosque
animos satis idonea. Instruunt se auctoritate legum, eosque, qui rem-
publicam commovent, severitate poenarum coercendos putant. Eecte
quidem ; sed tamen serio consideratum est, vim nuUam poenarum
futuram tantam, quae conservare respublicas sola possit. Metus enim,
ut praeclare docet sanctus Thomas, est dehile fundamentum ; nam qui
timore subdimtur, si occun^at occasio qua possint impunitatem sperare,
contra praesidentes insurgunt eo ardentius. quo magis contra voluntatem
ex solo timore coliibehantur. Ac praeterea eop nimio timore plerique in
desperationem incidunt : desperatio autem audacter ad quaelihet atten-
tanda praecipitatf'' Quae quam vera sint, satis experiendo perspexi-
mus. Itaque obediendi altiorem et efficaciorem caussam adhibere
necesse est, atque omnino statuere, nee legum esse posse fructuosam
severitatem, nisi homines impellantur officio, salutarique metu Dei
permoveantur. Id autem impetrare ab iis maxime religio potest, quae
sua vi in animos influit, ipsasque hominum flectit voluntates, ut eis a
quibus ipsi reguntur, non obsequio solum, sed etiam benevolentia et
caritate adhaerescant, quae est in omni hominum coetu optima custos
incolumitatis.

Quamobrem egregie Pontifices Komani communi utilitati servisse
indicandi sunt, quod Novatorum frangendos semper curaverunt tumidos
inquietosque spiritus, ac persaepe monuerunt quantum ii sint civili
etiam societati periculosi. Ad hanc rem digna, quae commemoretur,
Clementis VII senteutia est ad Ferdinandum Bohemiae et Hungariae
regem : In hacjidei caussa tua etiam et ceterorum principum dignitas et
utilitas inclusa est, cum non possit ilia convelli quin vestrarum etiam
rerum lahefactationem secum trahat • quod clarissime in locis istis aliquot
perspectum sit. — Atque in eodem genere summa providentia et fortitudo
enituit, Decessorum Nostrorum, praesertim autem Clementis XII,
Benedicti XIV, Leonis XII, qui cum consequentibus temporibus
pravarum doctrinarum pestis latius serperet, sectarumque audacia
invalesceret, oppositu auctoritatis suae aditum illis intercludere conati
sunt. Nos ipsi pluries denunciavimus quam gravia pericuia impen-
deant, simulque indicavimus quae sit eorum propulsandorum ratio
optima. Principibus ceterisque rerum publicarum moderatoribus
praesidium religionis obtulimus, populosque hortati sumus ut sum-
morum bonorum copia, quam Ecclesia suppeditat maxime uterentur.
Id nunc agimus, ut ipsum illud praesidium, quo nihil est validius, sibi
rursus oblatum principes intelligant : eosque vehementer in Domino
hortamur, ut religionem tueantur, et, quod interest etiam reipublicae,

* De Eegim. Princip. i. 1, cap. 10.

530

Po^e Leo XIII, on Political Power

ea Ecclesiam libertate frui posse sinant, qua sine ininria et commimi
pernicie privari non potesit. Profecto Ecclesia Christi neque pn'nci- ,
pibus potest esse suspecta, neque populis invisa. Principes quidem
ipsa monet sequi iustitiam, nullaque in re ab officio declinare : at simul
eorum roborat multisque rationibus adjuvat auctoritatem. Quae in
genere rerum civilium versantur, ea in potestate supremoque iniperio*
eorum esse agnoscit et declarat : in iis quorum iudicium, diversam
licem ob caussam, ad sacram civilemque pertinet potestatem, vult
existere inter utramque concordiam, cuius beneficio funestae utrique
contentiones devitantur. Ad populos quod spectat, est * Ecclesia saluti
cunctorum hominum nata, eosque semper dilexit uti parens. Ea quippe
est, quae caritate praeeunte mansuetudinem animis impertiit, humani-
tatem moribus, aequitatem legibus : atque honestae libertati nuspiam
inimica tyraijnicum dominatum semper detestari consuevit. Hunc,
quae insita in Ecclesia est, bene merendi consuetudinem paucis prae-
clare expressit sanctus- Augustinus : Docet (Ecclesia) reges prospicere
populis, oinnes populos se subdere regibus : ostendens quemadmodum et
non omnibus caritas^ et nulli debetur iniuria.'^

His de caussis opera vestra, Venerabiles Fratres, valde utilis ac
plane salutaris futura est, si industriam atque omnes, quae Deimunere
in vestra sunt potestate, ad deprecanda societatis humanae vel pericula
vel incommoda Nobiscum contuleritis. Oura ac providete, ut quae de
imperio deque obediendi officio ab Ecclesia catholica praecipiuntur, ea
homines et plane perspecta habeant, et ad vitam agendam diligenter
utantur. Vobis auctoribus et magistris, saepe populi moneantur fugere
vetitas sectas, a coniurationibus abhorrere, nihil seditiose agere :
iidemque intelligant, qui Dei caussa parent imperantibus, eorum esse
rationabile obsequium, generosam obedientiam. Quoniam vero Deus
est, qui dcit salutem regibus,'\ et concedit populis conquiescere in pul-
chritudine pads et in tabernaculis fiduciae et in requie opulenta,X Ipsum
necesse est orare atque obsecrare, ut omnium mentes ad honestatem
veritatemque flectatj iras compescat, optatam diu pacem tranquilli-
tatemque orbi terrarum restituat.

Quo autem spes firmior sit impetrandi, deprecatores defensoresque
salutis adhibeamus, Mariam Virginem magnam Dei parentem, auxilium
christianorum, tutelam generis humani : S. losephum castissimum
sponsum eius, cuius patrocinio plurimum universa Ecclesia confidit :
Petrum et Paulum Principes Apostolorum custodes et vindices nominis
christiani.

Interea divinorum munerum auspicem Yobis omnibus, Venerabiles
Fratres, Clero et populo fidei vestrae commisso Apostolicam Bene-
dictionem peramanter in Domino impertimus.

Datum Komae apud S. Petrum die XXIX lunii A. MDCCCLXXXI,
Pontificatus Nostri Anno Quarto.

LEO PP. XIII.

* De morib. Eocl. lib. i. cap. 80.

t Fsal. cxliii. 11.

J Isai. xxxii. 18.

(531 )

I

l^otixes of €atj)oIk Continental Jerwbitak,

ITALIAN PERIODICALS.

La Scuola Cattolica. 31 Maggio; 31 Luglio, 1881.
Legitimacy and Catholics.

fllHE Scuola Cattolica is issuing a series of articles on a subject of
X much interest, especially at the present day, because it has led to
grave disagreement amongst Catholics, particularly in France. Many
see no hope of salvation save in the restoration to the throne of the
legitimate branch of the old Bourbons. Christian France, they say,
cannot be saved but by a Christian monarchy, and such a government
is possible only by the triumph of the Comte de Chambord. Hence
their aim is to endeavour to upset the Kepublic, in order to the
furtherance of this object. Others judge differently, and consider that
the Church ought not to connect itself with political parties. Let us
not, they say, create irritation by striving to overturn an established
Government, powerfully supported by men who will unite in one
common hatred both the Church and the party who oppose them for
the Church's sake. Legitimacy, moreover, they contend, is a van-
quished cause, and its adherents, being impotent to prevail, are
impotent also to hinder the persecutions which their fruitless efforts
would excite, to the prejudice of religion. To the Legitimists such
language is intolerable, implying, as it does, the sacrifice of the here-
ditary prince's lawful rights.

Clearly there is here a double question for consideration — the
claims of legitimacy, as such, and those of the only pretender who will
avowedly devote himself to the restoration of Christian order. The
former is a speculative, the latter a practical question ; and it is well
not to confound the two. The reviewer first treats the speculative
question. It is one which does not concern France exclusively, for
throughout Europe, and particularly in Italy, there are other dispossessed
sovereigns, at the head of whom must be placed the Vicar of Jesus
Christ. But, since his rights as a sovereign are of a higher order,
owing to their connection with his spiritual rights, the reviewer defers
that subject until later on. In the present article he inquires what
legitimacy is, whether it can be lost, and for what causes. Legiti-
macy, with Catholics, can, in the abstract, only be right in conformity
to the eternal law. In the concrete, royal legitimacy is the right
which a prince possesses, not only as regards the origin of his
authority, but also as respects its exercise in conformity with the
principles of justice. Can this right be forfeited? He answers
affirmatively. God has often set aside bad princes ; and, although
God is absolute in His power. He never acts without a reason. The
VOL. VI.— NO. II. [TJiird Sei^ies.] N N

532 Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals.

Church also, acting by the autljority He has entrusted to her, has at
times discharged subjects from their oaths of fidelity. This is
sufficient to prove that legitimacy is not necessarily inadmissible.
The divine right of the ruler does not import the direct election
by God of any determined individual, but that, as all authority
is from God, so he who wields it is entitled to respect and obedience.
Legitimacy can, therefore, speaking speculatively, be lost, for the
reviewer is alluding only to the loss of a just title, not to the practical
infliction of the penalty incurred. This caution is needful, lest the
doctrine here laid down should seem to lend a sanction to revolu-
tionary principles. It is not therefore a question here by whom and
in what manner a legitimate prince who has become a tyrant may or
can be despoiled of his. power, but simply if legitimacy can be lost.
As to its effective privation, this is a grave question of prudence, and
one often practically insoluble, from the difficulty of finding a proper
judge between the prince and his subjects, and also because tyranny
is frequently preferable to the evil results of sedition. The Catholic
Church, accordingly, does not leave it to the will of the people to rise
at their pleasure in revolt against unjust princes, which would often
entail more detriment to society than does their misrule.

For what causes can legitimacy be forfeited ? Following the doctors
of the Church, the reviewer first mentions habitual incapacity to
rule. The king is for the kingdom, not the kingdom for the king.
The Merovingians were legitimate, but the Carlovingians Avere substi-
tuted for them, with the sanction of the Sovereign Pontiff, the
supreme judge. And if such incapacity, which is a negative fault,
be an adequate cause for the forfeiture of a legitimate right, what of
the .active misconduct of a prince who positively works the ruin
of the commonwealth by his misrule ? S. Thomas enumerates among
the offences which incur this loss, first, infidelity, the apostasy of the
Catholic ruler of a Catholic nation ; next, intolerable exaction and the
habitual disregard of the just rights, spiritual or temporal, of his sub-
jects. Note, however, that such deficiency in his duties as ruler must
be considerable and persistent, in order to render it proportionate to
the penalty incurred. It may be asked, would a prince forfeit his
legitimate rights who should commit any such offences, constrained
thereto by a Constitution to which he has sworn ? Undoubtedly he
would, in spite of every chart or Constitution whatever. The prince
cannot despoil himself of his free will and the personal responsibility
which every man incurs by his voluntary acts. In this sense there
can be no such a being as an irresponsible sovereign."^ Is it, however,
lawful to question the legitimacy of any prince who, in spite of his
misrule, continues to receive the homage of the world at large ? And
when does such consentient recognition possess a practical authority ?
The reviewer replies, when it corresponds with the Church's unerring
judgment. Human nature in itself is liable to the grossest aberrations
from truth and justice, and if, descending to the concrete, we cast an "

This subject was treated at length in a recent number of the Scuola Cattolica.

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals. 583

eye at modern Europe, which has abandoned so many lawful sove-
reigns to the violence of the Revolution — and especially the Eoman
Pontiff himself — which has practically abolished the law of nations, set
aside the obligations of solemn treaties, and which, urged on by the
tyranny of the Masonic sects, has precipitated itself into the most
degrading anti-social apostasy, which denies all legitimacy and oppresses
right by force, what value, it may well be asked, can be placed on its
decisions ?

But, now, what are some of the practical inferences to be drawn
from this doctrine by Catholics of the present day ? The reviewer
premises that there are persons who exaggerate the rights of royal
legitimacy, and impute a species of sacredness to it which no derelic-
tion of duty on the part of those possessing it can in the least impair.
This is not Catholic doctrine. If subjects have duties towards the
sovereign, so have sovereigns duties towards their subjects, which they
cannot habitually violate with impunity. Now, to apply this doctrine
to modern history, it must be sorrowfully confessed that there is
scarcely a legitimacy existing in the true sense of the word ; society
is in a state of agony, and can the authors or abettors of the crimes
which have led to this state, and against which the Church for three
centuries has been protesting, have preserved their legitimacy ? The
Catholic submits, and is patient, but well-nigh everywhere lives under
governments simply such de facto, whose system is war against truth
and justice, and whose title is complicity with the Eevolution, which
is all one with negation of every right. Right has perished. What,
then, is the practical consequence of this condition as regards their
behaviour ? The first is the duty of refraining from flattery. Flattery
is always odious; but when the person flattered is high in authority
and abases his power for evil, it is doubly criminal. It is servility
which has mainly led to the loss of legitimacy. If, therefore, on some
only devolves the duty of raising their voice against an unworthy ruler,
all are bound to abstain from applause, and to give him, at least, the
lesson of silence. But, further, if all are bound to prevent evil and
promote good, so far as lies in their power, certainly they must be so
bound when it is a question of liberating the commonwealth from
tyranny. The Catholic, therefore, while abstaining from sedition, as
has been observed, in order to avoid worse evils, will feel it his duty
to make an active use of his civil rights, of which the Sovereign
Pontiff has in Italy specified the sphere. Finally, the reviewer declares
that he considers the French Legitimists as worthy of all praise, in
that they solemnly proclaim that Christian France can never be saved
but by a Christian monarchy, showing thereby that they do not so
much look to the restoration of an ancient dynasty as to the eminently
Christian character of its present representative. If they rested their
claims in his behalf solely on the sacredness of his hereditary rights, it is
plain that the reviewer would not coincide with them, inasmuch as he
considers that the Bourbon sovereigns of France were guilty, and that
persistently, of offences amply sufficient for the forfeiture of their
legitimacy, although it was an unoffending scion of their race who
became the scapegoat of their misdeeds.

N N 2

534 Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals.

He concludes with aspirations for the return of a Christian monarchy
to heal this France, which is a rock of oiFence to the world, and the
cause of so much sorrow to the Church and to humanity ; adding his
earnest desire for the exaltation of one whose head is already encircled
with so splendid a crown of virtues. May he, in the name of the
Christian idea, keep himself before the eyes of France, of Europe, and
of modern society, prepared to carry out that idea which can alone
form the basis of true civilization and morality. For, if the old
dynasty can confer anything more upon him, this can only be on the
condition of a Eestoration which shall be true and substantial, and
free from unreasonable prejudices.

We have no space for the barest analysis of the second article which
appeared on July 31, and contains much valuable matter, but must
content ourselves with giving the heads of its contents, which will
sufficiently indicate the subjects discussed and the line of argument
followed. 1. Can a usurper acquire legitimacy ? 2 Society cannot,
even for an instant, remain ungoverned. 3. A usurpation begins to
become a government of fact, and worthy of respect, when the im-
potence of the pretender and the power of the usurper have been
manifested. 4. It becomes a government of right if the impotence
of the legitimate pretender be irremediable, and if the usurper upholds
true social order. 5. Objections considered : Sanctity of the right of
the pretender; successful injustice, as treated of in the sixty-first
Proposition of the Syllabus. 6. Rights and conduct of the Church.
7. Practical difference between governments of fact and those of
right.

Both the Scuola Cattolica and the Civiltd Cattolica have had articles
on the outrages offered during the night of July 13 to the body of
our late Holy Pontiff; the latter, in its issue of August 6, treats the
subject at considerable length, and, after graphically narrating the
facts, examines the state of the internal conflict of the two Romes :
the one apostate and pagan, but chiefly made up of strangers, their
very voices and speech betraying theqi on that terrible night ; the
other Christian and indigenous, having at their head the successor of
Peter, the prisoner of the Vatican, who could not issue thence with-
out danger of being flung into the Tiber. It then inquires upon whom
rests the culpable responsibility of this conflict, and, finally, what may
be its probable consequences. Both of these distinguished Catholic
periodicals continue to bestow considerable attention on the philosophy
of Eosmini, and the Scuola Cattolica pursues its commentary on the
Syllabus.

A short article in the Civiltd Cattolica (August 20), gives a curious
account of the extraordinary hold upon popular belief which the current
prophecy that the world will end next November has taken in Italy.
You can scarcely speak to a peasant or set foot in a shop without
hearing of this impending catastrophe. " Never/' exclaimed an

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals. 535

intelligent countryman, " was the world in a readier state to be gulled
than it is now, when it pretends not to believe even in God, and is
inflated like a bladder with compulsory instruction and science."
This remark of the countryman the reviewer takes, so to say, as his
text for a few observations. Such credulity at a time when unbelief
is in the ascendant, and such ignorance in an age which boasts of its
enlightenment, surpasses all that has been imputed to the middle ages,
the object of so much ridicule and scorn. Men, who affect to have
no faith in the teaching of the Church or in divine revelation, blindly
accept the most shallow impostures, and, recalling the particulars con-
cerning the end of the world predicted in the gospel, they mix up there-
with their own wild imaginings, and pretend to infer therefrom the
immediate propinquity of the great day, and even to fix its precise date.
Startled at this confident announcement, the herd of credulous folk are
filled with alarm, as though^ forsooth, God had appointed the charlatans
and unbelieving scribes of the press to be the interpreters of His hidden
mysteries and divulgers of that day and hour which no man knoweth,
not even His own angels. The reviewer proceeds to set before his
readers the different hypotheses maintained, or allowably maintainable,
as to the means by which the conflagration of our globe might be
brought about, supposing the Creator should be pleased to avail
Himself of natural causes; and then passes on to notice the chief
signs which shall precede the last day, as recorded by the Evangelists.
He concludes by declaring the utter inanity of the argument which
would deduce from the appearance of some comets and the con-
junction of two planets with the earth on the 12th of November that
the world will come to an end on the 28th day of the same month.

FRENCH PERIODICALS.

La Controverse : Revue des Ohjections et des Reponses en matiere de
Religion. 16 AoClt : l®'^ Septembre, 1881. Lyon et Paris.

IT will be a good work to introduce to our readers' notice this new
serial, which appears fortnightly, and has now reached its twenty-
first issue. The pages of the Controverse are exclusively dedicated to
a statement — couched in as popular a style as solidity and brevity
permit — both of objections raised against Catholicity or ag"ainst
Revelation, and of those principles of science, faith, and reason, the
particular application of which forms the sufficient reply thereto. The
Holy Father has already expressed the importance of being au courant
with the scientific difficulties and objections of the day as a first condition
of successfully replying to them with the principles and doctrine of S.
Thomas. The force of this advice will be evident when we recall
that the value of a reply to any such objection is not merely
or so much that it should satisfy the mind of the respondent
and of all those who think with him, as that it should be based
on reasoning and expressed in terms that are familiar to the objector
himself, and may probably bring conviction to those who think with

5;S6 Notices of Catkolic Continental Periodicals.

and are misled by him. Mis-statements, objections, accusations
against our holy religion, the editors observe, are scattered through
almost every book, newspaper, or periodical — it is their object to
gather into the pages of the Controverse solid Catholic replies and
counter-statements. The size of this new serial— 56 octavo pages
per fortnight — necessitates that both the detraction and the defence
should be worded as briefly as possible ; but this is a boon to the
reader who remembers that life is short, and it is a great advantage,
further, if any opponent ever dips into its pages ; as one of the first
conditions of success for such a work is that the acrimony of contro-
versy should be conspicuously absent.

A number of learned Catholics — many of them men whose names
alone will give weight to their statements even with opponents — have
united to make the pages of the Controverse of solid worth. Among
the contributors we notice Professors de Harlez, Ph. Gilbert, Lefebve,
of the University of Louvain ; Fathers de Bonniot, Brucker, Hate,
and others of the Society of Jesus ; M. Valson, the Dean of the
Catholic Faculty of Science at Lyons ; and very many others. A
glance at a few among the articles that have appeared will give a
better idea of the work here accomplished : it will be seen that with
very few exceptions the subjects are of scarcely less interest to
English than to French Catholics. The first half-yearly volume
contains papers on difficulties and objections drawn from natural
science, and also from theology, Scripture, philosophy, social and
political economy, history, archeology, &c. Pere de Bonniot has
contributed a reply to the pretended explanation of miracles as the
effect of imagination, and in the June number two articles on the now
much vaunted miracles of Buddha. A series of vigorously written
papers appeared from March to June, " Le Clerge et le service mili-
taire," from the pen of Pere Desjacques, S.J., and by the same writer
replies to M. Lenormant on the truth of Genesis. Professor de
Harlez has written on the civilization produced by Brahmanism and
the pretended superiority of Zoroasterism over Christianity. We may
note also articles on " The Church and Bible Criticism," by A.
Faivre ; and another by the same writer, " The Angel and the
Bloody Sweat at Gathsemani ;" " Prehistoric Archaeology and the
Bible," an interesting series by M. Hamard ; on " Galileo and Infalli-
bility," by Professor Gilbert • on *' Christian Charity and Modern
Social Science," by M. Herye Bazin ; and on '* Mr. Spencer's New
Basis of Morality," by M. Elie Blanc. To end mere enumerations, we
will note a series of six articles by Professor J. B. Lefebve, "Le
progres indefini en matiere de religion," that appeared from June to
August. This excellent study is directed in reply to those who, whilst
acknowledging ihe great good effected by Christianity, and refusing to
join the ranks of anti- Christian scoffers, nevertheless are equally hostile'
to it by their assumption that Christian teaching is subject to the«j
same law of progress that dominates all branches of science and human,
knowledge, that, in fact, religion, such as it now is, has by this law of
progress been evolved from the idolatries of antiquity, as they from the
savage beginnings of human history. The writer shows that a priori

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals. 537

the primitive religion must have been monotheism ; next, thut de facto
it was ; that the true religion preceded false religions. The proposed
rationalistic explanation of progress, he also shows, is contradicted by
the manner in which the Gospel was propagated among the nations
of Europe. Considering the excellent aim of the Controverse, the
good quality of the articles so far contributed, and their combination
of learning with a very readable style ; and, lastly, the fact that the
average length of an article is only twelve pages, it ought to find a
large circle of readers among intelligent English Catholics : even, and
with very good results, among educated women, who may not care to
attack technical treatises, and whose position obliges them to listen to
a large amount of anti-Catholic doubt and objection, not always by any
means put forward in malice, and to which they might, with a little
more knowledge, efficaciously reply.

"La Vision des Cherubins du Prophete Ezechiel" is the title of
two articles that appear in the two numbers of the Controverse, placed
at the head of this notice. They are from the pen of the Abbe
Vigouroux, so favourably known to Bible students by his " La Bible
et les Decouvertes modernes," the fourth volume of which has just
been published. The vision of the Cherubim with which the book
of Ezechiel opens is, it is well known, full of difficulties and mysteries :
so full, a note in our English Douay tells us, that the old Hebrews,
according to St. Jerome, would not allow any to read it until they
were thirty years old. And it has remained obscure since to readers
of more than twice thirty. No wonder, then, that Rationalists, as M.
Vio-oroux says, used to laugh at it as too bizarre for divine inspiration.
Strange to say, however, modern Assyrian discoveries have so changed
the tactics of the objectors that they now reject the " pretended
vision " of Ezechiel as a description pure and simple of those Assyrian
works of art that, by their novelty to him and their magnificence,
had deeply impressed the imagination of the Hebrew writer. The
aim of the present articles is to show that God, when He revealed Him-
self to His prophet Ezechiel, made use merely of the imagery that the
prophet had before his eyes in exile — somewhat as Mr. Gilbert Scott
(in his recent work) cleverly and forcibly contends S. John, in his
great vision of heaven, had before him an idealized Christian temple.

God in revealing Himself to His prophet made use — as a means of
manifestation — of the sights around Ezechiel at the time. The points of
resemblance between the vision of the Cherubim and the Chaldean
monuments are too numerous and striking to deny them. But it must
also be well noted that if the prophet has borrowed from Chaldean
Art, he has in no wise copied it. If it be just, and even useful to an
understanding of the vision, to recognize the resemblances, it is no less
necessary not to exaggerate them. The seer has only made use as a
IJouit de depart of what was before the eyes of the Hebrews exiled with
him. God wished that, like all the sacred writers, he should borrow his
colours, figures, metaphors, his " imagery," as the English say, from objects
around him and well known to his readers. The sacred author acted
together with God; his copying is not servile; but by new and original
combinations he has expressed, by means of his symbols, exalted and
sublime truths which it belongs to theologians to expound to us.

538 Notices of Catholic Continental Feriodicals.

The greater part of the emblems that he has given us we find scattered
here and there through Assyrian sculptures and bas-reliefs, but nowhere
do we find them all together united as they are in the vision. Thus we
find the man, the bull, the lion, and the eagle constantly used as religous
symbols ; we find winged bulls and lions with human faces — but nowhere
any monument in which all these characters are united in one. Neither
do we find Kirubi provided with the human hands and the four wings of
Ezechiel's cherubim, yet we do find human figures with four wings and
winged lions with human hands. As to the movements of the mystic
animals, it is evident that it is peculiar to the vision shown by God to the
prophet.

Readers familiar — as who is not ? — with the colossal Assyrian kirubi,
or winged bulls with human faces, and nirgalli, or winged lions with
human faces, in the works of Layard, in the British Museum or the
Louvre, will follow the Abbe Vigouroux's lengthened comparison of
these with the mystic animals of the prophet's vision with great
interest. A visit to the Assyrian Museum at the Louvre, he says,
will elucidate the language of the vision more readily than com-
mentaries— the mere sight of the winged bulls explaining the mystic
creatures of the first chapter of Ezechiel better than the ex professo
treatises of Kaiser and Ilufnagel. The men painted in colours on the
walls of Ezech. xxii. 14, 15, are there ; the verses are, in effect,
a technical description of the palace walls of Khorsabad; indeed,
M. de Longperier, in his Guide to the Museum, for his description had
only to copy these words of the prophet. The 10th verse of chapter
viii, can equally be seen. The writer's comparison of the "vision of
the likeness of the glory of the Lord " (Ezech. i. 26-ii. 1), in his
second article, is still more interesting. The light thrown on the mean-
ing of such words as amber Qiasmal = electrum of the Vulgate) in that
passage is noteworthy.

If the colossal and brilliantly decorated chef-d'ceuvres of Assyrian art,
he says, strike with such awe the Arab excavators who find them
in their ruined desolation, what impression must they have made on
the impressible Jews who trod their vast spaces in the days of living
magnificence ? But the prophet was an artist, who painted to the ear
of the exiled Jew with the very figures and details whose splendour
seemed unrivalled, a picture of the grandeur and magnificence of the
true God, the God of his fathers, beyond even the grandeur and mag-
nificance of the Chaldeans. The infinite beauty and greatness of their
God was taught them through the beauty and greatness before their
eyes. That God should have revealed truths to Ezechiel, under these
images and symbols, offers no difiiculty ; it is, on the contrary, in keep-
ing with God's way in His revelations to Moses in the book of Exodus,
to David ih the Psalms, to Daniel, and to S. John. The writer
concludes : —

_It is right, however, to acknowledge that the progress made of this
kind, in the interpretation of the Sacred Books is only secondary ; if
Assyriology has dissipated clouds and cleared up doubtful points, its
service is limited to that. The sense of the j^rophecies remains the same.
What the Fathers and old commentators wrote and taught remains true.
If some superficial changes be introduced in the manner of representing

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals. 589

the mystic creatures, nothing essential has to be altered, and we may
repeat to day, with Catholic tradition, that this vision shows what is the
glory of God and His sovereign dominion over all creatures.

GERMAN. PERIODICALS.

By Dr. Bellesheim, Cologne.

I. Katholik.

IN the May and June issues Professor Probst, of Breslau University,
writes on " The Liturgy of the African Church in the Fourth and
Fifth Centuries." Like many other countries, Africa witnessed during
this period a reformation in the liturgy, although it was far less
extensive than the reforms elsewhere. But, unlike other countries
which were called upon to struggle against Arianism (which heresy
gave rise to a change in the Preface in the Mass), Africa had to oppose
only the schism of the Donatists, and hence preserved the old form of
the preface, which was a prayer of thanks to Almighty God for his
creation and providence. Our author next reconstructs the African
liturgy from the writings of S. Augustine, an extremely difficult task,
owing to the destruction by the Vandals of whatever liturgical books
of the Catholic Church they happened to meet with. Again, the
writings of S. Fulgentius, the disciple of S. Augustine, point to
the " epiklesis," or invocation of the Holy Ghost, after the consecra-
tion of Our Lord's body and blood in the Mass. According to S.
Fulgentius, the Holy Ghost descends on the altar not personally, but
through his graces, to sanctify, not Our Lord's body and blood, but
the mystical body — viz., the congregation. Professor Probst, in con-
cluding his able article, says : — " This is the form of the African
liturgy during the fourth and fifth centuries. A copy of its liturgical
books no longer exists — a fact to be deplored all the more, as this
liturgy, far more than any other, would have given to us the oldest
Mass-rites in th.e Western Church."

The July issue contains a study, from the pen of the Rev. — Niirn-
berger, of S. Boniface's work, " De Unitate Fidei." That the apostle
of Germany wrote a work bearing this title is generally known, from
his biography edited by St. Willibald. The work was a detailed pro-
fession of faith, which he gave to Pope Gregory II. before his conse-
cration. Some fragments of it are contained in the " Collection of
Canons," by Cardinal Deusdedit, which Mgr. Martineau, from a Vatican
manuscript, published at Venice m 1869. But Herr Niirnberger was
happy enough to discover in a Vatican Codex (4,160, fol. 49), another
fragment, hitherto unknown, of St. Boniface's work. All the writings
of St. Boniface breathe his intense love for the centre of unity and his
zeal for the purity of clerical life.

The Rev. — Beissel contributes an able article on the history of the
"Episcopal Crosier." He commences with the staff as a sign of
authority in the heathen world and Old Testament history, and ad-
vances hence to the crosier of Christian times. For centuries, the

510 Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals,

crosier was a staff, bearing on its top a globe, or a globe witli a cross,
or a transom. The ultimate form was a crook or crosier. A staff,
with a globe on the top, is still preserved in the treasury of Cologne
Cathedral ; and, according to the legend, it came from St. Peter, who
sent it to St. Mater nus, the first bishop of Cologne. The same July-
number of the Katliolik contains an essay on " Dante's Ideas of Pope
and Emperor." The author very strongly vindicates the great Catholic
poet from the charge of being an enemy of the Holy See — (whatever
may be his opinions about the persons of several Pontiffs) — and still
more from the charge of supporting the spirit of revolution, or of
the so-called Reformation. I contribute to the same number a
long critique of Fr. Bridgett's " History of the Holy Eucharist in
England," and Dr. Lee's " Church under Queen Elizabeth."

2. Historich-politische Blatter. — The most important contribution
is a series of three articles by Dr, Falk, a parish priest of the Mainz
diocese, on the foundations and offfces of " Cathedral preachers " in
Germany during the Middle Ages. Wherever the Catholic Church
was not prevented by public calamities or iniquitous laws, we find her
fulfilling her divinely intrusted mission of preaching God's word. As
far back as we can go in German history, we find that sermons were
preached in the vulgar tongue. Dr. Falk shows, from the testimony
of innumerable documents, that foundations were made in German
cathedrals for providing eminent preachers of Catholic doctrine ; and
he traces the life of those pious and learned men who unwearingly
fulfilled their sublime office. It was only a slander of the Reformers
to attack the Catholic Church for having, during the Middle Ages,
neglected the sermon. Mainz, Worms, Spire, Strasburg, Basel,
Constanz, Augsburg, Wurzburg, Regensburg, Bamberg, Treves, and
Merseburg had special foundations for the support of preachers. The
office of cathedral preacher in Treves belonged to the auxiliary
bishops of the diocese till 1560, when the Jesuits undertook it. It
is also a fact worthy of mention that the last bishop of Merseburg,
a city near the place where Luther opposed the Catholic Church, on
all great feasts entered the pulpit, '^and the people came in great
crowds and most diligently heard the Word of God." Bishop Adolfus,
of Merseburg, died in 1526.

The July issue contains a critique on the learned work, " Junilius
Afrikanus," by Prof, Kihn, of Wiirzburg University. Hitherto Juni-
lius Africanus has been generally regarded as a bishop of an African
diocese. It is to Prof Kihn's accurate and laborious research that we
now owe an exhaustive biography of this author. He was not a bishop,
but a layman who occupied a high office in the Roman empire, and, what
very often occurred at that period, pursued theological and biblical
studies. Professor Kihn opens his article with a long account of
Bishop Theodore, of Mopsuestia, and the influence and importance of
the exegetical school of Antioch, over which he presided. In the second
part Junilius is considered as an interpreter, and his opinions on
prophecy and inspiration are examined. The third part draws very
instructive pictures of the large spread of Nestorianism in Persia, and
of the schools of Nisibis and Edessa, the very ctrongholds of this heresy.

Notices of Catholic Continental Periodicals. 541

Junilius, for seven years (545-552), was a " quaestor sacri palatii"
in Constantinople, and it was in this capital that he met with Paul
of Persia, professor, and afterwards metropolitan, of Nisibis. This
man provided Junilius with " The Methodical Introduction to the
Divine Law." At the request of his countryman, Pirmasius, Bishop
of Adrumetum, he translated this work into Latin, with the title,
*' Instituta Regularia." Professor Kihn shows that this title is the
original one, and substitutes it for the title hitherto employed:
" De Partibus Divinae Legis." To the same number I contribute an
■examination of Br. Foley's fifth volume of the " Records of the English
Province of the Society of Jesus."

3. Stimmen aus Maria Laach. — Fr. Baumgartner describes Italy
during the last three years. Fr. Wiedenman contributes a very
well written article on the '* Attacks of modern German philosophy
on the doctrine of Redemption." The man who impiously recom-
mends to Germany the systems of Monism and Pantheism is Prof.
Von Hartmann, of Berlin University. He is kind enough to teach the
German public the following doctrines: — "Real beings are the in-
carnation of the divine essence ; the world's development is the history
of the incarnation of the incarnate God, and likewise the way for
redeeming God crucified in the flesh; morality is co-operation for
shortening this way of suffering and redeeming." One cannot help
feeling disgust and annoyance at having forced on us by this author
blasphemies unusual with even the most powerful and virulent enemies
of the Church in the first period of Christianity. Prof. Hartmann
■clothes his ideas in a very fascinating form ; hence the popularity he
enjoys, hence the deplorable fact that his anti-Christian opinions are
taken up by thousands of readers.

l^ctias of §0oks.

The Metaphysics of the School. By Thomas Harper, S.J.
Vol. IL London: Macmillan & Co. 1881.

THIS second volume of a work, which impresses the reader and the
scholar more and more in proportion to its growth, is concerned
with the principles of Being, and with the four Causes. A less scien-
tific description of its contents may be given by saying that it treats
of the principle of contradiction, and of the constitution of bodily
substance. The aim of Father Harper, the reader may be reminded,
is to write Scholastic and Thomistic philosophy in English; in good
English words and phrases, and with reference to English contem-
porary thought. If his terms are at times somewhat strange, and his
phrasing a little uncouth, no one need be astonished or repelled.
Science must have its technicalities, and scientific progress is ira-

542 Notices of Books.

possible without scientific terms. The medical writers, or the artistic
writers, who contribute to the pages of widely read contemporary
periodicals, make no scruple of using language, which is professional
and et'en pedantic. Father Harper is never pedantic — that is, he
never uses technicalities or impressive phrases merely for the purpose
of display. But he rightly does not hesitate to use his English tongue
as a master would use it; widening its significance, happily innovating
on its usages, and by a skilful turn, bringing out new lights in the
massive structure of its idiom. Take the following paragraph from
his long and interesting discussion of the " atomic theory " of matter ;
and observe how neatly and cleverly a demonstration, familiar to us
in our text-books, is turned into English speech, which does not con-
tain more than a word or two that an ordinarily educated man can
misunderstand. He is speaking of the atomic theory in general —

Looking at it metaphysically it is a failure ; first, because it does not
reach the ultimate constituents of bodies. First of all, it does not even
reach their ultimate integrating parts; though it may approximate to those
ultimates enough for the practical purposes of physics, on the hypothesis
that their projection subserves these purposes, which is a subject of grave
doubt. The plain reason why it cannot reach the ultimate integrating
parts is that the feat is simply impossible. For quantity and quantified
material substances are indefinitely divisible. So long as there is
extension — j)art outside part — further division is possible ; and any inte-
grant part, however minute, of any body, must have extension. You
cannot, however persevering may be your efforts, mince extended bodies
into mathematical points. It is true, S. Thomas admits that physically
it is possible to reach an ultimate beyond which division is impossible.
But if such ultimate could practically be attained, what would be its con-
dition ? It is obvious that so long as the substance is informed by
quantity, it is physically capable of further division ; because it has part
outside part in space. Wherefore, the said ultimate would have been
denuded of its quantification, and consequently would cease to be a body,
though remaining in someway or other an integral material substance
(p. 231).

In treating of " principles " of Being, Father Harper establishes that
the principle of contradiction — "it is impossible that a thing should
both be and not be at one and the same time" — is the first in the order
of metaphysical reduction. His refutation of Sir William Hamilton's
objections to this thesis is very good; but it is not so easy to see that he
is successful in disposing of the counter principle of Gioberti, Komano,
Brownson, and Kosmini. We ourselves hold very distinctly that the •
principle, " God creates existences," is so far from being the ultimate
principle in the logical order, that it is not even a principle at all, but
an inference. But to say, as Father Harper says, that it is a contin-
gent principle, and that, therefore, if all human knowledge rested on
it, human knowledge would be contingent, is not to say anything
that a Giobertian would care to dispute. And Father Harper's appeal
to " common sense " in this matter, might, perhaps, be without much
difficulty turned against himself. But probably the learned author
will have another opportunity of treating the cardinal point of the
ontologistic school, and of demonstrating the futility of attempting
to identify the ontological order with the logical, or of setting up an

Notices of Books. 543

" intuition " which is not very easily distinguishable from veiled
pantheism.

The great question of the constitution of corporeal substance is
discussed at length, from page 183 to the very end of the volume.
There is, probably, no subject in all the Scholastic metaphysics so diffi-
cult to grasp in language as the doctrine of Matter and Form. The
conception itself, of the grand and fertile generalization which is indi-
cated by these two words, is one which requires the finest efforts of
the imagination to hold firmly in the mind's vision. The many theories
and views which thinkers of every age have thought out and expressed,
on a question which always has seemed imperatively to demand a
solution, are so many disturbing influences which prevent the philo-
sophic inquirer from giving his undivided thought to the profound
analysis of Aristotle and St. Thomas. From Anaxagoras to Sir
William Thompson there have been countless systems of atoms and
molecules, elements and forces, to account for what we see in the
visible world — the perpetual change, and the unbroken identity which
underlies all change. . The oldest philosophers, like the most recent,
have held that " fieri est alterari " — that no substance is made afresh,
but only altered ; that the elements, atoms, or forces, change their
arrangement and their mutual relations, like the dancers in a complex
dance, or the units of a flock of wild geese as they journey in a body
from one horizon to the other ; but that no deeper, no " substantial "
change takes place. With these philosophers, bread and a stone,
Avater and the strongest spirit, flesh of an animal and grass of the
field, are not really different, but only different " arrangements." The
scholastic analysis is the view of common sense ; that, over and above
any arrangement of parts, integrant or mechanical or chemical, there
is also a *' form," an " actuality," a binding and unifying influence,
which is the reason of the special qualities of a special thing;
that, take the smallest possible particle or atom of any material
substance, such form exists therein whole and perfect, giving a kind of
life, even in lifeless things, to that base or substratum of all matter
which is the same in all the corporeal universe. Father Harper
translates " materia prima " by primordial matter. The word may
perhaps be objected to, as seeming to imply a kind of existence for
this '* matter " which it cannot have; for " primordial " seems to con-
note existence. But the truth is, the root of the difficulty lies in the
word " matter." It would be better to have got rid of it in this
connection. Matter, in English, is not at all the term for " incom-
pleteness " which vXt; was to Aristotle. Even " materia," in Latin
had not, in St. Thomas's day, become a synomym for all that is most
real and most impressive to the sense. " Materia prima" means the
'' primary passive element " in things corporeal ; and though this is a
clumsy phrase, it is a question whether the getting rid of the obtrusive
phantasms conjured up by the word "matter " would not be cheaply
purchased by the attempt to naturalize it. Primordial matter, how-
ever, will pass. All that the learned author says in treating of the
nature, the causality, and the effect of this mysterious element, seems
good and sufficient. His discussion of modern theories, atomic and

544 Notices of Boohs.

other, is most interesting, and in many places most convincing ; but
it would have been desirable to have had a somewhat fuller state-
ment of the "dynamic " theory — some forms of which are extremely
interesting, though their elucidation belongs rather to physical science
than to metaphysical. The question of " forms " is brighter and more
promising than that of " matter." Father Harper devotes twenty-five
or thirty pages to the proof that " substantial forms" exist in Nature.
We have never before seen the first of these proofs handled as he
handles it — that is to say, the proof of " forms " throughout Nature,
from the analogy of what our own consciousness tells us of our own
being. Most readers would say at once, the analogy breaks down at
inorganic nature. I am conscious, on my own part, of an identity which
gives a unity to all the changing incidents of my existence ; and from
what I see of the " life " of living things, I may, without hesitation,
predicate the same thing of the organic universe. But what unity is
there in a rock or a liquid, which might not be the merely phenomenal
effect of an "arrangement" of atoms? Father Harper's answer to this
must be read. To many students his exposition of the analogy here
indicated will be new and convincing. He is by no means content,
however, with this one proof, but proceeds to give others, of which
two at least are treated in a way that is striking and novel, and de-
veloped with illustrations taken from the best and most recent physical
science.

Many readers will turn with interest to a discussion which is entitled
" Appendix A " — " The teaching of St. Thomas touching the genesis of
the material universe." The author shows very clearly, what, indeed,
no competently informed person doubted, that St. Thomas's idea of
creation was by no means the successive springing up of fully formed
crops, or forests, or troops of animals. At first the world was matter,
under a few elementary forms ; in this chaotic mass the " seminales
rationes," or formative power (heat, light, electricity — if there is any
ultimate difference among them), were created by God, and began to
work. Plants and animals were produced " from the elements by
the power of the Wordy We wish that Father Harper had explained
what he considers St. Thomas to have meant by this last phrase.
Whence did Life come? Was the first living thing the result of a
special creation ? Or was organic life evolved by chemical processes
from inorganic matter ? From a paragraph on page 789 (which, how-
ever, we are not at all sure we understand), it would appear that
Father Harper holds the possibility of the latter alternative. If he
does, we certainly cannot agree with him. It is a wide question. As
to the soul of ma^n there is no doubt. The soul is created by a dis-
tinct act of creation, when each man begins to be a man, and can by no
possibility have been evolved from anything else. But whence are the
souls of animals, or the living principles of plants ? Nay, whence are
the "forms" of chemical compounds? Some of Father Harper's
longest sections are occupied in explaining what is meant by one of the
least satisfactory of Thomistic or Aristotelian utterances — that the
forms of natural things are " educed out of the potentiality of the
matter," But when all is said — and Father Harper says it admirably —

Notices of Boohs. 545

there seems still to remain the question : " Whence are material
forms ?"

The best praise of a book is to use it. This work is not only the
production of a masterly and original metaphysician, but it is also a
repertoire of Thomistic teaching. It will be, in the hands of students,
we trust, both an assistance and a stimulus. They will study it for
its solid exposition and information, and they will be urged to the
highest aims in philosophic study by seeing how one writer can match,
on the ground of the true and Christian philosophy, the ablest meta-
physical thinkers of the day. To reorganize an empire is a much
more difficult thing than to make a dash into an enemy's country.
Father Harper has to stand by old truth and defend forgotten
positions. That he has done this so brilliantly is a subject of con-
gratulation to all who love the cause of Catholic wisdom, and an
encouragement to follow where he leads the way.

Le Positivisme et la Science Experimental e.
Par M. L'Abbe de Broglie. Deux tomes. Paris : Victor Palme. 1880.

THE author of these volumes tells us in his preface that for more
than twenty years he has been seeking for an efficient method
of defending sound philosophy against the attacks of MM, Comte,
Taine, and their followers. But in the eclectic school, in which he
had been brought up, his search was fruitless. It was only when
circumstances made him acquainted with the works of St. Thomas
Aquinas and the Scholastic Philosophy that he discovered the method
and the materials required for his task. He formed therein what we
may call the Philosophy of Common Sense ; a philosophy based upon
principles, and built up by methods, which are accepted without
hesitation by the good sense of mankind, even by the philosophers
themselves, when they leave their books and face the realities of life.
And from this intellectual Acropolis he found that he had complete
command of the Positivist position. He has used his advantage with
effect. He has dropped a shell into their magazine, and blown them
up with their own ammunition ; in plain terms, he has proved by the
Positivist method that the Positivist doctrine is false. He has shown,
from experimental science, as taught by purely scientific men (par
les purs savants) that the realities hidden beneath phenomena are
neither unknowable nor unknown.

The work consists of an introduction (Ixxiv pages), stating the main
features of the problem ; a preliminary book (76 pages),, on his method
of solving it ; a first part (522 pages), on Substance ; and a second, on
Cause. An analytic table of contents concludes each vokime.

The limits of a notice forbid us to speak as fully as we should wish
of this valuable work. The preliminary book is full of useful and
suggestive matter. Calling attention to the Babel of philosophical
tongues which at present confounds the learned world, to the wide-
spread rebellion against principles and facts of the clearest evidence, he
infers that the only course left open is to fall back upon the principles
and the language of common sense. He then discusses the relation of

546 Notices of Books.

common sense to logic and to scientific inquiry, and shows its value
in dealing with the antinomies, or contradictions, on which the
Positivists build their theory of nescience.

The treatise on " Substance revealed by pure Observation," after
explaining the meaning of " Substance " to be, in plain terms, persons
and things, sho^vs that we have experience of personality, spiritual
substance, through Consciousness, and of corporeal substances (bodies
or things), through sensible perception. Concerning sensible percep-
tion, he establishes the Scholastic doctrine that it has bodies for its
direct objects, and that these objects and their extension in space are
realities.

The second part treats, but always in the light of expisrimental
science, of Cause and of Law, of the principles of induction, and of
causality. Finally, the author brings all these rays of experimental
science into a focus upon the Positivist dogma : " Nothing can be
known but facts and their laws," and after showing its utter falseness,
concludes that Science is not positivist, and that Positivism is not
scientific.

In spite of the subject matter, the style of the work is clear and
picturesque. The author has our congratulations, and our best wishes.

The Catechumen : an aid to the Intelligent Knowledge of the Catechism.
By Canon Wenham. London: Burns & Gates. 1881.

CANON WENHAM has already earned the gratitude of school
managers and teachers by the works he has published, either as
hand-books for teachers, reading books for children, or guides for
school managers. His interest . in religious instruction, and his
solicitude for intelligent study of the Catechism, are so sincere and
well directed that all his labours have been readily appreciated, and
his works have found their way into every school. The tone and
character given to his first school books, the " Religious Readers," have
been well maintained in the series which has succeeded them ; and we
have now to notice what will probably be considered his best work — a
very valuable and much needed explanation of the Catechism, entitled
*' The Catechumen." All school managers will welcome the book as
a compendium, simple yet adequate, of Catholic Theology. No one,
unless possessing a mind imbued with theological principles, and a
memory stored with pastoral experiences, could in such condensed and
simple form explain so clearly the dogmas, rules and counsels of our
holy religion. There is no lack of books which profess to expound
the elements of Christian doctrine contained in the Catechism, but this
is certainly the best we have yet seen. • In his preface, Canon
Wenham states his aim thus : —

With the view of helping those who are aiming at making religious •
knowledge more intelligent and practical .... I have written the
following pages. The book does not pretend to be anything very original,
or higher and better than other books of religious instruction, but rather
something less than they are — something more simple and intelligible,
dressed up to meet a present want. Certainly, it is intended to do more

Kotices of Books. 547

than can be done by compendiums, abridgments, and other cram books,
which, if useful in their own place, yet tend to make religious knowledge
— and sometimes this is professed and acknowledged — an affair of memory.
The aim of this little book is, on the contrary, to make it interesting and
intelligent.

It is hard to find fault with expressions of humility uttered with
such candour, and so we leave those who are concerned in teaching
children to give their verdict as to the merits of this book being
" something less " than others. We have only to say that the aim of
the author has been gained, and all the promises of these sentences
have been fulfilled. We have simplicity of language issuing in
intelligent explanation of Christian doctrine, and an adequate and even
comprehensive course of theology put into elegant language and made
most, interesting. The order of the book is logical and clear : the
paragraphs are headed in large type with the subject of which they
treat; and almost every topic suggested by the questions and answers
of the Catechism receives a clear and full explanation. The division
of the subject is thus stated by the author : —

As supernatural religion must be founded on supernatural knowledge,
the first part is concerned with this knowledge. It treats of Faith —
ivhat must we believe, in order to be saved ? But as knowledge of God is
ol: no use without serving Him, the second part is on Christian practice —
lohat must we do, in order to be saved ? And the third part is concerned
V ith the Sacraments and Prayer, as the chief means of obtaining that
supernatural assistance, without which we cannot do what is necessary to
obtain a supernatural reward.

Under these three heads the whole Catechism receives a clear and
comprehensive explanation, If we might suggest any views different
from those of the learned author, it would only be upon questions of
minor importance. We would venture to suggest that in the
paragraphs which treat upon Faith, it be described as a '^ habit " as
well as an " infused virtue ;" and we might question the accuracy of
the definition of implicit Faith, which is described as " believing in
whatever God makes known to us, whatever it is." A little oversight
may perhaps be suggested by the expression on page 80 that " He
Svas born in the womb of the Blessed Virgin." At least, one school
of theology would (Question the accuracy of a statement on page 81,
which represents Mary's merits as antecedent to, and the occasion of,
her exalted dignity. The limitation of the exemptions from fasting to
four classes, and the suggestion that those who are outside these four
classes commit sin, by dispensing themselves Avithout consulting, or
stating their reason to, the priest of the parish, might be thought to
have the savour of a little rigorism. But such trifling faults, if our
judgment is correct, do not mar the excellence of this most useful,
comprehensive, and trustworthy handbook of Christian doctrine ; and
we most cordially and confidently recommend it to managers and
teachers as a book which will supply every need and give the most
complete satisfaction.

yoL. VI. — NO. Ti. [Third Seines.] 0 o

548 Notices of Books.

The Life and Selections from the Correspondence of William Whewellj
D.B. By Mrs. Stair Douglas. London : Kegan Paul & Co.
1881.

THIS work, although ' it appears when many who anxiously
looked for a memoir of Dr. Whewell, are no longer here to be
charmed with the reminiscences of one greatly admired and loved,
must still prove attractive to a wide circle of readers who have in-
herited the traditions of a former generation of literary and learned
men. Few contemporaries of Dr. Whewell survive, and distance has
dimmed the majestic outline of " The Great Master " for younger
eyes, whilst the rapid rate at which we are now whirled through life
and the multiplicity of objects which clamour for attention prevent
our realizing the intellectual stature of those who towered high in
their generation. Any attempt to preserve the likeness and lineaments
of such a one, and to picture him as he appeared in his own time,
must meet with consideration and gratitude. The great difficulty
experienced in finding amongst Dr. Whewell' s numerous friends a
biographer who felt he would do justice to his exceptional and many-
sided talents, proves the high estimation in which he was held.

The task was taken up by one after another and thrown down
again as too arduous, until at last it was decided that the work should
be executed in three divisions, and by three different hands — the
history of his literary and scientific labours, the history of his
academic work, and the history of bis social life. The first part was
undertaken by Mr. Tod hunter, who has been somewhat unfairly
blamed for the dryness of his two volumes, a defect which ought
rather to be attributed to the exclusively categorical nature of his
portion of the task. The second and third portions of the proposed
memoir were finally merged into one ; and only those who are aware
of the overwhelming mass of correspondence from which the author
had to select her materials, can fully appreciate the difficulty and
intricacy of the task which Mrs. Stair Douglas has accomplished.
And yet this volume, appearing as it does, when the former two are
almost forgotten, gives but an imperfect idea of one who contributed
so largely to the scientific and literary work, and was on terms of
intimate friendship, and in constant correspondence with most of the
men of eminence of his day ; and it is to be regretted that a resume
at least of Mr. Todhunter's work does not accompany the present
memoir.

It appears at first sight strange that it should prove so difficult to
portray a character in itself so marked, and to describe a man who
stood out in such high relief among his contemporaries, to the eyes of
a later generation. " In his published works," says Dr. Lightfoot,
in his funeral sermon, "he has covered a wider field than any living
writer ; and those who have conversed with him in private, record
with wonder his familiar acquaintance with the farthest outlying
regions of knowledge in its lower as well as in its higher forms. What
value will be attached by after ages to his various literary and scien-
tific works, it would be vain to predict ; but this at least we may say.

Notices of Books. 549

that in our own generation and country he has held the foremost
rank, if not in precision, at least in range and vigour of intellect."

To many it seems almost incomprehensible that, with his quenchless
thirst for knowledge and his eagerness to grasp all that could be dis-
covered on any subject, Dr. Whewell should never have turned his
thoughts to the study of theology. This may partly be accounted for
by the extreme reverence he had for religion, and a great dislike to
make it a subject of controversy. From his boyhood he had a sen-
sitive reserve on this point. In a letter written at the age of seventeen
to his talented little brother of eight, he says, speaking of some verses
the latter had sent him : — " Your subject, I perceive, is generally of a
religious nature. I do not know whether I dare venture to find fault
on that head, but .to tell the truth (and I do assure you it is not from
want of regard for religion) I myself dare not as yet engage in it. The
subject is so aAvful, that before the mind is ripened, it seems to me
fitter for contemplation than for description." The same feeling may
be traced in subsequent letters, yet he was a man of great and deep
religious sentiment. The /orm of religion he accepted as it came to
him, Avithout question.

The pursuit of science supplied for him an outlet for the yearnings
of his soul after the Highest Good and the supreme end of existence.
The further he penetrated into the depths of knowledge, or unravelled
the speculations of philosophy, unlike the many whose researches lead
them away from the Great Creator in a vain seeking after natural
causes, " the world of matter without, the world of thought within,
alike spoke to him of the Eternal Creator." Natural theology formed
the subject of his earliest writings ; and in his last sermon, preached
in his College Chapel, he spoke of Him " who is the Alpha and the
Omega, the beginning and the ending ;" and, passing on from the
creation of the world to its dissolution, he painted the great and final
crisis : —

No mountains sinking under the decrepitude of years, or weary rivers
ceasing to rejoice in their courses ; no placid euthanasia silently leading
on the dissolution of the natural world, but the trumpet shall sound —
the struggle shall come. This goodly frame of things shall expire amid
the throes and agonies of some fierce and sudden catastrophe. And the
same arm that plucked the elements from the dark and troubled slumbers
of their chaos shall cast them into their tomb.

In a fragment of "Reflections on God," inserted in Mr. Todhunter's
book. Dr. Whewell speaks of the strong and peculiar pleasure derived
from success in discovery, which he ascribes to the joy of finding " the
expression of the Creator's thoughts." " The pride of discovery, the
elevation of spirit which we feel when a new principle dawns upon us,
the triumph with which it fills our minds .... all these feelings are
hallowed and sanctified, because they arise from that tendency which
draws us to the Divine Mind, and makes us seek the perfection of our
nature in Him." We cannot tell why one so Catholic in mind and
heart never knew of that great spiritual Creation, the Church of God,
of which the wonders of the material world are but types and shadows;
but not a doubt that the Church of Rome was other than a state of

O O 3

550 Notices of Books,

Egyptian bondage — a tyrant requiring a slavish submission and sur-
render of intellect and will, according to the form in which it was
represented to him by the Protestant tradition with which he was
surrounded, ever seems to have crossed his mind. Yet his fairness
and honesty led him to reject the popular version of Galileo's suf-
ferings in the dungeons of the Inquisition and do justice to the intel-
lectual labours of mediaeval monks. And in theory he seems now and
again to have realized the necessity of a living Teacher and Guide in
faith and morals.

As to Dr. Whewell's moral character, it was as singularly pure and
blameless as if he had been trained in the strictest Catholic principles.
" The temptations of youth," writes a friend and contemporary, "left
him unscathed and unstained. Pure in deed, he was also pure in
word, and even in his youth, when a bad fashion corrupted many, he
religiously abstained from the use of profane oaths or of any word un-
befitting Christian lips." His charity, too, both in spirit and in its
outward expression, was such as would have been remarkable even in
a Catholic. The writer just quoted says on this point — " He was
tolerant and charitable towards those of a different creed, and was
never heard to impute unworthy motives to those who differed from
him." He quickly and readily forgave those who offended and injured
him, and at the same time that he keenly felt any injustice or unkind-
ness he never resented it. He had also the still more rare quality of
never bearing any ill-will towards those whom he had offended. His
almsgiving was all but unlimited. Wealth flowed in upon him, and
he held it lightly and dispensed it Avith unsparing hand. His munifi-
cence towards his college and university we need not dwell upon, but
few are aware to what an extent he relieved the poor and suffering, or
how largely he helped on any good work that was brought to his
notice. As an instance of his ready generosity we may adduce the
following anecdote : — " A lady, much employed in good works, called
on one occasion at Trinity Lodge to ask the Master for his name and
a small subscription towards some temporary case of distress. His
immediate response was to place in her hand a ten-pound note. Not
expecting so large a donation she looked up in silent surprise, when
Dr. Whewell, misinterpreting the expression on her face, quickly
said — ' Oh, if it is not enough you shall have some more.' The
tears came into the good lady's eyes as she explained that it was more
than enough, and she needed to seek no further help.'' What a charac-
ter shoAving such noble outline might have become if permeated and
glorified by the full radiance of the light of faith we can but dream ;
and what might have been had his life been spared a little longer we
cannot now tell. In the latter years every hard trait of his character
was softened down, the tight curb was relaxed, and his affectionateness
and sympathies were allowed freer scope. With this also came a
toning down of traditional prejudice and a very sweet humility. It
seemed as though some slight interest at least was awakened in the
great intellect to understand what God had revealed to ''little ones,"
and yet this was apparently more to find out in what the attraction
of the Catholic Church for certain minds consisted, than as if he were

Notices of Books. 551

himself attracted by her ; but this might have led further had time been
granted.

Many students of science, who, had Dr. Whewell been a Catholic,
would reject as unworthy of notice all that he has written on this
subject, may gather their first germs of belief from his writings, and
thus we may regard him as a workman who with strong and vigorous
stroke hews the rock from the quarry, and with saw and chisel and
cunning carving prepares the stone, that later on, without stroke of
axe or ring of hammer, is placed silently in the ever-rising walls of the
Temple of God.

Thomas- Lexicon^ das ist Uebersetzung unci Erkldrung der in den
Werken des heiligen Thomas von Aquin vorhommenden Tei^ni tech-
nici. Von Dr. Ludwig Schuetz. Paderborn : Schoeningh. 1880

DR. SCHUETZ, the learned professor of philosophy in the
ecclesiastical seminary at Treves, is favourably known in
Germany by his able ^' Introduction to Philosophy." He now deserves
still higher recognition for his recent volume explaining the technical
terms occuring in the works of S. Thomas. Before the old tradition
of theology and philosophy was destroyed by the French Revolution,
dictionaries of a similar kind were largely in use with Catholic
scholars. We may, for example, draw the reader's attention to
Reeb's "Thesaurus Philosophorum," recently edited by Fr. Cornoldi.
It is impossible to doubt of the necessity of such books ; they help
students to overcome a great many difficulties in the way of an
appreciative perusal of S. Thomas, Professor Schuetz has supplied
this want in a manner deserving high praise. Philosophical as well
as theological terms are thoroughly explained, the explanation being
supported by texts principally gathered from both the Summas.
We would also lay considerable stress on the fact that the quotations are
made with extreme care, and that the text of Aristotle is given in
Greek.- As instancing the vast learning brought by the author to the
composition of this book we would direct the reader's attention to the
articles "corpus" " intentio " and " principium," which are perhaps
the most exhaustive of all. The letter " A " includes no less than
two hundred terms. Hence this dictionary is far richer than that of
Signoriello, the second edition of which appeared at Naples, in 1872.
For these reasons we venture to recommend this Dictionary of S.
Thomas to all students of scholastic philosophy and theology. B.

Memorie storico-critiche archeologiche dei Saiiti Cirillo e Metodio e del
loro apostolato fra le genti Slave. Per Dojienico Bartolini,.
Prete del titolo di S. Mario, Cardinale della S. Romana Chiesa,
Prefetto della S. Congregazione dei Riti. Roma : Tipografia
Vaticana. 1881.

THE admirable encyclical " Grande munus " of September 30th,
1880, in which Pope Leo XIII. drew attention to the great

552 Notices of Boohs,

apostles Cyril and Methodius, has given rise to this learned work of
Cardinal Bartolini. The author has dedicated it "to the Slav
pilgrims, his brethren in the faith," who, only a few weeks ago, came
to Rome, to express their heartfelt thanks to Pope Leo, and strengthen
those bonds of faith and charity which unite them to the Holy See.
In the Introduction, the author examines and thoroughly weighs the
authority of the documents from which his notices are derived. First
come ancient legends of different peoples concerning their great
apostles. The Italian, or, to speak more correctly, the Eoman, legend
claims special notice. It was written by Ganderich, Bishop of
Velletri, who was in very intimate intercourse with Cyril and
Methodius during their stay in Rome, and probably witnessed their
consecration at the hands of Pope Hadrian II. The Pannonian
legend — one of great importance — relates that S. Methodius was not
only deposed, though illegally, but also detained in gaol for more
than two years, by Alwin, Archbishop of Salzburg. Bishop Anno, of
Freising, and Bishop Hemerich, of Passau, great historians, have
refused to accept the truth of these facts alleged in the legend. But
from out of the immense treasures of the British Museum (add. MSS.
n., 8873) Professor Peter Ewald brought, two years ago, a good many
Papal letters hitherto totally unknown, and amongst them also letters
of John VIII. to the aforesaid bishops, who are rebuked for their
temerity, and cited before the Pope's tribunal. Hence the truth of
the Pannonian legend is unanswerably established.

The main incidents in the lives of SS. Cyril and Methodius,
rehearsed in our recent article on the Russian Church,* need not be
repeated here. Among the special features of the volume before us it
may be noticed that Cardinal Bartolini establishes the truth of the
consecration to the episcopate of both the brothers by Hadrian II.,.
against several authors denying this dignity to Cjrril. S. Cyril died
in Rome in 869, and was interred in the basilica of S. Clement, where
the remains of S. Clement I., which he had brought to Rome,
had been deposited. The ceremonies observed at his funeral by Pope
Hadrian II. are manifestly tantamount to a solemn canonization
(Bartolini pp. QQ, 67). Perhaps the most interesting portion of the
book is the fourth chapter, together with the appendix (p. 184-2o4).
All scholars of Christian art and archaeology ought to read it attentively.
Here the learned Cardinal comments at length on the tombs and relics
of our Saints and the Roman frescoes recording their history. The
old basilica of S. Clement's, at Rome, where S. Cyril was buried, was
erected in the time of the Emperor Constantine, and his relics were
transferred to the new basilica, built exactly above the old edifice
in the eleventh century, after the devastation of Rome by Robert
Guiscard. These relics were destroyed by the French when they occu-
pied Rome at the end of last century. An arm of S. Cyril, preserved
in the Collegiate Church of S. Peter, Briinn (Moravia), met with a
like sad fate. Of S. Methodius no relics whatever are preserved.
The Roman basilica of S. Clement is still, however, in possession of two

* Dublin Review, April, 1881, pp. 422-7.

Notices of Boohs. 553

precious frescoes representing S. Cyril being sent by the Greek
Emperor Michael to the Khazars, and baptizing king Rastiz of Moravia.
According to the opinion of De Rossi they must belong to the ninth
century. There is, besides these, in the treasury of the Vatican basilica
a picture, stamped with a Byzantine character, representing Our Lord,
attended by SS. Peter and Paul. Above the heads of the two apostles
we read their names in the Slav language. The lower part of the picture
represents a Pope blessing a bishop kneeling before him, and two
Greek monks kneeling on either side. We cannot here follow the
details of Cardinal Bartolini's long inquiry, but we may briefly state
that, after an exact examination made by himself and Professors
Fontana and Lais (the former an architect, the latter a painter), it can
no longer be doubtful that the picture belongs to the ninth century.
Hence it is the Cardinal's opinion that the bishop kneeling before the
Pope is S. Methodius in the act of being entrusted with the mission to
the Slavs, and being appointed legate after Cyril's death, while the
two Greek monks at the sides designate himself and his brother Cyril.
He further believes that S. Methodius had this picture painted by
Greek artists in Rome, and afterwards presented it to S. Peter's in
memory of his mission to the Slavs.

Bellesheim.

PrcBcipua Ordinis Monastici Elementa e Begula S. Patris Benedicti
adumhravit, testimoniis ornavit D. Maurus Wolter, Abbas
S. Martini de Beuron et B.M.Y. de Monteserrato-Emaus, Pragae;
Superior generalis Congregationis Beuronensis, O.S.B. Brugis :
Desclee, de Brouwer et Soc. 1880.

THIS splendidly printed volume is the gift offered by Dom
Maurus Wolter, an abbot of the Beuron Benedictine congre-
gation, to the holy patriarch of Western monks, on the occasion of
his fourteenth centenary. From the preface, it appears that, in
1868, a meeting of German Benedictine abbots was convened at
Salzburg, Austria. It aimed at bringing into closer union the
various Benedictine monasteries of Germany and Austria, and laying
down once more the great principles on which the order is established.
In the present learned work these rules, or elements, as the abbots
styled them, are sketched and commented on at great length.
The classification is as follows : — 1. Religious life within the pre-
cincts of the monastery (Vita claustralis, pp. 40-109). 2. The work
of God (Opus Dei, pp. 109-241). 3. Holy poverty (Sancta paupertas,
pp. 241-341). 4. Chastity (Sancta mortiticatio — castitas, pp. 341-
480). 5. Holy labour and obedience (Sanctus labor — obedientia, pp.
480-613). 6. Works of charity (Opera charitatis, pp. 613-703).
7. Government (Regimen, pp. 703-825). How far the work will be
accepted, as authoritative by the wide-spread Order of St. Benedict,
we do not inquire here ; but it deserves the most respectful attention.
Each chapter is uniformly arranged. Starting with a declaration of
the Benedictine rule, the author adduces the Councils, Pontiffs, and

554 . Notices of Boohs.

Fathers of every century as witnesses to the important work of the
religious orders. It must have cost the author almost incredible labour
to search out and bring together letters of Popes, decrees of Councils,
works of Fathers, and constitutions of congregations now-a-days all but
forgotten and unknowa. Besides, it ought to be borne in mind that
every document is so skilfully selected as to develop the Rule of the
order from another view. But Dom Wolter's work claims a far
greater importance, as being a storehouse of the principles of spiritual
life. Scarcely a question concerning that life but will be here found
fully treated, and in a masterly manner. Let us instance only the single
article " Oratio." Whoever will take the pains to go through it will be
impressed with the sublime idea of the heavenly work daily prescribed
to the Catholic priesthood. This volume, therefoie, will be found of
immense help to all persons desirous of enlightenment in the duties of
the spiritual life, and will be invaluable to those who, as confessors
and preachers, need that enlightenment also for the benefit of others
committed to their care. The value of the book, to these latter, is
enhanced by the four excellent indices appended. B.

Die Marienverehrung in den ersten Jahrliv.nderten. Von Hofrath
Dr. F. A. VON Lehner. Stuttcjart : F. G. Cotta. 1881.

o

HERE VON LEHNER, director of the Museum of His Royal High-
ness Prince Charles Anthony of Sigmaringen — the only branch
of the House of Hohenzollern which remained faithful to the Catholic
Church — here gives us a very learned and, it may be added, an ex-
tremely useful work, on Our Blessed Lady, Whether regarded from
the stand-point of the theologian or of the artist, his treatise deserves
very high praise, since it fully testifies to its author's learning, not
only in Christian art, which he especially cultivates, but also in
theology. Dr. von Lehner proves himself to be about as solid and
lofty a theologian in this particular department as any whom we know.
We can only indicate the headings of his chapters: — Introduction
(p. 1-9); The Virgin (9-37) ; The Mother (37-86); St. Joseph's Wife
(86-120); The Everlasting Virgin (120-144); xMary's SouU 144-
172); Mary helping to bring about our Salvation (172-182); Devotion
to Our Lady (182-222); Mary in Poetry (222-283); Mary in Art
(283-34 2). The Appendix contains eighty-five pictures of Our Lady,
traced from paintings in the Catacombs, from gilded glasses, or irom
old Christian sarcophagi.

We cannot help wishing that the author had brought more forcibly
into prominence the all-important fact, that the books of the New
Testament are inspired by the Holy Ghost, and that their absolute
truth is perpetually warranted by the infallible voice of the Catholic
Church. Besides, we cannot agree with Herr von Lehner when he
writes (p. 8) : — ^' The wonder of the Immaculate Conception must
at first have been believed in congregations possessing the gospels of
St. Matthew and St. Luke. But, that it was known also before, may
be taken as beyond any doubt." This phrase lays itself open to

Notices of Boohs. 555

misconception ; since, from the history of Christianity, it is evident
that the belief in the perpetual virginity of Our Lady was a portion
of the depositum Jldei, which is independent of the gospels, and was
possessed by the Catholic Church in full integrity before the gospels
were known. But putting aside such inaccuracies, we fieel justified in
calling Herr von Lehner's work a standard book, that fills up a gap
in our literature, since it traces devotion to Our Lady back from the
Council of Ephesus (a.d. 431) to the beginnings of Christianity. This
great Council of Ephesus solemnly confirmed to Mary the title of
^(OTOKos, and rejected the frivolous attacks of Nestorius. That this
decree was in full keeping with the belief of the centuries gone by,
Herr von Lehner succeeds in solidly establishing, by his most diligent
collection of whatever the ante-Ephesian fathers, either Syrian, Greek,
or Latin, have written about Mary. One of the most instructive parts
of the work seems to be " Mary helping in the work of Salvation," a
doctrine so eagerly objected to by the Keformers, and yet so familiar
in the first three centuries. The last two chapters examine into the
poetical and artistic works of ancient Christianity, as referring to Our
Lady and the cultus she received in the Early Church ; and a new
light is shed upon her whom all generations call blessed, from the
precious documents preserved through the storms of nearly 2,000
years. These remarks will suffice to draw the attention of English
Catholics to Herr von Lehner's work and to commend it to them.

Bellesheim.

1. The Deluge. A Poem. London : Elliot Stock. 188L

2. 0)1 the Sunrise Slope. By Katherine E. Conway. New York:

Catholic Publication Society. 188L

3. Rhymes of the Roadside. By Mac-Alla. Dublin: M. H. Gill &

Son. 1881.

THE DP]LUGE " is an introduction in four parts, called books by
the writer, which, if favourably received, is to be followed by
the Poem itself, in which the author proposes to propound his theo-
logical theories anent the Deluge. It is more than probable we shall
be' spared another Deluge. We fail to see either in the matter or the
manner of the author anything encouraging a wish for further ac-
quaintance. He has evidently read Milton, and his reminiscences
have an odd way of cropping up, like " King Charles " in " Mr.
Dick's" famous memorial. Here is a fair specimen of the author's
average style : —

Perfection art Thou ! Sole Perfection, Lord !
To man's best sight Thy works are perfect all.

There is plenty more of the same sort. Taking the author at his
level best, we find nothing so good as the first lines of Book third-
No w twiUght came along— a lovely Boy
Of gentle mien, with golden hair, and face
Buddy and bright with smiles : thus much was he

556 Notices of Books.

An image of his sire, the blue-eyed Day;
But his dark ilashing glance and bosom brown
Show'd like his mother, silent, swarthy Night !
He had within his father's warm embrace
Been softly held ; but now, with dewy feet,
He brushed the greensward as he swept along,
Each parent holding to a hand ; but soon
His faltering footsteps pity drew, and Night,
With quiet movement, raised his feeble form,
And, in her dark cloak wrapping him around,
With gentle murmur hush'd him into rest.

We fancy there is a reminiscence here ; but memories are treacherous,
and then some people may like this sort of refresher.

Those who, undaunted by a preface (not written by Miss Conway)
which begins, " Yielding at last to the importunities of friends," and
is throughout in the worst possible taste, dip into " On the Sunrise
Slope," will find some graceful verse, though of very unequal merit,
but much of which is pretty and full of religious pathos. We should
like to have quoted " Mary Lee" and " Remembered," had space per-
mitted.

If not of very powerful note, Mac-Alla is still a sweet singer, and
his or her " Rhymes of the Roadside " have a tuneful ring and true
poetical appreciation of Nature's beauties. Mac-Alla has learned, as
it is prettily put in the modest proem .... to hold communion with

The Spirit of green lanes.

" A Ballad of the Chase " is very spirited, but too long to quote.
And in an '^ OUa Podrida," made up of various translations, there is
still better work.

An Essay on the History of English Church Architecture prior to the
Separation of England frrni the Roman Obedience. By George
Gilbert Scott, F.S.A., sometime Fellow of Jesus College,
Cambridge. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. J881.

WE hasten to say a word of welcome to this very thoughtful essay.
A recognition of its high literary and artistic merits would be
only a matter of justice, if Ave diiFered much more widely than we do
from the writer on matters of taste and on the numerous questions of
interpretation raised in its pages. Mr. G. Gilbert Scott calls his volume
a " little work," which excess of modesty, we take it, is not counte-
nanced either by the bulk of his solid and well-illustrated quarto, or by
the largeness of philosophical view and masterly grouping of materials
in its pages, or je,t by the amount of research that its composition
must certainly have cost him. The volume does not reach us early
enough for that amount of space to be devoted to it in our present
number which its merits deserve. This, however, must not prevent
us giving to the reader some idea of its contents.

The Essay is really a philosophy of the history of church
architecture — " a broad and rational view of mediaeval architecture"

Notices of Boohs. 557

in itself and in its relations with anterior styles. Our mediseval
churches are not only the descendants, in a distant clime, of the first
Roman and Eastern Christian church buildings, but the law of their
growth and the circumstances determining their variations from the
infant type can be traced and described.

My object throughout has been to exhibit the history with which it
attempts to deal as one continuous fact, having an origin, which can be
quite accurately ascertained, and an orderly evolution determined by the

conditions, internal and external It has been my aim to exhibit the

architectural art of Christendom as a part of the great fact of Christianity,
to deal with the church architecture of our own coiantry as but a portion
of a great whole, and to display the essential solidarity of the history of
christian art in England with that of christian art in general and of Chris-
tianity itself Ecclesiology in England did not start into being — an

Athene sprung adult from the brain of Zeus — at the bidding of St. Augus-
tine. Our ancestors, upon their conversion, but took up the threads of —
but fell with the stream of — a tradition already venerable from its years.
Or rather — and this is of the essence of the matter — they came by
that event under the influence of two traditions so distinct in their
history that as we follow back their parted streams we find no common
channel till we reach the common fountain-head. It should, however, be
clearly understood at the outset that this distinction in the ecclesio-
logical and ritual tradition existed side by side with identity of faith,
complete intercommunion, hierarchical subordination, and organic unity
(Pref. i.).

The double ecclesiological tradition of which the writer makes so
much use in this Essay, is that which the Roman missionaries of the
sixth century introduced into England, and that older one of the British
Church which they found in the island, and which soon re-asserted
itself and largely influenced Roman methods and details. Indeed,
Mr. Scott contends that our English architecture is what may be
called the resultant of these two conflicting forces. The salient point of
the Roman usage was the apsidal termination ; that of the British tradi-
tion, on the contrary, was the square east end. The Roman type Mr.
Scott traces down from the basilican model of the churches built after the
deliverance of the Church from persecution. The square end marks
the more primitive type of Christian church that existed long before
Constantine, originating, doubtless, in the oratories or chapels formed
in rooms in the houses of converts to the faith. This is the British
model.

The question remains, whence came the british model? The only
probable answer seems to be, that this peculiar type prevailed in this
island before the time of Constantine ; that it dates, in fact, from the
first introduction of Christianity into this country— whether by St.
Joseph of Arimathea, St. Paul, or by later missionaries : and that the
apse, an introduction of the roman immigrants, was foreign to the tradi-
tions of the native Church, and never became naturalized here. This
square-ended plan has survived, in a remarkable ^ manner, repeated
attempts to supplant it by the apse. The first we have just alluded to—the
constant immigration of Romans, bringing with them the ecclesiastical
customs of their own country. Again, the roman missionaries to the Saxons
naturally introduced the roman plan, but the primitive british tradition
again re-asserted itself, as we shall see as we proceed. At the norman

558 Notices of Books.

conquest a similar struggle between the two types occurred. Again the
british plan triumphed. Let us hope that from its present struggle with
an unnatural imitation of continental architecture and a feeble atiectation
of novelty it may issue again successful (p. 37).

A still fuller resume of the same struggle and its results is to be
found on p. 130, so important is it held to be. The apparent
anomaly of English churches dating from various early periods, and
having apses is explained with great ingenuity and vraisemhlance. Space
compels us to refer the reader to the Essay itself. The writer is very
severe on those who would introduce apsidal chancels on to English
soil ; they betray ignorance of the venerable antiquity of the square-
ended form ; still worse, a taste for apses in England is " ignorant
caprice or a morbid craving after novelty." There is enough, however,
in these able pages calling for appreciation to enable us to quite over-
look a little enthusiastic purism. And the writer also carefully points
out, more than once, that the diverse methods of arrangement witness
nevertheless to liturgical uniformity. Thus the square end of our old
English churches never supports " a sideboard " altar. The altar is
a free table set at a distance from the wall, leaving space between for
the seats of bishop and clergy — an arrangement identical in result
with that of the basilican apse.

We can do no more than make mere mention of some few of the most
interesting opinions set forth at length in this Essay. Christian art
had made great progress before Constantino ; the Diocletian persecution
shows the immense number of Christian churches then existing ; the
form of these had become traditional, and was carefully followed in
the great churches erected by Coustantine. The basilican type did not
originate from the conversion of basilicas into churches, as is often
supposed — Mr. Scott says he knows of not one authenticated instance
— but from the adoption of the basilica, a smaller forum, as the model
for the public place of the new religion, the church. For the church
in early times was much more than it now is ; it was the centre of
Christian coiomon life, "at once the house and dwelling-place of God,
and the meeting-place of the citizens of his kingdom — the Civitas Dei.'^
How the Christian basilica was elaborated from the Pagan model is told
in the first chapter : the account is most interesting in its details.
Eead, for example, how the baldachino — a thing Gothic purists used
to laugh at — was evolved from the curtains round the holy table of
the primitive church, &c. As to the orientation of churches — on
which Mr. Scott has a very able discursus — it ought apparently to be
rather the orientation of the celebrant. His eastward position has
never varied, and has been always a point of great importance ; but
whilst in early times the people were before the priest and faced
westward, in later times they are behind the priest, and together with
him face eastward.

The second chapter, which traces the history of English architecture
from its dim beginnings to the Norman invasion, is particularly full
and deserving of attentive perusal. The old cathedral church of
Canterbury, from Eadmer's description of which we have a long extract,
had an apse at both ends ; — we must refer again to the Essay for

Notices of Books. 559

Mr. Scott's clever conjecture, that hereto, as the requirements of the
monastic choir grew, we may trace the change of the altar from the
west, its position in the Early Church, to the east end in the mediceval.
The conjectural plan (Plate IX.) of the cathedral previous to the fire
of 1067 gives clearness to the explanation of this conjecture. This
portion of the Essay, dealing as it does with a period so little known
(under an art aspect) as England before the Norman period, is especially
valuable under the treatment of a masterly hand. The line of
separation between ancient and modern architecture is not the invention
of the Gothic arch — it is the development of the Romanesque by the
Normans. Speaking of St. Albans Abbey, that, being built of brick,
was plastered interiorly and exteriorly and beautifully decorated
within, Mr. Scott has some severe, but not unmerited, strictures on the
would-be restorers who are fain to despoil the interior of its plastered
beauty and who regard that early style (when thus despoiled of
its charms), as rude and barbarous. " A Norman interior," he con-
cludes, " serves to illustrate the barbarism not of the eleventh century,
but of the nineteenth." The discursus on the painted ceilings of
St. Albans contains information well worth noticing, and is one of the
many places in which we have been struck with the author's fine
appreciation of every variety and school of real art. The broadness
of his sympathies is indeed refreshing in a work professedly in favour
of the claims of English architecture. The catholicity (in a lay
sense) of his task has been doubtless at least helped by his learned
appreciation of Catholic doctrine and history.

The departure from classical models and rules of proportion, and the
evolution of the " pointed " style, is told with much vigour and interest
in the fourth chapter. As to the much debated origin of the pointed
arch, Mr. Scott is of opinion that we learned it from the East through
the Crusades. To intercourse with the Pjast is also traced ihe intro-
duction into Europe of ornamented and coloured glazing. The
subsequent progress in glass- staining was a chief cause in bringing
about that notable change in window tracery that is a chief mark of
the perpendicular period. The beautiful flowing tracery of "decorated"
AvindoAvs may have begun to cloy by its very luxuriance, but the change
was chiefly wrought from an artistic effort to make accommodation
for the figure-designs of the now skilled glass-painter in the traceries
as Avell as in the lights.

Mr. Scott contends for a distinction between perpendicular and
Tudor of kind, not merely of degree ; for, not only Avere new forms
introduced, but new principles of construction also. The innovations
of the "perpendicular" artists Avere barred-tracery and the four-
centred arch ; that of the " tudor " Avas the fan-groin—" of all forms
of groining the most mathematical and the most elastic." Another
advance in groining — " one to be Avondered at rather than admired "

the 'Hruly audacious roof" of Henry VII. 's Chapel at Westminster

Abbey, " Avith its vault resting apparently on nothing, and exhibiting,
where the pillars once stood, only a series of great pendants floating in
mid-air," Avas a tour de force th^t "fitly closes the history of the gothic
style."

560 Notices of Boohs.

It might be naturally expected that we should concern ourselves
more with the ecclesiological than with the purely architectural
portions of the Essay. Mr. Scott has new, or less common, views on
not a few topics concerning ancient ritual, art effort, &c., to some of
which we should prefer to recur when more space might be devoted to
their discussion. Of his views about the orientation of ancient and
mediaeval churches we have already made mention. Another point on
which Mr. Scott holds an opinion new to us and unexpected, is on the
construction of the chasuble. Old convictions are dislodged slowly :
this must be our excuse for not feeling convinced by the first perusal of
the author's certainly ingenious theory : —

The true conception of the chasuble is that of a semi-circular piece of
some woven material, folded in two so as to form a quadrant, the two edges
of which are sewn together from the circumference to the centre, with the
exception of a small portion at the summit of the angle left unsewn for
the passage of the head (p. 113).

This dogmatic statement, the point of departure, in fact, of Mr.
Scott's explanation, rests on no other proof apparently Llian the prac-
tical absurdity of the seamless circle of cloth pierced by a central head
hole. We fail — at least yet — to see the absurdity. But his theory,
explained at length in a special discursus, merits to be read and
weighed. Its further discussion would necessitate frequent reference
to Plate XXII., in which the changes of the chasuble are represented by
diagrams.

A criticism that occurs to us, viewing the newly-read book as a
whole, is that the author allows too little play in the history of Chris-
tian art to symbolism, or the mere ingenuity of artistic imagination
steeped in religious feeling : whether a church or a chasuble, neither
of them has the cross impressed on them of purpose — it is, in both
cases, a growth of construction. On the other hand, nothing can be
more pleasing than the feeling maintained throughout the volume
towards forms of art not English and Gothic. In nothing does Mr.
Scott show more clearly his right to be heard as an architectural
critic than in this. His singular appreciation of the purpose of builders
of every age, though it may naturally sometimes fail him, has much to do
with this impartiality. It is high but deserved praise to say of Mr.
Scott that he is, in this Essay, emphatically the Christian artist, rather
than the partisan of any style. If he can see in the old Koman
basilicas, as in the old British and Irish chapels, in the classical Italian
churches as in the Norman and pointed cathedrals and abbeys, both
beauties of construction and defects — and in the primitive forms traces
of a greater concern to guard strictly the traditional' methods of
meeting ritual requirements — we think he is right. Gothic, with all
its excellences is by no means the only deserving outcome in art of
Catholic feeling and Christian sentiment ; though we should add that
this is our hurried and perhaps clumsy attempt to formulate a sentiment
pervading the book, which the writer does not formulate anywhere in
words of his own.

We had marked several passages for quotation, but shall be unable

Notices of jBooks. 561

to find room for them. Mr, Scott writes not only with great force,
ease of diction, happiness of illustration, and a use of antitheses sug-
gestive of Macaulay, but also with great originality of thought. There
is an abundance of discursive matter in both text and notes, but
scarcely any we should not have been sorry to miss, so happily are his
sentiments and conclusions stated : and we feel this even when we dis-
sent from some of them. We choose one passage for quotation, as
summarizing the drift of the book — a drift to which we may not have
done justice in spite of our desire.

It is to Eome, to Constantinople, and to the East, that we must look
for the earliest existing examples of church architecture. For the same
local centres from which we derive our religion itself is derived also the
art which is its material embodiment. In the same manner all through
the history we shall have to refer from time to time to influences which
have affected its progress in our own country, but which came to us from
without. Such influences cannot properly be called foreign. To a Chris-
tian no portion of Christendom is foreign soil ; and until the schism of
East and West, and the troubles of the Reformation period had divided
the one society, its unity was realized in a practical intercommunica-
tion of all the churches, which affected in the most direct manner the
history of Christian art. We shall see from the fourth to the seventh
century the same type of church-building prevailing in Central Syria, in
Byzantium, in Greece, and at Rome, which we find to prevail in France,
in Germany, in Saxon England, and, with slight modifications, in Celtic
Ireland. For the prototype of the architecture employed by St. Augustine
at Canterbury, we shall seek naturally at Rome and at Ravenna. The
future of Enghsh art, after the Norman Conquest, was determined by
that great impulse which stirred the whole of the Western Church at the
preaching of Peter the Hermit, of Amiens. Its subsequent progress,
until the fourteenth century, cannot be studied apart irom the history of
the art in France, while the movement which ultimately overthrew the
gothic style in this country, as elsewhere, was distinctly Italian in its
origin. Anxious as the English Reformers were to cut us off completely
from the unreformed churches of the continent, they still could not pre-
vent their influence upon our church architecture. We had rejected Roman
doctrine, but we could not escape the influence of Roman art. Our
religion might be national, but our church architecture became Italian.
Canterbury had broken absolutely with the Vatican, bnt St. Paul's
Cathedral would have been impossible but for the erection of St. Peter's.

Let us say, finally, that we heartily wish this Essay the wide sale
that it deserves. It will be invaluable to antiquarians and to Catholics
of every class who have any artistic appreciation of the treasures yet
remaining to us of native ecclesiastical art. So many points of
ceremonial and ritual interest are raised in its pages, that priests —
whether intending " to build" or not — will read it with special interest.
The wonderful explanation of St. John's Apocalypse (pp. 27-34), as
showing that primitive Christianity was aesthetic, not iconoclastic, in its
spirit and practice, is worthy of being recommended to notice. Through
a detailed examination Mr. Scott seeks to prove that the imagery of
St. John's vision was taken from a primitive Christian temple, and the
vestments of the Christian hierarchy — glorified and transformed, of
course, under the pen of the inspired writer.

562 Xotices of Books.

Sister Augustine, Superior of the Sisters of Charity at the St. Johannis
Hospital at Bonn. Authorized translation from the German
*' Memorials of Amalie von Lasaulx." London : C. Kegan Paul
& Co.

A BOOK with the above title-page and with a vignette of Sister
Augustine in the head-dress of a nun as its frontispiece, may well
be mistaken for a volume of Catholic biography. Indeed, the copy
before us was sent by unsuspecting friends as a feast-day present to an
inmate of an English Convent. A word of warning may, there-
fore, not be inopportune. '* Sister Augustine" is the biography of a
German nun who was a strenuous ojDponent of the dogma of Papal
Infallibility ; " a pillar of the opposition," as the biographer delights to
call her. By word and by letter she encouraged the opposition of priests
and others; she persistently refused obedience even on her deathbed,
being Avilling to die without the Sacraments rather than submit her
judgment to the decrees of the Vatican Council. If to this we add that
when a superioress who had been trying to win her to a better spirit
asked her if she believed at least in the Immaculate Conception of our
Lady, she replied, No, not as a dogma — we shall have said all that need
here be said. Our regret for the stubbornness and sad death — isolated
and without the hope of Christian burial — of this misguided lady does
not of course oblige us to refuse admiration to her for her life of
sacrificing self-devotedness to the sick ; but there is nothing in this
part of her life, so far as we can recall, that may not have been philan-
thropy as much us the dictate of religious vocation. We have an
abundance of lives, in every language, of noble Catholic women, whose
charity far excels that of- Amalie von Lasaulx, and which are not under
any such dark cloud as spoils hers. She is called a Sister of Charity,
but the religious head-dress of her portrait is not the world-famous
cornette, and readers learning that the maison mere of her order was at
Nancy, will therefrom gatlier that Sister Augustine was not one of the
" Sisters of Charity." Whatever the order to which she belonged,
its Superiors treated her, as the biography abundantly shows, with
great patience and consideration. They are not injured by her fault.
But it would have doubly surprised us had she been a daughter ol
St. Vincent de Paul, at the Paris Novitiate of whose Order there is
every day "perpetual adoration:" two of the novices constantly
succeeding each other in their half-hour of adoration and prayer before
the Blessed Sacrament for the welfare and intentions of the Pope, and
where also devotions in honour of the Immaculate Conception of Our
Lady are a conspicuous feature, and date from a long distant time
before the decree was even dreamed of.

Notices of Books, 563»

Christian Truths. Lectures by the Right Eev. Francis Silas Chatard,
D.D., Bishop of Yincennes. New York : Catholic Publication
Society. 1881.

OUR American cousins are an inquiring race. They love to ask
questions, and are always most emphatically *' wanting to
know." They uniformly listen to any explanations vouchsafed them
about our holy faith, with marked courtesy and attention. And if in
result, conversions to faith are not more frequent — and they are
frequent — we have long known that though Paul may plant and
Apollo water, it " is God who giveth the increase." Bishop Chatard's
volume, " Christian Truths," is eminently likely to meet with accep-
tance and do great good amongst a people ripe for instruction and so
readily reached by reason. The lectures are designed " to furnish our
young Catholics with a manual which will be useful to them in meet-
ing the vital questions of the day in a manner suited to parry the
attacks against faith." Amongst the subjects of the lectures, originally
delivered, some in America, others in Rome, are " The Personality of
God," " Existence of the Soul," " Relation between God and the Soul
— Revelation," " Faith and its Requisites," '' Infallibility," " The
Liturgy," "Penance," "Eucharist," and "Early Christianity.''
These lectures are admirably adapted to their purpose. Always
logical in their argument, everywhere most effectively appealing to
reason ; in style clear and lucid, and though without any special aim
at rhetorical effect, they have the eloquence of earnestness. Though
primarily intended for young Catholic laymen, the lectures are full of
matter which would be valuable to many a hard-worked priest. As
a valuable help towards accounting for the faith which is in us, we
trust this little volume will have a wide circulation, not only in
America, but also here in Great Britain.

A Plain Exposition of the Irish Land ^ci 0/ 1881. By the Very Rev,
Canon W. J. Walsh, D.D., President of St. Patrick's College,
Maynooth. Dublin : Browne & Nolan ; and M. H. Gill & Son.
1881.

THIS admirable analysis of the Irish Land Bill, which has just passed
the Legislature, is already widely known and appreciated in Ireland,
We cannot do better than recommend it to thoughtful readers in Eng-
land and Scotland as well. Very few Englishmen have as yet grasped
the idea of Mr. Gladstone's bold measure. Irish soil may now practically
belong to the Irish people ; and no landlord will be a whit the worse, or
need part with anything except his pride. Dr. Walsh, with clear and
patient exposition, follows all the intricacies of the Act, and puts its
provisions into plain and intelligible language. He describes the new
Land Court, and the way in which " statutory tenancy" — a really
revolutionary creation — is to come into existence. He sets forth the
provisions by which a tenant may be helped to become a proprietor ;
and he shows the effect of the Act in regard to the reclamation of land,
to emigration, and the improvement of the condition of the farm
labourers. Many of us are expecting a " Land Act" for Scotland and
for England, It is well to be prepared and informed.

VOL. VL — NO. II. [Third Series.'] p p

-564 Notices of Books.

BOOKS OF DEVOTION AND SPIRITUAL READING.

1. Contemplations and Meditations on the Passion and Deaths and on
the Glorious Life, of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the
Method of St. Ignatius. Translated from the French by a Sister
OF Mercy. Third edition. London: Burns & Oates. 1881.

2. Familiar Instructions and Evening Lectures on all the Truths of

Religion. By Mgr. de Segur. Translated from the French.
Vol. IL London : Burns & Oates. 1881.

3. St. Bernard on the Love of God. Translated by Marianne

Caroline and Coventry Patmore. London : C. Kegan Paul &

Co. 1881.
■4. The Following of Christ. A New Translation. London : Burns &

Oates. 1881.
5. Instructions for First Communicants. Translated from the German

of the Rev. Dr. J. Schmitt. New York : Catholic Publication

Society Company. 1881.
•6. The Three Tabernacles: a Golden Treatise. By Thomas a Kempis.

Edited by the Rev. M. Comerford. New edition. Dublin :

M. H. Gill & Son. 1881.
7. The Will of God. Translated from the French by M. A. M.

New York : Catholic Publication Society Company. 1881.
.8. The Happiness of Heaven. By F. J, Boudreaux, S. J. Third

edition. London: Burns & Oates. 1881.
9. Life of St. Frederick. By Frederick G. Maples, Missionary

Apostolic. London : Burns & Oates. 1881.

10. The Confraternities, their Obligations and Indulgences. Com-

piled from authentic sources, by the Rev. W. J. B. Richards,
D.D., Oblate of St. Charles. Second edition. London : Burns
& Oates. 1881.

11. Rules of the Associates of the Holy Angels. Dublin: H. M. Gill

& Son. 1881.

12. Letters and Writings of Marie Lataste, with Critical and Expo-

sitory Notes hy two Fathers of the Society of Jesus. Translated
from the French by Edward Healy Thompson, M.A. London :
Burns & Oates. Dublin : H. M. Gill & Son. 1881.

13. First Communicants' Manual : a Catechism for Children preparing

to receive Holy Communion for the first time, and for the use of
those charged with the Duty of instructing them. By Father F. X.
ScHOUPPE, S. J. Translated from the French by M. A. Crosier.
London : Burns & Oates. 1881.

1. fT^HESE are very useful and effective meditations, not too diffuse,

I but well-expressed, and not without unction. The little
i*Vork is in great part a second edition, but the writer or translator has
added a fresh part to the book, containing meditations on the Risen
Life of our Blessed Saviour.

2. Notwithstanding a little exaggeration and some fanciful expla-
nations, Mgr. de Segur's " Familiar Instructions " will be found both
■edifying to readers and useful to priests and catechists. The work, of
which this is the second volume, is handy and attractive, and the
translation is very fairly done. '

N'otices Of Boohs. 565

3. Mr. Coventry Patmore, in finishing and editing the translation
of the series of beautiful excerpts from St. Bernard, which his wife
had begun, has presented his readers with a precious and welcome
volume of spiritual reading. Some of the ardent language of the
holy Doctor's Sermons on the Canticles, used indiscriminately and
apart from its context, would no doubt be found in these days of
disrespect to be rather too strong and suggestive. Some readers may
be disposed to object to this little book on the same grounds. But,
after all, we cannot lay aside the venerable works of saints because
modern associations may have touched with their coarseness the
spiritual purity of their contemplations. At least, if there are any for
whom such associations are too strong, they are to be pitied, but their
case is no rule for all.

4. A new edition, which is also a new translation, of the " Imitation
of Christ," is proof, if any proof were needed, that whilst men dispute
about its authorship they do not neglect to study its contents. This new
translation is beautifully brought out, and enriched with woodcuts in
the robust German style, which has grown so familiar during the last
twenty years. Although it professes to be " new," the translation
retains most of the old mistakes. For instance, in I. 1, we have
"know the whole Bible outwardly," instead of '^know" (it) "by
heart ;" in 11. 9, the phrase, " does not ftiU back upon comforts,"
should be " rely upon," &c. ; the curious sentence in 11. 12, " ecce in
cruce totum constat et in moriendo totum jacet," is very inadequately
rendered. — " Behold in the Cross all doth consist, and all lieth in our
•dying ;" whilst the phrase, " with the same equal countenance,"
(III. 25) is not English, and should be " indifferently."

5. We have in this translation of Dr. Schmitt's " Instructions " a
well-meant and, to some extent, useful repertoire of matters connected
with first communion. The form of the work is not attractive, how-
ever, and the style is heavy. The translation seems to be correct ;
but there is in the greater number of German spiritual books a
want of finish, which is always reflected in their translations. There
are one or two inaccuracies of language. For instance, it should not
be asserted that the institution of the Holy Eucharist in both kinds
was necessarij in order that it should be a Sacrifice (p. 127). And
the reason given for this is almost more than misleading — " these
separated kinds, exhibiting to us the Body and Blood of Christ as

separated, are ejnblems, &c represent His Sacrifice upon the Cross."

The same language occurs in pp. 93, 94, though the tru3 doctrine is
also stated. The reality of the Sacrifice of the Mass and its repre-
sentative characters, are two different things.

6. We need do no more than note this new edition of one of the
most genuine and beautiful spiritual books ever Avritten. The trans-
lation is that of Dr. Willymott, a Cambridge University dignitary,
and was first published in 1722. Father Comerford has done little
more than efface the evidences of Protestantism.

7. " The Will of God" is a little book of edifying reading on the duty
and advantages of resignation. But either the author or the trans-
lator has got into difficulties with the " form" of the exhortation.
TVip. first Rppt.ioTi hpo-ins as if onr Lord were sneakinor to the faithful

566 Kotices of Books,

soul, as in the " Imitation :" " My son, you know the prayer I
addressed to my heavenly Father," &c. At the end of the second
section, ■without warning, we come upon what seems to be. a direct
speech of the Eternal Father : " Giving up my only Son," &c. The
rest of the book appears to be written, for the most part, in the
author's own person.

8. Pere Boudreaux's learned and exact treatise on "■ The Happiness,
of Heaven," translated, is also a new edition. It is an excellent book
of its kind, and ought to prove useful and suggestive on one of the
most difficult of subjects. There are some who look forward to a
carnal heaven, some to an insipid one, and many to a very vague
one. Theology, and devout but accurate meditation, have here pro-
vided the means of correcting all such views.

9. One whose Christian name happens to be Frederick, naturally
resents the question, which other people sometimes ask, *' Was there
ever a St. Frederick ?" Father Maples undertakes, in an attractive
little book, to inform such persons that St. Frederick was a Bishop of
Utrecht, martyred in 838 for his apostolic zeal. An interesting point
is connected with the "Prayer" of St. Frederick, here printed (p. 28).
It is evidently an (very brief) extract from the Athanasian Creed, with
two or three phrases of a devotional character added, and was intended
for popular use. We know that St. Frederick, assisted by St. Odulph,,
had to wage serious war against Arianism and Sabellianism. The
discovery of the "Utrecht" Psalter, containing the earliest known
text of the Athanasian Creed, and ascribed by some to the very
century in which St. Frederick lived, has given us an interesting relic,,
which the Saint himself may have read or possessed.

10. In the day of a multiplication of Confraternities, such a
guide-book as this little brochure by Dr. Eichards is most welcome.

11. " The Association of the Holy Angels" seems to" be intended for
the profit of young girls at school, who are to wear a " preparatory"
ribbon, and then a ribbon of full admission ; who are to draw a
billet on the first Tuesday of every month, &c. The rules are simple
and really edifying, and the devotions are touching and attractive.

12. There are many, especially of those who have read Mr. Healy
Thompson's admirable " Life of Marie Lataste," who will welcome this
companion volume of her " Letters and Writings," translated by the
same accomplished scholar. The volume, however, is by no means
equal in point of interest or value to the former one. Whatever a
saint writes carries a weight and effectiveness of its own ; and Marie
Lataste, though not a canonized saint, may be prudently held as a
woman of heroic sanctity. But, apart from this consideration, her
utterances on the Christian mysteries and the spiritual life are not
remarkable ; and the notes of the good Jesuit Father who " explains"
her, and vouches for her orthodoxy in one or two perilous collocations,
weight still more heavily a book that can hardly be called attractive
reading.

13. Father Schouppe has done much to bring exact theological
science to bear upon popular religious instruction ; and this transla-
tion, by a competent person, of his " First Communicants' Manual,"
will be found useful by priests and teachers.

INDEX.

Addis, Rev. W. E., Notices by, 287, 303.

Africa, Catholic Missions in Equatorial, 144 ; Mgr. Lavigerie's enterprise for,
147; Christian villages formed in, 150; inauguration of missions for,
154; a missionary caravan in, 155; mission caravan, route in, 160;
Mission at Ugogo, 162 ; missionaries at Mtesa's court, 166 ; prospects
of missions in, 167 ; cruelties of slave trade in, 173.

Algerian Missions, story of, 147.

Allard, M. Paul, on Pagan Art, 336.

Army, Re-organization of, 86 ; character of recent reforms in, ib. ; reasons for
paucity of soldiers in, 88 ; uselessness of " reserves" in, 91 ; peculiarities
of English, 92 ; officers suffer by re-organization of, 94 ; objections to
"five-years'" service in, 96; retirement and pensions, 98; further
changes in, threatened, 100 ; treatment of soldiers' wives, 102.

Arnold, Edwin, Hindu Poetry, noticed, 293.

Augustine, Sister, noticed, 562

Baptist Newspapers, 18 seq.

Bar bier, Auguste, Poems of, 380.

Barry, Dr. William, on the Religion of George Eliot, 433 seq^.

Bartolini, Cardinal, Memorie, &c. dei Sti. Cirillo e Metodio, noticed,, 551.

Beauchesne, Alcide de. Poems of, 383.

Belgium, Catholic divisions in, 464 ; Masonic influence in Government of,
469 ; secret societies in, 471 ; secularization of St. Leopold's Day in,
473 ; diplomatic rupture with Rome, 475 ; M. Bara's attack on semi-
naries, 478; and on other religious grants, 479; abolition of army
chaplaincies, 481 ; Catholic v. Liberal education in, 483 ; " Commission
d'Enquete" in, 486 ; ruin of communal administration, 488 ; explanation
of "Liberal" tyranny, 493.

Bellesheim, Dr. A., Notices by, 297, 298, 551, 553, 554.

Berger, Elie ; Les Registres d'Innocent IV., noticed, 280.

Berrinius, O., De Stilo Inscriptionum, noticed, 277.

Bonaventurae, Sancti, Breviloqium, noticed, 297; Lexicon Bonaventurianum ,
noticed, ib. ; Life of Christ; translated, noticed, 306.

Boudreaux, F. J., S.J., The Happiness of Heaven, noticed, 564.
A^OL. VI. — NO. II. [Third Series^ Q Q

568 Index,

Bridgett, Rev. Father, History of the Holy Eucharist m Great Britain^

critique of, 175.
Brizeaux, J. A. P., Poems of, 392.

Broglie, L'Abbe de, Le Positivisme et la Science Experimentale, noticed, 545.
Brownlow, Canon, on Christian Emperors and Pagan Temples, 336 seg.
Briick, Dr. Heinrich, Die geheimen Gesellschaften in Spanien, noticed, 298.
Buxton, Sidney C, Handbook to Political Questions of the Day, noticed, 265.

Camoens, " Lusiad" of, by Ffrencli Duff, noticed, 269.

Cheyne, Rev. T. K., The Prophecies of Isaiah, vol. ii., noticed, 287.

Christian Emperors and Pagan Art, 336 ; Gibbon on, 338, 343 ; Pagan

Temples under Constantine, 339 ; under Constantius, 342 ; under

Julian, 344 ; under Valentinian and Valens, 346 ; under Gratian, 347 ;

under Theodosius, 348.
** Church Times," character of, 9.
*' Church Review," character of, 11.

Clare, Sister M. Frances, Cloister Songs and Hymns, noticed, 286.
Clarke, H. J., The Book of Job, noticed, 264.
Clifton, the Bishop of, on The Days of Creation, 498 seq.
Cochin, Augustin, Etudes Sociales et ^^conomiques, noticed, 283.
Contemplations and Meditations on the Passion, &c., of Our Lord, noticed,

564.
Conway, K. E., on the Sunrise Slope, noticed, 555.
Conway, Moncure D., Demonology and Devil-lore, noticed, 274.
Creation, the Days of, 498 ; the " generationes" of the Vulgate and, 502.
Cusanus, Nicholas, his work, 110.

Dachetjx, I'Abbe, his Life of John Geiler, 108.

Davie s, John, Hindii Philosophy, noticed, 293.

Days of Creation, 498 ; various meanings of "day," 505.

"Deluge, The," noticed, 555.

Devotion, Books of, and Spiritual Reading, 564.

Douglas, Mrs. Stair, Life, &c., of William Whewell, D.D., noticed, 548.

Duff, Robert Ffrench, the " Lusiad" of Camoens, translated, noticed, 269.

Eighteenth Century, the, 307; character of, 309; in England, 310; in
England and France contrasted, 319 ; English scepticism and belief in,
321 ; Wesleyan revival in, 326.

Eliot, George, the Religion of, 433 ; and Strauss, 434 ; her inductive science
of four great religions, 437; her religion, Satanism, 439 ; religion of her
peasantry, 440 ; " Adam Beae" a parable, 446 ; her most tragic charac-
ter, 451 ; moral of her writings, 459 ; secret of her success, 461.

Elphege, Saint, and Lanfranc, 423.

Emmaus, The Bishop of, on Some Reasons for not Despairing of a National
Return to the Faith, 201 seq.

" English Churchman," character of, 12.

Index. 569

Eucharist, The Holy. History of, ia Great Britain, 175 ; doctrine concerning,
in early British Church, 178 ; in Scottish and Pictish Churches, 183 ; in
Anglo-Saxon Church, 184; a power for restraining evil, 187 ; the key to
penitential system, 188; in Anglo-Norman^ Church, 191; subtleties of
Wyciiffe against, 199.

Faith, a national return to, first reason for hoping for, 202 ; second, increase
of religion, 203; Wesleyan and other movements, 206: "romantic"
movement, 207 ; French and Irish immigration, 209 ; English martyrs,
212 ; character of recent conversions, 213 ; instincts of the Church, 214;
hopes of the future, 214.

Fayette, Calemard de la. Poems of, 378.

" Felicific" possessions explained, 35.

Fiction, character of good-working, 376.

Following of Christ, The, New Translation of, noticed, 564.

France, Minor Poets of Modern, 377 seq.

** Freeman" newspaper described, 18.

Free Will, Extent of, 29,58,63; state of question concerning, 31; what
liberty necessary to exercise of, 48 ; opponents to, considered, 59 ; illus-
trations of, 63 ; proof of from " anti-impulsive effort," 66 ; from expe-
rience, 69; free will and advertance, 76.

Geilee, John, Dacheux's Life of, 121 seg.

Germany, recent works on, in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, 106, see
Janssen, Dacheux and Pastor ; manners and customs of, 115 ; trade
clubs, guilds, &c., in, 117 ; influence of Roman law on, 118.

Gladstone's, Mr., Second Land Bill, 220 seq.

Goldie, Father, S.J., a Bygone Oxford, noticed, 267.

Grimaud, Emile, Poems of, 398.

" Guardian" newspaper, character of, 4.

Gury, on extent of Free Will, 61.

Hakper, Thomas, S. J., the Metaphysics of the School, vol. ii., noticed, 541.
Histoire du Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris, noticed, 282.
History, a recent contribution to English, 175.
Humanists in Medisevai Germany, 113.

" Indifferent " Acts, Analysis of some, 43 ; do they exist ? 45.

James II. and Innocent XL, 334.
Janssen's, Dr., History of the Germans, 108.
Jasmin, Poems of, 399 seq.

Kempis, Thomas a, The Three Tabernacles ; Comerford's edition, noticed, 564.

670 Index.

Land Bill, Mr. Gladstone's second, 220 ; ;Form of, 221; effects of that of 1870,
223 ; compensation in, 226 ; evils to be redressed by present, 231 ; clauses
of, examined, 233 ; sale of tenants' interest, 234; " Pair Rent " provisions
in, 236; " Fixity of Tenure " in, 241 ; miscellaneous clauses, 245.

Landlord and Tenant, Case between, 222 ; present relations between, 229.

Lanfranc, and his Modern Critics, 406 ; social status of, 407 ; true story of
conversion of, 408 ; Life of at Le Bee, 412 ; opposition to marriage of
William and Matilda, 413 ; services to art, 419 ; feeling towards English,
423 ; charge of servility to Crown, 426 ; charge of non-attachment to Pope,
427.

Laprade, Victor de. Poems of, 383.

Lavigerie, Mgr., and African Missions, 147.

Lehner, Dr. P. A. Von, Die Mariensverehrung in den ersten Jahrhunderten,
noticed J 554.

Leo XIII., Pope, Letter of, to Primate of Belgium, 465 ; Constitution on
Bishops and Regulars, 508 ; Encyclical on Political Power, 522.

*' Lex Salica," by Hessels and Kern, noticed, 299.

Lilly, W. S., on The Eighteenth Century, Part IV., 307 seq.

Literature for the Young, 354; important influence of, 355; large modern
growth of, 357; want of a Catholic, 359 ; the "penny awfuls," 361 ; anti-
Catholic, 363; danger of the non-religious, 366; value and place of
fiction in, 376.

Long, Rev. J., Eastern Proverbs and Emblems, noticed, 293.

Lord's Prayer, The, in the *' Revised Version," 137.

Luzel, E. M., Poems of, 398,

MacAlla's Rhymes of the Roadside, noticed, 555.

Maples, F. G., The Life of St. Frederick, noticed, 564.

Masson, Gustave, Notices by, 280, 282, 283, 284.

Meason, M. Laing, on The Reorganization of the Army, 86 seq.

" Methodist Recorder " described, 24.

Missions in Equatorial Africa, see Africa.

Mivart, St. George, The Cat, noticed, 259.

Morlais, L'Abbe M., Etude sur le Trait6 du Libre hx\Aix&,- noticed, 284.

Morris, Father S. J., The Life of Father John Gerard, noticed, 278.

Mtesa, King, and his Kingdom, 145 seq.

Musset, Alfred de, Poems of, 380.

Newspaper, excessive reading of, 1 ; number of " religious," 3 ; Church of
England organs, 4; Dissenting, 15 ; Salvation Army Organs, 24; Quaker,
Jewish, and others, 28.

*' Nonconformist, The," character of, 16.

Pastoe's, Herr, "Efforts for Reunion," 108.

Patmore, M. C, and Coventry, St. Bernard on Love of God, noticed, 564.

Index. 571

Periodicals «02fK56? : Erench, 257, 535; German, 250, 539; Italian, 253, 531.

Persecution of English Catholics by law, 315.

Poets, Minor, of Modern Prance, 377 ; Breton and Proven9al, 391.

Ponsard, Pran9ois, Poems of, 388.

Pulpit Commentary, Spencer and Exell's, noticed, 263.

"Recoed, The," character of, 5.

Eeid, T. Wemyss, Politicians of To-day, noticed, 270.

Eevision of the New Testament, 127 ; Catholic view of, 129 ; King James's,

130; history of present, 132; method adopted in, 133 ; results of, 134;

Catholic truth and, 136; omissions in, 140; effect of, on religious

minds, 143.
Rheims Testament, value of, 128, 130.
Richards, Rev. W. J. B., The Confraternities, noticed, 564.
" Rock, The," character of, 7.
Rosmini-Serbati, Delia Vita di Antonio, noticed, 268.
Rule, Martin, on Lanfranc and his Modern Critics, 406 seq.
Rules of the Association of the Holy Angels, noticed^ 564.
Russell, Rev. Matthew, S. J., Erin, noticed, 279.
Ryan, Rev. A. J., Poems, noticed^ 302.
Ryder, Rev. H. J. D., Catholic Controversy, noticed, 303.

Salvation Army newspapers, 24.

Sclimitt, Dr. J., Instructions for First Communicants, noticed, 564.

Schools in Germany before the Reformation, 111.

Schoupe, Rev. P., S. J., First Communicant's Manual, noticed, 564. '

Schultz, Dr. Ludwig, Thomas-Lexicon, noticed, 551.

Scott, G. Gilbert, Essay on History of English Church Architecture, noticed,

556.
Segur, Mgr. de. Familiar Instructions on Truths of Religion, noticed, 564.
Sermons in Germany in Fifteenth Century, 111, 120.
Shapcot, Reuben, Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, noticed, 293.
Slave Trade, Cruelties of African, 173.

Tanganyika, Lake, 170.

Testament, New, see Revision.

Textual Criticism, Methods of, 133 ; and results of, 124.

Thijm, Prof. Alberdingk, on Recent Works in Germany, 106 seq.

Thompson, E. Healy, Letters and Writings of Marie Lataste, noticed, 564.

Tozer, Rev. H. Fanshawe, Turkish Armenia, noticed, 272.

b

Ulster Tenant Right, peculiarities of, 228.
"Unitarianlnquirer, The," 28.

572 Index.

Vallavrii, Thomse, Inscriptiones, noticed, 277.
Villemarque, Hersart de la, Poems of, 392.

"Virtual" Intentions, 38 ; Lugo's theory about, 39 ; Superstitious acceptance
of, 41.

Walsh, Dr. W. J., his De Actibus Humanis, 38 ; his Plain Exposition of

Irish Land Act of 1881, noticed, 563.
'' War Cry, The," 24.

Ward, Dr. W. G., on Extent of Free Will, 29 seq.
Warren, P. E., Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, noticed, 294.
Wenham, Canon, The Catechumen, noticed, 546.
Wesleyan Newspapers, character of, 20.
Wesley, The Work of, 206 ; its effects, 326 seq.
Will of God, The, noticed, 564.
William the Conqueror's Marriage with Matilda, 413.

Wolter D. Maurus, O.S.B., Proecipua Ordinis Monastici Elementa, noticed, 553.
Wren, Edmund, The Intermediate Education History of England, Part L,

noticed, 275.

Young, Literature for the, see Literature.

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