no
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
PUBLISHED BY THE PAULIST FATHERS.
VOL. CIV.
OCTOBER, 1916, TO MARCH, 1917
NEW YORK:
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD
120 WEST 6oTH STREET
1917
CONTENTS.
Aged, The Care of Children and
the.— James J. Walsh, M.D.,
Ph.D., . . . . , . 56
American Statesmen and Freedom
of the Seas. — Charles O' Sullivan, 447
An American Treck in the Foot-
prints of Shakespeare : The Two
John Wards. — Appleton Morgan 13
Apostolate, The New York. — John
E. Wickham, . . . .738
Art of Paul Claudel, The.— Thomas
J. Gcrrard, . . . . 47 1
" Bondage," Science in. — Sir Ber-
tram C. A. Windle, LL.D., . 577
Call of the Child, The.— Joseph V.
McKee. A.M., . . . .523
Canada, Tercentenary of the Estab-
lishment of the Faith in. — Anna
T. Sadlier, .... 303
Care of Children and the Aged,
The.— James J. Walsh, M.D.,
Ph.D., 56
Catholic Charities, Impressions of
the National Conference of. —
William J. Kerby, Ph.D., . . 193
Catholic Note in Modern Drama,
The. — May Bateman, . .164
Catholic Scholar-Statesman, Filippo
Meda, A.— William P. H. Kit-
chin, Ph.D., . . . .158
Child, The Call of the.— Joseph V.
McKee, A.M., . . . .523
Christ, Christianity Without. — F.
A. Palmieri, OS. A., . . . 145
Christ, From Christmas to. — Henry
A. Doherty, Jr., . . .357
Christian Unity and the Eastern
Churches, The Prayer of the
Pope for. — F. A. Palmieri, OS. A., 606
Christianity Without Christ. — F. A.
Palmieri, O.S.A., . . .145
Christmas, A Merry. — Blanche M.
Kelly, 334
College Problems, Some. — James A.
Burns, C.S.C., Ph.D., . . 433
Coming of Age of the X-ray, The.
— Brother Potamian, Sc.D., . 78
Debt of the Catholic Faith, In-
diana's.— Louis P. Harl, . . 496
Denning Dostoevsky. — Richardson
Wright 820
Drama, Sincerity and the Modern.
— Thomas J. Gerrard, . . i
Dr. John B. Murphy. — James J.
Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., . . .365
Earls, The Flight of the.— Michael
Earls, S.J., . . . .651
Filippo Meda, A Catholic Scholar-'
Statesman.— William P. H. Kit-
chin, Ph.D., . . . .158
Flight of the Earls, The. — Michael
Earls, S.J., . . . .651
France, The Organization and Work
of Catholic Chaplains with the
Allied Armies in. — Francis Ave-
ling, D.D., . . . .675
Freedom of the Seas and American
Statesmen. — Charles O' Sullivan, 447
From Christmas to Christ. — Henry
A. Doherty, Jr., . . .357
General Convention in St. Louis,
Protestant Episcopal. — James
Coffey, .... 385
Hickey, Emily, The Poetical Works
of.— Eleanor Hull, . . . 202
Historians, Human Nature and the.
— Gilbert K. Chesterton, . .721
Hugh Francis Blunt, The Poetry of.
— Hugh Anthony Allen, M.A., . 663
Human Nature and the Historians.
— Gilbert K. Chesterton, . .721
Immigrant Making a Living, The. —
Frank O'Hara, . . . .214
Immigration, The Restriction of : A
Medley of Arguments. — Frank
O'Hara, 289
Impressions of the National Con-
ference of Catholic Charities. —
William /. Kerby, Ph.D., . .193
Indiana's Debt to the Catholic
Faith. — Louis P. Harl, . . 496
Insane and Defectives, The Story
of Organized Care of the. — James
J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., . . 226
Irish Rebel as a Literary Critic, An.
— Padraic Colum, . . 83
Justification of Luther by History
Alone, The. — Moorhouse I. X.
Millar, S.J., . . . .768
Literary Critic, An Irish Rebel as a.
— Padraic Colum, ... 83
Living, The Immigrant Making a. —
Frank O'Hara, . . . .214
Luther and Social Service. — James
J. Walsh. M.D., Ph.D., . .781
Luther by History Alone, The Jus-
tification of. — Moorhouse I. X.
Millar, S.J., . . . .768
Mark Twain, The Tragedy of.-1—
George Nauman Shuster, . 731
Merry Christmas, A. — Blanche M.
Kelly, 334
Milton — Man and Poet. — Gilbert
K. Chesterton, .... 463
Modern Drama, The Catholic Note
in. — May Bateman, . . .164
Modern Thought and the Nature of
Its Progress. — Edmund T. Shana-
han, S.T.D., . . . . . 44
Murphy, Dr. John B. — James J.
Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., . . .365
New York Apostolate, The. — John
E. Wickham, . . . .738
Organization and Work of Catholic
Chaplains with the Allied Armies
in France, The. — Francis Ave-
ling, D.D., . . . . 675
Paul Claudel, Mystic. — May Bate-
man, ..... 484
Paul Claudel, The Art of.— Thomas
J. Gerrard, . . . . 471
Paul the Jew.— L. E. Bellanti, S.J., 617
Poetical Works of Emily Hickey. —
Eleanor Hull, .... 202
Poetry of Hugh Francis Blunt, The.
— Hu,gh Anthony Allen, M.A., . 663
Poor Step-Dame, The.— Joyce Kil-
mer, ..... 807
Poverty and Riches. — Helen Grier-
son, ...... 66
Prayer of the Pope for Christian
Unity and the Eastern Churches,
The.— F. A. Palmieri. OS. A., . 606
Progress, Modern Thought and the
Nature of Its. — Edmund T. Shan-
ahan, S.T.D., .... 44
Protestant Episcopal General Con-
vention in St. Louis. — James
Thomas Coffey, . . . 385
Recent Events,
127, 269, 416, 563, 698, 849
Restriction of Immigration, The :
A Medley of Arguments. — Frank
O''Hara, 289
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. — Bro-
ther Leo, ..... 593
Riches and Poverty. — Helen Grier-
son, ...... 66
Science in " Bondage." — Sir Ber-
tram C. A. Windle, LL.D., . 577
Shakespeare : The Two John
Wards. An American Treck in
CONTENTS
m
of. — Appleton
the Footprints
Morgan,
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley. — Bro-
ther Leo, .
Sincerity and the Modern Drama.
— Thomas^ J. Gerrard,
Social Service, Luther and. — James
J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.,
Some College Problems. — James A.
Burns, C.S.C., Ph.D.,
Step-Dame, The Poor.-- -Joyce Kil-
mer, .
St. Paul at Work.— L. E. Bellanti,
S.J..
Story of Organized Care of the In-
" Dempsey." — Helen Moriarty,
Old Wine and New Bottles.— John
Ayscough, .
One Who Feared
Martin, ....
Polly's Pudding. — M. E. Francis,
L.
A Road of Ireland. — Charles
O'Donnell, C.S.C., .
Apportionment. — Armel O'Connor,
Epiphany Song. — Caroline Giltinan,
Father Lacoinbe, O.M.I. — George
Benson Hewetson,
Give Us This Day. — Charles McGill,
Mater Desolata. — Theodore May-
nard.
Old Hudson Rovers. — Michael
Earls, S.J
Quis Desiderio. — Thomas Walsh, .
Thanksgiving. — Helen Haines,
The Coward. — Caroline Giltinan, .
sane and Defectives, The. — James
13 /. Walsh, M.D.. Ph.D., . . 226
Tercentenary of the Establishment
593 of the Faith in Canada.— Anna
T. Sadlier, .... 303
i Tragedy of Mark Twain, The. —
George Nauman Shuster, . 731
781 Was the Son of Man Brusque to
His Mother? — Edmit.nd T. Shan-
433 ahan, S.T.D., .... 342
With Our Readers,
807 136, 278, 424, 570, 710, 857
Work, St. Paul at.— L. E. Bellanti,
751 S.J., 751
X-ray, The Coming of Age of the.
— Brother Potamian, . . 78
STORIES.
792 Pure Gold. — Charles Phillips, 89, 235
The Sentinel Mother. — Edmund A.
- i77, 3i7 Walsh, SJ., . . . . 511
Much. — Rose The Tyranny of Circumstance. —
. 631 Thomas B. Reilly, . . .31
373 The Weird Gilly. — Shane Leslie, . 762
POEMS.
The Crimson Snow. — Charles Phil-
767 lips, . . . . .332
65 The Singing Girl. — Joyce Kilmer, . 43
462 The Sleeping Christ. — Caroline D.
Swan, ...... 356
650 To a Dead Child. — James B. Dol-
364 lard, Litt.D., .... 522
To a Friend. — Marian Nesbitt, . 806
616 To My Guardian Angel. — Emily
Hickey, . ' . . . .88
" The Road to Coom." — Alice M.
Cashel, . . . . 791
Urania. — George Noble Plunkett, . 234
29
533
201
192
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
A Brief Commentary on the Little
Office of the Immaculate Concep-
tion of the Blessed Virgin, .- 841
A Brief History of Poland, . . 833
Accidentals, .... 124
A Century of Scientific Thought
and Other Essays, . . .107
A Companion For Daily Commun-
ion, 555
Alcohol and Society, . . .119
A Lecture Entitled : The Christian
Science Church, . . . 540
A Little White Flower, . . 259
American Men of Letters, . . 554
A More Excellent Way, . m
An Alphabet of Irish Saints, . 258
An Anthology of Magazine Verse
for 1916, 831
An Eight Days' Retreat for Re-
ligious, . . . . .123
An Introduction to Economics, . 546
Archaeology and the Bible, . . 407
A Retrospect, . . . 115
A Retrospect of Fifty Years. . 689
Arlo, 554
A Sheaf, . . . 835
A Short History of the Catholic
Church, . . . . .257
A Spiritual Pilgrimage, . . 827
A Story of Love, . ... 841
A Student's Textbook in the His-
tory of Education, . . . 548
A Volunteer Poilu, . . . 696
Belle Jones, .... 556
Bird Friends, .... 559
Blackbeard's Island, . . . 414
Brief Discourses on The Gospel, . 551
Christian Armour for Youth, . 123
Concilium Tridentinum, . .401
Him,
Cupid of Campion,
Damaris,
Dante,
Dante : How To Know
Dead Yesterday, .
Defoe : How to Know Him, .
Democracy or Despotism,
Distributive Justice : The Right and
Wrong of Our Present Distribu-
tion of Wealth.
Doing Their Bit, .
Duty and Other Irish Comedies,
El Supremo,
Enforced Peace, ....
Faith in a Future Life,
Far Hence to the Gentiles, .
First Lessons in American History,
Five Masters of French Romance,
France: Her People and Her
Spirit,
French Policy and the American
Alliance of 1778,
Friends of France,
From Convent to Conflict,
Fruit Gathering, .
Gerald de Lacey's Daughter,
Ghenko, .....
Gorse Blossoms from Dartmoor,
Guide for Postulants, .
Half Lights,
Heart Songs and Home Songs,
Her Father's Share,
Her Husband's Purse. .
International Finance, .
Ireland's Literary Renaissance,
Joseph Conrad,
Joseph Pennell's Pictures of
Wonder of Work, .
Julius Le Vallon, .
the
554
538
836
267
543
406
545
54i
263
538
839
550
124
558
694
687
555
54i
553
829
847
844
396
126
844
262
558
121
116
830
247
399
392
IV
CONTENTS
Juvenile Play Catalogue,
La Lourdes du Nord,
La Salle,
Louise and Barnavaux,
Love and Lucy,
409
126
560
no
39$
Marie of the House d'Anters, . 113
Memoirs of Sister Mary of Mercy
Keruel, . . . 124
Michael Cassidy, Sergeant, . . 254
Modern Essays, .... 262
More Wanderings in London, . 550
Morning Face, .... 413
Mr. Britling .Sees It Through, . 405
My Slav Friends, . . . 264
Nationality in Modern History, . 548
Nature Miracle and Sin, . . 540
Old Glory. . . . . .395
Only Anne, . . . . .113
Our Hispanic Southwest, . . 535
Paul Mary Pakenham : Passionist, 114
Penrod and Sam, . . . 556
People Like That, . . . 267
Philippine Folk Lore, . . . 847
Philosophy: What Is It? . . 259
Potential Russia, .... 542
Prayer, ..... 409
Priests on the Firing Line, . . 403
Prose Types in Newman, . . 122
Refining Fires, .... 539
Reminiscences of the Right Honor-
able Lord O'Brien, Lord Chief
Justice of Ireland, . . . 692
Sermons Preached on Various Oc-
casions, ..... 125
Shakespearean Studies, . . 261
Societal Evolution, . . .118
Society and Prisons, . . . 400
South America, .... 263
Spanish Exploration in the South-
west, ..... 536
Speaking of Home, . . . 409
Spiritistic Phenomena and Their
Intrepretation. .... 414
St. Catherine of Siena : Her Life
and Times, . . . .109
Students' Mass Book and Hymnal, 558
The Advance of the English Novel, 248
The Allies' Fairy Book, . . 413
The Best Stories* of 1915, . . 553
The Bird House Man, . . . 399
The Bombardment of Arras, . 126
The Book of the Junior Sodalists
of Our Lady, .... 559
The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, 406
The Borodino Mystery, . . 255
The Bright Eyes of Danger, . . 124
The Case of American Drama, . 547
The Catholic Platform, . . 123
The Celt and the World, . . 697
The Chevalier de Boufflers, . . 552
The Circus and Other Essays, . 826
The Clergy and the War of 1914, 126
The Commonitorium of Vincentius
of Lerins, . 252
The Criminal Imbecile, . . 845
The Crowd in Peace and War, . 255
The Divine Master's Portrait, . 840
The Divinity of Christ, . . 841
The Emperor of Portugallia, . 697
The Facts About Luther, . .838
The Fairy Bride, . . . .552
The Founding of Spanish Cali-
fornia, . . . . .390
The Fourth Keader, . . . 4I4
The French Clergy and the War, . 415
The Gate of Asia, . e42
The God of Battles, . 117
The Great Push, . . . .256
The Green Alleys, . 264
The Heart of Rachael, . . 394
The Hermit and the King, . . 263
The History of Marriage and Di-
vorce, ..... 250
The History of St. Norbert. . . 407
The Human Worth of Rigorous
Thinking, . . . . .116
The Ideal Catholic Reader Series, 561
The Insurrection in Dublin, . . 843
The Intelligence of Woman, . 846
The Irish Rebellion and Its Mar-
tyrs, 693
Their Spirit, . . . 696
The Know About Library, . . 412
The Leatherwood God, . . 397
The Life of John Marshall, . . 534
The Life of King John Sobieski,
John the Third, of Poland, . 112
The Life of St. Columban, . . 258
The Life of St. Paul, . . .125
The Literary History of Spanish
America, ..... 389
The Little Hunchback Zia, . .112
The Magnificent Adventure, . . 268
The Manual of Natural Education, 551
The Mass and Vestments of the
Catholic Church : Liturgical, Doc-
trinal, Historical and Archaeolog-
ical, . . . . . 695
The Mastering of Mexico, . . 254
The Melancholy Tale of Me, . 557
The Mind and Its Education, . 560
The Mothercraft Manual, . . 842
The Nest-Builder, . . .no
The New Reservation of Time and
Other Articles, .... 546
The Old Blood, . . . .840
The Owlet Library, , . . 412
The Painters of Florence, . . 834
The Pleasant Ways of St. Medard, 394
The Poets Laureate of England, . 411
The Prayer Book for Boy Scouts, 125
The Present Hour, . . .117
The Press and the War, . . 126
The Psychology of the Common
Branches, .... 413
The Representative English Plays, 410
The Rising Tide, .... 560
The Romance of a Christmas Card, 395
The Seminarian : His Character
and Work, .... 840
The Sunday Missal, . . . 400
The Syrian Christ, . . .551
The Taming of Calinga, . . 554
The Thirteenth Commandment, . 552
The Tide of Immigration, . . 249
The Truth About Christian Science, 257
The Tutor's Story, . . . 397
The Ultimate Belief, . . .842
The Vale of Shadows, . . .117
The Wayside, . . . .114
The Way to Easy Street, . .413
The Westminster Version of the
Sacred Scriptures, . . . 388
The Whale and the Grasshopper, . 540
The Whirlpool, .... 539
The Wiser Folly, . . 843
The Wonderful Year, . . . 398
The Woodcraft Girls at Camp, . 559
The World for Sale, . . .263
Toward An Enduring Peace, . 404
Tramping Through Mexico, Guate-
mala and Honduras, . . . 391
Vanished Towers and Chimes of
Flanders, . ' . . 692
Voices of the Valley, . . -557
Wind's Will, . . . .122
Within My Parish, . . .124
With the Zionists in Gallipoli, . 396
Workmanship in Words, . .412
Yonder? RAT
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. CIV. OCTOBER, 1916. No. 619.
SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA.
BY THOMAS J. GERRARD.
T is not only the modern drama, but the whole of
modern art and culture that claims the distinctive
note of sincerity. The word echoes through our
schools, through our studies, through our galleries.
It has become the touchstone of art criticism. It is
the test of a good biography. To say that any given piece of work
is sincere is to say the most important thing you can about it,
while to say that it is not sincere is to damn it. The artist ex-
presses what he feels, and his work must bear evidence that what
has been expressed has been previously felt. So insistent is this
feature of the new culture, that it has almost become a cult in it-
self and for its own sake.
Like all new tendencies of life- thought this note carries
with it excesses as well as virtues. The idea has been gaining
ground that, provided a work is sincere, it may justifiably ex-
press anything or everything. This is painful enough in the realm
of aesthetics. But in the drama, as also in other branches of
literature, we have the principle carried into the realm of morals.
There the elements of aesthetics and morals are so closely inter-
woven that the artist claims the right to be a moralist. Nay, so
seriously does he take himself that he claims the right to propound
brand new moralities. Mr. G. B. Shaw, for instance, makes such a
clean sweep as to define as immoral anything which is contrary to
established manners and customs. And then he goes on to state his
Copyright. 1916. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. civ. — i
2 SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA [Oct.,
aim and profession : " I am not an ordinary playwright in general
practice. I am a specialist in immoral and heretical plays I
write plays with the deliberate object of converting the nation to
my opinion in these matters."1
The modern dramatists of England have recently spoken about
their work and told us explicitly their views and principles. The
published report of the recent Parliamentary Committee appointed
to investigate stage plays is an important document. It is valuable
also to us in America, since the witnesses who were heard have
vogue in our country as well as in England.
Mr. Shaw, for instance, tells us that he suffered enormous pe-
cuniary loss in America because his play, Mrs. Warren's Profession,
was condemned by the English censorship. Mr. Archer, the leading
critic, thinks that the local authorities here have quite as much
power as they have in England, and that the Puritan element, or
what is sometimes called the Non-Conformist conscience, is as ac-
tive in America as it is in England. Mr. Hall Caine relates how
he was in New York at the time when Mrs. Warren's Profession
was produced. The hotel at which he stayed was just opposite
the Garrick Theatre. He saw the crowd buying tickets from the
speculators, and he saw the policemen go in and the policemen remain
outside. He thought of the Chief of Police, a man who knew noth-
ing about the drama or the Ten Commandments outside their inter-
pretation in the criminal code. And this man was to sit as the sole
arbiter over the work of one of the most distinguished of literary
men ! In an article on The Nezv Spirit in the Drama, written by Mr.
Galsworthy, the eminent dramatist clearly defines his idea of sin-
cerity and its application to the drama. " What then is there," he
says, " lying at the back of any growth or development there may
have been of late in our drama? In my belief, simply an outcrop
of sincerity — of fidelity to mood — to impression — to self. A man
here and there has turned up who has imagined something true to
what he has really seen and felt, and has projected it across the
footlights in such a way as to make other people feel it. This is
all that has lately happened on our stage."2
Although that is all that has happened, yet it has met with
grave difficulties. It usually makes a commercial failure; it is
dubbed "serious," whereas not all of it is serious; it is regarded
unfavorably by actor-managers, because it does not provide them
introduction to The Showing Up of Blanco Posnet, pp. 318, 319.
*The Hibbert Journal, April, 1913.
1916.] SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA 3
with a constant succession of big parts for themselves; and it is
hampered by the censor, because the censor is the natural guardian
of the ordinary prejudices of sentiment and taste.
With such obstacles in its way, the new drama must needs find
it hard to sustain the note of sincerity. And the case becomes
harder still when we realize the range of action which the new
drama demands. " Sincerity," continues Mr. Galsworthy, " bars
out no themes — it only demands that the dramatist's moods and
visions should be intense enough to keep him absorbed It is
not the artist's business (be he dramatist or other) to preach. Ad-
mitted! His business is to portray; but portray he cannot if he
has any of that glib doctrinaire spirit, which, devoid of the insight
that comes from instinctive sympathy, does not want to look at life,
only at a mirage of life compounded of authority, tradition, com-
fort, habit."
Thus do we come to the crux of the question. Is the new spirit
of the drama to have an unlimited range, unrestrained by any form
of censorship, official or unofficial. Or must it submit to a cen-
sorship, thereby losing more or less its character or sincerity?
Or is there a third way by which at the same time sincerity may
be saved and due deference paid to authority and tradition? I
submit that the last is the only way that can be followed, and that
such way is the best whether in the interests of sincerity, or of
aesthetics, or of morals.
First, however, we must have a clear notion as to what is real
sincerity. Presumably every dramatist wishes to conform to the
highest ideal possible. He must, therefore, take pains to acquaint
himself with due information as to what is the highest ideal. That
ideal will then hold sway over his moods, his impressions, his self.
The artist, being a man, will want to produce the highest of which
a man is capable. This implies that his work must always be in
accord with right reason. Being also a child of God, the artist
will want to produce work which is in conformity with the will
of God. This implies that his reason will be informed by the re-
vealed law.
We must, therefore, go a step further than Mr. Galsworthy
in his definition of sincerity. It is fidelity to mood — to impres-
sion— to self, but only in so far as the mood, the impression, and
the self are controlled by right reason and God's law. Having
secured this all-important extension we may then enter into full
sympathy with the advanced artist, and insist, with him, that all
4 SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA [Oct.,
art must be conscientious, conscientious indeed whether it be non-
moral, such as the portrayal of a landscape, or whether it involve
the most fundamental principles of morality, such as drama deal-
ing with marriage and divorce. But the conscience must be rightly
informed and must use the whole of its information. If an episode
is portrayed which ignores a moral principle for the sake of artistic
effect, then the result bears with it neither the note of sincerity
nor the perfection of spiritual beauty. And the aesthetic beauty
which is expressed is lacking its complements. The work con-
sidered as an artistic whole is a failure.
For the due informing of the conscience, however, something
more is needed than its own subjective intuitions and inferences.
It has to take into account all the various spheres of existing law.
Further, the various vehicles by which these laws are conveyed to
the mind of the dramatist are, roughly speaking, just those things
which Mr. Galsworthy would exclude from the real vision of life;
namely, authority, tradition, comfort, habit. Authority and tradi-
tion convey to us all divine, natural and positive law, the function
of which is to conserve life and to develop it to its richest full-
ness. Comfort and habit are given to us not, as many suppose,
to make us content and lazy with the measure of life already
attained, but to leave our faculties free for the attainment of higher
and more fruitful expressions of life.
Far from these things being a hindrance to sincerity, they give
it a wider scope. Be faithful to your ideal by all means, but first
make sure that your little ideal is not opposed to a much greater
one. If you define sincerity as fidelity to mood — to impression —
to self, first make sure that the mood is legitimate, that the im-
pression is not a false one, and that the self is not the lower
self. In other words, the small subjective individualistic ideal
must always be corrected by reference to the large objective uni-
versal ideal. Nay, since we are daily growing in experience, true
sincerity will imply a constant readjustment of our individual and
subjective ideal in response to the demands of the universal and
objective ideal.
The great practical difference between the two ideals is that
the small subjective one, being so small, can be seen immediately
and at one glance, whereas the large objective one, being so large,
can only be seen piecemeal and after much reflection. Hence the
duty of being sincere is not so easy as it looks. It is as Mr. Gals-
worthy says : " But there is nothing easier in this life than to
I9i6.] SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA 5
think one is, and nothing much harder than to be, sincere." The
easiness lies in the clearness of the conscious vision, whilst the
difficulty lies in the obscurity of the subconscious vision, the im-
possibility of concentrating a long line of discursive reasoning into
one intuition. Hence the very path of sincerity may have a sem-
blance of insincerity. In being faithful to the higher ideals you
may have to be a traitor to the lower ones. If you are going to
be sincere to the whole truth, you must appear to be insincere to
half-truths. If you want to minister to the more perfect beauty,
you must seem to be ruthless in destroying the less perfect. Francis
Thompson, in The Hound of Heaven, thus marks this contrast :
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
So wide is the objective ideal that the dramatist, like all other
men, needs the help of his fellowmen in order to help him to make
a practical use of it. Even the advanced dramatist is not so
precious as to be above criticism. Every artist needs a censor-
ship of some kind. The proposition is simply intolerable that,
under the guise of sincerity, he may portray anything or everything
that may present itself to his immediate vision. We cannot allow
for a moment that no themes are barred, provided only they are sin-
cere. If the dramatist cannot see where his immediate vision
clashes with the universal moral law, he must have it pointed out
to him.
Let the dramatist then reconcile his mind to this inexorable
law. Otherwise there will be no room for sincerity. He will for-
ever be trying to evade someone, and will have to resort to every
kind of subterfuge. But if he faces the fact boldly and deals with
it as with a legitimate check upon himself, then he will construct
his work accordingly, and it will have the notes of unity and
sincerity. Nay, if he would save himself an endless trouble in ad-
justing himself to the various forms of censorship, official and un-
official, he must have regard to that one ultimate aim of all writing,
the one that keeps all the rest in order; namely, the manifesta-
tion of divine praise. He may follow Mr. Shaw in holding that
the purpose of the drama is to preach; or Mr. Galsworthy, in
that it is to portray; or Mr. George Edwardes, in that it is to dis-
6 SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA [Oct.,
tract and amuse. These, however, are but proximate aims. The test
of their value is their relationship to the final aim.
Perhaps it may seem rather futile to some people to be dragging
in such high spiritual principles in a matter so non-spiritual as
having a night at the theatre. But the mere mention of the prac-
tical difficulties which the modern dramatist has to meet, shows
that he is right up against these high spiritual principles.
So paramount indeed is the need of an open admission of an
eternal law and purpose that no intelligent discussion of censorship
is possible without it. And the reason is that other people besides
dramatists have consciences. The sincerity of the manager, the
sincerity of the actors, the sincerity of the audience, all these
are factors in the artistic production of a piece. Our plea is for
sincerity, but for sincerity all round.
The characteristic of the judgment of the general public has
an all-important bearing upon the advanced dramatists and their
passion for sincerity, for it represents the sincerity of the mass of
humanity. The writers maintain that the due development of the
drama requires that it should be free to criticize contemporary life
and customary ideas. But in the criticism of customary ideas,
it does not stop to consider whether those ideas pertain to the
natural and divine laws which are immutable, or whether they per-
tain to conventions which may and even .ought to be changed. There
is a world of difference, for instance, between a play which advo-
cates the dissolution of the marriage bond and the one, say, which
advocates votes for women. And the healthy judgment of the
public will always stand for that which is embedded in human
nature, the reflex of the divine Mind.
But, surely, the artist retorts, you cannot allow the general
public to be the judge as to what is the true development of art?
No, we answer, but the general public is to be allowed to judge
what offends its moral sense. It is precisely here where the ad-
vanced dramatist confuses his functions. Is he out for the ad-
vancement of art or for the teaching of morality? If for art, let
him say so, and we jAdll see to it that he keeps within his province.
If for morality, let him say so, and we will see to it that he is duly
qualified. As we shall see later, some of the advanced dramatists
have very queer notions on the stability of moral law and on the
value of moral science.
Mr. Chesterton is never prudish. Nay, he even approves of
the two forbidden plays of Mr. Shaw. But he speaks the judg-
I9i6.] SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA 7
. ment of humanity when he speaks of the freedom demanded by the
advanced dramatists. He was asked : " Do you sympathize at all
with the authors who desire that the drama should be free ? " He
replied : " The word 'free' as applied to the intellect is a frightfully
tricky thing. If you mean, is anybody to be free to put anything
on the stage that he likes, that is so nonsensical that I imagine that
it cannot be discussed for a moment. The Roman amphitheatre,
with people butchered in it, would be a mild image of what might
happen if the thing were entirely free."3
Nor would Mr. Chesterton leave the choice to the manager
and the author — they are too susceptible to financial interests. Nor
again has he much confidence in the critics — they are too far re-
moved from the people. He admires the man on the bus and pre-
fers a jury of ordinary citizens. The question of censorship is not
a question of art but a question of morals, and where the morals of
a community are involved, nobody can judge except the ordinary
citizen of that community. Instead of a single Examiner of Plays
it would be better to have a democratic or elective body.
Of course, this would eventually influence the art itself. And
so it ought. In art, even as in morals, we cannot set aside the
ultimates. " You cannot get any further than the actual and ulti-
mate soul of a people. If you have really got to the normal judg-
ment, that is all you can go by I think that no kind of good
art exists unless it grows out of the ideas of the average man
If the people is not the ultimate judge, who is? "4
Mr. Shaw, within certain limits, admits the necessity of a
referendum to the social judgment. Asked if he admitted
that some control was necessary he replied : '' Yes, there
should be control over every possible sphere of human activity."
But as soon as details were mentioned then he began to shuffle.
" Should you consider that things which all mankind would con-
demn as grossly indecent should be prohibited ? " He replied :
" Well, you know there is not anything at all which all mankind
would consider grossly indecent."5 He was questioned too upon
the point of religion. " You think that any outrage on religion, or
attack upon religion, or ridicule of sacred personages, should be
allowed on the stage ? " He replied : " I think it should. I think
the public would look after that." But this referendum to the
public is not at all because Mr. Shaw takes the voice of the public
as a sign of what is right and good. It is only because, when the
'Report, p. 345. *Ibid., p. 343. 'Ibid., p. 48.
8 SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA [Oct.,
community at large will not tolerate a thing, he must accept the
inevitable.
Mr. Galsworthy is quite frank. He objects to any sort of
censorship before a play is produced. Censorship before production
"acts as an irritant and deterrent to men of letters/'6 An im-
aginative writer demands that he should handle his emotions, his
feelings, and his thoughts freely. But any kind of censorship is
always, as it were, saying to an imaginative writer : " You must not
freely handle your emotions, you must touch them only with the
tips of your fingers." He either cannot see that, provided he keeps
the moral law, he can have every liberty that he wants, or he
desires the liberty of going beyond the moral law. He thinks it
very hard that authors should be deterred in the choice of their
subjects.
Mr. Thomas Hardy cited the case of his ballad, A Sunday
Morning Tragedy. At first he wanted to produce it as a
tragic play. He had gone as far as shaping the scenes, action, etc.,
when it occurred to him that the subject would prevent him ever
getting it on the boards. So he had to abandon it. Mr. Henry
James thought that the English man of letters was in this respect
worse off than any other man of letters in Europe, and that the
situation was deterrent to men of any intellectual independence and
respect. Mr. Wells admitted that the censorship had always been
one of the reasons why he had never ventured into play-writing.
Mr. Joseph Conrad could not say whether a dramatic author was
ever deterred from producing good work by the existence of the cen-
sorship, but he was certain that he might be shamefully hindered.
Mr. Arnold Bennett was most emphatic of all. " Most decidedly,"
he wrote, " the existence of the censorship makes it impossible for
me even to think of writing plays on the same plane of realism
and thoroughness as my novels. It is not a question of subject,
it is a question of treatment. Immediately you begin to get near
the things that really matter in a play, you begin to think about the
censor, and it is all over with your play. That is my experience,
and that is why I would not attempt to write a play, for the censor,
at full emotional power. The censor's special timidity about sexual
matters is an illusion."
The utter chaos which has been produced in the moral science
through the rejection of authority is nowhere made so obvious as
in Mr. Granville-Barker's evidence. With him there are no experts
*Ibid., p. 127.
1916.] SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA 9
in moral science. Such is the opinion of those who have lost the
power of regarding any one individual as true Catholics must
regard the Pope of Rome.
Mr. Zangwill pleads for the dramatist's right to express him-
self. He maintains that all the best authors consider merely the
theme they wish to elucidate, irrespective of the pecuniary aspect.
The only control that he would allow is that of the common law.
He divides dramatists into three classes — pioneers, plain men and
pornographers. He considers that the last are sufficiently provided
against by the common law, but as to the first, they should be left
alone or to their own risk.
Sir Arthur Pinero holds that censorship degrades the dram-
atist, and that it operates as a depressing influence on a body of
artists who are as fully alive to their responsibilities as any in
the country. He objects very much to the " young person " being
made the sole arbiter of English drama.
Mr. J. M. Barrie stands out amongst English dramatists as the
one who does most to solve the problem of sincerity. His plays are
remarkably free from offensive episodes, even though he does some-
times deal with sexual topics. And if perchance he falls below
himself occasionally, excuses are made for him. Sincerity is the
very stuff out of which his drama is made. He belongs to the new
culture in the sense that he finds material for romance in the un-
romaritic things of life — in homeliness and in ordinariness. He is
paradoxically romantic in the fact that the motive of most of his
work is not the love between a man and a woman but between the
mother and her child. He glorifies all women into mothers. And
Peter Pan sums up all his qualities. It is Peter Pan which
preeminently places Mr. Barrie amongst the " Pioneers of the New
Culture," for it is there that sincerity is focussed on the real
stuff of life as a whole. It is Peter Pan who renews the life of
the world : " I am youth. I am joy. I am a little bird that has
just come out of an egg."
What is the secret of this? It certainly is not that Mr.
Barrie comes short of Mr. Galsworthy in sincerity. He says ex-
plicitly : " With regard to the official mind calling works immoral,
my view is that we should be cautious of applying this term to work
that is obviously sincere — and happily it is usually easy to say
whether work is sincere or not. It is my opinion that the well-
intentioned play of a rebel character would do good for the drama;
it would be judged on production, perhaps derided off the boards,
io SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA [Oct.,
perhaps accepted as a fine thing ; but it should not be barred along
with the play of low intention as if they were really the same
thing."
The secret of Mr. Barrie is that his sincerity carries him
further than the little group of authors for whom he so generously
strikes a blow. They confine themselves to their own subjective
moods and imaginings, whereas he goes' out into the soul of the
people. " With regard to some of us," he says, " our ideas just
happen to be what the public like. We are rather conventional,
and we have an easy time of it, but these others have a hard
time of it really." Like Mr. Chesterton, he is willing to consult
an elective democratic body, like a local town council, when it is
a question of the moral or the immoral in a serious play. He
claims indeed that this body would actually use the test of sincerity
in coming to a decision. Not that sincerity meant merely " pains."
In a body of ordinary men it would mean something more than pains.
It would mean that the author had in his mind a worthy idea which
he was working out to the best of his ability. " I have written
what I should have written whether there was a censor or not,"
said Mr. Barrie.
That is the key to the situation: sincerity in touch with ob-
jective reality; sincerity in touch with law as written on the heart
of humanity; sincerity in touch with law which is a reflection of
the divine mind.
What a contrast is this to the sincerity of Sir Herbert Tree
when he presented the play by Mr. Knoblauch, entitled Marie Odile!
It professed to give a picture of convent life, in which a young
novice yielded to the attraction of sexual love. At the approach
of soldiers the community deserted the convent, but left behind
them a young novice in charge. The soldiers departed, but a cor-
poral remained to look after their affairs. The result was that
Marie Odile became a mother.
We may readily grant that the play was sincere, but we em-
phatically maintain that the sincerity was deplorably misinformed.
The play was fairly true to an ideal, but it was the ideal which is
usually set forth in "escaped nun" books. Sir Herbert Tree
thought he was giving a natural picture. No doubt he was —
natural to his own mood — to his own vision ; but not natural to the
objective reality. So far, however, were Sir Herbert Tree and Mr.
Knoblauch from objective reality that they failed to convince their
audience that they were giving them even that which was natural.
1916.] SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA n
When Marie Odile claimed that her child was miraculous, the
audience only tittered.
There is one classic play, however, with which the advanced
dramatists endeavor to cloak all their risky situation and plots —
Hamlet. Here they say is a play in which one of the chief factors
of its development is an act of incest. Yet no one would dare to
prohibit it.
Within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married : O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets;
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good ;
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
It is the general tendency of a play that we must keep in view.
There are some plays indeed which end with a very good moral, but
which are so licentiously treated as to produce an evil tendency.
Their insincerity is obvious.
Everything of this kind, however, is conspicuously absent from
Hamlet. It was of the very essence of Shakespeare's philosophy
that he was intimately in touch with the heart of humanity, and
keenly alive to the disastrous consequences of tampering with
eternal and unchangeable laws. There is thus nothing in either
tone or treatment of the incestuous relationship in Hamlet that
would not tend to excite a disgust for the sin.
There are, of course, various passages in Shakespeare which
are coarse, nor is his name sufficiently great to justify them. Mr.
Bowdler has his function to perform in this world as well as the
great dramatist. I doubt if any company now performs the works
of Shakespeare exactly as he wrote them. But the parts that are
cut are never essential ones.
So too in the matter of libel. It is said that if only Shakes-
peare wrote in these days a play relating to the present Royal
Family as closely as Henry VIII. related to the then-reigning Queen
Elizabeth, it would not pass the censor. Quite so. But it is our
conventionalities which have changed in the meantime, not an
eternal law. The law which says we should show respect to
authority was as valid in the days of Queen Elizabeth as it is in
our own day. But we have different conventions by which that
respect is shown. We have our own ideas of good manners. And
it is almost certain that if Shakespeare were alive now he would
12 SINCERITY AND THE MODERN DRAMA [Oct.,
never wish to write such a play as that suggested, for his absolute
sincerity would take into account the feelings of the people.
The supreme question, then, may be stated as follows:
Is the divine law and the natural law to be set up as a
rule of conduct, or is conduct to be reduced to the norm of
mere impulse ? Is sincerity to be regarded as fidelity to unchanging
law, or as fidelity to passing mood and fancy? If there is a
law for all men, then there cannot be one morality for the jaded
playgoer and another for the jeune file on the threshold of life.
Nay, if we consult the most recent conclusions of the psycho-
logical science, we must admit that the young girl between seven-
teen and nineteen years of age is a fair test of what is good for
the community as a whole. Professor Foerster7 of Zurich has
shown that what the present age is suffering from is rather a surfeit
than a dearth of sexual thought, and that by far the most important
principle in the hygiene of sexual instruction is that the imagina-
tion should be kept as free as possible from sexual images. M.
Gustave Le Bon8 has further shown us that the presence of a
crowd, which the theatre implies, constitutes a special danger in
the emphasis which it gives to impressions received from the stage.
A crowd is an entity quite different from those who compose it.
Its intellectual power is lowered whilst its emotional power is
raised. It is peculiarly susceptible to suggestion. It tends to
let go its self-control. All this makes the effect of 3, sexual
play unhealthy for everybody concerned. Some may be more
callous than others, but the influence is nevertheless there.
In the face of these facts, then, I submit that what cannot be
presented to the young girl ought not to be presented on the stage
at all. For who is this simple girl about whom the previous ones
speak so contemptuously? She is the virgin of all Christian history,
about whom so many poems have been written. She is the person
who will soon have the nursing and the training of our future gener-
ation. And surely what is bad for her must be bad for mankind.
In many cases she is kept in ignorance of things which she ought to
know. But what she ought not to know is not suitable matter for
stage drama. And the dramatist who cannot square this doctrine
with the most perfect sincerity, ought to seek some other medium
for his artistic expression.
7 Marriage and the Sex-Problem.
8 The Crowd, a Study of the Popular Mind.
THE TWO JOHN WARDS: AN AMERICAN TRECK IN THE
FOOTPRINTS OF SHAKESPEARE.
BY APPLETON MORGAN,
President of The New York Shakespeare Society,
N a late issue of THE CATHOLIC WORLD x we had oc-
casion to lament the serious displacement sustained
by Shakespearean inconography through the over-
devotion of an eighteenth-century actor who, in 1746,
"repaired " the great dramatist's mortuary bust au-
thorized by his family to be placed as his likeness over his grave. But,
by taking thought of the situation, may we not force a valuable
suggestion for an actual presumptive probability for a real likeness
of Shakespeare out of this very lamented departure? That is to
say, the very earliest attempt at such a likeness was the Stratford
bust of 1616, antedating by full seven years the Droeshout of 1623.
But, since this bust has been repaired and restored out of existence,
why not take the next best thing possible, namely, an authoritative
drawing of that bust made barely forty years after it was placed
over the tombstone in Stratford church — in 1656.
Serious as this question is to the. scholar or student who holds
these things of moment, it will not perhaps lose interest for the
general reader from the fact that in two other instances this same
eighteenth-century actor is found to have bequeathed actual problems
and puzzles in Shakespearean memorabilia not only to our time,
but also to our own country and for our own inspection! Dr.
Halliwell-Phillipps' dictum, " He who concerns himself with Shake-
spearean matters must expect surprises," surely never approached
better exemplification !
This actor was by name John Ward, the identical name of a
Vicar of Trinity Church, Strat ford-on- Avon, a hundred years
earlier. And we will see shortly how this identity of names has
had its share in precipitating the small avalanche of coincidences
with which this article has to deal. These coincidences are best
dealt with in the order of their relative importance to Shakespearean
hermeneutics.
THE STRATFORD MORTUARY BUST.
Dr. Doran's His Majesty's Servants, which is the fullest
*THE CATHOLIC WORLD, April, 1916, p. i.
14 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
chronicle of early English actors we have, does not mention this
John Ward. But when, in 1834, Thbmas Campbell the poet
wrote a life of the great Mrs. Siddons, he could trace her ancestry
no further back than to her grandfather — this identical actor, John
Ward — born about the year 1686, who managed and maintained a
theatrical company in the mid-English countries in or about the
years 1748-1775.
All that Campbell could state of this John Ward was that
he had been an actor in the company of Thomas Bettertori, " had
all the suavity of the old school of gentlemen," and he unearthed
this anecdote : " He disapproved of his daughter Sarah Ward
marrying an actor, Roger Kemble, and when he found that her
union with Kemble was inevitable, he was with difficulty persuaded
to speak to her. But he finally forgave her with all the bitterness
of his heart, saying 'Sarah, you have not disobeyed me. I told you
never to marry an actor, and you have married a man who neither
is nor ever can be an actor.' ' Nature, however, is not to be de-
prived of her occasional little joke. She occasionally makes sprats
beget whales. However bad an actor or no actor at all was Roger
Kemble, the name of his great daughter — Sarah Siddons nee Sarah
Kemble — has certainly filled the throat of stage renown from that
day to this.
Now the only source of information we possess as to
whether the Stratford bust is a reliable likeness, or was " re-
paired " and " restored " out of all value as a semblance of its
great subject, is from this John Ward himself. In a letter, dated
Leominster, May 31, 1769 (soon to be quoted in full), he says:
" Myself and company went there for repairing his [Shakespeare's]
monument in the great church, which we did gratis, the whole of
the receipts being expended upon that alone."
" The entire receipts " must have been considerable, though
we can only guess at their amount. To be sure; restorations con-
ducted under the personal supervision of John Ward might have
been careful, competent and intelligent, for he was not only a
sharer in the prestige of Betterton who was rehearsed in the part
of Hamlet by Joseph Taylor — a member, according to the first
folio list of Shakespeare's own company — but Betterton himself
possessed a portrait of Shakespeare painted from life by Burbage
(a record of a payment to Burbage for painting an " imprese " it
will be recalled was unearthed from among the house accounts of
Belvoir Castle in 1905) ; and this portrait was given by Burbage to
igi6.] AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE 15
Taylor, who left it by will to D'Avenant, who in turn gave it to
Betterton. And it is not easy to believe that John Ward had never
seen this portrait.
What is the value of a Shakespeare tradition? Certainly the
two men best fitted to answer this question would be Edmund Ma-
lone and Halliwell-Phillipps, both of whom spent their entire lives
in Shakespearean researches. Malone's dictum was : " Traditions
in Shakespeare matters are mostly adumbrations of some fact;
indications of something in kind similar or analogous." Halliwell-
Phillipp's touchstones were : " What was the date at which the tra-
dition first appears," and " at such date was it to anybody's inter-
est to misrepresent or misstate facts? " Applying these touchstones
to the traditions as to Burbage, Taylor, D'Avenant and Betterton,
the burden of probability would be in favor of the tradition, were
it not that the portrait in question happens to be the Chandos, long
since rejected by experts as a life-time portrait. Indeed Boaden,
writing of the portraits in 1824, gives the above tradition only for
what it is worth.
Now the difficulty is, that the bust as we see it now in Trinity
Church is, barring a detail as to the right hand, the bust as John
Ward's repairers and restorers left it in 1746 — while the Dugdale
drawing2 — however accurate or inaccurate, skillful or clumsy, a
drawing — is a drawing of the bust as Shakespeare's wife, daughters
and sons-in-law left it in 1616, seven years before the Droeshout
engraving appears from parts unknown, espoused by an equivocal
rhyme of Ben Jonson's, which may or may not be interpreted that
this engraving is a likeness at all !
The problem, therefore, that John Ward has unfortunately
substituted for the apparent certainty of the bust as Shakespeare's
family approved it, is: why not hark back to the wretched little
drawing in Sir William Dugdale's3 Antiquities of Warwickshire
as the best and nearest we can possibly come to a likeness of Shake-
speare as to, at least, his lineaments at his death?4
'See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, April, 1916, p. 2. *Ibid.
4 Sir William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, of which the New York
Public Library possesses an interesting original, is a bulky book of some six hun-
dred quarto pages, closely printed after the manner of those days, when a book
was a work of magnificent leisure, in Roman, italics, and big and small capitals,
copiously sprinkled with wood engravings of monuments, tombs, recumbent and
equestrian statues, hatchments, coat armor, and everything notable in cathedral,
church or shrine. Among these engravings (in a vignette occupying about two
square inches of a page) is given this bust of William Shakespeare, as it must
have existed in 1656, forty years after Gerald Johnson made it, when there
was no possible inducement or haste leading to slovenly or careless work.
16 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
John Ward must not be held to be the only sinner who con-
tributed to make the Stratford bust unreliable. One William
Roberts of Oxford, in 1790, supplied a forefinger and thumb and a
quill pen to the right hand of the bust in place of whatever had
been in their places before. Malone daubed the whole bust over
with a coat of white paint in 1797, and in 1861 somebody else was
permitted to attempt original colors for the whole — brown for the
hair, blue for the eyes, red for the cheeks, etc.
Well, why not? At least there is a superficial resemblance be-
tween the Dugdale drawing and the Devonshire bust found amid
the debris of D'Avenant's5 own theatre. In the lineaments of
each are lines of care and of maturity. In neither of them are the
snug and oleaginous smirk, long upper lip, abbreviated nose, curls
" bunched " around the ears, impossible chin-whisker and dapper
little " mustachios " of the present Stratford bust. The fact that
the hands of the Dugdale repose palms down upon a cushion (or
"woolsack" as those worthy persons who cannot get Baconism out of
their brains will persist in calling it), whereas, in the present bust,
the right hand holds a quill, while the left hand rests upon the
semblance of a sheet of paper or parchment partially bent over
the ledge before the bust, shows that the Ward repairs or restora-
tions were by no means trivial. With the high improbability of
a death mask having been executed in 1616 in an obscure little mid-
England village, especially when at that date Shakespeare was not
the object of the world's adoration, but only a man like other
men, we have already dealt.
THE " GUNTHER " AUTOGRAPH.
The second Ward riddle is possibly not so important as the
last described, which disturbs many a carefully laid proposition
in Shakespeare iconography. But it still demands attention from
students of the Shakespeare chirograph, derived from the five
indubitable signatures of Shakespeare we actually possess, as set
over against the score or more of putative autographs now in vari-
ous private collections, with always a suspicion hovering over them
of the Ireland and Collier forgeries of a hundred and twenty
years ago.
It was in the year 1662 that King Charles II. appointed the
Rev. John Ward vicar of Shakespeare's church at Stratford-on-
Avon, vice the Rev. Alexander Bean, when at the Restoration all the
'THE CATHOLIC WORLD, April, 1916, p. 2.
1916.] AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE 17
Presbyterian or Puritan clergy were removed at one fell swoop.
And he remained vicar until his death. Besides his clerical func-
tions, he practised medicine and surgery, having been attracted
to those sciences in his youth by attending lectures in anatomy
at Barber Chyrurgians Hall in Mugwell Street, London; and
on going to Stratford, obtaining a license to practise " per Totam
Angliam." This Vicar John Ward kept a diary and commonplace
book regularly from 1662 until his death in 1697. Some of its
entries are curious in relation to medical matters, such as, e. g.,
this : " Remember that I make a comparison betwixt the body of
a man and the properties of Either. If I bring it to anie head to
print it." This and some like entries led to this diary being pre-
served among the collections of the London Medical Society, and
induced the Registrar of that Society, a Dr. Charles Severn, in
1838, to undertake to edit it for the press. In the diary Dr. Severn
found the following allusions to Shakespeare : revealing that among
other interests he came to Stratford prepared to inquire curiously
as to Shakespeare, whose plays, as we are told in Clarendon's
History of the Rebellion, had been the favorite reading of the first
Charles and his courtiers. The Shakespeare entries are as follows :
Remember to peruse Shakespeare's plays and be versed in
them that I may .not be ignorant in that matter.
Whether Dr. Heylin does well, in reckoning the dramatick
poets which have been famous in England, to omit Shakespeare.
A letter to my brother to see Mr. Quiney to send to Tom
Smith for the acknowledgments.
Shakespeare had two daughters, one whereof Mr. John Hall
the physician married, and had by her one daughter the Lady
Bernard of Abbingdon.
I have heard that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit without
any art at all, he frequented the plays all his younger time, but
in his elder days he lived at Stratford and supplied the stage
with two plays every year, and for that he had an allowance
so large that he spent at the rate of a thousand pounds a year,
as I have heard.
Now this latter proves that the good vicar was dependent
mostly upon gossip, since " a thousand pounds " in those days would
have been quite ten thousand pounds today's value of money. It
was disproportionate to value then, for the dramatist had only
paid sixty pounds for the estate and curtilages of New Place itself,
where all this thousand pounds a year must have been lavished.
VOL. CIV. — 2
i8 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
Of course Shakespeare was, for the little town and for the date,
a wealthy man. Besides, Shakespeare's Will disposes of barely
£367.6.8 ready money, and though mentioning realty besides New
Place, in Stratford-on-Avon, Old Stratford, Bishopton and Wel-
come, and in Black friars, in London, is silent as to the shares in the
Globe and Black friars theatres which Dr. Wallace found sworn to
as Shakespeare's in the pleadings in the Chancery suit of Osteler v.
Hemmings, which Dr. Wallace estimates, from the counts as to
like shares in other ownership (the parties to the suit), as bringing
in Shakespeare a sum not exceeding £300 a year.
Dr. Wallace also found, in the Public Records Office, Shake-
speare's own deposition under oath, that, in 1616, four years be-
fore his death, he was occupying lodgings over a wigmaker's at
the corner of Mugwell and Silver Streets in London. Was this
because Mistress Shakespeare, assisted by her daughters Susannah
Hall and Judith Quiney, were spending the poor dramatist's in-
come so lavishly at New Place that he was obliged to save at the
spigot while they wasted at the bung ? Would such a guess account
for the gossip that survived until Dominie Ward's vicariate? If
Shakespeare did seek an obscure suburb of the capital in order that
his wife and daughters might live lavishly, it falls in with the
universal testimony that Shakespeare was of a genial, lovable, un-
selfish and affectionate disposition; but there is nothing by way
of rumor, record or tradition portraying him as a wastrel or even
as a liberal spender.6
So, even as to Shakespeare's worldly goods, we must, as Dr.
Halliwell-Phillipps cautioned us, " be surprised at nothing."
Still another entry in the good man's diary is, " To see Mrs.
Quiney." And then comes the fatal entry which all Shakespeare-
dom has refused to accept : " Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Jon-
son had a merrie meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shake-
speare died of a feaver there contracted." The fact that Shake-
speare died as Addison and as our own Edgar Poe died, has been
so repugnant that even Dr. Halliwell-Phillipps, usually so absolutely
determined to reveal whatever befell, has surmised that his idol
died rather of malaria from the wretched drainage of what Garrick
called " the dirtiest little town in England." Unfortunately, how-
ever, this entry, fatal as it is, is absolutely the only entry anywhere
'No greater proof of the sweetness of Shakespeare's nature is needed than
the fact that all who refer to him, seem to have uniformly connected his name with
3uch epithets as "worthy," "gentle" or "beloved" — Harness (1837).
1916.] AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE 19
that even alludes to the manner of Shakespeare's taking off, and
so cannot be whistled down the wind.
It is interesting to guess whether John Hall, physician, the
dramatist's son-in-law, would have called it " a Tertian " or " a
Quatern " (names for malaria then) in his diary, which he calls
" Cures, Historical and Empirical ; experienced on Eminent Per-
sons in severall Places, Observations." He, as a rule, avoids giving
names to the maladies of his clients, contenting himself with stating
only their symptoms. Though he does note that " Mr. Drayton,
an excellent poet labouring of a Tertian, was cured by the follow-
ing: The emetic effusion, one ounce; syrup of violets a spoonful;
mix them; which given, wrought very well upwards and down-
wards."
But, mistaken as Vicar Ward's entries were, they are vastly
important because — in point of date — actually the first memoranda
that we possess as to Shakespeare. John Aubrey indeed made a
lot of desultory notes (among them the discredited one that Shake-
speare was at one time a schoolmaster) in 1708, and then came
the notes of the Rev. Richard Davies, Rector of Sapperton, Glou-
cestershire, upon Rev. Mr. Fuhman's diary in that same year, which
recorded that Shakespeare died in the Old Faith.
In the course of his editorial functions, Dr. Severn somehow
learned that in the ancient city of Bath there was in existence a
copy of the second- folio Shakespeare, whicli contained not only a
slip pasted upon the inside of its first cover upon which was
the signature " William Shakespeare," but, written therein, the
signature " John Ward." Small wonder that Dr. Severn leaps to
the conclusion that this signatory John Ward is his vicar John
Ward, who in pursuance of his resolution to " peruse " the Shake-
speare plays, has possessed himself of a copy of Shakespeare's col-
lected works (the first and second folios of which were then ex-
tant). So in his preface he does not hesitate to say: " In a copy
of the folio edition of his (Shakespeare's) works is written on a
slip pasted-in, probably a genuine autograph of Shakespeare ob-
tained by Mr. Ward."
Vicar John Ward's diary makes no mention of his having
possessed a folio of Shakespeare. If he did, it would have passed
at his death to his brother, the Rev. Thomas Ward, rector of
Stow-in-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, to whom the former's Will
left all his worldly goods. But Dr. Severn makes no use of that
departure. His blunder, however, did have one good effect. It
20 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
caused the sleepless Dr. Halliwell-Phillipps to institute a search
for the missing folio with the pasted-in signature. He kept stand-
ing in all likely English newspapers, advertisements offering a re-
ward for the " return "of this folio, and though these advertise-
ments failed to unearth the volume, we shall see, later on, that when
the American investigators took a hand, they were enabled by means
of them to ascertain which John Ward they were trecking after.
In the year 1885, a party of savants and lovers of old books
are seated in a corner of a Chicago bookstore, and one of them
is exhibiting to the other a copy of Milton's works, in which is
an accepted signature of John Milton. While they are examining
it a bystander saunters up, and asks to see the curiosity that is
attracting so much attention ! Being very familiar with the matter,
this bystander remarks that he has himself seen a greater curi-
osity: for in a certain settlement — (which he names) in Utah or
Nevada — there is a copy of Shakespeare in which there is the sig-
nature of William Shakespeare !
Following up this statement of the stranger, such steps are
taken by one of the savants aforesaid, that there is actually dis-
covered in the cabin of an illiterate Mormon miner in Nevada
a copy of the second folio of Shakespeare, upon the inside of the
first cover of which is pasted a slip of paper bearing the name
" William Shakespeare*" ! ! !
Through various vicissitudes this volume reaches the posses-
sion of the Chicago gentleman, soon to give his name to the
autograph— Charles F. Gunther, Esquire, of Chicago. Mr. Gunther
of course knows nothing of any " Ward " questions. His sole
interest is to be assured that he possesses one of the six (if his
is one) authentic autographs of the great dramatist. And he sub-
mits his volume to the experts.7
By what trick of the whirligig of time a second folio of Shake-
speare of 1632 has arrived in a Mormon's cabin in Nevada in the
year 1883, it *s hopeless to inquire. The savant who first
was led to rescue the volume seems to have neglected to ask a
history of it from its illiterate possessor. And it is now too late.
TIn what follows we abridge the really remarkable work of Dr. E. P. Vining,
Chairman of a Committee appointed by the New York Shakespeare Society to
report upon the claims to authenticity of this Gunther signature. That report was
first printed in Shakespeareana, volume viii., p. 133. (Philadelphia: The Leonard
Scott Publication Society, 1887.) The report, which well repays perusal, confines
itself to a narrative of the steps taken in establishing the facts set forth above,
but does not assume to pronounce as to the genuineness of the signature itself.
1916.] AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE 21
The savant and his illiterate vendor have both disappeared. But in
their place arrives John Ward, actor, upon our horizon.
Besides the pasted-in signature William Shakespeare, and the
boldly written signature, " John Ward," this volume contains on
its fly-leaves the signature, " Charles Lomax." It also contained
some manuscript emendations to the text, signed sometimes
" Charles Lomax," and sometimes " C. L. ; " and, in one case, one
of these annotations was fortunately dated " 1781."
Most fortunately, too, there was found in the volume a letter
dated Bath, February 19, 1839, signed " Charles Godwin," and
addressed to Dr. Charles Severn, mentioning some volume, evi-
dently accompanying the letter, which letter says : " You will perhaps
be of the opinion that the volume once belonged to the John Ward
whose books and records you have."
Here, indeed, were clues as fair as one would wish to meet
with in a summer's day! Most fortunate of all, Dr. Halliwell-
Phillipps was living among his wonderful collections at Hollinbury
Copse. To him the whole material was submitted. Dr. Halliwell-
Phillipps found in his own collection the actual correspondence be-
tween John Ward, the actor, and the corporation of Stratford-on-
Avon, which led to that benefit performance of Othello which ob-
tained the funds for the repairs mentioned above ; and Mr. Richard
Savage (then librarian thereof) furnished from the Stratford
Memorial Library signatures of Vicar John Ward. From a com-
parison of the two it appeared that the signature in the volume was
that of John Ward the actor and not of John Ward the vicar!
It further appeared that, when Dr. Severn first heard of the
existence of the volume containing the signatures of Shakespeare
and of John Ward, he had traced this volume to the possession of
a Rev. Ilstid Thomas of Bath, whereupon Dr. Severn writes to
a Bath bookseller begging him to procure for him a loan of this
folio. When the Bath bookseller, Charles Godwin by name, gets
the Rev. Dr. Severn's letter he finds that the Rev. Ilstid Thomas
is dead, but that the coveted folio is in the possession of one
Charles Lomax Thomas, son of the Rev. Ilstid, a clergyman who
holds a small living at Bradford in Yorkshire.
It further appeared that the Charles Lomax who made the
annotations was the maternal grandfather of the Charles Lomax
Thomas who owned the volume when it was loaned to Dr. Severn,
while the fact that Dr. Severn was still undeceived in his sup-
position that the signature "John Ward" the volume contained
22 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
was the signature of the vicar of Strat ford-on- Avon, amply proved
the good faith and the circumstantiality of all the items in the
case as they unfolded themselves to the patient search of the in-
vestigators. So that we need not concern ourselves to beware of
the antics of that clever seventeen-year-old scapegrace William
Henry Ireland, who in 1794-5 forged signatures, letters and even
whole tragedies of Shakespeare, since the date placed by Charles
Lomax upon one of his textual emendations puts him out of the
reckoning as having had a finger in this signature problem !
Thus, once more, it occurs that a paramount question concern-
ing every student of Shakespeare lore — a question as to a
Shakespeare autograph as before it was a question of a Shakespeare
likeness — depends upon an unwitting activity of John Ward, actor !
But letting the two John Wards rest, and coming down to the
merits, the paramount question — is the Gunther signature an au-
thentic signature or merely a tracing or imitation ? — is by no means
a simple one. That it bears so remarkable a resemblance in line
and form to the last Will signature as to (by the familiar legal rule
laid down in the Rowland Will case) preclude the possibility of
its genuineness, every expert has agreed! But, unfortunately, the
moment we concede this we raise an obstacle to pronouncing it a
tracing! How could a tracing have been made upon paper the
thickness of the slip? Even if the slip of paper could be removed
in the folio, the real signature could not be separated from the
Will now at the Prerogative Office Doctors' Commons, nor could
the Will be taken from the custody of the British Crown, for the
purpose of superimposing the two upon glass or other transparent
surface in order to ascertain whether the latter was a tracing of the
former. Other considerations are: if genuine, so enthusiastic a
Shakespeareolater as John Ward would not have destroyed an
orginal document or letter of Shakespeare's to retain only the
signature thereto. Nor, on the other hand, if the slip of paper on
which the name Shakespeare is written were of a thinness requisite
for tracing purposes, would it have been at all likely that an
official custodian of the Will (at that date on file in the office of
the Consistory Court at Worcester) would at any period have
permitted a tracing of a probated document to be made for personal
or curious or even literary use. Certainly not, without such official
permits — orders and other papers as would have become of record
in the office where issued or where used for the comparison, and
there are no such on record anywhere.
I9i6.] AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE 23
But, on the other hand, could anybody have so exactly imitated
the third Will signature without tracing it? Another con-
sideration (not to be overlooked equally whether the " Gunther "
signature be genuine or spurious) : that last Will signature is and
must be the safest to imitate, since if that particular signature was
not genuine, the Shakespeare Will could not have been probated at
all ! So, whoever he was, the imitator was wise enough to imitate
the safest signature! For admitting that every signature that has
ever been claimed anywhere is a genuine signature (except the silly
Ireland forgeries), Shakespeare only occasionally signed his full
name, " William Shakespeare," oscillating from the " W. Shaks "
of the Montjoie deposition all through the gamut of " Wm.
Shaksper," and all the other abbreviatory forms so abundantly cata-
logued by the biographers. Again, the difficulty of the imitation
would be measurably increased by making the imitation upon so
small a slip of paper — barely three inches long by half an inch in
width (unless the imitator covered a sheet of paper with attempts
at imitation, using the most satisfactory of them all, which is not
improbable).
And here endeth then the second puzzlement bequeathed to
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the seventeenth century
actor, John Ward.
" SHAKESPEARE'S GLOVES."
The third puzzle for which our actor John Ward is directly
responsible, is also physically within the territory of these United
States. There reposes today under glass in the library of Horace
Howard Furness, Esquire, of Philadelphia, a pair of " property "
gauntlets of mouse-colored cheverel, stitched in gold thread, and dain-
tily trimmed at the wrists with dark fur. The history of these gloves
for the last one hundred and fifty years is documentary. They
were given by John Ward, the grandfather of Mrs. Siddons, to
Garrick, and by Garrick's widow were handed back to the grand-
daughter of their earliest owner; that is to say, Mrs. Garrick
handed the gloves back to John Ward's granddaughter, Mrs. Sid-
dons herself. From Mrs. Siddons, dying in 1831, they passed to her
daughter, Mrs. Combe, and from Mrs. Combe they passed to Mrs.
Fanny Kemble Butler, Mrs. Siddons' niece; who gave them to the
eminent Dr. Horace Howard Furness, late of Philadelphia, the
Shakespearean scholar and editor, who bequeathed them to his son,
their present owner.
24 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
That Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler herself saw no reason to
doubt the authenticity of these gloves, we have her letter presenting
them to the distinguished Dr. Furness :
MY DEAR HORACE (in spite of your literary labors and
honors you must still be such to me) : The worship of relics
is not the most exalted form of human devotion, but " the
meanest garment that ever has but slipped " upon one we love
and revere becomes in some measure dear and venerable for
his sake, and so we may be permitted to keep Shakespeare's
gloves with affectionate regard. You will value them for
their own sake and perhaps a little for that of your old friend.
F. A. KEMBLE.
Doubtless there was nowhere else in Christendom a pair of
gloves preserved so long and so reverently by such a succession
of distinguished owners. But, alas, just here loomed the apochry-
phal! These gloves were asserted to have once formed a parcel
of the stage-wardrobe of the great William Shakespeare! That is
to say, that, adding fourteen years, during which John Ward says
that he held them in silence, from 1746 to 1760, it was one hun-
dred and forty- four years from a possible Shakespeare ownership
to an ownership to again conjure with — the ownership of the il-
lustrious David Garrick!
Other things being equal, possibly a pair of " property " gloves
appearing in the required vicinage (in this case the vicinage of
Stratford-on-Avon), might have claimed to appear via the stage-
wardrobe of Shakespeare, who is known to have played " kingly
parts," and so might well have needed gold-stitched gauntlets. But
these gloves were handicapped as to their authenticity, by an un-
fortunate letter written by the John Ward aforesaid to Garrick in
presenting him' (Garrick) with these identical gloves. That un-
fortunate letter read as follows:
LEOMINSTER, May 31, 1769.
DEAR SIR: On reading the newspapers I find you are pre-
paring a grand jubilee to be kept at Stratford-upon-Avon to
the memory of the immortal Shakespeare. I have sent you a
pair of gloves which have often covered his hands ; they were
made me a present by a descendant of the family, when myself
and company went over there from Warwick in the year 1746
to perform the play of Othello, as a benefit for repairing his
monument in the great church, which we did gratis, the whole
of the receipts being expended on that alone. The person who
gave them to me, William Shakespeare by name, told me his
1916.] AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE 25
father had often declared to him that they were the identical
gloves of our great poet, and when he delivered them to me
said, " Sir, they are the only property that remains of our
famous relation. My father possessed and sold the estate he left
behind him, and these are all the recompense I can make you
for this night's performance." The donor was a glazier by
trade, was very old, and to the best of my memory, living in
the street leading from the town hall down to the river. On
my coming to play in Stratford about three years after, he
was dead. The father of him and our poet were brother's chil-
dren. The veneration I bear to our great author and player
makes me wish to have these relics preserved to his immortal
memory, and I am led to think I cannot better deposit them for
that purpose in the hands of any person so proper as our
modern Roscius.
I am, sir, your most ob'd't humble serv'nt,
JOHN WARD.
DAVID GARRICK, ESQRE.
That these were actually Shakespeare's gloves, worn by him-
self, might pass a casual and not too-interested notice. But a cir-
cumstantial statement like the above cannot escape criticism, es-
pecially as all the world knows that under the Will of Shakespeare,
and of his last surviving next-of-kin, his granddaughter, Lady
Barnard, every item of Shakespeare's estate was disposed of to
parties perfectly well known, and catalogued over and over again
by hundreds of antiquarians! Unfortunately, therefore, for
" Shakespeare's gloves " had they possessed no credentials aliiinde,
this letter would have effectually disposed of any claim to their
genuineness. For obviously, there is not one syllable of truth in
John Ward's version of the statement of the aged person described
in this letter, as Mr. Ward could have ascertained if he had taken
the trouble to consult the Warwickshire Probate records. Had he
taken that slight trouble he would have learned that Shakespeare's
Will, item by item, disposed of his very considerable property from
his estates of New Place and other, down to his second-best bed.
He was, if not the richest, certainly the second or third richest
man in Stratford-on-Avon at the time of his death, though the
pitiful bits of rubbish which the Memorial Committee permit to be
exhibited to visitors would not create that impression. And he
mentions by name each beneficiary of his Will, and among them
there is no one named " Shakespeare " at all ! Said beneficiaries
are named as follows : Susannah, the dramatist's daughter and her
26 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
husband, Dr. John Hall, Judith, the dramatist's second daughter, and
her husband, Thomas Quiney, Joan Hart, his sister (to whom, be-
side the reversion of a legacy to Susannah and another legacy, he
leaves "all my wearing apparel"), Thomas Russel, Francis Col-
lins, Thomas Combe, Hamnet Sadler, William Reynolds, William
Walker, Anthony Hart, Elizabeth Hart, Michael Hart, John
Heminges, and Henry Condell. And in 1746, when this aged per-
son gave these gloves to John Ward, all of the above were dead,
Shakespeare's direct line extinct, his worldly possessions passed
from his succesion! Lady Barnard, his grandchild, daughter of
Susannah Hall, died without issue in 1674. By her will she directed
the sale of New Place, and it was purchased by Sir Edward Walker.
And Sir Edward's daughter Barbara, marrying a Sir John Clopton,
New Place, which Shakespeare had purchased from a grantee of
Sir William Clopton in 1597, returned again to the Clopton family
— and Shakespeare's possession, like his posterity, gone as if it
had never been!
So the statement of this aged party that " my father possessed
and sold the estate he [the great dramatist] left behind him," is in
every item, and in every detail, impossible ! As to the personality,
the Warwickshire Probate records show that the dramatist's Will
appointed Dr. John Hall and Susannah Hall executors, and Thomas
Russell and Francis Collins (Shakespeare's cousin, the lawyer who
drew the Will, January i6th, though it was not executed until
March 12, 1616) " overseers " (i. e., experts to assist the executors
in administering the estate). And that these executors and over-
seers did proceed to sell, settle, distribute the estate and file their
accounts, the Probate records show. So that no person, who, in
1746, could have had a son living named " William Shakespeare,"
could by any possibility have had a hand in either the Shakespeare
estate or in Shakespeare's gloves !
Whence then came these gloves if they were not Shakespeare's?
Who can guess? To expose a fraud it is not demanded that one
suggest a plausible theory to take its place. John Ward was him-
self an actor, and doubtless possessed all sorts of " properties."
It has not failed of suggestion that he may not have loved Garrick
any too dearly for having taken Shakespeare celebrations into his
charge, and devised that big Jubilee after he (Ward) had for so
many years kept Shakespeare alive in mid-England, raising money
at his own expense to restore and preserve his vestiges! That
Garrick should not have even asked Mr. Ward's cooperation in a
1916.] AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE 27
field peculiarly his own ! The letter might well be read that Ward
felt the slight ! Was Ward " stalking " Garrick with a pair of
Ward's own property gloves and an aged glazier? For an actor
to call his brother actor a " Roscius " has a sardonic flavor. What
did Garrick himself think of these wondrous gloves ? Did he show
them to Dr. Johnson, then puttering at a big edition of the dra-
matist that was to eclipse all known editions ?
But we have all heard of the ancient judge who said to the
young lawyer : " As you state your case I should decide against
you, but I will wait until I hear the other side." So here is a
suggestion. (Mr. H. H. Furness, Jr., is, I believe, its sponsor)
which, it must be confessed, will enable us to decide in favor of Mr.
Ward's gloves in spite of Mr. Ward himself.
" As regards the donor of the gloves to Ward, there seems
some slight confusion, either through Ward's account of his re-
lationship to William Shakespeare or in the mind of the old man
himself. Later historians of the Shakespeare family have shown
that his name was Shakespeare Hart, and that he was the great-
grandson of Joan Shakespeare, William's youngest sister. He was
born in 1666, and therefore in 1746 he was upwards of eighty
years old."8
Of course any statement about anything may possibly be the
exact truth, if it can be assumed to mean anything or something
quite the reverse or other than what it says! And, accordingly,
this aged person's statement, if it does not mean what it says, or
if Mr. Ward has erroneously reported it, may mean anything one
pleases to guess.
We should regard the confusion, we think, " considerable,"
rather than " slight." Turning to George Russell French's S hake-
spear eana Geologica (1869), however, we do find that it is not
impossible that this " William Shakespeare " of Ward's letter
might, so far as the dates go, have been really William Shakespeare
Hart to whom the dramatist was great-granduncle. Eliminating
Mr. Ward's statement that " the father of him and our poet were
brothers' children " as a lapse of information, we can proceed to
trace the genealogical line as follows:
The dramatist's sister, Joan Shakespeare, married a Stratford
hatter named William Hart. Their children were three sons,
William, George and Michael (whom we have seen that Shakespeare
mentions in his Will), and a daughter, Mary. George married
8 The Theatre, New York, March, 1916.
28 AMERICA AND SHAKESPEARE [Oct.,
Hester Ludiate, and had issue Thomas, Susannah, Mary, Hester,
George, Elizabeth and Shakespeare, who was a plumber by trade
(Halliwell-Phillipps finds several entries in the Stratford town
records of payments to " Shaxper Hart, for glazing and plom-
ing"), and died in or about the year required by John Ward's
letter. Now the aforesaid William, son of Joan Hart, was an
actor, and is mentioned in a royal warrant May 17, 1636, with
others, as of " His Majesty's Comedians " and of the regular
company of players in the Blackfriars, London. Again, Lady Bar-
nard's will recognizes these two, Thomas and George, as kinsmen,
by her bequest : " item, I give and devise unto my kinsman, Thomas
Hart, son of Thomas Hart, late of Startford-upon-Avon, all that
my other messuage or Inn to him and his heirs and in default to
his brother George," who however, either dying or in default of
issue, never became vested with this realty at all. So that, if Mr.
Ward's ancient, when he said that his father " possessed and sold
the estate he (the dramatist) left behind him," meant to say: " all
the estate that, after Lady Barnard's death, was left of the estate
which the dramatist left behind him," he told the truth.
And there is a certain luxury to be coveted in this Shake-
speare tercentennial year, of really believing something — of revel-
ing in an occasional orgy of faith instead of a monotonous orgy
of doubt! As we have seen that the dramatist left to Joan Hart
all his wearing apparel, these " property " gloves might naturally
have been included in the bequest (there being no other disposition
to make of them), and so naturally passed from father to son.
" Old men forget " said Henry V. in his speech to his soldiers
on the eve of Agincourt. But he added, when they remember they
are apt to remember " with advantages." Certainly it is not im-
possible that this aged party " upwards of eighty years old " may
have been William Shakespeare Hart, who, while forgetting two
generations of his own ancestry, may have " remembered with ad-
vantages " all that he remembered at all.
What airy and irresponsible, irritating and exasperating skeptic
then will rise to deny that all three of these circumstantial problems
that John Ward, actor of an hundred and fifty years ago, so un-
wittingly sent down to us, may not be actually accepted as con-
structive, rather than destructive, of his usefulness to Shake-
spearean exegesis? That he may have actually supplied us with a
morsel of Shakespeare's paraphernalia — a possible autograph — and
drawn attention to at least a serious pretext for accepting the
1916.] OLD HUDSON ROVERS 29
D'Avenant-Devonshire bust as a lifetime likeness via the Dugdale
drawing?
And is it not worthy of at least curious chronicle that three
items in the world's scanty store of actual-physical-memorabilia of
the greatest of dramatists have come directly, through utterly
separate and independent channels, down from one John Ward of
the seventeenth century to rest in the twentieth in such relatively
remote depositories as Stratford-on-Avon, Chicago and Phila-
delphia ?
OLD HUDSON ROVERS.
BY MICHAEL J. EARLS.
WHEN the dreamy night is on, up the Hudson river,
And the sheen of modern taste is dim and far away,
Ghostly men on phantom rafts make the waters shiver,
Laughing in the sibilance of the silver spray.
Yea, and up the woodlands, stanch in moonlit weather,
Go the ghostly horsemen, adventuresome to ride,
White as mist the doublet-baize, bandolier and feather,
Fleet as gallant Robin Hood in an eventide.
Times are gone that knew the craft in the role of rovers,
Fellows of the open, care could never load:
Unalarmed for bed or board, they were leisure's lovers,
Summer bloomed in story on the Hyde Park Road,
Summer was a blossom, but the fruit was autumn,
Fragrant haylofts for a bed, cider-cakes in store,
Warmer was a cup they knew, when the north wind caught 'em
Down at Benny Havens' by the West Point shore.
30 OLD HUDSON ROVERS [Oct.,
Idlers now — and loafers pass, joy is out of fashion,
Honest fun that fooled a dog or knew a friendly gate,
Now the craft are vagabonds, sick with modern passion,
Riding up and down the shore, on an aching freight ;
Sullen are the battered looks, cheerless talk or tipsy,
Sickly in the smoky air, starving in the day,
Pining for a city's noise at Kingston or Po'keepsie,
Eager more for Gotham and a great White Way.
Rich is all the country-side, but glory has departed,
What if yachts and mansions be, by the river's marge!
Dim though was a hillside, lamps were happy-hearted,
Near the cove of Rondout in a hut or barge.
Silken styles are tyrants, fashion kills the playtime,
Robs the heart of largess that is kindly to the poor,
Richer were the freemen, welcome as the Maytime,
Glad was child or maiden seeing Brennen of the moor.
Send us back the olden knights, tell no law to track 'em,
Give to child and maiden storytellers as of yore,
Millionaires in legend-wealth, though no bank would back 'em,
But old Benny Havens by the West Point shore.
Off with lazy vagabonds, social ghosts that shiver,
Give to worthy road-men the great green way,
And we'll hear a song again up the Hudson river,
Ringing from a drifting raft, set in silver spray.
THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE.
BY THOMAS B. REILLY.
MONG the unexpected events of that June morning
was the arrival of a letter at the villa Torni for Mr.
James Anthony Lydford. The handwriting, conti-
nental in stroke and flourish, was unfamiliar.
Wherefore, Jimmie, in search of a clearer perspective,
isolated himself at the table under the peach trees, where he frown-
ingly re-read the message. It informed him :
DEAR SIR:
My conscience will give me no peace till I have confessed
my impertinence of yesterday. You yourself, however, were
guilty of contributory negligence. That, of course, is no de-
fence, and I may as well admit that, having read the first page
of your manuscript, the temptation to read those that followed
was irresistible.
Naturally, I am wondering just what the denouement will be.
The curiosity is not without profit, since it will serve to remind
me of my fall from grace as well as bring fresh interests into
hours that are sometimes long and lonesome.
I trust that you will be generous enough to overlook my
twofold presumption. (Miss) X .
"Well, I'll be blessed!" ejaculated Jimmie. And suddenly
catching sight of Annunziata, he beckoned her to come. " See
here, who were those two women that took tea here yesterday
while I was down at the village ? "
" They were from the manor," replied the girl, avoiding his
glance.
" Exactly," he agreed, " and one was old and one was young,
and both wore beautiful dresses with lovely lace. You told me all
that last night at the dinner table. But you didn't so much as hint
that they read that manuscript of mine. I thought you were going
to take care of those papers."
" They were lying on the chair; I didn't have time to remove
them," advanced the girl.
" Hm — m," said Jimmie skeptically, and, having pondered his
32 THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE [Oct.,
thought, announced : " Come back in ten minutes, I want you to
take a letter up to the manor for me."
A moment later he was adrift on the treacherous sea of ex-
pression. He eventually made port with the following:
MY DEAR Miss X :
Permit me to assure you that your very frank note, though
a source of undeserved pleasure, has given rise to some uneasi-
ness, lest you continue to regard as censurable that which was
really an inestimable favor.
I regret an inability to give you even a hint as to how the
story is to end. The tragedy is more apparent than real.
Everything depends on the explanations to be made by the
woman — the heroine. And there are as many explanations as
can be imagined. The only guide in the affair is the woman's
character. Her actions portray it to be one thing ; in the heart
of the man it is quite another.
But, please pardon this unwarranted discursiveness. It
springs from my very lively interest in the heroine and from
a heartfelt wish that she eventually find happiness.
JAMES ANTHONY LYDFORD.
A few moments later he signaled Annunziata, and, as she
drew near, asked :
" Which of the two women read that manuscript?"
" The younger," replied the girl.
" See that she gets this note," said Jimmie solemnly. Shortly
thereafter he looked up at the tree tops and murmured :
" I dare say I've made a mess of it, as usual."
And as the succeeding morrows came and fled empty-handed,
his conjecture took on the shape and substance of a conviction.
The morning of the third day, however, the unexpected again
happened. He received a letter; Maria Annunziata brought it to
him down in the garden. The handwriting was continental in
stroke and flourish. The missive informed him:
MY DEAR MR. LYDFORD:
It was very kind of you not only to absolve me from guilt,
but to share so generously your literary confidences. These
latter, however, have been a source of much embarrassment.
And yet, I should deem it ungracious not to acknowledge the
spirit of good will contained in your note.
I trust you will eventually see your way to bring the story
to a logical as well as happy conclusion. That element of
1916.] THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE 33
tragedy to which you referred would seem more impressive
were it centred not on the man but on the woman, don't you
think? Still, that is merely my own opinion. The outcome, as
you state, depends entirely on the nature of the woman's ex-
planations. If memory serve I should judge that you are still
uncertain as to her true character. Why not accept her as she
exists in the heart of the man?
If you will pardon a suggestion, you make the heroine in
your story stifle all memories of her past. No woman has ever
yet succeeded in doing that. She is constantly refreshening
present hours with souvenirs of those once lived; either with
the bloom of their romance or the shock of their tragedy.
I have written more freely than was my intent, but have
come to feel a personal interest in the heroine of your story,
my purloined reading of which has led to so censurable a breach
of the conventions. I may not longer permit you to think me
deaf to their appeal. X .
" And there you are," admitted Jimmie, frowning up at the
tree tops. He considered at length, emerging from his delibera-
tions with a countenance betwixt and between. Maria Annunziata,
arriving with his luncheon, regarding him suspiciously a moment,
then inquired:
"Don't you feel well?"
Whereupon, as one heaving the world from his shoulders,
Jimmie Lydford looked up and announced :
" it's— all— off."
"Off? "Echoed the girl.
" The lady," he said, " doesn't believe in keeping up a cor-
respondence with a person that has never been introduced to her."
" Oh ! " murmured Annunziata, wondering, sympathetic.
Nevertheless, three days later, the victim of a mood, Jimmie
Lydford threw himself at fate and wrote the following:
MY DEAR Miss X :
It is solely because I feel that you can and may render me
an impersonal, yet very important, service that I dare (for the
last time) address myself to you. Permit me to ask a single
question. Do you think I have erred in letting the hero make
that sudden and surreptitious flight from the scene of his mis-
fortune? The point is extremely important, being the keystone
of the whole romance. May I hope to have your opinion on
this point? J- A- L-
VOL. civ. — 3
34 THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE [Oct.,
Then, subservient to his guiding rule of action, he walked a
mile through the scorching midday heat to Sant' Angelo, where
he mailed his letter. Then he walked leisurely back to the villa
Torni and waited — and waited. And the days dragged their
seemingly interminable hours over the rim of a world that had
lost all sense of the fitness of things.
" What's the matter with you this week? " sought Annunziata.
" This is a wicked old world," sighed Jimmie Lydford.
" I don't see anything the matter with the world," commented
the girl.
" You haven't seen the cloven hoof," he returned moodily.
" What has happened now ? " she asked, laughing at him.
" That's just it," he replied reflectively, " nothing has happened
and, doubtless, nothing ever will happen. Why doesn't it rain,
or snow, or blow things to smithereens for a change! If it wasn't
that your village barber might suspect I'd lost my memory, I'd
go get my hair cut again."
" You'll feel better after dinner," threw out Annunziata with
a shrug.
But he didn't have to wait that long, since the afternoon mail
brought him another letter.
" Great Scott ! " exclaimed Jimmie, glancing at the hand-
writing, " it's from my Aunt Brigid. She's in Paris ! "
" Oh ? " murmured Annunziata, lingering, curious.
Whereupon he hastily slit the envelope, leaned back and read :
You might have spared me the chagrin of hearing from
a third party that you were at the villa Torni. Your failure
to take me into your confidence has placed me in an embarrass-
ing position with regard to certain friends of mine, who have
hesitated to believe that I knew nothing of your shameful treat-
ment of Agnes Holburn. That's a score I purpose settling with
you later.
You did Agnes a great injustice, and deserve no further con-
sideration from her. I've heard her side of the story and make
this an occasion to suggest that you let me have yours promptly.
I'm asking only that which I have a right to know, that I may
intelligently defend you when necessary.
Agnes, by the way, was legally of age two months ago. She
arrived in England not long since. Don't let that announcement
produce any tremors of alarm. I can honestly assure you that
were opportunity offered tomorrow, the weight of the world
couldn't drag her into your presence at the villa Torni. There's
1916.] THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE 35
no more to be said on that point. There's another, however, on
which you're entitled to some enlightenment. I refer to my
present knowledge of your exact whereabouts. A letter from
an old friend of mine gave me the clue. She's a neighbor of
yours, by the way, and lives in that manor house on the hill
to the right of the villa.
In view of what I have heard and suspect, take a word
of advice — don't invite entangling alliances. They're a source
of chagrin if nothing more. Your impulsiveness has done
enough mischief for the time being. "A word to the wise is
sufficient."
Since I'm still prone to change residences overnight, you
may direct your letter in care of my banker as usual.
" I knew it! " said Jimmie vigorously.
" Have you received bad news ? " asked Annunziata, frown-
ing.
" Not exactly," returned Jimmie, " but that woman will be
the undoing of me yet. She never knows when to let well enough
alone."
" What woman ? " sought Annunziata.
" My Aunt Brigid," said Jimmie. " She's never happy un-
less she's regulating somebody's affairs, preferably mine."
A half hour later, the grass at his feet littered with torn pa-
per, Jimmie Lydford gave vent to a sigh, glared defiantly up at
the whispering leaves, reached for a fresh piece of paper, and made
a flying start with:
MY DEAR AUNT BRIGID :
I'm going to be perfectly frank with you. Agnes, as you
probably know, ceased answering my letters without a word
of warning, or subsequent explanation. Moreover, on the occa-
sions of two calls at her residence, I was tacitly given to under-
stand by the maid that Agnes was not at home to me. I
foolishly invited a third rebuff, and on that occasion was in-
formed that " the family " had left town — destination unknown.
For some occult reason I had become an undesirable overnight.
I'm still in the dark as to what that reason could possibly
have been.
I was reluctant to burden you with even an announcement
of my misfortune, wherefore my seeming neglect to take you
into my confidence. I came abroad at once, cutting all lines
of communication. I had no desire to receive the condolences
36 THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE [Oct.,
of my friends, since I could give no plausible explanation. I've
been at the villa Torni ever since.
You may possess your soul in peace regarding those " tremors
of alarm." I've no desire to see Agnes for some time to come.
That, perhaps, will draw your criticism; but I'm still quite
human. It would be fruitless to discuss those two phrases
which you make use of in your letter — " shameful treatment "
and " great injustice." As for " deserving further considera-
tion," I don't quite catch your meaning.
How strangely things fall out: I mean your being a friend
of the folks up at the manor. You might forward me a letter
of introduction. As for " sudden enthusiasms " or " entangling
alliances," don't worry. My heart is where it ever was and
always will be. Moreover, since one proverb deserves another,
let me remind you that " a burnt child dreads the fire."
And again, as on another day, he braved the ardors of the
afternoon sun, trudged down to Sant' Angelo, and mailed his let-
ter. Unlike that other day, however, he hadn't the least doubt of
the result. " I ought to have a letter within the week," said he to
his second self. And he did — two of them! They arrived Mon-
day morning and had been mailed at Sant' Angelo! A glance
at the handwriting of one sent him forthwith to his retreat under
the peach trees, where he gave solicitous attention to the following :
MY DEAR MR. LYDFORD:
I have given very earnest consideration not only to your
recent request, but to the circumstances of our correspondence.
To invite discussion and then avoid it would seem to imply a
spirit of coquetry on my part, which I may not permit you to
entertain.
I clearly remember the point involved in your inquiry. It is
vividly impressed on my memory. A discussion of its merits,
however, could not be had in a letter of moderate length. A
fortunate circumstance enables me to overcome the difficulty.
I'm sure you will agree that fate has been kind, and that the
invitation — on its way or arrived — will serve all purposes ad-
mirably. Needless to add, I shall look forward to Tuesday
afternoon with keen anticipation.
The second letter, written in dainty script, informed him :
SWEET BRIAR HOUSE.
MY DEAR MR. LYDFORD :
I was agreeably surprised to hear that you are the nephew
1916.] THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE 37
of my very dear friend Mrs. Brigid O'Dowd. It will give me
great pleasure, therefore, if you will take tea with us Tuesday
afternoon at four o'clock.
I should much like to introduce you to some friends of mine.
Sunday evening, Miss HELEN SHERWOOD.
" Ha ! " said Jimmie, a smile of rare complacency breaking
into bloom. And, giving himself to the business of the moment, he
achieved his note of acceptance. That done he jumped to his
feet and started on a run up the garden walk. At the end of the
grape arbor he collided with Annunziata.
" Oh — ef — I beg your pardon," he threw our nervously.
" Why what has happened ? " exclaimed Annunziata, " you're
all excited."
" Don't you believe it," said he. " I want you to scoot over
to the manor with this note. It's of the greatest importance."
" But—" began the girl.
" Don't argue," broke in Jimmie, pushing the note into her
hand. "Fly!"
And then, since it never rains but it pours, the afternoon mail
brought him a third letter, from Rome, from his Aunt Brigid.
" Now what d'ye suppose," began Jimmie, hastily uncovering the
missive. Whereupon, with a sustained frown, he read :
One turn of frankness deserves another. Nevertheless, if it
weren't that blood is thicker than water, I'd stick to my original
plans and let you fight your own battles. Events of the past
week, however, leave me no alternative.
By some manceuver of fate, Agnes was with me the day I
received your letter. I made free to disclose its contents. I
don't propose to retail her comments ; they're best left unsaid.
I will, however, carry out a promise she exacted from me.
I could do no less. 'Tis a matter of strict justice to both of
you. She gave me a small packet of letters and insisted that
some day I show them to you. I'll not rest easy till you've
seen and read them.
In the meantime I'm writing no letters of introduction. It
may serve to cool your ardor to hear that Agnes and myself will
be guests at the manor for a fortnight at least. We shall arrive
Tuesday afternoon. I'll send Agnes direct to the manor; but
will take the longer route myself that you may have an oppor-
tunity to read those letters. I shall reach the villa Torni
about three o'clock. You may order tea as usual.
38 THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE [Oct.,
Naturally, I had to tell Agnes of your presence at the villa;
but don't let that trouble you. Unless you take the initiative
there's no danger of even a chance encounter. I'll see to that.
" Well, of all the — " began Jimmie Lydford ; but a power to
express the exact shade of his emotion denied him, he sat glaring
across the valley at the manor. He was still at grips with the in-
expressible, when Annunziata came strolling down the garden walk.
At sight of his troubled countenance, she shook her head from side
to side and remarked :
" You look as though you were expecting bad news ? "
" Bad's no name for it," returned Jimmie thoughtfully. And
as his audience stood frowning incomprehension, he remarked :
" I can't take tea at the manor, tomorrow, after all, and I must
send a valid excuse."
" You can't go ! " exclaimed the girl, drawing back, amazed.
" No — o," said Jimmie ruefully, " I'm going to have company
myself tomorrow. My aunt is a friend of the folks up at the
manor. She'll be here tomorrow afternoon about three o'clock.
Did you ever hear of such luck ! "
" But," argued Annunziata, I don't see why that should inter-
fere with your engagement. You could both go to the manor to-
gether."
" We could," admitted Jimmie Lydford reflectively, " but we
won't."
" You seem to have a lot of bad luck lately," commented the
girl.
" It isn't luck," said Jimmie, " it's merely the tyranny of cir-
cumstance."
The following afternoon, shortly before three, Jimmie's Aunt
Brigid arrived at the villa Torni. The preliminary skirmish
safely past, he led his guest down the garden walk toward the table
under the peach trees. Before seating herself, she took him in
with a sweeping glance from crown to heels, then rendered deci-
sion:
" The place agrees with you evidently."
" An easy conscience," he ventured lightly.
" Make the most of it while you may," she retorted, " it won't
be for long. But you may order tea."
" It's in the making," murmured Jimmie.
" You might glance through these in the meantime," she sug-
1916.] THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE 39
gested, handing him a packet of letters. " They'll serve to intro-
duce the few words I intend to have with you."
" Oh — o," he murmured, and forthwith lost himself in an
examination of the missive. As he read an expression of bewilder-
ment settled on his countenance. A frown of amazement wrinkled
his forehead.
Annunziata arrived and took her leave unheeded. His aunt,
without comment, poured tea. Suddenly, eyes flashing, Jimmie
looked up and exclaimed :
" I — I'm dumfounded ! I can scarcely believe it ! If it wasn't
for the maid's confession of lying and intercepting of letters, I'd
be tempted to doubt the whole affair. I always did sense some
antagonism on the part of Agnes' guardian, but I never dreamed
he was in such deadly earnest. I — I'm shocked ! "
" Is that all ? " inquired his aunt.
" It should be superfluous to tell you that I'm sorry," returned
Jimmie. " Nevertheless you must admit that I had provocation."
" To doubt the loyalty of a girl like Agnes ? " demanded his
aunt.
" But," returned Jimmie spiritedly," I never really did."
" Then why are you here? " she inquired tersely. " Can't you
realize that you've invited suspicions of all your friends? What's
more, you've given cause for that wicked old creature to think he
did right in attempting to part Agnes and you."
" Wicked ! " exclaimed Jimmie. " Why that man's act was
criminal. He must be wanting to all sense of honor and decency."
" His spite is bitter," remarked Mrs. O'Dowd. "But I didn't
come here to scold, nor to offer condolences. The first is not my
metier, the second you don't deserve. Now that you know the
truth, I'll make free to ask what do you intend to do about it? "
" I owe Agnes an immediate apology," announced Jimmie
solemnly. " If it wasn't that circumstances forbid, I'd go over to the
manor at once."
"Circumstances?" echoed his aunt, with an inquiring uplift
of her eyebrows.
" Why — er — you see," said Jimmie, " the truth is that your
friend, Miss Sherwood, invited me to take tea at the manor this
afternoon at four o'clock. If you'll be kind enough to explain
matters — "
" I'll be a party to no such cowardice," promptly advised his
aunt. " You'll come with me at once."
40 THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE [Oct.,
" But," he began protestingly, almost pleadingly.
" I'm waiting/' she remarked with the implication of a threat.
Whereupon he wisely chose the lesser evil.
They had scarcely reached the terrace at Sweet Briar, when
a little old lady came quickly forward with the announcement:
" Hurry, Mrs. O'Dowd, you're wanted at the telephone."
"Yes?" said Jimmie's aunt, and with a swift glance toward
her nephew. " This is — "
" Don't stand on ceremony," interposed the other, " you're
wanted in a hurry. I'll take care of him till you've returned."
Wherewith she smilingly held out her hand to Jimmie Lydford
with : " How do you do ? "
" I'm delighted to see you," murmured Jimmie lamely.
" Don't be shocked at my lack of ceremony," remarked his
hostess.
" And I'll take your arm, if you've no objections. You might
be tempted to run."
" Not from such good fortune as this," he returned.
" Indeed ? " said she, smiling up at him.
She led him toward the pathway that skirted the side of the
manor. There she came to a halt, and half suggested, half sought :
" Perhaps, you'd care to meet Miss Holburn alone for a few
minutes ? "
" But," he began, plainly ill at ease.
" Don't be foolish," murmured the other, giving his arm a
slight pressure of encouragement. " Go have it over with. She's
on the porch just around that corner of the house."
" Thank you," he murmured absently.
Whereupon his hostess, with a smiling " Good-bye for awhile,"
left him to his fate.
A moment later he was under the awning that shaded the paved
platform along the south side of the manor. And there, so far
as he knew, he stood the unsuspected observer of a young woman,
who, back toward him, sat in a wicker chair lazily plying her fan.
It was a curiously wrought fan and it held his attention. The
business of the moment, however, called for action. Wherefore,
with a sad lack of inventiveness, he gave vent to a little annun-
ciatory cough, then stepped forward. The fan midway one of
its lazily described arcs came to an abrupt halt, a head of brown
hair turned slowly; a very pleasing profile appeared, then a face,
two lustrous brown eyes, and then —
1916.] THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE 41
She was on her feet in an instant with a half startled, half
inquiring :
"Oh— o?"
" I'm — that is, I came right over, Agnes," began Jimmie,
" to ask — that is to say that — "
" But," she inquired, mercifully coming to his rescue, " won't
you be seated ? "
" Thank you," he murmured, " after I've offered you an
apology for my — those gratuitous assumptions of mine. I — I'm
sorry beyond expression. As you know I haven't a leg to stand on."
" You might be seated," she remarked mischievously.
" You haven't said that you'd forgive me," he demurred
humbly.
She made no rejoinder, but stood looking across the valley to-
ward the villa Torni.
" I know I don't deserve it," said Jimmie, still embarrassed,
still uncertain. " But if you knew what I've been through. I —
I haven't known a moment's happiness in six months. It was one
of the things that gave me courage to come here today."
" Indeed," she retorted swiftly. " I thought you were here to
meet a young woman that seems to have thrown prudence to the
winds."
" Don't, Agnes, please," pleaded Jimmie earnestly. " You —
you're hurting me. You misunderstand. I'm ashamed and heartily
sorry. Before I take my leave, I should like to hear that you at
least forgive me."
" Only on one condition," she interrupted seriously but firmly.
" Name it," demanded Jimmie eagerly.
" That you stay for tea," she stipulated, " otherwise you will
make my presence here unbearable." And before he could voice
his decision, she added : "If you will pardon me, I shall call Miss
Sherwood."
And the next moment he was alone.
A sweeping temptation to fly laid hold of him; but just then
his hostess appeared with the announcement:
" I'm so glad that's over with. Come right along, please.
You've just time for a word or two with another friend of yours.
She's down in the rosary. " I'll take you as far as the gateway.
Come."
And murmuring irrelevant trifles, she forthwith led the re-
luctant and inwardly fuming creature down the pavement toward
42 THE TYRANNY OF CIRCUMSTANCE [Oct.,
the other side of the house, thence to a little rustic gate that swung
between high hedges of privet. There she pointed down a shaded
walk and smilingly advised him :
" Go straight ahead to the fountain, then turn to the right.
You'll find her reading her favorite poet on the bench under the
rose trees."
" But," began Jimmie, his feelings at the breaking point.
" No," she picked him up quickly, " my presence would be
superfluous."
And again she left him to his fate. And suddenly a spirit
of mingled resentment and injustice flared up within him. What
right had Agnes to take such an intolerable advantage of him, to
force him into a situation that could only — And suddenly by a
whimsical touch of fate, by the merest chance, out of the corner
of his eye he saw it! It was lying half-open in the grass along the
edge of the path. He swiftly entered the gateway and achieved
possession of the object. It had been dropped obviously in the
course of hasty flight. But — and here was the question — why
flight along that particular path? Had it a double, in rival hands,
in the same household, this curiously wrought fan at which he
stood blinking? He smiled his incredulity, pocketed the fatal clue,
and went down the path as far as the fountain. There he turned
swiftly about and took in the carefully arranged mise en scene.
She was, in truth, seated on a bench under some rose trees. Her
back was toward him, over her head and shoulders a disguising
mantilla, while the edge of the promised book of poems showed
just above her arm. It was really well done. It was altogether
too successful not to merit a reprisal. Wherefore he remarked :
" A charming tableau, I assure you. A fitting crown to your
guileless little comedy. My compliments."
For a second even the leaves seemed motionless with expec-
tancy. Nevertheless, excepting an almost imperceptible start of the
veiled head and the gradual disappearance of the book, nothing
happened.
" I regret to spoil the denouement as originally planned," said
Jimmie, drawing near, " but am inclined to believe that mine con-
tains a fairer sense of humor."
" How — how did you guess ! " came the faintest of protesting
inquiries.
" Merely to guess would have been fatal," he returned. And
boldly rounding the edge of the bench, he seated himself within
I9i6.] THE SINGING GIRL 43
strategical reach of his summum bonum. He tried to intercept her
glance, but she defensively kept her eyes averted. And suddenly
in a tone of mingled skepticism and chagrin she wondered:
" You don't mean to say you knew it all the time ! "
"I'm not saying anything," announced Jimmie firmly, " till
this little comedy is safely concluded and the curtain down. Your
left hand, if you please, I've something that belongs to you. I
refuse to be responsible for it another minute."
There was the briefest of pauses. Then, shyly but thought-
fully, she surrendered her hand. And as he slipped the ring over her
finger she lifted her face and murmured:
" I — I was so afraid you — you didn't care, Jimmie."
" Didn't care ! " he exclaimed. And instantly —
But the curtain is down.
THE SINGING GIRL.
BY JOYCE KILMER.
THERE was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.
It flooded me with pleasure,
It pierced me like a sword,
When this young maiden sang : " My soul
Doth magnify the Lord."
The stars sing all together
And hear the angels sing,
But they said they had never heard
So beautiful a thing.
Saint Mary and Saint Joseph,
And Saint Elizabeth,
Pray for us poets now
And at the hour of death.
MODERN THOUGHT AND THE NATURE OF ITS PROGRESS.
BY EDMUND T. SHANAHAN, S.T.D.
F Aristotle could again move about among his kind,
and have a volume of modern philosophy — it does
not much matter which — suddenly thrust upon his
notice for review, one many readily imagine in what
direction his astonished thoughts would run.
At two things chiefly would he be surprised — the remarkable
development of metaphysics as a science of Knowledge, and its
almost complete neglect as a science of Being. The internal rela-
tions that thread our knowledge through and make it the consistent
body of information that it is, would be spread before him in mar-
velous richness of detail; but when he sought to discover what
bearing on the problem of reality all .this highly developed science
of mind was supposed to have, not a word would be vouchsafed
him save in scorn. Had he not heard of the Copernican revolution
in philosophy, introduced by Kant? Thought does not revolve
about objects any longer; objects revolve about Thought. The
idea of external reality is as obsolete as the old geocentric theory
of the universe. It is one of the derelicts in the path of progress.
So complete a transformation of metaphysics from a science of
reality into a science of knowledge would pique the curiosity of the
Stagirite as nothing else could, and set him at once to wondering
just where the secret of its explanation lay. " The Master of those
who know," as Dante called him, would hardly be put off with an
allusion to the Polish astronomer Copernicus, or his Prussian imi-
tator in philosophy, Kant; he would return at once to the charge:
" Why has there been so much progress in the study of Knowledge,
and so little in its companion subject — Being," he would insist. "Do
men now regard knowing and being as one and the same thing?
Has Plato's 'independent world of ideas' again become the dominant
conception? Against this 'Old Man Eloquent,' and his detached,
self -running world of Thought, I built philosophy on the Reality
known to us in experience, and refused to sever the knower from
the known. Where there are two constituents, I said to myself, the
interests of truth demand that neither be suppressed.
"A hundred years or so before my time, Zeno the Eleatic and
1916.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS 45
Heraclitus the Obscure stood for a policy of suppression. To their
way of thinking, the proper method to pursue when two ideas
appeared to be in conflict was to eliminate one of them and let the
other stay. Zeno was for the world of the 'one;' Heraclitus for
the world of the 'many/ Each excluded the idea on which the other
built, declaring it an illusion that melted away in the light of re-
flection. This policy, for many reasons, I could not bring myself
to share. I saw the partial truth in the opposed contentions of these
two rival thinkers, and at once began to cast about for a principle
by means of which the warring opposition might be transcended
and overcome. This principle I found revealed in experience — it is
the idea of Continuity — and it seemed to me then, it seems to me
now, that in recognizing and employing this idea as the governing
consideration in philosophy, I made a special contribution to the
development of human thought, far superior to the disruption policy
of Zeno the Eleatic and Heraclitus the Obscure. Imagine my sur-
prise, therefore, to find that this idea has gone almost wholly out
of recognition, and that the undeveloped mentality of my predeces-
sors is preferred to mine.
" How did this ancient opposition between the permanent and
the changing, the ideal and the real, the rational and the sensible,
the 'many' and the 'one' get itself so dogmatically reasserted ? What
led philosophers to disavow the continuity between thought and
sensation, reason and experience, subject and object, mind and
reality? What influence re-created impassable gaps of severance
between all these? How did Thought come to be regarded as
creative, and cease to be considered in the light of an apprehensive
power? I feel quite sure that a study of the causes leading up to
the rejection of the idea of Continuity will disclose the whole secret
of modern philosophy, and enable me to judge in what respects
precisely it is superior to mine, and in what others it falls below."
Aristotle's reflections might or might not have followed the
direction indicated. We have conveniently lent him ours, the better
to acquaint the reader with the question in hand, which is personally
concerning, and needs to be made live and actual, even by the inser-
tion of this introductory " purple patch." Modern philosophy grew
up around the idea that Thought is independent of the world of
objects, and can develop of itself, without the aid of experience.
The question we are here going to consider is not what value this
idea has, but how it ever came to be entertained. The question is
about the origin of the idea, not about its worth. We have reserved
46 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS [Oct.,
the consideration of this genetic problem for our closing topic,
as a most natural complement to the series of articles begun in
THE WORLD of last December. The reader who has the patience and
the interest to read the article through will at least be able to see
whence many ideas have come, that must have appeared dark and
puzzling to him before, when studied apart from the circumstances
of their origin.
The doctrine that Thought is independent of reality and can
develop of itself, without the aid of experience, did not originate
on philosophic soil. It had its origin in the science of mathematics,
and came over from that special discipline into the general field of
philosophy, dispossessing this latter of all its traditional principles
and reanimating it with a predominantly mathematical spirit. This
spirit leaned strongly towards idealism. Mathematical studies en-
gender the feeling that reason is not indebted to experience for
the shaping of its course. One may start with an ideal circle, line,
surface, or square, and draw forth therefrom self -verify ing conse-
quences almost without end. Out of a few given notions of the
simplest and exactest sort, a whole world of complex consequences
can be discovered and magisterially built up, without once consulting
experience. Analysis may be carried on in the form of an abstract
calculus of symbols to which no meaning of any kind — we are
speaking of the newer mathematics — need be attached. A judicious
selection of the simplest primary conceptions of the mind, of those,
especially, which are mutually independent, will lead to juxtaposi-
tions and combinations, out of which a great coherent body of more
complex conceptions is as sure to follow as the day the night. It is
possible to compose a rigorous treatise on geometry, in which the
fundamental and controlling conceptions— point, straight line, and
between — have been left unproved and undefined — a circumstance
that led Bertrand Russell — no mean mathematician himself — almost
facetiously to remark that " mathematics is the science in which we
never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we say is
true." By nature a study of ideal constructions which often prove
applicable to real problems and as often lead to the discovery of
relations hitherto unsuspected, the science of quantity and position
creates the almost irresistible impression that the concrete realities
of the world about us might as well be non-existent, so far as the
mathematician needs them either for the starting point of his specu-
lations or the guidance of his research.
Rene Descartes, the founder of modern philosophical method,
1916.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS 47
was preeminently a mathematician. He had contributed to the
development of mathematics by his discovery of analytical geometry,
and quite naturally thought that the method by which this success
was won would work similar wonders in the field of philosophy,
could it there be made the accepted mode of procedure. The times
were ripe for changes. Dissatisfaction was in the air, and objective
ways of thinking in disrepute. Tradition had been broken in
religion, and from that to its breaking in philosophy was but a
single step. A philosophical reform, animated by the same anti-
traditional spirit as that which had characterized the so-called re-
ligious reform inaugurated some years before by Luther, was bound
to come. Descartes saw the means to its effecting in the method
employed by mathematicians in their particular science. If this
method could be generalized, the past would be blotted out and
the future made wholly independent of it. There would be no
traditional ways of thinking left to hamper the mind's unfolding,
nothing but a clear white page on which to write philosophy anew.
* The observations of mathematics are all upon objects of imag-
ination, not upon those of sense. Why could not the " objects "of
philosophy be likewise brought into the imagination, there to be
dealt with by the philosopher as the mathematician deals with his?
Why trouble about a red circle, which is always imperfect, whether
found in nature or drawn by man — when we have its perfect ideal
imaginatively furnished from within? Mathematics takes a few
fundamental conceptions like point, line, surface, and position —
all perfectly exact, exhaustive, adequate — and from these, without
calling upon experience, ideally constructs its world. Why could
not philosophy do likewise — begin, say, with "clear," "compre-
hensive," " perfectly understood " ideas, such as " existence,"
" knowledge," " doubt," " thought," " volition," " duration,"
" movement," or other " primitives " of like tenor, and from these
build up a more complex body of conceptions and consequences?
And to give these primary elemental notions, which cannot be
doubted, a chance to come fully into play and establish their effi-
ciency, what more natural than to propose a method of doubting
everything beforehand? That would leave these mental "atoms"
intact, and at the same time sweep out of recognition all the old
procedures to which philosophy had been wedded. So thought
Descartes in the mental crisis that came upon him while in winter
quarters with the army of Prince Maurice of Bavaria, at Neuberg
on the Danube, in 1619.
48 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS [Oct.,
A realization of the fact that Descartes1 borrowed the new
method of philosophizing from mathematics is very enlightening
and instructive. It lets us into the explanation of many points in
modern thought, for which we should be sorely puzzled otherwise
to account. It explains the introduction of " methodic doubt," and
the peculiarly extravagant meaning which Descartes attached to
" clear ideas." No one but a mathematician mistaking the logic
of the imagination for the logic of reflection would ever think of
regarding ideas in general as on a par with the mathematical " primi-
tives " of point, surface, line, and square. No one but a mathema-
tician, with a mathematician's psychology, would ever dream of
claiming, in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary,
that any of our philosophical ideas are " clear," in the sense of being
adequate, exhaustive, comprehensive, and completely understood.
The mathematical " primitives " led Descartes to think that the
philosopher, no less than the mathematician, might judiciously select
a few mutually independent notions, and out of them draw forth a
whole orderly world of consequences. Mutually independent con-
ceptions make good starting-points in mathematics, and the method
was transferred to philosophy, as if it had every right and privilege
to be there immediately put into effect. There can be no doubt that
Kant owned his severance theory of concepts to mathematical in-
fluence; he certainly never got it from an examination of ex-
perience. No one peering into his own conscience and making it
an object of reflective study would ever come to the conclusion that
the concepts of the intellect are all isolated, unrelated, and inde-
pendent. But, though poor psychology, such a view is good mathe-
matics, and Kant generalized it without stopping to prove the gen-
eralization true. His conduct is illuminating and instructive.
The theory that truth is coherence, not correspondence, is also
an infiltration from mathematics. Things in the imagination — the
locus of all mathematical " essences " — need but to agree among
themselves and show no contradiction, to have their truth discerni-
ble. They know no external measure to which they are bound to
conform, consistency being their only requisite, non-contradiction
their only law. When the mathematician decided to play the role
of universal philosopher, he brought his own particular working-
principles over with him into his new field, and that is how and
why the idea of truth as a correspondence between Mind and Reality
*Discours de la methode. (Euvres de Descartes. By Victor Cousin. I., p. 142 ;
also p. 129.
1916.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS 49
went out of consideration in modern philosophy. Mathematical
points of view account also for the fact that both Descartes and
Kant should have so strangely conceived of the world and God as
" corrollaries " of -their own private systems of thought ; as " hy-
potheses " that verified themselves without being strictly capable
of proof; as "postulates," "demands," "implicates" — anything
but spontaneously known and rationally demonstrable truths.
These men were talking the language of mathematics, as if it were
in very truth that of philosophy itself. Is it any wonder, in such
circumstances, that the principle of Identity should have been re-
duced to the banal utterance that A is A? And need we be sur-
prised, either, that the idea of external reality appeared to minds
of this stamp as a most useless and hampering notion?
Our imaginary Aristo > teles redivivus was surprised at the dis-
appearance of the idea of Continuity from the pages of modern
philosophy. But here again, if we consult the mathematical
parallels, we shall see the reason of its failure to survive. Con-
tinuity is mathematically conceived as a series of numbers, each one
of which is exterior to the others and independent of them, like
the rungs of a ladder. Contiguity, not continuity, is the character-
istic of numbers. " In their linear order, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 are exterior
to each other, as are also, in their circular order, the terms a c b d a,
or, reversely, a d b c a. One term is either before or after, it either
is or is not between two other terms." Transferred from mathe-
matics to philosophy, this method will tempt its employers to treat
the concepts of the intellect as contiguous and juxtaposed, mutally
exclusive and independent, like numbers in a series.
History shows that this is exactly the manner of treatment
which concepts received at the hands of such mathematician-philoso-
phers as Descartes, Leibnitz, and Kant. History also shows the
tremendous consequences that followed. The whole ideal of philoso-
phy was changed, and all its horizons lowered, when Descartes thus
substituted the logic of the mathematical imagination for the logic
of experience and reflection. The ideal of the philosopher is the
comprehension of the unity and continuity of things, not merely the
grasping of their individuality and distinction. The first, and by
far the nobler half of this ideal, was forced out of recognition by
the mathematical manner of considering concepts. The second
alone survived, and it began to work destructively, as all mis-
chievous half -truths do.
The fraternity of things, the solidarity of concepts, the so-
VOL. civ.— 4
50 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS [Oct.,
ciability of matter and mind, the compenetration of all our mental
states, the vast syntheses that pour in upon us spontaneously when
reflecting, the noble unities that thread the whole world through
with purpose and make detail look so small a matter in comparison
—the very things on which philosophy had built and should ever
build, were forgotten, a pall of voluntary oblivion having been
thrown over them to give mathematics the right of way. And
what a right of way it was ! The mathematician's idea of a phil-
osopher is that of a man who divides and analyzes objects — reduces
them to their simplest terms. To explain any given whole is to
dissociate it, to break it up into its component parts. The atom
of everything is the mathematician's engaging quarry. That found,
the process of explanation is over, the work of the philosopher
done. And the consequence was that " to explain " meant to sim-
plify, and to simplify meant to mutilate, separate, and divide.
Four brand new categories stalked sturdily into philosophy to
do the work of disintegration, to tear every known unity apart,
under the pretext of explaining it. These were the categories of
separation, rivalry, opposition, and exclusion. Mathematics had in-'
deed invaded philosophy, and a ruthless invader it was. Concepts
were declared isolated and discontinuous — they became as fixed,
rigid, and static as numbers that never change. They lost all their
suppleness and flexibility, and were made to appear as no more
capable of growth in meaning than the number 6 or the figure 8.
The idea of Being, for instance, which is infinitely flexible, ex-
pressing all things under a common ratio, and allowing for differ-
ences and shades of meaning without end, lost all this characteris-
tic vitality and took on the appalling immobility, isolation and lone-
liness of Kant's " thing-in-itself " — that vexing nightmare of post-
Kantian philosophy. All continuity between mind and matter, sub-
ject and object, thought and reality ceased. An irreconcilable
dualism was created between them, and philosophy was unfairly
asked to solve problems which the imagination of mathematicians
had conjured up for its undoing.
The treatment of concepts — soul and body, mind and matter,
subject and object — as if they were juxtaposed like numbers, as if
each represented a static fixity of meaning upon which no change
could ever come, worked the ruin of philosophy in the traditional,
human sense of that term. It is responsible for the dualism which
Descartes invented between spirit and matter, and for the separa-
tion which Kant created between reason and sense. It is accounta-
1916.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS 51
ble, also, for the limitations which the latter affixed to the range
of human knowledge — for " Kant was but Descartes with the in-
tellectualism left out." Our power to know reality — the reality of
the world, ourselves, and God — was sacrificed without warrant to
the exigencies of the mathematical method. No investigation pre-
ceded this denial of the power of human reason — the whole ques-
tion was arrogantly prejudged by mathematicians posing as philoso-
phers.
A most gross mechanization of the human spirit, a muffling of
the powers of reason and a fettering of spiritual reflection quite
naturally followed. Machine theory after machine theory of life
was proposed, and men are still held in their deadly toils. Philoso-
phy lost its freeing character when the mathematicians perverted
its nature, stifled its aspirations, and narrowed its scope. That
which should have remained a distinct discipline became a para-
site— a parasite, first, of mathematics, then of mechanics, physics,
and biology in turn. And with what is philosophy now allying
itself? With economics and sociology, for the time being, and
until some other particular science gains the ascendancy, bidding
it to seek refuge beneath its folds. How are the mighty fallen!
The philosophy that promised liberation brought human thought
under the worst form of enslavement imaginable — slavery to a
method and complete subjection to a procedure — from which
the world might well wish itself, by some great cataclysm or other,
once and forevermore freed.
The invasion of philosopy by the mathematicians — we must
not forget to add — changed all the meaning of the traditional
terms. " Intelligence," " reason," " evidence," " idea," " intuition,"
" induction," " deduction," " certainty " — were mathematicized out
of all semblance to their former selves, and freighted with a
narrower significance than they had ever previously borne. " In-
telligence " and " reason," which had hitherto meant the faculty of
apprehending the nature of things, now became the mere power to
draw up imaginative schemas of reality or plans of conduct. " Con-
ception " was reinterpreted as the decomposing of an assemblage or
group into its imagined elements, precisely as is done in mathe-
matics; a circumstance that will enable us to understand why
Kant rejected the idea of God as unknowable — he could not de-
compose it into the terms of sense experience, as his mathematical
prepossessions required; a circumstance, also, which explains his
grandiose effort to " schematize " the categories so as to compel
52 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS [Oct.,
Thought to reclothe itself with the forms and figures of the imagina-
tion. Under the influence of mathematical ideals also, " concep-
tion " was perverted into a mere tool, instrument, or device, by
means of which the material requisite for a mechanical, unspiritual,
and wooden interpretation of the universe might be whipped into
shape. By no other agency except enslavement to method, and
unquestioning compliance with its exactions, could such a lowered
significance have been imported into this ancient term.
" Evidence " also underwent transformation. Formerly un-
derstood as " the light which the object has in the idea," it now
began to be set down for a quality or property belonging exclu-
sively to ideas. It became a purely subjective state of mind — " cer-
titude " as contradistinguished from " certainty." " Idea," too, was
another one of the terms that had to have its significance cut down
to mathematical size. Before the mathematicians got hold of it,
an idea meant the object itself as within us; it was no mere
mental substitute for reality, but the living presence thereof in
mind. And as all objects are rich with qualities and features
which our ideas of them do not ever wholly exhaust, no one ever
had the hardihood to contend that our notion of anything, -even of
a tadpole, is adequate, perfect, and complete. Every individual
was regarded as inexhaustible, never fully analyzed, never com-
prehensively known. But, with the parallel of the mathematical
"primitives " before his eyes as a model, Descartes misconceived
the whole nature of our general ideas. He took them as equivalent
to mathematical ideas in particular, and the result was that they
ceased to be the imperfect beginnings of knowledge which they
really are, and became its perfect representatives and types. And
once they were regarded as complete and exhaustive from the start,
it was impossible to derive further knowledge from them. To Des-
cartes' mind, " induction," " deduction," and the " syllogism "
could not have the efficiency they had had before. " Deduction,"
for instance, was no longer the drawing forth of a third truth from
two others, it was simply the mechanical juxtaposition of two ideas,
between which, in the absence of all continuity, some bridge or
other had to be constructed.2
Kant, if you remember, did not believe it was possible to
pass from one concept to another, and now you know the reason
why. He was thinking, not as psychology, but as mathematics
*L'esprit de la philosophic moderne. By J. Maritain. Revue de Philosophic,
July, 1914, p. 63.
1916.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS 53
would have him think, and the difference is very great. " In-
tuition " — a favorite term of Kant's — we must not forget to
describe its shortened stature in modern philosophy. Hitherto a
synonym for intellectual perception, for the intellectual percep-
tion of reality, it now became exclusively associated with sense
and imagination, as mathematics would not suffer anything to be
acceptable that could not be sensibly or imaginatively reproduced.
Perhaps the reader, peeping between the lines has seen ere this,
why it was that Kant confined reason to experience and would not
let it soar beyond. Perhaps, also, it has become apparent why this
selfsame thinker found fault with the idea of God because he could
find no traces of it in the imagination — a mathematician's only
world. Kant here unconsciously expresses the difference between
mathematical and philosophical thought. The former is tied to
images, and dare not leave them — they are its stock-in-trade, its
pillars of Hercules, and beyond them is the Unknowable, because
all that cannot be imagined is for the mathematician inconceivable
— he has made himself notorious in history for crossing these two
terms. The philosopher knows no such limitations. His thought
dominates the images he employs, and he regards the imagination
as an aid to thinking, not as the term, criterion, or final bound
of thought. Wherein, too, the wise reader will make reflections.
It is the superiority of thinking to imagining that constitutes all
philosophy worthy the name of such.
The movement to mathematicize philosophy was originally due
to the idea that the foundations of mathematics are innate, and
absolutely certain on that account. Descartes and Kant both
thought that the absolute certainty of mathematics came from the
innateness of the ideas with which it dealt, from its independence
of experience, in other words. So absolute did the certainty of
mathematics appear in Kant's eyes, that he invented the word
" apodictical " to express its exceptional character. But Kant's
competence in mathematics has been seriously questioned of late,
and so has the cardinal point on which he suspended his whole
system and criticism — namely, the supposition that mathematical
ideas arise within the mind itself, and that their perfect certainty
is due to their intra-mental origin. To the newer mathematicians
of our time, mathematical judgments are " hypotheses or conven-
tions"* from which a number of consequences are drawn, they are
•L'inntisme Kantien des fondements mathematiques. By Louis de Contenson.
Revue de Philosophie, March, 1914, p. 291.
54 MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS [Oct.,
not the irrefragable certainties by which Kant set such great per-
sonal store. After a long, detailed, and brilliant examination of
Kant's " synthetic judgments a priori," Contenson4 declares that
they are " neither judgments, nor synthetic, nor a priori," but
derivations from experience. In the mathematical world the con-
troversy now hovers over one idea — the general concept of
" group " or " assemblage." Is this fundamental concept of
" group " innate? Poincare thinks it is. Contenson is of the con-
trary opinion, and he makes a point well worth remembering. The
origin of this concept matters little, he says. " Its initial nature
(whether innate or acquired) has no more influence on the de-
velopment of mathematics and its certitude than had Newton's
apple or Galileo's lamp on the enchainment of their systems. It
was a stimulating occasion, not a determining cause."6
With this profound, penetrating, and undermining criticism,
the whole foundation on which Descartes and Kant sought to re-
build philosophy collapses. These two philosophical reformers
were persuaded that mathematical ideas furnished an absolute
basis for certainty, because of their non-derivation from experience,
because of their innate, inborn character, in other words. But
now we know that the certainties of mathematics are quite inde-
pendent of the whole question of the origin of ideas, and not
at all of such an apodictical character as Kant, in the meagre
mathematical knowledge of his day, saw in them. The dogmatism
of these two men is a thing of the past in the mathematical
world. Would that the same might be said of the world of phil-
osophy, where their spirit still survives and their method is still
the principle of guidance!
We do not wish for a moment to have the inference drawn
that modern thought has made no progress whatsoever. That
were foolhardy in the extreme. Modern thought has made a
wondrous progress. The world of matter has been forced to yield
many secrets which it hitherto withheld, and the conquest of the
air has been added to the taming of the sea. In the world of
mind, the discoveries have been equally portentous. Consciousness
has been placed under the microscope, so to speak, and every nook
and cranny of it explored. Experience has been burrowed into,
tunnelled under, and bridged over, until it looks like a city of
light. How much of our knowledge actually comes from the af-
4 Ibid., February, 1914, p. 173.
'Ibid., March, 1914, pp. 305, 306.
1916.] MODERN THOUGHT AND PROGRESS 55
fections and the will, from sympathy and feeling, from interest
and pressing need; how much of it is due to action, to the mere
fact of exercising our mental faculties — all this has been cata-
logued, filed, and listed by a galaxy of investigators so numerous
their names blur like the stars in the Milky Way. It has been
admirably shown that consciousness scarcely opens its eyes to look
about before desire comes, and longing — misty ideals of the good,
the beautiful, the real, and the true. Magis ubl amat quam ubi
(mimdt, est anima, says St. Augustine, and experiment has proved
the observation true. We know by acting and by loving as well
as by thinking — there is a dynamic urgency within us and it
quickens all our thought. Living links bind all our mental states
together in marvelous affinity, and by traversing these links the
mind finds a connected pathway through its own labyrinthian maze.
Physics, physiology, and all the sciences that border on psychology
have been compelled to shed what light they may on the processes
of mind. Nothing of ourselves has been suffered to remain un-
examined. If the proper study of mankind is man, the nineteenth
century will never be accused of remissness before the bar of
history. Its achievements are monumental, its fame enduring.
And there is no one who does not wish it still greater success in
extending the area of the known.
But, to have done all its thinking under the influence of the
four new catagories — separation, exclusion, rivalry, and opposi-
tion— all of them arbitrary mathematical importations and specu-
lations, none of them discovered in experience or revealed by an
examination of consciousness; and in their name and on their
false warrant, to have accepted the appalling limitations dictated by
a mathematical, mechanical, unspiritual — not to say wooden —
method, which robbed us of the reality of the world, ourselves,
and God, and set us adrift on the shoreless sea of idealism — was
this progress, think you, or a wrong sense of direction?
THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., PH.D.
E saw in a preceding article in THE CATHOLIC
WORLD 1 that the existence of efficient hospitals for
the poor and their proper organization is not a
matter of recent date, nor one limited to a past
generation or two, but on the contrary goes back for
many centuries. The period that marked the lowest level in these
humanitarian institutions is not in the dim and distant past, but
occurred at a time not far removed from our own, indeed scarcely
more than one hundred years ago — the latter part of the eighteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Hospital construction
and organization was at a lower ebb at about the middle of the
nineteenth century than at any other time of which we have definite
records of history.
The hospitals conducted by cities at that time did much more
harm than good. Within them the poor were huddled together
amid surroundings not only dirty, but from a medical and surgical
standpoint absolutely filthy. The patients would have fared better
almost anywhere else, for in such surroundings they were subjected
to all the dangers of disease that had accumulated from preceding
patients. All sorts of epidemics occurred in these hospitals. Many
otherwise healthy patients, injured in such a way as to require
hospital treatment, were the victims, through contagion, of serious
diseases which, if not actually fatal, crippled them for life.
The poor of those days dreaded the hospitals. This fear, it
was said, resulted from ignorance and failure to appreciate all that
was being done for them; but we know now that it had its seat
in a very proper realization of the high death rate in hospitals,
which made entrance into a hospital so often synonymous with a
death warrant. The only thing that could possibly be said in favor
of such hospitals was that at least for a time, and in some measure,
they segregated the infected from the general public, but even this
was a dubious benefit, for probably the herding together under ex-
treme unhygienic conditions made the diseases present ever so much
more virulent. Garrison in his History of Medicine,2 has told the
1 September, 1916, p. 721. 2New York, Saunders, 1913.
I9i6.] THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED 57
story briefly of the awful conditions that existed in the hospitals
just as the nineteenth century dawned; and Baas, the German
historian of medicine, says that in Frankfort on the Main and other
cities " even physicians declined hospital service as equivalent to a
sentence of death."
We have pointed out how the historians of hospitals and of
nursing attribute this extreme decadence to the secularization of
hospitals, and above all to exclusion of women from positions of
responsibility therein. The beginning of the decadence corresponds,
according to Jacobsohn, the German historian, in his History of Care
for the Ailing, to a period shortly after the so-called Reformation,
and according to Miss Nutting and Miss Dock, in A History of
Nursing, to the suppression of the religious orders. This latter event
left hospitals and other humanitarian institutions without trained,
experienced attendants.
That the exclusion of women from offices of responsibility as
a true cause of decadence in hospital organization and not a mere
feminist declaration is proved, first, by the fact that the replacing
of women in responsible positions has been one of the greatest
factors in the modern improvement of hospitals. Moreover, other
facts, very interesting and significant, contribute to the same proof.
Sisters' hospitals, in spite of the decadence of surgery, the neglect
in hospital construction and the almost absolute ignorance of the
disastrous consequences of dirt, for which of course the medical
profession was entirely to blame, continued to be comparatively
much better institutions, and were better managed and organized in
every way than the public hospitals. When, for example, great
emergencies arose, or when public investigation brought out
the sad state of public hospitals, many of those in authority
thought at once of placing Sisters in charge, but public senti-
ment in this country for ten years before and after the Know-
Nothing Movement of 1850 was deeply prejudiced against the
Sisters.
At Blockley, the great public hospital of Philadelphia, pre-
vailing conditions even in the latter part of the second half of the
nineteenth century were simply indescribable. A review of them
belongs particularly to an article of this kind, since Blockley, be-
sides being the hospital, was also the almshouse of Philadelphia.
Miss Nutting and Miss Dock have told some of the shocking de-
tails; and they have also told of one interval when something like
intelligent care and order came to Blockley. That interval was
58 THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED [Oct.,
when the Sisters of Charity took charge. Their History of Nursing
says on this matter :
Only one short interregnum of peace broke the long and
distressing reign of violence, neglect and cruelty in Blockley.
In 1832 there was a severe epidemic of cholera, and the at-
tendants demanded more wages. To keep them to their duties
the wages were increased, but were promptly spent for liquor.
An orgy of intoxication ensued, and the helpers, crazed with
drink, fought like furies over the beds of the sick, or lay in
drunken stupor beside the bodies of the dead. So complete
was the demoralization that the guardians applied to Bishop
Kendrick for Sisters of Charity from Emmittsburg. The call
was responded to promptly; indeed, the Sisters started two
hours after the summons was received. They took in hand the
whole desperate situation, at once restored order, and dissem-
inated about them an atmosphere of tranquillity and quiet
energy. The Sisters remained for some months, and their
work was so deeply appreciated by the guardians that the
Committee of the House, in a set of resolutions commending
their great services, resolved also that they be requested to re-
main permanently. This, however, Father Hickey, their su-
perior, negated giving his reasons at length. He did not con-
sider Blockley the department of charity in which the Sisters
could be most usefully employed, so the guardians were obliged
to let them go, with glowing tributes which may well have
been heartfelt.
Investigating commitees reported that conditions in Bellevue
Hospital, New York City, were so pitiable as to excite the most
poignant sympathy for its neglected inmates, and reform was de-
manded. The creation of a new medical board in 1847 was the
first gleam of light because, to some extent, it took Bellevue out
of politics. The physicians found, however, that they could do
almost nothing to improve internal conditions so long as prisoners
and paupers were employed as nurses. Some requested that Sis-
ters of Charity be placed in the wards. The Sisters of Charity
were not in a position at the time, however, to take up the work.
Some twenty years later, however, during an epidemic of small-
pox in New York, six Sisters of Charity by invitation of the city
went to Blackwell's Island and cared for the poor victims of the
scourge.
What is thus true of hospitals is true also of every charitable
J9i6.] THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED 59
work for the poor. This is well illustrated in the history of the
care of the aged poor and of dependent children. It has often
been said that the test of the real humanitarianism of any period
is the care shown for these two particular indigent classes. Often-
times selfish and personal motives dictate the proper hospital care
of adults because their health is a valuable asset to the community,
and their fellow-citizens may at times be in their place. But the
needy aged and children have no near relatives, at least no in-
fluential ones ; and their care is, as a rule, a matter of pure charity.
They are incapable of vigorous protest, and abuse or neglect of
them comes but tardily to the notice of the public.
With regard to this problem — the care of the aged poor — I
may say at once that our present mode of caring for them is al-
most barbarous. Certainly nothing should bring home to us more
effectively our pitiable shortcomings in this matter, so essentially
one of a proper human dignity and proper self-respect, than a
brief review of some of the facts. The needy aged have no one
to care for them: the community must provide till the end comes.
These aged ones have perhaps been deserted, forgotten or neglected :
their children have died or else are too poor themselves to help
others. The number of the indigent aged is very large. Few realize
that statistics show that nine out of ten people who live to be sixty-
five or over must receive aid of some kind before the end of their
lives. Fortunately the majority have children or friends who aid
them, but the others must be cared for by the community.
Throughout the country the poor are usually housed in what
we call poorhouses. These are large buildings situated at some
considerable distance from the county seat, or well beyond the
limits of the populated section of the cities which direct and support
them. There is usually one large building for the men and, some
distance away, a similar building for the women. These aged, who
are public charges, are usually widows or widowers, and fortunately,
beyond the disgrace of the poorhouse, have not to endure the ad-
ditional trial of separation from the living partner of their joys
and sorrows. When, however, husband and wife are both living,
each must live apart, though they may see each other occasionally,
and without much regard for privacy.
We place the old people in these poorhouses; give them
enough to eat and tell them to be happy. The old men must as-
sociate with the men of their own age, usually tiresome enough,
but, harder still to bear, the old women must associate with the
60 THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED [Oct.,
women of their own age. There is not a chance of a child coming
near them, though the one thing that makes life worth living for
the old is to have the young grow up around them. We call this
charity. Apparently we forget that man does not live by bread
alone, and that the life of the affections is of supreme impor-
tance.
Contrast with this, for the moment, the care of the old in the
Middle Ages as illustrated by what we still see at Stratford-on-Avon
in England. On one of the main traveled streets of the little town
is a group of neat, tiny, old-fashioned houses. They were built
about 1450, though they then replaced dwellings used for a similar
purpose that had been there for several centuries. On the ground
floor are two little rooms, one of which, facing the street, is the
sitting-room; an alcove serves as bedroom. Back of the sitting-room
is a tiny kitchen, almost like the kitchenettes of the modern flat. The
aged mistress of the house need take but very few steps in doing her
work. Even the most delicate and infirm of old women, if she is
able to be out of bed, can care for this little house herself. In
the older time, when she was ailing or if she was very decrepit,
and I believe the custom still continues, a friendly visitor appointed
by the guild came every day and offered her services for whatever
might be necessary. Here the old folks lived out their lives together
in their own little home. The aged still live in these little
houses.
They are the old guild almshouses. Mark you, they do not
call them poorhouses. That crude designation of a habitation for
public charges was reserved for a much later time. The Guild of
the Holy Cross in Stratford was a magnificent organization, com-
posed mainly of laymen — clergymen could become members, but
could not hold office — who had charge of the charities, or, if you
will, in modern phrase, the social needs of the town. They cared
for the old and the orphans and the ailing poor, even for the
entertainment and amusement of the populace, as well as for edu-
cation and public athletics and the provision of mystery and
morality plays and pageants and processions of various kinds for
the townspeople.
The arrangements for the care of these old people were very
interesting, quite apart from the provision of the little homes in
which they might live together. Every phase of such care was
marked by supreme thoughtfulness. The little houses were situated
just down the street from the guild chapel. Only the guild school
1916.] THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED 61
intervened between them. The guild had, as we know from its
statutes which have been preserved, four chaplains, whose duty it
was to offer Mass every morning. The old folks, therefore, found
it easy to assist at Mass every day.
The guild chapel was only one of the evidences of thought-
fulness. The guild school represented another and even more sig-
nificant appeal to human nature. The children of the village went
by the almshouses five or six times a day on the way to and from
school. School in Stratford began at the enterprising hour of six.
The first hour was not devoted to recitations, but to study. What
we would call " home work " was done during it. After the com-
pletion of the second hour, which included the recitations of the
day, the children went home for breakfast, returning in about half
an hour; they then stayed until nearly twelve. They returned for
an afternoon session, with usually an interval of a couple of hours
in the middle of the day, and again returned home in the evening
at about five o'clock. The old folks then had a chance to see them
grow up around them, to know them and share their blessings which
intimacy with childhood alone can give. I think it was good for
the young folks too. They saw old age at close range; realized
its needs, learned to respect it, and probably often at mother's re-
quest brought various things with them from home for the old
folks, thus learning early the precious lesson of personal charity
and kindness to the poor.
Best of all the guild playground was just behind the school.
The old folks could see and hear the children at play. With what
greater joy could old age be blessed ! Needless to say our mode of
caring for the old folks admits of no such advantages as these. The
children are usually far away from our aged county and city charges ;
occasionally some relative may bring a child on a visit, but our aged
never see children at play. I do not know whether this collocation
of school and chapel and almshouses was accidental or not. The
guild very probably bought the entire strip of property and then
put its various buildings thereon. I cannot help but think, however,
that somebody must have thought out seriously the splendid solu-
tion of all the charity problems involved. Such happy accidents
do not happen by chance.
What is thus true of the care of the aged is quite as equally
true of the care of children. The high death rate from infectious
disease in mediaeval times left as many half and full orphans to
be cared for as the industrial conditions of the nineteenth century.
62 THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED [Oct.,
The guilds cared for the orphans just as they cared for the aged,
and their provisions were just as humanly sympathetic and as
beautifully charitable. To them the orphan asylum was unknown.
The orphan asylum is the invention of post- Re formation times.
None existed in England before the Reformation. The growth
of large cities has made more or less necessary such institutions,
but the guilds cared for half orphans, if their mother was still
alive, by a pension which enabled the mother to keep the family
together; and if both parents were dead the children were dis-
tributed among neighboring families. At this time a family gen-
erally included at least six children. Where families are, as a rule,
large, another child is readily adopted; charity begets charity.
The orphans were called the children of the guild, and special
provisions were made for their schooling, their technical training,
or for the higher professions if they had special abilities. The
guild usually had bourses at the university, and many an orphan
child thus secured the opportunity for even the highest education.
Indeed there was a tradition that it was often more fortunate to be
a child of the guild than to have both parents living, for, so far as
opportunities for advancement went, the guild was better able to pro-
vide them than the parents. In the smaller towns, where practically
everyone knew everyone else, there was little chance for abuse of
a child thus adopted, and, moreover, the guild saw to it that its
children were treated like members of the household.
When the question of caring for children in the larger cities
of the older time is to be considered, we must turn to the Continent,
where the cities were larger and the problems of care more like
our own. The one way to secure concrete knowledge in the matter
is to take a typical example, as, for instance, what the American
authors of A History of Nursing call " the most interesting
foundling asylum in the world." This was, to give it its formal
title, the Ospedale Santa Maria degli Innocenti at Florence. Note
that it was not called, as in our ruder English designation, a found-
ling asylum, though it was a home for children who had been
abandoned by their parents and found on the streets. It was called,
as if to emphasize the fact and arouse the charitable instincts of
all those who heard its name, " The Hospital of the Innocents."
The history of this hospital, or place of hospitality for the
innocents, for that was what its title really meant at the time it
was founded, goes back to the earlier half of the Middle Ages.
The institution itself was evidently modeled after an institution
1916.] THE CARE OP CHILDREN AND THE AGED 63
founded in Milan by a good monk in 787. At least this is the sug-
gestion of Miss Nutting and Miss Dock in their History of Nursing.
The good monk had been deeply touched by the fact that charity
did not always succeed in taking care of foundlings early enough
to preserve them, that sometimes families that adopted them con-
sidered them as their absolute possessions, to do with as they
wished, and that they might be sold or hired out at will.
The Hospital of the Innocents became one of the favorite insti-
tutions of the citizens of Florence, and was taken under the patron-
age of the guild of the silk merchants, who supplied all its needs
bountifully. Before the end of the Middle Ages the silk merchants
proceeded to erect the handsome building, a model of fine archi-
tecture, which is still a favorite place of pilgrimage for all lovers
of the beautiful. This Hospital of the Innocents shows clearly the
spirit of the Middle Ages that governed all such institutions. The
foundlings were not looked upon as beings for whom anything
was good enough, but on the contrary they were treated as future
Florentine citizens, and being charges of the public nothing was
too good for them. This hospital, then, became the home of beau-
tiful art, until it was richer in masterpieces than many a museum
of modern times. There are a number of beautiful paintings on
its walls, and its exterior is decorated with the well-known della
Robbia medallions. These are the large blue and white porcelain
placques, representing babies in swaddling clothes, which have now
become so popular that one sees small replicas of them in plaster
and porcelain and print nearly everywhere. How few even of those
who know them well, think for a moment that they are associated
with a mediaeval foundation for the care of abandoned children,
which dates back well over one thousand years. Fewer still have
any idea that the beautiful bambini of della Robbia are strikingly
symbolic of the Christian charitable spirit of the older time blos-
soming into the finest organized charity.
As the foundation had been originally made because of the
abuse of selling foundlings into slavery, with a special ceremony,
freedom was granted the little charges of the hospital. They were
made citizens at Florence and were never to become slaves. From
a very early time these children were placed with families who
promised to treat them as their own children. Both boys and girls
were taught trades, and special provision was made for securing
employment for the boys. The girls when married received a
dowry. A favorite form of legacy among wealthy Florentines was
64 THE CARE OF CHILDREN AND THE AGED [Oct.,
to leave enough money to supply dowries for poor girls. A special
fund was created in connection with the Hospital of the Innocents
for this purpose.
All over Europe in the Middle Ages, or let us say before the
Reformation, this subject of dowering young women for marriage
received the most serious charitable attention. In England it was
no uncommon thing for a wealthy person who died to leave dowries
for the next half dozen or dozen young women without substance
who married in a particular place. It was felt that the happiness
of the young folk in their marriage state depended not a little on
their beginning well, for love often flies out of the window when
poverty comes in at the door.
Almost needless to say this Hospital of the Innocents is not
only still in existence, but it is doing its work in a wonderfully
beneficent way down to the present day. The American authors of
the History of Nursing say of it in their chapter on " Hospital
and Nursing Appliances " in the first volume of their history : " To-
day this richly historic house is in charge of the Sisters of St.
Vincent de Paul, under the direction of a highly scientific and
progressive council, chiefly consisting of medical men, and is one
of the most perfectly kept and well-managed institutions of the
kind in existence, its union of mediaeval charm with modern science
being a congenial and happy one."
These are some of the facts chosen from the history of charity
in older time, particularly with regard to the care of the aged
poor and of dependent children. While under the charge of the
religious authorities, or at least while religious motives were the
most important factors in the movement which provided for them,
they were cared for with a fine feeling of humanity and fraternal
love. It was a determined successful effort to see that these needy
ones had the chance to live their lives as far as possible on a plane
of true humanity in spite of the handicap of old age, of the loss of
friends and relatives. Before the Reformation all this had been
beautifully organized, not so as to be ideal, for ideals are not hu-
manity's everyday life, but accomplished with an ideal in view so
as to have as few abuses as possible. With the coming of the
Reformation these phases of charitable work were secularized and
deterioration began. The descent was not noticeable for a time
because the old spirit still lived on to some extent ; but in the seven-
teenth and early eighteenth centuries serious abuses crept in, and by
the beginning of the nineteenth century reform simply had to come.
1916.] APPORTIONMENT 65
The question is now whether that reform can be expected to
be as lasting and as sure in its effects if it is founded merely on
human motives with wages and salaries as the most important ele-
ments, or whether an appeal to higher motives and a belief in
higher things is not absolutely necessary for the successful, humane
care of the poor. In the solution of that problem these chapters
of the history of charity which we have reviewed are very precious
documents.
APPORTIONMENT.
BY ARM EL O' CON NOR.
WHAT portion has a midge of grief,
What terrors, in a life-long hour?
The thunders of a shaken leaf,
Or falling petals of a flow'r?
Of joy, it surely has its share.
Watch it with many others gleam,
A sunlit pattern in the air,
A rhythm winged above the stream.
We cannot judge another's grief,
Or joy — in vain do we compare.
God, Lord of bounty and relief,
Knows what each one can hold or bear.
VOL. civ.— s
POVERTY AND RICHES.
(A STUDY IN ORIGINS.)
BY HELEN GRIERSON.
O many there are who are ready to exalt themselves
into knowledge, that he will be blessed who makes
himself barren for the love of the Lord God." So
St. Francis said to the novice who wished for a
psalter. He was very far from realizing the nature
of the blessing that was to come upon this " barrenness for the
love of God." He could not dream how it was to sweep away all
mere sterility, and bring, in the end, such fruitfulness, even in the
very things renounced, as the world had not known for many a
hundred years. Before St. Francis had been long in his grave,
Arnolfo di Cambio was building and Cimabue was painting. Be-
fore the century passed out, Giotto and Dante were come.
It seems a far cry from Sudermann's Magda, with her " Ich
bin ich," to Francis, son of Pietro Bernardone, yet Magda's self-
assertion, and the justification of it, have their roots far back in
the ages. Her cry is not unlike a faint disjointed echo of the
thoughts that may have been in the mind of Bernardone's son, when
he cast off the very garments he owed to his father, and stood out
before the world naked and supremely self-assertive; the Lord's
free man, and his own man first that he might give himself to
the Lord.
Giotto has fixed the scene in our imaginations; altogether
symbolical as it is of the Franciscan movement and of what has
sprung from it. We see the angry father with the rejected clothes
thrown over his arm, and one hand drawn back as if to strike.
The expression on his face is not mere temper, be it observed, but
righteous indignation. He and the friends grouped round him,
stand for the whole established order of things, the conventions,
the proprieties, the whole existing framework of life, with its
safety, its wisdom, its seemliness. And over against them stands
the lad, exalted, excited, carried out of himself by an irresistible
current of feeling, defying all the safe, commonplace ways and
1916.] POVERTY AND RICHES 67
institutions and thoughts of the world, ready to fare out into life,
as to an unknown country, naked and alone, on the eternal quest of
the artist and the idealist He sets himself free for that by
this supreme act of rebellion. Behind Francis comes the friendly
bishop, throwing his robe over the boy's nakedness, sheltering
him, as it were, under the protection of the Church, doubtful, per-
plexed, half -afraid, yet urged by some scarce understood instinct,
almost in spite of himself and his judgment, to draw this danger-
ous person within the Church's bounds, because the spirit of man
ought to be at home there in every manifestation not sinful.
So St. Francis began to do a wonderful and revolutionary
thing. He wakened the individual from sleep. What he asserted
for himself, he claimed for humanity, not consciously, not of set
purpose, but, none the less, imperiously and effectively.
Do we realize, when we admire the grace and beauty of the
Franciscan legend, what it stands for in the history of art and
of thought; how it opened the doors, as has been said of another
movement, for a whole generation to pass through?
Today when art is struggling, somewhat blindly and stum-
blingly, towards freedom from tradition^ towards broadening and
simplification, Francis and his ideals should be understood. His
relation to mediaeval art, and through it to the Renaissance, should
not slip out of sight. His attitude to life can fully be understood
only by remembering that the blossoms that sprang to life on the
bare twig shows its species.
It is hard now, after centuries of carefully cultivated indi-
viduality, centuries in which human effort has been strained for-
ward to secure the freedom and the development of the individual,
to realize the conditions of life into which St. Francis was born.
In the mediaeval commune, life was regulated for each class of
persons with extraordinary minuteness. Society fell into groups
and sections, the family, the guild, the commune; into ranks, the
noble, the citizen, the peasant, and the whole framework was of
an amazing, unalterable rigidity. Birth fixed a man's position; it
did far more than that, it fixed all the details of his daily life,
what clothes he, and more especially his wife, should wear, what sort
of entertainments he should give his friends, how he should dispose
of every part of his property in his will. Every circumstance of
life, from birth to death, was under the inflexible rule of the
family, or the guild, or the commune. The individual was hardly
recognized; he was absorbed into some of the one groups to which
68 POVERTY AND RICHES [Oct.,
birth related him, treated with, under an aspect that recognized his
place in the community, not his status as an individual.
In that society there rose up Francis, the son of Bernardone,
and steadily, unfalteringly, determinedly he rejected and disre-
garded the whole framework of things as he found them. He
stepped out of the family group, out of the guild, out of the com-
mune; he asserted and maintained his right to be independent of
all these things, " to live his own life," as the phrase goes, and to
see things his own way.
The one single path to something like freedom lay, in those
days, through the church doors. An individual career was possible
in that way, but even there it must be followed on strictly regulated
lines. He also refused this accepted and understood way to free-
dom, unless he might travel it in a fashion so entirely his own
that it inspired all orthodox minds with anxiety, and at first with
distrust. If Francis had entered one of the established Orders,
and gone by the beaten track, he might have made himself a
career, he might even have achieved sainthood, but he would have
opened no door for the world to pass through.
Undoubtedly the Church opened the way for him. His task
would have been an impossibility, had not the Church been there,
keeping the way clear to a spiritual freedom, which was the only
freedom the world had yet conceived of as possible. Hesitatingly
and doubtfully at first, yet always effectively, the Church kept
the doorway clear for Francis, and insisted on protecting his right
to pass on. It recognized that he sought not lawlessness, but a
higher law.
Then he began, having gone out into the wilderness, to draw
disciples to himself. The brothers of his Order naturally and
inevitably shared his own liberty, but what was more important,
and must have seemed more dangerous, was the partial emancipation
of those who joined the Third Order of his founding. They did
not quit the family, nor the commune, still they plied every man his
trade and took their places in the life of the world, but they sat
with a certain freedom to external rules and regulations. This
freedom came to be officially recognized, too, in certain exemptions,
as, from the obligation to go to war at the order of the commune, in
some given cases. In fact, the Tertiaries stood a little apart, in-
dividualized by their relation to one who had claimed freedom for
himself and for them.
This new liberty was for women and men alike. The life of
POVERTY AND RICHES 69
St. Clare came as a pendant to that of St. Francis. She too
stepped outside the restrictions and limitations which hedged her
round, and catching at his mantle was drawn with him, through
the doors, to a wider liberty. Like him, she made her freedom
into ,a joyful, self-chosen servitude, her ftfe into a prolonged
" Ecce Ancilla Dei; " but, none the less, nay rather the more, she
lived in a wonderful freedom of soul and body alike, very rare at
any time.
The lives of both St. Francis and St. Clare were largely spent
in the effort to protect this precious freedom, to establish it for
themselves, and for those who were to come after them. On every
side well-meaning officious friends and protectors tried to wrest
it away. There was the bishop, for instance, with his Ugoline
Rule, and many other would-be benefactors, and to all such their
lives were one prolonged resistance.
The touchstone of- the whole matter was that much-contested
question of poverty. The holy estate of poverty was dear to
Francis for its own sake, as being that condition in which Christ
and His Mother had lived, but he felt, too, with the instinct of
genius, that only in utter poverty could real liberty be secured. It
was the very essence of the Rule, that Rule which was also a charter.
When Messer Bernardo da Quintavalle came to be the first
companion of St. Francis, they went together and heard Mass,
and then the priest " at the prayer of San Francesco took the missal
and, making the Sign of the Cross, opened it, in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, three times, and at the first opening they came on
the words that Jesus said in the Gospel to the young man who
asked Him of the Way of Perfection : " If thou wilt be perfect,
go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come and
follow Me." At the second opening they found the words that
Christ said to the Apostles when he sent them to preach : ' ' Take
nothing for the journey, neither staff nor purse, nor shoes nor
money." At the third opening of the Missal was found that word
that Christ said : " Whosoever will come after Me let him deny
himself and take up his cross and follow Me." Then said San
Francesco to Messer Bernardo : " Here is the counsel that Christ
gives us, go then and do just what thou hast heard, and blessed be
the Lord Jesus Christ Who has designed to show us the Evangelical
Way." Hearing this Messer Bernardo set out and sold all that
he had, for he was very rich, and with great gladness distributed
everything to the poor, and to widows and orphans, to prisoners,
70 POVERTY AND RICHES [Oct.,
to monasteries and to hospitals and pilgrims, and in everything
San Francesco faithfully and prudently aided him. And so the
Order began. Every brother who entered it must distribute what-
ever he had of worldly goods to the poor. His entering religion
was neither to enrich his Order nor his family, but only the needy.
And this strange new worship of poverty was also the worship of
freedom. It was a means to an end. Only in close union with
this chosen bride could Francis secure liberty of either soul or
body. When Bishop Ugolino urged him to allow some financial
provision to be made for the community, Francis answered
shrewdly in the negative. Property, when once possessed, must
needs be defended and protected. In other words — so you fall
under the dominion of society, which in securing your possessions
establishes a claim upon you. St. Francis had found a way to
avoid all that, and for himself and his brothers and sisters he was
minded to follow it.
" II tesoro della santissima poverth," was in truth the treasure
of freedom, and how well St. Francis knew that is proved by the
tenacity with which he clung to this privilege above all others. It
explains what we might be inclined to set down as a too great
insistence on trifles, as an antagonism to intelligence, in his deal-
ings with the members of his Order. For instance, that a novice
should wish for a psalter, might seem an excusable, even a praise-
worthy, desire, yet it called forth the praise of barrenness with
which we began. It is a strange encounter of wills. On the
one hand is the novice with his mental hunger; on the other
side the Saint with his inflexible rule of poverty. He is determined
for himself and his sons that they shall not come under the slavery
of temporal possessions. How it typifies the whole history of
the Order! The novice comes back again and again, craving the
psalter, yet not willing to have it without the approval of Francis,
who answers shrewdly and, as we are apt to think, rather narrowly :
" When you have it you will desire a breviary, and then you will
say to your brother: 'Go and bring me my breviary.' ' The way
of freedom, so hard to find, so hard to follow, did not lie in that
direction.
The men into whose hands the ruling of the Order passed,
were willing to concede psalters and breviaries and more besides.
But for Francis the last sacred obligation of poverty was fulfilled
in his own person, when he lay dying, free from every constraint
of social obligation save that of love, utterly his own man, and
1916.] POVERTY AND RICHES 71
so the Lord's. He bade them take away his clothes and lay him
on the bare ground. Then, with a delicate instinct for his wishes,
the ruler of the Order, who stood by, fulfilled his last joy by
clothing him again in a habit, which Francis was bidden to con-
sider as a loan, not a possession; not his by right, but by charity;
not his to give away. The dying man's face beamed with a child-
like pleasure in this imaginative, half -fantastic way of keeping his
troth with poverty at the last. Naked he had entered the way
of freedom; so, as far as raiment of his own went, he would fain
finish the course.
And so he died. And before many years the church at Assisi
was built to do him honor, and far and wide over Europe there
sprang up stately churches and convents bearing his name. His
dearest wish for his sons had been that they, like the Son of Man,
might not know where to lay their heads. Now the noble simplicity
of the life he had planned for them was surrounded and enshrined
in splendors of art, that grew up inevitably from the new freedom
and new joy of life that he had given to the world. His assertion
of the individual had done its work, and when they decorated
St. Mary of the Angels, modern art had begun.
We think of the Renaissance as a time when men turned
back to drink at the Greek fountains, to fertilize themselves, once
again, at those endlessly lifegiving sources. And so they did, but
it was because a new thirst had been awakened, and they had a
new need to satisfy. They went back to the ancients, not as mere
imitators, but because a thought was born in them, and therefore a
new craving for self-expression possessed them. They needed to
learn, not what to think, but how to speak. The Greeks had known,
in their best days how to express their thoughts almost perfectly,
and with them, these moderns, with clumsy, unpractised hands,
stammering tongues, and eyes dazzled with the new, bewildering
light went as it were to school. And so the hands became skillful,
and the bewildered sight adjusted itself. The fine discipline of the
old Greek mind made itself felt, and the Renaissance learned JLO
speak out the thought that was in it in fitting accents.
If the core and centre of St. Francis' work had been the
awakening of the individual, what were the first .fruits of that
awakening in the spirits of men? First of all, great joy. The
season of sorrow was not yet — though in the fullness of time,
sorrow as well as joy was to come of this new impulse in life. Now
all was " allegrezza." " Con grande allegrezza " was the very key-
72 POVERTY AND RICHES [Oct.,
note of the Franciscan revival. Spiritual joy and rapture had been
known to holy souls in all ages, but with Francis and his true
followers the spiritual irradiated the material, all things took on
a sacramental aspect.
Now and then they may seem to fall back into conventional
language. Among the doctrines of Brother Giles, we have the
" Capitolo del dispiacimento delle cose temporale," but when we
come to examine it, its precepts are all interwoven with a wonder-
ful, instinctive, natural pleasure in this transitory world. This
" dispiacimento " of Brother Giles is really in the very vein of a
certain song of William Blakes' (that " anima naturaliter Francis-
cana").
He who binds himself to a joy
Doth a winged life destroy:
He who kisses the joy as it flies,
Lives in eternities' sunrise.
Brother Giles seeks less the renunciation of joy than the pur-
suit of a greater joy, not merely heavenly, but even in the passing
world. He says: "If we would not err let us take example from
the beasts and birds, which when they are fed are content, and only
seek to live from hour to hour as they have need." He adds that
ants pleased St. Francis less than any other animal, " for the great
solicitude that they have to congregate and to gather provision
in the time of summer for the winter." In that passage breathes
the very spirit of evangelical poverty and the freedom it had
brought those simple souls. " With great gladness " Bernardo da
Quintavalle distributes all he has in the world to the poor ; " with
glad countenance " he endures the mockery of the rude young
students at Bologna, and many a saint has done the like before him.
But how few before the coming of Francis had taken spiritual
joy in the temporal things. The mind set free from any preoc-
cupations of temporal necessity, was at joyful liberty to dwell
on every pleasant trifle, to taste every passing sensation, to be,
in a word, the artist of life to whom all creation speaks, who
dwells on this passing world with an exquisite appreciation,
quickened by the very sense of its evanescence, the delight in it
becoming the more tender because a touch of pathos is upon it.
In the Canticle of the Sun, Francis joins the heavenly and the
earthly in a sacramental union, which is pure joy. In every versicle
of it there is an intense perception of nature, a delicate appre-
1916.] POVERTY AND RICHES
73
ciation of the precise qualities of things that gives character to his
thanksgiving. Sister Water is useful and humble and precious and
chaste. Brother Fire is fair and pleasant, robust and brave. The
familiar and dear legends that tell of the preaching to the birds,
the taming of Brother Falcon, are all indications of the new at-
titude to life, that grew out of the great freedom and the abiding
joy of St. Francis. Music and singing and dancing are among the
delights of heaven now, music especially.
It catches one's heart to read how Francis, as he lay suffer-
ing and dying, begged one of the brothers, who had formerly been
a musician, to play to him, that his heart might be lightened and
his pain beguiled. But the Brother was ashamed to go and borrow
a lute, lest the world might count him too pleasure-loving. Francis
meekly acquiesced in the scruple which would never have troubled
his own simple soul. For his part, one suspects, his sympathies
would rather have gone out to Brother Juniper of the merry heart,
who went playing see-saw with the children, lest he should be ac-
counted too pious by the passers-by. But in despite of the demure
brother, St. Francis heard music after all, for the angels made
him a concert that night, with sweeter sounds than human fingers
could have summoned up.
One is glad to know that music did not die away in the
Order. Bonaventura tells of one Andrea da Pisa, who played on
a violin, " high and clear and sweet and tender, and agreeable be-
yond measure." Another, Fra Vita de Lucques had a delightful
voice, and " when a nightingale or a thrush sang in a thicket, the
bird would be, silent when Brother Vita began to sing, and to listen
curiously without moving, and begin again when he had ended, and
thus the two answered each other, and nothing could be more
joyous and sweet than their voices." That was but a few years
after the death of St. Francis. How joyfully would he have listened
to such antiphons, even amid the heavenly songs.
The joys of heaven took a more familiar and attractive kind
of beauty in the imaginations of men who were finding the world
very good. What they renounced was really theirs for the first
time, and what they looked for with hope was not so very unlike a
glorified extension of this beautiful world, where every season
of the year brought its own abounding loveliness. Well might
God's jongleurs go singing and making melody by the way. And
if the kingdom of heaven seemed a familiar and pleasant place
(where Brothers Minor might dance in a ring with the angels, as
74 POVERTY AND RICHES [Oct.,
they do in Fra Angelico's " Last Judgment"), the world of Scrip-
ture history became very real and near too.
There is a quaint old book, Meditations on the Life of Christ,
included in the works of St. Bonaventura, which gives us the
idea of the way in which the Franciscans visualized the Gospel
story for the people. It is written rather as if in the form of
instructions for a mystery or miracle play. From point to point it
follows the sacred narrative, giving such touches of half-tender,
half -fanciful detail, as brings each scene very close to the popular
imagination. When it describes the Nativity it tells how St.
Joseph sat apart, sunk in sad thought, grieving over the need of
every common comfort for the Blessed Mother. And later it tells
how the cattle in the stable bent over the manger, where the Child
lay, breathing long soft breaths, as if they knew that He needed
warmth. When it deals with the Last Supper, it gives fanciful,
touching details, divined, rather than invented, of the last partings
between Christ and His Mother. There we find the first hints of
that presentation of the anguish of Mary, that deepens and hu-
manizes the Renaissance conceptions of the Passion. Again and
again we seem to be reading a plan for the dramatization of the
Gospel story, and in fact the mystery plays, which were familiar
things already further north, now began to be known in Italy
under the patronage of the Friars Minor and the Friars Preachers.
Within the Order there came a burst of song. The trouba-
dours had been an inspiration to Francis in his youth. Even as
they strove to set love free, so St. Francis had striven to set
life free, and to the end their singing had been pleasant in his
ears. He was a singer himself, this " gonfaloniere " of the Most
High, and no wonder his sons sang too. Celano, his biographer,
wrote the Dies Ires, and in cheerful contrast innumerable lauds
by unknown Franciscan singers, expressed the gladness of soul
that pulsed through the whole community. Presently lacopo da
Todi (the writer of the Stab at Mater) began to sing the Gospel
story through, in poems that inspired Giotto's treatment of each
theme, and gave Todi a just claim to be called the precursor of Dante.
Art lay still in its gorgeous Byzantine tomb, wrapped round
in cere cloths, rich with gold and stiff with jewels, splendidly
and rigidly at rest. Now came the first faint movements of the
shrouded corpse that awaited its resurrection morning. The Gospel
story was becoming familiar, in a new way, what with the preach-
ing and singing of the Frati, and with the vivid conceptions they
1916.] POVERTY AND RICHES
75
had of its personages, as living realities. Our Lady no longer sat
rigid and angular against her golden background, inanimate and
apathetic, unconscious, to all seeming, of the Child on her knees.
The Franciscan preaching linked her with the idea of poverty, and
so brought her near the hearts of the people whose hard, spare lives
had little to connect them with the stately Lady of Byzantine art,
but who could come very near to one who had known sorrow and
fatigue, cold and pain. In the Meditations we are told that it was
in token of need and poverty that Our Lady accepted the gifts of
the Three Kings for her Son, and that she afterwards gave them
away to people still poorer than herself. Under the impulsion of
such thoughts a change came over the art of the time very gradually.
The difference is slight at first, just perceptible. In the pictures
attributed to Cimabue, the Virgin, who used to sit so lifeless and
stiff on her throne, has begun sometimes to make a gesture. Per-
haps she points to the Child, as if in answer to the cry of the
Salve Regina, " Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb,
Jesus " — or she lays her hand tenderly, caressingly, upon His
limbs. Then the Child begins to come to life too, to turn lovingly
to His Mother. The stiff heavy robes slip from Him, and show
rounded childish limbs; after awhile He is no longer the older boy
of the Byzantine artists, but a real new born baby, such a baby as
made the gladness of many a poor home in Umbria and Tuscany.
In fact, the figures in Scripture history had become indi-
viduals, not types, and the art that represented them could no
longer be chiefly symbolical, the minds of the people would demand
that. Inevitably the desire to represent the human aspect realisti-
cally had arisen — the need of anatomy and perspective would grow
more pressing day by day, and, moreover, the art that was meeting
and struggling with ever new problems and difficulties, must be-
come rapidly enriched and strengthened. The return to Greece
was henceforth a mere question of opportunity. The world was
ripe and ready for it.
Nor is the new spirit altogether alien to the mind of its
begetter. Francis had desired that his Order should have no
abiding place in possession, but, on the other hand, beauty and
seemliness, especially in the care of God's houses, was very near
his heart. The daily prayer of the first Brothers was an echo of
the Eucharistic psalm, " in ecclesiis benedicam Te Domine" There
are no words that better express the mind of the saint than the
" I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house "—from the same
76 POVERTY AND RICHES [Oct.,
psalm. His first task for God was to restore a ruined church and
set a candle burning before its crucifix, and the cultus of the
Crucifix became an especially Franciscan devotion. Nearly all the
painted crucifixes of the thirteenth century, strange and angular,
and almost repulsive to our eyes, that still hang in so many Italian
churches, were painted for the Franciscans. In them too we see a
creeping movement of life begin. The figure becomes more and
more a human body, really suffering, really dying. The change, the
development of thought is very plain, if we contrast, for instance,
the very primitive one in the Pieve at Pistoia, with that formerly
attributed to Giotto that hangs in Santa Croce in Florence. In the
earlier representation Christ is fully clothed in a sort of priestly
garb. The face is calm and composed, one Foot rests upon a
chalice, which seems to receive the Blood. It is magnificent in
dignity and in symbolism, but remote, abstracted, entirely super-
human. When the same subject was treated in Giotto's time, we
see an anguished human Body, represented with as much realism
as the painter knew how to compass. The body is but slightly
veiled, and there is an attempt to indicate Its weight as It hangs.
This painting is a direct appeal to the pity and contrition and per-
sonal love of the worshipper.
Besides the representations of the Sacred Story, seen with the
new vivid life that the Franciscan idealism had discovered in them,
stand the representations of the Franciscan legend. The story of
Francis possessed the popular imagination, and gave the painters
subject matter that could be endlessly studied and restudied, with
the certainty of making a popular appeal, and, also, subject matter
which had not yet had time to crystallize into a set convention, as
the older legends had already done. The great wall spaces of the
Friars' churches called aloud for fresco decoration, and the story
of Francis, seen by loving eyes in a mystic similarity to that
of His Master, filled their cold spaces with warm color, was carved
upon their pulpits, and miniatured in the predellas under their
altar pieces.
Characteristically enough the earliest extant portraits are
representations of Francis, so that portrait painting, that most in-
dividual kind of ,art, begins with his person. At Greccio, where,
as he bent over the Christmas manger, the Christ Child was
vouchsafed to his arms, a strange old portrait of him is still
treasured, and here and there over the world, at Assisi naturally,
at Siena, at Oxford, there are others. In the Bardi Chapel at Santa
1916-] POVERTY AND RICHES
77
Croce, a very ancient portrait of St. Francis is the altar piece, and
gleams out against somewhat faded gold, set round about with
miniatures showing the events of his life.
Strange indeed ! This sordid mendicant is the father of Italian
art — so Renan wrote. " Sordide mendicant." That is one way of
describing Francis and his mendicancy, which was the way of
freedom for himself and others. He begged for the broken scraps
that fell from men's tables, and in return he gave them a world of
glory, in the art that became possible, because of the individualism
he asserted. Because of his poverty many are made rich. When he
ate his broken scraps in joy of heart, the world began to remember
what feasting meant.
The world is the better for the Order he founded. Despite
all fallings away from his ideals; all perhaps inevitable accom-
modations with the world, his spirit still lives on in the lives
of his sons.
But greater and richer yet is the fruit of his spirit, in the
art that followed on his steps. And the Renaissance, with all its
varied fruits came into being, very largely, because Francesco
Bernardone had given the world a new impulse and a new thought,
that sent men seeing afresh a new means of self-expression.
The impulse to return to Athens had come first of all from
Bethlehem. ,
THE COMING OF AGE OF THE X-RAY.
BY BROTHER POTAMIAN, SC.D.,
Professor of Physics in Manhattan College, New York.
AVES of excitement and popular expectation swept
over the country when Graham Bell showed his tele-
phone at our Centennial Exposition of 1876, on
which occasion Sir William Thomson (later Lord
Kelvin) called the little instrument the " Wonder of
Wonders." Though great progress and many noteworthy achieve-
ments were made during the next twenty years, neither the break-
ing of the atom into fragments, the liquefaction of common air
and its sale in pints and quarts, or even the lighting of our streets
and homes by the energy of the electric current, stirred up popular
and professional interest as much as the announcement from a quiet
university town in the heart of Catholic Bavaria of the discovery of
the mysterious and wonder-working X-ray. The date is a memorable
one, viz., November 8, 1895, twenty-one years ago; the discoverer,
Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, Professor of Physics in the University
of Wiirzburg, at one time " the best Catholic university in the
whole of Germany."
Professor Rontgen was already known in the scientific world
for fruitful investigations in several fields of physical research.
Just then he was working with " vacuum " tubes, closely watching
for new phenomena due to the very high degree of exhaustion at-
tained in his experimental tube. This electrical discharge through
rarefied gases was a fascinating subject of study for physicists,
especially from the year 1879 when Professor Crookes showed some
of his classical experiments in the lecture theatre of the Royal
Institution, London, and described them in the Philosophical Trans-
actions of the Royal Society for the same year. The experiments
were remarkable for their beauty, originality and completeness, no
less than for the revolution in scientific theory to which they
eventually led.
Professor Rontgen had one of these high-vacuum tubes in his
laboratory; and on this particular day, November 8, 1895, it was
carefully wrapped in a close-fitting sheath of carbon paper, while
near it on a bench lay a sheet of white cardboard, covered over
1916.] THE COMING OF AGE OF THE X-RAY 79
with a thin layer of phosphorescent material, the fluorescent screen
of the present day. When the battery circuit was closed, the in-
duction coil was energized, and the high frequency current from its
terminals was sent through the tube. The buzz of the contact breaker
was heard, but the illumination was not seen in the darkened room,
as the tube was hidden away within its impervious sheath.
The keen, watchful eye of the professor, however, did not fail
to notice the brilliant luminescence of the fluorescent screen, which
appeared with the working of the coil and disappeared when it
stopped. It was clear to him that energy of some kind escaped
from the tube and its shielding envelope, passed unfelt and unseen
through several feet of air; and, acting on the crystals of the
barium-platinocyanide, lit up the little screen. The energy that
escaped in this way from the tube and affected the screen proved
eventually to be none other than the energy of the X-ray.
It will be noticed that the discovery of the X-ray was not due
to a happy accident, as sometimes said, but to a carefully-planned
series of experiments, undertaken for the purpose of extending the
work of previous investigators in the tempting and promising field
of cathodic research.
Following instinctively the laconic advice given by Faraday to
Crookes when a rising young chemist, viz., " work, finish, publish,"
Professor Rontgen subjected the new radiation to a critical study.
Having found that he could not reflect the " rays " from polished
mirrors or bend them by means of liquid prisms, or induce them to
" interfere " with one another, he thought himself unwarranted in
placing them in the category of light rays; so, unaware of their
real nature, he decided to call them, for the time being, by the
non-committal name of " X-rays."
Proceeding step by step in his study of their properties, he
found that, unlike ordinary light, the rays could pass through packs
of cards, books of a thousand pages, blocks of wood, and other
substances opaque to light. It was also found, by means of the
fluorescent screen, that while metallic plates are more or less trans-
parent to the extraordinary penetrative power of these rays, lead,
even in thin sheets, is pronouncedly opaque. Hence the use which
is made of this exceptional property of sheet lead for the pro-
tection of the operator against the destructive influence which the
prolonged use of X-rays exerts on the tissues of the body.
Of surpassing interest also was the recognition that these rays
discharge at once electrified bodies submitted to their action; and
8o THE COMING OF AGE OF THE X-RAY [Oct.,
also that they split up the air through which they pass into posi-
tively and negatively charged particles or ions, and bring about the
" ionization " of the air as we call it.
Finally, using a photographic plate, he found the film itself
to be particularly sensitive to the new rays, so that " shadow-pic-
tures " could be readily obtained. Resting the hand on the plate-
holder the bones proved to be surprisingly more opaque to the rays
than the flesh, an observation which led immediately to the " photog-
raphy of the invisible," and to its application in medicine and
surgery with the startling results known to all.
It was only after a comprehensive study of the properties of
the rays that Professor Rontgen wrote the historic paper which he
read at a meeting of the Physico-Medical Society of Wurzburg in
December, 1895. Shortly afterward, it was translated and published
in the leading scientific journals of the world. The photographic
possibilities of the X-rays, everywhere described in glowing periods,
appealed strongly to the lay and the scientific mind, and secured for
them a prompt, sensational and world-wide reception. Five years
later, in 1900, Professor Rontgen was invited to the more im-
portant University of Munich, where he now has greater facilities
at his disposal for carrying out those excursions into the border-
land of science of which he is so fond. In his Catholic faith and
Catholic surroundings in Munich as well as in Wurzburg, Professor
Rontgen found the inspiration and encouragement which give flavor
to life and which crown activity with success.
The doubt that existed for some years as to the physical nature
of X-rays seems to have been removed by the searching inquiry to
which they have been subjected, satisfactory evidence of compliance
with the usual tests of reflection, refraction and polarization having
been obtained at last. A full account of the methods used in the
tests by himself and others was given by Professor Barkla in the
Baker ian lecture which he delivered before the Royal Society on
May 25th of the present year.
These rays will henceforth be spoken of as similar in character
to rays of ordinary light, both being transverse vibrations in the
ether. The sole difference is that X-radiations are ten thousand
times smaller in wave-length than those which affect the retina of
the eye, and give rise to the sensation of color. It is known from
everyday experience that when the longer waves of the visible
spectrum reach the nerve-filaments of the eye, we describe the sen-
sation as red; with shorter ones, we say it is green; with the
1916.] THE COMING OF AGE OF THE X-RAY 81
shortest, violet. The ultra-violet rays of the invisible spectrum are
shorter still, and X-rays are the shortest of all wave-lengths known
to science at present. It is precisely this very smallness that enabled
them to elude for so many years the tests that were applied to de-
termine their physical character.
It may be of interest to add, by way of contrast, that while,
on the one hand, we have the infinitesimal ripples of X-rays with
their marvelous power of disclosing the secrets of the unseen; on
the other, we have long rollers in the ether, electric waves miles
in length, which carry our wireless messages with the swiftness of
light to the ends of the earth.
As Professor Rontgen's paper contained no directions con-
cerning the technique of the "new photography," the first ex-
perimenters had to find out for themselves everything relating to
the sensitive plate and its development, as well as the distance of
the X-ray tube and the time of exposure. This was the writer's
experience when, scarcely three months after the publication of
the paper in the London Electrician, he was urged by a physician
of Water ford (Ireland) to overcome personal reluctance and con-
tribute to the relief of suffering humanity by using the apparatus
of the De La Salle Training College, to locate a splinter of steel
which, some time before, had found its way unnoticed into ttfe hand
of his patient. In presence of all the physicians of the city who
came unbidden to see the novel experiment, the radiograph was
taken on April 13, 1896, with a six-inch spark-coil, a small focus-
tube and a " wet " plate. The exposure given was one minute.
When the plate was developed, the splinter was distinctly seen ;
needless to add that it was promptly removed.
The discovery of X-rays adds another to the illustrations which
we have of the organic nature of the growth of science; for it
shows, in a very interesting way, that the development of knowledge
proceeds by easy stages rather than by abrupt steps. Thus Fara-
day, in 1838, while studying the optical phenomena of "vacuum "
tubes, remarked a dark space at the end of the positive column,
which has since been called the Faraday dark space. Pliicker in
1859 discovered the " cathode rays " by the phosphorescence which
they produced when they struck the sides of the tube; Crookes,
in 1878, began his researches on the dark space surrounding the
negative terminal, which space he succeeded in extending out to
the walls of the tube by increasing the degree of rarefaction. He
was amply repaid for the patience displayed in overcoming the diffi-
VOL. civ.— 6
82 THE COMING OF AGE OF THE X-RAY [Oct.,
culties which he encountered in this brilliant series of experimental
investigations by the streams and torrents of cathode rays which
he obtained within the tube, and which he was led to consider
matter in a fourth or ultra-gaseous state. In 1894, Lenard, Hertz's
assistant, went a step further when he got some of these rays out
a short distance into the open air; and finally, Rontgen, in the fall
of 1895, by increasing the exhaustion obtained abundant radiation
of an entirely new kind outside the tube, the X-rays with which
his name is rightly associated. The cathode ray was thus the
parent; the X-ray, the offspring.
" Just as these X-rays remained for nearly twenty years undis-
covered," said the late Professor Silvanus P. Thompson (who
died on June 12, 1916), "so even now there exist beyond doubt
in the universe other rays, other vibrations of which we have no
cognizance. Yet as year after year rolls by, one discovery leads
to another. The seemingly useless or trivial observation made by
one worker leads on to a useful observation by another; and so
science advances, creeping on from point to point. And so steadily,
year by year, the sum total of our knowledge increases, and our
ignorance is rolled a little further and further back; and where
now there is darkness, there will be light."
Among conclusions that may be drawn from the research here
briefly reviewed, is the one : " That he is on the royal road to
success who loves a subject and pursues it with diligence;" or as
Pasteur once beautifully put it : " Three things — the will, the work,
the success — span the whole of human life. The will opens the door
to brilliant and happy careers ; the work carries one across the thres-
hold, and when the journey has ended success crowns the work."
AN IRISH REBEL AS A LITERARY CRITIC.1
BY PADRAIC COLUM.
HIS is a posthumous book. It was composed while
the author was engaged in revolutionary preparation,
and it was published after he had been shot to death
by order of a military court-martial. Thomas Mac-
Donagh was assistant Professor of English in Uni-
versity College, Dublin; up to the very eve of the Insurrection he
carried on his work there with singular composure. " In his pro-
fessional work he never showed signs of distraction or inattention,"
says one who observed him, writing in the organ of University Col-
lege, Studies. " Day by day, as if there were no other concern in
the world, he lectured on English literature with a fluency which
was not merely of words, but sprang from an alert mind and a
large store of ideas and criticisms." The studies, composed after
the writer's life had been committed to a cause, carry something
more than a literary knowledge and a literary doctrine; they have
personality and a prophetic outlook. Literature in Ireland is indeed
Thomas MacDonagh's testament; by it he leaves to the Irish
generations his knowledge and HS discoveries, and, above all,
his proud hopes for the resurgent Ireland that he knew. It is one
of the few proud books that have been written for Irish people;
Thomas MacDonagh, scholar and critic, has taken Ireland for
granted; he decries nothing, denies nothing, dispraises nothing of
what another people possesses; he has full knowledge of Ireland's
achievement in literature and he says " it is good ; " he has full
belief in her destiny and he says " it is brave." And his has been
the privilege of adding to Ireland's vision and Ireland's will.
Literature in Ireland, as he has left it, is not so general as its
title would imply. It is mainly a study of poetry. He would, I
have reason to believe, have dealt with novels and stories, with
plays and essays in subsequent volumes. But although he has ap-
plied it only to one branch — to poetry — he has made a standard by
which we can judge what is typical in Irish literature.
The racial, the typical expression, according to MacDonagh's
1 Literature in Ireland: Studies in Irish and Anglo-Irish. By Thomas Mac-
Donagh, University College, Dublin. Dublin: The Talbot Press. 1916.
84 'AN IRISH REBEL AS A LITERARY CRITIC [Oct.,
argument, is due not to a single quality, but comes from what
psychologists would speak of as " the national complex — the ideals,
traditions and mentality; the sound of Gaelic poetry and Gaelic
music in Irish ears; the word position of Gaelic speech." In a very
illuminating passage he shows us that the peculiar unstressed rhythm
which belongs to the distinctive Anglo-Irish poetry — such a rhythm
for example as is shown in
O many a day have I made good ale in the glen
is due to the structure of Gaelic speech. In English one makes em-
phasis by stressing the important word. In Irish one makes em-
phasis by bringing the important word into a certain order in the
sentence. " I came from town " may have four meanings according
to the voice stress. In saying the sentence in Irish one would intro-
duce the verb of identity, and bring into emphatic position after it
the word to be emphasized. Instead of stressing the last syllable the
one who thinks in the Gaelic way would say, " It is from the town I
came." It is this peculiar unstressed method of speech that makes
the distinctive rhythm of certain Anglo-Irish poems.
These typical rhythms are not the only expressions of our
national distinctiveness in poetry. MacDonagh lays a good deal
of stress on the exhibition of a certain naivete. "An Irish poet,
if he be individual, if he be original, if he be national, speaks,
almost stammers, in one of the two fresh languages of this country
in Irish (modern Irish, newly schooled by Europe) or in Anglo-
Irish, English as we speak it in Ireland Such an Irish poet
can still express himself in the simplest terms of life and of the
common furniture of life." One would liked to have discussed it
with him, whether such poetry as is in the lines he quotes as a
specimen —
She carries in the dishes
And lays them in a row —
does not come out of certain social conditions — conditions that per-
mit of but few possessions. Poetry that celebrates " the common
furniture of life " is in all folk verse and folk stories. Maeter-
linck has imitated it in The Blue Bird when he makes the cat and
the dog, water and sugar creatures in his action. To children
brought up in peasant cottages, in Ireland pr elsewhere in Europe,
a clock, a pitcher, a pail of water, a crock of milk, a crack in a
I9i6.] rAN IRISH REBEL AS A LITERARY CRITIC 85
rafter, may gather round themselves imaginative associations. Such
things are not, as they are amongst people who have many pos-
sessions, replacable shifting objects; they belong to the furniture
of the world, like the sun or the moon. James Stephens has the
poetry of " the common furniture of life " in the story of his that
deals with what might be called the folk-life of Dublin— The
Charwoman's Daughter. Perhaps poetry with this sort of con-
tent is only distinctive in contrast with the literature of a people
who live through different social and economic conditions.
It is hard to believe that he who wrote these eloquent, brave
and learned pages is no longer in existence. Those who saw Thomas
MacDonagh in his university robe and noted his flow of speech and
his tendency to abstractions, might have carried away an image of
one of those adventurous students who disputed endlessly in a
mediaeval university. But MacDonagh was far from being a ped-
ant— he was a wonderfully good comrade, an eager friend, a
happy-hearted companion. He had abundance of good spirits and
a flow of wit and humor remarkable even in a Munster man.
He had, too, an intimate knowledge of the humors of popular
life in the country and the country town — a knowledge which he
seldom put into his writing, but which has become vivid in that
unique and living poem, John-John. His mother was born in
Dublin and was of English parentage, and his maternal grandfather
was, if I remember aright, what he told me, a printer in Trinity
College. His mother, at the time I knew her, had the simplicity, the
outlook, the manner, of a fine type of Irish countrywoman. She
and her husband were teachers in a primary school in Clough-
jordan in Tipperary. Thomas was trained by a religious order, and
was indeed a religious novice in his youth. He became a teacher in
a college in Kilkenny and afterward in Fermoy. While in Kil-
kenny he took up the study of Irish, and became one of the advance
guard of the Gaelic League. In the Arran Island and in the Irish-
speaking districts of Munster he made himself fluent in the language.
In 1901 and 1902 he published a volume of literary verse, Through
the Ivory Gate and April and May. He had dedicated one of the
volumes to Mr. Yeats, and had corresponded with him, but Mac-
Donagh was not then known in the literary groups in Dublin.
I came to know him in 1909 at the time he was teaching in
Fermoy. His great interest then was poetry. He knew poetry well
in English, French, Latin and Irish, and was drawn to the classical
poets — to Horace, to Dante, to Lamartine. The poetry he was writ-
86 AN IRISH REBEL AS A LITERARY CRITIC [Oct.,
ing then was literary and was like French poetry — like Lamartine's.
After he came to live in Dublin — in 1910 — the poetry he wrote was
more personal. What he wrote after four years of residence there
is in Songs of Myself.
He came to Dublin with a play which he was anxious to have
produced in the Abbey Theatre, which was then under the brief
direction of J. M. Synge. The play was When the Dawn is Come.
The scene is laid in a revolutionary Ireland of the future, and the
tragedy is that of a leader whose master-idea baffles his followers.
He wanted to write a play about Owen Roe O'Neill and another
about one of the Gracchi. In the life of Owen Roe and in the life
of Tiberius, or Gaius Gracchus, there was the drama that appealed
to him — the thoughtful man become revolutionist and dominating
the crowd for a great end. He saw great drama in the prepara-
tion of the people, in the fierce conflict and the catastrophe. Many
things that Thomas MacDonagh said and wrote were extraordi-
narily prophetic — even fatalistic. None of his utterances were more
prophetic than the play he had produced and the two plays he pro-
jected.
His connection with St. Enda's School is well-known, and this
part of his career need not be elaborated. He had been on the
staff of the school four years when Songs of Myself was published.
He then went to Paris to do some reading. When he returned
he took his M.A. degree in the National University. A professor
in the College of Science with MacDonagh, James Stephens, and
myself started The Irish Review. MacDonagh was associate editor,
first with the three of us and, after an interregnum with his friend,
Joseph Plunkett. He wrote a thesis, Thomas Campion and the Art
of English Poetry, and was made assistant Professor of English
literature in the National University.
MacDonagh at the time would have welcomed a reasonable
settlement of Irish political conditions. Two years after its angry
rejection of the National Convention, he said to me that the country
should have accepted the Councils Bill, with its control of education
and its possibilities of checking financial relations between Ireland
and Great Britain. I often had a vision of my friend in a Home
Rule Parliament, working at social and legislative problems, and
perhaps training himself to become a Minister of Education. He
was, when the Home Rule Bill reached its last stages, happily
married, and was the father of the child he has addressed in
Wishes for My Son. In the end, the Home Rule question became
1916.] 'AN IRISH REBEL AS A LITERARY CRITIC 87
something different from an adjustment of legislation as between
Great Britain and Ireland. Its granting or its withdrawal was
made a question of military preparation and racial manliness. Then
the Nationalists created their Volunteers, and Thomas MacDonagh
took a place on the Executive and the command of a corps.
A poet with a tendency towards abstractions, a scholar with
a bent towards philology — these were the aspects Thomas Mac-
Donagh often showed when he expressed himself in letters. But
what was fundamental in him rarely went into what he wrote.
That fundamental thing was an eager search for something that
would exact the whole devotion of his being. Eagerness, search,
devotedness — these are the characters that for me spell out his
most lovable spirit. He had, too, a powerful ambition. With
his short figure, his scholar's brow and his dominating nose he
loo*ked like a man of the Gironde — a party, by the way, that he
often spoke of.
In the old heroic story Finn is asked what music he preferred.
He spoke of the song of the blackbird, the scream of the eagle, the
sound of the waterfall, the bay of the hounds. And when Oisin
was asked what music delighted him he said, " The music of the
thing that happens." Thomas MacDonagh could have made the
lofty answer of Oisin. He surely loved the music of the thing
that happened. He followed the music that meant the language
revival, the music that meant the Volunteer movement, the music
that meant insurrection. And at last he stood up to the music that
meant defeat and death. In memory of him we will often repeat
the words he has written in this book : " It is well for us that
our workers are poets and our poets workers And it is well
too that here still that cause which is identified, without under-
thought of commerce, with the cause of God and Right and Free-
dom, the cause which has been the great theme of our poetry, may
any day call the poets to give their lives in the old service."
TO MY GUARDIAN ANGEL.
At Lustleigh, Devon, September.
BY EMILY HICKEY.
ANGEL mine, I am glad to be
Here in this beautiful hill country ;
Glad, so glad, to have left the town,
And see the blue instead of the brown.
Oh, such a wonder of purple and blue,
Lovely, my angel even to you
Who know the ineffable heights that rise
In the smile of God our Father's eyes.
Tell me, is it not easier far
To be good where space and coloring are,
Here, in the glory of Lustleigh down,
Than far to the east, in London Town?
Friend of the kind, wise brow, I wot
I speak as a child that knoweth not.
But oh, thank God for these hills so dear;
And God, thank God that He brought me here.
Angel mine, to whom it is given
To know the glorious heights of heaven,
To drink from the undefiled rills
That rise in the everlasting hills,
Teach me, through these my mortal eyes
Something of them to realize;
Learning, in this my mortal spell,
The invisible things by the visible.
Bid hills of Devon whisper me
Thought of what heaven's fair heights must be,
Those heights that Mary in spirit trod
As she carried the happy news of God
In swiftness all unhurriedly
To her blessed kin of the hill country,
All the while that her spirit fair
Was breathing the dear own-country air
Far above earthly joys and ills,
On the heights of the everlasting hills.
Help me to gain the footing sure
Of those the dear Lord counteth pure,
On the glorious hills that Mary knew,
And ever calleth her children to.
PURE GOLD.
BY CHARLES PHILLIPS.
I.
TANDING at the open gateway of the lower pasture,
waiting for the last stray cow to come ambling in,
and calling to that leisurely creature with short, im-
patient ejaculations, "Co-boss! co-boss!" Mary Reid
suddenly looked up to see her son Davy striding
across the field toward her. She gave the red cow a
half -friendly, half-disciplinary whack as she put up the bars behind
the silly, floundering hoofs, and turned to ask her boy:
"Are you through at the quarry?"
" Through? No. But I quit anyway. I'm going to help you."
The deep-set eyes of the old mother — for Mary Reid was an
old woman, old before her time — looked lovingly at her son. " You
didn't need to," she said. " Perhaps you'd better go back."
Davy made no response, for at that moment the red cow was
stretching her neck over the fence and nibbling at the corn. He
dashed for her.
It was September, and already the shadows of fence posts and
tall poplars were lengthening on field and lane; not sunset yet, but
the end of day was nearing. The shadows of the long legs of
Davy made fantastic contortions as he ran down the pasture. The
mother followed him with a brave quickening in her weary pace —
she had been at the back-breaking work of potato-digging all after-
noon.
An old woman? Yes, old before her time, with her fifty years
weighing sometimes with more than the burden of seventy on her.
And yet, despite the patient shadow of tragedy that brooded in her
sunken eyes; with all her work-worn figure, her fine-wrinkled skin,
her thinned gray hair (beneath whose scanty locks still showed some
shadowy faded gold), with all her broken stride, the quick-and-halt
of a driven weary body, and with all the lost lights dying in her hol-
low eyes, she was not old; for through her faded visage and time-
wrecked form a something youthful flashed and spoke, as a spirit,
daring and desperate, might peer through a veil ; the Ghost of Youth
looking out, all unknown to its owner, upon the world it had lost,
the world indeed, that it had scarcely known, yet would not be denied.
Davy waited for his mother at the upper bars, and together
they drove the cows into the barnyard for the evening milking.
90 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
The boy, his stalwart form well filled out for his eighteen years, tried
to manage things; got the stool and the pails, and wanted to go on
with the milking; begged that he might, pleaded, almost quarreled.
But no.
" Go back to your father! No, Davy Reid! Do you hear? I'll
be all right!"
And so Mrs. Amos Reid did the milking that night as she had
done night after night for many years. And she was happy because
her son loved her so loyally.
She had not had much love in her life, except that fund from
which she herself was ever giving forth. Her husband, older than
she by more than twenty years, was "queer;" that was his " repu-
tation." Indeed, for many years, Amos Reid was a source of curi-
osity, fear, and even of pride in the township — for folks of the coun-
tryside enjoy their neighborhood celebrities just as keenly and just as
exclusively as great cities revel in and advertise their famous ones.
He and his wife had come there some twenty years before, very
poor and very strange; mortgaged themselves to a small rockbed of
a good-for-nothing farm; and settled down. There was an air of
mystery about them from the very first.
He was undoubtedly a celebrity. With his straight spare form,
which never stooped with age, despite his seventy-odd years, and his
handsome white-haired head, his white beard (white save for the
yellowing of the tobacco stains of a lifetime), and above all with his
strangely veiled eyes, which were full of a weird pale-blue fire, eyes
that never lost their passionate gaze, no matter what the mood or the
expression, but looked out at all comers through their odd blinding
film with defiance and suspicion, old Amos Reid was a figure to be
remembered as well as feared. He was dressed always the same —
denim overalls patched, frayed, stained and caked with the sand-
stone mud of his quarry; a blue flannel shirt with white buttons
(the shirt always open at the throat, revealing the old hairy breast
and the brown neck, seared and wrinkled with age), and always
tight-buttoned at the wrist; the cuffs, too, secured with big white
buttons — the bony, sunbaked hands, with their black-nailed fingers
protruding from those cuffs with a sort of wild, sinewy strength
that seemed to dart and clutch at you while he talked — if talk he
would. He was a silent man.
The well on the Reid's farm was only ten or twelve feet deep,
cut in the solid rock; but never was there cleaner, purer water. It
was always ice-cold, and on hot days folks from town, passing on
the road, would often stop for a drink. Many made the well an
excuse for a halt at the farm, brought by curiosity, to see old Reid
and try to get him to talk and " show his specimens ; " others, for
1916.] PURE GOLD gi
a neighborly word with Mrs. Reid, whom all the countryside respected
— respected, indeed, too deeply to show pity. If it was around noon-
time, they would be sure to find her busy in the kitchen, cooking
the meal for old Amos and the hired man — if there was a hired
man — but were it forenoon or afternoon, she would be in the garden,
hoeing or weeding, or else in the field running the reaper, pitching
hay, driving the team ; and in the evening, cooking again, milking,
and then back to the garden till darkness made her put up her hoe,
straighten her weary and creaking back, and come into the house.
And the old man, where was he to be found? Amos Reid was
always in one place, never anywhere else, come day, come night; he
was in the quarry.
The quarry was a sandstone pit dug out of the side of the hill
back of the house. From twenty years of cutting and excavating it
had become a sheer cliff some sixty feet in height, scarred and torn,
cut and dug, with boulders and heaps of white sand at its base, and
always a planking leading from the thin thread that Paper Jack
Creek made, thirty yards away, up into the newest and latest exca-
vation. Upon this white hillside and the white floor of sand at its
base, the hot sun beat down in daytime, till it was like a bit of
Death Valley Desert; and in the night it gleamed like a ghost under
the stars, or in the moonlight took on a wild cavernous appearance
that was sepulchral and uncanny.
The house was a hundred feet south of Paper Jack, so that
the stream cut evenly in two the space between the house and the base
of the quarry. The north windows commanded a view of the entire
cliff, with the green bluffs, 'from which it thrust itself, sloping away
to east and west, surmounted by a barb-wire fence; and beyond a
grove of oaks. A man standing on the crest of that bluff could
see down into the rooms of Amos Reid's house; and were he to
look over its roof, his eyes would meet, a quarter of a mile away,
other sloping hills, green and rounded with grain and hay. It was
a shallow, narrow valley, with Paper Jack running like a thread
through its centre, and, half a mile to the west, widening out to
a pond, where always at a set hour in the afternoon, the cows
stood knee deep in the water under the jack-oaks' shade, and switched
flies. Then, to bring his gaze back to the house again, he would
see that the north porch, or veranda, as it was called, had been made
into a sort of cabin, a shed with a door and window, an extension, as
it were, from the house itself. It was in this shed that Amos Reid
slept. Along the window sill were ranged bottles and glasses, con-
taining white sand, a various collection of grit and rock — his " speci-
mens.
That quarry at the back of Reid's house— or it might be better
92 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
said, those bottles on his window sill — contained the secret of the old
man's life, as well as the secret of his wife's quiet drudgery. He
imagined. the quarry was a gold mine; he imagined, thought, dreamed
nothing else. He drudged/ too ; he spent his days digging in the
rock and sand without company, his only living companion the king-
fisher who had built a nest in a crevice near the top of the quarry;
and that scarlet-headed marauder, flashing his brilliancy in the sun-
light up from the white sandstone and darting across the bright blue
heavens, even had he been heeded, would have given very little time
and less comfort to the solitary old delver below him.
Sometimes old man Reid would have a helper hired; even two
or three. But none of them stayed long, and they were employed
only when a chance came to sell some of the quarry rock for barn
foundations. More often the rock purchaser did the quarrying him-
self, and brought his own men, old Reid watching them with a quiet
sort of insane jealousy as they cut and hoisted and hauled, sometimes
even running after a load to search with his wild old eye and touch
again with his bony fingers some boulder that gleamed over-bright
in the sun. It was only bare necessity that would drive him to sell
rock at all, the thought of a new shaft sunk in his " gold mine," the cer-
tainty that he had struck a vein at last that needed simply to be traced
to its lode to yield up millions, sweeping him on in desperation to the
mad alternative of selling some of his precious stone — yes, tons of
it, tons worth millions, maybe! — for the foundations of hay barns and
cow stables!
To old Amos Reid, that quarry back of the house was El Dorado.
And to his wife Mary what? Did she, too, dream sometimes that wealth
after all might be hidden in that bluff that glared over them in the sum-
mer heat, and frowned on them and bit at them with the fury of wind-
driven snow in winter? No. If ever she felt that dream veiling her
senses, then her hoe would flash faster through the corn, or the whip
would crack over the team on the reaper with a sudden quirt that made
old dapple Fanny's ears start. To Mary there was only forty acres of
poor farm land, a team of horses, a few cows and calves, pigs and
chickens, all to be kept going, not only for a living's sake, but to
build a future for her boy. It was that boy and his future that kept
her Ghost of Youth persistent.
The mother had managed to keep the boy in school ; it was only
a short walk from town; and then he had entered high school, and
now had finished his second year. From the time he was able to
wield a pick, old Amos Reid had trained Davy to delve and dig in
the quarry. The boy would reach home from school about five
o'clock, and from then on to dark would toil and sweat in the sand-
stone; and, of course, most of his summer holidays were spent in it.
iQi6.] PURE GOLD
93
But if his shoulders ached with the swing and stroke of the pick, his
heart, as he grew older, ached sorer still— no, it burned— at sight of
his mother milking the cows, bending over the hoe, on her knees
weeding the onions, the very smell of which he hated because they
stained her hands and clothes. Many a time, just as he had done
today, he had watched his chance and slipped down to the stable
to help her — almost to quarrel with her for the chance to seize the
pail and the stool and finish the milking, over which her poor back
was breaking. How often, with tears, she would drive him away.
" Go back to your father, Davy! It'll be all right! "
This was the life the mother lived, slaving body and bones for
the husband she loved with such fidelity, for the boy she worshipped.
With her poor old head dug into the flank of the cow, and her
fingers flying at the milking, while the warm creamy stream made
foamy hollow music in the pail, she would think of that boy of hers
when he was a round, rosy baby at her breast, and her withered
body would thrill at the sweet full thought. And then she would look
up and across the yard toward the quarry, to hear the muffled blow
of his pick, to picture him fine and stalwart, toiling there, rebellious
and loyal; and a happy smile would light her face.
II.
That night Davy came into her room, when she had thought
him fast asleep long ago, and sitting down on her bed said with a
determined voice : " Mother, I've made up my mind. I can't stand
it any longer. If father would only talk to me, even!" The hot
tears scalded his eyes, and the mother's thin arms reached up from
the bed and encircled his strong neck that throbbed with choked-
up sobs.
" Why, Davy ! " she said, smiling up at him, that smile which
was for him alone, which made her a young girl again. " Now, I
am surprised at you! Don't ask father to talk — you know I've told
you he quit talking twenty years ago ! " She tried to make light of it
"Oh, I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" the boy repeated in
a burst of feeling. " I'm not going back to school. I'm going to stay
home and help you."
" Hush ! You'll wake him, Davy ! "
"Wake him! Don't worry! He's awake, out there in the shed
with his shotgun, watching that everlasting gold mine! I'm going
to stay home and help you, and I'll never lift a pick in that quarry
again ! I can't stand it ! "
" I stand it, Davy. I've stood it twenty years. Maybe I
couldn't have stood it, if you hadn't come. Oh, my big boy, if you only
knew! You're like your father was once. Don't be too hard on
94 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
him. Maybe he'll be himself again, some day. Besides," and the
tired mother lay back on her pillow, "besides we musn't talk about
it. Least said, soonest mended, Davy," she sighed.
" Oh, it's been too long mending! We've got to talk about it!
I'm going to talk about it. I've made up my mind. Gold! Why
doesn't he give up that crazy notion?"
" He can't. I've told you that. Your father was hard hit, Davy.
Think of a man whose whole life's dream was to go to California
and find gold, suddenly losing everything — everything, Davy — just
at the moment when his dream was coming true ! That was to be our
honeymoon. We had everything ready; we were starting. And
oh, Davy, your father was a grand big man then — full of hope
and cheer — he used to get up singing in the morning. Everyone
liked him ; he had a sweet good nature — like you ; yes, like you. And,
remember, everything he planned and hoped was for me, Davy —
don't forget that! And then he trusted a sharper, Ben Adams, and
gave him all his savings to buy up a claim in California. And the
very day we were going West — oh, Davy, I can't ever forget it! —
the very day we were starting out, we got news that Ben Adams,
the man we had trusted so much, had murdered his partner and got
off with every cent of our savings."
Mary Reid was sitting straight up in bed by this time, and had
caught Davy's hand in a grip that shivered with the burst of emo-
tion that overwhelmed her. Then she went on:
" Your poor father ! — your poor father changed that day. He
looked at me, Davy, oh, with such a look — it's in his eyes yet. There
was everything in it, but mostly, I think, grief and shame, to see how
our dreams were shattered forever. I begged him to believe that
it was all nothing to me, that I didn't care so long as it was not he
who was murdered — that maybe we were only given that loss to save
us from a worse loss out in the West. I had fought and fought
against his dream of a gold mine, and warned and warned him against
setting his heart on riches — I didn't want him ever to get greedy
or mean. There wasn't a mean bone in his body, Davy, but some-
how his mind was set so long on gold mining, when the shock came
he just cursed God for his luck, and swore he'd never pray again
till he'd found gold — and he's been that way ever since. He didn't
answer me that first day, he couldn't; and he just fairly quit talking
then, even to me, unless when he had to. You musn't quarrel, you
musn't excite him or blame him, Davy. It turned his head a little.
The shock was too much, and they say people like that can't ever
really get their senses back until they suffer some other shock just
as bad as the first. He'll never be the same again until he finds his
gold."
I9i6.] PURE GOLD
95
"And that'll be never ! " Davy cried.
" Yes, but I've seen him grow better at times when he thought
he'd found it."
" But he cursed God, he cursed God ! " the boy whispered to
himself.
" Don't, Davy, don't! He didn't mean it! "
" Oh, that's you, mother ! " Davy's hands smoothed her pillow
as she lay back exhausted. "You'd find an excuse anyway. But
you know what people think, and say, too, that it's nothing but greed
and selfishness."
" Davy Reid ! Don't ever say that ! Don't let anyone ever say
it ! " There was command ringing in her half -whispered words.
" Shame on people that misjudge him so ! "
" Yes, and they laugh at him, too."
"Oh, don't think of it, my boy! Let them laugh at us." How
subtly, how deftly, she changed to " us," to cover the boy with the
strong wing of her loyalty to his father. " This is our farm — as long
as we keep the interest paid on it. It's our farm, and if we want to
dig up our hillsides, it's our own business."
Perhaps Davy Reid did not fully realize the overpowering love,
the sublime nobility of his mother's loyal soul, either at that moment
or long afterward; but certain it is, he would have gone out into the
quarry the next morning not half unwillingly and with new thoughts
and a changing heart toward his father, had not this secret talk be-
tween him and his mother been at that very moment interrupted by
a step and a thud — the thud of his father's rifle-butt on the floor.
The old man, gun in hand, white haired, fully dressed, stood like an
apparition in the doorway.
Mary Reid sank back on her pillow with a look in her wan face
that flashed a sudden new intelligence to Davy's mind. In that look
he saw, for the first time, as he turned quickly to the figure in the
doorway, that his mother, under all her bravery and loyalty, was
afraid.
" Go to bed," she whispered, as the boy rose and faced his father.
" What's the matter? " Davy asked, as he stepped toward the old
man. " Is there someone in the quarry ? "
" No," his father answered. " What are you talking about? "
The mother lay still in her bed; under the sheet her hand was
pressed against her heart to still its beating. Never in years had
Davy's father come into her room, or paid any heed to their little
night-time " confabs," as they called them; never in all his life be-
fore had he asked them what they talked about.
" What are you talking about ? "
" I was telling mother — "
96 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
Mary Reid raised herself in the bed. " Davy was feeling bad,"
she began.
" He needn't feel bad — what is he feeling bad about? He doesn't
know what's good for him. He doesn't know that he's the richest —
do you hear, the richest young man in St. Croix County today, tonight,
this very jninute ! Do you hear ? " The old man strode to the window,
and threw open the heavy green shutters. " The richest — the richest!
Gold! Look there!"
Davy gave his head an angry toss ; but his mother, throwing back
the bed clothes, went to her husband — giving Davy's arm a little clutch,
half caress, half command, as she stepped across the floor in her night-
gown.
" It wasn't that, Amos, that Davy was feeling bad about," she
said placing her hand on the old man's arm. " It was the work — he
wants to stay at home from school — foolish boy ! " She flashed a
loving, a reassuring glance, at Davy.
"School? He's done with school! I've decided that." The
eyes of the old man seemed to bore through the boy as they turned
their restless gaze on him.
" Do you know what I've found ? " he went on, his voice rising
again in excitement. "I've struck that lode — there's thousands in it,
thousands. See ! " He waved his hand toward the quarry, standing
white in the moonlight.
" We'll get to work on it tomorrow. We've got it ! We've got it !"
" Father." Davy stepped between his mother and the trembling
old man ; he even set her aside, as it were, with a gesture, as he faced
the agitated figure by the window. " You heard what mother said —
that I wanted to stay out of school. I do. I'm going to. But it's
not to go digging into that quarry out there again. No, sir ! "
" What? " The old man's voice was almost a scream.
" I'm going to stay home this fall ; I'm going to help mother with
the farm."
Here she interposed. " But, Davy, Davy, you can do both ! "
" No, I can't do both. I won't do both. I'm sick of it. I won't
ever set foot in that damned quarry again ! "
" Oh, my boy ! My boy ! Amos, Amos, don't listen to him ! "
" I'm sorry, I'm sorry, mother ! " the boy cried out, " but I can't
help it. It is a damned quarry ; its the damnation of us all. I'm done
with it, done with it ! "
Old Amos Reid was shaking with a rage that flashed fire from
his wild eyes. He pounded the butt of his rifle on the floor, and
shouted at the trembling stripling before him and the frightened
woman.
" Damned ! Damned ! I'll d you ! Don't talk to me like
1916.] PURE GOLD 97
that! You'll put foot in that quarry, and you'll stay there, if I have
to tie you up, you young beggar! You'll talk to me, will you, about
what you'll do ! Damned, eh ? I've a notion to drive you off the. place
and give the whole mine to the next tramp that comes along! Fool!
You're a fool! You don't know what's good for you! There's gold
out there, riches, thousands, millions, and you'd walk over it! You'll
stay home, and you'll do as you're told ! You'll go out there now and
stay there for the night, do you hear? After this we'll keep a night
watch on the place, or we'll lose the whole thing right under our very
noses! That'll do!"
The old man turned to step toward the door; but Davy caught
him by the arm, caught him with a strength and a passion that swept
to the boy's very finger tips. " Wait ! " he dried, with an impatient
toss of his head to shake off his mother who tried to halt him.
" Wait ! You heard what I said ! " His eyes flashed fire back into
the wild fire of his father's eyes; his fingers still clutched the old
man's sleeve. " I'll never go into that quarry again! I'll stay out of
school, and I'll work the farm, but you'll never get me into that crazy
hole again ! I don't care what you do ; I'll not make a fool of myself
and mother any longer, having the whole town talk of how she drives
the team and plows and hoes — never! Never! Just to keep me at
school and humor your crazy ideas about gold mines! Gold mines!
You've spent enough on that rock pile already to keep the whole place
going. Everybody's talking about you. You're the curiosity of the
neighborhood, making mother slave like a hired man — and I wasting
my time digging in the sand for you! What do you think you'd eat
if mother didn't keep things going, I wonder? You can take your
gold mine and give it to the tramps — I wish you would! Oh, I
wish you would! I'm done with it! And so is mother here — done
with it! done with it! Drive me off! Drive me off! I can get a job
somewhere and earn enough to keep my mother alive anyway!
Oh—!"
The boy's wild vehemence ended in a cry of despair and anger,
and before it had left his lips the old man had raised his fist and
struck at his son with the fury of a maniac. But Davy was quick;
he received only a glancing blow on the forehead . as he dodged, and
as the mother sprang between the infuriated pair.
" Davy ! Davy ! " she cried. " Be quiet ! No, no ! Don't strike !
Don't raise your hand! Don't strike your father! Be quiet! Be
quiet!"
" Get out of the way! " the father shouted to her. " Get out of
the way ! " He was ready to kill, and she knew it.
" Amos ! Amos ! You never struck the boy before ! "
" No, but I should have ! I'll teach him ! " He swung the gun by
VOL. CIV. — 7
98 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
the barrel, and in his fury would have beaten open the heads of wife
and son both, had they not retreated toward the bed. Then Davy
broke- away from his mother's grasp and darted across the room, in-
stinctively aiming to lead his insane father away from his mother ; and
just as quickly the old man swung on him, and the boy only made his
escape by springing to the window sill and leaping down into the garden.
" Mother ! Mother," he cried as he disappeared, " look out ! " And at
that moment the old man fell, dizzy and exhausted, by the window, the
gun clattering over the sill into the garden.
Mary Reid was by her husband's side in an instant, raising him
up. He panted, breathless for a minute; then he turned on her that
same look which twenty years before she had seen for the first time,
and her heart melted and her fear fled.
" Davy! " she called. But at that the old man groaned. " Never!
Never again!" he cried. "Help me up!" He braced himself, one
hand on each side of the window, and there framed in the moonlight,
pallid and shaken with passion, he spoke the last words his son heard
him utter for many a day : " Go away ! Go away ! Go away ! "
The old harsh voice died out to a whimper, and the gaunt man
turned and strode out of the room, his wife following silently. She
followed him to his cot in the shed, and saw him throw himself upon
it. She watched a little while, and waited, not for a sign from him,
but for some sound of Davy's returning. No sound came. Then, in
her bare feet, her gray gold hair disheveled and falling down her
shoulders, she went out to find her boy. When she was a safe distance
from the house, peering into the moonlight and its shadows, she called
to him.
" Davy, Davy! Where are you? "
A figure rose up out of the darkness near the granary and came
out into the light.
" Oh, mother, what have I done ! " the boy cried, throwing his
arms about her. "And your poor feet walking on the rough
ground."
She took him by the hand and led him to the well, and there they
sat down in the shadow, the boy removing his coat and putting it
around her shoulder. '
" There, there, don't worry, Davy," she whispered.
" But will you come with me, mother? Will you run away with
me?"
She tried to smile. " Wouldn't that be fine ! " she said. " A boy
running away with his mother! But, oh, Davy," and her voice filled
with tears, " you shouldn't have, you shouldn't have ! "
" I couldn't help it. He made me. It's done now. I'm going
away. I've got to go away."
1916.] PURE GOLD
99
To his surprise, his mother did not remonstrate. "Yes," she
answered. " For a little while ; I think it would be best."
" But you, mother ! Oh, the minute I left your side I was sorry.
I did it to get him after me. But I can't leave you."
" Foolish boy," was her soft response. " Now listen ! Never for
one minute, for one minute, do you hear, worry or fret about me. I
am all right. I am the only one who can manage your father. He will
be quiet now for a long time, unless something else happens to excite
him. That's why you'd better go away awhile."
" Such a mother ! " The boy seized her hands and covered them
with kisses. " Such a brave and patient and wise mother o' mine ! "
It was these sweetheart ways of her big boy that kept her spirit young,
and the fountain of youth in her heart as clear and deep as the well-
spring by which they sat there in the moonlight, clear and deep and
placid, be her old body as toil-worn and racked as it might.
" I've got it all planned out already," she said. " Trust me for
a schemer! You sleep up in the hay loft tonight, and early in the
morning I'll bring you your grip and things. Then you go into
town, and go to Mrs. Riddle's and stay there and go to school."
" No, I can't do it ! " There was no mistaking the boy's de-
termination. " I won't go to school, living easy at a boarding house
and you slaving here. I won't do it."
" Then you must take the morning train down to Riverfalls and
stay there. I have money enough."
" I'll go to Riverfalls, but I won't go to school. I'll go to work.
Listen!"
There was the sound of a footstep in the house, and the boy
and his mother became rigid in their listening. Then, after a second's
pause, " Stay here on this side of the well," she whispered, slipping
the coat off her shoulders, "and when you hear me close the door,
run over to the barn." She rose, and stooping down, let him kiss
her good-night, his lips on her soft old faded cheek, just as if she were
bending over his bed, and then she went back to the house.
The old man was at the door, and, as she came up, he set his
eyes on her in that searching way she knew so well. But she took
his arm with a firm hold and closed the door behind them ; and with-
out a word he went back to his room. And she returned to hers.
When she pushed back one of the shutters at which Davy had caught
in his jump through the window, to make more light now in the room
for the work of gathering up and packing the boy's belongings, which
were mostly kept in her closet, she paused a moment and looked out,
her hands clasped in prayer, the moonlight falling on her face. It was
an old and faded face, and her eyes were sunken and hollow and filled
with tears. But hope and courage were shining in them, too.
ioo PURE GOLD [Oct.,
III.
Davy was eighteen when he left home.
In the next two years things went on with Amos Reid about as
usual, while Mary worked harder than ever. She received letters every
week, and even oftener, from the boy. He had gone to the southern
part of the state and secured a position in a grain elevator; he was
earning a dollar and a quarter a day and sent his mother two dollars
and a half each week — sometimes more. This, he wrote her over and
over again, was to help pay for a kitchen girl, or the hired man ; or,
quite often, it was to buy her some dainty to wear or to eat. He was
a faithful lover to his " old sweetheart," and he never could guess
what sweetness and light his letters and his devotion brought into his
mother's life. But she gave none of his money to kitchen girls or
hired men, nor bought dainties to eat or wear. She put the money
safely away and added to it — egg-money, garden-money, calf -money,
every old cent she could scrape together or spare. It was her great,
sweet secret. The boy would some day have enough to go to col-
lege— that was her dream.
Since that early dawn of his departure, when she had bade him
good-bye with many kisses and not a tear, he had not returned ; first
because she would not have it — " Wait," she would write, " I know
best ; " and then, because his work would not permit it. But always
his letters were full of the glad day when he would see her again.
Old Amos Reid knew nothing of these letters. Mary had quickly
learned that it was useless to talk about them. He paid no heed. More
than ever he was wholly entirely absorbed in the quarry. He had sold
a few loads of rock ; he had found a- dozen new " leads," and sunk
shafts and gathered specimens ; he dug and delved day and night — if
the night were bright enough.
He talked as little as ever to wife or neighbor. But one day,
late in the afternoon, while Mary was filling the calf-troughs and
teaching one fawn-eyed youngster of her stockyard to drink out of a
pail, by dipping her fingers into the milk and giving them to the little
hungry bunting calf to suck, old Amos came striding over to her, and,
waiting impatiently for her to finish her task, beckoned her to come
with him. She set the pail down by the well-box and wiping her
hands in her apron, followed him.
Mary Reid did not go into the quarry much; in fact many a
stranger or passer-by, stopping to see it, could have boasted of more
knowledge of Amos Reid's gold mine than could his wife. But if its
diggings and cuttings were only half familiar to her eyes, the pick and
shovel that had made them had nevertheless dug and chopped into her
life and heart. This is what she was thinking as she followed her
1916.] PURE GOLD
101
husband up the boards, stepping around a wheelbarrow that stood on
the gangway, and entered a cave that had been newly excavated. At
its dark end were the stakes and boards of a shaft.
The old man, as agile and quick as ever, and now fired with a
renewed energy and eagerness, climbed over the shaft and went down
the ladder that was nailed to its side. Mary leaned over and watched
him. The shaft was not deep, and in a minute he was standing in its
bottom, his feet straddling a stream that trickled through, and had
lighted a lantern — an old dark-lantern it was, that had been his guide
for years; it was indeed a relic of the wreck of his fortune and his
hopes of long ago, a lantern that he had bought with much pride and
high hopes in the days that he had dreamed of gold-mining in Cali-
fornia.
The lantern lit, he threw the light around on the rocky enclosure.
Mary could see the old white head bent down to scrutinize the walls,
and a little thrill of pity and tenderness swept through her and filled
her faithful old eyes. " Dear God, if it could be ! " she whispered, in
the ardor of her loving heart, and gasped at herself in the same moment
for daring even to think of hope.
" Hah ! " came the exultant cry of the old man, and he thrust
the lantern closer to the rock. " There it is ! See ? " He looked up
at his wife, and suddenly seizing the little hand pick that lay at his
feet, began to beat away at the rock. She could see nothing but the
wavering, moving light as it shifted about in his left hand, while he
hacked away with his right. In a minute he had chopped out what he
wanted, and started up the ladder. Why did her heart begin to beat
so fast? Had she not been fooled over and over again, until her mind
was dead to this foolish hope of gold ?
Amos clambered out of the shaft, and pushing Mary ahead of
him out to the entrance of the cave, followed her into the light. Then
he caught at her sleeve, and with trembling hands gave her the lump
of rock which he had brought up from the underground. He said
nothing for a moment and she was as silent as he — and almost as
much excited ; for again, after a lapse of many years, he had strangely
and suddenly communicated to her something of the trembling fires
that fumed in his unsatisfied spirit.
" There it is! Pure gold! " he whispered at last, and Mary saw
it — gold, pure gold it seemed, glittering there in its dull bed, rich and
opulent in its terrible promise.
"Oh, Amos!" she gasped. Was it true, after all? Her head
swam, and she sat down on the wheelbarrow to regain her composure.
" There it is ! " was all he could say. Her eyes suddenly filled
with tears, and she looked up at him with a trembling lip. And with
that glance the poor old man before her fell on his knees, and bury-
102 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
ing his face in her lap, sobbed out, over and over again, " There it is !
There it is!"
Tears streamed down Mary Reid's wrinkled face, as she clasped
her old husband's head; tears of joy — but, oh, not for the love of
gold, but for the love of his dear old heart, which seemed again,
for that heavenly moment, to be beating up to hers with life and
strength unclouded by any foolish dream.
" Oh, Amos, Amos, dear Amos, don't be too sure ! Don't be too
sure ! " was all that she could say, all the love of her soul crying out
in the warning; for it was he whom she wanted back, not riches nor
gold ; and if this was only another empty hope, then she knew he would
be more than ever lost to her in the cloud of his fanatic dream.
IV.
" The sample of rock is a close-grained, plagioclase, feldspar,
augite rock, probably diabase, carrying a vein of some geolite mineral,
possibly Thomsonite, in which is embedded the copper pyrite or chal-
copyrite — one of the forms of 'fool's gold' which sometimes carries gold,
but in all likelihood there is no warrant for putting any value on it."
That was the verdict a week afterward. In that interval Mary
had swung on the pendulum of hope so many times that by the day the
assay was delivered, she had almost regained her old composure, and
the fatal decision made only a dull pain in her heart. All her thought
and all her anxiety was for Amos. She watched him with a sharp
and searching eye. But what did he do? Not storm, nor rave; only
took the assayer's letter over to the cupboard, folded it and put it
away. " We'll show them ! " was all he said. Then he went back to
his digging, and that night brought a whole wheelbarrow full of the
precious rock up to the house.
" The cellar," he said to Mary, in his dogged and laconic way,
and forthwith opened a trap door on the outside of the house, and
carried the rock, armful after armful, into the basement.
He began now to stay up all night, or a good part of it, to guard his
treasure ; sometimes even remaining out in the quarry, but more often
seated by the window of his sleeping shed, his gun resting on the sill.
Mary would beg him to go to bed, but he was obdurate. He must get
someone to help him, she said ; he must sell some more quarry stone —
Andersons had been after a load only a day or so before. He could not
keep up this daytime digging and nighttime vigil. It would kill him.
"Whom can I trust ? Whom can I trust ?" That was the question
that bothered him. He had grown suspicious of everyone; visitors
to the quarry he would no longer permit. His gun was always handy,
and the countryside grew afraid of him. His name was bugaboo for
1916.] PURE GOLD
103
naughty children. " I'll give you to Old Man Reid! " was the threat
of foolish mothers to the naughty young ones. And the young ones
who had deviltry enough in them to dare, would sometimes lead their
trembling playmates to the edge of the quarry and .roll stones down
to torment the old man, who gave them hate in exchange for their
terror or their temerity. But such tricks were never played while
Mrs. Reid was in sight. The youngsters were not afraid of her;
rather, they liked her. She had even given them rides on the reaper,
and had let them into the yard to see her peacocks " spread their
tails." She kept the peacocks because they cleaned the potato patch
of bugs. Their melancholy cry at dusk, when they were " calling for
rain," as she put it, sometimes touched her for a moment with sadness.
But not for long; she had no time for sadness.
The letters she received from Davy were her food and drink.
In midsummer she began to plan what her Christmas gift to him would
be. It was always a book. To keep him interested in schooling and
hopeful always of college was her great aim. She used to be afraid
that he would get weaned away from that idea, and settle into the
rut of everyday work. And her son must be a scholar! Her food
and drink these letters were, indeed. She spent all her spare time
writing to him, and he used to marvel at the pages she could fill, of
the most compelling interest, telling of the farm, the chickens, the
stock, with often a pleasant little reminiscence of her girlhood days
woven into the chronicle : " Bunty, the new calf, has four white spots
on his red coat, exactly like the little calf your grandfather gave me
on my sixth birthday. I never can forget that darling, foolish little
stumbling creature! I always had a feeling that I couldn't love her
really until I had picked her up in my arms. Imagine your old mammy
a little six-year old girl carrying a fat stiff-legged calf around in her
arms ! " What boy with even half or a quarter of the fine spirit
Mary Reid's son had inherited from her could fail to respond to the
charm of those letters of hers, interesting, "newsy" as he always
called them, and, without speaking the word, breathing in every line
the most tender and enfolding love? She used to plan those let-
ters deliberately — sentence after sentence; not a word in them but
was a prayer and a caress. And the exquisite care put into them was
all designed to teach him, silently, out of the lore of her own school-
ma'am days. In the long ago she had dreamed of how she would her-
self teach and train her boy, and it was thus she realized her dream.
One day, on hands and knees in the onion patch and raising her
head to rest her weary back just a moment, while her mind was
" writing to Davy," at full speed, she spied a man going in toward the
house from the road. " He looks like a tramp," she said to herself as
she got stiffly up and made her way across the garden. " He is a
104 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
tramp," she concluded as she neared him. " Well, there's not a woman
in the township who doesn't believe that her own individual door-
post is specially marked by those undesirables — but maybe he's hungry,
or thirsty; and I'd rather have him drink his fill of God's brew from
the bottom of our well than go into town and drink whisky."
By this time the tramp had his hat off. He was respectful, and
had manners ; but what a woeful specimen of humanity he was ! Old,
in the first place; bald-headed, with a fringe of white straggly hair;
with eyes wasted and bleared; a frame gaunt with the marks of
disease or dissipation, or both, and the look of a hunted rabbit on him.
He wanted something to eat; and Mary, with a sigh for her
unfinished job in the onion bed, listened a moment to his protesta-
tions of willingness to work, and then bade him sit on the porch
while she prepared him something. Very hot and weary he sat there.
There was nothing whatever of the tough bravado of the everyday
tramp about him. He was worn to meekness. He was old.
When Mary came out from the pantry with " the usual ! " — as she
called it — bread and molasses — " it goes good with a cup of cold
milk " — she saw her husband coming toward the house, his gun in
his hand. The tramp saw him, too — saw the gun — and his look of
a rabbit run to ground grew more pitiable as he rose and stretched
out a furtive hand to take the food Mary offered him. " You must
be thirsty, too," she said. " I'll get you some milk."
She kept her big milk cans half-submerged in the water-trough
on the shady side of the well. She was " into the can," as they say
on the farm, dipping for a cup of the cool milk, when Amos stepped
up. He paused at the well, and regarded the stranger with that queer
look of his which so disconcerted people — stared at him till the
wanderer was afraid to swallow — till the milk Mary handed him,
spilling in his shaky hand, went down his throat — a great relief.
Something in Mary's heart stirred to pity for this poor tramp,
so much older than the usual hobo, as she gave Amos a glance, and
then reached for the cup to get the beggar a second drink. As she
gave it to him she said reassuringly:
" You can rest here a while if you like."
" This man wants work," she said to Amos. " I think I'll put
him at those onions."
The husband made no response. She gave him a sharp glance;
what was in his head now? There was such a queer dilating of his
eyes as he stared on at the stranger.
" I'd be thankful for the work, ma'm," said the tramp, " but
maybe I'd better go on."
" You can come with me," said Amos. Mary looked at him,
wondering for a flash of thought if it really could be that he was driving
1916.] PURE GOLD
105
the old wanderer away? But no; Amos had started for the quarry,
and the tramp was questioning her with his driven look.
" He'll show you what you're to do," said Mary. " I'm afraid
you couldn't stand the sun in the onion bed today, anyway."
But a minute later she was back at the onions herself.
Evidently Amos intended to keep the wanderer, for he appeared
with him at supper time; and then the worn old creature, still with
his driven look, offered to help Mary at the feeding of the calves. He
was plainly grateful to her, if just as plainly in fear of her husband.
Mary felt sure he wanted to get away — to run, if he dared.
After supper Amos signed to the man to sit down out on the
porch. After ten minutes of uneasiness he was on his feet again.
" I'm afraid I'll have to be going," he said.
" Wait," said old Amos Reid, with a ring in his voice that was
compelling; he had not taken his eye off the stranger for a moment,
and now his tone was commanding. " You'd better stay here. We can
put you up." And the tramp subsided.
At dark, Amos took the man through the kitchen, where Mary
was at the dishes, and showed him where he was to sleep. Mary
paid no heed to that. She was glad that the poor old creature
was to have a bed for -the night. But a moment later she heard
the door being closed slowly and carefully, then the turn of a lock,
and glancing over her shoulder saw Amos standing, his back to the
door, the key in his hand, and he fairly panted with agitation.
"What's the trouble?" she asked.
He lifted his finger to command silence, then tiptoed toward her,
took her arm, and led her out on to the porch. Once out of hearing
of the inner room, he spoke:
" Do you know who that is? "
"Who— the tramp?"
" Do you know who it is ? "
" No, Amos, no." She had placed her hand on his blue flannel
sleeve to calm him. She could not make out his mood.
"You don't know ! You don't know !" he whispered. "It's Adams,
Adams, Ben Adams ! Yes, it is ! Yes, it is ! "
" Oh, no! no! " Mary protested. She began to tremble for fear
of the horrible agitation that was rocking the very being of her old
husband. She saw she knew not what new terrors leaping up before
her and around her.
"Yes, it is! Yes, it is! I've got him! He doesn't know! But
I knew— the minute I saw him, I knew. I took him over to the
mine and got him to talking. I found out quick enough. It's Adams !
It's Adams! The thief, and murderer, the man who ruined me! I've
got him ! I've got him ! "
io6 PURE GOLD [Oct.,
" Amos ! Amos ! Be sure ! " Her only way was to gain time, to
humor him, to let him think she was one with him in whatever plan
he was scheming. " What are you going to do? "
" What am I going tQ do?" He lifted his clenched fist into the
darkness, then suddenly looked down at her. " I won't kill him," he
said quietly. " I won't rob him, or lie to him. But I'll make him pay
back every cent he took from me — every cent of it."
" Pay back? How can you? "
" At two dollars a day, working out there in the rock, until every
cent is paid, every cent. I've got him! He'll dig for me and pick
out gold for me until his fingers are worn off. He'll shovel and slop
in that sand and mud, and he'll bake out there in the sun, and hand
up riches to me until his back breaks, but he'll pay me back every cent.
Two dollars a day ! Ha ! He came the wrong road this time ! "
He turned back to go into the house. Mary placed a detaining
hand on him. " Be sure, Amos, be sure ! "
" Sure? I'm sure! I know; and what's more he'll tell me him-
self in a minute. I've got him ! He can't get away, because I know !
He can take his pick — he can stay here and work, or he can leave —
and hang! For he's a murderer as well as a thief . I've got him! And
look here — " He halted a moment to warn -her with grim suspicion:
" You're to say nothing to him, nor help him."
" Oh, Amos, how could you ! " she cried. She followed him
back into the house, and to the door of the tramp's room.
Amos had taken up his gun at the porch door. " If he tries to get
away I'll shoot him," he said; and as he entered the tramp's room
Mary caught a glimpse of the worn old head of the wanderer lifting
itself up in fear from the pillow. Then the door was closed and locked.
With a wild heart and drumming ears she listened at the door
of the little room, and always the same sound greeted her — Amos'
steady voice pouring out its awful sentences on the wretch whom
her imagination pictured as cowering under the blows of words that
beat him down and down. Once she heard his pitiful " No, no! " and
there was whining and whimpering; and at last she ran from the
door with the sobbing of despair and terror ringing in her ears.
The weird bargain was made that night. Mary scarcely slept,
and in the morning she was worn out. She got breakfast, and Amos
went to the door of the little room and unlocked it, and opened it.
She could not lift her eyes to look upon the humiliation of the
wretched creature who slunk out and took the place given him at the
table. That night Mary wrote the story of the tramp to Davy, and
for the first time her letter had lost its old-time spirit and joy. She
was breaking down. She was afraid as she never had been before.
[TO BE CONCLUDED.]
Bew Books.
A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT AND OTHER ES-
SAYS. By Sir Bertram C. A. Windle, President of University
College, Cork. London: Burns & Gates. $1.25 net.
That the benefits of this book might be extended to the largest
number possible, it is to be wished that its title were more fully
indicative of its general significance and the breadth of its appeal;
for though it is addressed to Catholics specifically, its import is for
all believers in a Divine Creator, especially those whose peace of
mind has been disturbed by apparent conflict between the facts of
science and the teachings of religion.
The author's achievement is twofold : he sets forth some con-
clusively established, as distinguished from the still debatable, de-
ductions of science concerning the subjects wherein seeming dis-
crepancy was found ; and through these he demonstrates the illusory
and transient character of any antagonism between science and faith
in revelation, such as many believed, and some still believe, to have
been irrevocably established in the middle of the last century.
The workaday layman, though of the class described by Sir
Bertram as "those who, without laying any claim to the title of
learned, extend their reading beyond the limits of current fiction,"
is unable to accomplish the systematic reading requisite for more
than a fragmentary knowledge of scientific activities. He cannot
assure himself that he knows the last word upon any of them:
therefore, a mere statement of results would be of value to him,
provided it were authoritative beyond question. The present work
provides not only this, but also expositions of the various theories
and investigations, so concise and lucid that the reader is enabled
to form a full, coherent concept of each subject. Some of the
fruits of recent research in anthropology and ethnology are in-
cluded, and the whole is presented in a manner that has an indi-
viduality of great charm. It is a blend of gracious courtesy, with
mastery of each subject, that fascinates the reader, and gives him
confidence as he follows the brilliant and delightful text wherein
the author, with a tact that is unblemished by any touch of conde-
scension, interprets to his uninitiated audience the recondite work-
ings and judgments of science. More important than all is, of
io8 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
course, the golden cord of thought that unites the essays into a com-
munication of cheer. They are a stimulant and an inspiration —
the call of ,a leader that speeds the Christian on his way rejoicing.
Sir Bertram pays tribute where tribute is due; with Christian
charity he prescinds from passing personal judgment. It is with
perfect calmness that he deprecates the habit of scientists of treating
each new theory as if it were fact; and he tranquilly points out
the total failure of science to fulfill the expectations once held that
it would shortly explain everything; the retreat before advancing
knowledge of the very theories that caused a large part of the
advance ; and the consequent change in scientific opinion during the
last twenty-five years " away from the materialistic pole and to-
wards its antipodes — the old explanations of Christian philosophy."
Of all its profound and illuminating content, the average reader
will probably revert most often to the title-essay, which reviews in
a surpassing way the upheaval caused by the publication of The
Origin of Species and the reaction of today. For in his daily life
the average man recurrently confronts a residuum of the Darwinian
controversy, the deeply-rooted idea that science has made religion
impossible for any reasonable person. There are few laymen so
fortunate as to be unacquainted with the air of detached wonder
that meets a confession of faith as if it were some queer survival, the
more or less discreet allusions to temperamental bias, superstitions
learned in childhood, and so forth. Though his faith be unaffected,
his happiness is not; for, to him, this argument is practically un-
answerable in terms that will be either understood or respected. The
desultory reading that is all he can compass contains no general
recognition of the change of which the author speaks : he is reduced
to silence, knowing that it will be taken as admission of defeat. He
is now furnished with an answer and a weapon.
It is a book for Catholics to urge upon the attention of their
Non-Catholic acquaintances, without reserve or misgiving, for its
urbane spirit precludes anything that could wound the believer out-
side the Church.
Nevertheless, inclusive as is its call, there is a special and more
intimate word for the household of that Faith which has been
maintained without change or diminution during darkened years
when to some there seemed little ground for hope that the future
held in store any message such as this, which approaches being a
translation by science into its own idiom of: " trust God; see all,
nor be afraid."
NEW BOOKS IO9
ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA: HER LIFE AND TIMES. By C.
M. Antony. St. Louis : B. Herder. $1.80 net.
Miss Antony assures us that in writing this new life of St.
Catherine she had no idea of superseding the masterly biographies
of Mother Frances Drane or of Mr. Edmund Gardner. She wished
solely to present, " as simply and intelligently as possible, with as
little historical elaboration as may be, the life of the great Do-
minican Tertiary mystic of the Quattrocento, who was at the same
time one of the most important political figures of the day, in such a
way that no one aspect of her career obscures another."
The author has based her work upon the Legenda of Fra
Raimondo da Capua, St. Catherine's confessor and biographer;
on the Processus of Venice held in 1411; on the letters of
the Saint, nearly four hundred of which have been preserved;
and on the Dialogue the Saint dictated to her secretaries in
1378.
St. Catherine, one of the Church's greatest mystics, was at the
same time the most practical of women. She wrote one of the
most sublime treatises on the mystical life that we possess, and at
the same time we find her traveling on embassies to Pisa, Florence
and Avignon, and writing lectures of advice to princes and to
Popes. A most humble soul ever at home among the people from
whom she sprang, she wrote strong words denouncing the crimes
of the Pope's legates in Italy, and the unfaithfulness of many of
the priests and bishops of the period. Untaught in the schools she
wrote the purest Tuscan on the most hidden things of God; modest
and retiring, she easily brought the proudest and most impenitent
sinners to their knees; utterly detached from the world, she made
countless friends of both married and unmarried men, instructing
them day by day in the path of perfection; ever physically weak
on account of continual sickness and her most extraordinary aus-
terities, she was at all times alert for any mission of charity — be it
the casting out of an evil spirit, the raising of the dead to life, the
settling of a family feud, or the calling back of a Gregory XL from
Avignon to Rome.
Miss Antony makes St. Catherine live again in these charming
pages. She draws a most winning portrait of one of the most
strong, tender, sensitive, humble, simple, and loving saints that
Christianity ever produced. We are certain that many a Non-
Catholic would be won to the Church by reading the wonderful story
of Catherine Benincasa.
i io NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
LOUISE AND BARNAVAUX. By Pierre Mille. New York:
John Lane Co. $1.25 net.
This, the most recent volume of M. Mille's stories of the
French soldier, is the expression in literature of the tendency now
abroad among the arts to emphasize unduly the uglinesses in life.
These tales are not of action at the front, or of life in barracks.
They are, presumably, interpretations of the common soldier of
France through the personality of Barnavaux, a French Mulvaney.
As thus shown, he has the virtues of his calling, and he is not wholly
incapable of affection nor of ideals of loyalty and service; but he
is utterly without reverence, brutally cynical, and given over to
licentiousness without restraint. He is a distressing figure and,
naturally, the scenes and characters to which we are introduced
through him are too frequently shocking and repulsive, though it
must be said, in fairness, that the tone is robust, and has none of
the subtle perniciousness conspicuous in French fiction until of late.
If the soldier in the ranks is true to this type, and if it is in
the name and interests of truth that the type is exhibited, we may
enter a protest in demanding that at least a glimpse be given of
the picture on the other side of the shield, the type which has been
made familiar to us through the testimony of many actual witnesses
— the soldier responsive to the spiritual awakening that works like
leaven through the armies of regenerate France. Without this, the
truth is but half represented even when it is not, as in this instance,
put forth in a form having so many objectionable features that it
is unacceptable for Catholic reading, and cannot but be distasteful
to any normally sensitive reader.
THE NEST-BUILDER. By Beatrice Forbes-Roberston Hale. New
York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. $1.35 net.
The absence of woman suffrage propaganda in this novel by
a popular leader of " the Cause " will possibly disappoint some
readers, but is to the advantage of those who read fiction solely for
entertainment. Although the latter quality is present in good meas-
ure, some weightier motive for the work will inevitably be assigned
to Mrs. Hale. It may be that they are not far wrong who construe
it as a definite reply to the charge sometimes preferred against the
suffrage and feminist movements, that they militate against- the
welfare and preservation of the home. Such a charge is in measure
justified by the intemperate language spoken and written by some
of their adherents.
1916.] NEW BOOKS
in
The author has excluded all such extravagances from her book,
which contains, indeed, nothing revolutionary or even strikingly
new. She tells the history of the courtship and the married life
of Mary Elliston and Stefan Byrd, accentuating through various
scenes and incidents the fundamental differences of temperament
between the woman who regards it, as her highest and most joyful
privilege to establish a home where she will bear and rear children,
and the man who wearies of the home, its duties and restraints, and
selfishly forsakes it, eventually sinning against it. The heroine is
represented as a woman of the modern type, a suffragist and fem-
inist, looking forward at the beginning of the story to earning her
own living in preference to being supported in idleness at home,
yet gladly yielding supremacy to the primal, enduring instincts of
maternity and domesticity. " The eternal triangle " figures once
more, and prominently, though it is introduced only to develop the
theme, and to throw into sharper contrast Mary's steadfast devotion
to the home she preserves.
The book, though not memorable, holds the attention. There
are some clever vignettes of character, and what Mrs. Hale has to
say she says in fluent, nervous English, with considerable wit : such
crudities as exist are of thought, not expression. The general
morale is healthful, but wholly secular and sophisticated; and
discrimination is called for in distribution of the novel, for at
several points the author's judgment — though never her intention —
is in error.
A MORE EXCELLENT WAY. By Felicia Curtis. St. Louis : B.
Herder. $i.6onet.
The scene of this novel for girls is laid in England in the
year 1850-51, and depicts the bitter anti-Catholic feeling that ob-
tained with special intensity at that period. The central theme is
the conversion of Victoria Brent, daughter of a furiously Protestant
father, as a result of her being, for the first time, brought into
neighborly relations with a devout and heroically loyal Catholic
household. Love develops between Victoria and Denis Fitzgerald,
son of the Catholic house.
Victoria, however, realizes that both she and he are called to
a higher form of service to God than the life of the Catholic family,
and the lovers separate to enter the " more excellent way " of the
cloisters. The story is replete with incident, and moves swiftly,
too rapidly, indeed, to give to the conversion the analysis necessary
ii2 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
to make it more than a mere record of cause and effect. It is told
with much animation, however, and will doubtless be well liked by
the young readers for whom it is designed.
THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA. By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. 75 cents.
This short story is an accession to the output of small gift
books customary at this time of year. It is the tale of a miracle
performed by the infant Redeemer on the morning after the Na-
tivity. Upon the young lad, Zia, deformed, unloved and ill-treated,
falls the awful doom of leprosy. Outcast and despairing, he
wanders to Bethlehem, where he sees the entrance of the Blessed
Virgin and St. Joseph, whom he follows to the cave wherein is the
manger. He lies all night upon the ground outside bathed in a
mystic light. At early dawn, the door of the cave is opened, and
Our Lady summons him to the manger whence the light radiates.
He kneels by the side of the Child, and the hand of the new-born
King bestows upon him a royal gift of healing and strength and
beauty.
It is an ambitious task that the author has set herself. She
fulfills it creditably, at least with earnestness and tenderness. Her
treatment is not entirely in consonance with Catholic tradition
and sentiment, but there is no actual irreverence, even unintentional.
The little volume is attractively illustrated.
THE LIFE OF KING JOHN SOBIESKI, JOHN THE THIRD, OF
POLAND. By Count John Sobieski. Boston: Richard G.
Badger.
Surely the valiant Sobieski deserved a better fate than to have
fallen into the hands of such a biographer. It reminds one of
" Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark," for Sobieski without
his Christianity, his crusading spirit, his enthusiasm, his magnetism
is not Sobieski the bulwark of Christendom, as we have been
used to regard him. Why the writer should have elected to write
of him is not apparent; his only qualification for the task would
seem to be a love for Poland; he is out of sympathy with his
hero in both religion and politics ; he sneers alike at bishops, priests,
monks, and at kings and rulers. His hostility to Catholicism and
all connected therewith he is at no pains to conceal. " The least
valuable portion of the spoil was a number of monks," is one of
his sentiments. " The Turks were to be dreaded .only as civilized
NEW BOOKS II3
warriors," reads like irony in face of the Armenian atrocities, and
similar atrocities in the past. Again we find : " His " (Sobies'ki's)
"cruelty to the Turks after a victory, must be attributed to a
remnant of the crusading spirit, which upon these occasions, and
these only, soured the natural humanity of his temper, which was
not sufficiently matured by philosophy;" italics ours.
Again and again, we have asked ourselves : " Is this a trans-
lation?'3 The English is extremely trying to read: the construc-
tion of the sentences in many cases, would be a disgrace to a school-
boy; capitals and nominatives are occasionally scattered ad lib.
over the pages.
In places, the author speaks as if he were a citizen of the
United States, yet he uses a title. One Encyclopedia states that
the King's family is now extinct.
MARIE OF THE HOUSE D'ANTERS. By Rev. Michael Earls,
S.J. New York: Benziger Brothers. $1.35 net.
We have all heard of mute inglorious Miltons and of Crom-
wells who, while possessing the talents of the original, were innocent
of the accompanying tyranny and bloodguiltiness : but no poet has
sung of woman's potentialities in conditions wider than her ordinary
sphere. Far from us be the suspicion that such are not to be
found; indeed we suspect that feminine talent is so abundant as
to cease to be remarkable. If, however, anyone has ever doubted
this proposition, let him forthwith make the acquaintance of Ma-
dame la Marquise d'Anters, known in her native Jersey as Susan
Harrington, the lady of Ben Harrington, who in Paris is the Mar-
quis d'Anters, Such heartiness and simplicity, such unspoiled
good nature, such genius for managing others, merit the celebration
of her praises by a poet. Swiftness of motion is here reduced to
a fine art, and we rush breathless from continent to continent in
the development of an interesting plot. Incident rather than char-
acterization is its chief merit, but one grows just a little weary of
" the book that was to be, but never achieved being." This, of
course, is the motif of the story, but we think it a trifle too much
in evidence.
ONLY ANNE. By Isabel C Clark. New York: Benziger
Brothers. $1.35 net.
The self-sacrificing devotedness of man for man, is a theme
with which we are fairly familiar, but here we have an admirable
VOL. civ.— 8
ii4 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
story of a woman whose one desire is to win for her friend,
Myrtle, Lady Chardford, the happiness which she herself sacri-
fices. The object of devotedness in this instance does not strike
the reader as particularly worthy of it ; and that impression lessens
the convincing power of the story. Lady Chardford had made
her own mistake in life, but had the grace to pay the penalty with
sufficient dignity, to the doing of which, however, Anne effectively
contributed at a cost that Myrtle never fully knew. Some of the
minor characters are particularly well drawn. We smile over Mrs.
Grayle and Vincent Travers, Senior, well able to identify their type
among our own acquaintances.
The author's style is pleasing and refined: she has added to
her growing list another charming volume.
THE WAYSIDE. A Priest's Gleanings. By Rev. Vincent Mc-
Nabb, O.P. New York: Benziger Brothers. $1.00 net.
These charming essays are joined together, as the author tells
us, merely by a unity of principle and of motive. He himself styles
them " sketches made by an onlooker with the hands and eyes of
faith. They find in the Incarnation the key to history, psychology,
political economy, literature, art." They give us impressions of
pagan and Christian Rome, they discuss the question of miracles,
and estimate the worth of Harnack's historical method ; they speak
of the Church's riches of ritual, and of St. Thomas Aquinas as a
controversialist, picture the heroism and patience of the poor, and
describe the death of children's games — but no matter what the
theme, Father McNabb enlivens it with an originality and sug-
gestiveness all his own.
PAUL MARY PAKENHAM, PASSIONIST. By Rev. J. Smith,
C.P. St. Louis: B. Herder. 50 cents net.
Most of us are familiar with many names of those whom the
Oxford Movement led into the Church. But the subject of this
memoir will hardly be familiar to the majority of our readers.
The Honorable Charles Reginald Pakenham, Captain to the First
Battalion of Grenadier Guards, was a convert in 1850 of the Oxford
Movement. Born in 1821, fourth son of the Earl of Longford,
and nephew of the Duke of Wellington, his was the path of most
of the chosen souls of the period with its anxieties and struggles.
Cardinal Wiseman received him into the Church, and in less than
a year Captain Pakenham had entered the Passionist novitiate.
1916.] NEW BOOKS II5
" For goodness' sake, Charles," one of his sisters had advised, " get
married as soon as you can, or you will end by becoming a monk."
Her fears were fulfilled. But the Iron Duke displayed more dis-
cernment, when, after remonstrating as all his friends did, he
bluntly concluded : " Well, you have been a good soldier, Charles ;
strive to be a good monk." Needless to say, his nephew labored
at this with all his strength. Brother Paul Mary, as he was hence-
forth known, was destined by Divine Providence to introduce the
Congregation of the Passionists into Ireland. Barely was this as-
sured, when his labors were cut short — March, 1857, saw m*s en-
trance into a better life, but he had planted the tree, and its planting
was the work of a saint.
A RETROSPECT. Three Score Years and Ten of the Sisters,
Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. By a Member of
the Congregation. New York: Benziger Brothers. $1.00 net.
This well- written volume relates the history of the Sisters,
Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary from their founda-
tion by Rev. Florent Gilet, C.SS.R., in 1845 a* Monroe, Michigan.
Special chapters are devoted to the spirit and aims of the In-
stitute, its pioneer days, its founder, its friends and benefactors ; its
growth and development in various parts of the United States, and
its approval by the Bishops of Detroit and by the Holy See. As
Bishop Kelly well says in his introduction : " No history of educa-
tional work in Michigan could afford to leave out of account a
generous contribution to, and acknowledgment of, the great work
done by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary."
DEMOCRACY OR DESPOTISM. By Walter T. Mills. Berkeley,
Cal. : The International School of Social Economy.
Mr. Mills maintains that the United States is a political
despotism ruled by the great monopolized industries, and that
every citizen ought to aim at establishing a real industrial democ-
racy in its stead. The writer is evidently sincere in pointing out
some of the evils incident to modern democracy, but the changes
he calls for in the Constitution of the United States would amend
it out of existence. His remedy for the money domination of the
great trusts in our political life is more democracy. He would
elect the President, the Senate, the Justice of the Supreme Court
by popular vote; make the initiative, the referendum and the
recall obligatory in every State; abolish the present political par-
ii6 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
ties which are controlled solely by private interests, and organize
a labor party which would prepare the way for the industrial
state.
The book is superficial, and a rather wordy indictment of the
government of the United States, and a confused mixture of pol-
itics, political economy, sociology, law and ethics by one who has
failed to master principles of these sciences.
INTERNATIONAL FINANCE. By Hartley Withers. New York:
E. P. Button & Co. $1.25 net.
Now that the war in Europe has made us international money
lenders on a great scale — our favorable trade balance is over
$3,000,000,000 — Americans ought to be interested in reading about
the machinery of money-lending among the nations, as it has been
practised by the investors and financiers of the old world. They
could not have a better instructor than Mr. Withers. He was for
many years the financial editor of the London Times, and has
recently been the adviser of the British Treasury. In clear and
simple language he writes of the nature of capital, the machinery
of banking, the nature of investments and securities, the connection
of finance with foreign trade, diplomacy and war, and the benefits
and evils of international finance.
THE HUMAN WORTH OF RIGOROUS THINKING. By Cassius
J. Keyser, Ph.D. New York: Columbia University Press.
$175-
The fifteen essays of this scholarly volume have appeared
in the course of the last fifteen years in various American journals
such as the Columbia University Quarterly, Science, The Educa-
tional Review and The Bookman. In this entertaining volume
Dr. Keyser, Adrian Professor of Mathematics at Columbia Uni-
versity, discusses the nature and value of mathematics, its history,
its modern developments, and the proper methods of teaching,
mathematical productivity in the United States.
GOOD ENGLISH IN GOOD FORM. By Dora K. Ranous. New
York: Sturgis & Walton Co. $1.00 net.
This treatise on the art of writing the English language with
correctness and elegance has in mind the boy and girl of high
school age. It contains a number of valuable hints on spelling,
punctuation, letter- writing, the use of words, composition, and
BOOKS
proof-reading, besides lists of common errors in grammar hack-
neyed words and undesirable phrases to be avoided. Over one
hundred pages are devoted to the derivation of English words from
the Latin and the Greek.
THE PRESENT HOUR. By Percy Mackaye. New York: The
Macmillan Co. $1.25 net.
THE VALE OF SHADOWS. By Clinton Scollard. New York:
Laurence J. Gomme. 75 cents
THE GOD OF BATTLES. By Ambrose Leo McGreevey. Boston :
Sherman, French & Co. $1.00.
One hears daily the assertion — plaint is it, or arraignment?
that the poetry so far inspired by the present cataclysmic war is
entirely unworthy of it. In the main this is true, as it has probably
been true during the progress of every great war: precisely be-
cause very few of the men and women who compose the poems have
had any real experience of the events. They have not known the
passion of participation— and they are still too near for the other
passion of inheritance.
Doubly and trebly is this true on our own side of the Atlantic,
where the mind finds itself torn and divided between official neu-
trality and violent personal fealties. None the less, the leaven is
working, and scarcely a month passes without some bit of verse
—or, perhaps, prose — so true in emotion that one feels it a forecast
of the literary awakening sure to follow upon the footsteps of
peace.
The war poems of Mr. Percy Mackaye were written during
the latter part of 1914, but they are none the less pertinent to 1916.
Their subjects — Rheims, Louvain, the Lads of Liege, the Men of
Canada — are names to conjure with " not for a day but for all
time." The present volume is dedicated to the Belgian people;
and strikingly apt is its author's new turning of Caesar's famous
commentary, " horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belga" Mr. Mack-
aye's poetry is always dignified and very often distinguished. In
addition to the contemporary war poems, the book contains interest-
ing verses on miscellaneous themes, and a highly dramatic, pecu-
liarly horrible story of the Champagne battle entitled " Fight."
The lyric note and the note of gentle narrative or meditation
dominate the war poems of Clinton Scollard. In his pages we
find the Madonna of Termonde, or battlefields softened by moon-
light, or perhaps dreams of volcanic Constantinople. It is a little
ii8 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
volume full of picturesque verse, and the fact that it is sold for the
benefit of the Belgian Relief Fund adds to its desirability.
Only a few of Mr. McGreevey's verses are upon warlike
themes, and these few are not his best. One suspects that the
author's heart dwells rather in the peaceful pioneer fields of his
beloved Iowa — while his head is preoccupied with the old, old
themes of God and the soul. He writes seriously, often in a style
better suited to the prose than to the poetic form.
SOCIETAL EVOLUTION. By Albert Galloway Keller. Profes-
sor of the Science of Society in Yale University. New York :
The Macmillan Co. $1.50.
The social scientist envies the natural scientist because the lat-
ter deals with more concrete subject matter, can use the method of
experimentation, and is able to arrive at " such certainty as to justify
prediction." In all these respects the student of society finds that
he is at a serious disadvantage. In no part of the field has the
advantage of the natural scientist appeared more striking than with
reference to the concept of evolution. The natural scientist has
made the principle of evolution a most important instrument of
scientific progress. In the hands of the social scientist it has re-
mained vague and unproductive.
Professor Keller thinks that the reason for this unfruit fulness
of the evolution concept in the social sciences, is mainly the his-
torical fact that the idea came into that field through the medium of
philosophy rather than of science. The students of society get hold
of it in the pages of Spencer rather than of Darwin; and the former
was a philosopher rather than a scientist. Hence Professor Keller
raises the question whether it is not possible to apply the conceptions
and formulas of evolution to social science by a more directly
scientific method than has hitherto been employed. The salient
features of Darwinian evolution are variation, heredity, selection,
and as the outcome of the three, adaptation. The professor ap-
plies all four to the study of social phenomena in order to ascertain
whether they do not show not merely analogy, but " a broad
identity " between natural evolution and societal evolution. To this
object he devotes the ten chapters of his book. The attempt is not
a conspicuous success. The professor is simply discovering and
pointing out analogies. No doubt it is helpful to examine and de-
scribe social development in the terms of scientific evolution, but
it is not clear that we should not have as much and as suggestive
1916.] NEW BOOKS
119
knowledge of the process if we had never heard of the evolutionary
terms. As the professor admits, the human mind is the main fac-
tor in social evolution; and it does not seem that the operation
of mind in the process is illustrated to any great extent by the use
of concepts, and formulas, and analogies drawn from the study
of a lower grade of beings, where mind has no place.
ALCOHOL AND SOCIETY. By John Koren. New York: Henry
Holt & Co. $1.25 net.
There is a good deal of intemperance of speech with regard to
most of the questions which get into the field of practical politics.
We make progress in a democracy by listening to the worst and the
best that can be said about a measure and then striking an average.
The scientist may rail at such a slipshod method, but it is the best
that we know how to use. This is apropos of Mr. Koren' s attack
upon Prohibition and Prohibitionists, with special reference to the
" singularly worldly and wholly undemocratic " Anti-Saloon League
which, " under the emblem of religion, has obtained control of the
propaganda for state and national prohibition." The Prohibi-
tionists, it would appear, are not hampered in their fight against
alcohol either by a scientific knowledge of the facts or by a regard
for the facts. " Theirs is the enviable confidence of not needing to
learn. Are not the children of our forty-eight States taught the
precise physiological effects of alcohol in small and larger doses,
although the scientist may still grope for the truth? "
And yet after Mr. Koren has taken the trouble to examine the
testimony of the scientists, he arrives at conclusions little favorable
to alcohol. The alcoholic person, he says, " grows irritable and
weary of existence; his ethical perceptions become dulled; his
sense of shame grows less; the feeling of family and civic re-
sponsibility disappears. At the same time he develops into a
cynical, brutal egoist." " Alcohol and work do not belong to-
gether." " Were alcohol suddenly removed from the world, want
and misery would unquestionably grow less in numberless in-
stances." " We may reasonably believe that if alcoholism should
disappear there would be less crime in the world." The difference
between Mr. Koren and the Prohibitionists seems, therefore, not
to lie mainly in the fact that he is scientific, and that they are
imaginative, but rather in the fact that his remedy is different from
theirs.
Prohibition cannot succeed, he says, because there is never
120 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
a whole-hearted acceptance of the principle by the people. The
question is not a plain moral issue, and people do not put violations
of the prohibition law in the same class with other crimes. We vote
on the question of Prohibition; we do not vote on the question as
to whether we shall suppress crime and vice.
The chapter on " Drink Reform in Foreign Countries " con-
tains an interesting account of the experiences of most of the
European countries, as well as Canada and Australia with the
drink question. The chapter closes with a section on the temperance
legislation of Norway and Sweden where alone, the author thinks,
is illustrated the power of rational liquor legislation to reduce the
consumption of alcohol. Naturally the author borrows many of
the features of the Scandinavian legislation, and introduces them
into his own plan for reform in this country.
In his proposals for reform, Mr. Koren develops first the prin-
ciple that in liquor legislation the desire for revenue should be
secondary to the desire to minimize the drink evil. A heavy tax
should be laid upon distilled liquors, with a lighter tax upon beers
and light wines. Roughly, he would tax beverages in proportion to
their alcoholic content, and he cites approvingly the laws of Nor-
way, Sweden and Denmark, where beers containing two and twenty-
five one-hundredths per cent of alcohol by weight are exempt from
taxes. Locally, there should be a distinction between the license
fees paid by the purveyors of different kinds of beverages, " always
exempting malt drinks under a specified strength." The license
fee should also depend upon the amount sold, so as not to put too
great pressure upon the dealer to sell large quantities.
Second, there must be adequate supervision of the liquor
system. Probably the licensing should be in the hands of the local
judiciary. The licensing body should be given wide discretionary
powers in prescribing general conditions of license, and in revoking
the license in case of violation^ of the law.
Third, local option should be maintained, but in such a way that
3, local community would not have Prohibition forced upon it
against its will. The vote should be taken not oftener than once
in three years, and a two-thirds vote should be required to determine
the issue. Moreover, the vote of the county should not be used
to fasten Prohibition upon the municipality.
Fourth and finally, the Norwegian system of granting a
monopoly of liquor- selling to a private company, which should un-
dertake it, not for private gain, but for the common good, is advo-
1916.] NEW BOOKS
121
cated. The author here gives a number of reasons for believing
that the* company system is preferable to Prohibition, one of which
is that " it has shown itself to be the only arrangement for selling
under which the consumption of distilled spirits gradually diminishes
and alcoholism to that extent is diminished."
The book is altogether a stimulating one, and deserves to be
read by everyone who is undertaking to estimate the value of the
Prohibition movement. It would be unfortunate, however, if its
net results were to be the putting of a damper on the Prohibition
movement. While Prohibition does not show an efficiency of a
hundred per cent, it is nevertheless performing a valuable service
for society which we can ill afford to lose. Whether or not the
company system would give better results in the direction of re-
straining the drink evil, cannot be determined entirely by debate.
It would be well if the believers in the company system could in-
augurate a movement in this country to make a practical trial of it.
If it could be shown that under American conditions the company
system was able to reduce substantially the proportions of the evils
of intoxication, the most powerful argument for its extension
would be established.
HER HUSBAND'S PURSE. By Helen R. Martin. Garden City,
N. Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.35 net.
Daniel Leitzel, who had always conquered in the sign of the
dollar, never imagined that he was to be challenged, defied and
finally vanquished by a woman whom he took to wife and who did
not believe in the dollar. Daniel lived in the Pennsylvania Dutch
town of New Munich, and till the age of forty-five had been tended
and spoiled by his two elderly maiden sisters, whose philosophy of
life was just as material and sordid as his own. " They knew of
no worth of life unpurchasable by money. They did not, there-
fore, know their own spiritual pauperism: their abject poverty."
Margaret Berkeley of Charleston, with values spiritual rather than
material, takes a step into the dark and marries Daniel. The con-
flict of standards, of taste and of custom is fought out in Daniel's
New Munich home with the wife on one side and the husband and
his two sisters, as allies, on the other.
The story is replete with satire, humor and near tragedy. The
aged stepmother of Daniel is about to be sent to the poorhouse by
the children who owed all to her, and who have defrauded her of
her rights in the extensive family property. Margaret's keen con-
122 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
science saves the aged woman from that pitiable fate. Margaret,
herself, inheriting in turn the stepmother's fortune, is made
economically independent and the mistress of the situation.
The story is delightfully told; and the lesson of the worth
of spiritual values which it is intended to convey is admirable.
Hypocrisy in preachers is, of course, deplorable, but why should
it be made an excuse for voicing protests against all forms of re-
ligion, and an occasion for reechoing the platitudes of the Inside
of the Cup? Margaret Berkeley is quite certain that she is better
than those whom she judges to be hypocrites and pretenders. She
doesn't believe in the " worthier than thou; " she is quite " broad-
minded " enough to believe that she is " as humble as anyone."
Virtue with her brings another reward besides its own. It is quite
as necessary for her triumph to be economically independent as it
is to be spiritual. As a story the book is very entertaining. It will
also make a successful play. As a study of what might have been
a great character, a needed inspiration to the young people of
our day, it falls short. Perhaps we take it all too seriously and
beyond the intent of the author. But the author has power,
insight, gifts; and we wish that she would reach out to greater
achievement.
WIND'S WILL. By Agnes and Egerton Castle. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. $1.35.
The authors of this romantic tale have gone for their material
to the period of the Bourbon Restoration after Waterloo. The story
is an old-fashioned romance with noble dames and bold soldiers
fresh from the Peninsular wars, ready to ply their trade at the
least provocation. The Dowager Lady Maldon is a charming illus-
tration of what a high-born lady should be, and we are willing to
trust the loyal-hearted heroine to her guidance in the new life.
Colinette is a French flower girl, and while her romance is far
from running smoothly, it ends happily. Faithful to her peasant
relatives, to her religion, to her principles, one feels that she will
weather the storms.
PROSE TYPES IN NEWMAN. By Rev. G. J. Garraghan, S.J.
New York : Schwartz, Kirwin & Fauss. 75 cents.
Every Catholic teacher will delight in this little volume, for
it brings out of our treasures of literature something of the most
beautiful, of the most classical, and yet of the most useful, that we
NEW BOOKS I23
possess. The syllabus of the Catholic University for affiliated sec-
ondary schools naturally calls for several Catholic authors as subjects
for study. Of these, none can be better fitted, none stands higher
in general esteem, and none more worthy of general acclaim than
that " miracle of intellectual delicacy," as Matthew Arnold calls him,
John Henry Newman. The busy teacher will welcome this book
also because it is a valuable aid in high school work as required by
the regents, for it is arranged under the generally accepted divisions
of prose writing — narration, description, exposition and argumenta-
tion. The choice of extracts, too, is excellent, for the compiler had to
exercise, amid such an abundance, much judicious restraint; we trust
that his labors will meet with the appreciation which they deserve.
THE CATHOLIC PLATFORM. By George E. J. Coldwell. Lon-
don: Published by the Author at n Red Lion Passage. 25
cents.
These seven lectures were given by Mr. Coldwell some months
ago in Finsbury Park, London. They set forth in simple fashion
the chief points of Catholic doctrine with the view of winning over
his Non-Catholic hearers to the Church. We think the well-mean-
ing author ill-advised in not submitting his copy to a critical editor,
who would certainly have omitted the stupid " running fire of
comment " Mr. Coldwell seems so anxious to put on record, and
the meaningless puns which disfigure his pages.
CHRISTIAN ARMOUR FOR YOUTH. By Rev. J. Degen. New
York : Benziger Brothers. 75 cents net.
These simple five-minute talks to boys aim at preparing them
for the fighting of the good fight against the enemies of Christ's
Cross, the world, the flesh and the devil. Father Degen treats of
the virtues and vices, the eternal truths, devotion to the Holy
Eucharist, the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Eucharist.
AN EIGHT DAYS RETREAT FOR RELIGIOUS. By Henry A.
Gabriel, SJ. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.50 net.
Father Gabriel has written an excellent retreat manual for
religious, which is, as he himself says, " little more than an adapta-
tion of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius." The author ac-
knowledges his great indebtedness to many prior commentators
on the exercises, such as Fathers Roothaan, Meschler, Denis, Ver-
beke, Nonell and von Hummelauer.
124 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
MEMOIRS OF SISTER MARY OF MERCY K6RUEL. Taken
from the French Life published at Angers, 1913. By M. A. M.
St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.10 net.
This brief sketch of the life of Sister Mary of Mercy gives
us a good insight into the spirit of the Religious of our Lady of
Charity of the Good Shepherd, commonly styled the Good Shepherd
Nuns. The prejudiced Protestant that seems to take special de-
light in blackening their fair name, would be converted at once
did he read the life of this devout servant of God.
FAR HENCE TO THE GENTILES. By Major J. Samuels. Lon-
don : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.
The author of this extraordinary volume tries in vain to prove
a number of impossible theories; viz., that St. Paul was not
martyred at Rome; that he went to Britain with St. Luke, St.
Timothy and St. Mark; that St. Paul belonged to the
sect of the Essenes; was buried at Glastonbury; and the Church
of England alone has apostolic succession. Scholars will say to
the well-meaning Major : Ne sutor ultra crepidam.
WITHIN MY PARISH. Edited by James Loomis, M.D. Phila-
delphia: The Dolphin Press. 60 cents.
This little volume appeared last year in the pages of The
Ecclesiastical Review. These notes from the daybook of a New
England parish priest reveal a true and tender-hearted man of God
in his relations to his Non-Catholic neighbors, his convert parishion-
ers and his own little flock.
THE BRIGHT EYES OF DANGER. By John Foster. Philadel-
phia : J. P. Lippincott Co.
John Foster has written a stirring tale of Charles Stuart and
Scotland in the year 1745. It is a clean romance of the old school,
full of duels, murders, battles, buried treasure, hairbreadth escapes,
smuggling, and the like.
The story centres about a young English gentleman, who is won
from his allegiance to George of England by the bright eyes of
Mistress Charlotte Macdonnell.
ACCIDENTALS. By Helen Mackay. New York: Duffield &
Co. $1.25 net.
In a hundred stories and pictures of twentieth-century France,
Miss Mackay gives us her impressions of that country before the
NEW BOOKS I2S
Great War. Her stories are for the most part well-told, but they
are often spoiled by a too evident straining for effect, and by
too frequent use of the sorrow theme. One wearies of' suicides,
starving poets, mismated husbands and wives, dissolute men-about-
town, unhappy mistresses, unloving mothers and impossible, hard-
hearted nuns.
She writes of France as an outsider — an alien both to her
religion and her traditions.
THE PRAYER BOOK FOR BOY SCOUTS. By Rev. Thomas
S. McGrath. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. Leather,
35 cents; flexible, 15 cents.
Father McGrath has published an excellent little prayer book
of one hundred and fifty pages for the Catholic Boy Scout. Car-
dinal Farley has approved the Boy Scout movement on the follow-
ing conditions :
First, that there be organized distinctly Catholic troops ; sec-
ondly, that some representative Catholic clergyman or layman be
appointed on local boards of the Boy Scouts; thirdly, that the
Scout masters be approved by the Catholic authorities; fourthly,
that no Catholic boy be allowed to join the Boy Scouts unless he be
a practical member of the Junior Holy Name Society, or some
kindred religious sodality.
SERMONS PREACHED ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS. By Very
Rev. Dr. Keane, O.P. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.80 net.
The friends of the well-known Irish Dominican, Dr. Keane,
will gladly welcome this volume of sermons. His style is direct,
simple and practical in discussing such themes as " Self-Denial,"
" Unworldliness," and the " Christian Priesthood," and he be-
comes most eloquent when delivering panegyrics of St. Patrick,
Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy, Father Mathew and Daniel O'Connell.
THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL. By A. F. Forbes. St. Louis: B.
Herder. 30 cents net.
In this brief life of St. Paul, Mr. Forbes sustains the well-
merited reputation of that new series of lives of the Saints, known
as the Standard Bearers of the Faith. He selects the salient features
of the life of the Apostle, and places them before his youthful
readers in simple and beautiful language. We cannot recommend
this book too highly.
126 NEW BOOKS [Oct.,
PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS.
The America Press has published in the latest numbers of The Catholic
Mind, The Causes of National Success, by Denis Lynch; The Catholic School
System, by Rev. George Thompson; The Dangers of Secular Universities,
by F. L. ; The Father Rodriguez Tercentenary, by Rev. George O'Neill. 5 cents
each.
R. & T. Washbourne, of London, publishes Communion Verses for Little
Children, by a Sister of Notre Dame. 5 cents.
The Irish Messenger, of Dublin, has issued The Life of Mother Pelletier,
Foundress and First Superior-General of Our Lady of Charity of the Good
Shepherd at Angers. 5 cents.
B. Herder, of St. Louis, has published A Conference to Religious Engaged
in Caring for the Sick, by Rev. F. Girardey, C.SS.R. 5 cents.
Abbot Edmund M. Obrecht, O.C.R., of the Trappist Monastery of Geth-
semani, Kentucky, has written a Guide for Postulants. This brochure con-
tains a brief historical sketch of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, the
history of the Benedictines, the Cistercians, and the rules and customs of the
Reformed Cistercians (Trappists) today. The Abbot corrects the false im-
pression " that in order to be eligible for La Trappe one is presumed to be
guilty of all the crimes possible," and informs his readers that his Order is
obtaining a number of American vocations. 25 cents.
Rev. P. J. Carroll, C.S.C., has written a good college play for boys entitled
The Ship in the Wake. Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Ind.
A Sister of St. Mary's Academy (S. M. A.) has just published five plays
for girls: The Queen of Sheba; Christmas Guests; That Millionaire's
Daughter; A Shakespeare Pageant; Plans for the Holidays. They are written
by a nun who understands both the child mind (Christmas Guests) and the
more ambitious girl graduate (A Shakespeare Pageant). We recommend them
to our convent schools. $1.60 — 30 cents each.
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
Bloud and Gay of Paris have sent us the following brochures:
The Press and the War, by Jacques Bainville, a series of articles from
I'Action Franfaise, discusses the violation of Belgium's neutrality, the future
of Alsace and Lorraine, and the bravery of the French priests.
The Cathedral of Rheims, by Emile Male, gives a good description of the
Cathedral, which the author rightly styles the " reunion de mille chefs-d'oeuvre."
Number 8 of the series, The Clergy and the War of 1914, by Monsignor L.
Lacroix, treats of the destruction of the Cathedral of Rheims in the present war.
La Lourdes du Nord; Notre Dame de Brebieres, by Rene Le Cholleux.
(3fr. 50.) The author of this beautifully illustrated pamphlet gives us a
brief sketch of the legend of Notre Dame de Brebieres, and of the basilica
of Notre Dame in Albert, one of the cities of the Somme district destroyed
during the present war.
The Bombardment of Arras, by Abbe E. Foulon. With a preface by
Monsignor Lobbedey, Bishop of Arras, (sfr. 50.) No city of France has suf-
fered so much on account of the war as the capital of Artois, Arras. The
Abbe Foulon has written a most vivid account of the various bombardments
of the city, the valor of its defenders, and the suffering of its citizens. About
one hundred photographs speak more eloquently than his words of the de-
struction of the beautiful churches and public buildings of the city.
IRecent Events,
The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD wishes to state that none
of the contributed articles or departments, signed or unsigned, of
the magazine, with the exception of " With Our Readers," voices
the editorial opinion of the magazine. And no article or department
voices officially the opinion of the Paidist Community.
Little need be said of France, for no change
France. has taken place in her determination to carry
on the war to a conclusion so decisive that
all succeeding generations of Frenchmen shall be freed from the
trials to which the present and the past have been subjected. So
unanimous and deep-seated is their resolve that any Frenchman en-
tertaining friendly feelings towards Germany dares not show his
face in public. This was shown in the case of M. Caillaux, who
was recently mobbed at a French seaside resort. The Socialists have
refused to cooperate with their brethren in this country who after
the war is over wish to renew their old relations with the German
Socialists. This determination has not been made without counting
the cost and in full view of the sacrifices which it will involve.
Although the number of casualties has never been published, no one
doubts that it is enormous. One object of the Germans in their
attack on Verdun was to bleed France white, without regard to their
own losses. In this they have failed; the attempt, however, has
only made France more resolute to take every means to keep up
the strength of her armies. To free men for this purpose the
Government has decided to draw upon Chinese labor for work in
the war factories, and five thousand have already landed at
Marseilles for this purpose, while to many African laborers like
employment has been given. It is expected also that the British
will take over a further part of the lines to be defended against the
Germans. They began with about thirty miles; at the present
time they hold nearly one hundred.
So far from being exhausted the French have not only been
able to take the offensive on the Somme, and to do this even more
efficiently than the British, but they have done the same at Verdun,
where the Germans have lost some of the ground which they had
128 RECENT EVENTS [Oct.,
gained. They now look forward with calm confidence to another
winter campaign, although they had been cherishing the hope that
Christmas might have seen the end of the war. M. Briand's
Cabinet still remains in power, the differences between it and the
legislature having been satisfactorily adjusted.
In other respects the situation in France is becoming more
satisfactory. Of trade there has been a steady revival. Exports
have increased by twenty-one per cent. In spite of German and
Austrian submarine warfare the number of voyages from French
ports exceeded by two thousand two hundred and forty-three the
record of the corresponding period of last year, while the increase
of tonnage amounted to eight hundred and seven thousand one
hundred and three tons. Railway receipts speak yet more strongly
of the growing national activity. On the systems not affected by
the war there has been nearly fifteen per cent increase, and on
the systems part of which pass through the region occupied by
the Germans, the increase amounts to no less than fifty per cent.
After two years of tremendous strain on the resources of the
country, the gold reserve is actually greater by one hundred and
forty millions of dollars than it was on August i, 1914. In the
course of last year the reserve fell by fourteen millions. Since
that time, howevej, three hundred and five millions have been
added to the reserve. Frenchmen from President to peasant brought
about this result by exchanging their gold coin for banknotes.
This was done from sheer love of country, and was due to con-
fidence felt in the ultimate triumph of the Allies. In 1915 taxation
brought in two hundred millions of francs more than 1914, while
the French people have subscribed practically five thousand billions
of dollars to Government loans up to July 3ist. The loan
for national defence of November, 1915, is at a premium, whereas
the British war loans are at a discount. For various securities
quotations on the Bourse have risen, showing thereby the increase
of purchasing ability outside of the subscriptions for the huge
war loans. The one drawback to these evidences of financial buoy-
ancy is the weakness of French exchange. This is due to causes
which no one but a financial expert can understand. An arrange-
ment recently made between the British and French Governments
will, it is expected, provide a remedy. At the beginning of the
war French economists were inclined to believe that trade could
not possibly flourish more than six or eight months, with a year as
the absolute maximum. To their own surprise, as well as to that
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 129
of neutrals, the second year has been much more successful than
the first.
While in these lower but necessary spheres of the nation's
life those behind the lines are working for France, the soldiers of
France, as M. Maurice Barres has pointed out, are working re-
ligiously. " To all a Voice from heaven, or from their conscience,
repeats the words of Archbishop Turpin in the Chaunson de Roland,
'If ye die, ye shall be martyrs holy.' In this war, sacred if ever war
was, they feel that they are renewing the Gesta Dei per Francos.
Not less sublime than the men are the women of France. Peasant
women receive the news of their husbands' or sons' death on the
battlefield with the cry, 'Vive la France,' and Madame de Castel-
nau, wife of the illustrious chief of the General Staff, who praying
at the altar for her three sons in battle, and seeing the hands of
the priest tremble, understands, and says simply, 'Which?' — all are
animated by the same spirit, the spirit of faith and victory."
The supersession of von Falkenhayn is a
Germany. fairly plain' indication that it is beginning
to be recognized even in Germany itself that
military operations are not going on well. The failure to reach
Paris was visited upon the deviser of the attempt — von Moltke —
by his being relieved of the office he had held for so many years.
Whether von Falkenhayn fell because of the failure at Verdun and
of the Austrian push on Italy through the Trentino, or because he
saw the necessity of withdrawing from the Balkans and of shortening
the line in the West, is still a matter of speculation. The appoint-
ment of von Hindenburg is a concession to the popular voice, which
on the strength of his victory at Tannenberg over the Russians in
the early days of the war, has made of him a hero of the first
magnitude, in spite of the fact that all his subsequent efforts have
ultimately failed. It shows, moreover, that the Kaiser's presentiment
of coming disaster is so strong as to make him willing to sacrifice
his own predilections. Von Falkenhayn was one of his special
favorites, and to him he had intrusted the Crown Prince's instruc-
tion in military matters. No one has been more frequently in
his counsels, and to none has he intrusted more confidential mis-
sions. Hence his supersession is a public confession of failure.
Falkenhayn was only in his fifty-fifth year, whereas Hindenburg is
in his sixty-ninth. Totally unknown to the general public before
the war, he became its chief hero on account of his victory over
VOL. CIV. — 9
130 RECENT EVENTS [Oct.,
the Russians in East Prussia. His success on this occasion was
due to the fact that he had acquired an intimate knowledge of the
region into which the Russians had penetrated. His career in the
army, from which he had been retired, was in no way distinguished.
How highly he is to be estimated is a matter of debate. The change
made may be merely the foreshadowing of an alteration of German
strategical plans, a change which he alone could make acceptable to
the German people. The defeat of Germany, which is being more
and more clearly recognized as coming by all who are competent to
form a sound judgment, may, it is thought, be made more endurable
under his auspices than in any other way.
As in other respects, so in military, it is almost impossible to
obtain reliable information of the situation within the limits of the
Central Powers. It is, however, the opinion of experts that there is
no longer an organized body of reserves upon which the armies can
draw to supply the wastage that is taking place daily and hourly.
The most that can be done is to send drafts to the front, which
consist of half -trained men, youths and those of older years. As
long ago as last December the 1917 men were being called to the
colors. According to the Kreuzzeitung, a general examination of
all men of military age who have previously been exempt is being
made. Even officials who until now have been declared indis-
pensable must undergo examination. This want of men renders
it unlikely that a drive in force on any point in the encircling ring
will be within the power of the new Chief of General Staff, espe-
cially as now the initiative has passed into the hands of the Allies.
These now act in perfect concert, by means of a General Council,
with a view to keep the German forces on the alert at every point.
Herr Friedrich Naumann, the author of the work on Central
Europe, the most important book published in Germany since the
beginning of the war, has recently written an article which gives an
insight more than usually reliable into the state of opinion among
the small people of Germany. Two years ago they had no real idea
what war was, but were ready to enter into it. Since then death
in the field and privations at home have become greater than any
power of imagination had previously conceived. Hence the neces-
sity of what is happening is being questioned, and a longing exists
that the abnormal state of things may cease. They are beginning
to say : " Those people at the top need the war, and that is why we
have to endure it." The impression is even gaining ground among
them that it is Germany that produced the war, The official account
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 131
is passing out of sight. What Herr Naumann calls the unscrupulous
campaign of calumny by Germans of Germans, that it was Germany
that was the disturber of the peace, is making headway. The burden
of the trouble and want caused by the war is being put upon the gov-
ernment. The numerous victories which they have been called upon
to celebrate with every form of jubilation adds to the difficulties of
those simple people. They think it strange that they are still in so
serious a situation, and are being called upon to make even greater
sacrifices. It is even dawning upon them that it is not for a
defensive war that those sacrifices are being demanded, but for a
war of conquest, and therefore one with which they have not the
least sympathy. Herr Naumann himself does not, of course, adopt
those views, and holds that they are held only by a few. Well-
wishers of the German people may, however, indulge the hope
that they indicate the dawn of a new light. For the war
cannot end until Germany as a whole perceives that it does not
pay to disturb the peace of the world, and perceives it so clearly
that neither they nor their children nor their children's children
will ever make a like attempt.
Private letters from every part of Germany captured with
each batch of the numerous prisoners taken by the British
and French in the Somme advance, confirm Herr Nau-
mann's statement that the sufferings are greater than any power of
the imagination had previously conceived. " People think that
it cannot last much longer, for hunger is rife, though no one dares
to say so; still the condition of things is indescribable." " If the
war lasts much longer we do not know what will happen with re-
gard to food, etc. We cannot and dare not write all about it to
you." " We have now bread cards, milk cards, meat cards, butter
cards, flour cards, sugar cards and soap cards. We shall also have
egg cards." " They give us cards, and then there is nothing to be
got," and so on ad infinitum.
So much for what outsiders are able to learn about the state of
things within the confines of Germany. A word may be said
about what the Germans are taught to think about the world
outside. Until the very moment of Rumania's declaration of
war, the Gentian press was engaged in assuring the public that
there was no possibility of such a step being taken; the day
after the same press was declaring in various ways that no well-
informed person could have doubted that her intervention was
certain, and that it had been determined upon for months past. A
132 RECENT EVENTS [Oct.,
banker from Frankfurt assured an English visitor to Switzerland
that the British navy was paralyzed, and London was almost in
ruins ; that England was on her last legs financially, and on the eve
of a social revolution. Hindenburg was cunningly drawing Brusi-
loff and the Russians on to their doom. Even the attack on Verdun
was going on according to the methodical plan arranged by the
German staff. France would withdraw from the war by Christmas,
when England would ask to be allowed to go home. Were not
such states of mind indubitably established as actually existing, their
possibility would be questioned. The pity of it is that they have
such disastrous consequences.
On the twenty-seventh day of August the
Italy. Rumanian government made its declaration
of war with Austria. On the same day^ the
Italian Government made a similar declaration to Germany. The
official announcement aroused immense enthusiasm at Rome.
Cheering crowds paraded the streets, applauding the Government's
decision. It gave great satisfaction to Italy's Allies, as it tended to
remove all misapprehensions as to the position of Italy in the Alli-
ance, and as forming an auspicious opening to the new phase upon
which the operations are entering. The reasons for Italy's delay were
chiefly domestic. They have now been overridden by more general
and weightier considerations. At a most critical moment in the war,
she has taken the step which shows most clearly the complete solidar-
ity of the Allies. Its military importance is scarcely less. The end
is now complete to the Triple Alliance which bound Italy hand and
foot to subserviency to Germany. The accession of Rumania and
Italy to the Entente Powers makes Spain the only one of the Latin
nations which is not taking its stand against the Prussianism which
is trying to bring them all under its control ; and there are rumors,
not however worthy of much consideration, that even Spain may
enter the lists.
The chief thing indicated by Rumania's
Rumania. having decided to enter into the war on the
side of the Entente Powers, is that this
decision represents its mature judgment that the tide has turned, and
that these Powers are going to be victorious. Whatever Rumania
does she does simply and solely for her own interests, a thing that
was shown to demonstration by her conduct in the Balkan wars.
Gratitude and n;any other motives — some say even a treaty — bound
iQi6.] RECENT EVENTS 133
her to the Central Powers. Her sovereign is a Hohenzollern ; Ger-
man aid and support secured to her the advantages which she gained
by the Treaty of Bucharest. Doubt which side would win held her
in suspense for two years. For this doubt no longer is there the
smallest reason, and she has acted accordingly. General Brusiloff's
shattering blows on the Austrian armies in Galicia, and especially
the overrunning of the Bukowina, which brought the Russian
armies to her very borders, have contributed in no small degree
to remove all hesitation. Although friends of the Allies cannot en-
tertain much esteem for the motives of their new ally, they cannot
but welcome the help which she brings, a help which may indeed
be decisive. Rumania has a new and well-equipped army of more
than five hundred thousand men, with a proud tradition to uphold,
and her action throws upon the Central Powers the burden of de-
fending a further line of five hundred miles, at a time when their
resources are strained to the utmost. It is no wonder that they ex-
hausted every means, both of threats and persuasion, to avert the
new danger. The Kaiser is said to have added the most pressing
personal entreaties to diplomatic methods, but all in vain. It may
well be the handwriting on the wall.
Even more satisfactory is the prospect that Rumania's acces-
sion will afford a means of inflicting proper chastisement for the
treacherous conduct of the ruler of the Bulgars. One of the most
loathsome events recorded in history is the way in which he stabbed
in the back gallant little Serbia in the hour of her greatest danger,
and the base ingratitude which he showed to the empire which had
freed his country from the Turkish yoke. Russia is now enabled
to pass through Rumania territory, and again to act the part of a
deliverer. There is good reason to believe that it was only by force
and fraud that most of the Bulgarians were driven into a war which
must have been against their national feelings, and they will, there-
fore, be glad to be delivered from a ruler who has betrayed every
cause which he has espoused.
The grandiose scheme of the expansion of a Central Europe
through the Balkans to the /Egean and thence through Turkey to
Bagdad and the Persian Gulf, including even Egypt in its sphere,
was one of the objects for which the war was decided upon. Its
realization involved the control of the Balkans. As this control over
Turkey and Bulgaria had been secured, while Serbia had been
annihilated as well as Montenegro, Germany was for a time in good
hopes of achieving its purpose. Rumania's opposition will deal the
134 RECENT EVENTS [Oct.,
deathblow to these aspirations after world power. As she is the
strongest of the Balkan States, with the assistance of Russia and
the forces under General Sarrail assembled at Saloniki, in whose
army are enrolled British, French, Russian, Serbian, Albanian and
Italian soldiers, there ought not to be much difficulty in thrusting
in a wedge which will render realization of such a scheme impos-
sible. Incidentally the intervention of Rumania will almost com-
pletely close the only gap left in the ring-fence which the Allies
have sought to make round the Central Powers. During the past
year no inconsiderable part of the food stuffs which have reached
Germany have come from Rumania. The blockade is now com-
plete, except for what may come from Turkey and Bulgaria. The
Allied advance from Saloniki bids fair to close this, the last of the
doors. The second reason alleged by Rumania for her entry into
the war was her belief that it would shorten its duration. This
belief seems to be well founded.
No one can think of Greece without the
Greece. thought of Belgium, and the contrast between
the two countries — the one, whatever the out-
come, destined to immortal renown; the other an object of equally
universal contempt. From the beginning of the war so many Greeks
were filled with a craven fear of Germany that they were able to
make the Government swerve from its pledged duty. Prominent
among these were the army officers. When, however, the Govern-
ment ordered the garrisons of Greek forts, as it did a few weeks
ago, to retire before the Bulgarian invaders, the cup of humiliation
overflowed. The tide then turned ; the popular feeling found itself
unable to tolerate such an abject submission to the country's heredi-
tary foe. After a long period of vacillation a ministry has been
appointed, ready, it is said, to take the side of the Allies. The
latter, however, it is reported, are by no means anxious to have
such support — non tali auxilio. The apparently arbitrary conduct
of the Allies in their treatment of Greece will be seen to be justified
by anyone who has made himself acquainted with the facts of the
case. France and Great Britain were invited by the then Premier
of Greece to go to Saloniki for the purpose of joining hands with
its Government against Bulgaria in accordance with the treaty which
had been made to render aid to Serbia in case of an attack from
that quarter. Greece herself proved unfaithful to this treaty, and
when too late wished to recall the invitation given to the Allies.
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 135
After some pressure applied by the Allies strict neutrality was
promised, but treacherously violated by allowing the flank of
the Allied forces to be endangered by the order which it gave for
the evacuation of Greek forts before the invading Bulgars. It
must also be borne in mind that France, Great Britain and Russia
have special rights, being the protecting Powers of Greece and of
the Constitution. This Constitution was given to Greece under
their auspices after they had been the means of delivering her from
Turkish thraldom. To the Constitution the King is as much the
subject as any Greek citizen, and yet, either actively or passively,
he has been violating the very Constitution from which he receives
any privileges that belong to him. The Allied Powers, in all that
they have done, have acted in protection of the neutrality which was
promised, after Greece had failed to cooperate, and in protection
of the constitutional rights guaranteed to the Greeks themselves.
In all that they have done, they have received the support of the
statesman to whom the father of the present King owed the preser-
vation of his throne, when it was endangered by a military clique
similar to the one which has endangered the country during the
recent crisis.
With Our Readers.
THE particular character and the special value of the work as a
Catholic apologist of the late Wilfrid Ward form the subject of
an interesting article by Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C., in the current
Dublin Review. Father Cuthbert tells how Wilfrid Ward went
in his early days to Rome to study scholastic theology. He there
learned the admirable synthesis of human thought which the scholastics
after years of labor had achieved : he was struck by " the extra-
ordinary balance of mind, breadth of view, and absence of undue
prepossession." In the day of its victory scholasticism had won the
intellectual world. Ward looked upon it in admiration, but he also
saw that in the traditional scholastic system something was lacking.
" In its method and language it was out of touch with the thought of
the day." How was that to be done in, and for, the modern world
which scholasticism had done for the mediaeval?
" Newman's theory of development," says Father Cuthbert, " gave
him the answer. It showed him how the Church in the past had
conserved its forces and methods to new needs, assimilating what
was true and permanent in every age, whilst rigidly defending its
own position and authority against aggression; it convinced him that
a new Catholic synthesis of thought was possible, which, whilst it met
the special need of the modern world, would link up the modern
mind with what was of permanent value in the scholastic system,
as that system had itself linked up the newer thought of the Middle
Ages with the teaching of the Fathers. Newman thus became the
master-light of the young theological student who was in later years
to do more perhaps than any other man to apply his master's teaching."
FATHER CUTHBERT does not think it too much to say that
Wilfrid Ward brought Newman's theory of development out of
the shadow into the light. " Upon it he based his own persistent
apologetic for the genius and claims of the Church. He urged it in
season and out of season, as giving a reasonable interpretation of the
enigma of Rome. He compelled attention to it by his persistence
and persuasiveness. If today Non-Catholics regard the Catholic posi-
tion more intelligently and sympathetically, it is in no small measure
owing to his handling of the great Cardinal's interpretation of the
Church's genius. At the same time he secured for it a more general
I9i6.] WITH OUR READERS
137
acceptance in the thought of Catholic apologists themselves. For
the very attempt of the modernists to wrest Newman's theory of
development to their own defence, only ended in gaining for it an
authoritative vindication from Rome."
Therefore the great aim of Wilfrid Ward's labors was the inter-
pretation of Catholic thought — which includes both the new thought
of the day and the traditional thought of the present and the past —
both for the guidance of the Catholic and the enlightenment of the
Non-Catholic. This work of interpretation and of expression was
not only the right, it was also the duty of Catholics. As the pos-
sessors of divine truth, whose rays were the only safe guide amid
the labyrinths of human knowledge, it is both their glory and their
responsibility so to understand it as to be able to define and explain ;
to explain it in terms and in language which their hearers will
understand. " The world creates problems : the Catholic Church
solves them " — in repeating this claim Wilfrid Ward was but re-
uttering the claim of the Church from the beginning of her days
when the Light of the World made her His representative, His living
Voice upon earth.
THE master mind of Leo XIII. had already pointed the way to this
synthetic reconstruction for which Ward labored, by directing in
his JEterni Pains Catholic scholars to return to scholastic philosophy.
For scholastic philosophy essentially means the testing of all human
knowledge befo're the tribunal of reason; it penetrates to the very
root of things; in its presence authority is only of as much value as
the reason back of authority; it scorns prepossessions; it estimates
hypotheses simply as hypotheses and no more; it respects every
certain finding; it searches untiringly every channel of human knowl-
edge— and the same essential method that secured the successful
synthesis of human thought with Christian teaching when science
was in its infancy, will secure a like success today, when science has
multiplied its findings a hundredfold, if it be sincerely and zealously
followed.
* * * *
P PEAKING of the master of scholastic philosophy, St. Thomas
C) Aquinas, Leo XIII. wrote : " Philosophy has no part which he did
not touch finely at once and thoroughly ; on the laws of reasoning, on
God and incorporeal substances, on man and other sensible things, on
human actions and their principles, he reasoned in such a manner
that in him there is wanting neither a full array of questions, nor an
apt disposal of the various parts, nor the best method of proceeding,
nor soundness of principles, nor strength of argument, nor clearness
138 WITH OUR READERS [Oct.,
and elegance of style, nor a facility for explaining what is ab-
struse.
r< The Angelic Doctor pushed his philosophic conclusions into the
reasons and principles of the things which are most comprehensive, and
contain in their bosom, so to say, the seeds of almost infinite truths,
to be unfolded in good time by later masters and with a goodly yield.
Clearly distinguishing reason from faith, he both preserved the
rights and had regard for the dignity of each: so much so, indeed,
that reason borne on the wings of Thomas to its human height can
scarcely rise higher ; while faith could scarcely expect more or stronger
aids from reason than those which she has already obtained through
Thomas."
* * * *
MODERN science has changed and extended the subject matter of
the problem. It has ransacked every department of human knowl-
edge, it has specialized in a thousand ways, created languages of its
own, and the synthetic philosopher must be a master of erudition,
but if the complete problem of synthesis is ever to be marked out,
it must be achieved on the lines and the principles of scholastic
philosophy. The same Encyclical says : "Nor will the physical sciences,
which are now in such great repute, and by the renown of so many
inventions, draw such universal admiration to themselves, suffer detri-
ment, but find very great assistance in the reestablishment of the
ancient philosophy. For the investigation of facts and the contem-
plation of nature is not alone sufficient for their profitable exercise
and advance; but when facts have been established it is necessary
to rise and apply ourselves to the study of nature of corporeal things,
to inquire into the laws which govern them and the principles whence
their order and varied unity and mutual attraction in diversity arise.
To such investigations it is wonderful what force and light and aid
the scholastic philosophy, if judiciously taught, would bring."
* * * . *
THIS work of synthesis, of unifying the whole thought and life
of man, is an absolutely necessary labor. For assuming " that man
is a religious being, there can be no hard and fast separation between
his religious thought and his secular; and assuming, further, that
the Catholic Church is the supreme authoritative witness to the
religious life, it follows that the ultimate synthesis of thought uni-
versally considered must be a Catholic synthesis, and find its place
in the Catholic Church. Outside the Church and apart from the
Catholic Faith, any attempted synthesis of human thought must fall
short of the entire truth of human life. That was the idea under-
lying the mediaeval conception of theology as comprising all the sciences,
and of the institutional Church as the home of all the arts of
I9i6.] WITH OUR READERS
139
civilization; and it was the idea which fired the imagination of
Wilfrid Ward and determined him in his advocacy of Newman's
theory of development. In the great truth which the mediaeval Church
endeavored to realize, he saw the working principle for that Catholic
synthesis of thought which will bring together the historical Christian
Church and the modern world."
WE are at present far from it, as Father Cuthbert says : " Far
from that synthesis of Catholic traditional teaching and modern
scientific and critical thought which will, as Wilfrid Ward believed,
reproduce the achievement of the great mediaeval synthesis of the
schoolmen of the thirteenth century. But, undoubtedly, forces are
at work quietly and patiently which will eventually result in such an
achievement.
" Two processes have been and still are at work. Catholics are
becoming more conscious of their mission to be the final arbitrators
of the intellectual and social religious problems of the modern world ;
and in consequence are facing these problems with an awakened inter-
est and more open-eyed activity — an activity impossible whilst they
stood aloof from the world beyond themselves or in an attitude of
mere defence against innovation. History proves that, with the Catho-
lic body, to be awake is to conquer.
" The other process is the increasing respect, due to a better
mutual understanding, with which the position of the Church is re-
garded by those who differ from her beliefs and claims. Much has
yet to be done before Catholicism will again be in the position it held
in the golden period of the Middle Ages as the synthesis of the
unchanging Christian Faith and the achievements of the human spirit
in philosophy and art, in social life and political ideals. But when that
day comes Wilfrid Ward will be given no mean place amongst the
prophets of the dawn."
THE greatness of the task and the magnitude of the vision may
lead the average Catholic who has never sat in college or uni-
versity hall to comfort himelf with the assurance that it is none of his
care; that such gigantic and scholarly work must be left to those
able to carry it on.
Yet a little thought will show such a one that the task gigantic
as it is— and for that very reason— is one in which we must all share
if it is ever to be achieved.
We can at least be interested in learning— not in a far-off theor-
etical fashion that bears no fruit but in a practical way— one of the
140 WITH OUR READERS [Oct.,
vast army which in a thousand ways will secure the winning of
the goal. We can interest ourselves in our Catholic schools; our
Catholic colleges; our Catholic universities. We can give of our
means for their support. If we have not attended them ourselves,
we must remember that they and they alone can bring forth the
scholars who are to do this most necessary work for the wider victory
of the truth of God. We can make personal sacrifice, instill our chil-
dren with a desire for higher education, and send them to higher
Catholic institutions of learning. We can acquaint ourselves with
the achievements, aims, needs of our institutions of learning; talk
of them to our friends, interest others, and thus in our measure push
forward the work of winning the world to Christ.
MORE than this, the personal service of the mind is not only of
supreme importance in the missionary work of the Church, but it
is of divine obligation — a thing which we are all too prone to forget.
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole mind " are the
direct words of our Blessed Lord Himself.
That love can be expressed only through created things — we must
love the things of knowledge — we must love to know God better;
to know His Divine Son Whom He hath sent; to know God in the
world and the work and the problems which as children of God and
brothers of Christ it is incumbent upon us to bear.
* * * *
EACH one of us is the interpreter to one, most of us the interpreter
to many, of the Catholic Faith and therefore of the truth of
Christ. To the modern world not only must our life be morally
above blame, but the expression of our faith and the reason for it
must be intelligent. To those who look for enlightenment; to those
harassed and depressed by modern problems, we should be able to give
a sympathetic ear and an intelligent answer. We should be more and
more conscious of our mission as Catholics to be " the final arbitra-
tors of the intellectual and social religious problems of the modern
world."
Upon each one of us falls more or less but surely some part
of that burden. If we accept our part we advance, just so far, the cause
of God and the salvation of souls. But we can never fulfill it unless we
in some measure faithfully interest ourselves through our intellect
in Catholic truth — in the definite dogmatic teachings of our faith;
their meaning; their application to modern problems; in a deeper
knowledge of Sacred Scripture and the Life of our Blessed Lord;
in the vast devotional literature of the Church; in a knowledge of
Church History, and in a knowledge of the problems that confront
I9i6.] WITH OUR READERS 141
the whole of society today, and the great eternal Christian principles
of social justice and of social charity which are their sole solutions.
To neglect this duty because it means something of self-discipline
and self-sacrifice is to prove ourselves only half-hearted servants in
the house of God; to abide by it is to prove through our zeal and
our love that we long for the extension of His kingdom upon earth.
1PREQUENTLY in special articles THE CATHOLIC WORLD has
1 pointed out how the Anglican Church is ruled by, and subject to,
the government of England. It is not, and has never been, in-
dependent of the State. It is a creature of the State, and its claim
to be an integral part of the true Church of Christ has not even
the semblance of warrant.
Anglicans will, of course, strenuously deny this: they have re-
peatedly and officially asserted the independence of their Church, but
assertion does not make it so. And the strongest sort of evidence
that Anglicans of all shades of opinion are eager to lift from their
Church the odium of State ownership and State control, is furnished
by the plans recently set forth by their Representative Church Council.
SOME time ago the Representative Council — the most compre-
hensive and authoritative in the Anglican Church — requested the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York to appoint a Committee " to
inquire what changes are advisable in order to secure in the relations
of Church and State a fuller expression of the spiritual independence
of the Church as well as of the National recognition of religion."
The Committee was appointed and has made its report. In the
words of the report itself, its members " represent all shades of
opinion in the Anglican Church."
We are indebted to an article by Father Sydney F. Smith, S J.,
in the August Month for a synopsis of the report.
* # * *
IN the process of securing larger autonomy for their Church, the
report proposes that " the Representative Church Council (re-
formed as the report itself prescribes and under the title of the
Church Council) shall receive statutory recognition and be given
real legislative powers in Church matters, subject to a Parliamentary
veto."
With regard to the constitution of this Church Council we need
not enter into detail. It is an endeavor to bring together representa-
tives of all classes, ecclesiastical and lay, of the Anglican Church.
As to the distinct functions, rights, powers, responsibilities of the
142 WITH OUR READERS [Oct.,
different councils and conferences the report is not definite. Its aim
is simply to create the Church Council to which all other councils
shall be subject, and to secure for this general governing body a
wide enabling charter. When such a statutory position is won, it will
be for the Church Council to apportion the powers and the duties.
One of its first works, as Father Smith says, will undoubtedly be " the
revision or reconstruction of the Church Courts to make them
better adapted to Anglican sentiment, which grows increasingly resent-
ful of a practice under which questions of spiritual jurisdiction and
even of sound doctrine are decided by secular judges seated in
purely secular cpurts, and guiding themselves by purely secular prin-
ciples."
The report, moreover, reserves to the House of Bishops " matters
considered to be the prerogative of their order." Nor does it " belong
to the functions of the Council to issue any statement purporting to
declare the doctrine of the Church on any question of theology."
* * * *
THE endeavor of the Anglican Church to free itself from State
control is admirable. The report is skillfully drawn. But the
difficulty will be for Anglicans to have this Enabling Bill for the
Church Council passed by Parliament. Father Smith thinks it will
be almost impossible. " Fancy," he says, " the opposition which will
be aroused in the hearts of the private patrons of livings at the pros-
pect of their vested right being destroyed or endangered by the right
of objecting to their nominees which is to be claimed for the Parochial
Councils. Fancy, too, the opposition on behalf of the Crown which
will be aroused by the provision which takes from it the right of
appointment to bishoprics and other dignities It is doubtful
whether Prime Ministers generally will contemplate with readiness the
loss of so much valuable patronage And then there would be
the party which clamors for Disestablishment and Disendowment,
who would be sure to use the opportunity to press their demand, or
at least to fight to the bitter end, against a measure which would tend
to delay the attainment of their ideal."
And the further and greater peril comes after the Bill has been
enacted into law. " It might work in a communion, the members of
which are in substantial agreement on all questions of fundamental
principle, but how will it work in view of the very deep cleavage, or
rather cleavages, of opinion among Anglican churchmen as they
now are?
* * * *
TX) show how fettered the Anglican Church is, even in spiritual
1 matters, we need but review the words of Bishop Gore : "If the
Church of England is to claim a liberty of spiritual action similar
I9i6.] WITH OUR READERS
143
to that exercised by the early Church or such as is suggested in the
New Testament, it would include at least the following points :
" First. Liberty of administration such as would admit of the
establishment of fresh bishoprics, and if necessary of fresh provinces,
and the reform of the system for representation of the clergy and
laity in Church Councils or assemblies.
" Second. Either the election of bishops by the laity and clergy
of the Church, or at least some franker and fuller recognition of
the right of the Church to refuse a bishop nominated by the Crown.
" Third. Liberty to revise doctrinal standards, standards of
discipline, and rites, and ceremonies.
" Fourth. Liberty to exercise discipline over its members, de-
termining, e. g., questions of orthodoxy in courts of its own, and
determining also who is to be admitted to the sacraments."
THE Liverpool Catholic Times and Opinion tells us that the signs
which portend the establishment of an Irish Parliament have be-
come more numerous of late, and one of the most remarkable of them
is the conversion of Lord Derby. Indeed, since his speech last
August, this journal says there are few in England who imagine it is
possible to prevent the concession of self-government to Ireland.
In this speech Lord Derby said : " The Bill is on the statute-
book, and I do not think you will have a man to fight for wiping it
off. Therefore, I ask you whether we cannot now arrange some terms
which will be acceptable to both parties." Few men, according to this
well-informed journal, have a better knowledge of the views of the
English people; few more alive than he to the trend of popular
opinion. When he asserted that he would strongly support Sir Edward
Carson in any other move he may make to find a solution of the
Irish question, it may be safely assumed that a settlement is earnestly
desired by the majority of the English people. " Perhaps, after all,"
the Liverpool Times adds, "Sir Edward is working for the best solution
of the problem — Home Rule for the whole of Ireland without the
exclusion of any part or parts. If he is, and should succeed, he will
prove a benefactor to Ulster as well as to the other provinces."
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD,
VOL. CIV. NOVEMBER, 1916. No. 620.
CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST.
BY F. A. PALMIERI, O.S.A.
ODERN .criticism of the life of Jesus reduces Him
to a human being. It demands a portrait of the
Saviour which shall be truly historical and truly
human. It claims for itself the glory of representing
the truly historical point of view; but in its notion,
true humanity is the negation of the divinity of Jesus, and real
historicity is above all the negation of the miraculous and the
supernatural. Upon that supposition the life of Jesus is recon-
structed. If one effaces the miraculous, which permeates even the
slightest details of the life of the Saviour, then one only sets up a
Christ of one's own fancy."1
These words of a famous Protestant theologian came to my
mind after a careful reading of the recent book of Dr. Lake, en-
titled The Stewardship of Faith. It contains a series of lectures
given at the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1913. It is much es-
teemed by liberal-minded or Protestant scholars.
The purpose of Dr. Lake is to throw a new light upon the
frame of mind of the earliest Christianity, or, rather, upon the
clashing of the various and conflicting tendencies which shaped up
the doctrinal patrimony of primitive Christians. According to him,
the earliest Christianity was an attempt to translate a new message
from terms of Jewish thought to those of the Greco-Roman world.
*Les histoires modernes de le vie de Jesus. By Christian Ernest Luthardt.
Paris, 1865, pp. 18, 19.
Copyright. 1916. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. CIV.— 10
146 CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST [Nov.,
The churches of today ought to consider seriously the necessity for
moving in the same direction, and giving to the world a theology
which will comply with the reasonable claims of the intelligence;
an organization which will be capable of serving adequately the
spiritual requirements of human souls; and an ethic which will
satisfy both the individual and social needs of a new age, for a
new age is coming, and it will be in light or in darkness according
to the stewardship of faith.
It is needless to point out that a vast programme of rehandling
of the inheritance of Christ and of His earliest disciples is contained
in the bold utterances of Dr. Lake. Yet his expressions, and his ten-
dencies, have not the savor of novelty. They find an echo in the
hearts of many searchers outside of the Catholic Church, who
are striving to re-solve the religious problem of our age. Chris-
tianity, they say, is at the crossroads; a tragical fate is impending
over the institutional churches ; the divine aureole of Jesus vanishes
away in the mists raised by the objections of impartial scientists.
That Christianity is at the crossroads was asserted by Tyrrell in a
famous little book which heralded the necessity of freeing the
Catholic Church from its mediaeval dross. If I am not mistaken,
Dr. Lake goes a step further : he would like to banish Christ
Himself from the Christian world. He is seemingly Christian,
at least in his anxious disquietude concerning the critical standing
of modern Christianity. It is in the fear of an approaching catas-
trophe that he raises up his voice, and for want of something
better he is eager to set fire to the luxuriant vegetation of the tra-
ditional Christian thought. At times his apprehensions are so ex-
aggerated that I feel the desire to whisper in his ear the reproach-
ing words of Our Lord : " O thou of little faith, why didst thou
doubt?"2 for, in my opinion, the pessimistic views about the fu-
ture of Christianity are very often the sad results of a failure of
faith. In many pages of his book, Dr. Lake lays stress upon the
growing decadence of the Christian spirit in the world. The
historical Christ and His institutional churches have long since lost
their influence upon the rulers of nations, and the summits of learn-
ing. Even the lower strata of modern society are shaking off
His yoke. Christianity is a huge organism possessed of a somno-
lent life. It is doomed to an inglorious death unless it revises its
creed, promulgates a new code of morals, educates a new ministry.
It is not enough, he says, that the Church should alter the funda-
'Matt. xiv. 31.
igi6.] CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST 147
mental and substantial grounds of its life of today; its evolution
ought to be complete, radical; the realization, it might be said, of
the old scholastic maxim: corruptio unius, generatio alterius. The
effete Christianity of the past is on the verge of ruin. Modern
generations of men are no longer within its grasp. Forced along
by new conceptions of life, and by new trends of mind, they are
gazing at new luminous horizons to re-solve the problem of God
on earth and of human destinies.
The views of Dr. Lake are also at times not in accordance with
the facts and the experience of the history of the past. One may ob-
ject that the so-called Catholic Christianity is even in our day far
from writing the last pages of its long-lived existence. The Catholic
Church, the backbone of the Christian world, to quote an expres-
sion of an Anglican divine, Dr. Lilley, has not reached as yet that
state of inanition which worries so much the modern surgeons
of crippled Christianity. The word of Christ preached by His
ministry does not cease resounding in millions of souls who vie
with earliest Christians in their unalterable devotion to Our Lord, in
the firmness of their adhesion to His teaching, in their unshakable
profession of the divinity of Christ. Such considerations, how-
ever, we are leaving out of sight for the present.
We are ready to recognize the perfect acquaintance of Dr.
Lake with the literary documents of the apostolic age. He is known
throughout Europe as a prominent Hellenist, and a master of the
interpretation of Pauline thought. But it cannot be denied that
ofttimes the best .intelligences are led astray by the spirft of sys-
tem, by their futile attempts to build upon hypothetical grounds
a thesis which cannot be considered as the logical inference from
well-established facts. And we regret to say that the main posi-
tion of The Stewardship of Faith is at variance with the testi-
monies of the earliest history of Christianity. No doubt the
scholarship of the writer flashes here and there in some pages, in
some chapters, of his interesting volume. When he loses sight of
the main theme of his book, his point of view is at times genial,
,and leads to thought. But when he sets himself to the task of
altering the native beauty of the face of the historical Christ, and
the frame of the earliest Church, his critical taste veers in a false
direction.
Some theories of Dr. Lake are a matter of surprise even to
those who have the laudable desire not to be bigoted or narrow.
We learn from him that the Christian faith is not the finest flower
148 CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST [Nov.,
culled from the lips of Christ, the truth repealed by the Son of
God in the fullness of time, the rescue of man from the dark-
ness of mind. Christianity is, in fact, the culminating evolution of
Judaistic thought, which was intensely monotheistic, and intensely
moral. Imbued with the spirit of Judaism, Jesus- Christ is
a pessimistic seer of a great and impending catastrophe of
the world. His teaching is the suggested combination of an
eschatological expectation of the kingdom with a world-renouncing
ethic. He Himself knew not that He was the Son of God, the
promised Messiah; He never claimed the divine Sonship. His
Messianic character did not appear to His Apostles. His death
was the sanguinary close of an economical struggle. It was the
result of a plot organized by the haute finance of the Jewish priest-
hood. " It seems to me," he writes, " that financial interests rather
than theological hatred was the real cause of the accusation of the
priests, though they dressed* it up in a partly political, partly re-
ligious form." No wonder, then, if primitive Christians refrained
from adoring Christ as the Son of God and a partaker of His
divine nature. The recognition of His divinity followed His death
and the spreading of His teaching throughout the Roman world.
A reader of the Gospels will find that the hypothetical utter-
ances of Dr. Lake are not in harmony with the clear statements
of the New Testament, and the traditional views of both Catholi-
cism and Protestantism. But, according to Dr. Lake's scholarship,
but slight heed is to be paid to the value of the records of past gen-
erations, and the Gospels are to be regarded as .forgeries of a later
period of evolving Christianity and of enthusiastic admirers of the
Nazarene. A true acquaintance with Christ and His aims, he main-
tains, is to be drawn from the rarest documents of the so-called vul-
gar Christianity, which ignored the belief in the divinity of Jesus.
The earliest Christians of Jerusalem were monotheistic in the strict-
est sense of the word. The lordship of Christ was the product of
Hellenic influences upon the rudimentary beliefs of Jews converted
to the teaching of the Gospels. In rushing into the 'Roman world,
in overleaping the boundaries of Jewish nationalism, Christianity
understood that it would have to change its doctrine, its constitu-
tion, its methods, its mission to gain its moral victory. The Church
did not triumph, writes Dr. Lake, because it preserved its theology,
its ethics, and its institutions unchanged, but because it changed
them all, and changed them rapidly in order that they might ex-
press more adequately and more fully the spiritual life which re-
1916.] CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST 149
mained the same, though the forms with which it was clothed were
altering with extraordinary rapidity. It sacrificed the identity of
expression to preserve the unity of experience under changed sur-
roundings. In like manner, the Christianity of today ought to
renounce some of its obsolete forms of expression, and divest itself
of antiquated habits of mind which trammel its steps. The Church
must rejuvenate her soul and blot out that air of decrepitude which
sets against her the friends of spiritual progress, the pioneers of a
better age of mankind.
We have pointed out the fundamental thoughts of a book
which attempts to revise Christianity and to dress her in the
newest fashion of mind. We do not intend to take up and discuss
them or to show that even the soundest erudition is not able to
corroborate theories which are the expression of a free individual
speculation, rather than the logical inferences of impartial re-
searches in the field of the history of Christianity. We agree partly
with Dr. Lake when he says : " The necessary condition for in-
tellectual improvement in any society is the permission to discuss,
and the recognition of the principle that the less cannot judge the
greater." So by virtue of the principles announced by the writer
himself we have the right to oppose opinions which pose as argu-
ments, and which vainly attempt to destroy solid convictions by
hypothetical suggestions. Many expressions from the pen of Dr.
Lake confirm our statements. His Christology is filled with doubt-
ful locutions, such as the following : " We cannot suppose ; it is im-
probable; it is not impossible; probably; St. Luke was probably
wrong ; it seems ; it is not surprising ; it was possible ; it was emi-
nently possible," etc.
Now an historical truth, or a truth which many centuries long
has been considered as historical by the greatest geniuses of
Christianity, cannot be uprooted by mere hypothesis. Christ be-
longs to history. More than that, He is the central figure of the
history of Christian heroism and Christian civilization. Whimsical
vagaries cannot reduce Him to a passing cloud on the highest hori-
zons of the human race. The touching and grand episodes of His
life, the fascination of His heart vibrating in full harmony with
the will of the Father, His divine influence springing up at every step
of His mission of suffering, shine in their inextinguishable bright-
ness and splendor in the slightest word of the evangelical records.
The wide movement produced in the Roman world, and beyond
its frontiers, by the spread of Christian teaching, by the irresistible
150 CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST [Nov.,
conquest of Christ is not to be judged by the pale beams of docu-
ments which reflect the candid ignorance of the so-called unin-
structed Christianity. We ought to go back to the authentic sources
of Christian history and doctrine; to hear the voice of those who
in every century of the life of Christianity have been venerated
and hallowed as the earliest and most learned teachers of the doc-
trine of Christ, as the earliest and sincerest witnesses of His divine
mission. It is our deeply rooted conviction that, according to the
rules of a sound critical taste, we are bound not to give to the
Pastor of Hermas or to the Epistle of Barnabas a greater historical
value than to the Gospels, or to the Acts of the Apostles, or to
the Epistles of Clement of Rome, of Ignatius of Antioch, of Poly-
carp of Smyrna. The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are the
historical documents of the earliest Christianity; they are such in
the fullest sense of the word, and the simplicity of their style
and their narratives, their wonderful accord in the culminating facts
of the life of Christ, their unquestioned authority among Christians
of the primitive Church, give to them the right to be looked upon
in no different wise from that of the most authoritative records of
past centuries. The value of the Koran as an authentic source
of the history of the life of Mohammed, and as the unmistakable
legacy of his religious conceptions, is in no wise doubted by modern
scholarship. Why, then, should doubts be entertained with regard
to the testimonies of the evangelical records, whose authenticity
and credibility are strongly asserted and convincingly demonstrated
even in Protestant handbooks of introduction to the New Testa-
ment ?
By reading the Gospels the eyes of our minds open wide to
contemplate in His divine and Messianic light the face of Christ.
It is said that He was stripped of a Messianic consciousness; that
He ignored His divine Sonship, that His redeeming mission was
a secret revealed by Him to a small circle of disciples who di-
vulged it after His death. It cannot be denied, however, that
Jesus Christ imposed silence on the gainsayer of His divinity by
arguments which have not lost their probative force even in our
days. He appealed to the testimony of His works. To the Jews
coming round about Him He answered : "I speak to you, and you
believe not: the works that I do in the name of My Father, they
give testimony of Me."3 The works of Christ, indeed, the marvels
of His life, and of His spiritual influence in His Church point
•John x. 25.
igi6.] CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST 151
out, bring into the fullest and clearest manifestation, the glory
of His divinity. The value of that argument, which cannot be
rejected without violating the fundamental rules of human thought,
did not escape His earliest followers. The divinity of Christ was
not veiled by the darkness of mystery; it was not a secret con-
fided to a little handful of ignorant men. It was as a beam of the
radiating sun which pierces the clouds. The man blind from his
birth, after his healing, cries to Him : " I believe, Lord : I believe
that Thou art the Son of God." And falling down He adored Him.
The works of Christ gave testimony to His divine power. By them
He manifested Himself as living by the Father, as sent by the
Father, as sowing the words of eternal life, as preaching a doctrine
which was not His own, but of His Father : He raises His voice to
proclaim His divinity when His hour has arrived. When the High
Priest said to Him : " I adjure thee by the living God, that Thou
tell us if Thou be the Christ the Son of God," He answered with
the decided simplicity of truth: " Thou hast said it."4 Economical
reasons did not interfere in the trial of Jesus. The Jewish priest-
hood was thirsty for His blood, for they detested His doctrine,
they hated in Him the blasphemer of their God. The very simple
life and the very small number of the earliest disciples of Christ
did not render the Jewish priesthood suspicious that a new insti-
tution would rise up which would threaten their financial monopoly.
We maintain that the historical Christ, and by this qualifi-
cation the Christ of the Gospels is alluded to, cannot be conceived
otherwise than God, or coming from God. We believe in the his-
torical truth of the Gospels. The Gospels are not romances which
purpose to set diamonds in the crown of a mythical hero. Viewed
from a human point of view, the evangelical writers are men to
be trusted ; they are neither fabulists, nor dealers in venal praises,
nor novelists with an unbridled imagination. They are honest,
loyal historians who narrate what they have drawn out from au-
thentic sources, what they have heard, what they have seen with
their eyes, what they have looked upon, what their hands have
handled of the Word of Life. They write with an unsurpassed
simplicity and frankness which fascinate and conquer the coldest
hearts, and even in their apparent conflict of historical details
they clearly show that they are not enslaved to any faction, that
they are not the adepts of a plot to make of Jesus the spiritual
ruler of the world.
4 Matt. xxvi. 63, 64.
152 CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST [Nov.,
The solemn affirmations of the divinity of Christ and His
Messianic consciousness are so often repeated in the narratives
of the Gospels, that to push them aside we are forced either to
lower them to the level of the romances of chivalry of the Middle
Ages, or to range the Saviour amongst maniacal and demented
religious imposters. Alas ! we meet in our days with sacrilegious
biographers of Jesus who dare to submit the most perfect of men
to a psychiatrical diagnosis. They efface even that sublimity
of character, of desires, of wisdom which shine forth in the human
nature of Christ, and which have lifted Him above all the thinkers,
the masters, the wise of every century and of every nation. Under
their pen, Jesus Christ, the consoler and transformer of souls, as-
sumes the appearance of an insane person who communicated to
unlearned disciples His religious folly !5
With regard to the divinity of Christ and the divine inspiration
of the Gospels, there is no sincerely Christian soul that does not
feel the touching expression of truth contained in a famous passage
of Jean- Jacques Rousseau, whose testimony is beyond all suspicion
of religious preconceived opinions : " I will confess that the purity
of the Gospel has its influence on my heart. Is it possible that
a book at once so simple and sublime should be merely the work of
man? Is it possible that the sacred personage, whose history
it contains, should be Himself a mere man? Do we find that He
assumed the air of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What
sweetness, what purity in His manners! What an affecting grace-
fulness in His delivery ! What sublimity in His maxims ! What
profound wisdom in His discourses ! What presence of mind, what
subtlety, what truth in His replies ! How- great the command over
His passions ! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could
so live and so die without weakness and without ostentation ! Yes,
if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, the life
and death of Jesus are those of a God ! Shall we suppose the
evangelical history a mere fiction? Indeed, my friend, it bears
not the marks of a fiction; on the contrary, the history of Soc-
rates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested
as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition in fact shifts the
difficulty without removing it; it is more inconceivable that a
number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that
5 We allude here to the recent and sacrilegious book of a French Doctor, Binet-
Sangle: La folie de Jesus, ses facultes intellectuelles, ses sentiments, son proces.
Paris, 1910-1915. Four volumes. The book may be looked upon as the extreme
logical outcome of the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
I9i6.] CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST 153
one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors
were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality con-
tained in the Gospel; the marks of whose truth are so striking
and inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing
character than the hero."6
But the Gospels are not purely historical documents. To men
who boast of being Christian and of applying the rules of Christ
in their practical life, the Gospels are something higher than
the literary products of human writers. They bear the clear im-
print, the stamp of Godhead. Their words reverberate in our
souls as the echo of the voice of God, as the powerful accents
of men writing under the guidance of the Spirit Who teaches the
truth. As yet the traditional Protestantism has agreed with Catholi-
cism and orthodoxy in recognizing the New Testament as the true
expression of the highest truths revealed by God. Hence it follows
that the criticism of Dr. Lake goes farther away from the boun-
daries fixed by- Protestant theology. Protestantism, to use its
own language, treads the stage of the Christian world as a legitimate
rebellion against the all-mastering spirit of Roman theocracy,
against the blind despotism of religious authority. It marks, ac-
cording to its historians, a coming back to the purest wellsprings of
genuine Christianity. By its impulse the Bible became the supreme,
the only norm of faith, the sanctuary of revealed truths, the unique
voice of the Holy Spirit teaching within the Church of Christ.
From this it follows that he who repudiates the data of the
Gospels concerning the Person of Christ, rejects altogether the
main doctrinal position which confers upon Protestantism Christian
citizenship. If the Christian faith is the outcome of the evolution
of Jewish speculation brought into contact with that of Rome,
the Gospels are no longer the ethical and religious code of Chris-
tianity, or rather Christianity is not a religion taught, established
and formulated by Christ. It is merely a tendency of the in-
stinctive religious spirit of man, a tendency which develops itself,
and assumes various forms and inner contents according to the
individual religious experiences. In other words, Christianity is
deprived of that character of stability which lies at the bottom
of the works of God. It is a religion, so to speak, fluctuating; the
ceaselessly passing and repassing wave in the stormy ocean of
changing human opinions. It is Christianity without Christ: the
most chaotic form of religious individualism.
^EmitiM, or a Treatise of Education. Book IV.
154 CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST [Nov.,
At the very moment of its clashing with the Roman world, Dr.
Lake says Christianity was at the crossroads. In our age it stands
absolutely in the same position, facing the same danger of being
submerged by the storming waves of modern religious thought.
No doubt the first statement of Dr. Lake contains a share of
truth. His conclusion, however, is not based upon the past ex-
perience of the life of Christianity.
The historical past of the Church will tell us that once and
again the divinely-instituted Catholic Church has been at the
crossroads, in the utmost danger of being wiped out of the
world by the increasing hosts of her enemies. Yet she has never
doubted the conquering power of her divine Master. In our opinion
the greatest danger with which the Church has met was not at the
time of her onslaught against the Roman world. She was then in
her flowering youth, in the fullest possession of her spiritual
energies in the highest pitch of her religious enthusiasm. She
had the indomitable will of conquering, and she conquered too.
The last hour of her life seemed to have come in the fourth century
when Arianism had spread all the world over, when, to quote a
saying of a Father of the Church, in its awakening from the night-
mare of heresy, the Christian world became aware of being Arian.
By denying the divinity of Christ, Arianism gnawed at the vital
organs of the Church of Christ, and the condition of the Christian
world was becoming worse through the desperate, although fu-
tile, attempts of Neoplatonic thinkers to master the cultivated
minds of the decaying Roman empire by the spell of a naturalistic
and philosophical worship of Deity. The conflict between Chris-
tianity and science raged more intensely in the fourth than in the
nineteenth century, and philosophy would have been able, far more
successfully than natural science was able later, to crush and bury
Christianity, if Christianity had been a translated message of Jewish
pessimism to the Greco-Roman world. Yet, the heresy of Arius
was exploded, and the central dogma of Christian faith, the divinity
of Christ, rooted itself in the deepest recesses of Christian hearts.
The Church conquered without being false to ber mission, without
ever lessening or weakening her message, received not through
Jews, but through Christ Himself and His disciples. She conquered
against the sowers of heresies, and against the all-powerful violences
of the Csesars who had been won over to the cause of Arianism.
And this triumph in defence of the faith did not end her
struggles. She stood, if you please to word it so, at the crossroads,
1916.] CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST 155
in the trying period of barbaric invasion ; in the epic conflict with
the despotism and usurpation of the Teutonic Caesars ; in the sudden
outbreak of the Lutheran rebellion; in the orgy of the French
Revolution. She stood and stands invincible, whether amidst civil
or foreign wars ; whether assailed by spiritual or national weapons ;
whether attacked by the representatives of learning or the agencies
of political power. It may be said that war is the condition of
her daily life, that final victory is the outcome of her bloody con-
flicts, that a more vigorous health is the result of her bleeding
wounds.
To-day we. are witnessing far-reaching attempts to expel
Christ not only from His sanctuary, but from the whole field
of man's history, to reduce Him to an imponderable spirit,
floating over the religious consciousness of mankind, emptied of all
meaning and of all personal life. The remodelers of a " scien-
tific " Christianity are forging a cloudy Christ, a Christ inexplicable
to Himself and to man, a Christ Who did not know the doctrine
of which He is held to be the teacher, a Christ Who, without
being conscious of His divine nature, raised up an immense host
of adorers of Himself as the Son of God, true God of true God.
To see how such rebuilders alter every traditional feature and as-
pect of the dogmatic, ethical and constitutional life of Christianity,
it is but necessary to glance at her history and to ask ourselves why
the Catholic Church whenever she stood at the crossroads failed
not to follow the glorious paths of victory? The secret of her cor-
rect choice, of her endurance amid the storms of men and nations
is precisely her doctrinal, ethical and hierarchical immobility. At
the dawn of the Church of Christ, Christian Jews of Palestine, Jews
of the diaspora, Christians of Rome and of Greece, shed their
purest blood for the defence of the same faith, adhered to the same
creed, preserved the same hierarchical organization. The Church
survived the tempest of pagan persecutions, and rooted herself in
the soil of the Roman empire, not by drifting in the wake of the
Greco-Roman thought, but by opposing it and mastering it with all
the strength of her conquering youth. Dogmatic intolerance rather
than doctrinal elasticity was the main feature of the earliest Chris-
tianity. The saying of St. Paul: " Brethren, stand fast; and hold
the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our
epistle"7 marks out the line of conduct of the earliest Christians.
They preferred to die with a Christ overpowering their souls with
T2 Thess. ii. 14-
156 CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST [Nov.,
the glory of Deity than to save their lives by stripping from His
brow His divine aureole. They could have ranked Him among the
idols of the deified men of the Greco-Roman pantheon; but they
persevered in adoring Him as God in the midst of the sarcasms of
pagan thinkers, as Celsus and Lucian, or of the vilifying contempt
of Roman historians as Tacitus, or of the exqidsitissima supplicia
of Nero and Diocletian. It is that inflexibility of belief, that in-
vincible opposition to every change of her doctrinal inheritance,
which prevented Christianity from meeting the speedy fate of
Neoplatonism. The belief in the divinity of Christ, as it is written
in the Gospel records, rendered it impossible that Christianity
should be moulded according to the forms of Roman thought. The
same unchanging belief lies at the roots of the perpetual survival of
Christianity in the midst of the ceaseless crumbling of old and new
institutions. The marvelous vitality of the Catholic Church, inex-
plicable on merely human grounds, is the result of her faithful
guardianship of this foundation stone of Christian faith, the true
divinity and the true humanity of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ.
The decaying vitality of Protestantism and the process of its
dismemberment, come from the gradual extinguishing of that bea-
con light of Christian truth. With the decline of its belief in the
divinity of Christ, its apostolic energies are growing weaker, its
influence upon souls is lessening, its creed is vanishing in a cloud
of metaphysical vagaries or of barren negations.
To us Catholics the future of Christianity is by no means a
hopeless one. We do not close our eyes to the dangers which
threaten its beneficent work among men, but we are firmly convinced
that the Church, according to Christ's word, which history has
again and again confirmed, will go on her way, working, toiling,
leading countless souls to God. Her work is the work of God;
and no shock, political or intellectual or moral, born of the for-
getfulness or the denial of mankind, can cause a divine building
to fall. We hold fast to her teachings, and when the ceaseless war
waged against her old beliefs strikes us with sorrow and dismay,
we look through the centuries to her trials and her sorrows ; to her
victories and her triumphs; to her endless list of heroic men and
women, saints and martyrs, and then we realize still more deeply
the wondrous beauty and power of those words of Monsabre
on the divinity of Our Lord : " Men, women, virgins, chil-
dren, priests, kings, philosophers, soldiers, workers, enormous
I9i6.] CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CHRIST 157
heaps of slain members, of bleeding corpses, who are you?
We are the embodiment of Christian heroism. The world re-
fused to credit either our words or our virtues. We forced then
our blood to speak in the stead of our lips, and our blood, gushing
out of our wounds, reddened the face of the world, while we
launched against it our supreme profession of faith: Credo. If
I am not void of common sense, if I am possessed of a human
heart, I dare not stifle the voice of so many Christian peoples, and
centuries, and doctors, and saints, and apostles, and martyrs, say-
ing to them : 'Go on, pass away, I do not believe your testimonies.
The isolated murmur of my reason suffices for my self -teaching/
No, that cry of pride is not the expression of truth. I perfectly
grasp the meaning of Christian faith. I cannot rise up against
the voices of a whole world, and with peoples, with centuries, with
geniuses, with holiness, with the spirit of abnegation and of
heroism, with the Christian -world, I affirm the dogma of the divinity
and the humanity of Christ, I sing in the fullness of my heart and
voice : 'I believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord.' '
A CATHOLIC SCHOLAR-STATESMAN, FILIPPO MEDA.
BY WILLIAM P. H. KITCHIN, PH.D.
VEN that charity which believeth all things could not
call modern politics a nursery of virtue. The average
politician's aim is to make the worse appear the bet-
ter reason, to gild self-interest with a specious ap-
pearance of patriotism, and in general to make friends
with the mammon of iniquity, so that when the electors fail a
substantial bank account or a generous salary may guarantee him
a safe dwelling. In the pleasant land of make-believe where poli-
ticians love to linger, the rigid standards of work-a-day honor are
relaxed ; bluff and brag are the watchwof ds ; and the coming leader
is he who dabbles opportunely in every new fad, who worships
assiduously the idola tribus, fori, populi, who trims his sails to
every breeze and is not nicely scrupulous as to methods. " You
do not know, my son, with what little wisdom men are governed "
(nescis, mi fill, quantilla prudentia homines regantur), wrote the
Swedish chancellor Oxenstiern to his son. , Nor is the sum of
wisdom greater in the twentieth century than it was in the seven-
teenth.
Still the names of many may be cited, who lost none of their
young and pure enthusiasms amidst the sordid self-seeking of the
forum. Windthorst, the organizer of the German Centrum, was a
true Christian knight; in France, Montalembert, and but yesterday
de Mun, were men of the purest honor; in Belgium, Auguste Beer-
naert, de Lanshere and Van der Pseremboom were admirable
Catholics; this last was, though a layman, of a piety that any
religious might envy. To his place in the Chambre des Deputes
at Brussels, he always brought his breviary, and at the close of the
session he would go to a nearby church to read the daily office, just
as though he were a priest and bound to do so. No wonder his
name is still one to conjure with in Catholic Fleming land. In
Italy, Contardo Ferrini of Milan left behind him at death the
reputation of heroic sanctity. But of this phenomenon it must be
said that, though he busied himself with the municipal affairs of
his native city, yet he did not meddle with politics properly so-
called. To Milan also belongs' the subject of the present sketch,
1916.] A CATHOLIC SCHOLAR-STATESMAN 159
Signer Filippo Meda, Minister of Finance in the Boselli Cabinet,
unquestioned leader of the Italian Catholics, and the first of his
creed to hold a portfolio since the establishment of the kingdom
of Italy.
Filippo Meda was born at Milan, January i, 1869, and like
Oz.an.am was still but a student in his teens when he succeeded in
founding a Catholic club, whose aim and object was a literary
apostolate in favor of Christian and religious ideals. Today the
Gablnetto Cattolico Milanese is still flourishing, and owns a large
building in the most coveted site of the city, the Piazza, del Duomo.
Its founder, though barely twenty years of age at the time, began
immediately to write, and a prodigious number of newspaper
articles, tracts and pamphlets poured from his pen. The eldest
born of his talent was the Foglietto Volant e, a liliputian monthly
publication of four pages. In 1891 this was succeeded by a larger
and more ambitious paper called the Elettore Catiolico, and almost
simultaneously he launched his Miniature Scientific and Literary
Library, which consisted mainly of the biographies of illustrious
Catholics, with now and then a critical study by way of condiment
and sauce. To this series he contributed himself the lives of
O'Connell, Windthorst, Cardinal Lavigerie, St. Aloysius, St. Philip
Neri and Savonarola. By writing and by word of mouth he
labored without ceasing to propagate the ideals of our Faith; those
golden years of youth that most young men fritter away on the
futilities of sport or the still greater ineptitudes of society, were
devoted by Meda to a whole-souled Christian propaganda, and his
own picturesque description of his methods and his hopes is well
worth perusal.
Have you got any good newspapers, tracts, pamphlets or
Catholic Christmas numbers ? Well, always keep some of them
in your pocket. You go into a house? Without allowing your-
self be noticed leave some of them in the salon, the living-
room or the waiting room. You hire a carriage? Forget a
few papers when you leave ; the next passenger will find them,
or the coachman himself, and they will be read. You are travel-
ing? Before leaving the train put some papers in the baggage
racks, and if another train passes alongside of yours fling some
of your papers into its open windows, someone will pick them
up. You spend a night at an hotel ? Well, in the drawers of the
bureau there will be always room for a paper, and your suc-
cessor will profit by it; and do not forget either that the hotel
160 A CATHOLIC SCHOLAR-STATESMAN [Nov.,
has a reading-room, and there forgotten seemingly among the
Secolos and the Figaros let a Catholic sheet finds its way. And
then, don't you sometimes go outside the walls of your city?
Well, let your papers fall along the wayside, put them on the
benches in the parks, on the tables in the cafes; even though
they reach only the hands of the ragman they may still give
rise to a good thought or correct an idea. And let him who
wants to laugh, laugh. Ah, if all of us young people would only
act thus, it would very soon be seen whether we should not suc-
ceed, willy nilly, in making our papers be read! Those who
really act on the people have always used means which seem
ridiculous, but which are on the contrary holy devices, noble
expedients.
To our cool, northern temperaments this may seem a little
exaggerated — perhaps the heady, effervescent enthusiasm of a
southern boy. But how few youths of twenty in any clime are
visited by such visions at all; and of those so blessed still fewer
could clothe their thoughts in such striking, attractive and popular
language. The writer of the above lines had only to continue true
to himself in order to accomplish great achievements.
But the young propagandist in striving to uplift his co-
religionists did not neglect self -culture. Always an eager student
he took his laurea degree in 1891, which corresponds, I believe, to
our Bachelor of Arts.1 Two years later he won his legal diploma
at the University of Genoa. The greater part of the next three
years he spent in the army; having obtained his discharge in 1896,
with the rank -of non-commissioned officer, he married and opened
a barrister's office in his native city.
But neither family cares nor professional duties were per-
mitted by Meda to interfere with his literary work. Indeed the
output increased as the years brought him wider horizons of
knowledge and riper maturity of thought. Thus he contributed
numerous articles to the Scitola Cattolico, the official organ of the
Theological Faculty of Milan for the past forty-four years, and
to a Catholic review of social science called Rivistq Internationale
di S dense Sociali. At a later period he wrote in the Rassegna
Nazionale and the Nuova Antologia. His essays cover a wide
range, but they invariably treat of topics that interest Catholic life,
thought or endeavor. Thus he discourses on the career of Ozanam,
1The laurea requires three years' university training, and confers the right
of teaching in college^ and high schools.
1916.] A CATHOLIC SCHOLAR-STATESMAN 161
the conversion of Brunetiere, the works of Fogazzaro, the Papacy,
the Edict of Milan. As one would expect, the heroes of the political
arena like Garcia Moreno, Auguste Beernaert and the Comte de
Mun meet with large and sympathetic appreciation. A goodly
number of these essays have been published in book form by the
Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, under the title Nella Storia e nella
Vita.
The foregoing activities would have kept at high pressure all
the energies of an ordinary man; they did not, however, suffice
for Meda, who still found time to spare for notable work in
journalism. As far back as 1890 he formed part of the staff of
the Osservatore Cctttolico, a daily paper which since 1863 nad been
the organ of Catholic Lombardy. As journalists he and his friends
strove earnestly for the uplifting of the masses along the lines laid
down in Leo XIII. 's encyclical Rerum Novarum, and they succeeded
in forming several Catholic societies where faith and philanthropy
worked hand in hand. But the government, frightened at the
advances of socialism, looked askance at their endeavors; in 1898
their paper was, I think, suppressed for a time, the editor Don
Albertario was imprisoned, and Meda thought it best to retire to
Parma. The storm was not long in subsiding, and some months
later the death of Don Albertario placed Meda in the editor's chair.
In 1907 another Catholic paper, the Lega Lombarda, joined forces
with the Osservatore, and from their amalgamation sprung the
Unione, of which Meda was editor for five years. The Unione
has since become merged in the Italia, one of the publications of
the Societa Editrice Romana, a powerful association whose aim
is to safeguard the interests of the Church throughout the entire
peninsula.
Just seven years ago — in 1909 — Meda was called by the votes
of his fellow-townsmen to a seat in the Chamber of Deputies.
His great parliamentary speech, in which he developed his ideas,
took place April 29, 1910, in a reply to certain propositions brought
forward by the Luzzatti cabinet.
Without a doubt the historical changes which brought about
the formation of Italy and produced her laws render impossible,
and likely enough will continue to do so for long, the realization
of a plan which we have at heart, and which we pursue as our
objective: the plan, namely, of seeing the State of today and
the Church, unshackled by mutual compromises and humiliating
concessions, each Working in her own sphere by a noble and
VOL. oV.— ii
i62 A CATHOLIC SCHOLAR-STATESMAN [Nov.,
generous collaboration to develop harmoniously her own powers
for the conduct of mankind to a brighter and higher and
worthier end; towards a state of things in which the upward
flight of the human soul is no longer hindered by material needs,
and the satisfaction of these needs does not cause forgetfulness
of men's higher destinies. Such a conception is not the Utopia
proned by certain mediaeval dreamers, still less is it the politico-
religious futurism of Signer Murri: it is simply the revival of
that Christian spirit which has conquered the world, not by
the magic of sounds and colors, but by the preaching of that
self-sacrifice, of that love of virtue which we maintain to be
the essential elements of every true education whether individual
or collective. This Christian spirit may have declined some-
what under the pressure of material and epicurian theories of
life, and it cries to us to strive unceasingly to endow it with
new force, and to restore it to the honor that is its due. In
this, honorable colleagues, and in this alone, consists what is
called our clericalism.
Few public men in any country would have the courage to
make such a frankly religious pronouncement. It is worth re-
marking that the speech won the sympathies and gained the ap-
plause of the entire Italian parliament. For even the bitterest op-
ponents cannot help admiring and respecting a man of firm convic-
tions, who is not ashamed to set forth and defend his contentions
before any and every company. This profession of political faith
accords with the programme he had sketched for the Catholic youth
of Italy in 1902, when he had invited them to celebrate the eight
hundredth and twenty-sixth anniversary of Gregory VII. 's triumph
at Canossa.
To Canossa we shall go to seek the inspiration of memories
which shall vivify both our -faith and our patriotism. There,
before those very stones which saw the humiliation of a foreign
monarch hostile to the Pope and the Italian republics, we shall
re-assert our determination to join in an indissoluble harmony
the destinies of our country with those of the Papacy, to work
so that national independence and civil liberty go hand in hand
with the independence of the Church and religious liberty.
But though Meda is always a militant Catholic ready to insist
on the right of his brethren, he is perfectly prepared to accord an
unbiassed hearing to those of other creeds and give to his antag-
onists, as we say vulgarly, a " square deal." Thus discussing the
1916.] A CATHOLIC SCHOLAR-STATESMAN 163
possibility of -a union between Catholics and liberals in the in-
terests of their common country he writes :
None desire more ardently than we do that the greater num-
ber of Italian liberals, looking in the face of the situation which
for every honest man is perfectly clear, should find the means
of grouping themselves into a well-constituted party, whose
platform is composed of a full and true liberty, loyal, and open
respect for religion, and collaboration with all the healthy energies
still at work in the constitutional camp. Such a party, un-
trammeled by sectarian prejudices or engagements, would have
every reason to face the country's future with confidence; for
the Catholics, without ever abdicating their own independence
and ideal, would certainly never refuse to march in concert
with them to promote the great destinies of Italy.
He goes on to say that should the liberals, overcome by the
bugbear of clericalism, refuse to ally with the Catholics, the former
at least would reap no advantage from the downfall of a supposed
rival. His conclusion is, " the existence in Italy of organization on
the part of Catholics is necessary not only for the defence of re-
ligion, but also for the normal and progressive evolution of the life
of the nation itself."
No one can fail to admire the manly, straightforward tone
of these utterances — so different from the shameful abuse or the
silly platitudes or the sonorous bunkum that generally disfigure po-
litical discussions! To Meda his religion is infinitely precious, he
feels that his vocation is to uphold Catholic ideals in the arena of
public life, and that noble consciousness lends to his words an
elevation and a penetration that no petty, personal self-seeking
could ever bestow. Political honors have come to him unsought;
he has never trod any of the customary roads to that goal ; at the
most momentous epoch in history personal merit has called him to
guide the destinies of his country. His past has been admirable,
both a model and an incentive to all young Catholics. May Provi-
dence grant that it blossom into a richer and more glorious future !
THE CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA.
BY MAY BATEMAN.
ODERN dramatists, more than modern novelists, are
afraid to sound the Catholic note, because of the
obvious restrictions of the stage. Every would-be
playwright knows the difficulty of getting certain ef-
fects across the footlights ; the point which tells when
read aloud or even at rehearsal, may easily fall flat in the hour
of actual production. The three walls of an auditorium have an
atmosphere of their own; the playgoers of each night their suc-
cessive temperature; the two may not accord. From the stage
itself an impalpable essence wafts into space like a faint flame;
at the barrier of the footlights it meets a cross-current which may
check it, which may beat it back. The issues of the stage have
deadly finality; they cannot be re-captured. In the case of litera-
ture, a man may turn the page and re-read whatever baffled him, this
time perhaps to grasp its meaning. But the attitude of the play-
goer is that of a pursuer, whose quarry knows the goal, while he
does not. He is breathless sometimes — sometimes confused; he
runs in the dark and cannot stop when he would. The modern
Catholic writer, then, pleads in excuse for keeping back the Catholic
note not only fear of its effect upon the audience, but also his innate
sense of reverence. He must give " the real thing" or nothing;
how will the " real thing " be taken ? Plays in which travesties
of priests and nuns strut and talk cheap sentiment and behave as
no Catholic nuns or priests ever do behave, may attract a certain
class of undiscriminating public, unable to detect true from false.
But the Catholic author does not want to compete with this " popu-
lar " style. And he must write, being so often poor, something that
will at least pay for his bread and butter.
In reality, in dramas where the Catholic note sounds boldly,
it tells with tremendous force, as is inevitable. Amongst the suc-
cessful plays of the last twenty years, a few examples spring to
the mind. In La Flambee, the brilliant French play adapted and
produced at the St. James Theatre, London, as The Turning-Point,
one of the finest and most dramatic scenes in the first act takes
place between Monsignor Jussey and Monique, the heroine. Mon-
1916.] CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA 165
signer has come to stay for the night at a country-house where
Monique is a fellow-guest. She was once his childlike penitent, and
perceiving that something is seriously amiss with her, the priest
diplomatically manoeuvres an opportunity for a private talk.1
Monsignor Jussey. I should have known you, my child, by
the look in your eyes if by nothing else. An expression they
always wore when you were troubled, and wanted to confide in
the old priest
Monique. I think the comfort of a quiet talk with you must
have been sent to me by —
Monsignor Jussey. Why do you hesitate? By God. You
are still a believer ?
Monique. Oh, yes, of course, but —
Monsignor Jussey. But — ?
Monique. But my religion has broadened.
Monsignor Jussey. Indeed ? Am I to understand that it ex-
tends beyond the limits of Holy Church?
Monique. Yes. That is what I mean.
Monsignor Jussey. Ah — h ! I recognize the case. It is a very
common one. You have a husband and you say, " I am alone."
You are a believer, but the exactions of the Church appear to
you too narrow. In a word, you are contemplating divorce !
Monique. It is true. I have decided to take that serious
step But it was not this crisis in my life which taught me
that the love of God and the love of life may be reconciled.
Long ago I recognized that life too should be divine.
Monsignor Jussey. Indeed! It is by means of such lofty
thoughts as these that you regulate religion to suit your de-
sires ? You wish to keep the name of " Christian," but as a
woman who thought as you do once said to me, you are an
" adapted Christian."
Monique. Call me that if you will.
Monsignor Jussey. Adapted to what? To a lover?
Monique. He will be my husband!
Monsignor Jussey. Your lover. Oh, " adapt " yourself as
much as you can but you cannot alter that marriage is
a Sacrament, and that the civil authority is worthless Tell
me, are you unhappy?
Monique. Perhaps —
Monsignor Jussey (delightedly). You are! Then everything
1 Through the personal kindness of Sir George Alexander and Mr. Lestocq,
manager for the late Mr. Charles Frohman, I have had access to the acting editions
of The Turnmg-Powt and The Little Father of the Wilderness.
166 CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA [Nov.,
will come right ! Women like you have created their own
God — Pride All your honor and chastity are in peril of
eternal destruction.
Thrust and counter thrust in this quick encounter get home
and over the footlights alike. There is no compromise on Mon-
signor Jussey's part, or faltering ; the audience is gripped. Equally
strong, too, are Monsignor's parting words to Beaucourt, the man
who loves Monique, in the last act : " If I mistake not, you and
I were fighting for the possession of a human soul. It had taken
you a year to imperil it ; it took me, with God's grace, one evening
to bring it back."
A one-act play which exhaled the tender sprit of Catholicism,
and was played throughout its long runs in city and province to
crowded houses, was The Little Father of the Wilderness. It ap-
peared under the late Charles Frohman's management, and the title
role in England was acted inimitably by Huntley Wright. From
the rise of the curtain upon the entry into Louis XV.'s palace at
Versailles of the shrinking little Jesuit missionary, frail and wan,
and still racked by wounds received when tortured by the very
Indians whom he was afterwards to convert, to its fall upon the
King's belated recognition of Pere Marlotte's holiness and acts of
courage, the audience was held spellbound. Here, before its eyes,
pictured with a large simplicity, were the fruits of faith, humility,
fortitude, patience that reached a sublime height.
But there was nothing outwardly heroic or inspiring about
the nervous, almost comic, figure of little Pere Marlotte, nor
that of his companion, Frere Gregoire, a Franciscan Friar. Pere
Marlotte, brandishing his large, green, cotton umbrella and a large
cage with an American coon, which he had brought as a gift for
the King all the way from the little village of Bourron from which
he had been summoned, made irresistibly for merriment. Or so
thought Captain Chevillon of the King's Guard who, receiving
them, struck the first note of the universal mockery with which
for so long the appearance of the two little priests was to be met.
In spite of it, Gregoire stanchly asserts that the King cannot
have sent " all the way " for Pere Marlotte but to reward him.
" Nothing is too good for Pere Marlotte ! " He has suffered worse
than death; escaped death by a miracle; he has bound the King's
new American dominions together with cords of love, steeped in
his own blood and sweat.
I9i6.] CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA 167
Pere Marlotte (gasping with pain when faintness from the
pain of the old wounds suddenly assails him). The heart can
forgive, good Gregoire, but the body never forgets My
Indians ! They knew not what they did But they
didn't get away from Piere Marlotte! I baptized everyone
of them within the year !
Frere Gregoire. The pitiless savages !
Pere Marlotte. Ah no, good Gregoire. To know all is to
forgive all I ought to be thankful indeed that my chil-
dren spared me my eyes.
Henriette, the King's favorite of the moment, comes running in,
and ruthlessly tells the two little priests that she is sure that the King
has forgotten all about his appointment. But she has a good heart,
and ultimately drags in Louis from a game of tennis, followed
by his frivolous suite, who look upon the spectacle of the two be-
wildered and incongruous religious in their midst as a new form
of entertainment. Louis racks his brain in vain for the reason
why he sent for Pere Marlotte, and finally comes to the conclusion
that it must have been to decide a bet between him and his friend,
the Due de Saint Albret, as to whether or no the Falls of Niagara
are four miles high.
Louis (sharply). You are sure you have been there?
Pere Marlotte (simply). I said the first Mass at Niagara,
sire.
He gives judgment against Louis, and impatiently the irritated
King waves him away. With that callous farewell, Pere Marlotte's
last faint human hope of a word of encouragement or gratitude
dies. Henriette leads away the two heartsick and pitiful little
priests to the back of the scene, as far as possible from the loud
laughter and mockery of the court.
Henriette. There are tears in your eyes, good Father.
You're as pale as death
She takes Pere Marlotte to a recess, and simultaneously a fan-
fare of trumpets announce the arrival of a great personage, the
Chevalier de Frontenac, Governor of New France, His Majesty's
American dominions, and his suite, amongst whom are Indians in
native attire, with feathered headdresses.
Louis' whole aspect changes ; at the advent of these men who
have fought and suffered for the country, he becomes at last sin-
i68 CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA [Nov.,
cere. His voice gains in nobility as he addresses them, and tells
them what honor they have lent to his unworthy reign.
The Governor, moved, kneels to kiss the King's hand. As he
does so he catches sight of Pere Marlotte.
De Frontenac. It is possible ? Pere Marlotte ?
Pere Marlotte (tremulously). My children!
The whole suite and de Frontenac kneel as one man: the
Indians kiss the hem of Pere Marlotte's cassock. He puts his hand
tremblingly on his wounded breast, and stares at the King, terrified
at being so honored before him.
Chevalier de Frontenac (turning to the King but still on his
knees). Your Majesty has deigned to praise us for our deeds
in America, but here stands the greatest of us all, Pere Marlotte.
Louis. Pere Marlotte!
De Frontenac. Sire, my conquests in the New World have
left little, I fear, but whitened bones, while the victories of
this little priest, victories of peace, of love, of savage hearts
won and kept, will endure forever. The lilies of France would
have perished in those dark and impenetrable forests had it not
been for the blood and tortured body of Pere Marlotte. Ah,
your Majesty owes a tribute indeed to the Little Father of
the Wilderness!
Louis. Stay — ! (He removes his hat.)
Louis. The Sovereign of France kneels before you, Pere
Marlotte, ashamed, and he with his Court kneels to ask the
blessing of the Archbishop of Toulouse !
Louis and his Court kneel at the feet of Pere Marlotte, and
the curtain falls as the little priest tries tremblingly to raise his hand
and bless them with the Sign of the Cross, but he is overcome,
and hides his face in his hands.
In modern drama there are comparatively few examples of
the real, religious play, and not one has been actually so successful
as was the reproduction of the old Mystery play of Everyman,
written for all time by a monk about the tenth century, so far as
can be traced. Modern mysteries like Laurence Housman's
Nativity play, for instance, owe too much to their setting; to the
luxuriance of a fine color-scheme and the help which a competent
and sympathetic orchestra adds. Baldly and crudely presented as
Mystery plays, and plays of every kind, were in the past, they de-
pended upon their own merits and sincerity alone for success ; there
1916.] CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA 169
is nothing either " precious " or artificial about the fine examples
which have steered steadily towards our shores along the tide of
centuries. You have only to compare Laurence Housman's beau-
tiful play with the far more beautiful Every mem to see that the one
has too much softness and sweetness in it to be really Catholic.
In all true Catholicism the soul tastes an acrid pungent flavor;
bitter-sweet as though it had been smeared with the Precious
Blood.
That is why Robert Hugh Benson's Christmas play is actually a
better production, although, perhaps less intrinsically artistic, than
Mr. Housman's lyrical Bethlehem, with that " subtle literary flavor "
to which Father Martindale alludes. It was a humble effort under-
taken solely for God's glory, and it has lines that will live. Zachary,
the old man who describes with awe to the shepherd Ezra his
meeting with " the man and maid " — Joseph and Mary — whom he
met toiling up the snow-covered hill, has a moment of real illu-
mination.
Zachary. Son, when I first began
To see the couple coming up the height
I had no eyes for him: for all the night
Seemed full of glory from her face who came
So wearily
Ezra. Why,
What mystery you make of nothing, uncle!
Zachary Aye! or 'tis
That you make nothing of great mysteries.
Restraint and reticence are the keynotes too of Monsignor Ben-
son's drama of John Best's martyrdom, dealing as it does with a
period which he had studied with scrupulous care. The Cost of
a Crown is one of the most successful of the handful of plays which
he wrote with such zest and ardor, and again and again we come
upon passages that literally vibrate with the real Catholic note.
Hanse speaks of the dark hour in England and of how, con-
trary to what might have been expected, young priests going in
mortal danger show no signs of fear but rather
seem to desire peril and death as others desire office and honors!
Bost. Men say there never was such madness since the days
of the Apostles.
Hanse. Yes, sir. These men too are full of new wine.
Bost. God give me too a long draught of it! It is we
i;o CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA [Nov.,
older men who need that wine of fervor more than the young
who have never ceased to drink it.
Again, in the second Act :
Bost. To be a priest is joy enough for any man. But to be
a priest in England at this time, why it near breaks my heart
for joy! In darkness, God builds again His towers for
England.
But it is in Act III. that Bost rises to his greatest heights :
Bost (about to be sentenced to death in its most cruel form).
My lord, my Maker knows for what I shall die. (He had
just been rebuked for saying he was dying for the Faith.)
That is enough for me, for He is not only my Maker, but the
Maker of the Catholic Faith as well.
Robert Hugh Benson's Upper Room, a play dealing with the
scene of the greatest tragedy which the world has known, is much
less simple and convincing. The actual story of the Passion as
told in the Gospels is enough for most of us ; and later additions tend
rather to confuse than to diffuse the tremendous forces of the scenes.
We would sooner meditate in solitude and silence upon the Way to
Calvary than hear it discussed, however reverently, upon the boards
of a theatre. The Upper Room has never been acted, but reading
it we find inequalities, and it does not reach the level of his
Mystery. The Maid of Orleans, another wholly Catholic play,
frankly lacks spontaneity throughout; the characters do not live,
and the critic notes " the strained elevation of its language and de-
votion." It strikes the reader less as being the work of one who
set about the task with his usual glow and fervor than of set purpose ;
it has no spark of that inspiration which flamed out in nearly all
Robert Hugh Benson's work as preacher, as theologian, as novelist,
or as friend.
The Catholic note then, clear and deep, echoes in many instances
in modern drama. But in the case of Paul Claudel, the greatest
living dramatist, it thunders and reverberates. Claudel has been torn
and ravaged and re-made by the Faith; his bones have crumbled
into dust, and the Spirit has breathed upon that dust and warmed
it into life. Real illumination has broken upon him only after
he has been through the abyss of purgation. To think of him
is to think instinctively in terms of symbolism; to travel with him
is to climb to the spur of a lofty mountain which gives upon an
unparallelled view.
1916.] CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA 171
For Claudel is a passionately ardent Catholic, a mystical
Catholic, a fearless Catholic. He knows many things which are-
undreamed of by other profound and deep thinkers ; his life in the
East, his close study of Eastern occult subjects has helped him to
realize the actual significance of words and their animating power,
a mystical sense not generally understood by Western writers. He
masters words, knowing that many of them contain such properties
and forces as may make the man who does not master them their
slave. There is one terrible passage in the Repos du Septieme Jour
which such readers ,as have also studied Eastern mysticism know
were transcribed at a great cost; at the price only of a conflict
in which the victory was Claudel's. This, in the present writer's
view, is the greatest of his dramas. It has never been acted. It
tells how a Chinese Emperor voluntarily went down into hell to
save his people; it plumbs depths in the deepest places of the soul
more profoundly than even Claudel ventures to do elsewhere. It
is a drama essentially for the serious student. The treatment of
the tragedy reaches so high a level that it is only really comparable
to that of the greatest Greek ..classic writers. And reading it you
are aware at times of rolling music heard from afar, like music
of the spheres. Claudel deals, then, with great elements — whirl-
wind, cyclone, lightning, fire. But his storms clear wastage; his
lightning destroys what is rotten ; his fire lifts to heaven. Cathol-
icism penetrates him through and through. The Catholic Faith —
or Christianity — is a globe which contains man and his existence —
man with God. There is another globe which imprisons man and
his existence. It holds man without God.
Claudel has collected his dramas together under the symbolic
title of L'Arbre, just as Balzac collected his work under the general
title of La Co me die Humaine, with purpose. The life of man be-
comes rich and full, and produces flower and fruit only so far as
it is nourished by the Divine sap which gives it being. " Cer-
tainly justice is beautiful, but how much more fruitful is that
tree of justice for all men when its growth is nourished by the
seed of the Eucharist."2 God, entering in, enlarges every sphere
and section of a man's individual work.
The source of life flows into the great branches which stretch
from either side of the giant tree, whose roots are planted deep
into the soil. Love is one branch and intellect another; for the
student, Claudel's plays form into groups under one of these head-
*L'Annonce Faite a Marie. Act IV.
172 CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA [Nov.,
ings or the other. His work as yet has scarcely penetrated beyond
the boundaries of his own country. His style bewilders many
readers; strictly speaking, the dramas are not constructed in either
prose or verse, for Claudel obeys his own laws so far as these are
concerned. Now and again he breaks into quite definite rhyming
sounds, and he is almost always rhythmic. But close study will re-
veal the illuminating point that each character speaks in accordance
with the harmony of its own soul. " Grant that I may be a sower
of solitude, and that he who hears my word may return within
himself, disturbed and sober."3
Claudel in this prayer, epitomizes his vocation. There comes
a time in the history of certain souls, as there comes a time in
the history of certain nations, when peace is possible only after
war. Claudel knows no peace that is not bought at a price. De-
liberately he takes his follower into far places in search of it, in
rough ways, that he may come at last upon the desert, where stripped
of every form of human sustenance the soul must feed upon its God
or die of inanition.
Sacrifice is the dominant note of his bugle call, and it rings
above the din of battle. Sacrifice transfigures, illuminates; gives
beauty unimaginable. The Face of Christ, as outlined in His Blood
on Veronica's handkerchief, was actually a more beautiful face
than that of Jesus when He sat by the Lake of Galilee. It is a
Face which once revealed can never be torn from the heart.
'Tis impossible to wipe that image from the heart —
That Face once stamped upon the linen of Veronica
A Face clean-cut and long, the beard envisaging the chin upon three
sides ;
Wearing a look so stern that terror holds us, yet so holy
That the primeval Sin
Shrinks back to its first roots ; whose grief is so profound
That we but gaze, stunned like children who see their father's tears,
And knowing not why they should fall, can only say, "he weeps."4
The anaemic Catholic, the slack Catholic, the Catholic without
zeal, the man who expects his God on.ly to give him such things as
obviously are recognizable as bounties, the man who is afraid to
act as the unworthy channel of God's Infinite Grace — these are
depicted again and again by Claudel with pitiless analysis. But
he shows you, too, with equally unswerving accuracy the soul
that triumphs; the soul that stumbling, weak, blinded by its own
3 Cinq Grandes Odes. 'La Ville. Act III.
1916.] CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA 173
blood and tears, holds on in spite of repeated failure. The choice
of doing or not doing the " thing for which you were created and
put into the world," comes to each man in his day. He may rebel as
Sygne de Coufontaine does, piteously, in L'Otage, but once God has
smitten a stone, He inexorably awaits the gushing forth of water,
as Moses of old waited for it to flow from the rock.
In the second act of L'Otage, Monsieur Badillon, the cure
counsels Sygne de Coufontaine to be the wife of Toussaint, Baron
de Turelure, the son of the servant of the house, who " stands for
all that she hates," the man whose hands are stained with the blood
of many of her own people and of holy priests, and will be stained
by more ; an act which compels her ultimately to make over to him
the title, the heritage of the beloved cousin in whose service she has
spent her life, and to whom she is just betrothed. The Holy Father,
old and feeble, just rescued from prison by that same cousin,
Georges, is in hiding in their house. He is the hostage demanded
by the enemy, Turelure, if Sygne denies him.
Monsieur Badillon. The Pope is hidden here, and is in
your care.
Sygne (turning to the Crucifix). Unhappy the woman
whom Thou visitest!
Monsieur Badillon. I seem to hear him answer: You your-
self brought me here.
Sygne. I have held You in my arms, and I know Your
infinite weight 5
Monsieur Badillon. But burdens are for the strong.
Sygne. I know now why You helped me, and why I re-
built our house, not for myself —
Monsieur Badillon. But so that the Holy Father might find
shelter here ! Sygne, save him !......
Sygne. Never at such a cost! No, no! No! I cannot
. .1 will never degrade my body; I will never degrade my
name
Monsieur Badillon. Not even for Christ's sake?
Sygne (looking at the Crucifix). How bitterly You mock
me! Georges I must think of Georges He is
poor and lonely
Monsieur Badillon (looking at the Crucifix). And He is
poorer still, and far more lonely
Sygne. Georges, then, must die, that an old, feeble man
may live !
8 L'Otage. Act II.
174 CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA [Nov.,
Monsieur Badillon. It was Georges himself who sought him
out and brought him here.
Sygne. Oh, may God fulfill His duty as I fulfill mine!
Monsieur Badillon. My child, who is weaker and more
wholly piteous than God, when He can do nothing without
our help?
Sygne. You ask me, then, to save the Pope at the cost of my
own soul !
Monsieur Badillon. God forbid !
Sygne (brokenly). Pity me!
Monsieur* Badillon. God grant that I may be as a real father
to you, not as a heartless torturer God never asks super-
ficial things from us, my child, but deep ones. Bloody sacrifices
are worthless in His eyes, but He accepts the gifts which His
beloved offers from the heart
Sygne (brokenly). Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned
I love Georges of whom I spoke to you just now
How can God ask me to leave him, and to be false.
Monsieur Badillon. You have been called to this vocation —
to serve the Father of mankind. You must renounce your
love, your name, your cause, your worldly honor; giving your
very self into the hands of a butcher, and taking him for your
husband, just as Christ gave Himself to be devoured of Judas
He never asks light sacrifices from us, but deep
ones And in tempting you, I tempt your weakness, not
your strength
Sygne. I then, Sygne, Comtesse de Coufontaine, I of my
own free will am to marry Toussaint Turelure, the son of my
servant, and of the wizard, Quiriace; and he, the butcher of
ninety-three, wet with the blood of my own people, will take
me in his arms, will have his will of me And I must
bear him children, children to blend us and make us indis-
solubly one
Monsieur Badillon. Neither God nor man can force such
a sacrifice from you!
Sygne. But what then forces me ?
Monsieur Badillon. Oh, little soul — child of God! It is for
you voluntarily to choose
Sygne. I cannot ! And yet — oh, God, Thou knowest
that I love Thee !
Monsieur Badillon. But not enough to bear being spat upon,
and depised; to wear the crown of thorns; to be disfigured;
to stand naked before men and be nailed to the Cross
Sygne. Jesus .... Friend ! How hard it is to wound You ....
I9i6.] CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA 175
Monsieur Badillon. But easy after all to do Your will
Sygne. Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the
world, have pity upon me!
Monsieur Badillon. He is with you, now
Sygne. Thy Will, not mine, be done, oh, Saviour
Monsieur Badillon. Do you mean that, my child? Is the
struggle over?
Sygne. Thy Will, not mine Lord, let Thy Will be
done not mine
Claudel sees that life without God is narrow, cramped, con-
fined. It stands for imprisonment or asphyxiation. Life with
God is breadth, loftiness, escape,vihe power to soar and to breathe
in other-worldly dimensions.
Coeuvre in La Ville, formerly only a poet, returns home as a
bishop to the city which in his youth kept him enchained, to con-
quer and redeem it by conversion. " In the depth of study I found
a new birth. Henceforth I will make amends for my hesitating
weakness, and on the ruins of the City of Dreams I will begin to
build up certainty."
Ivors, his son, a modern Thomas, asks him how he can be
expected to believe in a God Who hides from the sight of man, and
speaks in a Voice which only saints can understand?
Ivors. God ? He eludes the quest of my intellect. If I can-
not know Him, what have I to do with Him? And, pray, how
am I to learn what I cannot understand?
Cceuvre. The whirlpool which engulfs the rash swimmer, the
tiger that- holds a pig in its claw, need no word or phrase to
make themselves understood. No part of us escapes His power.
Fire does not select its fuel, but consumes all alike, dung and
wood, flowers and the fruits, hide and flesh. But immortal man
is susceptible of an unquenchable fire in which his entire self is
consummated in being consumed.
This analogy of the consuming spiritual flame occurs again
and again in Claudel's plays. Violaine, in UAnnonce Faite a Marie,
uses it as a symbol for willing sacrifice in the first act, when so
far as she is concerned the flame has as yet served only to guide
her towards the altar upon which presently she will be laid to burn
with immortal fire.
Violaine. Be worthy of the flame that consumes you ! If it
be necessary that you immolate yourself, let it be upon a can-
i;6 CATHOLIC NOTE IN MODERN DRAMA [Nov.,
delabra of gold after the manner of the Paschal Candle in full
view of the choir for the glory of the whole Church.
Later on, as outcast and leper, her beauty gone, sightless and
mocked by the peasants who grudge her a crust even on the vigil
of Christmas, when the rose-leaf touch of the Holy Child's fingers
melts most frozen human hearts, she compares the love of God
to " the heat of the wood when fire seizes it," while Mara, her
sister, ironically scoffs at her patient acceptance of loss and torment.
In the last act, dying, murdered by Mara, she tells Jacques
Hury, Mara's husband, whom Violaine gave up that her sister might
be happy. " Happy those who suffer and who know for what
good cause many things are consumed by the fire of the heart
that suffers."
Enough has been said to show the quality and scope of Clau-
del's work. It soars and quickens. It has the ring of Truth in
every line. And Truth has a quality all her own. Ignorantly, we
may mistake other objects for her, or even wish that she conformed
to some other likeness, more accessible, but meeting her we know her
as we know the approach of dawn. To deny her is merely a phase
of self-deception. Her look is crystal-clear and poignant; her eyes
contain all essential wisdom, and flame immortal glows in her, as
Claudel shows in three- fold fire, first to consume, and then to vitalize
and re-create.
Truth is gallant and invincible ; her enemies try in vain to be-
smirch the fairness of her body. For her beauty is made of lasting
elements, and mighty and firm and yet delicately poised she stands,
as one with wings who of free choice flies not, but stays im-
movable, making a living bridge between man's error and God's
apprehension.
Catholicism is Truth, which is why her voice unlike any other
voice in the world rings like a clarion call to the sleeping soul, and
why her words have supernatural force and, sent out in the void,
become as lances which thrust home into vital parts. They echo
and reverberate in whatever language they are uttered; the Di-
vine Breath of God vibrates within them, and so they break upon
us like a flood. For Truth is Truth, whether we meet her in the
pages of classic literature, or find her, audible, in great modern
drama such as Paul Claudel's.
OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES.
BY JOHN AYSCOUGH.
DARESAY," said Raymond d'Argnes to himself, " it
isn't the proper thing" — but he did it. That is to
say he sat down upon one of the benches in the
Champs Ely sees. And he sat down because he found
himself more tired by a very moderate amount of
walking than he had expected.
It will be obvious from his uncertainty as to the correctness
or incorrectness of sitting down in the Champs Ely sees that he was
not Parisian; nor was he, in spite of his name, French. Though
his family came from Normandy it was English: if eight centuries
and a half in England could make it so.
He sat down, and laid on the seat beside him the walking
stick that he had found more necessary than he had thought it
would be. He turned to his right, and looked upon the long per-
spective of the most splendid avenue in any city in the world,
as it curved up to the magnificent Arch of Triumph, beneath which
only troops returning from victory may pass. Turning to his left
he saw the avenue end in the vast open space that has had so many
names — Place Louis Quinze, Place de la Paix, Place de la Revolu-
tion and, at last and still, Place de la Concorde — in whose midst
stands the Egyptian monolith on the spot where the ancient monarch
of France was martyred.
Then he glanced with half -inattentive eyes at the stream of
folk passing either way. Of the men, at least nine in ten were
French soldiers, and it seemed to him that nine in ten of them
were wounded. There was the real poilu, not absolutely young,
and seeming older by reason of his hirsute and shaggy chin and
neck. But there were many more to whom the term poilu could
only be applied generally, quite young, smart, well-shorn and!
shaven, nearly all handsome, all with expressive faces. The
women, except the very poorest, were almost all in mourning;
but Raymond thought with relief that in France deep mourning
is worn for relations that in England would not be considered
very near.
VOL. CIV.-*-I2
178 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Nov.,
Two ladies passed quite near his seat, at a moment when there
was a sort of gap in the stream; for perhaps half a minute no one
else had gone by down the broad walk, though there were strollers
under the trees behind him.
The ladies might be mother and daughter : the elder not more
than forty-five, if so much; the younger twenty perhaps. Both
were rather tall, and there was a resemblance in their figures, as in
their walk and manner, as frequently happens in the case of mem-
bers of the same family who are constantly in each other's company.
They were talking, as they passed, and their voices, he thought,
had the same tone; but that might have been his fancy, for
they did not speak loudly. They spoke French, and French they
undoubtedly were.
The elder lady glanced at him, not as she went by, but just
before they came up, and he could see that she noted he was
wounded. For a fraction of a moment his eyes and the lady's
met, then she turned hers away ; but even in that instant she some-
how conveyed the impression of sympathy and respect. It did
not amount to a smile, even the gravest smile: it was rather like
an effort to restrain a motherly benison. The younger lady, he
imagined, had not noticed his presence at all. His eyes still fol-
lowed them when they had gone by. Then his eyes dropped, and
he saw on the ground, six paces from his seat, a very small case,
probably a cardcase. He had no doubt at all to whom it belonged :
only one of the two ladies could have dropped it. It had not been
there before they passed. He immediately got up, and having
picked it up went after them. The case was quite small, of polished
leather, hard and with a fine grain in it, and dyed green — al-
most like the old-fashioned shagreen; in one corner was a tiny
coronet.
The ladies walked quickly, and he had to do the same, but he
found his knee more painful and he limped a little. Still he did
not doubt he would overtake them. Unfortunately, it began to
rain and quite heavily. He could see the two ladies in front, but
he saw also that they were going to take a taxi. He felt he must
do the same and so looked about for one. A dozen were hurrying
towards the Arch of Triumph, but all were occupied ; several passed
in the other direction, but they also were occupied. The two ladies
had found one free and had taken it.
" I -must catch them," he thought, " perhaps there's money in
this case."
1916.] OLD WINE AND N£W BOTTLES 179
Presently a taxi swerved in towards the curb, and Raymond
saw that an observant French soldier had understood his predica-
ment and had signaled it. The young cuirassier smiled and Ray-
mond thanked him.
" Tis nothing," said the soldier. " Monsieur was half oc-
cupied looking after the two ladies who went away in the other
taxi. I happened to see this one coming and free." He opened
the door and shut it, with another pleasant smile, when Raymond
got in, then he saluted.
" Follow that other taxi," the cuirassier said to the driver,
"monsieur wishes to overtake it." With a final smile he turned
away, quite happy in the belief that he was assisting at a little
romance. The driver had not argued, he did not object. " There
are forty taxis — which taxi ? " but pushed down his label and made
off. He picked up the other taxi, and soon drew near enough to
note its number. Then perhaps he thought he might as well not
make the journey too short; possibly he could have overtaken it
sooner. It turned at the Place de la Concorde towards the Hotel
Clisson, and there were many others making the same sweep to
the left. It turned again left, towards the Madeleine, where there
was much more traffic. Passing the big church, it took the left
still and went swiftly along the Boulevard Malesherbes, where the
traffic, still considerable, was not so great, and the pursued taxi
was easier to pick out. The shower had stopped, and the glistening
pavement was no longer pitted with heavy plashes of rain. At
the open place in front of the Church of St. Augustine the taxi
containing the two ladies again took the left, and bore uphill towards
the group of rather solemn, old-fashioned, but highly respectable,
squares of tall houses. Into one of them it turned and drew up
about the middle of the west side.
Raymond's taxi drew in just behind it; he got out and paid
the man. The two ladies were standing upon the still wet and shin-
ing pavement.
"Claire," the elder lady was saying, "have you any money?
I had some in my cardcase, but I can't find it "
"Madame," said Raymond, limping forward, "it is here.
Madame dropped it in the Champs Elysees soon after passing the
place where I was sitting, and I saw it and here it is."
" And you have taken so much trouble to follow us," said the
lady smiling, and her smile was just what Raymond expected—
gracious, friendly and sincere.
i8o OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Nov.,
" That," declared the young man, smiling too, " was common
honesty."
" Perhaps. But extreme courtesy."
She had taken the little case from his hand, and had drawn
from it a note and offered it to the taxi-driver.
" Madame, it is for a hundred francs. I have not change
enough."
" Would you allow me to pay him, madame? " Raymond sug-
gested. And he stepped forward and did so without waiting a
verbal permission.
" And now," said the lady, " that you have paid him, comes
my common honesty. I must pay you. Will you come in and I will
get change?"
Raymond was delighted, and followed the two ladies to the
door of the large, somewhat austere looking house. Over the en-
trance was a shield of arms, surmounted by the same coronet as
he had seen upon the cardcase. When he had rung, the door was
opened by an aged man-servant, and all three passed in. The hall
was wide and high, and flagged with squares of black and white
marble; the stairs were very broad and shallow; one could easily
have ridden up them. At the head of them was a gallery hung
with portraits, large and imposing, evidently representing dis-
tinguished personages, mostly in court dress. From the gallery
several tall and wide doors opened, and through one of them
madame led the way into a spacious salon.
" And now," said the lady, " let me pay you my debt of
thanks the other little debt I could have paid downstairs, for
old Jean has always plenty of money! But I preferred to give
you the further trouble of coming up here that I might thank you
less hurriedly."
" What I did was nothing," protested Raymond. " My only
fear was less my taxi should miss yours. If it had, I would have
looked for your card inside."
But the address is not on the cards — only Hotel d'Argnes.
Raymond's eyes lightened with a look of surprise.
" You say, madame," he asked, " that this house is the Hotel
d'Argnes?"
"Yes; I am Madame d'Argnes."
" That is odd," he said, smiling, " for if my mother were in
France she would also be Madame d'Argnes."
" Really! That is interesting. But — if you are not in a great
I9i6.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 181
hurry — will you not sit down? You ought not to stand long, for
I see you are wounded."
"Oh, I am nearly quite well. I was wounded in the knee
weeks ago. I am in hospital at Versailles, and they gave me
leave to come to Paris to see my half-brother who is in an
embassy, but I found he had gone to Chantilly ; so I was strolling
about."
The old butler had re-appeared and was setting out little
tables for tea.
" Do tell me, if it is not too inquisitive," begged madame,
" about Madame d'Argnes. I never knew I had an English proto-
type."
" Well — d'Argnes is the surname of my family. My half-
brother's name is Furnival."
" I have met him," she interrupted, " he is much older than
you."
" Oh, yes. Eight years older."
" Well, monsieur, our surname is not d'Argnes. It is de la
Mer. But my husband's title is Count d'Argnes."
" That again is odd, for the founder of our family was
Count d'Argnes. He was an uncle of William the Conqueror, and
came with him to England, and our surname has been d'Argnes
ever since. But his lands and castle in Normandy were lost to
him before he came to England.
" It is really strange and very interesting. But, monsieur,
I am afraid we are not relations, for our family had nothing
to do with the reigning house of Normandy. It was only in the
sixteenth century that the Chateau d'Argnes was granted by Francis
I. to one of the de la Mers ; and now it does not belong to us, but
is, as perhaps you know, a national monument."
" I'm sorry," said Raymond, " that we are not relations."
" Papa," observed mademoiselle, " will be disappointed."
" My husband," said madame, " is a great genealogist. Jean,
will you tell the Count that tea is ready? "
" Mother," remarked mademoiselle in excellent English,
" could not live without her tea. Papa rather despises it, and says
it does away with any advantage in having a good cook, since it
spoils your dinner."
"It never spoils mine," said Raymond.
A distinguished-looking, rather lean, gentleman of about sixty
came in, and the Countess said to him :
i&2 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Nov.,
" I have an interesting introduction to make — Monsieur
d'Argnes, Monsieur d'Argnes."
The Count bowed, smiled, and held out a thin hand cordially.
" But now, Henriette," he begged, " will you explain? "
" My husband," declared the Countess, " has no patience.
He always reads the last chapter of a novel first."
" I see no use in suffering anxiety concerning people who never
existed. Claire, can you explain the mystery ? "
" It seems to me, papa, that this gentlemen is a real d'Argnes,
and you only a nominal one."
Then the Countess gave the explanation, concluding with:
" But after all, we are not relations. Is it not a pity? "
" Wait a bit," said the Count, " I know all about it. I know
all about William, Count d'Argnes, the Conqueror's uncle. He be-
longs to history. And also I know about the English family
of the same name who belong — "
" Only to Devonshire," laughed Raymond, " when my Uncle
Robert wants to tease my father he says we are famous for never
having done anything in particular for eight centuries and a half."
" I am quite sure," continued the Count, " that my wife is
mistaken in saying we are not relations. Our name of de la Mer
is the English name Delamere, and one of our family married
an English lady, Adelais d'Argnes of the Devonshire family."
" So," observed the Countess demurely, " we are cousins. I
began," she continued wickedly, " our acquaintance in a cousinly
fashion by borrowing money."
The Count looked rather shocked; so shocked that his wife
explained matters hastily.
" Claire," he remarked presently, " aren't you stifled in that
long coat? Do take it off."
Mademoiselle obeyed and displayed a white nursing dress.
" Claire," her mother explained to Raymond, " nurses in one
of the hospitals in the Champs Elysees; today her time was up
at three and I had gone to fetch her home when you saw me."
" Tea," observed the Count, " is but a poor sort of hospitality.
I hope, Henriette, you will make monsieur stay to dinner."
" I believe," declared mademoiselle, " that we have been wrong
all the time, and he is not Monsieur d'Argnes at all."
" Claire! " cried her father.
" I've been reading the stars (only on his shoulder, papa!) and
I'm sure he is a captain."
I9i6.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 183
" Unfortunately," said the young man in a low voice, " it is
true. I should not be a captain if all my friends were alive."
" Ah," said the Countess, almost in a whisper, " the sad, sad
war."
Again Raymond thought how tender and delicate was the little
glance of sympathy she gave him, how kindly, how motherly.
His promotion had cost him the loss of the best friend he
had ever had.
" Our own boy's place at our table," the Countess said gently,
" is empty. He is fighting for France. Will you not take his
place tonight ? "
CHAPTER II.
Raymond d'Argnes was sent home to England, but before
many weeks had passed he was back in France; not in Paris now,
but in the fighting line, and at a point where the English and French
troops nearly overlapped. From England he had written more
than once to his kind friends of the d'Argnes family, and his photo-
graph stood on the writing table of the Countess' own boudoir, close
to that of her own son. She had opened her heart to the young
English officer: he was just what she admired, brave and quiet,
simple and gentle. It was only from English newspapers that she
learned how greatly he had distinguished himself. The Count had
brought them home.
" There," he had observed. " See now, what your captain did !
And not a word about it to us. The Victoria Cross is the highest
reward of valor the English have."
" And many sergeants and corporals have won it," observed
Claire with demure malice.
" Claire," cried her father, " you are a little Jacobin."
" Claire," said her mother carelessly, " was not so taken with
our cousin as I was."
" It is only married ladies of forty-five who allow themselves
to fall in love at first sight nowadays," said the Count, with almost
a wink at his daughter.
" I was only forty-three last Wednesday," pleaded the Coun-
tess, " it is ungenerous to lean upon a fact so recent."
" Apart from all this frivolity," said Claire, " are you going
to let me go to St. Just?"
184 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Nov.,
St. Just was a town in the north of France, not forty kilo-
metres from the fighting lines. There was an auxiliary hospital
there, under the auspices of the Women of France and more as-
sistants had been asked for. The head of the Association had just
called, and requested her parents to allow Claire to fill one of the
vacancies.
The Count had several objections to the plan; he was old-
fashioned, and it was not in accordance with his ideas that his
daughter should be a nurse in a hospital far from home.
Claire was not at all sure that her mother would take her part,
and sent a most grateful glance to her when madame said :
" Adrien, I should be quite of your opinion if Claire had to
go and live in a hospital of which we knew nothing. But the
auxiliary hospital at St. Just is really a convent of Reparatrice
Nuns, and the Reverend Mother herself is an old schoolmate of
mine. With her Claire would be in good hands. Moreover, if
you do not wish Claire to live in the convent, she might stop with
her cousin, Madame de St. Hilaire, who is Head Nurse at the
hospital. She has a house at St. Just, and would be delighted to
have Claire with her."
" If she is to go, it certainly would be far better for Claire's
health that she stay with Madame de St. Hilaire. She would thus
have change of scene every day and some pleasant recreation. To
tell the truth, I think a change from Paris, after more than a year
here, would do Claire good rather than harm. You know she was
never here for so long a time together in her life before."
After a good deal of discussion — the Count rather liked dis-
cussion and hated precipitancy — it was settled that Claire might go.
CHAPTER III.
One night, when Claire was on duty, a large convoy of
wounded was brought into the hospital at St. Just. A warning
had come earlier in the week that a larger number than usual might
be expected, and special preparations had been made. Everyone
was very busy; stretchers came in what seemed an unending pro-
cession; and many operations had to be performed at once. Most
of the cases seemed serious enough; some very terrible.
Claire was working in the same ward with Stephanie, her
I9i6.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 185
hostess' daughter, and they were both of them fully occupied, silent
and business-like. Presently Madame de St. Hilaire, herself, came
into the ward and said to her daughter:
" Claire speaks English well does she not? Yes? Well, there
are several English brought in with our people, and I have been
able to have them put all together in the same ward — the Good
Shepherd ward, on the ground floor. I think I will transfer Claire
to it, and give you Marie Duphot here instead. Claire will be
more useful there, for Marie talks no English."
She went across to Marie and told her of the .arrangement,
taking her off at once.
In the Good Shepherd ward were fifteen beds, and in four of
them lay wounded English: a sergeant, two privaites and an
officer.
" Here they are," said Madame de St. Hilaire in a low voice,
" what a comfort it will be for the poor fellows to hear their own
language."
At first Claire only spoke a few words to each by way of in-
troducing herself, and showing them that there was a nurse who
spoke English, and, as madame had said, they seemed immensely
pleased to find someone whom they could understand.
It was the officer to whom she came last.
" Captain d'Argnes ! " she exclaimed as soon as she saw him.
" Your brother? " cried Madame de St. Hilaire thrown off her
guard with surprise. " But surely no ! He is an English officer,
is he not?"
" Certainly. But he has our name and we know him."
At that moment one of the soldiers, the first she had spoken
to, called to Claire: " Please, Sister," he said, and she turned at
once and went to him.
" Madame ! " whispered Raymond to the Head Nurse, " would
you mind bending down, I want to say something quickly."
" Ah ! you talk French ! " said madame, doing as he had asked.
"Madame, that nurse's brother is here; wounded badly I
fear — you did not know ? He was brought in with me. He is over
there, in that bed opposite. Do not let her find him without prepara-
tion. He is either unconscious or asleep. I do not know which;
nor how badly he is hit; but I know he is Lieutenant d'Argnes;
and he is exactly like her, still more like her father, only very
boyish. He is a cuirassier, and there is a wounded soldier of his
regiment here too; I had met him once in Paris, and we recognized
186 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Nov.,
each other and talked a little at the dressing station. He told me
first that the young officer was Lieutenant d'Argnes — there is no
mistake."
" I will at once do what you suggest. Thank you very much
indeed, monsieur. But how are you wounded yourself? "
" A bit of shrapnel in my lung. Please, madame, would you
do that at once."
:t Yes, I will, at once. But you ; you must be in horrible pain."
" Enough to satisfy me: but please "
And Madame de St. Hilaire, full of admiration for the courage
and thought fulness of the wounded man, moved across to where the
French Lieutenant lay. She did not think, so far as she could
judge, that he was so dangerously wounded as the English officer.
Nor did she think he was unconscious, but only dozing. And she
was right. As she stooped down over him he opened his eyes and
smiled.
:< You are Monsieur d'Argnes, are you not? " she asked gently.
''' Yes, of the Ninth Cuirassiers."
" I know your friends. I am Madame de St. Hilaire, and my
husband and I are old friends of your father's. A relation of yours
is nursing here and I don't want her to see you suddenly. Where
is your wound? "
" Only in my hip. But I lost a good deal of blood, and it makes
me weak. So I doze often. Madame, I know which relation it is.
For I have heard of Claire being under your care."
" But she does not know you are here. I do not want you to
speak to her till I have told her "
And madame left him to rejoin his namesake by whose bed
Claire was now again standing. She knew already where Raymond
was wounded, and that it was very dangerous. But, of course, she
was talking cheerfully.
" And the piece of shrapnel had not been removed yet? "
" No, mademoiselle. It is too firmly fixed, but the doctors
say it may loosen. I have to be patient. They dared not operate
at the dressing station. Presently your doctors here may see their
way to do so."
" Claire," said madame, " go and get him some soup — what you
English call beef tea, eh."
" I have seen her brother," she went on, when Claire had gone.
" He knows she is here. Now I will go after her and let her know.
If patience is to cure you, my dear Captain, you will do well."
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 187
CHAPTER IV.
Raymond was fully aware of the gravity of his condition,
though he said nothing about it, and bore his greatest sufferings with
cheerful patience. What added to them was that he coughed almost
incessantly, and each cough caused real agony. It might, however,
be that the coughing would tend to dislodge the piece of shrapnel
embedded in the lung. It had entered through the back, and there
was no wound in front. The doctors in charge of the hospital were
very skillful, and only too willing to operate and indeed attempted to
do so, but found it impossible to remove the bit of shell without al-
most certainly fatal risk to the patient's life. The chances were all
against his recovery, and he knew that it was so. So did all
about him; but he continued to be thoroughly cheerful, and gave
far less trouble than many a man only superficially wounded. His
doctors and nurses, therefore, soon grew very fond of him, and
so did the other patients, his neighbors.
The young cuirassier who had arrived at the same time was
orderly to Lieutenant d'Argnes, and was the soldier who had called
the taxi for Raymond that afternoon, months before, in the Champs
Elysees. He was wounded in one foot, but soon began hopping
about the ward, the foot swathed in bulky bandages, and acting
as " orderly man." He was a most engaging creature ; full of good
spirit and fuller of kind-heartedness. He made himself generally
useful, but took special care of his own master, and was also par-
ticularly glad to do anything for the English captain who had his
master's name.
There were two regular orderlies in the ward, and they also
seemed to have special pleasure in attending to Raymond, not
only because he was more dangerously wounded than any other
patient in the ward, but also because he was a stranger in a strange
land. Of these two orderlies the elder was about eight and twenty,
the younger not more than nineteen.
" Monsieur," asked Madame de St. Hilaire, on the morning
after Raymond's arrival, "if you would rather be alone, there is a
tiny room I could give you. But it is very small, and it is not
specially cheerful for it has but a small window, and the trees out-
side make it rather dark. Of course, you would) be quiieter,
but perhaps you might find it less cheerful."
" Yes, madame, I think I would. And I like to see my neigh-
i88 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Nov.,
bors here. Thank you so much for thinking of it, but I would
rather stay where I am."
Madame de St. Hilaire hesitated a moment, then said :
" It is our custom to write to the friends of any patients who
cannot write themselves. Should you like us to do so for you? "
" I believe I could write — though not a very long letter. Per-
haps you would also write to my mother. I will give you the
address and tell her, if she would be allowed, to come here. You
will not, I am sure, frighten her; but she would much rather know
the exact truth. And the exact truth is that I shall probably not get
over this."
" I will certainly write. Your mother, of course, knows
French like yourself? Yes, I thought so. But I cannot tell her
that I think you will probably not get over this, for I have a con-
viction that you will. I have been doing this work for fifteen
months now, and I have almost always been right : even sometimes
when the doctors thought there was hardly any hope, and that is
not their opinion now. I have also to write to the other Madame
d'Argnes, for Henri had a hemorrhage early this morning and he
is not so well. Claire knows: it happened before her night-duty
had ended."
When she perceived how this news troubled Raymond she was
sorry she had told him.
" I had understood from Claire," she said, " that you did not
know Henri."
" No, I do not. But he looks such a boy, it seems pitiful that
he should suffer so much."
" But you," said the woman, smiling, " you do not look a very
old man." '
" I am six and twenty."
A little later, when the elder of the two orderlies was attending
to him, Raymond asked :
" How is he? Monsieur d'Argnes, I mean."
" Oh, just the same. No worse, if another hemorrhage does
not occur. And one hopes there will be no other. He does not
fidget, but lies absolutely still, and that is a great thing."
Raymond perceived by his voice and his whole manner that
he was well-bred.
" You yourself are a soldier — in the Chasseurs a pied, are you
not?"
" I was with my regiment in the Argonne, but lost my right
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 189
eye, quite at the beginning of the war. This is a glass one. Now
I am doing this work."
" Monsieur," Raymond asked in a still lower voice, " has he —
Monsieur d'Argnes — seen a priest? "
" Ah! you are a Catholic? "
" No. But half the men in my regiment are Irish and Catholic,
and I know that to see a priest is what they think most of when
they are even a little wounded. I will tell you the truth: I have
seen so much in this war, that if I understood more about it, I
should like to be a Catholic myself."
" Monsieur, I am myself a priest, a monk too. I don't look
much of a monk in this tunic, do I? And the other — the young
orderly (he is not strictly an orderly but what we call a stretcher-
bearer) — he is to be a priest too. He is what we call a seminarian;
only now the war has come to interrupt his studies ; but I do not
think these works of charity he is doing will injure him."
" What a beautiful face he has ; not handsome, but with a
singular expression of holiness."
" Yes. He is a good boy. But, monsieur, do you know that it
makes you cough to talk, and that I should not allow it."
" I'm not sure that it does make me cough more. It takes my
mind off, and the cough comes from a sort of irritation."
The young priest thought. "A sort of irritation. If I had a
jagged bit of shrapnel in my lung I wonder if I should call it a
sort of irritation. One is always at school, and the Schoolmaster
sets many different pupil-teachers over one."
By the time Madame d'Argnes arrived from Paris, Raymond
was much worse; her own boy not at all worse, if not decidedly
better. She grieved to see the young Englishman in so grave a
condition, and her son seemed full of interest about him.
" Henri," she said gently, " he is interested in you too, and he
asked a question about you, just as you are asking me questions
about him."
" Claire says he is always asking her about me."
" Yes. But this question he did not ask Claire. She does
not know."
"Well, what did he ask?"
" He wanted to know if you had seen a priest."
" Mamma," answered the lad, " I have seen thousands of
priests." And he gave a little laugh.
" Yes. But you know quite well what he means."
190 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Nov.,
"Is he a bigot?"
" He is not even a Catholic."
" Isn't that odd ? " I can't understand not being a Catholic.
But then I am French."
" And yet you only think it a joke when — "
" Not a joke at all, mamma," laughed Henri, " just the op-
posite. It is a very bad joke to die; and it is when one has to do
that that a priest becomes necessary. By and by."
" That bad joke of dying — we all have to make it."
" Some time, yes. But there's no hurry. I'm only twenty-
one."
" My little Henri, I hope you will live seventy years."
" At ninety I shall send for a priest — on my birthday. I
promise."
" I hope you will not wait till so many years after I shall
have made your bad joke. But I think if you did, you would be
ashamed to do it then. Do you think Christ only wants dotards?
You would think it mean to offer Him your dotage after keeping all
the good years for yourself."
" Mamma ! " said the lad, still teasing her, " I will send for
a priest — -even if I am quite well — the day Captain d'Argnes sends
for one."
CHAPTER V.
When Raymond's mother arrived he seemed to her less gravely
ill than she had feared to find him. But she soon understood that
he was much worse than she had feared. No operation had been
possible, and he was much weaker. Almost all food, even the
lightest, made him sick, and he was much weaker. The cough still
continued and shook him to pieces. He could talk very little,
though he could read, and she often sat silently, knitting by his
side while he read.
One morning while the doctors and nurses were changing his
dressings, she went to the chapel of the convent and knelt down to
pray there. At the other end of the little church a nun was kneel-
ing before the altar of the Blessed Virgin. Presently, a bell rang
and the Sister rose, and came down the church, passing close to
Madame d'Argnes. As she went by she bent her head in a cour-
teous salutation.
" Sister," said Raymond's mother, leaning towards her :
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 191
" Madame."
" Sister, when you again come to pray here, will you pray for
my boy ? "
" We are all praying for him. I was praying for him when
the bell rang; it was hard to stop, but Our Lady will take my
obedience for a prayer — I was asking her to do something."
"What? " whispered the poor mother.
" To send her own Son to him. To let Him be your son's
doctor Himself. 'You can spare Him for a little while/ I told her,
'you have Him at your side for all eternity.' "
To the Protestant lady, though she was not at all bigoted, the
nun's way seemed quaint, almost too quaintly familiar, and yet its
simplicity moved her, and then it was so tender.
" Ah! " she whispered, " I wish He would go."
The nun hesitated a moment and then said simply :
" He will go. It is His business. His own business."
Raymond's mother turned her eyes for an instant towards the
place where the nun had come and was startled. The sister saw
the look upon her face, and was about to turn involuntarily in the
direction Raymond's mother was looking, when the latter, yielding
to some impulse, said hurriedly, laying her hand on Mother Gene-
vieve's sleeve:
"No. Please do not look?"
The nun obeyed, and saying, " I must go — you will pardon
me," moved noiselessly on her way down the aisle.
" Now, Mother," she said in her heart as she went away,
" show this other mother what you can do. Make your Son give
her hers."
That " other poor mother " was looking with awed eyes up
the little church towards the altar where Mother Genevieve had
been praying. Over it, in a niche, stood a figure, life-size, of God's
own great Mother. A shaft of light shone upon it and brought out
all the colors — the blue mantle flowered with lily-heads, the soft
brown kirtle powdered with golden stars, the long dark auburn hair,
the jeweled crown. The altar itself was in shadow, so were the
plants and flowers decorating it. But, whereas when the nun had
knelt before it, the Virgin Mother's arms had clasped her Son close
to her shoulder and her heart, it seemed to Raymond's mother that
they were empty now.
" He has gone," she said, not aloud. She still looked and the
arms were still empty.
192 THE COWARD [Nov.,
" He has gone," she said again.
And then, not willfully disbelieving, but yielding to innate
habit of repulsion from the supernatural and miraculous, she
thought :
" Impossible. I am superstitious. I will go."
And she rose to go back to her son. As she left the place
where she knelt she did as the nun had done, and bent her knee to
the tabernacle.
" He is there anyway," she thought, " I believe that."
Her obeisance, because she was not used to it, was not the
same as the nun's; it was such a profound bending of the whole
body as is given at court to a sovereign.
' The King of kings," she thought, as she bent low.
[TO BE CONCLUDED.]
THE COWARD.
BY CAROLINE GILTINAN.
IT lies before my wounded feet:
The cross I am to bear.
Blocking my path, it frightens me
To see it lying there.
And yet, I dare not turn away,
Nor yet dare go around.
God, give me strength to carry it :
The thing upon the ground.
IMPRESSIONS OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF
CATHOLIC CHARITIES.
BY WILLIAM J. KERBY, PH.D.
HE National Conference of Catholic Charities held its
fourth biennial meeting at the Catholic University,
September I7th, i8th, igth and 2Oth. It was attended
by five hundred delegates. No description can give to
one who was not present an adequate impression of
the meaning of the Conference to the men and women who spent
those days in intensive study of Catholic Charity. Canada, Oregon,
Texas, Louisiana and Maine mark the outer limits of the districts
represented among them. The printed report of the Conference will
appear early in 1917. The tedious labor of editing the two hundred
and forty-eight thousand word record necessarily delays its appear-
ance. That report will furnish opportunity to study the settled
thought of the Conference and the arguments by which policies were
supported or opposed. Were no permanent record at all of the
proceedings to appear, the experience of those days would give
to those who shared them abundant compensation for the sacrifices
of convenience that made them possible. An interpretation of cer-
tain aspects of the meeting is offered while the memory of it is
still vivid and the influence of its atmosphere is widely felt.
I.
The first impression which struck an interested observer at
the Conference was that everything related to it quivered with life.
No shadow of lassitude or indifference was found anywhere.
Everything about the atmosphere and the delegates and the meet-
ings betokened vitality. Vital topics were under discussion. Vital
interest in them had brought these hundreds together. One found
on all sides eagerness to learn, alert search for definite information,
inquiry after principles, comparisons of method and experience.
Numerous meetings were called spontaneously during the intervals
intended for rest and recreation. From nine in the morning until
eleven at night the halls of the University were peopled with men
VOL. CIV.— 13
194 NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES [Nov.,
and women whose active personal interest in problems of relief
was astonishing.
There was in this quickened interest a peculiar touch of self-
realization and of the mental vigor that follows it. The hundreds
of delegates had come from many cities and many states in order
to teach and in order to learn. They had been thinking and work-
ing in their own circles in orderly and even activity without par-
ticular stimulation or occasion for it. But once they entered the
atmosphere of the Conference, experience and views melted into
the collective spirit of the meeting and quickened minds into energy
and speech. Experience became vital. Attitudes charged suddenly
with unaccustomed energy took on new importance. Fluency dis-
placed shyness and timidity yielded to self-confidence. Everyone
was alert. Everyone appeared well informed at some point or
other. Views and experience were vitalized. Hence the impression
of available power and conscious purpose that the most casual ob-
server discovered without any effort at all.
In this experience of the delegates, charity took on greatly
enhanced prestige both as an organic part of the life of the indi-
vidual Christian and as a fundamental interest of the Church. This
is an important point that might be easily overlooked. In spite of
our best will and honest spiritual impulses, duty, business, social
relations and reasonable ambitions drive charity into a second
place in life. Although we look upon it as primary in the Christian
dispensation, it is in our experience and as a factor in our average
judgments, secondary. During the days of the Conference charity
was held in supreme honor. Here at least was an oasis in the
desert. Here was a tiny world in which the law of Christ could
be for the moment seen and loved in its own appealing splendor.
During these days the consuming passion was to learn how to
give, not how to get, to find out the best way to serve, not a
way to command. Here at least for a moment was respite from
selfishness, release from the tyranny of circumstance that hinders
one from obeying a great ideal. The collective soul of the Con-
ference caught and asserted the sense of supernatural values that
accepts charity as Christ declared it.
Here, too, the delegates discovered anew the place that charity
holds among the impulses of the Church's heart. Here the charity
of today found an historical background that gave it new meaning
and prophetic power. At this gathering one became conscious of the
great, quiet, ceaseless and reverent activity fostered by the Church in
I9i6.] NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES 195
her historical role of the Samaritan. It is not strange then that so
many of the delegates referred frequently to this experience as
a new realization of the place of charity in the Christian life.
Everyone seemed filled with a sense of definite acquisition. Dele-
gates indicated new inspiration that had touched the soul, new in-
formation that started promising trains of thought, new impulse to
give more generous service to the cause of poverty. One met every-
where this sense of acquisition, this feeling that one had discovered
new fountains of joy and new sources of power during these un-
selfish days.
II.
\
It is the chief business of a Charities Conference to bring to
expression differences of opinion. If there were no differences of
opinion there could be no conferences, nor would there be any need
of them. They who think and they who do will inevitably disagree
in some way as to principle, method or interpretation. This is as
true in the field of charity as it is in the field of politics or finance
or theology. The many who are working in a common cause or
in the same or in related fields are brought together in conferences
in order that they may state conviction, unfold argument, appeal
for following. Hope of progress and of the clearing of thought
depends on contest among views, provided that honesty, zeal and
toleration govern their expression. Judged by the differences of
opinion that were brought forth, this Conference achieved enviable
success. This is said neither playfully nor without reflection. Un-
less a Conference attracts those who think and work, and leads them
to the forceful expression of what they think and the defence of
what they do, all is vain.
There were differences of opinion as to the adequacy of our
resources in relief work and as to the quality of some of our work
where our resources are sufficient. There were differences as to
the facts of poverty no less than as to the bearing of many related
problems in it. Standards in relief work, the prevalence of fraud,
the function of records in preventing it and the wisdom of methods
to circumvent it, furnished occasion for much lively and good na-
tured debate. Policies within our own circles, policies to be fol-
lowed in dealing with other movements in the field of relief fur-
nished occasion for much animated discussion. There were dif-
ferences of opinion as to the composition and use of the family
196 NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES [Nov.,
budget, as to the function of legislation in the field of relief and
as to the protection of the spiritual character of charity itself.
There was much animated debate at all such points, and there was
no little of the enlivening repartee which redeems discussion from
monotony and relieves the strain of serious thought.
An incidental advantage of discussion is found in the discipline
to which it subjects one's views. There are none of us who are not
annoyed from time to time by discovering that what we thought
was reasoned conviction is nothing other than prejudice, assump-
tion or impression that has taken on an air of authority in our
minds. Many of the positions which we most stoutly defend will
on examination be found to be without ancestry or defence. We
are guilty of a fault with which logic charges us. We base general-
ization on narrow experience. We occasionally mistake vehement
feeling for knowledge and prejudice or temperament for principle.
Hence everyone of us is served well when we are called upon
to state our views in public and give reasons for them. Under the
pressure of this effort, we discover usurpers among our opinions
and take occasion at once to expel them. Thus the Conference
acted as a mental discipline of the very highest order, not only in
the clash of mind with mind, but also in the interior processes of the
mind itself.
One feature of this was found in the general broadening of
view which all of the delegates experienced. In one way or another
all problems of charity were represented at the Conference. One
who had been narrowed by specializing on one particular problem,
discovered at the Conference that many others approached the
same problem from another standpoint. Thus there was built up
that organic view which alone brings sure judgment and safe
guidance in dealing with any social problem whatsoever.
Were there no differences of opinion there could be no con-
ferences. Were there no fundamental agreements in opinion there
could be no conferences. One of the distinctive features of our
Charities Conference is the joy that we experience in discovering
fundamental unity of faith, sympathy and purpose. The conscious-
ness of this unity gave to the Conference great collective strength.
There was not a single touch of doubt or even question as to the
place of charity in the Christian life or the sincere Christian spirit
that brought those hundreds together. They were there because
they believed in the spiritual nature of charity; because they
reverently wished to fit themselves for noble obedience to the law
1916.] NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES 197
of Christ; because they sought to learn how better to serve the
poor in the spirit of Christ. There was no obscurity as to the
fundamentals of Christian morality that underlie every policy of
relief work. There was no moment during those days of varied
and intense discussion when the Christian fundamentals were called
into question. Thus it was that the Conference became an ex-
perience in faith, a revelation of the spiritual social richness of
collective Catholic life. Much of the joy and wholesome zeal that
were witnessed were derived from the clearer realization of the
fundamental agreements in the Christian life that held the delegates
together.
The Conference served us also by making still more clear the
understanding of what is definite in Catholic doctrine and of what
is debatable in Catholic policy. False impressions in either field
could not long survive the influence of the Conference atmosphere
and the discipline of its debate. It was serviceable to all who were
present to find the relatively large field in which frank discussion
is encouraged. Established principles were re-stated in face of
many complexities of modern life. Apparent conflicts were ex-
plained away and hidden conflicts, and drift toward them, as well,
were brought to view. New industrial and political measures were
tested in the light of our accepted Catholic principles. Traditional
policies and points of view were stated and challenged and de-
fended with varying skill and outcome. Undoubtedly clearer un-
derstanding of Catholic principles and of controverted policies was
one of the most profitable results of the Conference. The sense of
sure anchorage in essentials and of welcome freedom of discussion
of transitory policies or accidental applications was among the
greater and not the lesser joys that the delegates experienced.
III.
Perhaps it would serve a purpose if these thoughts were stated
in terms of the everlasting conflict between the old and the new,
between conservatism and radicalism properly understood. No
stable social institution has ever failed to witness this conflict within
itself. Prejudice, interest, custom, conviction, memory defend
what has been, what is. Against it there arise new outlooks, re-
statements of problems in the light of wider knowledge, new
policies, new vocabulary, new points of view. Conflict is inevitable.
198 NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES [Nov.,
It is given in the constitution of nature and is, within limits, in-
tended by God as a normal social process in the development of in-
stitutions. Now the new makes many mistakes and the old makes
not a few. The National Conference of Catholic Charities aims
to draw both together, and to enable them to meet in friendly con-
test. All history tells us that new thought is usually misunderstood
and in bad form, while old thought or traditional thinking enjoys
the prestige of respectability and the power of establishment. New
thought is often arrogant and intolerant. The old often lacks
docility and information. Fortunately there is a wise and modest
new. Fortunately there is a wise and docile old. The hope of
progress and of peace lies in the meeting and trustful cooperation
of the wise new which is modest and of the wise old which is
tolerant. Their footsteps as they walk hand in hand over neutral
valleys, lead to peace.
The Conference served this purpose admirably. New views
and old views met, exchanged opinions and sometimes compliments,
and each was better for the meeting. One of the delegates re-
marked that the greatest service rendered by it was in the pro-
tection of new thinking. I might add that an equal service was
added in the correction of it as well. At any rate, both types of
thought and policy were sure of protection and of respectful hearing.
They enjoyed all the freedom that they could ask under the reserva-
tions already alluded to. If in anticipation of the appearance of the
report of the Conference one may state an impression, it seems
that the new policies are winning in the entire field of relief. This
would not in any case be surprising, since today's radical becomes
tomorrow's conservative and change is the law of life.
IV.
A number of agreeable surprises were brought forth during the
days of the Conference. The first one was in the discovery of a
large number of experienced trained workers in the field of relief
who had never before been brought together by any agency in our
Catholic life other than the Conference. This has been remarked in
each of the preceding meetings. Perhaps it was found to be the
case more in the recent Conference than heretofore. There were
university and college men who had given much study to aspects of
relief and preventive work. There were many graduates of schools
1916.] NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES 199
of philanthropy and of departments of philanthropy in our uni-
versities who brought to the discussions accurate knowledge of
literature and methods, and of the approved wisdom that relief
work as a whole has brought to expression. There were members
of State Boards of Charity, executive heads of philanthropic bodies,
attorneys, physicians and business men, and women in goodly num-
bers. Some had lived and worked out of touch with the collective
Catholic sense. Many of them, in spite of heavy business cares,
had spent years in faithful attention to the demands of charity,
and had stood forth worthy representatives of the Church when
occasion required. All of them felt the thrill of discovery and
the spiritual joy of the collective Christian life in their experience
at the Conference. Many of them did not hesitate to institute
searching comparisons with other types of conference, which gave
much joy to those through whose efforts this one was made pos-
sible. The welding together of so many who represent varied ex-
perience, training and outlook into one body of earnest men and
women sharing a common spiritual philosophy, who love the Chris-
tian ideal of charity and seek ways of acting under a common
spiritual impulse, was a spiritual achievement of the first order.
Another surprise was in the expression of the insistent de-
mand by our Catholic workers for up-to-date literature of relief.
We must admit that our slender literature is out of all proportion
to the prestige of charity in the Christian life, to the magnitude
of the charity interests of the Church, and to the demand of modern
life for the best that is in us when we endeavor to serve the poor.
The founding of the Charities Review, which will appear as a
monthly beginning next January, was one response to this demand.
At one session of the Conference where its publication was dis-
cussed, twenty-three hundred subscriptions were pledged within
an hour. Every speaker who took the floor declared that our in-
terests in the work of charity demand such a publication at once.
It was clearly shown that the day is past when the individual
worker in the field of relief may think and act alone. He must
think and act with others, in a certain sense with all others. He
must see not only one side, but all sides of the problem with which
he deals. He must know not only what he does but also what
others do. He must be willing to teach and to learn. Our think-
ing must be made more or less homogenous in respect to the fun-
damentals in modern policies of relief. Realizations of those kinds
create literature and a demand for it. A monthly publication of
200 NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES [Nov.,
the kind proposed will stimulate activity throughout the country,
improve standards and help us to assimilate everything wholesome
in modern movements as far as consistent with the spiritual princi-
ples which guide us.1 At any rate, the action of the Conference
in demanding a monthly publication and in pledging support for it,
was welcome proof of the awakened mind that now characterizes
our leaders in charity.
The success that the National Conference has met and the
warm personal interest that its members take in its aims and work,
are sufficient proof that the creation of it was timely, and its
methods are substantially approved. What it has done in its six
years in developing a national outlook in our charity, serves to
make more clear the magnitude of our interests in the field, and
the call that we feel to meet every standard of reasonable effi-
ciency by which we may be judged. Our charity work of what-
soever kind in these days is described in terms not always of our
own choosing; is judged by standards which we cannot control;
and is treated by public and private organizations somewhat arbi-
trarily when not with direct injustice.
Our works must deal with bad will no less than good will. In
every relation we have pressing need of literature, of the reading,
speaking and thinking habit. We must modify vocabulary, change
methods in the light of wider information and widen scope of
action as our increasing efficiency permits. We cannot dismiss
with a gesture proposals which we do not like, nor will our frown
defeat philosophy or baffle a tenacious error. System, science
formula, method have their advantages. If they do not frighten
us in theology, why should we fear them in charity? Anyone of
us may err. Not all of us will err in the same way. The upbuild-
ing of a great serious collective Catholic sense in relief work can-
not but strengthen and guide us well. As a body, we shall scarcely
err in this regard. The National Conference has begun that work.
If we may believe its> members, it has made marked progress in
few years.
JThe Catholic Charities Review will be published from the Catholic Uni-
versity tinder the editorship of Rev. Dr. John A. Ryan. It will succeed the St.
Vincent de Paul Quarterly which completes this month its twenty-second volume.
The Quarterly is the only Catholic periodical of its kind that has been ex-
clusively devoted to the interests of charity in the United States. It was pub-
lished by the Superior Council of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of the city of
New York.
THANKSGIVINGS.
BY HELEN HAINES.
Do you know where I have been
So early this morning'
Just as His day was dawning?
I've pressed close fo the manger
To greet the Little Stranger —
Though others gifts did proffer,
And I could nothing offer.
But when He saw me kneeling
For my poor needs appealing,
I thought He smiled on me.
The joy of God !
Do you know where I have been
So early this morning
Just as His day was dawning?
I've sat in grassy places
To watch those eager faces,
As He taught them Who was blessed-
And I listened shame-confessed.
But when He saw me grieving.
So weakly unachieving,
I heard Him calling me.
The choice of God !
Do you know where I have been
So early this morning
Just as His day was dawning?
I've sought again His sign-post
From flowering by-ways, lost.
And I trod the road it pointed
Which His bleeding feet anointed.
But when He saw me coming —
So desolate my homing —
I saw Him weep for me —
The grief of God !
THE POETICAL WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY.
BY ELEANOR HULL,
President of the Irish Literary Society of London.
links between the Victorian age and our own
grow fewer as time goes on, and it is one of the
many claims upon us of the work of Miss Emily
Hickey and of her personality that she stands as one
of these links with a great past. To have known
Browning is already becoming a rare distinction, and to have
been, with Dr. Furnivall, the co-founder of the Browning Society,
and its first Honorary Secretary, is an achievement in which Miss
Hickey may well feel a genuine pride. Something of high com-
panionship with literary men and literature breathes in the presence
of our poet as she comes down the steps to meet us, welcoming
us with gentle dignity and with outstretched hand and quiet smile.
We know her at once for a woman of refinement of mind, whose
soul is at harmony with itself. As we talk to her we find that
our first instinct is right, and that she has drunk deep at the foun-
tainheads of European literature; that the poems of the Anglo-
Saxon and Elizabethan days have not so filled her mind as to shut
her from the enjoyment of the lyrics of Victor Hugo or of the
massive epic of Dante. Her intellectual range of interests and joys
is wide. Miss Hickey is no longer young, except in spirit; but is
it her Irish birth and descent that is accountable for the fact that
she never seems to grow old, and is it her natal Irish fairy-gift
of humor which lights up a temperament naturally grave and much
occupied with the serious and religious aspects of life? Perhaps
it is the ready sympathy grown of long association with young
lives; however it be, certain it is that though her hair is gray, no
young girl would ever think her unapproachable, and no child would
doubt her ready humor and ability to be a play-fellow; but then,
Miss Hickey loves the young and she loves children, and they
would guess this even without her child poems to tell them so.
For Miss Hickey's natural love for study and reflective thought
is only one side of her life. As she tells us herself, though as a
girl she cannot remember a time when she did not care about read-
ing poetry, so also she does not recollect any time when she did
I9i6.] THE WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY 203
not love climbing trees; and the tree climbing was just as real
and as essential a part of her nature as the poetry. The tree-
climbing is in her cheery humorous smile today, and she will
mentally be a tree climber to the last. We shall always find her
mounting.
When we saw her last, a few weeks ago, she was the contented
occupant of a room in a convent of French nuns, with whom she
was chatting in free and graceful French. This familiarity with
the French language she likes to tell us that she owed to an early
teacher, Madame Stuart, nee Planque, who died only a year ago
at the great age of ninety-nine. To this truly gifted teacher and
friend, Miss Hickey ascribes the development of her natural taste
for poetry. With her she read Sir Walter Scott, and the old
thrilling border ballads of Chevy Chase and Sir Cauline. She still
possesses a little volume given to her by this teacher, and from
which she used to learn by heart Scott's fine swinging verse.
But it is not the echoes of Scott, but of Tennyson and Mrs.
Browning that we catch in Miss Hickey's early poems. She was
only twenty when her first long poem was published in Cornhill,
and though she tells us that its form and the name of its chief
character were taken from a poem of " Owen Meredith's " (the
second Lord Lytton) published in the same journal, it is Tenny-
son's voice that we seem to hear speaking behind it. The touching
tale of the two men who loved one woman, and unconsciously told
their story to each other on ship board, all unwitting that they
spoke of the same woman, is, as it appears to us, influenced by
Tennyson's narrative poems; but, it may be, as unconsciously as
was the thought of those who told their story to each other. Many
of her early verses take the narrative form. It was perhaps an at-
tempt to work out in another way an early ambition to become
a novelist. For Miss Hickey, who grew up in the beautiful neigh-
borhood of County Carlow, had, fostered in the ambition by kindly
friends, already in her " teens," put out feelers in the direction of
prose writing. Together she and her elder sister wrote stories and
read them to each other, and she has had more than one serial story
published, and many valuable papers in later life.1 But her real
bent was towards poetry, and the narrative form was a good one
to train upon, while experience was widening and life opening its
vast possibilities before her. Narrative is not the highest use
JMiss Hickey has published one novel, Lois, and she tells me that she has
another ready for press.
204 THE WORKS OF EMILY H 1C KEY [Nov.,
for poetry, but it is a quite legitimate use, and Miss Hickey has
never entirely abandoned it; only she has gained greater force
and terseness of expression as time went on. Her earliest book
of verse, called from the first piece in it A Sculptor, and Other
Poems, was published in i88i,2 is chiefly made up of narrative
poetry. It rather gives promise for the future than the satisfac-
tion of achievement, yet we can feel that better is to come as we
read Told in the Firelight, Margaret, or the two little lyrics called
Love-song and A Song of the Unsung. She shows also that power
of analyzing certain sides o'f character which we meet with in many
of her poems as, for instance, in A Sculptor, the study of an un-
successful artist, engrossed in his own poor accomplishment to the
neglect of the faithful wife beside him. Miss Hickey has treated
a similar theme, that of the thoroughly selfish artist, to whom
the affections of women are only interesting as " experiences," upon
which he, as an artist, can draw for " material," in a later and far
more powerful poem, called Two Women and a Poet (Poems,
1896). The study of character has evidently been always a fa-
vorite occupation with our poet. Yet on the whole we may
say that this first book is chiefly experimental; and the author
indulges in it in some phantasies of spelling and expression which
she wisely abandons in her later books.
We feel a great advance when we come to her Verse-tales,
Lyrics, and Translations, published in i889,3 an^ yet more so in
Poems, published in i896.4 Indeed, if we were asked where the
finest poems of our author were to be found, we should un-
hesitatingly point to these two books. Her power of expression has
ripened and moulded itself to a very remarkable extent, she is no
longer experimenting in forms and methods of self -revelation;
above all her thought has cleared and her grasp of life deepened.
Her most accomplished poems, from the artistic point of view,
are undoubtedly to be found in the later book; perhaps the more
human and interesting are collected in the earlier. This is, at least,
our personal view, but personal preferences in poetry cannot be im-
posed on another; each must choose as appeals to himself.
Michael Villiers, Idealist? seems like an interlude between the
other two. It contains Miss Hickey's views upon social problems,
and may perhaps be connected with that period of her life when
these problems came much before her mind through her labors
•London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. "London: Elkin Mathews.
*Ibid. 'London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1891.
I9i6.] THE WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY 205
among the poor of London. The long poem which gives its
name to the volume deals with the history of a man of breed-
ing and culture born to a large inheritance, but conscious of
the tug of the social questions and the call of the human tragedies
that come to him from the strata of life lower down beneath his
own. We feel strongly in this poem the influence of Mrs. Brown-
ing's personality and work; Aurora Leigh leaps to our minds as
we read it. Not that it is in any way an imitation of Mrs. Brown-
ing's great social poem, but we are conscious of the same spirit
working through it, the meeting of a similar set of problems in
the same broad way of womanly sympathy. The questions, old
as creation and never. wholly answerable, of the relationship of
rich and poor, of competition and labor, of the responsibility and
use of wealth and of the grinding terrors of penury, are argued
out by Michael with his own heart and with his friends. It was
a good thought to place him, the idealist, in close conjunction with
his old uncle, the practical landowner with the good heart, and
to show how near and how far off they were from each other. It
was a difficult thing to write a poem of such length on such a
topic, and to write it so successfully as Miss Hickey has done. As
is hardly to be avoided in work of this kind, the interest of the
argument is inclined to override the human interest; in this Miss
Hickey is less satisfying than the author of Aurora Leigh, where
we are never allowed to lose sympathy with the sufferers under
the strange irregularities of life, even while we are inquiring into
the origin and causation of their sorrows. But the poem is never-
theless fine both in spirit and expression, and we did not find its in-
terest flag. There are, too, in Aurora Leigh, some weighty lines
which remain in the mind. We give a specimen or two :
And no one who is impious to the past
Can help the present or the future time;
And none who liveth only in the past
Can be the servant of the present time,
And sow the seeds to bear the future's growth.
Or again, when a friend would argue that
At any rate we can afford to wait
Till the Time Spirit shape the way for us !
the reply comes swiftly and truly:
Till the Time Spirit shape the way for us !
206 THE WORKS OF EMILY RICKEY [Nov.,
What is the Spirit of the Time, except
The essence of the noblest thoughts and deeds
Of all the strongest spirits of the time?
A nation's life is wrong where every man
Lives for himself, or for himself and those
He has begotten; and her life is wrong
If some of those her sons have set themselves,
However it may be in ignorance,
To live upon the work of other men,
Whose lives are none the richer because of theirs . .
A very charming poem which treats a similar subject in a
lighter manner in the delightful Margery Daw* the story of a high-'
born winsome girl intended by her relations to play a role in society,
who voluntarily devotes herself to the well-being of her people as
one of themselves. When the babe they have loved has grown to
girlhood, she is sent away from her native village to see life in
London, and these poor folk who had known her believed that
they would never see her more, save in the occasional visit of the
grand lady.
They dressed her in grand attire, and took our darling away;
She kissed us all and said, " I am coming home one day."
We smiled, to grieve her not, but our hearts were very sore,
For we thought we knew that day, we should see our child no more.
See-saw, Margery Daw.
We were very wise, you see, and yet not wise enough ;
Her wholesome human heart was made of different stuff;
And when five years were come and gone, with seed and grain,
Our little Margery Daw came back to us again.
See-saw, Margery Daw.
Miss Dawson, the gold lady! Miss Dawson, the moneyed dame!
A girl with big bright eyes, and happy voice, she came!
We kissed our dear wee maid with never a touch of awe;
Margery Daw come back ! our own little Margery Daw !
See-saw, Margery Daw.
Changed? was Margery changed? yes, one way changed was she;
We saw on her brow the star of lovely constancy ;
We knew she had claimed and won the heritage of the years,
The grandeur of noble thought and the glory of selfless tears.
See-saw, Margery Daw.
6 Verse-Tales, Lyrics and Translations.
1916.] THE WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY 207
And this is how Margery came back to live with the poor as one of
the poor, and to be the blessing and light of her childhood's neigh-
borhood.
To Miss Hickey no lot is more sad than that of the struggling
solitary woman-worker, for whom the race of life has been too
hard, and who finds herself broken and defeated at the last. This
situation bears to our poet the aspect of the direst tragedy, per-
haps because as a worker herself she is able to realize more keenly
what failure in such a case would mean. Two affecting poems
on this subject recur to the mind. One, published with Michael
Villiers, is called Autographs, and is the story, briefly told, of a lady
of birth and refinement, who in her youth had been loved by a poet,
risen into fame. His early death had forced the gentle woman
who had waited for him into a long struggle for self-preservation,
which had ended in failure. When she was in direst want, a
buyer of autographs came to her door and offered her money for
the letters of her famous lover. Her indignant refusal, and the
consuming of the little sheaf of treasured letters in her candle,
before the slight rush-light of her own life goes out, is pathetically
told, and we feel the tears at our eyes as we read. But Miss Hickey
has, from the artistic point of view, treated a very similar subject
with still greater skill in her poem While the Grass Grows. It is
prefaced by a parable. A lean and starving steed is waiting for the
growing of the meadow grass which will bring him nourishment,
and save his life, " in some country, where I know not."
There the grass was growing, growing; one who stooped could well-
nigh hear
Fluctuant wavelets of the spring-sap, softly throbbing on the ear,
For the grass was growing, growing, in the growth-tide of the year.
Sweet the smell of that fair herbage by the sheen of spring-time lit;
Martlets skimming swiftly over slacken speed because of it;
And the breeze above it sweeping maketh music exquisite.
And away, away in distance, far from meadow-sheen and glow,
On the barren moor where never grace of meadow-growth can go,
Is the seely steed a-waiting for the goodly grass to grow.
Patience, patience, for a little ; one must learn to bear and wait ;
Only patience and it cometh, matters not if soon or late;
Seely steed, have patience only, plenty knocketh at the gate.
Now is come the time of plenty ; in the lush green shall he tread ;
In that fairest of all meadows shall the seely steed be fed;
Nay, my masters, take no troubling, for the seely steed is dead.
208 THE WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY [Nov.,
Like the " seely steed," a " little lady " on the busy streets of
London was daily wending to and fro, waiting for the time which
friends, kindly hearted, told her must always come to those who
knew how to wait; the blessed time of rest and plenty.
She had fought a manful battle, she had worked while work she could ;
She was only one of many struggling hard for daily food,
And she lost her little foothold, sorely baffled and withstood.
So the months, the years, passed by, but the lush grass was
still far away, and the grass growing for her feeding was still un-
cut. At last the day came, but it found her dead.
On her thin white face of calmness now no shade of trouble falls,
As she lies on naked boarding, bounded round by naked walls;
You will find her little havings underneath yon Golden Balls.
There may be technical faults in these poems, but we do not
think of them if such there be; we think only of their tender
human sympathy with pain and their understanding of unspoken
trouble.
But we must not leave the impression that all Miss Hickey's
work of this period was concerned with human tragedies. All the
while her musical sense was developing and becoming more highly
trained, and a number of lyrics, such as Harebells, 'A Primrose,
and Cuckoo Song, show that she could sing as well as soar. In
time this singing quality, combining with her ripened reflective
power, was to produce those beautiful sonnets which are to our
mind the expression of Miss Hickey's choicest and most polished
work. A little group of these very beautiful sonnets occur together
in Poems, the volume which represents her high watermark of
achievement. They are entitled: And after This, To R. N., To
Miranda, Who Sleeps, A Choice, and two sonnets called Love and
Grief. We give the sonnet To Miranda, Who Sleeps, as a specimen
of what we consider the author's best work.
To MIRANDA, WHO SLEEPS.
Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well!
The dawning light hath set the world astir
With chirp and warble of birds, and faery whirr
Of wringlets, quivering in the broken spell
That sleep had laid on nature: strange to tell,
Miranda sleepeth yet; strange, for it were
A wonder if the delicate ear of her
Knew not this multitudinous matin-bell.
I9i6.] THE WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY 209
But still Miranda sleeps ! What was to meet
In dreamland, what, or whom, for thee to lie
Unmindful of the glory of earth and sky,
With little quiet hands and quiet feet?
And still thou sleepest, and thy sleep is sweet.
Dear heart, I would not waken thee, not I.
Nothing could well be more rounded and finished than the
choice of phrasing and wording in this sonnet. It is beautiful.
In this volume, too, she sums up her artistic creed in an
epilogue called Ad Poetam, of which the following are some of
the lines :
AD POETAM.
O Poet of the golden mouth, on you
God's benison for music sweet a-nd true.
Your web of song is full divinely wove;
A warp that's joy across a woof that's love.
If rudest thorns have sharply pierced your hand,
Blest, with the Rose upon your heart, you stand.
If you have tasted bitter woe and teen,
More wholesome-sweet for that your song hath been.
And to the music dropping from your tongue
No taste of morbid gall hath ever clung.
In vital grace and virile sanity,
Of earth and heaven, O poet, you are free.
Sing on, sing on the strain he knoweth best
Who hath the heavens' blue road, the earth's brown nest.
To this poetic creed Miss Hickey has been true ; some readers
may find her poems too intellectual (a good fault that we might
well wish many other singers would emulate), but no one will
fail to recognize in them the high level of her thought, the grave
regard in which she holds the poet's office, or the serenity and
depth of her religious belief. To her verse " no taste of morbid gall
hath ever clung," and that is the best praise. It is true that in a mo-
ment of impulse and uncertainty she withdrew two of her books
from publication; an act that she now confesses to have been a mis-
take, and which was certainly unnecessary. This happened before
she entered the Catholic Church, of which she has now long been a
member; and her spiritual advisers have assured her that this was
VOL. CIV. — 14
2ro THE WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY [Nov.,
an error of judgment, and have encouraged her to continue her
special work, and watched over it with sympathy and interest.
This act of conscience has hampered the recognition of Miss
Hickey's work, which was for a time withdrawn from circulation;
but it will not permanently injure her reputation, which is fully as-
sured by the books still to be obtained.
The change in her religious views has naturally been reflected
to some extent in her later verse. Always religious, it has become
more doctrinal, and in a little volume published by the Catholic
Truth Society in 1902, called Our Lady of May, she gives us a
cycle of poems relating the life of the Mother of Our Lord, quaint
as old carols and devotional as hymns. Her last poetical publi-
cation, also, called Later Poems,1 contains a number of very tender
religious poems. The conversation of St. Anne with St. Joachim
after the Presentation in the Temple has all the fresh simplicity
of the early Miracle Play. In simple dialogue they bewail the
human loss of the " Babe Mary," and wonder how the little one
will fare away from home and loving parents. Anne speaks thus :
Dost think the angels, Joachim,
Will sing our sweet her cradle hymn?
Or will the Lord, of His gentle grace,
Lend one angel her mother's face?
The couplet form, so suitable to such subjects, is a favorite
one with our poet. She used it with great effect in her strik-
ing poem, The Ballad of Lady Ellen (Poems), a poem the sub-
ject of which has attracted' more than one writer. It is founded
on a weird and pathetic story printed long ago by W. B. Yeats
in his collection of Fairy and Folk Tales, under the mistaken belief
that it was an Irish legend. He himself has dramatized it, and
Mrs. Tynan-Hinkson has founded a poem upon the same subject.
The story is as follows: a great famine raged in a land, which
Mr. Yeats believed to be the west of Ireland. Day by day the
people died, and when the misery and want were at their height,
the Evil One sent two emissaries with the promise of bread to
those who would sell their souls to him. The Lady Ellen, daughter
of the Duke, had long relieved their distress, so far as her means
lasted ; but in the end, seeing no way out of the misery but one,
she sold her white soul to the evil messengers. Then the famine was
stayed and the people ate, but the soul of the Lady Ellen fared forth
'London: Grant Richards, 1913.
I9i6.] THE WORKS OF EMILY H 1C KEY 211
to hell, for the salvation of her people. Miss Hickey has treated
the subject with freedom, and the Lady Ellen, in her fine version
of the legend, attains eventually to the Lord's heaven, " and
is laid to rest on the bosom of Mary." We do not recollect how
the folk-tale, which seems to be founded on a French or Breton
story, ends, but though our author has lightened the close of the
tragic episode, she has not lost any of its poignant meaning, which
the short crisp couplets help to accentuate. And this brings us
to say something of her Irish poems. Though Miss Hickey has
lived most of her life out of Ireland, the land of her birth has
never relaxed its hold upon her affections and her thoughts. Al-
ready in Michael Villiers, Idealist, she had argued out the old un-
solved, and it would appear insoluble, questions of Ireland's wrongs
and difficulties. To-day, when they are before our minds again, we
may well re-read the words with which she ends the argument.
When a friend has reasoned with Villiers that England " long ago
has seen the wrong, and striven to make amends, and still she
strives with all her might and main," Villiers replies : " I know it
well, nor would I be unjust."
But it may be that vision came too late,
And that amendment cannot now be done !
The bitterest punishment of punishments
To nations or to men is impotence
To mend a wrong they knew not when they did.
As time has gone on, and Miss Hickey has familiarized her-
self with the old literature and legends of Ireland, many subjects
have suggested themselves to her out of that great storehouse of
material. She has a fine rendering of the legend of the death of
King Conor, the ancient Ulster King, who is said to have died on
the same day as Our Lord from the results of his anger and agony,
when news was brought to him that men were slaying the Guiltless
and Pure One in Jerusalem. Her long poem on the fairy legend
of Etain the Queen we think less successful, and the frequent
changes in metre give it a jerky and uneven sense, which helps to
destroy its charm; but then the story, as the old bards told it in
prose, was so enchanting, and the Gaelic poems with which it is
intermingled have such melody, that we feel that any English poetic
version must lose heavily in the exchange of tongue and sentiment.
Far more successful are her translations from the Anglo-
Saxon, a study which she has made her own, and in which sphere
212 THE WORKS OF EMILY HICKEY [Nov.,
she has done excellent work. Her poetical renderings of The Battle
of Maldon, The Dream of the Holy Rood, and Judith are valuable
aids to the understanding of the form and spirit of these splendid
fragments of early English literature. They have been approved
by such great authorities as Professor Earle of Oxford and Pro-
fessor Skeat of Cambridge; while Dr. Edward Dowden, the
Shakespearean scholar and critic, wrote to the translator that he
considered these translations " a distinct gain to English literature."
Miss Hickey always acknowledges the debt that she feels to the
early English verse of Cynewulf and his contemporaries; the sin-
cerity and directness of the old writers delight her, and she ascribes
to their study something of the strength which her own poems
possess. A prose rendering of the romance of Havelok the Dane
appeared from her pen some years ago, and the same early English
affections are visible in her book, Our Catholic Heritage in English
Literature.
Miss Hickey has rejoiced in the friendship of many literary
and thoughtful people. • We have already spoken of her connection
with the Browning Society, which brought her into a circle of in-
tellectual fellow-workers. Her edition of Browning's Stafford, an-
notated by her hand, is one outcome of this association. One of
the friendships which she counts among the great incentives of her
life was that with the Hon. Roden Noel. What she thought of
him is summed up in her splendid eulogy which bears his name,
and in an unpublished paper read before the Royal Society of
Literature. To the Nineteenth Century and After she contributed
papers on Browning and on Mrs. Browning in the years 1909 and
1913. She has also made several successful translations from the
French, and in particular from the lyrics of Victor Hugo.
We will close our study of Miss Emily Hickey's work by a
reference to two poems, not yet mentioned, which show her power
in very different styles of verse. The first is the story of a wolf
in the land of the Great White Czar. Two travelers, crouching in
bitter cold beside a river bank near which their boat is moored,
see a great gray wolf, lean and hungry, coming down the hillside
on the further bank of the stream. In an instant it has sprung
upon and slain a deer, but instead of demolishing it on the spot,
it leaves the carcass lying on the ground, and returns to fetch the
pack of which it was leader. While it was gone, the travelers, in
careless sport, to see what wrould happen, crossed the river and
carried off the deer. We will let our poet finish the story :
1916.] THE WORKS OF EMILY RICKEY 213
Hungry and cold we watched and watched to see him return on his
track.
At last we spied him a-top of the hill — the same gray wolf come back,
No more alone, but a leader of wolves, the head of a gruesome pack.
He came right up the very place where the dead deer's body had lain,
And he sniffed and looked for the prey of his claws, the beast that
himself had slain;
The beast at our feet, and the river between, and the searching all
in vain!
He threw up his muzzle and slunk his tail, and whined so pitifully,
And the whole pack howled and fell on him — we hardly could bear
to see.
Breaker of civic law or pact, or however they deemed of him,
He knew his fate, and he met his fate, for they tore him limb from
limb.
I tell you, we felt as we ne'er had felt since ever our days began;
Less like men that had cozened a brute than men that had murdered
a man.
Whence we shall probably agree with the writer's verdict that the
distinction between instinct and reason is small indeed !
Our last quotation, and one with which we may gratefully part
company with Miss Hickey's work, is found in her last slight
volume called Later Poems.
IN THE DAY OF UNDERSTANDING.
In the day of understanding,
Shall we know,
We who grieved each other so,
All the wherefore, all the why,
You and I?
In the day of understanding,
Shall we see,
Eyes enlightened perfectly,
How it was that heart and heart
Went apart?
In the day of understanding,
Shall we say,
Each to each, O Love, today
Do I love you, love you, more
Than of yore?
THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING.
BY FRANK o'HARA.
HREE times Congress has passed immigration bills
with a literacy test, and three times Presidents have
returned the bills with their veto because they were
opposed to that test. The recent Congress returned
to the subject, and the House of the Representatives
passed a bill with the literacy restriction. The Senate was
again willing to pass the measure, but in the press of business did not
wish to devote its time to legislation which it believed would certainly
be vetoed. The difference between Congress and the President in
the past and at present is not that Congress wishes the nation to be
literate, and that the President does not, but that Congress wishes
to cut down the quantity of immigration, and that the President
considers that the method proposed is un-American, and is doubtful
of the need of the restriction. The issue is primarily an economic
one rather than an educational one. It is a question of the oppor-
tunities for making a living rather than of the need of reading the
newspapers. As a preliminary to the consideration of that economic
problem the present article will discuss the causes which have led
the immigrants to make America their home, and the conditions
under which they are providing for themselves in the new home.
A few comparisons will aid in giving an idea of the magnitude
of the immigration movement. At the outbreak of the Revolution-
ary War there were two and a half million people in the United
Colonies. In 1820 there wrere four times this number or ten millions
in the United States. In 1910 there were ninety-one millions of
population in the Continental United States. Out of the two and
a half millions who were here in 1775, one million two hundred
thousand were white persons who were born here. One million two
hundred thousand persons immigrated to this country in the fiscal
year preceding the outbreak of the present European war. That is,
we had as many immigrants in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1914,
as there were native white persons in the colonies in 1775. During
the ten years preceding the outbreak of the European war, over ten
million foreigners came to our shores, or an average of over one
million a year. In other words, those who came in the ten years
1916.] THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING 215
preceding the war, were four times as numerous as the total popula-
tion of the colonies in 1775. They were as numerous as the total
population in 1820. They were one-ninth as numerous as the total
population of the Continental United States in 1910. These figures
naturally lead us to consider the problem of finding working room
for the immigrants.
Many a theorist has told us that as population increases in a
given country, whether by natural increase or by immigration, it
becomes ever progressively harder for the increased numbers to
find food upon which to subsist. This difficulty of finding food
applies, of course, to the native-born as well as to the immigrant.
According to this point of view, the living which can be obtained
by the native-born is a poorer living after the immigrant has arrived
than it was before he came. This view of numbers and of the
possibility of feeding them is a pessimistic view. And naturally the
theory of the case is not completed until the optimist also has had
an inning. When a child is born into the world, says the optimist,
it brings with it a mouth to feed ; but it brings also two hands which
will, in the course of time, produce the subsistence to supply the
increased demand. When an immigrant comes he brings with
him two hands already developed to supply the newly-arrived mouth.
Therefore, says the optimist, a large population finds it no harder
to make a living than a small population. In fact, he says, a large
population finds an easier living in any country than a small popula-
tion would find in that country; because as population is massed
together there are many opportunities for cooperation and the elim-
ination of waste effort that are not to be found in sparsely settled
areas.
At this stage in the controversy the economist enters. Both
optimist and pessimist are partly right and partly wrong, says the
economist. According to the law of diminishing returns, increased
efforts to produce wealth do not necessarily result in increased
product proportionate to the increased efforts. Or, in other words,
assuming that methods of production do not change, if the number
of workers on a given area of land is increased sufficiently, a point
will finally be reached where additional workers added to the
working community will succeed in producing an increased product,
but an increased product which is not relatively as great as the
increase in the number of the workers. Here we are assuming that
the methods of production do not change; and under this assump-
tion the pessimist is right. But, as a matter of fact, in progressive
216 THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING [Nov.,
countries methods of production do improve; and improvements in
methods of production may well be sufficient to overcome the evil
consequences of the law of diminishing returns. The overpopula-
tion of a country is thus seen to be not merely a question of num-
bers. It is rather a question of numbers and of methods of pro-
duction. When there was free land to be had by all comers to this
country, the law of diminishing returns had not yet begun to get
in its deadly work. But even after the free land had been prac-
tically all taken up, the law of diminishing returns might be kept
at bay as long as improvements in methods of production kept pace
with our increasing numbers.
Whatever may be the extent to which the law of diminishing
returns is pressing upon us in this country, it is certain that its
pressure is less here than in Europe. Europe is overcrowded;
America is relatively undeveloped. In Europe wages are low; in
America they are much higher. In Europe the possibilities of im-
proving one's economic status are small; America is the land of
opportunity. There have been, of course, other reasons than the
purely economic for immigration to this country. People have
come here to escape religious and political persecution. Men have
come here because they have heard that in this land of liberty
employers address employees as social equals; women have come
here because they wished to wear hats, and in their own country
on account of their social status they were not allowed to do so.
But taking the immigrants by and large, they have come here to
earn a better living than they were able to earn in Europe. Cotton
Mather, back in colonial days, told a story of a preacher from a
neighboring town who paid a visit to Marblehead, and commended
the people there for their devotion to principle in migrating to
the New World. But the people of Marblehead were not much
impressed. " You think you are talking to the people of the Bay,"
interrupted one of the citizens, " we came here to catch fish."
When the American colonies were first being settled, Europe
was already overcrowded. Great Britain at that time contained
only four millions of people as against forty millions today, but
Great Britain had not at that time the foreign trade which would
support a large population, and she was driving the yeomanry from
the land in order to raise sheep where once men were reared. Nor
was the situation much better in other European countries. The
Pilgrim Fathers fled from England to Holland to find religious
freedom. They found in Holland, indeed, the religious freedom
1916.] THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING 217
which they sought, but they found also a poor market for their
labor. In the language of one of their leaders, " Old age began to
steal on many of them (and their great and continual labor has-
tened it before the time). And many of their children that were
of the best dispositions and gracious inclinations, having learned to
bear the yoke in their youth, and willing to bear part of their
parents' burdens, were oftentimes so oppressed with heavy labors
that their bodies became decrepit in their early youth,
the vigor of nature being consumed in the very bud, as it were."
And so the Pilgrim Fathers came to America to find an easier living.
It has been estimated that half of those who came to America
in colonial times came as indentured servants. For the most part
these were persons who were dissatisfied with living conditions in
the Old World, and who hoped to improve their position in the
New. They were free persons in Europe, but they sold themselves
for a term of years to the agents of planters or to shipmasters or
emigration brokers to pay the cost of transportation to America.
Likewise the colonists who were not servants came to better their
economic condition.
In the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth century, the same cause continued to contribute an active
immigration, but it was not until towards the middle of the nine-
teenth century that a really heavy immigration set in. The famine
in Ireland at that time and the hard times in Germany, together
with the discovery of gold in California, were added to the normal
differences in opportunities in the two worlds as causes for a rapid
increase in numbers, of immigrants. The contrast between the
economic conditions of America and those of Europe during this
period are well brought out by an English writer, who says : " On
their return from the United States travelers are not infrequently
asked what feature struck them most favorably in their journey
through the country. Looking to the territory I should certainly
answer to such a question : its wide expanse and its abundant re-
sources; but looking to the people, I should say, the absence of
pauperism. Nothing is more striking to a European than the
universal appearance of respectability of all classes in America.
You see no rags, you meet no beggars."
Immigration to the United States has been at all periods almost
entirely from Europe; but about thirty years ago a gradual change
came over the immigration with respect to the geography of its
origin. The Irish and the Germans had been the first immigrants
218 THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING [Nov.,
to come in large numbers, but they were soon accompanied by
immigrants from other countries of northwestern Europe. Not
more than five per cent of the total of our European immigration
before 1883 came from Eastern and Southern Europe. In that
year an eighth of the European immigration to America was from
the south and east of Europe. At the outbreak of the European war
four-fifths of our European immigrants were from those sections.
The immigration from northwestern Europe, which is usually
referred to as the " old " immigration, has fallen off not only rela-
tively to the " new " immigration from the countries of eastern
and southern Europe, but it has also fallen off in absolute numbers.
Thus there were seven times as many immigrants from Germany in
1882 as in the fiscal year 1914; one hundred and five thousand
came from the Scandinavian countries in 1882 and twenty-nine
thousand in 1914; twelve thousand came from Switzerland in 1883
and four thousand in 1914. In 1882, one hundred and seventy-
nine thousand came from Great Britain and Ireland, and in 1914
only seventy-three thousand came.
The falling off in the " old " immigration was due largely to
improved conditions at home. The land legislation of Ireland, the
social legislation of Germany, and similar legislation in other coun-
tries of northwestern Europe during the last three or four decades,
have done much to restrain the impulse to emigrate of the workers
in those lands. Moreover, many of the " old " immigrants formerly
became farmers in the New World, but the opportunities of ob-
taining farm lands as a gift have practically ceased, and the lure
of the land no longer attracts immigrants in large numbers. Those
seeking land in recent years have gone to Canada or South
America.
More rapidly than the " old " immigration has fallen off the
" new " immigration has increased. The new immigrants come as
the old immigrants came, for the most part, to better their economic
condition. But they were later in learning of the opportunities
for improvement that awaited them in America. In 1880 only
twelve thousand came from Italy to the United States. During
the year preceding the outbreak of the war two hundred and eighty-
three thousand, or twenty-three and a half times as many as in
1880, came from Italy; in 1880, seventeen thousand came from
Austria-Hungary ; in the year preceding the war two hundred and
seventy-eight thousand, or sixteen times as many as in 1880, came
from that country. Russia sent seven thousand in 1880 and two
1916.] THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING 219
hundred and fifty-five thousand, or thirty-six and a half times as
many as in 1880, in the year preceding the war.
To a certain extent it may be said that other than economic
causes have been -at work producing immigration. Thus the treat-
ment received by the Poles and Finns and Jews in Europe would
have led many of them to emigrate even in the absence of an
economic motive. But for the most part the low wage which the
worker received in the countries from which the bulk of our immi-
gration has come in recent years, accounts sufficiently for the extent
of the immigration. It is sometimes said that the lower cost of
living in Europe makes up adequately for the lower money wage
which the worker earns there, but this is only partially true. The
European worker has not been able to buy as much and as great a
variety of food with his smaller money wage as can the American.
In southern and eastern Europe the standard of living of the work-
ingman, as regards food and clothing and shelter, has been very
much below that of the American workingman in similar occupa-
tions. It was not that the European worker could not earn a living,
but rather that he could not earn a living that satisfied him. He
wished to raise his standard of living and so he came to America.
When the Italians first came to this country in large numbers
they suffered as all non-English-speaking immigrants have suf-
fered, because they could not understand the language of the country.
They were dependent upon and often the victims of members of
their own race who had learned our language and customs. It was
under these circumstances that the so-called padrone system was
developed. Italian contractors hired their fellow-countrymen at a
low wage, often furnishing them board and a place to sleep, and
secured a profit from the fact that the newly-arrived immigrant was
ignorant of labor conditions in this country. The contractor was
the padrone, the master, and the labor of the Italians who worked
under these conditions was padrone labor. The padrone system
among the Italians was confined mainly to laborers employed on
railroads, and under the direction of their own countrymen, but
this phase of the system has largely disappeared.
The Syrian peddlers who used to peddle dry goods and notions
in the country districts a few years ago, operated under the padrone
system. Their outfits were furnished to them by a padrone of their
own race, who boarded them and gave' them either a salary or a
commission on their sales. In recent years this system has dis-
appeared, partly because peddling has become less profitable, and
220 THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING [Nov.,
partly because the Syrians who have remained in the occupation are
able to get along without a padrone.
The best examples of the padrone system today is to be found
among Greek immigrants. To a certain extent it is to be found
among railroad laborers, and flower and fruit and vegetable vendors,
but its most successful application is to be seen in the shoe shining
business, where the Greeks are practically driving all other races
out of the field. The padrone in that business imports young boys
from Greece, keeps them at work for long hours, and under the
cheapest of living conditions, and pays them a low wage. There is
an agreement that all tips are to be paid to the padrone. The tips
often amount to a sum sufficient to pay the wage and living expenses
of the boy, with the result that the whole of the regular charge is
profit for the employer. The working conditions of this occupa-
tion, and the living conditions of the victims of the system, are so
unsatisfactory and insanitary that practically all of the Greek phy-
sicians of Chicago addressed a statement to the United States Im-
migration Commission expressing their conviction of the dangers to
health in the occupation, concluding as follows, " We deem this
occupation highly injurious and destructive to the physique of
young Greek boys, and believe that the United States Government
would do better to deport them rather than to allow them to land
if they are destined to this employment under existing conditions."
In recent years more immigrants have been employed in coal
mining than in any other occupation. Thirty years ago the workers
in the bituminous coal mines of Pennsylvania were native Ameri-
cans, English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh and Germans. There were
fewer workers then in this occupation than there are today, because
there was not the demand for coal that there is today. Since 1890
there has been a falling off in the numbers of workers of these races
of the earlier immigration, and in their places we find the races of
southern and southeastern Europe, that is, the new immigration.
The Slovaks, Magyars, Poles and Italians, especially, are numerous
in the Pennsylvania coal fields. In the coal fields of Ohio and
Indiana and Illinois there are also a great many immigrants of the
new immigration, but they seem of less importance here because so
many of the older immigrants from northwestern Europe, following
the lead of the larger wage, left Pennsylvania in the nineties for
these fields. As the coal mines of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and
Colorado were developed, native Americans and men of the older
immigration were again drained off from Pennsylvania, leaving po-
1916.] THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING 221
sitions to be filled by the new immigration. At. the present time
more than three-fifths of the workers in bituminous coal mines are
foreigners, and the larger part of these are foreigners of the new
immigration.
The first employees for the New England cotton mills came
almost wholly from the farms and villages surrounding the early
cotton goods manufacturing centres. The French economist, Cheva-
lier, who visited this country in 1832, tells of their good wages and
their high standard of living. " The cotton manufacture alone,"
he stated, " employs six thousand persons in Lowell. Of this num-
ber nearly five thousand are young women from seventeen to twenty-
four years of age, the daughters of farmers of the different New
England States, and particularly from Massachusetts, New Hamp-
shire and Vermont. They are here remote from their families and
under their own control. On seeing them pass through the streets
in the morning a-nd evening and at their meal hours, neatly dressed ;
on finding their scarfs and shawls, and green silk hoods which they
wear as a shelter from the sun and dust (for Lowell is not yet
paved) hanging up in the factories amidst flowers and shrubs,
which they cultivate, I said to myself, This, then, is not like Man-
chester;' and when I was informed of the rate of their wages, I
understood that it was not at all like Manchester."
Between 1840 and 1860 the Irish immigrants came to the cotton
mills in large numbers, and somewhat later the English came. The
Scotch and Germans were never largely represented in this industry.
Although there were many French-Canadians in the cotton mills
in the fifties, the large influx of these immigrants into the industry
took place in the decade after the Civil War.
Since 1890 the places of the older immigrants in the New
England cotton mills have been filled by Greeks, Portuguese, Poles,
Russians and Italians. Other races represented in smaller numbers
are the Lithuanians, Hebrews, Syrians, Bulgarians and Turks.
Nearly three- fourths of the cotton mill operatives of the North
Atlantic States at the present time are foreigners, and by far the
largest part of these are of the new immigration.
Somewhat more than half of the employees in the iron and steel
manufacturing industry are of foreign birth. The principal races
of the old immigration in that industry are Germans, Irish and
English in the order named. Of the more recent immigrants, the
Slovaks, Poles, Magyars and Croatians are the most numerous.
Sixty per cent of the employees in the slaughtering and meat
222 THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING [Nov.,
packing industry are immigrants. Here the Poles are in the lead,
followed by the Germans and the Lithuanians. The Irish and the
Bohemians and Moravians are also well represented.
When the old immigration was at its height, the principal at-
traction which America had to offer was its land, which could be
had practically for the asking. The consequence is that a large part
of the old immigration is engaged in farming. More than half of
the Norwegians in America are on the farm, and almost half of
the Danes are there. Over a third of the Swiss, thirty per cent
of the Swedish and twenty-seven per cent of the German immigrants
are employed in agricultural pursuits. The English, French, Scotch
and Irish follow in the order named.
When the new immigration arrived the best of the oppor-
tunities for securing government land had disappeared, and they
were attracted to the cities by the higher wages offered there.
There are, of course, numerous agricultural colonies of Italians,
Hebrews, Poles, Bohemians and others of the new immigration, but
the totals are small as compared with the native farmers. A great
many of the new immigration are employed, too, as agricultural
laborers as distinguished from farmers. But of the twelve million
persons reported in the 1910 census as gainfully employed in agri-
culture, only one million were foreign-born whites. Three millions,
nearly, were negroes, and seventy- four thousand belonged to the
Chinese, Japanese and other races than white.
As a general thing the latest arrivals among the immigrants
have to start at the bottom of the industrial ladder, and the races
which have been here longer occupy the more desirable places. In
other words the incoming of the new immigration has made it pos-
sible for the members of the old immigration to climb the industrial
ladder. In a study of fifteen thousand heads of families engaged
in industry, the Industrial Commission found the average income
of the immigrant considerably lower than the average income of
the native-born worker. The greater proportion of the immigrant
heads of families received yearly between three hundred dollars and
six hundred dollars, while the heads of families who were native-
born received for the most part between four hundred dollars and
eight hundred dollars. Again, the members of the " old " immigra-
tion received higher wages than the members of the " new " im-
migration.
As a result of the higher wage of the native-born, the families
of the native-born are able to live upon the income of the head of
I9i6.] THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING 223
the family better than is the case among the foreign-born. To make
the family budget balance, the foreign-born families are compelled
to put their children to work, and to take in boarders and lodgers
to a greater extent than is customary among the native-born. The
custom of taking in boarders and lodgers is much more common
among the races of the new immigration than among the foreign-
born of the old immigration. Thus out of the families studied by
the Immigration Commission, none of the races of the older im-
migration showed as large a proportion as one-fifth of their house-
holds with boarders or lodgers, while more than one-fourth of the
Portuguese, Slovenian and Syrian households, more than one-third
of the Italian, Polish and Slovak, and more than one-half of Cro-
ation, Lithuanian, Magyar, Rumanian, Russian, Ruthenian and
Serbian households had boarders or lodgers. Among the families
studied seventy-eight per cent of the Rumanians and ninety-three
per cent of the Serbians had boarders or lodgers. The greater
number of boarders and lodgers among the new immigration than
among the old immigration, or the native families, is accounted for
partly by the lower earnings of the heads of families of the new
immigration; but also partly by the fact that there are so many
more of the new immigrants who are unmarried or who have left
their families in Europe, and consequently there is a greater demand
for board and lodgings among those races than among those longer
here. The statistics of school attendance tell the same story of
lower earnings of the recent immigrants or of their greater desire
to save.
While wage averages must not be used recklessly, they may be
employed to indicate tendencies. For the families studied by the
Immigration Commission, the average family income was seven
hundred and twenty-one dollars a year; the average for the native
white of native parentage was eight hundred and sixty-five dollars;
the average for negro families was five hundred and seventeen dol-
lars. For the native-born of foreign parents the average was
eight hundred and sixty-six dollars, or practically the same as for
the native-born white of native parents ; the average for the foreign-
born was seven hundred and four dollars, or nineteen dollars less
than the general average for all families investigated.
There has been much discussion as to what the effect of im-
migration in recent years has been on the earnings of the natives.
The fact seems to be established that the average of money wages
has increased during the last twenty or twenty-five years, but that
224 THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING [Nov.,
the cost of living has increased still faster, so that the larger wage
of today will buy no more than, and probably not as much as, the
lower money wage of the closing years of the last century. On
the basis of the census reports it has been estimated that the average
of wages per employee in manufacturing industries increased from
four hundred and seventy-one dollars in 1899 to five hundred and
ninety dollars in 1909, an increase of twenty- five per cent. During
the same period it is estimated that the level of prices rose thirty
per cent. Assuming that these figures represent approximately
the truth, does this mean that the native American wage earners
are worse off than they were ten or twenty years ago ? Not neces-
sarily. Since the natives receive higher wages than the immigrants,
and since the immigrants have been increasing rapidly in numbers,
it is possible that the natives have not suffered at all in well-being,
and that the smaller average real wage is due entirely to the larger
number of foreigners who are working for wages below the average.
Of course there is a possibility that the native wage earners have
actually had their real incomes reduced, but there is no statistical
evidence to prove it. And even if it were proved, that would not
be conclusive evidence that the damage was caused by immigration.
It might, for example, be the result of a growing exploitation of
labor by capital, as is charged by some of the socialists.
Certain advocates of immigration restriction have been able to
arouse themselves to a state of indignation over the fact that many
of the recent immigrants send money to their families in Europe,
and even return to Europe themselves, after they have saved enough
money to give them a high social position in their native villages.
Much of this indignation, however, is uncalled for. In the first
place, the immigrant is contributing his labor to the upbuilding
of this country, and his employer who is not unduly sentimental in
the matter thinks that the labor is worth what is paid for it. So
that while it is true that the immigrant sends much purchasing
power to Europe, it is also true that he has left at least a corre-
sponding amount of labor power in this country to pay for it. In
the second place, the foreigner who is anxious to save money to
send to Europe, is more likely to unite with the native in an en-
deavor to keep up wages than he would be if he was not anxious
to save money. And finally the foreigner who goes back to Europe
whenever he finds the labor market here depressed, really confers a
favor on the native worker. The statistics of emigration from this
country show that the volume of immigration falls off and the
I9i6.] THE IMMIGRANT MAKING A LIVING 225
volume of emigration increases rapidly in times of industrial de-
pression. Thus in the crisis year 1907-1908 the immigration fell
off by nearly a million, and the emigration increased from five
hundred and fifty thousand to six hundred and fifty thousand.
For that year there were two hundred and thirty-seven thousand
more emigrants than immigrants. Every foreign workingman who
left our shores tended to relieve the difficulty experienced by native
workingmen in finding work. It would, therefore, seem illogical
to find fault with the foreigner for coming here to work and then
to find fault with him again for going back to Europe.
Since the outbreak of the European war immigration has fallen
off in a marked degree. During the calendar year 1915 the excess
of immigrants over emigrants amounted to only one hundred and
two thousand. At the same time the European war-demand for
our goods and the returning prosperity of this country, have les-
sened unemployment and raised wages for native as well as for
immigrant. What effect the outcome of the war will have upon
immigration it is of course impossible to foretell. Those whose
interests or convictions or prejudices in the past have led them to
favor greater restriction of immigration, profess to foresee as the
result of the war added reasons for favoring a restrictive policy,
while those who have opposed a literacy test in the past, insist that
when the \var is over the diminished stream of immigration will
leave no excuse for the imposition of that test. In a later number
of THE CATHOLIC WORLD the present writer will analyze the
current arguments for and against the literacy test.
VOL. CIV.— 15
THE STORY OF ORGANIZED CARE OF THE INSANE AND
DEFECTIVES.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., PH.D.
HE prevailing impression with regard to the history
of organized care of the insane is that in our time
the process of evolution and the gradual development
of a right spirit of humanitarianism has, for the
first time in history, lifted the efforts of our gen-
eration to a plane of high humane thought fulness for these poor un-
fortunates who were so sadly neglected in the past. I feel sure
that this does not represent any exaggeration of the impression on
this subject, which is shared not only by those whose interest in the
insane is merely academic or purely social, but also by physicians,
and even by many of those who have specialized in the care of the
insane.
Of the serious neglect of the insane and of defective children
and imbecile adults in the older time may not, of course, be ques-
tioned. In the eighteenth century insane patients were brutally and
inhumanly neglected, and at times positively misused. Indeed it is
only in our own time, that is within a generation, that anything
like proper care for the insane has developed, and even that is
limited to certain of our municipalities and states which take their
duty in this matter quite seriously. The care of the insane in many
American country districts is even now a disgrace to our civiliza-
tion. We shall have occasion to see at least one phase of some
striking evidence for this in the course of this article.
The facile presumption is at times made that if in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was so much neglect and
abuse of the insane, the treatment of them must have been
still worse in the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries. For those
who interpret history by this constantly descending scale, the
further conclusion is that the insane must have been grievously
mishandled in the later Middle Ages, and unspeakably confined
and manacled and brutalized in the earlier mediaeval centuries.
We have already seen in the preceding articles in THE
CATHOLIC WORLD on The Care of the Dependent Poor1 and on The
September, 1916, p. 721.
1916.] CARE OF THE INSANE AND DEFECTIVES 227
Care of Children and the Aged,2 that any such presumption of
evolution and upward development of the exercise of charity is
utterly unjustified by the actual history of social service. Progress
in the earlier centuries, decline later, and then an awakening social
conscience on the subject is the historical truth. When the great
French physician, Pinel, struck the shackles from the insane of
Bicetre Asylum near Paris, the abuse of the insane had reached
such brutal height that it could go no further; a reaction had to
come. There were those who did not fail to raise their voices in
protest. Quaker philanthropists in England had revolutionized the
care of prisoners and of the insane. In this country under similar
Quaker influence a corresponding change began to take place. The
modification in the treatment of the inmates of asylums, however,
came very slowly, and was not welcomed by those who might be
supposed to have desired it most. Dr. John Conolly in England
and Miss Dorothea Lynde Dix in America carried still further the
practical reformation of institutions for the insane. But their in-
fluence was not felt until well on toward the middle of the nineteenth
century, so that it is only a little more than half a century since
the English-speaking countries have taken up the problem of the
rational, humane care of the insane.
Up to that time when a poor human being became insane, es-
pecially if he or she had shown any symptoms of serious lack of con-
trol, he was likely to be confined in an asylum for the rest of his
days, no matter how much his mental condition might improve. If
these patients became violent they were put in chains, and the chains
would likely not be taken off for the rest of their lives. The in-
sane were very much feared, and their malady was always con-
sidered incurable. The number of attendants in institutions was
entirely too small; the feeding of the patients was often utterly
inadequate ; the buildings for their accommodation were allowed to
go into decay; they were like jails with barred, narrow windows,
dark cramped corridors, small straitened doorways, lacking both
ventilation and cleanliness. In order to appreciate the extent to
which neglect of the insane had gone in this last regard, one must
read some of the accounts of the investigation of institutions not of
long distant centuries, but of the middle of the nineteenth century.
It would be quite impossible to reproduce some of the expressions
with regard to them here. Medical attendance on the asylums was
'October, 1916, p. 56.
228 CARE OF THE INSANE AND DEFECTIVES [Nov.,
entirely inadequate, and the ordinary physical ills of the patients
were as a rule neglected.
Anyone who thinks this picture exaggerated should read the
account of conditions prevailing in some of the insane asylums of
New York State, made by a commission a few years ago, or
better still, obtain descriptions of the conditions that exist in the
insane departments of poorhouses in the Southern States. During
the past five years it has been found that there exists in these poor-
houses through the South, and especially among the insane, a
disease which was thought a few years ago to be non-existent in this
country. It is a disease called pellagra, and is due to malnutrition
and insufficient variety in the food served. A distinguished profes-
sor of medicine, in his textbook published less than ten years ago, de-
clared that pellagra was of very little interest to students of medi-
cine in America because we had no cases of the disease here.
Since that declaration we have found nearly one hundred thou-
sand cases of pellagra in our Southern States hidden away in
the county insane asylums and the poorhouses, and the disease has
evidently been in existence for at least one hundred years.
This striking incident will furnish abundant evidence of the
neglect of the insane even in our own time. Of the eighteenth
century very little need be said. Probably the most interesting
feature of the history of the insane asylums of that period is given
not in histories of medicine, but in essays and other literary efforts,
as well as private letters of the period. A number of these describe
visits paid to Bedlam, the large London insane asylum. These
visits were made by cultured people, members of the nobility and
others who were prominent in social and intellectual life, and who
went to the great city asylum to view, as a pastime, the antics of the
insane. It was the custom to arrange parties as for the theatre;,
a regular admittance fee was charged, and it is noteworthy that
a very large part of the hospital's income was obtained by the col-
lection of fees of this kind. Quite needless to say though Bedlam,
or Bethlehem, as it used to be called, was a church foundation of the
thirteenth century, the Church had nothing to do with it at this
time. It was purely a State institution.
The number visiting the asylum for the purpose of being en-
tertained in this way must have been enormous, for though the
admission fee charged was only a penny, the resulting revenue is
calculated to have amounted, according to definite records, to some
four hundred pounds sterling annually, showing that nearly one
iQi6.] CARE OF THE INSANE AND DEFECTIVES 229
hundred thousand persons visited the institution in the course of
a year.
It is sometimes maintained that there are three phases in the
history of the care for the insane. The first was the period or era
of exorcism, on the theory that insane patients were possessed
by the devil. TJie second was the chain and dungeon era, during
which persons exhibiting signs of insanity were imprisoned and
shackled in such a manner as to prevent injury to others. The third
is the era of asylums, and the fourth, only just developing, is the
era of psychopathic wards in general hospitals for the acutely in-
sane in cities, with colonies for the chronic insane in the coun-
try.
The era of exorcism and of the chain and dungeon are sup-
posed to include practically the whole history of the care of the
insane previous to the nineteenth century. Now it would be quite
improper to claim for the Middle Ages any absolute solution of
the serious problem that the care of the insane always creates.
One might think from the arbitrary classification given above that
nothing at all was done for the insane except to exorcise or confine
them. But history tells us that any such supposition is absolutely
unwarranted and is directly opposed to facts.
The care of the insane in the Middle Ages rivals in its thought-
fulness their charitable solicitude for the ailing poor, both young
and old. In reviewing the place of diversion of mind as a thera-
peutic measure in the history of psychotherapy at the beginning of
my volume on that subject, I pointed out that the old Egyptians
had recognized the usefulness of various forms of mental diversion
in the care of the insane. Pinel, the French psychiatrist, recalled
that the Egyptians provided, in their temples dedicated to Saturn
whither melancholies resorted for relief, " games and recreations
of all kinds, while the most enchanting songs and sounds the most
melodious took prisoner the captive sense." " Flowery gardens and
groves disposed with taste and art, invited them to refreshment and
salubrious exercise, gaily decorated boats sometimes transported
them to breathe amidst rural concerts the pure breezes of the Nile.
Every moment was devoted to some pleasurable occupation or
rather a system of diversified amusements."
The people of the Middle Ages also recognized the value of
recreation and diversion for the insane. The poor insane were, for
the most part, kept at home and cared for by their own. But it
soon became apparent that such care asked too much of the sane
230 CARE OF THE INSANE AND DEFECTIVES [Nov.,
people who 'undertook it. The monasteries and convents then took
upon themselves the care of the insane. They built for their
use separate structures, and as they were usually situated in the open
country the conditions were favorable to the patients. And the later
Middle Ages saw a great reawakening of interest in the use of
hydrotherapy, diet, exercise and air, as cardinal features of treat-
ment for chronic diseases. This chapter of therapeutics opened up
at Salerno as a reaction against the poly pharmacy of the Arabs,
who at times gave so many drugs in a single prescription that these
documents are spoken of as " calendar prescriptions," because they
resemble a list of the days in the month. The little book of popular
medicine, Regimen Sanitatis Salernitana, which went out from
Salerno to all the known world, declared that the three best phy-
sicians for mankind were : " Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merry-
man." Proper eating, rest of mind and body and diversion of
mind these were the best remedies. This period furnishes us much
evidence of the thoroughly rational care of the insane, care that
anticipated many of the ideas now in vogue, and supposed to be so
modern in origin.
It is easy to understand after reading this paragraph that the
treatment of the lunatics of that time must have been very reason-
able. The acute mental diseases of the ordinary people of the cities
and towns were cared for, at first, in ordinary hospitals where
special wards were set aside for them. This may seem an unde-
sirable mode of treatment, but as a matter of fact in our time
we have come to realize that it would be much better for our insane
patients if there were psychopathic wards in the general hospitals,
ready for their reception. The old mediaeval idea, then, was an an-
ticipation of what we are gradually adopting.
After a time certain hospitals were reserved entirely for suffer-
ers from mental diseases, and one of the earliest of these was Beth-
lehem Hospital in London, the name of which gradually became
softened in popular speech to Bedlam. In pre- Re formation days
the inmates of Bedlam, when they had recovered their reason and
shown for some considerable time that they could be trusted, were
allowed to leave the institution.
However, every inmate who left was compelled to wear a
badge or plate on the arm, which showed that he had once been an
inmate of Bedlam. This may seem to us an unnecessary stigma;
but its effect in the later Middle Ages was to make everyone who
met these poor people sympathetic toward them. People did not
1916.] CARE OF THE INSANE AND DEFECTIVES 231
attempt to impose on them, fearful lest there might be an uncon-
trollable access of rage; they treated them, as a rule, with con-
sideration, and in many cases cared for them. This was so well
recognized that after a time a certain number of lazy people,
" sturdy vagrants," as they were termed, tramps as we call them,
took advantage of the kindly feelings of people generally toward
ex-Bedlamites. They obtained possession of Bedlam badges, and
putting them on imposed on the good will of the community. In-
deed, " Bedlam beggars " became a by-word.
In one phase of the handling of the problem of insanity, the
mediaeval period was far ahead of our own. Curiously enough
this phase concerned the prevention of the affection. It must be
remembered that the insanity rate in the Middle Ages was very
much lower than that of our own day; in fact the awful increase
in that rate is one of the most ominous features of our own day.
A recent report of the Lunacy Board in Great Britain shows that
there are three hundred and seventy-seven insane to every one hun-
dred thousand of the population. Fifty years ago the number was
less than half this. England is however practically no worse off
than we are in this country. Massachusetts has some three hun-
dred and fifty insane to every one hundred thousand inhabitants,
and New York about the same number. The number of insane
in Great Britain has doubled in about fifty years, but the number
of insane in this country has doubled in the past twenty- five
years.
Perhaps the most interesting phase of the subject we have un-
der consideration is the care of the mentally defective. During the
past twenty years or so we have come to recognize that the best
way to care for defectives of various kinds is to give them an
opportunity to live a village life, that is, to live out in the country
under circumstances where various simple trades can be practised,
where nearly everybody knows them and realizes the need of sur-
veillance over them, where they will not be abused nor exploited,
but kindly encouraged to occupy themselves with various kinds of
work which interests them and gives them exercise and occupation.
The State of New York has, for instance, created the State Craig
Colony, as it is called, for epileptics. Here the unfortunate vic-
tims of this disease, especially in its severer forms, can be cared
for in country surroundings where they have sympathetic treatment.
More recently Letchworth Village on the lower Hudson has been
created for the accommodation of defective children, who are there
232 CARE OF THE INSANE AND DEFECTIVES [Nov.,
taught as much as they may be able to learn, and are trained in
various trades and live under circumstances best suited to their de-
fective condition.
In the appendix of my volume Old Time Makers of Medicine,
I have quoted from Bartholomseus Anglicus, who wrote in the
thirteenth century a well-known popular encyclopedia which, with
the similar works of Vincent of Beauvais and Thomas of Contim-
prato, initiated this mode of diffusing general information. Bar-
tholomew has described insanity in a wonderfully informing para-
graph, in which he sums up the causes, the symptoms and the treat-
ment of the affection. The mediaeval encyclopedist said :
Madness cometh sometime of passions of the soul, as of busi-
ness and of great thoughts, of sorrow and of tpo great study,
and of dread: sometime of the biting of a wood (mad) hound,
or some other venomous beast ; sometime of melancholy meats,
and sometime of drink of strong wine. And as the causes be
diverse, the tokens and the signs be diverse. For some cry and
leap and hurt and wound themselves and other men, and darken
and hide themselves in privy and secret places. The medicine
of them is, that they be bound, that they hurt not themselves
and other men. And, namely, such shall be refreshed, and com-
forted, and withdrawn from cause and matter of dread and
busy thoughts. And they must be gladded with instruments of
music, and some deal be occupied.
It might be thought that such developments were absolutely
new; and, indeed, most of those who have been engaged in their
organization have been quite convinced that they were developing
absolutely novel ideas. As a matter of fact, however, such insti-
tutions, or at least corresponding arrangements founded on the
same principle, though less artificial, have been in existence for
a very long time in Europe. Probably the best known of these
was the famous village of Gheel in Belgium, where defective chil-
dren of all kinds were cared for. The story of Gheel is inter-
esting. In this village, according to a very old tradition, there
is situated the shrine of an Irish girl martyr, St. Dympna, who lost
her life at the end of the eighth century when the Irish missionaries
were spreading Christianity among the Teutonic tribes which then
held Belgium. It came to be a pious belief that at this shrine de-
fective children of various kinds, sufferers from backwardness in
intelligence, from defects of speech and from certain constitutional
1916.] CARE OF THE INSANE AND DEFECTIVES 233
nervous diseases, were cured through the intercession of the saint.
Accordingly a great many of them were brought to the village,
and the villagers became quite accustomed to care for them.
Not a few of those who were brought to Gheel in the hope
of cure at the shrine of the saint remained unimproved. Parents
and relatives stayed with them for a while, hoping against hope
that further prayers might avail, and then made arrangements
to leave the children in the village in the hope that they might yet
be bettered throught the saint's intercession. They also realized that
this village, where there were a number of other defectives to
whom various trades and occupations were taught, was a very
suitable place for the children to stay. Gradually, then, the village
system of caring for defectives grew up ; the ecclesiastical authori-
ties instituted regulations to prevent abuses; and Gheel continued
for probably a thousand years to harbor and to care for defective
children. Its mission of charity and helpfulness continues even
until the present day, if the work has not been disturbed by the
war. American psychiatrists and neurologists, and especially those
interested particularly in the care of defective children, have gone
to Gheel, and have described just how the work was carried on.
Anyone who visits the town recognizes at once that it represents
an extremely suitable mode of caring for these poor people, who
will never be quite equal to the struggle for existence under or-
dinary circumstances, and who if subjected to the strain of com-
petition with their better mentally endowed fellows will almost in-
variably succumb, if not physically then morally.
Nor was Gheel unique in this regard. Similar arrangements
were made in other villages, particularly of northern France. De-
fectives of all grades and epileptics were cared for in the midst
of a simple village life under circumstances where all the villagers
practically were interested in their care, and where, to as great a
degree as possible, they were shielded from their own foolishness,
and above all from the impositions of others.
It is sometimes the custom to say that such developments when
noted in the mediaeval period are merely happy accidents, but
then let us not forget that it is the taking advantage of happy ac-
cidents which more than anything else shows the genius of a peo-
ple of a generation and of an individual. Newton is said to have dis-
covered gravitation as a consequence of seeing an apple fall to the
earth and wondering why it did so. Lord Kelvin attributed his
discovery of the use of a mirror for ocean cable purposes from
234 URANIA [Nov.,
having his eyeglass reflect the sun, and show him that the re-
flected beam of light 'represented an absolutely weightless arm of
any desired length for an indicator. Galvani saw frogs' legs twitch,
and becoming, as some scoffingly said, a dancing master for frogs
opened up the whole series of questions relating to animal and
vital electricity. Others might have witnessed these same happy
accidents, but only genius could take full advantage of them. So
it was in the Middle Ages. The Christian genius of the people
enabled them to take advantage of circumstances that seemed at
first to have no significance at all with regard to the beautiful
good work into which they ultimately developed.
URANIA.
BY GEORGE NOBLE PLUNKETT.
THE splendor of the sun that like a god
Flames unconsuming, the lone deeps of night
As a spirit vast and free, these lay no rod
On thee, O god-like spirit of delight,
Whose wing invisible sweeps the firmament
In race with death and life ; to whom the pain
Of martyrs is as music's ravishment
Calling thee back to Paradise again.
PURE GOLD.
BY CHARLES PHILLIPS.
V.
HE two men worked on, came and went in silence. In
some indefinable way Mary, felt that she had lost her
hold. No matter how quietly, how secretly, still she
had hitherto really ruled old Amos; had been at all
times a restraining force upon him. Now, without a
word said, he was suddenly grown arrogant; he took
the lead, not she. She was losing hold — losing hold on herself, too.
Every task of her life of drudgery seemed harder and heavier now.
She tried to rally herself, to mend her broken spirit with hopes and
dreams of Davy. But they, too, had lost their old time potency.
Then Davy's answer to her letter came and it frightened her.
It was an angry letter, full of indignation against his father; and it
told her news : " I am coming home the first week in September,
mother. Then you must be ready to go away with me. You can't
live any longer in that place, with an escaped murderer and a crazy
man for company. Be ready, mother. I won't ask any more. I'm
coming. You'd better tell father."
She did tell him. " Davy's coming home in September," she said
that night while she was washing the supper dishes.
" I suppose he thinks the gold is all dug and ready for him ! He
needn't come."
" But he is coming, Amos."
" He'd better keep away."
" He won't stay long."
" No, he won't stay long !
mine."
She could make no progress ; and now she had neither the wit nor
the tact to manage him as she once had done. She suddenly felt herself
growing uncontrollably angry; with her two hands in the dishwater,
she did the most inexplicable thing — broke a china plate in two, so
overwhelming was her passion, so great the pent-up forces in her, and
then the blood grew hot in her cheeks with shame at the thought that
she could ever have hated her husband as she had for that flashing in-
stant hated him. She wiped her hands in her apron and walked
trembling into her bedroom — and took out Davy's letter to read again.
Then came a day when she had good news to write her boy.
" It is wonderful news ! " she told him. " Do you remember the talk
He'll let me break my back in the
236 PURE GOLD [Nov.,
two years ago about them putting in a water power up on the Willow
River east of us ? Next spring they are going to build an immense power
plant and run everything in the whole county by electricity. And the
company is buying up land all through Paper Jack Valley to divert
the stream. Well, Mister Davy Reid, just you listen! Will Mc-
Allister and Dr. Shaw drove out here this afternoon to talk about our
selling, and they'll give us twelve thousand dollars for the place.
Everything for their power scheme depends on our selling. If only
your father will be sensible now. I haven't told him yet. McAllister
and Shaw talked to me; he has scarcely been in the house the last
two days, and he keeps poor old Ben right with him. Don't worry
about Ben being dangerous. He's perfectly harmless, and oh, so
pitiable. There's a new discovery in the mine, and it has your father
horribly excited. He has the cellar nearly full of rock. There won't
be any place for the potatoes this winter. I'll have to put them in my
bedroom for company."
It was true the old man had made a new discovery, and he kept
his wretched helper's nose to the shovel from morning to night. That
poor creature was wasting away, but as yet he had not dared to
attempt an escape. In fact Mary grew to think he would not risk it,
but Amos guarded him as closely as ever in his night-locked room,
with its windows securely nailed at the sash.
Amos paid no attention to the call of McAllister and Dr. Shaw.
Mary was hoping he would ask about it, or take some notice of it.
Finally, after supper that night, she told him. He laughed at her.
" You know what the trouble is, don't you ? They've found out
what I've struck in the mine. They've been spying! I wouldn't be
surprised if they had something to do with that assay I got. They're
after the gold, and they think they can fool me with their yarn about
water power ! "
" But twelve thousand dollars ! We'd be free of debt and be rich
besides! Surely you don't mean you'll let it go? "
" I can make that much in a week. Do you know how much there's
in the cellar now? Wait till I put in a mill! Shaw and McAllister
had better talk to me the next time they come around."
" But what if Mr. Warden back East hears of this ? He'd fore-
close the mortgage and put us off."
" No, he won't."
The worn-out wife was in despair. She had not dreamed that
Amos could be so mad as to refuse the sum they were offered, and go
on digging and hacking in the sand and rock. Her head whirled. Now
with all her heart she wished for her boy to come home. But no!
Let Davy come and see her, and talk it over ; but she must stay. She
must stay here. This was her place.
1916.] PURE GOLD 237
As the day for Davy's coming drew near, his mother grew more
and more agitated. He would be in town Monday evening. If he
came right out to the farm — and of course he would — he would be
with her by dark. Oh, it was a task she had before her — to send her
boy away again alone! To give up all those dreams, in which even
she had been tempted to indulge, of the two together, in cosy little
rooms in Davy's town, living in peace and quiet. No! not for her.
Her place was here. And Davy must go back alone. Some day he
would be married and would . understand. Monday night he would
be here!
Saturday night, from her restless sleep, Mary Reid woke sud-
denly. She heard a voice calling; then the night air was split by the
crack of a gunshot. All a-tremble she lay listening. She knew what
it was — Amos at his guard frightening away some imagined prowlers
from his mine. Then a horrible fear paralyzed her and made her
heart stop beating! What if it were Davy, come tonight unexpectedly,
and mistaken for a marauder! Oh, with what wild terror did she
leap from her bed and run to the window ! No figure showed in the
moonlight. Then she heard a step in the kitchen and went to see
who was there. It was Amos; he was turning the key in old Ben's
door.
" What has happened ? " Mary asked.
" I thought he was trying to get out," came the answer aloud
and sharp for the prisoner's ears to hear. " I just shot off a cartridge
to let him know I was awake."
" Well, be careful," she commanded him. " Remember, Davy is
coming home Monday night."
He said nothing more, and went to his room, and she to hers,
to dream a terrifying dream of Davy — Davy all blood and sand from
the quarry, and the sand glittering like gold.
"I'm as good as useless ! " she told herself a dozen times Sun-
day. She was finished with her farmyard duties early. She had
been cooking and " baking lip " for the visitor. " To think that
I haven't seen him for two whole years ! " she would tell herself over
and over again. " I wonder how he looks ! " He had sent her his
picture, but it showed no change; and yet she was steeling her heart
to meet great changes in her lad. And that thought sent her early to
her bedroom, to the dresser with its little mirror. " If I look worse
than when he left he must not see it. If only I wasn't so thin ! " It
was with a beating heart that that sweet souled woman dressed her-
self and made ready, with as many little feminine touches as were
left her by the grace of her ever-young heart, to meet her boy.
She had it all planned. There must be no quarrel between Davy
and his father; and yet the boy must come into the house, eat with
238 PURE GOLD [Nov.,
them at table, stop with them, take his proper place. Oh, it was a
hard task she had before her! But she would meet him at the gate,
or run up the road, and calm him and counsel him. She felt she
could rely on the boy's love for her to keep his temper. But to send
him away again, alone, after all his planning— that was the greatest
trial.
At supper she reminded the old man again of Davy's coming. He
did not answer. Anyway, he was not excited, and she felt relieved
at that. She washed her dishes, and set the table again for the tasty
little luncheon she had prepared for the boy. What love and what
trembling delight she put into every touch of that worn old table,
with its snowy cover, its white plates polished like porcelain, its bone-
handled knives, its jelly dish shaking with ruby beauty, its tea-
cups, its biscuits and cake and crullers; and there was a bouquet of
red dahlias from her poor neglected garden.
Old Ben had been locked in his room. " Poor creature, he
couldn't run away if he tried," she thought as she saw the worn and
weary and silent wretch imprisoned for the night; and Amos was in
the cellar fumbling over his " gold." Now everything was prepared —
and there were hours yet to wait! — an hour at least.
There was a flush in the mother's cheek, a light spring in her
nervous step, as she set out finally for the road-gate, unable to
endure the waiting in the house any longer. Still, it was nearly time —
almost dark — and maybe he would catch a quick ride out from town.
Besides, out at the gate she could better time the coming of the train
by its distant whistle.
It was a dainty dress that faded figure wore, a pretty summer
dress of gray, made over many times, and retaining in its old-
fashioned frills something of a grace long lost from feminine attire.
Her best white lace-edged apron was tied with a wide bow. Around
her pretty white collar was a band of lavender chiffon, and at her
throat a bow of the chiffon — a soft touch that gave her lovely old
face, her fine wrinkled skin, a beauty that she was wholly unconscious
of. Her gray hair, with its underlying strands of faded gold, was
coiled softly around her head. As she held up her flounced skirt from
the dust of the lane, and moved up toward the gate, there was such
a beauty and grace and loveliness in the whole expectant figure as
would make old men bow with admiration and young men gaze with
loving reverence.
She rested at the gate. " My, how tired I am ! Too much ex-
citement ! " But that excitement had put a rose in her sweet faded
cheeks, and a brightness in her eye that would make her boy's heart
dance. She knew it. The thought made her almost laugh.
It was time for the train to come — almost time. As soon as
1916.] PURE GOLD 239
she heard the whistle she would walk up the road toward the grove.
That would be a safe place to wait; because, if he drove out, she
would meet him there ; and if he walked by the short-cut through the
woods, neither could she miss him there.
She waited what seemed a half hour, and no train whistle broke
the evening quiet. She listened so intently that she began to imagine
sounds — distant wheels on the road, voices over the hill. Presently
a faint echo came — it was not the whistle, but surely it was the last
stroke of the train bell? Yes, she was sure of it. She was sure
of it. She opened the swinging gate and went up the road — tried
to go leisurely, but how all her heart beats urged her to run!
She walked up the road to where the path comes out of the
grove, and even went past it a little, keeping an eye on the shadows of
the wood. There was no sign of anyone. She turned back, but had
gone only a step when she distinctly heard the sound of wheels coming
up behind her. Her heart stood still as she waited, stepping to the
roadside to make way for the vehicle. It was Davy, come at last!
But the rig barely slowed up as it neared her, and then, after a
second's hesitation, a surprised greeting, whirred on.
"Good evening, Mrs. Reid! Waiting for someone?"
" Davy's coming ! " she called after them ; but they scarcely heard
her.
After the dust of the buggy had settled, Mary walked back toward
the gate. She was convinced now that she had made a mistake about
the train bell. She began to imagine sounds again — and again walked up
the road. Two or three other rigs passed her. In the gathering dark-
ness she was now a scarcely discernible figure moving like a gray shadow
in the dusk. Finally, sure that the train was late — or now and again
clasping her heart at the thought of some accident, and praying, and
dismissing such fears as foolish — she pushed open the gate and walked
slowly back down the lane. As she neared the house her ear caught a
sound which at first she could not define or locate; then she decided
it must be Amos, down in the cellar, for the cellar way was open.
Coming nearer she wondered for a moment if it could be in Ben
Adams' room.» Maybe the old man was sick. It was in his room,
that inexplicable disturbance ; and then it ceased suddenly. She went
into the kitchen and called through the prisoner's door, " Is anything
the matter? Do you want anything? " But no answer came.
She touched and retouched the things on the table, stirred the
fire to make the tea for Davy, and then was suddenly sure that in the
distance, but farther away than ever before, it had sounded, the train
whistle broke the silence. She listened again, provoked at herself
for having made " such a racket " at the stove, and, leaving everything,
hurried out again to the gate.
240 PURE GOLD [Nov.,
" Oh, why am I so nervous? " she cried to herself. " Davy will
see it and blame it all on his father ! "
It was quite dark now, but over the hill the moon was rising.
Yet it had scarcely shown its honey-golden shield through the tangle
of trees that crested the hill when a black cloud swallowed it. But
it would be out again in a moment, making the roadway light. Mary
went up the road and waited at the juncture of the grove-path and
the highway. By this time she did not care whether passers-by saw
her or not; she must meet Davy; and, besides, it was now too dark
to make her out. And so, with heart beat ominous for no reason
that she could tell, with ears throbbing for every faintest night sound,
to discern his step, his voice, the worn-out, excited mother waited in
the dark.
She stood by the fence, over in the dusty grass of the roadside,
and almost unconsciously moved step after step along the way, until,
her everyday sense suddenly asserting itself, she became aware that the
wire here was broken and down, and resolved that it must be mended
tomorrow. It was this fence that skirted the pasture and overlooked
the quarry. The edge of the bluff was not one hundred feet away.
She paused there by the broken fence, straining eye and ear for sight
or sound of Davy ; and then she heard him — not on the road, but com-
ing down the path in the woods. Back to where that path stepped
down into the road she flew ; and here he was ! Striding through the
darkness, how great and stalwart he seemed, as she called " Davy ! "
and ran to meet him !
VI.
" Oh, mother, what a start you gave me ! " He put his arms
around her and kissed her trembling lips and faded cheek, with the
old laughing " One ! Two ! " of boyhood days.
" My mercy ! " she laughed, wiping away a glad tear from her
shining eyes with a corner of her apron. " I told you in my letter
I'd meet you! How you've grown! And such arms! Why, you've
got me all mussed up ! "
"You're just grand, mother!" She had started»to walk beside
him, and he halted and looked down at her. " Oh, my, but it's good
to see you. Two whole years, think of it ! "
" It hasn't been bad," she began. But she said no more just
then, for his silence disputed her more than words. He had come to
take her away with him, his every stride and motion said it; and the
time was not yet for her to begin her argument.
" Two whole years ! — and father is the same ? " He hardly asked
it; he knew it. " And. he won't sell to the water power company?
Well, we can't make him."
1916.] PURE GOLD 241
" We'll have to have a good talk together about it tomorrow."
" And, look here, mother, you stick by your guns ! Don't you go
back on me ! I'm going to put the whole thing plain to father ; either
he's got to sell, or else you come with me, and he can take the whole
place and keep it." They were silent for a while; then—
" There's one thing that must be understood before you go in-
side the house, my boy," said Mary Reid — they were at the foot of
the wood path now, standing on the edge of the road; Davy helped
her across and they walked toward the gate — " there's one thing that
must be understood, Davy. No quarreling ! "
" I'll not quarrel, mother. I didn't come home to quarrel. But
I made up my mind when you wrote about Adams being here —
does he keep him locked up every night ? "
" Yes; and the poor old thing couldn't get away if he wanted to,
he's so sore and stiff. Oh, Davy, it's awful ! "
" Has he tried to get away at all?"
" No. One night your father thought he did — and he shot off the
gun to frighten him."
" And I suppose he'd shoot him, if he did try to escape — oh, it's
barbarous ! I won't have you living in a madhouse like this any more,
mother. They'll drive you crazy if you don't look out!"
" Hush ! " she pressed a loving and a quieting hand on his arm.
" You haven't promised me yet, Davy." They were at the gate now,
standing before it.
" Promised what, mother? "
" About quarreling. Listen to me." With her hand on his arm,
she faced up the road again and then, pace by pace, the two walked
together in the darkness, she using all her wit and strength of mind
to win her point, he fighting for his. Twice they went up to the
crest of the hill road, to where she had found the broken fence, and
back to the gate; then up the road again, until, quite tired out, she
paused by the post with the hanging wire.
" I won't quarrel. I promise that," he was saying. " I didn't
come home to quarrel. But you can't go back on me like that,
mother ! Why, I've got the rooms for us there in Wayne — you've got
to come. You've got to come ! "
" You shouldn't have done that, Davy. I didn't promise I'd
come."
" Oh, but I was sure you would. Besides you must! Mother! "
He gripped her arm in the vehemence of his argument; and at that
moment a sound of wheels broke the stillness. The two moved back
from the road, the mother lifted her skirt as they stepped over the
fallen wire of the fence. Retreating into the shadow — for the moon
had not yet broken from the cloudy night — they were not seen by the
VOL. civ. — 16
242 PURE GOLD [Nov.,
passers-by. After there was silence again, Davy resumed his argu-
ment, his mother hushing him at every dozen words, so vehement did
he become, so carried away by his feelings.
" Mother ! You can't stay here ! It's killing you ! Your nerves
are going now— yes, they are, mother; I know it! I can see it— in
your letters and in you ! It will break you down in the end, and then
you'll be gone. You'll be gone ! "
With a passionate toss of his head the boy dashed the tears
from his eyes with his clenched fist, and then seized his mother's two
hands and looked at her — at her little faded figure shadowy in the
darkness, at her hair of gray and gold, at her tear-filled eyes. " Then—
you'll be gone ! "
" You musn't feel that way about it, dear little boy ! " his mother
whispered with trembling lips. " Oh, it is breaking me down ! " She
-swayed, and he caught her, then gently made her sit on the grass, and
lie sat beside her.
" Like two Indians," she whispered, trying to be merry, with a
plaintive sigh out of the darkness.
" But you don't and you can't understand, Davy, and I guess
there's no use in my talking about it; but I can't go. I belong here
and I must stay here. For better, for worse, Davy What if
anything should happen him ? Oh, you don't understand ! " she went
on, not permitting his interruptions, " you can't understand what a
great sin I would commit to go away and leave him so ! "
" Gold ! " the boy cried bitterly, as if speaking to himself, as if
he had not heard her words. " He thinks this whole hill under us
is solid gold, and he can't see, he can't see, he can't see ! "
"He can't see what, Davy?" she was troubled at his strange
utterance, at his bitter voice shaken with angry tears.
" He can't see the gold he's got, the pure gold — you mother, you !
You've fed him and slaved for him, planting and hoeing and reaping,
wearing yourself out body and soul to keep the farm, so that he could
dig for his fool's gold in that rock pile there ! Gold ! Why, he'll get
gold out of that moon there quicker than he'll get it out of this hill ! "
The moon was wheeling out now over the black trees, very pure and
very golden and beautiful. " But he can't see the gold — the gold
mine — he's had by his side — yes, under his very feet, all these years!
Oh, what a shame ! What a shame ! Sh, listen ! "
Piercing through the night came an angry cry, up from the dark-
ness below them. " Get down ! Get down ! " cried the mother in
terror, pulling at the boy who stood above her. " Be still ! "
He dropped on one knee, and they listened. The cry came again,
then the muffled sound of running feet, then silence again; then, as
if at their very knees, out of the depths, a moan.
1916.] PURE GOLD
243
Mary clasped her hands together and whispered: " It's Adams!
He's got out. Oh, Davy!"
" I'm going down there, mother ! "
"No, no! Stay here. Wait!"
They could hear nothing now, but the next instant came the
sound of sand running down the quarry, then a low thud of rock
falling, tumbling, then a panting and heaving, and over the edge of
the quarry appeared the fearful head of Adams, white and shining in
the moonlight, the face drawn with terror, the sunken eyes bulging.
His hands pawed and scratched at the grass and crumbling sand as
he tried to drag himself up. He seemed to be saying over and over
again: "O God! O God!"
" Lie flat on the grass, mother ! " Davy whispered, gently thrust-
ing her down. But Mary Reid had never known what it was to cover
her eyes in the face of danger. With her heart absolutely still, she
squatted there in the grass and watched the boy, as, first on his hand?
and knees, and then, a few paces onward, flat on his stomach, he
swiftly dragged himself toward the half-demented creature who sud-
denly with a lunge seemed to save himself and then lose hold. At that
instant Davy's hands grasped his.
" Hang on! " the boy whispered. " I'll pull you up." The merci-
ful moon wheeled in again behind the stormy clouds, and a low mutter
of thunder rumbled up in the west.
" O God ! O God ! " She could hear old Adams plainly now.
"He's after me!"
"Hang on!" Davy was bracing himself, and with one pull
dragged the panting old man over the edge of the precipice. " Now
lie flat."
The two lay there, both breathing hard. Then Mary heard an
ominous sound. "Davy! He's coming!" she cried in a fearful
whisper; and the boy seized the panting old man, and the two be-
gan moving rapidly back toward where Mary crouched.
" If you could get into the woods there ! " Mary whispered.
" Oh, I can't, I can't ! " the old man whimpered. " Save me !
Please save me ! "
" Yes, you can ; there's time," Davy answered. " He's hunting
for you in the quarry yet. Come ! "
Half-crawling, half-running, Davy began dragging Adams to the
road. Then on Mary's ear fell another fearful sound — again the soft
rattle of running sand, the tumbling of loosened stones. " Davy ! " she
called out, knowing well, without looking, what was behind her —
the panting figure of Amos Reid, his maddened eyes glittering with
fury as he lunged up over the edge of the precipice.
How the mother sprang to her feet, how she beheld as in a
244 PURE GOLD [Nov.,
blazing flash of lightning the wild form that leaped up out of the
pit of darkness below, how she saw the rifle aimed, and cried out
and leaped toward her husband to stop him, to hold him — words
cannot tell it fast enough or half as fast as it all happened. Before
her was the madman, behind her boy, plunging and crouching with his
pitiful burden in the dark. All that wind-swept hill, suddenly lit with
a beam of moonlight breaking like a livid smile through the lowering
cloud — all that wild scene she saw as the gun blazed and roared —
and then with a cry, " Davy ! " she fell. Old Amos, with his maniacal
shot, aimed at the fleeing Adams, had cut her down.
With a cry Davy dropped his burden — no, he fairly threw it into
the black edge of the wood — and turned. He, too, saw the blaze
of the gun barrel, and so quickly did he leap to his mother's side that
he caught her as she sank to her knees.
" Mother, mother! " he whispered. " You're not shot! "
She writhed in pain, then swooned. Still at the edge of the preci-
pice the father stood, shaking with a new terror, for through his
fuming senses that apparition of his wife springing from the darkened
hill, that cry of the mother for her boy, had pierced him and stunned
him. What was she doing here? And he, the boy?
" Father ! " Davy cried. " Oh, see what you've done ! "
" Your mother ? — and you ? Oh ! Oh ! " The old man lunged
forward, fumbling at his head as if dizzy, and fell on his knees beside
his wife.
" You've shot her! " the boy cried. " You've killed her! "
" No! no! " the old man moaned. " Oh, no, Davy, no I haven't!
No, I haven't ! " His long arms went around the senseless figure
that the boy was supporting. He lifted her up, Davy helping him.
" Mary ! " he whispered, rising to his feet with that beloved burden
at his breast. " Run to the house, Davy, quick ! "
He might have been some tragic Lear or woe-distracted Creon
bearing his loved one in his arms, that gaunt, white-bearded man
stalking down the slope toward the house, all the haste and eagerness
of fear and love, and all love's tenderness in his stride. Little love-
moanings and wild inarticulate prayers broke from his lips as he
strode on. His eye caught the flash of the lamp that Davy — winged
on the heels of love and terror, leaping down the quarry-steep and
plunging into the quiet house — had lit. All the wide night seemed
opened to the old man's gaze as he still strode on; and yet one only
thing he saw — the limp hushed figure in his arms ; one only thing he
felt — the dead pressure of that dear form against his heart, on his
curved arms that held her so tenderly. And " Mary, Mary, Mary," he
whispered over and over again, fighting off the spectre of death that
strode beside him, plucking and fumbling at his precious burden.
1916.] PURE GOLD 245
Davy, tearing a sheet in strips for bandages, was at the door, and
without a word led the way into her room; and there old Amos laid
her, oh, how gently, on her bed, then seized the brandy flask the boy
held for him, and poured the liquor down her throat, while Davy
loosened her dress — her sweet gray dress, with its soft lavender chif-
fon, all stained with blood — and suddenly with a cry of love and
horror disclosed the wound that the shot had made. " Oh, father ! —
the words seemed wrung from the very depths of the boy's being.
The reproach of them, overwhelming and terrible, drowned the senses
of the old man as in a vortex. But no more was said; not another
word was spoken in that throbbing room, as the old white-haired man
knelt and held the basin of water while the boy washed the blood
away; not a word till the mother opened her eyes, and looked into
the faces bending over her.
" It'll be all right. It doesn't hurt now ! " she whispered ; then
the tender lids closed again, and the old man's closed too, in a sudden
pain, as the tears welled up in his eyes.
The bandage on, Davy whispered, " I'll jump on old Fanny and
ride for the doctor. Keep her quiet ! " — and was gone.
And then suddenly it seemed to the old man that she, too, was
gone, so still did she lie, the frail shadowy eyelids closed, the sweet,
soft, wrinkled face pallid and sunken. Surely she had not ceased
breathing? The old man leaped from his knees in terror — he pressed
his ear to her heart, his dark old hands fluttered over the pillow, his
seared old heart cried out until it found voice and utterance:
" Mary ! Oh, my dear girl ! My wife ! My little wife ! Can't
you hear me? What have I done? Oh, if you should die! Mary,
you're not dead? She's so still, so quiet!"
He was kneeling again beside her. " Can't you hear me ? I
want you to hear me — before you go, Mary, before you go! I didn't
know what I was doing. I've been a bad man to you, Mary; wicked
and stubborn and bad! I was sure of the gold, sure of it! There is
gold there!— but I'll give it up if only you'll get well. I'll give it up!
Mary! Mary! God curse me if I've killed you! Killed my
wife ! " The old white-haired head shook to and fro, the old bent
figure rocked in its awful grief.
But Mary heard. Those wild poignant words pierced her swoon-
ing senses. Through the long dark abyss she struggled to call back
to him:
" No curse, Amos ! God bless us ! Say God bless us ! "
"God bless you, Mary! Oh, you're not dead! Yes, yes, I'll
say jt — God bless us ! Oh, can you forgive me ! See all I've done to
you! Broken your life, worn you out! I can see it all now — but
I was sure of the gold, Mary, sure of it ! "
246 PURE GOLD [Nov.,
Again she was very still. Again the heart-core of the man cried
out for her to come back, to live, to speak, to say she forgave him.
" But you can't ! You can't ! "
And again soul answered soul. " I'm so happy, Amos Say
a little prayer."
She was quite conscious when Davy and the doctor arrived. The
old man was still kneeling on the floor by her bed.
She opened her eyes when Davy spoke. " It's not so bad," she said
as the doctor bent over her. " Nothing so bad but it might be worse,"
and she smiled. " You didn't get any of your hot biscuits, Davy.
They were all ready You must give Dr. Shaw a bite before he
goes No, it doesn't hurt now, but I am weak! There now,
I told Amos not to be kneeling there — he'll be too stiff to move. I
said you'd be in the doctor's way ! Don't be foolish ! " For now the
old man, instead of getting up as he had been bidden, suddenly leaned
over and buried his face in the bed clothes, and broke down and
sobbed. Her gentle hand found its way to his silvery head. " Sh,"
she whispered. " Don't be upset ! "
"I'm praying! I'm praying!" is all the old man could say.
" It's only a flesh wound," was the doctor's verdict. " How in
the world did it happen ? "
" Amos thought someone was breaking in," Mary answered
promptly — " into his gold mine. He always keeps watch at night, you
know, and Davy and I were walking — "
" Will she get well? " the old man interrupted, looking up. " You
can have the whole gold mine, if you'll only cure her, doctor."
" Father means we've decided to sell to your power company,"
Davy interjected; and his mother smiled up at him, wisely and ap-
provingly. Her boy had a good head on him!
" That's good ! Let's see those biscuits, Davy." The doctor
led the way into the kitchen.
And then old Amos looked up at his Mary, with such a clear
light in his eyes, dimmed by tears as they were, that she almost swooned
again — not for pain, but for joy; for now in his face there was some-
thing she had not seen for twenty years and more, something that had
long ago vanished, vanished she had feared forever. " Thank God
for that gunshot, if it only has broken the spell at last," was her silent
prayer as she watched him; but he kneeling there only fingered
lovingly her thin braid of gray-gold hair that had fallen loose on the
pillow, and then suddenly pressing it to his lips, he whispered
reverently,
"Pure gold! Pure gold!"
[THE END.]
IRew Books.
JOSEPH CONRAD. By Hugh Walpole. New York: Henry
Holt & Co. 50 cents net.
In compact form, within one hundred small pages done in
large type, is here presented what one would wish to know of
Conrad and his work. Mr. Walpole handles his subject lucidly,
sympathetically, temperately, and leaves the reader not only pos-
sessed of facts, but breathing the atmosphere of Conrad and pon-
dering his philosophy. His biography simply states three periods :
life in Poland, life on the sea, life in England, as background
against whose form and color his art has been placed. At first his
works are reminiscent, then creative, then studies of " cases." The
works of every period receive a passing comment. In The Novelist
are discussed the form of Conrad's work, the themes which engage
him and his creative art, and his handling of character, sufficient
illustration being given to recall to the knowing, or to inform the
inquiring, just what Conrad's books are like. The Poet is a fair
critique of his style, showing the weakness and promise of his
early works maturing to present mastery. The glamour or atmos-
phere which Conrad throws about his work is attributed to his
lyric vein, his poetic vision of life working through the media of
realism. And as for his philosophy, he is " of the firm and resolute
conviction that life is too strong, too clever and too remorseless for
the sons of men." This obsession of " the vanity of human strug-
gle " drives him to present everyone of his characters as facing
an enemy, for whom he is by temperament least fitted, and ac-
counts for the irony that runs through his tales. His men of
brains are melancholy; his happy characters are devoid of imagina-
tion : grimly he enunciates his philosophy. " If you see far enough
you will see how hopeless the struggle is." With this outlook of
life, the qualities of the human soul that appeal most to Conrad
are blind courage and obedience. In Romance and Realism, Mr.
Walpole, defining the one as " a study of life with the faculty
of imagination;" and the other as "the study of life with all
the rational faculties of observation, reason and reminiscence,"
rightly states the trend of modern literature to be towards romantic
realism. This is seen through all the writings of Conrad. He is
248 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
credited with influencing the younger generation of writers, and
assured of a place in the galaxy of contemporary brilliant novelists
as giving fresh impulse to the literature of our language.
THE ADVANCE OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL. By William Lyon
Phelps. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.50 net.
In announcing the forthcoming series of articles by Professor
Phelps of Yale, which are here collected, the Bookman for August,
1915, promised something very different from the majority of works
on the development of the novel. The present volume proves that
promise abundantly fulfilled. Differing from Cross, or Bliss Perry,
for instance, in his angle of vision, Professor Phelps writes for
the reading public rather than for the student, and organizes his ma-
terial accordingly. After an introductory chapter upon the present
state of the novel, the chapter containing the definition which pro-
voked so much discussion, " a novel is a good story well told,"
he ranges, within one hundred pages, from Defoe to Stevenson,
leaving two-thirds of the book to the treatment of English and
American fiction after 1894. One finds here sane criticism upon
our own contemporaries, upon Meredith, Hardy and Henry James,
upon Conrad, Galsworthy, Bennett and Wells, upon Churchill,
Tarkington, London and Harrison, and a host of others; and,
best of all, it is criticism in accord with true moral standards. It is
refreshing and consoling in these days to find one who speaks with
authority calling attention to the fact that the famous, or in-
famous, " novel of life," which figures so prominently in the ad-
vance sheets of every publisher, is false to itself and to art when
the life it pretends to portray is all sordid; to find one noticing
the spiritual development between Locke, the pagan, in the Morals
of Marcus Ordeyne, and the Locke of Christian ethics in Septimus;
to find condemned, as strongly as a priest would condemn them,
the whole class, and specific books of the genus best called " porno-
graphic."
There are conclusions, no doubt, to which we cannot assent.
We would be loath to admit that Churchill's attack upon the
modern church was " devout and reverent," or that the Harland of
The Cardinal's Snuff-box belongs to the " marshmallow school,"
or that Butler's " diabolical novel " will prove of " real service to
Christianity;" the present reviewer would have enjoyed a fuller
treatment of de Morgan. But these are matters of inference or
of taste, about which, the adage says, there is no disputing; and
1916.] NEW BOOKS 249
it is cheering to find Professor Phelps so sound on those principles
for which we are constrained to battle against the loose thinking
and loose morality of much in modern fiction.
THE TIDE OF IMMIGRATION. By Frank Julian Warne, A.M.,
Ph.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. $2.50 net.
This volume is a plea for the restriction of immigration to the
United States through the adoption of a literacy test. Such a test
is not put forward as a means of selecting the quality of the im-
migration, but rather as a means of limiting its quantity. The
author insists that there is need of quantitative restriction in order
that we may be able to assimilate the immigrants whom we admit
into the country. Throughout the greater part of the book the
assimilation desired seems to be an economic assimilation which
would lead the immigrant to demand an American wage and to
live up to the American standard of living, but in the closing
chapter the assimilation upon which stress is placed seems to be of
a non-economic character, and is concerned with " hyphenated-
Americans " of a disloyal turn of mind, who " are not strangers
to the hand that stabs in the dark or the lips that betray with
a kiss."
The author presents the statistics of immigration in an at-
tractive manner. The comparison of the tide of immigration with
the ocean tide is also handled in a way to hold the reader's at-
tention. There are chapters on " the flow of the tide," " sources
of the tide," " the ebb of the tide," " the tide's flotsam and jetsam,"
" immigration's tide-rip," etc. Altogether the book is entertain-
ingly written.
Dr. Warne is frankly partisan, and sometimes uses arguments
which belong on the other side of the question to bolster up the de-
mand for a restriction of immigration. Thus from the point of
view of the native born it is desirable that immigrants return to
Europe in large numbers in times of industrial depression in the
United States, in this way leaving to the native-born such oppor-
tunities of finding work as they could. But somehow Dr. Warne
fails to see this, and it is a large part of his grievance against im-
migrants that they return to Europe in large numbers in times of
business depression here.
A good deal of space is devoted to showing that for the past
hundred years there has been violent agitation against immigration.
Dr. Warne thinks that the opposition in the past was ill-advised, and
250 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
that it would have been a mistake to restrict seriously the immigra-
tion of earlier days. But he thinks that conditions have changed,
so that today such restriction is desirable. He does not, however,
take the pains to show in what way the coming in of immigrants
works a hardship on the people already here. To establish that
fact, if it is a fact, would require a careful statistical study of
wages and costs of living. Such a study is lacking in the book.
The author is not fair to the reader in presenting the majority
report of the Commission on Industrial Relations as unbiassed testi-
mony in favor of restriction without explaining that three out of
the four signers of the report were leaders of organized labor —
in other words, that it was a partisan report. Similar liberties are
taken with the reader in presenting the testimony of the Immigra-
tion Commission.
Unlike so many immigration restrictionists who believe that this
country is nearing the limit of its resources, Dr. Warne sees a
rosy future for the United States. He wishes us to remember
"that the United States has hardly begun the development of its
material resources; that these are in such abundance as to give to
us wealth beyond human comprehension." Perhaps, after all, we
may be able to take care of the normal immigration for a long time
to come without danger to our own standard of living.
THE HISTORY OF MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. By Rev. S. A.
Leathley. London : John Long.
This is one of the most inaccurate, unfair, and prejudiced
books on marriage we have ever read. The writer, in the first
place, attempts the impossible task of writing the history of mar-
riage and divorce from earliest times to the present day in the brief
compass of one hundred and fifty pages. Like many a High
Church Anglican who holds the indissolubility of the marriage
bond, he is indignant at the findings of the Majority Report of the
Royal Divorce Commission a few years ago. It recommended
extensions of the grounds of divorce to desertion for three years,
incurable insanity after five years, penal servitude for life, cruelty
and habitual drunkenness. He praises the Catholic Church for
her strong stand against divorce, but then, to save his face with
his co-religionists, he does his utmost to travesty her teaching, and
to denounce in the most extravagant language " the errors of
Rome." He loves to talk about Rome's arrogance, unnatural
spirituality and superstition; he rants about the Marian persecu-
1916.] NEW BOOKS 251
tions and the terrors of the Inquisition; he accuses the Romish
Church of casuistry, chicanery and deliberate dishonesty.
It is hard to be patient with a controversialist who repeats
oft-refuted calumnies without the slightest regard to the Eighth
Commandment. Mr. Leathley, for instance, charges the mediaeval
Church with continually granting divorces under the plea of nul-
lity. He writes : " The canonists succeeded in devising a canonical
computation that left it an extremely uncertain event, if they wished
to attack the marriage, whether or not the union would stand."
Or again : " The whole practice of deciding the validity of mar-
riages was utterly inconsistent." He never attempts to prove his
accusations, but quotes complacently the false statements of Bryce
in his Studies in History and Jurisprudence, and of Pollock and
Maitland in their History of English Law.
Of course we do not maintain that powerful princes never ob-
tained decrees of nullity by fraud, nor that every bishop without
exception in all the centuries of Catholic history gave righteous
judgment in all matrimonial cases ; but we do protest most strongly
against the charge that mediaeval canonists were dishonest in their
framing of matrimonial impediments. The impediments to mar-
riage then, as now, were based on the divine law, the lessons of
experience, the good of society, and the protection of the individual.
Pre-contract, pace Mr. Leathley, simply meant the bond of a pre-
vious marriage, and invalidated a second marriage by the natural
law; impotency came under the same category; force, fear and
abduction were meant to protect the weak against the violence
of the strong; consanguinity and affinity were founded on the
natural reverence for blood and marriage ties, the desire of pre-
venting immorality among kinsfolk, and of bettering the physical
well-being of the offspring.
The laws were clear enough, although the application of prin-
ciples in particular cases might cause wonderment to the ignorant
lay mind. The Church modifies her laws from time to time, ac-
cording to the demands of the age, especially with regard to the
degrees of consanguinity and affinity, but she never will yield, as
modern States or Churches have done, to the public clamor for
divorce in a valid marriage. This is one of her chief claims to the
respect of devout and intelligent men.
Again, when Mr. Leathley informs us that divorces were com-
mon in England before the Conquest, he is guilty of false witness.
This reckless statement is on a par with his other assertion that
252 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
the Canon Law was introduced into England by William I. Even
if the Penitential of Theodore be authentic, which is doubtful, it
proves nothing about the teaching or practice of the Anglo-Saxon
Church. The Anglo-Saxon Church was just as vehement in its
denunciation of divorce as the Catholic Church today. We have
only to allude to the provincial council of Hertford in 673, the
witness of the Abbot ^Elfric, of St. Wulfstan of Worcester, of
Archbishop Egbert of York, of St. Bede, St. Willibrord and others.
It is rather amusing to read of " the fortunate change " brought
about by Henry VIII., the very man whom Anglicans should forbear
quoting as a defender of the sacredness of the marriage bond. But
if Mr. Leathley had a saving sense of humor, he would never have
written so unscholarly a volume.
THE COMMONITORIUM OF VINCENTIUS OF LERINS. Ed-
ited by Reginald S. Moxon, B.D. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. $2.75 net.
This volume, one of the series of Cambridge Patristic Texts,
gives us an annotated edition of the Latin text of the Com-
monitorium of St. Vincent of Lerins. In an introduction of
seventy-five pages Mr. Moxon, headmaster of Lincoln School, dis-
cusses the authorship and contents of the Commonitorium; St.
Vincent's semi-Pelagianism; the Rule of St. Vincent and modern
Christianity; the Commonitorium's Latinity and style, its Biblical
quotations, and its relationship with the Athanasian Creed. He
concludes with a list of the most important editions of the text, the
various manuscripts extant, and the translations into various
languages.
Just as the Protestants of the Reformation translated the
Scriptures and annotated them with the special view of setting forth
their objections to Catholic doctrine, so some modern editors of
Patristic texts take occasion of the Fathers to teach heresy in their
anti-Catholic notes.
It is impossible to set aside St. Vincent's witness to the au-
thority of the Apostolic See, but Mr. Moxon does his utmost to
minimize it. If St. Vincent speaks of the peremptory decision
of Pope Stephen in the re-baptism controversy, we are told " he
makes the history of the episode seem much simpler than it really
was." If St. Vincent reserves the title of Papa or Pope to the
Bishop of Rome, and speaks of Rome always as the Apostolic
See, Mr. Moxon adds that " papa of itself did not necessarily mean
1916.] NEW BOOKS 253
to him the Pope," and Apostolic See only referred to Western
Christendom. When Pope Celestine condemned Nestorius, we are
told " that he went beyond all precedents in the extension of the
power of that see, and assumed the right to depose Nestorius."
Mr. Moxon even goes so far as to intimate that St. Vincent
" seemed to recognize the supremacy of the Roman See " in order
to flatter Sixtus III., and so win the Pope's favor in his semi-
Pelagian attack upon the teaching of St. Augustine.
In discussing the Nestorian heresy, Mr. Moxon holds the view
of some modern Anglicans that the Council of Ephesus condemned
Nestorius unjustly, for " there remains the question whether Nes-
torius was guilty of holding the opinions for which he was con-
demned." St. Cyril, who presided at the Council, was perhaps a
heretic, for " his Christology contains traces of a relationship
with Apollinarianism ! "
Mr. Moxon also approves of the semi-Pelagianism of St. Vin-
cent as holding the mean between Pelagianism and ultra-Predesti-
narianism, but Catholics know that the second Council of Aries in
529 condemned it as heretical. Nature and free will left to them-
selves are incapable of accomplishing, and even of beginning, the
supernatural work of salvation. God is the primary and necessary
Agent Who creates in us the first desire of good, and brings about
its effective accomplishment. Mr. Moxon, who has no clear idea
of what the Church means by tradition, naturally cannot understand
the Rule of St. Vincent. He states that Cardinal Franzelin in his
De Divina Traditions practically repudiates St. Vincent. This is not
the fact. Franzelin merely stated that St. Vincent's Rule is true in
its positive sense, namely, so far as it claims that doctrines that have
been taught Everywhere, Always, and By All are of faith, but that it
cannot be admitted in a negative or exclusive sense, namely, in the
sense that doctrines that have not' been taught Everyivhere, Al-
ways and By All cannot be of faith. For it is contrary to the
whole economy of the faith to maintain that only those things which
have been explicitly believed from the first are contained in the de-
posit of faith.
To say "that modern Catholicism has abandoned the Rule of St.
Vincent altogether," is to bear false witness; to say that Papal in-
fallibility does away with all study of antiquity, and treats all ap-
peal thereunto as " treason and heresy," is utterly unworthy of a
serious scholar. The Pope does not claim to be inspired, as Mr.
Moxon falsely asserts, but he speaks ex cathedra under the guidance
254 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
of the Holy Spirit when, having examined carefully the teaching of
Scripture and tradition, he finds a doctrine of faith or morals taught
by Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles. He never adds to the de-
posit of faith, for with St. Vincent he holds: "There is to be
progress in religion, but not change of faith." We would advise
Mr. Moxon to read again carefully the twenty-third chapter of the
Commonitorium, and then compare its teaching with the teaching
of Cardinal Newman in his Doctrine of Development, and with
Cardinal Franzelin's teaching which he has entirely misrepresented.
THE MASTERING OF MEXICO. By Kate Stephens. New
York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50.
This stirring account of the conquest of Mexico is based on
the True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz del
Castillo, an eyewitness to one of the most picturesque military ex-
ploits of all times. It is only within the past twenty-five years that
the old Conquistador's history has been unearthed in the archives
of Guatemala, where he finally settled after the conquest. It was
published by Senor Genaro Garcia. Padre Remon published a
garbled version of the history in 1632, and various renderings have
been published in English by Thomas Nicholas, Maurice Keatinge,
and John Lockhart. These volumes are all out of print, and prac-
tically unknown to the average reader.
These pages, as the author states, picture " a human Cortez,
untiringly active in mind and body, gently intimate and comrade-
like of heart, subtle in speech, but ardent, imaginative and ambitious
enough to grasp opportunities and mould them to his advantage.
These pages prove that the conquest was a democratic, community
affair, each soldier of fortune present by his own choice and with
vote and speech indicating his personal, independent wish in
general matters all its members were served by a substantially
founded education, and gifted with the ability to do their own
thinking in the practical affairs of life."
MICHAEL CASSIDY, SERGEANT. By Sapper. New York:
George H. Doran Co. $1.25 net.
These vivid tales of the war in Europe are drawn from life.
Though colored a bit by a masterly hand, they could only be
written by a man who has been through the scenes he describes.
They tell of life in the trenches, of suffering in the hospitals, of
the valor of heroes and the cowardice of deserters, of Christmas
1916.] NEW BOOKS 255
truces, and of the fate of spies. The humor occasionally is a bit
exaggerated as in the " Charge of the Cooks," but perhaps this was
required to offset the strain of continual stories of wounds and
death. Most graphic are the tales of the experiences of the mining
engineer, the death of the brave German spy, and rescue of
the wounded between the English and the German trenches.
THE BORODINO MYSTERY. By Maria Longworth Storer. St.
Louis: B. Herder. $1.00 net.
Mrs. Storer's latest novel is a clever detective story, in which
an Englishman disguises himself as a Russian nobleman in order
to win the girl of his choice. He has to feign death to bring
this about, and the humor of the tale lies in the fact that he is
pursued to the end by an amateur detective, anxious to convict him
of his own murder. The characters are all well drawn. We
thoroughly enjoyed the prim and precise French Duchess of the old
regime, the unconventional Lady Betty, the over-zealous and over-
suspicious Breton Cure, the loyal friend Bertie Harding, and the
pure, clean-cut hero and heroine. The story is well told, and the
style vivid and full of distinction.
THE CROWD IN PEACE AND WAR. By Sir Martin Conway.
New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1.75 net.
The individual or the crowd — this is the balance that Sir
Martin Conway, late Professor of Art at Cambridge and writer of
many books on art and travel, strikes in his elaborate study of social
phenomena. In a close analysis of man's " crowd instincts " the
writer finds that the crowd is peculiar in characteristics and action,
differing in these respects from the individual alone. Composed of
intellectual units the crowd is moved by passion merely, and acts
on impulse but never with moderation. It is tyrannical, harsh,
overwhelming and jealous of its continuity. These are its principal
defects. The crowd's greatest merit lies in its work of preserving
ideals, of perpetuating the inspiration given it by the individual.
These are " crowd " days, the author declares, and shows in
many examples the tendency of government today to take down the
last few restraining barriers and place all control in the multitude.
There is great danger in this, he holds, and, in conclusion, points
out the just mean — the individual "to keep his mind free of
crowd dominance," and the crowd to continue its preservation of
ideals.
256 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
In considering social, political and economic crowds, the author
brings forward a great wealth of material that contains many well-
substantiated truths. But when he leaves this fertile field and
enters the realm of morals and religion, he seems like a child who
has collected all the pieces of a picture puzzle, yet fails to put them
together properly. The reason for this failure is clear, for the
author, by assuming that all causes influencing crowds arise from
natural sources, discards the fundamental principle underlying
morals and religion, and makes all conclusions deduced from these
premises vain and fruitless. " Religion," he states, " is man's
description of his ideas about the great unknown, his projections
on the darkness of what he conceives that darkness to contain."
With such a false tenet as a first principle it is only natural that
many errors follow in its wake, for without a true basis for religion,
morality cannot be explained or ciphered out as the vagaries of
crowd impulse or social mutation.
The book is scholarly in tone, but contains many errors both
of fact and interpretation concerning the Catholic faith and the
Church's history.
THE GREAT PUSH. By Patrick MacGill. New York: George
H. Doran Co. $1.25 net.
There has not been written a narrative of the present war that
so grips the reader as does this story by the author of The Rat-pit.
It tells of the British offensive a year ago at Loos, and it gives
a startlingly vivid picture witnessed by one who had the power to
see keenly and the genius to transmit his perceptions in terms of
the real.
Patrick MacGill, the navvy-author, was stretcher-bearer 3008
of the London Irish. His work was to care for the wounded in
the great offensive that all were expecting. It came ; and the writer
was a living unit in the terrible combat. He felt the spirit of the
men before the attacks; he swept with them over the open when
they kept up their courage by kicking a football across the inter-
vening ground ; he was among the first to enter the enemy's trench.
In his spare moments he set down these soul-stirring impressions,
and wrote practically the whole book in the trenches. It could
never have been written by anyone less in contact with the scenes
it portrays — they are so real, so genuine, so moving in their char-
acterizations of the soldier and the sense impressions of warfare
and death.
1916.] NEW BOOKS 257
THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. By Rev. George
M. Searle of the Paulist Fathers. New York : The Paulist
Press. $1.25.
Father Searle is right in styling Christian Science " the most
surprising delusion of modern times." Its very name is dishonest,
for, as has been frequently pointed out, this new theory is neither
Christian nor scientific. It is not Christian, for it denies every doc-
trine taught by Jesus Christ; it is not scientific, for it does not
rest on a solid basis of fact. The gospel of this impious cult is set
forth in Mrs, Eddy's book, Science and Health — a great hodge-
podge of contradictory philosophies without trace of sequence or
logic. It would have been simpler to refute Christian Science by
showing the falsity of its tenets, but to offset any possible charge
of unfairness, Father Searle determined to discuss Mrs. Eddy's
remarkable volume chapter by chapter.
His analysis of Mrs. Eddy's book is most thorough and search-
ing. He shows that it is the book of a woman ignorant of the very
first principles of science, and ignorant of the most elemental truths
of the Christian Gospel. He points out on every page her inac-
curacies, her lies, her absurd and meaningless statements, her pious
posing, her constant fighting with men of straw, her pretended
cures, and her impiety.
" This impiety," says Father Searle, " consists, fundamentally,
in its regarding of sin as being merely an error of mortal mind,
having no real existence, instead of being, as it actually is, a real
and terrible disease of the passions and the will Exalting
itself to the throne of God, it tells us we have no need of His help;
that sin is no danger to us, except by our false belief in it; that
if we abandon this belief, sin will trouble us no more." Father
Searle well says that Christian Science is " most dangerous be-
cause it has superficially such an appearance of good; particu-
larly because in those who are victims to its delusions, it presents
such a fair-seeming counterfeit of the joy and peace which Christ
promised to His true followers."
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Her-
mann Wedewer, Professor at the Royal Gymnasium of Wies-
baden, and Joseph McSorley, of the Paulist Fathers. St.
Louis: B. Herder. $1.00 net.
The twelfth edition of Professor Hermann's Grundriss der
Kirchengeschichte, published at Freiburg in 1907, forms the
VOL. CIV. — 17
258 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
groundwork of the present volume, although Father McSorley has
made so many changes in the original text as to make it practically
a new work. Besides he has added one hundred and twenty-eight
pages of original matter on the Foreign Missions in Asia, Africa
and America, and on the entire modern period from 1789 to 1914.
We recommend this history of the Church to our schools and
academies. It presents the main facts in brief but accurate outline,
and its generous use of heavy type and judicious paragraphing will
prove most helpful to the young student. The best part of the
volume deals with the Foreign Missions and the history of the
Church in the nineteenth century, especially in the United States.
Father McSorley has crowded into these pages a great deal of in-
formation which has never been published before in any textbook.
AN ALPHABET OF IRISH SAINTS. New York : P. J. Kenedy
& Sons. 40 cents.
This attractive book for children is the joint product of five
authors. The lives of the early Irish saints are told in rhymes both
English and Irish, the latter in Irish lettering, and with each story
is a picture in outline to be filled in with color by the pupil. These
are well drawn, and the ornamental panels and tail-pieces, also to
be colored, are adaptations or reproductions of the designs seen on
the Celtic crosses. The book enables the child to be instructed and
his taste to be trained at the same time, and in a manner most
enjoyable.
THE LIFE OF ST. COLUMBAN. A Study of Ancient Irish
Monastic Life. By Mrs. Thomas Concannon, M.A. St.
Louis : B. Herder. $2.00 net.
This volume is not alone a complete biography of the illus-
trious Abbot, who was in Italy and whose name added lustre to the
great Abbey of Bobbio ; it is also an interesting scholarly study of
ancient Irish monastic life of the clays when Erin was deservedly
known as the prolific Mother of saints and scholars.
Clonard and Bangor, with copious accounts of many of their
sons, are passed in review as the writer records the story of Co-
lumban, till at about the age of fifty the " Desire of Pilgrimage "
arose in his bosom, and urged him to bid farewell to his native
land which he was never to see again. Then the story carries us
to the land and the stormy times of the Merovingians and the great
Abbey of Luxeuil, afterwards to the Lombards, Bobbio and peace.
NEW BOOKS 259
The biography, while it is a first-rate piece of exact critical
scholarship, is throughout suffused with well-regulated religious
fervor. It is furnished with a full, judiciously chosen bibliography,
and besides the numerous footnotes and references, includes an ap-
pendix consisting of longer notes supplying further criticism and
information.
It is proper to observe here that this book owes its existence,
as the author records, to the generosity of the Right Rev. Bishop
Shahan, Rector of the Catholic University of America. Bishop
Shahan deplored the fact that we possessed no worthy life of this
great Irish saint. He offered, through the bishops of Ireland, a
prize of £200 for the best life of Columban. The present volume is
the .result.
A LITTLE WHITE FLOWER. The Story of Sceur Therese of
Lisieux. A new translation by Rev. Thomas N. Taylor.
Rochdale, Lancashire, England : The Orphans' Press. 75 cents.
The explanation of this new translation of the autobiography
of the Little Flower lies in the fact that the Carmel of Lisieux has
only now published for the first time the full text of what Sceur
Therese wrote, and this definitive edition differs greatly from its
predecessors.
The autobiography is based upon three different manuscripts
written by Soeur Therese at the command of her superiors. The
first and longest manuscript — Chapter I.-IX. of the present volume
—was addressed in 1895 to the prioress, Mother Agnes of Jesus;
the second — Chapters X.-XII. — was addressed to Mother Mary of
Gonzaga who had received her into the Order; the third — Chapter
XII. — was written for her eldest sister, Marie.
The publishers are to be congratulated upon the splendid press
work and the tasteful illustrations which characterize the volume.
PHILOSOPHY: WHAT IS IT? By F. B. Jevons, Litt.D. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.00 net.
The average man, who has probably heard the Scotchman's
definition of metaphysics, is inclined to believe that philosophy is
a study of something or other that has nothing whatever to do
with our practical life: It is productive of nothing; it does not
pay as " the inductive sciences do." If he has read Macaulay on
Bacon he will perhaps quote some bouncing, brilliant, but shallow
and inaccurate, judgments passed by that essayist on the waste of
2<5o NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
human intellect that philosophy has provoked. When a student
of philosophy undertakes to set such a person right, he very often
finds that the technical language in which he is obliged to convey
his ideas, and the abstract character of the ideas themselves, wholly
foreign to the mind of his auditor, render his well-meant effort
futile. The author of this book, who has written many philosophi-
cal studies of value, endeavors to meet this situation. He presents
here five lectures, first delivered before a Worker's Educational
Association, some members of which had expressed a desire to know
what philosophy is. The titles are: "Philosophy and Science;"
" Materialism and Idealism ;" " Skepticism in Philosophy ;" " Phil-
osophy in Practice;" "Personality and the Whole/' Nowhere,
in English, have we a happier attempt to provide a simple, lucid
exposition of the meaning and import of philosophy, and, in more
detail, some of its paramount problems, in concepts and language
suitable to the popular mind. The keynote of the author's purpose
is struck in the opening page :
In the lives of most, perhaps of all, of us there come mo-
ments of dejection, or even of despair, when the burden and
the mystery of this unintelligible world come with such crush-
ing weight upon us that, in spite even of religion itself, we ask,
" What does it all mean ? " " What is the good of it all ? "
The questions are asked in a despair which implies that there is
no meaning in it all, and no good in life ; or that, if there is,
at any rate we cannot see it.
But though the questions may be asked, and in moments of
personal despair are asked, in a tone which implies that no
satisfactory answer is or can be forthcoming, they may also
be considered, in a calmer mood, as questions which call for a
reasoned answer, and with regard to which we must ask, as a
matter of deliberation rather than of despair, whether an
answer is possible at all. Now it is the calm consideration of
these questions that is to be given to them — if any answer can
be given — that constitutes philosophy.
Though one might be inclined to append a note of interroga-
tion to some of Dr. Jevons' incidental positions, or reasonings, the
following passage from " Personality and the Whole " bears wit-
ness to the soundness of his philosophic creed on the great crucial
questions, the existence of a personal God, and man's free will.
On the assumption, which we now see that all have made
from the beginning, that experience is a whole and has a
:9i6.] NEW BOOKS 261
meaning-, and that the reality of the whole is a Perfect Per-
sonality, it will follow that our human personalities are but
feeble copies of it, if, for no other reason than for the reason
that none of us can say that we are not in process, not be-
coming, that as yet we are human copies made in the Image of
God. As copies, we have free will given to us by Him Who
made us. Because we have free will the future is not pre-
determined, but will be what we help to make it. Because we
have free will we are helping to determine — for better or for
worse — what the future will be. The whole, that is to say, is in
process. Process or activity in process, implies an end — a good
which is being realized and an end which is yet to be attained.
That good is expressed in the words, " Thou shalt love thy God
with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and thy neighbor as
thyself."
SHAKESPEAREAN STUDIES. By the Members of the Depart-
ment of English and Comparative Literature in Columbia Uni-
versity. Edited by Brander Matthews and Ashley Horace
Thorndike. New York: Columbia University Press.
The eighteen essays of this volume were prepared by pro-
fessors of Columbia University as the contribution of that insti-
tution to the celebration of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death.
As the editors inform us, no effort has been made to conform them
to a general plan, or to harmonize conflicting opinions.
Brander Matthews, writing on Shakespearean stage traditions,
adduces a number of instances in which an unexpected illumination
of Shakespeare's text has been accomplished by inventive actors
and ingenious stage managers. F. T. Baker writes rather pessimis-
tically of the use of Shakespeare's plays in the schools. W. T.
Brewster gives a brief but exhaustive sketch of the attempt to re-
store the personality of Shakespeare from his plays. He concludes:
" Doubtless he is the supreme poet, but from that it does not fol-
low that he was a particularly interesting man, or that his per-
sonality was more important than that of hundreds of his con-
temporaries." W. W. Lawrence treats of Troilus and Cressida,
J. Erskine of Romeo and Juliet, de Vivier Tassin of Julius Ccesar,
and J. W. Cunliffe of Henry V. H. M. Ayres sums up what we
know today of Shakespeare's pronunciation, F. A. Patterson shows
the poet's debt to the mediaeval lyric, and H. R. Steeves gives a list
of American editors of Shakespeare.
We commend this volume to all lovers of Shakespeare. They
262 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
will find many things to agree with, many things to argue about,
and many things to reject with scorn. But the essays are all care-
fully written, and well thought out.
MODERN ESSAYS. Reprinted from Leading Articles in The
Times. With Introduction by J. W. Mackail, LL.D., Fellow
of the Royal Society of Literature. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co. $1.40 net.
The " Third Leaders " in The Times, as the editor of this
volume remarks, do not deal with the news of the day. Instead
they are short essays, from a detached point of view, on manners,
tendencies, springs of action, problems of life and conduct. The
selection here offered covers a widely varied range of subjects,
many of them of deep import; others concerned with the minor
moralities and proprieties. Genial in their tone they frequently
embody shrewd psychological observation and excellent advice.
Their spirit and style are so nearly uniform that one is 'prompted
to conclude that a great many of them must be from the same
pen. But this common resemblance may be the result of having
been prepared to conform to some established journalistic type.
Some of the titles selected haphazard will best convey a notion of
the topics : The Wisdom of the Ages; Charlatans; Moral Indigna-
tion; On Giving Advice; The Latin Genius; Grumbling; The Per-
spective of Life; Man and Nature; Good Friday; Cynicism; Old
and New.
Some of the essays discuss matters of grave importance, while
the subjects of others are comparatively superficial. We should
say, however, that there is not one among even the latter class that
is not worthy to be preserved in permanent form.
HEART SONGS AND HOME SONGS. By Denis A. McCarthy.
Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $1.00 net.
The editor of The Sacred Heart Review is already well known
for his excellent verses published under the titles of A Round of
Rhymes and Voices from Erin. His last volume of verse will be
welcomed by all lovers of true lyrical poetry. Only one Irish-born
could write The Little Town of Carrick, St. B rigid and Bally-
knockin, or that delightful skit, the Leprechaum. His patriotic
poems — America First, The Dream of Columbus and The Land
Where Hate Should Die — should be memorized by every American
boy and girl.
1916.] NEW BOOKS 263
DUTY AND OTHER IRISH COMEDIES. By Seumas O'Brien.
Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $1.25 net.
The five one-act plays of this delightful volume — Duty, Juris-
prudence, Magnanimity, Matchmakers and Retribution — are full
of that rich Irish humor which characterize the stories of Seumas
O'Brien. The dialogue is always pointed and clever, the situations
mirth-provoking in the extreme, and the characters well portrayed.
THE HERMIT AND THE KING. By Sophie Maude. St. Louis:
B. Herder. 75 cents net.
Mrs. Maude is well known to Catholic readers through her
charming historical romances of the days of Henry VIII. and Eliza-
beth. Her latest novel centres about Henry VI. and the stirring
days of the War of the Roses. The true Earl of Castle Avon,
robbed of his earldom by a cruel stepmother, becomes a hermit to
pray for the souls of sinful men. The story is told in a simple and
moving style, and pictures well the Catholic spirit of the time.
The author is hardly justified in making Henry VI. a martyr and
a saint, but that may easily be overlooked for the sake of the quaint
story she tells.
SOUTH AMERICA. Study Suggestions. By Harry E. Bard,
Ph.D. Boston : D. C. Heath & Co.
This book is written for travelers intending to visit South
America. It contains a brief but fairly complete list of the chief
books in English dealing with the intellectual, social and economic
conditions of the South American Republics. The author rightly
insists on a better understanding of our Southern neighbors from
the standpoint of Pan-Americanism, which is winning over the
leading men of both continents.
THE WORLD FOR SALE. By Gilbert Parker. New York:
Harper & Brothers. $1.35 net.
The author prefaces his work with a few half -apologetic words
explaining that it was written before the outbreak of the present
war, therefore it must go as a story of " peace-life " of the Cana-
dian Northwest. It is a term that scarcely applies to this story of
the turbulent life of a frontier town, its divisions and its feuds,
and the resolute efforts of one man, Max Ingolby, to bring it into
alignment with advanced civilization. To the readers of this popular
author the ground he covers here is familiar. He has, however,
264 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
introduced a new interest in a gypsy heroine, so fine and loyal in
her support of Ingolby during his adventures and heavy trials. He
wins her in the end, he counts the world for sale. The tale is pic-
turesque and full of action. It is safe to predict that it will soon
be spread upon the screens of the moving pictures.
THE GREEN ALLEYS. By Eden Phillpotts. New York : The
Macmillan Co. $1.50.
The title refers to the green alleys of the Kentish hop fields.
Through this " emerald architecture " which the author describes
enchantingly, his people intermingle and have their exits and their
entrances so much of the time that the book is rightly named.
They are an interesting group, intangibly but unmistakably racy of
the soil; and the story, which has originality and quiet strength,
is the outcome of reactions of individual temperaments.
No one can do this sort of thing better than Mr. Phillpotts,
and none of his contemporaries exerts a spell of more fascination
than he when, as in the present instance, he is at his best. Though
the book is appropriate only for readers of mature judgment, its
tone is wholesome and elevated and closely human. The vigorous,
pointed dialogue is refreshing, and the personages who express
themselves are all distinct to our mental vision, and some of them
most welcome to our acquaintance. Rosa May is as delightful a
young woman as is to be found in fiction, a fitting mate for even
so fine a man as the principal, Nathan Pom fret.
Though the picture is of life in a rural community, the char-
acters are not slow-witted rustics. The action of the story closes
with the beginning af the war, and in their conversation on this
subject there is much that is fresh and shrewd and even stirring.
The introduction of the war is not the easy expedient of a per-
plexed author; his dignified novel finds a suitable ending in the
absorption of heartburnings, jealousies and fraternal strife into the
cleansing fires of the national sacrifice.
MY SLAV FRIENDS. By Rothay Reynolds. New York : E. P.
Button & Co. $3.00 net.
In this charming, touching and beautifully written book, sea-
soned with a kindly humor, and as entertaining as a novel, Mr.
Rothay Reynolds gives his impressions about two Slavic races
which, long divided by religious and political hatreds, now unite
their efforts to crush the same common foe. His pen is filled with
1916.] NEW BOOKS 265
enthusiasm for the Russian, an enthusiasm, however, which does
not interfere with his seeing the dark sides of a country where so
many cruel attempts against religious and intellectual freedom have
been taking place for long centuries.
The aim of the writer is to point out the characteristics of
Russian and of Polish character. He selects the form of literary
sketches to set forth the results of his own experiences; and his
book shows a wonderful knowledge of the Slavic psychology and
of the past and present history of Russia.
Mr. Reynolds finds the reasons of the secular torpor of the
Russian soul in that spiritual catastrophe which destroyed the
union of Russia and the West — the schism of Photius and Michael
Cerularius — Byzantium not only marred the unity of Christendom,
but isolated Russia from Western Christianity.
Mr. Reynolds raises his voice against the systematic defamers
of Russia. We must acquaint ourselves with Russian history in
order to understand the character of the Russians and to sympa-
thize with them. This acquaintance is extremely important if we
would sound the heart of Russian Orthodoxy. It is a mistake to
look at Russian Orthodoxy as a superstitious worship of images,
or a mechanical making of the sign of the cross. Some features of
Russian piety go back to the earliest days in Christianity. " At
every journey and movement," writes Tertullian, " at every coming
in and going out, at the putting on of our clothes and shoes, at
baths, at meals, at lighting of candles, at going to bed, at sitting
down, whatever occupation employs us, we mark our foreheads
with the sign of the cross." Russian Orthodoxy participates in the
fondness of Byzantine Christianity for religious symbolism. It
celebrates the victory of the spirit over the flesh, by lighting tapers
before a picture of Christ, or of the Blessed Virgin. It is not the
inner nucleus, the vital cells of Russian Christianity which are cor-
rupted, it is its exterior garb, its outward organization, which is ill-
affected; and unhappily in the ranks of the Russian hierarchy we
find a low conception of the Church which makes of her a servile
tool in the hands of political rulers.
The sympathies of the writer for Russia do not go as far as
to silence the voice of his conscience concerning the saddest epi-
sodes of the religious intolerance of Russian bureaucracy. We are
glad to hear from the lips of an Anglican, well disposed towards
Russia, a confirmation of what we have said in THE CATHOLIC
WORLD as to the conditions of Galicia under Russian rule :
265 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
Religious liberty [says Mr. Reynolds] is not yet full in
Russia. The spirit of persecution is not yet exorcised, and
some of the clergy still resent the loss of past privileges. The
methods by which Eulogius, Bishop of Chelm, sought to drive
the Uniats into the Orthodox fold during the Russian occupa-
tion of Galicia, show that the-clergy can only be restrained by
the vigilance of the secular arm. I do not care to dwell on this
subject, which is as painful to the vast majority of Russians as
it is to Englishmen. It will suffice to say that the proceedings
of this prelate led more than two-thirds of the members of the
Imperial Duma to include in the list of reforms, which they
desire to be made immediately, the complete cessation of re-
ligious persecution.
The book contains some beautiful and striking chapters about
Poland. In a chivalrous phrase the writer says that the secret of the
unity of Poland is the charm of the Polish women. Permitting that
to pass, we claim the right of asserting that lacerated Poland owes
her political unity mainly to the ufiity of her Catholic Faith, and
we can fully agree with the words of our writer when he says :
" The Catholic Church has been a refuge to the afflicted in the
darkest hours of Poland's tragic history. The clergy have been a
powerful force to keep alive the spirit of the nation during a cen-
tury and a half of unparalleled misfortune, and the Pope has been
the only sovereign who has dared to raise his voice in the defence
of the Polish people." The Catholic Church has saved Poland
from the danger of being absorbed into national German Protestant-
ism and into national Russian Orthodoxy. As long as the Polish
people will keep alive their wonderful devotion towards the Catholic
Church, the mother of their high civilization, the ethnical unity
of their own race will never be effaced or submerged by the rising
tides of Pan-Germanism, or Pan-Slavism.
In some points we disagree with Mr. Reynolds. He states,
for example, that the friction between Poles and Lithuanians arises
in the main from class- feeling. It seems to us that this friction is
the natural outcome of the development of Lithuanian literary
culture and national consciousness. He also brands as a ridiculous
story the strange influence exerted by Rasputin, a vulgar peasant,
upon the Tsar and his family, but we claim that such influence
was de facto exercised.
The book deserves to be read by men who long for a deeper
insight into the enigmatic Slavic soiil. It does riot parade a
1916.] NEW BOOKS 267
laboriously stored erudition. But its writer is thoroughly acquainted
with the historical past of Russia, and this acquaintance enables
him to discover the true aspect of Russian religious and political
life.
It may be said that the writer sometimes forces the note of
optimism as to the future destinies and mission of Russia; but
when so many clouds and columns of thick smoke darken the
horizon of Europe, it is fair to read books which trace out the
hopeful prospect of a renaissance of the Slavic race in the spirit of
justice and Christian friendship.
DANTE: HOW TO KNOW HIM. By Alfred M. Brooks. Indian-
apolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. $1.25 net.
In a long and well-written introduction, Professor Brooks
cites the tributes paid by the world's great writers to the splendor
of Dante's genius, gives a short sketch of his times, explains the
motive and scope of the Divine Comedy, and states that the pur-,
pose of the present work is to interest and aid the many who are
deterred from this reading by its difficulties.
The book, therefore, is not a contribution of fresh apprecia-
tions, but a guidebook for beginners. The student is conducted
through the poem, and at every step his attention is directed to
special instances of beauty and power; sometimes the significance
of an entire canto is given in a few lines, sometimes it is con-
sidered at length, with quotations.
The exposition is painstakingly thorough. The author seems
to look for none but the most rudimentary education in his read-
ers, nor does he place too much faith in their intelligence. There
is a profusion of footnotes designed to meet a lack which, if
existent, would seem to preclude their necessity, as it is improbable
that people thus handicapped would turn their attention to the
study of Dante. Those who are looking for some such manual,
however, will find one here that is wholly trustworthy and leaves
no point untouched or obscure.
PEOPLE LIKE THAT. By Kate Langley Bosher. New York:
Harper & Brothers. $1.25 net.
This is a novel with a purpose. It tells the story of a
young, unmarried woman of society who, by the death of a rela-
tive with whom she has made her home, is left with an income
sufficient for her support, but not as she has lived hitherto. Rather
268 NEW BOOKS [Nov.,
than be a hanger-on, she elects to take up her residence in a part of
a house belonging to her, situated in " the last square of respecta-
bility " in a long-since fashionable quarter of the city of her birth,
but now given up to stenographers, shopgirls and " people like that."
Immediately beyond lies the region of the underworld. Life as
she now sees it is an absorbing and often painful education. She
observes undreamt-of conditions of poverty and hardships, and
is brought into contact with one of the unsuspected overlappings
of her former world with the one below her present sphere.
Shocked and indignant, she appeals to " good women " to realize
their responsibilities, and see to it that the penalty for wrongdoing
shall not fall upon the woman alone.
The idea offers great possibilities, and the earlier chapters give
a promise that is not fulfilled by the finished product. The demands
of fiction intervene to the detriment of the book's interest as
a sociological study, and the author's generous sympathies do not
take into account the individual problems that impose deliberation
upon the judgment of experienced social workers.
THE MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE. By Emerson Hough. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. $1.35 net.
It is the historic Lewis and Clark expedition that is indicated
by the title of this book. The author has put into the form of fic-
tion the history of that great enterprise, introducing, of course, the
conspiracy of Aaron Burr and the love between his daughter,
Theodosia Alston, and Meriweather Lewis.
As a novel, it is an only moderately successful effort. The
material is assuredly all that a writer of romance could desire;
but Mr. Hough has not taken his dramatic values as effectively as
he might have done. The expedition itself is not presented with
the feeling which he evidently had in mind, as shown by the foot-
notes, which are more forcible and spirited than the body of the
text, displaying full appreciation of matters he might have wisely
dwelt upon at greater length, even to the exclusion of some of the
sentimental portion.
IRecent Events.
The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD wishes to state that none
of the contributed articles or departments, signed or unsigned, of
the magazine, ivith the exception of " With Our Readers" voices
the editorial opinion of the magazine. And no article or department
voices officially the opinion of the Paulist Community.
Among Great Britain's many difficulties the
Great Britain. increase in the cost of living is by no means
the least. While in Berlin the general level
of retail prices during July was one hundred and seventeen and
six-tenths per cent above that of July, 1914, and in Vienna one
hundred and forty-nine per cent, the average increase in Great
Britain of the retail price of food is put at sixty- five per cent,
which is reduced to fifty-nine per cent if allowance is made for
the increase in the duties on tea and sugar. In other countries the
increase is not so marked. In Italy it amounts to thirty-three and
three-tenths per cent; in Switzerland to forty and six-tenths per
cent ; in Denmark to forty-six per cent. In Norway, however, it
has reached eighty-one per cent. This increase has not affected a
large number of the working classes, such as munition workers,
for it has been accompanied by an equal or even greater rise in
the rate of wages. But upon those, and they are numerous, whose
wages have not increased, and upon those whose incomes are fixed,
a heavy burden has been imposed. Among those are the railway
men. At the beginning of the war those workers received a bonus,
and thereupon entered into an agreement that on no account would
their unions ask for an increase of wages until the Government
should give notice of its intention to relinquish control of the rail-
ways. Circumstances, however, they thought, altered cases, and
when for every twenty shillings which they received they found
themselves unable to purchase more than twelve and a half shillings
worth of food, they made a demand, under the threat of a strike,
for an increase of wages amounting to ten shillings a week. As
a strike would have been fatal to the prosecution of the war, a
series of conferences between the general managers of railways
and the representatives of the unions was held. The Board of
370 RECENT EVENTS [Nov.,
Trade intervened to prevent the deadlock which was threatened.
Both sides made concessions; instead of an increase of wages the
unions agreed to accept the doubling of the weekly bonus, making
it ten shillings instead of five shillings a week.
There are those who question the sense of justice of the
railway men in making this demand, and who look upon it as an
abuse of the power which is now in their possession. Under the
existing agreement between the railways and the Government, it
is the State, that is, their fellow-citizens, including a large number
who are suffering in an equal degree from the rise in the price
of food, who will have to pay the thirty-seven millions and a half
which the doubling of the bonus involves. This double burden is
thrown upon them by the concession of demands made under a
penalty which involved a national disaster. Does it not give to
all who are subject to an increase of taxation as well as to the
increase of food prices, a right to be compensated by the Ex-
chequer? So far, however, no further demands have been made.
In fact there seems to be, with the possible exception just men-
tioned, an almost universal willingness among workers of all
kinds, even the engineers on the Clyde, and the miners of
South Wales, to make every sacrifice for the sake of their fellow-
workers who are now giving their lives on the battlefields. This,
indeed, is the special aspect of this war. The army is not now
made up, as it has been hitherto, of soldiers by profession. It
consists of men of every walk in life. All classes are represented,
and, of course, the most numerous class is the most fully repre-
sented. Eight out of every ten of Kitchener's soldiers are working-
men. This fact gives them a claim on the support of their fellow-
men who are left behind. It is for this reason that so complete
a unity exists, and so full a determination — one that seems to be-
come stronger in proportion to the sacrifices that have been made,
so that they may not have been made in vain.
This does not, however, prevent the expression of the de-
termination of the trade unions to resume to the full all the rules
which they have laid aside when the war is over. This, in fact,
was one of the most prominent of the subjects which was dis-
cussed at the recent Trade Union Congress, a body which is now
recognized as being almost as powerful as the House of Commons.
These rules have the effect of limiting output. For the time in
which a bricklayer in this country would lay three thousand bricks,
the British union rules allow his fellow-workman in England to
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 271
lay only eight hundred. Similar rules are made for every trade,
and when enforced they manifestly seriously limit the output of
the country as a whole.
Opinions differ as to what will happen after the war, and
whether there will be a demand for labor or the reverse. But
all agree that in order to make good the losses that have been
sustained, Great Britain will have to build up its trade again, and
indeed vastly increase it. Ca'canny and the other trade union
rules if renewed will prove an insurmountable obstacle. Solemn
promises, indeed, of this renewal have been given by the Govern-
ment. An appeal, however, is now being made to the patriotism of
the workingmen that even after the war they should preserve that
union between capital and labor, which for the time being exists,
as a condition absolutely essential for the upbuilding of the na-
tion. To prevent the renewal of the industrial strife which was
the characteristic of the two years before the war, efforts in various
quarters are being made. At the meeting of the Trade Union
Congress, to which reference has been made, its President de-
clared that the workingmen were tired of war in the industrial
field, and that they hoped for something better than a mere avoid-
ance of unemployment and strikes. " Would it not be possible,"
he said, " for the employers, on the conclusion of peace, to agree
to put their businesses on a proper footing by admitting the work-
men to some participation, not in profits, but in control in those
matters which concern us directly?" This suggestion may pos-
sibly be an indication of the opening of a new era in the relations
between capital and labor, a hope which is encouraged by the plea
for a rapprochement made at the Congress by the Lord Mayor of
Birmingham, who is himself one of the largest employers of
labor in that city. No signs, however, of the practical acceptance
of the President's suggestion by capitalists have yet appeared, but
earnest thought is being given to the matter, and doubtless under
the pressure of the necessity which will arise after the war an
improvement will be effected in the relations between capital and
labor.
That there is great room for this improvement, some of the
resolutions of the Congress clearly show. Among those passed
unanimously was a demand of the Congress that such a propor-
tion of the wealth of the country as should be necessary to defray
the expenses of the war should be conscripted immediately, in order
that future generations should not be burdened by the payment of
272 RECENT EVENTS [Nov.,
loans. In preparation for this it was resolved to make a census
of wealth immediately. A more patriotic resolution was the one
by which a refusal was given to the invitation to attend an In-
ternational Congress to be held at the same time that the Plenipo-
tentiaries were arranging terms of peace. Not until the democracy
had dissociated itself from the crime of the sinking of the L-usitania,
would it be possible for the British democracy to associate with
the Germans. The Congress' attitude to the Church of England, as
well as to the various bodies which dissent from it, was shown
by a resolution which was carried by a majority of one hundred
and seventy-nine thousand votes condemning the exemption from
conscription allowed by the Military Service Act. Its proposer,
indeed, disavowed any attack on the clergy, but considered their
exemption an anomaly. As, however, there were one million two
hundred thousand votes against the resolution, it would not be fair
to draw the conclusion that the workingmen of England are hostile
to the Churches, still less to religion.
The attitude of organized labor as represented by the Congress
to the probable change in Great Britain's fiscal policy after the war
from free trade to protection, showed that a surprising change
has taken place in the views of skilled labor. Before the war
they had stood as an impregnable barrier to the movement in be-
half of tariff reform initiated by the late Mr. Chamberlain. An
attempt was made by those who are still opposed to any change to
commit the Congress to active opposition. This attempt led to
an emphatic protest in the opposite sense, and this was endorsed
by a majority of three to one. Instead of condemning protection
it repudiated free importation by adopting a resolution calling for
the restriction or prevention of the importation of cheap manu-
factured goods produced abroad under worse labor conditions than
those at home. No longer do the trade unions, any more than the
chambers of commerce, regard cheap imports as a sacred law which
must never be broken; in fact, they are prepared to modify it to
suit circumstances.
The vast increase due to the war of the powers exercised by
the state has led to the outcry that Great Britain is being Prus-
sianized. The Fight for Freedom is the title of a periodical which
is being published to point out the effects of the war on British
freedom, and to state the case of civil liberty now and in the
future. Censorship of private letters, suppression of news-
papers, prohibition to reside within special areas are only a
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 273
few of the powers exercised by the civil and military authori-
ties under the Defence of the Realm Act. The safety of the
state, which is the first law of all, justifies those interferences for the
time, galling as they are. Nor is there any real danger that Great
Britain will not revert to its old-established institutions, both
in their letter and in their spirit, as soon as the war is over. An
attempt made by the military to revive the old press-gang method
of recruiting failed at once, even in the present need of men. One
of the things which has been made manifest during the past two
years is the imperishable character of national characteristics. The
war, however, may bring about certain corrections due to the mis-
takes of the past. The chief among these will be a very much
wider extension of the powers of the state. Important steps in this
sense have already been taken by the appointment of commissions
to deal with education, the control of commerce and other matters.
Anxious thought is being given to the question, how to pay
for the war ? The figures are so large as to have lost all meaning.
At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, recently held at Newcastle, this subject, although it seems
alien to the object of this Association, was discussed by financial
experts. Five hundred millions in British money is now being'
raised annually by taxation, and this is considered to be as much
as can be raised in this way. Recourse, therefore, must be had
to loans, and the opinion was expressed by one of the experts
that the amount of internal war loans that might be raised by an
advanced community under modern banking conditions was almost
unlimited, provided the terms of issue and methods of collection
were made sufficiently attractive. Under certain conditions he
could conceive of the United Kingdom being able to mortgage
property to the extent of at least ten thousand million pounds
sterling. Up to the present time it was declared the war expendi-
ture had been met with comparative ease — a fact which demon-
strated both the wealth of the United Kingdom and the soundness
of its financial system. Some economists, indeed, hold that the
country will emerge from the war as rich as before or even richer.
A speaker at the meeting, however, declared that such a state-
ment made him conclude that either he or they were living in a
lunatic asylum.
Want of shipping due to the large number of the vessels taken
over by the Government and to the loss through submarines and
other causes, is another and a fundamental difficulty with which
VOL. civ. — 18
274 RECENT EVENTS [Nov.,
the country has to cope. To this is largely due the rise in the
price of food. In this case, too, it would seem the crisis is
past. Shipbuilding works, hitherto employed exclusively by the
Government in building and repairing vessels for the navy, are
being released for other work, and are now employed in building
ships to make up for the loss of merchant vessels. This process
is being expedited by the adoption of a method of standardizing
ships, by which means the time is much shortened.
As the war goes on, the determination not to make a prema-
ture peace is becoming ever stronger, and as the enemy's methods
by sea and land are being more clearly revealed, the terms on
which peace will be made are becoming more severe. The execution
of Captain Fryatt has led to the declaration by Mr. Asquith that
due amends for outrages of that kind will be included in any peace
treaty, while the demand is becoming ever stronger for every ton
of British shipping destroyed by the submarines, an equivalent will
be exacted at the end of the war. Whether or no trade relations
will ever be resumed, or only after a long term of years and on
what conditions, is a matter more in dispute. As to the result of
the war, there is practical unanimity that the Allies are sure to
win. The only question which exists is how soon that will happen.
Some think they see the end, others that it is not yet in sight.
A few signs of wavering in the determina-
France. tion to push the war to a decisive conclusion
have served the purpose of manifesting the
practical unanimity of the nation. A member of a tiny fraction
of Socialists having ventured in the Chamber of Deputies to sug-
gest the opening of negotiations with a view to seeking peace of
Germany, M. Briand concluded a speech, which is said to have
surpassed in eloquence all his previous utterances, with the words:
" This peace which you want is an outrage, an insult, a challenge
to those who have died for France." The House leaped to its feet
and broke into prolonged cheers for the Prime Minister, who had
translated into words the feeling of the whole of France, determined
as she is to fight on to the end, and more confident than ever of
the result. In the course of his speech, M. Briand said : " When
your country, which has for years had the honor to be the champion
of right, has stayed the invader, and is defending the whole world,
when its blood is. flowing, you say 'Negotiate peace/ What an
outrage to the memory of the dead! Ten of your Country's
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 275
provinces are invaded, our old men and women and children have
been carried off; they bear their misery bravely, awaiting de-
liverance at your hands. Is it then that you come to us saying:
'Negotiate, go and ask for peace.' You little know France if you
imagine that she can accept economy of milliards, or even of
blood, in such humiliating circumstances. There is not a French-
man in the world that can desire it." By four hundred and twenty-
one votes to twenty-six the House ordered the speech to be placarded
throughout France.
In the French press there has of late appeared a demand " for
unity of conscription," based on a belief that the Allied resources
of men are not so well pooled as their other resources, and aiming
at Great Britain as one among the other States who are thought
to be behindhand in comparison with France. When the subject
was brought up in the Chamber, M. Briand showed how each
ally was doing his best. " Tomorrow will see an extension of
this common cooperation. Men, money, material, everything must
be pooled among the Allies. As for Great Britain, at the be-
ginning indeed she had no army, but at the present time she was
not only fulfilling her role of guarding the seas, but had done a
thing unheard of in her history by her acceptance of military serv-
ice, and had succeeded in raising a redoubtable army, and had
sent hundreds of thousands of men to our land. Britain has
never answered 'No' to an appeal for assistance."
Some time ago it was among the possibilities, perhaps even
the probabilities, that M. Briand might be overthrown. His posi-
tion, however, has become stronger, rather than weaker. His fore-
sight in insisting upon holding Saloniki after the overrunning
of Serbia by the Central Powers has contributed to this result. To
his efforts and those of General Joffre it is due that the British
Government's wish to evacuate Greece and to transport the troops
to Egypt was not carried into effect. Subsequent events have amply
justified both the wisdom and the generosity of his policy.
That the financial world looks with confidence to the victory
of France, seems clear from the fact that the price at which the
new loan issued is less favorable to the subscriber than was that
of last year. The old loan, moreover, is quoted at the present
time at a higher price than that of issue, it having risen from
eighty-eight to ninety, whereas British loans are at a small dis-
count. Revenue from taxation is returning to conditions existing
previous to the war, notwithstanding the occupation by the enemy
276 RECENT EVENTS [Nov.,
of some of the richest French territory, seventy-eight and seven-
hundredths of the normal revenue having been collected. Arrange-
ments have been made with Great Britain for mutual help, by
means of which England's gold reserve has been strengthened. In
fact, all the Allies, have pooled their gold.
Never probably was a country in such a
Greece. plight as Greece. Its King, who reigns
solely by virtue of the Constitution, trying
to play the part of an absolute monarch, so far as foreign affairs
are concerned ; surrounded by officers in whom fear is their ruling
principle; a succession of ministries, coming and going every two
or three weeks; one part of the army declaring a revolution at
Saloniki, and placing itself under the command of the General of
the Allied forces; another part treasonably giving itself up to
Germany and suffering itself to be deported into its terri-
tory; its leading statesman in open revolt; an Allied force
consisting of British, French, Italians, Russians, Serbs and
Albanians within its territory, with another part of that terri-
tory given up voluntarily to the most hated of its enemies —
Bulgaria; such is the present state of things. What will come
of it all no one can tell; it seems however, easy to see that
it has resulted from the coward's fear to risk anything for a good
cause. Loyalty to Greece's best interests might have led to success,
and certainly would have deserved honor. Disloyalty has resulted
in both failure and shame.
i
Except upon one of the fronts, the war is
Progress of the War. going well for the Allies. The enemy is
on the defensive, and every effort to break
through has been defeated. So far from accomplishing this pur-
pose at Verdun, he has lost ground, and has sacrified hundreds of
thousands of men without result. The British Secretary of State
for War during his visit to the front went to Verdun, where he
made a short but moving speech to the officers of the French army,
" the sentries on those impregnable walls." " The name of Verdun
alone," he said, -" will be enough to rouse imperishable memories
throughout the centuries to come. The memory of the victorious
resistance of Verdun will be immortal, because Verdun saved not
only France, but the whole cause which is common to themselves
and humanity." There is no doubt that the tenacity of the French
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 277
gave time both to Great Britain and Russia to make the preparations
for their subsequent advances. The Military Cross has been awarded
to the town, the President of the Republic visiting the fortress of
imperishable memories, while the Sovereigns of the Allies paid
homage to its victorious resistance.
The Great Push, as it is called, has made good progress.
Some one hundred and twenty square miles of territory
formerly occupied by the Germans and fortified to the best of even
their ability, have been occupied by the Allies, over six hundred
guns and fifty thousand prisoners have been taken, and four hun-
dred thousand of the enemy put out of action. The " crushing su-
periority " of the British and French artillery, for such it is de-
clared to be by the military correspondent of the Frankfurter
Zeitung, makes him ask, " How long can this slaughter last?"
Little progress has been made on the Eastern front; the Ger-
mans are not, as they hoped, on their way to Petrograd, nor have
the Russians taken either Kovel or Lemberg. In the Carpathians
some little progress has been made. The too rapid advance of
Rumania has been repulsed. This is the one part of the field which
is causing anxious thought to the Allies. Germany's aim is to crush
Rumania as she crushed both Belgium and Serbia. It is still doubt-
ful as to whether or not she will be able to do so. Serbia is again
fighting in her own territory, having driven the Bulgarians across
the border, although the goal aimed at, Monastir, has not yet been
reached. Some small progress has been made by the rest of the
Allied forces in Greece. Surprise is felt that General Sarrail has not
made a stronger attempt to push on into Bulgaria. Nothing could
be more helpful to Rumania or more damaging to Bulgaria and her
Allies than an advance across the railway which leads to Constanti-
nople. Perhaps he is afraid of treachery in his rear. Little change
has taken place in the position of the Turkish and Russian forces in
Armenia and Persia. Egypt has not been in any way disturbed by a
further attempt to cross the Suez Canal. The few miles that are
still occupied by the German forces in East Africa are the last
remnant of her colonial empire, and it is only a question of a few
weeks when even this will disappear. The Belgians occupied the
chief inland town of Germany in East Africa — Tabora. Last, but
not least, Italy is slowly but surely gaining ground, both on the
Carso and in the Dolomites. She is said to be within ten miles of
Triest.
With Our Readers.
A FTER reading Miss Bateman's article on The Catholic Note in
•t± Modern Drama, with its warm eulogy of Paul Claudel, our read-
ers will be delighted to learn that one of his plays — The Tidings
Brought to Mary — has just been issued in English translation by the
Yale University Press.
A reading of it will prove beyond all doubt that the exceptionally
high praise sounded by Miss Bateman is amply deserved. The Yale
Press deserves both our thanks and our congratulations for presenting
Paul Claudel's work to the American public. The publication is a
happy sign that many are turning from the weak and irresponsible
work of unprincipled dramatists, and welcoming that which is whole-
some, lofty, inspiring. The greater eternal meaning of life is receiving
more and more of a hearing; materialism is losing its hold: through
many and varied processes men are freeing themselves from its slavery.
The spiritual nature of man, and indeed, for him, the spiritual value
of all things created, is being more and more deeply and widely recog-
nized. The moderns have but played with problems that really over-
powered them, as they must overpower all men who do not recog-
nize direct, personal responsibility to a personal, living God. The
modern world determined not to listen: to entertain itself with the
light things of the hour, the engaging attractions of the flesh. It will
demand a cataclysm for the many to awake; for the many to under-
stand that they are subjects, free, responsible agents of an eternal law
from which there is no escape. Europe is being brought to its spiritual
senses by the shock of fearful war ; the daily messages of death ; the
piercing light of the battlefield that shows against the background of
dark earth both the passing and the eternal value of human life, and
bids us look to heaven if reason is to remain master of itself, and hope
is to be known among men.
IN our own country many are not only blind to the ravages of doc-
trinal disruption and denial, of a vulgar rationalism, of an increas-
ing materialism, but many in speech and publication and organization
are doing all in their power to drive God out of the world, and, as of
old, to assure man that all his problems are to be solved by his own
hands. But the greatest problem of all they never touch; and a
problem avoided is not a problem solved. Signs are not wanting,
however, that many also of those who really think are seeing that the
1916.] WITH OUR READERS 279
problem of life and death, of suffering and of happiness, of God and
man, is still the one great problem that is at the root of all other
problems: that no question of life, economic, social or individual, is
ever going to be solved unless that first problem is solved. Man was
born for God — and it is only when his relations with God are right
that he is right or can be right with his fellowmen. Discord with
God means strife upon earth that is deadly. Harmony with God means
peace upon earth, even through the strife and suffering and anguish
that every human heart must bear.
WE will not discuss the literary merits of Claudel's drama. The pub-
lishers, in an extract from the London Nation, speak of it " as an
illuminated page taken from a mediaeval manuscript." It is rather a
chapter glowing with the light of Catholic truth from the book of
human experience which bears no date, but is ever ancient and ever
new. It is mediaeval in its setting ; it is ancient, mediaeval and modern
in its substance. The love of husband and wife; the love of family;
of land; of country; the lust of the flesh; the pride of living; the
problem of the poor; of the laborer; the failure and treachery of
government — all are treated here with a wisdom of which the present
might well learn. It preaches again the supreme lesson of the Cross,
still to many a stumbling block, still to many an utter foolishness,
" but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power
of God and the wisdom of God."
GOD'S will directs the world and it is the highest wisdom of a
creature to accept that will.
" It is not for the stone to choose its own place, but for the
Master of the Work Who chose the stone."
" One day as I went through the forest of Fisme, I heard two
beautiful oak trees talking together,
Praising God for making them immovable on the spot where they
were born.
Now one of them, in the prow of an ocean raft, makes war upon
the Turks.
The other, felled under my care, supports Jehanne, the good bell in
the tower of Laon, whose voice is heard ten leagues away."
And Violaine who found herself so happy, so entirely content
where God had placed her, is set upon the altar of suffering for her
own glory and for the consolation and the salvation of others. She
28o WITH OUR READERS [Nov.,
leads the sensual sinner to penance and to that full liberty with which
Christ has made us sinners free. The purified one exclaims :
" Truly I have always thought that joy was a good thing. But
now I have everything! I possess everything, under my hands, and I
am like a person who, seeing a tree laden with fruit, and having
mounted a ladder, feels the thick branches yield under his body.
I must talk under the tree like a flute which is neither low nor shrill !
How the water
Raises me ! Thanksgiving unseals the stone of my heart !
How I live, thus! How I grow greater, thus mingled with my God,
like the vine and the olive tree."
rPHROUGH the Cross, and immediately through her who has united
1 herself .in suffering to the 'Victim on the Cross, is he thus brought
back to life. The sufferer asks : " Of what use are you? " and Violaine
answers: "To suffer and to supplicate." " But of what use is it to
suffer and supplicate ? " and again she answers simply, " God knows.
It is enough for Him that I serve Him."
The stone has submitted itself to the hand of the Master of
the Work.
" Oh, how beautiful is stone, and how soft it is in the hands of the
architect! and how right and beautiful a thing is his whole com-
pleted work.
How beautiful is stone, and how well it preserves the idea, and what
shadows it makes ! "
/^LAUDEL looks not upon life as a plaything. Life is a drama:
v^ more tragic, more terrible, more grand than the greatest of hu-
man artists can ever put upon paper, or the most gifted actor can
ever present upon the stage. To every individual is assigned an
eternal part. He carries with him a divine spark, his soul. It may
glow with the life-giving flame of paradise, or torture itself with
the fires of hell. He carries in his hand the eternal scales, and as
he turns them this way or that he keeps or he destroys the wonder-
ful order of Infinite Wisdom. The sun in all its glory is not sufficient
to show the glory that shall be revealed in him; the quiet heavens
cannot adequately express the peace that is his inheritance; nor the
boundless sky the freedom which is his possession. Great as are his
powers for good, infinite as his capacity for glory — tremendous, un-
speakable also, are his powers for evil. The great wind that mars
the beauty of the forests, that uproots the aged trees, that takes
iQi6.] WITH OUR READERS 281
in its arms the homestead and leaves the children desolate, is not so
terrible as the individual who giving himself to rebellion and to
evil destroys his own soul and sows the seed of death through the
world.
Only through the definite truth of the Cross is man able to re-
cover his inheritance and walk in the way of peace. " Powerful is
suffering," says Claudel, " when it is as voluntary as sin."
"The Cross
Behold how it draws everything to itself.
There is the stitch which cannot be undone, the knot which cannot
be untied,
The heritage of all, the interior boundary stone that can never be
uprooted,
The centre and the navel of the world, the element by which all hu-
manity is held together."
HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL FARLEY and the President and
Faculty of Fordham University are to be congratulated upon the
opening under their patronage and supervision of a school of Sociology
and Social Service. The extent of this field of work which engages so
much of the time and the money of every government today, munic-
ipal, state and national ; the vast sums o>f money expended upon it ;
the professional methods necessary for its right conduct, are known by
all. It is most peculiarly the inheritance of our Holy Church, the
Mother of charity. It must be founded on true Christian principles,
else it will be a force making in the long run for evil, giving itself
over to purely naturalistic and materialistic principles.
We are sure, therefore, that as this new school will fill a need
that has long existed and that has been very pressing, so also it
will receive the loyal and generous support of Catholics who have an
intelligent insight into the needs of the Church in this our day.
The school under the Presidency of Father Joseph A. Mulry, S J.,
has an efficient Board of Directors. It will train students for all
branches of Social Service, grounding them thoroughly in the history,
principles and methods of social work. The prescribed course of
studies will occupy two academic years.
All desired information may be obtained by addressing the Regis-
trar, Fordham University, New York City.
WE are sure that our readers will be pleased to see reprinted here
the generous amende which Father Keating, the distinguished
editor of The Month, publishes in its October issue, for his doubt
282 WITH OUR READERS [Nov.,
expressed in The Dublin Review concerning the thorough orthodoxy
of Father Hecker's views on the origin and nature of civil authority :
" In the August number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD the editor,
courteouly but quite effectively, dispels a doubt hazarded by the present
writer regarding the complete accord of the late Father Hecker's
doctrine on the origin of civil authority with that of the Church. We
frankly own that, if we had known Father Hecker's writings better,
we should never have suspected him even for a moment to have leaned
to the side of Rousseau in this matter. Even the phrase cited with
hesitation— -'All political authority in individuals is justly said to be
derived, under God, from the consent of the collective people who are
governed. The people, under God, associated in a body politic are
the source of the Sovereign political power in the civil State' — is
sufficiently orthodox as it stands and appears still more clearly so in
its context. Father Burke adds further valuable testimony from
Father Hecker's other writings, which conclusively prove him to be a
stanch and eloquent upholder of the Catholic teaching in favor
of civil liberty and against State absolutism. In view of the fact that
Rousseauism has colored the speculations of some of our Catholic
writers, it is of great importance that the orthodoxy of Father Hecker,
ardent democrat as he was, should be fully and universally recog-
nized."
A RECENT volume which adds to the evidence of a reawakening
-t*- to that which is the peculiar inheritance of Catholics, is a work
published by the Houghton Mifflin Company in its series of The
Types of English Literature. It is entitled, Saints' Legends, and is
written by Gordon Hall Gerould. Professor Gerould studies and
records the English Lives of Saints in the light of the definition given
by Father Delehaye of the Bollandists, " a new genre develops which
is concerned with biography, with panegyric and with moral instruc-
tion."
Besides the literary value of Professor Gerould's book, there are
many conclusions which he comes to as a result of his extensive
and laborious researches that are very valuable, very timely, and we
hope to many enlightening and inspiring.
THE reading of the lives of the Saints is not a feverish occupation
of Catholics now-a-days. In fact, one can hardly be too emphatic
in condemning the indifference and the ignorance of very many
Catholics with regard to this field of literature, one of the richest in
1916.] WITH OUR READERS 283
the treasury of the Church, because it has been made and fed by her
holiest children. Indeed some are prone to scoff at such Lives, and
to think that the reading of them is weak milk fit only for babes.
It would be well for such also to look into this book. The author,
who is not a Catholic, after his critical survey of the whole English
field, thus writes : " The Lives of the Saints demand reverence of
maker and reader alike: but they do not require superstitious credul-
ity. Though many of them are stained by ignorant and unworthy
association, as a type they are inspirers of purity, and militant guard-
ians of the integrity of the human soul. Thus the view of history
exemplified by them is that the forward movement of the world has
been hastened by great leaders, but by leaders working with and for
their followers, and always under the guidance of the divine Hand.
Whether in fantastic apologue and parable, or in sober narrative
of well-authenticated history, the lives of the Saints represent the
search not only for goodness but for truth."
The story, that he reviews, says Professor Gerould, " is, for the
most part, of a day long past, but its significance remains. I have
tried to show that legends are dry and dusty, merely because the dust
has been allowed to settle upon them. The dryness I fancy is merely
a matter of ourselves, in any case."
ONE of the notes of the true Church of Christ is holiness. This
note extends not only to her doctrines that beget holiness, but to
her children who live it : who love it in others even when they have
it not in themselves and who love those who have exemplified it.
The higher their example, the more love will be given to them.
They will cherish their memory: write their lives and their deeds
into books. No organization ever yet left unrecorded its heroes. It
is a curious and pregnant fact that the Catholic Church alone has
fostered and produced as a living, vital literature the lives of the
Saints.
When the Reformation came in England, " along with shrines
and images, books of saints' lives fell under the ban of the Church.
One has only to see the defacement of surviving books to under-
stand the fanatical fury of the crew that was only less zealous to
destroy than to acquire." Never was a government more ruthless
than that of Henry VIII. in crushing opposition. " The less said of
the motives of Henry and his ministers, the greater the charity:
but in its effects the Reformation made England whole-heartedly
Protestant."
The writing of Saints' Lives came to an end in England. How-
ever we have, 1596, the chap-book, entitled The Seven Companions,
284 WITH OUR READERS [Nov.,
part of the contents of which has become the common heritage of
the English-speaking world. In an age that had been bullied into
hatred of the Saints, to use Professor Gerould's words, this book
served as a sorry burlesque of saintly lives to amuse children. " It
formed a curious eddy of Catholic tradition in the midst of Protest-
antism. An eddy, alas, that quite shockingly belies its source."
The seventeenth century, particularly in the Catholic College of
Douay, saw something of a -revival in the writing of the Lives of the
Saints. The latter half of the century witnessed a decline. After
the first quarter of the eighteenth century a better era opened for
hagiography. Professor Gerould praises the work of Bishop Chal-
loner who " excelled in acuteness most scholars of his day."
IT is gratifying, indeed, to read in the volume that " the work of
Alban Butler, with which the eighteenth-century hagiography
reaches its climax, was recognized at once as of outstanding value,
and it has never lost the admiration which it excited from the first.
Butler's The Lives of the Saints is the great classic of modern English
Catholicism, and it is time-defying in the same way as is the history
of Butler's great contemporary, Gibbon. Indeed, even Gibbon has a
good word to say of 'the sense and learning it displays.'
" Whether The Lives of the Saints be read as a book of devotion
or of history, whether by the man of doubting or of believing mind,
it cannot well fail to attract and give profit. To any person of dis-
cretion and taste the clear, dry light of the author's personality has
an abiding charm. Butler's great work is the masterpiece of modern
English hagiography : an almost inexhaustible treasury of learning,
the wealth of which is arranged with consummate skill."
WE might quote further with pleasure and with profit, but we
must forbear. We are grateful to Professor Gerould for his
scholarly volume. To know the Saints will mean surely to bring
more of virtue, more of self-denial, more of Christ and of God into
the world. Professor Gerould tells us " that Saints' lives have not
regained in pure literature, whether verse or prose, the place they
lost when the schism of the sixteenth century rent the Western world
apart." " It is permitted," he adds, " the lover of saintly lore, to trust
that they may again become such a factor." It is surely our inherited
duty and glory to do all we can to bring this about. It is often
said that only a saint can write the life of a saint. By studying the
Saints we can bring them back to the world — the memory and the
I9i6.] WITH OUR READERS 285
reverence of those who have passed from it, and the example of
those called here to be saints — even us ourselves.
IT is hard to conceive of a sin greater than that of Satan whereby
he sought to make himself like unto God: and yet it might have
been greater if Satan had tried to make God like to himself. George
Moore seems to have outdone Satan in his latest work called The
Brook Kerith, for in it he deliberately makes not only Christ, but
God Himself like to George Moore.
It is a fearful thing to utter these words of any man; yet if a
critic who views the book simply from a literary point of view feels
called upon to utter them, it is well to publish to the full the iniquity
of this work issued by a reputable house.
The keenest insight not only into the book, but into the whole
character of George Moore is shown in a masterful review of the
work which appeared in The Nation for October iQth.
"TF one writes well enough," the reviewer says, " one may say any-
1 thing he pleases. If he unites with his talent for dulcet utterance
a certain instinct for 'sex' and salacity, and shocking middle-class
sensibilities, he is pretty sure to become a celebrity, and he has a fair
chance of becoming a classic, in his own life time. There is at present
a strong demand for the sanction given to the discussion of ques-
tionable subjects by an unquestionable style."
MR. MOORE for many years, continues the notice, has done not
much thinking, but much musing about Christ and the teachings
of Christ. These teachings have vexed his spirit and annoyed his
flesh. They disturbed his musings; ran counter to his instinct; upset
his comfort; blocked the way he would go. Consequently to be at
peace with the self he loved, he must get the thought of Christ out
of his system. But that is a very difficult, indeed an impossible pro-
cess. " Anyone who desires to rid himself of the obsession of the
spiritual Jesus has but to put his own natural instinctive self in the
place of Jesus. The substitution brings instant relief from the pressure
of an exacting alien force." Therefore George Moore made of Christ
an Irish sentimental naturalist — and was m> longer troubled by the
call, " Follow me," for the undisciplined self of George Moore smiled
at the words, since they were now but an invitation to follow his own
inclinations. Into the life and character of Christ he reads the ex-
periences, even the degrading stuff of Memories of My Dead Life,
and reaches the conclusion, " God is but desire; " " to be without sin
286 WITH OUR READERS [Nov.,
we must be without God; " and Jesus stood before the cenoby
asking Himself if God were not the last uncleanness of the mind."
And this work, the last word in blasphemy, has received commendable
notice from many American periodicals! The review in The Nation
is healthy, invigorating and altogether praiseworthy.
WE are pleased to publish the following letter from a subscriber
who has evidently followed THE CATHOLIC WORLD faithfully for
many, many years:
THE EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD: ,
With much interest I read your account of Father Cuthbert's tribute to
the memory of Wilfrid Ward, late editor of The Dublin Review, who was
in active sympathy with the " new intellectual awakening " which came with the
pontificate of Pope Leo XIII. For about four centuries before that date the
Catholic Church had been in " a state of siege," and a sort of martial law
had taken the place of the ordinary law which governs and guides individual
action in times of peace. Catholics had grown accustomed to look upon un-
questioning obedience as the one law of life, and to go to authority for guidance
which in more normal times would be left to individual initiative.
Newman's theory of development was proposed by Wilfrid Ward to meet
the need of the modern world, but it was to be taken in conjunction with the
scholastic system which embodied the teaching of the two great constructive
periods of Catholic thought, the patristic and the mediaeval. In the accurate
process of separating the true from the false adopted by the mediaeval cham-
pions, he saw the working principle for that synthesis of thought which will
bring together the historic Christian Church and the modern world.
The above summary from Father Cuthbert's article in The Dublin Review
for July, 1916, recalled to my mind some other book or magazine in which
the same argument had been presented. Following an old habit, I began
a search among the back numbers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. The miss-
ing link was found in Volume XXI. which begins with April, 1875. It
was an article entitled An Exposition of the Church in View of Recent Diffi-
culties and Controversies and the Present Needs of the Age." The editor of
THE CATHOLIC WORLD announced in a footnote that the article was reprinted
with the author's permission from advance sheets of a pamphlet published by
Basil Montagu Pickering of London. The name of the author was not
given. His argument may be seen from the following quotation : " All re-
ligions viewed in the aspect of a divine life find their common centre in the
Catholic Church. The greater part of the intellectual errors of the age arise
from a lack of knowledge of the essential relations of the light of faith
with the light of reason; of the connection between the mysteries and truths
of divine revelation and those discovered and attainable by human reason;
of the action of divine grace and the action of the human will.
"The early Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church largely cultivated this
field. The Scholastics greatly increased the riches received from their prede-
cessors. And had not the attention of the Church been turned aside from
its course by the errors of the sixteenth century, the demonstration of Chris-
tianity on its intrinsic side would ere this have received its finishing strokes.
I9i6.] BOOKS RECEIVED 287
The time has come to take up this work, continue it where it was interrupted;
and bring it to completion. Thanks to the Encyclicals of Pius IX., and the
decisions of the Vatican Council, this task will not now be so difficult.
" The denial of the Papal authority in the Church necessarily occasioned
its fuller development. For as long as this hostile movement was aggressive
in its assaults, so long was the Church constrained to strengthen her de-
fence Every new denial was met with a new defence, the danger was
on the side of revolt, the safety was on that of submission. The chief occu-
pation of the Church for the last three centuries was the maintenance of
that authority conferred by Christ on St. Peter and his successors; the
contest was terminated forever in the dogmatic definition of Papal In-
fallibility."
The article from which the above extract is taken was at a later date re-
produced in the volume called The Church and the Age, bearing the signa-
ture of Father Hecker. For an old reader like myself of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD, it is a pleasant reflection to know that its pages contained several
years in advance the same line of argumentation which was afterwards
adopted by Wilfrid Ward for The Dublin Review. Father Hecker's
early books, Questions of the Soul and Aspirations of Nature, were also in
harmony with the object of the Synthetic Society, of which Wilfrid Ward
was one of the founders, together with Arthur Balfour and others. The chief
aim of this Society was to promote a union of effort to provide a philosophical
basis for religious belief. SENEX.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. CIV. DECEMBER, 1916. No. 621.
THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION: A MEDLEY OF
ARGUMENTS.
T has been well said that man is a rational being, be-
cause whenever he wants to do anything he can al-
ways find a reason for it. In other words, he reaches
his conclusions first and establishes his premises
afterwards. This principle is well illustrated in the
debate concerning the merits and demerits of the proposal to re-
strict immigration to the United States through the application of
a literacy test. The proponents of the measure agree in just one
thing, their demand for the restriction of immigration. But their
agreement upon this point is so perfect and sincere that they seem
to be unconscious of the medley of arguments which are brought
to bear upon their opponents like great siege guns. The opponents
of restriction are logically in a somewhat better position than their
adversaries, since they are in possession of the field, but they too
are often careless of the arguments with which they ward off attack.
During the last few years there has grown up a sort of gentle-
man's agreement according to which the immigration question is
to be considered an economic one. Individuals will, of course,
line themselves up for or against restriction according to their
tastes, but in presenting the arguments for restriction the soft pedal
will be put on all non-economic considerations. Miss Grace Ab-
bott drew sparks from the chairman of a Congressional com-
mittee which was investigating the immigration question last year,
Copyright. 1916. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
..VOL. CIV. — IQ
290 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION [Dec.,
when she failed to observe the convention on this point, and hinted
that much of the demand for a literacy test both inside Congress
and outside might be traced to religious bigotry in the backs of the
heads of the people who were making the demand. Mr. Steiner,
too, strayed somewhat from the reservation when he wrote : " The
one institution in America most gravely concerned with the com-
ing and staying of the immigrant is the Protestant Church. Each
shipload of people from Southern and Southeastern Europe in-
creases the already-crowded Roman Catholic parishes, lays founda-
tions for the perpetuation of the Greek Orthodox Church in the
United States, and enlarges the tents of Israel whose camps encircle
the dying churches."1 But then Mr. Steiner was not arguing. He
was just telling us about it.
A great many Catholics agree with Mr. Steiner, that immigra-
tion ought to be restricted, but as a general thing they maintain
the convention and consider the question an economic one. When
they do discuss religion they take the stand that although a great
many of the immigrants are Catholics when they leave Europe,
very few of them are Catholics when they get to America. In
other words the great influx of Catholic immigrants does not seem
materially to affect the Catholic census figures in this country.
These Catholics are at one with Mr. Steiner as to the conclusion,
but they differ with him as to the premises. This, however, is not
an unusual situation when questions of this kind are under dis-
cussion.
Besides religion, another question which it was agreed by
common consent to leave out of the immigration discussion, was
that of race superiority. Before the present war broke out, it was
considered a sign of superior intellectuality to assume that one
race was intrinsically as good as another. Men would stand up
in public meetings and say that although their forefathers had been
in America for two hundred and fifty years, they themselves were
no better than some poor German immigrant who landed only
yesterday. The Chinese and Japanese — well, that was another
question, but immigrants ought not to be excluded just because
they were born in one country rather than in another. Of course,
where the immigrants break down standards of living they ought
to be excluded, etc. The convention which requires the suppression
of the racial superiority argument is pretty well observed, but now
and then there is a falling away. For example, only last year a
lThe Immigrant Tide, p. 311.
iQi6.] THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 291
professor of sociology published a book in which he hinted that
our descendants are to be preferred to the descendants of other
races. This, of course, is a perfectly natural feeling, but under the
terms of the agreement it ought not to be openly urged, because
it is not an economic argument. In fairness to the professor,
however, it must be said that this view was put forward in con-
junction with a standard of living argument, which is, of course,
an economic argument in good standing.
Dr. Hayes (for he is the sociologist in question) wrote: "If
we should grant that the immigrants are of a stock that is quite as
good as ours, and that they worthily represent the stock from which
they spring, still it remains unquestionable that their standard of
living is lower than ours, and by unrestricted admission of immi-
grants having such a standard of living we more or less substitute
them and their offspring for our own unborn children."2 And he
concludes : " We invite the gradual but inevitable approach of old
world standards of living, and sacrifice the opportunity to estab-
lish a higher level of general welfare which ought to prevail in
this country, and we do so without any assurance whatever that,
save very temporarily, the number of those who enjoy the ad-
vantages of the new world is materially greater, or the number of
those who struggle against old world conditions is materially less,
than if we enforced a policy of restriction."
The theory adopted by Dr. Hayes that immigration does not
increase the population of the United States, belongs by right of
discovery and occupation to the late General Walker, who. de-
veloped it at some length in his Discussions in Economics and
Statistics. During the decade 1830-1840, five hundred and ninety-
nine thousand foreigners came to the United States. " Was the
population of the country correspondingly increased? I answer,
No! " says Walker. " The population of 1840 was almost exactly
what, by computation, it would have been had no increase in
foreign arrivals taken place." Between 1840 and 1850 the immi-
grants to this country amounted to not less than one million and
seven hundred and thirteen thousand. " Again we ask : Did this
excess constitute a net gain to the population of the country?
Again the answer is, No ! Population showed no increase over the
proportions established before immigration set in like a flood. In
other words, as the foreigners began to come in larger numbers,
the native population more and more withheld their own increase."
•Introduction to The Study of Sociology, p. 269.
292 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION [Dec.,
The reason for this situation was that " the American shrank from
the industrial competition thus thrust upon him. He was un-
willing himself to engage in the lowest kind of day-labor with
these new elements of the population ; he was even more unwilling
to bring sons and daughters into the world to enter into that
competition."
In order that there might be no doubt about his facts, Walker
reen forced them with figures. Elkanah Watson, it appears, made
an estimate in 1815 of the probable future population of the United
States. On a basis of the study of the increase in population be-
tween 1790 and 1 8 10 he predicted that the population in 1840
would be 17,116,526, and that in 1850 it would be 23,185,368.
Watson could not, of course, foresee the great increase in immi-
gration that was to come in the second quarter of the century, but in
spite of that fact his forecast proved to be remarkably accurate. His
estimate for 1840 differed from the census returns by only forty-
seven thousand and seventy-three, and for 1850 by only six thou-
sand five hundred and eight. Now, says Walker, although more
than two and a quarter million people came to this country between
1830 and 1850 the population was practically the same in 1850,
as it would have been if the birth-rate of 1790-1810 had been
maintained and the immigration had remained a negligible quan-
tity. Nothing was easier for Walker than to draw the conclu-
sion that an increase in immigration meant a correspondingly great
decrease in birth-rate.
Professor Willcox, who has devoted much attention to the
study of population statistics, avers that Elkanah Watson was mis-
taken in his estimate of what the population of 1850 would have
been without immigration. Watson's estimates were based upon
the increase in population between 1790 and 1810, but Professor
Willcox assures us that the birth-rate had already begun to de-
crease in 1810, and that between 1810 and 1820 there was a de-
crease of more than nine per cent in the birth-rate as compared
with the rate upon which Watson based his estimates. Therefore,
concludes Professor Willct>x, the population of the United States
is much larger now than it would have been if there had been no
immigration during the nineteenth century. And to further sup-
port his contention, he adds that in Australia, where there is
practically no immigration, the birth-rate has fallen off about as
rapidly as in America. Professor Willcox himself is not convinced
of the need of further restriction on immigration,
1916.] THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 293
Professor Fetter will serve as an example of a high-grade
economist of the present day who has examined Professor Will-
cox's argument with care and who rejects Walker's premises, but
accepts his conclusion with regard to the desirability of restricting
immigration. Professor Fetter says:3 "The assumption that im-
migration constitutes a net addition to the population is not in
accord with the well-known theory of Francis A. Walker. He
believed that immigration had the effect of reducing the birth-rate
of the native-born so greatly that the net increase was about what
it would have been without immigration. Let it suffice to say that
this view seems to be a misreading of the evidence and an exaggera-
tion of a truth of limited .application." But Professor Fetter sees
other reasons for shutting out the immigrants. " In the light of
the doctrine of population," he says, "there is no mistaking the
influence of continually increasing numbers in gradually and per-
manently depressing the whole plane of wages. It is generally
assumed that when the immigrants and their children become
Americanized and raise their standard of living, their presence no
longer has any effect in depressing wages below what they other-
wise would have been. Indeed it is tacitly assumed that the law
of increasing returns operates as population becomes denser, and
that the general prosperity is enhanced by the mere growth of
numbers. This idea was measurably true so long as national
growth was one of extension into unoccupied areas, and the average
density of population was low. It ceases to be true whenever the
ideal point of equilibrium between population and resources has
been attained. The territorial distribution of immigrants, their
training in the English language, and their adoption of American
standards of living, cannot change a mathematical fact."
In a word, Walker wanted the foreigners kept out, because
their presence here kept the native-born from perpetuating their
race. Fetter is convinced that there is nothing to Walker's argu-
ment, but he wishes the foreigners kept out because the law of in-
creasing returns has ceased to operate because of the fact that our
population has become too great for our resources. He does not
take any stock in the view that if the immigrants would adopt
American standards of living, the situation would be improved.
Dr. Warne, who has recently written a popular book on immigra-
tion, is in favor of the literacy restriction, but he does not accept
Walker's argument that immigration does not increase the num-
8 The 4merican Economic Review, Supplement, March, 1913.
294 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION [Dec.,
bers of the people. On the other hand, he appears to accept the
view which Fetter condemns, viz., that if the foreigners raise
their standard of living to meet that of the native Americans, their
presence will no longer have the effect of depressing wages; and
he condemns the view which Fetter accepts, viz., that we have
already passed the point of diminishing returns, and that further
increase of numbers will result with mathematical certainty in
making it harder for the average person to make a living, no mat-
ter whether he desires to adopt a high standard of living or not.
Dr. Warne is far from being pessimistic in this regard, and he
looks forward to a golden age of increased production when every-
body will live in plenty, provided, of course, that the foreigner's
psychological attitude towards consuming food can be changed.
On the question of the law of diminishing returns, Dr. King
of the University of Wisconsin, who has recently published a book
on The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States,
is against Dr. Warne and on the side of Professor Fetter. Dr.
King, who is an ardent restrictionist, presents a table to show " that
the American laborer has been unable to withstand the continuous
onslaught of the alien hosts, and that he has been forced to yield
all the advantages derived from the economic progress during the
decade, and to content himself with a slightly lower commodity
wage than he received in 1900. After all, the law of diminishing
returns is inexorable," he says.
Dr. King's book appeared as late as 1915, and is well supplied
with tables and graphs and other statistical machinery to make his
arguments convincing. In fact, there is every inducement to lead
the innocent reader to say : " Now at last we have the facts. We
know now what we are talking about. Whatever else there may
be in the immigration discussion that is doubtful, it would seem at
least that there can be no doubt that commodity wages have been
declining." But wait. Professor Fairchild has not been consulted
yet. Professor Fairchild, writing in The American Economic Re-
view in March, 1916, says that we do not know for certain whether
commodity wages are going up or down; or at least that we did
not know until he told us in March, 1916. He says: "In the
United States diametrically opposite views are repeatedly expressed,
with great conviction, as to the course of the standard of living,
and each of these views finds ready acceptance with various
audiences, according to their prejudices or preconceived no-
tions It is significant that no reliable proofs have been
1916.] THE RESTRICTION OP IMMIGRATION 295
presented in support of either view For some time the writer
has experienced a growing conviction that this question of the
course of the wage earner's standard of living is altogether too
vital to be left to random guesses and rash assumptions." There
appears to be danger, therefore, that Dr. King's perfectly good-
looking figures fall either in the class of random guesses or in that
of rash assumptions. However, we shall forget the weakness of
the statistical arguments used in the past to show the need of
restriction, because we have now before us Professor Fairchild's
conclusions. It is not of much consequence that we believed in
restriction in the past on inadequate grounds. The important
thing is that we shall now believe in restriction on adequate
grounds. And so, skipping Professor Fairchild's figures, we hurry
to his conclusions. " The writer is well aware," he says, " that the
foregoing data do not prove that the common laborer's family was
better off in 1890 than in 1908. Nothing statistical is proved if
there is a single estimate, a single approximation, a single gap in
the demonstration, a single chance for error. But he does believe
that they furnish very strong evidence in support of the proposi-
tion It is probable that more exhaustive study of prices ac-
tually current in 1890 might necessitate some minor modifications
in various items of the budget. It does not seem possible that it
would materially affect the general conclusions. One thing seems
safe to say — that the foregoing data, disprove the right of anybody
to assert with serene confidence that the standard of living of the
American common laborer has improved in the past thirty years.
The burden of proof is laid on the optimists, to bring forward some
positive verification of their assumptions." Well, there you have
it. If the restrictionists are not able to prove that the standard
of living has been going down, at least they have the satisfaction
of knowing that their opponents cannot prove that it is going up.
The cry that immigration is responsible for an undue share
of poverty and crime is an old one. The managers of the Society
for the Prevention of Pauperism in New York were already ac-
quainted with it in 1819. " First, as to the emigrants from
foreign countries," they say, " the managers are compelled to
speak of them in the language of astonishment and apprehension.
Through this inlet pauperism threatens us with overwhelming con-
sequences An almost innumerable population beyond the
ocean is out of employment, and this has the effect of increasing
the usual want of employ. This country is the resort of vast num-
296 THE RESTRICTION OP IMMIGRATION Pec.,
bers of those needy and wretched beings. Thousands are con-
tinually resting their hopes on the refuge which she offers, filled
with delusive visions of plenty and luxury. They seize the earliest
opportunity to cross the Atlantic and land upon our shores
What has been the destination of this immense accession to our
population, and where is it now? Many of these foreigners may
have found employment; some may have passed into the interior;
but thousands still remain among us. They are frequently found
destitute in our streets; they seek employment at our doors; they
are found in our almshouse and in our hospitals; they are found
at^the bar of our criminal tribunals, in our Bridewell, our peni-
tentiary, and our State prison. And we lament to say that they
are too often led by want, by vice, and by habit to form a phalanx
of plunder and depredations, rendering our city more liable to in-
crease of crimes and our houses of correction more crowded with
convicts and felons."4 ,
This indictment of foreigners on the charge of pauperism and
crime sounds so familiar that one is disposed to accept it without
further proof. In fact, it is not at all unlikely that similar charges
against immigrants could be found in the literature of every one
of the ninety-seven years since the managers of this society came
to this profound conclusion. We have not time to make the search
through the literature of the succeeding century, nor the space
to present it when found, and so we shall content ourselves with
quoting from Dr. King, to whom reference has already been made,
for similar testimony from the year 1915. Dr. King has just been
discussing the economic evils attendant upon immigration and he
adds : " The political and social evils wrought by the invading hosts
are perhaps just as destructive to American welfare. Poverty,
corruption and crime are the constant camp-followers of the foreign
army." And to prove that this is so, Dr. King refers the reader
to Professor Edward A. Ross' The Old World in the Neiv.
But the iconoclasts among the restrictionists will not even let
the good old argument of the poverty and vice of the immigrants
rest in peace. Fairchild says:5 "The prominence of pauperism
as an item in the immigration agitation has led to the production
of a large amount of material on the subject. Nevertheless, most
of it has been fragmentary and untrustworthy. This has been
largely due to the incompleteness and lack of uniformity of the
4Quoted in Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, vol. xv.
6 Immigration, pp. 311, 323, 329..
1916.] THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 297
records of various eleemosynary institutions, and the difficulty
of securing returns from all the manifold agencies of relief .'.....
There can be but one conclusion from the foregoing discussion,
namely, that our foreign-born add to the burden of public and
private relief an amount largely out of proportion to their relative
numbers in the general population, and that this burden is likely
to be an increasing one In the matter of crime the effort
to make generalizations is complicated by the fact that it is neces-
sary to take into account, not only the number of crimes, but the
nature and severity of the criminal act. Tests of criminality, to
be accurate, should include quality as well as quantity These
conditions frequently result in an injustice to the immigrant. The
police and court records of our great cities show an amazing pro-
portion of crimes chargeable to the foreign population But
when these records are studied more closely it becomes apparent that
a large share of the offences of the foreign-born are violations of
the city ordinances — offences which are comparatively trivial in
themselves, do not indicate any special tendency toward criminality,
and are in many cases intimately associated with a low station in
life." Although this testimony still leaves much to be desired it
indicates, at any rate, that there has been much recklessness in the
past in charging immigrants with pauperism and crime.
Jenks and Lauck, who are both firm believers in the desira-
bility of the literacy test, testify as follows with regard to the
criminality of the immigrant:6 "It is perhaps sufficient to say
here that on the whole, in spite of the inclination apparently shown
by certain nationalities to commit certain classes of crime, it is
impossible to show whether or not the totality of crime has been
increased by immigration." And the United States Immigration
Commission, which stands for a pro-literacy test, says:7 "While
it does not appear from available statistics that criminality among
the foreign-born increases the volume of crime in proportion to
the total population, nevertheless the coming of criminals and per-
sons of criminal tendencies constitutes one of the serious social
effects of the immigration movement." Or, in other words, while
the immigrants are not criminal to the extent that the native-born
are, still there are criminals among them who ought to be prevented
from landing.
An interesting question that has been discussed in relation
6 The Immigration Problem, p. 57.
''Reports, vol. i., p. 27.
298 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION [Dec.,
to the subject of immigration restriction is that of the effect of
immigration on the introduction of machinery. Some restriction-
ists hold that immigration should be held in check because the ten-
dency of unrestricted immigration is to discourage the introduc-
tion of machinery. Other restrictions hold that immigration
should be held in check because the tendency of unrestricted im-
migration is to encourage the introduction of machinery. In other
words, the restrictionists debate among themselves the question
as to whether more immigration does or does not mean the em-
ployment of more machinery, but they are agreed that whatever
may be the fact, that fact leads to the conclusion that immigration
should be restricted.
The Federal Immigration Commission, which has already been
cited as a friend of the literacy test, was of the opinion that im-
migrant labor and the wide use of machinery harmonized well
with each other. In speaking of the more recent immigrants from
Southern and Eastern Europe the Commission says:8 "Before com-
ing to the United States the greater proportion were engaged in
farming or unskilled labor, and had no experience or training in
manufacturing or mining. As a consequence their employment in
the mines and manufacturing plants of this country has been pos-
sible only by the invention of mechanical devices and processes
which have eliminated the skill and experience formerly required
in a large number of occupations In bituminous coal mining,
for example, the pick or hand miner was formerly an employee
of skill and experience By the invention of the mining
machine, however, the occupation of the pick miner has been largely
done away with, thereby increasing the proportion of unskilled
workmen who load the coal on cars after it has been undercut and
the holes drilled by machinery, and the coal knocked down by a
blast set off by a shot firer specialized for that division of the labor.
Such work can readily be done, after a few days' apprenticeship,
by recent immigrants who, before immigrating to the United States,
had never seen a coal mine. The same situation is found in the cot-
ton factories In the glass factories, also ...... In the iron
and steel plants and other branches of manufacturing, similar in-
ventions have made it possible to operate the plants with a much
smaller proportion of skilled and specialized employees than was
formerly the case. It is this condition of industrial affairs, as
already stated, which has made it possible to give employment to
* Reports, vol. i., p. 494.
1916.] THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 299
the untrained, inexperienced, non-English-speaking immigrant of
recent arrival in the United States." Jenks and Lauck9 discuss
this phase of the question in a paragraph, the heading of which
reads, " The Inefficiency of the Immigrants Has Encouraged the
Use of Machinery."
If one takes the view of the situation presented above, one
arrives at the conclusion that a literacy test is needed by way of
the line of reasoning that immigration is substituting unskilled labor
for skilled labor, and thus lowering the economic status of the
American workingman. If, however, one takes the opposite view
of the facts and believes that immigration is hostile to the ex-
tensive use of machinery, one comes to the conclusion that there
is need of a literacy test by way of the line of reasoning that immi-
gration discourages inventive skill, and stands in the way of the
progress that would harness machinery to the uses of mankind.
It is the latter point of view and the latter line of argument which
is adopted by Dr. Warne when he says : 10 " Cheap labor prevents
invention and retards the introduction of machinery. A country
that has an over-supply of cheap human labor has no record of
any consequence in machine invention. The opposite is true,
however, of countries where wages are relatively high. It is so
because of the necessity capital is put to in order to keep down the
cost of production, and this urges capital to substitute the cheaper
machine labor. This encourages inventive skill, and in the absence
of immigration would encourage it still more, thus improving the
arts and also relieving human beings of some of the present in-
human toil."
It is not at all a strange and unusual phenomenon to see men
who are heartily in favor of some line of action grasping at all
kinds of arguments, good, bad, and indifferent, to convince others
of the desirability of pursuing that line of action. These immigra-
tion restrictionists are all firmly convinced of the desirability of
legislation which will put a check upon the number of the in-
coming foreigners. Unfortunately, they cannot agree upon the
facts upon which their arguments are to be based, but, after all, in
the case of the great majority of the arguments no one person is
responsible for more than a half of each contradiction. Each one
may recognize the contradiction, but may honestly believe that his
own ratiocination is unimpeachable. The situation becomes much
*The Immigration Problem, p. 186, second edition.
10 The Tide of Immigration, p. 185.
300 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION [Dec.,
worse where the same author is responsible for both sides of the
contradiction. For example, it is not at all unusual to find a re-
strictionist arguing that immigration causes the population to in-
crease too rapidly, and then, as soon as he has established this
point to his satisfaction, insisting that a considerable fraction of
the immigration be cut off, and that no foreign workingman be
allowed to land unless he bring his wife, and children with him and
declare his intention to remain permanently in America. The in-
nocent bystander is likely to ask why, if population is increasing
too rapidly, it would not be better to shut out the foreigner who
comes with a family, and to admit only those foreigners who come
without families and with the intention of returning to their native
country after a few years of work in this country.
The place of honor in presenting both sides of the last-named
contradiction belongs probably to the Federal Immigration Com-
mission. It not only contends strongly for the need of restriction,
and argues that the proper persons to exclude are those who would
contribute the least increase to the population, 'but it brings these
two contentions together in the same paragraph. Thus, in Sec-
tion 8 of the Recommendations of the Commission, we read : " The
investigations of the Commission show an over-supply of unskilled
labor in basic industries to an extent which indicates an over-supply
of unskilled labor in the industries of the country as a whole, a
condition which demands legislation restricting the further admis-
sion of such unskilled labor.
"It is desirable in making the restriction that: (a) A suffi-
cient number be debarred to produce a marked effect upon the
present supply of unskilled labor, (b) As far as possible, the
aliens excluded should be those who come to this country with no
intention to become American citizens or even to maintain a
permanent residence here, but merely to save enough, by the adop-
tion, if necessary, of low standards of living, to return permanently
to their home country. Such persons are usually men unaccom-
panied by wives or children."
The unwary reader is in danger of being misled by the
language of the Commission into believing that it is not because
they are unaccompanied by wives and children that these aliens are
to be excluded, but because they send a part of the money which
they receive to Europe. The unwary reader should, therefore, be
(referred to standard works on economics, in which it will be
explained to him that under normal conditions each nation will
1916.] THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 301
tend to keep its share of the total money supply of the world,
and that if it sends away an undue proportion of it at one time
it will receive it back at another time. In the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries there were many intelligent persons, called
Mercantilists, who gave thought to this problem, and who did not
accept the principle just laid down. In the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries there have also been Mercantilists, but their intelligence
has been more or less under suspicion.
Dr. Warne wishes to shut out the foreigners who leave their
wives and children in Europe, but his reasons appear to be social
rather than economic. " I do not know — I know no one who might
know," he says, " because scientific information is lacking on the
subject — but I venture the assertion that if the facts were ascer-
tainable they would prove that certain crimes of a peculiarly
atrocious character among our alien population diminish according
as the number of the sexes approach an equality." Dr. Warne is
on fairly safe ground in venturing an assertion in a field where
scientific information is lacking, but Jenks and Lauck think that
undue importance has been attached to the social effects of immi-
gration. They say : " In most of the discussions on immigration
that have appeared during the last few years, whether the immigrant
came from Europe or from Asia, great importance has been at-
tached to the social effects of immigration arising from the per-
sonal qualities of the immigrants The late investigations of
the Immigration Commission show that undue significance has
been attached to these social effects during the past few years
The chief danger of immigration lies not in this direction, but in
the field of industry." They believe11 that "tendencies toward
lowering the American standard of living are at work at the present
time in this country through our large immigration, and that,
therefore, it is desirable that by some wisely effective method we
restrict such immigration." In other words, they think there are
too many laborers in the country, but on the next page they make
it clear that their sympathies are with the proposal to let in the
foreigners who come with their families, and to shut out the
foreigners who leave their wives and children in Europe and expect
to return to Europe themselves in a few years.
Before the outbreak of the present war, when immigrants were
coming to this country at the rate of more than a million a year,
the restrictionists insisted that then was the time to apply the
11 The Immigration Problem, p. 339-
302 THE RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION [Dec.,
severe restrictive tests in order to keep the country from being
overrun with a European horde that would depress our American
standard of living. Diagrams were made which could be read from
left to right, or from top to bottom, hinting at the great increase
in immigration that might be expected in a few years. Little was
said of the half million and more emigrants who left our shores
each year, because many of these were the people who came to
this country without their wives and children, and the restrictionists
may have thought that they had given these persons sufficient notice
when they had explained how reprehensible was their conduct,
in the first instance, in coming here without their wives and chil-
dren. Since the outbreak of the war, with the number of immi-
grants falling off to such a degree that in some months the emigra-
tion exceeds the immigration, the argument is that now is the
time to begin to apply the restrictive test because it will be easier
to apply it now, and because the immigration will be so much
greater after the war than it was before if the test is not applied.
While others are speculating as to whether the wastage of men oc-
casioned by the war will not lead foreign nations to place re-
strictions upon their emigration, the restrictionists in this country
appear to be supplied with advance information which enables them
to predict that the volume of immigration will not be decreased.
It will be interesting to wait and observe whether, if there is
a reduction in the volume of immigration after the war as com-
pared with that of former years, the restrictionists will work out
an argument to show that there is need of a literacy test because
of the decreasing volume of immigration.
TERCENTENARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
FAITH IN CANADA.
BY ANNA T. SADLIER.
T is now three hundred years since the torch lit at
the blazing pile of seventeenth century Catholicism
kindled that same fire on the heights of Quebec.
The tercentenary of the establishment of the Faith
has been celebrated by a remarkable demonstration
in the ancient capital on the sixteenth and seventeenth of October.
On the Sunday previous a pastoral letter from Cardinal Begin
was read in all the churches announcing that festival of gratitude
and remembrance, and emphasizing the high motives which led the
pioneers of Christianity and of civilization into the heart of the
Canadian wilderness.
" Give thanks to God," says the pastoral, " Who willed that our
country should have been discovered, explored and colonized by the
Catholic sons of a most Christian kingdom, and that our French-
Canadian race, born of Catholic faith and French patriotism, should
have preserved in all its integrity and without alteration the Catho-
lic doctrine preached by our first evangelists in New France."
In the pastoral and in the addresses which marked the celebra-
tion, notable tributes were paid to the memory of Samuel de
Champlain, surnamed " the Father of New France," whose genius
was so many-sided. He is the daring explorer, the cartographer,
whose charts, it is said, are still reliable, the witty and charming
chronicler whose immortal Voyages are of perennial interest,
the military commander of signal ability, and the wise, enlightened
and broad-minded governor who saw far beyond the narrow con-
fines of the moment.
The founder of Quebec was profoundly Catholic. To the
Queen, Marie de Medici, he declared that his expedition to Canada
was " to make the lilies flourish there with the one religion, Catholic,
Apostolic and Roman." In his Relation of 1613, he expresses the
desire to bring " those poor people to the knowledge of God," and in
dedicating his Voyages to the French king he emphasizes his inten-
tion of " planting in those regions the standard of the Cross, and
teaching the savages the knowledge of God, to the glory of His holy
304 TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA [Dec.,
Name." To this end, he secured the services of four Recollets, who
had obtained authorization from the Holy See and letters patent
from the king to undertake that hazardous mission. From the Cardi-
nals and Bishops, just then assembled in Paris, they received money
for the purchase of portable altars, church ornaments and other nec-
essaries, while the Company of Canada undertook to feed, support
and transport them. These monks, whose work figured so largely
in the recent celebration, belonged to one of the branches of the
great Franciscan Order, which for centuries has played so im-
portant a part in the history of Christendom. They preached the
doctrines of love and charity, poverty and lowliness, voluntary
suffering and privation to a world corrupted by the luxurious pa-
ganism of the Renaissance. None too partial a witness, Sir James
Stephen, thus testifies to the effectual reform they accomplished:
" Nothing," he says, " in the histories of Wesley or of Whitfield
can be compared with the enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed
them, or with the immediate and visible result of their labors. In
an age of oligarchical tyranny, they were the protectors of the
weak; in an age of ignorance the instructors of mankind; and in
an age of profligacy the stern vindicators of the holiness of the
sacerdotal character and the virtues of domestic life.
" The patrons of art and the inspiration of many an artist, they
were the impelling force in the creation of much literature, and
they gave great Doctors to the Church; they were the friends of
the poor and the lowly, so that the very term of Friar came to have
a peculiar significance, and to connote a tender relationship between
them and the poor of Christ."
That little band of adventurers, planting the lilies of France
and the standard of the Cross in the New World, hailing from a
genial climate, tasted all the rigors of a Canadian winter, un-
tempered by civilization, endured without flinching indescribable
hardships, and held their lives at the mercy of the red barbarians.
Despite all that has been written, it is doubtful if the world at large,
and even the world of Canada, realizes to the full the debt which
is owing to Champlain, or the heroism with which he and his as-
sociates endured the horrors of that primeval existence. Champ-
Iain's idea of an empire to be established on American soil was
frustrated by the weakness and indifference of the French court
dominated by unworthy favorites. It remained a dream or has
been far otherwise realized, but Champlain, by statues of bronze
erected on various sites, has been acknowledged one of the strongest
1916.] TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA 305
forces in the foundation of the North American confederation.
" The story of those one hundred and fifty years of the French do-
minion abound in soul-stirring and inspiring incidents," says a Non-
Catholic historian,1 " which can never fail to excite the attention of
the lovers of the romantic and the picturesque elements of history,
as well as the student or the statesman who is interested in the
political conditions of the past and its effect upon the present."
Canada has, indeed, continued to attract the lovers of the pic-
turesque, in all its phases from those first early glimmerings of tra-
dition which displayed the Raven of the Norse adventurers, pre-
ceding the Lilies of France, on the quest for unknown lands and
seas. And from the viewpoint of the romance-lover, the dra-
matist and, as shall presently be seen, the Catholic, this interest is
chiefly centred upon that period of the French domination which
Parkman thus graphically describes : " The French dominion is a
thing of the past, and when we evoke its departed shades, they rise
upon us from their graves in strange, romantic guise. Again, their
ghostly campfires seem to burn, and the fitful light to cast shadows
around on lord and vassal and black-robed priest, mingled with
wild forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship on the same
stern errand. A boundless vision grows upon us, vast wastes of
forest verdure, mountains silent, in primeval sleep; river, lake
and glimmering pool, wilderness oceans mingling with the sky.
Such was the domain which France conquered for civilization.
Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests; priestly vest-
ments in the dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism; men
steeped in antique learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister,
here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes
with mild, parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes
of death. Men of courtly nurture, born to the polish of a far-
reaching ancestry, here with their dauntless heroism put to shame
the boldest sons of toil."
Four Recollets sailed from Honfleur on the St. Etienne, and
under the protection of the Proto-Martyr had a prosperous voyage
of thirty days, and landed one May day, the Feast of the Trans-
lation of St. Francis' body, at Tadousac. There on the shore of
that beautiful bay, encircled by hills which legend declares to have
been the playthings of giants, they first encountered the savages,
news of whom had been thrilling religious circles in France and
exciting the interest even of the court. As if to impress them
*$ir John Bourinot.
VOL. CIV.— 20
306 TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA [Dec.,
with the appalling perils that beset their path, they witnessed the
burning at the stake, with every refinement of torture, of an Indian
prisoner. If any heart quailed it was certainly not those covered by
the frieze of St. Francis. Those holy missionaries were more eager
than ever to hasten to the evangelization of the tribes, and thence-
forth became an integral part of the animated drama of early Canada.
Those first Franciscans were Fathers- Denys Jamet, Jean d'Ol-
beau, Joseph Le Caron and Brother Pacifique du Plessis. Father
Jamet, taking up his abode temporarily in the governor's habitation,
devoted himself to the study of the country, its climate, topography,
upon all of which he made a report to his ecclesiastical superior,
the Archbishop of Rouen. He said the first Mass, not at Quebec,
but on the island of Montreal, that is to say the first since the days
of Car tier and Roberval, who had with them two Benedictines,
Dom Guillaume Le Breton and Dom Antoine. At the spot where
the first Mass was said in 1615, the Recollets later gave a martyr
to the Church in the person of Father Nicholas Viel, treacherously
drowned in the swift flowing rapids by the savages, with his faith-
ful disciple, Ahuntsic. This event is immortalized by four statues,
and by villages named respectively Sault-au-Recollet and after his
Indian follower.
Father d'Olbeau, called " the first pastor of Quebec," though
charged also with the care of the Montagnais tribe at Tadousac and
other aborigines of the Lower St. Lawrence, said the first Mass,
after the settlement of Quebec, on June 26, 1615, where now stands
the chapel of Our Lady of Victory. " Nothing was wanting,"
writes Father Le Clerq, " to render that action as solemn as the
simplicity of the little colony permitted. Having prepared
themselves beforehand by confession, all received their Saviour
in Eucharistic Communion. The Te Deum was sung to the sound
of their little artillery, and by the acclamations of joy that re-
sounded everywhere the place was changed into a paradise, whilst
all invoked the King of heaven."
" That was a beautiful day for Champlain and his fellow
colonists," says the Abbe Ferland, " when in the poor, little chapel
at Quebec they assisted for the first time at the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass on the banks of the great River St. Lawrence, inaugu-
rating thus the Catholic faith in Canada. For a century and a half
the Church of Quebec was the centre and hearthstone of Catholicism
in the immense regions extending from Hudson Bay to the Spanish
possessions,"
1916.] TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA 307
And so with that first Mass began, it may be said, that won-
derful Canadian Church which has given to Catholicism a whole
galaxy of resplendent figures, a hierarchy headed by the heroic
Montmorency de Laval, unsurpassed for learning, wisdom, pure
doctrine and intrepid defence of the people's rights; Jesuit mis-
sionaries, discoverers, martyrs, whose names and thrilling story
have resounded from one end of Christendom to the other; the
sons of Olier, who brought their science and their virtue to the
wilds of New France, giving new names to the Canadian mar-
tyrology and playing an important part in the founding of Ville-
marie. In the train of those pioneers came many other religious
orders of men and women, every one of which has impressed its
special character upon this portion of North America.
Father Le Caron set out with Champlain for the country of
the Hurons, meeting at the Falls of St. Louis a delegation from
that tribe, urging them to hasten to their fellows' help. The Re-
collet went forward with twelve Frenchmen and some Indians,
being the first apostle to penetrate those savage wilds, and to dis-
cover the territory of the Great Lakes.
" Years before the Pilgrims anchored within Cape Cod," says
Bancroft, " the unambitious Franciscan, Le Caron, had penetrated
the land of the Mohawks, had passed to the north into the country
of the Wyandots, and, bound by his vows to the life of a beggar,
had gone onwards and still onwards, taking alms of the savages."
That journey, which must have borne so hardly on one who
had passed years in the atmosphere of a court, Le Caron having
as a secular priest been preceptor to the Duke d'Orleans, is thus
described by himself : " It would be hard to tell you the lassitude
I suffered, having been obliged all the long day to take the oars in
hand and row with the Indians; more than a hundred times I
waded through rivers on sharp stones that cut my feet, in the
mud, or through the woods, carrying my canoe and my little
outfit Nor need I mention the painful fact, which distressed
us, of having nothing to eat but a little sagamite, a paste made of
water and Indian meal, which was given to us in small quantities,
morning and evening."
"It was in the hot sun of a July day, 1615," says a recent
writer,2 " that Father Joseph Le Caron, after days of incessant toil,
reached the mouth of French River. He is suddenly aroused by the
cries of his Indian companions. Raising his head, he sees before
1Brunet. The Cross in Huronia, vol. ii., p. 783.
TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA [Dec.,
him a vast sea stretching away until it meets the sky. He dips his
hand into the wave and raises it to his lips. The water is sweet.
It is the Mer Douce, the great, fresh water sea, of which he had
heard so much. He lands at once and plants a cross in the sand.
It was thus that the humble Recollet discovered the first known of
the Great Lakes. The first monument of civilization on Lake Huron
was the little cross of Le Caron."
He was afterwards rejoined by Champlain, and together they
penetrated more than three hundred leagues into those territories,
the monk celebrating the sacred mysteries amongst the barbarous
tribes in the very heart of savage idolatry. " They were compelled
to remain there during that whole winter. This gave Father Le
Caron an opportunity to study the various dialects for the dic-
tionary which later he compiled. During the fourteen years that
he spent in New France, despite his ardent desire, he never revisited
Huronia, but was intrusted instead with the instruction of the
Montagnais and other tribes of the Lower St. Lawrence. He died
in France of the plague.
Brother Pacifique du Plessis was stationed at Three Rivers,
where he was employed in the instruction of the children, and made
himself exceedingly useful by his knowledge of drugs, having been
previously an apothecary. He rendered an important service to
the colonies by discovering through one of his neophytes that the
tribes in alliance with the whites having taken umbrage, had as-
sembled to the number of eight hundred for a general massacre
of the whites. His timely warning saved the situation. He only
survived his arrival in New France by three years. The Recollets
were denied the privilege of returning to Quebec, after the taking
of that city by the Kertk brothers in the service of England and its
restoration by treaty to the French. It was not until 1670 they
were recalled, as is chronicled by the Jesuit Relation for that year.
" The Reverend Recollet Fathers," writes Father Le Mercier,
" who have been brought from France as a new help to the mis-
sionaries and to cultivate the soil of the Church, have gSven
us a great increase of joy and consolation. We received them as
the first apostles of this country, as did all the inhabitants of
Quebec, in acknowledgment of the obligation which the French
colony is under to them for having accompanied it in the period
of its first establishment. All were delighted to see these good
religious in the place where they lived forty years ago when the
French were driven out of Canada by the British.
I9i6.] TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA 309
They rebuilt then that monastery of Our Lady of Angels and
remained there until 1692, when they were permitted to
build a regular convent, named after St. Anthony of Padua, by
Monsignor de St. Vallier, who, like his predecessor, Laval, paid
them high tribute. He declared that in their fourteen years of
labor they had " penetrated to the extremity of the lands watered
by the great river " (the St. Lawrence).
The Recollets were also active in Acadia laboring amongst the
savages and fur-traders, several dying of hardships in the woods.
They strove to establish there a seminary for the training of In-
dian youth. As a chronicler3 observes: "The great Cardinal of
France was interested in Christianizing the tribes of New England,
before Plymouth or Massachusetts or the English government had
thought about them."
Were it possible to follow the history of exploration and
colonization over the whole country, the brown-robed sons of the
Italian Saint would be found at every stage of the journey. After
the English conquest they remained in Canada, and have ever
since been securely established in the affections of the people,
having churches and monasteries in most of the chief cities. It is
a notable coincidence that the first resident Apostolic Delegate to
the Dominion, Monsignor Falconio, was a Franciscan.
It was to celebrate, then, the beginnings of a Church, as
prolific in noble achievements, as in remarkable personalities,
and those missionaries who were the precursors of a glorious
band, that thirty thousand persons, it is estimated, gathered
about the monument which was unveiled on October i6th.
His Eminence Cardinal Begin pontificated at the Mass, assisted
by Monsignor Pelletier, Rector of Laval, and the Reverend
Fathers Etienne and Adolphe, Capuchins, and Fathers Jean Joseph
and Odoric, Franciscans. Abbe Brosseau, of Montreal, preached
on the gratitude due by Canadian Catholics to God for the mag-
nificent work done in the New World by the pioneers of the Faith
and their successors during the last three hundred years, illus-
trative once more on this Western hemisphere of the f( gesta Dei per
Francos." The historic basilica saw again a profoundly impressive
ceremony, the latest of that long series of pageants witnessed by
this venerable edifice.
In the afternoon the General Committee of the celebration, ac-
companied by His Honor the Mayor, went to lay a wreath upon
*J. G. Shea, Catholic Missions.
310 TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA [Dec.,
the tombs of Champlain and Laval. The zouaves and various cadet
corps accompanying them also served as escort to the Cardinal,
who proceeded to the former Place d'Armes, close to the spot
where once stood the church of the Recollets. Then to the sound
of the " Papal Hymn " and " O Canada," the monument was un-
veiled by the representatives of the civil and ecclesiastical powers,
the Cardinal and the Governor. A thrill of enthusiasm passed
through that vast multitude and cheer upon cheer broke forth. It
was the acclamation of Catholic Canada of today to Catholic
Canada of the past, and it sprang from the heart of a people pro-
foundly Christian, saluting thus the symbol of its Faith.
The speeches on the occasion were notable, not only because
of the eloquence of trained orators, but because of the passionate
earnestness with which they voiced the aspirations and ideals of
a people to whom the most sublime of causes had always ap-
pealed, and to whom the memories of the past were living and
vibrant. " Memorare. Je me souviens" words inscribed upon
the monument, were reechoed in the hearts of that eager, wistful,
devout assemblage.
The monument consists of an ornamental fountain, thirty-seven
feet in height, in granite and bronze, with four sides precisely
similar. The buttresses are adorned with two gargoyles, the water
from which replenishes the basins. Through an arched open-
ing, divided by a column in the interior, the water gushes from
a rock, glides along the sides, and falls from basin to basin to the
bottom. The bronze figure on the pedestal signifies Faith. In her
outstretched hand is the symbol of Redemption, the Cross, while
in the left she holds the palm of victory awarded to nations as to
individuals that have remained faithful. Bronze plaques at the base
of the structure bear the names of the four Recollets and com-
memorative scenes, that of Father Jamet saying the first Mass
on the island of Montreal ; Father d'Olbeau arriving with Champlain
at Quebec ; Father Le Caron amongst the tribesmen in Huronia.
The proceedings began with the reading of a cablegram from
the Cardinal to the Holy Father, offering him the filial veneration
of the Catholics of Canada and the assurance of their attachment
to the Church, which has been strengthened by three centuries of
struggle, of devotedness, and asking for his paternal benediction.
The answer through the Cardinal Secretary of State conveyed the
expression of Benedict's paternal benevolence, and the blessing
accorded from his heart to his children assembled at Quebec for
igi6.] TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA 311
the celebration of the third centenary of the establishment of the
Faith in Canada. It seemed as a voice not only from across the
ocean, but across the distant centuries, that of another Pope sending
those apostolic laborers to the difficult vineyard of New France.
A cablegram was also received from the General of the Fran-
ciscans in answer to one offering him the homage of gratitude and
respect. A touching letter was read from Cardinal Amette of
Paris, from whose diocese the first missionaries had set forth,
deploring the sorrowful circumstances which prevented him from
being present or even from being represented.
Cardinal Begin referred to the moving spectacle before him of
a multitude present to offer grateful homage to God, Author and
Preserver of our Faith, and to pay a well-deserved tribute to the
first missionaries, men of apostolic hearts, men of God, true heroes,
those dear sons of St. Francis who had come hither to seek, in the
forest of the New World, ferocious pagan Indians who were to be
civilized and Christianized, knowing well what obstacles they had
to overcome, and welcoming probable martyrdom. He showed how
they had traveled over the country, following the savages in their
wanderings, and everywhere causing the Catholic Credo to resound.
" Quebec," he continued, "whose gracious device is fJe me souviens,'
had never ceased to accclaim the names and deeds of those, who
had founded, colonized and evangelized the country On such
a festival day it is good to evoke those deeply touching and apos-
tolic memories, and to recall those historic lives which gave true
glory to our city. The superb monument before me, on which I
offer my most cordial congratulations to the committee, will re-
main to tell a grateful posterity the edifying story of our first
pioneers of the Faith and our religious beginnings in Quebec and
Montreal." Having enumerated the many monuments already in
existence, he declared it fitting that " Quebec, the first bulwark of
the Faith in North America, the first beneficiary of the preaching
of the Gospel, should commemorate in such imperishable fashion
the tercentenary of the establishment of the Faith on the shores
of the St. Lawrence."
The Cardinal in his remarks epitomized the object of the
celebration and the reason for the erection of the monument. It
is the apotheosis of the past, and of the sons of him who upon the
Umbrian hills gave to the world of the thirteenth century, in con-
crete form, the old message of the Gospel. Francis chose my Lady
Poverty for his bride, and it was my Lady Poverty, clad in heroic
312 TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA [Dec.,
rags, who accompanied the first Canadian missionaries and took up
her abode with them on this arid soil.
Sir Evariste Le Blanc, the Lieutenant-Governor, quoted the
words of Champlain : " Having learned on my preceding voyages
that in certain districts there were sedentary tribes, devoted to the
culture of the soil, who had neither faith nor law, living without
God or religion like brute beasts, I judged that I would be com-
mitting a great sin if I did not take means to bring them to
the knowledge of the true God, and I strove to find some good
religious who would be inspired with zeal for the glory of God."
And he described how those four apostolic men " burned to
make that voyage in which by God's grace they might plant
in these countries the standard of Jesus Christ, with a de-
liberate resolve to live and, if it were necessary and the occa-
sion offered, to die for His holy Name The seed which
they sowed in the holy earth of Canada has blossomed into
magnificent flowerage. Fertilized by the devotion of these first
missionaries and watered by the blood of our Canadian martyrs,
the Tree of Faith has struck deep roots into our soil, and cast
tutelary branches over the whole country. We are a believing
people. The religious idea is traditional with us; our hearts and
our national life bear the imprint of its strong and mysterious
influence, and by carefully preserving it we shall best secure the
future of our race. In the words of Henri Lavedan, religion alone
teaches the highest morality, and has the strength to enforce it,
the power and the gift to animate and enkindle it, rendering it
living and glorious, making it a necessity and a commandment."
He touched briefly, but in moving terms, upon the war now raging
in Europe, and declared that the Canadian hierarchy, continuing
the traditional loyalty of the Catholic Church to the government
and to the authorities, has clearly indicated the line of duty to be
followed.
Sir A. B. Routhier, President of the Monument Committee,
spoke with his customary grace and charm of the " event of 1615 "
as "not only the supernatural illumination of a people, but a covenant
between this people and God. The humble chapel erected by the
Recollets was not only a house of prayer but a bow of promise,
a symbol of the union between God and the people of Canada, like
that which Jehovah made with the Hebrew nation Behold
that Covenant, says the Lord, which I make with the House of
Israel. I will put My law into their mind and I will engrave it upon
1916.] TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA
their hearts; and I will be their God. and they will be My peo-
ple." Then taking a step forward, he added : " In the name of the
General Committee of Citizens, who have erected this monument,
I have the honor to announce that dating from this day it shall
be called The Monument of the Faith/ and shall belong to the
city of Quebec, if it will accept the gift thus made and the charge
of preserving and maintaining it. It is just that this city which is
the theatre of great events in our history, should be also the city
of monuments, and I hope that in the course of years all the
glories of the past will be revived in a number of statues."
The Mayor having accepted the gift, gave the assurance that
the city of Quebec would receive and ratify through a by-law the
donation made, guaranteeing the maintenance of that superb
memorial erected to the glory of Quebec and the honor of the
Canadian Church.
Having paid a graceful tribute to His Eminence, he concluded :
" Therefore at the foot of the monument which expresses our faith
and gratitude and the perfect understanding which existed between
the founder of this city and the missionaries, I am certain of inter-
preting faithfully the thought of my fellow-citizens when I say that
we are proud of the close alliance which has always existed between
our people and our clergy, by means of which the latter have shared
in all the vicissitudes of our national life. That alliance has been
more than a guiding star in the darkest hours of our history. It
has been a beneficent shelter and often even a bulwark." He quoted
a noble tribute paid by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury,
when visiting Quebec for the centenary of the English Cathedral.
Recapitulating all the marvels of courage and endurance on the
part of the early evangelists, the Archbishop said : " 'In presence
of the heroism and unshakable faith of those first missionaries, of
Breboeuf and Daniel, we should be wanting in truth and yielding
to a mean and narrow sentiment, did we not pay them the homage
which is their due.' Such are the sentiments of us all," concluded
the Mayor, " in this solemn moment when we inaugurate this
monument to the glory of God and of His Church."
This homage of an entire people, which so truly reflects the
sentiments of that Catholic province and of the descendants of the
hardy colonists who are scattered through the Dominion, is a
highly significant fact in these days when materialism, the glori-
fication of merely secular achievement, and the mean and cowardly
surrender of the rights and claims of the Church in so many coun-
3H TERCENTENARY OP THE FAITH IN CANADA [Dec,
tries is lamentably common. It is a fact of the highest interest,
and one which should thrill with pride Catholics of other nationali-
ties, and especially the descendants of other saints and martyrs.
The Premier of the Province, Sir Lomer Gouin, also paid his
tribute to " The Makers of Canada," dwelling particularly upon the
services rendered by the Recollets in the domain of education and
particularly primary education, and he urged the people to take
the fullest advantage of the instruction that was provided for them,
making special mention of the agricultural schools. He described
the tie that bound Canadians to the soil, in the centuries' old strug-
gle, as titanic as that of Hercules with Antaeus. Like the latter,
the people of Quebec gained new strength each time they came in
contact with the earth, which, as a good mother, gives them her
treasures of mental and physical vigor.
A most touching incident, which evoked rounds upon rounds of
deafening applause, was the placing of a wreath upon the monu-
ment, accompanied by a parchment scroll upon which was written :
" To our First Missionaries. From the grateful Hurons." These
are the Hurons of Lorette, the remnant of a once powerful tribe.
That evening the monument and the square round about, there
on the heights of Quebec, between that river which Cartier, in the
twilight of the past, had named, and that other christened the St.
Charles by the Recollets, was brilliantly lighted by electricity. The
ancient town was in its gala attire. Bands played stirring music,
and speeches were made reflecting from different sections of the
people the common sentiment. Also, there was an entertainment
of a high order, at Laval, where the intellect, as well as the social
life of the provincial capital was fully represented. The proceed-
ings began with the graceful and heartfelt welcome of the Rt. Rev.
Rector, and his assurance that Laval was fully in accord with
the spirit of the occasion. Monsignor P. E. Roy made a stirring
address concerning that act of Faith of a whole people which had
been that day accomplished. The Abbe Camille Roy's splendid
" Page from Our History," which reviewed all the leading events
commemorated by the tercentenary, was a chief feature of the eve-
ning, together with a fine poem, " To the Pioneers of Our Faith,"
written and read by the well-known French Canadian poet, W.
Chapman.
The next day, October i'7th, there were to have been demonstra-
tions at the foot of the monument for the youth of both sexes.
Owing to bad weather that part of the programme had to be carried
1916.] TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA 315
out in the Hall of Promotions at Laval. At 10 o'clock in the morn-
ing the pupils of the convents gathered there and listened to an
admirable discourse from Mr. C. J. Magnan, Inspector-General of
Schools. He exhorted them to remain true to the traditions of-
the past. The Hon. Cyril Delage, Superintendent of Public In-
struction, also painted for his young auditors a stirring series of
pictures taken from the historic page. He brought before them
Cartier and Champlain, Montcalm and Laval, and drew from that
context an inspiring lesson. A most interesting feature of that
morning reunion was the discourse of Monsignor Belliveau, Arch-
bishop of St. Boniface, who withdrew the minds of his hearers from
Quebec to that new theatre of Catholic enterprise, the Canadian
Northwest. He reviewed the noble struggle extending over so many
years for Catholic education, a struggle still continuing, and where
but few privileges had been obtained.
In the afternoon the boys from all the colleges and schools
of the city and environs were assembled, as in the evening were
brought together the young men, students and those of the profes-
sions, the Jeunesse Catholique, who were by no means behind their
elders in professions of loyalty to the Faith.
We may be permitted here to give some paragraphs from the
discourse of the Abbe Camirand of Nicolet College, because it
showed how the enunciation of great truths and the performance
of great deeds through the inspiration of faith have circled the
world.
" Look upon the monument," he said. " The statue which
crowns it symbolizes the Faith of our race. Its right hand presents
to the world the Cross.' That noble figure fixed in bronze reminds
us that in the Name of Christ and for the salvation of souls, our
first explorers and the founders of our country came, and that
grand chivalric song which you have just sung is reechoed over
the distance of centuries, the great voice of your ancestors, who
also said in speaking of their future conquests, 'We wish for God —
Nous V onions Dieuf "
The orator made a beautiful allusion to Christopher Columbus
coming out of the Cathedral of Palos, and crying to the crew of
his light caravels: "In the Name of God unfurl your sails."
Touching the soil of the New World, he bent to kiss the earth, and
drawing back his sword in salute displayed his standard adorned
with a Cross. Cartier, too, coming forth from the Cathedral
of St. Malo, with the blessing of his bishop upon him, planted the
316 TERCENTENARY OF THE FAITH IN CANADA [Dec.,
Cross and took possession for France of new territory in the Name
of Christ.
Such were the ideals and exemplars held up to the Catholic
youth of the country. Their significance assuredly is profound, far-
reaching and of universal application. Is it of no slight importance
in this day, when secularization in one form or another is the pre-
vailing spirit, that such ideas be consistently maintained? Youth,
at least, may learn from the lessons of the past, when religion was
the motive power of the most splendid achievements, to avoid the
specious reasoning of a false liberalism, of an easy tolerance, which
would avoid at all hazards what might put them in the wrong with
the world about them.
In the face of these solemn memories, and of such noble enthusi-
asm, should not those minor differences which have unhappily arisen
in Canada of today be imperiously brushed aside? The children of
the Faith, the sons of saints and martyrs should stand shoulder to
shoulder. For between them is that vital bond, a communion of
interests which will stretch forward into eternity, and to which that
other great passion of humanity, love of race, must be at times sub-
servient. How great soever be that love of race, greater still are the
interests of religion and country, both of which are those of God.
Union amongst Catholics, the promotion of Catholic education and
the preservation of Catholic ideals and Catholic principles is surely
the truest patriotism. In all the storm of contending passions, there
has arisen on the heights of Quebec, as on another Mount of Vision,
that monument of the Faith, consecrating the past, definitely com-
mitting the present to the first and greatest of causes, and stretching
out an inspired arm towards the future.
And in this pleasure-loving age is it not of good omen that a
memorial should arise at the very gateway of this Empire of the
West to the apostles of poverty and humility? On the monument
is inscribed:
j(5/5 — I9I5-
A Nos Premiers Missionaires.
Les Recollets.
DENYS JAMET. JEAN D'OLBEAU.
JOSEPH LE CARON. PACIFIQUE.
Les Canadiens Reconnaissants.
And below, encircled by a wreath of maple leaves, is the motto
of Quebec : Je me souviens,
OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES.
BY JOHN AYSCOUGH.
CHAPTER VI.
UTSIDE the Good Shepherd ward was a little office
where Madame de St. Hilaire did her writing, and
carried on her other business of administration.
Mrs. d'Argnes knocked at the door, which was
standing open, and said :
" Madame, may I go back to Raymond ? "
Madame de St. Hilaire got up from the table and drew the
English lady in. " Not for a few minutes, please. The doctors
have finished with your son, but they are still in the ward. They
will be gone very soon "
" I wonder what they thought of him. When I left him I
thought him worse."
" I thought so too, dear madame. I saw him just after you
had left him. And I was with him all the time the doctors were
examining him. But, courage! I have always felt a conviction
of his recovery. Today he is, I confess, worse than any day since
he came here: but there must be fluctuations — tomorrow may be
a good day for him."
While Madame de St. Hilaire was speaking, more hopefully
than she felt, Claire d'Argnes came out of the ward.
" Madame," she said, " Doctor St. Simon wants you again."
Then turning to Raymond's mother she said : " Madame d'Argnes,
I do not know if I am indiscreet, but Raymond is better."
The girl did not notice that she had called her patient by his
Christian name, nor did his mother. Madame de St. Hilaire no-
ticed it ; but not on that account did she think that perhaps Claire
was indiscreet. Her own opinion was that Captain d'Argnes was
very much worse. She, however, had to obey the doctor's summons
and went away at once.
" You say he is better ! " said Madame d'Argnes. " Madame
de St. Hilaire and I were, alas, agreeing that he was worse."
" Yes : he was, this morning, before the doctors came and
while they were examining him, But twenty minutes ago I felt
318 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Dec.,
certain I saw a change. The doctors had gone to attend to other
cases, and I was finishing up with him. He gave a little start as
though I had hurt him, touching the wound, but I had not touched
it at that moment. All the same I apologized for hurting him
'But you did not touch me, did you ?' he asked, and I had
to say that I had not. A few minutes after that he said: The
pain is gone. And I do not want to cough. I am not choking/
It was true that he was no longer coughing. He has not coughed
once since. And he asked me to give him some soup. He said
he felt hungry. The soup did not make him sick. I am sure when
the doctors are gone and you can go in that you will see that he
is better."
" He did go," thought his mother.
She was so quiet that Claire suggested she could not trust
herself to believe such good news.
" I am not deceived," she added gently, " it would be cruel
to buoy you up with false hopes. Only I know that he is better.
He is reading again : all yesterday and the day before he was not
able to read."
" What is it he reads ? I did not, for some reason, care to
ask him."
" Catholic books," the girl answered simply. " I hope you do
not mind. He asked for them."
" No," his mother answered quietly, " I do not mind." She
paused a moment and then said : " But I am very selfish. How
is your own brother? "
" Doing very well. The doctors think there is now practically
no danger of another hemorrhage. He was so much troubled all
yesterday that Captain d'Argnes was so ill. As soon as I came on
duty this morning he began asking about him."
" Raymond is very fond of him. He said : 'I can't talk to
him, because I can't raise my voice enough; but we smile at each
other;' and Claire, my dear ( you don't mind my calling you so?),
your brother has a most entrancing smile."
His sister laughed and said : " He is a naughty boy. He
teases our mother. She wants him to be good and he says: 'I
haven't been bad enough yet.' He hasn't been to confession for
ever so long and he says : 'It's better to wait till one has more to
tell, thus one can be sure of contrition.' He is not bad at all; only
he is very frivolous."
Raymond's mother gave a little reserved smile. She was any-
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTL&S 319
thing but frivolous; a religious woman in her way, but all her
habits had made her think religion a thing it would be almost in-
delicate to discuss in Claire's easy-going fashion. She herself had
a special voice for religious topics, and Claire talked of them in
just the same voice she would have used had she been discussing
her brother's taste in dress or amusement. Above all she was taken
aback by the girl's way of mentioning confession — Catholics, she
supposed, ought to go to confession, but it seemed to her quite awful
to talk about it.
Claire, who was far from being obtuse, perceived that she had
somehow been indiscreet. Her mother was much in the habit of
reproving her indiscretions.
" All the same," she thought, " I think English men are nicer
than their mothers. Raymond would not have looked like that."
Presently the doctors passed out to go to another ward and
Claire said:
" Madame, you may go in now. You will find he is better."
They entered the ward together, but Claire left Mrs. d'Argnes
to go to her son's bed alone. She herself went to her brother.
" Did the doctors say anything about d'Argnes? " he asked her
at once.
" They did not to him of course. But they told Madame de
St. Hilaire he was very much worse."
!< You speak very coolly about it. I suppose you felt sure of it
before."
" Yes. But, Henri, he is not worse now. He is much better."
" Really! in this short time? "
" Yes." And she told him what she had told Raymond's
mother.
Henri was unfeignedly delighted. Jie had taken an immense
liking for his English brother-in-arms.
" His mother," he said in a low voice, " she is excellent : and
very nice to me. She often comes over to chat with me, and one
can see that she is full of sympathy. But, oh Claire! she is stiff.
Why do English ladies feed on pokers?"
" To stiffen their backs. The seat of the English conscience
is in the back."
" The seat of mine is in my pocket : and sometimes it drops
out."
"No one would hear it fall; it is too light. But, Master
Henri, one of these days you'll lose it altogether."
320 OLD WINE AND NEW tiOTTLES [Dec.,
" No. I shall tell St. Anthony of Padua to find it for me.
He always finds my collar stud."
" You'd better not talk to the Saints about your conscience :
they might tell you some disagreeable things about it."
" Oh, no ! It is pert misses, like you, who do that. They know
all about it and have unlimited tact. I think that little stretcher-
bearer is a saint."
" Does he talk to you about your conscience ? "
" No, I tell you he is a saint. But when he talks to me I
remember that I have one. If Raymond d'Argnes were a Catholic,
he would probably be a saint too."
" Good gracious ! "
' Yes. He and the stretcher-bearer are much alike."
" I can't imagine two people more unlike."
" That is your mistake (one of your mistakes). One is tall,
noble and very handsome — you need not blush, mademoiselle, I am
not describing you — the other small, plain-faced and insignificant,
but they have the same expression, the same sort of expression.
They are supernatural creatures, and you and I, my dear, are natural
ones."
Claire did not know that her brother and the little stretcher-
bearer had struck up a kind of intimacy. But she knew Henri
well enough to guess that his talk with the young seminarian would
be very different from his talk with her. She and he were always
chaffing each other, even when the subject of their conversation
was a serious one.
" After all," said Henri, " it's just as well d'Argnes is not
a Catholic."
"Why?"
" The day he sends for a priest I have to send for one. I have
promised mother."
" And you would keep your word ? "
"Of course I would. I am supposed to be a gentleman."
Claire laughed and went off to attend to her duties.
CHAPTER VII.
The little stretcher-bearer, whose name was Roussel, liked very
much to wait upon the young lieutenant of cuirassiers; and the
lieutenant's own orderly was not at all jealous. He had a cordial
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 321
liking for Roussel ; and was fond of helping him in his tasks about
the ward. Roussel never bored Henri and never tried to talk
about religion. He had a certain impression that the young
officer was not religious, but he thought Our Lord must be fond of
him all the same. " I don't see," thought the little seminarian,
" how He can help it. / am, and I have done nothing for him,
while He has done everything."
" What a lot of trouble I give you ! " said Henri to him, on
the afternoon of the day on which Raymond began to grow better.
" No trouble. Only little pleasures. And — and I think it a
great honor. In my heart I salute all the wounded — and in the
street and here in the ward. 'Voila, des braves!' I think. It is
wonderful to be brave. I am not."
" Eh ! but that is untrue. You are much braver than a fellow
like me. You have no human respect. I'm full of it."
The lad regarded him with a quiet, direct look out of his grave
eyes and said :
" Perhaps what you call human respect is shyness."
" You, my dear Roussel, are the first person who ever thought
I was shy ! " and he laughed.
" Still it may be so."
" You have something in your head, say it."
" Perhaps I had better not. I do not say things well."
" Well enough for me. I am not a master of good French."
He knew very well the boy did not mean that, and said : " It
is you who are shy."
" May be. But it is not that. When one talks amiss one in-
jures the subject."
" You will not. Say what you meant. I give you an
obedience — there ! "
He laughed, but Roussel's rather pallid face flushed a little.
" Well, I accept the obedience you give me," he said. " When
I said that perhaps what you call your human respect is shyness,
I think I meant this — you might omit some external proof of
reverence for what is right, not because you are on the side of
what is wrong, but because you are too shy to range yourself on the
side of—"
" Well, mon petit, go on."
"Of Our Lord then, lest it should seem you were claiming
a friendship with Him that does not exist: taking a certain
liberty."
VOL. CIV. — 21
322 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Dec.,
" It certainly would be a liberty for me to claim that friend-
ship."
Roussel did not go on; and did not guess that Henri really
wished that he would.
" Why," asked the young soldier after a pause, " did you
stop?"
" I had said what I meant, and badly ; as I knew I should.
That is a liberty. No one has a right to speak ill in a good cause
unless he is bound to say what he can."
" You have not injured your cause; don't be afraid."
Henri meant more than he said. To him it seemed that the
lad, even if he spoke far more clumsily than he did, must help
" his cause " by being what he was. He felt sure that it was
purity, faith, religion that had made the boy what he was. No
doubt he was the son of a peasant, a peasant himself, with not much
general education, but the young officer recognized in him a nobler
creature than himself, and knew well in what school that nobility had
been learned, Who was his Schoolmaster, what His lessons had
been.
" Listen, mon cher," Henri said presently, " all talk worth
listening to is of the things with which one's heart is full. I wish
you would, when you talk to me, not try to choke yourself up,
but speak of what is in your heart."
" I can't talk much of anything. I have not the habit. At
home even I picked up the habit of silence. My mother's heart
is full of us (her seven children) and of our father, but she does
not talk of us."
" Not to you."
" There are hardly any neighbors. We live three -kilometres
from the village — & little tiny village. It is only when she goes
to Mass she sees people, and then she has to hasten home. There
is so much work."
" But you have had to learn the habit of thought. You have,
for instance, to make meditations."
" I do it ill. I have always distraction. Everything distracts
me." .
"For instance?"
" Well — anything. I try to meditate about Our Lady and I
look perhaps at her statue to help me ; and my eye falls on a flower
and I think of that — how wonderful its color is and then I say
to myself : 'God thought of everything, even the color of the flower.'
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 323
What kindness! He need not have made any, people do not eat
them: or He might have made them all green or all red. And
then I think of the smell of them. He thought of that too, and I
suppose they smell like Christ's Feet. And then very likely I think
of some poor soldier's feet, crushed and wounded and lame perhaps
forever, and one thinks : 'You will have to take his arms, poor
brave; it is hard enough to get to heaven on two sound feet. You
will have to help him up that steep road.' And then my thoughts
wander to other wounded — to you, often, lately : and instead of
mediating on the Blessed Virgin's humility, I am begging her to
obtain that you have no more hemorrhage. I am a wool-gatherer."
" Eh, my little stretcher-bearer, go on gathering your wool for
me, and perhaps she will weave a white garment out of it for some
poor devil of a soldier who hasn't kept his own very clean."
CHAPTER VIII.
Meanwhile Raymond and his mother were talking too. He
had been reading; and looking up he caught her eye.
" You wonder what my books are? " he asked smiling.
" I used to wonder. I think I know."
" They are about the Catholic religion. I want to know more
about it. I think it always interested me; but only as a fine thing
out of date like chivalry and the Feudal System : a great idea that
had made the Middle Ages more picturesque than our own. Still
one could not now go back to the old feudal ways."
" I suppose not," said his mother, rather uncertainly. She was
a Tory of Tories, and was not sure that modern times were all that
they should be.
" Well, I think there is always affectation in ignoring that past
things are past. Tournaments and jousts now — they would be an
affectation; and we do not need to fortify ourselves in castles. An
old castle is most fascinating, but to build a new one is appalling.
I suppose I thought Catholicism was gone like the castles. Just as
in some old families there are the castles still, and their owners
do right to preserve them carefully, so in some of our oldest families
there is still the Catholic faith, and I thought them also right, having
it, to keep it — a sort of heirloom and relic. But where it was gone,
it seemed to me, it would only be an affectation to pretend it hadn't
gone — like building a new castle. You see I thought it also a
relic, and relics are of the dead, not of the living. So I thought
324 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Dec.,
there would be a sort of vulgarity in becoming a Catholic — as if
a man should buy some other family's heirloom ; imagine a nouveau
rlche buying at an auction the shirt Charles I. was beheaded in ! "
" It's just what Lord would do if he had the chance! "
declared Mrs. d'Argnes with disgust and conviction, and rather glad
to be able to say something quite on Raymond's side.
" You understand then. Well, since I came out here I have
found how different it is. The Catholic religion is not antique:
it is eternal. It is not mediaeval a bit; the Middle Ages belonged
to it; but it did not belong to them. It is quite as modern as
being alive, and eating and drinking and being happy and sad ; and
instead of being an obsolete phase it is an undying principle, and
the only one for which hundreds of millions of living men would
care to die. It is no more dead than Christ. He paused an instant
and said in a very low voice : " It is Christianity."
" Oh, Raymond ! "
" Yes. I have come to feel sure of that. All others are broken
chips knocked off Christianity by the jostle of doubt and opinion.
The difference, I have come to see, between the Catholic Church
and other Churches is the difference between God's revelation and
man's opinion. Perhaps, what first set me on that train was a
thing a young officer of my regiment said. He is a Catholic, and
very devout, but not fussily or obtrusively. Everybody respects
him because one feels that his religion is part of himself, not part
of his talk. Well one evening — we were taking our rest, and were
all together — some of us were talking about religion and he was
reading. One fellow said: 'My idea is so and so,' and another
said : 'The way I look at it is this/ and someone else said : 'And
my notion of it is that,' and so on. It was interesting, but simply
a clatter of theories: then one of us asked Chichester what his
ideas were. 'I am,' he answered simply, 'a Catholic. It is not
with us a question of notions, but of what God has revealed. The
Catholic Church teaches us that.' And, mother, I think that is why
other Churches keep changing their teaching and the Catholic
Church never does. They started with human opinion and so they
naturally feel they have a right to modify it. The Catholic Church
knows she has no right to change one jot or one tittle of what
Christ revealed and set her to guard. She is the trustee of His
bequest of faith, and cannot cheat His children of the smallest
coin of it."
" You intend to become a Catholic? "
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 325
" Yes, dear mother. I hope you will not mind very much."
" I am sure you will only do what you think right. But it will
divide us so ! "
"You and me?"
" Yes, dear. It will build up a wall between us."
[C There is no wall between you and Lionel : you and he are
just as much to each other as ever you were."
Her son, Lionel, had abandoned all faith and said so. His
mother had been shocked, but, as Raymond said, it had not divided
her from her son.
She could not answer that, but spoke of something else.
Raymond was saying : " I do not believe you will love me less
because I am a Catholic, and if I could love you more I should be-
lieve it would make me love you more."
She just touched his hand, smiled and said : " If you turn
Catholic you will have to go in for miracles and all that sort of
dreadful stuff."
Even as she spoke she felt an uncomfortable twinge, and really
thought she heard a voice say, not in her ear, but in her heart, " I
did go."
" Go in for them ! " said Raymond, with a little smile, " if you
mean believe in them, I do; God is always the same, omnipotent
and kind. There are still blind men to be made to see, and dead
folk to bring to life."
She was not really listening to him, but wondering whether,
if she were incredulous, this miracle of his being better might be
canceled through her fault. That frightened her. Then she
thought, " It was not I who asked Him to go. It was the nun who
asked His Mother to send Him. Her faith was rewarded, not
mine, and her faith doesn't stumble." That comforted her, but she
prayed in her heart, " Do not let me spoil it."
CHAPTER IX.
When Claire entered the ward next morning- — for she was on
day duty — her brother's little friend, the stretcher-bearer, said to
her at once:
"Please, will you go to Monsieur d'Argnes?"
"My brother?"
"Yes, mademoiselle. He asked me to say you were to go
first to him/'
326 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Dec,
" Here I am, Henri, what is it? " she asked as soon as she had
reached his bedside. " Is anything the matter ? Did you have a
bad night?"
" No." Then he looked queer and said : " But — you will have
to send for a priest."
" Oh, Henri ! Do you mean that you are worse ? "
"Worse than I thought perhaps but, oh, don't look
frightened. I was teasing you."
" You don't really want a priest? "
" Yes, I do. I told you I would keep my word ; and Raymond
d'Argnes is to have a priest. The little stretcher-bearer told me.
He is going to become a Catholic. Roussel is so nearly in heaven
already with delight, that if we don't hold on to him he will slip
off altogether."
" I'll tell you who won't be in heaven then — Madame d'Argnes.
She will hate it."
"Mamma?" said Henri, hypocritically pretending to misun-
derstand. " I should think she would be glad."
" Not our mother, but Captain d'Argnes. She is Protestant
all down her long back."
" People," observed Henri audaciously, " always do dislike
their mothers-in-law."
His sister darted a most savage look at him, which he sus-
tained with unflinching effrontery.
" It is perfectly beastly of you to say that," she remarked
hotly, in English.
" Ah, ha, Miss, you would not dare to use such expressions in
French ! Stick to your mother tongue ; it restrains you. It wasn't
at all 'beastly' of me to say that. It was to clear the ground. It
was to save you the embarrassment of having to make a certain
announcement one of these days."
Claire did not look much mollified by this.
" If mamma heard you talking like that," she observed, " she
would wash your head for you."
"If mamma heard you talking of 'perfectly beastly' you would
be soaped, my dear. As a matter of fact she and I quite approve,
and you know very well that she and I can persuade papa of any-
thing; if you are too uppish I shall withdraw my consent, and then
see what papa says ! "
" You don't mean to say," said Claire in a tone of horror, " that
you and she have been discussing this,"
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 327
"Yes, I do. It is quite correct. Young ladies are not to
arrange these matters for themselves. The heads- of their families
have to adjust their opinions first."
" You one of the heads of my family ! What — I shall have
to talk English again."
" Well ! "
"Claire! I'm sure your excellent Meess (what names Eng-
lish Meesses do have! Mac-Gilly, Cudd-y, wasn't it)? I'm sure
she never taught you to say 'what cheek !' '
" No, it was you."
" Pray understand that though there are no genders in Eng-
lish, there is masculine English and feminine English. I may talk
of your cheek, but you may not talk of mine. Yours by the way
is slightly flushed ...... "
Claire, still unreconciled, went off to her duties. All the same
there was a grain of truth in what Henri had said. If something
did happen, the fact that her mother and brother were cordial in
approval, would certainly go far to secure her father's consent.
CHAPTER X.
Raymond continued to improve. He was able to eat well, and
almost hourly seemed to recover strength. The cough was wholly
gone. The doctors, who had not yet made another examination of
the wound, began to hope that an operation might be possible, and
the piece of shrapnel be removed. When they did examine the
wound they found that the piece of shell had come away and was
near the entrance of it. It could be taken out instantly and with-
out an anesthetic. The wound itself was already much more
healthy, and now it would only be necessary to encourage its
healing. Hitherto it had been essential to keep it open.
As Raymond was now able to talk, not only without fatigue or
danger of bringing on the cough that had agonized him, but in a
much stronger voice, Henri asked to be moved across the ward to
the bed next his, rendered vacant by the departure of one of the
wounded. Raymond was delighted, and Madame de St. Hilaire
gave her consent.
Henri could not help teasing his sister, and said to her before
he was moved across : " You see I shall thus be able to improve
my mind by hearing your conversation with Captain d'Argnes."
328 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Dec.,
" He talks a great deal more to your little stretcher-bearer than
he does to me."
" One can understand that. Roussel is not frivolous. He does
not say 'cheek/ "
The priest came to Raymond and gave him conditional baptism
and heard his confession, his profession of faith, and absolved him.
For his first Holy Communion it was decided that he should wait
till he should be able to go to the convent chapel. But at St. Just
there lives a bishop, not the bishop of the vast diocese, but one of
his Vicars General, and he came to the hospital and gave Raymond
confirmation. While he did this screens were arranged around
the patient's bed. As he came out, when the brief rite was finished,
he saw Henri looking up in his face, and he smiled.
"Everything goes well, my brave man?" asked the bishop,
and as he smiled the young cuirassier thought : " What a good
man. There is my priest."
" Monsignor! " he said aloud. And he made a little gesture
for the bishop to stoop down.
" Yes ? What is it my brave man ? "
" You have just made a soldier of Christ of that Christian,"
said Henri, " now make a little Christian of this soldier. I want
to confess myself."
For a bishop, monsignor was young; he was not yet ten years
old in the priesthood.
" I had to do that before," he said, smiling down into the honest
young eyes. "I was a soldier too : not an officer, just a little corporal
of infantry " (he was about six feet high) " and one day The
Captain called me — and orders are orders — I had to obey. I had
to change armies and make myself a Christian. I tell you this
that you may feel that I know all about it. I do not mean that one
cannot be a good Christian in our glorious French army; I know
there are hundreds of thousands : I only mean that / was not."
He spoke so simply, so wholly without pose or unctuousness,
that Henri was quite sure he had been right in thinking, " Here is
my priest."
The screens were still round Raymond's bed, and as Henri's
was the last at the end of the ward, no one saw that the bishop was
sitting at his side. It was only just as he was going away that the
little stretcher-bearer came to take away the screens. Claire came
up at the same time. When the bishop had gone Henri, who was
as teasing as ever, said to her:
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 329
" I shall not send for a priest."
" Oh, you have changed your mind."
She did not speak reproachfully, but he saw at once that she
was disappointed that he had gone back of his word.
" After all a bishop is a priest," he observed, making a queer
little face at her.
" Do you mean ? " she asked eagerly in a low voice.
:< Yes." And though he only nodded she understood.
" Isn't he nice? " she asked. She had far too much tact and
instinct to gush forth in congratulations. All the same she was in
her heart thanking God : she felt sure it was years since he had been
to confession.
" After all," whispered Henri, with a little jerk of his head to-
wards Raymond's bed, it was his idea, wasn't it? I had not the
least thought of it."
Another patient called her, and Henri looked towards Roussel
who had just finished taking away the screens and was about to
go away himself. He caught the lad's eye and with a gesture of
the head invited him to come near.
" Roussel," he said, when the little stretcher-bearer was stand-
ing by his bedside, " did you hear my sister and me talking? "
"Of course I did. But I was going and coming, and only-
caught one sentence; besides you were neither of you talking
loudly."
" What was the sentence? "
" I thought," the lad answered honestly, " that I heard you
say, 'I shall not need a priest.' I then took one of the screens
away to the end of the ward."
" I suppose you were sorry? "
" I had not known you had ever thought of sending for a
priest. But I was sorry."
"You would like me to confess myself? Don't you often
find it hard to find anything to say ? "
" No. But I have heard some people say that they found it
hard."
" Ah ! that's the worst of going too often. I had no diffi-
culty."
He could not help teasing even Roussel a little, but he liked
much better making him happy.
" I told Claire," he said, " that I should not send for a priest
because I had confessed to the bishop."
330 OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES [Dec.,
CHAPTER XI.
By the time Raymond was well enough to go to the chapel for
his First Communion, Henri was also able to be up ; though he could
not walk. He went in a wheeled chair to the chapel and received
Holy Communion too. On the afternoon of that day he was again
wheeling himself about in the chair, though only in the ward. And
Claire was helping him. Their mother and Mrs. d'Argnes were
talking to Raymond quite at the other end of the ward. Presently
the door opened, and Madame de St. Hilaire came in and at her side
walked Count d'Argnes. Neither of his children saw him enter:
their backs were turned to that end of the ward.
" Claire," Henri was saying, " today has an odd feeling. Can
you understand ? "
" Yes, I think so."
" It feels," the young cuirassier said, " like the day of my First
Communion."
" Henri," she said, almost in his ear as she leant over the back
of the wheeled-chair, " I was afraid you would have had too much
human respect. The chapel was so full, and you not being able
to go to the altar made it worse."
He had occupied a bench quite at the front, and the priest had
brought the Blessed Sacrament to him there.
" Oh," he said, " the little stretcher-bearer taught me not to
mind about human respect. He thinks he is a coward, and I know
he would go to Holy Communion before ten thousand unbelievers."
Madame de St. Hilaire touched Claire upon the shoulder and
said:
" Look down there, you two people, see what visitor I have
brought you."
Claire turned the chair round with a rapid sweep, and at the
same moment they both saw their father and mother coming to-
wards them.
" Papa ! " they cried.
" Yes. I am here ! I took it into my head to come and see
what you were all about."
. Madame de St. Hilaire went away and left them to themselves.
" Sit down," said Henri, " that's my bed."
And M. d'Argnes sat down upon it.
" Henri," he said, " I find you very well. You have recovered
1916.] OLD WINE AND NEW BOTTLES 331
nicely. And Claire — I think the change of air has done her good.
Madame de St. Hilaire tells me she is a very good nurse, but she
does not look overworked/'
" Oh, no," declared her brother, " Claire has excellent distrac-
tions."
His sister looked savage and her mother looked inclined to give
her son a slap; but one cannot box wounded men's ears, and he
escaped.
" Captain d'Argnes," said the Count, " looks almost well. His
mother is not much like him — a very noble woman, but : no I find
no resemblance."
" Claire does not find any either," remarked her brother in a
disengaged manner. " Papa ! should you like Claire to enter holy
religion."
My dear boy," cried her father, " what on earth do you
mean ? "
" She is determined never to change her name."
Count d'Argnes adjusted his pince-nez and looked at each
member of his family in turn.
"What is Henri talking about?" he asked appealingly.
" Well, circumstances," said Henri, " lead me to the convic-
tion that she is resolved to stick to the name of d'Argnes."
His mother was trying not to laugh, and Claire was trying
(with very indifferent success) to look loftily unconcerned by her
brother's foolish remarks. His father, without any endeavor at
all, was looking thoroughly puzzled.
" There seem," said Henri, " only two ways in which she can
carry out her plan; one way is to enter holy religion; the
other ," and he gently raised a crutch and pointed down the
ward to Raymond's mother, whose tall figure was turned their
way. Raymond himself, with his back to them, was hidden in the
big armchair in which he was sitting. " the other," explained
Henri, " is to do as she did."
" As she did ? " repeated his father.
" Yes. Didn't she marry a Mr. d'Argnes ? I think it an
excellent plan: and so does mother. As for Claire, I suspect it's
about the only thing in which she would be disposed to imitate our
good friend, Raymond's mother."
[THE END.]
THE CRIMSON SNOW.
(BETHLEHEM, 1916.)
BY CHARLES PHILLIPS.
" Close to your heart, O take Me, Mother !
Close to your bosom hold !
There are cries in the night that shake Me, Mother,
And the wind of the world is cold ! "
Sweet, O be quiet; safe in my keeping
Nothing shall hurt or harm!
('Tis only the throb of my wild heart weeping —
The pulse of my loving arm.)
" But the wind is bitter and chill, My Mother,
And the world is turning dark,
And the voice of Love is still, My Mother,
While the Wolves of Anger bark !
" And where is the light of My Star, O Mother,
That was so wont to glow,
Beckoning far and far, O Mother,
Over the Christmas snow?
" Will the Shepherds come no more, My Mother,
Nor hear when the Angel sings ? "
They come no more! They have lost one another!
And they quarrel with the ancient Kings!
" And the Kings ? — they bring no more love-treasures ;
Nor magi nor paladin — "
They have gone them down, for hates and pleasures,
Into the V 'alley of Sin! '
1916.] THE CRIMSON SNOW 333
" O, cry to the Kings then, Mother My Mother,
And call to the Shepherds dear!
Tell them I love them, brother and brother,
Plowman or prince or seer —
" Call to them sweet and loud, O Mother !
Cry, ere the Star be lost —
For a terrible dark cloud, O Mother,
Breathes through the Christmas frost,
" A cloud that is deathly mortal, Mother — "
('Tis smoke from the gates of hell!)
" But who hath opened that portal, Mother?"
Ah, who? And who will tell?
"And look, O Mother, My Mother, look!—
There is blood on the Christmas snow,
And blood on the sea, of brother and brother,
And blood where the rivers flow !
" And O, the grief on the wind and storm,
And O, the cries of pain !
And whiter than snow, the stark white form
Of brother by brother slain!
" Mother, My Mother, lift Me high
Ere the sun in the dawn hath swooned,
And show Me to my brother's eye
Ere he die of his gaping wound!
" Higher— and high, O Mother, hold !
And cry to the world of men,
Till Shepherd and King and Seer, as of old,
Come back to My crib again ! "
A MERRY CHRISTMAS.
BY BLANCHE M. KELLY.
Make we merry on this feast,
For Verbum Caro factum est.
HAT is known as the Christmas spirit is rather wide-
ly believed to have been either invented or discovered
about midway in the Victorian era by one Charles
Dickens. With his name are inseparably connected
the holly and the mistletoe, the roaring fires bidding
defiance to the blasts without, the loosening of purse and heart-
strings, and the generally prevalent jollity. Of course what Dickens
really did was to rescue the shreds of Catholic merriment which
had survived Elizabethan scolding and Puritan frown.
The Christmas spirit has had for centuries a hard struggle
of it, but there are evidences that it is coming into its own again.
In New York, for instance, within the past few years, a beautiful
custom has grown up. In the centre of one of the open squares a
gigantic tree is erected, which after nightfall is ablaze with in-
numerable lights, and in their glow multitudes pause in their haste
and lend their voices to the carols that ring out across the snowy
streets. Day laborers and shop-girls on their way homeward, dere-
licts whose feet have long forgotten that way, and occasionally
fine ladies and scholarly-looking men join, timidly at first, and
then with full tones, in the strains of " Holy Night " and other
Christmas anthems.
There is an air of groping about the affair, but unquestionably
it. is a step in the right direction, an attempted return to the days
of wassail and carol and noel. The pity is that the step should
not have been taken under Catholic auspices, that the Christmas
spirit should be credited to the pen of a Protestant novelist and
the revival of carol singing to a movement for civic improvement.
For a merry Christmas is a matter of logic, and Catholics alone
have never deviated from the premises to which a merry Christmas
is the conclusion. Quid natus est vobis hodie Salvator mundi,
was the angelic explanation, and this quia runs like a golden note
through all the mirth of the Christmas season. It is the only
explanation of the boar's head and the plum-pudding, of the
1916.] A MERRY CHRISTMAS 335
Christmas tree and the rierges de Noel and the gleeful governance
of the Lord of Misrule. It is the motif of all the Christmas carols
that ever were sung and they all are, moreover, a peculiarly Catholic
institution and possession, so much so that a statute of Elizabeth
visited dire penalties on the heads of carol singers, while the Crom-
wellian Parliament, in its efforts to suppress Popery, went farther,
and enacted that " no observance be held of the five and twentieth
day of December, commonly called Christmas Day."
There is, notwithstanding these repressive measures, a volu-
minous literature on the subject, although much of it is fragmentary
or mutilated, and we can only fear that many a melodious round
has been hushed into oblivion. The noe'ls have fared somewhat
better, for those that live on in the patois of the provinces are still
sung at each succeeding veillee, which is the period between the
family supper and midnight Mass, a service attended by the entire
community as a matter of course. The same simplicity of concept
and expression characterizes all these outpourings of the faith of
a people, whether in English or patois or pure French. If we
sometimes meet with a phrase or a word which does not measure
up to our standards of literary elegance, we must remember that
these songs were produced by people given to plain-speaking, to
whom religion was for everyday use, and whose religion was
characterized by a loving familiarity with God. They were, as
it has been said, " at ease in His Presence." To them the Redemp-
tion was not a remote historical fact, but an ever present source
of exuberant joy, an event of the most vital importance to Mall
and Will and Margoton. Hence the ineffable charm of their
anachronisms, as in the noe'l which describes the Infant Jesus as
saying the rosary on His Mother's breast.
As a general thing both noe'l and carol wrere folk-songs pure
and simple, handed down from generation to generation, sometimes
by word of mouth, sometimes by being preserved in commonplace
books. The noe'ls of Burgundy, however, belong to a different
category, being the work of Bernard de La Monnoye, who deserves
more than a passing mention. He was a native of Dijon, who, in
the reign of le roi soleil, abandoned the profession of law, in which
he had brillant prospects, to devote himself to literature. Five
of his poems were crowned by the academy, but despite this success
he declared that next to pure water he hated pure French, and for
the purpose of exalting his native Burgundian speech he wrote in
that dialect, under the name of GUI Barozai, a collection of noe'ls
336 A MERRY CHRISTMAS [Dec.,
which have had all the popular vogue of songs born of the hearts of
the people.
There was not a detail of the great mystery with which these
songs did not deal in loving fashion, the Annunciation especially
seeming to hold particular charms for the carollers. Thus the
fifteenth century " Listen, lordings both lief and dear," treats it
exquisitely :
The angel answered anon full well,
" Mary, dread thee never a deal,
Thou shalt conceive a Son full well,
The Holy Ghost shall shadow thee."
Mary on breast her hand she laid,
Still she stood and thus she said :
" Lo me here, God's own handmaid,
In heart and will and body free."
This was the note which Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his
brethren sought in vain to capture, and which can only be caught
in the meshes of a simple faith. What the pre-Raphaelites achieved
was art; what eluded them was artlessness.
In many of the carols will be noticed a facile mingling of Eng-
lish and Latin words, an evidence of the people's familiarity with
what Blessed Edmund Campion called " a language that God under-
stands : "
Mary mother, be not adread,
Jesu is in your body bred,
And of your breast He will be fed
Cum pudoris lilio.
A Breton nativity play accompanies Our Lady and St. Joseph
to Bethlehem. On the weary road they discuss the edict of Caesar
and the great Event which is about to transpire, and St. Joseph
calls Our Lady's attention to the fine appearance of the little town,
with its towers and maisons fermees. At last they come to an inn,
but are roughly told to be off, as this hostelry is not for trundaille,
but for travelers by coach and horseback. Disheartened, they be-
take themselves to a stable, which they describe ruefully as not
being fit for " a king or a constable." " The hour is come," says
this Princess of the House of David, and the stage directions which
followed read with terrifying simplicity : " Icy naist Jesuschrist."
1916.] A MERRY CHRISTMAS 337
The visit of the shepherds and the kings to the crib was a
subject so universally attractive as to give rise to a quite distinct
class of noels, which consisted in the description of whole retinues
of people who came to pay homage to the new-born Saviour.
Here anachronism ran riot and joy joined hands with love in an
exultant dance about the manger. Sometimes this form of noel
afforded the opportunity for a bit of sly fun, as in La Monnoye's
Noel des Princes and the satirical Noel de Luneville, in which St.
Michael receives and rejects on the score of some shortcoming the
representatives of the various religious orders of that town. In this
category belongs what is perhaps the most delightful noel ever
written, the Breton Noel des Qiseaux, in which all the birds of
the air accompany the angels on their earthward flight and flutter
lovingly around the crib. The swallow expresses his regret that
the Divine Child should have such a wretched house and offers
to help build another, "I am something of a mason," says he;
the skylark alights from a prolonged flight and expires beside her
Lord (Dom Gueranger's comment on this verse is that the lark
has reached heaven at last) ; the chaffinch amuses the Child with
his "little language;" the canary announces that he flew from
New France the moment he heard of the Saviour's birth; the
magpie comes hopping towards Him, bearing in her beak a present,
we hope well-gotten; while the linnet sets a magnificent song to a
new air for " the sweet Son of the Most High."
There is a strikingly life-like air about the shepherds of the
noels of Lorraine, which were the products of a pastoral people,
an added touch of realism consisting in the fact that in the dialogue
the shepherds speak patois and the angels and the kings pure
French. A certain fine courtesy distinguishes all these rustic folk.
Thus a Burgundian politely greets Our Lady and St. Joseph at
the door and requests to be allowed to see " the Fruit of Life."
A Breton reassures his diffident companion, who fears that he will
not be equal to the occasion, by declaring that when he reaches the
stable he will inquire concerning the health of all whom Our
Saviour has left in His heavenly home. Elsewhere St. Joseph
apologizes to the three Kings, " masters in astrology," who are
warrantably dismayed by the ass' extraordinary contribution to
the general rejoicing, his effort being described as " un beau couplet
d'Arcadie." "Lo! he merries," cries out Pastor primus, in a
Townely mystery, and acting on that impulse, which stirs every
.heart that comes to Ithe knowledge of the Gift of God, he exclaims :
VOL. CIV. — 22
A MERRY CHRISTMAS [Dec.,
" Have a bob of cherries ! " Another offers Him a bird, another
a ball that he may play tennis, another a pot of cream, and
Blaizotte conjured Gui Barozai, " Thou who makest rhymes, offer
him songs."
In the " chant natal " of Barthelemy Aneau, an attempt at
historical accuracy has been made by calling the shepherds by
Hebrew names, but the jocund singer of the carol known as " Jolly
Wat " was undisturbed by such solicitude.
The shepherd upon a hill he sat,
He ware his tabard and his hat,
He had tarbox, pipe and flageolet,
And his name was Jolly, Jolly Wat,
For he was a good herd boy.
Wat, having heard the angel's tidings and visited the crib,
is not to be outdone in generosity and courtesy by Breton or Bur-
gundian.
Jesu, my pipe, I give to Thee,
Robe, tarbox, scrip I offer free,
Home to my fellows now I flee,
The sheep, methinks, have need of me.
Ut Hoy.
What shall I sing?
Now farewell, Wat, my herdsman true.
What, Lady, so my name ye knew ?
Lull ye my Lord to sleep anew,
And Joseph, now good day to you.
Ut Hoy.
What shall I sing?
Now dance and sing full well I may,
For at Christ's birth was I today,
Home to my mates I'll take my way,
Christ bring us all to bliss I pray.
Ut Hoy!
In his pipe he made so much joy,
What shall I sing but Hoy?
The shepherd's pipes figure in the following carol also, and
it is not difficult to imagine what feats of skirling accompanied the
jubilant lines ;
I9i6.] A MERRY CHRISTMAS 339
About the fields they piped right
So merrily the shepherds began to blow ;
Adown from heaven that is so high
Tyrle, tyrlow, tyrle, tyrlow.
Of angels there came a company
With merry songs and melody,
The shepherds anon gan them aspy,
Tyrle, tyrlow, tyrle, tyrlow.
But what makes the strongest appeal to all these sturdy hearts
is the littleness of the Lord. It seems as though women must have
had a hand in some of the carols, so mothering are they. They
delight in coining diminutives for the Divine Infant. "Little day
star," they call Him, and they fashion for His Mother's lips such
adoring lullabies as " Lullay, Thou little tiny Child," and
Lullay, mine liking, my dear Son, my Sweeting,
Lullay, my dear Heart, my own dear Darling.
In " Quid petis, O Fili ? " the Holy Child stammers delicious
baby Latin to His Mother, and it would be difficult to surpass the
mingling of awe and tenderness in these lines :
"Ah, my dear ! ah, my dear Son ! "
Said Lady Mary, " Ah, my dear !
Kiss thy Mother, Jesu,
With a laughing cheer.
" A laughing cheer." So all the laughter at Bethlehem, they
would assure us, was not brought thither by the shepherds and
the kings :
There was mickel melody
At that Childes birth,
Though the songsters were heavenly
They made mickel mirth.
And having given us a vision of mirth-making angels they
depict a still more startling picture in this carol from the west of
England :
As I 'sat under a sycamore tree, a sycamore tree, a sycamore tree,
I looked me out upon the sea,
A Christmas day in the morning.
340 A MERRY CHRISTMAS [Dec,
I saw three ships a-sailing there, a-sailing there, a-sailing there,
The Virgin Mary and Christ they bare,
A Christmas day in the morning.
He did whistle and she did sing, she did sing, she did sing,
And all the bells on earth did ring,
A Christmas day in the morning.
After this the wassails and the waits are so much a matter of
course as to be almost an anticlimax, and we know that he did not
appeal in vain who sang:
Bring us in good ale, bring us in good ale,
For Our Blessed Lady's sake, bring us in good ale.
And still less astonished are we to hear :
Wassail, wassail, wassail, sing we,
In honor of Christ's Nativity.
The famous boar's head song is still sung at Queen's College,
Oxford, in reminiscence of the days when England was merry
England because it was Catholic England. The mumming which
prevailed at this season is said to have been derived from a pagan
festival which was observed in similar fashion. There is nothing to
prevent our seeing in the Christian adaption of the custom a com-
memoration of Our Saviour's masking of His Divinity when He
assumed human nature and lay at Bethlehem between the ox and
the ass, but indeed there is no necessity of going in search of an
explanation beyond the child-like love of make-believe, which gave
" Nicholas and his clerks" such a high hand at this season. It was,
as it is today, according to the spirit of the Church to make merry,
and everyone was expected to do his share :
Let no man come into this hall,
Groom, page, nor yet marshall,
But that some sport he bring withal,
For now is the time of Christmas.
The honor of adorning the festival was hotly contested by
the holly and the ivy, and the partisans of the holly invested it
with a beautiful symbolism.
I9i6.] A MERRY CHRISTMAS 34 r
The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower,
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our Saviour.
The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood,
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good.
The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn,
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas Day in the morn.
When the Chinese wish to describe a man's lack of literary
ability they say, " he has no ink in his stomach." The stomachs
of these singers may have been empty of ink, but how full their
hearts were of poetry. They have, moreover, left us a glorious
heritage, and it is not fitting that we, who have kept the faith which
was their inspiration, should relinquish the songs which that faith
inspired. It is well also to bear in mind Our Lady's pact with
her Son:
Whosoever they be
That can and will be
Merry on this day,
To bliss them bring
And I shall sing
Lully by, by lully, lully.
WAS THE SON OF MAN BRUSQUE TO HIS MOTHER?
BY EDMUND T. SHANAHAN, S.T.D.
WO incidents in the New Testament contain a certain
element of surprise: the Lord's manner of ad-
dressing His Mother when she found Him in the
Temple ; and when, some years later, at the wedding
feast of Cana, she turned to tell Him that the guests
were in want of wine. The abrupt, incisive answer of the Saviour
on these two occasions has been the theme of commentators since
Christianity began ; and to many, if not to most, the text seems to
stand in need of some explanatory softening. It is not our in-
tention to marshal the host of comments which these passages have
occasioned, or to crowd the reader's vision with their detailed
review; one could scarcely compass an end so vast in a thick
and heavy tome. Ours is the more modest purpose of suggesting
a principle of explanation which is capable of strict establishment
from the Scriptures, and which, whatever else one may say of it,
cannot be charged with having been " piously invented " to gloss
a difficulty or smooth a wrinkle of the sacred page. In the
course of the theme we shall endeavor also to establish that the
principle of explanation here tentatively thrown out is of general
validity and sweep, by no means confined to the pair of incidents
first considered, but running through the whole course of the Lord's
utterances from the Temple to the Cross, as an adopted policy of
speech, as part of a deliberatively chosen and effective teaching
method, in the light of which, as in a dissolving medium, apparent
incivilities disappear, and one's ruffled sense of fitness regains com-
posure.
The Finding in the Temple is one of the most familiar, moving
incidents in Holy Writ.1 The Child Jesus, then a boy of twelve,
went up from Nazareth to Jerusalem in the custody of His parents
to celebrate the feast of the Pasch, as was their yearly wont. The
sacrifices over, His parents began their plodding journey home-
wards, little dreaming that the Child had remained behind in the city
for purposes of His own. The returning pilgrims had left Jerusalem
a good day's march behind and had halted for the night, before
*Luke ii. 41-52. See verse 40, preceding, for the reason of their confidence.
I9i6.] THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER 343
the Child's absence was discovered. The tardiness of this recogni-
tion— be it noted in passing — argues no negligence on the parents'
part. The Child's obedience and prudence had hitherto been of the
kind that inspires perfect, unquestioning trust; and the apparent
unconcern of His parents was the natural fruit of this experience —
a revelation of their confidence, not a proof of their remissness or
neglect.
It was not unusual in those days for the inhabitants of a single
village, or of several neighboring towns, to travel together in a
caravan; and if customs now prevailing in Bible lands are any
clue to the way pilgrimages were conducted in Gospel times, the
women set out first, and the men followed, older children traveling
with either parent, the younger with the mother. What more
natural, were such the case, as in all likelihood it was, than that
each parent should fancy the Child returning with the other, and
give the matter no further thought. Nothing out of the ordinary
had thus far happened to ruffle the even coursing of His way. The
Child as yet had exhibited no sign of taking over the government
of His conduct into His own hands. He had behaved after the
manner of ordinary children, and this had led His parents to feel
assured that the time of His public self -manifestation was far from
nigh. One day, indeed, He would define Himself and His mission
quite independently of parental influence and control, but that day
lay somewhere in the distant future, they thought, and sufficient
forewarning would be had against its coming. The charge of
parental neglect can find lodgment only in the minds of those who
have no eyes for the exceptional in history, who see nothing but
the usual occurring everywhere, and whose wits are never so readily
assembled for any purpose as for that of vulgarizing the uncommon.
The surprise of Mary and Joseph, when they discovered
that the Hope of Israel was not returning in their company, may
be left to noble souls, whose sense of trust is perfect, to imagine.
They beheld their well-established confidence melt suddenly into
self-reproach, and they felt their spirits toss in the cross-currents
of wonderment. Little recked they that the Eternal Day had
broken without the expected previous heralding of the Dawn!
They turned back at once to seek Him, mentally ill at ease that He
should have taken it upon Himself to act in such an unaccountable
manner. It probably took them a whole day to make a thorough
search among their kinsfolk and acquaintance of the Nazareth
caravan, which had a peopled length that must have seemed well nigh
344 THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER [Dec.,
endless to their disquietude of spirit. Another day of inquiry spent
in the city itself saw evening fall without advantage to their quest.
The third day brought their anguished footfalls to the terrace within
the Temple enclosure, where members of the Sanhedrin, on sabbaths
and festivals, gave public instruction to the remaining pilgrims;
and there, seated among the Doctors — possibly Gamaliel, Joseph of
Arimathea, Annas, Caiphas, Simeon, and Nicodemus — a rapt lis-
tener and a searching questioner, they found the Child Whom their
weary minds and hearts and feet had been three days seeking ; and
to their intense agony and surprise they found Him upon far other
things intent than the anxiety of His questing parents.
The hurt and astonished Mother was the first to speak : " Son,
why hast Thou done so to us ? Behold, thy father and I have sought
Thee sorrowing." To which the Child made answer, not by prof-
fering excuse, but by publicly intimating His Divinity before the
learned circle in the centre of which He stood : " How is it that you
sought Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's
business? " Even should we translate the ambiguous Greek dative
in another way, so as to make it read " in My Father's house "
rather than " about My Father's business ;" the place where they
should have looked for Him rather than what He would be about
when found — it was the public intimation of His Divine Sonship
that proved astounding and unintelligible to His Mother.
She naturally thought it strange that without parental consul-
tation or consent, He should reveal Himself to the Temple teachers
who neither knew nor loved Him, as she did, for all the gentle
wisdom of His years. It was the telling of the mystery to others,
without admitting His Mother and adoptive father into the secret
of His design, that proved so utterly surprising. His choice of
moment, place, and audience for His first partial self -disclosure —
this and the secretive way He went about it proved a mystery
beyond their full fathoming at the time. The Mother felt that she
had lost the Child in more senses than the spatial; and she had.
In Him were the two orders of action, one referring to the common
life of men, the other directly to His mission. In the first He was
her subject; in the second, her Lord and King. The visit to the
Temple belonged to this second order of operations, and stood out-
side the range of her personal jurisdiction. His Mother was not
ignorant of this mysterious economy ; but she could not know — in-
dependently of a special revelation, which was not fitting in the
circumstances — that her separation from Jesus belonged to the
I9i6.] THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER 345
second order of His activity,"2 as above described. Her thoughts
were all of the first sphere of relationship, and hence the genuine-
ness of her wonder and the intensity of her pain.
The Mother's knowledge is not the least in question. The sur-
prised counter query of the Child, " Did you not know that I must
be about My Father's business? " is ample proof of that assertion,
were other evidence lacking, which is not the case. It is not a
question of her knowing the mystery of His nature and mission,
it is a question only of her being able at the moment to under-
stand the mystery of His conduct; to account to herself fully
for the reasons prompting Him to act in this strange and unac-
customed way. Knowledge must not be confounded with ability
to explain conduct, as will become still clearer in the paragraphs to
follow. Perfect knowledge of the Son's Divinity, allotted work, and
destiny was perfectly compatible with the genuine feeling of sorrow
and surprise that this was to be the manner of its divulging; the in-
dependent, unconsulted way it was to break its seal of secrecy and be-
gin. Nothing in her previous experiencing of Him as a babe in arms,
learning to frame His first human words, after the model of her
own rapt speech ; nothing in His hitherto unbroken silence concern-
ing His Person and mission had led her to expect that a public act
directly relating to the accomplishment of His ministry was about
to be performed. He that was later to counsel the leaving of father
and mother for the Kingdom's sake, practised that doctrine before
He preached it, ennobling literature and life with the first example
of the New Detachment — that rose not without its thorns, that
crown which is set with sacrifices for jewels, and significantly sur-
mounted by a cross.
The general law of His public conduct, namely, that He would
forbear acknowledging His human parentage, and preach His Di-
vinity outright, as if He knew no earthly tie, taxed the powers of a
mother's mind and heart, in the first instance of its application.
What a self -commending story, this — The Finding in the Temple !—
over which an ocean of Christian tears has been sympathetically
shed. Keim says of it : " This fine and tender picture, in which
neither truth to nature, nor the beauty which that implies, is violated
in a single line cannot have been devised by human hands,
which, when left to themselves were always betrayed into coarseness
and exaggeration, as shown by the apocryphal gospels."3
8 La Mere de Dieu et la Mere des Hommes. By B. Terrien, SJ. Vol. ii.,
p. 64, note. 3 Jesus of Nazareth. English translation. II., p. 137-
346 THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER [Dec.,
The thought that they, His parents and the privileged sharers
of His intimacy, were to be as members of the multitude when the
hour of His self-disclosing came; the knowledge that no private
announcement of intention had preceded the semi-public avowal, all
this had its pain of mystery in a mystery so largely one of pain.
And here we are introduced to the secret of that departure from
the ordinary conduct of ordinary sons which marks the manner of
the Lord's discoursing with reference to His Mother. In the ex-
planation which we are gradually unfolding, to wit — that Christ is
publicly teaching, and not addressing His remarks either personally
or exclusively to His Mother, but to the listening crowd, whose in-
struction He has primarily in mind — the whole difficulty of a
slighting reference disappears, and phrases that were dark and
puzzling become suffused with explanatory light.
The Lord's answer to His Mother on the terrace of the Temple
took the form of insistence on His Divine, as distinct from His
human, Sonship. When He says, "My Father," "My Father's
business," it is obviously to claim and teach another origin than that
implied in her statement, " Thy father and I have sought Thee,
sorrowing." All through His ministry, from these, His first re-
corded words, to the last, He speaks of My Father, never of Our
Father, save only in the Lord's Prayer, which was manifestly in-
tended for utterance on other lips than His. Some critics try to
sustain the claim that in the Temple Discourse the Child is merely
insisting on His Abrahamic descent; but the text completely dis-
poses of this clumsy attempt to limit its significance. It states that
His parents " understood not the word that He spoke to them,"
and adds that " His Mother kept all these sayings in her heart."
Were the Child merely confessing that He was a son of Abraham,
would the Mother, think you, ever have made a mystery out of a
thing so obvious, and kept it in her heart for further pondering?
Mature minds do not mistake the commonplace for the mysterious.
Only critics of an unabashed type do that, as when they would have
us, like themselves, become evasive, and profess to see a tremendous
mystery in the profession of descent from Abraham !
No, the mystery which His Mother pondered was why the
Child should secretly leave the tutelage of His parents, and lift,
even for an instant, the veil of secrecy behind which He had re-
mained hidden in the solitude of Nazareth.4 The reason of this
'La Mtre de Dieu et la Mtre des Hommes. By B. Terrien, SJ. Vol. ii.,
p. 63.
I9i6.] THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER 347
sudden behavior she could not understand; it was concealed from
her for the time being; and only in the perspective which the
years were sure to bring, would it become clear and evident why
it was that at an age so tender He should in part abandon His
voluntary obscurity and half-reveal the wondrous character of His
Person unto men. A knowledge of the mystery that the Son of
God was tabernacling with her in the flesh did not carry with it
a comprehension of the reasons impelling Him to this unexpected
change of conduct; nor did it give immediate insight into the bear-
ing which this change of conduct had on the fulfillment of His
mission.
What would have happened, had the Child informed her before-
hand of His prospective visit to the Temple? Would the astound-
ing event ever have taken place? Did not the very condition of
its coming to pass require that the parents be kept without knowl-
edge of the project, lest the privacy of His human relations to
them take precedence over the publicity of His Divine relations to
humanity at large? Had He acted otherwise than He did, would
the world have witnessed the manifestation of His early plenitude
of wisdom? Would it have marveled at the superiority which He
claimed over His earthly parents ? Would it ever have had the oc-
casion to grasp the full significance of the statement : " He went
down to Nazareth and was subject to them? " Would it ever have
had before its eyes the wondrously sad yet wondrously instructive
spectacle of the Divine distinguishing itself from the human; of
the Divine seeking self-assertion, without asking leave; — that by
the wounded astonishment of the Mother, and our vicarious ex-
periencing of it, ever afresh, in a world that changes its denizens
more swiftly than it does its ways, we might, in the sacrificial
depths of a Mother's tears, and in the aroused sense of a mystery
not fully fathomed, cleanse our small souls of the science that
puffeth up, and refill them with the faith that passes understanding !
The Lord's reply to His Mother in the Temple when He so
strangely confessed His Divinity, instead of acknowledging His
human parentage, is a vignette, a miniature of His attitude and ac-
tion throughout the whole course of His public ministry. And it was
the detection of this fact, the discovery of this general law of con-
duct, that suggested the present theory in an intuitional flash. The
thought leaped to light, that the Temple Story contains two fea-
tures which are characteristic of the Lord's preaching, His whole
life through — the affirmation of Divinity, coupled with the omis-
348 THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER [Dec.,
sion of all reference to His human origin, or to the relations thence
deriving. This is clearly the kernel of the narrative, the very
pith of its substance, the actual reason for its insertion in the
Gospel of the Infancy, where coming events are seen casting their
shadows before for whoso would penetrate beneath the letter which
killeth to the spirit which giveth life; and this astonishing revela-
tion of a plan and method, right here at the threshold of His
career, nay, long before that career was to see its real inception,
linked up so consistently, and fell in so readily, with the whole
chain of subsequent events and incidents in the Lord's teaching
ministry, that it seemed to furnish a forecast, an anticipative sketch,
a leading clue; and the present writer determined to work it out,
to see if it really had the potency, of which it gave such roseate
promise in advance.
Taking it simply as a forecast, one finds oneself prepared for
much that follows, and things come out of their surrounding hazes
with astonishing ease. The Man, we may safely predict, will follow
the leadings of the Child. His teaching of the multitude will be as
His teaching of the Doctors. He will emphasize His Divine Sonship
in contradistinction to the human. He will take occasion, even of
His Mother's words and presence, to accentuate the Divine. He will
not call her " mother " in His public utterances, we feel sure, lest the
thought of His hearers be drawn away from the recognition of His
heavenly origin, by the employment of that most tender of all human
words. And she will understand — was it not one of the sad
thoughts she gathered from the Discourse in the Temple? — that it
must needs so be for the successful accomplishment of His teach-
ing mission, especially among a people already wrongly persuaded
that " when the Messiah comes, no man will know whence He is."5
Had He not asserted His filial relation to the Father of all
light, when she had asked Him before the Doctors why it was that
He had caused her and her guardian spouse a triduum of quest
and grief ? The visible and obvious side of His being would mani-
festly have to suffer lack of public stress, even to the suppression
of filial human references to His Mother, lest its familiar mention-
ing distract from that other and higher filiation which it was the
burden of His life, His work, and His example to preach and
teach. His Mother would know from His private manifestations
of love and fealty, that the publicly unexpressed concerned her
relations to the Teacher, not her relations to the Son; and that
"John vii. 27.
1916.] THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER 349
it was dictated by the pressing necessity of making known the
Divine, not by any personal desire to minimize the human or
disown it. To this urgency of the teaching office, to this spread
of redeeming knowledge, maternal affection wrould have to yield
the customary civilities, sacrificing love to light, that the Orient
from on high might win His way without distraction into the souls
of men !
When we turn to the subsequent pages of the New Testament,
we find that this was the actual manner which the Lord's discoursing
took. Events fell out just as the Temple Incident foreshadowed
that they would. At the wedding feast of Cana6 when the Mother
called the Son's attention to the deficiency of wine, she elicited a
reply that has seemed brusque to many the ages through, but
which, strange to say, left her perfectly tranquil and untroubled,
as may be seen from the confident manner in which she ordered
the servants to do as the Messiah bade. " Woman, what is it to
Me and thee? " He had replied. " My time is not yet come."
Understood as a personal statement, directed by the Gentle
One to her from whom He drew His earthly frame, this reply has
all the appearance of a discourteous incivility. It amounts to a
declaration that there is nothing in common between the Mother
and the Son. But must it be so taken ? A precious incidental re-
mark made by the Evangelist shows that the answer was not
really intended for the person addressed. The sacred writer states
that "His disciples were also invited;"7 and this statement, from
the point of view which we are now occupying, puts an entirely
different complexion on the Lord's answer and the direction in
which He meant it to travel. It contained a certain amount of in-
struction for His disciples, and it was they who were in the mid-
field of His attention when the remark was made. That no ele-
ment of personal rebuke to His Mother was either intended or
conveyed is amply established by the fact that her request was at
once granted and that she herself felt so sure of its granting as to
advise the servants of their part in the preliminaries to its accom-
plishment. " The conscious water saw its God and blushed; " and
if the Mother's countenance imitated its incarnadining, it was not
from confusion at what the Son had said, but from the joyous
realization that He had done this gracious deed for love of her and
" before His time."
It is evident from the circumstances narrated that the " mys-
"John ii. i-n. *lbid., v. 2, v. u.
350 THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER [Dec.,
tery " of the Lord's manner in the Temple had by this time cleared
itself up for His Mother, in the recognition of His teaching method,
and of her own self-sacrificing position as an occasion for its exer-
cise. She could now well understand the instructive sadness of the
Finding in the Temple, and see to what wondrous purposes it was
wed. The great sacrifice — His and hers — had revealed its inter-
active nature and function. The didactic character of the Lord's
manner of address; the element of instruction wrapt up in it for
conveyance unto others — what was this but the uplifting of her
unmentioned motherhood into the service of the Divine, that her
self-emptying might not leave His uncompanioned and unshared?
The two psychologies — the Divine and the human — had met mid-
way in the perfect reconcilement of sacrificial self-giving. Justice
and love had kissed in the fullness of mutual understanding.
The presence of instructive elements, the fact that the con-
versation is not personal but official, furnishes the key to its
rightful understanding, or rather — to put it more modestly — seems
to provide a means to that most desirable of ends. Nor need we
have recourse to proving, from current or previous literary usage,
that the word " woman," which the Lord used in addressing His
Mother at Cana and from the Cross, is interchangeable with that
of " lady," even though the best of cases may be made out for that
contention. In the explanation which we are developing, the
significance of the title " woman " need not be raised, since it is
employed, not from a filial or personal, but from a didactic or
official point of view, and has about it none of the features or as-
sociations of a directly intended discourse. Its use is part of that
prudential teaching method, in which all the Lord's public refer-
ences to her who bore Him in the flesh are seized upon as so many
salient opportunities for the more forceful bringing-out, by contrast,
of that other and eternal Sonship which is His. Over and above
His human birth must be emphasized His procession from the
Father, lest men continue to think of Him as merely the son of
Joseph, the carpenter, and not be brought to recognize that He
is verily the Son of God; for this is the baptism with which He
is baptized, and how straitened is He until it be accomplished !
Neither need we trouble to soften the answer : " What is there
common between us?" It is exactly what our theory would lead
us to expect; and the phrase may be left as it stands, without our
attempting in the least to turn or dull its edge by the refinements
of exegesis. If we take it as said for the instruction of others,
I9i6.] THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER 351
and cease to view it as a personal reply, the disparaging quality in
it vanishes like mist, and we behold the Lord teaching His disciples,
not rebuking His Mother; instructing the guests unto salvation,
instead of singling out one of the company — and she the dearest —
for a barbed allusion and public humiliation.
And this reminds us of something we have deferred for this
late mentioning. Commentators agree — we are looking backwards
for a moment — that the two verses in St. Luke,8 which describes
the Blessed Virgin as " not understanding the word spoken to her "
by the Child in the Temple, and as " keeping all these sayings in
her heart " after she had returned to Nazareth — commentators agree
that these two verses contain the actual record of her experience
at the time, and that she it was who personally told St. Luke of
the impression of mystery which the Lord's first public words had
made upon her. If this be so — and there is nothing to impair its
likelihood — what a world of difference in the impression which the
Son's manner of speech made upon her at Cana, from that which
she had received from His mysterious bearing in the Temple — the
one, all joyous; the other not unmixed with wonderment and
pain. It is holy ground, and we would be the last to approach it
with unshodden feet, especially in these novelty-seeking times when
the venturesome boldly enter where the reverent fear to tread.
The theory that Our Lord takes occasion of His Mother's
presence to teach His Divine Sonship in contrast to the human,
and that not her reproving, but the education of the multitude is
what He has in mind, finds its likelihood further increased, its
explanatory power still more strikingly confirmed, by a third in-
cident9 recorded in the Gospel, on meeting which the unbeliever
sharpens his wits, and the faithful become suddenly hushed and
pensive, it seems so out of keeping with the postulates of the heart.
Our Lord is preaching, when a voice is heard, conveying the in-
formation that His Mother and kinsfolk stand without, and would
have speech with Him. What did the Lord do? Go at once to His
Mother? No! He turned to His informant, and exclaimed:
" Who is My mother, and who are My brethren ? And He stretched
out His hands towards His disciples, and said, Behold My mother
and My brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of My Father
Who is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother."
What are we to think of this arresting passage? There are
those who would have us gather that it indicates an unsympathetic
8 Luke ii. 50, 51. "Matt. xii. 47-5°.
352 THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER [Dec.,
attitude towards His Mother and Tdnsfolk, nay, that it is tanta-
mount to a public disavowal and criticism. They go to great
lengths of scholarship, such men as these, to link the incident up
with the previously mentioned hostility of the Lord's " brethren,"10
and this in glaring despite of the fact that no resumptive particle
is to be found in the Greek text. Thus theories are ground out
almost without end, all of them deriving from the parent suppo-
sition— which we have shown to be false — that the Lord is here
uncovering His innermost personal feelings for the vulgar inspec-
tion of the curious.
Pause with me, reader, and reflect, lest we, too, go the un-
worthy way of these, and mistake instruction for personal psy-
chology; examples of a teaching method for the intimate mental
history of the Teacher Himself. Give Our Lord the credit of
knowing the circumstances in which He had to speak, and the
hostile, self-confident audience, with which He had to deal, then
as now, and in both cases, equally, to their clear confounding.
Open the New Testament Scriptures — it does not matter much
at what page; notice the obstacle which the Lord is everywhere
encountering, in the public fact of His human parentage; and
think, while so doing, of the simplest, most rudimentary, and, at
the same time, most efficient method of instruction — that which
proceeds by contrast, with a view to making the opposite of the
obvious more strikingly known; and ask yourself, in the light
of this governing reflection, if the theories which refuse the Lord
this minimum of equipment in knowledge, this fundamental princi-
ple of common sense, are for an instant worthy to receive a mental
housing, much less a lengthy entertainment. Are they not intruders
and obtruders all? Do they not base themselves on a psychology
so low and common that the very stones cry out in protest, as the
Master threatened they would, when He rode defiantly into Jeru-
salem, on the Sabbath of the palms?
Sursum corda! Such puny edifices of interpretation, built up
by puny men from the puniest of reflections, all come a-tumbling
about our ears, are all sapped, undermined, and made collapsible,
by the fact that the Lord of Israel steadily follows from the Temple
to the Cross the same highly instructive contrastual method of as-
serting His heavenly relations, every time His human origin is
thrust forward upon attention. In the light of this central, con-
stant, and leading fact, insinuations perish, and the Lord is seen
"Mark iii. 20, 21.
igi6.] THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER 353
to stand at the door of every mind, knocking for entrance against
the prejudice that would view Him then, that would view Him
now, as of purely human stature — in all things save sin — O sar-
castic exception ! — made like unto the rest of men.
Turn back again — this time with purified eyes — to the Gospel
incident; see how it ceases to be a difficulty of exegesis and be-
comes an illustration of that imperative teaching method which the
Lord so unswervingly followed from His first recorded words to
the last. Behold the same quick, sharp reference to "My Father
Who is in Heaven," the instant His Mother's presence is announced.
Consider even the gesture: He extends His hands out over the
crowd, as He tells them that they are His brother, and sister, and
mother — a statement that corrects theirs as sharply, as He cor-
rected His Mother's gently but firmly in the Temple — a statement
calculated to have a tremendous psychological effect on hearers
so forcibly reminded of His special relations to God, and His
special relations to them, at the very moment when their minds
were all intent upon His human origin, because of the announce-
ment of His Mother's presence.
There is not the least indication that He is denying, disown-
ing, or even underrating His Mother; there is every indication that
He is proclaiming Himself Divine. The phrase, " My Father Who
is in heaven," offers ample proof of that, carp at it as critics may
to eviscerate its substance. The scene is redolent of His manner
in the Temple, of His manner at Cana; it is not an isolated inci-
dent, but one of a chain. In this scene, as in the other two, He is
recalling the minds of His hearers from fleshly to spiritual relation-
ships, from the consideration of His earthly, to the fact of His
heavenly, descent; endeavoring thereby to distract attention from
the one, that the other may receive its due meed of consideration,
from the sheer force of the contrastual stress which He lays upon
it. Could further proof be needed that the public is in the focus
of His attention, His Mother in the margin, and that this displace-
ment is due, not to a personal, but to a [Messianic attitude having
for its object no expression of how He personally felt towards her,
but of how He was compelled to feel towards His listeners, because
of the prejudice created among them by the fact of His human
birth and ties? Could any more vivid, dramatic, touching, telling
example of the teaching art be imagined than this seizure of the
concrete opportunity offered by His Mother's presence, to con-
trast His filial relations to her with the filial relations He had to
VOL. CIV.— 23
354 THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER [Dec.,
God before Abraham was and time began? And should there be
a reader so coarsely fibred in mind and feeling as to think or say
of the theory which we are here proposing, that it makes the
Lord sacrifice His Mother for His own enhancing, let him see the
grossness of such a view dissolve before his eyes, in the illumi-
nating reflection that the purpose of the sacrificing was to enrich
our life by His, not His by ours; for His inner personal glory as
Son of God is neither enhanced by our recognition of it, nor di-
minished by our opacity to its claims.
Who, then, can behold in the scene described, if it be ap-
proached as we have shown it should, anything more than a didactic
statement, akin throughout with that other confirmatory passage,
in which the woman who interrupted His preaching with the cry,
" Blessed is the womb that bore Thee " n was instantly confronted
with the reminder that " far more blessed are they who hear the
word of God and keep it." And who can critically ponder these
three incidents — Jerusalem, Cana, and the visit of His Mother and
kinsfolk — without rising from his reflections with the clarifying
thought in mind, that the Lord's public statements are all prompted,
and His public conduct steadily governed, by the necessity of pro-
claiming His Divinity, and not by any intention or desire to
disparage her who, alone of all, ministered full human companion-
ship to His spirit, and who grieved, as none other, when that com-
panionship was first interrupted on the occasion of His unannounced
visit to the Temple at the tender age of twelve; — a visit which let
her see, through misting tears, that thenceforth her Child's public
appeal would sheer away from the whole graded spectrum of human
relations and emotions, because only in that way and by that re-
course could existing prejudice be overcome, and the saving in-
tuition gain credence — that " the Word was made flesh and dwelt
amongst us."
This was the supreme urgency, and nothing must be suffered
to stand in the path of its realization. The spiritual had the right
of way, and must keep it to the end, whatever the cost to human
emotion, whatever the price affection would have to pay — even a
Mother's and a Son's. Not even on the cross would He call her
Mother, when He gave us into her care and keeping, in the person
of the Eagle of Ephesus, the saintly John, who was the disciple
that had loved Him most, and was most loved in turn ; — a mystery
of supernatural solidarity, this final, soul-stirring commendation of
"Luke xi. 27.
1916.] THE SON OF MAN AND HIS MOTHER 355
His Mother — for the Master was teaching still; — a mystery of
solidarity in which the Mother and the Man of Sorrows became as
one with us, of alien days and climes, who fill up in our pitiably
poor and unruly members those things that are wanting to His
passion and to hers. For she is part of the world's redeeming, and
none may deny her the fullest measure of her voluntary human
share. As Mother, she suffered eclipse in His public references,
that the Light might be made to shine in undistracting splendor for
those that sit in darkness, and in the valley of the shadow of death.
She made the supreme human sacrifice while He was making the
Divine. She gave Him the sublime, unprecedented, cooperative
companionship of self-effacement. She, as Mother, remained in the
shadows, to give unrequited testimony to the Light; and when
that testimony was given; when the teaching necessity that called
it forth no longer urged, she suddenly found herself made forever
glorious, in a new and unsung Magnificat, by the reflected splendors
of the Son, which she so self-sacrificingly had aided in increasing
and spreading. The triumph of her motherhood had to wait until
the triumph of her womanhood was complete. Ave Maria! Blessed
indeed art thou among women, and blessed indeed is the fruit of
thy womb, Jesus !
The explanation broached in these pages has all the freshness
of novelty, but there is about it not the least suggestion of an
iconoclastic touch. Its proposer confesses that it has been for
him a luminous ray which he would gladly see shine for others, unto
joy of the heart and peace of the understanding. It searches many
dark places in the Scriptures, and leaves them shot through with
light. It brings her, who was immaculately conceived, into a more
prominent share in the Redeemer's work, into a more public part
in the ministry of Him, Who came to save the race from error, as
He came to deliver it from sin. It explains away the difficulty —
so hard for the heart to understand — that He never publicly called
her by the name of mother. It lifts the Lord and the Lily of
Israel above the criticism of the profane, the self-questionings of
the devout; and it does all this, not by lessening, but by increasing
the sweetness of the Christian tradition concerning her and Him.
It offers a striking proof, also, that the Gospel of the Infancy is
not, as so often alleged, an invention of St. Luke; because the
same general rule or law governing Christ's public references to
His Mother is as much in evidence there, as elsewhere in the Scrip-
tures. Nor does it seem too much to say — in view of the last re-
356 THE SLEEPING CHRIST [Dec,
mark — that it deals a heavy, if not a mortal, blow to those theories
of the Messianic consciousness, now current, which strive to prove
that Christ came gradually, through circumstance and accident, to
a knowledge of His Divine nature and teaching mission. It stands
up, moreover, without apparent sign of faltering or collapse, under
the weight of difficulties fully as heavy, if not heavier than those
which have here received solution through its means ; and this story
of its still further efficiency, we hope — at a not too distant date-
to lay before the reader. But best of all, perhaps, is the clear proof
which this newly-discovered explanation offers, that the Lord's man-
ner of speech to His Blessed Mother was not such as the children of
darkness in every generation would have had the children of light
believe.
THE SLEEPING CHRIST.
BY CAROLINE D. SWAN.
O SWING and sweep of circling angel wings,
O roseate sea of Heaven's transcendent grace!
Dear Bethlehem the Blest, white-wreathed place
Of this sad world's divinest visionings!
We seem to see the holy Light that flings
Celestial splendor on the narrow space
Where a glad Mother first beholds the Face
Of her rare Glory-Babe, our King of kings.
And, as we gaze, a mighty wave of love
Still sweeps us on to unimagined deeps.
The Calvary-love has won us. From above
Garlanded cherubs smile! — And still He sleeps,
The Virgin-Born, as pure as buds that spring
From ruddy stems in rose-white blossoming.
FROM CHRISTMAS TO CHRIST.
BY HENRY A. DOHERTY, JR.
T was not that Thomas Donahue did not know the
anti-Christian arguments. Baptized a Catholic in
infancy — and educated as one — though none too
strictly, he had, during his days at Harvard, lost his
slight hold on the Catholic Faith, and had plunged
into the popular modern agnosticism of philosophy and social ideal
as deeply as his intellectual equipment allowed. The plunge was
deep enough to estrange him from all orthodox Christianity, al-
though it permitted him to retain a belief in Christ's teaching as
that of a purely human moral genius and leader.
As he sat in his study this afternoon on the day before Christ-
mas, planning one of the ultra-modern satirical comedies with which
he hoped to shock a hypocritical world into a realization of the
new outlook, he was reflecting rather seriously on what his own
new outlook had cost him, and on what value it had given for the
price paid. The price had been large — a shattering which had
shaken Donahue to his soul's foundation. If the process had brought
him a new outlook which he sincerely felt to be true despite its
harshness, it had certainly not, he reflected, brought him satisfac-
tion. Here was man, manifestly not self -created, not even con-
sulted as to whether or no he wished to be born; not master of his
own destiny, however much he might like to believe himself to be;
evidently dependent upon some power beyond him which had or-
dained his existence, had encircled it with bonds and laws, and
mapped out his destiny. Yet this power, the most important thing
in his consciousness, was really unknown to him. He might con-
sider his own desires, cravings, inspirations, talents and aims as
revelations to him of his own destiny and function as an individual
machine for the performance of that power's will, but this, satis-
factory or not as it might be in showing him his function in life,
did not reveal to him what this power was in itself, nor even, fully,
what it was in its relation to men as a whole nor to the universe
as a whole. Try as one might to suppress the desire for such in-
formation by assuring oneself that the revelation of one's par-
ticular function sufficed, certain cravings persisted. Oh, that one
358 FROM CHRISTMAS TO CHRIST [Dec.,
might know what this power was, whether it were merely the life
of all earthly things and the design unfolded in their evolution, or
something infinitely more! Oh, that one might know with some-
thing of the certainty of the Christians! But that was manifestly
out of the question in this age.
Yet it is strange what a sort of left-over Christian feeling
remains with the Christian who has " outgrown " his Christianity.
And Christmas — how pathetic the effect of Christmas on such
as Donahue ! What inexplicable feeling seems to fill even the
" disillusioned " Christian at such a season — a sort of realization
of the loss of something which had satisfied, and which had been
replaced by something which did not satisfy. It was Christmas
Eve. Donahue remembered the thrill which the season had brought
him in his younger days — Catholic days — even if Santa Claus
and the spirit of giving and gifts, good cheer and good food, had
overshadowed the Christian message. But, after all, had not Santa
Claus and gift-giving been the whole of Christmas? Was not hu-
manity the care of man at all times, and was it not the duty of man
at all times to see that there were no poor, and no people without
certain gifts they wanted? Had not the new realization of the
purely immanent nature of this power, which some called God, and
of men as parts of the unfolding of this power in the universe —
had not this abolished the irrational Christmas spirit?
Donahue had read in the paper that there were to be great
doings on Beacon Hill, in Boston town, that Christmas Eve;
candles in the windows and carol singing on the streets, and the
sight and sound should be worth a journey across the Charles from
Cambridge, where he lived. Writh all his estrangement from Chris-
tianity, the strains of the Adeste Fideles still delighted him at
this season. The words might be fabulous, the sentiment out-
grown, but there was a something which made it a favorite tune
with him, and the fact that it was a Christmas tune, instead of
spoiling his enthusiasm rather added to it. There could be no harm
in loving it as a survival of the childhood of the race, which, al-
though darkened in intellect, possessed, possibly for that reason, a
thrill lost to maturity of the race in its superior sophistication. He
might hear the Adeste that night. Anyway he would go over to
Beacon Hill.
The crisp, cold cheer of the season was a delight to him. It
was difficult to analyze how much of the romance of the season
1916.] PROM CHRISTMAS TO CHRIST 359
was due to the spirit of Christmas itself, but it was unnecessary
to bother about that. It might be the romance of the closing of an
old year, or of the progress of the seasons in their mysterious un-
folding of the evolution of that power in the world and the race.
Even the Christmas spirit might be but a childish prelude to a
better, because more mature, holiday flavor with which the race, in
its upward progress, would replace Christmas in the new and fitting
religion of the future. At any rate, it was not a time of dissatis-
faction. The thrill was there, and he felt it; a thrill as of
" something being up," the more thrilling because mysterious.
The thrill deepened as he walked through the crisp air and
took the car. Christmas greens and Christmas bustle; the many
" Merry Christmas " greetings he heard on the way ; the poetry
of a race for one night forsaking the prosaic for the poetic, the
dull for the gay, the frown for the smile; the sight of suspicious
bundles and burdens in the arms of cheery looking passengers who
on other days could hardly be conceived of as burdening themselves
with either a bundle or a smile ; the expectant expressions on the
faces of children, and on those of their elders as well — all this
put him in harmony with the holiday, which was contrary to rea-
son, certainly, but not to good cheer. Might it be in accord with
something beyond reason, after all ?
Leaving the car with an unwonted patience and even good
humor at jostlings and bundle impediments, Donahue found him-
self on Beacon Hill. There were the candles in the windows, and
right cheery they were too. Why should candles be more cheery
than electric lights? Why should the sight of windows full of
them cheer the heart, instead of chilling the nerves with a fear of
conflagration, as surely it ought, to the rational mind? But it did
cheer; it soothed all fears with the assurance that, somehow or
other, human beings, even if mere Christians, do know a thing or
two about taking precautions. It was certainly a fairyland view.
But look yonder! See that statue of a woman with a Babe in
her arms in the window of that aristocratic looking mansion. What
can be happening? Here in Protestant, cold-blooded Beacon Hill,
even a Catholic would hardly look for that ? Was it faith, or merely
fairyland fancy? But why ask? Was not the whole scheme of
illumination and carol singing a thing of Christmastide, of the
season unmistakably dominated by that self-same Mother and Babe?
It was Christmas, a feast long coldly and bitterly ignored, as he
understood it, by the very Protestant moderns who had founded
360 PROM CHRISTMAS TO CHRIST [Dec.,
Boston. And how could it be so celebrated in the very heart of
the aristocratic Protestant part of such a city? Catholics them-
selves, surely the most logically interested in Christmas, never had
paid such open public honor to the Vigil of the Feast of the
Nativity. Was superstition coming back, and was Donahue,
" emancipated " Catholic, modernist and rationalist, out of date
in a world which he had felt to be his own? But perhaps it was
only the human love of festival and display, excitement and poetry,
which would disappear again tomorrow midnight into the sane and
worldly commercialism of the world and his wife. The thought
was not pleasant, and he dismissed it. He himself loved the poetry
of the celebration, and half wished that it were true and that it
had come to stay.
Ambling about he found little groups of people here and there,
and heard a soft strain of a carol sung by a few persons in a dark
and mysterious road. But it seemed too early yet for the big
events, at any rate on the streets. So he strolled in a leisurely
manner across prosaic Charles Street toward the river of that name.
He came upon a church, cheerfully lighted behind its dark stained-
glass windows.
Plain as it was, there was a sort of indescribable air of
romance about this brick church, irregular in its cosy jumble of
chapels, turret and spire. It had a sort of poetic flavor, as of the
Middle Ages — that great Time which, during his rationalistic
dreamings, had thrown a glare of unearthly and joyous light across
the dark path of human progress as he had studied its history.
He found the church to be a Protestant one, and he entered.
It mattered nothing to him now as to whether it were Catholic or
Protestant; nay, in his present state of "advancement" he saw
nothing wrong in entering — for he resented any thought of going
to worship there. The door led into a cosy and mysterious little
vestibule, whose inner doorway, open, disclosed a crowded audi-
torium.
Through this door Donahue saw in the pulpit, seemingly at the
end of a metal screen across the chancel, a clergyman, in a snowy-
white surplice, preaching a Christmas Eve sermon. The service
Donahue learned later was that of " Evensong " of the " High
Church " school of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The preacher
was speaking at that moment about heaven.
The preacher's talk was not remarkable for any endeavor
1916.] FROM CHRISTMAS TO CHRIST 361
after an intellectual adjustment of " modern " thought and Chris-
tian principles which might possibly have made an impression on
such as had been led by modern thought to doubt Christianity,
among whom was Donahue. It was an intelligent sermon by
an " orthodox " clergyman. With the setting in which it was de-
livered, the impressive Gothic interior, the cheerful Christmas
greens, it stirred Donahue to the depths, and touched some hidden
chord in him.
When the service was resumed, the thought came to Donahue
that he would have hardly dreamed that any Protestant church
would use such a seemingly " more than Catholic " sort of ritual.
In the screened chancel were seated white-surpliced and black-cas-
socked men and boys. The preacher, at the end of his discourse,
had removed his stole and actually Donahue noticed how he kissed
it before descending from the pulpit. Then the organ pealed forth
the opening bars of " Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful." The notes sent
a thrill through every fibre of Donahue's being. But his attention
was suddenly drawn to a movement in the chancel. A youth
with a long white gown over his red cassock, girdled, emerged
from the chancel gateway in the screen, bearing a gleam-
ing processional cross of exquisite workmanship. He was fol-
lowed by other youths similarly garbed, and bearing lighted candles.
Behind these came two more, swinging censers, and clad in white
surplices over red cassocks. Following the acolytes walked a clergy-
man wearing the most gorgeous mediaeval cope that Donahue had
ever seen, and accompanied by two assistants. A long line of
vested male choristers followed, broken here and there by boys
carrying gorgeous banners.
As the wave of sound from choir and congregation rolled
about, Donahue, who had hardly ever sung a note in church or
school or elsewhere, joined in the singing with a thrill which al-
most shook his voice. And he did a strange and noteworthy
thing. Zealous as he was for the use of the vernacular in worship —
if it must be performed — he sang the Adeste with the congregation,
but in Latin! His emphasis testified that he gloried in the Latin.
Some impulse too strong for rejection, seemingly, made him use
the tongue of his own Church.
Having arrived in the chancel, the vested choir, facing the
vested clergy before the high altar, burst into the overwhelming
strains of Handel's " Hallelujah " chorus. The note of heavenly
exultation and defiance of earth in this great anthem broke upon
362 FROM CHRISTMAS TO CHRIST [Dec.,
Donahue with an appeal which seemed to overpower reason, and
to satisfy something as far beyond reason as music is beyond
words. Its " King of kings and Lord of lords " throbbed and
thrilled as a truth of eternity.
The architecture, the preaching, the procession, the singing,
the ritualistic flavor of the whole ceremony, had done more than
hint to Donahue that there was something beyond rationalism de-
manded for the satisfaction of human cravings. Catholicism,
which he had rejected or rather neglected, had not, he thought, sup-
plied it. Protestantism, as he knew it, with its exaltation of the
sombre-gowned preacher and prayer leader, had failed still more
completely. And now here were Protestants not only conscious
of what was lacking in their belief, but actually endeavoring to
supply it — and yet not succeeding.
As Donahue left the Church of the Advent that night he
was, consciously or otherwise, a changed man spiritually and
intellectually. He had been seeking something which he had
not found, and here he had seen his need witnessed to where he
had not dreamed of finding witnesses. It was the tangible, visible,
audible expression of something which did not conflict with rea-
son, but rather completed and explained it — the expression of the
relation of man as a race to God as its First Cause and Ultimate
End. This it was which was pictured in the scene which he had
just witnessed — the natural flowering of human aspiration in sure
touch with something beyond the human and the visible, bu£
which nevertheless is felt to be part of the picture which God
Himself is painting. Donahue had been brought to recognize, to
listen to that craving within his soul which cold rationalism, he had
to admit, could never satisfy; that craving for the sure touch of
his soul with the Reality, truer than sense, in a worship not con-
trary, but complementary to reason, leading it and perfecting it.
The ceremony which he had just witnessed had confirmed, from
unexpected sources, the testimony of his conscience to this funda-
mental need of every man. And yet while that ceremony stimulated,
it had witnessed also to its own insufficiency. And as Donahue re-
flected, his thoughts went back to the faith of his earlier days.
Surely that Catholic faith must be the pure font of the wisdom
of God when these who were Protestants, whose leaders had once
officially rejected it, were now beginning to imitate its ritual; to
copy that which they had so long spurned and condemned. But
ritual, if sincere, is but the expression of a true inner life. Was
1916.] FROM CHRISTMAS TO CHRIST 363
there not, therefore, in Catholicism that which no imitation could
secure or express ? Borrowing the coat might make the borrower's
body beautiful, but the wearing of it would not change his soul.
This ritual was splendid, but it was the human part of it
that was splendid. Here was a worship which appealingly ex-
pressed man's relation to God — from the earthly side — man's reach-
ing toward God. But the full relation must necessarily be two-
fold : that of man toward God, and of God toward man. The
human rite furnished the human or earthly side of the liturgical
picture. But the lack which Donahue felt in that picture was the
lack of a sure completion of it from the supernatural side — from
eternity, from God. Man worshipped before an altar. But should
he worship merely before an altar? If there was nothing on that
altar which was not in any other place on earth, why worship
in church, liturgically or corporately, at all? Why not admit that
to man has been given no central place on earth in which to worship
something which is there in a particular manner? Why not admit
at once that conduct is the only real worship? But Donahue had
found by experience that it is not; or rather that the full extent of
conduct must be extended to deliberate and particular external
worship if man's life and man's need is to be filled.
The ceremony which Donahue had witnessed did express this
craving, but it did not answer it. What was needed for its founda-
tion and completion was the donation by God from above of a Real
Presence which should be a centre for the needed human worship be-
low. Man of his very nature, thought, worked and communicated
by means of symbols. His very nature also required worship,
symbolical and liturgical worship. To express the corporate re-
lation of man as a whole to God, man must gather for formal
corporate worship in a central place. But being a creature with
body and senses, requiring objects which appeal to sense, lest he
forget, his worship requires, in that central place, a Real Presence,
which is a symbol of God and yet more than a symbol — God really,
sacramentally present on the altar.
Donahue had often rehearsed the truth, which agnostics wrest
to their own destruction, that God is hidden from men on earth
— veiled from them by the things of sense. How much clearer,
how life-giving the real truth, that of the Real Presence of God
veiled in the Blessed Sacrament? It was the true answer, not only
to doubts and questionings, but to man's best aspirations. Sacra-
mentalism was the principle of nature as well as of religion; man's
364 GIVE US THIS DAY [Dec.,
very thought and action was sacramental. Therefore his worship
must be sacramental. And the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacra-
ment was the earthly expression of God's hidden relation to man,
as man's liturgical rites before that Presence were the earthly ex-
pression of man's relation to God.
Unless on the Protestant altar there was this Real Presence,
it was a mockery and a superstition to gather before that altar
and address before it a liturgical worship which requires a com-
plement on the altar. Ev^ry Protestant creed denies the Real
Presence. The Catholic Church alone has had this Presence
through all her history — and Donahue had discovered the absolute
need of it for his own soul, his own life. In discovering and
owning to that need he had come home. He had found himself
a Catholic once more. He had traveled from Christmas to Christ.
GIVE US THIS DAY.
BY CHARLES MCGILL.
GREAT Love Divine that lowly manger chose —
Who gave the weak and toil-worn life and light;
Whose guiding star of wisdom brighter grows
While legioned worlds have swept to deepening night,
Light us in truth to Thine ennobling way,
Guide us in peace by paths that Thou hast trod —
Rising and broadening through the brighter day
To heights of freedom and to heights of God.
DR. JOHN B. MURPHY.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., PH.D.
life and work of Dr. John B. Murphy, who died
in Chicago on August nth of the present year, illus-
trated the splendid possibilities open to the intelli-
gent American of our day. He is another striking
example of the country boy who, coming to a great
city, carved out for himself a career that gave him world- wide fame.
Dr. Murphy was born on a farm near Appleton, Wisconsin,
on December 21, 1857. He was graduated from the Appleton High
School in 1876, and three years later from Rush Medical College
in Chicago. He won the competition for Medical Interneship at
Cook County Hospital, Chicago's great public hospital, and served
there for a year and a half. He did not immediately afterwards
take up practise for himself, but entered into a partnership with
Dr. Edward W. Lee, which gave him an opportunity for much
practical work under the supervision of a friendly experienced
eye, and a definite salary that with his modest tastes and studious
habits enabled him to save some money.
After two years of such apprenticeship, at the age of twenty-
five, Dr. Murphy, eager to fit himself still more thoroughly for his
life's profession, went to Europe, where he spent the next two
years. He studied in Vienna, Munich, Berlin and Heidelberg; he
returned to America full of the spirit of original investigation and
scientific research, and the pioneering tradition just then so alive in
the German clinics. It is much easier to understand the develop-
ment of Dr. Murphy's career if one is familiar with a book like
Garrison's History of Medicine. Such a history tells us that the
very year before Dr. Murphy went to Europe, a whole series of
the most important advances in medicine had been made. Laveran
had discovered the parasite of malarial fever, thus solving an age-
old problem; Koch introduced the plate cultures of bacteria, thus
giving a new impetus to modern bacteriology, and making possible
the isolation of the bacteria of disease, and Medin discovered the
epidemic nature of poliomyelitis — that serious affection which in
recent years has proved such a source of death and suffering to our
366 DR. JOHN B. MURPHY [Dec.,
children, and which, so far, has baffled every effort for its prevention
and cure.
In the light of these supremely original developments in medi-
cal science, it is easy to comprehend how an enterprising young
American student would have his enthusiasm aroused for scientific
work in the best sense of that term. If, still following Garrison,
one reviews the list of progressive advances in surgery of those
years, he will readily understand the incentives that lent aid to
Dr. Murphy's successful career. In 1881, Dr. Billroth, at Vienna,
resected the pylorus of the stomach, the gateway or passage out
of the stomach into the intestines. This part of the gastro-
intestinal tract is frequently the seat of cancer, which previous
to the discovering of the great Vienna surgeon had always proved
fatal. In the same year Czerny, at Heidelberg, simplified a whole
series of operations for women that did as much for the cure
of cancer of the uterus as Billroth had done for cancer of the
stomach. During that same twelve months Hahn performed the
operation of nephropexy, the sewing up of a loose kidney to the
abdominal muscles in the loin so as to prevent its injury by pressure
when misplaced, and Woelfler introduced gastro-enterostomy, the
making of a new passage way from the stomach to the intestines,
an operation which has since come to play an extremely important
role in surgery.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Dr. Murphy, after two
years of discipleship under such men, should return home con-
vinced that the next great phase of development in surgery would
relate to the gastro-intestinal tract. For centuries this portion
of human anatomy had not been an operative field for surgeons.
It is curious to note, however, that the surgeons of some five
centuries ago performed a large number of operations on the in-
testines, especially when injured by wounds from the swords and
pikes of old-time warfare. All this had been in some way for-
gotten, and the surgeons of the world were just about to remake
a great new chapter in the history of surgery.
Dr. Murphy's first important article, found in the list of his
writings compiled in a short autobiographic note in 1894, was on
Gun Shot Wounds of the Intestines. Up to that time it had been
generally believed that penetrating wounds of the intestine were
necessarily fatal. If unoperated upon, perforations of the gastro-
intestinal tract would almost inevitably be followed by leakage
of the contents and consequent peritonitis. The one hope was that
1916.] DR. JOHN B. MURPHY 367
the contents might not find a way out because of emptiness of the
stomach or the intestines, or from some fortunate circumstance
in the mode of the perforation, and then nature would care for
the patient by adhesions. Expectant treatment was the rule. Dr.
Murphy, having seen the German operators daring to intervene
in intestinal lesions, was not satisfied with the expectant treatment,
and counseled active intervention in gun shot perforations as
giving the best prognosis for the patient.
Dr. Murphy's next important publication, following the same
line, took up what has since become one of the most important
phases of modern surgery. Its title would scarcely indicate this
except to the medical mind, for it was on Early Operations for
Ferity phlitis. This last term was the old name for all infections in
the right lower quadrant of the abdomen which were considered
as originating in connection with the c&cum or " blind gut," in
Greek called tuphlon. Dr. Murphy's paper was written before the
invention of the term appendicitis, though his observations were
made on the class of cases that subsequently came to be called
by this designation. He had recognized the gravity of such
cases, their frequent occurrence, and advised early operation as
the one best possible safeguard. He must be looked upon then
as a pioneer in the recent development of our knowledge of
appendicitis.
Dr. Murphy realized, however, the then defective surgical tech-
nique in intestinal operations. Surgical intervention in the intestinal
tract requires delicate skill and ample technical resourcefulness. If it
is necessary to remove a portion of the intestines, as for instance
when a part has become gangrenous, or badly lacerated or torn
across by some perforating wound or missile, the two ends of the
intestines have to be brought together in such a way as to leave
the lumen of the intestine quite patulous, free for the movement
of the contents, and yet the severed ends of the intestine must be
brought so nicely together that there shall be no leakage. If either
of these conditions remain unfulfilled, fatal obstruction or equally
fatal peritonitis will be the result. Between the danger of in-
testinal obstruction from within and peritonitis from leakage with-
out, the problem is extremely difficult, and until it had been worked
out, it is no wonder that surgeons feared and preferred to remain
inactive.
Dr. Murphy set about improving the technique of these oper-
ations by experiments upon animals. For several years he operated
368 DR. JOHN B. MURPHY [Dec,,
upon a large number of animals, noting the results, and trying
different methods. He summed up his experiments and clinical
observations in a paper entitled Original Experiments and Clinical
Researches in the Surgery of the Gall Bladder, the Liver and the
Intestinal Tract.
In the course of these researches he invented a surgical in-
strument or piece of mechanism which greatly facilitated the bring-
ing together of several ends of the intestines, or, as the process is
called technically, the making of an anastamosis between two por-
tions of the intestinal tract. This little mechanism of different
sizes for different purposes, but about the average size of an Eng-
lish walnut, was, because of certain perforations in it by which it
was fastened to the severed ends of the intestines, called a button.
Dr. Murphy suggested a name for it, " the anastamosis button."
It came, however, to be called by his own name, " the Murphy
Button," and is now used throughout the world.
One day, in 1889, this young doctor of thirty-two showed the
button to a surgical friend, saying : " Here is the little thing that
is going to revolutionize intestinal surgery. I have tried it on
twenty dogs with the most absolute satisfaction." Opportunities
soon presented themselves of trying it on human patients whose
life was despaired of, and it proved its worth. The button does
not remain permanently in place, but after facilitating agglutina-
tion of the ends of the intestines passes out.
I shall never forget the first time I saw Dr. Murphy. It was
nearly twenty-five years ago, and as a medical student I was at-
tending the meeting of the American Medical Association held
that year in Philadelphia. Between sessions I was strolling through
the commercial exhibit room. Suddenly there was a commotion.
The hubbub of conversation ceased, while everybody listened to a
pleasant looking, tall and rather thin man who was speaking very
vigorously. It was Dr. Murphy. A few years before, in 1889, ne
had invented the Murphy Button. A number of the sellers of
surgical instruments had these buttons on sale. Dr. Murphy,
visiting the exhibit room, had found that some of these buttons
were imperfectly made, and that their use would be dangerous.
He bought these unfit samples ; stepped up on a box and addressed
the bystanders. The crowd stopped its talk and gathered to listen.
They listened the more attentively when they discovered that Dr.
Murphy was indignant over the improper construction of the buttons
called by his name. The story of this scene spread through the
1916.] DR. JOHN B. MURPHY 369
meeting, was the topic of conversation for all the other days of the
session, and Dr. Murphy's purpose was accomplished.
This story is typical of his character, of his Irish impulsive-
ness, his readiness to see his way through a difficulty, his willing-
ness to take the chance of being misunderstood rather than permit
patients to be submitted to further serious risks.
After having done magnificently successful work on the in-
testines, it might have been expected that Dr. Murphy would de-
vote himself particularly to this field, which in the nineties of the
last century seemed to present ample opportunities. Had his one
idea been the making of money, he would doubtless have confined
himself to this specialty. Large and promising as this field was,
however, it did not satisfy his desire further to enlarge the op-
portunities for possible successful surgical intervention within the
abdomen. Besides the gastro-intestinal tract, then, he paid special
attention to the biliary tract, the surgical possibilities of which in
many pathological conditions were just beginning to be realized.
Gall-stone surgery and surgical intervention for certain infectious
conditions of the gall tract, as well as even malignant conditions
when they could be known early enough, presented some of the most
difficult problems in the whole range of surgery, but their very
difficulty constituted a special appeal to Dr. Murphy. Some of
his work in these lines proved as helpful to the profession as that
which he had done in the gastro-intestinal tract.
Dr. Murphy did not confine his investigations, however, to the
abdominal region, but took up some other difficult problems which
surgeons were facing now that aseptic surgery permitted them to
intervene where before Lister's great discoveries such intervention
would surely have been fatal. Such problems were presented, for ex-
ample, by the surgery of veins and arteries. In these vascular tubes
it is quite as necessary to maintain the lumen after operative proce-
dures as it is with regard to the intestines. If they become blocked
or narrowed to any considerable degree, clots form and become or-
ganized, and then the circulation through these vessels is prevented.
The question of anastamosis, that is, of bringing the several ends
of arteries and veins together, occupied Dr. Murphy's attention.
He succeeded in showing that some of the radical measures of
old-time surgery which often submitted patients to considerable
risk of gangrene, need no longer be considered necessary, and that
it was even possible to operate upon blood vessels without neces-
sarily bringing about a closure of them.
VOL. civ. — 24
370 DR. JOHN B. MURPHY [Dec.,
One interesting and novel treatment originated by Dr. Murphy
was the injection of nitrogen into the pleural sac in order to set at
perfect rest a lung affected by tuberculosis, and thus give it an
opportunity to heal thoroughly. Dr. Murphy had himself been
affected by tuberculosis in his early years, and had been always
keenly interested in its treatment. Sixteen years ago he treated pa-
tients thus affected by the injection of nitrogen. His method at the
time attracted widespread attention. Later it was forgotten or
considered as one of the many failures in the treatment of the dis-
ease. Three years ago, however, while traveling East with Dr.
Murphy, he reviewed for me the present status of this mode of
treatment, how it was extensively used, and how far some patients
who could not otherwise be treated, were helped by it.
To the end of his life Dr. Murphy sought to develop, extend
and perfect surgical methods. Joint surgery in the days before the
discovery and applications of sepsis and anti-sepsis had been timor-
ous and very often unsuccessful. This dread of intervening in
joint cases prevailed even in aseptic days. The consequence was
that a great many patients remained permanently crippled because
of joint anchylosis, or locking from adhesions within the joint cap-
sule. Such cases presented an extremely difficult series of problems
in surgical technique. Perhaps for this very reason Dr. Murphy's
attention was especially attracted to the subject. Nearly every
case was individual. Dr. Murphy succeeded in making a great
many of these patients far more comfortable and active. His
work attracted wide attention, not only in this country, but in
Europe.
While engaged in this work he realized the necessity for securing
proper publicity for his methods, and began the publication of the
" Murphy Clinics." The " Clinics " were taken down from dicta-
tion and then put into shape for publication by a special assistant,
Dr. Murphy himself carefully reviewing the proof sheets. He once
told me that when he began the publication, his only idea was to
satisfy the request expressed by a number of physicians who had
been with him at various times in Chicago, and who wished to
keep in touch with his work. It was a source of gratification to
him then to find during its first year that the publication became
self-supporting, and later that it was the source of quite unexpected
revenue. The publication had a wide circulation also in England,
Australia and in the libraries of the medical schools of Europe.
Dr. Murphy will be remembered especially in the history of
I9i6.] DR. JOHN B. MURPHY 371
American surgery as a teacher at a time when surgery was making
its greatest advances. His leadership as a teacher here in America
came too at a time when American surgery was playing a prominent
part in that progress. Surgery is the one department of medical
science in which America has been distinctly a leader, an enter-
prising pioneer, and not merely a follower of the European coun-
tries.
Dr. Murphy's teaching was by no means confined merely to the
undergraduates in medicine in the schools, nor even to the regular
post-graduates who came to Chicago to the Post-Graduate Medical
School. The profession throughout the country had come to
recognize him as a leader and a master. His connection during
the last five years of his life with the American College of Surgeons
emphasized his place as a teacher, and also added prestige to that
organization.
After his death, The Journal of the American Medical Asso-
ciation, a representative organ, declared ; " When Dr. Murphy died
the medical profession lost one of the ablest surgical teachers and
a clinician of the highest rank; one who had contributed much to
medical and surgical science ; one whose influence was world wide."
Dr. Murphy was not only a great surgeon, but also a great teacher
of surgery. He could grasp the details of a problem of diagnosis,
see his way through, and then evolve the best method of treating
the patient. Above all he could make others follow him, and give
them the courage to go and do likewise. He had a keen power of
observation and judgment, and knew whom to select to benefit by
his instructions, and extend the fruits and blessings of his knowl-
edge.
Few men have done more for charity in the best sense of the
word than this American surgeon. He constantly operated, without
remuneration, on the poor, and many hours of almost every day of
his life were devoted to their service. He made it a life-long rule
never to accept a fee from priests or religious, and it has been well
said that " no man knows the number of bishops, priests and re-
ligious women who were treated by him without charge. " One
need but talk with some of these clerical patients to realize how
whole-hearted was Dr. Murphy's charity. He made them feel that
he was personally interested in their case, and that he spared no
amount of time or trouble to give them the best possible service.
No wonder, then, that honors came to Dr. Murphy from all
quarters, educational, professional, secular and ecclesiastical. The
372 DR. JOHN B. MURPHY [Dec.,
Pope made him a Knight of St. Gregory, and just before his death
raised him to the position of Knight Commander with the Star.
The University of Notre Dame conferred on him the Laetare Medal,
and many other universities honored him with their degrees. The
University of Illinois gave him its LL.D. in 1905, and the Uni-
versity of Sheffield, in England, its degree of Master of Science,
while Loyola University of Chicago conferred the degree of M.A.,
and the Catholic University gave its LL.D. in 1915. Besides he
was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in England,
a Life Member of the Societe de Chirurgie of Paris, as well as of
the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Chirurgie of Berlin. Since his election
in 1898 to be the Orator in surgery of the American Medical As-
sociation, scarcely a year had passed in which some important dis-
tinction from a medical society did not come to him. He was
the Honorary President of the Surgical Section of a series of In-
ternational Medical Congresses; the guest by invitation of the
British Medical Association, the Honorary President of the Inter-
national Surgical Congress, and President of the American Medical
Association.
Dr. Murphy's life and work prove false the oft-repeated state-
ment that devotion to applied science is almost sure to disturb dog-
matic religious convictions. Dr. Murphy's Catholic faith was firm ;
enduring; thoroughly loyal. He, like his great predecessors,
Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Corrigan, the great Irish physician,
Theodore Schwann, the founder of the cell doctrine, and Johannes
Muller, the father of modern German medicine, was a great
scientist and a stanch Catholic.
We have had in our own country a number of distinguished
physicians and surgeons, who like Dr. Murphy have been faith-
ful and even devout Catholics in the midst of busy and suc-
cessful careers. The first important teacher of chemistry in
American Medical Schools was Dr. William J. Macneven, who left
Ireland after having taken part in the Revolution of '98; and since
his time such distinguished men as Gunning Bedford, Van Buren,
Thomas Addis Emmet, Horatio Storer and Joseph O'Dwyer have
been noted for their distinguished abilities as well as for their
simple Catholic faith.
POLLY'S PUDDING.
BY M. E. FRANCIS.
IM HOLT and his wife Polly had been married for
over six months; everything was still very new and
bright in the trim little cottage which had been white-
washed in honor of their advent, and painted and pa-
pered inside by their own hands. Not less bright,
perhaps, because it was still new, was the mutual love of the young
couple, and Jim's belief in the superhuman perfections of his wife.
" There's naught our Polly can't do," he would say. " Every-
thing as she sets her hand to turns out well. Sewin', cookin', or
mendin' — why, she tailored up yon owd westcoat o' mine same as
if it was done in a shop. I welly believe there isn't a single thing
in this blessed world as our Polly couldn't do."
Polly, herself, a fine bouncing, yellow-haired, rosy-cheeked
wench, was too good a wife to doubt Jim's judgment in this as
in other matters, and was accustomed to accept his eulogies with
the complacency of one who felt them to be well deserved.
It was therefore something of a shock to her when, on one
particular evening, Jim, who was sitting in his elbow-chair smoking
a luxurious pipe after the labors of the day, remarked :
" I were thinkin', Polly, about our pudden for Christmas;
't wouldn't be a bad notion if ye was to slip across to my mother
and ax her advice about makin' it."
Polly set down the mutton-pie which she was in the act of
carrying away from the table — Jim liked " summat tasty " for
his tea — and turned round in astonishment not unmixed with in-
dignation.
" And what i' the world should I do that for ? Whatever put
that in your head? "
" The owd lady herself was sayin' some such thing," rejoined
Jim, good-humoredly. " She's got agate o' makin' hers. Says
she, 'It 'ud be as well if your Polly 'ud come and take a lesson;
I'm reckoned the best hand at makin' a plum pudden in this
parish.' '
"Take a lesson!" ejaculated Polly, tossing her head. "It's
news if I have to take lessons in cookin' at this time o' day. I
374 POLLY'S PUDDING [Dec,
thought ye found yourself pretty well satisfied up to now, Mester
Holt."
She picked up a plate, gazed at it critically, and slapped it
down again.
The big, sandy-haired giant in the corner laughed with inno-
cent appreciation of what he took to be an excellent joke.
" Ho, ho, that's not bad — not bad — I will say. Aye. I find
myself pretty well satisfied up to now, Mrs. Holt — that's to say,
Mrs. James Holt," he added more seriously. " My mother's the
gradely Mrs. Holt."
" Oh, ye needn't think I want to rob your mother o' any o'
respect as is due to her," said Polly. " But I don't think I need
come even to the gradely Mrs. Holt " — this was spoken with such
deadly sarcasm that even the good-natured, thick-headed Jim per-
ceived the intention — " for a lesson in pudden-makin'. I don't
think yon pie was one to find fault with ; and ye seem to ha' been
able to pick a bit o' bun-loaf," casting a withering look at the
fragment of the dainty in question, which was all that remained
after Jim's inroads during tea. " I didn't need to take no lessons
from the gradely Mrs. Holt to make those."
Jim puffed solemnly at his pipe a minute or two before he
spoke, and then it was in a serious tone.
" A plum pudden's different, ye know. A plum pudden's a
wonderful ticklish thing to manage. Did ye ever chance to make
a plum pudden, lass ? "
" I didn't never ha' need to," rejoined the young woman with
dignity ; " my aunt always made ours."
" And did your aunt make a good plum pudden ? " persisted
Jim.
"Well, what do ye think?" rejoined Polly snappishly. "It
was my aunt larned me all the cookin' I know. You've never
found fault wi' me before. I'm sure I think it's a strange thing
for your mother or anyone else to be tryin' to set ye agen your
own wife."
" Coom," said Jim alarmed. " Whoever said I was findin'
fault wi' ye ? Naught o' the kind. I think you're the wonderf ullest
wife a man could have — I'm never done admirin' ye."
" Well, then," said Polly, smiling in a mollified way as she
took up the mutton-pie once more and carried it away to the
buttery.
On her return she found Jim staring ruminatively at the fire;
1916.] POLLY'S PUDDING 375
he looked up at her as she entered, with an ingratiating smile.
" Talkin' o' Christmas puddens," he remarked, " folks has dif-
ferent fancies, ye know, about Christmas puddens, aye, I've heard
my mother say that many a time. Some puddens is just as hard
as cannon-balls, and some is as light as feathers; some puts meat
in them, and some doesn't; and some " — he broke off, eyeing Polly
a little anxiously — " I've allus been used to the sort my mother
makes," he resumed. " I'd like ours to be as like that sort as ye
could get."
" Now I'll tell ye summat," rejoined Polly firmly. " I'm not
goin' to take no lessons from nobody. I don't want 'em and if
I did, 'tisn't your mother I'd ax. I call it downright nasty of her
to go makin' mischief between us this road. If I can't make a
puclden as ye can fancy, ye can go wi'out. I'm not goin' to
make little o' myself and turn myself into a laughin' stock for
anybody."
" Coom ! " said Jim again.
He took out his pipe and gazed at her round-eyed; Polly
startled him further by laying her yellow head down on the table
and bursting into tears.
" Why, lass, how is this? " cried he, aghast.
" You've hurt my feelin's awful," sobbed Polly.
Naturally there was nothing for Jim to do but to come lum-
bering round the table and to take her in his arms, atoning for
his misdemeanor by countless endearments and abject apologies.
He had to pass his mother's house on the following day on his
way to work, and regretfully described the portly form of that
good woman on the doorstep.
" I were lookin' out for ye," she cried, as he was striding
past, after a nod of greeting. " Here, wait a bit — what's all your
hurry? I want to know what about pudden? I've got the stuff
ready, but I haven't started mixin' it yet — your Polly ought to
see me doin' that. I kept it back on purpose for her."
" Don't keep it back no longer, then," rejoined the son. " Our
Polly's busy today; she's got a bit behind wi' the wash."
" Eh, the bit of a wash she'll have for ye two isn't worth
namin'," rejoined his mother. " 'Twas a different story when I
had the ten o' ye to do for. Besides, I saw her takin' in the dry
things off the hedge yesterday mornin' ; she must ha' got through
wi' her ironing by now. Did ye tell her I was keepin' back the
pudden for her? "
376 POLLY'S PUDDING [Dec.,
" Aye, I just mentioned it," rejoined Jim, backing away from
the gate.
" And what did she say ? " queried his mother, descending
from the step and walking down the flagged path.
" Eh, well, I can't exactly call to mind what she said," re-
turned Jim. " I mind she thought it awful good o' ye, but she
said it 'ud fidget her to keep ye waitin', and she didn't reckon she
could get through wi' her work for another couple o' days — '
His voice trailed away, for Mrs. Holt was wagging her large
head with an incredulous smile.
"Eh, no need to tell stories about it, lad," she remarked;
" your Polly doesn't want my teachin' — that's where it is. There,
young housekeepers is very easy offended, but I'll say no more
about it. Eh, well, I hope she won't regret it nor ye either; Jim,
ye always was one as thought a dale o' your Christmas pudden ! "
Meanwhile Polly, who had indeed finished her ironing on the
previous day, betook herself across the fields to the lonely little
cottage where lived the aunt who had brought her up. Miss Rim-
mer, a tall, gaunt old woman, was in the act of making bread, and,
even while greeting her niece, continued to roll and knead the
lump of dough.
"This is an early visit, Polly! If ye coom a bit later I'd
been just as well pleased. I've a little job o' sewin' for ye,
but I can't take my hands out o' this till bread's ready."
"When are ye goin' to start makin' plum pudden, aunt?"
queried the younger woman, dropping into a chair.
" Eh, there is but myself now — it'll not take me long."
" Ye'd best come and share ours," rejoined Polly, struck with
a happy thought. " It 'ud be lonesome for ye to sit down to your
Christmas dinner by yoursel'. I'm goin' to get agate at makin'
our pudden today."
" I could do," responded Miss Rimmer, pausing in her labors
to gaze reflectively at her relative; " aye, if it wasn't very wet or
snowin,' I'd just as soon as not step down to dinner wi' ye. 'Tis
scarce worth cookin' anything out o' the way when one's all by
oneself and yet a body likes to have summat a bit different for
Christmas."
" I'm sure ye'd be very welcome," rejoined Polly, intent on
her own thoughts. " I'll be steppin' down to the village to buy all
as is wanted this afternoon, so I thought I'd just ax ye what I
must get. There'll be suet enough on the beef, of course, but I
1916.] POLLY'S PUDDItiG 377
must get raisins and currants — how much of each do ye think,
Aunt Maggie ? "
Miss Rimmer slapped the mass of dough two or three times
on the table before replying in a meditative tone.
" Raisins, and currants, and suet — yes, ye'll want all that.
I'm sure I can't tell ye how much ye'll have to get, though."
" Why, aunt, didn't we always have plum pudden for Christ-
mas?"
" We had a pudden," said Miss Rimmer, giving a last vicious
thump to the dough ; " but it wasn't a plum pudden, my dear —
not a proper plum pudden. The plum puddens is so awful in-
digestible. To tell ye the truth, ours was mostly made of figs."
" Figs ! " ejaculated Polly, gazing at her aunt with retrospec-
tive indignation. " And ye makin' out it was plum pudden all
the time — year arter year ye did it! I didn't think ye'd ha' been
that artful ! "
" 'Twas nobbut for your good," retorted Miss Rimmer, with
a virtuous air. " Ye wouldn't ha' growed up so healthy if I
hadn't allus took care to give ye naught as was bad for the diges-
tion. Figs make a very good pudden. If ye put a good few
spices, and a bit o' ginger and a nice drop o' traycle same as in
a real Christmas pudden, and sticks a bit o' holly on top, there
isn't one in a hundred as 'ud know the difference."
" Spices — ginger — traycle."
Polly mentally took note of these ingredients as she rose
to go.
" Ah, but our Jim must have a gradely plum pudden as how
'tis," she remarked. " He wouldn't be content else. How much
do ye think I'll want?"
" That depends on the size of your pudden," rejoined Aunt
Maggie irritably. " I know naught about it, I tell ye. Better
ax them as does. Why not ax your mother-in-law ? She's reckoned
best hand at makin' puddens in the country."
" I'd sooner not ax her," returned Polly loftily. " 'Twouldn't
be much credit to me, Aunt Maggie, nor ye either, for me to ha'
to take lessons in cookin' from her. They'll be sayin' in the
village as Jim was better done to by his mother nor his wife. They'll
be sayin' it's a funny thing if young Mrs. Holt didn't larn all she
should larn from them as brought her up ! "
Miss Rimmer paused, rubbing her nose on that portion of her
bony arm which topped what may be called the flour-line.
POLLY'S PVDDltiG [Dec.,
" Eh, don't be moidering me, child," cried she acidly. " Keep
your eyes open; ye'll soon find out. Everyone i' the place is
makin' puddens now : ye ha' but to step in wi' some excuse or
another and look about ye and ye'll see."
"Reet!" exclaimed Polly jubilantly; "that's a good notion!
Thank ye, Aunt Maggie."
On leaving the cottage she struck off by a path which led to
a certain farm about half a mile or so away. Here lived Mrs.
Balshaw, a great crony of Aunt Maggie's, and a notable house-
keeper.
To the young woman's joy she found her engaged in stoning
raisins.
"Why, 'tis Polly Rimmer— Polly Holt, I should say," ex-
claimed Mrs. Balshaw, as she entered. " How are ye, Polly? "
" Very well, thank ye, Mrs. Balshaw. Ye must excuse me
comin' so early. I've been to see my aunt up yon, and I thought
I'd just look in to wish ye the compliments of the season."
" Thank ye, I'm sure. Ye'll excuse me shakin' hands — I'm
all sticky wi' these raisins. Eh, dear! seems as if I should never
get through wi' them — our pudden has to be such a size, ye see."
" Yes, indeed ; there are so many of ye to be done for here,
what wi' your family and what wi' the men."
" Ah," agreed Mrs. Balshaw, sighing. " I do assure ye, Polly,
the tops o' my fingers is quite sore, " 'tisn't only the raisins to
stone, there's the currants to pick over — and they're such nasty
little fidgety things, they fair moider a body."
" And ye must want a lot of them," said Polly artfully.
" Equal weights of both, I suppose? "
" No," said Mrs. Balshaw with a knowing look. " That's not
the way I manage, my dear. I puts most raisins in our own
pudden — the childer is awful fond o' raisins, and I fancy they're
wholesomer nor currants; but I put more currants in the men's,
because currants are cheap."
" I see," rejoined Polly. " Of course, it's only a matter o'
taste, I suppose ? Ye haven't to be thinkin' o' any particular quan-
tities, of course? It hasn't to be all weighed and measured that
particular ? "
" No, I'm a pretty good hand at guessing," rejoined the
farmer's wife; " ye'd scarce believe it, but I'm nearly always right
to a handful."
" I see," said Polly, giving a sigh of relief.
I9i6.] POLLY'S PUDDING 379
What an idea that was of Mrs. Holt senior's to suggest her
taking lessons from her ! The making of a Christmas pudding was
evidently the simplest thing in the world. As she took her way home-
wards her mind busied itself with the problem as to whether it would
be better to have a preponderance of raisins in Jim's pudding, or to
be economical and give currants the preference. Fortune further
favored her before she reached her own door, for she described
in the neighboring garden one of the children of the family busily
hunting about the back premises.
" Have ye lost anythin' ? "" cried she.
" No," rejoined the child, " but one of our hens is layin'
astray, and we have but one egg for the plum pudden."
"Eggs!" ejaculated Polly mentally; "that's another thing."
She ticked off the various ingredients on her fingers when
she found herself indoors. Two eggs were evidently necessary,
since Jinny declared one to be insufficient. Two eggs, raisins, cur-
rants, spice, ginger, treacle — as she came back to her thumb she
paused, frowning.
" My word, that pudden 'ul be like to cost summat ! I'm sure
I ought to have more currants nor raisins, then. Still, Christmas
comes but once a year."
Taking off her hat and coat, she went meditatively into the
buttery. Luckily there was plenty of suet on the beef; the sugar
jar was nearly full. There were two eggs on a little saucer on
the corner of the shelf; nevertheless, her prospective outlay at
the grocer's weighed on her thrifty soul.
" It needn't be such a very big pudden," she said to herself.
But Jim's first remark at dinner time destroyed that illu-
sion.
" I've axed my cousin, Bill Stanley, and his wife to eat their
Christmas dinner wi' us," he remarked. " Poor chap, he's been
out o' work a long time, and they haven't much to make merry
with. Bill were allus a great favorite of mine. I'd like him to see
how happy we are, ye and me."
" I'm sure he'll be very welcome," said Polly with a sinking
heart.
" Afore Bill married," went on Jim, " he used allus to spend
Christmas Day wi' us at home. . My word, how he used to enjoy
mother's plum pudden. He hasn't forgot it yet. Says he to me
when I axed him, 'Is your wife as good a hand at a pudden as
your mother, Jim ?' said he. Ho ! Ho ! "
380 POLLY'S PUDDING [Dec.,
"And what did ye say?" asked Polly, a little nervously.
"Eh, what do ye think I said?" rejoined he, pinching her
cheek. " Says I, 'I don't know yet, but I'll be surprised if she
isn't. There's naught our Polly can't do,' I says."
" I'd better have most raisins," remarked Polly, to herself.
Aloud she remarked that she was going to the grocer's that after-
noon.
" Are ye ? " rejoined he. " I'll tell ye what, love. I think
as it's our first Christmas, and as Bill and his wife are comin',
there'd be no harm in our havin' a gradely do for once. Ye might
get a bottle o' port wine same time as you're gettin' the brandy for
the pudden."
" The brandy ! " exclaimed Polly, speaking aloud in her ex-
citement. "Of course, the brandy. A plum pudden wouldn't be a
plum pudden wi'out it was set afire. That makes seven," she re-
flected, mechanically grasping the forefinger of her left hand.
" Nay, that it wouldn't," agreed Jim. " Don't spare the
brandy, lass — my mother allus puts a nice drop in when she's
mixing it. It make it wholesomer-like."
" I'm not like to forget that," rejoined Polly tartly, though
as a matter of fact she should have been grateful for her husband's
timely reminder, the idea of brandy forming actually a component
part of the dainty in question not having previously occurred to her
mind.
At the grocer's further revelations were in store for her; she
had to wait a moment or two while a country woman was com-
pleting her purchases, dropping the packets one by one into a
capacious basket.
" That's the lot, I think," she observed at length. " Have I
got the candied peel? My word, if ye'd let me go without the
candied peel, my plum pudden 'ud ha' been spoilt, and what would
thechilderha'said?"
" Candied peel. Why, that's eight ! " groaned Polly.
Her thrifty soul rebelled, and for a moment she was half
tempted to dispense with candied peel. But, then, if Jim should
say it was inferior to his mother's pudding? That was a possi-
bility not to be contemplated.
" Have I got them apples? " pursued the customer afore men-
tioned. " The eatin' apples for the childer and the cookin' ones for
the pudden."
"Apples too!" Polly's very soul seemed to cry out as she
1916.] POLLY'S PUDDING 381
breathed the words. But how many ought to be used? Here was
a fresh question.
" Some people think apples spoil the plum pudden," she re-
marked aloud, smiling ingratiatingly at the woman. " I wonder
how many it's safe to put in, now ? "
" Nay, that's a thing as folks must judge for themselves,"
rejoined the woman, thrusting her arm through her basket. " I
don't bother my head much about it. 'Tisn't easy to sp'ile a
Christmas pudden as long as ye put plenty o' stuff in it, and b'ile
it long enough/'
"What's your rule, then, for measuring the stuff?'* asked
Polly. " I'm but a young housekeeper, and I don't want to make
no mistakes."
" Why, ye can't make no mistakes," responded the other.
" Take equal weight of everything, and b'ile it well — that's the
whole secret."
This recipe seemed simplicity itself and Polly watched the
various little packets being made up according to her order with
considerable elation. In due time having freshly scrubbed her
already immaculate table and donned a serviceable apron, she set to
work. The eight little piles, having been duly measured and
weighed, were mixed together, stirred and re-stirred, and set on a
shelf to wait Jim's return.
" He can be stirring it for luck while I'm pouring in the
brandy," she said to herself, and rubbed her hands gleefully.
Really, the making of a Christmas pudding was nothing to
make a fuss about; when all was said and done, it was as easy
as anything. After tea, therefore, the white crock containing the
mixture was triumphantly set before Jim.
" Eh, my word, it smells good," remarked he, grasping the
spoon as if it were a broom-handle. " It looks wonderful rich."
" It looks what it is, then," rejoined Polly gaily. " Eh, I
never could tell ye half what goes in it. I were mixin' and stirrin'
and weighin' and measurin' till I welly thought I should drop."
Though she made light of the task herself, she was not going
to belittle its importance in her husband's eyes.
" Well, well," said Jim. " And fancy ye doin' it straight
off same as that — all out o' your own head, so to speak, for I
suppose your Aunt Maggie didn't reg'lar teach you? "
" Nay," rejoined Polly proudly. " Not reg'larly. Eh, I
reckon I can say this is mostly out o' my head*"
382 POLLY'S PUDDING [Dec.,
" Well, I'll tell ye what it is, lass," said Jim, setting down
the spoon in order to thump the table. " This is a splendid pudden,
and you're a splendid housekeeper."
" Now, then, ha' done wi' your compliments," returned Polly.
" Just you keep on stirrin' while I drop in brandy. See, I've got
some in a little bottle here. They let me have half a gill — I reckon
that'll be enough to make sauce too."
" It didn't look so very much," said Jim, squinting at the bottle
in question. " Eh, yon mak's it smell better nor ever. Coom, I
reckon we'd better have it all in — I likes it to be tasty. We can
get another lot for sauce."
"It makes it a bit sticky-like, doesn't it?" said Polly sur-
veying the lucious-looking compound doubtfully. " I hope we
haven't put too much in."
" Nay, nay, it'll go off in the bilin'," said Jim. " Ye can't
have too much of a good thing."
When Christmas Day arrived, Polly prepared for the great
event of her first party with confidence and jubilation. Her mother-
in-law good-naturedly shared her anticipations, and came across,
herself, at an early hour to see if she could be of any assistance.
Polly, full of peace and good will, thanked her warmly, but as-
sured her that she was all right.
" Well, my dear, if there's any thin' as ye want — a body often
finds theirselves short o' some little thing at the last minute — or
if I can mak' myself o' any use, ye need but to pop around and
tell me," said the elder woman as she turned away. "I'm as
anxious about your little party, Polly, as if it was my own — I
wouldn't like our Jim to be disapp'inted no more nor yourself."
" Well, I don't think he'll be disapp'inted this time," said Polly
joyfully.
At about a quarter to twelve, however, the door of the elder
Mrs. Holt's kitchen was thrown violently open, and Polly rushed
in, scarlet in the face and struggling with her sobs.
" Eh, mother, mother, I don't know whatever's happened to
our pudden, but it won't hold together no way, and I can't so
much as offer to dish it up. It's bewitched, I think; the half of
it seems to have soaked away through the cloth, and the rest of it's
nobbut a sticky mess, as I could never think of settin' before Jim
nor nobry else."
" My dear, that's bad," cried Mrs. Holt, with such sincere
commiseration that Polly's heart was further touched with remorse.
I9i6.] POLLY'S PUDDING 383
" Eh, if I'd only took advantage o' your offer — eh, if I had
but looked in when ye axed me ! "
" Nay, never mind that — ye thought ye knowed," rejoined
Mrs. Holt, still with a deep note of compassion.
" I thought I knowed, and I axed two or three folk ; there,
it was very ill done o' me not to ax you. 'Twas all foolishness and
jealousy. But I done everything that everybody told me. I put
all the things in, sich a many of them — currants and raisins and
apples and ginger."
" Ginger," interrupted Mrs. Holt. " Who told ye to put in
ginger?"
" My aunt," rejoined Polly dismally. "And sugar and suet and
candied peel and trade."
" Goodness ! " ejaculated Mrs. Holt. " And spice and brandy,"
resumed Polly. " I reckon we put a drop too much o' that in, but
Jim was set on it — "
She broke off mournfully, wondering if it would mitigate the
offence in Jim's eyes if she could hold him partly accountable for
the failure.
" And how much flour did ye put in, my dear? " inquired her
mother-in-law.
" Flour," echoed Polly, looking at her with startled eyes.
"Maybe ye used bread crumb," suggested the other; "some
folks thinks it makes a pudden lighter ; but I like flour best mysel'."
Polly dropped into a chair and gazed helplessly into the ma-
tron's face.
" Mother," she exclaimed, almost voicelessly. " I didn't use
either one or t'other."
Mrs. Holt could not resist a chuckle.
" Well, love, I'm not so very much surprised, then, at the
pudden not turnin' out quite right," she remarked, trying to com-
pose her countenance.
" Eh, whatever must I do ? " cried Polly, bursting into fresh
tears. " I'm disgraced ! Jim 'ull never think the same o' me again —
and ye know, mother, he's that proud o' me, and thinks there's
naught I can't do. Eh, I don't know where I'm going to hide my
head! His cousin's comin' and all, and Aunt Maggie — she'll be
ashamed too — it's mich if Jim 'ull speak to her. Eh, I'll be the
laughin' stock o' the place, Christmas Day and all! It'll not be
much o' a Christmas Day either for him or me."
Mrs. Holt, senior, good-natured as she was, was sufficiently
384 POLLY'S PUDDING [Dec.,
human to feel a strong inclination to improve the occasion by such
remarks as " I told you so," or " Pride must have a fall," but
the girl's deep distress, and, moreover, her allusion to Jim, who
was as the apple of the elder woman's eye, enabled her to con-
quer it.
" Coom, all's not lost," she said. " My pudden here is big
enough for two. "We'll cut it in half; ye can pop your share
into a bowl, and carry it off under your apron. It'll set as nice
as anything, while you're at the beef, and ye can stick a bit of
holly on the top and have plenty of blue fire, and nobry 'ull ever
find out the difference. Ye can say it's your pudden if ye like,
my dear, for I'm sure I'll gladly give it to ye."
" Eh, mother ! " gasped Polly, and her arms flew round her
mother-in-law's stout neck.
"Coom, all's well as ends well," rejoined the latter, going
rather red in the face and moist about the eyes; "we'll under-
stand each other a bit better from this out. Eh, my dear, there's
no need for jealousy one side or t'other. We both thinks the world
o' Jim, and wants to make him happy. Coom, dear, dry your eyes ;
your company 'ull be comin' over yon. Let's get pot off fire. Now,
here's the pudden — a monster, isn't it? Tis a good job the chil-
der is all out till dinner time — as it is, nobry need never know
naught about it. Give me yon blue bowl — that's it — you're share
fits in nicely. Now dip off, quick as ye can, and don't forget to
stick a bit o' holly on the top."
Polly with her blue bowl under her apron, sped across the
road, popped the bowl into the top shelf of the oven, and whisked
the saucepan containing her failure off the fire, just as the dignified
form of Aunt Maggie appeared at the gate. " I'll not tell her
neither," she said to herself. " I'm comin' directly, auntie," she
called out. " I'm but runnin' to the end o' the garden to empty
this saucepan."
Jim's spade was sticking upright in the midden, and Polly
breathlessly plied it until all traces of the pudding were effectually
concealed; then, returning to the house with a detached air, she
welcomed the incoming guests.
" 'Pon my word ! " exclaimed Jim, jubilantly, when the last
flickering blue flame burnt itself out on his plate and he swallowed
the first spoonful. " This is summat like a gradely pudden. Tell
ye what — I welly believe its better nor me mother's ! "
THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL GENERAL CONVENTION
IN ST. LOUIS.
BY JAMES THOMAS COFFEY.
-I
HE long heralded, much advertised, very rich, and
wonderfully complex Episcopal assemblage has met,
legislated and departed. All the daily papers gave
the Convention much space and commented most
favorably on its work. The presiding officer of the
House of Bishops, the venerable Bishop Tuttle, declared in his open-
ing address that all was to be peace and harmony, and from all
outward appearances there were no serious disturbances. But as
usual the convention was a boiling caldron of religious differences,
not accidental or disciplinary, but doctrinal. The Catholic or High
Church party striving for a nearer approach to Rome on the
marriage question, worked hard to eliminate the foundation stone
of the Church of England — divorce. In this attempt it met with
complete and summary defeat, as it did a few years ago in the
open-pulpit battle. But the Protestant party offered it a few minor
concessions. They were : a prayer for the dead, a few hymns, and
several insignificant details of ritual. The High Church people
wished the Commandments shortened, the Protestant ending taken
off the Lord's Prayer, more explicit definitions in regard to the
Sacrament of Extreme Unction, the conservation of the host; all
of which may come later, but were stubbornly protested against
now. Much praise was given for the vast sums of money
raised for pensioning their disabled and retired clergy and their
families, and for missionary work at home and abroad. This was
surely an evidence of the claim made boastfully and publicly dur-
ing the Convention, that the Episcopal Church in the United States
is easily the Church of the vogue, supported by and catering to the
exclusive rich. In spite of this, St. Louis papers gave great praise
to the Episcopal Church for its work among the poor and the out-
cast. It is to some extent true that the Episcopalians have not,,
like other Protestant congregations, precipitated their flight from
the congested districts of our large cities, nor have they gone with
bag and baggage. Here and there they may still maintain a down-
town church, but the congregation gathers there in automobiles
from far-distant boulevards and exclusive residence sections.
VOL. CIV. — 25
386 THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION [Dec.,
It may wish to claim the title of Catholic, but it is as far from
reaching the masses of the people as any other Protestant sect.
And yet, during this St. Louis Convention, they tried to disown
their founder — Henry VIII. They produced in the Colosseum a
wonderfully rich and awe-inspiring pageant, going back, in delu-
sion, two thousand years, to get away from Henry, and at the same
time repudiating the Pope of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter.
It is hard, indeed, for any educated, sensible person to keep track
of the ecclesiastical gymnastics of this hybrid religious body;
Protestant in name and origin and profession, it wishes to be
Catholic ; anti-Roman from its inception, it purports to be a branch
of the great Church of the Apostles; without a priesthood and a
sacrifice, it brazenly claims sacerdotal rites and functions, and
maintains barren altars. It has the cross and rejects the image of
the dead Saviour that made the cross the symbol of salvation. It
adopts prayers and hymns recognizing the Real Presence of Jesus
Christ in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and refuses to have
the Sacrament conserved on its altars for the consolation of its
communicants and the comfort of the sick and dying.
Queen Elizabeth swept away every vestige of Catholicism when
she tore down the historic altars of the magnificent English churches,
and, vandal-like, obliterated the treasures of painting and sculpture,
with which the brush and chisel of genius had made beautiful
the Catholic cathedrals and temples of England. Why should
not the followers of Henry VIII. in rebellion be honest with them-
selves and with those outside their ranks? The Lutherans have
never tried to repudiate the renegade Augustinian Monk of Wit-
tenberg. The Calvinists have clung to John Calvin and his terrible
doctrine of predestination; why should the Episcopalians discredit
and disown Henry, the adulterer and wife murderer, who, in 1534,
by act of Parliament, was declared only head of the Church and
clergy in England?
The successor of Henry VIII. is still, according to the law
of England, head of the Episcopal Church, and here is the rub
for the American branch of that denomination. That branch does
not wish a royal head, so it proceeds to disown its erstwhile
founder of unsavory memory. Its more Catholic element would
call their Church the American Catholic Church, and the same
minority party strives to rid its ecclesiastical robes of the immoral
stench of lecherous Hal.
At the Convention in St. Louis they endeavored to appoint a
1916.] THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION 387
commission to correct the American textbooks of history, which
assert Henry VIII. was the founder and first supreme head of
the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Superintendent of Public
Schools of St. Louis immediately declared that this could never be
done; that the facts of history in regard to the institution of
Episcopalianism had been established and would remain. Of
course, it is evident that American Episcopalians have no head
at all; they have cut themselves off from the Mother Church of
England, and taken with them what they pleased, hence they are
thoroughly Protestant, whether they like it or not. Their legisla-
tive body — the Convention, which has just ceased its delibera-
tions— is no better than any other Protestant assemblage of the
same nature. It is heterogeneous, disunited and without authority.
The lay-body of the Convention is extremely Protestant, and prac-
tically nullifies every attempt of the House of Bishops to make
sweeping reforms demanded by the High Church people. Not hav-
ing an authoritative head, and no fixed doctrines or discipline,
every separate bishop and minister follows out his own whims.
So there were bishops in the Convention with peculiar episcopal
robes and bishops without them; bishops with cap and gown and
bishops with ultra Roman accoutrements; bishops with pectoral
cross and staff, and bishops that would sooner wear a hangman's
rope around their neck than ape the Apostolic Church. There were
socialist bishops and parsons, and some who styled themselves
priests. To add diversity, if not gayety, to the assemblage, they
welcomed and made much over representatives of the Eastern
Orthodox Churches. If common sense and reason are to prevail,
there must be a radical split in the Protestant Episcopal Church
of America, or else the imitators of Rome must continue to come
over to the true Fold. How long will they carry on these imita-
tions, continue the vain show, and the equally vain attempt, hoping
to leaven the greater body of adherents who are thoroughly Prot-
estant, and who suffer Catholic teachings and practices in the High
Church section only to keep the recalcitrants there quiet and con-
tented. One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, neither
can the sincere but deluded followers of Henry VIII. make any-
thing out of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but what it has
claimed to be from the beginning — anti-Roman and anti-Catholic.
IRew Boohs.
THE WESTMINSTER VERSION OF THE SACRED SCRIP-
TURES. Edited by Rev. C. Lattey, S.J., and Rev. J. Keating,
S.J.
The New Testament. Vol. I., Part II. The Gospel 'Accord-
ing to St. Mark. By Rev. Joseph Dean, D.D.
The Apocalypse of St. John. Vol. IV., Part III. By Rev.
F. E. Gigot, S.T.D. New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
50 cents each net.
Dr. Dean, Professor of Sacred Scripture at St. Joseph's
Diocesan College, Upholland, has followed the Greek text most
closely in his new translation of St. Mark's Gospel. His confreres
were not so happy in their rendering of the Epistles of St. Paul,
although we admit that their task was a more difficult one.
In a brief introduction the translator discusses the life of St.
Mark, the evidence of his authorship, and the doctrinal, historical
and literary characteristics of his Gospel. The notes on the text
are excellent, although on a number of passages we had hoped for
fuller treatment. In an appendix Father Lattey treats of the
chronology and harmony of the life of Christ.
The Apocalypse, on account of its prophetical character and
its symbolism, is one of the most difficult books of the New Testa-
ment to interpret. Like the prophets of the Old Law, St. John is
concerned with the destinies of the Kingdom of God. " To his
mind, as to theirs, there is a conflict raging between the pure
worship of the true God on the one hand, and heathenism and its
consequent immorality on the other On the one side stand
God's chosen people (Apoc. v. 10) obeying His commands and
helped by His intervention from heaven; and on the other side
are found the nations worshipping false gods whose authority and
power they uphold. St. John, like the prophets of old, beholds
victories and reverses; and, like them, he traces such events to
the will of God, Who grants the one and allows the other. The
final issue of the conflict is never doubtful ; God and His righteous-
ness will ultimately prevail, through the advent of One of the
House of David, Who is both a Redeemer and Judge."
In his introduction, Father Gigot proves by both external and
internal evidence that St. John is the author of the Apocalypse,
1916.] NEW BOOKS 389
and he accepts with St. Jerome the fourteenth year of Domitian's
reign, A. D. 95, as the date of its composition. He divides its con-
tents in seven parts: "The Seven Letters," "The Seven Seals,"
"The Seven Trumpets," "The Seven Signs," "The Seven Vi-
als," " The Destruction of Babylon," and " The Consummation."
The translation is most accurate and readable, and the notes
are the last word of critical scholarship.
THE LITERARY HISTORY OF SPANISH AMERICA. By
Alfred Coester, Ph.D. New York : The Macmillan Co. $2.50.
Any book is welcome that helps to a better appreciation in this
country of Spanish America. We need it badly. One often meets
with the provincial attitude that is inclined to regard as our " in-
feriors " people who happen to differ from us in civilization and in
character. This prejudice has been particularly strong towards our
neighbors of Central and South America, and has led to misunder-
standings of all kinds. For the benefit of those who may not
realize that Spanish America has a literature of its own, Alfred
Coester has written a complete survey of the literary history of
eight South American States, Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Santo
Domingo, and the States of Central America.
Spanish- American literature divides itself into three periods,
the colonial, the revolutionary and the modern. The similar con-
ditions of life during the colonial period and the common aim of
the countries during their revolutionary struggle against Spain gave
a certain similarity to their literary productions. Later, when free-
dom had been won, each country pursued its own course in literature
as in politics; in discussing the modern period Dr. Coester de-
votes a chapter to each nationality and sketches its political history.
There is a very close relation between the political and social
history of the several countries and their poems, essays, dramas and
novels. During the colonial period the prose narratives and the
heroic poems picture the period of discovery and conquest. Later
when the disposition of Spain to exploit her colonies for her own
benefit had become unbearable, there was an abundance of poetry
and prose extolling the revolutionary heroes and the principles of
liberty. The long struggle for political freedom waged by Cuba
has produced what has been sometimes called a " revolutionary "
type of literature, and de Heredia, probably the greatest poet of
Spanish America and a native Cuban, stirred up his countrymen by
his wonderful verse to resist oppression.
Mexican literature presents great variety of form, and has
390 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
shown an activity of production due to the inheritance of culture
which stood on a high plane during the colonial period. Its liter-
ature reflects the supremacy of the one or the other of the two
continually clashing classes, property owners and peons.
Spanish-American literature has no masterpieces, but it is a
vast, interesting body of work, original in its subject matter, in
its vivid description of natural scenery, and in the bright pic-
tures of its characteristic socal life.
Dr. Coester essayed an extensive task, and would have done
better had he chosen a few of the better authors and devoted more
space to them. As it is, the reader is apt to be bewildered by the
endless succession of names. The work will be found a valuable
handbook by anyone wishing an introduction to Spanish-American
authors. Dr. Coester thinks that these writers will be likely, as in
the past, to follow the changes in form of European literature
while supplying the subject matter from their own environment.
Their form of culture will be predominantly Latin in type; and
thus they are predestined to be the standard bearers in the New
World of the classic ideals of beauty and literary form.
THE FOUNDING OF SPANISH CALIFORNIA. By Charles Ed-
ward Chapman, Ph.D. New York : The Macmillan Co. $3.50.
This book by Dr. Charles Chapman, Professor of History in
the University of California, is an interesting and valuable contri-
bution to United States history. Much of the material employed
by the author was found by him in the Archivo General de Indias
in Seville, Spain, and is here published for the first time.
His object is to trace the influences that were at work prior
to the nineteenth century, whose tendency was to preserve Alta
(American) California for ultimate acquisition by the United
States. The period chosen for intensive study are the years 1687-
1783, which Dr. Chapman regards as a peculiarly significant time,
because it was then that the Spanish settlements in California were
made permanent by the establishment of an overland route to Cali-
fornia from Sonora, Mexico, by which supplies could be carried to
the colonists, and by the great Anza expedition which culminated
in the founding of San Francisco in 1776.
Until the eighteenth century, the Pacific Ocean had been a
Spanish lake, traversed only by the Manila galleons that plied be-
tween the Philippines and Mexico; but in the eighteenth century
other European nations were attracted by the possibilities of com-
mercial expansion in the Pacific, and began slowly to encroach on
I9i6.] NEW BOOKS 391
the Spanish domain. Russia was working her way from Alaska
down the northern Pacific coast of America; in 1740 an English
squadron broke into the Pacific Ocean and captured one of the
galleons. Spain became highly alarmed, and felt that she must
make a great effort to protect her holdings in California. The re-
sult was her establishment of an overland route from Mexico,
which lasted until 1781, when the Yuma Indians' massacre of
Spanish colonists caused the route to be abandoned. Had it been
permanent, California would in time have been very much more
thickly settled by the Spaniards at the time of the coming of the
Americans, whose task would have been made exceedingly difficult.
The expedition of Anza resulting in the founding of San
Francisco, was the climax of a long series of attempts at the north-
west expansion of New Spain. The details of the great march are
very interesting ; Anza is a hero heretofore little exploited ; he was
a typical frontiersman, and well fitted to lead the work that re-
sulted in Alta California being held safe for Spain.
The history of California would have been very different had
there been no firmly established Spanish civilization there, and
had England or Russia been the first to found permanent settle-
ments. These nations were rising powers at that time; they had
the means to build up formidable colonies, and would have clung
tenaciously to them, whereas preserved as California was for Spain,
a weak nation, it came easily through the hands of Mexico, a still
weaker power, into the possession of the United States.
Because of the fact that the Spanish settlements were made
along the coast, the vast mineral wealth which lay back in the
mountains was untouched until the coming of the Americans.
The Spanish diplomacy in the reign of Charles III. (1759-
1788) is treated in one of the chapters with a discussion of its
effect on the New World. On the whole, the book is well worth
while to anyone who wishes to gain from the original historical
documents a better knowledge of the Spanish traditions of Cali-
fornia, and the steps which were responsible for the later acquisi-
tion by the United States of her Pacific seacoast.
TRAMPING THROUGH MEXICO, GUATEMALA AND HON-
DURAS. By H. A. Franck. New York: The Century Co. $2.00.
The writer of these travelogues goes tramping through the
above-named countries with such a prejudiced mind that his book
is useless to the American who desires to obtain a true insight into
392 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
the lives of our Latin neighbors. Occasionally we come across a
good description of the beauties of Mexican mountain scenery, but
the writer spoils nearly every chapter by his vulgarity, his news-
paper English, and his idle repetition of unimportant happenings.
He sees red every time he mentions a Catholic priest or a Catholic
Church. He unfairly and impudently calls Catholicism a pseudo-
religion, and on page after page speaks of its wily, avaricious and
immoral priests, its fanatical and gullible people, its superstitions,
its idolatry, its selling of confessions and Masses, and the like. We
do not wonder that he found the well-to-do Mexicans churlish and
impolite, for he was utterly inimical to all that they held dear.
JULIUS LE VALLON. By Algernon Blackwood. New York:
E. P. Button & Co. $1.50 net.
A specific importance attaches to the publication of a new
work by Mr. Blackwood, from the fact that his vogue is wide and
steadily increasing, and that to a considerable number of his
readers his writings are not fiction, but gospel; interpretations in
story form of truths of mysticism and occultism. The hunger that
feeds upon the material he provides is perhaps not entirely compre-
hensible to Catholics, who have never been deprived of their birth-
right of mysticism, but it obtains with growing intensity among
those who, contemptuous of faith in revelation, grope for sustenance
in the ashes of materialistic philosophy. It is, unfortunately, not
to be doubted that to many such readers, Julius Le Vallon will ap-
pear a message of illumination and guidance.
The book is, in point of fact, a will-o'-the-wisp, superficial
yet dangerous. It is the story of the reincarnation in our times
of three " old souls," two men and a woman, who are discovered
to each other through the mystic memory of the principal, Julius
Le Vallon. At a period inconceivably remote, and upon another
planet, they have been associated in an existence immeasurably
grander than anything known upon the earth; and there, under
the leadership of Julius, they have participated in an ambitious sin
against the cosmic forces of Fire and Wind. Their crime has dis-
turbed the balance, which must be restored; this they owe to the
Universe — which Mr. Blackwood always mentions with a capital.
The expiation, however, can be made only under the conditions that
are now reached, when their reincarnations have at last coincided,
and they are reunited.
The tale of their vicissitudes need not be rehearsed; the chief
1916.] NEW BOOKS 393
objection to the book is not the story, preposterous as this is, but
the religious philosophy as expressed by Julius Le Vallon. " He
was unfettered by any little dogmas of man-made creeds, but obeyed
literally the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, which he knew
by heart His belief included certainly God and the gods, Na-
ture and Christ, temples of stone and hills and woods and that
temple of the heart which is the Universe itself. True worship,
however, was with Nature." It is this last clause that is stressed
throughout. The variations are many, the refrain the same: man's
instinct is not for the unknown, but the forgotten ; for the grandeur
that once was his and that lurks far back in the dim vistas of his
memory. To restore his fellowship with the cosmic forces he must
worship Nature by " feeling-with " all things and elements, since it
is by feeling, not thinking, that truth is perceived. This, in brief,
is the treasure of wisdom that " Julius Le Vallon " produces from
his memory of that marvelous past.
Mr. Blackwood's sense of the picturesque, his feeling for
color, and his extraordinary vocabulary complement each other,
directed by his fine literary art, in presenting this doctrine with
endless repetition, but with great variety of form and expression.
The effect is almost hypnotic : nevertheless, in the minds of readers
less susceptible to the spell of language there must arise questions
concerning the relation of these ideas to the individual mind and
conscience, that some working hypothesis might be possible. These
Mr. Blackood anticipates and eludes. He speaks only through John
Mason, one of the trio, a soul less exalted than Julius, with a
memory more fitful and sluggish. These hiatuses are, at times,
failures of his memory; at others, they are caused by an uncon-
querable reluctance to interrogate Julius, fearing a response too
tremendous to be endured. In view of these evasions, as well as
the delirious finale of the novel, it is difficult to credit the author
with that sincerity of intention without which such a book is some-
thing more serious than a mistake.
This rechauffe of theosophy, occultism, pantheism and poly-
theism has an appeal to the popular mind which cherishes the con-
viction that it is broad to worship nature, narrow to worship the
Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and belittling to seek the
means of grace extended by the Church, with her humbling and
exacting discipline. To have contributed with effectiveness to the
causes that make for vague, fruitless emotionalism, confusion and
ultimate failure is Mr. Blackwood's unenviable responsibility.
394 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
THE HEART OF RACHAEL. By Kathleen Norris. Garden City,
New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.35 net
No addition to the prestige of the author will result from this
novel, which has the radical defect of evasiveness in handling a
subject of vital importance. It tells the story of Rachael Brecken-
ridge, who obtains a divorce from an indifferent and intemperate
husband, there being no children to complicate the question. Later,
she marries an old friend, Dr. Warren Gregory. She has lived
happily with him for several years and is the mother of two sons,
when his temporary infatuation for a young actress brings disaster.
Rachael separates from him, with her children; but she refuses
her rival's pleadings that she divorce him, for she has learned,
she says, that " divorce is wrong." An accident to one of the chil-
dren and the saving of his life by his father's skill and devotion
reunite the parents, and the " happy ending " once more triumphs,
to the destruction of all force that the book might have had. As
none of Rachael's troubles as Gregory's wife has any relation to
her divorce, there is no argument against this great evil, even from
the secular point of view. The religious side is not touched on,
though, for some unaccountable reason, Mrs. Norris has recorded
the unregarded disapprobation of Gregory's Catholic mother. She
also puts into Rachael's mouth words of regret and misgiving in
regard to the suicide of her former husband, which she cannot
wholly dissociate from her own act; yet this apparently casts no
cloud upon the shining future indicated when the book reaches
its end.
From every standpoint the novel is unsatisfying. The lack of
genuine purpose is reflected in the artificiality of the execution : in-
terest wanes as the story progresses. The book is not negligible,
however, for a colorless position toward a problem so menacing
is in itself an injury.
THE PLEASANT WAYS OF ST. MEDARD. By Grace King.
New York: Henry Holt & Co. $1.40 net.
In this charming volume Grace King gives her readers a per-
fect picture of Louisiana in the late sixties. The interest centres
around the family of a New Orleans lawyer which has been re-
duced to the utmost poverty by the Civil War. The book is in
no sense a love story, but an interesting series of character sketches
drawn to remind Northerners of the charm of the old South. In-
cidentally the writer discusses the unsolved negro problem, and
igi6.] NEW BOOKS 395
pictures vividly the South's hatred of the Northern politician and
carpet-bagger. The story might have been greatly improved had
Miss King been fairer in her estimate of the nuns and priests who
figure in her pages. They all seem over-anxious about money, but
according to one of her characters that seems characteristic of the
Church. As she puts it : " The Church is mighty polite to the men
who have money to give, and has mighty little use for the other
kind of men."
THE ROMANCE OF A CHRISTMAS CARD. By Kate Douglas
Wiggin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.00 net.
For the lover of the old-fashioned New England Christmas
story, no more appealing tale than this latest book by Mrs. Wiggin
could be found. The New Hampshire village with its snow-covered
roads and straight-backed meeting-house, the minister and his wife
and wayward son, the various members of the flock with their sym-
pathy and narrow-mindedness, their problems and their prejudices
are all drawn with a sure hand and a fidelity to type that makes
the mention of the locality almost superfluous.
The minister's wife, with a talent for painting and verse mak-
ing, designs two Christmas cards picturing a well-known house in
the community. These are published in large numbers, and find
their way to two straying sheep from the village fold who hear,
through the message in the words and the little scenes on the cards,
the compelling voice of home. The meeting of the scrapegrace
brother and his devoted sister, whose warm welcome seems far in
excess of his deserts, and of the headstrong son and his old father,
the minister, are charmingly told.
The Christmas spirit that pervades the book is that of home
and family ties and human sympathies, rather than of the super-
natural, which is but lightly touched upon. There are several illus-
trations in water-color and line which add to the attractiveness of
the volume.
OLD GLORY. By Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews. New York :
Charles Scribner's Sons. 50 cents net.
In these days of conflicting opinions, of holding forth on pre-
paredness and peace-at-any-price, this little volume, bristling with
patriotism, is very opportune. The three short stories all have to
do with the glorification of the Stars and Stripes: first by an
American who thinks he wants to be an Englishman and discovers
396 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
his mistake ; then by an Italian whose devotion to his " boss " leads
him to devotion to his adopted country, and lastly by an English-
born American boy whose life is saved by American soldiers.
All of the stories, and especially the first one, are full of dra-
matic situations, and all told in the rapid, graphic style characteristic
of their author. An excellent little gift to send to absent guardsmen
on the Mexican border.
GORSE BLOSSOMS FROM DARTMOOR. By Beatrice Chase.
New York: Longmans, Green & Co. 35 cents net.
The spirit of the moor — with its mist, its tors, its clouds,
its sunrises, its sunsets — breathes in these fifty delightful lyrics.
With what deftness of touch does the poet sing of a " white sun-
set:"
The sun has wed with the moor and shed
On her brow her silver rays,
And the tors, they swim on the hills' pale rim
In a sea of opal haze.
When white day dies in the placid skies
The wind will her wings unfurl,
And the round white moon she will glitter soon
In a sky of mother of pearl.
Most of the verses of this little volume are devotional, the
chief themes being God's love for us and His mercy to repentant
sinners.
WITH THE ZIONISTS IN GALLIPOLI. By Lieut.-Col. J. H.
Patterson. New York : George H. Doran Co. $2.00 net.
In March, 1915, Colonel Patterson was put in command of a
number of Russian Jewish refugees, recruited in Egypt for service
in the Gallipoli campaign. He gathered together five hundred
officers and men, and thus formed the much-talked-of Zion Mule
Corps, the first Jewish military unit since the days of Judas Mac-
cabseus. His book describes most graphically their seven months'
service in carrying water, food and ammunition to the trenches in
Gallipoli. As an expert in military matters, with long years of ex-
perience in India and South Africa, he criticizes very adversely the
Dardanelles campaign, which he considers the greatest failure ever
sustained by British arms. He maintains that the whole army
should have landed at Anzac, instead of dividing its forces and at-
tacking six practically impregnable positions in the toe of the Penin-
1916.] NEW BOOKS 397
sula. But as he himself remarks : " It is easy to be wise after the
event."
On page after page Colonel Patterson speaks of the excessive
red tape that hindered efficiency, the stupid mismanagement in the
transport and medical services, and the glaring instances of jobbery
and favoritism which led to the appointment of incompetent Staff
officers. He tells the following story to illustrate how well the
enemy knew their incompetency : " It had been noted with some sur-
prise that, though the Turkish sniper exacted his toll from all other
ranks, the Staff appeared to be immune. At last the mystery was
solved when one of these sharpshooters was captured, for on being
asked how it was that the Staff always escaped, he replied: 'Oh,
well, you see, I get five shillings for every private I shoot, ten
shillings for every sergeant, a pound for every officer; but if I
were to shoot a Staff officer I would be shot myself !' '
/
THE LEATHERWOOD GOD. By William Dean Howells. New
York: The Century Co. $1.35 net.
The Leatherwood God is the story of a religious imposter
named Dylks, who appeared in a little backwoods town of Ohio
about 1830, claiming to be God. Mr. Howells informs us that he
heard about this remarkable personage from his own father, and
that for many years he has had the idea of writing a novel on the
fanatical emotionalism of those ignorant pioneer days.
Mr. Howells describes the excesses of the old-fashioned Prot-
estant campmeeting in most dramatic fashion, and relates the
rise and fall of this sordid imposter in most vivid and telling
language. We consider the theme unworthy of his pen, although
it illustrates well the power men like Alexander Dowie, or women
like Mrs. Baker Eddy, possessed to delude the ignorant multitudes.
THE TUTOR'S STORY. By Charles Kingsley. New York : Dodd,
Mead & Co. $1.35 net.
After many decades, a posthumous novel by the late Rev.
Charles Kingsley has just been published. His daughter, Mrs. Mary
Harrison, who writes under the name of Lucas Mallet, found the
uncompleted novel in a very sketchy condition among her father's
notebooks. She has developed the characters and disentangled the
plot; the style must also be hers, for although the scene is laid
in the early thirties, the atmosphere is the breezy, modern one of
today.
398 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
The novel, a bright, interesting tale of adventure, is not re-
markable in any way, but will afford a pleasant evening's entertain-
ment. It deals autobiographically with the experiences of a Cam-
bridge scholar who becomes the tutor of a young nobleman, the
heir to a great estate and the object of many jealousies and in-
trigues. The tutor's devotion to his headstrong, yet attractive
pupil, involves him in a world of excitement from which at length
he is glad to retire to lead the comfortable life of a Church of Eng-
land clergyman.
Even in this harmless novel Mr. Kingsley must go out of his
way to call the Tractarian Party at Oxford in the early forties an
"outbreak of fanaticism."
THE WONDERFUL YEAR. By William J. Locke. New York:
John Lane Co. $1.40 net.
In his latest novel, Mr. Locke relates the wanderings of a
young Englishman who had for years taught French in an obscure
Tboarding school. He goes to Paris for a short vacation, travels
through France on a bicycle with an unconventional young woman
friend whom he had met in the Quartier Latin, and finally becomes
a waiter in a little provincial inn. Eventually he becomes more
French than the French themselves, enlists in the French army, and
returns home wounded to marry the inn-keeper's daughter.
All the characters of this tale fight shy of the conventions
of polite society, and are governed solely by emotion, fancy and
impulse. The unbelieving French Catholic is put forward as a
type of all that is good and noble, while the only practical Catholic
that figures in these pages is a cruel, heartless, unforgiving Pharisee.
LOVE AND LUCY. By Maurice Hewlett. New York: Dodd,
Mead & Co. $1.35 net.
Love and Lucy pictures the home life of a cold, undemon-
strative and formal English lawyer. His wife, Lucy, is an emo-
tional creature, hungry for affection, and winning, despite her-
self, the love of one of her husband's friends. He is a self-made
millionaire scoundrel who determines to break up the McCartney
home. But he merely succeeds in arousing the husband's jealousy,
and thereby increases tenfold the love of husband and wife.
Throughout this story sentimentalism runs riot, and the un-
Christian doctrine of the end justifying the means seems to merit
hearty approval. Lucy, the loyal wife, is much too kindly in her
farewell to the blackguard Urquhart.
1916.] NEW BOOKS 399
THE BIRD HOUSE MAN. By Walter Prichard Eaton. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.35 net.
Alec Farnum, the hero of this delightful tale, is a kindly New
Englander who writes about birds and makes bird houses, and in-
cidentally is a most determined matchmaker. His one' purpose in
life is to make other people happy. With infinite tact he wins the
confidence of every man and woman of the little town of South-
mead, brings about a number of happy marriages, reconciles dis-
contented husbands and wives, and gives peace and joy to the
hearts of disconsolate maiden ladies. We are all pleased when at
the end he himself marries the girl of his choice.
JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES OF THE WONDER OF
WORK. Reproductions of a series of drawings, etchings,
lithographs made by him about the world, 1881-1915, with
impressions and notes by the artist. Philadelphia : J. B. Lip-
pincott Co. $2.00 net.
In his preface the well-known American artist, Joseph Pennell,
tells us that he has done his best to give Americans a graphic
record of what the industrial world is doing, or, as he puts it, " to
tell of the wonder of work as I see it in New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, the coal mines of my native State, in Europe and in
Panama."
The fifty-two illustrations in this volume image forth the
beauty that Mr. Pennell sees in the building of a New York sky-
scraper, the ore wharves of Duluth, the flour mills of Minneapolis,
the copper mines of Butte, the shipping of Genoa, the mills of
Valenciennes, and the Krupp works of Essen.
The spirit which animates Mr. Pennell may be seen from
the following description of New York City taken from a lecture
he delivered before the Royal Society of Arts in London. He
writes : " New York, as the incoming foreigner and the returning
American see it or might see it, rises a vision, a mirage of the
lower bay, the color by day more shimmering than Venice, by
night more magical than London. In the morning the mountains
of buildings hide themselves, to reveal themselves in the rosy steam
clouds that chase one another across their flank ; when evening fades
they are mighty cliffs glimmering with glistening lights in the magic
and mystery of the night. As the steamer moves up the bay on
the left the Great Goddess greets you, a composition in color and
400 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
form, with the city beyond, finer than any in any world that ever
existed, finer than Claude ever imagined, or Turner ever dreamed."
SOCIETY AND PRISONS. By Thomas Mott Osborne. New
Haven: Yale University Press. $1.35 net.
Mr. Osborne delivered the lectures of the present volume on
Society and Prisons, or Some Suggestions for a New Penology ,
at Yale a year ago under the terms of the William Earl Dodge lec-
tureship. No one can deny that the lecturer held his hearers from
the beginning to the end of these entertaining talks. He has much
to tell us about the injustice of the police, the trickery of District
Attorneys, the defects of the courts, the cruelty of our prisons,
which, as he says, " often deprive a convict of his working capacity,
his sanity and his faith in God."
He describes his own experiences as a voluntary convict in
the roughest gang of Auburn Prison, and pictures in glowing terms
the success of the Mutual Welfare League which he established
at Auburn. He denounces strongly the evils of the old system
on the following counts : it insisted too much on long hours of
confinement in small unhealthy cells; it fostered unnatural vice;
its labor system was ill-organized and inefficient ; it enforced silence
to an excess ; it allowed no break in the terrible monotony of cell-
block, buckets, meals, and work ; it fostered constant espionage and
created a number of despicable " stool-pigeons; " it resulted in bru-
tality on the part of the guards and despair on the part of the
prisoners.
Mr. Osborne failed because in his revolt against the real evils
of our prison system, he went to the other extreme of treating the
criminals with too much kindness. He is wrong in holding that
" the only purpose of the prison that will stand the test of intelli-
gent examination and analysis is that of reformation." Criminals
must be deterred from further wrongdoing, and they must be
punished adequately for their defiance of the law.
THE SUNDAY MISSAL. Compiled by Rev. F. X. Lasance. New
York : Benziger Brothers. 75 cents to $4.50.
We recommend the Sunday Missal as a good prayer-book
for the laity. Although the print is excessively small, it is
well arranged, and contains not only the Masses for Sundays
and holidays, but most of the prayers found in the ordinary prayer-
book.
1916.] NEW BOOKS 401
CONCILIUM TRIDENTINUM: DIARIORUM, ACTORUM, EPIS-
TULARUM TRACTATUUM NOVA COLLECTIO. Edidit
Societas Goerresiana. Tomus Secundus. Diariorum Pars
Secunda. St. Louis: B. Herder. $21.00 net.
(The Council of Trent: A New Collection of Its Diaries,
Acts, Epistles and Treatises. Edited by the Goerres Society.
Volume II. (St. Louis: B. Herder. $2.00 net.)
The Goerres Society, which purposes to publish all the original
documents relating to the Council of Trent, well deserves the com-
mendation of Popes Leo XIII. and Pius X. for its indefatigable
industry and its careful scholarship. Its scholars have been for
many years visiting the private and public libraries of Europe in
order to edit and compare every manuscript that will help the his-
torian to form a perfect estimate of the Council of Trent. Their
work, when completed in the thirteen promised quartos of some
thousand pages each, will correct for all time the unreliable History
of the Council of Trent by the apostate Servite, Era Paola Sarpi,
and the partial polemical treatise published to refute it by the Jesuit
Cardinal, Sforza Pallavicino.
The present volume is the result of six years' incessant labor.
The ten documents here printed have been carefully edited from
manuscripts to be found in the libraries of Paris, Nantes, Rheims,
Verdun, Saint-Mihiel, Naples, Milan, Rome, Salamanca, Trent,
Munich, Stuttgart, Wirzburg and Vienna. They comprise the
fifth, sixth and seventh diaries of Angelo Massarelli, Secretary of
the Council; the Epilogus of the Acts of the Sacred and (Ecu-
menical Synod of Trent, by Laurent de la Pree, Canon of Tournay ;
The Commentaries of the Council of Trent, by Cardinal Girolamo
Seripando ; The Diaries of Luigi Firmano, a paper master of cere-
monies at the Council; The Election of Pius IV., by the Augus-
tinian, Onofrio Panvinio; the account of the death of Paul IV. and
the conclave and election of Pius IV., by Antonio Guido of Mantua
(Medole?) ; The History of the Council of Trent, by Pedro Gon-
zalez de Mendoza, Bishop of Salamanca, and the diary of Nicole
Psaume, Bishop of Verdun.
Massarelli's fifth diary (November 6,1549-February 8, 1550)
treats in detail of the conclave which elected Julius III. It opens
with a brief account of the last illness, death and burial of Paul
III. (Alessandro Farnese) and a brief estimate of his character.
The conclave lasted eighty-two days, and resulted in the election of
Cardinal de Monte on the sixty-first ballot.
VOL. civ. — 26
402 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
The sixth diary (February 9, 15 50- September 8, 1551), treats
of the first year and a half of the pontificate of Julius III. The
eleventh and twelfth sessions of the Council held on May ist and
September ist were unimportant.
The seventh diary (February 12, 1555-November 30, 1561)
is chiefly valuable for its contemporary portraits of Marcellus II.,
Paul IV. and Pius IV., and its record of the chief happenings of
their pontificates.
Laurent de la Pree, Canon of Tournay, gives a brief
account in thirty pages of the first eight sessions of the Council.
His diary is valuable from the fact that it is the only source we
possess written from the imperial standpoint. He does not touch
the questions discussed by the theologians or canonists, but writes
of the supposed motives that governed the bishops in their debates,
and the politics that guided the different factions. He is fulsome
in his praise of the Emperor Charles V., whom he defends on
every occasion. He never seems to grasp the absurdity of the Em-
peror's continued interference in theological matters after the man-
ner of the old Byzantine emperors, or his usurpation of the Papal
authority in attempting to settle the doctrinal differences between
Catholics and Protestants on his own authority. He Unjustly
accuses the legates of cunning and deceit, because they were ever
strenuous defenders of the Papacy. His style is so full of bitterness
and prejudice that the editor compares him with Hippolytus and
Tertullian, while declaring he is not consciously dishonest.
The Commentaries of Cardinal Seripando, General of the Au-
gustinian Hermits, cover the period between December 1 1, 1545, and
June 4, 1562. He was one of the most learned theologians of the
day, and one of the best pulpit orators and Scriptural scholars of
Italy. He was one of the legates during the last sessions of the
Council, under Pius IV., and took a foremost part in the discussions
on Justification. His theory of imputed justice was considered by
ten conferences of theologians, from October 15-26, 1546, and con-
demned by thirty-two votes to five.
The other documents are of minor importance. The diary of
Luigi Firmano (May 19, 1 584-December, 1563) gives a detailed
account of the ceremonies incident to the conclaves of Julius III.
and Marcellus II., and the Council during the years 1560-1563.
Onofrio Panvinio of Verona treats of the conclave which elected
Pius IV. Antonio Guido treats of the same conclave, but adds
little or nothing to our knowledge of the times. The Bishop of
1916.] NEW BOOKS 403
Salamanca's history of Trent (January, 1 562-December 4, 1^63) —
the only Spanish document — is not really a diary, because it was
written some time after the facts it records. It deals with the
preparatory work of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and
twentieth sessions, and with the concluding sessions which pub-
lished decrees on Communion under both kinds, the Mass, Holy
Orders, Marriage, Purgatory, Veneration of the Saints, Images
and Relics, and Indulgences. The last document of the volume by
Nicole Psaume,.Prsemonstratensian, Bishop of Verdun, is the only
document of the present volume which gives in full the speeches of
the prelates at the closing sessions of the Council (twenty-third to
twenty-fifth).
Space prevents us from saying more about the contents of
these most interesting documents. They will prove a great store-
house of material for the future historian, and will make every
Catholic realize the workings of the Holy Spirit in bringing to a
successful conclusion the great Council which forever declared the
true teaching of the Catholic Church against the errors of Protest-
antism, and started the great movement of the true counter reform-
ation.
PRIESTS ON THE FIRING LINE. By Rene Gaell. New York :
Longmans, Green & Co. $1.20.
Today more than twenty thousand French priests are tending
the wounded on the bloody fields of France. Shoulder to shoulder
they have taken their places in the front ranks, helping, cheering,
and suffering with their fellows. When the terrible shock of battle
comes no supporting exhilaration, no new power born of nervous
tension that the spirit of killing gives is theirs to help them bear
up under the fearful strain. They are there to help the wounded,
to shrive the dying, and to bury the dead. No words of human
history can ever tell adequately the story of these men.
When the call to arms came, the priests of France laid aside
all other considerations and took their places under their country's
flag. One of them was not to go to the front. With a heart of
regret he heard his assignment to a hospital far in the rear. His
friend, the Abbe Duroy, received the welcomed command to serve
in the first lines. As the two parted he said : " I have an idea, old
friend. I'll write to you from 'la-bas' as often as I can
and from the impressions you get joined to mine, I'm sure vou'll
be able to write some touching pages."
404 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
Thus it was that the Abbe Gaell came to write this little volume
that so touches the heart as no other war book has done. Sweet
with the sanctity of holy men, it has about it an odor of blessedness
and bravery and nobility that reaches deep down into the spirit.
When one reads, it calls forth a tear, a smile, a prayer — a hope
for strength to emulate. It seems incredible that such pain and
misery could exist, that men could.be so noble in the face of death.
The Abbe Gaell saw life, when life is shorn of its trappings, and
he has given it to the reader in terms of such vividness as to move
the soul to the depths of pity.
The sad tale of suffering witnessed in the hospitals of France
is intensely pathetic in its detail. It is surpassed only by the inspir-
ing story of the work being done by the priest at the front. Words
of praise are so futile in the face of the beautiful facts of heroic
self-sacrifice. Read of the death of the Abbe Duroy and you will
see the futility of a reviewer's words of praise. "As you think of it
all, in its greater meaning, words of praise seem harsh and profane."
TOWARD AN ENDURING PEACE. A Symposium of Peace Pro-
posals and Programmes. Compiled by Randolph S. Bourne.
New York: American Association for International Concilia-
tion.
What means have been suggested and what constructive meas-
ures have been put forward to bring about a lasting peace between
nations, the student of international conciliation will find fully dis-
cussed in this compilation published and gratuitously distributed by
the American Association for International Conciliation. The vol-
ume, the editors tell us, " is intended primarily for libraries and
for the shelves of men and women seriously interested in inter-
national affairs." It is worthy of this purpose, for it presents
thoroughly the best thought of the radical peace writers and
workers, and gives a comprehensive view of their .aims and means.
In addition to articles from writers, such as Charles W. Eliot,
Norman Angell, Rudolph Euchen, John A. Hobson and A. Laur-
ence Lowell, the book contains the various peace proposals and
programmes published during the past two years in Europe and the
United States.
This work is rich in thought and idealistic in trend. No per-
son interested in international comity can afford to slight its pages,
so complete are they in the presentment of the many proposals to
insure a world peace. But while the thinker will appreciate, he
1916.] NEW BOOKS 405
cannot always commend. Invariably the plan set forth is for the
formation of leagues or societies to enforce peace — a method in-
herently defective. The secret of peace lies not from without but
within the individual, and it is to be seriously doubted if mere
sociological efforts can move men to lay aside the baser but closer
appeals of self -advancement and national interests for the nobler
but more abstract ideals of international brotherhood. It is most
lamentable to see how religion, as an efficient agency for peace, has
been forgotten or deliberately put aside by modern thinkers. By
their silence they are denying the one thing necessary. The Hague
Conference excluded the successor of the Prince of Peace; no
world-wide peace movement will be successful unless it recognize
him.
MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH. By H. G. Wells. New
York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50 net.
The world war, with its awful consequences of suffering and
death, cannot, at this time, be a suitable theme for a novel of our
present-day fiction type. Mr. Wells has given us the only kind of
war novel possible at this time. The world is different since the
war began, especially are the people of the belligerent countries
different because of the war. This Mr. Wells has taken as his
central idea, and in the high lights of the struggle he shows us
a wonderful study of character change and character development.
There is little or no emphasis on the plot in the story of Mr.
Britling. There is no real need of such, for the war provides suf-
ficient action. It is rather in the effect of these events on the
character of individuals that Mr. Wells is interested, and he shows
remarkable insight in his studies.
Mr. Britling is a writer who has secured a place in the world
of literature, and looks out upon the world from his typical Eng-
lish home. Mr. Britling and his family represent a cross section
of the middle class of England, and their lives are the lives of the
ordinary Englishman before the war. They play badminton, write,
read, think, all in terms of the secure and protected. Then comes
the catastrophe they had been speaking and writing of for years,
and it finds all unprepared both materially and spiritually. The
reaction is strong, especially upon the character of Mr. Britling,
who attains a newer and wider consciousness, and rises to greater
powers.
Mr, Wells has written much that absorbs. None, however, of
406 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
his other novels shows the strength of Mr. Britling Sees It Through.
It is trenchant and powerful, not merely in the mechanics of fiction,
for it is more than fiction, but in the depths he probes in character-
analysis. It is clear-visioned, purposeful but, above all, strong.
DEFOE: HO WTO KNOW HIM. By William P. Trent. Indian-
apolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. $1.25 net.
This entertaining volume gives a brief sketch of the life and
writing of Defoe. The author rightly calls him " the real father
of the English novel in the sense that he was the first Englishman
to write a truly readable, widely circulated, and permanently valu-
able prose story dealing with secular human life."
All his life long he was a writer of controversial political
pamphlets, selling his pen to the highest bidder without the slightest
scruple. He edited a newspaper, The Review, for nine years, and
although cultivated readers of the early eighteenth century affected
to despise him, he was in range of information and intellectual
ability without a rival among the editors of the period.
Defoe will always be remembered for his Robinson Crusoe,
which has given untold pleasure to children of every nation for the
past two hundred years. No one today reads his Whig or Tory
pamphlets, his coarse Moll of Flanders, or his dull New Voyage
Around the World,
The book before us is especially valuable, because at the end of
every chapter it presents scores of selections from Defoe's various
writings. They give the student a very good notion of the immense
activity and the great versatility of this indefatigable writer.
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. By Rev. A. B.
Davidson, D.D. Revised by Rev. A. W. Streane, D.D. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.10.
Dr. Davidson published his edition of the Book of Ezekiel
for the Cambridge Bible for schools and colleges in 1892. Dr.
Streane, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, revised this
work just before his death in 1915. He adapted the commentary
to the Revised Version, and introduced in the notes many changes
in detail.
This learned commentary contains much of interest and value
to the Bible student, but \ve must warn Catholic readers against
this volume's continual denial of the supernatural. The idea of a
Prophet being inspired is totally ignored, and Ezekiel with the
I9i6.] NEW BOOKS 407
other Prophets is spoken of as a man who writes either in an
exalted frame of mind or in a trance. To quote the author's
words : " It is probable that the prophet was subject to trances,
for the vision is but a higher form of the mental condition which
clothes its thought in symbols, and this symbolism is characteristic
of the whole book."
THE HISTORY OF ST. NORBERT. By Rev. C. J. Kirkfleet, Ord.
Prsem. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.80 net.
Father Kirkfleet has written an excellent life of the founder
of the Praemonstratensians, St. Norbert. Strangely enough this
Saint is little known among English-speaking peoples, although at
one time there were no less than sixty-seven abbeys of the Nor-
bertine or White Canons in England, Scotland and Ireland. Indeed
this is the first complete biography that has appeared in English,
although over thirty lives of the Saint have been written since 1 599.
Father Kirkfleet's volume is interesting from the first page
to the last. He describes St. Norbert's life at the University of
Cologne, and at the Court of the Emperor Henry; his miraculous
conversion, his poverty and penance, his founding of the Praemon-
stratensians, his zeal in combating heresy, his efforts at reform,
his many miracles, his foundations, his rule, his activity as Arch-
bishop of Magdeburg, his relations with King Lothaire and Pope
Innocent II., and his literary labors.
ARCHEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. By George A. Barton, Ph.D.
Philadelphia: American Sunday-school Union. $2.00 net.
One of the minor evils of the Great War is the set-back given
to archaeological exploration in the Near East, just at a time when
much important work was on the point of being accomplished.
This is an evil, however, which the world bears with sufficient
equanimity; and archaeologists may compensate for it, to some
extent, by taking stock of the gains already made. We are for-
tunate in having this work done for us, in the volume before us,
by a scholar of wide and solid acquirements. Professor George
A. Barton of Bryn Mawr is a Biblical commentator, an assyriolo-
gist and an archaeologist of a long-established reputation, which
was recently crowned by his election as President of The American
Oriental Society. An elementary work by such a man comes with
more than ordinary authority. We are happy to add that Dr.
Barton's work is written in a reverent spirit, and with faith in
408 ti£W &60KS [Dec.,
the divine inspiration of the Bible, and that his critical views,
whatever they may be, are not obtruded upon the reader.
The present work is intended as a summary of the results of
archaeology so far as they shed light upon Holy Scripture. Writ-
ten as an aid to the Sunday-school, it is by no means a work for
children, but it is well adapted to the needs of college students who
have acquired a certain familiarity with the Bible. Its scope is
wider than many readers would judge from its title. He first gives
a sketch of the various civilizations surrounding the ancient He-
brews of Egypt, of Babylonia and Assyria, and, newest and most
interesting of all, of the Hittite Empire, confining himself mostly
to the new light which their archaeological remains cast upon the
Bible. This is done, briefly, in three chapters; and then follow
thirteen chapters upon the archaeology of Palestine, its cities, its
roads, and agriculture, its domestic and religious life, etc., and one
chapter for the Greek setting of apostolic history. This section of
the work goes systematically over the ground usually covered in the
old books on Biblical archaeology, but is enriched by many recent
discoveries. The second section gives a very extensive collection
of texts, recovered by explorations and happy finds, which illustrate
various books of the Bible. One would have to search through
many books and periodicals to gather the materials here brought
together in one volume and set in their proper light. The author
ransacks Babylonia and Egyptian remains for parallels, to give a
few examples, to the Biblical accounts of Creation, of the Flood,
of the Patriarchs, of the Mosaic Code, of the history of the kings.
He quotes liberally from their poetry and folk-wisdom to find par-
allels to Job, the Psalms, the wisdom literature and the Prophets.
A chapter on the reputed "* Sayings of Jesus," one on the census of
Quirinus, and one giving some new light upon the Acts and the
Epistles conclude the literary part of this volume.
By no means the least valuable feature of this publication is
the large number of full-page plates, one hundred and fourteen,
which it contains. They give a vivid picture of Oriental, and par-
ticularly of Palestinian, civilization.
The whole work is, in fact, deserving of the highest com-
mendation, as a successful attempt to give within the compass of
one volume the chief results of archaeological discovery as illustrat-
ing the Bible.
There is one very notable omission, however: no mention is
made of the recovery of the Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus, but as
1916.] NEW BOOKS 409
that book is excluded from the Protestant canon, the reason for the
omission is evident. We might add, also, that the New Testament
is not at all generously treated, probably because Dr. Barton, as a
Semitic scholar, is more at home in the Old Testament. One truth
shines out from the paralleling of the inspired text, that the heathen
neighbors of the Hebrews, though superior to them in material
civilization, were incomparably their inferiors in religion and ethical
doctrines. This is a fact, we are glad to say, that is well recognized
and proclaimed by Dr. Barton and explained by reference to the
true cause, that the sacred books of the Hebrews were not the
product of man alone, but of man aided by the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost. Digitus Dei est hie.
SPEAKING OF HOME. By Lillian Hart Tryon. Boston: Hough-
ton Mifflin Co. $i.bo net.
It is not as a reformer with plans of standardization that the
author speaks of home; nor does she enter into controversy in de-
fence of that institution so heartily condemned by a generation that
apparently regards it entirely as a fetich to which far too much has
been sacrificed. She writes engagingly of the interests and pleasures
of housekeeping and homemaking as she has found them; and it
is plain that the drudgery so bitterly complained of by women is
recognized by her as the labor inseparable from an art in which, as
much as in any other, delicacy and distinction in self-expression are
to be found. A book so sensible and witty as this little volume
of " Essays of a Contented Woman " deserves to be widely read.
PRAYER. Its Necessity, Its Power, Its Conditions. By Rev. Fer-
reol Girardey, C.SS.R. St. Louis: B. Herder. $1.00 net.
The well-known Redemptorist, Father Girardey, has written
an excellent treatise on the necessity, the efficacy, and the conditions
of prayer. In simple devout language he tells Christians how to
pray, and illustrates the Catholic doctrine of prayer by practical
lessons taken from the Gospel. He devotes a special chapter to
St. Alphonsus' teaching on mental prayer, and ends his volume
with a number of selections from Father Bronchain's Meditations.
JUVENILE PLAY CATALOGUE. Edited by Katherine Bregy.
Philadelphia: The Catholic Theatre Movement. 25 cents.
This pamphlet contains a list of about two hundred plays suit-
410 NEW BOOKS [Dec,
able for the use of schools and societies of young people, with some
practical suggestions regarding their production. It is a varied
list, including operettas, fairy plays, mythological plays and some
recognized standard plays. It gives brief synopses and information
concerning the character of the plays, the number of parts and other
useful data.
It will be helpful to all who are seeking suitable plays for young
amateurs, and is a happy augury of the work to be accomplished
by the Catholic Theatre Movement.
One adverse criticism we might mention. The catalogue rec-
ommends editions of Shakespeare issued by some of the publishers
of so-called " acting " editions. Most of these editions are shock-
ingly garbled and should, in full, be condemned rather than recom-
mended.
THE REPRESENTATIVE ENGLISH PLAYS. From the Middle
Ages to the end of the Nineteenth Century. Edited with in-
troduction and notes by John S. P. Tatlock, Stanford Uni-
versity, and Robert G. Martin, Northwestern University.
New York : The Century Co. $2.50 net.
This is an unusually full and complete collection for a single
volume, embracing as it does the whole field of English drama,
from Noah's Ark to Lady Windemere's Fan. The editors in the
preface urge the difficulties that faced them in the selection of
plays, and plead that they have been driven to choose on practical,
rather than theoretical, grounds, allowing various considerations to
prevail. The result is satisfying. We have excellent collections
a-plenty of mysteries and miracles, and of Elizabethan plays, and
even the successful dramas of the last decade or two have received
attention; but the plays of the intervening periods have been com-
paratively neglected. The Restoration and the eighteenth century
have received but scant critical attention, and the early nineteenth
century has been forgotten — deservedly so, perhaps.
This collection, however, makes a good many omissions.
There is scant representation of each period, it is true, but a single
volume has limitations that must be respected. The plays, how-
ever, are well chosen and representative. The Elizabethan period
occupies nearly one half of the book, but that is not an undue pro-
portion. The Restoration is adequately represented by Dryden,
Otway and Congreve. It is gratifying to see Fielding's Tom
Thumb the Great included with the familiar works of Sheridan
igi6.] NEW BOOKS 411
and Goldsmith as typical of the eighteenth century. Fielding as a
dramatist is 'known to too few of this generation. Addison's Cato
and Steele's Conscious Lovers make this division of the work fairly
complete.
The editors have done as well as could be done with the barren
field of the early nineteenth century. The Cenci, despite its re-
volting theme, has some claim to notice, and The Lady of Lyons
represents the taste of the period, though its tinsel looks sadly
tarnished now. Browning's A Blot on the 'Scutcheon and Wilde's
Lady Windemere's Fan bring the book almost to our own day.
The volume includes an excellent bibliography.
THE POETS LAUREATE OF ENGLAND. By W. Forbes Gray.
New York: E. P. Button & Co. $2.50 net.
" While the laureateship is largely a record of mediocre poetry,
and witnesses to the indestructible and bewitching power of flattery,
it nevertheless affords many profitable lessons for the student of
English literary history.'' These words from the preface to Mr.
Gray's informative volume might very well be taken as its keynote.
The book brings together a number of historical and biographical
facts which are useful — at times even necessary — for the literary
student, and which are often interesting if seldom inspiring. It
is not the historian's fault that of the seventeen laureates who
have so far won the English laurel, only four have been poets of
the first class; nor that only one (Tennyson) should have "thor-
oughly understood his business." For the rest, the story is a
curious commentary upon "cabbages and kings"— to say nothing
of politics, poetasters and the periodical religious upheavals of
British history since the reign of Elizabeth.
Mr. Forbes Gray is in the main — and in spite of an old-fash-
ioned clinging to such adjectives as " Romanish " — a sympathetic
critic. His verdict upon Dryden might have been more charitable,
and more true, had he trusted less to Macaulay, often an unreliable
witness where his own prejudices were involved. Alfred Austin
received at his hands an appreciative justice which is none too
common. One wishes that in commenting upon the three-year inter-
regnum between the death of Tennyson and the appointment of
Austin, or later in recording the induction of Dr. Bridges, the
author might have found opportunity to discuss the widespread
agitation in England in favor of a woman laureate — namely, that
rare poet, Alice Meynell.
412 NEW BOOKS [Dec,
THE OWLET LIBRARY. Ten volumes. $1.00 net.
THE KNOW ABOUT LIBRARY. Twenty volumes. New York:
E. P. Button & Co. $2.00 net.
Nothing is left undone today in order to make learning easy
and pleasant for our children. The ingenuity of their elders is put
to full service in devising means that will make the royal way
more entertaining and delightful, and cause the younger ones to
forget the climb. Thus, for example, E. P. Button & Co. has just
issued The Owlet Library — a series of small books artistically pre-
sented. Their very attractiveness will force the child to learn of the
people of foreign lands; of the different animals; of Mother Goose
rhymes; of birds; of boats; of fishes; of feathered barnyard folk;
of flowers and of butterflies. All the little* volumes are handsomely
illustrated, and the gorgeous stamps to be placed over the story or
the description will make the child forget entirely the passage of
time.
And the same house publishes The Know About Library of
twenty volumes. We have seldom seen anything more attractive
or ingenious in the way of toy books of information. Gorgeously
illustrated and fantastically cut after the shape of the subject of
study, with equally well illustrated stamps to be placed by the child
in their proper place, they make even an aged one believe that it
would be a pleasure for him thus to learn about the different birds
and the wild flowers and the songs of winged creatures, and all
those varied glorious wonders with which God has crowded the
universe.
WORKMANSHIP IN WORDS. By James P. Kelly. Boston:
Little, Brown & Co. $1.00 net.
Thomas Hardy speaks in one of his books of " an appalling
increase every day in slipshod writing that would «not have been
tolerated for one moment a hundred years ago." This suggestive
and stimulating volume points out many an instance of slipshod
writing in the works of some of the best writers of the past seventy-
five years in England and America. The author's work is the fruit
of long experience in teaching, long-continued familiarity with
good literature, and a life-long interest in good workmanship. He
does not burden the student with a number of grammatical rules,
or set forth personal theories of style, but teaches solely by con-
crete examples drawn from the errors of Newman, Arnold, Mere-
1916.] NEW BOOKS 413
dith, Hardy, Pater, James, Lowell, Howells, Lounsbury, Churchill,
Dana, and many others.
Under the four headings of grammatical propriety, clearness,
ease and force, he calls attention to mistakes in syntax, faulty punc-
tuation, misused words and particles, and lack of clearness in con-
struction. There is not a dull page in the book.
IT UMPHREY J. DESMOND has written a small volume whose
*• ^ value is not at all proportionate to its size. The Way to Easy
Street (Chicago, 111. : A. C. McClurg & Co. 50 cents) may be de-
scribed as a hearty cheerful call to the pessimistic and the self-analy-
tical to forget themselves and their troubles, and cultivate a wider
outlook and a warmer heart. We recommend the volume as a
particularly welcome one at this time of the Christmas season.
DOOKS that we feel we ought to mention in order to give them
U notice for the Christmas holidays are Morning Face, by Gene
Stratton-Porter, author of Freckles. This is a delightful volume
of prose and poetry on flowers and birds and children. The press
work and the illustrations are of exceptional beauty and merit.
Children of from ten to fourteen years of age would consider such
a book a most precious Christmas gift. It is published by Double-
day, Page & Co., of New York, and sells for $2.00 net.
literary merit of The 'Allies' Fairy Book will be sufficiently
* indicated when we say that it is written by Edmund Gosse. It
gives examples of the folk lore of the present Allied nations. The
illustrations are done by Mr. Arthur Rackham, and are artistically
drawn and colored. The price of the book is $1.75 and is published
by J. B. Lippincott Co., of Philadelphia.
TN The Psychology of the Common Branches, by Frank Nugent
^ Freeman (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.25), the author
applies the scientific principles of psychology to the teaching of
Writing, Drawing, Reading, Spelling, Music, History, Geography
and Mathematics. Some generalizations upon Natural Science, fol-
lowed by questions and topics for discussion, complete this effort
to present the matter in a form serviceable to teachers. One can
hardly fail to note with pleasure the lack of dogmatism in the tone
of the work, as well as the simplicity and practicality of the sug-
gestions, Such points are likely to render the book what its author
wishes it to be — an aid in the task of elementary education.
414 NEW BOOKS [Dec.,
'THE FOURTH READER of the Ideal Series of Catholic Read-
^ ers, by a Sister of St. Joseph, and published by the Macmillan
Co., New York (60 cents), is well compiled for the use of
the pupil who has advanced from the period of learning to read
to that of reading to learn. The selections will whet the pupil's
appetite to know more of the riches of literature and fuller ac-
quaintance with the leading authors. Here and there, however, are
verses and readings that seem scarcely worth while.
F)LACKBEARD'S ISLAND, the adventures of three Boy Scouts
^ in the South Sea Islands, by Rupert Sargent Holland (Philadel-
phia : J. B. Lippincott Co. $1.25 net). There really was, just about
two hundred years ago, a buccaneer who bore the sobriquet of
Blackbeard. Chance threw the opportunity of recovering some,
at least, of his ill-gotten gains into the way of our heroes, and
the story of how it was seized upon and followed out successfully
makes interesting and exciting reading. The boys are earnest, hard-
working, courteous to their elders, and one might say, best of all,
unselfish.
PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS.
The America Press, of New York, has published in the latest numbers of
The Catholic Mind, Pseudo-Scientists vs. Catholics, by F. L. ; An Eighteenth-
Century Social Work, by Rev. H. Fouqueray, S.J. ; Race Suicide, by Rev. M. P.
Dowling, S.J. 5 cents each.
The Australian Catholic Truth Society of Melbourne, Australia, sends us
Bennie and the Bishop, by Miriam Agatha; Capital Punishment, by Rev. J. J.
Ford, S.J. ; Woman's Work in the World and The Church and Woman, by Rev.
W. J. Lockington, S.J. 5 cents each.
In a brief brochure of sixty pages, Spiritistic Phenomena and Their Inter-
pretation (Buffalo: Catholic Union Store. 20 cents), J. Godfrey Raupert again
calls attention to the evils of spiritism. In three chapters he treats of the facts,
the phenomena, and the interpretation of the phenomena of spiritism. He brings
out the impossibility of establishing identity, the immoral character and aim
of spirits, the dangers to health attending evocation, the contradictory character
of spirit-teaching, and the absolute and bitter antagonism of spiritism to the
Christian Gospel.
Harold M. Wiener, M.A., the well-known Biblical scholar, sends us a reprint
of his article in Bibliotheca Sacra on the Date of the Exodus. (Oberlin, O. :
The Bibliotheca Sacra Co. 25 cents.)
The Apostleship of Prayer, of New York, has just issued their Almanac
of the Sacred Heart for 1917. (12 cents.) It contains a number of good stories,
a sketch of Windthorst, an account of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day,
and a few words of advice upon betrothal and marriage.
Benziger Brothers, of New York, have published the Catholic Home Annual
for 1917. (25 cents.)
1916.] NEW BOOKS 415
The Bureau of American Ethnology has just published The Ethnobotany of
the Tewa Indians, by W. W. Robbins, J. P. Harrington and B. Freire-Marreco.
We have received the Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Annual Reports of the
Bureau of American Ethnology from the Government Printing Office, Wash-
ington. These two volumes discuss the Ethnogeography of the Tewa Indians
of the Upper Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico, by John P. Harrington; The
Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians of Western New Mexico, by Matilda C.
Stevenson, and An Inquiry into the Animism and F oik-Lore of the Guiana
Indians, by Walter E. Roth.
The Negro Year Book for 1917, published annually by the Tuskegee In-
stitute of Alabama (35 cents), has been compiled by Monroe N. Work. It
gives a good review of current events relating to the negroes of the United
States, and a comprehensive statement of historical and statistical facts arranged
for ready reference. Some of the topics discussed are : The Anti-Saloon League
and the Negro ; the Jim Crow Car ; Segregation ; Rural Schools Improvement ;
the Use of Colored Soldiers in the European War.
No. 21 of The Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society contains
a number of interesting papers: The Life of Adlai Stevenson, by J. W. Cook;
The Life of General James Shields, by F. O'Shaughnessy ; The Story of the
Banker-Farmer Movement, by B. F. Harris ; Indian Treaties Affecting Lands in
Illinois, by F. R. Grover.
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
Bloud et Gay in the new numbers of the series, The French Clergy and the
War, edited by Bishop Lacroix, include a discussion of the rebuilding of
Rheims Cathedral; accounts of priests who serve in the army; the story of the
parish of Vitry-le-Francois while that town was in possession of the German
army.
The same publishers continue their series of Pages Actuelles, with pamphlets
containing important comment from such journals as L 'Action Franqaise, Le
Figaro, Le Journal des Debats, written during the first months of the war.
Les Aumoniers Militaires, from the same house, bears testimony to the valor
of the Catholic chaplains.
The same publishers issue a series entitled, Catholics in the Service of
France, which will be of important apologetic value. Abbe Georges Ardant,
with three collaborators, bears testimony to the religious revival in France in
the volume, L'Eveil de I'Ame Franqaise devant I'Appel aux Armes.
Two extremely valuable and timely volumes are issued by P. Lethielleux
of Paris, entitled, Benoit XV. et Le Conflit Europeen, by Abbe d'Angel.
Adverse criticism is frequently heard from hostile sources against the Holy
Father's attitude and conduct in this war. The noted author reviews the
attitude and the action of the Papacy in the light both of Catholic principles
and of history; gives all the documents of Pope Benedict concerning the war;
analyzes them; answers objections and vindicates, if vindication were needed,
the course outlined and adhered to by Benedict XV. A valuable chapter is
added on the importance of the independence of the Holy See, and the necessity
of including the Holy Father in any peace conference that is to be effective.
The publishers will later continue the series. It will thus make eventually
a complete digest of Papal documents and pronouncements on the War.
IRecent Events,
The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD wishes to state that none
of the contributed articles or departments, signed or unsigned, of
the magazine, with the exception of " With Our Readers," voices
the editorial opinion of the magazine. And no article or department
voices officially the opinion of the Paulist Community.
With the exception of a minute number of
France. Socialists, France remains firm in the often-
expressed determination not even to discuss
any terms of peace before the enemy is completely vanquished.
Two Bishops of the Church have recently been paying a visit to
Ireland. Monsignor Touchet, Bishop of Orleans, speaking at May-
nooth, made a clear statement concerning the attitude of the Church
to the war. To an insinuation, to which currency had been given
in certain circles, that there was some difference of opinion as to
the necessity or the conduct of the war between the clergy and the
other elements of the French, he gave an emphatic contradiction :
" There is not one of us that does not feel and resent all the cruelties
of the war, nor is there one who does not believe that the war
which France is waging has all the elements of a just war such as
are laid down in Catholic theology — for instance, in the works of
St. Thomas Aquinas and of his great commentator, Suarez. It is
not we — it is not the successive French Ministers, to whatever
party they belonged — who have wished for the war. We defend our-
selves. Our country has been violated. It has been violated by a
raid through a neutral country, a country recognized as neutral by
international contracts and by European international right. We
have opposed our armies to the invader. How would it be possible
that bishops, that priests could hesitate to applaud and bless such
resistance." The Bishop added that even the members of the re-
ligious orders who had been harshly expelled from the country came
rushing back at the first call of the trumpet when told that France
was in danger.
Royalists and members of exiled families are as united in
their efforts as is the rest of the nation. The Empress Eugenie
has given up a large wing of her mansion in England for use as
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 417
a hospital for the wounded officers of France's Allies, and to its
supervision and the supply of its wants she is devoting continuous
attention.
The unity wrhich prevails internally in France as regards the
war is developing to a still more close union between France and
her Allies. This development is due to the supremacy which France
has established in their councils. The mistakes which have been
made are said to have been due to failure to accept the advice which
was given by the French Government. Of this Government, M.
Briand, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, is the inspira-
tion. He now holds a commanding position as the leading states-
man of Europe. His position, however, is not uncontested even at
home. M. Clemenceau, at such a crisis as the present, is striving
to raise the old issue of clericalism against anti-clericalism, main-
taining that the Vatican is using the war as an opportunity to
regain temporal power. To M. Clemenceau, M. Briand is offering
an earnest opposition.
The Somme campaign is proceeding according to the plans of
the Allies. Slowly but surely the enemy is being driven back, and
manifesting ever more and greater signs of demoralization. Large
numbers of prisoners have been taken. It is not thought that there
will be any cessation of attempts to advance during the winter,
except when the weather conditions render such attempts impos-
sible. The great push, for which that on the Somme was just
a feeler, will in all probability not take place until the spring.
By far the most striking event of the month has been the brilliant
victory of the French at Verdun. In a few days they have re-
taken positions which had cost the Germans hecatombs of men
and several months of effort. Forts Haudromont and Vaux have
been recaptured, and Germany has suffered a defeat in an effort
upon which she had staked much.
The war began with outrages inflicted upon
Belgium. the Belgians for their resistance to the might
of Germany. This resistance has been main-
tained both within the small area of two hundred square miles,
which still remains in the occupation of the Belgian army and its
Allies, and in the far larger portion which has been occupied by
the Germans. The exact conditions under which the population
exists have not been learned, the utmost pains having been taken to
VOL. CIV. — 27
4i8 RECENT EVENTS [Dec.,
keep the world outside in complete ignorance. Of late, however,
certain incidents have occurred which have rendered it impossible
any longer to conceal the truth about the harshness of the rule of
the invader, and his violation of the universally recognized prin-
ciples of international law. It is to Cardinal Mercier and the
Bishops of Belgium that the world is indebted for testimony so
authentic and incontrovertible that any further attempt at conceal-
ment will be useless, supported and confirmed as it has since been
by the dispatch of the American Charge d' Affaires at Berlin. Cardi-
nal Mercier's protest to the civilized world declares that the military
authorities are daily deporting thousands of inoffensive citizens in
order to set them at forced labor, giving them, according to another
account, eight cents a day. The ordinances at first only dealt with
unemployed men who refused, from patriotic motives, to work for
their oppressors. They have since been made to apply to all able-
bodied men. Proceeding by regions, all, whether employed or not,
are carried off and deported to unknown destinations. In four of
these, from eight hundred and twelve hundred were rounded up daily.
These methods have been growing in harshness. As long ago as
August of last year, forced labor for the unemployed was ordered
and that only for Belgium; in May of this year orders were given
for forcibly taking the unemployed to places not merely in Belgium,
but also in Germany for the benefit of the Germans. Soldiers are
used to separate children from fathers, husbands from wives. All
this is being done in spite of formal assurances repeatedly given by
various high German authorities, that the liberty of the civil popula-
tion would in every way be respected. Nor is more regard paid to
the rights of property. War levies, which have reached a total of a
milliard of francs, have been imposed, and are being continued at
the rate of forty millions of francs monthly.
The Cardinal's protest was followed by one from the Belgian
Government, which gives further details of the systematic measures
of oppression which have been adopted, involving still more en-
croachments upon international law. Among these is the fact
that one of the works imposed upon the Belgians is the making of
trenches for the soldiers, thereby freeing the latter for active service
on the firing line. No provision is made for the families which have
been left behind. Even refugees who have returned from Holland
and England on the invitation of the Germans with the assurance
that they wished Belgium to resume its ordinary peaceful conditions,
are now being forced to work under German taskmasters.
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 419
So flagrant are these violations of international law that at
last our Government has felt itself called upon to take action. The
Charge d' Affaires at Berlin has been instructed to tell the Chancellor
of the German Empire that such measures are in defiance of human-
ity and international law, and are producing what the Secretary of
State calls an unfortunate effect upon neutral opinion. This protest
is based upon information given by the Embassy in Berlin. The
Pope also, it is said, is upon the point of addressing a similar
remonstrance to the German Emperor. This is the more likely to
be well-founded, because His Holiness has clearly manifested good
will to Belgium by sending a nuncio whose sympathies are openly
with the country's independence. Monsignor Locatelli has labored
to remove all suspicion and all misunderstanding from the minds
of the Belgians with reference to the policy of the Holy See. This
policy, it is publicly stated, and that without contradiction, has for
its end and object the complete restoration of the independence and
sovereignty of the Belgians. A higher authority, the Cardinal
Secretary of State, in a recent interview declared that the aim of
the Holy See was to secure an early peace, indeed, but a just and
permanent peace. Such a peace would involve the freeing of every
nation from oppression, and the taking into account the aspirations
of all peoples so far as such aspirations can be realized. Otherwise
the peace would be no peace, for it could not be permanent. " To-
wards the Catholic peoples, the neutrality of the Pope is benevolent,
because they are the ones who have suffered most. France, eldest
daughter of the Church; Poland, the Slav child; Belgium, most
precious to the Holy See because she has endured the worst."
The Pope, Cardinal Gasparri declared, has denounced violations
of international law.
The increase of pressure upon the Belgian civilians is due to
the ever-increasing need of more men for the defence of the thou-
sand-mile front which Germany now has to hold. Turks have been
brought to help the Austro-German forces in Galicia, as well as
in the attack upon Rumania in the Dobrudja. After the declara-
tion of the establishment of a Polish kingdom, volunteers were
asked for its defence. The man-power of the German Empire
is being tested to its uttermost. A bill is to be introduced in the
Reichstag enforcing labor upon every German civilian. The pur-
pose of the new law is to bring into the service of the State all
people who are drawing an income without working, or whose
business does not benefit the national economic interests in order
420 RECENT EVENTS [Dec.,
that the whole energy of the Empire may be concentrated on war
industries. The rejection by King Albert of new terms of peace,
made through German agents, may be another reason for the new
measures which have been taken against Belgium. These terms
included, it is reported, the withdrawal from Belgium, the payment
of an indemnity for the destruction due to the military occupation,
the retirement of the German forces from Serbia without indemnity,
and the return of Lorraine to France. Not much reliance, however,
can be placed upon the truth of this report.
Committees have been formed in France and England, as well
as in other countries, to rebuild the Library of Louvain which was
destroyed by the Germans in 1914, and to refurnish it with books.
A very considerable number of valuable works have been already
collected and arranged, so as to be ready for sending to Louvain
as soon as the times comes.
The assassination of the Prime Minister of
Austria-Hungary. Austria has directed public attention to the
Dual Monarchy. During the war it has met
with a continuous series of misfortunes, especially the Cis-Leithan
Empire, and things within its borders are said to be of a more
serious character than have been its exterior failures. It has now
sunk into an almost complete subservience to Germany, and has
had even to call up the Turks for help. Thus low has fallen the
Empire which in former days saved Europe from Ottoman domina-
tion. Beaten in the first year of this war by the forces of the
small kingdom of Serbia, and driven out of its territory in a dis-
astrous flight, it is no wonder that she had soon after to flee before
the invading host of Russia, and that her soldiers were forced to
surrender in hundreds of thousands. The same catastrophe befell
her in the present year, although not on so large a scale. Complete
disaster has been warded off by the almost entire supersession
of her generals by those of Germany. On the Italian front alone
has she been able to maintain a not unsuccessful resistance,
and even here she is gradually yielding ground. The cause
of these failures are twofold — the discontent which exists within
her own borders and the want of courage of the officers. The
cowardice of the latter have made them a byword throughout Ger-
many. The discontent of Bohemia with the German element of
Austria has been long and bitter for many years ; the war has greatly
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 421
accentuated these feelings. The leading statesmen of the country
were imprisoned at its beginning, and a large number of civilians
have been executed for treason. Parliamentary rights had been sus-
pended for some time before the war began. In Austria itself no
meeting of the Parliament had been held; the officials, of whom the
assassinated Premier was the chief, having taken into their own
hands the exercise of all the power which had not been assumed
either by the Emperor in person or by the military. Austria had
consequently lapsed into a despotism. Count Sturgkh had himself
no political weight ; it is said that his murderer was the hired agent
of a wealthy politician, to whom he owed his appointment and
who had recently turned against him. The only man of weight
in the Dual Monarchy today is the Calvinist Prime Minister of
Hungary, Count Stephen Tisza. The assassination is, however,
looked upon as an indication of the discontent with the course of
the war of the Austrian working-classes.
The course which events have taken in Ru-
Rumania. mania is deeply disappointing to the Allies.
It was expected that the entrance of
King Ferdinand's armies in cooperation with those of Russia
would have had decisive results, and in the first weeks this antici-
pation seemed on the point of being realized. A large part of Tran-
sylvania was overrun by the Rumanian troops, the Austrians being
driven back in every direction. This has been the uniform expe-
rience whenever the Austrians have been left unsupported and un-
commanded by the Germans. So much is this the case that by
many in Germany the support of her ally is looked upon as one of
the chief burdens which has fallen upon their shoulders. When a
German army arrived under the command of von Falkenhayn the
course of events took another aspect. The Rumanians were driven
back at two points. It looked as if their country would soon be
overrun. In the Dobrudja, the course of events was somewhat
different. The army of Turks, Bulgars and a sprinkling of Ger-
mans, under the command of von Mackensen, first made a consider-
able advance, was then driven back, then made a further
advance, in which Constanza and the Cernavoda Bridge were
taken, and is now being driven back again. It is easy after the
event to see the mistakes which Rumania made. For political
reasons, her main effort was directed against Austria, whereas it
422 RECENT EVENTS [Dec.,
should have been made against Bulgaria. There is every reason to
believe that in cooperation with her Russian ally, a successful
advance might have been made upon Constantinople. At least one
of the most important objects of the war might have been
achieved — the cutting off of all communication of Germany with the
Ottoman capital by the seizure of the Orient Railway. As things
are Rumania is on the defensive.
While the crushing of Rumania by Germany would be for the
Allies a great calamity, involving, as it would, the prolongation
of the war, and a severe blow to their prestige, for the Germans it
is a matter of supreme and immediate importance. It is now the
only direction in which the Central Powers can act on the offensive.
It may even open a door into Russia, a thing of great value now
that all other doors are closed. The economic interests are perhaps
of even greater immediate importance under the conditions now
existent in the Central States. Germany would secure immense
stores of corn, petroleum, benzine, mineral oils, salt and timber;
a good railway system, and the Danube as means of transport,
besides all the crops which the fertile soil of Rumania can produce.
This possession would relieve Germany from all danger of star-
vation. In the event of permanent possession by Germany of
Rumania — a thing, however, that is inconceivable — the control
of Bulgaria and Turkey, of the Balkans and of Greece would
be secured. That Greece would enter into the struggle was,
it is said, fully anticipated by the Government of Rumania. In
this, however, it has been disappointed.
One of the foremost of the British news-
Greece, paper-statesmen is credited with saying that
the Allied Powers have made with refer-
ence to the situation in the Balkans every mistake which it was
possible to make. Perhaps that a situation similar to the present
never existed before may be something of an excuse. The course
of events is too intricate and obscure to be gone into fully in these
pages, nor perhaps will the full truth ever be known. Certain
facts, however, are clear. The King is a constitutional monarch,
who is openly violating the constitution to which he owes his power,
and is supported by a considerable number of Greek citizens in
the course which he has chosen, their determination being to keep
Greece neutral in all eventualities. In this policy he has been acting
1916.] RECENT EVENTS 423
in opposition to the advice and influence of the Prime Minister at
the beginning of the war — M. Venezelos, the statesman, who in the
days of the King's father, when the dynasty was tottering and
when all the Courts of Europe were being filled with the cries
of distress of King George, came to its assistance and brought
remedies to the State which freed it from the maladies from which
it had long been suffering.
In consequence of the King's refusal to accept his advice, M.
Venezelos resigned as Premier, and has been succeeded by a series
of Prime Ministers too numerous to mention, who were willing, in
greater or less degree to violate their trust in subservience to the
King or from agreement with him. M. Venezelos has at length set
up a Provisional Government, disclaiming indeed any personal dis-
loyalty to the King, but acting in armed hostility to his policy —
a policy which involved the yielding up to Greece's most bitter
enemies important forts and valuable supplies. By how large a
proportion of the citizens M. Venezelos is being supported is not
clear, but influential generals and admirals have taken service in
the forces of the Provisional Government, which are now serving
with the Allies. The situation thus developed has had a paralyzing
effect upon the army under the command of General Sarrail, and
the movement towards the interior of Bulgaria has been not indeed
completely hindered, but greatly impeded. Rumor says, but only
rumor, that a division of opinion exists between France and the
rest of the Allies as to the treatment of King Constantine. France,
it is said, wishes to deprive him of his throne. The other Allies
are unwilling to proceed to this extreme. Suggestions have been
made that the personal influence of the royal houses of Great
Britain, Italy and Russia has been at work to keep the King upon
his throne. Certain it is that a brother of the King has been paying
a visit to London. Fear of treachery compelled the Allies to demand
the surrender of the Greek fleet, except three warships, a demand
which was complied with. A conspiracy existed in Athens to officer
the fleet with pro-Germans and to concentrate in Thessaly, at the
rear of the Allies troops, guns, stores and material from Athens and
elsewhere.
With Our Readers.
THE Report of the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting
of the Catholic Educational Association which has just appeared,
is well worth the perusal of all interested in the education of our
Catholic children. The problems and the duties that face us today
are discussed by those whose knowledge and experience justify their
leadership. The lay reader who studies these papers will learn the
Catholic philosophy underlying Catholic action and Catholic policy.
Their pertinent value extends far beyond the field of education itself,
and reaches in some measure at least to many other fundamental
questions.
* * * *
FOR example, Rev. Charles B. Carroll, S.S J. discussing Patriotism
in Education, advises the introduction into -our schools of a Cate-
chism of Patriotism. Speaking of patriotism he gives the following
useful definitions:
Patriotism is not Chauvinism, that excessive so-called pa-
triotism which exalts love of country above love of God, glori-
fies it into a religion, and puts the flag where the cross of the
Redeemer ought to be.
Patriotism is not Jingoism, that race hatred which stirs up
unnecessary wars.
Patriotism is not Hyphenism, which disrupts a nation in-
ternally, poisons a nation's blood, gnaws at its heart, and kills
a nation's very soul.
Patriotism is not that Nationalism which holds that we have
a divine mission from heaven to bring the world to our Ameri-
can way of thinking in all things, and that no American should
think otherwise.
Patriotism is not that Internationalism which holds that the
national aspirations, national ideals, national institutions, cus-
toms, and preferences, of all nations, must be destroyed, to
build upon their ruins a universal socialism.
Patriotism is defined as " the love of one's country." The
true love of one's country is properly expressed neither by the
vociferous fanaticism of some, nor by the lethargic indifference
of others. Love is expressed and measured by feelings, by
words, by deeds. Patriotism is not a mere sentiment which a
citizen may adopt or ignore according to his wish or taste or
fancy. It is a solemn obligation which binds correspondingly
in civil life, as divine faith binds in the religious sphere.
Brother Potamian, who is well-known to our readers through
his articles in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, pleads for more attention to
1916.] WITH OUR READERS 42$
the study of astronomy. The Basic Principle of the Philosophy of
History is treated in a timely paper by Brother Bernardine, F.S.C.
Coeducation is discussed by Father Albert Muntsch, S.J., and the
Problem of the Feeble-Minded by Dr. Madeleine A. Hallowell.
ONE of the most important papers in the volume is that contributed
by the Rev. Doctor John F. Fenlon of the Catholic University.
The subject of it is The State, and since the province of the State
is being more and more widely extended today in both theory and
practice, Father Fenlon's paper is of exceptional timeliness even
though he necessarily confined himself to the question of the State
and education.
Modern conditions, he argues, have made the education of the
people and the cultivation of science essential to the well-being and
even to the preservation of the State. This necessity has arisen from
two causes — the rise of democracy and the rise of industrialism.
"If the modern State would flourish, both popular and higher educa-
tion are essential." He declares that education is necessary for the
modern State on three counts — economic : military : political. Dr.
Fenlon under the last heading cites the example or rather the fate
of Mexico':
That unhappy land has been unable to maintain a stable
government, principally because it has no large middle-class, no
substantial body of intelligent, well-educated, prosperous citi-
zens who feel the need of security and have the intelligence and
power to keep the reins of government out of the hands of
military dictators. No Mexican blanket is large enough to
shelter two such bedfellows as liberty and illiteracy; before
morning one or the other is sure to find himself out in the
cold, and I fear it will always be poor liberty.
N'
"O illiterate populace can be a democracy; it can be ruled over
only by an oligarchy or a despot. Every democracy, on the other
hand, as soon as it became conscious of its power, has felt the
necessity of popular education to preserve its liberties and to equip
its citizens for the proper fulfillment of their duties.
This has always been the deep conviction of America, from
the earliest colonial times down to the present day. Every
citizenry feels the need of enlightenment to vote on national and
local questions, and depends for enlightenment on the public
press. It is incapable, of course, of judging intelligently of all
political questions — few of us, I fancy, would pass a brilliant
examination on the merits of the Federal Reserve Bank Act-
but it does feel competent to decide which party at any period
can best manage the affairs of the nation.
426 WITH OUR READERS [Dec.,
A remarkable instance of the extent and use of individual dis-
crimination and selection by the American electorate was given in the
recent election, where thousands upon thousands voted a split ticket,
selecting a Democrat for this office: a Republican for that.
NO nation worthy of the name can be content with a purely utili-
tarian education. A nation must express and cultivate its soul,
the higher things of the spirit. " But who," asks Dr. Fenlon, " is to
provide the education which a whole nation needs ? " Private agencies
alone cannot do it. The Church alone cannot do it, for the Church
lacks two essential conditions of success — money and the power of
coercion. So wherever education is universal either the Church and the
State cooperated, or one supplemented or competed with the other,
or the State assumed the monopoly. Such monopoly by the State is
unknown in our country. But in other countries such monopoly is
as normal as is liberty here. Under State monopoly liberty is im-
possible. Dr. Fenlon quotes the words of John Stuart Mill:
One thing must be strenuously insisted on — that the govern-
ment must claim no monopoly for its education either in its
higher or lower branches, must exert neither authority nor in-
fluence to induce the people to resort to its teachers in pre-
ference to others, and must confer no peculiar advantages on
those who have been instructed by them It is not en-
durable that a government should either in law or in fact, have
a complete control over the education of the people. To possess
such a control and actually exert it, is to be despotic. A
government which can mould the opinion and sentiments of the
people from their youth upwards can do with them whatever it
pleases.
IT is of extreme importance that Catholics rehearse this truth : that
they declare it publicly and privately — for neglect or denial of it
will sound the death knell of our American Republic. Three steps
have invariably marked such a course of State monopoly. First, the
State takes the right of inspection and control in many minor matters,
sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly; second, it subsidizes private
schools, and, third, it absorbs them into the State system. " Our
schools have now complete liberty and independence: we are better
situated than Catholics in most countries of Europe, although we
suffer from a double tax. The essential thing for us is the complete
preservation of the liberty and independence of our Catholic educa-
tion. We must above all things, then, hold to this essential of liberty
and independence, and not barter it for a mess of State pottage."
These words are in singular accord with the recent public statement
1916.] WITH OUR READERS 427
of His Eminence Cardinal Farley at the dedication of St. Bernard's
School, New York City.
* * * *
'TWEEN Dr. Fenlon proceeds to discuss that many-sided and difficult
-I question of the attitude of the State with regard to education
and religion. The heart of that question, he states, is the menace
of secularism in State education; the ignoring of God and religion
in education is hostility under the mask of neutrality. The triumph
of secularism in State education is becoming more and more com-
plete. Never before in the history of the world has the experiment
been tried of educating the nation without religion. Such a course
spells ruin, national and individual. * Irreligion is immorality — the
denial of that supreme, inviolable moral law which is absolutely
binding upon nations and their rulers, upon parliaments and upon
armies. Washington said in his " Farewell Address :" " Let us with
caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained
without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of
refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and expe-
rience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail
in exclusion of religious principle."
It is indeed strange that a practical and level-headed people
like the Americans can fail to see that religion and morality
are the foundation of abiding national security and prosperity,
or, seeing this, can believe that religion and morality can be
vital elements of our national life if they are excluded from
our schools. Especially is it remarkable that religious people
can fail to see the importance of religious education We
desire to see a more enlightened public opinion which will recog-
nize that you cannot gather the harvest unless you first sow the
seed; nor reap wheat unless you sow wheat; that you cannot
have a strong morality in public and private life unless you train
the children in morality ; and that yau cannot train them in mo-
rality unless you implant in their hearts the love and fear of the
Eternal Lawgiver and Judge. We desire, also, to have an histor-
ical truth recognized — namely, that we Catholics have preserved
the true original American principle of education, professed by
Puritan, Cavalier, and Catholic, and by the fathers of our
country, which maintained that the chief and most important
element in education is the training of the young in religious
and moral principles. It is not we who have left the channel
of true Americanism and are willing to drift recklessly on an
uncharted sea ; it is those men who do not fear the experiment
of training a whole nation without the knowledge and fear
of God.
* * * *
AS State monopoly is disastrous to popular liberty, so also is any
other monopoly of whatsoever kind or power. It is necessary,
therefore, for the safeguarding of our fundamental rights as Amer-
428 WITH OUR READERS [Dec.,
icans that we protest against the encroachments and increased powers
of such foundations as those known as the Rockefeller and the Car-
negie. Both, by virtue of the immense sums of money at their
disposal, are in a fair way to do much to undermine the right concept
and the right exercise of popular and personal liberty. They are
intrinsically un-American. Whatsoever right motives may prompt
their creation, or the exercise of the innumerable and far-reaching
powers they possess, they cannot but enslave all who are dependent
on them for a livelihood; they will inevitably control all who are
benefited by them, they will accept as -full justification of their being
and their methods the good that they achieve; power is of itself
avaricious, hence they will constantly reach forth to new fields until
both their ruling spirit and their funds have seized upon public
utilities, and are able efficaciously to shape those public utilities ac-
cording to their plans and their economic and religious or non-
religious belief. They create, in plain terms, a monied autocracy.
" Money talks," as the old saying has it, and money oftentimes con-
vinces. They create, they have already created, a money monopoly.
The evils inherent in them are not at first apparent : time is required
for their unfolding, but human history has already repeated the
lesson often enough for us to understand. And one of the duties of
preparedness, most pressing for the American people, is constant
watchfulness, constant protest against the formation and the encroach-
ment in the field of popular government of these Croesus-like founda-
tions that are absolutely opposed to the first principles of our Republic.
ALL that indefinite longing after1 the spiritual and the infinite,
natural to the human soul, is nowadays very loosely termed
" mysticism." This use of the word is a perversion of the Catholic
term which defines something very definite, very clear, very simple.
Catholics should certainly be able to think straight and to speak
intelligently upon the subject. A sound knowledge of the first prin-
ciples, the fundamental, dogmatic truths of our Faith will not only
steer them safely through the maze of human opinions, but will guide
them surely to the highest heights of perfection and wisdom to which
it is possible for the human soul to mount. Such knowledge is the
more necessary now because the number of books, magazine and even
newspaper articles, lectures and parlor discussions on the subject of
mysticism is constantly increasing.
* * * *
THE denial of dogmatic truth so common for the past five decades
has borne its inevitable result. The road of man's salvation has
been lost in the darkness of discussion and of doubt. We no longer,
1916.] WITH OUR READERS 429
in the speech of some, know truth, but at best an approach to it. A
popular magazine declared lately, in large type, on its first page, that
the glory of mankind is that it is fettered by no permanent truth.
We no longer have knowledge ; we have only opinions. Every ques-
tion of conduct, great or small, may rightly be subject to individual
decision; that personal conduct is freighted with eternal consequences,
both here and hereafter, that through it we are directly responsible
to a personal God Who has given His commandments and confirmed
them through His Divine Son, are considerations which count but
little if at all with many in the world of today.
OETWEEN those who look at the definite revealed word of God
L) and seek to make their lives conform to His Will, and those who
give no consideration to His Word or Will, there is a number beyond
count who would not knowingly deny His Will nor deliberately reject
His Word did they know them to be such. Frequently these souls
are possessed by a longing to know both; to see or believe in the
Way that He has ordained for their regeneration and their salvation.
One phase of such longing is in the present extensive cult of mysticism
outside of the Catholic Church. Sometimes its votaries approach very
close to the truth; sometimes they wander farther and farther off.
It is to some a help; to others a hindrance. As an impetus to seek
the spiritual more faithfully, 'to inquire seriously and perseveringly
into the means and ways through which God has made Himself known
to man, it bespeaks the necessity of the soul for God Who created
it. But the first step that reason demands is that such a process be
freed of its indefiniteness ; its empty sentimentalism ; its ofttimes
scandalous reconciliation of good and evil, of faith and falsehood. An
example of such reconciliation is given in an article on " Mysticism,"
in The Poetry Revieiv, reprinted in Littell's Living Age. The writer
is speaking of the opponents of mysticism who are opponents because
they judge " the thing begins and ends with Plotinus and the Alex-
andrian gnostics." Such is the mysticism of Emerson's Brahma.
If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep and pass and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near,
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame,
430 WITH OUR READERS [Dec.,
They reckon ill who leave me out,
When me they fly, I am the wings,
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods sigh for my abode,
And pine in vain the Sacred Seven;
But thou meek lover of the good
Find me and turn thy back on Heaven.
The problem which souls so influenced are facing is the problem
of knowing the definite truth of God. All life is built upon definite,
dogmatic truth; and all supernatural life is built upon supernatural
truth, the truth which history and experience both prove are revealed
to us only by a supernatural messenger, Jesus Christ, our Lord, or
His Church which He has commissioned to speak in His name, and to
which He has solemnly promised His divine protection from all error.
One Church through all the ages and today has spoken, and alone
claims to speak, definite truth with regard to all of man's relations
with God, and of God's relations to man. Like her Divine Master
and Founder she is the Light that enlighteneth every man who comes
into the world, the Light without which his feet will trod uncertain
ways, and his hands reach out in vain for the fullness of spiritual
life.
The Catholic Church has taught the ways of sound and sure mys-
ticism since her earliest days ; she has proved them to man by the lives
of her saints and is so proving them today.
" True mysticism," says Theodore Maynard, in the article already
quoted, " as practised in common by the Blessed was their experi-
mental knowledge of God gained through love of Him.
" The normality of sanctity is a thing especially insisted on by
the Church; that there is no man in the world who cannot become
a saint if he but will, since the saint is not unique in kind (as a great
musician, for instance, is unique), but only in degree. He is merely
one who, exercising ordinary faculties and practising the virtues within
the reach of any man, has succeeded to the point of heroism. He
treads the path of simple and humble duties; and though his soul
may be snatched up to the seventh heaven and the vision of things
unlawful for man to utter, his feet are firmly rooted in quiet soil.
" Hence the saints' exquisite poise. They are not less human for
having plumbed the deep sea of God, but have gained thereby a cer-
tainty and lightness of touch.
" The thought of this kind closeness of our God is at the centre of
all mystical contemplation," concludes the writer ; " for mystery is
the exact opposite of mystification."
1916.] BOOKS RECEIVED 431
A LETTER.
EDITOR CATHOLIC WORLD:
In your November number, Miss May Bateman has an article on The
Catholic Note in Modern Drama, and on page 170 I find she says: " The
Upper Room has never been acted."
Dr. McMahon, of New York, at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, has pro-
duced The Upper Room every year for a number of years. Last year it was
presented in Pittsburgh. The Carnegie Institute of Technology, a committee
of Catholic artists, architects, decorators, painters and musicians, all collaborated
in the production here, and it was perhaps the finest thing of its kind ever
seen in the United States. All the Catholic papers and many of the dailies
carried favorable notices about the production.
Sincerely,
T. F. COAKLEY.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
E. P. BUTTON & Co., New York:
The Painters of Florence. By Julia Cartwright (Mrs. Ady). $1.50 net. The
History of the Fabian Society. By E. R. Pease. $1.75 net. The Cradle
of Christianity. By S. P. T. Prideaux, B.D. $1.50 net. El Supremo. By
E. L. White. $1.90 net. Belle Jones. By A. Meacham. 50 cents net. The
Whirlpool. By V. Morton. $1.50 net. The Taming of Calinga. By C. L.
Carlsen. $1.35 net. Omniana: The Autobiography of an Irish Octogenarian.
By J. F. Fuller, F.S.A. $3.00 net.
THE MACMILLAN Co., New York :
An Introduction to Economics. By F. O'Hara, Ph.D. Nationality in Modern
History. By J. H. Rose. $1.25. True Stories of Great Americans — La Salle.
By T. S. Hasbrouck. 50 cents. Distributive Justice. By J. A. Ryan, D.D.
Fruit Gathering. By R. Tagore. $1.25. The Ideal Catholic Readers — Sixth
Reader. By a Sister of St. Joseph. 60 cents.
D. APPLETON & Co., New York :
The Mind and Its Education. By G. H. Betts, Ph.D. A Student's Textbook
in the History of Education. By S. P. Duggan. $1.25 net. Faith in a Future
Life. By A. W. Martin. $1.50 net.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York :
Half Lights. By G. Fleming. $1.10 Some Experiences in Hungary, 1914-
1915. By Mina Macdonald. $1.25 net. Maxims of the Viscountess de
Bonnault d'Hou£t.
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York:
Refining Fires. By Alice Dease. 75 cents. God and Man. Vol. II. — Man.
From the French of Rev. L. Labauche, S.S. The Seminarian. By Rev. A.
Rung. 75 cents net.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York :
Our First War in Mexico. By F. Bishop. $1.25 net. The Melancholy Tale
of "Me." By E. H. Sothern. $3.50 net. Our Hispanic Southwest. By E.
Peixotto. $2.50 net.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York :
Catholic Home Annual for 1917. 25 cents. Heaven Open to Souls. By Rev.
H. C. Semple, SJ. $2.00 net. Her Father's Share. By Edith M. Power.
$1.25 net.
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co., Garden City, New York:
Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization. By E. J. Scott and L. B.
Stowe. $2.00 net. Penrod and Sam. By B. Tarkington. $1.35 net.
THE DEVIN-ADAIR Co., New York:
The Irish Rebellion of 1916, and Its Martyrs. By P. Colum, and others.
$2.00 net.
432 BOOKS RECEIVED [Dec., 1916.]
FREDERICK PUSTET & Co., New York:
The Facts About Luther. By Rt. Rev. Patrick F. O'Hare, LL.D. 25 cents.
Brief Discourses on the Gospel for All Sundays and Festivals of the Year.
By Rev. P. Seebock, O.F.M.
DODD, MEAD & Co., New York :
The Old Blood. By Frederick Palmer. $1.40 net.
THE CENTURY Co., New York:
First Lessons in American History. By S. E. Forman. 65 cents.
JOHN LANE Co., New York:
The Wonderful Year. By Wm. J. Locke. $1.40 net.
GEORGE H. DORAN Co., New York :
More Wanderings in London. By E. V. Lucas. $2.00 net. The Woodcraft
Girls in Camp. By Lillian E. Roy. $1.25 net.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York :
The Book of the Popes. I. To the Pontificate of Gregory I. Translated by
L. R. Loomis, Ph.D.
HENRY HOLT & Co., New York :
Wild Earth, and Other Poems. By P. Colum. $1.25 net.
HARPER & BROTHERS, New York :
Lovers' Knots. By Elizabeth Jordan. $1.25 net.
MT. CARMEL GUILD, Buffalo, N. Y. :
Catholic Calendar, 1917. 50 cents.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN Co., Boston :
A Volunteer Poilu. By H. Sheahan. $1.25 net. Their Spirit. By R. Grant.
50 cents net. How to Read. By J. B. Kerfoot. $1.25 net. French Perspec-
tives. By Elizabeth S. Sergeant. $1.25 net. The Life of John Marshall.
By A. J. Beveridge. Two volumes. $8.00 net. The New Reservation of
Time. By William J. Tucker. $1.50 net. A Brief History of Poland. By
Julia S. Orvis. $1.50 net. Bird Friends. By G. H. Trafton. $2.00 net.
LITTLE, BROWN & Co., Boston :
The Intelligence of Women. By W. L. George. $1.25 net. The Whale
and Grasshopper. By S. O'Brien. $1.35 net. Three Plays— The Fiddler's
House, The Land, Thomas Muskerry. By P. Colum. $1.25 net.
THOMAS J. FLYNN, Boston :
An Altar Wreath. By Rev. Jos. G. Daley. $1.25 net.
OLIVER DITSON Co., Boston:
Handbook for the Catholic Choir. Compiled by E. Marzo. $1.00.
GINN & Co., Boston:
The Corona Readers. Book I. By J. H. Fassett. 32 cents.
JOHN MURPHY, Baltimore:
From Convent to Conflict. By Sister M. Antonia. $1.00.
B. HERDER, St. Louis:
A Story of Love. By Francis Cassilly, SJ.
A. C. MCCLURG & Co., Chicago:
Cicero: A Sketch of His Life and Works. By H. Taylor, LL.D. $3.50.
M. A. DONOHUE & Co., Chicago:
Uncle Frank's Mary. By " dementia." $1.35.
MICHIGAN HISTORICAL COMMISSION, Lansing:
Two Early Missionaries to the Indians; Forgotten Heroes. By Rt. Rev.
Monsignor F. A. O'Brien, LL.D. Pamphlets.
THE BOBBS-MERRILL Co., Indianapolis :
Manual of Natural Education. By W. S. Stoner. $1.00 net. France: Her
People and Her Spirit. By L. Jerrold. $3.00 net.
THE JAMES H. BARRY Co., San Francisco, Cal. :
The Missions and Missionaries of California. By Fr. Z. Engelhardt, O.F.M.
Index to Vols. II.-IV.
ANDREW MELROSE, LTD., London :
Hope in Suffering. Memories and Reflections of a French Army Chaplain. By
Abbe Felix Klein. 4*. 6 d.
IMP. DEL ASILO DE HuERFANOS DEL S. C. DE JESUS, Madrid :
Hacia una Espaiio genuina. Por el P. Graciano Martinez. 4 pesetas.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. CIV.
JANUARY, 1917.
No. 622.
SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS.
BY JAMES A. BURNS, C.S.C., PH.D.
COLLEGE LIFE AND DISCIPLINE.
IFE in the Catholic boarding college today is a more
complex thing than it used to be. One reason for this
is that the college is larger, and consequently a greater
number and variety of individuals are brought to-
gether in the same institution. Living conditions at
college are more differentiated, too. Formerly, all sat at table in
a common dining-room, all slept either in the same large room or
in several large rooms that were absolutely alike as regards con-
veniences, and all studied in the big study hall. So, too, there were
common wash-rooms and trunk-rooms, and a common " yard " for
purposes of recreation. In a word, an almost monastic common-
ness of life characterized the Catholic college, and every student,
big or little, fell under this regime. The result was extreme sim-
plicity of life, both in the individual and in the college as a whole.
There were no outside athletic contests, no disturbing influences
from without, few points of contact with the world. Seldom, and
then only for a good reason, did anybody go to town. The system
had its advantages, and they were many and clear. There were
also disadvantages, no doubt, as there are always bound to be in
any system in which individual tastes and tendencies are repressed
in the striving after a common end.
Copyright. 1916. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. civ.— 28
434 SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS [Jan.,
But this old traditional Catholic college system, which goes
back to the Middle Ages, and perhaps even much farther, is no
more. The changes have come about quietly, naturally, almost
inevitably. The pressure of forces from both without and within
has finally broken down the age-standing barriers. The most im-
portant single agency that has made for this result has probably
been the institution of the private room. There might have been
found in colleges here and there, all along, a few of the older students
occupying private rooms. But when, in the year 1888, Sorin Hall
was erected at Notre Dame University, for the express purpose of
providing private rooms for a large body of students, a break was
made in the traditional system. Sorin Hall, in spite of temporary
difficulties, proved to be a success, and other private-room dormi-
tories followed in time at Notre Dame as well as at other institu-
tions. The private room was fatal to both the theory and the prac-
tice of common discipline and life. It did away, for its occupant,
with the common sleeping-room and study hall, the wash-room,
and trunk-room, and the " yard." A special code of disciplinary
regulations had to be formulated for the " roomers."
Many of the changes involved were feared, and fought against,
by the more conservative; but the room system proved to be ex-
tremely popular, and it brought a steady increase in the college
enrollment. Once it was given a trial, it became forever impos-
sible to go back to the old system. A considerable body of students
in each institution continued, naturally, to live and work in the
common rooms and to follow the old common life, now become less
strict, because the room life was more expensive. But the number
of these has been relatively decreasing. The demand is ever for
more rooms. It is evidently only a matter of time until all the
larger boys at Catholic colleges will be living in private rooms.
Even the smaller colleges have joined in this movement, and in some
of these more than one-half of the student body is housed in
private-room dormitories.
Another important agency that has helped to change Catholic
college life and discipline is intercollegiate athletics. Formerly,
only home athletics were known. There were games and contests
enough, full of interest, and engaging a much larger proportion of
the student body in actual athletic exercise than at present. At
long intervals, a game might be allowed with some outside neigh-
boring team. But, as a rule, everything was at home, and strictly
for those at home. Intercollegiate contests helped to bring two new
1917.] SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS 435
influences into the college life — the influence of other colleges,
generally Non-Catholic, and the influence of a closer contact with
town and the outer world.
The influence of neighboring Non-Catholic institutions,
brought to bear upon the Catholic college at first largely through
its athletic contests, although subtle, has been very important.
Previously, our colleges were living apart. They had their own
curriculum, their own discipline, their own ideals. They had little
to gain, it was felt, by contact with Non-Catholic colleges, and
might have much to lose. But the contact was actually made on the
athletic field, and, little as the result was anticipated, the casual rela-
tions thus inaugurated had much to do with the process by which
the respective institutions were brought to know each other better,
and to exert the reciprocal influence that such knowledge usually
induces. It would be tedious to show the steps by which this better
knowledge and relationship has been brought about. Suffice it to
say that many a Catholic college found a better acquaintance with
the larger Non-Catholic institutions to be useful to it in the process
of its own development.
Closer contact with town and the outer world came also
with intercollegiate athletics. Not only athletes went out to play,
but large bodies of students went out at times to look on. Crowds
from outside, consisting of the students and alumni of other col-
leges as well as civilian enthusiasts, came to the college campus.
Money had to be raised from business men of the neighboring town
or city, and this helped to bring town and college closer together.
The doings of the college athletic " stars " became interesting mat-
ter for the press, both local and metropolitan, and the little college
athletic circle thus became linked up with the greater circles of
athleticism lying beyond. And there were many other minor points
of contact.
Still another agency that has concurred in the movement of
change has been the growing tendency towards luxury in American
life. Things that were good enough for the college boys of fifty
or even thirty years ago, would not do at all today. The college
shoe shop and tailor shop are things of the past. The class or
society banquet that occasionally graced the general dining-room,
is now held in a city hotel. The old-fashioned soiree and stag
dance in some college hall, have been replaced by up-to-date
" proms," hops and balls in town. The furnishings of the room of
even the moderately well-to-do student of today are a reflex, in a
436 SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS [Jan.,
small way, of the almost universal extravagance that has become one
of the characteristics of American life. In a hundred little ways
this tendency has filtered into the college atmosphere from the great
world outside, and the instances just cited show how deeply it has
stirred the currents of college life, and how far it has turned some
of them from their traditional course.
It is not for the purpose of mere criticism that these changes
in Catholic college life and discipline have been adverted to. As
has been said, they were, to a certain extent, inevitable. Never-
theless, they involve some serious problems for the college, and
these problems have not as yet been completely solved. How far
are the changes to be allowed to go on? In the matter of inter-
collegiate athletics, some of our colleges have gone quite as far
as those Non-Catholic institutions that are known to be most liberal
in this respect. There is a widespread reaction in sentiment and
practice against the excesses of college athleticism. Is there not
a danger that the latitude allowed in things athletic may come
to be regarded by the public as a defect in certain Catholic col-
leges, and a reproach to the entire Catholic college system? The
absence of almost a score of students from books and study and
normal college conditions, during a trip of a week or several days
at a time, cannot be a wholesome thing for the absentees, whatever
be the resulting effect upon the remaining body of students. It is
easy to let down the bars; to raise them up again ever so little in-
volves trouble, and may become a matter of difficulty. Our policy
here ought to be based, not upon expediency, but upon sound Catho-
lic educational tradition, with due, though subordinate, regard to
changed modern conditions. The old stay-at-home policy cannot
have been wholly wrong.
There is an even more serious danger in the letting down of
the bars of general discipline. We may pass over the loss of
the simple, common life of the older days, with its healthful,
democratizing influence. The condition is gone, never to return.
Nothing can take its place. It would be idle, therefore, to discuss
it. But it is different with the general discipline that looks to
the formation and preservation of moral character. The aim here,
in the Catholic college at least, must ever remain the same. The
Catholic college can never adopt as its own the theory of discipline
that the president of a large Non-Catholic college in the East
proclaimed, of requiring no more from his students, in the matter
of conduct, than is required by the ordinary police jurisdiction.
1917.] SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS 437
A Catholic institution which would proceed upon such a theory,
would necessarily cease to be Catholic, and it would soon cease to
enjoy the esteem and patronage of the Catholic public. The in-
culcation of Christian morality is recognized as the inalienable
religious duty of the Catholic parent. When the boy goes to
college, the parent's responsibility is transferred to the president
of the college, but only temporarily and conditionally. Should the
college fail in its duty in this respect, the parent would be bound
in conscience to make good the default, which could only mean,
practically, to send the boy somewhere else. Such is the unques-
tioned teaching of Catholic theology. ,
Supervision there must be by the Catholic college over the
morals and manners of the students. There will always, of course,
be the question as to how much supervision there ought to be.
Here again, however, the effort should be to adhere to the guiding
principle for which the old discipline stood, whatever modifications
may be allowed in its form and application. That principle meant
the concentration of all the student's active interests at the col-
lege, in books and study and wholesome recreations. It may not be
possible to accomplish this as fully and effectively today as was
done formerly, but the principle itself is sound, and essentially
bound up with the fundamental purpose of the college. It must,
therefore, continue to be the norm in the regulation of discipline.
A college president who sets himself to hold firmly to this view may
have some serious, up-hill work in the matter of discipline. His
enrollment list may not, perhaps, increase as rapidly as that of
rival institutions. But he will have the satisfaction of knowing
that he is building upon the rock, and that in the long run his work
will evidence the soundness of the foundation upon which it rests.
RELIGION.
The most effective agency that can be invoked, in the main-
tenance of sound, traditional Catholic discipline in the college, is
religion. Religion has always been relied on to keep students
in the path of duty; it will have to be relied on more exclusively
in the future. The old disciplinary restraints have been largely
removed, and the student is now thrown more upon his honor,
which must mean, at least in the Catholic college, his conscience.
Religion is the only possible influence that can replace the old
disciplinary safeguards under the new conditions. Hence it became
438 SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS [Jan.,
imperative that, with the enlargement of individual liberty in the
college discipline, there should be a corresponding enlargement or
at least realignment of the existing religious influences, in the life of
the individual student as well as in the college atmosphere as a
whole. The new discipline offered for this both the opportunity and
the need.
Have our colleges been prompt to realize this ? Have religious
influences been quickened, and brought into closer touch with the
needs or aspirations of the individual student? Has religion
even maintained her place of primacy among the educative forces
at work to form mind and character ? It is easier to ask such ques-
tions than to answer them. If they are raised here it is only
for the purpose of bringing home to college men a realization of the
imperativeness of their being able to frame an affirmative answer.
It is obvious that there have been certain changes in respect
to religion at our colleges. There is not quite as much church-
going as there used to be — outside, of course, of the Sunday and
holyday services. The annual retreat is not taken as seriously as it
formerly was, if one might judge from outward appearances. The
religious societies, in some institutions, appear to elicit less inter-
est than before, on the part of the great body of students. Yet, on
the other hand, the appeal for frequent and daily Communion
has nowhere had a more generous response than in the colleges.
The students who throng the altar-rail daily in our college chapels —
in some places they number several hundreds — show that religion
has lost nothing of its power to lay vital hold upon the minds and
hearts of our young men. The great question is, are we doing our
utmost to increase the efficacy of its appeal? Are we planning
and striving, in the earnest, anxious way we plan and strive for
improved curriculum and class work, to bring every possible re-
ligious influence to bear upon the college life as a whole as well
as upon each individual student ?
The most important office in the college ought to be recognized
as that of the prefect of religion. From him should radiate the zeal,
energy, and enthusiasm necessary to inform and quicken the re-
ligious life of all and each. The prefect of religion ought to be
a priest eminent above all things for piety, and at the same time
possessing those qualities of sympathy that naturally attract the
young and invite their confidence. It is not essential that he be a
learned man. The best man in the order or congregation, the
priest who combines in the highest degree these two indispensable
1917.] SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS 439
requisites, should be assigned for this work, for the real permanent
success of the institution depends more upon him than upon any-
body else. And he must devote his whole time to the work. To
place this duty upon a hard-worked teacher, in the expectation that
somehow his zeal will enable him in his scanty free hours to attend
to the all-important interests of religion, is to go far towards
relegating religion, in advance, to an inferior place. The prefect
of religion should be known to be in his room or in the chapel
every evening for spiritual ministrations or conferences. His
days should be left free, both to enable him to keep in touch with
the students, and also to give time sufficient for planning and su-
pervising those religious movements and influences that aim to
stir the hearts. The right man will soon create for himself as
much work in these ways as he is able to do. The prefect of
studies is usually left free to supervise the work of the college on
the intellectual side; is it too much to expect that the man who is
specially charged with the difficult and delicate task of caring for
the spiritual interests of hundreds of young souls, should be al-
lowed to give his whole time to this work?
One of the most important duties of the prefect of religion
must be the fostering of priestly and religious vocations. It is to be
feared that many such vocations are lost in our colleges, through
lack of care and attention. How else explain the phenomenon,
that from some institutions a comparatively large number of young
men go to the seminary or the novitiate every year, while in others
vocations are rather an exception than a rule? Student conditions
have, of course, to be taken into account ; but even where conditions
appear to be substantially the same, this contrast is not seldom
observable. Nay, even in the same institution, there may be an in-
crease or a falling off of vocations, and the wisest observers are
prone to attribute the difference to care or neglect, as the result
may be. Here alone is almost sufficient opportunity or duty to
engage the entire attention of a zealous prefect of religion. Cer-
tain it is that in every average body of young men entering college
there are a certain number who have aspirations which, if rightly
fostered, lead to the priestly or religious life. If these deepest
heart-yearnings remain undiscovered and undeveloped, if the sanc-
tuary fails to get its fair share of the fine fruitage of Catholic
college training, it can only be because the college has failed to
fulfill its full duty to God and the Church, as well as to the in-
dividual soul.
440 SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS [Jan.,
Here again, ancient Catholic college traditions ought not to be
lost sight of. Was it not from our colleges and universities that
many of the great priests and missionaries of former times came
forth — to say nothing of the scholastic philosophers and theologians
of the Middle Ages? Unlike students in the diocesan seminaries,
the young men in our colleges who are looking toward the priest-
hood are generally free to devote themselves to work in any part of
the world. Their college atmosphere and training is calculated to
develop in them the broadest religious sympathies, the most generous
and self-sacrificing resolutions. They offer magnificent material
for the heroic apostolate of foreign missions, as well as the more
difficult kinds of home-mission work, such as the conversion of
Non-Catholics and parish work in sparsely settled districts of the
West and South.
Many of our religious orders have indeed drawn their most
fruitful vocations for work of this kind from their colleges. But
the number of such vocations ought today to be much greater than
it is. There are two patent reasons for this assertion. The
number of students in our colleges is today several times greater
than it was a quarter of a century ago ; but no one will pretend that
there has been anything like a corresponding increase of vocations.
Again, the need is greater, and the appeal for such vocations is
sounding ever louder and louder in our ears. It is not only men
that are needed, but material means, and — what is essential to se-
cure both sufficiently — organization. This is especially true of
foreign missionary work. It is evident that a larger share of the
burden of supporting the foreign missions is to fall to America
in the future. The great war has impoverished the nations of
Europe that have hitherto been the mainstays of this work. They
will henceforth have little money to give, and their vocations will
be needed at home to supply the gaps caused by the war and by the
closing of so many of the seminaries. American Catholics are
generous, and they have the material means. Experience has
shown that they need only to be appealed to rightly, in order to
enlist their sympathy and generosity in this great cause. The same
is true of the young men who are looking towards the priesthood
in our colleges. There are scores of them every year who would
respond heartily to an appeal to devote themselves to the more
difficult kinds of mission work, if their hearts could only be ef-
fectively reached.
Here, then, is a great religious object that ought to be brought
1917.] SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS 441
more definitely within the scope of the religious influences that
are active in our colleges. It would be easy to establish a mis-
sionary society in every Catholic college. Yet, is there a single-
society of the kind anywhere? Its purpose would naturally be
to develop interest in the missions, both home and foreign, to
foster vocations, and collect material means for the work. The dues
need be no more than trifling, but considerable money might be
raised at times by indirect means. Certain college organizations,
such as the glee club, might be appealed to, once in a while, to
devote a benefit entertainment to the cause, for many students be-
sides those looking towards the sacred ministry would be in-
terested in a religious society of the kind. The French colleges
have set us a noble example. Their students have long contributed
regularly to the collections of the Society for the Propagation of
the Faith, and they have much less pocket money than our college
young men. But the matter of quantity is a consideration that is
altogether secondary. The spirit of generosity and self-sacrifice
that might so easily be thus engendered,- would mean a very great
deal. Local mission societies at our colleges might readily be
affiliated to form a union organization. There would then be an
annual convention, with papers and discussions on mission problems,
and addresses by priests and bishops having experience of real
missionary life. It is high time for our colleges to take up this
work. We have before our eyes the example of what is being ac-
complished in this way in Non-Catholic American colleges.
There are other features of religious work in the college
that call for development. I shall mention but one of these — the
encouragement of total abstinence. The Catholic total abstinence
society is by right a religious society. The form of pledge com-
monly employed involves a religious act, its formal motive being the
sublime self-sacrifice of Christ. There ought to be a strong total
abstinence society in every college — strong, not necessarily in num-
bers, but in its religious spirit, in the examples furnished of noble
Christian self-restraint, and in the assured support and encourage-
ment of the highest college authorities. There is no solid reason
why this should not be. There are always, in every institution,
students who are willing. There is need only of encouragement
and efficient management. This work should belong to the
duties of the prefect of religion.
The influence of such a society cannot but be most whole-
some. A great moral movement, directed against liquor and the
442 SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS [Jan.,
liquor interests, is stirring the country. The agitation may run
to excesses here and there; but it evidences, on the whole, the
concern of vast numbers of thinking men and women about the un-
doubted dangers of drink, especially in the case of the young.
Are these dangers ever greater than in the case of college students?
Should not every possible influence be used, in order to set high
and clear before the eyes of all the ideal of conduct in this re-
spect that the college cherishes? That ideal is total abstinence.
It is more than an ideal; it is a rule that obtains generally in
Catholic colleges, as a matter of discipline. How much more ef-
fective the rule, especially under the present system of enlarged per-
sonal freedom, if the motive of religion or of religious self-sacrifice
were brought into play in its observance This is what a religious
total abstinence society does. The membership may be small or it
may be great, but, in any case, it represents so much of clear gain
in the supreme work of promoting high-minded Christian life.
THE TEACHER.
Some of the most vital problems connected with the develop-
ment of the Catholic college or university of the present time, have
to do with the teacher. As most of our institutions of higher edu-
cation are conducted by religious orders, we will confine our at-
tention here to teachers who are religious.
More teachers are relatively required in the colleges now than
formerly. Not only is this true, but an entirely different system
of preparing teachers appears now to be demanded. In former
times, a teacher might divide his time between a number of subjects
or branches of knowledge. He might teach Latin and Greek, Eng-
lish and mathematics — all the branches, in fact, that go to make up
a year of the classical course; also to him might be given subjects as
diverse as Greek and chemistry, or mathematics and history. This
is still done in many places, especially in the preparatory course.
There are certain advantages in this system of teaching, and if the
teaching can be well done, there can be little objection to it. But
the trend of thought and practice is against it. Whatever may be
thought of it as applied in the preparatory years, its successful ap-
plication in the collegiate years has become, with time, a matter of
increasing difficulty.
It has never been questioned that, in college work at least,
one must be thoroughly master of the subject he teaches, if he is
1917.] SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS 443
to do the best work. To know thoroughly any important branch
of knowledge now-a-days, there is need of making a life study
of it. This applies even to subjects like Latin and Greek. So
great have become the accumulations of knowledge in every direc-
tion, that it is ordinarily impossible for one who spreads his at-
tention over several fields of knowledge to become thoroughly ac-
quainted with any one. Hence, to secure the best results in college
work, the teacher must be a specialist. He must have devoted him-
self to a profound and comprehensive study of some one branch,
as well as to some study of its cognate branches, in order to gain a
complete mastery of his chosen field. Only thus can he bring to
his class work the scholarship that can satisfy his students, and
the enthusiastic devotion that may enkindle in them a living in-
terest in the subject. It goes without saying that if this is true
of college teaching today, it applies even more patently to uni-
versity teaching. No one is competent to direct post-graduate work
who is not himself a specialist, trained in the methods of research.
It is a function of the university to develop in its students
this highest scholarship, this noble, passionate devotion to knowl-
edge. Nowhere else, generally speaking, can this training be had.
The university degree, it is true, does not always mark the at-
tainment of real scholarship. Men go through the university, at
times, as some boys go through college — just "to get through;"
without any real love of learning, and with but a stock of gathered
knowledge, destined to remain without much substantial addition
afterwards. Yet, even such as these become the better teachers for
their university experience. The university doctorate represents only
the minimum requirement. It is a sign that the ideal proposed has
been striven for, however far short of its full attainment the indi-
vidual, owing to personal dispositions, may be content to stay. In
speaking of the necessity of university training for the college
teacher, we are, of course, admitting as the equivalent of this the
special systems of post-graduate preparation for teaching that obtain
in certain religious orders, in so far as the work conforms to ac-
cepted university methods and standards. The all-important point
is, that the college professor today must be a specialist, and a
thorough scholar in the specialty he is to teach.
Catholic colleges possess a most important advantage in this
matter of scholarship and special training. Their professors who
are religious represent the flower of our Catholic youth. The
brightest and the best of the students in our schools and colleges
444 SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS [Jan.,
offer themselves to the religious orders, to devote their lives to
college teaching, after being suitably prepared and trained. They
consecrate their talents in advance, irrevocably, to the cause.
Among them are minds capable of the highest possible scholarly de-
velopment, and the vast majority are apt subjects for university
work. They need only to be efficiently trained, in order to be the
equal of the high-salaried professors in the great Non-Catholic
institutions. Once they are trained, whatever be the expense of
this, their scholarship is entirely at the service of the institution
or order to which they belong, and this for the term of their
lives. In Non-Catholic institutions, on the other hand, the most
talented students may be picked out and trained for professorships
in their alma mater: but how often it happens that their services
are afterwards lost to it, through the attractions of a higher salary
offered elsewhere !
The best investment that the college or religious order can
make, to insure its academic future, is the money and sacrifice
entailed in affording a university training to those who are destined
to be professors. Every college teacher, without exception, should
have a university education. The day is gone by when a man can
rightly be allowed to teach a class who has never seen more of the
subject than was derived from his taking the same class as a student;
when a college degree can be considered as conferring competence
to teach anything in the college course'; when even Latin can safely
be entrusted to anyone who has merely added the study of philosophy
and theology in Latin to his college work in the classics. Such
views were common enough formerly, and there was some excuse
for them, in the pioneer condition of so many of our colleges. They
are entirely untenable today. They could but bring the stigma of
inferiority upon the work of any institution in which they might,
even to a partial extent, be practically entertained. This is not less
true of our colleges for women than of our colleges and universities
for men.
The proposition that every college teacher should have uni-
versity training, is not meant to imply that every college teacher
should have a full university education or should have a university
degree. This would be to demand the impossible, however de-
sirable the ideal may appear to be. Various reasons may militate
against the completion of university work, not the least frequent
of these being the matter of health. But everyone destined to
teach in a college should pass some time at a university — at least
1917-] SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS 445
a year or two; and he should acquire there, in addition to an
advanced knowledge of his specialty, some insight into the methods
of research work and critical study. With these requirements,
he will have opened the gateway to fuller knowledge; and, with
time and books, he may by himself go very far along the way to
ripest scholarship. As many as possible, however, should be al-
lowed opportunity for full university training and the doctorate
degree.
But the work of the institution or religious order in pre-
paring its teachers for highest efficiency, may not be regarded as
ended with the completion of their work at the university. It is
of the essence of the training of the modern university that the
student should be taught to regard his work there as only an
initiation into the realm of scholarship. He has simply been shown
how to make a beginning. He will be untrue to the university ideal,
if he is not spurred on by what he has already done, to further and
more mature researches in his chosen field. For this, time is
necessary. Many a young teacher, fresh from the university, and
ardent to carry further the studies brilliantly begun, is intellectually
crushed by a burden of class work that allows him scarcely time
enough for the immediate preparation for his daily teaching. Ad-
ministration work, of one kind or another, put upon young teachers,
is another bar to intellectual growth. Prefecting is, perhaps, the
duty that interferes, more than anything else, with the prosecution
of advanced studies on the part of our college and university
teachers.
It is undoubtedly most difficult at times for college authori-
ties to avoid placing such duties upon teachers. Classes have to
be taught, and if there are not teachers enough, extra classes
must be put upon the most capable. Administration work, similarly,
has to be assigned to those who are most competent to care for it.
Prefecting is indispensable in the Catholic system, and no plan
has yet been devised which will obviate the necessity of requisition-
ing teachers to do the work. There are problems here that urgently
call for solution, at least in many institutions. But they are by
no means to be regarded as insoluble. The increase of vocations
to the ecclesiastical life, in our colleges, which was pointed out
above as so needed, might help greatly to solve some of these
problems. It would increase the number of teachers and supply
more men with special capacity for administrative work. Some
of the students destined for the ministry would make excellent pre-
446 SOME COLLEGE PROBLEMS [Jan.,
fects, and, with a larger number of such students to select from,
there might, perhaps, be developed in time- a system of student pre-
fects or proctors which would, relieve teachers from this duty.
This possibility shows how closely our college problems lie one to
another, and how intimately bound up many of them are with the
supreme problem of the fuller development of religious sentiment
and practice.
The best means at present — and perhaps it will ever remain
so — of inducing young teachers to continue their advanced studies,
is to surround them with an atmosphere of scholarship. Let study
be encouraged. Let research work and publication be recognized.
Much can be done, even by men heavily burdened by classes, when
there is a fixed purpose to do. There are always those whose intel-
lectual ardor no amount of burdensome duties can entirely ex-
tinguish. A few teachers of this kind, if encouraged and allowed
such opportunity as can be accorded them for their advancement,
will form a nursery of the higher intellectual life and work within
the institution. A few great scholars are enough to make the
academic reputation of any college.
Our colleges and universities owe it to their own reputation,
as well as to the honor of the Church, to develop, more than has
been done in the past, men of the highest type of intellectual scholar-
ship. Many of them have been hitherto prevented from doing this
by preoccupations connected with indispensable material interests.
Happily, the day of brick-and-mortar development is now fairly
well over. Scholarship is, above all things, after the vital inter-
ests of religion, that which is now of most imperative need. No
increase in enrollment, however great, no athletic achievements,
however brilliant, can possibly supply for this. The elements that
go to make up the best opportunity for development of distinguished
scholarship are, as has been shown, clearly in our hands. It only
remains for us to employ, without delay, this precious heritage of
opportunity, in ways that will accord at once with Catholic educa-
tional traditions and the academic spirit and ideals of our time.
AMERICAN STATESMEN AND FREEDOM OF THE SEAS.
BY CHARLES C/SULLIVAN.
N his long fight for the rights of neutrals on the high
seas, President Wilson followed closely in the foot-
steps of some of America's most illustrious states-
men. These great men of the past seemed to see
clearly from the very beginning the danger to the
United States that lurked in the confused condition of the maritime
laws, and they did all in their power to persuade the European na-
tions to agree to abolish, or, at the least, to amend them.
With that touch of idealism characteristic of American states-
menship at its best, they sought concessions beneficial to other coun-
tries as well as to their own, concessions that would put an end
for all time to private war on the high seas. They reasoned that
if the rules providing for the blockade of ports were strictly en-
forced, and the classification of goods as contraband of war al-
together abolished, there would no longer exist any reason for
exercising the right of search (the most dangerous of maritime
annoyances) and then the freedom of the seas would be a reality in-
deed, for neutral ships could sail to and from all unblockaded ports
in time of war as in time of peace, without fear of disturbance,
save by the elements. Thus far these efforts have been but partially
successful ; the story, however, of the struggle made by American
statesmen for the rights of neutrals forms a bright chapter in our
history which has been too long neglected. Almost every step for-
ward in the international laws governing the seas was due primarily
to these men, and of that remarkable fact every American has a
right to be proud.
The course to be pursued by the United States in international
affairs was first indicated by what are now known as the Franklin
treaties. It will be recalled that for almost eight years Benjamin
Franklin represented the United States in France; first as Commis-
sioner and later as Minister Plenipotentiary. Although the major
part of his interesting life had been spent in small provincial cities
he possessed all the arts of the accomplished diplomat. A certain
slyness of manner, especially when dealing with people of im-
448 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS [Jan.,
portance, led many to suppose him simple, whereas he was really
profound. He knew well how to dissimulate and, when put to it,
could preserve his composure under the most trying circumstances,
as he showed to perfection at that memorable meeting of the Privy
Council when Solicitor General Wedderburn denounced him so
viciously for his use of the Hutchinson letters. His tact, urbanity,
extreme cleverness and, more than all, those democratic ideas which
he took care never to make too common, won for him a place in
the regard of the French people which no envoy since has come
anywhere near. Before the close of his mission it had actually
come to such a point that the representatives from other countries
sought to do business with this unique and extraordinary person
whom they had come to look upon as one of the world's really great
men; and the sagacious American lost no time in turning their
desires to the advantage of his country. In his letters he tells
how the Swedish Ambassador to France approached him in the
spring of 1782 to arrange a treaty of commerce with the United
States. " The Ambassador added," says Franklin, " that it was
a pleasure to him to think, and he hoped it would be remembered,
that Sweden was the first power in Europe which had voluntarily
offered its friendship to the United States, without being solicited."
While Franklin introduced in the treaty with Sweden many novel
regulations for the protection of neutral commerce, he considered
the treaty he negotiated with Frederick the Great of Prussia as the
crowning achievement of his long diplomatic career. That im-
portant document which was ratified by the Continental Congress
on May 17, 1786, provides (among other things) that if one of
the nations engaged in war with another Power, the commerce of
the one remaining neutral shall not be interrupted ; that free vessels
make free goods in so much that all things shall be adjudged free
which shall be on board a neutral vessel with the exception of
contraband ; that property seized as contraband cannot be destroyed
although it may be detained and if the master of a vessel stopped
for carrying contraband, deliver up the goods, he must be allowed
to proceed; prisoners of war are to be properly cared for; pri-
vateering is to be abolished and finally (as a damper on the en-
thusiasm of enthusiastic naval officers) Franklin provides that such
persons must furnish a bond against injuring neutral property be-
fore obtaining commissions. Surely a quaint device, but if it were
enforced today it might avert serious trouble !
Franklin gloried in this treaty; and when it finally came into
1917.] THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 449
the hands of George Washington in his tranquil retreat at Mount
Vernon, it stirred that great man to unwonted enthusiasm. On
July 31, 1786, he wrote his impressions of it to his old comrade-in-
arms, Count de Rochambeau :
The treaty of amity, which has lately taken place between
the King of Prussia and the United States, marks a new era
in negotiation. It is the most liberal treaty which has ever
been entered into between independent powers. It is perfectly
original in many of its articles; and, should its principles be
considered hereafter as the basis of connection between nations,
it will operate more fully to produce a general pacification than
any measure heretofore attempted amongst mankind.
The first attempt to abolish contraband of war and regulate
the law of blockades was made in the second administration of
President Washington. For some time the British had been treat-
ing our commerce in a way described by Alexander Hamilton as
" atrocious," and Chief Justice Jay was finally sent to England to
negotiate a treaty that would settle all existing differences. In the
letter of instructions to Mr. Jay, dated May 6, 1794, Edmund Ran-
dolph, Secretary of State, while purporting to discuss the com-
mercial features of the treaty, expresses himself in the manner
which has become characteristically American, in part, as follows:
Let these be the general objects : . . . . 3d. Free ships to make
free goods. 4th. Proper security for the safety of neutral
commerce in other respects and particularly by declaring pro-
visions never to be contraband except in the strongest possible
case, as the blockade by a port; or, if attainable, by abolishing
contraband altogether. By defining a blockade if contraband
must continue in some degree, as it is defined in the armed
neutrality; by restricting the opportunities of vexation in
visiting vessels ; by bringing under stricter management, pri-
vateers.
Jay was unable to wring any such concessions as these from the
stiff-necked British Government of the day, and the treaty finally
signed by him aroused such bitter opposition throughout his own
country that it narrowly escaped rejection by the Senate.
The broad question of the abolition of contraband was, how-
ever, taken up by another and far greater Virginian than Edmund
Randolph.
VOL. civ.— 29
450 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS [Jan.,
In the early days of Thomas Jefferson's administration, Europe
enjoyed a few fleeting minutes of peace. Jefferson's knowledge
of foreign affairs told him that this happy condition could not last
with Napolean Bonaparte acting as First Consul of France, and in
characteristic fashion he began to prepare for war. His ideas on
international maritime law as set forth in a letter to his old friend
Robert R. Livingston, the Minister to France, are significant of the
continuity which was to characterize the American doctrine of free-
dom of the seas. Jefferson says:
We believe the practice of seizing what is called contraband
of war, is an abusive practice, not founded in natural right.
War between two nations cannot diminish the rights of the rest
of the world remaining at peace. The doctrine that the rights
of nations remaining quietly in the exercise of moral and social
duties, are to give way to the convenience of those who prefer
plundering and murdering one another, is a monstrous doctrine ;
and ought to yield to the more rational law, that " the wrong
which two nations wish to inflict on each other, must not in-
fringe on the rights or conveniences of those remaining at peace."
And what is contraband by the law of nature? Either every-
thing which may aid or comfort an enemy, or nothing. Either
all commerce which would accommodate him is unlawful, or
none is. The difference between articles of one or another de-
scription, is a difference in degree only. No line between them
can be drawn. Either all intercourse must cease between neu-
trals and belligerents, or all be permitted. Can the world hesi-
tate to say which shall be the rule? Shall two nations turning
tigers, break up in one instant the peaceable relations of the
whole world? Reason and nature clearly pronounce that the
neutral is to go on in the enjoyment of all its rights, that its
commerce remains free, not subject to the jurisdiction of
another, nor consequently its vessels to search, or to inquiries
whether their contents are the property of an enemy, or are of
those which have been called contraband of war. Nor does
this doctrine contravene the right of preventing vessels from
entering a blockaded port. This right stands on other ground.
When the fleet of any nation actually beleaguers the port of its
enemy, no other has the right to enter their line, any more than
their line of battle in the open sea, or their lines of circumval-
lation, or of encampment, or of battle array on land. The space
included within their lines in any of these cases, is either the
property of their enemy, or it is common property assumed and
possessed for the moment, which cannot be intruded upon ever
1917.] THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 451
by a neutral, without committing the very trespass we are now
considering, that of intruding into the lawful possession of a
friend. Although I consider the observance of these principles
of great importance to the interest of peaceable nations, among
whom I hope the United States will ever place themselves, yet
in the present state of things they are not worth a war. Nor
do I believe war the most certain way of enforcing them. Those
peaceable coercions which are in the power of every nation, if
undertaken in concert or in time of peace, are more likely to
produce the desired effect.
Livingston was kept so busy from the moment he set foot in
the French capital that he had no chance to take up the question
of contraband with the French Government; and in less than two
years Napoleon, having replenished his exchequer by the sale of
Louisiana to the United States, violated the treaty of Amiens, and
Europe was once more consumed by bloody flames. From that time
until Jefferson retired from office in 1809, the United States suf-
fered all the indignities that it is possible for powerful belligerents
to heap on a neutral nation : her ministers were grossly insulted at
the Courts of Spain, England and France, her seamen were im-
pressed, her warships wantonly attacked and her commerce driven
from the seas. Under such circumstances it is no wonder that some
people clamored for war. But the President never lost his poise
for a moment. He was prepared to sacrifice even his "darling popu-
larity " rather than the principles on which he had founded a great
national policy. What he said in his letter to Livingston he meant
sincerely; and when at last he was driven to take measures of re-
taliation it was not to armies and navies he resorted, but to an
embargo on commerce.
The true account of that interesting episode in our history has
yet to be written; but Jefferson always insisted that had it not
been for the group of New England secessionists (the hyphenates
of those days) who played into the hands of England, he would have
brought both France and Great Britain to their knees without
spilling a drop of blood.
There was one New Englander, however, and not the least
able of that brilliant band, who testified to his faith in the President
by an act rare enough in those days, rarer still in our own. This
was John Quincy Adams, who resigned as Senator from Massa-
chusetts and turned his back on the Federalist party, when the
leaders of that party wavered in loyalty to the Government during
452 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS [Jan.,
the alarming crisis that followed the clash between the Leopard
and the Chesapeake. So impressed indeed was Adams by the in-
justice done neutral commerce during the administration of Jef-
ferson that long afterward, when he was Secretary of State in the
Cabinet of President Monroe, he undertook to form a plan to
prevent the repetition of such outrages in future wars. There
were several famous statement living at that time — Canning in
England, Chateaubriand in France, Nesselrode in Russia — but it is
doubtful if any one of them was as well equipped for that par-
ticular task as John Quincy Adams. His diplomatic career had
been long and splendid. While still a very young man he had
been sent by Washington on a special mission to King George III. ;
he was successively Minister of the United States to Holland,
Prussia, Russia and Great Britain; and as one of the five American
Commissioners at Ghent, he did much to bring to a conclusion the
glorious but unsuccessful War of 1812. Such experiences are not
likely to be lost on a man of unusual native ability, and Adams
came to possess in a marked degree that " international mind " of
which a distinguished educator has spoken. In the Convention
to which Adams invited the signatures of the chief maritime powers
of the world, he proposed that contraband be confined to imple-
ments of warfare, that blockades, to be binding, must be effective,
that the neutral flag covers enemy goods except contraband, that the
enemy's flag covers neutral goods except contraband, and that the
impressment of seamen should cease.
Through the American diplomatic agents in the various Euro-
pean capitals, Adams urged the adoption of this Convention with
an eloquence persuasive and charming; and in writing of it in his
diary, he showed that a scholarly Yankee statesman thought by the
world proud, cynical, severe, and wedded to theories and doctrines,
can be very human even in the seculsion of his closet, when under
the inspiration of the problem of working out and enforcing upon
the world an American theory of international affairs.
On July 28, 1823, he wrote in his diary:
My plan involves nothing less than a revolution in the laws
of war — a great amelioration in the condition of man. Is it the
dream of a visionary or is it the great and practicable conception
of a benefactor of mankind? I believe it is the latter, and I
believe this to be precisely the time for proposing it to the world.
Should it even fail it will be honorable to have proposed it.
1917.] THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 453
Founded on justice, humanity, and benevolence, it can in no
event bear bitter fruits.
And on the last day of the same month he again confided to his
diary his hopes and fears on the subject so near his heart :
The important labor of the month has been the preparation of
instructions to R. Rush and to H. Middleton upon the North-
west Coast question, and upon the project of a convention for
the regulation of neutral and belligerent rights. These are both
important transactions, and the latter especially one which will
warrant the special invocation of wisdom from above. When I
think if it possibly could succeed what a real and solid blessing
it would be to the human race, I can scarcely guard myself from
a spirit of enthusiasm which it becomes me to distrust. I feel
that I could die for it with joy, and that if my last moments
could be cheered by the consciousness of having contributed to
it, I could go before the throne of Omnipotence with a plea for
mercy, and with a consciousness of not having lived in vain for
the world of mankind. It has been for more than thirty years
my prayer to God that this might be my lot upon earth, to
render signal service to my country and to my species. For the
specific object, the end, and the means, I have relied alike upon
the goodness of God. What they were or would be I know not.
For it "is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." I have
rendered services to my country, but no such as could satisfy my
©wn ambition. But this offers the specific object which I have
desired. And why should not the hearts of the rulers of man-
kind be turned to approve and establish it? I have opened my
heart to the hopes though with trembling.
Adams did not live to see his wishes fulfilled. In 1823, Presi-
dent Monroe made his message to the Congress ever memorable by
announcing to the world for the first time a theory that originated
in the active brain of his Secretary of State, and is now known as
the Monroe Doctrine; and at the same time he said some strong
words in regard to the overtures that had just been made by the
United State to foreign powers in regard to the freedom of the
seas. The negotiations then languished for a time as such things
are liable to do if let alone. But when Adams himself became
President, Henry Clay, his Secretary of State, gave them an ef-
fective shove forward, and in President Jackson's time, Edward
Livingston, who had already given evidence of his intense love of
454 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS [Jan,
justice by reforming the criminal law, added fresh lustre to his
fame by his noble advocacy of the rights of neutrals in time of war.
All these efforts, however, had but the effect of pebbles cast against
the walls of some huge fortress. The time was not yet ripe
for the old world to accept with complacency advice from the new.
The European ministers of 1823 cared little or nothing for the
rights of neutrals on land and sea, and treated a trifle contemptuously
the humane ideas of the American statesmen of the time. But the
sobering effect produced upon Europe by the wanton carnage of
the Crimean Wars caused the proposals of Americans to be regarded
with more favor. Of the four enactments in the Declaration of
Paris, which was signed by the principal European Powers in
1856, three were originally proposed by John Quincy Adams, and
the world would have been saved both blood and treasure in the
sixty years that have gone by since if his other suggestions had
been adopted as well.
The astute European statesmen, however, who drew the docu-
ment (taking a hint from Benjamin Franklin's treaty with Prussia),
stopped short of doing this, but they did declare privateering
abolished. Under these circumstances the United States, still re-
membering with gratitude the splendid services of the American
privateers in the War of 1812, was left no alternative, having
due regard to the safety of the young Nation, but to refuse to
abandon privateering. The letter of Secretary William L. Marcy
to the Comte de Sartiges explaining the refusal of this country to
be a party to the Declaration of Paris, is as fine as any ever written
by an American Secretary of State. For clearness of statement,
logical thought and lofty patriotism, it will bear comparison with
Daniel Webster's letter to Mr. Everett on the Right of Visit, or his
more celebrated letter to the Chevalier Hiilsemann. After a short
account of the feeling of the people of the United States in regard
to large armies and navies, Mr. Marcy suggested two amendments
to the Declaration of Paris : ( i ) That private war on the sea should
be ended by adding to the clause declaring privateering abolished the
words " and that the private property of the subjects and citizens
of a belligerent on the high seas, shall be exempt from seizure by
the public armed vessels of the other belligerent, except it be contra-
band," and (2) the abolishment of contraband of war. His state-
ment on the latter point was as follows :
As connected with the subject herein discussed, it is not in-
19.17.] THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 455
appropriate to remark, that a due regard to the fair claims of
neutrals would seem to require some modification, if not aban-
donment, of the doctrine in relation to contraband trade. Na-
tions which preserve the relations of peace should not be in-
juriously affected in their commercial intercourse by those who
choose to involve themselves in war, provided the nature of
such peaceful actions do not compromise their character as
neutrals by a direct interference with the military operations of
the belligerents. The laws of siege and blockade, it is believed,
afford all the remedies against neutrals that the parties to the
war can justly claim. Those laws interdict all trade with the
besieged and blockaded places. A further interference with
the ordinary pursuits of neutrals, in nowise to blame for an
existing state of hostilities, is contrary to the obvious dictates
of justice. If these views of the subject could be adopted, and
practically observed by all civilized nations, the right of search,
which has been the source of much annoyance and so many
injuries to neutral commerce, would be restricted to such cases
only as justified a suspicion of an attempt to trade with places
actually in a state of siege or blockade. Humanity and justice
demand that the calamities incident to war shall be strictly
limited to the belligerents themselves and those who voluntarily
take part with them; but neutrals abstaining in good faith
from such complicity ought to be left to pursue their ordinary
trade with either belligerent without restrictions in respect to
the articles entering into it.
Mr. Marcy's enlightened views were not appreciated in Europe,
and to this day, although the opportunity has remained open, the
United States has not become a party to the Declaration of Paris.
In 1 86 1 it seemed for a short time as if this policy was about to
be changed. Hardly had the smoke of the guns at Fort Sumter
cleared away than Confederate privateers began to slip out of
British ports to strike at Union commerce which then covered the
Seven Seas. So effectively did they do their work that William H.
Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, realized that measures must
be taken at once to check them, and with this idea in view he sug-
gested to the Governments of France and England that the United
States be permitted to join in the Declaration of Paris, hoping that
it would then be possible to treat the Confederate ships as pirates.
But Lord John Russell, the British Foreign Minister, who regarded
the United States with anything but a friendly eye, foiled this little
plan by dragging out the negotiations until they finally fell to pieces.
456 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS [Jan.,
It is worthy of note in passing that, in his interesting lectures on
International Law, Sir Henry Simmer Maine, the eminent British
jurist, quotes at length from Marcy's letter on the Declaration of
Paris, and strongly endorses his recommendation in regard to the
abolition of private war on the high seas.
The next American statesman to attempt to change the In-
ternational Laws of the sea was Lewis Cass. While Minister to
France in President Tyler's time, Cass had publicly criticized
Daniel Webster for signing the Ashburton Treaty before England
had abandoned her claim to impress seamen. But Webster, think-
ing the attack actuated by political motives, struck back with un-
usual vigor, and in a contest of wits it is doubtful if anyone then
living in America stood any chance with that matchless " logic
buffer" (as Carlyle called Webster) who easily carried off the
palm. Cass had his revenge, however, when President Buchanan
made him Secretary of State, and his knowledge of Europe and
Europeans helped him to make the most of his opportunities. At
the outbreak of the war between France and Austria in 1859, he
issued the following circular to the American representatives in
Europe :
The blockade of a coast or of commercial positions along it,
without any regard to ulterior military operations, and with the
real design of carrying on a war against trade, and from its
very nature against the trade of peaceable and friendly powers,
instead of a war against armed men, is a proceeding which it is
difficult to reconcile with reason or the opinions of modern
times. To watch every creek and river and harbor upon an
ocean frontier, in order to seize and confiscate every vessel with
its cargo attempting to enter or go out, without any direct effect
on the true objects of war, is a mode of conducting hostilities
which would find few advocates if now first presented for con-
sideration. Unfortunately, however, the right to do this has
long been recognized by the law of nations, accompanied, in-
deed, with precautionary conditions, intended to prevent abuse,
but which experience has shown to be lamentably inoperative.
These papers of Marcy and Cass made a lasting impression on
two statesmen now long dead, but whose fame seems to increase as
the years pass over their graves. In the early sixties, Charles
Sumner in America and Richard Cobden in England had reached
the zenith of their fame. Sumner was one of the most remarkable
characters ever produced in this country. Deeply learned and with
1917-] THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 457
some of the austerity of the early Puritan still clinging to him, he
yet possessed that vivid imagination which ever marks the dif-
ference between the true statesman and the mere politician. Words
had for him a perfect charm, and he was ready on a moment's
notice to pour forth a flood of ideas on any subject that happened
to catch his fancy. In this he resembled Henry Brougham, a man
whom he met and admired when he visited England in his youth.
But it was a resemblance with a vast difference after all: for
Sumner was far more accurate in statement and thorough in prep-
aration than Brougham ever was, and he had, besides, a moral
fibre in his make up, a thing that some say the great Scotsman
sadly lacked. For twenty years Sumner was a conspicuous and
powerful figure in the Senate of the United States. In that august
assembly the position most likely to expose a member's foibles or
display his excellences is the Chairmanship of the Committee on
Foreign Relations. For the greater part of his career in the Senate,
Sumner filled this high place with exceptional ability, authority and
distinction. In the years he had spent abroad, he had come to know
not only the manners and customs of the Europeans, but what was
far more essential, their mode of thinking on the important ques-
tions of the day; and there was hardly a prominent man in the
public life of England, France, or Germany whom he had not
met, and with many of them he carried on an interesting corre-
spondence. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that in
the excitement aroused in America and England over the Trent
affair, President Lincoln and his advisers turned to Sumner to
explain to the world the attitude assumed by the Government of
the United States. They thought that his oratorical skill and the
respect foreigners had for his learning and reputation would carry
his words far and wide. Nor was their confidence misplaced. The
Senate Chamber has seldom been crowded as it was on the morn-
ing of January 9, 1862, when Charles Sumner arose to speak on
" The Trent." Prelates of various religious denominations, journa-
lists from distant lands, officers from the mighty army being mar-
shaled by General McClellan to destroy Richmond, and the envoys
of every European country (with the exception of Lord Lyons, the
British Minister) formed a picturesque background for an historic
occasion. With innumerable citations from international law, with
examples drawn from the history of his own and other countries,
with literary allusion and oratorical artifice, Sumner drove home his
point that by demanding the surrender of Mason and Slidell, Great
458 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS [Jan.,
Britain had abandoned, once and for all, her right to ask the return
of Englishmen serving on American ships. And then, just at the
close, he thrilled the ardent and expectant audience by his pro-
posals for the amendment of the unjust laws of the sea :
To complete the efficacy of this reform, closing the gate
against belligerent pretensions, contraband of war should be
abolished, so that all ships may navigate the ocean freely,
without peril or detention from the character of persons or
things on board; and here I only follow the administration
of Washington, enjoining upon John Jay, in his negotiations
with England, to seek security for neutral commerce, particu-
larly by abolishing contraband altogether. The right of search,
which, on the outbreak of war, becomes an omnipresent
tyranny, subjecting every neutral ship to the arbitrary invasion
of every belligerent cruiser, wtmld then disappear. It would
drop as the chains from an emancipated slave; or rather, it
would exist only as an occasional agent, under solemn treaties
in the war waged by civilization against the slave trade; and
there it would be proudly recognized as an honorable surrender
to the best interests of humanity, glorifying the flag which
made it. With the consummation of these reforms in mari-
time law, war will be despoiled of its most vexatious preroga-
tives, while innocent neutrals are exempt from its torments.
Charles Sumner and Richard Cobden often corresponded on
the important questions of the day, and the far-sighted English
statesman, who possessed a fund of interesting political ideas, some-
times presented a few of them to his American colleague in good
causes. Cobden was a man of simple tastes, self-educated in a
large measure, and, as he said himself, not given to " peroration."
But his speeches and writings were " rich in saving common sense,"
and when people are puzzled to account for the extraordinary suc-
cess of his reform measures, that is the explanatory key which they
have to turn. Though he looked into the future further than any
of his contemporaries, gifted as some of them were, yet he shrank
from proposing any plan that might be criticized as far-fetched.
When he undertook to reform the Corn laws, or to reduce arma-
nents, or to prevent England from intervening in foreign wars, or
to negotiate a treaty of commerce with the French Empire, he did
so on the sole ground that these things were for the best interests,
financial and moral, of the English people. And so it was when he
1917.] THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 459
made his proposals for the reform of maritime law. " I will under-
take to show," he said, " that England has most to gain by it." In
the early thirties, Cobden visited this country, and when he returned
home he was quite as well able to lay a sharp-nailed finger on our
weak spots as either Dickens or Mrs. Oliphant; but, unlike the
others, he did not act from motives of petty spite, but rather with
the thoughtfulness of a de Tocqueville. For what are called the
prizes of life, those things that are likely to make the noblest of
men as unstable as water, " for wealth, for honors or for worldly
state," Cobden cared not at all. What he did was done with an eye
on mankind: not from love of prominence or party. Under the
circumstances it is no wonder that Lord Palmerston, that most
practical of politicians, should have asked him in amazement, " Why
did you ever enter public life?" It was the appalling suffering
caused in Lancashire and Yorkshire by the blockade of the cotton
ports in the War of Secession that first turned Cobden' s attention
to the maritime laws; and, from that time until his death in 1865,
he worked unceasingly to abolish what he aptly termed : " traps laid
for neutral nations to fall into war." In a letter written by him
to Charles Sumner in January, 1862, just after the settlement of
the Trent affair he offered the following piece of advice:
Propose to Europe a clean sweep of the old maritime law of
Vattel, Puffendorf and Co.; abolish blockades of commercial
ports on the ground laid down in Cass' dispatch which you
sent. Get rid of the right of search in time of war as in time
of peace, and make private property exempt from capture by
armed vessels of every kind, whether government vessels or
privateers. And, as an earnest of your policy, offer to apply
the doctrine in your present war. You would instantly gain
France and all the continent of Europe to your side. You
would enlist a party in England that can always control our
governing class when there is a sufficient motive for action;
and you acquire such a moral position that no power would
dream of laying hands on you. I think I told you that all our
commercial and trading community have already pronounced in
favor of the exempting private property from capture by
government ships, as first proposed by Mr. Marcy. In the en-
suing session of Parliament, I intend to make a speech on the
subject of maritime law, in which I will undertake to prove
that we, above all other countries, are interested in carrying
out all the above propositions of reform. With the exception
460 THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS [Jan.,
of the aristocratic classes, who have an instinctive leaning for
any policy which furnishes excuses for large naval and military
establishments, everybody will be favorable to the change.
The great Englishman was not content with writing letters on
a subject that he thought of such vast importance to humanity. A
resolution introduced in the House of Commons in March, 1862, led
to an interesting debate in which some of England's ablest states-
men— men like Disraeli, Stafford-Northcote, and Thomas Baring —
agreed with the leader of the " Manchester School " that the time
had arrived to alter the maritime laws.
In one of the last public speeches he ever made, that at Roch-
dale, on October 29, 1862, Cobden again pleaded in touching words
for the rights of neutrals in time of war. " What we should en-
deavor to do," he said, " as the result of this war, is to put an
end to that system of warfare which brings this calamity home to
our doors, by making such alterations in the maritime law of na-
tions which affects the rights of belligerents and neutrals, as will
render it impossible, in the future, for innocent non-combatants
and neutrals here to be made to suffer, as they now do, as much
as those who are carrying on the war there."
The seeds of political thought so plentifully scattered by the
American statesmen were destined to flourish long after the in-
dustrious sowers had passed from the visible scene. Soon after
Cobden had endorsed the theories of 'Adams, Marcy, and Cass,
many of the wisest and best men in England did likewise. For in-
stance, John Westlake, for many years Professor of International
Law in Cambridge University and a recognized authority on the
subject both in Europe and America, continually urged the abolish-
ment of the laws relating to blockade and contraband of war.
What he wrote in 1907 when the British proposal to abolish con-
traband of war was hanging in the balance at the Hague Con-
ference, has a timely interest :
The objection to search at a distance with which as bel-
ligerents we shall have to reckon in future, must equally tell
against the British system of blockade, which allows an in-
tending blockade runner to be captured as soon as she sets
out on her voyage. It will be difficult on that account for
blockade to be practised again in any manner very different
from the French system already mentioned, only, if blockade
is to be practised at all that system must undergo some modi-
1917.] THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 461
•>«
fication. A blockading squadron must be allowed sufficient
mobility to avoid the necessity of lying in the dark within
reach of torpedoes and submarines from the shore. What then
if along with the abolition of contraband, reasonable rules for
blockade should be adopted which, while .leaving it possible,
should exclude the extreme claim to make captures at any
distance from the blockaded coast To neutrals it would
be a great gain to be free from the arbitrary extensions which
belligerents give to their lists of contraband, and against which
recent experience shows that no previously declared policy of
any power is a safeguard.
Perhaps the most prominent statesman of modern times who
has indorsed the American views has been Viscount Grey, the
British Foreign Secretary. The following are a few extracts from
the instructions given by him to the British delegations at the
Hague Conference of 1907:
His Majesty's Government recognize to the full the ad-
visability of freeing neutral commerce to the utmost extent pos-
sible from interference by belligerent powers, and they are
ready and willing for their part, in lieu of endeavoring to frame
new and more satisfactory rules for the prevention of contra-
band trade in the future, to abandon the principle of contra-
band of war altogether, thus allowing the oversea trade in
neutral vessels between belligerents on the one hand and neu-
trals on the other, to continue during war without any restric-
tions, subject only to its exclusion by blockade from an enemy's
port. They are convinced that not only the interest of Great
Britain but the common interest of all nations will be found on
an unbiassed examination of the subject, to be served by the
adoption of the course suggested. The object which His
Majesty's Government has in view, as you are aware, is to limit,
as far as may be, the restriction that war entails upon legitimate
neutral trade, and they feel that the extent to which this is pos-
sible, in connection with the " analogues of contraband " is a
matter that must be worked out in detail at the Conference.
These instructions were repeated in substantially similar form
to the Commissioners who attended the naval conference of 1908-
1909 which finally promulgated the Declaration of London. And
the pity is that on both occasions the Secretary's ideas fell on deaf
ears. Even the delegates from the United States to the Hague
462 EPIPHANY SONG [Jan.,
Conference of 1907, clung from first to last to the " Marcy Amend-
ment " which provided for the exemption of private property from
capture or seizure, and for reasons no doubt wise, but altogether
mysterious, voted against Viscount Grey's proposition to abolish
contraband of war.
Since the present Great War opened Grey has abandoned his
former position. The stress of the fray is doubtless the best excuse
he can offer, for adopting (as necessity arose) measures that in the
calm days prior to August, 1914, he would not have considered think-
able. But it seems safe to prophesy that in the end the humane
principles, championed by leading American statesmen will prevail ;
for all must appreciate the truth of those words of President Wil-
son : " Force will not accomplish anything that is permanent."
It is not on shell-swept fields drenched with human blood, but
in the cool atmosphere of the Council Chamber, that a nation wins
the enduring victory.
EPIPHANY SONG.
BY CAROLINE GILTINAN.
UNTO the Babe of Bethlehem
There came three ancient kings
Who laid before the manger-crib
Their rarest, precious things.
I heartily give unto Him
The frankincense and gold;
But this, the other gift of myrrh,
My clinging hands withhold.
MILTON: MAN AND POET.
BY GILBERT K. CHESTERTON.
LL the mass of acute and valuable matter written or
compiled about Milton leaves eternally an unanswered
question; a difficulty felt by all, if expressed by few,
of his readers. That difficulty is a contrast between
the man and his poems. There exists in the world
a group of persons who perpetually try to prove that Shakespeare
was ,a clown and could not have written about princes, or that he
was a drunkard and could not have written about virtue. I think
there is a slight fallacy in the argument. But I wonder that they
have not tried the much more tempting sport of separating the
author of L} Allegro from the author of the Defensus Populi Angli-
cani. For the contrast between the man Milton and the poet Milton
is very much greater than is commonly realized. I fear that the
shortest and clearest way of stating it is that when all is said and
done, he is a poet whom we cannot help liking, and a man whom
we cannot like. I find it far easier to believe that an intoxicated
Shakespeare wrote the marble parts of Shakespeare than that a
marble Milton wrote the intoxicated, or, rather, intoxicating, parts
of Milton. Milton's character was cold; he was one of those
men who had every virtue except the one virtue needful. While
other poets may have been polygamists from passion, he was polyg-
amous on principle. While other artists were merely selfish, he
was egoistic.
The public has a quick eye for portraits, a very keen nose for
personality; and across two centuries the traditional picture of
Milton dictating to his daughters till they were nearly dead has
kept the truth about Milton; it has not taken the chill off. But
though the mass of men feel the fact Milton after two hundred
years, they seldom read the poetry of Milton at all. And so, be-
cause Milton the man was cold, they have got over the difficulty
by saying that the poet Milton is cold too; cold, classical, mar-
moreal. But the poetry of Milton is not cold. He did in his
later years, and in a fit of bad temper, write a classical drama,
which is the only one of his works which is really difficult to read.
But taken as a whole he is a particularly poetical poet, as fond
464 MILTON: MAN AND POET [Jan.,
of symbols and witchery as Coleridge, as fond of colored pleasures
as Keats. He is sometimes sufficiently amorous to be called tender ;
he is frequently sufficiently amorous to be called sensual. Even his
religion is not always heathen in his poetry. If you heard for the
first time the line,
\
By the dear might of Him that walked the waves,
you would only fancy that some heart of true religious heat and
humility, like Crashaw or George Herbert, had for a moment
achieved a technical triumph and found a faultless line. If you
read for the first time,
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
you would think that the most irresponsible of the Elizabethans
had uttered it as he went dancing down the street, believing him-
self in Arcady. If you read
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue
Appeared, with gay enamelled colors mixed,
or
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires,
you would think that all the rich dyes of the Orient and the Middle
Ages had met, as they do in some quite modern poet, such as
Keats or even Swinburne. If you read the account of the ale and
the elf and the Christmas sports in L' Allegro, you might think
them written by the most rollicking of rustic poets; if you read
some lines about Eve in Paradise Lost, you might think them
written at once by the most passionate and the most chivalrous of
lovers. Paradise Lost is not dull; it is not even frigid. Anyone
who can remember reading the first few books as a boy will know
what I mean; it is a romance, and even a fantastic romance.
There is something in it of Thalabe the Destroyer; something wild
and magical about the image of the empire in the abyss scaling the
turrets of the magician who is king of the cosmos. There is
something Oriental in its design and its strange colors. One can-
not imagine Flaxman illustrating Milton as he illustrated Homer.
Nor is it even true that the rich glimpse of tropical terrors are
conveyed in a clear outline of language. No one took more liber-
ties with English, with metre, and even with common sense than
Milton; an instance, of course, is the well-known superlative about
Adam and his children.
1917-] MILTON: MAN AND POET 465
Milton was not a simple epic poet like Homer, nor was he
even a specially clear epic poet like Virgil. If these two gentlemen
had studied his verse, they would have certainly acknowledged its
power; but they would have shrunk from its inversions, its abrupt
ellipses, its sentences that sometimes come tail foremost. I might
even say that Homer reading Milton might have much the same
feelings as Milton reading Browning. He would have found
Or of the eternal coeternal beam
a trifle obscure, and
nor sometimes forget,
Those other two, equalled with me in fate, etc., etc.,
almost entirely unintelligible. In this sense it is absurd to set up
Milton as a superlatively clear and classic poet. In the art of
turning his sentences inside out he never had an equal; and the
only answer is to say that the result is perfect; though it is in-
side out, yet somehow it is right side out.
Nevertheless, the tradition which puts Milton with Virgil and
the large and lucid poets, must possess and does possess some poetic
significance. It lies, I think, in this: the startling contrast between
Milton and the century in which he lived. He was not supremely
classical ; but he was classical in a time when classicism was almost
forgotten. He was not specially lucid; but he was moderately
intelligible in an age when nearly all poets were proud of being
unintelligible; an age of one hundred Brownings gone mad. The
seventeenth century was a most extraordinary time, which still
awaits its adequate explanation. It was something coming after
the Renaissance which developed and yet darkened and confused
it, just as a tree might be more tangled for growing. The puns
that had been in Shakespeare few and bad became numberless and
ingenious. The schisms of thought which under Wickliffe and
Luther had at least the virtue of heartiness, and were yet full of a
human hesitation, became harsh, incessant, exclusive; every morn-
ing one heard that a new mad sect had excommunicated humanity.
The grammars of Greek and Latin, which the young princes of the
Renaissance had read as if they were romances, were now being
complicated by bald-headed pedants until no one on earth could
read them. Theology, which could always in light moments be
given the zest of an amusement, became a disease with the Puri-
tans. War, which had been the sport of gentlemen, was now
VOL. civ.— 30
466 MILTON: MAN AND POET [Jan.,
rapidly becoming the ill-smelling science for engineers it still re-
mains. The air was full of anger; and not a young sort of anger;
exasperation on points of detail perpetually renewed. If the
Renaissance was like a splendid wine, the seventeenth century
might be compared to the second fermentation into vinegar. But
whatever metaphor we use the main fact is certain; the age was
horribly complex; it was learned, it was crabbed, and in nearly
all its art and utterance, it was crooked.
Remember the wonderfully witty poets of Charles I.; those
wonderfully witty poets who were incomprehensible at the first
reading and dull even when one could comprehend them. Think
of the scurrilous war of pamphlets, in which Milton himself en-
gaged ; pages full of elaborate logic which no one can follow, and
elaborate scandals which everyone has forgotten. Think of the tor-
tured legalities of Crown and Parliament, quoting against each other
precedents of an utterly different age; think of the thick darkness
of diplomacy that covers the meaning (if it had any) of the Thirty
Years' War. The seventeenth century was a labyrinth; it was
full of corners and crotchets. And against this sort of background
Milton stands up as simple and splendid as Apollo. His style,
which must always have been splendid, appeared more pure and
translucent than it really was in contrast with all the mad mysti-
fication and darkness.
A riddle itself, that time is full of minor riddles; and one
of the most inexplicable of them involves the whole position of
Milton. How far was there really a connection between Calvinism
and the idea of liberty, or the idea of popular government? There
is much to be said on both sides; indeed there is no more per-
plexing question than whereabouts at the Reformation, or just
after the Reformation, lay the real seed of modern self-government
and freedom, or, to speak more strictly, of the modern belief
in them; for we rather praise these things than possess them.
The first and fundamental fact is certainly against the liber-
alizing character of Puritanism. It did not profess to be merely
a moral movement; its whole point was that it was strictly a
theological movement; its chief objection to its enemies was that
they tried to exalt (as the Scotch Puritans said) "the cauld banes
of morality " above the sustaining and comfortable doctrine of
predestination. To a Calvinist the most important thing was Cal-
vinism; to a Puritan the most important thing was the Puritan
creed; and this in itself certainly did not favor the vague senti-
1917-] MILTON: MAN AND POET 467
ments either of emancipation or fraternity. Calvinism took away
a man's liberty in the universe; why, then, should it favor his
liberty in the State? Puritanism denied free will; why should
it be likely to affirm free speech? Why should the Calvinist ob-
ject to an aristocracy? The Calvinists were an aristocracy; they
were the most arrogant and awful of aristocracies by the nature of
their own belief : they were the elect. Why should the Puritans
dislike a baby being born a nobleman ? It was the whole philosophy
of the Puritans that a baby is born a celestial nobleman; and he
is at birth and before birth a member of the cosmic upper classes.
It should have been a small matter to the Puritans to admit that
one might be born a king, seeing that they maintained the much
more paradoxical position that one might be born a saint. Nor is it
easy to see upon their own ideal principles why the Puritans should
have disliked despotism or arbitrary power; though it is certainly
much more the fact that they did dislike despotism than that they
did dislike oligarchy. The first conception of Calvinism is a fierce
insistence on the utterly arbitrary nature of power. The King of
the Cavaliers was certainly not so purely willful, so sublimely-
capricious a sultan, as the God of the Puritans.
But we can add something much more plain and practical. It
is not merely that despotism or oligarchy might well have pleased the
Puritans in theory : it is also true that they did please the Puritans
in practice. Of the democratic element that did honestly exist in
Puritanism I will speak in a moment; but the oligarchic and
despotic elements were not merely things that logically ought to
have appeared, but things that actually did appear. It is no longer
denied, I think, by serious historians that the whole business of
the Puritan revolt or triumph was anti-popular; that is to say,
that at almost any given moment of the struggle, universal suffrage
would have been a clear victory for the king. The really brilliant
triumph of Cromwell was not his triumph over the monarchy, but
his triumph over the democracy; the fact that he somehow kept
the enormous crowd called England quiet. In short, his great
glory was not in heading the Great Rebellion, but in avoiding the
Great Rebellion. For the really Great Rebellion was the one that
never happened. But, indeed, it is unnecessary even to urge so
generally accepted a conjecture as this. Whatever may be true
of the rebellion as a whole, no one will deny that at certain mo-
ments Puritanism appeared in politics as arrogant, fastidious and
anti-popular; full of the pride of predestination and the scorn of
468 MILTON: MAN AND POET [Jan.,
all flesh. Even the most enthusiastic upholder of the Whig or Re-
publican theory of Puritanism will hardly pretend that when Colonel
Pride drove out of Parliament at the point of the pike all the
members that ventured to disagree with him, his soul was at that
moment inflamed with an enthusiasm for free discussion or rep-
resentative government. It was by no means democratic ; but it was
highly Calvinistic. It was a sort of public pantomime of the doctrine
of election ; of election in the theological, but by no means the po-
litical sense. It is still called "Pride's Purge;" and the phrase
has quite a fine allegorical flavor, as if it came out of Pilgrim's
Progress. In fact, one of the really happy coincidences of the
historical epoch was that one distinguished officer at any rate had
somehow got hold of the right surname. And upon larger grounds
the alliance between oligarchy and Protestantism has become only
too plain. For all we know the Reformation may have tried to
make a democracy; all that we do know for certain is that it did
make an aristocracy, the most powerful aristocracy of modern
times. The great English landlords, who are the peers, arose after
the destruction of the small English landlords, who were the ab-
bots. The public schools, which were for the populace in the Mid-
dle Ages, became aristocratic after the Reformation. The universi-
ties, which were popular in the Middle Ages, became aristocratic
after the Reformation. The tramp who went to a monastic inn
in the Middle Ages, went to jail and the whipping-post after the
Reformation. All this is scarcely denied.
Yet against all this must be put in fairness certain important
facts; especially two facts illustrated in the figure and career of
Milton. When we have clearly seen that Calvinism always favors
aristocracy in theory and often favors it in practice, two great
facts remain to be explained or to be explained away. First, that
the Puritans did favor a deliberate or synodical method of church
government, a government by debate; and, second, that most
of the abstract republicans of the seventeenth century were either
Puritans or upon the Puritan side. I am not, of course, discussing
the synod as a mode of church government, nor a republic as a
mode of national government. I only say that the clamor for these
things must have corresponded to some kind of enthusiasm for
liberty and equality alien to the more obvious lessons of Calvinism.
But the republicanism was of a peculiar and frigid kind; there
was very little human fraternity about it. Fletcher of Saltown
was the author of some epigrams about the public good that read
1917-] MILTON: MAN AND POET 469
like those of some great pagan; but he was also the author of a
proposal to reduce the poorer inhabitants of Scotland to a condition
of personal slavery. There was a flavor of Fletcher of Saltown
about Milton. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of some character
(generally a silly character) some contemptuous talk about the
greasy rabble, talk which is common to all literary work, but
especially common in work which — like Shakespeare's — was in-
tended to please the greasy rabble. Whenever this happens critics
point to it and say, " Look at the Tory prejudices of the Royalist
Shakespeare! Observe the Jacobite servility of the follower of
James I. ! " But as a matter of fact Milton despised the populace
much more than Shakespeare; and Milton put his contempt for
common men not into the mouth of silly or stupid characters,
but into that of the one wise character, the Chorus, who is sup-
posed to express the moral of a play :
Nor do I name of men the common rout
But such as thou hast solemnly elected.
I cannot help thinking that Milton was successful with Satan,
because he was rather like Satan himself. I mean his own Satan:
I will not be so intemperate as to say that he resembled the genuine
article. The kind of strength which supported Milton in blindness
and outlawry was very like the kind of strength that supported
Satan on the flaming marl; it is the same quality, and for merely
literary purposes we need not quarrel about whether it should be
called spiritual nobility or spiritual pride. It was almost wholly
intellectual; it was unsmiling and it was empty of affection. And
in justice to the genial, if somewhat vague, people who made up
the bulk of the Royalist party and probably the bulk of the English
people, we must remember that there was about the high republican
type, the type of Vane, or Sydney, or Milton, something of this
austerity which chilled and even alarmed. There was something in
these republicans which was not brotherly; there was something
in these republicans which was not democratic. The compound of
the new Puritan and the old pagan citizen produced none of those
hearty or homely drinkers, soldiers, or ruffians, men like Danton
or Dumouriez, who lent laughter to the terrors of the French
Revolution. The deepest dislike which the Cavaliers felt for the
Puritans, and no unjust dislike either, had reference to this name-
less feeling.
470 MILTON: MAN AND POET [Jan.,
It is possible, I fancy, to frame a fair statement that shall
admit this element of the pride of the elect while doing justice
to the democratic germ in Puritanism. It was the misfortune of
that age that the synodic or debating club idea was applied, not
to the whole people as among the pagans, but to small groups or
sections among the people. Equality appeared in the form of little
separate chapels, not in the form of a great national temple. Thus
the Puritan movement encouraged the sense of the equality of mem-
bers without encouraging the sense of the equality of men. Each
little sect was a democracy internally considered, but an oligarchy
externally considered. For an aristocracy is none the less aristo-
cratic because its members are all on a level ; indeed this is
rather a mark of aristocracy; in this sense most aristocracies have
been levelers. Even the House of Lords is called the House of
Equals : the House of Peers. Thus arose a spirit which had the
plainness and much of the harshness of democracy without any
of its sympathy or abandon. Thus arose the great race of the
aristocratic republicans, half pagan and half Puritan, the greatest
of whom was Milton.
The effect of this great type has been immense; but it has
been largely a negative effect. If the English peoples have re-
mained somewhat inaccessible to the more ideal aspect of the re-
publican idea, and they certainly have; if, through failing to un-
derstand it, they have done gross injustice to the heroisms and
even the crimes of the French Revolution, it is in no small degree
due to this uncongenial element in the -only great school of English
republicans. The ultimate victory of Shakespeare over Milton has
been very largely due to the primary victory of // Penseroso over
L' Allegro. The return of Charles II. was the return of a certain
snobbish compromise which has never been shaken off, and which
is certainly far less heroic than the dreadful patriotism of the
great regicides; but the balance and excuse of that snobbishness
was that it was the return of English humor and good nature. So
we see it in Milton, in the one great Elizabethan who became a
Puritan. His earlier poems are the dying cries of Merry England.
England, like his own Samson, lost its strength when it lost its
long hair. Milton was one of the slayers ; but he was also of the
slain. The mystery of his strange mind confronts us forever; we
do not know of what god or demon or destiny he had really caught
sight afar off; we do not know what he really saw with his sight-
less eyes. We only know that it turned him to stone.
THE ART OF PAUL CLAUDEL.
BY THOMAS J. GERRARD.
HOEVER begins to read Claudel, for the first time,
finds himself in a strange land. One is in the presence
of new forms which breathe a new spirit. Claudel has
come crashing through our artistic conventionalities
and surprised us. But, unlike so much that is new
in art today, the work of Claudel does not repel us, but, on the
contrary, as soon as we have recovered from our surprise, it attracts
and eventually fascinates us.
This power to attract and fascinate suggests at once that he is
not so wholly new after all. If his principles can be readily ad-
justed to our previous habits of thought, there must be something
in them pertaining to the distant past. They are, as a matter of
fact, as old as Aristotle, but Claudel has given them an application
to the life of the twentieth century. He has taken full account of
the unending rhythm of life, of the perennial flux of things, of the
soul's subjective experiences in relation to the outward world of
phenomena, but behind it all he has made us see the absolute. If all
the world is movement and energy there is, nevertheless, an absolute
unmoved activity, from which all phenomenal movement takes its
initiation.
There are other reasons too why Claudel has not come into the
light of an illustrious day before now, for it is quite possible to
speak to one expert in French literature who will tell you that
Claudel is the most important literary event in France today, and
to speak to another who will confess that he has hardly heard the
name. The circumstances of his profession of consul count some-
what in explaining his long obscurity. It is notorious that although
a poet must be born, his reputation has to be made. Claudel's long
residence in foreign countries has deprived him of the opportuni-
ties which a residence in Paris might have given him, of ready
access to publishers and friends sympathetic with his work.
He was born in Picardy in 1868, though his family came from
the Vosges. He spent a short period of his early life in Paris,
during which he became a disciple of Mallarme. At the age of
twenty-four he left for the United States in order to take up a situ-
4?2 THE ART OF PAUL CLAUDEL [Jan.,
ation in the consular service. His residence here is believed to be
largely responsible for his peculiar form of versification. Although
it cannot be called free verse, yet it is sufficiently* free to suggest
a very strong influence of Walt Whitman. The strong man whom
we meet as Pollexfen in L'Echange is undoubtedly a type of the
man of business whom Claudel, as consul, would frequently meet
among us. The fact, too, that the translations of his works so far
have come from this country argues an influence here which has not
yet asserted itself in England.
Claudel went from here to Tientsin. Much of his work is
dated from China. His Grandes Odes were written in Foochow,
Pekin, Tientsin, and Shanhaikwan. His Connaissance de I'Est is
a delightful account of his Chinese memories. Art Poetique was
written chiefly from Konliang and Foochow. In the French Foreign
Office he is regarded as a specialist in Chinese affairs. Eight years
ago he entered upon a European service as Consul at Prague,
passing later to Frankfort. When the War broke out in 1914, it
found him Consul-General at Hamburg. He returned to France
equipped with his German experience, and joined that movement
which is associated with the name of Monsignor Baudrillart, a
movement of propaganda against German culture on religious
grounds. His most trenchant piece of work in this respect is
his Christmas of 1914.
In seeking to know something of the method of a new poet,
we should naturally turn first to what he has said about himself.
So with this expectation we take up his volume entitled Art Poetique.
But we meet only with disappointment, for the book tells us very
little of poetic construction. True, it is not altogether alien to the
subject, but it does not deal with it directly. It. consists of three
chapters which treat respectively of our knowledge of time, our
simultaneous knowledge of the universe and of self, and the de-
velopment of church-building. The first two chapters would, there-
fore, appear to be philosophical treatises, the third one historical.
But closer examination will not justify even this nomenclature. M.
Claudel's philosophy abounds in new terms, the content of which
is not defined. Hence very frequently we cannot tell what he is
aiming at. If he were to confine himself either to mediaeval or to
modern phraseology, we might oblige him with some fair philoso-
phical criticism. But his terms are neither mediaeval nor modern,
they are futurist. The following passage on the origin of motion
will be a sufficient illustration of the character of his philosophy :
1917.] THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL 473
The motion of a body is its evacuation of the place previously
occupied. It is, therefore, as we have said, in itself and above
all, an escaping, a recoil, a flight, a distancing imposed by some
greater external force. It is the effect of an intolerable strain,
the impossibility of remaining where one was before, of existing
there. And this thought dissolves into soundless words which
remain unspoken. It is like the conscious perception by which
through body and soul I perceive that I am I. The origin of
motion is the shudder which seizes hold of matter when it is
in contact with a different reality, namely, spirit. It is the ex-
pansion of a cluster of stars in space. It is the source of time,
namely, the fear of God, the essential repulsion registered by
the mechanism of worlds.
The author sums up the passage in a synopsis as follows:
" The origin of motion is the shivering of matter at the touch of
another reality: Spirit: the fear (or fright) of God."
It will be more convenient then to regard these three treatises
as examples of poetic art rather than as explanations of the same.
Incidentally, however, there is one passage which does throw light
on the whole of Claudel's work. It asserts a principle which I have
already endeavored to explain elsewhere, the sacramentality of art.
Claudel enunciates it thus:
Once upon 'a time I was in Japan, going up from Nikko to
Chuzenji. There I saw, at a great distance from each other,
but brought together by my line of vision, the green of a maple
tree completing the harmony suggested by a pine. These present
pages are a commentary on this sylvan text, the tree-like enun-
ciation by June of a new Poetic Art of the Universe, of a new
logic. The old logic had the syllogism for its organ; this new
one has the metaphor, the new word, the operation which re-
sults from merely putting two different things together. The
former has for its starting point a general and absolute affirma-
tion, the attribution, once for all, of a quality or character to the
subject. Without determination of time or place we say that
the sun shines, and that the sum of the angles of a triangle is
equal to two right angles. The old logic creates abstract in-
dividuals by defining them ; it establishes between them un-
changeable consequences. Its manner of procedure is a naming.
All these terms being once settled and duly classified and in-
dexed according to genus and species, it applies them to every
subject which is proposed to it. I compare the old logic to the
first part of grammar which treats of the nature and use of
474 THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL [Jan.,
different words. The new logic is like syntax which teaches
us how to group the words into sentences. This logic is put into
practice before our very eyes by nature herself. Science deals
only with the general, creation deals with the particular. Meta-
phor, the fundamental iambus, or relation of a strong and weak
accent, not only disports itself in the leaves of books, but it
is also the indigenous art employed by everything which springs
into being.
It is" a misuse of terms to call the method a new logic. Doubt-
less there is a certain likeness of the metaphorical and univocal
methods to the processes of syntax and etymology. But there is
nothing new in this. The metaphorical method existed 'long be-
fore Claudel discovered it. But it had become obscured. The
modern cult of the ugly and the gross had led to a false mysticism
which consisted merely in a confusion of ideas. But Claudel, by
calling us back to the metaphorical method, has called us back to
true mysticism. In all probability it is the return to the mysteries
of the Catholic Faith which has created the need for the meta-
phorical method. Anyhow the plain fact stands out that the re-
vival of Catholicism has brought with it a revival of the true prin-
ciples of art.
Nor is the principle of the sacramentality of art to be confused
with the modern problem picture. A mystery is not the same thing
as. a puzzle. Nor is it a simple picture with some moral lesson
dragged in by the heels as it were. A truly sacramental picture is
one in which the matter and form are so intimately fused as to
make one undivided unity.
And this is exactly where Claudel succeeds as a mystical writer.
His story is always the embodiment of some great spiritual prin-
ciple, but the due balancing of the material and the spiritual is so
perfect that the two make up one entity. That is why really high
art appeals to all classes of people: whoever is able to understand
the material aspect of the picture is able to understand also the
spiritual. The material is the means by which the spiritual is
conveyed.
The manipulation of his matter to this end obviously pre-
supposes in the artist the highest degree of sincerity. Claudel has
made the equipoise of the material and the spiritual so perfectly
that we must credit him with a corresponding degree of sincerity.
He has attained to a true conviction of the truth he wishes to
present, it has become so intimately a part of his mental equip-
;
1917.] THE ART OF PAUL CLAUDEL 475
ment, that when he comes to express it he does so quite naturally.
Of course his knowledge of technique must also have been so
thoroughly assimilated as to become part of his personality. The
work must have the mark of unity. Both matter and form must
spring from the brain of the artist as one principle.
It is undoubtedly in deference to this need for keeping his
art unified that Claudel has chosen his particular form of verse. It
is neither the vers libre nor one of fixed metre. It adapts itself
readily and freely to the particular temperament and passion of the
poet. In so far as it is used for this purpose it is rightly called
vers libre. But then if the poetic passion is under the complete con-
trol of reason or of an outward standard of revealed truth, then the
term vers libre is improperly applied to it. The vers libre belongs
rather to the modern tendency to express only subjective impulse.
But that is just where the genius of Claudel, generally speaking,
rises above the modern tendency. I say " generally speaking " be-
cause there are occasions when he moves in the modern orienta-
tion. If his philosophy were only as strong as his faith he might
have saved himself from these regrettable accidents.
So completely, however, is his work an ordering of the intel-
lect that his dramas are arranged to make up one whole scheme.
This scheme he calls "The Tree." The title serves not only to show
the unity of his work but also its vitality. Each drama grows out
of his whole life and being, but each one branches out into a dis-
tinct line of thought.
Thus, for instance, in the Tete d'Or we have a play in which
the hero appears as a great conqueror. He is driven forward by an
inward desire or longing which carries him through to great deeds.
Cebes symbolizes the people, the weak part of humanity. They give
themselves to Tete d'Or who carries them on to his deeds of
conquest. But one day he finds that he has undertaken too much,
and having undertaken an exploit beyond his power, he meets with
disaster. Losing his strength, he dies the death of Prometheus.
Or take La Ville. There we have a representation of modern
society with its struggles and its spiritual needs. The chief char-
acters are types of the three classes of men who differentiate so-
ciety. Isidore de Besme, an engineer by profession, stands for the
materialistic and mechanical view of life. He brings all his -learn-
ing to the use of the townspeople, thinking thereby to give them
happiness. But all the while he is ignoring the spiritual side of
man. He is blind to that spirit world of which the material
476 THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL [Jan.,
world is but the organ and the sacrament. Consequently his science
fails to make that adjustment of the material to the spiritual which
is so needful for the enlargement of the higher life of man. And
the result is that the mechanical forces, which the hero controls,
issue only in death. Lambert is the type who makes the aim of
life consist in. natural love and intelligence. He is happy by reason
of a woman's love and the contemplation of his favorite thoughts.
Coeuvre is the type who seeks happiness in his own intuitions and
love. He is a poet intent only upon himself. He has to discover
that happiness is not to be found in himself alone, but that he has
need of society and contact with men of the town.
Le Rep os du Septieme Jour is a mystic drama dealing with the
foundations of the moral law. Here Claudel transfers his milieu
to China. A Chinese Emperor goes down into hell, and there sees
the primary principles upon which are built up the temples of good
and evil.
L'Echange comes about half way in the evolution of the art
of Claudel. It has already been performed in English at the Little
Theatre in London, though as yet no English translation has been
published. It contains a strong mystic element which comes out all
the more strongly by reason of the materialistic background The
scenes are placed in America, and have all the circumstances of
American life faithfully portrayed.
The plot consists of a triangular duel, in which the powers
of wealth, sex, and a sacrament are arrayed against one another.
Pollexfen is the man of affairs who lives only for wealth. Louis
Laine is the tall precious youth who has enjoyed all the pleasures
which an admiring society has to offer him. Marthe is his young
and gentle wife, with whom, when he tired of the pleasures of his
own little clique in society, he escapes to America. Lechy is an
actress who is the embodiment of all the faults of a woman given
up to drink and loose living.
The complications of the play are brought about by Louis
Laine's falling into the clutches of the profligate Lechy, and by an
attempt of Pollexfen to buy Marthe for a handful of gold. Marthe,
however, despite all the temptations with which she is surrounded,
remains faithful to the marriage bond. She alone stands out
serene. • Like Kundry in Parsifal, she has the passion for serving :
Dienen, dienen. So powerfully is the character of Marthe set out
in the surroundings of both coarse and refined sensuality that some
critics see in her a symbol of the Church. Claudel says that she
IQI7-] THE ART OF PAUL CLAUDEL 477
incarnates a state of his own soul. Indeed the play has that quality
of true mysticism which makes it capable of giving any number of
spiritual meanings. The one, however, which is the more obvious
and which makes the play so valuable in these days, is Marthe's
fidelity to the marriage tie.
We have likened the art of Claudel to that of Mestrovic. This
is most evident in his deeply religious work : The Tidings Brought
to Mary. He moves with such terrific force and always with the
force of the spirit. The play may be described as a mediaeval story
born into the twentieth century. It is dated in mediaeval times,
but from beginning to end, there is that incisiveness and power
which is nothing less than the best production of twentieth century
development.
The stage directions at once create the religious atmosphere of
the poem. It is a drama which assumes something of a religious
service. There is a lofty barn with square pillars supporting a
vaulted roof. On the door are painted images of St. Peter and St.
Paul. The scene is lighted by a large yellow wax candle fixed to
one of the pillars. The acting is to be seen conventionally, as
mediaeval poets might have imagined classic antiquity.
In these weird surroundings, at the weird hour when night
merges into dawn, Violaine and Pierre recite their prologue. It
tells how Pierre had once tried to lay violent hands on Violaine,
and how he had been punished by being struck with leprosy. This
terrific recitative is interspersed with gentle prayer. As the door
opens a bell is heard high up in the heavens. Violaine clasps her
hands, raises her eyes, and in clear sonorous tones speaks the
opening sentence of the Regina Cceli. Pierre, in a hollow voice,
responds. Solemnly, they finish the devotion " per omnia
scecula saculorum, Amen;" and then they resume their prologue.
They discuss the life-work of Pierre, his building of churches, and
whilst they are talking, Violaine's sister Mara enters and watches
them secretly. They are saying farewell. Violaine perceives the
pain with which Pierre leaves her. Then she leans forward and
kisses him on the face — the kiss upon which the plot of the story
turns.
The first act opens with a conversation between the old
peasant and his wife discussing how they will dispose of their
daughters in marriage. At once the mystic element enters into
the story. They have no son, and so the man who takes Violaine
must take the place of a son, and inherit Monsanvierge together
478 THE ART OF PAUL CLAUDEL [Jan.,
with its privileges and duties. What these privileges and duties
are is never made quite clear. Indeed, this is just one of the points
where Claudel has the fault of modernity. Through absence of
definition he creates a feeling of vagueness, which vagueness we
are supposed to accept as mysticism. Now there is ample material
in Claudel's work, and especially in the play under consideration,
to produce a sense of mystery without having recourse to the con-
fusion of ideas. So we must be content for the present to know
that Monsanvierge is a sacred fief which the old man has inherited
from long generations, and which he now bestows upon Jacques
Hury.
But Mara has to be reckoned with, and she has made up her
mind that Violaine shall not marry Jacques Hury. Unless Mara
can have him she will hang herself. Nevertheless, the father gives
Violaine to Jacques and with her most of the property.
The second act is given a liturgical setting by a short but
remarkable introduction. The scene is a large orchard planted with
rows of round trees all arranged in geometric order. Above the
orchard stands the village of Combernon. Then, as crowning
the whole picture, is this strange ecclesiastical building of Monsan-
vierge. It is a massive stone edifice with five towers like those of
the cathedral at Laon. But it has neither door nor window. There
is, however, an opening in its side, a great white scar recently made
for the entrance of the Queen Mother of France. From the highest
tower a woman's voice rings out with the Salve Regina. At the
end of this there is a long pause. The stage remains empty during
a dramatic silence preparatory to a conversation between Mara and
her mother.
The process of intrigue goes on. Jacques Hury comes upon
the scene. Having been told about the kiss with the leper, he re-
fuses to believe. In his trustfulness he goes to the fountain of
Adone to meet Violaine. She comes along a winding path to meet
him, all golden in the dappled sunlight. They are living out life
almost according to rubric, for she is clothed in a linen gown with
a cloth-of-gold dalmatic embroidered with large red and blue
flowers, whilst her head is crowned with a diadem of enamel and
gold.
" O my betrothed among the flowery branches, hail ! Violaine,
how beautiful you are." It is the habit of the nuns at Monsanvierge
that she is wearing, all except the maniple which is reserved for
choir. The dalmatic signifies that they offer themselves as holy
1917.] THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL 479
sacrifices. The women of Combernon have the privilege of wear-
ing it twice, at their betrothal and at their death. Thus then, robed
in this wise, does Violaine come forth to meet her beloved. But she
has a secret which he must know before he commits himself. She
asks for his knife and she cuts open the linen of her gown. There,
under the left breast, just where her heart beats, she shows him the
spot where the leprosy has appeared. Now he believes the story of
the kiss as told him by Mara. He turns his face away. They agree
to part. And there is nothing left for Violaine but the lazar-
house.
Mara marries Jacques; and eight years later she goes to seek
Violaine in her retreat. She takes with her the corpse of her child
to ask her to restore it to life. Violaine takes the dead child under
her cloak. Then follows what is perhaps one of the most dramatic
episodes of all literature. Violaine protests that she is no saint,
nor can she bring the dead back to life again. Mara, however,
only repeats her request, " Give me back my child."
At this point the liturgy, which at the beginning of the act
was heard on the distant mount, is drawn into the actual play. The
bells of the Midnight Mass are heard. Violaine and Mara celebrate
Christmas together. Mara reads the prophecy of Isaias. Violaine
hears the voices of angels. They are as those of heroic young men
singing in solemn unison, with retarded movement and a very
simple cadence at the end of each phrase. Ho die nobis de ccelo pax
vera descendit. Then a voice like that of a child responds. Hodie
ilhixit nobis dies redemptionis nova. Mara, however, does not hear
and continues reading the prophecy. The voices of the child and
the angels resume their antiphonal chanting. Meanwhile Mara
reads the Gospel. The heavenly voices reach their climax with the
words : Et vidimus gloriam Ejus, gloriam quasi Unigeniti a Patre,
plenum gratia et veritatis. Then there is a long silence.
Suddenly Violaine cries out in a stifled voice : " Ah ! " Mara
asks, " WHat is it? " And the first flush of dawn is seen in the sky.
Mara sees something moving under her sister's cloak. She ques-
tions Violaine again and again, but Violaine answers only with the
liturgical sentences : " Behold I bring thee glad tidings." The bare
foot of a baby, moving lazily, is seen through the opening of her
cloak. Mara takes the child and looks at it wildly. " It lives." The
Angelus is heard ringing at Monsanvierge. The child opens its
eyes, looks at its mother, and begins to cry. She looks too and
discovers that a change has taken place :
480 THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL [Jan.,
Violaine,
What does this mean? Its eyes were black,
And now they are blue like yours.
Ah!
And what is this drop of milk I see on its lips?
There the curtain falls on the third act. What the moral or
artistic purport is of the last lines we are left to imagine. It is an
artifice analagous to the making of a torso in sculpture. The body
of the narrative is left minus a limb and the hiatus leaves us think-
ing without giving us a clue as to what is the completion of the
story. Like the works of the great masters in sculpture, Rodin and
Mestrovic, it is most artistically expressed and the beauty of the
expression serves to distract the mind from the literary defect.
The last act is marked by an element of strong contrast. Pierre
de Craon appears at the house of Jacques and Mara carrying with
him the body of Violaine. He has found it half-buried in a sand
pit. Mara owns that with her own hands she took Violaine and
led her to destruction. Even though her leper sister had restored
her child to life again, the love of her husband Jacques she knew
was still kept for Violaine. She could not brook this, and she
deemed that she could show her love for her husband in no better
way than by leading Violaine to her death. The story closes with
the repentance of Mara and a long speech by the old father, an
epilogue, as it were, summarizing the spiritual values of the narra-
tion. The liturgy is again drawn upon to give a background to all
this. The Angelus, ringing once more, brings to the listening
heavens and earth the tidings once brought to Mary. Far away in
the heights Communion bells are heard, and Claude! proves that he
can imbue his work with a sense of true mystery.
The Christmas Eve of 1914 gathers up all the characteristics
of Claudel, his modernity, his Catholicism, his mysticism, but above
all his patriotism. Doubtless there will be many of his admirers
who will dissent from his doctrine of how one should behave to-
wards an enemy, and even from his appraisement of the Germans'
intention. But none will deny that he faithfully reflects the mental
attitude of the Frenchman towards the German and that the work
in question is a splendid piece of high art in so far as it is an
utterance of the whole soul of the artist. Precisely and only as
such shall we consider it in the following pages.
The opening scene is a village behind Rheims which has been
burnt bv the Germans. The church is in ruins, but on the wall is
1917-] THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL 481
still to be seen the proclamation by the German governor. In front
of the church are two graves surmounted by wooden crosses with
soldiers' caps on them. In the background is a stable.
A general and a sergeant are discovered in conversation, and
the story is being told how Jean and Jacques died. Jean had fallen
in no man's land and Jacques had gone to fetch him. As the one
was carrying the other, both were killed by the same bullet.
The scene changes leaving us exactly in the same place. But
the two graves have disappeared, for we are in the spirit world.
The German proclamation remains because that has a meaning in
the kingdom of heaven. In this transfigured village Jean and
Jacques meet each other. They have, however, become as little
children of fourteen, since it is written that we cannot enter the
kingdom of heaven unless we become as little children. As yet
they are but in the ante-chamber of heaven. It is Christmas Eve
and in a few hours Christ will be born.
Jean and Jacques embrace each other tenderly and fall into con-
versation concerning their last moments on earth. They notice that
the dug-out, the well and the church are all up in heaven with them.
Nothing is lost sight of there. So they can read the proclamation
again but from their new point of view.
Then heaven begins to light up. Little white lights appear
everywhere — they are the souls of dead children, white as drops
of milk. The choir is chanting the office of the Holy Innocents.
Anima nostra sicut passer erepta est. From all the cities and fields
of France and Belgium the little souls are seen mounting up to God.
Whilst the artist speaks of the glories of Rheims he brings in
the priest of St. Remy-in- the- Woods, who now welcomes his chil-
dren to St. Remy-in-the-Sky. The priest and Jean and Jacques ask
one another how they suffered, but the question provokes only a
smile. There was just a great blaze of light and then Reality ap-
peared all around them. That was good-bye to the evil dream
called life.
They are still in the ante-chamber of the Divine Presence and
so the priest must help them to make their preparation for the
eternal Christmas. He preaches to them and then takes them to
the well, and looking down through the well they see the whole
line of battle and what is passing upon earth. They hear a clock
strike half -past eleven. It will not, however, strike twelve. It is
the clock of a burning village.
The stable doors open and the Crib is seen, the Holy Child in
VOL. civ. — 31
482 THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL [Jan,
the manger, Our Lady and St. Joseph in adoration, and the ox and
the ass standing by. Voices of men and women are heard singing
in the ruined church. Then a grand rhythmic finale is heard made
up of the Latin of the liturgy, the prayers of priest and people in
French, and the boom of the German guns:
Choir: Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bones
voluntatis.
Priest: O Living God!
Children: Save France.
The German gun: Boom.
Thus does this strange service continue until the German gun
fires its twelfth shot : Boom. And the choir in the battered but
glorified church sings : Cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris.
Three times does the priest supplicate : " Jesus Christ save France,'*
and three times do the little souls repeat with him : " Jesus Christ
save France." Then all voices together unite in the cadence:
"Amen."
So far I have dealt only with the drama of Claudel, and his
philosophy, such as it is, as throwing light upon the same. This
is the work by which he has achieved his fame, and by which he
will live. And the reason is that it was written for the theatre.
This means that it was written with a feeling for the sympathies of
the multitude. Such a preoccupation of mind was bound to keep
the poet in touch with the centre of things, the things which belong
to the essentials of life.
In his lyrical poems, however, he is preoccupied only or chiefly
with his own soul. Consequently these poems are a clue to his
own life. They evidence the struggle which he has had with his
faith. Not that he was ever an agnostic, as some people seem to
think. But at one time his faith burned dimly. It was faith seek-
ing to understand. Not until after years of struggle did the light
brighten so that he could cry out in all sincerity : " Qu'il est doux
de se sentir sur." And this is the strength of his message to the
youth of France today:
Blessed be Thou, my God, Who hast delivered me from
death.
He who believes not in God, believes not in being, and he
who hates being, hates his own existence.
Lord, I have found Thee.
Who finds Thee has no more tolerance of death.
1917-] THE ART OF PAUL CLAUD EL 483
His earlier poems are the Cinq Grandes Odes and the Hymnes.
Recently there have appeared the Corona Benignitatis Anni Dei
and Trois Poemes de Guerre. As we have said they are the spon-
taneous outpourings of his own soul without sufficient regard for
the people who should afterwards read his work.
This, then, is our summary of the art of Claudel. It is poetry,
which has for its basis the broad truths of the Catholic Faith. In
the expression of these truths it utilizes all the good that the futurist
mind has been endeavoring to formulate, namely, volume of force,
vividness of action, and intensity of atmosphere. It attains the
highest flights of artistic expression by reason of its sacramentality
combined with a due equipoise of matter and form and their com-
plete unification. On the other hand it is fraught with defects
which so far have remained inherent to futurist principles. Some-
times, nay frequently, mystical effects are attempted merely by the
confusion of ideas. Sometimes feeling is the only justification
of certain expressions; or if there is reason behind them such
reason is known only to the initiate. We may hope, however, that
with the poet living in France, in closer touch with Western civili-
zation, in more frequent contact with his own people, these defects
may disappear. \ •••
PAUL CLAUDEL, MYSTIC.
BY MAY BATEMAN.
HE Non-Catholic, defining a mystic, usually indicates
some crank or fanatic ; or, seeing one aspect only of
the truth, limits the mystic to him who lives within a
cloister, and leads a wholly sequestered life apart
from human intercourse. Catholics know better.
They know that the mystic may be found in the world and not be
of it; they recognize him, in a crowd, by the fine savor of his
soul, the quality of his work. For mysticism proper is initiation
into the ways of God, and that initiation guides the soul, accord-
ing to its temperament, on the one hand, to a life of contemplation
behind the grille, on the other towards a life of active service in
the world, sweetened by this secret knowledge and security and
power of interior detachment. Souls which possess such power
of retirement find all their work illuminated. And God, entering
thus into His children's artistic or commercial work, enlarges its
every section; gives it a range and scope which it could not pos-
sibly acquire by any merely natural means.
Such is the true
life of the living vision;1
revealed with such shining clearness in the writings of Paul Claudel;
and work thus inspired does not make merely for ephemeral fame,
but is for all time: an arrow shot straight from the heart of Truth.
Claudel, poet, dramatist, mystic, stands out amongst con-
temporary writers with his revelation of the intimate things of the
spirit. He is fiercely zealous for the Faith; he has an extra-
ordinarily sensitive perception of the near relation of the soul to
God. He sings in his Hymne au Sacre Cceur —
Truly all is consummated : yet Thou hast not suffered enough !
Although, from the soles of Thy Feet to the crown of Thy Head,
The will of man has left no spot upon Thy Body sound, untouched,
There still remains to us Thine Heart to pierce.2
Writing, he takes as a vocation, the thing he has been called
1 Processional. Cinq Grandes Odes. * Corona Benignitatis Anni Dei.
1917.] PAUL CLAUDEL, MYSTIC 485
upon to do for God. He is a channel through which passes a
force far greater than he; it is his part to contain, to direct
the crystal stream which springs from the Divine Fount. Man must
give out this thing within him which is God's.
Every Christian, however unworthily, reflects the likeness of Christ.3
The Being which created us and keeps us
Knows us, and we contribute secretly to His glory.4
In my verses, never seek for the way, but look into the centre !
he pleads, and again :
Man must give back what he has had
Since all things come from you,
They return, in time, to the eternal
So with the voice— your voice ! — with which I sound eternal notes !
I can only name eternal things.
Make me more wholly
Your voice ; the word revealed to all the world.5
For-
Flesh creates flesh, and man the child that is not for him alone ; and
the mind,
The word directed to other minds 5
You have given me no poor to succor, no wounds to dress,
no bread to break, but the word which is received more
fully than bread or water Make me produce it with the
best substance of my heart, like a harvest which spreads where-
ever there is soil 5
Like a man newly-born; an invention, fresh and intact,
Any power I have has one object, every prayer in itself is an act.6
Each word he applies has its own function, and no other, and
is deliberately chosen, not merely for its literary quality, but for
its actual vitality and symbolism.
We say, truly enough, that words are signs used by us to
denote things ; we call them up, in fact ; we evoke them, bring-
ing ourselves to a point of comprehension which accords with
their actual presence Sounding a word, I become the
*Le Chemin de la Croix. *La Ville.
*Cinq Grandes Odes. * Corona Benignitatis Anni Dei.
4&6 PAUL CLAUD EL, MYSTIC [Jan.,
actual master of the object which it stands for; I can take
it where I will, with me; I can treat it as if it actually were
there 7
Here we have a theory partially .resembling that advanced by
Algernon Blackwood in The Human Chord, but dating back, ob-
viously, far beyond the personal range of either author, in its recog-
nition of the mystical properties, the occult significance of words.
Claudel, living for years in the East, had studied the question
deeply, and afterwards applied it. Even the sound of his sentences
is intentional. Some of them are musical, some purposely not.
This is what makes his work lose intolerably in translation, no
matter from what selfless and humble a motive an interpreter sets
out upon his task.
And Claudel on more than one occasion, acclaims responsi-
bility of using the " right " phrase with almost passionate exaltation.
Behold her here, she stands upon my threshold
The word, like to a maiden young f orevermore !8
The spirit sent from God goes back again to Him in the
perfume in which it spent itself It is essential that words
should be, before the phrase itself exists ; sound must go out
upon the world that sense may live 8
Claudel has been quoted by a cult as though he were only for
"high intellectuals;" for the chosen few with rare mental gifts
rather than for the many who are called upon to be and to suffer.
In the present writer's view, Claudel's wide grasp of the heights
and depths of human nature brings him within the reach of nearly
all. For he knows man as few know him. He is at once a pil-
grim and a guide. If he has won to mountain heights from which
he can discern the outline of the City of God, he has sunk, too, into
an incomparable darkness of the soul compared to which black
night offers no fears. Despair; spiritual dryness; shame; loneli-
ness; he has been plunged into each of these in his hour.
Scarlet of love; and that of utter shame
Covers the face from which I have drawn my hands
Shadow has struck me, my brief day dies out.
The past is past ; the future is no more.
Good-bye to boyhood ! — Good-bye to my youth !
Bereft and poor I face my naked hour.
*L'Art Pottique. 'Cinq Grandes Odes,
I9I7-] PAUL CLAUDEL, MYSTIC 487
Now I will speak no more; lonely and bound,
Like a flock sold to hands which drive it hence,
I listen, merely ; waiting, ready for what
The final hour with its sharp crisis brings. .
The coward unveiled, the very traitor proved,.
The liar disclosed, the adulterer himself,
The proud man listening — bound to hold his tongue —
The prodigal selling his rights for dross;
The sick man mocked ; the child his mother laughs at —
He who walks threadbare through his fellow-men,
Cannot have known, in the depths of heart or soul,
Abasement lower, more complete than mine 9
Few passages equal the following for intensity:
At last I see myself! Desolation holds me and pain makes of me a
sorrowing eye
Seeing only misery, nothingness, privation — these alone are mine!
Now I know myself; in bitter nakedness
Am I revealed, emptied of all
Save utter want of Thee.10
Of him who could write this it might well be said, " O death,
thy sentence is welcome to the man that is in need and to him
whose strength faileth."
But here, on the other hand, is the third stage in the great
process of purgation, and " now is the very moment to which
the preceding stages have led. Now is the very instant in which
the beloved soul, having learnt her last lesson of the Purgative
Way is fit 'to cast herself into the sea/ to come to Jesus
conscious that it is exactly because she is nothing in herself, and
because she knows it, that Christ can be her all Christ purges
His friends of all that is not of Him."11
And at this point, too, Claudel, mystic, is to come into his own.
Revelation dawns. Hereafter, the agony of loss, of apparently un-
necessary pain and injustice, is made intelligible through the vision
of Gocl. Acceptance is the door to spiritual understanding. Pain
which takes spiritual meaning must still rack tormented nerves, still
*Vers d'Rxil. ™ Cinq Grandcs Odes.
11 The Friendship of Christ. By Robert Hugh Benson.
PAUL CLAUDEL, MYSTIC [Jan.,
strain the tired brain, still, interiorly, be shrunk from. But it is no
longer grudged nor regretted any more than a mother grudges or
regrets the travail which brought her heir into the world. One
wounded heart draws not only another nearer, but itself is nearer
to the wounded Heart of Christ.
Seen from this standpoint, Claudel's dramas divide into two
distinct sections, some showing what a man endures through will-
ful ignorance of, through doing without, God ; and others, what he
attains when he is with, or trying to be with, Him. Proudly
Catholic, he compels these views into all he does. And the more
fiercely he challenges unfaith and compromise, the more his work
strengthens and takes power. Tete d'Or, his earliest published
play, is the story of the mental conflict of a man with the Prome-
thean spirit who would dispute Olympus with the gods. Born with
great instinct and aspirations, Tete d'Or fails because throughout
he depends only on himself. The fire his vivid spirit lights is real
fire, on a beacon, but imperially as it glows, nothing is left but
ashes. Yet he has had his supreme wish. Never has he been
afraid; never has he cringed, or fled from danger. His end is
fine but it is the end of a pagan.
"Effort comes to its vain limits and undoes itself like a fold,"
says the Commandant of the Army which he led often to victory,
looking upon his stricken figure, which in its day has glorified
itself so high, boasting: ,
Know the right which has been given me !
Know the power which has been given me
How fine a thing it is that these lips of mine should say " I ! "
I ask for all.
I ask all so that you may give it me,
That supreme power may be mine to do all and to have all
My hours dawns!
My glory will spread over the world like a bow in heaven,
When Tete d'Or's men leave him by his own wish, to die',
as they believe, alone, upon the hilltops in a strange country, his
Captain looking at the prostrate form sounds the knell of his mas-
ter's futile hopes. " The future is like a landscape reflected in
water — the past is worth less than a beech-nut — the present is
nothing at all "
19I7-] PAUL CLAUDEL, MYSTIC 489
The Princess whom he wronged, whose father he killed,
whose kingdom he usurped, whom he has not permitted her people
to help, ultimately escapes to the very spot to where, presently,
his wounded body is carried. She has learned through pain and tor-
ture a lesson which he, the conqueror, has not learned. Food
has been torn from her starving lips by a deserter; he has nailed
her two hands to the branches of a tree.
The Princess: I am nailed to a stake, but my Royal Heart
is not broken, for these bonds are as honorable as a throne:
And later :
Poor hand !
I "was nailed
Like a night-bird ;
Like the tree which is crucified, that it may bring forth fruit
Taking the personality of Cceuvre, in La Ville t as a pendant
picture to Tete d'Or's, we have, in exquisite contrast, the picture
of the man who walks increasingly with God, as the action of La
Ville unfolds. The valley of vision, to Cceuvre, is from the outset,
open thoroughfare. His eyes are mystic; he is the natural celi-
bate; his marriage with Lala is the result of a brief call of youth to
youth in springtime and no more. She carries him away only when
the depression, the pessimism of Isidore de Besme's outlook almost
thrust him upon her. She materializes joy for him. He has been
speaking of the things which cannot be held with mortal hands,
and Besme has thrust his lance across the fabric of Cceuvre's
dreams; Lala waves dazzlingly before him pleasure which he can
grip and feel. Warm life, full life from the world's material view,
she epitomizes in a phrase.
Yet even then he knows intuitively that
The love I have conceived
Rests not in rest which I can never know.
He gives the lie to Besme's black doctrine " Rien riest." All is
acrid and sour to Besme because he is the centre of the life he
sees. Coeuvre, still vague, still undecided, yet knows that some-
where in apparent chaos there is reason and meaning; that the
cruel problems of life have a divine answer; that for the man who
490 PAUL CLAUDEL, MYSTIC [Jan.,
is noble there is a more splendid end than for the man who, like
Besme, is heaped about with all of worldly honor that " the town
can give him."
Eventually, returning to his birthplace, on his mission of con-
version, Cceuvre shows how, passing through the torn fabric of
dreams, he has won his way to the outskirts of the spiritual City
which will stand forever. " Certainty " — through what dim corri-
dors he had to travel to reach her! In the sweat of his brow how
he has toiled to find her home !
But now — I have come to the end of the journey I am here!
The Face of the suffering Christ — once stamped upon the
heart — will stay forever.
How can we be content to break bread, my son, while His
Sorrow is still here to assuage?
Nearly all Claudel's dramas are dramas of growth. His men
and women never stand still ; they move in leaps and bounds. And
so poignant are they, so real, so vividly, intensely human, that you
feel their pain, you shine with their reflected glory, as you do with
the sorrow or the sanctity of your most intimate friend. What-
ever they are not, they are real. Types, symbols, perhaps; but
types and symbols warm with coursing blood.
And because, with his mystic vision, Claudel sees through
the gaudy or worn trappings of a soul straight to its naked heart,
he draws, with unusual justice and respect, his different characters.
He makes a case even for those with whom he has least sympathy ;
his innate sense of the dignity of the human soul gives him a
reverence too seldom found in writers when they portray characters
for whom they have no admiration. Take for instance, his presenti-
ment of Lala's view of life in La Ville; Thomas Pollok Nageoire's,
and Louis. Laine's in L'Eckange; Toussaint de Turelure's in
UOtage; Mara's in L'Annonce faite a Marie. Compare them with
Cceuvre's standpoint;12 Marine's;18 Monsieur Badillon's and
Sygne de Coufontaine's;14 and Violaine's15 to cite a few only
out of many instances which at once spring to the mind.
Lala, the symbol of elusive joy, the firefly which flickers be-
fore a man's eyes only to defy capture, says of herself :
12 La Ville. "L'Echange. "L'Otage.
"L'Annonce faite a Marie.
1917.] PAUL CLAUD EL, MYSTIC 491
I am the promise which cannot be kept Don't think of
death, O friend, but life! For the living build up amongst
them a town, where laws do not exist. Like the bee in its cell,
every man is himself his own law
Finally, in self-justification, she urges —
Woman is nearer to the earth than you
And she breathes more of its smoke !
" Everything has its price " is the philosophy of Thomas Pollok
Nageoire. To find that fidelity and truth cannot be bought for
gold, as in Marthe's case may well be a turning-point in his life
after the curtain has fallen on the last act of L'Echange. We
recognize him. There is scarcely one of us who has not met him in
our day. He is practical, he has grip; he sees all life through the
squint-hole he makes of his two hands, held like a telescope.
I buy anything, I sell anything.
Nothing can be had for nothing
Never give anything away for nothing.
Nothing lasts forever. When you are no longer hungry
What is the good of going on eating?
Money is everything. One must have money. It is like a
woman's hands, with fingers
Marthe, standing for eternal womanhood, firmly clings to
the foundations of love and honor and peace, as might a ship-
wrecked passenger, cling to his little island of rock in the midst
of raging seas. She sums up Thomas Pollok Nageoire impartially
in a few words :
There are several points which I admire in you.
For example, -seeing that a thing is good, you spare no effort to obtain
it.
Then, as you yourself say — you know the value of things, whether
they are worth much or little.
You pay nothing for dreams ; you set no store by appearance ; your
business is with stern realities
And yet — after all — I am richer than you !
Louis Laine, Marthe's husband, a modern Donatello whose god
492 PAUL CLAUD EL, MYSTIC [Jan,
is freedom, who longs for wings to fly with when he cannot even
stand firmly on his feet, entangles himself, in his desire to escape
any sort or kind of bondage, in a maze of unworthy ties which
lures him to his own unworthy death. Of himself he says:
My life is mine! I will not give it to another I must
be free, throughout ! I must do what pleases me ! Today
is enough for me.
Unmasked, he accuses life, temperament, reason, anything but
his own weakness, for what he is. Sane and clear comes Marthe's
answer :
Never blame the mind ! — but rather, the animal-taint in you ; cunning ;
your desire for escape; your ruthlessness
Neither accuse the body — as a woman might accuse her maidservant !
Accuse rather, the unclean spirit within!
The spirit of death and dissolution, luring us, made only to die.
" Truth ! " mocks Lechy Elbernon, in the same play : " What
is truth? Hasn't it got seventeen coats like an onion?" But
Marthe says:
The eye is made to see with, and the ear to hear the truth
Deep in the heart of man is will, and it has its own perfume,
like scent which rises to the nostrils You dived into the
sea this morning and would, if you could, have gone to the
bottom Water like that will never wash you clean, but
only the tears which flow from your eyes
We do not see God, but man who is made in the image of
God, and shall we not praise the sun which lets us see and gaze
upon him?
The great mystery-play of Le Repos du Septieme Jour is a
drama essentially to be read, not acted. To read it even, is to
shake the inmost heart. Claudel, with his experience of the East,
has had exceptional opportunities of studying mysticism ; how near
he has been to its dark secrets is indicated by this Chinese play.
To dabble with the occult is much less safe than to play with a
bomb whose pin has been drawn; while the bomb merely destroys
the body, the other threatens to destroy the soul. Eastern mysti-
cism is an open door between both worlds, and malignant powers
1917-] PAUL CLAUD EL, MYSTIC 493
wait on the threshold, burning to capture forever the wavering soul
which strays too near.
Claudel has withstood the onslaught of these terrific forces with
the superior powers of Catholic mysticism. But that he realizes to
the full the danger of occult study for the defenceless, nobody who
has even an elementary knowledge of what such study involves,
can doubt when reading the solemn pages of this great drama,
which ranks with the best examples of the classics.
A great and good Emperor returns from a period of contem-
plation and solitude to find his people panic-stricken. Their dead
are tormenting them ; their homes, their fields, their meals are not
their own ; the dead encroach upon their very firesides, felt rather
than seen, yet everywhere divined, avid and grasping, ready to
pluck from the hands of the living temporal joys, all that in which
the body can find ease. The sacrifices, the offerings of the people are
in vain; in their midst, the pale dead stray, phantoms of fear and
warning.
And the Emperor for love of his people " goes voluntarily "
into the bowels of the Earth to snatch from its womb the secret
of this hideous onslaught, and learn how to quell it. He takes
with him nothing but the imperial and ancient stick of which .it is
foretold that one day, after a period of peril and disaster, it will
branch out in token of " real " prosperity and peace. Penetrating
to purgatory, to hell itself, he learns the secret of the nation's
failure and how he may repair it. His sacrifice is accepted; he is
allowed to return to his country to give his message of hope.
But he comes back, bearing upon him the outward symbols of
the horrors through which -he has passed. The eyes are out ; the nose
is gone; the lips are multilated and disfigured. He returns as a
mere voice to utter incomparable wisdom before he sets out again
upon the last stage of the pilgrimage, leaving behind him the staff
which has branched into the shape of a cross.
Here, as in Claudel's best known play, L'Annonce faite a
Marie, the deepening tragedy leaves the reader with no real sense
of gloom, although he walks with the Emperor as with Violaine in
the Valley of the Shadow of Death. For these pictures of pain,
washed upon the canvas by the incomparable sure touch of the
true artist, show exquisitely clearly huge shafts of light divine.
They are pictures of souls rising through purgatorial flames to
heights of glory, and through the sombre smoke of the background
a mystical light has flashed straight from the heart of God. They
494 PAUL CLAUD EL, MYSTIC [Jan.,
are inspired and inspiring pictures, and the lesson of them, lofty
and solemn, rings with incomparable dignity and power.
Pierre de Craon, great architect of churches, explains how he
will place upon the summit of his work, the statue of " Violaine, the
leper, in her glory. Violaine, blind, for all the world to see."
Suffering shall be shown openly for what it is, one of the most
precious gifts of God; paradoxically, to prove that he who
gives all, shall produce the richer fruit; that it is of the humble at
heart, that the higher citizens of the courts of heaven are made.
" I will depict her," says Pierre de Craon, " with her eyes
bandaged," and Violaine's father, far-sighted as he is, asks
"Why?" And Pierre de Craon replies: "That she may hear
better, because she does not see the whisper of town and field, and
the voice of man with the voice of God at one and the same
moment."
" Happy is he who suffers and who knows why," Violaine her-
self has said, earlier in the play " Much is consumed in the
fire of a heart which burns "
His detractors have urged against Claudel the fact that his
plays demand too much of their audience ever to be wholly success-
ful; and in the case of certain dramas, much of their full meaning
would be lost in representation. As well try to keep the kings
of the wild, lions and tigers, within the limits of a few hundred
yards of wire netting as try to keep a man of Claudel's power
within the narrow boundaries of strict theatrical convention. Then
again, turns of words, fine passages to which we return frequently,
would not perhaps strike home to the quick ear as they do to the
more retentive eye. There is undoubtedly a Claudel " atmosphere,"
into which he compels his admirers ; when you have been with him,
it is difficult to return to the companionship of others.
Realist, as well as mystic, he presents, often so crudely as
almost to seem cruel, nothing but the truth; mystic as well as
realist, he sees how every action, every thought, every intention
draws a man nearer to God or drives him farther away.
A fine classic scholar, his plays have far more in common with
the tragedies of the past, with their great issues, than with modern
drama, laden as it is with artificial and extensive accessories.
Claudel's dramas of conscience sweep towards their end resistlessly,
almost relentlessly. " As the faces of them that look, shine in the
water so the hearts of men are laid open to the wise." He is
human throughout; what more piteous than Sygne de Coufon-
1917-] PAUL CLAUD EL, MYSTIC 495
taine's 16 tragic attempts to evade taking the way which her director,
Monsieur de Baclillon, a figure drawn with the utmost tenderness,
points out? — the way not only of crucifixion of self, but long drawn-
out crucifixion, so that one by one, with pauses in between, the
nails are inexorably hammered into the tortured flesh? — "I am
not God," cries Sygne, " but only a woman! "
To know Claudel is to have lit a torch which, not today only,
but tomorrow, will serve to guide us through dark places. To
writers writh the same faith he must act as inspiration or reproach ;
why are there not more of us joining our voices in his Magnificat?
In the argument of La Maison Fermee, to be found in his Cinq
Grande s Odes, he puts the duty of a writer, of a poet, clearly
enough for all the world to read.
" My first duty is God, and the task which He has given me,
which is to reunite all in Him." He discusses contemplation; how
the poet, rightly to hold his gift, must be at times like a shut up
house. (In an earlier poem he said: " He who would participate
in the Will of God, must participate also in His silence"). And
the guardian angel of the poet answers that God called him to be
the poet's guardian angel, that he might guide him to give " To God
alone that which he has received alone from God — the spirit of
prayer and speech."
The surrender of self; the giving back, humbly and thank-
fully, the well-worn gift which came through grace; the counting
of pain borne for Christ as no pain at all, but joy and gain; these
are some of the marks of Claudel's growth and inspiration. Who
can wonder that with principles like these he has traveled so far
along the road of applied mysticism ? Perhaps, because he no longer
asks for fame, fame is now increasingly his; he does actually seek
only to be the sower of a seed which may germinate though " no-
body remembers who has sown it."
Let me be amongst men as a man without a face and my
Speech amongst them noiseless, like some sower of silence
Make me as one who sows solitude and may he who hears my voice
Return home, troubled and sobered.
"L'Otage.
INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH.
BY LOUIS P. HARL.
UT in Indiana a series of centennial celebrations
which attracted nation-wide attention have just been
completed. The occasion was the rounding out
by the Hoosier commonwealth of one hundred years
of statehood. Every town and city in the State cele-
brated the occasion in some way. The principal feature of the
various celebrations was usually a pageant depicting the growth
and development of the territory from the days of the Indians
until the present time. These pageants in the larger cities were
elaborately staged by popular effort and by popular subscription.
The South Bend pageant, one of the best in the State, was par-
ticipated in by nearly six thousand persons, and witnessed by a
great many more. The magnificent State celebration in the capital
city, Indianapolis, lasted for two weeks, drew hundreds of thou-
sands of visitors to the city, and cost several hundred thousand
dollars to produce. Being historically correct in most details these
pageants had a great educational value and conveyed to the present
generation, as hardly anything else could, an idea of the spirit of
heroism and patriotism, and it might be added religion, which
pervaded the lives of the pioneers of Indiana, as indeed of all
the other States of our great Union. But not least among the
good effects of the centennial celebrations was the fact that they
educated the people to the important part played by Catholics
and Catholicism in the State's history. With the possible exception
of Maryland, California, New York and Florida, there is no State
in the Union that has a more brilliant history of Catholic men
and achievements than Indiana.
Indiana's history as a State dates back only a hundred years,
but the history of Catholicism in Indiana is a glorious record of
struggle, self-sacrifice, and achievement which covers a period of
nearly two hundred and fifty years. The first white man to set
foot within its territory was undoubtedly a French-Canadian, and
a Catholic. The early Catholic missionaries and explorers were
the first to bring the light of civilization and Christianity to the
territory. The first settlement was by Catholics, and indeed, the
1917.] INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH 497
whole history of the territory until the time of its admission into
the Union is largely the history of a Catholic people. Above all, it
is to a Catholic priest, more perhaps than to any other man, that
we owe the fact that the State, as well as the whole of the great
Middle- West, holds its allegiance to the American rather than to the
British flag.
Before the English had dared to lose sight of the sea in
planting their colonies along the eastern coast of our country, the
French in Canada had pushed their explorations thousands of miles
inward to the very western extremity of the Great Lakes and had
heard of the mighty " Messipi," " The Father of Waters."
In these explorations, venturing where the soldier or adven-
turer dare not go, the Catholic missionary blazed the way. In his
zeal to spread the word of God he traversed the pathless forests,
paddled his canoe along the great waterways as yet unknown
to the white man, and penetrated into the most remote wilderness,
preaching the Gospel everywhere to the savage tribes, and singing
the praises of God and His Blessed Mother in the very names he
gave the streams and lakes.
The first name that history associates with the territory that
now comprises the State of Indiana is that of the most noted of
these early missionaries, the saintly Father Jacques Marquette. It
was after he had explored the Mississippi in 1673, and founded the
mission of Kaskaskia, that he first entered the territory of the State.
Sick and weary from hardships and suffering he bade his dear chil-
dren, the Illinois, farewell, and having offered Mass for the last
time in Kaskaskia, Easter morning, 1675, set out for his beloved
mission of St. Ignace, in northern Michigan. In his anxiety to
reach the mission before the hand of death closed upon him, he
accepted the advice of his Indian guides, and took the shorter route,
which was up the Kankakee, across northern Illinois, and into
Indiana, thence by portage to the St. Joseph River, and down stream
to Lake Michigan. But death overtook him on the way, and on the
shore of the lake, not many miles from St. Ignace, his blessed soul
took flight on the eighteenth day of May, 1675. That Father
Marquette passed through Indiana on that last sad journey before
his death, most authorities, including John Gilmary Shea and Justin
Winsor, agree. The spot where he embarked upon the waters of
the St. Joseph is only a mile from where the University of Notre
Dame now stands, and the fact is treasured as one of 'the most
sacred traditions of the great Catholic university. Following the
VOL. civ. — 32
498 INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH [Jan,
return of Joliet, Father Marquette's companion, on his trip of ex-
ploration to the Mississippi, the Mississippi country was for the
next century and a half the fruitful field of missionary endeavor,
and the El Dorado of the traders of New France.
First among the early explorers of the Mississippi country
in importance, as well as time, was Sieur Robert Cavelier de La
Salle, who explored the Mississippi to its mouth in 1682, and whose
work played an important part in fixing the early history of In-
diana. It seems certain that as early as 1669, La Salle had ex-
plored the Ohio to its falls, being in all probability the first Euro-
pean that ever looked upon its waters. But the discovery of the
Ohio had at the time little influence upon the history of the ad-
joining territory. The next route to the West, discovered by La
Salle, was the Maumee-Wabash River and portage route, over
which he probably first journeyed for some distance about 1671.
The discovery of this route opened the way for the series of French
settlements which some years later lined the Wabash River, and
which were the first permanent settlements in the confines of the
present State. It was in 1679, on his epoch-making trip to the
Mississippi, that La Salle crossed the third important route to the
West, the St. Joseph-Kankakee River and portage routes. It is
an interesting point of history, recorded by Father Lewis Hennepin,
the Franciscan Recollet, who accompanied him, that in searching
for the portage La Salle became separated from his party and wan-
dered for two days in the beautiful valley of the St. Joseph before
he again found his friends. The spot where La Salle landed on
the St. Joseph is still known as La Salle's landing. It is near where
Notre Dame University now stands, and only a few miles from the
place where two years later on his return trip he signed the famous
treaty with the Miamis, which secured peace for the French ex-
plorers and settlers for the next half century. A short distance
down the river he erected, about 1882, Fort St. Joseph, which was,
however, a few years later abandoned.
The St. Joseph-Kankakee portage route was now rapidly be-
coming the principal highway of travel to the West, and it was
probably because of this that Father Claude Allouez, S.J., who had
succeeded Father Marquette as head of the mission at Kaskaskia,
decided about 1680 to plant a mission on the St. Joseph, and thus
added to his many other distinctions the honor of being the pioneer
priest of Indiana. That Father Allouez did establish a mission on
the St. Joseph there is almost positive evidence, and that having
1917.] INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH 499
established this mission he labored among the Indians of what is
now northern Indiana is certain. There is evidence to indicate that
he penetrated as far into the country as the great Miami village,
near the headwaters of the Maumee, where the city of Fort Wayne
now stands. ,
Father Allouez's labors among the Illinois and Miamis con-
tinued for nine or ten years after he had founded the mission of
St. Joseph, and he went to his reward in 1689. His remains still
lie somewhere along the St. Joseph. Pere Allouez was one of the
most remarkable of the many remarkable men who went out from
France in those early days to convert the savages of North America.
Thirty-two years of his life of seventy-six he spent among the
Indians. He preached to twenty different tribes, and baptized with
his own hands ten thousand neophytes. He was the first Vicar-
General of the United States, having been assigned to that office by
the Bishop of Quebec, Monsignor Laval. John Gilmary Shea calls
him, " the founder of Catholicism in the West," and it is a most
fitting title.
Soon after Father Allouez established his mission on the St.
Joseph, or the river of the Miamis, as it was called before he re-
named it, the government of New France, realizing the importance
of the position commanding, as it did, the great highway to the
West, erected a fort at the point which is known in history as
Fort St. Joseph. Fort St. Joseph and its mission continued to be the
centre of French exploration and trade and Catholic missionary
activity throughout the whole region until 1759, when it was cap-
tured by the British, and its garrison and settlers removed. Be-
sides Father Allouez, we find laboring at the mission many other
of the most distinguished of the early Jesuits, including Fathers
Claude Aveneau, James Gravier, Peter F. X. Chardon, St. Pe, Du-
Jaunay and Peter Potier, the last Jesuit of the West. The famous
traveler and missionary, Father Charlevoix, also visited the mis-
sion about 1721, and wrote interestingly of the surrounding coun-
try. After the British occupancy the mission was never reorganized,
but occasionally missionaries visited the country and strove to
keep alive the fires of Christianity in the breasts of the savages.
Fort St. Joseph's interesting history came to an end, when it was
captured and burned by a Spanish force from Fort St. Louis in
1781. It is interesting to note, that as Judge Howard observes
in his history of Notre Dame, the capture of Fort St. Joseph by the
Spaniards marks the extreme northern limit of the power of Spain
500 INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH [Jan.,
in the New World. Its flag then floated from the Straits of
Magellan to this little outpost in the wilds of southern Michigan.
Meanwhile events of great moment were occurring in the southern
part of the territory now comprising the State of Indiana, but
the development of the northern section was much slower, and the
frontier-Indian period in this part did not come to an end until
sometime later.
Following the destruction of Fort St. Joseph, the Christian
Pottawatomies and Miamis were left for many years without a
spiritual adviser, and the way they kept the Faith in spite of the
bad example set them by the wild and licentious adventurers
and conreurs des bois is the best evidence of the wonderful in-
fluence for good which the early missionaries exercised over them.
How the Indians yearned for the return of their " Black Robed
Fathers" is best expressed in the beautiful words which the great
Pottawatomie chief, Pokagon, addressed to Father Gabriel Richards,
the Vicar-General of Detroit, when he went at the head of a
band of braves to supplicate a priest for the tribe in 1828. " I
implore you," he said, " to send us a black robe to instruct us in
the word of God. If you have no care for us old men, at least
have pity on our poor children who are growing up in ignorance and
vice. We still preserve the manner of prayer as taught our an-
cestors by the black robe who formerly resided at St. Joseph.
Morning and evening with my wife and children we pray together
before the Crucifix in the chapel. Sunday we pray together oftener.
On Fridays we fast until evening, men, women and children, ac-
cording to the tradition handed down to us by our fathers, for
we ourselves have never seen a black robe."
Father Richards, himself one of the most interesting figures
in the history of the Church in the West, a pioneer in Catholic
journalism in this country, one of the early priests of Indiana,
and the first and only priest that ever sat in Congress, listened to
the chief's plea, and through his efforts, Bishop Flaget, of Bards-
town, was persuaded to send to the northern Indiana missions
Father Stephen Theodore Badin, " the proto-priest of North
America," who had already labored for many years in the missions
of Kentucky.
Father Badin reached northern Indiana in 1829 and established
the mission of Ste. Marie du Lac where Notre Dame University
now stands, purchasing from the Government the section of land
that later came into the possession of Father Sorin, founder of the
I
1917-] INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH 501
University. His health becoming exhausted by his strenuous labors,
Father Badin was forced to return to Kentucky after a few years,
and was succeeded by Father Louis Deseilles, whose brief but
fruitful career came to an end a few years later, when he expired
at the altar of the mission of Ste. Marie du Lac, surrounded by
only a few whites and his Indian children.
Father Deseilles' successor was Father Benjamin Mary Petit,
the last of the Indian missionaries in Indiana. Father Petit's
life, as recorded in his writings and letters, is typical of all the
holy men who had gone before him, and as his character is one
of the most beautiful of them all it will not perhaps be amiss
to attempt to sketch briefly the man and his work.
Petit was a young lawyer of Rennes, France, in 1835, when
at the age of twenty-four he felt himself called to the religious
life. At that time Bishop Brute, first bishop of the newly-created
diocese of Vincennes, Indiana, was in Rennes seeking aid for his
new see. Petit decided to return with him to the new world. Two
years after his arrival in Indiana he was ordained by Bishop Brute,
and immediately afterwards started for his first pastorate, which
was, as he had requested, the Indiana mission of St. Mary's, in
the northern part of the State. In a letter, eloquent with love,
' which he wrote to his mother on the day of his ordination he says :
" I am now a priest My hand is now consecrated to God
How my lips trembled this morning at my first Mass
Within two days I start hence all alone on a journey of three
hundred miles, and yet not alone, for I shall journey in company
with my God Whom I shall carry on my bosom day and night, and
shall convey with me the instruments of the great Sacrifice, halting
from time to time in the depth of the forest, and converting the
hut of some poor Catholic into a palace of the King of Glory. I
have always desired a mission among the savages : there is but
one such in Indiana, and it is I, whom the Pottawatomies will call
'Father Black Robe.' "* Father Petit's arrival brought forth from
the Indians shouts of joy : " We were as orphans and, as it were,
in darkness, but you come among us and we live," they cried.
His labors were heavy, his hardships many. Frequently he
had to ride fifty miles or more to answer a sick call. The room
in which he lived was over the chapel, which was constructed of
logs by the Indians without the use of hammer, nails or saw. His
furniture consisted of a table, chair and bed. He shared with the
Quoted from Judge Howard's History of Notre Dame.
502 INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH [Jan.,
Indians their corn and meat, with water as his drink. His work
was, however, soon interrupted. That very year the Government
ordered the removal of the Pattowatomies to the West, and with
a sad heart Father Petit exclaims : "I shall have to level the altar and
the church to the ground and bury the cross which overshadows
their tombs to save it from profanation." The order for the re-
moval of the Pattawatomies, a peaceful and God-fearing people,
from their homes to the West, and the manner in which it was
carried out by some of the agents of the Government, is one of the
most shameful incidents of our history. The suffering among the
women and children, and even among the men, was rendered un-
utterable by the oppressive heat and the unhealthy climate through
which they passed. The fever claimed hundreds on the way, or
as Father Petit, who had been permitted to accompany them, puts
it, " At every stop we left graves under the shadow of the cross."
The young priest himself fell a victim to the scourge which was
destroying so many of his charges, and at St. Louis he was forced
to abandon the party, and a few days later he died. With the de-
parture of the Pottawatomies from Indiana, the frontier-Indian
period of the State's history came to an end, and with the death of
Father Petit passed away the last of the Indian missionaries to
labor in that section.
We must now turn back more than a century and trace rapidly
the progress and development of Christianity in the middle and
southern parts of the State where the Church was now making
rapid strides.
After its discovery by La Salle the Maumee-Wabash river-
portage route from Lake Erie to the Mississippi was not long in be-
coming the principal thoroughfare of trade between New France
and the West, and for the next century communication between
Canada and New Orleans continued to be carried on over this
route. Just when the first settlement along the Wabash, which was
also the first settlement in Indiana, was made, is uncertain, but by
1705 the Government of New France, carrying out its policy of
securing the country, had established the posts of Vincennes, of
Ouiatenon, where the city of Lafayette now stands, and of Maumee,
near the present city of Fort Wayne. As all these posts were
garrisoned by French Catholics and were the headquarters of a
large number of traders, it is quite certain that from the very first
they were the centre of missions. For nearly a decade or so these
posts grew rapidly, and the fur traders and settlers reaped rich
1917.] INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC PAITti 503
profits from their labors. Between 1720 and 1730 we find Fort
Ouiatenon, which was situated at the point on the Wabash, where
the large pirogues transferred their cargoes to the smaller craft,
shipping annually to Canada twenty thousand furs and skins.
About the latter date, however, troubles between the Miamis and
the whites broke out, and after 1845 we l°se trace of the -posts
of Ouiatenon and Maumee, which were evidently abandoned. It
is interesting to note, however, that before its abandonment there
was born at Fort Ouiatenon a child, Anthony Foucher, who was
to be the first native of the territory now comprised in the present
State to be ordained to the priesthood.
Vincennes further south and out of the Miami country, con-
tinued to prosper and the history of this isolated Gallic settlement
for the next century is one of the most interesting and romantic
chapters of American history. The people of the French posts
were, with all their lack of industry and their pleasure-loving dis-
position, generally speaking, good and pious people who loved their
pastors, and supported the Church as well as their scanty means
would permit.
The first priest of whom we have any positive record as having
labored at Vincennes was a Father Mermet, S.J., who was there
as early as 1712. Just how long he remained at Vincennes is un-
certain. Father Mermet's successor was Father Senat, another
Jesuit, who lost his life in 1736, when he accompanied Francois
Margane, Sieur de Vincennes, the founder of the post on an expedi-
tion against the Chickesaws on the lower Mississippi, and remain-
ing on the field of battle in one engagement to administer to the
wounded, was captured and put to death with much cruelty by the
Indians. After Father Senat we find four other Jesuit pastors
at Vincennes, Fathers Sebastian Louis Meurin, Louis Vivier, Julian
Duvernay and Pierre Du Jaunay. Then the little flock was without
a shepherd for some time until, with the coming of Very Reverend
Pierre Gibault, priest and patriot, in 1 770, a new era of history was
opened up for the territory.
The cause of the long delay experienced by Vincennes in
securing a priest is to be found in the decline of the Illinois missions,
which began about the middle of the eighteenth century, and which
was due to the mismanagement of the government of Louisiana,
which now controlled affairs in the Northwest Territory, to the sup-
pression of the centre of the missions in New Orleans in 1762,
which shut off the supply of priests, and finally to the trouble which
504 INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH [Jan.,
arose between the Indians and the English, who lacking the con-
ciliatory spirit of the French and the powerful influence which the
early Jesuits exercised over the minds and hearts of the aborigines,
found themselves from the very beginning involved in continual
strife which was only ended when General Harrison crushed forever
the power of the Indian in the territory in the famous battle of
Tippecanoe in 1819.
Consequently when Father Gibault, the newly appointed Vicar-
General of the Bishop of Quebec, arrived in 1770, he found himself
the only priest in that whole territory, and his parish extended
from Mackinac and Detroit to Kaskaskia and Vincennes. For nine-
teen years Father Gibault continued to labor in his vast parish.
" His zeal was admirable and his labors almost surpassed belief."
" He was a leading character in everything pertaining to the
spiritual, social, educational and material prosperity of the ancient
French villages." Is it any wonder, then, that the good priest
early acquired .such a tremendous influence over the people of the
settlements, or that when the Revolution broke out he so warmly
espoused the cause of American liberty, and worked so earnestly to
bring the people to his way of thinking, that long before George
Rogers Clark appeared upon the scene with his small army, the
people of Vincennes and Kaskaskia were already won over to the
American cause? In 1778, General Clark was able to take Kas-
kaskia without the shedding of a single drop of blood, largely
through the efforts of Father Gibault. Immediately after this the
patriotic priest hurried to Vincennes, assembled the people in the
church and so fired them by his eloquent plea on behalf of the
American cause, that he was actually able to administer the oath
of allegiance. After the capture of Vincennes by Governor Hamil-
ton, in 1789, Father Gibault again came to the rescue; and it was
largely through his efforts in raising two companies of Catholic
men in Kaskaskia that Clark was able to retake Vincennes and
firmly establish the American possession of the territory of the
Northwest. Without the support of the French Catholics of the
settlements led by their patriotic priest, the small army of General
Clark would in all probability have been annihilated by the much
larger force of British and Indians. It is a curious fact of history
that the three men to whom this country owes the possession of
the Northwest Territory, General Clark, Father Gibault and
Colonel Francis Vigo, a Catholic gentleman of Vincennes, were
all left to die in poverty, their small requests for favors refused by
1917-] INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH 505
the Government, and their great services to the country almost
entirely ignored. Father Gibault finally departed from Vincennes
in 1789 and where he spent his remaining days and died is un-
certain.
Yincennes was again without a priest until 1792, when Rev.
Benedict Joseph Flaget, afterwards first Bishop of Bardstown, be-
came the pastor. Father Flaget found the condition of the mission
deplorable. The church had almost fallen down, and of the seven
hundred souls of which the congregation was composed, only twelve
could be induced to approach Holy Communion even at Christmas
time. But Father Flaget set to work with a stout heart and
established a school — the first of which we have record in the
State— hoping to reach the hearts of the parents through their
children. The method, backed by Father Flaget's zeal, proved so
successful that before he completed his two years and a half of
pastorship, practically all the people of the town were faithful at-
tendants at church. More than thirty priests in all had labored
at Vincennes, up till 1834, when the diocese was erected. Besides
those mentioned before, the best known were : Rev. Stephen Theo-
dore Badin, Rev. Father Nerinck, Father Rosate, who later became
Bishop of St. Louis, and Father Anthony Blanc, later Archbishop
of New Orleans.
After the War of Independence the population of the terri-
tory north of the Ohio grew rapidly, but not at first from Catholic
sources. On horseback, in two- wheeled carts, in the great Cones-
toga wagon or prairie schooner, down the Ohio on flatboats and
rafts, and even afoot, the early settlers poured into the State from
the East and Southeast in a continuous stream. Practically all of
these early settlers were of English or Scotch-Irish descent, and
were generally Presbyterians, Methodists or Baptists. It was
not until after the first quarter of the nineteenth century that
the Catholic settlers began coming into the State in any con-
siderable numbers.
For a short time after its conquest by George Rogers Clark,
the territory north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi remained
a county of Virginia. Then it was turned over to the Government
and called the Northwest Territory. Ohio was the first part to
be made into a State. In 1800 the territory was re-christened
Indiana, but shared the name with Michigan until 1805, and with
Illinois until 1809. In 1816 the people residing within the present
limits of the State, who then numbered about sixty-five thousand,
506 INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH [Jan.,
petitioned that the territory be admitted into the Union and the
petition was granted.
After Indiana Territory became a State, Catholics began to
come in more rapidly from the Catholic settlements of Kentucky
and from the Eastern States. The arrival of a number of immi-
grants from Ireland and Germany also helped to swell the size of
the Catholic element. The rapid growth of the West had already
necessitated the division of the huge diocese of Bardstown, and the
erection of the sees of Cincinnati in 1821 and of Detroit in 1832.
In 1834, another diocese was erected in the West with Vincennes
as its seat. Dr. Simon W. G. Brute, at that time superior of the
seminary at Mt. St. Mary's, Emmitsburgh, Maryland, was ap-
pointed its first bishop. The diocese of Vincennes was the thirteenth
to be created within the present limits of the United States.
The same brilliancy which had marked Bishop Brute's scholarly
pursuits showed itself when as an executive he took charge of his
new diocese. He was consecrated in the Cathedral of St. Louis,
October 28, 1834, by the venerable Bishop Flaget, and took
possession of his see on November 8th. He found his diocese,
which included the now great States of Indiana and Illinois, with-
out schools, with only about a dozen churches and missions, and
with but three priests to administer to the wants of the thousands
of Catholic settlers. With but four hundred dollars in actual money,
Bishop Brute set himself to his herculean task. His labors could
scarcely be exaggerated. So great were his zeal and organizing
ability that at the time of his death in 1839, or only four years
and a half after his consecration, there were in the diocese twenty-
four priests, twenty-three churches, two religious communities, two
free schools — the first of the State — a seminary, a college for boys,
and an academy for girls.
The saintly Brute was succeeded by his Vicar-General, Very
Reverend Celestine R. L. G. de la Hailandiere, who, like his prede-
cessor and so many others of the great figures of the Church in
the West, was a Breton, and a student at St. Sulpice. He was
ordained priest in 1825 by the Abbe Dupanloup, afterwards the
celebrated Bishop of Orleans. When in 1836 Bishop Brute arrived
in Rennes looking for laborers for the fruitful vineyard of the
newest diocese of the Western world, he asked the bishop to give him
a priest whom he could designate as his Vicar-General and coad-
jutor. Father Celestine de la Hailandiere was chosen, and he gladly
accepted the burden, and accompanied by Bishop Brute, Fathers
1917.] INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH 507
Corbe, Petit, Shawe, Julian Benoit, later to become Vicar-General
of the diocese of Fort Wayne, and Father Maurice de St. Palais,
afterwards Bishop of Vincennes, started the same year for the new
world. For two years after his arrival in this country, Father de
la Hailandiere's activities were confined to caring for the French
missions in and about Vincennes. Then he returned to Europe to
seek help for the new diocese, and soon after his arrival there
learned of the death of Bishop Brute. He succeeded to the see, and
was consecrated in the chapel of the Sacred Heart, Paris, by Mon-
signor de Forbin Janson, August 18, 1839.
Before he returned to America, Bishop de la Hailandiere had
secured in Europe much financial and material assistance, and a
large number of young priests and religious for the diocese. To
his work in this respect is due in no small measure the rapid
progress which Catholicism made in Indiana during the next half
a century. In Rennes the bishop secured a number of Eudist
priests for a college in Vincennes ; the newly established Society of
the Holy Cross contributed a priest and several brothers to the
work of educating the Catholic youth of the new diocese, and the
Congregation of the Sisters of Providence, whose mother-house
was at Ruille, sent six sisters to teach the daughters of the pioneers
of the West. The Eudist college in Vincennes, overwhelmed by
misfortunes, did not long survive, but the seeds planted by the Sis-
ters of Providence and the members of the Holy Cross Congrega-
tion grew into the flourishing Academy and College of St. Mary-
of -the- Woods, the equally prosperous St. Mary's College and
Academy in the northern part of the State, and the great University
of Notre Dame. The story of the founding of these great edu-
cational institutions — how the six courageous Sisters of Providence
labored to build up their splendid institution at Terre Haute, how
Father Sorin and the seven brothers of the Holy Cross Congrega-
tion went into the wilderness of Northern Indiana, and with only
forty-six dollars in cash set to work to found a Catholic college,
and how from these humble beginnings the present splendid colleges
and universities grew into the great seats of learning that they
now are, is one of the interesting chapters of the history of the
Church in the West which cannot be given here.
During the next five years after his return to Vincennes,
Bishop de la Hailandiere labored with all the zeal of his prede-
cessor to promote the spiritual welfare of his diocese. Churches
sprang up on all sides, new schools were established, colleges were
5o8 INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH [Jan.,
erected, and many new priests, both regular and secular were
brought into the diocese. But all was not well. The bishop's diffi-
culties seemed to grow, bigotry hindered the work in many quarters,
unexpected misfortunes came upon the diocese, and its debts in-
creased rapidly; finally dissatisfaction was voiced by some of the
clergy with the bishop's management of affairs. At last convinced
that he was unsuited for the work that had been given him, and
thoroughly discouraged, the bishop petitioned Rome to be allowed
to resign. His request was finally granted in 1847. He returned
to his native place, Cambourg, France, where he died in 1882.
Bishop de la Hailandiere was undoubtedly a brilliant and capa-
ble, as well as a holy man, but he was unsuited both by temperament
and training for the work he was called upon to do in the new
diocese of Vincennes, and his lack of acquaintance with the customs,
conditions, language and manners of America added greatly to his
difficulties.
Bishop de la Hailandiere's successor, Right Reverend John
Stephen Bazin, had been qualified by seventeen years of labor in
the diocese of Mobile for his new work. He was consecrated in
Vincennes on the twenty-fourth of October, 1847, by Bishop
Portier, of Mobile. But his career as a bishop was cut short less
than six months later by his sudden death, April 23, 1848. He
was buried beside Bishop Brute in the Cathedral of Vincennes.
Shortly before his death, Bishop Bazin had chosen Father
Maurice de St. Palais as his Vicar-General and the head of his
seminary in Vincennes. Father de St. Palais had labored in a
number of the missions of the diocese since his arrival in 1836,
and there was probably no one in the diocese better qualified to fill
the sacred office left vacant by Bishop Bazin. He was accordingly
appointed to the see and consecrated by Bishop Miles, of Nashville,
in the Cathedral at Vincennes, January 14, 1849.
Within ten years after the death of Bishop Brute, the Catholic
population of the territory comprising the diocese of Vincennes had
grown so rapidly that it had been found necessary in 1844 to
separate Illinois from Indiana and create the new see of Chicago.
Even with this loss, when Bishop de St. Palais took charge of the
diocese of Vincennes it comprised thirty thousand souls, to care for
whom there were only thirty-five priests. Quite different was the
state of affairs when after forty-one years of fruitful labor, thir-
teen of which had been spent as a humble missionary priest and
twenty-eight as the head of the see, Bishop de St. Palais died in
1917.] INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH 509
1877. At that time, despite the fact that the diocese had again
been divided and the diocese of Fort Wayne established in the
northern part of the State in 1857, there were in the diocese of
Vincennes ninety thousand souls, one hundred and fifty-one churches
and one hundred and seventeen priests, besides those included
in the religious houses of the Franciscans, Benedictines, and the
Congregation of the Holy Cross.
Rev. Francis Chatard, D.D., President of the American Col-
lege, Rome, was chosen to succeed Bishop de St. Palais. Father
Chatard was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1834, and was thus
the first and only native-born bishop of Vincennes. He was con-
secrated May 12, 1878, in Rome, but did not reach Indianapolis,
which, on account of its more central location and more rapid
growth, he had chosen as the episcopal seat, until August 17,
1878.
Bishop Chatard's capable administration of the affairs of
the diocese of Vincennes, or of Indianapolis, as it is now called, still
continues, and the Catholic Faith continues to make rapid strides in
the territory under his charge. In 1900, Right Rev. Denis
O'Donoghue was appointed his auxiliary, but on the death of
Bishop McCloskey, of Louisville, some years later, Bishop O'Donog-
hue was assigned to that diocese. Despite his venerable a;ge,
Bishop Chatard continues actively to direct the affairs of his
diocese.
A sketch of Catholicism in Indiana would be incomplete with-
out a word in regard to the diocese of Fort Wayne, which divides
with Indianapolis the spiritual domain of the Catholic State. When
the diocese was erected in 1857, Rev. John Henry Liters, a Ger-
man by birth, but- since early boyhood a resident of Ohio, was ap-
pointed first bishop. When Bishop Luers arrived in Fort Wayne
in 1858, to take charge of his diocese, he found it even poorer
than he had expected. He had for a cathedral a small dilapidated
frame church, and there were in the whole diocese only fourteen
priests to administer to the spiritual needs of twenty-thousand or
more scattered Catholics. But the progress of the Church in
northern Indiana under the administration of Bishop Luers and
his successors, Bishops Joseph Dwenger, Joseph Rademacher and
Herman Alerding, the present incumbent, was marvelous, and more
than kept pace with the rapid development of that part of the
State. Today the diocese of Fort Wayne vies with that of Indian-
apolis in size and importance. It numbers approximately one hun-
5io INDIANA'S DEBT TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH [Jan,
dred thousand Catholics, more than two hundred priests, and nearly
three hundred churches, chapels, stations and missions.
Interesting has been the history of the Church in Indiana and
most promising is its outlook. Nurtured by the zeal of hundreds
of priests and thousands of religious, whose number is steadily
being augmented from the four seminaries and numerous convents
and novitiates in the State; by the work of two hundred parochial
schools, where nearly forty thousand children grow in faith and
wisdom; by the achievements of its institutions of higher learn-
ing such as the thriving colleges of Jasper and St. Joseph, the girls'
colleges and academies of St. Mary's at Notre Dame and St.
Mary's-of-the-Woods at Terre Haute, the University of Notre
Dame, which this year has more than twelve hundred students from
all parts of the world, and the great Benedictine abbey, college
and seminary of St. Meinrad, which educates for the priesthood
hundreds of young men from three dioceses; by the power of its
Catholic press, the Faith is kept strong and alive in Indiana, and
the Catholic influences of the commonwealth reaches throughout
the nation.
And the power of the Church in the State is only beginning.
As the prosperity of the scores of rapidly growing cities in the
State continues to attract to them thousands of people from other
races and lands, but none the less loyal sons of the Church and
good citizens of the State, as the barriers of the prejudice which
still lingers among many of the natives of the State continues to
be swept aside, the Church will continue to grow in power and
importance. Indeed it is safe to predict that during the next
century the Church in the great Hoosier commonwealth will have
a growth almost unprecedented in the history of its marvelous
progress in this country.
THE SENTINEL MOTHER.
(AN IDYL OF THE WAYSIDE.)
BY EDMUND A. WALSH, S.J.
"'Tis not of love, nor fame, nor yet of glory,
Although a little colored with the three."
— " Uncle Jo'/ by Alice Cary.
I.
F the four main passages over the Southern Alps there
is one more renowned than the others both in history
and story. Built by the ancient Romans — hence for all
time — it leads you at dizzy heights through a never-to-
be-forgotten panorama of mountain scenery, down
deep gorges, over wildernesses of icy peaks and snow-capped domes,
past glistening glaciers and majestic waterfalls, to Italy, there to set
you down .on the Plains of Lombardy, in another world bright with
a mellower sunshine and sweet with the fragrance of vines and
orange blossoms. It is the Brenner Pass — the Appia Claudia of
the Romans — as important a highway of intercommunication be-
tween Northern and Southern Europe today as it was in the far-off
times when Augustus and the later Caesars poured their conquering
legions through it to subjugate the Rhaetians or strike the fear of the
name of Rome into the untamed breasts of the marauding Ale-
manni.
About midway between Augsburg and Verona, just south of
the Bavarian Alps, the route passes through the old Rhaeto-Roman
halting-place of Veldidena, modern Wilten, and then slopes gently
upwards again along the base of the historic mountain called Berg
Isel, where the embattled mountaineers, under Hofer, defied the
might of Napoleon in 1809. If you continue along the winding road
for some three miles beyond the battle-hill, you will come upon a
picturesque little valley known as Friedenthal, the Vale of Peace,
which cuts into the Pass at a sharp angle. There in a secluded
spot, at the confluence of two small mountain streams, stands the
humble home where Kaspar Manzl, the woodcarver, and Maria, his
wife, had dwelt in uninterrupted happiness for upwards of quarter
of a century. Two fair-haired, clear-eyed children, with cheeks that
rivaled the Alpen Glow, had romped away a blissful childhood
512 THE SENTINEL MOTHER [Jan.,
chiefly among the chips and shavings in the cosy workshop, where
the father changed logs of pine and oak into wondrous shapes and
curious figures, for he was prince of carvers in a region where
every second man is an adept in wood.
" The boy shall be a woodcarver, too," the father had said
from the beginning ; hence as soon as the chubby hands could grasp
a diminutive mallet and draw with safety a tiny blade through soft
wood, little Konrad was given a minature bench beside his father's
knee, there to undergo a long, arduous apprenticeship.
" The line should be so, son," the old man would sometimes say,
correcting with a cut from a horny thumb-nail some false propor-
tion blocked out on a half -finished piece of carving.
" But the wood is not long enough to prolong such a line
properly," the boy would answer in dismay, fearing for his handi-
work.
" The line shall be so or not at all," would come in unchanged
tones over his shoulder, followed by a sweeping gash from knife
or chisel that ruined irreparably the labor of weeks " Fetch
another log."
After fourteen years in this stern school, where parental love
and love of art ruled as equal masters, the youth came at last to
the rare perfection of craftsmanship when his work could meet the
severest of all tests — his father's approval.
" Now thou art a kiinsler, lad, not a whittler," said the old man
in his sixty-ninth year, ready then to sing the " Nunc dimittis " and
hand over bench and tools, even as his own father had handed them
to him half a century before.
The abdication was to be almost a religious rite. One last
masterpiece he would carve — a Pieta, but jointly with the boy.
Both would work upon it, he to carve the Christ, the boy the
Sorrowful Mother. Accordingly a noble tree was felled on the
topmost peak of Hafelekar, where the wood is best cut into twin
lengths and brought down to Friedenthal to season. For two full
years the old artist leisurely and lovingly wrought his last master-
piece, hovering over it day and night, smoothing, caressing, re-
fining, amending, until it lay before him faultlessly perfect from
the long sweep of the outstretched limbs and relaxed torso down to
the most exquisite details of finger nail and eyelash!
Then, his life work consummated, and his course more nearly
run than he imagined, in June, 1914, he hoisted the other unshaped
block upon his own bench and ranged the well-worn tools in careful
1917.] THE SENTINEL MOTHER 513
order around the base. But before the boy had delivered his first
stroke, the hand of Destiny intervened, arresting, as it were, his
arm in mid-air! Like an avalanche upon their native mountain
sides, which started by the slipping of one loose stone beneath some
reckless climber's foot, leaps with a roar across the yawning chasms,
gaining speed and volume with the downrush, sweeping clinging
chalets into splinters and burying hapless men beneath the weight
of a winter's snow — so there now descended upon Peaceful Vale —
aye! and upon the whole continent, a sudden whirlwind of de-
struction unloosed at distant Sarajevo by the gunfire of a blood-
crazed youth, obsessed with a false responsibility! Within an
incredibly brief space of time, the boasted bulwarks of universal
peace, frail because man-made, and unblest because of one fatal
exclusion, were swept into nothingness as half a dozen of the1
mightiest nations of earth unsheathed the sword of fury and sprang
madly at one another's throats.
Konrad, being of military age, was called to the colors and ap-
pointed bugler of the Fourteenth Mountain Infantry.
They saw him once during that first awful week when he man-
aged to slip out during a momentary lull in the warlike preparations
that were transforming the quaint, provincial capital into an armed
camp, bristling with soldiery, ordnance and all martial appur-
tenances. He showed them his uniform, his weapons and the identi-
fication-tag glittering at his belt. With naive assurance meant to
be kindness he explained the purpose of the metal disc, stamped
with the name of his regiment, his number and the religion of the
wearer, all unconscious that every syllable stabbed like a dagger.
His eyes flashed and his voice was charged with suppressed en-
thusiasm as he recounted the gossip of the barracks :
" Some say we shall be the first to go. I have heard we must
guard the bridge across the Danube Think of it, Miltterchen,
I may be he who shall sound the first charge ! "
Such was his talk, full too, of ultimatums, counter-ultimatums,
mobilizations, army corps, ambassadors, of parliaments, of Paris
and London, Belgrade, Vienna, Petrograd and Berlin. But his
chatter fell on deaf ears. What cared they what kings and em-
perors said, or what smooth words emanated from warring chan-
ceries where thrives "the peace-murdering trade, diplomacy?'3
This only did they know — that he, the idol of the home, was being
snatched from their bosom to become a mere unit, a single bayonet
in a mighty host where one man's life was as a blade of grass or
VOL, civ— 33
THE SENTINEL MOTHER [Jan.,
a leaf of the forest to the lords of human destiny sitting at ease in
distant council-chambers! To be sure it was their own lips that
first had taught his baby mind to link inseparably the household
words, " God " and " Country." They gave bravely, but it was like
tearing a bleeding limb from its place.
Again they saw him, marching proudly with his comrades as
the regiment swept down the Pass, with flowers twined round the
rifle barrels and in the horses' manes, advancing under sealed orders
to some unknown battle front. As he passed, the boy turned and
blew a ringing blast of farewell towards three figures standing on
the little cliff overlooking the road beside the cottage. The woman
and the girl, his sister, were standing close together, arms linked;
the old man stood apart, stiff and straight, like a soldier.
The last serried rank had scarcely disappeared in a cloud of
dust when a mysterious providence let the trip-hammer of adversity
swiftly deal a second blow at this hitherto serene, unnoticed house-
hold.
Old Kaspar's heart, never over strong, had been fluttering
faster and faster, striving manfully to meet the unusual strain.
His cheeks flamed beneath the silvery beard, so that Minna and the
mother half forget their own secret grief, which they had been
bravely dissembling, long enough to lead him in nervous appre-
hension back to his easy-chair. But the tumult and excitement of
the parting were too much for the overworked organ, long used to
ways of peace. He spoke not a word the whole evening, but sat
near the door, his favorite pipe, long, curved and double-bowled
between his teeth, gazing now at the glittering stars as they broke,
one after the other through the azure vault of heaven, and now at
the towering, snow-capped mountains on whose fissured sides the
nimble chamois found inaccessible retreat and on whose splintery
crags the lordly eagles had nested for the night. So had they
been nestling undisturbed for centuries.
Then the silence, the eternal silence that broods over high
mountain peaks, seemed to deepen, widen and spread slowly down-
wards, creeping like a mist from crest to crest, from cliff to cliff,
until it enveloped Peaceful Valley and enfolded the troubled spirit
of the solitary watcher in the doorway. His hand went often to
his side; and it was thus they found him when the cuckoo-clock
in the kitchen cooed the hour for the night prayers with which these
strong- faithed children of the hills closed their working day.
He was sunk low in the great-chair, one hand pressed to his
1917-] THE SENTINEL MOTHER 515
side and the chin pillowed on the tumbled beard ; the pipe was cold
but still clenched between his teeth and the outworn heart was
stilled forever.
They buried the woodcarver of Peaceful Valley on the top of
the hill overlooking the road, under the selfsame sods on which
he had stood, all flushed and agitated, two days before. When the
last spadeful had been cast, the mother went alone to the now
desolate workshop and there carefully swathed in woolens and old
linens the unfinished Pieta. Why, she knew not then.
II.
Bella, horrida bella
Bella matribus detestata.
As the long summer days were growing perceptibly shorter
and while the early crops were being harvested by women and
young boys, who moved in thoughtful silence through the rustling
stalks, no longer flinging the joyous yodel across the teeming valley,
the first snows were falling among the foothills of the Northeastern
Range that forms the natural barrier between two warring empires.
Through the main gap in this chain an invading host was pouring
thickly down from the northern steppes ; against it nine army corps
were flung, among them the I4th Mountain Infantry. Each night,
when merciful darkness lent some brief respite to the horrors of
daytime, the chaplain of the I4th would seat himself to perform
the last and saddest function of his healing ministry. By the light
of a single candle, whose flickering flame, haloed in the icy atmos-
phere was carefully veiled and hooded that no tell-tale beam might
stray through the crevices of his rude dug-out, he drew huge
sheaves of letters from his military chest and proceeded to sort them
into two piles. With infinite pity in his eye, and with many a linger-
ing glance as some familiar name or address caught his attention, he
slowly transferred from one pile to the other, from the living to
the dead, even as the priest at the altar transfers beloved names
from the first Memento to the second.
These were the hurried words of farewell scribbled on such
scraps as camp life could provide and handed to the chaplain by his
soldier penitents when they knelt before him for the last precious
shriving on the eve of each engagement.
" If I come back, Kaplan, I will claim it. But if you see my
identification-tag in the basket, forward it to her."
THE SENTINEL MOTHER [Jan.,
The addressees were chiefly mothers, wives and sweethearts.
Often too, the chaplain slipped some trinket or remembrance
into the envelope, not unfrequently one of those very brass tags,
taken surreptitiously from the bushel -baskets ranged in double rows
before the Recorder's desk at Headquarters. It was not altogether
regular, as these means of identification, cut from the bodies of
the slain, were shipped back each week to the War Department;
but then, the numbers had been duly recorded — the chaplain saw
to that; and anyhow, tags were often lost.
Among the letters transferred on the night following a mur-
derous charge of Cossack cavalry, whose mad riding had churned
the virginal snow into a horrid crimson slush, was one addressed to
Peaceful Valley, to a house just back from the Brenner Post Road,
at the confluence of two small mountain streams. The addressee,
during that same hour, was sitting before an open door, a young
girl by her side. With hands interclasped and resting on the
mother's knees, the two were conversing in low tones of their great
expectation — the one hope irradiating their ever-present sorrow and
tempering the sting of their recent loss.
The writer at that moment was lying far to the front, under an
alien sky, from whose leaden borders the snow fell unceasingly on
the rigid, upturned face. By his side, driven deep into the softened
earth by the death-tide of iron hoofs and reeking steel that had
engulfed them, lay a crumpled bugle.
It was a fortnight before the heavy news reached Friedenthal.
Every second morning since the flower-bedecked troops had swept
past beneath the cliff, Minna had hurried along the Pass to the
town and joined the anxious women who scanned in breathless
suspense the long lists with heavy black borders that were posted
on the barrack walls, on the street of the University. It was ex-
quisite torture — to be forever seeking, yet ever fearing to find the
object of one's search. Many a peasant mother had come down
from the hills for weeks and months, until at last she saw — and
hope died forever. But Minna's heart had skipped as merrily as
her feet as she hastened home with the same inspiriting reply,
shouted to her mother from afar.
One morning, the fourteenth after the sanguinary conflict in
the mountain defile, there was great rejoicing and huzzaing in the
streets as the first news was being announced from the balcony
over the entrance to the barracks. Minna paused a moment on the
1917.] THE SENTINEL MOTHER 517
edge of the crowd, from whence, thrilled and exalted out of her-
self by the swift contagion of vibrant nerves, she added her girlish
voice to the roars of exultation that were shaking the packed square.
But further along, before the lists with the mourning-bands, she
met only low murmurings and dull whispering — even these ceased
abruptly as the girl approached her accustomed group. A woman,
who seemed to be awaiting her arrival, detached herself from the
others, and stopping the eager maiden with a tender kiss on the
pure, upturned brow, led her gently to one side.
" Look not at the lists today, little mother."
" But I must," the girl protested.
The silent listeners moved closer around the placards, hiding
them completely.
" Nay," replied the woman, crushing the now frightened Minna
to her bosom in a passionate outburst of love and pity — " Run
quickly back and tell the mother to send thee here no more
We will come and pray with her tonight."
There was no joy in the home-coming that morning, but only
floods of burning tears and a chalk-like face hid in a tiny apron.
But the news, true to its kind, had been swifter than the girl. The
mother, standing before the door, as was her wont, knew even be-
fore the daughter turned in from the road and sobbed forth her
message; for she held in her hand a long, blue, official-looking
envelope with the eagles of the Empire emblazoned on the outside.
The postman had said not a word as he handed it in at the door
an hour earlier, but the mother's heart, with unerring intuition, had
instantly divined its secret. She had not broken the seal, for read
she could not, but stood there fingering a small metal disc whose
outline showed through from her rubbing. She knew what it was —
she had seen it once before!
Looking straight before, with eyes that saw not, she handed
the sealed envelope to the girl, and waited in patient, statuesque
silence, until the sobbing ceased and Minna could slit the paper.
A small, battered brass tag fell to the ground. This the mother
quickly recovered and held tightly in her hand as the girl read :
DEAREST OF MOTHERS :
If by God's will thou shalt ever receive this letter so shall
it be a token that He has called me to a better life. Be thou
a strong mother, and please, on my account, let fall not so
much as one tear. That would make the parting sadder. But
stand before the thirteenth station of the Way of the Cross
5i8 THE SENTINEL MOTHER [Jan.,
where so often thou didst hold me in thine arms, when a child,
and tell me of the sufferings of God's dear mother; speak to
her, for she knows.
For thy sake, and for no other reason, death is hard. But
I die happy because of duty. Still more it comforts me that it
is the same loving God who gave me to thee Who now im-
poses on thee the pain of my loss.
And now, dearest little mother, I send thee, and father and
Minna my true, heartfelt thanks for all you have done for me.
Pray often for me; soon thou, too, shalt come and then we
shall be united forever. I throw my arms around thee in
spirit, and for the last time, here is a kiss and the parting
good-bye from him who is thinking of thee to the moment of
death — and beyond. Thy loving son,
KONRAD.
P. S. — Tell father he must finish the statue for me — and
Minna must help in my stead.
in.
" Carry his body hence,
Kings must have slaves;
Kings climb to eminence
Over men's graves.
So this man's eyes are dim:
Throw the earth over him.
"Ah, if beside the dead
Slumbered the pain!
Ah, if the hearts that bled
Slept with the slain!
If the grief died! — but no: —
Death will not have it so."
— "Before Sedan," Anonymous.
The days that followed were lived as in a dream. The loves
of these two women had ever circled in a narrow orbit around two
lives that were the sun and moon of their circumscribed system; in
them all their earthly affections, hopes and aspirations met, find-
ing there complete fulfilment. Then came the fearful cataclysm.
The whole world was thrown out of joint and the universal ruin,
ramifying down to the humblest fireside in Europe, dashed the
lights from their little heaven, and sent them, like meteors adrift
in the pathless skies, reeling through hitherto untrodden wastes of
sorrow, pain and darkness. The suddenness stunned, the darkness
terrified and the void pained. But the utter strangeness, the grim
contrast with their former ideal happiness, made it all at first
1917.] THE SENTINEL MOTHER 519
unreal. Soon, however, the unreality settled into potent reality as
day followed day without the postman ever again turning in from
the road.
Then sorrow, the common heritage, showed how diversely it
grips the human heart.
She who had lost father and brother grew visibly older and
frailer from the outpouring of a grief that could not be restrained.
When not actually weeping1, Minna's eyes glistened in twin lakes of
tears, some of which she would let fall unconsciously, on the articles
she was handling. Her hands and lips were always aquiver, like
the aspen leaf that trembles even when there is no wind.
But she who was first widowed, then made sonless, moved
dry-eyed and silent through the vacant rooms, every corner of
which held a heart stab. Now it was a carven pipe hanging on a
nail, now an unused trundle-bed — or a hunter's cap perched on an
Alpine stock. Stealthily, but surely, these dark currents of woe,
finding no outlet, were changing into bitter waters, poisoning the
spirit. When they beat against her heart in the stillness of both
day and night, she did not let them out through the eyes, as a
woman should. And pray, she would not. Instead, she went one
day before the thirteenth station of the Way of the Cross, as in-
deed he had told her — and crushing the soiled letter in one hand
and his identification-tag in the other, cried reproachfully :
Look ! Mother of the Seven Wounds ;
Look, and see if thy sorrow be like to mine !
Thou at least received thy Divine One in thy arms,
Thy hands robed Him for the burial !
But I What have I?
I have a bit of metal ;
A brass tag!
Have I felt the dear dead on my knees?
My man-child where does he lie ?
Who robed him when the vultures stripped him?
It was the unfinished Pieta,the Christ, the Son of Mary, wrapped
in swaddling-clothes and laid in the workshop, with all its haunting
memories of that other Calvary, now her own, that finally made
answer to the wild outburst. For in it this unlettered peasant
mother, scarcely able to trace the letters of her name, read a peace-
giving message such as human wisdom, with all its volumes could
never teach her. Her hungering eyes had often rested on the
vacant space where the Sorrowful Mother should have sat carved
520 THE SENTINEL MOTHER [Jan,
from mountain oak. Suddenly the latent symbolism leaped into
fiery letters, clear as an open scroll before the inner vision which
Faith supplied :
If she was sonless, was not this Christ motherless!
And where was that sweet Comforter if not upon red battle-
fields, mothering the souls of men who died conformable, as
far as may be, to the image of her Incomparable Son?
And this innocent victim, this Only One Whose presence
made heaven in the workshop of Galilee, had He not suffered a
thousand death-pangs during those three hours of shame upon
the skull-shaped hill?
But her own first-born had been snatched into merciful
oblivion in an instant — at the flashing of a gun!
And if she turned away in bitterness from the mute
appeal of the outstretched arms with all their sublime significa-
tions, where should she turn? And whither would such
turning lead her?
Such were the saving thoughts that surged through the aching
heart, forcing open the flood-gates of pent-up grief. In that mo-
ment a resolve was taken that bore instant fruit. Minna, in the
house, was startled to hear her cry : " Child, bring the little truck
on which he would help him drag logs from the ox-cart to the
shop!"
Wondering, the girl obeyed. Her wonderment increased on
finding her mother, the first moisture in her eyes, standing before
the unfinished Pieta. She had unwound the cloths in which she
herself had swathed the Christ after the grave had closed over its
creator. Without a syllable of explanation she directed the girl to
tilt the car backwards, which done, she slid the carven image upon
the platform and took the iron handle herself, motioning the girl
to the rear.
With new-born energy, scorning the rocks and tangled under-
growth that blocked the way, she dragged the heavy load to the
top of the neighboring cliff where a mound of fresh-turned sods
showed old Kaspar's burial place. Again the girl, still marveling,
held the little car rigid while the mother with zestful, indefatigable
patience, edged the figure along until it rested, first crosswise, then
lengthwise upon the hillock formed by the woodcarver's grave.
Then flat stones and bits of wood were fitted into the gaps where
the undulating surface of the earth did not quite meet the level
base of the statue. The chinks were next carefully sodded 'over,
IQ17-] THE SENTINEL MOTHER 521
until, at the end, the Christ, the masterpiece, reposed fairly, squarely
and naturally over the folded hands that hewed it So the dead man
supplied the pedestal, too.
It was dusk when the unwonted task was done. Dismissing
Minna to her evening chores, the mother seated herself on the
projecting beam, or saddle, behind the Christ, to which the second
figure would have been fastened to complete the Pieta. Just at
that moment a solitary traveler rounded a turn in the Pass and
caught the first glimpse of this tragic compound of Art and Nature
silhouetted against a saffron sky.
Her posture, as she leaned motionless on one bended arm,
was one of unconscious grace and artistic repose. She never in-
tended the effect, nor was she at any time cognizant of it. That
was far too subtle for her guileless peasant mind. But the western
horizon, all afire with the setting sun, the tall snow-streaked moun-
tains in the background throwing long, mysterious shadows across
the verdant fields, and the sudden bend in the road, giving just the
distance required for the illusion, all combined to blend the two
subjects into such a harmonious whole as an inspired sculptor
might turn out once in a lifetime!
Although familiar with the best specimens of religious art
prevalent in that land of ingenuous faith and woodland shrines, the
traveler passed on his way lost in admiration of the wizardry
that could imitate Nature so wonderfully — never dreaming that he
had beheld that rarer marvel still, Nature imitating Art with such
perfect technique as to deceive the human eye!
Yet like as not the next wayfarer would bring the news of
an unfinished Pieta which he had passed a few miles back — an ex-
traordinary Christ but no Mother. And still a third brought a
strange report. He thought, though he was not certain, that one
of the figures had stirred as he hurried past in the gathering dusk !
They are all correct. It is unfinished : yet, does not she com-
plete it?
Every morning, duly as the sun and with the sun, she climbs
the crooked path and, crouching over the Agonized Heart, mothers
the motherless Christ, the while, too, holding communion with her
own dead. For in her vision wonderful, the lorn Outcast was
more than a symbol ; the very wood, fresh from the touch of their
hands was a tangible memorial, contact with which served as a
sort of connecting link between them and her. At any rate, the
$22 TO A DEAD CtilLt) [Jan.,
substitution, poor though it was, beguiled the pain and steadied the
spirit. Rain, snow or mountain hail, she will be there, at least
long enough to let the wooden beads which he had carved slip
slowly through her calloused fingers once. Round and round the
worn circle and round and back again those tireless fingers move,
but ever returning to the starting-point, where, beside the cross of
cherry-wood dangles a small, circular tag of battered brass. This
relic she guards unceasingly, but whether as a sacred emblem or as
a war trophy, a medal for mothers, who can tell? She has never
said.
Those who. love her know they are performing a bootless task
when they lead her tenderly back to the changed fireside, tended
by the silent, gentle Minna, now come to woman's estate more by
tears than by years. For she will answer, with wistful, unaffected
pathos :
" Suffer it now It will not be for long/'
There is no hysteria in her voice, nor wildness in her eye,
and her pulse beats as temperately as yours or mine. So no man
has the heart to hinder her, though variously do men judge her.
Always she returns, and will continue to return until the Angel
of Mercy comes winging up the Pass to bid the lonely vigil —
" Cease."
TO A DEAD CHILD.
BY JAMES B. DOLLARD, LITT.D.
BLEST youth is his — immortal youth for aye,
With all the sweet-eyed cherubim that sing
Around the Throne, and bask in Beauty's ray.
At heaven's white gate they'll meet him, welcoming,
And lead him to their haunts of blissful play
Safe in the luminous gardens of the King!
THE CALL OF THE CHILD.
BY JOSEPH V. MCKEE, A.M.
HE history of Law is the story of slow change as
extensive as it has been gradual. A random glance
shows how true this is. In Rome the rights and
disabilities of the person depended upon the class to
which he belonged. The emphasis, then, was upon
Status. Today we are at the other extreme: we are attempting
to reduce natural bonds to mere civil acts. The emphasis now is
on Contract. In earlier times the law of retribution, lex talionis, al-
lowed the individual himself to avenge a wrong done him or his
kin; today he is a mere complainant or witness, while the prosecu-
tion and punishment is carried forward by the State. In the reign
of Edward, the Confessor, there existed the purgation by fire and
water. This gave way to the character avowal by twelve neighbors ;
today, as its direct evolution, we have judgment by jury. Before
the time of Coke, the law was in many instances inadequate in its
judgments and immutable in its findings. To remedy these defects,
the court of equity was established. At present equity is one of
the most important branches of our law.
But of all changes and developments which law has undergone,
probably the most distinctive has been the division of law into
Criminal and Civil procedure. Before 1201 the individual himself
brought action for criminal offences, just as today he institutes
suits in tort. It was realized, however, that while this initiative
might be accorded the person in civil cases, it could not be given
in all instances of wrong-doing. There were many cases where
the wrong reached past the person or his property, touched vitally
the whole social fabric and worked towards the violation of order
and peace. For this reason the State took upon itself the duty
of prosecuting and punishing such acts as were subversive of the
public weal.
In the execution of this duty, the State was unusually severe.
Capital punishment was meted out for trivial offences and mutila-
tions and cruel ordeals were frequent penalties. Today we are at
the other end of the pendulum's swing. The cry at present is raised
524 THE CALL OF THE CHILD [Jan.,
against all capital punishment. Prison life is made a frolic and
penal servitude a pleasant vacation in environments made lightsome
by concerts, movies, parades and receptions. The jail is now a
clinic, and the prisoner a patient. No longer is the criminal looked
upon as a person willfully bad, but as one who is temperamentally,
spiritually, or physically ill, and no more to be blamed than the
man with typhoid or pneumonia. Crime, in the eyes of the ad-
vanced reformer, is an ailment. At most it is a reflection of
economic conditions, a result of class struggle.
This pernicious tendency to absolve the individual of re-
sponsibility of his willful acts is due to the fact that the advocates
of these ideas proclaim half truths in terms of the absolute, and
from narrow, limited premises deduce wide, unwarranted conclu-
sions. The extension of this modern radical view of crime and
criminals will prove serious, in consequences that cannot fail to be
registered in increased crime statistics and the perversion of moral
standards. Crime cannot be eradicated or reduced in extent or
violence by sickly mawkishness or overflow of sentimentality.
Crime is the outcome of malice and malice is the child of the will.
The true corrective lies in that remedy which most adequately
reaches the individual in his inclinations and will. Upon the voli-
tion there are many determinants at work, such as companionship
and environment. These may be for good or evil, and, while the
will must be aided positively by religion, it can also be assisted
by the elimination of these external determinants, if they work
for evil, and by their emphasis, if for good.
In former years sociological considerations were such that in
criminal studies the emphasis was on " after " rather than on " be-
fore." Means were taken to care for the criminal only after he had
committed his offence rather than to assist him combat the wrongful
influences to which he was subjected. The process was a simple
one : a crime has been committed ; crime must be punished ; ergo,
the penitentiary or the reformatory, which. seldom reformed. The
logic was straight but hard, and on its face correct. But when
the causes of crime were studied, many new conclusions were
reached and old ones seen in new lights. The results of the in-
tensive study of individual cases with their attending circumstances
of physical condition, heredity, environment and companionship
opened up new regions for extensive work in the prevention of
crime.
The case of the Juke family, quoted by criminologists, is an
I9I7-] THE CALL OF THE CHILD 525
example. This family consisted of five sisters, mental defectives.
An exhaustive examination of the seven hundred and nine de-
scendants shows that only twenty became skilled workers; sixty-
four died in the almshouse; one hundred and forty-two received
outdoor relief; one hundred and eight were women of ill fame;
eighteen were keepers of immoral resorts; seventy-six were arrested
at various times charged with one hundred and seventeen criminal
offences.
It was the knowledge gained in this and other like cases
that has influenced society's attitude toward the criminal. Had
there been a realization that the original Jukes were mentally
deficient, and the proper steps taken in a sane, preventative way
to counteract the influences at work, society might possibly not
have been burdened with these dependents. This idea has led to
stress on prevention in crime, just as prevention is emphasized in
the combat against disease. Crime, in a great number of cases,
may be the reflection of mental and physical defects, of improper
guardianship and environment, and in so far as it is influenced by
these factors, be restrained. Moral prophylaxis, therefore, has
pushed aside the notion that the only way to keep down crime is to
punish the individual, or to allay action until the crime is com-
mitted. The order, at present, is to help the individual or restrain
him before he becomes a criminal rather than merely to incarcerate
him after he has become one.
In the majority of cases where crime has been committed
by adults, it is too late to accomplish any material results by this
method. The tree is bent beyond correction. In such instances,
there must be no sentimentality to make crime attractive, nor silly
exploitation of the individual in the name of " advanced sociology."
It is rather in the field of juvenile delinquency that the greatest
opportunities lie for the application of preventative measures. It
would seem, after reflection, that the results are limited in benefit
and extent only by the amount of care and attention given. The
understanding that crime may be the direct or indirect result of
material causes easily reached and readily eradicated points the way
to a wiser, kindlier, happier way of caring for erring children and
incipient degenerates. It turns the light upon the boy and shows
the fearful handicap of conditions at home and of the temptations
that beset him. It makes evident the need of someone to help him,
of some person to win his interest and place before him bigger and
better ideals. It justifies the attempt to win the boy from a life
526 THE CALL OF THE CHILD [Jan.,
of uselessness or crime and to give him something real and vital to
live for.
Such steps as these have actually been taken. The records
show an inspiring percentage of success. During the years that it
has been laboring to save children from crime by removing them
from evil associations, the Children's Aid Society of New York has
taken twenty-eight thousand children from dangerous environment
and placed them in carefully selected homes. Of this large total,
eighty-seven per cent have done well ; eight per cent were returned
to New York; two per cent died; one half of one per cent com-
mitted petty crimes and were arrested ; and two and one quarter per
cent left their new homes and disappeared. Of these boys one be-
came a justice of the Supreme Court, another a governor of a state
and one a governor of a territory. There were twenty- four clergy-
men, thirty-five lawyers, nineteen doctors, sixteen journalists,
twenty-nine bankers and ninety-five teachers. This record is all
the more noteworthy, when it is considered that at the time of
their redemption, these boys were on the rapid highway to crime,
idleness and dependency.
An important advancement in the handling of delinquent chil-
dren has come in the separation of the child from the hardened
criminal. Previously, the child charged with fighting in the street,
or with breaking a pane of glass was huddled together with adult
criminals of all degrees. The lessons he learned, the standards he
took as worthy of imitation and the influences he was subjected to
were detrimental in every way, giving him an impetus to crime and
making him impervious to kind advice and direction.
To prevent this, the legislators established the Children's
Court, and today there is no city where the youthful offender is tried
with the adult criminal. In these new tribunals the sordid atmos-
phere of the old general court was cleared, and new, healthy sur-
roundings replaced the old. In the new institution the judge comes
in closer contact with the child and assumes the role of a kindly, in-
terested person, whose work is riot so much to punish as to correct.
Wide jurisdiction is given these judges. In New York City, chil-
dren charged with criminal acts of whatever degree, except murder,
are tried in the Children's Court, even though 'the subject matter
be felonious. If the case warrants, the judge uses drastic means
to punish the delinquent. But in most cases where the offence is
not serious or where it is a first lapse, the court calls in the assistance
of the probation officer. He is the mediary between the boy and his
1917.] THE CALL OP THE CHILD 527
family on one hand and the law represented by the judge, on the
other. According to the gravity of the case, the boy reports to
the probation officer at various stated times. After a certain period
the probation officer makes recommendations to the judge, who acts
upon them, giving the boy complete freedom, or imposing more
severe measures.
The institution of the Children's Court has been of advantage.
But as yet it is merely an experiment that must be worked out
on many new lines and with many of its present defects eliminated,
before it can be accepted as a permanent good.
Even where the court works its greatest good, the preventa-
tive or prophylactic side is not adequately cared for. The proba-
tion officer, because of his arduous duties, cannot enter into the
closest relations with the child. Then, too, he receives the boy
after the wrong has been done. There is still some agent needed to
supplement the work of the probation officer to prevent if possible
the need of taking the child to court at all, and to keep a watchful
guidance over him after his discharge from probation.
Long before the institution of the Children's Court or the
introduction of any so-called modern methods, our Catholic priests
and sisters were laboring long and late in the work of reclaiming
the wayward and helping the weak. M,any times has the parish
priest, unknown to all, acted as probation officer, and won back
the wanderer to righteousness. The records can never tell — for
with us such things are too sacred for publication — the story in its
fullness of nobility and true worth. Wonderful, far-reaching, and
beneficial were the results obtained by these agencies. But the
efforts were disorganized. Magnificent work was being done.
Even greater work might be accomplished with stronger and more
centralized organization. There was no clearing house, no central
organization, no system.
In 1911, Cardinal Farley took up this matter and sent the
following letter to Father Thomas J. Lynch :
MY DEAR FATHER LYNCH :
You are hereby appointed to take charge of the work in
connection with prisoners accused of crime in the courts, and
to look after the parole and probation system bearing on our
penal and reformatory institutions. Your appointment covers,
in a word, all correction work relating to crime in the Arch-
diocese, and authorizes you to establish and incorporate a so-
ciety for the furtherance of this object.
528 THE CALL OF THE CHILD Jan.,
Wishing you every blessing in your new and most important
field as a diocesan official in this line of work, I am,
Faithfully yours,
(Signed) JOHN M. FARLEY,
February 21, 1911. Archbishop of New York.
Father Lynch immediately began the work assigned him and
formed the Catholic Protective Society. From the beginning he
emphasized the need of helping the men who come up before the
judges in the Courts of Special Sessions. He found here a
neglected field that teemed with opportunities to do real good for
the unfortunates who find it hard after prison terms to start anew
in life. And his work has been so efficiently done that today, in
New York, there is no organization that is accomplishing so much
for the redemption of men.
But these efforts reached only the adult in crime. The chil-
dren brought into court for many reasons — some serious, some
frivolous — were not being systematically cared for. The agencies at
work, were for the most part, Non-Catholic, or when Catholic, lack-
ing in a strong central organization. There was a patent need of an
active society to help the Catholic children brought before the court.
Was it right that they should be left to the care of Non-Catholic
associations ? Father Lynch was aware of this crying need, and at
the first opportunity organized the Catholic Big Brothers. Judge
Cornelius F. Collins, of the Children's Court, became the president
of the new society, and with Father Lynch actively directing the
work, the task of helping our Catholic children was begun.
The method of the Catholic Big Brothers is to have a central
organization composed of delegates from each parish, with a general
secretary and a number of divisional secretaries. When cases come
up, it is the work of the central body to notify the parish workers,
who then perform the actual work of visiting the homes of the
children, assisting the parents, and helping the child. At first the
group of workers was small. Gradually the Society has increased
in numbers and, by the use of thorough and efficient methods, is
obtaining highly meritorious and extensive results.
But in the light of the vast work which must yet be done,
the workers now laboring are altogether too few. Over ten thou-
sand children are brought each year before the judges of the
Children's Court in New York City. The records show that a
great number of these children are listed as Catholics. Perhaps
1917.] THE CALL OF THE CHILD $29
the records are not fair in thus placing this odium upon Catholics.
But if there were only one Catholic child a year brought before
the courts, the responsibility is ours and we cannot evade it. We
must assume the responsibility and do everything in our power
to keep our children from contamination, and if they fall, to take
steps to prevent further lapses.
On an examination of the records of the cases coming up in
the Children's Court, it is seen that more than ninety per cent
should never have been brought to the attention of the court.
An analysis shows that the children are brought to court for any
or all of three reasons: first, because of improper guardianship;
second, because of poverty in the home; and third, because of
moral delinquency.
If one study the first cause, that of improper guardianship,
one will see the injustice done the child by bringing it to court.
The fault is not the child's — it is wholly the fault of the parents.
If a systematic survey of each parish could be made, and in-
formation gained of parents who are not fulfilling their duties
towards their children, advice, friendly intervention, spiritual pres-
sure and other preventative measures might be employed to keep
the child from the police court. Prompt action might save many
children from the evils that follow parental laxity and moral un-
fitness. This work need not be left to the parish priest — he has
already much to attend to. The laymen, properly organized, could
do this efficiently and easily. This task of helping the children is
a golden opportunity to begin the social work which seems to have
been neglected so long.
The second cause which leads the child before the court,
that of poverty in the home, can easily be reached. At present, as
soon as any Catholic child is brought before the court, the pastor
of the child is notified by a member of the Catholic Big Brothers
of the details of the case, with a request that home conditions be
investigated. Besides, Father Lynch tells us " in family cases
and cases remanded for examination, our own agents interest them-
selves in the home conditions and secure very often the sanction of
the court so to remedy matters as to preserve the integrity of the
home, keep the children out of institutions, and restore proper
family life. Not more than ten per cent of our children have been
sent to institutions since our work began."
The St. Vincent de Paul Society is now an important factor
in this work of relieving conditions in the home of the poor.
VOL. civ.— 34
530 THE CALL OF THE CHILD [Jan,
During the past year The Particular Council of New York gave
relief to ten thousand eight hundred and nineteen families consist-
ing of forty-three thousand seven hundred and seventeen persons.
The number of visits to the homes of the poor were sixty-one thou-
sand seven hundred and thirty- four. Situations were secured for
nine hundred and sixty-one people. Besides distributing clothing,
the Society expended ninety-six thousand two hundred and five
dollars. This is a record that cannot be praised too highly.
In the third division, that of moral delinquency, lies the
greatest field for true Christian labor. Judge Forster, of Chicago,
in analyzing the question of juvenile delinquency, divides children
into four groups : first, those so strong as to resist all temptations ;
second, those susceptible of being influenced by evil association;
third, those criminally inclined, who yet may be trained and in-
fluenced so as to live a fairly good life; fourth, those incorrigibly
criminal, who seldom or never yield to better impulses. Of these
'four classes, the first and last are beyond the scope of the work of
the Big Brothers — the first because the members of this division
do not need moral assistance, and the last because something
stronger than moral suasion is necessary to inhibit their criminal
tendencies. But we can and should bend every effort to help those
of the other two classes lead wholesome lives. This work is being
done in a praiseworthy manner by the Ozanam Association. As an
adjunct to the work of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, these zealous
men set out to save the Catholic boys of the city. They have built
up seven clubs for boys in the densely populated districts of the
city. The records show that the aggregate attendance for the past
year was one hundred and thirty-five thousand eight hundred and
ten. When the Ozanam Association is keeping such a large number
of young men and boys actively engaged in healthful exercises and
sports, its influence for good cannot be mistaken nor its powers
rightly estimated.
The forces that are now at work are accomplishing worth
while results in the face of great handicaps. But the number of
workers, especially in this particular field must be increased. The
need is clear and the duty well defined. Can Catholic laymen sit
idly by and watch others gather in the fruits that should be
theirs ?
The other organizations laboring to save the child are active
and well supported. The Protestant Big Brothers, founded by
Mr. Ernest K. Coutler in 1904, are doing extensive work. Their
1917.] THE CALL OF THE CHILD 531
report for 1915 shows that there are two hundred and seventy-
three men pledged to visit a Little Brother at least twice a month,
and to report progress monthly. During the past year seven hun-
dred and five new cases came up and were handled successfully.
One hundred and seventy-seven boys were referred to other organi-
zations better able to take care of them; twenty- three boys were
removed from bad environment by placement in private homes and
schools, one hundred and forty boys secured employment. Since
the movement began, five thousand and eighty-nine have been helped
to lead better lives.
In 1909, the Jewish Big Brothers Association was founded by
Mr. Alexander H. Kaminsky. It began with five members and
has now two hundred and fifty. In 1914, the Society had charge
of four hundred and ninety-three individual Little Brothers.
Of these three hundred and eighty- four were supervised by
Big Brothers, and one hundred and nine were helped directly
through the supervision of the executive officers of the associa-
tion.
The principle that is actuating the Non-Catholic Big Brothers
is most praiseworthy and commendable. But despite this, we must
face the question, " How can a Catholic boy, who is wayward, be-
cause he has neglected his religious duties, be brought to a realiza-
tion of those duties by those who do not know or are not in sym-
pathy with the boy's religion." The dearth of religious instruc-
tion among children brought before the courts is appalling. Over
fifteen per cent of the cases in the Children's Court show that all
religious influence stopped with the Sacrament of Baptism. Who
can supply the needed training, except those in sympathy ? Morality
can never find a secure foundation on pagan ethics, nor cari per-
fection of life be accomplished by philanthropy. The only real
preventative against moral disease is religion. The children, for the
most part, who come up before the Children's Court are there be-
cause their parents have neglected their religious duties. Who can
take the place of these parents? Can we find an adequate substitute
in a Non-Catholic?
This work of child redemption is ours. Our Catholic laymen
have come together in the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and have
perfected an organization that is quietly but efficiently helping the
poor. There is no society of laymen that is accomplishing so
much Christ-like good. But why should our Catholic laymen stop
here? After all, is not the soul of a single child of greater value
532 THE CALL OF THE CHILD [Jan,
in the eyes of God than the temporal welfare of the poor? Can
we, who have our heritage of faith, let others show us the way in
caring for the spiritual welfare of our children.
A great advance in criminology came with the realization of
the wonderful good that can be accomplished by prevention. This
is startlingly true of children. The records show that there is
an urgent need of strong, persistent, organized efforts to save some
of our Catholic children from waywardness, and lives of crime
and sin. The most efficient vehicle offered at present to accomplish
this work is the Catholic Big Brother Movement. The work that is
now being done is magnificent, but limited because the workers are
few. In the light of the great good that can be accomplished, and
the urgent need of such work, persistent, widespread efforts should
be made to coordinate all the forces working in the field of child
welfare, and build up an organization adequate and efficient to cope
with present and future situations. This work must be done.
There is none who can do it so well as the Catholic layman.
In ,a land of many conflicts, he who listens can hear the crying
of two voices. One is the cry of Christ and it comes ringing down
the ages: "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." And
the other? It is the cry of the child itself. Will our Catholic lay-
men answer to the call?
QUIS DESIDERIO.
BY THOMAS WALSH.
DARK and vast are Thine outer walls,
O King of Light!
Weary the desert ; the parched wind crawls
Toward the pools of night.
Over Thy close 'there is music stealing.
Is it Thy revel, Lord, or the calls
Of my childhood's dreaming ? Is it the pealing
Of angel spires, the fever's blight?
Some rose immortal there must bloom
By fountains clear,
That waves of such ineffable perfume
Should reach me here !
Cool on my brows I feel their sprinkle,
Here in the dust of my outer gloom
Where the stars themselves seem drops that twinkle
In truant spray o'er the sky wastes sheer.
Their hyssop melts through my soul. Perchance
She scatters there
Some old love-sign, some token — she whose glance
Makes consecrate and rare
Life's dawns and twilight — whose worn hands imploring
Are constant raised 'mid all Thy joys' expanse
For me remembered still in her adoring,
She of the silvered, even-parted hair !
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first Chief Justices. In the popular mind, he stands at the portals
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truly, strong and unadorned, fit ornament for the entrance to a
republic. Many of his countrymen may need to be told that he
did more than merely grace the beginnings of the nation : that he
was a mighty prop to the new and untried state; that for a time
he alone stayed up the shaky government and saved it from im-
pending collapse.
Marshall was, in point of fact, one of the men that founded
the Union. The Supreme Court, over which Hamilton shook
his head in despair as over a failure, he lifted from lowly im-
potency to its present high estate in the eyes of the country and
of the world. The Constitution, which, like a loose hoop, held
the States together in precarious conjunction, and which untoward
and malignant influences had already begun to shake off, became
under his interpretation a tight and durable bond of union. The
Constitution as we have it now is the Constitution as Marshall un-
derstood it, expounded it, enforced it. Above all else he taught the
people a national sentiment, with the Constitution for a text.
The man that worked these wonders of constructive genius was,
furthermore, an able lawyer, a gallant soldier, a powerful orator,
an enlightened statesman, a sharp-witted diplomat, and a lovable
soul. That Mr. Beveridge's biography gives us what promises to
be a complete and faithful portrait of this imposing figure is be-
yond all doubt.
The work is throughout a spirited narrative. There is even
a frank touch of the dramatic in the recital of events. The first
words of the text, "The British are beaten! The British are
beaten ! " set the scene of Braddock's defeat for the entrance of
1917.] NEW BOOKS 535
the spirit of American self-dependence and of the hero of the
story. Thereafter the interest is never allowed to flag. Par-
ticularly stirring is the account of the Virginia Convention of 1788,
that historic tournament of eloquence in which Marshall, at his
first entrance into the lists, broke a lance with the redoubtable Henry
and found a rift in the shining armor of this champion of the op-
position. Not less absorbing is the tale of how the artless American
diplomat met the cunning play of Talleyrand's poisoned rapier' with
the dexterous sweeps of his strong, blunt sword.
Yet, for all its animation, the Life is an admirable specimen
of scientific history. It exhibits a widely-gathered but well-win-
nowed mass of details. Every assertion of fact is scrupulously
documented. So cautious and circumspect is the general tone, that
it sometimes seems needlessly diffident. Once or twice, however, a
mere opinion is permitted to masquerade as a fact. The character
and motives of Jefferson, for instance, will likely always be a
moot-point for historians. On these questions Mr. Beveridge ap-
pears to pronounce with excessive confidence and undue severity.
But in the main his judgments of men and things are dispassionate
and fair.
The chief excellence of the work, perhaps, lies in the careful
record of the growth of Marshall's mind. We witness the evolu-
tion of his character, his powers, and his convictions. Without any
elaborate psychological analysis, or any great show of exploring
hidden causes, the biographer points out the influences and events
that shaped his subject's future. We stand by the loom in the
weaving of a great life. We observe how circumstances conspired
to become a providential preparation for a momentous career.
As the two volumes conduct the narrative only as far as
Marshall's elevation to the chief -justiceship, we must await impa-
tiently the completion of what is clearly a labor of love. We look
forward with pleasant expectation to Mr. Beveridge's picture of
Marshall presiding, placid and masterful, over that august bench
before which Webster was proud to plead.
OUR HISPANIC SOUTHWEST. By Ernest Peixotto. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons. $2.50 net.
Ernest Peixotto, the writer and artist, has already published
several charming books of travel and illustrated them with his own
sketches. In this latest work, Mr. Peixotto gives an account of
his journey ings through our Southwest, particularly his visits to the
536 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
old Spanish Missions and settlements scattered throughout Arizona,
New Mexico, and along the Texan border. The pioneers of the
Southwest, such intrepid men as Fray Marcos, Coronado, Ofiate and
Father Kino have played a great part in American history; but
" Anglo-Saxon historians " says Mr. Peixotto, " prejudiced no
doubt by difference of race and religion, have devoted but scant
space to them, and in the main have strangely belittled their work."
Therefore, when in this new book he describes with the enthusiasm
of a discoverer his visit to San Xavier del Bac, the great church of
the desert, or the more remote settlement of Chimayo, or the land-
marks of the old Texan capital, he lays due stress on their historical
significance, and sketches the thrilling stories of their foundation.
Mr. Peixotto describes the Southwest from the point of view
of the artist. In " The Charm of New Orleans," he gives a pleasant
picture of the old French city with its Old World atmosphere. "The
Historic Background" has an account of the discovery of Arizona
by Father Marcos, who was sent out by the Spanish Viceroy on a
fruitless search for the Seven Cities of Cibola, paved with turquoises
and gold, and was the first white man to cross into what is now
the United States by the land route.
Father Kino, the Jesuit, is to Arizona what Father Junipero
Serra is to California, but little has been known concerning him
until the recent light thrown on his work by research among the
Mexican archives.
Mr. Peixotto pays earnest tribute to the Padres, and often
notes with sympathy the Catholic atmosphere of many of the old
towns, and the deep devotion of the Indians and Mexicans to their
Faith.
The book is entertaining reading, and an interesting contribu-
tion to the very scanty literature of our Southwest.
SPANISH EXPLORATION IN THE SOUTHWEST— (1542-1706).
Edited by Herbert Bolton, Ph.D. New York : Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons. $3.00 net.
A book that makes accessible a large body of material pre-
viously little used by scholars has just been published. This is
Spanish Exploration in the Southwest which is volume seventeen
in the Original Narratives of Early American History, and which
has been edited by Dr. Herbert Bolton, professor of American His-
tory in the University of California. Dr. Bolton is recognized as the
leading authority on the archives of Mexico, the history of the
1917.] NEW BOOKS 537
Spanish Southwest, and the Indian tribes of Texas; in his new
publication he has translated for the first time, seventeen of the
-original Spanish documents bearing on the history of the period.
The four divisions of the book deal with the exploration and
plans for the settlement of California, 1542-1620; the exploration
and settlement in New Mexico, 1581-1605; the exploration and
settlement in Texas, 1675-1690; and the Jesuits in Pimeria Alta
(Southern Arizona and Northern Pinota) 1687-1710. Each group
of documents is prefaced by an introduction, which gives a suffi-
cient background to make the materials intelligible, sums up the
episodes, and furnishes a bibliography, a most valuable addition
which discloses the vastness of the unworked documents and which
reveals Professor Bolton's rare expert knowledge of his subject.
In his introduction to the New Mexican documents, the editor
shows that the founding of New Mexico was not an isolated in-
cident, but a natural development of the northern frontier of New
Spain. In the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
these frontiers expanded northeastward as well as north and north-
west. Great interest was felt by the Spaniards in Texas, which
was looked upon as a possible route to Florida and as a valuable
mining country.
Perhaps the last division of the book is the most interesting;
it shows that the most notable factor in pushing northward the
frontier on the Pacific Slope was the work of the Jesuit mis-
sionaries. Father Kino, the most celebrated of all, established his
mission near Tuscon, in 1687, and this he made his headquarters
during twenty- four years of exploration, missionary work and
writing. One of Father Kino's manuscripts is printed in Dr. Bol-
ton's book under the title of " Report and Relation of the New
Conversions," written in 1710.
It is interesting to hear that Dr. Bolton intends shortly to
publish the eleventh and most important of Father Kino's manu-
scripts, which is his own account of his entire work and that of
his companions in Pimeria Alta between 1687-1710, with con-
siderable attention to California affairs. This document was dis-
covered by Dr. Bolton in Mexico. It was used by the early Jesuit
historians, and is the principal source of all they wrote about Kino
and his companions, but it has been unknown to modern scholars
and its existence actually denied.
Dr. Bolton's book closes with a general summary of Kino's
work, with documents selected to illustrate the founding of the
538 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
Arizona Missions. Thus are contained in this volume the great
events in the history of the Spanish borderland from Texas to the
Gulf of California, illustrated by rare and original papers. No
work has appeared for many years which has so advanced our
knowledge of the Southwest.
EL SUPREMO. By Edward Lucas White. New York: E. P.
Button & Co. $1.90 net.
This is a romance of Francia, the Dictator of Paraguay,
from 1813 to 1840, of whom the author says that he was " without
exception the most wonderful man ever born in either North or
South America." Certainly, Mr. White makes him an exceedingly
interesting figure with whom we feel a singularly close acquaintance.
Seldom does an historical novel appear in which the author, to all
appearances, has actually lived in the scenes he presents; and it
is equally rare that an elaborate character study is combined with
so complete a picture of environment. His researches — for he
states that the legends of Francia and the period of his first dicta-
torship are a " treasury of material " — have so imbued him with
atmosphere that it is hard to realize he was not an eyewitness to
what he describes.
The book, a notable achievement at any time, is especially op-
portune just now when interest in South America is unwontedly
active. It is well worthy the attention even of those people who
are too busy to do much reading.
DAMARIS. By Lucas Malet. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
$1.40 net.
The description of this book given on its " jacket " states
that it is the story of the upbringing of a girl first in India, then
in England, where she grows up " an unusual girl, who learns in
time much about life in a most unusual way." As a matter of fact,
the action closes in India when Damaris has but lately passed her
sixth birthday. This discrepancy seems to point to an unfulfilled
intention on the author's part, and coincides with the impression
left upon the reader, who will not find in this volume sufficient
justification for the elaborate and prolonged advance to its climax.
Damaris is the motherless daughter of Charles Verity, an
officer distinguished in the Indian Mutiny; his nature unites capa-
city for fine and brave things with an extreme sensuality. The
revelation of Damaris' intense love for Henrietta Pereira, a married
1917.] NEW BOOKS 539
woman who is about to abandon her husband for Verity, shocks
him into full realization of his sin, and he vows final renunciation
of all similar self-indulgence.
Nothing that Mrs. Harrison writes can be entirely without
evidences of her ability, but this novel does not come up to her
usual tone. Anglo-Indian society has been a favorite field of
fiction since the mid-Victorian era in which she has laid her story,
and she has brought nothing new from the ground so thoroughly
traversed. The general effect is unconvincing and laborious, the
characters, especially Damaris herself, lack vraisemblance ; more-
over, it is not agreeable reading; there is a preponderance of some-
thing approaching morbidity that becomes oppressive at times.
The sequel, which, it seems, the publisher's notice justifies one in
expecting, may conform to the high standard Mrs. Harrison has
set for herself and her readers.
THE WHIRLPOOL. By Victoria Morton. New York: E. P.
Button & Co. $1.50 net.
The main intention of this novel is an attack upon the social
system which places in the hands of a small section of erring hu-
manity the disposition of those of their fellow-creatures who have
been overtaken by offended law. The theme is not new, but there
is always room for a thoughtful disquisition upon it. The present
work, however, though not without merit, is too uneven in quality
to be effective; a more restrained manner and a more reasonable
story would have had better results. As it is, the straining for effect
alienates us from the characters, and we realize little beyond the
author's purpose.
REFINING FIRES. By Alice Dease. New York: P. J. Kenedy
& Sons. 75 cents net.
It is something of a relief to find that this title, easy to mis-
understand, does not apply to another war novel; and it is
pleasant to be able to say that the tale wins one's interest. Indeed,
it is appreciably above the average of books of its kind, written
to supply the needs of young readers. The action takes place
chiefly in Paris, the characters are French, and the development of
the story is shaped by the traditions and prejudices of Parisian
society. The plot is well constructed and dramatic. The characters
are more lifelike than usual; Lucienne, the young wife whose lot
is hard and perplexing, has spirit and initiative. A new touch is
540 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
given in the introduction of Mademoiselle de Rochefeuille, the de-
vout old aristocrat, who uses her social position and prestige as a
means of counteracting the evil influences that are leading astray
Raoul, Lucienne's husband. The book is entitled to commenda-
tion beyond that of mere suitability for adolescent reading; it is
capable of holding the attention of readers of maturer years.
THE WHALE AND THE GRASSHOPPER. By Seumas O'Brien.
Boston: Little, Brown & Co. $1.35 net.
Those who enjoy the writings of James Stephens will derive
something of the same pleasure from reading these fables, told
in dialogues between Micus Pat and his friend, Padna Dan. They
are deliberately and sometimes delightfully inconsequent, and many
subjects are touched upon in their irresponsible discursiveness.
Much of what is said by the two philosophers is clever; it is
frequently funny, and at times the fantasies have considerable
poetic force and charm.
NATURE, MIRACLE AND SIN. By T. A. Lacey, M.A. New
York: Longmans, Green & Co. $2.00 net.
These lectures were delivered in the schools at Oxford dur-
ing the summer term of 1914 under the terms of the Pr ingle
Stuart Trust. The lecturer throws no new light on the themes he
discusses, and is most unfair to St. Augustine, whose mind he
professes to interpret. He criticizes unjustly the Saint's notion of
evil, and sees quips and paradoxes in the veriest commonplaces
of Catholic philosophy. For example, he cannot understand the
simple statement that " supreme liberty is non posse peccare" for
he seems ignorant of the Catholic doctrine of the sinlessness of
Christ and of the Blessed.
Again in discussing nature and miracle, Mr. Lacey frames
his own definition of nature, and then fathers it on St. Augustine,
thereby utterly destroying the evidential character of miracles, and
the true concept of the supernatural.
A LECTURE ENTITLED: THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
CHURCH. By William McAfee Goodwin, District National
Bank Building, Washington, D. C. $1.50 net.
Mr. Goodwin styles this lengthy lecture of one hundred and
fifty pages " a timely, impersonal, dispassionate, analytical, un-
answerable discussion of the weaknesses and inconsistencies of the
1917-] NEW BOOKS 541
Christian Science Church Organization." While theoretically ac-
cepting the teachings of Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health, he with-
drew from the Christian Science Church Organization because he
considered its by-laws un-Christian, unjust and inconsistent, and be-
cause the Church's Board of Directors held " that the Church
Manual can and shall never be amended or changed."
The lecturer tells us that the Church Manual deliberately con-
tradicts Mrs. Eddy's book; that the Church's by-laws are by no
means carried out in practice; that the Massachusetts Metaphysi-
cal College has only one teacher and can never have more, while
its course consists of but one week's lectures every three years;
that the total number of professional practitioners throughout the
world is five thousand six hundred and sixteen, four thousand nine
hundred and eighty-six of whom are women; and that Christian
Science dishonestly claims to be a revival of primitive Christianity.
FRIENDS OF FRANCE. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $2.00 net.
At the outbreak of the European war a band of intrepid young
Americans left the United States to become ambulance drivers in
France. With ten Ford ambulances, whose bodies were made of
packing boxes, they began the unselfish and heroic work of caring
for the wounded. Magnificent work at Saint Pol, Abbeville, Me-
ville and Hesdin won for them higher honors and more dangerous
work. Upon receipt of more adequate equipment, they extended
their sections along the whole front, and performed efficient service
on the Aisne, in Lorraine and at Verdun.
After two years of active participation on the battle front these
young men thought their experiences worth giving to the world.
In short respites from service they wrote and edited the thrilling
story of the two years of war and their part in it. The subject
matter of the volume is epic in scope and soul-stirring in detail.
DOING THEIR BIT. By Boyd Cable. New York: E. P. Button
& Co. $1.00 net.
Mr. Cable had spent a year at the British front during the
most crucial period of the war — at the time when the Allies were
attempting to hold their positions in the face of severe odds. With
the other troops he had experienced the disappointment which swept
over the armies in France at the shortage of ammunition and other
evidence of British incompetence. He returned to England later,
and his first work was to see how the people at home were " doing
542 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
their bit '•' to cope with the problem of providing adequate war
supplies. He was so pleased with the whole-hearted and efficient
work being accomplished that he felt he should tell this message
to the front. Doing Their Bit, therefore, is a summary of what
the English at home are doing to cooperate with the soldiers in the
trenches ; how factories, where formerly were manufactured clocks,
pianos, gramophones, and bottles, are now transformed into muni-
tion works ; how thousands of women are taking the places of the
absent men at the lathes and testing machines.
POTENTIAL RUSSIA. By Richard Washburn Child. New
York: E. P. Button & Co. $1.50 net.
Soon Russia, the land of one hundred and seventy millions,
who are experiencing a great national and economic awakening,
will lay aside its wooden bowl and spoon, and replace them with
ones of silver. At the close of the present war, which has brought
about a rejuvenation of the best of the Russian characteristics and
an elimination of many national blights, the people will turn their
energies to the development of their land. Mr. Child, in his well-
written book, points the way that America must take if she is to
succeed in helping develop this land of unlimited mineral and agri-
cultural wealth.
Mr. Child states that this war is transforming the Russia that
was narrow and suspicious into a nation of new ideals. The sacri-
fice of her sons has emphasized the peasant's love of country. The
movement of the armies is educating the village-bred youth to larger
prospectives. The abolition of vodka has paved the way to greater
thrift and better living. The migration of ten million refugees has
evoked wider sympathies and greater concentration of action.
Potential Russia is well done — both in presentation and in-
terpretation.
)
« THE GATE OF ASIA." By William Warfield. New York: G.
P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net.
The region that marks the boundary between Asia and Europe,
the land whose plains and mountains have been the battleground
of the struggle between the civilizations of the East and the West,
Mr. Warfield calls " The Gate of Asia." He tells a very interesting
story of a journey through it from the Persian Gulf to the Black
Sea. He traveled up the Tigris to Bagdad, thence to Babylon and
Kurdistan, through Bitlis, the gate of Armenia, and finally to Urmi
IQI7-] NEW BOOKS 543
and Tobriz, the chief cities of Azerbaijan, the Persian province.
The subject matter of the volume is vastly interesting, dealing, as
it does, with the region whose history carves the names of Daniel,
Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the Great, Genghis Kahn, Nadir Shah,
Alexander the Great, Xenophon and Emperor Julian. The author
adds to this inherent interest by giving the story of his travels in
a clear narrative that never drags. His knowledge of the history
of the places visited is extensive, and does much to interpret the
present positions of these countries.
Mr. Warfield has given us a scholarly work. It is well edited
and profusely illustrated.
DEAD YESTERDAY. By Mary Agnes Hamilton. New York:
George H. Doran Co. $1.50 net.
This novel has exceptional merit and distinction of character.
It is a poised and deliberate study of reactions of the war upon a
section of English society effected with a high degree of literary
ability, and taken from an angle that places in an unusual perspec-
tive the subject of pacifism. This cause, damaged as it has been by
zealots who base their pleas upon an undignified, irrational senti-
mentality, or the yet more ignoble ground of utilitarianism, is now
presented in a manner that commands respect.
The action begins a year before the war. We are introduced
to a large group of people of the upper classes, some wholly of the
social world, some following professions; all, with a few excep-
tions, more or less tinged with the modern " disease of death," as
it is called by Hugh Infield, the keen-eyed onlooker: tired of life,
they have in seeking sensations played with their emotions until
these are unconsciously half -atrophied. The chief personage oft
this set is Nigel Strode, editor of a popular journal, under forty,
clever, attractive and volatile. At the end of a year he has be-
come engaged to Daphne, daughter of Mrs. Leonard, an author
of considerable reputation and a pacifist.
Then comes the war. It is through individuals that the author
discloses and establishes her position, but she makes one deviation
of unforgettable quality. There has not yet appeared anything more
vividly impressive than her picture of London during the early
days of August, 1914: the unrest, the vague dread, the streets
thronged with people waiting, for they knew not what decree from
the controlling powers, their faces " blank, puzzled, apprehensive."
That they were " incapable of initiation, infinitely capable of sug-
544 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
gestion or response " accounts for their transformation into a
mob of howling enthusiasts at the bidding of the government and
the press. Skillfully, without haste or violence, Miss Hamilton
transfers to the war-votaries the reproach of sentimentality and
limited perceptions. Her pacifists, through whom she states her
case almost exclusively, are Mrs. - Leonard, Daphne and Hugh
Infield. To them the war is an ever-present horror, a daily per-
sonal grief. To Nigel and his set it is terrible but exalting, en-
tailing no personal unhappiness. So fired with its glory is Nigel
that Daphne laments her inferiority in that she cannot shake off
her mother's teachings, but is every day more confirmed in them.
Nigel pays scant respect to such uncongenial reflections as are given
by the taciturn soldier, Captain Toller, who returns from the front.
He is irritatingly sober and definite, and does not " see any sense
in sentimentalizing." However he goes back to France and is
killed in action. This is the fate Daphne has dreaded for Nigel;
such will be the price he will pay for fidelity to his convictions.
The bitter truth gradually dawns upon her that he has no intention
of doing so ; he will stay at home and inspire recruiting by glowing
words, written and spoken. Her disillusionment is fatal, and she
dismisses him. Against his kind the author prefers a still graver
charge, epitomized by Infield's words, on his return from France,
where he has been working with a Red Cross unit. He says to
Mrs. Leonard : " You say London's a Calvary ? I dare say it is,
to you, but I assure you there are thousands of so-called civilized
people to whom it's a Colosseum. I've met a handful of men who
were fascinated by shell fire — men who'd been in it, and go back
because they can't keep away. . . .They're exceptional. But Lon-
*don is full of such people. I can understand men who seize the
chance of death because they find life intolerable, but to do it
vicariously as Nigel and his crowd do-r-no. London seems to
me more hideous than France."
The book is austere and sombre and is deficient in charm; but
it does not lack power nor interest, which is unflagging through
all of its closely packed pages. It can hardly attain popular suc-
cess, and was probably not so designed. Its rightful place, how-
ever, is permanent among the important writings of the day.
Circumstance has not laid aside its habit of irony in dealing with
the author; the war manifestly so abhorrent to her has inspired
her to produce something incomparably finer than anything she has
done hitherto.
BOOKS 545
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE: THE RIGHT AND WRONG OF
OUR PRESENT DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. By John
A. Ryan, D.D. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50 net.
Not merely the layman, but even more acutely, the student of
Ethics and Moral Theology has long desired a competent treatise on
the Catholic doctrine of property, applying the traditional principles
of our authorities to present day problems and conditions. Even an
intelligent student may have mastered the teachings of St. Thomas
and St. Alphonsus, yet be quite at sea when required to apply them
to, let us say, solving the morality of taxing the unearned incre-
ment, or stock-watering. Hence this volume is a very yaluable con-
tribution to our Ethics library.
The author discusses the present system of the distribution of
wealth comprehensively, and his attitude towards it is that while
not inherently unjust, there exist in it many abuses. For most of
these he suggests remedies.
He refutes ethical arguments of Single Taxers, but admits that
the present land system is far from perfect and proposes a con-
siderable number of reforms (pages 47, 93, 133).
He rejects Socialism as impracticable, but declares that .the
capitalist's claim to interest is not clearly justified by any of the
usually accepted arguments (pages 177-186), and contends that
the only moral justification of interest on capital is a presumptive
one, based mainly upon the fact that the capitalist is in possession
and that no one else can show a better title (pages 204-209).
The business man who operates in conditions of actual competi-
tion has a right to all the profits that he can get, but if he has a
monopoly he has a right, generally speaking, only to the prevailing
rate of interest on his capital, and to a fair return for his labor
of management.
The laborer has a right to a living wage and to more than
this if he can get it without the use of monopolistic methods. And
the laborer's right to a living wage is stronger than the capitalist's
right to interest when the two conflict.
It is impossible even to summarize in this brief notice all the
important, living questions treated in Dr. Ryan's volume. They
are questions which should be the object of study on the part of
every educated Catholic for on their right solution depend the peace,
security and progress of modern society. The value of Dr. Ryan's
book is not alone that it throws thoughtful light upon these problems
for Catholics, but that to the whole Non-Catholic world as well,
VOL. civ.— 35
546 NEW BOOKS [Jan,
which is without definite economic principles, it will be an authori-
tative and welcome guide.
AN INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS. By Frank O'Hara,
Ph.D. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.00.
As its title indicates, this book is intended as a textbook for
beginners; and it possesses the chief requisites of a textbook. It
is brief, clear, and to the point, without any useless verbiage or
amplification. While intended primarily for students of the sub-
ject, it will be found very suitable to the general reader who will,
in all probability, be ready to concur in the definition of Economics
as " The Dismal Science," if he addresses himself first to the
bulky tomes which profess to treat the matter in exienso. Here
even the cursory reader may obtain a good grasp of the elements
of such problems as exchange, distribution, socialism, and the Single
Tax. The questions of value, money, insurance, workmen's com-
pensation, and interest, are exposed, though briefly, in a way which
brings out clearly the principles upon which they are to be treated
and decided.
Confining himself strictly to the economic treatment of his
subject, Professor O'Hara is relieved from touching upon the
ethical element which underlies the entire economic aspect of the
social problem. He reasonably assumes that his readers already
possess, or will acquire, a knowledge of the indispensable ethical
foundation neccessary to economic speculation.
THE NEW RESERVATION OF TIME, AND OTHER AR-
TICLES. By William Jewett Tucker, President Emeritus of
Dartmouth College. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.50
net.
In the first of the series of magazine articles, gathered to-
gether in the present book, the author philosophizes upon the new
reservation of time, the time when the worker is no longer able
to keep step with his fellows and is compelled to retire in favor
of some one more efficient than himself. One of the conclusions of
this article (the author explains that these are articles, and not
essays) is that we have been training too much for the time when
we are efficient parts of the machine and not enough for the years
that will remain after our retirement from active duty.
President Tucker is at his best in the second article, entitled
Undergraduate Scholarship. The problems of examinations, the
I9I7-] NEW BOOKS $47
arrangement of the curriculum, the relation of teacher to student,
college environment and college sentiment receive masterly treat-
ment. In explaining the reason for the lack of undergraduate en-
thusiasm for scholarship, the author points out two facts bearing
upon the question. These facts are, first, that in the college world,
which he knows, the undergraduate has learned to dissociate leader-
ship and scholarship.
Leadership grows out of the combination of personality and
attainment. The proportion of personality to attainment varies
greatly, but neither one is sufficient of itself to make a leader.
The loafer cannot become a leader, however agreeable he may
be personally. The athlete cannot become a leader, if he is not
essentially a gentleman, with some recognizable intellectual
force. When the scholar fails to reach leadership, the lack is
somewhere in those qualities which make up effective person-
ality— authority, virility, sympathy, sincerity, manners. Prob-
ably the majority of real college leaders are to be found in the
second grade of scholarship.
Secondly, that undergraduate sentiment regarding scholarship
is the reflection, in large degree, of the sentiment of the outside
world regarding it.
Other chapters are entitled The Goal of Equality, The Progress
of the Social Conscience, The Ethical Challenge of the War, The
Crux of the Peace Problem, and On the Control of Modern Civili-
tion. In the last named article it is of interest to note the com-
plaint that " agnosticism is the chief cause of the present spiritual
provincialism. The greatest possible loss which can come to
us in our inheritances is the loss of connection with the great ages
of faith, a loss of which we are at times apprised through our sense
of spiritual provincialism."
THE CASE OF AMERICAN DRAMA. By Thomas H. Dickinson.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.50 net.
The chapters of Mr. Dickinson's volume deal with " The
New Theatre," "The Social Sanction of Dramatic Art," "The
Present Situation of the Stage in America," " The Theatre in the
Open," " Festivals and Pageantry," and " The Promise of Amer-
can Drama." Readers who anticipate finding any detailed history
of our national drama either past or present, will be disappointed.
It is rather Mr. Dickinson's intention to discuss the general prob-
lems which face author, actor and audience today. His comments
548 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
upon commercialism in the theatre and upon the motion-picture
industry are distinctly thought-provoking; but perhaps most help-
ful of all is the excellent chapter dealing with modern pageantry.
Altogether the book is an interesting contribution to American
dramatic literature, and a useful introduction to more detailed
criticism on the subject.
A STUDENT'S TEXTBOOK IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCA-
TION. By Stephen Pierce Duggan. New York : D. Appleton
& Co. $1.25 net.
Dr. Duggan, Professor of Education in the College of the City
of New York, has written a brief history of Education, which, as he
himself informs us, is intended to be of practical assistance to the
teacher in giving him a better understanding of present problems
in education. A series of questions and of topics of study has been
put at the end of each chapter " to suggest further study in the
relation of the content to the problems that confront us today, and
to make clear the manner in which past experience may help to
clarify present theories and practices."
There is little new in the volume, as every student acquainted
with the works of Monroe, Graves and Parker will see at a glance,
but the writer has a gift for condensation that is most helpful to
the student. The account of early Christian education and me-
diaeval education is most meagre, and there is very little grasp of
the great work done by the Jesuits, the Christian Brothers and the
other teaching orders of men and women. Indeed, the writer re-
joices that the schools are becoming more and more securalized and
freed from the traditions of the past and all Church control. He
is an advocate of that impossible independent morality, which in
our times is bringing forth an abundant harvest of unbelievers.
We do not think the writer consciously unfair, but he is weak in
his historical perspective, and prejudiced in his extravagant plea
for complete secular control of education.
NATIONALITY IN MODERN HISTORY. By J. Holland Rose,
Litt. D. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.25.
Concomitant with the outbreak of the war, there was much
talk for ,a time of Pan-Americanism and Pan-Germanism, of the
possible future opposition of the Pan- Angles to the Pan- Slavs, of
nationalism strictly interpreted according to its etymology, a com-
mon stock, demanding that peoples who speak the same language
1917-] NEW BOOKS 549
and have a common culture should be organized as independent
states, with national boundaries and with a national consciousness.
Dr. Rose's interesting and thought-provoking volume considers
the birth and growth of national feeling and spirit among the Euro-
pean states. We may regret, with him, that this country, with its
peculiar problems, was by force of circumstance excluded from
similar treatment. The book is a reprint of a series of lectures, eight
having been delivered at the University of Cambridge, the others
before English Historical Associations, Since by far the larger
portion thus form a course for specializing students, the method
is historical, the line of argument inductive. The manifestations
of national awakenings, under various unifying forces, in France,
Germany, Spain, Russia and the Balkan States, are explained at
some length ; then " nationality," as a conscious, definite move-
ment, is analyzed and commented upon. The term " nationalism,"
which seems to come easier to the American tongue, is anathema to
Dr. Rose, who confines it to " the intolerant and agressive instinct
which has of late developed in Germany and the Balkan States."
In turning these pages, one is impressed with the author's wide
reading, with the array of significant facts he has marshaled, still
more with the penetration with which he sees the cause, the reason
behind the event; one is charmed by the smooth easy flow, the
graceful touch, the instinctive feeling for the finely-turned phrase
so characteristic of the English scholar. Lecture VI , on the
awakening of the Slavs, is especially good. The theories here de-
veloped have been handled before by Dr. Rose, notably in his De-
velopment of European Nations, and in certain chapters of the
Cambridge Modern History.
But, with all due respect to his scholarship, it must be said
that the temptation which besets all lecturers, and, salva reverentia,
university professors, to strain a point to make a point, proves oc-
casionally too strong for his power of resistance. For instance, in
spite of Mazzini and the " Young Italy " movement, the unification
of Italy was wrought designedly in the interest of Piedmontese su-
premacy ; why else should Cavour have said that, Italy once created,
it remained to create Italians. Dr. Rose admits, or declares, at the
close of Lecture V. that the Italian monarchy of today is " largely
the outcome of Cavour's masterly statecraft." Yet the tone of the
whole lecture certainly gives the impression that unified Italy was
achieved by a spontaneous outburst of national spirit which would
not be denied. Again, the preface expresses the hope that the
550 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
treatment of questions arising out of the present conflict is as im-
partial and objective as " conditions " permit. The last clause per-
haps is the saving one; certainly, it is highly improbable that Dr.
Rose would have written in 1910, as he has written in 1916, at
least in his selection of adjectives and adverbs. Lastly, in the con-
cluding lecture on " Internationalism," the redistribution of Europe
might not unjustly be called dogmatic, the unqualified future tenses
rather premature; while, considering that it was addressed to an
audience in Bristol, the exhortation to every Briton to do his duty
that the " ghastly fiasco of a stale-mate " may be averted, arouses
the suspicion that perhaps the entrance to the recruiting office was
not far distant from the exit of the lecture-hall.
MORE WANDERINGS IN LONDON. By E. V. Lucas. New
York : George H. Doran Co. $2.00 net.
This book is a companion volume to A Wanderer in London
which we read some ten years ago with a great deal of pleasure.
Like its predecessor it is a guide-book of the better sort, written
by a man of taste, who knows every corner and nook of London.
This volume deals with the pictures of the Guildhall Gallery, typical
churches such as St. Lawrence, St. Magnus, St. Giles, St. Ethel-
reda and St. Albans.
FAITH IN A FUTURE LIFE. By Alfred W. Martin. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. $1.50 net.
After falsely defining dogmatism as affirmation without valid
evidence, and asserting his utter freedom from all authority natural
or supernatural, Mr. Martin proceeds to dogmatize in the crudest
fashion upon matters of which he is profoundly ignorant. With a
wave of the hand he denies the Divinity of Jesus Christ and His
Resurrection, and sets aside every argument for immortality that
Christians have ever used. He falsely holds " that the sole basis
for faith in a future life is to be found in the moral nature of man,
in a moral experience which every human being may have." Of
course as an Ethical Culturist he rejects the Christian conception
of heaven and hell, looks upon theosophy as an improvement upon
orthodox Christianity, considers St. Paul's teaching on immortality
demoralizing, rejects our Saviour's Gospel about future rewards and
punishments as immoral, and favors his readers with the usual
tirade against Catholicism, which he terms a " trading upon the
hopes and fears of its subjects."
1917.] NEW BOOKS 551
THE SYRIAN CHRIST. By Abraham Mitrie Rihbany. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.50 net.
The purpose of this volume, as the author tells us, is to give
the Oriental background of certain Scriptural passages, whose cor-
rect understanding depends upon knowledge of their original envi-
ronment. As a Syrian born, Mr. Rihbany tries to throw light upon
many strange Eastern customs and modes of speech. He has many
interesting chapters on speaking in parables, swearing, imprecations,
family feasts, the treatment of guests, the market place, the house-
top, the vineyard and the shepherds. The writer came to this coun-
try a penniless immigrant, and lost his faith in Protestant sur-
roundings. He is a champion of " undogmatic " Christianity, and
gives forth some undigested statements about the simple faith of
Christ being changed into an authoritative creed by ambitious ec-
clesiastics and politicians.
BRIEF DISCOURSES ON THE GOSPEL. By Rev. Philibert
Seebock, O.F.M. Translated by E. Leahy. New York:
Frederick Pustet & Co. $1.25.
We recommend to our readers these brief sermons of the well-
known German Franciscan, Father Seebock, for all Sundays and
Festivals of the year. They are simple, practical and devout talks,
affording good spiritual reading for the people, and offering sug-
gestions to priests for new sermon material.
THE MANUAL OF NATURAL EDUCATION. By Winifred
Sackville Stoner. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. $1.00
net.
In this volume Mrs. Stoner sets forth the principles and
methods of Natural Education, which obtained considerable vogue
through the publication of her work on this subject a few years
ago. The author makes some valuable suggestions regarding the
teaching of reading, spelling, geography, history, and other
branches; and describes the use of natural educational tools. One
chapter deals with character building, but the one thing essential,
religion, is absolutely ignored. Her ten commandments reveal some-
thing of her methods: "Never give corporal punishment; never
scold ; never say don't ; never say must ; never allow a child to say
T can't;' never refuse to answer a child's question; never frighten
a child ; never ridicule or tease a child ; never allow a child to lose
self-respect or respect for its parents; never banish fairies from
home."
NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
THE FAIRY BRIDE. A Play in Three Acts. By Norreys Jephson
O'Conor. New York: John Lane & Co. $1.00 net.
This is a drama, preferably for juvenile actors, built around
the ancient Celtic legends of a king blemished by witchcraft and the
visit of a mortal pilgrim to the World of Fairy. It treats much
the same theme as the author's earlier poem, Beside the Blackzvater,
and the present work — composed partly in prose and partly in verse
— would be an interesting novelty for performance by High Schools
or amateur stage societies. The cast, while preferably mixed, could
be interpreted by girls alone ; and the volume is well provided with
incidental music and suggestions for costuming and staging.
THE CHEVALIER DE BOUFFLERS. By Nesta H. Webster.
New York : E. P. Button & Co. $4.00 net.
This memorial of the lives of the Chevalier de Boufflers and
Madame de Sabran is neither a necessary nor a welcome product,
written as it is for the purpose of exploiting and sentimentalizing
over a connection maintained for years in defiance of both re-
ligious and civil law. In resuscitating this material no new light is
thrown upon the history of the period; the interest is wholly per-
sonal ; and although the author has handled her theme with delicacy
her treatment does not make it worthy, nor save the book from
a pernicious quality already too plentiful.
THE THIRTEENTH COMMANDMENT. By Rupert Hughes
New York: Harper & Brothers. $1.40 net.
" Thou shalt not spend all thou earnest," is Mr. Hughes' Thir-
teenth Commandment — " a most unlucky one to break." Demon-
strated in action, an impressive fictional sermon might undoubtedly
be preached from this text, and the early part of the book offers
the hope that we are to find it here; but the author has expressed
himself too impulsively and diffusively. He has virtually written
two novels, and in making them one he has deprived each of its
full effectiveness: and his quick, observant brain has led him off
upon many bypaths. There is no central point of interest, though
the material is not lacking. A highly dramatic incident is intro-
duced when Leila, the heartlessly extravagant wife, fearing a return
to comparative poverty, cajoles her husband into establishing, for
financial advantage, friendly relations with a man to whom he
has forbidden the house. This situation is strong and significant
enough to have borne the whole burden of the author's intention,
1917.] NEW BOOKS 553
but he dismisses it with the remark that many similar scenes are
being enacted all over the world, and proceeds to overcrowd his
work with incidents only mechanically connected and with reflec-
tions and comments upon a multitude of subjects. It is all worth
saying and said well : points -are driven home with disconcerting
sharpness, as for instance: "All America, indeed, was in a curious
mood of horror at the slaughter and dread of its cessation." Such
cleverness makes it matter of regret that Mr. Hughes' lavishness
should result in so confusing and leveling the values that a definite,
lingering impression is rendered impossible.
FROM CONVENT TO CONFLICT. By Sister M. Antonia. Bal-
timore: John Murphy Co. $1.00.
This account of the invasion of Belgium, by one of the nuns
of the Convent of the Filles de Marie, Willebroeck, is written with
a purpose best explained in the author's words: "Any profits de-
rived from its favorable reception by the reading public or the
charitably inclined are to be devoted to the reconstruction and repair
of our school and convent, damaged during the engagement at the
Fortress of Willebroeck, or for the establishment of a sewing
school, with a lace-making department, for young women in Amer-
ica or England, as our Reverend Superiors may decide." The
piteous story is told with attractive simplicity and directness, and
the Sister maintains a tone of charitableness during even the most
harrowing parts of her tale. Those who buy the book with a view
to aid its purpose will find themselves rewarded by its interest.
THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1915. Edited by Edward J.
O'Brien. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. $1.50 net.
This volume contains twenty " best short stories " selected by
Mr. O'Brien from forty-six American periodicals. In a brief In-
troduction he gives a good estimate of the year's achievement in
the short story, and maintains rightly that American writers easily
excel in this literary form. In an Appendix we find an Index of
Short Stories for 1914 and 1915, marked by one, two or three
asterisks according to the editor's estimate of their value. No two
critics would agree about the relative worth of the twenty-two hun-
dred stories judged by Mr. O'Brien, but everyone will admit that
he is an expert in selecting stories distinctive for both substance
and form. We look forward with pleasure to his Best Short
Stories of 1916.
554 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
ARLO. By Bertha B. and Ernest Cobb. Brookline, Mass. : The
Riverdale Press. $1.00 net.
Every boy will enjoy this thrilling story of Arlo's wanderings
in the beautiful valley of the Ker. A strolling fiddler adopts this
runaway child of nine, and initiates him into all the mysteries of
the woods and mountains. The boy soon learns how to handle a
rod and a gun, masters the secrets of reading and writing, and
above all, becomes a remarkable composer and violinist. Of course
he turns out to be the long-lost son of the exiled Duke, who comes
finally to his own. The novel is well written, and holds the interest
of the reader, be he young or old, from the first page to the last.
CUPID OF CAMPION. By Francis J. Finn, SJ. New York:
Benziger Brothers. 85 cents.
Cupid of Campion is to our mind the best of Father Finn's boy
stories. It has a delightfully clean cut boy for hero, and a lovable,
winsome girl for heroine. Both have been kidnapped by gypsies,
and the story unfolds their adventures in the gypsy camp, and their
rescue. Courtesy, chivalry, zeal, love of truth, purity, manliness,
true devotion — all these virtues are taught the youthful reader
in the most entertaining fashion. The Father Rector of Campion
College is a man well calculated to win the hearts of the boys of the
twentieth century.
THE TAMING OF CALINGA. By C. L. Carlsen. New York : E.
P. Button & Co. $1.35 net.
Calinga is a head-hunter of the Philippines, who is captured
by the Spaniards while out on a head-hunting raid. He is civilized
by brute force, becomes to all appearances a devout Catholic, and
marries a girl of the village. After a few years of civilization,
which the writer identifies with bmtality, lust, thievery and super-
stition, Calinga relapses into savagery, and returns to his tribe.
We found the story rather tiresome, its style involved, and its
setting forced and unnatural.
AMERICAN MEN OF LETTERS. Their Nature and Nurture. By
Edwin Leavitt Clarke, Ph.D. New York: Longmans, Green
& Co. $1.50.
This monograph by the Professor of Economics and Sociology
at Hamilton College summarizes a study of the nature and nurture
of American men of letters. It was suggested by Professor Alfred
1917.] Af£J^ BOOKS 555
Odin's work, Genese des Grands Hommes, Gens de Lettrcs Fran-
$ais Modernes. It deals with one thousand American men of let-
ters, all of whom were born prior to 1851, and classifies them
according to their social, geographic and local environment, their
education, economic condition of parents, occupation of father, oc-
cupation of the literati themselves, early religious training, and
birth-rank in the family of brothers and sisters. After endless
labor in compiling statistics under these various headings, the author
concludes : "It appears that there have been three especially im-
portant factors in the development of American men of letters, a
good heredity, furnishing stock capable of being developed, an edu-
cation adequate to develop latent ability, and a social environment
furnishing incentive to the naturally endowed and amply educated
to turn their attention to literature."
A COMPANION FOR DAILY COMMUNION. By a Sister of St.
Joseph, Toronto, Canada. 50 cents.
Not only should encouragement be given to the faithful to
receive Holy Communion frequently, and even daily, but also means
should be offered that will safeguard them from routine and fruit-
less familiarity. It is of the utmost importance that we strive to
bring home to ourselves the graces of the Sacrament as often as
we receive It. With a view to furnish such a means the Sisters of
St. Joseph, of Toronto, have published a small handy volume, en-
titled A Companion for Daily Communion. The volume is one
that may be easily carried and is inconspicuous. It gives short
readings, that may readily be extended into meditations, on the Life
of our Lord, with acts of thanksgiving and of reparation; and
other readings that are particularly adapted to special needs and
trials of the soul.
We recommend it as a practical and useful help to all and
particularly to Catholic schools and academies. Copies may be ob-
tained from St. Joseph's Convent, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
FRENCH POLICY AND THE AMERICAN ALLIANCE OF 1778.
By Edward S. Corwin. Princeton: Princeton University
Press. $2.00 net.
This scholarly work is based chiefly on the five large quarto
volumes of Henri Doniol's Histoire de la Participation de la France
a I'Etablissement des Etats-Unis d'Amerique. It discusses in de-
tail the reasons that prompted the French Alliance of February 6,
556 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
1778, which made possible the independence of the United States.
He shows by the correspondence of France's Prime Minister, Ver-
gennes, that the motive prompting French aid was not the addition
of territory, nor commercial interests, but the enfeeblement of Eng-
land, France's hereditary enemy, and the hope of bringing about a
balance of power favorable to France.
The author describes in detail the attitude of Spain as we learn
it from the letters of the Spanish Ambassadors, Aranda and Florida
Blanca, the stay of Jay at the Spanish Court, the mission of the
French Ambassadors, Gerard and La Luzerne, to the Continental
Congress, the work of Adams and Franklin in France, and the prob-
lems of the open Mississippi, the Western lands and the Northern
fisheries. It is a volume that should be read by every American.
BELLE JONES. By Allan Meacham. New York : E. P. Button
& Co. 50 cents net.
The dominant note of this pathetic little tale is that an ideal
may not only exist but flourish and bear fruit under the most un-
promising, sordid conditions. Belle Jones, the ungainly, unattrac-
tive little heroine was one of those rare beings " whose outer and
inner life " — to quote Du Maurier — " were as the very poles,
asunder." She was the one flower on a stunted family tree whose
branches consisted of a worthless father, an overworked, high-
tempered mother, an epileptic sister, and the direst poverty withal.
But these things were softened and made bearable to Belle when
she heard a sermon in which a poetic young minister declared : "We
are His poems," and told how each one could become a beautiful,
immortal poem under the hand of God.
The idea that she, too, could become something beautiful in
spite of her surroundings so filled the girl that her whole life was
changed. The story of her struggle after her mother's death and
the years of incessant labor to support the family, is one of super-
human fidelity to an ideal — an ideal which shrank before no sacri-
fice and which in the end found its perfect fulfillment.
PENROD AND SAM. By Booth Tarkington. Garden City, N. Y. :
Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.35 net.
The adventures of Penrod Schofield and his familiar Sam
Williams are here published in book form just as they appeared
from time to time in the current magazines. For the truthful
delineation of human nature — particularly the inexhaustible re-
1917.] NEW BOOKS 557
source fulness of the small boy's human nature — these tales have
scarcely been equaled. There is hardly a temptation "that comes to
a boy, hardly a longing, hardly a misunderstanding on the part
of his elders that is not faithfully set forth in the daily round of
Penrod's and Sam's life.
What normal boy has not pined for a real " revolaver " and
had his full line of action mapped out should he meet a " crook "?
Or who can sound the depths of yearning in his heart when he
hears the big horn in the brass band and knows the one thing on
earth he really wants to do is to play a big horn? And the de-
scription of the restless Penrod under the surveillance of his father
and mother at church is so reminiscent one can almost feel the
strain of it after a lapse of many years. In fact, the whole book
is so very true to life the reader is inclined to doubt that it is fiction
at all, and that Mr. Tarkington is but giving some unedited ac-
counts of his own boyhood.
Altogether the book is most entertaining reading for anyone
who knows children, and particularly for the man who has not
forgotten the outlook of a boy of twelve.
VOICES OF THE VALLEY. By F. McKay. New York: P. J.
Kenedy & Sons. 75 cents.
This little anthology of the virtues is compiled from the Scrip-
tures, the Fathers of the Church, the Saints, and modern writers
on spiritual doctrine. It is a book suitable for spiritual reading, and
of meditations on the virtues of faith, hope, charity, patience, purity,
obedience and meekness.
THE MELANCHOLY TALE OF ME. By Edwin H. Sothern.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $3.50 net.
Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, John McCullough, Joseph
Jefferson. Henry Irving, Dion Boucicault, Charles Flocton, William
Florence, Laura Keene, Kate Claxton, Mrs. Vincent and many
other famous players live again in these vivid and interesting re-
membrances of Mr. Sothern. The stage with all its hardships, al-
lurements, pathos, humor, joys, sorrows and kindly charity is
sketched here with a most sympathetic hand.
The elder Sothern stands before us as a most lovable person-
ality. His son tells anecdote after anecdote revealing his tenderness,
his audacity, his elfin spirit of mischief, his pity for the poor and
unfortunate, his love for children. He could be determined at
558 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
times, as we learn from the rebuke he gave a group of drunken
English soldiers at a banquet in London. Uncle Hugh is also por-
trayed as a veritable Don Quixote — " a child at heart, gentle, brave,
true, kind, generous, simple, romantic. His romantic life and his
quaint modes of speech were enough to win him the heart of any
child."
Mr. Sothern sketches his own career with its failures and its
successes in simple, unaffected language. His last chapter on the
art of acting with his earnest plea for a national theatre is one of
the best in the entire volume.
HER FATHER'S SHARE. By E. M. Power. New York: Benziger
Brothers. $1.25.
We do not often meet with a story whose scene is laid in
Portugal; indeed it seems an unknown land, or is supposed by
many to be one with Spain and, therefore, not to be distinguished
from it.
This attractive tale is of Portugal and the Portuguese. It is
the story of an ancient family with its tragedy and its conservatism,
a family whose living faith triumphs over the vindictiveness of a
fiery race. We meet its members in their daily life — their festas
and their marriage customs — and note how their religion pene-
trates and sustains all. The story is replete with action and well
executed.
STUDENT'S MASS BOOK AND HYMNAL. Compiled by Rev.
W. B. Sommerhauser, SJ. St. Louis: B. Herder. 35 cents
net.
This is an excellent manual of devotions for the use of stu-
dents in our Catholic colleges and academies. It contains in com-
pact form all the prayers for Mass and private devotions that appeal
to young people. The hymns are arranged and selected by Rev.
Victor Winter of St. Ignatius College, Cleveland, Ohio.
FIRST LESSONS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. By S. E. Forman.
New York : The Century Co. 65 cents.
This little history is intended for beginners ; the author having
already published more than one volume concerning the story and
government of the United States. The features which distinguish
the little book under consideration are: the graphic manner in
which it places before the children the growth of the country, from
I9I7-] NEW BOOKS 559
the Atlantic to the Pacific; the social details which picture the life
of the colonies; the industrial progress of the world to which
Americans have not failed to make a large contribution, thus enab-
ling the children to see that our history does not consist merely of
a few wars and a dull succession of Presidents.
*
THE WOODCRAFT GIRLS AT CAMP. By Lillian Elizabeth Roy.
New York: George H. Doran Co. $1.25 net.
This is a good jolly story for girls, telling about the summer
in camp of five schoolgirls, under the care of an experienced "wood-
crafter." How they tramped through the woods learning the secrets
of the living things that dwell there, how they were trained in the
art of cooking without pots or pans, how they quarreled and made
up again, and how they came home finally with very definite ideas
upon the proper method of conserving health and of cultivating
character — these are some of the things Miss Roy tells us of. Er-
nest Thompson Seton thinks the book an admirable illustration of
the effect of the woodcraft activities under good leadership; and
that alone would be sufficient to class the volume among those well
worth reading.
BIRD FRIENDS. By Gilbert H. Trafton. Boston: Houghton,
Miffiin Co. $2.00 net.
As the title suggests, Mr. Trafton's volume is intended for the
general reader rather than for the specialist. Nevertheless, it is
a careful, painstaking and thorough piece of work, quite well
adapted to the purpose of teachers wishing to impart knowledge of
birds to their pupils. In fact, one chapter is entirely devoted to
practical suggestions for the teaching of bird-study in the schools.
The value of birds to the community, the chief enemies of birds, the
best way of protecting and also of attracting birds, are the general
subjects of the author's interesting discussion. The book is plenti-
fully illustrated, entertainingly written and deserves hearty com-
mendation.
THE BOOK OF THE JUNIOR SODALISTS OF OUR LADY.
Compiled and Arranged by Rev. Elder Mullan, S.J. New
York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. 50 cents.
Father Mullan has compiled this manual of prayers for the
Junior Sodalities of our schools and churches. Besides the ordinary
560 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
prayers for Mass, Confession and Communion, this little volume
contains a brief historical sketch of the first primary sodality of
the Roman College, the rules of junior sodalists, and the ceremonial
of reception.
LA SALLE. By Louise Seymour Hasbrouck. New York: The
Macmillan Co. 50 cents.
This new volume of the series True Stories of Great Amer-
icans gives a brief but satisfactory account of the wonderful ad-
ventures and heroic achievements of the great pioneer, Rene Robert
Cavelier Sieur de la Salle. The tale is a fascinating one, and can-
not but hold the interest of the young American reader for whom
it is mainly destined. The author tells 'her story well, but she
would have been better qualified for the treatment of her subject,
had she possessed just a little more instinctive sympathy for things
Catholic and ecclesiastical, and a little less readiness to quote — with
apparent endorsement — the statements of prejudiced parties.
THE MIND AND ITS EDUCATION. By George Herbert Betts,
Ph.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. $1.25.
The Mind and Its Education is the revised edition of a work
that has already enjoyed popularity. It discusses the practical
bearing of the more recent findings of psychology, and makes
pointed application of academic truth to the field of actual teaching
and even of business. A simple style and the ready use of illus-
tration, combined with the reasonable conservatism of the author's
philosophy, will recommend the book to educators. Dr. Betts does
not intrude very often or very far into provinces foreign to his
subject; and so the greater part of the book can be sincerely
praised. We regret, however, that he has not a clearer idea of the
nature of the will ; and we regret again that on page three hundred
he allows himself to insert an inane paragraph on the subject of
religion.
THE RISING TIDE. By Margaret Deland. New York: Harper
& Brothers. $1.35 net.
Mrs. Deland gives us here a story of applied feminism. Her
young heroine, Frederica Payton, is on the crest of the rising tide
of thought among women that would sweep away as absurd shackles
the conventions and traditions of past generations, asserting strenu-
IQI7-] NEW BOOKS 561
otisly the right, nay, the duty, of every woman to develop her
individuality. Independence of thought and of occupation Fre-
derica feels necessary to her, and she adopts a business career,
despite the distress and disapproval of her mother and the rela-
tives of mature years. The author's view is wide and tolerant,
and she presents her modern example impartially; at all events,
if any objection is to be filed, it is not from the " advanced " ranks
that it should proceed, but from those who may well feel that
the older women introduced do not fairly represent their gen-
eration. Frederica's abilities and achievements, her real warmth
of heart and resourcefulness are set forth more sympathetically.
It is a faithful transcript of life, and if the interest with which
we follow Frederica's adventures is more of the brain than of the
heart, the fault is with the type, not the author. In her final sur-
render to the power of love, complete as that of any mid- Victorian
maiden, there is a subtle hint of the impermanency of this phase;
and it is probably not without full consideration that Mrs. Deland
selected her title that bears with it a responding suggestion of an
inevitable ebb.
Ideal Catholic Reader Series has reached the Sixth Num-
ber. There is no indication that this will close the list, although
usually a series of readers does not go further. The selections are
well within the powers of children of ordinary Sixth Grade age,
and wisely chosen. We think, however, that the story of the Pas-
sion might have been made a little longer, so as to include the
Seven Words on the Cross.
The binding is plain and durable ; the books are the publication
of the Macmillan Company and sell for sixty cents each.
PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS.
We have received from James H. Barry Co., of San Francisco, the Index
to Volumes II.-IV. of Father Englehardt's The Missions and Missionaries of
California.
The Michigan Historical Commission of Lansing sends us two pamphlets
by Right Rev. Monsignor Frank O'Brien: Forgotten Heroines, which tells of
the service rendered by the Michigan Sisters of the Holy Cross in the Civil
War, and Two Early Missionaries to the Indians, which gives a brief sketch of
Lady Antoinette von Hoeffern and Father Frank Pierz who labored among the
Indians of Michigan and Wisconsin some eighty years ago.
civ.—
562 NEW BOOKS [Jan.,
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
Leqons de Morale (Deuxieme Edition), pp. 144; Lemons de Psychologic
et de Theodicee, pp. 142; Legons de Logique (Deuxieme Edition), pp. 114.
Par TAbbe Arthur Robert, Professor de Philosophic a 1'Universite Laval,
Quebec. (Quebec: Imp. de 1' Action' Sociale Limitee.) Of these three excellent
little textbooks two carry the approval implied in a second edition. The first
editions have found favor widely with the teaching communities of Canada.
Uniform in character, each volume is a neat, well arranged, succinct presentation
of the scholastic philosophy in its special subject. Obviously, as we may judge
from their size, the treatment is elementary and condensed, providing for the
professor of the classes that may use them a generous margin for development.
When, for example, "the false systems on the fundamental distinction between
good and evil " are disposed of in about three hundred or three hundred and
fifty words, evidently condensation is carried to its extreme limit. With so
little space to dispose of, the author might, with advantage, have omitted for
the purpose of dwelling upon questions of more actual importance, certain topics
which, practically speaking, are at present obsolete. Nobody, for example,
defends today the practice of duelling. In the treatment of this topic space
could have been economized that might have been profitably devoted to other
subjects that are too briefly dismissed, for example, Socialism, or lying, or per-
jury, which are not treated at all. The volume treating of two such extensive
subjects as Theodicy and Psychology is necessarily a mere skeleton outline;
but as such it is methodical and clear. The best of the three is, we judge, the
Lemons de Logique, and its excellence lies in the section devoted to Formal
Logic; it is admirably clear, well arranged, and comprehensive.
IRecent Bvente,
The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD wishes to state that none
of the contributed articles or departments, signed or unsigned, of
the magazine, with the exception of " With Our Readers" voices
the editorial opinion of the magazine. And no article or department
voices officially the opinion of the Paulist Community.
The most noteworthy feature during the
Great Britain. past weeks is the changes that have taken
place in the political and military personnel
of many of the warring powers. That, in Great Britain, is the most
important of all, both in itself and because that Power is, by the
service which she is rendering to the Allies by means of her navy
and of the financial aid which she has given to them, an essential
element in the resistance which is being made to Germany's effort to
conquer. Mr. Asquith's resignation was not the result of any
sudden movement. For many months it was becoming ever more
and more evident that the Cabinet, of which he was the head, was
not suitable to the circumstances of the time. The Ministry which
preceded the Coalition was, by its traditions and sentiments, devoted
to the maintenance of peace almost at any price, as is proved by
the course which it took during the Bosnia-Herzegovina crisis, the
two Balkan Wars, and the readiness with which it fell in with
Mr. Bryan's arbitration efforts, to say nothing of its persistent
endeavors to avert the present War. So clearly is this the case
that no efforts to obscure it can ever be successful. The attempt
made by that Ministry to secure the ratification of the Declaration
of London, which crippled Great Britain in the exercise of her sea-
power, is another evidence of the extent to which it was swayed by
pacific tendencies. Of this Ministry, as of the Coalition Ministry
which succeeded it, Mr. Asquith was the animating spirit, and set
as he was upon peace lines, he found it hard to adapt himself to
conditions which required a diametrically opposite line of conduct,
quick decision and willingness to run risks. The consequence was
that he had to be driven into the adoption of the necessary measures,
and driven, in several cases, when it was too late. It is said in
Germany that they were able after the War broke out to import
564 RECENT EVENTS [Jan,
supplies sufficient for two or three years because of Great Britain's
dilatoriness in enforcing the blockade. Cotton was not made con-
traband until more than a year had elapsed.
By the very nature of the case a Cabinet of twenty- three mem-
bers could not reach prompt decisions. Every important question
has to be debated and a practically unanimous settlement arrived at.
This involved, of course, great delays, which were at times fatal.
It is true, indeed, that the conduct of the War had been intrusted
to a smaller Council, but this was not independent of the Cabinet,
and might be interfered with. The longer the War went on the
more evident became the evils of procrastination and indecision.
Many questions were calling for settlement, such as the way of
raising more men for the continuance of the War, the reorganization
of the admiralty, the new German submarine campaign, in-
creasing the production of food at home, food control and preven-
tion of waste. The Government's proceedings were rapidly becom-
ing a laughing stock. To remedy these evils Mr. Lloyd George
insisted, under threat of resignation, that the conduct of the War
should be intrusted to a small Council which should have full
powers to do everything necessary to win. From this Council Mr.
Asquith was to be excluded. To this the Premier would not con-
sent, and gave in his resignation. This was accepted by the King.
Mr. Bonar Law, the leader of the Unionists, was, according to
precedent, intrusted with the task of forming a Ministry. This
task he declined; whereupon Mr. Lloyd George being summoned,
accepted the office and has formed a new Government on lines
never attempted before. A War Council has been created, made up
of five members, the sole work of each of whom, with one excep-
tion, that, namely, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is to devote
himself to the conduct of the War, sitting daily for this purpose
and having no departmental duties to divert his attention. The
Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, naturally presides over this
Council, but has not the power of a Dictator, such as the papers
have endowed him with. On the other hand, the Council is not
responsible to the Cabinet, and will without intervention make use
of all the powers of the Government, and will seek directly from
Parliament any further powers which it may require for the more
energetic conduct of the War. One of the five members of this
select body is the Leader of the Labor Party, a thing which indicates
the influence now exerted by the workingman in the Councils of the
nation. The presence of Lord Milner in the Council of Five shows
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 565
the unifying effect which the War has produced; for no two men
were more opposed to each other than were Mr. Lloyd George and
Lord Milner. It was the excellence of the latter's administration
in South Africa which has been the ground of his being called upon
in the present emergency.
Viscount Grey, who has been Foreign Minister through all
the changes which have taken place since the first Liberal Cabinet
was formed in 1905 — the only Minister who, in fact, has held the
same office during that whole period — has no place in the new
Ministry. The loyalty to Mr. Asquith, which made so many other
Ministers resign, doubtless induced him to take the same step.
Another reason, however, existed. Dissatisfaction with the course
of events in the Balkans is keen and widespread and the disasters
which have followed upon the mistakes in the negotiations are laid
at his door. His successor at the Foreign Office is Mr. Balfour,
and this is the one appointment which is most severely criticized
in the new Ministry, and for the same reasons. His administration
of the Admiralty, of which he was the First Lord, has of late not
been characterized by the requisite energy. He had let the German
submarines get out of hand in the new campaign which they are
now waging, although in the first they had been completely van-
quished. The Channel raid had also a great effect, so that little
surprise was felt when the First Sea Lord was superseded by Sir
John Jellicoe, hitherto Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. Mr.
Balfour has now himself been superseded, or perhaps it would be
better to say transferred, and to an equally important office. Doubts
about his capacity, although felt, are mitigated by the fact that he
was for many years associated with his uncle, Lord Salisbury,
in the conduct of foreign affairs and that it is in consequence a
subject with which he is familiar. Mr. Balfour is succeeded at the
Admiralty by Sir Edward Carson, a man whose energy no one
will question. With Sir John Jellicoe as First Sea Lord, Sir Ed-
ward Carson as First Lord, and Sir David Beatty in command
of the Grand Fleet events of importance may be anticipated.
The pressure of the War has brought about some changes which
in calmer days it would have taken many years to effect and others
which never would have happened. Of the former is the institu-
tion of a Minister of Labor, to which one of the Labor members is
appointed. The exact scope of his activity has not yet been ascer-
tained by the writer of these notes, but it forms yet one more
evidence of the power of the workingman. The relations between
566 RECENT EVENTS [Jan,
capital and labor are, of course, a cause of great anxiety not merely
at the present time but even to a greater degree for the time which
is to follow. The whole of the future depends upon the estab-
lishment and maintenance of peace between these two contending
factions. To pay the interest on the immense debt which Great
Britain is now incurring will involve vast extension of commercial
activity, an activity which has been crippled and limited by the
conflicts which have hitherto been so frequent. Doubtless it is in
view of this that it has been thought fit to admit into the Cabinet
a representative of the claims of the workingman.
A Food Controller and a Shipping Controller are each members
of the new Ministry. These appointments testify to the straits to
which the dwellers in Great Britain have been reduced. A great in-
crease has taken place in the cost of living due to the restriction of
imports. This, in turn, is due to the loss of ships, owing to nearly
fifty per cent having been commandeered by the Government and
in a minor degree to the submarine campaign. Among workingmen
the feeling is strong that the high cost is due to what is known
as "profiteering," that is, the enhancement of the price by specu-
lators and cornerers of the market. The new Controller of Food
will, by the powers conferred by a recent Act, be able to regulate
prices and inflict upon such offenders, if such there be, suitable
punishment.
The future of education has been provided for not by the insti-
tution of a new Ministry, but by the unheard-of appointment of
a Minister who has never been in Parliament, nor taken any part
in political affairs. The experience of the past two years has con-
vinced the English people of the necessity of a radical reform in the
national system of education. Too little attention has been given
to the practical sciences, too much to classical studies. For the
commercial conflict which is to come the necessity of a change of
methods is seen to be necessary. For some time Government Com-
missioners have been studying this subject; the putting into prac-
tical effect of their recommendations by an expert is the reason for
the new appointment.
Efficiency, in short, is the end and aim of the new Cabinet:
first in the conduct of the War, and then in the almost equally diffi-
cult time which will follow upon the conclusion of peace. For this
end party lines have been set aside. Most of its members indeed
are Unionists but the Prime Minister is a Radical of Radicals,
while in the new War Council there are three Unionists to two
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 567
Radicals. Mr. Asquith and his Liberal supporters will give to the
new Ministry a whole-hearted support, reserving, however, the
right of a criticism. This, when it is done in no factious spirit,
is more of a help than a hindrance, and prevents many mistakes
from being made. There are those who think that the Coalition
would have been more successful if it had to satisfy a reasonable
opposition.
In France changes similar to those made in
France. England have taken place. General Joffre,
who seemed a fixture, has not been replaced,
for he still remains Generalissimo of the Armies but has been
made the technical adviser of the Cabinet, while General Nivelle
has been made the Commander of active operations. The cam-
paigns against the German army have been conducted with consum-
mate ability by " Papa " Joffre, as he is affectionately called by
his soldiers, but it would seem not with the energy which the country
is now calling for. "Nibbling at the enemy" was the characteristic
of his policy. France now wants something more. This, at least,
seems to be the secret of the recent changes: but as these changes
were preceded by a secret session of the French Parliament which
lasted for six days, the world is left more or less in the dark as to
the real nature of the situation. It is to be hoped that the factious
spirit which has been so deleterious to the country is not in process
of reviving, nor that jealousy of the Executive which is so powerful
and which tends towards the crippling of the experienced generals
who are in charge of the operations.
An even more far-reaching change has been the creation of a
Council of Five, similar to that which has been formed in England,
for the more energetic conduct of the War. Powers greater than
those possessed by the English Council are said to have been claimed
by it. The necessity of having recourse to the Legislature in order
to give to the decrees of the Council the validity of laws is denied
by this newly created body. To this claim M. Clemenceau, with a
considerable body of supporters, is offering a fierce opposition.
Signs of division of this kind fill France's friends with some degree
of apprehension.
Of the Council of Five, M. Briand is the President, and within
its ranks remain two members of the former Cabinet, M. Ribot,
the Minister of Finance, and M. Albert Thomas, Minister of Fabri-
cation National e, including his former office of Minister of Muni-
568 RECENT EVENTS [Jan.,
tions to which is added Minister of Transportation. General Ly-
antey, who has become distinguished for his efficient administration
of Morocco, is the new Minister. General Nivelle's assumption of
the command has been signalized by a renewed offensive at Verdun;
which has resulted in the Crown Prince's army being driven back
a distance of two miles with the loss of many prisoners.
The recently issued loan has proved a great success not merely
in the sum voluntarily subscribed (eleven milliard and three hundred
and sixty million of francs), but also in the character of the sub-
scriptions. While the banks, acting patriotically, took a certain
portion of the loan without any special call from the Government,
the bulk of the sum came from the nation at large, rich and poor.
There were no fewer than three million subscribers, a fact which
makes clear both the determination of the people to continue the
war and their confidence in its result. A few madmen, as they were
called by the Minister of Finance, had endeavored to discourage
subscriptions on the ground that in this way the War would be
shortened. Their efforts signally failed ; all that they were able to
accomplish was to bring down upon themselves the indignation of
the country. The fact that the foreign trade of France during the
first eight months of the year has increased by thirteen millions
of dollars for imports, and four hundred and fifty millions for ex-
ports, shows that the military operations have not engrossed all
the energies of the country, while the religious spirit which is so
clearly manifested by the French people is making a marked im-
pression upon their Allies — the British soldiers.
Many changes of officials have taken place
Germany. in Germany. Following upon the substitu-
tion of von Hindenburg for von Falkenhayn,
Lieutenant-General von Stein has superseded Lieu tenant- General
von Hohenborn as Minister of War. Greater experience of the
wants of the armies in the field js assigned as a reason for this
change, the new War Minister having been the head of an Army
Corps since December, 1914. The necessity for even further organ-
ization has led to the formation of " a new department," or rather
the combination into one of two already existing departments. This
has been placed in charge of Major-General Groner, hitherto di-
rector of field railways. Its function is to provide for the supply
of men and munitions, and the distribution and maintenance of
labor for war industries.
19I7-] RECENT EVENTS 569
A more striking change has been caused by the retirement of
Herr von Jagow from the Foreign Office, for reasons of health,
it is alleged. It is not of much importance in itself, for he was
not a man of weight in the councils of Germany. Any importance
which may be attached to it is due to the fact that he has made
way for a man of quite a different stamp. Dr. Alfred Zimmerman,
who has been appointed as the new Foreign Minister, is declared
by those who claim to know to be one of the most liberal-minded
of the German officials. He is said to be a supporter of the move-
ment for genuine parliamentary government which has for its
object to make the Imperial Cabinet responsible to the Reichstag
and not to the Kaiser alone as at present. A recent visitor to
Germany has alleged that the new Foreign Secretary declared that
this would be done soon after the war was over. Should this prove
true, it would be one good result of the fearful sacrifices that have
been made, for it would go far to render it impossible for a few
men ever .again to have it in their power to bring upon the world
such dire calamities.
Among the changes that have not taken place is that of
the Chancellorship. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg still retains the
degree of power attached to that office. For a long time, however,
he has been bitterly and virulently assailed by many who take ex-
ception to his policy.
The death of the Emperor Francis Joseph
Austria-Hungary, would have called forth the sympathy of the
world if it had taken place before the an-
nexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He had, up to that time, proved
a faithful defender of European peace, and even during the two
Balkan Wars he had resisted the efforts of those who would have
involved the Dual Monarchy in the conflict. But as years passed
on he became weaker, and finally gave way to the aggressive fac-
tion among his own people, which was supported by the German
Emperor. The old saying that a weak man often does more harm
than a wicked one has been once more verified. It is not to be
expected that his young and inexperienced successor will be able
to emancipate his dominions from that subordination to Germany,
which is now almost complete, although it is causing grievous heart-
burnings. The Cabinet recently formed after the death of Count
Stiirgh has been forced to resign as not being satisfactory in
Berlin.
570 RECENT EVENTS [Jan.,
The Prime Minister, Stunner, has been suc-
Russia. ceeded by M. Trepof. The public utterances
of the former Premier indicate the fullest
determination to continue the War to a decisive end. It
is now said, however, that he was working for a peace in
the interests of Germany. The fact is the situation in Russia
has been very obscure, although it is now becoming more clear.
The ruling class in Russia is permeated with German influences,
and for a second time, it would seem as if a near approach had
been made to the conclusion of a separate peace. The attempt has,
however, been frustrated by overwhelming popular feeling. The
relinquishment of German efforts was marked by the attempt to
form a new kingdom of Poland. Not the old kingdom, by any
means. Germany retains what she took at the last partition, and so
does Austria. All that has been given as a new kingdom is what
belongs to Russia, which is now in the occupation of the German
armies.
Whatever wavering there may have been through German in-
fluence is now, it seems clear, a thing of the past. As General
Brusiloff said in a recent interview, ninety-nine out of one hundred
of the people are even more determined than ever to persevere until
the end. The moral of the people has been rising for the last two
years. The new levies which come in every year are equal to the
best troops. The only difficulty is to find sufficient arms and muni-
tions, but of this the General is so confident that he declares that the
War is already won. Some doubt may be felt about this when the
fate of Rumania is borne in mind. Why more efficient help was
not given to her by the Russian armies which are so near seems hard
to explain. Rumania is said to have set at naught the advice of
Russia by sending her troops into Transylvania instead of attacking
Bulgaria with a view, by conquering that country, of clearing the
way to Constantinople. It cannot be believed that Russia was so
small-minded as to refuse help on that account. If that were the
case she now runs the risk of not getting possession of the city
which has been for so long a time the object of her ambition even
though, according to M. Trepof's declaration, the Entente Powers
have publicly recognized her attainment of it as one of the results
of the War.
With Our Readers.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD extends a hearty greeting to the new
monthly magazine of the new year — The Catholic Charities
Review.
The Catholic agencies devoting themselves to charity work in
this country are almost innumerable. If statistics were made of
the number of religious Orders of devoted sisters: priests and broth-
ers: of zealous laymen and women: of the monies spent for even
one twelvemonth in the cause of serving others, they would furnish
an amazing and almost incredible story. It is not the tradition of
Catholic charity nor of any of its agents to seek publicity: that
tradition is thoroughly Christian and may it long abide. But while
personal publicity may well be avoided, there is no reason why, for
the information not only of our own people, but for those outside
the Church, such extensive sacrifice, generosity and unselfishness
should not be made known. The story of how the Church cares
for and instructs the orphan; how she nurses the sick; fathers the
homeless; provides for the destitute; lifts up the fallen; preserves
the family; visits the imprisoned; sends relief and help into every
channel where they are needed by humankind, is a story that carries
with it its own lesson and its own inspiration.
* * * *
A READER of the Catholic Charities Review, while he may see
within its pages no set story of the magnitude of Catholic chari-
ties, will become conscious of their vast extent. To the young men
and women grown earnest in the cause of serving others, in the
cause of social betterment and social reform, and seeking a field
for their talents and their time, the data therein given, and the papers
presented will furnish the greatest of inspirations and the most fruit-
ful of fields.
* * * *
/CHARITY work in this complex age has grown to be a complex
Vy problem. It cannot be handled by the amateur. It requires the
trained and skilled worker who can manage and distribute funds
wisely, and who knows how to find the real need, and give the most
beneficial relief. For those in want, or apparently in want, are not
always truthful and some of them may draw support from more
agencies than one.
* * * *
THE Charities Review will not alone discuss the problems and the
methods of their solution, but will also be a guide, both to the
schools and to the literature, helpful to the prospective charity worker.
He will find, moreover, within its pages that life-giving and
572 WITH OUR READERS [Jan,
sustaining Catholic philosophy of charity which has given birth to
the word, which alone gives joy to the work, and which saves the
laborer himself from discouragement and disgust for humankind.
Never was there greater need than now of sounding that note both
of warning and of inspiration. True it is that it has often been
sounded by Catholic book and magazine and weekly journal, but it is
needful that we have an organ of charity that upholds the truth under-
lying all charity.
The denial of that truth is begetting a social chaos and an in-
dividual moral lawlessness greater than any of us cares to admit.
Birth control, for example, is publicly defended and championed in
reputable journals and by leading medical authorities and sociologists.
The matter affects not simply the one question of birth control, but
the institution of marriage, the dignity of parents, the preservation of
the home and the welfare of the nation.
To take another matter that closely affects charity work — crimin-
ology and penology — we might say that the new definition of crime
knows no accent of morality or personal responsibility. Or with re-
gard to another matter — that of the religious education of the young —
the danger is growing greater that children dependent on public
charity will be educated without religion. We have touched upon
these things very briefly : but the mere statement of them is sufficient
to show the grave need of a Catholic Charities Review.
* * * *
AND we have stated but few of the urgent reasons. We, our-
selves, as Catholics, need to know what one another are doing.
We need to rehearse the problems that face us and gain wisdom from
our varied experiences and our mutual discussions. We should ex-
tract every drop of wisdom from our labors and our sacrifices. Shar-
ing the inheritance and carrying it on to others we have the burden
of showing not only that it is truest in principle, but also most effi-
cient in method, in purpose, in results. The voice of Catholic charity
work should have its unified, living expression in the printed word,
and the organ of that voice will be the Catholic Charities Review.
* * * *
T^HERE are thousands of our Catholic workers who have their
1 stories to tell; hundreds among us who have for years studied
these insistent problems, and who are gifted with the art of expression.
We have the writers, capable, experienced, keen-sighted as any in
this entire field. This new Review will give them a platform from
which they may address the American public both Catholic and Non-
Catholic.
The questions upon which they will write are questions asked of
Catholics in all walks of life. Not only to the professional charity
WQrker? or to the men directly interested in such work, but also to
1917.] WITH OUR READERS 573
every Catholic will the forthcoming magazine be of timely interest
and value.
The name of its editor — the Rev. John A. Ryan, D.D. is suffi-
cient guarantee that the Catholic Charities Review will be most ca-
pably edited.
A USEFUL publication that will answer many inquiries that we
receive asking for suitable plays for Catholic schools and Catholic
amateur performances, is the Juvenile Play Catalogue, issued by the
Philadelphia Centre of the Catholic Theatre Movement, 21 South
Thirteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
The earnest hope of those who labored upon it was not only
to give information about the many plays they review, the number
of characters, what ages they are fitted for, etc., but also to encourage
the presentation of worthy plays, even those of Shakespeare himself.
Too often has it happened that for want of knowledge of a reliable
play or a good text, welcome has been given by those who could and
ought to do better, to a minstrel show, a cheap farce or low vaudeville.
The performance of a worthy play, worthy both in the dramatic and
moral sense, will add not only to the strength of any Dramatic Society,
but also to the interest of its members and its success with the public.
We hope, therefore, that the editors of this Juvenile Catalogue
will meet with the success which their effort surely deserves.
THE defence constantly put forth for the presentation in spoken
play and moving picture of scenes of vice and sin and lawlessness,
is that acquaintance with such acts — a knowledge of how they are
done — will save others from committing them.
This statement summarizes the entire case for those who have
brought the stage and the moving picture to the very low estate which
they occupy today.
An entire book might be written to show the wretchedly false
philosophy underlying such a defence, and the unspeakably disastrous
consequences, particularly on our children, of its adoption. But in
this paragraph we wish to bring out one significant fact that shows
how such a philosophy " lies to itself " — as Scripture says of iniquity.
* * * *
LOOK upon the " movie " screen. Imagine one of these unbecoming
and vicious movies thrown thereon. What does it preach and
teach ? At least this, that human beings are seriously affected, and in-
fluenced in their conduct by the conduct of others. The " free and
easy " young man persuades the girl to be free and easy also ; and
another young man follows his example; and another young girl
imitates her predecessor; the thief influences another by his teach-
ings to become a thief, both win others until the gang is made.
574 WITH OUR READERS [Jan,
Acquaintance with vice hardens one in vice, as we saw in a picture
not long since where the innocent girl was taught to become a thief ;
thrived on her theft and was finally killed because of her wealth.
* * * *
NOW the audience witnessing the " movie " is made up of human
beings of the same race as those depicted in the " movie." If
those in the picture are influenced viciously by vice, will not the same
hold true of the audience for all are made of the same human na-
ture; influenced in the same way; potentially capable of the same
passions and the same crimes.
The vicious " movie," therefore, plainly " lies against itself."
It will either have to change its defence: or change itself.
THE fascination of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, to which Newman paid
such frank tribute, still not only holds sway over many historical
writers, but leads them to accept this conjurer as a reliable and
authoritative guide. It is impossible to estimate the extent to which
Gibbon still influences college professors and in turn college students;
amateur philosophers of history, and makers of books on history.
Since his sinister influence still endures, it is well to call attention
to a searching article, entitled, A Page of Gibbon, by Hiliare Belloc,
in the October, 1916, Dublin Review.
* * * *
GIBBON'S history is not only a literary masterpiece, but it is based
upon accurately noted reading. Gibbon, therefore, not only oc-
cupies his own peculiar high place in English literature, but he has
also profoundly affected English historical philosophy. " Indeed, one
may say that, through Gibbon, English-speaking readers are intro-
duced (without their knowing it) to the influence of Gibbon's great
master, Voltaire."
Mr. Belloc then proceeds to state and to prove that this great
work of Gibbon " is profoundly unhistorical." Its subject is the vast
revolution which turned pagan into Christian Europe ; its presentation
is not only warped, but its every page is open to strict historical
criticism which wrecks its historical authority. That Gibbon is un-
historical is demonstrable on purely historical arguments even to a
third party — that is, one who is external to the quarrel between the
Catholic Church and her opponents.
* * * *
GIBBON'S motive in the whole of his work was an attack upon
the Catholic Church, and that motive led to a distorting of all
the values of his narrative. " He took it for granted that to any man
of instruction and sane judgment the Catholic thesis could only
repose upon ignorance, and that once certain ascertainable facts were
put into court no one could pretend to defend it. He thought the
1917.] WITH OUR READERS 575
Church a vanity, and he thought it a moribund vanity. On this ac-
count he ridicules and half dismisses upon every page (for every
page deals directly or indirectly with Catholicism in the whole vast
work) the reality and the intensity of Catholic conviction. He does
not present you with the true picture of Europe in its relation to
the Catholic Church — that of two weighty forces in conflict — but
with a picture which so belittles the one force as to belittle at the
same time the other, and to leave the tremendous issue a sort of
farce."
* * * *
RIBBON'S narrative will furnish brilliant descriptions of great
\5 events, but give no clue to the real why and how of them.
It is much the same as if a writer were to describe most entertainingly
an electric power station and all its machinery without ever once men-
tioning the force known as electricity.
Gibbon's animus leads him " upon every page and in every state-
ment " to omit some essential factor in a situation, or to emphasize some
unessential one; and occasionally this perpetual distortion leads him
to downright mis-statement of fact. Mr. Belloc selects one passage
as an example of his thesis. It is that which describes the trial and
death of Priscillian, and is found in the middle of the twenty-seventh
chapter of Gibbon.
* * * *
MR. BELLOC shows by quoting the very authorities which Gibbon
himself quoted that the latter is absolutely wrong on two very
important counts, first in the cause he assigns for the death of Pris-
cillian, and secondly, in the motives he ascribes to the protests of Saint
Martin and Saint Ambrose.
The whole passage betrays two other characteristics of Gibbon,
which mark his whole work. " The whole story, though falsely told, is
told in a few lines with every fact mentioned which his authorities give
him and which he chooses to give. All the qualifying language de-
liberately conveys the impression of Catholic falsehood, Catholic
cruelty. Catholic weakness and inconsistency — but anti-Catholic ex-
cellence." For example, Gibbon selects sentences from Sulpicius
Severus that speak of Priscillian, but quotes only what is favorable
to Priscillian. Gibbon terms Sulpicius " a correct writer." Yet he
not only does not tell accurately what this " correct " authority said,
but deliberately seeks to make a false impression and to hold re-
ponsible for this falsity the very authority whose words he knew he
had garbled.
Mr Belloc's paper ought to go a long way in discrediting, where-
ever it still endures in the world of scholarship, Gibbon's worth as
an historian.
BOOES RECEIVED.
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The Mass and Vestments of the Catholic Church. By Right Rev. Monsignor
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Catholic Soldiers' and Sailors' Companions. By Rev. T. S. McGrath.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, New York:
The Life of Francis Thompson. By Everard Meynell. $2.00 net. The Fullback.
By Lawrence Perry. $1.25 net. The Boy Scout Movement. By N. E.
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E. P. BUTTON & Co., New York:
Of Water and the Spirit. By Margaret P. Montague. 50 cents net.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York :
Record of Civilization Sources and Studies. History of the Franks. By
Gregory, Bishop of Tours. Translated by Ernest Brebant, Ph.D.
LAURENCE J. GOMME, New York:
The Circus and Other Essays. By Joyce Kilmer. $1.00. Verses. By Hilaire
Belloc. $1.25 net.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA PRESS, New York:
The Sulpicians in the United States. By C. G. Hebermann, L.L.D.
ASSOCIATION PRESS, New York :
The Meaning of Prayer. By Harry E. Fosdick. 50 cents.
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Agenics. Shaw's Apologetics. Pamphlets. 5 cents each.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN Co., Boston :
A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. By John Muir. $2.50 net.
MATTHEW F. SHEEHAN Co., Boston :
Stranger Than Fiction. By the Rev. John J. Bent. $1.10.
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Songs of Wedlock. By T. A. Daly. $1.00 net.
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The Practical Book of Architecture. By C. M. Price. $6.00 net.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, Princeton, N. J. :
The Prosecution of Jesus — Its Date, History and Legality. By R. W. Husband.
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JOHN MURPHY Co., Baltimore :
The Fall of Man. By Rev. M. V. McDonough. 50 cents net.
THE ARTHUR H. CLASK Co., Cleveland :
The Mississippi Valley in British Politics. By Charles W. Alvord. Two vols.
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THE SEEMORE Co., South Bend, Ind :
A War Bride's Adventure. By F. M. Gloria. 73 cents.
JONES & KROEGER Co., Winoma, Minn. :
Minnesota and Other Verses. By Ambrose Leo McGreevy.
B. HERDER, St. Louis:
The Divine Master's Portrait. By Rev. J. Degan. 50 cents. The Divinity of
Jesus Christ. By Rev. G. R. Roche, SJ. 25 cents. A Brief Commentary on
the Little Office of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
By Rev. C. Coppens, SJ. 50 cents.
ANDREW MELROSE, LTD., London :
Hope in Suffering. By Abbe F. Klein. 4 * . 6 d .
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Poems of a Mother. Pamphlet. 6 d. net.
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, Dublin :
Our Duties to Our Dead and How We Discharge Them. By Right Rev. Mon-
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AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, Melbourne, Australia :
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BLOUD ET GAY, Paris :
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La Defense de L'Esprit Frangais. Par Rene Doumic. Du Subjectivisme
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GABRIEL BEAUCHESNE, Paris:
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. CIV. FEBRUARY, 1917. No. 623.
SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE."
BY SIR BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE, M.D., SC.D., LL.D., F.R.S., K.S.G.,
President of University College, Cork.
MONGST the numerous taunts which are cast at the
Catholic Church there is none more frequently em-
ployed, nor, it may be added, more generally be-
lieved, nor more injurious to her reputation amongst
outsiders — even with her own less-instructed children
themselves at times — than the allegation which declares that where
the Church has full sway, science cannot flourish, can scarcely in
fact exist, and that the Church will only permit men of science to
study and to teach as and while she permits.
To give but one example of this attitude towards the Church,
readers may be reminded that Huxley1 called the Catholic Church
" the vigorous enemy of the highest life of mankind " and rejoiced
that evolution " in addition to its truth has the great merit of being
in a position of irreconcilable antagonism to it." An utterly incor-
rect statement, by the way — but let that pass. The same writer in
a number of places, in season and out of season, as we may fairly
say,2 proclaims his wholly erroneous view that there is "a necessary
antagonism between science and Roman Catholic doctrine." We
need not labor this point. It is sufficiently obvious, nor does it need
lDarwiniana, p. 147.
aSee, for example, his Life and Letters, i., 307.
Copyright. 1917. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. CIV.— 37
578 SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" [Feb.,
any catena of authorities to establish the fact, that outside the
Church and even, as we have hinted above, to the less instructed
within it, there is a prevalent idea that the allegation with which this
paper proposes to deal is a true bill.
Those who give credit to the allegation must of course ignore
certain very patent facts which are, it will be allowed, a little dif-
ficult to get over. They must commence by ignoring the historical
fact that the greater number — almost all indeed — of the older
Universities, places specially intended to foster and increase knowl-
edge and research, owe their origin to Papal bulls. They must
ignore the fact that vast numbers of scientific researches, often of
fundamental importance, especially perhaps in the subjects of anat-
omy and physiology, emanated from learned men attached to seats
of learning in Rome and this during the Middle Ages, and that
the learned men who were their authors, quite frequently held of-
ficial positions in the Papal Court. They must finally ignore the
fact that a large number of the most distinguished scientific work-
ers and discoverers in the past were also devout children of the
Catholic Church. Stenson, "the Father of Geology" and a great
anatomical discoverer as well, was a bishop; Mendel, whose name
is so often heard nowadays in biological controversies, was an ab-
bot. And what about Galvani, Volta, Pasteur, Schwann (the orig-
inator of the Cell Theory), van Beneden, Johannes Muller, admit-
ted by Huxley to be "the greatest anatomist and physiologist among
my contemporaries?"3 What about Kircher, Spallanzani, Secchi, de
Lapparent to take the names of persons of different historical
periods, and connected with different subjects, yet all united in the
bond of the Faith? To point to these men — and a host of other
names might be cited — is to overthrow at once and finally the edi-
fice of falsehood reared by enemies of the Church who, before
erecting it, might reasonably have been asked to look to the secur-
ity of their foundations.
Still there is the edifice, and as every edifice must rest on some
kind of foundation or another, even if that foundation be nothing
but sand, it may be useful and even interesting to inquire, as I now
propose to do, what foundation there is — if in fact there is any—-
for this particular allegation.
We might commence by interrogating the persons who make
it. The probability is that the reply which would at once be drawn
from most of them would amount to this: "Everybody knows it
8 Hume, English Men of Letters Series, p. 135.
1917- ] SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" 579
to be true." If the interrogated person were amongst those less im-
perfectly informed we should probably be referred to Huxley or
to some other writer. Or we may even find ourselves confronted
with that greater knowledge — or less inspissated ignorance —
which babbles about Galileo, the Inquisition, the Index and the im-
primatur.
Galileo and his case we shall consider later on for he and it
are really germane to the question with which we are dealing. The
Inquisition has really nothing to do with the case. The Index
we also reserve for a later part of this essay. With the imprimatur
we may now deal, since there is no doubt that there is a genuine
misunderstanding on this subject on the part of some people who
are misled perhaps through ignorance of Latin and quite certainly
through ignorance of what the whole matter amounts to. Let us
begin by reminding ourselves that, though the unchanging Church
is now, so far as I am aware, the only body which issues an imprima-
tur, there were other instances of the exercise of such a privilege
even in recent or comparatively recent days. There were Royal
licenses to print with which we need not concern ourselves. But,
what is important, there was a time when the scientific authority
of the day assumed the right of issuing an imprimatur. I take the
first book which occurs to me, Tyson's Anatomic of a Pygmie, and
for the sake of those who are not acquainted with it, I may add
that this book is not only the foundation stone of Comparative
Anatomy, but also, through its appendix A Philological Essay Con-
cerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of
the Ancients,4 the foundation-stone of all folk-lore study. On
the page fronting the title of this work the following appears :
17 Die Maij, 1600.
Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang sive Homo
Sylvestris, etc. Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D., R.S.S.
John Hoskins, V.P.R.S.
What does this mean ? In the first place it shows, what all in-
structed persons know, that the Royal Society did then exercise the
privilege of giving an imprimatur at any rate to books written by
its own Fellows. It cannot be supposed that such imprimatur guar-
anteed the accuracy of all the statements made by Tyson, for we
may feel sure that John Hoskins was quite unable to give any
4 This was published by the present writer, with an introduction on Pigmy
Races and Fairy Tales, in the Biblioth&que de Carabas, 1894.
580 SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" [Feb.,
such assurance. We must assume that it meant that there was noth-
ing in the book which would reflect discredit upon the Society of
which Tyson was a Fellow and from which the imprimatur was
obtained.
However this may be, the sway over its Fellows' publications
was exercised, and indeed very excellent arguments might be ad-
duced for the reassumption of such a sway even today.
Though the imprimatur has disappeared, it is, as we all know,
the commonest of things for the introductions to works of science
to occupy some often considerable part of their space with acknowl-
edgments of assistance given by learned friends who have read the
manuscript or the proofs and made suggestions with the object of
improving the book or adding to its accuracy. Any person who has
written a book can feel nothing but gratitude towards those who
have helped him to avoid the errors and slips to which even the most
careful are subject.
So that such acknowledgments of assistance have come to be
almost what the lawyers call "common form." What they really
amount to is a proclamation on the part of the author that he has
done his best to insure that his book is free from mistakes. Now
the imprimatur really amounts to the same thing, for it is, of course,
confined to books or parts of books where theology or philosophy
trenching upon theology, is concerned. Thus a book may deal
largely, perhaps mainly, with scientific points, yet necessarily in-
clude allusions to theological dogmas. The imprimatur to such a
book would relate solely and entirely to the theological parts, just
as the advice of an architectural authority on a point connected
with that subject in a work in which it was mentioned only in an
incidental manner, would refer to that point, and to nothing else.
Perhaps it should be added, that no author is obliged to obtain an
imprimatur any more than he is compelled to seek advice on any
other point in connection with his book. "Nihil Obstat" says the
skilled referee : "I see no -reason to suppose that there is anything
in all this which contravenes theological principles." To which the
authority appealed to adds " imprimatur: " "Then by all means let
it be printed." The procedure is no doubt somewhat more stately
and formal than the modern system of acknowledgments, yet in
actual practice there is but little to differentiate the two methods
of ensuring, so far as is possible, that the work is free from
mistakes. That neither the assistance of friends nor the impri-
matur of authorities is infallible is proved by the facts that mis-
1917.] SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" 581
takes do creep into works of science, however carefully examined
and that more than one book with an imprimatur has, none the less,
found its way on to the Index. Before leaving this branch of the
subject one cannot refrain from calling attention to another point.
How often in advertisements of books do we not see quotations
from reviews in authoritative journals — a medical work from the
Lancet, a physical or chemical from Nature? Frequently too we
see " Mr. So-and-So, the well-known authority on the subject, says
of this book, etc., etc." What are all these authoritative commen-
dations but an imprimatur up to date?
Passing from the imprimatur to a closer consideration of our
subject, it is above all things necessary to take the advice of Samuel
Johnson and clear our minds of cant. Every person in this world,
save perhaps a Robinson Crusoe on an otherwise uninhabited island
and he only because of his solitary condition, is in bondage more
or less ; that is to say, has his freedom more or less interfered with.
That this interference is in the interests of the community and so,
in the last analysis, in the interests of the person interfered with
himself, in no way weakens the argument; it is rather a potent
adjuvant to it. However much I may dislike him and however anx-
ious I may be to injure him, I may not go out and set fire to my
neighbor's house nor to his rick-yard, unless I am prepared to risk
the serious legal penalties which will be my lot if I am detected in
the act. I may not, if I am a small and active boy, make a slide in
the public street in frosty weather, unless I am prepared — as the
small boy usually is — to run the gantlet of the police. In a thou-
sand ways my freedom, or what I call my freedom, is interfered
with : it is the price which I pay for being one item of a social or-
ganism and for being in turn protected against others, who, in
virtue of that protection, are in their turn deprived of what they
might call their liberty.
No one can have failed to observe that this interference with
personal liberty becomes greater day by day. It is a tendency of
modern governments, based presumably upon increased experience,
to increase these protective regulations. Thus we have laws against
adulteration of food, against the placing of buildings concerned
with obnoxious trades in positions where people will be inconve-
nienced by them. We make persons suffering from infectious dis-
eases isolate themselves, and if they cannot do this at home, we
make them go to the fever hospital. Further we insist upon the
doctor, whose position resembles that of a confessor, breaking his
582 SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" [Feb.,
secrecy and informing the authorities as to the illness of his patient.
We interfere with the liberty of men and women to work as long as
they like or to make their children labor for excessive hours. We
insist upon dangerous machinery being fenced in. In a thousand
ways we — the State — interfere with the liberty of our fellows. Fi-
nally, when the needs of the community are most pressing we in-
terfere most with the freedom of the subject. Thus, in these
islands, we are living under a Defence of the Realm Act— with
which no reasonable person quarrels. Yet it forbids many things
not only harmless in themselves but habitually permitted in times
of peace. We are subject to penalties if we show lighted windows :
they must be shuttered or provided with heavy curtains. We may
not travel in railway carriages at night with the blinds undrawn.
The papers must not publish, nor we say in public, things which in
time of peace would go unnoticed. There are a host of other mat-
ters to which allusion need not be made. Enough has been said
to show that the State has and exerts the right to control the ac-
tions of those who belong to it and that in time of stress it can and
does very greatly intensify that control and does so without arous-
ing any real or widespread discontent. Of course we all grumble,
but then everybody, except its own members, always does more or
less grumble at anything done by any government : that is the ordi-
nary state of affairs. But at any rate we submit ourselves, more
or less gracefully, to this restraint because we persuade ourselves
or are persuaded that it is for the good of the State and thus for
the good of ourselves, both as private individuals and as members
of the State.
And many of us, at any rate, comfort ourselves with the
thought that a great many of the regulations which appear to be
most tyrannical and most to interfere with the natural liberty of
mankind are devised not with that end in view but with the right-
eous intention of protecting those weaker members of the body who
are unable to protect themselves. If the State does not stand by
such members and offer itself as their shield and support it has no
claim to our obedience, no real right to exist, and so we put up
with the inconvenience, should such arise, on account of the pro-
tection given to the weaker members and often extended to those
who would by no means feel pleased if they heard themselves thus
described.
Let us substitute the Church for the State and let us remem-
ber that there are times when she is at closer grips with the powers
1917- j SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" 583
of evil than may be the case at other times. The parallel is surely
sufficiently close.
So far as earthly laws can control one, no one is obliged to be
a member of the Catholic Church nor a citizen of the British Em-
pire. I can, if I choose, emigrate to America, in process of time
naturalize myself there and join the Christian Science organization
or any other body to which I find myself attracted. But as long
as I remain a Catholic and a British citizen I must submit myself
to the restrictions imposed by the bodies with which I have elected
to connect myself. We arrive at the conclusion then that the or-
dinary citizen, even if he never adverts to the fact, is in reality con-
trolled and his liberty limited in all sorts of directions.
Now the scientific man, in his own work, is subject to all sorts
of limitations also, apart altogether from the limitations which, as
an ordinary member of the State, he has to submit himself to.
He is restricted by science: he is not completely free but is
bound by knowledge — the knowledge which he or others have ac-
quired.
To say he is limited by it is not to say that he is imprisoned
by it or in bondage to it. " One does not lose one's intellectual lib-
erty when one learns mathematics," says the late Monsignor Benson
in one of his letters, "though one certainly loses the liberty of doing
sums wrong or doing them by laborious methods !"
Before setting out upon any research, the careful man of
science sets himself to study "the literature of the subject" as he
calls it. He delves into all sorts of out-of-the-way periodicals to
ascertain what such a man has written upon such a point. All this
he does in order that he may avoid doing a piece of work over again
unnecessarily: unnecessarily, for it may be actually necessary to
repeat it, if it is of very great importance and if it has not been re-
peated and verified by other observers. Further he delves into this
literature because it is thus that he hopes to avoid the many blind
alleys which branch off from every path of research, delude their
explorer with vain hopes and finally bring him face to face with
a blank wall. In a word the inquirer consults his authorities and
when he finds them worthy of reliance, he limits his freedom by
paying attention to them. He does not say : " How am I held in
bondage by this assertion that the earth goes round the sun," but
accepting that fact, he rejects such of his conclusions as are ob-
viously irreconcilable with it. Surely this is plain common sense
and the man who acted otherwise would be setting himself a quite
584 SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" [Feb.,
impossible task. It is the weakness of the " heuristic method " that
it sets its pupils to find out things which many abler men have spent
years in investigating. The man who sets out to make a research,
without first ascertaining what others have done in that direction,
proposes to accumulate in himself the abilities and the life-work
of all previous generations of laborers in that corner of the scien-
tific vineyard.
There is a somewhat amusing and certainly interesting in-
stance of this which will bear quotation. The late Mr. Grant Allen,
who knew something of quite a number of subjects though perhaps
not very much about any of them, devoted most of his time and
energies (outside his stories, many of which are excellent) to not
always very accurate essays in natural history. One day, however,
his evil genius prompted him to write a book entitled Force and
Energy: A Theory of Dynamics, in which he purported to deal with
a matter of which he knew far less even than he did about animated
nature. Mark the inevitable result ! A copy of the book was for-
warded to the journal Nature, and sent by its editor to be dealt
with by the competent hands of Sir Oliver (then Professor)
Lodge.5
This is how that eminent authority dealt with it. "There ex-
ists a certain class of mind," he commences, " allied perhaps to the
Greek sophist variety, to which ignorance of a subject offers no
sufficient obstacle to the composition of a treatise upon it." It
may be rash to suggest that this type of mind is well developed in
philosophers of the Spencerian school, though it would be possible
to adduce some evidence in support of such a suggestion. "In
the volume before us," he continues, "Mr. Grant Allen sets to work
to reconstruct the fundamental science of dynamics, an edifice
which, since the time of Galileo and Newton, has been standing on
what has seemed a fairly secure and substantial basis, but
which he seems to think it is now time to demolish in order to
make room for a newly excogitated theory. The attempt is
audacious and the result — what might have been expected. The
performance lends itself indeed to the most scathing criticism;
blunders and misstatements abound on neairly every page,
and the whole thing is simply an emanation of mental fog." It
would occupy too much space to reproduce this criticism with any
fullness, but one or two points exceedingly germane to our subject,
•The review from which the following quotations are made appeared in Nature
on January 24, 1889.
1917.] SCIENCE IN " BONDAGE" 585
can hardly go without notice. Alluding to a certain question, which
seems to have bothered greatly Mr. Allen and likewise Mr. Clodd,
who was associated with him in this performance, so it would ap-
pear, the reviewer says: "The puzzle was solved completely long
ago, in the clearest possible manner, and the 'Principle? is the witness
to it ; but it is still felt to be a difficulty by beginners, and I suppose
there is no offence in applying this harmless epithet to both Mr.
Grant Allen and Mr. Clodd, so far as the truths of dynamics and
physics are concerned." One last quotation: "The thing which
strikes one most forcibly about the physics of these paper philoso-
phers is the extraordinary contempt which, if they are consistent, they
must or ought to feel for men of science. If Newton, Lagrange, Gauss
and Thompson, to say nothing of smaller men, have muddled away
their brains in concocting a scheme of dynamics wherein the very
definitions are all wrong; if they have arrived at a law of conserva-
tion of energy without knowing what the word energy means, or
how to define it; if they have to be set right by an amateur who has
devoted a few weeks or months to the subject and acquired a rude
smattering of some of its terms, "what intolerable fools they must
all be ! " Such is the result of asserting one's freedom by escaping
the limitations of knowledge ! We see what happens when a person
sets out to deal with science untrammeled by any considerations as
to what others have thought and established. The necessary re-
sult is that he plunges headforemost into all or most of the errors
which were pitfalls to the first laborers in the field. Or, again, he
painfully and uselessly pursues the blind alleys which they had
wandered in, and from which a perusal of their works would have
warned off later comers.
Of course, though it is not quite so obvious to writers in gen<
eral, the same thing is equally possible in non-scientific fields of
knowledge. I once asked one versed in theology what he thought
of the religious articles of a distinguished man, unfamiliar himself
with theology, yet, none the less, then splashing freely and to the
great admiration of the ignorant, in the theological pool. His reply
was that in so far as they were at all constructive, they consisted
mostly of exploded heresies of the first century. Is not this pre-
cisely what one would a priori have expected ? A man commencing
to write on science or religion, who neglects the work of earlier
writers places himself in the position of the first students of the sub-
ject and very naturally will make the same mistakes as they made.
He refuses to be hampered and biassed by knowledge and the re-
586 SCIENCE IN " BONDAGE" [Feb.,
suit follows quite inevitably. "A scientist," says Monsignor Benson,
"is hampered and biassed by knowing the earth goes round the sun."
The fact of the matter is that the man of science is not a solitary
figure, a chimera bombinans in vacuo. In whatever direction he
looks he is faced by the figures of other workers and he is limited
and hampered by their work. Nor are these workers all of them in
his own area of country, for the biologist, for example, cannot af-
ford to neglect the doings of the chemist; if he does he is bound to
find himself led into mistakes. No doubt the scientific man is at
times needlessly hampered by theories which he and others at the
time take to be fairly well established facts, but which after all turn
out to be nothing of the kind. This in no way weakens the argu-
ment, but rather by giving an additional reason for caution, strength-
ens it.
If we carefully consider the matter we shall be unable to come to
any other conclusion than that every writer, even of the wildest form
of fiction, is in some way and to some extent hampered and limited
by knowledge, by facts, by things as they are or as they appear to be.
That will be admitted ; but it will be urged that the hampering and
limiting with which we have been dealing are not merely legitimate
but inevitable, whereas the hampering and limiting — should such
there be — on the part of the Church is wholly illegitimate and inde-
fensible.
"All that you say is no doubt true,"our antagonist will urge, "but
you have still to show that your Church has any right or title to in-
terfere in these matters. And even if you can make some sort of
case for her interference, you have still to disprove what so many
people believe, namely, that the right, real or assumed, has not been
arbitrarily used to the damage or at least to the delay of scientific
progress. Chemistry," we may suppose our antagonist continuing,
"no doubt has a legitimate right to have its say, even to interfere and
that imperatively, where chemical considerations invade the field of
biology, for example. But what similar right does religion possess ?
For instance," he might proceed, "some few years ago a distinguish-
ed physiologist, then occupying the Chair of the British Association,
invoked the behavior of certain chemical substances known as
colloids in favor of his anti-vitalistic conclusions. At once he was
answered by a number of equally eminent chemists that the attitude
he had adopted was quite incompatible with facts as known to them ;
in a word that chemistry disagreed with his ideas as to colloids.
Everybody admitted that the chemists must have the final word on
1917-] SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" 587
this subject : are you now claiming that religion or theology or what-
ever you choose to call it, is also entitled to a say in a matter of that
kind ? " This supposititious conversation illustrates the confusion
which exists in many minds as to the point at issue. One science is
entitled to contradict another just as one scientific man is entitled to
contradict another on a question of fact. But on a question of fact
a theologian is not entitled — qua theologian — nor would he be ex-
pected ta claim to be entitled, to contradict a man of science.
It ought to be widely known, though it is not, that the idea that
theologians can or wish to intrude — again qua theologians — in scien-
tific disputes as to chemical, biological or other facts, is a fantastic
idea without real foundation save that of the one mistake of the
kind made in the case of Galileo and never repeated — a mistake, let
us hasten to add, made by a disciplinary authority and — as all parties
admit — in no way involving questions of infallibility. To this case
we will revert shortly. Meanwhile it may be briefly stated that the
claim made by the Church is in connection with some few — some very
few — of the theories which men of science build up upon the facts
which they have brought to light. Some of these theories do
appear to contradict theological dogmas or at least may seem to
simple people to be incompatible with such dogmas, just as the
people of his time — Protestants by the way, no less than Catho-
lics— did really think that Galileo's theory conflicted with Holy
Writ. In such cases, and in such cases alone, the Church
holds that she has at least the right to say that such a theory
should not be proclaimed to be true until there is sufficient
proof for it to satisfy the scientific world that the point has been
demonstrated. This is really what is meant by the tyranny of the
Church ; and it may now be useful to consider briefly what can be
said for her position. We must begin by looking at the matter
from the Church's standpoint. It is a good rule to endeavor to un-
derstand your opponent's position before you try to confute him;
an excellent rule seldom complied with by anti-Catholic controver-
sialists. Now the Church starts with the proposition that man has
an immortal soul destined to eternal happiness or eternal misery, and
she proceeds to claim that she has been divinely constituted to help
man to enjoy a future of happiness. Of course these are opinions
which all do not share, and with the arguments for and against
which we cannot here deal. If a man is quite sure that he has no
soul and that there is no hereafter there is nothing more to be said
than : " Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." Nothing very
588 SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" [Feb.,
much matters in this world except that we should make ourselves
as comfortable as we can during the few years we have to spend
in it.
Again there are others who whilst believing the first doctrine set
down above, will have none of the other. With them we enter into
no argument here, and only say that to have a guide is better than to
have no guide. Catholics, who accept gratefully her guidance, do
believe that the Church can help a man to save his soul and that she
is intrusted, to that end, with certain powers. Her duty is to pre-
serve and guard the Christian Revelation — the scheme of doctrine
regarding belief and conduct by which Jesus Christ taught that souls
were to be saved. She is not an arbitrary ruler. Her office is pri-
marily that of Judge and Interpreter of the deposit of doctrine
intrusted to her.
In this she claims to be safeguarded against error, though her
infallible utterances would seem incredibly few, if summed up and
presented to the more ignorant of her critics. She also derives from
her Founder legislative power by which she can make decrees, un-
make them or modify and vary them to suit different times and cir-
cumstances. She rightfully claims the obedience of her children to
this exercise of her authority, but such disciplinary enactments, by
their very nature variable and modifiable, do not and cannot come
within the province of her infallibility, and admittedly they need not
be always perfectly wise or judicious. Such disciplinary utterances,
it may be added, at least in the field of which we are treating, in-
deed in any field, are also incredibly few when due regard is had to
the enormous number of cases passing under the Church's observa-
tion.
We saw just now that the State exercised a very large jurisdic-
tion for the purpose of protecting the weak who were unable or little
able to protect themselves. It is really important to remember, when
we are considering the powers of the Church and her exercise of
them, that these disciplinary powers are put in operation, not from
mere arrogance or an arbitrary love of domination — as too many
suppose — but with the primary intention of protecting and helping
the weaker members of the flock. If the Church consisted entirely
of theological experts a good deal of this exercise of disciplinary
power might very likely be regarded as wholly unnecessary. Thus
the Church freely concedes not only to priests and theologians, but
to other persons adequately instructed in her teaching, full permis-
sion to read books which she has placed on her black list or Index
1917.] SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" 589
— from which, in other words, she has warned off the weaker mem-
bers of the flock.
The net of Peter, however-, as all very well know, contains
a very great variety of fish and — to vary the metaphor — to the fish-
erman was given charge not only of the sheep, foolish enough
heaven knows! — but also of the still more helpless lambs. Thus
it becomes the duty and the privilege of the successors of the fish-
erman to protect the sheep and the lambs, and not merely to pro-
tect them from wild beasts who may try to do harm from without,
but quite as much from the wild rams of the flock who are capable
of doing a great deal of injury from within. In one of his letters,
from which quotation has already been made, the late Monsignor
Benson sums up, in homely, but vivid language, the point with
which we have just been dealing. "Here are the lambs of Christ's
flock," he writes : " Is a stout old ram to upset and confuse them
when he needn't even though he is right ? The flock must
be led gently and turned in a great curve. We can't all whip round
in an instant. We are tired and discouraged and some of us are
exceedingly stupid and obstinate. Very well; then the rams can't
be allowed to make brilliant excursions in all directions and upset
us all. We shall get there some day, if we are treated patiently.
We are Christ's lambs after all."
The protection of the weak : surely, if it be deemed both just
and wise on the part of the civil government to protect its sub-
jects by legislation in regard to adulterated goods, contagious dis-
eases, unhealthy workshops and dangerous machinery, why may
not the Church safeguard her children, especially her weaker chil-
dren, the special object of her care and solicitude, from noxious
intellectual foods?
It is just here that the question of the Index arises. Put brief-
ly, this is a list of books which are not to be read by Catholics un-
less they have permission to read them — a permission which, as we
have just seen, is never refused when any good reason can be given
for the request. I can understand the kind of person who says:
"Exactly, locking up the truth; why not let everybody read just
what they like? " To which I would reply that every careful parent
has an Index Prohibitorius for his household; or ought to have
one if he has not. I once knew a woman who allowed her daughter
to plunge into Nana and other works of that character as soon as
she could summon up enough knowledge of French to fathom their
meaning.
590 SCIENCE IN " BONDAGE" [Feb.,
The daughter grew up and the result has not been encourag-
ing to educationalists thinking of proceeding on similar lines. The
State also has its Index Prohibitorius and will not permit indecent
books nor indecent pictures to be sold. Enough : let us again clear
our minds of cant. There is a limit with regard to publications in
every decent State and every decent house: it is only a question
where the line is drawn. It is obvious that the Church must be
permitted at least as much privilege in this matter as is claimed by
every respectable father of a family. We need not pursue the
question of the Index any further.
Let us turn to apply the considerations with which we have
been concerned to one or two cases; and naturally we must com-
mence with that of Galileo to which generally misunderstood af-
fair we must very briefly allude since it is the stand-by of anti-
Catholic controversialists. Monsignor Benson, in connection with the
quotation recently cited, proclaimed himself "a violent defender of
the Cardinals against Galileo." Perhaps no one will be surprised
at his attitude, but those who are not familiar with his Life and
Letters will certainly be surprised to learn that Huxley, after ex-
amining into the question, "arrived at the conclusion that the Pope
and the College of Cardinals had rather the best of it."6
None the less it is the stock argument. Father Hull, S.J.,
whose admirable, outspoken and impartial study of the case7
should be on everybody's bookshelves, freely admits that the Roman
Congregations made a mistake in this matter and thus takes up
a less favorable position towards them than even the violently anti-
Catholic Huxley.
No one will deny that the action of the Congregation was due
to a desire to prevent simple persons from having their faith upset
by a theory which seemed at the time to contradict the teaching
of the Bible. Remember that it was only a theory and that, when
it was put forward, and indeed for many years afterwards, it was
not only a theory, but one supported by no sufficient evidence. It
was not in fact until many years after Galileo's death that final
and convincing evidence as to the accuracy of his views was laid
before the scientific world. There can be but little doubt that if
Galileo had been content to discuss his theory with other men of
science, and not to lay it down as a matter of proved fact — which
as we have seen it was not — he would never have been condemned.
•Vol. ii., p. 113.
1 Galileo and His Condemnation, Catholic Truth Society of England.
1917.] SCIENCE IN "BONDAGE" 591
Whilst we may admit, with Father Hull, that a mistake was made in
this case, we may urge, with Cardinal Newman, that it is the only
case in which such a thing has happened — surely a remarkable fact.
It is not for want of opportunities. Father Hull very properly cites
various cases where a like difficulty might possibly have arisen, but
where as a matter of fact it has not. For example the geographical
universality of the Deluge was at one time, and that not so very
long ago, believed to be asserted by the Bible; while, on the other
hand, geologists seemed to be able to show, and in the event did
show, that such a view was scientifically untenable. The atten-
tion of theologians having been called to this matter, and a further
study made of passages which until then had probably attracted but
little notice and quite certainly had never been considered from
the new point of view, it became obvious that the meaning which
had been attached to the passages in question was not the necessary
meaning, but on the contrary, a strained interpretation of the words.
No public fuss having arisen about this particular difficulty, the
whole matter was gradually and quietly disposed of. As Father
Hull says, " the new view gradually filtered down from learned
circles to the man in the street, so that nowadays the partiality of
the Deluge is a matter of commonplace knowledge among all edu-
cated Christians, and is even taught to the rising generation in ele-
mentary schools In accordance with the wise provisions of the
Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, with which all educated Catholics
should make themselves familiar, conflicts have been avoided on
this, and on other points such as the general theory of evolution and
the various problems connected with it; the antiquity of man upon
the earth and other matters as to which science is still uncertain.
Some of these points might seem to conflict with the Bible and the
teachings of the Church. As Catholics we can rest assured that the
true explanation, whenever it emerges, cannot be opposed to the con-
sidered teaching of the Church. What the Church does — and sure-
ly it must be clear that from her standpoint she could not do less —
is to instruct Catholic men of science not to proclaim as proved
facts such modern theories — and there are many of them — as still
remain wholly unproved, when these theories are such as might
seem to conflict with the teaching of the Church. This is very far
from saying that Catholics are forbidden to study such theories.
On the contrary, they are encouraged to do so and that,
need it be said, with the one idea of ascertaining the truth? Men
of science, Catholic and otherwise, have as a mere matter of fact
592 SCIENCE IN " BONDAGE" [Feb.,
been time and again encouraged by Popes and other ecclesiastical au-
thorities to go on searching for the truth, never, however, neglect-
ing the wise maxim that all things must be proved. So long as a
theory is unproved, it must be candidly admitted that it is a crime
against science to proclaim it to be incontrovertible truth, yet this
crime is being committed every day. It is really against it that the
magisterium of the Church is exercised. The wholesome discipline
which she exercises might also be exercised to the great benefit of
the ordinary reading public by some central scientific authority, can
such be imagined, endowed with the right to say (and in any way
likely to be listened to) : "Such and such a statement is interest-
ing— even extremely interesting— but so far one must admit that
no sufficient proof is forthcoming to establish it as a fact: it ought
not, therefore, to be spoken of as other than a theory, nor pro-
claimed as fact."
Such constraint when rightly regarded is not or would not be
a shackling of the human intellect, but a kindly and intelligent guid-
ance of those unable to form a proper conclusion themselves. Such
is the idea of the Church in the matter with which we have been
dealing.
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.
(1751-1816-)
BY BROTHER LEO.
NE rainy day in August, 1816, a funeral cortege
trailed its black length from Saville Row to West-
minster Abbey. The Bishop of London was one of
the pallbearers, the Duke of Bedford was another;
other dukes were there and earls and lords of the
realm, and the victor of Waterloo had sent a letter of condolence
and regret. Scores of personal friends were in attendance, too,
and the streets were lined with men and women whose cheeks were
wet with cordial tears. In the Poets' Corner, close to the bust of
Shakespeare, the coffin was laid — the coffin of a man who had
stood on this very spot at the interment of David Garrick, thirty-
seven years before; a man who had died in veritable destitution,
the bailiffs actually in the house; a man who, in the space of half
a century, had trailed his garments in the mire and brushed the
star paths with his brow. That public funeral, so fertile in con-
trasts, was of a piece with the life that it commemorated; for this
man — a knight errant in his teens, a master dramatist in his twen-
ties, a political power in his thirties, a social lion in his forties,
and in his fifties a bit of a roisterer, a bit of a rambler and a bit
of a shabby genteel — was Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
" The tragic-comedy of his life and the living force of his
plays," observes his most satisfactory biographer, Walter Sichel,
"attract many who know little of the inner circumstances that
attended them. A sprite Sheridan remains, hovering above the
puppet-show of existence. He belongs not to the white-robed im-
mortals who sit radiant and aloft, but to the elfin band who have
never faded from the atmosphere. His province is not history
but wonderland." There hangs over his life story, now as on the
day of his funeral, a cloud of witchery and romance, agleam with
the magic and the mystery of his native Irish skies. After the
lapse of a century he bedazzles and fascinates. The glamor that
surrounds him is the glamor of the footlights and a superbly
mounted play — a play not without sordid episodes and pathetic
scenes — wherein the unexpected transpires with suddenness and
VOL. civ.— 39
594 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN [Feb.,
charm, wherein the protagonist, an infectious laugh on his lips,
casts dice against fortune and circumstances and recks not of
the cost.
The epilogue to that life drama was the impressive burial in
the Abbey. The prologue took place at Bath when, little more than
a boy in years and discretion, young Sheridan eloped to the conti-
nent with his future wife. In the first act he is a dramatist burst-
ing into unparalleled prominence at the age of twenty-four. In
the second act he is a Parliamentary orator, the recognized peer
of Fox and Burke and at the trial of Warren Hastings the bright
particular star. In the third act he is " Old Sherry," the wit and
the man about town, equally adept in a conversational fencing bout
with Madame de Stael and a convivial drinking bout with Lord
Byron. And through it all he is essentially the actor. He never
has been regarded, he never can be regarded, in any other way.
Posterity insists on viewing him in the glare of the calcium and
the glow of colored lights; and his contemporaries, great and small,
daubed his features with grease paints.
I.
The boy, born in Dublin, in September, 1751, heredity dowered
with wit and histrionism. His grandfather — clergyman, school-
master and scholar — was described by Lord Orrery as a punster,
a quibbler, a fiddler and a wit, in all which capacities he was
tolerated and almost admired by the finical Dean Swift. The boy's
father, Thomas Sheridan, was an " ineffectual genius " with a sys-
tem of elocution, some repute as an actor and an ambition to
rival Dr. Johnson as a lexicographer; his mother, Frances Cham-
berlaine, was a writer of sentimental novels and abortive plays.
Both the father and the grandfather seem to have possessed the
lordly indifference to mere financial matters which made of their
illustrious descendant a Harold Skimpole without guile.
Ten years at Harrow, preceded by a few months' private
tuition in Dublin, made up all the formal education Sheridan re-
ceived. As a student he was good-natured and jovial, never
taking any prizes, managing to keep out of serious difficulties, and
cultivating literature to the extent of collaborating in a translation
of Aristsenetus. At Bath he met his fate in the dainty person of
Elizabeth Linley, the lady whom, years later, Sir Joshua Reynolds
painted as St. Cecilia. What followed was Romeo cmd Juliet with
1917.] RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 595
comedy variations. A certain Captain Matthews was the Count
Paris of the plot — an ardent, melancholy and unwelcome wooer,
who threatened to commit suicide if his suit were refused. Juliet,
much perturbed, not wanting the gallant captain either dead or
alive, confided her perplexities -to Romeo. There was no Friar
Laurence to counsel prudence, so the hero and the heroine fled across
the channel, Romeo very much in love but enacting the role of
chivalrous protector. They returned, ultimately, and were married
in England after having already gone through some sort of marriage
ceremony in France ; and, that the Shakespearean atmosphere might
not be lacking, Romeo crossed swords with Paris and then pro-
ceeded to live happy ever after. And thus endeth the prologue
to Sheridan's life drama.
The curtain rose on the first act of the same delectable play at
Covent Garden, early in 1775, when The Rivals, written in six
weeks with the need of ready money staring the young husband in
the face, began its long career of popularity. In its first form the
drama was a dubious success, but Sheridan hastily revised his
work and achieved fame and fortune at a stroke. His next venture
was the farce, St. Patrick's Day, written the following spring for
the actor Clinch, who had won distinction in the part of Sir Lucius
O'Trigger. After The Duenna, presented that same year, Sheridan
rested on his laurels until the production of A Trip to Scarborough,
in February, 1777. The play was an adaptation of Vanbrugh's
Relapse, minus Vanbrugh's obscenity. In the following May came
the premier of The School for Scandal, the drama of social satire
which marks the height of Sheridan's achievement as a play-
wright, and which has been translated into nearly every European
language and even into Hindustani. The Critic was produced in
1799; and, twenty years afterward, the fruits of Sheridan's de-
clining powers, Pizarro, a bombastic tragedy adapted from an Eng-
lish version of Kotzebue's Spaniards in Peru.
Even before he had written The School for Scandal Sheridan
found himself a distinguished man. Something in the personality
of the dashing young playwright, in the brilliancy of his dialogue
and the aptness of his characterizations strongly appealed to the
theatre-going public; and men difficult to please with mere wit
and technical efficiency recognized in Sheridan some of the talents
which they held to be sterling. In March, 1777, ne was honored
with membership in the famous literary club frequented by such
men as Gibbon, Goldsmith, Burke and Reynolds, and presided over
596 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN [Feb.,
by the burly Dr. Johnson. " He who has written the two best
comedies of the age/' declared the Dictator, " is surely a considera-
ble man."
In 1776, Sheridan entered upon his diversified career as di-
rector of the Drury Lane Theatre. In his first fervor he attended
to business and seemed destined for unbroken success. But his
irregular habits, his lack of financial tact and his undeniably bad
judgment in selecting and casting plays, wrought inevitable havoc.
To make matters worse, he appointed his father, with whom he had
become reconciled after the long estrangement consequent on the
Bath romance, as stage manager; and for four years the old man
was the storm centre of dissensions. He was crabbed and dictatorial,
as elocutionists frequently are; he dilated inordinately on his own
interpretation of Brutus and King John; he insulted the great
David Garrick. Sometimes the younger Sheridan sought to pour
oil upon the troubled waters, but more frequently he reconciled
his notion of parental respect with his native disposition to avoid
trouble, and waited until the storm blew over. A singularly divert-
ing story is the record of Drury Lane under Sheridan's manage-
ment, a record which we pass over with regret. Typical was the
production of Vortigern, a ridiculous concoction of tawdry, tinsel
and bombast, passed off by William Ireland as an early play of
Shakespeare's. The audience was restless and incredulous; but
when Kemble sonorously declaimed the line,
And when this solemn mockery is o'er,
the house broke into shouts of laughter and the curtain was igno-
miniously rung down.
Sheridan's Parliamentary career, the second act in the drama
of his life, began in 1780 and ended in 1812. It was a play within
a play. Sheridan floated in on the crest of the opposition wave
that swept Lord North out of power and in good time to dispute
the stellar roles with Burke and Fox and the rising Pitt. In his
very first speech, which turned on the legality of his own election,
he captured the attention of the house, and in subsequent years he
achieved the reputation of being the foremost orator of that singu-
larly spectacular epoch. Events seemed to shape themselves for a
fitting display of his considerable oratorical gifts. The war with
America was proving costly, humiliating and unpopular, and Sheri-
dan vigorously denounced its continuance. He fought shoulder to
1917.] ' RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 597
shoulder with O'Connell for Catholic Emancipation; the cry of
" no popery " he termed the " watchword of folly and faction,"
"an act of political profligacy;" and to those who masked their
attack on Catholic education with the pretence of love for progress,
he retorted that he did not " wish the Catholics to rise to degra-
dation."
But the climax of Sheridan's Parliamentary career was fur-
nished in the impeachment of Warren Hastings. His four days'
speech on Hastings' conduct toward the begums of Oude consti-
tuted, in its matter and its manner and in the circumstances under
which it was delivered, one of the master moments of English
oratory. Westminster Hall was filled to overflowing with dis-
tinguished auditors, many of whom were moved to tears and some
of whom, including Mrs. Siddons, the actress, fainted under the
stress of emotion which the brilliant and impassioned orator evoked.
Horace Walpole, ever hard to please, saw in Sheridan's speech
a sign that national decadence was still far in the future when
" history and eloquence threw out such shoots." Pitt, by no means
prejudiced in Sheridan's favor, declared that " it surpassed all the
eloquence of ancient or modern times, and possessed everything
that genius or art could furnish to agitate or control the human
mind." And the great Edmund Burke characterized it as "the
most astonishing effort of eloquence, argument and wit united of
which there was any record or tradition."
However much the absence of perspective and the enthusiasm
of the moment may have led Sheridan's contemporaries to exag-
gerate his undeniably distinguished oratorical prowess, his reputa-
tion and his personality made him the man of the hour. As such
he was courted, petted, flattered, lionized. For years at dinners
and house parties he had been regarded as an acquisition, but now
he became a fad, a sensation, a craze. And so " our incomparable
friend, Brinsley," as Charles Lamb called him, proceeded to act
out his role, in this third act of his life drama, of wit and gentleman
and conversationalist supreme. To him the most exclusive Lon-
don doors stood ever open. Lord Lynedoch's, Holland House, Lady
Westmoreland's and Lady Cork's. He hobnobbed, much to his
hurt, with the Prince of Wales. He reveled, not always to his
honor, in the light that lies in women's eyes. His fondness for
port wine grew with the years. And the coruscations of it all
blinded his eyes to his falling off of inventive power, to his utter
lack of acumen in business affairs, to the spectre of poverty, which
598 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN [Feb.,
stood menacingly nigh with grinning teeth and warning finger.
The footlights were bright, the scenery gorgeous, the orchestra in
tune; why should the actor disturb himself about the prompter's
bell?
Mrs. Sheridan, the " little linnet " of the Bath prologue, and
the devoted and often sorely tried wife of all the intervening years,
had died in 1792. Trained by her father as a professional singer,
after her marriage she abandoned whatever aspirations she may
have had towards a career, and gave herself to whole-hearted part-
nership in all her husband's undertakings. She was his secretary
and bookkeeper and confidential clerk; a materially contributing
factor to his early social successes ; and his consolation and inspira-
tion when other sources failed. According to Moore, " it was im-
possible to see her without admiration, or know her without love,"
In 1795, Sheridan married Miss Ogle, daughter of the Dean of
Winchester; and to this lady were accorded the anxieties and the
heavy trials of his declining fortune and prestige.
Sad and uninspiring, for all his jauntiness and unquenchable
wit, is the fleeting picture of Sheridan, out of Parliament and pur-
sued by creditors and bailiffs, alternately waxing despondent over
his ill-health and dismal prospects and growing jubilant and opti-
mistic over his two bottles of wine at dinner. Misunderstandings
came, and illness, and the cooling of friendships, and the salt savor
of the bread of others. And presently we are at the epilogue of
that varied and eventful life. The church bells were ringing mid-
day as the last breath was drawn ; and Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
like Shakespeare's sweet and bitter fool, had gone to bed at noon.
" A clever fellow and an Irishman." Such was Lord Byron's
estimate of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; and it is so apt and in-
clusive that we may well pardon the tautology. His life was a
"warm lay of love," a " light note of gladness;" and "the deep
sigh of sadness " was not wanting. Even as a boy he was subject
to deep fits of melancholy. When he wrote he demanded a profu-
sion of lights, and he sought to banish the blues with society and
good cheer. " If the thought," he would say, " is slow to come, a
good glass of wine encourages it; and when it does come, a glass
of good wine rewards it." Perhaps it was his lavish use of such
incitements and guerdons that kept much of the melancholy out of
his writings; certainly a bit of it — despite the contagious fun of
the characterization — crept into Dr. Rosy and prompts the surmise
that Sheridan had a remote kinship to Robert Herrick, whose
1917.] RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 599
dainty verses to Julia, Electra, Corinna and other imaginary ladies
are freighted with whimsical preachments on the brevity of human
life and the nearness of its close.
But Sheridan's melancholy was not salutary; it could never
win him to thought for the morrow. And, of course, where most
men would find occasion for chagrin and anxiety, Sheridan would
be nonchalant and debonair. According to the legend, when the
Drury Lane Theatre burnt down on the night of February 24,
1809, and his financial prospects went up in smoke, Sheridan, after
deliberately leaving the House of Commons, seated himself at a
table in a hostelry, sipped his favorite port and calmly surveyed the
blaze. To an expostulating friend he remarked, " A man may
surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside." If
this did not happen, it should have happened ; it is truth, if not fact.
Easy-going, courteous, loath to give offence, Sheridan — an ex-
aggerated model of Cardinal Newman's gentleman who never in-
flicts pain — made promises to please people, knowing all the while
his own inability to fulfill them. Like his countrymen, Steele
and Goldsmith, he dismissed importunate creditors with compli-
mentary speeches and with soft answers turned away wrath. Face
to face, it was impossible to be angry with him. Children loved
him, and stray dogs; apple women blessed him as he passed their
corners; and in the days of his lionizing, "his four-horsed coach
had only to clatter through Chichester and the whole town was
huzzaing." " During the five and twenty years through which I
enjoyed his friendship and society," says Kelly, of Drury Lane, " I
never heard him say a word that would wound the feelings of a
human being." Many a man with more pretensions and with higher
gifts might fail to win so high an eulogy.
II.
In at least one respect, Sheridan resembles the Great Cham
of English letters — the man is more interesting than the writer.
We read Rasselas and The Lives of the Poets and The Vanity of
Human Wishes, and we find the process enjoyable and fruitful;
but our delight would be less acute and our fruition less perceptible
were it not for our never-failing realization that Dr. Johnson looms
behind the printed page. And, thanks to James Boswell, many a
man knows Dr. Johnson, who has not read him at all, knows him
as he grunts over learned tomes in his study, as he indulges in
6oo RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN [Feb.,
elephantine humor with Beauclerk and Goldsmith, as he vents his
opinions on topics ranging all the way from the immortality of the
soul to the climate of Scotland. And so it is that Sheridan, the
man, eclipses Sheridan, the verse-maker, Sheridan, the M. P.,
Sheridan, the dramatist — the fact being all the more remarkable
since, despite the commendable labors of such * perspicacious bio-
graphers as Tom Moore, Mrs. Oliphant, Fraser Rae, Lloyd Sanders,
Percy Fitzgerald, and Walter Sichel, "Old Sherry" has never
found an adequate Boswell.
Due allowance, therefore, must be made for the fascination
of Sheridan's personality; but the spell of his character and of the
legend which has grown up around him must not be suffered to
dim his importance as a contributor to the English drama. He
wrote relatively few plays, and not all of those few possess per-
manent worth ; but it was no mean accomplishment to have achieved
three such distinguished dramas as The Rivals, The School for
Scandal and The Critic. Like Shakespeare, he had little formal
learning; but, both as man and as dramatist, he made that little
go a long way: And like Shakespeare, though' to a measurably less
extent, he possessed a keen observation, a disquieting power of
analysis and a sense of incongruity which made his comments on
manners pointed and palpable, and his men and women actual and
convincing.
A genuine dramatist, and not a poet, a novelist or a philoso-
pher in disguise, Sheridan wrote plays for the theatre and not
for the closet. His dramas are acting dramas, and it is impossible
to evaluate them justly if we neglect to keep this in mind. They
do not always read well; but they are invariably effective when
competently acted. The Rivals, for example, in the bare reading
is by turns farcical and sentimental, but both defects fall from it in
the actual stage presentation. Bob Acres is slight and humdrum
enough between the covers of a book, but he is vital and energizing
upon the boards. The great screen scene in The School for Scan-
dal and the burlesque rehearsal in The Critic are incomprehensible
to the scholar sitting in slippered ease before an open fire; to
appreciate them as they deserve, he must doff his dressing gown
and study them in the playhouse. Sheridan is nothing if not
theatrical. His life and his works are at unison here., The
theatricality of his dramas is at once the secret of their strength
and of their weakness.
A distinction is advisedly drawn between the theatrical and
I9I7-] RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 601
the dramatic. Both are based upon the fundamental principle of
contrast manifesting itself in volitional conflict or incongruity or
emotional intensity or diversity of viewpoint or some other form of
presentation through which the underlying antithesis in character
or plot is developed or explained ; and both carry conviction to the
audience. But after that they break away from each other; for
while the dramatic continues to impress when, in Wordsworth's
fine phrase, it is recollected in tranquility, the theatrical, on subse-
quent analysis, proves to be thrilling rather than emotional, laugh-
provoking rather than profoundly humorous, clever rather than
great. The curse scene in King Lear is dramatic, the curse scene
in Richelieu is theatrical ; the comedy of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme
is dramatic, the comedy of Come Out of the Kitchen is theatrical.
Pizarro, Claude Melnotte, in The Lady of Lyons and the chocolate
soldier in Arms and the Man are theatrical characters; Antigone,
Tartuffe and Malvolio are dramatic characters.
A good acting play must be either theatrical or dramatic; a
" literary " play or closet drama, like Tennyson's Becket, is neither.
The first rate dramatist, though he may be at times merely theatri-
cal, as Shakespeare is in King Richard III., is prevailingly dramatic.
The second rate dramatist is prevailingly theatrical: Such is Mar-
lowe, despite his titantic force; such is Bulwer Lytton, despite his
resourcefulness ; and such is Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
There is some justification for dubbing Sheridan the English
— or the Irish — Moliere. He is quite as clever as the Frenchman;
but he is appreciably less profound. Both are convincing in the
theatre; but Moliere continues to be convincing after the theatre.
Moliere is a satirist of life; Sheridan is a satirist of manners.
Sheridan's comedy sparkles and titillates ; Moliere's comedy creates
warmth and evokes emotion. Sheridan appeals to the head, Moliere
to the heart. Sheridan's theatricality makes his success on the
stage and mars his success in the study. It was in its relation to
human life rather than in its relation to the theatre that Horace
Walpole was considering The School for Scandal when he found
it " lacking in nature and truth of character." And yet The School
for Scandal is the nearest to the dramatic that Sheridan ever
realized.
One of our earliest American critics, Edwin Percy Whipple,
complained gently of Sheridan's " elaborate diction," and certainly
not without partial justification. A dramatist of today would
hardly make young Captain Absolute say :
6o2 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN [Feb.,
Sir, your kindness overpowers me — such generosity makes the
gratitude of reason more lively than the sensations even of
filial affection.
And no modern audience would listen patiently to Julia's
final speech:
Then let us study to preserve it so : and while Hope pictures
to us a flattering scene of future bliss, let us deny its pencil
those colors which are too bright to be lasting. When hearts
deserving happiness would unite their fortunes, Virtue would
crown them with an unfading garland of modest hurtless
flowers; but ill-judging passion will force the gaudier rose
into the wreath, whose thorn offends them when its leaves are
dropped !
People don't say such things — except in college valedictories
and after-dinner oratory — in our giddy-paced times; but ornate-
ness of speech was more in vogue in the eighteenth century; it
smacks of The Spectator and The Rambler and pseudo-classicism.
Sheridan was a child of his times — and an Irishman. Even in the
twentieth century the Celt relishes the savor of words upon the
tongue. Elaborate diction? Why, Lady Gregory and John Sygne
and William Butler Yeats couldn't exist without it. Sheridan, by
birth and breeding, temperament and environment, was absolutely
committed to elaborate diction. He reveled in the color of words
as Goldsmith in plum-colored suitings. The surprising thing is
that we do not find more " fine writing " in The Rivals and The
School for Scandal. Diction is largely a matter of taste, and
taste is largely a matter of transitory fashion. Just now we
are intent on plays " with a punch " and on words short and often
undeniably ugly. Who can tell? Fifty years hence Sheridan may
be praised for the very thing that Whipple set down as a fault.
But however our times may regard Sheridan's ornate diction,
there is no question of the appeal of his wit. His dialogue is mainly
a thing of piquancy, bubble and tang, a maximum of sparkle with a
minimum of froth. His wit is irresistible and it never cloys, for
it is more than the wit of words. We speedily weary of the Oscar
Wilde type of epigram, like: "Life is too important a thing ever
to talk seriously about it," because it is merely clever and super-
ficial and even four-fifths meaningless. And, once we catch the
trick of the thing, we yawn good-naturedly over Mr. Chesterton's
1917-] RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 603
mode of giving a new and startling twist to a proverb or a plati-
tude, like his commentary on the phrase, " mad as a hatter," which
explains that a hatter is the norm of madness because he spends
so much of his time measuring other men's heads. The wit that
runs to paradox rarely stands analysis, for, as W. E. Henley has
said, " A paradox is at best a half truth that looks like a whole
one."
Sheridan's wit has something of the deliciously blundering per-
ception of basic truth which inheres in his obscure compatriot's
illuminating statement that when he went to Venice, the first land
he put his foot on was water. So, in The Rivals, Fag remarks:
"Though I never scruple a lie to serve my master, yet it hurts one's
conscience to be found out." And Sir Lucius O'Trigger professes
himself unable to explain his failure to keep an appointment, " for
I was only taking a nap at the Parade Coffee-house, and I chose
the window on purpose that I might not miss you." It is the
same valorous champion who, interrupted in a passage of arms,
complains that in England " a gentleman can never fight in peace
and quietness." And characteristic, too, the objection voiced by
Mrs. Credulous, in St. Patrick's Day, who does not want her child
to wed a soldier.
Oh, barbarous ! To want a husband that may wed you today,
and be sent the Lord knows where before night; then in a
twelvemonth perhaps to have him come like a Colossus, with
one leg at New York, and the other at Chelsea Hospital. No,
give me a husband that knows where his limbs are, though he
want the use of them.
The wit in Sheridan's plays frequently takes a satiric turn,
as in Lady Teazle's estimate of Lady Stucco: "She's just like
the French fruit one cracks for mottoes — made up of paint and
proverb." His satire cuts and burns of course, as satire must; but
only the galled jade need wince. It never sears the undeserving;
and it never so much as borders on the obscene. The double en-
tendre, in a lascivious sense, to Sheridan is taboo— in his day as in
ours a merit and a distinction. In harmony with the best and all
but uniform tradition of Anglo-Irish literature, Sheridan, with all
his faults a chivalrous Irish gentleman, deserves to share the tribute
Pope paid to Wentworth Dillon:
In all Charles' days
Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays.
604 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN [Feb.,
Sheridan is even more Irish in his humorous conceptions,
characters and conversations. He is a little exaggerated, a little
farcical, even a little absurd; but he is not a little infectious. Dr.
Rosy is among the drollest figures in the English drama with his
delicious blending of professional patter and private grief and his
melancholy meditations on his " poor dear Dolly." Charles Sur-
face is Irish enough to be Sheridan himself with his carefree
semblance and essential decency; the scene of the sale of the family
portraits is an odd and artistic mingling of humor and pathos
worthy in some respects of comparison with Shakespeare's picture
of Henry V's farewell to Falstaff. And then there is Mrs. Mala-
prop. Sheridan was not the first English writer to utilize the verbal
impropriety as a producer of mirth; but no one has equalled him
in giving a gargoylish, outlandish turn to " select words so
ingeniously misapplied." Who can " illiterate " from memory Mrs.
Malaprop's mention of " contagious " countries, woman's " inef-
fectual " qualities and "the very pine-apple of politeness?" In
her perverse use of the right word in the wrong place she does not
" anticipate " the past; but she is verily " as headstrong as an alle-
gory on the banks of the Nile."
Mrs. Malaprop inevitably suggests Shakespeare's Dogberry,
and to fretful critics the collocation suggests plagiarism; and once
we search a writer for purloined jewels we easily persuade our-
selves that he has no Golconda of his own. Impartial and dis-
criminating investigation has, I think, found Sheridan not guilty
of literary theft. While the device of a rehearsal within a play is
not original with him — witness notably The Knight of the Burning
Pestle, Buckingham's Rehearsal and Fielding's Midas — his applica-
tion of the idea is brilliantly distinctive. He employs many stage
artifices used before and since, such as eavesdropping and mistaken
identity; but these things are common property. Mrs. Malaprop
and some episodes in The School for Scandal he elaborated from
an unpublished play written by his mother; but such " plagiarism "
was all in the family.
All in all, this " brilliant mauvais sujet," as Taine smilingly
called him, occupies a unique niche among the English dramatists,
and the first place among the Irish writers of English plays; Den-
ham, O'Keefe, Farquhar, Macklin, Steele, Tate, Mrs. Cenlivre, Kane
O'Hara, Southerne, Goldsmith — he excels them all. In the epilogue
to The Rivals he consummated the best dramatic valedictory in the
language. In The Critic he laughed bombastic tragedy away — in-
1917-] RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 605
eluding his own perverse Pizarro, then twenty years in the future.
In The School for Scandal he completed the task of killing senti-
mental comedy. In Joseph Surface he invented a character not un-
worthy to stand beside Moliere's Tartuffe, and in Lady Teazle a
character that stands alone. " Malapropism " is not the only word
which Sheridan bequeathed to English idioms. " As easy as saying
Jack Robinson/' " I own the soft impeachment," " defence, not
defiance," " no scandal about Queen Elizabeth " and " easy writ-
ing's vile hard reading," are Sheridanisms that have become
proverbs.
III.
" It was some spirit, Sheridan, that breathed
O'er thy young mind such wildly various powers."
Coleridge proved himself a searching and appreciating critic
in those two lines. Sheridan's powers, as man and orator, dramatist
and wit, were indeed various, and wildly so. His mind was ever
young; he was the Peck's Bad Boy of Parliament, the Peter Pan
of Drury Lane. And the spirit that breathed upon him was really
a sprite — a gnomish Irish leprachaun with the roguishness of an
Irish fairy and the occasional wail of an Irish banshee.
Upon the slab that marks his resting place in Westminster
Abbey — a tribute from his friend, Peter Moore — no record stands
of Sheridan's checkered life, of Sheridan's bizarre achievements.
His best epitaph — best because in half a dozen words it says every-
thing needful to say — was penned by Bulwer Lytton :
The broken wand, the fallen Prospero !
THE PRAYER OF THE POPE FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY AND
THE EASTERN CHURCHES.
BY F. AURELIO PALMIERI, O.S.A.
"O Lord, Who hast united the different nations in the confession of Thy
Name, We pray Thee for the Christian peoples of the East. Mindful of the
noble place which they have held in Thy Church, We beseech Thee to in-
spire in them the desire to take it again, in order to form one fold under
the rule of one Shepherd. Cause that they, together with Us, may be filled
with the teaching of their holy Doctors, who are also Our Fathers in the Faith.
Keep them far from every defect which might take them away from Us.
May the spirit of concord and love, which witnesses to Thy presence among
the faithful, hasten the day when Our prayers and theirs shall be united, in
order that every people and every tongue may recognize and glorify Our
Lord, Jesus Christ, Thy Son. Amen."
Y a Pontifical brief, dated April 15, 1916, His Holi-
ness Benedict XV. grants special indulgences to the
faithful who recite the above prayer, and receive
Holy Communion with the special intention for the
return of the Eastern Orthodox Churches to the
centre of Christian unity. Benedict XV., like Leo XIIL, and many
other great Popes who championed the reunion of Christendom,
devotes his care and his thought to the great ideal which has been
rightly called : " The truce of God throughout Christendom."
From a Catholic point of view it is indeed but touching and
fitting that the Supreme Ruler of the Church reechoes these oft-
repeated appeals to the scattered flock of Christ to reenter the one
Fold. And it is particularly consoling, that this prayer, crying
for peace, is to be uttered at a sad turning-point of history, at a
time of sorrow and tears, when a terrible war is destroying in
Europe, the best fruits and flowers of Christian civilization.
Since the great schism between the East and the West, the
Church of Rome, "the Mother of all the Churches," as St. Cyprian
called her, by incessant prayers, and reiterated appeals, has striven
to heal the wounds inflicted upon Christian unity, and to hold
firmly to her bosom the beloved Churches of the East. At
times she rejoiced in having reached her goal. In the same
Church, as in Lyons and in Florence, Greek and Latin har-
moniously blended their separate voices in the same hymn of
1917.] CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES 607
praise to God. But, alas! pride, prejudice, an inveterate
hatred, and above all, the clamors of a blind nationalism,
withered the ripe harvest of Christian reconciliation and per-
petuated the evils of a divided Christendom.
If I mistake not, the day of the reunion of the Eastern
Churches to the Roman Catholic Church will mark the prelimi-
nary step towards Christian Unity. Such a result is not outside
the range of historic probability. It is doubted only by those who
gaze at the divergencies of the Christian Churches and denomina-
tions without taking heed of the points on which they agree. If
we compare the formularies of faith of the East and of the West,
and the theological beliefs, the liturgical prayers and the practices
of piety of both, we will find many connecting links, many riches
of the treasury of Christian truth possessed in common. The
sameness of fundamental dogmas and sacraments, and the valid-
ity of their priesthood create between the Eastern and the Cath-
olic Churches such an intimate kinship that it looks like a paradox
to say that they are in a state of war against each other. The
Oriental schism, however nulmerous and well-based one might
suppose the divergencies between the two Churches, owes its origin
rather to quarrels of jurisdiction than to antinomies of belief.
The non serviam of the rebellious angels laid down the founda-
tions of the secular conflict between Rome and Byzantium.
Will the Eastern Churches some day accept the olive branch
of reconciliation held out by the Catholic Church? The answer
to that question is a secret of God. Yet we may hope! The
dreadful scythe of war mows down the finest flower of Euro-
pean manhood, and the streams of blood springing up from count-
less victims are cleansing the vitiated atrriosphere of Western
Christianity. A new Europe will arise upon the smoking ruins
of the war, a new breath of Christian life will breathe through
the souls of the millions who have lost sight of the God of peace.
And then peace from above, that peace which dispels the mists
of dissensions, will begin a new era of Church history.
At first view, it seems that the obstacles to reunion will be-
come greater after the war. Catholicism is threatened with los-
ing its grasp on Eastern countries. The East is doomed to be
the land of the religio depopulata. The entrance of Turkey into
the European war has been followed by a great loss to Catholic in-
fluence on that country. Catholic missionaries, for the most part
French and Italian, have been forced to desert the field of their
6o8 CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES [Feb.,
apostolic labors. Jerusalem, Beyrouth, Constantinople, Smyrna,
the flourishing centres of Catholic propaganda and scholarship,
have lost their legions of zealous teachers who won to the Catho-
lic Church the moral supremacy among rival Churches. The loss
is considerable. In Constantinople alone, the Catholic schools of
boys and girls numbered twenty thousand scholars. Catholicism
had already won there intellectual leadership. Little by little the
Sisters of Charity, whom the Turks themselves venerate as the
living embodiment of the highest heroism, exerted a leading in-
fluence on beneficent institutions. Biblical, archaeological and his-
torical researches had their pioneers in the ranks of the Catho-
lic clergy. No Protestant or Orthodox establishment could vie
with the Catholic University of Beyrouth in the field of Semitic
languages and literature, or with the £cole Biblique of Jerusalem
in the domain of Biblical archaeology, or with the Ecole d' Etudes
Byzantines at Kadikeui. The war has abruptly stopped the liter-
ary movement of Catholic missions in the East, and many years
will be needed to revive their activity. If the Central Powers
should gain the final victory, German Protestantism will take the
place of Catholicism in Constantinople; if they should be defeated,
it seems likely that Constantinople will fall under Russian rule,
and Russia will close its frontiers to Catholic influence. A Rus-
sified Constantinople means the revival of the traditions of
Byzantine pride, and the institution of an Eastern Papacy to hold
in check the primacy of Rome.
The fate also of Catholicism in the Balkan States is far from
hopeful. Here the religious horizon is thickly clouded. Greece
perseveres in its constant and steadily growing hostility to Latin
Christianity. That hostility, which is deeply rooted in the poli-
tical antagonism between the Latin and the Greek world, and in
the never-fading recollection of the evils perpetrated at Byzantium
by the Crusaders of the West, underlies as an historical substratum
the Hellenic soul. During the nineteenth century Catholicism has
been losing ground in Greece. The thousands of Latin Catholics,
which Venetian ,and Genoese ships transplanted to the Greek is-
lands, especially Cyprus, Chios, and Crete, have almost disappeared
and the last remnants of them are daily submerged by the mounting
tide of Orthodox Hellenism. It seems likely that the partial reali-
zation of the great Hellenic idea; the extension of the present
boundaries of the Hellenic kingdom, the political antinomies be-
tween Greek and Italian aspirations towards the hegemony of
1917.] CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHY 609
the Adriatic Sea, will accentuate the hostile feelings and inve-
terate prejudices of Greek Orthodoxy against Western Christian-
ity. As a fecund writer of the eighteenth century, Caesar ius Da-
pontes, wrote in one of his poems, " Greeks have nothing good
to learn or to expect from the West."
Like Greece, Serbia is not well-disposed towards the Catho-
lic Church. In the Middle Ages its code of laws sanctioned the
sentence of death upon anyone converted from the Orthodox
to the Latin Faith. Rumania, in spite of its purely Roman name,
and its Latin traditions, history, language, and culture, is among
the bitterest foes of Papal Rome. The United Rumanians, who
before the war went from Transylvania to Bucharest, are required
in a short time to renounce their allegiance to the Catholic
Church, and in case Rumanian provinces incorporated in the king-
dom of Hungary are added to the Rumanian power, the condi-
tions of the United Rumanian Church would be unfavorable for
Catholicism. Finally, Bosnia-Herzegovina, which counts six hun-
dred thousand Orthodox Serbs, if separated from Austria, would
become a stronghold of Serbian Orthodoxy against the advance of
Catholic Croatians and Slovenes, who in these last years have made
considerable progress.
Notwithstanding these gloomy forebodings, the Pope blesses
and recommends a touching prayer for the settlement of the
Oriental schism, and the union of Churches. In the earliest
period of Christianity, during the brilliant stage of Byzantine
power and the lamentable years of its decay, amongst the sorrows
and woes of the Christian ' East tortured by Islamic rulers, the
See of Rome never ceased caring for the welfare of the East-
ern Churches, for their return to the loving breast of the com-
mon Mother of the world-wide Christian family. It may be ob-
jected that its appeals do not find an echo in the utilitarian hearts
of peoples that, after the school of Byzantium, look upon religion
and religious problems from the standpoint of politics and human
advantages. Yet Rome cannot renounce its spiritual mission in
the Christian world. It is the centre of Christian unity. Even
its foes acknowledge that the longed-for reestablishment of Chris-
tian brotherhood, the abolition of the controversial era, and the
end of jurisdictional and doctrinal struggles within the pale of
divided Christendom, will be but an empty dream so long as at-
tempts for union are made outside of Rome. The chief reason
of this is that Rome embodies the universal spirit of Christ, the
VOL. CIV.—
6io CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES [Feb.,
overnationalism of the Church truly worthy of the Catholic name.
The spirit of the Churches separated from Rome is essentially na-
tional, and nationalism is the solvent of the ecumenical cohesion
of the Church of Christ. The organic reconstruction of the
broken ties of fraternity among Christians must necessarily rest on
the basis of the Catholic notion of the Church, that is, of an institu-
tion embracing the whole world, and finding its centre of unity
in a visible head. The Roman Catholic Church, therefore, not
only claims for herself the right to call the scattered Christian
forces to the unity of which it is the divinely given embodiment,
but the right also to declare that union without Rome contains
the germs of future divisions, and of sorrowful disappointments.
I believe that the prayer of the Pope comes at the right time.
A Protestant writer lately said that the problem of reunion is in
the air, that an unconscious movement towards unity is working
out its mysterious ways in all the strata of the Christian world.
Christianity craves for union. If the Catholic Church prays for
the realization of the prayer of Christ, that all may be one, Pro-
testants instinctively feel that their process of disintegration must
be stopped, and the Orthodox are becoming aware that the enslave-
ment of the Church to political interests enervates the vigor of
Christian life, and the energies of the Christian ministry. We
are at the dawn of a religious evolution which will bring the fol-
lowers of the various Christian creeds nearer to the ideal Church
of Christ, and that Church is the Catholic Church.
We know full well that the days to come of Catholicism in
the East are gloomy and tempestuous. Yet in the history of the
Church we see that, at times, through the thickest of clouds, came
a beam from above which dissipated the darkness. For instance,
we cannot now foresee the role of Russia in the religious reestab-
lishment of Europe. The stagnation of the Russian Orthodox
masses is rather apparent than real. We see already the first
symptoms of a great religious renewal of Russian Christianity.
The religious forces of Russia are exceedingly intense and active,
although they are compressed in their expansion. And the day
is near when the Russian Church will v break her fetters, and
search new horizons to quench her thirst for freedom and light.
The religious condition of Russia is a complex one. We have,
first, the educated classes, which, to borrow a phrase of Sergius,
Archbishop of Finland, have divorced themselves from the Ortho-
dox Church. The so-called Russian intelligentzia seems irremedi-
1917-] CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES 611
ably lost for the official Church of Russia. We will not stop to
investigate the causes of this phenomenon. We do not exaggerate,
however, when we say that the Orthodox Church, in spite of the
prominent role played by it in the elaboration of the Russian na-
tional consciousness, is unable to answer the religious needs and
aspirations of the Russian cultivated mind. To the Russian higher
classes Orthodox formalism does not embody the fullness of
Christian life, the nobility of a society which depends entirely on
God, and which does not fear to throw herself into the whirlwind
of battles for the defence of the rights of God against the en-
croachments of the powers of earth. The Church of Russia,
which possesses the vital treasures of Christian truth, which
rightly boasts of inexhaustible reserves of deeply-felt piety, which
participates to a large extent in the sacramental life springing
from the heart of Christ, is crippled in her apostolic work by being
enslaved to a national standard, and to a political bureaucracy.
Here is the chief reason why Russian Orthodoxy has lost its hold
on the Russian intelligentsia. It no longer represents the living
edifice whose walls, cemented with the blood of Christ, stand up
in every corner of the world ; it has become a tool of a caste which
hinders the powerful expansion of the moral and intellectual ener-
gies of Russia. The paralysis of the Russian Church can be healed
only by Catholicism. Russian Orthodoxy will revive as soon as
the breath of freedom from earthly powers breathes in its huge,
though motionless, organism. This organic disease of the Russian
Church explains why some of their best leaders, as Vladimir
Solovev, when thoroughly acquainted with Catholic aims and prin-
ciples, adhere to the Catholic Church. The history of Catholicism
in Russia numbers already a large host of converts from the ranks
of the Russian intelligentzia, and perhaps the saying of Alexis
Khomiakov, that freedom of conscience in Russia would send into
the Roman Catholic fold the Russian cultivated classes, is not de-
void of truth. The fascination exerted by the universal spirit of
the Roman Catholic Church is greatly due to her independence from
any political authority. And no doubt, when Russia lives in a closer
contact with Western Christianity, when the gates of its frontiers
are open to the victorious Catholic influences, the approach of the
high-minded spirits of Russian Orthodoxy towards the Catholic
Church will assume far-reaching proportions.
Even now the liberal school of religious thought in Russia does
justice to the grandeur and spiritual magnificence of Roman Catho-
612 CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES [Feb.,
licism. Philosophers of great value, who are preserving the noble
traditions of Solovev's mind, emphasize the urgency of a rap-
prochement between Eastern and Western Christianity, and with a
sincere warmth of sympathy extol the countless benefits lavished
upon the religious, artistic and scientific genius of the Latin world
by Roman Catholicism.
I am convinced that a deeper knowledge of the spirit, aims
and history of the Papacy by fair-minded Russian Orthodox, and
a truer acquaintance with the ill-fated past of Russian Orthodoxy
by Catholic writers will promote the cause of reunion. Slavic
peoples, and particularly Russians, have sucked with- the milk of their
Byzantine nurses the prejudice that the Roman Catholic Church
is invincibly averse to the free development of the Slavic soul. A
more intimate acquaintance with Rome will make plain the ground-
lessness of that false imputation. Roman Catholics do not ignore
the brilliant powers of Slavic races, and the brilliant part which
Divine Providence reserves to them in the forthcoming history
of Christianity and mankind. Yet such a conviction does not
close their eyes to the deficiencies and constitutional imperfections
of the Russian Church. A Christianity gagged by the harshness
of the civil power, a Christianity reduced to the debasing office of
fostering and furthering the human ideals of political rulers, re-
nounces the free exercises of its spiritual energies. And such is the
condition of Russian Christianity. The best gifted sons of the
Russian Church admit that Russian Orthodoxy is doomed to an
inglorious fate, if she will not dare to throw off the yoke of State
despotism. It is not long since that a Metropolitan of Petrograd
was accustomed to say that the Russian Church had ceased being
and living, and that the synodal bureaucracy had buried her under
the gorgeous gildings of bureaucratic uniforms. Some Russian
writers who have personal reasons for wishing the survival of the
synodal regime boldly deny the moral decadence of their own
Church produced by the religious reformation, or, to speak more
correctly, deformation, of Peter the Great. But, as far as I know,
no one of them has succeeded in showing the fallacy of the his-
torical facts and documents gathered up in a recent book of Alex-
andre Blagovidov about the High Procurators of the Holy Synod,
or in invalidating the severe criticisms with which Russian bishops,
even those most averse to Catholicism, such as Antoni, Archbishop
of Kharkov, brand the anticanonical constitution of the Russian
Church of today,
I9I7-] CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES 613
The Russian Church, I doubt not, possesses a vast amount of
spiritual energies which will be put into action as soon as her
servile submission to the political regime is abandoned. It must
be remembered that the Russian Church, even in the darkest periods
of her history, did not fail to nurture in her bosom the martyrs
and confessors of her independence from civil powers, as Philip,
Metropolitan of Moscow, Patriarch Nicon, and the Metropolitan
Arseni Matsievich. The slow evolution of Russia towards a higher
civilization, the awakening of the spirit of reforms in every branch
of social, intellectual and religious life, have made known the fact
that the majority of the Russian clergy, though firmly clinging to
the doctrinal traditions of the national Church, are eager that she
shall be relieved from the onerous tutelage of the State. The strug-
gle for religious freedom enlists the best elements of the Russian
Church, and a Church independent of the State and altogether in
possession of the Catholic inheritance of dogmatic truths and sacra-
mental means cannot but feel, so to speak, homesickness for Rome.
When the Pope prays for the " kiss of peace " between the East
and the West he prays implicitly for an uplifting of the Eastern
Churches to a higher standard of life, to a loftier conception of
their own mission in the Christian world. The history of the past
tells us that every movement which carries on a revival of the
free spirit of Christ in the bosom of a Church separated from
Rome, sooner or later, bends that Church towards the Papacy,
the stronghold of the holiest liberties of the Gospel. William Pal-
mer, one of the best students of the life and spirit of Russian
Orthodoxy, holds that it is by dint of a free regeneration that
Russia will come to bear obedience and allegiance to the Church of
Rome.
Russian Orthodox will become conscious of Christian noble-
ness ; they will rebuild their ecclesiastical administration ; they
will revive their religious life; their Church will replace her
abstract unity by a real and spiritual force; she will blend
activity and passivity; a positive doctrine will supersede her
ceaseless negations. If the Russian clergy would deserve the
respect of their flock by worthily representing the Church;
if they would oppose their enemies by their moral strength
and their intellectual preeminence rather than with the support
and the repressive policy of the civil power, no doubt they
would enter in the way of hierarchical union with Rome.
Probably, in rising up from her sad ruins, the Russian Church
would wage war against the Papacy. No matter ! the Oxford
6i4 CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES [Feb.,
movement is an object lesson. As in England, Rome has no
reason to apprehend in Russia a loyal hostility, when dictated
by the love for truth and the religious ideal. Still more, a
spontaneous reaction, analogous to the Puseyite movement in
England, will be the best token of the coming Catholicism of
Russia.1
The true, the great, obstacle to reunion, it may be granted,
is the Papacy. But it is a recognized fact that Churches yearning
for emancipation from the laity or from the civil power cannot
help instinctively feeling the necessity of a supreme head of the
Universal Church. The moral necessity of the Papacy is a corollary
of the composite nature of the Church, which diffuses the super-
natural life of her invisible Head, Jesus Christ, through the mem-
bers of a visible human society. Anti-Roman polemics will never
be able to deny that a visible body needs a visible head. Protestants
sincerely longing and working for union admit the logical con-
nection between a visible Church and its visible headship.
. *
Beliefs which are supposed to be incompatible with the
reunion of Churches are really complementary. Take the most
difficult of all, the Papacy, and its implications. To this ex-
tent at least the way to reconciliation might be open: it is
not inherently unreasonable that any society of human beings
should have a president. If the universal Church should be
thought of as reunited, the office of universal president might
not be beyond the bounds of possibility.2
And Russian Orthodoxy which, better than other Churches,
preserves the true notion of the Church of Christ, can, only by
fighting its own theological principles, reject the necessity of a
visible head in the mystical Body of Our Lord.
Moreover a Church which firmly maintains that tradition is
on an equal footing with Holy Scripture as a source of revealed
truth is bound to hear the voice of the witnesses to the Faith
during the earliest centuries of Christianity. And the earliest
traditions of the Church both in the East and in the West speak
openly in favor of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church to
rule the Christian world.
The Russian Church confirms our statement by the authority
1 Stanislas Tyszkiewicz, Un episode du mouvement d' Oxford: la mission de
William Palmer, Etudes, 5 aout 1913, p. 344.
'George Zabriskie, in The Christian Union Quarterly, 1915, vol. V., p. 8.
1917.] CHRISTIAN UNITY AND EASTERN CHURCHES 615
of the most famous of her ecclesiastical historians, Alexis Petrovich
Lebedev, a distinguished member of the Ecclesiastical Academy and
of the University of Moscow. Let us quote a striking passage
of one of his latest works :
Always, and beyond all doubts, the jurisdiction of Roman
bishops extended farther than that of the other patriarchs.
So it was from the beginning of Christian history. There
was no bishop like the Bishop of Rome, and it could not be
otherwise. Even in the times of the Apostles, the Faith of
the Church of Rome was exalted. The first letter of St. Cle-
ment of Rome is a remarkable historical fact, which proves
that the Roman Church extended her maternal cares to other
churches throughout the world, and spoke to them the language
of love and authority. It vindicates to her bishops the rights
of a universal jurisdiction, rights which the other bishops
never dared to claim for their own sees. And what is stranger,
all Christian bishops recognize the validity of those claims:
they do not raise any voice of protest against the pretensions
of the Church of Rome: they submit themselves to her au-
thority, to her decisions: they are full of respect and ven-
eration towards Roman bishops: the primacy of Rome is a
practical and real manifestation of the earliest life of Chris-
tianity.3
No wonder, then, that Pope Gelasius could declare that the
primacy of Rome does not rest on any synodal decrees, but on the
words in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.4
In a letter to the Secretary of " The World Conference on
Faith and Order" (December 18, 1914), Cardinal Gasparri, in
the name of the Pope, wrote the following beautiful words:
The plans of the Roman Pontiffs, their cares and their la-
bors have always been specially directed to the end that the
sole and unique Church which Jesus Christ ordained and sanc-
tified with His divine Blood should be most zealously guarded
and maintained, whole, pure and ever abounding in love, and
that it should both let its light shine and open wide its door
for all who rejoice in the name of man and who desire to
gain holiness upon earth and eternal happiness in heaven.
8 Lebedev, Dukhovenstvo drevnei vselenskoi tzerkvi (The Clergy of the Ancient
Universal Church), Moscow, 1915, pp. 228, 233.
*Sancta tamen Romano, Ecclesia nullis synodicis constitutis ceteris Ecclesiis
pralata est, sed evangelica voce Domini et Salvatoris primatum obtinuit. A. Thiel,
Epistola Romanorum Pontificum genuine. I., Brunsbergae, 1868, p. 455.
616 MATER DESOLATA [Feb.,
The prayer recently blessed and commended by Benedict
XV., is really the voice of a paternal love which cares for the
welfare of the whole Christian family. The Pope begins by calling
into the ecumenical fold of the Roman Catholic Church the flock that
stands nearest its walls, that is, those members of the Christian
family who preserve the largest part of the complete inheritance
of the Catholic Faith, who, by preserving their valid priesthood,
have not entirely broken their ties with the mystical Body of
Christ. But, in a broader sense, his prayer reaches all the scat-
tered Christian denominations, all the peoples who look upon Christ
as the shining emblem of their civilization, as the divine legislator
of their ethical and social life.
He prays for their return to that one true centre of unity, that
one sole and unique Church which Jesus Christ ordained and sancti-
fied with His Precious Blood.
MATER DESOLATA.
(To Margaret Pearse.)
BY THEODORE MAYNARD.
To you the dreary night's long agony,
The anguish, and the laden heart that broke
Its vase of burning tears, the voiceless cry —
And then the horror of that blinding stroke !
To you all this, and yet to you much more.
God pressed into the chalice of your pain
A starry triumph, when the sons you bore
Were written on the roll of Ireland's slain.
Let no man touch your glorious heritage,
Or pluck one pang of sorrow from your heart.
Or stain with any pity the bright page
Emblazoning the holy martyrs' part ;
Ride as a queen your splendid destiny —
Since death is swallowed up in victory.
PAUL THE JEW.
BY L. E. BELLANTI, S.J.
NE of William Hunt's most attractive paintings de-
picts a village scene at Nazareth in the beginning of
the Christian era. In the middle distance stands a
gracefully arched fountain, backed by garden slopes.
At the well-side some women are rilling their earthen-
ware jars or resting for a while. In the foreground, walking
straight out of the picture, is a gracious young mother. A heavy
jar of water, pressing on a wadded towel is delicately balanced
on her head, while her eyes rest lovingly on the barefoot Boy in
front of her, Who, with neck and chest slightly bared, His red tunic
clasped round His waist with a striped yellow sash, is all intent on
the successful prosecution of His role of water-carrier. A scene
this, for the contemplation of loving souls throughout the ages,
though we can find for it no authority of chapter and verse. Only
we know it must have been so sometime while " the Child grew and
waxed strong, full of wisdom: and the grace of God was in
Him."
Turning our gaze from this remote village of Galilee to the
crowded capital of Cilicia, some hundreds of miles away, we see
a Jewish lad, of about the same age, standing by the busy wharves
of the river Cydnus. Typically Jewish in dress and features,
bright-eyed and intelligent, he is eagerly taking in the animated
scene, as the lateen-sailed, two-masted ships move up and down the
river, unloading the merchandise of the West, or bearing away the
riches of the East from the huge warehouses of his native Tarsus to
Alexandria and Corinth and distant Rome. Men of all nations and
trades rub shoulders here and jostle against one another, Greeks
chaffering, Jews deprecating, indignant Syrians driving hard bar-
gains, Romans calmly looking on. Timber stacks from Mount
Taurus fill the storing yards, side by side with the harvest products
of the plains and the silken bales and kegs of spices, deposited by car-
avans that have threaded their toilsome way through the historic pass
of the Cilician Gates. We note, too, how in the medley of race and
color one language is used by all — the common Greek, that has gained
in universality what it has lost of its classical purity — the Greek
6i8 PAUL THE JEW [Feb.,
of Attica cheapened to the daily use of conquered Asiatic, Mace-
donian, Syrian and Egyptian, and conquering Roman too. Through
this Graeco-Asiatic city, within human memory, Julius Caesar had
marched with his victorious army on his way from Egypt to Pontus.
Here, too, still more recently the pleasure-loving Mark Antony had
for a space held his court, and entertained Cleopatra, when she had
sailed up the Cydnus with all the magnificence of the Orient, to cap-
tivate her Roman lover and lure him to his doom. Tarsus, indeed,
had been a great city from time immemorial, but now in Paul's
childhood she stood at the zenith of her prosperity, renowned as
the metropolis of the richest province of the East, a free city with
a free harbor, mistress of a large and fertile territory, enjoying the
prestige of a world- famed university and the blessings of self-
government. A place this to stir in an impressionable lad thoughts
and dreams of the wide world, and to impart an instinctive aptitude
for mixing with all sorts of men; differing in every respect from
the lowly village of Galilee and yet eminently suited to be the home
of the great Apostle who was to convert the Gentiles and to bring
the heterogeneous Roman empire under the sweet yoke of Christ.
Paul was the son of well-to-do parents, themselves probably
descended from ancestors who had settled in Tarsus nearly two
centuries before this time, and had won for themselves the coveted
citizenship with all its privileges of state and rank. Yet their com-
merce with pagan civilization throughout these years had not made
them abate one whit of their loyalty to the pure religion of Judea.
Nor wrere temptations wanting. Tarsus, like most Asiatic cities,
was a hotbed of corruption, and the Tarsians wallowed in the fil-
thiest of pagan cults. Sardanapalus, the city's tutelary god, repre-
sented as a debauched youth in female clothing, summed up his
divine message to his devotees in the inscription still to be read
beneath his feet: " Drink, eat and lust; all else is vain." But the
Jewish colony, while making its way in the commercial life of the
town, succeeded in preserving its own remarkable individuality —
a fact which led Roman historians, piqued by their exclusiveness,
to speak of them as " the nation of Jews in that city." This
spiritual aloofness must have been specially marked in the case of
a family, which, like Paul's, belonged to the Pharisaic party. The
Pharisees were the " Separatists " among the Jews; they fattened
on the rich cream of exclusiveness ; they were the sticklers for the
Law; not one jot or tittle of it would they evade; they would hedge
round religion with all observances and minutely fulfil its every
1917.] PAUL THE JEW 619
precept, keeping a weather-eye open the while, to see if their neigh-
bors did the same. They had much in common with our own
Puritans; probably they carried an even thicker coating of hypoc-
risy. Yet, like Puritanism, Pharisaism had its genuinely good
side. From his parents Paul would have learned to cherish the
highest and purest beliefs in the Unity of God, in His divine and
overruling Providence, in His Creation, in the promised Redemption
of His people, in the existence of angels and evil spirits, in the
resurrection of the dead and in a future life of happiness or misery.
No wonder Paul burst forth into a torrent of indignant protest,
when, in later days, he discovered that some busybodies had been un-
der-mining the faith of his converts, with boastful and exaggerated
estimates of their own perverse Judaism. "If any man deemeth
that he can trust in the flesh, better can I — circumcised when eight
days old, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
born of Hebrews, in observance of the Law a Pharisee, in zeal a
persecutor of the Church, in the justness to be found in the Law,
proved without blame."1
Paul's education began in his native city with the gradual ac-
quisition of the two languages that were to serve him throughout
his life. Greek was spoken all about him by slaves, domestics, com-
panions and by all the townsfolk; Hebrew was the language of
the sacred books — and to the boy it would all sound very remote
and archaic if not unintelligible — but Aramaic was in all likeli-
hood the language of the Synagogue, and of the inner family life,
not to speak of the Jewish preparatory school. It was here that
Paul first puzzled his curly head over the square and detached con-
sonants of the Jewish script; that he learned to read and write
from right to left, tremulously supplying the vowel sounds for him-
self, before he made the astounding discovery that the rest of the
world read and wrote from left to right! Note, too, one curious
anticipation of modern methods. However much the over-esti-
mated science of pedagogics may nowadays exalt the value of such
manual arts as carpentry or clay-modeling in a general scheme
of education, the discovery itself is as old as the hills. Every Jewish
boy was apprenticed to a craft, whatever his material prospects
might be; and if the latter day motives of utility and coordination
of hand and brain and physical adaptability came up for consid-
eration at all, they were regarded as trivial and unconvincing be-
side the inspiring ideal of the dignity of physical labor. So, 'while
lPhil. iii. 4-6.
620 PAUL THE JEW [Feb.,
but a child, Paul began his first essays in the common Cilician
industry of tent-making, little dreaming that in future years this
would be his sole means of eking out a slender income, and so se-
curing his independence of the charity of others in his sacred minis-
try. The lad was supplied with goat's wool sheared from the
flocks of Mount Taurus. This wool was first washed and dried,
then combed and braided : finally it was plaited into the coarse
fabrics of which shoes, mats and coverings of all kinds were made.
The rapid development of Paul's talents early marked him
out in his father's eyes, for the distinguished career of a teacher or
rabbi. And so — once more noting the probability that the Child
Jesus and His last Apostle were born about the same time, and were
now of equal age — we may contemplate the pilgrimage of two
boys, both twelve years old, both " sons of the Law," to Jerusalem.
One will sit at the feet of the doctors " hearing them and asking
them questions " and all will be astonished " at His wisdom and
His answers;" but three days mark the term of His visit. The
other will be definitely attached for many years to the school of
Rabban Gamaliel. " Rabban," that is to say, " our master," was a
superlative title of honor among the Doctors of the Law, and
Gamaliel seems to have well deserved it by the purity of his teach-
ings and the generous liberality of his views.
It was this sympathetic outlook on life that led him to mitigate
the rigors of Pharisaism, to value the spirit more than the letter
and perhaps even to look forward for the salvation of Israel to
that same Child Whom his father Simeon had held in his arms
when he chanted his mine dimittis. Indeed Gamaliel is one of
whom we would fain know more. Briefly, we gather about him
that he was the son of the prophet Simeon2 and grandson of the
great Hillel, and that although one of the most distinguished Scribes
in the Holy City, he had boldly separated himself from the conven-
tional and hide-bound rigorism of the Doctors, and lived in a sphere
apart. Yet to the end of his days he seems to have remained an
honored Scribe, and should any sad soul feel inclined to lend ear
to gloomy tradition they are at liberty to believe that with his
death " the honor of the Torah ceased and purity and piety became
extinct."3 He only appears once again in the history of the early
Church, after an interval of twenty years, as a deeply revered per-
sonality and as the defender of the Apostles. " My advice to you
'This identification seems quite probable.
*Cf. Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. Gamaliel I.
PAUL THE JEW 621
is this :" he said to the infuriated members of the Sanhedrin who
were all for putting the Apostles to death, " do not concern your-
selves with these men; let them alone. For if their designs and
their work be of men, they will come to nought; but if they are of
God you cannot thwart them — or else you may find yourselves
fighting against God."4
Under the guidance of this high-minded master Paul set to
work at his rabbinical studies. He had come up to Jerusalem with
some conversational knowledge of Greek and Aramaic. He now
necessarily familiarized himself still more with the common lan-
guage of the Jews and with the old Hebrew of the Scriptures. A
Pharisee's son and a Pharisee himself, Paul's supreme ambition
was to identify himself with all that the strictest Judaism connoted.
Speaking of this period in later life, he tells us that he made greater
progress than all his companions and gave signs of an unmeasured
zeal " for our traditions."5 These " traditions " were held to illus-
trate the meaning of the Scriptures and the application of the Mosaic
Law, and comprised that mass of burdensome decisions and un-
warrantable interpretations, which was to be so terribly condemned
by Our Lord. Weak analogies and ridiculous precedents had, in
process of time, been invested with an authority hardly second to
that of the Law itself. The letter counted for more than the spirit.
From his own confessions, then, Paul seems to have devoted him-
self wholeheartedly to the study of these additions to the Mosaic
Law — called the Mishna or Second Law — and in so far as they
existed, to the voluminous writings of the Talmudists, which in-
terpreted the Scriptures through a welter of accumulated com-
mentary.6 According to the custom of Jewish schools, the lad
would come and sit on the ground beside the platform of Gamaliel,
and so during many a long year " stationed in the dust at the feet
of the wise man he drank eagerly of his word." It has been
conjectured, that, as years went on, and Paul grew to manhood,
his work was not confined to Jerusalem. To the more gifted and
zealous young rabbis was often intrusted the task of making con-
verts, and of strengthening and confirming the scattered Jewish
congregations, in the strict observance of the Law. We have Our
Lord's reproach to the Pharisees that they scoured land and sea
to make a single proselyte, instead of looking to themselves, and
setting their own house in order.7 Some such work may have
4 Acts v. 38, 9. "Gal. i. 14. "Pirke Aboth, I., 4.
TMatt. xxiii. 15.
622 PAUL THE JEW [Feb.,
been given to Paul. He certainly was not in Jerusalem during the
two and a half years of Our Lord's public ministry, nor is his
presence ever hinted at for a nearly similar period after Our
Lord's Ascension. From his own account (Acts 26, 4) it may be
not unfairly surmised that he was far away in Cilicia during these
years, removed from all sight or rumor of the most stirring events
in the world's history. Indeed, it was, very probably, not until his
return to the Holy City in 31 or 32 A. D., after a prolonged absence,
that Paul first heard the story of the deluded Prophet of Nazareth.
He was a full-grown man now, entering on his prime, impetuous
in his zeal for the Law, eager above all to distinguish himself in
the holy cause to which his heart and soul were bound by every tie.
The account of Our Lord's life, of His sermons and miracles and
outspoken claims, coming as it naturally did, from the most preju-
diced quarter, would appear to him a horrible and outrageous blas-
phemy; the Resurrection, the Ascension, the descent of the Holy
Ghost and the Apostolic miracles were obviously nothing but pieces
of shameful imposture, deliberately staged to catch the public eye
and to deceive the simple and the unwary. The whole movement
ought to have been crushed out of existence at least two years
ago, and seemingly would have been, but for the senile indecision
of the Council and the mistaken kindness of his old master Ga-
maliel. Now the contagion had spread — of course it had; the
wonder to him was that things had not gone further. But this was
neither the day nor the hour for indulging in futile speculations
about the past. So far, at any rate, as he was concerned, the way
was clear. The handful of Galileans, who were prime leaders and
instigators of this movement, and even now blocked up the
Temple Courts with their discussions, and turned private houses
into conventicles, must be speedily and summarily dealt with. He
would see to it himself.
It does not seem unfair to assume that Paul's dominating
personality and tireless energy had much to do in stirring up the
Pharisees to action. They hitherto lacked a cooperator with a
courage and a vitality equal to all the fatigues and difficulties of
an anti-Christian campaign among the populace. Lo and behold!
Paul drops into their midst like a bolt from the blue, requiring
nothing but their sanction. Truly the hand of God has not been
shortened. We first see Paul's influence at work, in the action
taken by "some members of the Synagogue of the Libertines,
Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and visitors from Cilicia and Roman
1917.] PAUL THE JEW 623
Asia.8 These men began to dispute with Stephen — one of the
most eloquent Greek disciples recently ordained by the Apostles —
in the hope of leading him on to incriminate himself. Failing
this, they had no hesitation in suborning some false witnesses,
(a picturesque device of which Oriental litigants have never
wearied), and in the same court of Caiaphas, barely three years
after the Masters trial there, a similar, mock trial was held over
the disciple. Stephen, strong in his foretaste of heaven, made his
splendid confession : " Behold," he said, " I see the heavens open-
ed, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God."9
Garments were rent in stage-struck horror ; the young deacon
was borne out of the city walls on the crest of a wave of popular
fury; in a few minutes a heap of stones covered the mangled
relics of the first Christian martyr! Saul, the stern-eyed fanatic,
saw justice done, and then restored their "jibab," or sleeveless
mantles, to the perspiring instruments of divine vengeance. The
Sanhedrin kept discreetly out of the way, hiding their elation be-
hind closed doors.
Persecution now became the order of the day, and Saul
was the man of the hour. He did nothing by halves. Armed
with the full authority of High Priest and Council he burst into
house after house, and, with the ruthlessness of a Topcliffe, bore
off all who had not fled at the first alarm to prison and torture,
regardless of age or sex. His own words show how deeply the
iron had entered into his soul. "I myself threw many of the
people of Christ into prison, and when it was proposed to put
them to death I gave my vote for it. Time after time, in every
Synagogue I tried by punishments to force them to blaspheme.
So frantic was -I against them that I pursued them even to for-
eign cities."10 Indeed it was while traveling to Damascus on
what was destined to be the last of his persecuting missions that
the stupendous miracle of his conversion took place. He and his
escort had now been traveling for the greater part of a week,
breaking the journey according to custom, for a midday rest,
and camping in the" evenings at the regular halting places in
Samaria, Galilee, by the Jordan's banks, and in the highlands of
Iturea. This evening would see them safe at their destination;
and so they pressed on through the midday heat along the miles
of fruit groves which marked the last stage of their journey.
^Then, as now, Damascus nestled in the heart of this great oasis,
"Acts vi. 9. "Acts vii. 55. "Acts. xxvi. n.
624 PAUL THE JEW [Feb.,
glistening, to the Arab poet's fancy, like "a cluster of seed-pearls
on an emerald carpet." A forced march through a sultry region is
calculated to soothe neither body nor spirit ; the conversation became
monosyllabic; the perspiration profuse. Suddenly, full in the eyes
of that band, inured to the glare of the tropical sun, there blazed
a light so fierce that all fell to the earth, and these Aramaic words
rang in their terrified ears : "Shaul, Sh'dul, lemd redaphtdni "
(Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?) The rabbi quivering
in the dust could hardly stammer : "Who art Thou, Lord ? " " I am
Jesus of Nazareth Whom thou persecutest." Sheer horror would
have bereft an ordinary man of speech, but Saul was tempered
steel. "Lord," he cried out, "what wilt Thou have me to do?"
And the Lord said to him : " Arise, go into the city and there it
shall be told thee what thou must do." The dazzling glory and
divine Presence were withdrawn; on the high road once more,
there beat the light of common day. Sadly shaken, Saul's follow-
ers picked themselves up and went to the assistance of their
broken leader. There he stood in the middle of the road, groping
about with his hands, trembling in every limb, his once imper-
iously flashing eyes now sightless orbs, in which the tears welled
up to chase one another silently down his sallow cheeks. For
by a divine paradox, Saul the persecutor had been struck blind,
that Paul the Apostle might see. This is no singular phenom-
enon. God's surgical treatment is to be seen in the story of
every conversion. His operating Hand is unerring in Its sureness,
but It discards anaesthetics with the strong. And the soul will cry
out at the seeming wantonness of the pain:
Ah! must —
Designer Infinite! —
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?11
Nothing was left but to proceed with the journey; so his
followers took Saul by the hand and leading him slowly into
Damascus, found a quiet lodging for him up a narrow street in
the house of Judas. There he was left to work out his salvation.
The anguish of a strong man transcends any trick of the pen.
Like his Master, Saul must undergo his agony, in the dark, alone.
"And he was three days without sight, and he did neither eat
"Thompson's Hound of Heaven, a lyric truly Pauline in its passionate intensity
and spiritual insight.
1917.] PAUL THE JEW 625
nor drink." At the end of that time an angel of comfort appeared
to him in the person of Ananias. Coming by the direct command
of God, Ananias laid his hands upon him and said : " Brother
Saul, the Lord Jesus hath sent me, He that appeared to thee in
the way as thou earnest; that thou mayest receive thy sight and be
filled with the Holy Ghost." And immediately there fell from
his eyes as it were scales, and he received his sight; and rising up
he was baptized.12
In so brief and tentative a sketch as this, place cannot be
found for every recorded detail in the Apostle's career; frequent-
ly the events of years must be summed up in a few lines. It is
delightfully characteristic of the man, that, as soon as he had
made his peace with God, he fortified himself with a hearty meal,
and at once proceeded to publish his new found Faith with all the
vehemence of his nature. The miraculous transformation of the
Jewish persecutor into the Christian preacher was a nine-day's
wonder in Damascus. Then other feelings begaa to supervene;
and here as elsewhere his fearless outspokenness soon brought him
into the greatest danger. Infuriated Jews swore to take away his
life. Day and night his would-be murderers crouched in the deep
shadow of the city gates, and the disciples only saved him, by
pushing the little man into a basket and letting him down over
the walls. Thence he fled into the country of the Nabatsean Arabs,
and lived among them until he thought the hue and cry were over.
We next find him in Jerusalem where after disarming the sus-
picions of the timid disciples, and being introduced to Peter and
James, he at once set about supplementing their carefully regulated
ministry, by something more public and vigorous. It was his
nature to be up and doing, to make firm friends or bitter enemies,
but in him at any rate the word of God would not be gagged.
His enemies found that there was no withstanding him; his
friends found that there was no holding him back. He had
scarcely been in Jerusalem a fortnight, yet already his life was
in danger. The only hope of peace for the infant Church and
safety for Paul lay in getting him away at once. So, some of
the brethren, gently but firmly took him down with them to
Caesarea, and bluntly shipped him off to Tarsus.
The distinct indignity of this sudden and compulsory with-
drawal from all active work in Jerusalem, seems to have
finally convinced Paul that his time had not yet come. The next
"Acts ix.
VOL. civ.— 40
626 PAUL THE JEW [Feb.,
ten years of his life — an obscure period — were devoted to prep-
aration for the apostolate to the Gentiles, and possibly, to quiet
missionary work in and about Tarsus and Antioch. He makes a
passing reference to this stage of his career in the letter to the
Galatians: "Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and
Cilicia; and I continued to be unknown by face to the Churches
of Judea; but they only heard say: 'He who persecuted us in
times past, doth now preach the Faith.' And they glorified God
in me."13 It may seem strange to some, that this long period of
hidden and] humble effort should! coincide with what might —
humanly speaking — have been the most active decade of the
Apostle's ministry, but the same holds good in the lives of so
many saints, and is manifested so clearly in the Hidden Life
of their great Exemplar, that we are led to see in these externally
unfruitful years, the designs of God's providence following their
normal course. Nor can we here omit all mention of what must
have been a sore trial to one of Paul's affectionate disposition. It
is almost certain that to a family in which Pharisaism was so
deeply-ingrained, to parents especially who had spared no pains
in the effort to make of their son, a learned rabbi and a pillar of
orthodox Judaism, it must have been a fearful shock, when he
not merely became a Christian, but actually taught the inefficacy
of the Mosaic Law! Their pride would be outraged; they would
naturally regard Paul as an apostate, a foe to God and the chosen
race, and a disgrace to the family ; " his own relatives" as Ramsay
well says,14 might be expected to be his most bitter enemies. Look-
ing at these probabilities we see a special force in his words to
the Philippians,15 that he had given up all for Christ, " for Whom
I suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse."
These emphatic words suit the mouth of one who had been dis-
owned by his family, and reduced, from a position of wealth
and influence in his nation, to poverty and contempt.
The names Paul and Saul have been freely interchanged
throughout this chapter. Saul, however, was the name by which
he went — throughout almost the whole of the period we have
described — in Judea and amongst his kinsfolk. Indeed the name
Paul, is first mentioned by Saint Luke on the occasion when — by
a curious coincidence — he won over Sergius Paulus, the Gov-
ernor of Cyprus, to the Faith. This has given rise to the vener-
13 Gal. i. 21-24. "Ramsay, St Paul the Traveler, etc., p. 26.
"Phil. iii. 8.
1917.] PAUL THE JEW 627
able theory, that Paul took the name of his distinguished con-
vert. But it seems truer to say that with the dissemination of
Greek culture, it had become the fashion throughout the East,
for everyone who prided himself on his Greek education, cos-
mopolitan propensities, or social status, to bear a Greek name.
He, at the same time, kept his other name in his native language,
by which he would be generally known among his countrymen.
On this view,16 the names Paul and Saul were the alternative
and not the complement of each other. And the distinction of
these two names has been generally accepted in this sense by the
untutored majority of Christians, in whose minds Saul not un-
naturally recalls the persecutor of the Church, while Paul is the
Apostle of the Gentiles.
It may not be amiss to set down here some further details,
which may help to fill in our picture of the Apostle, about the time
of his entry upon that stupendously active missionary career, to
which he devoted the remaining twenty years or so of his life.
Clement of Alexandria, undoubtedly an early authority, tells
us that Paul was married and that he was the only Apostle who
went about unaccompanied by his wife! But Clement's definite
statement seems to be based on the misinterpretation of some
words in the epistle to the Philippians.17 Moreover, Clement
wrote at a time when apocryphal fabrications were being widely
circulated and as widely credited, and his works, bristling as they
do with the singular views of the day, offer but a thorny path
to the student in search of facts. In any case the fact of Paul's
celibacy cannot be doubted in the face of his own explicit testimony
in the same first Epistle to the Corinthians to which Clement al-
ludes. "Then to the unmarried and to widows I say, it is good
for them if they remain even as I."18 Further evidence, were it
necessary, is supplied by the Apostle's references to the stern
labor he enjoined upon himself, that he might not be a burden
to others. For it is clear, that after his conversion and during
his missionary life, Paul supported himself by his earnings as a
"tentmaker." In those days — possibly even more than in our
own — a new religion was so intimately associated in the popular
mind, with the handing-round of the plate, that Paul made it his
rule never to accept or solicit alms for himself. He would shep-
perd his flock without fleecing them. And he impressed this upon
"See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, etc., p. 81. "Phil. iv. 3.
18 1 Cor. vii. 8.
628 PAUL THE JEW [Feb.,
his converts in no uncertain voice when the occasion seemed to
call for it. True, he allowed his beloved Philippians to send him
some gifts, but where such affection and confidence reigned mis-
understandings were impossible. "You remember, brethren," he
says to the Thessalonians, "our toil and trouble — how, working
day and night, so as not to burden any of you, we preached to
you, the Gospel of God,"19 and again: "neither did we, whilst
with you, take food unearned, at any man's hand, but we worked
night and day that we might not burden any of you."20 He
insists still more strongly on this point with the unsentimental
and money-grubbing Corinthians. Most of all he feared lest his
Gospel should be confounded with the novel doctrines of ubiqui-
tous Sophists who literally lived on their wits. " I shall refuse to
be a burden to you. I want not your money, but yourselves."21
Even in his farewell address to the Ephesians the same note is
struck. "I have never coveted any man's gold or silver or cloth-
ing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine provided
not only for my own wants, but for my companions as well."22
And, no doubt, these hands, as Paul held them out, rough and
black with stitching at the coarse canvas, told their own tale of
stern independencies and self-denial. The bruising and tension of
fingers, and the loss of flexibility which would ensue from his
unremitting industry at his craft, may be the true explanation
of the difficulty Paul seems to have found, in later years, in put-
ting pen to paper. All his extant letters were dictated to a sec-
retary ; the Apostle, as a rule, adding his signature and one or two
brief messages in his own hand. The longest of his efforts forms
the concluding paragraph of his letter to the Galatians — a mat-
ter of twenty lines at most — and yet it is as serious an under-
taking to Paul at the age of fifty, as the shortest note was to
Cardinal Newman in his eighty-sixth year. He even prefaces
it with the playful apology: "see what sprawling letters I am
writing with my own hand."23 The postscript of his second
Epistle to the Thessalonians is very short. "I, Paul, send you
this greeting with my own hand. That is my mark in every let-
ter. So I write. The grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you all."24 A few halting sentences conclude his first Epistle to
the Corinthians, while the last recorded instance of his putting
pen to paper in his letter to the Colossians, sent from his prison
"i Thess. ii. 9. "2 Thess. iii. 8. "2 Cor. xii. 14.
"Acts xx. 34. wGal. vi. ii. **2 Thess. iii. 17, 18.
1917.] PJVL THE JEW 629
in Rome, is pathetic in its simple brevity : " I, Paul, greet you
with my own hand. Remember my chains. God bless you."25
The Abbe Fouard following other Christian writers, has adduced
these passages in - confirmation of the view that Paul was afflict-
ed by ophthalmia and was permanently short-sighted. He even
goes so far as to say, that this is the explanation of the Apostle's
undisguised apprehensions, lest he should be left alone at Corinth
without any companions to assist him.26 But it is practically
impossible to reconcile such a theory with the Saint's own as-
sertions that he was toiling night and day at his trade. And
again, though a negative argument is admittedly weak, this view
finds no support in any of the graphic and unconventional de-
scriptions of the Apostle, handed down to us from the earliest
times.
Paul's success was by no means due to any grace of form
or feature. In fact his outward appearance seems rather to have
detracted from the fruitfulness of his labors. With a frankness
that charms while it pains the reader he quotes the gibe of his
Corinthian opponents : " his bodily presence is weak, and his
speech contemptible." The Acts of Paul and Thecla,27 which prob-
ably convey a first-century tradition thus describe the Apostle's
appearance at his first approach to Iconium. "Bald-headed, bow-
legged, thickly-built, a man small in size, with meeting eye-brows
and a rather large nose, full of grace, for at times he looked
like a man and at times he had the face of an angel." The most
striking features of this portrait are distinctly recognizable in
the second-century medallion, recently discovered in the cemetery
of St. Callixtus in Rome. His low stature is emphasized by St.
John Chrysostom in the fourth century, and may, as some sug-
gest, have been a family trait, recalling the name of "Paulus" to
Roman acquaintances. A sixth-century writer28 adds some fur-
ther details to our portrait. " He was a man with stooping
shoulders and his hair and beard were shot with grey; he had an
aquiline nose, blue eyes, eyebrows almost meeting, a blotchy com-
plexion and a heavy beard." Added to this uncomely exterior
was the drawback of a stunted and sickly constitution, which,
though supported by an unquenchable vitality, rendered Paul sub-
"Coloss. iv. 1 8.
26 Fouard, St. Peter and the First Years of Christianity, p. 126.
"Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha. Tischendorf, p. 41.
28John Malala, Chronographia, p. 257.
63o PAUL THE JEW [Feb.,
ject to the onsets of some indefinable malady as repulsive and
painfully humiliating in its nature as it was prostrating in its
effects.29
The Apostle had a lively appreciation of the disadvantages
of his person. More than once he begs his hearers not to judge
him by appearances, but to gauge his worth by the grandeur of
his message, and the measure of his charity for them. "And
indeed" as the Abbe Fouard well says :30 "It was by his great heart
that he went forth to conquer the world. No man ever loved and
none was ever loved like this man. By one of those contrasts we
so often see in ardent natures, Saul with his unruly, irascible
temper, prone even to bloodshed when mastered by passion, this
same Saul had a compassionate soul, was easily moved to tender-
ness, and ready with his tears. He gave his love without reserve,
but he demanded a response to his love. No saint has put affec-
tion on a higher plane, or shown himself more sensitive and grate-
ful to kindness; but coldness and ingratitude cut him to the quick.
Full of solicitude for the needs of others, and adapting himself
to their customs, he looked to find in them the feelings which
animated him; he loved mankind as much as he loved the truth,
and he won men to it by making himself so dear to them."
MGal. iv. 14 and 2 Cor. xii. 7.
30 Fouard, St. Peter and the First Years of Christianity, p, 128.
ONE WHO FEARED MUCH.
BY ROSE MARTIN.
ATHER ARMAND had listened in silence while his
sister recounted the happenings of the countryside
during his long absence; now he glanced keenly at
Lady Ann.
" You have not mentioned our neighbor, Lord
Dacre," he remarked gravely, " formerly he was a good friend of
ours — do you see anything of him at present?"
" No," the girl returned quietly, " he is a favorite of the
Queen."
" You mean he has given up his Faith? " and when Lady Ann
assented, the deepest concern showed on the priest's face. Gen-
erally it was a serene face, with the broad brow and thoughtful
eyes of a student; though the grave lips had a way of smiling
suddenly, and so changing his look of a meditative saint to that
of a fun-loving boy. Opposite him sat his sister, Lady Ann, a
golden-haired patrician, and with that serene self-confidence about
her every movement which often goes with great beauty, while a
very resolute tilt to her little chin continually reminded the world
in general that she was Lady Ann Armand of Armand Hall.
In the library of the stately old house, the brother and sister
were having their first confidential talk since the arrival of the
former, a few days before, and it being in the time of " good "
Queen Bess, the priest was in the dress of a layman. Indeed, at
peril of his life was John Armand, now visiting his father's home
that he might minister to the poor souls of the surrounding district,
many of whom, through persecution and lack of opportunity
for practising it, had given up their Faith, To hear of Lord Da-
cre's desertion (whom he had known in boyhood) was a great -sor-
row to Father Armand.
" Have you never tried to win him back? " he asked gently.
" Surely you have reminded him of the worthlessness of earthly
honor ! "
"I?"- — questioned Lady Ann in surprised and haughty dis-
dain. " I would not speak to the traitor — I have absolutely noth-
ing to do with him ! "
632 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
At that instant there was a hurried step in the hall, and in
a moment Lady Ann was at the door of the room. A frightened
servant stood there with the information that the place was sur-
rounded by men demanding to search the house; their leader was
Lord Dacre and he desired to speak with her.
" I suppose I must see him," Lady Ann said reluctantly, and,
as her brother nodded, she stepped into the hall, drawing a curtain
across the doorway of the room she had just left. She walked
to the further end of the hall, and presently Lord Dacre, fol-
lowed by several rough-looking men, was shown into it.
"You wished to see me?" Lady Ann asked coldly, as he
bowed respectfully before her, and there was no sign of recogni-
tion in her grave blue eyes.
" Yes, in the absence of your father," Lord Dacre replied,
and he looked at the girl wistfully. Within his soul raged a bat-
tle she did not dream of — conscience urging him to throw over
this quest, and ambition reminding him that to do so would be to
forfeit the Queen's favor forever.
" I have orders," he said at last with dogged resolution, " to
search the house for a concealed priest."
The scorn in Lady Ann's eyes made him drop his own in
shame. " Would you believe me if I said he was not here? " she
questioned.
" He has been seen in the neighborhood ; my orders are to
search," he answered firmly.
" Then — search," she said, " and you will not need me to show
you through the house."
The words stung him, reminding him of other days when he
had been a guest at Armand Hall, and of the old Faith. But he
had not counted on such an occurrence as this : the Queen, know-
ing him to be a neighbor to Armand Hall, had ordered him to bring
to justice the priest reported hidden there. He turned away from
the girl, and, followed by his men, mounted the wide oaken stair-
way. Soon, from the topmost portion of the castle, the search be-
gan. Slowly, carefully it was conducted, until without result they
came again to the great hall. Lord Dacre ranged his men along
the stairway to examine the walls there, in search of secret hiding
places, while he himself paced restlessly below; at length, through
a curtained doorway, he caught a glimpse of Lady Ann. He
paused irresolutely, then said to his men : " I search this ro®m my-
self," and passed in.
1917-] OttE WHO FEARED MUCH 633
. She did not look up from the book she seemed to be perusing,
even when he stood beside her.
"Lady Ann," he said pleadingly, " surely you understand, it
is through no wish of mine that I am here."
" Heaven knows," she returned with a shrug of her shoulders,
" it is through no wish of mine."
" At least I have spared you something," he told her reproach-
fully. " I have not summoned your household to be interviewed,
as is customary."
But Lady Ann was not listening; her glance had passed be-
yond him, and in her eyes Lord Dacre read something almost like
fear; turning, he discovered the cause. The room was so situated
as to give, through the open door, a side view of a portion of the
stairway. There, one of the searchers had paused to gaze into the
room with frank curiosity. " Madame," said Lord Dacre, (then
entirely for the benefit of .that searcher), "will you move your
chair, please? I must examine the wall back of you." He proceeded
to do so, scanning it narrowly, tapping it carefully. He then
passed to the other side of the room, and, by some strange misfor-
tune, an accident occurred : he touched a concealed spring, and
a panel slid noiselessly aside, revealing an aperture large enough
for a man's form to pass through. The girl glanced towards the
stairs, and breathed a sigh of relief : the man who had been there
was now further down, and, therefore, out of sight; but could she
trust Lord Dacre not to reveal what he had discovered? As-
tonished, he peered into the place and then he stepped inside. At
the same instant Lady Ann heard footsteps coming down the hall;
there was no time for explanation, with a swift movement she
closed the panel on Lord Dacre.
The next moment two men stood in the doorway. " Is not
Lord Dacre here ? " one asked.
" He left the room a short while ago," Lady Ann an-
swered.
" We have seen nothing of him," the other said uneasily, and
glanced toward the further end of the room. On one side of it
an open door led to a piazza; on the other was an alcove.
The men made for this at once. It showed nothing but ladder
mounted upon ladder, reaching high above their heads, to where the
great bell of ,the castle hung above a narrow platform. Lady Ann
had followed the men at some distance, and now a faint cry for
help came to her ears. The men did not hear it, but should they
634 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
turn back and reenter the room, they could not fail to hear the
cry of Lord Dacre for deliverance.
Lady Ann passed the men swiftly; in an instant her hand was
on the dangling rope of the bell, and suddenly above their heads it
rang out wildly, irregularly, but thunderously echoing and re-
echoing through the castle; no other sound could be heard while
it lasted. At length there came a pause in that awful din, and
Lady Ann, after listening intently for a moment, returned to the
outer room and resumed her book and chair. The men stared at
her in wonder, and presently one mustered sufficient courage to
speak.
" Why did you ring the bell, lady ? " he asked.
The girl lifted her proud head and looked at him in cold sur-
prise : " It is my bell," she said, " I ring it when I please," and
the men left her.
Rejoining their companions, they talked of Lord Dacre's dis-
appearance; one was of the opinion that Lady Ann had persuaded
him to give up the search; others that he had simply gone home
(by way of the piazza), as he had complained of illness that day.
The town constable zealously took up the search, but without re-
sult, and at last the men withdrew. As soon as they had done
so, Lady Ann hastened to the secret panel in the wall, but when it
slid aside at her touch, Lord Dacre was not there. Anxious and
fearful, holding a light in her hand, she ventured inside, closing the
panel after her. The light revealed the narrow proportions of the
place which was simply a gently slanting shaft, running sideways
between the inner and outer walls of the castle. The shaft ended
in a trap-door, which was usually closed, but now it hung open,
and only darkness met her view as she peered into the void beneath.
" John ! " she called anxiously. At once her brother's voice
answered, while her light, flashing down, disclosed him some twenty
feet beneath. " Is Lord Dacre there? " she questioned.
'' Yes, but he seems ill," was the response, " come down if the
searchers have gone."
" You should not have taken him down there," she said
severely. " He will betray us when he has the opportunity."
"I think not; at any rate he is ill and helpless now," the
priest returned gently. " When I heard him up there, calling
out that he was caught in a trap, I hurried up not knowing what
had happened."
" You should have stayed where you were," Ann informed
1917.] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 635
him, the severity of her tone somewhat modified by the fact that
he was steadying the ladder as she came down.
" Well, I went up anyway and explained to him that, possibly
after a while, you would let him out; but just then he began
staggering and complained of feeling ill; it seems he has been out
of a sick bed only for a few days. He seemed suffering from want
of air — you know very little comes through the chinks in the outer
wall — so I helped him down the ladder very slowly and laid him
on my couch. He is there at present, asleep, I think."
The brother and sister now stood in a small underground room
hewn in the rock foundations of the castle. On a rude couch in
one corner Lord Dacre lay, flushed and feverish.
" Give him more air," Ann said, as she knelt to examine the
patient. The priest touched a tiny spot on the wall, and instantly
that wall rolled back, disclosing a dark passage whence a gust of
fresh air swept in, laden with the breath of the sea. This pas-
sage ended in a cavern opening on a cliff that hung above the
ocean. Crevices in this side of the wall admitted sufficient air to
the room ordinarily for breathing purposes, when the rock door
was closed. Lady Ann had finished her examination.
" I think it is just a passing weakness," she said, " but I will
get some restoratives." She flung Father Armand's cloak over
Lord Dacre, and left the room.
A moment later, the man's eyes opened. " Where am I ? "
he questioned faintly. Then seeing Father Armand bending over
him, the flush on his face deepened, and he clutched convulsively
at the priest's sleeve. " Tell me," he said imploringly, " that you
understand it was loyalty to the Queen that sent me here and that
loyalty to you, my friend, would have saved you from capture? "
It was with grave gentleness that Father Armand answered:
" It is good to be loyal to a Queen — to a friend — but it is best to
be loyal to the King."
" I know little of the King," Edmund answered wearily, " save
that His friends fare poorly in these days. He gives nothing for
His service ! "
" He gives faith and hope and love," Father Armand said
gently, " does the Queen give more? "
"Much less," Edmund answered moodily, and at that moment
Lady Ann returned. Lord Dacre gazed at her wistfully; would
she continue to be unkind ? When shex knelt beside him, and he
felt the cool touch of her hand, as she bathed his head, an expres-
636 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
sion of perfect happiness settled on his face, and oddly enough
seemed reflected on that of Lady Ann. In some haste, Father
Armand withdrew.
" It is love," he mused, well pleased as he paced to and fro
in the library, " and it will do great things for Ann and Edmund,"
for he believed love had conquered pride in his sister, and he
trusted that in Lord Dacre it would overcome ambition. He had
himself experienced the power of love, but with him it had been
Divine Love, and it had battled with fear. Father Armand flushed
now in shame at the thought, that from earliest childhood he had
been subject to fear. Through boyhood it had influenced him and
lead him, to all outward appearance an exemplary child, to many
sins of cowardice. Even in his novitiate it had not deserted him,
conquered sometimes, often conquering. Only when he was or-
dained priest did the real struggle begin. The flame of Divine Love
sprang upward with such fierce heat as to inspire him with long-
ing to do great things in the Master's service, but fear still lived.
Often he had faltered and hesitated before the simplest duty that
needed courage, but at such times the fervor of his love had come
to aid him, and he could not fail. His zeal fell under the notice
of his superiors, and when it became advisable to send missionaries
to England, his name was one of the first proposed.
Father Armand, quietly pacing the library, lived again that
moment when, with outward serenity, he had heard that he was
to go. First, wild fear at his heart — and he would not, could not
go; he would plead ill-health, inability — his distaste for such
work; he was not fitted for it, others were more worthy; it
might be he would fail in some important duty, and bring dishonor
on the priesthood. Then he had fled to the chapel, and prayed
there, a prayer of cowardice — that God would not give this work
to him ; it was a splendid, a glorious work, and should be given to
one who would perform it nobly, bravely, not to one so lacking in
courage as himself.
Out from the hushed, sweet stillness about him came suddenly
the answer to his prayer. In a flash he saw his miserable cowardice
in its true light; he had no need to fear; the strength of God
was his to trust in, Eternal Love encompassed him, upholding him
were the everlasting Arms. Father Armand prayed now, as he had
prayed then, the soldier-prayer of St. Ignatius: "Teach me, O
Sacred Heart of my Jesus, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to
give, and not to count the cost ; to fight and not to heed the wounds.
I9I7-] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 637
to toil and not to ask for rest ; to labor and to seek for no reward,
save to feel that I do Thy will, O my God."
Lady Ann broke in upon his musings. Her face wras very
grave and sweet. "Edmund wishes to speak with you," she said, "I
have been talking to him, and he is willing to return to the Faith."
Father Armand went down at once, while Lady Ann dis-
patched a messenger to Lord Dacre's home saying he was some-
what indisposed, and would spend the night at the castle.
That evening the master of Armand Hall returned from Lon-
don, whither he had gone to make final arrangements for the
sale of his house and lands, as it was no longer safe for a Catholic
nobleman to reside in England. When Father Armand should
have completed his week's visit (after which his orders were to
proceed to another part of the country), it was the purpose of
Lady Ann and her father to remove to France. The details of the
day were told him and he looked grave.
" They will continue searching for you even without Lord
Dacre," he said uneasily, to his son, " you must not stir outside
this room."
They were all in the little underground apartment, and it was
now that Lord Dacre ventured his plea, that he might have Lady
Ann for his bride. Sternly the father refused. To be his wife
the girl must peril her life and faith at court, unless, indeed, Lord
Dacre would give up his career and go with them to France. The
young man, in talking things over with Father Armand, had al-
ready decided to make that sacrifice, and now, as he promised to
do so, there sounded through the little room a low knock and call.
Father Armand went to the rock that opened at his touch. Behind
it a man stood, whom all recognized as the son of the landlady at
the town inn; and one of a trusted few who knew of this cavern
passage.
" Can you come with me, Father? " he asked, " there's a man
dying at the inn."
" Certainly! " the priest responded. " Ann, a sick call."
The messenger here interrupted to say that the priest must
bring nothing with him that could possibly betray them, if they
were searched. The dying man was a stranger, merely an outcast
whom his mother had befriended and allowed to work about the
place. Now he had fallen desperately ill, and from his ravings
they had discovered he had formerly been a Catholic, so the land-
lady was asking Father Armand to come,
638 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
Lord Dacre rose to a sitting posture on his couch, " I had
best go with you," he said anxiously, " we do not know who may
be at the inn."
" There is room for only one other in the boat beside the
priest," the messenger objected, " if you care to take my place
you may."
" You forget how weak and ill you are, Edmund," Father
Armand assured him gently, " we can more than trust John here.
We will have need of a steady hand to row through the sea to-
night."
He had stepped into the damp corridor now, and they called
good-night after him with apparent carelessness, though all knew
this was an errand from which he might never return. Lady
Ann remembered suddenly that he had not taken his cloak, so
snatching one up from the couch she ran after him and flung it
about him.
" Come back as soon as you can," she pleaded ; and in the
darkness their hands touched. His were icy cold.
" Indeed I will," he responded, " but you must not expect me
before morning."
Then he was gone, and Lady Ann turned back to the room.
" He is so brave," she said, " so brave."
When Father Armand and his guide reached the end of the
passage, there was the perilous path over the cliff to be followed;
at its foot waited the cockle-shell of a boat, next came the ride
over the rough sea, and at length, approaching the landing, they
were swept high and dry on the sandy beach, and before them
gleamed the lights of the inn.
" I must leave you here," the man said, " my home is further
down the coast and I must hasten back, as my wife supposes I have
only stayed late at the inn; she is not a Catholic. In the morn-
ing I can return for you."
" It is not necessary," Father Armand replied, " I shall go
back by way of the land."
Throughout all this his face had been serene, his manner fear-
less; now, left alone, an indescribable change came over him. He
walked slowly towards the inn and paused on the porch, where a
light shone from an unshuttered window. Looking in, the public
room of the place was disclosed to view. Three men were seated
at a table, their eyes fixed upon the door; waiting, unmistakably
waiting! Father Armand drew back and softly descended the
1917.] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 639
steps : of course it was a trap set for him : no one was actually ill
there : he would not go in. He walked down the path towards the
sea. It was a wild night : overhead clouds were driven swiftly by
the wind. At his feet the waves were dashing furiously; but he
paid no heed to it all. A wilder storm beat upon his soul. Should
he go back? Was it his duty to return? He would consider the
matter calmly, dispassionately, judging it according to reason.
Reason must be his guide. If he went back it would probably
mean imprisonment — perhaps death — and he would accomplish
nothing, even if anyone were ill there. It would not be right, so
to imperil his life, the life of a priest of God which should be
guarded as a thing most precious.
This was the reasonable view of the case, he told himself.
But against it, imperious in opposition, rose that other view — if a
soul's life was in question, he must peril all to reach it! But, of
course, a soul's life was not in question. Yea, the messenger was
trustworthy; no, he had doubtless been used as a tool. He would
not go back.
He paced the sandy beach up and down, up and down, and
judged the matter again according to the dictates of reason, and
again according to the instinct of the priest. He paused at last.
Below him the mad sea surged upward in fierce upheaval, and
shuddering, he turned his glance heavenward. Out of the black-
ness of the clouds suddenly shone one star.
" Star of the Sea," he whispered, " pray for me ! " He bent
his head in shame and horror. Had he been about to fail utterly?
In the whole history of the world had the cold dictates of reason
ever inspired the brave to noble or heroic deeds?
The soldier prayer of St. Ignatius was on his lips when with
serene face, he turned back and entered the inn. To his surprise
the three men in the public room made no attempt to seize him
on his entrance ; they saluted him respectfully.
" I wish to see the landlady," he said calmly enough, and one
of the men hastening to the door at the further end of the room
knocked. Presently the landlady opened it, and seeing Father
Armand beckoned him inside. He had known her many years ago,
but she looked at him somewhat doubtfully now.
" It is— the— "
' The priest," he finished for her.
"But this?" she questioned, her hand upon his shoulder.
He looked down, and then for the first time became aware that
640 ON£ WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
he wore about his shoulders a cloak embroidered with the arms of
the Queen's household. He remembered that Lady Ann had thrown
it about him in the cavern passage; and it also explained the sa-
lutes of the men in the public room.
"It was a mistake," he said indifferently; "but is it true
that there is someone ill here?"
" Yes, the man became unconscious a few moments ago," the
woman replied. "Did the men out there try to stop you? No?
Yet one of them is the town constable. I would not have sent for
you, if I had known they were coming," she ended uneasily.
They stood in a long room, used ordinarily for both cooking
and eating; smaller rooms opened on it that served as sleeping
apartments, but when he asked again for the dying man, she did
not lead him to any of these. She showed him the way to a ladder
leading to the loft, that was at the further end of the one-story
inn.
" He is a mere outcast," she explained in apology, " and he's
out of his head most of the time. I told him when he was conscious
that a priest was coming, but he said there wasn't any use; there
couldn't be any hope for him."
They had reached the loft and the woman pointed to a corner
of it. " He is there," she said curtly, and left him.
Father Armand approached the heap of straw partially cov-
ered with blankets, where lay the outcast. In health he must have
been of splendid physique for even now when disease, and per-
haps dissipation, had done their work, he was good to look upon.
His hands were white and tapering, while his face gave evidence
of refinement. Father Armand's efforts to rouse him proved fruit-
less, and at length he heard the landlady ascending the ladder.
Terror was in her face.
" You had best go now," she said, " there is danger for me if
you stay. The men in the outer room are of a party that was
looking for you this morning. Already they are wondering what
business another Court gentleman beside Lord Dacre has in the
neighborhood. Go, I beg, while there is time."
Father Armand rose from his kneeling posture and looked at
the woman compassionately, understanding perfectly the wild fear
at her heart because of the wilder one within his own.
"I must stay," he said gently, "but for you there need be
no danger. I will go out by way of the front door now, and a
little later return by way of the back."
1917.] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 641
She shook her head. "There are the dogs," she told him, "they
have been loosed for the night."
Father Armand considered a moment. Obviously the woman's
one thought was her own danger : " I am just a traveler here for
a night's lodging," he assured her gravely, " if I am discovered
no one shall hold you responsible. I am going down now to the
men in the outer room. I shall try to allay suspicion, also to dis-
cover why they are waiting here. In the meantime stay with this
man. When you notice the least change in his condition, come and
say to me : 'Your resting place is ready, you may retire if you wish/
Even if there is no change, you had best give me that message, as
it will explain the reason of my waiting in the public-room."
The woman was trembling visibly, but she assented meekly to
his proposition, and followed him down the rickety ladder.
" I must see what they are doing," she said, going to the
door of the outer room, and stooping to look through a crack.
" They have found something, a paper, I believe," she announced,
" they seem much puzzled over it."
She stepped aside, for Father Armand stood waiting to enter.
Just for a moment he hesitated; and at once a hundred haunting
devils roused up a hundred haunting fears, but he opened the door
and passed in. Conversation ceased abruptly as he entered. When
he had seated himself at a table, one of the men after whispering
to his companions, approached, bearing in his hand, a paper.
" Sir," he said, holding it out for acceptance, " we happened
to notice this a short time ago, and suppose you dropped it when
you passed through here, the first time."
Mechanically Father Armand took the paper, and seeing en-
graved thereon the royal arms of the Queen, he knew it to be
Lord Dacre's and would simply have thrust it into the flap of his
cloak, whence it had probably fallen; but the man pointed to it
meaningly.
" I infer that Lord Dacre has been displaced," he remarked
affably ; " it seems you are engaged on the same business as our-
selves. I am, by the way, the town constable."
Father Armand expressed pleasure in the acquaintance, and
glanced at the unfolded paper to discover of what business he was
being accused. In spite of his danger a smile touched his lips;
for the bearer was granted right of way into houses and places
both public and private, that he might search for a traitor and
Jesuit, one John Armand.
VOL. civ. — 41
642 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
" Now I wish to explain," the constable said, seating himself
beside Father Armand, " that it is quite unnecessary for you to
bother yourself in this affair. By morning, at the latest, the
Jesuit will be in our custody."
Father Armand calmly folded the paper, and answered : " I
have reliable information to the contrary. I can lay my hand upon
him at any moment."
" As to that," the man replied carelessly, " we know that he
is somewhere in Armand Hall. We are going there tonight with
a servant of the house who knows every hiding-place it contains,
and can identify the priest. We are waiting for that servant
now."
Father Armand quickly said : " the Jesuit is not at Armand
Hall."
The constable scowled at the answer. " His sister is," he re-
torted. " Lord Dacre not being with us tonight, we can compel
her to tell where her brother is ; at least we can take her prisoner
as having aided him to escape."
The priest did not answer. He was thinking of his loved ones
and especially of Lady Ann, whose will he knew no power or
torture could bend or break. Lady Ann must be saved. He could
guard Armand Hall from a visit by these men, by giving himself
up now, or allowing himself to be identified, as soon as the servant
arrived; but a soul was in need of him at present, and until that
soul had been aided he must guard against capture. At that mo-
ment the landlady opened the door at the further end of the room,
and approached him.
" Your resting place is now ready," she faltered, " you can re-
tire if you so wish."
The priest rose and followed her. At the door he paused
and looked back.
" You will have your journey to Armand Hall for nothing,"
he remarked meaningly, " the Jesuit is already my prisoner."
Three oaths sounded almost simultaneously. Then one man
said respectfully enough: "Sir, we have only your word for it;
show us your prisoner."
" Sir," retorted the priest, with something of the swift mockery
of Lady Ann, " I have not even your word for it, that you are
honest men — for the present I keep to myself where my prisoner
is," and he closed the door behind him.
The landlady accompanied him and he asked her at once if
1917-] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 643
there was any way of sending a message to Armand Hall, but
she answered there was not.
Taking the lantern from her trembling fingers, he bade her
listen at the door, and if she overheard any plans of the men,
to inform him. Mounting the ladder, he made his way to the
corner of the loft where the outcast lay. Kneeling beside the man,
the priest told him who he was, and for what purpose he had
come. He was answered with a shake of the head and a muttered
curse. More earnest grew the face of the priest, forgotten was
his own and Lady Ann's danger.
He spoke of the fear of God; the hideousness of sin; its
bitterness in this life, and the eternal punishment which would be
its portion; but the face of the outcast showed only indifference
and a touch of scorn.
" I know all that," he said wearily, " I knew it all, even when
I chose sin for my portion. Now I cannot care for your heaven
and its angels. Earth and sin, for all their bitterness, are still most
dear to me."
Father Armand was silenced. How could he speak of high
things, of the All-Holy, to one so low in the dust? He paced to
and fro for a few moments while before him seemed to pass, as
in a vision, heart aflame and thorn-crowned, the face and figure
of the Master. Then he stood at the bedside, the light of the lan-
tern upon his form, the light of his soul's love shining in his eyes,
and he spoke of the love of God for this outcast here upon the
straw. His words were very earnest, and touched with that
winning sweetness which of all his characteristics had served him
best in drawing souls to God. With added fervor he pleaded now.
This might be his last service for his Master. Would the Mas-
ter's mercy bless it and pronounce it good?
When he ended, the tears were coursing down the outcast's
cheeks, and he was willing, anxious to be reconciled to his God.
A little later the words of absolution were pronounced. Then the
outcast, who for many years had not said a prayer, whispered,
after Father Armand, acts of faith, and hope, and love. But at
length his accents faltered, his eyelids dropped, and the priest was
unable to judge whether he was in a stupor or a natural sleep.
He hastily descended the ladder in search of the landlady.
When he reached its foot he found her crouched against the door
of the outer room, listening. He told her the condition of the
man above. She only shrugged her shoulders.
644 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
" The doctor said there was nothing to be done when he was
in those stupors," she explained, " and if he is asleep, it does not
matter." Then in a whisper she told him all that had occurred
in the public room during his absence. Shortly after he had left
it, the servant from Armand Hall had arrived and angrily an-
nounced that he feared his intended prey had escaped, for when
he went through the passage in the wall (which his cunning had
long ago discovered) to look down to the little underground room,
the priest was not there; but he had barely escaped collision with
Lady Ann and her father who were bidding good-night to Lord
Dacre.
When the priest had first arrived at Armand Hall the servant
had intended betraying him, but had waited to make terms. The
constable had then told the traitor of the arrival at the inn of
an elegant gentleman of the Court with a royal paper in his pos-
session, who had announced that the Jesuit was his prisoner.
" Perhaps," the landlady explained here, " the traitor would
have been suspicious of the said gentleman if it had not been for
the vanity of the constable. You see he has been to London on
several occasions, and he tries to persuade us that when there he
associates with all the fine people, and he now gave the others to
understand that he had often seen you at Court, but as you had
not announced your identity, he would keep it secret."
The traitor seemed much put out by this information, but
it was the constable who proposed that they go at once and arrest
Lady Ann and her father as Papists.
" I will go and warn them," Father Armand said* hopefully.
" I am free now."
" They would get there long before you," the woman answered,
" because they have horses, and there is no boat to take you by
water. Besides it is too late. They are ready to go."
In the outer room chairs were being pushed back, and voices
were calling for the landlady.
" At all costs they must stay here," Father Armand said
firmly. " Go, please, and tell the constable I wish to speak to him
on the subject of my prisoner."
The woman hesitated; but hurried steps were nearing the
door, so she nodded hastily and passed in. A short time elapsed be-
fore the constable entered, obviously flattered by the attentions of
this elegant gentleman of the Court.
" Do you wish to give up your prisoner to me ? " he inquired.
1917.] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 645
Courteously the priest motioned him to a seat, and took one
himself.
" Not exactly," he answered, " but I would like to give my
man into your care for the night, as I have a little affair on my
hands, and cannot well take him with me. You will no doubt
remain here anyway till morning; and I will pay you well for
the service."
" I am sorry, .sir," the constable returned, " but we are very
very busy tonight. We expect to make prisoners of the master of
Armand Hall and his daughter. We expect a large reward."
" Is it gold you want? " questioned the priest off guard for a
moment. " Look " — he caught up a drinking flagon beside him —
" I will bring this overflowing with gold and precious jewels if
the Hall shall go unmolested tonight."
The eyes of the constable gleamed cunningly. " You are
anxious for the Hall," he said wisely, " possibly the little lady has
bewitched you even as she has Lord Dacre. Listen, if you care
for the girl, give me your prisoner for my personal property, give
me your gold for my men; and the Hall shall be unmolested to-
night."
The priest was silent for a while. Even if he gave himself
up the Hall must be warned. Now that it was under suspicion,
the question was only one of time until its inmates should be
imprisoned. " If I accept your proposition, I make my own terms,'*
he said at last. ''' You must promise to stay here with your men
till morning. In the meantime I shall go on the journey I spoke
of but I shall leave with you my hostage. In the morning I shall
return and deliver to you the jewels and the Jesuit."
" You mean you will leave the Jesuit with us. Is he in the
house now?" inquired the constable.
" Certainly he is in the house," Father Armand returned
calmly.
" I trust he is securely chained," said the constable mean-
ingly.
" Not tonight," the priest returned gravely, and the shadow
that was fear crossed for a moment the serenity of his face.
Mechanically, he lifted his hands, half -expectant of a galling
weight upon them. Tomorrow they might be in shackles, but to-
night, thank God, there were no chains !
" If you do not return at dawn," the constable was saying, " of
course we take possession of your hostage unconditionally? "
646 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
" Certainly," responded the priest, " but I shall return perhaps
before that, if I may borrow one of your horses."
" You may do that," the other answered graciously, " but there
is one thing more. We have with us a servant from the Hall —
you must allow him to identify your man as the Jesuit."
Father Armand hesitated. Here was a difficult matter to be
arranged. But it was the constable who unwittingly came to his
assistance.
" Is the Jesuit asleep? " he questioned.
" Not yet," the other answered cautiously.
" Well, you see, the man from the Hall does not like the idea
of the Jesuit seeing him; that was why we were going to capture
him at night. He thought the priest would be asleep, and he could
just show him to us and then go. Of course the Court might
ask him to identify the priest afterward, but he need not
know who his betrayer was. If you could manage now to let
the servant have a look at the Jesuit while he is asleep, it would
oblige us greatly. It means of course a delay in your journey,
but it is not nine o'clock yet, so I suppose you can afford it."
" O yes," the priest said, and yawned wearily. " I may as well
go up and rest myself during the interval." He rose and went to-
wards the ladder. " Do you and your men also wish to look at the
Jesuit?"
" We would like to."
" You may on certain conditions. At ten o'clock let the
servant alone come from the outer room. Probably by that time
my man will be asleep. At any rate, if the servant hears nothing
when he reaches the foot of the ladder, he will know it is safe for
him to come up. I will leave the light burning, and he can have his
look. Then he must go down and reenter the outer room, before
the next man comes up. You must understand this point perfectly ;
every man is to come in here, alone, and when he has had his look
at the Jesuit, must return to the outer room. I have no wish
to meet a possible rush of the four of you when I come down.
If you will, let your visit be the last, as I have some parting in-
structions for you alone. You understand everything?"
" Everything," the constable answered. He then hastened to-
ward the outer room while Father Armand ascended the ladder.
Reaching the loft, the latter took from a corner where litter had
been stored some sacks, and threw them over a heap of straw
near the outcast. Next from his shoulders he took the brocacjed
1917-] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 647
cloak, and flung it over the dying man and placed his sword close
by. The man was still in a deep stupor ; but the motionless figure
with the royal cloak about it gave an impression of splendid strength
in repose.
Now had come a time of quiet to Father Armand. For a
while he knelt in fervent prayer; then he lay down on his rude
couch and waited. He heard the landlady go to the door of the
outer room and inquire if the men wanted beds for the night.
The answer was : " No, they would rest on the benches." The
landlady then informed them that she slept in the basement, " to be
called if they needed her." The door closed again, the hum of
voices grew fainter, the waiting almost intolerable.
At last Father Armand heard the door below open, and a man's
footsteps. They paused at the foot of the ladder. Very slowly, the
traitor ascended it, and the feet that crossed the floor of the loft
were faltering and stealthy. Father Armand realized that the man
was in deadly fear that he would waken and recognize him. He
was close by now, looking down at the two forms. That of the
outcast was further from him. He but glanced, half-curiously, half-
carelessly at it. On the face of Father Armand, beautiful, tranquil,
apparently sleeping, he gazed long and silently. The priest grew a
trifle uneasy; moved a little and sighed heavily. Then hastily the
man drew back into the shadow and descended the ladder. As he
disappeared from sight, Father Armand rose noiselessly, and swiftly
took possession of cloak and sword. There was no need now to
feign sleep. When the next man came up the priest nodded to
him from his couch. The man took his look at the outcast, sup-
posedly the Jesuit, and then withdrew. So was it with the others.
When the constable had viewed the outcast, Father Armand rose
and followed the former down the ladder.
" You will see that the traitor-servant stays in the outer room,
and does not leave the inn until my return," he commanded when
they stood in the room below. " Remember, I hold you responsible
for the man in the loft. It is not necessary to chain him, as by
taking away the ladder you may hold him prisoner. But it might
be best that you yourself remain in this room. Now I must go.
I am going out by the rear entrance as I must 'get the horse. He
opened a door leading to the rear of the house and went out. A
little later came the sound of dogs barking, and then of galloping
hoof-beats up the road.
In the public room, the men were talking of the Jesuit. " He
648 ONE WHO FEARED MUCH [Feb.,
is a fierce-looking fellow," one said, thinking of the outcast; "it
may be he will make a fight for his freedom/'
"A fight?" repeated the traitor half-angrily, "never yet has
he raised his hand against any man. He will not do it now." He
was thinking of a face, beautiful and peaceful.
The slow night hours dragged on, and on. At last a faint
gray light stole into the room : the dawn had come. Presently
from the inner room the constable emerged and flung open the
outside door, letting in a breath of fresh air. He gazed up the
road.
" Though it is morning, the Court gentleman has not come,"
he said. " I shall go up and take possession of the prisoner. Will
you come with me ? "
The traitor shrank as if from a blow. " No, take the others,"
he said, " I will wait here for the Court gentleman. He has prob-
ably been delayed."
The constable roused the others, and they followed him from
the room, while the traitor stood at the door and waited. Far
down the road he saw a figure approaching, but on foot, and he
understood the Court gentleman's delay — something had happened
to the horse. This was, indeed, the case. Father Armand had
reached the Hall shortly before midnight; had roused his father,
sister and Lord Dacre, and recounted to them his adventures as a
gentleman of the Court; how in that capacity he had discovered the
plan of making prisoners the owners of Armand Hall, but had
bought off the constable for the night by a promise of gold and the
family jewels.
" So make up a package of those you can spare, Ann," he
ended gaily.
Two things he had left out of the narrative; the traitor, and
that he must give himself up in the morning. He had told them it
would be best that they be gone from the place by morning, as it
was only until then the constable had promised to leave the Hall un-
molested. They decided to flee to France.
He married Lord Dacre and Lady Ann before he left the
Hall, and offered there what he believed would be his last Mass.
There had followed a little while together; then the good-byes and
the partings, and they had gone their different ways. Returning to
the inn, Father Armand's horse had stumbled in the darkness and
injured its foot, so he had been obliged to walk the remainder of
the distance.
1917-] ONE WHO FEARED MUCH 649
As the traitor waited at the door of the inn, there sounded
suddenly behind him a hurried footstep, and one of the constable's
men stood beside him.
" The Jesuit is dead," he shouted. " Come up at once."
" Dead ? " repeated the traitor hoarsely, " surely it is a mis-
take ! " He followed the man up the ladder. At its top stood the
constable, consternation on his face.
" You knew this Jesuit before," he said, " did he look ill to
you last night? "
" He seemed in perfect health," came the puzzled answer.
" Well, look at him now," the constable said indignantly, and
stood aside that the traitor might look on the dead figure of the
outcast. His eyes passed swiftly to an empty couch close to his
feet. " The Jesuit is — " ("gone" was the word he would have
said, but light flashed into his mind) " the Jesuit is dead," he said.
" We know that," the constable returned irritably, " what I
wish of you all now is to bear witness that we have done nothing
to cause his death should that Court gentleman hold us responsible."
Silence fell upon them all as they heard quick steps ascending
the ladder, and a moment later Father Armand stood in the loft.
"I come," he said quietly, "to deliver the Jesuit and the jewels."
The constable seized the jewels hastily. " I trust you will not
hold us responsible, sir," he explained, " there has been no violence
done, but the Jesuit is dead."
Then Father Armand saw the still figure of the outcast, and
over the dead body the eyes of the priest encountered those of the
traitor.
" Keep still," the servant whispered under cover of the con-
stable's next words. "
" I know not," the latter was saying uneasily, " whether we
can get any reward for the corpse."
A fear came to the traitor that even now the priest might
deliver himself up to save the body of the outcast from the desecra-
tion that might befall it.
" I will not deal in a dead man's bones," he said scornfully,
" be content, constable. You have your jewels."
The constable scowled, but dared not propose that the Court
gentleman who seemed oblivious of their presence, and was looking
down, almost sorrowfully at the outcast, should do the identifying.
" Will you see to the man's burial?" inquired the official
sullenly.
65o FATHER LACOMBE, O.M.I. [Feb.,
" O yes," the traitor returned, perhaps too eagerly.
But his over-eagerness was not observed by the constable
who was now making his way to the ladder. He kept a tight hold
upon the jewels and quickly descended to the floor below, followed
by his two assistants. All three departed from the inn at once;
and the priest and the traitor were left to care for the body of the
dead outcast.
FATHER LACOMBE, O.M.I.
BY GEORGE BENSON HEWETSON.
I SAW him in his armor all complete,
Cassocked and girdled, soldier of his Lord;
His crucifix he carried as a sword;
His helmet a biretta, as was meet.
And strength and swiftness shod his willing feet;
Such strength and swiftness as with zeal accord
For souls that he would see to life restored,
And with rich Christian virtues all replete.
Some mocked his cassocked figure ; he just smiled
With all the sweetness of a little child,
And prayed their ignorance might be forgiven.
The light of Truth, he knew, in darkness shone,
And was by that dense darkness all unknown,
This knight of God, this valiant son of heaven.
THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS.
BY MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.
HE chapter of Irish history, which is known as " The
Flight of the Earls," may claim in its own right the
earnest regard of any historical reader: it is one of
the high lights upon the horizons of the past. If it
is invested with the nimbus of romance, it wears as
well a philosophy, and the sober facts of history — causes forcefully
leading to it through many years, and consequences and effects
which prolong their bitter issues on one side and heroic endurance
on the other even to our own day. The poetical aspect of the
grand incident and its actors (it is another Odyssey, if ever a theme
was) is not as engaging as the prosaic realities which make the
story and its denouement.
Yet besides its own right to arrest historical attention at any
time, this chapter of Irish history finds in some present circum-
stances an added reason to compel interest. A tercentenary is
prompt to rehearse old dramas and the dramatis persona: witness
the feted memories of Shakespeare and Cervantes by reason of
their relationship with 1616. And the year which has just closed
was the three hundredth anniversary of the death of the last of the
great " Earls," Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone.1 Secondly, if
there is a portion of the world today which is an anomaly in the
whole realm of government (or misgovernment) it is the Province
of Ulster in Ireland. It is a hornet's nest even to the official
hands which protect and foster it: it is, though in no beautiful
sense, the cynosure of all eyes, at a pass in the world's drama when
eyes ought to be turned elsewhere : and the British Empire, with its
heart full of other cares, must and does most unintelligibly jeopar-
dize many of its interests because of the tantrums of its spoiled
child of Ulster. Though far from being by nature the most fruit-
ful section of Ireland, either in commercial opportunities, in climatic
conditions or agricultural and mineral products, Ulster has acquired
a place high up on the list of industrial centres; while in the mat-
aHugh O'Neill died in Rome on July 20, 1616. A very happy event in this
tercentennial year is the publication of the Irish text, by Tadhg O'Cianain, with
English translation, by Rev. Paul Walsh, M.A., of The Flight of the Earls.
652 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS [Feb.,
ter of legislative privileges it has been not merely favored, but
pampered.
Now an antecedent, if not a cause which explains this pro-
digious status of Ulster — this out-Britishing Britain in a hostile
attitude towards Ireland — is the flight of the Earls, the withdrawal
of the Irish Chiefs of the North from the stubborn conflict at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. Other parts of Ireland were
"planted" by English favorites of the Crown; glorious estates to
individuals and extensive counties to colonies were told out in
what seems reckless abandon. Statutes of Parliament had en-
deavored to Anglicize Ireland ; and though the " Pale " labored to
propagate the transplanted culture, the invaders in time became
more Irish than the Irish, ardent for the old Gaelic ideals
and culture — as who is not who has tasted the magic waters of
that true Pierian spring? Lionel Johnson is but one voice. of a
thousand modern converts to that magic influence.
But the history of the Plantation of Ulster is a far different
record. By the flight of the Earls vast tracts of land were at
the King's disposal, and great were the expectations of those greedy
adventurers in Ireland who had coveted these lands so long. In
the case of the Munster plantation, the English undertakers had
obtained tracts of land too large for them to occupy and till; they
found it impossible to procure a sufficient number of English and
Protestant dependents and had to employ Irish; some of them
learned to adopt and love the Irish thought and customs, and those
who did not were overwhelmed in the disturbances that followed.2
Such mistakes as these, Davies and his fellow Commissioners were
determined should not occur in the colonization of Ulster. The
land was to be divided between undertakers, partly English, partly
Scotch: servitors, that is, those who had served the Government
in Ireland in a civil military capacity, all, or nearly all of whom
were natives of England; and, lastly, the natives of Ulster. No
undertaker (to use D'Alton's summary statement of rules which
governed the new allotments) was to get more than two thousand
acres of land; all were to be Protestants and to frequent the
Protestant churches, and they were to employ no Irish in any
capacity. The servitors were placed in the most dangerous places.
Their experience in native warfare qualified them to watch the
Irish and to defend the posts of danger. Like the undertakers,
2 See History of Ireland, by D' Alton, vol. 3, p. 219, and his deference to
the Carew Papers and Russel's Calendar.
1917-] THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS 653
they had to build and sow in the English fashion, rigidly eschew
Irish customs and employ no Irish except in menial occupations;
nor were they to intermarry with them. Liberal provision for the
Protestant Church was made by the King and his advisers. The
extensive and ancient termon lands of Ulster were given to the
Protestant bishops. Chichester got all Inishowen; to the city of
London was granted the whole of Coleraine, changing its name
to Londonderry; the Clothworkers obtained lands on the eastern
shore of Lough Foyle; farther south were the haberdashers, and
grocers and goldsmiths; the western shore of Lough Neagh went
to the salters and drapers; and further inland were the iron-
mongers and skinners. These corporations, like the bishops, were
bound to have their lands peopled by English or Scotch who would
be good Protestants and avoid and abhor the Irish. For this
wholesale confiscation of hereditary lands, Davies and the Com-
missioners had glib speeches to show that the King was free to
dispose of these lands in law, in conscience and in honor.3 To
their assertion that Ulster was settled and Ireland at peace, a
sentence recorded by Tacitus leaps to the lips : " They make a
solitude and call it peace." Ireland was peaceable because it was
helpless. " Powerless to resist, the natives resigned themselves
to the inevitable; the Plantation of Ulster became an accomplished
fact; English and Scotch were put in possession of their new es-
tates; and the Irish sullenly abandoned the fields that they loved,
in whose earth the bones of their fathers were laid, and in whose
bosom they hoped to rest, when the joys and sorrows of life were
over."4
With this little rehearsal of the Protestantizing of Ulster,
let us review in a very brief manner the story of the flight. It
is difficult to resist the temptation to " go back " and review the
bitter pathways which led to the evacuation of Tyrone and Tyr-
connell by their rightful owners; but the compressed limits of
this little paper will permit only a hasty survey of the long, heroic
years of conflict. Poland, Serbia, Belgium and any other portion
of our present-day world that has been signalized by suffering must
continue their lamentations for a century before they can be set
by the side of Ireland in the martyrology of national afflictions, and
even if a rigid censorship shall limit the story of their distress,
science has made the wireless reaches of the air convey to distant
ends of the earth the full account of their ordeals. This allusion
'Russel's Calendar, pp. 497-501. 4D'Alton, ibid., p. 220.
654 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS [Feb.,
to the afflicted nations of our time might fall under the reproach
of sentimentality, were it not imperative for a reader of Irish
history to bear in mind, that to Ireland, during the centuries
of unjust oppression, was denied a voice in her statement of the
case, and even yet she has but poorly succeeded in getting the ear
of the world. It was not enough for the English agents to try to
justify, before their own courts, the incessant injustices of their
transactions: they were alert to use every trickery of speech to
corrupt the courts of France and Spain, and even to preclude the
Irish from getting a sympathetic hearing before the Holy Father
in Rome. Pelham and Gray, Carew and Mountjoy in their un-
paralleled atrocities (which were approved by the Queen) are not
more to be despised than Chichester, Davies and Edmund Spenser,
among the falsifiers in that century, and James Anthony Froude
and Mr. T. Dunbar Ingram, who have continued the falsehoods
to our day.
It will not be surprising, then, to come upon severe accusations
against the Northern Chiefs and their distinguished ancestors, as
one reviews the history of the clans of O'Neill and O'Donnell be-
fore scanning the narrative of " the flight." In their desperate
struggle against the terrorizing encroachments of English power
and intrigue, they can be pardoned for much of the mailed- fist
policy which they had to adopt. We may read that in 1543, Conn
O'Neill (Hugh's grandfather, who was the first to bear the title
of Earl of Tyrone), was with Manus O'Donnell in apparent sub-
mission to Henry VIII; yet we are not surprised to learn that
eight years later there were disputes and insurrections which re-
sulted in the devastation of their districts. Later bearers of the
family names, Shane O'Neill, for instance, and Calvagh O'Donnell,
may not claim to have exhibited that gentleness which makes for
canonization; they did not always turn the other cheek; but the
deeds of insubordination and lawlessness which are ascribed to
them will find a voice to plead pardon, if one looks thoroughly at
the wily deceits and flagrant injustice which surrounded them.
They and their descendants, who had to leave tracks of blood
where they passed, were determined to safeguard a few primal
rights — those respecting their homes and their religion. Pro aris
et focis is the legend upon any true warrior's banner. Shake off
the gross calumnies that official reporters dared to affix to the
standard of the Irish Chiefs, and you will find the inspiring legend
true upon the banner of the O'Neill.
I9I7-] THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS 655
But despite the military valor of these great warriors, they had
to give ground. England's resources against them were almost
limitless. Yet what magnificent achievements attended them be-
fore they left the ground or died fighting with their backs to the
wall ! " Never before/' said Sussex,5 " durst Scot or Irishman
look an Englishman in the face in plain or wood and now Shane
O'Neill, in a plain three miles away from any wood, hath with
one hundred and twenty horse and a few Scots and gallow-
glasses, scarce half in numbers, charged our whole army, and by
the cowardice of one wretch (Wingfield) was like, in one hour,
to have left not one man of that army alive, and after to have
taken me and the rest to Armagh." No citation from friend or
foe is needed to enhance the glory of a later field, when Hugh
O'Neill, at the Battle of Yellow Ford (August 12, 1598), made
a name memorable for all time.
Wearied by interminable and unavailing disputes the Earl of
Tyrone had to despair of getting any redress from the Eng-
lish. Since making his submission to the King in 1603, his char-
acter as a loyal subject was above reproach.6 All that O'Neill now
desired was to be allowed to live in peace. He had fought a great
fight, he had been eventually worsted in the struggle: he had
accepted his defeat, and he was satisfied to live as a subject of
England, though still in authority over his own territory. But he
was driven from pillar to post: his lands were repeatedly invaded
and seized in pretence of being church lands; and he constantly
complained to Cecil and the King that the terms made with him
were flagrantly vi61ated. The Earl of Tyrconnell and Maguire of
Fermanagh had similar complaints to make in their own defence;
and when these two Chiefs at last determined to leave Ireland,
O'Neill, being informed that if he went to London he would be
made prisoner, resolved to accompany his friends.
In May, 1607, Maguire left Ulster secretly and proceeded to
Brussels. Through the influence of Father Conry and of O'Neill's
son, Hugh, at that time a Colonel in the service of the Archdukes,
Maguire received a donation of seven thousand crowns, with which
he purchased a ship of eighty tons at Rouen, loaded it with a cargo
of salt, manned it with sixteen guns, and placed it in command of
one Bath, a merchant of Drogheda. Early in September, the ship
with Maguire on board and with the French flag flying at the
masthead sailed up Lough Swilly, and cast anchor opposite the old
"Rickey, p. 291, cited by D'Alton, ibid., p. 41. 'D'Alton. ibid., p. 206.
656 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS [Feb.,
Carmelite Priory at Rathmullan.7 Immediately English espionage
sharpened its eyes and raised the cry of conspiracy and treason.
A disreputable character, Sir Christopher St. Laurence (Lord1
Howth)8 started the calumnies; and secret emissaries of the King
continued to malign the Irish exiles even when they were far-off
on the continent. The purpose of the warlike ship, St. Laurence
said, was to start the Irish in a general revolt, to have them shake
off the yoke of England and to bring in the Spaniards; and James
I., wishing to stand well with France and Spain, " proclaimed that
the Irish Chiefs had fled the kingdom from inward terror and
guilt; that they had never been persecuted for their religion; that
indeed it would be impossible to do so, seeing they had no re-
ligion at all, their condition being to think murder no fault, mar-
riage of no use and no man valiant that did not glory in rapine
and oppression." The best contradictions of these clumsy calumnies
is contained in the dispatches of the King's ministers, and can be
found in the State Papers of the times.9
On the thirteenth of September, O'Neill reached Lough Swilly.
The following morning Maguire's ship turned to the open sea.
" In the name of God," says Tadhg O'Cianain, the scribe who ac-
companied the Earls, as he begins the narrative of " the flight " —
an expression that failed not the heart and lips of the valiant exiles
as they looked in grief towards foreign lands.
Besides O'Neill of Tyrone and his wife and children, and
others of that notable company10 were O'Donnell of Tyrconnell and
Maguire of Fermanagh with many of their relatives. " This was
a distinguished crew for one ship; for it is certain that the sea
had not supported, and the winds had not wafted from Ireland in
modern times, a party of one ship who would be more illustrious
or noble, in point of genealogy, or more renowned for deeds,
valor, prowess or high achievements than they, if God had per-
mitted them to remain in their patrimonies until their children should
have reached the age of manhood. Woe to the heart that medi-
tated, woe to the mind that conceived, woe to the council that de-
TMeehan, The Fate and Fortunes of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, p. 114.
8 Of this Lord Howth, even the Lord Deputy said: "I like not his look and
gesture when he talks with me of this business : " and the Privy Council in Eng-
land thought that: "he rather prepared the propositions he speaks of than that
the persons he names did originally propound them to him." (Preface of The
Flight of the Earls, p. xii.).
'D'Alton, ibid., p. 209.
LOD'Alton says that the company numbered between thirty and forty persons;
but O'Cianain, who was there, places the number at ninety, and Father Walsh
identifies sixty persons on the list.
1917.] THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS 657
cided on, the project of their setting out on this voyage, without
knowing whether they should ever return to their native principali-
ties or patrimonies to the end of the world."11
We are not dependent solely upon Irish testimony to be con-
vinced that this was, in the phrase of the Four Masters, " a dis-
tinguished crew," or that " the sea had not supported a party of
one ship who were more illustrious or noble." Evidence of their
eminent rank in the highest social circles of Europe may be clearly
seen in the extraordinary welcome which greeted them wherever
they went. Though petty humiliation occasionally beset their jour-
ney in northern France and in Flanders., though they had received
a hint that they should not proceed to Spain, yet theirs was almost
entirely a triumphal procession across Europe. The machinations
of the English Ambassadors at Brussels and Paris were not with-
out some effect in diminishing the scale of royal hospitality to the
princely exiles; but these English deceivers had to dine upon their
own chagrin over France's rebuffs. Let us quote from two sources
the witnesses to the French King's reply — learning likewise some-
thing about the persistence of the English hounding. Salisbury
wrote in October to Sir Thomas Edmonds, the Ambassador at
Brussels: " More information has been received that they (the
Irish Chiefs) being weather-beaten at sea, are put in at Kilboeuf
(Quilleboeuf) in Normandy, and at their landing obtained leave
of the Duke of Montpensier for their safe passage towards Brus-
sels, with all their retinue. Whereof Sir George Carew12 being ad-
vertised, addressed himself to the French King, and provisionally
desired him to make a stay for them so long there till he might
receive further order out of England in that behalf And
the King made answer that France was a free country for pas-
sengers, and that the Duke of Montpensier, having already given
his word for their safety, the King could not revoke it."13
The despicable intrigues of English emissaries followed the
noble exiles to the very Court of Pope Paul V. At Brussels the
Internuncio was Cardinal Guido Bentiviglio; his courtly attitude,
11 Four Masters, vol. iii., p. 2,359. Anent this thrilling passage, Helena Con-
cannon, (in Studies, June, 1916) notes the calmness of Tadhg O'Cianain's narrative
of the Flight. " With that wail from the grieving four ringing in our ears after
the 'Ship of Calamity' which sailed from Lough S willy on the sorrowful 'Feast of
the Cross,' it comes upon us with an odd sense of bewilderment to note the ab-
solute want of emotion in O'Cianain, as he tells his tale. Had he no conception,
while they weighed anchor and sailed out of the 'Shadowy Lake' into the wide
sea, that the first scene had been staged of a tragedy whose sorrow darkens our
land even today?" "Ambassador at the Court of France, 1605-1609.
13 Calendar of State Papers, 1607.
VOL. CIV.— $2,
658 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS [Feb.,
as he sat at " the right-hand side " of O'Neill hid very mixed
feelings — due to the ear which he had given to the English re-
proaches. Yet the Internundo was candid enough to confess that
" by his past services to the Catholic cause, his personal zeal in the
Catholic religion, and his rank of nobility, the Earl of Tyrone
merited the protection of his Holiness and of other Catholic
Princes."14 Long is the list of receptions to the Earls en route to
Rome, and we shall mention only a few, employing the accurate
record of Tadhg O'Cianain.
Passing through Binche, " the Duke of Ossuna, the secretary,
and Don Rodrigo, the major-clomo of the Archduke, came with good
coaches and great noblemen to meet them, and welcomed them in
the Archduke's name. The Infanta, the King of Spain's daughter,
and the Archduke came to the door of the Palace to meet them."
Two days later at Brussels, we see how the Marquis Spinola (com-
mander-in-chief of Spain's army in Flanders) rated the noble visi-
tors when he entertained them at dinner. " The Marquis himself
arranged each one in his place, seating O'Neill in his own place
at the head of the table, the Papal Nuncio to his right, the Earl
of Tyrconnell to his left, O'Neill's children and Maguire next the
Earl, and the Spanish Ambassador and the Duke of Aumale on the
other side, below the Nuncio: The rest of the illustrious, respected
nobles at table, the Marquis himself, and the Duke of Ossuna, were
at the end of the table opposite O'Neill."
Louvain, where they spent the Christmas season, Mechlin and
Antwerp gave them rounds of festal entertainment, and showed
them the hallowed shrines which Irish saints and scholars had, in
more prosperous times, made memorable forever. Towards the end
of February (1608) "the Princes with their retinue set out for
Italy, in all thirty-two riding on horseback: their ladies had a
coach : and they left two of O'Neill's sons, and the Baron, and
Tyrconnell's son and others of their nobles and followers in Flan-
ders with the Colonel." From Namur to Nancy, seven towns gave
them cordial hostelries. Nancy at that time was the chief city of
the Duke of Lorraine.15 " About two leagues from the city, on a
l4Archivium Hibernicum, vol. iv., pp. 243-246.
15 1 need not apologize for making these rather long citations from O'Cianain's
narrative. One of the avenues of regret for those who look back over Ireland's
past is that the romance of her great historical characters and incidents have had
no romantic novelist to charm the world with them. What books would there be
in English literature, if the seventeenth century, or for that matter any of her
centuries, had a Walter Scott, or in our own day, a Robert Hugh Benson. I
am not unmindful of Canon Sheehan — but his were, in the main, studies of modern
Ireland.
1917.] THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS 659
beautiful high hill, there is a very strong castle. It is there the
Duke's children are instructed and brought up in their youth. The
Duke sent coaches and noblemen a distance from the Court to meet
them. When they alighted the Duke's steward came to invite them
to the great palace, but they excused themselves for that night
because of their journey. After they had heard Mass on the next
day, the same man came to meet them with good coaches. They
went to the great palace. When the Duke came from the church
afterwards, and entered his hall, he sent great lords for them (the
Irish). They went into his presence. He received them with joy
and honor, and his children did likewise. After discoursing and
conversing with one another, they sat down to dinner. -There were
many honorable noblemen waiting on them." And finally, the
head-steward of the Duke, after accompanying the noble guests
to their lodgings, " proclaimed under severe penalty that no one
should accept gold or silver of them while they were in the city, but
that all their expenses during that time should be borne by the
Duke."
After visiting shrines, and filling their Irish eyes with the
glory of majestic scenes in Switzerland, they reached "the great
remarkable famous city of Milan. A great respected Earl, one of
the most excellent soldiers in the world in his time also, Count
de Fuentes by name, was chief governor and representative of the
King of Spain over that city, and over all Lombardy." The Count,
"with great honor and respect," entertained his visitors during
" three full weeks in the city." And at their departure he bestowed
upon them precious gifts, " and he was sad when they left."
Arriving at Bologna, " a noble Cardinal (Alfonso Palaeoti)
sent some of his household to welcome them and receive them
with honor and respect." Rimini, Pesaro, Ancona and Loreto were
noteworthy cities as the route continued. At Assisi, where they
went in veneration to the shrine of St. Francis, " there were in the
monastery when they arrived, the General of the Order of Minors in
all Christendom, and hundreds of brothers and respected fathers.
They received these Irishmen with great respect and welcome."
When they drew near to Rome, Peter Lombard, the Arch-
bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland (poor exile, who
never could visit his diocese after his appointment, July 9, 1601)
came out to meet his illustrious countrymen. " They went on after
that through the principal streets of Rome in great splendor, and
(here indeed were true Irish pilgrims) they did not rest until
660 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS [Feb.,
they reached the church of San Pietro in Vaticano. Afterwards
they proceeded to the splendid palace which his Holiness, the Pope,
had set apart for them. They had fifteen coaches, all except a
few drawn by six steeds, as they traversed the long, chief streets
of the city that day."16
A very definite statement concerning the time of the Papal
reception is given by the faithful scribe : " On the fourth of May,
the day of the week being Sunday, and the year of the Lord being
then one thousand six hundred and eight, his Holiness the Pope,
Paul V., consented to their coming in person into his presence at
three o'clock in the afternoon." They went to the palace of Monte
Cavallo (now Reglo Palazzo del Quirinale) where the Holy Father
was awaiting them. " He received them with respect, with rev-
erence, with honor, and with welcome." And after their audience
which lasted " about one hour of the day in his presence," they
took their leave, " having received holy benediction : and they gave
thanks to God and the Holy Father for the respect and the reverence
wherewith he had exhibited his great, merciful kindness to them."
A round of Roman receptions followed. Cardinal Colonna,
" a noble Roman, of the true stock of the Roman people " played
their host : " In short they paid a special visit to each of thirty-
seven cardinals in succession." Pilgrimages to the churches and
shrines occupied their days. Here they were, sorrow-stricken exiles
from their beloved land, yet finding solace in that their declining
days were at the hearth of Christendom. They could not look for
military aid from France or Spain to strike another blow for their
motherland : but as they had proved themselves to be Irish warriors
in life, they knew how to prepare for death like Irish saints.
Yet before closing Tadhg O'Cianain's valuable journal let
us read his description of Corpus Christi — a scene which, while it
shows the honored rank of the Irish Chiefs, may some day go
brilliantly into a great historical novel about Tyrone and Tyr-
"Tadhg O'Cianain need never be suspected of exaggerating: the disclosures
of the State Papers, wherever the English agents report similar incidents, bear
witness to his simple truthfulness. Thus, on the Earls' entry to Rome, Wotton
(to Salisbury, May Qth) writes that " he has received particular advertisement from
Rome touching the Irish. About two miles out of the town Tyrone was met by
eight coaches, and six horses to every coach, sent by the Cardinals Montalto, Far-
nese, Colonna, and Barberini. The English papists, by commandment of the
Pope, went to meet him, and he was thus conducted to St. Peter's Church in the
Vatican, where he first set foot on ground, and so, after a short Ave Maria, was
brought to a palace close by furnished for him by the Pope, who defrays all his
charges." Calendar of State Papers, 654.
1917.] THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS 66 1
connell. " On Corpus Christi an order came from the Holy Father
to the Princes that eight of their noblemen should go in person to
carry the canopy over the Blessed Sacrament while It was being
borne solemnly in the hands of the Pope in procession from the
great church of San Pietro in Vaticano to the church of Saint
James in Borgo Vecchio, and from there back to the church of
Saint Peter. The Italians were greatly surprised that the Irishmen
should be shown such deference and respect, for some of them said
that seldom before was any one nation in the world appointed to
carry the canopy. With the ambassadors of all the Catholic kings
and princes of Christendom who happened to-be then in the city,
it was the established custom that they, in succession, every year,
carried the canopy. They were jealous, envious, and surprised that
they were not allowed to carry it on this particular day. The pro-
cession was reverent, imposing, and beautiful, for the greater part
of the regular orders and all the clergy and communities of the
great churches of Rome were in it, and many princes, dukes, and
great lords. They had no less than a thousand lighted waxen
torches. Following them there were twenty-six archbishops and
bishops. Next there were thirty-six cardinals. The Pope carried
the Blessed Sacrament, and Irish lords and noblemen to the
number of eight bore the canopy. About the Pope was his guard
of Swiss soldiers, and on either side of him and behind him were
his two large troops of cavalry."
Only a few days later, began the breaking-up of the illustrious
company. Maguire and another Lord of Fermanagh, Semus Mac
Mathghamhna, set out for Naples, with the intention of sailing
thence to Spain. The Earl of Tyrconnell, with two of his dis-
tinguished clansmen, " to make holiday and take a change of air,"
went to Ostia. In almost a month, (July, 1608) deadly fever
sounded the death knell of these O'Donnells and Maguires. For
the Earl of Tyrconnell, " a large and splendid funeral was ordered
by his Holiness the Pope." His body was wrapped in the habit
of St. Francis, " as he himself had ordered that it should be put
about him." Maguire and Semus died in Genoa; " there were only
six hours between their deaths." They too, were clothed in the
Franciscan habit, and were buried in a Franciscan monastery in
Genoa. Death paid rapid visitations to the remainder of the
princely exiles. O'Neill lived on for eight years, blessing his days
in holy pilgrimages, and finding other solace in the hearty courtesies
of his great Roman friends. The narrative of the faithful Tadgh
662 THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS [Feb.,
O'Cianain breaks off abruptly at the end of November, 1608. The
rest of the scribe's manuscript is probably lost. But we can turn
for his noble obituary to the Four Masters:^1 " The Age of Christ,
1616. O'Neill (Hugh, son of Ferdocha, son of Con Bacagh, son
of Con, son of Henry, son of Owen) who was styled Earl of
Tyrone at that Parliament (in Dublin, 1585) and who was after-
wards styled O'Neill, died at an advanced age, after having passed
his life in prosperity and happiness, in valiant and illustrious
achievements, in honor and nobleness. The place at which he died
was Rome, on the 2Oth of July, after exemplary penance for his
sins, and gaining the victory over the world and the devil. Al-
though he died far from Armagh, the burial place of his ancestors,
it was a token that God was pleased with his life that the Lord
permitted him no worse18 burial place, namely, Rome, the head-
city of the Christians. The person who here died was a powerful,
mighty lord, (endowed) with wisdom, subtlety, and profundity of
mind and intellect; a warlike, valorous, predatory, enterprising
lord, in defending his religion and his patrimony from his enemies ;
a pious and charitable lord, mild and gentle with his friends, fierce
and stern towards his enemies, until he had brought them to sub-
mission and obedience to his authority; a lord who had not coveted
to possess himself of the illegal or excessive property of any other,
except such as had been hereditary in his ancestors from a remote
period ; a lord with the authority and the praiseworthy characteris-
tics of a prince, who had not suffered theft or robbery, abduction
or rape, spite or animosity, to prevail during his reign; but had
kept all under the authority of the law, as was meet for a prince."
At the close of the tercentenary year of the death of the O'Neill,
the men and women of Ireland, and their brethren around the
world, have so much present sorrow that they dare not trust their
courage to think too much of "old, unhappy, far-off things;"
but, in the true spirit of the Gael, they rejoice that their race pro-
duced so great a man as Hugh O'Neill. Upon his name the calm
verdict of history has set a halo that surpasses the brilliant glory
wedded to his memory by a cycle of poetry.
"Vol. 6, p. 2,373. 18No worse, i. <?., than Armagh.
THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT.
BY HUGH ANTHONY ALLEN, M.A.
HOUGH in America, among the singers from the
sanctuary, the height of Newman and Faber, those
"sweet singers of our modern Israel," has not yet
been attained, except in the pearled, alembic lines
of that artificer of "tremendous trifles," Father
John Bannister Tabb, the priestly choir is by no means negligible.
Father Ryan, the militant poet of The Lost Cause, and the golden-
souled Archbishop Spalding, each have a niche in the temple of
the men to be remembered; while Father Albert Reinhart, O. P.,
Father Arthur Barry O'Neill, " Sliev-na-Mon," (Father Bollard),
Father Edmund Hill, C.P., Father Hugh T. Henry, Father T.
I. Crowley, O.P., and the talented group of Jesuit Fathers,
Cormican, Earles, Tivnan and Hill, have done yeoman service
for religion and exerted a sanitary influence in the somewhat
augean field of art and letters. To this goodly fellowship in the
past few years has come Father Hugh Francis Blunt, with a
guerdon of such rare fragrance that he is esteemed by many the
leading American poet-priest of the generation now reaching its
artistic maturity. The world has never been able to decide upon
a definition of poetry at once exclusive and inclusive, and until
this devoutly to-be- wished- for consummation is brought about, it
will always be difficult to discover with what degree of specious-
ness a given individual may rightfully claim to be a poet. It is
particularly difficult to appreciate contemporary endeavor — disn
tance alone seems to give one the right perspective — still, few of
those for whom Father Blunt possesses an appeal can doubt that
his singing robes will prove good wearing. His work is no mere
essence from the ghostly veins of the poets responsible for Eng-
lish fantasy and form; it reveals a dauntless quest for self-ex-
pression, and is rich with a wealth gleaned by a perspicacious mind.
An indication of his authenticity is afforded by the circumstance
that he was first acclaimed by students of poetry and his co-
workers in the art. Recently there have been signs that a far
wider public is commencing to appreciate his work; copies of his
books have been seen on many a parlor table long innocent of
664 THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT [Feb.,
such a burden, and it is safe to predict that in the comirrg years
his popularity will increase rather than diminish. Hugh Francis
Blunt is a Yankee of Irish extraction, one of the growing group
of brilliant young priests whom Cardinal O'Connell so loves to
gather about him. At present, in addition to his prose works,
Father Blunt has two volumes of poetry to his credit: Poems1 and
Songs for Sinners,2 which contain the work now under conl-
sideration, and judging from his prolific output in the magazines,
the publication of a third is pending.
In their feverish eagerness for utter freedom, many of our
perfervid poetasters have forgotten that one of the conditions pre-
cedent of success in real art, as in real life, is restraint, and with
bad taste and worse technique have conjured up things which St.
Paul said should not be mentioned in polite society, recalling
Nietzsche's apothegm : " Poets act shamelessly toward their ex-
periences; they exploit them." It is, therefore, pleasant to turn
from these mountebanks and to commune with one who has not
made use of one of the fearsome new short cuts in his ascent of
Parnassus, who has been content to wear the chains which shackled
the meters of Shelley, of Wordsworth, of Tennyson, who has even
tied his winged horse in " the sonnet's scanty plot of ground,"
and by the same token, at a time when men are doing their ut-
most to eliminate faith from the category of the virtues, it is re-
freshing to come across a man who proclaims his belief in God's
goodness and mercy in a way that is unique and moving, one of
that brave brotherhood who
Teach how the crucifix may be
Carven from the laurel tree.
Father Blunt's attitude towards life is the attitude of Francis
Thompson; for him all nature is but a sacramental veil of divine
loveliness. As a priest, his ministry in infinitudes is bounded by his
parish ; as a poet it is bounded merely by his language. He is one
of those to whom Coventry Patmore says " is revealed a sacrament
greater than that of the Real Presence, a sacrament of the Mani-
fest Presence which is, and is more than, the sum of all the sacra-
ments." He is the poet of a circle, but it is an ever-widening circle,
1Poems. By Hugh Francis Blunt. Boston : Thomas J. Flynn & Co., Essex
Street.
*Songs For Sinners. By Hugh Francis Blunt. New York: The Devin-Adair
Co.
THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT 665
the circle of souls athirst for the Blood of the Lamb, and his influence
is correspondingly benign. With Blunt, as with all true poets, "mys-
ticism is morality carried to the nth power." He strikes no stained
glass attitudes, but brings the eternal verities home to the reader with
astonishing freshness and feeling. All of his poems have the same
fragile but imperishable quality as the fragments of Bion and Mos-
chus, the Tanagra figurines and the tiny mosaics of the Italians.
The viols in his voice make witching harmonies. They rest on one's
hand like little birds. They gleam like fairy jewels. They haunt
the aisles of one's mind. Their beauties are a quick and abundant
shower. Incontrovertible proof of his lyric gift is furnished by
the fact that several of his poems have been set to music by no
less a personage than the great Camilieri, late conductor at Covent
Garden, London, but now of New York, and in this form are
studied by the pupils of the Warford Conservatory of Music. His
thorough scholarship is mirrored in his verse as flowers are mirrored
in a placid stream. His Muse waits on his priesthood like an
obedient nun. He is intent on pointing out the good in evil, the
path to peace for people who have taken the step that spelled ruin.
He has an eye for the actual or potential tragedy in every life. With
crystalline clearness, in an abiding vision he sees All Of It:
One day of life,
One soul to save
One weary strife,
One wayside grave,
One solemn knell,
One trampled sod,
One way to Hell,
One way to God.
He looks kindly at people, with a humorous, deeply sympa-
thetic appreciation of their limitations, their foibles, and when he
sees in them some undeveloped nobility, some latent germ of the
spirit, he illuminates it with a glad recognition, since these are the
things that really count and the rest, though infinitely pitiable, of
only ephemeral importance. He is a portrait painter of the soul.
His penetrating studies, The Condemned Soid and The Prodigal
Soul mark him a psychologist of no mean order, a man of ardent
and subtle individuality. Life, as he sees it, is a sad spectacle and
he strives feverishly to make us see the hidden cause. There is
much solace in his Songs For Sinners; one apprehends that he
666 THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT [Feb.,
is a spiritual director of deep discernment. In stirring tones, he
delivers the old, old message :
Keep step with the Captain, Christ,
With your hearts on the holy coast.
Battle ye not for the withering bays;
Fight for the laurel of infinite days
In the tents of God and His deathless host.
Forward, men; to your Captain cling,
And ever keep step with the Christ, your King.
He is a profound student of the Scriptures, and has read well
the inspired songs of the ancient Hebrew seers, David, Job and
Isaias, songs which are still the acme of the world's spiritual
life. In To Some Higher Critics, he says :
How learnedly ye fathom Godhead's deep,
The deep Eternity, Infinitude,
Him that ye call the Galilean rude,
As in the vitriol the quill ye steep.
Christ was not God, ye scoff, and then ye heap
High words to prove Him but a rabbi shrewd,
With spell of Eastern prodigies imbued,
To bring on lowly souls His deadly sleep.
Christ but a man! God only to the blind;
The falsifier of a trusting age,
The victim of a nation's fitting rage,
Deceiver of Himself and humankind.
Ah fools, ye wise, who cannot see the worth
Of your own souls that brought a God to earth.
Could the " modern mind," most wearisome of entities, medi-
tate on those lines till it really understood them, perhaps it would
cease to assert its own amazing qualities. But one fears the
" modern mind " would find Hugh Francis Blunt altogether too
perspicacious a teacher. Though he sings of winter birches and
white violets, of a robin's egg and the poplar whose " every branch
desires the sky," he is appraised of nature's insufficiency and is
justly impatient with those who serve the creature rather than the
Creator. Of The Singers of Things, he says :
They have sung of the deeds, of the loves of earth,
Of the sky and the flow'ring sod;
But they died ere their poet's soul had birth,
For they never sang of God.
1917.] THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT 667
Father Blunt, at least, sings of God, and at every opportunity.
His poems reveal a scholar well beloved of the Master, and a great
joy in the simple life, which is within. He tells us of his daily
experiences as a priest, enriching his most ordinary functions with
an accent of spiritual romance. He sings of the boy who had five
barley loaves and two fishes, of the potter mentioned in Jeremias,
of the sacrifice of the doves and of the flight of the Holy Family
into Egypt. He touches many phases of religion and interprets
the heart throbs of every Catholic. He looks to heaven for pity
and pardon; he has thoughts on martyrdom. His poems Colleen
and The Little Saint Paul reveal a sympathy for children and a
sensitive tenderness which some would have us think altogether
wanting in priests. In A Draught, he warns us that all is not as
it seems:
" Drink deep ! " a goblet bright
A nymph placed in my hand,
" At thy command
Sweet pleasure lingers in this cup of light.
Drink deep, sweet wine of joy is here,
And happy cheer."
And lo, I drank it, for the liquid rolled
So tempting fair,
All joy seemed there,
Within the cup of purest, finest gold.
And then I cursed the lips that falsehood told,
And I did hear
Her taunt of laugh and sneer,
" Trust not the draught because the cup is gold."
In To A Disciple of Omar, refuting the sentiment of the
Rubaiyat that : " The flower that once has blown forever dies," he
protests :
Ah, soul of mine, be not deceived ;
Beyond the veil, within the light,
Is One Who waits thee with His kiss
To shrine thee in eternal bliss ;
So rouse thee, O my soul, and fight!
In The Nun, the poet voices the Judas cry of the world to one
about to embrace the religious life: Ut quid perditio hac, and this
wise virgin replies:
668 THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT [Feb.,
Soon will youth be old and worn,
Soon will life forsake me;
With my heart by earth-love torn,
Would my Bridegroom take me ?
Rarest beauty mine may be;
Though my wimple cover,
God that made me fair will see;
Need I dearer lover?
An improvisation at his organ reminds him that if he would
be a master of Life's instrument, he must learn the artistry from
Him Whose bleeding hands play on one never-changing theme,
His Symphony of Pain. Therefore we have the exquisite medi-
tations of his Way of the Cross, the delicate pathos of The Path-
way and the piteous perspective of Ecce Homo. God's deep heart
is a " flashing, crystal sea," over which Father Blunt rides in " the
bark of life " beseeching " the pirate Death " to tear the craft apart
and let him " sink in the caressing tide." His constant preoccupa-
tion with the complex problems of the inward life has taught him
much concerning the emotions. It is thus that he pictures Love's
Corning:
Love comes with a whisper soft and low,
As the breeze in the August trees,
Or as the ripples of brine in a rhythm slow
At the edge of the dusky seas.
Love comes with a whisper soft and low,
But the love of God it comes not so.
Love comes with a footstep still and slow,
As the light to the gates of day;
Or as timid beams from the soft moon's glow,
When the cloud-mists melt away.
Love comes with a footstep still and slow,
But the love of God it comes not so.
God's love — it blows as the wild winds blow,
For His love is a wind of might;
God's love — it glows as the moon-fires glow,
For His love is eternal light.
Love comes with a whisper soft and low
But the love of God it comes not so.
If the measure for the breadth of one's love for Christ be the
1917.] THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT 669
breadth of one's love for Christ's Mother, then the love of Father
Blunt for his Divine Master must be evfen as he says :
The breadth of my love: 'tis a forest fire,
Consuming with widest sweep,
. And it ne'er grows weak in its hot desire,
Its ardor can never sleep.
It was Ireland that gave birth to him whom the Catholic world
honors today as the great champion of Mary's unique privilege —
her Immaculate Conception ; it was the renowned Irish Franciscan,
the Blessed John Duns Scotus, who upheld and safeguarded the
glory of heaven's bright Queen, who confuted the enemies of
Mary's rights and vindicated beyond dispute the doctrine of her
stainless nature. Something of the sacred legacy of his faith in
her would seem to have been bequeathed to this foreign-born son
of the Gael. He is preeminently Mary's minstrel; that lilt of the
soul, which is the primal urge of all true poets, reveals itself in
an especial manner in his productions in honor of " God's flower
extraordinary." His Madonna is the Madonna of Irish poetry,
a comfortress of the afflicted ; nevertheless, we have songs of her
Motherhood in many moods. Chiefly notable among these are :
Our Lady's Nativity, For Our Lady's Birthday, Our Lady's Candle-
mas Hymn, Our Lady of the Lilies, Our Lady of the Manger,
Our Lady of the Doves, Our Lady's Coronation, Behold Thy
Mother! Our Lady of the Flowers, Our Lady of the Rosary, The
Three Home-Comings, Saint Joseph in Egypt and The Vision of
the Cross. He pays her a delicate tribute in Royal Gifts:
Came a prince from regions far
Guided by the wondrous star:
Wherefore, prince, this gift of gold
Which thou lettest Jesu hold?
Of thy gold He needs no part,
For He owns Her golden heart.
Came a prince with incense rare
As a breath of Eden's air:
Wherefore, prince, this goodly scent
O'er His little crib besprent?
Needs he not thy choice perfume,
While the Sharon Rose doth bloom.
670 THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT [Feb.,
Came a prince with gift of myrrh
(Prophet of His sepulchre) :
Wherefore, prince, the unction sweet
At the little Jesu's feet ?
Arab's balm He will not miss
While He feels His Mother's kiss.
And again, in Whitest of All:
I know the sea where the breezes are twining
Whimples of white for the brows of the billows:
White is the foam where the sunlight is shining,
But whiter the roses at rest on their pillows.
I know the tree where the young rose is dreaming,
Lilted to sleep by the croon of the fountains:
White is the rose where the sunlight is streaming,
But whiter the snows on the crest of the mountains.
I know the peaks where the snowflakes are dancing,
Tripping it light as the feet of a fairy:
White is the snow where the sunlight is glancing,
But whitest of all is thy brow, Virgin Mary !
The Mother's Quest will evoke a sympathetic thrill in many
a maternal bosom; the frantic searcher in the tangled streets of
old Jerusalem greets us thus :
Have you seen my little Love
Going by your door?
Off He flew, my little Dove,
And my heart is sore.
You would know my little Boy,
Dressed in white and brown.
How my heart o'erflowed with joy
As I wove His gown!
You would know Him from His hair,
All of raven hue ;
You would know Him anywhere,
Once He looked at you.
Oh, if you should see my Own,
Seeking out His home,
Tell Him how my joy has flown
As the streets I roam.
1917.] THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT 671
Lead Him in beside thy hearth,
Bid Him there remain;
Tell Him, though I search the earth,
I will come again.
And if hungry He should be,
Give Him of your bread;
If He nod so wearily,
Make His little bed.
Woman, if you see my Boy
Oh, to Him be kind !
You will have the fullest joy —
Lo, 'tis God you'll find!
One does not soon forget the wistful beauty of this perfect
little lyric, To Mary:
0 Lady, fairest Lady,
1 bring from bowers shady
The violets white, the violets blue,
And twine them as a crown for You:
Is it that little violets guess
The wonder of their blessedness?
O Mary, Virgin Mary,
God's flower extraordinary,
From out this garden heart of mine
A wreath of Aves I entwine:
Oh, will I ever really know
What grace was mine to love you so?
Merely to read the opening lines of The Call of the Blood
is to convince oneself that here is poetry to be read in an arm-
chair with slippered feet on the fender. The reader will be touched
by Father Blunt's yearning love for the motherland which he has
never seen, though he has " conned her bitter story." The poems
of his Irish group are strangely radiant with genuine color. His
pictures are vigorous, virile and vivid. That mushy mysticism
which has gone to make up the stock in trade of a certain Celtic
school now in vogue has no part in his poetic equipment. He writes
in the simple, direct manner of " the Mountainy singer," Joseph
Campbell. On hearing the laughter gushing from a fiddle he cries :
672 THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT [Feb.,
Will you listen to the tune of it,
Sweeter than the honey.
I'd rather hear the croon of it
Than get a miser's money.
Sure, my lad, it makes me cry,
But don't play any other:
May God be with the days gone by
I heard it from my mother.
An atavistic urge seems to stir the poet in these verses of
Tirnanoge:
Tirnanoge, ah, Tirnanoge!
Land of youth in the heart of the sea,
I think of the feasting on honey and wine,
The silver and gold and the raiment so fine;
Ah, it's you that had all,
A heart to enthrall,
Tirnanoge.
Tirnanoge, ah, Tirnanoge!
Land of youth in the heart of the sea,
I think of the sheep with the fleeces of gold,
The hounds and the steeds that no mortal can hold:
O 'twould take all the year
To tell of your cheer
Tirnanoge.
There is a captivating charm about An Irish Daddy's Serenade
and much authentic feeling in the Lament for an Irish Mother.
A touching memoir of a pious life is presented in An Old Woman's
Rosary. The poet pictures The Passing of the Old Guard in the
following sweeping lines:
They were passing, swiftly passing, as the dew before the sun,
As the wheat before the gleaners when the harvesting is done;
They are marching down the hillside at the ending of the day:
Ah, ye noble Irish exiles, must ye pass from us away?
Long ago they left their cabins on the heights of Irish hills ;
Left the Irish mist and sunshine, for the gloom of foreign mills ;
Left the shamrock green and holy, left the thrush's song so sweet;
Left the hearth-stone of their fathers for the stranger-crowded street.
1917-] THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT 673
Poor and hungry, weak and wasted, huddled in the holds of ships,
Did they bid adieu to Ireland with a sob upon their lips;
With a sob and with a prayer, as they faced the mighty main,
Turning from the dear old homeland they would never see again.
Came they not with blaring trumpets, came they not with flying flags !
Came they as a host defeated, in its battle-tattered rags ;
But with hearts of bold crusaders did they tread the stranger-sod.
And they builded here a city to the everlasting God.
There are some slight defects in Father Blunt's technique; in
reading his poems one is at times conscious of various metrical
infelicities. But, after all, the question to ask of a new singer is
not : " Is he faultless? " but : " Has he depth, music, originality; has
he the sacred fire whose mighty flare blinds us to all possible dis-
crepancies?" And Father Blunt possesses these qualities to an
eminent degree. Perhaps his poetic pulse may best be gauged from
the following excellent achievement, In Chains, with which I shall
conclude. It is a grand poem, quietly sung, but of the quietness
that survives many storms. Instinct with a fine religious exalta-
tion, the temper of these lines suggests Francis Thompson at his
best:
Here on the ground I lie, among the leaves,
The stray-tost leaves of early summertime,
World-weary leaves of latest autumntide;
Among the child-eyed daisies, dropt from heaven
For comforting and bringing peace to men.
I gaze about upon the waving grass,
Ridged by the furrowing of summer breeze,
And topped with daisies, shining as the foam
Tossed lightly by the waving of the sea.
Above, below, how full of peace serene;
Yon sky as blue as bluest ere could be
With screeny clouds that glint against the blue,
The glittering foam of that broad, bluest sea.
How all is peace! The very birds sing peace:
Peace from the robin, from the partridge drum,
And e'en the hawk doth seem to tell of peace.
These all at peace, the echoes answer peace,
And to mine ear pressed close to earth's own voice,
The buried strata whispering ages long
Tell to the bubbling springs the song of peace.
And all is peace, and all is sweetest peace.
VOL. civ. — 43
674 THE POETRY OF HUGH FRANCIS BLUNT [Feb.,
These all have peace, and sing their hymn of peace
From Fiat days till now thro' million years :
But man, wee mortal of an infant's days,
Stands at the brink of life's steep precipice,
The scarped and jagged cliff of barren days,
The forward road choked with the slashing briars
And gnarled trunks of lightning-shivered trees
That stood once cedars of the Lebanon,
And lonely gorge of fetid, sulphurous streams,
The shattered past, the barren days to come.
Slowly it dawns upon the poet that he is held in this impasse
by the shackles of his own unfaithfulness; his jarring pangs, his
lurings to despair and all the natural result of " some bending to
the Godhead's enemy ! " And with this poignant realization comes
the desire to burst asunder the fetters which bind him :
Is there no hope, no hope of peace regained?
Behold the robin sings, " Rejoice with me."
The pine-trees hum, " Rejoice, rejoice with me."
The skylark flits above, and sings, " Arise,
Thy wings are fairer, stronger than mine own."
Behold, my soul, how calm and sweet the air;
The summer's incense burns on glowing sun,
The sweetness of repose, of calmest peace,
Hath filled the crannies of the gladdened earth.
Come, soul, let not thy voice be all alone,
Carping in discontent while birds sing peace;
Let not thy heart be foul with stench of hate,
When nature's breath is lavished on the breeze.
Come, come, He calls ; cast off the binding chain,
The spell of discontent, envenomed sin
Lies on thine heart; oh, crush it, cast it off.
The chorus hath begun, Creation's voice
Awaits thy voice to swell its gladsome tune.
Arise, thy chains have dropped; soar high and sing
Of sweetest peace, the peace of Christ the King.
THE ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF CATHOLIC CHAP-
LAINS WITH THE ALLIED ARMIES IN FRANCE.
BY FRANCIS AVELING, D.D.
HE task of providing religious ministrations for the
soldiers of the Allied Forces in France and Belgium
is no slight undertaking. Vast numbers of men in
the field, forming armies the like of which in size
and composition the world has never seen, coming
from all parts of the great French Republic and its Colonies, from
every corner of the British Empire, as well as from brave Belgium,
require a large number of Chaplains to watch over their moral
welfare, and to minister to their spiritual needs. To prevent un-
necessary wastage of energy, and to make the most of every man
available, this body of Chaplains must be carefully organized.
Each clergyman must be posted to the unit in which he will be
able to render the greatest service to the men committed to his
spiritual care. Fighting troops at the front and " in rest " must
be adequately provided for. Garrisons, and centres where soldiers
are congregated together, such as concentration and reinforcement
camps, must not be left unministered to. With the Field-Am-
bulances, at Casualty Clearing Stations, through which the wounded
and sick are passed back from the line to the Base Hospitals,
and at the great Base Hospitals themselves; in every place, in
short, where a man may chance to need the services of his Church,
Chaplains must be found to render them.
The vast opposing Annies, fighting in the long lines which
stretch across the face of Europe, and in the Near East, in Africa
and in all the minor theatres of war : all these have spiritual pro-
vision made for them : Catholic, Orthodox Greek, Anglican, Non-
conformist and Jewish. Networks of spiritual agency are co-
terminous with the groups of fighting men, and with the no less con-
siderable armies in their rear which supply them with all the
necessities of life and of war.
It is the purpose of this paper to "describe briefly the organiza-
tion and work of the Catholic Chaplains of the Belgian, French,
and British Armies in the field ; and to relate one or two incidents,
by way of examples, of the life and ministry of a Catholic Chap-
lain at the front.
676 CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE [Feb.,
I.
The establishment and organization of the Chaplains are not
the same in the three Allied Armies. Besides a Chaplain General,
who has episcopal powers in all matters relating to the Chaplains' de-
partment, and to Divine Worship,1 the Belgians possess a Catholic
Chaplain2 (aumonier) attached to each Battalion of the Army, as
well as to each other unit equivalent to a Battalion — Cavalry, Artil-
lery, Sanitary Services, etc. There is also a " Divisional Chaplain "
posted to each Division. Over and above these " regular " Chap-
lains, the military authorities allow them to make use of the serv-
ices of other priests, who are employed as stretcher-bearers in
hospitals and convoy-trains of sick and wounded to the Belgian
Base Hospitals. These priests do the work of hospital orderlies,
more or less, attending to the wounded both corporally and spiritu-
ally. They conduct religious services for troops of all arms in
towns and cantonments wherever they happen to be.
At the Calais Base, for example,3 there is posted a Divisional
Chaplain, as well as some twenty assistants. It will be seen that
the spiritual well-being of the Catholic Belgians is amply provided
for. Indeed, the Belgian Chaplains find it possible, in some sort,
to live their accustomed life of religious piety while on active
service. They organize spiritual conferences, meditations, and occa-
sional retreats for themselves — as do the French. It is difficult,
indeed, amidst all the distractions and dangers, the dispersed
energies and many preoccupations, which the priest must inevitably
suffer in the midst of active warfare, to live the interior life so
necessary for himself and for those with whom he comes into so
intimate a contact. Nevertheless, the Catholic Chaplains at the
front manage somehow. The Belgians spend themselves for their
men, not only in good works of spiritual and bodily healing, but
also in keeping themselves fit ministers of those holy mysteries
which they dispense to the faithful soldiers.
At the outset of hostilities the Chaplains' establishment in the
French Army comprised one Catholic Chaplain for each Division,
as well as three Catholic priests, one Protestant pastor, and one
Jewish rabbi, posted to each Army Corps. This arrangement, as
1 There are Non-Catholic Chaplains as well with the Belgian Forces in the field.
'Monsignor Marinis, appointed August 28, 1915.
*Cf, La Guerre en Artois, Paris, Tequi, 1916, pp. 491, sqq.
1917] CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE 677
far as the practical usefulness of the Catholic Chaplains was con-
cerned, had evident disadvantages. Added to the fact that the
number of Chaplains was hopelessly insufficient for the amount of
work, of manifold variety, which it was their duty, as priests, to
perform — confessions, communions, Masses, visits to the trenches,
sick-calls, funerals, etc., was the almost greater inconvenience at-
tached to their geographical dispersion. Army Corps, as a rule,
are relatively far apart, and their headquarters far removed from
the Battalions with which the Chaplain might most wish to get into
touch ; and from the seriously wounded in the line, or in advanced
dressing-posts, for whom the administration of the Last Sacra-
ments was of paramount importance.
Means were found to overcome these practical difficulties.
Corps Chaplains, realizing the impossibility of doing their
work properly from Corps Headquarters, obtained transfers to
smaller units — Battalions, Ambulances, etc. — where they could at
least be in closest contact with some of the men who needed them
most. Voluntary Chaplains were appointed, mainly through the
patriotic and religious action of the Comte de Mun and of the
well-known journal, the Echo de Paris. The proverbial generosity
of Catholic France made the scheme possible: and the Voluntary
Chaplains became a part of the general religious organization for
the Army of the Republic.
As in the case of the Belgian Army, further priests were
available for the sacerdotal ministry among the French soldiers.
The clergy are not exempt from the law of conscription in France.
As a consequence very considerable numbers of priests are to be
found in the fighting ranks, as well as in the hospital, and other
subsidiary services. These became the unofficial Chaplains of the
units to which they belonged — Infantry Battalions, Gun Crews,
Cavalry Brigades, and so on. Wherever there was a priest, there
was to be found a confessor, some one to assuage the terrors and
lighten the path of the dying with the Last Sacraments ; wherever
and whenever possible, to console and hearten the living by cele-
brating the Holy Sacrifice and breaking the Living Bread at the
Holy Table.
The mere presence of such men — sharing with high courage
and devotion the common life, the daily labors, and the constant
dangers with the rest — has been of the greatest encouragement and
moral support, to say nothing of profound spiritual advantage, to
their lay brothers-in-arms. By their generous and unsparing devo-
678 CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE [Feb.,
tion they have lightened the arduous labors of the official Chap-
lains; and helped to keep burning the bright flame of religion,
amid the darkness and devastation of war, among the soldiers of
Catholic France.
The official establishment of Chaplains (Army Chaplains1 De-
partment) in the British Army is more complete and comprehen-
sive than that of the French. Before the European War a limited
number of religious denominations was alone recognized — Church
of England, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Wesleyans.
Roughly, these corresponded to the three great centres — England,
Ireland, Scotland — from which the Army was recruited. At pres-
ent, the lists of Chaplains are enormously increased. They include
those appointed by the " United Board," which comprises Congre-
gationalists and Baptists and also those of the Jewish faith.
The great majority of British soldiers is served by Chaplains
of the Church of England. Not all are actual communicants of
that body, however; for the chances are that, if a man on entering
the Army does not definitely declare himself to be a Roman Catho-
lic, or a Presbyterian, etc., he finds himself set down on the roll of
his unit as a member of the Established Church. The Church of
England Chaplains are the most numerous. Catholics come second
in point of number, and Presbyterians third. The other denomina-
tions are represented in a lesser proportion. Omitting the Anglican
establishment, which is organized under a Chaplain-General in
England, and a Deputy Chaplain-General in France, the remainder
of the Chaplains come under the administrative jurisdiction of the
Principal Chaplain — the Rev. Major-General J. M. Simms, C.M.G.,
D.D., K.H.C., who has his office at General Headquarters, from
which he posts the Chaplains to their units, organizes the work of
the department as a whole, and is responsible for the efficiency of
the work of his subordinates amongst the men. He has directly
under him the Senior Chaplains of the various denominations, of
whom the Catholic is the Very Rev. Monsignor W. L. Keating,
C.M.G.
The present establishment provides for four Catholic Chap-
lains posted to each Infantry Division in the field. Three of these
are, as a rule, attached to Battalions, which draw rations for them
and with the Headquarters of which they generally live. They
hold fourth class — equivalent to Captain's — rank. Except in the
case of Infantry Brigades in which the number of Catholics is
predominant — as Irish Brigades: and, in this case, two Catholic
1917] CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE 679
priests are posted to each Brigade — each Chaplain is charged with
the duty of seeing to the spiritual welfare of all Catholics in the
other Battalions composing the Brigade as well as his own. The
fourth Chaplain, who has honorary third class — Major's — rank is
posted to a Division. Besides these, Chaplains are posted to Army
Corps (second class rank) to Armies and Bases (first class), as
well as to Casualty Clearing Stations, Base Hospitals, and the
like.
Since all the Army Chaplains, with the exception of those of
the Church of England, are in the same administrative organiza-
tion, the Army, Base and Corps appointments are held alternately
by Catholics and Nonconformists in proportion to the number of
Chaplains of each denomination in the field. This arrangement is
for administrative purposes only; and in no way interferes with
the full liberty of action, as far as religion is involved, of the in-
dividual Chaplains, Catholic or other, concerned.
From this brief sketch of the organization of the Catholic
Chaplains serving with the British Army in France, it will be seen
that the work they have to do must be of a very varied and com-
posite character. Chaplains with the fighting troops have to pro-
vide Holy Mass for officers and men, especially on Sundays, and
when the Battalions under their care are back " in billets." This,
as a rule, is fairly simple — a matter of arrangement with the
Colonel, or Adjutant, as to time and place, and a note in Orders of
the day announcing the service, to which the men are paraded.
Every opportunity, too, must be given to them to approach the
Sacraments frequently. This, also, in similar circumstances, is not
difficult. Confessions may be heard before, or after, the Mass.
Men in billets are free generally in the late afternoon, or evening;
and the priest can fix a time at which he may be found in the village
church, if it still stands, in his own billet, or some other suitable
place. He will himself, too, go the rounds of the men's billets,
bringing, so to speak, the Sacrament of Penance to them. Often,
in his rounds, he will provide himself with the Blessed Sacrament,
and, making use of the great privilege of non-fasting Communion,
he will feed the soldiers of Christ with the Bread of the Strong.
Wonderful, indeed, in the intense reality of their faith are
Communions such as these : men kneeling upon the trodden, straw-
littered, clay floor of some barn, or outhouse, with, perhaps, the
flickering light of a single candle making long, wierd, trembling
shadows on the walls and among the rafters; their faces uplifted
680 CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE [Feb.,
in the dim light towards the priest who bears the Divine Victim
and Symbol of salvation aloft before them; men, or a solitary man,
upon his knees before the priest, in the mud of a Picardy road,
with the dark gloaming of dusk wrapping him about and the
eternal radiance of heaven glowing in his soul, as the little silver
pyx is opened, and God condescends to take up His abode within
the heart of His child. There are wondrous spiritual beauties amid
all the sordidness of war, and consolations, for priest and people
alike, in all its dangers and hardships.
More difficult is work with the men actually in the trenches.
These have been given all the opportunities of the Sacraments before
they went up : but still they cannot be left altogether alone. There
is the tramp, or ride, up from billets to the line ; a matter, perhaps,
of a few kilometres; the walk through often seemingly endless
communication trenches zig-zagging forward to Battalion Head-
quarters; the slow progress to and through the traversed front-
line trench. These visits are more often than not paid at night.
Sometimes the Chaplain is sent for to conduct a funeral service
in one of the little trench cemeteries that are now scattered in a long
line across France; or to hasten, at full speed, to a Regimental
Aid Post where some poor lad lies dying: and these occasions
can all be made use of to help — or at least to be seen by — the men ;
for even the sight of their priest is a comfort to them.
There are visits to horse-lines and gun-pits to be paid; and
often arrangements to be made for the celebration of Holy Mass
in the latter: for the gunners cannot easily leave their posts to
assist at the Masses celebrated for the Infantry.
And so, from early morning Mass until night, there is much
for the Chaplain to do — not that his labors have not their distrac-
tions, and even their amusing interludes from time to time. There
is little monotony, where all is so varied; and the day seems only
too short for all the things he has in hand.
Behind the actual lines, too, there is much with which the
Chaplain finds to occupy himself. He may be attached to a Supply
Column, or to the Cavalry ; in which case his work often leads him
far afield, to the troops scattered at varying intervals in the villages
of a large area. There is little of the strenuous excitement of the
actual front, but plenty of hard, solid labor to be done if the
soldiers committed to his care are to have all that their holy re-
ligion can give to them. There is less of the glamor of war in
this work, but it is no less necessary and noble than the other. The
1917] CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE 681
Chaplains here, like the various service units to which they min-
ister, are all necessary to a great army.
Then there are the Clearing Stations, through which the
wounded pass from the Field Ambulances. These are amongst the
most important posts which the Chaplains have to fill. In normal
times, with the ordinary wastage of trench warfare, there is work
to be done in abundance, both for the sick, and for details and odd
units lying nearby. During periods of intense activity, as in the
case of local actions, or " pushes," the priest must be on duty, so
to speak, at all times, ready at any moment, day or night, to bring
the succors of the Faith to the Catholics passing through. In-
deed, at moments such as these, the Brigade Chaplains generally
join the various sections of Ambulance units, so that there is a
regular seive, or network, of priests stretching back along the lines
of evacuation of the wounded, from the Regimental Aid Posts and
Advanced Dressing Stations, through the main Ambulance and
Casualty Clearing Stations to the Base Hospitals ; in such wise that
it is humanly speaking impossible for a case to escape being
brought into contact somewhere with the priest. Chaplains at the
General and Stationary Hospitals at the Base very rarely find
a serious case who has not had all the Sacraments — Confession,
Holy Viaticum, Extreme Unction, and Last Blessing — before ad-
mission, so carefully and so thoroughly do the priests " up the
line " cover their ground.
In the Convalescent Camps and Depots, to which men, on
recovery from illness of wounds, are transferred from hospitals,
the Chaplains are mainly occupied in multiplying occasions in which
the men may go to their duties before being drafted out to De-
tail Camps, and so back to the firing-line. The priest usually has
parades of the Catholics ' for confession on Saturdays, and for
Mass on Sundays: and the greater part of his day is set aside,
during which he is available in one way or another for the needs
of his men.
The entire organization is simple, and yet intricate. When a
Chaplain is killed in action, or wounded, or is obliged to " go sick "
at the front, his place must be filled as soon as possible, and often
at once. This sometimes means moving a priest from the Base,
and throwing his work upon the shoulders of a colleague near by.
This may mean — and, especially in times of heavy work, does
mean — that only the more serious cases can be looked after, or the
absolutely urgent work done. But no Catholic in all this vast and
682 CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE [Feb.,
complicated machine which is the British Army can ever be said
to be without a priest; for, if the Chaplain, in urgent circum-
stances, be too occupied to make the acquaintance of each in-
dividual man, there is no reason why any man who wishes to
find his priest cannot do so. Things may not have been so at the
beginning of hostilities. There was doubtless a lack of organization
as well as a lack of priests — and the former dependent upon the
latter. Now this, as far, at any rate, as organization is concerned,
cannot be said: though the labors of the Chaplains already in
France would be materially lightened, and their work even more
adequately and more perfectly accomplished, were their numbers
brought up — as they doubtless soon will be — to the full establish-
ment allowed by the War Office.
II.
The priest who receives his commission and puts on his khaki
for the first time seems to himself to be taking a leap in the dark.
He leaves his curacy or his monastic cell, his rectory or professor-
ship, the regular life and work of which he understands and
knows, for a life in which almost anything may be expected of
him, and work which, in all its circumstances at least, must be
unfamiliar. To begin with, he has not the faintest idea of the
kind of unit to which he will be posted when he arrives in France.
He has his kit and his " Wolesly Valise," his haversack and water-
bottle, and, most necessary of all, his portable altar and his holy
oil stock. He crosses the Channel ; and is interviewed in the Chap-
lains' office, by the Principal Chaplain, or his deputy, who has
before him a great roll with the names and postings of the Chap-
lains inscribed upon it. At the close of the interview, he receives
a slip of paper upon which his name, and the name of the unit
to which he is posted, is written. Armed with this, he proceeds
to the office of the Base Commandant to procure his " Movement
Order." This, in turn, serves him in getting from the R. T. O.
(Railway Transport Officers) the pass which will take him to his
destination. But there is no indication on his ticket of the name
of the place to which he is to go. He boards a train, and dis-
appears in the vastness of the British Army in France; until
handed on from R. T. O. to R. T. O., he finds himself at length
with his unit.
What are his experiences? The routine work — if that can be
1917] CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE 683
called routine which is ever changing — is already sketched out in
this paper. That, and such incidents as these.
A dark late autumn afternoon ; and the star- shells beginning to
shoot up and slowly, slowly fall to the ground, where they burn
with an instant brilliant glare. The odor of fallen leaves; the
spitting and crackle of rifles ; the monotonous " tick-tock-tock "
of a machine gun; the occasional sharp flash and sullen roar of
a field-piece from somewhere over the hill. A straight road, folded
between swelling grassy slopes on either side: a road that leads
directly towards the falling star-lights, which seem so very close,
so bright are they ; straight up to the ominous crackling and snarl-
ing of the rifles. Along the road rides the Chaplain on his bicycle.
Strapped on behind is a little sack containing cassock, cotta and
black stole. A soft, swift " whish " and a kind of whining sigh
drones through the air above his head : and then another, and
another, as he pedals nearer to the trenches. Spent bullets, these,
that whine and drone above, and strike the trees at the side of the
road with a sharp " klop." The Chaplain dismounts, leaves his
machine in a safe place, and goes forward. In the semi-darkness
ahead a few figures stand out silhouetted against the brilliant lights.
By the roadside a few wooden crosses gleam fitfully in rows. The
Chaplain moves to an open trench, beside which a shrouded
form lies stiffly. His comrades in arms lower the body into the
narrow grave, just hallowed by the blessing of the Church. And
amidst the irregular volleys, and the soaring, falling star-lights,
a Catholic soldier hero is laid in the embrace of Mother Earth,
with no voice to break the stillness save that of the priest : " Ego
sum resurrectio et vita" — confident, calm, triumphant in words that
stretch by faith beyond the confines of time and space to the Eter-
nity of God. "I am the resurrection and the life; he who be-
lieveth in Me, although he be dead, shall live : and everyone who
liveth and believeth in Me shall not die forever."
A bitter morning; the ground covered inches deep with
powdery snow, and the drinking pools of the cattle caked in ice;
a steel-gray threatening sky overhanging heavily. The Battalion is
" at rest " — chief excuse to the Chaplain for a late Mass and a
later breakfast. On his way from the mess to his billet he is met
by his servant. " Two men, Father, who want to see you. I
think they want to be converted."
684 CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE [Feb.,
"Very well; tell them I will see them at once.'*
Later, they are introduced. They had been out in France for
some ten months, one old and one younger man, privates both in a
"Labor Battalion." They knew no Catholics intimately — even
well. But they had watched, and wondered at, and admired the
lives of some Catholic men in their own unit. Neither of them
possessed much formal religion; both were deeply religious at
heart. They saw, admired— perhaps envied. Then they began
frequenting the French village churches. They understood little or
nothing of the services; but they discovered something in the
French peasants at Church akin to that which they had remarked in
their Catholic fellows. How they had managed to possess them-
selves of the truths of the Catholic religion the Chaplain never
knew : most likely a special grace had been vouchsafed to them, as
undoubtedly a special light had led them to the portals of Christ's
Church. But they had the main truths; and believed them, too;
though with many of the practices of the Church they may have been
unacquainted. They were to leave the village early the next morn-
ing— whither, they did not know. What were they to do? Could
they be received into the Church? There was little time for in-
struction: it was only possible to go through the Creed of Pius
IV., explaining it, bit by bit, where explanation was necessary : and
they were left with an admonition to pray earnestly. In the
evening they confessed and were conditionally baptized. Then,
save for a letter or so, they passed beyond the Chaplain's ken : but
from their letters he knows that seldom were better or more fer-
vent converts ever received than these two — as have doubtless
been countless others — amid the throes of war and the backwaters
of battle.
* * * *
The slant yellow beams of an early summer sun beating upon
a village, in which great gaps and mounds of debris mark the places
of what were the dwelling houses. In the centre, the church; a
monument of desolation; windowless, and with the greater part
of the roof blown away by a high-explosive shell. The altar is over-
turned; and its broken candle-sconces and crucifix are amongst the
ruins littering the sanctuary floor. A poor little church at best,
but beloved of the villagers before their flight: for here they
plighted both as man and wife; hither they brought their babies
to the font of regeneration; here they prayed for their dead. Out-
side, in the churchyard, a group of soldiers gathered about a raised
1917] CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE 685
altar-tomb, over which a sort of bower of branches and leaves
has been built. Upon the tomb the priest has placed his portable
altar, and arranged it for the Holy Sacrifice. The two candles
flicker and flutter in the light breeze. The men kneel among the
graves, fingering their beads, praying silently. When the great
moment comes, they approach the Holy Table. And there, beneath
the vast, blue vault of God's own heaven, with the rising incense of
the flowers, and to the chant of the birds, and rumble of the guns,
the stupendous Sacrifice is completed; priest and men alike par-
ticipating in the Divine Bread that cometh down from heaven.
Again, another scene : A low, sunken road, grass-bordered,
with long lines of willow-poplars and overhung with thorn bushes.
The continual battle of musketry and thudding boom of heavy
guns and bursting shells. Along the roadway are coming mud-
stained, battle-seared men; limping, hobbling, dragging themselves
along. Here one supports a comrade. There another, spent, sits by
the roadside and waits. Still forms are borne past on stretchers,
until the advanced Dressing Station is full and the stretchers begin
to overflow into the sunken road. Doctors and dressers are busy
everywhere. Despite their bandages, their wounds, these limping,
halting men are cheerful. They are smoking cigarettes and already
exchanging reminiscences. Those lying on the stretchers are still,
bravely patient, rather than cheerful, heroically courageous, stifling
all but involuntary groans. The priest emerges from the shed that
serves as a Dressing Station, and passes slowly along the growing
lines of stretchers in the road. Here he lifts his hand, signing the
sacred sign, absolving sin. There he bends low and swiftly he
traces the cross upon eyes and ears, nostrils, lips and hands with
Holy Oil. A shell screams close overhead and bursts : fragments
splinter across the road, impinging with dull thuds upon the soft
earth, with vicious rasping knocks upon the installed road. Wisps
of acrid smoke drive past. A fresh stretcher is carried in and laid
down by the roadside : upon it a supine form, pale-visaged and with
closed eyes. Rough bandages round the thigh show crimson with
oozing blood, where the trouser leg is cut away. Tunic and shirt
are open at the throat: the identity-disk shows a circle of dull
red against the pallor of white flesh. The priest hurries over and
lifts the disc — " 17,763 Pte. — R. C." He kneels, and begins
the sacred formula of forgiveness over the unconscious man; when
686 CATHOLIC CHAPLAINS IN FRANCE [Feb.,
the slow eyelids tremble the great blue eyes open and gaze upon
him full. Slowly, a smile breaks through the twisted pain of the
pale lips ; and a weak voice murmurs, understandingly ; " You are
a Catholic priest, Father? "
" Yes, my boy, I am a priest."
"Thank God! Oh, thank God."
And as the Chaplain bends lower to catch the faint syllables,
quickly opening, at the same time, the Holy Oil stock, the brave,
tired, faithful eyes close, to open only in the glory of God's
presence — the last earthly words a supreme, sublime act of contri-
tion, of faith, and hope, and love : " Thank God ! Oh, thank
God!"
# * * *
These, and a thousand like these, are among the ordinary
episodes, the commonplaces, of the Catholic Chaplain's experience.
I shall not write of heroic deeds — of crawling out into " No-Man's-
Land " on errands of religious mercy to men who may never re-
turn, or of " going over " with attacking troops in the face of
withering fire, or of other exploits of prodigious personal valor.
These things have been done by Chaplains, and, doubtless, will be
done again. Their records are sometimes found in the " Lists of
Honors " — always in the hearts of their men. But what I have
written may give some slight indication of a Catholic Chaplain's
life in this great European War. It may help to explain the de-
votion of the men towards their priest — a devotion which cannot
exceed that of their Chaplain towards his flock; and it may sug-
gest, though it may not have emphasized in words, some of the
many and wonderful beauties of Divine Providence that may be
found even amid the fierce clash of arms and the murk and horror
of war.
flew Boohs.
FRANCE: HER PEOPLE AND HER SPIRIT. By Laurence
Jerrold. New York : The Bobbs-Merrill Co. $3.00 net.
One of the surprises of the War, remarkable as any of the
great unexpected developments which the struggle has produced,
is the fighting power and tenacity of purpose which the French
people have displayed. According to all outside speculation the
French had lost their spirit, had suffered irretrievably in the
Franco-Prussian War and were reckoned easy prey for the strong
neighbors who were known to be preparing to fight them. The
War comes; and the French, inferior in numbers, and far less
ready for war than their aggressors, rally to the call to arms, stay
the invader, turn him back, and then deadlock with him in trench
warfare.
This cannot be the luck of the new man at the game, nor the
recoil that energizes the spirit of a man when surprised, nor the
stroke dealt in revenge to settle old quarrels. The resistance has
gone on too long to permit such explanation; the steady, unyield-
ing opposition to the enemy is part of that surprise which the
French spirit is showing in the War. The spirit is deeper than the
surface, the mood not a transient flash.
When we are seeking the explanation of the spirit manifested,
appositely comes to our notice the book of Mr. Laurence Jerrold:
France: Her People and Her Spirit. It is not simply a war-book,
a piece of the ephemeral literature that an excited world craves
for in the height of its excitement, nor a book of the flimsy, catch-
penny variety that surfeits the market. It is a serious study
of the people of France and their spirit, called forth, indeed, by
the commanding position France has assumed since the opening of
the War, but written in great part before the outbreak of hostili-
ties, and certainly long pondered during the many years of resi-
dence in France, which has made the author thoroughly acquainted
with his subject. Owing to his position in the official world, he
has beheld the high and the low of his subject and viewed it from
many angles. He does not argue his position; he states it, with
the assurance, too, of one who knows. He enlivens the course
of his speculative and broad statements by a touch, here and there,
688 NEW BOOKS [Feb.,
of anecdote and fact acquired from sources not open to the gen-
eral public.
Mr. Jerrold naturally asks, as we do, what is the explanation
of the marvel which the French display? Surely it is a difficult
thing to analyze the spirit of a whole people, especially when this
spirit is displayed in a manner unlooked-for. The elements are
so elusive, the factors so unstable, in the diversified, composite
mass. The author decides that fundamentally the characteristic
of this spirit is the desire to be one nation. The facts that point
this out to him he states in broad terms, leading up to the grand
display of spirit shown in the handling of the War. The particular
chapter dealing with the military aspects of the opening campaign
is defective, owing to its general statements and its too confined
perspective. It is stated, for instance, that there was no plan of
action in the early retreat leading to the Battle of the Marne.
Elsewhere we are told that the success of that famous battle lay
in the coming of Maurouney's army unexpectedly on the Ger-
mans. From Belloc's account of the opening phases of the War
we must believe both statements incorrect. And we are the more
inclined to believe Belloc, since military strategy is one of his
strong points. Jerrold gives no credit to the work or the skill
of General Foch, other than to quote a remark of his : " I am
pressed back on left and right; therefore I am attacking in the
centre." The impression resulting from this vagueness is that the
understanding is somewhat deliberate to enhance the rally of the
French.
Jerrold makes a strong plea for military training, for he sees,
apart from the military advantages, that universal training is the
great leveler, in that it brings men, classes, and the nation to-
gether; therefore it is national, democratic and human.
In the several chapters on the government of the country, the
author states briefly and quite lucidly the elements that go to make
the very complex thing we find French government to be.
Twenty pages are devoted to the question of Church and
State, and of course, the Catholic Church is the one Church that
counts in France. Now, concerning the questions that have grown
out of the mixed relations of ecclesiastics in politics and the church-
men depending on the Government, and in the relation of the
specific cases that have demanded puiblic attention, during the
last quarter of a century, Mr. Jerrold displays no animosity to-
wards either party; he leaves the impression that he is giving
1917-] NEW BOOKS 689
the intelligent view of an impartial observer. He sees in the
separation a real gain for the Church and blames the government
for short-sighted policy in the dismemberment of the establish-
ment. He credits Rome for the strong stand it maintained, and
by which it won its contention in the matter of the Associations
Cultnelles.
As interesting a chapter as any is that which concerns " The
Earners." Added to those chapters dealing with " The Soil and
the Owners,- there is presented a picture of economic conditions
in France that one wants to know, mindful of what great attitudes
are assumed in the laboring world, and how living conditions are
altering, not especially in France, but throughout the world. Un-
less a gigantic social wave sweeps over the land, (and it does not
threaten France as much as it does other lands) the people will
long remain as they are. The strength of the French nation lies
in the hold the peasants have upon the land as actual and long-
tenanted possessors in the whole-souled desire to pass that
bit of soil to their children, and in the thrifty spirit of fch!e
bourgeoisie who must be owners as well as earners. Both these
conditions will result, when the social upheaval comes, in seeing
the peasant and bourgeois ranking on the side of capital.
In the domain of letters, Mr. Jerrold states that coincident
with the outbreak of the War was observed a stopping point in
schools and tendencies: literature rested, waiting for a new im-
pulse.
" Men and Women " tries to show that the France that the
outside world knows is not the real France; and in this, the
chapter is enlightening, but in certain aspects of the French atti-
tude towards the prevalence of sex questions, belies what we know
of the French Catholic.
Coming as this book does, prompted by the outbreak of a
War that means much for civilization, we are minded of another
account of the French people just before the outbreak of their
great revolution. We mean Arthur Young's Travels in France and
Italy.
A RETROSPECT OF FIFTY YEARS. By His Eminence, James
Cardinal Gibbons. Baltimore: John Murphy Co. Two vols.
$2.00 net.
Cardinal Gibbons' place in the story of America is secure.
If there is one point upon which his fellow-citizens, without dis-
VOL. civ.— 44
690 NEW BOOKS [Feb.,
tinction of creed, are united, it is in appreciation of his extraor- ,
dinary services to religion and country. No other American since
Washington could have been the recipient of the demonstration
which was bestowed upon him at the time of the civic celebration
of his jubilee in 1911, when the President of the United States,
William Taft, the Vice-President, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Roosevelt, the
only living Ex-President, the principal members of the Cabinet, the
Governor of Maryland, the Mayor of Baltimore, and many others
in the official life, joined on the same platform in acclaiming him
as the pattern of all that is best in the life of the nation. The great
value of his labors, the clarity of his purposes and the single-minded
consecration with which he has followed his lofty ideals, have
broken the tradition that Republics are ungrateful.
But, while the principles for which the Cardinal stands are
no longer doubted even by the caviler, and while the broader out-
lines of his achievements are plain to all, his activities have been so
versatile, so far-reaching, that they are not comprehended in detail
as they ought to be. The lesson which his life has taught is so
necessary to us that we cannot afford to miss any part of it. Any-
thing that contributes to a more intimate understanding of it
deserves an eager welcome. And when this comes from the
Cardinal himself, the value is magnified many fold.
Of such is A Retrospect of Fifty Years, which His Eminence
has just issued in two volumes through his publishers, The John
Murphy Co., of Baltimore. The work consists of a selection of
his principal papers, public addresses and sermons, elucidated by
several explanatory chapters and numerous notes. We see in its
pages a panorama of the Cardinal's career since he became a bishop,
presented by means of his own written or spoken utterances at the
time of each successive episode. He begins with an introduction
in which he sums up the principal observations of his ripe expe-
rience. " When I was young," he writes, " men feared the Catholic
Church because they thought her foreign and un-American. Yet
I have lived to see their children and their children's children
acknowledge that if the different nations which have come to our
shores have been united into one people, and if today there is an
American people it is largely owing to the cohesive and consolidat-
ing influence of the Christian religion of our ancestors."
A marvelous accomplishment, an almost incredible transforma-
tion, truly! And the part which Cardinal Gibbons has taken in
bringing it about is known to all men.
I9I7-] NEW BOOKS 691
Again the Cardinal calls attention to the rise of labor unions
in this country at about the time he was elevated to the Sacred
College by Pope Leo XIII. " For some years," he tells us, " the
Church stood at the crossroads. It had to choose between allying
itself with what looked like elements of disaster and revolution, or
consenting to a theory of economics which could not be justified
upon Christian principles." He had no hesitation in espousing
the cause which he believed to be right, and throwing the whole
weight of his resources into the struggle to prevent the Church
from declaring the Knights of Labor a forbidden organization.
His task was beset with hostility, doubts and misunderstandings,
but he persevered until he won, and Leo XIII. in the Encyclical,
Reruni Novarum, settled forever " the principles of economics
which are alone consonant with the Gospel." The Cardinal gives
the main outlines of this story vividly in a preface to the chapter
which contains his appeal in behalf of the Knights ^addressed to
the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda in 1887. No account
of the rise and progress of the modern labor movement can be com-
plete without this powerful and statesmanlike exposition of its
rights — a magna charta of men whose toil is the only capital they
possess in the business of life.
Cardinal Gibbons was naturally impressed in an extraordinary
degree by his experiences at the Vatican Council, in which he sat as
the youngest bishop, and of which he is now the only survivor.
He devotes eight chapters of the Retrospect to the Council, and
reprints the dairy of its sessions which he sent to THE CATHOLIC
WORLD at the time. Especially valuable is the impression which
we get from his account of the freedom of debate which preceded
the definition of the doctrine of the infallible teaching office of the
Pope. In no legislative body of the world, he observes, would a
wider liberty have been tolerated. The Cardinal's life-like word
pictures of the principal figures of the Council, seem to bring them
before our eyes in the flesh.
Many of the papers and addresses embraced in the Retro-
spect deal with civic affairs. Among the titles are " The Church
and the Republic," "The Claims of the Catholic Church in the
Making of the Republic," " Patriotism and Politics," and " Will
the American Republic Endure? " In these we get an ineffaceable
impression of the distinguished author as the type of the militant
citizen who rebukes the wrong and defends the right, and yet
through all retains an unshakable faith in his country and its
692 NEW BOOKS [Feb.,
institutions which glows like a torch to guide all who call them-
selves Americans.
VANISHED TOWERS AND CHIMES OF FLANDERS. By
George Wharton Edwards. Philadelphia: Penn Publishing
Co. $5.00 net.
The merciless destruction waged by war is graphically set forth
in this volume. It shows no ruins; no fallen towers; no broken
bells; but it does show in beautiful colored pictures what once
was and what is no more. The monuments that were the wonder
of the world are now in ruins ; and human eye will never look upon
their like again. The gray Gothic spire of St. Rombauld in Malines
was, for example, designated by Vauban as the eighth wonder of
the world. " Its glory," wrote Ruskin, " in its age and in that
deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sym-
pathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in
walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of hu-
manity," has vanished forever.
The author of this volume guides us with historical detail and
personal reminiscences through the devastated towns of Flanders —
Malines, Dixmude, Ypres with its famous Cloth Hall, which it re-
quired two hundred years to build, and the Cathedral of St. Mar-
tin; Bergues and its tower of St. Winoc; Commines; Nieuport;
Alost; Louvain and Courtrai. The illustrations are expensively
and artistically presented; and the volume is a precious memorial
of the famous cathedrals, halls and towers of Belgium that are now
but ruins.
i
REMINISCENCES OF THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD
O'BRIEN, LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF IRELAND. Edited
by his Daughter, Honorable Georgina O'Brien. New York:
Longmans, Green & Co. $2.50 net.
This book takes us over the long range from the Irish famine
to the opening days of the Great War. It introduces us to many
personages who made history in those times. Queen Victoria,
Gladstone, Earl Spencer, Monsignor Persico, Isaac Butt, Charles
Stewart Parnell, and Lord Russell of Killowen, are some of the
persons whom we meet in its pages. Those who are interested
in Irish history come upon striking side-lights in the stirring
period covered by Lord O'Brien's life. During the time of the
formation of the Land League, the working out of the famous
NEW BOOKS 693
"Plan of Campaign" and the activity of the Irish Invincibles,
he was Prosecutor for the Crown, and came into immediate con-
tact with many of the sad incidents of those years. His official
conduct was characterized by great devotion to duty and courage
in the midst of much unpopularity and numerous protests and
threats. - Still, if we believe the Judges who eulogized him after
his death, though he had many opponents, he never made enemies.
His career as Prosecuting Attorney for the Crown brought him
in later years the notable reward of appointment as Lord Chief
Justice for Ireland. The same characteristics distinguished him in
this high office, and he was generally commended for his love of
justice and his impartiality in its dispensation.
The style of the book, the more considerable part of which is
in the Judge's own words — twenty-two chapters out of thirty-
one — is marked by simplicity and directness. Though fond of
literature, he was no literary man. Yet we have found the work
interesting. His daughter prepared the manuscript for publica-
tion, and added some chapters of her own which throw a new
charm over the pages. However, we can but wonder why, among
the many speeches her father must have made, the one chosen for
publication in detail was that on Woman Suffrage. A complete
and useful index is given at the end of the volume.
THE IRISH REBELLION AND ITS MARTYRS. Erin's Tragic
Easter. By Padraic Colum, Maurice Joy, James Reidy, Sid-
ney Gifford, Rev. T. Gavan Duffy, Mary M. Colum, Mary J.
Ryan, Seumas O'Brien. Edited by Maurice Joy. New York :
The Devin-Adair Co. $2.50 net.
The writers of this volume aim at giving Americans an inside
Irish view of the late rebellion of 1916. The Irish Republican
Brotherhood is shown to be a direct offshoot of the Young Ireland
Movement of 1848, which in turn was in direct succession to the
movements of 1798 and 1803. As the editor says in his preface:
" The men who took part in the recent rebellion had good reasons
for their political philosophy and good reason for their political
acts They failed, but they made a critical generation realize
that national pride is a national asset, and that when men believe
that a country is worth dying for, that country is very likely to
justify their faith. Ireland's appeal is to the conscience and com-
mon sense of humanity, not to its pity."
Part I. treats of the present political alignment in Ireland,
694 M^ BOOKS [Feb.,
Catholic emancipation, and agrarian reform, Sinn Fein and Irish
Ireland, Ulster's opposition to Home Rule, the formation of the
Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, the causes and his-
tory of the rebellion of 1916, England's cruel punishment of the
rebels, the report of the Royal Commission, and the history of the
Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Part II. consists of a number of portraits of the men and
women who made the rebellion possible and who suffered the
death penalty in its cause — Padraic Pearse, Roger Casement,
Thomas MacDonagh, Countess de Markiewicz, James Connolly,
Sean McDermott, Francis Sheehy — Skeffington, Thomas Clarke,
Joseph Plunkett, and William Pearse. They were all idealists and
patriots, many of them scholars of extraordinary ability, who un-
selfishly sacrificed themselves as a protest against hundreds of
years of English tyranny and oppression. In a certain sense they
failed, but they succeeded in teaching the world that the Irish
question still remains unsolved.
FIVE MASTERS OF FRENCH ROMANCE. By Albert Leon
Gueracl. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50 net.
Here is a book which all readers already familiar with the
leaders of contemporary French fiction, or desiring to make their
acquaintance, will hail with delight. The criticism is sane, the
argument popular, the substance interesting and the tone serious,
while the style sparkles with a true French vivacity which has
not had to suffer by translation. M. Guerad discusses the indi-
vidual characteristics and the relative positions of Anatole France,
Pierre Loti, Paul Bourget, Maurice Barres and Romain Rolland,
the personal treatment being prefaced by a general introduction.
As an epilogue, he reprints an address delivered at New Orleans
before the Southern Sociological Congress upon the possible re-
actions of the War on French literature.
The introduction is particularly good. The opening pages,
on the spirit and scope of the book, bear the rather na'ive heading:
"First Aid to the Anglo-Saxon Reader of French Novels" The
author insists especially upon the French technique, its exact crafts-
manship, its artistic perfection; and upon the idea of fiction as
an enlightening document for the understanding of a nation's
psychology. He explains his selection of types from so rich a
field as purely empirical; he chose those writers who had re-
ceived " universal recognition — that recognition which cannot be
1917.] NEW BOOKS 695
measured by the praise of critics, by academic honors, or by profit-
able sales separately, but by a combination of all three."
M. Guerad seems rather fond of Anatole France, assigning
to him nearly one hundred pages out of the three hundred of the
book. It is hard not to say that his judgments are too enthusiastic,
but one is gladdened by the fact that he finds France's last in-
famous novel, which shall not be advertised by being named,
" deliberately and painstakingly licentious." Loti's books, es-
pecially the earlier ones, he calls " strange exotic idylls ;" from the
quotations he makes they seem to be rather preachments on an
Oriental pagan pseudo-mysticism. Bourget he sees as the tradi-
tionalist, almost the reactionary; Barres, the fevered romanticist
merging into the nationalist. The chapter on Remain Rolland is
occupied largely with Holland's monumental and cyclopean Jean-
Christophe.
There is no trace in these pages of that didactic attitude, that
" speaking with authority " which books like this too often assume.
Here rather are the personal conclusions to which a man of cul-
ture, after wide reading, finds himself brought. So, while it would
be impossible to subscribe to everyone of M. Guerad's apprecia-
tions, he would be himself the first to disavow any such necessity.
THE MASS AND VESTMENTS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH:
LITURGICAL, DOCTRINAL, HISTORICAL AND ARCH-
AEOLOGICAL. By the Rt. Rev. Monsignor John Walsh.
New York: Benziger Brothers. $1.75 net.
Monsignor Walsh's carefully prepared work on the various
phases of the Mass is a most useful book published in a very con-
venient style. Cast in catechetical form, and hence much less apt
to tire readers unused to hard study, it is still in no sense super-
ficial; and to go through these five hundred pages will be a
thorough preparation for meeting converts, or other questioners,
interested in knowing all about the details of the Mass. Indeed, the
reader of this volume will be in a position to answer many ques-
tions which the average priest would have to set aside to be " looked
up at leisure."
Naturally in a work like this, it is impossible to avoid touching
upon many controverted and even recondite matters, but in discus-
sing these the author achieves the difficult task of maintaining a
happy mean between tiresome ponderosity and unsatisfying sketch-
iness. At the cost of very considerable labor, he presents the
696 NEW BOOKS [Feb.,
reader with accurate, yet easily intelligible statements of the points
necessary to be known. For these reasons, and others which the
reader will discover for himself, the book before us must be re-
garded as the best among popular works of reference on the Mass.
THEIR SPIRIT. By Robert Grant. 50 cents net.
A VOLUNTEER POILU. By Henry Sheehan. Boston: Hough-
ton Mifflin Co. $1.25 net.
Their Spirit, whose content was originally published in the
Boston Evening Transcript, is a collection of impressions of the
English and French as they appeared to Judge Grant's observa-
tion during the summer of 1916. He disclaims any idea that they
are at all extraordinary, but expressed the hope that they
may help the reader to realize the heroic spirit of the two peoples.
His sober enthusiasm carries weight, as he sets forth the spiritual
force that is marvelously energizing these heavily burdened na-
tions. So predominant the author finds it that he says : " The im-
pression that remained was one of soul rather than substance."
In registering his deep admiration for what he has seen of this,
he does not withhold stern words of regret for the estimation in
which the public mind of England and France regards the posi-
tion taken by this country.
Mr. Sheahan's book is also a reprinted record of personal
impressions, but by one who has been active in the scenes he de-
scribes. A volunteer in the field service of the American ambu-
lance, the author states in his preface his desire to do for his
comrades, the French private soldiers, what other books have done
for the soldiers of other armies. He accomplishes his purpose in
an exceedingly interesting manner. " A future historian," he says,
" may find the war more interesting when considered as the su-
preme achievement of the industrial civilization of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, than as a mere vortex in the age-old
ocean of European political strife." This point of view gains sup-
port from the keen interest imparted by his detailed descriptions
of trench warfare and the provisions for its maintenance, of the
life within the trenches, its hardships, comedy and tragedy, and
of the grim resolution of the French soldier, whose spirit he has
found to be one of dogged fatalism; " a fatalism of action " is the
religion of the trenches, though the author pays a generous tribute
to the revival of the Christian faith and the return to the Church
of France as a nation.
1917.] NEW BOOKS 697
It is not only of trench life that this little volume treats : many
other phases are illuminatingly touched upon. It is all admirably
written and holds the attention closely.
THE EMPEROR OF PORTUGALLIA. By Selma Lagerlof.
Translated by Velma Swanston Howard. Garden City, New
York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.50 net.
Selma Lagerlof's latest novel centres around the home of Jan
of Ruffluck Croft in a poor little village of southern Vermland.
It is a sordid tale of a young girl who goes wrong in Stockholm,
where she had gone to earn money enough to pay the hard-hearted
Lars Gunnarson the money owed him by her parents. The old
father, who loves his daughter dearly, goes insane from worry and
waiting for her return. He finally explains her failure to return
to the old home by the fact that she had become Empress of the
fairy kingdom of Portugallia. For many years until his tragic
death he struts about the village as Emperor, while the peasants
round about fall in good-naturedly with the humor of the wretched
old man.
The writer's pessimism is revolting. Outside of the story it-
self the characterization of the people of the small Swedish village,
is faithful and lifelike.
'PHE Mount Carmel Guild, of Buffalo, New York, has sent
* us the Catholic Calendar for 1917. The Literature Committee
of the Guild have chosen an entirely new set of quotations from
Catholic authors and from the Bible. Special effort has been made
to make the thought fit the Feasts. The Calendar sells for 50 cents ;
ten cents extra being charged for mailing. Proceeds of the sales
are to be used for the charitable work of the Guild.
WE have already recommended the Life of Francis Thompson
by Everard Meynall, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
It is gratifying to note that because of the success of the book,
the publishers have been able to issue a cheaper edition, similar
in binding to the Prose and Poetical Works of Francis Thompson.
The price of the new edition is $2.00.
HEADERS of Shane Leslie's The End of a Chapter will look
^ forward eagerly for his new work, The Celt and the World,
announced by Scribner's.
IRecent Events.
The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD wishes to state that none
of the contributed articles or departments, signed or unsigned, of
the magazine, with the exception of " With our Readers," voices
the editorial opinion of the magazine. And no article or depart-
ment voices officially the opinion of the Paulist Community.
France has been going through a crisis
France. which has had a result similar to the po-
litical crisis in Great Britain, and which has
had more far-reaching results, for it extended to a reorganization
of the military commands. It is impossible to explain fully the
reasons for these changes, for they were made in obedience to a
resolution passed after secret sessions lasting for six days. It is
clear, however, that M. Briand's Ministry was criticized for what
was thought to be its feeble and short-sighted policy, but a resolu-
tion to that effect moved in the Chamber was defeated by three
hundred and ninety-five votes to one hundred and seventeen. The
resolution which was accepted by three hundred and forty-four to
one hundred and sixty was in the following terms : " The Chamber
recording the declarations of the Government as to the reorganiza-
tion of the Command, approving the Government's resolution to
concentrate the general conduct of the War and the economic or-
ganization of the country in a few hands, confident that the Gov-
ernment, in full accord with the Allies, will secure common sacri-
fices and efforts, which are admitted to be indispensable to obtain
victory by the redoubling of energy passes to the Order of
the day." The political changes involved in this resolution left M.
Briand in office as Prime Minister, but led to a reconstruction of
his Cabinet, and to an immense reduction in numbers. A real War
Cabinet has been formed, consisting of five members, following in
this respect the example of Great Britain, but M. Briand remains
Premier, while M. Asquith had to resign. In the whole crisis there
has not been the slightest indication of irresolution as to the con-
tinuation of the War: the only questions on which there was
hesitancy was as to the way in which it could be carried on most
effectually. About the temper of the people no mistake can be
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 699
made, for it is evident that any Ministry which thought of making
peace without victory, would not survive long enough to make the
proposal.
While the desire to put more energy into the conduct of the
War, especially on the near Eastern Front, was the principal cause
of these changes, other considerations had their weight. Food
prices had risen to a quite ridiculous height in a country where food
was in plenty ; coal had become a luxury. To a disorganized trans-
portation service this lack of supplies was due. To remedy these
evils a call has been made by M. Briand on France's best men of
business, a proceeding in which another resemblance is found to
British methods.
The British change of Ministry left the high commands of the
army untouched, the naval changes having preceded, by a short
time, the resignation of Mr. Asquith. Complete confidence is felt in
Sir Douglas Haig and the Chief of the General Staff, Sir W. T.
Robertson. The French reconstruction involved the transfer of
General Joffre to the Technical Advisership of the War Committee
of the Cabinet, and to the appointment of General Nivelle as Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Armies in the North and East. The break-
ing up of the Grand Quartier General which has hitherto been the
pivot of the French and British operations on the Western front is
involved in these changes, and is regretted by those who are capable
of forming a judgment on the point. The service which General
Joffre has rendered to his country and its Allies is recognized to be
of inestimable value. In recognition of these services the dignity
of Marshal of France, last held by the Crimean hero, Canrobert,
has been revived. General Joffre's Chief of Staff, General de
Castelnau, reverts to the command of a group of armies.
It is not quite clear whether M. Briand's Cabinet is limited to
the members of the War Committee, as is the case with that of Mr.
Lloyd George, or whether it embraces all the Heads of Depart-
ments. In any case the War Committee has been given power to deal
with events as they arise without any waste of time, and for that
purpose is to sit daily so that it may adopt prompt decisions and
carry these decisions into effect. Such, however, is the eagerness of
the people for more energetic measures, especially towards Greece
and in the Near East, that full confidence was not reestablished by
the reconstruction. M. Briand's majority in the Chamber is declared
to be a wasting asset, and to his Cabinet there is an organized oppo-
sition, both in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Among
RECENT EVENTS [Feb.,
M. Briand's keenest opponents is M. Clemenceau. The Senate
went into secret sessions, during which M. Briand's new Cabinet
was, it is understood, subjected to rigorous criticism. The out-
come of it all was that it passed, by a majority of one hundred and
ninety- four against fifty-seven, a resolution in the following terms :
" The Senate, declaring that France cannot make peace with an
enemy in occupation of her territory, determined to give to a war
imposed upon her a victorious conclusion worthy of the heroism
of her soldiers, whose immortal glory the Senate again acknowl-
edges; taking note of the declarations of the Government, and
confident in its taking the most energetic measures, in agreement
with large Parliamentary committees and under the control of
Parliament, to ensure a definite material superiority over the enemy ;
to organize under a single active direction all the efforts of the
army and the country, and to defend abroad, with foresight and
firmness, the dignity and prestige of France, passes to the Order
of the Day."
Complete unanimity, however, is not found in France or in
any other of the belligerent countries. An infinitesimal group of
pacifists has made its voice heard even in the Chamber of Deputies.
Of an immediate peace at any price, M. and Mme. Caillaux are
the most active promoters. They have recently extended their
activities to Italy, where, of all the countries engaged in the War,
the peace advocates have the largest following. In " neutralist "
quarters, there is still a strong pro-German feeling. M. Caillaux
is said to have tried to influence these parties by promising for
France, in Germany's name, the most generous treatment, and for
Italy itself pressure upon Austria to compel the latter State to
yield to Italy, all, or almost all, of her natural aspirations. The
only condition would be that Germany should have a free hand in
dealing with Russia, Rumania, and the other Balkan States. In
well-informed circles, M. Caillaux's efforts are considered to be
one of the many peace manoeuvres set on foot by Germany.
France signalized the reorganization of her political and mili-
tary forces by a sudden attack upon Verdun. In October the belt of
the exterior forts had been cleared of the enemy. This success was
followed in December by a new attack along a front of six miles,
by which the enemy's front was pierced to a depth of nearly two
miles, and the villages of Vacherauville and Louvremont were de-
livered from hostile occupation. Nearly ten thousand prisoners
were taken and eighty guns were either taken or destroyed. Such
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 701
is the reply which has been made to the German peace moves, and
it is regarded as a good winding-up of the year's accounts. Last
June, General Joffre fully expected that Verdun would fall within
three weeks. His successor, General Nivelle, when taking leave
of his staff after the recent success, said: "Victory is certain;
of that I can assure you. Germany will learn this to her cost."
A great deal of mystery surrounds the situ-
Russia. ation in Russia; so much so that there was
reason for misgiving. The censorship pre-
vents the revelation of the complete state of things, and what
comes to light causes anxiety. Within nine months there have been
no fewer than four Prime Ministers, M. Goremykin, M. Sturmer,
M. Trepoff, and within the last few weeks, Prince Galitzin. The
dismissal, for such it virtually was, of M. SazonofT as Foreign
Minister, was even more significant of doubt and hesitation in the
councils of the Empire, for he it was who had been responsible
for the foreign policy of Russia for many years, and under the
Tsar had directed all the negotiations both before and since the be-
ginning of the War.
The truth is that there is a cleavage in Russia between the
bureaucrats and the people, and that to a large extent the bureau-
crats have long been under German influence. The detestable
methods which have been characteristic of Russian government and
which have made its name a by-word are to be traced to foreign
influences, while from the time of the Holy Alliance made in 1815,
by the Catholic Emperor King of Austria-Hungary, the Orthodox
Tsar of Russia, and the Evangelical-Lutheran King of Prussia, for
the purpose ostensibly of uniting their subjects in a Christian
brotherhood, but in reality for strengthening their respective
dynasties down to the Three Emperors' League which lasted
until Bismarck's fall, German influences have been powerful, some-
times even predominant. The wave of patriotic feeling
aroused by the Austrian note to Serbia seemed to have carried
the whole country into an enthusiastic and unanimous resolve
to eradicate all these foreign influences. Even the name of
the capital was changed. But it does not seem so easy to eradicate
the supporters of the old policy. Traitors have been found in the
highest circles. The Minister of War, at the opening of the con-
flict, had been imprisoned. Germans employed in factories have
702
RECENT EVENTS [Feb.,
prevented the making of munitions. And while the number of
actual traitors may be small, the number of weak-kneed supporters
of the War is larger, thus causing ground for fear lest the sacri-
fices necessary for a successful issue of the War may lead to the
starting of a movement for peace by the dark forces that are be-
hind the throne.
A certain degree of blame, it may be thought, attaches to the
leaders of the movement for an increase of the share of the Duma in
the government of the country. All the energies of the nation
ought to have been devoted to the waging of the War. To carry
on a campaign for parliamentary control at the same time as that
of the campaign against the enemy, seemed to be an unwise
weakening of the available force at the disposal of the
country. The truth, however, seems to be that the Duma was
forced to insist on an increase of its powers by the proved incom-
petence and bad management of the bureaucrats. The struggle
became inevitable even in the interests of the War. A few weeks
ago, for the first time in Russian history, the Duma was successful
in bringing about the downfall of a Prime Minister, and hopes
were entertained that the days of autocracy were numbered by
making the Tsar's ministers dependent upon the will of the Duma.
This success in the halls of Parliament had been preceded by the
brilliant successes in the fields of battle last summer when many
miles of territory had been rescued from the invader and hundreds
of thousands of prisoners taken. Yet M. Sturmer, who was driven
from office by the assembly representative of the people, is said, on
what seems to be good authority, to have been actively engaged in
preparing for a separate peace with Germany, notwithstanding the
fact that all his public utterances were in favor of a faithful ful-
filment of Russia's Convention with the Allies, by which she is
bound not to do anything without consultation with them and with
their mutual consent. This treason, for such it must be called, to
his own country and the Allies' cause roused the Duma. It took
the unprecedented step of demanding the resignation of the Prime
Minister. Although the latter made a desperate resistance, the
Duma, supported by the army, which is now rather an organized
body of citizens than a body of hirelings, was able to drive from
power the would-be betrayer of the cause.
This was, however, the most that the Duma could do. It had
no influence upon the choice of a successor. M. Trepoff was the
Tsar's choice, a decided pro-Ally indeed, but not a Liberal, al-
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 703
though he took some liberal measures and was willing to work in
hearty cooperation with the Duma. But Russian Cabinets are not
homogeneous. Each of its members depends upon the Tsar. And
by the Tsar's will in this case, one of the members of the dark
forces and of the former Cabinet, M. Protopopoff, was left as
Minister of the Interior. In fact his powers were increased. The
success which the Duma was able to achieve over M. Sturmer was
turned into a defeat when attack was made upon M. Protopopoff.
He proved successful in his defiance of that body. On the other
hand the Foreign Minister who was appointed, M. Pokrovsky, was
a Progressive in internal politics and pro-Ally in foreign. All of
a sudden, however, M. Trepoff was dismissed. No reason was
given for this dismissal. It is, however, attributed to the influence
of the reactionaries, who hope to find in the new Premier, Prince
Galitzin, an instrument in carrying out their policies, the chief of
which is the making of a separate peace between Russia and Ger-
many. The new Premier, however, has declared that he will
fight on for a final victory. At the same time he has announced
his opposition to every kind of reform, and the most liberal mem-
ber of the Cabinet, Count Iguatieff, has been superseded by one
who is called an arch-reactionary, M. Kutchitsky; while the
power behind the throne is said to be M. Protopopoff, Prince Ga-
litzin being referred to as the nominal Prime Minister. The mur-
der of the monk Rasputin, however, has weakened the influence of
the dark forces. He is said to have been closer to the Tsar than any
other person, and to have used that influence in favor of a separate
peace. That he was murdered by members of the aristocracy shows
that the latter are not all to be numbered as reactionaries.
It must, therefore, be recognized that in Russia there are
forces which are working for a separate peace and that these
forces appear to be in power at the present moment, although the
Premier has made a declaration in a directly opposite sense. On
the other side are the people and the army who are in favor of a
just and righteous peace. When it is borne in mind that the War,
in its origin, was begun more directly in Russia's interest than in
that of any other country, it cannot be thought that the Tsar will
yield to the base attempt made to influence him to take a treacher-
ous course. The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia was meant primarily
as a blow to Russia. Had she failed to act in defence of the small
kingdom which she had taken under her protection, her influence
and her honor would both have perished. Had she acquiesced in
704
RECENT EVENTS [Feb.,
the attack on Serbia there would have been no war, for France,
and still less Great Britain could not have looked upon the injury
done to Serbia as a casus belli. The fact that Russia has
signed both the replies to Germany and to this country, and that
her representative took part in the recent conference at Rome,
ought to remove any apprehensions which Russian internal con-
flicts may arouse. Although there are enemies within the gate,
the influences for good are too powerful not to gain the victory.
The Tsar's Order to his armies, dated December 28th, in
which he replies to the German Peace Note, ought to set at rest
these doubts of Russian stability. He reminds his soldiers that
Germany, in the midst of peace, and after secretly preparing
over a long period, suddenly attacked Russia and her faith-
ful Ally, France. Referring to the losses of territory suffered by
France and Russia, owing to the superiority of the German " tech-
nical aids to warfare," the Tsar declares that " this temporary
reverse did not break the spirit of our faithful Allies, nor of you,
my gallant troops." Inequalities have been gradually reduced, and
from the autumn of 1915 onwards the enemy has experienced dif-
ficulty in retaining a single portion of Russia soil. In the spring
and summer of 1916, the enemy suffered a number of severe defeats,
and lapsed into the defensive along the whole front. "Her strength
apparently is waning, and the strength of Russia and her gallant
Allies continues to grow without failing. Germany is feeling that
the hour of her complete defeat is near, and near also the hour of
retribution for all her wrong-doing, and for the violation of moral
laws Feeling her weakness, she suddenly offers to enter upon
peace negotiations."
The Tsar insists further that the time for peace has not yet
arrived. The enemy has not been driven out of the provinces occu-
pied by her. "The achievement by Russia of the tasks created
by the War — the regaining of Constantinople and the Dardanelles,
as well as the creation of a free Poland from all three of her
incomplete districts — has not yet been guaranteed." " To conclude
peace at this moment," adds the Tsar, " would mean failure to
utilize the fruits of the untold trials of you, my heroic troops.
Who dares to think that he who brought about the beginning of
the War shall have the power to conclude the War at any time
he likes?"
The action of the Central Powers — in declaring the Russian
provinces of Poland a kingdom — was in direct contravention of
1917-] RECENT EVENTS 705
international law which leaves the settlement of such questions for
the definite treaty of peace. The chief effect of the German action
is to place an obstacle in the way of peace between Germany and
Russia, by a wanton aggravation of the situation. Russia has
accordingly protested that the declaration is null and void, that
these provinces are still an integral part of the Russian Empire,
and that their inhabitants are still bound by the oath of fidelity
to the Tsar. Russia's Allies also have formulated a protest, in
which it is declared that the Central Powers have violated an
established principle of international law which declares mili-
tary occupation cannot, during the war, give definite sovereignty.
The organizing of an army levied in these Polish districts is de-
clared to be a violation of the engagements which the Germans them-
selves have entered into. A belligerent is ^forbidden by the fourth
Hague Conference, which was signed by the sovereigns both of
Germany and Austria, to force the subjects of its opponents to take
part in operations of war directed against their own country.
How acceptable to the inhabitants of Russian Poland the
German action is cannot be learned with certainty for the present.
It is far from being liked by some among the German parties.
So far from strengthening Germany, it is thought that this new
kingdom, if ever established, will become a magnet calculated to
draw to itself the Poles who are now under German domination.
Loud expression has been given to this conviction. For the army
which the new kingdom is to raise, the numbers who have volun-
tarily joined amount to seven hundred. Russia on her part is
fully determined, if the last Prime Minister, M. Trepoff, rightly
expressed her mind, to wrest from her enemies the territory be-
yond the frontier formerly Polish, i. e., Posen and Galicia, and
then to constitute a Poland free within its ethnological boundaries
and in inseparable union with Russia.
The Rumanian catastrophe may well have caused doubts
as to either the willingness or the ability of her neighbor to come
to her aid. Explanations of the conduct of Russia throw, how-
ever, a new light upon the case. The Tsar and his advisers were
by no means anxious that Rumania should take part in the War,
for they thought it was more to their advantage if she remained
neutral. The Rumanian territories formed a protection to the
left wing of General Brusiloff's forces, and this was removed
when hostilities began. Moreover, as has been said before, the
Rumanian forces turned their back on their most dangerous foe
VOL. civ.— 45
706 RECENT EVENTS [Feb.,
Bulgaria — through their desire to take possession of Transyl-
vania. Their first successes were speedily turned into disastrous
reverses, while the Russian help which then became so necessary,
involved the dislocation of the armies which were holding the
lines against the Germans. Now at length this re-arrangement has
been effected, and if the latest news is an omen of the future the
tide has turned. The Rumanian armies are intact and no single
sign of yielding has appeared. Of their chief hope in entering
upon the campaign, the Germans have been balked, for the oil
w^lls have been so completely destroyed as to render them useless.
Large quantities, too, if not the whole of the grain on the posses-
sion of which Germany had set her hope, are believed to have been
destroyed.
The failure of the Rumanians was not due to lack of spirit
or courage. They have not flinched or murmured, nor is there
any sign of dissension or regret. They were without heavy guns
and had no aeroplanes, which now constitute the eyes of an army.
They were untried in modern warfare, and have had to learn
painfully the lesson that personal bravery is useless against ma-
chine guns.
The latest news from Greece indicates the
Greece. seriousness of the situation. On the one
hand it is said that von Falkenhayn has
arrived to take charge of active operations against the Allied forces.
On the other hand the Allies, it is said, have decided to depose
King Constantine, and to place upon the throne the Duke of Aosta.
There is no doubt that the King is an active pro-German, and has
been one from the beginning. There is reason to think that he has
bound himself, by a secret treaty with Germany and Bulgaria, to
give the support of Greece to these States when called upon to do
so, and that all his efforts have been directed to gain time and to
baffle the Allies until that time should arrive. To students of the
transformation of a constitutional to an absolute rule, King Con-
stantine's proceedings, viewed in the light of Greek history, give
an interesting opportunity. By means of the support afforded by
France, Russia and Great Britain, the Greek people were freed
from Turkish tyranny. A king was then sought and one was found
in the person of a Bavarian prince. For some years, this prince
attempted to reign autocratically without success. A constitution
was then made, to which the King took an oath of allegiance.
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 707
For repeated violations of his oath, this prince was deposed and
sent home, and in his place was chosen the father of the present
King. The latter was as scrupulously faithful to the oaths which he
had taken, as his son, the present King, has proved unfaithful. King
Constantine drove from power the Prime Minister, M. Venezelos,
who had the confidence of the majority of Parliament, set at naught
the next Parliament which was elected in its stead, took into his
own hands the direction of foreign affairs, and sold himself and
his Government to a foreign power. As appears from the many
treaties in which the status of Greece is settled, Russia, France and
Great Britain are Trustees for the Greek nation, and the King,
although hereditary, is in the view of these treaties little more than
a High Commissioner. These Powers have, on this ground as
well as upon others, the right to deal with the misdoings of the
present King. The only fault which can be found is that they
have been much too dilatory.
That no approach to peace has resulted
The Peace Notes. from the various notes which have been
exchanged, will be no surprise except to
those who have paid very little attention to the War, its causes
and its aims. Some light, however, has been shed on the situa-
tion, especially as it is in Germany. In every conflict the party
which begins to plead is the party which is already apprehensive
of defeat. Students of the War have known from the beginning,
so far as it is possible to know beforehand any course of events,
that when Germany was defeated on the Marne her main ends
in entering upon the War were then and there defeated. Her
subsequent defeats in the attempt to reach Calais, to take
Verdun and to destroy the armies of Russia, far outweighed such
successes as the overrunning of the small States of Belgium1,
Serbia and Rumania. Germany was fully prepared for a rapid
success. For example: Great Britain had twenty million rounds
of rifle ammunition, Germany four thousand million ready for
use. But now, every day is seeing additions to the power and the
resources of the Allies, while every day is seeing the diminution of
Germany's strength. The testimonies to the gradual exhaustion
of food supplies are so multiplied and manifold that no reason-
able doubt can any longer be entertained. Hence in the glow of
her triumph over Rumania the German Chancellor saw a chance
708 RECENT EVENTS [Feb.,
of taking a step towards peace on terms which were not disclosed,
but which rested upon his assertion that Germany and her Allies
had gained gigantic advantages over the Entente Allies whom, he
admitted, to be superior in numbers and war material. The con-
tinuance of the War, he asserted, would not result in breaking
Germany's resistance, for which continuance her military and eco-
nomic strength was sufficient. He recognized that the War was
a catastrophe for civilization, and declared that Germany was anx-
ious to avoid further bloodshed and to put an end to the atroci-
ties of the War.
The tone of the note (which was addressed to the neutral
powers), and still more the speech of the Chancellor in the Reich-
stag, made it evident that the basis for the peace discussion for
which the Chancellor so much longed was an admission of
the victory of Germany, and that the Allies were the
responsible parties for the war. The position of the Allies is
diametrically opposed in every part to that of the Chan-
cellor. They hold that Germany deliberately planned the War,
and entered upon it at the moment which she judged for various
reasons best fitted to ensure the complete victory for which all
the resources of the Empire had been devoted. So far from being
successful, the Allies look upon her as already substantially de-
feated, but not to anything like the degree which is necessary for
" the prospects of future civilization." The Allies would not accept
a peace even though the Germans were willing to make sacrifices
if they stopped short of this end; and Germany was not willing
to make sacrifices, but rather to impose conditions. The Chan-
cellor's note, it was evident, could meet with no response from the
Allies. Had it not been for President Wilson's appeal to all the
belligerents for the disclosure of peace terms, it is doubtful if
Germany's note would have been answered by the Allies. To the
President's appeal it is the Allies that have made a full and clear
reply, explaining, not indeed, in full detail, but in broad outlines,
the conditions on which they are willing to make peace. Germany,
on the other hand, has so far refused to make any reply, unless
the interview with the Foreign Secretary which has recently ap-
peared is to be looked upon as the answer. If such be the case
Germany's reply to the President is a refusal to make a direct
disclosure of terms for the present. The President's note, there-
fore, whatever its object and motive may have been, has resulted
in making the situation perfectly clear.
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 709
Reference has already been made to the
Progress of the War. advance of the French near Verdun. On
the rest of the Western line it seems prob-
able that for some time the forces have settled down again to the
normal routine of trench warfare. The British army has taken
over from the French a further extension of the line. Near Riga
the Russians have been showing unwonted activity, but it is too
soon to tell if a serious offensive movement is intended. Along the
rest of the Eastern front nothing has happened until the line of
Rumania is reached. Through Rumania the Germans have been
making a triumphant progress, but signs are not wanting that the
Russians and Rumanians are on the point of offering a stiffer
resistance. Since the capture of Monastir some little progress has
been made by the Serbians. The rest of General Sarrail's army
remains quiescent, and is in danger of a possible attack in its rear
by the forces of King Constantine. The Russian forces in Turkey
and Persia have failed to make any notable advance for many
months. After resting for a very long time the British forces near
Kut are again showing activity — for what object is not known.
So far from an attack being made on Egypt by the Turks the Brit-
ish have driven their enemy out of El Arish, and are said to be on
the road to Jerusalem. The Bagdad Railway has been rendered
more useful for the Turks by the completion of the tunnel through
the Taurus Range. This removed the one big obstacle which stood
in the way of its completion. The British, however, by destroying,
by means of bombs dropped from an aeroplane, the great Chekaldar
Bridge, eighteen miles east of Adana, have succeeded in cutting off
not only the Bagdad main line extension proper, but also the Syrian
lines from railway connection with Western Asia Minor and its
centres of supplies. Further successes have attended upon the
efforts of the Allied Forces in East Africa.
With Our Readers.
IT is difficult to give a thoroughly just estimate to our readers of
much of the current literature that is Non-Catholic, and that treats
of religious or moral questions. Inasmuch as it is a vital expression
of human souls and of the world in which we live, it should be the
object of our careful attention. We ourselves and our children are
not unaffected by it. We should be able by intelligent word to advise
and to guard ; to counsel ; to warn ; to praise or to condemn. More-
over, the whole world belongs to Christ, and it is for us to do our
utmost to have the world acknowledge His dominion. As charity
towards our neighbor is the second greatest commandment, we should
above all else not only be just but also sympathetic, at least to the
extent of rightly understanding another. We should always be not
only ready but eager to give credit where credit is due; to take
an author in the light of his own purpose ; to allow for misunder-
standing and for ignorance; to state fairly what is good and what
is poor; what is true and what is false, not keeping silence with
regard to the one or the other.
* * * *
BUT it becomes increasingly difficult to perform this Christian task,
and really impossible, when an author's main purpose is evidently
good, but when in the presentation of it he so confounds the true and
the false, or the half-true and the half-false, that unless the critic
separate sentence from sentence, and at times word from word, he
could not do scrupulous justice to the book.
* * * *
IT is pitiably true that clear and consistent thinking is not a char-
acteristic of modern literature. The pity is the greater because we
never had such a reign of preaching, moralizing, betterment, reform,
uplift in literature as we have today. A reader, who is led to believe
that he is to find the principles of a perfect life set forth in clear
type, will put down the average book on the subject wondering what,
after all, the principles are. This is not so much the fault of the
individual writer, as of his training; his education; his inability to
see the tests which first principles must meet. A fog has descended
upon a great portion of the intellectual world, and therefore upon
the spiritual world affected by it. Its inhabitants are earnestly seeking
to get somewhere — where or how they do not and cannot distinctly
see. Sometimes the fresh air of truth blows upon them; the fog
1917-] WITH OUR READERS 711
lifts, and they go ahead rapidly; then, suddenly, truth departs; the
fog settles again, and again they are groping about, changing un-
knowingly their course from the point where truth told them to set it.
* * * *
WHEN a Catholic endeavors to estimate the work of those in the
fog he is oftentimes at a loss to know how to do so. The
writers have a somewhat fair notion of the teachings of the Church
on some matters; and on others they are entirely wrong; or they
will speak of " the Church," making the Catholic synonymous with
the Episcopalian or Methodist or Baptist or Seventh Day Adventist.
In their condemnation or criticism of " the Church/' they will accord-
ingly condemn the Catholic Church for teachings or defects for which
she is not responsible. It is common for them to state that the
Catholic Church demands from humankind too high a standard, even
an impossible one ; and again, that her standards are too low : that she
has ruever yet fully interpreted Christianity to the world. They will
speak of her sacramental system as simply a legal formalism : that all
that concerns her, for example, in the sacrament of matrimony, is that
husband and wife give testimony of their intention according to her
rules. Judging from their statements, one would conclude that the
natural law of the union of husband and wife, which is perfected
by the sacrament of matrimony, the elevation and sanctification by
that sacrament of every faculty and power and obligation of husband
and wife do not enter into her mind or her teaching.
* * * *
rPHE writers of whom we speak, as a rule, never understand the
* teaching of the Catholic Church with regard to the supernatural
standards, and the supernatural life necessary for their attainment.
Seldom do they appreciate the difference between counsel and precept,
or realize that the mission of the Catholic Church is after the man-
ner of her Founder, to save those who were lost : to be merciful
and tender to the sinner — that is to all of us — and not to deny to
anyone the breasts of her mercy.
* ' * * *
\1/'E are led to these thoughts by many books that have come to
VV us of late — for there is no doubt that there are stirrings of a
spiritual rebirth in the world — but particularly by a series of pamph-
lets, published by Longmans, Green & Co., on the timely and im-
portant subject: Marriage and Morality. The editor states very truly
that "it is indeed unfortunate that so much more thought and atten-
tion is given to the discussion of moral failure and moral difficulties
than to frank and positive moral teaching. The aim of the pamphlets
is the presentation of positive and constructive ideals of sex rela-
tionship."
7I2 WITH OUR READERS [Feb.,
The aim is most praiseworthy. Unless man has the correct prin-
ciples with regard to sex-relationship he individually will suffer dis-
aster; so will the family; so will the nation.
* * * *
THE subject of the first pamphlet is: Successful atid Unsuccessful
Marriages. In atmosphere it is highly rarified. Its language is none
too definite: but it is at times sublime. It pictures the loftiest possi-
bilities: it gives no hint of the saintly discipline necessary for their
attainment. " To find yourself in another: to live and grow through
another, to make out of life something richer, fuller, different from
what could be the sum of the two individual lives apart, that is the
opportunity of marriage." " True love is not only a delicious emotion,
it is giving, giving the best of self at all times, under all circumstances,
and both to be able to give and to have something to give depends
upon character." " This giving will not be only to one another. A
perfect love increases the power of loving. To have seen into an-
other's soul, to have learned through love the hidden treasures in
another nature should increase and not limit the general capacity for
sympathy and understanding."
" Love never faileth : the more we love, the more we are able
to love: the quality of our love is perhaps best tested by its capacity
to grow and increase."
" The failure of married life begins when it ceases to be a growth
in love, in experience, in wisdom, in holiness."
* * * *
1I7ITH these propositions everyone will agree, and everyone will supr
' ' pose that in the cultivation and increase of the love of the hus-
band for his wife and the wife for her husband lie the happiness, the
success and joy of married and therefore family life. But on reading
the entire pamphlet the reader will see that with many modern minds
married life and family life are not synonymous.
The greatest permanent blessing of marriage, according to this
author, is not the joy of possessing children; no, according to her,
" the most permanent blessing lies in the joy of companionship."
'' The primitive and, we may say, the Prayer Book view that mar-
riage existed primarily for the procreation of children has certainly
been modified, if it has not disappeared."
* * * *
AJOW if marriage has not that as a primary end, then we submit
iM that this author has, implicitly at least, lowered marriage to a
depth of degradation and infamy below that of the brute " to whom
a conscience never wakes." Why, if not for the procreation of chil-
dren as a primary end, do a man and a woman chose to live together ?
The publication of this author's statement in a reputable series of
1917.] WITH OUR READERS 713
pamphlets is a striking commentary on the extended license either of
thought or of morals. The author continues to defend a marital union
because it may extend " the service to humanity " of both partners.
Does such vacuous talk really deceive anybody? The union of which
the author speaks, in the following extract, might just as well exist
so far as its " fruits " are concerned between a man and a man, a
woman and a woman. " Marriage by bringing two beings into such
close and intimate relationship with each other enables both to realize
themselves, and love, the supreme revealer, brings out in each hidden
treasures unknown before both to themselves and others."
* * * *
WHEN we are told that companionship is necessary for successful
married life, and further that spiritual companionship is neces-
sary, that " thoughts, hopes, fears, joys, all alike, should be shared,"
we are naturally led to believe that the writer will point out the
advisability of not marrying one of a different religious belief from
one's own ; but all we receive in this pamphlet of " positive and con-
structive ideals " on this point is, " Many people will feel that com-
panionship loses a great delight if there is not agreement on fun-
damental matters such as religion and politics." But companionship
so necessary for the success of marriage " is grievously threatened
by difference in taste."
* * * *
HPHE pamphlet has much good, practical advice within its covers.
1 It champions the indissolubility of marriage. " To have the high-
est possible ideal of the married union as one made both for time
and for eternity will help best to keep people from entering on it
lightly." " The pure of heart," we are told, " shall see God, and it is
to such that God reveals His deepest truths." Speaking of the im-
parting of sex knowledge, it says : " Knowledge is a dangerous gift
here as elsewhere, and will prove a disastrous possession should
it impair that purity of soul or deaden that sure instinct which tells
so many girls whether a man's character is to be trusted or not."
But since it fails in stating aright the first principles of the ques-
tion it fails on the whole in its ultimate purpose.
* * * *
THE pamphlet, Marriage as a Career, is a plea, begotten of present-
day conditions in England, for women to undertake the " burden "
and " sacrifices " of married life and to be willing to bear children.
It is a striking commentary on the extent of immorality in that coun-
try. The strongest reason given against birth control is that it is a
social crime.
Another pamphlet, Marriage: A Harmony of Body and Soul,
directly contradicts the teaching of the first pamphlet we mention.
WITH OUR READERS [Feb.,
For example, it states : " Nature shows us that passion is meant to
be steadfast and not wayward, and also reveals its kinship to the
creative impulse or desire for expression felt by the artist, when it
gives children as the fruit of the union of man and woman. Love,
it appears, is not meant to be barren physically, or to exhaust itself
in a passing phase ; new life is to spring from it."
And again the necessity of sacramental help to live the married
life as it should be lived is at least hinted in the following: "This
ideal calls for the very best of every part of complex human nature.
It will not be reached without effort; and it is obvious that a rela-
tionship offering such possibilities is not one to be entered upon lightly
and thoughtlessly. Failure to make something noble out of so great
an opportunity is a disaster proportionate to the beauty of the ideal."
The author also condemns divorce, and continues : " Some people
complain that there is little of any such positive ideal of marriage
to be found in Christianity; that the only thing insisted upon is the
command not to be divorced. But this is to misunderstand Christ's
teaching about divorce, which only follows as the natural consequence
of His assertion that a perfect intimacy and therefore permanence in
the marriage tie is part of God's essential purpose for the world.
And the claim that it is God Who presides over the union, tells us
that free self-conscious human beings ought only to enter it if they
feel assured that God's blessing is upon it. Further, though Christ's
teaching may not contain discourses about ideal marriage, or ideal
friendship for that matter, He tells us enough of the Divine Will for
man to enable us to work out our own ideals on lines which we be-
lieve is to be the will of God for us. This was Christ's method of
teaching, to tell us of the principles that should govern our whole
lives rather than of their particular application; and it should be
our method too. Useful though specific education on these matters
may be, it can never for a moment replace the inculcation of high
ideals about the conduct of life as a whole, the impressing upon peo-
ple that every department of life is sacred, and that the exercise of
every kind of activity must react upon the whole character and per-
sonality What I have written about marriage is in harmony with
what I understand that Christ taught us: firstly, in the Incarnation,
of the value and sacredness of human life and the human body;
secondly, of the infinite value in God's eyes of every individual
soul, whether of man or woman."
pamphlet, entitled The Educational Value of Monogamy,
amuses us by saying " that monogamy has never teen tried." The
pamphlet seems a kindly endeavor to win rebels against Christianity
and against civil law to do what both direct in the matter of marriage,
1917-] WITH OUR READERS 715
without compelling them to admit the authority of either. Its thought
runs as follows: Monogamy is fundamentally necessary for any de-
velopment of character. Its educational value for the race is clear.
It marks the free-born man from the slave. Monogamy makes mar-
riage mean " a union of souls, a blessing of lives, a sharing of growth
and progress." Faithfulness is the keynote of true love. Sex love is
never fulfilled save in the begetting of children. Marriage should be
indissoluble, and husband and wife should publicly testify to their life-
long union. The soul as well as the senses of the married couple,
should be one. The craving for such union is fundamental. Birth
control is an offence against the law of chastity. "If sex life be di-
vorced from love we get at once a fundamental severance which cuts
the soul from the senses and leaves a crack into which many devils
creep."
The lofty standard set by the pamphlet may be seen not only from
what we have said but from ,the further extract : " In his heart of
hearts a man despises a woman who asks little ; in her heart of hearts
a woman despises a man who asks little; to give greatly and demand
greatly is the secret of life's satisfaction: to abate no jot of one's
demands through all the disappointments of life is to keep freshness
of youth and the true spirit of a lover. To hold yourself cheap is to
do wrong to all who meet you. Another women pleads, 'Well, if I
chose to do it I harm no one else.' Only those who are ignorant of
psychological truths could argue thus. There is not one person that
man meets who is not in some way conscious that the woman has
helped him to cheapen himself, no one person that woman meets who
is not influenced. It must eternally be so, for when two people have
degraded what should serve high ends to selfish indulgence, to a
bodily passion insufficiently illumined by the soul, they are forever the
poorer for the act."
* * * *
^HE great mistake this author makes is in believing he, as a lone
1 pioneer, has for the first time in all history thought of these things,
and secondly, in saying that neither civil law nor Church law has en-
deavored to have man attain them. His structure is beautiful, but one
is compelled, in looking below it, to ask where is the foundation ? The
" educational value " of monogamy will have strength only after its
strength is admitted.
Praise of Virginity is of little concern to us since for the most
part it is a plea that the Church of England give wider- recognition to
the conventual vocation of her young women. It sounds to us like
pleading before a mother who would willingly consent, but who does
not altogether understand what is asked of her.
7l6 WITH OUR READERS [Feb.,
FOR Purity, which is a straigh forward appeal and defence of
chastity, we have only words of strongest praise. It is built upon
enduring Christian truth. The only exception we take is this — the
author, while praising celibacy in those who choose to make it a rule
of life, denies its special spiritual value. He has said that he took
as his guide the New Testament. If he will re-read Matthew xix.
12, and the Seventh Chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the
Corinthians, he will surely re-write that paragraph of his pamphlet.
* * * *
IT is not only pleasing, but also important, to note that all of these
pamphlets, save for the exception we have noted, reecho many of
the teachings of the Catholic Church on the subject of matrimony, and
the relations of the sexes. They denounce divorce; they defend the
indissolubility of the marriage bond; they condemn as criminal the
notorious " birth control ; " they plead for the sanctity of the body
and for the preeminent value of the spiritual motive in wedded life.
This is perhaps the more remarkable because they do not accept
the authority of the Catholic Church; and the sole light which most
of them admit is that of human reason alone. They are in their
measure sign posts on that journey towards the star which points to
Christ as the fulfillment of every truth, the smallest and the greatest:
the truths of nature and the truths of revelation. They prove that
God is in all and over all and that no law which He has ordained
can with impunity be violated by any individual. " They that sow in
the flesh, of the flesh shall reap corruption." And we cannot repeat
too often that no words of condemnation can be too strong when
directed against those, who, in the name of science, or economics or
race improvement, or whatever other respectable plea they use, are
going about preaching what is in reality nothing else than a filthy and
vice-breeding immorality.
'"THE publication in two volumes of an authoritative text of Rous-
1 seau's writings has again directed attention to his political theories
— concerning which there has been much discussion, but remarkably
little knowledge.
In the Nation of January i8th appeared a lengthy and scholarly
review by Dr. Irving Babbitt of these volumes. The critic shows that
Rousseau is, after all, " only the most eloquent and influential of the
sentimentalists." He himself said that his " whole life has been noth-
ing but a long revery." He dreamed, as the sensualist dreams, and
transferred the immoral anarchy of his soul into the whole political
and religious sphere of life. " The tendency of what Rousseau urges
is to influence the passions and appetites of its (society's) least in-
telligent members. " Rousseau repudiates both humility and decorum."
" He was the spokesman of a middle class which was gaining rapidly
1917.] WITH OUR READERS 717
in wealth and influence and which, having got rid of traditional con-
trol, did not wish to acquire self-control." " No writer is more lavish
in his praise of virtue and conscience. But he gives to these words
entirely new meanings he proceeds to convert virtue into a pas-
sion and even into an intoxication." He who denied discipline sought
to trace its origins ; he who flouted order searched for it, and thought
to find it in a general will of the people, in virtue of which he grants
to the people a place that was formerly reserved for God Almighty.
* * * *
DR. BABBITT points out that this new edition fails to include the
passage most important for the understanding of Rousseau's po-
litical views. That passage is found in the Confessions. Rousseau
tells how he went on a picnic with a woman in the forest of St. Ger-
main: how there he came to conceive the picture of primitive man,
and how all improvements on this primitive man were the source of
every human misery.
But as free as was the imagination of Rousseau, it served error
instead of truth, because it knew not the restraint of knowledge.
The primitive man, as a really great one among the ancients, Aristotle,
proved, is naturally political: it is natural for him to be a citizen.
His nature demands law. Rousseau guided by his own unlicensed
selfishness would make him utterly unsocial, a disconnected and in-
harmonious unit.
* * * *
BELIEVERS in a true Republic will see from a thorough study
of Rousseau that they should never invoke his name in their aid,
for he was essentially the enemy of all true democracy. True demo-
cracy is founded upon justice: take away that foundation and the
structure falls at once. A merely numerical majority is not and can
never be the supreme interpreter and judge of every right. Justice
primarily demands, first, respect for those individual and family rights
which are inalienable, and, secondly, that the minority in every com-
munity have a right to be heard and considered. The steam roller is
not democratic.
Our American Declaration of Independence denies Rousseau's
teaching not only by the mention of " the laws of nature's God," but
also by the fact that it is the declaration of a small minority to dis-
solve the political bands which connected them with the great ma-
jority. Moreover, that same Declaration proclaimed this truth as
self-evident, "that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights." Such a declaration strikes a mortal blow at the
root of Rousseauism.
For, as our critic says, quoting Rousseau, " All the clauses of
the Social Contract 'reduce themselves to one : the total alienation of
«vtry associate with all his rights' (including his rights to property)
7l8 WITH OUR READERS [Feb.,
'to the whole community.' The abstract rights that Rousseau postu-
lates appertain to the individual only in so far as he is a member of
the sovereign people."
* * * *
THE utter immorality of Rousseau's teaching may be plainly seen
from his words, " to limit sovereignly is to destroy it." To quote
our critic again : " The people," according to Rousseau, " is not bound
by its own past, and cannot obligate itself for the future; it cannot
contract to obey the officers — representatives, judiciary, or even
monarch — that it has set up : they are only the puppets of the general
will, revocable at pleasure." Rousseau is the arch-anarchist. He not
only maintained that the people is incapable of doing wrong: that
the people is free from every responsibility; but he emptied natural
honor and loyalty of all content, " The sovereign people," with Rous-
seau, " is responsible to no one. It is God."
* * * *
THE peace of Europe, or rather what peace it has enjoyed through
the centuries, is on the admission of Rousseau himself, due to the
Catholic Church. " It is undeniable," he says, " that Europe owes
to Christianity above all, even today, the species of union that has
survived among its members." Dr. Babbitt rightly adds, " One might
suppose that Rousseau would seek to retain in some form or other
this spiritual bond that is set above nationality." The reason why
Rousseau would not tolerate it is that he hated discipline or restraint
of any kind and desired only " emotional expansion." " He, there-
fore, sets out deliberately to break down the distinction between the
spiritual and the temporal order which is at the heart of Christianity,
and to which is due in the final analysis every genuine progress that
has been made in political theory and practice since Aristotle; for
example, the notion of individual liberty/'
* * * *
'O OUSSEAU sought, of course, to do away with Christianity. He
IV wished the State to prescribe " a creed the few and simple dog-
mas of which are intended as an aid not so much to religion as to
sociability. If anyone," he says, " after recognizing publicly these
same dogmas, behaves as though he did not believe them, let him
be punished with death."
* * * *
T*HE article from which we have quoted proceeds to show the evils
that will follow from a complacent listening to the teachings of
this French philosopher. The writer of it sees in them the blood-red
dawn of imperialism.
* * * *
A FEW days ago the General Education Board, a Rockefeller Foun-
£* dation, announced its plans for a radical experiment in educa-
1917-] WITH OUR READERS 719
tion, and claimed that, if it proves to be successful, it will revolution-
ize both elementary and secondary education.
The announcement should arouse at once the attention and the
activity of everyone interested in the education of the young. This
General Education Board is a private corporation backed by " a vast,
compelling force " of $35,000,000. It is almost omnipotent financially.
" The experiment will be carried through," says a member of the
Board, " whatever it costs." The experiment is radical and dangerous.
Its birth, its aims are born, of money. Money is its controlling
power. Its financial resources can command a large number of edu-
cators ; and enable the controllers " almost to force upon the public
the acceptance of the ideals they advocate." Our free government is
in danger of being supplanted by a moneyed bureaucracy. Their
purpose is to de-spiritualize the country. Those educated under this
plan will, according to the New York Times, " have no idea nor be
able to form an intelligent opinion upon subjects not directly related
to gainful pursuits." The General Education Board has by this step,
according to the same authority, apparently exceeded its purpose under
the act of incorporation.
* * * *
WHETHER it has or not, the situation is so alarming that every
lover of American liberty ought to protest most strenuously. This
action of the General Education Board is but one further step by
those who are powerful and influential, because they possess or con-
trol money, to direct the educational, the charitable, the health de-
partments of the city first; then the State; then the nation. The
New York Times says : " If this experiment bears the expected fruit
we shall see imposed upon the country a system of education born
of the theories of one or two men, and replacing a system which has
been the natural outgrowth of the American character and the needs
of the American people. It is as if we should be called upon to
abandon our system of common law, which has sprung from the daily
business and social relations of the people, and adopt in its stead
a code drawn up by three or four men in a law office and brought
into force and effect by the acts of State legislatures."
* * * *
WE have inserted this paragraph here because the writer of this
critique of Rousseau appositely states : " It is wholesome to reflect
that Rousseauism is also rampant in America, especially in our edu-
cg£ion where it is likely to do most harm."
''' The 'uplift' is the only religion of an increasing number of
Americans, and the 'uplift' is a sham religion." " Humanitarianism
has manifestly failed to exercise ethical control." " Galilee has, on the
contrary, been justified against Rousseau and the sentimentalists."
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. CIV.
MARCH, 1917.
No. 624,
HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS.
BY G. K. CHESTERTON.
HE doctrine of the brotherhood of men has been
made the subject of some silly rhetoric, and of much
quite stupid attack, but it remains the only solid basis
for any kind of thinking about mankind. If men
are not brothers, they are not men. I am not con-
cerned here, however, with the place of this idea in philosophy or
religion, but with its practical application to the study of the human
story. I wish only to draw attention to the idea of human fra-
ternity as a tool or test for historical inquiry. For the purposes
of the present discussion the meaning of the doctrine of human
brotherhood may perhaps be stated in this way. Human brother-
hood means that in considering the ways of any tribe or nation,
however remote or however degraded, we need not use or do not
use the mere method of zoology; we do not need to study them
as we study ants and earwigs. We can make the most elaborate
calculations of what an earwig does do. But we cannot in our wild-
est visions form any conception of what an earwig would do; we
suffer under the limitation of not being earwigs. But if we see
a man doing anything we are enlightened from within as well as
from without. We know something at least of what he will do
even before he does it. This sympathetic knowledge is crossed and
confused, of course, by innumerable differences of convention, of
symbolism, and of special type; but the point here is that, as far
as it comes in at all, it is a different kind of knowledge to the
knowledge that the naturalist can have about an earwig or about
Copyright. 1917. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. CIV. — 46
722 HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS [Mar.,
anything else. As long as the facts are fixed and proved about
either creature there is, of course, nothing more to be said. But
if a question arose between two explanations, it might, in the
case of the earwig, have to remain a question. But in the case
of a man we might begin to talk, out of the knowledge in our own
hearts, about the more probable explanation.
Now it is at this point that another and rather curious truth
comes in. It is generally much wiser for an educated but not
specially learned person to test historical assertions and ideas by
this human sympathy rather than by certain detached historical
facts, mostly of a formal sort, of which he has probably heard.
He will probably be much nearer the ancient Romans by per-
petually reminding himself that they were men, than by being
told in stray truths that they were Imperialists, or that they were
Latins, or that they owned slaves. The really learned man does
not run this risk; that is, so long as he is the sort of learned man
who is a man as .well as learned. For he will have got past the
mere formula of Imperialism or slavery, and got to the human
details of it; and the human details will be quite human. The
coster or the cabman does not run this risk either, for he knows
nothing about the Romans except that they were men; and this
is the final result of all the researches of the really learned. But
the ordinary educated, unlearned man like myself does run this
risk, and often encumbers himself in early youth with bald and
misleading historical facts and generalizations, which conceal the
humanity that is really behind them, and which he might have
imagined for himself. It is better to construct human history
by your imagination than by your knowledge, unless it is a very
great knowledge. It is far better to reckon by men's human nature
than by their often inhuman theories or statutes. It is wiser
to attend to what they mean than to what they say. You are an
unlearned man, and you do not always understand what they say.
But you are a man, and you know what they mean.
We may take the typical instance introduced above; the in-
stance of slavery. Since boyhood I have constantly found my-
self in the company of a certain kind of modern progressives or
reformers whose whole object in life seems to be to represent
the past not only as horrible, but as something other than human.
They desire to break, in the history behind us, the bond of men's
brotherhood; though, curiously enough, they all get very fond of
it quite suddenly when they begin to talk about the future. They
1917.] HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS 723
hold that we are not related to our fathers, but that we are on
extremely intimate terms with our great-great-grandchildren. But
this modern fraternity of theirs is too strange a thing for my in-
tellect, and I turn back to simpler matters; to such a trifle, for
instance, as the problem of primeval slavery. Now, these peo-
ple early possessed my mind with the idea that in slave-holding
times men were divided into two totally distinct races, one utterly
abject, the other utterly disdainful. And as proof and summary
of it, they got firmly into my head this fact, that in certain old
laws the slave is spoken of as a " chattel ; " he is actually said to
belong to his master in the same sense as a chair or a table. They
said that this was really written down on bits of parchment;
and I have no doubt it is. But it was never the truth for all that.
In any case this view impressed me (as it has impressed and still
impresses millions of others) with an alien and blood-curdling con-
ception of the condition of human nature in the societies which per-
mitted slavery. The moderns rilled my mind with shameful visions,
visions of merchants really examining a woman as a bale of goods,
of torturers really carving a man as if he were a piece of wood.
Worst of all, perhaps, was the image of one man being unconscious
of the presence of another, as if he were indeed a stool. I read
of all these things in the modern books. But the curious thing was
this, that I could not find them anywhere else except in the modern
books. The moment I began to read the ancient books these hor-
rible pictures utterly disappeared. When I read books about the old
slave-owning people I found a people as monstrous as the moon;
but when I read books by the old slave-owning people I found they
were uncommonly like myself. It seemed a queer sort of inversion.
I read a tale written last week by a man with a top hat in Fleet
Street, and it transported me to a terrible and remote race. I
read a tale written by a man in a toga two thousand years ago,
and he seemed to be a kindly gentleman walking about Fleet
Street. Especially there was in the old literature hardly a trace of
this hideous feeling of slaves as being actually beasts or chattels.
Slaves were badly treated, just as children or workmen can be
badly treated, by an abuse of accidental power, and with the gen-
eral disapproval of the neighbors. Juvenal (to take only one ob-
vious case) would say that a Roman lady cruelly whipped a lady's
maid, but he did not say it with the air of one denouncing a
practice that had never been denounced before; rather, he did it
with the air of one taunting the lady with a vice that she herself
724 HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS [Mar,
would be ashamed of. In fact, he did it almost exactly in the
tone of Mr. Bernard Shaw when he declared that some people
like cruelty to children, and scornfully advised them to avow this
pleasure, like the fox-hunter. But above all I came upon startling
facts that were inconceivable in the alleged " chattel " atmosphere.
For instance, these pagans would praise a great philosopher, would
declare that he had thousands of adorers among the young nobility,
would hold him up as a sort of human temple for adoration and
obedience; and then mention, quite incidentally, that he was a
slave. This is the deepest of all impossibilities; a psychological
impossibility. Men could not really think of a man as a great
philosopher if they really thought of him as a stool.
But my main point remains to be emphasized. I read very
little of the ancient literature; but I read just enough to get
to the human fact which was behind the legal fiction. The slave-
owners in their law called the slave a chattel; but in their poetry
they called him a man, in their comedies they called him a character,
in their social life they often called him a friend, and in their
highest philosophy they sometimes almost called him a demi-god.
Little as was the knowledge I acquired, it was enough to teach me
that there was no truth in the mere modern notion that a slave-
owner thought of the slave as a " chattel." But it is not on this
I insist; what I insist on is, that if I simply exercise my ordinary
imagination and human instinct, I might have known it, I ought
to have known it, without any detailed knowledge at all. I ought
to have realized that the pure " chattel " theory is inconceivable in
the minds of men. A man never could have thought another man
a chattel. A man never could have thought another man anything
but another man. He might be another man subordinated to him
in a complex social scheme; he might be another man placed in
his power and exposed to his evil passions; but he was always a
man, he was never anything in the least like a piece of furniture.
If for one instant a slave had really seemed like a table, the master
would have been as exactly as much startled as if a table had begun
to dance about the room like a man. But the essence of the con-
tention I make is this : that it is only the half-learned man, who
makes up so much of the modern state, who is misled by the
mere word " chattel " written on a stone or a scrap of paper. Both
simple men and learned men know that there is no truth in this
notion of our fathers treating men as furniture. Simple men
know they would not. Learned men know they did not.
I9I7-] HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS 725
It is, however, the peculiarity of the case, that, unless we
feel confident enough in our own great guesses about men to
contradict the common tale flatly as being inhuman and incredible,
then we have to take a great deal of trouble and track the common
tale to its original exact text and proof, when we commonly find
that it means something entirely different. But taking trouble
is not my own strong point; and I can speak only of certain
cases in which I have come upon the real and original facts by
accident. In such cases I saw how in the strangest way the old
tale, which was human, had been turned by a touch or two into the
modern tale, which is inhuman. Those who quote certain episodes
in the past to prove that there were human divisions utterly deny-
ing brotherhood, always (by accident or design) leave something
out of the anecdote. And the thing they leave out is the brother-
hood. But I can only explain my meaning by examples, so I
will give two that have come my way.
We have all heard (as a case of inhuman slavery in the past)
a floating anecdote about some Russian grand lady who said she
had no shame with a slave, but would unclothe before a male
serf because he was not a man. Now, of course, it should be said
first that such a tale does not, strictly speaking, prove that she
did not think him a man; on the contrary, it properly proves that
she did think him a man. Had he really been a chattel she would
not have boasted about his being a chattel. No woman would
brag about her indifference when left alone with the clock. And
if really so uttered, the observation will seem to be not a barbarian
princess' normal principle, but some brazen woman's decadent para-
dox. But that is a mere pedantic point, and not a point on which
I insist. It happened by the purest accident that in an old book
of travels in Russia I came upon an actual anecdote, which may
very well be the original of all the versions of this tale, and which
is, at any rate, a case of the way in which such tales probably
arise. In this tale the details are grosser than in the ordinary
version, too gross to be given here; but the curious thing is that
while the real tale was much grosser, it was also much more demo-
cratic and humane. The Russian lady did not say, " A slave is
not a man," with the traditional implication of distance and dis-
dain. What the Russian lady said was, " These men have been
with me since childhood ; I should be surprised indeed to learn that
I was a woman to them, and they men to me." Observe that the
whole moral meaning of the version has changed. The beginning
726 HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS [Mar.,
of the sentence, " these men have been with me from childhood,"
changes the whole sentiment from one of imperial ostentation to
one of rather coarse domesticity. She is not saying that slaves are
so very far off from her: she is insisting that they are so very
close to her. They are not primarily male, just as brothers or
very old friends might not be primarily male. This is an uncivi-
lized and undignified freedom; but it has no kinship whatever
with the hateful contempt implied in the proverbial remark of the
Russian dame. It has much more in common with the low fa-
miliarities of an overcrowded slum.
Here is the other example. Of all the evil tales of an aris-
tocracy openly holding men as beasts for toil or sport, none ever
gave me such a chill as the story of the calm acquittal of Lord
Mohun after his murder of the poor actor Mount ford. As I then
read and understood the story, as almost the whole reading pub-
lic now reads and understands it, Mohun committed a shameful
murder without a rag of doubt or a shadow of excuse; he then
came into court with the blood of the innocent on his hands, and
the smile of the insolent on his face; he denied the right of com-
mon justice to try so great a noble: he stood confidently before
his peers in the House of Lords; and all the Lords set him free
without a stain on his character, because he had killed only a
common man. In short, according to this traditional picture, the
great English aristocracy, then undoubtedly at the height of its
arrogance, practically declared in a public proclamation that noble-
men might amuse themselves by killing actors as much as by killing
partridges. Now, if this calm and horrible drama had really so
happened, if men judged so gravely and in good faith, one can
only say that men must really have had in those days a different
moral sense. It is a story used by those who deny brotherhood
in the past. It is a special and hideous instance of the master
destroying the slave as a mere chattel. And yet I was puzzled;
for the literature of that time is extant, and has no traces of such
strange ethics. Mohun was tried in the time of Steele and Addi-
son, who evidently had the same morality as ourselves. Now, in
the course of investigating something else, I happened to read
some of the details of the trial of Mohun. I discovered that a
small fact has been left out of the popular tradition. It is a small
fact which happens to have the effect of dissolving the whole of the
ordinary impression that the English oligarchy thought it right to
save a red-handed assassin if he were an oligarch. The truth is
HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS 727
that you might just as well say that the English people of today
thought it right to let artists murder young girls. You might as
well say that the art for art's sake movement in England, passing
up through Pater and Wilde, had culminated with the acquittal
of the egotistical artist, Wood. Wood was an egotistical artist, and
some silly people may have possibly liked him for that reason. But
if you stated the story in that way, you would be leaving out one
rather important detail; you would be omitting to say that one
of the possible reasons why Wood was acquitted was that he was
not proved guilty. Now, this is never mentioned of Mohun, but
it was true of Mohun. He was let off (or at the very least he may
have reasonably been let off) because there was a reasonable doubt
about whether he had committed the crime. From the evidence
that I read it seems certain that his part in the affair was a second-
ary one, and more than possible that he had no part in it at all.
The actual blow was certainly struck by another man. Mohun was
a blackguard, but that does not concern us. What does concern us
is that this is another instance, come upon at random, of a general
historical impression, among the merely educated, which makes out
the past much more calmly and theoretically inhuman than it ever
was. There were, of course, millions of instances of disgraceful
inhumanity in practise. But there was never any inhumanity in
theory which is conveyed by the supposition that the whole House
of Lords said, with a slight laugh, " What's an actor more or less ? "
But again I wish to insist on the original conclusion. I men-
tioned these two incidental cases in which the fuller knowledge
of the facts turns something which had seemed quite inhuman into
something quite human. But I only mention them in order to
point out again that they ought to have been obvious without any
knowledge of the facts. As it happened, I only found the truth
about these two cases in dusty old leather books read for another
purpose altogether: but I ought to have found that truth in the
faces in the street. I found somewhere bound up in a book the
true facts; but I ought to have found these bound up in myself.
I had not believed enough in human brotherhood. I should have
considered the Russian lady and the English Lords, not as ants
or beetles whose most maniacal customs can be watched calmly
through a microscope, but as fellow sinners whose sins would be
human and explicable like my own. And when there was a doubt
about what was true, I ought to have been able to consider, through
sympathy, what was probable. I should have realized, to take the
728 HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS [Mar.,
first case, that if a woman ever said that she was indifferent to
delicacy in her relations with a man, it was much more likely that
she had simply got used to the man, than that she held some quite
unnatural metaphysical view of his nature and status. It was more
likely that she regarded an old servant as a member of a rather
rough family, than that she had so perverse a notion as that the
servant was not a man when he obviously was. It is not easy to
think a man is not a man : it is like thinking a cowslip is like a
cow ; it requires some mental force. And again in the second case,
I ought to have seen by the light of nature, and though the pride
and wickedeness of the aristocracy might certainly be equal to
making a stand to save a murderer of their own rank, still it was
more likely — ceteris paribus — that this stand was made in a case
in which there was some ordinary legal doubt, to palliate a dif-
ference of people. A room full of men, good, bad, and indifferent,
might easily be swayed by social sympathies, but they are more
likely to be swayed in a case where there are really two sides to
the question, than in a naked and glaring case of wrong, which
would leave them no escape save that of openly espousing in-
justice. That is the moral I wish to draw from these two random
cases; a wholesome moral, for it is to the reproach and confusion
of myself. I do not blame myself for not being a scholar or a
close student of the facts; for this I have never attempted or pro-
fessed to be. But I do blame myself for not having seen that,
apart from whatever were the facts, this was not the truth. A
more learned man than I would have known all about Mohun, be-
cause he would have known all about English history; he would
have known all about the Russian lady because he would, doubt-
less, have known all about Russian ladies. But a wiser man than I
would have guessed the truth without learning it.
In case there is any mistake about the matter, it should be
repeated here that the contention is not that remote races or ages
were not hideously cruel, or even that they were not more cruel
than we. I am not concerned here to deny that the sins of the
past were greater than those of the present. I am concerned to
say- that the sins were sins : they were committed as sins, excused
and blundered through as sins, but always at root regarded as
sins. They were never virtues, the virtues of another morality. It
was never felt as right to insult your enemy's corpse. Passions of
the moment excused it of old in the case of Achilles, as they ex-
cused it not so very long ago in the case of Lord Kitchener. But I
1917-] HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS 729
cannot really believe that any Englishman felt it as a nice thing,
and it is quite obvious that Homer three thousand years ago felt
it as a very nasty thing. It was never thought normal or natural
to burn a man alive; horror at abnormal things (like witchcraft
or blasphemy) produced it in old Europe as horror at other ab-
normal things produces it now in new America. I profoundly dis-
believe that human sacrifice was ever felt to be human. The
earliest tales we have of it are told with a shudder, the story
of Iphigenia was full of fresh human fear and wonder at
the dreadful things the gods demanded. Human sacrifice, I
suspect, was much more a decadent or diabolist innovation than
an old and simple custom. Exactly the same can be said about
cannibalism. Those half-cultured deniers of human brotherhood
in the past, of which I have spoken, are always very fond of
gazing at me solemnly, wagging their heads, and then saying,
" Once we all held it right to eat each other; " to which I can only
answer with equal gravity that I don't remember doing so. Surely
it is obvious that cannibalism is always felt as unnatural; some-
times it was done by decadents, savages, and devil worshippers,
because it is unnatural; sometimes it is done by starving savages,
as it is by starving Europeans, because the situation is also un-
natural. But cannibalism is rather an over-civilized product than
a simple one. Gloomy savages do it, just as gloomy novelists write
books about it, because it is a nasty idea, not a nice one. There
is much more kinship between cannibalism and the art of Aubrey
Beardsley than there is between cannibalism and the art that
scratched the reindeer on the rock. And if anyone asks how I
know all this, and how I, who have not much knowledge of science
and history, state it all so positively, I reply without hesitation
that I guess it; I use my own common sense, for I am talking
of my family.
Lastly, let it be said that the sense of one human nature in
all lands and ages does not involve the suggestion that we should
be cocksure about human beings, or that they are not abysses of
evil and sealed gates of good. But from being an unbrotherly
mystery it becomes a brotherly mystery; and if we cannot reckon
all historical possibilities it is because we cannot really reckon
all our own possibilities. There is a very solemn and genuine sense
in which I can never understand Rameses III. It is the same
sense in which Rameses III. could never understand himself. There
is a true sense in which I know nothing about the man in the
730 HUMAN NATURE AND THE HISTORIANS [Mar.,
Sandwich Islands; it is the same awful sense in which I know
nothing about the man in the looking glass. This must specially
be remembered when we speak of strange customs, of the grotesque
rites and unintelligible dances of the barbarians. All rites are
grotesque; all rites are unintelligible. We shall understand why
a Papuan bride pretends to hide from her husband when we under-
stand why an English or American bride wears a veil; and we
shall understand that when we understand what being a woman
means. We shall know why Zulus have a war-dance when we
know why the Grenadier Guards have a brass band: we shall
know that when we know for certain what a man means. We shall
know why huge temples are covered by terrible symbolism when
we know why two schoolboys invent a secret language; we shall
know that when we know everything.
But though we know that in human history there are unde-
cipherable things, and especially horrible things that are only half
decipherable, we who believe in a human brotherhood, a permanent
human basis, regard such dark things with sentiments very dif-
ferent to the cold curiosity and disdain of the modern scientific
inquirer. We have a more fearful sense as we look up at those
towering engines of evil. To us they are not the wreck of a lost
creation; they are the wild end of ways we have ourselves trod-
den, the public and uplifted punishment of crimes we have our-
selves come too near. There has been such a thing as slavery, the
desperate social expedient by which men solved the sickening so-
cial problems, not indeed by feeling, but certainly by blasphemously
and abominably saying that a man could be a " chattel." There
has been such a thing as aristocracy, and in England, at least, it
is growing rather than decreasing. There has been such a thing
as a theoretical division of a man from men. There has been
such a thing as human sacrifice, such a thing as cannibalism ; dread-
ful religious service where live men offered a dead man to the
gods, horrible moonless feasts where man fed upon a flesh like
his own. There have been, iiv short, shining and high places of
horror, cruelties incredible and indecencies which might make the
sun drop from heaven. But while the modern pedant looks at
these heathen heights from a greater height of superciliousness,
as things he has passed for ever, we have very different feelings.
We can only cry that we know not the depths of our own dark-
ness, and pray that we be not led into temptation, but may find
deliverance from evil.
THE TRAGEDY OF MARK TWAIN.
BY GEORGE NAUMAN SHUSTER.
OVELS, as Marion Crawford said, are made for
amusement, but it were difficult to conceive of a
book more utterly pessimistic and depressing in its
outlook upon life than Mark Twain's recently pub-
lished The Mysterious Stranger. Its melancholy is
more than fictionized Schopenhauer, for there is genuine poetry
in the story and a passion almost akin to despair. The central
conception is striking. Two boys of mediaeval times who play
round the castle of Eseldorf, meet a stranger who is nothing less
than an angel in disguise. He has all the mystic power and calm
detachment of a pure spirit: his logic is keen, there is not an
emotional throb in him, and he reads the future. One of his
whims is to create a multitude of pigmies and then quietly to snuff
out their lives with his finger. This stranger whose name is Satan,
uses his powers to influence the lives of the villagers, but his acts
of seeming benevolence result to their detriment. The simple and
good people are wrecked on the callous souls of their neighbors.
With bitter irony he outlines the hopeless folly and irremediable
degradation of man. Of course, the book is an allegory, and
draws what to the old Mark Twain was a view of life " in toto " —
life, whose brutality and universal sordidness can be accounted for
only on the hypothesis that existence is a dream, a mirage that
flutters before the imaginary eyes of an imagined man!
How strange that such a book should have been written by an
American, when our professed philosophy as outlined by James
and Dewey is a practical optimism which avowedly seeks the good
in life for the helpfulness of that good; when every possible ma-
terial blessing seems to have descended upon this land to make it
the most prosperous and peaceful commonwealth in history. How
strange, too, that Mark Twain should have written it, a man
gifted as no other to see the jolly and mirthful in life. For him
there was no terrible thirst for the wells of thought such as drove
a Spinoza forth, seeking relief from the sickening hostility of
environment. Mark Twain possessed everything that is highly
esteemed : fame, love, wealth, and the respect of men. He was a
732 THE TRAGEDY OF MARK TWAIN [Man,
beautiful character and a successful citizen. Surely it is appalling
to find here the same " canker and the dust " that slept in the eyes
of Byron and corroded the last days of Solomon. And yet, I think
that for a man like Mark Twain this final philosophy was almost
sure to arrive. The old gray figure grappling brokenly with the
problem of evil represents a genuine tragedy. For in all real
tragedy the elements in the hero's own character conspire with
the surroundings towards a sad and definite end.
The literature of our country cannot be said actually to have
begun until there was a national spirit. Whatever may be the value
of Irving or the historians like Prescott, no authentic American
voice spoke in the world until Cooper told the story of Leather-
stocking. Every great author is a trumpet speaking the sentiment
and convictions of the millions who have necessarily been born
dumb. In Longfellow and Whitman alike wells the song of
America, a reflection of the soul of an actual people which began to
differ from other peoples. Naturally the books which preceded
the era of expansion were dictated in part from across the sea.
In the ink of Emerson and Lowell there is a flavor of Atlantic
waters; Thoreau is a reaction against the congestion of Europe
rather than American urban life. The Transcendental School was
a shadow flung by Fichte and Hegel, while the genius of Ameri-
can Catholicism, Orestes A. Brownson, careered primarily in
jousts with alien spirits. It could not have been otherwise.
But when the pioneers had stripped the wastes and settled on
the plains; when the gold rush had done and the vast Western
woodlands were grown into settlements, a distinct type of Amer-
ican evolved. He was clear-sighted, economically unhampered and
absolutely independent of tradition. The light in his eyes was new,
and in the person of Lincoln he grappled the problems of states-
manship with original and startling insight. Of course there were
others. Andrew Jackson, for instance, will never be forgotten.
This type of American regarded the alphabet with a sentiment
almost akin to wonder. Endowed with indigenous common sense
and humor, he affronted the philosophies of the world as if they
were curios, rather than staple products. Culture was almost
an anomaly, but free spirits, clear heads and young eyes were
abundant as trees.
Mark Twain is undoubtedly the voice of this people in liter-
ature. He was born a poet and natural philosopher. Every atom
of energy latent in a rising race was compressed into his blood.
1917.] THE TRAGEDY OF MARK TWAIN 733
«v
He saw the Mississippi in the starlight; he had the whole world
to play in as a boy, and the universe to make his living in as a man.
It was not ordained that Samuel Clemens should be a cobbler or a
diplomat. In the glorious and waning freedom of American civili-
zation, he was veritably the architect of his fate. The romance
of his life is one of the most fascinating records in existence, be-
cause it is the story of a people's thought and language. Like
Lincoln he is a type ; like him he dominates the scene, has im-
pressed his vitality upon established systems, and seen because his
eyes were made to see. No other of our countrymen have been so
beloved, so powerful or so American.- Both had the same rustic
beginning and the same sad finis. Allowing for differences of
temperament they were very much alike.
In their completed form, Mark Twain's books display an in-
tense continuity or evolution — in a sensible sense — of New World
thoughts and ideas. The development of his philosophy is almost
coordinate with the growth of civilization in America : quite simple
at first, it comes to embrace the cosmos. For the world is a cosmos
now, without horizons, an endless cycle of infinities which we do
not even boast of mastering or being able to master. I think that
Mark Twain represents the pressure of the nineteenth century upon
the ordinary man ; his soul is marked by the teeth of an era which
built up a supposedly impregnable philosophy and tore it down
again. His leap into prominence is itself a phenomenon. The
Celebrated Jumping Frog was funny, but also very crude. Would
a similar story be accepted by the magazines of today? Hardly;
but at the time of its appearance the American mind was new. Our
people were hardier, plainer, less complex and sophisticated. One
can fancy the average American reading of that droll wager, rub-
bing his hands with glee, and settling back for a good, long laugh.
He understood the joke, thought it very good, and roared. Today
we do not quite remember what the circumstances were like, the
characters have grown dim, and hence we are not so uproariously
amused. But the primal fact remains. Here once for all sat the
wild Westerner telling a story. A new literary force was come.
Innocents 'Abroad remains good reading, even if we need a
little historical imagination to acquire the point of view. Ameri-
cans of that date made pilgrimages to the Holy Land and Europe.
Tourists were not so much sight-seers as crusaders. The dull-
brained ancients, any youngsters too for that matter, wept over the
Ancien Regime, and sighed for a strip of Wellington's boots.
,734 THE TRAGEDY OF MARK TWAIN [Mar.,
Living in a land of heroes, they longed with paradoxical sentiment
for the ashes of the sacred past, the memories of Vergil's tomb
and Dante's bust. Of course they were ignorant and gullible. They
said " wonderful " and " ah " before the Old Masters, and went
into poetic raptures within the Coliseum. All the while they
kept a charmed eye on the guide-books and got everything con-
fused. The American, in short, was ignorant and innocent alike —
he believed. When this common-sense Westerner, named Clemens,
sailed for Europe, he met it steadily and critically. He was not
very sentimental, except about Athens and Heloise, and he owned
a remarkable sense of humor. Naturally he was ignorant too, but
he had intelligence enough not to murmur appreciatively before
the Old Masters. There was no strong reason why he should.
Mark Twain was honestly a barbarian, and enjoyed his joke.
There is nothing more rollicky than his experience with the guide
and Christopher Columbo, or the finding of the exact centre of
the earth. All in all, Innocents Abroad is a remarkable record,
for it tells of the discovery of Europe by an American.
What were this young Mark Twain's ideals? Somewhere
in Mr. Paine's biography is a facsimile which states that the
writer loves curious facts, anecdotes and science, but detests poetry
and theology. Such a trend of mind is, of course, evident from
his volumes. Yet, through all his earlier work runs a genuine
poetic feeling and a strong religious sense. He called the miracle
of St. Januarius a sham, and his principal observations in Palestine
had to deal with the physical deformities of native Arabs. But
his mind, as mirrored in Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mis-
sissippi, was forever bothered with the fundamental problems
of good and evil, the known and the unknown, and the here and
hereafter. The passage in Life on the Mississippi which relates
how the two boys watched a dead man lie in the dark store-room
while the blood trickled slowly across the floor in the moonlight, is
an intense spiritual revelation. It contains vivid poetry and the
weird background of insight into the mysteries of life. Many
similar visions may be found in Roughing It and A Tramp Abroad.
There is also the passion for humanity and democracy which vi-
talizes A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; the virile
sympathy for the black man that is forever bubbling forth in
Huckleberry Finn and Puddrihead Wilson, and finally the Thack-
erayan recognition of human frailty which makes The Gilded Age
a worth-while book. Mark Twain in his youth may have despised
I9I7-] THE TRAGEDY OF MARK TWAIN 735
theology and philosophy, but only externally. He was annoyed
by them. The Westerner could live nicely without Michelangelo
and the opera, but God is everywhere and will not be thrust aside.
There is no broader truth than the reality of The Hound of
Heaven.
America grew older and so did Samuel Clemens. He en-
tered into communion with such intrinsically spiritual minds as
William Dean Howells and Longfellow. The problems of his
country confronted him: those problems incident to a ceaselessly
shifting and congealing civilization. Private life, too, brought
its burdens. His wife and child died. Business enterprises failed;
the vanity of the passing show became evident and he felt, in-
cidentally, the hem of his Maker's garment. Theology did interest
him now, and that vitally. There could be no content in the bare,
vague doctrines of Protestantism and Calvinism, so he abandoned
them for a more or less commonplace mystic humanitarianism.
What a startling confession, of spiritual unrest is Joan of Arc!
The arcana of existence plucked at him for solution. No man with
so profound a belief in and hunger for the truth could rest peace-
fully in compromise. He was driven by the very integrity of his
spirit to seek an answer.
He turned to Christian Science. His explosion of that fallacy
and his detection of its basis for success in human credulity are
well known. However, I do not believe that Catholics recognize suf-
ficiently the tragedy latent in this discovery. It is painfully evident
that Mark Twain did look for help and guidance in the teach-
ings of Mrs. Eddy. He would not have been so breathlessly con-
cerned with them otherwise, nor have taken the trouble to be so
thorough and bitter in his expose. Nothing illustrates better the
wholesome honesty of the man or his resolve to find the truth.
Perhaps he hoped vaguely in spiritism and rationalism. But their
manifest trickery could not halt the onrush of his eyes.
Thus, with his foot in the grave, he must have found what
seemed the meaning of life. As if he were the king's jester, borne
for the last time into audience, he read his final joke, surely the
most terrible testament ever written. He had lived and laughed
and seen. No man had entertained more enthusiastic visions of the
future of science, industry and education. He hated Walter Scott
and the romantic past. Innocents Abroad despises the culture of
Italy, but admires its roads. There could not even be a compari-
son between modern and mediaeval eras for him, because the former
736 THE TRAGEDY OF MARK TWAIN [Mar.,
is so incalculably superior. And this latter-day American turns to
the world and civilization, terming existence an ugly dream, a
thing too frightfully grewsome to be true, the bloodiest of con-
ceivable nightmares. The Mysterious Stranger is not a challenge
of God's reality, but rather a defiant presentation of the problem
of evil, the old, old mystery which we shall never understand, and
under the burden of which even the Saviour sweat blood in Geth-
semane. Surely this is tragedy that a man should live for three-
score years and ten in a crowded world, and then, suddenly, find
himself alone. For Mark Twain there was no Pilot to meet,
friendly and face to face, but instead the grinning skeleton of the
unknown. I think if there ever was a vivid slashing of hypotheses,
this crumbling of the Spencerian and Positivist solace in the mind
of Samuel Clemens is one. He drank the cup to the dregs and
found all the bitterness of the draught of Nothing.
His life presents a vital question to Catholic thinkers. Dare
we assert that if Mark Twain had found the Faith, The Mysterious
Stranger would never have been written? In the strength of our
belief we do venture it. The book has no constructive philosophy,
but glories in its destructive prowess. Every theory which modern
thought has advanced, in lieu of ecclesiastical Christianity, broke
down before the shafts of this titanic soul. He plumbed them all
and came up distraught and weak. Why did he never find
Catholicism ? I believe the answer is broad. Why does the modern
American pass by the Church? Mark Twain is the national type,
restless in its groping for spiritual light, and stern in its demolition
of shams. He did not discover Catholicism because it dwelt
not with him. It was not made in factories or by corporations;
it recognized no Eden prior to the grave. In fact the Church was
not a new-born giant, but an old, old woman too simple and too
serenely beautiful for flattery. In America she had no pulpits of
recognized eminence. The Catholics were immigrants, semi-
illiterate and rude. The Church did not appear in decollete with
diamonds in her hair.
Moreover, the Protestant mind was taught to place its con-
fidence in doctrine alone, doctrine without life : faith without works.
Hence men have traced the similarity of the Saviour's words to
those of Buddha and Tolstoy. With the essential humanitarian
dictates of Catholicism Mark Twain and America were in accord.
But they failed to recognize that supernatural life of faith and good
works which is bounded not by dogma alone, but which elevates
I9I7-] THE TRAGEDY OF MARK TWAIN 737
the soul and all the powers of the soul to the very life of God.
Protestants often look upon the dogmatic teaching, the theological
discussions of the Catholic Church as useless, because they have
grown to see the emptiness of their own " faith without good
works." They do not see of What these dogmas are the safeguard;
nor understand that dogmas are the sentinels, the eternal defence
of that which is the reason of them all — The Grail. The Church
lives because it is fed on the Body and Blood of God. The Mark
Twains of our day have starved.
Is there further need of delineating the utter insufficiency of
faith alone? We live amid burdens and darkness. Unless there
be preserved between us and heaven the light of continuous inter-
course we shall stumble. The world is at the parting of the ways.
On the one side lies the caustic desert of The Mysteries Stranger,
and on the other the land of the Last Supper. Protestantism will
die, Christian Science and Positivism will die. The credulity of
man is after all limited. But there are millions who will turn their
faces to the black void of skepticism and never find the Grail. They
will behold the light wavering through the casements of the King
and turn their backs upon it with a sad smile. Generations have
fought the Church on lilliputian grounds; can we expect that, in
the final Brobdingnagian conflict, their children will surrender
quietly ?
The need of an active Catholic literary force is therefore very
evident. We must be prep'ared to take our places upon the high-
ways and to shout the truth. Seclusion in the catacombs is not
for us. In the mighty spiritual upheaval which has dawned, the
powers of evil must be met upon the market place. This tragedy
of Mark Twain, the representative American, is a lasting spectre
at our banquet halls. We must make room for him, and this will
not be achieved by clearing away the dialectical refuse he himself
has discarded, but by flinging wide the doors of the Tabernacle
and displaying the essential treasures of Catholicism. A new
philosophy must arise out of the adjustment of the deathless truths
to urgent social and cultural needs. There must be a reconstruc-
tion of the battle lines, a new machinery of war, new armies and
new kings to meet the onrush of groping souls.
VOL. civ. — 47
THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE.
BY JOHN E. WICKHAM.
N February, 1897, in the little chapel of West Point
on the Hudson, the New York Apostolate gave its
first mission. It had just been instituted by the Most
Rev. M. A. Corrigan, with the earnest cooperation
of his Vicar- General, the present Cardinal Archbishop
of New York. This year the Apostolate is offering His Eminence
the following resume of its labors during the twenty years' service :
Number of missions to Catholics, 506; number of missions to Non-
Catholics, 236; number of converts, 4,442 ; number of adult Catho-
lics prepared for First Communion and confirmation, 12,000; num-
ber of confessions, 727,657.
The institution of the Apostolate Missionary Band is an
answer to the ageless voice of Christ : " Go ye into the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature." This command, frank and
unquestionably absolute, has been the dynamic principle that has
vitalized the far-flung energies of the nineteen Christian centuries.
The Church caught up that word of the Master, treasuring it in
her heart, realizing instantly that her God-given powers were, not
to be held as a static force, but were to be translated into action.
Truth was not to be enshrined on some hidden altar in silent sanc-
tuary: it needed to be spread among the sons of men. In tire-
less quest of new souls receptive to the message, the Church has
ever pushed her frontiers onward, sublimely indifferent to any op-
position, infinitely patient in persecution. She has never reasoned
why, never temporized, never compromised, never rendered to Caesar
what belonged to God. She was bade to preach the Gospel; she
has preached it; and to the consummation of the world will the
roads lead out from Rome.
The New York archdiocese has been constant in extending the
Kingdom of Christ. Situated at the gateway of the Western world,
she has had to meet unusual problems, all of them rapidly presented,
all of them significant and far-reaching. The nations of the earth
have gathered here as in one enormous market place, and New
York from the exigencies of circumstance has had to assume bur-
dens elsewhere unknown. She has mingled among the multiple
thousands, preached the Tidings in Pentecostal tongues, and has
1917.] THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE 739
striven to carry the truth even to the least among men. Profoundly
realizing her duty to the peoples, she has not been quiescent nor in
state of passivity; she has been cribbed and confined by no diffi-
culty of endeavor. New demands might arise; new institutions
to fulfill the need would be created. In January, 1897, Archbishop
Corrigan perceived that the moment had come for the founding of
an additional institution — a diocesan missionary band.
In the general preaching of the words of eternal life, the value
of a systematized series of sermons and instructions, extending over
a stated number of days — that is to say,- missions — has long been
recognized. It is needless to consider at length the genesis and devel-
opment of the mission movement ; it is sufficient to note that various
Popes during the last two centuries, Paul III., Benedict IV., Gregory
XVI., Pius IX., Leo XIII. , and Pius X. have dwelt on the mission's
usefulness in the sanctification of parishes. The Second Provincial
Council of Cincinnati in 1858, the Second Plenary Council of
Baltimore in 1866, and the Tenth Provincial Council of Baltimore
in 1869 urged parochial missions with strongest recommendations.
Religious institutes, with unbounded enthusiasm, consecrated their
best gifts to the missionary bands, and the periodic visitation of the
missionaries became an event of extreme influence in the spiritual
life of the parishes. The worth of the mission idea had been fully
appreciated- by the ecclesiastical authorities of the New York
archdiocese. But an exceedingly important question arose in pas-
toral economics — how could the far-out country enjoy the special
benefits of a mission? New York had parishes, and not a few,
on the confines, with flocks scattered over long reaches of territory,
under the watch of steadfast shepherds. Apostolically zealous, the
pastors were devoting their all, body, brain and heart, to the la-
bors of arduous ministry, keeping the faith burning with clearest
glow. But financial discouragement is not an infrequent com-
panion of the priest in the distant districts; barely do his revenues
cover the ordinary wants. He knows the utility of a mission, but
he remembers the poverty of his material resources, and he under-
stands that every campaign, moral as well as military, must possess
monetary sinews of war. Yearn though he may for special services,
he must put to himself the practical question — how can the mission
come to him? Resolutely the archdiocese answered the question
for him. She would create a definite institution, a mission band,
that would bring the Tidings to the poorer parishes and be willing
auxiliaries to their pastors.
740 THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE [Mar.,
This would have been a sufficient cause for the foundation of
a missionary band. But another reason, and a greater, in the
establishment of a special corps of missionaries lay in the needs
of the sheep outside the fold. The immense Non-Catholic body,
notwithstanding bigotry latent or patent, has a right to a knowledge
of the entire Gospel content. The ones beyond the Pale may have
no desire for any hearing of the Church's claims; they may, in-
deed, resent their presentation. Even so; the Church from the
wording of her charter, has a solemn obligation to present them.
And while the archdiocese had been, with goodly effect, offering
opportunity to the Non-Catholic for an understanding of the total
doctrine, still it was believed that even greater results would accrue
from an organized direct effort. This effort could be made by a
diocesan mission association.
To the student of comparative religions, no more interesting
phenomenon can be offered than the viewpoint of innumerable Non-
Catholics passing judgment on the Catholic Church. Intelligent and
educated in other things, they sometimes hold the strangest opinions
on men and matters Catholic. They feel that the Church is a
stern, rigid, intolerant agency, that should be suspected and dis-
trusted by all men of good will. She is an organization as wonder-
fully logical as an adding-machine ; the last word in ecclesiastical
efficiency ; the treasure-house of arts and sciences ; the elaborator of
a splendid ritual; the possessor of mystic charm in devotions.
They readily admire the Church's unity of belief, universality
of extension and perpetuity of life; yet, they contend, are not these
reasons to fear the Church ? She may have resiliency and respond
quickly after persecution; she may have done marvelously well
in educating the masses, and in all social service endeavor : still, is
not this an evidence of a strength that could be used unwisely ? Has
the Catholic Church in her missions at home and abroad truly
preached the religion of the whole man, or has she been chiefly con-
cerned with outward forms? Granted that the laity have an un-
swerving loyalty to their priests, rendering ready obedience to their
commanding officers — is this to be admired or questioned? The
Catholic Church is the institution that evolved the Inquisition, that
condemned Galileo, that produced the Iron Virgin of Nuremburg,
that massacred the Huguenots : if this be the fruit of the tree, can
the tree be good ? There may be, perhaps, some truth in the Catholic
Church, but it is so confined in formularies, so hampered by useless
technicalities and theological abstractions, that it is a sickly plant suf-
1917-] THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE 741
fering a pitiable life. The Non-Catholic may reecho Harnack in
What is Christianity, who calls the Catholic Church " the Church
of law, of world dominion, and at the same time the Church in
which a highly individual, delicate, sublimated sense of sin and
grace is brought to play. Its religion is a vast fabric embracing
the Gospels and holy water, the priesthood of all believers and the
Pope on his throne, Christ the Redeemer and St. Ann."
This is not all. Very often the Non-Catholic fears the Church
as the enemy of his soul's peace. He does not wish to come within
the mesmeric influence of Catholicism. He does not wish his heart
to be rifled of its pearl of great price — love for the Master. He
does not wish any contact with an institution that would petrify
his personal trust in Christ, his Saviour. He will brook no in-
terference between his conscience and his Maker. If he be so un-
happy as to sin, he will go to his God directly and not through a
fallible human medium. And for his Bible, willingly would he
shed his last drop of blood. He has searched the Scriptures, and
they have testified to the infinite depth of God's love for man-
kind. Will he permit the Catholic Church to make void his faith
in the Holy Writ that has sustained him all his years? After all,
there is a pathos in the figure of some grim Covenanter standing
with Bible under arm, determined like St. Paul that neither
death nor life, nor angel, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature shall be able to separate him from the love of God which
is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Has the Non-Catholic any excusing reason for his incorrect
beliefs? Is it not, rather, a sign of malicious intent, that in an age
of enlightenment, with history an open page and libraries omni-
present, a serious-minded man will so judge a society of nineteen
hundred years' duration ? Since the City of God, seated on a moun-
tain, is so glorious in beauty of holiness and truth, do they not sin
grievously that fail to appreciate her? Can prejudice be anything
else than bad faith, and hostility to His Church anything else than
positive hatred of Christ?
Such a conclusion does not follow necessarily. In the first
place, we must not forget that no Non-Catholic of today is re-
sponsible for the Reformation. Much as we abhor the heresiarchs
that robbed Germany and England of the Faith once committed to
the saints, much as we contemn their manifest motives in defection,
we cannot bring the same letter .of indictment against the spiritual
742 THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE [Mar.,
children of these heresiarchs. The Diet of Worms convened in
1521, and the Act of English Royal Supremacy was passed in
1534. Three hundred and fifty years, it has been pointed out, is
not an inconsiderable time in the history of a religious body in
which to settle down, crystallize into shape, and form its own
traditions. We must consider that history has been written to place
in high relief the noble qualities of the Reformers, and there is no'
mentioning of their feet of clay. Myriad books — and they have
had myriad readers — have dwelt on the emancipating influence of
the victorious revolt. Deliberate falsification has held no terrors
for some chroniclers; other writers, not having access to trust-
worthy sources, have unconsciously contributed to the suppression
of truth. We shall bear in mind that it is only since the later years
of the last century that archives have yielded the rich ores of
original documents. The real history of the Reformation is now
being written, and the versions that once passed as genuine coin
of the realm are vanishing from circulation. But these highly
colored versions have influenced twenty generations, and it is not
altogether surprising that in very many Non-Catholic minds there
has resulted a total destruction of right religious perspective.
It is easy to perceive that English literature of the last cen-
tury has subtly poisoned the wells. The writers that contributed to
the forming of thought have been, in the main, Non-Catholic, and
accordingly it is not to be expected that they could invariably ap-
preciate the motives underlying Catholic action. Thackeray, prince
of the nineteenth century novelists, did not grasp, perhaps, the in-
tentions of the Church ; and we have always regretted that Dickens
wrote his Child's History of England. Sir Walter Scott, genius of
the North, loved the picturesqueness of mediaeval Christianity, and
the externals of the Church were, to him, absorbingly attractive ; but
the breathing soul of Middle Age Catholicism he did not truly
understand. Tennyson was able to translate the Arthurian legend
into classic lines; he caught the spirit of much that was Catholic;
but the great Victorian was always a Protestant. It may be diffi-
cult to classify the tempestuous Byron's real estimate of the Church ;
but no one can give Catholic knighthood to Macaulay, despite his
New Zealander on London Bridge. No one will assert that Carlyle
the Rugged was an ardent lover of the Catholic Church ; nor will
the writer of The Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic be accused
of undue affection for the ancient Church. As every reader of
The Bible in Spain is aware, George Borrow cordially disliked
I9I7-] THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE 743
Catholicism; and Kingsley has surely produced impressions that
have been enduring. " Matthew Arnold," declares Ayscough in a
recent book, " disliked Catholicism as much as a brilliant man
could," and he compared Ruskin's attitude to that of an old lady,
who had taken Protestantism with her to Italy in her trunk, and
brought it back a good deal creased, distinctly old-fashioned, smel-
ling of camphor, and odd to wear, but by no means discarded.
"John Stuart Mill," continues the essayist, "had a number of hardish
ideas in his capacious intellectual stomach, and a good many of
them his successors have spat up again as undigested as ever, but
one of them was not that Christendom was a better idea than
Europe, and that with the Pope at the head of it a good many things
had been better managed."
After being nourished on the food that has been presented by
the nineteenth century writers, not to mention the authors of pre-
ceding centuries, a concrete, consistent spirit of Protestant opposi-
tion has waxed strong ; not always aggressive, but still strong. We
might call it a bent, a trend, a temper. And it is this temper, this
normal, and, in view of antecedent condition, not unnatural Prot-
estant opinion that the New York Apostolate has had to confront.
In what manner has the presentation of doctrine been made? In
general, there might have been two ways : the controversial and the
explanatory. The Apostolate chose the latter. Controversy has
its place in forensics, but the founders of the diocesan missionary
band thought that the more efficacious method in offering truth
lay in exposition. The temptation to assail and overcome the
enemy by keen dialectics is at times well-nigh irresistible. When
a Catholic remembers how his Church has been scourged, crowned
with thorns, and nailed to Calvary, how she has been slandered and
villified in every kingdom and republic, when he personally may be
under social, civic, or financial disability because of his faith, it
takes master self-control to refrain from bitterness and rancor.
But he does not forget that sarcasm is often a fatal gift, that
rapier flashes of irony not unseldom inflame ; that harshness almost
inevitably repels. The New York Apostolate believes with Father
Maturin : " If a man is vanquished by the dialectical skill of his
opponent or by the stronger array of facts and arguments which
he is able to bring forward on his side, he is not in a very recep-
tive state of mind, but is rather looking about for other arguments
and weapons of attack and defence, than laying his mind open to
the force of the arguments by which he has been silenced." Clearly,
744 THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE [Mar.,
convincingly, and uncompromisingly, the doctrine of Christ can be
presented without accompaniment of unkindly phraseology. In
1906, Pius X. declared that he was pleased that the Apostolate
missionaries showed no bitterness in their preaching, and that their
only purpose was a true and complete exposition of Catholic doc-
trine. This method, in his judgment, much more easily opened the
door of the true Faith to Non-Catholics. The Holy Father, on
another occasion, made the striking statement that we cannot build
up the Church on the ruins of charity.
The metamorphosis of judgment in the average Non-Catholic,
when he passes the church's threshold to attend the mission service
is amazing. The extreme shock is in the discovery that so much
that is held dear by him is regarded as even more precious by
Catholics. Instead of the Bible being spurned, it is reverenced as
the greatest Book in the world, accepted in its integrity as inspired
and infallible. The Church permits no pseudo-scientist to question
or discredit any fact or pronouncement on the sacred pages; the
Old Testament and the New are not a collection of folklore, legends,
and myths, but the actual Word of the Living God. When the
Non-Catholic listens to the reverent repeating of the Lord's Prayer
by the vast congregation, when he beholds the look of awe in the
eyes of little children at the mention of the Redeemer's Name,
when he can almost touch the heart-deep affection; that strong men
fling about their Crucified King, when he reads the sublime, stead-
fast faith in God's promise written on the brow of matron and
maiden, he feels, in very truth, that he is on holy ground. Where
is that mental and moral slavery, of which he once accused the
Catholic? Here is the freedom of the sons of God! Where is
that exiling of Christ, that was the burden of his literature and
history? Here Christ apparently has come unto His own and His
own have received Him! Bewildered, he waits for the doctrines,
and as they unfold, tenet by tenet, he is stupefied by the message.
Personal love of Christ is sounding in every teaching — the per-
sonal love of Christ in the confessional, the personal love of Christ
in the holy anointing, the personal love of Christ in the praying
for the dead. That we may be united in Christ is the word that
echoes in every pulpit utterance. He is told that the bread and
wine in the Mass become the Body and Blood of Christ, and that
the devout Christian makes the Holy Communion his daily food.
He learns that the Mass, once misunderstood and ridiculed by him
as mere superstition, is the application of the Sacrifice of Calvary
1917.] THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATS 745
to the souls of the living and the dead. He gathers that the
Church's unremitting endeavor is to bring humanity nearer to the
knowledge, the love, and the service of their Creator. He sees that
the Church never deserts the sinner no matter how far he strays,
that she is searching always for the sheep that are lost. Listening,
the Non-Catholic perceives how many of the unconscious hopes
and aspirations of his lifetime are fulfilled in the Church's prayers.
And instead of meeting complexity and confusion, he finds wonder-
ful clearness. He realizes the solace of the doctrine of the Com-
munion of Saints. He grasps the reasonableness of reverencing
the Mother of his Saviour, and learns to realize that in honoring
her, he is honoring Him. He catches the meaning of altar and
crucifix and statue. Keenly he appreciates how little he knew the
Church in his former judging of her teaching. He has been as
one who stands in some cathedral close trying to understand the
beauty of the stained glass. From without the mullioned window
seems meaningless leaded lines, opaque vitreous matter, and whim-
sical pattern. It is only on glimpsing the window from within that
one can comprehend the mellow glory of the masterpiece, the rich
crimsons and dark purples and azure blue and gold blending into a
scene of rare magnificence.
In this manner have the opinions of the Non-Catholic under-
gone complete revision. If these be the doctrines of the Catholic
Church, he muses, then membership in her communion is not an act
of dishonor to the Lord : it may, in fact, be pleasing to Him. And
he who came into the church with hesitation, elects to remain for
the second part of the service, the answering of questions asked
by earnest seekers for truth. He notes that the responses to in-
quiries are couched in no antagonistic sentence, but in a calm and
friendly manner. Fairly is the objection offered, fairly is it
answered. Truth is desired, truth is given. And as he listens to
the answering of question after question, there may be borne in
on him this conclusion — how unfair the enemies of the Church
have been in every nation. Why has not the foe given the Catholic
Church a fair field? They have leveled charges against her, and
then condemned her without benefit of advocate or trial by jury.
The Non-Catholic sees now that her standards have made her
anathema on earth, but he is beginning to see as well that if her
standards were different, God would pronounce her anathema in
eternity. Why does not the world, at least, give her credit for
right intention? Paradoxical as it is, he who becomes foremost
746 THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE [Mar.,
in perceiving the injustice of the attack on the Spouse of Christ, so
often is the one that as former adversary, in all sincerity, employed
the very weapons whose use he now decries.
What has been the success of the expository method in the
delivery of truth? Excellent, from every viewpoint. During the
twenty years of Apostolate preaching, four thousand four hundred
and forty-two converts have been received into the Fold by the
missionary Fathers. This number is large, and is ample justifica-
tion for the establishment of this diocesan institution. Four thou-
sand four hundred and forty-two are offering praise and adoration
to God in God's own religion. Can it not be pleasing to Christ
that this new flock of thousands are now in true creed, believing
all the doctrine that He brought to the earth? Still, while this
number of converts is large, it is not the complete record; work
for souls has no satisfactory statistics. The converts received on
the immediate occasion of a mission may be many; the number
of baptisms is not, however, an index of a mission's success. As
experienced priests know, the grace of conversion is not always
synchronous with the presentation of doctrine and the Non-
Catholic's admiration of it. Though the Non-Catholic may admire
the devotions and beliefs of the Church, this may not destroy equal
or greater admiration for that which he has long cherished; it is
perfectly possible to have a sympathetic appreciation of the Church,
without actual desire to join her membership. When the Non-
Catholic is absolutely certain that the Catholic Church is the sole
Church of Jesus Christ and as a necessary corollary that he must
join her ranks, then and not till then should he become a Catholic.
This conviction may not, and very often does not, come at once
to every Non-Catholic hearer. Tens of thousands have followed
the Apostolate's presentation of Catholic teaching during the past
twenty years, but they are not Catholics. Has it been labor lost
and effort wasted. Not indeed if we accept the Pauline principle,
" I have planted, Apollo watered, God gave the increase." Last
year in America, forty thousand Non-Catholics entered the bosom
of the Church. How many of them, I wonder, finally came after
long years of prayer and consideration following an initial hearing
of doctrine? Probably more than one conversion grew from the
seed sown by some forgotten preacher, who planted better than he
knew. Often God's grace acts slowly, though it acts exceeding
sure.
It is sometimes not realized by us who have been Catholics,
I9I7-] THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE 747
that entrance into the Church is epoch-making in the life of a con-
vert. His soul has rested content in the religion of his fathers,
therein he has found joy and peace; there has been no doubt or
difficulty to cloud his heaven. Suddenly arises the thought that
there may be a flaw in the title of his father's creed. Conscientious
as he is, he knows that he is bound to investigate, and investigation
of one's birthright is a harrowing experience. To acknowledge the
possibility that during all your years you have been in error, in
good faith, we shall admit, but still in error, makes the heart re-
coil. But the relentless investigation must proceed. Step by step,
he goes "o'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent," searching for
truth. As the light brightens, the Great Decision becomes clear
and distinct and compelling. He must leave the religion of his
family, he must break the intimate associations of a lifetime, he
must see old friendships topple like a house of cards. He may be
forced to face social ostracism, and be reduced to direst poverty.
He will be misunderstood by those who should not question his
sincerity. It will be as a stranger in a strange land that he will
enter the Catholic Church. He knows none of the landmarks; he
has none of the memories of religious experiences that have sus-
tained the drooping spirits of many a Catholic, he knows not the
marvelous compensation he will receive for the sacrifice of -olden
associations. His mind cannot yet conceive the worth of the
friendships he will gain, to replace the early friendships that have
failed. Great will be the riches of his baptismal gifts, but as yet
he is looking at them through a glass darkly. Truly the grace
of God' must be abundant to carry the soul through the cataclysmic
period that divides Non-Catholicism and entrance into the Church.
Thus far we have spoken of the two- fold work of the Apos-
tolate : the giving of missions to Catholics in poorer places, and the
presentation of Catholic truth to Non-Catholics. In addition to
this, the Mission Ban has preached Catholic missions in the larger
parishes of the archdiocese. Both in the metropolis and in the
cities and towns outside New York, the exercises have been given.
In fact, it is through the generosity of the larger parishes that the
material means for the fulfillment of the primary purposes are ob-
tained. The Apostolate has been an exponent of concerted diocesan
effort — the more populous community could assist the least finan-
cially favored, and the Catholic could offer a share of his religious
knowledge to the Non-Catholic.
It may be pertinent to inquire now — in view of the fact that
748 THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE [Mar,
the Church places such store on parochial missions among the
faithful — what is the general schema of these mission exercises?
Is the main ambition of a mission for Catholics the reclaiming of
only the most abandoned members of the flock, or do the saintly
ones likewise come within its scope?
There is no need here of delineating the materialistic tendencies
of our highly organized civilization; it is an oft-told tale. The
swirling mass of men that compose communities, no matter what
their avocation, have nerves stretched to the last degree of re-
sistance. In the titanic struggle for existence some there are that
lose their sense of proportion in spiritual values. Sacred ideals to
them seem discouragingly inadequate and evanescent in the feverish
rush of the world that has gone insane. The standards of Things
as They Are may deceive even the elect. Under strain and stress,
bravest hearts can weaken and finest minds grow coarse. The
Catholic Church is watching the struggle, and amid all the shout-
ing and tumult of the arena she hurls her warning, " What does
it profit? " and her own listen and gather round. In no uncertain
tone she bids them remember that the only enduring part of
them is their soul; that God will summon it at some unforeseen
hour; and woe to the man weighed in the balance and found want-
ing. The greatest evil in existence, she proclaims, is sin, and no
wealth or social prestige or wit can blot out its iniquity. And she
urges that if there be any man in any sin, let him repent and be
renewed in the Lord. The Church holds up before the multitude
the Image of Christ and Him Crucified, Who came to call sinners
to repentance. She impresses on man a realization of his dignity
and worth, and the price paid for his redemption. She relates the
wondrous love that tabernacles Christ on the altar that He may
be Food for our sustenance. She bids her children to be of
strong courage, to fight the good fight, and to keep the Faith even
unto death.
Should the hortatory tone prevail throughout the series of dis-
courses ? Are the moral themes solely to be considered, is the ap-
peal to be made only to the will ? Unquestionably, no. The mission
has the duty of enlightening the intellect with the strongest reasons
for belief. It is regrettable but true that more than a few Catholics,
having no reason for the faith that is in them, are being loosened
from a firm grasp of their religion. In this century of inquiry, it
is not enough that you believe; you must know why you believe.
Pitiless questioning is the portion of every man, be he priest or
I9I7-] THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE 749
laic; in the minds of the inquiring world no doctrine is sacrosanct —
the Divinity of Christ, the Rule of Faith, the Papacy, the Mother of
God, the authority of the Church, the indissolubility of marriage.
It cannot be taken for granted that all Catholics are grounded in the
firm foundations of religious knowledge. Theoretically they should
be; actually they are not. Early environment may account for
conditions; the wear of grooving monotony, possibly; poor appre-
ciation of one's unmerited privilege of Catholicism, perhaps.
Whatever may be the cause of the ignorance, it falls within the
province of the missionary to inform the intellect of his hearers
with determining argument of belief, with evident motives of credi-
bility. The dogmatic instruction on the fundamentals is, conse-
quently, of paramount importance in a mission. When the doc-
trines are spread open to his intelligence and he is cognizant of
their worth, when he perceives the lamentable loss entailed even in
the unconscious deprivation of such knowledge, there is little fear
that the Catholic will undervalue or misunderstand religious de-
mand on his personal loyalty. There was never a time in the
Church's history when the preaching of dogma was more vitally
necessary than it is today.
It should not be understood, however, that the parochial mis-
sion should be attended only by the ill-informed and the sinner,
that the saintly and the learned do not need its benefits. Somehow
original sin, in is effects, darkens the understanding of the scholar
as well as that of the unlettered; it weakens the will of all hu-
manity indiscriminately; and an inclination to evil is our common
heritage. A mission may be defined, in a very true sense, as a re-
telling to the people of the doctrine of Christ. There cannot be
any class in a parish too holy for the reception of His teaching,
nor any class too deeply educated to sit at the feet of Him Who
on a certain memorable day confounded the Doctors of the Law
with His wisdom. The mission is for all the people: it was for
all the people that Christ came. Through its ministry the good
will be raised to a higher perfection ; the learned increase in a bet-
ter understanding of Him, the Fount of Infinite Learning.
But although there may be some in the flock who have strayed
into the paths of unrighteous living, the greater part walk in the
way of the Lord; and in his preaching the missionary remembers
that in the annals of human kind there is far more sanctity than
sin. Though in his congregation be those whose sins are red as
scarlet, this class is far in the minority. The larger number are
750 THE NEW YORK APOSTOLATE [Mar.,
steadfastly standing by their faith, are generous "in prayer and
sacrifice, and are glad to have the opportunity to suffer for Christ.
Moreover, it is never forgotten that he who has sinned much, may
love much; and in every sermon, whether on salvation or death
or judgment, there is an undertone that speaks the mercy of Him
Who came not to destroy but to save. For only to the hypocrites
was Christ severe; to the sinner He was always kind. He knew
that it is a long and painful journey that the prodigal must travel
before he reaches the Father's house. As for the hypocrites, as a
rule they do not make a mission. The good come, and the luke-
warm and the publican, but the Pharisee remains away.
Has the parochial mission idea, as interpreted by the New
York Apostolate, won any measure of success ? In answering that
question, we must judge by the actual records. During the twenty
years almost every parish, both in city and country district, has
been visited. In some parishes four, five and six successive mis-
sions have been given. Many calls have been received from other
dioceses; comparatively few, however, could be accepted. Alto-
gether five hundred and six missions to Catholics have been
preached, and nearly three-quarters of a million of confessions have
been heard. Only the silent Lord knows of the peace — such as the
world could not give — that He gave to His souls in the mission
tribunals. It has been a varied procession that has passed through
the doors of the churches on those early mornings and late evenings
of twenty years. The rich and the lowly, the gentle and simple,
the scholar and the unlearned, the sinner and saint — all of them are
in that mighty host that came to the Master's teaching. Leaving all
things they followed Him trustfully, and He led them to the hills
of eternal peace.
The New York Apostolate, in presenting the report of twenty
years of labor, expresses its deep gratitude to His Eminence the
Cardinal who had so great a part in its foundation, and who has
from its very inception never ceased to be its earnest patron, in-
spirer and friend. The priests of the mission band appreciate the
debt that they owe to their brother-priests of the archdiocese who
themselves so effectively, in town and country, preaching the Word
of God, have encouraged and sustained the purposes of the Apos-
tolate. The Apostolate is beginning its third decade of service,
trusting that God Who deigned in the past to use its feeble ministry
in teaching His Truth, may continue His strength and blessing in
the years to come.
ST. PAUL AT WORK.
BY L. E. BELLANTI, S.J.
ITHIN living memory few have championed the his-
torical reputation of St. Luke so effectively as Sir
William Ramsay. In this self-imposed duty he has
had to run counter to many a preconceived opinion,
and critics did not fail to. let him know what they
thought. Of one book1 he tells us that it was reviewed by a dis-
tinguished foreign scholar, who after giving quite a fair resume
of the work — " he stated my position fairly, with a gentle sar-
casm indeed, but still with fairness " — disposed of Luke's title to
rank high in history, in one brief, concluding sentence : " If Luke
is a great historian what would the author of this book make of
Luke ii. 1-3? "2 Nothing more was needed. This Parthian shaft,
to the reviewer's mind, had vitally stricken the Evangelist's fair
fame. To this question at the time no answer was forthcoming,
but the latest verdict, due in no small measure to the researches of
Sir William Ramsay himself, has disposed of the challenge so con-
fidently flung by the critic a score of years ago, and the whole
question of the Census — typical of so many other objections — has
passed out of the region of speculation into that of definite his-
torical truth.
It is indeed pleasant to be able to record the mature judg-
ment of this great scholar that Luke's works are unsurpassable
in respect of their trustworthiness, and to find our previous as-
surance about the Third Gospel and the Acts confirmed by the
most searching results of archaeology and history.3 But though
it is only right that a historian's fame should primarily rest on his
trustworthiness, the other elements that go to make up his great-
ness should not be ignored, as his powers of discrimination and se-
lection, his insight and ready grasp of vital issues, his reproduc-
tive ability, photographic eye, gifts of sympathy, facility of ex-
pression and lucidity of style. Such a test applied to Luke's work
tends to enhance rather than to lower our esteem, especially where,
*St. Paul the Traveler. *The Census under Qiiirinius.
3 Unfortunately when Ramsay passes from the discussion of historical questions
to the interpretation of St. Paul's thought, he proves a less trustworthy guide.
752 y ST. PAUL AT WORK [Mar.,
as in the Acts, he is traversing ground untrodden by any of his
contemporaries. Indeed, one might long search the classics with-
out lighting on any passages comparable, for terseness and dis-
criminating insight, to the last thirty pages of the Acts, where,
taking Paul as his central figure, Luke succeeds in conveying to us
a vivid account of the Apostle's continuous journeys, of his mis-
sionary methods with both Jews and Gentiles, of his organization
of the infant churches, of his foundation of a local as well as a
traveling ministry, of his successes and failures as shown in the
fervor and occasional lapses of his converts, of his companions and
helpers, of his own sufferings and persecutions, and of the indomi-
table energy which by God's grace drew victory out of defeat and
conquered the Roman world to the sweet yoke of Christ.
Through the immensely compressed material of these chap-
ters,4 often supplemented and confirmed by such stray notices and
allusions as are found in the Epistles, we are enabled to form
what is surely a right estimate of the Apostle's work, and of the
force of various circumstances making for or against the end on
which his soul was set. Best of all, in them, we have a series of
vivid pictures portraying important and critical scenes with a sure-
ness of touch and a fidelity of detail that make Paul stand out
as no conventional and lay figure, but as an intensely living, ardent,
human personality.
" Non qids didt sed quid dicatur attetide " is the warning of
a Kempis, and it holds good even in the Apostle's case, for his
message and his doctrine are far greater than himself. Yet,
whether for good or evil, the warning goes unheeded in an age
of prying curiosities. To us the man's teaching is but a page torn
,out of a life-story which we demand in its completeness. We. want
the whole man, common clay as living flame. Newman and Ben-
son, we feel, are more to us today, after the revealing studies of
Wilfrid Ward and Father Martindale. This is the age of great
biographies, just because we have assimilated the truism that cir-
cumstances alter cases. In this then we would find some excuse
for a further attempt to fill in as objectively as possible the
colored environment of -St. Paul, by way of prelude to some con-
sideration of his inspired teachings. The more remote he is from
us in time and temper, the more help do we need that we may come
into sympathetic contact with that magnetic personality, so im-
perial in its range, so universal in its outlook, so fiercely obsessed
4 Acts xiii.-xxviii.
1917.] $T. PAUL AT WORK 753
by the Christ life. To know Paul — and yes, too, St. John — is to
open our lock-gates to the surge of vital Christianity.
Few of us can have left our boyhood behind us without ever
experiencing a flicker of that interest with which a campaign or
expedition is lighted up when every movement is followed on chart
with scale and compasses, recording every notable landmark and
stage of progress, and so giving us the illusion of living over
again the strenuous days of long departed heroes. We would not
be so daring as to suggest the advisability of such a reconstruction
of Paul's travels in the case of our readers, and in default of a
map of the Roman Empire and of an account of Paul's journeys —
which would obviously be out of place here — it will be assumed
that their knowledge of Asia Minor is something more than a
memory of boyhood's happy hunting grounds into which one ruth-
lessly pitchforked every name and nation that baulked closer defi-
nition. Briefly, Paul's activities between the spring of 47 A. D.,5
when the missionary call came to him at Antioch, and the spring
of 57 A. D., when he was arrested in Jerusalem, range over the
provinces of Southern Asia Minor and the countries fringing the
^Egean Sea. Distinct and apart from these is the long sea voyage to
Rome in chains, with which Luke's record of the Apostle's work
abruptly closes. The first of his three missionary journeys6 finds* its
term in the cities of South Galatia. The second and third journeys,
including an eighteen months' stay at Corinth and a two and half
years' stay at Ephesus, fill in the period between the late spring of 50
A. D., and the spring of 57 A. D., and mark the evangelization of
the ^gean cities, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, Corinth
and Ephesus. Two years of captivity in Csesarea are succeeded
by the historic voyage of Paul' and Luke, their shipwreck off
Malta, and final arrival in Rome early in 60 A. D. Here Paul
remained a prisoner for nearly two years, but gained his release
in the winter of 61-2 A. D., either as the result of a second trial
or more probably because his accusers had failed to appear and
lodge their charges against him within eighteen months of his ap-
peal to Caesar. Though the account of the Acts has already come
6 The dates here set down, though following a widely-accepted chronology, are
only approximate.
8 Paul's journeys are traditionally divided into these three stages. There is,
however, some force in Deissmann's contention that it would be less inaccurate to
speak of Paul's youth and manhood as one long expedition. Without quite sub-
scribing to this, one may admit that every portion of the Apostle's life which is
divided from a previous journey by his sojourn in some great city deserves separate
enumeration. Looking at the Three Missionary Journeys from this angle, Antioch
appears almost as arbitrary a starting-point as Corinth, Jerusalem or Ephesus.
VOL. CIV. — 48
754
ST. PAUL AT WORK [Mar.,
to an end, Paul's own words to the Romans and the testimony of
early tradition enable us to conclude with some assurance that on
his release he set out for Spain, possibly through Southern Gaul.
A visitation of his Eastern Churches may also be definitely inferred
from his own repeated promises to Timothy, Philemon, and to
the church of his predilection at Philippi, as also from various
allusions in his pastoral Epistles. The concluding words of his
Second Epistle to Timothy, probably his latest extant letter, are
packed with allusions which baffle almost as much as they stimulate
conjecture. Certainly they were written with the prospect of
martyrdom before his eyes, and this presentiment was soon ful-
filled. At Rome then, once more, no less than in his first trial,
the Lord came to his help and strengthened him. To Paul in-
deed— paul now no longer, but Christ living in him — after so
close a fellowship of suffering only the martyr's piercingly sweet
end was possible, that so in him the Christ life might find complete
fulfillment through his absorption into the Crucified.
However baldly summed up, Paul's activities in their very tire-
lessness seem to lift us into an atmosphere, so rarefied, so specially
constituted as to be unanalyzable, charismatic, wholly miraculous.
Yet so far as his journeys themselves are in question this view
may be summarily dismissed: It is the simple truth that, in the
Roman world of this time, traveling, whether for business or
pleasure, was performed with an ease and certainty unknown in
after centuries until the comparatively recent introduction of steam.
Again, we may not forget that Paul confined his movements to the
Roman Empire, and was guided in the formation of his plans by
the practical possibilities of communication and travel. The
startling amplitude of these possibilities was born of a combination
of causes, foremost among which is the complete unification of the
empire and the growing feeling of security throughout the Medi-
terranean world. War had come to be a question merely of
frontier raids; the idea of a hostile horde within the boundaries of
the empire was unthinkable. Such lesser evils as sporadic piracy
and brigandage in the border lands were firmly dealt with, if not
wholly exterminated. At this time, too, the general equipment of
the road systems had reached a high level of efficiency. Great
pains were taken to maintain and repair the highways and, when
necessary, to patrol them. The roads themselves were solidly con-
structed. Sign posts and mile stones directed the traveler. In the
Eastern provinces, at any rate, inns were numerous, though their
1917-] ST. PAUL AT WORK 755
reputation did not stand high either among Christians or pagans.
Indeed, their dubious character sheds a new light on the Apostle's
teaching about the duty of hospitality. Such charitable provision
for the body of the passing stranger might also mean salvation for
his soul. No Christian should be compelled to take refuge for the
night amid the evil and corrupt influences of inns which often
enough were little better than houses of ill- fame.7
Road maps, lists of halting places, tables giving the distances
both by sea and land were easily accessible to travelers at the great
centres, and would enable them to form and announce extensive
plans of travel with an easy confidence which brings the first cen-
tury amazingly close to the twentieth. The comparative advantages
and inconveniences of alternative routes had become matters of
common knowledge, so that merchant, missionary and tourist could
choose his route according as he desired the maximum of safety or
speed or economy. Roughly speaking, the four months, November
to February, marked the close season both on land and sea, and
movement in winter was avoided as much as possible. Otherwise the
facilities of travel, especially about the middle of the first century,
during which most of the Apostle's journeys took place, were one
of the greatest boons conferred by imperial organization. Nor
was this happy effect ignored by writers who lived about this time
and could appreciate material blessings. Thus " Philo8 and Pliny
in the first century, Appian, Plutarch, Epictetus and Aristides in
the second, are full of admiration of the imperial peace and its
fruits; the sea was covered with ships interchanging the products
of different regions of the earth, wealth was vastly increased, com-
fort and well-being improved, hill and valley covered with the
dwellings of an increasing population travel was free and
safe, all men could journey where they wished, the most remote
and lonely countries were opened up by roads and bridges: such
is the picture of the Roman world which these writers placed be-
fore us."
With the evident exception of the last journey from Csesarea
to Jerusalem, Paul and his companions seem to have traveled on
foot. Horses or vehicles were only available for officials and im-
perial couriers, or for such wealthy merchants and tourists as could
afford their hire at the chief stages on the route; the less affluent
majority passed from place to place on foot. Then as now there
7 Rom. xii. 3; i Tim. iii. 2; Tit. i. 8.
"Ramsay — Hastings. Diet, of Bible, s. v. Roads and Travel (in N. T.),
P. 396, b.
756 ST. PAUL AT WORK [Mar.,
was a tendency for people to crowd into the cities, and so in the
open season folk of every class and condition filled the high roads.
Great officials passing in state from one province to another, the
cortege of an embassy making for Rome or of a deputation on its
way to the nearest proconsul, would be no infrequent sight. Add
to these the familiar throng of hawkers, peddlers, commercial
travelers, and enterprising traders such as Lydia of Thyatira whom
we find dealing in turkey-red stuffs at Philippi9 or Aquila the tent-
maker from Pontus, who with his Roman wife Priscilla turns up
at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus and again in Rome within the space of
a few years. The ebb and flow of vast crowds accompanied the
seasons of great festival in Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy.
'Students journeyed from afar to the great university cities — as we
may style them — in search of knowledge and fame. Paul's own
quest of Rabbinical learning at the feet of Gamaliel, is a case in
point. Other influences besides commercial enterprise, religious en-
thusiasm and love of learning helped to swell and diversify the pro-
cession of life along the highway. The younger Pliny who is
only a generation apart from the days of the Apostles, is amazed
at the infatuation of so many tourists who for the mere love of
novelty wander far and wide, stupidly ignorant the while of the at-
tractions of their own native land.10 Men traveled for the sake
of their health, to seek an easier clime or just, as we say, for a
holiday and a change of air. Seneca's brother Gallic, the Pro-
consul of Achaia,11 took a voyage to Egypt to recover from the
effects of a fever contracted at Corinth, and beat a second retreat
to its hard, dry skies after his consulship when threatened with con-
sumption. All this serves to show that though Paul's journeys
entailed much hardship and no little personal danger — his own
words12 are hardly necessary to convince us of this — we must be
on our guard against that extreme view which would translate
even the physical side of his energies into the realms of the miracu-
lous. Even as a venture of faith his travels are easily paralleled,
if not definitely surpassed, by those of a Francis Xavier in the
East, or of a de Smedt in the West.
To the Syro-Phoenician woman Our Lord had said that he
was sent solely to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. A desire
to tread in his Master's footsteps, and a sense of his own special
aptitude for the work, led the Apostle of the Gentiles, also, to
begin, wherever he came, by announcing the Gospel to " the Jews in
'Acts xvi. 14. 10Eph. viii. 20. "Acts xviii. 12, "2 Cor. xi. 23-28.
1917.] ST. PAUL AT WORK 757
that city." Even in the days of Alexander, Jews were to be found
scattered over many lands. Subsequently, enforced colonization or
the growth of trading interests had led them so far afield that by
the middle of the first century a Jewish settlement might be found
in any big town on the littoral of the Mediterranean, the ^gean
and the Euxine, and in practically all the notable cities of Asia
Minor, Greece, Italy, Egypt, North Africa, Spain and Gaul. Pro-
fessor A. Deissmann — drawing on the exhaustive studies of E.
Schurer and J. Oehler — mentions one hundred and forty-three
towns outside Palestine in which, from literary or archaeological
evidence, we may infer that such colonies were to be found in or
about the times of St. Paul. Mention need only be made of
such remote spots as Csesarea and Volubilis in Mauretania, Adra
and Tortosa in Spain, Narbonne, Marseilles and Lyons in Gaul to
show how widespread was this diffusion.13 In Alexandria little
short of half the population were Jews, at Rome they may well
have numbered one hundred thousand. These communities, known
as Jews of the Western diaspora, while retaining their distinctive
creed and ritual, had in course of time grown more amenable
to outside influences. They had learned to mitigate that narrow
spirit of contemptuous exclusiveness so characteristic of their
compatriots in Judaea. To some of them, indeed, Hebrew was a
lost tongue, long superseded in daily life by a Greek which had
gradually become the language too of Sabbath ritual. Living, as
they were, amid the frankest idolatry, necessarily cut off from all
sight or sound of those sweeping revivals wrought in Palestine by
a succession of great teachers, the services of the Sabbath were
their main safeguard against a renunciation of their nationality,
with the lapse into paganism as its inevitable sequel. Even in
Palestine no hamlets so insignificant but had their synagogues or
" Batlanim," and the same, in its degree, seems to have held good
in the foreign settlements. Different from synagogues, but used
similarly for purposes of prayer and religious observances in com-
mon, were the oratories or " proseuchai." Such chapels were
situated less centrally, near the sea or by running water, so that
it was easy to adjourn for the ceremonial washings and lustrations.
A visit to a Jewish synagogue in our own day would recaJl
"Within the last year the publication of some fragmentary Aramaic papyri —
probably belonging to the third century before Christ — reveals to us the existence
of an organized Jewish community away in Upper Egypt, either at Abydos (?) or at
Tba (that is, conjecturally, Thebes or Edfu), or at both places; Cf. Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, November, 19 13.
758 ST. PAUL AT WORK [Mar.,
not a few of the features of ancient worship. Then as now the
sexes were divided off by a grating or trellis-worked partition. The
bulk of the congregation sat facing the " ark " or press, in which
lay the rolls of the law. Rulers of the synagogue, Rabbis, Pharisees
and influential men took " the chief seats " with their backs to the
Ark, full in the stare of eyes. Once they were in their places the
service began with benedictions of God, the Creator, the Lord of
Mercy and Giver of all good gifts. Next came the " Shema " or
Creed, so called from the opening words of Deuteronomy vi. 4,
" Hear, .O Israel," followed by the " Tephillah " or Intercession,
a long series of supplications, into which improvisations entered just
as the surge of devotion or the presence of local needs might
prompt. Instruction, however, formed the central part of the
service. A reading from the sacred books opened the way for
a homily (" darashah ") or for a simpler form of discourse
(" Meamar " — literally a conference or talk). Invariably in these
expositions great stress was laid on tradition, and the preacher won
favor and applause in proportion as he could concentrate a solid
phalanx of great teachers in support of his exegetical predilections.
The principle indeed was set down14 that everyone " is bound to
teach in the language of his teachers." That such discourses should
tend to become cramped by the swathing-bands of tradition, highly
technical, abstruse almost to fatuity, is no matter for surprise. Un-
fortunately, where Judaea led, the rest of the Jewish world blindly
followed, and soon enough we find the formalism of the law be-
setting the pulpit of every synagogue in the Roman Empire. Some
recollection of this may help us to understand how it was that the
Apostle made so deep an impression whenever he spoke in the syna-
gogue. The combined fervor and graciousness of his message
opened eyes and hearts to a new world of thought, duty, hope and
comfort. Again, the form of his teaching, though firmly founded
on the Old Testament, was different utterly from that meticulous
appeal to tradition on which the Rabbis relied. Like the living
waters of the Spirit his words seemed to come so fresh arid direct
from heaven, " that as in the case of his Divine Master," the peo-
ple were astonished at his doctrine. With some, astonishment led
to a reconsideration of the whole basis of religious belief, bearing
early fruit in the awakening of faith and love, but the sentiments
of the majority — once they had recovered from the first shock —
were not quite so unimpeachable. To souls less alive, to minds
"Eduj. i. 3,
1917.] ST. PAUL 'AT WORK 759
grown hardened and impervious save along certain well-worn
grooves, the Gospel Message seemed on second thoughts less pal-
atable than ever. It did not fit harmoniously into their cherished
conception of a Messiah Who coming forth from the East should
transform the holy city by His radiance, extend the bounds of
Palestine and gather in the exiles of the diaspora to share in His
triumphant reign of justice and glory. Here — how preposterously!
— this plausible stranger was showing up the chosen people of God
in a most unenviable light. Besides, it might well be asked, what
was to become of themselves under this new regime, of themselves
and their synagogues and feasts and fasts and chief seats and
cherished perquisites. The transition from deep disapproval to
active hostility is an easy one, easiest when, as in Paul's case, dis-
approval far from damping adds fuel to the flames. The crisis
in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch is typical .of an official
jealousy which burst out into furious contradictions and blas-
phemies, and more than once too into murderous assaults. Iconium,
Derbe, Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Corinth and Ephesus all
witnessed violent scenes. True, at Pisidian Antioch, Paul and
Barnabas had spoken out fearlessly and said : " It was necessary
that the message of God should be told to you first, but since
you reject it we turn to the Gentiles."15 Yet that this
implied little more than a local change of policy and a rupture with
the synagogue is clear from the fact that wherever Paul subse-
quently goes it is to the assemblies in the synagogue that he pri-
marily addresses himself. At Corinth, indeed, when the sacred
precincts of the synagogue could no longer secure him from in-
terruption and rude insult, he shook his clothes in the vehemence
of his protest, crying out, " Your blood be on your own heads.
My conscience is clear. From this time forward I shall go to the
Gentiles." So he left and went to the house of a certain Titus
Justus whose house was next door to the synagogue.18
This mention of a private house at which 'the neophytes and
catechumens might safely assemble for instruction and prayer, marks
a first step towards that fuller organization of his congregations
which is so striking a proof of the genius of the man and the di-
vinity of his mission. Wherever the cleavage between Jew and
Christian had become final, further attendance at the synagogue
was obviously impossible. No doubt in Jerusalem, under the tact-
ful rule of St. James, the early Christians had continued to attend
"Acts xiii. 46. "Acts xviii. 7, 8.
76o ST. PAUL AT WORK [Mar,
the Temple services, while meeting together of an evening for
instruction and for the breaking of Bread in the seclusion of some
quiet house.17 With Paul's congregation, under the heated con-
dition superinduced by his fearless outspokenness, such a com-
promise was out of the question, and so almost everywhere the
house of some fervent convert became the centre of Christian life.
In addition to the little church in Justus' house at Corinth, we
may recall the similar purpose to which Aquila and Priscilla gladly
made over their abode in Ephesus and later in Rome.18 The greetings
in the Apostle's letters acquaint us with the existence of churches
in the houses of Philemon19 and of Nymphe;20 and to this list
of early churches may "be added the lecture hall of Tyrannus at
Ephesus21 and the house at Troas where the evening service was
by Paul's eloquence prolonged till daybreak.22 Obviously in this
case it was instruction and familiar converse on holy things that
occupied the small hours of the night, but this can only be an ex-
aggerated instance of his regular practice elsewhere. Certainly,
he always attached the highest importance to careful instruction in
the main heads of Catholic doctrine. Where conversion from
Judaism, and still more from paganism, called for so much of re-
nunciation and self-sacrifice, only a thorough grasp of Christian
principles, vivified by lavish outpourings of the Spirit of God, and
nourished by frequent receptions of the Blessed Sacrament, could
have upheld and comforted these infant churches. Throughout
his letters Paul is continually harking to what he has taught
by word of mouth. As one would infer from even a cursory read-
ing of the Epistles, each of them is directed to answer the ques-
tions, supply the advice and meet the needs of some particular
congregation at a certain definite stage of its development. An
Epistle is therefore utterly alien in its scope — this statement needs
qualification in the unique case of the Epistle to the Romans —
from a dogmatic treatise. One or two important points of doctrine
may be discussed in view of the known circumstances of those to
whom the letter is addressed, otherwise their rule of faith receives
only indirect mention. Yet all the while there are hints and refer-
ences innumerable to the sum of beliefs on which the superstructure
of their spiritual life is founded. From the earliest times we come
across sentences and phrases in the Epistles which without such an
assumption would be wholly meaningless. A few instances drawn
"Acts ii. 46; v. 42. "i Cor. xvi. 19; Rom. xvi. 5. "Philem. i. 2.
20 Col. iv. 15. "Acts xix. 9. "Acts xx. 7-11.
1917.] ST. PAUL AT WORK 761
from the first Epistle to the Thessalonians (accepted by many as
his earliest extant letter) may further confirm this fact, and inci-
dentally serve to show how it was on oral instruction, far more
than on his written word, that the Apostle relied. Some knowledge
of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is presupposed by the state-
ment that " our Gospel was delivered to you not in word alone
but with power and in the Holy Ghost."23 The reference to "Jesus
His Son, from heaven, Whom He hath raised from the dead, Who
rescueth us from the wrath to come/'24 undoubtedly points to
fuller teachings on the Divinity of Christ, on His Incarnation,
Death and Resurrection and on the Redemptive value of the sacri-
fice of God made man. (Nothing indeed could be more wide of
the mark than to take such pregnant sentences as comprising with
masterly terseness the entire content of Paul's instructions to the
Thessalonians on the mysteries of Christ's life.) Hear him again
expressly reminding them how "yearning over you like a nurse
cherishing her children we were minded to share with you not only
the Gospel of God but also our own lives,"25 and how "when
your ears received God's message from us, you welcomed, not the
word of men, but, as it truly is, the word of God."26 The sin of
the Jews in rejecting Our Lord,27 the supernatural life of sancti-
fying grace,28 salvation through Christ and the heritage of Glory,29
the Last Judgment and the Resurrection of the body,30 the ruin of
those who run counter to God's will,31 the union of all the churches
in Christ,32 briefly, almost all the fundamental points of Christian
belief are either explicitly mentioned by the Apostle or naturally
inferred from a few chapters of one of his briefest and earliest
letters.
As the number of churches grew and his missionary work
developed, this task of instruction fell very heavily on the Apostle.
He has, however, assimilated the maxim of imperial rule fc divide
et imp era," and so as need arises we see further manifestations of
his organizing genius; more extensive duties are assigned to his
fellow- workers, greater powers are conferred upon them, tests of
fitness are rigidly exacted, female piety too and devotion are di-
rected to the furtherance of the great work. Yet division does not
spell decentralization. To the end Paul is the dominant personality,
the intimate friend and father of all.
•
28 1 Thess. i. 5. 34i Thess. i. 10. "i Thess. ii. 8. "i Thess. ii. 13.
"i Thess. ii. 15. 28i Thess. iv. 7, 8. Mi Thess. v. 9, 10. *°i Thess. iv. 14.
ui Thess. ii. 15. Mi Thess. ii. 13, 14.
THE WEIRD GILLY.
(A MEDIAEVAL IRISH PHANTASY.)
BY SHANE LESLIE.
PON a time, and a long time gone, when there were
five kingdoms in Ireland, it chanced that O'Donnell
held festival at Ballyshannon with the fine gentlemen
of Donegal. They were gathered from early dawn
in the house he had built of sliced yew trees and
thatched with gulls' wings, and they feasted upon new of all meats
and old of all liquors. They lifted high the cups their fathers had
dug out of the graves of the sea kings, and drank of the wine that
O'Donnell fetched from Spain. In the midst of the table stood
the Joyless Jug, in which the patron Saint of the Clan had been
used to carry water aforetime. Like the hundred wells he had
blessed for them it never ran dry.
The company looked through the lime-smeared arches of the
hall into O'Donnell's apple garden, and perceived a strange Gilly
pricking the unripe fruit with the point of his sword. O'Donnell
sent a Saxon slave to bring him into the house. He carried a man-
tle on his shoulders that would cover a mare in foal and a patched
hose upon his long swinging shanks. A naked sword trundled at
his heel-tip, and he carried three javelins of charred hollywood.
The puddle-water splashed out of his deer-skin brogues, while his
ear tips peeped through the hood of his mantle. He gave astonish-
ment to them all, and no wonder, for wizard or artist was unknown
to them in those times.
" God save you, gentles, and ripen your apples," quoth the
Gilly, as he snapped his lips with the sourness of the fruit he had
tasted.
"And who and where from and whither art thou?" asked
O'Donnell.
" My habits take me to Islay in Scotland one day, to the Island
of Man the next, and to Rathlin off Ireland another, for a ranting
rambling rover I am, and I show feats of artistry to the people of
the Western world."
" What is thy name and thy clan? " asked O'Donnell.
1917.] THE WEIRD GILLY 763
" I am the Gilly of the Gael."
" Indeed," said O'Donnell, " then you may sit where you drink
and drink where you sit."
" Yea and nay to you," said the Gilly, " I will sit or I will not,
as it is pleasing to you, but I will drink as it pleases myself. First
let me hear music to play the ache out of my legs and the water
out of my shoes."
Now O'Donnell's harpers were the pride and power of his
entertainment, and he bade them play on their live harps. The
Gilly strode this way and that while they were playing, and when
he had listened through his hood awhile he said : " I never heard
such minstrelsy, since I listened to the musicians who tinkle iron
with their sledge hammers on the ground-story of the nethermost
hell!"
There was consternation among the company who had little
delicacy of ear themselves, and praised O'Donnell's music whether
they heard it or not. Then O'Donnell bade the stranger play for
himself. The Gilly picked up a harp and shook the last melody
out of it, and played to the gentlemen of Donegal such music that
all the women travailing within the sound forgot their travail, and
many gashed gallants of the household who lay with wounds within
were soothed to sleep and stupor.
" I perceive thou art an harmonious rogue," quoth O'Donnell,
and forgave him the insults offered to his harps.
" One day I am sweet, another day I am bitter," said the
Gilly. " One morning I am under sun and one evening under moon ;
here one day and not here the next."
O'Donnell saw an endless source of entertainment in him for
the men of Ulster, and he told off twenty of his gallowglasses, as
they valued their straw and ale, to guard his gates, and he hid
twenty horsemen in the apple grove to prevent the Gilly going.
But the Gilly was gilly to neither lord nor clan. When he per-
ceived the chief's plans, he stepped with one foot aside and the
other forward and then with both back, crying, " Watch for me —
run for me — ride for me, or I am clean away," he slipped
through the gallowglasses and through the apple grove, spearing
the green fruit as he went. The riders rode each other down in
tumult, and the gallowglasses fell upon each other's knives. But
the Gilly was gone as utterly as the morning of yesterday, and he
left only a little bundle of herbs for their healing with the watcher
on the hills.
764 THE WEIRD GILLY [Mar.,
At that time it chanced that the son of Desmond was gathering
the men of South Munster to proclaim himself the Desmond against
his father. The weird Gilly halted in hearing of them all and cried :
" God save you and keep green leaves on your trees! "
" And who art thou of all rascally runners in Ireland ? "
" I am Duartane, runner and musician to the High King of
Ireland," said the Gilly, " and I have run from the shelly shore of
Sligo to the mud mountains of Thomond."
" Play or be hung," said the son of Desmond, but the Gilly
would not, until he heard ridicule among the men at arms. Straight-
way he caught a harp from a blind harper of Desmond, so swiftly
that the blind man thought a gust of wind was away with it.
The Gilly made the harp first to sound and then to sing and at
last to speak. The harp said : " The sweetest music is not more
enduring than the harp which begot it, and the sprig is not stronger
than the tree which fostered it."
" Thou art a traitor to thy whole clan," cried the son of Des-
mond angrily to the harp, and cut the strings with his sword. But
the Gilly slipped back and fore, saying : " One day I am sweet, an-
other I am sour, one day in South Munster, another in Donegal
North," and he vanished like a twang of his own treacherous music.
" Alack but the wind is a better musician than I am," said the
harper who had seen nothing of all that befell.
It also happened at the time of the Gilly's raid and riot through
Ireland, that McKeogh, the meanest man in Ireland, and hereditary
crown-bearer and coroner to the MacMurrough of Leinster, lay
sick of a bog-palsy in his leg. The twelve royal physicians of
Leinster were crowded about the sick leg, for until he could walk
again the new MacMurrough might not come by his crown. To
be crowned by a sick man was against the law of Ireland.
The weird Gilly swung into sight of all. " Who art thou
watering my garden out of thy brogues? " said McKeogh from his
bed.
"I am a student of medicine picking plants," replied the
Gilly, " and if you vowed to put away your niggardliness and
money hoarding, I would heal your sorry shank."
" So be it," said McKeogh, and sent his gold robes to patch
beggars' rags at his gates.
The Gilly split a sour apple on his javelin and dropped a little
on the sick man's leg. With that the leg rose up under him and
started to run out of the house, and McKeogh with it, and the
1917.] THE WEIRD GILLY 765
twelve loyal leeches of Leinster running after. There was no one
able to catch him until he tired toward evening. When he could
be brought back he offered the Gilly his only daughter to wife. " It
is well," said the Gilly, " and be she sweet or be she bitter she
shall be mine."
That night McKeogh spread a banquet in his meanest manner,
with porridge for plenty and water for wine. When the guests
were all gathered, a servant ran in crying : " The foreign physician
is over the hills with thy daughter, and faster than a russet hare
between a day and a night of March."
" We knew he was a false rascal," said the twelve royal doc-
tors of Leinster in a breath.
At this same time it happened that Conor of Connaught was
preparing to avenge a foul insult leveled upon the people of his
province. A Connaught crone had lent a market basket a gen-
eration back to a hag of Munster, and had received neither basket
nor basket ransom in return. Conor went out with his men of war.
When he crossed the ridge-bone of Ireland that runs from Dublin
to Gal way, the Gilly sped within speech of him.
" Who art thou with thy ribs tied under thy mantle, like a
rotted ship under a flapping sail?" asked Conor, who was the
greatest wit beyond the Shannon.
" I am the gruesome Gilly," said the stranger, " and I run
about Ireland to see good wars and fair righting, and whether you
will have me or not I will be of your party."
" If I take you, what hiring will purchase you? " said Conor.
" Nothing unfair to be played against me, that is my only
term," said the Gilly. So Conor agreed, and the Gilly accompanied
the fighting men of Connaught and of Far-Connaught till they
overstepped the marches of Munster. Heaven gave them blessing
and boon and victory, for they carried away a three-legged cow
from the hag of Munster as solace and consolation for the basket
taken out of Connaught.
When the men of Munster learnt of the disgrace which had
been inflicted on their valor and protection, they marched half a
day and half a night without stopping. But at the rear of the
army of Connaught the Gilly kept them at bay with his javelins
in one hand while he drove the lame cow with the other. He kept
fighting between prey and pursuit until he was across the fords of
the Shannon. The men of Munster would not cross the Shannon,
for they said the cow was likely drowned. This was reckoned the
THE WEIRD GILLY [Mar.,
greatest cattle spoil of the time, and gave hymning to the harpers
and piping to the poets of Connaught ever after.
When the army reached Conor's house, Conor drained the
first flagon of wine himself and left the Gilly thirsty. " The drink
goes with the deed, and the doer with the wind," said the Gilly,
and before Conor could interpret his words, he had disappeared.
Not far away O'Kelly, King of the O'Kellies, gave banquet
to his clan. The Gilly came within call of the banqueting room.
" Art thou a Kelly of Munster or a Kelly of Leinster? " was the
only question O'Kelly would ask of any stranger that day.
" I am neither," said the Gilly, " but I was a good conjurer
before any Kelly was weaned, and for five flagons I will prove the
greatness of my art."
" Prove," said O'Kelly, and five-score Kellies cried " Prove."
" I will wag one ear and bid the other be still," said the Gilly.
" Wag thy ear," said O'Kelly, and five-score Kellies cried
"Wag."
The Gilly of tricks tied one ear with the edge of his mantle
and wagged the other. O'Kelly gave him five flagons full.
" I will show thee another," said the Gilly, when he had drunk.
He pulled a long thread out of his mantle and tossed it in a ball to
the clouds. He threw his mantle over the end of the thread and a
hare ran up and into the clouds, and then a beagle, and then a dog-
boy, and last of all a fairy woman. The Kellies listened to the
baying of the hound and the hunting cry of the lad until all were
hidden in the mist. Then the Gilly reeled down the thread and
the hound came back picking the hare's bones, and the dog-boy
meshed in the hair of the fairy woman. O'Kelly sent him ten
flagons full and asked for another trick. " I only know one better,"
said the Gilly, and vanished.
The next day, MacMurrough of Leinster was banqueting in
his palace. There were sixteen ragged harpers playing on his
rath for him to choose the choice harper of Leinster from. The
Gilly happed into their hearing. "Whence art thou with the harper's
dress but without the harp?" asked MacMurrough.
" One day am I in Islay, and one day in Man, and the next
with Conor and another with Kelly," said the Gilly.
" How do my harpers harp beside those of Conor and Kelly? "
asked MacMurrough.
" There is no likeness between them at all," said the Gilly,
" for the harpers of Conor and Kelly play music on the harp."
1917-] A ROAD OF IRELAND 767
MacMurrough was wild, and ordered him to be strung to the
crow's perch forthwith. His armed men left the Gilly upon the
gallows that evening. When they returned they met the Gilly com-
ing out of the house, for it was MacMurrough he had bewitched
them to hang. This time the Gilly went without saying farewell or
fare-ill, but he left a sliver of batsbane with the herd on the hills.
" For the anointing of MacMurrough, my lord," he said.
Away he vanished with his roguery and ranting, with his tricks
and trilling, as all the magicians and artists must vanish, when they
have made their share of wonderment and wizardry for the folk
of the world.
A ROAD OF IRELAND.
BY CHARLES L. o'DONNELL, C.S.C.
FROM Killybegs to Ardara is seven Irish miles,
Tis there the blackbirds whistle and the mating cuckoos call,
Beyond the fields the green sea glints, above the heaven smiles
On all the white boreens that thread the glens of Donegal.
Along the roads what feet have passed, could they but tell the story,
Of ancient king and saint and bard, the roads have known them all ;
Lough Dergh, Doon Well, Glen Columcille, the names are yet a glory,
Tis great ghosts in the gloaming remember Donegal.
The harbor slips of Killybegs saw Spanish poop and sail
In days when Spain sailed round the world and held the half in
thrall,
And Ardara has writ her name in the great books of the Gael,
Though sleep has fallen on them now in dream-lit Donegal.
Well, time will have its fling with dust, it is the changeless law,
But this I like to think of whatever may befall :
When she came up from Killybegs and he from Ardara
My father met my mother on the road, in Donegal.
THE JUSTIFICATION OF LUTHER BY HISTORY ALONE.
BY MOORHOUSE I. X. MILLAR, S.J.
HE profession of Protestantism has a tendency to
produce in even its most liberal-minded adherents a
peculiar psychological disposition. It becomes all but
insuperably difficult for them to estimate correctly
Luther's character, or judge truly of the events that
took place at the time of the Reformation. And yet recent Non-
Catholic research has in many respects radically modified Luther's
sweeping condemnation of Rome. In this connection we are force-
fully reminded of the words of Thomas Carlyle : " Only what of
the past was true will come back to us. That is the one Asbestos
which survives all fire and comes out purified; that is still ours,
blessed be heaven, and only that. By the law of nature nothing
more than that; and also by the same law, nothing less than that.
Let art struggle how it may, for or against — as foolish art is seen
extensively doing in our time — there the limits of it will be."
Nevertheless, with regard to such results of modern historical re-
search, it must not be forgotten that, as one Protestant authority
has remarked, " whatever is gained in this way by Catholicism
is a loss to Protestantism." And the clear reason for this, as
the Protestant mind feels only too instinctively, is that the de-
gree of Luther's justification in his break with Rome, and hence
the real justification for the very existence itself of Protestantism,
depends upon the degree in which the Catholic Church is wrong.
Unless the Protestant be prepared to allow in his entire conception
of the moral order a transformation similar to the change effected
in the civilized conception of the physical universe by the verifica-
tion and gradual adoption of the theory of Copernicus, he must for
the sake of his own peace of mind be able to formulate some
reason for maintaining that the Church was somehow wrong and
Luther in one way or another right. To begin with, of course, he
always has the initial fact that Protestantism does exist, and that
therefore an adequate reason for the breach between it and the
mediaeval Church must somehow or other be forthcoming. But
to conclude immediately that the Church must have been wrong is
as unsatisfying as it is untrue. It were as correct to declare
that she was wrong for any of the reasons at different times vary-
1917.] LUTHER AND HISTORY 769
ingly alleged in justification of Luther's action. Willing as many
Protestants have always been to study the hazy tenets of the
Vedas, Buddhism or Islam, they have doggedly ignored the clear
teachings of Catholicism, and have based their reasoning on
grounds supposedly historical. Hence their reasons at the present
time may be reduced to two : the need in Luther's day for a radi-
cal reform and the need for greater liberty.
Apart from the contradiction which stands out on the very
face of the two- fold claim advanced, and which will be dealt with
more fully in a moment, we cannot refrain from calling attention
to the words of Hilaire Belloc that appeared in America a little
over a year ago : " Such phantasies in the place of truth," he says
in another though strikingly similar connection, " divorced its vic-
tims from Europe, and went counter in their effect to the whole
stream of civilization. They warped the vision of Christendom.
They lent false strength to vain things, and hid the powers of
things alien but strong."
What is to be said of the contradictory claims brought for-
ward or implicitly assumed by many whenever they attempt to jus-
tify the so-called Reformation? It is asserted that in Luther's
time there was need of a radical reform, need of greater liberty.
In general, it must be noted that for the decided majority of Prot-
estants there can no longer be any question of a doctrinal reform,
since in all matters of belief they now stand poles asunder from
those who first accepted Luther's teaching. So far is this true that
in respect to the very point which constituted Luther's chief doc-
trinal pretext for breaking with the Church of Rome — the doctrine
namely of faith-without-works — the pendulum has swung com-
pletely to the wholly opposite extreme, and stress at the present
hour is being laid almost entirely on the humanitarian value of
works, with scarcely any or no insistence on the importance of faith.
With regard to Luther's further doctrines — developed for the most
part after his separation had become an accomplished fact — they are
of little more importance today than those of Arius, except in so
much as they may be shown to have influenced Kant in his philos-
ophy or Bismarck and others in Prussian politics, or still others
in the general trend of so-called modern thought. For with the
sole exception of the doctrine of private judgment, which even
Luther saw the need of contradicting in practice, these doctrines
as he propounded them no longer command the adhesion of any
single influential body of thinking men.
VOL. civ.-— 49
770
LUTHER AND HISTORY [Mar.,
We turn, therefore, to the two- fold assumption that there was
need of a radical moral reform in Luther's time and a call for
greater freedom, and that by effecting the one and answering the
other, he has eternally justified himself before the judgment
of history in spite of the worthlessness of his teaching. Now it is
to be well borne in mind that a reform, as understood by even the
average intellect, necessarily involves some legitimate restriction
of human freedom, either because of irregularities in its enjoyment
or because of its degeneracy, amounting to license. Hence to speak
in the same breath of a radical need for reform and a rightful de-
mand for greater freedom is to be guilty of patent contradiction.
The possible contention does remain, of course, that all the abuses
in the sixteenth century consisted in an unjust use of power on the
part of Rome, such as to make people feel warranted in conscience
in breaking with her so as to seek a freedom more consonant with
the true needs of our human nature; which latter, however, be it
parenthetically noted, Luther was ever at so great pains to revile as
being wholly sinful. But in opposition to this stand the words of
the French Protestant historian, Guizot. If limited to the reign of
Pope Leo X., the time when Luther first openly declared his oppo-
sition to the Church, these words — with certain restrictions, some
of which will appear in the sequel — may be considered as substan-
tially accurate. " It is not true," says he, " that in the sixteenth
century the court of Rome was very tyrannical; that abuses, prop-
erly so-called, were then more numerous, more crying, than they
had been at other times; never, perhaps, on the contrary, had the
Ecclesiastical Power been more easy, more tolerant, more disposed
to let things go their own way. Provided that it was not itself called
in question, provided that the rights which it had formerly enjoyed
were allowed in theory, that the same existence was secured, and the
same tributes were paid to it, it would willingly have allowed the
human mind to remain at peace, if the human mind had done the
same in respect to it."
If Luther is to be justified then and the Catholic Church put
in the wrong, there only remains the possible claim for the need
of a radical moral reform. The word " radical " is used advisedly.
For the Church's claim to a divine institution, a matter of faith
thoroughly substantiated by her past, was universally admitted
throughout Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Hence, as we shall see, the conviction was general that she could
never stand in need of a reform in her essential and constitutive
I9I7-] LUTHER AND HISTORY 771
elements : in her dogmas and her moral principles, her sacraments
and the three-fold power to teach, to govern and to sanctify men.
All these essential elements, inherited directly from Christ, her
Founder, by whom she was divinely established as a necessary means
for salvation, had been forever placed under the protection of the
Holy Ghost, Whose guidance renders the Church infallible in her
teaching, unchangeable in her constitution.
Thus, as she stood divinely revealed in bold relief and in
solid, unique grandeur amid the ever varying fluctuations of the
ages, she was viewed as having her existence in time, to be sure,
since visibly on earth, but above and beyond time's influence. That
this was Luther's view even so late as 1516, is evident from a state-
ment in one of his sermons of that same year. " The Church can-
not err," he says, " in proclaiming the faith ; only the individual
within her is liable to error. But let him beware of differing from
the Church; for the Church's leaders are the walls of the Church
and our fathers ; they are the eye of the body and in them we must
seek the light."
On the other hand, it is clear that the Church, though estab-
lished for the salvation of mankind and destined to guide the nations
through all the stages of historic development, does present a vari-
able side. In her members and in her accidental outward forms and
external relations, she is made to feel the effects of time in a thou-
sand ways ; now in the guise of some extrinsic assistance in the dis-
play of her power for good, now in the guise of a check on the full
manifestation of that power and its normal exertion. As a conse-
quence, she will be found making use of this means in one age, of an-
other in the next, in order that her labors maybe rendered fruitful and
salutary. This subjection, moreover, to temporal influences extends
even to those who are the depositaries of her power, but who, not
unlike other men, are exposed in their personal lives to temptation
and are liable to fail in their religious and moral conduct. Then,
too, measures adopted and institutions created which, though of
human origin, are in principle perfectly conformed to the spirit of
the Church, may in time come to lose their usefulness and grow to
be a source of harm by reason of gradually mingled elements in-
compatible with that spirit. Thus it may happen, and has happened,
that unfavorable influences, allowed to exert themselves for a con-
siderable time on events and on the spirit of the people, have al-
tered the accidental external forms of the Church, and, undermining
the moral and religious condition of a large number of the faith-
772
LUTHER AND HISTORY [Mar.,
ful, have brought them into a state of mind and feeling little in
accord with her true spirit, and with what by reason of her sacred
mission must be the real aim of her persistent endeavors.
This was precisely what had occurred by the close of the fif-
teenth century. The Holy Roman Empire of the German nation
had become a drag and a hindrance instead of a help. The Hohen-
staufen emperors and Frederick II. in particular had neglected
what were real interests at home, and, urged on by the dream of
emulating the pagan emperors in the exercise of an unlimited power
wholly incompatible with all Christian ideas, had inaugurated a long
struggle with the Popes in Italy in entire disregard of the Church's
independence. The result had been that the empire had fallen a prey
to the usurped power of petty princes, and by the time that Luther
appeared the executive power of the emperor had been so weakened
that he was utterly unable to hinder, much less to punish, any of
the flagrant breaches of the public peace which had then become a
frequent occurrence. Even back in the year 1451, Cardinal Nicholas
of Cusa, with the foresight of the real reformer that he was, had
raised a warning voice. " The empire," he says, " is attacked by
a mortal sickness, and will certainly perish if a cure be not imme-
diately found. What but ruin," he goes on to ask, " is to be ex-
pected when each one thinks only of himself? If the sovereign
hand has lost its power to quell interior dissensions, avarice and
greed will prevail, war and private quarrels will increase, the dis-
membered empire will go to ruin, and what has been unjustly ac-
quired will be squandered." Such then was the state of Germany,
and no one who has studied the events that followed Luther's apos-
tasy can help but feel surprised at the accuracy with which this pre-
diction was fulfilled; a fulfillment, however, which, thanks to the
efforts of the noble cardinal and others, was much further removed
from the inevitable in Luther's day than it appeared to be over half
a century previously when the prediction itself was uttered.
If on the other hand, from Germany we turn to France, we
find that things there had taken an entirely opposite course. Driven
by the necessity of pushing the English out of the land, the French
nation had thrown great power into the hands of her kings, who
in turn used it to suppress the turbulence and reduce the strength
of the nobles. Thus in 1492, by the marriage of Charles VIII.
and Anne of Brittany, France became a thoroughly consolidated
kingdom, internally strong and prepared to interfere in the do-
mestic affairs of her weakened neighbor to the east or to start on
I9I7-] LUTHER AND HISTORY 773
a career of conquest by invading the brighter and more alluring
lands across the Alps where
is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy
Bounded by the vaporous air
Islanded by cities fair.
The latter course was the first to be followed, and Italy be-
came an apple of discord between an emperor powerless now to
protect the interests of the Church, even had he been thoroughly
willing, and a French king ever ready to push the false claims of
Gallicanism which, though abrogated by Louis XL, had been re-
vived anew, the better to serve the ambitious purposes of a strong
ruler in his growing absolutism. In the ensuing struggle, in which
the Swiss and the Republic of Venice soon became involved, the
Popes, ever mindful of the days of Avignon, saw themselves obliged
to side now with one and now with the other of the two contending
parties, if they were to safeguard the interests of the Church and
preserve their independence. To complicate matters, Spain, whose
union had been secured by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella,
and had become firmly established by the expulsion of the Moors
from Grenada in 1491, was called in to offset the danger that
threatened from French preponderance. England, meanwhile, as
a result of the War of the Roses which had been brought to a close
at the Battle of Bosworth (1485) — that is, two years after the
birth of Luther — had become thoroughly plastic material in the
hands of her Tudor kings. Under the guidance of Wolsey, with a
view to enhancing her prestige on the continent, she was gradually
initiating a policy which, after the Lutheran catastrophe, when
nothing better could be found, was to become the sorry substitute
for the arbitral power of the mediaeval Popes, and was to be known
as the policy of the balance of power.
At the time, however, it was nothing more than an obstacle,
though a serious obstacle, thrown in the way of the earnest efforts
that were being made on the part of the Pope to bring about peace
among the Christian princes. For it must be clearly remembered
that in the year 1517 the solidarity of Christendom was still a reality
to the minds of all those living at the time. Any tendency which
was seen to be contrary to a fuller realization of that solidarity,
was loudly deplored as something abnormal and contrary to the
spirit of the Christian religion. This general solicitude for the
774
LUTHER AND HISTORY [Mar.,
solidarity of Christendom is proved by the insistent demands for
peace that issued out of Spain and other countries ; by the attitude
of the many bishops gathered from various lands at the Lateran
Council held from 1512 to 1517; and by the manner in which the
appeal made by Pope Leo X. in 1517 against the Turks was re-
ceived by the Christian princes themselves.
With this in mind, there is room, certainly, for very reasonable
speculation as to the natural prospect of Europe at this time had
not Luther accidentally united the variously conflicting elements of
discord. He threw a barrier across the proper course along which
the civilization of Christendom would otherwise have flowed, and
thus brought to the surface the evil tendencies of the age.
Charles V., as will be easily recalled, was just about to become
emperor, and in him Spain, Germany, including Austria, the Nether-
lands and Naples, together with Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, were
about to be united. In Germany the efforts of Maximilian I. to
reduce the princes to proper submission, together with his endeavors
to raise an army against the Turks, had in every case been frus-
trated by his inability to gather in the necessary funds. Charles,
on the other hand, was to have the unlimited resources that flowed
in from his possessions in Spanish America. The great ambition
of his life, henceforth, was to drive the Turk out of eastern
Europe. And, most important of all, he was to swear at his coro-
nation to protect the Church and maintain the rights of the Holy
See — an oath which, on the whole, he observed throughout his long
and eventful reign. What he might have done is perhaps best
judged by two of the principal events of his life, when in the one
instance after the battle of Pavia, in 1525, he held the French king
entirely in his power, and in the other he succeeded in completely
defeating the Smalcaldio League at Muhlberg in 1547.
But what, all this while, was the state of affairs within the
Church's own more intimate sphere of influence? Bad, indeed, to
be sure, nor from the political conditions could it well be expected
to have been otherwise; but it was not hopeless, by far, nor did
it call for anything like the radical reform which the Protestant
assumption does and must imply as having been necessary if Luther
is to be at all justified. The deed of violence perpetrated on Boni-
face VIII. by Philip the Fair through his emissaries at Anagni
in 1303, had been followed by the saddest results. Not only did
the Popes find themselves weakened in their temporal power through
the perfidy of the French king — and to the great harm of Europe — •
1917.] LUTHER AND HISTORY 775
but, owing to their consequent removal to Avignon, they became
gradually suspected of a lack of independence. In consequence,
moreover, of the real need in which the central government of the
Church stood during the period of the Papal residence at Avignon,
it was found necessary to adopt a system of taxation which in time
furnished a dangerous precedent, and became more and more an
oppressive burden, especially in Germany. But in spite of the
many complaints to which abuses arising from this source gave
birth, the antipathy towards Rome, intensified by a national hatred
of the Germans for the Italians, did not take a dogmatic tendency
until Luther had succeeded in confusing the whole question of Papal
taxation with the question of indulgences. This confusion, how-
ever, he would have been wholly unable to effect had not the evil
soil in which he planted been otherwise more fully prepared for him.
After the return of the Pope to Rome when everything seemed to
promise a thorough disciplinary reform in the Church, the great
Schism of the West, another result of French influence, broke out
in 1378. While it lasted, it not only obscured men's minds as to
the necessity and divine origin of the Papacy, thereby adding fresh
vigor to the false principles of Gallicanism, but rendered it further-
more possible for the Church's proper control of the religious life
of the nations to get considerably out of hand. The schism itself
was healed in 1417 by the election of Martin V., but many a dark
cloud still hung on the horizon, awaiting only the direction of the
wind to scatter definitely or gather anew for a fresh storm. The
bishops in Germany were for the most part incapable or worldly.
Not merely were the clerical dues frequently seized by the princes,
but positions in the cathedral chapters and episcopal sees were, in
many cases, handed over arbitrarily to the members of the nobility.
As Duke George of Saxony said in Luther's own day : " It is as
clear as daylight that the origin of all this heresy, with which God
is visiting us, lies in the way in which the prelates enter into the
Church; for God says, 'He that entereth not in at the door is not
the shepherd.' Now it is alas ! not the least scandal of Christendom
that we laymen of high and low degree do not take heed of those
words, for, when we appoint our own children, brothers and friends
to bishoprics and other Church dignities, we are not concerned
about the 'door,' but only how we can manage to push our own
people in, whether under the threshold or in through the roof, we
do not care. These gentlemen, moreover, who enter in this manner
behave as if they had bought their benefices for their own heritage
LUTHER AND HISTORY [Mar.,
and had full rights in them. Hence it follows that the sheep imitate
the shepherds and incur the wrath of God as alas! is seen day
by day."
In addition to the state of affairs thus indicated — an evil state,
however, more than paralleled by the abuses and evils from which
the Church plainly recovered through the reform instituted by
Gregory VII. in the eleventh century — there had been, previously
to the time when the Lutheran movement began to break down the
remaining barriers of restraint still standing between order and
anarchy, powerful forces — intellectual as well as material — which
had been brought to bear on European civilization, but had nothing
whatever to do with religion except indirectly in so far as they
might be made to subserve the purposes of tendencies good or bad
that were being independently displayed at the time. Of such
forces, Humanism had received its greatest encouragement from
the Popes. Once it had been twisted to the views of such vile
characters as Ulrich von Hutten — the first real sponsor of Luther's
agitation — it became a source of grave danger to anything like
order in society. The art of printing invented between 1450-1456 —
lacking which Protestantism must have died at its birth — would
have proved just as efficient in furthering the less popular aims of
a real reform for the whole of Europe, had time been allowed, as
it turned out to be a telling means for the rapid spread of what
every reputable historian has come to recognize as Luther's de-
structive programme of lies and gross slanders against the Church.
That with such a programme Luther should have managed to carry
his doctrinal points in the face of their clear confutation by Dr.
Eck and other men of learning so superior to his own, is easily
explained by the mental confusion then prevalent. Finally there
was a tremendous spirit of worldly enterprise awakened at this
precise period by the various discoveries that were being made over-
seas. Had Europe as a whole continued to recognize the religious
authority of the Church which until then, to the great profit of
humanity, had alone kept individualism in check, this spirit might
have done much more for the general prosperity of Christendom
by drawing the nations more closely together. In corroboration
of such a statement we need only appeal to the fact that, whereas
Spain and Portugal, though the nearest of neighbors, were saved
from all serious quarrels during the whole period of their wide
colonial expansion by the arbitral decision of Alexander VI. in his
Bull "Inter cetera" (1493), England, whose prospects were in no
19I7-] LUTHER AND HISTORY 777
way affected by the Bull, was led into continual wars with both
France and Spain, while Germany, owing to the centrifugal spirit
of her princes and people, remained a mere geographical expres-
sion down to the year 1870.
There were then evils. If ambitious Hohenstaufen emperors
disregarded the independence of the Church, they also weakened
their own executive power and played into the hands of petty
princes. If unscrupulous French kings grew powerful to oust the
English invader, they threatened the empire and attacked the Pope
in his temporal power. If Italy became the apple of discord, the
emperor was powerless to protect the interests of the Church, at a
time when the French king was anxious to push the revived false
claims of Gallicanism. If Gallicanism, furthered by the exile of
the Popes at Avignon and by the Great Schism, was bad for the
Church in France, the worldliness of many German bishops stood
in the way of much that was good for the Church in Germany and
for the empire, the Church's protector for centuries. Finally,
whereas the arbitral power of the Pope had satisfied on a basis of
common consent the general solicitude for the solidarity of Chris-
tendom, its sorry English substitute, the balance of power, was still
in its incipient stage and hence, while detracting from the influence
of the Pope, was unable to affect peace even on the basis of a selfish
expediency. Such changes, political and in part religious, were bad
enough. -In the intellectual and economic world, the distortion of
Humanism, the introduction of printing, the discovery of the New
World, promoted individualism and the spirit of a mad worldly
enterprise to the neglect as well of religious authority as of the
general prosperity of Christendom. In such a tremendous crisis of
the world's history Luther was shrewd enough, underhand enough,
base enough, to confuse issues. And of the existing evils Tie clearly
took a sad advantage, when he came to spread his doctrines ; doc-
trines whose real source had been all along an impatient, unavailing
desire to find a sedative for those abnormal qualms of conscience
arising from his unconquerable pride and obstinacy.
It only remains to show that Luther was not the first to send
up the cry of reform, but that Europe was already on the way to
a slow reform when he used as a pretext for effecting a sudden and
widespread revolution a cry which had been in the air for over a
century.
From what has already been said with regard to there being a
variable side to the Church, it is clear that in a certain sense she
7>8 LUTHER AND HISTORY [Mar,
is always reforming herself and always renewing her life. In
every age there will always be found in the thought and in the life
of the times much that is conformable to her dogmas, her sacra-
mental dispensation and disciplinary principles and regulations. On
the other hand, there will ever be much that either fails to har-
monize with or contradicts that sacred deposit which, divine in its
origin, she must ever keep intact and guard and uphold. Hence,
the Church, with a foresight thoroughly peculiar to herself, never
has been slow to encourage and foster whatever made for real
progress and the true betterment of mankind. But when the times
become out of joint, the one theory of true Catholic reformation
has never been any other than that expressed so simply and suc-
cinctly by Cardinal Egidio Canisio of Viterbo before the Fifth
Lateran Council (1512) : " Men must be changed by religion and
not religion by men."
This theory was followed by Gregory VII. in the reform which
he initiated, and which gradually raised the nations of Europe to
the superb stage of civilization of the thirteenth century. The same
theory underlay the purpose of Innocent III. when convoking the
Fourth Lateran Council (1215). And such also was the correct
theory of real reformers of the type of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa,
St. John Capistran, John Bush and Andrew Proles, the founder of
Luther's own congregation — men of exemplary lives who had been
in the field long before Luther was born. If their fame today is
less than his, it is because they took the more arduous up-hill course,
whereas Luther went with the landslide he himself had started.
Between the time when Nicholas of Cusa went the round of
Germany as Papal Legate in 1451 and the Lutheran outbreak, many
diocesan and provincial synods had been held in all parts of the
empire. The Carthusian Dionysius and the Franciscan John Brug-
mann had worked zealously for the reform of monastic and con-
ventual life, as had also the Benedictine congregation of Bursfeld.
Since the time of the great Western Schism the summoning of a
general council had become a difficult and dangerous matter, owing
to the prevalence of the false idea that the Pope was subject to
the council — an idea which had spread with the writings of Mar-
siglio of Padua, of William of Occam and of Jean of Jeandun.
In spite of this and in the face of the pseudo-conciliar movement
that culminated at Basle, Pope Eugene IV. had succeeded in the
year 1438 in gathering the ecumenical council of Ferrara-Florence,
at which the churches of the East and the West, for the time once
I9I7-] LUTHER AND HISTORY 779
more providentially united, testified in the most solemn way to the
Primacy of the See of St. Peter and to the fact that by Christ's
appointment the Pope is the head of the Church Universal. So
much was settled, but two other problems prominently demanding
consideration were the question of peace among the princes and
the definite eradication of the principles of Gallicanism in France.
Without peace among the princes, anything like a thorough reform
in Europe seemed, under the circumstances, impossible, while on the
other hand, Gallicanism had long threatened the very unity of the
Church. Hence it was with this two-fold problem chiefly in view
that the Fifth Later an Council was convoked by Pope Julius II.
in 1512. Had the Lutheran disturbance not started the very year
of the council's adjournment (1517), it is certain that the effects of
this council would have been very far-reaching. In the actual turn
of events one of its objects was partially obtained, and its success
in this one point has ever since proved of inestimable advantage
to the cause of Christianity. For by the condemnation of the Prag-
matic Sanction of Bourges, Gallicanism received a blow which, but
for the Reformation, would have proved lastingly fatal, and, by the
Concordat drawn up between Pope Leo X. and Francis I. of
France with the purpose of eliminating the Gallican claims, the
temptation, naturally strong, to seize the lands of the Church, was
definitely removed, with the result that France was saved to the
Church. For in Germany, England, Denmark, Norway and
Sweden, at a time when the rulers influenced to such an extent the
beliefs of their people, this temptation proved to be in the eyes of
the former the clinching argument in favor of the views of Luther
and the other reformers.
The Church then was willing, anxious to reform herself, and
with herself the whole of Europe. That she was capable of doing
so is proved by the Council of Trent and by the splendid Catholic
revival that followed in its train, a revival that has elicited the
following tribute from a Protestant authority :
The anti-Protestant movement in the Roman Church which is
generally called the Counter Reformation, is really at least as
remarkable as the Reformation itself. Probably it would be
no exaggeration to call it the most remarkable single episode
that has ever occurred in the history of the Christian Church.
Its immediate success was greater than that of the Protestant
movement, and its permanent results are fully as large at the
present day. It called forth a burst of missionary enthusiasm
780 LUTHER AND HISTORY [Mar.,
such as has not been seen since the first day of Pentecost. So
far as organization is concerned, there can be no question that
the mantle of the men who made the Roman Empire has fallen
upon the Roman Church; and it has never given more striking
proof of its vitality and power than it did at this time imme-
diately after a large portion of Europe had been torn from its
grasp. Printing presses poured forth literature not only to meet
the controversial needs of the moment, but also admirable edi-
tions of the early Fathers to whom the Reformed Churches
appealed — sometimes with more confidence than knowledge.
Armies of devoted missionaries were scientifically marshaled.
Regions of Europe which seemed lost forever ...... were re-
covered to the Papacy, and the claims of the Vicar of Christ
were carried far and wide through countries where they had
never been heard before.1
Before launching his wanton attack, Luther, in his boasted study
of the Scriptures, had done well to advert to the words of Gamaliel :
"If ...... this work be of men, it will come to naught. If it be
of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest perhaps you be found even
to fight against God."
The history of the Middle Ages cannot be truly written nor
the forces at work in modern civilization be properly understood,
until we have gained a correct estimate of Luther's revolution.
The chief obstacle in the way of such an estimate necessarily will
be that peculiar psychological disposition of the Protestant mind
noted at the beginning of this historical summary. In the attempt
to arrive at such an estimate it will be by no means sufficient to
refute express statements. Our chief work must be to reach back
to the assumptions, the false suppositions that form the unstated
major premises of the Protestant subjective method of argumen-
tation. "For," in the words of Carlyle, "nature and fact, not
red-tape and semblance, are to this hour the basis of man's life;
and on those, through never such strata of these, man and his life
and all his interests do, sooner or later, infallibly come to rest, and
to be supported or be swallowed according as they agree with
those."
With both nature and fact the Protestant mind has been at war
ever since the day when Luther in the obstinacy of his scrupulous
soul refused to see the obvious distinction between sin and concu-
piscence.
HT' ^aldCn> Classical Lecturer, Selwyn College, Cambridge, in Foreign
London, 1910, pp. no, I20,
LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., PH.D.
HERE is a tendency today to consider Social Service
as not only the most important striving of our gener-
ation, but the climax of man's social evolution up to
the present time. Human progress in its forward
trend has at last brought us to the point where we
think of others. Altruism is gradually replacing selfishness by a
process of natural development, as it were, and Social Service comes
into the foreground. The usual presumption is that the ideas con-
noted by the term Social Service are as new as the term itself, for
it is a common fallacy of the age to think that new words mean
new things. There is, however, as is well known by those familiar
with its recently-developed history, not the slightest novelty about
Social Service. It is doubtful even whether there is a single phase
of the subject that cannot be traced definitely to many centuries be-
fore our time.
However, as is nearly always the case in such popular false
impressions, a part truth is the basis for this assumption of the
recent development of Social Service. Social history shows a
gradual descent in social feeling from about the middle of the six-
teenth century until almost our own generation, when the world
waked up again to the recognition of the fact that care for others
was one of the most important occupations of human life. As I
have shown in previous articles in THE CATHOLIC WORLD on The
Care of the Ailing Poor, of Insane and Defectives,* the organization
of nursing, the guarding of the insane, the protection of orphans
and foundling children, the ministration to the old, all sank during
this period to what has been described by a recognized authority
on the subject as "an indescribable level of degradation." This
descent began in the sixteenth century and went on almost un-
checked until, toward the end of the eighteenth century, the first
glimmerings of a new light in the dark social places can be noted.
The present year celebrates the four hundredth anniversary
of the initiation of Luther's movement, the posting of his thesis
at Wittenberg, and it is interesting to study the genuine significance
*See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, September, October and November, 1916,
782 LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE [Mar,
of Luther's life-work in the light of its coincidence with the begin-
ning of this descent in Social Service. That this social decadence
was not a mere incidental event subsequent to the Lutheran move-
ment, but followed as an immediate effect, is a proposition that will
come as a surprise to all sincere Protestants, because only now is
the history of social effort being properly written. Hitherto history
has concerned itself almost exclusively with wars and politics
to the neglect of social things.
The reasons for this decadence in Social Service, then called
simply charity, are not hard to find. It developed directly from cer-
tain favorite principles of the reformers, and especially of Luther —
principles that were in direct contradiction to previous teaching.
It is summed up in Luther's principal doctrine: that faith was
everything in religion and good works meant nothing. The Prot-
estant movement which came as a consequence of his teaching ac-
cepted this doctrine very literally, though common humanity led
many people to continue the exercise of charity in spite of their
acceptance of the discouraging dogma.
It is curious to reflect how, in our generation, Protestants
generally have reached almost the opposite pole of thought. Now
it makes little difference what a man believes provided he lives an
upright life and does good to others. It is only with the gradual
dissolution of Protestantism as a dogmatic religion that men have
come to recognize their social duties as they did in the older,
and especially, the mediaeval time. For that is very striking in the
history of Social Service. The mediaeval Church taught and
organized and managed social works very well; the Reformation
rejected them. The return to them forms the most interesting
commentary on the life and work of Luther that our generation
can have.
Perhaps the best way to introduce the story of Social Service
before Luther's movement is to tell the story of a well-known
historical incident. In 1511 a young man of about thirty, whose
monastic educational advantages among the Augustinian monks in
Germany made him eminently capable of judging the value of
what he saw, visited Florence and proved to be far more interested
in its examples of finely organized Social .Service than in its art,
then at the height of the Renaissance. Raphael, Michelangelo and
Leonardo were all alive, and some of the greatest art of all time
was being produced there at just that time. The modern reader,
interested in Social Service because of the present fine development
IQI7-] LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE 783
of it, will not be surprised at the German visitor's interest in Italian
hospitals, for the details of his description show that they were emi-
nently deserving of attention. To quote him :
The hospitals, of the Italians are built like palaces, supplied
with the best of food and drink, and tended by diligent servants
and skillful physicians. The painted bedsteads are covered with
clean linen. When a patient is brought in, his clothes are taken
off and given to a notary to keep honestly. Then they put a
white bed gown on him, and lay him between the inviting sheets
of the beautifully decorated bed, and two physicians are brought
at once. Servants fetch food and drink in clean glass vessels,
and do not touch the food even with the finger, but offer it to
the patient on a tray.
Manifestly this young man was rather surprised by what he
saw. Remark, also, that he speaks, not of a particular hospital,
but of hospitals in the plural. Evidently he had examined and
found a similar state of affairs sufficiently prevalent to realize that
the best possible care of the ailing poor was taken in this Italian
city. His account is all the more surprising to us because scarcely
forty years ago our public hospitals were literally a disgrace. They
were dirty, unventilated, with nursing badly organized ; the " ten
day women " were doing the nursing in Bellevue, and things were
altogether as they ought not to be, whereas this young German
traveling in Italy four hundred years ago found a magnificent
organization of hospital work among the Italians. We know from
many other sources that not only was his description true of the
hospitals of Florence, but it was equally true of the hospitals of
a number of other cities in Italy, notably of the Ospedale Maggiore
of Milan, Santo Spirit o at Rome and many others.
He was, furthermore, a gratified witness of the care of the
Florentines for poor and dependent children, and seems to have
taken special interest in the orphans and the details of the arrange-
ments made for them. He says : " They have also foundling
asylums where children are well sheltered and nourished and
taught; they are dressed in uniforms and most paternally provided
for." He might have added that the Florentine institution for the
care of abandoned children wras not called by any such rude name as
the German term, Findel Anstalt, nor by our equally tactless one,
foundling asylum, thus stamping on these children the fact that
they had been abandoned by their parents. In the gentler Italian
784 LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE [Mar,
tongue the institution was called the Hospital of the Innocents, thus
recalling that whatever the evil in the transaction through which
these children come to be abandoned by their parents, they, at least,
are innocent sharers in it.
This young man who went down to Italy and recorded his
observations with regard to the beautiful Italian hospitals and their
magnificent organization, was Martin Luther who, some seven years
later, was to break with the Roman Catholic Church and lead the
revolt against her called the Reformation, which has split up Euro-
pean Christianity into sects ever since. Luther testified further to
the beautiful charity of the Florentine ladies. He says of them:
" Honorable matrons, veiled, come to serve the poor all day long
without making their names known and at evening return home."
Here was a charity that was not self-seeking, nor publicity seeking,
that did not advertise its doer, but left her unrecognized in her
good work. Here was true Christian charity which Luther's own
teaching was to disturb so seriously. For the main doctrine of
Lutheranism was that good works were of no avail and that faith
alone brought salvation. No wonder hospitals degenerated where
that doctrine gained a foothold. We learn from the German his-
torian Jacobsohn that
attention to the well-being of the sick entered on a period of
complete and lasting stagnation after the middle of the seven-
teenth century The hospitals of cities were like prisons
with bare undecorated walls and little dark rooms, small win-
dows where no sun could enter, and dismal wards where fifty
or one hundred patients were crowded together, deprived of all
comforts and even of necessaries. In the municipal and state
institutions of this period the beautiful gardens, roomy halls,
and springs of water of the old cloister hospital of the Middle
Ages were not heard of, still less the comforts of their friendly
interiors.
The fact of the matter was that the so-called reform movement,
in suppressing the religious orders, suppressed practically all organ-
ized care for the poor which had existed before, since hospitals and
institutions were almost entirely in their hands. No provision for
supplying their places was properly made until necessity required
the State to take up the solution of these social problems. Then
the ugly buildings, badly adapted for their purpose, ill situated and
absolutely without any of the beauty or the comforts of the older
1917.] LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE 785
time, which Jacobsohn describes as having been erected in Germany,
were the result. Exactly the same thing happened in England.
The Rev. Augustus Jessop, an Anglican clergyman, has in his book,
The Great Pillage (pillage being the name he uses for the confisca-
tion movement that followed so hard upon the change of religion
in England), a passage in which he emphasizes the serious destruc-
tion of social agencies that occurred at this time and the awful
suffering which followed. He says:
Almshouses in which old men and women were fed and
clothed were robbed to the last pound, the poor alms-folk being
turned out into the cold at an hour's warning to beg their bread.
Hospitals for the sick and needy, sometimes magnificently pro-
vided with nurses and chaplains, whose very raison d'etre was
that they were to look after and care for those who were past
caring for themselves — these were stripped of all their belong-
ings, the inmates sent out to hobble into some convenient dry
ditch to lie down and die in, or to crawl into some barn or
hovel, there to be tended, not without fear of consequences, by
some kindly man or woman who could not bear to see a suf-
fering fellow-creature drop down and die at their own door-
posts.2
It was as if the endowments of our private institutions for the
care of the poor and the needy should be confiscated, their buildings
taken to serve for other purposes and the inmates ruthlessly thrust
out to shift for themselves as they might. To understand the
sufferings that ensued we must remember that then there were
none other but these private institutions to meet social needs, and
that practically all of these were suddenly diverted from their
purpose.
There is a rather definite political solidarity in Europe in mat-
ters of social life, as we have had emphasized for us in recent years,
and these suppressions of monastic institutions had an unfortunate
contre-coup in Catholic countries. Their occurrence led to the as-
sumption on the part of even the Catholic governments of a dis-
tinct spirit of opposition to social development, a very definite
tendency to interfere with the work of charitable institutions, and
to take over to the State such regulation of them as permitted the
intrenchment of salaried officials and, in general, made them de-
pendent on governmental control. Hence throughout Europe a
decadence was noticeable in these institutions, though it was least
"Italics ours.
VOL. CIV. — 50
786 LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE [Mar.,
to be observed in Spain and in Italy where the reform movement
had less effect. Pinel, the French psychiatrist, who reformed the
asylums for the insane in France, praised the institutions of the
Spaniards as the best in Europe for the care of the insane.
With the suppression of the monasteries at the Reformation
time came, also, the suppression of other organizations de-
voted to Social Service. Among these the guilds were particularly
efficient, and are most interesting to us at the present time. They
have been faithfully studied, and research has shown surprisingly
how much they anticipated practically all the developments of our
most recent Social Service. They were, above all, of import for
social insurance. They provided old age pensions, and usually built
also the little cottages in which, in bitter contrast to our treatment
of the old, old people lived together, man and wife, during their
declining years. The typical example of this is to be seen in the
almshouses of Stratford, where the old folks are still living on a
pension that was established for them in the later Middle Ages.
There were other insurance features anticipating most of our de-
velopments in the same line.
Disability pensions or insurance against accidents to workmen
assured some compensation for a workman while he was unable
to work. There was besides insurance against loss by fire, against
loss by highway robbery or by burglary, insurance against loss at
sea and against false imprisonment, as well as insurance against the
loss of cattle by disease, or of crops from storms. In a word
the guilds mutualized the life of the community, so that practically
any misfortune which happened, fell not on a single individual
with overwhelming effect, but was distributed over the community,
and the individual was enabled thus to maintain himself and his
family, as a rule, in his original style.
The guilds also cared for orphan children, providing special
payments to the widow if the husband died, to enable her to keep
the children together and maintain the family life. This was prac-
tically an anticipation of our widows' pensions, and as there were
no orphan asylums until after the Reformation, it is easy to see
how well they anticipated a great deal of our social thinking. If
children were doubly orphaned, they were adopted into families
in the neighborhood, and officials of the guilds saw to it that they
were not imposed upon, but were treated as the other children in
the family. When the proper time came they could learn a trade,
or go to the guild school, and if they proved to be intellectually
I9IZJ LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE
inclined, there were bourses of the guild at the English universities
available for these children of the guilds, as they were called, quite
as much as for the children of living guild members.
Of course the guilds had to fulfill a very large and varied set
of social obligations, but there were many guilds to a comparatively
small population. England at the time of Elizabeth had not much
more than four millions of population. Toulmin Smith, in his
History of the English Guilds, estimates that when the guilds were
suppressed in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., there
were altogether nearly thirty thousand of these organizations in
existence in the country. They are represented by the fraternal
orders and religious societies of modern times, and it is easy to
understand how much they could accomplish in the solution of
social problems. They were suppressed by the government on the
pretext that they were religious societies, but the real reason was
that, while they were affiliated with the Church, their treasuries
contained a very large amount of money, and suppression was an
easy way to acquire their money, as well as that of the religious
orders and the parish organizations of various kinds. It has been
calculated on good authority that the guild treasuries held at the
time of their suppression the equivalent in our money of some
eighty millions of dollars.
In the reign of Edward VI. the government restored some of
the foundations that had been overthrown at the time of the sup-
pression of the guilds. For instance, in a great many towns in
England the higher school of the town was supported by the guild.
This was true at Stratford. The suppression of the guild led to the
closing of the school and the cessation of other guild activities.
As a consequence there was so much disaffection among the people
that some compensation had to be made, hence a number of Edward
VI. Grammar Schools, so called, were opened throughout the coun-
try, and certain foundations for charity were made to which Ed-
ward VI. 's name was attached. Mr. Gairdner, the English his-
torian, a Non-Catholic, has declared very frankly and emphatically,
after a careful study of the conditions of these grants, that the
name of Edward VI. became attached to a number of foundations,
educational and charitable for which he deserves no credit. These
Edwardine foundations were only utterly inadequate restorations
of institutions which had been doing excellent work for centuries,
and which had been suppressed, during what Rev. Augustus Jessopp
has called so strikingly " the Great Pillage."
788 LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE [Mar.,
The guilds were, moreover, the social centres of the town life.
There is no doubt at all that they provided playgrounds for children,
kept them in order, offered prizes for athletic contests and in
general took the place of our " playground societies." Most of the
guilds gave several banquets annually for the members of the guild
and their wives and " sweethearts." These occasions of jollity and
innocent pleasure were usually followed by dancing on the village
green and by games of various kinds. They financed besides such
community entertainments as the Mystery and Morality plays, and
the various festival celebrations throughout the year. Receipted
bills show that the guilds paid for the costumes of various char-
acters in the Passion and Nativity plays and other popular dra-
matics. They also had charge of the Yuletide festivals, so far as
they were public, and the village Maypole and various other annual
community events which were a recognized part of the life of the
people.
In a word, the social life we are now trying to restore, the
bringing together of people, so that they may know one another and
have some relief from the monotony of work, was largely the care
of the guilds in the older time. The vandalism which destroyed all
this was completed in the reign of the boy king. As Rev. Augustus
Jessopp says:
The ring of the miscreants who robbed the monasteries in
the reign of Henry VIII. was bad enough, but the ring of the
robbers who robbed the poor and the helpless in the reign of
Edward VI. was ten times worse than the first. The univer-
sities only just escaped the general confiscation; the friendly
societies and benefit clubs and the guilds did not escape. The
accumulated wealth of centuries, their houses and lands, their
money, their vessels of silver and their vessels of gold, their
ancient cups and goblets and salvers, even to their very chairs
and tables, were all set down in inventories and catalogues, and
all swept into the great robbers' hoard.
There were to be no more such religious societies under the
new religious dispensation. The king was the head of the Church,
and had power to direct all that should be done, and so in spite of
some feeble protests confiscations went on. In a few places, as in
London near the Court, some of these guilds found powerful
patrons who secured for them, from the king and his advisers,
some mitigation of the confiscation proclamation. Some of these
guilds as, for instance, the Guild of the Barber Surgeons in London,
I9I7-] LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE 789
survive, but they have become narrow, " sociable " and not social
organizations with a limited membership, and nothing like the fine
purposes of the original foundation.
One of the most serious, if not absolutely the most serious,
effect of Luther's movement and the so-called Reformation on the
social life of Europe, was the obliteration from the calendar of the
Saints' days. The celebration of these was set down as a super-
stitious practice, and as a consequence given up. Almost the same
thing happened as regards many of the other holy days in the
year. In the pre-Re formation period there were between thirty and
forty holy days of obligation during the year. The number varied
slightly in the different parts of Europe.
On all these days the people were required to go to Mass in
the morning, and to refrain from all servile labor. Besides, partly
in order that the people might have an opportunity to go to confes-
sion on Saturdays, the Church encouraged freedom from labor on
Saturday afternoons, and as a matter of fact almost universally in
Europe there was no labor on Saturdays after two o'clock. The
same thing was true on the vigils of all first-class feasts, of which
there were probably about a dozen in the year in the various places.
Altogether, then, between holy days of obligation and the vigils of
Sundays and holy days there was a great deal of free time during
the year. More than once a fortnight there was a full free
day. It has been calculated that in the year at least one-third
of the time was free from the necessity of labor.
Practically all this stopped at the Reformation. The Sundays
remained free from labor, but at least wherever Calvinism and
Puritanism prevailed they were not in any sense days of recreation.
The Catholic spirit was entirely in favor of recreati9n on Sunday,
and had no sympathy at all with the Puritanic Sabbath-keeping.
While often the beautiful ceremonial connected with the celebration
of feast days kept the people occupied in church most of the morn-
ing, and sometimes summoned them back in the evening, though
this was not compulsory, they always had the afternoons for inno-
cent, healthy amusement.
The Puritans pushed all the holy days out of the year, and
sat in dour solitude, or at least almost absolute silence, at home on
Sundays. The old " blue laws " show very clearly what their cus-
toms were in this matter. With the loosening of the bonds of
Protestantism our Sundays have become more human, for the Sab-
bath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Unfor-
790 LUTHER AND SOCIAL SERVICE [Mar.,
tunately the reaction against the old Puritanism has brought with
it an exaggeration that carries people into anything but innocent
amusement. We are definitely engaged, too, in putting back holi-
days into the year. They are no longer holy days, but they are
days free from labor. We are, besides, celebrating the birthdays or
other anniversaries of our American heroes. We have one of these
days nearly every month, two, indeed, in February ; then we have
Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day and
Thanksgiving. And yet we are far from the number of holy days,
free from labor, before the Reformation, and before Luther's time.
Standish O'Grady once pointed out that twice in the world's
history men did things that will never be forgotten — in Greece in
the fifth century before Christ and in Europe during the Middle
Ages, and at both these periods one-third of all their time was
spent in leisure. They used their leisure, however, in preparation
for and in the celebration of religious mysteries, and in various
literary and dramatic exercises connected with these celebrations.
Their leisure was not spent in idle dissipation. It is only when
men have the chance to do things in this way that we can expect
much from them.
In mediaeval England particularly nearly every holy day had
its own mode of celebration, and most of these were popular as
well as ecclesiastical. Scenes of various kinds were enacted in
connection with the feast days of the liturgical year. These cele-
brations multiplied during the winter months, when the evenings
were long, and in the farming regions there was less to do, and
occupation of mind was more needed. There was Halloween with
its night festivities and St. Catherine's Day (November 25th), spin-
ster's day throughout all the world, and St. Nicholas Day — the
children's special day early in December — and then Yuletide cele-
brations and the Childermas or Feast of the Holy Innocents, when
one of the children was made a bishop of the occasion, and then
there were other special celebrations : St. Stephen's Day in honor
of the first martyrs, up to Twelfth Night, or Gift Day ; then came
Candlemas with its processions, and later the Passion and Morality
plays, according to season. No wonder that England was called
Merrie England.
All this disappeared almost entirely with Protestantism. The
Puritans would have none of them, the Scotch Presbyterians still
less. Social celebrations went on for a time in spite of religious
intolerance, as they always do, and so it happened that portions or
1917.] "THE ROAD TO COOM" 791
shadows of these remained, but always under the frown and dis-
couragement of the new church authorities.
In a word, Protestantism, exemplifying Luther's doctrine of
faith without works, rubbed out of the Catholic liturgical year all
the lovely social observances and privileges which the Church had
fostered among the people. Not only were hospitals and alms-
houses and the friendly societies suppressed, but the holy days were
dropped. Sunday was made anything but a day of rest and rec-
reation, and the joy of living which the Church had nurtured for
centuries until it was organized in beautiful fashion, faded away.
This is the most striking direct consequence of the Lutheran move-
ment.
"THE ROAD TO COOM."
BY ALICE M. CASHEL.
MOUNTAIN, moor and bogland, darken in the twilight,
Out across the half-lights, I see the light of home,
There upon the hillside, it gleams amid the pine trees;
Ah, mo chree, mo cushla, it's there my heart would roam.
Down along the bog-road, there lies a line of silver,
Winding midst the brown pools, it shows the way to Coom ;
Ah, mo chreeveen eeving, it's there my heart would wander,
Along the open highway, that leads the way to home.
Out upon the hillside I hear the plover calling
Deep into the darkness, he cries his lonely croon;
Ah, mo stor, mo hael hu, it's there my heart is turning!
To the plover and Shuvawn na burth, my steps I'll turn soon.
NOTE.— In Irish coom— cum, a hollow in the hills; mo chree— mo chroidhe,
my heart; mo cusla — mo cuisle, my veins; chreevin eeving — chraolbhin aoibhinn,
beautiful little branch; mo stor, my treasure; mo haal hu — mo zhaoghal thu, my
life you; all terms of endearment; Shuvawn na burth — Suibhan na bport, Joan
ef the bogs, a kind of heron.
« DEMPSEY."
BY HELEN MORIARTY.
NN pulled up the collar of her heavy coat and sunk
her hands deep in her pockets as she hurried along
the bleak, cold street. She had started out early
enough, as she thought, to find the " case " on her
list, but already the early winter afternoon was clos-
ing down, and she was beginning to fear she would have to give up
the search, " for I can't go into a strange building after dark," she
reminded herself. She was looking for 934 Winlane Street, where
upstairs in a two-story building, she would find a " man called
Dempsey," who, according to the report which had come to the
University Extension Social Guild of which Ann Reedy was a
shining light, was in imminent need of assistance.
Winlane Street had been unexpectedly hard to find. It was
one of those confusing short streets set down in the midst of a
city for the sole purpose, seemingly, of perplexing the unwary.
Years ago it had been Winthrop Lane, leading through daisied
meadows to the old Winthrop farmhouse, deep in other fragrant
meadows. Gradually the city stretched out greedy arms and took
the pretty, quiet lane into its embrace. Soon hedge and sapling
were replaced by dwellings, and as the old lane took on an urban
character, the name became corrupted, first to Winn Lane, and lat-
terly to Winlane Street. The only reminder of other days was
found in a few trees scattered along the little street. Today, the
houses looked dingy and dilapidated, and the number Ann sought,
was hard to find.
Ah ! here it is over a second-hand store. There was a stairway
at the side, and soon Ann found herself following directions and
knocking at the first door to the left at the head of the stairs.
There was a feeble response, and she entered. It was a small room,
looking to the west, and the light shone on a dingy bed in the corner,
where, under a pile of shabby blankets, a man was huddled.
He started at the sight of a stranger, and his large, dark eyes,
sunken in a pale face, seemed to have a curious fear in their depths.
" Pardon me," said Ann, in a carefully courteous tone, " I
am looking for a man named Dempsey.
1917.] "DEMPSEY' 793
" They call me Dempsey," the man said. " And who are
you?"
" My name is Reedy," returned the girl, smiling, " and I came
to see you on behalf of our Social Guild. It was reported to us
that you were sick, and alone, and that you might need — some —
assistance. You know that's what we do — help the sick and un-
fortunate," she added hurriedly. She had found her speech some-
what difficult, under the bright, unblinking regard of the inquiring
eyes.
" Thank you, ma'am," said the sick man, finally, with an ef-
fort at a smile. " It is very kind of you. I have been sick, but I
am better now, and I don't need anything."
"Are you sure I can't help you in any way?" And as he
shook his head, she went on : " Is there someone in the building
who takes care of you? "
" There's no one here now," was the answer given unwillingly
enough. " They have moved, and I'm going away myself to-
morrow," fixing a defensive eye on his visitor as he drew the bed-
clothes up more closely about him.
" But you have someone to take care of you? " Ann persisted
gently.
" Oh, yes," quickly. " I have my meals brought in, and any-
thing I want," he finished vaguely, his gaze wandering toward the
window where a gaunt tree waved ghostly branches against the
house.
" Do you — " Ann hesitated. It was plain he was no, ordinary
" case." " I can see you are far from well," she went on. " Do
you get proper nourishment? "
" Oh, I'm not so sick as I was. I'm on the mend now." The
voice had weak cadences that were not so reassuring. " And the
woman who waits on me brings me good things to eat. A while
ago she brought me a nice porterhouse steak and a fine cup of coffee.
Nothing could be better than that, could it, ma'am? I was always,"
the weak voice went on, " very fond of porterhouse steak and good
coffee."
" Perhaps you would like some fruit ? " The girl was con-
vinced that the man needed something, but what could one do in the
face of porterhouse steak?
" I never eat fruit," decidedly. " I never cared for it. No,
ma'am, thank you kindly, there's nothing that I need. I'm well
looked after, and I'll be leaving here tomorrow."
794
DEMPSEY" [Mar.,
Ann was nonplussed. She had never encountered a case like
this, and while she felt that perhaps he was needy, she could see
that he was determined not to accept any assistance. Even to her
inexperienced eye he looked very ill, " but if he's able to leave here
tomorrow — "
" I'm sorry there's nothing I can do for you," she said, gently.
" I've been looking for you all afternoon," with a smile. " You see
I live away at the other end of town, and it's quite a journey out
here."
"A long way from here? " he said. Ann thought he looked
relieved. "And where did you get my name?" His tone was
casual, but his eyes had an intently inquiring look.
" I think it was the woman who moved out of this building
who telephoned to the Guild," replied Ann.
" I see. That was kind of her." His eyes closed. He seemed
no longer interested; but he roused himself in a moment to say,
with a smile which had an ingratiating quality all its own : " I
am grateful to you and to her, ma'am, but I don't need any-
thing."
" Very well," said Ann. " But I'm going to leave you my own
card in case you should need anything," and she laid the bit of paste-
board on a small table near the bed among a motley collection of
medicine bottles and dirty spoons. " You'll be sure to let me
know? " she persisted. And he answered: " Yes, ma'am, if I need
anything I'll let you know." And with that the representative of the
University Extension Guild was fain to be content, though it was
with an uneasy feeling that she took her way downstairs. " I believe
I'll go in the store and see what they say about him in there," she
thought. A slatternly woman came forward, and when interro-
gated about the man upstairs, said : " Oh, is he there yet ? I guess
he's going away with some friends tonight. He told my husband
so this morning."
" He isn't going till tomorrow. Will you go up after awhile
and see that he has something to eat? " And she gave a dollar to
the woman, who promised volubly to do all she could for the sick
man.
The uneasy feeling pursued Ann as she hurried to the nearest
car.
" It's queer about some of the poor," she ruminated. " You
don't know how to manage them. At least I don't," with a helpless
feeling. " I have a fear that he needs something, and yet he was
1917.] "DEMPSEY* 795
determined not to take a thing from me — I could see that. I be-
lieve he's just proud and stubborn. I wonder if I ever saw him be-
fore? His face had a strangely familiar look — but I know I never
did. Still I seem to have seen someone with just such large, dark,
sad-looking eyes. Oh, well,'* as she tried to dismiss him from her
mind, " he couldn't be in need, or he surely wouldn't have refused
help."
Meanwhile in the little room on Winlane Street the shadows
lengthened, and night came down apace. The man called Dempsey
tossed restlessly under the thin covers, and huddled beneath them,
vainly seeking a warmth that was not there. Once, after the door
had closed on his visitor, he had smiled grimly. " That was a fine
bunch of lies I told her," he said aloud. " But how do I know who
she is ? I fooled her that time. Porterhouse steak ! " He groaned,
as he turned his face to the wall. " Poor Bessie ! She could cook
the steak and her coffee " His eyes closed and he
drifted off into fitful dreams where porterhouse steak, and hot
biscuits, and cups of coffee, were served up to him, only to be
snatched away again as he awoke with a regretful shudder. Night,
and the shade of the building adjoining, clothed the window in
sable draperies, and the desolate room was black with many shadows
besides those of the sick man's brain. But still the only vestige
of a visitor was the gaunt tree outside, whose trembling fingers
knocked — knocked — knocked — at the window, waking the occupant
of the bed from troubled dreams. And when he woke, how cold
it was, and oh, how far away morning seemed !
Cornelia, one of the "four brilliant Reedy sisters," as they were
called, had guests at dinner that evening, and at a lull
in the conversation bethought herself of Ann's last " case." Ann's
" cases " could always be depended upon to yield something inter-
esting. Her freshness in the work had not yet become jaded, and
her youthfully vague desire to " help humanity," enveloped her
efforts in a romantic mist, altogether delightful, and so far very
satisfying to herself.
" Did you find your man, Ann ? " asked Cornelia.
" Yes, after a long search. Do you know where Winlane
Street is ? Away down in the south end, near the rubber factory."
" Oh, has Ann got a new case ? Tell us about him," came a
a chorus.
" What's he like, Ann? " asked one of the young men. " Did
he need as much coal as the last one? " A sly dig at one of Ann's
796 "DEMPSEY' [Mar.,
deeply mortifying mistakes. She had been victimized out of six
tons of coal by the same man, under various aliases.
Ann felt curiously disinclined to talk about the sick man. " I
found him, yes," she said, slowly, " but he wasn't in need. I didn't
have to give him anything."
" That's queer," remarked Cornelia, " when the report you
got of him said he was in absolute need, didn't it? "
" Well, he said he didn't need anything at all," said Ann.
" Most of them don't need anything," put in Bob, the brother,
dryly, " but they manage to get a lot from you people before you
get through with them."
" This man isn't that kind," Ann said. " In fact, he wouldn't
take anything or let me do a thing for him. Yet he looked very
ill, though he said he was almost well, and had just had," she
smiled, " porterhouse steak and a fine cup of coffee."
" Porterhouse steak ! Can you beat it ? " murmured Bob.
Everybody laughed. " This is really one of Ann's interesting
cases," smiled her younger sister. " She goes ten miles to hunt up
a poor man, and finds him eating porterhouse steak."
" He wasn't eating it," protested Ann, " He said he had just
had it, but in spite of that he certainly had a sort of famished look.
Yes, that was it," she added with conviction, " he did look
famished."
" Why, Ann," said her mother reproachfully, "if he looked
so hungry I should think you would have gotten him something
anyhow."
" He wouldn't take anything, mother. He said he had all he
needed and was leaving there tomorrow. I left a dollar with the
woman downstairs, and asked her to see after him tonight. But I
have an uneasy feeling about him — I don't know why," she
ended.
" It's that porterhouse steak," said Bob. " I'm sure it won't
agree with him."
"Never fear, he's all right," said one of the other young
men. " I shouldn't worry about him if I were you," with a re-
assuring smile into Ann's troubled face. " Men of that sort always
have friends to look out for them. No doubt he's well taken
care of."
" He said he was," returned the girl, thoughtfully. Never-
theless, as the talk drifted into other channels, she found her
thoughts reverting again and again to the little room on Winlane
1917.] "DEMPSEY* 797
Street, and the haggard, haunting, famished-looking dark eyes.
"Wouldn't it be terrible if he zvas hungry?" she thought with a
pang.
The next afternoon she called up the woman at the second-
hand store, and was informed that the sick man had gone away
" with friends " that morning. Ann felt relieved, and immediately
dismissed him from her mind.
It was nearly a week later that she was called to the telephone
one morning. It was a message from St. Charles' Hospital. A
man had been brought in from the southern part of the city in a
starving condition, and in his pocket had been found a card bearing
the name of Miss Ann Reedy, 40 Delaplaine Place. Conviction
came to Ann in a moment, with a rush of horror. Was he taken
from Winlane Street ? No, but it was from a street in that vicinity.
" It must be a man named Dempsey," she told her inquirer. " I
will go over to see him."
In a starving condition ! Her heart contracted sharply as she
hung up the receiver. " Oh, the poor man ! " she said, with bitter
remorse. " Starving then, maybe, and he wouldn't let me help
him. Oh, I knew he looked famished! Why didn't I get him
something anyhow ? " The girl had never been so close to any-
thing so really tragic as starvation, and the realization of it shook
her soul.
Her mother found her preparing to go out, with big tears
dropping down her cheeks.
" Why, Ann, what's the matter? " in a startled tone.
" Oh, mother, that poor man ! " And Ann's tears overflowed
as she told her mother, with many reproachful words for her own
lack of insight.
" How terrible ! " said Mrs. Reedy. " But, my dear, I don't
think you need blame yourself so severely. He really wouldn't let
you help him. The poor are sometimes so exasperating," she added,
with a worried air. " Now there's Bessie. Little Dan has been sick
again, you know, and I've been wanting her to take him to the
Children's hospital. She's worn out from staying up nights with
him, and anyhow he would get such good care there. But do you
think she'll listen to me? No, indeed! She just says no in that
quiet way of hers that leaves no room for argument. Then I
told her I'd get someone else to do her work here for a couple of
weeks and let her have a rest. No again. 'I can't afford to stop/
she said to me awhile ago. 'I need the work and I can do it.' And
79g "DEMPSEY" [Mar.,
when I said, 'But of course I'd pay you just the same, Bessie/ she
answered: 'Oh no, ma'am, I can't take charity while I'm able to
work/ "
Mrs. Reedy raised her hand to smooth away a perplexed
frown. " As though I considered it charity to help Bessie ! She has
washed, and ironed, and done my cleaning for me for nearly twelve
years; and she has been so good and faithful and never stinted her-
self when any of you children were sick — she has always helped me
SQ much — and yet she won't take what she calls charity from me !
I declare it's enough to provoke a saint ! "
" Isn't it? " murmured Ann, sympathetically. " Bessie is pig-
headed ! Never mind, mother, we'll go over to see little Dan this
afternoon and take him some goodies. There's a book I've been
wanting to get him for some time. She can't stop us from doing
things for Dan, anyhow."
" Very well," said her mother, with a tired sigh. " It's cer-
tainly a problem sometimes how to do for people."
At the hospital Ann found that the new patient was indeed the
" man called Dempsey," and he was in a very precarious condition.
He was delirious from weakness, and though the sunken, dark
eyes glanced around restlessly, there was no recognition for anyone
in their depths. It was with a heavy heart that Ann left the small
ward, pursued by the fearsome thought that the man's condition
was all her fault. " If I had known what I was about," she mused,
forlornly, " I would never have left a fellow-creature to starve to
death." The fruits of her work, in which she had heretofore de-
lighted, were now as dust and ashes in her mouth.
Two or three days later when she went back again she met
Sister Marion, the Superior, in the hall.
;( Your man is so much better," said the Superior, smiling a
cordial greeting. " He's picked up wonderfully since yesterday.
And he's the most grateful individual — I never saw the like. I
suppose he's so glad to get a little care and attention."
Ann's smile froze on her lips. " But, Sister," she interrupted,
" he could have had care and attention both, a week before. You
know I visited him, and he told me most decidedly that he needed
nothing. Why was that, I wonder ? And he must have been nearly
starving even then."
" Well, my dear," said the Superior, gently, " some people have
a horror of accepting charity. They seem to shy at the very name
of a charitable organization."
1917.] "DEMPSEY" 799
" But I would have been so glad to help him myself,"
said Ann, piteously. " And he has to take charity now from
you."
Sister Marion smiled. " It isn't charity we give, my dear.
It's just such help as one child of God might give to another."
"Well, I could give that, couldn't I?" asked the girl, defen-
sively.
" I'm sure you could, and would," returned Sister Marion,
smiling kindly into the troubled eyes.
"Then what's the difference?" went on Ann, rather resent-
fully. " Why does he take so gratefully from you what he ab-
solutely refused from me? "
" That's a problem for your sociologists to solve," and there
was a twinkle in the eye of the Superior.
" Our Guild does an immense amount, of good," stated Ann,
proudly. "If you knew the number of people we have helped this
winter ! "
" I'm sure you have," agreed Sister Marion, amicably.
"Still I see you think we don't go about it in the right way,"
said Ann, a latent note of irritation in her tone.
"Now what makes you think that?" asked Sister Marion,
amused in spite of herself.
" Don't you think so ? " countered Ann.
The Superior hesitated a bit. " Well, frankly, since you ask
me, I do not think so highly of the charity that is supposed to be
dispensed along scientific lines. Charity is from God, and should
be dispensed as He gives it — without question and without stint.
You know the poor — the deserving poor — are as sensitive as their
more fortunate fellow-creatures; sometimes more so. They don't
want their unhappy needs catalogued, and docketed, and made
known to the world at large."
" But we don't do that," put in Ann, eagerly. " Our records
are strictly private, except for investigators — statistics, you know—
or for students of sociology."
" Exactly," interrupted Sister Marion, " there's the point.
Don't you know the self-respecting poor don't want to be investi-
gated? Here now is the reason, Miss Reedy, that this poor fel-
low is resting so easily in his little bed here. He knows we are
only giving him what God has given us for such as he. We ask
him no questions when he comes (unless he happens to be a
Catholic), and we shall ask him no recompense when he goes, and
goo " DEMPSE Y" [Mar.,
maybe we'll help him a little to get started. And he'll take it as
we give it — in God's name."
" I see," said Ann, doubtfully. But it was quite plain to Sister
Marion that she was not convinced. "Is he a Catholic?" she
added, perfunctorily.
" He is, or should be," was the response. " Like many another
wanderer, which he seems to have been, he has drifted away. But
we'll bring him back, please God," with a confident smile.
Ann found the man weak, but rational, after three days of
careful nourishment, and he smiled up at her peacefully as she in-
troduced herself.
" I remember you," he said. " You're Miss Reedy, who came
to see me on Winlane Street."
" I'm glad to see you better and so well taken care of," said
Ann, tentatively.
" Oh, I haven't felt so comfortable in years," he replied in
a weak voice.
"Why didn't you let me help you that day?" asked Ann,
reproachfully.
" I didn't need anything that day, Miss," evasively.
" I know you told me you had just had a porterhouse steak,"
said Ann, with an accusing look.
The semblance of a twinkle came into the sick man's eyes.
" I'm afraid I was wandering a little that day, Miss," he said,
apologetically.
" I would have been so glad to help you — myself," said his
visitor.
" I know you would, thank you kindly," smiling at her grate-
fully the man replied.
Ann found herself baffled again.
" So your name is Dempsey," taking a different tack. " I
wonder if you could be any relation to the Dempsey s here. They
are—"
A startled, furtive look came into the sick man's eyes. " I'm
not— I'm not related to any Dempseys here," he said, hurriedly.
" Well, there's no telling," persisted the girl.
" No, I'm not," he returned, decidedly. " In fact, my name's
not Dempsey at all. It was this way," to the girl's inquiring look.
" When I was a small lad — I wasn't raised in this town — I used
to work around a hotel. I was a great little fellow to fight — not
knowing any better, God help me— and the men about the place
1917.] "DEMPSEY' 801
got to calling me 'Dempsey' after a big fellow who was a fighter
by profession. I was proud of the name then, and it stuck to me, as
nicknames have a way of doing, and some of the boys always called
me 'Dempsey.' But it isn't my own name, Miss Reedy. I've told
the Sisters my name. It's their due, after all they've done for me.
So you see," he finished, breathing quickly after such a long story.
" I'm not related to anyone in this town."
" Oh ! " was all Ann found to say, rather blankly. Evidently
she was not to know his real name. Well, why should he tell her,
a perfect stranger ? But a curious feeling of mortification and dis-
appointment came over her that she had not been able to win his
confidence. " But he told the Sisters at once," she thought,
with a little hurt, surprised feeling. Well !
" It is strange about nicknames," she found herself saying,
" but I think 'Dempsey' is a pretty good one. Maybe I'll come to
see you again," as she rose to go, " and could I bring you anything
now ? Some fruit ? "
" Just bring yourself, Miss," was the quick reply, a fleeting
smile in the sad, dark eyes, " and that will be fruit enough for a
sick man."
Ann laughed quietly. " Maybe your name isn't Dempsey, but
I know now it has the same relation to the blarney stone," she said.
It was the next afternoon that Ann drifted into the kitchen
where Bessie was finishing up the week's ironing.
" How's little Dan, Bessie? " she asked.
" He's better again today, Miss Ann," the woman replied, with
a happy smile. Bessie was a slender little woman, pale and tired
looking, with a pathetic droop to her lips and a patient smile in
her soft, blue eyes. Withal, she was brisk and capable, and was
greatly beloved by all the Reedys, who had been petting her only
child, " little Dan," as he was called, since he was three years old,
when Bessie first came to their mother as a laundress and general
helper. The little fellow was a cripple from hip disease, and his
mother had had quite a struggle to take care of him and do her
work. The Reedys helped her in every way possible, but she was
very proud, and it was not always easy to do as much as they would
like.
'' Was the doctor able to relieve his pain? " pursued Ann.
" Yes, he slept well last night. How is your patient at the
hospital?" Bessie always heard all about Ann's " cases."
VOL. CIV. — 51
802 "DEMPSEY" [Mar,
" Oh, he's better. It was the same man. Wasn't it strange,
Bessie, that he wouldn't let me help him, when he was actually
starving — starving, mind you — at the time ! "
" It was strange," said Bessie, thoughtfully. " What's his
name?" idly.
" Dempsey," replied Ann. " At least, that isn't his name, he
says, but that's what we thought his name was. He didn't tell me
his real name, but he told the Sisters. Isn't it queer," she went on,
" that he has always been called Dempsey since he was a little boy,
because it was given to him as a nickname then? " Bessie stopped
suddenly in her ironing and turned a startled, inquiring look on the
girl, who went on unconcernedly : " He said he used to work in a
hotel, and because he could take his own part so well, the men got
to calling him 'Dempsey' after a prize-fighter."
The iron fell from Bessie's hand with a great clatter. " Oh,
my God ! " she said, as she sank into a chair. " Oh, my God, it's
Dan— it's Dan— found at last ! Thank God ! Thank God ! "
"Bessie! What is it? " exclaimed Ann in consternation, has-
tening to the almost fainting woman, while the hot iron scorched
its imprint on the white floor.
" It's my husband, Miss Ann, I know it is ! That was what
they used to call him — I've heard him tell that a hundred times!
Oh, I must go to him ! The poor fellow ! " she moaned, " gone
since little Dan was a baby — wandering all these years — and he
could have come back. Oh, Miss Ann, it's a long story, but he's
a good man! I'll tell you all about it sometime, but now I must
go to him."
She was trembling with eagerness, and tears were running
down her pale cheeks.
At Bessie's first words, Ann had clasped her hands in com-
prehension.
'That's it!" she murmured, "that's the resemblance I saw!
Bessie ! " as the little woman rose unsteadily and began to remove
her apron, " It is— I know it is — Dan's father ! I knew there was
something familiar about his face. Little Dan looks just like him —
he has his father's eyes, hasn't he? "
"Yes, oh, yes!"
" Oh, it's wonderful! " said Ann, with a swelling heart. She
had never known that Dan's father was living, nor had even Mrs.
Reedy suspected the hidden sorrow of poor Bessie's life.
In an incredibly short space of time Bessie, accompanied by
1917.] "DEMPSEY" 803
Ann, was speeding across the city in a taxicab, requisitioned by
Ann, " for she can't get to him too quickly," the sympathetic and
interested Reedys had7 decided.
Meanwhile at the hospital, the " man called Dempsey " had
been having an interview with the chaplain. In the quiet and se-
clusion of his little alcove in the ward, far removed from the
world of trouble that had encompassed him, strength had come to
the wanderer to seek that peace which had fled him so many years
ago. It had not taken so long to tell the story; it was sordid
enough.
Fifteen years before, in Cincinnati, he had a happy home, a
wife and baby, and a good job in a factory. The foreman in the
shop had been one of those "drivers" who have the unhappy
faculty of driving the men, not to better work or increased effi-
ciency, but to bitter resentment and fierce disgust. The men hated
him intensely. One day he had angered the men by bringing in
the superintendent to lecture them for short work, when the work
was short only because he would not give them enough to do.
After the superintendent left, he spoke sharply to the young ap-
prentice who was working with Dan Holmes. The boy answered
back, and in an instant the foreman had knocked the youngster
down. This was too much for Holmes, whose anger flamed to
white heat and he rushed at the foreman. As he did so, his foot
slipped, and the hammer in his hand flew out and struck the fore-
man in the head, laying him low in a sudden and horrifying pool
of blood.
" Father, I didn't mean to hit him with the hammer," the sick
man said, earnestly. " The Lord will be my judge that I didn't.
Oh, it was awful ! When the men saw him fall, and realized what
I had done, they got around me and told me I'd better skip out.
They gathered up all the money they had with them, and hurried
me away. I sneaked out to the railroad yards and stole into the
first empty car I could find. I stayed there till I got to Chicago,
and there I managed to get something to eat, and take some more
with me, when I sneaked into another empty car in a train going
west. I wanted to get a paper, but I was mortally afraid of being
seen, so I couldn't find out anything that was happening back
home. I landed in Kansas City. I got work there for awhile, and
then I left and went farther west."
" Did they make a search for you ? " asked the priest.
8o4
DEMPSEY" [Mar.,
" I suppose they did," wearily. " I thought every man who
looked at me the second time was after me. But there wasn't any-
thing in the papers about it— nothing that I could find— there was
some other sensation by that time, and so—
" And you didn't let your wife or the men know where you
were?"
" No, I was afraid to. I had read so much about people being
caught that way — so I wouldn't even write to Bessie. The men
said they would look after her and the boy till I could send for
them. Oh, Father, I was bitter lonesome and homesick ! Where-
ever I went it was the same thing over. I'd work awhile and then
get a scare, and I'd run away to some other town. But it was no
good. You can't run away from fear, Father," with a haggard
look. " It runs with you every step you take."
" And you never went to church? " asked the chaplain.
" Oh, yes, Father, I went to church, but never to confession.
What would be the use unless I was ready to come back and give
myself up? I thought," with a heavy sigh, "that I never would
be ready to do that; but I'm ready now. I'm so tired of being a
runaway — so tired of myself and the fear that's always with me —
that I'm ready to suffer for what I did. Suffer? I have suffered a
thousand purgatories for it. Father, do you believe that? "
" I know it, my man," replied the priest. " You shouldn't
have run away; you should have stayed and faced the trouble like
a man, for your wife's sake."
" But it was mostly for her sake that I went, Father," said
Holmes, defensively ; " to save her and the boy the disgrace, and
besides I had no time to think — it was all so sudden."
" Yes, I know," said the priest, kindly. " If we always had
time to think, many of us might do differently. Well, now you
rest quietly for a day or two, until I can make some inquiries."
" Father, if I could only see Bessie and the boy," put in
the sick man, wistfully, " I think I could face whatever is before
me."
The chaplain promised to write immediately to the addresses
Holmes had given him, and he left the wanderer much comforted
and cheered, and with a new peace in his heart so long estranged
from anything but haunting fear.
When, a few hours later, Sister Marion met Ann in the hall
with a pale, but eager-eyed and trembling woman, she sensed the
truth at once.
1917-] "DEMPSEY' 805
" You must be Bessie," she said, taking the toilworn hand in
a close clasp.
" Oh, has he told you? " breathed Bessie. " It is Dan, then! "
" Yes, it is Dan, anxious to see you, and willing to suffer for
what he did, poor fellow." Sister Marion had also heard the story
from his own lips.
" But, oh, Sister, he won't have to ! He didn't kill the man.
He's alive and well today ! Oh, my poor Dan ! He thought he had
killed him, and so did the men, but if he had only waited — and the
men tried every way to find him — we advertised, and did every-
thing. They thought at last he was dead," but I never did! I
knew he would come back sometime to little Dan and me. May I
go to him now, Sister? "
" You poor child! " said Marion, tenderly. " And poor Dan!
Come, I'll take you to him myself."
To Ann, walking impatiently up and down the long reception
room, came presently Sister Marion.
"Oh, Sister, how did he take it? Isn't it wonderful? Did
you ever hear of such a strange case? " all in one breath from the
excited girl.
" They're the two happiest mortals on the face of the earth
this minute," answered Sister Marion. "He stood it splendidly;
it won't hurt him — it will make a well man of him."
" Isn't it wonderful ? " repeated Ann.
" It is," replied Sister Marion; " but life is full of strange and
wonderful things, especially life in a hospital," smiling. " This is
only one of many."
They talked of Bessie and little Dan for awhile, Ann telling
of her hard and laborious life, adding the points which Bessie had
given her on the way to the hospital. She had left Cincinnati be-
cause the men wished to help her all the time, and her independent
spirit was too proud to take anything from them. They felt it was
their fault that Dan went away, and willingly charged themselves
with the care of her and the boy. But she went away to escape
their kindness. When she heard of the boy's affliction, Sister
Marion thought at once of the great German doctor who was com-
ing to this country, and who was able to cure just such afflictions
as his might prove to be.
" How curious it was that he was brought here," remarked
Ann, thoughtfully.
806 TO A FRIEND [Mar.,
" Not curious, providential," corrected Sister Marion, with her
quite smile.
Ann looked up quickly. " Yes it was providential, I see that,"
she amended. " And I see too, Sister," she added, shyly, " where
I fall short in my work. You can give spiritual help too — we only
help the physical individual. That's the reason we can't reach them
as you do. I couldn't see the difference yesterday," with a frank
smile. " I do now."
The Superior laughed gently with a caressing hand on the
young shoulder. " That's the province of charity, isn't it, my
dear, to help the sick soul as well as the sick body ? And after all,
you know, Our Lord cares more for souls than He does for bodies."
" It's a beautiful thing," remarked Ann, with unwonted sober-
ness, " to have even a small part in the saving of souls, isn't it? "
But Ann said never a word — then !
" It's a great privilege," was Sister Marion's reply. "Wouldn't
you like to help ? "
TO A FRIEND.
BY MARIAN NESBITT.
O FRIEND beloved, our paths lie far apart ;
In dreams alone, I now may clasp your hand;
And yet — I think and hope you understand
That you are ever present in my heart.
Not silence, nor the years that come and go —
Nor distance, with its deep, dividing sea —
Can touch the flower that bloomed for you and me —
That rose of friendship, which will fairer grow
As time rolls on; and by God's grace some day,
When golden moments speed on winged feet,
We two in this glad world again shall meet —
Till then, dear friend, forget me not, I pray.
THE POOR STEP-DAME.
(Some Considerations of the Poetry of the Late Madison Cawein.)
BY JOYCE KILMER.
I.
HE temperament which admits the pathetic fallacy
(said John Ruskin)1 is that of a mind and
body in some sort too weak to deal fully with what
is before them or upon them; borne away, or over-
clouded, or over-dazzled by emotion ; and it is a more
or less noble state according to the force of the emotion which has
induced it. For it is no credit to a man that he is not morbid
or inaccurate in his perceptions, when he has no strength or feel-
ing to warp them ; and it is in general a sign of higher capacity and
stand in the ranks of being, that the emotions should be strong
enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect, and make it believe what
they choose. But it is a still grander condition when the intellect also
rises, until it is strong enough to assert its rule against, or together
with, the utmost efforts of the passions; and the whole man stands
in an iron glow, white hot, perhaps, but still strong, and in no
wise evaporating; even if he melts, losing none of his weight.
From this statement Ruskin went on to describe three sorts
of men. There is, he said, the man who perceives rightly, because
he does not feel, and to whom the primrose is very accurately the
primrose, because he does not love it. Then, secondly, the man
who perceives wrongly, because he feels, and to whom the prim-
rose is anything else than a primrose; a star, a sun, or a fairy's
shield, or a forsaken maiden. And then, lastly, there is the man
who perceives rightly in spite of his feelings, and to whom the
primrose is forever nothing else than itself — a little flower, ap-
prehended in the very plain and leafy fact of it, whatever and how
many soever the associations and passions may be, that crowd
around it. These three classes of men Ruskin rates in compara-
tive order, as the men who are not poets at all, and the poets of the
second order, and the poets of the first. And by Ruskin's standards
of criticism Madison Cawein, a poet who died in Louisville, Ken-
tucky, his birthplace, in nineteen fourteen, was a poet of the first
order.
*0f the Pathetic Fallacy, by John Ruskin. Paragraph 8 et seq.
8o8
THE POOR STEP-DAME [Mar.,
II.
As William Cullen Bryant drew his inspiration from the
wooded hills and fertile valleys of his native New England, so
Madison Cawein drew his from the meadows of the South, es-
pecially those of Kentucky. The term " nature poet " has been used
in derision of some writers who lavish sentimental adulation upon
every bird and flower, who pretend an admiration for things of
which they have no real understanding. But Madison Cawem knew
that about which he wrote; he had an amazing, we might say a
perilous, intimacy with nature.
And Madison Cawein had no vague love for all nature — he
knew too much for that. True, he knew nature in her delicate
and in her splendid aspects — he watched the barberry redden in
the lanes, he feasted his eyes on " the orange and amber of the
marigold, the terra-cottas of the zinnia flowers,"2 he learned lovely
secrets from whippoorwill, swallow and cricket, and he could see
drowsy summer rocking the world to sleep in her kindly arms.
But also he knew (with a knowledge which only Algernon Black-
wood among contemporary writers has equaled) that nature some-
times is cruel and terrible.
He knew that the daily life of bird and beast — yes, and the
daily life of flower and tree — is as much a tragedy as a comedy.
So (in the sonnet-sequence3 he wrote by the Massachusetts shore in
nineteen eleven) he saw a certain grove as " a sad room, devoted
to the dead/'4 he felt the relentlessness of the ocean mists invading
the beach, he saw an autumn branch staining a pool like a blur
of blood. He makes us share his terror of deserted mill-streams
where " the cardinal flower, in the sun's broad beam, with sudden
scarlet takes you by surprise,"5 and of dark and menacing swamps,
ominous with trembling moss, purple-veined pitcher-plants and wild
grass trailing over the bank like the hair of a drowned girl.
Madison Cawein's studies of nature were comprehensive, and
they were accurate enough to satisfy the most exacting botanist.
Miss Jessie B. Rittenhouse has said6 that one might explore the
-J } Woods and Waters, Sonnet 9, Flower Pageant. In The Poet, the Fool, and
the Faeries. New York: Small, Maynard & Co.
8 Woods and Waters, a sequence of thirteen sonnets written at Manchester-by-
the-Sea, Massachusetts, September, 1911.
* Woods and Waters, Sonnet 13, A Forest Place.
6 Woods and Waters, Sonnet 3, The Millstream.
"The New York Times Re-view of Books, quoted in The Poet, the Fool, and the
Faeries.
1917.] THE POOR STEP-DAME 809
Kentucky woods with a volume of Cawein's poems as a handbook,
and identify many a lowly and exquisite flower first recognized in
song. But his poems were not mere catalogues of natural beauties,
any more than they were sentimental idealizations of them. They
were reflections of nature, reflections painted rather than photo-
graphed, but interpreted rather than romanticized. And in the ac-
curacy of the reflection was Cawein's greatest danger; his service
was too faithful to merit reward.
III.
I have said that Cawein belonged to Ruskin's first order of
poets; he was one of those, men who feel strongly, think strongly
and see truly. He never fell into the sentimental error which
Ruskin condemned; he never transferred to nature his own emo-
tions, seeing her weep because of his sorrow or smile because of
his joy. Instead, he was filled with the gloom native to the swamps
which he beheld, or with mirth that he caught from the lyric ecstasy
of the dawn.
Now, it may be that this is sometimes the proper attitude of
the poet. Certainly it has resulted in the production of much
literature that the world will not willingly let die. But it is
perilous as an habitual attitude; it necessitates a curiously per-
verted point of view, it takes from mankind his dominion over
the other terrestrial creatures. It elevates the soulless forms of
life; it lessens such dignity as man, fallen though he be, legiti-
mately possesses. It puts into poetry, however beautiful, a quality
which gives him who reads much of it a feeling of strange lone-
liness, almost of desolation.
Now, Madison Cawein resented the statement that humanity
had no place in his poetic vision. And during the last years of his
life, he seemed to be trying to escape from his bondage to nature,
and to be contemplating his fellow human beings with pathetic
eagerness of vision. But in most of his work, in, it must be
acknowledged, the best of it, he wrote not of reasonable humanity
but of the world of animal and vegetable things lacking reason,
that had to him powers stranger and more interesting than reason.
Madison Cawein wrote well of a house full of men and women
and children, but better and more often, of an empty house, with
its hedges run wild, its paths hidden by flowering grass and swal-
lows flying through its broken windows. He wrote well of a
iplowman, but better and more often of the field in which he
THE POOR STEP-DAME [Mar.,
worked. He subordinated himself to wild nature, letting her speak
to the world through him, instead of merely going to her for meta-
phors appropriate to his own emotional experiences, or regarding
her as a setting for mankind, or a relatively unimportant part of
the whole scheme of things. And this, it cannot be denied, was a
dangerous thing to do. Consider A Path to the Woods:1
Its friendship and its carelessness
Did lead me many a mile,
Through goat's-rue, with its dim caress,
And pink and pearl-white smile ;
Through crowfoot, with its golden lure,
And promise of far things,
And sorrel with its glance demure
And wide-eyed wanderings.
Charming, the reader says, most colorful and delicate! Yes;
but notice that the path leads the poet, the poet does not " take
the path." And as stanza follows stanza, the attentive reader feels
that the poet has in very truth given himself over to the path,
that he does not choose his way, that he does not even step by his
own volition, that he is drawn on by a strange creature of brown
earth and whispering grasses. The poet seems almost to have
yielded his soul to the control of the path, as the subject at the
planchette-board puts his will and motive powers into the guidance
of some wanton and ominous unseen being.
So it is in poems so lovely as The Dreams of Summer* and
The Wood Stream9 and Dragon Flies10 and Autumn Storm.11
Nature seems actually too real in these poems, too immediately
present. In real life we are not conscious of nature as a dominating
influence; we are conscious of her as a background or as an ac-
companiment. In these poems we feel that nature is the one im-
portant thing, that we are her humble and uncomprehending sub-
jects.
It is not that the moon and the twilight and the fire-flies and
the wildflowers and the mountains and the trees of the forests are
personified. Rather it is as if they always had personalities, now
first revealed to us, personalities beautiful, perhaps, but vaguely ter-
rifying. It is not the histrionic and unconvincing paganism of
^A Path to the Woods, p. I04, The Poet, the Fool, and the Faeries.
'The Dreams of Summer, p. 107, ibid. 'The Wood Stream, p. 115, ibid
Dragon Flies, p. 123, ibid. "Autumn Storm, p. 129, ibid.
1917.] THE POOR STEP-DAME 811
Algernon Charles Swinburne, it is genuine paganism. For pa-
ganism is the reverence of mankind for something lower than man-
kind; paganism is the degradation of humanity in the sense that
Christianity is exaltation.
It is not right — however interesting and romantic and exciting
it may be — for a path to lead a man. The beauty of a path is that it
is worn by the tread of human feet, that it is of service to man.
A path goes to, rather than from, a place. It is a means of reach-
ing a spring or a high road or a house or a town or some other
friendly and serviceable thing. There had been only the woods or
the moor — a thing sufficient to itself, external of, and indifferent to,
humanity. Now there is the path, linking the inhuman to the hu-
man, a sign of the temporary but real sovereignty of man. The
poet must not deny his manhood. In his interpretive adventures
he may now and then voice the thoughts, so to speak, of lovely
inhuman things. But for him habitually to adopt their supposed
attitude is dangerous and in a sense treasonable. In itself, A Path
to the Woods is interesting only as an example of deft and
pleasantly pictorial versification. But taken in connection with
many score similar poems of Madison Cawein, it is explanatory
of much in this poet's life and work that is otherwise puzzling; it
is explanatory of the melancholy which permeates much of his
verse and finds almost oppressively complete expression in the thir-
teen sonnets called Wood and Waters.
That melancholy becomes explicit in the stanzas called Worm
-and Fly.12 I quote them in full :
Unseen the lizard, in reptilian night,
Evolves the hole wherein are placed its eggs,
Small, yolkly oblongs of membraneous white,
Seed-like that put forth legs.
Beneath the stone, that lies where long it fell,
The pale grub sleeps until the Summer sings,
Then, blindly groping, splits its locust shell
And whirls rejoicing wings.
Upon the oak bough, swelling with the sap,
The gray-green gall rounds like a wart, its sphere,
Wherein the woodfly's whining sting shall tap,
And bore its thin way clear.
13 Worm and Fly, p. 117, ibid,
8l2 THE POOR STEP-DAME [Mar.,
I stand and wonder, pausing mid the trees,
And question what they purpose — worm and fly ;
Unbeautif ul ; and made, it seems, to tease,
And weary ear and eye.
Does Nature blunder into forms? Does she
Count these as true expressions — fly and worm ?
And Man ? — perhaps her one mistake is he —
Slow-toiling out his term.
Hag-lights and fox-fire and the wisp that flies —
Are they not parts too of great Nature's scheme? —
Tis flame that shows where buried treasure lies,
And night, that makes it gleam.
It is not easy to grasp the symbolism of the last four lines.
But the stanza before the last he that runs may read. This is
not " what is man that Thou art mindful of him? " This is man
weighed in a natural, not a supernatural, balance and found want-
ing. The poem is almost desperately sad, with the sadness of hu-
miliation. Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept.18
And we did not remember Zion.
IV.
No one who knows Cawein's poetry could accuse him of de-
liberate distortion of the truth. He was a sincere and generous
man, a good husband, a good friend, and a good citizen. He never
wrote a line of which he had reason to be ashamed. All who knew
him perceived the integrity, the nobility of his character. What I
believe to be the falsity of his philosophic stand came from his over
great love of nature. A conscientious artist, he brooded too long
on his subject. He lacked a saving egotism. He would have been
a happier man, and I think a greater poet, had he possessed some
of the characteristics of those whom Ruskin placed in the second
and inferior order of poets; those to whom the primrose is any-
thing else than a primrose, " a star, or a sun, or a fairy's shield
or a forsaken maiden." For as a matter of truth, as well as a
matter of fact, a primrose is something else than a primrose, as
everything is in terms of eternity something other than it is in
terms of time. It is well for a poet to look at nature. But it is
imperative that he shall look, as has been said, through nature up
to nature's God.
"Psalm 136.
1917.] THE POOR STEP-DAME 813
We have seen in our time many intellectual and spiritual
travesties resulting from the acceptance of Pope's maxim : " The
proper study of mankind is man." To love one's neighbors is a
divine command. But there is a monstrous love of humanity which
finds expression in some of the humanitarian cults of the day, a love
of humanity that is really a blasphemous worship of humanity. We
find an honored poet, in his generous devotion to the down-trodden
laborer, praising that laborer for having, throughout the centuries,
been " so patient with God." We find other poets saying that the
age of God is passed and the age of man come. And we find min-
isters who have received some sort of Christian nomination or ap-
pointment, dedicating churches to the service of humanity instead
of to the service of God.
Now, this is of course rank blasphemy. And there is a nature
worship less obvious, but as pernicious as this humanity worship.
It appears in the poetry of semi-orientals such as Rabindranath
Tagore, and in that of their English and American imitators.
When it is labeled "pantheism" or "paganism" as in Emerson and in
a few of the modern English poets, it is easy to recognize and con-
fute. But, it is insidious and dangerous when, as in the work of
Madison Cawein, it comes in a dress of noble phrases when it is the
honest expression of a sincere and gifted poet.
Such messages or symbolic significances as Cawein's poems con-
tain usually are slight things, added, it often seems as after-
thoughts, sometimes they mar the poems with anti-climaces. In
A Path to the Woods the poet is led to think of his own childhood ;
in Butterflies^ he thinks of " the hope within the heart which still
assures the soul of many immortalities;" in Dragon Flies he thinks
that he might follow the bright-winged creatures to Elfland; in
The Ghost Ftozver,15 the Indian pipe likewise gives him a longing
for Elfland; sometimes a field or a grove of trees calls up human
associations, but these associations usually are of one of two sorts
— either the poet's own childhood, or some vague terrible tragedy.
In The Gray Land1* we find:
The ovals of the acorns, split with rain,
That sprout and spread,
Splash mud and moss with many a sinister stain,
Faint streaks of red :
"Butterflies, p. 121, The Poet, The Fool, and the Faeries.
"Page 127, ibid, "Page 148, ibid.
814 THE POOR STEP-DAME [Mar.,
No sound upon the hush intrudes
Except the drip of wet, that broods
Like some old crime upon the woods,
And holds them grim with dread.
The human associations of these lines are tragic — a sprout-
ing acorn is sinister, and the life-giving rain " broods like some
old crime." In most of Cawein's poems there is no attempt to re-
late the natural objects described to God or to man. When such
an attempt is made, the relationship usually is like that of The Gray
Land or else, as has been said, a wistful recollection of the poet's
childhood. For the passing of the tempest to fill the tree-sheltered
poet's soul with faith, as In the Deep Forest, was an experience
which Cawein put into verse.
In Woods and Waters, the sonnet sequence to which I have
already made several references, it is possible to find nearly all of
Cawein's philosophies or attitudes or intuitions. In the first two
sonnets, On a Headland and The Forest we find him possessed of
that mighty range of vision which is characteristic of the great
poet. We find him looking not only at things, but around things
and through things. The sea and the shore are God's poem; he
who surveys them perceives " the solemn splendors of invested
law." The forest (to how many poets has this image occurred!)
is a many-columned church ; " yon woodland vista, with its sunset
arch, seems a vast casement glorifying God." But with the second
sonnet Cawein is done with the natural as a phase of the super-
natural. In the remaining eleven sonnets, the natural alone is
sufficient to the poet's purposes. It is sufficient, that is, to enable
him to make interesting and hauntingly beautiful poetry, but it is
not sufficient to give him the glow of exultation visible in On a
Headland and The Forest. In The Mill-stream the poet senses
the almost brutal glory of the cardinal-flower, and is filled with a
vague fear of the mysterious less-than-human beings that may
dwell in the forest — he experiences momentarily that feeling which
is the literal significance of the word " panic." For him the ruined
frame of The Old Saw-mill keeps " a memory of some perished
crime." The lips of the pitcher-plant leer at him, and the swollen
moss hides a pit of death. In The Swamp he imagines that the
half-sunken rowboat has by night a corpse for passenger. The
Place of Pools, even in the golden light of day, is ominous—" is
that a crimson bough staining the water? or a blur of blood?"
Vesper Time is the hour when the mist embraces sea and land.
1917.] THE POOR STEP-DAME 815
Flower Pageant begins as gaily as its title would indicate, but we
find that every bloom is :
a torch
Borne in September's train, whose funeral goes
With pomp of purple down these woodland glades,
Where melancholy sits beneath the larch
Crumbling the crimson of the last late rose.
The Wind From the Sea beats with wild hands of terror at
the door; Sea Lure gives us a picture of the ocean as a death-
dealing siren — very different from the conception of the sea as
" God's poem" in the first sonnet of this sequence; the "ocean
mists are a ghastly army invading the land, and A Forest Place is :
Like some sad room, devoted to the dead,
Dim with the dust of love-begotten hours,
Where dull decay sits, and gray memory lowers,
And sorrow stands beside death's ancient bed.
I said that in all but the first two sonnets of this series the
natural alone was sufficient to the poet's purposes. It may be ob-
jected that it is not of the purely natural that he wrote in The
Swamp and The Mill-stream and the rest of these deeply melan-
choly poems. They are filled with intimations of things that are
the more terrifying, because they are not clearly perceptible to
mortal vision, things that are malicious, inhuman but related to
humanity in some shameful way. These things are not supernatural
in the sense that the visions of the first two sonnets are super-
natural ; they are not in the true sense of the word spiritual. They
are manifestations of that instinct which in every land and time has
peopled the woods and waste places with dryads and satyrs and
all the soulless mischevious train of Pan. In these depressing
studies, Cawein reveals to us, it may be said, the unnaturalness
of nature.
There are today two ways in which a poet may regard the
woods. One is the way in which Sidney Lanier regarded the
woods in A Ballad of Trees and the Master*1 and this is the
way in which Madison Cawein regarded the woods when he be-
gan his sonnet sequence. The other way is to regard the woods
without taking into consideration the Christian tradition. And
when this is done the forest always becomes a place of shame and
terror, full of beings hostile to mankind.
"Page 141, Poems of Sidney Lanier. New York: Charles Scribner's Son§.
8i6 THE POOR STEP-DAME [Mar.,
What is the reason for Cawein's change of attitude in this
sonnet sequence? Why does nature remind him first of the more-
than-human and then of the less-than-human ? Why is he with
-God for two sonnets and — we might almost say — with devils for
eleven sonnets ?
I think that the reason for the failure of his poetic insight
after the second sonnet of this series is because of the intensity
and persistence of his study of nature. He could not see the
woods for the trees. It is like an experiment familiar to students
of psychology. If you look at the reflection of your own face in
a mirror^ for several minutes, it will gradually become strange to
you; you will feel that you are looking at someone other than
yourself. If you repeat your own name or any other word fifty or
sixty times, it will lose its associations and become meaningless to
you. Madison Cawein looked at nature so long that nature became
meaningless to him — she lost, that is, her true or divine meaning.
All her associations dropped from her, and she became something
without a beginning or an end or a place in the scheme of things.
V.
Madison Cawein never dabbled in theosophy, that bastard
mysticism which has ruined so many a poet. His conscious and de-
liberate studies of the unseen were perfectly innocent; he wrote
of Oberon and Puck and Ariel and other spirits of the Shake-
spearean tradition.18 Some of his least successful poems have
to do with these figures. It is not in these poems that we find the
terrifying intimations of mysterious unhuman influences that are
in the direct studies of forest and swamp.
I have said that Madison Cawein resented the criticism that
his poetry lacked humanity. I know that he greatly prized some-
thing which William Dean Howells wrote of him : " Not one of his
lovely landscapes but thrilled with a human presence penetrating to
it from his most sensitive and subtle spirit until it was all but pain-
fully alive with memories, with regrets, with longings, with hopes,
with all that from time to time mutably constitutes men and women,
and yet keeps us children."19 I do not think that most readers
of Cawein's poems feel this "human presence," and I believe that
Cawein himself felt, towards the close of his life, that it was
"See The Poet, the Fool, and the Faeries, especially the first five poems.
"The North American Review, quoted in The Cup of Comus. New York: The
Cameo Press.
1917.] THE POOR STEP-DAME 817
lacking. The poems written in the last two years of his life had
much more to do with man and much more to do with God than
had his earlier work. No reader of his posthumously published
volume, The Cup of Comus,™ can fail to see this.
During the year in which he died I had several talks with
Madison Cawein, during his visits to New York, and I was im-
pressed, as were many of his friends, by the change that had
come over him. One night at a club of writers to which we both
belonged he sat for about an hour with Clinton Scollard, two or
three other poets and myself, and talked of the thing then upper-
most in our minds — the War. He did not evade the subject of
that great world- wide tragedy, much as it seemed to hurt him to
think and talk about it. He did not take refuge among trees and
flowers and mountain streams. His heart was aching with the sor-
row of all the world. I honestly believe that the experience,
greatly painful as it was, was good for him; that the contemplation
of bloodshed thus forced upon him gave him an awareness of his
humanity necessary for his development. He said to me that
night — I remember- — that the world had grown tired of nature-
poems, that he felt that he must write more about people. I do not
think that he had ever before admitted that his poems lacked hu-
manity.
A week or two after this conversation I saw Madison Cawein
at a meeting of the Poetry Society of America. One of his poems
— I think it was At the End of the Road,21 but it may instead have
been The Old Dreamer22 — had recently appeared in a magazine,
and I had quoted it in my Current Poetry Department in The
Literary Digest. I had prefaced it with a word or two of praise,
and had expressed pleasure in the new humanity I found in the work
of a poet in whom I had always delighted. Cawein knew that I
had written the criticism and he thanked me for it. " You said just
what I wanted said about that poem," he told me. " I want to
put human nature into my verses ; that is what I am trying to do
now."
Well, I think he succeeded. There is more of man in The Cup
of Comus than in any of the earlier books — and more of the Son
of Man. The power of description, the sensitivity to the beauty of
nature — these things are as evident as they were in Blooms of the
*>The Cup of Comus, Fact and Fancy, by Madison Cawein. New York: The
Cameo Press. MAt the End of the Road, p. 20, The Cup of Comus.
"The Old Dreamer, p. 47, ibid.
VOL. civ.— 52
8l8 THE POOR STEP-DAME [Mar.,
Berry. But the personality of the poet is more evident than ever
before, and the poet seems interested in the reader and in the world
of men. He writes of life and death and immortality, of human
love and human friendship and human hatred — he is, as I have
said, aware of his humanity. He has discovered humanity, the
red glow of battle has revealed it to him. The passionate hatred
of war in The Iron Crags,™ The Wanderer,2* N earing Christmas26
and The Festival of the Aisne,2Q shows the world a new Madison
Cawein, a poet no longer aloof from his fellows, but thinking their
thoughts, living their lives, dying their deaths.
And there is to be found in this book a moral sense surprising
to those who knew Cawein only by his earlier poems. His attitude
had not been immoral, but it often had been unmoral. He had
been concerned with soulless things. Now, he had come to think
of the soul — the proper theme of the true poet. Now it was not
a ghostly hollow in the hills or an ominous purple-veined pitcher-
plant that appalled him — it was sin. He saw that injustice and
selfishness and cruelty possessed a terror of which the serpent-
filled swamp and the blasted pine on the lonely hill were only pallid
reflections. Likewise he saw that there was in humanity a beauty
with which the beauty of a May dawn on a meadow of flowers
could not compete. He saw suddenly the splendor of mankind
made in God's image, and emulous of Him. It was a new Madison
Cawein that wrote :
Again I take
My burden up of Truth for Jesus' sake,
And stand for what He stood for, Peace and Thought,
And all that's Beauty- wrought
Through doubt and dread and ache,
By which the world to good at last is brought!27
VI.
There was a new seriousness, there was a new nobility, there
was a new largeness of vision in the poems that Madison Cawein
wrote during the year nineteen fourteen. When his frail body was
put into the frozen earth one bleak December day, it seemed to
me that he had died at the beginning of a new phase of his genius,
"The Iron Crags, p. 57, ibid. "The Wanderer, p. 60, ibid.
Bearing Christmas, p. 65, ibid. "The Festival of the Aisne, p. $9, ibid.
'Oglethorpe. An Ode to be read on the laying of the Foundation Stone of the
New Oglethorpe University, January, 1915, at Atlanta, Georgia, p. 90, ibid.
1917.] THE POOR STEP-DAME 819
that his latest poems, vague and tentative as some of them were»
showed that he was looking at the world with a new sense of
proportion, and that hereafter his whole scheme of things would be
differently arranged. Man would be the lord of created things,
and God would be Lord of the universe. The universe would no
longer be anarchic, and man would no longer be merely a wonder-
ing visitor to a world of plants and beasts. But death prevented
the development of Madison Cawein, and what he might have writ-
ten can only be guessed from such poems as The Song of Songs2*
and Laus Deo29 and The Iron Age30 in The Cup of Comas.
Madison Cawein put the meadows and forests of the South
into poems as hauntingly beautiful as themselves. He was the
greatest nature-poet of his time, and so far he has had no suc-
cessor. But he came to know, I think, that he had served faith-
fully one who knows not gratitude. He had " drawn the bolt of
nature's secrecies,"31 and with him nature's children had shared
their delicate fellowship. But in a year of blood and fire he came
to the terrible and salutary knowledge that he was not nature's
child. He had, he saw, almost repudiated his human and his
more than human heritage. He had tried to force himself into a
family lower than his own — the family of those without the precious
and perilous gift of souls. He knew his mistake at last; he knew
at last that nature has a mother's love for no man that ever
breathed. "Nature, poor step-dame, cannot slake my drouth"32
he might have said with another poet of his time. For her milk
his mouth learned, in the last year of his life, to cease to thirst.
Blind for a singing lifetime, his eyes were opened for a year before
his death. To him was given a year of preparation. A study of his
poetry convinces us that he learned at last Whose son he was, that
he spent his last year on earth rehearsing the song that should busy
his lyric voice in a timeless land.
KThe Song of Songs, p. 84, ibid, ^Latis Deo, p. 78, ibid.
KThe Iron Age, p. 74, ibid.
nThe Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson, line 85.
"Line 109, ibid.
DEFINING DOSTOEVSKY.
BY RICHARDSON WRIGHT.
HE was a lady, a regular literary lady, and she spoke
with the air of one who does not judge books without
first reading them.
" But this Dostoevsky ! He leaves me feeling
like a jellied mass of gloom. I find nothing interesting
in him, and much that is repellent. Why do the literati rage so
furiously about him ? Gloom, gloom and more gloom ! His novels
are without form and void ! "
All of which, frankly, expresses the feeling many average
readers have about Dostoevsky. He is either uninteresting or
gloomy, or both.
The former objection may have sound basis. Dostoevsky
seemed never to have been convinced of the necessity for following
the contemporary conventional form in novel construction. He
cannot be said to have copied the style of any one master. A man
singularly devoid of the influence of any printed word, save that
of the Gospels, his style reflects but one thing — his own nervous,
visionary temperament. Moreover, he came before the day when
Russian literature was to depend for its effectiveness and in-
dividuality upon unusual form, upon a succession of brilliant epi-
sodes, anecdotes and disjointed phrases set between rows of
asterisks and ranks of dots. Dostoevsky was not a jeweler turning
out unusual types of filigreed punctuation that one can pick up and
examine in the hand as he would a brooch or a ring; rather,
Dostoevsky was a weaver of great tapestries, a painfully conscien-
tious craftsman. One must view his novels en masse, must " stand
off " to appreciate the fullness and depth of their literary chiaro-
scuro.
To call him gloomy is a misnomer. One must use other stand-
ards of judgment than those created by his own peculiar native
literature. Compared with the contemporary standards in America,
he is gloomy; viewed as a product of Russian life, he is not. It
were wiser then to study the Russ soul. After that, some semblance
of definitive light and shade will emerge from the apparent murk of
distressing realism.
1917.] DEFINING DOSTOEVSKY 821
In addition, such study of the Russ soul will throw into striking
contrast other Russian authors who are generally regarded true
sons of the race. It will show Turgenief to have had a European
soul under his Slav exterior, the which Turgenief 's life proved ; it
will show Tolstoi a mixture of the two elements, East and West,
a veritable battleground on which they fought for dominion, which
also is shown in Tolstoi's life and his flight at the end. Of the
three, Dostoevsky more closely approaches an epitome of the Russ
soul, which is the genus of the masses.
Again, we are apt to judge Russian literature in terms of the
European influences which were brought to bear upon it during
the past two hundred years. There was the Classical School of
Ozerov, Derzhavin and Shishkov, who caught their inspiration from
the Classics; and there was the Romantic School and the Natural
School. When Dostoevsky arrived at notice he baffled his European
critics because he did not fall into any category that European
schools had produced. A boyish interest in Balzac, Goethe, Schiller,
Byron and Racine passed away with adolescence. Epitomizing
Russia, he stood alone. Hailed as great, he still was not wholly
understood, for the Russian soul at the time was generally misin-
terpreted and, until Dostoevsky portrayed it in his novels, was but
€ven slightly known to the Russ himself.
To reduce to a few defining words the spiritual characteristics
of a people so paradoxical as the Slav, is, indeed, a difficult task.
There are so many cross purposes, spiritual " spurts," breaks here
and there that defy tracing. This much, however, can be said of
the Russ soul : it has the rugged faith of old age and the rebellious
.ardor of youth. These two elements also characterized the life of
Dostoevsky and were, in turn, reflected in his work.
Few men have felt more acutely than Dostoevsky the high
cost of writing. Few men have paid for their writing so high a
price in living and few turned to such good and direct account their
investments of actual experience. The man who projects himself
into the moods of a character may produce a faithful portrait, but
his work will lack the ultimate depth and finesse of reality. He
who has been born and lived with those moods stands better
equipped to portray them in their just proportions. The one
sketches a picture; the other keeps a diary. Therein lies a fun-
damental definition of Dostoevsky's work: his novels are diaries.
Poor Folk, the first novel, is a diary of the surroundings of his
early life, for, although of the hereditary nobility, he was born in
822 DEFINING DOSTOEVSKY [Mar.,
a workhouse and his family of nine lived in two rooms for the
first ten years of his life, with the poor folk such as Makar
Djevuschkin about on all sides. Insult and Injury is equally
a diary of the Siberian experiences. Of the other novels no two
works could be more striking examples of empirical authorship than
The Gambler and The Brothers Karamazoff, representing, as
they do, Dostoevsky 's gambling in middle life at European spas
and his struggle for the ideal man.
In a measure, this writing from personal experience may seem
the easiest possible metier. Certainly it is the one chosen by the
wise novice, for, to write about the things one knows and has
experienced is almost a fundamental canon for beginners. But
there are experiences and experiences, knowledge and knowledge.
There are the physical adventures — the wild encounters, the quick
turns of luck, the intensifying culmination of anecdotes which, set
down with color and suspense, make capital reading for certain
moods and states of mind. There are also spiritual adventures, and
to recount these requires a pen more delicately adjusted and an eye
more keen.
Dostoevsky would have been a spiritual adventurer had he
never left his dooryard, had he never been condemned to death,
exiled to Siberia, staggered under debt and physical torture all
his life. From these physical actualities he extracted their spiritual
realities. In portraying them he was paramount, even as in his
writings he was predominantly a Russ. These too are contained in
each other: that is, however deeply the physical aspects of life
may move him, the Russ is stirred to greater depths by their
spiritual reactions. It is, indeed, impossible to consider the Russian
soul apart from this spiritual metabolism, apart from this clash
between the rebellious ardor of youth and the sturdy faith of
old age.
Sturdy faith is attained not alone by having it moulded into a
philosophy of life in childhood, or by accepting it as a matter of
course, as it may be in the case of illiterates, but by having it put
to the test in life, by having battled for its existence in one's
philosophy. The predominance of Orthodoxy in the Russian re-
ligion is, in the majority of cases, due to early training and to
acceptance, since fully fifty per cent of the masses are illiterate.
In many instances it is also due to the fact that it has proven in-
valuable in men's lives. Dostoevsky was one of those cases. The
story is written plain in his life: he discovers the Bible not in a
1917.] DEFINING DOSTOEVSKY 823
period of adolescent religiosity, but in the boredom and confine-
ment of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Writing to his brother
Michael from his cell he asks for some books : " But best of all
would be a Bible (both Testaments). I need one. " He was then
aged twenty-seven. Five years later from Omsk, after his term of
exile, he writes his creed : " Because I myself have learned it and
gone through it, I want to say to you that in such moments (time
of grief) one does, 'like dry grass/ thirst after faith, and that
one finds it in the end solely and simply because one sees the truth
more clearly when one is unhappy. I want to say to you about
myself, that I am a child of this age, a child of unfaith and skep-
ticism, and probably (indeed, I know it) shall remain so to the
end of my life. How dreadfully has it tormented me (and torments
me now) — this longing for faith, which is all the stronger for the
proofs I have against it. And yet God gives me sometimes mo-
ments of perfect peace; in such moments I love and believe that
I am loved ; in such moments I have f onnulated my creed, wherein
all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simple; here
it is : I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympa-
thetic, more rational, more manly and more perfect than the
Saviour; I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there
no one else like Him, but that there could be no one else. I would
even say more: If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside
the truth, and if truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer
to stay with Christ and not with truth."
At fifty-six, despite his prophecy, he writes to a mother:
" Your child is now eight years old ; make him acquainted with the
Gospel, teach him to believe in God, and that in the most orthodox
fashion. This is a sine qua non; otherwise you can't make a finfc
human being out of your child, but at best a sufferer, and at worst
a careless, lethargic 'success,' which is a still more deplorable fate.
You will never find anything better than the Saviour anywhere,
believe me."
His faith did not come easily then. He had to battle for it,
but once established, it burned with a steady flame. It was a live
thing, an intense, intimate, acute reality, placing its mark upon every
page of his work.
Therein lies the difference between the school of realism of
which Dostoevsky is the unquestioned leader and every other school.
For there is a realism of the flesh and a realism of the spirit, and
the greater realities are spiritual realities. That is why the realism
824
DEFINING DOSTOEVSKY [Mar.,
of Dostoevsky is so much more vital than the realism— say of our
American Dreiser. Raskilnikoff, hero of Crime and Punish-
ment, hounded down to the relief of confession by the growing
realization of his sin, is a more important study of man than Eugene
Whitla, hero of the The Genius, who is hounded into decency
by his inability to succeed with the opposite course. The one
is a study in spiritual realism, the other a study in fleshly
realism.
It is this element of spiritual realism that the lady who was
perfectly literary and many others, mistake for gloom. True, there
are other dark realities — filth, poverty, lust, suicide, hunger, but
behind them is always going on the battle, the brilliant contest of
spiritual realities against the sham realities of the flesh. One can
see it, just as behind the gray massed storm clouds he sees the
flash and glow of lightning.' Dostoevsky's characters are studies in
spiritual metabolism. They are Russian. They are also human.
To dismiss them as merely patients from a psychopathic ward is
to disregard the presence of the spiritual struggle.
Consider his characters one by one through all the twenty-one
works, and the rule holds. They are strong or weak literary figures
just in that proportion in which this battle between flesh and spirit
is depicted in them. Makad Djevuschkin of Poor Folk, Myshkin
(a self-portrait) of The Idiot, Raskilnikoff of Crime and
Punishment, Ilioscha Karamazoff, of his last novel of the two
brothers of that name — all are folk who resist classification by
nerve disorders. They are crystallized cross sections of the Russ
soul.
This definition of Dostoevsky could find no better guarantee
than in his own words. He is speaking of a proposed novel
to be called Atheism. It was later produced as the Brothers
Karamazoff:
I have my principal figure ready in my mind. A Russian of
our class, getting on in years, not particularly cultured, although
not uncultured either, and of a certain degree of social im-
portance, quite suddenly, in ripe age, loses his belief in God.
His whole life long he has been taken up wholly by work, has
never dreamed of escaping from the rut, and, up to his forty-
fifth year, has distinguished himself in no wise. (The work-
ing out will be purely psychological, profound in feeling, human
and thoroughly Russian.) The loss of faith has a colossal
effect on him. He tries to attach to the younger generation —
I9I7-] DEFINING DOSTOEVSKY 825
the atheists, Slavs, Occidentalists, the Russian Sects and an-
chorites, the mystics: among others he comes across a Polish
Jesuit; thence he descends to the abyss of the Chlysty Sect;
and finds at last salvation in Russian soil, the Russian Saviour
and the Russian God My dear friend, I have a totally dif-
ferent conception of truth and realism from that of our realists
and critics. My God! If one could but tell categorically all
that we Russians have gone through during the last ten years
in the way of spiritual development, all the realists would shriek
that it was fantasy; and yet it would be pure realism! It is
the one, true, deep realism, theirs is altogether too superficial.
And the amazing part of this letter is the fact that the two
seemingly disjointed ideas follow one on the other. Dostoevsky
could not, even in correspondence, consider realism apart from its
spiritual actualities.
Bew Boohs.
THE CIRCUS AND OTHER ESSAYS. By Joyce Kilmer. New
York: Laurence J. Gomme. $1.00 net.
One hears, almost daily, pleasant prophecies about the renas-
cence of English poetry — and quite yearly there come agreeable
auguries of the re-flowering of English drama. Meanwhile, and
all unheralded, the revival of that delicate and delightful phase
of art, the English essay, has become not a theory but a fact. To
be sure the essay has never since the harvest days of Lamb and
Hazlitt ceased to exist — even to persist. It has spoken with au-
thority, better still, with charm ; but it has lacked popular attention,
and save for the chosen few it has lamentably lacked readers. The
last ten years have changed all that. Where the best talents of
Alice Meynell, of the Bensons, of Gilbert Chesterton and Agnes
Repplier (to mention but a few) are exercised, we have not a
byway but a highway of contemporary thought.
Now into this highway comes a new pilgrim: a pilgrim who,
like the Piper of Hamlin Town, is likely to draw the world's big
and little children after him with glad feet. We mean, of course,
Mr. Joyce Kilmer, whom, having known as poet and critic, we here
welcome as familiar essayist. The Circus is a very significant little
volume: it is also a volume which nearly everyone will want to
read. It is human and playful and poetic and ironic. It chats in
a very modern, highly sympathetic and slightly satiric vein about
alarm clocks, the abolition of poets, the joys of the subway, John
Bunny, and the cosmopolitan character of the " commuter's " life.
But it is essentially the chatting of one who thinks deeply — and,
moreover, one who dreams still of the purple mountains. It re-
quires more than facility or " democracy " to sense the thrilling
" adventure " of the young clerk's noonday freedom, or the gentle
"reconciliation" of the day after Christmas. Can any reader
doubt just what quality it does take to write about the perennial
American spectacle such a passage as the following — with its deft
and subtle rise from banter to pathos?
The stage's glories have been sung by many a poet. But
the circus has had no laureate; it has had to content itself
1917-] NEW BOOKS 827
with the passionate prose of its press agent. The loss is
poetry's, not the circus'. For the circus is itself a poem and a
poet — a poem in that it is a lovely and enduring expression
of the soul of man, his mirth, and his romance, and a poet in
that it is a maker, a creator of splendid fancies in the minds
of those who see it.
And there are poets in the circus. They are not, perhaps,
the men and women who make their living by their skill and
daring, risking their lives to entertain the world No, the
subjective artists, the poets, are to be found in the basement if
the show is at the Garden, or, if the show be outside New York,
they are to be found in the little tents — the side shows. This
is not a mere sneer at the craft of poetry, a mere statement
that poets are freaks. Poets are not freaks. But freaks are
poets Behold, therefore, the man on whom a crushing
misfortune has come. He puts his grief into fair words, and
shows it to the public. Thereby he gets money and fame.
Behold, therefore, a man whom misfortune touched before his
birth, and dwarfed him, and made him a ridiculous image of
humanity. He shows his misfortune to the public and gets
money and fame thereby. This poet shows a soul scarred by
the cruel whips of injustice; this man a back scarred by the
tattooer's needle.
But the freaks would not like to change places with the
poets. The freaks get large salaries (they seem large to poets)
and they are carefully tended, for they are delicate. See, here
is a man who lives although his back is broken. There is a
crowd around him; how interested they are! Would they be
as interested in a poet who lived although his heart was
broken? Probably not. But then, there are not many freaks.
Mr. Kilmer has taken contemporary readers much into his
debt, and many will be grateful for this original and refreshing
little volume of a poet's prose. There is scarcely a word of direct
Catholicism in it : yet one feels convinced that no one but a Catholic
could have written it.
A SPIRITUAL PILGRIMAGE. By Rev. R. J. Campbell. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. $2.00 net.
Mr. Campbell makes many interesting revelations in this book
of his rather remarkable religious history and at the same time
of the confusion and anarchy of contemporaneous Protestant
thought. It was a mild sensation in war-bound England when the
New Theology, which had been such a storm-centre, was deserted
828 NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
by its chief advocate : the foremost preacher of England abandoned
the non-Conformist pulpit, was ordained a priest of the Anglican
Communion, and was counted even among High Churchmen. This
development was most unusual, for the New Theology was the
high-road to infidelity, and Mr. Campbell for some years gave much
more promise of becoming a prophet of socialism and secularism
than of developing into an exponent of quasi-Catholic doctrines.
The explanation is to be found chiefly in Mr. Campbell's tem-
perament and early religious training. He was deeply religious
from childhood, and learned from North-of -Ireland Presbyterian-
ism a reverential regard for the communion service and a high
conception of the Church and the ministerial office. This mystical,
sacramental, High Church feeling persisted through all the intel-
lectual changes of his religious career. It brought him in his Ox-
ford days, after a short period of youthful worldliness and hum-
drum evangelicalism, to accept Anglicanism of High Church and
Higher Criticism variety, as taught by Dr. Gore.
When the higher-critical trend of his mind caused him, after
his withdrawal from Anglicanism, to shed more and more of
Christian doctrine, this early feeling kept up in Mr. Campbell a
religious attitude which he had great difficulty in distinguishing
from Pantheism.
He was repelled by evangelical Protestantism, and found little
satisfaction in the liberal, modernistic, anti-supernatural Christian-
ity which he had accepted; and his religious instincts finally led
him to an Anglicanism which, while leaving him great liberty in
creed, satisfied him with a Christ Who was his Saviour and God,
working out the salvation of mankind through the Church and the
sacraments. In this way has Mr. Campbell passed from one ex-
treme of Protestant thought to the other, and yet maintained a
certain unity throughout.
The fact is that Mr. Campbell never had and apparently still
lacks a strong hold on doctrines. He abandoned belief in the Di-
vinity of Christ, in the Atonement, in the Christian idea of sin, in
a God above and entirely distinct from the universe, and he aban-
doned these cardinal beliefs with little struggle, with little sense
of loss; and he regained them again, with no violent struggle, with
no apparent sense that he had passed from death to life.
He preached what all the world interpreted as a denial of
Christianity, as a denial of sin, as a profession of a creed indis-
tinguishable from Pantheism; his preaching upset many, yet he
I9I7-] NEW BOOKS 829
expresses no compunction for spreading error, and now after having
frequently changed his views radically and rapidly, he preaches
without misgiving as one having authority, although preaching in
his own name and following merely his own private judgment. He
happens at present to preach many doctrines of the Catholic Church
which are congenial to his own mind and heart, and he shows him-
self remarkably free from prejudice against Catholicism.
Many Catholics, accordingly, are asking themselves if the
Established Church of England will long retain this restless intel-
lect and heart, which they feel can hardly find rest anywhere ex-
cept in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Prophecy is vain ; what
is certain is that Mr. Campbell never will become a sound Catholic,
nor even a sound High Churchman, until he gets a clearer and
stronger conviction of dogma as the soul of religion.
FRUIT GATHERING. By Sir Rabindranath Tagore. New York :
The Macmillan Co. $1.25.
Sir Rabindranath Tagore must be numbered among those who
have suffered greatly from overpraise. He might well pray to be
delivered from unwise friends, from women's clubs and the press
agent. When this aloof but active dreamer was singled out for
the coveted Nobel Prize in 1913, he complained that the world had
" stolen away his shelter." What he says today, when confronted
by fatuous and frenzied magazine articles which laud him as a
" reincarnation of the Christ Spirit," is not on record : at least, he
seems to have become reconciled to the publicity of the printed
sheet and the photographic half-tone.
But it is not good for a living poet to be advertised as a saint.
It is not good for his poetry, and it is distinctly bad for his sanctity.
And this today is the situation of one who came to us an Oriental
scholar with Oxford training, an artist in words, a man sincerely
interested in the contemplative side of life, and sincerely contemp-
tuous of modern machine-made civilization. It is not the fault of
Sir Rabindranath Tagore that a hasty world so soon made a cult of
him — but it makes for disenchantment and confusion none the less.
In this newest volume from the pen of the Bengali poet, there
are many delicate and beautiful and searching reveries. They are
not epoch-making things : and they would never have been expected
to be epoch-making if their author had not been heralded as a mystic
teacher and seer. They are little prose poems in various moods,
in the manner of Gitanjali but less radiant: musings upon divine
830 NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
and human love, parables of the trumpet's call, and the passing of
proud earthly things and the wisdom of silence and of pain. There
are thoughts here which suggest Francis Thompson— with a differ-
ence; as in Gitanjali there were thoughts which suggested St.
Teresa— with a difference. All this means that they could only
have been written by a poet of spiritual genius and mystic expres-
sion. That they should travel into the Eternal Verities so far —
and then no further— is for Catholic readers the double lesson of
Sir Rabindranath Tagore.
IRELAND'S LITERARY RENAISSANCE. By Ernest A. Boyd.
New York: John Lane Co. $2.50 net.
Mr. Boyd has given us a very interesting book, for he is
enthusiastic about his subject, and has made his work a labor of
love. All lovers of Ireland will follow him with pleasure as he
outlines the origin and progress of the movement of the old coun-
try that has produced within recent years a remarkable literary
output admired not only at home but abroad. He traces the rise
of the " Renaissance " back to the History of Ireland: Heroic
Period, by Standish O'Grady, which appeared in 1878. This elo-
quent and impassioned account of early events in Ireland at once
aroused great enthusiasm among certain responsive sons and
daughters of Erin, and before long studies in Gaelic language and
customs became quite the vogue. The result was two-fold, a repro-
duction of many of the old Gaelic texts and a renewed interest in the
literary past of Ireland, and an attempt to draw inspiration from
these old sources on the part of those who write only or chiefly in
English. It is this latter that the author of the book before us calls
the literary Renaissance in Ireland. He divides his treatment of
the subject into Poetry, the Drama and Prose Writing. Most of
his attention is claimed by W. B. Yeats, who illustrated all three
branches of literature in his work. Many other authors, more or
less familiar to the reading public, are introduced, and all are re-
viewed with great care and literary acumen. These writers have
not given to the world a great literature in the sense that French
literature or English literature is great, but they have already pro-
duced a body of work that is distinctly national, based principally
on Irish ideas and ideals, and which by many competent critics is
considered the most notable performance in the world of letters
in our days. It has undoubtedly a high order of merit, and is full
of promise for the future. For a detailed criticism of the move-
NEW BOOKS 831
ment, together with an appreciation of the various writers, we
must refer the reader to the author's work.
However deserving of commendation the book reviewed may
be, we must not be understood as accepting everything we read as
beyond cavil. Nor much as we may glory in the dead past of
Ireland, should we forget that all ages, even the heroic, have much
that does not deserve imitation or warrant resuscitation, once it is
buried. No lover of Ireland, we are sure, would desire to see
again, in the dear old land, the snakes that St. Patrick drove into
the lough, nor would he long for the return of paganism that the
grand old Saint banished from the land. Yet in this book we see
signs of regret for the old pagan religion. We are told, too, by
some of the authors quoted in the review that the mournful note
heard even in recent times in Irish poetry is the persistence of the
tone heard ages ago when certain bards lamented the disappearance
of paganism before the forces of Christianity. We have labored
under the impression that Ireland had other causes for tears.
In spite of some flaws like these, we welcome the appearance
of this book, for it makes known to us much about the Revival of
Irish Letters. We hope that the movement, so auspiciously begun,
will continue and grow widespread. As Mr. Boyd says : " From
the fifth to the ninth century Ireland was the guardian of European
civilization, fostering the arts, and sending teachers to all parts
of the Continent." Let the young Irishman, then, who aspires to
serve his country with the pen, plunge deep into Gaelic lore, let
him give his nights and his days to the pursuit of the traditions
of his ancestors, but let him not dare forget that the glories of
the past are not confined to one period. Let him fill himself with
the learning and the piety of his ancestors who were the teachers
of Europe, as well as with the mystic lore of the far distant time
that borders on fable. Then will he be enabled to transmit a mes-
sage not only from the heroes of antiquity, but likewise one that
will spread light and faith and grace and dignity wherever it goes.
An index to Mr. Boyd's work would render considerable service.
AN ANTHOLOGY OF MAGAZINE VERSE FOR 1916. By Wil-
liam Stanley Braithwaite. New York: Laurence J. Gomme.
$1.50 net.
Were an inquiring foreigner to ask what American has done
most to create an audience for American poetry, he would be told,
says the February Bookman, that William Stanley Braithwaite was
NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
the man. His articles as poetic critic in the Boston Transcript
have attained something of the dignity of an institution. For a
decade he has there summed up the magazine verse of the year,
and for the past four years these summaries have been expanded
into an annual anthology and year book of American poetry. The
volume for 1916 contains a few less than one hundred selections;
besides his short but valuable introduction, Mr. Braithwaite has
added an extended index of poems appearing in American maga-
zines during the past twelve months, with asterisks marking the
poems of distinction, a list of the volumes of poems published
during the same period, a list of books about poets and poetry,
a short commentary upon each of fifteen important volumes of
poems, and an index to magazine articles of the past year upon
contemporary poets and their products. These supplemental lists
provide, of course, an invaluable working source of reference.
The Poetry Review, of which Mr. Braithwaite is the founder
and present editor, heads the list of credits, standing sponsor for
fourteen selections; Poetry comes next with ten, The Century
has eight, Reedy' s Mirror, Scribner's, The Bellman, The Yale Re-
view, and Harper's, five each. It is rather noteworthy that The
Poetry Journal, of which Mr. Braithwaite was also the founder,
Poet Lore, Contemporary Verse and Others: A Magazine of the
New Verse, of all of which poetry is the main objective, receive
but ten credits, while the Forum, The New Republic and the Inde-
pendent, periodicals of general scope and of much less specialized
appeal, can account for eleven.
The four separate groups of poets Mr. Braithwaite distin-
guishes can readily be combined into two, the traditionalists and
all others. The traditionalists are those old-fashioned enough to
believe that poetry must of necessity be rhythmical, and that rhythm
is the regular recurrence of accented and unaccented syllables. The
" others," be they vers librists, impressionists, imagists, or vorti-
cists, be their names Service, Frost, Oppenheim or Masters, all
agree in revolting from what they are pleased to call the " tyranny
of form." That same dauntless quest for self-expression which
has produced for our edification Cubism in art and riotous form-
lessness in music, is responsible for the new movement in poetry.
It is not so new after all : Lowell protested against it in Whitman
that it was not poetry. How his spirit must writhe at the ful-
minations of his great-granddaughter, Amy, against the hair-split-
ting critics, and the purists who rail at broken rules, thus showing
NEW BOOKS 833
how narrow they are. In an interview given Joyce Kilmer for
the Neiv York Times about a year ago, Robert Underwood John-
son had some interesting opinions to express upon this subject,
though they were scarcely such as would recommend themselves to
Miss Lowell or Mr. Masters. He does not believe that the vers
librists are at all responsible for the new interest in poetry, he does
not believe that the vers librists are poets ; more than that, he does
not believe that the vers librists are vers librists, but calls them
rather prose librists. Mr. Kilmer himself is not even so polite; in
his recent book, The Circus, he says very pungently, " Poets are
not freaks but some freaks are poets."
A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLAND. By Julia Swift Orvis. Bos-
ton: Hough ton Mifflin Co. $1.50 net
" This is not the book of an investigator. It is simply an
attempt to present the results of much work already done by others
on a difficult and complicated subject, in such a way as to reach
and interest the many to whom Poland's great past, as well as
her present problems and their wide significance, are practically un-
known.'*
Thus writes the author in the preface of her book, and these
words give the best characterization of her History of Poland.
It is a work of popularization, a work addressed to the great pub-
lic, which is ignorant of the brilliant pages of Polish history and
the sad misfortunes of the Polish race.
The writer does not aim at giving us an erudite and elaborate
volume, crammed with notes and quotations. She writes simply,
unaffectedly; she lays stress again and again upon the main thesis
of her book: that is, that the Polish nobility is responsible to a
great extent for the calamities which have overtaken the inde-
pendent kingdom of Poland. No doubt there is a great deal of
truth in that statement. It cannot be forgotten, however, that the
Polish nobility contributed efficaciously to the military and literary
glory of Poland in the times of her grandeur.
The writer shows herself to be not well acquainted with the
history of the Catholic Church in the few passages in which she
touches on ecclesiastical matters. To make the dogma that the
Church is the representative of God's power on earth peculiar to
Pope Gregory VII. , is contrary to the truth. In every period of
her life the Church has claimed for herself that prerogative. Sev-
eral times the writer confuses the Union of Florence in 1434
VOL. civ.— 53
834
NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
with the Union of Brest, in 1595. She says that at a convent
(by this "convent" she means an ecumenical council), the
Orthodox Church conceded recognition of the Pope, and in
return the Roman Church agreed to the use by Poles of their
own ritual, the retention of their own creed, and the recognition of
a married clergy. These data concern the Union of Brest, one of
the most important episodes in the religious and political history of
Poland, an episode, I hold, which should not have been passed over
in silence in a history of the Polish nation. It seems exaggerated
also to affirm that at the time of Gregory VII. Poland had a married
clergy. Certainly, the corruption of the clergy had largely spread
over the whole of Europe, and the law of celibacy was not observed
in many cases ; but the evil was not so general as the statement of
the writer would lead one to suppose.
The narrative of the writer extends to 1915. At the close of
that period, it is stated, " Poland is not yet sufficiently regenerated
to be an independent state: her best chance of a safe future lies
within the Russian empire." I do not believe that Poles will be
satisfied with these pessimistic views on their ability to rule them-
selves according to their own minds. The recollections of Russian
oppression in Poland are still vivid in Polish minds, the wounds-
she has caused are still bleeding in Polish hearts, and there is little
hope that Russia will fulfill her oft-repeated promises to grant to
her Polish subjects a true autonomy.
THE PAINTERS OF FLORENCE. By Julia Cartwright (Mrs.
Ady). New York: E. P. Button & Co. $1.50 net.
This book, full of the glow and color of its subject, covers
the years between 1240 and 1564, and gives a sympathetic narration
of the lives and works of the Florentine painters from Cimabue
to Michelangelo. Fortunate, indeed, was the artist of those days
who " grew up in a free and prosperous city, surrounded by an
atmosphere of culture in which the passion for beauty was allied
with a keen critical faculty and where there were wealthy
patrons to encourage and reward him " — verily an artistic paradise.
Not only the painters and their pictures are described, but the
surroundings in which the work was done, the conditions that helped
to develop the Italian Renaissance, the influence of Florentine art
throughout Italy and how that influence was felt miles beyond her
borders.
This is an excellent textbook for the student, illustrated with
1917.] NEW BOOKS 835
well-selected photographs that interpret the story step by step, con-
taining many interesting personal details not usually found in art
histories, and having at the end of each chapter a list of the artist's
chief works and where they are to be found. The language through-
out is scholarly without being too technical for the general reader
and traveler.
A SHEAF. By John Galsworthy. New York : Charles Scribner's
Sons. $1.50 net.
The greater part of the essays and articles here collected have
already been published in various journals and periodicals, at dates
extending as far back as 1909. These earlier writings are, as Mr.
Galsworthy says, " mostly pleas." They are strong and eloquent,
these pleas for more human treatment of animals, for the sparing
of birds of plumage, for the freedom of the song birds that we cage;
pleas for the righting of wrong prison and penal systems; and
delightfully written pleas that the suffrage be granted to women, if
for no other reason than because the conflict is disintegrating cour-
tesy, kindliness and sense of fair play.
The second portion of the book is made up of writings on the
War, and in these Mr. Galsworthy's characteristics are sharply ac-
centuated, his depths and shallows clearly charted. Although First
Thoughts on This War appeared in Scribner's Magazine in 1914,
it gives almost a shock of novelty to encounter it again and re-read
those preposterous words : " God on the lips of each potentate,
and under a hundred thousand spires prayer that twenty-two million
servants of Christ may receive from God the blessed strength to
tear and blow each other to pieces and everywhere destroy
the works of the spirit Whatever else be the outcome of this
business, let us at least realize the truth : It is the death of dogmatic
Christianity!" And of that which is to take the place of "this
superstitional Christianity " we are told : "And one thing is cer-
tain— it will be far more Christian than the so-called Christianity
which has brought us to these present ends." Thus, with many
similar expressions, Mr. Galsworthy forces us to realize his amazing
limitations, disclosing a point of view not unlike that satirized by
Mr. Mallock in speaking of the positivists, who " think, it would
seem, that they had but to kill God, and that His inheritance shall
be ours." He does not, in the succeeding essays, reiterate the
opinions projected here, but neither does he make any retraction
or modification; he merely ignores that which has arrested the at-
836
NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
tention of the world, and cannot have wholly escaped his — the
widespread spiritual awakening and the Catholic revival, the in-
creasing recognition that we have been brought to " these present
ends " not by too close an adherence to dogmatic Christianity, but
by neglect of it. Self-deprived, therefore, of any clue to the tragedy
now in progress, he points to the divine element in man as the
salvation of humanity, and the burden of his prophecy is the solu-
tion of all problems by democracy, to which we must be educated,
though he has already said that " the main and obvious difficulty
in education, as in all the affairs of life, is to find the men." Never-
theless, he goes on to recommend that education should be intrusted
to fine spirits and broad minds, that have an ideal and can be
relied on " to select and train the best men available for the propaga-
tion of that ideal/' The italics are Mr. Galsworthy's. He depicts
great results if these minds could be sifted out from among us " by
some democratic process," but he gives no hint of what that process
should be, nor does he feel it necessary to take account of the reac-
tions that have, from time to time, operated to demolish democra-
cies. His prolific brain sends forth countless brilliant reflections
phrased with great force and beauty; but it is hard to find in the
book the constructive quality that has been claimed for it by some
reviewers. The ideals presented are not recorded as yet attained
by any state, even when unhampered by dogmatic Christianity;
nor does Mr. Galsworthy himself sound a note that is altogether
reassuring. In the final essay, which contains much that is ex-
tremely beautiful and noble, as well as penetrating, he unveils a
far horizon against which may be seen not only the England he
loves ardently and loyally, but the whole earth also, transformed
by a world-peace into "the islands of the blessed." Yet he asks:
" Or do we only dream it And shall the Ironic Spirit fill the
whole world with his laughter ? "
DANTE. By C. H. Grandgent, L.H.D, New York : Duffield &
Co. $1.50 net.
Of books on Dante there is no end. Already their name is
legion. Their ever-increasing number shows the fruitfulness of
the theme and the perennial interest men take in the author and his
work. Within the last sixty or seventy-five years, this many-sided
genius has been studied from countless points of view. One stu-
dent loves to peer into the spiritual sense of his poetry — as the late
Brother Azarias; another reviews him as the exponent of Tho-
1917.] NEW BOOKS 837
mistic Theology — as the erudite Doctor Hettinger; another traces
his relation to Catholic Philosophy in the thirteenth century —
as the brilliant Ozanam. In the present work, Doctor Grandgent
considers him as " the mouthpiece of a great period of the world's
history" — a period which has been termed "the greatest of the
centuries." As spokesman of his generation, he is expected to
express himself on a variety of topics, and a glance at the table of
contents shows us how vast a field he covers. For instance : " So-
ciety and Politics in the Middle Ages ;" " Church and State in
Dante;" "Mediaeval Songs;" "Mediaeval Learning;" "Theol-
ogy; " etc., etc.
To understand and appreciate Dante, one must have more
than a superficial acquaintance with the learning of his age. Of
this the extent and variety of commentaries on the Commedia is
ample proof. It shows him to have been master of the arts and
sciences of his day. But is this sufficient warrant for regarding
him as the mouthpiece of his age? Doctor Grandgent has depicted
for us most graphically, and, for the most part, correctly, the age
in which Dante lived ; but this he has done only by taking the poet's
reference as suggestive hints, filling up the background and milieu
of the picture from other sources. And it is well that he has done
so — otherwise his views must have been not a little cramped and
distorted. Where it is question of abstract science, it might be
well enough to follow Dante's guidance, for he has put into verse
the theology, philosophy and physics of the thirteenth century ; but
where the poet has to touch on the burning issues of the day, issues
in which he was personally concerned, it is quite a different matter.
Here the cautious reader makes allowance for judgment warped by
temperament and fortune. Bear in mind the " sczva indignatio "
of this ardent patriot exiled from his beloved city — the gloom of
" this man who had been down in hell and was begrimed with its
heat and smoke " — this victim of political chicanery and persecu-
tion, who had known " the salt savour of others' bread and the hard
passage descending and climbing by others' stairs," and you will
ask how much reliance can be placed upon his estimate of the
agents and events that brought him to such a plight. Take for
instance, his judgment of Celestine V. He does not hesitate to
consign to his outer hell1 this sainted pontiff, since canonized, be-
cause, forsooth, he made the "gran rifiuto" which, in Dante's
opinion, undid the political scheme of the Florentines. And this he
1Inferno III., 59.
NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
does, notwithstanding his sincere claim to believe in the Holy
Church that cannot lie — "la scmta chiesa che non puo dire men-
zogna."2 Or, again,3 he pronounces a like sentence on Pope Boni-
face VIII. because, as our author says, " he had both personal and
political reasons for hating him." Yet, when his resentment cools,
he pays tribute to this same venerable pontiff, as follows :4
I see Anagni filled with fleurs-de-lis,
And Christ, embodied in His Vicar, caught,
A second time exposed to mockery:
I see the vinegar and gall renewed:
'Twixt living thieves our butchered Lord I see.
Such inconsistencies as these — and others might be adduced —
may be accounted for by ardent temperament and wounded seli-
interest; but, all the same, they show how untrustworthy objec-
tively may be his appreciation of men and manners; and to this
the author would have done well to call the reader's attention.
Judging by the specimens of his own rendering of Dante
which our author has introduced into the text, we should say that
this part of his task has been done particularly well. Whilst re-
taining the terza-rima of the original, he has succeeded in giving
us an easy-flowing, rhythmical and idomatic version, more natural
than that of Plumptre, inasmuch as he avoids many of the inver-
sions which make that of the Anglican Dean rather difficult read-
ing. Not that Doctor Grandgent has cleared up all the obscurities
of the text, for that were not more possible in a translation than
it is in the original. He has even, at times, added to our perplexity
by paraphrasing that literal sense for the sake of metre and rhyme.
We have an instance of this on page 230.* Still we should not be
hypercritical, since such defects are seemingly inherent to any met-
rical version. On the whole, then, we have in this new discussion
of the great Florentine poet an interesting and informing treatise.
There is added a very complete index, which gives special value
to it as a book of reference.
THE FACTS ABOUT LUTHER. By Rt. Rev. Mgr. P. F. O'Hare,
LL.D. New York : Frederick Pustet & Co. 25 cents.
In these interesting pages, Monsignor O'Hare has given the
man in the street the conclusions of modern scholarship regarding
the real Luther. He brings out clearly the fact that Protestant
'Conv. I., 4- 'Inferno XIX., 52. *Purg. XX., 85-90.
•Par. i., 10-12.
1917.] NEW BOOKS 839
prejudice for the past four hundred years has been painting a por-
trait of Luther that in no way resembles the real Luther. He
shows Luther to have been an enemy to liberty of conscience, a
fomenter of rebellion, the opponent of democracy, a man contemp-
tuous of human reason and of the freedom of the will, and an
advocate of polygamy. Monsignor O'Hare bases his work on
Denifle and Grisar, cites for the most part Luther's own words, and
describes fairly and accurately the life and teachings of Luther. It
is a book of interest today in view of Luther's Fourth Centenary.
ENFORCED PEACE. Published by the League to Enforce Peace,
New York.
The first annual assemblage of the League to Enforce Peace
was held in Washington last May. The purpose of the meeting
was to place before the public the aims of the society which counts
among its members William H. Taft, Oscar Strauss, Charles W.
Eliot, Samuel Gompers and Benjamin Ide Wheeler. The proceed-
ings of this meeting are given in the volume issued by the League,
together with an appendage which contains the proposals of the
League on the question of international peace.
The speeches that were delivered at the Washington confer-
ence deserve serious attention, coming as they do at such a time
as this. They explain, with splendid absence of hysteria, the need
of peace, and plead for the establishment of some league, made up
of representatives of all the nations, that could compel the signa-
tories to obey the dictates of this international tribunal, jointly
using " the economic and military forces " of the respective na-
tions to prevent one nation from declaring war upon another.
The platform of the League to Enforce Peace, which is very
similiar to the Diet plan proposed years ago by William Penn, has
the inherent weakness common to all peace plans. It is essentially
based upon treaties, and treaties are, as this war has shown us, at
critical times " mere scraps of paper." The second and really fatal
defect lies in the fact that nations are like individuals, reacting
more strongly to the more intimate influences of fear, lust and sel-
fishness than to the nobler but more abstract pleadings of inter-
national love. Consequently the bond between nations to guarantee
peace cannot actually stand up under the severe burdens that national
exigencies put upon it, and in the face of real trouble the inter-
national court would be rent by factional differences that would
accentuate rather than diminish the chances for strife.
84o NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
THE OLD BLOOD. By Frederick Palmer. New York: Dodd,
Mead & Co. $1.40 net.
This is the story of Philip Sanford, .a young American de-
scendant of Colonial fighting stock, who in the summer of 1914
is making the acquaintance of family connections both English
and French. He falls in love with a beautiful cousin, Henriette
Ribot; and he is loved by her sister, Helen, mentally and morally
her superior, but plain. The old blood in Philip's veins responds to
the call of the war, and he volunteers in the British army. He
receives a horrible wound in the jaw, and the sight of him, in the
hospital, shockingly disfigured, blind and deaf, is too much for the
strength of Henriette's love. Not so with Helen, however; her
devotion and her cleverness cooperate with Philip's doctors to
compass his recovery, and in the end she wins his heart,
A love story told in connection with the War challenges a
formidable rival, and it must be admitted that the most interest-
ing part in this drama is played by surgery. Like a highly up-
to-date fairy godmother, it assumes command of the situation,
not only restoring Philip's powers and repairing his mutilation,
but also rewarding Helen with the gift of beauty by changing
the shape of her nose. The book is fairly readable; but Mr.
Palmer's facts, as it is his wont to present them, are more enter-
taining than his fiction.
.THE SEMINARIAN: HIS CHARACTER AND WORK. By Rev.
Albert Rung. New York : P. J. Kenedy & Sons. 75 cents net.
In simple and direct language Father Rung addresses the
modern seminarian on the duties of his state of life, and the special
virtues he should strive to attain. The volume is a common sense
treatise on piety, zeal for souls, obedience, kindliness, love for
study, clerical modesty and the like. It is a good book to put in
the hands of the young aspirant for the priesthood.
THE DIVINE MASTER'S PORTRAIT. By Rev. Joseph Degen.
St. Louis : B. Herder. 50 cents net.
This little book is written in protest against the counterfeit
presentments or antagonistic portraits of Christ made by many
moderns desirous of sheltering their false theories behind His name.
In a score of chapters it presents in simple, devout language some
of the main characteristics of the spirit of our Divine Lord — His
holiness, humility, meekness, zeal, sincerity, justice, and self-denial.
1917.] NEW BOOKS 841
YONDER? By Rev. T. Gavan Duffy. Boston: Society of the
Propagation of the Faith.
We beg to call the attention of our readers to a new, popular
edition of Father Duffy's charming volume on the missions of the
Far East, reviewed last year in the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
As the author well says it is not a treatise on the foreign missions,
but " it questions whether we all do our share of knowing, loving,
helping, going Yonder." It ought to prove fruitful of vocations,
and open wide the purse strings of Catholics in the United States.
THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. By Rev. G. R. Roche, SJ. St.
Louis: B. Herder. 25 cents net.
Father Roche in these simple pages sets forth the proofs of the
Divinity of Christ in a way calculated to win the earnest seeker
to the truth. He lays particular stress upon the argument from
miracles, the fulfillment of the prophecies, and the claims made by
Christ Himself.
A BRIEF COMMENTARY ON THE LITTLE OFFICE OF THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
MARY. By Charles Coppens, SJ. St. Louis: B. Herder.
50 cents net.
The Office of the Immaculate Conception was composed in
imitation of the Divine Office which is recited daily by every
Catholic priest. The purpose of this little work is " to explain the
sacred figures which the author of the Office has so skillfully inter-
woven with each other in the elegant stanzas, the devout prayers,
verses and responsories of this exquisite masterpiece."
A STORY OF LOVE. By Francis Cassily, SJ. St. Louis: B.
Herder.
These familiar talks on the love of God and the friendship
of Christ will prove excellent spiritual reading for the devout soul.
They treat of grace, the Christian brotherhood, the gifts of God,
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist, the beatific
Vision. As the author well says, these gifts " make us perceive
the splendid vision that lies beyond the veil of sense, and realize
the object — God — that the heart-sick and weary of earth are born
but to find and possess, and which not finding and not possessing,
they had better by far have never been born."
842 NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
THE MOTHERCRAFT MANUAL. By Mary L. Read, B.S. Bos-
ton: Little, Brown & Co. $1.25 net.
In these days of scientific parenthood a School of Mothercraft
is but the logical outcome of the modern trend of thought. The
opening paragraph of this manual, written by the director of the
School in New York, gives the keynote to the whole scope of the
work : " Mothercraft is the skillful, practical doing of all that is
involved in the nourishing and training of children, in a sympathetic,
happy, religious spirit Its practice is not dependent upon
physical parenthood, but is part of the responsibility of every woman
who has to do with children as teacher, nurse, friend or household
associate."
The first chapters are devoted to the founding of the family,
eugenics, heredity and the general fitness of those concerned. Then
preparation for the coming of the new member with a daily regime
for the expectant mother. After the advent of the child his every
moment is accounted for : rules for feeding, bathing, clothing,
sleeping are given in minute detail, with counter suggestions as to
what should be avoided. As the child develops his playtime is
marked out, his reading planned, his taste cultivated. The last
chapter is given to home nursing and first aid in the nursery, fol-
lowed by an appendix with tabulated lists of food values, and the
principles of weight and growth. The text is pointed with numer-
ous excellent illustrations.
Although of religion it is declared that no phase of education
is more important, in all the three hundred and sixty-three pages it
is but lightly touched upon, and then from the Non-Catholic point
of view. Indeed, should the young mother observe faithfully the
multitudinous regulations for her child's physical and mental well-
being she would have no time for his spiritual life — nor for her
own; no time to ponder in her heart the words that Mary kept.
THE ULTIMATE BELIEF. By A. Clutton-Brock. New York:
E. P. Button & Co. $1.00 net.
Mr. Clutton-Brock in most oracular fashion tells us that " the
great evil in Germany is the unconscious worship of Germany, and
the great evil of England is the conscious worship of money."
The only hope of the future generation being free from both State
worship and money worship is to have it indoctrinated with the
true philosophy — Mr. Brock's philosophy — of the spirit. What
this is in any definite way we did not succeed in ascertaining from
NEW BOOKS 843
his volume; but apparently all will be well if the child of the fu-
ture " loves truth, goodness and beauty for themselves alone." The
author talks at length about an aesthetic conscience as if such a
thing were possible; and foolishly asserts that a sense of beauty
is one of the best remedies for sensuality.
THE WISER FOLLY. By Leslie Moore. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons. $1.50.
We could scarcely fail to receive with pleasure a story from the
same pen which produced The Jester and The Peacock Feather.
The charming books by this writer make excellent reading for
Catholics, and are likewise deservedly popular among our separated
brethren. And in these days there is something hopeful and
stimulating in the discovery of a novelist who shows variety
of character without offensive caricature, who creates fiction and
yet does not violate truth, who remains consistent to human nature
and to adequate morality, and who pleases without offending.
The Wiser Folly is the story of an English legacy, the differ-
ence between legal right and moral justice, and the virtue of a
complete understanding as opposed to disagreement and conflict.
The most likable person in the book is a priest from Ireland, the
most lovable a charming girl, the most stimulating a young archi-
tect-artist, who is engaged in repairing an old church to its pristine
glory. This architect with the sensibilities of an artist describes the
task in which he is employed and this description is interesting,
for by the subtle skill of Leslie Moore it is so put as to be applicable
to the English Church, as well as to a single small building : " I
feel like an explorer of bygone centuries penetrating through mod-
ern hideosity, early Victorian rudeness, Puritan dreariness, and
various other glories to the sweet, kindly simplicity, the grace, the
freshness, the love of beauty, appertaining to the olden days. I am
crumbling to pieces that which has hidden beauty, and exposing
beauty to the light of day. In other words, I am scraping the
plaster off the walls of the church."
THE INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN. By James Stephens. New
York: The Macmillan Co. $1.25 net.
The author of The Crock of Gold and The Demi-Gods was an
eyewitness of the unequal skirmish between the members of Sinn
Fein and the English soldiery in the unfortunate rebellion in Ire-
land. In notebook fashion he has chronicled the events of that
844 NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
stirring week, giving the reader an intimate recital of the outburst
and progress of the short-lived insurrection.
The book is well written and, though seemingly too close to
the events it chronicles to give them their proper perspective, it
accords a vivid idea of what occurred during the seven days follow-
ing last Easter Sunday. But in a large sense the book is more than
a mere record of contemporaneous happenings. In the pages subse-
quent to the narrative of the disorder the author gives a clear,
keenly analytical estimate of English misrule in Ireland, and points
out the causes of Irish discontent. He pleads for an adjustment of
the extremes of both factions in Ireland, hoping that in the land
itself they will find a common bond that will weld them together.
In England he sees a nation that has neglected to win the friend-
ship of Ireland — a friendship that England sorely needs at the
present time and will need more as the years pass.
GHENKO. The Mongol Invasion of Japan. By Nakaba Yamada,
B.A. New York : E. P. Button & Co. $2.50 net.
Mr. -Yamada describes in picturesque and attractive fashion
the Mongol invasions of Japan at the close of the thirteenth cen-
tury. After a few introductory chapters on the relations between
the Koreans and the Japanese and the development of the Mongol
Empire under Kublai Khan, the writer pictures in detail the battles
on sea and land fought in the cause of Japanese independence.
The might of the Mongol Empire, the six embassies of Kublai
Khan to Japan demanding homage, the three Mongol invasions
covering the years 1275 to 1281, the patriotism and valor of the
Japanese knights and sailors under the leadership of Shikken To-
kimune, the utter destruction of the Mongol Armada of thirty-five
hundred ships — all this is set forth by a Japanese Cambridge student
who wishes to prove to Western minds the old-time valor of his
people.
HALF LIGHTS. By Guy Fleming. New York : Longmans, Green
& Co. $1.00.
This book is a collection of twenty-seven short stories varying
in length from three to eleven pages, and written in the rapid-fire
style of the newspaper reporter. They all deal with the obviously
sordid side of life, whether it be in the trenches or in the respectable
British home, and show the weaknesses of men and women in their
least attractive forms. To instance but the first called V. C.: a
dying soldier tells the attending physician the story of his life:
1917-] NEW BOOKS 845
how he stole from his mother when a child, how he was always a
sneak, how he betrayed the woman he was pledged to marry and
who killed herself in consequence, how he sought refuge in the
ranks rather than face the results of his cowardice, and in the end
was rewarded with the Victoria Cross for assumed bravery — the
whole story padded with unnecessary expletives.
A cynical atmosphere pervades everyone of these tales. The
reader searches in vain for one wholesome sentiment to counteract
in some measure the morbid outlook upon life and living; and on
closing the book he is confronted with the unanswerable query
of why it was ever written.
THE CRIMINAL IMBECILE. By Henry Herbert Goddard. New
York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50.
The stated purpose of this book is to impress upon society
its responsibility toward mental defectives; to further the defence
of the criminal high-grade imbecile when his cause is pleaded in
court; and to aid the judge in administering that justice which,
if it is to be worthy of the name, must be greatly tempered with
mercy. The content is the description of three murder cases, the
accused being very young men. The author tells us that these were
the first cases " in which the Binet-Simon tests were admitted in
evidence, the mental status of these persons under indictment being
largely determined by this method." He also says: "This is not
the place nor is it necessary to discuss the Binet tests themselves."
Very probably this is true, but in that case it would have been
better to say either less about them or much more, in a book
presumably intended for general reading. In the first case, that
of Jean Gianini, few would feel that his acquittal on the ground
of imbecility was in the least a miscarriage of justice; but the
youth's mental deficiency was indicated by many other circum-
stances than failure under the Binet tests. It is not by this failure,
therefore, that the average reader would form his opinion; and
the illustration selected by the author is to the uninitiated not
wholly convincing. It is easy to understand the prosecuting at-
torney's contention, vigorously denied by the author, that the
Binet Scale is "an arbitrary system;" and when Dr. Goddard
affirms that if Jean responded correctly to the twelve-year tests,
when they were put by the prosecution, " it could only have been
because they were wrongly used," we do not dispute the assertion
of such an authority, but our comprehension is not furthered.
846 NEW BOOKS [Mar.,
Not many will differ with Dr. Goddard as to the menace to
society in allowing the potential criminal to grow up in unrestricted
freedom, nor the wisdom of examining the mentality of children,
that preventive measures may be employed ; but thoughtful mem-
bers of society, noting the present tendency to excessive standardiz-
ing and classification in sociological work, are not all free from
fears of a certain danger in the very means of protection. The
conscientious layman may well desire a fairly close knowledge of the
methods now advocated which, while they preserve the irresponsi-
ble from undue severity, also operate to impose restrictions upon
many who are guiltless of offence. Such knowledge will not be
gained from this book. Fuller demonstration of the tests is neces-
sary to inspire the confidence in them that is obviously apparent in
Dr. Goddard.
THE INTELLIGENCE OF WOMAN. By W. L. George. Boston :
Little, Brown & Co. $1.25 net.
These essays, which have for the most part, appeared in The
^Atlantic Monthly, do not gain by being presented in collective form ;
on the contrary, their flippant shallowness thus emphasized makes a
reading of the book something like a test of endurance. Mr. George
more than once confesses to being young — an unnecessary statement.
His crudities of thought, his unreasonable deductions and his delib-
erate extravagances are not likely to impress any reader as the
fruits of a mature mind. The depth and accuracy of his views
may be gauged by the following : " The Christian religion has
done everything it could to heap ignominy upon woman: head-
coverings in church, practical tolerance of male infidelity, kingly
repudiation of queens, compulsory child-bearing and a multiplicity
of other injustices." He hails the " downfall of the home " and
" the break-up of the family," to be accomplished by the action
of woman, as gigantic strides of progress in feminism, of which
he is a declared advocate, and he seems to consider himself a
qualified and authorized spokesman for women at large. It is
agreeable to remember that there are many women to whom his
championship will be an unwelcome attention. Whatever the
merits of feminism, it counts among its supporters a number of
Catholic women who are both intelligent and devout. They have
nothing to fear from any opponents, but may well be dismayed for
their cause when it evokes such tributes of friendship as The
Intelligence of Woman.
1917.] NEW BOOKS 847
PHILIPPINE FOLK LORE. By Mabel Cook Cole. Chicago:
A. C. McClurg & Co. $1.25 net.
Folk tales are the nursery tales of the human family. They
are wonder-stories of giants and superhumans, working, easily as
thought, the tremendous deeds of their elemental struggles; they
are the kindergarten stories of the world, depicting in human terms
the traits of the animals and birds whose habitat has brought them
into communion with man. These records the student of human
life deciphers in aid to a basis of fact for patching together specu-
lations concerning the history and habits of the crude life of primi-
tive man. The taboo, the fetish, the spirits of the unseen world,
that were so real to the ancestors of historic man, are revealed to
the ethnologist in the folk lore of the nations.
Such a book is Mabel Cook Cole's Philippine Folk Lore,
written after four years residence among the wild tribes of the
islands. The stories she heard at first hand, while assisting her
husband in his ethnological labors, as the natives recited them at
home or round the camp fire, or when the pagan priests chanted
them as part of their religious rites.
No pretension is made to scholarship. These are simply a
selection of typical tales coming from tribes widely separated and
diverse in culture. An occasional footnote throws light upon the
meaning of a word, or the significance of a custom, or points the
analogy between the tale and tales of other nations.
GERALD DE LACEY'S DAUGHTER. By Anna T. Sadlier. New
York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $1.35 net.
This is a stirring romance of old New York in the days imme-
diately following the accession of William of Orange. Miss Sad-
lier describes very vividly the home life of the Dutch patroons at
the outset of the eighteenth century, the rivalries and factions of
New York's leading families, the hatred of Catholics in general
and of Jesuits in particular, the witchcraft craze in Salem, and the
activities of the smugglers and pirates who were in the pay of
both Governor and citizens. The course of true love does n®t run
at all smooth, but the hero finally wins the daughter of Gerald de
Lacey, and the villain leaves the colony in disgrace and dishonor.
There is not a dull page in this most delightful story.
PAMPHLET PUBLICATIONS.
The America Press, of New York, has published in the latest numbers of
The Catholic Mind, Catholic Education in Mexico, by Rev. G. Decorme, S.J.;
848 NEW BOOKS [Mar,
The Secularized State, by the Bishop of Northampton; Shaw's Apologetics,
by Rev. D. A. Lord, SJ. ; The Dominicans' Seventh Centenary, by Rev. Dr.
Guilday.
The Catholic Bulletin, of Cleveland, has issued a pamphlet on Single Tax,
which summarizes a debate carried on for over a year by Rev. F. S. Betten,
SJ., and a number of Single Taxers in Cleveland.
The Catholic Truth Society, of Dublin, sends us Our Duties to Our Dead,
by Rt. Rev. Monsignor Hallinan, D.D.
The H. W. Wilson Co., of White Plains, N. Y., has issued a brochure on
The Seven Joys of Reading, by Mary Wright Plummer.
The Catholic Book Co., of Wheeling, W. Va., has just published two in-
teresting booklets for very young children, entitled A Baby Catechism, and
Little Rhymes for Little Christians, by Roderick MacEachen. (10 cents each.)
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
Monsignor Baudrillart has republished in pamphlet form a sermon which
he delivered in September, 1914, under the title L'dme de la France a Rheims.
It is issued by Gabriel Beauchesne of Paris, France.
For the aid and comfort of the sick and suffering Abbe Felix Klein has
written a book, entitled Les Douleurs qui Esperent. (Paris: Perrin et Ge.)
The chapters treat of sin, of sacrifice, of penance, of the necessity for self-
denial, and on the sure hope of a future life.
Pierre Tequi (Paris) issues an important pamphlet, entitled St. Thomas
Aquinas and IV ar and the grounds for waging a just war.
Bloud et Gay (Paris) continue their installments of Pages Actuelles. Among
the latest are: La Cathedrale de Rheims, by fimile Male; La Guerre, by
Morton Prince, M.D. ; Pro Patria, by Victor Giraud; Pour teutoniser la
Belgique, by Fernand Passeleco; La Belgique boulevard du Droit, by Henry
Carton de Wiart ; Le General Leman, by Maurice des Ombiaux ; Du Sub-
jectivisme Allemand a la Philosophie Catholique, by Bishop du Vauroux, and
La Belgique en Angleterre, by Henri Davignon.
Bishop Lacroix publishes through the same firm a small pamphlet, entitled
Le Clerge et la Guerre de 1914.
The same house issues the plentifully illustrated volume by Abbe E.
Foulon, entitled Arras under Bombardment. And another equally well illus-
trated by Rene le Cholleux on the Lourdes of the North, that is Notre Dame
de Brebieres.
Plon Nourrit et Cie (Paris) have published Lettres d'un Officier de Chas-
seurs Alpins, by Captain Ferdinand B^lmond. The preface is written by
Henry Bordeaux, who does not hesitate to say that in its provincial sentiment
and its spirit of religious devotion the volume recalls The Sister's Story, by
Mrs. Craven, and The Journal of Eugenie de Guerin.
In L'Zglise (Paris: J. Gabalda. 2 vols. 8/r.) Prof. A. D. Sertillanges
treats of the purpose and general characteristics of the Church, her sacra-
mental life, her attitude towards other Churches and the various departments
of human activity, and, finally, her organization. The author's point of view
is at once theological and apologetic. We cannot better express our appre-
ciation of his success than by making our own the approval given by the
book's censors. " Soundest doctrine adapted to the deepest needs of modern
society in language at once luminous and rich gives to this piece of apologetics
an exceptional value. We believe that its publication will do much good to
souls, and contribute in an important degree to making the Church known
and loved."
IRecent Events.
The Editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD wishes to state that none
of the contributed articles or departments, signed or unsigned, of
the magazine, with the exception of " With Our Readers," voices
the editorial opinion of the magazine. And no article or depart-
ment voices officially the opinion of the Paulist Community.
The submarine campaign is at the present
Great Britain. time the chief cause of anxiety to the Brit-
ish public, inasmuch as it is forming a real
danger to the food supply. The best informed man in Great Brit-
ain, and at the same time the one most ready to speak out un-
pleasant things, declares indeed that it is impossible to starve the
country; there is no doubt, however, that great inconvenience
may be caused. For a long time appeals have been made
by the Government for the practice of economy, appeals which up
to the present have fallen for the most part on deaf ears. The
other modes of attack upon which the enemy relied have pro-
duced no results. Zeppelins are confessed to be a failure, and the
invasion which might have been made within the first few months
of the war is looked upon not as impossible, but as in the highest
degree improbable, while its success is altogether impossible in view
of the large armies which are now on guard.
The U-boat campaign was, a few weeks ago, declared by
the First Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe, to have become more serious
than ever before. The first efforts of the Germans had proved a
failure. The larger submarines have been more difficult to deal
with. Up to the end of 1916 the enemy had destroyed 1,245
British ships, with a total tonnage of 2,945,475. This was an
average loss of 100,000 tons a month. In November the loss was
no less than 300,000, while in December it reached 400,000. In
January it was slightly less. All this was antecedent to the new
declaration of war within a zone delimited by Germany. In addi-
tion to these losses inflicted upon the mercantile marine of the bel-
ligerents, must be reckoned the losses sustained by neutral powers.
Several means have been adopted by the British Government,
with an ever-increasing degree of efficiency; and full confidence is
felt in the ability of the navy to gain the victory in this campaign
as decisively as they did in the previous. Great efforts are being
made to increase the production of food at home. The new Min-
VOL. civ.— 54
850 RECENT EVENTS [Mar.,
ister of Agriculture is working in complete harmony with the Food
Controller in fostering the growth of cereals and potatoes upon
waste and badly cultivated land, and in making a fair distribution
among consumers. The great difficulty which is felt is the want of
labor, so many men having enlisted in the army. Further efforts
are being made to bring home to the nation at large the need of
economy. The adoption of rationing has been discussed, but every
hope is entertained that this may not be necessary, except for a few
articles such as sugar and petrol. A strong movement is on foot for
the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcohol. This would
be equivalent to the addition of nearly a million tons to the navy.
New construction, however, is what is chiefly relied upon to
relieve the situation. The losses of the first phase of the submarine
war were made good by the vessels which had been captured from
the enemy. In the later stages the losses have been made good to a
large extent by new construction. In the year before the war,
2,000,000 tons were built. Last year, however, 800,000 tons was
the limit reached, the shipyards having been devoted almost exclu-
sively to Admiralty work, by means of which the navy is said to
have been doubled since the war began. Some little time ago,
many shipyards were released for the ordinary requirements of
commerce, and now the rate of construction of merchant ships is
being largely increased. The standardization so widely adopted
for automobiles is being applied to the construction of vessels, a
thing which greatly accelerates the rate of construction. The new
Shipping Controller is tackling the problem in yet another way.
The powers conferred upon him enable him to make the existing
vessels do a vast deal more work than when they were under private
management, by accelerating the rate of discharge and the turning
round of the vessel. The unprecedented increase of tonnage which
has recently taken place in this country as well as in Japan, will
also be of service to Great Britain's needs, especially after the
stand which has been taken by our President. The chief difficulty,
of course, is the want of man power, which involves a conflict
between the Ministers of War and of Agriculture and the Con-
trollers of Food and Shipping. Before the war it was not un-
common to look upon men as superfluous: now it is seen how
necessary even unskilled labor is.
While the loss caused by the submarines is no doubt
serious, yet it must be borne in mind that the number of
British merchantmen, of whom happily there is no history, is far
1917-] RECENT EVENTS 851
larger. On each of the first ten days of the past month which
saw not the inauguration, but the intensification, of the warfare at
sea, eight ships on an average were destroyed. During the same
period the arrivals at British ports of ships fully loaded with
valuable contraband numbered above seven hundred, and in the
same time more than four hundred left for various foreign ports.
Each day sees a diminution of the number of ships sunk, so that
by the latest report only one of thirty-five ships is lost. Mean-
while row upon row of captured Prussian submarines is said to
occupy the ports of Great Britain. The Admiralty, however, gives
no official endorsement of this statement, in order to avoid fur-
nishing the enemy with information which might render him more
cautious in his methods of sea warfare; possibly also with a view
to make it difficult to find sailors willing to embark upon voyages
from which few if any ever return, and where death is met without
the glory of a battle.
It is worthy of note that while the submarine has caused to
merchant vessels no little loss, the success of the U-boats against
the fighting fleets of the British has been relatively negligible.
With the exception of those sunk in the Dardanelles, the Corn-
wallis recently sunk and the Formidable are the only two battle-
ships that have been torpedoed. The other ships have been lost
by mines, while the vessels torpedoed in the first month of the
war were not battleships but cruisers. The Cornwallis was a pre-
Dreadnought battleship, and was not able to survive a torpedo
attack. Dreadnought battleships, on the contrary, have proved their
ability after having been struck by a torpedo to maintain their
place in the battle line and to reach port. This was done by the
Marlborough after the Battle of Jutland.
There are those even in Great Britain who are not quite satis-
fied with the achievements of the navy. The escape of the Ger-
man navy at the Battle of Jutland was the cause of no little dis-
appointment. The result of the battle which has amounted, indeed,
to the demobilization of the German sea power, did not effect its
complete neutralization, nor is the British navy powerful enough
to force a battle. The German navy still remains a force in being,
not able indeed to effect so complete a blockade of all German ports
as to render it impossible for submarines to escape, although it can
do much to render it impossible for them to return.
While, however, there are certain achievements which have
proved to be beyond the strength of even the British navy,
852 RECENT EVENTS [Mar.,
the services which it has rendered to the cause not only of Great
Britain, but of all the rest of the Allied nations, have been so great
as to constitute not merely a useful but a decisive feature of the
contest. In fact, had it not been for the control of the sea which
it secured so early and so unexpectedly, the War would long ago
have terminated in favor of Germany. The power of the British
is, and has been from the beginning, silently indeed but surely,
exerted in every sea, and has proved the basic factor of the War.
On its activity and supremacy depend the transport not merely to
Saloniki, East Africa and other places of soldiers' food and muni-
tions, but also the daily and even hourly intercourse with France.
Over seven millions of men have been transported to and fro in all
parts of the world with all the supplies that are necessary for their
daily support, and with their munitions and heavy guns. German
impotence is disclosed by the fact that no single soldier has lost his
life in the voyages to and from France, nor has there been an hour's
interruption in the traffic. Were this all it would be a surprising
achievement, but it is only a part. Spasmodic efforts have been
made by Germany to bombard a few British seaports, but there has
been no attempt to make even so much as a raid upon British land.
On the other hand a strict commercial blockade has been main-
tained upon all the seaports of Germany, so that but little gets in
or out without British consent. In every part of the world pro-
tection is being afforded to a mercantile marine larger than that
of any nation. Hundreds of thousands of transport-voyages have
been made in perfect safety from and to every part of the world,
with mishaps fewer than a dozen in number. Not only have the
German seaports been effectually blockaded, although at a distance,
but the whole of the North Sea is enclosed in a network of ships,
through which it has been possible for but a few to escape.
At the beginning of the War, Mr. Lloyd George, then Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, now Prime Minister, said that it would
be won by the side which had at its disposal the greatest number of
silver bullets. This so far has not proved a quite accurate state-
ment, for it was not then realized that the people of Germany
would be willing, as has been the case since the first months of the
war, to trust a government which gives nothing but printed paper
in exchange. The suspension of specie payment has not entered
into serious consideration in Great Britain. The loan recently
issued for an amount to which no limit was set, met
at once with an enthusiastic response. On the first day of issue
1917-] RECENT EVENTS 853
arrivals of subscribers began quite early in the morning, and in
such numbers as to dislocate the traffic. Many reasons existed for
this enthusiasm : the generous terms of the loan, confidence in
the future, and the desire to make sacrifices of their earthly pos-
sessions for the well-being of those who are giving their blood for
the defence of their country.
The loan was issued on the twelfth of January and the subscrip-
tion list was closed on the sixteenth of February. It proved even
a greater success than was hoped for. The exact amount has not
yet been published, but estimates made by experts place the amount
subscribed at from three and one-half billions to five billions of
dollars. Subscriptions ranged from one hundred millions of dollars
apiece to twenty-five. A large proportion of the subscriptions were
for small amounts and were made by the working classes. Of course,
the more successful the loan the larger the burden will be which
future generations will have to bear. It will not all fall upon
Great Britain, for something like three billions have been spent in
helping her Allies and her Colonies. Doubtless this will ultimately
be repaid, but in the meantime Great Britain is responsible. Expe-
rience of the past shows that while for a short period British wars
have caused a temporary set-back, the set-back has been only tem-
porary. The struggle which put an end to Napoleon's plans proved
a profitable business investment. After these wars it proved no
more difficult to pay interest on four billions than it was for their
ancestors to pay interest on four hundred millions. Whether it will
be so as a result of the present gigantic struggle, the event alone
will prove. The national income is estimated at the present time
at from thirteen to fifteen billions, while two billions and a half
are being raised in taxation. Preparations are being made for the
after-war period. Capitalists and workingmen are coming together
with a view to harmonious working instead of the fierce rivalry
which had become characteristic of the period which preceded the
War. The full energy of the nation is going to be directed into the
production of the largest possible output, as the only way that will
be open to pay even the interest of the huge debt. From the British
Empire's enemy competition will be eliminated, if the plans of a
large section of the community are realized. National develop-
ment of the resources of the empire is to be brought into play, and
cooperative methods on a large scale are to be introduced. The
experiences of the War have done a great deal to familiarize labor
and capital alike with the intervention of the State, and to show
854 RECENT EVENTS [Mar.,
how much injury is done by a too fully developed individualism.
Hence in the period after the war it is probable that there will be
a great development of State Socialism.
The heroic Belgian resistance to the invad-
Belgium. ing hordes excited the admiration of the
world, the more so as many of their ad-
mirers felt that they were themselves incapable of a like bravery.
This resistance might indeed have proved to be a mere spasmodic
effort not incapable of being long continued. The contrary, how-
ever, has turned out to be the case. To the Allies' reply to Mr.
Wilson, the Belgian Government made a distinct statement of its
entire adhesion. Nor is this merely an act of the Government.
The people of Belgium are in complete accord. This is established
by inquiries that have been made in the occupied parts of Belgium
since the German Chancellor made his appeal. Practical unan-
imity exists in the demand for the return of the occupied territory,
for reparation of the damage done by the invaders, and for a
guarantee against the repetition of a similar crime. The suggestion
which has been made in German quarters that in exchange for
the evacuation of Belgian territory in Europe, the Congo should
be ceded to Germany, has not been listened to for a moment. The
utterances of Belgians of such different points of view as are
Cardinal Mercier and M. Maeterlinck show complete the unan-
imity of every class. The latter is indignant at the apathy of
neutrals, a name which he affirms will one day weigh heavy upon
them to whom it is now given. Even the Socialists, who were
before the War so closely united to those of Germany, have refused
to listen to the recent peace manoeuvres, and demand the complete
evacuation of Belgian territory before any consideration will be
given to invitations of further intercourse. The deportations which
are now taking place they denounce as the most odious slavery,
not to be condoned by the few words of pity for their " brethren "
(!) to which German Socialists have recently given utterance.
Yet another evidence of Belgian feeling — were one needed —
is found in the absolute failure of the German effort, by the founda-
tion of a university at Ghent, to divide the Belgians. In spite of an
intense propaganda in German prison camps, and of the fact that
absolute immunity from deportation is secured to all students,
there are only eighty who are following the course of studies.
By the rest of the population this group of traitors, for so they
1917.] RECENT EVENTS 855
are called, is absolutely boycotted, and no one will associate with
them. It is already decided that those who have in this way helped
the oppressors have lost their nationality and forfeited all their
rights. On the joyful day of the German departure, of whose near
approach the nation is convinced, these students will be driven out
along with the masters whom they have chosen. The indomitable
spirit of the vast majority is further shown by the way in which, in
spite of every effort made by their captors, Belgian workmen re-
fuse to do the tasks imposed upon them. They prefer every kind
of suffering to submission. It is a fine manifestation of the Catho-
lic hatred" of oppression and injustice, and has met with a response
even in distant Guatemala, where the children have sent relief to
the extent of several thousands of dollars for the children of a
Belgium " crucified and lifeless." Two brothers of the Empress
of Austria and Queen of Hungary are serving the Belgian cause in
Flanders.
Whatever may be the outcome of the War,
Austria-Hungary. the prospect for Austria-Hungary is
gloomy, especially for Austria. If the En-
tente wins, not only is Serbia to be restored with due compensation
for the outrageous treatment which she has received, but the Serbs
at present included within the confines of the Dual Monarchy are to
be liberated, while Galicia is to be united to the re-constituted
Poland, which has been solemnly promised by the Tsar. Something
doubtless will be done for the Czechs of Bohemia who have suf-
fered so much during the present War. On the other hand, if the
War is won by the Central Powers, Prussia, whose motto is do ut
des, will have to be paid for having succored her Ally, and for
having saved the situation after the defeats inflicted by Russia.
Not Germany alone but Hungary also is making demands which
are disadvantageous to the other partner in the Dual Monarchy.
The Hungarian proposal is to set up a Southern Slav State, to
include the territories of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, together
with Bosnia and Herzegovina and possibly Montenegro. This new
State, it is proposed, will be under Magyar control. If carried out
the number of Slav members 'in the Austrian Reichsrath would be
diminished by eleven, and in this way the power of the other nation-
alities will be increased, especially as Galicia is also to be eliminated.
Combined with this plan to augment Magyar influence is the pro-
posal so to arrange the administrative districts of Bohemia as to
place the Czechs at the mercy of the Germans, and to declare Ger-
856 RECENT EVENTS [Mar.,
man to be the State language to the exclusion of the eight lan-
guages which have hitherto received State recognition. The exclu-
sion of Galicia from the Reichsrath has in view a still further
diminution of every other but German influence.
These proposals were rejected by Dr. von Korber, the Premier
who succeeded Count Sturgkh, and he was forced to resign. A more
pliant tool was found in Dr. von Spitzmtiller, but he was unable to
form a Cabinet, or at least he formed one which lasted only three
days. To all these schemes so strong an opposition has arisen that
a new Prime Minister has been chosen, who belongs to the one of the
nationalities which has suffered most in the War, and which it was
the object of the new projects practically to suppress. Count Clam-
Martinitz belongs to an old Bohemian family of Czech origin. It is
thought that he has been chosen as a compromise candidate, and as
one less repugnant to the vast majority of the inhabitants of Bo-
hemia than was such an out-and-out instrument of Germanism like
Dr. von Spitzmiiller. A counter-balance may be found in the person
of a prominent German-Bohemian who also is in the Cabinet.
Further changes which have taken place indicate the growth of
the opposition to Magyar-German influence. The appointment of
Count Czernin as Foreign Minister of the Dual Monarchy can
scarcely be agreeable to Count Tisza, for the Count belongs, like the
new Austrian Premier, to a Bohemian Slav family, and is particu-
larly obnoxious to the Magyars, because he made the offer to the
Rumanians when Minister at Bucharest of large concessions of Tran-
sylvanian territory. Moreover, the Foreign Minister whom Count
Czernin has superseded, Baron Burian, was generally recognized as
a mere instrument in the hands of Count Tisza. The resignation of
the President of the Reichsrath, who was a warm advocate of the
extension of German influence, is yet another sign of the existence
within the Dual Monarchy of a spirit of resistance to the demands
of the dominant partner. There are, of course, other questions
which have had their influence in bringing about these somewhat
confusing changes. There is, for example, the periodical adjust-
ment of the financial arrangement between Austria and Hungary,
the " Central Europe " proposal which is to settle the relations be-
tween the Central Powers and the rest of the world, the distribu-
tion of food supplies, which are becoming scantier every day. There
is, however, reason to believe that the conflict between the German-
ization of the Empire and the preservation of something of national
spirit of the other races is the chief cause of the recent changes.
With Our Readers.
IT is startling to consider the effect of a stock phrase upon many
minds. A stock phrase saves one the burden of proving anything,
for it is taken out of the accepted scientific and literary supply room of
the world. It has been used by so many that to question it were
like questioning the veracity of mankind; indeed it would be equal
to questioning all that body of scientific and literary criticism to
which we have been taught to look with enduring respect.
'pO the average reader the writer of the stock phrase stands out as one
A who knows its full meaning; else why does he use it so aptly?
If put to it he could give evidence of the erudition necessary to
show that it has been admitted to stock because everything it stands
for has been proved beyond question. For example, we read a letter
to a newspaper a few days ago in which the writer used " medi-
aevalism " six times in five hundred words. Of course, anybody
who would accept his meaning of it as ignorant, inhuman and
brutal, ought to go to school again and learn the first lessons of
history.
Again we met with a learned discourse on the " movies," in
which it was said that the " movies " appealed to the primitive in
man. It continued to tell us just how much lower the primitive man
was than the modern man; how much more bestial he was; how
the "evolutionary" process had evolved him to his present high
estate.
* * * *
THE truth is that we are living in many of our accepted notions
and theories more on stock phrases than on knowledge. " Chris-
tianity without Christ," " Christianity without Churchianity," " The
Church of the People," " No Authority but God," " The Progress of
Human Reason," " Education the Great Leveler," " Evolution the
Key to History," " The Supremacy of the State," all these and thou-
sands of others indicate rather the lack than the presence of accurate
knowledge.
* * * *
WE might illustrate the subject in many ways, but we have a
particularly happy illustration at hand from a paper recently
contributed to The Nation by Agnes Repplier. The yeoman's work
which Miss Repplier is doing in trying to keep steady this reeling
WITH OUR READERS [Mar.,
world is worthy of much praise. " It is always hard," she wisely
says, " to make an elastic phrase fit with precision."
THE phrase that she selects for her criticism is " Victorian " —
a formula which has been in popular use for many years and to
which we attach no very exact significance. Amy Lowell, in a re-
cent essay, said that the influence of Zola on the younger writers of
France and Belgium was necessary " to down the long set of senti-
mental hypocrisies known in England as 'Victorian/ "
" If love were all," Miss Repplier states that she might admit
such a contention ; " but, happily for the great adventures we call
life and death, love is not all. The world swings on its way, peo-
pled by other men and lovers; and it is to Tennyson we owe the
most splendid denial of domesticity — and duty — that was ever made
deathless by verse. The great Victorian novelists were well aware
that, albeit the average man does his share of love-making, he
neither lives nor dies for love."
^PHACKERAY accepted the restrictions and the reticences common
A to every gentleman of his day ; and " they leave him an un-
crippled spectator and analyst of the complicated business of living.
The world is not nearly so simple a place as the sexualists seem to
consider it. It is not the decency of Thackeray's novels which
affronts us (we are seldom unduly aware that they are decent), but
the severity with which he judged his own creations and his rank
and shameless favoritism."
" We know what we mean by Victorian conventions and hypoc-
risies," Miss Repplier adds, " but the perpetual intrusion of blind-
ing truths disturbs our point of view. The new Reform bill and the
extension of the suffrage were hardy denials of convention. The
Origin of Species and Zoological Evidences as to Man's Place in Na-
ture were not published in the interests of hypocrisy. There was
nothing oppressively respectable about The Ring and the Book; and
Laus Veneris can hardly be said to have needed the fine corrective of
Zola. These mid-Victorian products have a savor of freedom about
them, and so have The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, and Carlyle's plain-
spoken Frederick the Great. Even the Homeric eloquence of Ruskin
was essentially the eloquence of the free. The two lessons it sought to
drive home to his reluctant readers were, first, that Englishmen were
not living on an illuminated earth spot, under the especial patronage
of the Almighty ; and, secondly, that no one was called by Providence
1917.] WITH OUR READERS 859
to the enjoyment of wealth and security. If these unpleasant and
reiterated truths — as applicable to the United States today as they
were to Victoria's England — are 'smug/ then Jeremiah was sugar-
coated, and the Baptist an apostle of ease."
reticence of the Victorians has stood for strength as well as
-I stiffness.
" The Victorian giants were of mighty girth. They trod the
earth with proud and heavy steps, and with a strength of conviction
which was as vast and tranquil as the plains. We have parted with
their convictions and with their tranquillity. We have also parted
with their binding prejudices and with their standards of taste. Free-
dom has come to us, not broadening down 'from precedent to prece-
dent,' but swiftly and comprehensively. There are no more taboos,
no more silent or sentimental hypocrisies. We should now know a
great many interesting details concerning the Marquis of Steyne and
the Duke of Omnium, if these two imposing figures had not passed
forever from our ken. We should have searchlights thrown upon
Becky Sharp, if Becky had not escaped into the gloom. Her suc-
cessors sin exhaustively, and with a lamentable lack of esprit. We
are bidden to scrutinize their transgressions, but Becky's least pecca-
dillo is more engaging than all their broken commandments. The
possibility of profound tediousness accompanying perfect candor
dawns slowly on the truth-tellers of fiction. It takes a great artist,
like Edith Wharton, to recognize and deplore the 'freedom of
speech which never arrives at wit, and the freedom of act which
never makes for romance.' "
THE tendency of writers of today is to interpret all things in terms
of sex. The world seems obsessed by it, that is the world of
writers and of artists. It has been called, and is called " realism "
in art ; a much truer word would be " sexualism." And sex being
a medium, not an end, this so-called art of itself arrives nowhere
and speaks no elevating or abiding message.
vote polled by the Socialist Party in the recent Presidential
1 election was a great disappointment to its leaders. Immediately
after the election, they claimed 1,300,000 votes. It now appears that
the total vote of the party in the Presidential election of 1916 was
590,166. Gustavus Myers, writing in The Nation, states that while
this is apparently less than a one-third decrease from the 1912 vote,
860 WITH OUR READERS [Mar.,
it is really more than a one-third decrease, because to the voters of
1916 must be added 150,000 of the suffrage States.
* * * *
THE Socialists now explain the unexpected decrease by saying that
those lost to the Socialist vote were not true Socialists ; that they
were the unstable and easily persuaded ones, not the class-conscious
Socialists. Yet the same party spokesmen did not hesitate to claim
former increases in their party vote as valuable and telling accessions
to the growing and permanent power of the Socialist Party.
Gustavus Myers claims that the loss of those votes is an indica-
tion of the loss of prestige by the party itself. It is due to wide-
spread dissatisfaction on the part of members with the leaders and the
practices of the party. The leaders will not admit this, for it would
be their undoing. They, who constantly accuse their opponents of
concealing facts in order to defend a cause or a system, are guilty
of the same procedure themselves.
" Their own system of ethics comprises not only the refusal of
information about themselves, but the penalizing of the publication
of it." As an example, which he says is one of many, Mr. Myers
cites the fate of The New Review, an independent Socialist periodical.
This Review stated that in a single year 75,000 dues-paying members
of the party had left the organization. As a result The Review was
formally boycotted and blacklisted by the Socialist local in New York
City.
* * * *
THOSE who have imagined that the Socialist Party is the champion
of liberty, that it is the true defender of the proletariat will be
surprised to learn that Socialist " bolters " are lamenting the lack of
freedom of expression within the Socialist Party; and that an ortho-
dox member demands that the " mechanism of discipline " be more
stringently applied; that suspensions and expulsions of the unruly
ones be increased, since to criticize is "to play into the hands of the
capitalist class."
The Socialist Party has claimed, and does claim, that it alone
professes and champions the only true and intelligent philosophy of
life. Against all past and present institutions in power it has pro-
tested with vehement emphasis. No limit of tempered judgment in
spoken or written word has bound it. The classes, the theories,
the systems, the institutions, the whole underlying foundation of the
economic, industrial, Social and religious system of our day, are not
only wrong, but are the instruments of a tyranny that thrives upon
deceit and monopoly. They are all intrenched by privilege. The So-
cialist Party was to be the pioneer of man's redemption; it was to
assault the trenches at whatever cost of life; deliver the servile crea-
1917.] WITH OUR READERS 86 1
tures who were ignorantly fighting the cause of their tyrants, and lead
them into the daylight of victorious reason and material prosperity.
" In the very act of proclaiming this," says the present writer,
" Socialists fail to comprehend that overdone materialism — the real
basis of their philosophy — breeds the most vicious kinds of bigotry,
since it excludes any true understanding of the mental and spiritual
depths of man. Theological bigotry has had its terrors, but unmiti-
gated economic bigotry. threatens greater. 'The real trouble with our
party/ declares a critic in a Socialist publication, 'is that it lacks ideas/
He demands 'a new vision/ but this is as far as he gets. Although he
sees the insufficiency, if not the emptiness, of the party as it is, the
materialistic concept has been so drummed into him that he is unable
to get a glimpse of what that vision might be."
* * * *
MANY idealists have entered the party not accepting the materialis-
tic philosophy of life, but willing to bear with it that it might
be the stepping-stone to a more spiritual outlook and interpretation.
The accession of such men was of course widely advertised by the
party, but, adds Mr. Myers, who is well qualified to speak: " Now
came the astonishing sight of a party in professed rebellion against
wealth and its standards revealing itself as a worshipper of wealth
and a truckler to it. Shortly after their admission some of these
rich men were elected by this 'proletarian party* to the National Exec-
utive Committee, the highest of its functioning bodies. One of them,
finding himself thus suddenly exalted, was so amazed and disillusioned
that he soon betook himself out of the party. Far from deprecating
such a display of sycophancy, certain elements among what were
called 'the parlor Socialists' demonstrated by their conduct that no
one can be so consummate a toady as the radical toady. But all
self-respecting idealists were deeply distressed at seeing a professed
'working-class party' imitate- the worst of those 'bourgeois methods'
against which it had so insistently declaimed. Other seriously dis-
quieting symptoms obtruded themselves. A party denouncing existing
authority as tyrannical exalted its own intimidating inquisitional au-
thority as sacred and supreme. A party fulminating against other po-
litical parties as machine ridden evolved a machine which in arbi-
trariness has exceeded all others."
TO anticipate inquiries, and to forewarn our readers if they chance
to meet with it, we wish to say that a recent volume published by
Dodd, Mead & Co., entitled The Last Days of Archduke Rudolph,
is an irresponsible and unreliable book. The author refuses to give
his name, and claims to have been the private secretary to the ill-fated
862 WITH OUR READERS [Mar.,
heir to the throne of the Dual Monarchy. F. Cunliffe Owen, a man
of diplomatic experience, and at present one of the editors of the New
York Tribune, in a detailed review of this volume, contributed to the
New York Evening Sun, states that the book " is full of such glaring
inaccuracies and errors as to preclude the possibility of its having
been written by any man filling the position which the author claims
to have held in the intimate entourage of Crown Prince Rudolph."
PRINCE RUDOLPH of Austria killed himself at Meyer-
\J ling in 1889. The reason we refer to this book is that it charges
that the late Pope Leo XIII., his Secretary of State, Cardinal Ram-
polla, the Emperor William of Germany, and the Berlin government
entered into a conspiracy and hired four Prussian agents who killed
the Archduke. Mr. Cunliffe Owen shows how absolutely unfounded
and false this charge is. Plentiful evidence exists to prove the actual
manner of the Archduke's death. The letters written by him on
the eve of his death contained secret information and directions as to
where private papers would be found, that no one else could know.
They were in his own handwriting. The Emperor and Empress never
doubted the authenticity of these letters. Mr. Cunliffe Owen states
that he has in his own possession the letter of Professor Angeli, the
portrait painter of the Austrian Court. This letter was written a
few days after Professor Angeli had been summoned to Vienna by the
Empress to make a number of sketches of her son as he lay dead.
The letter describes the wound in the head as one that could be only
self-inflicted, and there was never a doubt in Angeli's mind as to how
the Archduke met his death. We have but briefly indicated the
sweeping refutation made by Mr. Cunliffe Owen of this outrageous
charge. And we cannot but register our protest that reputable pub-
lishers should father this " farrago of nonsense."
BATHER AVELING'S article on the work of the Catholic chaplains
A in France, judging from letters received, was of much interest to
our readers. The following touching piece of realism from the firing
line gives further evidence of the heroism and devotion of the Catholic
chaplain. The writer had seen service from the very beginning of
the present European War and was killed in August, 1916. The letter
was written last April.
We have a Church of England chaplain attached to the battery—
a youngster and a very decent chap; been with us for a month now, and we
have a lot of fun with him. And this brings me round to a subject that
must be of the greatest possible interest to you— speaking of chaplains.
The chaplain at the front is not present in great numbers. There are
about twelve to a division (twenty thousand men) — four Roman Catholics,
1917.] WITH OUR READERS 863
four Church of England, and four non-Conformists. Every Sunday there are
compulsory church parades, and I have as yet failed to find a single man of
Protestant persuasion whose religion means anything whatsoever to him.
Church parades are the most completely perfunctory affairs that I have
ever seen in my life. The men hate them like poison, and growl mightily at
being drawn for them.
The experience of all these Non-Catholic chaplains is alike in this — they
meet with the most desperate sort of discouragement in their work out here
that it would be possible to imagine. Respect, of course, they get on all sides,
and comradeship outside of religious matters; but always are made to feel
that their services are an imposition, and that professionally they are not
wanted. To see one of them in the trenches is the rarest experience in the
world. It must be tragedy to them, and it is a problem to me how any of
them can last six months out here without complete disillusionment. Con-
trast this with what I am now going to tell you.
Of late I have been shooting over an Irish regiment, who (an ancient
privilege) have their own chaplain, and imagine my delight to find him an
old friend and mentor of my Father Tim Carey of Beaumont College. Father
Doyle is his name, an English Jesuit, and in the two or three nights that we
have spent together, I have howled with joy over the tales of the Catholic side
of the case. This good man, instead of having to work up interest in the minds
of his fighting parish, is worked hard to satisfy their spiritual needs. Every
morning he says Mass for the reserve company behind the trenches, at which
every free man is present a couple of times each week. Every evening he says
the rosary in the front line fire trench for the whole battalion, and at the
end administers general absolution to every man there.
Quite as often as not he is cut down to two or three decades by hostile
shelling, and once, at least, men have been killed and wounded by German fire
while the rosary was being said. Add to this that when the regiment is out at
rest, every man comes faithfully to the sacraments, and that in times of
strafeing this intrepid priest goes straight to the front lines and absolves the
wounded and the dying, and you have a picture of what the Church can mean
to men of faith in the midst of sudden death. He has told me that some of
the acts of contrition of the wounded men have been the most wonderful
things he has ever listened to — perfect contrition, such as he never before
thought could be put into words at all.
The other morning I was at Mass just behind the lines — two planes over-
head most of the time ; machine guns from the enemy trenches popping away to
beat the band; an occasional shell somewhere in the rear — the whole thing
was intensely dramatic. A number of Anglican chaplains have " gone over to
Rome" here in the middle of war; that or agnosticism was all that was left
to the ones who faced the truth.
*******:*:
Easter rolled up yesterday, and I attended one of the most beautiful open
air Masses I have ever seen offered by Father Doyle. Half of his regiment
was present, the other half having attended early Mass, and in the interim he
journeyed around the camp to give Communion to the sentries — kneeling with
a rifle and fixed bayonet. It was stirring.
********
Father Doyle spoken of in the above is the one to whom the
writer made his last confession, and who was killed ten days before
the latter died.
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