>••
THE
£jatholie &(
MONTHLY MAGAZIN
AP
2.
OF
V//09
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
PUBLISHED BY THE PAULIST FATHERS.
VOL. GIX.
APRIL, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919
NEW YORK:
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD
120 WEST 60TH STREET
1919
CONTENTS.
A Phase of Current Anglican Con-
troversy.—J, F. Scholfleld, . . 527
A Poets' Poet, Francis Thompson.
— Margaret Munsterberg, . . . 753
American Idea, The.— Gaillard
Hunt, Litt.D 289
Anchoress, The. — Charlotte Balfour, 203
Anglican Controversy, A Phase of
Current.— 7. F. Scholfleld, . . 527
An Irish Singer: Ethna Carbery. —
Katharine Tynan, 477
Annual Meeting of the Bishops, The.
—John A. Ryan, D.D., .... 433
Armistice Days. — Francis Aveling,
S.T.D., 601
Bolshevism and Philosophy. —
James I. King 450
Bishops, The Annual Meeting of
the.— John A. Ryan, D.D 433
Canon Law, the Pope and the Peo-
ple.— Samuel F, Darwin Fox, . 1
Cardinal Newman and Edmund
Burke.— Alfred G. Brickel, SJ., 637
Cardinal Newman and Gilbert K.
Chesterton.— A If red G. Brickel,
SJ 744
Case of California, The.— C. M.
Waage, 378
Catholic Social Study. — Father
Cuthbert, O.S.F.C., 577
Catholic University, The Record of
a.— Albert J. Carnoy, Ph.D., . . 176
Christ in Type and Prophecy. —
Cuthbert Lattey, SJ 187
Christ of Experience, The. — Cuth-
bert Lattey, SJ 298
Claire Ferchaud: L'Enfant des Rin-
fillieres. — May Bateman, ... 47
Constitution of the League of Na-
tions, The. — Charles G. Fenwick, 32
Crimson Terror, The. — Jerome El-
mer Murphy 145
De la Salle, The Educational Re-
forms of. — Brother Constantius, . 721
Education in a Democratic Society,
Vocational. — John A. Ryan, D.D., 613
Ethna Carbery: An Irish Singer. —
Katharine Tynan, 477
Far East, Marknoll and the.— The
Editor 802
Federal Revolution in the High
School, A. — Francis P. Donnelly,
SJ 331
Gerard Hopkins and His Poetry. —
Henry A. Lappin 501
Germany, The Treaty of Peace
with.— Charles G. Fenwick, . . 382
Great Wars of Europe, The. — •
Conde B. Pallen, . ..... 320
Giowth of Croatian Nationalism. —
Aurelio F. Palmieri, O.S.A., Ph.D., 344
Hartley Coleridge: A Portrait.—
Florence Moynihan, 338
High School, A Federal Revolution
in the.— Francis P. Donnelly, SJ., 331
How to Read St. John's Gospel. —
C. C. Martindale, SJ., . 459, 622, 783
Huysmans and the Boulevard. —
Redfern Mason 360
Ireland, at Last.— Michael Williams, 212
Joseph Conrad, The Short Stories
of.— Joseph J. Reilly, Ph.D., . . 163
Kipling, The Passing of. — Joseph
J. Reilly, Ph.D., 588
League of Nations, The Constitution
of the.— Charles G. Fenwick, . 32
L'Enfant des Rinfillieres : Claire
Ferchaud. — May Bateman, . . 47
Love, Marriage and Divorce. —
Henry E. O'Keeffe, C.S.P., . . 809
Maryknoll and the Far East. — The
Editor, 802
Mediaeval Science. — James J. Walsh,
M.D., Ph.D., 85
Pan in California.— Michael Wil-
liams, 19
Passing of Kipling, The. — Joseph
J. Reilly, Ph.D 588
Philosophy, Bolshevism and. —
James I. King, 450
Promotion of Citizenship. — An-
thony Beck 735
Rattan Rods versus Psychic Stuff.
—Johan Liljencrants, A.M., S.T.D., 487
Recent Events, 127, 264, 413, 557, 699, 843
Record of a Catholic University,
The.— Albert J. Carnoy, Ph.D., . 176
Remoteness. — H. E. G. Rope, M.A., 763
Resemblance of the Anglican Com-
munion Service to the Catholic
Mass. — Michael Andrew Chapman, 774
St. John's Gospel, How to Read. —
C. C. Martindale, SJ., . 459, 622, 783
Science, Mediaeval. — James J.
Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., 85
Shakespeare's Leading Man. —
Brother Leo 62
Short Stories of Joseph Conrad,
The.— Joseph J. Reilly, Ph.D., 163
Social Study, Catholic. — Father
Cuthbert, O.S.F.C 577
Tempest, The.— Emily Hickey, . 309
Terror, The Crimson. — Jerome El-
mer Murphy 145
Thomas Dongan. — Euphemia Van
Rensselaer Wyatt 662
Thompson, Francis, A Poets' Poet.
— Margaret Munsterberg, . . . 753
Treaty of Peace with Germany,
The. — Charles G. Fenwick, . . 382
Vignettes of War. — Francis Aveling,
S.T.D 73
Vocational Education in a Demo-
cratic Society. — John A. Ryan,
D.D., 613
War, Vignettes of.— Francis Ave-
ling, S.T.D., 73
STORIES.
An Uncanonized Saint. — Mary Fos-
ter, 513, 646, 814
Children.— Kathryn White Ryan, . 189
The Coward. — M. Price Evans, . 93
The Hermit.— J. R. T. Baboneau, . 236
The Pope and the Poilu.— William
Fuller Curtis, . 368
CONTENTS
111
A Cry in the Springtime.— Em ily
Hickey
A Song. — Michael Earls, S.J., . .
An Answer. — T. J. S
At Jesus' Bruised Knees.— Charles
J. Powers, C.S.P.,
Dark Rosaleen's Last Chaplet.
Anna Griffin, '••-..
Epitaph. — Francis X. Doyle, S.J.,
Glendaloch. — Julian Johnstone,
POEMS.
Maris Stella !— Edward F. Garesche,
45 S.J ' 211
319 My Little Ship.— May Doney, . '. 526
5g7 Sister Teresa.— Martha Elvira Pet-
tUS, ggj
The Lost World.— Brian ' Padraic
O'Seasnain 92
The Silences. — Brian Padraic
475 O'Seasnain, 545
500 To the Singer. — Thomas Curtis
Clark 367
Vigil.— Dorothy I. Little, . 308
WITH OUR READERS.
A Famous Indian Dictionary, . . . 861
An Exploded Slander, . . . . . 863
Anno Domini, 143
Bolshevism and H. G. Wells, . . 142
"Catholic Medical Mission for the
Colored," 575
Catholics and Philippine Inde-
pendence, 425
Charity of Blessed Thomas More, 284
Conference on Christian Unity, . 571
Christian Unity and the Catholic
Church, 276
Democracy, the Child of Catholi-
cism, 426
French Bishop on Social Recon-
struction, 70g
Indulgences, ] 863
Most Rev. Patrick J. Hayes, . ! '. 138
Saints' Progress, 713
"The Holy Roman Empire in Ger-
man Literature." A Protest and
an Answer, 423
The Unchanging Church, .... 856
The Irish Question, . . 139, 285, 569, 855
The National Shrine at Washing-
ton, 287
Very Rev. John J. Hughes, C.S.P. 424
Walt Whitman, 572
Wrong Education in Sex, .... 715
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
A Commentary on the New Code
of Canon Law, 245
A Gray Dream, 688
A Handbook of Moral Theology, . 100
A Hidden Phase of American His-
tory, 552
A Month of Devotion to Mary, . . 696
A Treasury of War Poetry, .... 837
Across the Stream, 838
Afterglow, 252
Amalia, 550
America in France, 104
American Association for Interna-
tional Conciliation, .... 696
Anecdotas Espanolas, 840
Behind the Wheel of a War Am-
bulance, 115
Busy, the Life of an Ant, ... 412
Cambridge Essays on Education, . 398
Canta, 248
Cantica Sacra in Hon. SS. Sacra-
menti Ac B. M. V., 693
Carven from the Laurel Tree, . 399
Casting Out Fear, 692
Catechism of Patriotism for Ameri-
can School Children, .... 260
Catholicity, 836
Civilization, 687
Chimney-Pot Papers, 679
Christopher and Columbus, . . . 547
Colonel John Scott of Long Island, 260
Collected Poems and Plays, . . 681
Compedium Theologise Moralis, . . 246
Connecticut in Transition, . . . 100
Convent Life, 834
Currents and Eddies in the English
Romantic Generation, .... 258
Dante, 257
Doctrinal Discourses, 689
Dutch Landscape Etchers of the
Seventeenth Century 110
Elements of Business, 259
El Pajaro Verde, 840
El Reino de los Incas, 840
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 835
English Translations from the
Greek, 247
Essays in Occultism, Spiritism, and
Demonology, 109
Essays in the Study of Sienese
Painting, ll->
Essentials of American History, . 125
Essentials of Arithmetic, .... 840
Experiments in International Ad-
ministration, 109
Fernando, 827
Fighting for Fairview, 118
First Lessons in Business, . . . 553
For the Faith, 836
Foreign Publications, . 260, 554, 696, 842
Four Years in the White North, . 246
Free: and Other Stories, .... 119
Gorgoyles and Other Poems, . . 253
Garlington, 694
General Crook and the Fighting
Apaches, 124
George Meredith, 251
Gulliver's Travels, 249
His Only Son, 549
How France is Governed, . . . 53(i
In Flanders' Fields, and Other
Poems, 685
In the Heart of a Fool, .... 542
In the Soldiers' Service, . ... 11*
Ireland: Its Saints and Scholars, . 551
James Madison's Notes of Debates
in the Federal Convention of 677
1787, 677
Jimmie Higgins, 687
Julius Csesar, 695
Lady Larkspur, 694
IV
CONTENTS
Leading Features of the Practical
Plan of the Catholic Instruction
League, 696
Les Traits Eternels de La France, 251
Letters of St. Teresa, 553
Letters to Catholic Priests, ... 126
Lovers of Louisiana, 249
Maggie of Virgiiisburg, 690
Manna of the Soul, 126
Marshal Ferdinand Foch, .... 397
Marriage Legislation in the New
Code of Canon Law, 104
Mater Christi, 688
Meditations for the Use of Semin-
arian and Priest, 124
Meditations Without Method, . . 548
Melissa Across the Fence, ... 124
Memoir of Kenelm Henry Digby, . 825
Mexico from Cortes to Carranza, . 102
Military Servitude and Grandeur, 688
Modern Punctuation, 552
Moral Philosophy, 688
Morale and Its Enemies, .... 120
Mysticism True and False, . . . 825
Nerves and the War, 256
Nowadays, 695
Octavia and New Poems, . . . 545
Okewood of the Secret Service, . 256
One Thousand Technical Books, . . 841
Our Admirable Betty, 123
Our First Ten Thousand, .... 679
Our Navy in the War, 544
Outline Meditations, 258
Painting, 695
Pamphlets of American Association
for International Conciliation, . 259
Pastor Halloft, 547
Pioneers of the Russian Revolution, 538
Poems of New England and Old
Spain, 546
Poland in the World of Democracy, 537
Redmond's Vindication, .... 826
Retreats for Soldiers, 695
Rise of the Spanish-American Re-
publics, 678
Self and Self-Management, . . . 543
Sermons on Our Blessed Lady, . . 689
Simple Souls, 551
Sketches and Reviews, 838
Skipper John of the Nimbus, ... 119
Solemn Vespers for Quartette and
Chorus, 693
Solid Geometry, 841
Spiritual Exercises for Monthly and
Annual Retreats for the Use of
Souls Consecrated to God, ... 549
Studies in Literature, 247
Studies in the History of Ideas, . 123
Summarium Theologiae Moralis, . 410
Supplement to Noldin's Moral Theol-
ogy, 258
Tales of Secret Egypt, 694
The American Boys' Engineering
Book, 125
The Band of Gideon and Other
Lyrics, 108
The Bedrock of Belief, .... 122
The Best Short Stories of 1918, . 411
The British Navy in Battle, ... 539
The Catholic Encyclopaedia, . .102
The Charmed American, .... 691
The Chronicles of America, . 400, 828
The Citizen and the Republic, . . 540
The Creative Impulse in Industry, 105
The Dawn of the French Renais-
sance, , 111
The Doctor in War, 110
The Dominican College Year-Book, . 840
The Dramatic Art of Lope de Vega, 103
The Dream Maker, 123
The Elstones, 548
The Emblems of Fidelity, ... 543
The Essential Mysticism, .... 121
The Forgotten Man, and Other Es-
says, 685
The Four Horsemen of the Apoca-
lypse, 541
The Gentleman Ranker and Other
Plays, 545
The Great Conspiracy, 545
The Halo of Grief, 249
The Heart of Alsace, 257
The Heart of Peace, 838
The History of Henry Fielding, . 99
The History of Legislative Methods
in the Period Before 1825, . . 112
The Holy Roman Empire in Ger-
man Literature, 254
The Joy Maker, 248
The Law of Struggle, 120
The Life of John Redmond, . . 824
The Little Crusaders, 839
The Lost Fruits of Waterloo, . . 113
The Lover's Rosary, 544
The Most Beloved Woman, ... 552
The Natural Incentive, 255
The Oregon Missions, 106
The Parables of Jesus, 544
The Passion of Our Lord in the
Words of the Gospel, .... 126
The Poems of Fate, 122
The Principles of Christian Apolo-
getics, 826
The Red One, . 108
The Roll-Call, 254
The Second Bullet, 550
The Shadow of the Cathedral . . 250
The Swallow, 686
The Tale of Mr. Tubbs, 839
The Theistic Social Ideal, or the Dis-
tributive State, 833
The Truth About Bulgaria, ... 551
The United States in the World
War, Hi
The Valley of Vision, 689
The Victim's Return, 118
The War and the Future, ... 114
The World War and Its Conse-
quences, 684
The Years Between, . . .... 682
Three Sides of Paradise Green, . . 124
To the Heart of a Child, ... 125
Twenty-Five Years in the Black
Belt, L 253
Victory Over Blindness, 834
Volleys from a Non-Combatant, . 680
WTal king- Stick Papers, 116
War Poems from the Yale Re-
view, . 117
Wasp Studies Afield, ...... 123
Webster's New Handy Dictionary, 412
We Others, 693
What We Eat and What Happens
to It, 549
Whose Name is Legion, . . . . 692
Whence Cometh Victory? . . . 126
Where Your Heart Is, 114
Wild Youth and Another, .... 252
With the Help of God and a Few
Marines, 827
Your Neighbor and You, . . .551
THE
Catholic &(prld
VOL. GIX.
APRIL, 1919.
No. 649.
CANON LAW, THE POPE AND THE PEOPLE.
BY SAMUEL F. DARWIN FOX.
"President Wilson the champion of the Society of Nations, on
the occasion of his official visit to Cardinal Gasparri, Papal Secretary
of State, was presented by His Eminence with two magnificently bound
copies of the newly codified Canon Law." — Daily Press.
OR our exceeding comfort it has been asserted—
and there is quite a literature upon the subject-
that we have brought to a successful issue " the
War which shall end all wars." Prussian mili-
tarism triumphantly destroyed, the map of
Europe reconstructed, and the smaller and weaker nations set
free from the mailed fist of the oppressor, our feet are placed
upon the threshold of an era of universal peace and perma-
nent prosperity.
Practical, peaceful life, the people's life, the People themselves
Lifted, illumined, bathed in peace — elate, secure in peace.1
But what are the guarantees for a consummation so desirable?
Is it possible to render " a reasonable account of the hope that
is in us? " After all, the situation which faces us today is by
no means a new one. The pattern of the political kaleidoscope
has changed and ever changes: that is the utmost we can say.
A century ago, the attempted hegemony of Napoleon was
*Walt Whitman, Song of the Exposition.
Copyright. 1919. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. cix. — 1
2 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
crushed — even as the German hegemony was crushed but a
few weeks since. Napoleon was put out of harm's way; and
Europe settled down to the enjoyment (as it thought) of a last-
ing peace. "But wisest Fate said, No;" and the Crimean and
Franco-Prussian wars, in particular, were the foretaste of
worse things to come. Realizing the danger, jurists, publicists,
millionaires, Socialists, peace associations of every sort and
kind labored, persistently and meretoriously, to construct a
noble fortress of international friendship and international
law which, they assured us, would make a world war a sheer
impossibility. But they built with untempered mortar upon a
foundation of sand; and, at the first puff of breath from the
lungs of the Imperial Mars, their beautiful edifice, with all its
fair turrets and shining bastions, fell tumbling like a castle of
cards about their astonished ears. Of the Hague Conventions
of 1899 and 1907 — excellent and full of promise as they un-
doubtedly were — we can but say in sorrow : Voces et prseterea
nihil.
Are we, then, to hope that we shall succeed — vi et armis—
where the publicists, pacifists and jurists have so obviously
and lamentably failed? With the lessons of the past and the
present before us, we are bound to admit that even the abso-
lute annihilation of Prussian militarism, with all its con-
comitant evils and abominations, can offer no guarantee what-
soever that the generations yet to come may not be called upon
to " deliver the world " from some future hegemony, and be-
come involved in carnage even more hideous than the last.
For the march of so-called modern civilization, and the prog-
ress of science and invention, serve but to intensify the horrors
of warfare; and, at the present rate of proceeding, our chil-
dren's children may well be forced to witness a universal
cataclysm such as is described so graphically and relentlessly
by H. G. Wells in his clever novel, The War in the Air.
It is just this cold-blooded employment of the richest dis-
coveries and resources of modern science in the grim work
of wholesale destruction, mutilation and slaughter, which con-
stitutes what is, perhaps, the most forcible contrast between
warfare as carried on in this enlightened twentieth century
of ours, and warfare as waged in what the ignorants ignoran-
tifiants (to use Moliere's delightful phrase) are pleased to
term " the Dark Ages." We are all only too familiar with the
1919.] CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE 3
officially sanctioned (and, it would seem, greedily accepted)
doctrines and practices known by the generic name of " Fright-
fulness." Here is an illuminating instance of " Modernism in
Warfare."
Now, M. Paul Fournier, at a meeting of the Academic des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de Paris, in August, 1916, called
attention to an extremely interesting decision of the Second
Council of the Lateran, which bears immediately upon our
point. This Council, held in 1139, under the presidency of Pope
Innocent II., prohibited the use, in Christian warfare, of the
bow and arbalest, on the ground that, by reason of the very per-
fection of their mechanism, they had become too efficiently
murderous. The decision, forming part of a series of
ecclesiastical measures intended to mitigate the evils of war,
was inserted in the official collection of decrees during the
course of the following century. M. Fournier tells us that this
most humane decision was loyally accepted by France the
eldest daughter of the Church — and that, for nearly fifty years,
the French soldiers refrained from using the arbalest in any
shape or form.
In the same spirit of Christian charity, Louis XV. flatly
refused to employ a particularly ingenious and deadly engine
of war — newly invented — which was offered to him. He paid
the inventor handsomely — and destroyed the invention.
It is from incidents such as these (and more might easily
be given) that we are enabled to realize the humane conditions
of warfare existing in the Ages of Faith, and to compare them
with those existing today. We all remember the chorus of
ridicule which greeted the proposal of the present Holy Father,
in the early days of the recent War, that hostilities should be
suspended during the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, the
Prince of Peace. This proposal was not without precedent.
By order of the Holy See, Bishop Hugh proclaimed the cele-
brated " Truce of God " at Montriond, near Lausanne, in the
year 1036. This " Truce of God " — which was successfully car-
ried out — involved the entire cessation of all hostilities from
sunset on the Wednesday of each week until sunrise on the
Monday of the week following, from the beginning of Advent to
the Octave of the Epiphany, and from Septuagesima to the
Octave of Easter. It further prescribed that priests, monks,
clerks, lay-brothers, pilgrims, merchants, travelers, and agri-
4 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
cultural laborers with their beasts of burden should be immune
from interference by the belligerents.
Incidents such as these were by no means unusual in the
Middle Ages. They are symptomatic — the outward and visible
signs of the binding-power of the unchanging moral law of the
Catholic religion; then accepted, in its fullness, as the basis of
the law of nations. And this brings us to the heart of our
subject.
The principle of internationalism — and, consequently, the
basis of International Law — rests upon the great doctrine of
the unity and brotherhood of the human race. This doctrine
could not possibly have been evolved from the opinions, the
beliefs and the philosophies of the ancients; for to these it was
in complete and absolute opposition; and against it, on that
account, the Emperor Julian loudly and eagerly protested. But
it was revealed to mankind by God Incarnate; and found ma-
terial expression in that greatest of international societies : the
Holy Catholic Church. The gates of hell could not prevail
against it; and it made triumphant headway in the world.
Apart from this, its acceptance was doubtless facilitated
by the fact that in the provisions of the Roman law, as in those
of the laws of other countries with respect to religion, thus in-
corporated into the constitution of the State, we read the
acknowledgment of the great truth that the State is not a
mere mechanical institution concerned with the external life
of its citizens, but that it is built of necessity upon foundations
of a moral and spiritual character; and that this character is
the primary element of its strength, and the real spring of its
continued existence.2 It would certainly be obvious, to far-
sighted founders and governors of States, that the Christian re-
ligion was admirably calculated to strengthen those founda-
tions by adding the sanctions of revelation to the voice of con-
science and the instinctive sense of right and wrong whereby
the duties of the citizen were supported and enforced. " They
who hold Revelation," says Rurke, "give a double assurance
to their country." 3 This is a principle accepted as true semper,
3 " Denique, in his deliquendi est gravius periculum, ubi Fides violator, aut
jusjurandi Religio contemnitur, nam grave est fldem fallere quee justifies totius flrma-
mentum est, qua non solum respublicfe, sed omnis humana societas continetur, et
quod perjurium atheismo sit detestabilius, cum perjuri numen agnoscere videantur,
sed ipsum irredere audeant." — Vide Zouch, Solutio Qutestionis Veteris et Novse, sive
He Legati Deliquentis Judice competente Dissertatio., pars i. s. v. 5.
3 Works, vol. x., p. 39: Speech on a Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters.
1919.] CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE 5
ubique, ab omnibus.4 The ancient pagan religious systems had
failed, and fallen into corruption and contempt: something
had to be found to take their place.
The origin and nature of Christianity rendered impossible
its incorporation into the State, in the manner in which pagan
worship had been incorporated. For whereas the pagan re-
ligions were essentially tribalistic and (to use the convenient
terminology of later times) Erastian, Christianity was funda-
mentally Catholic, that is to say, inter (or, more exactly,
supra) national, which is the direct antithesis to tribalism, and
altogether intolerant of direction or interference, in matters of
principle, by the State. The maxim Cujus est regio, illius est
religio is, to a Catholic, blasphemous in theory and false in
fact.
So, when Christianity has triumphed, and become not
only one of the Collegia licita but the actual religion of a na-
tion, it is still, by the charter of its being, a body distinct from
the State. Church and State naturally touch each other at
many points; and the teachers of Christian doctrine become
endowed with goods and lands, either by individuals under the
sanction of the civil power, or by the State itself. This is what
is meant by the familiar term, Establishment. But, though it
be a Collegium licitum protected by the State as to its establish-
ment, the Church possesses a divine mission, a divinely-con-
stituted hierarchy, and a divinely-given doctrine. In these re-
spects it remains — and must ever remain — altogether in-
dependent of human authority.
The external and visible Church, independent, by its very
nature, of the territorial limits of kingdoms, is governed by an
external, visible and infallible authority; that authority is
lodged in one person; and that one person is the Pope. And,
in order duly to exercise that authority, the Pope must possess
a power irrespective of, and superior to, that of all temporal
sovereigns.
"Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My
Church."5 Experience and history have abundantly shown
that non-Papal Christian communities—" Orthodox," Anglican,
"old-Catholic" or Protestant— have failed, one and all, to
*Cf. (e. g.) Cicero, De Leg., L, Chap, viii.; ibid. I., Chap, xiii.; Ep. ad Pom..
xii. (Trebatio); also some striking passages cited from Philo, Chrysippus
Aristotle, in Grotius, 1. ii., xx., 44, 3.
8 Matt. xvi. 18.
6 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
preserve any real measure of autonomy, or to escape from the
quagmire of Erastianism, Nationalism, or popular democratic
control. However different may be the accidental circum-
stances which immediately regulate their condition or situation
as individual bodies, the fact remains unaltered that the scope
of their influence and activity is limited and circumscribed, as
opposed to universal and Catholic. In so far as this is true,
non-Papal Christianity is a reversion to the primitive, pagan,
tribalistic type of religion. We may, indeed, often detect the
latent polytheism underlying these religious systems,6 many of
which have been either originated or commandeered by the
State, and which, at best, are entirely subservient to a body of
public opinion. Attempts to " internationalize " them are pre-
destined to failure : chameleon-like, they faithfully adapt them-
selves to the ever-changing colors of their environment. But
we must pass on.
The well-known non-Catholic jurist, Professor Laurent, in
his monumental work : Histoire da Droit des Gens et des Rela-
tions Internationales, has said that International Law is the
child of the Catholic Church. This is precisely our contention.
The Church insists that the Christian nation has the speciale
jus gentis fidelis in its intercourse with other Christian nations,
over and above the jus commune with heathen nations, who
are members of the great community of States. A Catholic
nation — equally with the humblest Catholic child — has its duty
to fulfill towards its neighbors. Chauvinism, or " Jingoism,"
is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity. In his speech
in the House of Lords, " on the Motion for a Committee to in-
quire into the State of the Laws affecting Roman Catholics,"
delivered in April, 1812, Lord Wellesley finely and truly said :
" Religion is not a mere matter of commerce between man and
his Creator, but a lively motive of public action." 7 The Church
has never ceased to impress this fact upon her children, in-
dividually and collectively. We need not here set forth, at
length, the conditions necessary for a just and honest war, as
carefully and elaborately formulated by her Fathers, the-
6 During the late War, attention was frequently called to the recurrence of such
expressions as " Our old German God," " the Holy Spirit is identical with the Ger-
man spirit," and so forth, in German Protestant sermons and " religious " publica-
tions. This, surely, is tribalism in excelsis.
T This is by no means a bad paraphrase of James i. 27: "Religion clean and
undeflled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in
their tribulation: and to keep oneself unspotted from this world."
1919.] CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE 7
ologians and canonists: they are sufficiently familiar by this
time. These bear eternal witness to religion as " a lively mo-
tive of public action."
It should be carefully remembered that the (Ecumenical
Councils — besides being " assemblies of prelates and doctors
to settle matters concerning religion and the discipline of the
Church " 8 — were a tribunal before which were discussed the
principal international affairs of Christendom, not only articles
of faith and matters of religion, but such questions of secular
importance as the conduct of princes, their trial and punish-
ment, the precedency and rank of nations, and the disputed
succession to kingdoms. So great was the authority and in-
fluence of these Councils, that the infidel Voltaire called them
" The Senate of Europe." 9
It may be well here to set down the names and dates of the
Councils, sub-dividing them as follows:
(a) Those which form a portion of the Corpus Juris
Canonici; and
(b) Those held subsequently to its compilation (quorum
nulla in corpore Juris mentio fit) .
(a) EIGHT GENERAL COUNCILS IN THE EAST.
A.D.
I. Nice (1) 325
II. Constantinople (1) 381
III. Ephesus 431
IV. Chalcedon ........ 451
V. Constantinople (2) 553
VI. Constantinople (3) ..... 680
VII. Nice (2) 787
VIII. Constantinople (4) 869
SEVEN GENERAL COUNCILS IN THE WEST.
IX. Lateran (1) 1123
X. Lateran (2) 1
XL Lateran (3) - 1171
XII. Lateran (4) 1215
XIII. Lyons (1) 1245
XIV. Lyons (2) 127^
XV. Vienne 1311
* Durand de Maillanc, Dictionnaire du Droit Canonique, tome i.f tltre CONCILE.
'Essai sur les Mceurs et I'Esprit des Nations, Chap. Ixvii.
8 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
(5) XVI. Pisa . . . . . . . . • • 1409
XVII. Constance ..... • • • 1414)
XVIII. Basle ....... • i . . 1431 j 1C
XIX. Florence 1439
XX. Lateran (5) ........ 1512
XXI. Trent . 1545
XXII. Vatican 1870
We may observe, by the way, that the Vatican Council has never
been formally closed; and also that a postulatum asking that
the Sovereign Pontiff should take measures to reestablish the
Law of Nations, was presented to the assembled Fathers in the
early stages of its session. This postulatum, signed by the
majority of the bishops of Christendom, forms part of the Ada
of the Council.11
With regard to the first four Councils, Justinian decreed
that the Canons contained in them should be observed as laws;
and the Canon Law declares: "Among the great Councils,
four are known as especially venerable because their defini-
tions embraced all the fundamentals of faith, after the manner
of the four Gospels, and, indeed, they may be termed the four
rivers from Paradise." 12 It is of importance to notice that the
authority of these four Councils is fully recognized by Post-
Reformation English law. Thus, the Legislature enacted that
the High Commissioners appointed by Queen Elizabeth should
have no power to " adjudge any matter or cause to be heresy,
but only such as have heretofore been determined, ordered, or
adjudged to be heresy by the authority of the Canonical Scrip-
tures, or by the first four General Councils, or any of them, or
by any other General Council wherein the same was declared
heresy by the express and plain words of the said Canonical
Scripture " 13
And the international character of the Councils is clearly
stated by that celebrated Anglican divine, the "judicious"
Hooker, in a passage of singular beauty and power. The fol-
lowing extracts will serve to bring out the tenor of the
whole :
10 The Decrees of these Councils were considerably modified by a Council held
at Rome (1512-17) under Leo X.
11 Vide the speech of Lord Stanley of Anderley, delivered in the House of Lords
on July 23, 1887.
"Decret; I.; Dist., xv., Chap. L, s.L; et vide Chap. ii.
18 I. Eliz., Chap. I., s. 36.
1919.] CANON LAW. POPE AND PEOPLE 9
Now as there is great cause of communion, and conse-
quently of laws, for the maintenance of communion
amongst Nations, so, amongst Nations Christian, the like in
regard even of Christianity hath been always judged need-
ful. And in this kind of correspondence amongst Nations,
the force of the General Councils doth stand. For, as one
and the same Law Divine ... is unto all Christian churches
a rule for the chiefest things ... so the urgent necessity of
mutual communion for preservation of our unity in these
things, as also for order in some other things convenient to
be everywhere kept, maketh it requisite that the Church of
God here upon earth have her laws of spiritual commerce
between Christian Nations . . . whether ... be it for the end-
ing of strifes, touching matters of Christian belief, wherein
the one part may seem to have probable cause of dissenting
from the other; or be it concerning matters of polity, order
and regiment in the church, / nothing doubt biit that
Christian men should much better frame themselves to those
heavenly precepts which Our Lord and Saviour with so
great instancy gave us as concerning peace and unity, if
we did all concur in desire to have the use of ancient Coun-
cils again renewed rather than those proceedings continued,
which either make all contentions endless, or bring them to
one only determination, and that is of all other the worst,
which is by the sword.14
The concluding sentence of this remarkable passage certainly
strikes one as being particularly "judicious."
Now it will at once be seen that a most important principle
is here conceded. // the authority of FOUR Councils be granted,
why not the authority of the rest? And if the authority of the
rest, why not the authority of the whole CORPUS JURIS CANONICI?
In the time of Elizabeth, the Church of England was created as
the Religious Department of the Civil Service, which fact in-
vests the foregoing citations with their great, outstanding value.
The political exigences of that time — exigences which brought
into being the Protestant Establishment — required without
doubt that the conceded principle be limited; but those ex-
igences no longer exist. A loophole has assuredly been left
open for an entire acceptance, by Protestant England, of Catho-
lic International Law.
The purpose of the present article is to indicate a par-
ticular idea in outline merely, allowing the reader to fill in the
"Ecclesiastical Polity, Book i., Chap. 10, Sec. 14. (Italics ours.)
10 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
details for himself. We will not pause, then, to discuss the
Acta of those Councils (which are very easy of access), but
will go on to our next point.
About 1152 A.D., the Decretum — a systematic compilation
of the canons and laws of the Church — was made by Gratian,
and approved by the Pope. Then, in or about the year 1235,
Pope Gregory IX. caused his chaplain to reduce, to a regular
order and system, the constitutions of former Popes, including
with them his own, and also the Canons of the Third and
Fourth Lateran Councils: these are the Decretals. The Sext
(or Sixth Book of the Decretals) was added by Boniface VIII. ;
Clement V. began another compilation — afterwards published
—called The Clementines; yet another was made by John XXII.
Finally were added, in 1483, other Papal Decrees. These com-
pilations received the most deliberate stamp of the Church's
approbation, were ordered to be taught in all her schools, and
became the law of all her tribunals.
Together with the Jus Novissimum, or later Canon Law,
they constitute that body of Papal Law which is the perfection
of the Jus Gentium.
In justification of our statement that the jurisprudence of
the Catholic Church is the perfection of the Jus Gentium, we
hasten to quote the deliberate opinion of that very learned
and accomplished dignitary of the Church of England, the late
Dean Milman. " It is impossible," he says, " to conceive what
had been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of
the Middle Ages, without the mediaeval Papacy."15 And De
Maistre quotes the infidel Voltaire in evidence of the fact that
this authority, from the time of its promulgation and exercise,
was eminently beneficial to the world.16
In an autograph letter addressed to the Priestly Sodality
Pro Pontifice et Ecclesia, dated May 7, 1916,17 His Holiness
Benedict XV., gloriously reigning, writes as follows:
... I must not fail to answer the question you have asked
me. You have asked what subjects might profitably be
studied, by members of the Sodality, during the present
15 History of Latin Christianity, vol. i., p. 430. Cf. also Portalis: " Us [the Popes]
exercerent une dictature salutaire, qui laissa respirer les peuples et prepara la
renaissance de I'ordre social " — Discours, Rapports et Travaux inedits sur le Con-
cordat de 1801; les articles organiques, etc., etc., Introduction, vi.
16 Du Pape, p. 249.
17 The Latin text will be found in Acta Sodalitatis Sacerdotalis " Pro Pontifice
et Ecclesia," Annus iv., no. i., Julius, 1916.
1919.]
CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE
11
year. The efforts of the Popes to promote Peace may be
considered from the standpoint of the past, the present, and
the future. It seems to me that sound studies on the Papal
efforts to promote Peace during the course of the ages, can-
not but serve to make the Church and Her Head better
known and better loved.
The principal achievements of the Popes in regard to this
matter of peace-making— whether between the governors of
States or between the nations and their sovereigns— may here
be set forth in tabular form:
St. Leo the Great ^440-461) :
St. Gregory I. (?"*
St. Gregory II.
St. Zachary
St. Leo IX.
Victor II.
(741-V52)
(1049-1054):
(1055-1057):
Innocent III. (1198-1216)
Honorius III. (1216-1227)
Innocent IV. (1243-1254)
Nicholas III. (1277-1280)
John XXII. ' (1316-1334)
Made peace with Attila in favor
of Italy.
Made peace with Agiluf, King
of Lombardy, in favor of the
Romans; also between the Em-
perors of the East and the
Lombards.
Made peace with Liutprand, King
of Lombardy, in favor of the
Romans.
Made peace between the Emperor
Henry III. and Andrew, King
of Hungary.
Made peace between the Em-
peror Henry III., Badoin of
Flanders, and Godfrey of Lor-
raine.
Made peace between John Lack-
land, King of England, and
• Philip Augustus, King of
France.
Made peace between Louis VIII.
of France, and Henry III. of
England.
Made peace between the King of
Portugal and his subjects.
Mediated on several occasions
between the Emperor Rudolph
of Habsburg and Charles of
Anjou, King of Naples.
Made peace between Edward II.,
King of England, and Robert,
King of Scotland.
12
CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE
[April,
Benedict XII. (1334-1342) : Made peace between Edward III.,
Plantagenet, of England, and
Philip de Valois, King of
France.
Gregory XL (1370-1378) : Made peace between the King of
Portugal and the King of
Castile.
Nicholas V. (1447-1455): Mediated in Germany, Hungary
and Italy.
Innocent VII. (1484-1492): Mediated in Russia, Austria and
England.
Alexander VI. (1492-1503): Made peace between Spain and
Portugal._a
Gregory XIII. (1572-1585) : Made pea/ ( Vtween the King of
Polai? *^e ^ the Tsar of Russia.
Urban VIII. (1623-1644) : Medi^ anc!>rder to conclude the
.'uted in. »
disscnsia118 °n the subJect of
the righ* of succession to tne
DUC^OS< of Mantua and Mont-
ferrat.
Leo XIII. (1878-T903): Made peace between Spain and
Germany; and between the two
Republics of Haiti and San
Domingo.
This catalogue — which might, indeed, be amplified — gives
some notion of what the Sovereign Pontiffs have accomplished,
for peace, in the course of history. In order further to drive
tlie point home, we here set down a passage from a recent
work 18 — a passage, be it observed, which gives a bird's-eye
view of the Pontifical activity during a single century : " Who
can recount the numbers of these Legates of Peace — we use the
term in the full sense of International Law — sent from the
Vatican? Here are a few outstanding names, taken from a
single period — the fifteenth century. The Envoys of Nicholas
V. (1447-1455), the Inaugurator of the Christian Renaissance,
were: the Spanish Cardinal Juan de Carvajal (1446), twenty-
two times Ambassador; Nicholas of Cusa (1451); and the Car-
dinal-Legate Dominic Capranica (1454), a churchman and
statesman whom Pastor scrupled not to call ' the ornament of
18 Joseph Muller, LL.D. (translated by the present writer), The Pope as Peace-
maker: or, The Hague Convention of October 18, 1907, on the Right of Mediation
possessed by Neutral States; together with some considerations upon the question of
a Mediation by the Pope, Fribourg, Switzerland, 1917, pp. 27, 28.
1919.] CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE 13
the Church and of the human race.' Who can pretend to
ignore the fact that the policy of Leo X., from the time of his
accession to the Throne of Peter onwards, was to reestablish in-
ternational peace? For this purpose he sent Peace-Legates to
Spain, to France, and to England. The entire Pontificate of
Paul V. was a painful struggle to maintain peace. He sent
Cardinal Carracciolo as Legate to the Emperor, and Cardinal
Trivulzio to France, for the establishment of peace. From his
Pontificate likewise come the names of the Legates Quinones
and Sadoleto. Again, the cause of international peace was
greatly strengthened by Julius III. when he dispatched the
Cardinal Capodiferro (1453) to King Henry II. of France with
the beautiful mission to declare, in the name of the Pope, that
the Sovereign Pontiff desired but to fulfill his duty as Father of
Christendom, and that he had no other interests at heart than
the reestablishment of peace for the common good. And, to
this end, he offered himself as mediator. We need not speak
at length of Cardinal Dandino, the Nuncio Gualterio (1454),
and the renowned Frate Simone da Camerino, whose policy
was more successful than that of all the diplomatists of his
time (The Peace of Lodi, Ib5k). Nor need we discuss the cele-
brated Jerome Rorario — the mediator of peace between Fer-
dinand I. and Zapolya — and we need but name Pope Adrian
VI. — universally admired for his high impartiality — a Pon-
tiff who, as a diplomatist of later days has phrased it, stood
in the midst of contending factions ' as a rock amid the
waves.' '
From this it is easy for the mind's eye to picture the state
of affairs in the Ages of Faith. We see that a perfect tribunal
of International Law was established in the Vatican; and that
the only common Judge, whom independent nations could
acknowledge, was presented in the person of the Sovereign
Pontiff. The spectacle of princes and nations submitting their
quarrels to the arbitration of the Chief Minister of the Gospel
of Peace, is surely one which the bloody wars of later times
have given Christendom ample reason regretfully to long for.
And it cannot be denied, by any thoughtful and candid person,
that this beneficent authority, wielded by the Vicar of Jesus
Christ, has full often protected the oppressed, humbled and
brought low the oppressor, stayed the shedding of blood, cher-
ished peace, and prevented war — and this at a period when the
14 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
barbarous manners and savage passions of humankind would
have yielded to none other influence whatsoever. Truly the
contemplation of such a picture cannot fail (once again to
quote the words of our present Holy Father) " to make the
Church and Her Head better known and better loved."
It may be of interest to notice, in passing, that the
Decretal 19 beginning Novit ille, issued in the year 1204 by Inno-
cent III. with regard to the difference between King John, of
England, and King Philip, of France, expressly declares that a
charge of breach of faith to a treaty (rupta pads fcedera) no
doubt appertains, ratione causa, to the judgment of the Church.
And the Bull In Coena Domini — known also as Pastoralis —
which is so ancient that its origin cannot be discovered, 20 ex-
communicates and anathematizes (inter alia) :
Pirates, corsairs, and maritime free hooters.
All who seize the chattels of shipwrecked mariners in
whatever region.
All those who supply the Saracens and Turks, or other
enemies of the Christian name, with arms and aid.
All who obstruct the conveyance of victuals and other
supplies for the use of the Curia Romana.
All who persecute persons coming to the Roman See, or
sojourning at the Roman Court.
All who in any way molest pilgrims coming to Rome for
purposes of devotion.
All who injure the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church,
or other ecclesiastical dignitaries.
All who obstruct prelates and ecclesiastical judges in the
exercise of their jurisdiction.
No one can obtain absolution from the sentences of this
Bull from any other than the Pope, unless he be in articulo
mortis; and then only after surety given for obedience to
the mandates of the Church, and for satisfaction to be made.
Comment is needless.
Now the moral of all these things is surely manifest today.
On Easter Sunday, 1896, Cardinals Gibbons, Vaughan and
Logue, the representatives of the English-speaking peoples in
the Sacred College, put forth a solemn appeal on behalf of a
permanent tribunal of arbitration " as a rational substitute
19 Decret. Greg, ix., 1. 2, t. L, Chap. iii.
30 In the Vatican is preserved a copy of the Bull of Gregory XI. (1370) ; the date
of this famous instrument cannot be traced more exactly than this.
1919.] CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE 15
... for a resort to the bloody arbitrament of war." 21 Three
years later — in 1899— was convened the first of the Conventions
of The Hague, which, be it noted, were directly inspired and
initiated by Pope Leo XIII. But, for reasons which we need
not at present discuss, a certain State deliberately vetoed every
proposal that the Sovereign Pontiff should be invited to take
part, whether personally or by proxy, in the deliberations. This
was an altogether fatal mistake : it might, indeed, be qualified
by a harsher term.
From private accounts of the proceedings of the Hague
Conferences — those of Lammasch, Zorn, Meurer and
Merignhac, for instance — we learn that the veto was the subject
of long and lively debate; but, to the eternal shame of Europe,
it was allowed. It will be remembered that the late Mr. W. T.
Stead at once addressed to Cardinal Rampolla, then Papal
Secretary of State, a noble protest couched in the following
terms : " The absence of a representative of the Holy See,
from the Conference, was a great disappointment. You have,
however, the consolation of knowing that this refusal to admit
the Pontifical delegate has brought into the mind of at least
one Protestant a solid argument in favor of the idea of con-
ferring on the Pope some kind of territorial sovereignty, which
should give him a claim, in law, to be represented at an
international conference."
The inevitable consequence of this unjust and preposter-
ous veto has been to deprive the Conventions of every particle
of adequate and operative moral authority. What possible an-
swer could be given to the ever-recurring question: "Who
hath appointed thee prince and judge over us?" It was—
and is — entirely beside the point to talk about International
Law. For law must have a sanction; that is to say, there must
be some superior from which it emanates, and which will
actively enforce it. But, since the so-called Reformation, we
have been in a state of sheer international anarchy: nations
are regarded as independent sovereigns, and have no common
sovereign. Accordingly, the majority of Anglo-Saxon jurists,
following the teaching of John Austin, flatly deny the present
existence of " International Law " in any form or shape. At
best, the rules of international conduct, now prevailing, are
» The full text of this Appeal may be found in Dr. Allen S. Will's Life of James
Cardinal Gibbons, pp. 279, 280,
» Exodus ii. 14,
16 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
mere fluctuating standards of morality. Austin happily terms
these usages "positive international morality;" and his view
is accepted by jurists such as Sir Frederick Pollock, James
Bryce, and John Chipman Gray. Continental jurists are pre-
ponderatingly on the side of Austin and his followers; and
Joseph Kohler and others declare that no International Law is
possible apart from the establishment of a super-state.
Now, the maintenance of order in a " League of Nations,"
or Family of States, clearly postulates the foundation of a Tri-
bunal of Arbitration for the settlement of international dif-
ficulties; and the distinguishing features of such a Tribunal
must be (1) supra-nationality, and (2) supreme moral author-
ity. In no other way can impartial, independent and fearless
action be assured : in no other way can the rights and the legiti-
mate aspirations of the peoples be safeguarded. For the occu-
pant of the judgment-seat of the world, the most perfect dis-
interestedness, the most entire freedom from personal ambition,
the most unworldly life, the most ardent love of justice, the
most entire freedom from personal ambition, are indispensable
and perpetually requisite. And these qualifications are
summed up in that " Moral Person " who is the Rector Orbis,
the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, the supreme infallible guar-
dian of the eternal moral law. Meanwhile, how stand we?
Let us face the facts, squarely and honestly. We have no
supra-national arbitrator: International Law is a dead-letter:
mediation by a neutral power is generally injudicious, never
invited by the disputants, ever liable to be suspected of ulterior
motives : intervention, as Bynkershoek says, 23 is always
unjust. That is the situation as it is today.
And the situation as it will be tomorrow ? Unless our sacri-
fices are to be in vain, and our honor rooted in dishonor, we
must see to it that we realize our ideal — the gigantic transfor-
mation of human society which we have pledged ourselves to
affect : we must reconstruct our civilization upon the bed-rock
of Christianity.
We are far from underestimating the magnitude of the
task. But the grim realities of the recent World War have
shattered numberless cherished popular illusions, and have
opened the way for radical changes. The brotherhood of man,
the society of nations, the sanctions of international law, the
23 Qusestiones Juris Publici, Chap, xxv.-xxx.
1919.] CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE 17
enthronement of justice and right, are notions which owe
their very breath and being to the Catholic Church; and the
corner-stone of the whole fabric is the Holy See, which, during
the centuries, protected the poor and helpless against the war-
lords and tyrants of the times and constituted a tribunal of
arbitration which none might question or defy. The wholesale
adoption of the Catholic ideal of international politics, must
logically and inevitably be followed by the general recognition
of the Papacy as the natural arbitrator in international dis-
putes. For, in the words of M. Ernest Nys (Member of the
Permanent Court of The Hague) : " The Pope is Peacemaker
above all others." 24
By way of conclusion, it would be well to translate and
record a noteworthy passage from the famous These de Paris:
"De la Mediation," 25 by Charles Fouchault: "The movement
[in favor of the recognition of the Sovereign Pontiff as an inter-
• national Power] has become increasingly important since the
affair of the Caroline Islands in 1885. When it was realized
that the quarrel between Spain and Germany had been so
happily settled, thanks to the mediation of Leo XIII., public
opinion, which for several years had been focussed upon the
idea of peace, and which was strongly in favor of arbitration,
turned at once to the Holy See. A large number of journals
—French and foreign — expressed the view that the arbitrator
sought for was at length found, and that Leo XIII. should be
elected Universal Arbitrator for the settlement of international
difficulties. Since that time, several proposals have been made
to restore to the Papacy a position in international affairs. In
1887, it was proposed to convene a European Congress, under
the presidency of Leo XIII., to settle the difficulties then troub-
ling Europe. This proposition was fully approved by a num-
ber of newspapers — even Protestant, such as Le Temps. On
July 25, 1887, Lord Stanley of Anderley proposed and de-
fended a motion in the English House of Lords to revive the
24Les Origines du Droit international (Brussels, 1894), p. 51.
35 Paris (1900), p. 365. On p. 367 Fourchault adds: " We do not see any obstacle
against restoring to the Pope the position of Pacificator par excellence." Cf. Caflero, De
Romani Pontificis Munere Paciflcandi et Sociandi Nationes (Rome, 1916); Hedde, Le
Droit de guerre d'apres la morale chretienne (Paris, 1913) ; Papal Allocution (1886) on
"The Natural Mission of the Holy See as Arbitrator;" Lorenzo Schioppa, L'Arbitrato
Pontiflcio (Naples, 1897) ; Dr. David Urquhart, A Protestant's Appeal to the Pope to re-
store the Public Right of Nations .[in English, French and Latin], (London and Paris,
1869).
VOL. CIX. — 2
18 CANON LAW, POPE AND PEOPLE [April,
intervention of the Holy See, by means of arbitration, for the
avoidance of unjust wars. At the Peace Congress held at Rome,
in 1891, with Bonghi as President, the Marquis Pareto proposed
to grant to the Pope the title of Universal Arbitrator. And, on
January 20, 1894, M. Janssens brought forward a motion, in the
Belgian House of Representatives, that the Pope should be con-
stituted by the Powers (who should restore to him, for this
purpose, his Temporal Power) Arbiter of all differences of
opinion." 28
" Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonse
voluntatis — peace on earth to men of good will!" The an-
cient Christian commonwealth — the brotherhood of charity,
regulated by the ancient law fulfilled and interpreted by the
Sovereign Vicar of the Prince of Peace — must be built upon the
blood-drenched ruins of political selfishness and unmoral ex-
pediency-
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men.
Orbed in a rainbow, and like glories wearing;
Mercy will sit between,
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.27
a" Similar propositions were made by the Prince of Lowenstein, in the Bavarian
House of Nobles, and by Monsignor Scheicher, in the Austrian Chamber of Deputies,
in the year 1895 ; also by the Count von Hertling, in the German Reichstag, on May
12, 1899. It will be remembered that, so far back as the seventeenth century, the
Protestant philosopher, Leibnitz, proposed that the Pope should be " the Arbiter of
Nations," (Pensees, vol. ii., p. 401) ; and that, according to the project of the Land-
grave Ernest of Hesse-Rheinfels, in 1666, Lucerne was to become the seat of an Inter-
national Tribunal under the presidency of the Sovereign Pontiff.
27 John Milton, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.
PAN IN CALIFORNIA.
BY MICHAEL WILLIAMS.
T was on the Feast of St. Catherine, Virgin and
Martyr, that Vizcaino, in 1602, sailing northward
along the coast of California with his three ships,
sighted a large island which in honor of the
Saint of the day he named Santa Catalina; an
island now justly famous among tourists because of its won-
derful fishing. A few days later the explorers landed on its
rocky shores and Masses were offered by the Carmelite
Fathers accompanying the expedition. "A large number of
Indians witnessed the solemn scene," says Engelhardt. " Here
for the first time in the history of California the Spaniards
encountered a place of idol worship. It was nothing more than
a circle within which stood a gaudily painted figure supposed
to represent a demon. On one side was the picture of the sun,
and on the other that of the moon. The sacrifices offered to
this idol consisted of birds, whose feathers were used to orna-
ment the circle. While the soldiers were approaching, two
crows flew from the spot and perched on some rocks nearby.
The natives seemed to dread these birds; for this reason, prob-
ably, and on account of their extraordinary size, the Span-
iards shot and killed* them. This caused their Indian guide
to utter the most woeful lamentations."
This incident is unique in the records of Spanish explora-
tion and missionary work in aboriginal California. No other
instance of worship, of religion, can be found. Father Palou,
the companion of Junipero Serra, in his Life of the Apostle of
California, declares : " In not one of the missions which cover
the more than two hundred leagues of territory from this mis-
sion (of San Francisco) to San Diego, was there found any
idolatry, but only a negative infidelity. Some superstitions and
foolish practices were discovered among the Indians, and
among the old men some ridiculous tales; but they were easily
disillusioned." These superstitions and foolish practices were
maintained and propagated by the medicine men, or sorcerers,
who formed a special class, feared, detested, yet universally
20 PAN IN CALIFORNIA [April,
obeyed. In a word, though there was no God, nor even any
idols, save at Santa Catalina, there was diabolism, and the
mountain which dimly towers over San Francisco Bay is still
called Mount Diabolo, having been so named because it was
said in those days to be the home of the principal demon
from whom the sorcerers derived their powers.
Perhaps there was some special, higher development of
the savage soul on Santa Gatalina Island, and in that general
region of California. Some years ago, at a time when I was
adventuring among the dubious cults and equivocal occultisms
of Los Angeles and San Diego, I was taken by one of the new
pagans with whom I had foregathered to a place not far from
Santa Gatalina, a point on the shore which, I was solemnly
assured, was " the most psychic spot in America, for here there
are united, in a sort of mystical focus, or nexus, the spiritual
forces of the land, the sea, and the air. If you will come here
by yourself, and enter into the Silence, you will absorb the
power and the loveliness of Pan."
All high developments of religion, whether of true reli-
gion, or of some mistaken or false form of worship, assume
as they become virile the form of art; and the greater and the
truer the religion, the finer and the more beautiful will be its
art. And it was on Santa Gatalina Island, where the Indian
religion flourished, that the art of the California Indians
reached its highest point. In the Southwestern Museum in
Los Angeles you may see a tiny sculpture, a sleeping dolphin
carved in rock, a truly exquisite and original creation, a work
of some Indian, found on Santa Gatalina. Among the Indians
elsewhere, there was little or no artistic strivings, until the
Friars came, and lifted them out of their paganism; and then,
with their awakened spirit at last aware of beauty, they
labored under new masters, who banished their sorcerers, and
left the California mission churches to testify to what even the
crudest type of humanity may accomplish when inspired with
true religion.
But, as I have said, apart from this spark of worship
(albeit of an idol), and this evanescent and solitary stirring of
art, on Santa Gatalina, the aboriginal people of California
knew nothing apart from and higher (or lower) than sensual
things except the sinister enchantments of the sorcerers; with
their crude dabblings in hocus-pocus, or diabolism, whichever
1919.] PAN IN CALIFORNIA
21
it may have been. Yet, as Father Baegert, S.J., one of the early
historians of the land, points out, these native Californians,
even though devoid of a conscious philosophy, lived in accord-
ance with many principles which later on became the subject-
matter for some of the greatest and most influential of modern
teachers, writers, artists, college professors, and makers of new
religions— the precursors of Pan in his new avatar, which to-
day he has accomplished. For the lovely land of California is,
I think, the region chiefly favored by his manifestation; or, at
any rate, the place where the growing power of the new pagan-
ism may be most openly viewed, under circumstances most
favorable to the spread of the cult. Father Baegert tells us,
the " nature-life " of the Calif ornian Indians was most strik-
ingly displayed in the education, or lack of education, of the
children; and in the marriage laws, or, rather, the entire lack
of all marriage laws or fixed marital customs. Promiscuous-
ness was the general custom; or else polygamy. The only defi-
nite rule seemed to be that the sorcerer, if he chose to exercise
his right (and of course he did), could at any time put aside
the temporary husband, or mate. In education, the children
were taught how to find food, and kill game. For the rest,
there was practised in full the system of education now being
promoted by many earnest-minded intellectuals, namely, let
the child freely develop ; let it do as it wills.
And the nature-people of today in California, the new
pagans, who range from super-intellectuals and highly devel-
oped artists down to folk but little higher than the nature-
people of the olden times, are distinguished by three points of
resemblance to their forerunners, namely, their devotion (an.
ever-growing one) to occultism, to psychic aberrations of a
bewildering variety, controlled by a new race of up-to-date
medicine men, or sorcerers; by their established habit of ban-
ishing all religion from education, accompanied by an increas-
ing disposition to let the children go as they please; and by
their sexual looseness. Promiscuousness is rife not merely
among adults, including the married, but also in many high
schools, among the children. Perversion is steadily growing.
The infamous Baker Street Vice Club in San Francisco revealed
something of this latter horrible fact. More than fifteen hun-
dred names — a millionaire and a clergyman among them—
including some very well-known people of San Francisco,
22 PAN IN CALIFORNIA [April,
women as well as men, are in the hands of the police, recorded
as habitues of this resort; a place something like the one in
Taylor Street in London, where Oscar Wilde and his circle
celebrated their orgies. Divorces are granted by the courts on
any pretext. With Pan has returned Priapus, and of course
Venus, in her most liberal and most variable of moods.
As for the new forms of sorcery, their name is legion. At
Point Loma, near the very place where Vizcaino's Carmelites
celebrated the first Mass in California, in 1602, Madame Ting-
ley, the Purple Mother, rules her colony of Theosophists, amid
a garden that is a realized dream of art and natural beauty.
Old millionaires, then: poor, wearied souls at the last turning
away from Mammon, seeking Something or Other to satisfy
their irresistible cravings for spiritual food, totter to the re-
poseful shelter of Point Loma and dream away their dying
days under the soporific influence of Oriental quietism. Hin-
doo " Swamis " build temples in the hills near Mount Hamil-
ton, or in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and practice the rites
of various Indian cults. German " Rosicrucians " form colo-
nies of " Christian Mysticism " (heaven save the mark!) in the
sunny southland of the State, and revive the study and the prac-
tice of alchemy and the " higher masonry." There are circles
of " Christian Hermeticism " (imported, I was told by the
founder of this cult, from a " hidden circle of adepts in Damas-
cus "); and of "White Magic." There are "bishops" of
Theosophy, deriving their orders from the unspeakably cor-
rupt Leadbeater, Annie Besant's right-hand man, who has
freely confessed in court to the most loathsome forms of sex-
ual depravity. He derived his power of consecrating " priests "
and " bishops " of Theosophy from a notorious English
mystagogue and fallen priest, who in turn was made " bishop "
by the head of the Old Catholic Church. Leadbeater's advice
to his " priests " and " bishops " is to urge their followers freely
to avail themselves of " the occult benefits " to be obtained by
frequenting the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in the Catho-
lic Church. And as for the circles and congregations of Spirit-
ualists, and New Thought-ists, and Christian Scientists, and
Homes of Healing, and the like, they are too numerous, too
bewildering in their variety and their fantasy to be briefly
catalogued. And all this vertiginous confusion of modern
idolatry and sorcery and superstition and mania is putting
1919.] PAN IN CALIFORNIA 23
forth a ritualism of its own, is finding artistic celebration, and
philosophical justification; and because of the general accepta-
tion of the principle of mutual toleration, the various forms
and types of these new frenzies of the soul of man are as-
suming a sort of unity, are becoming the many-featured Re-
ligion of the New Paganism.
And, side by side with this outpouring of perverted spirit-
uality, there proceeds the physical return of the modern Cali-
fornians to the nature-life. Despite the cumberous bonds of
industrial and business and professional occupations, which
keep men and women and children tied to the factory, and the
store, and the office, the return to nature early becomes more
marked and significant. The love of the Californians for the
open air, and all the sports and pastimes and occupations of
the open air (save and except honest farming toil), is univer-
sal among them. The whole extent of the immense land, from
Lake County in the wooded north, to San Diego in the sun-
drenched, naked south, in the long, rainless summer time,
is thickly dotted with camping parties. Thousands of families
pack up a few cooking utensils and blankets, stow them in their
motor cars (from Fords to the latest expensive French make),
and go to the hills, the woods, or the shore. Everywhere there
are pageants, festivals, out-of-door plays and masques. And
from all parts of the country come those who would share, for
a holiday period, or permanently, the open-air life of Cali-
fornia, and drink deep draughts of its pure air, its potent sun-
shine, and feast their eyes upon its manifold beauty. So, also,
with the artists; they throng to California; they see in this
golden country the one land of romance in the Western world,
the Italy, or Greece, of America, and year by year the in-
fluence of California upon the art and literature of the nation
becomes more powerful and predominant.
Shall Pan find no rival to his rule over this expanding and
strengthening force of California art, its pageantry, its festival
outpourings ?
What of the Cross, that Saving Sign— the Cross brought
by the Carmelite Fathers, and established by Serra and his
friars, and which still stands on every side in modern Cali-
fornia; yes, what of the Cross? Has it lost the power it once
possessed over art in California?
While it is true that the California Indians for the most
24 PAN IN CALIFORNIA [April,
part were too bestial to show any appreciation of the ideal or
the beautiful in life or thought, except in the case of the tribe
that occupied the Santa Barbara channel islands, Santa Cata-
lina, San Clemente, and San Nicolas, it remains true that where
art did appear among them it assumed that quality which
ever has distinguished art when it has been authentic, virile,
and truly developed, namely, the quality of homeliness, of use-
fulness, of real utility. It was not the exotic and specialized
interest of a peculiar class, as with us today. It was a com-
munal matter, with the Indians, practiced by many, understood
by rril; as was the case in the great periods of art: in Greece;
and in Europe in the age of the cathedral builders. It traced
a charming if naive line of beauty through the fabric of their
daily life; it brightened, interested, and consoled the tribe,
and not merely a few solitary and eccentric members of the
tribe. The Indian " began by making useful things beautiful,"
says Hector Alliot, of the Southwestern Museum, " and in the
later stage of his independent development reached an ad-
vanced stage of art expression, all his own." Art was a gra-
cious and benignant spirit that dwelt intimately among these
simple souls, their invisible friend and helper, touching with
transfiguring influence their crude tools and weapons and
household utensils — baskets, pots, vases — making them more
comely and desirable, and thereby more certainly useful.
Apart from the sleeping dolphin and a few similar achieve-
ments, little of the ancient Indian art is left to us that mat-
ters much; but we might well go to school to the spirit of
Indian art in order to learn how to effect that fruitful and
daily communion with the living presence of art which they
enjoyed. For undoubtedly, the Indians were more vitally
"artistic" than we Americans of today. With us, art has
long ceased to be truly popular. Art is now the strange
concern of a special and limited number. It dwells as a
stranger spirit amid the uncongenial hurly-burly of modern
machinery, industrialism, vulgarity, crude sensualism. It is
true that out of this very hurly-burly, this maelstrom of ma-
terialism and neuresthenia, there has emerged a something
which claims to be art, and which is perfervidly championed in
certain quarters as being, indeed, the authentic and ap-
propriate art of modernity. However this may be, it is un-
questionable that this newest phase, or mirage, or nightmare
1919.] PAN IN CALIFORNIA 25
of art— whichever it may be— is even less comprehended of the
people, and enters less vitally into their daily lives, than the
older and vanished forms.
And this, surely, is one of the great problems of this period
of perplexing problems. We may multiply schools and evolve
subtle and manifold "methods" of teaching art. We may
increase the number of museums until every city and town in
the whole country possesses one, but if art is a matter of
museums, and not of homes and schools and churches and
civic halls; if art remains subtle and foreign to the daily
thought and daily labors of the multitude, and only enters in-
timately the lives of a very few (and often then but perversely),
what does art profit man? What consolation does it bring
to those who believe in democracy?
But there is an even graver aspect to this problem.
Art, at least in California, stirred by the new piping of the
returning Pan, begins again to enter the warm stream of the
common life. And when the worship of Pan develops from the
merely brutal plane of instinctive human and animal passions,
and adorns itself with ritual, and becomes vocal and melodious
in poetry, and inspires temples adorned with painting and with
sculpture, and is justified by its skillful philosophers — then hell
rejoices, and if there can be mourning in heaven, the hour for
it has come, for the children of earth are in the nefs of the de-
stroyer.
Again, what of the Gross, and the art inspired by that sav-
ing sign?
Now, if art as it existed in primitive California was a com-
munal thing, a manifestation of the spirit of beauty mingling
its mystic breath with ordinary, humdrum life, art as it later
developed in this favored land of romance, of charm, of won-
der, was even more intimately concerned with the fundamen-
tal matters of humanity. For in its second stage, art was bound
up with religion; was the joyous and satisfied servant of God.
And it served not the religion of nature; not the blind, grop-
ing other- worldliness of savage souls; but the vital, developed,
final message of Christianity. The glorious, humble, dauntless,
adoring Serra appeared, leading his Franciscans, under the
banner of the Cross. They traced from San Diego in the
south to Sonoma in the north their trail of devotion, the road-
way of civilization, the path of God. This they dotted, a day's
26 PAN IN CALIFORNIA [April,
journey apart, with those missions and settlements the names
of which remain, as Charles Warren Stoddard says, to make
the railroad time-table of California read like a litany of the
saints. Being Spaniards, the architecture of the Franciscans
reflected rudely yet truly and vigorously that of their own
country, an architecture in which were mingled the Gothic,
the Romanesque, and the Moorish styles. " Necessity," writes
Alliott, " compelled the good Fathers to revert to the first prin-
ciples of architecture, laid down nearly two thousand years ago
by Vitruvius in three words, expressing all that constructive art
should embrace : utility, solidity, beauty." And on these prin-
ciples they labored, and their far away home churches were
reincarnated in the savage wilderness. Being Catholics — and
cultured Catholics; Serra in especial — they had been born into
a magnificent heritage of the highest art the world has ever
seen, and they had not lost sight of this heritage, as we, alas,
today, have done; they belonged to a generation not yet com-
mercialized and vulgarized out of respect for an understanding
of the value of the art of Christianity. They were still in com-
munication with the disappearing spirit of those so sadly mis-
understood Middle Ages when art was, as never before and
never since, the dominant and omnipresent companion of
daily life, and in especial, of the daily religious life.
This material and spiritual collaboration extended
among the people as well as the professional artists. In-
deed, artists and craftsmen and workmen were all of the
same goodly fellowship; and the fecund influence of art was
apparent in small things as in great; not simply in the cathe-
drals, and the mysterious glass of their marvelous windows,
but also in the statuary, the woodwork, the garments of the
consecrated ministers of the holy place, the ornaments and
vessels of the altar, in all that touched or belonged in any way
to the service of the Creator. And from the cathedral, the be-
nign and lovely spirit breathed into the market place, the civic
hall, the houses of the guilds, and the homes.
And this spirit went with Serra into the California wilder-
ness. If a rough plank and a crust of bread were all that he
and his friars needed for bed and board, nevertheless they
labored all their lives long to build wonderful temples for the
King of kings, and they made them as comely and as beautiful
as they could devise, with only the savages to help them, and
1919.] PAN IN CALIFORNIA 27
devoid of most of the things required save as they improvised
them out of the crude materials at hand. And within the
temples arose the Indian voices, singing the incomparable
plain chant. Long after the unjust and lamentable seculariza-
tion of the missions, the sheperdless descendants of these mis-
sion Indians clung to the old traditions. Robert Louis Steven-
son, in the eighties, heard them singing Gregorian from treas-
ured chant books amid the ruins of Carmelo.
The simple Indians well understood and appreciated
and learned this new phase of art — though, indeed, the word
art would have been strange enough to them. Today we have
the word, but not the thing. This new phase was simply a
higher development of their own communal habit, lifting them
to a higher plane, and mingling the supernatural with the
natural: not the preternatural of debased sorcery but the
breath of heaven mingling itself in imagery with the stuff of
earth. The golden age of art, in a crude, humble, halting
fashion, yet truly, had once again come, here in Cali-
fornia. Pan had been driven out by the Cross that crowned
each Mission Church. Art was once more a handmaid of
religion; ministering to the soul of man, and beautifying the
ways of his bodily life.
Then this calm wave of peace and prosperity and beauty,
so strangely at work in this sequestered wilderness, reached its
climax, and broke and receded, dragged back by an ebb-tide
from the abyss of iniquity. The philosophers and encyclo-
pedists of Paris, London, Madrid wrote their books; the
"liberal" statesmen read them, and applied the philosophy;
Mexico "secularized" the missions, and its politicians be-
came rich with the flocks and herds and lands and wealth
which the padres had guarded for the Indians. The poor, fool-
ish; yet gentle and docile sheep were deprived of their shep-
herds, and down upon the flocks rushed the wolves of vice, of
robbery, of cruel injustice. Pan was returning. The Cross
was overthrown. The frail people passed like shadowy phan-
toms. Civilization, with its vices, swept them into oblivion.
The missions that had been to them what the cathedrals
had been to the sturdier folk of the Middle Ages, crum-
bled into ruins. The roof of fair Carmelo's church fell
through, and hid the lowly grave of Serra. Mournful ow
hooted in the broken tower where once the sweet bell had
28 PAN IN CALIFORNIA [April,
called the people to the sacring of the Mass. The gray, salt sea
fog rotted the crumbling walls. The work of the Franciscans
had been swept away, it seemed, and all memories of Serra
and his friars appeared to be vanished from the land which
he had won from savagery and consecrated to the Cross.
Nor were the white people, the Spanish Californians, the
descendants of the soldiers and settlers who had followed
Serra out of Mexico into the north, much more fortunate than
the Indians. During the mission period they had lived in a
tranquillity and prosperity such as but rarely, and briefly, are
enjoyed in this valley of tears, the earth. It was a land, at
that time, this golden and romantic California, where there
was no poverty; a land of fat flocks, rich vines, abundant
corn; a land without crime — for from San Diego to San Fran-
cisco there was not a jail for almost half a century. The men
were strong and gallant and chivalrous; the women were fair
and gay and virtuous; family life flourished truly and
tenaciously. In this land of an everlasting spring and summer,
there was little need to labor, and if labor was called for, there
were the Indians to do it; so the Californians rode their swift
horses, bred from Arab stock, bravely and colorfully attired,
blazing with silver buttons, and hunted and helped each other
at the cattle round-ups, the rodeos; and at night when the
home-made candles were lighted in the great rooms where oak
logs burned in the huge fireplaces there was music, and many
a fandango lasting unto the dawn. The Faith was kept, but
very temperately. It was a moral, a wholesome life, in Cali-
fornia; but there was no fervor, there was little zeal; there is
hardly more than one or two vocations to the religious life re-
corded, whether among men or women, in all the time of the
Spanish period. Wherefore, no doubt, it was that the man
in whom there was fervor and zeal, indeed, El Profeta; the
Holy Man of Santa Clara, Father Magin Catala — whose cause
is now before Rome — cried out against this beautiful and in-
dolent people, warning them that because of their sins, their
indifference, the Californians would lose their immense
ranches and all their lands and flocks, and become poor, and
many of their children's children would give up their religion,
and another flag would come out of the East, and another peo-
ple possess the country, and, being heretics, would build
churches, but these would not be true temples of God.
1919.] PAN IN CALIFORNIA 29
Like unto the Laodiceans, the early Californians were
lukewarm; tamely they lived, holding their Faith happily
when the sun was shining, but casting it away when the sharp
winds of trouble blew upon the coasts of their new Arcadia,
out of the world where the spirit of the world was moving
against the Church once more.
There followed after this long, leisurely, gracious yet
sterile period of Arcadian simplicity, and the morose, ugly in-
terval of the decadence and disappearance of the pastoral peo-
ple, Indians and Calif ornians together, the American Califor-
nia, the California of today. One word banished for ever the
languorous atmosphere, and linked this distant land with every
other land under the sun, and brought about— like the word
of a magician — an instant and epochal change in all things.
That master word was, gold! In a single year, tens of thou-
sands of men out of all nations, and races, and tribes, poured
into California. After them, came families, and the scene of a
frantic adventure once more became a homeland, the fairest
and sweetest and most beautiful and romantic in all the great
country of these United States. But as this process proceeded
in the midst of continuous excitements : adventure piled upon
adventure — the Bear Flag revolution, the Mexican war, the
carrying by storm of Statehood, the struggle between the
forces of Secession and of Federalism, the fires and earth-
quakes, vigilante riots, booms and panics of San Francisco,
and the intense preoccupation with material things — as this
process proceeded, and the sway of industrial civilization grew
firmer and firmer, what happened elsewhere came about in
California also : art disappeared, or became the eccentric con-
cern of a small and special class, and religion became almost
wholly a missionary enterprise: a struggle to obtain a foot-
hold; and not now among a docile and childish people, but
among a people fiercely intent upon materialistic ends, a head-
strong and self-willed people.
So also was it elsewhere in America: religion waging a
stubborn, hard, practical warfare against mammon and ma-
terialism, and art driven wholly away from the people, and
cultivated by a handful only of lonely and somewhat fantastic
devotees.
Yet the love and desire for beauty, for the practical appli-
cation of art to daily life, is an integral factor in humanity's
30 PAN IN CALIFORNIA [April,
complex nature, and it was not dead but crushed and hidden
away; a fact which was demonstrated when the Panama-
Pacific Exposition was held at San Francisco, in 1915, in the
midst of the Great War. The extent, the depth, the earnest-
ness, the eagerness of the public response to the art of the Ex-
position, powerfully impressed all competent observers. And
this fact, which has been emphasized, certainly in California,
by the continued evidences of reawakened public interest in
art since the Exposition, is at once a source of consolation and
of anxiety to all those who love art and wish to see its true
blessings, and not its aberrations and its evil spells, permeate
the public life, as in the olden days. And, for good or for evil,
this it is bound to do. Men and women hunger and thirst after
beauty, even as they hunger and thirst after religion. And if
they do not find true beauty, or true religion, they will satisfy
their irresistible spiritual cravings with Dead Sea fruit and
with drugs instead of wine. Even the Bolsheviki, drunken with
blood, mad with lust, in the very midst of the destruction and
terror of their course in Russia, patronize art and literature,
and endow the work of artists.
In California, the Church has assumed at least something
of the pageantry and open-air aspects which have belonged
to her life in those lands of the old world where Faith has re-
tained at least a partial sway. Processions, pilgrimages, way-
side shrines, historical relics (such as the Missions), the Cross
on many a mountain-top, the traditions of the past, create an
atmosphere which gives to this State a romanticism in its re-
ligion which opposes the false and pernicious romanticism
attached to the growing cults of the New Paganism. Yet, the
returning Pan has a great and powerful following of artists,
and lovers of art; and I for one pray that the Church will
attract to her service an ever-increasing number of those who
will strive to serve her with music and brush and chisel and
pen, and who will labor to bring back the appreciation of
liturgical beauty. Then the Church in our land may come into
her own once more, and be again beautiful above the work of
the sons of men.
For good, and for bad, the spirit of the age in art is an
interior, an occult force. Predominantly, the original and
powerful works of the art of today are spiritual. Catholics know
that this fact may explain the frightful danger of many such
1919.] PAN IN CALIFORNIA 31
works; but others do not see this danger. We know, what they
do not know, or else deny, that works of beauty are often
profoundly evil, subtly and poisonously corruptive. Today,
as perhaps never before, there are evil forces affecting human-
ity through the media of the arts. There are powers and prin-
cipalities seated in the high places of the human intellect,
which, expressing themselves through poem, play, novel, pic-
tures, and music especially, wage menacing warfare against
the soul of man. And now with the passing of the physical
portion of the World War, an even intenser struggle will go
on in politics, in trade, and, more fundamentally, in art and
religion. The New Paganism aims at a conquest of the world,
with State Socialism, or the Servile State, as its political sys-
tem, and the deification of natural forces and of human in-
stincts as its religion. And who does not see that this strug-
gle will be particularly violent in our own country, obviously
destined, as it is, to play a predominant part in world affairs?
Hence, so I believe, the importance of realizing the seri-
ousness and the extent of the renaissance of paganism in our
country, especially in California. For if it be true what so
many critics, observers, prophets, have proclaimed, namely,
that California is to be the Greece, the Italy, the land of cre-
ative art, romance, nature-life of the United States, then it fol-
lows that Christians must oppose this new invasion of Pan and
his rout. Again, the Cross must overthrow the idol. If Cali-
fornia is the most pagan of our States, so also is she the most
Catholic, in many important respects; and, if kept sane and
docile by the discipline of service, by devotion to the Truth of
the Cross, art in California may safely touch the life-giving
bosom of mother earth, yet keep its soul in heaven; and so be
fructified anew, and be steeped in grace; here it may put aside
dreary intellectualism, and the madness of morbidity, and turn
its eyes again to the stars, the high mountains, and the sea; not
merely for their own sakes, but because they are the symbols
of divine realities.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
BY CHARLES G. FENWICK.
HE student of human nature, with his hand on the
records of history, may well be pardoned if he
hesitates to expect the millennium to follow the
adoption of any given plan or project for the
reconstruction of the State in which he lives or of
the world at large. He has seen men pin their faith to pro-
grammes and institutions, and he has seen those same reforms
become in turn the instrument of oppression. He knows that
mere declarations of high principle, such as have been em-
bodied in even so revered a document as the American Decla-
ration of Independence, are not of themselves a guarantee that
justice and right will henceforth prevail in all the complex
relations of civic life. He is convinced that morality is not a
matter of sovereign decrees but of individual consciences, and
that laws and constitutions are but empty formulae in the ab-
sence of the spirit of self-restraint and just dealing which is
the essential condition of peace and freedom.
But on the other hand this same student can point out
from the records of the past the numerous occasions on which
programmes and institutions have been the direct instrument
of progress. The morality of the individual citizen may, in-
deed, be the basis of effective law, but concrete forms of organ-
ization have been found necessary to give expression to in-
dividual morality and to enable it to exercise a guiding force
in the administration of justice and the promotion of national
welfare. The American people remained as individuals iden-
tically the same after they had set aside their form of gov-
ernment under the Articles of Confederation in favor of the
Constitution of 1788; yet who can doubt but that the new form
of government guided the moral forces of the States into more
effective channels and made possible the development of na-
tional union. The League of Nations may not be an
ideal institution; it may not express the principles of right and
justice in their most perfect form; it obviously cannot change
the moral character of the States which are to be members of
1919] THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 33
it; but its value will be demonstrated if it can be shown to be
an instrument for bringing order out of disorder, for directing
to a common purpose forces that now pull with honest intent
against one another, and if it gives promise of displacing the
old unstable equilibrium of the nations by laying solid foun-
dations upon which a permanent edifice of law and justice may
in due time be constructed. More than this no scheme of re-
organization can hope to do. If it accomplishes this much it
will have proved a boon to mankind.
The worth of the League of Nations must be tested, there-
fore, by a comparison with the system which it displaces.
That the old system was an illogical one and that it contained
within itself the seeds of war is now generally acknowledged,
and the public at large is sufficiently convinced that a war to
end war has not attained its purpose by the mere winning of
a military victory. The results of the Congress of Vienna of
1815 forcibly remind us that a war won on the field of battle
can be lost at the peace table. " The Congress of Vienna sits,
and war becomes a war of wits." By perpetuating the old
order of individual self-defence with its accompaniment of
strategic boundaries and suppressed national aspirations, the
Congress prepared the ground for new wars to undo what it
had done and do what it had failed to do.
What was the essential weakness of the international sys-
tem as it existed in 1914? One might venture to describe it
as the lack of collective responsibility. There was, indeed, an
international law in force, but it was a law between sovereign
States, that is to say, a law between States which acknowledged
no higher authority over them. Each State remained, when
the ultimate issue was reached, the interpreter of its own
rights and obligations. Certain rights and obligations were
clearly recognized, and seven volumes of precedents published
by our own State Department attest the concern which the na-
tions felt that their conduct should be in keeping with custom
and tradition. But in matters touching the more vital concerns
of the nations, no rule of conduct was to be found, and each
nation reserved to itself the right to take such action as its
interests dictated. If it chose to arbitrate the dispute, it did
so of its own free volition, and it recognized no right of the
nations at large to intervene in the case except at its special
request.
VOL. CIX. — 3
34 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS [April,
At the same time, while being the ultimate arbiter of
its own rights and obligations, each State had to rely upon
its own efforts to maintain what it claimed as justly due it. If
negotiations failed to bring the opposing party to terms, a re-
sort to armed force was recognized as the final means of ob-
taining redress. War, it must be clearly understood, was a
legal remedy, and provided it was conducted according to
the established code (known paradoxically as the "laws of
war ! ") , the results secured by the treaty of peace were not
vitiated, as under national law, by the fact that duress had
been employed to obtain them. Whether or not the nuisance
which Cuba had become in 1898 could have been removed by
other means than war, the United States was within its legal
rights in refusing the mediation of foreign powers and in pro-
ceeding to end by armed force a situation it had come to regard
as intolerable.
War being a legal remedy between the claimant and the
States opposing the claim, neutrality became a recognized duty
of third parties. It is here that the lack of a sense of collective
responsibility manifested itself most strikingly. It was as if
two citizens resorted to blows in the open streets while the
public at large watched the fray with no feeling of obligation
to intervene; or as if an assault were committed in the market
place and bystanders frankly assumed a non-partisan attitude.
It is well to remember that the proclamation of the neutrality
of the United States in August, 1914, represented a position of
indifference to crime which we were legally entitled to assume.
We were not told to withhold judgment before acting; we
were told to wash our hands of the affair.
A system in which each nation was thrown back upon its
own resources for the defence of its rights, could lead to but
one result. Nations too weak to defend themselves against
more powerful neighbors turned for assistance to other na-
tions ; alliances were formed to meet threats of aggression, and
alliances in turn were met by counter-alliances of opposing
groups. The unstable equilibrium thus resulting rendered
futile all efforts at international cooperation. Again and again
the powers met in " concert " to accomplish much needed re-
forms, but their mutual jealousies and suspicions blocked the
way. The Congresses of Paris in 1856 and of Berlin in 1878
had it in their power to put an end to Turkish misrule in
1919] THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 35
Europe, but unhappily they were divided over the disposal of
the territories of the Sultan and only half-hearted measures
were taken. The collapse of the " concert of Europe " in the
presence of the second Balkan war showed its complete in-
ability to meet a crisis, and statesmen, encouraging themselves
with the hope that the very horror of a general conflagration
would prevent any single nation from starting it, looked on
helpless while Europe drifted into war. The Hague Confer-
ence of 1899, called to secure " the general peace and a pos-
sible reduction of the excessive armaments which were bur-
dening all nations," could come to no better conclusion than
the expression of a pious opinion that a limitation of military
expenditures was "extremely desirable." A similar resolu-
tion was adopted at the Conference of 1907, and was accom-
panied by a unanimous recognition of "the principle (!) of
compulsory arbitration." But beliefs and wishes do not con-
stitute collective responsibility. The balance of power re-
mained as unstable as ever, and when rudely jostled in 1914,
broke down, amid the eleventh hour appeals to arbitration, for
which no effective provision had been made in advance.
What, then, does the Constitution of the League of Nations
offer us in place of the old system? In his address following
the reading of the draft before the Conference at Paris, Pres-
ident Wilson laid stress upon the fact that the Constitution ex-
pressed the purpose of the Conference to see to it " that the
cooperation of the great body of nations should be assured in
the maintenance of peace upon terms of honor and inter-
national obligations;" and that the result of their labors repre-
sented "the union of wills in a common purpose;" and again
that war or international misunderstanding "is everybody's
business, because it may affect the peace of the world." These
are clear indications that the Conference definitely intended
that in the future collective responsibility should take the place
of the isolated and uncertain action of the nations under the
old system. Article XI. of the Constitution of the League
states in explicit terms that " any war or threat of war, whether
immediately affecting any of the high contracting parties or
not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the League." War
or threats of war have, indeed, always been a matter of con-
cern to the nations individually, but it is to be observed that
they are here declared to be of concern to the nations in their
36 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS [April,
collective capacity as members of the League. Again in Arti-
cle XVI. it is declared that if any of the contracting parties
should break the covenants of Article XII., it shall thereby
" ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against
all the other members of the League." These are new prin-
ciples in the relations of the nations, principles which the
Conferences of the past could not see their way to accept, and
while perhaps less explicit and comprehensive than they might
be, they would seem, within their range, to put an end to the
doctrine of neutrality, and throw upon the nations collectively
the responsibility for the maintenance of peace and justice in
the world.
Law in its true sense is henceforth possible for the nations;
and law not, as before 1914, limited to the minor interests of
the nations, but law in respect to those conflicts of national
policy which, in the past, have drawn even reluctant nations
into war. A written constitution has been adopted pledging
the nations to the principle of collective action. To the skep^
tic it may appear as if little had been accomplished. Why
should the League promise more effective action than the vari-
ous " concerts " of Europe, when it is composed of nations with
the same conflicting interests? The answer is, that the nations
here solemnly pledge themselves to take united action for the
welfare of the world at large, whereas the concerts and coali-
tions of the past were vitiated by the fact that each individual
member was frankly seeking to secure an arrangement which
would primarily benefit itself. If the ultimate basis of political
unity is a realization that individual interests are best secured
through due subordination to the common welfare, then the
Constitution of the League lays the corner-stone of a united
world.
Thus far we have been dealing merely with general prin-
ciples, fundamentally important as they are; we must now
pass to the more specific proposals offered by the Constitution
for the organization and powers of the League. Owing to the
uncertainty surrounding international rights and duties once
we pass into the field of what the nations consider their more
vital interests, it is imperative that some form of international
legislature be created whose duty it shall be to define more pre-
cisely the claims which each nation is entitled to make. Were
the demands made by the United States ilpon Spain in 1898, by
1919] THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 37
Great Britain upon the Transvaal in 1899, by Japan upon Rus-
sia in 1904, by Italy upon Turkey in 1911, just or unjust? The
question cannot be answered in terms of law, because no defi-
nite law existed covering the points at issue. The traditional
law of nations is chiefly a law of custom and precedent, and it
is, in consequence, wholly inadequate to meet new issues. Co-
lumbia, as owner of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903, was
within its legal rights in fixing what sum it pleased as the
price of a sale or lease; but it is clear that the exercise of those
rights had limitations in abstract justice and fair play.
The Constitution of the League of Nations, without for-
mally creating an international congress or parliament, pro-
vides for two distinct bodies which may assume the functions
of a legislature. Article II. creates a "body of delegates"
which shall hold meetings " at stated intervals and from time
to time, as occasion may require, for the purpose of dealing
with matters within the sphere of action of the League." It is
to consist of representatives of the members of the League,
each member being entitled to as many as three representa-
tives, who together cast but one vote. Article III. creates a
more exclusive body known as the " Executive Council," which
is to consist of representatives of the United States, Great
Britain, France, Italy and Japan, together with the represen-
tatives of four other States not yet named. This Executive
Council appears to constitute a sort of upper house of the
international legislature, combining both legislative, execu-
tive and judicial functions. Its limited membership is ob-
viously the result of an endeavor to meet the difficulty pre-
sented by any form of international government, that, in theory,
all sovereign States are legally equal and hence may claim an
equal voice in the decision of International Conferences, but
that, in fact, the nations are politically unequal, and that it can-
not be expected that the States of more advanced civilization
would be willing to forego the preponderant influence which
naturally belongs to them. The special legislative functions
attributed to the Executive Council are the determination of
plans for the reduction of national armaments and of plans
for offsetting the evils of the manufacture, by private enter-
prise, of munitions and implements of war. It is also intrusted
with the duty of formulating plans for the establishment of a
permanent court of international justice. In these three cases
38 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS [April,
it was apparently felt by the leading powers that their in-
fluence should remain dominant.
The powers to be exercised by the international legislature
are not specified in detail. This is undoubtedly a serious weak-
ness of the League as a true union of nations, and it can only
be hoped that the nations will not deny to their legislature,
when it actually meets, the powers which they are unwilling
to grant to it in the formal constitution. It is generally con-
ceded that the trade rivalries of the nations are prominent
among the underlying causes of war. Preferential tariffs,
by which a mother country seeks to obtain a preferred posi-
tion in the markets of its colonies, export and import duties,
monopolistic control of the raw materials of industry, and
concessions in undeveloped countries, with their inevitable
accompaniment of jealousy on the part of the less favored
powers, have been forces of international disruption which
have more than offset the sense of international solidarity
resulting from the growth of mutual intercourse. It will be
remembered that just such rivalries, in a more primitive form,
imperiled the union of the American States under the Articles
of Confederation from 1781-1789. Yet the Conference at Paris
has not seen its way to follow the example of our Constitution
of 1789, and empower the body of delegates to regulate com-
merce between the nations, as the American Congress regulates
commerce between the States. It is possible that such powers
may be assumed gradually, and Article XXI. uses the vague ex-
pression of " equitable treatment for the commerce of all
States members of the League " as one of the objects to be se-
cured through the instrumentality of the League.
In one important respect, however, specific powers of
legislation are conferred upon the League. The emancipation
of the various colonies captured from the Central Powers and
of the territories formerly subject to the bondage of Turkey, is
to be effected according to the principle that the well-being
and development of such peoples shall form " a sacred trust
of civilization." The tutelage of these peoples is to be " in-
trusted to advanced nations," who shall act as mandatories on
behalf of the League and render to the League annual reports
in reference to the territory committed to their charge. The
authority to be exercised by the guardian State is to vary
according to the conditions of the individual case, and is to be
1919] THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 39
clearly defined in the mandate. In his address before the Con-
ference, President Wilson speaks of the arrangement as " one
of the greatest and most satisfactory advances that have been
made," in that the League makes it its duty " to see that the
nations who are assigned as the tutors and advisors and direc-
tors of these peoples shall look to their interests and their
development before they look to the interests and desires of
the mandatory nation itself." But to the present writer it
would seem that the importance of the provisions is not so
much that they aim to protect the undeveloped peoples of Asia
and Africa against possible exploitation, as that they intro-
duce a new principle of international responsibility into the
relations of nations.
The foundations of an international legislature being laid
in the Constitution of the League, we may proceed to examine
what provision it makes for the establishment of a judicial sys-
tem, which is a further essential function of an international
government. In this respect the Constitution proceeds with
extreme caution. The ideal that international disputes should
be settled by courts having compulsory jurisdiction over the
nations, in the same way that suits between citizens are sub-
mitted to the decision of national courts, has always been re-
garded by statesmen as impracticable in a world of nations so
diverse in political character and in material interests. Con-
sequently, while the States assembled at the Second Hague
Conference were ready to approve of the " principle of com-
pulsory arbitration," they were unwilling to bind themselves
definitely to arbitrate all future disputes without exception.
And even in their separate treaties with one another the na-
tions have regularly introduced clauses which made it pos-
sible to evade the obligation to arbitrate in a given case. The
Root treaties of 1908 contained a proviso that the disputes to
be arbitrated should not affect "the vital interests, the in-
dependence, or the honor of the two contracting States." The
Taft treaties of 1911 distinguished between "justiciable" and
"non-justiciable" disputes, and provided that the former
should be arbitrated while the latter should be merely sub-
mitted to a commission of inquiry for an investigation and
report. The Bryan treaties of 1914 omitted the distinction be-
tween the character of the disputes, and provided that one and
all should be submitted to an international commission for
40 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS [April,
investigation and report, pending which action the contracting
parties agreed not to declare war.
In deference to the difficulties attending compulsory arbi-
tration without any restrictions, Article XII. of the Constitution
of the League follows the Bryan treaties, in providing that the
parties shall not go to war without previously submitting the
questions involved either to arbitration or to inquiry by the
Executive Council; and Article XV. goes even further in that
it makes the recommendation of the Executive Council bind-
ing upon the parties, if unanimously agreed to by the members
of the Council other than the parties to the dispute. This
would appear at first sight as the equivalent of compulsory
arbitration, but when it is remembered that the Executive
Council is composed of an exclusive group of the present five
great powers and four others, yet to be named, it will be seen
how improbable it is that in any grave political issue, one
hitherto regarded as involving vital interests, a unanimous
verdict of the Council could be obtained. Moreover, the dis-
pute may be referred, on request, to the body of delegates, and
a similar unanimous decision from them would be out of the
question. The opportunities of evasion are obviously present,
should a nation deliberately seek to block the processes of
judicial settlement; but on the other hand it is clear that a
great gain has been made in forcing all international disputes
out into the light and in bringing to bear upon them, the public
opinion of the world at large. The nation that is acting in
good faith cannot be the loser thereby.
The question of the character of the international court,
like that of the obligation to arbitrate, is settled in a prac-
tical rather than in an ideal way. Resort to arbitration in the
past has taken the form of the creation of temporary tribunals,
constituted for the decision of the particular case, and com-
posed of judges appointed directly by the parties. The in-
herent weakness of this method of settling international dis-
putes is that such temporary tribunals have done nothing to
establish a consistent interpretation of the law, which might
do for the development of international law what the decisions
of national courts have done for the development of national
law. No legislature can frame law so perfect that disputes
concerning them will be wholly forestalled; and, in conse-
quence, our domestic courts have always been called upon to
1919] THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 41
perform the legislative function of defining rights under the
guise of applying the law. Temporary international tribunals
are practically useless for this purpose.
The desirability of creating a permanent court of arbitra-
tion which should sit continuously aix*. develop a sense of
judicial responsibility and a consistent ' interpretation of the
law has long been conceded; but the various nlans proposed
for such a court have always failed of adoption because of the
difficulty of securing an agreement upon the composition of
the tribunal. The so-called Hague Permanent Court of Arbi-
tration, which received the sanction of the Conferences of 1899
and 1907, was no more than a permanent list of judges from
which the parties to a dispute might, if they so chose, select the
judges to preside over the particular case in hand. The Judi-
cial Arbitration Court proposed at the Conference of 1907
would have been a true judicial tribunal, but its adoption was
defeated by the opposition of the smaller powers. To consti-
tute a court of forty-five or more judges, one to be appointed
by each of the States, would have been to reduce the proposal
to an absurdity; yet the majority of the smaller States were
unwilling to admit any method of appointment which would
infringe upon the principle of the legal equality of the States,
and, on the other hand, the great powers demanded a larger
representation corresponding to their power and influence.
In consequence, Article XIV. of the Constitution of the League
does no more than provide that the Executive Council shall
formulate plans for the establishment of a permanent court
of international justice, leaving it optional to the nations to
resort to it, when established, or else to continue to make use
of temporary courts, created jointly by the parties to the dis-
pute. A supreme court of the nations, modeled after the
Supreme Court of the United States, must await the day when
the nations are more nearly akin in political and moral ideals.
The third essential function of an international govern-
ment must consist in some form of executive body, whose duty
it shall be to give effect to the laws adopted by the international
parliament and the decisions rendered by the several judicial
tribunals. Hitherto international law has been lacking in any
sanction for the observance of its rules, other than the moral
sanction of the approval or disapproval of the nations at large.
This sanction of public opinion has occasionally taken the
42 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS [April,
form of an unexpected combination Of third parties against the
international outlaw, but for the most part it has worked with
great unevenness, at times exercising a controlling influence
to restrain a nation through its condemnation of wrong-doing,
at other times scarcely able to make itself felt, and again col-
lapsing completely as at the beginning of the present War. It
has long been clear that some coordinated action on the part
of the great body of nations was needed to restrain individual
offenders against the law. The Constitution of the League of
Nations meets this need by authorizing two forms of physical
sanction : a breach of the covenant to arbitrate, as laid down in
Article XII., is to be regarded as an act of war against all the
other members of the League, and is to be followed by a
" severance of all trade or financial relations " between the
League and the offending State. Should this economic boy-
cott prove ineffectual, the Executive Council is authorized in
such case " to recommend what effective military or naval
force the members of the League shall severally contribute to
the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the
League." This latter plan was adopted as a substitute for the
proposal of an international army and navy, which appeared to
encroach upon the principle of national sovereignty. There is
good ground to believe, however, that if the members of the
League can remain united in their common purpose of main-
taining peace, the economic boycott, which would strike the
offending State in its most vital spot, will prove an effective
sanction without the need even of the contributions of in-
dividual armies and navies provided for. The important point
is that the penalty shall be understood clearly in advance, and
that there shall be every reason to anticipate its certain appli-
cation.
The objections raised by opponents of the League fall into
two general classes : those of a legal character, based upon the
inconsistency of the League with the Constitution of the United
States, and those of a political character, based upon the in-
expediency on the one hand of subjecting American interests
to the decision of an international tribunal and on the other
hand of entangling the United States in the affairs of Europe.
The legal objections would seem to be chiefly technical. The
Constitution of the United States, it is said, provides that Con-
gress shall have the power to declare war, whereas Article
1919] THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 43
XVI. of the Constitution of the League would transfer that
power into the hands of the Executive Council. But an exami-
nation of Article XVI. will show that the Executive Council has
only the authority to recommend the several contributions of
military and naval forces, leaving it to Congress to act upon
the recommendation. Our treaties of 1903 with Cuba and
with Panama, commit us to intervene forcibly for the protec-
tion of the independence of the two countries, but it has never
been claimed that they took from Congress the power to de-
clare war when the occasion arises. The recommendations
of the Executive Council impose obligations of wider scope but
not different in character from those already assumed in
numerous treaties.
The political objections are more real, and are based upon
an appeal to the immediate interests of American nationalism
as against the indirect advantages which may ultimately be
obtained from international union. There are certain domes-
tic questions, such as the control over immigration, and certain
questions of foreign policy, such as the exclusion of European
or Asiatic powers from acquiring a foothold upon the Ameri-
can continent prescribed by the Monroe Doctrine, in regard
to which the United States is not prepared to accept the ad-
verse decision of an international tribunal. But if the articles
of the Constitution of the League be examined carefully, it will
be found that no compulsion is laid upon the United States.
To assume that the entire body of some forty-five delegates
would unanimously vote against the United States on such
issues, is to reject the experience of the past, and to overlook
the fact that most of the nations of the Western hemisphere,
as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have interests
closely similar to our own.
A further political objection is directed against the de-
parture of the United States from its traditional policy of
avoiding entangling alliances with European nations. Look-
ing only at material considerations, it may be replied that the
War now brought to a close, has shown that it is impossible for
the United States to maintain any longer an attitude of isolation
from the affairs of the world. Whether we wish it or not, our
colonial possessions and the intricate trade relationships which
we maintain with Europe and Asia will inevitably force us to
abandon the role of bystander. The choice is between a
44 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS [April,
League of Nations with its concerted endeavor to prevent war,
and an ultimate entangling alliance with one or other of the
belligerent parties in the next great conflict.
But over and above considerations of immediate self-
interest, is the call from Europe to us to lend the stabilizing
influence of our detached position to the reconstruction of law
and order. If the United States should refuse to play its part
in the creation of an organized community of nations, the old
system of alliances and counter-alliances must begin again,
and begin under circumstances of mutual bitterness and eco-
nomic exhaustion that spell disaster. The new and unpro-
tected States of Central Europe and the oppressed nationalities
now released from Turkish misrule, must fight alone for a
freedom which the indifference of Europe has too long denied
them. It cannot be that America, having set up an ideal of
law and justice, will deny a helping hand to those too weak to
reach that ide'al unaided.
It is not claimed that the League of Nations in its present
form is a perfect institution; in a number of respects it falls
short of an ideal organization of nations or of peoples; but we
are dealing with human nature as it is, not as it should be, and
it is enough if we can but lay the foundations today, upon which
a future generation, more far-seeing, shall build the completed
edifice. No part of the Constitution of the League is proof
against selfish and imperialistic policies on the part of the
individual members, and numerous loopholes are left for the
evasion of responsibility, should factions spring up within the
League and concerted action prove impossible. Good faith
and mutual confidence of the nations, one in another, will con-
tinue to be, in the years to come, the ultimate guarantee of the
pledges now made.
As was said at the outset, the establishment of a League of
Nations is a political problem, distinct from the moral prob-
lem of the possibility of attaining that greater self-restraint on
the part of nations which is needed to bring about an adjust-
ment of conflicting aspirations and policies. The League bears
the same relation to the morality of nations that the organ-
ization of the State bears to the private morality of individuals.
In each case the political organization assumes the moral
law as a necessary postulate, without which it could not hope
to be effective. As in the case of every association of in-
1919.] A CRY IN THE SPRINGTIME 45
dividuals for the welfare of the whole, the success of the
League will depend upon the extent to which its members are
ready to impose upon themselves the self-denial essential to
cooperation. Whether the nations will be willing to make the
necessary sacrifices of their material interests, is'for the future
to show; the opportunity is, at least, here given them of making
their ideals effective.
A CRY IN THE SPRINGTIME.
BY EMILY HICKEY.
" // n'y a pas de milieu: la Croix barre plus ou moins la vue libre
de la nature: le grand Pan n'a rien a faire avec le divin Crucifie."
— Sainte Beuve.
AND is it thus, Beloved ? Does Thy cross
Bar Nature out from me ?
Dare I no longer see
A glory in the green and golden moss,
A worship in the silver river free ?
Alas, that all should be
Banned by the look of Thee!
And I have loved them so,
My own grand hills that met my loving look;
My dusky purple hills of grace that took
The blessed light in opalescent glow,
Or rose against the cloud
With summits calm and proud,
The same in beauty and in strength for aye,
Yet changing every moment day by day.
And oh! my trees of praise!
My chestnuts that I watched through lengthening days,
When the young life throbbed strongly up beneath
The opening resinous sheath:
My firs and larches with their baby cones,
Green fairy beads and pendulous crimson ones —
And all my flowers that rose to greet the spring
With smiles of welcoming:
46 A CRY IN THE SPRINGTIME [April,
My primroses pale-faced, with bosoms clear,
Touched only with the spirit of a hue,
The spirit of a scent; and hyacinths blue,
And wild white windflowers, and the faces dear
Of daffodils that set a poet's heart
A-dance with pleasure as he lay apart.
It is the springtime now, and must I be
Deaf, blind to its delight because of Thee?
Is every bond of Thine a heavy chain ?
The pain Thou tookest nothing more than pain ?
O Rose of Sharon, Rose without a thorn,
O Lily of the vale of perfect spray,
Must all the tender flowers of earth uptorn
Rot with the weeds, like them be cast away ?
O Appletree of shade and fruit divine,
Must all the goodly trees that grew for us
Be cursed and blighted thus
For presence fair of Thine ?
Thy smile reproves vain question; yea, we know
They erred indeed who sought to teach us so.
How shall we but rejoice in Thee alway,
In Thee Who art the source of beauty; in Thee,
Thou primal Beauty, Who hast made us free
Of all the beauty of Thine eternal day.
Thy flowers shall laugh this springtime at our feet;
Thy birds shall pour us music pure and sweet;
Thy gladsome air and sunshine bid us see
Thyself in all things as all things in Thee.
Thou Who didst give Thyself that we might live,
With that best gift all things dost freely give.
Thy cross is not a barrier, Jesus King,
But a great golden gate of entering;
And through that gate we come
To light and loveliness and joy and home.
CLAIRE FERCHAUD: L'ENFANT DBS RINFILLIERES.
BY MAY BATEMAN.
URING the course of the Great War it gradually
came home to the Allies that beside the visible
conflict of great nations, another war was being
waged upon another sphere between the powers
of evil and good — Satan and his dark companies
thrusting upon St. Michael and the mighty hosts. Little by lit-
tle the world began to realize that a holy war had to be won ulti-
mately by holy means; that the power of arms must have be-
hind it the full weight of penitence and prayer; that nothing
less than the whole armory of the citadel of Faith had to be
brought to bear upon the titanic conflict, and the national soul
humbly laid bare before it could be shriven, like any individual
soul. Nicanor was defeated by men of Judas " fighting with
their hands, but praying with their hearts,"1 and to deny
prayer to our men in their tremendous ordeal was to withhold
from them love's supreme gift.
The call to national prayer and penitence is thejceynote of
Claire Ferchaud's mission — too often misunderstood — I'Enfant
des Rinfillieres, whose name is known throughout France, and
to the far homes of her Allies, and even to the prison camps of
Germany.
Hidden within that narrowing point of the Department of
Deux-Sevres which borders Maine et Loire on the one side and
La Vendee on the other, you will find — marked on large-scale
sectional maps alone — a small town called Loublande, in the
commune of Puy-St. Bonnet, between Mortagne and La Tes-
souale. It is twelve kilometres away from the nearest railway
station, and has five hundred and nine inhabitants. Even more
difficult of access, and infinitely more secluded, separated from
Loublande by a stream which at times breaks bounds and over-
flows its rustic bridge, made of two tree trunks held by a cross-
branch, lies the hamlet of les Rinfillieres, Claire Ferchaud's
home.
Standing there upon the hillside and looking out upon the
*2 Maccabees xv. 27.
48 CLAIRE FERCHAUD [April,
lovely panorama that carries eye and mind to unknown deeps,
you feel the current of strength and mystery with which the
atmosphere is charged. If stones could speak, what echoes
would reverberate in this dramatic region, where the pure
flame of sacrifice has continuously kept the altar of faith burn-
ing throughout the ages. Exteriorly, it is a land of peace and
plenty, a " goodly heritage " of fields and pasture. But the
ghostly world-forces of love, mystery, zeal, and passion play
on it from every side. Turn where you will, you meet with
hallowed places; the ripe corn springs from soil steeped in the
blood of " that race of giants," as Napoleon called the pesans 2
who fought with such desperate ardor to keep the Faith,
going into battle as they were with their farm implements and
coarse jerkins, but with the scapulary of the Sacred Heart on
their breasts and their faces pale with the grim passion of
ecstasy. Soft contours and tender outlines, of Poitou and
Vendee, stretch before the human eye, threaded by the shin-
ing water of the Sevre-Nantaise River, fertilizing and enriching
the soil — rising hills, across which winds, so pure that they
seem to have the spray of the sea within them, play; hedges of
furze, blackberry, and holly. In places like this God's voice
may well be heard, even by human ears. For the prayers of
the martyrs, which do not die with death, still rise from the
white winding roads where countless religious were struck
down in the Revolution and their limbs hacked off while the
bodies were yet warm.
There below is the spire of the Mother House of La Sagesse
Convent, which gave so many victims to the cause. The nuns
were thrust out of the convent in the Revolution, murdered in
certain cases in the open road, wounded by sabre cuts, and left
to die; in others, starved, imprisoned, exiled; publicly exposed
on the scaffold, with the carcan iron collar weighting their
necks, before being condemned to spend another ten years in
irons ; guillotined. Back to their broken home, undaunted, those
who were left of the original small band returned, at the first
opportunity, to live amongst its ruins until Napoleon helped
them raise the walls anew. A little way off the towers of Saint
Laurent-sur-Sevre stand out against the blue, with its tomb of
Blessed Grignon de Montfort, the missionary-founder of the
Order of La Sagesse, whose burning words woke the dead soul
2 Peasants.
1919.] CLAIRE FERCHAUD
49
to life, as with the hand of death upon him he traveled on,
preaching and exhorting huge crowds of followers.
To this land of golden memories Claire Ferchaud was born
on May 5, 1896.
The Ferchauds come of a fine stock of peasants; strong,
hardy, sensible folk, who never leave the commune except at
duty's call. Rigid in faith, like nearly all their neighbors, a
psychologist describes them as " solid and firm as the flint of
their own country." The present generation consists of six
members, three sons and three daughters. The two elder sons
joined up in the first hour of mobilization. The third boy at-
tends the village school at Loublande. The eldest sister is a
professed nun at the Convent of La Sagesse, 1'Hotel Dieu,
Nantes; the third daughter works on the farm at home, where
Claire helped her daily until the end of 1916 and afterwards
for a period.
A bare hundred yards from the farm buildings stands a
humble chapel built by the Ferchaud family forty-six years
ago in obedience to a vow. The scourge of typhoid fever was
ravaging the whole commune, and many of the household had
actually succumbed to the epidemic when the son of the house
was taken ill. His young wife was then expecting her first
baby, and Madame Herault, the mother-in-law, promptly car-
ried her off for safety to St. Pierre des Echaubrognes, her old
home, where the baby, Claire's father, was born. Hearing the
news when — being in a state of high fever — he was unaccount-
able for his actions, Jean Ferchaud left Rinfillieres, trying to
find wife and child. Half way he fell unconscious on the road.
Later in the day some peasants passing by recognized him and
carried him on to Echaubrognes, although despairing of his
life. When consciousness returned and he found that not only
he but his wife and child were also alive and well, he made a
vow to dedicate five hundred francs to the erection of a tiny
chapel at Rinfillieres in honor of Notre Dame de la Garde.
But time passed, and first one difficulty and then another
delayed the keeping of the vow. The Cure at Puy-St. Bonnet
was naturally anxious that the money should go towards the
chapel at Chene-Rond But Madame Ferchaud, who by now
had a family of five, boldly urged its spiritual claims in writing
upon none other than the Bishop of Poitiers himself. Puy-St.
Bonnet was so far. , . It was often impossible to get to the
VOL. CIX. 4
50 CLAIRE FERCHAUD [April,
parish church at Loublande, because the stream became quite
impassable at times. . . . The simple appeal touched the
Bishop's heart, and he authorized the construction of the Rin-
fillieres chapel, which, homely and plain, capable of holding
not more than ten to a dozen persons at a time, with a stone
cross above the entrance and a few statues on niches, is now
the centre of such widespread devotion that it has been visited
by more than two hundred thousand pilgrims in less than
eighteen months.3
Gallants in the world of adventure always travel light. The
lucky " third son " of folklore, the fortune-favored peasant of
fairy-legend, the knight-errant of chivalry all set out hot-foot
and alone upon their quests, with little more than a knapsack
apiece to hamper speed. ... So the mystic, seeking God, leaves
one by one behind him on his way the weight of earthly posses-
sions, whose weight delays him on that greatest of all wonder-
journeys.
Claire Ferchaud, very young, weighed human and eternal
gifts in the balance, and " sunk herself in God," in Dante's in-
imitable phrase. Outwardly, she did nothing to make her re-
markable amongst her friends and companions; she appeared
to live the ordinary everyday life, and took her full share in
the hard routine work of house and farm, work which became
much heavier when war broke out, and farm servants and sons
of the house were alike called up. At school, far from evincing
any special aptitude for learning, she merely had the ordinary
" primary " education and took no certificates. But " he who
knows best how to carry his cross, even though he should not
know the first letters of the alphabet, is the most learned of
all." 4 She was not deficient, but her bent of mind lay in other
directions. A doctor who examined her at Gholet when grow-
ing interest in le fait de Loublande made such a course ad-
visable, pronounced her perfectly balanced, both physically
and mentally normal.
The women of Gholet are famed for their good looks, and
Claire Ferchaud's oval face and refined features make for
beauty. Farm work often tends to thicken the figure, but she
is svelte and slender, of medium height, " smiling when she
talks to you, but sad in repose," according to the testimony of
a life-long friend.
"Monsignor Joseph Guyot. * Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort.
1919.] CLAIRE PERCH AUD 51
At eight years old she made her first Communion, and
from that time onwards practised frequent Communion. When
she was about thirteen years old she was first made aware of
the occasional Presences of Invisible Companions Who guided
and instructed her. She told her confessor about them, but
he, with habitual prudence, strove rather to discourage than
strengthen her belief; in any case he forbade her to speak of
the visions as yet to anybody but himself. When war broke
out she began to practise daily Communion, and from thence-
forward never failed in her purpose.
And now the visions became more and more frequent, and
were the source of definite directions and commands. . . . Her
promise held good, and never by word or look did even those
who were most intimate with her, who loved her best, gather
that she believed herself to be in any sense set apart from others
or spiritually privileged. Night after night, when the household
was asleep, she would keep vigil until early dawn in the very
room where her younger sister was sleeping; praying, listen-
ing, seeing, filling page upon page of the rough copybooks,
which were all she had, with writings which have been de-
scribed by experts as of exceptional beauty and doctrinal
accuracy. Their facility and depth, conviction and literary
style seem to point to direct inspiration, and have even been
likened to the work of such incomparable writers as St. Teresa
and Bossuet. When morning broke, no matter how rough
the weather, how high the stream that separated Loublande
from Rinfillieres, nor whether snow lay thick upon the ground
or the water had turned to ice or torrential rains were falling,
she would make her way undaunted to Loublande for her daily
Communion. If there were no other means of getting across,
she would take shoes and stockings off and wade. " The stream
will be swollen but what of that. I will cross it for I must have
my Jesus." 5
But with her, in exquisite communion, there went at times,
it is said, her guardian angel, Our Lady, and the Sacred Heart
— Our Lord Himself— tenderly preparing the way of the little
white soul that gave itself more and more completely into
their care.
In 1689, Margaret Mary Alacoque, a nun of Paray-le-
Monial, was chosen by the Sacred Heart as the apostle of that
*Fleurs-de-Lys. Aout, 1917.
52 CLAIRE FERCHAUD [April,
great devotion. " She received from heaven a sublime and
national commission, like to that of her warrior sister, Joan of
Arc, but even loftier and more extensive." 6 The reign of
love and triumph — in other words, the reign of the Sacred
Heart — was to be inaugurated in France, and, through
France, in the world, by means of a special feast, the erection
of a temple in honor of the Sacred Heart, the addition of Its
divine emblem on the National Standard, and a solemn act of
national consecration, made publicly by its head (at that time
Louis XIV.). The King, duly informed of the message through
Marie-Beatrice d'Este, wife of James II. of England, who was
then at a convent in Chaillot, totally ignored the divine com-
mands. " The queen, Marie Leczinska, the wife of Louis XV.,
wrote of it to the Sovereign Pontiff. Her pious daughter em-
broidered magnificent decorations with the emblem of the
Sacred Heart (one may be seen at Montmartre), and the
Dauphin erected a chapel in the Palace of Versailles to this
same Heart, but he died without being king, for the days were
not yet fulfilled. Louis XVI. dreamed, but too late to realize
the ' great designs,' as Margaret Mary called them. The scaf-
fold left him no time." 7
The Feast of the Sacred Heart is an established fact. Of
the three other commands, the first is wholly realized. The
two others are on the way to realization. This appears to be
Claire Ferchaud's mission. In 1873 a majority of three hun-
dred and eighty-two against one hundred and thirty-eight in
the National Assembly voted for the National Monument to be
erected on the holy hill of France, the hill of the Martyrs,
Montmartre, in fulfillment of the vow of 1870. And on the
twenty-sixth of July, 1914 ... on the esplanade of the city of
miracles,8 in presence of the Pope's delegate, six Cardinals, two
hundred bishops, twenty thousand priests and an immense
crowd, the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Amette
announced the completion of the church and its approaching
consecration on October 17th of the same year, the feast of
the blessed heroine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
" Eight days later the War broke out." 9
The addition of the Sacred Heart to the National Standard
would represent, it is clear, an act of faith on the part of the
8 Deux Regnes. T Deux Regnes. 8 Lourdes.
9 Deux Regnes. " Our wrestling is not against flesh and Llood, but against prin-
cipalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of darkness." — Eph. vi. 12.
1919.] CLAIRE FERCHAUD
53
entire nation. The promise made originally to Blessed Mar-
garet Mary and renewed, so many believe, to I'Enfant des
Rinfillieres, is that victory over the enemies of the country
should follow the national change of heart, of which this would
be the outward symbol.
Many, naturally, will scoff at the idea of any such message
being delivered in these " enlightened days." The entry of the
supernatural into everyday life, the lifting of the veil between
this little world of ours and the great world beyond is hard to
realize. There are still more doubters than believers
to be found today. Suffering and loss have not yet opened all
blind eyes. There are many who " deny the vision of God in
their fellow-men and fellow-nations even when the spikes of
the cross are visibly tearing wounds in their feet and hands." 10
But, on the other hand, man after man, come home from
the front, will tell you that the help given to himself and to his
companions in the critical hour was no human help. And "over
there " you will hear stories of the " White Comrade " at first
hand; of the little nun who has been seen over and over again
in No-Man's Land and on the battlefield tending the wounded;
of the miracles — not miracle — of the Marne; of the Woman
who stood with her arms outstretched defending Paris, before
whom the Germans retreated. Ask the French who were at
Verdun in what strange way the message which caused them to
be relieved was delivered, and, if they trust you enough to tell
you, you will hear tales which the world might well disbelieve.
"The supernatural abounds in the lives of saints; the
supernatural still illuminates all human life when God per-
mits." " It is not the fact that he sees clearly now which
amazes the man who has looked without shrinking upon the
three mysteries of life, death, and eternity, but remembrance,
rather, of that hour when, in the dark, he groped amongst ma-
terial things and never saw the open shining way.
In the early days of November, 1916, Claire Ferchaud ob-
tained permission from the nuns at La Sagesse Convent, St.
Laurent-sur-Sevre, to make a retreat there in absolute seclu-
sion. She remained with them from November 6th to the 20th.
And at the end of that period her public life began.
What actually happened during that solemn fortnight of
initiation is not made public yet, and may never be made pub-
10 Out to Win. By Coningsby Dawson. u Bulletin Paroissial de MauUvrier.
54 CLAIRE FERCHAUD [April,
lie but when I'Enfant des Rinfillieres reappeared she was
transformed. For she knew definitely now what she was called
upon to do. The habitual grave sweetness of former days was
accentuated, and with it was a new dignity and certitude. The
humble peasant girl spoke, it was said, " with the tongue of an
angel." There was upon her a radiance as if she had bathed in
the Pool of Siloam.
News spread in the district with extraordinary rapidity;
spread beyond the district, far and wide. Claire Ferchaud
was a visionary; she had received messages from heaven and
direct prophecies about the War. Neighbors, in awed groups,
exchanged reminiscences. They recalled her docility, the faith-
fulness and simple goodness of her ways, her supreme faith.
. . . She had never drawn attention to herself, even in church, by
any obvious "ecstasy," but mixed with friends and companions
naturally and simply as a young girl would. Yet, remember-
ing the rare sweetness of her smile when they came upon her
unexpectedly, working in the fields or walking home from
Mass in the early morning hours, they — looking out with won-
dering eyes upon their " dear familiar world," every tufted tree
and hedgerow of which was known to them — found it not
hard to believe that here, in their very midst, I'Enfant des Rin-
fillieres had " walked with God."
Incredibly soon the road converging on Loublande became
packed with vehicles of every description and foot passengers.
Bicycles, auto-cars, old-fashioned one-horse carriages, farm-
carts, broughams, two-seaters, motor-cycles appeared in turn.
The fields were trodden down. Journalists, high ecclesiastics,
officers, poilus, nuns in coifs, little families in deep mourn-
ing, strangers from distant countries, tramped in long serried
lines across them to the rough way of Rinfillieres, some drawn
by idle curiosity, but more by faith, to " catch a glimpse " of the
visionary if possible; if not, merely to pray where she had
prayed.
The poise of an ordinary girl might well have been dis-
turbed by all this attention. But Claire Ferchaud directed
prayers and petitions alike to their rightful source. " I, to save
France ! " she wrote to an aunt. " It will not be done by me, nor
human means. If France is saved, God alone will do it." 12
From that time forward events moved with rapidity
"Le T6l6gramme de Toulouse, May, 1917.
1919.] CLAIRE FERCHAUD 55
towards the inevitable goal. And meanwhile Loublande grew
to be as a little Bethlehem of devotion. The Church exercised
its authority and acted swiftly. The matter of the " writings "
had been brought before the Bishop of Poitiers. It will be
remembered that Claire Ferchaud's director had} been in-
formed throughout of the course of the visions, but that she
was not allowed to mention them except to him. The " writ-
ings " which from time to time, under obedience, she had kept,
amounted by now to a formidable document.
An ecclesiastical commission of some of the most learned
theologians of the day was duly appointed to look into the
case, and Claire Ferchaud — who until now had never traveled
further than a few miles from home — was forthwith sum-
moned to appear at Poitiers, there to be interrogated and ex-
amined with the greatest precision on the supernatural favors
of which she had been the object, just as blessed Joan of Arc
was in the past. Rumor says that she was examined in the
same room as the Maid was, on December 27 and 28, 1916.
"What struck the commission more forcibly than any
other marvel," writes M. Etienne Garnier, in Le Telegramme
de Toulouse of March 24, 1917, " were the five to six hundred
pages written by the young girl; the evidence of her lack of
education is given by mistakes in spelling . . . but the subjects
are treated not only in an irreproachable manner as to doc-
trine, but with a felicity of expression, a richness of style, and
a loftiness of thought that is admirable and proper to inspired
Doctors and mystics."
"The writings are irreproachable from the theological
point of view, extremely elevated, and obviously surpassing
the natural scope of a peasant The girl herself is worthy of
the highest regard. ... As to the * mission,' proofs alone can
decide it . . ." wrote an eminent priest.
Shortly afterwards, accompanied by her father, a priest,
and a notable personage from Tours, Claire Ferchaud left
home, strictly incognito, one night for Paris. Through the
kind offices of Monsieur de Psaudry d'Assou, deputy for La
Vendee, she was admitted to an audience with Monsieur
Poincare himself. The President received her with the great-
est consideration and kindness, and listened to her appeal that,
in obedience to the Divine Will, the emblem of the Sacred
Heart should be forthwith placed on the banners of France.
56 CLAIRE FERCHAUD [April,
A priest writes that "Monsieur Poincare answered that this
was beyond his powers; he could do nothing without the per-
mission of the Chamber. . . . But he sent her away saying that
she had done right to come, and that she had acted ' in good
faith,' both as a patriot and a Christian. . . ."
During this visit and a subsequent one it is said that Claire
Ferchaud asked that a certain French General should be again
called to the service, who has since led his troops to brilliant
successes on different occasions, and that she further indicated
places where intrigue and treason existed, the truth of which
has been proved by the verdict of actual public trials.
But in questions like these, where friends and foes alike
damage a cause by exaggeration or misrepresentation, the pru-
dent man or woman will prefer to wait until such time as defi-
nite results, side by side with the actual prophecies, can be
given authoritatively to the world. For obvious political rea-
sons this cannot be yet. It is known, however, that on May
18, 1917, I'Enfant des Rinfillieres addressed a letter to every
French General at the front, urging them, as an act of faith, to
display the banner of the Sacred Heart, not only to obtain vic-
tory over the invading enemy, but also over the interior enemy,
which was at enmity with Faith. Officially, this has not been
done, but it is an open secret that not only many of the
French but also many of the Allies' soldiers wore the little
button or medal of the Sacred Heart.
To those who know what scrupulous care the Church ex-
ercises in such questions as the " cause " of Claire Ferchaud,
its prolonged delay in giving judgment will not come as a
surprise. Years passed, in the case of the apparition at
Lourdes, for example, before the Bishop of Tarbes allowed his
priests to visit the grotto, and numbers of cures were definitely
established on a firm medical basis, having successfully passed
the test of time, before any sort of ecclesiastical recognition
was authoritatively given to the cult. "Work was," indeed,
" done with such calm deliberation that the first episcopal re-
port was only published four years after the first appari-
tion." 13 But facts speak for themselves, and a categorical
arrangement may make them clearer still.
(1) To begin with, not only was "the cause retained,"
but it is still subject to serious examination.
18 Lourdes. By George Bertrin.
191V/.] CLAIRE FERCHAUD
57
(2) Since February 4, 1917, there has been exhibited for
public veneration in the parish church at Loublande, with the
approval of the Bishop of Poitiers, a picture of the Sacred
Heart, painted from the directions of F Enfant des Rinfillieres,
which has been the source of many conversions, and is the ob-
ject of daily pilgrimages. It is framed in dark wood upon
which the Eucharistic emblems are encrusted in silver metal.
Its tragic realism goes straight to the heart. The right hand
is stretched in supplication, but the left points to the Pierced
Heart. And the face itself expresses suffering so deep, so poig-
nant, that few can look at it unmoved. It is a picture of in-
ward torture, " the most beautiful of the children of men, dis-
figured by the Divine Passion," the wounds which sin opens
anew. The tired head inclines a little to the right. Below
is the invocation : " Sacred Heart of Jesus, bruised for our
sins, have mercy on us."
Candles burn incessantly before it, and both aboVe and be-
low the altar is a wonderfully human touch in the shape of
" little boxes containing photographs of soldiers for whom the
Voyante's prayers have been asked."
(3) On May 5, 1917, the following petition was sent out
by the Bishop of Poitiers :
" His Lordship the Bishop of Poitiers recommends his dio-
cesans to sign a general petition directed to the official authori-
ties, to be circulated through France, asking them to place the
emblem of the Sacred Heart upon the national flag."
(4) Finding that a note in his Bulletin of March 25, 1917,
as to Le Fait de Loublande had been misread as " the
classification " of a cause " practically abandoned," the Bishop
of Poitiers once more repeated formally on May 5th in that
year that far from that being the case, the question " was still
before the Commission " and was " being examined with sus-
tained and cautious attention;" that it was in no sense "de-
prived either of interest or gravity."
(5) On June 14, 1917, the Bishop wrote the following
prayer, which was quoted in La Croix des Deux Sevres: " O
God Who is pleased to choose for the accomplishment of Your
will, insignificant instruments, select from among us a tiny
creature, convinced of her nothingness : take from among us a
nothing, a little nothing, and use this nothing to humiliate
once again the wise, the learned and the powerful.
58 CLAIRE FERCHAUD [April,
" 0 Mary . . . help us to make ready the hour of triumph
of the Sacred Heart, which will be also for our Country the
hour of deliverance, of victory, of order, of peace."
(6) At Christmas-time, acting under the Bishop's author-
ity, Claire Ferchaud was permitted to found at Loublande " the
base of a future order of religieuses, victims of the Sacred
Heart, . . . acting for the time being as workers for churches
in neighboring districts. The companions of Claire . . . are,
like her, dressed in black, and only go out to the offices at
Loublande or to the little sanctuary of Rinfillieres. They walk
through the streets without speaking to anyone, and live in
prayer and penitence." 14 At Loublande, amongst others, there
is at least one English lady who has been there for several
months, and who had a Sacred Heart embroidered upon the
English flag with the intention that it should be exhibited at
Loublande during the Feast of the Sacred Heart this past year.
(7) In the Semaine Religieu.se of Poitiers, March 24, 1918,
the Bishop publishes the following official statements : " In
view of the increasing numbers of pious people who come to
the church of Loublande for the First Friday of every month we
have authorized M. le Cure to celebrate the offices solemnly.
For the same reason an assistant will be given him each
month "
La Croix des Deux-Sevres in its issue of March 31, 1918,
makes the following comment on this communication : " The
importance of this laconic official communication will not
escape anyone. It is the ecclesiastical recognition of le fait
de Loublande, where the crowd of faithful continue to come as
at first." 15
On June 7th last, more than twelve thousand pilgrims trav-
eled to this little out-of-the-way spot, there to join in the
great ceremonies of the vigil and feast. Benediction was given
a little before midnight. At the midnight Mass, which was of-
fered in the open, at an altar hard by the great Calvary which
stands at the entrance of the village there were more than a
hundred communicants. A procession of torch-bearers accom-
panied the Blessed Sacrament back to the church, where It
was exposed throughout the noctural Adoration.
14 Bulletin paroissial de Bou.rbon-La.ncy.
15 The Bishop of Poitiers has now suppressed all meetings and ceremonies at
Loublande which he had previously authorized, in order to leave the Holy Office
unprejudiced.
1919.] CLAIRE FERCHAUD 59
" The Masses recommenced at three in the morning. Thou-
sands received Holy Communion. At the eight o'clock Mass
Claire Ferchaud and her five companions dressed in black,
wearing a crucifix around their necks, communicated. Then
they returned to their work-room, decorated with the French
colors, the escutcheon of the Sacred Heart and the standard of
Joan of Arc."
Amongst those who took part in that great festival were
mud-bespattered poilus straight from the trenches, Generals
on leave, with rows of medals on their breasts, strangers from
far Carcassonne, Toulouse, Beziers, Bordeaux, even American
soldiers and a few English folk.
The story of Claire Ferchaud, I'Enfant des Rinfillieres, is
only just begun. Like all wonderful stories, it has no human
ending. It is part of a great mystery; a link in the chain that
binds this world with " over there," and " over there " with
eternity.
For the mission is no material mission, but a direct call
to the soul. And to see in it nothing but prophecy relating
to human fulfillment is to miss all that is finest in it. Lou-
blande has been called " a little corner of heaven, the chosen
spot of life-long dreams." . . . "Beloved land of La Vendee,'*
writes one who knows it well, " the safety of our dear country
will come through you, by means of the Sacred Heart."
Out of agony peace dawns, we humbly hope, for our be-
loved; washed in flame is the track made by those who have
gloriously " passed while trumpets sounded on the other side."
But if Faith is to renew us as a nation, we must apply it to all
life — not a mere part — and the War will have taught us little or
nothing nationally, for all its pain, if we do not realize with
Claire Ferchaud the part that prayer and penitence play in
the great issue, and that they are invincible arms. Away in
far Loublande at this very hour, tender voices of supplication
rise to God on our behalf: "Sacred Heart of Jesus, bruised
for our sins, have mercy on us."
" The voice of him that humbleth himself shall pierce the
clouds " is the divine promise which cannot fail.
SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN.
BY BROTHER LEO.
HAT gives an added fascination and an element of
pathos to many of the products of nature and
of art is their all too obvious evanescence.
Beautiful beyond words are the rich and varied
hues glinting among the pansies beneath our
window this golden afternoon; but tomorrow those identic
hues will have gone forever. Alluring, haunting, inspiring is
the face that for a fleeting moment we glimpse in the throng-
ing street; do we seek another glance, the face has passed on
or a new light falls upon it or an unsuspected angle throws it
out of drawing, and what was a moment ago a thing of beauty
is now but the commonplace projection of a commonplace
soul. Wise are we to drink in unstintedly the glories of the
sun setting in the western sea, for never, through countless
eons, shall we behold a sunset with precisely its majesty and
promise. An earnest of God's abiding beauty and heaven's
unending delight we find in the laughing skies of autumn and
the faultlessly rendered symphony; but often — sometimes, alas,
we feel too often! — the transitory quality of their exquisite
charms serves to remind us with what seems unneeded em-
phasis that we have not here a lasting city. This is a theme
much sung of poets little and great, from Villon who asks hope-
lessly where abide the snows of yesteryear to Herrick who
laments the passing of the violet's velvet glow; from Horace
who none too gently admonishes Lyce of her fading beauty to
Shakespeare and Calderon who mourn the briefness of the
player's strutting during his hectic hour in the theatre of the
world.
And so it is that the stage, which has been happily styled
the meeting place of all the arts, lacks the quality of perma-
nence. Some of us, born out of due time, have never been
privileged to see the great Edwin Booth; and never shall we be
able to make good our loss. However responsively we pore
over the tributes paid him by so stimulating and judicious
an admirer as the late William Winter, however wholesouledly
1919.] SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN 61
we listen to our elders who assure us that Booth was the one
Hamlet, supreme and unapproachable, that the stage has
known, however sedulously we thumb his prompt books and
study his portraits, we shall never pluck out the heart of his
mystery. It is something that has gone, never to return, a
thing of naught but memory or surmise, like a toccata of
Galuppi's or yesterday's sunrise on Mont Blanc or the Rheims
Cathedral of 1914.
If this is true of a relatively modern actor like Booth, it is
even more poignantly true of stage artists of an earlier day.
Captivating and fruitful though it be to dip into such books as
Baker's English Actors, Clark Russell's Contemporary Actors
and Fie ay's History of the Stage, the experience is almost de-
pressing; for how little, how pathetically little, can we learn
of the men and women who once held audiences spellbound
and made the printed word a living thing through gesture,
voice and presence. It was the leaping glow of personality
that gave their performances potency and charm, and nowhere
can we find that Promethean heat that can its light relume. Yet
a tribute, deep and generous, is due those enthusiasts, both
scholarly and popular, who seek to revive something of the
stage's past, who strive to re-create the conditions under which
dramatic masterpieces were first presented, who labor at the
almost impossible, yet intensely appealing, task of bringing
back the thespians who first interpreted speeches that the
world declares immortal.
Just three hundred years ago there died in London
Shakespeare's leading man, Richard Burbage. An enticing
myth, persisting through three centuries, maintains that he was
born at Stratf ord-on-Avon, that he and Shakespeare were play-
mates at the Stratford Guild School, and that as boys they laid
the foundations of the friendship and artistic partnership
which endured until the .death of the dramatist in 1616. The
few facts we possess relative to Richard Burbage do not sub-
stantiate this theory. A family of that name did live in Strat-
ford, and a certain John Burbage was bailiff there in 1556; but
the Burbages from whom the actor came were of Hertford-
shire descent. When Richard's brother applied for a grant of
arms in 1634, he made no mention of Warwickshire ancestors.
Shakespeare and Burbage met for the first time in London
when both were grown men. The earliest record of their pro-
62 SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN [April,
fessional connection dates from December, 1594, when, with
the comedian William Kemp, they are mentioned by the
treasurer of the royal chamber as having appeared at Green-
wich Palace in " two several comedies or interludes showed
by them before her majesty in Ghristmastide last passed,
viz., upon St. Stephen's Day and Innocents' Day." 1 It is
certain, however, that Shakespeare and Burbage had been mem-
bers of the Lord Chamberlain's Company for some time before
their appearance at Greenwich, and that their friendship was
severed only by death. In his will Shakespeare bequeathed
Burbage and two other actors a sum of money to buy them-
selves memorial rings.
Richard Burbage was probably born in Shoreditch, London,
about the year 1567. His father, James Burbage, deserves re-
membrance as a pioneer theatrical manager. Before his time
dramatic performances had been given in open places and in
inn yards, but to him belongs the distinction of constructing the
first theatre in England. This was in 1577; the building was
called the Theatre and was situated in Shoreditch. He made
money and became involved in lawsuits and developed actors
and playwrights and in general led a busy, varied and excite-
ment-crammed life. A rival house of amusement, the Curtain,
caused him some anxiety for a time, but he triumphed over
the competition by opening another theatre toward the end
of 1596. This was the Blackfriars, erected in the confiscated
Dominican priory.
When James Burbage died in 1597, the management of
his theatrical ventures devolved upon his sons, Cuthbert and
Richard. They, too, had their share of lawsuits and business
anxieties, but they contrived to ride out the storms. Richard
must have begun his professional career during his father's
lifetime, and he continued acting for the rest of his life; but
this did not prevent his sharing in Cuthbert's business respon-
sibilities and projects. Giles Allen, from whom James Bur-
bage had leased the ground occupied by the theatre, proved a
temperamental landlord; so toward the end of 1598 the
brothers removed the fabric of the building to the Bankside,
Southwark, where it became the famous Globe Theatre. The
Bankside site was leased for a term of thirty-one years, the
1J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, London, 1898, vol.
i., p. 121. Mrs. C. C. Stopes, in Jahrbuch der Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 1896, xxxii.,
p. 182.
1919.] SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN 63
Burbage brothers assuming the liability, the other half being
shared by five actors, including William Shakespeare and that
John Heminges who, with Henry Gondell, was destined to be
the first editor of Shakespeare's plays. •
The Burbages, while maintaining the Globe as a summer
playhouse, retained control of the Blackfriars— except from
1600 to 1608 when it was rented by the manager of the boy
actors, the Children of the Chapel — and besides directed the
company when, in a phrase still living in theatrical parlance,
it "went on the road." Their path was not rose-strewn,
especially during "the spacious times of great Elizabeth"
when from one cause or another theatrical managers suffered
what often amounted to downright persecution. The
preachers were their inveterate and unrelenting enemies; and
the notion, widely accepted in our own day, that the play-
houses in the time of Shakespeare were sinks of iniquity, is
due less to actual conditions in the theatres than to the spleen
and fanaticism of sundry gentlemen of the cloth. Though
playgoers were numerous, there ran a strong current of opin-
ions against the theatres — bad enough, in all conscience, but by
no means as black as they were painted — and Richard
Burbage and his brother Cuthbert were more than once obliged
to exhaust their resources of ingenuity to keep their business
intact from the interference of meddlesome officials.
Conditions improved vastly upon the accession of James
I., who promptly granted a patent royal to the Globe players,
and the managers who had been so harassed and molested un-
der Elizabeth began to enjoy a measure of freedom. Hence-
forth Burbage and his associates ranked as grooms of the
royal chamber, wore the king's scarlet livery and enjoyed sev-
eral privileges and immunities. It was unquestionably in
recognition of these marks of royal favor that in Macbeth
Shakespeare evolved a Scottish theme, incorporated some of
the well-known views of the king and softened and even glori-
fied the portrait of Banquo, James's reputed ancestor. " With
all their faults," says Mrs. Stopes,2 the Stuarts were the first
real patrons of the drama in this country."
Burbage's only untoward experience with court officials
during the Jacobean era occurred in 1615. From earlier times
actors had been forbidden to present plays during Lent, but
1 Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage, London, 1913, p. 98.
64 SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN [April,
custom had sanctioned the procedure of the master of the
revels who was wont to grant dispensations from the ruling,
except for what were called sermon days. But this year the
Lord Chamberlain issued a special prohibitive order which the
managers either did not understand or chose to ignore. At
all events, Burbage included, they kept the theatres open. The
result was a summons to appear before the privy council, and
Burbage and Heminges were singled out as the Globe repre-
sentatives. The records of the council are silent as to any
hearing of the case, so it is probable that mutual explanations
eased the friction and no punitive measures were invoked
against Burbage and his fellow managers.3
Long before this event the Prospero who evoked the spirits
of fancy and the truth of being from the air and from the sea
had broken his magic staff and retired to his native Warwick-
shire village to live out his remaining years as a respectable
and substantial burgher. Shakespeare thus severed his active
connection with Burbage and the Globe, though he now and
then ran up to London to greet his old comrades of the
stage and witness the premier of a new production. His cou-
sin, Thomas Green, records one such visit in 1615.4 It is likely
that whatever part he had in the composition of King Henry
VIII. was the result of one of those occasional visits to the
metropolis.
The play of King Henry VIIL, otherwise known as All Is
True, has a special association with Richard Burbage and the
Globe, for during an early production of the piece, on the Feast
of St. Peter and St. Paul, 1613, the theatre was destroyed by fire.
Toward the end of the first act the king arrives at Wolsey's
palace to take part in a fancy dress ball where he is destined
to meet the coy Anne Boleyn. The stage management em-
ployed considerable pomp and circumstance; and the details
of the conflagration resulting therefrom are given with delight-
ful fidelity by Sir Henry Wotton : 5
"Now King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal
Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry,
3 Sir Sidney Lee, A Life of William Shakespeare, New York, 1916, p. 451, note.
J. Payne Collier, Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare, Lon-
don, 1846, p. 43.
4 Mrs. Stopes, Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage, p. 113.
5 Sir Sidney Lee, op. cit., pp. 445, 446. Mrs. Stopes, Burbage and Shakespeare's
Stage, pp. 111-112. Halli well-Phillips (op. cit., vol. 11., p. 292), thinks the play was
not Shakespeare's King Henry VIIL
1919.] SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN 65
some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was
stopped did light on the thatch, where being thought at first
but an idle smoke, and their eyes more attentive to the show,
it kindled inwardly, and ran around like a train, consuming
within less than an hour the whole house to the very grounds.
This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric; wherein yet
nothing did perish but wood and straw and a few forsaken
cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would
perhaps have broiled him, if he had not by the benefit of a
provident wit put it out with bottle ale." "It was a marvel
and fair grace of God," declares the pious Winwood, " that
the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to
get out."
This fire, which occasioned the irreparable loss of manu-
script copies of Shakespeare's play, caused a great stir in Lon-
don. Ben Jonson, in his Execration of Vulcan, lamented the
passing of " The Globe, the glory of the Bank," and at least
two other verse writers unburdened themselves of threnodies.
Some lines from A Sonnett upon the pittifull burneing of the
Globe playhouse in London G merit reproduction here:
Now sitt the downe, Melpomene,
Wrapt in a sea-cole robe,
And tell the dolefull tragedie,
That late was playd at Globe;
For noe man that can singe and saye
Was scard on St. Peters daye.
Oh sorrow, pittifull sorrow, and yett all this is true.
All yow that please to understand,
Come listen to my storye,
To see Death with his rakeing brand
Mongst such an auditorye;
Regarding neither Cardinalls might,
Nor yett the rugged face of Henry the eight.
Oh sorrow, pittifull sorrow, and yett all this is true.
This fearfull fire beganne above,
A wonder strange and true,
And to the stage-howse did remove,
As round as taylors clewe;
And burnt down both beame and snagg,
And did not spare the silken flagg.
Oh sorrow, pittifull sorrow, and yett all this is true.
8 Halliwell-Phillips, op. cit., vol. i., pp. 310, 311.
VOL. cix. — 5
66 SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN [April,
Out runne the knightes, out runne the lordes,
And there was great adoe;
Some loste their hattes, and some their swordes;
Then out runne Burbidge too. . . .
To the career of Richard Burbage as an actor we might
apply the words of his distinguished friend and associate,
" One man in his time plays many parts." As early as 1588 he
had an enviable reputation as a player, and his vogue increased
with the years. He played leading roles in Richard Tarleton's
Seven Deadly Sins, Kidd's tragedy of Jeronimo, Marston's Mal-
content, Hey wood's Woman Killed with Kindness, Marlowe's
Edward II. , Webster's Duchess of Malfi, and in several of the
plays of Ren Jonson and of Reaumont and Fletcher. His
Shakespearean parts included Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Macbeth,
Romeo, Rrutus, Shylock, Henry V., Coriolanus and Richard
III. Sometimes, so great was his personal popularity, he ap-
peared in contemporary plays in his own character — a pro-
cedure akin to the present day device of having a favorite
screen star appear on the stage in person.
All too fragmentary are the records of his acting that have
come down to us, but at least they serve to indicate his wide
popularity and histrionic excellence, especially in tragic roles.
Collier7 cites the concluding stanza of a ballad on the story
of Othello found in a manuscript dating from the time of
Charles!.:
Dick Burbage, that most famous man,
That actor without peer,
With this same part his course began,
And kept it many a year.
Shakespeare was fortunate, I trow,
That such an actor had :
If we had but his equal now,
For one I should be glad.
To the judgment that he was "without peer" his con-
temporaries raise not one dissenting voice. The poet is man-
ifestly inaccurate when he tells us that Rurbage began his
career with Shakespeare's Othello, but certainly his imperso-
nation of the Moor added appreciably to his laurels. And even
though we recognize in the attitude of the writer a familiar
bias in favor of the good old days of the drama, with his last
TOp. cit., p. 22.
1919.] SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN 67
two lines we of the twentieth century find ourselves in hearty
agreement.
Burbage achieved his most pronounced success as Shake-
speare's ideal villain in the sublimated melodrama of King
Richard HI. Due largely to the vigor of his rendition, the
famous lines,
A horse a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
became the object both of imitation and parody — indisputable
signs of popularity. Bishop Richard Corbet, in his Iter
Boreale, written about 1618, recounting the tale of Bosworth
Field as given to him by a Leicestershire innkeeper, tells how
mine host, " full of ale and history," associated Burbage with
the battle to the exclusion of the protagonist.
Ben Jonson,8 never a spendthrift of eulogy, characterized
Burbage as "your best actor;" and such was the critical con-
sensus of his times. The actor's death was the occasion of
several lyrical tributes, one of which Halliwell-Phillips 9 takes
from a manuscript preserved in the library of the Earl of
Warwick :
Some skillful limner aid me; if not so,
Some sad tragedian help to express my woe;
But oh, he's gone that could the best both limn
And act my grief. . . .
He's gone, and with him what a world is dead.
The poet, struggling most resolutely with his reluctant muse,
mentions Hamlet and other parts played by Burbage:
Oft have I seen him play this part in jest
So lively that spectators and the rest
Of his sad crew, whilst he but seemed to bleed,
Amazed thought even that he died indeed.
And did not knowledge check me, I should swear
Even yet it is a false report I hear,
And think that he that did so truly feign
Is still but dead in jest to live again;
But now he acts this part, not plays, 'tis known;
Others he played, but acted hath his own.
Another version of the elegy, given in full by Collier,10
• Bartholomew Fair, v. 3. • Op. cit., vol. ii., p. 88. « Op. ciL, pp. 52, 53.
68 SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN [April,
makes mention of " Crookback," " Tyrant Macbeth, with un-
wash'd, bloody hand," and other roles enacted by Burbage.
The Queen of James I., Anne of Denmark, died about the
same time as Richard Burbage; and one verse writer11 in-
directly discloses the vogue the actor enjoyed by reproaching
the people of London for paying more heed to the demise of a
mere player than to the passing of a queen. Occasional hints
in such memorial verses help us to piece out the picture of Bur-
bage on the stage and to realize that he had pondered, as well
as declaimed, that best treatise on the art of vocal expression
ever penned: Hamlet's advice to the players. And there are
other commentaries. Thus Overbury12 praises his modula-
tions of voice and his " full and significant action of body." At
greater length, that mysterious cleric and ineffectual poet,
Richard Flecknoe,13 gives a helpful taste of his quality.
Our conception of Burbage as an actor is aided by an un-
derstanding of the mechanical conditions under which he
worked — mechanical, because even at its best the theatre is
frankly a compromise between art and mechanics. The most
poetical speech may be blasted by a slip of the tongue, the
most dramatic situation ruined by an awkwardly handled
sword. A chair that creaks, a gun that misses fire, a castle wall
that sways in the wind — any one of thousands of mechanical
possibilities may make or mar the production. If such is the
case today, when the appointments of the stage are under the
eye and hand of electricians, carpenters, scenic artists,
modistes and other specialists, what must have been the en-
vironment in the days of Richard Burbage?
Perhaps the essential difference is this: In the days of
Burbage both actor arid audience gave and expected more ex-
ercise of imagination and less mechanical perfection, while in
our time less demand is made on the artists and more on the
artisan. We want doors with " practicable " knobs and locks,
genuine cut glass vases and authentic axminster rugs, real
viands on real plates and real water in a real bucket. We have
been rendered literal-minded and unimaginative by David
Belasco and the movies. With Burbage's auditors it was far
otherwise. They came to the Globe — many of them unkempt
and ill-smelling enough, to be sure — with imaginations afire
"Collier, op. cit., p. 56; Mrs. Stopes, Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage, p. 117.
13 Quoted in Dictionary of National Biography, art., Burbage.
18 Short Discourse of the English Stage, originally appended to the tragi-comedy,
Love's Kingdom, 1664. Reprinted in Hazlitt's English Drama and Stage, 1869.
1919.] SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN 69
and intellects athirst. They needed no natural trees in their
forest of Arden, no cunningly daubed canvas to represent the
coast of Bohemia. A spoken word or a rudely lettered placard
was sufficient to transfer them to Ophelia's grave from the bat-
tlements of Elsinore, to the Rialto in Venice from Portia's
house in Belmont. But they did insist on having the lines of
the play read by actors capable of rendering the spirit of the
scene depicted, they did insist on having their ready imagina-
tions kindled at the torch of art. They didn't talk much about
art, but they knew what they liked.
Austin Dobson, in his own inimitable way, has reproduced
the environment of the playhouses that Shakespeare and Bur-
bage knew in the following quotable verses : 14
When Burbage played, the stage was bare
Of fount and temple, tower and stair;
Two backswords eked a battle out,
Two supers made a rabble rout,
The Throne of Denmark was a chair!
And yet, no less, the audience there
Thrilled through all changes of Despair,
Hope, Anger, Fear, Delight and Doubt,
When Burbage played!
This is the Actor's gift,— to share
All moods, all passions, nor to care
One whit for scene, so he without"
Can lead men's minds the roundabout
Stirred as of old these hearecs were,
When Burbage played!
The art of dramatic interpretation, as distinguished from
our so-called natural method in acting, was in favor. The
actor found himself not on a lavishly furnished picture-frame
stage with his audience compactly massed in front of him in
padded armchairs, but on a long, narrow platform, practically
devoid of adornment, that extended out among the spectators
huddled together in the uncovered pit and sometimes seated on
the stage itself. And he found the audience appreciative,
doubtless, when he stirred their souls, but impatient and out-
spoken when he fell short of their expectations. More than
one knight of the sock and buskin, less gifted and experience^
"Poems on Several Occasions, New York, 1889, p. 262.
70 SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN [April,
than Richard Burbage, was compelled to retreat precipitously
to the 'tiring-room to the accompaniment of cat calls and
partly eaten apples. That was dramatic criticism, feral and
primitive but lucid and efficacious.
Dr. W. J. Lawrence 15 and other modern investigators have
exercised ripe scholarship and commendable ingenuity in re-
constructing for us the mechanical conditions under which
Burbage played; but the most valuable source of information
remains the plays of Shakespeare. In the prologues and
epilogues, in the meagre stage directions and in such sug-
gestive passages as Hamlet's speech to the players, we have
vivid and first hand commentaries on the rudimentary scenery,
the incongruous through often elaborate costumes, the incen-
tives to windy elocution, the restlessness of the groundlings
and the necessity of fertile and dynamic imagination in both
actors and audience. Actors who succeeded in those days
were great actors, and Richard Burbage was greatest of them
all.
Besides his recognized ability as an actor and his con-
siderable success as manager and producer, Richard Burbage
enjoyed some repute as an artist. It is a safe surmise that he
designed the costumes for many of his productions. Did he
by any chance paint the portrait of his friend Shakespeare?
Both the Chandos and the Felton portrait of the dramatist
have been attributed to him,16 but on dubious authority; and
Collier, more ingeniously than convincingly, opines that he
painted the original of the Droeshout engraving which was
printed as the frontispiece for the First Folio edition of the
plays. Alleged specimens of his pictorial skill — one of them
the portrait of a woman — are preserved at Dulwich College.17
In 1613 and again in 1616 his services were secured to paint an
impresa or heraldic device for the Earl of Rutland. On the for-
mer of these occasions Shakespeare collaborated with him, re-
ceiving forty-four shillings in gold for his part of the work;18
and the fact has an added interest inasmuch as it suggested to
uThe Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1912 and
1913.
" Sir Sidney Lee, op. cit., pp. 453, 532, 535.
" Mrs. Slopes, Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage, p. 108.
"Dr. S. A. Tannenbaum, The Dial, October 14, 1915; Mrs. Stopes, Burbage and
Shakespeare's Stage, p. 109; Sir Sidney Lee, op. cit., pp. 453, 454. In her Elizabethan
and Shakespearean Fragments, New York, 1915, Mrs. Stopes identifies the Shake-
speare of the impresa with a London bit-maker possessing the same surname!
1919.] SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN 71
Dr. Karl Bleibtreu, and to M. Gelestin Demblon of the Univer-
site Nouvelle of Brussels, the preposterous Rutland theory of
Shakespearean authorship.19
It may prove comforting to stage aspirants whose genius
is not a matter of inches to learn that, like David Garrick and
Edmund Kean, Richard Burbage was short in stature. Two
brief passages from Kidd's Jeronimo,
My mind's a giant, though my bulk be small,
and
I'll not be long away;
As short my body, long shall be my stay,
have an evident application to Burbage who played the title
role in that tragedy. As the years went on, Burbage, like so
many more recent ladies and gentlemen of his profession, had
cause to lament the copious plenty of his " too too solid flesh."
The speech of the queen in the last scene of Hamlet,
He's fat and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows,
was conceivably inserted as a palpable hit at the physical
amplitude of Shakespeare's leading man.
In private life Richard Burbage was a respectable mar-
ried citizen and the father of six children, most of whom died
young. A boy born shortly after the death of Shakespeare in
1616 was named William; and it is not impossible that Bur-
bage's daughter Anne had for godmother that Mistress Anne
Shakespeare, nee Hathaway, whom the poet in the days of his
youth had wooed and won in sylvan Shottery. Considering
the social status of actors in England during the sixteenth and
early seventeenth century and the bitter attacks launched
against playhouses and players by the self-constituted moral
censors of the times; considering, too, the unequivocal im-
morality of many of the plays that found favor and the dis-
orderly lives of many of the men connected with the stage, it is
gratifying to find the record of Richard Burbage free from
stain. A bit of gossip preserved in John Manningham's diary
and reproduced in the Dictionary of National Biography and
elsewhere reflects discreditably on both Burbage and Shake-
speare; but Mrs. Stopes 20 argues — and, I think, persuasively—
19 C/. Demblon, Lord Rutland est Shakespeare, Paris, 1913.
80 Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage, p. 244.
72 SHAKESPEARE'S LEADING MAN [April.
that the episode, if it ever occurred at all, is susceptible of an
innocent interpretation. It is pleasing to know that Burbage
had high professional ideals and high personal standards;
that in a day when loose living and salacious speech were as-
sumed to be identified with the theatres, "our English
Roscius," as later authorities assure us, was " never scurri-
lous."
Such was the man who first interpreted the noble lines of
Shakespeare's tragedies, who first recited, "To be or not to
be;" who first uttered the impassioned query, " Hath not a Jew
eyes? " who first revealed the oratorical possibilities of Henry
V.'s great rallying speech, " Once more unto the breach, dear
friends, once more! " Such was the man who fashioned some
of our universally accepted conceptions of Shakespearean
characters and founded some of the most enduring traditions
of the Shakespearean stage. Such was the man who in-
spired this quaint, anonymous epitaph:
This Life's a play, sceaned out by Nature's Arte,
Where every man hath his allotted parte.
This man hath now (as many men can tell)
Ended his part, and he hath acted well.
The Play now ended, think his grave to be
The retiring house of his sad Tragedie,
Where to give his fame this, be not afraid,
Here lies the best Tragedian ever played.
VIGNETTES OF WAR.
BY FRANCIS AVELING, S.T.D.
N a former article I have attempted to give some
faint idea, by way of suggestion for the imagina-
tion, of the great number of trades and profes-
sions that are represented, and necessarily so,
in an army. But of the life lived, and the ex-
periences undergone, it is almost impossible to write an ade-
quate description. It and they are so highly colored by the
intensity of the instant, by the violence of the oft-recurring
emotions, by centralization and focussing, so to say, of all in-
terests into a pin's point, that most people find it almost im-
possible to convey what they have tried to convey when speak-
ing of any given crowded moment or pulsing incident which
they have lived " out there." A year is often lived through in
a week, and a single night may seem an eternity long drawn
out. Memory plays us strange tricks. Even the stronger and
more dominating feelings have a tendency to fade out rapidly.
And one often feels that one is recounting in a colorless and
unreal fashion what, when it was actually lived, had every
fibre of his being tense and taut as harp strings, thrilling and
vibrating to the unusual violence. It may serve none the less to
bring to the mind of the reader in some slight degree the
kaleidoscopic character of an army at work to sketch in three
or four scenes and incidents, the like of which were to be
found, all up and down the front and in the back areas of the
army in France.
NIGHT BOMBING.
The army, of course, has its Meteorological Officer; but we
were weather experts on our own account in our mess.
The reason for our great devotion to the science was to be
found in the one word — bombs. We have been bombed a good
deal during the past few years, and in the later months the
number of night bombing raids increased considerably.
" Fritz " — or " Jimmy," as our men call the German airmen-
did not relish the welcome he got by day, and flew by night,
when we could not make it so hot for him. I find that one does
74 VIGNETTES OF WAR [April,
not "get used to" bombs. They are "windy" things, and worse
than shells. If the first shell does not hit you, you are reason-
ably able to keep out of the way of succeeding ones, at any rate
in desultory shelling. But bombs, at night, when the airman
is more or less blind, may pitch anywhere. There is just the
horrid drone of the engines — an unholy sound — a rising swish,
as of tearing silk, and an appalling explosion. That you hear
all this, warns you that you are alive; but you begin to wonder
about the target which the next will make.
I propose to describe one small raid, one of the first of per-
sonal experience, and therefore, perhaps, the most vivid in my
mind. It happened a long time — months — ago now. We were
sleeping in Armstrong huts, with but the thickness of canvas
for protection, and had been worried night after night by the
planes and machine guns; but nothing had dropped very near
us. One evening, earlier than usual, the raiders came over.
We were in our Nissen hut office, my Colonel and I, with the
Sergeant and orderly. The Colonel was on the field telephone
to one of his D.A.P.Cs. in a neighboring corps: and I could
gather from the one-sided conversation that something was
happening at the other end of the wire. Up to then we had
been left in peace. Suddenly a rattle of machine guns started,
and the tracer bullets began to hiss upwards towards the
converging shafts of light thrown skywards from the projec-
tors. The moaning drone of nearing planes could be clearly
heard, then a vicious hiss, and a crash, too near to be pleasant.
" They're here, too," I heard the Colonel shout through
the telephone. Obviously they were paying a visit to the
corps as well. I was on the floor boards by that time, with a
warning to the Colonel to drop ; as another wicked " swis-s-sh "
cut like a whip through the air. The hut rocked and swayed :
a shower of something hit the corrugated roof : and then there
came a cry — one sharp, short-cut cry, and a chorus of groans.
We lay where we were for a moment, wondering; and the next
explosion was almost too far away for the warning hiss to be
heard. The planes were passing. Someone came running in :
" A lot of Frenchmen badly hit at the Mission. Colonel says
you'd better come."
It appeared afterwards that the Colonel in question — a
Canadian — thought I was " some sort of a doctor," and would
be on the spot before the M. O. Unscrewing the top of my oil-
1919.] VIGNETTES OF WAR
75
stock, I hurried through the darkness to the next hut but one,
where the French Mission Office was. They had a lantern
lighted there now, and standing on the roadway. A little crowd
of clerks and servants began to collect. Two human figures
in the familiar French blue were lying on the ground, others
standing or sitting, and wiping dirt and blood from their faces,
arms and bodies. I had given absolution as I neared the place;
and bent over the first prostrate figure. The man was quite
unconscious, and already dead, or dying fast. The ashen gray
face stood out in the darkness, illumined by the feeble rays
of the lantern. A slow black flood oozed away from the lower
part of his body: the femoral artery was severed. Swiftly I
anointed him: "per istam sanctam unctionem et suam piisi-
mam misericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus . . ." and turned to
the other case of urgent need. This man was conscious, but
riddled with bits of the bomb, and in great pain. They were
bringing up a stretcher for him now. I could not hear his con-
fession in public; but told him to make the acts, and gave him
the sacraments while the M. O., who had reached the spot by
this, bandaged his terrible wounds. Then I passed on to the
others, who were wounded, indeed, but not in danger of death.
It was an extraordinary scene; and the suddenness of the
whole little tragedy shook one. Under a dark avenue of trees,
and shut in by a thicket of bushes, with the splintered and
twisted huts for background, the ring of peering, questioning,
distorted faces lit by the single lantern, showing ghostly in the
dark; the dead man and the dying; the white bandages, swath-
ing the wounded; and the dark, oozing pool. A motor ambu-
lance drove up, and the casualties were taken away. The lit-
tle crowd remained for a moment, talking in subdued voices,
looking at the debris, examining the bomb-hole — no more than
a large, saucer-like depression in the hard roadway — the pool
of blood. Then it melted away into the night. The wounded
man died at dawn. The Chaplain buried them both the next
day. And the War went on.
FIELD SPORTS.
Just outside one of the pleasant little villages of the Somme
country, in the late spring weather before our 1916 offensive,
the battalion sports were held. Picture a small valley nest-
ling in between gently rolling hills on either, hand, a crystal
76 VIGNETTES OF WAR [April,
stream winding in and out along the bottom, skirting planta-
tions of willow poplars set in solemn, regular lines, flowing
through highly cultivated fields and lush pastures, feeding the
many marshy ponds which lie all down the length of the Ancre
and Somme, passing from village to village in its voyage
towards the sea. Picture the village with its rose-covered cot-
tages and red-tiled roofs, its few long streets straggling away
from the gray old church, embowered snugly among the trees :
and up and down the valley, on either side the river, two or
three kilometres each from the other in their settings of emer-
ald green, little red-tiled, flower-planted hamlets, with the
swelling hills, clad in greens and browns and mauves rising
behind them to the blue Picardy sky.
The sports were held just beyond the end of the long vil-
lage street in a field that sloped gently from the valley bottom
to meet the low rise of the hills. They were ordinary sports,
held before when the battalion was out of the line: sports
like those held in peace time — races, long and high jumping,
putting the weight, tug-of-war. These, like the boxing and the
concerts and sing-songs that the men so enjoyed, were planned
to give them a relaxation from the tenseness of fighting in the
trenches, the perpetual hard training which went on when
they came back " to rest." The battalion fifes and drums
played — there was no brass band to liven up the afternoon
nor tea and cakes to hand around afterwards on the lawn —
as officers and men assembled. The magpies shot through the
air overhead or balanced on the branches, and wild pigeons
gorged in a neighboring sown field; while from the distance
came the muffled roll that told the ever busy guns were active.
The sports began with races, among which was a handicap
where the places were allotted by ages — the Colonel and the
Chaplain having the advantage of the doctor; all three well
ahead in the field of young Captains and subalterns. There were
amusing disputes, and a good deal of chaff about the ages and
the number of yards given. It was a happy afternoon. And
the race was run, to the great distinction of the C. 0.; and
weights were "putt," and hammers thrown, and mighty
feats and prodigies accomplished in the way of jumping.
Everyone was good tempered, gay and jolly; for the War was
forgotten for the nonce, and only the healthy emulation of the
games was in mind.
1919.] VIGNETTES OF WAR 77
Before the homeric tug-of-war came an improvised race,
destined to become historic. Along the rising ground of the
field, separated by some few yards from each other, low
stakes in double rows had been driven in the ground. The
object of this race was for teams of two men each to dribble
footballs in and out, right and left, around the stakes; and the
competitors put their will into their work. I do not know who
had devised this particular trial of skill— for skill certainly was
needed to guide the ball, and kick it accurately and quickly in
its devious course : but, whoever it was who was responsible for
it, one of our Captains seized at once upon its military use. We
had been training long and hard for a projected attack upon
Contalmaison.
Our Captain, looking at the dribbling of the football,
mused, and then spoke : " That is the way to attack. When we
leave our trenches for Contalmaison in actual earnest, my
company shall dribble footballs over No-man's Land. The
men will have something to think of, and their movements will
be a protection from sentries and snipers."
The expected attack on Contalmaison never came off: but
Captain - - sent home for his footballs: and on the first of
July the battle of the Somme commenced. The battalion had
as its task the storming and capture of the western end of the
village of Montauban. It acquitted itself with glory in the
attack, rushing the German lines and taking the end of the vil-
lage in spite of furious rifle and machine-gun fire. Later, the
London Times printed an account of the first days of that mighty
action which ultimately pressed the enemy back so many
miles: and it did honor to those gallant men who actually
did kick their footballs back and forth between the lines, as
they rushed forward, despite the resistance of the foe, to
their objective at Montauban.
The Captain fell that day with many of his comrades in
the battalion. Those who were left lost many, many friends
in those perfect days of July, 1916. But they mourn them with
deep respect and great pride. And the football that he drib-
bled as he went to wrest their stronghold from the Germans,
and to meet his heroic death, was gathered up with reverence
later on, and taken home to England, where it is now guarded
as a sacred trophy at the Regimental Depot of the East
Surreys.
78 VIGNETTES OF WAR [April,
GRAVEYARDS IN FRANCE.
There are many graveyards in Flanders and in France.
These are " God's acres " hollowed in the pleasant, flower-
strewn chalk downs of Picardy, and in the plashed soil of
Ypres, and in the fields of Artois. In a long line these holy
spots stretch from the sea to Noyon, and from there, onwards
to the south and east, our boys' comrades in arms lie in the
little cemeteries of the line, awaiting their final call to assem-
ble before the great Captain of Souls. There are cemeteries
with their long, close serried lines of crosses where the Cas-
ualty Clearing Stations stood, great graveyards filled with all
that flower and promise of life that death has mown down for
the sake of a world's lasting peace. There are graveyards
greater still, in which the dead heroes sleep down by the base
hospitals; and scattered graves, trenches and singly lying, here
and there wherever the fire of war has passed and battlefields
been cleared. Such a profusion of life poured out, so great a
toll of sacrifice, appalls and stuns. It is not that one is not
accustomed to death. It is not that one does not know the
lavish prodigality of nature — nature, careless of the countless
broken pearls as, throughout the centuries, she strings her per-
fect rosary. It is rather that one recoils from the apparent
utter waste of human life, seeing only that one aspect of it all
which horrifies the mind.
But there are some who can read the secrets of the hor-
rible things of war, and find a meaning even in these heca-
tombs of dead. But their vision pierces beyond the veil of time,
and reckons with eternity; their reading of the secret goes
deeper than all means and touches the uttermost end of human
life. In the tangle of aims and purposes, of ways and means
and ends, both national and individual, of the strife of bat-
talions and the doings and aspirings of each man alone, they
follow and unravel the one single strand that matters. Why
should the horror be, how can it be, with a good God in His
heaven? It is precisely because God is good in His heaven
that there is a meaning to it at all. There is no answer to the
puzzle in the grave, no palliative for dismay. Only in the
vision of man as he is struggling, striving, falling, rising, re&ch-
ing out towards his ideal self, and of man as he was made to
be, complete and perfect in the sight and purpose of his Maker,
1919.] VIGNETTES OF WAR 79
can the eternal riddle set by nature and by war be solved.
Only in Christ, the God Who willed to die, in Whom the dead
are made alive, do the veils of mystery fall away: and the
symbol of the eternal truth shining through is the cross that
stands at the head of each soldier's grave. They have not lived
— they have not died — in vain. Their sacrifice was not for gain
or guerdon in their own eyes. Imperfect though they were,
they died for others : and in that death they rose to heights that
nature could not compass.
Those quiet graveyards scattered throughout France and
Flanders, from the coast to the line, and all up and down its
torn and scarred and bloodstained length, those scattered
groups of graves and lonely sepultures, are the records of the
heroism of the nations, and the undying valor of their soldier
sons. They are the silent witnesses of the ideals of the Allies;
a memorial of the past and an earnest of a better and a nobler
future. They are more. They are records of the divine spark
that smoulders and kindles in the poorest human heart. They
are the witnesses of great and spiritual truths and aspirations,
often but dimly grasped and blindly felt; but, none the less,
the hidden mainspring of their heroic action. And from the
dead past of each of these brave men, who offered his life that
justice should be avenged and right triumph in this disordered
world of ours, we have every right to hope that a living present
has flowered in fullness and in joy unspeakable, where the
end has crowned the work, and the soldier hero sheathed his
unsullied sword in the presence of the Eternal King.
PRISONERS OF WAR.
A Catholic Chaplain, to minister fruitfully to all the troops
with whom he came in contact on the western front, had to be
a polyglot; for men of almost all nations and races under the
sun fought there in our common cause. And among them all
were Catholics — English speaking, it goes without saying, and
French, Belgians, Italians, Portuguese, Poles, Lithuanians,
Russians, Indians and Chinese, as well as representatives of a
great many other peoples.
Another set to be ministered to were the German prisoners
who came down from the line, singly or in little groups; or,
again, in greater numbers— hundreds and even thousands-
after heavy engagements, raids on a large scale and battles.
80 VIGNETTES OF WAR [April,
These miserable enough looking specimens were marched
to the sorting cages, large barbed-wire enclosures separated
into a number of compartments, to be separated into groups
according to their regiments and rank. Here they were med-
ically examined and fed. These are the valid prisoners of
war. The wounded passed through the medical units with
our own wounded and sick to hospital.
There was no " establishment " for Chaplains at camps
of prisoners of war in the field; but the authorities were most
anxious that the spiritual welfare of prisoners should be
attended; and the men themselves, and especially the Catho-
lics, were generally very keen, indeed, on joining in religious
worship, assisting at Holy Mass and frequenting the sacra-
ments. Where possible, German speaking Chaplains, one
Catholic and one Protestant, were posted to Army Head-
quarters for duty with prisoners of war and their guard in
army areas. But there are so many camps, and these so scat-
tered, that other Chaplains, of divisions in rest, for example,
or on lines of communication, often lend a hand and minister
to the prisoners. If they speak no German, this is a far easier
task for a Catholic than for a Protestant; for the Catholic
prisoners of war all know what to look for and what to do.
Holy Mass is the same, even in language, the world over; and,
as for confessions, they can, at worst, be managed by the use of
little cards upon which an examination of conscience is printed
in both tongues.
As a rule, a very considerable proportion of the Catholic
prisoners approached the sacraments; and, if they had been
captured recently, one generally found they had received Com-
munion from their own Field Chaplain not so very long before.
Confessions are heard anywhere in the camp, often in a
small hut or shack, to which the men come one at a time, lin-
ing up outside in a queue to wait their turn. Next morning
the Chaplain would take his portable altar with him and
erect it in a hut which served as a sleeping place and mess-
room. Outside the War went on; outside lay their daily work
and toil. But here, within, while Mass was being said, doubt-
less their minds forgot the War for the moment, and the irk-
someness of prison, and the monotony of toil in workshop or on
road. Doubtless their thoughts went back to the village
church in their Bavarian hills, where the old father and mother
1919.] VIGNETTES OF WAR 81
knelt together, praying for their boy; or to the little Rhineland
chapel in which wife and children worshipped in spirit with
their husband and father. At least they dimly realized that
there is something here which transcends war and all the vicis-
situdes of war; and that in this medium of the Holy Sacrifice
they are linked close to those they love.
A Chaplain's work for prisoners of war is not of the easiest.
There are long miles to be covered between the camps, in all
sorts of weather; and for transport one has to depend mainly
upon chance vehicles picked up on the road. But it is worth
while, and well worth while. The consolation of religion
given to the men, is in itself a consolation to the priest; and,
despite all the records of inhumanity and stories of cruelty
that come to light from prisoners' camps in Germany, he has
a right to hope that even there religion — and particularly the
Catholic religion — brought a ray of comfort into the lives of
the men who languished there as prisoners of war.
A MAIN C. M. D. S.
A Main Dressing Station was one of the important medical
links that bound the battle front to the base hospitals and
" Blighty." It lies not so many miles from the thick of the
fighting, but behind the Advanced Dressing Stations and Regi-
mental Aid Posts. From them the battle casualties are passed,
on foot or on stretchers, through the A. D. S. Wounded Posts;
thence to be redispatched by ambulance to the Casualty Clear-
ing Stations at Railhead.
The organization of the R. A. M. C. is extraordinarily fine.
When an enemy offensive is met, carefully planned arrange-
ments often have to go by the board. When it is considered what
a multitude of details must be foreseen and planned before-
hand, and often changed or modified at a moment's notice, it
is marvelous how smoothly and regularly the work was carried
out. There are the teams of doctors and surgeons with their
anaesthetists, orderlies and surgical instruments; the medical
stores and comforts, bandages, splints, and drugs, which must
never be allowed to run short; the piles of stretchers, going
up to the battle zone empty and coming down again filled;
the busy ambulances loading and unloading; the food and
drink for personnel and patients: all these things and many
more must be kept supplied, and, if necessary, the staff must
VOL. CIX. 6
82 VIGNETTES OF WAR [April,
be ready to move them all in a very short space of time. In
cases of extreme urgency, tents and stores would be burned,
so that they should not fall ino the hands of the enemy. The
main preoccupation then would be the evacuation of the
patients. But in a planned offensive there is practically no
danger of disorganization.
In such circumstances, Chaplains are usually moved from
their battalions, fighting in the line, and temporarily attached
to the Dressing Stations, where they meet the wounded as they
are brought in from the field, and provide them with what-
ever religious ministrations they may need. When the casual-
ties are heavy, and streaming through continuously, reliefs
have to be provided. There are thus often as many as six
Chaplains working in shifts at the main D. S. — two each of
Catholics, Anglicans, and non-Anglican Protestants. All the
arrangements were made in consultation with the medical
authorities at Army and Corps Headquarters, and were most
carefully planned to secure that a Chaplain of each kind
should be always at the post, and at the same time to prevent
overlapping and crowding. It was strange work — this min-
istering to the wounded as they came down, bloody and dirty
and torn, from the front. One boy would want a letter written
home for him; another pulled lovingly at the "fag," to the
end of which the Chaplain held a lighted match. A third de-
scribed the action from which he had just come; while a fourth
would groan in unconsciousness on his stretcher. Chaplains
write letters, hand out field postcards and pencils, bend here
over a prostrate form to catch the whispered words of con-
fession, anoint, give Communion. There was little privacy:
fortunately the men were used to the strange circumstances
and did not mind them. No one took notice, save with pro-
found respect, of the administration of the sacraments.
At night, lighted by hanging lamps, the shadows flickered
and faded in monstrous distortions; patients came and went,
were moved from one tent to another; and the work went on.
One M. 0. relieved another; a tired Chaplain sought his shelter
and blanket on the ground, while a second stepped into his
place. The guns rattled and roared, and shells burst with
heavy, dead or cracking, sharp reports; but the business of
patching up broken bodies and reconciling souls never
slackened; for the lines of evacuation had to be kept clear
1919.] AT JESUS' BRUISED KNEES 83
whatever happened, and at no point of the system should a
block occur.
The stream of wounded flowed on, now trickling only,
now swollen, as the battle developed; until at last it dwindled
away to nothing — a few last stray cases, picked up on the
ground that has been fought over and left behind. And these
were cleared to Casualty Clearing Stations; and the work was
done. M. Os. rejoined their ambulances, and Chaplains their
units; and the next day your morning paper printed an account
of the advance on a so many kilometre front to a depth of so
many metres; and gave the tale of prisoners and guns.
AT JESUS' BRUISED KNEES.
BY CHARLES J. POWERS, C.S.P.
HAIL Jesus! At Thy bruised knees,
Men win eternal victories,
For hid, Thy being's deeps within,
Thou and the Godhead are akin,
And God and Man are one in Thee.
The angels laud Thy might and power,
The demons fear and shrink and cower
In presence of Thy Deity;
Yet in Thee raised upon the Tree,
Who doth discern Thy Majesty?
The flowing fountains of Thy Blood,
Stream o'er Thee in a welling flood,
And blazon every limb of Thee,
And clothe Thee in the panoply
Of Thy supernal Royalty.
84 AT JESUS' BRUISED KNEES [April,
Yet who doth now Thee King confess?
In this Thine hour of bitterness,
Of anguished soul and body's pain,
Of faithless friends, of foes' disdain:
Who worships Thee in agony?
O comfort Thee! Ah 'tis a grace
Prone at Thy knees to find a place,
And offer such a dole as mine,
As guerdon for a love like Thine,
So freely giv'n and tenderly.
O comfort Thee! 6 pity me!
Thy bruised knees shall be my plea,
For falls my wayward steps have brought.
O comfort Thee! 'Tis not for nought
Thy Body droops upon the Tree.
Go! at Thy word, the opening gates
Of Paradise the thief awaits.
Go! Thee a ransomed race acclaim:
They hail Thee Saviour in Thy Name
They chant the paean of victory.
MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., PH.D.
NE of the long felt wants has been a brief history
of science, available for consultation by the gen-
eral public, particularly by university and col-
lege students, where they might readily obtain
the background of knowledge on which modern
developments of science could be properly seen. The an-
nouncement some time ago of A Short History of Science1
by two professors of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, promised to fill the gap.
An immense amount of information concerning the de-
velopment of science in the olden time, has been accumulated
in recent years. It is unfortunately little known outside the
narrow circle of those who may happen to be interested in the
history of their own specialty, and often comparatively un-
known even among them. There was a great need and a mag-
nificent opportunity for a text-book that would present this
matter fairly, ignoring the traditional history of science,
founded on ignorance and the assumption that serious
interest in science is a comparatively recent affair. There
was, further, the opportunity to eliminate from the supposed
history of science so much that has been falsely said about the
"Dark Ages," tending to the idea that more opposition was of-
fered to the development of science during the Middle Ages than
modern novelties of thought meet with from latter-day con-
servatives. The way of the genius, in advance of his time, has
never been smooth, and never will be. In the Middle Ages,
men were occupied much more than are we with architecture,
art and sculpture, the cultivation of literature and philosophy,
in a word, with the things of the mind; we have become more
intent on physical comfort, rapid transit, labor saving devices,
in a word, the things of the body. But they did not neglect the
physical world around them. They met and solved quite well
the problems that presented themselves, and made some re-
*A Short History of Science. By W. T. Sedgwick and H. W. Tyler. New York:
The Macmillan Co. $2.50.
86 MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE [April,
remarkable observations in physical science and some still
more remarkable anticipations of modern developments of
science which, in recent years, have attracted merited
attention.
In the face of this recent development of knowledge A
Short History of Science declares that the Middle Ages can be
graphically portrayed as a great hollow. The thousand years
from the fifth to the fifteenth century are declared to be a time in
which knowledge, as we understand it, and as Aristotle under-
stood it, had no place. Morison is quoted as if he had said the
last word on the subject. "The modern man, reformed and
regenerated by knowledge, looks across it (the great hollow)
and recognizes on the opposite ridge in the far shining cities
and stately porticoes, in the art, politics and science of an-
tiquity, many more ties of kinship and sympathy than in the
mighty concave between, wherein dwell his Christian ancestry
in the dim light of Scholasticism and theology." This hardly
coincides with John Fiske's estimate published thirty years
ago : " When we think of all the work, big with promise of the
future that went on in those centuries which modern writers in
their ignorance used once to set apart and stigmatize as the
'Dark Ages;' when we consider how the seeds of what is no-
blest in modern life were then painfully sown upon the soil
which Imperial Rome had prepared; when we think of the
various works of a Gregory, a Benedict, a Boniface, an Alfred,
a Charlemagne, we feel that there is a sense in which the most
brilliant achievements of pagan antiquity are dwarfed in
comparison with these. Until quite lately, indeed, the student
of history has had his attention too narrowly confined to the
ages that have been preeminent for literature and art — the so-
called classical ages — and thus his sense of historical perspec-
tive has been impaired."
It is amazing, therefore, to find a chapter on "Science in the
Middle Ages" which makes no mention of Vincent of Beauvais,
the great encyclopedist of the period. Vincent's work filled
about fifty octavo volumes of modern size, and we need but to
recall the immense labor of copying in his day, to gain some
idea of the interest of his generation in scientific information.
This great work discusses the rotundity of the earth, the ex-
istence of antipodes, suggests that a stone falling through a
hole in the earth would rest at its centre, and contains many
1919.] MEDIEVAL SCIENCE 87
other anticipations of scientific ideas, supposed to be much
more modern in origin. It treats of the medical uses of plants
and animal products, and states that superheated steam has
stronger solvent properties than boiling water. Evidently its
author understood the principle of the Papin digester, often
supposed to be a purely modern invention.
Albertus Magnus is mentioned as " a fresh and notable
philosopher " and " an ardent champion of the newly dis-
covered, but proscribed, works of Aristotle." There is also
mention of the fact that he interpreted " the milky way as an
accumulation of small stars, and ridiculed the current ob-
jections to antipodes," but the significance of his work is dis-
missed by saying that he was constantly "striving to har-
monize the ancient science with the theology of his Church."
Yet great scientists like Humboldt confess to have found scien-
tific passages in Albert's books that excited their surprise and
Meyer, the German historian of botany, declared that " no
botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to him, un-
less Theophrastus with whom he was not acquainted; and after
him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied
it so profoundly until the time of Conrad Gessner and Caesal-
pino " — these last lived over three hundred years later.
Roger Bacon receives more extended notice, but he could
scarcely have been neglected, since the international cele-
bration of his seven hundredth anniversary which took place
at Oxford just before the War, proclaimed him one of the
greatest original thinkers in science. It soon becomes clear,
however, that the principal reason for giving Bacon space,
in A Short History of Science, is in order to expatiate on the
injustice of his long imprisonment. Roger Bacon was a great
genius. Like most great geniuses, he was a great crank. He
must have been a most difficult man to manage and get on with
in the family life of a religious order. He joined the Fran-
ciscans when he was well on towards thirty; they afforded
him some magnificent opportunities for intellectual de-
velopment, including a sojourn in Paris of some years, but
when, in his later years, he contravened rules of the Order, he
had to be disciplined. The Pope had nothing to do with Bacon ex-
cept to encourage him to write his great works, and, indeed, to
require him to write them under obedience. Bacon's troubles
were all with his brother Franciscans. He could have left the
88 MEDIEVAL SCIENCE [April,
Order, but he preferred to stay, accepting the penance that was
imposed and living on to the age of eighty years. Out of these
traditions, the dreadful story of Bacon's long imprisonment
has been ingeniously constructed by the religious controver-
sialists, especially of the eighteenth century, in order to show
how utterly opposed to science mediaeval ecclesiastics were,
Albertus Magnus, whose scientific interests were as wide as
Roger Bacon's and who wrote even more on the subject, but
whose personal character was more admirable, was canonized
by the Church of Roger Bacon's time. The difference in the
treatment of the two was caused by personality, not by scien-
tific thinking.
Instead of a paragraph on such a man as Vincent of
Beauvais, the authors of A Short History 'of Science treat
their readers to a paragraph on another work of the time. They
say : " To show the low state of natural history it suffices to
refer to an extraordinary work, the so-called Physiologus or
Bestiary, a kind of scriptural allegory of animal life, originally
Alexandrian, but surviving in mutilated forms and widely
used in medieval times. The childish and grotesque character
of this curious compendium shows how ill-adapted were the
centuries of crusading to the calm pursuits of science; they
were, indeed, almost barren in this direction." To suggest the
Physiologus as representative of the intellectual interests of
the Middle Ages is about the same as suggesting that the
artistic taste of our time is indicated by the cartoons of the
afternoon papers or the colored supplements of the Sunday
editions. In both cases, there is no doubt at all of the im-
mense popular interest, but neither is there any doubt, in both
cases, of the condemnation of the judicious and those possessed
of taste. It is to be hoped that the historians of the twenty-
seventh century will spare us such misrepresentation. We cer-
tainly provide plenty of opportunities for it. Never was there
a generation so credulous, so ready to believe in " cures " of all
kinds, in spiritualism and Eddyism and Dowieism and all the
rest, yet our generation is not destitute of sensible people, nor
devoid of real intellectual development.
The thirteenth century was, to be sure, the century par
excellence of the Crusades. But it was, also, the century of
Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon, three
of the most penetrating thinkers of all time. Two of them,
1919.] MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE 89
Albert and Bacon, were occupied largely with physical science.
Aquinas' writings proved of the deepest interest to a man so
typically modern and intensely scientific as Huxiey. They con-
tain one of the greatest syntheses of scientific knowledge and
philosophy ever known. This, then, is the period that A Short
History of Science calls " almost barren in this direction," [that
is of scientific thinking] . Professor Saintsbury of Edinburgh,
reviewing the work of this century, more than twenty years
ago, in his volume on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,2
expressed himself very differently. He has made it clear, how-
ever, that a just judgment can only come from " generous souls
who have some tincture of philosophy."
It is easy to understand how sadly misrepresented
Scholastism would be at the hands of men *vho manifestly
know so little ef the real intellectual life of the time which they
thus calmly write about, who even attribute to Thomas
Aquinas the authorship of the Imitatio Christi!
For them Scholasticism was scarely more than " a char-
acteristic technical and essentially verbal scholarship " which
occupied itself mainly, as a half page quotation from Rash-
dall shows, with the interminable discussion of realism and
nominalism. The Seven Liberal Arts "founded, upon the
educational doctrines of Plato but adapted to the fashion of the
Middle Ages," were cultivated, but are dismissed with merely
a mention. Huxley once suggested that this triviam and
quadrivium, as a curriculum, were better calculated to develop
the many sided mind of man than the curriculum of any
modern university, but of course there is no hint of that here.
Nor, indeed, is there any hint of the fact that these universities
of the Middle Ages were really scientific universities. The
quadrivium are geometry, astronomy, music and arithmetic;
the trivium, grammar, logic and rhetoric. All were studied
from their scientific aspect. Huxley's recognition of this drew
from him, in his inaugural address as the Rector of Aberdeen
University, acknowledgment of the place they should be
accorded in developmental education.
But perhaps the most serious lacuna in this chapter on
science of the Middle Ages is the utter absence of any reference
to the great explorations and the magnificent foundations of
geography made in the later Middle Ages. As a matter of
8 The Flourishing of Romance.
90 MEDIEVAL SCIENCE [April,
fact, then " all parts of the East were penerated, the capital
and the dominions of Jenghis Khan described, Lhasa was en-
tered, Thibet visited, and the greater part of China thoroughly
explored, while an immense amount of information with re-
gard to the Near East was gathered by men whose books still
remain as convincing evidence of the great work which they
accomplished.3 Colonel Yule, the modern English authority
on Oriental travel and geography, gives due credit to these
brave travelers of the later Middle Ages, for anticipating most
of our supposedly modern information from recent travelers.
The absence of any reference to the engineering feats of
the Middle Ages is most surprising. In architectural engineer-
ing they have never been surpassed. Without steel, without
steam, without machinery, without the modern means by
which engineers now solve their hardest problems, they built
magnificent structures and dared to pierce the heavens with
spires that rival our highest buildings. Rheims has fallen be-
neath modern discoveries in science, but it took the diabolical
force of modern destructiveness to bring down what was built
up so long ago. The architect who studies the Cathedral at
Beauvais, or rather the fragment of it, the choir, which is all
that exists, must be struck with the constructive genius of the
man who dared to plan masonry of over two hundred feet in
height with the vault of the choir supported by arches, and then,
realizing that the construction was too frail, rebuilt it all, doub-
ling the number of arches and producing a marvelously beau-
tiful result.
What is called " the great hollow " is filled with a series of
magnificent technical achievements of which this History of
Science has nothing to say. Surely these should have been
interesting for students of technology, as anticipations of
modern work, and important as the background of their own
thoughts with regard to their work. Were the technics of
architecture, for instance, ever better developed than during the
mediaeval period? Besides, there was the advance in chemical
technics which enabled the great cathedral builders to make
the most beautiful stained-glass that has ever been made, to
invent painting in oil colors, and to develop the technique of
color work generally so that their textile dyes, their tints for
illumination and glass work are unsurpassed. Their gold burn-
8 The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Present writer.
1919.] MEDIEVAL SCIENCE
91
ishing, still bright, at the end of seven centuries, on manuscript
pages, is literally a lost art. Surely their development of the
arts and crafts might serve as model for the modern tech-
nicist.
It is surprising beyond all measure to have the authors of
A Short History of Science suggest that " mediaeval academic
standards were naturally low. . . . Not until 1426 is there a
record of the refusal of a degree for poor scholarship, and the
victim then sought redress by legal proceedings, though in
vain." Why did not these good historians turn to the records
of the medical schools before making such sweeping state-
ments?
According to a law published before the middle of the
thirteenth century, prospective medical students had to spend
three years in university work before taking up the study of
medicine and four years more at medicine before they could
receive their degree of doctor. This degree gave them permis-
sion to teach — if they could find students. It did not permit
them to practice until they had served with a physician for
a year. If they were to practice surgery, they were to spend
another year in the study of anatomy.
Now, well on in the twentieth century we have nearly, but
not quite, climbed back to the standards thus outlined in the
thirteenth century. We now require some college work at
least as a preliminary for medical training, four years at medi-
cine and a year in a hospital before practice may be taken up.
Lest it should be thought that the law I have mentioned was
an exception, I may add that a number of Papal Bulls issued
as charters of universities require that their medical schools
shall maintain standards equal to those of Bologna and Paris,
and that the teachers must, at the beginning, come from those
universities, and that there should be preliminary education
and a full course of medical training occupying altogether
some seven years, before the degree of Doctor in Medicine
might be given. The examinations were to be conducted un-
der oath so as to insure fairness and the maintenance of stand-
ards.4
No hint is given in the volume of the magnificent develop-
ment of surgery which took place in the later Middle Ages.
The text-books of the professors of surgery in the Universities
4 See the Dublin Journal Science, December, 1908.
92 THE LOST WORLD [April,
at Salerno, Bologna, Piacenza and Paris, not to mention others,
have been made available by re-publication, and the result has
been a veritable revelation of achievement where it had be
least expected. Dr. Buck, in his recent History of Medicine,
gives full credit for it. He is almost the first in America to
do so. These surgeons had a form of anaesthesis, dressed their
wounds with strong wine and got union by first intention,
taught that it was not necessary to have pus in wounds, and
did operations that have only been reinvented since Lister's
time. But this magnificent evolution of surgical technique is
unknown to the professors of science at one of our great tech-
nical schools.
The Department of History at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology needs to come out of the Dark Ages of the nine-
teenth century into the light of the twentieth. This History of
Science is a disgrace to American scholarship.
THE LOST WORLD.
BY BRIAN PADRAIC O'SEASNAIN.
THERE comes this day,
The old, old dream of a lost world, dim
Within some hidden sanctuary, high
Not in the hills, not in the sky
But here, within myself. A cry
From its deep heart has often pierced my day-
And yet . . . that music will not stay
Its tremulous sweet melancholy fades
Far down the lonely valleys of the soul;
We must be whole
To bear the searching of that melody —
Our wandering earth's old minstrelsy.
THE COWARD.
BY M. PRICE EVANS.
|YMES drew himself up to a sitting posture, wiped
the mingled sweat and rain and mud from his
forehead with the back of his hand, pulled him-
self to his feet, and glanced " over the top." A
sea of mud and soaking rain and other things
spread themselves out before him in the gathering dusk. The
spot his eyes were seeking was not far distant; he would know
it — see it in his mind's eye — all the rest of his life.
"It's quiet now," he muttered, staring at the spot; "I can
go over and have a look-
Earlier in the day Peter Gort had been killed just out
there; blown to pieces by a wayward shell, while going to the
assistance of a wounded sergeant. Peter Gort, Symes reflected,
was the best pal a chap ever had; to see him sent under by one
of those infernal shells, before one's very eyes — well, one
had seen and done some tough things since " Blighty " was left
behind, but this was unquestionably the toughest. They had
been pals so many years that Symes couldn't remember when
it had begun; ever since they had been grimy, squabbling kids;
all through the years of swanking school-days: standing the
test many a time of falling hopelessly in love with the same
girl, and laughing about it together when the allotted span of
an infatuation was over. Yes, there were no two questions on
the subject: Peter was the best chap going.
Symes had got over the parapet, and was crawling slowly
along through the slush towards the spot. If he could find any-
thing recognizable of Peter, it should have decent burial — at
least, as decent as he could make it. His thoughts traveled in-
evitably to the girl Peter Gort had married, some four or five
years back. She would expect him to tell her about it, and
he'd have to comply.
Symes crawled along in the gloom to his goal, to start the
search. Surely he would be rewarded by finding something?
His thoughts in an agonized chaos, he made most careful
search. The task seemed pretty hopeless, but he would not
94 THE COWARD [April,
give in. Fifteen — twenty minutes he sought in the clayey mud,
among things it isn't nice to handle, with no result. Then,
presently his patience was rewarded by the sight of a glint
of brass, attached to a shred of khaki; here, at last, was some-
thing that had been Peter's — a pathetic little something, the
brass numerals he'd worn on his shoulder. And that bit of
brass was all; all Symes ever found of the man he had loved as
one only loves a life-long friend and good comrade. Digging
his teeth into his lower lip, he forced back a groan.
" She'll— she'll like to have it," thought Symes, as he re-
turned with the fruits of his search. " I'll have to write — and
send it along."
Rain, and more rain beat down, making a dismal, whis-
pering sound in his ears. His clothing, from helmet to boots,
was heavily laden with wet mud; his hands and face possessed
their full share of it. Tonight he would be on the horrible,
horrifying listening-post duty, through all the black, unending
hours of the night. A shudder passed through him at the
recollection; he was conscious of feeling a bit "off-color" —
unnerved.
This time last year — or two years ago — or sometime far
back in prehistoric ages, he had been slogging hard but hap-
pily at black-and-white illustrating for the " mags." A day or so
back, an old number of one of his mags had turned up, in the
pages of which he had found some of his own work; and it
had seemed at least a century since he had drawn and sent in
that stuff; yet the date was only some eight or nine months old.
You couldn't gauge the passage of time, and you dared not
try to gauge the possibilities of the future.
Night had come, closing down and around like a wet pall.
It was cold, miserably, almost impenetrably dark. A lonely
figure, caked in mud from " tin " helmet to heavy boots,
dragged himself stealthily along the communication trench.
Something outside of himself impelled his volition, urging him
away — away from that hell just behind him. Every sensitive,
tortured nerve on edge, breathing in gasps, he was blindly, if
slowly, following the compelling force. Contemptible, of
course, but wholly imperative that he should get away, if only
for that one hideous night; his nerve had given out at last, and
he couldn't help himself. His frenzied mind had invented a
story for the sentries at the trench junctions; he was carrying
1919.] THE COWARD
95
an urgent message to Colonel Dixon in the village, from his
own captain, and so had got past. If he were discovered— well,
hang it, he didn't care; it was no use caring— whatever the
consequences. After all, nothing really mattered, and he
wasn't out to count costs.
He couldn't picture old Peter doing this! What would
Peter say— and think? His light-hearted laugh would have
annihilated fear, anyway; it was but a few hours ago that Peter
had uttered that light-hearted laugh— not three minutes before
he had gone under; perhaps — considering he'd only been gone
so short a time — Peter wasn't so very far away . . . maybe he
could see, and was watching somewhere.
Symes stopped, glanced round him, and mopped the drops
from his face. Thrusting his hand in his pocket, he let his
fingers fumble with a little brass thing there. Then, gripping
his muddy rifle with a fresh vigor, he crept forward, until the
end of the communication trench was reached.
Glancing furtively this way and that, he reckoned that the
shell- torn road on the right would take him into the village
of - — . And along in that direction he stole like a hunted
thing, taking care to keep close in the cover of the hedge. The
shell-holes, half -filled with liquid mud, provided many a pit-
fall, but yet the tired feet dragged and stumbled on in an
irresistible retreat. The word " coward ! " sang constantly
through his brain; danced in letters of flame amongst the eerie
black shapes around him. Several times he halted, as if to
summon back his manhood, and return to duty; but duty
didn't somehow count tonight — and anything was better than
to go back to a spot where a man's life was not worth a cent.
... At all costs he must get away. Even now, at intervals, the
familiar whistle of a bullet nearly spent, fell on his ear.
" Lord, but I'm tired — tired ! " His own voice sounded
hoarse and menacing into the night, for he hadn't known he
was going to speak aloud; " how far can a chap get when he's
fairly spent?"
Up in the sky the clouds had seen fit to part a little, allow-
ing a clear moon to look down on a world of dreariness and
devastation. Here were the pathetic remains of what had once
been a beautiful village; folks had dwelt here at one time-
uncountable years ago, surely? — in peace and contentment.
And there on the left was the ruin of their magnificent church,
96 THE COWARD [April,
where once they had knelt to worship, its handsome, wrought-
iron gates all twisted now, and torn in the hungry hurricane of
war.
Those gates ... A man must rest when he's dog-tired,
and each foot seems to weigh half-a-ton. He would go in, hide
among the fallen gray stones, and sit down a while before he
went on. Here, at least, was a resting-place for limbs that felt
like so many separate and gigantic bruises; and here the
sounds on the night air were softened by the distance he had
put between himself and the hell he'd left behind.
Only a few weeks ago a fine old church had stood there.
Symes could tell that, from what he saw of the wreckage. A
few pillars remained in the pathway before him; here and
there a great shell-hole told how it was that those peaceful
tombs were wrenched up and flung wantonly about the ground;
resting-places of men and women long dead, ruthlessly torn
open by the never-ending fury of the hurricane.
Involuntarily he shut his eyes. " And yet I can't go back,"
he muttered; " I can never go back. . . ."
In the midst of all the ruin, the great crucifix had re-
mained unharmed by enemy fire. Peaceful, calm, exquisitely
beautiful, this cross supported the carven figure of the Christ.
Symes raised his head again, and saw it with the moonlight
falling upon it, making a halo about the pitiful, majestic head.
The man stumbled across to it, dropping down exhausted at
the foot of the cross.
His rifle, falling on the marble steps, made a startling
clatter. Symes stared at it a moment; opened the bolt me-
chanically. The magazine was still loaded; to Symes' mind
there seemed nothing sinister in the fact that the muzzle
pointed directly to his temple, as it lay on the steps. If he put
his right hand down he could touch the trigger — and then
nothing else would matter. It might mean peace — at last;
oblivion — ? Or — might it take him to a hell even worse than
the one he'd just left?
Stretching up his arms, the soldier's hard, battle-scarred
hands groped out and encircled the feet of the Figure on the
cross. Slowly he lifted his eyes, gazed up at the bowed head
of the Man Who had suffered infinitely nearly two thousand
years ago.
" Oh, Christ ! " His very soul cried out in desperate appeal
1919.] THE COWARD 97
as if he felt that here he might find vague comfort; " I — cannot
' carry on ! '
His arms slid down, and for awhile he remained still, half-
kneeling, half -lying on the cold, wet steps. And yet this rest-
ing-place did not feel comfortless; after a time — very soon,
now, he reflected — he might be his own man again; would be
thoroughly rested, and able to move and get on. Heavens! but
he was deadly tired, tonight.
A strange calm stole over him as he lay; there seemed to
be an extraordinary quiet and peace among the shadows of
this place; a chap couldn't be filled with hideous, sickening hor-
rors, and shapeless dreads, in this friendly darkness. One ap-
preciated rest and stillness.
After awhile a world of comfort and strength gradually
enveloped him; something palpable, reliable, warm. By de-
grees he seemed to become conscious that a voice from some-
where was addressing him — softly, scarce above a whisper. It
was as if Christ Himself were speaking — tenderly sympathetic
— from the shadowed, exalted loneliness of His cross.
" Brother — I, too, have suffered, through the sins of my
fellow-men. Do I not know? I, Who value your sacrifice more
than you realize, more than you have dreamed of, know your
agony even as you know it yourself ! ' Carry on ' for My sake,
then, and take comfort from that very sacrifice — that the world
for which we have given ourselves may know eternal peace ! "
In the ineffable hush that followed, Symes once more
lifted his head, listening intently. The haggard lines of fear
and nerve-racked exhaustion had disappeared from his face,
leaving it strong and keen — the face of a soldier on duty. He
sat up, breathing deeply and regularly, slipped a hand into
his pocket to feel for the scratchy little bit of brass and frag-
ment of khaki that were safely there.
And then a sound of tramping feet in the roadway outside
the gates caught his ear. Not steady marching, but something
that sounded like a small body of men stumbling along, pick-
ing their way determinedly between the shell-holes to get back
to the lines.
They were joking, some of them; others singing in under-
tones snatches of music-hall songs — or parodies of them—
adapted by the singers to their own especial circumstances, or
those of their nearest neighbor. One of them laughed; a jolly,
VOL. CIX. 7
98 THE COWARD [April,
light-hearted laugh, uncommonly like old Peter's, thought
Symes, as the sound floated towards him. . . . Occasionally a
solid " d ! " rang out on the air, as one or other fell into
a pitfall; most of them sounded cheerful — men worth calling
men, these — who hadn't known the meaning of cowardice or
fear; strong, glorious men a nation could do well to lean on!
As they came into sight, the lurker within the church gates
recognized a fatigue party — considerably less muddy, less
weary than himself — carrying food for a hungry trench-mortar
in the vicinity of the front line.
Symes, in his new, calm strength, took up his rifle. A voice
had bidden him " carry on," and had explained to him the
reason why. Even now, with firm, quiet insistence, he could
hear the message still — " We have given ourselves! "
He went down the steps, turned, and with the instinct bred
of his training as a soldier, drew himself erect. Standing at
attention he saluted the crucifix, turned about, and stepped
firmly toward the gates. From the young corporal in charge
of the fatigue party came again the laugh that had reminded
him of Peter Cort's; it held in it something of gay, youthful
dare-devilment, plenty of mirth, and a good sound share of
manly courage and chivalry.
Symes was just in time; he came through the gates with
Jhis head erect, and fell in at the rear of the little party.
IRew Books.
THE HISTORY OF HENRY FIELDING. By Wilbur L. Cross.
New Haven: Yale University Press. $15.00.
This work, by the editor of the Yale Review, is a notable con-
tribution to American scholarship. It is a definitive study based
upon painstaking and exhaustive researches covering many years;
it supersedes all previous works and says the final word regarding
the author of Tom Jones.
Professor Gross set himself a threefold task: the discovery
of the facts of Fielding's life; the establishment of his authorship
of various unacknowledged writings by a careful consideration of
internal evidence; and finally the destruction of the long current
conception of Fielding and the substitution of an authentic
portrait for this hitherto unchallenged caricature.
In calling this work a " history " Professor Cross has followed
Fielding, with whom the term meant a biography. But this work
is not a biography in any limited sense. It is not focussed so
sharply as to exclude the numerous interesting characters who
played a part in civil and literary affairs in the middle of the
eighteenth century. Men great and small throng these interesting
pages : Lyttleton, classmate of Fielding's at Eton and his life-long
friend; Ralph Allen, wealthy owner of Prior Park; Robert Wai-
pole, prince of politicians, in whose eyes every man had his price ;
Richardson, the plump, fussy little printer who astonished the
world (and perhaps himself) by such a masterpiece as Clarissa
Harlowe; Smollett, the hard-headed Scot, as virile as Fielding and
as conceited as Richardson; John Fielding, the novelist's blind
brother who succeeded him in his magistracy and eventually
achieved knighthood. We are brought into touch with the
hacks of Grub Street, brilliant, indecent, clamorous, and we behold
all London in the throes of a lengthy transition from the un-
blushing frankness of the Restoration to a regard for the outer
decencies that were finally to triumph in the nineteenth century.
Fielding's was a day and generation when the amenities had
not triumphed over the scurrilities in literary disputes; when men
who found themselves beaten in a duel of wit took refuge in a
torrent of vituperation which made Dame Scandal herself hide
her head; when "Beau Brocades" affected the graces of gentle-
men and raised highway robbery to a fine art; when things were
talked about in polite society and permitted on the stage which
we of today relegate to police reports and clinical researches;
100 NEW BOOKS [April,
when the laws were incredibly stringent in some respects and
lamentably weak in others.
Against the manifold abuses in the laws and their administra-
tion Fielding inveighed with power and effectiveness even though
some of his reforms were adopted only after his death. This is
the Fielding, keen of wit, impatient of abuses, sympathetic toward
his fellow-men, seeing at once the weaknesses of the good and the
virtues of the bad, exposing hypocrisy by irony and ridicule,
eloquent for reform, that Professor Cross has presented in his
history. His Fielding is not only a great writer but an honest,
high-minded, and generous-hearted man. He has, therefore, done
more than fulfill the demands of unremitting research and exact
scholarship. With a convincingness which cannot be gainsaid,
he has vindicated the memory of one of the great men in English
literature.
A HANDBOOK OF MORAL THEOLOGY. By Rev. Antony Koch,
D.D., Adapted and Edited by Arthur Preuss. Vol. II. St.
Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $1.50 net.
The second volume of Dr. Koch's Moral Theology deals with
sin and the means of grace. In five chapters the author discusses
the nature and origin of sin, the principal kinds of sin, the causes
of moral regeneration, the seven sacraments, and the sacra-
mentals. An appendix sums up the marriage impediments of the
new code of canon law.
CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION. By Richard J. Purcell, Ph. D.
Washington: American Historical Association.
The Justin Winsor Prize in American history for the year
1916 was awarded to this monograph. In a form slightly different
it was also awarded by Yale University the John Addison Porter
Prize. Having been twice approved by eminent specialists in the
field of American history, it needs no commendation from a re-
viewer whose function, under the circumstances, must be confined
to an enumeration of the more important subjects noticed by the
author.
Dr. Purcell's study is introduced by an explanation of the
rise in Connecticut of infidelity, a phenomenon which is traced
as far as the year 1801. This is followed by an account of the
religious life of Yale College and of the spiritual revival in the
beginning of the nineteenth century. A summary of the liberaliz-
ing of Calvinism completes this section, which includes an outline
of the rise in colonial times and the later progress of the more
numerous religious bodies which existed within the State. A
1919.] NEW BOOKS 101
concise enumeration of the undoubted grievances of dissenters,
that is dissenters from the Congregational Church established by
law, make up the second chapter. With this background, which
is admirably sketched, the subsequent happenings in Connecticut
are perfectly intelligible. In fact, the qualities of clearness and
entertainment are among the obvious merits of this work.
An interesting section on the operation and the mechanism
of government in Connecticut leads logically to an account of the
rise of the Democratic-Republican or Jeffersonian party, one of
the author's main themes. From Dr. Purcell's skillful analysis
it is clear that the final success of Jefferson's Connecticut followers
was largely due to the support of dissenters. A faithful narrative
of those far-off, sectarian quarrels is amusing now, but in the
beginning of the last century the intolerance of the Congregational
Church was not a matter to move one to mirth, for Episcopalian,
Baptist, and Methodist labored under disabilities exceedingly
grave. Catholics were not, as yet, sufficiently numerous to be
feared or even to arouse a feeling of contempt, though the organ-
ization of their Church often supplied the intolerant with effective
epithets. The exertions of the Jeffersonian party were chiefly
responsible for removing those discriminations and establishing
in the eye of the law the equality of all citizens. It will come
as a shock to readers whose ideas of early American democracy
have been derived from the holiday orations of contemporary
demagogues and reputed statesmen, to learn in what manner, in
post-Revolutionary times, the principles of the Declaration of
Independence and of the Constitution were everywhere applied
by the well-born, in Connecticut, at least, as late as the year 1819.
Always excellent in narration and description, the author sketches
the organization of the Federalist party in the " land of steady
habits," and both suggests and portrays its limitations.
A fact familiar to students of American institutional history
is that Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, as well as
Connecticut, did not, like the other members of the Union, form
constitutions of government when Congress, after adopting the
Declaration of Independence, had recommended such action.
Both States continued to live on under their colonial charters.
Most readers, we believe, assume on insufficient information that
the old systems of government were adequate to all the emergen-
cies which might confront the new Republic. But nothing could be
farther from the fact. The smooth narratives in the school and
in the college histories of the United States do not even faintly
suggest the bitterness of the conflict. Dr. Purcell's book vividly
describes the long struggle for emancipation in Connecticut.
102 NEW BOOKS [April,
success of the reform party and the completion of the revolu-
tion make up the list of chapers to which is appended an ex-
cellent bibliography. On the whole the reviewer regards this as
a splendid piece of research, at once complimentary to the Gradu-
ate School of Yale University, to which it was submitted as a
doctoral dissertation, and to the author, who, we have no doubt,
will make other valuable contributions to American history.
THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA. Supplementary Volume
Containing Revisions of the Articles on Canon Law According
to the Code of Canon Law of Pius X., promulgated by Pope
Benedict XV. By Andrew A. Macerlean, Member of the New
York Bar. New York: The Encyclopaedia Press, Inc. Cloth,
$1.00; morocco, $1.50.
This supplementary volume of the Catholic Encyclopaedia
contains revisions of the articles on Canon Law contributed to
the Encyclopaedia, and also a good deal of new material bearing
on Church Law. It has been rendered necessary by the new
Code of Canon Law on which the Canonists of the Church have
been working for several years, and which has been recently
promulgated. Many of the articles of the Encyclopaedia were
compiled after portions of the Code had already appeared and
these needed no revision. With this supplement the Catholic
Encyclopaedia contains a complete, compendious, and scholarly
treatise on the legislation of the Church. It comprises not only
four hundred articles on Canon Law proper, but also a large
number of articles on cognate subjects — all treated with the
erudition that marks this great monument of Catholic learning.
It should prove extremely valuable to all who take an intelligent
interest in this wonderful aspect of the Church's life and teaching.
MEXICO FROM CORTES TO CARRANZA. By Louise S. Hase-
brouck. New York: D. Appleton & Co. $1.50.
This very sketchy volume makes no pretence to scholarship.
It is a " popular " publication, and the authorities on which it
is based are not recondite. It presents that idealized portrait of
Aztec Mexico and Montezuma which Prescott proned, and which
received universal currency from the writings of Lew Wallace
and other novelists. Modern research has proved all these pictures
to be utterly unfounded. Two chapters, the second and the
fourteenth, are cast in the form of a story; a device which lends
picturesqueness, but does not conduce to accuracy. The astound-
ing statement is made that, " in 1818 the conqueror Napoleon de-
posed the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII." In 1818 Napoleon him-
1919.] NEW BOOKS 103
self was a prisoner on St. Helena; the unlucky Ferdinand was
deposed in 1808. This inexactitude is perhaps not of vital impor-
tance, but in weighty matters we meet a similar indifference to
truth and to charity as well. We are told that "the priests,
instead of setting an example to us, were men of bad lives. . . .
And on the great estates of the Church, the poor peons were
more badly used than elsewhere." Again we are informed,
" Juarez knew that the meddling of the Church in politics and
the hoarding of the greater part of the wealth of the country
in its coffers, were bringing about the ruin of Mexico." Passing
strange then, that such a greedy and unfaithful Church built the
most magnificent temples, universities and colleges on the Ameri-
can continent; printed the first books published on the soil of the
New World; educated and civilized the Indians; and was the
nursing mother of Mexicans, eminent in medicine, science, litera-
ture and journalism. The best answer in brief compass to all
these hoary calumnies lies in Monsignor Kelly's admirable article,
The Tragic Story of Martyred Mexico, published in the Extension
Magazine for April, 1917. Monsignor Kelley was not satisfied with
" popular " authorities. He went to the sources, and his essay
is a veritable storehouse of information pithily put.
THE DRAMATIC ART OF LOPE DE VEGA. Together with La
Dama Boba. By Rudolph Shevill. Berkeley: University of
California Press. $3.50.
Senor D. Marcelino Menedez y Pelayo, of the Spanish
Academy, has frequently been blamed for devoting so many of
his later years to the works of Lope de Vega, but surely, even if
the Spanish master-critic might, as it seems, have given his age
to more prolific subjects, it is strange to hear an American pro-
fessor inveigh, not only against the character of the performance,
but against the very project itself. And for what reason?—
merely the pedagogical necessities of the college class-room for
clearer texts — a rather trifling consideration it seems, in face
of the almost complete absence of any kind of text, as Professor
Shevill acknowledges. Certainly he would seem to advocate a
beginning from what should be the end of this question.
Students of Lope de Vega can afford to await the Spanish
Academy's editions — which if not so nearly perfect as Professor
Shevill would have them, will at least be an accomplishment in
scholarship and exploitation far beyond merely pedagogical
achievement in class-room ease and elegance.
The Dramatic Art of Lope de Vega is accompanied by j
fine text of La Dama Boba, a precious work of the monstruo de
104 NEW BOOKS [April,
la naturaleza; it is illustrated by ample notes that very ably
demonstrate the quality of the numerous allusions and the
histories of the personages referred to in the speeches. Particu-
larly noticeable is the biography of Juan Latino, the illustrious
negro of Baena, whose great erudition, ^and the difficulties in
obtaining the details of his life, have made him a favorite subject
with the Spanish historian.
MARRIAGE LEGISLATION IN THE NEW CODE OF CANON
LAW. By Very Rev. H. A. Ayrinhac, SS., D.D. New York:
Benziger Brothers. $2.00 net.
Dr. Ayrinhac, the scholarly President of St. Patrick's Sem-
inary, Menlo Park, California, has written a thorough and accurate
explanation of the marriage legislation of the new code of canon
law. While the changes are not in fact very numerous, they
are of real practical importance, and should be understood aright
by the priest on the mission. Every law calls for an interpreter,
for doubts will at once arise concerning its meaning and applica-
tion. These doubts will be finally settled by the Roman Con-
gregations as occasion arises, but in the meantime we can
confidently rely on this able treatise of a theologian who has
taught moral theology and canon law for many years.
The text of the law is given in the original, with an English
translation for the benefit of the lay reader. The writer lays
special stress upon the history of the Church's marriage laws, so
that one may appreciate the better the reason of the changes
affected in the new code. The twelve chapters treat of the pre-
liminaries to the celebration of marriage, the various impediments,
matrimonial consent, the form of marriage, marriages of
conscience, the time and place of the celebration of marriage, the
effects of marriage, the dissolution and the revalidation of
marriage and second marriages.
AMERICA IN FRANCE. By Major Frederick Palmer. New York:
Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.75.
Major Palmer describes con amore, as is only natural and
quite proper, the marvelous achievements of America in the War.
America had never been a military nation, and armed interven-
tion on a huge scale in Europe would have appeared a few years
ago unthinkable to her. Everything then had to be started from
the very beginning — general staff, training of officers and units,
transport, artillery, engineering, trench tactics. All this had to
be done three thousand miles from home, done too under the
highest pressure and at the briefest notice. How heroically Amer-
1919.] NEW BOOKS
105
ica responded to the appeal of her chiefs; how on March 28th Gen-
eral Pershing hurried to Marshal Foch and offered him all the
American troops and material in France to do with as he pleased;
how unselfishly General Pershing toiled, working daily from 7 A.M*.
till midnight, for the comfort and welfare of his men; how the dash-
ing intrepidity of the American boys needed restraint rather than
stimulant; how gallantly and successfully they bore themselves at
St. Mihiel and in the Argonne — all this and much more should be
read in Major Palmer's vivid and sympathetic pages. The author
has one literary peculiarity that soon strikes a reader. He takes
a real delight in building up long sentences. On page two there
is a sentence of ten lines pointed with commas. On page one
hundred and ninety-four the foregoing is bettered by one of four-
teen lines. To this succeeds almost immediately a banner sen-
tence of forty-three lines, pointed, indeed, with semi-colons and
commas, before we breathlessly reach a full stop.
THE CREATIVE IMPULSE IN INDUSTRY. By Helen Marot. New
York: E. P. Button & Co. $1.50.
In machine industry, where the majority are tied to tasks
which seem to be hopelessly monotonous and specialized, is it pos-
sible for the worker to develop a creative interest in his work?
This is the problem with which Miss Marot deals, and it is in her
view one that concerns primarily educators. The worker can be
enabled to find a creative interest in his occupation only through
the right kind of industrial training. In America, as well as in
Germany, the wrong kind is given, for the aim in both countries
is merely to make the worker a technically efficient producer in
order that the product may be as large and as cheap as possible.
Little or no attention is paid to the worker's desire for self-expres-
sion, his desire to find interest in the productive process upon
which he is engaged, and pride in his contribution to the finished
article.
Undoubtedly the problem that the book discusses is one of the
gravest that exists in our industrial system. Both in the school
and in industry it is assumed by the majority of even socially
minded men, if we make the worker technically efficient and pro-
vide him with good conditions of employment in the matter of
wages, hours, safety, etc., we shall have a satisfactory industrial
situation. This is an astonishing fallacy. What it really implies
is that the workers can be safely treated as efficient machines, or
at least as well-fed animals, without initiative or interest. The
fact is that even if we had satisfactorily solved all the problems
involved in the relations between capital and labor, we should still
106 NEW BOOKS [April,
have left the apparently more difficult one of enlisting the interest,
initiative, imagination and creative impulse of the worker. Per-
haps this is rendered impossible by the very nature of machine in-
dustry; on the other hand, engineers like Mr. Robert Wolf may be
right when they assert that ninety per cent of the machine tasks
can be made interesting, and that the remaining ten per cent ought
to be abolished. In any case, the immediate duty of all social
students is to realize and grapple with the problem.
The book in hand is a small one, but it is intensely suggestive
and stimulating. Its indictment of the monotony of machine in-
dustry at present, and its demonstration of the inadequateness of
American and Prussian systems of industrial training are com-
plete and unanswerable. Unfortunately its proposals of remedial
educational measures are timid, partial, and unconvincing. But
this is a new and difficult field.
THE OREGON MISSIONS. By James W. Bashford. New York:
The Abingdon Press. $1.25.
Bishop James W. Bashford of the Methodist Episcopal
Church undertakes to show in this volume that " Oregon " in-
cluding what is now the States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho,
Western Montana, and a part of Wyoming, were secured to the
United States through the patriotic efforts of Protestant mission-
aries, mainly Methodists. To refute his visionary claims would be
an easy task, but it would require more space than can be given
to a necessarily brief review of his work. Had he chosen to call
his book " The Settlement of Oregon," it would have been vastly
more appropriate, since it deals much with the political and com-
mercial aspects of the country during this period and very little
with the spiritual needs of the natives.
The first to lead in this so-called " Missionary Work " were
the Methodists who settled in the Willamette Valley in
1834. Their leader was Jason Lee, whom Bishop Bashford exalts
and eulogizes as one of the greatest of missionary saints and
heroes. As a matter of historical fact the missionary labors of
Jason Lee never extended beyond the Willamette Valley, Oregon,
and covered a space of only six years (1834-1840). But since ex-
aggerated claims are made for him by his biographer, it is only
fair to examine a few of these. Jason Lee was born and died a
British subject. The intense Americanism claimed for him by his
biographer never urged him to renounce his British allegiance.
From the beginning of their missionary work in 1834, he and his
associates showed their ignorance of effective missionary methods
by requiring their neophytes to abandon their tepees and live in
1919.] NEW BOOKS
107
houses, to send their children to school in close, unclean, ill-ven-
tilated houses : in fact to live wholly unnatural lives with results
frightfully disastrous to life. Parrish says that "in 1840," five
hundred Indians died in the Willamette Valley, and by the Wil-
lamette Valley he means the Mission Bancroft. The causes
assigned were " the change in the mode of living and the introduc-
tion by the whites of vices among the natives which undermined
their vitality and made them a mere shadow of their former selves,
a hopelessly degenerate race" (Bradshaw, p. 185). It would be
quite pertinent to inquire of his biographer why this terrible
visitation should have fallen on them just during the period of
Methodist missionary activity, and how a promising tribe of na-
tives could become " hopelessly degenerate " under the same in-
fluence. Bancroft says that it was not difficult for Jason Lee to
believe that his wishes were identical with the Lord's, and now that
the Indians were gone, there was nothing to prevent the establish-
ment of a prosperous Methodist settlement of white immigrants.
No further attempts were made to carry on missionary work and
the mission was turned into a commercial centre for the white
settlers.
Space forbids detailed mention of the disgraceful scheme of
the Methodist missionaries to cheat Dr. McLoughlin out of his
homestead claim at Oregon City. In 1844, the Methodist missions
in Oregon were closed. Thus ends the history of ten years of mis-
sionary labor in Oregon, says Bancroft, in which nothing was done
that ever benefited the Indians, but which cost the Methodist
Episcopal Church a quarter of a million dollars. It is a stinging
commentary by a non-Catholic historian. An indispensable quali-
fication for the historian is regard for the truth. Right Reverend
Bashford shows himself painfully lacking in this particular in sev-
eral instances. On page twenty-four, in the apocryphal story of
the visit of four Indians to St. Louis in 1832 in quest of the Bible,
he says: "Inasmuch as He-oh-ste-kins' speech shows the object
of the Indians visit to St. Louis was to get the Bible which the
Catholics do not use in their public worship nor furnish to their
members." Right Reverend Bashford could not have been un-
aware that he was penning a pernicious falsehood. On page
thirty-two he speaks of " the low standard of civilization de-
manded by the Catholic missionaries among their wards." While
giving credit to the Catholic missionaries for certain things, he
studiously conveys the idea that they were in sympathy with Great
Britain and opposed to the United States, and, without openly
asserting it, he leaves the impression that they were in some vague
way concerned in the Whitman Massacre.
108 NEW BOOKS [April,
The book adds nothing to the world's stock of useful knowl-
edge. It is written in a style of pious camouflage, well adapted
for keeping the trusting Methodist believer from probing beneath
the surface and discovering the truth of things for himself.
THE BAND OF GIDEON AND OTHER LYRICS. By Joseph S. Cot-
ter, Jr. Boston: The Cornhill Co. $1.00.
All interested in the progress of the negro race will be glad to
give attention to the songs of the young David Cotter. They are
not numerous and they are very slight: the greater part of them
are colored by a weary sadness, possibly to be attributed to ill-
health, which Mr. Gale Young Rice's introduction tells us has held
bed-ridden so many of the singer's twenty-two years. The verses
betray a soul earnestly reaching out toward God, toward faith and
peace and beauty, albeit conscious always of the mysterious cloud
placed by race upon his brow.
David Cotter's real success lies in the finely simple and im-
passioned hymn which gives title to the little book. Here one
catches the primitive fervor and lilt of the negro folk-song — and
there is abundant room in American literature for more of this
na'ive and genuine music. Mr. Cotter reproduces it, in this best
effort of his, quite as powerfully as do the dialect chants of Mr.
Vachel Lindsay.
THE RED ONE. By Jack London. New York: The Macmillan
Co. $1.40.
Here are four samples of the novella or long short-story as
Jack London wrote it in the closing years of his adventurous and
corpuscular career. But there is nothing in this book that will in-
crease London's reputation. He struck out a new vein in fiction
with Before Adam and The Call of The Wild; and in his later
books he showed that he had no little expertness in evoking the
glamours of adventure in remote wild places, especially the magi-
cal lure of the Southern Pacific Islands. At times his writing
about the sea and ships — most of all perhaps in Burning Day-
light, if one remembers aright — recalled, a little, Conrad's vir-
tuosity. But Jack London was never an artist pur sang. He came
nearest to being an artist in the best of all his books, Martin Eden,
but even that interesting novel is defaced by many technical faults.
And he had no loving care for words; again and again throughout
his books he writes " no language."
These four tales are entitled respectively, The Red One,
The Hussy, Like Argus of the Ancient Times: The Princess. The
third of these seems the best. It recounts the adventures of the in-
1919.] NEW BOOKS 109
domitable Tarwater. Old Tarwater is a real person and we are
made to feel it. The story is a piece of genuine human life and
striving.
ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM, SPIRITISM, AND DEMONOLOGY. By
Dean W. R. Harris. St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $1.00 net.
In a dozen brief chapters Dean Harris discusses in popular
fashion the phenomena of modern occultism. The first half of
the volume deals with the facts of telepathy, orientation, second
sight, bilocation, bicorporeity and dual personality. The second
half treats of demoniacal possession and spiritism.
Spiritism, as the author well brings out, is an utterly pagan
system and its existence today is an alarming sign of the de-
generacy of our boasted civilization. The Catholic Church
strongly denounces it because it denies an objective revelation, the
divinity of Christ, the Church and its sacraments, the priesthood,
heaven and hell, and holds the absurd theory that every man is
his own saviour. The souls of the dead, saved or lost, do not re-
spond to the evocations of man. The character of spirit mani-
festations is proof positive — aside from fraud — that evil spirits
masquerade as the souls of men or women who once lived upon
earth. The evil effects, both moral and physical, that follow upon
the practice of spiritism prove the wisdom of the Church in forbid-
ding her children, under pain of sin to have aught to do with
mediums, seances, or spiritism in any of its forms.
EXPERIMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL ADMINISTRATION. By
Francis Bowes Sayre, S.J.D. New York: Harper & Brothers.
$1.50 net.
Those interested in the more technical side of the problem
of creating an effective league of nations will find this book help-
ful both for the data it contains and as a guide for the formation
of judgment on a number of points of fundamental importance.
Beginning with a brief review of the epoch-making treaties of the
past, he shows how the main reason for the failure to effect lasting
peace was due to their having been founded essentially upon
injustice. Added to this was the unwillingness on the part of
the nations to submit to a sufficient amount of external control to
make an effective international executive organ possible. On the
supposition that the time is now ripe for the creation of such an
organ, he proceeds to delineate what he characterizes as three
different types of international executive organs and draws a sharp
distinction between those with large powers of control and those
with little or none. The conclusion drawn at the end, and well
110 NEW BOOKS [April,
substantiated in the body of the book, is that " the striking fact
is not that successes have been so few, but rather that, in the very
few cases where international government has been sincerely and
honestly tried, and where necessity has forced the nations to ac-
cord to the international organ sufficient power, the results have
been on the whole successful."
THE DOCTOR IN WAR. By Woods Hutchinson, M.D. Boston :
Houghton Mifflin Co. $2.50 net.
Dr. Woods Hutchinson is so well known as a popular writer
on medical subjects that no one would doubt for a moment but
that he would make a very interesting book on the War, even
though he had stayed at home. Having had the privilege, how-
ever, of visiting all the fronts with the approval and the assistance
of the Army Medical Departments, it is easy to understand that
he has made what is really a fascinating book and, indeed, much
more than that, that he has made a volume which will be referred
to long after the War as containing first-hand information with
regard to the medical history of this immense struggle.
What Dr. Hutchinson's book makes very clear is that, in spite
of the fact that we thought human nature had become very differ-
ent as the result of living nice, comfortable and even luxurious
lives in the midst of our modern conveniences, human nature
has not changed a single bit. So far from the hardships of war
proving detrimental to modern humanity, with its supposed re-
laxed physical fibre, it has actually braced men up and proven
beneficial.
DUTCH LANDSCAPE ETCHERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CEN-
TURY. By William Aspenwall Bradley. New Haven: Yale
University Press. $2.00.
To some lovers of art, etchings are a matter of more than
common interest, and to them the art of etching assumes a
significance equal to that which others attach to color and canvas.
Every man to his taste, is a proverb suited to promoting good
fellowship among individuals, and it serves acceptably here. Mr.
Bradley has served very acceptably those given to the study of
etchings by writing a small volume upon the subject. It is an
interesting book, and, in fact, the first adequate account in English
of the Dutch etchers of the period. It is biographical and critical
in its scope, and covers the activities of all the more important
workers of the century from the Van de Veldes to Antoni
Walterloo, with the exception of Rembrandt. This most noted
of all Dutch landscape etchers the author has omitted because
1919.] NEW BOOKS HI
he has been so often the subject of study. Whether this omission
may be counted a defect in the book, the individual reader will
best decide. At all events, it is entertaining and valuable,
charming alike for its simple narrative and descriptive style, and
the one hundred and fifty-four illustrations of the work of the
Dutch etchers. It may be interesting to note that the originals
of most of them are to be found in the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts.
THE DAWN OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE. By Arthur Tilley,
M.A. Cambridge: The University Press.
Mr. Arthur Tilley has made the most thorough study we
possess in English of the beginnings of the French Renaissance
both in letters and art. An introductory chapter deals with the
origin, spirit and development of the Italian Renaissance, and
traces its influence upon France during the reigns of the French
kings, Charles V., Louis XL, Charles VIII. and Louis XII. Part
II. on the " Renaissance in Letters " deals with the study of Latin
and Greek both in Paris and the provinces, and gives an excellent,
critical sketch of the chief French poets and prose writers of the
period. Part III. on the " Renaissance in Art " deals with the
history of architecture, sculpture and painting, the text being
beautifully illustrated by many photos of French chateaux,
hotels, smaller town houses, municipal buildings, churches,
stained glass windows, statues of the Blessed Virgin and the
saints, tombs, choir stalls, medals and other works of art.
THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR. By John Bach
McMaster. New York: D. Appleton & Co. $3.00.
The story of how the United States was driven from neutrality
into war is well told in this book. The submarine campaign
annoyed and angered the American people, but what really fanned
their wrath into flame was the Lusitania tragedy. Before the in-
dignation of the American people had time to cool, they began
to learn of the treacherous acts of German officials domiciled in
America. These men were abundantly supplied with money, and
in the interests of their propaganda they did not stop at crime.
Suitable tools were employed and paid to foment labor troubles,
to injure factories and shipping, to blow up bridges and railroads.
Worst of all, German agents endeavored to embroil the United
States with Mexico and Japan. There is something peculiarly
repellent in the crimes of the German secret service planned on
neutral soil, and performed against a then friendly nation. Like
all their other crimes, these too contributed to bring about their
112 NEW BOOKS [April,
authors' undoing. The President protested again and again, but
in vain. Deceitful promises were made, only to be evaded or
broken at the first opportunity. He then severed diplomatic re-
lations, hoping still to avert hostilities. Only when forbearance
would have ceased to be a virtue, did he call the manhood of the
country to the colors and declare war. The new blood of America,
poured lavishly into the contest, brought about the greatest
debacle in history — a downfall so complete and irremediable, that
its full consequences cannot as yet be adequately forecast.
Some of the newspaper statements quoted and written in the
purest journalese, show up in odd contrast with the author's own
cultured and academic style. The value of the book as a work of
reference is enhanced by the addition of a copious index.
THE HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE METHODS IN THE PERIOD
BEFORE 1825. By Balph Volney Harlow, Ph. D. New
Haven: Yale University Press. $2.25.
Many who lack experience and scholarship are apt to believe
that the vast mass of existing statutes has been hammered into
shape by the discussions of legislative assemblies. As they enter
into the subject, however, they will learn that many lawmakers
have really had nothing whatever to do either in suggesting or
formulating the principles of laws enacted during their legislative
experience. A little reading of this work soon corrects the notion
that legislative bodies or their regular committees are the most
potent forces in shaping the phraseology or selecting the principles
of the laws enacted. From an early date, as appears in this
narrative, irregular bodies or non-official groups have played ex-
ceedingly important parts in the legislative game.
In tracing the rise in colonial times and the development of
standing committees, Dr. Harlow has examined former studies of
this subject, the Commons Journal, the Parliamentary Debates,
the journals and other records of American legislative assemblies.
So important are the functions of the committees of Congress and
to so high a point of perfection has this principle of the division
of labor been carried in the United States, that many believe the
idea of standing committees to be of American origin. Further
inquiry shows that the principle was well understood in Parlia-
ment long before the English settled North America. Indeed a
wide course of reading is requisite to acquaint one with the his-
tory of American political institutions.
An exceedingly interesting chapter treats party organization
in the provincial legislatures. In looking into the Journal of the
Massachusetts House the author has discovered for a definite
1919.] NEW BOOKS
113
period, 1766-'67, that certain names are constantly occurring.
About the time of the Stamp Act several of this coterie, known as
the Boston " Junto," began to acquire power at the expense of the
royal governor. Until 1774 this grew apace. John Adams
describes a visit to one of the meetings of such an irregular group.
On the occasion of his visit the future President heard amidst
flowing flip the affairs of the province discussed in clouds of
smoke. There, he informs us, officials were chosen before they
were elected in town meeting. In a word, the Caucus Club and the
Monday Night Club appear to have anticipated the more modern
machine and to have already acquired skill in the making of slates.
For other colonies the story, with slight variations, is much the
same.
Another section discusses the origin of " The Committee of
the Whole House," which is ascribed to the British Parliament .of
the time of James I. The author shows that it really is not a
committee at all, but a meeting of the house itself, conducted
under rules different from those which govern procedure in the
regular session. The speaker no longer presides and there are
not the usual restraints on debate.
In a succeeding chapter the subject of committee procedure
is examined. Some of the problems confronting the First Con-
gress are ably discussed in the section following. Republicanism
in the House and the Jeffersonian regime together form an in-
teresting and instructive part of this book. From the above the
reader can readily estimate the practical value of the work.
THE LOST FRUITS OF WATERLOO. By John Spencer Bassett,
Ph.D., LL.D. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50.
Dr. Bassett thinks the World War of yesterday is one of
the lost fruits of Waterloo, the damnosa hereditas of the shameless
cupidity and unceasing antagonisms of the Powers of Europe.
His book really contains a brief and lucid history of European
politics since 1815, and more than once he points out with dis-
concerting impartiality that again and again the actions of the
Powers would not bear a searchlight. In his second chapter he
gives a resume of peace movements in the past. But he makes
no mention of the mediaeval concert of nations under the presi-
dency of the Pope, and the numerous Truces of God. Yet of the
medieval Christendom Auguste Comte, who was no Catholic and
not even a Christian, said "it was the political masterpiece of
human wisdom." He speaks respectfully of the Emperor
Alexander I. of Russia and of the Congress of Vienna of 1814.
Very different is the estimate of De Lanzac de Laborie in the
VOL. CIX. 8
114 NEW BOOKS [April,
Correspondant of September 25, 1918. This well-known historian
gives a picture, one can only characterize as terrible, of the
frivolity and ineptness of the Congress; of the carousings and
junketings of its members. He quotes the Prince de Ligne as
saying: " Le congres ne marche pas, mats il danse."
In his sixth chapter Dr. Bassett summarizes very well the
intricate politics of the Balkan States. The last two chapters
contain excellent arguments in favor of federation. Whether the
nations will act on them remains to be seen. Apropos of the
battle of Waterloo we may be permitted to remark in passing
that some distinguished contemporary Englishmen, (e. g. Hazlitt,
Shelley), did not think the victory an unmixed blessing for the
English people; while Faguet (Propos Littdraires, vol. ii., pp.
171 et seq.) considers it to have been a misfortune for the cause
of civilization itself.
THE WAR AND THE FUTURE. By John Masefield. New York:
The Macmillan Go. $1.25.
Two lectures compose this book: the first on " St. George and
the Dragon;" the second on " The War and the Future." In the
former the author gives a rapid sketch of the main events of the
War up to April of last year, interpreting the part of Great Britain
as resembling the combat of St. George with the dragon. The
second, which was delivered in the United States last spring, is
likewise mainly descriptive of the War, although it contains a
few pages at the end which give expression to the hope that some-
thing like a league of nations may be formed to make another war
impossible. The volume has high literary merit.
WHERE YOUR HEART IS. By Beatrice Harraden. New York:
Dodd, Mead & Go. $1.50.
Miss Harraden reappears before her public with fiction of
marked effectiveness. It treats of the War's salutary reactions
upon the heart and soul of a woman naturally selfish and avari-
cious. The pursuit of her own business interests takes her to
Belgium, . where she witnesses the sufferings of the victims.
Shamed and inspired by the labors of those who are striving to
alleviate the distress, she eventually becomes as generous and
devoted as they. The theme is not new, but the treatment is
distinctly so, in ways which it would be unfair to the reader to
tell. The transformation of character is no sudden and dubious
conversion, but gradual, consistent, and thoroughly convincing.
The scenes of relief work ring true, and are obviously the fruit of
the author's experiences. In this connection, it is agreeable to
1919.] NEW BOOKS 115
note her repeated tributes to the fine achievements of the Ameri-
can Relief Commission. The book has faults of style and con-
struction, but these count for nothing, weighed against its merits.
Where Your Heart Is may be classed as one of the few War
novels that will not soon fade from the memory.
BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A WAR AMBULANCE. By Robert
Whitney Imbrie. New York: Robert M. McBride & Co. $1.50.
Mr. Imbrie has produced a most enjoyable book; for he writes
well and has the gift of crisp and vivid narrative. He has a
talent too for witty comparisons, and homely humorous phrases,
which stick in the memory. His tenth chapter " Encore Verdun "
is, perhaps, the best in the book; while the pages which we should
call Verdun in death are super-excellent — a little snap of what
he saw as he sauntered about the shell-torn, mutilated city.
Subsequently he was sent to the Near East. He spent some
time at Saloniki and Monastir. His adventures driving his
ambulance over the trackless defiles of the Balkans were almost
epic. His career was nearly cut short by enteric. He recovered,
however, and received the Croix de guerre. In his preface he
apologizes for the " egocentricity " of his pages. There is really
no need to do so. Their egoism is by no means excessive, and
is never offensive. There are a few misprints here and there.
The interest of the book is enhanced by ten illustrations.
ESSAYS IN THE STUDY OF SIENESE PAINTING. By Bernard
Berenson. New York: Frederick Fairchild Sherman. $3.65.
A new token of Mr. Berenson's activity in the field he has
plowed and from which he has reaped during the last thirty years,
is something of an event, especially if presented in the attractive,
richly illustrated form we owe to the publishers of this, his latest
volume. The reproduction of the pictures used for illustra-
tion, serves again the intention which presided over his former
efforts, when treating of North and Central Italian painters,
namely, to make us better acquainted with artistic personalities
" hitherto unintegrated, or to extend, by showing in a new phase,"
personalities already known. With that object in view he selected
a few of the less famous among the members of the Sienese guile
of palette and brush, of which Duccio di Buoninsegna, Ambrog
and Pietro Lorenzetti, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, commonly cai
Sodoma, and Domenico di Pace Beccafumi are perhaps the mo
widely admired. "Disentangling" Lippo Vanni,
Petruccioli, Girolamo da Cremona, Guidoccio Cozz
Matteo di Giovanni, he goes a little out of his way to discu
116 NEW BOOKS [April,
chapter by itself the beautiful Ferrarese marriage salver in the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts without venturing as yet an opinion
as to its possible author.
Concerning the period in which Sienese painting reached
its zenith, he strikes a novel chord in differing from the
cinquecento notion by putting the date of its culmination about
the year 1350. Then, he asserts, archaism, eclecticism and
syncretism caused the lapse of its steady and logical evolution, and
" nothing but a surviving simplicity of purpose and fine crafts-
manship, and a saving ignorance of chiaroscuro and the oil
medium, prevented the disaster that overtook Italian painting in
general, little more than two centuries later." Mr. Berenson has,
indeed, good reason for inviting us in his preface to believe in his
conclusions even if not perfectly convinced of his arguments. In
welcoming this admirably instructive book, we cannot omit men-
tioning the promise it conveys of a disquisition from the same
hand on the relations between Sienese and Oriental art. The
debt of the West to the East, also in an artistic sense, has never
been adequately acknowledged, although it begins to make itself
felt. We look forward to Mr. Berenson's contribution to that
subject.
WALKING-STICK PAPERS. By Robert Cortes Holliday. New
York: George H. Doran Co. $1.50.
To be able to converse well is a choice accomplishment. To
entertain, to instruct, to make hours happy and profitable that
might have been dull and empty, and to do it in a light, cheery,
unforbidding way — who would not desire to be skilled in the art
of conversation? Mr. Holliday must be a very pleasant companion,
if one may judge by his Walking-Stick Papers. In these twenty-
four essays, called by Mr. Huneker " monstrously clever," he
chats pleasantly on all sorts and conditions of things from " The
Fish Reporter " to the philosophy of wearing a hat. Only one who
has been a fish reporter knows what to say about it. Mr. Holliday
also wears a hat, we believe, and has seen several others do like-
wise. A great amiability pervades the three hundred odd pages
of the book, a quiet good humor that enlivens the interesting
observations on manners and men.
While the author probably did not intend the papers to com-
pete with one another, but to live together in a happy family
spirit, the ones that make the most persistent appeal to the
present reviewer are " On Carrying a Cane," " On Going a
Journey," "Going to Art Exhibitions," "That Reviewer Cuss,"
"Literary Levities in London," and "The Deceased." "That
1919.] NEW BOOKS 117
Reviewer Cuss " assuredly opens up the question of book review-
ing quite amazingly, stating openly what many people have
shrewdly suspected. This one essay is pure gold to one about
to take up literary work. It is a pocket philosophy drawn from
the experience of a man who has seen the literary life in its
various aspects. If it does not teach a kindly lesson, it is not
Mr. Holliday's fault.
In fact, he has few faults. Other essayists, to be sure, would
write similar ideas in a dissimilar way. Mr. Benson's polished
sentences would make an entirely new book of it; Miss Repplier's
sparkling conversational tone would be quieter and less staccato
in its effect. But the three are not quite akin, and their modes of
expression do not meet. Mr. Holliday is nothing if not good
company.
WAR POEMS FROM THE YALE REVIEW. New Haven: Yale
University Press. $1.00.
No Virgil has yet essayed the task of singing the arma
virumque of the Great War now ebbing away, and it will be many
a year, no doubt, before the Homer of the modern world will
tune his lyre to the wrath of the Crown Prince or of the un-
crowned Kaiser. But every poet has called his muse to assist
him in voicing some phase of conflict, or in setting to music some
emotion evoked by an incident of the War. In many instances
it would seem that the muse has answered the call but feebly,
for the song has often been rather lifeless and aenemic. But
many poems have been written which have been of high order,
appealing at once with the fair grace and beauty that is poetry.
Several anthologies have appeared, containing much of the best
war verse. War Poems From The Yale Review is one of them,
and one of the best, despite the fact that it is probably the most
slender of the collections, having but nineteen poems and com-
prising only forty-seven pages. Seventeen poets ask the reader's
plaudits, and many of them surely deserve them.
In The Union Alfred Noyes has a ringing tribute to the
United States in a musical setting that would stir even a dead
soul to rise to love of country. John Erskine sees the marshaled
armies and offers his Impressions at the Front in the superb
classic tones that characterize so much of his poetry. In The
New Iliad Katharine Lee Bates sings quite charmingly the tale
of the New England boy closing his Homer to take his part in
the greater Iliad overseas. A sweet and gentle melancholy per-
vades The Absent Lover, an old theme ever new, and very
pretty in the tuneful lyrics of Irene McLeod. Winifred Letts is
118 NEW BOOKS [April,
the laureate of The Connaught Rangers, a poem of charming
melody, in a lilting, Celtic mood. The little volume also offers
specimens of the work of Robert Frost, Emile Cammaert, and
Louis Untermeyer, among others. All the poems reflect the
idealism of the past four years, as it seeks expression through the
temperament of the individual poet. There is to be found in
them little utterance of the joy of the clash of arms, there is no
hymning of hate, but the song is of the endurance of the spirit,
a paean of the gladness to live or to die for the right. There
is no useless regret for a peace that departed with Prussia's crime,
but a forward gaze to the new peace, born of The Will to Per-
fection, as Masefield names his sonnet. They are over now, the
four years of travail, and many men are dead; but the dead are
not dead in vain, for a resurrection will come to the world, one
hopes, such a resurrection as the fine concluding verses of John
Finley's, The Valleys of the Blue Shrouds, foretells for France.
Then all the valleys and hills "shall pulse again with life that
laughs and sings."
THE VICTIMS' RETURN. By Noelle Roger. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Co. $1.00.
This simple, straightforward account of the systematic
repatriation of War refugees in Switzerland is by one actively
engaged in the work. It is another cheering and welcome re-
minder that side by side with inhuman cruelty have gone in-
tense sympathy and loving-kindness, laboring to repair deadly
wrongs: thus, despite the tragic conditions with which it deals,
it is pleasant reading. It is, moreover, so well written that it is
entitled to consideration even in face of the mass of War litera-
ture only too likely to crowd out so small a contribution as this
unpretending book.
FIGHTING FOR FAIR VIEW. By William Heyliger. New York:
D. Appleton & Co. $1.35 net.
Mr. Heyliger gives us here another story for boys. " Buddy "
Jones, captain of the Fairview high school baseball team, wakens
to the discovery that he is no longer the one best fitted for that
position; that loyalty to the interests of Fairview and fairness to
his mates require that he surrender his leadership to a newcomer
among them. He conquers in the silent struggle with himself, and
by his sacrifice his beloved school is victorious in a contest of im-
mense importance to all concerned.
The book is well written, in the author's characteristic man-
ner. This means the ignoring of any more spiritual motive for right
1919.] NEW BOOKS
119
conduct than a naturally high individual standard of ethics. Lack-
ing the deeper source of courage and support, Buddy is rewarded
by his comrades' appreciation, which takes the form of public
acknowledgment and thanks. Thus the book becomes a bit of the
pleasant but illusory reading that can scarcely be held to con-
tribute toward the best preparation for life.
IN THE SOLDIERS' SERVICE. By Mary Dexter. Boston: Hough-
ton Mifflin Go. $1.50 net.
This is a series of letters written by the author to her mother
in America, telling of her war experiences as a nurse in the Eng-
lish hospitals and as an ambulance driver in France. The book
has subject matter in plenty, yet Miss Dexter has hardly made the
most of it. While the narrative of her " cases " and her experi-
ences is always bright and interesting, it is somewhat discon-
nected. Because the story is told in letters hurriedly written, the
tale loses much in the telling, is scant and incomplete and is a
promise only of what might have been.
SKIPPER JOHN OF THE NIMBUS. By Raymond McFarland.
New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50.
This is a stirring tale of the life and adventures of the young
captain of a fishing schooner sailing from Gloucester to the Banks.
Our boy hero is cruelly treated by his guardian, and in a fit of
angry defiance runs away to sea.
The reader will follow with the keenest interest John Deane's
fight for success, against the heaviest odds, from the day on which
he was kidnapped by the villain captain of the story, to the moment
in which he rescues the same villain shipwrecked off the Canadian
coast. Every detail of the business of mackerel fishing is perfectly
explained, and the descriptions of storms, shipwrecks, contests
with the Canadian revenue officers — they were always discom-
fited of course — will appeal strongly to every American boy.
FREE: AND OTHER STORIES. By Theodore Dreiser. New
York: Boni & Liveright. $1.50 net.
These eleven stories, of which the first gives its title to the
collection, are widely devious in subject and character. Though
not all on the same plane of merit nor exhibiting anything strik-
ingly new, they are for the most part interesting, Old Rogaum and
His Theresa especially so. Taken as a whole, they give Mr. Dreiser
adequate representation, and demonstrate that he is able to ex-
press himself as effectively in the short story as through his
accustomed and less difficult medium, the novel.
120 NEW BOOKS [April,
THE LAW OF STRUGGLE. By Hyman Segal. New York: Mas-
sada Publishing Go. $1.50 postpaid.
Is the author of this book in earnest or is he only poking
fun at his readers? On the latter hypothesis the book is worth
reading; otherwise, not.
Mr. Segal does not at all adopt Mrs. Eddy's view that pain is
error. On the contrary pain is of the very stuff of life, and the
phrase " of the very stuff of life " becomes a quasi-technical term
by repetition. Our normal condition is the state of pain from
which we, are ever struggling. " Pain is the universal substance
which is given and the Will to Struggle is its concomitant.'*
" Morality in man and beast . . . flow from the degree of their re-
sponsiveness to pain or sensitive experience." " The true basis
of title to property is acquisition by struggle according to the
standard of struggle obtaining at the time the property is
acquired." " Honesty is an acquired as distinguished from a
natural virtue, enforced by society in order to maintain a standard
of struggle." " Murder is a heinous offence because it is the most
palpable instance of the permanent cutting off of another's strug-
gle." " Marriage organizes our life for struggle. Hence the
sanctity of marriage ties." " The vices are those practices, habits
or inclinations which weaken our capacity for struggle." " The
State is the medium through which the people at large or nation
has pooled its power for collective struggle." The non-morality
of the German State " is a different order of morality than we pro-
fess and only relatively immoral. Actually, it is a kind of moral-
ity, inferior in the scale of struggle. . . ."
MORALE AND ITS ENEMIES. By William Ernest Hocking.
New Haven: Yale University Press. $1.50.
In this study Doctor Hocking, Professor of Philosophy at
Harvard, proposes to elucidate the mentality of soldier and civilian
under the stress of war conditions. By the application of the
theory of psychology to the mental states observable in war time,
he endeavors to outline the laws and principles which are at work
throughout the human predicament. For the study of such
phenomena he had abundant opportunity on the occasion of his
visit to the front under British auspices, and of his lecture tour
to the Northeastern Division of Army Gamps during the summer
of 1918.
Accepting Napoleon's judgment that in war the moral is to
the physical as three to one, the author inquires into the nature
and conditions of an effective morale. This, he establishes, is no
mere matter of the feelings and emotions, but rests on a rational
1919.] NEW BOOKS 121
and ethical basis : " Morale is at bottom a state of will and pur-
pose; and the first factor in any mature human purpose is knowl-
edge, i. e., knowledge of the thing to be gained by the purpose—
the good to be realized or the evil to be averted, or both." And
again : " Morale for all the greater purpose of war is a state of
faith; and its logic will be the superb and elusive logic of human
faith. It is for this reason that morale, while not identical with the
righteousness of the cause, can never reach its height unless the
aim of the war can be held intact in the undissembled moral sense
of the people." Recognizing thus the two factors of logic and
ethics in morale, he stresses the need of popular instruction in
war aims, and shows how the moral integrity of a cause may de-
feat the purpose of a conscienceless Realpolitik.
The hope is expressed in the preface that the morale developed
for war purposes may be a spiritual asset in the time of peace. The
inevitable drawback of Doctor Hocking's ethics is that it depends
exclusively on natural motives as a means of uplift. Thus, in the
absence of the supernatural, it is idle to urge as a specific against
the social evil the American standard of democracy and chivalry
toward woman. This lack of belief in revealed religion takes from
a book which is otherwise marked by singular clarity of thought
and treatment.
THE ESSENTIAL MYSTICISM. By Stanwood Gobb. Boston: The
Four Seas Co. $1.50 net.
Mysticism is a word more often used than understood. Even
in circles where it should be understood it has borne a hazy mean-
ing. Happily, of late years in Catholic literature it has become
simplified. Henri Joli in his Psychology of the Saints defines it
as the love of God. Every Christian, he says, who is in the state
of grace loves God and is a mystic. Similarly, Father S. Louismet,
in Mysticism True and False, contends that the mystic life is
simply life with God — " the intercourse of mutual love between
God and the fervent Christian."
The author of The Essential Mysticism also takes it to mean
the reaching out of the soul for union with God, and his book is
a plea for things of the spirit in an age " that is too busy hunting
for material comforts to sit down and think," and in which " life's
sole aim is to exhaust the pleasure of the present moment."
picture of the typical American is not very flattering. He has
" two very good eyes, a physically analytical mind, and a total
ineptness for real thought." It is no wonder that when such a
man embraces Christian Science "he has become an idealist
without knowing or understanding what he believes."
122 NEW BOOKS [April,
Mr. Cobb's plan to transform the typical American into a
mystic will not, we fear, meet much success. It is not easy to see
how mysticism of any kind can have a place in the religion which
Mr. Gobb invents. For he champions a new brand of religion —
a universal religion — " a religion comprising the essential truths
of all the world's spiritual teaching." " Religion," he explains,
" at bottom is one and the same thing for Jew and Christian,
Brahman, Moslem and Confucianist." Surely, Mr. Cobb's studies
should have taught him that religion, to have a foothold in the
world, must be based upon supernatural revelation. It is only
in revealed religion that well-balanced mysticism can have place —
and it is only in Catholicism that mysticism, in the highest sense
of the word, is possible. Mr. Cobb's book is a jungle where
Buddhism, Theosophy, Christian Science, Bahaism, Sufism,
Taoism and other dreamy cults jostle one another, much to the
reader's bewilderment. It is a book which, decidedly, makes
" confusion worse confounded."
THE BEDROCK OF BELIEF. By William F. Robison, S.J. St.
Louis: B. Herder Book Co. $1.25 net.
This is the third volume of a series of lectures on apologetics
given by Father Robison in St. Francis Xavier Church, St. Louis.
He first answered the question: Why must one be a Catholic? the
second: Why must one be a Christian? and the third: Why must
a man profess any religion at all?
The six chapters of this interesting volume treat of the
necessity of religion, the existence of God, the idea of God, the
nature and dignity of man, the necessity of worship, and the
sanction of eternal reward and punishment. It is an excellent
book to put into the hands of an unbeliever. It. is well written,
well thought out, and puts the arguments for the foundations of
belief in a clear and cogent manner.
THE PAWNS OF FATE. By Paul E. Bowers. Boston: The
Cornhill Co. $1.50.
In this novel of politics and sociology more is attempted than
it is wise to undertake within the limits of one moderate-sized
volume. The author has not confined himself to one theme, but
deals with several, each of which would require undivided at-
tention. There is scant evidence of original thought; the material
is reminiscent of the matter with which our periodicals have
teemed for a decade. An effect of novelty could be produced only
by a more skillful and temperate literary manner than appears
to be at Mr. Bowers' command.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 123
OUR ADMIRABLE BETTY. By Jeffery Farnol. Boston: Little,
Brown & Co. $1.60 net.
Mr. Farnol has returned to his early manner and given us
here another "romantic" novel. The story moves animatedly
through an atmosphere of patches and perukes, lace and ruffles,
with moments that call for the ready rapier and pistol, the
" admirable Betty " being, of course, the cause and centre of both
comedy and adventure. Despite the disapprobation of realists,
there is a constant audience for fiction of this kind, to whom
Mr. Farnol's somewhat artificial and exclamatory treatment will
be rather an attraction than a drawback.
THE DREAM MAKER. By Helen Fitzgerald Sanders. Boston:
The Cornhill Go. $1.50.
There is no plot and but little connected story in this narra-
tive of a childhood passed in Mississippi and a girlhood in Cali-
fornia. The interest is derived from scenes and people depicted
so graphically and intimately that the author conveys the im-
pression of relating personal reminiscences. A keen appreciation
of the beautiful is demonstrated, as well as humor and warm
human sympathy. To those who cherish memories of the far
South, as it appeared for some years after the Civil War, the
book will have a special appeal of sentiment and charm.
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS. New York: Columbia
University Press. $2.00.
These studies in the history of philosophy are published and
edited by the Department of Philosophy of Columbia University.
Their object is to encourage research and the exercise of his-
torical imagination — " to increase," as the editors put it,
" America's contribution to the history of culture." The chief
essays of the series are : " Appearance and Beality," by M. T.
McClure; "Francis Bacon and the History of Philosophy," by
John J. Coss; the "Motivation of Hobbes' Political Philosophy;"
"Truth and Error in Descartes," by Robert B. Owen;" "Old
Problems with New Faces in Becent Logic," by H. T. Costello.
WASP STUDIES AFIELD. By Phil Rau and Nellie Rau. Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press. $2.00.
Two professional naturalists here record their studies and
observations of four years on sixty-odd species of wasps. The
work is entirely original and most technical. It is above the
capacity of the general public, but interesting and valuable to
students of entomology. What a fund of patience and skill must
124 NEW BOOKS [April,
have been expended on these minute and difficult researches!
We read, for instance, of how the nests are built and the larvae
fed; of wasps stinging spiders and caterpillars, so as to paralyze
but not kill them. The wasp then deposits its egg on the living
prey, and on this live food the larvae feeds. The authors think
the sting of the wasp must have a preservative or embalming
effect on its victim! They record two cases where a caterpillar
survived fifty-four days after being stung; and one where the
subject lived for seven and a half months, to all outward ap-
pearances still quite healthy. Incidentally, the lesson comes home
to the reader, how short life is and how inexhaustible knowledge.
Less than 200 species of wasps have been studied, but some 9,900
varieties are known to exist, and no doubt there are others still
unlisted. The book is provided with sixty-eight illustrations and
an index.
GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES. By Edwin
L. Sabin. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. $1.25 net.
Mr. Sabin's contribution to the Lippincott Trail Blazers
Series is an interesting blend of fiction and fact. It follows the
fortunes of the boy, Jimmie Dunn, who serves under General
Crook in the campaign against the notorious Geronimo, has many
adventures and hairbreadth escapes, and is able to be of assistance
to the brave, just commander whom he loves and reveres.
While not a defence of the Apaches, emphasis is laid on the
responsibility of the whites for much of the Indian trouble. The
narrative preserves historical accuracy, and the author introduces
considerable information as to Apache traditions and customs.
Thus, though designed for boy readers, the book is not without
appeal to those of more mature years.
MEDITATIONS FOR THE USE OF SEMINARIANS AND
PRIESTS, by the Very Rev. L. Brancherau, S.S., translated
and adapted, is published by Benziger Brothers, New York.
($1.00 net.) Volume VI. on " The Blessed Virgin and the Saints "
offers many suggestive and instructive lines for meditation on the
feast days of the saints.
AMONG new books for children we have Three Sides of Paradise
Green ($1.35) and Melissa Across theFence ($1.00) by Augusta
Huield Seaman (New York: The Century Co.). These stories of
small happenings in present-day setting, will doubtless prove of
absorbing interest to youthful readers. The Waterboys and Their
Cousins (75 cents), by Charles Dickens Lewes, (Philadelphia:
1919.] NEW BOOKS
125
J. B. Lippencott Co.) is a delightful book of belter than fairies —
the rain, the dew, and other lovely things of creation. The writer
inducts his readers into nature's secret methods of travel, her
partnerships, and business methods in a most fascinating manner,
but, alas, the spiritual key to all this marvelous creation is missing.
THE AMERICAN BOYS' ENGINEERING BOOK, by A. Russell
Bond, with 232 diagrams by Edwin E. Bayha, (Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott Co. $2.00), will prove a mine of delight to the
boy of a mechanical, engineering turn of mind, and a stimulus
to the passion for making something, latent in the boy mind.
Mr. Bond calls his book emphatically " a play-book not a
text-book," and asserts " it is more fun to make a toy than to
play with it." The boy who is fortunate enough to have this book
given to him, will soon learn how to use its many suggestions
for surveying, sounding, signaling, etc. We were pleased to note
the1 effort to interest him in the use of a knowledge of the stars.
There is a chapter on " Fitting up a Workshop," which brings this
delightful asset within the limits of the possible. We commend
the book to boys having these tastes and congratulate them on the
enjoyment in store for them.
rji SSENTIALS OF AMERICAN HISTORY, by Thomas Bonaven-
L-j ture Lawler, with illustrations in color by N. C. Wyeth,
(Boston: Ginn & Co. $1.12), is termed a revised edition. As a
matter of fact it has been re-written from beginning to end, along
the same lines which won it a distinguished place with educators
on its first appearance.
Naturally, the viewpoint has changed somewhat, the horizon
widened under the influence of the past few years — for this history
ends with the armistice of November, 1918, and shows the United
States before the world as the champion of liberty for other lands
than her own — "liberty to act within the limits of the civil and
moral law, and liberty to worship according to the dictates of
one's conscience."
The work contains a number of useful appendices; the
Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, with an ex-
cellent digest of the same, also a bibliography of suggested his-
torical readings which comprise works of fiction and poems, as
well as more serious studies of history.
O THE HEART OF A CHILD, by Josephine Van Dyke Brown-
- son (New York: The Encyclopedia Press. $1.00 in boards
cloth, $1.25 postpaid), has been recommended as "the work for all
T
126 NEW BOOKS [April,
who teach catechism at home or in school, week-day or Sunday."
The writer certainly merits the blessing of every teacher who has
felt timid in venturing on what seems to her holy ground. Young
mothers and especially Catholic mothers, will aspire to be
the instruments in opening the minds of their children to the
things of God. So the demand for this little book comes " not only
from the cities, but also from mothers living out in the country,
where they have not teachers and must themselves teach their
little ones, or let them go without the most important of all know-
ledge— religious instruction."
Two additions greatly aid the usefulness of these lessons — a
bibliography, and a list of pictures, illustrative of the topics, and
extremely modest in price. The blessing and reward merited by
those who " instruct many unto justice " is herein made attainable
to countless thousands of the members of Holy Church.
A FITTING memento of Pope Pius X., of holy memory, is his
Letters to Catholic Priests published in a well-bound pocket
edition by P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. (50 cents postpaid.)
It evinces on every page the deeply spiritual character of His
Holiness and is a clarion call to life with Christ.
From the same firm comes a special " thin edition " of Father
Lasance's Manna of the Soul. (40 cents to $3.00 according to
binding.) It is adapted to slip easily into the man's vest pocket
or the woman's hand-bag.
THE C. Wildermann Co. have brought out an attractive
booket for the season : The Passion of Our Lord in the Words
of the Gospel, edited by Father Herbert McDevitt, C. P. The
illustrations which add to the effectiveness of the text are photo-
graphic copies of Mastrienni's striking models in clay. The book-
let is in handy form for a pocket companion for meditation.
MARY BRABSON LITTLETON in Whence Cometh Victory?
already in its second edition (Baltimore: John Murphy
Co. 50 cents), dwells on the power of prayer as shown in the
great conflicts of the past. Specific instances of those who have
triumphed through prayer, or gone down to defeat without it, are
drawn from Old Testament and secular history. The theme is
sympathetic and its examplars well chosen.
IRecent Events.
The Peace Conference is still continuing its
The Peace Conference, long drawn out discussions upon questions
which have been submitted for decision.
So far it cannot be said to have reached any definite conclusions.
In the early days of March it was hoped that towards the end of
the month a preliminary peace treaty might be laid before the
Germans for their acceptance, but even this hope receded into
the distance. President Wilson's determination to have a defi-
nite League of Nations plan incorporated into even the prelimi-
nary Peace Treaty, is responsible for the delay. In view of the
differences that seem to be developing between him and the
French, the prospect is not very bright. No definite conclusions
have been reached by the delegates to the Conference, as a whole.
Some of the many Commissions and Sub-Commissions, to
which the work has been intrusted, have reported their decisions.
These include the destiny of the German Colonies, at least to the
extent of declaring that they will never be German again. How they
are to be administered and by whom, depends upon whether the
League of Nations is adopted or not. Another important decision
regards one of the terms to be imposed on Germany : the limitation
of her army to 100,000 men to be enlisted voluntarily. This, if
carried out, will put an end to conscription, first in Germany, and
as a consequence in the rest of Europe. The fate of the League
of Nations is still in the balance. President Wilson has
committed himself to the statement that the vast majority of the
people in this country are in its favor, even in its present form.
This statement' is vehemently contradicted by no small number
of persons who presumably are as able as the President to form a
judgment as to the mind of the American people. The fact that
in Paris a division is now being made of the draft of the League
by the British, French and Italian members of the Commission
which drew it up, would seem to prove that the President is be-
coming cognizant of the real state of public opinion; and that in
a few days such changes may have been made as to render it
acceptable to its strongest opponents. A real decision of major
importance is that food is to be supplied to Germany in con-
sideration for the use, granted the Allies, of the German ships
which have been lying in Germany, and in various neutral ports
throughout the world. The necessity for supplying Germany with
food is based on evidence which Mr. Lansing declared to be con
vincing. The purpose of such supplies is to prevent the starva-
128 RECENT EVENTS [April,
tion of the whole population, which, without them, is considered
inevitable. Starvation would be the surest way to effect the spread
of Bolshevism, which is the thing that most threatens western
Europe. Three million and one-half tons of shipping will, by this
agreement, be made available for the use of the Allies, who in
their turn will supply Germany with three hundred and seventy
thousand tons of foodstuffs per month, receiving therefor some
five hundred million dollars.
Among the many commissions appointed by the Peace Con-
ference to consider means to make a better world, none is more
important than the one having under consideration the Miditions
of labor, with a view to incorporate into the new Pe^ > Treaty
regulations to improve the lot of those who toil. At lerne in
Switzerland, Internationalists have been holding a conference in
which not only British and French, but also German delegates
took part. The representatives of American labor, under the
guidance of Mr. Gompers, as also the Belgian delegates,
refused to participate in this conference on account of the
presence of the German delegates. After many sittings the
conference broke up without practical decisions. The Belgian
delegates are said to have issued invitations for a new conference
to be held at Brussels.
The Berne Conference representated extremists, although not
quite of the Bolsheviki type. If the new peace should prove able
to make regulations for the well-being of the workers, and at the
same time satisfy the just claims of the employers, it would be
an achievement of almost equal importance to the making of the
Treaty of Peace itself. The members chosen to consider the ques-
tion are as well qualified to bring about the desired result as the
world can furnish, and they have arrived at a number of definite
proposals. These proposals, to some extent, have already been
accepted in this country. The most striking innovation adopted
by the Commission is an obligatory system of insurance against
unemployment for all workers. Second only in importance, is
the provision that all workers shall be insured by the State against
industrial accidents. All these suggestions will have to be con-
firmed by the entire Peace Conference.
In the recognition of Poland, towards the
Poland. end of January, the United States was fol-
lowed by France and Great Britain in
February. Early in March, Italy followed. Poland, therefore,
again takes the place she once occupied among the nations of the
world, although the determination of her boundaries, both on the
1919.] RECENT EVENTS
129
east and on the west, is still to be made. This question is one
it will be very difficult to settle; in fact it is one of the most dif-
ficult of the questions before the Peace Conference. The prin-
ciple guiding its settlement will be to put Poland in possession of
all territories inhabited by indubitably Polish populations. This
territory is comparatively easy to ascertain; but there are out-
lying districts, in Lithuania, White Russia, East Galicia and
the Western Ukraine, where the Polish population is so inter-
mixed with the other nationalities, that it is most impossible
to make an equitable division. For example, in East Galicia there
are about 3,100,000 Ruthenes and 1,900,000 Poles. The problem
moreover is complicated by the fact that while the population, as a
whole, is not Polish, the landlords are, and the settlement there-
fore involves the question of the ownership of the land and the
ex-propriation of the landlords. Unless something more than
recognition of Poland as a nation is given by the Western Powers,
that country still runs the risk of falling into the hands either of
the Germans or the Bolsheviki. Before the former left the coun-
try, they either carried off the machinery necessary for manufactur-
ing, or destroyed what they could not carry off, so that no wheel
is now turning in Poland and hundreds of thousands of people
are without employment. Starvation is at the door of every house-
hold and, although our country has furnished supplies, these
have not been adequate for the needs of the population. To these
internal difficulties may be added the fact that military operations
against the Bolsheviki in the north, and against the Ukrainians in
the south, have to be carried on, to say nothing of the conflict with
the Germans in Posen. The armistice terms, indeed, required
cessation of hostilities in this region, but the Germans have
not adhered to these terms. This necessitates the mainte-
nance of a Polish force in this region. The non-arrival from
France of the Polish army that fought there, has added to the
difficulties of the situation. Notwithstanding all these difficulties,
however, the Cabinet of M. Paderewski is meeting with a fair
measure of success. The National Assembly is at work framing
the constitution for the new Republic, and the recognition
accorded it is, in itself, a testimony to the belief the powers enter-
tain that a stable government will be established there.
At Weimar the National Assembly has been
Germany. in continuous session since its opening on
the sixth of February. Its main work has
been the elaboration of a constitution for the new German Re-
public. Along what lines this Constitution is being made, has
130 RECENT EVENTS [April,
not yet been disclosed, but it is thought that it will resemble some-
what that of the United States, inasmuch as the larger States
which made up the former German Empire will be formed into a
number of republics. What will be done with the small Duchies
and Principalities is not yet clear. These new Republics will be
federated with one President over all. It is not expected, however,
that the new German President will be intrusted with the vast
powers possessed by the American President. The division of
seven Republics, advocated by some, and of four advocated
by others, does not seem to have met with sufficient support to
render likely the adoption of either proposition. The Separatist
Movement, of which there were signs at the beginning of the revo-
lution, seems to have met with a decisive rejection in all parts
of Germany, although the separation from Prussia of the prov-
inces west of the Rhine and the formation of them into a Republic
for a more or less prolonged period of time, is said to be one of
the conditions which will be imposed upon Germany by the Allies.
While the National Assembly has been engaged in constitu-
tion making, the Government which is dominated by the Majority
Social Democrats, has been preparing to lay before the Assem-
bly measures of a drastic character for the regulation of indus-
tries and agrarian reforms. So far-reaching are these measures,
that it is said they will exceed the demands of the Independent
Socialists. All the mines of Germany are to be taken over, as
well as the coal syndicate. The measures for which the Govern-
ment has assumed responsibility, do not come up to the demands
made by other Socialists in the Assembly, for Bills have been
brought in providing that property necessary to the maintenance
and exploitation of the wealth of the soil shall belong only to the
Government. The transfer of mines and public power plants
from private to common ownership and the appointment of in-
dustrial councils, consisting of workmen, for the control and
operation of these properties, are among the other things which
Socialists in the Assembly look upon as requisite for the well-
being of the German population. On his first assumption of office,
the Minister of Education issued a decree taking away from both
Catholic and Lutheran clergy the control they formerly had of
the schools. This decree was but the forerunner of stronger
measures to deprive the State of all religious influences. The
Catholic Party, reenforced by those among the Lutherans who still
possess an interest in the religious well-being of the State, offered
so decisive an opposition to the proposal of the Government, that
they were able to have its exercise suspended for the time being,
and to bring about the appointment of a Commission to examine
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 131
into the whole question. What will be the result remains to be
seen.
After the deaths of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemberg
there appeared to be a restoration of order in Berlin, although in
other parts of Germany there were outbreaks too numerous to
mention. For a time Weimar, where the National Assembly is
sitting, was cut off from all communication with the rest of Ger-
many on the north, east and west. Strikes in the Ruhr districts
threatened to cut off the supplies of coal from the whole country.
The most serious disturbance, however, was at Munich, where the
originator of the Bavarian revolution and its presiding genius, Dr.
Kurt Eisner, was assassinated. It is said this act was instigated
by the supporters of the dispossessed Whittelsback family. For
a time it seemed as if Bavaria would fall into the hands of a Ger-
man type of Bolsheviki. To this, however, a strenuous opposition
arose, although it is not quite clear what shade of Socialism is sup-
ported by the new Cabinet which has been formed. The Diet,
which had just met to form a new constitution for Bavaria, is to
be superseded by a new one elected for the same purpose. At
present a fairly orderly state of things seems to be established in
Bavaria, but in Berlin the hopes that a settlement had been
reached have been disappointed. A new uprising has taken place
in which Spartacides have participated and also, it is said, some
of the Independent Socialists. Fighting, sometimes of a serious
character, went on in several of the suburbs of Berlin for a fort-
night and many lives were lost. Atrocities akin to those practised
in Russia were perpetrated. One of the curious features of the
situation was that, within a short distance of the streets in which
this internecine warfare was going on, large numbers of the
population were indulging in their usual amusements as uncon-
cernedly as if nothing were happening. This conduct of the Ber-
lin populace so scandalized the authorities, they issued a decree
prohibiting public dancing. On the whole the Government seems,
at length, to be dealing resolutely with all violations of peace and
good order. The soldiers have proved loyal, as a whole, in de-
fence of stable government. While there are those who take a
very pessimisitic view of the immediate future in Germany, there
is reason to believe that anarchy and Bolshevism may be averted.
The chief event of importance which has
Newly Formed States taken place within the last few weeks is
of Austria-Hungary, the law passed by the National Assembly of
German-Austria which declares that State
to be a part of the German Republic. A good deal has to be done,
132 RECENT EVENTS [April,
however, before this law becomes effectual. It must receive the
assent of the new German Republic, and also be accepted by a
plebiscite of the Austro-German people. It is probable, however,
that both these conditions will be fulfilled, but there is question
as to whether the consent of the Allies can be obtained. If Ger-
man-Austria is joined to the German Republic, it will give to
Germany an increase of about seven millions of people and will
compensate her, so far as population goes, for the loss of the peo-
ple dwelling in Alsace-Lorraine, Schleswig and Posen. Hence
Germany would be stronger after the War than before. A result
to which the Allies may well take exception.
With reference to Czecho-Slovakia, a few notes may be made.
A conspiracy of Germans and Magyars has been discovered, the
object of which was the overthrow of the newly-established demo-
cratic government of which Dr. Masaryk is the President. No
overt steps were taken, as the project was discovered in time.
Whether or not the new Republic should be liable, along with
Austria-Hungary, for the reparation which has to be made to the
Allies for injuries inflicted in the War, is a hotly debated ques-
tion which seems almost impossible of solution. During the War
the Czechs offered every possible resistance to its being waged and
yet they actually took part in it. International law always appor-
tions any debt which may be due by a State as a whole, to the
parts of that State, in the event of its being divided, and so it would
seem that Czecho-Slovakia should bear her share of the burden
borne by the Dual Kingdom. This, the new Republic positively
declines to do. Moreover Czecho-Slovakia finds that she has no
access to the sea, and is making demands for rights of way through
other countries, both to the Baltic and the Adriatic and across
Germany to the Rhine. In fact the new State is completely iso-
lated; commerce may be cut off from her and even the free trans-
mission of news by letter or telegraph: she is hemmed in on all
sides by countries more or less hostile. As it is of vital impor-
tance for the Allies that she should be strong enough to resist any
future effort of Germany to extend her boundaries, the call made
by Czecho-Slovakia for assistance is imperative.
The course of events in Hungary have been far from smooth.
Meetings have been held supporting the demand for the reestab-
lishment of the Monarchy. Seventeen persons have been arrested,
charged with counter-revolutionary propaganda. Among those
accused of this propaganda is included the well-known Dr.
Wekerle, several times Prime Minister of Hungary. In considera-
tion of his advanced age the former Premier was allowed to re-
main at his home and was not subjected to imprisonment. Hun-
1919.] RECENT EVENTS
133
gary has suffered a greater loss of territory than any of the other
new States, on every side except that adjoining the Austro-German
Republic. This loss caused delay in calling the Constituent As-
sembly which is to settle her new constitution. The Government,
however, have now decided to summon the Assembly early in
April and to hold elections, even in the territory which has been
occupied by the invaders. The future of Hungary, it is said on
good authority, will depend upon the attitude of the peasant. On
this hangs the fate of the country. His thirst is for the land, and
it is said he is sure to get it, inasmuch as the nobles will offer
no resistance and the Church has already thrown her vast lands
into the melting-pot.
The hoped-for arrangement of the antagonistic claims of the
Italians and the Slavs to the districts bordering on the Adriatic
has been disappointed. The dispute, instead of being settled, has
become even more acute. The Italians have even prevented the
food which was being sent for the relief of the Slovenes, Croats
and Serbians from reaching them. They have had to be warned
by this Government, and our Allies, that their own needs would
not be satisfied by this country unless the embargo placed upon
transmission of food should be removed. The Italians mani-
fested their hostility to the Slavs by deeds, and the latter responded
by threats. They threatened, in the event that the Peace Confer-
ence granted to Italy the disputed districts, to make war for the
recovery of the districts which they claim. The Italians are as
stubborn as the Slavs, basing their claim to the districts in ques-
tion not merely on historical grounds, but also on the fact that
by the Treaty made with our Allies in London, these districts
were allotted to her.
Of the 173,000,000 of Russians embraced
Russia. within the former Russian Empire, the
number controlled by the Soviet Govern-
ment at Moscow is only 40,000,000, while the territory which
lies under their control bears an even smaller proportion to the
population, consisting of about 500,000 square miles as against the
more than 7,000,000 of which the former empire consisted. Of
this former vast area, certain portions have already been definitely
separated from Russia. These include Finland and Russian
Poland, both of which have been recognized as independent na-
tions, by some at least of the European Powers.
The districts which have exercised that right of self-deter-
mination which the Bolshevik Government were the first to de
clare, are too numerous to name. Mention may be made, how-
134 RECENT EVENTS [April,
ever, of the Ukraine Republic, the Crimean, and the Caucasian.
Various districts occupied by the Cossacks seem to have acquired
independence, as well as the district of Kuban, while the whole
of Siberia seems to have been lost to the Bolsheviki. In Siberia
the Omsk Government has been by far the most successful in its
efforts to drive back the Bolsheviki but whether its jurisdiction
extends to the seacoast, is a matter involved in much uncertainty.
The Northern Government of Russia which embraces the Province
of Archangel and the Murman Coast, is still the scene of con-
tinuous fighting. As a consequence, the border line between it
and the regions still controlled by the Bolsheviki, is a moveable
one, as one party succeeds or the other.
Within the sphere still left under Bolshevik control, their
power seems undiminished. In fact, the advancing troops of the
army which Trotzky recruited has gained, through military suc-
cesses in Northern Russia and in the border States of the Baltic,
a territory as large as France. Within the last few weeks, how-
ever, the Bolsheviki have met with reverses and have not only
made no further advance, but, at various points, have been forced
to retire. This, notably in the region occupied by the Don Cos-
sacks. So great, indeed, was the success of the forces fighting
against the Bolsheviki in this region, that, a few weeks ago, strong
hopes were entertained of a junction being effected between the
troops operating in this region and the forces controlled by the
Omsk Government. Thereby, it was anticipated, the Bolsheviki
might be encircled by a ring of enemies stretching from Eastern
Siberia to the Black Sea. The recent success of the Omsk troops
in effecting the capture of Ufa tends to revive this hope.
The reverses of the Bolsheviki cannot be looked upon as de-
cisive, however, nor can the danger from the spread of their doc-
trines be considered as over. In one of the areas where hostilities
have taken place, Germans, under the command of Marshal Von
Hindenburg, have, at last, resisted the common enemy, instead of
playing into their hands as they did when Poland and Ukraine
were evacuated by them. This reversal of conduct it is hoped will
be continued and supplemented by the recall of the German
officers said to be in command of a part of the Bolshevik troops.
In some districts, officers of the old Russian army are now com-
manders in the Bolshevik ranks, having been forced by the Bol-
shevik Government to render this service. The army itself con-
sists to some extent of Chinese and Lettish mercenaries, and is
further recruited from the lowest class of the population who are
attracted by the pay offered and the fact that the soldiers have
sufficient food while the rest of the population is starving.
1919.] RECENT EVENTS
135
No amelioration is noted of the atrocious methods adopted by
the government of Lenine and Trotzky to insure the supremacy
of the proletariat. This it is their avowed object to establish not
only in Russia, but throughout the world. Evidence accumulates
daily of deeds done in Russia by the workingmen who nominally
make up the Supreme Council of the Soviets, surpassing in bar-
barity anything history records. One of the greatest evils due
to the Tsar's government is that centuries of subjection to its
severe discipline seems to have rendered the Russian people in-
capable of withstanding the bloody despotism which now domi-
nates. Submission has been ingrained into their very being and
energy fails them to shake off the intolerable yoke imposed by
Lenine and Trotzky.
It is a matter for congratulation, however, that the proposed
meeting at Prinkipo has come to naught. That would have in-
volved something like a recognition of the success of the Bolshe-
viki and consequently of the methods by which they attained this
success. It is said a renewed attempt may be made to revive the
project in another form. At the beginning of the Peace Confer-
ence the Russian question was recognized as the one most diffi-
cult of solution and the many weeks during which the Conference
has sat, have only seen the difficulties increase. At first, there
was a possibility of armed intervention by the Allies, or
that, at least, they would permit a volunteer army to be raised.
Now, however, it seems certain no intervention will take place,
and that even the troops already there, including our own, will
be withdrawn.
While the violent methods by which Lenine and Trotzky have
striven to establish the supremacy of the proletariat, have shocked
and disgusted the whole world, the failure of the system of state
socialization of industries and despoliation of landlords which
they have established in Russia, has caused widespread internal
dissatisfaction. The peasants at first acquired land for them-
selves in large numbers and were in consequence warm supporters
of the Bolshevik regime. Now their experience of the Soviet
methods of government, has so completely changed their minds
that they have risen in insurrection throughout Soviet Russia. In
their desperation they are said, to have destroyed roads, thus
hindering troop and food transport, so that famine universally
stalks through the towns. But the opposition to the Bolshevik
rule comes not alone from the peasants but from the workmen in
the cities. Factories have stopped working, and the Soviet
Government has been compelled to issue a decree introducing
forced labor for the unemployed. The change in the attitude of
136 RECENT EVENTS [April,
the peasants who so readily accepted the Bolshevik Government, is
due to the fact that as soon as the Bolshevik power was estab-
lished, they forcibly seized the stores of food accumulated by the
peasants, using them for the army, and leaving the towns
without food. This fact estranged the workingmen in those towns
from the Government they had been glad to recognize. Their
failure at home is by many held responsible for their determined
efforts to spread Bolshevik principles abroad. While the Bolsheviki
have their own troubles, those parts of Russia that have declared
themselves independent, are far from having obtained the peace
they sought. In Northern Russia some time ago one of its military
authorities put the whole of the Cabinet on board a vessel and
shipped them off to a monastery. The Allies had to intervene to
restore the deposed authority. Ever since then, military opera-
tions have been going on between the Allies and the Bolsheviki,
the latter having threatened to drive the former into the sea by
the month of March. Some little success has attended their
efforts, but the realization of their project has now been deferred
until the month of May. In the Baltic States conflicts also have
taken place between the Bolsheviki and the Lithuanian troops,
assisted by Finnish volunteers. Here the opponents of the Bol-
sheviki seem to have met with considerable success, and to have
driven back the Red army as was done on the eastern border of
Poland. There the apparently irresistible onrush of the Bolsheviki
has been stopped, although they are still in possession of the town
of Vilna which forms an advantageous military post. In the
Ukraine, General Pettura seems to have secured control. He has
driven out the pro-German Hetman, who had usurped supreme
authority. What General Pettura represents, however, is quite un-
certain. Indeed, he is claimed to be a supporter of Bolshevik prin-
ciples. His feeling toward fellow Slavs who dwell in Galicia, is
indicated by the constant state of warfare existing between his fel-
low-citizens and the Poles. Sometime ago it was said that the
French, after having taken Odessa, were marching into Ukraine
to the relief of Kief, but nothing more has been heard of this ex-
pedition. It is not known, therefore, whether the Bolsheviki con-
trol Ukraine. Farther east, as already said, the Bolsheviki have
been defeated, but not decisively as was expected. They have been
driven out from the region of the Caucasus as well as from Tash-
kent, and the fact that Baku is again in the possession of the
British, makes the extension of their power into Trans-Caucasia
very unlikely. What fate has befallen the recently set up re-
publics of Georgia and Mt. Ararat has not been disclosed.
Of the organized groups, the Omsk Government is the most
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 137
firmly established and holds the greatest extent of territory. But
its internal affairs seem to be in a more disturbed condition than
any of the others. Mention has already been made of the seizure
of power by Admiral Kolchak, due to the suspicions entertained
of the loyalty of the social revolutionist government which pre-
ceded the one formed by the Admiral. His assumption of power
has been generally acquiesced in, yet there has been a more or less
determined resistance to it in some quarters. The Gzecho-Slovak
troops who were cooperating with the forces of the Omsk Govern-
ment were in the opposition for a time, and more active re-
sistance was offered by Generals Semenoff and Kalmykoff, com-
manding Cossack troops in Siberia. The former, indeed, has had
to be tried by court martial. A contributing element in the con-
fusion was the fact that some time ago, when the Omsk army was
small, France was requested to send a Commander-in-Chief to
these troops. After much delay, he arrived. But the Omsk Gov-
ernment troops had then reached the number of one hundred
thousand, and it was felt that a foreign commander would be
derogatory to their dignity. This situation was alleviated by a
compromise which left Admiral Kolchak in nominal command.
Chief among the causes of disturbance, however, were the efforts,
just revealed, of the Japanese Government to bring the whole of
Sibria east of Lake Baikal within their own sphere of influence.
When the Allies agreed to send troops to Siberia, the contribution
of each was limited to seven thousand men. It has now come to
light that the Japanese sent no fewer than 72,000. Moreover they
made a determined endeavor to secure for themselves, in every
place where Allied troops were stationed, the command of those
troops. This was done by sending, to every station where troops
were placed, an officer superior in rank to that of any of the other
Allies. They also impeded, on various pretexts, the organization
of the Siberian Railway by American engineers. So acute did the
crisis become that, in November last, the American Secretary of
State had to call the attention of the Japanese Government to the
efforts which were being made to control the situation. This
communication resulted in the recall of a large part of the Japa-
nese army from Siberia. Whether the loyal cooperation of Japan
with the other Allies is to be counted upon, depends upon the
result of the conflict which is now going on in Japan between the
war party and the party who advocates peace.
March 19, 1919.
With Our Readers.
'T^O our new Archbishop — the Most Reverend Patrick J. Hayes—
THE CATHOLIC WORLD and all its readers extend affectionate
greetings and heartfelt congratulations. Because of his thorough
knowledge, his long experience in the administration work of the
archdiocese of New York, Archbishop Hayes is particularly well
qualified to fill his high and important office. New York is his
birthplace, and New York had been the scene of his many years
of labor — until his appointment as Chaplain Bishop gave him a
diocese that necessitated extensive travel and a jurisdiction that,
so to speak, included Europe as well as America.
In New York he received as a youth his college education;
later he went to the old Seminary at Troy, and then to the Catho-
lic University of America. As early as 1895, the then Father
Hayes was appointed secretary to Bishop, later Archbishop and
Cardinal, Farley. He served as secretary when Bishop Farley was
appointed to the archdiocesan see of New York; then as Chan-
cellor; and was appointed Bishop of Tagaste in 1914. While fill-
ing the office of chancellor he was also the President of Cathedral
College, and the remarkable success of that institution may be
credited to the ability and foresight of Archbishop Hayes. His
work as Chancellor, and later his labors as Auxiliary Bishop,
brought him in touch not only with the priests of the diocese, but
with its manifold and far-reaching problems.
OHORTLY after America entered the World War it was found
^ necessary to appoint a Chaplain Bishop, one who would head
the large diocese, to be made up of all the Catholic chaplains in the
service of the United States army and navy. The Holy Father
appointed to this position Bishop Hayes. It was a task that de-
manded great executive ability; painstaking labor; constant vigi-
lance as to needs and how those needs might be filled; wise, sym-
pathetic yet authoritative leadership and guidance for the Ameri-
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 139
can Catholic chaplains in our own country and abroad. The
great number of chaplains, both commissioned and volunteer,
who served our soldiers and sailors and who have written an in-
delible record of generous, heroic, faithful and self-sacrificing
service are a testimony to the Bishop who passed upon the special
fitness of all, who guided, directed and inspired, and who insisted
always that they were in the service primarily as priests for the
spiritual welfare of their men.
After his appointment to this post, Archbishop Hayes was
also designated by the Archbishops of the United States as one
of the four Bishops of the Administrative Committee of the
National Catholic War Council. In that position, he, with his
co-members, has directed all the Catholic activity in welfare ser-
vice for our troops at home and abroad, and for all those who have
been affected by war conditions.
He enters his new position enriched with varied and tested
experience. Not only will our obedience and faithful cooperation
be his, but our prayers will abide with him that God may bless and
crown in his new and far-larger field the successes of the past;
and that the history of the archdiocese of New York under his rule
may add still further glorious pages to the record of the Catholic
Church in the United States.
AS we are about to go to press the announcement is made in the
London Times that the English Government will again by
forceful measures rule Ireland. With absolute disregard of the
truth the Times states that the English Government "having
failed to induce Irishmen to agree among themselves must im-
pose their own settlement upon Ireland." Championing in a
Peace Conference the right of peoples to determine their own form
of government, the English Government denies the application
of that right to Ireland. And for the reason that there is no doubt
as to how the great majority of the Irish people would speak on
the question of self-determination, if it were permitted them to
speak.
* * *
THE expression of American public opinion on the question i:
having effect. On March 5th the United States House of I
sentatives, by a vote of 216 to 41, passed the following resolution:
140 WITH OUR READERS [April,
" It is the earnest hope of the Congress of the United States of
America that the Peace Conference now sitting in Paris, in pass-
ing upon the rights of various peoples, will favorably consider the
claims of Ireland to self-determination."
On February 22d a very notable Convention was
held in Philadelphia, attended by many distinguished churchmen
and laymen, and by over five thousand delegates from every sec-
tion of the country. The purpose of that Convention was to voice
to all the world the claims of Ireland. The Resolutions adopted
unanimously by the Convention were read and presented by His
Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons. We reprint them here in
full:
" We, the delegates to the Convention of the Irish Race in
America, assembled in Philadelphia, the city in which the im-
mortal declaration of American liberty was given to the world,
and speaking for many millions of American citizens, call upon
the President and Congress of these United States of America to
urge the Peace Conference now in session at Paris to apply to Ire-
land the great doctrine of national self-determination and to recog-
nize the right of the people of Ireland to select for themselves with-
out interference from any other people the form of government
under which in future they shall live.
" We urge this claim, in the first place, in the name of justice
— recognizing and insisting on the truth set forth by the founders
of our Republic that all governments derive their just power from
the consent of the governed. ^
" We urge this claim in the name of America, insisting, as
we have just shown in the case of France, that we are not an
ungrateful people, and recalling that no other people have con-
tributed more than those of Irish blood to the creation, the up-
building, the development and the preservation and defence of
our great country.
" We urge this claim in the name of Ireland because of the
unparalleled struggle for now seven and a half centuries that Ire-
land has carried on for national existence and liberty; because all
efforts to break down and destroy that existence have failed, and
because of the extraordinary majority by which less than two
months ago the people of Ireland declared, not alone their dis-
satisfaction with the government of their land by England, but
also their determination to govern themselves without interference
from any outside influence or power.
" We urge this claim in the name of humanity, because we
believe that war cannot be ended, and a just and permanent peace
cannot be brought about unless the doctrine of self-determination
1919.] WITH OUR READERS ui
be applied to Ireland and the people of that country be permitted
to decide for themselves the form of government under which they
shall live.
" We point out that England has tried in every way to coerce
or to persuade or to cajole the people of Ireland to give up their
devotion to their national aspirations, and tried them all in vain.
Lloyd George within the last few months has been compelled to
assert that Ireland is at present as much opposed to British rule
as in the days of Cromwell. The industries of Ireland have been
destroyed; her trade and commerce wiped out; her population cut
in two; her leaders deported and held in English jails without in-
dictment or trial, and yet with a unanimity never before attained
have again declared their utter dissatisfaction with English rule
and their determination to be free.
" England refuses to listen to the voice of Ireland, but we
point out that England likewise refused to listen to the voice
of the American colonies. England was compelled less than a
century and a half ago to recognize the independence of the colo-
nies, and within the last year the efforts of our country saved
England and her allies from total defeat at the hands of the Cen-
tral Powers. The land to which England was thus compelled to
do justice has just saved England in her hour of need. Let Eng-
land now realize that justice to Ireland, which she has so long de-
nied, with grievous loss to Ireland but also with great loss to her-
self, will now remove from her path the bitterest hostility which
she has to encounter all over the world, and will convince mankind
in general of the sincerity of her declarations when she says that
she believes in liberty and justice for others as well as for herself.
" Finally, we urge this claim that peace and order may be
brought out of the chaos with which the whole world now seems
to be threatened. In this great hour, when Governments are being
reformed and when peoples long oppressed by tyranny are emerg-
ing again into the sunlight of liberty, let there be sincerity and un-
selfishness upon the part of those who are controlling the Peace
Conference, to the end that the mistakes of the Congress of Vienna
may be avoided, and a peace made that will be lasting and perma-
nent because it will be just and right.
"Upon the shoulders of our President and Congress rests,
in the last analysis, the responsibility of the peace that shall
be made. We urge them to act in accordance with the doctrines
laid down on our behalf when we entered the War, and in
accordance with the resolution recently adopted, almost unani-
mously, by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Repre
sentatives, to the end that autocracy and militarism may be for-
142 WITH OUR READERS [April,
ever destroyed, and that the right of self-determination shall be
given to all the peoples of the earth."
THE Bolshevik programme, as outlined in the March issue of
THE CATHOLIC WORLD, was no doubt the cause of great shock
to the average reader. He concluded, probably, that it was the
wild outburst of savagery — of men suddenly gone mad, and madly
bent upon destroying order and reason and God in this world.
Their madness appeared most clearly perhaps from the bestiality
of their lust. With us, all that is nobler, purer, stimulating to
higher conduct and higher standards is comprised in the name of
woman. With them woman was to be made a piece of " com-
mon property." " Of course," the reader said consolingly to
himself, " these people are far off in Russia." And the very
word relieved his anxiety. " This," he added, " is far removed
from us. Thank God we would not tolerate such a filthy and in-
famous programme. No civilized people would, and were any
one to venture proposing such a step he would be branded with
public infamy." So would run the average reader's thoughts. If
we rouse him from his easy slumber, it is only because the danger
is not alone in Russia; but right at his own doorstep. Indeed, it
is not impossible that Russia may have borrowed it from English
writers.
* * * *
A LEADER for many years past in all social questions — and
J\ still regnant in some quarters — is Mr. H. G. Wells. From
him many minor writers have borrowed their theories and their
solutions. If the Russian programme concerning the public own-
ership of women were compared with the teachings of H. G.
Wells a pitiful sameness would be revealed.
Much apparent effort is being made to save our country from
Bolshevism: yet the reconstruction programme of a reputable
organization lately published, proclaims H. G. Wells as a teacher
whom we ought specially to study for guidance.
* * * *
THE notorious decree of the Saratov Soviet proclaimed that
" social inequalities and legitimate marriage in the past have
served as an instrument in the hands of the bourgeoisie — and
prevented the proper continuation of the human race."
In consequence it was decreed that all women are exempted
from private ownership and are proclaimed the property of the
whole nation.
Mr. H. G. Wells wrote, " Our existing sexual order is a system
in decay" (Socialism and the Family), and in the same book,
1919.] WITH OUR READERS
143
in stating his own position, he added: " Essentially the Socialist
position is a denial of property in human beings : not only must
land and the means of production . . . but women and children,
just as men and things, must cease to be owned " (Socialism and
the Family).
* * * *
THE idea that the family is an independent unit with its own
life was declared by H. G. Wells to be uncivilized. It must be
done away with: " So far as the family is a name for a private
property, a group of related beings vested in one of them, the
head of the family, Socialism repudiates it altogether as unjust
and uncivilized. The Socialist would put an end to the uncivilized
go-as-you-please of the private adventure family. Socialism, in
fact, is the State family. The old family of the private individual
must vanish before it just as the old water works of private en-
terprise, or as the old gas company " (New Worlds for Old).
* * * *
THE Russian decree subjected marriage and the rearing up
and education of children absolutely to the State. Mr. H. G.
Wells has anticipated this : " Now, what sort of contract will the
Socialist State require for marriage? . . . Socialism says boldly the
State is the over-parent, the outer-parent. People rear children
for the State and the future; if they do that well, they do the
whole world a service, and deserve payment just as much as if
they built a bridge or raised a crop of wheat; if they do it un-
propitiously and ill, they have done the world an injury. . . .
" It follows that motherhood, which we still in a muddle-
headed way seem to regard as partly self-indulgence and partly
a service paid to a man by a woman, is regarded by the Socialists
as a benefit to society, a public duty done. The State will pay
for children born legitimately in the marriage it will sanction "
(Socialism and the Family).
* * * *
THE Saratov decree may be more " advanced " than Mr. H. G.
Wells; but if the latter may not be termed its "father," it
looks very jnuch as if he merited to be called its " grandfather."
TO make familiar to ourselves the thought of the other world
for which we live is extraordinarily beneficial. We may even
learn to live in that other world while we work and wait in this.
It is the land of true freedom; of the spirit's release; of that peace,
balance and composure which touch with God alone can give.
Spiritual reading, so sadly neglected, is the open casement thereto.
Many of us complain that we have not the time for such reading.
144 BOOKS RECEIVED [April, 1919.]
We might speak more truly and say we have not the inclination
nor the will. Lately we read a small pamphlet containing a read-
ing, for every day, of about four hundred words. It was entitled
Anno Domini, and is published monthly by the Home Press (New
Yoik), and received notice in the November issue of THE CATHO-
LIC WORLD. Any one who reads it faithfully will be blessed beyond
his expectations. His eyes will see for a few minutes at least that
other world, and it will not altogether disappear for the rest of the
day. Best of all it will make up in a measure for us pilgrims that
void we feel when we miss daily Mass, and, as Belloc says : " What
is a pilgrimage in which a man cannot hear Mass every morning? "
BOOKS RECEIVED.
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York:
Man's Great Concern: The Management of Life. By E. R. Hull, S.J. 35 cents.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York:
Modern Punctuation. By G. Summey, Jr. $1.50. Early Economic Effects of the
European War Upon Canada. By A. Short. $1.00.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York:
The Elstones. By Isabel C. Clarke. $1.35 net.
HENRY HOLT & Co., New York:
The Peace-President. By William Archer. $1.00 net.
FREDERICK PUSTET Co., INC., New York:
Compendium Theologise Moralis; Editio Vicesima Septima ad Novum Codicem
Juris Canonici Concinnata. By A. Sabetti, S.J., and T. Barrett, S.J. $4.50.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York:
George Meredith. By J. H. E. Cress, M.A.
B. W. HUEBSCH, New York:
The British Revolution and the American Democracy. By N. Angell. $1.50.
The Covenant of Peace. By H. N. Brallsford. 25 cents.
ALLYN & BACON, New York:
Julius Ctcsar. By S. Thurber, Jr. Anecdotas Espanolas. By P. W. Harry.
ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & Co., New York:
Okewood of the Secret Service. By V. Williams. $1.50 net. How France is Gov-
erned. By R. Poincare. $2.00 net.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York:
Cambridge Essays on Education. Edited by A. C. Benson, LL.D. Studies in
Literature. By Sir A. Quiller-Couch. $2.50 net.
E. P. BUTTON & Co., New York:
The Shadow of the Cathedral. By Vincente Blasco Ibanez. $1.90 net.
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C. :
Spiritism and Religion. By Rev. J. Liljeiicraiits, A.M.
ROSALIE M. LEVY, 39 K Street N.W., Washington, D. C.:
The Heavenly Road. By Rosalie M. Levy.
SMALL, MAYNARD & Co., Boston:
The Best Short Stories of 1918. Edited by E. J. O'Brien. $1.60 net.
THE FOUR SEAS Co., Boston:
The Gentleman Ranker, and Other Plays. By L. Gordon. $1.50 net.
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, New Haven:
Afterglow. By James F. Cooper, Jr. $1.00. The Chronicles of America. Edited
by Allen Johnson. Twenty volumes now issued. $3.50 vol. net.
B. HERDER BOOK Co., St. Louis:
A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law. By Rev. C. Augustine, O.S.B.,
D.D. Volume III. $2.50 net.
THE KAUFFER Co., Tacoma, Washington:
Mass in Honor of St. Elizabeth. By P. A. Kauffer. 80 cents.
WALTER A. ABBOTT, Los Angeles:
The Gray Man of Christ — Generalissimo Foch.
BLOUD & GAY, Paris:
Une Campagne Francaise. Par A. Baudrillart. 3 fr. 50. Dans les Flandres. Par
D. B. de Laflotte. Sur les Routes du Droit. Par L. Barthou. Lettres aux
Neutres sur L'Union Sacre. Par G. Hoog. La Guerre et la Paix. The Church
of France during the War. Par G. Goyau. Petit Catechisme du Francais sur
la Guerre. Par P. Courbet. Pourquoi I' Alsace-Lorraine doit redevenir Fran-
caise. Par G. Hoog. La Mauvaise Foi Allemande.
THE
Catholic &(orld
VOL. CIX. MAY, 1919. No. 650.
THE CRIMSON TERROR.
BY JEROME ELMER MURPHY.
HE sudden apparition of Bolshevism and Spar-
tacanism upon the world's horizon does not
mean that they have sprung up by chance, like
fungoid socialistic growths, amid the decaying
wreckage of war. Long before the War began,
the seeds of radicalism of which they are the efflorescence, had
been planted in eastern Europe and had germinated and even
attained a thriving growth under the nurturing stimulus of Rus-
sian revolutionary activity. The leaders of the movement—
which is the same in all countries, whatever the names under
which it appears — were as zealously preparing for Zorz/a, the
dawn, as the deluded German junkers were gathering their
forces for der Tag, and the triumph it brought to them was,
momentarily at least, as complete as the disaster with which
Prussian imperialism was overwhelmed.
As far back as 1905, in the programme of the Menshevik
branch of the Russian Social Democratic Party, since turned
Bolshevist, appeared this prophetic phrase : " When the revo-
lution spreads to western Europe where conditions are ripe
for bringing about Socialism." The radicals who formulated
this prophecy did not have in mind the military struggle which
has left middle and eastern Europe a political shambles.
They were intent, rather, upon an economic upheaval that
would enable the proletariat to cast off its fetters and rise up to
Copyright. 1919. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. cix. — 10
146 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
establish a new order of society. The revolution " from below "
did not come to pass, but the War did, and the radical leaders,
no longer under police restraint and the fear of constituted
authority, emerged into the open. Recruiting their forces from
the discontented and suffering millions of Europe, they seized
the opportunity to attempt to impose their will not only upon
Russia but, by the disruption of existing governments, the de-
struction of national institutions, by bloodshed and terror,
upon the world at large.
In retrospect the Russian revolutionary movement pres-
ents two phases, the one political, the other economic. Of the
two the latter is the more significant, especially from the point
of view of America where, by a process of infiltration, the
spreading of Bolshevik economic theory has already begun.
For years the Russian radical leaders did not concern them-
selves with the particular form of government that was to pre-
vail in their own country when the socialistic millennium
arrived. They plotted against the Tsar and sought the destruc-
tion of imperialism, but this was only incidental to the greater
aim: the complete obliteration of the existing economic order
and the setting up of socialistic ideals.
The economic struggle was not circumscribed by nation-
alistic limitations. It was the same in Russia and Germany
and in the United States, and it was plainly evident that, in the
wake of the Bolshevist triumph in Russia, there was to be a
gathering of revolutionary forces in other countries where the
seed has been planted and taken root. Lenine and Trotzky,
once belonging to opposing factions of the Russian Social
Democratic Party, had worked for years to this end. In the
international group they had rubbed elbows with Karl Lieb-
knecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, Zinovieff and many
others whose names recur in the chronicles of contemporary
socialistic activity. This conspiracy was world- wide; the
political revolutionary movement concerned Russia alone.
There is nothing forbidding in either of the terms Spar-
tacan or Bolshevist. The first had its origin in the use of the
word " Spartacus " as a pen-name by Liebknecht and Franz
Mehring, who formulated, in a series of secretly circulated let-
ters, the political theories advanced by one of the six factions
into which the Minority German Socialists split shortly after
the beginning of the War. The word " Bolshevik " is even
1919.] THE CRIMSON TERROR 147
less distinctive. It means majority, the opposite of Menshevik,
"minority," and was first used to designate the dominating
faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, whose guiding
spirit was Vladimir Hitch Ulianoff , otherwise known as Nikolai
Lenine. For a long period the struggle of the Bolsheviki and
Mensheviki for control of their party organization was of small
consequence to the world at large, although it was kept under
close scrutiny by the secret agents of the Tsar. But when the
veil of the old order was rent and the revolutionaries, who had
for years wandered as exiles about the capitals of Europe,
came back to their own country and assumed control of its
affairs, the word Bolshevik began to have a sinister sig-
nificance. The Bolsheviki were no longer merely the domi-
nating element of a group of socialistic agitators working
largely under cover of secrecy. They came to be an implacable
majority, and the subjugation of Russia has merely provided
the base of operations for a campaign to conquer the world.
Against the turgid background of Russian revolutionary
conspiracy the course followed by Bolshevism becomes reason-
ably clear. The issue it has raised, the methods it has followed
and the theories it has advanced leave no doubt of the merci-
less character of the struggle it purposes to carry on against the
established order in both hemispheres. It has shown itself to
be as much the enemy of the small farmer and property holder
in the United States, as it was the enemy of the imperialistic
grand duke in Russia. It is equally hostile to American trade
unionism and capitalism, holding both to be the offspring of
the same pernicious system. Lenine himself places the Ger-
man Socialist leader, Scheidemann, and Samuel Gompers,
President of the American Federation of Labor, in the same
despised category — traitors to the Bolshevist cause. From a
survey of its past may be gathered some idea of evil portent it
holds for the future.
The story may be written mainly around Lenine who, by
his turbulent revolutionary career, was well fitted for leader-
ship of the destructive " red " hosts. Those who have known
him admit the strength of his personality, but his ideas were
oftentimes not the ideas of his associates. He was always the
extremist, uncompromising in his attitude and unyielding in his
demands. If he failed in one way to induce his revolutionary
colleagues to adopt his views, he sought another, but he never
148 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
gave ground or abandoned a conviction. In the end he suc-
ceeded and the policies of the present Soviet government are
for the most part the application of his theories. Even
Trotzky, who once opposed him, the milder Plekhanov and the
anarchistic Maxim Gorky, forgetting old differences, have
come back into the Bolshevist fold of which he has been the
shepherd, and in other countries, even in the United States,
the name has become the catchword of international Socialism,
and detached radical groups are arraying themselves under
its flaming banner.
Lenine, who appears at various times as Ilyich, Ilyin and
Tulin, unlike most of his associates, is a hereditary nobleman,
his family boasting of greater antiquity than even that of the
ill-fated Nicholas Romanoff, last of the Tsars. His father
was a councillor of state of the government of Simbirsk, but the
other members of the family were, almost without exception,
revolutionaries. One brother, Dmitri, was under police ob-
servation at Podolsk. A charge of treasonable activity was
lodged against a sister, Maria, and another sister married Mark
T. Elizaref, whose name appears on the police records. A
brother, Alexander, was executed in 1887 for participation in
the attempted assassination of Alexander III.
Early in his career Lenine showed that he was not to be
the least among this revolutionary brood. From the Univer-
sity of Kazan to which he went from the Simbirsk gymnasium,
he was expelled in 1887, at the age of seventeen, for political
agitation. Thenceforth he became a suspect, and his move-
ments were shadowed by the secret police until this hated
imperialistic institution went down amid the ruins of the
Romanoff dynasty.
In 1895 Lenine joined the growing colony of Russian revo-
lutionary emigres. With Plekhanov, now one of the Rolshe-
vist leaders, he built up one of those mysterious organizations
through which, in spite of the secret agents of the Tsar, the
leaven of revolutionary propaganda was injected in the amor-
phous mass of Russia's industrial and peasant population.
Shortly afterward he returned to Petrograd where he devoted
his activities to the editing and publication of the " under-
ground " revolutionary newspaper, Rabotcheye Dyelo,
"Labor's Work." In this enterprise he fell into the hands of
the police and was condemned to exile for a period of three
1919.] THE CRIMSON TERROR 149
years, a sentence mild in the extreme compared to the capital
punishment meted out indiscriminately by the Bolsheviki to
persons suspected of "counter-revolutionary" activity. He
was also forbidden to reside thereafter in Petrojgrad and Mos-
cow, and for a further term of three years in industrial and
university towns and at Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk, a decree he
ignored on more than one occasion. At the conclusion of his
exile he went abroad, in 1900, as a delegate to the Central Com-
mittee of the Russian Social Democratic Party. This point
marks the beginning of Lenine's leadership of the radical ele-
ment among the revolutionary emigres and the inception of
the movement which has culminated in the establishment of
the Bolshevik state upon the ruins of the Russian empire.
The aims of Lenine and his associates at this time were set
forth in the first number of the party organ of the Social Demo-
crats, Iskra, "The Spark," which he, with Martov (Tseder-
baum) and Potressov, established. They are defined thus:
The task which the Russian democracy is called upon
to perform is to inoculate the masses of the proletariat with
political ideas, and a socialistic frame of mind, and to organ-
ize a revolutionary party closely in touch with the spon-
taneous and unorganized labor movement development and
the organization of the working classes.
At this, the very outset of the enterprise, it was made plain
that there was to be no compromise with the bourgeois revo-
lutionary element. The Iskra group declared its hostility
toward the " economists " who proposed that the Social Demo-
crats confine their activities to the struggle with capital and trust
to the liberal bourgeoisie to conduct the political struggle for
which they were better equipped. Zarya, "The Dawn," a
publication which did not transgress police regulations, was
established to carry on this fight against the Social Revolu-
tionary Party which recruited its adherents mainly from the
ranks of the bourgeoisie.
In this mild conflict, begun nearly twenty years ago, i
foreshadowed the relentless struggle of the Bolshevik
only for economic but also for political supremacy. In the ca
sounded by its leaders there echoed, even at this time, an
ominous note. It was not altogether by favor of circum*
that the provisional Russian government, of which Kei
150 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
was the head, was overthrown and the flood of Bolshevist
propaganda loosed upon the world. Neither Kerensky nor
the imperialists before him feared greatly the small group of
radicals. The former, especially, believed that their strength
would ebb under the enlightening influence of a constitutional
democracy. Both made the mistake of not taking into account
the formidable effect of German aid and German money —
another of the Prussian blunders for which the German peo-
ple are now paying a terrible cost.
Lenine, intolerant of divergent opinion, did not confine
his energies to the spread of revolutionary propaganda, but
sought to gather all revolutionary groups into one cohesive
organization which could enforce discipline and direct all
activities. He said in a pamphlet published in 1902:
As long as home-made circles do not realize their limita-
tions and have not ridden themselves of them, political
problems will remain inaccessible to them. Only through
firm revolutionary organization will we be able to guaran-
tee it a resisting power as a unit and realize both social
democratic and trade-union aims. The nucleus of the
future party must be a country-wide central which will
unite itself and gather in one drive all and every manifesta-
tion of political opposition, protest and indignation — an
organization composed of professional revolutionists and
led by real leaders who have the confidence of the whole
people.
This policy began to take shape at the first congress of the
Russian Social Democratic Party held at Minsk in 1898. It was
to some extent tactical, as Witte and his lieutenants attempted
to divide the forces hostile to the State by supporting the
" economists," holding out to them the bait of State Socialism,
and cutting the ground from under the political agitators who
were bent upon revolution. The manoeuvre, largely through
the efforts of Lenine and his associates, failed. The revolu-
tionary movement grew apace and the shadow of terror which
fell athwart the paths of the leaders of the old regime
deepened.
It was with the triumphant consciousness of the growth
of their strength that the delegates to the second congress of
the party gathered in London in 1903. They were to weld into
a unit the scattered revolutionary groups and focus all effort
1919.] THE CRIMSON TERROR 151
upon the forthcoming upheaval. Lenine, as usual, took the
centre of the stage, but even with his dominating personality
he was unable to compel complete acquiescence in his views.
A very definite line of cleavage between the moderates and the
extremists appeared. Eventually, as this divergence of policy
-which at first had to do merely with the internal organiza-
tion of the party— became fixed, the Lenine faction composed of
the radical element went under the name of Bolsheviki, the ma-
jority. The Mensheviki, the moderates, became the minority.
The attitude of the majority, which led to the breach that
has existed ever since, was formulated by Lenine:
The stronger the inner party organization which must be
composed only of real Social Democrats and free from vacil-
lating elements, the wider, more fruitful and richer will be
its influence for leading the surrounding labor masses.
During revolutionary periods in particular, practically every
laborer is an adherent of the labor party, which is labor's
vanguard. By the very reason of our cause being a class
party, we must make a distinction between a party mem-
ber and a party adherent. To have the party big numer-
ically does it no good. We know very well that not every
striker can be a Social Democrat. Control over those who
carry out occasional jobs for the party committees without
being a party member, is a fiction and, besides, such special
jobs should be discountenanced as far as labor masses are
concerned. Noncompulsory participation in party organiza-
tion will only open the door to free lances and intelligentsia
who, in general, as a class differ inconveniently from the
proletariat in that they are less capable of organization and
discipline.
From the beginning it has been evident that the movement,
of which Lenine has been the leader and chief spokesman,
was to be an inexorable class war. Faint-heartedness was not
to be tolerated; the free lances and intelligentsia, the proto-
type of the American "parlor-Socialist," were regarded as a
detriment rather than an advantage. Even labor was to be
used merely as an instrument and its aims were to be kept dis-
tinct from the aims of the revolution.
Lenine prematurely jumped to the conclusion that the sec-
ond congress had accomplished its purpose and a single party
had been established. Subsequent events proved his error. In
152 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
1905, when the Russian revolution was under way and the
liberal element was conspicuously active in the movement —
the year in which the guns of the imperial soldiers were turned
without provocation upon Father Gapon and the thousands of
workmen who marched with him to the winter palace to pre-
sent a petition to the Tsar — the third congress was held at
Geneva. No sooner had it convened that factional strife
broke out and, the Bolsheviki being in control, the Mensheviki
withdrew and organized a congress of their own. The point in
controversy was the method by which the revolution should be
conducted. The Mensheviki were for permitting the liberal
elements, the bourgeoisie, to carry on the revolution while the
proletariat directed its energies to the struggle against
capitalism. The Bolsheviki, on the contrary, were against any
half-way measures. Whatever the effect of the impending
political upheaval, there was to be no relaxation of effort until
the class struggle, to which Lenine constantly referred, had
been carried to a triumphant conclusion.
This purpose is expressed in the following resolutions
adopted by the Bolshevik congress:
Depending upon the correlation of forces and other
factors, which cannot be accurately determined or defined
in advance, participation in the temporary revolutionary
government is admissible for the purpose of a merciless
struggle against all counter-revolutionary attempts and of
defending the independent interests of the working class.
That a sine qua non of such participation must be the
absolute control of representation by party, the un-
swerving conservation of the independence of the Social
Democracy, whose aim is a complete social revolution and
as such is irreconcilably opposed to all bourgeois parties:
and
That independently of whether participation of Social
Democracy in temporary revolutionary government be pos-
sible or not, the widest possible propaganda among the
proletariat masses must be instituted in favor of the idea of
the necessity of the constant pressure of the armed
proletariat, led by Social Democracy, upon the temporary
revolutionary government in order to defend, make secure
and permanent, the conquests of the revolution.
It was the unbending Lenine's idea that there must be no
compromise with the bourgeoisie who were always open to
1919. J THE CRIMSON TERROR 153
suspicion of the taint of capitalism. He insisted, with charac-
teristic inconsistency, that to achieve its ends it was neces-
sary for the Social Democracy to establish a " revolutionary
democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry." Un-
til this was accomplished, until every vestige of the old capital-
istic system was wiped out and the bourgeois class extermi-
nated, stricken Russia was to have no rest. It is small wonder
that the liberal element, under the vacillating leadership of
Kerensky, was to go down before the determined Social Demo-
cratic leaders who had inoculated the proletariat with Lenine's
ideas, and unexpectedly found a powerful friend in the im-
perial government of Germany.
In October, 1905, when the heavy hand of the imperial
police was lifted and the struggling revolutionaries were given
a place, however insecure, in the sun, both the Bolsheviki and
the Mensheviki transferred their activities to Petrograd and
for a time almost forgot their differences. The existence of
the Social Democratic Party was authorized by law, but this
was of small avail as the leaders were kept under constant
police surveillance and the more ardent were persecuted as
before.
When the fourth congress assembled at Stockholm in May,
1908, the Mensheviki, for the first time found themselves in
control. They adopted resolutions proposing the confiscation
of lands in the possession of landlords, the municipalization
of them in some cases and the nationalization of them in
others. They advocated the formation of trades unions, par-
ticipation in the Duma elections and the calling of a con-
stituent assembly. The Bolsheviki, opposing this programme
in theory, reluctantly supported it.
Lenine, inflexibly uncompromising as usual, fought
especially the agrarian programme. He demanded the adop-
tion of the policy of the immediate nationalization of all land
in accordance with the principle that has since been applied by
the Bolshevist state. He saw no virtue even in the system
which prevailed in America, where the land is cut up into
small holdings. He insisted that any compromise of this
kind was merely sapping the strength of the revolution that
should be devoted to the overturning of the capitalistic
system.
This attitude he stated more clearly in his book on The
154 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
Agrarian Programme of the Social Democracy During the
First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. In this he says :
Ten million peasants possess about 70,000,000 deciatimes,
while 30,000 landlords possess about 70,000,000 deciatimes.
There are two possible remedies in a bourgeois evolutionary
way: one, in the interest of the big landowners, which has
been adopted in Prussia (junker system) creates a large
number of big landed peasants, the rest becoming hired
labor on the land; the other is the so-called American
method where big land-holdings become cut up into small
ones, the peasant becoming a farmer (that is a small capi-
talist employing hired labor). Either remedy would in
Russia require revolution and would only result in the in-
terest of capitalism. Why not have nationalization in the
interest of the peasants? They will support it, not because
they are socialistic, but because they are bourgeois and want
to be farmers.
Subsequent events have again shown the fallacy of
Lenine's reasoning. The expedient course he suggested of
nationalizing the land because the peasants, who are bourgeois
at heart, would see in this scheme an opportunity for getting
hold of some of it, has not been altogether successful. The
Ukraine has not been a fertile field for the growth of Bolshe-
vism, not so fertile, at least, as the industrial centres where the
workmen hailed with satisfaction the nationalization of all
industries. The small Ukrainian landholders approved the
cutting up of the large estates, but they cling tenaciously to
the soil that is their own.
The history of social democratic activity in the Dumas is
not an inspiring narrative. In the first, which was dissolved
in July, 1906, the handful of Social Democrats organized the
Trudobiki (labor) group but achieved nothing. In the second
Duma there were fifty Social Democrats belonging mostly to
the petty bourgeois class in the Caucasus region. The Social
Revolutionists wavered between the Constitutional Democrats
(cadets), whose futile defence of the provisional government
is one of the tragic episodes of the Bolshevist upheaval, and the
Social Democrats. When all of the latter were arrested on a
conspiracy charge, the country looked on with indifference.
With the renewal of police vigilance after the revolu-
tionary fiasco, Social Democratic activity entered upon a new
1919.] THE CRIMSON TERROR
155
phase. The leaders scattered among the European capitals.
Some went to Belgium, others to Paris but Geneva became the
cradle of Russian revolutionary propaganda. There Lenine
and his followers, among them Lunacharski and Alexinski,
issued The Proletarian. The Mensheviki, under Plekhanov
and Martov, published a paper called The Voice of the Social
Democrat, and established a Foreign Menshevik Bureau with
which were connected various leaders of the party, not the
least of whom was the glib Ghicherin, now Minister for For-
eign Affairs of the Soviet Republic.
The vicissitudes of the Social Democrats in Russia, where
the party was constantly losing ground, brought no cessation
of the quarrel in the ranks of the emigres. The Menshevik
Foreign Bureau was dissolved by the Central Committee un-
der control of the Bolsheviki. The two factions measured
their strength at a conference at Paris in 1908 and the Bolshe-
viki were clearly in the majority. They denounced the move
of the Mensheviki, who proposed the abandonment of " un-
derground " methods, condemned their lack of discipline, and
insisted upon the carrying out of the original Bolshevik pro-
gramme formulated by the fourth and fifth congresses.
About this time, 1909, the Social Democratic Party divided
into three groups: the Otzovitsy (Recallers), of the extreme
left, of which Maxim Gorky was one of the guiding spirits, who
advocated the boycott of the Duma, the abandonment of legal-
ized methods of agitation and the resumption of underground
work; the Leninites, consisting of both Bolsheviki and Menshe-
viki, who proposed to use legalized methods of agitation; the
Liquidators, headed by Martov, whose policy was directly op-
posed to that of the Recallers.
There was a fourth element, headed by the nimble Trotzky,
who had fled from Russia, like the other emigres when police
vigilance was renewed, and established himself in Vienna
where he edited the Pravda. Trotzky and his associates tried
to conciliate the other warring factions but without success.
It was apparent, at this time, that the Social Democratic
Party had fallen upon evil days. The Russian imperial gov-
ernment adopted the policy of giving greater latitude to the
Socialists whose activities, following legal channels, were
diverted from the secret propaganda of the extremists. The
liberal element, the bourgeois and the intelligentsia, at whom
156 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
Lenine always sneered, chose to take advantage of this oppor-
tunity and deserted the radicals giving their attention to the
development of trade unionism, the Duma and the establish-
ment and development of political and educational organiza-
tions through which they hoped to bring about political reform
in the empire. Lenine and the other radicals held aloof, con-
tending that these measures were undertaken merely to per-
petuate the bourgeois regime. They tried to revive the droop-
ing revolutionary party, but its affairs went from bad to worse.
The final chapter preceding the War is written in the re-
ports of Briandinski, the Moscow police agent, who gives the
following account of the so-called Lenine revolution of 1911.
The process of disintegration had gone so far that in
that year Lenine, despairing of bringing about action by regu-
lar means through the Central Committee, called a conference
of the more ardent Bolshevik spirits at Paris, among them
Zinovieff, now one of the officials of the Petrograd commune.
To them he proposed that the rusting party machinery be
ignored, and that a plenary session of the Central Committee
be called by one of its members. Such a call was sent out but
only three of the members responded, and they insisted that
the meeting be considered an unofficial and private affair.
Lenine then sought to revitalize the party by wresting author-
ity from the regularly constituted but inactive committees.
Failing in this, he set out upon another course and called a
Pan-Russian conference consisting of representatives of all
organizations practising underground methods. They created
one commission to act in Russia, another to act abroad. Both
were Bolshevist. They absorbed the activities of the Social
Democratic revolutionary party, dissolved the Menshevik For-
eign Bureau, and organized a finance commission of their own.
Rosa Luxemburg, the wife of a member of the conference,
whose tragic end was one of the episodes of the lurid Spar-
tacan revolt, was one of the trustees. Largely through her
efforts an appropriation of 40,000 francs was authorized to
carry on the work. The efforts of Lenine to pack the con-
ference with his Bolshevik friends, it appears, thereafter gave
rise to altercation. Clara Zetkin threatened to carry the case
to the internationalist Socialist Bureau. Lenine's enterprise
also encountered the opposition of the Polish, Lettish and
Jewish organizations and Plekhanov and Gorky denounced it.
1919.] THE CRIMSON TERROR 157
But Lenine did not pause. Under cover of secrecy, he
and his friends and a number of radical Bolshevik agitators
from Russia, eighteen men in all, met at Prague. Lenine, who
presided, submitted this report:
The revolutionary impetus is evidently growing and is
especially strong where labor is most abundant. The revo-
lution is not finished. We are on the eve of a new wave.
We must have representation in the fourth Duma. Liber-
alism is more afraid of the red devil than it is of the black
devil. All of the real democratic elements, laborites
especially, must be separated from the Constitutional
Democrats. By fighting them we fight the right parties,
including the counter-revolutionaries. We must get help
from the peasants and organize them into the peasants'
republican party.
Even at this time, as his report shows, Lenine, in spite of
the difficulties which confronted the Bolsheviki, showed no
signs of compromise. He declared war upon the Constitutional
Democrats no less than upon the imperial regime. He would
have nothing to do with the milder spirits who might, by any
construction, be included in the term bourgeois.
The Prague conference established a new central commit-
tee, a secret affair, consisting of seven members, two of whom,
Lenine and Zinovieff , were to remain abroad. Incidentally, by
way of showing that expediency was not to be tolerated, the
subsidy of Trotzky's paper was discontinued. This probably
accounted in some measure for Trotzky's active interest in the
proceedings of a rival conference called by the Mensheviki in
Vienna, in 1912, to denounce the revolutionary move of Lenine
and his ardent colleagues. Of this gathering, known as the
August block, Trotzky was made president, but as soon as it
began to steer a moderate course he, with Martov, another of
the Bolshevik leaders, deserted it.
Such was the pass to which the radical element of the
Social Democracy had come when the shadows of war began
to gather. The party was split into apparently irrecon-
cilable factions. Lenine found himself at the head of
a dwindling group, already so small that it is not to be won-
dered at that, although revolution was in the air, the diplo-
matic agents who watched the turbulent course of Russian poli-
tics, did not count upon the radical Bolshevist element as be-
158 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
ing potentially an important factor in the situation. On the
contrary all looked to the Constitutional Democrats for the
regeneration of the country when the imperial government,
undermined by German conspiracy, went down in ruins.
The effect of the War upon Socialism in Europe was no
less profound than it was upon every other phase of political
activity. Old points of controversy were submerged; a gen-
eral realignment of factions in relation to war policies took
place. In Russia, as in some other European countries, there
were two groups — the Internationalists, of whom Lenine be-
came the 'dominating leader, and the Patriots, at the head of
whom was Plekhanov.
The deep stirring of national feeling in the countries in-
volved in the gigantic struggle only served to intensify and
bring into bolder relief the bitter opposition of Lenine to the
existing order. This was formulated in his famous thesis
issued as a manifesto by the Central Committee at Geneva
shortly after the War began, and adopted generally by the radi-
cal international Socialists of Europe as a rallying cry to the
red cohorts who found inspiration in none of the national
colors, now lifted to the gathering storm of battle. This re-
markable document presented the following demands:
1. The war, which is imperialistic — dynastic in origin —
must end at once.
2. The social revolution must next be brought.
3. This war is a struggle for land, a fight for markets,
and for the fooling of the proletariat in favor of the
bourgeoisie.
4. The French, German and Belgian Socialists, whose
leaders betrayed them, suffered defeat because of
the presence among them of petty bourgeois, and the
future international must get rid of them.
5. The Social Democracy of Russia must struggle against
the great Russian monarchistic chauvinism and
sophistry of the liberals, cadets and social revolu-
tionists who defend it.
6. The watchword must be : wide propaganda in the army
and at the front for a social revolution, that it is
necessary to turn rifles against their bourgeois gov-
ernment, which propaganda must be carried on in
all languages and made to reach all nations at war.
Patriotism of the bourgeoisie must be fought; the
1919.] THE CRIMSON TERROR 159
Socialist leaders who have betrayed Socialism must
be brought before the bar of the masses who pay for
the War.
7. Propaganda for the establishment of republics in Rus-
sia, Germany and other countries, and the formation
of a republic of the United States of Europe.
Here again is reflected the relentless purpose of Lenine
and the radicals in the forefront of the internationalist, or
Bolshevist, movement. Not only the bourgeois but the liberals,
Constitutional Democrats and even the dissenting Socialists
are to be regarded as enemies and crushed by the proletariat
army. Patriotism is to be uprooted as an evil. Nowhere is
mention made of democratic ideals, of the promise of peace
and the blessings of liberty under the new order. It has been
characteristic of Lenine to concern himself much with what he
is fighting against and little with what he is fighting for.
The Lenine thesis straightway became the issue of the
moment in European Socialism. It was adopted by the eleven
Social Democratic members of the Duma who were promptly
arrested by the police agents present at their meeting. The
allied Socialists, who met at a conference in London in 1915,
adopted the resolution offered by Vanderveld, who presided,
declaring " that as long as war is a defensive war, Socialists
must support it until victory is won over Germany." This
action was denounced by the Russian Social Democratic Cen-
tral Committee which demanded the resignation of Vander-
veld and others from ministerial posts in the French and Bel-
gian governments.
In the meantime Lenine and his followers laid their plans
for carrying on propaganda in accordance with the anti-war
policy. A conference was held in February, 1915, at Berne,
attended by Lenine and his wife, Zinovieff and his wife,
Troianovski and his wife, and Beilinski and Litvinoff. They
adopted Lenine's suggestion to cooperate with the extreme
left, or radical wings of the Social Democratic Parties of other
countries, especially Germany, where Liebknecht and Rosa
Luxemburg offered to assist in the distribution of anti-war
literature among the Russian prisoners. At a second confer-
ence, held in March, it was decided that the War must be con-
verted into a civil war against the bourgeoisie. Means to that
end were adopted. The establishment of " underground " sys-
160 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
terns for carrying propaganda was approved; pacifism was
denounced as an illusion; the defeat of Russia was held to be
desirable, as a Russian victory would lead to universal reaction.
Both the Rolsheviki and Mensheviki sent delegates to the
two conferences of International Socialists held in Switzerland,
one in 1915, the other in 1918. Lenine fought for the adoption
of his programme urging the declaration of a general civil
war, receiving some support from the German representatives,
but he failed. He then turned his attention to the Russian
organizations, openly working for a Russian defeat. Ulti-
mately, with the aid of German money, his purpose was
accomplished. The provisional Russian government estab-
lished by the Constitutional Democrats, to the assistance of
which the Allies promptly came — the United States was the
first to accord it recognition — was overthrown and Bolshevism
had, at last, gained its foothold. Immediately the dissenting
Russian radicals, Trotzky, Lunacharski and others who had
joined the United Internationalists, the Zimmerwald group,
hastened to declare allegiance to the Bolshevik state, now the
world-wide expression of the radical socialistic ideal.
What has been accomplished is, from the Bolshevik point
of view, not the end but the beginning. Zarya, the dawn, has
arrived; until the world stands in the fullness of the Bolshevist
day the struggle is to be carried on. The political conquest of
Russia is but a minor detail in the larger pattern, an economic
upheaval in all countries and the establishment of the
proletariat as a dominating class.
" We know that circumstances alone have pushed us, the
proletariat of Russia, forward," writes Lenine in a letter ad-
dressed from Moscow to American workingmen in August, 1918,
that we have reached this new stage in the social life of the
world not because of our superiority but because of the
peculiarly reactionary character of Russia. But, until the out-
break of the international revolution, revolutions in individual
countries may still meet with a number of setbacks and over-
throws. "Workingmen the world over are breaking with their
betrayers, with their Gompers and their Scheidemanns. In-
evitably labor is approaching communistic Bolshevistic tac-
tics, is preparing for the proletarian revolution that alone is
capable of preserving culture and humanity from destruc-
tion."
1919.] THE CRIMSON TERROR 161
Refugees emerging from the chaos of Bolshevist rule,
stripped of their possessions and subjected to unspeakable
hardship, tell weird stories of this new order, the appalling
tragedy of which is yet to be disclosed. Putting aside these
fragmentary portrayals of the devastating effects of the rule
of the " armed proletariat dictatorship " and judging it solely
in the light of its past, it cannot be regarded otherwise than as
a destructive force maintaining itself by an inexorable abso-
lutism, more extreme than the imperialism against which it
has conspired. It is small wonder that the Bolshevist govern-
ment has resorted to the inhuman practice of holding hostages,
to maintain the dictatorship, of which Lenine had constantly
preached, of dealing in wholesale execution to put down coun-
ter-revolution, of filling the dungeons of the old imperialistic
prisons with political offenders and their kin, and establishing
a reign of mass terrorism which called down the official con-
demnation of the United States Government. These revolting
practices Lenine himself, unlike the American apologists for
Bolshevism, does not disavow. In his letter to American
workingmen he presents this defiant justification:
Have the English forgotten their 1649, the French their
1793? Terror was just and justified when it was employed
by the bourgeoisie for its own purposes against feudal
domination. But terror becomes criminal when working-
men and poverty-stricken peasants dare to use it against
the bourgeoisie. Terror was just and justified when it was
used to put one exploiting minority in the place of another.
But terror becomes horrible when it is used to abolish all
exploiting minorities, when it is employed in the cause of
the actual majority, in the cause of the proletariat and the
semi-proletariat, of the working class and the poor peas-
antry.
When the workers and the laboring peasants took hold of
the powers of state, it became our duty to quell the re-
sistance of the exploiting class. We are proud that we have
done it. We only regret that we did not do it at the begin-
ing, with sufficient firmness and decision.
To this declaration of the inflexible purpose of Bolshevism
may be added this other excerpt from the same letter refl
ing clearly Lenine's ideas of democracy:
While the old bourgeois institutions, for instance, pro-
VOL. CIX, — 11
162 THE CRIMSON TERROR [May,
claimed formal equality and the right of free assemblage,
the constitution of the Soviet republic repudiates the hypoc-
risy of a formal equality of human beings. When the bour-
geois republicans overturned feudal thrones, they did not
recognize the rules of formal equality of the monarchists.
Since we are here concerned with the task of overthrowing
the bourgeoisie, only fools and traitors will insist upon the
formal equality of the bourgeoisie.
From the beginning of his long revolutionary career
Lenine has consistently preached this doctrine of force. It is
echoed in a letter of Liebknecht's also addressed to American
Socialists. " War against this party all along the line," he says
of the Majority German Socialists, " to conquer the party for
the party. War against the traitors and usurpers." The blood-
letting which is attending the setting up of the German republic
and the terrorism that marks Russia's hour of tragedy are the
normal outgrowth of Bolshevist theory. In its scheme of things
minorities have no place. Those who do not bow abjectly to
the yoke of the armed proletariat are to be treated as enemies
and traitors. Once the imperial order, whether of Kaiser or
Tsar, is overthrown, every form of political activity, carried on
by bourgeois, Constitutional Democrat or even Liberal So-
cialist, becomes counter-revolution and must be suppressed.
Extermination becomes a fixed policy, and we find in the of-
ficial organ of the Petrograd commune a formal proclamation
decreeing that while workmen shall have two herring and eight
ounces of bread every day, the bourgeois shall have none at all.
The record of Bolshevism shows conclusively that between
it and the American ideal there can be no possible reconcilia-
tion. If the one stands, the other must fall, and it is the Bol-
shevist leaders themselves, not the constituted authorities in
the United States, that have sounded the call to war.
THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD.
BY JOSEPH J. REILLY, PH.D.
HE first thing which strikes the reader of Joseph
Conrad's stories is that they are "different."
One is constantly aware that his point of view is
not typical of the people whose language he
writes, and that his tales have a flavor which is
neither English nor American nor French nor German, and
which one finally decides is Slavic. He lacks the perfection of
form which is French, the restraint and the acquiescence in
things as they are which is English, the compactness and verve
which we think of as American. He has the melancholy, the
regret for joyous yesterdays, the brooding sympathy with all
the children of Eve who must battle against mischance and
poverty and weakness and heartbreak, only to find death at the
end, which is typical in a marked degree of the Celt and of the
Slav.
Mr. Conrad as a matter of fact is Teordor Joseph Konrad
Karzeniowski, who was born in the year 1857 in southern
Poland. He attended the Christian Brothers' School in Cracow
until 1874, when an irresistible impulse drove him to take up
the life of a seaman. Four years later he landed on English
soil for the first time, absolutely ignorant of the language. He
advanced rapidly to a command both of English and of sea-
manship, was naturalized in 1884, and at the same time became
a master in the English Merchant Service. For twenty years he
followed the sea, working in leisure moments upon a book, pub-
lished in 1895 as Almayer's Folly, which attracted but scant
attention. Conrad definitely abandoned his calling for litera-
ture, although at times the temptation to return gave him bat-
tle, and during the last twenty-odd years he has produced five
volumes of short stories and many novels. It is with his short
stories that we have to do.
Conrad gave up the sea, it is true, but the sea did not give
up Conrad. To him, gifted with an imagination, it was not a
mere highway for traffic, but tremendously more: it was "the
sea tragic and comic, the sea with its horrors and its peculiar
164 THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD [May,
scandals, the sea peopled by men and ruled by iron necessity."
He had beheld it in all moods and never ceased to love it,
although it gave a deeper tinge to his Slavic melancholy. To
him there was something human about it, something willful and
fascinating and sinister. He gazes upon men struggling against
their weaknesses, devoured by vice, seeking success — and
always in his mind their destinies are played upon the sea,
not as a mere element in the setting but as a very member of
the dramatis persons?, large, profound, emotional as the chorus
of a Greek tragedy.
In two of his most notable stories, The Typhoon and
Youth, the sea is as veritable a character as Captain Mac Whirr
or as young Marlow in the lustihood of his years. With all its
forces unleashed it flings the gauntlet of combat at these men's
feet, and, merciless and inexhaustible, compels them to fight
for life in the teeth of discouragement, exhaustion, and despair.
And when their intrepidity has achieved a triumph, it is this
self-same sea which seems to hymn their victory at the very
moment of massing its forces once again for a new and not-
far-distant trial of strength ! In all his other tales, almost with-
out exception, we have the lure, the splendor, the menace of
the sea. Even in Amy Foster, the story of a poor exile from
southern Europe, it is to a shipwreck that the vagrant owes his
advent in England, and throughout the tale one breathes with
every sentence the salt tang of the Atlantic. No man for whom
the sea possesses so tremendous and human a reality as for
Conrad, could help describing it in all its moods with com-
pelling vividness.
During Conrad's twenty years as a sailor he visited the
remotest corners of the world and gives us a series of varied
' j/ and unf orgetable pictures : there are far-away islands which, a
mass of green, "lie upon the level of a polished sea, like a
handful of emeralds on a buckler of steel." There are rivers
whose virgin waters have never been ploughed by a white
man's boat, beaches upon whose thundering surf stands the
cottage of a Nelson, a Renouard, or a Van Wyk, with striped
awning, attractive flower beds, and walks of imported gravel.
Again, he pictures a white man's hut smothered amid rank
verdure on the squalid edge of a Malay settlement where a
hapless discard of civilization might drag out an uncertain ex-
istence. Again, he gives us what he calls ironically an " out-
1919.] THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD 165
post of civilization " far up a lonely river where the boat of
some trading company's director finds its way twice a year,
and where the deadly heat destroys men's bodies as pitilessly as
the contact with savagery and the abandonment of the
decalogue destroy their souls. Here is a vivid page from The
Lagoon: a white man and his Malay servants are paddling up
a tropical river: ^-
" At the end of the straight avenue of forests cut by^the in-
tense glitter of the river, the sun appeared unclouded and daz-
zling, poised low over the water that shone smoothly like a
band of metal. The forests, sombre and dull, stood motion-
less and silent on each side of the broad stream. At the foot
of the big, towering trees, trunkless nipa palms rose from the
mud of the bank, in bunches of leaves enormous and heavy,
that hung unstirring over the brown swirl of the eddies. In
the stillness of the air every tree, every leaf, every bough, every
tendril of creeper and every petal of minute blossoms seemed
to have been bewitched into an immobility perfect and final.
. . . The white man's canoe, advancing up stream . . . seemed
to enter the portals of a land from which the very memory of
motion had forever departed. . . .
" Astern of the boat the repeated call of some bird, a cry
discordant and feeble, skipped along over the smooth water
and lost itself, before it could reach the other shore, in the
breathless silence of the world Suddenly the slanting beams
of sunset touched the broadside of the canoe with a fiery glow,
throwing the slender and distorted shadows of its crew upon
the streaked glitter of the river. . . . Immense trees soared up,
invisible behind the festooned draperies of creepers. Here
and there, a twisted root of some tall tree showed amongst
the tracery of small ferns, black and dull, writhing and mo-
tionless, like an arrested snake. . . . Darkness oozed out from
between the trees, through the tangled maze of the creepers,
from behind the great fantastic and unstirring leaves; the dark-
ness, mysterious and invincible; the darkness scented and
poisonous of impenetrable forests." No man writing today
has beheld such a scene as this, or if he had, could realize it in
words with such compelling vividness. "My task," Conrad
once wrote, " which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of
the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel— it is,
before all, to make you see." That man is, indeed, blind in
166 THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD [May,
soul as in vision to whom this scene, as by a conjurer's wand,
is not made palpable as his very body.
Conrad's, however, is no mere photographer's skill. He
can make his scenes impress the retina of the soul no less than
of the eye by giving them that something which is baffling, in-
definable, and yet distinctive, which we call personality in
men, and atmosphere in scenes. But Conrad's strength is also
his weakness. For at times his descriptions become a riot of
adjectives and colorful substantives which produce upon the
reader's mind nothing but a brilliant blur. Such prodigality
recalls Ruskin's notorious description of Turner's " Slave
Ship," regarding which Thackeray remarked that he wasn't
certain whether it was sublime or merely ridiculous. In each
man's case the fault was due to a retouching, lavish and de-
liberate, upon which he fell back in that inevitable hour of
doubt when the writer questions the authenticity of his inspira-
tion and the devil tempts him to seek to support it by the de-
ceptive potency of mere words.
Conscious of his descriptive powers, Conrad loves to in-
dulge them. In his earlier work he was prone to forget that
long descriptive passages fatigue the reader unless surcharged
with an immediate — and sustaining — human interest. This is
the chief weakness of The Typhoon. But he has learned an
ampler wisdom since, and in one of the most brilliant of his
later descriptions he has succeeded in combining the human
interest with the compelling attraction of the sea at dawn.
Freya Nelson has slipped out upon the veranda of her island
home to wave farewell to her lover, Jasper Allen, as he passes
aboard the Bonito:
" The green islets appeared like black shadows, the ashen
sea was smooth as glass, the clear robe of the colorless dawn,
in which even the brig appeared shadowy, had a hem of light
in the east. Directly Freya had made out Jasper on deck, with
his own long glass directed to the bungalow, she laid hers down
and raised both her beautiful white arms above her head. In
that attitude of supreme cry she stood still, glowing with the
consciousness of Jasper's adoration going out to her figure
held in the field of his glass. . . . She brought both her hands to
her lips, then flung them out, sending a kiss over the sea, as if
she wanted to throw her heart along with it on the deck of the
brig. Her face was rosy, her eyes shone. . . . The slowly ascend-
1919.] THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD 167
ing sun brought the glory of color to the world, turning the
islets green, the sea blue, the brig below her white— dazzlingly
white in the spread of her wings— with the red ensign stream-
ing like a tiny flame from the peak. And each time she mur-
mured with a rising inflection: 'Take this— and this— and
this—' till suddenly her arms fell. She had seen the ensign
dipped in response, and next moment the point below hid the
hull of the brig from her view." What color, what verve, what
harmony of things animate and inanimate, as if both brig and
sea shared in the youth and beauty and passion of the lovers!
At the very outset of his stories Conrad gives us their set-
ting. Be it a beach, a tropical river, a swarming Malay village,
he describes it opulently, minutely, with a wealth of significant
detail which convinces us that his eye is upon the scene as he
writes. There is in his work an insistence which reminds one
of Poe : just as Poe exerts a pressure upon the reader's atten-
tion in order to achieve the fullest effect of his climax, so Con-
rad throughout the course of his story insists upon the reality
of its setting. On occasions the pressure seems overdone;
again, it is so subtle as to leave the reader unconscious of its
presence; but all the time it is there. The deadly heat almost
stifles you in The Heart of Darkness and in An Outpost of
Progress; the turbulent seas seem to drench you, body and
soul, in Youth; the meagre life of the village where Jean-
Pierre, in The Idiots, rails against the awful fate of his chil-
dren broods over you like a pall; in The Partner you feel the
wrecked Sagamore lurching under your feet, a plaything for
the unleashed forces of the sea. In a word, as I suggested be-
fore, Conrad has a genius for creating atmosphere. And that
atmosphere is an essential of the story.
There are writers to whom the setting of a tale causes as
little concern as to the Elizabethan dramatists. It is otherwise
with Conrad. He concedes an imagination to his reader; in
fact a reader of Conrad without imagination is a contradiction
in terms. The particular crisis his men are called upon to face
is conditioned by their surroundings. Marlow in Youth might
have experienced the thrill of a joyous fight for life in a dozen
ways. He might have swung a sabre at Balaklava or faced a
panther in an African jungle or plied a dagger in a Yukon
bar-room upon the turn of a card. But these will not do.
Conrad wants you to realize that Marlow's struggle is upon the
168 THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD [May,
sea; the wind and storm and sky, fire, the leaky ship, the be-
mused old captain, the haggard crew fighting with blind in-
stinct against the incessant menace of death — they are all part
of that gripping story. Were the atmosphere unrealized, the
tale would be powerless; change the setting and it would van-
ish into thin air. For it is not the struggle of any men against
any force, but the struggle of sailors, stolid, slow-thinking, un-
resourceful, but brave, unyielding — slaves of an instinctive dis-
cipline, matched against that titantic force which they serve
with love — and fear. The reality of the story does not depend
upon a single scene or a single vivid description, but upon a
constant interaction, so to speak, of character and setting, a
marriage of the two from which, in Conrad's vocabulary, there
is no such word as divorce.
In The Heart of Darkness Conrad is concerned with the
moral disintegration of a man energetic, ambitious, and high-
minded, whose ideals crumble before the fetid breath of a
savagery which wallows in a tropical inferno. Remoteness
from civilization, the brutal custom of enslaving natives under
the pretext of law, the sordidness and jealousy of fellow of-
ficials, the debasing sensuality of savage rites, and endlessly
a heat so fierce as to wither, it might seem, the very tablets of
the decalogue — all these struck at Kurtz's soul as with a con-
suming fire. To understand Kurtz with his temptations, his de-
baucheries, and his fall, one must realize as Kurtz himself re-
alized at last, the fatal powers of disintegration which lurked
in the very air he breathed. It lay at the heart of Conrad's
genius that he was able to achieve this unfailingly, as well in
all his other tales as in these two masterpieces, Youth and
The Heart of Darkness.
In The Secret Sharer, a good though not a great story, we
have a striking example of this power. For it is written, as it
were, in an undertone; it is as if Conrad told you the tale with
finger upon lips. You feel the danger of a voice raised above
a whisper, of an indiscreet glance, of a sudden start of sur-
prise lest you betray the secret and wreck the career of one
man and the life of another.
Conrad's power to make the reader realize the setting of
his tales and breathe their very atmosphere, would be a note-
worthy gift even though it were his sole possession. But with
the same opulence, the same detail, he has drawn his men (and
1919.] THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD 169
his few women) and sought to make them real. He has a
passion for establishing their moral antecedents : he must tell
you what they were yesterday and last month and last year,
what ties they have, what their early lives were like, in what
estimation people hold them. And you are informed of all this
in the most indirect of ways, as if the authenticity of the char-
acterization were insured, like the ownership of purloined
property, by getting into the possession of a third person. He
manifests character as a master should, in and through action.
But that action is as slow and cumbersome in getting under
way as the lumbering Apse Family which was possessed by a
very devil of perversity. It backs and fills, heaves and plunges,
lurches now to starboard and now to port and, like the Judea
in Youth, rolls unsteadily in the offing long after it should
have dipped below the horizon. Conrad, indeed, is as un-
certain in his beginnings as the great Walter Scott himself,
whom he has imitated in his conclusions, as well as by affecting
explanatory tailpieces. Life with its ramifications and com-
plexities obsesses him; to gather up its loose ends, by anticipa-
tion, like Poe, and thus clear the way for a definitive climax
seems to him a violation of truth. His short stories are carried
beyond the point of dramatic finality except for Tales of Un-
rest, in writing which he had just thrown in his lot with the
English instead of with the French tongue, though he was ob-
viously under the influence of French models. Whether the
form of Conrad's tales be due to his insistence upon presenting
life as he conceives it or to a sheer inability to adopt another,
it can be called artistic only by devotees of the sort that dis-
cover sincerity in Shaw, poetry in The Spoon River Anthology,
and sanity in cubic art.
Conrad's men, no less than Stevenson's, have for the most
part red blood and strong muscles. They are not mere crea-
tures of a prolific brain, but people who seem to have their be-
ing, their individual existences, entirely independent of their
creator. Like Jeanie Deans, Allan Breck, and Colonel New-
come they are as real as flesh and blood. The sturdy figures
of three dimensions that fill his pages are so numerous as to be
impressive. How real are those precious scoundrels, Niclaus,
Fector, and Bantz, each infamous in his own way, the hapless
laughing Anne, and the terrible Frenchman with one hand
(reminiscent of that unapproachable rogue, John Silver) in
170 THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD [May,
Because of the Dollars. How can one soon forget Cloete in
The Partner, aff able, smoothly persistent, almost likable
despite the villanies he commits for the sake of money. Men
out of real life are Jasper Allen and Lieutenant Heemskirk in
Freya of the Seven Isles. Allen, the reckless, loves his shapely
brig, The Bonito, like a human thing, but will risk wrecking
her to save half an hour in reaching his sweetheart. Dare-
devil though he is, he can dream dreams and love with a pas-
sionate devotion. Heemskirk deserves a place in the gallery
of immortal scoundrels. How real — and repellant — he is as he
sits upon Nelson's veranda, his black gunboat in the offing,
contemptuously ignoring his host while his small black eyes
devour the beautiful Freya; how detestable in his jealousy,
how revolting in his advances to the girl, how diabolically
brutal and clever withal, when he wrecks his rival's brig and
with it the lives of the lovers!
There is Captain Whaley in The End of the Tether, the
handsome, dignified old seaman who abandons his dream of
ease to provide for his " little girl," married to a ne'er-do-well.
Alone, single-handed, he begins anew the battle of life at sixty-
five and, erect in body as in soul, endures the shafts of out-
rageous fortune with a noble stoicism. Then there is Lieu-
tenant Feraud in The Duel, the peppery little Gascon, who re-
sents a brother officer's calling him from a woman's presence
to receive a military message and pursues him for a decade
with challenges to combat. There is Yanko, in Amy Foster, the
poor Slavic peasant, shipwrecked upon the English coast, hid-
ing at first like a frightened animal, lean, sallow, with great
brown eyes, eloquent of every emotion of his soul. We see him
dumbly toiling in the fields; turning in the hunger of his lonely
heart to the only woman who showed him sympathy; cele-
brating her possession in outlandish dances at the village inn;
and finally, devoured by consumption, feared and abandoned
by his wife, stumbling out into the rainy darkness to die like
a dog a few yards from his own door.
There is Susan Levaille, the pretty wife of Jean-Pierre,
who presents him with children, handsome and well-formed
enough, but cursed with idiocy. Maternal anticipation be-
comes dread and dread terror and terror mute despair as each
of her children in its turn betrays its vacant mind. Her days
are but the torturous repetition of her neighbors' jeers, and
1919.] THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD 171
the brutal scorn of her husband, whose drunken curses are
met by the foolish smiles of his children. There is Captain
Hagberd in Tomorrow, the poor old sea-dog whose son has
run away from home in his youth and of whose return his
shattered mind ever pictures a confident tomorrow. It is
always " tomorrow." At last the son returns, but fifteen years
have wrought a change. "A grinning, information fellow,"
cries the old man. ;< You are no son of mine. My son will come
tomorrow"
Existence to Conrad is anything but simple; its ramifica-
tions are infinite; echoes of his men, be they good or ill, roll
from soul to soul, though they are not in themselves complex.
Each in fact is dominated by a fixed idea: Kurtz by his am-
bition to become a great figure in the world of affairs in which
he will preach the altruistic doctrine of the twin progress of
business and civilization; Captain Whaley by his determina-
tion to save his daughter from a bitter struggle for bread;
Jasper Allen to wed Freya Nelson and make her mistress of the
ship which next to her he loves best in life; Alvin Hervey to
maintain in their relative positions his wife, his home, his busi-
ness, his social associations, and himself, elements which one
and all make up the total of his complacent and artificial ex-
istence; Geoffrey Renouard to crown his successful young
career by marrying the only woman he has ever loved.
Given a man with a fixed idea, two things are evident at
once : first, that he will never know a crisis except when that
one idea faces a power which menaces the very soul in which
it flowers; and secondly, that the crisis, when it comes, will
bear tragedy within its bosom. By stripping his men of com-
plexities, Conrad has brought them more sharply into focus,
and by narrowing their vulnerable points to one, he has made
that shaft a very tool of fate which achieves its piercing. All
of which is another way of saying that Conrad's men are
brought face to face, not with some crisis but with the one par-
ticular crisis above all others which they are least qualified to
resist. The winged arrow never fails to find lodgment in the
one vulnerable spot.
" Even Homer nods," says the mocking Horace, and a sim-
ilar privilege must be permitted Conrad. This Anglo-Slavic
magician has not always triumphed. " Conservation of char-
acter," to use that fine old phrase of Fielding's, is wanting in
172 THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD [May,
what would otherwise have been a masterpiece — Freya of
the Seven Isles. For the Jasper Allen who is crushed by the
loss of his brig, has no kinship with the Allen that Conrad has
portrayed in the earlier part of the tale, buoyant, hopeful,
rich in verve, in energy, in dashing courage. His heroine is
no less an anomaly. To believe that Freya Nelson, who, ra-
diant as the dawn in whose glow she waved farewell to Jasper
Allen, is the same Freya Nelson who, white and languid, dies
of anaemia at the end of the story is to believe that Diana War-
wick betrayed Dacier or that Lady Babbie married Gavin
Dishart.
A similar charge lies against his Geoffrey Renouard in
The Planter of Malata. Big, energetic, capable of a noble
passion, Renouard becomes a sentimentalist and a suicide
(swimming out to sea at night with his eyes fixed upon a bril-
liant star) because a pretty woman is too ungenerous of soul
to appreciate his love. In The Heart of Darkness Conrad has
kept Kurtz in the background almost to the end of the story, en-
dowing his name with a glamour which is reminiscent of Rider
Haggard's method in She. At last we are permitted to see
kept Kurtz in the background almost to the end of the story, en-
jealousy, the man whose name is one to conjure by in Altruria
—and we behold a consumptive ghost, a skeleton shivering
with ague, whom Conrad exhausts his skill in trying fo invest
with reality. As well attempt to re-create Cleopatra from a
bone and a hank of hair! Kurtz is no fallen column the mys-
tery of whose greatness may be guessed at. He is a wraith,
a ghost, a shadow who, like the lovely figure in Balzac's Un-
known Masterpiece, has vanished beneath the very brush
strokes of the artist. Here, as in Freya of the Seven Isles, Con-
rad for the second time just failed to achieve a perfect thing.
This failure when on the threshold of triumph is surpris-
ing, for both in Freya and in The Heart of Darkness Conrad
had subjects which in sweep of elemental emotions were made
for his fashioning. His style, his manner, his interest demand
large subjects, the sea in its violent moods, the welter of tropi-
cal vegetation, shipwrecks, the anguish of men in the fell clutch
of circumstances. One recalls at random the retreat of Na-
poleon's army from Russia in The Duel; the Sofala quivering
like a wounded animal as she strikes a sunken rock and foun-
ders, deserted by all but her blind old captain; the naked
1919.] THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD 173
slaves like brown skeletons in The Heart of Darkness, each
with an iron collar about his neck, with meagre breasts, dilated
nostrils, and stony eyes, now toiling like beasts and now lying
helpless in the languor of disease, abandoned and despairing.
For Stevenson it was possible to write A Lodging for the
Night on the one hand and Markheim on the other. But not
so with Conrad. When he has essayed psychology apart from
dramatic action he has never succeeded. He reminds one of a
worker in bronze seeking to accommodate his muscular hands
to the demands of the goldsmith, or of the landscape painter
attempting a miniature on ivory. Both The Return and //
Conde are failures. In each instance Conrad is attempting to
scale the wall into the preserves of Henry James and Edith
Wharton and, like Sentimental Tommy in his hour of tempta-
tion, he is left hanging ignominiously upon the avenging
spikes. But all the gifts of the gods are not vouchsafed to any
mortal, even though he be a brilliant Slav who found his first
models in France and his literary tongue in England.
Most of Conrad's stories are depressing and even tragic
and yet he is not — in despite of a dozen omniscient critics — an
unqualified pessimist. What they have called pessimism is
an attitude of mind which is racial rather than individual and
which belongs to the Celt no less than to the Slav. It is marked
by abiding regret for the tender grace of dead .yesterdays, a
poignant sense of the "subtle melancholy of things touched
by decay;" a sadness vague and pervasive like an autumnal
haze; and finally an acquiescence in life with its unfulfilled
desires, its unrealized hopes, its thwarted ambitions. In A
Smile of Fortune Conrad says: "The further one ventures
the better one understands how everything in our lives is com-
mon, short, and empty." What is this, after all, but the cry
of the inspired writer : " Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity,"
deadly pessimism only to men in whose eyes this life is the be-
all and the end-all.
Something of the Greek notion (which is Celtic and
Slavic as well) warns him that it is unsafe to be too happy,
that upon our joy broods the shadow of sorrow or misfortune,
that there is a kind of equalization everlastingly going on
between our ills and our blessedness. Pitfalls catch the feet
of the unwary as they laugh joyously to the stars. Jasper
Allen " lived in a state of perpetual elation fit, perhaps, for
174 THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD [May,
the seventh heaven, but not exactly safe in a world like ours."
Seek not happiness overmuch, warns the Greek, lest by attain-
ing it you awaken the envy of the gods. You must not expect
real happiness, says the Gelt, in this valley of tears, for
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow —
There's nothing true but Heaven.
To call that pessimism is to do new wrong to the most mis-
understood race in history.
But in all seriousness, does Conrad not leave one, like
Maupassant and Hardy, overwhelmed at the thought of human
creatures in the grip of fate, playthings of a malice at once
cunning and purposeless? The answer is an emphatic "No! "
For to Conrad's mind life is not a " long disease " as that arch-
poseur Pope pretended to find it, nor a thing not worth the
living. In his philosophy there are high ideals of honor, no-
bility, unselfishness, truth. He does not minimize the power
of the human will nor defend weaknesses by proclaiming the
innocence of their possessor. He is as deeply, though less ob-
viously, a believer in retributive justice as Stevenson. If his
men err they pay the price. There is no compromise with evil,
and weaknesses of will exact their penalty. His people are not
caught in the toils without a struggle, nor do they waste tears
upon themselves, nor blame fate for their undoing. He does
not preach that life is not worth while, which is the thought
that lies at the very heart of pessimism, but he does teach that
life is a struggle so grim that it evokes no laughter, save that
which is akin to tears. "The days of this life are short and
evil," says a Kempis, "full of sorrows and miseries; where
man is defiled with many sins, ensnared with many passions,
racked with many fears, disquieted with many cares, dis-
tracted with many curiosities, entangled with many vanities,
encompassed with many errors, worn down with many labors,
burthened with temptations, unmanned with delights, tor-
mented with want." There is Conrad in one sentence and if
he be a pessimist his kinship is not with Maupassant and Gis-
sing and Hardy, but with the Hebrew psalmist and the author
1919.] THE SHORT STORIES OF JOSEPH CONRAD 175
of the Imitation. Pessimism on the one hand and the noblest
optimism on the other gaze upon man — his world a stage-
through the same opera glasses, but from opposite ends.
In writing // Conde and The Return, Conrad wrote with
his eye on Henry James; in The Partner, on Stevenson; in Tales
of Unrest, on Maupassant; in Tomorrow, on Thomas Hardy.
Whether or not he has studied The Apologia it is hard to say;
but he is as sensitively aware as Newman of the isolation of
every individual soul. In the hour of crisis each of us must
play his own part, make his own fight, morally as isolated from
his fellows as Crusoe upon his island. Conrad's Slavic tem-
perament, reenforced by his life upon the sea, has made him
abidingly conscious of this truth, as when he speaks of " the
tremendous fact of our isolation, of the loneliness, im-
penetrable and transparent, elusive and everlasting." In no
other writer of English fiction is this note so pervasive, so
insistent; in no other work in the language is it so pronounced
except in The Dream of Gerontius.
When all is said, Conrad's virtues are striking. For
sheer power he has no equal in England or America, and
though he can perpetrate such hopeless stuff as The Shadow
Line, his best work can smile defiance at hostile criticism. He
has turned a Slavic tributary into the broad stream of Eng-
lish literature for the effect of which he can afford to wait
for a confident and more catholic-minded tomorrow. Mean-
while he has achieved a place among those immortals who like
Scott and Cooper and Stevenson have known the lure of the
deep, and have recounted the romance of those dauntless spirits
" that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great
waters."
THE RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.
BY ALBERT J. CARNOY, PH.D.
S victory in war finally rewards the nation that
displays the greatest energy in action and the
stanchest endurance in morale, so the future
will belong to those who in this period of re-
construction, work with the greatest resolution
and the clearest understanding of the situation. Financial,
industrial, commercial, political plans are in active prepara-
tion in order to restore to the nations the resources on
which their very life depends. But it is an old truth, which this
harsh War has made most evident, that the moral forces are
the decisive factors in the viability of nations or societies, since
they are the only reason that makes them worth living and
dying for.
The University of Louvain was a moral force. It has
shaped and inspired the minds of most of the men who have
made Belgium prosperous, progressive, brave and Christian.
The restoration of Belgium would be a mere fallacy if Louvain
were not to rise out of its ruins with renewed vitality and
greater prestige.
But, in fact, Louvain did not belong to Belgium alone.
For four centuries it has been one of the greatest centres of
Catholic intellectuality. As the first and greatest of the Catho-
lic Universities created in the nineteenth century to enable
Catholics to participate in the great scientific movement of
modern times without renouncing the principles of their Faith,
its influence was gradually extending, thanks to its location in
the heart of the most active area of material and moral civili-
zation in Europe and the prestige of a glorious past.
The old University of Louvain was founded in 1425, when
the provinces of the Low Countries, united already by common
economic interests and political and moral ideals, felt the need
of an intellectual centre of their own. The Middle Ages had
developed an exalted conception of the university, placing it
entirely outside local governments and princely intrigues. The
doctors with their facultas ubique docendi, traveled over
1919.] RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY 177
Europe and were welcomed in all the great schools of the time.
In spite of the difficulties of transportation, the great figures of
the time — notably three of those most closely associated with
Louvain: Erasmus, Justus Lipsius, and Versalius — traveled
even more than modern scholars and were, in all truth, citizens
of a republic of intelligence.
This high grade internationalism had its basis in the moral
unity of the world; it disappeared in the intellectual upheaval
of the sixteenth century and was replaced by the antique con-
ception of the absolute sovereignty of the State.
As the head of the mediaeval republic of nations, the Pope
was the only person who could institute a university. The
Alma Mater of Louvain, accordingly, was founded by an Act
of Pope Martin V. This curious document was preserved in
Holland since the French Revolution and given back to Lou-
vain University on the seventy-fifth anniversary of its restora-
tion, only to be destroyed in the burning of the library in 1914.
It conferred the greatest privileges on the new institution, mak-
ing it absolutely independent of the civil authorities of Louvain
and of the Duchy. The rector was the repository of all juris-
diction, both spiritual and secular, and was surrounded with
brilliant pomp. In all ceremonies he took precedence over all
the other authorities of the country.
The institution enjoyed a rapid development, being pro-
vided with scholarships and endowments. Colleges were built
all over the city in the manner of Oxford and Cambridge. In
the sixteenth century it was an oasis of peace in the midst of
the religious and political struggles of the time, and it became
the great intellectual centre of the North. It constantly played
an important part in the development of humanism.
By 1470 many editions of ancient writers had already been
published at Louvain in the presses of John of Westphalia.
The splendid collection in incunabula in Louvain's library was
due to that circumstance. It was one of the most important in
the world and its disappearance can never cease to be re-
gretted.
In 1502, Erasmus settled at Louvain and gave a strong im-
pulse to the study of antiquity. His eff orts culminated in the
foundation of the Collegium Trium Linguarum in which the
new methods were to be applied to the study of Hebrew, Greek
and Latin. The influence of this institution was considerable.
VOL. CIX. — 12
178 RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY [May,
Among its graduates were Barthelemy Masson whom Francis
I. intrusted with the direction of the College de France,
founded on the model of the Louvain institutions, and Justus
Lipsius, the great figure of humanism and philology in the
second half of the sixteenth century. Allured by the ideas of
the reformers, he lectured part of his life at Jena and at Ley-
den, a university founded by the Dutch Galvinists in opposition
to Louvain, but he soon returned to Louvain and to submission
to the Church.
While humanism was flourishing at Louvain other courses
were hardly less brilliant. Mudaeus introduced there the so-
called " elegant method " in the interpretation of Roman Law,
which was then considered the supreme expression of law and
equity in the courts of Europe. The faculty of medicine could
boast among its graduates Vesalius, the founder of modern
anatomy, who taught both at Louvain and in Italy. And in
mathematics there was Adrianus Romanus, one of the inven-
tors of modern algebra.
But, in spite of its great scientific achievements, Louvain,
from its origin up to our own times, has been especially promi-
nent as a school of theology.
By virtue of its part in the revival of piety, it exerted a
strong moral influence in the fifteenth century. Two of its
graduates deserve special mention: Jacques Wegns, who
popularized the rosary in the Low Countries, and Paeschen,
who introduced the devotion of the Way of the Cross in its
modern form.1 In the doctrinal movement, the Faculty of
Louvain, by a kind of instinct, always rejected the extreme
solutions and worked for unity in Christianity. In the fifteenth
century it sided with the Pope against the Basle Council,
and in the person of one of its graduates, James of Hoog-
straeten, it opposed, in Cologne, the teachings of Reuchlin. In
the sixteenth century, it was scarcely shaken by Lutheranism
and Calvinism, although it constantly worked for reform
within the Church. Erasmus was very aggressive against the
abuses of the time and was accused of leanings towards Prot-
estantism, but, in fact, he always wanted the authorities of the
Church to take measures against the things he was denouncing.
" Who am I to decide anything concerning faith, if the Catholic
1 Cf. H. Thurston's translation of Boudinhon's titude historique sur le Chemtn de
la Croix., p. 139.
1919.] RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY 179
Church does not decide it herself. You ask me to follow
Luther: I will do so willingly if he remains faithful to the
Church." 2 While humanism became in Italy a conception of
life involving ethics as well as art, the more sedate tempera-
ment of the Northern people restricted it to the school. With
them it was simply a movement against decadent Scholasticism
and an effort for better Latin, a better understanding of an-
tiquity and progress in science.8
Adrian Florensz represents this attitude very well. After
having taught in Louvain and directed the education of
Charles V., he succeeded Leo X. under the name of Adrian VI.
The brilliant court of the Medici pontiff did not welcome the
Northern Pope with much enthusiasm. He drastically cut out
all expenditures save those for spiritual purposes, and en-
deavored to suppress all the abuses that were giving Luther a
pretext for attacking the Papacy. He eagerly desired to re-
store unity in the Church and sent to Nuremberg, in 1522,
a delegate who promised the suppression of all the abuses in
the Roman court while insisting on the execution of the Edict
of Worms. Unfortunately Luther was not in the mood to
agree. " The Pope," so he had said, " is a magister nosier from
Louvain. In that high school such asses are being crowned.
Satan is speaking through his mouth." The failure of his sin-
cere attempt to restore peace in the Church and unite the
Christians against the Turks caused Adrian's death. In the
meantime the first condemnation of Luther by an official body
of theologians had been pronounced, in 1519, by the Faculty of
Louvain.
But the intervention of the University was chiefly of a con-
structive nature. It published several translations of the Bible
and compiled a collection of propositions giving the orthodox
view on the points most disputed in the sixteenth century. This
Louvain confession proved a great success. It became the sum-
mary of religious teaching in the Low Countries and did much
to oppose the spread of Protestantism in an insidious form. It
was endorsed by the government of Charles V. and provided a
basis of discussion at the Council of Trent, in which five doctors
of Louvain called upon as " deputies to the councils " played
an important part.
a Erasmi Opera Omnia, III col. 631.
8 De Wulf, Historta Philosophise Scholasticee. Mem. Acad. Belg. t. 51.
180 RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY [May,
Immediate contact with the Protestants and the desire of
doing constructive work, kept the Louvain theologians in a
state of constant intellectual activity. They decided to go to
the sources of Catholic doctrine. They undertook the correc-
tion of the text of the Vulgate of Gratian's decree and made a
special study of St. Augustine's work. This led to the treatises
of Baius and Jansenius which were to raise controversies that
ended in the acceptance of the views of Rome.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Louvain
suffered its share in the general depression of life in the Low
Countries to the south, at that time transformed into the cockpit
of Europe. It had a period of quieter but no less beneficent
activity than formerly, and out of it emerge some names such
as that of Rega, the great physician, and Minckeleers, the young
priest who contributed to the invention of the balloon. It was
then that many Irish priests were educated at Louvain, where
there was a well-known monastery of Irish Dominicans. At
the end of the eighteenth century Louvain waged a long con-
test against Josephism, a doctrine which would confer upon the
State powers properly belonging to the authorities of the
Church.
From 1795 it was engaged in conflict with the French revo-
lutionary government. The faculty refused to share in the cult
for the Eire Supreme, to suppress the Sundays; and, in 1797,
refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution de
Van III. The Rector was sent to Cayenne, many professors were
imprisoned, and the colleges were closed. " Since we have
to perish," said the Rector, " let us fall nobly, defending our
holy Faith, our ancient, honest and Christian customs! The
last glory of this University will be to have refused to bow
slavishly to the dictates of despotism and to lose our honor un-
der the attacks of the enemies of the Church."
When in 1834- the University was restored as the " Catho-
lic University of Louvain," with the bishops of Belgium as its
trustees, it was simply revived with the same characteristics it
had always possessed. It is a survival of the old Christian con-
ception of a Studium generate. It is divided in the same way
as in former times with the sole difference that the Faculty of
Arts has been split into a Faculty of Philosophy and Letters
and a Faculty of Sciences. Louvain, therefore, has at present
five faculties: Theology, Law, Medicine, Philosophy and Let-
ters, and Sciences.
1919.] RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY 181
The Faculty of Theology has precedence over all the others,
and many interesting features of the old ceremonial still attend
the bestowal of the degree of Doctor in Theology. The mem-
bers of all the faculties accompany the new doctor to St.
Peter's Cathedral in caps and gowns where he kneels before
the old statue of the Holy Virgin as Sedes Sapientise. For-
merly, upon the conclusion of this ceremony, he was taken to
the Salle de Promotions artistically adorned with old paint-
ings—now destroyed — where he had to answer to the objec-
tions made by the members of a large audience, some of whom
were renowned theologians from abroad. The attacks could
bear either upon the special subject of his dissertation or upon
forty theses which were printed and distributed to the audi-
ence. The discussion was conducted chiefly in Latin, although
for twenty years or more the main dissertation has more fre-
quently been written in a modern language. As is well known,
the doctorate in theology of Louvain is the most difficult to ob-
tain. Its prerequisites are a course of four years of theology
at the seminary, followed by six years at the University. The
number of these doctors does not exceed one or two each year.
The influence of the new Louvain Faculty of Theology has been
very important. Van Hoonsacker and Ladeuze (the present
Rector) have secured a reputation for sound scholarship by
their critical studies on the Bible; Cauchie has founded a
school of Church History which counts several graduates in
the United States; de Harlez, with his pupils Colinet and Casar-
telli (now Bishop of Salf ord, England) , have done constructive
work in the history of religions.
The School of Philosophy has developed greatly in the
last twenty years through the efforts of Mercier (now Cardi-
nal Mercier) who, at the invitation of Leo XIII., under-
took the study of St. Thomas' philosophy with the view of de-
veloping his system, and adapting it to the results of modern
science. Students have flocked to that school of neo-Scholasti-
cism from all the countries of the world.
Profound as has been the influence of Louvain on the
clergy, it has been hardly less so on the laity which forms four-
fifths of its students. In this respect Louvain has been a most
interesting experiment. Belgium was the only country in our
times which had a Catholic government and this had been
the case, without interruption, since 1884. If asked the reason
182 RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY [May,
for this, no Belgian would hesitate a minute to ascribe it to the
intellectual and moral influence of the University of Louvain
throughout the country. This influence springs first of all
from the scientific prestige of the institution, a prestige
greater than that of the other Belgian universities.* Although
there are unbelievers in Belgium, both learned and ignorant,
her young men are not exposed — as is often the case else-
where— to the danger of losing their Faith because they find
science associated with indifference to religion. The mere
presence at Louvain of a large and prominent body of lay-
men, who are both scholars and Christians, furnishes an
especially inspiring and suggestive example.
Defections among Louvain graduates are rare. A very
large proportion of the professional and public men in
the cities and the villages of Belgium are good Catholics and
give active support to Catholic organizations. There is
esprit de corps among them and they constitute the backbone
of the organization of the Catholic Party. This political group
would never have been able to maintain its prestige had it not
remained constantly under the intellectual guidance of Lou-
vain. Most of its leaders, most of the " ministers " it gave to
Belgium were Louvain graduates, often even Louvain profes.-
sors, such as Thonissen, Delcourt, Descamps, Nyssens, Van
den Heuvel, Helleputte, Poullet and others. Moreover, from
1870, the evolution of ideas in the Party received its impulse in
the University, which constantly imbued with a modern spirit
the young men gradually replacing the older generation in
committees, clubs and organizations for social work.
It is in Louvain, for instance, that the doctrinal conflict
concerning the participation of Catholics in a liberal gov-
ernment received a solution based on the facts (as in Amer-
ica) rather than on the theories of the extremists represented
by Professor Perrin. It is in this spirit that the Belgian Catho-
lics were soon to conduct against the so-called Liberals a cam-
paign for the preservation of religious teaching in the schools.
Their tolerance, contrasting sharply with the violent policy of
their adversaries, did much to gain and keep the favor of the
* The new University can set forth names of men in the most varied fields of
knowledge who have acquired a universal reputation, such as those of Willems in the
Study of Antiquity, Moeller in History, De Wulf in History. Van Beneden, J. B. Car-
noy, G. Gilson, etc., in Zoology and Biology. Denys and Van Gehuchten in Medi-
cine, de la Valise Poussin, in Mathematics, de Dorlodet in Geology, A. Dumot, the dis-
coverer of the Campine coal basin, Reusens in Palaeography, etc.
1919.] RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY 183
Belgian public, instinctively hostile to all kinds of radi-
calism.
In the question of suffrage also, the Catholics proved more
liberal than the " Liberals " who were afraid to lose the in-
fluence of the bourgeoisie of the cities which supported them.
Professor Nyssens of Louvain introduced universal suffrage,
with the interesting compliment of additional votes to col-
lege graduates, and to some categories of citizens especially in-
terested in a good government. The system was soon after
completed by Proportional Representation, which is now ad-
vocated in many countries.
Meanwhile the workmen were raising their voice in a
more and more insistent manner for reforms in the condition
of the laboring class. The bourgeoisie, both Catholic and
Liberal, were reluctant to depart from Manchesterism and
make the sacrifices which social legislation would impose upon
them. Here again the impulse came, to a large extent, from
Louvain. Mabille and Vliebergh initiated the rising genera-
tions of young men into their social duties, while Professor
Helleputte was one of the pioneers of the Catholic labor party,
" Christian Democracy," which in parallelism with the So-
cialists tends to group the workmen in the trade unions. The
movement was encouraged by the celebrated encyclical, Reram
Novarum. It gradually overcame a stubborn resistance on the
part of the conservative Catholics, and, in 1914, the Christian
trades unions had grown numerous and were becoming a real
power. Louvain was generally the seat of the congresses of the
Catholic democratic organizations. One special aspect of this
movement is the effort towards suppressing the difference in
language between the people and the upper classes in Flan-
ders, which interferes seriously with the intellectual and ma-
terial development of the Flemish population. In this also
Louvain students played an important part. One of them, F.
Van Canwelaert, is at present the most prominent leader of
the movement. It is inspired by the contemporary ideal of
a truly democratic national community with unity of culture
and language and a spirit of collaboration between the classes.
This must prevail in the new nations, regenerated by this War
or born from it and destined — so we all hope — to be partners
in a great "society of nations," solidified by the acceptance
of the same ideals.
184 RECORD OF A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY [May,
tion of this conception of the State, has also found pioneers
among the Louvain Catholics. Ministers Beernaert and
Descamps have been active in the sessions of the Hague Con-
ference, and Professor Van den Heuvel, the Belgian represen-
tative at the Vatican during this War, will defend the same
ideals, as Belgium's delegate, at the Peace Conference.
It will also be to the eternal honor of Louvain that she has
given to the Church Cardinal Mercier, who victoriously raised
the great voice of Christianity amid the din of battle and the
unbridling of the war fury.
In the reconstruction of Belgium and also in the restora-
tion of the ideals on which societies and nations should be re-
built if they are to live, Louvain should have occupied a promi-
nent place. The criminal fire which, in 1914, destroyed the
precious library with all the objects connecting Louvain with
its glorious past, together with three hundred thousand
volumes, eight hundred incunabula and nine hundred and fifty
manuscripts, the loss of the University archives, the damage
wrought to the scientific equipment and the serious endanger-
ing of Louvain's sources of income, may prevent the institution
from reviving when its work and its influence are most needed.
This, of course, the Belgian Catholics will try to obviate. In
the immense work of reconstruction, they will not forget the
centre of culture which has shaped their minds during so many
centuries and has victoriously upheld the traditional ideals
of their country. That the fate of Louvain has attracted the
attention of the whole intellectual world comforts them. They
feel especially honored that an international committee was
constituted, in 1915, under the presidency of M. Imbart de la
Tour, to give to the restoration of Louvain the character of a
tribute from the entire intellectual world to one of its oldest
and greatest centres of culture. A national section of that com-
mittee has now been formed in the United States under the
presidency of Nicholas Murray Butler, and Belgians rejoice
to find on the list the names of Cardinal Gibbons, Right Rev.
Henry Gabriels, Right Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, and other prom-
inent men. Special interest in Louvain on the part of Ameri-
can Catholics will result in cementing the relations be-
tween the Church in the United States and Louvain Univer-
sity which have always been cordial. The American Seminary,
now practically incorporated into the University, has given to
1919.] GLENDALOCH 185
the Church in this country a great number of priests and
bishops.
The number of American students in the schools of The-
ology, Church History, Philosophy and Science was steadily in-
creasing before the War, and the special relations of friendship
between the United States and Belgium during this War can-
not fail to tighten the bonds of friendship between Louvain and
the Catholic institutions in this country.
As the Rome of the North, located at the crossing of the
most important roads of civilization in Europe, Louvain with
its old traditions of Catholicism and learning is especially well
situated to become the connecting link between Catholic cul-
ture in the Old and in the New World.
By holding out a brotherly hand to the stricken University
at the critical hour, the Church in America is laying the foun-
dations for a structure that can prove a most important factor
in the future development of Christian civilization.
GLENDALOCH.
BY JULIAN JOHNSTONE.
IN all the world mirificent
There's nothing so magnificent
As Glendaloch, the golden, where the wild wave falls.
Not Silveretta glimmering
Nor Adamello shimmering
Were fairer, brighter, rarer than those bold, blue walls,
The very air of Paradise
Empurples all the summer skies:
The music and magic of May is in the rills.
The Lake of Como luminous,
The Falls of Rhine voluminous
Afford no scene so lovely as the Wicklow hills.
186 GLENDALOCH [May,
The blackbird's song is sweeter, there:
The summer is completer, there:
Roses, there, are fragrant as an Angel's ruby mouth.
The granites red and azuline,
The lakes of lucent opaline
Are fairer than Sicilia, and the sweet, sweet South.
Like chiming-bells in Maryland,
The silver flutes of Fairyland
Are ringing and are singing where the foxgloves blow :
And red-birds gaily flittering
Where runs the river glittering
Make Glendaloch the glory of the bright world below.
The scarlet roses tremulous
Like Red Cross soldiers emulous
Are climbing up the cliff for a footing on the wall.
And waters wild and thunderful
Adown the valley wonderful
In floods of mighty music and emerald glory fall.
Like petals of the glimmering
Sun-Rose of Day, the shimmering
Bright butterflies are blown now upon the balmy breeze:
And like to yellow daffodils
A-fading on the sapphire hills
The sunset lights are paling along the level leas.
O would that in this beautiful
Loved land of children dutiful
Where Summer floats her rainbow-banner from the Tower
Mid waterfalls melodious
And mountain summits glorious,
'Twere mine to dwell till Heaven's bell rings for me the hour !
CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY.
BY CUTHBERT LATTEY, S.J.
E have considered the conception of Christ that St.
Paul, enlightened by direct revelation, had
formed for himself, and all that he claimed for
his Divine Master; we have seen likewise all
that Christ claimed for Himself, and whither He
sought to lead those who believed in Him. Not, as has been
explained, that these claims were always urged openly and
explicitly; but still those who were in good faith had more than
enough light to guide them. Now we may go back yet fur-
ther, as far back as ever we can go at all, and see Christ fore-
shadowed before He came. He was foreshadowed both in
word and deed, that is to say, both in type and prophecy. Our
title, therefore, has been chosen simply as the most fitting de-
scription of the subject-matter; it is also well-known as the
title of an admirable work by that veteran Biblical scholar,
Father A. J. Maas, S.J., to which the reader may be referred
for a more adequate treatment of the subject.
What is a type? Confining ourselves to matters of
exegesis, we may say that a type is a person or fact or incident
which is intended by God to signify or represent some other
person or fact or incident. That types are to be found in the
Biblical narratives, in the sense that the sacred writer takes
them to be such and represents his characters as doing the
same, the greatest unbeliever will hardly deny, however he
may explain it. It may be enough to point to those words of
Our Lord, "Henceforth thou shalt catch men;" * the catch of
fish, in the mind of Our Lord and in the mind of the writer, is
a type of the catching of men, and no sane man can doubt
that that is truly the sense of the passage. But in this article we
have to deal with types of Christ, with Messianic types, wherein
there is, of course, ampler room for skepticism. The un-
believer— using the word in a rather wide sense, seeing that
nowadays Protestant canons and even Protestant bishops come
under the same condemnation — the unbeliever may feel in
1 Luke v. 10.
188 CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY [May,
honor bound to " hack his way through " the historical evi-
dence for miracle and prophecy, but at types he can afford to
smile. And, indeed, we had best leave him smiling; types are
rather for the believer; they enlighten and console him, while
their use in practical controversy is small.
That there are types in the Old Testament is clear from
the New Testament itself and from the teaching and tradition
of the Church in all ages, and is an article of faith. There is
no need to prove this here, but the student may be referred to
Father Pesch's monumental work De Inspiratione, where he
treats of the typical sense. A certain caution needs to be ob-
served in speaking of types. We are not free to make a type of
anything we please, but we need some justification in Scripture
or tradition. To assert a type is to assert that God Himself in-
tended some event or the like to bear this special meaning,
and to know the mind of God in the matter we need the light
of revelation. Many types are indicated in the New Testa-
ment, and some others in tradition; apart from these, it seems
more reverent and, as a rule, obviously more veracious to
abstain from propounding, not to say inventing types, and to
content ourselves with speaking merely of an accommodated
sense. As a matter of fact there is ample warrant in the
Fathers of the Church for suggesting an accommodated mean-
ing for the words of Holy Scripture which objectively is not
in them, not being intended either by Almighty God or His
interpreter as the literal or typical sense; these hallowed words
in any case have an unction of their own, and the lesson,
couched in such terms, sinks in more deeply.
Of the many types let us take but one, perhaps the most
significant of all, the paschal lamb. The story how Moses cele-
brated the first passover is told in Exodus xii. " By faith," we
are told,2 " he celebrated the passover and the sprinkling of
the blood." How gladly had we seen the theme worked out
in that mighty epistle, wherein it would have fitted so well!
Nor can we easily suppose St. Philip to have been silent touch-
ing the paschal lamb when he spoke 3 of Him Who was " led as
a lamb to the slaughter" in his exposition of Isaiah liii., a
homily which again we find it hard to have lost. St. Peter, in
1 Peter i. 19, may well have had in mind the " lamb without
blemish " of Exodus xii. 5, but he too refrains from enlarging
2 Heb. ad. 28. » Acts viii. 32.
1919.] CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY 189
on that aspect of Christ's death. St. Paul, on the other hand,
in 1 Corinthians v. 6-8, touches on the subject in brief but preg-
nant words: "Know you not that a little leaven leaveneth
all the dough? Cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be
new dough, free from leaven, as, indeed, you are. For our
passover hath been sacrificed, even Christ. Wherefore let us
hold festival, not with old leaven nor with leaven of malice
and villainy, but with unleavened bread of innocence and
truth." This epistle was probably written about the time of the
passover, and the true passover for Christians, the Apostle
says, is Christ.
But what shall we say of St. John? "Behold the lamb
of God, behold Him Who taketh away the sin of the world; " 4
Like St. Paul, St. John had learnt his first lesson well. To St.
Paul Christ had said: " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? "
And ever after the Apostle's central doctrine was the corporate
identity, so to speak, of the Christian with Christ in His Mysti-
cal Body. To His young namesake and disciple — indeed, his
relative, seeing that their mothers both appear to have been
related to Our Blessed Lady — the Baptist had pointed out the
true Lamb of God, even at the time when before their eyes,
very likely, those other lambs were being taken to Jerusalem
for the feast. How deep the lesson sank, the Johannine writ-
ings still bear witness; and incidentally we are furnished with
another link between the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse.
To put it in the guise of statistics, of the three words which
occur in the New Testament for " lambs," one is found only
in Luke x. 3 (arnas), and is allied to arnion; and amnos is used
in Acts viii. 32 (the word being repeated from Isaiah liii. 7)
and 1 Peter i. 19, otherwise only in John i. 29, 36 (in both cases
the Baptist's words) . But arnion we find only in John xxi. 15
and in the Apocalypse, and there we find it twenty-eight times.
It is hardly too much to say that " the Lamb " is the central
figure of the Apocalypse; after the first four chapters there are
but few that contain no reference to Him, and to set forth all
that St. John has to say on the subject would be to write a
small commentary on the work. It is well worthy of our pious
meditation, and for the passage that supplies a key to the whole
we may go to his gospel, to John xix. 36, where his solemn wit-
ness ends with the explanation: " For these things came to pass
*John i. 29.
190 CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY [May,
that the Scripture might be fulfilled, ' not a bone of Him shall
be broken.' " The quotation is from Exodus xii. 46; the while
the Jews were celebrating their passover, Christ, the true
Paschal Lamb and saving Sacrifice, was fulfilling that type
upon the cross. And the bones were to remain whole for a
glorious resurrection, that the Lamb might reign over the re-
deemed.
Let this much, then, suffice for this one type, so rich in
deepest meaning, and let this one type suffice for all. At least,
it may suffice where there is type and no more. But by a cer-
tain compenetration a type, or rather what is said of the type,
may contain within itself what is proper to the antitype, which
glows through, as it were, and manifests in large outline what
we might only vaguely distinguish if our eyes were closed to
all save the type itself. This mingling of type and prophecy we
naturally come to consider next; and we cannot have a better
guide in the matter than the Angelic Doctor himself, who was
no less wide and deep as an exegete than as a theologian. In
the preface to his commentary on the Psalms he writes as
follows :
" Prophecies are sometimes uttered about things which
existed at the time in question, but are not uttered primarily
with reference to them, but in so far as they are a figure of
things to come; and therefore the Holy Ghost has provided that
when such prophecies are uttered, some details should be in-
serted which go beyond the actual thing done, in order that
the mind may be raised to the thing signified. Thus in Daniel
many things are said of Antiochus as a figure of Antichrist;
wherefore some things are therein read which were not accom-
plished in the case of Antiochus, but will be fulfilled in An-
tichrist. Thus, too, some things are read about the kingdom
of David and Solomon, which were not to find fulfillment in
the kingdom of these men, but they have been fulfilled in the
kingdom of Christ, in figure of Whom they were said. Such
is Psalm Ixxi., ' Give to the king thy judgment, O God,' which
according to its title deals with the kingdom of David and
Solomon, but there is something said therein which exceeds the
power of that kingdom, viz., ' In his days shall justice spring
up, and abundance of peace, till the moon be taken away,' and
again, ' He shall rule from sea to sea, and from the river unto
the ends,' etc. This psalm therefore is expounded of the king-
1919.] CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY 191
dom of Solomon, in so far as it is a figure of the kingdom
of Christ, in Whom all things there said shall be ful-
filled."
In writing thus St. Thomas doubtless had in mind St.
Jerome's commentary on Daniel xi. 21 ss., wherein the latter
gives it as the current Catholic opinion of his day that An-
tiochus was a type of Antichrist, " and that what befell An-
tiochus beforehand in part, is to be accomplished in Antichrist
in full. And that this is the wont of Holy Writ, to anticipate in
types the truth of things that are to be, as in what is said of the
Lord Saviour in Psalm Ixxi., which has Solomon's name pre-
fixed to it, whereas all that is said of Him cannot apply to
Solomon. For he did not endure ' with the sun and before the
moon, throughout all generations,' nor did he ' rule from sea
to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth,' nor did
* all nations serve him,' nor did his name endure before the
sun,' nor were ' all the tribes of the earth blessed in him,' nor
did ' all nations magnify him.' But in part and, as it were, in a
shadow and image of the truth these things were anticipated in
Solomon, that they might be more perfectly fulfilled in the
Lord Saviour. As therefore the Saviour has both Solomon
and the other holy men as a type of his coming, so Antichrist
has that most wicked king Antiochus . . ."
And, indeed, is not such a method of exposition found in
the first discourse of St. Peter himself, both in Acts ii. 16-21
and Acts ii. 25-32? But not to linger on the exegesis of such
passages, we may notice that this principle of compenetration
was set forth at length by one whom Cardinal Billot5 has
called " one of the princes of modern exegesis," M. 1'Abbe Le
Hir, formerly professor at St. Sulpice, who died in 1868. Car-
dinal Billot himself, in a series of articles in the Etudes on the
Parousia, begun in June, 1917, has based much of his own
work on M. Le Hir and has quoted largely from him. M. Le
Hir's treatment of the subject is to be found in Etudes
Bibliques, a collection of former articles, etc., of his, collected
into two volumes and published after his death, in 1869, by M.
1'Abbe Grandvaux, Director of St. Sulpice; the relevant article
is entitled, De V interpretation des propheties. Here it is at
once more interesting and more important to quote for the
most part Cardinal Billot himself. The article most to our pur-
• Studes, June 5, 1917, p. 557.
192 CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY [May,
pose is the first of the series, in the Etudes for June 5, 1917.
His Eminence insists that prophecy differs from history in its
perspective,6 its subject-matter,7 and the end it has in view.8
As regards the subject-matter, which is the heading that chiefly
concerns us, it is the function of prophecy to set forth an
event in all its bearings, such as it is in the scheme of
Divine Providence. " In prophetic oracle the subject-
matter becomes twofold, and is shared between two series
of events (in French, plans), the one farther off, wherein is
the chief, the major, the more important event, occupying as
such the background in the general perspective; the other
nearer, wherein is the event that I might say belongs to the fore-
ground, prior to the principal event in the order of time, but
destined by God in the arrangements of His providence to be
the figure thereof, the type, the rough draught, and therefore
also the living prelude." 9
One more enunciation of the same phenomenon may be
cited from Father Pesch's work De Inspirations, already re-
ferred to; as a matter of fact the following translation is that
given in the Westminster Version in the note on Mark xiii. 4:
" When there is question of prophecy by fact or of types,
the prophet sees the unity which exists in the divine mind
between the event signifying and the event signified, and
therefore speaks of type and antitype without discriminating
between them; moreover as these two, in the intention of God,
are part of one and the same design of providence, the prophet
assigns to the type itself [or better, passes from the description
of the mere type to enlarge upon] that complete accomplish-
ment of the divine promise which belongs to the antitype
alone." 10
How rich a field of vision is opened by such a treatment
of types, the example of Psalm Ixxi. has already perhaps suf-
ficiently shown. But one more may be reproduced from Car-
dinal Billot's vivid pages, by reason of its great importance.
After quoting Isaiah vii. 13-16, he writes:
" Here there is undeniably question of the Messiah, of Him
who to this beautiful name of Emmanuel will unite others no
less significant, enumerated in a following chapter, those of
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, a
Prince of Peace. But what are we to say? Did Isaiah believe in
•Page 551. * Page 553 8 Page 558-. • Page 556. 10 De Inspirations, p. 506.
1919.] CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY 193
the immediate fulfillment of his oracle, and consequently in the
immediate coming of the Messiah, that he should reckon thus
by the age of the wonderful child the time when Judah should
be delivered from the grasp of the two confederate kings, and
the enemy country (Syria and Samaria, Damascus and
Ephraim) be ravaged and devastated? Or must one perhaps
twist from their natural meaning these significant words,
* For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose
the good, the land whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be
forsaken?' (Isaiah vii. 16.) But let us distinguish the accom-
plishment of the oracle in the person of the true Emmanuel,
from its preliminary accomplishment in the person of the
figurative Emmanuel; for see, there is another mysterious
child upon the scene, who is about to be conceived, who is
about to be born, to whom a symbolic name will be given, a
guarantee to the house of David of deliverance from the
danger wherewith it is menaced before the time be come for
the first stammerings of the new-born babe. This is the child
of whom the prophet says, a few lines lower down, 'And I
went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. And
the Lord said to me, Call him Maher-shalal-hash-baz,11 for be-
fore the child know how to cry, My father, my mother, the
riches of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be carried
away before the king of Assyria.' And in him, in this child,
the Emmanuel oracle shall receive forthwith a first fulfillment,
certain pledge of the second, which it will only have several
centuries later, but then no longer in the shadow of a figure,
but in the fullness of reality." 12
The Cardinal then again quotes some words from Le
Hir:
" The Messiah whom Isaiah announces in such magnificent
terms, is only later to appear in person, but He is about to be
born in figure. There will be born, then, a child of Isaiah, and
the symbolic name which will be given him before his concep-
tion will denote the impending devastation of Damascus and
Ephraim, or, in a higher sense, Hell vanquished and despoiled
by the Messiah." " It would be easy," continues Cardinal Bil-
lot, " to multiply examples of these prophecies with a double
accomplishment, wherewith Scripture abounds, intimately con-
n Literally translated, probably, " Swift booty, speedy prey."
**£tudes, June 20, 1917, pp. 695, 696.
VOL. Cix. — 13
194 CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY [May,
nected as they are with the economy, already set forth, of
figurative events which Divine Wisdom destined to be from
age to age so many first representations and effectual anticipa-
tions of the mysteries of our religion." It were a labor of
love, also, to set them forth in these pages; but it is time to
pass to prophecies which refer to Christ exclusively. Here a
couple must suffice; the material is too vast to be dealt with
in a single article, except by way of indicating general outlines
and a few examples.
Our first passage may well be from the book of Genesis, the
prophecy of Jacob touching Judah in Genesis xlix. 10. It is ex-
plicitly a prophecy of what is to befall " at the end of the
days." As to the meaning of these words, the Oxford Hebrew
Dictionary 13 seems to be right in calling them " a prophetic
phrase denoting the final period of the history as far as the
speaker's perspective reaches; the sense thus varies with the
context, but it often equals the ideal or Messianic future." It
is natural, therefore, that Judah's Messianic glory should be
portrayed when the turn of that patriarch and tribe comes; the
context is decidedly in favor of Messianic prophecy. The cor-
rect translation of the passage appears to be:
The sceptre shall not pass from Judah,
Nor the staff from between his feet,
Until he come whose it is,
And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
The " staff " is the commander's staff, held like a standard be-
tween the feet; Judah rules in peace and commands in war.
The critical verse is the third, and to that we may confine our
attention. The rendering here given has an overwhelming
mass of textual authority behind it. It is the rendering of the
Peshitta, or what may be called the Syriac Vulgate : also of the
Targum Onkelos, or earliest Aramaic paraphrase, and of the
later Jerusalem Targum : and of the Septuagint and Old Latin
versions, which clearly suppose the Hebrew text for which we
are contending, but besides the translation given above, also
show, occasionally, a less good rendering of it: "Until that
which is his shall come."
Before we speak of the rest of the textual evidence a word
of explanation is necessary. The tlebrew letters, in which
"Brown, Driver, Briggs, p. 31.
1919.] CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY 195
alone the original text was written, are all consonants, only a
few of these consonants being also used in certain circum-
stances to signify vowels. An elaborate system of marks or
points, mostly below the letters, was introduced by the rabbis
somewhere after the fifth century A.D., partly to signify all the
vowels and partly to guide the reader in public recitation in the
matter of pauses, etc. Now the complete reading presupposed
above by the words, " whose it is " is shelloh, but the only part
originally written would be the three letters sh-l-h, the / not
requiring to be written twice. How those three letters were
taken the evidence already adduced amply shows. The only
rival to the three letters as a reading is that of the Massoretic
or traditional rabbinical text, which puts in a fourth letter,
the letter used for the vowel i, thus, shil-h, read always as
shiloh, with no very obvious meaning, but taken in the Angli-
can versions as a proper name, " until Shiloh come." But
there is an absolute consensus of early authorities against this
intrusion of the z", so much so that if there were a few more
instances of the same kind of thing, we should be driven to sup-
pose a deliberate falsification of the text, which as things are
can scarcely be in question. Forty manuscripts of the Mas-
soretic text itself have only the three consonants, and like-
wise the Samaritan Pentateuch, and in reality St. Jerome's
Vulgate also ; for the rendering, " he that is to be sent," is ob-
viously due to the last of the three letters, the soft h, being
read by mistake as the hard h, which is very like it. There can
be no question of an i having been present in the Hebrew orig-
inal. One more complication; the reading " Shiloh " might be
adopted, even with the three letters only, but everything is
against this, for it gives no satisfactory meaning and, as has
been said, all the early evidence which does show how the
three letters were taken is against it.
Such is the textual argument, sufficiently simplified, it
is hoped, to be intelligible to the general reader. There are
one or two grammatical difficulties in the rendering adopted,
but they are far from insoluble, and are not worth discussing
here. As for the substance of the prophecy itself, the accom-
plishment of it is fairly obvious. The Jews were practically
self-governing down to the time of the Machabees, notwith-
standing the short exile even of Judah, and some periods of
oppression, notwithstanding also the fact that after the exile,
196 CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY [May,
more especially, their country formed part of larger empires.
It is the Herods and the Romans that mark the real end of self-
government; it is in the lifetime of Christ Himself that Rome
begins to govern Judah directly. We cannot but think of
this prophecy when we repeat that Christ " suffered under
Pontius Pilate."
From one of the earliest we may pass to one of the latest
prophecies, that of Malachy i. 11, where again the context
urgently demands a prophecy of this kind, of the total abolition
of the Mosaic system of sacrifice, which is being carried out in
such a mean and unworthy spirit. Let the priests take the vic-
tims they think good enough for God to the governor, the
Jewish representative of the Persian suzerain, and see what he
will say! God will no more accept an offering from them!
And then comes the verse which, as the former Louvain pro-
fessor, Canon van Hoonacker, says in his admirable treat-
ment of it in his large edition of the Minor Prophets,14 " can
only be understood as presenting a feature of the divine cult
proper to the Messianic era." The prophet speaks once more
in God's name, and we are transported to that era, although
grammatically the construction is in present time — at least
that seems the better interpretation, though there is ample
warrant in Malachy himself 15 for simply translating by the
future, if that be thought smoother. But this point is not in dis-
pute. The important words may be rendered thus, " In every
place incense is offered to my name, and a pure oblation," or
else, since the word rendered " incense " may possibly be itself
a participle, " incense is offered, sacrifice is brought to my
name, even a pure oblation," or else again, but with a deletion
of a letter, the necessity for which makes this rendering less
likely, " there is sent up in smoke, there is offered, a pure
oblation." Thus is the one great and universal sacrifice of the
Gentiles foretold; and what the present writer has long felt to
be the clinching argument for this prophecy, as for the pre-
ceding, lies in the truly desperate attempts of non-Catholic
and more or less rationalistic writers to get out of it!
One last important question may be briefly touched. In
speaking of St. Paul's, and again of Christ's own presentment
of His claims, emphasis was laid on Christ's Divinity; is not
uLes Douze Petits Prophktes, p. 713.
»ii. 3; iii. 1, 17.
1919.] CHRIST IN TYPE AND PROPHECY 197
this, then, foretold in the Old Testament? A word of caution
here seems necessary. The names given to the Messiah by
Isaiah, "Emmanuel,"16 "Mighty God,"17 might seem to put
the question beyond all dispute. But we have to remember
that such names are found often enough borne by ordinary
mortals; indeed, as the copula ("is," "are," etc.) is never ex-
pressed in Hebrew, we cannot tell for certain whether, for
example, we should render Emmanuel "God with us," or
" God is with us," in which latter case the name might even
more easily be purely symbolic. And the same is true of the
other names, such as Josedec (or Yehozadak, "God [is]
righteous," Aggeus i. 1), and the Holy Name itself (Yehoshua,
Yeshua, or Josue, "Jehovah [is] salvation"), which occurs
fairly often in the Old Testament. Still, the names, given in
Isaiah with such emphasis, were a strong indication, empha-
sized again by such passages as those we have seen in Psalm
Ixxi., and again by not a few such as Isaiah xl., signifying that
it was in truth God Himself Who was waiting to come to His
people. For us, looking upon them all in the light of after
events, they are enough; but perhaps we are apt to forget
how inconceivable the Incarnation would of necessity appear
to any mortal mind before it actually took place. At least we
can say that when Our Lord was actually there to lead them
on by word and work, then they should have followed, and
in doing so they would have understood all that went be-
fore.
Edersheim at the beginning of his Life and Times of Jesus
the Messiah quotes two sayings from the Talmud : " All the
prophets prophesied only of the days of the Messiah," and
again, " The world was created only for the Messiah." And,
indeed, all things were, and are, to be brought to a head in
Christ; 18 unity with Him, as we saw, is the end put before the
Christian in the New Covenant, to which all creatures are to
help, and to this the Old Covenant was to lead. Where wo
have Christ in type or prophecy, we only have a more explicit
assertion of the whole course of the world-movement.
18vii. 14. "ix. 6, as in x. 21. 1S Ephes. i. 10.
CHILDREN.
BY KATHRYN WHITE RYAN.
EARS ago, twenty years before the Great War be-
gan, an unperturbed city bore on its outskirts a
broad, comely park. It ornamented the city
like a ring on a finger. Open fields billowed
down its central slopes and went curling under
the shadows of gnarled, stately oaks, or, stretching themselves
flat, pulled up white sheets of mist to dream under in the after-
noon sun. In and out of shaded bridle paths ladies and their
grooms rode on shining, high-stepping horses with arching
necks; and along the hedgerows happy couples whispered
hand in hand.
But of all who came to this garden, called a park, none
came more eagerly, more joyously than the children.
Every morning they collected. They breathed the lovely
air, they played together, and — since they were scarcely more
than babies — they learned to walk. Nurse maids in long blue
capes and small blue bonnets with crisp white bows under
their chins wheeled their charges to the balmy spot in silken,
springy perambulators, and in prim composure sat on the
park benches watching the children frolic about them.
Some filled colored pails on little mounds of clean, gray
sand. Some went gathering pebbles, some took hold of hands
and twirled in a ring, some, shouting, rolled over and over
down a hill, some toddled off on individual adventure, some
doubled their small petticoated persons to observe the scurry-
ing ants they discovered at their feet, and contemplated in
vocal agitation these wee things of earth congenial to their
own diminutiveness.
And they were always toppling and picking themselves up
and falling and getting their balance again — these children!
For they all in that happy playground were practicing how to
place their tiny feet more solidly, more surely on the ground.
Steadying on wobbling soles, sometimes one of the littlest
ones would place himself a few paces in front of his nurse
and she would clap her hands and call :
1919.] CHILDREN 199
" Walk, Little Paul! " (Or Little George, or Albert or Tom,
or John, as the case might be.)
Then the small mushroom of a baby would secure a wav-
ing erectness and start forward. But at the first displacement
of the enterprising foot he would totter, and folding at right
angles, plump down. He would proceed at once to turn him-
self over, to toe himself into erectness and to try again. Cheeks
glowing, breathless, lie would advance with outstretched arms
to the enveloping knees.
In this gentle place where the poppies had such laughing
faces, where the walks gathered little rivers of leaves in their
borders for short ankles to swish through, where fluttering
masses of sparrows chattered in branches overhead, the chil-
dren were made ready for the journey into life.
On a rise of ground above them watching over them quite
as austerely, as vigilantly, as fondly, as the nursemaids was a
sign : " This Space Reserved for Children."
Twenty years passed over the happy park, the peaceful
city. Then one day, suddenly, with a muffled cry of terror, its
inhabitants leaped into action. The Great War was hurling
its rage in their direction!
Overnight all its men became warriors, overnight the
silence of the streets echoed with the rush of many steps — of
trained and solid steps of out-going soldiers, soldiers heavily
booted, heavily armed, blankets coiled about the body. Their
steps kept time, fell into one beat, mingled in one rhythm, one
throb of sound— left, right, left, right, like a clock in a room of
death.
Quickly the garden-park became a stern and solemn place
—a great encampment. No longer the ladies and their grooms
rode through quiet lanes; their restless horses pawed at
tethers in front of long rows of tents. Motor lorries stood
where perambulators had been.
The children's playground was used for drilling.
More numerous than the sparrows in the trees were the
men on the drill-grounds. Squads of young recruits crowded
together. There was scarcely enough room for their turn-
ings.
In the intervals of manoeuvring the men would fling them-
selves down for a few moments rest. They would lie in the
200 CHILDREN [May,
shade of the oaks whose gnarled and knotted branches now
looked like the knuckles of fighters. Near by, one of the men
would start to shave in front of a two-inch mirror hung on the
wheel of a commissary cart. Once, Paul (or was it George, or
Albert, or Earnest, or John?) took an envelope out of his
pocket and began to read a letter from his mother. He read
it more than once.
" I suppose," he remarked thoughtfully to his friend be-
side him, " I suppose, a man's mother never quite gets his in-
fancy— his helplessness — out of her calculations."
"Yes," his companion answered, peering down the bar-
rel of his gun, " we are just children to our mothers — and
Boy! I can't help thinking also — to — ," he lifted his gun
upright and with easy motion poked it toward the sky.
All these soldier recruits had clear boyish faces. They
were, in fact, the same who twenty years before had come to
this park to learn their first steps, to set their untrained feet
firmly and surely on the ground to make ready for the journey
into life. Now they were come again on a similar mission,
come to learn the first halting steps of the soldier, come to set
their untrained feet firmly, surely, on the ground but this time
not — not as then, to make ready for — for life!
From desks and arts and dreams they hastened now as
once from silken coverlets. They marched and counter-
marched with backs bravely straight, in fine rigidity of cour-
age. Sometimes they took a few steps, made mistakes and
were ordered to repeat. Sometimes they bent to the ground
and lifted themselves unsteadily and tottered slightly as un-
used muscles came into play.
As they tramped past the flowers with laughing faces, the
blossoms drooped; as they marched down the walks where
their baby ankles had swished the autumn leaves, the leaves
crackled mournfully; as they jerked their shoulders erect
upon the drill-master's shout, ghostly echoes of a nurse's call
reverberated in the tree tops.
They passed and repassed a sign. It was dim and faded
as the face of an old man, but as it looked down on these march-
ing children of men, as it watched their heated, mastered
bodies bend to a command not to be questioned, its words
seemed to proclaim a gravely sober guardianship, an august
truth : " This Space Reserved for— Children:'
1919.] CHILDREN 201
The War crawled nearer, nearer! Fuming, roaring, like a
black serpent rolling over and over upon its heavy sides, the
hordes of the enemy advanced.
Sometimes at night the thunder of the cannon could be
heard in the city. Women would awaken and cry out and
mothers of the soldiers, white-faced, would fall upon their
knees and sob.
Bleeding, gasping, staggering, all those young men fought
like madmen to stem invasion. But gas and flame poured
over them, steel tore through them, driving them always
back — back, back, until they saw the red roofs of their city
huddling together, and the broad spaces of their park
staring helplessly at the sun. Then they shrieked with
broken voices: "They shall come no farther. They shall
not pass ! "
But even so the oppressors crawled nearer, nearer, until
one day their destroying feet trod on the very park itself. . . .
There the final battle ! There the end !
In the glow of flames that went licking up their city the
young defenders grappled them and held them.
Ah! the children of that once happy park! with their peb-
bles and their colored pails, their twirling games, and shy ad-
venturous steps ! The pebbles now were bullets that tapped on
the heart and stopped it; the colored pails were helmets filled
with blood, the chattering sparrows were Zeppelins dropping
bombs, the scurrying ants were bodies writhing on the ground,
the sweet air was poison gas, the games a dervish twirling
when a man was stung with death.
Moments that were ages, hours that were eternity — but
the enemy did not pass! . . .
When the firing stilled, when the invaders retreated, when
the night had come, there boomed over the city the tidings of
peace. Low, deep-throated, hoarse, like a man murmuring to
his beloved — the sound of the joyous cannonading! The whole
world awoke in ecstasy.
Thereupon the fathers and the mothers of that triumphant
land peered out of cellars, and, wiping their eyes, staggering,
went searching for the battlefield, for the quiet park. ... A
wide, bleak, smoking wilderness ! And lying twisted, silent on
the muddy earth all the brave young soldiers! So many, so
many! All the proud youth of the land, all the eager lads, all
202 CHILDREN [May,
the handsome sons! All with dear faces of little boys! All
with life unlived!
" We must bury them where they fell ! " wept the fathers.
" We would do no other way."
And thus in the once lovely place where flowers winked
into baby eyes, long rows of wooden crosses stood sentinel
side by side. Paul was the name on one, Albert on another,
on another George, on another Humbert, on another John, and
Tom, and Sam — names that the nurse had once called ten-
derly.
Soon the snow fell and covered the loneliness with a soft
velvet pall. The moonlight breathed upon it. Only those thin
branching sticks were visible above the smooth, cold, glisten-
ing snow — they, and a twisted sign-board that lay question-
ing the stars. The flakes had slid to one side and the play-
ful stars nudged each other as they blinked upon the words:
" This Space Reserved for Children."
[Editor's Note. — On February 18th a bill for establishing a military cemetery in
France, to be known as the " American Field of Honor," for members of the Ameri-
can Expeditionary Force who died abroad, was ordered favorably reported by the
Senate Military Committee. The French Government has offered to present a site
for the field.— Public Press.]
THE ANCHORESS.
BY CHARLOTTE BALFOUR.
T is very remarkable," says Father Dalgairns of
the Oratory in his prefatory essay to Walter
Hilton's Scale of Perfection, " that the most start-
ling form of the life of the desert Saints, should
have continued in England up to the very mo-
ment of the Reformation."
It was a common feature of the Middle Ages to find men
and women leading the life of recluses. We come across it in
mediaeval romances, in the Morte d' Arthur of Malory for in-
stance and in the lives of the Saints. St. Catherine of Siena
set off, as a child, to become a hermit; Sir Percival comes, in his
Knightly quest for the Holy Grail, to the cell of his aunt, the
holy recluse. But there are so few actual writings of the re-
cluses, or detailed accounts of their way of living, that we are
hardly able to reconstruct the life of an anchorite of the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries in this twentieth century.
The most notable of such documents is a treatise in Anglo-
Saxon, by one Richard Poore, written in the early fourteenth
century, called the Ancren Riwle, which being translated
means the Rule of the Anchoress. This treatise, though it calls
itself " a Rule " is written more as a spiritual guide to the re-
ligious life, with useful indications as to methods of prayer and
recommendations as to the profitable employment of leisure,
than in any authoritative spirit. Evidently the anchoress was
very largely cast upon her own spiritual resources as regards
her way of life.
Men hermits usually had their cell or hut in the woods or
deserted places. They had their gardens to dig and sometimes
a cow to tend, though they shunned the habitations of other
men. Rut this isolation was manifestly impossible for the un-
protected woman, and her cell was, as a rule, built against the
walls of a church in some large human centre. The an-
choresses were usually women of gentle birth, able to provide
for the necessaries of their solitary life and for one or some-
times two servants who were their means of communication in
204 THE ANCHORESS [May,
all practical matters with the outer world. Their retreat, the
seclusion of which they never, under any pretext, left, was, as
a rule, a series of two or three small rooms. One of these
served as oratory to the recluse, the second as her dwelling
room and the third and outer one for her servant. Three win-
dows communicated with the world. One looked into the
church and through this she heard Mass and followed the
divine liturgy. Through the second her food and other neces-
saries of life were passed from the outer room; the third
opened to the daylight and to the world, and through this she
spoke to those who came to her for counsel and consolation
in their worldly troubles. This window was sometimes cov-
ered with a black curtain into which was inserted a cross of
white material through which the light could shine, symbolic of
the aspiration of the religious, whose only illumination, spirit-
ual and corporal, should be through the Gross.
Richard Poore's instructions to his anchoresses as to their
outward behavior are quaint and direct. " My dear Sisters,
love your window as little as possible and see that they be
small. A recluse must not give to any inclination to satisfy
curiosity by putting her head out of the window. A peering
anchoress who is always thrusting her head outward is like an
untamed bird in a cage. And when you must needs go forth
to the window, make the sign of the Cross carefully on your
mouth, ears and eyes." He recommends confession once a
week, Holy Communion only fifteen times a year, and does not
even specify on which feasts the Communions should be made.
His more minute instructions are for the devotions of the holy
women, their morning prayers, their ejaculations at the eleva-
tion and so on. It is evident that their life was almost entirely
spent in prayer, and that their vocation was expiatory, though
he enjoins no austerities beyond a certain degree of fasting and
abstaining. What he does lay stress upon is the importance of
their example in upholding the religious life : " The an-
choresses ought to be of so holy a life that the whole Holy
Church, that is all Christian people, may lean and be sup-
ported upon them; and that they may bear her up and sup-
port her by their holy life and their pious prayers. And an
anchoress is for this reason called an anchoress and is an-
chored under the Church as an anchor under a ship."
He also enjoins emphatically upon the hermits that they
1919.] THE ANCHORESS 205
shall many times a day think of all suffering souls in the world
and pray for sinners, for the dying, and for Christian captives
amongst the heathen especially, and pray for them under their
different categories. To us in these material days when belief
in the life of prayer is practically limited to Catholics and as
often as not misunderstood even by them, such a life is almost
unthinkable. The life of the Carmelite or the Poor Clare is
tax enough for our halting imagination in its contemplative
concentration. But even their lives are at least lived in com-
munity. Their fainting ardor is revived by the example of
others and by acts and devotions performed in union with their
sisters. Moreover, they have their detailed Rule to guide them
and counteract all alien influences.
Indeed, the cynical might almost be tempted to ask
whether the spiritual life of the recluse was, as is assumed, on
such a very high level, if it were not for the remarkable
autobiography of one of them which we are going to examine.
It is remarkable, considering the dearth of contemporary
writings of the anchorites, that this one-piece of writing that
survives to this day should be that of a woman, and that it
should be something so beautiful, so inspired and so living
that students of mystical writings claim it to be worthy to rank
with the writings of the author's great contemporary, St.
Catherine of Siena.
This book is The Revelations of Divine Love, writ-
ten by Juliana of Norwich, an anchoress of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. She had her dwelling, between the years
1373 and 1442, at Carrow, a hamlet outside Norwich, then an
important town, famous for its wool market. Her cell was
built against the parish church in the accustomed way, and
here for nearly a hundred years a this holy woman lived an
illumined life of prayer and contemplation.
Her book is only autobiographical in so far as she de-
scribes the manner in which the sixteen revelations, which
form the matter of her book, were made to her. We do not
know at what age she entered the recluse's cell, nor her motive
in doing so, nor what her parentage was. She lived at a time
of stress and disturbance and tumult. The ninety-nine years of
her life covered much history. She witnessed much of the
glories and iniquities of the Hundred Years' War, the success
* She was born in 1343.
206 THE ANCHORESS [May,
and death of the Black Prince, the mission and martyrdom of
Joan of Arc. St. Catherine of Siena brought the Pope
back to Rome, the Church in England was harried and
disturbed by the Lollard heresy. Great Saints arose, Catherine
of Siena in Italy, Joan of Arc in France, St. Lydwine
of Schiedam in the Netherlands and many others. Their
virtues and sufferings were being weighed in the scales
of God to right the balance against the horrible sin, confusion
and bloodshed of the times, and Juliana and her fellow an-
choress threw in their weight on the right side.
Let me give Juliana's own words in her own lovely lan-
guage as far as possible in repeating her tale. She tells us that
she had always prayed for three " Gifts of God." The first
was " mind of His Passion." " I desired a bodily sight wherein
I might have more knowledge of the bodily pains of Our
Saviour and the compassion of Our Lady and all His true lovers
that saw His pains. For I would be one of them and suffer
with Him." The second was " bodily sickness in youth. That
I might be so hard unto death that I might receive all the rites
of Holy Church . . . for I would be purged." The third was to
have three "wounds," the wounds of true contrition, of lov-
ing compassion, and of " steadfast longing " towards God.
Then she tells how at thirty years of age, she had a severe
illness and was at the point of death, so that all around her
thought her already dead. Suddenly in her distress she re-
members her three prayers and at that moment the " Revela-
tions " begin. As in all deep spiritual experiences, time and
space vanish. Juliana was to spend seventy years in under-
standing, construing, interpreting the message. But the actual
sixteen revelations were received by her in a short space of
time. She distinguishes her revelations as being of four kinds.
In her own words they are sometimes " bodily sights," that is a
distinct picture before her eyes of some phase of Our Lord's
Passion to be interpreted by a spiritual truth; sometimes they
are " ghostly shewings," that is an intellectual apprehension or
illumination of some spiritual truth; sometimes as a "word
formed in mine understanding," also to be interpreted, and
finally by " ghostly or spiritual sight." " But the sight," she
says, " I cannot nor may not shew it as openly nor as fully as
I would."
It is impossible in the compass of a short sketch to convey
1919.] THE ANCHORESS 207
the depth of significance of Juliana's Revelations, the wealth of
images that it presents to the mind, the melting sweetness and
the peace that it brings as its message to troubled souls. Her
heart is torn with compassion, first for her crucified and suf-
fering Lord and then for her " even Christian," her fellow
creatures in their sin, shame and blindness. Again and again
her theme is the inseparableness of God and man, of His end-
less mercy and compassion for and interest in us.
" Love was His meaning," she cries. " From the time that
it was shewed I desired often times to learn what was Our Lord's
meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in
ghostly understanding thus : ' Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's
meaning in this thing? Learn it well; love was His meaning.
Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love.
Wherefore shewed it He? For Love.' "
All through she insists — she returns to it again and again
as though each time it is a fresh revelation — upon our part in
the Passion; without us to die for, Our Lord would not have
had the joy of suffering.
" Then said Jesus, our kind Lord : ' If thou art pleased I
am pleased. It is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to Me
that ever suffered I passion for thee.' ' And again, speaking
of prayer in the Fourteenth Revelation she says : " God
shewed great pleasaunce and great content, as though He were
much beholden to us for every good deed that we do (and yet
it is He that doeth it), because that we beseech Him mightily
to do all things that seem to Him good : as if He said, ' What
might then please Me more than to beseech Me, mightily, wisely
and earnestly to do that thing that I shall do.' '
In this account of the interchange of the divine Omnipo-
tence and human free will, one is reminded of Dante's sum-
mary of St. Thomas Aquinas' theory of prayer:2
The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence from warm
love and living hope which conquereth the Divine Will;
Not in fashion wherein man subdueth man, but con-
quereth It, because It willeth to be conquered; and con-
quered, with Its own benignity doth conquer.
. . . our good in this good is refined, that what God willeth
we too will.
2 Paradise Canto xx. 94-136. Transl. Temple classics.
208 THE ANCHORESS [May,
So we have Dante a generation before, the scholar and
poet, deeply steeped in theology and in contact with all the
learning of his time, and Juliana the anchoress in her cell,
cut off from all intercourse with the world, occupied with the
same thoughts, interpreting the same mystical truths. The
heart illuminated in its contemplation teaches the intellect in
both.
To Juliana herself the revelations are painful in their in-
tensity; the "bodily sights" of the Passion rend her soul and
make her cry out with suffering, as for instance in the Eighth
Revelation which is a bodily sight of Our Lord's sufferings
" near His dying," of His thirst, the dying of His flesh and the
sagging of the Grown of Thorns, the weight of His body on the
Cross. "Is any pain like this?" She hears the words in her
intellect. " And I was answered in my reason : of all pains
that lead to salvation this is the most pain, to see thy love
suffer. Here I felt soothfastly that I loved Christ so much
above myself that there was no pain that might be suffered like
to that sorrow I had to see Him suffer."
Then again she is tortured by the problem of sin. How
does it fit in with God's scheme, how can it be reconciled with
that intimate, interdependent relationship between God and
man that she speaks of so luminously? " How may this be? "
she cries; " between these two contraries my reason was greatly
travailed through my blindness and could have no rest for
dread that I be left in unknowing of how He beholdeth us in
our sin."
She says, in the Third Revelation, that she " Saw verily,
that sin was no deed," expressing the doctrine of St. Thomas
Aquinas in her own words, sin has no manner " of substance,
nor no part of being, nor might it not be known but by the pain
it is cause of."
But Juliana takes comfort in the thought of the pain in-
separable from sin: "And this pain it is something as to my
sight, for it purgeth and maketh us to know ourselves and to
ask mercy. . . . For the amends making is more pleasing to God
and worshipful without comparison than ever was the sin of
Adam harmful."
And further she asserts that, " In every soul that shall be
saved is a godly will that never assented to sin nor never shall.
Right as there is a beastly will in the lower part that may will
1919.] THE ANCHORESS
209
no good, right so there is a godly will in the higher part, which
will is so good that it may never will evil but only good."
Coventry Patmore laid hold of this truth in his Remem-
bered Grace:
Whom God does once with heart to heart befriend,
He does so to the end:
And having planted life's miraculous germ,
One sweet pulsation of responsive love,
He sets him sheer above,
Not sin and bitter shame
And wreck of fame
But Hell's insidious and more black attempt,
The envy, malice and pride,
Which men who share, so easily condone
That few even list such ills as these to hide.
From these unalterably exempt
Through the remembered grace
Of that divine embrace,
Of his sad errors none
Though gross to blame,
Shall cast him lower than the cleansing flame,
Nor make him quite depart
From the small flock named " after God's own heart."
Her words leave a wonderful impression of God working,
planning, ordering all things for us. The scheme of salvation is
there waiting for us to fall in with it. Some of it we know and
may study and rejoice in through revelation, but the rest — all
that is not actually necessary for the working out of our salva-
tion— is hid from us :
" For it is Our Lord's privy counsel and it belongeth to the
royal lordship of God to have His privy counsel in peace and
it belongeth to His servant for obedience and reverence not to
learn wholly His counsel. Our Lord hath pity on us," she con-
tinues, "for that some creatures make themselves so busy
therein, and I am sure if we knew how much we should please
Him and ease ourselves by leaving it, we would." There is
exquisite delicacy and courteousness in that " I am sure if we
knew how much we should please Him, we would."
If we knew more of this mystic, of her daily life, her con-
verse with the outer world, with her director for instance, if
VOL. CIX. — 14
210 THE ANCHORESS [May,
we had any portrait of her features, should we know her any
better than we can by studying her book? Would her message
be any clearer?
" Love was Our Lord's meaning."
She urges upon us the interchange of love and trust and
hope between the Creator and the creature, the Redeemer and
the sinner. A sacrum commercium between God and the soul.
She speaks of God's " homely loving."
" He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for
us : He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us
and all encloseth us for tender love that He may never leave
us. ... It is full great pleasaunce to Him that a simple soul come
to Him plainly, simply and homely. Verily it is the most joy
that may be that He that is highest and mightiest and worthiest
is lowest and meekest, homeliest and most courteous.
" For He willeth we should believe that we see Him con-
tinually though to us it seemeth but little sight. For He will
be seen and He will be sought : He will be abided and He will
be trusted. The continual seeking of the soul pleaseth God
full greatly : for it can do no more than seek, suffer and trust.
And that seeking is as good as beholding for the time that He
will suffer the soul to be in travail.
" And thus I saw Him and sought Him and I had Him, I
wanted Him. And this is and should be our common working
in this life."
Again she reiterates : " God willeth that we know that He
keepeth us even alike secure in weal and in woe. For it is
God's will that we hold us in comfort with all our might."
There is nothing passive in this trust. " Be still and see
that I am God," says the Psalmist and it often needs " all our
might," indeed, to leave our self-torturings and perplexities
and doubtings, and simply trust and love.
As Juliana urges this attitude upon her " even Christian,"
a perfect expression of her thought comes before my eyes. It
is Michelangelo's Adam of the Sistine chapel, as, newly
made in his strength and manhood, he looks upward with love
and trust to the outstretched hand of the Father.
Juliana's book is a mine of precious stones. It is a book to
be the companion of a lifetime. The exquisite freshness of its
archaic language is a refreshment in itself and its note is so
lofty in its spirituality and so deep in its intellectual grasp
1919.] MARIS STELLA! 211
of great mysteries that one is arrested and held wherever one
may open its pages.
Juliana assures us that she was " a simple soul unlettered "
and that the revelations were made to her, not because " God
loved me better than the least soul that is in grace; for I am
certain there be many that never had shewing or sight but of
the common teaching of Holy Church, that love God better than
I." In this we are assured, too, that this holy anchoress pos-
sessed that great quality in common with all the greatest saints,
of humility before God.
MARIS STELLA!
BY EDWARD F. GARESCHE, S.J.
OFT, when my singing prow
Rushes in gladness through a summer sea,
Ave Maria! thou
Send, O clear star, thy guiding beam to me !
Lest in the very calmness of delight
Witched by the stillness of the balmy night
I might forget and turn my course from thee!
And in the wild
Wrestling and terror of the sudden gale,
Soft, on thy child,
Star of the Sea, thy light must never fail
Lest the wet fury of the roaring wave
Leaping may blot the hope thy radiance gave,
Wrest from my weakening grasp the helm and sail
In storm and peace,
Still send the glorious greeting of thy ray
Dear star, nor cease
Thy tender beams until the dawn of Day.
Ah, with what hope and love through all the dark,
Wistful, mine eyes shall seek thy golden spark
Till the sweet Sun drive storms and shades away!
IRELAND, AT LAST.
BY MICHAEL WILLIAMS.
FEW years before the Great War broke up the
foundations of the world and overthrew the pil-
lars of the old order, it chanced that 1 met and saw
much of a strange man, a Polish writer, a college
professor who had been driven out of his country
by the Germans because of his patriotism. A strange man, I
say, and so, indeed he was: one of the many singular char-
acters who appeared upon the stage of public affairs (he was
lecturing on Polish history and literature in this country) in
that brooding period of enigmatic omens and puzzling por-
tents that preceded the bursting of the storm of storms. It is
already difficult to remember back, at least with clearness and
certainty, to that time, separated from us now as if by some
sort of spiritual abyss. Yet when you wrench your attention
away from the whirling maelstrom of the changing moments,
and recall, by an effort of will, the years immediately before
the War, what a pathetic pageant of unhonored and unheeded
prophets defile before your memory; and what a curious series
of significant events may be reviewed — events that were the
symbols and figures of coming catastrophes, shadows of fate,
cast before it. So far as prevention of disaster was concerned,
these events were vain and remain merely as examples of how
Providence gives warning to man, if man would only heed.
But unless man pays heed with his soul, instead of merely with
his worldly mind, to the messages from the spiritual powers,
they go unheeded or misread.
In the years before the War, our souls were clouded or
ignored. Over and over again, we were warned by many
writers that all the conditions and circumstances of un-
imaginable, yet certain, calamity were drawing speedily and
terribly toward their issues. Even in details, many prophecies
were accurate. Frederick Harrison, for example, was only one
of several publicists who had studied Germany, and gave warn-
ing of what was to be expected from that quarter. Not only the
political and sociological students, but religious writers as well,
1919.] IRELAND, AT LAST
213
analytically or intuitively, judged the world situation, and
labored to awaken the minds of their fellows, or their souls.
They utterly failed. Truly, it would appear that of all the
vain things under the sun, the business of a literary Cassandra
is the most inutile.
Not many years after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, a
French author x wrote these burning words of truth : " Prophets
and workers of convulsions ... are unsettling the earth in our
own unfortunate day, just as if the cruel barbarism of science
and intelligence, the intoxication of effete civilization, was de-
termined to work more ruin than the robust barbarism of our
first ages, which, in spite of its horrors, was at least the fruit-
ful progenitor of modern nations It is undoubtedly a sor-
rowful thing to see ancient nations, dazed by mathematics and
deceived by protocols, so industriously preparing the great
jubilee of universal war: a mingling of millions of men who
will massacre one another by unthought-of mechanical in-
ventions. This is what comes of wisdom without God. Ma-
terialist politics, whose maxim is the one used by despairing
power, 'After me the end of the world,' has no expedient
left but to drench the frontiers in blood in order to keep
its place in the interior." Warnings similar in spirit, and
often more explicit and matter-of-fact in their reasons,
abounded.
Would you not suppose that at least a few politicians, that
here and there a statesman or a diplomat or a ruler, reading
such words, would have asked if they were justified, and find-
ing that, indeed, they were, would have attempted to lead the
people out of the fog of materialist politics and philosophy
into the light of reality, where God is listened to, and God's
laws of justice rule — eternal, immutable? Vain questions, I
dare say. The world gave no heed to the saints and poets and
enlightened religious teachers, but rushed into the abyss. It
seems to have been written in the decrees of Providence that
those who had failed in their stewardship of power, were now
to be stricken powerless for ever; while from the ruins of their
systems and formulas, new things should spring.
Nevertheless, the true prophets and the illuminated poets
have been, as they are always, justified; their work is never
finally vain; though all the world be against them, at last they
prevail.
*Paul F^val, in Jesuits I
214 IRELAND, AT LAST [May,
My Polish friend was one of those true prophets. His
vision saw what now the world may see: a Poland reunited,
re-arisen, a nation once again. For that he labored when night
was upon the earth. Now comes the dawn, and the tempest
dies. When he talked to me, years ago, what seemed less
likely than that which has come to pass? But he was sure it
would come to pass; and, he said, so also would it be with a
nation which according to his view was soul-sister to his own.
" Ireland, too, will be free at last ! "
In powerful, creative phrases, fertile with faith, he spoke
wonderful things. A poet and a mystic Catholic, he expounded
his Messianic philosophy, according to which it was held that
each of the nations has a God-given vocation, and a special
mission; a mission not always the same, but by which it stands
or falls as it fulfills it or fails. And Poland and Ireland, he
declared, were the nations chosen by God for the highest
things, for the greatest parts in the drama of humanity. For
they were victim-nations. Through them would come redemp-
tion for others. God required them to bleed and to suffer; to
mourn with lamentations; to be riven asunder; to be dispersed,
for the sake of sanctifying human liberty. For nations, like
unto individual souls that attempt to reach the heights of
achievement, must tread the hero's part; which is suffering and
self-sacrifice. Yet not always would Poland and Ireland weep
and bleed and wander in exile in this valley of tears. God
would in time wipe their tears away. Even should they go
down into the grave, there would be resurrection; there would
be a glorious Easter-tide, and peace, and life, and liberty at
last.
And most certainly he was right. He seemed to me a
fantastic person then, my Polish friend; the poet-prophet who
walked in the foot-steps of Tarnowski and Miekiewicz, and
the other poet-prophets of that Poland whose destiny is now
directed by the poet-pianist, Paderewski. For he was living in
the place of true vision, and I, in common with the most of
the world, was not. The truth that only justice and truth, and
the other laws of God matter in the long run was hidden from
the souls of most of us, in those days of muddy materialism,
and shallow mediocrity of mind, which benumbed the world
before the breaking of the inevitable tempest. Now we see
things hidden from us then. Now the power of spiritual real-
1919.] IRELAND, AT LAST 215
ities asserts its dominance above the shifting and misleading
phantasms of materialistic rationalism. Amid the bloody and
blackened wreckage of one epoch and in the dawnlight of an-
other, the visions and dreams of poets and prophets are com-
ing true. Empires dissolve, but the love of home burns as it
has from the beginning; the temporal symbol of the love of
Heaven.
Where more than in Ireland have visions shone, 'and
dreams been dreamed, and songs of home been sung? Where
more than in Ireland, and from the greater Ireland dispersed
throughout the world, have prayers for home been more faith-
fully and ardently poured forth? Where has the ideal been
more faithfully maintained, though all the mass and weight of
materialistic facts and conditions seemed to mock that ideal?
And now it is Ireland's turn at last! Ireland will be free, with
the help of God and the United States. The pendulum of his-
tory swings back in its appointed path to bring about the pas-
sionately desired consummation of the hopes of seven cen-
turies. The high romance of Ireland's soul approaches its
term. And what consolation and inspiration in the thought
that this nation of the United States which, enslaved and
persecuted (but never hopeless or helpless), Ireland helped,
and helped more than any other nation or race, to become free
and independent, moves now to the aid of Ireland!
By one of those fortunate circumstances which wear the
disguise of chance or coincidence, but which in reality are
Providential, there comes at this moment from the press a
book which once and for all assembles and makes available
the evidence for the great, vital, perhaps indispensable, aid
rendered by Ireland to our country in its hour of greatest
need. It lays down a foundation of indisputable facts for the
thesis that the material aid of Ireland, no less than the merits
and useful characteristics of its individual sons and daughters
as these became units of the new nation, was a most powerful
factor in the struggle for liberty. The sympathy for Ireland's
cause, the help given it, in the United States, are far from being
mere results of innate racial reactions on the part of the Irish
elements of the population. Causes deeper and more powerful
are operating. Ireland's idea is America's. Their causes are
one cause. Deep answers unto deep.
The book I speak of is entitled A Hidden Phase of Ameri-
216 IRELAND, AT LAST [May,
can History* and its subject is, " Ireland's part in America's
struggle for liberty." It is the work, carried on through many
years and now brought to an issue, of Michael J. O'Brien, the
historiographer of the American Irish Historical Society.
It attempts a double task. First, though this is the lesser
part, it boldly traverses the statements of such American his-
torians as George Bancroft and Henry Cabot Lodge, deroga-
tory to the part played by the Irish race in Ireland and Amer-
ica during the War of the Revolution, and, as J. I. G. Clarke says
in the introduction, it "in all cases quotes their own words
on the related points, and proceeds therefrom to the utter
demolition of their premises and conclusions with a crushing
weight of evidence, marshaled with care, argued with acumen,
and presented in admirable order." These derogatory state-
ments, although frequently challenged, and debated with more
heat perhaps than cogency, have long stood without conclusive
answer. Now the answer is made. According to Mr. Clarke,
it is " the answer absolute. . . . For the first time, an
indisputable array of cogent facts, stated without flourish,
points to inevitable conclusions fatal to the misstatements of
the historians named." It is not within my competence to
say whether or not Mr. Clarke is justified in so unqualified an
assertion of Mr. O'Brien's triumph over his opponents. But
with his next statement, there can be only emphatic and re-
joicing agreement, namely, that " the real value of the triumph
lies in the constructive and demonstrative nature of the work."
Apart from its value as the utterance of that truth which in
the long run discovers and accuses all falsifiers of history, and
in the skillful manner in which it lets the light of facts illumi-
nate the cases of misinformation, unfairness, injustice, or
prejudice, that seem to abound in the writings of certain Ameri-
can historians when they deal with Ireland, the book's impor-
tance is established by its massing and substantiation of the
facts which concern the Irish part in the Revolution. Accord-
ing to Mr. Clarke, " intensive research may add corroboration
to Mr. O'Brien's averments; the Irish race may rest assured
that nothing discoverable will shake his conclusions. The
reason for this sweeping substantiation of our historiographer's
argument resides in the method with which he has wrought.
*A Hidden Phase of American History: Ireland's Part in America's Struggle for
Liberty. By Michael J. O'Brien. New York: The Devin-Adair Co. $5.00 net.
1919.] IRELAND, AT LAST
217
It is simplicity itself, but it involves such close, persistent,
patient, indefatigable examination and study of the records
that the conclusions reached are patent. I may say that he
establishes unequivocally that thirty-eight per cent of the Revo-
lutionary Army that won American independence was Irish ! "
Reflected in the opening chapters of this remarkable book,
but only dimly, for it sticks closely to its own theme, are other
facts showing how Irish exiles in other lands, Spain and France,
and elsewhere, also took part in the struggle; which, indeed,
was much more than the fight of a particular part of the new
world against the tyranny of Britain. It was, in truth, but one
campaign in the beginning of the world-wide upheaval of the
people against autocratic rulers, the end of which is not yet.
Everywhere in the world, then, and now, the Greater Ireland
(the happy phrase is Dr. William Barry's) moves in all its
scattered units as a single force. It is, says Dr. Barry,
" especially since the broken treaty of Limerick in 1691, and
the ' flight of the wild geese ' that a Greater Ireland has been
growing up beyond the shores of Erin, not by the winning of
new territory, but by the repeated evictions which have cast
out the people from their homes. Thousands in the eighteenth
century, and millions in the century following, fled across all
waters into an exile from which they never came back. They
were compelled to be landless wanderers. The 'wild geese,'
led by men like Sarsfield, represented famous old Catholic
houses; they had among them nobles and chiefs whom the
courts of Europe delighted to honor; and their descendants
earned renown as generals, diplomatists, and ministers of
State, in France, Spain, Austria, and Russia. . . . Until after the
Union there appear to have been comparatively few Irish im-
migrants into Great Britain, although absentee landlords,
drawing vast rents from the estates they seldom or never vis-
ited, were conspicuous in London society. Recurring famines,
however, since that ill-managed alliance, drove crowds of the
rising population, which attained its highest figure towards
1845, across the narrow seas and the Atlantic, and even to the
islands of the Southern Gross. Never had a scattering so wide-
spread, of myriads so poverty-stricken, been recorded in his-
tory. These disinherited folk, invading Britain, the United
States, Canada and Australia, swarmed into the great cities
and increased that late Roman yet most modern of classes
218 IRELAND, AT LAST [May,
which possesses nothing but its labor and is known as the
proletariat. . . . Yet among them a certain proportion rose to
comfort, to affluence, and at last to power. The Irish abroad
have nowhere formed a State, any more than the children of
Israel, wandering through all nations. But as the Jews re-
member Zion, the exiles of Erin keep in their hearts un-
quenched the love of their lost land; neither can they forget
how they came to lose it. Their memory is an indictment,
their political influence a weapon. Greater Ireland reckons,
perhaps, thrice as many millions as have survived in the ' dis-
tressful country.' And these widely separated children of one
worshipped mother would certainly applaud when the Eng-
lishman and Protestant, Mr. Jeudwine,3 affirms that ' the pres-
ent condition of Ireland can only be understood by a knowl-
edge of the past; and its condition confronts us as a menace
from every aspect of our European relations.' '
It is toward the happy and final settlement of that menace,
a menace not merely to Britain, but, what is more important,
to the peace and friendly inter-relations of all nations, that the
United States now advances, supporting Ireland; and as a
solid foundation in reason for such support, a foundation even
more essential than the presence in our population of the sons
of Greater Ireland, are the facts which (returning now to Mr.
O'Brien and his memorable book) prove the communion of
ideals and of purposes which have existed and still subsist be-
tween Erin and America, and which go to show that Irish
blood, and strength, and idealism, and spirituality, and faith,
are woven into the fabric of the American nation. And as was
the similar debt that we owe to France, the greater debt to Ire-
land is being paid.
It will be well to review briefly some of these facts, as
marshaled by Mr. O'Brien, " in the high court of humanity, his-
tory, where truth must be heard and justice must be pro-
nounced." This phrase of Bancroft, Mr. O'Brien uses as a
preliminary to the pulverization of Bancroft in that very court;
or, at least, the anti-Irish aspects of Bancroft. Rhetorical St.
Patrick's Day glorification of Ireland's part in American
history is one thing, and sometimes a fascinating thing, but in
the court of history, facts count for more than fervid phrases,
3J. W. Jeudwine, F.R.H.Soc., LL.B., in The Foundations of Society and the
Land.
1919.] IRELAND, AT LAST 219
unless these, indeed, are the passionate expressions of facts;
for when eloquence is wedded to truth it is a most mighty
power for good— as who know better than the Irish? Per-
haps only Ireland's foes!
The two main counts in the indictment— for it amounts to
that — which a few historians, but these of wide influence, have
brought against Ireland is, first, that the Irish Parliament, on
hearing the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill, voted that it
heard the news with "abhorrence of rebellion," and "was
ready to show to the world its attachment to the sacred person
of the King;" and, secondly, that the people of Ireland sent
against the American patriots some of then* best troops and
their ablest men. Mr. O'Brien makes mince-meat of both state-
ments. He brings forward ample documentary evidence to
prove, first, that the Irish Parliament did not vote as Bancroft
says it did; second, that it took no action on American affairs
until many months after the news from Lexington and Bunker
Hill was known in Ireland; and, thirdly, that not only did the
people of Ireland not send troops against the Americans, but
that from the start of the war, and throughout its course, they
were the steadfast friends of the patriotic cause. Not only
this, but the author likewise brings forward a mass of at least
reasonable and weighty evidence to show that Irish influence in
the years before the Revolution paved the way for that event,
and was one of the decisive factors in forming the psychology
of Americanism as opposed to British subjectism.
Even if the Irish Parliament of 1775 had voted in the
words given by Bancroft, which it did not, biased and half-
blind would be the historian who should attribute the Parlia-
ment's view to the " people of Ireland." In the first place, the
Parliament was utterly unrepresentative, for the millions of
Catholics of Ireland were by law debarred from sitting therein,
and it is notorious that a very large proportion of those who did
have seats were the bought-and-paid-for pawns of the British
Government, and many others were merely English landlords
or their creatures. Yet, even so, the Irish Parliament contained
members who were frankly for America, and who succeeded
in modifying the language of the resolution actually passed
into a comparatively mild, official expression of loyalty to the
Government. Some of these pro-American members of the
Irish Parliament, men like Yelverton, Bushe, Burgh, Ponsonby,
220 IRELAND, AT LAST [May,
Gonolly and Daly, lead an active light against the majority of
servile supporters of the administration, and behind this small
group stood the vast mass of the Irish people; among them the
three million Catholics who had "no more voice in elections
or appointments than had the natives of the Fiji Islands," but
who could, and who did — as ever since they have done — give
their support to leaders who strove for Irish freedom, whether
these leaders were of the old Faith, or not. In the midst of the
venal and, indeed, purchased, Irish Parliament, this small
group, alone representative of the true feelings of the Irish
people, actively opposed the action of the British Government
in sending troops out of Ireland to war upon the cause of
American independence.
" In the Irish Parliament," says John Mitchell, in his His-
tory of Ireland,* most of the leading men of the Opposition op-
posed the war upon principle; they inveighed against the un-
constitutional exactions of the ministry, and in their speeches
went very little short of formally justifying the American Rebel-
lion. The analogy between America and Ireland was too close
to pass unnoticed, and the defection of the American colonies
produced a strong effect upon Ireland." Grattan, upon his
entry into Parliament in 1775, denounced the policy of the Gov-
ernment in his most powerful speeches, in one of which he de-
scribed America as " the only hope of Ireland, and the only
refuge of the liberties of mankind;" which is a phrase that de-
scribes the position of our country in the world today a thou-
sand times more aptly even than in 1775. W. E. H. Lecky, in
his History of Ireland during the Eighteenth Century,* says that
" there were great numbers in Ireland who regarded the
American cause as their own. Already the many disastrous
circumstances of Irish history had driven great bodies of Irish-
men to seek a home in the more distant dominions of the
Crown, and few classes were so largely represented in the
American army as Irish emigrants. " So brisk grew the opposi-
tion to the Government on the part of the people that when the
amended resolution in favor of Britain was passed, riots broke
out all over Ireland. "In fact," says Mr. O'Brien, "these riots de-
veloped into serious proportions, and in the Pennsylvania
Gazette of November 15, 1775, I find among the news from
London an item reading: 'Insurrections of a very alarming
* Page 114. 6 Vol. ii., p. 153.
1919.] IRELAND, AT LAST 221
and dangerous nature are dreaded in Ireland in the course of
the ensuing spring, if troops be not sent from this country to
replace the Irish troops serving in America.' And in the same
journal, in the issue of November 27, 1775, in a dispatch from
London dated August 15th, may be read that, ' Orders have
been dispatched to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and to the
Commander-in-Chief there to put that Kingdom in the best
posture for defence without delay and to execute the laws for
disarming the Roman Catholics with great strictness.' " So, as
Mr. O'Brien says, " it made not the slightest difference, there-
fore, how the Irish Parliament voted on this question, for it is
the will of the Irish people that should be considered, not that
of a corrupt and venal Parliament, the same which, twenty
years later, bartered away for a price the last shred of Irish
liberty."
If in the Irish Parliament there was a strong pro-American
party, three Irishmen in the English Parliament were among
the stanchest of the friends which America possessed in that
legislative body. These were Edmund Burke, one of the great-
est figures of the age, Barre, and Conolly who " were ever on
the side of liberty and justice," as the Pennsylvania Gazette
bore witness.6 They fearlessly and intelligently opposed the
coercive measures introduced by the supporters of the Govern-
ment to subdue the Americans. And that Burke and his pro-
American Irish colleagues correctly voiced the sentiments of
their fellow Irishmen is shown by a thousand facts. Lord
Chatham bore witness to the same effect in a speech in the
English Parliament in January, 1775, in which he declared that
" the sending of armed troops was not the way to make them
(the Americans) good subjects, for that three millions of peo-
ple were not so likely so soon to give up their most valuable
rights and undoubted privileges. Nay," continued the noble
orator, " what do I talk of three millions of people; many
more, for Ireland is with them to a man." Again, a year later,
when warning England that war with France was imminent,
Chatham said: "The whole Irish nation favor the Ameri-
cans." 7 Chatham's advocacy of American rights made him a
popular hero in Ireland, and Dublin named two streets
in his honor. When Chatham's son resigned his commission in
the army as a protest, many Irish officers joined him.
8 February 1, 1775. T Parliamentary Register, vol. xl., p. 9.
222 IRELAND, AT LAST [May,
From Barre, a descendant of the old Franco-Irish family
of Barry, the American cause derived perhaps even more per-
suasive support than from the thunderous oratory of Burke.
Barre had lived in America; he knew the country, and the
spirit of its patriots, and Arthur Lee wrote to Samuel Adams
from London in 1771 that the best friend that America had in
England was Colonel Barre. As early as 1765, when the Stamp
Act was introduced, Barre opposed and denounced the meas-
ure in one of the most powerful addresses of his career. " To
the utter amazement of the Government supporters," writes
Mr. O'Brien, " he characterized the struggling Americans as
* those sons of Liberty.' When copies of Barre's speech were
circulated in America and organized opposition to the Stamp
Act begun, Barre's shibboleth wras at once adopted by the
patriots and thenceforward the various patriotic associations
began to call themselves the " Sons of Liberty.' The organiza-
tions which thus came to be known as the ' Sons of Liberty '
receive much credit in history for their activities in arousing
the people to a proper understanding of their political situation,
and it is generally conceded that it was the Sons of Liberty who
began the agitation which culminated in the Revolution. . . .
And it is a circumstance worth recording that it was an Irish-
man who originated the name and thus gave a tremendous im-
petus to the Bevolutionary movement in America."
Long before the battle of Lexington, which in the minds
of many seems the starting point of the American Revolution,
when the Boston " Tea Party " of the previous year does not
take that place of honor, the forces of liberty and justice were
at work, preparing the path. Evolution made possible the ex-
plosion of the revolution, and among these silent, pervasive
forces, the Irish influences, both in America and Ireland, were
potent. This was inevitable. Ireland and the Colonies were
linked together in a communion of ideals; even as they are
today. From the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 the New
York newspapers contain abundant testimony to the sym-
pathy of the people of Ireland for the oppressed colonists. Mr.
O'Brien furnishes much evidence of the kind. The New York
Gazette and Weekly Mercury of February 10, 1766, reports that
the "People of Ireland say we are fine fellows, and most heartily
wish us success in our Opposition to the Laws of Tyranny.
Their toast is, Destruction to the Stamp Act and Success to
1919.] IRELAND, AT LAST 223
the Free Sons of Liberty in America." Benjamin Franklin,
who visited Ireland twice, in 1769 and 1771, in his capacity as
diplomatic agent of the United Colonies, confirms these news-
paper reports over and over again, and in his reports contrasts
the cordial reception given him and his cause by " the principal
patriots " of Dublin. In 1769 he reported to Dr. Samuel
Cooper of Boston that, " All Ireland is strongly in favor of
the American cause. They have reasons to sympathize with
us. I send you four pamphlets written in Ireland or by Irish
gentlemen here, in which you will find some excellent, well
said things." Two years later, again writing to Cooper, Frank-
lin declared that " our part is warmly taken by the Irish in
general, there being in many points a similarity in our cause."
But the most remarkable of the numerous utterances of
Franklin is taken by Mr. O'Brien from a document which,
strangely enough, is not printed in any of the editions of Frank-
lin's works, and which apparently has escaped the attention of
American historians, though the original printed copies
thereof are on file in the records of the Public Record Office in
London. It is, " An Address to the Good People of Ireland on
Behalf of America," written in Versailles, where soon the new
Treaty of Peace will be signed, October 4, 1778. The address
begins with these words, which are as exactly applicable today
as when the philosopher penned them:
The misery and distress which your ill-fated country has
been so frequently exposed to, and has so often experienced
by such a combination of rapine, treachery, and violence, as
would have disgraced the name of government in the most
arbitrary country in the world, has most sincerely affected
your friends in America, and has engaged the most serious
attention of Congress.
After explaining fully that the Colonies were fighting not
only for constitutional liberty, but commercial liberty as well,
and drawing attention to the analogy between the cause of
Ireland and that of America, he says :
But as for you, our dear and good friends of Ireland, we
must cordially recommend to you to continue peaceable and
quiet in every possible situation of your affairs, and en-
deavor by mutual good will to supply the defects of ad-
ministration. But if the government, whom you at this
224 IRELAND, AT LAST [May,
time acknowledge, does not, in conformity to her own true
interest, take off and remove every restraint on your trade,
commerce, and manufacture, I am charged to assure you,
that means will be found to establish your freedom in this
respect, in the fullest and amplest manner. And as it is
the ardent wish of America to promote, as far as her other
engagements will permit, a reciprocal commercial interest
with you, I am to assure you, they will seek every means to
establish and extend it; and it has given the most sensible
pleasure to have those instructions committed to my care,
as I have ever retained the most perfect good will and
esteem for the people of Ireland.
Not only by Franklin, speaking for the pew American
nation, but by the Congress of that nation itself, was thanks
given to Ireland and acknowledgment made of America's debt
to Erin, in the famous " Address to the People of Ireland,"
adopted by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, July
28, 1775.
Having traced at considerable length, though far from
completely, the arguments of the facts proving Ireland's great
part in the pre-Revolutionary struggles, space is lacking for
the adequate presentation or review of the even more impor-
tant, but more generally known, evidence demonstrating the
part played in the physical struggle by the sons of Erin. Here
Mr. O'Brien has exhaustively covered a wide ground. He proves
that from the Greater Ireland scattered throughout the world,
Spain, France, Russia, the descendants of the " Wild Geese "
flocked to the Continental Army, or made efforts to do so. He
shows the efforts made by the English Government to draw off
the sympathies of the Irish in Ireland from America and to
make them more inclined to enlist for service against the revo-
lutionists; efforts which flatly failed, as Horace Walpole and
other English writers have amply recorded; and he makes it
plain that the regiments that actually sailed for the Colonies
from Ireland were far from being composed entirely of Irish
troops — while a great number of those Irishmen that were
under arms were pressed into service; and even when recruited
voluntarily it was for general military service, and not for
action against the Americans. Indeed, action against the
Americans was unpopular not only among the Irish but among
many English soldiers as well, leading to the ever greater and
1919.] IRELAND, AT LAST 225
greater employment of mercenaries. Funds were collected in
Belfast and sent to the American patriots. The people of Cork
sent a ship loaded with provisions and clothing for Washing-
ton's army, which safely reached Boston in spite of the English
navy. These and innumerable other evidences of Ireland's
active part in helping America might be quoted— and all this
in spite of the very serious fact that Ireland was suffering
greatly in her trade by the stoppage of imports from America.
Finally, after inquiries the most careful and painstaking, and
much patient delving — not among the perfervid periods of
oratorical glorifications of Ireland — but among documents of
all sorts, newspapers, parliamentary papers, congressional rec-
ords, war department archives, here and in England, Mr.
O'Brien reaches the conclusion that thirty-eight per cent of the
revolutionary army were Irishmen. It is not a mere opinion,
but a reasoned and reasonable judgment, sustained by a great
weight of facts.
Appearing just at this moment, the book gives solid sup-
port to a glowing and powerful sentiment among millions of
Americans, namely, the conviction that America owes to Ire-
land a substantial debt of gratitude, and that the time has come
to pay that debt. Following the service rendered in the Revo-
lution, came military support of the Republic in 1812, in
Mexico, in the Civil War, and most splendidly in the Great
War whose vast echoes are still pealing thunderously through-
out the riven world. All this, apart from the cultural debt.
The influence of Irish idealism, of the spirituality of the Irish
soul, in America, has been perhaps incalculable, for who shall
accurately measure and weigh the impalpable forces of the
soul of man? but that the influence has been vast and beneficial
none can justly deny; it is an admitted fact.
There are those that say — it would be hard to believe that
they really are convinced of the truth of what they say, were
it not for the fact that prejudice often lends more force to
opinions — more violent and destructive force, than calm truth
may do — there are those who say that a free Ireland means
an open gate for the enemies of England to enter that island,
and that it would constitute a standing menace to the peace
and safety of the English people. For those who hold that
view, the Great War has been waged and won in vain. If the
opinion holds and prevails that the peace and safety of any
VOL. CIX.— 15
226 IRELAND, AT LAST [May,
nation depends primarily upon the subjection of weaker peo-
ples, and armed dominance over the lesser in favor of the ma-
terial interests of the greater, then has the Great War been
waged — and lost; lost for all; lost for every nation under the
sun ; and the future holds nothing but warfare, or the miserable
troubles and intrigues and festering rebellions which lead
up to war. Unless, on the contrary, justice, which is based, and
can only be safely based, upon the religious, the Christian
knowledge of what justice is — based upon the law of God, and
not the selfish interpretations of imperialists, and materialists
—unless, I say, justice become the basic principle of the treaty
at Paris, America's participation in the War will become the
most saddeningly ironical failure of all history.
Even from a materialistic point of view, the argument that
a free Ireland means an open gate into England for the
enemies of the English, is fallacious, for the League of Nations
covenant expressly provides that any nation attacked unjustly
shall be supported by the others in the League. If Ireland
unjustly opened the gate to England's foes, Ireland would have
to deal with America as well as England; but it is a stupidity,
where it is not something worse, even to intimate that Ireland's
desire is for revenge upon, or for the injury of, England. The
law of hate does not rule Erin, that fair daughter of God;
especially now when the dawnlight is breaking. A free Ire-
land would be the best friend that England could possibly have.
A friendship based upon justice accorded, and confidence re-
stored, would constitute an alliance as far superior to mere
treaties of materialism, which self-interest makes and breaks
with equal facility, as the words of a truthful man are more
dependable than the promises of a politician.
And to this consummation events are moving. There is
something finally irresistible in the pressure of truth and
justice. No Catholic at least may deny that good must triumph
over evil. America's cause is that of Ireland. Only those
Americans who are not acquainted with the facts — the facts
of Irish participation in this nation, the facts showing the
identity of cause — can honestly oppose liberty and justice for
Ireland. Dr. O'Brien's most valuable book should have the
widest circulation throughout the length and breadth of our
land. It should be the forerunner in a practical campaign of
education as to the facts of the unassailable Irish, cause, that
1919.] THE WAR'S STORY 227
would yield returns far beyond those derived from speech
making or parades — valuable as these may be.
Such a campaign should spread before the American peo-
ple not only the facts and conditions outlined above, but should
also acquaint them with what has been said for Ireland by
scores upon scores of England's leaders: her true statesmen,
her writers, and poets. It should reduce to practical terms!
and spread everywhere, the facts which are at the bottom of
the dreams of Irish poets, the prayers of Irish saints and
sinners, the Irish ideal, the immortal Irish soul— and quickly
then, and surely, we should hail, Free Ireland, at last!
THE WAR'S STORY.
BY EMILY MICKEY.
How shall the story of the War be writ ?
What is the medium greatest and most fit ?
Where is the pen for use all exquisite ?
Gould mortal ear sound of the story hold,
Meanings too deep for senses to enfold
Rung out in joy-bells or in requiems tolled ?
Shall sun on sun we knew not erst, arise
To shew in strange new light to opened eyes
The very dace of the supreme emprise
That sprang full-armed from Justice' godlike head,
And shouted, in a voice to wake the dead,
To Arms, or be for aye dishonored.
The face and voice of one magnific good,
Seen through the blinding mists of smoke and blood;
Heard through the deafening crash and understood.
How say ye, mothers, each of him your son
Who fell mid gallant deeds unnumbered done,
His own high deed not the least gallant one ?
228 THE WARS STORY [May,
Sons, who in height and depth of heroism,
High as heaven's height, deep as the deep's abysm,
Poured out their sweat and blood on earth like chrism.
And ye, all glorious in your womanhood,
Undaunted and undauntable, who stood
Comrades, to help and heal, through surging blood ?
And ye, our blinded, maimed and mutilate,
Bearing the heavy cross without the gate,
Marching in soul to music clear and great ?
And ye, great Captains, ye who planned, fulfilled
Your task divinely taught, divinely willed, —
Whose names can never fall on ears unthrilled ?
None, none could write it, none the tale might tell
Of grappling horror between heaven and hell,
Of shame and glory all unspeakable.
The splendid dreadful things to bide for aye
In hearts that hold them silent till the day
When central fire asserts its mighty sway.
But generations yet to be shall know
A bluer sky, a greater sunshine's glow,
Because of all who did and suffered so.
And 'neath that sky, on blood-redeemed sod,
Free of the blasting heel so deep that trod,
The knees unbowed to man shall bow to God;
With eagle sight up to that Sun addrest,
With good things all unsatisfied to rest,
Seeking the better still and still the best.
Could all be written, all be understood,
We could not read it, even if we would —
Not for the rain of tears, the mist of blood.
Nor yet for darkness of the evil lair —
But for the light that clove the darkness there;
The light too great for mortal eyes to bear.
THE SLOVENES AND THEIR LEADERS.
BY ELISABETH CHRISTITCH.
NE and a half million seems a small number when
applied to a people; but when it means one and
a half million united souls, under the guidance
of spiritual leaders firm in devotion to creed and
race, it becomes a power to be reckoned with.
Such is the lesson taught by Slovenia, the least in appearance
of the three branches of Southern Slavdom (Jugo-Slavia)
in Europe, and yet the most productive in those intellectual
factors that organize, coalesce, and determine. Geographical
position is also, of course, most important, as in the case
of Montenegro, a people of half a million, known all over
the world as independent and the most formidable opponents
of the Turks. The Slovenes inhabit the northwestern part
of that region between the Adriatic and the Black Sea mainly
occupied by Southern Slavs. They were directly in the way of
the German drive southwards towards the Mediterranean, and
their main policy in the past has been one of dogged resistance
to German aggression, whether exercised openly or under
the form of cultural propaganda.
The Slovenes settled in these parts after the departure of
the Lombards in the sixth century, and fought for the ground
against various hostile tribes till, finally, they fell under the
rule of Bavarian princes who had helped them in their strug-
gles. The German feudal system broke their unity, and all
attempts at development of national literature were repressed.
The apostle Methodius preached Christianity in the Slav
tongue. Soon the Magyar hordes swept away all traces of a
new struggling civilization. When their final defeat by
Teutons and Slavs combined was accomplished, the former
fixed themselves more firmly than ever in the land of the
Slovenes. But these intruders retreated once again before
Turkish inroads, leaving Groats and Slovenes dependent on
their own efforts to stem the Mohammedan advance. Together
with their Serb kindred they battled for centuries with fluct-
uating success. At the decline of Ottoman aggressive power
230 THE SLOVENES AND THEIR LEADERS [May,
the German colonizers reappeared, followed later by Italian
infiltration in the form of literary and artistic influence.
Slovenia, however, held fast to its Slav characteristics and
racial traditions. The formation of the kingdom of Illyria,
of which it was a component part, gave a strong impetus to
national feeling. But this experiment of Napoleon the Great
was short-lived. The seed that had been sown, however, was
not wasted. During the last century there have been various
attempts to revive the spirit, if not the little State of Illyria.
Until recently a few western Europeans realized that
Trieste, Laibach (Ljubljana), Klagenfurt (Celovec) and all the
surrounding country are inhabited by Slovenes; that the Isonzo
(Socsa) runs through a land exclusively Slovene; that Styria,
Garinthia, Carniola are Slovene lands wherein dwell a people
possessing uniformity of faith, tongue and national aspiration
with the Croats, who number five millions and were, until
recently, a kingdom within the kingdom of Hungary.
The language of the southern Slavs, it is true, has branched
off into various dialects, differing less from each other, how-
ever, than the common speech of north and south England.
This was forcibly brought home to the writer some dozen years
since, in a journey through the most beautiful parts of Styria.
Our party alighted in a secluded spot, where we spent two
hours wandering about waiting for the Agram train. At that
time we were not interested in the politics of these parts, nor in
philological problems, but we were struck at hearing ourselves
greeted by passing shepherds and peasants in what seemed
to us the pure Serbian tongue of the land we had come from—
the free kingdom of Serbia. On the railroad all notices were
posted in German or Hungarian, and these languages were
used entirely by the railway officials and employees. Now
that we had stepped from the train, leaving the beaten track,
we could not comprehend the sudden transition. When we
expressed surprise at the Serbian " God bless you " of those
whom we greeted in these remote regions of southern Austria,
they looked at us askance and avoided further conversation.
A village inn-keeper, with a queer little smile, said cautiously
when interrogated : " Not many people care to know that
we are Serbians — or as good as Serbians. We are Slovenes
and it comes much to the same thing. With our speech one
can go straight down from here to the further end of Mace-
1919.] THE SLOVENES AND THEIR LEADERS 231
donia; and even further east the Bulgars understand us with
little effort."
Now we saw clearly for the first time what was in reality
the notorious Austrian policy of Divida et Impera. Austria
had not welcomed Serbia's deliverance from the Turks; she
had consistently hindered Montenegro's relations with protec-
tive Russia; she had annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in order
to prevent their union with either Serbia or Montenegro; she
had insisted on Turkey's retention of the Sanjak of Novi-
Bazar so as to put a barrier between Serbia and Montenegro;
she had assigned Croatia to Hungary, separating it thus from
Slovenia, which she herself retained, and by various admin-
istrative, military, and cultural devices kept the southern
Slavs asunder. All in vain. The national language, customs,
and aspirations of these countries tended to union.
While Serbia with her magnificent little army that had
defeated successively Turks and Bulgars, did her part in resist-
ing Austria until she was overwhelmed by Austria's allies, Ser-
bia's kindred under the Austrian crown attempted a consti-
tutional revindication of their right to autonomy. The great
Croat prelate Bishop Strossmayer had, long before, proclaimed
fraternity between all the southern Slavs within and without
the Dual Empire. In 'the latter part of the struggle all these
separated branches of one race looked to the distinctively
Slovene clergy for leadership and inspiration. The parish
priests of Slovenia were foremost in the movement tending
to establish centres for a peaceful but intensive campaign.
Towards the end of the late War Austrian and Hungarian
statesmen, prompted by Germany, proposed to grant a measure
of independence to the southern Slavs within the limits of the
Hapsburg monarchy. The national protest against severance
from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia was formulated by the
Slovene clergy : " The time has come for absolute political
union of every section of our nation. Only thus is our future
assured."
This was but a just return to Serbia for the sacrifices she
had made in their favor. Serbia had taken up arms to free
her kindred under alien rule, and her kindred did not fail her.
The Serbs of Bosnia had never learned the lesson taught by
their rulers that they were a people in themselves and spoke
a " Bosnian " language. Too many found their way over the
232 THE SLOVENES AND THEIR LEADERS [May,
border to Serbia and were at home there in speech, custom,
and creed; but the Croats and Slovenes were told that, as
Catholics, they could not be in sympathy with schismatic Serbs.
This crusade of intolerance had a temporary effect.
The Croats, nevertheless, watched with envy the progress
of a young and sturdy little Christian kingdom whose citizens
found honor and prosperity in furthering its welfare and
serving its national cause. They themselves, in the meantime,
could only rise to any position of note, or succeed in a public
career, by keeping in abeyance their Slav origin, speech, and
sentiments. I have myself met Croats in the Austro-Hungarian
diplomatic service who affected to be Hungarian. They re-
fused to know their own beautiful language and dissociated
themselves carefully from any national leanings. In spite of
these concessions to the ruling powers, none of them ever held
any post of consequence, whereas Poles, as we know, gained
access to the very highest positions in the State service. Ser-
bia's magnetic attraction for its kindred across the Danube
and Sava Rivers was an obstacle to their advancement.
The attitude of Austro-Hungarian statesmen towards Ser-
bia was peculiar, and flagrantly foolish. " This Concordat of
Serbia with the Vatican is a malicious bait," said an Austrian
diplomat to the present writer. " It has been deliberately
designed as an incitement to treason on the part of our Catholic
subjects of Croatia and Slavonia! But it will not lure them
from their allegiance to the Monarchy," he added with a little
smile. For Austrians of this type there was but one monarchy
in the world. The best answer to such assertions came from
Bishop Mahnic of Velglia last autumn: "For over a century
we have sought to be united with all our kindred in the south.
We do not fear them. We know they will not be our task-mas-
ters. We shall not lose through Serbia our religious liberties
but we shall gain national liberty. We are not children, to be
coerced ! As Catholics we intend to have full liberty for educa-
tion on a religious basis in our national tongue." Years before
the outbreak of the War the leaders of the Serbo-Croat coali-
tion in Hungary, Messrs. Supilo, Trumbic and Cingria, de-
clared that Croats and Serbs, one nation in blood and language
but professing different creeds, are united by the continuity
of the territory on which they dwell. Two army divisions of
Southern Slavs from Austria were formed in the course of the
1919.] THE SLOVENES AND THEIR LEADERS 233
War on Serbian soil and led to battle by officers of the Serbian
army. We know likewise that southern Slav regiments under
the Austrian flag surrendered to Russia and claimed the right
to rejoin the Serbs and fight on the Serbian side till the end of
the War. As early as 1912 Groat officers had been dismissed
from the Austro-Hungarian army for having openly rejoiced
at Serbia's victory over the Turks, and spoken with apprecia-
tion of the military prowess of their Serb brothers.
Austria's greatest failure in dealing with the southern
Slavs was due to the literary influence of the Slovenes. Their
Catholic press upheld the national tongue and ideals. Owing
to the patriotic clergy, the " Glagolite," the Slav Liturgy of the
Roman Rite, is still maintained largely in Slovene-Groat
lands. It is interesting to note that a learned Glagolite monk,
Magister Georgius, Henricius de Rayn of Styria, was in the
fifteenth century an officiating Canon at the Cathedral of
Tours in France. The Glagolite Rite is recognized as very
beautiful and very ancient, and German or Italian efforts to
oust it in favor of the Latin were resented by the people.
The current Slovene tongue has developed under many
difficulties, especially in its literary form. It is remarkable how
native writers and poets managed to resist outward influence,
and in spite of their forced knowledge of stranger tongues, con-
tinued to express their loftiest thoughts in the simple despised
home medium. They never underestimated their future role
in the world. The most traveled of them, the best acquainted
with European literatures, were imbued with the feeling that
it was reserved to their race to spread a gentler spirit of
humanity, to extend the fraternal sympathy and kind tolerance
which are the birthmarks of the true Slav. Austrian schemes
and German intrigues were powerless before the spiritual bond
of Southern Slavs welded by Slovene Catholic writers. Of late
years a Catholic review, Dom in Svet (The Fatherland and
the World), has published a remarkable series of stories and
sketches as also verses of a high order. Its chief contributor,
Father S. Finzgar, is the author of a historical novel of great
value, Under the Free Sun. Prominent among Slovene poets and
writers are priests, who, indeed, lead the way in everything
good. They maintained national, Slovene, schools by a volun-
tary tax on their flocks, and never ceased to oppose the gov-
ernment policy which imposed German schools on a Slav pop-
234 THE SLOVENES AND THEIR LEADERS [May,
ulation. In spite of hindrances from Vienna, the education of
the Slovenes on national lines was crowned with success to the
extent of their ranking as fourth among the literates of the
great Austro-Hungarian Empire. We give the order (note that
a Slav people is at the head of the list) according to confirmed
statistics: Czechs, Germans, Italians, Slovenes, Poles, Hun-
garians, Rumanians, Serbo-Croats.
Not only for its intellectual culture but for the statesman-
ship of its sons will Slovenia take a foremost place among the
southern Slavs of the new State. As its most popular authors
are drawn from the clergy so, too, its most distinguished
national leaders are found in the episcopate. Three have been
notable as veritable shepherds of their harassed flocks, in the
crisis preceding Austria's collapse. The prisons were crowded
with " suspects " subsisting upon a daily ration of thin cabbage
soup, often without an atom of bread. Executions took place
without trial; perquisitions and spoliations were the daily lot
of the villagers. When, to crown all, a German clerical organ
of Vienna accused the Slovene Bishops of sympathizing with
" traitors," Bishop Anton Mahnic, in a burst of righteous in-
dignation, published the following reply:
" We, the leaders of the Southern Slav Catholic Party,
are said to be tools of Freemasonry and friends of treason.
Evidently Archbishop Baur, Bishop Jegbic, and my unworthy
self are thus indicated. Allow me, therefore, to defend my
episcopal honor and that of my colleagues and of the Southern
Slav Catholics adhering to the Declaration of May, 1917. . . .
We needed no incitement from outside to proclaim our long
cherished ideal of an autonomous nation. The hope aroused
by " Illyria " has never died. Our Southern Slav Academy
dates from 1867. Its founder, our revered Bishop Stross-
mayer, had no Croat-Slovene programme. His programme
was union of the southern Slavs. ... It is false to assert that
we approved of the Huss celebrations in Prague. But we did
find something good in Prague, namely, a protest against the
oppression of nationalities in Austria by German Imperialists !
. . . Yes, there are points of contact between us and our
Orthodox-Serb brethren. While our people are melting away,
dying, and we call to you in our despair, you forbid us to speak
and close the doors of parliament. You banish, confine, or
execute the exponents of our just cause, and worst of all, de-
1919.] THE SLOVENES AND THEIR LEADERS 235
nounce the leaders of our Catholic Party as tools of Free-
masonry! In the middle ages persecuted nations could appeal
to the Pope, and the Father of all Christianity called to order
the mighty rulers who had substituted the mailed fist for the
laws of God. But today Europe denies obedience to the Pope.
Our only hope is in an international Peace Conference where
the kernel of Benedict XV.'s teaching may prevail : Let each
little nation develop freely. And we know that the southern
Slavs who merit, beyond any other European nation, for the
defence of Christian faith and civilization, are dear to his
paternal heart Be just, 0 gentlemen of Vienna, and reflect
what it must mean to us, for example, in Carniola, where ninety
per cent of the population is Slovene, to have but one Slovene
college; and that in many Slovene districts you will not even
grant us a normal school! Remember, before railing at us as
malcontents and disturbers that in the prayer of our daily
worship the word justitia precedes the word pax. Reflect on
the extreme nationalism that has become rank imperialism
and chauvinism, and cease to judge harshly the episcopal
leaders of the Slovene Catholic Party."
When, finally, deliverance from alien rule was at hand,
only outsiders, unacquainted with the great political role of
the Slovene clergy, were surprised at the appointment of a
priest, Monsignor Korosec, to treat with Serbia for the forma-
tion of the new, united Kingdom of Southern Slavs. Monsignor
Korosec is actually vice-president of the Jugo-Slav Cabinet,
where he represents five million Croats and Slovenes. His
fearless denunciation in the Vienna Reichstag of the cruel and
oppressive methods applied to his countrymen during the
War, had made him as popular among the Serbs as among his
own people. Up to the present moment there has been no
sign of religious antagonism between Orthodox-Serbs and
Catholic Slovenes, who join hands in the understanding of per-
fect equality for both. Mutual tolerance is the basis on which
six and a half million " Orthodox " and five million Catholic
Slavs, with half a million Moslems, hope to found the new
State of united Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
THE HERMIT.
BY J. R. T. BABONEAU.
HE evening hour of Angelas has rung. I have
illuminated today the initial letter of the sixth
chapter of St. John's Gospel, and while I wrought
with the lovely colors, my inward eyes have
seen the fair vision of God surpassing in beauty
all my powers of thought. Fain was I to portray it upon the
page, but now I cannot even tell you of it, for through the tears
which the joy of that revelation caused me, I could see only
His Crucifixion and His infinite pity for men. So I have
limned this upon the left-hand corner of the page. Before a
dark sky bearing storm and tempest, a blue heaven appears.
Our Blessed Lady and St. John stand on either side of the
Gross and look upon that Being Who bore our Sorrows like
a crown of light, albeit woven of thorns. They are set as a
symbol of pure man and perfect woman, who understand That
whereon they look. Afar off, I have shown a crowd of men
who shake staves and cast stones and cry with an empty voice,
understanding nothing.
" I have made an end and looking upon this marvelous
fair forest above me, I ponder upon eternal things and see
God's ways made plain in my own sorrows. Since men think
upon their grief too much and on God's will too little, their
paths are devious and blind before them. The world grows
distraught with vexation and vain endeavor, and folk with
lax hands and foolish voices cry continually, " God is not
here." Wherefore to show such as these that He is not mocked,
I take up again the vellum sheets spoiled by my clumsy hands,
when first the monks taught me to write, and athwart these will
set down my own story for other men to read, if so they please.
In this wise it happened.
"King Arthur had called us to his court at Caerleon for
Eastertide. Seven days before the feast he was there. I came
riding through the forest, right glad of heart, in the company
of four good knights; very joyous was I, since I had met these
1919.] THE HERMIT 237
knights the day before and they had told me of their goodwill,
that Lady Vivien had already come to Caerleon.
" In the city was a right fair house, shining with lights and
many knights stood about the doors; here was I lodged with
Sir Kay the seneschal. In the morning a breeze stirred the
rushes about the floor, so that I awoke in fresh fragrance and
sunlight and saw King Arthur's castle high upon the hill. In
the garden I plucked me a cluster of daffodils; my hands were
wet with dew. After we had heard Mass and broken our fast,
I bound the flowers upon my helm. So we went, talking and
laughing, into King Arthur's closes and Sir Kay was with us.
Many famous knights wended thither by divers roads, some of
whose names he told us and some we knew by the shields and
blazons which they bore. I remember seeing that day Sir
Mordred darkly smiling, Sir Gawain laughing like a young
maid and as bright of face, Sir Bedivere and the gentle Sir
Galahad. But his father, Lancelot, walked in the garden with
the Queen.
" I came into the outer pleasaunce by a postern-door and
there we stood, four or five young knights, beneath a tree
whereof the lower branches gathered dew from the grass. We
stayed in silence because the sight was so fair. Tender reeds
grew by a stream and mingled with the swaying boughs, veiling
us. Upon a green lawn stood the Lady Vivien amongst the
Queen's maidens, white as a dove, light as snowdrift, like a per-
fect lily among lilies. One amongst us said, 'How fair is
Vivien;' one said, 'Her ways and smile are full of witchery,
she will hurt the man whom she loves;' another, ' God bids us
love all beautiful things, why then do you mistrust her? '
" While we were thus speaking, Sir Perivere entered by the
wicket-gate and stood with us. Now it was rumored that
both he and I loved the Lady Vivien and of this you shall hear.
My friends had gone before us and he and I stayed beside a
little bridge. Then he left me and Vivien came singing to the
river to gather flowers. The sunlight through the leaves made
her golden and desirable and all her face bright. I asked her,
smiling, 'Who is your knight, Lady Vivien?'
" Laughing back to me, she answered, plucking daffodils,
' He who wears my flowers in his helm.' Thereat my soul re-
joiced and stood in a clear light. Then Sir Perivere returned,
for he had hidden himself and cried: 'Are these pale blooms
238 THE HERMIT [May,
thy flowers, Lady? I would choose thee poppies in the sum-
mer-tide. Large blossoms, heavy with scent and wide with
beauty are meet for thee, for a token of pleasure and sign of
luxury.' Vivien answered him not but fled from us.
" Now I would tell you of what befell in the council cham-
ber. Arthur was upon his throne, but Guinevere was not with
him. The greater nobles of his realm stood about the dais and
ever and anon would whisper with the King, but Arthur fol-
lowed his own counsel. Many barbarian knights conquered by
Sir Lancelot and his fellows of the Round Table came before
him, and there were many causes in which he gave judgment.
It was a most noble array. When he had made an end, there
came Sir Perivere suddenly into the midst and strode before
the throne with wrathful countenance and clenched hands,
having his armor and hauberk upon him. He gave honor unto
Arthur and spake against me in this wise: 'There is in thy
court, O King, a knight who has despoiled and maimed a vas-
sal of mine foully. For I sent this henchman unto my friend
King Mark with letters and jewels as a gift and token of love,
and while he rode in the forest Sir Arteval came silently out
of the bushes and used him evilly after a dastard's kind; and
this he did from pure hatred of me. Three others he has slain
outright.'
" Thereat the body of a man sore wounded and suffering
from his hurts was borne into the hall, who confirmed what
Sir Perivere had said. Three others gave testimony against me
likewise, swearing they had seen the strife from afar. A great
movement arose in the crowd, as if anger and compassion
strove together. Then the King asked : ' What need had Sir
Arteval to do this thing? Verily it profits him little.' And Sir
Perivere answered wrathf ully and withal cunningly : ' He will
do me malice and harm whensoever he can, Sir King, because
he loves the Lady Vivien, who is beloved of me. Shall not
this love be called lust, which leads a man to hate and hurt
another?' The wise King answered him not, but bade, 'Let
Sir Arteval stand forth and meet this charge.'
" Then I strode boldly up the hall. A gusty wind shook the
arras and all men craned their necks to stare at me. I was a
young man and alone in the great space before the dais, yet
right gently the King spoke : ' What hast thou to say, Sir Arte-
val, who art a knight of the Round Table? '
1919.] THE HERMIT
239
" I answered: * I am a knight of the Round Table, and I
have done this thing; but Sir Perivere lies, for he speaks not
the whole truth. As I rode down a green lane in the forest, the
hawthorn blossoms shook upon either side and the wind blew
the boughs apart, so that I saw the gleam of steel and an am-
bush of armed men. I laid my lance in rest and waited for
their intent. If I had not done so, I should assuredly have been
slain, for they hurtled at me full treacherously and sore. None
might tell from their guise whether they were robbers or the
followers of some knight. Now, indeed, I know they were Sir
Perivere's men, but I slew them in self-defence, unwitting.
Saying that I slew them, he has molded truth in the falsehood of
his thought. This is the way of a craven.'
" At that word Sir Perivere threw down his gauntlet, cry-
ing passionately: ' To hurt a hind is an evil thing, but to accuse
him out of thy weakness is a vile act, indeed. Command, 0
King, that he do battle for his life.' The King replied: ' Prove
thy charge, Sir Perivere, in battle.'
;t There rose again a great stir and sound of voices, for now
Arthur and the great lords departed. I moved strangely among
my fellows, for I was lately knighted and known to few, so I
was shamefast at the mere charge brought against me, and I
marveled that Sir Perivere could stand below the tall windows
and be so merry in the sun. Now the outer doors were open
and the rumor of our fray spread about and came to the
Queen's ladies. Vivien came to Perivere as he went lightly
through the garden and was fain to hear of the combat be-
tween us.
" At the evensong she avoided me. One said : ' In this wise
a clean maiden does not love.' Another said, laughing: ' It is
the way of women, for although we are all become Christians,
they are still, like pagans, worshippers of the sun. And now
Perivere's sun is rising, while Arteval's is on the wane. Why
then, do you wonder? ' In this wise they mocked me, though
not unkindly; I saw that they spoke truth, yet hated the truth,
for my dreams were set upon Vivien and I desired her ardently
for my lady.
" On the morrow the lists were set and thither came a great
company. It was a clear day in April with sun and showers
and wind. It was determined I should enter on the western
side of the lists and Sir Perivere from the eastern. Many men
240 THE HERMIT [May,
advised me well, but only two gave me good cheer; yet I
scarcely heeded them as I rode to my place, for my eyes were
set on the galleries where the Queen sat with the King, her
ladies about her. Vivien wore goodly jewels in her hair; she
deigned not to look at me, but turned to smile at Sir Perivere.
A jester, noting this, cried she would be queen of that tourney,
whatever befell. Small things, God wot, spoil a man's great
purpose; my hand was shaken, that had been so quiet before.
Gertes, it seemed a sorry thing for a maid, who had called me
friend, to arraign me on an empty word. Are women so
made that their very weakness can shatter men's strength? I
remember only the heralds' cry and can tell you nothing of
our first encounter. Lances twain and three we broke and once
Sir Perivere was borne backward, yet he was such a good
knight that he was not unhorsed. Now I aimed at his visor
to strike him between the eyes, when suddenly there fell a
strong clattering hail and blinded me, so that I swerved in my
course and Sir Perivere's lance caught me upon the neck and
threw me to the ground. Then he avoided his horse lightly and
we fought with swords long and fiercely, taking many strong
buffets. The armor upon his right shoulder was broken and
his head-piece hewn. Thereafter I pressed him sorely, so that
he fell upon his knees, yet I suffered him to rise because of the
mercy of God, which should dwell in every good knight. Ever
and anon fell the April hail and strong and windy rain and
sunshine afterwards. As we wheeled round about each other
the fresh sunlight of a sudden blinded me; I saw not Sir
Perivere's great blade that swung upon my head and broke
my helm, cleaving to the skull.
" Thus, a second time, God ministered to my fall. Like
a man drowning in darkness, I heard glad voices shouting my
shame and was wrapped in quiet and ignorance of things. I
knew not that I was abhorred of King Arthur, that all men
fled from me save two, and that my lady gave her gladness
and will into my enemy's keeping. Yet did they not deal
rightly, seeing that battle was ordained for men to vindicate
their judgments?
" Now these two knights brought me to a house by the
city gate. It belonged to an old woman, who cleansed and
anointed my wounds with herbs and swathed them with linen.
I came out of my swoon about the hour of the evening Angelus.
1919.] THE HERMIT 241
The woman was bent and withered, but withal gentle. Seeing
that my mind was clear, she went forth to buy food. Then
arose a great rabble in the street without, with much shout-
ing and running of feet as if a rout went past. Perhaps I grew
childish and knew not what I did, for I tottered from the couch
to the window. A crowd of the common folk were hounding
a leper toward the city gates: there was no mercy in them,
for they threw sticks, stones and mud at the piteous creature,
drowning his cries with their derision. This was done while
darkness was falling. Thereafter I was raging of fever for
many days. Evil dreams drew round about and the voices of
Satan cried from my lips and vexed my will, but the old woman
tended me well with her ministrations and prayers, and in the
third week my mind was whole.
" Yet partly because I was very weak and because I was
ashamed to meet my fellow-men, I stayed in the house for ten
days more. It was Mary's month and the world was gay as an
altar with flowers; the birds' matins were merry as laughter.
The burgeoning of leaves grew apace and I saw knights ride
forth upon their quest. I deemed that I said, ' This sorts with
the will of God,' yet said not so in my heart. I called to the
old woman and bade her fetch me a hermit's frock of the
roughest brown cloth, with a girdle of rope and when it was
brought I put on the dress and went forth, having with me a
few crowns and a little food which the woman gave me of her
charity.
"I came painfully to the city gate and there passed out;
the men-at-arms were well pleased at my blessing. At that
moment the moon arose and I heard a cry upon my right hand.
A leper sat in the shadow of the wall and cried to me for alms.
Compassion came upon me, for I remembered how he had
been driven forth with stones, and I gave him all that I had,
both money and food. This I did for a purpose, which you
shall hear.
" Now I traveled till I came to the forest and therein I went
until dawn. When the light was more than mystery and clear
shadows, I gave thanks to God for the loveliness of the place.
There was an open glade within the sanctuary of tall trees and
a clear spring which welled within a channel of clean stones
and grasses. In the further space was a small hut built, well
swept and tended, where a holy man had lived and died. The
VOL. CIX. — 16
242 THE HERMIT [May,
peasants of that district believed that a hermit would return
to dwell amongst them, wherefore their children brought food
daily and left it within the door. So I entered in and took my
rest. I was awakened by two wondering woodcutters, who
cried out that a holy man had come amongst them again
according to their desire; and many folk that day were curious
to see me and to have my blessing.
^ "Natheless, my heart was full of bitterness and when
night had fallen again, I found me a short way to the city,
taking with me a goodly portion of food in a wooden bowl.
There again, within the shadow of the wall, I ministered to the
leper, putting the morsels of food within his lips and comfort-
ing his distress, for his disease was heavy upon him, so that I
had to crush my loathing with pity and prayer; his rags might
scarce cover his sores. So I returned and slept. In the morn-
ing I prayed grievously : ' O merciful Mother, this night I have
shown mercy to an unclean and an outcast man. Therefore
ask of thy Son, Who has said, "Vengeance is Mine," to do justice
against my enemy for the foul wrong he has wrought me.' This
was my petition, though I used the form of many holy prayers.
That night I tended the leper again. He was very weak and
desired my prayers. For his sake I was shrived at the Feast
of the Ascension and took Christ's Body. Yet hate, like a
flame, consumed the charity of my prayers and hid Christ in-
carcerate from me. Always I desired vengeance, and fed the
leper that God might take account of this good deed. Anon,
I would not touch the peasants' bounty, but ate, only roots,
herbs and wild fruits that the leper might be the better fed and
my prayers the cleaner. Day and night I vexed God and
wearied heaven with my pleadings, and all this time God be-
sought me in beauty; in a large leafage of the woods, in the
whispering rains, the fair bounty of fields, the tenderness of
shy things, fawn and squirrel and leaping hare, the love of
simple men and of merry children. No evil thing afflicted me,
save my own thoughts.
" Now it was in the month of August at the harvest-tide
and the laborers went, singing, through the forest to reap and
to glean. The noonday meal was spread in the shade — rye-
bread and cheese and sour red wine; the red poppies were in the
corn. The children went hither and thither among the
gleaners; one poor babe fell and cut himself grievously upon
1919.] THE HERMIT 243
a sickle. I was summoned to assuage his hurts and tended him
beneath the trees until his parents came at eventide; they gave
me wild honey and fruit and bread for a token of thanks. The
forest had become very still, there was no breeze to temper the
heat. Sleep weighed upon my eyelids; like a powerful hand
it held me and would not let me stir. I was fearful lest I
should forget my task and the leper go fasting. Thus sloth
would make my prayers of no avail. But while I was yet
troubled, I fell asleep; when I awoke, it was broad day. The
children had come to fill my bowl with food, but had not dis-
turbed me. I ran, then, towards the city, taxing my soul with
penances and full of remorse. When I reached the gates there
were many folk stirring.
" The leper was fallen against the wall and I saw that he
was nigh to death. Now he saw my face for the first time in
the clear light, and my hood was fallen upon my shoulders; he
cried my name aloud thrice. ' Knowest thou not,' cried he, ' I
am Sir Perivere, thy foe, who wrought thee such evil. And in
this wise thou hast requited it.' As I gazed upon him in amaze-
ment and could not move for very sorrow, the gates were
opened for the passage of a cavalcade of happy ladies and
knights, who rode to hunt, with hawks upon their wrists, and
the falcon bells rang merrily. I would have hidden myself
and, certes, little grace would we have had of their glances,
had not Sir Perivere cried out : ' Look you, ladies and gentles
and hearken unto me, who am Sir Perivere.' Seeing a leper
lie there, they rode on, but in a little while one of them re-
turned and asked: ' Who art thou, that calls thyself Perivere? '
Anon they all came back and stayed at a distance to hear what
Perivere should say, he answered : * I am a leper, but once I
was a strong man and thy friend. But on the day I overcame
Sir Arteval, I returned to my house to rest and doffed my
armor. Then was this disease found upon me, though in the
morning I had been hale. By night I was cast without the city
as carrion is thrown to crows.' Then he told of the wrong he
had done, how he had smirched my fair fame, and how he
would have murdered me in the forest by his hinds. Nor
did he send the jewels at all to King Mark, but gave them unto
Vivien. They cried out, one and all: 'Where is Sir Arteval,
that we may requite him our judgments and set him again in
our midst? ' And Perivere said: ' Here is that good man, whom
244 THE HERMIT [May,
I have grieved, who every night has come to feed and to
hearten me out of simple charity. And I knew him not. I pray
you to tell this thing to the King and to forgive me for my un-
knightly deed.' Then I ran forward to embrace him, but ere
I could speak a word he was dead. Thus was my vengeance
made complete. Then they besought me to go along to King
Arthur in their company, but I would not, for an act ill-done
may be forgiven, but suffering ill-endured has no repute or
savor before God. It profiteth nothing. When I saw how evil
was my prayer and how well God had answered it, I came back
to the forest quietly to pray for the soul of Perivere. Because
this was the task I set myself, I have come to pray for all other
souls. King Arthur caused that he should be buried as a knight
and many people mourned the manner of his death: high
tapers burned about his bier and thereto the Queen came to
pray.
" This was long ago. It is said now that Vivien by magic
arts has laid the wizard Merlin to sleep in the forest of
Broceliande. This I know not for truth, for I dwell apart and
in a little space; yet great mysteries of God are about me and
I know that happiness may be apart from joy and akin to sor-
row, and yet be perfect. Daily I say Mass — for the monks
have made me priest — to gladden the hearts of peasants, of
wondering children and of passing knights, to assuage
calamity, to cleanse remorse, and to exalt the ancient beauty
of the earth.
View Boohs*
A COMMENTARY ON THE NEW CODE OF CANON LAW. By
Rev. Charles Augustine, O.S.B., D.D. Vols. II. and III. St.
Louis : B. Herder Book Co. $2.50 net each.
The second volume of Father Augustine's commentary on the
new Code of Canon Law treats of the clerical state from the time
of incardination in a diocese to the exercise of the Papal power.
The author discusses in order the rights, privileges and obliga-
tions of clerics, the laws on election, the loss of ecclesiastical
offices, ordinary and delegated power, the order and authority of
bishops, the office and duty of cardinals, the functions of the
various congregations, the proceedings of plenary and provincial
councils, the duties of curial and diocesan officials and kindred
topics.
The third volume deals with two classes of people, religious
and lay people. One hundred and ninety-five canons of the Code
on religious set forth accurately and briefly the whole juris-
prudence of the Church regarding the religious life. Hitherto we
have had to rely on special pontifical constitutions and deductions
from the same, for the legislation had not been gathered together
or officially coordinated.
The advent of congregations of Clerks Regular after the
Council of Trent necessitated a number of changes in the old
monastic legislation, and opened the way for new congregations
of simple vows, perpetual or temporary, which have done such
noble work in meeting the conditions of modern times.
The most important change with regard to the older orders
is the law requiring a period of three years of temporary simple
vows after the novitiate, before perpetual vows can be taken.
Another important change is the greater stress laid upon
the element of the common life, as an essential condition for the
religious life. A hermit, for instance, is not technically a religious,
because he does not lead the common life. Again, those who live
the common life but are not bound by vows, are not, properly
speaking, religious.
The second part of the volume deals with associations of the
laity, such as Third Orders, Archconfraternities, Confraternities,
Pious Associations, and the like. The Code strongly approves the
enrollment of the laity in these associations, and requires that
they be approved and established by competent ecclesiastical au-
246 NEW BOOKS [May,
thority. They are always to be under the jurisdiction of the
Ordinary.
We highly recommend these volumes to our readers, clerical
and lay. Father Augustine is a most competent guide, for he
taught canon law for many years at the Benedictine University
in Rome.
COMPENDIUM THEOLOGIZE MORALIS. By Aloysius Sabetti,
S.J. Edited by A. T. Barrett, S.J. New York: Frederick
Pustet Co. $4.50.
Father Barrett has just published the twenty-seventh edition
of Father Sabetti's well known Manual of Moral Theology. There
is no need for us to recommend this excellent text-book to our
seminarians and priests. For many years this edition of Gury-
Ballerini has been the vade-mecum of the priest on the American
Mission, and its worth has been tested in many a seminary class-
room.
FOUR YEARS IN THE WHITE NORTH. By Donald B. Mac-
millan, F.R.G.S. New York: Harper & Brothers. $4.00 net.
On July 2, 1913, Mr. Macmillan sailed on the Diana with a
party of explorers to ascertain positively whether Crocker Land,
spoken of by Peary in 1906, and discussed by Arctic travelers for
ninety years, did or did not actually exist. The other objects of
the expedition were to search for other lands to the west and
southwest of Axel Heiberg land and north of Parry Island; to
penetrate into Greenland between the 77th and 78th parallels of
north latitude, studying carefully the meteorological and glaci-
ological conditions of that region; to study the geology, geography,
glaciology, meterology, terrestrial magnetism, seismology, zoology,
botany, ethnology and archaeology of the section lying above the
77th parallel.
The author spent four years in the White North, and in this
most interesting volume gives us a vivid account of his explora-
tions. He disproved conclusively the existence of Crocker Land,
although he discovered a new land far to the west of his last camp
on the Polar Sea.
He surveyed for the first time the great stretch of coast line
on the northwest shore of Axel Heiberg Island; he reached King
Christian Island, seen from afar by Sverdrup in 1906; he dis-
covered nine new islands; he recovered a number of records left
in previous years by Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, Rear Admiral Peary,
Sir George Nares, and Sir Allen Young; he compiled three thou-
sand words of the Smith Sound Eskimo language; he took five
!919.] NEW BOOKS 247
thousand five hundred photographs, and secured ten thousand
feet of motion picture film; he did extensive work in geoloay,
botany, ornithology, meteorology and ethnology.
The author loved the country with all the enthusiasm of the
true explorer, and his enthusiasm breathes in every line. He
describes vividly the hardships and dangers of Arctic travels, the
hunting of the bear, the seal, the musk ox and the walrus,' the
management of the dog team sledges, the customs of the natives,
the building of igloos. The book is well written, and most beauti-
fully illustrated.
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GREEK. By Finley
Melville Kendall Foster. New York: Columbia University
Press. $1.50.
In this Columbia University thesis Professor Foster has made
a bibliographical survey of the English translations, prose and
verse, of the Greek classics from the establishment of Caxton's
press to the year 1918. His work will doubtless prove useful to
students of the classics and of English, but the titles of several
well-known translations are omitted, and the proofreading has
been carelessly done. In enumerating the books from which his
list of translations was " largely gathered," the compiler makes
no mention of W. C. Hazlitt's Handbook and his various supple-
mentary volumes, which are surely indispensable aids to the suc-
cessful compliation of such a catalogue as this.
STUDIES IN LITERATURE. By Sir Arthur Quiller Couch. New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.00.
The King Edward VII. Professor of English Literature
at Cambridge University has collected in this volume a number of
his class-room discourses and several essays and reviews contrib-
uted by him to English periodicals. The book is a rare delight
from start to finish, for Sir Arthur is a true humanist, wields
his pen with an exquisite grace and finish and has an unerring
instinct for the finest things in life no less than in letters. These
are some of the topics treated : " The Horation Model in English
Verse," — a most delicate and discriminating brief study. " Q "•
one may note — ranks Conington highest among translators from
Horace, with Sir Theodore Martin second, " surpassing him in
occasional brilliance but falling some way behind him in the long
run." De Vere is awarded third place. Perhaps one may men-
tion here that Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro pronounced Con-
ington's translation of the Satires and Epistles to be the most
perfect example of what a translation from Latin into English
should be. There is a fine paper— originally read at the Royal
248 NEW BOOKS [May,
Institution of London — on " The Commerce of Thought." And
there is a lecture on " Ballads " which occupies less than thirty
pages, but conveys more illumination on its subject than some
college text-books of ten times its length. There are also essays
on Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, and Charles Reade, all
perfect models in their way, and two lectures on the poetry of
George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, respectively. The Cam-
bridge professor is one of the rare instances where profoundness
and minute exactness of scholarship are combined with an artistic
temperament, and an acute critical faculty with a delicate poetic
imagination and a power of divination where the savor and spirit
of a bygone age in literature are concerned.
CARITA. By Lucy M. Blanchard. Boston: The Page Co. $1.50
net.
This pleasing story for girls is laid in Mexico City, the home
and birthplace of Carita Andrews. Though the child of loyal
American parents who have brought her up to reverence our flag,
she has never seen the country the banner represents. Her heart
is given to Mexico, and she looks forward sorrowfully to the not
distant day when she must go to the United States to complete her
education. This event occurs earlier than is anticipated; already
the storm is gathering that is soon to break upon the head of
President Diaz; and when Carita, with her mother, leaves her
beloved home, it is in flight for the safety to be found under the
folds of the Stars and Stripes. Taught by this dramatic ex-
perience, Carita quickly becomes a patriotic American.
It is a well-written story, with abundance of incident and
action which, in the telling, so graphically picture the interests
and fascinations of Mexico as to make Carita's attachment easily
understood. The book may be enjoyed by all young readers,
irrespective of creed; for the author's attitude, though non-
Catholic, is unmarred by any suggestion of discourtesy.
THE JOY MAKER. By A. Eugene Bartlett, D.D. New York:
Fleming H. Revell Co. $1.00 net.
This collection of little essays pleads for the cultivation of
individual happiness, as one of the great needs of the day: a
reasonable happiness, based upon avoidance of sin and its con-
sequent misery, reparation for wrong-doing made whenever
possible, appreciation of blessings and thankfulness for mis-
fortunes missed, and so on, along lines of cheerful philosophy.
The author presents his reflections and advice in a chattily in-
formal fashion that is usually rather agreeable. Upon his ex-
1919.] NEW BOOKS 249
cursions into theology, Catholics cannot accompany him; but
these are infrequent, while his references to Our Lord as the
Example for all who would live rightly are constant and reverent.
On the whole, the content is above the average of similar contribu-
tions in its proportion of truth and good sense, proposed in a
manner that suggests and stimulates thought.
LOVERS OF LOUISIANA. By George W. Cable. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50 net.
This novel of New Orleans in 1914 treats of the conflict be-
tween the deep-rooted prejudices of the old regime and the more
democratic ideals of the younger generation. Philip Castleton, a
native of Louisiana, educated at Princeton, loves Rosalie, the
granddaughter of M. Durel, a Creole who clings with passionate
loyalty to the traditions of his race and family. Philip's political
views, especially as they concern the vital problem of the colored
race, so shock and offend Durel that he opposes the match with
all the weight of his authority. How he is led to withdraw his
objections, having learned that Philip is, no less than himself, a
chivalrous gentleman and true lover of Louisiana, is developed in
a story of dramatic effectiveness. The book is worthy of the
author and represents him adequately; in fact it is the best of his
recent productions.
GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. By Dr. Jonathan Swift. Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott Co. $1.35.
It would be late in the day to praise or to recommend this
classic. But, since this edition of Gulliver's Travels is for children,
we protest at the retention of a few coarsely suggestive passages,
which might have been excluded, and nowise have lessened the
charm of the whole. Tastes differ in differing ages, and what was
lightly regarded by eighteenth century satire is certainly offensive
to present-day decencies and good taste.
THE HALO OF GRIEF. By Bolton Hall. New York: Brentano's.
$1.25.
It is difficult to see what comfort and consolation such books
afford. Yet the reviewers sing their praises. This volume is
scholarly, urbane, philosophical, — but vague. We have honestly
sought what it is evidently intended to impart, only to be eluded.
At times it is almost Catholic in tone; again one can scarcely tell
whether there is any certain grasp of faith at all, so affable, so
hospitable, so all-embracing are these pages, to every divergent
fancy. But, most of the vagaries of present-day belief will find
250 NEW BOOKS [May,
something to suit their needs, and harmonize with their tenets,
but much of it seems to sum itself up in these words from
Shakespeare :
Why, farewell Portia. We must die Messala:
With meditating that she must die once
I have the patience to endure it now.
— Julius Csesar.
One consolation we can derive from it. Materialism has
failed and passed. Some belief in survival after death is held by
every shade of religious thought or philosophy ministered to in
this book. The effort to make it too comprehensive to all who
are in sorrow, seems to hinder its effectiveness for the individual
mourner.
THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL. By Vincente Blasco
Ibanez. New York: E. P. Button & Co. $1.90 net.
Mrs. Gillespie's translation of this novel from the Spanish
was first published ten years ago and is now reissued because of
the success of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the famous
war-novel by the same author. Under the guise of fiction the book
is simply a violent diatribe against the Church and State in Spain
by a Socialist and atheist. It purports to be a study of the dwellers
in the Claverias, or Cathedral precincts of Toledo, whose lives are
etiolated by the blighting shadow of that imposing fane. One of
these, Gabriel Luna, the mouthpiece of the author, had once
studied for the priesthood, but, after fighting in the Carlist cause,
had lost his faith in exile in France and England. There he im-
bided the radical tenets of rationalism and pseudo-scientific
materialism, and became a professed anarchist. On his return to
his native land he was imprisoned as a revolutionist in Barcelona,
and finally came back to Toledo a broken man, to infect with his
Socialism and infidelity the inhabitants of the Claverias. His
wordy disquisitions, urged without mitigation or remorse of voice,
on the Church as the organ of Caesarism, obscurantism and priest-
craft form the staple of the narrative, and afford ample oppor-
tunity for ribaldry. The story ends lamely, and rather incon-
sequently, in his death which he meets while resisting, as night-
watchman of the Cathedral, those whose faith he had sapped.
Throughout the book the Cathedral makes itself felt as a gross
bedizened monster battening on the masses who live within its
influence. It is not the Cathedral of Huysmanns, typifying the
beauty of the spiritual ideals which it enshrines, nor even the
Cathedral of Victor Hugo's fantasy, dominating the quaint vivid
life of the Middle Ages that surges around its portals. The " red
1919.] NEW BOOKS 251
fool fury " of the revolutionary is insurgent in the conception, and
inspires the rancor with which the priestly character is traduced,
the sentiment with which free love is dignified, and the blasphemy
which does not spare the Person of Christ Himself. The soulless
creed of the author might be summed up in a line of Swinburne's :
" Glory to Man in the highest, for Man is the master of things."
His gospel is one that rays darkness.
GEORGE MEREDITH. A Study of His Works and Personality.
By J. H. E. Crees. New York: Longmans, Green &. Co. $1.50.
Meredith alike as novelist and poet does not yield up his
secret to him who reads as he runs; it is much harder to " acquire
a taste " for Meredith than for almost any other novelist. It is
not enough simply to read him: he must also be marked and in-
wardly digested. His work, as Mr. Crees says with truth, is a
discipline as well as a delight. That is one reason why so little
good Meredith criticism has been written. There is the handbook
and the essay, both by Trevelyan : the essay by Le Gallienne, much
less penetrating; and E. J. Bailey's doctoral dissertation on the
novels is not without value. But this searching little book by
the headmaster of the Crypt School, Gloucester, England, is by
all odds the most illuminating study of Meredith that has yet
been published. It is obviously the work of a man who is no less
artist than scholar. Dr. Crees' book is not a meticulous treat-
ment, volume by volume or year by year, of Meredith's achieve-
ment. It consists of seven essays including two chapters of in-
troduction and summary. Among the headings are " Meredith's
Poetry," " Meredith's Philosophy," " Meredith the Artist."
There is hardly a page upon which may not be found some valu-
able critical utterance, some specially memorable pregnancy of
phrase. Henceforth no student of the writings of the great
novelist and poet will be completely equipped without this book.
LES TRAITS ETERNELS DE LA FRANCE. By Maurice Barres.
With notes by Fernand Baldensperger. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
" He who offers up his blood for France offers himself really
as a sacrifice for the progress of the human race and for the
fulfillment of God's will on earth." Thus wrote the Abbe A.
Gratry in 1848. But even Gratry at the close of the Franco-
Prussian war, became despondent over the destiny of France. If
he, with all his ardent patriotism, could yield to doubt on this
point, those who had come to look upon France as " a nation of
the past, an effete nation," to use Barres' words, may well be
252 NEW BOOKS [May,
pardoned their surprise when, at the outbreak of the War, the
French were discovered to be, after all, living chrysalids only
awaiting the hour to unfold their wings.
Now that surprise has yielded to wonder and admiration ; and
the words of Gratry are again confirmed, a solution is sought for
this apparent mystery of the resurrection of a people. The key
to the mystery is Maurice Barres' present message to the world:
La France eternelle se degage. As Mr. Baldensperger says, with-
out exaggeration: Les Traits Eternels de la France is one of the
ablest demonstrations of the vital unity of French tradition and a
beautiful illustration of what is in fact permanent in the soul of
the nation — so often misunderstood — France."
AFTERGLOW. By James Fenimore Cooper, Jr. New Haven:
Yale University Press. $1.00.
This little book contains some sixty poems, mainly lyrical, by
a great-grandson of the famous American novelist. The poet,
Captain Cooper, died at Camp Dix on February 17, 1918. Some
of the lyrics are gracefully turned, but for the most part the
authentic inspiration is lacking; and it was a mistake to reprint
the sophomoric essay on " Religion " which is given in an
appendix.
WILD YOUTH AND ANOTHER. By Gilbert Parker. Phila-
delphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. $1.50 net.
In the two short novels that make up this volume there is
nothing actually new in either the scene — the Canadian west —
or the themes handled; but the author seems perennially gifted
with ability to impart increased glamour with each successive
description of the region he loves so well. For the rest, he pro-
duces in Wild Youth almost the effect of an innovation by pre-
senting a point of view abandoned by too many of his con-
temporaries. The story is that of a young man's love for a young,
beautiful and unhappy married woman. Experience has taught
us what to expect from the pernicious writing of the day, which
gauges strength of passion by weakness of resistance. It is there-
fore refreshing to find Sir Gilbert Parker's young people taking
account of temptation to be withstood and a hard battle to be
won. The reader who is old-fashioned enough to be glad of this
treatment will also be thankful for a denouement that clears the
path for the sorely tried pair by a tragic act in which they have
not a shadow of responsibility. This is the better story of the
two, though Another, its companion, is also interesting, and
equally wholesome.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 253
GARGOYLES AND OTHER POEMS. By Howard Mumford Jones.
Boston: The Cornhill Co. $1.25.
There is originality of viewpoint and there is paradox, too,
throughout these verses. It is the paradox of the professor who
perceived white Aphrodite walking at the end of a college corridor
— who prefers Swinburne to the sciences — who sees the battle of
heroes and the ride of Valkyries above a page of " Anglo-Saxon
phonology." It is easy for such a soul to be haunted by dreams
of the rich, repressed humanity of the young creatures — men and
women — lined up in orderly, studious groups before him. Indeed,
it is a little hard not to be obsessed with the idea of all this living
youth sacrificed, perhaps, to learning which seems dead. Re-
volting from the dry-as-dust, it is hard not to swing over to the
morbid or the revolutionary. And some of these " Gargoyles "
do betray a tendency toward exaggerative emotion along with a
fine sense of " the pity of unpitied human things." But the best
of them are a memorable addition to our contemporary verse.
Not soon will readers forget the haunting and fateful lines of
Librarians, or that challenging sonnet, We Study Marlow. . . .
And they should not soon forget the name of Howard Mumford
Jones, even if he is a little unfair in his English 37, to his immortal
predecessor Geoffrey Chaucer — happy poet, whose faith was as
broad and as blithe as his humanity!
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE BLACK BELT. By William J.
Edwards. Boston: The Cornhill Co. $1.50.
This little book of one hundred and fifty pages is a clear
call from Macedonia for help. Twelve millions of American peo-
ple, not long out of slavery, are in educational, social, and religious
need, and the need is instant. In simple, direct, unaffected
phraseology the author of this human document presents his
understanding of the negro problem, and graphically describes
his personal method of partial solution.
Handicapped by poverty, bodily weakness, and most dis-
couraging environment, the youth Edwards sought to rise to
higher things. He managed to enter Tuskegee; after finishing
his courses was impelled with the ambition to found a school on
the general lines of his Alma Mater. In a one room log cabin
the Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute began, with one
teacher and three pupils. In spite of countless self-denials, self-
disciplines, and deprivations, this Alabama institution, in its
quarter-century existence, has trained thousands of negro youth,
offers courses in fourteen industries, and rejoices now in an
educational plant valued at one hundred and fifty thousand
254 NEW BOOKS [May,
dollars. It is the aim of Snow Hill to teach the dignity of all
labor, and to inculcate a love for the soil and for agricultural life.
The South, in Mr. Edwards' judgment, and especially the farm
section, is the best locale for. the black man.
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE IN GERMAN LITERATURE. By
Edwin Hermann Zeydel, Ph.D. New York: Columbia
University Press. $1.00 net.
In the preface of this monograph we are told that originally
it was to be entitled Literary Satire at the Expense of the Holy
Roman Empire. Why the change was made is not quite clear.
The present title is justified neither by abundance of subject-
matter nor by careful analytical scholarship. Strangely enough,
moreover, what little amount of original data the author has
managed to gather, is decidedly at variance with many of the
conclusions he would have us draw. His historical treatment
instead of growing out of his material, suffers lamentably from
being no more than a re-hash of the old oft-refuted Protestant ac-
counts of the causes that brought about the gradual disintegration
and final disappearance of the Holy Roman Empire. He might
easily have given us a much more intelligible contribution had he
only been able to see that the emperors and not the Popes were
the ones responsible for the weakness of the Empire.
THE ROLL-CALL. By Arnold Bennett. New York: George H.
Doran Co. $1.50.
In Mr. Bennett's latest novel, The Roll-Call, one might fairly
expect to find a subsidiary study to the three Clayhanger books,
for George Edwin Cannon, the hero, if one may call him so, is the
son of Hilda Lessways and has Edwin Clayhanger for step-father.
But in these pages Hilda and Edwin are but shadowy and remote
figures. The book concerns itself with the adventures and ex-
periences of George Edwin Cannon in London, whither he had
repaired two years before the date of the opening of the story,
to become an articled pupil in the firm of Lucas & Enwright,
architects. John Orgreave, one of that Five Towns family group
which was so superbly portrayed in Clayhanger — " They were
constantly poking fun at people but it was never mean fun"
Mr. Bennett wrote of them in the first volume of his fine trilogy —
is Mr. Enwright's junior partner. Mr. Bennett in a swiftly-
moving narrative recounts what happened to George Edwin
after he left the Orgreave home to room with Mr. Haim, the
office factotum, and describes the young man's love-affair with
Marguerite Haim — not wholly unreminiscent of that earlier
1919.] NEW BOOKS 255
romance in which his mother and Clayhanger had been the
principals — and the dramatic fracture of their engagement. Mr.
Bennett excels in the delineation of such crises in youthful emo-
tion. In the course of time George wins a great architectural com-
petition and takes his first steps on the road to prosperity.
Ultimately, after a vicissitudinous courtship, he marries Lois
Ingram, whose acquaintance he had made under unpromising
circumstances in the opening chapters of the book.
At the beginning of the second part of the novel George Edwin
Cannon has achieved fame and two children, Laurencine aged
eight, and little Lois aged five; and Mrs. Cannon is again about
to become a mother. War comes, and George Edwin after an
agonizing night of struggle with himself, a struggle most power-
fully and subtly rendered, answers " the roll-call " and seeks and
obtains a commission. The closing pages describes Cannon's
early days in the army and skillfully suggest his increasing
acquiescence in the fate that has befallen him. " There is some-
thing in this army business! " is his grim conclusion.
The Roll-Call is a first-rate novel, and in its atmosphere there
is nothing of the morbid miasma which infected his last book,
The Pretty Lady. But, for one thing, Mr. Bennett is writing far
too much and is allowing himself to grow more and more careless.
He was never a distinguished stylist, though ordinarily one of the
most exact of writers. In this book he has repeatedly and rep-
rehensibly lapsed from the most essential auctorial virtue. If
Mr. Bennett could for two years abstain from the writing of
popular manuals of " practical philosophy;" leave the composition
of Government publicity " literature " to the highly efficient clerks
who can do it almost as well as he can himself, and retire within
the fortress of his own soul, in the course of time one might
reasonably look for another massive masterpiece like The Old
Wives' Tale. Is it too much to expect this from him?
THE NATURAL INCENTIVE. By Elsie West Quaife. Boston:
The Cornhill Co. $1.25.
There would seem almost every reason why this little drama
of the young, temperamental violinist, hastily married to an
opulent, highly conservative and much mother-tied Boston man,
should have ended tragically. Yet few will quarrel with Mrs.
Quaife for choosing to bring it to a happy consummation. The
theme is common enough, but it is treated with freshness, and
as a study of the " natural incentive " — that parenthood which at
first husband and wife so willfully eschew— the play is not with-
out considerable power. It is a pity that the promise of the first
256 NEW BOOKS [May,
two acts weakens in the final two, for the situation of prosperous
and legitimate motherhood, concealed with such desperate care,
strains the probabilities perilously near to the breaking point.
But for a' that, the play has some bright dialogue and one or
two situations which are so good emotionally that they promise
well for the dramatist's future work.
OKEWOOD OF THE SECRET SERVICE. By Valentine Williams.
New York: Robert M. McBride & Co. $1.50 net.
When some whim of fate brought together such ill-assorted
people as Major Desmond Okewood, Maurice Strangwise, Arthur
Mackwayte, his daughter Barbara and Nur-el-Din at a London
music-hall, there were woven the meshes of a complicated intrigue
which the reader will sit up o' nights to unravel. What the Star
of Poland had to do with an intrigue that involved the Secret
Service of France and Germany, and what personal motives, not
admitted to himself, prevented Desmond Okewood from obeying
to the letter his Chief's instructions, are problems which will not
abide a deferred solution. In the person of Okewood, Valentine
Williams has conceived a detective of individual character who is
not omniscient, and whose singular aplomb is balanced by a
human willfulness. The plot of his romance, written with unusual
snap and deftness, has a vibrant, gripping quality, and in its ruses
shows the clever psychological skill by which the audience of
Three Faces East was outwitted and nonplussed.
NERVES AND THE WAR. By Annie Payson Call. Boston: Little,
Brown & Co. $1.25 net.
Miss Call's book, described as dealing with " individual
economy of nerve force," explains how this can and should be
made a factor both in " carrying on " and in recovery from in-
juries sustained, whether physical or mental. The author speaks
with absolute assurance and conviction upon even so difficult a
subject as shell shock, and it is to be noted that advancing know-
ledge in this respect gives corroboration to many of her state-
ments. She is no pacifist, nor seeks to minimize the noble pos-
sibilities of war; the nervous economy advocated is not niggardli-
ness of energy and enthusiasm, but only their right direction and
control. The content is not long, though a considerable portion
is devoted to discourse upon things not obviously of close relation
to the matter in hand. It is on the practical side, in its presenta-
tion of a working plan, that the value lies; nor will this lose its
timeliness, notwithstanding the title that misleadingly implies
limited applicability. The War may have reached its longed-for
1919.] NEW BOOKS
257
end; but we can cherish no such hope anent the rack and strain
of our whirling civilization. Miss Call herein supplies aid for such
victims as perceive in themselves, and desire to correct, a tendency
toward neuroticism.
THE HEART OF ALSACE. By Benjamin Vallotton. New York:
Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.50.
This tale has as raconteur a young Swiss who accepts the posi-
tion of tutor to the sons of an Alsatian manufacturer. He is
situated advantageously for close observation of the country and
its inhabitants, both new to him. His keen interest soon deepens
into affection for a people whom he presents in a most lovable
light, as ordering their days with a dignity and sweetness in
harmony with the restful beauty of their fatherland. Alsatian
life, both public and private, is depicted with what we instinctively
recognize as veracity; and thus is revealed the indomitable heart
of the country that for so many years has resisted alien domina-
tion. The action covers many scenes and circumstances, includ-
ing those of the period when the dauntless national spirit
quickened to the call of the War. But not even the entrance of
the world's tragedy, told by letters to the tutor from one of his
former pupils who had gone to the front, can obscure for the
reader the leisured charm that first engages and well repays his
attention.
DANTE. By Henry Dwight Sedgwick. New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press. $1.50.
The purpose of this elementary book on Dante is to give the
average reader " a more personal intimacy with Dante's spirit,
and to afford him help and comfort from merely touching, as
it were, the garment of a great man."
The book is a caricature rather than a portrait. After read-
ing it carefully, the simple-minded reader would deem Dante a
Protestant of the fourteenth century, chiefly because of his bitter
denunciations of the abuses of the age, and his contempt for
some of the contemporary Popes. The author, however, omits
all reference to the closing chapter of the De Monarchia and the
episodes of Casella and Manfred in the Purgatorio, which prove
clearly Dante's reverence for the spiritual and divine power of the
Papacy.
Mr. Sedgwick spoils the book by trying to make Dante a
mystic in a vague, un-Catholic sense. He was not a mystic, but
a poetic genius, well read in all the learning of the Schools, and
a scholar who understood the Catholic mysticism set forth in his
VOL. CIX. 17
258 NEW BOOKS [May,
favorite authors, St. Augustine, St. Bernard and Richard of St.
Victor.
Dante would certainly have repudiated utterly the authors
so complacently and approvingly quoted by Mr. Sedgwick — such
as Tolstoy, Emerson, Bunyan and Luther. Dante had a truly
Catholic abhorrence of heresy and schism; he was uncompromis-
ingly Catholic, doing more than any other poet to popularize and
make intelligible to non-Catholics the great treasures of Catholic
philosophy and theology.
SUPPLEMENT TO NOLDIN'S MORAL THEOLOGY. By Rev.
Albertus Schmitt, S.J. New York: Frederick Pustet Co. 75
cents.
Father Albertus Schmitt, S.J., of Innsbruck, has just
published a supplement to Father Noldin's Theologia Moralis,
which enumerates the changes made by the New Code of Canon
Law. His annotations are arranged under the three headings of
Laws, Precepts and Sacraments. The make-up of the book is such
that the pages may be cut out and inserted in Father Noldin's
manual.
OUTLINE MEDITATIONS. By Madame Cecilia. New York:
Benziger Brothers. $1.50.
Madame Cecilia has once more put us under obligation to her
by the publication of these " points " for the morning meditation.
Grouped according to the ecclesiastical season, we have Advent,
Christinas, Lenten and Easter subjects, and in addition the
Holy Ghost, the Trinity, the Blessed Sacrament, and Our Lady,
one hundred in all. The outlines are undeveloped, being made
up of short pregnant sentences grouped under appropriate head-
ings, and are marked by a combination of clearness, keen insight,
and sympathetic and imaginative understanding. They are
e\ddently meant for readers of some experience in developing their
thoughts, and will also prove helpful to those in charge oi
sodalities, when press of work prohibits individual and personal
preparation.
CURRENTS AND EDDIES IN THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC
GENERATION. By Frederic E. Pierce. New Haven: Yale
University Press. $3.00.
Dr. Pierce who is Assistant Professor of English at Yale has
herein made an important contribution to the history of English
Romanticism. He has traced and set forth clearly and inter-
estingly the most important minor movements in the " Romantic "
generation of writers, has indicated with admirable skill " the
1919.] NEW BOOKS 259
lines of division between them, with such differences as existed in
the character of their poetry," and has studied minutely " the
effect of social and geographical environment, of racial instincts
and of other forming influences." His work will be of the highest
value to students of early nineteenth century poetry and prose,
assembling as it does a great deal of information which must
otherwise be wearily sought for through many volumes of
memories, reminiscences, letters and criticisms. Not the least in-
teresting part of the book is the section entitled " Sources and
Authorities." There is a well made index.
r^LEMENTS OF BUSINESS, by Parke Schoch and Murray
L/ Grose, (New York: American Book Co., 88 cents), is intended
primarily for those embarking upon a business career, but, under
present-day conditions, few can dispense with such knowledge as
it affords. The writers have practical experience of their subject
and present all necessary information in available form. In-
surance, Property, Banks, Savings Institutions, Cooperative As-
sociations, etc., are treated of in a clear, concise manner, which
leaves the reader in possession of the information sought.
THE monthly pamphlet publications of the American Associa-
tion for International Conciliation (407 West One Hundred
and Seventeenth Street, New York City) for the current year are
valuable contributions to every man's study table. In January
was offered a summary of the Projects for a League of Nations and
all the subsidiary suggestions; noteworthy speeches on the sub-
ject and a valuable Annotated Reading List on International
Organization and kindred topics. The February issue presents
The Problems of Reconstruction, showing its spirit, its necessity,
the attitude and active measures of the various nations, the prob-
lems in detail: political, economic, with a bibliography of the
subject. In March the history of Russian Documents, Constitution,
Land Law and Franco-Russian Alliance is given and a special
bulletin on the League of Nations up to date, including the Pro-
posed Constitution of the League of Nations; speeches delivered
before the Peace Conference and the President's addresses in Bos-
ton and New York. The Association thus furnishes a handy ref-
erence library on the vital topics of the day. Its publications may
be had at the above address at the cost of five cents a copy.
iHE Yale University Press has published a contribution to
. American Colonial history in the form of a sketch of the
picturesque soldier of fortune, Colonel John Scott of Long Island.
T
260 NEW BOOKS [May,
The sketch is by Wilbur C. Abbott, Professor of History in Yale
University, and was prepared originally for the Society of Colo-
nial Wars of the State of New York. The eventful career of the
" Colonel " and the light it throws on late seventeenth century
English and Colonial history, have merited for this monograph a
more extensive publicity. The price is $1.25.
A PUBLICATION that cannot be too highly recommended is
the Catechism of Patriotism for American School Children,
compiled by Alice Louise Thompson of the Daughters of the
American Revolution and published by the John Murphy Com-
pany, of Baltimore, Maryland. The purpose of the little book
is well stated by the author : to " show we have a country that,
from its natural advantages, is worth living for, and, from its
noble and generous form of government, worth dying for." She
claims that to teach the truth " that equal rights demand equal
service," patriotism must be made part of the regular school
curriculum. Certainly it is much to be desired that the les-
sons of this Catechism may reach our millions of school
children.
WE wish to correct an error in our April issue which an-
nounced the thin vest pocket edition of Father Lasance's
Manna of the Soul as a publication of P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New
York. All of Father Lasance's books are published by Benziger
Brothers, New York.
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
The Librairie Pierre Tequi, publishes:
La Religion, a new work by the eminent Bishop of Versailles,
Monseigneur Gibier, which is destined to render great service to the
clergy and the faithful. It is a resume of all that a true Christian ought
to know in order to give to his God the double homage of his faith
and his works. (1) Religion, (2) Doctrine, (3) Practice, (4) Works:
such are the divisions of this volume which merits an immense success.
Priests will find in it matter for short, practical and interesting in-
structions. It should be the manual of the faithful who wish to be
instructed. It will be also an extremely useful work to put into
the hands of souls, weak in their faith or those who are seeking the
truth.
Les Croyances Fondamentales, by Monseigneur J. Tissier, the in-
defatigable Bishop of Chalons, is a new work for "people in the
world," to aid them to instruct themselves in the fundamental truths of
the Catholic religion. The object Monseigneur Tissier has in view is an
apostolic one. The experience of war which has brought us in con-
1919.] NEW BOOKS 261
tact with men of the world of every kind, civil and military, has con-
firmed us in a conviction we have long enjoyed that French society
amongst the middle and lower classes is not irreligious but ignorant
of the most elementary truths of religion. The Bishop does not write
for theologians who, perhaps, might furnish more profound reasons,
but for lay people who have not the time to devote to study.
Le Purgatoire, by L. Rouzic, has a double end in view. First,
to make us avoid the sufferings of Purgatory; second, to deliver those
who are suffering there. Some of the questions discussed are: " Where
is Purgatory? " " What is the state of the souls who are there? "
" What are their pains? " " Have they joys? " " How long do they re-
main in the same " " What is the role of the angels with regard to
them? " " In what does the intercession of the Blessed Virgin con-
sist? " and "What can we do to help the suffering souls?" These
and many other questions are touched upon and well treated.
The eloquence of the Abbe Poulin is well known in Paris. Ser-
mons, panegyrics, retreats have given him a distinguished place
amongst the clergy of the first of the dioceses of France. His works,
not less scholarly, are also appreciated and continue his fruitful min-
istry at home and abroad. His new work, Les Sources D'Eau Vive, is
composed of sermons and allocutions delivered between 1915 and
1917. Like its predecessors, it is written in a style of distinction and
breathes the soul of a true apostle.
Retraites de Dames et Meres Chretiennes, by Abbe Millot, the
distinguished vicar-general of Versailles, is made up of instructions for
a three days retreat not including the opening and closing days. The
following are some of the subjects discussed: (1) The Barren Fig
Tree; (2) Mary Magdalen: Her Fall and Her Repentance; (3) The
Christian Mother; (4) Prayer, Confession, Communion, Devotion to the
Blessed Virgin; (5) The Family; (6) The Real Meaning of Christian
Life. These very solid and very apostolic instructions befit the neces-
sities of the present time, and have for their object to point out to
mothers their true role, and thus restore the family in Christ.
Retraite de Jeunes Filles, by Abbe Millot, is dedicated to the
young women of St. Paterae to whom the retreat was preached. Be-
sides the opening and closing sermons, this retreat covers three days
with three instructions and a conference for each day. Enriched by
a long experience in dealing with women, the author touches and
treats the principal subjects which can decide the conversion of a soul,
direct the work of its sanctification, awaken in it apostolic zeal.
He enlists in the service of souls the light of a sound doctrine, the
ardor of an enlightened zeal, all the resources of true talent. More
than one preacher will find in it excellent matter for sermons to young
women.
The Librairie Gabriel Beauchesne publishes :
Le Saint Coeur de Marie, by J. V. Bainvel. Like all works from
the pen of the distinguished professor of the Catholic University of
Paris, this one is worthy of our very best attention. It is not a practical
262 NEW BOOKS [May,
work in the ordinary acceptation of the term. One will not find in it
matter for meditation, popular sermons and conferences. It is an
ascetic work in which the author, to use his own words, studies the
psychology of the Blessed Virgin Mary — her interior life — with that
curiosity of love which St. Thomas tells us is not satisfied with a
superficial knowledge of what one loves but wishes as much as possible
to go down to the very depths.
Nos Quatre Evangiles, by E. Levesque, S.S., is a solid and well writ-
ten work in which the author departs from the beaten path of criticism
and shows the consonance between the synoptics and the Fourth Gos-
pel. He also touches upon certain peculiarities of the Gospel of St.
Matthew.
Questions Theologiques du Temps Present has come recently from
the pen of the well-known professor of theology at the Catholic Uni-
versity of Lille, A. Michel. In it he studies the subject of war in St.
Aquinas. The titles of some of the chapters will afford an idea of the
work. (1) The Christian and War; (2) Vengeance; (3) La Patrie; (4)
The Unity of the Church and War; (5) War and Martyrdom; (6) The
Clergy and War; (7) Prophecies and War; (8) Theological Idea of
Peace. The work closes with some reflections on truth and war. It
is a work of erudition and patience. (3 fr. 50).
L'Bglise, a volume in a " Higher Course on Religion," by Louis
Prunel, is a solid doctrinal work along lines similar to the first
volume of this series. Although chiefly addressed to the educated lay-
man, it will prove very serviceable to the theological student. A glance
at its contents will give an idea of the work. (1) The existence and
necessity of a Church; (2) Jesus Christ has founded a Church to con-
tinue his mission through the ages; (3) How to know the true Church
of Jesus Christ; (4) The Catholic Church, the true Church of Jesus
Christ; (5) The nature and constitution of the Church; (6) Members
of the Church; (7) Power of the Church to sanctify, teach and govern;
(8) Pope, Bishops and Councils; (9) The Roman Congregations; (10)
Church and Civil Society.
La Vie Catholique Dans La France Contemporaine. That a
patriotic revival was bound to be followed by a religious renaissance
is well proved by this new volume from " La Comite Catholique de
propagande Francaise a 1'etranger." These pages prove, indeed, that
the Catholic Church in France is very much alive and full of splendid
vigor and vitality. It is an historical document of the highest value,
although the tone is sometimes harsh and aggressive because written
in response to a challenge of the German Catholics. The names of
the authors, alone, who have contributed the articles which go to
make up this work is sufficient to attract attention. Amongst others, we
find Monseigneur Tissier, the heroic Bishop of Chalons, Etienne Lamy,
of 1'Academie Francaise, Henri Joly and M. Fortunat Strowski whom
students of literature will remember as the author of an excellent
volume on the history of French Literature in the Nineteenth Century.
Don Hebrard calls his work, Le Vie Creatrice, an outline of a
1919.] NEW BOOKS
263
religious philosophy of the interior life. He writes for the modern
unbeliever, striving to win him to the truth by an appeal to his reason.
He brings out clearly the necessity of religion, and insists strongly on
the dispositions of mind and heart required in the earnest seeker after
the truth. ($1.50.)
Mon Petit Pretre, by Pierre Lhande, is a delightful story of Ihe
Basque country. Its theme is a priestly vocation, fostered by a perfect
Catholic mother despite many obstacles — poverty, human affection,
and temptations against the Faith. On every page it images forth the
true ideals of the Catholic priesthood and the contemplative life of our
religious communities. (75 cents.)
The Librairie Lecoffre publishes:
La Doctrine de Vie, by R. P. Gillet. This volume like his previous
one is written in a picturesque and vivid style and responds to an
actual need. We shall not find in it a scholastic and complete exposi-
tion of Catholic doctrine nor a detailed analysis of Christian life, but
only the essential doctrine and a method of adaptation of the truth to
the general conditions of every life.
Students everywhere will welcome the Etudes de Litargie et
d'Archeologie Chretienne, nine scholarly essays on liturgical subjects,
just published by Monsignor Batiffol. He first discusses the origin
and make-up of the Roman Pontifical, tracing it back, with absolute
certainty, to the one compiled by William Durandus, auditor of the
sacred palace under Clement IV. (1265), and later on Bishop of Mende,
1292-1295. It was reedited, and made to conform with the Roman
usage by the Bishop of Pienza and Montalciro, aided by Burchard, the
prevost of the Church of St. Florent in the diocese of Strasbourg.
The succeeding essays discuss in a scholarly manner the origin of
priestly vestments: of the pallium and the procedure in early Church
Councils. The author shows in another chapter that there is no
connection between the feast of the Purification and that of the pagan
Lupercalia.
In La Guerre et la Paix (Paris : Bloud & Gay) the Reverend Father
Marcel Chossat, S. J., as a faithful disciple of the great doctors from
St. Thomas to Francis Suarez, masterfully comments and applies the
theological principles de us quse. ad bellum pertinent. Some of the
subjects discussed are: War and Human Conscience; War, Reason and
the Gospel; Christian and Pagan Ideas of War; Just War, Peace.
IRecent Events.
The Peace Conference which opened its ses-
The Peace Conference sions on the thirteenth of January dis-
patched to the German Government on the
fifteenth of April a formal invitation to send representatives to
Versailles for the meeting of the Peace Congress on April 25th.
Upon their arrival, the peace terms which have resulted from the
deliberations and investigations of these many weeks past, will be
presented to the representatives of the German Government. It
is understood that they are to have a fortnight to consider them and
lay them before their Government for acceptance or rejection.
The terms of the peace agreed upon by the Allies have not been
made public, nor will they be until they have been accepted or
rejected by the Government of Germany. This course has been
adopted as the only one likely to bring about a satisfactory con-
clusion. A public discussion in the various countries might lead
to dissension and give to Germany a leverage for effecting the
disunion which now constitutes her only hope. The terms, how-
ever, although not disclosed are, the British Premier declares,
stern but not vindictive, and will, as he also said, fully redeem all
the promises he made during the general election in January.
These promises included the payment by Germany, to the full
extent of her capacity, of the cost of the War which she forced
upon the Allies.
The Council of Four, which has taken the place of the Council
of Ten, in the supreme deliberations of the Conference, may seem
to many to have wasted time in coming to a decision. But it must
be remembered that the Council of Vienna, which had only Europe
to deal with, took eleven months to arrive at a settlement. By con-
trast the Paris Peace Conference has been rather quick in reach-
ing a conclusion. This will be the more apparent if the mul-
tiplicity of problems which it has had to settle be taken into
account. The boundaries of some ten or twelve new States have
had to be settled and their divergent claims reconciled besides all
kinds of other questions, such as the incorporation of woman
suffrage into the constitution of new States, the opium trade, the
White Slave traffic, the prohibition of alcohol and the international
regulation of labor. A curious claim was made upon the Confer-
ence for the regulation of their territorial boundaries by a peo-
ple who declared themselves to be the descendants of the Assyrians
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 265
of old. This claim is not allowed by scholars, however, although
they are willing to grant that the claimants at Paris represent a
tribe subject to the Assyrian rule.
Not only have the peace terms to be presented to Germany
been settled, but the revision of the draft of the League of
Nations has been made in such a way as will remove, it is hoped,
the objections felt in this country to the League as formerly
drafted. The Monroe Doctrine is protected against any control
of the League of Nations in any way, which would be detri-
mental to the claims of this country, and any call of the League
to wage war must be unanimous, so that America's single voice
could prevent such a call being accepted.
Events in France are not taking the course
France. its friends would desire. Not that anything
very serious has happened, but indications
are manifest that the harmony and union maintained during the
War are giving place to dissension. In the Chamber of Deputies
there have been disorderly scenes which are not creditable to a
legislative body. The most distressing event, however, is that a
Parisian jury has acquitted the murderer of the great Socialist
leader, M. Jaures. This murder it will be remembered occurred on
the eve of the War. Why the murderer was not tried before, is
a question hard to answer, and why he has now been acquitted,
is one still more unanswerable. This acquittal is looked upon by
the Socialists as a concession to the capitalists, and by the latter
is attributed to the jury's desire to belittle Jaures. The worst
feature is the fact that both sides take it for granted that the de-
cision of the jury was not given on the merits of the case, and
upon the evidence presented to it, but was due to extraneous rea-
sons which had nothing to do with the matter. That M. Caillaux
has been so long in prison without having been brought to trial,
seems to show that political influences, and not strict justice, de-
cide questions which should be left to the. courts. Bolo Pasha and
others have been tried and their sentences carried out, while M.
Caillaux, probably the most guilty of all, has so far escaped.
Within the last few weeks France has been severely criticized
as if she were seeking to inflict upon Germany terms of peace of
too great severity. She has even been accused of desiring terri-
torial aggrandizement. These criticisms, however, are without
foundation. Her position as a neighbor of Germany, a country
with a population which will soon be twice that of France, renders
necessary safeguards adequate for her protection. The more so
as the League of Nations does not provide for the standing army
266 RECENT EVENTS [May,
France wished to have a feature of the League. Therefore, she
demands in the first place military security, and this cannot be
had unless Germany is excluded from the west bank of the Rhine.
German military writers can be found who are in complete agree-
ment on this point. Indeed, the whole teaching of the German
General Staff shows that Germany's power of aggression depends
upon the tremendous railway system, of a military nature, she
has built up on that bank, and that system, in turn, is entirely
dependent upon the rapidity with which troops can be moved
across the Rhine throughout its frontier length. The demand for
the Saar district is justified by the necessity for compensating
France for the devastation wrought in the coal mines at Lens
and in French Lorraine. Germany, as is now well known, de-
liberately laid waste these mines so that it will not be possible
to work them for years to come.
The affairs of Poland have formed the sub-
Poland, ject of anxious debates in the Peace Con-
ference. The Premier, M. Paderewski,
went in person to the Conference to appeal for a settlement in
regard to Danzig. It is claimed that its possession is absolutely
necessary for the commercial prosperity and independence of
Poland. On the other hand the giving of it to Poland contravenes
the self-determining rights of the city and district, as the major-
ity of the inhabitants are undoubtedly German. The settlement
is believed to have been reached by the internationalization of
Danzig. This like so many other "settlements" is not at all
certain. The project of bringing the fifty thousand Polish troops,
who have been serving in France under the command of General
Haller, by way of Danzig into Poland has been abandoned, Ger-
many having consented to their being brought by rail. These
troops will form Poland's defence against the threatened attack
by Russian Bolshevists. M. Paderewski seems to have met with
the complete support of all the various political parties in Poland.
Indeed, it was with great difficulty that he obtained permission
to go to Paris. The struggle with Bolshevism is proving success-
ful, at least with the Russian Bolshevism which Lenine and
Trotzky are seeking to impose upon Poland. It is not quite so
sure that internal Bolshevism is no longer a danger. There are
those who assert that Poland may become at any moment the
victim of this malady. That five millions of Poles are on the
verge of starvation is the chief cause for this apprehension.
Since food is beginning to arrive from this country, it is to be
hoped that this peril may be averted, as also the danger that
1919.] RECENT EVENTS
Poland might seek her salvation in alliance with Germany. The
long continued conflict with the Ukrainians for the possession of
Eastern Galicia, and especially for the possession of Lemberg,
has been brought to an end by an armistice between the contend-
ing parties. This has further contributed to the amelioration of
the Polish situation.
The most important event which has taken
Hungary. place since the notes of last month were
written is the revolution which has been
accomplished in Hungary. This revolution is important in itself,
and perhaps even more important in the effects it may produce
upon the rest of Europe. By it Bolshevism has broken through
the line drawn for it by the Peace .Conference. In no case have
the indecisions and delays of the Peace Conference brought about
such detrimental results as in its dealings with the problem of
Russia. In fact indecision and the delay consequent upon in-
decision have characterized the Allies in their dealings with
Bolshevism from the very beginning. This delay, it must be
admitted, is largely due to President Wilson's hesitation. For a
long time he refused to cooperate with the Allies in sending an
Expeditionary Force to Russia to free its people from the odious
usurpation of power by the government of Lenine and Trotzky.
Even when this expedition was resolved upon, the force sent was
so inadequate as to be unable to cope successfully with the armies
of the Moscow Government. The first sessions of the Peace Con-
ference were concerned with this problem, but no decision was
arrived at, no adequate steps were taken, and the inept proposal
made to hold a conference with the Bolsheviki at Prince's Island
fell through. The result was that Russia was practically deserted
and the Bolsheviki left to dominate the country behind a line,
not very clearly drawn, stretching from the Baltic to the Black
Sea. The Hungarian Revolution has broken through this line,
and organized Bolshevism has now reached the borders of Ger-
man Austria, the Czecho-Slovak State, as also the Kingdom of the
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
As a consequence of the defeat of the Central Powers,
Hungary has suffered more than any other of the nation-
alities which form a part of the Hapsburg dominion. Internally
she has been torn by disorders which bordered on anarchy, and
externally she has been stripped by her neighbors of large tracts
of territory to the north, east and west. When the Conference
at Paris demanded of the Karolyi Government that upon her
eastern border, between what had been left of Hungary and
268 RECENT EVENTS [May,
Transylvania, a wide stretch of territory should be neutralized, the
Provisional President felt the cup was full and he could not be
responsible for the sacrifice demanded. He thereupon resigned
his position and transferred the government to the Communistic
Party which had become so strong. This party at once, and
quite readily, accepted the charge and has proceeded to organize
the country on lines modeled after the Soviet regime in Russia. A
Bolshevik Cabinet was formed. This Cabinet, following genuine
Bolshevist principles, declared a dictatorship of the proletariat
for the whole of Hungary, without waiting for the expression of
the will of the people by any constitutional method. It called
upon them, however, to aid in the establishment of Socialism and
the freedom of the country. Proprio motu, it proceeded at once to
decree the socialization of large properties, mines, big industries,
banks and other commercial enterprises. Far-reaching as was this
socialization, the new government hesitated to extend it to the
ownership of land. This was not to be partitioned but was to be
cultivated by socialistic organization and trade unions. All
opposition to the new decrees is to be ruthlessly punished and
iron discipline exercised over all who offer opposition. An army
is to be raised which, according to subsequent accounts, has
already attained a fair size.
Following upon these decrees socializing commerce, the new
government, at its second meeting, abolished all ranks and titles;
separated the Church from the State; abolished all compulsory
taxes for ecclesiastical and church purposes. Although not en-
acted into law, proposals were made to set up a special court for
the trial of all who resisted the edicts of the new ministers who
call themselves, as in Russia, commissaries of the people. Pro-
hibition of the sale of alcohol is among the projected reforms.
The decree of socialization was immediately put into effect by the
seizure of all financial institutions. These were placed under the
management of persons chosen by the new government.
As to its foreign policy, the Hungarian Cabinet, without de-
lay, declared its purpose of uniting itself with the government
of Lenine and Trotzky. It even placed itself and the country un-
der the protection of the Russian Bolsheviki, and appealed to the
workingmen of all Europe to ally themselves in the same cause.
Thus from the West they made an appeal to the East, and received
from Lenine the promise of help and succor. In Germany also
this appeal met with a favorable response from the Independent
Socialists and the Spartacides. The other parties made it the
occasion of addressing a warning to the Allies that if onerous
peace terms were imposed on Germany they would be rejected,
1919.] RECENT EVENTS
269
and an alliance would be formed for the subversion of the Western
Powers by the united forces of Bolshevism. The effects of the
Hungarian Revolution in spreading the principles of Bolshevism
into German Austria are not yet apparent. This is due to the fact
that this Republic is now receiving from this country and the
Allies supplies of food which would be cut off were it to adhere
to the programme of the Hungarians. It is believed, however,
that, were it not for this, a similar revolution might have taken
place there. In Bavaria, the government established since
the assassination of Kurt Eisner, has been overthrown, and a
Soviet regime has been inaugurated. In several other towns Soviet
governments have been established. The revolution however is
not extended throughout the whole country, the overturned Cabi-
net having withdrawn to Bamberg, while the peasants are offer-
ing effective opposition to the Soviet rule which has been estab-
lished in Munich.
So far the Hungarian appeal does not appear to have met with
any reply, at least in action, from Rumania, Bulgaria or Greece,
although fears are entertained that sooner or later it may be
heeded in these countries.
Upon the Peace Conference, sitting at Paris, the Hungarian
revolution produced something like a panic. For weeks it had
been attempting to attain ideal solutions of practical questions —
questions which could not be solved in a way to satisfy everybody.
Committees had been appointed to settle boundary questions.
Their reports had been received and sent back for revision time
after time and decision seemed to be as remote as ever. Then the
Hungarian revolution came, It was a clear and open rebellion
against the authorities sitting in Paris, inasmuch as, by the con-
ditions of the armistice, settlements had been reserved to the peace
delegates. The revolution owed its origin to the determination
of the Hungarian Government to defy the one decision which had
been reached on the question of boundaries. Thereupon it was
said that military action would be taken to bring Hungary to
terms and that General Mangin would be sent to take charge of an
expedition. This proved to be only rumor, for it was General
Smuts who was commissioned to go to Budapest. The purpose of
his going is not clear, for it is certain he was not in command
of any army. The result of his visit, so far as has been disclosed,
is that the new Hungarian Cabinet looks upon itself as having
been recognized by the Allies. With this exception the relation
between Hungary and the Allies seems to have remained un-
changed.
Of the other States sprung from the ruins of the Dual Mon-
270 RECENT EVENTS [May,
archy there is little to relate. The CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC seems
to remain in a state of quiet consolidation and to be resisting all
attempts of its neighbors to bring about disturbances. A plot
made by German Austrians in union with abettors, in Saxony,
was frustrated before it had time to take active steps. This is not
to say that everything has prospered in CZECHO-SLOVAKIA. It
is still suffering from the ill-treatment of its Austrian overlords
during the War. Although the need of food is not so common
as in Poland, large numbers are suffering from privation and
appeals have been made for help for them similar to that given to
Poland. The GERMAN-AUSTRIAN REPUBLIC remains much in the
same state, the only change which has taken place being a re-
arrangement of the Cabinet. It is in a somewhat strange posi-
tion for, although it has a Cabinet with a premier, it is without a
president. This may be because it is looking forward to amal-
gamation with Germany. Negotiations having this in view have
been going on but the results have not, as yet, been disclosed.
The Allies have been more lenient to this State than they have been
to Germany, inasmuch as they have sent considerable supplies
of food there. The KINGDOM OF THE SERBS, CROATS AND SLOVENES
has not yet been formally recognized by any of the Great Powers.
Greece in iact is the only State that has given formal recognition
to the new kingdom. Rumors were current that the king had
abdicated and that this, the only kingdom among the new States,
was to be a republic. There seems to be no foundation for this
report, but it is feared that Bolshevism, the enemy that is dreaded
everywhere, will attempt to penetrate within its borders. The
controversy with Italy about the possession of Fiume reached a
point so acute that there was danger of open hostilities, nor can
the question be said to be settled. The fear that the Peace Confer-
ence was on the point of giving that city to the Jugo-Slavs almost
led to the breaking-up of the Conference, so far, at least, as Italy's
concurrence was concerned.
Of the twenty-two republics into which the
Germany. former German Empire has been reorgan-
ized, Prussia and Bavaria are the chief cen-
tres of interest. The former kingdom of Prussia now forms a
republic with a cabinet mainly consisting of Majority Socialists,
who represent that form of Socialism which is also predominant
in the National Assembly recently elected. However moderate
this form of Socialism may be, the Prussian Cabinet proceeded by
an executive decree to ordain the break-up of large family estates
and the dissolution of entails by April 1, 1921, a severe blow to
1919.] RECENT EVENTS
271
the junkerdom which has held sway for so long over the political
and economic interests of Prussia. If large estates are not volun-
tarily broken up within the next two years, the State will do
so compulsorily. The arbitrary manner of this decree indicates
the masterful spirit of socia *tic methods, for as the Prussian
National Assembly consists of one hundred and sixty-nine
Socialists, eighty-eight members of the Centre, sixty-five Demo-
crats and seventy-three more or less Conservative members,
it would have been easy for this land reform to have been affected
in a constitutional way. The new ordinance immediately
affects about five million, acres. The effect of the decree will be
the allocation to peasants of sufficient land for the maintenance of
a man and his household.
The Coalition Government established at Munich, after the as-
sassination of Kurt Eisner, of which Herr Hoffmann, a Moderate
Socialist, was the Premier, maintained itself in existence more or
less quietly for a longer time than was expected. However, when
the revolution took place in Hungary and formed a Soviet gov-
ernment there, the Bolsheviki of Munich took heart and expelled
the Moderate Socialists. The latter, however, did not acquiesce in
their loss of power and migrated to Bamberg where they con-
tinued to exercise their authority. Recent accounts state that
they are contesting the possession of Munich with the Soviet Gov-
ernment— whether with success or not is not decided at this writ-
ing. The peasants, also, in various districts throughout Bavaria
have refused to submit to the new Soviet Government and have
risen against it — whether in cooperation with the Hoffmann Gov-
ernment or not, is not stated. It would, indeed, be disastrous if,
after having obtained power in Hungary, the Bolsheviki should
so easily extend their project of world domination to such a
civilized country as Bavaria.
During the short existence of Herr Hoffmann's Cabinet, bills
were introduced into the Bavarian Diet abolishing the system of
family entails and nobility and prohibiting the granting of new
rights of inheritance.
Herr Scheidemann's Government of the new German Re-
public, which has replaced the former German Imperial Cabinet,
has met with much opposition throughout all Germany, but,
contrary to the expectations of many, has remained in power.
Nor have there been any changes in its constitution, with the ex-
ception of the accession to its numbers of Herr David, the former
Vice-President of the National Assembly, and the resignation of the
Minister of Finance, Dr. Shiffer. This resignation is ascribed to
the dissatisfaction felt by the Financial Minister with the measures
272 RECENT EVENTS [May,
of socialization which are being promoted by the Government.
Among the changes of personnel may be noted the fact that Herr
Erzberger has been excluded from the number of the delegates
who are to go to the Conference for the settlement of the Peace
Treaty. That the Cabinet of Herr Scheidemann has remained in
power is not due to lack of opposition. Many attempts have been
made throughout the country to overthrow it. In Berlin, the Ruhr
District, Magdeburg and many other places, strikes have taken
place with the avowed object of overturning the Government. It
has been obliged to use the military forces still at its disposal in
order to quell the violent uprisings that have taken place. In conse-
quence, although still in existence, its life is regarded as pre-
carious, although it is hoped that no change will be made before
the Treaty of Peace is signed, which is a necessary preliminary for
the restoration of normal conditions.
The chief question at issue during the last few weeks has
been a way to satisfy the claims of the Workers' and Soldiers'
Councils which came into being at the beginning of the revolution.
These Councils wish to maintain their present powers in the
new organization upon which the National Assembly is work-
ing, and to form a branch of the Legislature which is to be estab-
lished. This Legislature was to consist of a House of Depu-
ties and a Senate. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils demanded
that they should form a third branch of the Legislature. To this
the Cabinet offered strenuous opposition. It was willing to give
them control of economic affairs, yet was unwilling to share with
them political power; but the Cabinet's opposition seems to have
been overcome, and if the present project goes through, the
Workers' and Soldiers' Councils will be so organized as to form
a third legislative house. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils
will therefore be laid down in the constitution as economic repre-
sentatives of labor. Although the Government is represented
as moderately Socialist, an Emergency Bill, recently brought in
by it scarcely gives evidence of moderation. This bill lays down
the principles of socialization for the coal industry and is to be
applied ultimately to all industries. Labor, it is declared, is the
nation's highest economic asset; every German is guaranteed the
possibility of earning his livelihood by means of work suited to
his capabilities; in the event of his not being able to obtain work
he is to receive maintenance out of public funds; the Government
of the Republic is to take over the control of all economic under-
takings and values, especially mineral resources and natural
energies; to regulate the production and distribution of economic
goods for the benefit of the Republic; businesses are to be
\.
\
RECENT EVENTS 273
conducted by self-governing economic bodies, these bodies to be
under the superintendence of the Republic: the exploitation of
fuel substances, water-power, and other natural sources of energy
are to be regulated by law; and a beginning is to be made with the
coal industry.
While the Government was able, by the use of the military, to
restore order in Berlin, the movement towards extreme Socialism
has not been checked, as is proved by the fact that the Workers'
and Soldiers' Councils have succeeded in obtaining the recognized
place they demanded in the constitutional organization of the
country, and by the socialization of industries which has been
begun. But whether there will be any definite organization at all
of the new Germany seems doubtful, in the light of events which
have occurred within the last few days. A general strike has be-
gun again in Berlin which paralyzes all business there, and
Munich is said to be in a state of chaos : robbers are looting the
banks and general disorganization reigns. Thoughtful Germans
have resigned themselves to a period of chaos, if not of anarchy,
and look forward to a future of more or less long continued dis-
order, out of which they hope may emerge finally a reestablish-
ment of stable conditions. The fact that four millions of work-
ingmen are said to be out of employment adds immensely to the
difficulties of the situation, while the payment given by the Gov-
ernment to those who are out of work, amounting, as it does, to
more than they could possibly earn, tends to increase the num-
bers of non-workers. This has gone so far, there is possible dan-
ger that the industrious habits which have hitherto characterized
the working classes of Germany may be destroyed. Meanwhile
the Committee for drafting a new constitution works on steadily,
but the accounts of the outcome of their work are very meagre.
A senate is to form a part of the new legislature, whose members
are to be elected by universal suffrage, one member being chosen
for each one million voters, with various adjustments for the dif-
ferent States. The constitution embodies the rights accorded to
the workers, on an equal footing with the employers, to col-
laborate in the fixing of wages, the settling of questions of labor
conditions and in the entire development of the productive force.
They are also to have legal representatives in all industrial coun-
cils, including the Imperial Labor Council.
A further provision, which has been adopted, decrees the
separation of Church and State, without, however, abrogating the
legal observance of Sunday.
While the Spartacides and Extreme Socialists have so far been
the chief cause of unsettlement, the fact must not be overlooked
VOL. CJX. — 18
274 RECENT EVENTS [May,
that there are still royalists in Germany, a thing not to be won-
dered at considering the suddenness of the revolution. Their
number has been estimated, more or less inaccurately, as one in
five of the population. Attachment to the Hohenzollerns exists
especially among the peasantry; and demonstrations of this
attachment are made from time to time. Even General Ludendorff
who soon after the outbreak of the revolution had to flee the coun-
try, soon after his return met with a demonstration in the streets
of Berlin. The fact that the Government has been obliged fre-
quently to use the military for the suppression of the Spartacides
tends to reinstate it in the approval of the public. This, naturally,
causes a reversion towards the old order, when the military were
supreme.
While the power of Lenine and Trotzky
Russia. within the region over which they have
control, is said to be on the point of col-
lapse, owing to the failure of their socialization methods, the
Russian territory over which they hold sway has been much
augmented. The French who have been operating in the Ukraine
with a Greek force, have been driven back and forced to evac-
uate the city of Odessa. This Bolshevist success has put them
in possession of the most fertile district in all Russia. Whether
the whole of the Ukraine has been conquered by them cannot be
said with certainty. No account has been received of General Petlura
who, for so long a time, has been fighting against them. Further
successes have been scored by the forces of Lenine and Trotzky
in their conflict with the Don Cossacks, and the whole of Southern
Russia is now in their possession. To the North also they have
driven back the Allied forces for forty miles, although they are
still more than a hundred miles from Archangel. In the Mur-
mansk District, the Allied forces have found themselves in so pre-
carious a position that they were in danger of being annihilated.
Great Britain has been forced to send reinforcements to save the
situation. On the other hand, the Lithuanians and Esthonians
have driven back the Bolshevist invaders of their country and
have successfully carried the conflict some little distance into
Russian territory. The Poles have, at least, held their own. The
Omsk Government, also, has had some notable successes against
the forces of Lenine and Trotzky, and has retaken Ufa which,
some time ago, it was forced to abandon. On the whole, however,
the Bolshevist power seems to have extended. The fact that
Hungary has adopted their principles and that possibly Bavaria
may also become a Soviet Government, makes the dreaded spread
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 275
of Bolshevism a matter of great anxiety. On this account the Asso-
ciated Powers decided to send food to Russia under neutral control.
They are doing this with the hope of saving the millions of people
who are in danger of starvation, owing to the Bolshevist socializa-
tion schemes. In this way they hope to save, at least, the bet-
ter classes of Bussia from starvation. It is to be feared, however,
that by one way alone could Bussia have been saved, and that the
Allies refused to adopt: to send a sufficient body of troops to put
down the usurped power now controlling a large part of Bussia.
The magnitude of this task appalled the Allies. They contented
themselves with undertaking to defend the small countries which
have been formed out of the Austrian Empire. This defence has
now been broken down by the spread of Bolshevism into Hungary.
The misery wrought by the Soviet Government of Bussia within
the territory under its control, has by no means diminished
Lenine's desire to extend to the whole world the methods of gov-
ernment which have proved so disastrous at home. He has organ-
ized at Moscow a Council to take control of the Proletariat gov-
ernments which he hopes will be formed in every country, and
has appointed commissioners to carry these projects into effect.
The money formerly belonging to the Imperial Government, which
was seized on his advent into power, and that derived from the
confiscation of the capital of the rich, is being used to send agents
to every part of the world to promulgate Bolshevist principles.
He does not, indeed, always advocate the same " rough " methods
as were adopted in Bussia, for he has sent word to the Hungarian
Government to act more gently in the establishment of Bolshevism
there. It is a fact to be reckoned with that an organized body is
actively at work in every country to establish a despotism worse
than any the world has ever seen.
April 17, 1919.
With Our Readers.
EVERY aspiration after Christian unity is good and praise-
worthy. Christ is one Divine Person, true God and true Man,
and unity is His attribute, as it is the attribute of God Himself.
Christ Our Lord knew the definite truth of God and came to reveal
it to men.
* * * *
THE revelations of His mind are the revelations of God's own
mind: as eternally true and unchangeable as God Himself.
Unity with Christ is a unity with a living Person, and the first
condition of it is, as St. Paul says, the bringing into captivity our
understanding unto the obedience of Christ. The true Christian
thinks with Christ: his faith is an echo of the mind of Christ as
the latter is of God. Christ came to teach all truth — that is every
cardinal truth which concerns the personal responsibility of the
individual to God: of man's eternal relations with his Creator:
of the help, power and grace which God would give and which
would be necessary for man to attain the life to which he was
destined.
* * * *
THE end and purpose of man's life is not a creation of his own
fancy but an end and purpose which have been placed by God.
The truth of God — and that truth, even as it concerns man, is not
a subject of man's creation nor of man's imagination: it is God re-
vealing Himself, to which revelation every mind must bow.
The actual approach to Christian unity can only be made with
this fundamental consideration as a guiding star. One must seek
and accept the mind of Christ. Now that mind cannot surely be
our mind any more than we ourselves tan be Christ. It can be
our mind only inasmuch as we have made His mind our own:
as we have accepted the definite truth He taught, which is in-
dependent of us, which would be the same whether we ever knew
of it or not. Our mind can be His only when we have accepted that
truth in all its parts, and have made ourselves obedient to it. The
mind of the Church is, as St. Paul tells us, the mind of Christ. The
Church is the living visible body of which Christ is the invisible
but true head. It teaches only through His power : yet it does teach.
It is the pillar and ground of truth : it is sent to teach all nations :
and Christ is with it, so that error will never prevail against it.
Let us look back to the time when our Blessed Lord, liv-
1919.] WITH OUR READERS
277
ing in the flesh, was visible to men. He demanded of men that
they should accept His teaching without question. That teach-
ing was difficult, mysterious at times, almost inexplicable to His
hearers. He covered in it all the relations between man and
God, between the individual and the Creator. It shocked and it
bewildered His hearers. It was such a synthesis of truth, as they
knew it, and such a comprehensive revelation of the supernatural
with the unique claim of being the only creed that would save
mankind that He Who preached it and demanded the full obedi-
ence of every man to it, was denied and crucified.
Let us imagine what would have been the attitude of Our
Blessed Lord if the different sects among the Jews had replied
to His teaching, and said that while they granted He had a portion
of the truth, He had no exclusive claim to it. They, so the argu-
ment might run, had been studying the sacred books for years:
the psalms, the prophecies, the teachings of Israel: they had,
according to their own lights, striven to find the truth. That
truth could not be the possession of one man or one body of men.
Would it not be best, indeed would it not be obligatory, to take as
a common basis a common attitude of reverence and love for God,
and all confer together, each yielding something: none insisting
upon any special dogma: and all eventually coming to an agree-
ment as to what they thought the truth of God to be.
It were blasphemy even to ask what the attitude of Christ,
the Son of God, would be. No man ever loved His own as did our
Blessed Lord, yet that very love was founded upon the eternal
dogmatic truth which He knew from the Father, and which was
both the expression and the reason of His Father's love and of His
own love and sacrifice for men.
* * * *
ONE must keep before his mind this supreme truth of Christ's
divine Person if he is ever to walk safely amid the mazes of
this modern question of Christian unity. In talking of the unity
let him not forget the Christ. And he must likewise remember
that because Christ is a Divine Person He is the living Christ. He
speaks, acts, guides His living Church today as He founded and
guided her almost two thousand years ago.
The secret and the basis of unity is not human good will.
That may open the approach to it but it can never create it. The
desire essentially demands something outside of itself — and that
something is the truth of Christ. To think that it can be pro-
duced by conferences, by pleasant deliberations, is to empty Christ
of all personal worth, to rob Him of any mind of His own, and
to force into Him our own conclusions and our own opinions.
278 WITH OUR READERS [May,
Instead of the Son of God coming down to teach us, it is as if we
were to ask the Son of God to come to our deliberations and accept
our conclusions because they were the best in the light of modern
progress and scientific investigation and economic research that
we could reach, and yet keep our good will one to another.
* # * *
THE world has recently realized that there are certain im-
mutable laws of justice and of right, which are above all peo-
ples and all nations. The acceptance and observance of them are
necessary for any people's peace and any nation's salvation. A
conference that would seek to rewrite them or reconsider them
could today find no meeting place. They are not to be changed
by human will nor to be interpreted to special needs or special am-
bitions. They are imposed with a supreme unquestioning power
upon all : and all must accept, and in the acceptance and obedience
all will find their peace and their national honor and security.
In like manner the truth of Christ is not from us but from
above. It is imposed upon us and we must accept it. It does not
arise from human good will: but human good will is born of it.
When the Truth was born, and not till then, did the angels an-
nounce the advent of peace.
* * * *
EVERY attempt at Christian unity that is not inspired by
this cardinal principle is doomed to failure. And because the
Catholic Church holds to the principle, indeed, because the prin-
ciple is her very life as it is the life of Christ Himself, the recent
pronouncement from the Holy Father of his attitude towards the
proposed Pan-Christian Congress will be very clear.
* * * *
THE Holy Father stated that the Church could not join as one
of many organizations in such a congress, and referred to
the pronouncements made by his illustrious predecessor Leo
XIII. In the latter's Encyclical on the The Unit of the Church we
read :
" It is so evident from the clear and frequent testimonies of
Holy Writ that the true Church of Jesus Christ is one, that no
Christian can dare to deny it. But in judging and determining
the nature of this unity many have erred in various ways. Not
the foundation of the Church alone, but its whole constitution,
belongs to the class of things effected by Christ's free choice. For
this reason the entire case must be judged by what was actually
done. We must consequently investigate not how the Church may
possibly be one, but how He, who founded it, willed that it should
be one.
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 279
" But when we consider what was actually done we find that
Jesus Christ did not, in point of fact, institute a Church to em-
brace several communities similar in nature, but in themselves
distinct, and lacking those bonds which render the Church unique
and indivisible after that manner in which in the symbol of our
faith we profess : * I believe in one Church.'
" The Church in respect of its unity belongs to the category of
things indivisible by nature, though heretics try to divide it into
many parts. . . . We say, therefore, that the Catholic Church is
unique in its essence, in its doctrine, in its origin, and in its ex-
cellence. . . . Furthermore, the eminence of the Church arises
from its unity, as the principle of its constitution — a unity sur-
passing all else, and having nothing like unto it or equal to it.1
For this reason Christ, speaking of this mystical edifice, mentions
only one Church, which He calls His own — * I will build My
Church;' any other Church except this one, since it has not been
founded by Christ, cannot be the true Church. This becomes even
more evident when the purpose of the divine Founder is con-
sidered. For what did Christ the Lord ask? What did He wish
in regard to the Church founded, or about to be founded? This:
to transmit to it the same mission and the same mandate which
He had received from the Father, that they should be perpetuated.
This He clearly resolved to do: this He actually did. As the
Father hath sent Me, I also send you.2 As thou hast sent Me into
the world I also have sent them into the world.3
" But the mission of Christ is to save that which had perished;
that is to say, not some nations or peoples, but the whole human
race, without distinction of time or place. The Son of Man came
that the world might be saved by Him.4 For there is no other
name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.5
The Church, therefore, is bound to communicate without stint
to all men, and to transmit through all ages, the salvation effected
by Jesus Christ, and the blessing flowing therefrom. Wherefore,
by the will of its Founder, it is necessary that this Church should
be one in all lands and at all times. To justify the existence of
more than one Church it would be necessary to go outside this
world, and to create a new and unheard-of race of men.
" Furthermore, the Son of God decreed that the Church should
be His mystical body, with which He should be united as the head,
after the manner of the human body which He assumed, to which
the natural head is physiologically united. As He took to Himself
a mortal body which He gave to suffering and death in order to
1 St. Clemens Alexandrinus. Stromatum. lib. viii., c. 17.
'John xx. 21. 'John xvli. 18. * John iii. 17. • Acts iv. 12.
280 WITH OUR READERS [May,
pay the price of man's redemption, so also He has one mystical
body in which and through which He renders men partakers of
holiness and of eternal salvation. God hath made Him (Christ)
head over all the Church, which is His body.6 Scattered and
separated members cannot possible cohere with the head so as to
make one body. But St. Paul says: All the members of the body,
whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ.7 Where-
fore this mystical body, he declares, is compacted and fitly joined
together. The head, Christ: from whom the whole body, being
compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth,
according to the operation in the measure of every part.8 And so
dispersed members, separated one from the other, cannot be united
with one and the same head. * There is one God, and one Christ;
and His Church is one and the faith is one; and one the people,
joined together in the solid unity of the body in the bond of con-
cord. This unity cannot be broken, nor the one body divided by
the separation of its constituent parts.'9 And to set forth more
clearly the unity of the Church, he makes use of the illustration
of a living body, the members of which cannot possibly live unless
united to the head and drawing from it their vital force. Separated
from the head they must of necessity die. The Church, he says,
' cannot be divided into parts by the separation and cutting asun-
der of its members. What is cut away from the mother cannot
live or breathe apart.' 10 What similiarity is there between a dead
and a living body? For no man ever hated his own flesh, but
nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church: be-
cause we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.11
" Another head like to Christ must be invented — that is, an-
other Christ — if besides the one Church, which is His body, men
wish to set up another.
" But He, indeed, Who made this one Church, also gave it
unity, that is, He made it such that all who are to belong to it
must be united by the closest bonds, so as to form one society,
one kingdom, one body — one body and one spirit, as you are
called in one hope of your calling12 Jesus Christ, when His death
was nigh at hand, declared His will in this matter, and solemnly
offered it up, thus addressing His Father: Not for them only do
I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in
Me . . . that they also may be one in Us . . . that they may be made
perfect in one.13 Yea, He commanded that this unity should be
so closely knit and so perfect amongst His followers that it might,
9 Eph. i. 22, 23. » 1 Cor. xii. 12. 8 Eph. iv. 15, 16.
• St. Cyprlanus, De Cath. Eccl. Unitate, n. 23. 10 Ibid.
11 Eph. v. 29, 30. » Eph. iv. 4. l3 John xvli. 20, 21, 23.
1919.] WITH OUR READERS
281
in some measure, shadow forth the union between Himself and
His Father : / pray that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in
Me, and I in Thee." 14
* * *
ATHOLIC dogma is the truth of Christ. To empty Christianity
of creed and of dogma is simply to throw to the winds any hope
of knowing the mind of Christ. Yet the various advertisements
from non-Catholic sources that speak of Christian unity are con-
stantly repudiating doctrine, hoping perhaps to win the favorable
ear of a world that has lost the true meaning of dogma. Dogma
with most non-Catholics means a ruling that has been declared to
be the truth of Christ by some conference representing a certain
body of believers, and that had no authority except what they con-
ferred upon themselves or what those who elected them conferred.
For example, the old Presbyterian formula that taught the dam-
nation of unbaptized infants: or the formula of the Disciples of
Christ that demands as a sine qua non of Church membership
baptism by immersion. Dogma is robbed, in their minds, of the
divine dignity of Christian truth because it has been the plaything
of merely human discussion and merely human debate.
* * * *
FOR example, one of the latest bulletins of The World Confer-
ence on Truth and Order declares in approving tones that the
chaplains at the front have had no time " to study heresies buried
centuries ago in tomes now thick with dust." Evidently the older
Christians who deplored such heresies had little appreciation of
Christian unity. In the very next sentence the circular speaks
of the fundamental Christian truth that " God came in the Per-
son of His Son." Evidently, then, Athanasius had some idea of
Christian unity when he destroyed the heresy that would have
taken this truth from the souls of men. The circular is not honest
in that it gives the impression that " the chaplains " — one would
think all the chaplains — were so carried away by a notion of
Christian unity as to be willing to waive all differences in order to.
attain it.
The Christian Century states that there has been a " growth
leading away from sacramentarianism (sic) to greater spirit-
uality." " Many of the free churches have left creeds behind alto-
gether, insisting upon the right of each congregation to formulate
a statement of the faith that unites the believers into one body.
Any kind of union that will betray the cause of progress in religion
to the forces of reaction will not in the long run provide a basis for
union."
"Ibid., 21.
282 WITH OUR READERS [May,
Of late there has been an endeavor by certain members of the
Episcopal Church and others of the Congregational Church to
agree upon a plan of union. It is asked that Congregational min-
isters shall agree to be reordained by an Episcopal bishop. The
former are in turn freed from being obliged to follow any require-
ment of the Prayer Book or of submitting to the canons of the
Episcopal Church.
Such a combination begets ethical difficulties. It was asked
" does it in any way detract from the solemnity and sincerity of
the act of reordination when the man who receives it and the man
who administers it differ widely as to the precise significance of
the act." And one of the Episcopalian members answered, say-
ing that " there was no deception : that the differences were
known to ordained and ordainer: the result is an enlargement of
Christian service." The utterly un-Christian ethics of such a pro-
ceeding must be apparent to anyone who has not obscured the
vision of his soul by substituting the cloud of compromise for the
white light of truth. No normal man would ever make the
absence of deception synonymous with morality. The boy knew
he was stealing and the man who gave him the coat knew he was
giving something which he had no right to give — therefore the
good will engendered between the boy and the man would mean
" an enlargement of Christian service." Such is the reasoning of
the Episcopalian rejoinder. Yet the Churchman states with re-
gard to the proposed agreement that " neither side is asked to
sacrifice anything which ought to do violence to conscience or
conviction."
IT is ever a source of hope to see the non-Catholic bodies holding
fast to something of Christian truth. In justice to Christian
optimism it should be said that it is good to see a Christian body
standing for the necessity of an episcopate and of the sacraments :
of a Church Universal. That they do not answer these questions
definitely and tell us what is an episcopate: what is the Church
Universal : what is the sacrament of the Last Supper is due more
to their inability than to their unwillingness. Perhaps even the
remembrance of those necessities will lead them finally to an
acceptance of the reality.
* * * *
THE Encyclicals of Leo XIII., the pronouncements of our
present Holy Father defend and present fully and emphatic-
ally the position of the Catholic Church. It is a position known
of all men and known through all the centuries. Christ could dc-
WITH OUR READERS 283
clare the love of the Father because He knew the truth of God.
And the Church, only because she possesses that same truth today
can, with meaning and with hope for all, declare her abiding love
for her own, and for those separated from her. This is her prayer
for Christian unity:
"Do Thou, above all, O Saviour and Father of mankind,
Christ Jesus, hasten and do not delay to bring about what Thou
didst once promise to do — that when lifted up from the earth
Thou wouldst draw all things to Thyself. Come, then, at last, and
manifest Thyself to the immense multitude of souls who have not
felt, as yet, the ineffable blessings which Thou hast earned for
men with Thy blood; rouse those who are sitting in darkness and
in the shadow of death, that, enlightened by the rays of Thy wis-
dom and virtue, in Thee and by Thee, they may be made perfect in-
one.
THE honest labor for Christian unity by those outside the Church
will by the Church be encouraged and helped in every pos-
sible way. She has no desire to impute bad faith where there is no
bad faith. She is ready to take every endeavor — however mis-
taken— to be what it claims to be, a sincere effort for wider
Christian unity. And she not only asks but she demands that
the spirit of fraternal charity and fraternal love that prompt her
every word and pronouncement concerning non-Catholics be the
spirit that shall prevail among all men.
THE desire to possess the unity of Christ is ever to be en-
couraged. And equally to be deplored is that ungracious, un-
Christian spirit often manifested by those who speak for Chris-
tian unity, of maligning and misrepresenting the Catholic religion.
It reaches unfortunately farther than we might think. It is not
to be expected that those who differ with us should agree with us.
It is to be expected that they shall not misrepresent us or lie about
us. Yet in many of the meetings that have been held to gather
together the one hundred millions of dollars for many of the Prot-
estant denominations, the speakers have not hesitated to defame
the Catholic religion: to claim that the time has come for the re-
demption of Europe: that now the true light of the Gospel must
be carried to them who have so long sat in darkness : that as Prot-
estantism overthrew kings (no religious denomination ever fixed
them so safely on their thrones) so now must it overthrow priests
and hierarchies. To carry this religious war into Europe, Ameri-
cans are asked to contribute one hundred millions of dollars : the
284 WITH OUR READERS [May,
placards advertising it are full posters showing a meek, loving
Christ looking over the world.
* * * *
SURELY those who put into such a campaign the animus of anti-
Catholic feeling are sowing the seeds not of peace but of dis-
cord. They are planting hatred of America abroad when it is most
necessary that America have the good will of all. They are neither
American nor Christian. Why ask America to help them rob of
their faith the people of France and of Italy?
They have gained entrance and hearing and welcome because
of our entry into the War. Shall they under the cloak of peace
scatter the seeds of discord? And, claiming that Protestantism
alone can be the religion of the League of Nations, disown their
Catholic brothers, equal in courage and sacrifice? America will
not permit it. We believe that such speeches and such plans
represent the small minority, and yet the declarations have been
public enough and frequent enough to merit repudiation by the
official bodies of the organizations which the speakers claim to
represent.
HRISTIAN unity is fed by the spirit of Christian charity. What
Christ taught is the salvation of the world. For those who be-
lieve in all or any of His teachings there was never greater need of
standing together in a Christian union, every part of which should
do its best to beat back the waves of irreligion, of immorality, and
of anarchy.
PERHAPS one of the most touching and effective examples of
Christian charity to be found in history is that recorded of
Blessed Thomas More in the conclusion of his speech after he was
condemned to death by a " packed " jury.
"More have I to say, my Lords, but that like the blessed Apostle
St. Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, who was present
and consenting to the death of the proto-martyr, St. Stephen, hold-
ing their clothes that stoned him to death; and yet they be now
both twain holy saints in heaven and there shall continue friends
for ever: so I verily trust and shall heartily pray that, though
your Lordships have been on earth my judges to condemnation,
yet we may hereafter meet in heaven merrily together to our ever-
lasting salvation."
* * * *
IN a recent article in the London Times Literary supplement,
evidence is given of More's kind and considerate spirit. He mar-
ried as his first wife the older sister though he really thought
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 285
more highly of the younger one, but he would not injure the for-
mer's feelings. Erasmus tells us that " he instructed her in
literature and had her taught every species of music." Now Mr.
P. S. Allen in the London Times shows that More did not suc-
ceed in teaching her anything until he had appealed to her father.
And her father had to use severe methods before she became the
docile and loving wife that history records her to have been. The
article closes with the following paragraph:
" England owes much to Sir Thomas More. Of all the charac-
ters in our history there is none that is so intelligible and that
makes appeal to so wide a circle. With the high devotion of an
enthusiast he combined the serene common sense of a man of
action; loving his life with cheerful humor, but ready without
complaint to lay it down for the cause his conscience bade him
choose, upon the cruel demand of his own familiar friend whom
he had trusted. And besides this great part, he is one of the
founders of our modern literature. Yet how little has England
done to cherish his memory! The house that he made at Chelsea
is clean gone out of sight; even his tomb in the old church there,
with its long plain inscription, is hidden in darkness, almost as
though he had died a death of shame. Heroic efforts could not
save Crosby Hall from transplantation; and the great Holbein
portrait of the Chancellor, immeasurably more beautiful than any
reproduction of it, was allowed to go out of the country without a
single word of protest. No one has collected More's letters, and
there is no critical edition of his English works. It is time that
reparation should be made."
BUT recently we read in a journal of note that Ireland's plea
for self-determination should not interest the Peace Con-
ference at the present time because this was not " a question aris-
ing out of the War." The remark was a vain repetition: yet the
repetition itself forces one to ask himself if there really is such an
ignorant misunderstanding of the Irish question as the remark
would seem to imply.
Can there be anyone today, when the facts of Irish history
have been spread broadcast by debate, by pamphlet and by book,
who thinks that the Irish question is merely a political complaint
or unjustified dissatisfaction on the part of a portion of the peo-
ple of Ireland? Any one who believes that it is purely a political
question between England and Ireland: or that the latter is urg-
ing itself on this course simply because of hatred of England and
desire for revenge?
* * * *
286 WITH OUR READERS [May,
IT is true that the views of some are so limited and so unwilling
to take in all the facts that they picture the situation as that of
a country (Ireland) mistreated and persecuted once, but now gov-
erned by England with greater measure of justice: and that if
she (Ireland) were a lover of the world's peace she would accept
this: and peacefully work for a greater share of just government by
England. That Ireland has a right to seek her own form of gov-
ernment and cut herself off from England: that Ireland has the
right to be a nation once more — they either cannot or will not see.
These same people would undoubtedly have sympathized with
Belgium when that small nation was subject to the ruthless in-
vasion of the Germans. They would have the world reecho with
their cries of protest in humanity's name. And very rightly so.
If we can imagine that Germany had won the War and placed her
heel securely on the body of Belgium, they would have said,
" There shall never be recognition of the conqueror." " Belgium
must never compromise her honor by accepting her conqueror.
Evil is evil: wrong is wrong, and neither the years nor the cen-
turies can make the evil good : nor the wrong right."
Germany might have shown love and consideration for the
Belgians: she might have placed her sons in positions of great
trust — but every son of Belgium that accepted the trust would
have been a traitor to the land of his fathers. Belgium might un-
der German rule have been far more prosperous materially than
she ever had been under her own. But the true Belgian would
have cursed the man who would have sold his country's inheritance
for a mess of pottage. In Belgian homes, in Belgian churches, in
every Belgian family the story of how their country was stolen
by the conqueror would have been handed down from father to
-son : from mother to daughter, and would not have lost but gained
through the telling. And after centuries, were German domina-
tion to continue that long, true, patriotic Belgians would have
been more ready than ever to grasp the opportunity that would
grant them justice and their land independence from the robber.
. * * * *
SOME centuries ago, England by an invasion as ruthless as
Germany every perpetrated — England conquered Ireland.
She pursued her conquest with a ruthless savagery and a satanic
determination never — even in the words of her own historians-
equaled in history. She depopulated the country: she laid waste
the cities : she massacred the inhabitants : she put a price upon the
head of every priest : she " planted " the country with her Prot-
estant allies so that they might own it and so that the Irish would
never possess it again.
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 287
Centuries have not wiped out facts. Centuries have not made
evil good, and wrong right. England has not succeeded.
* * * *
THOSE who today are denying the right of Ireland to possess
her independence are simply condoning the wretched wrong
of centuries ago that can never be made a right. It were as just
to approve Germany's treatment of Belgium, as to approve Eng-
land's treatment or possession of Ireland. Time does not and
cannot change the nature of morality any more than it can
change the nature of God Himself.
The Irish question did not arise out of the War. Neither will
a true Pole admit that the justification and the claim of Poland's
liberty arose out of the War. Both questions were living, vital,
world-wide questions before the War began, but the War, in
its larger purpose, will have been fought in vain unless to both it
gives the just answer.
»
THE National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the great
new church which it is proposed to erect at Washington on
the grounds of the Catholic University, was planned about five
years ago by Bishop Shahan, at the suggestion of many ecclesias-
tics and members of the Catholic laity, as a tribute of honor and
gratitude to Mary Immaculate, patroness of the Catholic Church
in the United States. It is proposed to raise at once the sum of one
million dollars to begin the great work and carry it to a reason-
able completion, leaving to Catholic generosity in the future the
responsibility of interior finish. One hundred thousand dollars
have been already subscribed, mostly in very modest sums, from
all parts of the United States, and it is hoped that with the con-
clusion of peace the great and holy work will be taken up with
much vigor.
This magnificent church will serve also most appropriately
as a memorial to the Catholic soldiers and sailors who have fallen
in the War, and will thus perpetuate at the National Capital the
memory of our Catholic patriotism at the greatest crisis in the
world's history.
It is believed by our bishops and clergy that every Catholic
in the United States will wish to contribute to this great monument
of the Catholic religion, and that there will be little difficulty in
securing the million dollars needed at the present stage for this
holy enterprise, that marks wonderfully the completion of one
great era of Americanism and the beginning of another and
greater era in which the beneficent religious and social forces of
the Catholic Church will have free play on the widest scale.
288 BOOKS RECEIVED [May, 1919.]
The good work is carried on at present by means of the Salve
Regina, a little paper devoted entirely to the erection of the
National Shrine of Mary Immaculate. It is under the direction
of Rev. Dr. Bernard A. McKenna of the Catholic University, Wash-
ington, D. C., to whom all offerings should be sent in aid of this
first great monument to Our Blessed Mother by the Catholics of
the United States.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, New York:
James Madison's Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 and Their
Relation to a More Perfect Society of Nations. By J. B. Scott. $2.00. Economic
Effects of the War Upon Insurance, with Special Reference to the Substitution
of Insurance for Pensions. By W. F. Gephart. $1.00. The Financial History
of Great Britain, 19U-1918. By F. L. McVey. $1.00.
THE DEVIN-ADAIR Co., New York:
A Hidden Phase of American History. By M. J. O'Brien. $5.00 net. Spiritism
and the Dead. By Baron J. Liljencrants, A.M. $:J.OO net. Christian Ethics.
By J. E. Ross, Ph.D.
CHARLRS SGRIBNER'S SONS, New York:
The Valley of Vision. By H. van Dyke. $1.50. The Day's Burden. By T. M.
Kettle. $2.00. Lady Larkspur. By M. Nicholson. $1.00.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York:
Meditations Without Method. By D. Strappine. $1.80 net. Mater Christi. By
Mother St. Paul. $1.25 net.
HARPER & BROTHERS, New York:
What We Eat and What Happens to It. By P. B. Hawk, Ph.D. $1.35. " Busy: "
The Life of an Ant. By W. F. McCalcb. 75 cents, net.
FLEMING H. REVELL Co., New York:
Songs from a Watch-Tower. By Richard H. McCartney.
HENRY HOLT & Co., New York:
Proposed Roads to Freedom. By Bertram Russell, F.R.S. $1.50 net.
DODD, MEAD & Co., New York:
Marshal Ferdinand Foch. By A. Billiard Atteridge. $2.50.
GEORGE H. DORAN Co., New York:
The Mind of Arthur James Balfour. By W. M. Short. $2.50 net. The " Charmed
American." By G. Lewys. $1.50 net.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York:
The World War and Its Consequences. By Wm. H. Hobbes. $2.50 net. In
Flanders Fields and Other Poems. By Lieut.-Col. J. McCral, M.D. $1.50 net.
E. P. DUTTON & Co., New York:
Amalia. A Romance of the Argentine. From the Spanish of Jos4 Marmol, by
Mary J. Serrano. $2.00 net.
MUNICIPAL ART SOCIETY, New York:
Bulletin — War Memorials.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York:
The Barrier. By Ren6 Bazin. $1.25 net.
ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & Co., New York:
Carven from the Laurel Tree. Essays by T. Maynard. Tales of ecret Egypt.
By S. Rohmer. $1.50 net. The Second Bullet. By R. O. Chipperfleld. $1.50 net.
BRENTANO'S, New York:
Poems. By Michael Strange. $1.50 net.
SMALL, MAYNAHD & Co., Boston:
The Heart of Peace. By Laurence Housman. $1.25 net.
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, New Haven:
The Forgotten Man, and Other Essays. By W. G. Sumner, LL.D. $2.50. Idealism
and the Modern Age. By G. P. Adams, Ph.D. $2.50. Rural Reconstruction in
Ireland. By L. Smith-Gordon, M.A. $3.00.
J. B. LIPPINCOTT Co., Philadelphia:
A Gentle Cynic. Being the Book of Ecclesiastes. By M. Jastrow, Jr., LL.D.
$2.00 net.
ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION, Springfield:
The Frontier State, 1818-1848. By Theodore C. Pease.
THE
Catholic
VOL. CIX.
JUNE, 1919
No. 651.
THE AMERICAN IDEA.
BY GAILLARD HUNT, LITT.D., LL.D.
HIS is an article on a fundamental principle of
the Constitution of the United States, and no
apology is made for presenting it to the readers
of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, for the time is appro-
priate for the consideration of things which are
fundamental. We are now living in a crisis of denial which is
manifesting itself in many ways. In what we call literature
we see it in novels, essays and political writings which deny
the foundations of private morality and repudiate the author-
ity of time and experience in all government affairs. Some
of our so-called advanced thinkers have revised their diction-
aries and stricken from them such words as religion, virtue,
wickedness and sin, for they deny that the definitions of these
words which the dictionaries contain are true and they even
deny that there are such things. Moral disorganization has
lead up to chaos in political thought. Kings and Emperors
have been thrown aside. The divine right of any man to rule
is an idea as dead as the murdered Tsar. " The voice of the
people is the voice of God," but there are many who deny that
there is a God. And there is the wildest dispute as to who the
people are. Are they you and I, salaried and bathed, or those
who work by the job and are often out of a job? Who is
to rule — the people who read this magazine or those who
read the literature that teaches class hatred and spoliation of
Copyright. 1919. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLK
IN THE STATE OF NEW YOBK.
VOL. cix. — 19
290 THE AMERICAN IDEA [June,
private property? Class against class, experiment against
experience, dreams against facts, the conflict is on and the
immediate outcome is in doubt. Eventually, sanity will tri-
umph, but for the moment crazy men are ruling in many parts
of the world and are trying to rule in every country. Let us
put it another way : They used to say, one hundred and twenty
years ago, " The devil is loose in Paris." He is loose now in
many other places than Paris and his agents are busy in Amer-
ica. We must look to it to preserve our own, lest the fate
which now hangs so heavily over other countries shall descend
upon us.
It is not strange, then, that at this stage of the world's
efforts at readjustment we should find many people denying
the virtues of the American Constitution of Government. They
say it is outworn, that it is a capitalists' document, that it is
designed to keep the poor man down, that it is a barrier to
progress because the majority may not change it at will, that it
is undemocratic, and so forth — above all, however, that it is
capitalistic and worn out. In the face of the attacks upon it
those who would defend it must be prepared to explain it and
show why it is good. To point to our happy progress under
it as its justification will not convince its critics, for they deny
the force of experience. The world is a brand new place to
them and we should have a brand new government unfettered
from the past.
David Jayne Hill's two books, The People's Government
and Americanism, What It Is, are an explanation of the foun-
dation upon which the American Government rests and an
argument to show that its foundation is unchangeable. The
author was a university president, the Assistant Secretary of
State, Envoy to Switzerland and at The Hague, Ambassador to
the German Empire. He has written a number of philosoph-
ical and historical books, the best known being his History
of Diplomacy. Of recent years his chief work has been as a
champion and expositor of the American Constitution. The
two books, The People's Government and Americanism, go
together, and this article gives an interpretation of their main
idea, treating them as if they were one book.
In the beginning government came entirely from force,
and the State comprised the rulers and the ruled. For thou-
sands of years nobody ruled except through force; all dynas-
1919.] THE AMERICAN IDEA 291
ties date from the battlefield. Even to this day the wolf, the
eagle and the lion, the spear, the sword and the battle-axe are
the symbols used for the coats of arms of States. It is only of
recent years that the common people have come to have a
voice in government. The substance of the State was always
considered to be supreme power or sovereignty. The subject
might enjoy some degrees of liberty by permission, but he was
not free to resist the State or even to speak against it. What-
ever was done in the name of the State was the supreme com-
mand; whatever the State decreed was law; the law was a crea-
ture of the State; the State was above the law. The subject was
the property of the State, the rights of the individual were only
such as the State granted to him. Yet there was always a pro-
test in the minds and hearts of men against this doctrine, and
from time to time the protest found expression. The whole
nature of man has always responded to an authority higher
than that of human government. There are certain funda-
mental rights so clear, so urgent and so indisputable in their
outcry for security that the undertone of their pleading runs
through all the free expressions of the human mind since
thought has been recorded. The lowest tribe of savages recog-
nizes the existence of some rights and duties on the part of
its members — rights and duties apart from mere physical com-
pulsion. It is the consciousness of their rights and duties on
the part of the individuals who compose the State which dis-
tinguishes between what governments may do and may not do,
and what ought to be endured and what ought not to be en-
dured. All human authority is derived from this consciousness
of rights and duties. Each person has a sphere of private in-
terests which all others must respect. Such are his right to life,
liberty and property. There is something in the individual
which force cannot reach and cannot change. There is always
something reserved to the human soul, which within its sphere
is answerable only to its Creator. The law may take a man's
life away, but the right to live is not granted by law. It is
inherent or natural and can only be forfeited by the man him-
self. And the individual has not only the right to live but the
right to earn the means of living and to possess and enjoy the
fruits of his industry — the right to property, in short. The
idea that a citizen's property belongs to the State is the
old idea that everything, including the citizen himself, be-
292 THE AMERICAN IDEA [June,
longs to the State. It is the old dogma of absolute sovereignty.
You cannot organize human society upon any just principle
without admitting the right of property as a consequence of
the innocent exercise of individual powers of creating prop-
erty. It is included in the right to liberty.
In the sixteenth century, when the United Netherlands
threw off the yoke of Spain, Johannes Althusius, a Dutchman,
defined sovereignty as a " right inherent in the entire body
politic of free association for its own protection and govern-
ment." Here was the fundamental idea; here was the truth
that the individuals constituting the body politic, the mem-
bers of the State, had natural rights and might join together
to protect their rights. The first radical pronouncement, how-
ever, against the doctrine that the State is a thing of unlimited
power, came from America.
On November 11, 1620, the emigrants to New England, as
they approached the shores, drew up and signed in the cabin
of the Mayflower a compact which expressed a new idea in
human government. They pledged themselves to frame for
themselves " just and equal laws " and " to yield to them all
due submission and obedience." When, in 1780, Massa-
chusetts adopted a constitution, the instrument began with
this announcement : " The end of the institution, mainte-
nance and administration of government is ... to furnish the
individuals who comprise it with the power of enjoying, in
safety and tranquillity, their natural rights and the blessings
of life." In 1776 the Virginia Bill of Rights said in the first
section : " That all men are by nature free and independent,
and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they
enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact, de-
prive or divest their posterity: namely, the enjoyment of life
and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing prop-
erty, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." And
the last section said: "That religion or the duty which we
owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it can be
directed only by reason and conviction, and therefore all men
are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according
to the dictates of conscience, and that it is the mutual duty of
all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards
each other." The Constitution of the United States in the
preamble announced that its purpose was " to establish jus-
1919.] THE AMERICAN IDEA 293
tice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The instrument
itself names many things that cannot be done lest the natural
rights of the individual be infringed upon. No law can be
passed suspending the writ of habeas corpus, except in time of
rebellion or foreign invasion; no State can pass laws impairing
the obligations of contracts; private property cannot be seized
without due warrant; no law can be passed affecting the free
exercise of religion, nor abridging the right of free speech, a
free press and free assemblage. Finally, there is a general
reservation which says that the enumeration in the Consti-
tution of certain rights must not be construed as denying or
disparaging other rights retained by the people, and that all
powers not delegated to the general government are reserved
to the States or to the people.
The American idea went far beyond Magna Charta, for
that declared that certain rights and liberties could not be
taken away save by the law of the land. America proclaimed
that there were certain rights and liberties which could never
be taken away, even by law. It set these rights above the law.
Never before had a people voluntarily subscribed to certain
definite principles of right which they bound themselves to
regard.
Those who announced these principles of right as the
fundamental law were in a position to consider fairly funda-
mental problems of government, for the isolation of the New
World from the Old was, in effect, a return to a condition of
nature, so far as government was concerned. At the same time,
in mental development and political experience they possessed
the full maturity of the age in which they lived. They had
the best traditions in the world — the long struggle of the Anglo-
Saxon world for representative government and liberty.
The permanent security of the American idea, the perma-
nent security of the fundamental rights of the individual, is
to be found in the American Constitution. And here is where
our Constitution is unlike the constitution of any other coun-
try; for it is not, as other constitutions are, the mere frame
and mechanism of administration, but the guarantee of in-
dividual rights and liberties. It is a law for the law-makers.
It is a bill of rights, and it is not only a bill of rights, but it
294 THE AMERICAN IDEA [June,
places the bill of rights under a special independent guardian-
ship— namely, the judiciary. Individual natural rights are not
only recognized in the Constitution, but the Constitution is
their organized defence.
Other nations following our example have written con-
stitutions similar to ours, but not one of them has ever adopted
the two really original features of our Constitution. Those
original features are the renunciation of the absolute power of
majorities over individual rights and liberties, and the insti-
tution of a judicial power to guard over the constitutional
guarantees and prevent them from being overthrown by mere
majority legislation. Other countries with constitutions have
rendered the legislative power omnipotent and have made
it possible for a faction or even a single executive to exert
despotic domination. What the American system aimed to
accomplish was to end forever the idea that there is any de-
pository of unlimited power — to crush forever the error that
any one's will is law. It put the rights of the individual be-
yond the reach of legislatures and executives. It put legis-
latures and executives under the fundamental law. Life,
liberty and property could not be taken away except by
judicial process acting under the fundamental law. It dis-
tributed government powers so that no public officer could
commit an act of oppression without rendering himself respon-
sible for his action. Even the people themselves could make
no law which encroached upon the rights guarded by the fun-
damental law. The executive executes the laws but he is
bound by law. The judiciary must declare what the law is, but
it must maintain the fundamental law. There is no abso-
lute authority anywhere.
A democracy unrestrained by a constitution is a despotism
of the majority. Absolute democracy is as bad as any other
form of absolute power. It can sweep away everything op-
posed to it and override all rights. It is no better than elective
imperialism. As Edmund Burke remarked, in speaking of the
French Revolution, a majority of the citizens is capable of the
utmost cruelty towards a minority and towards a greater num-
ber and with greater fury than can be apprehended from the
dominion of a single sceptre. Those who are subjected to
wrongs committed by majorities are overpowered by a com-
pulsion of their own kind and receive no sympathy.
1919.] THE AMERICAN IDEA 295
An omnipotent majority is devoid offense of responsibility.
It is quite as likely to be influenced by passion as a single
prince is. Unless it is controlled by a superior law it can re-
duce men to slavery. The doctrine of the absolute sovereignty
of the people, operating through an absolute majority, is as
faulty as the doctrine of absolute individual authority. The
divine right to rule rests no more with a number of people
than it rests with one person. What concerns a people who
are jealous of their rights is whether, in forming a govern-
ment, their rights are protected against any sovereign power;
what concerns them is the fundamental constitution of the
State and whether it guarantees to them the rights with which
they cannot part; what concerns them is not alone the
machinery by which laws are to be made, but whether the
law-makers are to be sovereign and whether there is any check
to their power. This problem was fully understood by the
deep-thinking Americans. James Madison said : " Where there
is an interest and a power to do wrong, wrong will generally
be done, and not the less readily by a powerful and interested
party than by a powerful and interested prince." It was Abra-
ham Lincoln who said: "A majority, held in restraint by con-
stitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily
with deliberate changes of popular opinion, is the only true
sovereign of the people."
In these two pronouncements we see the American idea.
Lodge supreme power anywhere, and those in whom it is
lodged, whether they be many people or one man, will, sooner
or later, find it to their interest to disregard the rights of those
who oppose them, and will perpetrate wrong upon their
opponents. Restrain a majority by constitutional limitations
beyond which it may not go, and you have the fairest expres-
sion of the sovereignty of the people that is obtainable.
It is in the American conception of the State, in voluntary
self -limited power, that the true foundation of Democracy lies.
Here the citizen is himself responsible for government. He is
a constituent and not a subject of the State. The Government
is his. He cannot justly blame it; he can blame only himself.
The constitutional idea of the limited power of government is
the real opponent of imperialism.
A constitution is to a State what conscience is to 'a man.
It is an unfailing guide to the right path of conduct. And as a
296 THE AMERICAN IDEA [June,
conflict for ascendency between right and wrong is ever going
on in a man, so in a State there is a continual struggle between
liberty and despotism, between constitutionalism and im-
perialism. In a democracy the struggle is between the limited
power of a majority and unlimited power of a majority.
Of course, such a system as ours has met with opposition.
This comes mainly from the arrogance of individuals whose
will the system checks and whose plans it frustrates; from
classes who desire to dominate; from demagogues who wish to
rise by appealing to the special or sordid interests of a numeri-
cal majority. Whoever controls the State likes to think of it
as having unlimited power. Thus we hear it asserted that the
State may demand the surrender to it of all private property,
yet this is absolutism as despotic as the royal pretensions which
democracy was called into being to resist. A democracy with
such power is as arbitrary and unjust as any form of auto-
cratic government.
There has been a change in the sentiments of many peo-
ple in the past ten years, and they have felt that there is some-
thing wrong in the adjustment of our system of government
to social needs. Naturally, the criticism falls upon the system
rather than upon the abuses of the system, and the criticism
is due largely to the fact that the critics do not understand
the American Government. There can be no change in the
principles upon which that government is founded; they are
eternal.
But a new conception of social justice has arisen and
demand is made, not for equal laws but for laws of equaliza-
tion. A new theory of wealth has been advanced and it is de-
clared to be a social product and consequently a social pos-
session. Yet society never yet initiated, created or brought to
successful achievement any industrial process or wealth-pro-
ducing activity. It is always the creation of an individual or a
group of individuals. How can it rightfully belong to those
who have not created it? The only theory on which we can
transfer the right of property from the individual to the State
is that the unrestrained will of the people is the law and that
they may take or give away at pleasure. We have merely
transferred the idea of despotic sovereignty.
For a long time the chief danger to constitutionalism in
our country was the menace of conflict between the States.
1919.] THE AMERICAN IDEA 297
That danger has passed, and in its place we have developed a
class antagonism which has been stimulated by political am-
bitions which have found advantage in creating unrest and
deepening the hostility of certain classes against other classes.
The aim is to control the State by class organization, so as to
change the laws and even the Constitution in the interest of
special classes. If this movement should prove successful we
would find ourselves in the position of having one class as the
plunderers of the other classes.
There is a growing lack of reverence for law which is due
to the changed conception of the source of law. As long as
men had their attention fastened upon their inalienable rights,
they reverenced law as the guardian of their rights. As soon
as they conceive of law as the decree of a dominant will, made
without reference to fundamental rights, it is difficult to respect
law in and for itself. If men do not conceive of it as emanating
from a moral principle you cannot expect it to be respected.
It is necessary, therefore, for us to turn our minds back to the
principles upon which our fundamental law was built. If in
our crisis we will look to the rights of the individual as guaran-
teed by our Constitution, there we will find the rock of our sal-
vation.
There is a deep meaning to each of us in this, the true in-
terpretation of our Constitution of Government. How splen-
didly it elevates the individual man; how it causes him to glory
in that spark of divinity in us which was before the floods and
knows no homage unto the sun! He stands forth equal in his
rights to the highest and no higher than the most humble, gov-
erned by himself, and secure in the knowledge that as long as
he holds his Government within the powers which he has
granted to it, the rights with which his Creator has endowed
him cannot be oppressed.
THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE.
BY CUTHBERT LATTEY, S.J.
N attempt has been made in these pages to show
the concept of Christ which St. Paul had formed
to himself; to consider, also, how Christ pre-
sented His own Person to those among whom He
worked; finally, to glance yet further back and
to see how He had been foreshadowed under the Old Covenant.
But the modern man will ask: "What is Christ to mean to
me?" And what is His message for our time, for our cities,
for our men and women? Does Christ really matter? Is there
any workable theory as to how He is to matter? These and
many other such questions we may sum up under a single
heading, " The Christ of Experience," and attempt but a partial
answer thereto, for otherwise " the whole world would not
hold the books that should be written."
St. Ignatius of Loyola certainly thought that he had such
a workable theory of the practical significance of Christ, and
endeavored with all his might to press it upon his fellow-men,
so much so, indeed, that it appears fairly safe to say that he con-
sidered the giving of his Spiritual Exercises to be the most
important work of the members of his Order. These Exercises
represent, as it were, his philosophy of the life and teaching
of Christ, and that in the form which he thought best suited to
influence men; they represent Christ, but Christ in action, and
Christ in action means the Christ of experience. The chief
truths of our religion are there, but organized by a master-
mind for a tremendous offensive. The delicate psychology of
the Exercises and their historical significance need not be
dwelt upon here. The end of the nineteenth century, indeed,
marked a new era in their history, in that it saw them extended
to all ages and classes of Catholics, even to the opening of a
number of special houses for the purpose. A survey of the
movement may be found in Father Plater's Retreats for the
People, in the Westminster Library. It has even spread to
those outside the Church, and in Father Bull's Threefold Way
we have an attempt to interpret the Exercises to Anglicans,
1919.] THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE 299
while in the pamphlet Towards a New Way of Life: a Review
and Re-dedication, published by the Student Christian Move-
ment, we have a presentation that is meant to be palatable even
to Nonconformists. Needless to say, in these two non-Catho-
lic works there are some significant " adaptations " of the Ex-
ercises; all the same, much remains that is good and solid, and
cannot but bear fruit in the well-disposed.
But first, to answer a possible objection; the phrase, " the
Christ of experience," may itself be thought suspect, and savor-
ing of Modernism. Nothing could be farther from the present
writer's thought; and the very plan of the present series of arti-
cles, aiming as it does at an identification of the Christ of ex-
perience with the Christ of St. Paul, the Christ of the Gospels,
and of the Old Testament, of itself refutes such an insinuation.
We have to remember what the fundamental tenet of Mod-
ernism really is, how experience is set up as the ultimate court
of appeal, so that the whole truth of an article of faith, or at
the least the whole value and importance of it, depends upon
its satisfying a religious craving. Unless it appeal to us in this
way — so it is maintained — it may at least be disregarded. Thus
a highly subjective test is the only one admitted, and one that
it is practically impossible to apply, not merely because in
actual life a man's account of his own experiences is beyond
argument, but also because the desire to test is itself an utter
bar to the highest forms of spiritual experience. But for
Catholics the ultimate motive of faith must always be the
revelation of God, the fact that God has spoken a message that is
delivered to them from without. On the other hand, they may
find in the consequences of this whole-hearted acceptance of
the revelation of God, in the experience that results from it, in
Christ, that is, as He affects them, a signal confirmation of that
faith itself, a reason in itself weighty for declining to think
themselves the victim of any delusion. In this sense they may
upon occasion examine what is for them " the Christ of Ex-
perience," and, indeed, in one form or another Catholic writers
and speakers are constantly doing so.
Having thus cleared the ground we advance to the con-
sideration of the New Testament, and chiefly the Gospels, on
the one hand, and of the Spiritual Exercises on the other. And
at once we are struck by a complete difference in the method
pursued, due to the different circumstances under which St.
300 THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE [June,
Ignatius and his Divine Master worked. Our Lord was preach-
ing in the open to a multitude whose native Jewish faith in any
case fell short of what He wished to teach, and had in part been
corrupted by the rabbis. Further, to a large extent they were
rude peasants, incapable of much mental concentration, in
constant need of the living voice, and of homely parable and
easily retained adage; an audience not so very difficult to win
for a time, but superficial and quickly lost once more. And
thus Our Lord conducted His missionary work on popular
lines, and relied on the vivid picture and the clinching word,
and offered His audience an ample variety of discourse, be-
sides the absorbing interest of His actual miracles.
In the Exercises the presentation of the argument, of
Christ and all His teaching, is far otherwise. Nowadays we
are accustomed to see priests and religious making annual re-
treats, and indeed, as has been said, the practice is gaining
ground even among the laity, and a large number of all these
follow the Exercises. This use of the Exercises is perfectly
legitimate, and according to the mind of St. Ignatius himself;
nevertheless for our purpose it will be clearer and more in-
structive to take a case such as he had primarily in view, and
to watch his method of work chiefly there. His model subject,
as it were, would be a man not as yet irretrievably committed
to one single career in life, the more willing and able to serve
God the better; such a one (shall we say?) as was Xavier, with
his life before him, keen of intellect and full of high spirit, and
a thorough Catholic. To such a one St. Ignatius would give the
whole of the Exercisest and, if we may so put it, at their full
strength; for he did not believe in propounding to people what
would merely frighten or repel them, but rather in leading
them sweetly on to desire more, leaving them still hungry
rather than overfed. Him, then, whom he had found fit and
ready for all that he had to give, he would invite to quit the
world for about a month, and as far as possible to be alone.
" To one who is more at liberty, and who desires to benefit in
every possible way, all the Spiritual Exercises should be given
in the order in which they are set out. In these, as an ordinary
rule, the exercitant will benefit all the more, the more he
secludes himself from all friends and acquaintances and from
all earthly solicitude."1
1 From Annotation 20. The translation is taken from The Spiritual Exercises of
St. Ignatius, Spanish and English, by Joseph Rickaby, S.J., p. 13.
1919.] THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE 301
The Exercises open with some simple positive statements,
scarcely going beyond what might be known by sheer reason;
the simpler and more elementary they are, the better they serve
their immediate purpose of compelling the soul to acknowl-
edge the rights of Almighty God, and of awakening it to shame
and sorrow. It is not that it has failed to rise to sublime ideals,
rather it has failed in all that is most obvious. But this shame
and sorrow are in the main something negative, they cleanse
the soul of sin and willful leaning to sin, they make up the
purgative way. It is Christ that is to fill the soul thus emptied
of all that is unworthy of Him. As it is imperative to base the
negative work of purgation upon a minimum in the way of
asserted principle, so in the positive work of building up the
soul it is necessary to work from a principle that will go the
whole way, so that the only development will be to realize
more fully all that is contained in it. And such a principle
can only be entire abandonment to Christ. Man is not easily
swayed to deep emotion and firm resolve by mere abstract
principle; and even under the Old Covenant Jehovah was
eager, if we may say so, to make Himself felt as personally
interested and personally intervening in the history of His
people. Yet it was not enough for Him that they should reason
to what He was from what He did; He Himself, in an unspeak-
able manifestation of love and wisdom, would woo them in
human flesh. Such Flesh the Word of God became, and dwelt
among us.
For Him the Baptist prepared the way with thoughts of
repentance, tempered with alluring words of ardent love,
much as St. Ignatius does in the earlier part of the Exercises;
for it was the Baptist, for example, who pointed to Christ as the
true spouse of the soul, who in his humility could but rejoice
to have helped towards such wedlock. "He that hath the
bride is the bridegroom : but the friend of the bridegroom, who
standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the
bridegroom's voice." 2 Thus there was order even in the evan-
gelization of Christ Himself, inasmuch as His forerunner
pressed home the thoughts needed earliest. These thoughts
Our Lord never suffered to fade from sight, but His own main
demand, as we have seen, was for absolute surrender and en-
tire abandonment. Such surrender St. Ignatius, like St. Paul,
aJohn 111. 29.
302 THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE [June,
endeavors most earnestly to secure Him. Like the Baptist, he
commits his disciple to the company of the Bridegroom Him-
self: Christ is to become for him an experience, he is to live
and converse with Christ, to watch and share His thought and
words and actions, to be won by Him and be entirely His.
It is in the experience of Christ — not usually in any mysti-
cal sense, but through the ordinary supernatural workings
of the soul — that the main force of the Exercises is to be
found.
To be truly Christ's involves crucifixion. So the Apostle
had taught, insisting that thus alone could one enter into His
Mystical Body and by continued crucifixion alone remain in
it. To love Christ was to love Him upon the Cross. And St.
Ignatius, full of chivalrous ardor as he was, pictures Christ
as a God-sent Leader and crusading King, ready to share all
privations of His followers and to promise sure victory, be-
neath Whose banner all will enroll with loyal enthusiasm —
and yet, when he comes to consider what " offerings of greater
moment " can be made to such a Captain, it is not mighty ex-
ploits at home or abroad that he would make men's ambition,
but he bends their thoughts to the bearing of shame and in-
juries, to inward detachment and outward poverty. And
again, when he sets forth the plan of campaign alike of Christ
and of His adversary, it is not merely indifference to riches and
honor that he inculcates, but a positive preference, so far as it
is lawful, for their opposite. Human nature being what it is,
Christ could but raise the Cross on high, and they who would
follow Him must embrace it. Meanwhile it remains one of
the most striking points about the Exercises that they do not
explicitly and directly propose an apostolic life, even there
where we should most expect it. We must remember once
more the contemplated circumstances.
St. Ignatius would not forestall the Holy Ghost. What pre-
cisely the divine call might be remained to be seen; the one
thing that mattered was that it should be received in the right
spirit, the spirit of absolute acceptance, at whatever cost. Even
so the soldier knows not to what post he may be appointed,
and he that would be first in battle may remain far from it in
some garrison or in some other necessary work; yet his patriot-
ism will ever lie in strict attention to duty and the prompt
execution of commands. And St. Ignatius was catering for
1919.] THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE 303
all: the founding of his own particular religious Order ap-
peared to him to meet a special need of the time, without of
course being intended to supersede what had gone before, but
the principles of his Spiritual Exercises are universal, and hold
good for those filling, or destined to fill, any place in the Mysti-
cal Body. The only limitation St. Ignatius recognized was the
exercitant's power or will to assimilate; there must be pru-
dence even in urging what is the best.
Thus St. Ignatius in the meditations which are intended
to supply the key, as it were, to the life of Christ, turns us
upon ourselves, even where we should most expect to have
our attention directed upon the world at large, and bids us
look to our own dispositions, and offer ourselves for any sacri-
fice in Christ's cause. If that be secured, Our Divine Captain
will know well enough how to use us. This supreme detach-
ment, this readiness to suffer, is to be a permanent attitude, a
strong motive-power in our lives; but it may be noticed in pass-
ing that care is taken that this tremendous energy be directed
aright. Every individual has a character of his own, good
qualities and corresponding failings, and usually there is one
downward path which for him is the supreme danger, precisely
because it is that which his own peculiar characteristics make
easiest and, as it were, most natural for him. It is typical of
St. Ignatius' method, at once scientific and thorough, that he
would have us pay special attention to our weak point; indeed,
it is against this failing, in itself more dangerous than all
others, that we should make ourselves, if that be possible, more
proof than against all others. But upon this aspect of his
spiritual guidance we may not linger.
And all the while so confident is he that his interpretation
of the life and teaching of Christ is the true one, that he would
have us meditate upon Christ and abandon ourselves to His
Divine Person throughout the rest of the Exercises, and it is
only by way of supplying guidance and keeping before us
certain aspects that he intervenes with thoughts of his own.
Now, that Christ did fight particular vices needs no demon-
stration; but it is not always realized how much He preached
and practised renunciation, how correct, therefore, is the
interpretation of His Will to be found alike in the Epistles of
St. Paul and in the key-meditations of the Exercises, upon
which latter we have been dwelling. Yet here too, perhaps, it
304 THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE [June,
may be possible to make the truth plain without long elabora-
tion.
Our Lord was after a manner an alarmist in the way He
spoke about hell; and the same might be said in reference to
His attitude towards wealth. His words to the rich young man
have rung out through the ages : " If thou wilt be perfect, go,
sell what thou hast ! " 3 And later generations have been no
less beside themselves with amazement at His further explana-
tions than were those who first heard them, so great a miracle
of grace did He proclaim the salvation of a rich man to be.
And persons are to be renounced no less than things : it is the
gentle St. Luke who records the saying : " If any man come to
Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and chil-
dren, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be My disciple." 4 Nay, all three Synoptics repeat in
almost identical terms the strong saying that clinches all: "If
any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take
up his cross (day by day, adds St. Luke), and follow Me."5
" Deny himself," renounce himself, in a more drastic way than
we might at first understand from the term; cease to be him-
self, disclaim all knowledge or intercourse of his former self,
become a new being — all this seems to be the true implication
of the term, to treat oneself (shall we say?) as Peter treated
Christ.6
Such was, in truth, no less Christ's practice than His
preaching, though once again we can say but little here to
justify such a statement, enough only if it is eked out by care-
ful reading and much meditation. " The foxes have holes, and
the birds of the air nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to
lay His head." 7 Such was Our Lord's state after leaving
Galilee; but even before that He was wont to make missionary
journeys from Capharnaum, and as a matter of fact it was
during one of these that " His disciples, as they walked along,
began to pluck the ears," from which we may well infer that
they too, like David and those with him, "were in need and
hungry." 8 Even at Capharnaum itself they sometimes
" could not even take food," 9 and later Christ's invitation to
His Apostles, no doubt sorely needed, to come apart and rest,10
» Matt. xix. 21. « Luke xiv. 26. * Mark viii. 34 et seq.
• Mark xiv. 30, 31, 72. » Luke Ix. 58. • Mark ii. 23-25, et seq.
• Mark iii. 20. » Mark vi. 31.
1919.] THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE 305
led to busier work than ever. And how bitterly trying were
the normal conditions of His work ! How much a sympathetic
audience buoys one up ! But for Christ the Scribes and Phari-
sees were ever there, eager to turn all to His destruction by fair
means or foul. Nor did they fail. For the eye of faith this,
and far more than this, including even the sufferings of Mary
and Joseph before and after Christ's birth, the Incarnation
itself " and His Passion and Death — all form part of the one
great divine plan, wherein the Cross is glorified in word and
work. The Cross of Christ, once more let us say it, is to be
borne in union with Him : His death is to be shared by man, that
His life also may be shared : it is not an annihiliation, but the
supremest self-realization, the removal of all obstacles to the
grandest work that ever man can do. Christ fashioned thus
His Apostles to convert the world; in the Exercises it is once
more the spread of Christ's Kingdom, as best may be, that calls
for the holocaust of self.
For we have come to that, and that is Calvary! This
was in the mind of Christ when He spoke of the daily cross,
and to this, too, St. Ignatius leads us when we are beginning
to realize how great is the cost. To point to the Cross is the
only possible answer to him who would shrink from paying
it! And so the contemplation of the Passion, coming after
that of the Teaching, is once more true to human instinct; the
Life enlightens, the Death inflames. Christ shall be followed,
coute qae coute! And this, too, is Christ's own lesson, for it
was the Cross itself that He named as the price, and bade us
mark it well.12
Nevertheless another far different thought was to help us
to bear the Cross also. It is not a dead Christ Whom we fol-
low, but one living, triumphant, working powerfully for our
sanctification; for this end He rose again, He "was delivered
for our sins, and rose again for our justification.13 After all,
we are on the winning side, and in the long run right is might,
because both are God. Christ triumphs in the Church, in spite
of all her sufferings; and He triumphs in every soul that is His
by grace. For a while we have to bear His Cross, but to bear it
with joy and hope, awaiting the fuller reward, even as the
Apostles rejoiced "that they were accounted worthy to suffer
" Philip, ii. 7. u Luke xiv. 25-33. " Rom. iv. 25.
VOL. cix. — 20
306 THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE [June,
reproach for the name of Jesus." 14 For well they knew that
Christ would have them beside themselves with joy when they
were hated and reviled and persecuted,15 and that His peace
and His joy were not thus to be taken from them.16
One thing alone remained, so old and yet so new, in which
the work of Christ Himself was to find its goal, no less than
that of His servants who had gone before : " Thou shall love the
Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul,
and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the
first commandment." 17 And this, too, is the goal and crown
of the Exercises. When the soul is so fastened upon the
following of Christ and the service of God that it is ready
to endure all, within and without, and even to count
it joy, then it is ready for the supreme effort, the effort to
love God without condition and without limit, to love Him
as He is worthy to be loved, so far as it is given to a frail
creature to go in this matter. Here again we must be short,
and do scant justice to a profound contemplation. Two main
principles run through the whole. Love, says St. Ignatius,
should show itself in deeds rather than in words; and his aim
throughout is to convince us that God loves us, from the
thought of all that He has done for us, whether for ourselves in
particular and in common with others, and from the thought
that He is everywhere by His presence, power and essence,
always supporting ourselves, and all else for us, and ever wish-
ful to do more for us if we will but do our part. The other
principle, a far deeper one, is that love tends to the communi-
cation of good; and Almighty God seeks to give us so far as is
possible, Himself, so that we in return endeavor not merely to
do all that He desires, but to give Him our very selves, all that
we have and are and can be. And then comes another thought,
that any quality we admire and love in creatures, that all the
truth and charity and beauty, and all else that wins us in our
fellow-man, is but some far-off reflection, some feeble ray from
an infinite Sun, some drop from an Ocean of infinite perfec-
tion. And thus we come to think of God not merely as good to
us, but as He is in Himself, and rise yet higher, to the supreme
and most perfect act of which an intellectual being is capable,
beyond which there is nothing at which to aim, save the greater
"Acts v. 41. l5Matt. v. 10-12; Luke vi. 22, 23.
"John xiv. 27; xvj. 22-24, et seq. "Matt, *xJJ. 37, 38.
1919.] THE CHRIST OF EXPERIENCE 307
intensity, and duration of that same act; we love God no
longer from the thought of any benefit to ourselves, but be-
cause He alone is worthy of love, and of all our love, and of
infinitely more love than we can give Him. We love God be-
cause He is God. And now, as continually through the con-
templation, St. Ignatius urges us to a surrender as complete as
words or thought or desire can make it. The words may not
have much aesthetic merit, any more than the rest of the Exer-
cises— St. Ignatius was no stylist — but they are the expression
of a tremendous purpose, and at least as such have a certain
rugged sublimity of their own : " Take, O Lord, and receive all
my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will,
all I have and possess : Thou hast given it me, to Thee, Lord, I
return it: all is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy
Will. Give me Thy love and grace, for that is enough for me."
Thither St. Ignatius takes those who would hearken to
him; thither also the great Apostle and the Divine Master of
both. God, being God, can ask no less. And for our poor
fallen nature there is but one way to this, the royal road of
the Holy Cross. There are mysteries in conduct, surely, no
less than in articles of belief. For the merely natural man, with
naught but unaided reason to guide him, the renunciation
taught in the New Testament, no less than in the Exercises, is
terrifying and even at first sight repulsive; but if this lead on
the positive side to an equal excess of love for God and for
fellow-creatures, then he cannot but confess that "he that
shall lose his life shall find it." 18
No man worthy of the name can make an idol of
mediocrity; and if to this stern repression of self can be joined
unshaken joy and peace and life and love, then truly we have
the superman, because he is divine. And he is enlisted in a
great cause, wherein all that is not evil may serve; to be caught
up into the Mystical Body of Christ need entail no fanatical
annihilation of the good, but only the disappearance of evil,
by reason of the introduction of the good which it excluded.
But all good has been offered up and consecrated, and is now
no peculiar possession or treasure, but Christ's alone, to be
used as fully as He will. And yet, God is a jealous God,19 and
ever and anon to show His absolute and indisputable mastery
over His creatures, and the excess of His love, will bid one for-
18 Matt. x. 39; xvi. 25. 19 Exod. xxxlv. 14, et seq.
308 VIGIL [June,
sake all lesser activity, and think and desire Him alone. Such
a one is with us in the strong bond of grace and charity, but
not in action. How shall we persuade the worldling that it
is anything but criminal folly to let the blossoming maiden im-
mure herself behind the convent grille? And yet, if men would
have her, how much more Christ ! Is it not sweet to think that
in our great family, the Church, there is many a Mary at the
Saviour's feet, no less than many a zealous Martha?
Such are some of the thoughts that have come in a feeble
endeavor to portray the same terrific forces, love for the Cross
and love for the God-man, working among us today no less
than in the ages gone by, or in the greatest age of all; to show
the mind of the Church to be still the mind of Her Spouse;
under her guidance and authority to pay once more a small
tribute of homage to Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today,
and forever.20
20Heb. xiii. 8.
VIGIL.
BY DOROTHY I. LITTLE.
WAKEFUL with hunger in the night I be,
And watch the moon's pale circle riding high,
A white host in the monstrance of the sky.
And in that semblance sweet, I worship Thee
Forgive this innocent idolatry,
True Host until the dawn denied to me.
THE TEMPEST.
BY EMILY HICKEY.
HERE are those to whom it seems a matter of im-
portance to localize. You cannot localize The
Tempest. Despite the circumstances of Ad-
miral Somers' shipwreck, despite the Bermuda
coast having been its scene, The Tempest is un-
ocalized now and always. One word may be said as to the dif-
ficulty of understanding how it could be supposed that Shake-
speare thought of his faery isle as one of the Bermudas, in the
face of our knowledge that Ariel was called up to fetch dew
from the still-vexed Bermoothes. It is best to say with Pro-
fessor Gollancz, who quotes from the ballad of The Enchanted
Island:
From that day forth the Isle has been
By wandering sailors never seen.
Some say 'tis buried deep
Beneath the sea, which breaks and roars
Above its savage, rocky shores,
Nor e'er is known to sleep.
We have in The Tempest, as elsewhere, Shakespeare's
conception of the high dignity and responsibility of the ruler's
office; and the question of the suitability of the man to the post
of ruler is, in various plays, explicitly or implicitly dealt with.
In Prospero the student and scholar appears to dominate the
monarch; he understands this and will not leave his people to
be at the mercy of party or faction while he seeks a longed-for
retirement with leisure for study such as he loves, but passes
on his responsibility to his brother Antonio. To this brother
he gives these instructions as to the treatment of subjects de-
serving or over ambitious, which show him as a keen observer
of character; a keen observer except in the most important
case of all, that of his brother. In Antonio he saw no hint of
the probable development of his future; to him Antonio was
one to be infinitely trusted. Here we come upon the perennial
puzzle of the work of opportunity. The mute inglorious Mil-
tons, the Gromwells guiltless of their country's blood, have
310 THE TEMPEST [June,
been with us and are still with us; but there is deeper depth
than that sounded by the plummet of Gray. It is more than a
question of how far opportunity may affect the deed; we have
to consider its influence on the being itself. So may some of
us put before them the possibility that Antonio's life, entirely
apart from the factor of supreme entrusted power, might have
passed on without the plunge into glaring wickedness, without
the blackening of the soul such as came to him as regent of
Milan; and without the successful endeavor to incite Sebastian
to a crime not less horrible than his own. These are questions
grave and difficult.
We must note that Prospero had not neglected his duty
as ruler, as long as he held the reins of power, for it was a
prosperous and happy Milan that passed from his hands into
his brother's. He had not been so buried in his books that his
people could have forgotten him, thinking themselves forgotten
of him. They loved him, indeed, and with a great love. He
would never have been guilty of what was in Antonio a blunder
as well as a crime in subjecting free Milan to most ignoble
stooping; Antonio's blunder and crime, he preferring vassalage
to honorable regency.
Shakespeare's use of the preternatural, a subject full of
interest, plays a very important part in The Tempest. Our
great poet is far from unsympathetic towards popular belief;
and popular belief has always peopled the invisible world
with many a being of many a kind. We have beings unmoral,
graceful, charming, admirers of good qualities in humankind,
or pranksome, mischievous, not unkindly, but apart from
humanity in a great apartness. These are " weak masters,"
yet strangely powerful when linked with human might in the
great white magician, Prospero.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream we have the light charm
of grotesquerie in the part played by Puck : a part similar, but
only faintly similar, to that of Ariel in The Tempest, and with
a large unlikeness of motive and execution set in the heart of
that similarity. This is consonant with the dream character
of the early play, with its vagaries, its delightful absurdities,
and yet its infantine touch on the bosom of real life.
The masters, Oberon and Prospero, stand even more
widely apart than the servants, Puck and Ariel, Ariel the chief
of the band of spirits whom Prospero commands.
1919.] THE TEMPEST 311
It must be noted that while in Macbeth the preternatural
is used for purposes evil absolutely or evil working punitively,
it is there the dealing with spirits of a class altogether removed
from that which we have in The Tempest. In the tragedy of
Macbeth we have the working of " black magic;" in the action
of The Tempest, " white magic " is used for just and beneficent
purposes. Before the time of the action of the play Prospero
has used a " rough magic " indeed, rough, but not black.
The spirit-world of which Prospero has gained the control
is not peopled with anything that has the character of evil.
The coming of Prospero puts an end to the last result of the
exercise of the witch Sycorax's power, in the freeing of Ariel
from a dreadful captivity; hers having been an evil power,
used for evil and cruel ends. Her power seems to have been
yet subordinate to that imagined of a sort of god, the instinct
of worship being so inseparable from other instincts that
Sycorax must have her god, Setebos. This power of hers is de-
stroyed by the strangely gifted human being who frees the deli-
cate air-spirit from his prison, and employs him in works that,
however at times distasteful, are to end in perfect liberty.
The ends for which the control of the spirit-world is em-
ployed are, as I have said, wise and beneficent : that repentance
may be awakened, to be followed by full and free forgiveness;
that justice may be done and restitution made; that a perfect
wedded life may begin for the young man and woman, on
whom a great burden of responsibility must ultimately be laid;
that age may rest, not in idleness or ignoble quiet, but in the
fulfillment of such duty as it can do, and do in the light of pre-
paredness for the going forth; and that punishment may come
for those to whom nothing but punishment can appeal. In
brief, the main object of Prospero is to secure justice and
peace; and with these two most beautiful things the future of
the child of his love is bound up.
We note how naturally the magic works on the royal peo-
ple and their suite. If Alonso and the others do not realize
that they are under a spell, but know themselves as victims to
their own thoughts, so, " with a difference," does the magic
work on Ferdinand.
It was needful that the passion of grief in him should be
quieted and his mind so soothed after the agitation of his
own seeming wrestle with death that he could fully receive the
312 THE TEMPEST [June,
great new impression of Miranda's presence; and so, as he
sits on a bank, weeping for the supposed death of his father,
the spirit-music comes creeping by him over the waters, allay-
ing with its sweetness both their fury and his passion. Thus,
the grief fades, gently, quietly, as if under the healing hand
of Time, and he can listen to the ditty that remembers his
drowned father, with its telling of the sea-change upon the
dead, and the rich and strange things into which all that is not
fadeless has passed.
As Puck delights in mischievous confusion,
(And those things do most please me
That befall preposterously),
so Ariel works on the side of order. Under the wise master's
guidance, the horror of confusion in the pseudo-tempest is
used for the evoking of moral order following on moral right.
He is a delicate little spirit, loving the warmth of summer, and
dreading the errands northward, when the sea-ooze is cold
and the earth-veins are baked with frost. He is not apart from
the distinction between right and wrong in human beings, of
which he learns from Prospero. He who would not " act the
earthy and abhorred commands " of Sycorax, " refusing her
grand hests," can enter into the mind of his master, and can
bravely upbraid the men of sin, and recall to them the greater
than the punishment they have suffered which must come un-
less warded off by repentance and a clear life ensuing." He
can feel too for the sufferings of the punished men, and plead,
as it were, for his master's mercy to be shown to them.
By-and-by all this dealing with the world of earth-spirits
must by Prospero be laid aside, for the hour of the great sum-
mons must be watched for and had in preparation.
Caliban, whose name appears to be an anagram of Cani-
bal, another form of Caribal, or Caribean, is the strange being
in whom perhaps is reflected the puzzle and wonder of the set-
tlers in America, brought face to face with beings of a kind
hitherto unknown to them, and seen through an atmosphere
of wonder, interest and prejudice, like the melancholy of
Jacques, " compounded of many simples, extracted from many
objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of (their)
travels." Browning's wonderful Caliban on Setebos hardly,
I think, reflects the Caliban of The Tempest.
1919.] THE TEMPEST 313
Like Ariel, Caliban has understanding and is without
moral feeling, but, unlike Ariel, he is incapable of reflecting
Prospero's mind. Degraded as we find him, he goes down to
a yet lower depth of degradation before our eyes, in taking the
drunkard for a god and worshipping the dull fool. In his own
sight this is not wrong but unwisdom, and he goes back to trim
the cell of Prospero handsomely, enlightened of his folly and
unconvinced of his wickedness. Prospero has tried in the old
days to tame him; has stroked him and made much of him,
giving him water with berries in it (probably the much appre-
ciated newly known coffee). To this Caliban has responded
with helpful telling of the qualities of the isle. His meaningless
gabble had been exchanged by Prospero's teaching for the use
of words : the pity and kindness of the master freely working to
help and uplift him. But, having no moral strain, Caliban
by-and-by so jeopardizes the safety of Prospero's lovely jewel,
the child who had smiled on him shipwrecked, and been his
comfort and hope as she grew into beautiful maidenhood, that
he must thenceforth be kept completely under. He is drawn to
Stephano, not by any kindly feeling, but because of the
" celestial liquor " which he bears. Yet in his degradation, he
is higher and wiser than humanity brought low by drink; he
is the less degraded of the two. His language is often poetical;
as Coleridge says, Caliban gives us images from the earth, as
Ariel from the air. What a poem is Caliban's description of
the spirit-music of those lovely twangling instruments that
give delight and hurt not; and of the voices that lull him to
sleep again; and of his visions from opened clouds of riches
ready to drop on him. Have we here some token of a spiritual
nature latent in the savage things?
In the plot to take the life of Prospero, the grotesque un-
derplot to that against Alonso and Gonzalo, Caliban shows
himself wiser than the two human beings whom he has made
his confederates. There must be no delay; no frippery tempta-
tion must keep them from their end; and his prudence is lost
on the drunken fools.
Caliban is not a comic character. He is comic only when
he is befooled by Stephano and makes a wonder of a poor
drunkard. Trinculo and Stephano are befooled by him, to
their cost. As the plot which Antonio originates against Alonso
and Gonzalo serves not only to develop the action of the play,
314 THE TEMPEST [June,
but to show the audience still more fully than Prospero's tale
to Miranda could do, the baseness of the criminal who has
gone from bad to worse, so the grotesque plot which Caliban
originates, also developing the action, serves to show us the
justice of Prospero's judgment of the hag-born creature whom
kindness could not tame.
Never more truly than in Miranda has Shakespeare been
" A priest to us all of the wonder and bloom of the world." "O
thou wonder ! " says Ferdinand, and so we say with him. Born
of a mother who " was a piece of virtue," she was brought up
from her very early youth by her student father, brought up in
a serious atmosphere, but an atmosphere of love. The care of
her upbringing, and her companionship, have saved Prospero
not only from despondency but from the danger of a life devoted
to study alone, as his life would have been had he been cast
alone upon the island. She is a being of lovely balance, in-
tellectual as spiritual, full of kindness and selfless grace. She
has shown kindness even to Caliban until her father's care for
her safety has kept her apart from him, and her own unerring
understanding has taught her not to love to look upon him.
As we see her, there seems to be in Miranda none of that
bright wit, sometimes sharp wit, which we find in several of
Shakespeare's women. Hers is a lovely seriousness begotten
of the atmosphere in which she has lived, love's quietness and
the interest of study, and the ever present great sea with its
tempests and its calms, and the wonder of clouds and trees,
and the life of animals such as the nimble marmoset. A
strange upbringing hers, and what strange beauty has come of
that upbringing! It has been said by that great sayer of true
things, Coleridge, that some of Shakespeare's loveliest women
are half the wooers, Juliet, Desdemona, Miranda. But Miranda
only goes to the logical end as she understands the meaning of
Ferdinand's words and all they imply and involve, and just
gives it the simplest and most natural expression. How haunt-
ing is the music of word and of spirit :
I am your wife, if you will marry me;
If not, I'll die your maid : to be your fellow
You may deny me, but I'll be your servant
Whether you will or no.
It is the mission of such as Miranda to give that most
1919.] THE TEMPEST 315
precious thing, sympathy, for their nature is full not only of
the milk of human kindness but of its very cream; the more
than feeling for others, even the feeling with them:
O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer!
This is the quality that gives us the consolers, the comforters,
the strengtheners; a goodly company, a band elect; smaller,
indeed, than the band of the kindly, the pitying, but rising to a
fuller strength, a larger service. Not in the sorrow only of us,
their brothers and sisters, do they feel with us, but in our joy
they are partakers also : and not in the high ecstasies alone, any
more than not alone in the great depths of the waters that
have gone over our heads, but alike in the little gladnesses and
the little woes. It is her baby presence that saved Prospero
from despair, in that terrible time of the casting away.
O, a cherubim
Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt;
Under my burthen groan'd; which rais'd in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.1
And in her sweet girlhood, hearing her father's tale of that
past danger and horror, her heart bleeds to think of the " teen "
that she has turned him to, the sorrow that is by her unremem-
bered, the sorrow that must hurt him in its telling. In her
relation to Ferdinand this lovely quality comes out. How
gladly she would bear his burden! How uncaring she is
whether it weighs over heavily on her own slighter, tenderer
frame! Hers is the passion of help. So, even if he deny her to
be his fellow, she will be his servant, whether he will or no.
The qualities of Ferdinand are indicated by implication
as well as shown in action. He is none the less good for being
something of the man of the world. Young and beautiful,
with all natural charm, with everything seen at home in the
splendid setting of the heirdom to a crown, he has had, and
has used, many opportunities of knowing women, and has not
*Act I., 2.
316 THE TEMPEST [June,
been insensible to their charms. He is more than something
of a critic, and we feel that, just in this, we see all the more
clearly what Miranda is. Only the " so perfect and so peerless "
could satisfy the man of fine and careful taste. This is a bit of
Shakespeare's invariable truth to nature. A man nice in
choice, fastidious, if you will —
Full many a lady
I have eyed with best regard . . . for several virtues
Have I liked several women; never any
With so full soul, but some defect in her
Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,
And put it to the foil . . . 2
One who had seen much and many, would recognize the essen-
tial spiritual as well as bodily loveliness of Miranda, created
of every creature's best. In Dryden and Davenant's detest-
able perversion of the play, we have not only false taste, but
knowledge immeasurably below Shakespeare's, in their pairing
Miranda with a man who has never seen a woman.
What a picture of Ferdinand's bodily strength we have
in " I saw him beat the surges under him," etc., etc.,8 and when
we meet with him there is no sign of exhaustion about him;
nothing to mar his beauty but the stain of " grief that's beauty's
canker." His sorrow for his supposedly drowned father is so
real, so great, that the influence of those unearthly sweet airs
" that give delight and hurt not " is necessary for the soothing
and calming of his spirit. His attitude towards Prospero is
entirely manly, and to Miranda he shows the high honor and
respect that goes with love, the leal and true.
Our sympathy with the young folk of this play is not like
that which we give to the lovers of the many years' earlier
Romeo and Juliet. We love those lovers dearly and are glad
for their glorious hour of sunshine supreme, and follow them,
full-hearted into the dark, and on to the hour that is the hour
of the sacrifice of these for the healing of the otherwise un-
healable feud. But our Ferdinand and Miranda belong to a
world greater far than Verona; a world that possesses itself in
noble control; a world of vital movement and of most lovely
equipoise.
In the later plays of Shakespeare, those belonging to the
» Act. III., 1. 'Act II., 1.
1919.] THE TEMPEST 317
Fourth Period of his work, evil has a part differing from that
which it takes in the great tragedies of the Third Period. It
does not crush down and overbear for this world's time, nor is
it a thing lightly and easily overcome. A deep note is sounded
in The Tempest, as in A Winter's Tale: evil is evil, and not to be
lightly overcome; yet we know that overcome it can be, and
overcome it shall be.
If the Four Periods represent Shakespeare as mirrored
in his art, then, in this Fourth, we find him largely wise and
strongly calm. The struggle is over, and the gain is there. I
always feel that Francisco's account of Ferdinand's struggle
with the waves and his victory over them, is applicable to
the spiritual struggle which we all go through (for " these
things are an allegory ") and specially so to the battle as fought
by our greatest poet. Listen !
I saw him beat surges under him,
And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him ; his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
To the shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bow'd,
As stooping to relieve him: I not doubt
He came alive to land.
And as Ferdinand not only came alive to land, but found there
the fairest gift that life could bring him, so did Shakespeare
find the gift of peace, the gift whose crown is joy, the crown
of the great by-and-by.
Yet, in The Tempest there is an undertone of sadness. In
the resignation of Prospero we have, indeed, peace, but a
peace less perfect than that of Cymbeline and A Winter's Tale.
It may be remembered that in these two last-named plays peace
comes after pain grandly borne and borne by the selfless ones,
Hermione and Imogen. This alone would give it a greater
depth and width and height.
As it has been noticed, the true Epilogue to our play is
Gonzalo's speech.4
Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy! and set it down
4 Act V., 1.
318 THE TEMPEST [June,
With gold on lasting pillars : In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle, and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
For the action of The Tempest is the restoration of Duke Pros-
pero to his rights; action finely worked out, not by violence and
bloodshed but by the awakening of repentant sorrow and of its
due sequel: willingness, even eagerness, to make restitution.
This awakening we have fully in Alonso, the least guilty and
the most penitent.
The real healing in this play is that of the breach between
Prospero and Alonso, at one time the enemy to him inveterate.
How fine is Prospero's forgiveness! The wronged Duke of
Milan embraces the body of his erstwhile inveterate foe, and
Alonso asks for forgiveness even after he has been assured that
he has it and most fully. The restitution is made, and the heal-
ing of the breach is complete. The sweetness set upon the heal-
ing, the fresh high breeze of day, is the betrothal of Ferdinand
and Miranda. Alonso would gladly have died, if but this fair
couple had been king and queen of Naples, and he lives to see
their heirdom and to be loved of them and to love them. In
the repentant Alonso we rejoice with a joy that we cannot
feel for Sebastian and Antonio.
Prospero has been willing to be misunderstood; he has
tried Ferdinand sorely to the righteous end of testing fully the
man to whom he would fain give his highest treasure, were he
found deserving. " He's composed of harshness," says Ferdi-
nand— (Miranda knows better). Is not this willingness to face
misunderstanding a godlike quality? Do we not often, in our
blindness, asperse our Father for the seeming harshness that is
but test and trial?
Pardon, reconciliation, healing, peace and joy! These ex-
quisite things are here, and have not been lightly won. Our
sympathy goes out to the beautiful young and the beautiful
old; to Ferdinand and Miranda; to Prospero and Gonzalo, our
dear old Gonzalo, kindly in carrying out a stern command,
yet loyal to his master who has laid it upon him. Our beautiful
fairest couple have the qualities that shall carry them through
1919.] A SONG 319
whatsoever days of trial and difficulty may be set round the
jewel of their great love-joy. Our Prospero has worked, suf-
fered, forgiven, and been gladdened with a gladness great and
sweet; our Prospero who retires now, not as he had retired of
old, leaving statecraft in hands unfit to touch it, but as one
whose work will be carried on nobly and fitly by hands brave
and untired.
A SONG.
BY MICHAEL EARLS, S.J.
JUNE of the trees in glory,
June of the meadows gay!
O, and it works a story
To tell an October day.
Blooms of the apple and cherry
Toil for the far-off hours;
Never is idleness merry,
Is song of the garden bowers.
Brooks to the sea from mountains,
Yea, and from field and vine :
Rain and the sun are fountains
That gather for wheat and wine
Cellar and loft shall glory,
Table and hearth shall praise,
Hearing October's story
Of June and the merry days.
THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE.
BY CONDE B. FALLEN.
HE European War still looms before the imagina-
tion as the most colossal in history. The vast
numbers engaged, its long lines of battlefront,
its enormous consumption of munitions of war
and its great and rapid economic waste, its ter-
rific destruction of life and property, the wide extent of the
areas affected directly and indirectly — for no remotest corner
qf the globe escaped its shock — its violent and continuous in-
tensity— for it was rather one unremitting conflict than a series
of battles — coupled with the fact that it was waged by the
most highly civilized and powerful nations of the world with
the most formidable weapons ever devised by man, stamp it as
the most astounding and titanic conflict in the annals of man.
Its vastness staggers us, its complexities confound us, and its
ramifications bewilder us, for in one way or another the entire
world was involved.
Living as close to it as we did, the very drama unfolding
before our eyes with every moment of the day in all its ghastly
horror, we were so violently and profoundly impressed by its
immediacy that we have come to regard it as the most dis-
astrous and momentous mankind has ever endured. But when
we read the records of European history, we find that there
have been wars which, relatively at least, have been as great
and in their issue even more momentous to civilization.
European civilization had vast crises at various epochs in
its history, which by the shifting of the scale in any other way,
would have meant another Europe than the one we now be-
hold. Such crises have been committed to the issue of great
wars, some of which in point of violence, in the numbers en-
gaged, loss of life, destruction of property and the general re-
sultant horrors of warfare may compare relatively with the
great conflict just ended. I say relatively, for we must take
into consideration populations, resources and conditions, etc.,
as compared with those of the nations recently embattled
against each other in the European War.
1919.] THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE 321
The first great war within the ken of history, wherein the
destiny of Europe was at stake, arose at the very beginning of
Western civilization, and was in reality a war waged by Euro-
pean man against Asiatic man, and involved the supremacy
of one or the other. It was a war which the Greek communi-
ties of Europe waged against Troy in Asia Minor in the twelfth
century before Christ. All of Greece was involved and one hun-
dred thousand men crossed the seas to besiege the city of Priam.
An armed force of this size was as great in proportion to the
population from which it was drawn, as any of the European
armies of the present day. On the side of the Trojans as many
men must have been engaged as were in the ranks of their Gre-
cian opponents. Troy was besieged for ten years and finally de-
stroyed. Its inhabitants were either slain or taken away
into captivity. This ten-year conflict was, in matter of num-
bers and resources, when we consider the populations and
their environments, as great as any in history. When we con-
sider its results, it was one of the most momentous wars of the
world.
Greece was the well-head of European civilization. Its
art, science, literature and philosophy have flowed like great
fecundating streams into the life of European humanity and
are even today vital forces in our civilization. Had the Trojans
been triumphant, who can estimate what might have been the
issue to Europe? For Troy was Oriental in origin and type.
The war was in its essence Oriental civilization pitted against
Western. Had that tide of Orientalism overflowed Greece
and strangled European civilization in its cradle, how long de-
layed would have been the development of Europe or what
might have been the character of that development, no man
can say. But the happy fact is that the Greek victory saved the
dominant civilization of the world at its very source.
Greece was destined to see Europe invaded from Asia a
second time. This was seven hundred years after the destruc-
tion of Troy. Through the victories of Cyrus and his succes-
sors Persia had become a vast and formidable empire. By the
time of Darius (521-485 B.C.) all of Asiatic Greece, Thrace and
some of the ^Egean Islands had come under the dominion of
Persia. The Oriental threat hung like a great cloud over Euro-
pean Greece. The battle of Marathon for the moment hurled
back the Asiatic flood. Darius did not live to renew the war,
VOL. CIX. — 21
322 THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE [June,
but Xerxes, his successor, sought to achieve the conquest which
his father had failed to carry out.
Xerxes was employed for four whole years in making his
preparations. In the fifth year he set out upon his march.
Even to modern ears the Great King's army was of startling pro-
portions. " Of the expeditions with which we are acquainted,"
says Herodotus, " this was by far the greatest. For what na-
tion did not Xerxes lead out of Asia; what stream, being drunk
by the army did not fail him, except the great rivers." In
fact, the Persian army consisted of not less than 2,640,000 com-
batants. Add to this attendants, slaves, camp followers, and
the vast host swelled to the enormous proportions of 5,000,000
advancing like a great plague to devour a people whose
total population could not have amounted to two million,
and the area of whose country did not exceed that of
Ireland.
This enormous mass moved upon Greece like a creeping
inundation about to engulf and swallow up Hellas like an
island in the waters of the great sea. Its sheer weight would
seem to have been sufficient to obliterate the slender power
that Greece could muster. But the Greeks rallied to a com-
mon standard in face of the common danger, and beat back
the multitudes of the Great King like a swift whirlwind among
the dead leaves of an autumn forest. It was again the Occi-
dent against the Orient, the power of energy against force of
weight, mind against matter. At the Pass of Thermopylae a
little over five thousand Greeks stayed the Persian advance for
three days, and it was only over the dead bodies of Leonidas
and his Spartans that Xerxes finally forced the passage.
Twenty thousand dead was the toll the Persians paid to Greek
valor at the famous gateway. The naval battle of Salamis fol-
lowed the glorious stand at Thermopylae. The Great King re-
treated leaving three hundred thousand Persians and fifty
thousand auxiliaries with Mardonius, his son-in-law, in the
hope of retrieving the disasters to the Persian arms. At Plataea
Mardonius suffered an ignominious defeat. Of the three hun-
dred thousand Persians scarcely three thousand were left alive
with the exception of some forty thousand withdrawn from the
field at the beginning by one of the Persian generals, who fled
when he saw the tide of battle going against his fellow-country-
men. The victory of Mykale on the shores of Asia Minor,
1919.] THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE 323
whither the Greeks had pursued the Persians by sea, concluded
the war and the triumph of Greece.
This war had lasted less than a year, Greece had not only
been cleared of the invaders, but the war had been carried
into the enemy's country, the pride of the Great King broken
and his power shattered. Europe had again been saved from
Orientalism. During the century succeeding the Persian in-
vasion Greek genius developed to its full maturity. Into
this period are crowded its greatest names: Herodotus,
Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, ^Eschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides, Phidias, Hippocrates, Demosthenes and
others. Within a century and a half after the battle of Salamis
a Greek King, Alexander the Great, led an army into the Orient,
and founded Greek dynasties upon the ruins of Persian
satrapies.
While Greece was blocking the Orient against invasion of
Europe and founding the intellectual and artistic life of the
Western world, in the Italian peninsula was developing a
power destined by the time of the advent of Christianity to be
the mistress of the ancient world. This was Rome, whose career
from the founding of the city eight hundred years before Christ
to the time of the Empire's dissolution four hundred years
afterward, was one long warfare. Rome was essentially a
military State. Her genius was war, her aspiration the
dominion of the world. After eight centuries of conflict she
achieved her ambition and the Roman magisterium extended
to the limits of the known world. Rome stood without rival
to fear or possible foe to cope with; she was dominant and
supreme.
In the course of her growth she met with one really for-
midable opponent to dispute the mastery of the world. This
was Carthage. Three memorable wars are the record of a con-
flict, whose issue in Roman victory saved Europe again from
the fatal degradation of Oriental civilization. The three Punic
Wars waged at intervals within a century were vital to Western
civilization. The Carthaginians were of Phoenician origin. The
commercial mastery of the world was the goal of Carthage.
The lust of gold was in her veins. Her galleys were in every
port of the Mediterranean west of the ^Egean Sea, where
Greek rivalry alone successfully withstood her. Her fleets
had penetrated as far north as England and Ireland, and south-
324 THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE [June,
ward down the African Coast as far as Sierre Leone. Wher-
ever she went she planted colonies. That she was to clash
with Rome was inevitable. The collision first came over Sicily,
and the First Punic War began in 264 B.C. and lasted for twen-
ty-three years, to 241. It was during this war that the great
naval battle off Ecnomus was fought between Roman and
Carthaginian fleets, in which three hundred thousand men
were engaged, perhaps the greatest sea fight in point of num-
bers which the world has ever witnessed. It was also during
this war that naval tactics underwent a radical change, which
obtained up to the time of the present modern warship. Up
to the First Punic War naval manoeuvres in battle were con-
ducted for the purpose of ramming the enemy with the prow.
At the naval battle near Mylae, the Romans devised for the
first time the method of grappling and boarding the enemy's
ship.
The result of the First Punic War was the loss of Sicily to
Carthage and the destruction of her supremacy at sea. A peace
of twenty-three years followed, during which both powers pro-
ceeded with their plans of aggrandizement and world conquest
and made preparations for a future resumption of hostilities
clearly evident to their leaders. Carthage undertook the con-
quest of Spain with an eye, as future events proved, to a descent
upon Rome from the North. In keeping with this design Han-
nibal, the great Carthaginian General, crossed the Pyrenees,
traversed Southern Gaul, and crossed the Alps into Northern
Italy, losing more than half his army in this stupendous and
perilous march. When his forces debauched into Cis-Alpine
Gaul, there remained to him only twenty thousand foot and
six thousand horse out of ninety thousand foot and twelve
thousand horse with which he had started. He met and de-
feated the Roman armies at Ticinus, Trebia, Thrasimene and
Cannae. He traversed Italy from one end to the other, but in
spite of his victories was unable to reduce Roman resistance.
His brother Hasdrubal meanwhile came to his assistance, fol-
lowing the same route across .the Alps, but failed to effect a
junction with Hannibal. The Roman Counsels, Livius and
Nero, intercepted Hasdrubal on the banks of the Metaurus and
overwhelmed him in a crushing defeat. Hasdrubal himself
was slain and his head sent to Hannibal, who saw in that gory
and cruel spectacle the defeat of his own hopes and the ulti-
1919.] THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE 325
mate triumph of his detested foe. For four years after the
battle of Metaurus, Hannibal remained in Italy with con-
tinually diminishing fortunes and finally abandoned it, when he
found that the Romans were carrying the war into Africa. He
had been thirteen years in the enemy's country, and though
unsubdued, could not break through the indomitable legions
of Rome. When he learned that Scipio had laid siege to Car-
thage, he withdrew to Africa to fight his last battle at Zama,
where the power of Carthage was crushed finally, never to re-
cover.
The Third Punic War did not occur until forty-eight years
after, in 149 B.C. The Roman Cato, who had been dispatched
to Carthage in the year 174 as a commissioner to arbitrate be-
tween Massinissa, King of Numidia, and Carthage, returned to
Rome with the conviction that Carthage was still a menace to
Rome's greatness. In season and out of season he kept urging
upon the Senate the necessity of the utter destruction of the
African city which had proved such a formidable rival, and
might again contest the supremacy of the world. Delenda est
Carthago was Cato's constant slogan until the Roman Senate
finally heeded. After a three-years' conflict, Carthage fell
again before Roman prowess. The entire city was destroyed,
not a stone remaining upon a stone, and its population of
seven hundred thousand dispersed. From that time Carthage
became a mere record in the annals of history.
All in all Rome and Carthage had faced each other as rival
world powers one hundred and eighteen years. The time occu-
pied in actual warfare in the Three Punic Wars was forty-three
years. The triumph of Rome was a victory for European civil-
ization. Thus a third time (twice by Greece and now by Rome)
was Oriental aggression driven back and the Western world
saved from the degradation of the semi-barbarism of the
East.
It was not until after the Second Punic War that Rome
truly found herself. From that time onward the city of
the Tiber began to stride the earth as the world-conquerer.
Nation after nation, people after people were subdued in rapid
succession to her yoke. When Augustus gathered into his
hand the entire power of the Republic, he ruled without a rival
from the banks of the Tiber to the utmost limits of the civilized
world.
326 THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE [June,
With Rome supreme, there was little danger to Europe
from the East. Indeed, it was not until the Empire was totter-
ing to its final overthrow that the Oriental menace assumed
again any grave proportions. In 441 A.D. the Huns attacked
the Eastern Empire, and their power was not broken until 451
by the defeat of Attila at Chalons by Roman legions with their
Gaulish allies under Aetius. The very battlefield, where the
Hunnish hordes met their final disastrous check, is today in
part the scene of the recent vast conflict between Germany and
the Allies. At Chalons the dying Empire gained its last mo-
mentous victory. Attila afterwards renewed his attacks upon
the Western Empire, but with little effect. The Hunnish peril
to the civilized world had passed, and with the death of Attila
the Asiatic menace disappeared altogether.
It was not until the seventh century that danger loomed
again out of the East. In 622 the Mohammedan era of the
Hegira flamed up like a devastating conflagration. By 632
Arabia was conquered; by 651 Persia came under the yoke of
the Koran. Syria, Egypt and Africa were subdued by 709, and
the same year saw a Moslem army cross the Straits of Gibraltar
and invade European soil. By 715 Spain was in possession of
the Saracenic conqueror. It was not long before the victorious
followers of the Prophet crossed the Pyrenees and irrupted into
France. The Western Empire had perished; the Eastern Em-
pire was impotent to stay the onward rush of Islam, and had
seen her fairest provinces wrested from her in Asia and Africa
by this new and terrible power. The danger was imminent;
was Europe to fall under the civil and religious yoke of the
Koran? Abder-Rahman, the conqueror of Spain, invaded Gaul
in 732. Charles Martel, King of the Franks, met him on the
field of Tours, and gained a signal victory, completely routing
and destroying the Saracenic host. Abder-Rahman perished in
the battle, and Islam was driven back over the Pyrenees into
Spain. Schlegel says (Philosophy of History) : " The arms of
Charles Martel saved and delivered the Christian nations of
the West from the deadly grasp of all-destroying Islam."
But Spain was to endure the Moslem yoke for eight hun-
dred years, and it was eight hundred years of war. The Span-
iards, driven back by the fanatical Moslem, found final foot-
hold amid the rocky fastnesses of the Asturias. Thence issuing
they battled century after century, gradually wresting the
1919.] THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE 327
soil, it might almost be said foot by foot, from the detested foe.
It was one long racial and religious conflict, waged almost in-
cessantly and culminated only in 1490 when Ferdinand and
Isabella drove the last of the Moorish kings from Granada. It
is worthy of note that Columbus, discoverer of America, served
in the Spanish army at this famous siege.
In the meantime Christian Europe from 1096 to 1270, in
eight successive Crusades, flung the might of her chivalry
against the Moslem power in Asia. The effect of these military
expeditions was to keep Islam on the defensive within its own
limits and secure European territory from its aggressions.
When the pressure of Christian arms, which the Crusades
brought to bear upon Islam in Asia, ceased, the followers of the
Prophet gradually dismembered the Byzantine Empire and in
1453 took Constantinople itself and established themselves
a second time upon European soil. From this vantage point
they advanced for two centuries up to the very walls of Vienna,
where they were finally stayed and disastrously routed by
Sobieski, King of Poland, in 1683. The siege of Vienna was
the high watermark of Moslem aggression in Europe. Since
that time the power of the Turk has been receding in South-
eastern Europe, until today, as the result of the recent Balkan
War, Turkey in Europe consists of a narrow strip of territory
along the Bosporus, and how precarious that narrow footing
remains is evident in the victory of the Entente over Germany
and her allies.
Thus for a period of nearly three thousand years has Asia
been a menace to Europe, and at various intervals poured her
hosts into European territory, seeking a foothold and conquest.
The wars of this conflict have been the most momentous in
their results that European people have ever waged. If Euro-
pean soil had not been kept inviolate from Medo-Persian, Car-
thaginian, Hun, and Moslem supremacy, Western civilization
would have been doomed. Greece, Rome, Gaul, Spain, and
Austria have each in turn stood in the breach and warded off
the great disaster. Asia is no longer feared and the day of her
aggression is passed, at least in Europe. Whether Asia may
again become aggressive and strike across the Pacific at the
new nations of Western blood on American soil, is a question
that the future holds for us. The rapidly rising power of Japan
and the immense potentialities of China are problems which
328 THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE [June,
Christendom may yet have to face, not merely in theory, but
in fact.
The internal wars of Europe, that is, wars waged between
European peoples, have been numerous and some of them in
time and extent of immense proportions. The history of an-
cient Rome bristles with wars; from her rise to her fall war-
fare was her normal occupation. Her greatness was founded
upon conquest, and her decline was filled with the constant
clamor of civic and foreign strife. Modern Europe rose upon
her ruins in the midst of the struggles and contentions of the
Northern Barbarians. Goth and Visigoth, Gaul, Frank, Saxon,
Dane, Northman, carried fire and sword the length and breadth
of Europe, until by degress out of the immense turmoil racial
and national demarcations became fixed and modern Europe
rose out of barbaric confusions into that homogeneous and
yet diversified entity which goes under the general name of
Christendom.
The longest war ever waged within the limits of Europe
was that of the Reconquest of Spain from Saracenic rule. It
was a conflict of eight centuries duration, and fought with an
intensity and resolution unparalleled in history. It was a
war of race against race and creed against creed. Its effect
was to solidify and unite the many diverse elements which
went to make up the people of the Iberian Peninsula, at the
time of the Arab invasion, into a solidified and united nation-
ality, and prepare them to play that great part in human his-
tory in America and Europe which lasted until the age of
Louis XIV.
In the Hundred Years' War between England and France,
the longest European war next to the Spanish Reconquest, we
witness a conflict whose sole reason was the ambition of princes
and the lust of territory. It was begun by Edward III. of Eng-
land in 1337, under the claim of his right of succession to the
French throne in the female line, and did not end until 1453
with the failure of the English cause. It was during this war
that France witnessed the wonderful career of the Maid of
Orleans, the peasant girl who rallied the disorganized and dis-
couraged French armies to victory and turned the tide of the
English invasion into defeat. No war in all European history
had so little justification. It was capricious and wanton in its
origin, destructive and futile in its results. Its one glory was
1919.] THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE 329
the unique career of Joan of Arc, who rescued her people from
an invading host without right or title on French soil.
The Thirty Years' War from 1618 to 1648 next claims dis-
tinction for its duration and for the extent of its political rami-
fications, as well as for its religious complexion. It rose out of
the religious and political confusions subsequent to the Refor-
mation in Germany. It involved Germany, France, Spain,
Sweden, England and the Netherlands. Its primary cause
was religious jealousies and antagonisms among the petty
German States within the Empire, originating in the quarrels
over the interpretation of the Religious Peace of Augsburg.
But it was not long before it became the focus of the wider
diplomatic interests and struggles for mastery between all the
Courts of Europe. France under Richelieu's policies was am-
bitious and Spain was retentive of her European domination,
and each played against the other all the diplomatic resources
at command to best its rival. Catholic France under the
guidance of Cardinal Richelieu espoused the cause of the Ger-
man Protestants against a Catholic Emperor and Catholic
Spain. The war became a war between the House of Bourbon
in France and the House of Hapsburg in Austria and Spain.
Germany was crushed between the upper and nether mill-
stones and was ravaged by both armies, mostly of a mercenary
character, from end to end. The result was the aggrandize-
ment of France, and the laying of the foundations for French
domination under Louis XIV.
From the Peace of Westphalia, which concluded the
Thirty Years' War, Spanish influence waned in Europe and
France rose rapidly in the ascendant. Louis XIV. became
master of Europe. Under Louis XV. French power rapidly
declined, and under his ill-fated successor, Louis XVI., the
Bourbon dynasty collapsed in revolution and the Republic of
France rose dripping in blood from its ruins. The new Repub-
lic found itself arrayed against all Europe, and under the
genius of Napoleon, France waged for twenty years the stupen-
dous conflict known as the Napoleonic Wars.
Though not as intensive and as concentrated as the recent
European war, the Napoleonic wars extended to an even wider
area. France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland,
the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Russia, and even Egypt,
felt the heel of Napoleon's ambition and trembled to the march
330 THE GREAT WARS OF EUROPE [June,
of his hosts. For twenty years he triumphed over Europe, and
not until Waterloo in 1815 did his astounding career come to a
disastrous close. In men, money, and economic waste, relative
to the populations and resources of Europe at the time, the
Napoleonic wars, when summed up in totality, will compare
with the European War. The destructive process was of course
slower, but it extended over a series of years far beyond the
duration of the recent conflict. In the present instance so rapid
and intensive and immense were the destructive forces at work
that a decision supervened in a comparatively short time. The
waste and destruction of the recent War was so concentrated and
so immediately enormous that it has staggered us. It is only
when we stop to consider and measure the conditions of Europe
a century ago with those of today that we are able to realize
that the Napoleonic wars afford any equitable basis of com-
parison in the destruction of life and property with the titanic
struggle but now happily concluded. Europe was depleted
after the Napoleonic wars, and the recovery was slow. At the
present time the recovery will be much more rapid, for the
world moves faster by a hundredfold than it did at the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century.
We are prone to measure events by what is most familiar
to us, by our own environment and its conditions. The world
a century ago is very remote, save to the students of history,
and to the man-in-the-street, unknown. What he witnessed
and experienced in the recent War leads him to believe, without
the knowledge which enables him to compare, that it was the
most gigantic and momentous conflict in history, before whose
colossal proportions all others are dwarfed into insignificance.
But in comparison with other struggles throughout human his-
tory, vast and destructive as it was, it does not relatively rank
as superlative.
A FEDERAL REVOLUTION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL.
BY FRANCIS P. DONNELLY, S.J.
HERE was a time when few paid attention to the
stream of publications issued by the Bureau of
Education at Washington. No subject is more
frequently discussed or with more variety of
theories than the subject of education, but most
of the discussions take place in special magazines and have
no wide influence. So it was thought about the Federal publi-
cations, but with a Federal Board empowered, by the Smith-
Hughes bill, to give money, to prescribe courses, to train
teachers in all of the States, no publication it issues can safely
be ignored.
There lies before us a publication having the approval of
the Federal Board and representing also the views of the
National Educational Association. The publication is entitled :
Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, a Report of the
Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education
Appointed by the National Educational Association.
Much of the Report is phrased in vague generalities, which
appear to say something and actually say rothing. One in-
stance may be cited. The Report proposes seven objectives for
secondary education, and declares that " no curriculum in the
secondary school can be regarded as satisfactory unless it gives
due attention to each of the objectives."1 Then, after enumer-
ating the objectives, the Report continues with this very illumi-
nating statement: "Due recognition of these objectives will
provide the elements of distribution and concentration which
are recognized as essential for a well-balanced and effective
education." Translated into plain words this would seem to
mean : " Balance these seven purposes well, and they will be
well balanced." But how are they to be made short or long,
you ask, and you are referred to " seventeen other reports in
which the principles are applied to the various aspects." If a
great deal of the Report were stated in plain terms, the
1 Page 20.
332 A REVOLUTION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL [June,
government bill for printing would be less, and much would
be rejected as absurd or awaken such controversy as would
show the whole scheme to be impractical.
The Report "regards the following as the main objectives
of education: 1. Health. 2. Command of fundamental pro-
cesses. 3. Worthy home-membership. 4. Vocation. 5. Citi-
zenship. 6. Worthy use of leisure. 7. Ethical character." 2
There will be no disagreement about these objectives, and
everyone will be glad to note that four of the seven are prac-
tically concerned with education of the will, although worthy
home-membership, as distinguished from other objectives, is
not as formidable as it sounds, consisting chiefly in sewing and
cooking for the girls and in reading books and playing of music
for boys and girls. The reader will observe that the seven
objectives include the well-known division of a full, rounded
education into that of body, of mind and of will with the addi-
tion of the spheres in which these are employed, home and
state, occupation and leisure. The elaborate phrasing of these
purposes illustrates again an undesirable feature of the Re-
port : its failure to say a simple thing in a simple way.
The outstanding feature of the Report is the rearrangement
of early school-life into what is familiarly styled the "six and
six " plan. " We, therefore, recommend a reorganization of
the school system whereby the first six years shall be devoted
to elementary education designed to meet the needs of pupils
approximately six to twelve years of age; and the second six
years to secondary education designed to meet the needs of
pupils of approximately twelve to eighteen years of age." 3
The latter six years are subdivided into what is known as
junior high school and senior high school of three years each.
One might inquire what difference is this re-grouping go-
ing to make? We shall see presently. Note a possible ad-
vantage which concerns our high schools. Under the recom-
mendations of the Bureau of Education, pupils are advised to
begin the study of foreign languages at twelve. In many States
pupils are now studying Latin at that age. Why not let such
pupils enter high school at once and be ready, as they will
easily be, for college at sixteen? Our present system is two
years longer than in Europe without enough gain to justify the
extension.
•Page 10. «Pag« 18.
1919.] A REVOLUTION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 333
What is the real reason why the Report advises the six and
six plan? Because it is in favor of a radical change in the na-
ture of secondary education. Educators were fondly believing
that electivism was a dead issue in American education after
its dismal failure in colleges.4 But educators were mistaken.
Electivism has become vocational training, and the election of
courses which is found impossible or impracticable at eighteen,
is to be gravely enjoined on the philosopher of twelve, who is
to elect his vocation in lif e at that mature age.
Gould anyone believe that the National Educational As-
sociation would father and the Federal Board of Education
stand sponsor for so grotesque an offspring? Here are some
significant passages: "The school should provide as wide a
range of subjects as it can offer effectively." 5 "Especially in
the junior high school the pupil should have a variety of ex-
perience and contacts in order that he may explore his own
capacities and aptitudes. Through a system of educational
supervision or guidance he should be helped to determine his
education and his vocation. These decisions should not be im-
posed upon him by others." (Here perhaps the bewildered
teacher might betake himself to Bulletin 19, 1918, Vocational
Guidance in Secondary Schools. If he does, he will return
unenlightened but burdened with a load of profound plati-
tudes.) But to return to our twelve-year electors. " Flexibility
should be secured by election of studies or curriculum," by
"possible transfer from curriculum to curriculum." Even
within the same studies there must be no limitation with free
and unrestricted choice of our grave juniors. "In certain
studies these factors (capacities, interests and needs of the
pupils) may differ widely for various groups, e. g., chemistry
should emphasize different phases in agricultural, commercial,
industrial and household-arts curriculums."
Only the delectable irony of Miss Repplier could do full
justice to the junior high teachers conducting a Woolworth
Store for the twelve-year old explorers of their capacities,
electing now agricultural and now household-arts chemistry
but always with the possibility of transferring their aptitudes
to commercial haberdashery or industrial macaroni and candy-
making.
4 See for the most recent evidence on its failure Scribner's, February, 1919, The
College: Today and Tomorrow, by Dean Roe of Wisconsin University.
6 Page 21.
334 A REVOLUTION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL [June,
When the junior high has escorted its pupil for three years
to various possible curriculums, all the time " imposing noth-
ing " on the pupil, yet " organizing " each year's work that the
pupil may leave at the end of any year according to the grand
principle of the " subordination of deferred values," 6 what
then is to be done? Our Report takes us then to senior high.
" The work of senior high school should be organized into
differentiated curriculums. The range of such curriculums
should be as wide as the school can offer effectively." 7 Six
curriculums are suggested but in a " broad sense." Everything
is ample about this Report except common sense. What of our
old time high school? It gets one sentence in passing, as an
afterthought. Oh, yes, by the way: "Provision should be
made also for those having distinctively academic interests
and needs." Academic! Alas, poor academic, once a fellow
of infinite wisdom. Where be your glory now? Hail, voca-
tional; you are now king.
The Report, after electing and adopting and transferring
and differentiating, begins to think of what it calls the " unify-
ing function," and it declares with its usual platitudinousness,
which would be humorous were it not so sadly serious : " With
increasing specialization in any society comes a corresponding
necessity for increased attention to unification. So in the sec-
ondary school increased attention to specialization calls for
more purposeful plans for unification." The only reply is:
"You said it." But vain hope! You cannot stop this voca-
tional electivism anywhere for anybody at anytime. So,
though the Report advises " constants," (Are they to be " im-
posed?"), it goes on to propose "curriculum variables" and
free electives to either or both of these functions." Perhaps
unification, the curriculum variables to specialization and the
free electives to either or both of these functions." Perhaps
you think you now have some unity. Do not be too precipitate.
For fear your young pupil, who is being trained all this time
in "worthy home-membership," should be differentiated and
made constant too soon, you are told : " In the seventh year,
that is the first year of the junior high school, the pupil should
not be required to choose at the outset the field to which he will
devote himself." The principal, or one of the seventeen ad-
ditional reports, "will organize several short units of real
8 Page 17. T Page 22.
1919.] A REVOLUTION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 335
educational value in addition to their exploratory value." The
Report continues to urge the schools to keep on exploring and
differentiating and yet always organizing and unifying and
preparing, and thus concludes this section: "Above all, the
greater the differentiation in studies, the more important be-
comes the social mingling of pupils pursuing different cur-
riculums." As a final "unifying function," if there is no unity
in the studies, the students can get together in a dance or in a
play or in a foot-ball game if nowhere else.
The Report may advocate specialization of courses but it
will have no specialization of schools. There will be no classi-
cal high or Boston Latin or English High or Manual Training.
No, everything must be in one building. At last we have
unification. Woolworth's building is constant whatever may
be said of the purchasers, clerks or commodities.
We have cited enough to show the extraordinary nature of
this document. How can we explain the serious advocacy of
an impossible scheme? The framers of this Report are fol-
lowing logically a false philosophy and their conclusions are
a veritable reductio ad absurdum of that philosophy. The Re-
port denies the possibility of general training and upholds
the theory of equivalence in studies, and all the rest follows
logically to confusion worse confounded. The Report, indeed,
states that " the final verdict of modern psychology has not as
yet been rendered on subject values and general discipline."8
Theoretically the Report says there is no final verdict, but
practically the Report accepts the fact as proved.
It is not prudent, to put it mildly, to impose electivism on
the whole country when perhaps most Americans will wish
freely to elect prescribed courses. Neither is it honest to give
the verdict of not proven to general discipline and to excellence
of particular studies. First of all the whole educational world
from the beginning down to Herbart held, at least in practice,
to general discipline.9 Then, secondly, as Professor Cameron
and Professor Shorey and others have pointed out, modern
psychologists in recent years, though at first awed by the name
of William James, have since tested his proofs and have found
them decidedly wanting. We never, indeed, can have com-
plete agreement among psychologists, but any one conversant
8 Page 8.
9 Educational Review, September, 1918: Formal Discipline Past and Present, by
Edward H. Cameron, Yale.
336 A REVOLUTION IN THE- HIGH SCHOOL [June,
with the recent literature on the subject will know that the
theory of general discipline has been proved by many satis-
factory experiments.10 There is, indeed, no agreement on the
explanation, but he would be very courageous, or a member of
the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Educa-
tion, who would deny the fact of general training.
The Report practically ignores the educational value of
languages. There is not a word about clear thinking, about
judging, reasoning, developing imagination, cultivating taste.
These " capacities or aptitudes " are practically denied
although a few brief references are made to "various pro-
cesses such as reading, writing, arithmetical computation and
oral and written expression, that are needed as tools in the
affairs of life," and "command of these fundamental pro-
cesses, while not an end in itself, is nevertheless an indispen-
sable objective." " The Report admits general health for the
body, general character for the will, but will have none of gen-
eral discipline for the mind.
So much for the unproved, inconsistent and imprudently
experimental philosophy upon which the Report is based.
It is small wonder the wealth of the Federal Government
is needed for such a scheme. Vocational Training is the most
costly experiment that can be imagined. It intends to experi-
ment with the brains of our children; it proposes and must
propose countless vocations with highly specialized sub-
divisions; it contemplates building up a whole system for this
with our money; it will multiply the cost of education nearly
twenty times, and then it will not accomplish its purpose. The
educational experience of all ages was sure of only one thing,
that pupils will have brains and tongues and minds and wills
all their lives, and it sets out to train them. The Report, how-
ever, calls for the penetration of a super-seer to comprehend a
pupil's aptitudes, and calls for the vision of a super-prophet
to prognosticate a pupil's future occupation. There is your
choice, American citizen; do you accept the common sense of
ages or do you wish to lavish your money on an experiment
which contradicts all experience, is based on a false philosophy
and calls for impossible qualifications in teachers and pupils?
10 See Professor Cameron's article above and Professor Angell and Professor
Plllsbury on Formnl Discipline, in Latin find Greek in American Education, by
Kelsey, pp. 344-396.
« Page 10,
1919.] A REVOLUTION IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 337
It would be difficult to compute exactly the cost of such a
scheme as the Report advocates, but we may approximate by
taking the cost of teaching various branches as stated in one.
of the " seventeen special reports," Reorganization of English
in Secondary Schools, Bulletin, 1917, No. 2, page 152. In that
report the average teaching cost per pupil of the five branches,
English, Latin, French, History, Mathematics, in certain
schools, amounted to $43.49 and the equipment cost per pupil
was $7.66; while for the five branches of Physics, Chemistry,
Manual Training, Commercial, Agriculture, the teaching cost
was $66.62 and the equipment cost was $71.12. The average
annual increase of expense per pupil was for the former five
ten cents, and for the latter one dollar and eighty cents, or
eighteen times as much. All this for that highly pampered
darling, secondary education, while scarcely a word is heard
about elementary education. The Second Annual Report of
the Federal Board of Vocational Education12 states that in 1915,
91.03 of our children were in elementary schools; 7.13 in sec-
ondary schools, and 1.84 in higher institutions. In view of these
figures the Federal Board of Education and all State Boards
should see to it that the ninety-one are educated before the
seven, who in most cases can pay for their education, receive
the expensive and experimental vocational training. De-
mocracy requires that all should receive the necessities before
a privileged few are given the luxuries, and educational facili-
ties in buildings and teachers for the lower grades are not
nearly ample enough, at least in the larger cities. Americani-
zation and elimination of illiteracy must begin there. It will
be too late in the secondary school when ninety per cent have
left.
"Page 52.
VOL. cix. — 22
HARTLEY COLERIDGE: A PORTRAIT.
BY FLORENCE MOYNIHAN.
ISITORS to the English Lake District will remem-
ber Nab Cottage, an unpretentious little house
which fronts the reed-fringed shore of Rydal
Water on the road from Ambleside to Grasmere.
Situated at a short distance from Wordsworth's
home at Rydal Mount, it is famed as the residence (now re-
modeled) of Hartley Coleridge, the best beloved of the Lake
Poets. Here it was, in the very heart of the Lake District, that
for many years he lived, and here in 1849 he died. Traditions
still linger among the peasantry regarding the personality of
" Li'le Hartley " —the name by which he is affectionately re-
membered. To this survival of his memory not only his talents,
but his social qualities and his very infirmities contributed.
From his illustrious father, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he in-
herited, together with his poetic faculty, a disabling weakness
of the will. To the end he remained a wastrel of genius whose
gifts were made void by the curse of intemperance. Yet this
failing was offset by a singular tenderness of nature which
showed itself in a sense of fellowship with every living thing,
while the appeal of his genius made itself felt all the more be-
cause of his disarming weakness and incapacity.
Hartley Coleridge, so named in honor of the metaphysi-
cian, David Hartley, was born near Bristol in September, 1796.
At the age of four he came with his parents to share Southey's
home at Greta Hall, Keswick, in the Lake country. In this lit-
tle mountain town, under the shadow of Skiddaw and by the
sequestered Derwentwater, he grew up a visionary child with
quick sensibilities which boded ill for his future welf are. At an
early age the waywardness which was destined to make him
" Wander like a breeze, by lakes and sandy shores " had begun
to manifest itself. Among the memorials preserved at Dove
Cottage, Grasmere, hangs a picture of Hartley, painted by
Wilkie, as he appeared when ten years old. An abundance of
dark hair straggles down over the low forehead, and the dark
liquid eyes, which look out on one with a childish wonderment,
add to the benignity of the features a wistful and dreamy ex-
1919.] HARTLEY COLERIDGE: A PORTRAIT 339
pressiveness. This portrait, together with Wordsworth's in-
comparable lines " To H. C., six years old," gives an admirable
impression of his character and temperament. A physical de-
formity— he was ungainly and stunted — unfitted him for boy-
ish games and sports, and, en revanche, led to his seeking con-
genial recreation in the exercise of the dreaming fantasy. His
subjective habit of mind made such a pastime specially con-
genial to him. Like De Quincey, he lived in the world of the
imagination, and, like him, contracted obligations to this
dream-world (whose fortunes he could not always control),
which were to be a life-long menace to his peace and sanity of
mind. The kingdom of his boyish invention — Ejuxria, with
tales of which he used to regale his school companions — was
more real to him than everyday life, nor did the most ordinary
facts make any impression on him until they had been refined
into the gossamer of sentiments and fancies.
Meantime, the process of his education was supervised by
his father, who wrote an elementary Greek grammar for his
behoof. Later he attended with his brother Derwent a local
school, taught by an Anglican clergyman, at the little hamlet
of Clappersgate. However, his real education was derived
rather from association with the famous writers who inhabited
the district, and from the influences breathed on the sensitive
mirror of his mind by nature in her most inspiring ministra-
tions : " It was so, rather than by a regular course of study,"
writes Derwent in his memoir of his brother, " that he was
educated; by desultory reading, by the living voice of Cole-
ridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, Lloyd, Wilson and De
Quincey, and again by homely familiarity with town's folk,
and country folk, of every degree; lastly by daily recurring
hours of solitude, by lonely wanderings with the murmur of
the Brathay in his ear." This account accentuates the priv-
ilege of friendship which he had with the circle of the Lake
Poets, and his boon companionship with the peasants in their
sheep-shearing and merrymakings. Thus he learned not
merely from books, but from nature and men the lore which
was to image itself in the plastic forms of his verse. Many a
time must he have accompanied Wordsworth or De Quincey
in rapt communion by the meres and over the fells, and many
a haunting prospect over Windermere must he have enjoyed
from Christopher North's house at Ellery, where
340 HARTLEY COLERIDGE: A PORTRAIT [June,
All Paradise
Gould, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him.
Somewhat akin to the solace of nature was the charm exer-
cised on him by the society of his sister and her companions —
the " triad," Sarah Coleridge, Dora Wordsworth, and Edith
Southey. In their company he could count on the ready tol-
erance of his singularity, and the admiration for his eloquence
denied him by his schoolmates. This susceptibility to the
softening graces of girlhood was to have its reflex in the
feminine quality of his poetry, and in his vein of musing on the
coyer aspects of natural scenery.
In 1815 Hartley entered Oxford as Scholar of Merton.
There his brilliant powers as a conversationalist made him a
welcome guest in academic circles. " Leaning his head on one
shoulder, turning up his dark bright eyes, and swaying back-
wards and forwards in his chair, he would hold forth by the
hour on whatever subject might have been started — either of
literature, politics or religion." His personal idiosyncrasy,
however, was destined to mar a career which opened so
auspiciously. He succeeded, indeed, in taking his degree, and
in obtaining the Oriel Fellowship. But the fatal bias of his
temperament which issued in eccentricity and intoxication—
"brief period of dear delusion," as he ruefully termed it —
caused his dismissal from the University. Returning, after a
year's residence in London, to Ambleside he essayed teaching
school but failed, also, because of his impracticality and in-
temperance. Thenceforth until his death he was to lead a
vagrant existence in the Lake District, a pensioner upon the
hospitality of others.
He resided for the most part at Nab Cottage with Mr. and
Mrs. Richardson, within easy call of Wordsworth whose
special protege he was. As the years went by, his infirmities
grew upon him, and what with his child-like ways, his flitting
gait, and nondescript attire he presented the quaint figure of
one
Untimely old, irreverendly gray.
He passed his days in aimless wanderings over the countryside,
in desultory reading of his favorite English poets, in miscel-
laneous writing, and in the interchange of social visits with
1919.] HARTLEY COLERIDGE: A PORTRAIT 341
his friends. To the country folk, gentle and simple, he was en-
deared because of the touch of nature which made him kin
with them. With child and grandam he was equally at home,
and, ensconced in the ingle-nook of some cottier's house, he
loved to have a " crack " with an admiring circle of listeners.
All too frequently he indulged in bouts of conviviality with
smocked yokels at the " Red Lion," or some mean tavern. On
Sundays, however, he would beam paternally on the little
congregation assembled at "Wytheburn's modest house of
prayer," and he remained always a pietist who diligently
conned his Bible. This strange anomaly is expressly men-
tioned by his friend, James Spedding, who testifies that " his
moral and spiritual sensibilities seemed to be absolutely un-
touched by the life he was leading." It was as though some
essential sweetness and innocence of nature underlay the
soilure which smirched his outward life. Despite his lapses
from grace he retained the good opinion of Aubrey de Vere
and Doctor Arnold, and he conciliated the severe moral judg-
ment of Harriet Martineau. How dear he was to Wordsworth's
heart we may know from the fact that their graves were chosen
beside each other under the spreading yew-tree in St. Oswald's
Churchyard, Grasmere.
Hartley Coleridge's personality is reflected completely in
his poems. In accordance with the tradition of literary con-
fession he made them the receptacle of his confidences. His
favorite medium is the sonnet; within its slender limits he,
like Shakespeare, unlocked his heart. In his hands the son-
net-form becomes an instrument of subtle music, expressing in
soft undertones the repining and introversion of a sensitive na-
ture in defeat. The notes of his lyre are few, but they are
delicately struck. His address to Poesy in the verses Poietes
Apoietes gives us in effect the compass of its register:
The lovely images of earth and sky
From thee I learned within my soul to treasure;
And the strong music of thy minstrelsy
Charms the world's tempest to a sweet, sad measure.
He sought in song an anodyne for his soul's hurt, and an organ
to voice the amenities of nature. As Aubrey de Vere has beau-
tifully phrased it : " His Muse interpreted between him and his
neighbors; she freshened and brightened the daily face of
342 HARTLEY COLERIDGE: A PORTRAIT [June,
Nature; she sweetened the draught of an impoverished life,
and made atonement to a defrauded heart." The Sonnets on
the Season present objectively the familiar sights and sounds
of Lakeland scenery : the " lowly heaving " hills, the inland
lake, the pastoral idyl of shepherd life, the white-chalice d
lilies upon the mere, the flush of apple orchards in blossom,
the return of the cuckoo, the cheep of the wee wren, and the
murmur of the woodland rill. He takes especial delight in the
common wild flowers — the violet, the daisy, the cowslip, the
celandine; he hails their appearance with delight, and attends
their train as they circle through the year. The first primrose
awaking in the brakes, the snowdrop peeping through its white
coverlet fills him with vivid pleasure. These flowers are for
him creatures of life, yielding and sensitive to the rain, and
wind, and sunshine. An anemone, surviving amid the storms
of autumn, becomes a figure of his early faith and innocence
persisting through the inclemency of later life. The spell of
nature is enhanced for him when it is associated with the
bloom and promise of youth — the theme on which many of his
poems are a variation. All the frustrate romance of his life
revives in the verses to some maiden which link his name with
her memory. These poems are instinct with the pensive retro-
spect of his failing years. The most touching of them are
the sonnet, " To a lofty beauty, from her poor kinsman," and
that to Louise Claude with its exquisite lines :
I am a waning star, and nigh to set;
Thou art a morning beam of waxing light;
But sure the morning star can ne'er regret
That once 'twas gray-haired evening's favorite.
Children share also a large part of his affection; he has writ-
ten to them with somewhat of Wordsworth's awe and Blake's
intimacy of vision.
It is, however, to his poems of self -portraiture that we re-
turn again and again. In them this " thriftless prodigal of
smiles and tears " views with inseeing eyes his soul's malady,
or gilds reality with the lovely dyes of fancy. The best are
the sonnets beginning, " Let me not deem that I was made in
vain," and " Long time a child, and still a child," etc., with its
characterization
Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is gray,
1919.] HARTLEY COLERIDGE: A PORTRAIT 343
For I have lost the race I never ran:
A rathe December blights my lagging May.
These express the outstanding traits of his character — the ele-
ments of brooding abstraction, of self-abasement, of unavailing
regret, of humble acquiescence. Others celebrate the compen-
sation of his lot: the appeal of music, the glamour of youth
and beauty, the voice of " the warbling Nymph of old Winan-
dermere." They reveal him the faery voyager, whose
ship was fraught
With rare and precious fancies, jewels brought
From fairy-land.
With this magic gift of fantasy was he wont to recoup himself
for the stern exactions of circumstance.
Apart from the sonnets, one poem " To my unknown sis-
ter-in-law " contains an affecting and dignified apologia pro
vita sua:
Dearest sister, I
Am one of those of whom thou doubtless hast heard much —
Not always well. My name too oft pronounced
With sighs, despondent sorrow, and reproach,
By lips that fain would praise, and ever bless me.
Yet deem not hardly of me: who best know
Most gently censure me; and who believes
The dark inherent mystery of sin,
Doubts not the will and potency of God
To change, invigorate, and purify
The self-condemning heart.
Here is evidenced the religious faith and penitence which
makes the memorable sonnet Maltum Dilexit the appropriate
envoy to his poems. It is this fervor of aspiration (which he
never lost), together with his warm human sympathies, his
humanitarian pity that warrants Wordsworth's ascription to
him of
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM.
BY AURELIO F. PALMIERI, O.S.A., PH.D.
HE twentieth century is the century of the Slav,"
recently wrote R. W. Seton-Watson, one who
knows the Balkans well, " and it is one of the
main tasks of the War to emancipate the hitherto
despised, unknown, or forgotten Slavonic de-
mocracies of Central and Southern Europe. If the Poles, the
Gzecho-Slovaks, and the Jugoslavs succeed in reasserting their
right to independent national development, and to that close
and cordial intercourse with the West to which they have always
aspired, they will become so many links between the West and
their Russian kinsmen, and will restore to Europe that idealism
which Prussian materialist doctrine was rapidly crushing out."
In several works on Russia, the author has reached the
same conclusion. The nineteenth century was the century of
awakening national consciousness throughout the world. The
twentieth century will witness to the consequences, good or
evil, of that awakening. There is no doubt that the leading
part will be played by the Slavs. They have but now come out
of the mists of their mediaeval history. They are virile, full of
the exuberance of youth. They are ambitious, aggressive,
looking towards their future, rather than towards their past.
They feel that a mission, both political and religious, is in store
for them.
Messianism is a characteristic trait of the Slavic peoples.
Solovev and Komiakov, although at opposite poles in their
general concepts of life, looked upon Russia as the reviver of
moribund Western Christianity. In the magic strains of the
lyre of Mickiewicz, Poland became a crucified nation, purify-
ing with her martyrs' blood the whole human race, and pav-
ing the way for a new era of justice, peace and brotherhood.
Newly born, the Jugoslavs, themselves the amalgam of three
Slavic races, have been set up as a future bulwark of Christian
civilization against Prussian militarism and Mohammedan
barbarism.
At present the Southern Slavs are the heroes of the drama
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 345
that is being played on the stage of Europe. Little Serbia
appears crowned with the crown of martyrdom. The Croa-
tians and Slovenes lay stress upon their patriotic suffering un-
der the sceptre of the Hapsburg. English statesmen and politi-
cal writers dream of a strong nation that will hold the key of
the East, and bar the way to the commercial expansion of
Germanism. Catholics rejoice at the prospect of a closer con-
tact between their co-religionists of Croatia and Slovenia, and
the Serbian followers of the theological tenets of Byzantium.
For one reason or another, all eyes are turned on Jugoslavia.
It is to be hoped that the expectations of her friends will not
be deceived, and that the history of the Southern Slavs will de-
serve and enjoy, from the very outset, the praise of their
friends and the approbation of their foes.
Of the three races that compose the amalgamated state of
Jugoslavia, the Croatians are the most advanced politically
and cultured intellectually. The purpose of this article is to
follow up the evolution of their national consciousness and to
set forth present conditions.
The national chroniclers of Croatia, as is customary with
other Slavic races, give wings to their imagination, and place
Croatians in the forefront of Slavic history. According to the
legends gathered by Faust Vrancic, the Russians, Poles and
Bohemians are the offspring of three Croatian brothers, Russ,
Leh and Ceh.
Genuine historical documents do not, of course, support
the rhapsodies of the Croatian bards. The appearance of
Croatian nationality in the history of Europe goes back to
the beginning of the eighth century. The earliest historic docu-
ment that mentions it is dated 838. It is a donation of Trymir,
Croatarum Dux, to the Church of St. George in Putalio, at
Salona. The earliest historian of Croatia is Constantinus VII.
Porphyrogennetos, Emperor of Byzantium (912-959), who
gathers in his treatise De administrando imperio, interesting
data on the Slavs of Serbia, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia-
Herzegovina. What he tells is a medley of history and legend.
Yet his narration is the earliest page of Croatia's history.
According to him, at the time of his predecessor, the Emperor
Heraclius (610-641), the country called by that name was
under the yoke of the Avars. Heraclius was anxious to get rid
of the barbarians, whose presence on the shores of the Adriatic
346 GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM [June,
was a constant danger to the Byzantine holdings in Italy. Un-
able to send his armies to expel them, he induced the Groatians
to assume that military task. At that time they lived beyond
the Carpathians. They responded to the emperor's appeal
only on condition that they be permitted to establish them-
selves in the territory wrested from the Avars. To this
Heraclius agreed. The Croatians, under the leadership of
their chiefs, Klukhas, Lovelos, Kosences, Muhlo, Khrovatos,
and the two sisters Tuga and Buya, after four years of bitter
struggle, cleared the coasts of the Adriatic of the barbarians.
The narration of Porphyrogennetos is embellished and colored
with the evident purpose of promoting the prestige of Byzan-
tium. The Basileis (the Christian emperors of Constantinople)
are praised by him as pioneers in promoting the Christian
faith among the Croatians, whom he classes with the Avars
themselves.1
To be sure, the national historians of Croatia are unwill-
ing to accept the accounts of Porphyrogennetos without quali-
fication. They will not admit that Dalmatian soil was ever
held by the Avars. They hold that the Croatians emigrated
of their own will from their native land, crossing the Car-
pathians, and settled in the fertile plains of Hungary; and that
there they were brought into touch with the Avars, who
could not withstand their military pressure and slowly were
driven towards, and then across, the banks of the Danube.
Hence, instead of spreading from Dalmatia into Croatia and
Slavonia, as Porphyrogennetos states, the Croatian theory is
that Dalmatia was the last stopping place in the wandering of
the Croatian people, and they had arrived at the Adriatic and
the frontiers of Italy and of the Italian race, prior to the time
assigned to their appearance by the pedantic imperial his-
torian of Constantinople. In a letter to Maximus, Bishop of
Salona, Gregory the Great (590-604) deplores the fact that the
Slavs, in spreading through Istria, had already reached the
gates of Italy. The Holy See felt that their coming was fraught
with danger to the peace of the Latin world.2
1 De ad minis trando imperio, XXXI., P.G., CXIIL, col. 248; see F. Racki, Ocjena
starijih izvora za hrvatsku. i serbsku poviest srednjega vieka (Criticism of the
Ancient Sources Concerning Croatian and Serbian Mediaeval History). In Croatian.
Zagreb, 1864, pp. 1-42.
2 De Sclavorum gente, quse vobis valde imminent, et aflligor vehementer et con-
turbor. Affligor in his quse jam in vobis patior; conturbor quia per Istrise aditum
jam ad Italian intrare cceperunt, Lib. X., Ep. XXXVI., P.L. LXXVIL, col. 1092. The
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 347
The Croatian historians, especially Tonio Maretic and
Franjo Racki, the latter eminent among Slavic scholars, con-
sider that the statement of the Byzantine emperor is proven
false by credible sources. They declare that the Avars never
crossed the Danube, or arrived on the Dalmatian coast; but
that they tarried on the great plain of Hungary until the armies
of Charlemagne put them to the sword. When the Croatians
overflowed into Dalmatia, that region was almost deserted.
The only inhabitants were a handful of Byzantines, descend-
ants of the settlers in Diocletian's sumptuous residential city
of Spalato.
Of course, this conjecture, however ingenious, does not
rest upon historical sources. Porphyrogennetos is certainly a
collector of legends. But, when he touches the events of his
own time, he is a trustworthy historian. He strongly insists
upon the Roman culture and traditions of the region that
Croatian nationalism fancies as having been inhabited by
a mere handful of Byzantines. He declares that in his life-
time the towns and inhabitants of Dalmatia were Roman in
language, descent and manners. It seems therefore that the
overflowing of the Croatians to the Adriatic took place, if at
all, only after their first appearance at the Italian ethnical
frontiers.3
The history of the Croatians begins with the spreading of
Christianity among them. They were subjected to the influence
of Rome and Byzantium. While their kindred race, the Ser-
bians, submitted to the Byzantine Church and followed her in
defection from Rome, the Croatians received the Gospel from
Latin missionaries, and swore fidelity to the Holy See. The
substance of their oath is related by Constantine Por-
phyrogennetos. It gives evidence of the providential mission
earliest historic documents regarding the history of Croatia have been gathered and
discussed by M. Orbini, II regno degli Slavi; i successi dei Re che anticamente
dominaromo in Dalmazia, Croazia e Bosnia. Pesaro, 1601; R. de Nagy, Memoria
Ilegum et banorum regnorum Dalmatife, Croatiee et Sclavoniee. Vienna, 1652; I.
Lucius, De regno Croatia; et Dalmatiee. Amsterdam, 1668; reprinted in I. Schwandtner,
Scriptores rerum hungararum, vol. iii., 1748, pp. 1-461; I. Mikoczi, Otiorum Croatise
liber unus. Budapest, 1806; Raic, Historja raznih slavenskih narodov, naypace
Bolgar, Horvatov, i Serbou (History of the various Slavic peoples, especially of
Bulgarians, Croats and Serbians). Vienna, 1794-1795 (4 volumes).
* Diocletianus imperator summopere Dalmatiam amavit; quare etiam populi
Romani colonias eo deduxit, populique illi Romani nuncupati sunt, quippe qui Roma
illuc commigrassent, manetque Us cognomen istud ad hodiernum usque diem.
De adm. imp., cap. 29 P.G.
348 GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM [June,
of the Papacy in Europe at the time of the great barbaric in-
vasions. The Groatians bound themselves in writing to refrain
from invading the territories of others and to live peacefully
with their neighbors. Pope John IV. accepted their promise,
which, for one reason or another, was not broken until the
final disruption of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.4
The Groatians became Christians according to the Latin
rite. The invention of the Slavic alphabet by SS. Gyril
and Methodius exerted a considerable influence on the shap-
ing of Slavic Christianity. Having nothing in common with
the Latin culture, the Slavs were well pleased with an instru-
ment adequate to express their thoughts in their own lan-
guage. Byzantium granted those who accepted her creed, the
use of their mother tongue in liturgical ceremonies. In turn,
the Slavs depending on the jurisdiction of Rome, claimed the
same privileges. The concession of a new tongue in the liturgy,
and particularly of a tongue that had no literary past, and was
judged improper to shape the sublime truths of Christian
faith, met with some opposition on the side of Rome. The
conduct of the Popes is severely criticized by the Russian his-
torians who train the cannon of their erudition upon the
Papacy. But it was by this very unity of liturgical language
that Rome succeeded so well in preserving also the moral unity
of the European peoples and the dogmatic unity of the Catholic
Faith, just when Europe had become a melting pot and a whirl-
pool of the overwhelming tides of invading barbarbic tribes.
The Slavic liturgy gained ground among Croatians. It
was short-lived, but its memory was retained in the so-called
Glagolitic liturgy. These fragments have been collected by
some learned members of the Academy of Sciences of Zagreb.
The Glagolitic liturgy was revived at the end of the nineteenth
century, following a decree of the Holy See (1898) authorizing
the bishops of Dalmatia to use the Glagolitic in those churches
where it had been used previously for at least thirty years. In a
recent meeting of the Croatian and Slovene bishops it has been
decided to eliminate entirely the Latin liturgy from the Catho-
lic dioceses to be included within the political boundaries of
the future kingdom of Jugoslavia, and to replace it by the
Glagolitic written in Latin characters. Whether the decision
of the episcopate of Jugoslavia will be approved by Rome and
4 Ibid., CXIIL, col. 248, cap. 30, col. 273.
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 349
will serve the interests of Catholicism in the Balkans and
in the Slovene and Croatian lands, is a question not yet an-
swered.
By the adoption of the Christian faith, Croatia emerged
from her isolation. She began to live a full and organic life.
Her political regime was feudal, and the country was divided
into several banats. After a short period of Prankish domina-
tion (802-828), attempts were made to fuse all the tribal units
into a homogeneous body. The attempts at political reunion
came to a successful issue in 892, when Mutimir was pro-
claimed Dux Croatiae. The political fusion of the formerly in-
dependent banats followed the danger threatening Croatia
from Hungary. The Magyars and Croatians fought bitterly
but the latter triumphed. Victorious Croatia stood forth, freed
from her previous obscurity. In 924, in the presence of seven
bans and of the Legate of the Pope, her ducal coronet became a
royal crown. Tomislav, who tried in vain to have his royalty
recognized by Constantine Porphyrogennetos, assumed the
title of King of Croatia and Dalmatia.
The Kingdom of Croatia lasted two centuries from
Tomislav (909-930) to Petar II. Svacic (1102). It reached its
zenith under Zvonimir Dmitar (1076-1089), who, on October 9,
1076, in the basilica of St. Peter at Spalato, received from the
hands of the Legate of Gregory VII. royal robes, a diadem, and
a regal sword.5
At the death of Styepan II. (1092) a new era begins in
Croatia's history, one of slow political absorption of the country
by Magyars. Of course, the Hungarians met with strong and
ceaseless opposition from the Croatians, but it is beyond dis-
pute that for eight centuries the life of Croatia is intimately
connected with that of Hungary.
The political role of Croatia henceforward is differently
outlined by her historians, according as they are guided by
Magyar or Croatian theories. Hungarian writers assert that
Croatia was reduced by force of arms. She lost entirely her
autonomous life and was incorporated as a conquered province
8 Ego Demetrius a te Domino Gebizo, ex Apostolicee Sedis legatione Domini
Nostri Paper Gregorii potestatem obtinente, in Salonitana basilica Sancti Petri,
synodali et concordi totius cleri et populi electione, de Croatorum Dalmatinorumque
regni regimine, per vexillum, ensem, sceptrum et coronam inuestitus, atque con-
stitutus rex, tibi devoveo, spondeo et polliceor, me incommutabiliter complecturmn
omnia quee mihi tua reverenda iniungit Sanctitas. I. Kukuljevic, Iiira regni Croatia;,
DalmatiK et Slavonic, Zagreb, 1861, vol. i., pp. 16, 17.
350 GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM [June,
in the Hungarian kingdom. " An independent Croatia is an
historical absurdity," writes C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen.6
" Croatian citizenship is a myth. The king of Hungary is at
the same time the king of Croatia." " From a political point
of view," writes Jellinck, " Croatia and Slavonia are nothing
else than fully equipped provinces of Hungary."
The Croatians, on the contrary, maintain that the union
of their country to the kingdom of Hungary took place with
their own consent. They did not surrender their national
autonomy. It was rather a political alliance between two in-
dependent kingdoms than the absorption of a conquered state
by a conquering one. However it may be, it is an historical
fact that for eight centuries the destinies of Croatia and of
Hungary were intimately linked together.
The earliest relations between the two States date back to
the last decade of the eleventh century. Styepan II. died in
1092, leaving no sons. His brother-in-law Ladislas, King of
Hungary, laid claim to the succession. He invaded Croatia
with an army to uphold his rights, but he was defeated. The
country became a prey to anarchy.
The policy of Ladislas was successfully continued by Colo-
man (1095-1114). By his diplomatic skill he obtained what
his predecessor had failed to secure by force of arms. The
Croatians themselves offered their country to him on condition
that he be anointed king in a Croatian town. Coloman has-
tened to accept their proposal. He overcame the heroic re-
sistance of a handful of Croatians headed by ban Svacic, and
in 1102 received the royal crown in the town of Belgrade
(Zara Vecchia) . After the ceremony he subscribed his official
documents, as rex Hungari&, Croatise atque Dalmatian.7
According to those documents he kept faithful to his
promises not to violate the autonomy of his new possession.
Churches and the clergy were granted full freedom and many
privileges. He forbade his Hungarian subjects to establish
themselves within the Croatian territory without the consent
of the authorities of the land. He dispensed the Croatians
c The Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation. London, 1908, vol. ii.,
p. 312. Perspicuum est Croatia; maximam partem deditione ad Hungarian* pertinere,
G. Pray, Annales regni Hungarian, Vienna, 1763, vol. i., p. 101; St. de Horvat, Ueber
Croatien als cine durch Unterjochung erworbene ungarische Provinz und des Koenig-
reichs Ungarn wirklichen Teil, Leipzig, 1844.
7 Rattkay de Nagy Thabor, Memorise regum et banorum regnorum Dalmatian,
Croatiee, et Sclavonics, Vienna, 1652.
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 351
from the payment of taxes to him. He bound his successors
to the observance of the liberties and privileges granted by
him, enumerated in a charter known as the Privilegium
libertatum, dated in the twelfth year of his reign (May 25,
1108) .8 For some years, his successors on the throne of Croatia
and Hungary did not attempt to deprive the Croatians of their
autonomy. They recognized the supreme power of the ban
who assumed the title of Dux totius Sclavonic.
On the basis of documents of the twelfth century, a French
writer, who may be called a Croatian by education, has written
as follows : " The union concluded between Croatia and Colo-
man was a personal one. The king himself had no right to live
in Croatia, except because of his royal dignity. The king was
the bond of union between both States. Otherwise they were
completely independent of each other. Each preserved its
ethnical individuality, and destructive legislation. They
ignored each other, or at least they considered each other as
a separate nation."
The political life of Croatia centred about the Diet or
Congregatio Generalis totius Sclavonic, whose president was
the ban of the whole country. A kind of feudalism was the
basis of the civil administration. A. great number of minor
bans ruled the towns and villages. At times, they transmitted
their power to their descendants. Privileges were granted by
the king of Hungary with the previous consent of the ban. To
him the army took an oath of fidelity. The right to wage war
belonged also to the ban. He collected the taxes, and coined
money.
This state of things lasted till the end of the fifteenth
century. Then a great change took place under the reign of
Sigismond. In 1403, having eliminated his rivals to the throne
of Croatia, he obstinately refused to be anointed king of the
country on Croatian territory. The Croatians attempted to
shake his decision. They did not succeed, however, and
thus the old privilege of the double crowning of the kings
of Hungary and Croatia fell into disuse. In spite of this dimi-
nution of her privileges, Croatia preserved the right of elec-
tion of the king. The Croatian nobility promised fidelity to
him, and asked him for the confirmation of their privileges and
liberties.
8 Kukuljevic. Op. cit., vol. i., pp. 22, 23.
352 GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM [June,
In the sixteenth century, the political bonds of union be-
tween the two States were relaxed by the victorious march of
the Turkish armies into Hungary. Solyman the Magnificent
inflicted a complete defeat on the Hungarian armies on the
battlefield of Mohacs (August 29, 1625). A great part of
Hungary fell under the yoke of the Mohammedans. The
Groatians fought gallantly for the defence of their faith and
country. They checked the onward sweep of the Moham-
medan hordes. Nicholas Jurisic (Qrinjski) with one thousand
warriors withstood all the powerful assaults of an army of
two hundred thousand Turks and forced Solyman, so the
Groatians say, to desist from his plan to take Vienna.
In 1527, with unanimity, Croatia attached herself to the
House of Hapsburg. By the treaty of Gelin, signed on January
1, 1527, between Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, and the repre-
sentatives of the Croatian nation, Ferdinand and his wife
were elected king and queen of Croatia. The king took an
oath to guarantee the national liberties, and all the privileges
granted by the former kings of Croatia.
The political bond, however, previously existing between
Hungary and Croatia, was not entirely broken. Hungary be-
came a part of the royal inheritance of the Hapsburg family,
and her relations with Croatia were that of two autonomous
States of a great confederation under the rule of the same
monarch. The greater part of the seventeenth century is re-
garded by the historians of Croatian nationalism as an epoch
of complete independence from the political yoke of Hungary.
Between 1527 and 1593 the right of enacting laws was exercised
by the Croatian diet. The rulers of Croatia sent their petitions
to the King of Hungary, that is the Austrian Emperor, re-
fraining from participation in the sessions of the Hungarian
diet. The supreme command of the Croatian armies was vested
in the bans of Croatia. This state of things continued through-
out the eighteenth century. Several attempts were made to
abrogate the privileges of Croatian autonomy and make of
Croatia a pars annexa to the kingdom of Hungary. Yet those
attempts were, on the whole, unsuccessful. Croatia ener-
getically upheld her independence.
In the first half of the eighteenth century, the history of the
Pragmatic Sanction in Austria affords an indisputable proof
of the political autonomy of Croatia. With Charles VI. the
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 353
male line of descent of the House of Hapsburg became extinct.
In order to preserve the right of succession for his female de-
scendants, Charles VI. (1711-1740) resorted to a change in the
constitution of the empire. He asked the different nationali-
ties ruled by him to further his plans. The Groatians answered
his appeal eagerly. Without a dissenting voice, the parlia-
ment of Zagreb agreed to recognize for the women of the
House of Hapsburg the right of succession to the imperial
throne in case of the extinction of the male line. The so-called
Pragmatic Sanction was accepted by Hungary in 1723, eleven
years after its acknowledgment by the Croatian diet. The
event is considered a convincing argument in favor of the
political autonomy of Croatia during her union with Hungary.
But the fidelity of the Croatians to the House of Hapsburg
was not rewarded. Croatia fell under the sway of the policy
of Vienna. By a decree dated August 16, 1779, she became
a mere province of the kingdom of Hungary. The benevolence
of Joseph II. towards the Croatians was of no avail. They suc-
ceeded, however, in joining to their territory the Italian city,
Fiume, assigned to them by a decree dated August 9, 1776.
In 1790, the political subjection of Croatia to Hungary in-
creased. On the twelfth of May the Croatian diet, composed
chiefly of nobles, declared that the alliance with Hungary
would be the main foundation of the new political constitution
of Croatia. The diet sent their representatives to Budapest.
A plan of incorporation of Croatia within the Hungarian king-
dom was drawn up. The Croatian delegates suggested the
organization of a senate, representing both nations. The sug-
gestions were adopted by the Hungarians, who took occasion
to treat Croatia as a pars annexa to their kingdom, and voted
the introduction of the Magyar language into the Croatian
schools. The measure provoked a tremendous reaction.
Attempts were made by Croatians at a coalition with the
Serbs of the kingdom of Hungary. A revolution was im-
minent, when the great French Revolution caused a diversion.
Napoleon made his own the cause of the Southern Slavs,
and Italians living on the shores of the Adriatic. By means
of the treaty of Campoformio (1799) the ancient State of Illyria,
both in name and territory, reappeared on the maps of Europe.
The French military occupation of Illyria lasted scarcely ten
years (1805-1814) . Marshal Marmont as governor of the new
VOL. cix. — 23
354 GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM [June,
State showed keen political sense. He granted freedom of
commerce and industry, opened roads, replanted forests de-
stroyed under the Venetian rule, established schools, and
fostered the literary renaissance of the Southern Slavs.
The benefits of the French occupation of Illyria were of
short duration. The treaty of Vienna (1815) placed the
Groatians again under Hungarian domination. The policy of
Metternich, the greatest foe of all nationalisms opposed to
Teutonic centralization, made void the claims of the Croatian
patriots. Groatians went under the sway of the Magyars who
strove to drive from the public schools the Croatian language.
Their policy had no other result than that of stiffening the re-
sistance of the Creations. It inaugurated at the same time the
period of the literary renaissance of Illyria.
The pioneers of the movement were Lyudevit Gaj and
Janko Draskovic. The former blended poetical talent with
the sagacity of an accomplished statesman. While writing in
German, he headed the literary movement of Illyrianism. In
1832 his plea for authorization to open a course of Croatian
language and literature at the University of Zagreb, was suc-
cessful. In 1834 he founded the earliest Croatian paper, the
N ovine horuatske (Croatian News) and the Danica hrvatsko-
Slavonsko Dalmatinski (The Croatian Slavonian Dalmatian
Star). In 1838 he laid the foundation of the literary society
Matica, organized to spread books and pamphlets among the
Croatian population. In his effort to awake the national feel-
ings of Croatians, Lyudevit Gaj had a vigorous collaborator in
Count Janko Draskovic, who, in 1832, demanded the use of the
Croatian tongue in administrative life as also the restoration of
the dignity of the bans.
The Hungarians disliked the Croatians, and feared the
aroused national feeling of people they wanted to hold in sub-
jection. A royal rescript of 1843 forbade the use of the words
Illyrian and Illyria in the press, public discussions and schools.
The Croatian literary societies and clubs were dissolved. The
chiefs of the movement were compelled to choose between
exile and imprisonment. The House of Hapsburg espoused the
cause of the Magyars. In 1843 Archduke Joseph declared in a
speech that " there was no Illyrian nation. The only existing
nation in Hungary was the Hungarian." The political relations
between Hungary and Croatia became embittered to such a
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 355
degree that in 1848 a rupture between the two nations took
place. On the nineteenth of April of that year, General Josip
Jelacic was elected ban with the power of a dictator. Hun-
gary answered by an open declaration of war, and ordered
General Hrabovszky to arrest the ban. The latter answered
by crossing the Drava with his army. In order to prevent hos-
tilities, the imperial cabinet of Vienna detached Croatia from
Hungary, and granted to both States a new constitution. The
Croatian language became official for administrative matters.
But the period of Magyarization was replaced by that of
Germanization. After the war of 1866 Croatia strove to form
an independent kingdom in the Austrian empire. The poli-
ticians of Vienna, however, aroused to the danger of the for-
mation of a purely Slavic state to be enslaved to the pan-
slavistic policy of Russia, favored the interests of Hungary. The
dual system became the political aphorism of Viennese diplo-
macy. A compromise was concluded between Austria and
Hungary. (The famous Ausgleich of March, 1867.) The Croatian
diet refused to accept it. After long discussions the compromise
was amended, and promulgated November 18, 1868.
This scheme of a constitution was enforced as a funda-
mental law controlling the mutual relations between Hungary
and Croatia. According to its first paragraph, the kingdom
of Hungary with Transylvania, Dalmatia, and Croatia
form the same political community, an autonomous unit
among the nationalities of the Austrian empire, and opposed
to all foreign powers. The above quoted States, according to
this document, are to be ruled by the same monarchs, and have
the same House of Representatives, the same legislation, and
a common government. The compromise determines the joint
affairs of the two countries, viz., the military organization, the
financial arrangements, the monetary system, the commercial
treaties, the customs, railroads, telegraphs, harbors, shipping,
etc. Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia share in the expenses of
the management of their joint affairs. These are to be dis-
cussed by the joint parliament at Budapest. The diet of
Croatia, however, is empowered to consider them from their
national point of view for an interval not exceeding three
months. Paragraph 46 provides that the central government
of Budapest will choose as civil employees within their fron-
tiers natives of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia.
356 GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM [June,
Outside of joint affairs, the Croatian diet enjoys full
autonomy. Domestic legislation, the departments of religious
affairs, public instruction and justice are dependent on their
jurisdiction. A ban is placed at the head of the government.
He is responsible only to the parliament of Budapest. He is not
invested with military attributes. A full linguistic autonomy
was guaranteed to Croatia. The documents written in the
Croatian language are accepted by the common government
and answered also in Croatian. The laws promulgated by the
same government are published in Croatian and Hungarian.
The Croatian flag was to have the colors and the arms of the
three States of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia, and to be
hoisted with the Hungarian flag on the building of the Hun-
garian parliament. The kingdom of Hungary recognizes the
territorial integrity of Croatia and Slavonia. Fiume, in view
of its maritime importance and its Italian character, is ex-
cluded from the boundaries of the Croatian State, and con-
sidered as separatum sacrae regni coron.de adnexum corpus.
The compromise of 1868 constitutes, in the eyes of Croa-
tian statesmen, a convincing proof of the independence of
their nation. By virtue of it Croatia is not a privileged
province of Hungary, but an autonomous state. The com-
promise, therefore, is equivalent to a treaty of federation, to
an alliance, to a convention between two countries. The
Croato-Hungarian compromise did not, however, close the
long-lived nationalistic conflict between Hungary and Croa-
tia. In 1872, headed by the famous Bishop Joseph Stross-
mayer, the Croats asked for new concessions, viz., for the nomi-
nation of their ban directly by the King of Hungary, and the
title for him of Minister of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia.
The request, of course, was not granted. But the nomination
of a Croatian ban, Mazuranic, stilled for a time the excitement
of Croatian nationalism. Under his regime the cultural de-
velopment of Croatia advanced. In 1874 the University of
Zagreb was established, and worked hand in hand with the
Jugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts founded in 1867 by
Bishop Strossmayer and Racki, Croatia's learned historian.
Ban Mazuranic was looked upon unfavorably by the
leaders of Magyarization. He was obliged to resign in 1880,
and his successors followed an entirely different policy. In
purely Croatian departments the knowledge and use of the
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 357
Hungarian language was forcibly imposed upon the employees,
and in view of the opposition of the Croats, on December 1,
1883, the constitutional guarantees were suppressed, and a
royal commissary sent to Agram. From that date on, the
moral union between the three Slavic branches budding on
the common trunk of Jugoslavia, became an accomplished fact.
In presence of the danger of the loss of their nationality, the
Serbians and Groats forgot their religious and national antago-
nism and shook hands. In 1895, Milovan Milanovich published
in the Delo his Serbians and Croats to show the urgent neces-
sity of a close union between the two races. The relations be-
tween them culminated in the famous resolution of Fiume
(October 5, 1905), and its complement, the resolution of Zara,
by which Serbians and Croats were recognized as one people.
The Hungarians did not desist from their anti-Croatian
policy. In May, 1907, the Magyar language was made obliga-
tory for the employees of Hungarian and Croatian railroads.
In January, 1908, Baron Paul Rauch was appointed as ban.
He had as mission to hold down Croatia and silence the rioters
against Magyarization. He dissolved the diet and strove to
weaken the Croato-Serb coalition. Baron Rauch, writes R. W.
Seton-Watson, dispensed with all constitutional forms. The
diet was not allowed to meet. The budget was promulgated
by arbitrary decree. The press was subjected to repeated con-
fiscations, even the manifestoes of the coalition parties fall-
ing victim to the censor's blue pencil. The autonomy of the
University was flagrantly infringed. Right of assembly was re-
stricted. The regime culminated in the gross scandals of the
Agram, the high treason trial, which dragged on from the be-
ginning of March to the end of September, 1909, and earned for
Croatia an unenviable notoriety in Europe.9
The scandal raised by the trial of Agram, where forced
documents were produced to suppress by terrorism the awak-
ening of Croatian nationalism, only resulted in strengthening
the Croato-Serb coalition. Hungary was compelled to yield to
the claims of the Croats. The rules obliging the use of the Mag-
yar language by railway men were practically abolished. On
the first of December, 1913, the suspension of constitutional
guarantees came to an end, and Baron Skerlec de Lomnitz was
appointed ban. At the end of the same month the diet, dis-
9 Absolutism in Croatia. London, 1912, p. F.- 8.
358 GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM [June,
solved in 1911, began to hold its sessions again. The elections
showed the great progress made by the party of the Croato-
Serb coalition. They gained forty-seven seats against twenty-
eight in 1911, and forty-four thousand four hundred and seven
votes against twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and ten.
The Croatian contingent of the Croato-Serb coalition con-
sists of the Croatian National Independent Party, which, in
turn, represents a fusion of the Progressive Croatian Party and
of that of the Croatian National Rights. The latter, organized
in 1902, was amalgamated in 1911 with the Christian Socialists.
In 1913 the leaders of Croatian nationalism succeeded in
gaining the Slovenes for the cause of the coalition. The
Croato-Slovene Congress, held at Lubiana in the month of
August, 1913, with an attendance of twenty thousand delegates,
sanctioned definitely the political union of the three branches
of the Southern Slavs. It is noteworthy that the Catholic
clergy, especially of the Slovenes, headed the movement. To
strengthen the bonds of union, a chair of Slovenian language
and literature was founded at the University of Zagreb.
The coalition was a weight on Hungary's governmental
policy. The Croatians were on the point of securing economic
independence, and a separate budget. Their claims were
strongly supported by Archduke Ferdinand, who was a de-
termined supporter of the " triarchy " system in the Haps-
burg empire; but his recommendations were looked upon
suspiciously by the other Slavic nationalities of Austria,
especially by Bohemians. They feared that once the Croatians
were granted full political independence, they would lose in-
terest in the struggle between Slavism and Germanism.
The Austrian declaration of war against Serbia was a rude
blow for the coalition party. The history of the internal revo-
lution of Croatians and Serbians in Austria has yet to be writ-
ten. They paid a high price for their nationalistic aims. They
fought, however, to the utmost of their energies for the Haps-
burg dynasty to whom they had always been faithful. By their
fidelity, they hoped to be able to break finally and completely
their union with Hungary, and on the other hand to secure
possession of those Italian territories they had claimed as a
part of their national inheritance. According to their views,
and the geographic maps of Jugoslavia, an independent Croatia
ought to extend her domination over Dalmatia, the county of
1919.] GROWTH OF CROATIAN NATIONALISM 359
Fiume, Trieste, Gorizia, Widden (Udine), Mieco (Venice), and
lonklin (Ancona). The defeat of the Austrian armies by the
Italians reduced the territorial aspirations of Croatian na-
tionalism, but the Southern Slav idea seems nearer realization.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The richest collections of documents concerning the history of
Croatia are those of: A. Theiner, Vetera monumenta Slavorum meri-
dionalium historian* illustrantia, 2 v., Zagreb, 1875; Id., Vetera monu-
menta historiam Hungarias sacrom illustrantia, 2 v., Rome, 1859-1860;
I. Kukuljevic, Codex diplomatics regni Croatia Dalmatian et Slavonic,
Zagreb, 2 v., 1874-1875; Monumenta spectantia historiam Slavorum
meridionalium, 30 v., Zagreb, 1868-1901. Among them, the most im-
portant is volume 7, edited by Racki, Documenta historic Croatia
periodum antiquam illustrantia, Zagreb, 1877.
For special works on Croatia, see I. Kukuljevic, Bibliografia
Krvatska, Zagreb, 1860-1863; N. S. Petrovich, Ogled Frantzuske biblio-
grafie o Srbima i Khrvatima (Essay on French bibliography concern-
ing the Serbians and Croatians), in Serbian, Belgrade, 1900; Horvat
tortenelm repertorium, 2 v., Budapest, 1900-1902, in Hungarian.
For the political relations between Hungary and Croatia, see: I.
Kukuljevic, Jura regni Croatise, Dalmatise von den lahren, 1868-1902, 8
v., Zagreb, 1877-1903. The best historical commentaries on the Croato-
Hungarian compromise are those of Guy de Montbel, La condition
politique de la Croatie-Slavonie dans la monarchic Austro-Hongroise,
Paris, 1910; G. Horn, Le compromis de 1868 entre la Hongrie et la
Croatie, Paris, 1907. In the English-speaking world, the most widely
circulated works on Croatia are those of Robert William Seton-Watson :
Racial Problems in Hungary, London, 1908; Corruption and Reform in
Hungary, London, 1911; The Southern Slav Question and the Haps-
burg Monarchy, London, 1911 (which has been translated into Ger-
man); The Balkans, Italy and the Adriatic, London, 1915; German
Slavs and Magyar, London, 1916; The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans,
London, 1917. A good chapter on the subject treated in this paper is
inserted in the Russian volume: Slavianskii mir: politicheskce i ekono-
micheskce polozhenie Slavianskikh narodov pered voinoi 191b goda
(The Slavic World : the Political and Economic Conditions of the Slavic
Peoples Before the War of 1914), by A. L. Pogodin. Kharkov, 1915.
The history of the political relations between Croatia and Hun-
gary is outlined in : Magyar Szabadsagharcz Tortenete (History of Mag-
yar Independence), in Hungarian, vol. i., Budapest, 1894, pp. 313-368.
The dangers now confronting the Catholic Church from the birth
of a great Siberia dominating the Croats and Slovenes are strikingly
pointed out in a recent pamphlet by Rev. Martin Davorin Krmpotich,
a Croatian priest in this country: Croatia, Bosnia and the Serbian
Claims, Kansas City, 1916.
HUYSMANS AND THE BOULEVARD.
BY REDFERN MASON.
HE boulevard has never forgiven Joris Karl Huys-
mans his conversion to Christianity. If he had
put on the robe of Sakya Mouni, men would have
hailed the act as an inspired gesture; for Budd-
hism is lenient : it allows men to expiate the sins
of one life by the virtues of another.
But Christianity admits of no such dalliance; its
accounting suffers no postponement. It is no flatterer. Recog-
nizing that without grace from on high men cannot be truly
virtuous, it lessens the danger of their falling into sin by clip-
ping the wings of the errant imagination and limiting the field
of its flight. Humanity resents this. Wounded pride demands
to know how men may do creative work in art or literature, or
in the building up of philosophic systems, if the fancy is not to
be allowed to exercise itself in absolute unrestraint. How is it
possible to write original books if conjecture may not travel
beyond the warnings and vetoes of a strict ethical code?
Men affected to see in Huysmans a melancholy illustration
of the way in which this clipping of the psychic pinions may
injure a literary genius. Left free to develop at will, his mind
might have been a garden of strange delights, a paradise for
spirits which have rejected the moral law. In La Bas it
actually is such a garden. The flora of perversity and
diabolism flourish there. The author seems under the spell of
some accursed seership. The evil one is holding to his lips the
chalice of a supreme apostasy.
But Huysmans saw the abyss and the grace was given him
to save his soul alive. Long years elapsed, however, before he
accepted the faith; meanwhile he was painfully groping towards
the light. When the conversion came, all were not pleased. Men
looked to Huysmans to pander to their taste for the abom-
inable, and now, by his act of faith, he had criticized them more
scathingly than any words could do. Exasperated, dis-
appointed, perhaps perturbed, they took revenge by denying
the sincerity of his conversion.
1919.] HUYSMANS AND THE BOULEVARD 361
Self-distrust spoke here. If faith had power to convince
Huysmans, it might disturb others as well. They were afraid
of that. What would become of their darling sins, if conver-
sion should put on the semblance of reasonableness? They
felt this, and they silenced the still, small voice of conscience by
assuming the dishonesty of the convert.
For many Parisians today Huysmans is a mystagogue and
a charlatan. They acknowledge his gifts; they know him for
an artificer of verbal mosaic, an erudite, a sensitive. But, with
a perverse logic, they argue that the possession of these gifts
only proves the insincerity of his conversion the more con-
clusively. If he were not an impostor, he could not accept the
Catholic Faith. Reasoning in a vicious circle, the boulevard
flatters its own self-conceit, gets rid of the burdensome neces-
sity of investigation, and damns Huysmans to the limbo of
hypocrites. If this judgment be true, Huysmans is merely
a spiritual profiteer, a man who makes money by laying bare
the sores of his soul and pleading the facile cure of spiritual
illumination.
Fortunately for truth, the public which calls itself tout
Paris does not include all the men of genius. They, at least,
treated Huysmans with respect, even though they might not
share his convictions. Barbey d'Aurevilly hailed him as a
great Catholic writer, Baudelaire was his friend and sponsor;
for Villiers de 1'Isle Adam he was one of the elect; Remy de
Gourmont found in A Rebours a sympathy with mediaeval
Latinity that strengthened his determination to write Le Latin
Mystique. And Huysmans stood in his own light. He was past
master of "the gentle art of making enemies." The gift
alienated many. Ferdinand Brunetiere might have stood by
him, in spite of the wide difference between their literary
ideals. But Huysmans found Brunetiere's essays "consti-
pated" and did not scruple to say so. Paul Bourget could
appreciate La Cathedrale; but Huysmans said of Bourget that
" the duchesses have always stupefied him," and the phrase
rankled.
Grande presse and petite alike knew that Huys-
mans was not of their clan. In spite of a style which is Parisian
in its complexity, a style into which enter the slang of the gut-
ter, the jargon of the atelier, and the realism of Zola and the
Naturalists, the writer was in Paris rather than of it. He was
362 HUYSMANS AND THE BOULEVARD [June,
psychically an alien. The roots of Huysmans' thought are to
be looked for, not in the authors to whom Paris pays a far-
off deference, but in that mystical Flanders which has given
the world Verhaeren and Cesar Franck. The Ville Lumiere
could no more do justice to Huysmans than so typical a
Parisian as Saint Saens could do justice to Franck.
The failure of Huysmans' plan to found a community of
religious art-workers rejoiced his belittlers. The project was
for a small group of musicians, artists, writers to live together
in a religious brotherhood and make art " to the greater glory
of God." But Dulac, who was to have been the Fra Angelico of
the fraternity, and upon whose genius Huysmans built high
hopes, fell ill and died. So the plan came to nothing. But the
boulevard would not rest content with so obvious an explana-
tion. Men said Huysmans' fervor had cooled; his conversion
was a sham, his Christianity mere attitudinizing.
Nor were unbelievers the only detractors. Huysmans
was as little apt to conciliate the faithful as was Savonarola.
His love for the beauty of the house of God led him to the com-
mission of what many honest folk must have deemed mon-
strous critical excesses. In the first chapter of En Route he
flays the clergy of Paris for their bad art, their sentimentality,
their tastelessness. He could hardly have been more unsparing
if he had been a Voltairean on the lookout for holy things at
which to mock. He tilted at reputations long held sacrosanct,
and his praises were little less disconcerting than his blame.
The man who spoke of Corneille, Racine and Moliere as
" bores " would not refrain from saying his mind if he pre-
ferred the Christ of Matthias de Grunwald to the Christ of
Leonardo's Last Supper. For Huysmans, Leonardo was the
subtle instiller into Christian art of Renaissance poison. The
opinion is common enough today. But it was of apostolic bold-
ness to voice it twenty years ago.
But, if his intransigeance made Huysmans enemies, it also
brought him friends. At first they were furtive; they admired
with reservations; they hesitated to make an act of faith, in
the author's mission. Even the Abbe Mugnet, Huysmans'
spiritual adviser, was dubious concerning the influence of his
books. What good could come, he asked himself, of onslaughts
on men and ideas so long regarded with unquestioning re-
spect? Yet Father Mugnet was a man of broad vision and
1919.] HUYSMANS AND THE BOULEVARD 363
firmly convinced of his friend's honesty of purpose. One day,
however, a penitent came, seeking reconciliation with the
Church. The Abbe asked him what had brought him back to
God. The penitent replied it was the reading of Huysmans.
Then the priest doubted no longer. He believed and was glad.
In the Rue Monsieur, a little street which runs between the
Rue Oudinot and the Rue de Rabylone, on the outskirts of the
Latin Quarter, is a Benedictine monastery. Here it was that
Huysmans used to go to listen to the Gregorian chant, when
his soul was sick of the operatic saccharine of fashionable
churches. Here he heard the ancient music of the Church
chanted in the purity and beauty to which it has been restored
by the monks of Solesmes. To hear such music in the Paris of
twenty years ago was rare. Today, in various stages of musi-
cal grace, you may hear it almost everywhere. The cloying
idiom of Gounod and Dubois is being driven into outer dark-
ness. How has this change been brought about? The movement
initiated by Pope Pius is the primary cause. But the aesthetic
gospel preached from the Papal throne has been forced into
people's minds by the teaching of Joris Karl Huysmans. He
brought out the truth, obvious enough to anyone who will give
serious thought to the matter, that the difference between the
music of the world and the music of the sanctuary is not a dif-
ference of degree but one of kind. The music of the world,
when it is characteristically mundane; when it is sentimental,
frivolous, passionate, is antagonistic to the spirit of the Church.
Catholicism has her own incomparable language of song, a
music in which the emotions are spiritualized and the gross-
ness of earth purged away. This is the virtue which Huysmans
found in the Gregorian chant, and the unworldly melody was
balm to his spirit. In his advocacy of its pretensions, he was
the lay brother of Dom Pothier and Dom Gueranger, and to-
day many people frequent the little chapel on the Rue Mon-
sieur full of gratitude to the oblate who, ravished by the sweet-
ness of the immemorial music, labored with all his might to
have it restored to the daily use of the sanctuary. There is
only one mysticism, says Huysmans, the mysticism of St.
Teresa and St. John of the Cross, and he felt its presence in
the ancient plain-song.
There is no need to try to defend the life which Huysmans
led in the years which preceded his conversion. " I have been
364 HUYSMANS AND THE BOULEVARD [June,
an abominable salade," he said to a friend who visited him
in his illness, " and it is only just that I should suffer." He
made no attempt to justify his past. Everywhere in his writ-
ings one feels his conviction of the utter insufficiency of un-
aided human nature successfully to battle against sin. " If
anyone can be sure of his nothingness without the aid of God,"
said he, " I am that man." Hence his devotion towards saints
who, like St. Lydwine of Schiedam, have illustrated the doc-
trine of substitution, suffering lifelong agonies to make some
atonement, God helping them, for the sins of mankind.
The man was an artist, a being in whose nature the
phenomena of existence were the occasion of revelations of
beauty. In literature he was a creator; his attitude towards
music and painting, sculpture and architecture, was that of
analyst, critic, interpreter. His genius precipitated itself under
the stimulus of artistic images. In such works as Certains he
justifies the claim of Brunetiere that, in the hands of greatness,
criticism may rise to the dignity of a creative art.
It was inevitable that he should study the Church; for the
Church is the depositary of the ideas which have inspired the
artists he loved. Directly or indirectly the greater part of his
literary output was inspired by the Catholic Faith. Even when
he is at his lowest, in the terrible pages of La Bas, he seems to
cry out from the mire of the infernal slough for someone to
help him. One feels that he would give all the world to have
the faith of a little child.
A parallel may fruitfully be drawn between the evolu-
tion of the soul of Huysmans and that of Dante. Both had to
descend into the abyss before they could rise to the contem-
plation of the beatific vision. Of course, the comparison must
not be pushed too far. It is not sure, for instance, that Dante
lived a life of sensual indulgence, though there are passages
in the Divina Commedia which strongly suggest that he did,
notably the poet's words to his friend Forese, and the suffering
which he underwent in the Purgatorio of the carnal. If it be
asked who was Huysmans' Beatrice, the answer is that he had
a heavenly one. " Providence was pitiful towards me," he
says, " and the Virgin was good to me."
No Virgil played the philosophical mentor to Huysmans,
unless, indeed, it was the good priest whom he portrays in the
Abbe Gevresin. Cold reason ceded the place to prayer. And
1919.] HUYSMANS AND THE BOULEVARD 365
there was the virtue of his ancestors. Behind Huysmans was
a long line of devout Netherlander, with many a pious monk
and nun. He felt he owed much to them. Question his mind
as he would, however, he could not indicate the exact moment
in which the change of heart was brought about. " I have sim-
ply obeyed," he said; " I have been led by what are called ex-
traordinary means."
The drama of hell, purgatory and paradise is present alike
in Huysmans' life and in his work. The Inferno is La Bas, a
hell in which the demons are men and women in league with
the evil one. Dante tells of sins so awful that the doing of
them at once plunges the soul into hell. The body still walks
the earth; but it is tenanted by a fiend of the pit. One rises from
the reading of the story of Gilles de Rais in Huysmans, haunted
by a vision more dreadful than that of Branca d'Oria.
A Rebours is a halting place between despair and hope.
It is a prelude to the taking of the determination which led
the author to La Trappe. Horrified by what he had seen of
the underworld of satanism, Huysmans became a wanderer
in the wilderness of speculation. He reads the classics and is
starved. His soul is famishing for nourishment which is not
in them. He is not aware of it; but he is hungry for the divine
food sung by St. Bernard and St. Thomas.
After reading the Fleurs da Mai of Baudelaire, Huysmans
said to his friend: "Your only logical choice is between the
mouth of a pistol and the foot of the Gross." Baudelaire chose
the Gross, and the concluding pages of A Rebours leave us with
the feeling that Huysmans will do likewise. The period of
spiritual gestation lasted ten years. It ended when the writer
made his retreat at the Trappe of Notre Dame d'Igny. There
he was reconciled with his God. One of the fruits of that re-
conciliation was the great trilogy which opens with En Route,
runs its mid-course in La Cathedrale, and ends with L'Oblat.
It is a strange and wonderful story, the chronicle of the
long battle with principalities and powers, fought by a sinner
whose love for the beauty and order of God's house eventually
earned him the grace to be a dweller in that house. The retreat
at Igny was a severe ordeal and, even after he had made his
peace, Huysmans suffered much from aridity of spirit. The
stains of sin remained, though their guilt had been pardoned.
As a natural consequence of this long drawn-out battle,
366 HUYSMANS AND THE BOULEVARD [June,
the process of purification, the Purgatorio, looms much larger
in Huysmans' work than it does in the symmetrical master-
piece of Dante. It takes up the whole of En Route and a great
deal of La Cathedrale. The former leads us into the world of
recollection where dwell the Benedictines. In La Cathedrale
we see the writer under the spell of Chartres. For Huys-
mans, Ghartres was the queen of Gothic cathedrals. His soul-
state is painted on a background of sacred erudition. Others
have frequented the treasure-house of Catholic lore; but no lay-
man has shown so profound a knowledge of its manifold
phases or so eloquently revealed its myriad beauties to the
world at large, as has Joris Karl Huysmans.
In En Route we see the writer undergoing the discipline
of the purgative life; in La Cathedrale there are gleams of
illuminative vision; L'Oblat — the latter part of it at least — is
the Paradiso of the trilogy, and here the author enjoys pre-
libations of the unitive life. The three phases of the soul's un-
folding are not sharply differentiated; but the operation of
the threefold process is manifest.
But, if Huysmans' vocation was the way of art, his con-
ception of that vocation was broad. Themes not specifically
artistic became so when he handled them. The biography of
St. Lydwine is a model for hagiographers. The sentimental
platitudinizing of the tribe had made him suffer much. Hence
his diatribes against the Little Bollandists. His life of St.
Lydwine is at once an exemplification and a justification of his
ideal. It is a masterpiece of learning and psychological insight.
There are notes of acrimony in Huysmans that one could
wish absent, recriminatory passages which might well have
been left unwritten. But the man's faults are open to the light
of day. He may wound our sensibilities; his iconoclasm of
the sentimental and the fetishistic is sometimes brutal. But
his attitude is consistently that of an honest thinker.
There are longeurs too in his work. One could wish
that the descriptions of the attributes of plants and precious
stones had, in part at least, been relegated to an appendix.
Huysmans is very human; but, to his credit be it said, he ex-
asperates of tener than he bores.
To Huysmans more than to any other layman of our gen-
eration, we owe a re-awakened interest in Catholic art and
literature. A few years ago such things were appreciated
1919.] TO THE SINGER 367
here and there in the cloister or the seminary. Huysmans
gave them to the world. La Cathedrale may not be a novel;
but it is the finest exposition of Gothic art that has ever been
written. Moreover, it is the faithful monograph of a soul.
Huysmans died the death of a faithful son of the Church.
Dressed in his oblate's robe, they laid him to rest in the ceme-
tery of Montparnasse. Today Catholics go on pilgrimage to
his grave. Small wonder the boulevard is exasperated.
TO THE SINGER.
BY THOMAS CURTIS CLARK.
POET, sing your song.
What though none heed your lyre!
Let heaven still inspire
Lyrics both sweet and strong.
Poet, sing.
Poet, why now grieve?
Though men may turn away
At the high noon of day,
They will return at eve.
Poet, cheer!
Poet, lose not heart.
What though men nurse the wrong,
And scorn your loving song!
What though the nations hate,
And grim war devastate!
Earth shall yet learn your art.
Poet, sing.
Poet, dream your dream.
Long years may come and go,
Old age may bring the snow,
And yet all seem in vain.
Cease not your heavenly strain.
Earth still shall catch the gleam!
Poet, dream.
THE POPE AND THE POILU.1
BY WILLIAM FULLER CURTIS.
ADAME will wear her blue foulard, without doubt,
and the black hat?"
" I will wear nothing of the sort. How often
have I told you, Marie, that there is no sense in
your suggesting what clothes I am to put on
when I, myself, have perfectly definite ideas on the subject? I
will wear the gray."
" But, madame, for driving in the Park, the blue is so be-
coming, so smart."
" That will do. The gray at three o'clock, and that hat
you say looks like a woman of sixty. Now you may go."
There are times when I am obliged to put Marie in her
place. Blue foulard, indeed ! Just to go driving in that dullest
of spots, Central Park ! The woman was out of her head !
Yet I was fond of her. She had been left me by poor dear
Julia Harrington, with the request that I look after her—
incidentally putting up with her masterful French ways — and
I have grown to feel a real affection for the creature, although
at times, like the present, her ownership of me irritates, and I
often contemplate making a change. But the memory of dear
Julia invariably obtrudes, and I always relent. Now I have the
feeling that Marie is fastened to me for as long as either, or
both, of us shall live.
However, I would not wear that blue foulard, if for no
other reason than to show her that I still possess some shreds of
character.
Promptly at four-fifteen we started forth, Marie looking as
only a French maid can look, and I probably a mere dowdy
frump in her eyes. Nevertheless, gray becomes me. It tends
to brighten my hair — and goodness knows something is needed
to make those drab wisps less dull! I detest colorless hair, just
as I detest colorless people.
It was a heavenly day, a day full of the sweetness and
tenderness of spring. The trees were already green and the
> A true incident.
1919.] THE POPE AND THE POILU 569
forsythia was out — although that gave me no pleasure, for I
dislike its sickly yellow, and untidy habit of growing in every
direction at once — and there were quantities of children and
their nurses riding donkeys — the children I mean — and a gen-
ral air of good-will seemed to pervade everything and every-
body, for I saw no face which did not bear a smile, and that
is " going some " these days I assure you !
Marie is fearfully shocked whenever I use slang. She
says it is not comme il faut in one of my station. She never
forgets and says " years " instead of " station." But then she is
French.
As we rolled gently along — Gifford is a wonderful chauf-
feur and knows my peculiarities as to speed — somewhere in
the upper driveways of the Park I noticed a soldier, a French
soldier, by the road, his hands in his pockets, his head raised, as
if listening.
He was just a common poilu, a boy, one of the many who
for one reason or another are here in this cvfcmtry. The sight
of his blue uniform, as he stood against the green of the Park,
brought back a memory of that other green park near Paris
which I had loved so well and from which, four years ago, I
had been obliged to flee, in such a hurry.
" Do you think he would care to drive with us, Marie? "
I asked, the War and all its horrors suddenly coming over
me once more with renewed vividness.
" But yes, madame — unless he is too proud. They some-
times are. My nephew once refused to drive with the Gomtesse
de "
" Never mind your nephew. Tell Gifford to stop and ask
that boy if motoring with a dull old lady would give him any
pleasure."
As we drew up, I opened the door myself and leaned for-
ward looking into the soldier's young, sad eyes. They were
the eyes of youth, but old, heavens, how old! His face was a
mass of scars, as if someone had tried to make mince-meat of
it and had been stopped before the job was thoroughly accom-
plished. His poor right hand bore so little resemblance to
what a hand should be that, after the first glance, I couldn't
bear to look again. Upon his breast were strung all of the
medals France can give to her brave sons, a glittering row of
hard won glory, and as he stepped closer to the open door, his
VOL. CIX. — 24
370 THE POPE AND THE POILU [June,
face expressive of neither surprise nor inquiry, I saw that he
limped.
"Would you care to drive for an hour?" I asked, not
waiting for Marie, who is at times conveniently slow. " Or I
could take you wherever you wish to go, if you want to go any-
where. Or we might have tea."
" Madame is very good. If it does not put madame out
at all, it will be a pleasure to do just what madame is most
desirous of doing. I should like exceedingly to drive."
Marie, I could see, disapproved highly of the whole pro-
ceeding. She sat far back in her corner with her lips com-
pressed into a thin acidity. But her eyes were eager.
"Very well," I said. "We will drive, and then perhaps
you will tell me where you would like to be dropped," and I
moved over as he took his place beside me.
He was of peasant stock, one of those simple, dignified
creatures one sees so often in France and never in America.
He possessed a directness, a gentleness most appealing to an
older woman, and his story, as he told it, held somewhat of the
simplicity of the early French poets, a naive beauty underlying
it all.
He was shy at first, and I was glad of that; but as time
passed he talked freely, and I will try to tell you what he said
with as much of his own simplicity as I can remember, put-
ting it into English for you out of his somewhat halting French.
To begin with, I asked him his age.
"I have twenty-three years, madame. I went into the
army when I had but nineteen. That seems a long time ago
—but one does not pass the time very quickly in the army:
it appears longer when one is fighting. And now, in your
so beautiful city, the days go by and I find it difficult to believe
that I have already lived here for a whole month. Yes, it Is
beautiful, but — well, it is of course not Paris. Madame will
forgive me? I have found much kindness here, much brother-
hood— and now I am waiting for a ship which will take me to
England."
" To England? " I queried, puzzled.
He smiled a twisted smile, which took some of the re-
pellant ugliness from his face and gave one an idea of what it
might have been before he was so cruelly wounded.
" It is a long story. If madame has the patience? "
1919.] THE POPE AND THE POILV 371
" But I do so want to hear. Please go on."
" Madame is very kind to take the interest. When I came
out of the hospital for the last time, there did not seem to be
very much for me to do. I have been wounded fourteen times
— not, you understand, fourteen separate times, only five times
have I been in hospital — but after all that, one begins to wonder
what there can be for one so — how shall I say? — so mended.
And the last time, when I stood upon the steps in the sunshine,
I thought — ' if the good God does not show me the way, I shall
have to stand here until I die, and that would be a pity.' He
must have heard me because, almost at once, two friends of
mine, two Italians beside whom I had fought, appeared from
around the corner. ' What are you going to do ? ' they said.
'Nothing — what can I do? My father and mother are both
dead. My village is dust. I have no home. My sisters have
been taken by the Germans. There is nothing left and I have
no place to go at all.' ' Why do you not come to Italy with us ? '
they asked and, as it did not matter where I went, I said, ' Yes,
I will go with you, and perhaps in your country I will find work
to do, work that a man with but one hand can do.' You see,
madame, it is not easy to get work for just one hand alone.
They always want men with two.
" I had been discharged from the army, I could be of no
more use there. Oh, yes. I have my pension — forty of your
dollars a year — and I still draw my pay for one year after my
discharge, so you see I have a great deal to be thankful for!
And I have something else, something that was given me by a
very great man. Madame is interested? I thought so! But
wait! Madame shall hear all about him if she will have the
patience, and I assure you he is a very great man, indeed, so
great that few are allowed to see him at all. But I have seen
him!
"We walked to Rome. It is a long journey. Madame
has been to Rome? Ah ! It is a large city, and very wonderful,
like Paris — but not so beautiful or so — Pardon? Madame
asked about these, my medals? Oh, they are nothing. They
give them to so many ! But yes, naturally, I am proud of them,
but — well, I — I do not like to speak of them. It was nothing, noth-
ing at all. I — oh, well, if madame insists, I was given this for—
for just knocking down two of my comrades. Madame thinks,
perhaps, that I am joking? But it is true. I saw a shell com-
372 THE POPE AND THE POILU [June,
ing, and so I knocked Paul Pillotti and John Baldo flat upon
their back. What good did that do? I jumped on top of them,
you understand. Madame does not yet comprehend? It is so
simple ! I caught the shell. It is that which has given me this
ugly face. But I was telling madame about Rome, and that is
more amusing than medals.
" I found a little work to do. I lived with my two friends
and was able to pay my share of the lodging and food. But
often we went hungry. One becomes accustomed to going
hungry if one is a soldier. However, after I had been in
Rome for some time, I began to wish very much to see the city,
to see all the places I had read of in my school books. So
one day I went to the Vatican.
" I had always wanted to see the Vatican, and I had always
wanted to see the Pope. When I was a little boy I dreamed
about going to see the Pope, and now that I was in the same
city with him, I commenced wondering how I might accom-
plish it.
" My friends said, ' You are mad ! No one can see the
Pope ! ' But in spite of that my desire grew. It seemed to
me, as I thought more and more about it, that I must see the
Pope. I began to believe that I had walked all the way to Rome
just for that and nothing else! I could not get it out of my
mind; so, as I say, one fine day I took myself to the Vatican
determined to do everything possible to procure an interview
with His Holiness.
" There was a man standing guard on the steps. He had
on the clothes of a king. But he could not frighten me. I
went up to him and said : ' I wish to see the Pope.' He looked
at me; then that man smiled and began walking up and down.
So I walked up and down beside him. I said: 'I wish to
see the Pope.' He smiled again. ' You cannot see the Pope,'
he said. ' No one can see the Pope. It is against the law. The
Holy Father does not receive common French soldiers.' ' But,'
I replied, ' if the Holy Father knew how much I wished to see
him, I am sure he would receive me.' You see, madame, I had
the so strong desire to clap my eyes upon His Holiness that I
was very insistent, and I kept marching up and down, up and
down beside that man so beautifully dressed, trying to keep
step with him, which was difficult, his legs were so much longer
then mine ! Finally, ' Monsieur,' I said, ' if the Pope knew that
1919.] THE POPE AND THE POILU 373
I— Then, suddenly, the good God sent me an idea! 'Mon-
sieur,' I repeated, ' if the Pope knew that I had saved the lives
of two of his sons, and that I had been given the Croix de
Guerre for it, do you not think that he would be willing to see
me ? ' Ah ! That was a wonderful idea, sapristi! That man
stopped himself, then turned me about by the shoulder. ' What
is your name?' he demanded. I told him. 'Where do you
live?' he asked, and I told him that also. Then he asked me
many questions and, finally, I left him and went back to my
friends and recounted all that had arrived to me. They
laughed at me, madame. They said I was a fool; that one
might as well expect the good God Himself to send down a
flaming chariot, in which I might ride to heaven, as that His
Holiness would receive a common poilu who had given his
name to one of the Vatican guards! I was a donkey to even
dream of such a thing!
" That is what they said, madame. But you see I had
dreamed of it. I had wanted to see the Pope all my life! It
had lived with me, a great desire, and since I had come to
Rome, it had grown until it seemed that, if my longing were
not satisfied, I should lose my mind!
" Well, they said I was a fool, so I tried to put the thought
of seeing the Pope out of my head altogether. I worked hard,
and a month passed.
" Then one day a messenger came to our house, came —
and asked for me! Imagine my astonishment, I who had
never received a letter in all the time I had been in Italy. Who
was there to write to me? "
He paused a moment, a whimsically wistful smile playing
over his poor twisted lips. I glanced at Marie. She was sitting
forward, holding tight to the window frame as she bounced
grotesquely whenever we took the bumps a little too fast.
There was an eager look in her eyes, which she tried to hide
as soon as she caught me watching her, but her interest was too
great.
" Go on, monsieur, go on ! " she murmured breathlessly.
Then she remembered her manners and once more subsided
into her corner.
" Ah, but yes, mademoiselle, I will continue. Madame is
interested now, eh? It is not such a stupid little history after
all? It has its points, yes? Well, as I was saying, I was aston-
374 THE POPE AND THE PO1LU [June,
ished. I opened that letter with trembling fingers, and I sup-
pose that my face showed my surprise, for my companions
said: Sapristi, but he is clumsy through fright!' And I
was frightened, madame understands, more so than ever be-
fore in all my life! There is nothing in a trench to frighten
one like a Pope!
"When at last I was able to look at what I held in my
hand, I saw that it was a paper with a great seal at the top,
and on it were printed words which told me to come to the
Vatican two days later to see the Pope privately. At first I
was so bewildered that I did not believe it was true, and
thought that there must be some mistake. But as I gazed upon,
that big sheet of paper, I began to realize that it was for none
other than myself. Then, of a truth, I became frightened,
indeed ! I did not want to see the Pope ! I told my friends so.
I said that, after all, it must be nothing much, this seeing a
Pope. The Holy Father was not a very handsome man, and
I believed I would send a letter to His Holiness explaining
that there had been a mistake; that his invitation had, extra-
ordinarily, got into the wrong hands. No, I did not care to go ;
I would stay quietly at home — and read about the Pope in the
newspapers !
" But my friends tore their hair ! They raged ! They
swore, cursing me for a ninny. Per Bacco! But I must go!
It was a command, I could not disobey. It was as if God in
His heaven had sent the angel Gabriel to summon me before
the Throne! Was I mad? Had I lost all my mind? Not go?
I was a fool! I most certainly would have to go, there were
no two ways about it!
" You see, madame, I had what you call ' colfeet,' of an
appalling coldness, and it was with very slow steps that, finally,
I did drag myself there.
"And ah! What I found! If I had been frightened be-
fore, now my legs were shaking so I could hardly stand up-
right. My mouth was so dry that I thought I never would be
able to tell them my own name !
"There was a tall gentleman who met me at the door.
He passed me on to another gentleman, who gave me to yet
another. I thought I would never be through with those gentle-
men! But, finally, I was taken into a little room, very high
and with a beautiful window at the end which looked like the
1919.] THE POPE AND THE POILU 375
gates of paradise. And as I stood there, trembling, a figure all
in white came through a door and I almost wept, madame, be-
cause he was so unlike a Pope and so like my own dear father!
And he talked to me just as my father would talk. He put his
hand upon my shoulder. He asked me questions about
everything: about my father and mother; my little sisters, my
brother who was shot at Ham; about my medals; my friends
whom I had saved when the shell came — everything. And he
spoke so gently— just as my father would — that I had no more
fright and told him about my parents, who must have been
killed when the Germans took our village; of how I, myself,
knew through a comrade that my sisters had — how the boches
had taken them away; of how I had come to Rome because
there was no place for me to go, my village being dust, my
home gone. And the Holy Father put his arm about me and
there were tears in his eyes as he took my hand in his — but yes,
madame, this one, all twisted and useless — and said he was
proud to feel the flesh that had bled for France close to his own
flesh!
"Ah! That was my hour, madame! I kissed his hand
and he blessed me, and when I came out again into the sun-
shine, it seemed brighter than I had ever seen it before ! And
when I told my companions about it afterwards, they were
very happy for me — and perhaps a little jealous too. They
could not do enough for me. We had wine that night and
they drank my health, ' The Hero of the Vatican ! ' One would
have thought that I had done something wonderful! It was
not I who was wonderful, but that kind and gentle man who
lives alone, shut up like a prisoner in his garden !
"Then, after nearly three months had passed, one day
there came another letter. It was written on a big sheet of
paper, with the great seal at the top, just as before. But this
time it was not printed. It was a letter from the Pope, written
with a pen, and in his own handwriting ! Madame does not be-
lieve me, I can see it in her eyes. But it is true. I will show
madame. She will be convinced."
He fumbled in his pocket a moment, his eyes shining, his
whole manner one of excitement. Marie watched him like a
hawk. Finally, he brought it out, a large, soiled, crumpled
envelope, much worn at the corners. With shaking fingers,
and the aid of his teeth, he managed to extract the contents.
376 THE POPE AND THE POILU [June,
" There, madame," he said proudly, and leaned back with
the air of a lawyer having won his suit.
It was written in a rather fine, very foreign hand, and in
Italian which, unfortunately, I am unable to read; but at the
bottom of the single sheet, before my staring eyes, was the un-
mistakable signature: Giacomo, Marchesa della Chiesa, His
Holiness Benedict XV., Pope of Rome !
I thought Marie would burst ! Her face assumed an alarm-
ing purple, and she sputtered in French, babbling incoherent
terms of endearment, which she showered upon the Pope and
the poila alike. Then I became conscious that the hero of this
astonishing tale was speaking once more.
"Madame sees that I have spoken the truth. It is of a
verity the signature of the Pope. I always carry it with me
wherever I go, it is my one treasure. Madame would like
me to translate? Good — but no, I do not have to look at
it, I know it by heart ! It says that the Holy Father had had in-
quiries made — it took three months, madame understands—
and that he is glad to inform me that both my father and
mother are alive and are now in England in a place called
Upper Meith : that in this letter I will find a draft on the Bank
of Rome, money enough to take me to England in the most sim-
ple way, which would be by New York, because of the War;
that His Holiness blesses his son and wishes him godspeed
upon his journey, and that the peace of God the Father may
now and forever rest in my heart, even if it is not to be found
in the world at this time. Then the Pope signs his name. That
is all. I am waiting for a ship to take me to England, and
then I shall see my mother and my father, and perhaps I
will be able to get work to do. They say we who are unfit can
always find work in England.
" And now, if madame will have the goodness to allow
me to alight, I will do so after expressing the gratitude I feel
toward madame for befriending a lonely French soldier.
Madame has been more than kind."
As he stood at the side of the road, making funny little
bows, his cap in his hand and his scarred boy's face looking up
into mine, my heart nearly overflowed. I know my eyes did.
And as for Marie's !
" Won't you tell me your name," I asked.
"Ah, no, madame, if you please! That would spoil it.
1919.] THE POPE AND THE POILV 377
That would make you feel, perhaps, that you must ask me
to your house, and I. Well, I would rather not. I should
like to keep this afternoon — as it is, one of the pleasant memo-
ries I shall take with me from New York. Besides, I may at
any moment receive word that I must embark for England.
Adieu, madame — mademoiselle, and again I thank you," and
with a gay little wave of the cap, he turned and limped away.
I watched him disappear. Then I slammed the door to
and snapped at Gifford to drive home.
"And you needn't blubber like a great baby, Marie," I
said, wiping the tears from my eyes while I sniffed in a most
unladylike manner myself. "There must be thousands just
like him, poor soul ! "
" Ah, but so — so young, madame, so y-young and b-brave !
Oh, the poor little boy! The poor little cabbage ! "
" It has been a wonderful experience ! Think of picking
up such a story as that, and in Central Park ! "
" It is not his story, madame," Marie whimpered. " That
is nothing. But the young gentleman himself! So charming,
so gay in all his medals! Ah, it is to make the heart ache —
and madame in her old gray — ! I told madame she should wear
her blue foulard! Then, perhaps, monsieur would have con-
sented to return with us — with madame! It is a thousand
pities!"
" You foolish creature ! Do you suppose that boy noticed
what I had on, an old woman like me? "
" One can never say. If madame had worn her blue
foulard, he might have! " replied my incorrigible maid as we
drew up at the curb once more.
THE CASE OF CALIFORNIA.
(A REPLY.)
BY C. M. WAAGE.
R. MICHAEL WILLIAMS is obsessed with the
idea of what he calls " the New Paganism." In
his book The High Romance he devotes a chap-
ter to this subject, in which he enumerates such
cults as Spiritism, New Thought, Mental Heal-
ing, Occult Science, all of which have been dished up from the
days of Moses, and before, in one form or another, all harking
back to one and the same thing — the unsolved and unsolvable
riddle of human speculation, that even an CEdipus could not
have answered with all his wit.
In the book referred to, Mr. Williams has told us how some
years ago he emerged from this "New Paganism" or some
other paganism, very much like it, through an influence, which
was more especially made manifest in California, when he re-
ceived, so to speak, his second baptism in what has for more
than one reason been called " The Golden State."
And now he turns upon his foster mother with amazing
spleen in an attempt to be righteous. In an article published
in the April issue of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, he reverts to his
favorite topic the aforesaid " Paganism," and we are intro-
duced to the following excerpts from his recent observations
in California through a quotation from Father Baegert, S.J.,
who, be it observed, is speaking of the low moral conditions
of the aboriginal Californians of one hundred and fifty years
ago. Mr. Williams evidently does not consider the present era
notably ahead of what Father Baegert found a century and a
half ago.
Mr. Williams writes : " And the nature-people of today in
California, the new pagans, who range from super-intellectuals
and highly developed artists down to folk but little higher
than the nature-people of the olden times, are distinguished by
three points of resemblance to their forerunners, namely, their
devotion (an ever growing one) to occultism, to psychic
1919.] THE CASE OF CALIFORNIA 379
aberrations of a bewildering variety, controlled by a new race
of up-to-date medicine men, or sorcerers; by their established
habits of banishing all religion from education, accompanied
by an increasing disposition to let the children go as they
please; and by their sexual looseness. Promiscuousness is rife
not merely among adults, including the married, but also in
many high schools among the children. Perversion is steadily
growing. The infamous Baker Street Vice Club in San Fran-
cisco revealed something of this latter horrible fact. More than
fifteen hundred names — a millionaire and a clergyman among
them — including some very well-known people of San Fran-
cisco, women as well as men, are in the hands of the police,
recorded as habitues of this resort; a place like the one in
Taylor Street in London, where Oscar Wilde and his circle cele-
brated their orgies. Divorces are granted by the courts on any
pretexts. With Pan has return Priapus, and of course Venus,
in her most liberal and most variable of moods.
" As for the new forms of sorcery, their name is legion. . . ."
What follows is on a par with what has been already
quoted. If Mr. Williams had been paid for leading an anti-Cali-
fornia crusade he could not have chosen his words better. I
do not for a moment believe that he engaged in any such mis-
sion, but it must be apparent to any one, who is familiar with
his writings, that with him the modern newspaper man's in-
stinct always floats to the surface, and the sensational is an
element never to be disparaged by him. Hence this terrible
arraignment of a State in which, according to his own asser-
tion, he found his own self.
The world today appears to be passing through an eclipse
of God's grace. Something appears to have come between the
Creator and the creature, something more vicious in its nature
than what ordinarily forces itself between God and man. But
this " something " is world-wide and not confined to California
nor, indeed, is it originally a product of that State. Mr. Wil-
liams in his article appears to think that there is a peculiar con-
nection between the evil of the day and the Golden State, and
that his satanic majesty looks upon California as a particularly
choice morsel. He makes it his business to present California,
and more especially San Francisco, as a veritable Valley of
Himmon, speaking of it as of the pool, to which Ninive was
likened, whence " the men flee away." Lest we of California
380 THE CASE OF CALIFORNIA [June,
suffer a fate so cruel, let us speak of this matter briefly, merely
to show the silver lining to the cloud that, like a pall, has been
thrown over us.
There is no need to speak here of Catholic activity in this
far West. It is thriving under the guidance of a prelate, whose
high ideals are known wherever the Catholic hierarchy per-
vades. Nor does Mr. Williams intend to belittle it, although he
is somewhat doubtful of its ultimate success. Let us refer to
things, not Catholic, or not exclusively so. This is written on
Holy Thursday and it is naturally borne in upon the mind that
it was a Catholic lawyer of San Francisco, Mr. Stanislaus Riley,
assisted by a San Francisco woman, Miss Jessie Inglis, who seven
years ago started a crusade for the reverent observance of
Good Friday. That movement has now spread far beyond the
borders of California. Here in California, even in San Fran-
cisco, it is now an understood thing that stores and offices close
during the Three Hours, or allow their employees the needed
liberty for attending the devotions. Even saloons and play-
houses close from twelve to three P.M. and many non-Catholic
denominations, which previously took but little notice of the
day, have fallen into line with special services. This is an in-
stance where Catholicism has touched those without the fold
and it is a wonderful thing to contemplate.
Mayor Rolph of San Francisco, not a Catholic, a man
known throughout this land for his patriotism and generous
sentiments, was not slow in seeing the propriety of the move-
ment, and through his influence all public officers were granted
the needed leave of absence.
Men and women of the native element of California are
banded together in two separate organizations. One of their
mutual aims is to preserve the traditions of the State, and,
included in this endeavor, comes the preservation and restora-
tion of the old Missions. These young men and women are by
no means all Catholics, but they are all bent upon the same pur-
pose and are firmly united in their efforts to guard about the
heritage of a glorious Catholic past.
There is but one way of meeting the charges of wholesale
immorality which Mr. Williams hurls against the State and
more especially against San Francisco : flatly deny them.
It is not claimed that there is no immorality practised in
San Francisco, but rather that such practice is just what any
1919.] THE CASE OF CALIFORNIA 381
observer may find paralleled in almost any part of the so-called
civilized world today, particularly in large cities. When Mr.
Williams speaks of " more than fifteen hundred names in the
hands of the police," in connection with the Baker Street
scandal, it is the newspaper man who speaks. Has he seen this
long list of names ? If so, he is anxious for a " scoop " and uses
THE CATHOLIC WORLD for his field. If he has not seen them he
does not know. But whether or not, he breaks faith with Cali-
fornia by setting forth his tale in the manner chosen, for he
does not give established facts, but, with the exception of a few
isolated cases, merely alleged offences.
The no less terrible reference to " promiscuousness " in
which school children and married people are thrown into one
category of the most hideous moral corruption — it is not true !
Mr. Williams says : " Perversion is steadily growing." It is
not true that perversity is growing here in advance of other
places in general. There is perversion here as elsewhere. Men
and women fall from grace as they have done in all communi-
ties from the days of our first parents; children, who are de-
generates, happen along here, as in other places, but California
is not suffering from a contagion of immorality, which needs
a " keep-off-the-grass " announcement to warn people of her
morals or rather her lack of morals.
Much more might be said in answer to Mr. Williams'
allegations, but let this suffice. It might be urged that I have
misunderstood his motive. To this I would reply that I am not
here dealing with his motives, but with his manner of present-
ing them. When Boccaccio wrote his Decameron his motive
was perfectly proper, but his language gave the Neapolitans
a black eye for ever after. Mr. Williams (without intending
any comparison between the two) is probably actuated by the
highest motive, but his language is decidedly detrimental to
the repute of California and San Francisco, and in so far he
may be justly called to time.
THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY.
BY CHARLES G. FENWICK.
IE VICTIS, said Brennus, as he threw his sword
into the scales which weighed out the thousand
pounds of gold exacted as the price of the ran-
som of Rome. Modern conquerors, though per-
haps employing less crude methods of confisca-
tion, have been at times no less ruthless in their exactions than
the barbarian chieftain. But the Gaul, having obtained his
booty, could return undisturbed to his distant domains;
whereas the modern conqueror, unable to retire from the scene
of his pillage, has had to keep guard over his prize of war
lest his despoiled neighbor seek to win back what has been lost.
Thus it has come about that it is not " woe to the conquered "
that should be inscribed at the bottom of the so-called " peace
treaties " of modern times, but rather " woe to the conquerors,"
woe to those who having taken contrary to the laws of justice
cannot keep by the law of force. If we survey the peace
treaties of the nineteenth century, to go back no further, we
shall find that quite as often as not it is the victors on the field
of battle who have in a political sense lost the war at the peace
table. This political defeat of the military victors has been
due partly to imperialistic ambitions on the part of individual
States, which have led them to annex territories for no other
purpose than national aggrandizement, but much more to the
fundamental weakness of the European system of the balance
of power. The victors at the peace table have not only had to
take proper measures to obtain redress from the defeated State
and to secure themselves against future attack, but they have at
the same time been under the necessity of seeing that none of
the measures taken should contribute in any seritfus degree to
the strengthening of any one of their number. For though
allies for the moment, who could tell when the clash of their
policies might convert them into enemies.
The problem of peace conferences of the past, therefore,
has been not so much the problem of imposing terms upon the
defeated enemy, but that of securing an agreement between
1919.] THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY 383
the victors themselves upon the political issues which have been
raised by the war and which lie upon the peace table for set-
tlement. It is but four years over the century mark that the
great powers, having defeated Napoleon and broken the mili-
tary power of France, sat at the Congress of Vienna to rear-
range the boundary lines on the map of Europe. The oppor-
tunity was theirs to effect a settlement which might have made
the nineteenth century the era of international peace which we
still hope the coming decades of the twentieth century may be.
Delegates of exceptional ability met in conference, but un-
happily the principles of statecraft by which they were domi-
nated led them to think first of the balance of power and the
aggrandizement of their separate States and last, if at all, of
the interests and sympathies of the small nationalities which
they used as pawns in their diplomatic game. The seeds of
war thus sown soon bore fruit. Greece had its revolution and
after much suffering won its independence of Turkey. Bel-
gium revolted against Holland; Italy rose up against Austria to
secure its national unity, and Prussia took from Denmark the
duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. Again in 1878 the delegates
of the great powers met in conference to restore peace in
eastern Europe, and again their half-hearted recognition of
the rights of nationalities opened the way for the war of the
Balkan States against Turkey in 1912. Nothing could be clearer
than that a peace built upon the insecure foundations of
national aggrandizement and strategic boundaries could last
only so long as the temporary balance of power existing be-
tween the great nations continued. When the unstable equi-
librium shifted, new wars and new settlements were to be
expected.
Unlike the great peace treaties of the past, the Peace
Treaty now pending ratification represents an attempt to con-
struct conditions of peace which shall not merely make redress
as far as possible for wrong done, but which shall, even at the
expense of denying certain claims otherwise just, form the
basis of a new international system designed to prevent wars
in the future. This conscious recognition of the necessity of
subordinating the imperialistic claims, which the victors have
it in their power to make, to the larger and more permanent
interests of world peace gives to the present Treaty a unique
place in the history of modern international relations. It is
384 THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY [June,
due to the fact that the magnitude of the conflict and the long
months during which the opposing forces were at stalemate
led the greatest of the neutral nations to assume the role of
mediator, and to attempt to obtain from the opposing nations a
statement of the principles upon which a peace by settlement
might be brought about. The note addressed by President
Wilson on December 18, 1916, to the powers at war drew from
the Allied nations a renewal of the general principle of " rep-
aration and securities " earlier enunciated by Mr. Asquith, as
well as more definite conditions of territorial rearrangements.
On January 22, 1917, President Wilson presented to the Senate
a statement of the constructive conditions upon which he con-
sidered it possible that the United States might cooperate with
other nations in establishing an international authority to
guarantee peace. A year later, on January 8, 1918, when the
United States was itself a belligerent, President Wilson again
undertook to lay down the conditions of a just peace, and the
" fourteen points " then set forth became forthwith the definite
programme of America's conception of a just peace. These
" fourteen points," together with other more general principles
subsequently enunciated by the President, entered into the
negotiations preceding the armistice which marked the surren-
der of Germany, so that the Allied nations became obligated
to construct the present treaty upon them as a foundation. The
extent to which they have been adhered to or departed from
will appear in the discussion of the specific clauses of the
Treaty. In any case it is clear that the scope of the Treaty
transcends the immediate issues raised by the War.
A second unique and significant feature of the present
Treaty is the fact that the terms of the settlement are intimately
bound up with the creation of a new agency for the mainte-
nance of international peace. The League of Nations, to which
Section I. is devoted, forms an integral part of the Treaty, and
while constituted as the general guarantor of the new inter-
national order it is made at the same time the active adminis-
trator of a number of the specific provisions of the Treaty. Dur-
ing the formulation of the Treaty considerable criticism was
directed against the combination of what were regarded as two
distinct objects, and a resolution, signed on March 3d by thirty-
seven Senators, called upon President Wilson to postpone the
formation of the League of Nations until the conclusion of the
1919.] THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY 385
Peace Treaty. The object of the Peace Conference in making
the League an integral part of the Treaty will appear from a
study of the machinery set up for the execution of various
clauses of the Treaty. We may infer that the Conference felt
that certain questions bearing upon international reconstruc-
tion could only be settled rightly under the guardianship of the
League. Unless it was assumed that the old order of inter-
national rivalry and individual self-protection had passed
away, it would be necessary to make concessions of strategic
territory which would violate the principles of self-determina-
tion upon which the Conference was endeavoring to recon-
struct the map of Europe. At the same time certain provisions
of an executory character which might require years for their
fulfillment, and certain other constructive provisions which
were to be continuous in their operation, required the creation
of permanent commissions to see to their fulfillment. The
supervision of the work of these commissions by the League,
direct in some cases and indirect in others, will do much to
make it easier for the parties to the Treaty to acquiesce in the
action taken. Moreover, the rivalries created by the assign-
ment of the colonies of Germany to mandatory States become
far easier of adjustment in the presence of a provision that
the mandatory State shall exercise its duties of guardianship
subject to the control of the League. Allowing for differences
of opinion as to the manner in which the negotiations of the
Peace Conference have been conducted, and for further
changes which it may be necessary to make in the constitution
of the League, it would seem that the League of Nations has an
essential part to play in the execution of a Treaty which is not
only to settle immediate issues, but to lay the foundations of
permanent peace.
For the purpose of critical study we may depart from the
order followed by the several sections of the Treaty, and divide
its provisions into those which bear upon the problem of rep-
aration and securities and those which are of a constructive
character and are designed to lay the basis of a new inter-
national order. Beginning with the provisions for reparation,
Germany is laid under obligation to make redress in money
and in property for the losses suffered by the Allied nations.
The " fourteen points " contained no other reference to repara-
tion than that the occupied territory of Belgium and France
VOL. cix. — 25
386 THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY [June,
should be " restored;" but in a memorandum submitted by the
Allied governments to President Wilson pending the armistice
negotiations, it was stated that by this provision the Allied gov-
ernments understood that compensation would be made by
Germany "for all damage done to the civilian population of
the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by
land, by sea, and from the air." The bill is a heavy one. Sec-
tion VII. provides that the total amount which Germany is to
pay shall be later determined by an inter-allied Reparation
Commission, before which Germany is to be given a hearing.
A schedule of payments running during a period of thirty years
is to be then presented. In the meantime, as an immediate
step towards restoration, Germany is to pay within two years
twenty billion marks in either gold, ships, or other specific
forms of payment, and is to repay to Belgium all sums bor-
rowed by the latter from the Allies in consequence of the viola-
tion by Germany of the neutrality treaty of 1839. In respect
to the larger amount due as compensation for the losses suf-
fered by the population of the Allied governments, it is recog-
nized that the resources of Germany are not adequate to make
complete reparation, but compensation is demanded under
seven main categories of losses. The Reparation Commission
will act as a sort of board of receivers for the German nation,
and will see that priority is given to the claims of the Allies
over the discharge of domestic loans.
The question arises whether the bill of damages constitutes
the levy of an indemnity as distinct from losses suffered.
Punitive indemnities in the form of requiring Germany to pay
the whole cost of the War have been generally repudiated in
the various pronouncements by Allied statesmen as to the
proper principles of a just settlement. But the sum total of the
amount required for reparation, if the estimate of one hundred
billion marks be correct, is so enormous that the German Gov-
ernment might well be justified, considering the greatly dimin-
ished resources of the country, in regarding it as reducing Ger-
many to virtual wage slavery. It is a hard law, if an old and
well recognized one, which makes an entire people responsible
for the acts of their government, even when that government
is as little subject to the control of the people as was the execu-
tive branch of the German Empire. Nor does international
law take account of the fact that, when once a war has begun,
1919.] THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY 387
many thousands who would never have voted to begin it, had
they been consulted and had they known the facts, are driven
to support it by the same impulse of patriotism which receives
the highest praise when the nation's cause is just. In his ad-
dress to Congress on April 2, 1917, asking that war be declared,
President Wilson asserted that " we have no quarrel with the
German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of
sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that
their government acted in entering this War." This distinction
between the German people and their rulers does not appear to
have operated to have reduced the indemnities which the
masses of Germany must pay. Just as is the reckoning by the
traditions of the law, it takes no account of the fact that even
so docile a people as the Germans would doubtless have re-
sisted the domination of their military caste had not the whole
international system of the decades before 1914 been based
upon the rivalry of opposing imperialistic policies, so as to
blind even the just to the iniquity of war, or rather so as to de-
ceive even right-minded persons into accepting as a war of self-
defence what was in reality a war of aggression.
In addition to reparation in the form of payments of
money, Germany is required (Section III.) to surrender the
coal mines of the Saar Basin as compensation for the destruc-
tion of coal mines in northern France. In order that this may
not involve a cession of territory contrary to the principle of
self-determination, the treaty provides that the territory is to
be governed by a commission appointed by the League of
Nations, which is to administer the country under the con-
ditions prescribed by the Treaty. After fifteen years a plebiscite
is to be held by communes to ascertain the desire of the popu-
lation whether it shall continue under the existing control of
the League or be united to France or to Germany. It cannot be
said that this latter provision is a desirable one, for it offers a
strong temptation to the contending powers to carry on rival
propaganda which would be a menace to the cause of peace.
Further provisions for reparation (Section VIII.) consist in an
elaborate array of restrictions imposed upon German trade.
German customs duties are regulated, shipping privileges in
German ports are secured for the Allied nations, and unfair
German trade practices are to be abolished. A large number of
international conventions to which Germany was a party are to
388 THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY [June,
be renewed, and special treaties with individual members of the
Allied nations may be renewed upon giving notice. German
property in the territories of the Allies may be liquidated as
compensation for property of their citizens not restored or paid
for by Germany; and provisions are laid down for the can-
cellation or renewal of contracts between citizens of the Allied
nations and German citizens.
As an item of political justice towards particular offenders,
provision is made (Section VI.) for the trial of the former
Kaiser and of persons accused of committing acts in violation
of the laws of war. In the case of the Kaiser the indictment is
" for a supreme offence against international morality and
the sanctity of treaties." The earlier plan of a criminal indict-
ment was abandoned owing to the obvious difficulty of making
out a legal case. For it must be remembered that under in-
ternational law of 1914, war was a legal means for the redress
of injuries, and it was left to each nation to decide when its
highest national interests called upon it to adopt that means.
On the other hand in the case both of private soldiers and of
officers there exist documents to prove violations of the time-
honored laws of war, such as forbid, for example, the mal-
treatment of non-combatants. Here the offenders are to be
delivered up and tried by military tribunals under military
law.
The provisions adopted in the form of securities against
future misconduct on the part of Germany (Section VI.) in-
clude the demobilization of the German army and its limita-
tion to a permanent strength not exceeding four thousand
officers and one hundred thousand men; the closing of all fac-
tories for the manufacture of arms and munitions of war ex-
cept those specifically mentioned; the abolition of conscription
and the adoption of a period of enlistment sufficiently long to
prevent the training of any large number of troops by succes-
sive replacements; the dismantling of all fortresses situated
within a zone fifty kilometers east of the Rhine, as well as those
along the Baltic; the demobilization of the navy and its limita-
tion to a small force of thirty-six ships of various sizes; and the
surrender of all other war vessels, and of all airships except a
small number to be used in searching for submarine mines.
The occupation of the territory west of the Rhine is to be con-
tinued for a period of fifteen years (Section XIV.), but this
1919.] THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY 389
occupation is more in the nature of a guarantee for the execu-
tion of the Treaty in general than a means of protection against
future attack; and provision is made for the retirement of the
armies of occupation from certain areas after periods of five and
ten years if the conditions of the Treaty are faithfully carried
out. No mention is made of the dismantling of fortresses in
the occupied area after the period of occupation, but this may
be inferred from the provisions relating to the east bank of the
Rhine.
Thus far we have been dealing with those portions of the
treaty which bear upon the problem of reparation for wrong
done and security against a recurrence of aggression on the
part of Germany. We may now turn to the wide variety of
provisions of a constructive character which seek to correct
conditions which have long been an obstacle to the peace of
Europe. More than any other war of the past, the present War
has raised issues which from one point of view may be re-
garded as incidental, but which are in many cases actually
more important for the restoration of law and order than are
the more immediate issues, the settlement of which has just
been described. In the first place numerous readjustments of
territorial boundaries have taken place to carry into effect
the principle of the self-determination of nationalities. Fore-
most among these readjustments is the cession of Alsace-Lor-
raine to France in recognition of the wrong done by Germany
in 1871 to France and to the people of the two provinces (Sec-
tion II.). The Treaty assumes that it is the desire of the two
provinces to be reunited to France, and in consequence no pro-
vision is made for a popular vote of the inhabitants. To have
taken a plebiscite after nearly fifty years of German control
would have presented obvious difficulties, apart from the fact
that, in the eyes of France, the restoration of the provinces was
not so much an application of the principle of self-
determination as a direct nullification of the act of spoliation
in 1871.
The small neutral state of Moresnet lying on the borders of
Prussia and Belgium is ceded by Germany to Belgium. This
district, of importance because of the zinc mines under its
mountain, was placed in 1817 under the joint government of
Prussia and of Holland, to whose rights Belgium succeeded;
but of recent years the control of the country has been a sub-
390 THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY [June,
ject of dispute between the two States. With Moresnet goes
the diminutive district of Prussian Moresnet just over the
border. Two other districts, Eupen and Malmedy, are ceded
to Belgium, subject to a right on the part of their inhabitants to
protest against the change of sovereignty, the final decision
resting with the League of Nations.
The boundary line between Germany and Denmark is to
be fixed on the principle of self-determination. A line is drawn
from the mouth of the Schlei River to the mouth of the Eider,
marking off the duchy of Schleswig, which, together with the
purely German duchy of Holstein, was taken from Denmark
by Prussia in 1866. Within this territory an international com-
mission is to supervise a plebiscite arranged in three zones.
The object of the zone system of voting is to make it possible
to secure a new frontier which will actually accord with the
wishes of the population, not one which might include within
either Germany or Denmark a large minority opposed to the
decision of the majority. It is also provided that due regard
is to be given to geographical and economic conditions. The
Peace Conference clearly recognized that there are distinct
limitations to the value of a plebiscite as a just basis for the
transfer of territory, and that unless conducted under proper
restriction the plebiscite might create new cases of terra
irredenta to replace the old.
The provisions of the Treaty with regard to the cession by
Germany to Japan of the rights of Germany in the Shantung
peninsula, seem difficult to reconcile with the principle of self-
determination. Not only does Kiao-Chau go to Japan, but all
German rights to the railroad from Tsing-tao to Tsinan-fu,
including all facilities and mining rights and rights of exploita-
tion, pass equally to Japan. Japan's promise to return the
territory later, not being upon a contractual basis, has not
satisfied China, and according to the latest reports the Chinese
Government has instructed its delegates not to sign the Peace
Treaty with the above provisions included.
A second constructive task undertaken by the Treaty is the
creation of two new States on the basis of the principle of
self-determination applied in the readjustment of the boun-
daries of existing States. In Section IV. of the Treaty, Germany
recognizes the complete independence of the Czecho-Slovak
State, including the autonomous territory of the Ruthenians
1919.] THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY 391
south of the Carpathian mountains. The frontiers of the new
State on the southeast remain to be determined, but on the
northwest, where they are contiguous to Germany, they are to
follow the frontier of Bohemia in 1914. On this latter point
considerable difference of opinion has arisen among experts as
to whether a boundary line could not have been drawn so as to
exclude the German portions of Bohemia. It is estimated that
Bohemia contains a German minority as large as thirty-three
per cent, and a minority which contains a large proportion of
the more prosperous business elements of the State. The
Gzecho-Slovak National Committee, speaking from Washing-
ton and Paris, has been insistent in its claim for the historic
frontiers of Bohemia. A plebiscite according to the zone sys-
tem might perhaps have removed the danger of a Germania
Irredenta in later days.
A more difficult problem before the Conference was the
creation of an independent Poland. On the part of Germany
the Treaty provides for the cession of a part of Upper Silesia,
most of Posen, and the province of West Prussia on the left
bank of the Vistula; and since these districts will include
many who are not Poles, special provision is made for the
protection of racial, linguistic, or religious minorities. Owing
to the irregularity of the racial boundary line between the two
countries, the frontier of Poland on the side of East Prussia
is to be fixed by two distinct plebiscites. Further, the port of
Dantzig and the district immediately about it is to be con-
stituted into a " free city " under the guarantee of the League
of Nations, and is to be governed by a constitution drawn up
by a high commissioner appointed by the League and by the
President of Dantzig, in agreement with the duly appointed
representatives of the city. Provision is made that the city
shall be included within the Polish customs frontiers, with-
out, however, interfering with the free area in the port;
and Poland is to be insured the free use of the city's water-
ways, docks, and other port facilities, together with the con-
trol and administration of the Vistula River. Dantzig thus
returns to a status approximating that which it held from the
time of the Hanseatic League until its incorporation into Prus-
sia in 1793. The loss of Dantzig to Germany, accompanied by
the cession of West Prussia and the separation of East Prus-
sia from the rest of Germany, will be one of the hardest parts
392 THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY [June,
of the Treaty for Germany to bear. West Prussia was acquired
by Prussia in the first partition of Poland in 1774, but it had at
the time a large German population, being one of the districts
settled by the same Teutonic Order which colonized East Prus-
sia. Scholars, considering the problem from the point of view
of abstract principle rather than of expediency, have ques-
tioned whether a solution could not have been reached which
would have given Poland a right of way alo-ng the Vistula to
the sea and the use of the port facilities of Dantzig, without the
necessity of extensive transfers of territory which, as in the
case of the outer fringe of Bohemia, may create a permanent
cause of unrest. The thirteenth of the " fourteen points " called
for the creation of an independent Polish state, which should
include the territories " inhabited by indisputably Polish pop-
ulations," and which should be assured a free and secure access
to the sea.
Another constructive feature of the Treaty is the creation
of a mandatory system for the control of the German colonies.
By Section V. of the Treaty, Germany renounces her overseas
possessions in favor of the Allied and associated powers. The
Constitution of the League of Nations then comes forward with
its provisions for the administration by a mandatory state of
the colonies in Central and Southwest Africa, and in the South
Pacific Islands. The importance of this control of undeveloped
territories by guardian states responsible to the League is not
merely that these backward races will be protected from pos-
sible exploitation, but that a new principle of international re-
sponsibility is introduced in the conditions laid down for the
administration of these territories. The conditions not only
call for a just domestic government, but provide for equal op-
portunities for the trade and commerce of other members of
the League, thus attempting to prevent the jealousy caused by
exclusive control. Security for the fulfillment of these con-
ditions is sought in the requirement that the guardian state is
to render to the League an annual report in reference to the ter-
ritory committed to its charge.
A number of constructive provisions in regard to inter-
national transportation are included in the Treaty, but unfor-
tunately their application is limited to the grant of easements
in favor of the Allied governments on German railways and
waterways and in German ports, instead of being extended to
1919.] THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY 393
the mutual intercourse of all members of the League. Economic
rights of way have long been a source of international
rivalry, and while much was done during the nineteenth cen-
tury to open up to commerce the great rivers of Europe and to
facilitate the passage of through freight from harbors to in-
land towns across national lines, much yet remains to be done.
No inland state can breathe freely, in a commercial sense, unless
it is assured good service at reasonable rates over the railways
of its maritime neighbor and adequate port facilities. The
policy pursued by Austria of shutting Serbia off from the
Adriatic, and thus making Serbia economically dependent
upon her, was undoubtedly one of the chief sources of friction
between the two countries, which gave inspiration and force to
the Pan-Slavic movement. The third of the " fourteen points "
called for the removal of all economic barriers and the estab-
lishment of an equality of trade conditions among the nations
consenting to the peace settlement. We have already seen that
the Treaty makes Dantzig a free port and thus meets one ground
of competitive hostility between Poland and Germany. Pro-
vision is also made that Czecho-Slovakia shall have access to
the sea by means of special transportation rights north and
south. To the north Germany is to lease to Czecho-Slovakia
spaces in the ports of Hamburg and Stettin, while to the south
the new State is to have the right to run its own through trains
to Fiume and Trieste. Belgium is to be permitted to build a
deep-draft canal from the Rhine to the Meuse within twenty-
five years if she so desires. At the same time the German rail-
way system is to be reorganized so as to secure through com-
munication across its territory. And, as marking the progress
of aerial navigation, provision is made that aircraft of the
Allied and associated powers shall have full liberty of passage
over and landing on German territory, and equal treatment
with the most favored nation planes as to internal commercial
traffic in Germany.
The internationalization of the Kiel Canal and of the
navigable German rivers constitutes a constructive measure
of great importance. The Kiel Canal, previously open only
on the sufferance of Germany, is to remain open and free to
the ships of war and of commerce of all nations on terms of
absolute equality, and thus comes within the conditions already
laid down for the use of the Suez and Panama Canals. The
394 THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY [June,
Rhine and the Moselle had already been internationalized by
the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and provision is merely made
for a change in the Central Commission regulating the navi-
gation of the two rivers. The European Danube Commission,
created in 1856, is continued, and a new commission created
for the Upper Danube. The Elbe, the Oder, the Ultava, and the
Niemen are declared international and placed under special
commissions composed of representatives of the riparian and
other states. Czecho-Slovakia is thus insured a waterway to
the North Sea and to the Baltic, and Poland a second outlet
on the northeast; while Czecho-Slovakia, Serbia and Ru-
mania are given special protection in the navigation of the
Danube.
Section XIII. deals with the problem of international labor
organization, and bears the least direct relation to the im-
mediate issues raised by the War. It is in reality not an inter-
national problem, in the sense of involving the relations be-
tween nations, but a universal national problem, and it may
be regarded as a sort of " rider " tacked on to the Peace Treaty
to satisfy the demands of the labor groups in the several coun-
tries for an immediate statement of principles. Provision is
made for a permanent organization to promote international
adjustment of labor conditions by means of an annual inter-
national labor conference and an international labor office.
Nine principles of labor conditions are set forth in the treaty,
and they represent in general the standards of labor conditions
advocated in recent years by the American Federation of
Labor. Considering the fact that the burdens of taxation in
Europe will fall with special weight upon the proletariat, no
one will deny the vital importance of the principles laid down.
What is equally important, however, is the implied recognition
that a war to make the world safe for democracy cannot be
successful unless democracy is rendered possible by the estab-
lishment of labor conditions in all countries which will give to
labor the time and the opportunity for intelligent participation
in public affairs. It would be interesting, but out of place here,
to discuss the possible effect of these provisions upon the re-
moval of the tariff barriers which have undoubtedly played
a part in the creation of commercial rivalry and jealousy
among the nations.
Such are the more important provisions of the Treaty of
1919.] THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY 395
Peace with Germany. While the text of the treaties with
Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria is not yet available, it is evident
that they will follow the same general lines as the Treaty with
Germany. Several difficult problems of territorial readjust-
ment will be presented in these treaties, notably the adjust-
ment of the conflicting claims of Italy and Jugo-Slavia to
Fiume and the Dalmatian coast, the contest between Italy and
Greece for control over the islands of the ^Egean Sea released
from Turkish sovereignty during the present War and the war
between Turkey and Italy in 1911, the delimitation of the
boundary between Rumania and Hungary, possibly by a series
of plebiscites in Transylvania, the division of Galicia between
Poland and Ukrainia, and the assignment of mandates over
Albania, Syria, Mesopotamia and Armenia.
Can it be said that the present Treaty is consistent with the
the principles of a just settlement as expressed in the various
addresses of President Wilson which have been so generally
quoted as the basis of a lasting peace? No one will contend
that an ideal settlement has been reached. During the dark
hours of the conflict states vowed their belief in abstract prin-
ciples of justice which in the hour of triumph they are reluctant
to apply to concrete facts. In some instances compromises
have been made which puzzle the onlooker because he has
not before him the facts upon which the Conference based its
decision. In other cases the compromises appear to threaten
the very ideals for which the War was fought. But if we look
not to the weak spots in the Treaty, but to its construcive pro-
visions, if we compare it with the settlement effected at Vienna
in 1815 or at Berlin in 1878, we cannot but feel that great
progress has been made. The plebiscite as a basis for the trans-
fer of territory has been generally applied, new states are.
created to satisfy the desires of national groups, colonies are
put under guardianship, commercial traffic in Europe is given
greater freedom, and new international agencies have been
created to superintend the administration of rights con-
ferred.
Much has been done to secure a just peace, but much more
remains to be done to secure a permanent peace. A heavy
weight has been laid upon Germany, which she cannot be
expected to bear patiently if any hope of release is offered.
The duress under which she is laid will not of itself give legal
396 THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH GERMANY [June,
validity to the terms of peace. The experience of history
shows that military securities have a way of proving elusive
as years go by. The only lasting security appears to lie in the
new League of Nations which is made, as it were, the spon-
sor and guardian of the Treaty. Unless the League can be
looked to for the amendment of those parts of the Treaty which
may come to work injustice, and for such further readjust-
ments of territory as the future may show to be necessary, un-
less it can substitute common international rights for the
rivalry of individual national claims and lay the basis of a
cooperative commonwealth in place of a competitive armed
camp, the present Treaty cannot survive a generation. With
all its minor defects the League represents the passing of the
old order of alliances and counter-alliances and of the un-
stable balance of power which grew out of them. The col-
lective judgment of the united nations offers hope for a just
solution of the problems yet awaiting to be settled. What the
world needs even more than due satisfaction for wrong done
is wise provision for the maintenance of justice in the future.
No treaty of peace with its security and reparation clauses can
accomplish this; only the concerted action of nations contin-
uously dominated by high ideals is adequate.
IRew Boohs.
MARSHAL FERDINAND FOCH. By A. Hilliard Atteridge. New
York: Dodd, Mead & Co. $2.50.
The life story of Marshal Foch up to the present is the slow
and persistent evolution of certain forces of character — study,
devotion to a cause, religious faith. The accomplishments of his
life are the logical outcome of his manner of living. The past is
continually being justified in the present. This is the feeling one
has after he finishes Mr. Atteridge's account of the Marshal.
Thanks to the cunning of the author, Foch the personality is
more expressed in his works than in his persons. He moves, like a
force of destiny, behind the machinery of tremendous events. The
book brings his biography up to 1905, and then turns aside to
consider his two volumes of military tactics — Principes de la
Guerre (1903) and De la Conduite de la Guerre (1905), which
served as text-books at the Ecole de Guerre of which he was com-
mander. Rather abstruse for the average reader, these books, and
one not acquainted with military affairs might find them hard
reading. His theory of " economy of force," of advance action and
reserve mobility must be understood, to grasp entirely the prin-
ciples which governed his manoeuvres in the late War. To reduce
his lectures to a phrase, " action is the first law of war " — and this
law he followed from the Battle of Morhange to the last day be-
fore the armistice.
Oddly enough Foch did not receive his baptism of fire until
this War. In the Battle of Morhange he showed his capacity as a
leader in defeat; a few days later in the Battle of Trouee De
Gharmes — the first great victory for France — the leader in victory.
At Morhange he paid the price of sacrifice — his only son and
son-in-law were lost. De Charmes made his reputation secure;
he rose to command of the Ninth Army, an army not yet assem-
bled. Foch assembled it and under Joffre at the Marne proved
the wisdom of his theory, written fourteen years before, of mobility
in reserves. His work under Joffre led to a Chief of Staff posi-
tion. At the first Battle of Ypres he coordinated with General
French and helped stem the German drive for the Channel ports.
From this point on, his rise to Generalissimo of the French forces,
Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies and Marshal of France
was a steady, inevitable progress.
Foch never fights alone — he arms himself with the shield of
398 NEW BOOKS [June,
Faith. He has been known to spend hours in prayer before bat-
tle. Daily Communion is with him part of the day's living. And
as he is devout, so is he simple — simple in his love of the country,
his home, his gardens. He has never played politics and yet he
has risen despite anti-clerical influences. It was from Clemenceau,
arch anti-clerical, that he received his appointment of Director
of the Ecole de Guerre ! Steadily he drove forward. His life is an
amazing evidence of logic in living, and in writing this account
Mr. Atteridge gives us a new kind of hero legend.
CAMBRIDGE ESSAYS ON EDUCATION. Edited by A. C. Benson,
LL.D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50.
The purpose of the contributors to this remarkable volume
was to expound the underlying aims and principles of education.
Viscount Bryce well remarks in the introduction that there is need,
in view of the tendency to rush to schemes which seem promising
because they are new, to restate and enforce by argument sound
educational principles. The writers were in no way hampered
by the views of their fellow contributors, with the result that a
discrepancy of views crops out here and there. Thus, while Dean
Inge maintains that we have sinned by undervaluing the life of
reason, Mr. A. C. Benson contends that we have erred by directing
so much attention to purely logical and reasoning faculties. In a
charming essay the latter pleads for the cultivation of the imagina-
tion, pointing out that the greater part of a human being's un-
occupied, and probably a considerable portion of his occupied,
hours are spent in some exercise of that faculty. It would be
strange did not the old feud between science and the humanities
find some echo in these pages. While the Dean of St. Paul's bids
us resist firmly those who wish to make education purely scien-
tific, Mr. W. Bateson deplores the fact that the leadership of the
country is in the hands of men whose gifts are of the " vocal "
rather than the scientific order, and laments that young boys are
not brought up on science. He goes out of his way to insist that
agnosticism is the very life and mainspring of education, and that
" the struggle between science and religion continues and must be
perpetually renewed." In tone and temper this essay on the
" Place of Science in Education " is singularly out of tune with
the others, and illustrates the narrowness of view that so often
characterizes the purely scientific outlook.
It is easy to light upon discrepancies among writers who have
consciously eschewed " an educational conspiracy," but such dif-
ferences of view are inherent in any discussion of the various
aspects of education which is conducted independently. The
1919.] NEW BOOKS 399
essays, with the exception noted, are marked by the sanity of
thought, the spirit of reverence, and the distinction of style that
we look for from such writers as Dean Inge, Mr. A. C. Benson, and
the head masters of the great English secondary schools. They
touch upon every aspect of school life. In the essay on "The Use of
Leisure " Mr. J. H. Badley writes with insight and discernment on
a theme which is altogether too rarely brought to the notice of
educationalists. In various other essays truths are emphasized
which, though trite enough, are lost to view in the mania for fads.
We are reminded that it does not matter very much what is taught,
the important question being what is learned. It is also too often
overlooked " that no change in the curriculum can do much for
education as long as the pupils imbibe no respect for intellectual
values at home and find none among their school fellows."- Too
much trust must not be reposed in the virtue of examinations:
" the examination system flourishes best where there is no gen-
uine desire for mental cultivation." Neither must too much re-
liance be placed on the study of civics and political science as a
direct training for citizenship : " The exercise of good citizenship
follows naturally as the inevitable result of a highly developed
life." The need of religion is not left in doubt: " How to spirit-
ualize education is the real problem, for it is only by a spiritualized
education that we can escape from the avalanche of materialism
that is hanging over the European world just now." If the words
of Mr. W. W. Vaughan were to be widely adopted many a problem
in school and society would be solved : " We must see to it that
the Ark of the Covenant is borne before our nation and our
schools, along the way that is new and still full of stones of stum-
bling."
CARVEN FROM THE LAUREL TREE. By Theodore Maynard.
New York: Robert M. McBride & Co. $1.50.
An essay is a study in still life. Write of life in flux, and you
write a novel. Write of life in crisis, and you write a play. But
write of a thing as you deliberately pose it, and you write an essay.
The distinction between the good and the ineffectual essayist is
his vision — the light in which he views his study. One light will
illumine more than another. Mr. Theodore Maynard's light is
Catholic faith — and with it he manages to penetrate into the heart
of his subjects. But his pen is light and he knows the meaning
and purpose of laughter. In this lies his claim to distinction. For
his laughter is as illuminating as his faith.
Consider such subjects as "The Mystical Note in Poetry"
the first essay in this volume. It could be made very heavy, but
400 NEW BOOKS [June,
Mr. Maynard chooses to make it light, and, in the short measure of
twelve pages, he succeeds in setting down the fundamentals of
mysticism, showing it as something more than symbolism, a gift
that penetrates to the very heart of Divine reality. In the same
fashion he criticizes the Oxford Book of Mystical Verse. His
definitions are excellent — " a mere emotional exaltation before
the outspread loveliness of the world, or an intellectual idealiza-
tion of beauty, do not in any sense constitute mysticism . . .
mysticism begins with the fierce, unconquerable passion of the
soul to pierce to Reality and is consummated in the union of the
soul with Reality."
" The Humor of the Saints " is quite the most delightful essay
in the volume. It comprehends that baffling laughter of the sons
of God which Puritan and Protestant minds can never understand.
Laughter is the religion of little children — and we must come as
little children. The Protestant has forgotten to laugh. If for once
he learned how, he would cease being a Protestant ! In much the
same jocular vein is " On Drinking Songs " — but here we find the
finger-prints of Chestertonian influence, and the trouble with the
Chestertonian style is, that you eventually can guess what he is
going to say — and he always does.
" The Art of Alice Meynell " is a delicate appreciation of a pen
too little known. Her subtleties, however, are not for common
consumption and after one reads Mr. Maynard's essay, he is apt to
conclude that they never will be.
In " The Drama of the Dramatists " he tells the poignant
tragedy of " Herbert and Michael Field," a page of devotion that
shines like a candle in the dark and reflects its light in rare and
choicely written books.
As a student of economic situations Mr. Maynard does not
seem to be so successful, but when he touches such men as Thomas
More and leads you down some English byway, he is a delightful
and amusing companion. He has assembled a book worth while,
one to read slowly and with appreciation. It has a bouquet like
fine old wine — and over it you can smack your lips contentedly.
THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA. Edited by Dr. Allen Johnson,
Professor of American History in the Yale University. New
Haven: Yale University Press. Fifty volumes at $3.50 per
volume by the set.
This series is intended to give a comprehensive survey of
America, its origin, development, character, and traditions in
such a simple, vivid, living, readable narrative, that it will appeal
to the man unaccustomed to read history. With this purpose in
1919.] NEW BOOKS 401
view the editor selected writers who can write, some from the pro-
fessorial ranks, others from the class of novelists, journalists and
publicists. While the editor has painstakingly supervised the
whole work to its last detail, he has wisely left each writer un-
hampered to express his own individuality; sometimes even at the
expense of critical accuracy. Therefore there is a marked un-
evenness in the volumes just as in the well-known American Na-
tion Series, which at first thought the Chronicles might seem to
supersede, but with which they do not even compete because of
the totally different audience to which an appeal is made. These
are not research volumes of the dry, scholarly, detached type;
they add little to our knowledge, but re-tell the old story in a
refreshing, interesting way. There is an attempt to emphasize
the social as well as the political life, to tell how the people lived,
and to revive the heroes of our past in personal character por-
traits. Each volume has a brief bibliography suggesting further
material for the general reader who cares to delve deeper. No
expense has been spared by the publisher on this so-called " Abra-
ham Lincoln Edition." Printed on specially made all-rag, water-
marked, hand-cut paper, bound in good boards, in Yale blue and
gilt with the college heraldic emblem, each volume is amply pro-
vided with maps and hand printed illustrations in photogravure,
which, some seven hundred in all, will form the finest published
collection of American historical pictures.
Elizabethan Sea-Dogs, by William Wood. In this volume
Mr. Wood deals with the English background of American history,
describing England as she emerged from isolation to enter into
fierce competition with Spain, Portugal and France. The Genoese
Gabots, located at the thriving seaport of Bristol, embark on voy-
ages of exploration under the patronage of the penurious, bour-
geois King, Henry VII. Cape Breton and Newfoundland are dis-
covered. Thus England in 1497 enters the New World despite
Spanish protests. Henry VII., the greatest English monarch of the
seas, builds ships out of his vast inheritance to safeguard his pos-
sessions and his very own church from the rival Catholic powers.
Then follows the strictly Anglican interpretation, even to the
phraseology, of the internal religious struggle under Edward,
" Bloody Mary," and the " Good Elizabeth," between Protestants
and the so-styled " Ultra-Papists " and " Catholics who were anti-
Roman." The religious question settled, the writer considers the
economic depression of Elizabethan times, the class struggle, the
enclosures, the submerging of laborers, rising prices, monopolies,
and speculation. No wonder English seafaring men and commer-
VOL. cix. — 26
402 NEW BOOKS [June,
cial adventurers viewed with envious eyes the silver-laden Spanish
galleons, homeward bound from the South American mainland
and the West Indies. England unleashed her sea-dogs, half pirati-
cal marauders, half traders and negro-slavers, seamen of whose
daring at least there could be no doubt. Peace there might be
between England and Spain, but on the Spanish Main when Eng-
lishmen met Spaniards, there was war to the knife, with prizes, but
no prisoners. Adventurous was the life of William and Sir John
Hawkins of Plymouth, Drake of Devon, Grenville, Raleigh, and
their mates. Quaint were their songs and mariners' slang, which
are possibly quoted at too great pains. Great were their fights
and their service to England, culminating in their destruction of
the Armada; but not ingloriously did Santa Cruz and Parma fail.
The writer indeed is a happy chronicler of those stirring times.
Crusaders of New France, by William Bennet Munro. To
Father Henri Beaude, " this tribute to the men of his race and
faith is affectionately inscribed." Thus Mr. Munro commences
his fascinating narrative of Frenchmen in the New World, of in-
trepid seamen, of fiery seigneurs, of martyred Jesuits, of indomit-
able coureurs-de-bois, of hostile Indians, of irksome journeyings.
It is written in a flowing style, with an intelligent sympathy and a
keen realization of the French spirit. A living touch is given in
the understanding interpretation of Cartier, Colbert, Richelieu,
La Salle, Father Brebeuf, and Bishop Laval.
We sail with the hardy Cartier from the Breton port of St.
Malo in 1534, across Northern seas into the gulf and river of St.
Lawrence, only to suffer that terrible winter in Quebec, and then
fail in the anticipated discovery of the Northwest passage. Sixty
years elapse before Champlain, colonizer and explorer, arrives.
Quebec is founded (1608); inland voyages are made along the
Ottawa River and into the Huron country, where as early as 1615
the Recollet, Le Caron, served his missionary stations. Montreal
is established in 1642, and the Jesuits appear. The iron-willed
Frontenac is described as one who more than any other colonial
governor commanded the respect and support of the Indians.
Under his orders exploring parties break into the silent depths
of the forests. No danger could deter such coureurs as La Salle,
the Tontys, Du Lhut, Radisson, Groseilliers, Joliet, Nicolet, Le
Sueur, and the Pere Marquette. Forts spring up at Niagara,
Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie, and St. Louis to mark the French ad-
vance along the Great Lakes, into the Ohio country, and along the
Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. In part the hopes of Richelieu, of
Colbert and of the Grand Monarch were being fulfilled.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 403
The author gives a splendid appreciation of Bishop Laval,
minimizing instead of magnifying his strife with governor and
intendant over their respective privileges. His social and educa-
tional work are developed, as well as his support of the Jesuit
policy in preventing liquor sales to the savages. The writer's re-
gard for the Church is attested in the following : " Nearly all
that was distinctive in the life of the Old Canada links itself in
one way or another with the Catholic religion. From first to last
in the history of New France the most pervading trait was the
loyalty of its people to the Church of their fathers. Intendants
might come and go ; governors abode their destined hour and went
their way; but the apostles of the ancient faith never for one
moment released their grip upon the hearts and minds of the
Canadians" (page 113). Of the Jesuits he speaks with the
customary enthusiasm, " as the truest friends the Indian has
ever had," and as an order true to Church and King, seeking
neither ease nor caste privileges but always searching out new
tasks. " The physical vigor, the moral heroism, and the unquench-
able religious zeal of the missionaries were qualities exemplified
in a measure and to a degree which are beyond the power of any
pen to describe. Historians of all creeds have tendered homage to
their self-sacrifice and zeal, and never has the work of human
hand or spirit been more worthy of tribute" (page 117).
The Conquest of New France, by George M. Wrong. Pro-
fessor Wrong's volume recounts the struggle of France and Eng-
land for the mastery of the American continent, through that
series of wars which the New World knows as the Wars of King
William, Queen Anne, King George, and of the French and In-
dians. While the author's viewpoint is essentially Anglo-Saxon,
even to the extent of grieving that our Revolution was inevitable,
yet there is a determination to be fair. He has a real understand-
ing of the basic greatness of the French and a recognition of the
sanguine hopes and heroic efforts with which the numerically
weak Canadians fought against the overpowering pressure of the
English. It is a story of such colonials as Frontenac, Phips and
his Puritans, Pepperell, Dinwiddie, Shirley, de Vaudreuil, Am-
herst, and of the author's heroes, Wolfe and Montcalm. It is a
story of valiant deeds, treacherous attacks, Indian massacres, and
of atrocities in which the redmen were often outdone by their
white allies of either side. Yet it was an inevitable conflict be-
tween two civilizations, as is set forth in an especially good chap-
ter, " Quebec and Boston," contrasting Canada with the English
colonies. However, there is a pathos in the loss of an empire
404 NEW BOOKS [June,
which Frenchmen created with such supreme efforts, and whose
ideals Lower Canada still clings unto with tenacity.
" The Great West " is the subject of an intensely gripping
chapter of adventurous exploration. There pass before us the
brothers d'Iberville and Bienville, who founded New Orleans in
1718, Cadillac, the Verendryes, who toiled for a generation until
they reached the Black Hills, if not the Rocky Mountains, the
Jesuit Charlevoix who loved the Sioux so well, the unknown fol-
lowers of St. Pierre who explored the Rockies (1751), and the Brit-
ish furriers Hendry and Mackenzie who in 1789 broke trails into
British Columbia and along that frozen Arctic River.
The treatment of the Acadians is based too closely upon
Parkman, and Atkins' defence of the English in his Archives of
Nova Scotia, when there was available the authoritative work,
Acadie, by Henry d' Aries. Cruelty like the heartless expulsion of
the Acadians with its breach of contract, can hardly at this
moment be justified on the grounds of military necessity. There
is much in the volume to please a Catholic reader and little to
annoy, save the assertion that Puritan and Frenchman might
equally deride each other, the one because of the Catholic belief
as to the efficacy of Indian baptism, the other because of witch-
burning (page 40). " In zeal for education Quebec was therefore
not behind Boston," the author observes with national pride, in
pointing out that the year Harvard was founded, a college and
school were established for French and native youth in Quebec,
and during the following year an Ursuline Convent, " which
throughout the intervening years has continued its important
work of educating girls."
Pioneers of the Old South, by Mary Johnston. Treating the
Old South as an economic, political unit, Miss Johnston weaves
together her detailed description of the settlement of the an-
tagonistic colonies of Virginia and Maryland, and her extremely
brief survey of the Carolinas and the belated Georgia plantations.
The volume is interestingly though hurriedly written, in a de-
cidedly novelistic, imaginative style with numerous poetic
allusions and quoted verses. The author will meet criticism from
the writers of uninteresting but painfully accurate monographs,
whom she regards with disdainful superiority. One is amused at
the conscious effort to eulogize the occasional Scot who has been
drawn into the story.
There is a vivid account of the Virginia Company's efforts,
the obstacles in the way of the heroic services of the boastful
Captain John Smith, the necessary tyranny of Dale, the Baconian
1919.] NEW BOOKS 405
revolt, the beginnings of representative government, and the
economic prosperity grounded on the tobacco crop with its negro
and indentured labor. The narrow policy of Virginia is neither
hidden nor enlarged upon, in, for instance, the expulsion of Presi-
dent Edward Maria Wingfield in the early years because he was of
a Catholic family, or the usual tithing of Puritans and infidels
for the support of the Anglican Establishment. The writer has a
respectful regard for the able Baltimore family, the convert,
George Calvert, who conceived a colony of refuge for persecuted
British Catholics, his eldest son Cecil who carried out the plan,
and his younger sons and grandson whose fostering care made
Maryland a successful plantation. While persecution in England
is minimized, and while there is a carping criticism that free-
thinkers were not graciously harbored in Maryland, there is a
wholehearted acceptance of Baltimore's toleration as natural
rather than artful. " Cecil Calvert has a niche in the temple of
human enlightenment" (page 191). This is her estimate of the
founder of " a land — Mary's land — where all Christians might
foregather, brothers and sisters in one home! Religious tolerance
—practical separation of Church and State — that was a broad idea
for his age, a generous idea for a Roman Catholic of a time not so
far removed from the mediaeval. Catholics, Anglicans, Puri-
tans, Dissidents, and non-conformists of almost any physiognomy,
might come and be at home, unpunished for variations in belief "
(page 122). Baltimore's kindliness and tact were evidenced by
his conciliatory treatment of the Indians which won practical im-
munity from attack, and his appointment of William Stone, a Puri-
tan, as Governor and a majority of Puritans in the Council when
Cromwell had usurped control of England. With the accession of
William and Mary, the Baltimore family lost hold, until the fourth
baron regained his colonial barony by conforming with the Church
of England. Then Maryland became, as other colonies, a land
of persecution, where the Puritan was ill-treated, and the Catho-
lic proscribed.
The Eve of the Revolution, by Carl Becker. Professor Becker
of Cornell University offers an essay on the pre-Revolutionary
epoch, in which he restates the time-worn thesis that England was
not entirely in the wrong nor the colonies always in the right. It
is written in a chatty, readable style, which at times becomes of-
fensively sarcastic or flippant. In his preface, anticipating criti-
cism, he shields himself by admitting that he has quoted and
paraphrased to an unusual extent in this " enterprise of question-
able orthodoxy." While his views, illusive as they often are,
406 NEW BOOKS [June,
would hardly pass current with the Daughters of the Revolution,
it is well to realize the difficulties of the English administration,
the Yankee disinclination to pay taxes, the easy public conscience
toward smuggling, the outrageous rioting of Boston and New
York mobs, the maliciousness of the Sons of Liberty toward the
maligned loyalist, the self-interest of many a patriot, and the in-
fluence of local social and political rivalries upon the national
movement. Some readers will see Virginia's first families in a
new light, as well as Sam Adams the Boston " boss," who busied
himself so much with the public business that his private affairs
were in a precarious state and his family unclothed. The writer's
knack at striking off men's character and work is given free play
in dealing with the " heroes and villains " of the period. We are
told that the constitutional interpretation of the Stamp Act as laid
down by the eminent Catholic lawyer, Daniel Dulany, of Maryland,
was preferred by Pitt and Camden to that of Grenville himself.
Of Charles Carroll there is not a word in the text, although his
engraved portrait appears.
Washington and His Colleagues, by Henry Jones Ford. This
volume commences with an elaborate description of Washington's
court, its formal etiquette and aristocratic leanings, which so
annoyed democrats of the Senator Maclay order. Washington ap-
pears in his coach emblazoned with his arms, drawn by six
cream-colored horses with their powdered and cockaded out-
riders. Mr. Ford differs from the serious historian by his close
attention to the social life, and the personal touches with which he
introduces in their reality Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the
lesser figures. In his chapter on " Great Decisions," Congress is
seen busied with the establishment of the working government
and its various departments. One is interested to learn that our
Cabinet members do not have the privilege of the floor in either
House, because of an apparently innocent amendment in the
treasury bill in which it was ordered that the Secretary was " to
prepare reports " rather than " to report." In a similarly sim-
ple way the President was made to understand that the Senate
had coordinate powers in diplomatic affairs and in patronage
gifts. Hamilton's financial policy, the fight over the assumption of
state debts, the corrupt speculation in debt certificates, and the
log-rolling over the capitol site, form another chapter. The
author's treatment of diplomatic problems is especially note-
worthy, his recognition of the success and skill with which Genet
intrigued, the unsatisfactory treaty with England, the abominable
Algerine policy with its ransoming of American captives and pay-
1919.] NEW BOOKS 407
ing tribute, and the entangled western dealings in which Spain,
France, England, and McGilvray and his Creek Indians were
equally mixed-up. The territorial results of the battle of Fallen
Timbers and the opening of Indian lands for settlement would be
clarified by an accompanying map. The chapter on party violence
enables us to understand the problems and criticism which so
sorely tried Washington. His Cabinet resignations because of the
small compensation ($3,500) strike a present-day note. The per-
sonal rule of John Adams is described in the concluding pages so
as to prepare for the Revolution of 1800 and the substitution of
democracy for the Federalist, aristocratic system.
Forty-miners, by Stewart Edward White. Mr. White pref-
aces his volume with a description of the old Spanish days in
California, but he has little appreciation either of the labors of
the padres or sympathy for the Spaniards. His view is quite
neutral: that life there was neither Arcadian nor stagnant, but
picturesque in its happy mixture of idleness, decadence, gentility,
and romance. The writer's attitude is quite apparent when he
asserts that many an unconsidered New England farmhouse
antedates the oldest Mission. His interest is only aroused when
Captain Sutter locates his fur post near Sacramento, and Ameri-
cans commence to arrive and intrigue against the old regime.
The manoeuvrings of the over-rated Fremont, the Bear Flag revo-
lution, and the seizure of California follow in rapid succession.
The account of the gold strike, the opening of the diggings, the
long overland trail through the hostile Indian, and still more dan-
gerous Mormon country, the gold rush from the East via Panama,
the hard, riotous life of the camps, the fabulous fortunes made and
dissipated by the Forty-Niners are depicted with an imaginative
touch that arouses the adventurous spirit of the reader. The
Vigilante days are treated at such great length, about half the
volume, that one is actually bored with the detailed statements of
how law and order were maintained, and how the gamblers and
corrupt politicians were suppressed by the illegal lynch law
methods of the eulogized Vigilante commission. The dependence
for material upon the monumental volumes of Bancroft is quite
marked.
The Passing of the Frontier, by Emerson Hough. Those who
have read the author's Story of the Cowboy and the Story of the
Outlaw will enjoy this volume of adventure by one who knows the
whole West, its every trail and camp site, and whose worship of
its wild life is almost an obsession. He heartily believes that " to
a genuine American the frontier is the dearest word in all the
408 NEW BOOKS [June,
world," and that " not statesmen but riflemen and riders made
America." He is the friend of the frontiersman, the cow-puncher,
the Spanish rider, the small cattle-man, the miner, stage-driver,
and even of an occasional roadster. These are individualistic
men, spirited, restless, impracticable, discontented, strong, full of
courageous hardihood — virile men who failed in civilized life and
lost the beaten trail. No man is better fitted to describe the cow
country, the opening of the ranges, the long drives of Texas steers
to the Fort Dodge market or to northern pastures, and the whole
business of cattle raising, branding, and rounding-up. Nowhere
can one find a better picture of the cowboy. The cattle kings he
detests as men who, like the lumbermen, " made their fortunes
out of their open contempt of the homestead law," by seizing
springs, illegal fencing, and intimidating settlers. Of the packers
he cannot say a good word. The mining camps of Montana, Utah
and Idaho, opened during the Civil War, are described equally
well. One finds California conditions intensified in wickedness,
killings, Vigilante " executions," pathetic failures and phenomenal
success. Other chapters tell of the Santa Fe pathway and the
Overland trail via the Missouri and Platte to Oregon, of Fremont
and Kit Carson, of the Indian wars, of Custer's last fight at Little
Big Horn, and of the coming of the homesteader and the sheep-
man.
Mr. Hough grieves as he traces the crawling frontier over
the Rockies. He mourns : " The West has changed. The cur-
tain has dropped between us and its wild and stirring scenes. The
house dog sits on the hill where yesterday the coyote sang." With
the frontier gone he sees discontent arise, for no longer have the
younger sons of American civilization a haven of escape. There is
a discordant complaint when he writes : " Hence we have the
swift growth of American discontent with living conditions.
There is no longer land for free homes in America. This is no
longer a land of opportunity. It is no longer a poor man's coun-
try. We have arrived all too swiftly upon the ways of the Old
World. And today, in spite of our love of peace, we are in an
Old World's war!"
Abraham Lincoln and the Union, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson.
Professor Stephenson of the University of Charleston writes as
a Southerner, but as a reconstructed Southerner who sees the
Civil War issues with a neutral eye. In the opening chapter he
describes the Republic as made up of two opposing nations rather
than two sections, so far had the slave-holding and free States
swung apart. While the Whig and Democratic Parties had
1919.] NEW BOOKS 409
marked time with one political evasion after another, he shows
that in the South the young radicals who believed in Southern
nationalism had defeated in every State the old conservative fac-
tion which believed in States rights, at the same time that it sen-
timentally revered the Constitution and Union. Then all was
altered by the Dred Scott decision, the defeat of the Lecompton
constitution by Douglas, the Lincoln and Douglas debates, the
Harpers' Ferry attack, and the Northern unreasoning support of
the fanatical John Brown. The war, he believes, was forced by
the election of Lincoln, " the abolitionist," by a dominant, sec-
tional Republican Party, which had allied itself with capital and
the iron industry and hence had espoused high tariff doctrines.
The war on the other hand was accepted by the radical South un-
der the leadership of Tombs, Rhett, Cobb, Davis, Stephens, and
Yancey, who had identified themselves with the slave and cotton
capitalists. With capitalists he has little sympathy whether of
the Southern type which Helper's Impending Crisis (with which
he is impressed) condemns so heartily, or of the Northern class,
whom he charges with looking at the whole issue from the point of
view of profits and endangered Southern trade and investments.
Cameron, Belmont, Fremont and the Cincinnati ironmongers, he
castigates for their shameless profiteering and their contract
frauds equally with the bankers who failed to float loans save at
recklessly high interest and heavy discounts. There is something
of the radical and a little of the iconoclast in the writer. This is
seen in his treatment of Lincoln whom he appreciates in a very
certain way, but without any of the hero worship which is fast
weaving the Lincoln legend. One is made to realize the courage
of Lincoln as he paced along the Potomac in the early days of the
war, when the city of Washington, unprotected, was in danger of
rebel capture in the absence of Northern forces. One sees the
magnanimous tact of Lincoln who would brook any personal in-
sult to win support for the war or to retain a man whom the
country needed, whether it be the tortoise-like McClellan, or Sec-
retary of State Seward, who would rule as the power behind the
throne, or Chase, who meanly attacked and undermined Lincoln
from his Cabinet seat. Mr. Stephenson correctly appreciates the
great Democratic leader Douglas, whose biography has been so
authoritatively written by the editor of this series. Douglas'
declaration to the copperheads should be emblazoned : !< There
can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots or traitors." From
the military side the essay is poor, emphasizing little save the un-
preparedness, lack of supplies, failure of the financial system,
breakdown of the volunteer method, the incompetence of leaders,
410 NEW BOOKS [June,
and the disgusting New York draft riots, which even dishonest
draft practices could not justify. Foreign diplomacy, the Mexican
fiasco of Emperor Napoleon, social life during the war, and the
anti-Lincoln campaign of 1864 are chronicled interestingly.
American Spirit in Literature, by Bliss Perry. Professor
Perry of Harvard has given us a brilliant survey of American
literature, an historical development of American writing. He
sees in our literature the history of the country and the peculiar
American characteristics, due to the experimental exploration and
development of the land by a people who, with Roger Williams,
believed that : " We are but strangers in an inn, but passengers in
a ship." " Venturesomeness, physical and moral daring, resource-
fulness in emergencies, indifference to negligible details, wasteful-
ness of materials, boundless hope and confidence in the morrow,
are characteristics of the American," as Dr. Perry reads him.
Commencing with John Smith's, True Relation, colonial writing is
traced through the pages or sermons of Williams, Cotton, Mather,
Hooker, Cotton Mather, Edwards, Bradford, Winthop, and Sewall,
of whom it is well said that " Calvinism bred athletes as well as
maniacs." Of the Revolutionary epoch, Freneau, John and Sam
Adams, Paine, Jefferson, and the writers of the Federalist are con-
sidered. Then follow the Knickerbocker group, the recognized
Transcendentalists, and their associated friends such as Haw-
thorne, whose worth is rather exaggerated, Longfellow, Whittier,
Lowell, Holmes, and the historians Prescott, Motley, and Park-
man, Tichnor, and Sparks. A chapter is given to Poe and Whit-
man. The orators, Webster, Phillips, Everett, Sumner and Lin-
coln, are not overlooked any more than Garrison, Stowe, and
Greeley, the journalists. Under the sub-title the " New Nation,"
Dr. Perry treats the humorists, Clemens, Billings, Nasby, Ward,
and Nye, the short-story writers, London, Bret Harte, and
Howells, and gives an appreciative criticism of Henry James and
Whitcomb Riley.
SUMMARIUM THEOLOGIZE MORALIS. Ad Codicem Juris
Canonicx Accommodatum. Editio Altera. Nicol. Sebastiani
Sac. Romse. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $1.75 net.
The apology of the author for adding one more to the already
long list of summaries and compendia of moral theology is that
his is, in some respects, more serviceable than any of the others.
Undoubtedly it has certain merits of its own. No serious minded
or conscientious professor of moral theology would feel justified
in producing a work of this kind were he not convinced that he
1919.] NEW BOOKS 411
could improve upon those that had already appeared. One con-
spicuous merit of the volume in hand is its clearness, even in
those parts where there is the greatest condensation. Another is
the great number of theological opinions that it manages to set
forth in a fairly adequate manner. This is apparent when the
work is compared with the Brevior Synopsis of Tanquerey, for
example. However, Father Sebastiani's volume is considerably
the larger of the two. The order followed in the treatise is the
order of the Decalogue, not that of the moral virtues. The in-
clusion of the pertinent sections of the New Code of Canon Law is
obviously an advantage. All things considered, the volume is one
of the very best of the existing compendia of moral theology.
THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1918. Selected and edited by
Edward J. O'Brien. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co. $1.60 net.
Mr. O'Brien's annual collection of the best short stories pub-
lished during the year has rapidly become an institution. For a
man to read the enormous number of short stories, good, bad,
and chiefly indifferent, which are poured out by American periodi-
cals is little short of heroic. If Mr. O'Brien has become notable for
his industry and judgment, he has paid the price. Those of us
who are content to read current fiction in retrospect, so to speak,
must feel grateful to him for putting us au coarant with the best
present-day short stories. Put negatively, Mr. O'Brien's achieve-
ment has been to fling into the discard countless tales which would
tax the reader's eyes and patience to peruse. Mr. O'Brien's judg-
ment is good. To state that it is sometimes open to question, is
merely to concede that he is human. The stories are not up to a
uniform standard of excellence; for while A Simple Act of Piety
is worthy of Kipling when he is worth while, and The Visit of
the Master and De Vilmarte's Luck are worthy of Edith Wharton,
Cruelties owes something to the Brown- Wilkins-Deland tradition
while proving unworthy of it, because devoid of convincingness.
Naturally war stories are conspicuous but most of those which Mr.
O'Brien has chosen belong to the spiritual or psychological, rather
than to the realistic side of it. All told, they are good but by no
means the best of the collection. Great war stories, whether long
or short, require a broader vision and a more profound conviction
than such tales as The Dark Hour, At Isham's, or Extra Men
possess.
What Mr. O'Brien obviously likes is a story which leaves an
unmistakable impression upon the reader's mind and is told with
distinction and skill. In this collection, he has creditably per-
formed an important service to current American literature.
412 NEW BOOKS [June,
BUSY, THE LIFE OF AN ANT. By Walter Flavius McCaleb.
Illustrations and Decorations by Arthur T. Merrick. New
York: Harper & Brothers. 75 cents.
A statement on the wrapper of this book claims its story is
" scientifically true to the facts of nature." But the mold in which
the book is cast constitutes a heavy handicap against scientific,
or even workaday, exactness. For the ant, or rather the antling,
speaks throughout, and its autobiography is couched in terms
that would do no discredit to a doctor of literature. We are
irresistibly reminded of Goldsmith's gibe on Dr. Johnson, that the
Sage of Bolt Court would make the little fishes talk like whales.
Countless aeons of the most progressive " evolution " must revolve
before ants can converse as they are made to do in this volume.
And further, is not the procedure of predicating our formulae — and
consequently to some extent our feelings and even our ideas — of
any creatures and particularly of such inferior ones as ants, fun-
damentally false and absolutely unscientific? The book, never-
theless, may be of use to inspire children with a love of nature-
study, though we think the style and wording somewhat above
the capacity of the average child.
AN excellent small desk dictionary is Webster's New Handy
Dictionary (New York: American Book Co. 32 cents). Its
278 pages contain much useful information in convenient form for
the busy writers, secretaries and stenographers.
IN its publication for April, The American Association for In-
ternational Conciliation, 407 117th Street, New York, treats The
German Revolution. The May issue is on Eastern questions:
Palestine; The New Armenia; The Albanian Question. (5 cents
each.)
BENZIGER BROTHERS are presenting a new edition of Ren6
Bazin's great novel The Barrier.
IRecent Events.
No change has taken place in the personnel
Germany. of the Government. Herr Ebert still re-
mains at the head of the State while Philip
Schiedemann presides over the Cabinet. So far as internal affairs
are concerned the situation is less critical than it was a few weeks
ago. A general strike which was threatened in Berlin, failed to
take place, and the local disturbances of various kinds in other
parts of the German Republic have been more or less satisfactorily
appeased. In one instance, however, there has been something
like a civil war. The attempt of the Bavarian Bolshevik! to estab-
lish their power in Munich and a few other cities, aroused the de-
termination, not only of the peasants of Bavaria but also of the
governing authorities in Berlin and Wurttemberg, to exert their
utmost power to frustrate these efforts. The peasants refused to
supply the cities which revolted with food, and the authorities of
Berlin and Wurttemberg sent troops. Opposition was offered for a
few weeks and for a time something like a state of civil war
existed, but in the end the communist government was defeated
and that of Herr Hoffmann was restored to power. The latter, while
eliminating everything which savors of communism, has declared
its intention to accept a cooperation of Workmen's Councils. To
what extent this cooperation will be accepted, has not been dis-
closed nor what power these Councils will have. The energy with
which the Berlin troops carried on the conflict with the rebels was
largely due to the latter's intention to sever Bavaria from the Ger-
man Republic, were they successful. Any attempt of this kind,
involving the breaking up of the new Republic, Berlin felt itself
bound to use its utmost efforts to defeat.
It is to be feared that the beautiful city of Munich will for a
long time bear the marks of the conflict which has just taken
place. Although it has been said that the Soviet movements of
Hungary and Munich are of a much milder character than that of
Russia, both of them have given a clear evidence of their willing-
ness to shed the blood of all opponents, if such a course were neces-
sary for the maintenance of power.
Some interest attaches to the fact that, by the death of his
mother, Prince Rupert, once the heir to the Bavarian throne, has
become the legitimate heir to that of England, if the descendants of
James II. are to be looked upon as having that right.
414 RECENT EVENTS [June,
The reception given the peace terms, which Germany is called
upon to accept, is, of course, the most interesting of all recent
events in Germany. At the time these lines are being written, no
decision as to whether these terms are to be accepted or rejected
has been reached. The general opinion in the Allied countries
seems to be that, after making energetic protests, the terms will
be accepted by the Government of Herr Schiedemann. This
acceptance will not involve the relinquishment of office by the
President of the German Republic. The course of Herr Schiede-
mann is not, however, so clear. The heads of two German demo-
cratic parties, and the parties of the Centre, have informed him
that they will withdraw from the Cabinet in the event of the
treaty being signed.
The President on receipt of the terms issued a proclamation
in which he declared that the terms offered involved violation of
promises made to the German people, and imposed a treaty of
violence rather than one of right: that it was a departure from
President Wilson's fourteen points. The German people, Presi-
dent Ebert declares, have been deceived by the Allies. The restora-
tion of Alsace-Lorraine to France, the arrangement made with
reference to the Saar district, the restitution of Schleswig to Den-
mark, and of what belonged to the Poland of old to the Poland of
today, the President characterizes as " the dismemberment and
mangling of the German people." The reparation required by the
Allies, partial and incomplete though it is, of the wanton injury
inflicted by Germany during the War, the President describes as
" the delivering of German labor to foreign capitalism for the
indignity of wage slavery." He assumes the role of the pro-
tectorate of democracy as against the Allies, who, he insinuates,
are the promoters of imperialism. The President's proclamation
contains no intimation that the German people will turn to Bol-
shevism; on the contrary, he declares that their safety depends
upon themselves, and each and all must set themselves to labor for
the preservation of the Fatherland.
Herr Ebert's proclamation was followed, a few days later, by a
speech made before the National Assembly by the Prime Minister.
He dwelt at length upon the unjust conditions imposed upon
Germany and described the terms as " murderous," as making
slaves of the German people, as terms impossible to accept, yet an-
nounced the intention of continuing negotiations in the hope of
obtaining some modification. A week of mourning for the terms
of peace was declared by the German people, and absolute unan-
imity, with few exceptions, has been manifested throughout Ger-
many in favor of rejecting the Allied proposals. The exceptions
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 415
included the independent Socialists of whom Herr Haase is the
leader. He issued a declaration that, hard as the terms were, there
was no way of avoiding their acceptance. This position, however,
has been abandoned on account of the general unanimity of feel-
ing manifested.
As these pages already contain an article analyzing the
terms of the Treaty, it is not necessary to attempt such an analysis
in these notes.
When the last notes were being written
Russia. there was every reason to fear that the
much dreaded advance of the Bolsheviki
towards the west was about to take place, and in great force. Their
success in the Ukraine which led to the evacuation of Odessa
by the French and Allied troops, was followed by the in-
vasion of the Crimea and the occupation of Sebastopol. Further-
more, the junction of the troops which had succeeded in over-
running the Ukraine with the Hungarian troops was considered
almost certain. As the Ukraine is the most productive of the
wheat growing district of Russia, the success of the Bolsheviki
over the French and Allied army put them in possession of large
stores of food, to say nothing of the considerable amount of arms
and munitions which the French were forced to leave behind at
Odessa.
In addition to these successes it is said that the Bolsheviki in
the regions further to the East occupied by the Don and Kuban Cos-
sacks, had thwarted the efforts of General Denikin and his coad-
jutors to form a junction with the troops of the Omsk Gov-
ernment. In fact the reverses suffered by General Denikin were
so serious, the Volunteer Army under his command was forced
to abandon a considerable part of the territory it had occupied.
This statement, as also many others referring to Russia, must
be taken with considerable reserve. The censorship is so strict
and of so partisan a character that entire reliance cannot be placed
upon the news which reaches this country. The breakdown of
the means of communication has been so complete that, accord-
ing to a recent statement made by the King of Rumania, telegrams
sent by him to the Allies during the War, took more than three
months to reach them, and since the armistice there has been lit-
tle improvement.
So far, the successes of the Bolsheviki in the eastern and
southwestern districts of Russia have not led to the expected junc-
tion with the promoters of the movement in Hungary. This Gov-
ernment is at present struggling for its own existence, with ap-
416 RECENT EVENTS [June,
parently no prospect of its receiving assistance from the Bolshe-
viki who took possession of Odessa.
In fact the latter's occupation of Odessa has become endan-
gered. The troops of General Petlura, whose whereabouts were
so long unknown, have appeared again on the scene and have
achieved considerable success in the neighborhood of Kief. This
renders precarious that possession of the Ukraine which the Bol-
sheviki thought secure. In every part of Russia notable successes
have been achieved by the various forces fighting against the Bol-
sheviki to the east, the north, and the west of the territory still
occupied by the Soviet Government. Vilna, the capital of
Lithuania, has been wrested from its hands by the Poles. Its pos-
session, however, is not yet assured, as the Bolsheviki are said to
be making strenuous efforts to recapture it.
Esthonia, also, has been cleared of these marauders. The
most striking success, however, has been attained farther to the
north, where Finnish and Karelian troops have succeeded in cap-
turing Olonetz, a place one hundred and ten miles northeast of
Petrograd. The capture of Olonetz involves the evacuation, by the
Bolsheviki, of some fifty thousand square miles, and their retire-
ment, so it was reported, from Petrograd. The latter report, how-
ever, still awaits verification.
Still farther north, on the Murman Coast, the disaster to the
Allied forces operating in that region has been averted, and the
Bolsheviki forced to retire some little distance. In the Archangel
region the Bolsheviki have taken no steps toward the threatened
drive upon the Allies which was to throw them into the sea.
Within a short time the army being raised in England to reenforce
the troops on the Murman Coast — and possibly also those in the
Archangel district — will arrive and put an end to the fear which
has been entertained of a Bolshevist victory in the North of Russia.
It is said Helsingfors is being made ready for the reception of an
Allied army of fifty thousand men, destined to seize Petrograd,
if that city be still in the possession of the Bolsheviki, and after-
wards march upon Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Government.
While these successes have been attained to the north, the
troops of the Omsk Government have not been inactive. They, too,
have met with notable successes. Marching in three columns,
they are well on their way to Samara towards the south, to Kazan,
and Moscow in the centre, and to Viatka farther north. Some of
these columns are said to be progresssing at the rate of seven miles
a day into the territory controlled by the Bolsheviki. Within the
last few weeks they have lost twice as much territory as the Ger-
mans seized and occupied in France and Belgium during the entire
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 417
War. The width of the Bolshevist area has decreased from about
one thousand two hundred miles between Vilna and the Urals, to
little more than nine hundred miles from the region of Minsk to a
point between Oranburg and Samara.
* The arrival in Poland of the forces, which during the War
were associated with the Allies fighting in France, may be looked
upon as having made safe the Eastern frontier from Bolshevist
attack. The conflict which, for a long time, has been going on be-
tween the Poles and Ukrainians, in the district which stretches
from the boundaries of Poland to those of Rumania, is said to have
been terminated by agreement between the warring nationalities.
If this be true, the door through which the Bolsheviki of Russia
may most readily enter Western Europe has been closed. For,
by the terms of the agreement just made, the Ukrainians are
pledged to resist any such attempt made by Trotzky's troops, or by
Ukrainians cooperating with these troops, and besides, are to
direct their efforts towards the recovery of that part of the Ukraine
now in Bolshevist hands. Moreover, there are in this district, or
within easy reach of it, forces of the Allies, composed of Serbians,
Greeks, and some French divisions, numbering in all about three
hundred thousand men, formerly operating in the Balkan penin-
sula. A cordon, therefore, could easily be made to shut off any
Bolshevist penetration to the west. It is said, the Allies have defi-
nitely decided to take this step. So we may safely consider that
the line stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea is on the point
of being securely guarded; while the parts of Russia bordering on
those seas are being watched by British and French warships.
Thus egress from Russia of any Bolshevist force is rendered prac-
tically impossible.
In fact a circle has been drawn around the Bolsheviki — a cir-
cle which to all appearances is becoming smaller and smaller.
Within that circle, it is true, there are no fewer than twelve armies.
One of them (the Second), however, is said to have been destroyed
a short time ago by Admiral Kolchak's forces.
To Trotzky's eloquence and administrative skill the raising
of these armies is mainly attributed, but the chief means by which
it was brought about is the deliberate plan, enforced by the Soviet
Government, for the starvation of every class in Russia which
does not support that Government. The population has been
divided into four classes, and the entire supply taken under the ab-
solute control of the Bolshevist administration. The first class con-
sists of manual laborers and Government servants, mothers of
families, and children; the second class of clerical workers, pro-
vided they employ no one; the third class of everybody who has
VOL. CIX. — 21
418 RECENT EVENTS [June,
employed anyone, from the small householder employing one ser-
vant to the manufacturer employing a thousand hands; the fourth
class, of all the former idle rich, including princes, aristocrats,
landowners, courtiers, and proprietors of every description. To
each of these classes definite rations are assigned on a diminish-
ing scale, so that the fourth class does not receive enough food
to maintain existence. As a consequence that class is practically
disappearing either by death from starvation or by being absorbed
into the other classes. The punishment meted out to opponents
of the Bolshevist Government, by its myriad agents and spies, is to
reduce the offender to one of the lower classes, and the method of
recruiting the army is to insure to every man who joins it an ample
supply of food for himself and his wife and family. Hence there
has been little difficulty in raising the numerous aforementioned
armies. These, while they mainly consist of Russians, also in-
clude Chinese and Letts. How many it is impossible to say. By
such means and by the establishment of special courts to try every
one who shows any sign of disaffection with the existing regime,
the Soviet Government has established a power more absolute in
character than any yet recorded in history.
The proposal recently made to relieve starvation in Russia
by giving help to the starving on condition that hostilities should
cease, was, as we have seen, in direct conflict with the methods
adopted to maintain the power of the Soviet Government. No
wonder that Government has refused to fulfill the condition im-
posed: to do so would have been equivalent to abdication. Time
and again it has been said that its end is approaching, but time
and again these prophecies have proved false. It is some satis-
faction, however, that there is one power within Bolshevist ter-
ritory to which Lenine has been constrained to show something
like respect. The Soviet Government serves the good purpose of
revealing to the world the logical results of making material well-
being the be-all and end-all of life.
It is even more satisfactory to record that it is, itself, being
forced to bow before the higher power of religious belief. Although
the formerly Established Church has been dispoiled and thousands
of its priests murdered, the very suffering they have endured has
already accomplished what persecution has so often accomplished
in the past. The Church, which was once a department of the
State but without influence, has now attracted some of the best
minds of Russia, and so strong is the movement that even Lenine
has begun to treat it with respect, and something like sub-
mission.
Every day, too, sees the growth of the power of the A
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 419
sian Government which has its seat at Omsk. The internal dif-
ficulties it has encountered, almost from the beginning, have been
to a great extent overcome. The allegation that Admiral Kolchak
favors the restoration of a monarchy, has been so completely dis-
avowed by him, that most of the elements who were distrustful
have rallied to the support of the Government. That he is working
for the constituent assembly which is to decide Russia's future, is
accepted by nearly all. Even General Seminoff is now collaborat-
ing with the Admiral, and the head of the Government of Northern
Russia has acknowledged his leadership, on condition that the
local rights of the Archangel Government should be respected.
The Omsk Government is recognized throughout the whole of
Siberia, East and West, with the possible exception of a few small
districts in the neighborhood of Vladivostok. Its recent successes
have even secured control of parts of European Russia. Some-
thing like seventy million people out of the one hundred and eighty
millions who, it is estimated, form the population of Russia have
accepted the authority of Admiral Kolchak. It is evident, there-
fore, how slight is the claim of the Soviet to be speaking for Rus-
sia, especially when we remember how much of the former em-
pire has exercised the right of self-determination. Finland, Cour-
land, Lithuania, Esthonia, Livonia, possibly White Russia, Rus-
sian Poland, the Ukraine, are all in this category, not to mention
the republic in the Caucasus, and possibly others. To estimate
their population would not be difficult, and would surely show that
quite a minority of the Russian people still groan under the yoke
of the Bolsheviki. It is no wonder, therefore, that the recognition
of the Omsk Government by this country is said to be imminent,
as it is the only Government entitled to speak for Russia.
Reinstated Poland seems to be entering
Poland. upon a period of stable government. Pres-
ident Paderewski's visit to Paris has been
attended by such successful results that he was welcomed with
ovation on his return, and his attempted assassination called forth
such indignation on the part of his fellow citizens as to add con-
siderably to his influence.
The capture of Vilna by Polish troops under command of
General Pilsudski has given additional security to the State by
driving farther from its borders the hostile forces of Trotzky.
The terms of the Peace Treaty, by which Dantzig is placed un-
der the control of Poland by remaining a free city, although not
quite satisfactory, are accepted with an equanimity which mani-
fests a spirit of moderation, more likely to effect good results than
420 RECENT EVENTS [June,
would be insistence upon extreme demands. The cession of a
large part of Upper Silesia, a part of West Prussia, and of Posen,
which will extend Polish territory some seventeen thousand square
miles, and add something like three million people to its popula-
tion, naturally gives complete satisfaction to the new State. This
new State in extent of territory will be larger than the new Ger-
man Republic after it is shorn of the regions it has stolen in the
course of the last century. The cessation of hostilities with the
Ukrainians contributes to the tranquillity now existing, a tran-
quillity which justified the recent joyful celebration in Warsaw
of the anniversary of the constitution. The arrival in Poland of
the fifty or sixty thousand soldiers who had been fighting in France
under the command of General Haller, has further attended to
stabilize the situation by giving the Government sufficient means
to repel foreign invasion, and suppress internal disorder. It has
been asserted that internal order was several times endangered
by the large numbers who had become Bolshevist sympathizers.
This was due to the want of food and employment, which resulted
from the German policy during their period of occupation. This
danger is diminished, if not altogether obviated, by the arrival of
General Haller's army. The increase of food supplies, coming
from this country especially, is contributing to the same result.
The one dark spot is the treatment accorded to Jews at Pinsk. It
is said, on authority which seems to be irrefutable, that a large
number were murdered there in cold blood by Polish soldiers.
The attempt made, soon after the establish-
German Austria. ment of the Communist Government in
Hungary, to bring about a revolution in the
Austro-German Republic on similar lines failed completely. This
failure, however, is no indication that there were few sympa-
thizers with Bolshevism, but is rather due to the fact that
revolution would have entailed the loss of the food supplies, which
alone could save a large number of the poorer classes from star-
vation. To be domiciled, as some of them are in the royal palaces
abandoned by the archdukes who have fled to Switzerland, would
be small consolation were the supplies of food cut off. It is worth
remarking in this connection how secure a refuge the Republic of
Switzerland is proving for the princes of fallen empires. It may
be considered as an augury of the times to come.
At present the Austrian delegates are arriving in Paris, to
learn there the terms by the acceptance of which peace may be
secured. These are said to contain a provision that no union
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 421
shall be made between the Austro-German Republic and Republic
of Germany. A strong desire for such a union formerly existed
among Austro-Germans, but it is said to exist no longer in view
of the conditions imposed by the Allies upon the Germany which is
to be.
Of the new States which have emerged
Czecho-Slovakia. from the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy, the most steady course is being
pursued by the Gzecho-Slovak Republic — a course which gives
promise of the establishment of a firm and stable government. Be-
fore the War the Socialist movement was so strong that it polled
forty per cent of the votes for members of the Reichsrat. Their
Socialism, however, was not of that Marxian character whose out-
come is seen in the Soviet Russian Government. The Czech So-
cialists hoped and worked for a better organization of human so-
ciety, but steadily set their faces against bringing about this better
organization by violent means, such as have been adopted in Rus-
sia. They base their Socialism on humanity and democracy.
Revolutionary Marxism, or Bolshevism, is foreign to the Czech
mind. The revolution which has freed Czecho-Slovakia has
brought the Bohemian Socialists into closer union with other
parties. They are now cooperating with the bourgeoisie for the
welfare of their country. While it cannot be said that there are
no Bolsheviki to be found in the new Republic, their influence is so
small as to be negligible. So far from being penetrated by them,
the new Republic has sent its forces against the Bolshevist forces
in Hungary, where they have made considerable progress towards
Budapest.
The chief evidence of a socialistic tendency in the legislation
of the new Republic is found in the expropriation of the estates of
the large landowners. Under a law recently passed by the
national assembly, the State will take over three million two hun-
dred and fifty thousand acres of cultivated land and seven million
five hundred thousand acres of wooded land which, it is estimated,
will provide a livelihood for four hundred and thirty thousand fam-
ilies. No estates with less than three hundred and seventy-five
acres under cultivation and two hundred and fifty acres of wood-
land will be expropriated, and no compensation will be given for
the expropriation of land owned by the imperial family, for estates
illegally acquired, and estates owned by persons guilty of treason
during the War.
It may perhaps be said, without undue complacency, that the
fair prospects for the new Republic are due in some degree to the
422 RECENT EVENTS [June,
fact that the guiding spirits of the accomplished revolution have
made profound studies of the long-established democracies of the
West, including our own, and have deliberately modeled upon
them their methods of government to deliver their country from
the yoke of despotism, and to efface the evil results of this yoke.
The Communist Government of Hungary
Hungary. maintains its existence, although more
than once since the last notes were written
it has been reported as on the point of collapsing. It is, indeed,
surprising that its existence has been so prolonged since the com-
missaries of the people, as they call themselves, are eighty per cent
Jews and the population whose destinies they control is ninety-
five per cent Christian. That Christians submit to such a rule
can only be attributed to their long habit of unreasoning
acquiescence in the control exercised by the Magyar rulers, through
which they have lost the habit of self-government. This Jewish
Government has shown itself prudent enough not to interfere with
the religious worship of the Christians. It has even caused to be
read out in the churches the declaration that the Soviet Govern-
ment guarantees full religious freedom to all, and promised that
there will be no interference with the clergy or churches or other
religious buildings. It has graciously conceded that it will not
interfere with the present order of family life, nor communize the
women.
Their respect for the rights of property has not been so great.
The confiscation of the land has been followed by that of the
houses of the rich, and any resistance to these measures has been
followed by the arrest of the intellectual leaders of the country.
Many have avoided this fate by taking refuge in countries where
civilization continues to exist. The limits within which this
tyranny is exercised are growing narrower day by. day. Czecho-
slovaks from the North and Serbians from the South have been
gradually approaching nearer to the capital. The noteworthy
advance, however, is that of the Rumanians. A short time ago it
was said that the King of Rumania was on the point of entering
Budapest. This was premature, however, as by the latest reports,
the Rumanians are something like eighty miles distant from that
city, and at the request of the Allies, their advance has been
stopped. The reason of this request is not evident, unless it may
be taken as an indication that the plan to place a cordon around
Russia, of which mention has already been made, has been posi-
tively adopted.
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 423
A definite incorporation of Montenegro
The Kingdom of the into the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats
Serbs, Croats and and Slovenes has been accomplished, and
Slovenes. this minute State thereby disappears as a
separate entity. Montenegro is the only
state which, except for a brief time, maintained its independence of
Turkish rule.
But the new Kingdom is also a striking example of an un-
due desire to extend to the utmost limit its domination. On all
sides it is pushing its claims; these claims have produced con-
flict not only with Italy about Fiume and Dalmatia, but also with
Rumania. The latter State, while willing to concede a certain
part of the banat of Temesvar, has not been able to satisfy the
Serbians who claim parts of the banat where the population is
distinctly Rumanian. With Hungary too, the Serbians have come
into conflict, claiming a district which contains within its borders
some two hundred and fifty thousand Magyars. So large are the
claims made upon Bulgarian territory, that their concession in-
volved the certainty of perpetual strife for generations to come,
and, however little sympathy one may have for the Bulgars, no
one can wish the perpetuation of perennial warfare between two
States. The Slovenes, too, have aggressive designs for the exten-
sion of their borders, being anxious to deprive the Austro-German
Republic of the towns of Villach and Klagenfurt. They have also
designs upon Italy and would fain, if there were any chance of suc-
cess, get possession of Trieste and Gorizia. As to the Jugo-Slavs'
claim to Fiume, space forbids the discussion of a controversy
which has caused so widespread an agitation, and which once
threatened to destroy the harmony of the Allies. It is not yet
settled, although it is hoped that an agreement is on the point of
being reached. The Italian attitude is said to be conciliatory, yet,
on the other hand, the fact — or the report — that Italy is sending
troops across the Adriatic into the districts in dispute prevents a
hopeful view of the situation being entertained.
It is no doubt on account of the extravagant claims made by
the constituted Kingdom, that, so far, it has not received the recog-
nition of any of the great powers or, in fact, of any State except
Greece. It is to be regretted that so good a cause as that of Ser-
bia should be prejudiced by the inability of its political guides to
keep their ambition within bounds, and their willingness to en-
danger that peace which is the supreme necessity of the present
moment.
May 16, 1919.
With Our Readers
THE Superior-General of the Paulist Fathers, the Very Rev-
erend John J. Hughes, C.S.P., died on May 6, 1919, in the sixty-
third year of his age. For almost ten years — his second term as
Superior-General would have expired in June next — Father
Hughes governed the Paulist Community. Elected to that office
first in June, 1909, he was reflected in 1914.
Within those years new houses of the Community were
founded in Toronto, Canada; in New York City; Portland, Oregon;
and Minneapolis, Minn. The new grounds of the Paulist Novitiate
near the Catholic University were purchased and the present St.
Paul's College for novices was erected there.
FATHER HUGHES was born in New York City and from his
earliest boyhood was under the guidance of the Paulist
Fathers. He was educated at St. Charles' College, then situated at
Ellicott City, Md., and later at St. Francis Xavier's, New York City.
He was ordained priest on June 3, 1884, and held a responsible
office in the Community a few years after his ordination. From
that time to the day of his death he was not without the respon-
sibility of some Community office. Under the late Superior-Gen-
eral Father George Deshon, he was Assistant Superior, and he held
the same position under his predecessor the late Father George M.
Searle. These long years of service made him well versed in all
matters of Community administration. They also necessitated
his constant residence at the Mother House of the Community in
New York City.
* * * *
APART from his general administrative work, almost his entire
life as a priest was spent in the parish of St. Paul the Apostle,
New York City. To the care and interests of that parish he devoted
himself with unstinted zeal. In his early years the welfare of the
young man particularly appealed to him. He was director for
years of the Spalding Literary Union, and he established for the
men of the parish the Holy Name Society. At all local and national
conferences, treating of the well-being of Catholic young men, he
was in past years a notable figure. Twenty-five years ago he
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 425
established a Paulist Monthly Calendar which has been published
ever since, and which now has numerous imitators in the parish
monthlies and bulletins throughout the country. For many years
also he was the head of the St. Vincent de Paul Council of the
parish, and tireless in his service and devotion to the poor. He was
one of the directors of the Apostolic Mission House.
* * * #
BECAUSE of his long residence in New York he was known
familiarly to all its priests, religious, and its Catholic people.
In the priestly work of kindness to others, of sympathy for all, he
excelled. The thousands that through the years received from him
the Sacrament of Penance will ever remember his encouraging
word, his hopeful message; the thousands who were aided by him
in a temporal way to secure employment, to get a start in life, to
overcome this or that seemingly insurmountable difficulty, do not
forget his ready help, his patient heart.
To the sick he was devoted, visiting them constantly. Of the
dead he was mindful. Through his zeal the St. Catherine Society
was established; and there was not a funeral of priest or of lay
friend that he did not attend. The affection in which the people
held him may be gauged from the fact that he was always known
as " Father John."
Surely the mercy and sympathy that he ever extended to
others will be extended to him by our Blessed Lord Whom he
served on earth.
IT has come to our notice during the presence of the Philippine
Commission in this country that certain enemies of the Catholic
Church have diligently circulated the statement that the Catholics
of the United States are opposed to the political freedom of the
Philippine people.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Such a statement is
born of the prejudice of those who utter it and has no other foun-
dation.
* * * *
THE Constitution of the Philippine Islands as passed by our
Congress a few years ago, provided that independence should
be granted to the Philippines as soon as a stable government was
established in the Islands.
According to the information we have received, the Govern-
ment of the Philippines is a stable one — the natives administer all
the offices of the Administration with the exception of the Gov-
ernor-General and some members of the Supreme Court. During
426 WITH OUR READERS [June,
the recent War almost all the American soldiers were withdrawn
from the country, and yet there was no disturbance or disorder.
* * * *
WE, as Americans, have proclaimed the policy of self-deter-
mination. We have, moreover, promised independence to
the Philippine people. We believe the time has come when we
may rightly redeem that promise. The great majority of the in-
habitants of the Islands are Catholics, and as Catholic Americans
we would resent any attempt to do them an injustice or to curtail
their religious rights in any way. We firmly believe that a Con-
stitutional guaranty fully safeguarding such rights should be ex-
acted when independence is granted. That guaranty should pro-
tect the free exercise of the Catholic Faith by Catholics as it should
protect a similar right in those of other denominations. The prop-
erty of the Catholic churches, of the religious congregations,
should in full measure be safeguarded.
The Catholic prelates of the Island have pledged themselves
most solemnly to the cause of Philippine independence. And their
support of the aspirations of the Philippine people is in turn
cordially supported by the Catholics of the United States. Any
propaganda of falsehood, to the contrary, will be unavailing.
THE origin and growth of democracy is a subject that is claim-
ing not a great deal of study — for not many give the time for
that — but of attention. Claims are made concerning its origin
which can never be historically substantiated, for example, that
the Protestant Reformation brought democracy into the world.
Following up this utterly erroneous claim it is frequently stated,
as we wrote in last month's issue of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, that
Protestantism alone can be the religion of the new democratic
world.
* * * *
AN article which treats the subject in a scholarly way is pub-
lished in the March issue of the Irish monthly, Studies. The
author, Dr. Rahilly, speaks of the oft-repeated claim that " modern
democracy is the child of the Reformation, not of the Reformers."
This statement contains an unproved inference, namely, that while
the Reformers themselves were despots, the principles they intro-
duced curiously turned out to be democratic a century or so later.
This is the gratuitous assumption upon which is built the volume
by C. Borgeaud, entitled The Rise of Modern Democracy in Old
and New England.
To prove such an inference, the author states, it would be
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 427
necessary to show (a) that the political principles of reformers,
such as Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, were really
democratic, though they were meant to be the reverse, and (b)
that the principles of Puritans and Whigs were logically and
actually derived from the Reformation tenets and not adroitly
purloined from Catholic thinkers.
* * * *
TO illustrate the impossibility of proving either point, Dr.
Rahilly makes it clear that the Reformers were really without
principle: that they varied their political principles to suit cir-
cumstances. He quotes from Luther, Calvin and John Knox.
Furthermore, the greatest increase of royal power in Europe dates
from the Reformation. As a political movement it added papal
power to regal.
And having proved the utter worthlessness of the claim made
for the Reformation, the author proceeds to prove that even in
Protestant England, as well as in America, the true historical
source of democracy lies in the institutions and doctrines of the
Catholic Church. For example, political thinkers from Hooker,
Buchanan and Milton to Locke and Algernon Sidney borrowed
extensively from Catholic canonists and schoolmen. The seven-
teenth century witnessed a return from Protestant principles to
Catholic teaching — from despotism jure divino to natural rights,
popular sovereignty, liberties of municipal and corporate bodies.
* * * *
DEMOCRACY is the child of Catholicism. In the Middle Ages
the only corporate entity analogous to our modern State was
the Catholic Church. The only representative assemblies were
councils of bishops; mixed councils of clergy and laity, includ-
ing men and women, were common. The very word " commune "
meant the diocesan or parochial council. To the Church we owe
the communes, and the House of Commons, and the community.
The work done by the Friars in perfecting this democratic
tradition of government is extensively treated. He shows that the
statement of Nicholas of Cusa that " every constitution is rooted in
natural law and cannot be valid if it contradicts it," was a com-
monplace of the Middle Ages. Upon such a truth is founded our
own American declaration that governments derive " their just
powers from the consent of the governed."
* * * *
BY further examples and data which we cannot give here, the
author in clear fashion shows our indebtedness to the Catho-
lic Church for the blessing of democracy. Through her organiza-
428 WITH OUR READERS [June,
tion, her great Church Councils; through diocesan and parochial
representative conference; through the democracy of the Friars,
she has sown the way in the political democracy of states. " And
all the while there flowed that stream of deep, patient thinkers,
who, from Thomas of Aquino, Nicholas d'Oresme, Antoninus of
Florence, down to Almain, Major, Bellarmine and Suarez, upheld
the ideal of popular rights and government by consent. It was
the idea of these men to which the Catholics of the Ligue made
their appeal; and notwithstanding their vehemence and passion,
their ideals were sound. It was to this same treasure house of the
past that the French Calvinists turned in their first and short-lived
alliance with democracy. And it was back once more to the rock
whence they were hewn that the Covenanters and Presbyterians
turned when the day of reckoning came for the Stuarts. From the
annals of the past, from Bracton and Fortescue, from forgotten
canonists, legists and schoolmen, from the great conciliar con-
troversialists, were dragged forth principles which shattered for-
ever the Reformation tenet of Divine Right, and traversing the
ocean founded the American Republic, principles whose dynamic
possibilities and far-reaching consequences are not yet exhausted."
To THE EDITOR OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
New York City.
Dear Sir:
A sense of justice prompts me to give answer in as few words
as possible to the anonymous reviewer into whose hands my mono-
graph, The Holy Roman Empire in German Literature, has fallen in
the May number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD (p. 254). An equal sense of
justice on your part, I am sure, will honor these words with publica-
tion in one of the next numbers of your esteemed periodical.
The review of which I speak is brief, very brief, contains in all
fifteen lines. I honestly think that it does me and my work injustice.
May I elucidate?
In the first place, (line three) the reviewer takes issue with me
on my title: "Why the change (from ' Literary Satire* to the present
title) was made is not clear." It was made after consultation with,
and upon the urgent advice of, my professorial committee, a group of
scholars of wide experience and learning. It was made because I
include in my discussion not only literary satire, but also writers who
treat the Empire from the unbiased historical point of view (e. g., the
Moser pair), and material that is decidedly pro-imperial (cf., my note
seven, on page twenty-four; the folksongs, passim; and most of the
eighteenth-century poets, as Klopstock and Schiller).
Furthermore, the reviewer says (line six) : that I present but lit-
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 429
tie " original data." A bold assertion ! What does he mean by the
term "original data?" My conception of the words is: data culled
directly and independently from primary sources. I publicly maintain
that three-fourths of my material in chapters two to six is of this nature,
and I strongly suspect that the reviewer is not a professional Ger-
manist and is hence incompetent to judge this material at all. He seems
to restrict himself, tacitly, to be sure, to my opening chapter, " Some
Historical Data." I frankly confess that this one chapter is not based
on minute historical investigations of my own — my monograph is in-
tended as a contribution to the field of literature, not to historical
science. The reviewer has apparently overlooked my note four, on
page two, in which I clearly state that my whole historical resume in
chapter one is based on Bryce, Giesebrecht, and Lamprecht, and I am
shocked to read that he (or is it she ?) flippantly brushes aside the work
of these celebrated authorities as " oft-refuted Protestant accounts."
Again, the reviewer chides me (line eight) because my historical
treatment " does not grow out of my material." How could it? How
could I be expected to derive anew the data of one thousand years of
history from a study of German literary sources, especially when I was
concerned primarily with so narrow a field as satire?
Finally, the reviewer says that I believe that the Popes " were the
ones responsible for the weakness of the Empire." This is a vicious
perversion of fact! I believe that the Empire was weak because of its
centrifugal nature, its lack of firm and efficient executive, legislative,
and judicial power, that it was weak because of its very construction,
and that it bore the germs of this weakness in it at the very time of its
incohation. Just as specious, therefore, is the theory of the reviewer,
namely, that the emperors were primarily at fault.
To sum up, I consider this review of my monograph unfair be-
cause it puts demands upon me which I never intended to fulfill and
could not reasonably be expected to meet. I did not intend to deal
independently with the momentous questions with which historical
scholarship must grapple in its interpretation of the Holy Roman Em-
pire. If the reviewer had realized this fact, I am certain that he would
have treated my work more fairly, if not more favorably.
Very respectfully yours,
EDWIN H. ZEYDEL.
THE REVIEWER'S ANSWER.
The sum of Mr. ZeydePs objections to my review of his monograph
is that " it (the review) puts demands upon me which I never intended
to fulfill and could not reasonably be expected to meet." My answer to
this is that these demands, whether he intended to fulfill them or not,
were, antecedently and in the nature of things, already imposed upon
him, both by the title of the monograph and by the historic character
of the subject with which he undertook to deal. His subject is the Holy
430 WITH OUR READERS [June,
Roman Empire in German Literature. Had he confined himself to the Em-
pire in its period of degeneration, as portrayed in post-Reformation Ger-
man literature, there could have been very little to complain of, I am
sure, if we may be allowed to judge from what he has actually accom-
plished in the latter half of the work under consideration. But this he
has not done. He takes in both the old Holy Roman Empire and the
later so-called empire when " practical disunion prevailed in the Ger-
manies . . . albeit under the high-sounding title of ' Holy Roman
Empire ' " (cf. C. J. Hayes : A Political and Social History of Modern
Europe, vol. i., p. 14. Italics ours). Nor, on the other hand, has he con-
fined himself, in his avowed purpose, to any one period or to any one
phase of German literature.
Such being the case, the ground for criticism is precisely this: in
his choice of data he has not done justice to the older mediaeval empire.
On the basis that this latter was an absurdity, foredoomed to failure
from the start, he has chosen, regardless of the evidence he himself had,
to consider the satirical literature of this period as, practically, the only
form worthy of notice in connection with his subject. Of the original
data presented in his pages (to which alone my remark on this head
had reference) by far the larger portion is taken from sixteenth cen-
tury satirists. Now in this I again insist he has done an injustice to his
subject and has failed to live up to the obligations imposed upon him by
his choice of title. Writing of that very period of early German litera-
ture on which Mr. Zeydel lays so much emphasis, J. Janssen has this to
say: "This terrible deterioration of German national literature in
the course of a single century is chiefly responsible for the habit that
obtained of regarding the close of the Middle Ages as a period of deep
intellectual decay, and of tracing back to this period all the lamentable
events of the sixteenth century; nay more, of making the ancient
Church more or less answerable for the tremendous bankruptcy of
German national life " (Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Aus-
gang des Mittelalters, vol. vii., p. 4).
Mr. Zeydel, it is quite true, is prepared to admit that in earlier
times " there was an abundance of zeal for the imperial cause " (p. 22).
But despite the fact that the literature in which this zeal was displayed
was, as literature, far superior to that of the sixteenth century (cf. Emil
Michael: Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem dreizehnten Jahr-
hundert bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, vol. iv., also vol. i., p. 266 et
seq), he dismisses it as unworthy of consideration because as he says:
" the mediaeval mind could see nothing reprehensible in the World-
Empire and its machinery. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries wit-
nessed the gradual weakening of the charm, yet not until the sixteenth
century when men's intellects slowly began to be enlightened do we
meet works of a genuinely satirical character" (p. 21).
Finally Mr. Zeydel repudiates the belief, with which I taxed him,
that the Popes " were the ones responsible for the weakness of the Em-
pire." But I would like to ask what he expects his readers to make of
such statements as the following: "The hindering, obstructing,
1919.] BOOKS RECEIVED 431
ecclesiastical power of the Pope, which at best was incompatible with
imperial projects of any kind " (p. 4) ; and: " History furnishes all too
many examples of unscrupulous Popes who lured vainglorious Ger-
manic Kings into their entangling meshes. As errors oft repeated are
soon moulded into habits, the unnatural alliance between Pope and Em-
peror in time came to be considered both natural and necessary " (pp.
4, 5) ; and " The doctrine of the indivisibility of the Empire in its spirit-
ual and temporal aspects, of the complete harmony of ecclesiastical and
imperial powers, soon revealed its impracticability for it is doubtful if
at any time after the death of Henry III. (1056) an instance of such
unity can be found. In the sequel the Popes became haughtier and
either demanded unconditional obedience on the part of the civil gov-
ernment or sought to arrogate to themselves the entire power " (p. 5).
That such statements are thoroughly unjustifiable from an his-
torical point of view, will be clear to anyone at all acquainted with the
more recent work of even non-Catholic historians, who happen to have
touched upon these subjects. Should Mr. Zeydel, however, care for a
fuller statement confirming the present writer's position in the matter
he will find it, with references supporting it, in THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
March, 1917, p. 768; April, 1918, p. 1; May, 1918, p. 190.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
GEORGE H. DORAN Co., New York:
Second Marriage. By V. Meynell. $1.50 net. Victory Over Blindness. By Sir A.
Pearson. $1.50 net. A Padre in France. By G. A. Birmingham. $1.50 net.
After the Whirlwind. By C. E. Russell. $1.50 net. Civilization: Tales of the
Orient. By E. N. La Motte. $1.50 net. Flexible Ferdinand. By J. M. Lipp-
mann. $1.50 net. Banners. By B. Deutsch. $1.25 net. Lilies White and Red.
By F. W. Huard. $1.50 net. Wooden Spoil. By V. Bousseau. $1.50 net. The
Tale of Mr. Tubbs. By J. E. Buckrose. $1.50 net. A History of the United
States. By C. Chesterton. $2.50 net.
BONI & LIVERIGHT, New York :
The Erotic Motive in Literature. By A. Mordell. $1.75 net. The Moon of the
Caribbees. By E. O'Neill. $1.35 net. Traveling Companions. By H. James.
$1.75 net. British Labor and the War. By P. M. Kellogg and A. Gleason.
$2.00 net. The Swallow. By R. Dunbar. $1.50 net. Jimmie Higgins. By U.
Sinclair. $1.60 net. The Dramatic Story of Old Glory. By S. Abbott. $1.60 net.
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co., Garden City, New York:
Volleys from a N on-Combatant. By W. R. Thayer. $2.00 net. The Years Be-
tween. By R. Kipling. $1.50 net. The Emblems of Fidelity. By J. L. Allen.
$1.25 net. Christopher and Columbus. By the author of " Elizabeth and Her
Garden." $1.50 net. The British Navy in Battle. By A. H. Pollen. $2.50 net.
Mexico Under Carranza. By T. E. Gibbon, $1.50 net. With the Help of God
and a Few Marines. By Brigadier-General A. W. Catlin. $1.50 net.
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York:
The Missal for Sunday Use. $2.00. The Words of Life. By C. C. Martindale,
S.J. 60 cents net. Rhymes Without Reason. By the author of "Sarah and
the War." 35 cents net. Mysticism True and False. By Dom. S. Louismet,
O.S.B. $1.80 net.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York:
Preparation for Marriage. By Rev. J. A. McHugh, O.P., S.T.L. 60 cents net. The
Most Beloved Woman. By Rev. E. Garesche, S.J. 90 cents net. Sermons on
Our Blessed Lady. By Rev. T. Flynn, C.C. $2.00 net. Whose Name is
Legion. By I. C. Clarke. $1.35 net.
432 BOOKS RECEIVED [June, 1919.]
THE MACMILLAN Co., New York:
The Hills of Desire. By R. A. Maher. $1.50.
LECOUVER PRESS Co., New York:
League of Nations. By A. O. Crozier. 50 cents.
BRENTANO'S, New York :
The Silent Mill. By H. Sudermann. $1.25 net. The Valley of the Windows.
By B. MacNamara. $1.50 net.
THE TORCH PRESS, New York:
The Great Conspiracy. By Charles V. H. Roberts. $1.50.
ALLYN & BACON, New York:
El Reino de Los Incas del Peru. Edited by J. Bardin. El Pdjaro Verde. Edited by
M. A. De Vitis.
THE FOUR SEAS Co., Boston:
Our First Ten Thousand. By Sergeant Chester Jenks. $1.00 net. The Marsh
Maiden, and Other Plays. By F. Gould. Nowadays. By Lord Dunsany. Paint-
ing. By W. A. Sinclair.
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, New Haven.
Chimney-Pot Papers. By Charles S. Brooks. $2.00.
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK Co., Cleveland:
Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimeria Alta. By H. E. Bolton, Ph.D. Two volumes.
$12.50 net.
ILLINOIS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION, Springfield:
The Era of the Civil War, 1848-1870. By Arthur C. Cole.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, Chicago:
How the Bible Grew. By Frank G. Lewis. $1.50 net.
HUMPHREY MILFORD, London:
Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. By Robert Bridges.
HARDING & MORE, London:
Retreats for Soldiers in War-Time and After. By C. Plater, S.J., and C. C.
Martindale, S.J.
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, London:
The Conversion of St. Augustine. The Miraculous Birth of Our Lord. By H. E.
Hall, M.A. The Resurrection. By B. Jarrett, O.P. Liberal Christianity and Its
Alternative. Why Catholics Go To Confession. Devotion to Mary. Pamphlets.
AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, Melbourne:
Faith and Facts. By A. J. Rahilly, M.A. A Friend of the Sacred Heart. By
E. de M. Archbishop Mannix and the Victorian Government. A Profiteer.
By M. Agatha. Pamphlets.
BLOUD & GAY, Paris:
Le Drame de Senlis. Par A. de Maricourt. 3 fr. 50. Les 100 Numeros du Petit
Francais. Par H. de Larmaiidu*. 6 fr. Quand " Us " titaient a Satnt-
Quentin. Par H. Celaire. Sous le Poing de Per. Par A. Droulers. Les Catho-
liques Francais et I'Apres-Guerre. Par Abbe Beaupin. L'avenir francais. Par
H. Joly. Discours de Reception de Monseigneur Baudrillart.
PONTIFICAL PRINTING OFFICE, Rome:
Primato di S. Pietro e de' Suoi Successori in San Giovanni Crisostomo. By
Niccol6 Card. Marini. Volume two.
H. DESSAIN, Malines, Belgium:
Summa Novi luris Canonict. By A. Vermeersch, S.J.
EXAMINER PRESS, Bombay, India:
" That Arch-Liar Froude." By E. R. Hull, S.J. Man's Great Concern: The
Management of Life. By E. R. Hull, S.J. |
THE
{Jjatholie
VOL. GIX. JULY, 1919 No. 652.
THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS.
BY JOHN A. RYAN, D.D.
ROBABLY very few American Catholics realize
that the first formal meeting in thirty-five years
of the Bishops of the United States took place
the twentieth of last February. The Third
Plenary Council was held in 1884. Of the
Bishops who composed it only one remains, His Eminence, the
Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore. The occasion which
brought the Bishops together last February was the celebration
(just four months overdue) of his golden jubilee as Bishop.
Between sixty and seventy Bishops gathered that afternoon in
Divinity Hall chapel at the Catholic University of America.
The most important events of the meeting were an address to
the assembled prelates by Archbishop Cerretti, the Special
Delegate of His Holiness to the jubilee celebration, and the
unanimous adoption by the Bishops of a resolution to meet
annually thereafter.
In a letter, dated April 10th, to the Hierarchy of the United
States, Pope Benedict XV. gave his warm approval to this
action, and laid stress upon the great advantages to be derived
from the proposed annual meetings. Through the mutual ex-
change of knowledge and experience, points out His Holiness,
the Bishops will be enabled to take adequate measures to check
the spread of error, to strengthen discipline among the clergy
and laity, and to control and direct movements that affect faith
Copyright. 1919. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. cix. 28
434 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
and morals; and they will return to their respective dioceses
fortified and inspired by what they have learned concerning
the best means and methods. Special attention is directed by
the Pope to the necessity of mutual deliberations and united
effort in the field of " economico-social activity " at this time,
" when the whole structure of human society is in danger, and
all civic charity, swept by storms of envious hate, seems likely
to shrivel up and disappear."
An attempt to give a full description of the benefits to be
expected from these annual conferences of the Bishops, is hap-
pily unnecessary in this article. Every intelligent reader can
easily comprehend the essential elements of the situation. If
the problems confronting the Church in America affected each
diocese in a different way, or if no two dioceses had to deal
with the same problems, there would be little need of meetings
by the Bishops for common counsel and common action. Un-
der the general direction and guidance of Rome, each diocese
would be sufficient unto itself. As a matter of fact, all the
dioceses of the country have to deal with a great number of
common problems. They can no more handle them separately
than a multitude of soldiers can successfully oppose a common
enemy by fighting as individuals. Errors in religion and
morals generally affect more than one diocese, and the same
is true of evil practices and anti-Catholic movements. They
can be effectively combated only through united and common
action. When an authoritative statement is needed concern-
ing the morality or advisability of a theory, a movement, or an
institution, much greater heed will evidently be given to a
pronouncement by the entire Hierarchy than to the declaration
of a single bishop or a few bishops. When positive action is
to be taken for the advancement of religion or the promotion
of good morals, infinitely more can be accomplished through
combined action and a common programme than through the
most zealous efforts of all the Bishops acting individually and
using diverse methods. As Pope Benedict points out, " the per-
fection of the harvest depends upon the method and the
means." Each bishop is, indeed, competent to take care of
his own diocese and to produce the harvest, but the " perfec-
tion of the harvest " is mainly a matter of methods, and the
indispensable method of our time is organized action and a
common plan of campaign.
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 435
The action taken by the Bishops at their February meet-
ing included provision for a standing committee which will
keep in constant touch with all the problems, will prepare pro-
grammes for the annual meetings, and will carry out the de-
cisions made by the assembled Bishops. In a general way this
committee will be the executive organ of the meetings and of
the organized Hierarchy, and will be in practically continuous
session. Without a committee of this kind, the Bishops could
accomplish only a small part of the things that they desire to
accomplish. When they met they would not have a sufficiently
definite idea of the field to be covered, nor of the relative im-
portance of the various subjects coming up for discussion; nor
could the decisions reached in their meetings be carried out ef-
fectively and comprehensively. If the annual meetings lasted
over a period of several months, like sessions of Congress, the
standing committee might be dispensed with. Since they will
cover but a few days, the subjects of discussion will need to be
in such shape that the Bishops can take prompt action on the
basis of information already gathered and digested.
The standing committee is to be known as the " General
Committee on Catholic Affairs and Interests." Conformably
to the action taken at the February meeting, its members have
been appointed by Cardinal Gibbons. They are the same
Bishops who have for more than two years constituted the Ad-
ministrative Committee of the National Catholic War Coun-
cil, with one addition and one substitution. The addition is
Cardinal Gibbons, who is the chairman of the Committee; the
substitution is Bishop Glass in the place of Archbishop Hayes,
who resigned from the Administrative Committee in order to
devote all his time to the duties of his new position as Arch-
bishop of New York. The other three are Bishop Muldoon, who
is vice-chairman, and Bishops Schrembs and Russell.
The principal matters that await action by the Bishops in
their annual meetings have been stated at some length by Car-
dinal Gibbons in a letter addressed on May 5th to the General
Committee. They are outlined under the following heads:
1. The Holy See. 2. Home Missions. 3. Foreign Missions. 4.
Social and Charitable Work. 5. Catholic University. 6. Catho-
lic Education in General. 7. Catholic Literature. 8. Catholic
Press. 9. Legislation. 10. A Catholic Bureau. 11. Finances.
Space is wanting here for even a summary of the various sub-
436 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
jects presented; only a few of the more important points can be
noted. In his address to the Bishops, February 20th, Arch-
bishop Cerretti declared that " Rome now looks to America to
be the leader in all things Catholic, and to set an example to
the other nations." For the fulfillment of this high mission
organization and organized cooperation with the Holy See are
indispensable. Both home and foreign missions present im-
mense opportunities for good which the Church in America
has not yet begun to utilize adequately, owing mainly to lack
of organization and of a common programme. In the field of
social and charitable work there is needed the clear presen-
tation of Catholic social principles, a better knowledge of the
best methods, and a " more general impulse to put our social
principles and methods into operation." At this point in his
letter, His Eminence calls attention to the great importance
of providing society with right principles for the solution of
the social question, and to the fact that our social principles
have too long " lain hidden in our theologies, so much so that
the recent pamphlet on Social Reconstruction appeared to
many a complete novelty." More than ever before we need
highly educated leaders, both cleric and lay, for the supplying
of whom " our greatest single hope is in the Catholic Univer-
sity." If it is to produce the results of which it is easily cap-
able, the University must receive greater financial and moral
support from both the Hierarchy and the general Catholic
population. In the field of education the question of centraliza-
tion of the public system, and that of a better coordination of
our own educational forces are of great and urgent importance.
To supply the need of more and better Catholic literature we
should have greater cooperation among the various Catholic
Truth Societies, and perhaps a literary bureau under the
patronage of the hierarchy. Such a bureau could develop and
encourage Catholic writers, and obtain a prompt hearing for
the Catholic side of disputed questions in the secular press.
Through concerted action of the Hierarchy the immense pos-
sibilities that are latent in the Catholic press could be made
actual. The indications of increasing hostility to the Church
which our enemies seek to have expressed in legislation, de-
mand alert and organized efforts in self-defence. In order
to carry out its tasks effectively the General Committee will
need a Catholic bureau equipped with adequate clerical
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 437
assistance. While the bureau and the activities of the Com-
mittee generally will necessitate a very large financial outlay,
the generosity of our Catholic people in providing funds for
war work shows that sufficient money can be obtained for large
objects if only the methods are efficient. Here, as always, the
fundamental question is one of methods and organization.
As His Eminence remarks in the closing paragraph of his
letter, the programme above sketched is very comprehensive;
parts of it might become realized in the near future, while
other parts might require years of steady and intelligent effort.
All these problems are national in scope, and can be adequately
met only through national action. And adequate national
action can come only through national organization of the
Hierarchy, functioning through annual meetings and standing
committees.
In a letter dated May 17th and addressed to all the Bishops
of the country, Cardinal Gibbons made known the fact that
the General Committee on Catholic Affairs and Interests had
already held its first meeting, in New York, and had decided to
take up for immediate consideration certain problems of
urgent importance. The first of these is the legislation soon
to be enacted by Congress for the enforcement of the federal
amendment establishing national prohibition of the liquor
traffic. The Church is vitally interested in the proposed en-
forcement measure because it involves the question of pro-
vision for the manufacture and distribution of sacramental
wine. Happily there is good reason to hope that this need will
be adequately safeguarded. The second matter to be con-
sidered by the General Committee is that of the bill now be-
fore Congress providing federal aid to and supervision of
education throughout the country, and establishing a national
department of education. The Committee expects to prepare
a paper on this question for the consideration of the
Hierarchy, in order to get a consensus of authoritative opinion,
and official sanction for a definite course of action. In this sit-
uation we have an admirable illustration of one of the most
important services to be performed by the General Com-
mittee : it must not only prepare programmes for and carry into
effect the decisions of the Bishops at their annual meetings,
but be in a position to elicit and execute their will concerning
subjects that cannot wait for the date of the annual meetings.
438 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
The third subject for immediate consideration is the new
Code of Canon Law, in some of its particular relations to con-
ditions in the United States. Before many months a paper
dealing with this matter will be prepared and sent to all the
Bishops. Finally, the question of financing the work of the
General Committee is under advisement, and will be disposed
of at the first meeting of the Hierarchy.
On May 24th His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, sent an-
other letter to all the Bishops in which he informed them that
the first annual meeting would be held the twenty-fourth of
next September in Divinity Hall of the Catholic University. He
invited specific and concrete proposals and suggestions from
the Bishops' for the guidance of the General Committee in its
work of preparing a programme for the September gathering.
Such in a general way are the facts, the needs, the oppor-
tunities, and the steps already taken concerning the annual
meetings of the American Hierarchy. No one who considers
them even cursorily can doubt the wisdom of the new de-
parture, or the soundness of Cardinal Gibbons' statement that
it opens " a new era for the Church in America." In his
recent letter to the Bishops of the United States, Pope Bene-
dict said : " It is, indeed, wonderful how greatly the progress
of Catholicism is favored by the frequent assemblies of the
Bishops, which Our predecessors have more than once ap-
proved." A particular instance that comes to mind at once is
that of the Hierarchy of Ireland, who have long observed this
practice to the great edification of the Irish people and progress
of the Irish Church. On the other hand, the inconveniences
and obstacles resulting from the want of such general meet-
ings, are no less strikingly illustrated in the history of the
Church in France. Effective organization and united effort
through annual meetings of the Hierarchy would surely have
minimized the evils from which the French Church has suf-
fered in the last few decades. In our own country we have fre-
quently felt the need of that uniform guidance, those uniform
policies, and that united national effort which are attainable
only through a national organization and regular meetings of
the Hierarchy. The question is not one of general Catholic
teaching, nor of organized diocesan activity. These we have,
respectively, from the Pope and the Bishops. It is a question
of the uniform and authoritative application of doctrines to
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 439
particular conditions, and of united and nation-wide policies
and action.
Any account of the events which have led up to the in-
stitution of the annual meetings of the Hierarchy would be
vitally defective that did not call specific attention to the
supreme part taken by the illustrious Cardinal Archbishop of
Baltimore. His golden jubilee brought the Bishops together
on the day when they took the decision in favor of these meet-
ings. His initiative and living grasp of the needs of the hour
exercised a powerful influence in producing that decision. His
letters to the General Committee and to the Bishops of the
country have excellently described the general scope and
problems of the new organization, as well as the particular
subjects that are of immediate urgency. At every step of the
proceedings, his clear vision, his mental elasticity, his un-
rivaled common sense, his optimism and his energetic leader-
ship have been in demand and in action. At an age when most
men who are so fortunate as to reach it have no longer the in-
clination or the power for active work, His Eminence of Balti-
more retains the position and the faculty of leadership which
has been his for so many fortunate years in the history of the
Church in United States.
T
HE full text of the Letters referred to in Dr. Ryan's article
is as follows:
POPE BENEDICT XV. TO THE AMERICAN EPISCOPATE.
To JAMES GIBBONS, CARDINAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH, ARCH-
BISHOP OF BALTIMORE, WILLIAM O'CONNELL, CARDINAL OF THE HOLY
ROMAN CHURCH, ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON, AND TO THE OTHER
ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Beloved Sons, Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benedic-
tion.
Your joint letter to Us from Washington, where you had
gathered to celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Episcopate
of Our beloved son James Gibbons, Cardinal Priest of the Holy
Roman Church, was delivered to Us on his return by Our Ven-
erable Brother Bonaventura, Titular Archbishop of Corinth, whom
We had sent to represent Us and bear you Our message of joy
on this very notable occasion. Your close union with Us was con-
firmed anew by the piety and affection which your letter breathed,
440 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
while your own intimate union was set forth in ever clearer light
by the solemn celebration itself, so perfectly and successfully car-
ried out, no less than by the great number and the cordiality of
those present. For both reasons we congratulate you most heart-
ily, Venerable Brethren, all the more, indeed, because you took the
opportunity to discuss matters of the highest import for the wel-
fare of both Church and country. We learn that you have
unanimously resolved that a yearly meeting of all the Bishops
shall be held at an appointed place, in order to adopt the most
suitable means of promoting the interests and welfare of the
Catholic Church, and that you have appointed from among the
Bishops two commissions, one of which will deal with social
questions, while the other will study educational problems, and
both will report to their Episcopal brethren. This is truly a
worthy resolve, and with the utmost satisfaction We bestow upon
it Our approval.
It is, indeed, wonderful how greatly the progress of Catholi-
cism is favored by those frequent assemblies of the Bishops, which
Our predecessors have more than once approved. When the
knowledge and the experience of each are communicated to all
the Bishops, it will be easily seen what errors are secretly spread-
ing, and how they can be extirpated; what threatens to weaken dis-
cipline among clergy and people and how best the remedy can be
applied; what movements, if any, either local or nation-wide, are
afoot for the control or the judicious restraint of which the wise
direction of the Bishops may be most helpful. It is not enough,
however, to cast out evil; good works must at once take its place,
and to these men are incited by mutual example. Once admitted
that the perfection of the harvest depends upon the method and
the means, it follows easily that the assembled Bishops, returning
to their respective dioceses, will rival one another in reproducing
those works which they have seen elsewhere in operation, to the
distinct advantage of the faithful. Indeed, so urgent is the call
to zealous and persistent economico-social activity that we need
not further exhort you in this matter. Be watchful, however, lest
your flocks, carried away by vain opinions and noisy agitation,
abandon to their detriment the Christian principles established
by Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII., in his Encyclical
Letter Rerum Novarum. More perilous than ever would this be
at the present moment, when the whole structure of human society
is in danger, and all civic charity, swept by storms of envious hate,
seems likely to shrivel up and disappear.
Nor is the Catholic education of children and youth a matter
of less serious import, since it is the solid and secure foundation
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 441
on which rests the fullness of civil order, faith and morality. You
are indeed well aware, Venerable Brethren, that the Church of God
never failed on the one hand to encourage most earnestly Catholic
education, and on the other vigorously to defend and protect it
against all attacks; were other proof of this wanting, the very
activities of the Old World enemies of Christianity would furnish
conclusive evidence. Lest the Church should keep intact the faith
in the hearts of little children, lest her own schools should com-
pete successfully with public anti-religious schools, her adver-
saries declare that to them alone belongs the right of teaching,
and trample under foot and violate the native rights of parents
regarding education; while vaunting unlimited liberty, falsely so-
called, they diminish, withhold, and in every way hamper the
liberty of religious and Catholic parents as regards the education
of their children. We are well aware that your freedom from
these disadvantages has enabled you to establish and support
with admirable generosity and zeal your Catholic schools, nor do
We pay a lesser meed of praise to the superiors and members of
the religious communities of men and women who, under your
direction, have spared neither expense nor labor in developing
throughout the United States the prosperity and the efficiency of
their schools. But, as you well realize, we must not so far trust
to present prosperity as to neglect provision for the time to come,
since the weal of Church and State depends entirely on the good
condition and discipline of the schools, and the Christians of the
future will be those and those only whom you will have taught and
trained.
Our thoughts at this point turn naturally to the Catholic Uni-
versity at Washington. We have followed with joy its marvelous
progress so closely related to the highest hope of your churches,
and for this Our good will and the public gratitude are owing prin-
cipally to Our Beloved Son the Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore
and to the Rector of the University, Our Venerable Brother, the
Titular Bishop of Germanicopolis. While praising them, however,
we do not forget your own energetic and zealous labors, well
knowing that you have all hitherto contributed in no small meas-
ure to the development of this seat of higher studies, both
ecclesiastical and secular. Nor have we any doubt but that, hence-
forth, you will continue even more actively to support an insti-
tution of such great usefulness and promise as is the University.
We make known to you also how deeply we rejoice to hear
that popular devotion to Mary Immaculate has greatly increased
in view of the proposal to build on the grounds of the University
the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. This most
442 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
holy purpose merited the approval and cordial praise of Our
Predecessor of happy memory, Pius X. We, too, have always
hoped that at the earliest possible date there would be built in the
National Capital of the great Republic, a temple worthy of the
Celestial Patroness of all America, and that all the sooner because,
under the special patronage of Mary Immaculate, your University
has already attained a high degree of prosperity. The University,
We trust, will be the attractive centre about which will gather all
who love the teachings of Catholicism; similarly, We hope that to
this great church as to their own special sanctuary will come in
ever greater numbers, moved by religion and piety, not only the
students of the University, actual and prospective, but also the
Catholic people of the whole United States. O may the day soon
dawn when you, Venerable Brethren, will rejoice at the completion
of so grand an undertaking ! Let the good work be pushed rapidly
to completion, and for that purpose let everyone who glories in
the name of Catholic contribute more abundantly than usual to
the collections for this church, and not individuals alone but also
all your societies, those particularly which, by their rule, are bound
to honor in a special way the Mother of God. Nor in this holy
rivalry should your Catholic women be content with second place,
since they are committed to the promotion of the glory of Mary
Immaculate in proportion as it redounds to the glory of their own
sex.
After thus exhorting you, it behooves Us now to set an ex-
ample that will lead Our hearers to contribute with pious gen-
erosity to this great work of religion, and for this reason We have
resolved to ornament the high altar of this church with a gift
of peculiar value. In due time, We shall send to Washington an
image of the Immaculate Conception made by Our command in
the Vatican Mosaic Workshop, which shall be at once a proof of
Our devotion towards Mary Immaculate and Our goodwill toward
the Catholic University. Our human society, indeed, has reached
that stage in which it stands in most urgent need of the aid of
Mary Immaculate, no less than that of the joint endeavors of all
mankind. It moves now along the narrow edge which separates
security from ruin, unless it be firmly reestablished on the basis of
charity and justice.
In this respect, greater efforts are demanded of you than of
all others, owing to the vast influence which you exercise among
your people. Retaining, as they do, a most firm hold on the prin-
ciples of reasonable liberty and of Christian civilization, they are
destined to have the chief role in the restoration of peace and
order, and in the reconstruction of human society on the basis
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 443
of these same principles, when the violence of these tempestuous
days shall have passed. Meantime, We very lovingly in the Lord
impart the Apostolic benediction, intermediary of divine graces
and pledge of Our paternal goodwill, to you Our Beloved Sons, to
Our Venerable Brethren and to the clergy and people of your
flocks, but in a particular manner to all those who shall now or
in the future contribute to the building of the National Shrine of
the Immaculate Conception at Washington.
Given at St. Peter's, Rome, the tenth day of April, 1919, in
the fifth year of Our pontificate.
BENEDICT PP. XV.
HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL GIBBONS TO THE GENERAL
COMMITTEE OF BISHOPS.
BALTIMORE, May 5, 1919.
RIGHT REVEREND P. J. MULDOON, D.D.
RIGHT REVEREND J. SCHREMBS, D.D.
RIGHT REVEREND J. S. GLASS, C.M., D.D.
RIGHT REVEREND W. T. RUSSELL, D.D.
General Committee on Catholic Interests and Affairs.
Right Reverend and dear Bishops:
As the Administrative Committee of the National Catholic
War Council is to meet this week in New York, I ask its mem-
bers to convene separately also as "The General Committee on
Catholic Interests and Affairs." I cannot be present but I ask
Bishop Muldoon to act as chairman in my place. Archbishop
Hayes, on account of his pressing new duties, has resigned from
the Administrative Committee. I requested Archbishop Hanna
to suggest in his stead a bishop from the Far West. He proposed
Bishop Glass of Salt Lake City, whom I very gladly appointed
on the Administrative Committee and who will, consequently,
serve with us on the General Committee on Catholic Interests and
Affairs.
We all recognize, dear Bishops, the importance of the act
now being accomplished, in pursuance of the suggestion of the
Special Delegate of the Holy Father, Archbishop Cerretti. This
suggestion I regard as a divine call to summon our best thought
and maximum energy in order to organize and direct them for
the kindling of religion in the hearts of the American people.
Coming at this time it is providential; the formation of this Com-
mittee begins, I believe, a new era in our Church. A closely knit
organization of the Hierarchy acting together in harmony prom-
ises, under God's guidance, the greatest extension and develop-
ment of the influence of religion. No other Church in history,
444 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
probably, had so grand an opportunity challenging it as \ve have
at this moment. On us, and particularly on your younger minds
and stronger arms, devolves the duty of surveying the field and
planning the great work.
As I cannot be present at the first meeting to discuss with
you the scope of the work, I beg to submit to your consideration
some of my own thoughts and some suggestions made to me by
members of the Hierarchy. I am not yet prepared myself to
endorse all these suggestions, but coming from such esteemed
sources, I pass them on to you as topics to be considered in the
formation of plans.
The ordinary work of the Committee, as I conceive it, is to
prepare for the meetings of the Hierarchy and to serve as an
executive to carry out their decisions and wishes. It will neces-
sarily be a clearing house for the general interests of the Church.
In planning this work, one may make various division of
general "Catholic Interests and Affairs." I suggest the follow-
ing which is along practical rather than logical lines: 1. The
Holy See. 2. Home Missions. 3. Foreign Missions. 4. Social and
Charitable Work. 5. The Catholic University. 6. Catholic Educa-
tion in General. 7. Catholic Literature. 8. Catholic Press. 9.
Legislation. 10. A Catholic Bureau. 11. Finances.
1. The Holy See. Archbishop Cerretti explained to us on
the occasion of my Jubilee the pressing needs of the Holy See.
The countries of Europe impoverished by war will be able to
contribute little to the Holy Father. Yet, greater demands than
ever before are being made upon the Holy See in behalf of the
destitute and suffering in devastated lands, and for the main-
tenance of poor missions. "Rome," said His Excellency, "now
looks to America to be the leader in all things Catholic, and to
set an example to other nations." The Catholics of the United
States are in a position today to manifest in a way that will give
edification to the whole Church their generous loyalty to the
Father of Christendom. The sum of money we may hope to
raise and the best way to raise it are points to be considered under
Number 11.
2. Home Missions. The end of the War finds the Church in
this country in a stronger position than ever before. It is recog-
nized more widely and more clearly as the one Church that knows
its own mind, that has a message for society in its troubled state,
and that is obeyed and loved by its people. The decay of other
Churches will turn the thoughts of many towards us. The fine
record of our chaplains in the army and navy has taught millions
the real character of the Catholic clergy. Every bishop in his
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 445
own diocese will try to reap the harvest which was sown during
the War. But is it not possible for us to make larger plans? Can-
not the mind of the American public be more effectively reached?
Cannot the press spread Catholic truth, if the work be energetically
undertaken under the direction of the Hierarchy? Some suggest
a more active preaching campaign, of going out to the people
since the vast millions fail to come to our churches. Many sec-
tions of our country have few Catholics and are almost absolutely
ignorant of Catholicism. What can we do for them? On the vast
negro population, rapidly increasing in numbers and growing in
education and influence, we have made almost no impression.
Are our methods at fault or our zeal lacking? What can be done
for all these souls? We have organizations in the Home Mission
Field, Catholic Church Extension, the Missionary Union, the Negro
and Indian Commission, and several others, all more or less under
the control of the Hierarchy. Is closer cooperation among them
possible? Would it be well to reconsider the whole problem of
our Home Missions, which is, of course, the chief field of our
duty? Would a conference of those most intimately concerned be
advisable? This is a very large subject, of course, and requires
long study and much thought, but I am confident that our bishops,
missionaries, and the clergy in general are doing much valuable
thinking along these lines, of which the whole Church should
have the benefit. I am hopeful that a beginning will have been
made before the next meeting of the Hierarchy.
3. Foreign Missions. Our enormous needs at home in this
progressive country have so absorbed our thought and our zeal
that we hardly have been able, till very recently, to turn our
attention to foreign missions. The new position of our nation
as the great world power will surely enlarge our vision. All
over the world, America will have tremendous influence. Up to
the present moment, we may say, that influence has been entirely
non-Catholic. To the world in general, even to the Catholic world,
American is synonymous with Protestant. The wonderful
strength of the Church in this country is almost unknown to
foreign lands. The reason is that the Church abroad has profited
little by our strength and our riches. Now we cannot doubt that
vocations in this field, both of men and of women, will be found
in abundance, and it is our confident hope and prayer that God
will use American zeal, energy and organizing ability to give a
great impulse to foreign missions. How can the Hierarchy aid
in fostering the missionary spirit and in gathering the funds nec-
essary for the work?
4. Social and Charitable Work. The Catholic War Council
446 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
and the National Catholic Charities Conference have done most
valuable pioneer work in this field. We are deeply indebted to
the Administrative Committee for its timely guidance in the prob-
lems of this reconstructive period. Three things, in my opinion,
are needed. First, the presentation, definite, clear and forceful,
of Catholic social principles. Second, more knowledge as to the
best methods of Catholic social and charitable work. Third, a
more general impulse to put our social principles and methods
into operation. Society never had greater need for guidance. It
is turning for light to the Catholic Church. Too often, we must
admit, our principles, the principles of the Gospel, have lain hid-
den in our theologies, so much so that the recent pamphlet on
Social Reconstruction appeared to many a complete novelty. The
Church has a great work of social education and social welfare
lying before it. Here, again, the Hierarchy must take the lead.
Hardly anything in recent years has reflected greater glory
on the Church than the care of the moral welfare of our soldiers
and sailors during the War — a work begun by the Knights of
Columbus and perfected by the Hierarchy through its Committee
of the National Catholic War Council. Buildings with their equip-
ment are to be found in nearly all our Government forts and
stations here and abroad. No one, I presume, would think that
we should abandon this field df apostolic work. After the record
we have made, it would be impossible for us to say to our men
in the service: we leave you now to the care of the Y. M. C. A.,
the Jewish Welfare Board, and the Salvation Army. That these
organizations propose to keep up the work begun during the War,
there can be no doubt. Naturally, too, the Knights of Columbus
do not wish to give up this work or to abandon the valuable
property erected in Government stations and forts. This work
can be best done by the Knights with the support of the Hierarchy,
as a truly Catholic work. For the sake of our men in the service,
for the spiritual welfare of the Knights of Columbus, and for the
honor of the Church itself, this work then should continue to be
under the direction of the Hierarchy.
The time will soon come, too, when we shall have to consider
the best means of utilizing the zeal and good will of other Cath-
olic societies, both of men and women, and of the laity in general.
Our people long to be helpful and only need to have the way
shown to them.
5. The Catholic University. The Great War has revealed to
the world the all-penetrating influence of the highly trained intel-
lect. The universal unrest of the day seems a prelude to very
troubled times. Evil doctrines, propounded by clever minds, will
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 447
have more and more influence. Great need, then, will the Church
have of leaders with sure knowledge and well trained and well
balanced minds. Our greatest single hope is in The Catholic Uni-
versity which in its short existence has already been of the
greatest service in many ways that even the Catholic public, per-
haps, is not aware of. After its many vicissitudes, it stands today
upon a solid foundation. We have reason to be proud of it and
its achievements. It is the child of the Hierarchy and depends
for its support on the Hierarchy. Continually in the past its
development has been stunted for lack of funds. If it is to obtain
and hold its place among the leading universities of the United
States, a greater interest in its welfare and success uust be
aroused among our Catholic people. It ought not to be difficult
to double or treble, at least, the annual contribution. Our Com-
mittee should consider ways and means of affecting this.
A report on higher education among Catholics, relative to
the intellectual life of the country, is a great desideratum. It
would reveal the need of greater efforts to raise our intellectual
standards.
6. Catholic Education. Centralization in education is the
trend of the day and seems due to the needs of the situation.
What will be the outcome? How will Catholic interests be
affected? There is no question at present on which light is more
earnestly desired. It is, indeed, the most pressing of problems,
the one on which we can least afford to delay. I beg you to have
a careful treatment of this subject prepared and submitted to the
judgment of the most expert.
A less pressing but even more important matter is the sys-
tematization of our own educational forces. There is great waste
through lack of coordination. Do we not need more of system?
Will not the very trend on our national life force us to study and
overhaul our own educational structure?
7. Catholic Literature. We are not a literary Church, for
our busy ministry has left little leisure for literary pursuits.
Nevertheless our ministry would be greatly facilitated by the
production and spread of good books and pamphlets. As a matter
of fact it is greatly hampered now by lack of literature on the
most common topics of the day, which would enlighten inquirers
or strengthen the faith and deepen the piety of our own people.
It has been suggested that a literary bureau, under the patronage
of the Hierarchy, could easily secure writers to give us what is
lacking. Is this feasible? Certainly there is a great deal of liter-
ary talent among us which a little stimulation would rouse to a
very useful activity.
448 THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS [July,
The various Catholic Truth Societies of the country might
cooperate with greater effect, and be stirred to more productive-
ness. It would be easy to suggest many useful pamphlets that
should be written. A greater circulation of those already in exist-
ence is desirable. A Catholic literary bureau would greatly aid
both these projects.
Such a bureau could also enlist the services of able writers
in preparing articles on Catholic subjects for the secular papers
and magazines. It frequently happens that an attack more or
less open is made on the Church in the secular magazines or
papers. An answer is immediately forthcoming in our Catholic
press. But who reads it? It reaches a limited number of our
own people, but is unheard of by the world of non-Catholics who
have -read the attack in the secular press. Moreover, I submit
that we should not forever continue to place ourselves in a merely
apologetic, excusing, or defensive attitude. While not being
offensively aggressive, should we not endeavor occasionally to
secure a sympathetic hearing from our separated brethren by
articles calculated to inform the non-Catholic public on Catholic
teaching, practices, and endeavors, The world outside the Church
is not maliciously antagonistic to us. Its opposition is due to mis-
conceptions of the Church and her ambitions. We need to reach
the non-Catholic world, and the most effective means by which it
can be reached is the secular press.
8 The Catholic Press. The children of the world are wiser
in their day than the children of light. Certainly, there is no
comparison between the secular and the religious press, as regards
the interest of the reading matter which each provides. The
Catholic press has begun to imitate the secular press with its
central news associations and bureaus for syndicated articles.
Such associations and bureaus could raise the tone and heighten
the interest of our weeklies. Up to the present time, the Hier-
archy has taken no concerted action on behalf of the Catholic
press. In view of the immense influence for good which a popu-
lar press could have on our people, it is worthy of inquiry whether
we cannot come to its aid.
9. Legislation. There are many signs of increasing hostility
to the Church and of a desire to translate this hostility into leg-
islation, whether national or state. We have hardly had any
policy at all in regard to such matters and frequently have only
realized the intentions of our enemies when the hostile laws were
already enacted. The very success and growing strength of the
Church will make our enemies double their hatred and their cun-
ning. Most of the legislation hurtful to us, however, is passed
1919.] THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE BISHOPS 449
without any thought of injuring us. What means should we
take to know proposed measures of legislation and to prevent, if
possible, what is harmful? If we take any step in this direction,
although all Protestant Churches have representatives in Wash-
ington as all interests have, except ourselves, the cry will be raised
that the Church is in politics; but that cry has been heard all our
lives and in all generations back to the Sanhedrin that condemned
Christ. It is a matter, however, which we must carefully con-
sider and upon which the Hierarchy will desire a report.
10. Catholic Bureau. It is evident, at any rate, that the Gen-
eral Committee on Catholic Interests and Affairs will need head-
quarters and clerical assistance; otherwise it would be unable to
realize the purpose of its creation. Steps should be taken before
long to establish such a bureau.
11. Finances. Evidently, too, the plan of action which I have
outlined postulates a generous financial support. Our expenses,
however, in the campaign for funds during the last two years
should make us realize, as we have never done before, our pos-
sibilities. I am bound to say, however, that I have not yet attained
the confidence of some members of the Hierarchy in our ability
to raise millions. At our meeting one distinguished archbishop
suggested raising a million dollars for the Holy Father. Another
bishop suggests four millions annually for all Catholic purposes,
and still another would set the mark at five millions. I am sure
at any rate, dear Bishops, that the Hierarchy would welcome the
judgment which your own experience in the United War Work
Campaign would lead you to form.
The foregoing plan, I must admit, is a very comprehensive
one and furnishes almost enough matter of thought for a Plenary
Council. It is a plan that perhaps cannot soon be realized in
all its scope, yet I have thought it worth while to sketch the
outline in full. Some of the ideas may be realized soon and others
may be seed sown now which will sprout and bear fruit only after
many years. I rely on your excellent practical judgment to select
for our programme the most urgent matters and the most promis-
ing ideas, and I trust that when the Hierarchy meets next, our
General Committee on Catholic Interests and Affairs will be able
to present a workable plan of important things that ought soon
to be accomplished.
I remain, my dear Bishops,
Faithfully yours in Christ,
JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS,
Chairman General Committee on Catholic
Interests and Affairs.
VOL. CIX. 29
BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY.
BY JAMES I. KING.
IT has been said that "Bolshevism is the outcome
of drawing-room philosophy." The wealth of
truth contained in this statement is not at first
sight clear. It seems to come like a shaft from
the heavens, as sudden and unexpected as does
the flash of lightning in a clear sky. The storm grows, with-
out warning, amidst the rumble of thunder, reminding man
once again that nature has its Lord, greater and mightier than
the leaders of men. If we had inquired more carefully, prob-
ably the weather man could have told us a storm was coming.
Perhaps the same is true of Bolshevism. It had its harbingers
in the leger-de-main realm of philosophy, who sang the swan-
songs of dynasties, hoary with old age and respectability.
Systems of philosophy have been and are now being pro-
pounded of which demagogues, unchecked even by the leash
of conventionality, are the mouthpieces in the chambers of
nations. Theories of morality, subversive of all authority, un-
til recently confined for the most part to the class-room, are
now being translated into practice. Morality and religion have
been cast to the winds, and laws have received the sanction of
self-styled liberators, which would bring the blush of shame
even to the cheeks of a Don Juan or a Messalina.
It is a psychological law that the present can only be in-
terpreted in terms of the past. An extension of the same law
to society in general could perhaps be stated thus: present
events are best interpreted in terms of the past. This is the
psychological analogue of the time-honored dictum, " History
repeats itself." The known contains the key to the unknown.
To put it concretely, the French Revolution gives us a cue to the
interpretation of Bolshevism. Then, too, unbridled vice received
the sanction of misguided law, and violated nature was set up
as the golden calf for humanity's worship. The way was
blazed for this " Reign of Terror " by the religious and philos-
ophical gunpowder of Voltaire, and the social dynamite of
Rousseau. They were the sappers who laid the mines beneath
1919.] BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY 451
the trenches of an aristocracy over-confident in the strength
of pompous but crumbling fortifications. Marat, Danton, and
Robespierre, and a host of other demagogues applied the
match. And lo! the social structure that had withstood the
stormy seas for centuries, vanished as if by magic. A few years
before, men of every rank and station in life drank in
voraciously the philosophical vagaries of their idol Voltaire.
Little did the proud aristocrats dream that these doctrines,
which they sought to have him expound in their salons, would
one day so intoxicate the frenzied masses, that their thirst
would refuse to be satiated except by "blue blood."
Voltaire understood humanity. He realized that the
columns supporting the social edifice must be removed one at
a time. First, he set man's mind adrift in the tractless waste
of skepticism. Little wonder that morality disappeared. Re-
ligion was the only power left to check unbridled passions and
to support a fast decaying social structure. With serpentine in-
genuity he advanced, apparently removing the poison from
his fangs by still leaving room for God's existence as an aid to
culture. Rousseau attacked existing social institutions. All
men were at first naturally good and free, but they had yielded
their rights by virtue of the " Social Contract." The " Social
Contract " had been abused by a form of society which was the
root-evil of man's unhappiness. Hence, he advocated its over-
throw and a " back to nature " campaign. Then followed the
Encyclopedists, anarchists in social and philosophical matters,
and professed atheists in religion. These doctrines were the
whetstones for the scythes and swords of the masses. In short,
the Revolution was simply the external expression of a social
state of mind created by a coterie of materialistic philos-
ophers.
Though dead, their doctrines are still scattered broadcast
by printing-presses, belching forth their poison unchecked on
the masses. How freighted with truth and meaning are the
words of the bard of Avon:
We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it,
She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.1
Undoubtedly the same poison that caused the fearful excesses
1 Macbeth, Act III., sc. 2.
452 BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY [July,
of the French Revolution lingers still within society's bosom.
Their works have been the text-books of radicals, and fur-
nished arrows for their quivers ever since.
Plato in his Republic would place the destinies of nations in
the hands of philosophers. This was set forth by him as an
ideal. Little did he think it was one day to be realized. False
doctrines, propounded under the guise of philosophy, are can-
cers in society, working slowly but surely until they reach
its very vitals. They are all the more dangerous and deadly
owing to the fact that they are an unsuspected enemy within
the camp. Man is truly " the paragon of animals," when he fol-
lows the dictates of his higher nature. He is more, he is the
" high-priest of nature." But once these God-given faculties
are debased, he sinks to a level even below that of the animal.
The animal cannot withstand the check of nature, but man is
free to cast it aside and work untold havoc. It was by making
intellect's noblest product, philosophy, a traitor to human na-
ture, that Voltaire and his co-workers succeeded in this accom-
plishment.
Action that has far-reaching results demands antecedent
thought. The masses do not think, and yet social upheavals
are the result of thought. Society, just as the individual, is sub-
ject to the biological law of gradual progress. It cannot be
transformed in a moment. Earthquakes " cast their shadows
before," be they physical or social. Hence, social earthquakes
that swallow up dynasties and revolutionize institutions of
long standing, though they actually happen in the twinkling of
an eye, have far-reaching antecedents. The false doctrines of
philosophers are the earth-rumblings indicative of the ap-
proach of humanity's catastrophes. It is true mobs act rather
than think. However, it is equally true that thinking has
been done. If they do not think, then, it is because somebody
else has done the thinking for them. Thus, Voltaire and his
philosophic brethren were the manufacturers, Danton and his
associates, the middle men, and the French people the con-
sumers. May not the same be true of Bolshevism ?
We fully realize, philosophy was only one of the factors
helping to make possible the French Revolution. This argu-
ment only seeks to suggest that there was a like condition in
the case of Bolshevism.
All roads in modern radical philosophy seem to return ulti-
1919.] BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY 453
mately to Kant. He acts " as a sign-post in philosophy, with
many fingers pointing in different directions and the road taken
depends largely on the personality and needs of the trav-
eler."2 He sought to save religion and morality from the cor-
roding influence of materialism and skepticism by placing it in
the realm of Practical Reason, inaccessible to the shafts of
Pure Reason. In so doing, he rendered them non-rational, and
the outcome of emotion and will, which are blind, if not guided
by the light of the intellect. It was but a short step for Hegel
to eliminate the supernatural altogether. Modernism sought
to compromise the difficulty by bringing religion into con-
formity with its irreconcilable enemies, Rationalism and Prag-
matism. But such an alliance could only be a subterfuge and
culminate in the annihilation of religion. For the pragmatists,
religion is a matter of purely individual concern. Humanity
unfortunately carries with it much unnecessary excess baggage
in the form of a " funded accumulation of beliefs." Religion
pertains to this excess, and so in the enlightened struggle for
scientific and democratic freedom, the decks must be cleared
for action, and all that is not absolutely essential must be cast
overboard. " The prince of darkness," writes Professor
James, " may be a gentleman as we are told he is : but what-
ever the God of earth and heaven is, he surely can be no gentle-
man." 3 Perhaps, in consideration of the less scientific section
of humanity, the pragmatists would permit a referendum!
Why should not humanity have a voice in the election of its
God? The respect given to such an elective God would, then,
be likewise placed on a democratic basis, taking the form of
a tribute to our wisdom in choosing Him. Caligula ought
certainly to receive a pedestal in the pragmatic pantheon!
Thus the pragmatists carry Bolshevism up to heaven.
Such is the time-spirit. We must have democracy like-
wise in intellectual matters. Dogmas and first principles are
fetters binding us to the rock of absolute truth. Let us burst
them asunder and cast off "the strait-jacket of con-
sistent thinking ! " In the new philosophic democracy, prob-
lems are to be settled by vote, or better still let them be voted
out of existence. Pragmatism claims, "the open air and pos-
sibilities of nature, as against dogma, artificiality, and the pre-
2J. M. Sullivan, Old Criticism and New Pragmatism, p. 252.
8 Pragmatism, p. 72.
454 BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY [July,
tense of finality and truth." That a thing should be true
whether we like it or not, is as hateful as the old Russian Autoc-
racy. (May not their philosophers' stone be after all but
Medusa's head petrifying all true intellection!) Disregarding
problems is by no means solving them. Such a system debases
intelligence, denying it the power to probe into depths of na-
ture's mysteries, and instead enmeshing it in a spider-like crea-
tion. Such dilettanti philosophers are the spiders, their sys-
tems the webs, and the public the flies on which they live or
inextricably entangle in their fatal webs.
Darwin startled the world with his dogmatic assurances
of a haphazard evolution. Herbert Spencer wove the web.
Huxley assured us that our ancestors were to be found within
the bars of the zoo. The seductive cry, "Back to Nature," of
Rousseau received a new impetus. Misguided philosophy ran
wild, and accepted without hesitation the fundamental dictate
of a radical evolutionism — truth is relative. The traditional
tyrant of philosophy " absolute truth," has been vanquished
from the lists. Evolution has taught us everything that exists
is in an eternal flux. Truth as reality contains a personal
fringe, it is " man-made." It changes with human nature. The
distinction between the true and the false must of necessity be
blurred and almost non-existent in a cosmos eternally flowing
and unmolested by an antecedent finality. Our search must be
not for the truth, but for the " more true," " the truth up-to-
date." Truths change just like fashions, expediency being their
determinant. Relativistic philosophy has proved itself to be
the Perseus that would rescue a new Andromeda from the rock
of authority to which the chains of tradition had bound
humanity.
Nature itself must march foremost among the captives in
philosophy's triumph. Mechanical invention has bent her proud
neck to the yoke of human power. All things are possible, the
only limit to man's power being laziness and pusillanimity.
Humanity in the role of Prospero, has again reopened his
magical books of science and democracy, and made nature
his Caliban, and God his Ariel. Success, unchecked by the
bridle of authority, is the sesame to the latent treasures of
human nature. Cast aside " hard facts " and let expediency be
the touchstone of success, and success itself the goal.
Yet, despite this regained freedom difficulties may impede
1919.] BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY 455
democracy's triumphant march. Dr. Schiller writes : " Deli-
cate questions may arise out of the fact that not only does what
works receive social recognition, but also that which receives
social recognition for this very reason works." 4 Thus our
" Ironclads " and " Berthas " will still have to remain in action
as the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical problems. Prus-
sianism may lurk in some hidden nook to disturb the freedom
of our philosophic seas!
After all, a league of nations may be possible in the
metaphysical realm. Democracy can in no wise worship the
bellicose force of Nietzsche. But we must have some force,
which will take the form of laws, national and international,
propounded by an enlightened democracy. This does not
mean that we shall have to recall the slain monster " author-
ity," but rather that public opinion will have sufficient demo-
cratic force to cause a peaceful decision. Gradual enlighten-
ment will evolve a brotherhood and an unanimity among
humankind.
These doctrines have found their middlemen from time
to time. Syndicalist philosophy, of which Bolshevism is the
extreme expression, could not find more fertile soil than the
thought of Bergson. It would seem as if he held a brief for
it in the courts of reason. Strike for strike's sake, and an-
archy unchecked by any form of restraining authority is surely
its practical phase. Social institutions are the vanes, indica-
tive of bifurcations, crystallized or deposited here and there by
the elan vital in its everchanging progress, moved by the fickle
winds of human passions. Movement is of the very essence of
life 5 and reality.6 " The essential thing," writes Bergson, " is
the continual progress,7 and " the role of life is to insert some
indetermination into matter. Indeterminate, i. e., unforseeable
are the forms it creates in the course of its evolution," it is
" a veritable reservoir of indetermination." Unforseeableness
is of the very essence of the evolution. Press on unhampered
by any purpose or end, tear down and live in the flux, leaving
the elan vital to look after the outcome : " To movement, then,
everything will be resolved." 9 Nietzsche ought to be the ideal
of Bergsonian Bolshevism : " I am no man, I am dynamite."
Vitality and vagueness go hand in hand likewise in Bolshevism.
* Humanism, ^?. 59. 6 Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, pp. 128, 249, etc.
8 Idem., pp. 239, 250, etc. T Idem., p. 77. 8 Idem., p. 126. ° Idem., p. 250.
456 BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY [July,
The inevitable never comes to pass, and the unexpected always
happens.
We of today, witnessing Bolshevism spreading over Europe
like a forest fire, cannot see the connection between these false
systems and this all-consuming cataclysm. Due perspective is
lacking. To see it in all its harmonious proportions we would
need to look through the spectacles of time. We do not say
that either the pragmatists or Bergson formulated their philos-
ophy for the Bolshevists, rather that Bolshevism is but the
practical expression of their philosophy. They humanize truth
and reality at the expense of dehumanizing human nature. But
nature will have its revenge. Skepticism is the leprosy that in-
sidiously attacks human certitude, and eventually destroys it.
Society without religion and morality is as a body without
a soul. Add to this the destruction of all certitude in human
belief, and even the external form of society must of necessity
vanish. If put into practice such philosophy can only result in
Bolshevism.
Human nature is not ordinarily radical. It needs some
camouflage to hide at least its most glaring points of attack.
Dilettante philosophy has invariably been its screen. Thus
Marx intruded his system on society under cover of
Hegelianism and Darwinism; Sorel and other "social dyna-
miters " found the road already blazed by the pragmatists and
Bergson. Nietzsche told the world, " I have fulfilled Christ's
work by destroying it." An army of sectarian pragmatic
theologians rifled the Scriptures and the message of its value
in men's lives. Dogmas were at first made to possess " a kernel
of truth," and then to be the symbolic expression of man's
emotional nature. In short, they were rendered useless.
Morality without religion naturally could not persist for long
to trouble men's minds. Philosophical pragmatists, if they con-
descend to consider morality any longer, regard it as a mere
conventional agreement, necessary for society in the same way
as etiquette. Thus, Professor James advocated " moral holi-
days;"10 self-styled philosophers are now bolder setting forth
as their ideal of life one long " moral holiday." Professor
Dewey in an address in Chicago said : " There is a manifest in-
crease of uncertainty Yet nothing is gained by moves
which will increase confusion and obscurity, which tend to an
10 Pragma t is m, pp. 77-79.
1919.] BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY 457
emotional hypocrisy and to a phrasemongering of formulae
which seem to mean one thing and really import the opposite.
. . . Till these ends are further along than we can honestly claim
them to be at present, it is better that our schools should do
nothing than that they should do wrong things. It is better for
them to confine themselves to their obviously urgent tasks than
that they should, under the name of spiritual culture, form
habits of mind which are at war with the habits of mind con-
gruous with democracy and science." "
French syndicalists have abandoned the Marxian principle
of the materialistic conception of history for Creative Evolu-
tion. Sorel is almost repeating Bergson's words, when
he proclaims : " Man has only genius in the measure that he
does not reflect." Bergson writes : " The intellect is charac-
terized by a natural inability to comprehend life.12 . .*. Keep
your intelligence for the humdrum things of every-day life,
but use your intuition to evolve new creations." Instinct
" pierces the darkness of the night which the intellect
leaves." 13 The elan vital is gradually perfecting itself and
reaching its essence — the eternal flux. Sorel and Bergson are
common enemies of intelligence, placing their reliance on an
unf orseeable impetus. Commenting on Marx's capitalistic catas-
trophe Sorel writes: "This text need not be taken literally;
we are in the presence of what I have called a social myth; we
have a strongly colored sketch which gives a clear idea of
change, but no detail of which can be discussed as a for-
seeable historical fact. ... It is not to be hoped that the revo-
lutionary movement can ever follow a direction rightly deter-
mined in advance. . . . Everything in it is unpredictable. . . .
It is just because of these novelties in the revolutionary move-
ment that care must be taken not to use any formulae except
mythical formulae; discouragement might result from dis-
illusionment produced by the disproportion between reality
and what is expected." " The politic strike is made by people
who plan out its consequences (and know what they want) ;
it is the great value of the general strike that it overthrows
society absolutely, and leads to an unknown future entirely
different from the past."
This implicit trust in the unknown, characteristic of Berg-
™ Hlbbert Journal, Religion and Our Schools, vol. vi.} 1907, 1908.
12 Creative Evolution, p. 165. « Idem., p. 268.
458 BOLSHEVISM AND PHILOSOPHY [July,
son and Sorel, is of the very essence of Bolshevism. One form
of demagogy succeeds another, and assumes control, only to
find its place has been usurped by another. All is truly fleeting,
and chance is of its very nature. In keeping with philosophical
democracy religion is taboo, and morality is reversed.
What would be the result of such theories in practical life?
If Me is purposeless and unreasonable, the " will to live " is
also unreasonable. The resultant creed could be only a pes-
simism worse than Schopenhauer's, " Life is a bed of red hot
coals with a few cool places here and there." Life under
Bolshevism would be a continual explosion.
Such theories as we have outlined were the philosophical
and inevitable antecedents of the modern " Reign of Terror "
in Russia. Thought leads to action, and sooner or later, if gen-
erally accepted, false philosophy will become the mold to shape
the destinies of nations. Every one despises the enemy that
stoops so low as to poison wells, but many look on approvingly
while the wells of thought are being poisoned.
The past and the present, amidst the discord of growing
social disharmony, contains one resounding dominant for
the future, namely, caution. Stock should be taken of our
philosophical currency. Counterfeits will not give the true
ring of authority when tested at the bar of reason. They may
misguide the unsuspecting public by their false copy, but like
all false coinage, their only authority is that of their maker,
and their value is misleading. Authority alone defines the
worth of our coinage, whether it be philosophical or
social.
HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.
BY C. C. MARTINDALE, S.J.
INTRODUCTION.
WISH to make clear, first, what these short articles
are not meant to be. They are not a commen-
tary on St. John's Gospel, nor yet a " life " of
Christ drawn from it; nor yet any complete ex-
position of the doctrine contained in it. Still less
are they a critical examination of its authenticity, reliabilty,
date or sources. Biblical handbooks supply that to students.
They are not meant to be " scholarly " at all, nor to accumulate
opinions, nor to display erudition. Nor yet are they meant to
be merely pious meditations " based " upon St. John.
But I have wished to write these pages for three reasons,
in the main: first, because I love St. John's Gospel beyond all
other Christian literature (and Christian literature beyond all
other in the world) and would experience a unique happiness
were I to assist, in any least way, others too to love it better;
second, because I value in a supreme degree that doctrine of
the Supernatural Life which is his peculiar theme : and third,
because I have very often found that St. John's Gospel,
methodically read, somehow puts vitality into certain funda-
mental dogmatic notions concerning Grace, Faith, Communion
and the like, which have been held with docility and, indeed,
reverence, but which have not yet exerted their full power upon
the soul, nor been actively identified with a man's conscious
convictions. I have noticed again and again the positive ex-
ultation of spirit which those have experienced who have
learned to construe St. John, and to realize their own super-
natural possessions, in the light of the guiding notions I try to
disengage. It is, then, certain guiding notions, directive ideas,
organic doctrines — what you will — I will try below, to explain
these phrases better — which I hope to set forth in order; thus
striving to reach the mind of St. John himself, and through
him the mind of Christ. St. John, in writing, had a purpose
and plan, as well as a message: that is what we want to see,
even to understand the message as he gives it. Thus, much
which in any theological treatise, even upon St. John, would
460 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
have been included, is here omitted. But what is said, will not
prove false to the bearing and intention of the whole.
These are half-way pages. We have all read St. John; we
do not want to end with reading anything whatsoever upon
him merely; but perhaps after studying even the humblest
page upon him, we may be able to re-read himself almost as a
new thing. Dominus dirigat.
I.
ST. JOHN.
Volat avis sine meta
Quo nee vates nee propheta
Evolavit altius.
Tarn implenda quam impleta
Nunquam vidit tot secreta
Purus homo purius.
John was the son of a well-to-do Galilean fisherman and
his wife Salome; his name means " Jehovah has been gracious."
He and his brother James were called by Our Lord to follow
Him, and they left their father and his hired men in the boat
where they had been cleaning nets and joined Andrew and
Peter, who had been called somewhat earlier. There is
little to be known about his character in those earlier days;
but what little there is points all one way. It was he and James
who, hotly jealous for Our Lord's honor, cried out for permis-
sion to blast by thunderbolt the Samaritan village which had
refused Him hospitality, and learned from Him that not yet
they understood that Spirit of His which was to be also theirs.
Themselves, He gently rebuked them, were like thunderbolts—
" sons of the thunder," in His language, will have had that
meaning — not such the ancestry of those " reborn " of whom
John was himself, one day, to write. John too and James it
was for whom their mother was to beg the two chief places in
that destined kingdom which she, like them, still so much mis-
understood; and John who, indignant because the privilege of
the band of Apostles had been disregarded, complained to
Jesus that he had seen a man performing miracles in His Name,
[EDITOR'S NOTE. — The very beautiful Latin verse is taken from a hymn for
the Octave of St. John, found in the ancient Missals of the Churches of Germany.
A running translation is as "ollows: "He is the eagle who soared on high; nor
seer, nor prophet passed him in his flight. No pure mind ever saw more clearly
mysteries past or yet to be."]
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 461
who did not " follow with " the Twelve. " We forbade him,"
said the angry young man, and was, here too, rebuked.
But Jesus had a special affection for the hot-headed and
ambitious brothers, and kept them close to Himself, with Peter,
the chief of His Church-to-be. And, indeed, it was to John
alone that the name " beloved disciple " became attached.
It was he who lay next to Jesus at the Last Supper, so that by
leaning his head back he could whisper to Him and hear His
answer, the others unaware; and to him Christ trusted
Mary.
Specially loved, and therefore more than others lovable,
or destined so to be; for Christ's generous heart, though it
detects the good and right, assuredly, where meaner eyes than
His can see but the unlovable, yet cannot love what neither is,
nor shall nor can be fit for love.
And a strong brain too was his. Else he could never have
understood, nor even wished or tried to understand, the ideas
he looks towards in his Gospel. For, we shall see, not only are
intuitions there, mystical and sublime, but a purposed atten-
tion to the thought that surrounded him. His was not a creative
and imperial intellect like Paul's: but it was not shut to the
problems, as we should call them, of his day. Nor was erudi-
tion destined to be his : he was never drilled, as Paul was, in the
minutiae of current theologies; yet was he well aware of the
tendencies of Palestinian and Egyptian and even of Greek
thought. Still, all these things occasion no more than isolated
details in his writings, or, at most, lend a pale added color
to certain passages; his will be a personality of quite ex-
ceptional force, not a mere mind; and he will cry aloud, in
many ways, his message, not as an argument, nor for the sake
of critics, but as a declaration, and for its own sake.
But it was long before that personality could fully free and
form itself, and act with all its energy. Not less steeped than
the others, at the outset, in Jewish prejudice, even in the Acts
(where he is seen at work) , his place is beside Peter, not Paul.
With Peter and James, he perceives Paul's special mission,
and gives him leave to preach where he wills; but not yet does
John follow him.
It was in old age that he wrote, not even then having fully
conquered the Greek language. His native tongue and ways of
thought show most clearly through the Greek of the
462 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
Apocalypse, which, it is not fanciful to argue, may well contain
the meditations, as it were, or the " lights in prayer " belonging
to a whole series of years, and cast (perhaps under the Em-
peror Domitian) into the extraordinarily complex form which
that book displays. The Gospel, by all tradition, was the work
of his extreme old age, written down, as tradition again sug-
gests, by the intimate disciples of the aged Apostle, men con-
versant with his innermost thought, and schooled to listen to
his preaching and dictation.
A Catholic can legitimately surmise, should he be so per-
suaded, that these disciples are responsible for the differences
between the Greek of the Gospel and that of the Apocalypse.
For though Hebraisms show plainly through the Greek of the
Gospel, and though St. John's favorite words and turns of
phrase are noticeable in both documents, and though, to my
feeling, there is no necessary force whatever in the arguments
which would show that the two could not have been written by
one man, yet, equally to my feeling, the difference in the Greek
is so enormous that it cannot possibly be explained by a mere
Improvement in St. John's knowledge of that tongue, however
early you put the Apocalypse, and however late the Gospel.
Perhaps St. John may have written two very different Greeks;
but that is an odder hypothesis than that his secretaries im-
proved, somewhat, his style. Thus, the Apocalypse would have
come directly from his pen: the Gospel indirectly: yet not
indirectly from his mind; not like the Second Gospel, which
good tradition tells us, is practically the preaching of St. Peter,
consigned to writing by his friend and secretary Mark, yet must
definitely be called "according to Mark," and not " according to
Peter;" while it would be wrong to call the Fourth " the Gospel
according to John's disciples." It is altogether John's.
There is one other point only to which I should like to re-
fer, closely connected with this hypothesis that the Gospel did
not receive its style directly from St. John's pen nor even a
finished shape from anyone's. Not only does it appear defi-
nitely to end with chapter twenty; only to resume in chapter
twenty-one; while chapter twenty-one, verse twenty-four, ap-
pears with some probability to be added by a disciple's hand
(though neither can this be proved) ; but the prologue itself
seems to me to bear quite evident traces of having been written
independently, and not quite successfully joined on to a docu-
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 463
ment beginning, like the Synop lists, with the ministry of the
Baptist. Even, there are in it traces of a " double recension,"
to my mind quite obvious : the parentheses are awkward, and
the thought far from consecutive. This is the theory, in part,
of Father Galmes, O.P.,1 a book in no way novel or untrust-
worthy in its method and principles. Father Calmes, too,
shows well how by a slight rearrangement of the paragraphs
relating to St. Peter's denial, a " harmony " of no artificial sort
is at once effected between St. John and the Synoptists. The
episode, finally, of the woman taken in adultery, which, though
lacking in so many manuscripts, seems to be certainly St.
John's, can thus be regarded as an authentic, but detached, nar-
rative of his, inserted by his amanuenses where best they could.
These suggestions cannot of course be proved any more than
the supposition that John himself wrote the Gospel with his
own hand exactly as it stands. But they are mentioned be-
cause, to our mind, they explain so much that is puzzling, and
are not rash or disconcerting, but well in keeping alike with the
evidence of the document itself, and with the decrees of the
Biblical Commission concerning it: also they lend vitality to
the actual document, and do not leave it hanging, inexplicable,
in mid-air. We maintain that on critical grounds alone, there
is no valid reason to suppose that Gospel and Apocalypse and
Epistles are alike the work of John, son of Zebedee, the " be-
loved " of Our Lord.
John, when he set to work to write his Gospel, did so at a
date when the Synoptists had long been in existence, and were
so well known in the Christian community that he could rely
upon being able to assume that knowledge in his own readers,
and could take it for granted that his own allusions to the
events they narrated would be recognized and understood.
It was not to be expected that he would simply produce a
fourth account just similar to theirs. Nor did he. It has been
suggested that he did little more than collect, and make per-
manent, records of events and sayings omitted by them. This
is no doubt true in certain instances. At the opposite extreme,
it has been argued that while the Synoptists scarcely meant to
do more than narrate, to give us facts and tell us things that
happened, to write history, in short, in its most objective form,
John, on the other hand, was "subjective," offers us ideas and
ideals, beliefs but half disguised in narrative which may be
1 Evangile selon St. Jean, 1906.
464 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
downright fiction, mere allegory; composes, in a word, a sub-
lime but speculative theology, symbolized here and there by
scenes from a highly idealized " life " of Christ. The solid in-
formation intended to be conveyed, and in fact conveyed, by
the Synoptists, is easily to be discerned beneath the thinnest
veil of beliefs and ideas; while for such ideas and beliefs, high
aspirations and exquisite spiritual intuition, John's Gospel
would be, indeed, a source unique in the world's religious his-
tory; but a historical record he neither means to be nor is.
The first of these two views, held by few if any, nowadays,
is felt to be quite inadequate as an explanation of the diver-
gence between the first three Gospels and St. John's ; the second
is worse, being (to our mind, and according to the Church's
tradition and her recent decrees) positively false, and, indeed,
fantastically so. But this is at least true, that the Synoptists
intend, on the whole, to narrate; John, on the whole to preach
a doctrine. But the Synoptists, too, are teaching, and John, too,
is telling.
You may say that the Synoptists are servants of their ma-
terial, strive to be impersonal, to move towards a goal they
do not choose, within limits they do not designate : John elects
his goal, defines his scope, and creates his method, and master-
fully (though not tyrannically nor arbitrarily) disposes of his
material to suit a dominant purpose. In other words, his Gos-
pel is composed around, controlled and verified by, a governing
or directive idea.
I wish first to define more exactly what I mean by such
directive ideas; in order afterwards to seek to indicate
what John's were, and in the light of these to re-read his
Gospel.
Any literary work has some sort of shape; it is not
a mere juxtaposition of phrases and paragraphs; it must have
some principle which gives it unity and life. Thus the novel
of incident and intrigue is knit into coherence by what we call
the plot : or a historical treatise may at least be rounded off by
the natural limits of a life or a reign, or a dynasty. Here
ideas are but slightly involved. A period, however, may be
indicated less by its dates than by its temperament or char-
acter, or some policy. Or a whole play may grow round a
character, developing or degenerating. We lose everything if
we read Macbeth, Hamlet or Lear for the plot. In what pur-
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 465
ports to be sheer history, you can often see the shaping power
of an idea in the author's mind : thus Grote's History of Greece
has often been called a panegyric of democracy; Tacitus is
swayed, though less, by his belief in aristocracy; Herodotus,
colored throughout by his fixed belief in the Grudge of God,
laying the mighty low. Carlyle's French Revolution is a decep-
tive book, so do dominant ideas distort the facts: history in
the Old Testament is superbly and fruitfully interpreted from
the standpoint of God's direct activity in and for and through
the chosen race.2 In a cultured poem, like Virgil's jEneid, the
verifying principle is far more nearly an idea — thus, Destiny
and Eternal Rome — than a man or an event, as in Homer
whom, in a sense, he imitates: while in many modern novels
or plays, like Tolstoi's or Ibsen's, the idea triumphs till the
action or plot is all but symbolical; Ghosts is little more than
a visualized assertion of heredity: in Peer Gynt, the problem
of self-realization by way of self-renunciation is whimsically
and tragically treated. Zola changed as he went, from a sheer
photography of facts to the downright argumentation of a
thesis: the episodes and personages lost all value save as
premises in a complex syllogism. Of course, with a Maeter-
linck and the symbolists, everything — dialogue, characters,
mise-en-scene — has ceased to have intrinsic value save as the
artistic vehicle used by the directive idea.
Now, in i series of historical writers, John would have a
different place from that of the Synoptists. Neither he nor
they would coincide with out-and-out symbolists at the one
end, nor with mere analysts at the other. But there is more
affinity in the Synoptists with the latter; and in John with the
former. He deals, indeed, with history, hands down reliable
facts, does not distort nor falsify nor invent them; yet he does
select, arrange and interpret them in accordance with his
directive ideas. The virtues proper to the Synoptists are,
chiefly, industry and fidelity. They collect, compare and com-
bine documents but even when they edit them, scrupulously
respect the written word. Oral tradition they hand on, scarcely
2 1 mean, its writers never intend to give a complete secular history of the Jews,
still less (e. g., in Genesis) of the world, or even an account which, as secular his-
tory, could be regarded as in perspective. Thus, " secularly," the reign of Omri was
of great importance: the chronicler dismisses it with a brief comment on that King's
moral behavior. The action of foreign nations is regarded as that of rebels against,
or instruments of, Yahweh, and what has no significance, from that viewpoint, is
passed over.
VOL. eix. 30
466 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
interpreting and never re-casting it.3 They are channels, not
sources; they narrate, not inculcate; reproduce, not reflect.
Of course the Synoptists are not mere machines. They too
have their separate purposes and methods. Luke's are not
Mark's by any manner of means. Moreover, their person-
alities well survive, illuminating even their treatment of iden-
tical events. The Palestinian Matthew; the naive and pic-
turesque Mark; the careful, cultured yet devout Luke, are no
mere stenographers. On the other side, John's historical touch
is sure. Many are the details which he remembers accurately,
and sets down for their own sake, without actually adding to,
or being exacted by, the idea beneath whose spell he yet, at the
time, is writing. His theology is well incarnate.
John uses the same facts, or other facts historically as true;
yet sixty years at least of apostolic toil and meditative prayer
separated him from those facts : his powerful personality con-
ditioned his attitude to any fact and selected certain features in
the landscape of his retrospect. For the aged author a per-
spective had been created, otiose details eliminated, hard edges
softened, disparate elements fused, interconnections estab-
lished and an atmosphere interposed. Incidents at first half-
understood, even misunderstood, as he confesses, had become
illuminated by the light of the lived Christian life; no fact
could remain mere fact, but became charged with meaning,
often with many meanings, and carried him beyond the un-
profitable flesh into the realm of the vivifying Spirit.
Hence in studying this Gospel, we must cease to read its
incidents as though St. John saw in them no spiritual meaning
symbolized by the facts, indeed, we must expect and look for
one : nor must wre read the discourses he in such definite form
sets down, as mere reminiscences of words spoken very long
ago and included just for memory's sake. Father Lebreton,
S.J., in L'Histoire da Dog me de la Ste Trinite, a book of incom-
parable value as an aid to study and to prayer alike, expresses
this with his usual subtlety, force and insight.
" The personal stamp is so strongly impressed upon John's
whole work that the book seems woven of one piece through-
out, prologue, narrative, discourses. The facts are not related
"Thus they faithfully adhere to the expression Son of Man, abandoned as it
already seems to have been by their immediate audience. John has his personal
style as well as thought.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 467
for their own sake . . .they are selected, few . . . developed at
great length. Nor are they presented separately, but inserted
into theological interpretations which illumine them. . . . In-
deed, at times the interpretation and the discourse are so in-
timately united that it is hard to discern where Christ's speech
ends, and the Apostle's own reflections begin. One has the im-
pression that the words, like the acts, of Jesus have been long
and lovingly meditated by the writer who records them; they
are wholly penetrated by his life and thought, even as they
would seem to have modeled John unto their own image.
Such being the character of the Johannine Gospel, it were
superfluous, we think, and perhaps impossible, to discriminate,
in the theological analysis of the book, the discourses of Jesus
and the reflections of the Evangelist.
" Distinct as the sources doubtless are, their waters are so
intermingled that skillful, indeed, were the eye which would
distinguish them. The revelation comes authentically from
Jesus; but today it is across the soul of St. John that we behold
it; John's Gospel is Christ's seamless robe; only in its entirety
can it be grasped, else were its texture rent. Yet, though seen
only across John's soul, it is Christ's self we see: He is not
John's creation." 4
Acceptable tradition tells that John became Bishop of
Ephesus, and very likely he exercised there the office, as it were,
of metropolitan. This is suggested by the covering letter ad-
dressed to the " Seven Churches " of the province of Asia. Of
the stories that soon begin to cluster round his name, one still
suggests the fiery spirit of his youth : he rushed out of the build-
ing in which he had heard the heretic Cerinthus also was; he
yielded to his horror of falsehood before his love for the perish-
ing soul had time to triumph. But on the whole the legends are
sweet and gentle: the pet partridge he kept and caressed: the
robber whom his grave and unresisting courtesy converted:
the refrain of his exhortations, that his little children should
love one another. But we can see that for all his gentleness, his
personality had not weakened; innocence of mind and habit
does, indeed, thus preserve and even augment interior strength.
Life is his theme, and an intense glow of life was his up to the
end. He could pass easily from his earthly habitation into that
Eternal Life which he had so long and so firmly watched, and
377.
468 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
which he knew himself, as we shall see, already to possess.
Peace reigned within him, according to Christ's promise; fear
had been well cast out by love grown perfect : " While Paul
amazes and enflames, John uplifts, yet calms the soul: Paul
cries aloud, dazzles and is dazzled : John'.s is the pure eye that
steadily watches God; and his voice, though it has echoes of the
thunder of ' many waters,' is peaceful and serene."
I print many of the quotations in a form nearer to verse
than prose. This is done partly to bring out, by their position,
certain leading words or phrases : partly because in the Greek
itself a very marked rhythm is discernible; partly because the
Hebrew method of rhythmic arrangement by parallel, contrast,
assonance, etc., shows with sufficient clearness through the
Greek.
II.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPEL.
" No one can grasp the meaning of John's Gospel if he have
not leaned upon the breast of Jesus, nor received from Jesus,
Mary to be his mother too." 5
These things have been written that you may believe
That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
And that believing
You might have LIFE in His Name.6
LIFE is the keynote to John's Gospel. Eternal Life, existing
and mysteriously circulating in a group of Three — God, the
Father of All: His Eternal Son made man: and men made Sons
of God.
In the Beginning
Existed the Word;
And the Word was with God
And the Word was God.
The Word was made flesh
And dwelt amongst us :
Of His fulness all we have received :
As many as received Him
To them gave He power to become
Children of God.7
Even as the Father hath
Life in Himself,
« Orlgen, In Joann., i. 6. • Chap. xx. 31. T Chap. i. 1, 14, 16, 12.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 469
So to the Son hath He granted to have
Life in Himself.
Even as the Father
Raiseth the dead and maketh them alive,
Even so the Son,
Whom He wills, them maketh He alive.8
Lo what manner of Love
Hath the Father granted us,
That we be called
Children of God—
And so, indeed, we are:
Beloved, even now
Children of God are we,
And not yet hath it been revealed
What we shall be,9
(But) he who hath the Son
HATH ETERNAL LIFE.
Such, then, is the statement of the Mystery. Slowly, and in
St. John's own words as far as may be, we shall try to study,
and gradually evolve and put in order its rich contents.
" Perchance the mercy of God will be with us, that all may
be satisfied, and that each may take what he can. For he too
who speaks saith but what he can. For speak the thing as it
is — who can do that? I dare to say, my brethren, perchance
not even John spake that, but he too only what he could.
For he spoke of God, being but man; inspired no doubt by God,
yet still a man. Being inspired, he spoke somewhat; un-
inspired, he had spoken naught : but being a man inspired, he
spake, not all that is, but what a man can speak, that spake
he." 10
The prologue to the Fourth Gospel is like the facade to a
royal palace. Through its gate you pass to courts and vesti-
bule, and only by degrees reach to the inmost dwelling-place.
And on the facade is blazoned, in sumptuous and comprehen-
sive symbolism, which the patient and instructed eye may
gradually, if it will, decipher, the full estate and titles of the
Lord and Master. Somewhat so, the prologue sets forth, in its
mysterious fashion all that the Gospel will contain. Yet so
mysterious is that setting-forth, that its reader may be be-
wildered, disheartened at the outset, half-convinced that not
for him is intended an entry to the audience-chamber. Best,
8 Chap. T. 26, 21. • 1 John iii. 1, 2. 10 St. Augustine, Tr. in Joann., i. 1.
470 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
perhaps, first to grow accustomed to John's doctrine and to his
style, and then, returning, re-read the prologue, and, without
analysis, become straightway aware of what it tells.
This much of it, however, must be marked down from the
outset. John speaks in it of a Declaration, an Utterance from
God, God's Word, and with the nature and the role of this
Word, the career and preaching of the Baptist are (in a
rhythmic, interwoven style) accurately balanced.11
" In the Beginning, existed the Word." " There came into
existence a man." " And the Word existed along with God."
" Sent from God," " And the Word was God," " His name was
John."
The Word revealed God, the Invisible, by expressing Him
in and through Creation; in and into that Creation He came, a
Light sufficient for every man, that they might know and come
to the Father. Yet that very Light so fills men's eyes that they
cease to be conscious of it; the endlessly ringing Word ceases
to be audible in their ears. The Word and the Light, Eternal
Witnesses, themselves need a witness, a herald, an interpreter.
Even when the Word became incarnate, and was man, acces-
sible to eye and ear and touch, not forthwith might He meet
recognition. Therefore was John sent, John, the Lamp that
might school men's weakened vision to tolerate the Light; the
Voice that would enable them to listen to the Word. John led
to Jesus; that is his whole function; by way of the outer court
of John's preaching, we may pass inwards, but only so. Then
shall remain "Jesus only," the Bevelation of the Father; but
till then, we must give ear to, and then transcend, the Bap-
tist's witness.
From the account, therefore, of the Baptist's activities,
everything which does not bear directly on this character of
witness is, in this Gospel, eliminated — birth, death, manner of
life, style of preaching, even the baptism itself of Christ. That
the readers can be assumed as knowing well enough already.12
The Evangelist presents accordingly a sort of series of
tableaux; medallions, displaying John's witness to Jesus, and
the progressive transference of the leading role, hitherto the
Baptist's to Christ.
11 In a technical discussion of the text, it would be easy to show that there is a
likelihood of a first draft of this Gospel having begun, like the Synoptic gospels, with
the statement of the Baptist's preaching.
13 Notice, e. g., chap. i. 19: " This the witness of John, on the occasion when . . ."
The incident is regarded as known, and can be, thus, alluded to.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 471
The official representatives of the Jewish Church come
out to investigate the mysterious preacher. " Who art thou? "
they ask, going straight to the point. " I am not the Christ."
"Who then? We must carry back an answer. How do you
define yourself? " "I am His herald; I am the one who cries in
the wilderness, * Make ready the road of the Lord.' ' " Why,
then, if you hold no personal authority, do you baptize ? That
implies more than heraldship." " Ah ! baptize I do, indeed —
with water . . ." and the Evangelist does not even trouble to
finish the famous sentence, so well-known from the Synoptists :
not the destined character of Christ's fiery, spirit-baptism is
what he here wants to emphasize, but — once more — the witness
to a Person; a Person unseen as yet; an invisible Presence; a
Reality unrecognized, but destined shortly to be manifested,
and so transcendent of all who had preceded Him that to Him
he, the austere Baptist, was yet not worthy to pay the hum-
blest service.
Therefore, in this first episode the Baptist has declared:
" I am not He. But to Him I witness, and He is here. . . ."
In the next, he can point to Him, and say: He is there.
That is He! That is the Prophesied. God's Lamb, Who lifts
upon Himself, and carries away, the sin not of the People only,
but of the world. I know Him now, not because of any per-
sonal, private conviction that the Jesus, Who was my boyhood's
playmate, was Messiah; but because I have seen the authori-
tative sign, the heavenly Witness, God's Spirit, given to and
remaining upon Him. That was the point of my coming to bap-
tize, that I might afford the occasion for the giving of the Sign :
now it is given, and I indicate to you, on God's testimony, the
Son of God.13
Thereupon, the transference takes place. The Baptist
sees Jesus walking to and fro, and repeats, to the two disciples
who are with him at the moment, his witness : " Look ! God's
Lamb ! " At once the two disciples, and with them the whole
13 Notice always how, exactly in proportion as the Evangelist's force of inspira-
tion, as it were, increases, his language becomes more and more personal, phrased
as his personal instinct prefers. Chap. i. 26 already is Johannine, rather than Bap-
tist diction: Chap. i. 29-34 is utterly Johannine in style; it is hard to say whether
34 is even meant to be in the mouth of the Baptist, and not rather an ecstatic sum-
ming up of the Evangelist himself. In fact, here is a good example of the two
streams intermingling: both Baptist and Evangelist are making, in substance, an
identical affirmation. Evangelist wishes to say the thing Baptist said; Baptist can be
shown saying it in the way Evangelist would speak.
472 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
religious movement, begin to pass to Jesus. The converts sum-
mon others; finally, in the case of Nathanael, Jesus takes the
initiative, acts in His own person, and calls the Israelite to His
side.
For a while (for we will here say all that need be said
about the Baptist) John's personal work goes on. He still bap-
tizes,14 at ^Ennon near Salem, "because there were many springs
of water there." Although, till he shall have been imprisoned
and at last put to death, the career of Jesus will not, as it were,
reach its full liberty of expansion, yet Jesus, too, is baptizing,
and " everyone," they say, " is going to Him." John's remain-
ing disciples are zealous for their master's honor, and com-
plain. Gladly the Baptist marks his own eclipse. " No one,"
he says, " can arrogate to himself a position in the world's
spiritual progress — and fill it (he implies) aright, unless it be
given to him by God. Such is what Jesus holds." " I always
declared," he reminds them, " that I was not the Christ. He
who possesses the Bride " — the old image of the Jewish peo-
ple or the Elect — "is one only, the Bridegroom. I am not he.
But," continues this noble and loyal and most generously un-
selfish of allies, " there exists too the office of the Bridegroom's
friend. That position I can and do claim. Enough that he can
stand, even silent, at his friend's side, and hear the beloved
voice. . . . That is his joy, and that is mine; yes, and my joy is
full to overflowing. He must increase; but I diminish."
And the Evangelist, filled with a sympathetic ecstasy of
joy, spreads here his wings, and rises to behold the Supremest
Witness, Who " leaving not the Father's side," and being above
all, yet is descending from that Highest; speaks of what He has
ever seen, and ever heard, unlike that noblest yet human wit-
ness, who being born of earth, at best speaks words of earth.
What if the Heavenly Witness win no hearing? Some hearing
at least He wins, and he who hears, knows unerringly and, in
turn, affirms and seals his affirmation that the words of God are
true. For God's words are spoken by God's Witness; in its en-
tirety and not by dole and meanness of measure, God has
placed in Him His Spirit. The Father loves the Son, and all
things has He to Him made over.
Twice more, the Evangelist makes mention of the Bap-
tist. "You sent to John," Christ says,15 "and he indeed bore
" Ghap. iii. 22-30. » Chap. v. 33-35.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 473
witness to the Truth. John was the lamp that flames and
shines, and for a while you were content to exult in his rays."
Yet even so, John but carried his light; and a Light there was
more brilliant still, the World's Light, which Christ not only
bore but was.
And later still,16 when Christ went back to where He
started, to where John first baptized, the Baptist's witness re-
curred to the people's memory, and they avowed that though
never a " sign " worked John, all that he had said of Jesus had
been verified. And thus the Baptist's life of unbroken renun-
ciation achieves its consistent end : Jesus is glorified in and for
Himself, and the Voice can vanish into silence. The True
Light could never be imprisoned by the Darkness; 17 but the
witness to the Light, his function fulfilled, found for human
destiny the dungeon only and the axe.18
We have passed the great Gate and the outer Court; a
double porch, as it were, still is left to us, before we enter fully.
By two brief scenes John prepares us, in a wide and gen-
eral way, for the detailed doctrine that Christ is come to work
a transformation, and put a new Life into the world. The two
events he tells are treated only in their universal bearing as
symbolical: indeed, it is only by an already believing mind,
already equipped with Christian faith and standards of inter-
pretation and the understanding of St. John's method that the
rich meaning of the historical incidents can be grasped, and
then, if you choose, devoutly elaborated. So the witnesses of
those scenes were themselves to realize.
A marriage is taking place;19 the guests make merry, but
the wine they drink is poor, and once Jesus and His disciples
add themselves to the company, insufficient. His mother calls
to Him for help. He orders six great water- jars to be filled
with water, jars that stood there for the " purification," that is,
the ritual ablutions of the Jews. Jesus changes the water into a
generous wine. Even so, the best that men had had where-
with to slake their spiritual thirst, stood revealed as but thin
wine, or insipid water, once Christ had entered; but His coming
16 Chap. x. 41. " Chap. i. 5.
18 Notice the generous equity of the Evangelist. He is clearly looking towards
a certain contemporary tendency unduly to exalt the person and mission of the
Baptist. Firmly he puts him into his proper rank. Yet no more royal panegyric of
John the Baptist ever can be written than this by John Evangelist.
"Chap. iv. 4.
474 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [July,
brought about a transformation, and provided a mysterious
rich drink, that none but He could offer.20
The Making of the Water into Wine is followed, and sup-
plemented by the Cleansing of the Temple.21 Christ found it
desecrated, and become a house of traffic. He scourged the
sacrilegists out of it, and declared that should it be destroyed,
He would raise it " in three days." Long afterwards, the dis-
ciples realized He had been speaking, in the Truth of things, of
Himself. The religion of the Jews, the Jewish Church,
all that the Temple stood for, did apostatize, did destroy itself.
For that, Christ substituted Himself; He was to be the Centre,
the Shrine, of the Life that He was bringing. No purification
of the old faith would have been adequate, and anyhow, the
Jews rejected both cleansing and Cleanser. The prophet Jere-
miah, in his vision of the triumphant future, had seen there was
no Ark, any more, in the House of God. In the Apocalypse.,
John's vision of the City is more rich and true;
And a temple saw I not in her:
For God the All-Governor is her Temple,
And the Lamb.22
Himself is the Temple into which organically are built
those columns who are His elect, a living Temple, Christ and
His Christians, incorporate.
But not yet has John reached thus far in his doctrine.
Henceforward, however, it is into the full secret of that doctrine
that he advances.
30 As an example of an over-materialist refinement on the history of this miracle,
I suggest the comment that Christ's wedding-gift was on a generous scale, indeed. So
vast a supply of wine must have stocked the bridegroom's cellar for many a long
day. . . . And as an over-refinement of symbolical interpretation, I quote the notion
that Our Lady here represents the Synagogue, or Jewish Church, in which Our Lord
was, strictly speaking, born. Conscious of the spiritual destitution of her friends,
she begs help from Him Whom she, in her heart, recognizes as her Saviour. But no
such minute application of the narrative to the thing symbolized is in place in St.
John's Gospel, though it would be hard to outdo St. Augustine, and not dwell on the
Alexandrian theologians, in this department. The worst indignity the story has
suffered is at the hands of Protestant commentators of the olden school, who use it
as a weapon against the devotion to Our Lady.
» Chap. ii. 13-22. 22 Chap. xxi. 22.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
DARK ROSALEEN'S LAST CHAPLET.
BY ANNA GRIFFIN.1
FORTY feet deep they dug his grave —
Toll, bells of Ireland, toll !
They buried the man who would Ireland save,
But none could bury his soul.
With forty feet of Irish earth
The brave heart of Pearse they covered,
But over the city that gave him birth
The wind of his spirit hovered.
His soul sailing under the morning star
Heard the desecrate city sigh,
And, bearing his brother's soul afar,
The red wind of death rushed by.
The winds of Ireland met up there,
At dawn they met and at dark;
O'Hanrahan's soul on their wings they bare
And the soul of Thomas Clarke.
The watchers down in the city heard
MacDonagh's soul go by.
But hardly his sleeping children stirred
So gently he passed them nigh.
The souls of Daly and John MacBride
In the mist with Mallin went;
And the Lord bade the soul of Eamonn ride
On His wind with Thomas Kent.
And Christ was for Joseph Plunkett grieved,
And said : " I have care for thee,
Since many a crown was for Ireland weaved
Like the one was weaved for Me.
" Men knew that I brake not the bruised reed.
Yet they would not let Me live;
My way was hard for My sons indeed,
And My mind is to forgive.
Th« author is a niece of the famous Irish novelist Gerald Griffin.
476 DARK ROSALEEN'S LAST CHAPLET [July,
" I saw Colbert tread the felon's path;
He was scorned, even as I;
And I have sorrow for one that hath
Been made by men to die."
The twelve winds of Ireland flew to find
The scattered souls of the rest;
And Heuston was found by the grey-green wind,
The wind wild birds love best.
The purple wind swept up Liffey's tide
For Connolly's soul unseen,
And Sean MacDermott's, the last who died —
God counted in all fifteen.
The lights of Ireland gleamed below
In the ring of her leaden sea,
And the voice of Ireland chanted slow :
" Only my dead are free."
" Dear Lord, of a thornbush my wreath is made,"
So mourned dark Rosaleen;
" My chaplet tonight at Thy feet is laid,
I give Thee my beads fifteen."
He heard, Who dwelt in the highest place
And His angels silent led
The waiting souls to His holy Face,
And He spake unto the Dead:
" There never yet drooped a feeble wing
Too small for Mine eyes to see,
Nor ever was sought by a hunted thing
A refuge in vain with Me.
" I would the black story of England's way
Were blotted from My sight;
I will show you the dawning of Ireland's day,
The passing of her night."
Then God on the steps of His high throne
Went down for many a mile
And He saw great England, hard as stone,
And He bent in thought awhile :
" Too long hath Ireland her winepress trod :
I will turn My face away:
Vengeance is Mine," said the mighty God:
" Is Mine : I will repay."
ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER.
BY KATHARINE TYNAN.
0 think of Ethna Carbery carries me back a long,
long time. I think I came to know her in this
way. When Mr. William O'Brien was Editor of
United Ireland — it must have been in the eigh-
ties— I competed for a prize for the best Irish
poem in a Christmas issue of the paper. I got third prize and
was very well content with it. The first prize fell to a young
Belfast man, John Kane, who, I think, must have died long
ago. I somehow got into correspondence with him and from
him I heard first of Ethna Garbery.
It was the pen-name of Anna Johnston, the daughter of a
Belfast man who had been a Fenian in '67. I remember to
have heard John O'Leary speak of him with high approval.
Her brother came to see me with John Kane, about April, 1886,
but my first meeting with his sister was yet some years ahead.
It was, I believe, when I was staying at the Methodist College,
Belfast, in 1890, that she came to see me there.
The Methodist College, Belfast, as a link between two
Catholic Nationalists like Anna Johnston and myself, seems
odd enough. I was visiting the then Headmaster, Henry Mac-
intosh, and his wife. Henry Macintosh was a convinced Home
Ruler: he had many sympathies which were not particularly
Methodistical nor Ulsterian: he was the kindliest and best of
good fellows, hardly suited any more than his gay and pretty
young wife, to the narrow atmosphere of Belfast Methodism,
to which their innocent Bohemianism made as little appeal as
their liberality of sentiment.
I can remember, as though it were yesterday, Sophie Mac-
intosh coming to tell me one day that a visitor awaited me
in the drawing-room. " I caught a glimpse of her," she said, in
the pretty boyish way she had learned from the constant com-
panionship of her husband and his friends, " and she was no
end of a toff." It was Anna Johnston, tall and slender, in a
pale gray frock and gray hat, which excellently became her
beautiful fine-grained skin with the underlying brownness in it,
478 ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER [July,
the masses of waving brown hair with hints of copper in its
abundant coils, the large passionate brown eyes.
Those were halcyon days, packed full with all manner of
interests and delights for the group of which she and I were
units. I had the most indulgent of fathers. He gave me a
beautiful room to receive my special guests apart from the
family and my sisters' friends. He had it painted and papered
in the manner of the eighties when we were yet in the back-
wash of the aesthetic Movement. It had a delicate blue paper
with a dado of lilies in tall jars. I had my furniture covered
with Liberty cretonnes. I had the big portrait of myself, by
John Butler Yeats, which hangs now in the Municipal Art Gal-
lery, Dublin. I had the Hollyer photographs of Rossetti's pic-
tures given me by William Rossetti. My father had taken me to
the best Dublin shop and allowed me to select my own curtains
and carpet. We had gone to Bennett's Auction Rooms, where
so many famous " collections " have been dispersed, and he
had paid for the old Crown Derby tea-set from which my
friends were to drink their tea. He refused me nothing in those
days, with the result that I had a delicious sanctum to which
my friends, after the Irish manner, added their gifts. On the
blue door with gilt panels I had a verse from George Herbert,
writ in letters of gold, as it deserved to be :
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgerie divine
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th' action fine.
To this dear room, in the low, thatched rose-covered farm-
house under the Dublin mountains, where Gurran the great
orator had lived according to local tradition, came Ethna Car-
bery with many another interesting visitor. Her husband says
in the Memoir prefixed to the latest edition of her poems that
her visits to Dublin, to my old home usually, were a literary
stimulus to her; and I am sure they were. I think she came
first in the late summer of that year, 1890, for I remember
many summer expeditions. There was a delightful picnic
from Killiney to the Glen of the Downs, given by the Edmund
Leamys, when there was lunch and tea in the open air at Mrs.
Leamy's father's house in the Glen of the Downs, and we drove
1919.] ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER 479
home in the summer twilight, long, long ago. John and Willie
Redmond were of the guests, and I remember talking to John
Redmond as Willie, like John O'Leary when he made the same
mistake, but without the old Fenian chief's unabashed cheer-
fulness when he became aware of it.
The story of John O'Leary's interview with John Redmond
is worth telling, though I have already told it in my Twenty-
five Years.
"You're all right," said the downright old chief, "but
can you tell me why in heaven's name that brother of yours is
making such a fool of himself? "
" Mr. O'Leary, are you not mistaking me for my brother,
Willie?"
" Oh, so I was. What the devil do you mean by being so
like each other?"
To my pretty room came, Sunday after Sunday, such
stimulating visitors as A. E., Douglas Hyde, Dr. Sigerson and
his daughters, Dora and Hester, Willie Yeats, when he came
over from London on his frequent visits; many another, with
English and American and Colonial visitors. Anna Johnston
enjoyed it all. I can see her quite well with her graceful figure
and dear pleasant brownness of hair and eyes and face.
We used to take long walks by the winding roads under
the mountains and talk long talks. She was very ardent. She
certainly had the capacity for friendship very 'strongly: and
she believed in her friends implicitly. She was one of those
for whom affection irradiated persons and places. Her father
and mother, her sister, of whom she used to say : " Little Mag-
gie has a heart of gold;" her girl friends, of whom she had
many, were all the best possible of their kind. She had a sin-
gularly blameless and kindly nature. I imagine that she was
as innocent as a lamb or a daisy. All kinds of tender illusions
of girlhood hung about her and were very alluring.
She had, I think, a slight deafness, which gave her a
dreamy and somewhat abstracted air. I imagine she never
lost anything that was worth hearing, while trivial and un-
necessary things passed her by. She often had the look of
listening to some inward voice. She was very simply religious,
a,s most of us were, I hope and believe. Those early songs of
ours were never without a thought of God in them.
She loved to be with us, and all the simple pleasures de-
480 ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER [July,
lighted her. She would have quite enjoyed talking into the
small hours in the way girls have. I believe, indeed, we talked
a great deal, of books, of politics, of patriotism, of our own
kind. She was very feminine in her love of needlework, and
while I sat with idle hands, talking and listening, her hands
were busily employed on one or another gift of needlework for
her friends.
Her next visit came in more strenuous times. Between the
first and second visits Parnell had fought his last fight and
proved his own greatness. We were together on top of a Dub-
lin tram when we heard the news of Parnell's death, and
through the days when the dead chief lay in state in the City
Hall; of his funeral; through the weeks that followed Anna
Johnston and I were together heart and soul and body.
A year and a half later I married and went to live in Lon-
don. I don't think London had much attraction for her. After
my marriage I only saw her when I came back to Ireland, and
found her a welcome and beloved visitor at my old home.
She, like all of us, had begun writing in the Irish Monthly
under the segis of dear Father Matthew Russell. In the days
before Parnellism our great interests had been literary. We
were a little group of poets and prose writers, working busily
together, immensely interested in our own and our friends'
productions. Perhaps we were never so undilutedly literary
from the time Willie Yeats had pulled up his tent-pegs most
unwillingly, and gone off to London. Ethna Carbery did not
belong at all, I think, to the Yeats days. I think she would
never have been undilutedly literary. From her father she
had inherited a gift for politics. My associations with her were
as much political as literary. My memories of her at Whitehall,
my old home, are concerned at least as much with politics as
with literature.
Before the Parnell " Split," political life in Ireland had
suffered a period of stagnancy. The " Split " troubled the
waters. It brought back a soul into Ireland. During that last
decade of the nineteenth century the soul was very much in
evidence. There was the Gaelic League, a wonderful new
awakening. There was the Irish Literary Revival, which was
purely Irish and purely literary, with not one smirch of self-
seeking or materialism. Literature in England in the nineties
— I speak from knowledge — was to a great extent decadent and
1919.] ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER 481
corrupt. What was not of those things, was Catholic or Irish
or both. The nineties saw the two essential poets, Victorian,
indeed, but as yet unchallenged by Edwardian or Georgian-
Yeats and Thompson. The corrupt plays and poems and
novels and pictures and music were raking in the shekels of
the corrupt patrons of corruption for the corruption makers.
In Ireland there was springing up, or had sprung up, poets,
playwrights, artists, musicians, story-tellers, who only cared
to make what God had given them to make, as beautifully as
possible. The little Irish Renaissance lapped over into the twen-
tieth century. It had produced Yeats and A. E., Alice Milligan,
Dora Sigerson, Ethna Carbery: it went on to produce Padraic
Colum, James Stephens, Seumas O'Sullivan and others, besides
the whole group of Abbey playwrights. We had Jane Bar-
low, Frank Mathew, Hubert Trench, Lord Dunsany, Edith
Somerville and 'Martin Ross, Emily Lawless and Standish
O'Grady, Douglas Hyde and Dr. Sigerson, and many others
coincident with the Revival though hardly of it.
In the general rising and making ready to go of the dead
things, the new Nationalism came into being. The ideals of
the Gaelic League could hardly be finer. It spread a net wide
enough to gather in all the children of the Gael. It set out to
keep alive the things, the precious things which were perishing,
that lay about the very roots of the national life. The language,
the music, the sports, the customs of a people, the old kindli-
ness, the chivalry, the truth-telling, the fearlessness and clean-
ness of ancient Ireland.
In this revival Ethna Carbery and her friend, Alice Milli-
gan, played a great part. After ParnelPs death politics in Ire-
land were dead. It is always the swing of the pendulum in
Ireland, towards a movement and away from it. There were
twenty years of political stagnation between the death of Par-
nell anrf the rise of the Volunteer Movement. Ireland is so
extraordinarily vital that even in those dead years great things
were happening. But the Gaelic League had not yet arrived,
nor the peaceful revolution by which George Wyndham, the
great-grandson of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the heir to his
passionate love of Ireland, freed the Irish farmers. They
were quite dark days, or almost quite dark, when Anna John-
ston and Alice Milligan founded the little magazine — a candle
in the darkness — the Shan Van Vocht. They kept it alive, man-
VOL. cix. 31
482 ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER [July,
aged it, edited it, paid for it, wrote a great part of it, for three
and a half years. It must have meant a deal of devotion, of
putting aside the gaieties and softnesses of life, of hard work,
of courage under discouragement; and it was well worth while.
The magazine went all over the world, wherever the kindly
Irish were to be found. These two girls did everything short of
printing the paper, even to addressing the copies sent out.
They were their own clerks and manager, and, side by side
with their work on the paper, they had an immense correspond-
ence. By the time they laid down their work the great Re-
vival, the Gaelic League, was in full working order.
It was in 1898 the centenary year of the Irish Rebellion,
that Ethna Carbery first found herself in Donegal, the O'Don-
nell country, which has such an irresistible appeal to the hearts
of the Irish. It was her mother's country, and it was the coun-
try of her future husband, Seumas MacManus. A year or
two later they were married — after he had been to America
and been received with open arms by American editors and
publishers. It was an ideally happy union. Their home was
on the banks of the Eske, just opposite the ruined Abbey of
Donegal, that stands lonesome and lovely, its graves crowding
up to it, overlooking Donegal Ray from which the Princes
sailed away to their last exile.
I never visited Ethna Garbery in her father's house or her
own: my marriage and going to live in England prevented it.
Rut I can picture her in her perfect happiness. She did not
leave a child, unfortunately for Ireland, for a child might have
inherited her gifts and her passionate patriotism. She died
in the full flush of wedded happiness with the joy of mother-
hood on its way to her. At her coming to Donegal she had
written :
Hills o' my heart!
I have come to you at calling of my one love and only,
I have left behind the cruel scarlet wind of the east,
The hearth of my fathers wanting me is lonely,
And empty is the place I filled at gathering of the feast.
Hills o' my heart!
You have cradled him I love in your green quiet hollows,
Your wavering winds have hushed him to soft forgetful sleep,
Below dusk boughs where bird-voice after bird-voice follows
In shafts of silver melody that split the hearkening deep.
1919.] ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER 483
Hills o' my heart!
Let the Herdsman who walks in your high haunted places
Give him strength and courage, and weave his dreams alway;
Let your cairn-heaped hero-dead reveal their grand exultant faces
And the Gentle Folk be good to him betwixt the dark and day.
Hills o' my heart!
And I would the Green Harper might wake his soul to singing,
With music of the golden wires heard when the world was new;
That from his lips an echo of its sweetness may come ringing,
A song of pure and noble hopes — a song of all things true.
Hills o' my heart!
For the sake of the yellow head that drew me wandering over,
Your misty crests from my own home where sorrow bided then,
I set my seven blessings on your kindly heather cover,
On every starry moorland loch, and every shadowy glen
Hills o' my heart!
There is a good deal of death in her poetry — death the
friend and not the enemy. The strings of the Irish harp were
hers to play on — the strings of youth and strength and delight
in battle and love: the string of sorrow: the string of slum-
ber that lulls the weary one into rest. Her poems are less
sorrowful than her prose stories. Like Fiona Macleod, whom
she admired and from whom she received admiration, there
was little laughter in her work, though one remembers her as
gently smiling and ready to break into laughter. Her husband
says that she had the second sight. Perhaps the premonition
of her own early death in the midst of joy was upon her. One
of her poems is strangely prophetic of her own death at Easter-
tide, 1902.
THE COLD SLEEP OF BRIGHIDIN.
There's a sweet sleep for my love by yon glimmering blue wave,
But alas ! it is a cold sleep in a green-happed narrow grave.
O shadowy Finn, move slowly,
Break not her peace so holy,
Stir not her slumber in the grass your restless ripples lave.
My Heart's Desire, my Treasure, our wooing time was brief,
From the misty dawns of April till the fading of the leaf,
From the first clear cuckoo calling
Till the harvest gold was falling,
And my store of joy was garnered at the binding of the sheaf.
484 ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER [July,
There came another lover, more swift than I, more strong,
He bore away my little love in the middle of her song;
Silent, ah me ! his wooing,
And silent his pursuing,
Silent he stretched his arms to her who did not tarry long.
So in his House of Quiet she keeps her troth for aye
With him, the stronger lover, until the Judgment Day:
And I go lonely, lonely,
Bereft of my one only
Bright star, Rose-blossom, Singing-bird that held the year at May.
The purple mountains guard her, the valley folds her in,
In dreams I see her walking with angels, cleansed of sin.
Is heaven too high and saintly,
For her to hear, though faintly,
One word of all my grieving on her grave beside Loch Finn?
She was, indeed, a natural Christian soul, and a most un-
spotted creature, whom it is easy to picture in heaven :
Thy Delight and my Delight,
Walking in the fields of light,
In God's garden, all in white.
Her poetry was singularly musical. She had much of the
ballad gift and she hardly ever wrote a poem that one could not
sing. It fulfilled the requirements of poetry, it was simple,
sensuous and passionate. Both her prose and poetry were, I
think, somewhat influenced by Fiona Macleod, the prose more
than the poetry. It was an influence which, perhaps, was re-
sponsible for the melancholy in the beauty of The Passionate
Hearts, for Ethna Garbery herself had a very cheerful and
bright personality. I do not in the least intend to convey that
Ethna Carbery derived from Fiona Macleod, but her admira-
tion is, I think, apparent in some of the later work, not in
essence but in manner. Much of her best work was done before
Fiona was heard of, and much later had no trace of the in-
fluence, such as it was.
Apart from her literary position, which is a high one, so
sweet, so noble, so gracious a personality must have its in-
fluence on the time and people among whom she lived. She
said that there was not one day of her life she would not have
1919.] ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER 485
lived over again. That was a great thing to say and have justi-
fication for saying. She went away with the freshness and sim-
plicity of her youth still upon her. Perhaps age would have
found her still un-disillusioned. It is the reward of real good-
ness and gentleness that it sets old age at defiance. For such as
her there was no death, but only as the old poet wrote :
A grene pathway to Lyfe.
Love of country made up so great a part of her that I must
give one of her poems for Ireland as assurance of her qualities
to those who may not know them.
SHIELA Nf GARA.
Shiela Ni Gara, it is lonesome where you bide,
With the plover circling over and the sagans spreading wide,
With an empty sea before you, and behind a wailing world,
Where the sword lieth rusty and the Banner Blue is furled.
Is it a sail ye wait, Shiela? "Yes, from the westering sun."
Shall it bring joy or sorrow? "Oh, joy sadly won."
Shall it bring peace or conflict? "The pibroch in the glen
And the flash and crash of battle where my banner shines again."
Green spears of Hope rise round you like grass-blades after drouth
And there blows a red wind from the East, a white wind from
the South,
A brown wind from the West, a grddh, a brown wind from the
West—
But the black, black wind from Northern hills, now can you love
it best?
Said Shiela Ni Gara, " 'Tis a kind wind and a true,
For it rustled soft through Aileach's halls and stirred the hair of
Hugh;
Then blow, wind! and snow, wind! What matters storm to me,
Now I know the fairy sleep must break and let the sleepers free."
But, Shiela Ni Gara, why rouse the stony dead,
Since at your call a living host will circle you instead?
Long is our hunger for your voice, the hour is drawing near —
Oh, Dark Rose of our Passion — call, and our hearts shall hear!
" Shiela Ni Gara " is of course one of the names, beautiful and
mystical— " Dark Rosaleen," "The Silk of the Kine," "Kath-
486 ETHNA CARBERY: AN IRISH SINGER [July,
leen Ni Houlihen," "The Black Rose," "The Little Old
Woman " — for Ireland, used by her lovers when she was under
a ban.
Many people wrote laments for Ethna Garbery when she
died untimely. Her husband's is surely the best of all.
THE HOUSE WITH THE GREEN DOOR.
Lone is the house of my Love,
The house with the green door
That opened to let my Love in,
And opened never before.
It shut behind her that day;
In my face blew the bitter rain;
I cried aloud at the door,
Calling her name — in vain.
Oft I went back through the storm.
Strong the impulse that bore me,
Stinging the sleet in my face,
And chill the welcome before me.
It opened but once before,
Once it will open again,
The house with the green door,
And noiseless bolt and chain.
Many my fruitless journeys;
Yet, sometime the light will burn,
And friends watch late in my house,
And I shall not return.
I shall have found my welcome,
And a wide-thrown green door:
And I will tarry, in my Love's house
Shut close for evermore.
RATTAN RODS VERSUS PSYCHIC STUFF.
A STUDY IN SPIRITISM.
BY JOHAN LILJENCRANTS, A.M., S.T.D.
OT very long since the phenomena generally asso-
ciated with Spiritism emerged from the realm of
the disreputable occult and became part of the
things which may openly elicit the interest of
honest and rational men. There was no sudden
transition, nor has it yet been complete. But thanks to such
champions of knowledge as Sir William Grookes and many
other learned members of the Societies for Psychical Research,
Spiritistic phenomena are no longer contemptuously sneered
at, but have been given a place among the mysteries for which
science seeks a solution.
This fact alone has had a tremendous effect on the pop-
ular mind. Not only has it furnished a new and powerful
assurance of the reality of Spiritistic phenomena, but it has
lent to the seance a cloak of respectability which has brought
the discussion of the phenomena to the best popular forum, the
fortune teller to the professional register, and Spiritism to the
status of a recognized religious rite.
The popular mind, so ably represented by Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle, makes light of the transition from premises to
conclusion. It takes evidence broadly, without sifting — if it
bothers at all with evidence. And when it wishes to reach
*
conclusions, it puts the leap frog helplessly in the background.
This happy faculty is largely responsible for the widespread
acceptance of the Spiritistic interpretation of spiritoidal and
similar phenomena.1
But there is another, far more deplorable, reason for this
state of affairs. Many well-known savants who have been or
actually are engaged in the investigation of spiritoidal and sim-
1 Dr. Boirac employs the term parapsychic to denote the phenomena which, pro-
duced in animate beings or as an effect of their action, do not seem to be entirely
explicable by the laws and forces of nature already known. They are divided into
three classes, the hypnoidal, the magnetoidal, and the spiritoidal phenomena. The
latter class embraces all the phenomena of Spiritism or mediumism.
488 RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF [July,
ilar phenomena have accepted the basic claim of Spiritism, if
not always as a proven fact, at least as their private opinion.
F. W. H. Myers leaned in this direction; Sir Oliver Lodge has
made himself an out-and-out sponsor of Spiritism.
In the meantime, and as a result of this condition, Psychical
Research has lately undergone a very one-sided development.
The Societies for Psychical Research were founded for the
purpose of investigating various " occult " phenomena, and
this, no doubt, they have done in a very admirable manner. In
late years, however, their efforts have been almost exclusively
concentrated upon finding support for the Spiritistic theory,
much to the detriment of a branch of science which had made
such fair promises for the future.
To the orthodox Christian, Spiritism presents a very ugly
spectre. The traditional view looms high in his mind that
the Spiritistic phenomena are nothing short of diabolic man-
ifestations. On the other hand, if he has followed the progress
of experimental psychology, he will admit that a number of
allied or similar phenomena, as for instance those of hypnotism
and magnetism, gradually have been proven to have their
causes entirely within the realm of nature. And hardly a year
passes without new discoveries being made which bring the
two orders of phenomena into closer convergence. What, then,
is to be his attitude toward the phenomena which occur at
Spiritistic seances?
First of all, he can take but one attitude toward the
practice of Spiritism, and it will hardly be necessary to set
forth the reasons for its condemnation without reserve. Apart
from the fact that certain phenomena cannot be referred posi-
tively to known natural causes, and that preternatural inter-
vention should never be considered excluded where it is in-
vited, the practices as a whole involve an execrable super-
stition. The attitude of the Church toward Spiritistic practices
is unmistakably expressed in the decree of the Holy Office of
April 24, 1917, strictly forbidding Christians to participate in
them.
But there is a difference between superstitious and dan-
gerous practices and the normal, objective nature of the phe-
nomena which enter in as part of these practices. Consequently,
when confronted with the question of the actual, objective na-
ture of individual phenomena, quite apart from the practice of
1919.] RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF 489
Spiritism, our attitude must also be different. Here we have
to deal with phenomena which at least may have a natural
causation, and many of wrhich show a very great probability
of natural causation. To endeavor to solve the mysteries they
present on the strength of opinion — a procedure common to
Spiritists and Catholic writers alike — will unfailingly leave
them unsolved. Nor is it very easy to see how knowledge pos-
sibly can be advanced by pressing theory far beyond the war-
rant of evidence. In order to reach the objective truth the
phenomena must be submitted to an unprejudiced study of
their objective nature, and therefore quite apart from precon-
ceived opinions and beliefs. The objective truth regarding
them alone will serve to free us from the spiritual wreckage
which the excesses of Spiritism are working in the world today.
Spiritistic phenomena are usually classified as psychical
and physical. For some time past the former have been given
prominence in the investigations of the Societies for Psychical
Research, and are more and more becoming identified with
telepathy, clairvoyance, and other parapsychic phenomena
certainly of a natural order. Even at the peril of contradict-
ing a distinguished Catholic writer on the subject, we must
state that of all the communications obtained by means of
automatic speaking and writing, and published in the Proceed-
ings and Journals of the Societies, not one necessitates an ap-
peal beyond the sources and proven possibilities of the sub-
conscious mind.
The physical phenomena present a far greater difficulty.
The various, more prominent investigations of the past have
led to no other result than to show that, almost without ex-
ception, every physical medium has been caught in fraud, and
that all the phenomena exhibited could have been produced by
mechanical means. Home's case in favor of genuine phenomena
has been successfully exploded by Podmore; Eusapia Palladino
met with singular defeat both in Cambridge and in New York.
But the fact that the phenomena may be, and actually have
been, produced by fraud does not necessarily argue that there
are not instances of genuine phenomena. Only through con-
tinued investigation may we hope to obtain more conclusive
results, and in the meantime it will be but fair to confront the
problem of the physical phenomena with an open mind.
The latest investigations which have come to our notice
490 RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF [July,
were conducted by Doctor Crawford of Belfast with the
medium, Miss Goligher, and an account thereof was published
last year in a book entitled The Reality of Psychic Phenomena.2
The investigator, a lecturer on mechanical engineering, sees in
the results of his labors conclusive evidence of the reality and
genuineness of the phenomena which, according to his theory,
are produced by psychic force emanating from the medium,
and directed and applied by "invisible operators," whom he
looks upon as discarnate spirits. It is our intention to make a
short review of the evidence which the book is claimed to
present.
Let it, then, first be said that we propose to examine the
evidence as presented in Doctor Crawford's account. The
evidential value of this account, in itself, depends entirely upon
the accuracy of Doctor Crawford's own observation and
method of recording. And if we take into reckoning the diffi-
culty of accurately observing Spiritistic phenomena, and the
many fallacies to which the most careful observation in the
past has been subject, so clearly brought to light during the
investigations of Eusapia Palladino, we must deplore the ab-
sence of several independent accounts of the present
phenomena. This lack in itself is sufficient to rob Doctor Craw-
ford's investigations of much of the value they otherwise might
possess. But we shall touch upon this point again.
The experiments were usually conducted in an attic of the
house occupied by the medium's family, the members of which
formed the ring of sitters at the seances. Occasionally visitors
were admitted. The attic, a small room, contained no other
furniture than the seance table and the chairs used by the
medium and the sitters. At the beginning of a seance the
medium and the sitters, seven persons in all, grouped them-
selves in an approximate circle about five feet in diameter, and
clasped each other's hands in chain order. The seance table,
usually one of twenty-four by seventeen inches surface and
weighing about ten pounds, was then placed in the middle of
the circle. After a lapse of half an hour the sitters were
allowed to unclasp their hands and place them on their knees.
This seems to have been the usual position of the medium's
hands when phenomena were taking place. At times two ob-
2 The Reality of Psychic Phenomena, Raps, Levitations, etc., by W. J. Crawford,
D.S.C. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1918.
1919.] RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF 491
servers seem to have been placed outside the circle, directly
opposite the medium.
The room was dimly lighted by means of a gas jet in-
closed in a red glass lantern. When the eye had become
accustomed to the red light, Doctor Crawford states, most ob-
jects in the room could be plainly seen, but it was impossible
to make readings on a weighing machine without the aid
of a flashlight. The lantern was placed on a mantlepiece about
four feet high, and in a position a little outside the circle, at an
angle of ninety degrees to the right of the medium.
The phenomena were of the simplest type, consisting of
levitations and movements of the table, pressure on a spring
balance, raps, thuds, sundry sounds, and impressions in putty.
Doctor Crawford asserts that all were telekinetic: effected
without contact between medium and object.
The levitation phenomena are of greatest interest as offer-
ing the best opportunity for observation. Complete levitations
of the seance table several feet from the floor were rather fre-
quent. For experimental purposes the medium in her chair had
been placed upon a weighing machine, the surface of the plat-
form of which had been extended by means of a drawing-
board. When levitations occurred, it could be ascertained that
additional weight was put on the weighing machine, and care-
ful readings gave at hand that the registered increase in weight
corresponded, within a few ounces, to the weight of the table.
Other movements of the table, whether partial levitations or
movements along the floor, would be registered in the same
manner. It was also observed that with the space between
the medium and the table obstructed, no levitations or other
phenomena would occur.
The results of the experiments with levitations and other
movements of the table obviously lead to the inference that the
phenomena depend upon the medium. Moreover, the results
registered upon the weighing machine point to a leverage con-
nection between the medium and the table. In other words,
if a lever, fixed on the person of the medium and extending un-
der the table, were used for lifting and moving the latter, these
results would be obtained.
The most obvious hypothesis, then, upon which the
phenomena may be explained is that they were effected by the
medium herself. Doctor Crawford most naturally has taken
492 RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF [July,
this hypothesis into consideration, but throws against it three
main objections, which he deems sufficient completely to dis-
prove it. First, that such action on the part of the medium
would have to be ascribed to deliberate fraud which in the
case is repugnant. Second, that observation has failed to dis-
cover physical connection of any kind between the medium and
the table. Third, that continued experiments, bringing in new
circumstances, clearly show that the medium could not have
produced the phenomena with her body. We shall consider
the objections one by one.
Doctor Crawford makes the statement that " the medium
was quite conscious during all the experimental investigations,
and any fraud presented would therefore be in the nature of
deliberate action." This is far from accurate. A person may
have all the appearances of being fully awake in the normal
state, and yet closer examination may reveal that, in reality,
he is in a " secondary state," in which his actions are not
morally imputable to him. Time and time again " subjects "
have been placed in a hypnotic state, to all appearances man-
ifesting the characteristics of the normal waking state. The
similarity has been even more pronounced in some well-known
spontaneous cases of "secondary states," such as that of
" Sally Beauchamp," observed by Doctor Prince. And there
are, to say the least, strong analogies between the trance state
of mediums and hypnotic states clinically or spontaneously
induced.
There is nothing in Doctor Crawford's book to suggest
that a psychical examination of the medium was ever under-
taken, nor even that experienced psychologists were present at
the seances. Consequently, in so far as his written testimony
is concerned, the possibility of Miss Goligher being in trance
during the progress of the phenomena must still be taken into
consideration. If fraud were practised in such a state, it cer-
tainly would not reflect upon Miss Goligher's character.
There are circumstances which support the supposition
that the medium was in a " secondary state." First of all, the
phenomena began to occur only after a period of expectancy
and preparation which, on our supposition, would be the time
required for the medium to enter into trance. The atmos-
phere of the room during this period, it need not be said, was
favorable for auto-suggestion. Again, Doctor Crawford men-
1919.] RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF 493
tions that during the progress of the phenomena the medium's
arms were rigidly stiff. This in itself is not a natural symptom,
but is known to occur in hypnotic states. Moreover, para-
psychic phenomena generally occur in a state other than the
normal waking, and the hypothesis of a " secondary state "
would, therefore, best harmonize with Doctor Crawford's own
theory of emission of psychic force from the medium. It is
much to be deplored that this particular point was not made
an object of special investigation by psychologists.
The second objection, we think, will not be difficult to
meet. Doctor Crawford, it is true, is satisfied that his obser-
vations were correct. Before we approach Miss Goligher's
case, however, it must be made perfectly clear that, under the
conditions usually prevailing at seances, observation of
Spiritistic phenomena is extremely difficult, and open to fal-
lacies which are entirely eliminated in ordinary physical ex-
perimentation. If for a moment we stop to consider the per-
formances of ordinary stage jugglers, we will admit that they
bring before us very puzzling problems. There is, for instance,
the case of the gentleman who enters the brightly illuminated
stage in dinner coat and top hat. In a flood of light, and be-
fore a gazing audience he takes off his hat, and from its depths
he produces living rabbits, geese, flowers, eggs, and other ob-
jects, with which he well-nigh fills the whole stage. The audi-
ence knows that a trick explains the seeming marvel, but does
not discover the trick.
There is a considerable difference between the conditions
of the stage performance and those surrounding the medium,
greatly in favor of the latter. The seance room is compara-
tively dark, and the space between the medium and the seance
table is additionally shaded. The Spiritistic phenomena are
simple in comparison with stage wonders. The medium can
choose the proper time for the proper phenomenon, can refuse
phenomena when conditions are unfavorable, and can fail as
many times as convenient — things which the juggler cannot
do, since he has no spirits on whom to put the blame. It is true
that the stage performer will not allow observers everywhere,
but this is equally true of the medium.
With the medium in a trance or in a " secondary state " the
difficulties of observation increase owing to the increased acute-
ness of the senses, and to the dexterity, precision, and swiftness
494 RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF [July,
of movement characteristic of certain " secondary states."
These facts have been plainly demonstrated in experiments
with hypnotized subjects.
If we look back over past investigations of physical
mediums we shall find our assertion amply verified. Eusapia
Palladino had for years mystified distinguished investigators
both in Italy and in France, producing phenomena far more
remarkable than those of Miss Goligher, and it was not until
she came under observation of Dr. Hodgson in Cambridge, who
was familiar with methods of mediumistic fraud, that her tricks
were discovered. Later she was sitting with Messrs. Carring-
ton, Baggally, and Feilding in Naples who were fully
acquainted with Dr. Hodgson's discoveries. At these sittings
she was controlled on each side by specially detailed experts,
whose sole function it was to observe and feel her hands and
feet during the progress of phenomena. In spite of the mi-
nutest observations, including the exact position of her hands
and feet each time a phenomenon appeared, which observa-
tions immediately were dictated to a recorder, trickery was
not discovered. But at later sittings in the same city it was
found that she was able to release one of her hands from the
hold of its controller, perform the phenomena with her freed
hand, and again restore it under control, all the while leaving
the controller under the impression that her hand had con-
tinuously been grasped.3 A double control was required to
detect her trick. At her seances in New York she kept her sit-
ters quite puzzled for two days, and it was only when a young
man without her notice had succeeded in crawling across the
floor into the cabinet behind her that it was found that she
produced her phenomena with her left foot, surreptitiously
withdrawn from its control. Yet Professor Hugo Miinsterberg
who at the time was in control of the foot, with which she
operated, had been continuously under the impression of feel-
ing it against his right foot.
With these facts before us, what are we to say of the con-
trol to which Miss Goligher was submitted? In so far as can
be gathered from Doctor Crawford's account, apart from two
observers standing opposite the medium, outside the circle, and
thus at least five feet away from her with the table directly
between themselves and her, there was no one in control ex-
3 See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xxv., pp. 57-69.
1919.] RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF 495
cept Doctor Crawford. And when we realize that the Doctor,
besides controlling the medium, had to observe the phenomena
and arrange the apparatus, it becomes clear that his control
could not possibly have been effective. Occasionally he felt
her arms and knees, for the most part he was content with
intermittent visual control from her right side only. A posi-
tion in the region between the medium and the table was never
allowed. It need not be pointed out that such control is greatly
inferior to that under which Eusapia Palladino was able to de-
ceive her investigators.
Now to the third objection. Various tests were used
which to the mind of Doctor Crawford served to show that the
phenomena could not have been produced by the medium her-
self. A spring balance was placed under the table, and was
found to register a certain weight before the table began to rise,
and to maintain this registration during the levitation. The
distance between the medium and the table — two and one-half
to three feet — would have prevented her from reaching it ex-
cept with her feet, and Doctor Crawford argues that it would
have been impossible for her to press the balance with her one
foot, and then, while raising the table with her other foot,
maintain the balance at constant registration. Moreover,
the experiment was repeated several times, and the
same reading was always obtained. It would not have been
possible for the medium to gauge the pressure on the balance
so accurately.
This is very true if we suppose that the medium did not
employ apparatus. But what could have prevented her from
concealing suitable apparatus in her clothing, and from in-
stalling it during the period before phenomena were due to
appear, and while the eyes of those present were still un-
accustomed to the dim light? It does not appear that she was
ever subjected to search before the sittings.
The experiments with the spring balance which showed
pressure on it during the levitations, at times corresponding
to three or four times the weight of the table, and increasing
with its proximity to the scale of the balance, have led Doctor
Crawford to the following theory regarding the production
of the phenomena. He conceives a cantilever of " psychic
stuff" — and perhaps consisting of several rods — projecting
from the medium under the table. The cantilever is elastic,
496 RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF [July,
and levitations are occasioned by the projecting end being
bent upward. The consequent downward curve of the can-
tilever is responsible for the pressure on the spring balance.
The theory is admirably elaborated and covers the results
of the experiments, but another theory would cover them
equally well. We might suppose that the cantilever, instead of
consisting of " psychic stuff," were made of a few rattan rods
tied together and covered with soft, dark material. A strong,
black cord tied to the projecting end of the rods would com-
plete the apparatus. By resting the other end against her
knees or left foot and pulling the cord with her left hand the
medium could produce an upward turn of the free end of the
rods, and also the curve causing the registration on the spring
balance. One does not have to go into further details to show
that the one theory would answer just as well as the other.
The rattan cantilever would discharge the electroscope as
readily as the " psychic " one, curving, it would press the
spring balance away from the medium — as took place during
experiments with a spring balance on rollers attached to a
tension spring balance — and perhaps, when touched, its cov-
ering would supply the clammy, cold sensation of "psychic
stuff."
If the rattan rods were supplied with a suitable head at
the free end, the apparatus could be used for making raps
and other noises. Its elasticity would prove of great value for
the production of " tremendous thuds." Moreover, if the sur-
face of the head were rifled, it would be easy to produce noises
like those of sawing wood and rubbing the floor with sand-
paper, not to mention the impression of the giant thumb in
putty.
Doctor Crawford states that in order to obtain levitations
it was necessary that the table should be at a certain, exact dis-
tance from the medium. This would be the case if our pro-
posed apparatus were used. We also learn that when on
occasions the table was turned over, it always turned to the
right, that is, toward the light. This is quite in harmony with
the method which would be followed by a medium operating
an apparatus, for her left hand and side, and the corresponding
side of the table, were less visible than the right, and also re-
moved from the place from which Doctor Crawford usually
made his observations. The rigidity of the medium's arms
1919.] RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF 497
during levitations would, no doubt, have something to do with
her pulling the black cord. And, finally, certain conditions
connected with light and visibility were admirably adapted
to the employment of a dark object for the performance of the
phenomena. We have mentioned the general conditions of
illumination insuring a minimum of visibility. It is very diffi-
cult to distinguish dark objects in red light. And Doctor Craw-
ford tells us not only that the additional light from a flash light
with red cover over the lens, and placed so as to illuminate
the medium or the space between her and the table, was an
absolute obstacle to phenomena, but also that the force was
unable to affect surfaces of light color. As a consequence the
flash light had to be removed, and light surfaces covered with
dark cloth before phenomena would appear. A dark appara-
tus would show against a light, but hardly against a dark
surface.
There is, however, one difficulty. On occasions, Doctor
Crawford states, the force affecting the table was such that a
strong man hardly could lift it from the floor or press
it back to the floor from its levitated position. Now, up to
experiment number fifty-two, the table had bars across the
legs, near the floor. The rattan rods placed over the cross
bars, and held down by the medium with her feet, would easily
explain the one alternative, while her foot placed under the
curved end of the rods would make the other possible. As a
fact, the rattan rod theory covers the various details of the ex-
periments.
Here, then, we have theory against theory, rattan rods
versus "psychic stuff."
Of course, the contingency of employment of apparatus
would militate against the assumption that the fraud was en-
tirely unconscious. The rods must have been prepared and
kept from seance to seance. On the other hand, this does not
rule out the possibility of the medium operating in a " secon-
dary state." We in no way wish to impute the integrity of Miss
Goligher; but it must be admitted that the question of the ex-
istence of genuine physical phenomena is sufficiently impor-
tant to warrant the presumption of fraud as a working hypoth-
esis, quite apart from reflections on the medium's character.
To disprove any theory involving employment of ap-
paratus or, on the whole, of fraudulent production of any
VOL. cix. 32
498 RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF [July,
kind, it is not sufficient to rely merely upon visual and tactile
control. The Palladino investigations have shown this to be
true beyond dispute. When devices were employed which
prevented Eusapia Palladino from touching objects with her
limbs, or which unfailingly would tell tales if she endeavored
to do so, one of two things happened — either no phenomenon
was produced or unmistakable records of fraud were left.
First of all, the seance room and the medium should be
thoroughly searched immediately before the commencement
of sittings, in such a manner as to exclude positively the pres-
ence of apparatus, and this fact should be recorded in detail.
Secondly, whenever possible, objects to form part of the ex-
hibition of phenomena should be covered with lamp black or
otherwise provided with means for detecting fraud. If in the
Goligher case the bottom of the table had been covered with
lamp black, this arrangement could have been hidden from
all but Doctor Crawford, and would have confirmed or defi-
nitely disproved a theory such as the one we have put forth.
If " psychic stuff " could pass through the clothing of the
medium, certainly it could also pass through a screen of cheese
cloth placed between the medium and the table; and the pres-
ence of the cheese cloth would do away with every possibility
of the medium employing her limbs or simple apparatus. On
the side of devices of this kind the most rigorous visual and
tactile observation should be maintained, and the results
thereof, as well as whatever may occur in the nature of
phenomena, immediately reported to a special recorder. It
is thoroughly useless to experiment with the physical
phenomena of Spiritism — worse than useless, it is misleading
—unless the precautions are taken which previous experimen-
tation has shown necessary.
All theories so far advanced in explanation of the physical
phenomena as natural occurrences, except the theory of fraud,
suffer from the disadvantage of seeming very unlikely. Doctor
Crawford's theory involves a process invoking the natural and
the preternatural alike. The psychic rod or psychic cantilever
theory is both ingenious and interesting, but it is far from be-
ing illuminative. " Psychic stuff " in itself can hardly be said
to be even a conception. Whatever is psychical is non-
material, and, consequently, the term amounts to nothing short
of non-material matter. "Nerve substance" is something far
1919.] RATTAN RODS VS. PSYCHIC STUFF 499
more tangible, for it brings us to the realm of things which we
can place in a retort and reduce to their chemical components.
But nerve substance differs little from skin substance,
and eye substance, and bone substance — it is all molecular
matter, the laws of which have been fairly well established.
Whether or not there be atoms, molecules, and elektrons that
make up various kinds of material substances, one thing is
certain, that rigid things are found exclusively among solids.
And were we to conceive substance beyond the three estab-
lished classes, they would be of an order characterized by
greater thinness than that of gasses, and consequently by less
rigidity. The psychic cantilever is neither gas, nor fluid, nor
solid, yet it possesses the rigidity of a solid and the evasiveness
of a gas. When touched, it gives a clammy, cold sensation.
It would take an immense amount of proof to make Doctor
Crawford's psychic cantilever theory convincing.
The Doctor also makes an excursion into the preter-
natural. The centilever does not simply emerge from the
medium and start its activity upon the table — to do so it needs
the aid of invisible operators. Now, if for the sake of argu-
ment we accept the possibility of a psychic cantilever as de-
scribed by Doctor Crawford, what need is therefor calling upon
the invisible world for its operation? Doctor Crawford reasons
from the fact that the levitations and other phenomena were
intelligently directed, and reaches the conclusion that invisible
intelligences must have been actively involved. But there is
not a scrap of evidence to show that anything took place that
exceeded the capacity of the visible intelligences present.
Rather, the intelligence in operation seems to have been quite
below the ordinary, for the simplest instruments had to be ex-
plained before they could be operated. The directing intelli-
gence expressed itself quite well by rapping, and seems quite
familiar with the English language — which we presume was
employed by Doctor Crawford — yet, when it came to manip-
ulating a typewriter the same intelligence, having had the
mechanism of the machine explained, did not succeed in giv-
ing a more impressive message than "mbx:gcsq." Greater
things might be expected of intelligences capable of producing
and manipulating the psychic cantilever.
That being the case, why not first hypothetically ascribe
the intelligent direction of the phenomena to the intelligences
500 EPITAPH [July,
present in the flesh? If the phenomena are produced by means
of psychic or nerve-force emanating from the medium, it is
certainly nearest at hand to refer their intelligent direction to
her own brain. We may even go so far as to assume that the
function of her brain in this regard is subconscious — sublim-
inal, Myers would say — sand suggested to her by Doctor Craw-
ford, who almost invariably asked for the precise phenomena
he wished exhibited. Again, we repeat, there is not the
slightest necessity in any single phenomenon to appeal from
the human intelligence present to those of another world.
In fine, it is high time that something definite should be
known regarding the physical phenomena of Spiritism. Let
the mediums be investigated. But, above all, let cease this in-
fernal mystification of haphazard and incomplete investiga-
tion, unripe theories, and all sweeping conclusions, which can
serve no other purpose than to feed a ruinous and debasing
superstition which in its turn is spreading unmorality and in-
sanity in wider and wider circles.
EPITAPH.
BY FRANCIS X. DOYLE, S.J.
OH winds of France, blow sweetly on their graves!
Oh sullen wintry rains, be kind, be kind!
Their hearts were clothed with summer when they died-
Warm be the bed of death their hearts shall find.
Their country waits with mother arms outstretched —
Their dust lies on another mother's breast;
Oh warm their ashes in the fire of love —
Oh God, oh God of battles give them rest!
GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY.
BY HENRY A. LAPPIN.
HE publication of a book of poems x from the
pen of the late Gerard Manley Hopkins, priest
of the Society of Jesus, is unchallengeably the
rarest and most delightful gift of poetry which
the year 1919 has so far bestowed upon us. The
Poet Laureate has brought to his work of collector and editor
not only the tender pietas of an intimate friend, but also the
learning and taste of a scholarship as profound as it is ex-
quisite and the wise understanding and delicate sympathy of
a fellow-artist who has himself scorned the foothills and made
the difficult ascent. With what is, on the whole, the successful
execution of a far from easy editorial task, it may seem un-
gracious to find even the slightest fault; indeed, had it not
been for Mr. Bridges' conscientious care and unremitting pur-
pose, in all probability these poems would never have been
assembled and made thus beautifully accessible.
The truth is, nevertheless, that the editor's sympathies and
culture, wide though they be in so many respects, are not wide
enough to enable him adequately to assess the wonderful en-
richment of Gerard Hopkins' life and art which resulted from
the poet's conversion to Catholicism and his subsequent en-
trance into religious life and the priesthood. More than once
in the notes at the end of this volume the Poet Laureate is be-
trayed into a remark which convicts him of an amazing
provincialism of outlook. He deprecates, for instance, certain
ardent expressions of the poet as "mostly efforts to force
emotion into theological or sectarian channels," and he
arraigns some pieces for their " exaggerated Marianism." (The
italics are the present writer's.) One may readily agree with
Mr. Bridges that Father Hopkins was occasionally guilty of
faults of taste, of disturbing mannerisms, of distressing sudden
lapses from the highest auctorial virtue; but it is most gravely
to be regretted that the religious inspiration of a distinguished
artist's endeavors, the central core of his humility and devout-
1 Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins now first published. Edited with notes by
Robert Bridges, Poet Laureate. London: Humphrey Milford.
502 GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY [July,
ness, the source and goal of his illumination, should have met
with a response so imperfect from an editor who is otherwise
signally deserving of our thanks and praise.
For it cannot be too insistently affirmed that Father Hop-
kins was a Catholic poet of extremely high distinction, indeed.
He was as Catholic as those other singing sons of Ignatius, Eng-
lish Robert Southwell and German Fredrich Spe: the author
of The Hound of Heaven himself was not more pervasively
Catholic. It is surely natural that those whom Mr. Bridges
somewhat oddly calls " his co-religionists " should like to
think of Gerard Hopkins mainly as a poet of the Faith, and
should look with especially grateful eyes upon the numbers in
which enthusiasm for his new-found Catholic heritage finds
clearest utterance. Not all of those numbers are of equal
merit, nor, indeed, are all of them included in this collection.
Mr. Bridges quotes from a letter written by Father Hopkins to
his Anglican friend, Richard Watson Dixon, in which there is
a reference to his almost complete abstention from poetical
composition for seven years after his reception into the Society
of Jesus. During this time he wrote " nothing but two or
three little presentation pieces which occasion called for." One
of these pieces has been definitely identified, the verses to the
Blessed Virgin entitled Rosa Mystica, first published in The
Irish Monthly for May, 1898, and subsequently reprinted in
Orby Shipley's anthology, Carmina Mariana.
Of such " presentation pieces " it is evident that the editor's
opinion is not high. He implicitly contrasts them unfavorably
with what he calls the " severer Marian poems " — The May
Magnificat and The Blessed Virgin Compared to the Air We
Breathe — and suspects, rightly or wrongly, that the author him-
self set no great value upon them. " I do not find," he observes,
" that in either class of these attempts he met with any appre-
ciation at the time; it was after the publication of Miles' book
in 1894 that his co-religionists began to recognize his possible
merits, and their enthusiasm has not perhaps been always
wise. It is natural that they should, as some of them openly
state they do, prefer the poems I am rejecting to those which I
print; but this edition was undertaken in response to a demand
"that, both in England and America, has gradually grown up
rom the genuinely poetic interest felt in the poems which I
ave gradually introduced to the public : that interest has been
1919.] GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY 503
no doubt welcomed and accompanied by the applause of his
particular religious associates, but since their purpose is alien
to mine I regret that I am unable to indulge it; nor can I put
aside the over-ruling objection that G. M. H. would not have
wished these ' little presentation pieces ' to be set among his
more serious artist work. I do not think that they would please
anyone who is likely to be pleased with this book."
There are, of course, several great names, Anglican and
Catholic, in the field of distinctively religious English verse:
among the former, Herbert, Traherne, Vaughan, and Christina
Rossetti occur at once to the mind; and the Catholic note is
splendidly resonant in the work of Coventry Patmore, Francis
Thompson, and Aubrey de Vere — to mention only three poets
of comparatively recent times. To these latter Gerard Hop-
kins is assuredly in the true succession. Unfortunately by far
the greater number of " religious " poems are not merely loose
in thought and lax in sentiment but — worse still — slovenly in
execution. In a volume wherein he has thought fit to include
so many tantalizing fragments of poems, Mr. Bridges might
very reasonably have refused to hold back from us even the
least of these despised presentation pieces. It may well be that
were such verses added to the collection under review, they
would not noticeably strengthen the author's poetical reputa-
tion, but they certainly would not detract from it; and it is
hardly likely that in the long run even the unsophisticated ap-
plause of " his particular religious associates " could hinder
the poems of Gerard Hopkins from finding their appointed
niche upon the most genuinely exclusive shelf. And this is
perhaps the best place to set down Coventry Patmore's fine
words — quoted by Miss Bregy in the most discriminating
study 2 that has yet been made of Father Hopkins' poetry—
" Gerard Hopkins was the only orthodox and, as far as I could
see, saintly man in whom religion had absolutely no narrow-
ing effect upon his general opinions and sympathies. A Catho-
lic of the most scrupulous strictness, he could nevertheless see
the Holy Spirit in all goodness, truth, and beauty. . . ." Nor did
a pietistic line ever come from that fastidious pen.
In a passage quoted above Mr. Bridges mentions " the pub-
lication of Miles' book in 1894." His reference is to The Poets
2 See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, January, 1909, or The Poet's Chantry, page 70. St.
Louis: B. Herder, 1912.
504 GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY [July,
and Poetry of the Century edited by Alfred Miles, the eighth
volume of which comprehensive anthology dealt with " Robert
Bridges and Contemporary Poets." Gerard Hopkins was one
of the contemporary poets from whom chosen poems and ex-
tracts were quoted, and Mr. Bridges prefixed a brief biograph-
ical and critical introduction to the selections from his friend's
poetry. That was nearly a quarter of a century ago, and
Father Hopkins had then been dead five years. No biography
or extended memoir of him has appeared since that time, and
it is scarcely likely now that one will be written. The Miles
introduction gave the main dates and facts of the poet's life.
Born at Stratford, Essex, not far from London, on July 28,
1844, he died of fever in Dublin on June 8, 1899. From Chol-
mondely School, Highgate — where one of his teachers was
Richard Watson Dixon, in after years to become justly famous
as poet and ecclesiastical historian — he passed to Balliol Col-
lege, Oxford, where with Walter Pater for tutor, he won a
First Glass in the school of Literse Humaniores in 1867. He
was received into the Church by John Henry Newman before
he left Oxford, and having remained with Newman in Birming-
ham for some months, joined the Jesuits in 1868.
In his later years in the Society he did parish work among
the Liverpool Irish, taught in Stoneyhurst, preached in Farm
Street, and in 1884 crossed to the Irish Province and worked
in Dublin until his lamented death, examining in " ancient
classics" as an elected Fellow of the now defunct Royal Uni-
versity of Ireland. In his Miles introduction Mr. Bridges
painted the gloomiest of pictures of the poet's life as a Jesuit.
" The vice and horrors " of parish work in the Irish colony at
Liverpool " nearly killed him;" " in the several posts which he
held in turn ... he served without distinction." It was Dublin,
Mr. Bridges mournfully implies, that proved the culminating
stroke. Not merely had " the material contagions of the
city " their way with him, but " the drudgery " of his examiner-
ship, and " the political dishonesty which he was there forced
to witness, so tortured his sensitive spirit that he fell into a
melancholy state." Irish slum-dwellers, Irish examinees, Irish
politicians — a veritable embarrassment of misery!
One can readily enough appreciate something of the poig-
nancy of this Englishman's exile in Ireland (he has given
touching expression to it in his poetry) ; and it is surely pos-
1919.] GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY 505
sible to sympathize, too, with the deeper feeling of an introspec-
tive mind in difficulties. The black dog not infrequently sat
upon Gerard Hopkins' back in those days; the poet knew
his hours of intolerable brooding melancholy, and felt the irk
of restraints and disabilities more grinding to him than any
mere physical fetters could have been. But on the other hand
it is much to be feared that Gerard Hopkins was unduly, piti-
fully sensitive, and that — like nearly all Englishmen, past and
present — he failed utterly to understand the Irish. In Dublin,
one learns, they looked upon him as " odd," and his actions
occasionally gave a color of appropriateness to that not un-
kindly epithet. (The late Professor Edward Dowden used to
tell how poor Gerard left at his front door in Temple Road a
couple of volumes of verse by Robert Bridges, requesting that
the biographer of Shelley should not attempt to acknowledge
the somewhat furtive gift.) Had the exile only known how to
deal with Dubliners, how to laugh with and at them, Ireland
might have given him a new lease of life instead of bringing
his days sadly to an end. It was absurd of Mr. Bridges to speak
of the classical examiner's work as drudgery; it was nothing
of the kind : there could hardly have been found for him in all
the Irish Province a less exhausting work. And as for the
political dishonesty he is alleged to have witnessed in the Irish
capital, most of it was the creation, direct or indirect, of his
own fellow-countrymen. It is sometimes necessary to be
candid.
To turn now to the Poems. An interesting and curiously
learned prolegomenon on his metrical theories by the author,
and a series of helpful notes with a preface by the editor —
these, with .about eighty pages devoted to the poems them-
selves, make up the contents of the volume. The poems are
derived from the following sources: a manuscript book into
which Mr. Bridges had pasted copies in Hopkins' autograph as
they were received from the poet: a collection of the poet's
letters to R. W. Dixon containing autograph poems with a few
late corrections : a bundle of posthumous papers to which Mr.
Bridges' had access after Father Hopkins' death. One may
speak first of the defects of the poems. They have, succinctly
observes the editor, " definite faults of style which a reader
must have courage to face, and must in some measure con-
done before he can discover the great beauties . . . they may be
506 GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY [July,
called Oddity and Obscurity." Of the former of these faults
the poet himself seems to have been clearly conscious. In one
of his letters (February, 1879) he wrote : " No doubt my poetry
errs on the side of oddness. I hope in time to have a more
balanced and Miltonic style. But as air, melody, is what strikes
me most of all in music and design in painting, so design, pat-
tern, or what I am in the habit of calling inscape is what I above
all aim at in poetry. Now it is the virtue of design, pattern,
or inscape to be distinctive and it is the vice of distinctiveness
to become queer. This vice I cannot have escaped. . . ."
Of his obscurity, however, Mr. Bridges believes that the
poet was " not sufficiently aware . . . and he could not under-
stand why his friends found his sentences so difficult." A large
measure of the difficulty likely to be experienced by the
readers of these poems is attributable to the elliptical liberties
taken by the poet in his unceasing efforts to omit from his
verses all " the purely constructional syllables," to crowd out
every merely "grammatical, colorless, or toneless element."
An extreme example of this is mentioned by the editor : in The
Loss of the Eurydice Father Hopkins wrote:
Holiest, loveliest, bravest
Save my hero, O Hero savest,
which is well-nigh unintelligible unless one supply the neces-
sary relative pronoun before " savest." Nor did the author
keep careful enough ward over the position of words in his
lines to guard against the dangers of grammatical ambiguity.
Mr. Bridges remarks with truth that " English swarms with
words that have one identical form for substantive, adjective,
and verb; and such a word should never be so placed as to
allow of any doubt as to what part of speech it is used for; be-
cause such ambiguity or momentary uncertainty destroys the
force of the sentence." By ambiguities and momentary uncer-
tainties the reader of these poems is likely occasionally to be
perplexed. Nor is our poet without a certain perverse fond-
ness for freaky rhymes : " boon he on " is made to rhyme with
" Communion " in The Bugler's First Communion — but it is
only fair to add that it is his worst offence in this kind. " Some
of my rhymes I regret," he wrote in 1883, " but they are past
changing, grubs in amber: there are only a few of them; others
are unassailable, some others again there are," he ends de-
1919.] GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY 507
fiantly, " which malignity may munch at but the Muses love."
Obviously this is not a poetry to be read as one may read
Crabbe or William Morris — straight ahead, with one's feet
on the fender, as Macauley read Thucydides. In some of the
more teasingly intricate of these poems one's rhythmical and
grammatical instincts seem ever on the point of sustaining an
assault; the progress of Gerard Hopkins' Muse is no mellifluous
" golden pomp." In spite of this it may be truthfully declared
that very few, indeed, are the lines which leave unguerdoned
the industriously attentive eye and ear; very few are the verses
that are not built up with the anxious subtlety of a most curi-
ously and exquisitely wrought art.
Perhaps it is also true to say that in what pertains to the
sheer command of the science of his art, Gerard Hopkins is
surpassed by no poet in English, save only John Milton himself.
Fully to enjoy his superb virtuosity is, one suspects, the last
reward of consummate metrical scholarship. On some of
these pages there are harmonies the rare inner splendors of
which only a most carefully tutored ear and spirit may appre-
hend; one may overhear echoes of such music as that which
ravished the senses of the Pamphylian Er hearkening unto the
harmony of the celestial sirens who sat upon the nine unfolded
spheres. And there is throughout a passionate ardor that beats
like a pulse, but it is an ardor " not of Eros' lips." Love is here,
but it is no earthly love. The fiery glow at the heart of the
finest of these poems is that of the Living Flame of Love.
It can scarcely be that verses such as these will ever companion
the wayfaring man; he needs must be gladdened and healed
by some plainer song — Qui potest capere capiat. In his
austerest work Gerard Hopkins is none but a poet's poet, and
by every true poet he will henceforth be loved with a fine and
just impatience.
But though, in his most sublime and intricate reaches, the
singer is lost to our feebler eyes in a storm of light, and his
song becomes inaudible to our dull and untrained ear, he has
left us a small handful of poems which we may all read and un-
derstand and rejoice to possess: poems full of a tender and
luminous beauty, poems of imagination and melody all com-
pact. The first three numbers of this collection — the " Early
Poems " — are lucid and very lovely; these blossoms of his hesi-
tating spring have a fragrance exquisitely their own. In his
508 GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY [July,
Miles essay Mr. Bridges drew attention to what he happily
called the Keatsian sweetness of those early lines, and Miss
Br£gy — whose wise and beautiful essay everyone should read
—found in his Vision of Mermaids an abiding affinity to the
poet of Endymion. To indicate this kinship in song some
rapturously sensuous lines from this early poem may be
quoted:
Soon — as when Summer of his sister Spring
Crushes and tears the rare enjewelling,
And boasting " I have fairer things than these "
Plashes amidst the billowy apple-trees
His lusty hands, in gusts of scented wind
Swirling out bloom till all the air is blind
With rosy foam and pelting blossom and mists
Of driving vermeil-rain; and, as he lists,
The dainty onyx-coronals deflowers,
A glorious wanton; all the wrecks in showers
Crowd down upon a stream, and jostling thick
With bubbles bugle-eyed, struggle and stick
On tangled shoals that bar the brook — a crowd
Of filmy globes and rosy floating cloud : —
So those Mermaidens crowded to my rock.
The poem from which this extract has been taken was
written when the author was no more than eighteen years old.
It demonstrates quite plainly the point made by Mr. Bridges,
" that his difficult later style was not due to inability to excel
in established forms."
Heaven Haven — A Nun Takes the Veil and The Habit of
Perfection both belong to the Oxford days and to the year of
his conversion to the Faith, 1866. Not merely are they among
the most perfect and profound things he ever wrote, but they
show how deeply even then he had penetrated to the Truth,
how unfalteringly his youthful feet were set upon the Way.
Some of the lines in God's Grandeur — that nobly reverent
elevatio mentis in Deum — take soul and ear with their won-
derful charm of thought and melody. The poem deserves
to be reproduced in its entirety.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck His rod?
1919.] GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY 509
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent:
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went,
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah ! bright wings.
It was the tenderly imaginative conception of the closing
lines of this poem that Mr. Bridges cited as " a perversion of
human feeling," and as one of Father Hopkins' " efforts to force
emotion into theological or sectarian channels." One may well
exclaim : O felix culpa!
Of spring's simple Chaucerian gladsomeness there is
hardly a more ecstatic evocation in modern English poetry than
in these lines full of the burgeoning joy of that season:
. . . When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timbers does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
In The Sea and The Skylark with what lovingly minute ob-
servation does he arrange the delicate touches descriptive of
the wavering silver chain of song dropped by the lark in its
ascent !
Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeined score
In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none's to spill nor spend.
Suspecting that these splendid lines might need elucida-
tion for some of his readers, Father Hopkins in the following
characteristic passage (from a letter in 1882) thus places his
meaning beyond doubt : " Rash fresh more (it is dreadful to
explain these things in cold blood) means a headlong and ex-
citing new snatch of singing, resumption by the lark of his
song, which by turns he gives over and takes up again all day
510 GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY [July,
long, and this goes on, the sonnet says, through all time, with-
out ever losing its first freshness, being a thing both new and
old. Repair means the same thing, renewal, resumption. The
skein and coil are the lark's song, which from his height gives
the impression of something falling to the earth and not ver-
tically quite but tricklingly or wavingly, something as a skein
of silk ribbed by having been tightly wound on a narrow card
or a notched holder or as twine or fishing-tackle unwinding
from a reel or winch or as pearls strung on a horsehair: the
laps or folds are the notes or short measures and bars of them.
The same is called a score in the musical sense of score, and
this score is " writ upon a liquid sky trembling to welcome
it," only not horizontally. The lark in wild glee races the reel
round, paying or dealing out and down the turns of the skein
or coil right to the earth floor, the ground, where it lies in a
heap, as it were, or rather is all wound off on to another winch,
reel, bobbin or spool in Fancy's eye, by the moment the bird
touches earth and so is ready for a fresh unwinding at the
next flight. Crisp means almost crisped, namely, with notes."
This charmingly exact explanation recalls somewhat Walter
Headlam's illustration of the use of fy0<; ^ tyeu? in his per-
fect version of Shelley's Skylark, and how he could not keep
from mentioning in this connection one of his favorite lyrics,
Katharine Tynan's, " All day long in exquisite air the song
clomb an invisible stair."
Perhaps one may take the space to add that to Headlam
the lark's song also suggested Schubert's octet : " It is the most
lovely thing in all music," he would say, " and exactly right for
heaven, as there is no reason why the last movement should
ever stop; it goes on and on and on, and just when the sub-
ject is coming to an end it turns round and catches its own tail,
and there you are at the beginning and start all over again.
Larks too went on for ever, and had you ever noticed how they
mount? They go up a staircase, climbing up step by step into
the sky. George Meredith had noticed it, and Katharine Tynan
— ' round by round in exquisite air the song went up the stair.'
That was a real lyric, as beautiful a lyric as you might find, and
in the same volume was the poem about the daffodil, the golden
trumpeter."
The rich quiet and golden beauty of the English country-
side have never been rendered with a more intimate and ap-
1919.] GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY 511
pealing freshness or with more delightful naivete than in such
poems as Pied Beauty and Hurrahing in Harvest. Pied Beauty
in particular, has an eager Franciscan joyousness, simplicity,
and devotion:
Glory be God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever if fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-f orth whose beauty is past change :
Praise Him.
One may well believe that in artistic directness and in
simplicity of language, there are in the whole range of English
nature-poetry few lines more complete in suggestion than
some of these. " For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that
swim " — that is a memorably beautiful line.
Among these poems there is a delightful Oxford sonnet
of which Mr. Mackail surely cannot have known, or he would
have set it shining in place beside those other jewels of Oxford
song with which he has adorned his fine lecture on the poetry
of that place of enchantment :
Towery city and branchy between towers
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmed, lark-charmed, rook-racked,
The dapple-eared lily below thee. . . .
Every epithet here is a poem in itself.
But one must draw to an end. We have here the record
and proof of an extraordinarily high achievement in the most
difficult of the arts. If profundity of thought, ardor of emotion,
and power and charm of expression are the notes of great
poetry, there can be no uncertainty concerning the fate of this
poet's fame: it will go on and increase. Archbishop Trench
once said of Shakespeare's sonnets that they were " double-
shotted with thought." His phrase is accurately and admirably
applicable to nearly all the poems written by Father Hopkins.
One looks in vain among the poets of the present hour for
ardor of emotion comparable to that which throbs with such
512 GERARD HOPKINS AND HIS POETRY [July,
passionate exaltation in the best pages of these Collected
Poems; few, indeed, are even the major artists in English song
who have attained to a deeper intensity of feeling. In power
and charm of expression it is less obviously easy to demon-
strate his very real distinction. Some of his metres are woven
with such tortuous subtlety, with such tremulous ingenuity,
that the endurance of most readers will faint and fail before the
task of penetrating through them to what lies beyond; one
must tear oneself through thorns and briars, as it were, and not
many suffer willingly so stern a trial of onset. Sometimes so
opulently obscure is his imagery that only the most pains-
taking lovers of poetry can hope to win their difficult way to
his thought. But these things, too, had their purpose and their
justification. "There will always be those" — Joyce Kilmer
some years ago aptly wrote — "who dislike the wealth of
imagery which characterizes Gerard Hopkins' poetry, because
they do not understand his mental and spiritual attitude. Per-
haps for some critics an altar cloth may be too richly em-
broidered and a chalice too golden. Ointment of spikenard
is * very costly.' ' Yet from the pen of this poet there also came
poems and lyrics as crystal-clear as the globed dew, as musical
and unlabored as the song of a thrush among the leaves.
There are two portraits of the Jesuit poet in this edition of
his Poems. One of them represents him as an Oxford under-
graduate looking out upon life with the eager undisillusioned
eyes of youth* the other portrait is of the priest of later years, a
face of tranquil firmness, full of a singular gravity and sad
sweetness of character, full also of a delicate spiritual percep-
tion. It speaks of a love chastened and changed, of a sur-
rendered heart and a transfigured life, of a girding girt round
by the strong hand of Christ, of a soul that has emerged ex
umbris et imaginibus in veritatem.
AN UNCANONIZED SAINT.
BY MARY FOSTER.
I.
HE sacristan of Santa Caterina was a little old man
whose black hair was fast turning white. His
chin, which he got shaved every week, was griz-
zled and dirty, his small brown eyes were grow-
ing dim. He shuffled his feet as he walked across
his little church, rattling his keys, that strangers might know
to whom to apply for a guide.
Sometimes, his young daughter assisted him in his
task. Occasionally, indeed, he told off a party of sight-
seers to her, for she knew as much as he about their sanctuary
and its treasures, and the adjoining house of Santa Caterina.
Caterina Spacchi had been born in the shadow of the
chapel in a small room where, doubtless, in days gone by, the
Saint herself had passed on her errands of mercy to her neigh-
bors. There, too, Caterina's mother had gently breathed her
last, shortly after the birth of her baby.
As a little child, Caterina used to join her companions in
running down the steep Via Benincasa. They waylaid the
passing foreigners, pestering them with bold, yet graceful, im-
pudence to come and see what they, in their soft Tuscan dialect,
called the Hasa di Santa Haterina, provoking smiling mimicry
from those familiar with the Italian tongue.
Children soon learn to discriminate, and Caterina and
her merry companions could well distinguish those of the tour-
ists likely to follow the pointing of their eager brown fingers
and to visit their sanctuary. Still, they did not confine their
attentions to this class of visitor only. Often their little bare
legs chased the uncompromising British spinster, with
Baedaker firmly under her arm, just for the mischievous de-
light of arousing an indignant protest in very bad Italian from
the tormented sightseer.
The children ran freely in and out of each other's houses
sure of a welcome at all times, for when does an Italian woman
VOL. cix. 33
514 AN UNCANON1ZED SAINT [July,
turn from a child? Sometimes Caterina looked round her
neighbors' rooms with wistful eyes, regretting in her childish
way that there was no mother and no little brothers and sis-
ters in her home. She could not ask her companions to her
house, for her father kept it locked while he sat in his church,
and his child was left to the care of a neighbor.
So this young thing grew up in the street made holy by
the footsteps of Siena's Saint. The simple church was more
homely to her than her own little bedroom. She grew accus-
tomed to spend many odd moments there, to run in and tell the
Listener Who never grew tired of all the little joys and griefs
that others would laugh at.
From the sunny street the chapel was always dark and
cool, and a minute snatched from the chatter of the outside
world and spent in this peaceful place was very precious to
her. The great Santa Caterina had prayed there, and there was
a very beautiful picture of her on the wall, and her little dis-
ciple learned to love the shrine. After all, didn't her Father
dwell here and were not the sweet Madonna and the saintly
Caterina watching her? Her own mother must be near also,
nearer than in the noisy street, thought the child, as she stood
in her dark corner praying in her artless way.
As Caterina grew older, she began to forsake her young
companions. She felt envious of them when they clustered
together in large happy families, or discussed amongst them-
selves whose mother was the fairest. At such moments she
would run from them to the chapel, where she would whisper
softly :
" Oh mother, you are by far the fairest, for you are an an-
gel now."
So many hours spent in the dimly lighted sanctuary with
her best Friend, seemed to give a purity and refinement to the
young girl's face, as she passed from childhood to early
womanhood. She grew rapidly into a tall young thing, long
limbed and graceful, as are her countrywomen. Her back
was as straight as the cypresses which grew outside the city
gates, and the small, shapely head was set nobly upon her erect
shoulders.
Often she climbed the steep street to watch the passers-by,
a slender, lissom figure, as she stood gazing in silent wonder
at the foreigners. They were a constant source of interest to
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 515
her, their hair especially puzzling her. Her own was straight
and thick and neatly confined in two braids, but theirs seemed
to stand out everywhere in marvelous waves and curls.
She wondered, too, at the frequent glances they directed
to her, and why they smiled when her dark, dreaming eyes
met theirs. She did not know how her fresh young beauty
attracted and how musical her soft Tuscan accent sounded.
So she often regretted that these strangers did not see her
in the lovely Sunday dress her father had once bought for her.
It was a tight fitting, gray cashmere with a yoke of crimson
velvet, and ranked amongst the girl's most treasured posses-
sions. She could not tell that the simple peasant bodice and
full skirt that she wore every day became her far better.
Gaterina loved her home. She loved the glimpses of the
broad, unknown country that she could see from the top of
the Via Benincasa. She loved the brown tiled roofs, cluster-
ing at the feet of the marble cathedral, which sheltered the
Sienese homes. She loved the cypresses at the city gate far
below. But most of all she loved her little church with its
pictured walls, and her patron saint's house where the fres-
coed figures were all her intimate friends.
She would often laugh with very joy at the loveliness
around her, and little ejaculations of praise and thanksgiving
escaped from her lips as some new beauty of ever changing
nature sent a throb through her being. Sometimes the distant
mountains were clad with snow which sparkled in the sunlight,
or a gray mist hung over the vineyards, making the silver olive
trees one with it. But the great dark cypresses stood aloof
from the spells of the atmosphere.
Gaterina vaguely fancied that the seductive mist was like
the great attractive world, and had lured the trembling olive
trees, as the world lured timorous souls, into its embrace. But
the cypresses were as the pillars of God's Church, firm and
straight, ever pointing upwards.
The girl was happy and contented in her simple life. Her
father was poor, and could not afford her treats, but she was a
good daughter to him and cared for him more and more as he
aged, relieving him of his work and sparing his enfeebling
steps the duties her young feet undertook so willingly. Then,
in the evenings when the church was locked upon the tourist,
Caterina could have it all to herself, and talk to the great
516 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [July,
Friend so close to her. And as girlhood trembled on the thresh-
old of womanhood, she falteringly spoke of her future, and
prayed God to send her a good husband.
" A Christian, dear God, and a good kind man." She
prayed aloud in her soft voice, " Ah, Madonna, you had the
best of husbands, can you not find one for me, to love and help
me to be good? And I would like some dear little babies to
care for. I would be very good to them and teach them to love
you. And if they grew up good and pious, you would be
pleased with me and let me come to you in heaven when I am
old enough to die and see my own dear mother there. I won-
der if once she prayed for a baby, and I wonder if she is pleased
with her baby now."
n.
Mark Standish raised the heavy leathern curtain of the
church door, letting it fall with a dull thud against the frame-
work of the entrance. His sun-dazzled eyes beheld nothing
for a moment, and he looked around with that vague sensa-
tion of blindness that we all experience on coming from daz-
zling brightness into a dim, unknown space. As his vision grew
accustomed to the sombre light a tall erect form caught his
eye, and he glanced with some curiosity at the standing figure,
then he glanced again.
Caterina's pure profile showed out against the dark wood
behind her, and was lit up by the fitful flickering of a lamp
burning close at hand. One or two worshippers knelt here and
there praying devoutly, and Caterina's lips moved as she too
prayed, while her soft whispers were audible to the stranger
at the door.
" Ah, Madonna, I am growing old, quite soon I shall be a
woman. Send me a good husband."
A faint smile crept into the listener's face, and he waited
for more, but it was only the — to him unfamiliar — sound of
the Ave Maria wln'ch met his ear.
He drew near to the girl, and accosted her politely:
" I beg your pardon, can you tell me who these frescoes are
by?"
The question was unnecessary, as he know well, and he
was conscious that it was hardly a question to put to a peasant
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 517
girl. But he was attracted by the face, and the deep eyes, now
turned to him, moved him strangely.
" I will tell you all about them," Caterina responded to his
surprise. " I am the sacristan's daughter, so I know them all
very well. This is my favorite, it is by Pacchia. See our
great Santa Gaterina bending to kiss the feet of the dead Santa
Agnese di Montepulciano. See, the feet themselves are rising
to meet her holy lips. Her figure is noble, isn't it ? I am fond of
looking at that young man who stands in the front of the paint-
ing, he is so handsome and graceful. Don't you think it is a
very beautiful picture? "
" Very, very beautiful," the stranger replied gazing at the
girl instead of at the fresco.
"You should come and look at them by yourself," she
said turning her eyes from the picture to her companion.
" And now, shall I show you the Gasa? "
He assented with alacrity. " You know all about these
beautiful works of art," he added with some surprise.
" Oh, yes, signore," she answered, " I have lived here all
my life, and have learned to love them."
"Do we always love our surroundings?" the man ques-
tioned idly as he followed her through the side door.
But Gaterina looked at him in silence, not understanding
his question. Standish watched her with much interest as she
conducted him through her beloved Saint's rooms, watched
the flush deepen in her dark cheek, as, finding him so sym-
pathetic a listener, she poured forth the poetical history which
the walls depicted. Through her recital the very air they
breathed seemed so impregnated with the spirit of the Saint,
that Mark almost expected to see the gentle virgin before him
in her humble cell wrapt in prayer. He lingered long, strongly
attracted by the poetry and charm of his young guide.
" I will come again," he said, when at length he withdrew.
" I am an artist, you know, and I would like to study these
frescoes. And perhaps when I return you will take me
through the rooms again, and repeat what you have told me
today."
Caterina smiled, she felt she had found a kindred spirit.
Most people hurried past Franchi's frescoes. " Very nice, but
modern," they said, and they had come to Italy to see ancient
art.
518 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [July,
And then how nice this gentleman was! How polite he
had been to her. He had treated her as a grown-up lady, calling
her signorina, and opening the doors for her. And he spoke
such excellent Italian. Also he was an artist. Gaterina did
not quite know what an artist was, but it was evidently one
who loved beautiful things and who would let her talk about
her treasures.
After he had gone, Caterina slipped back to the chapel
to thank God for sending so kind a gentleman to her.
Standish came back the next day, and returned again and
yet again. Almost daily he and his young guide stood before
the frescoes. Gaterina, now that her duty of cicerone was done,
waiting silently behind the gentleman till he should want her.
As she stood in readiness her eyes would stray to her beloved
pictures and the artist, unperceived, could watch her wrapt,
dreaming face.
Standish had a craving for the beautiful, but art alone had
stirred his heart. A man of thirty-three, he had never known
love, and no atmosphere of religion had ever breathed upon his
soul. He led a somewhat solitary existence, a spoilt child of
fortune who had scarcely had a cross in his life, a man of
strong ideas and deeply-rooted prejudices. In person scrup-
ulously neat and tidy, he heartily despised and held in ab-
horrence the ill-kempt type of " artist," for ugly surroundings
and ugly people jarred upon him as much as crudity of color
offended his artist's eye.
For the rest, he was entirely careless and self-indulgent.
Free from home ties, and enjoying a comfortable and assured
income, life slipped by smoothly, without care or trouble. He
had set up a studio in Siena for some months. The delicate
spring of the surrounding country, which would soon give
place to the richer glories of summer, he looked forward to re-
producing upon his canvas, and the city itself would furnish
him models from amongst its inhabitants.
Now he had found a face which his fingers were aching
to set down. That the girl herself attracted him was a happy
coincidence. He had studied her appearance while presum-
ably studying Franchi's frescoes, and he knew that he could
make a beautiful picture of her. But he did not quite know
how to ask this girl to stand as his model. She was so dignified
he felt he must make his request delicately, and it irritated him
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 519
to think that he could not seize his brushes and paint her then
and there.
" Signorina" he began diffidently, at length, " I have told
you that I am an artist. I am painting a picture of your lovely
country. But I want you to let me put you in it. You would be
helping me greatly if you would permit it."
" But the signore is welcome," she said gently in some sur-
prise.
"You would have to come to my studio then," he con-
tinued, relieved that she had acceded to his request so simply.
" And sit or stand for me. Of course, as I would be taking up
your valuable time, I should not let you be the loser. You have
the face I want, and I would pay you well to let me repro-
duce it."
She looked at him with a puzzled frown upon her brow.
"I have the face you want?" she repeated slowly. "But
then the good God gave it to me as a free gift, and I could not
sell it for money, could I? "
" Then what would you ? " Standish asked half im-
patiently.
Gaterina drew herself up proudly.
" I will take no money," she said firmly, " but the signore
may paint me certainly. I will come with him now, at once,
if he will only wait till I put on my best frock."
" No, no," he interrupted laughing. " Come as you are.
Twist your red scarf over your dark hair the way you often
wear it. I will paint you so. Come."
Caterina followed him slowly, disappointed that he would
not let her wear her gray and crimson dress. But he was such
a nice gentleman, and it was very good of him to choose to
paint her. As they passed through the little chapel and she
made her devout genuflection, she whispered eagerly:
" Oh, Madonna, he is going to paint me in a real picture.
Oh, let me look nice in it and please him."
III.
" Now Caterina," began Standish briskly, and with his
brushes in his hands he was a different man. "You must
stand here — so — not stiffly, naturally. Try and fancy you are
gazing at one of your frescoes at home. See, I will hang this
picture for you to look at."
520 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [July,
Caterina glanced around in bewilderment. The studio
seemed very rich and luxurious to her, and she would have
liked to have feasted her eyes upon the treasures that lay
about. But she obediently turned her eyes to the direction de-
sired, to find that the picture put before her was a very beau-
tiful head of her dear Santa Caterina.
Standish sketched her rapidly. He wanted to catch the
dreamy expression her eyes always wore when she was in re-
pose, so he did not speak to her. As he worked the beauty of
her face grew upon him, and he resolved to draw her in many
positions and to catch some of the many expressions which
flitted across her countenance.
He did not keep her long the first day, but sent her home
before she was tired, making her promise to return the follow-
ing morning. Then he sat down, lit a pipe, and fell to thinking
of her. Next day he let her sit before him in any pose she
wished, and talked to her that she might be quite natural and
at her ease. He drew her on to speak of her home and daily
life, noting with satisfaction the swift changes which passed
over her face as she responded confidingly to his tactful ques-
tions.
" Alas ! signore, I never knew my mother," she said, " she
died when I was a baby. And though she is a happy saint with
the good God it seems hard that while she can see me, I cannot
see her, doesn't it? "
" Yes," replied the artist beginning to sketch rapidly, " it
doesn't seem quite fair."
Caterina looked at him inquiringly, but presently he
added: "What have you done without a mother all these
years?"
He wanted to catch the wistful expression that had stolen
into her eyes as she mentioned her dead mother, and he drew
her roughly as she told him about her childhood, and the neigh-
bors and her merry young companions who had mothers and
brothers and sisters to love them. Then, when he had satisfied
himself that he had qaught the fleeting sadness of her face, he
lay back in his chair and lit his pipe.
" You have a very beautiful home," he observed presently,
after a little silence had fallen between them.
"Ah, so lovely, signore" she cried clasping her hands.
" Sometimes when I gaze at the country outside the city gates,
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 521
I want to laugh aloud with the beauty of it all. Do you think
the good God can have made a country more beautiful than
Italy?"
Mark took the pipe from his mouth and laughed lightly.
"If He made Italy, perhaps He went one better somewhere
else," he said.
" But of course He made Italy," Caterina replied, looking
up with a puzzled air. " And He made heaven, we know, which
is far fairer than this. Oh I am sure it will give us a great, great
surprise when we get there to see how lovely it is."
Mark smiled.
"Do you think I will ever get there?" he asked idly.
" Can you fancy me in such a place? "
Gaterina's face grew troubled.
" You say such strange things, signore, and I am only a
poor girl and cannot understand."
Standish took a piece of charcoal and touched up his
sketch, but he did not answer. It would not do to perplex this
child: she might not come back if he shocked her. But she
was very amusing, indeed something more than amusing.
" Well, the country," he suggested presently. " Tell me
what you see outside the city walls."
" Have you not seen it, signore? It is so beautiful. I do
not know when I like it best. Perhaps in the early spring, I
love the red brown earth when it is freshly turned up by the
plough. I could look at it forever."
" And your eyes are something the same color as the earth
from gazing at it so much," Mark observed. He was putting
some color into his sketch and at the moment he was mixing a
red brown for her eyes.
"Is that really true?" she asked, opening them wide.
" Then it is strange that they have not become blue from look-
ing at the blue, blue sky. The brown earth, signore, is the
sun's child. When the light falls upon it, it is golden red like
the sun, and at night it lies dark and silent when the sun has
gone. But the olive trees are the moon's children. They are
silver, as she is, and as she sends her beams down to the world,
they send them back, that she may shine more brightly. That
is why the moon is so brilliant in Italy, signore."
" Why, you are quite a poet, little one," exclaimed Mark.
"How do you notice such things?"
522 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [July,
" The good God gave us this beautiful world, signore, that
we might love it. And I think He knew that we should love
Him better the lovelier He made it. So He made it very, very
beautiful so that we should love Him very dearly for giving it
to us."
Mark smiled again. He felt that he was being pleasantly
entertained. He had worked earnestly while she had been
speaking. Now he threw down his brushes, and stood up, sur-
veying his work critically.
" I shall begin my picture next time you come," he said.
" Oh, signore, I thought it was finished. Do you want me
again?"
"Why I have only made sketches so far! " Mark replied.
" I have to paint the picture. You will have to come many,
many times more. Don't you like coming? " he asked quickly.
" But, signore, so much," she said earnestly, " you are so
kind, and you let me talk."
He smiled upon her as she withdrew.
When Anthony Bland came in a few moments later, he
found his friend alone before his easel.
"Got a find?" he inquired, glancing over the painter's
shoulder. " By jingo ! you have. Is that the little girl I met on
the stairs? Stunning young woman, and a rattling beauty."
" That you, Tony ? Yes, I suppose you will be wanting her
next. She is a quaint little thing, and so original. See, I have
caught her various expressions in these rough sketches, and I
made her talk so that she should be quite unconscious. They're
good, aren't they? I shall touch them up and make some little
studies out of them."
" Don't touch them up much," said the other. " I like them
as they are, they are so vigorous and clear."
" Yes," Mark agreed slowly, standing back a little. " She is
very good, Tony, so patient. I think she said her rosary last
time she was here."
"A bit religious?" Tony laughed.
" Oh, quite, ripping ideas, some quite pretty. You should
hear her. But I suppose she wouldn't talk if you were here. I've
got round her and she is entirely at her ease with me now."
" I wonder who you have not got round when you wanted
to," remarked Tony thoughtfully. "You're a lucky fellow,
Mark, and I'm sure I don't know why. Now you have got hold
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 523
of a saint you'll be wanting to turn saint, too, and what's more
you'll get your wish, as usual." He wound up with a yawn.
" Ah, don't laugh at her," Standish said rather regretfully.
" She's a very good little soul. And if she believes in fairy tales,
why let her, its very pretty and it refines her face."
Bland laughed. "You'll have to imbibe some of her be-
fief if you want to paint her as a Madonna," he returned, and
he took up one of the sketches. "You tried there, but that
face has nothing divine in it, my dear chap, its only mawkish
and rather sentimental."
Standish drew it away impatiently.
" I have to study her more," he said hastily. " But she has
got the face I want, and I shall certainly paint her as the
Virgin."
IV.
Mark worked silently next day, and Caterina stood very
patiently. Sometimes he saw her lips move, and he smiled
quietly to himself.
" Sit down now," he said at length, " and rest. It is tiring
standing still and it cannot be interesting for you to pose
for me without saying a word. What can I do to make it
less tedious for you?"
He looked at her thoughtfully. " I have it! " he cried sud-
denly. " How would you like me to teach you to speak English
while you are resting? "
" Oh, signore! " she exclaimed, clasping her hands in de-
light, and fixing her great eyes upon his face. "You are so
good. How God must love you! I would do my very best to
please you, signore, and to learn quickly."
" Very well," he answered, smiling at her pleasure. " After
you have stood for me, you shall come and sit beside me and
we will talk and read together. Would you like that?"
" Oh, signore! " She looked at him in respectful admira-
tion.
"You see," he explained, "my picture will take a long
time, and after it is done, I shall paint you again. By that
time you will be able to speak a little English, perhaps."
" I will tell the Madonna how good you are, signore, and
I will ask the blessed God to give you many blessings."
524 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [July,
Caterina proved to be a very quick pupil, and Mark
thought as he listened to her first faltering efforts, that she
made the English tongue very soft and sweet. The picture
progressed slowly. Mark was by no means anxious to hurry.
Truth to tell, he found his young companion very attractive,
and as the present was pleasing, he lingered over his work.
The neighbors in the Via Benincasa did not quite approve
of Caterina's new occupation.
" Eh, but she'll get spoilt," they asserted, as they discussed
her round their doorsteps. " She'll think she's a beauty because
she is having her picture painted."
" And she'll be too good for us soon," said a gray-haired
woman, wistfully.
" Now she's learning English, she'll forget her mother
tongue," another added with a shrug, " and perhaps the signore
will take her back to England with him."
The gray-haired woman sighed gently. " Caterina is a
good girl," she said softly.
" But perhaps the signore is not," put in a sharp featured
young woman. " They say he does not go to church."
Old Pica raised her eyes, which were growing dim with
work and saddened by hard cares and troubles.
"Nevertheless Caterina is a good girl," she repeated
quietly.
But Caterina was apparently unchanged by her lot. She
prayed as frequently in her chapel, and spoke to her great
Friend of the joy that had come into her life, and she begged
God to make her very clever in learning English that the kind
signore should not be disappointed in her.
And Standish? He dawdled over his picture more and
more, and avoided his friends, telling them that he was very
busy. When Caterina was not standing for him or learning
English at his feet, he was hanging over her picture touching
it here and there, delighted with the work he had done. More
than that, he was beginning to love the painting not only for
its artistic merits and skill but for the sake of the lovely face
it portrayed.
But at length it was finished, and Mark and Caterina stood
before the canvas, she, awe-struck to feel that by her side stood
he who had painted this wonderful picture. Presently, how-
ever her eyes grew sad.
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 525
" Ah, now it is finished," she said sorrowfully.
"Yes, it is finished," he echoed, drawing a deep breath.
Then he smiled as he turned to her. " But I haven't fin-
ished with you," he added, and he laughed to see the flush of
delight which rose in her cheeks. "I am going to paint the
Madonna, now."
" Ah, the dear God will help you to paint His Blessed
Mother," she murmured.
" But I am going to ask you to help me," he returned gaily.
" I shall paint you as the Virgin."
" Paint me as the dear Mother of God ! " she exclaimed in
an awed whisper. " Oh, no, I am not worthy."
" Why, little one, of course you are," he argued. " How
do you think your frescoes were painted? You should be glad
that you have the face which will help me to paint the Virgin."
Gaterina looked at him for a moment.
"You know best," she then replied meekly. "I thought
it was too great an honor for me. But it must be right if you
say so. I will ask the good God to make me fit to help you."
She gazed at him with shy admiration, and he laid his
hand on hers with a soft pressure.
" That's a good girl," he said quickly.
She flushed deeply at the unwonted gesture, and at some
tone in the hasty words, that she had never heard before.
And so the sittings went on.
MY LITTLE SHIP.
BY MAY DONEY.
I WEARY for my Little Ship
That is so long in coming home;
Dim month by month, the long years slip
Into the past, 'neath Hope's blue dome;
I dream of it in vision rare;
I plead for it in daily prayer.
So many boons it has aboard,
To given it steady draught and deep,
So firmly freighted is its hoard —
So fast its darling treasures keep —
That surely never storm could wreck
The shining keel beneath its deck!
I look for it; I long; I wait;
I count the Goods it holds afar—
Four happy walls; a golden gate;
A garden where GOD'S roses are:
The open wind- way of the sun;
Heaven's Dawn in two sweet eyes begun.
Eager or work-worn, quick or numb,
I stand forever at the Place
Into whose harbor-reach shall come
The Little Ship that seeks my face—
The Little Ship my longings fill
With Shining Shadows of LOVE'S Will.
I weary for my Ship deferred:
And yet — across the waters wide,
Tonight, an Angel-Truth I heard; —
My Ship comes in on every tide!
My Little Ship—O Mystery!—
Brings CHRIST in day by day to me!
A PHASE OF CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY.
BY J. F. SCHOLFIELD.
N two distinct, though closely connected, lines of
suggested " reconstruction " (the term is almost
inevitable in these days) there is much ferment
at the present moment among our separated
brethren of the Church of England. The first is
the " Life and Liberty " movement, which seeks to deliver the
Anglican Establishment in the Old Country from the Par-
liamentary bondage which, for several generations, has taken
the place of the royal tyranny inaugurated by Henry Tudor
of unhappy memory. That something must be done is said
to be the conviction of the large majority of the professed mem-
bers of the Established Church; that anything of importance
will be done, except at the price of disestablishment and dis-
endowment (the far more dreaded evil of the two) is very
dubious to impartial outsiders who read history and who know
something of the theological (save the mark!) atmosphere of
the British Parliament. There is, also, said to be a strong min-
ority against the " Life and Liberty " programme, composed
curiously enough of the extremists of each principal section
of Anglicanism. The comparatively few representatives of a
decadent and intolerant Puritanism know quite well that there
would be little opportunity for them in an ecclesiastical body
able to speak and act for itself; the advanced modernists hug
the fetters of establishment, because they effectually hinder
any real Church authority and discipline; and the "Ultra-
marines " (as Ronald Knox happily terms the extreme wing of
the High Church section) are not anxious for any amelioration
of present difficulties and abuses until the whole bad record
of nearly four centuries can be wiped out by the corporate
submission (as they fondly dream) of the Anglican Church
to the Apostolic See.
Along with this movement for self -management on the part
of the Church of England there is another which shows con-
siderable activity, and aims at the reform in some degree, in
the direction, at least, of liturgical precedent, of the Anglican
528 CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY [July,
Book of Common Prayer. That remarkable melange of Catho-
lic prayers (some of them translated with extraordinary suc-
cess), Protestant verbiage, and general liturgical wreckage,
forms a schedule to an Act of Parliament, z". e., the Act of Uni-
formity of 1549, and as such cannot be modified, except by the
same secular authority which originally imposed it. A few
trifling alterations, aiming chiefly at greater brevity in the
recitation of " Morning and Evening Prayer," required, in 1872,
an " Act of Uniformity Amendment Act." There are few An-
glicans, naturally, who would care to have the celebration of
their services discussed by an assembly like the House of Com-
mons, composed of men of all religions and of none, and there-
fore what the Anglican authorities aim at is for all eccesiastical
legislation, disciplinary and liturgical, to be in the hands of
the Church herself, as represented by the Houses of Convoca-
tion, and the canons or other directions thus set forth to be
" laid on the table " of the House of Commons for a certain
period — it being understood there shall be no discussion — and
thus to pass into State as well as Church enactments. Here
again it is to most people incredible that such a concordat
will ever be achieved between the two powers concerned.
However, this may be, it is not uninteresting to consider
briefly the chief liturgical proposal now under consideration,
which has been accepted by three out of the four Houses of
Convocation — the Upper House of the Northern Province
alone rejecting the scheme. The suggestion is to restore as an
alternative use the first Protestant Communion service, imposed
by Act of Parliament in 1549. With the consent of the ordi-
nary, either this or the form of 1662 may be used in any church
— such is the wish of, apparently, a large majority of those
clergy and laymen of the Church of England who care any-
thing about such questions; and many of the rest, being in-
different, would place no obstacle in the way of such a restora-
tion.
On the other hand, a storm, raised and vigorously ex-
ploited by the extreme Protestant party in the Church of Eng-
land, is successfully obscuring — more Protestantico — the issues
involved, and generally causing bitterness over a question that
surely demands the calm of historical and scholarly considera-
tion. A few bishops, chiefly of the Province of York, aided by
a number of clergymen scarcely distinguished for their learn-
1919.] CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY 529
ing or influence, have been organizing a monster petition
against the proposed alternative use, on the ground that the
Communion service of 1549 is " Popish " both in its doctrine
and its ceremonial. Now the opposition of these well-meaning
but very ill-instructed people is founded on profound histori-
cal and liturgical ignorance. Without being a specialist (an
honorable title to which the present writer has no shadow of
a claim) a very little research is sufficient to show the absurdity
of their position. It is quite true that a large and influential
section of High Churchmen, including the widely venerated
Lord Halifax, have for many years desired the Communion
service of 1549 to be recognized as, at least, a permissible rite;
and in the private chapel at Hickelton (Lord Halifax's place in
Yorkshire) we believe that the late Archbishop of York, Dr. W.
E. Maclagan, sanctioned its use. It is equally true that the most
advanced wing of the " Anglo-Catholic " section desires noth-
ing less than its restoration for reasons that will appear pres-
ently.
The Prayer Book of 1549, commonly known as Edward
VI.'s First Book, was the initial attempt of the apostate Arch-
bishop Cranmer to despoil the people of England of the rites
by which they had worshipped for well-nigh a thousand years.
In the previous year, indeed, an " Order of Communion " in
English had been published, and ordered to be used at Mass
when any desired to receive Holy Communion. It was in-
corporated into the new Service Book and has survived in the
various succeeding books of 1552, 1559, and 1662. But, unlitur-
gical and heavy as is its literary style, and revolutionary as
were the intentions of its framers, it did not essentially inter-
fere with the Sacred Liturgy of the Mass. In the " Book of
Common Prayer," all this was changed. Cranmer had at first
sufficient scholarly instinct to retain, so to speak, the skeleton
of the ancient rite; the sequence of the Missal was to a large
extent maintained in the new service. Much of the dignity and
beauty of both Ordinary and Canon were gone, and, of course,
the vernacular had taken the place of the language that St.
Augustine had brought from Rome, and in which the Ecclesia
Anglicana had ever offered up the adorable Sacrifice.
[ERRATA. — A typographical error occurs on page 528, line 5, where 1549 should
read 1559. — THE EDITOR.]
VOL. cix. 34
530 CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY [July,
But there was far worse than this : from end to end of the
new service every explicit reference to the offering up of the
Divine Victim under the sacramental veils was with the utmost
diligence abolished. The priest was certainly to wear an
alb and chasuble — so was the Lutheran minister by Luther's
direction, and so he does today. But it was not without sig-
nificance that he was no longer to begin his ministry at the
altar with the Psalmist's words which had for so many cen-
turies struck the keynote at the opening of the divine har-
monies of the Mass — Introibo ad altare Dei. The prayers at
the Offertory, with their wonderful anticipation of the mighty
Mystery, were struck out; so too was the Orate, fratres and the
response Suscipiat. The Canon was replaced by two long
prayers, the first, "For the whole state of Christ's Church,"
the second being what afterwards was known as the " Prayer
of Consecration." In this latter every single clear assertion of
the reality of the Divine Sacrifice is obliterated. Cranmer and
his associates had no place in their new rite for supplices roga-
mus ac petimus, uti accepta habeas et benedicas haec dona,
hsec munera, hsec sancta sacrificia illibata; for pro quibus Tibi
offerimus, vel qui Tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis, pro se,
saisqae omnibus, pro redemptione animarum suarum, pro spe
salutis, et incolumnitatis suse; for hanc igitar oblationem
servitatis nostrze . . . qusesumus, D online, ui placatus accipias;
for the Quam oblationem and Supra quse propitio ac sereno
vultu prayers ; or for the priest's last prayer before the Blessing
Placeat Tibi, Sancta Trinitas. There certainly was left a
shadow of the Unde et memores, but a comparison of the
prayer in the Missal and that in the new service will show how
careful the " reformers " were to expunge any expressions that
might imply that the Oblation of the Cross is mystically offered
under the accidents of bread and wine.
THE MISSAL. PRAYER BOOK OF 1549.
Unde et memores, Domine, nos Wherefore, O Lord and heav-
servi Tui, sed et plebs Tua enly Father, according to the in-
sancta, ejusdem Christi Filii Tui stitution of Thy dearly beloved
Domini nostri tarn beat* pas- Son O™ S*™Ur Jesus Christ>
we Thy humble servants do cele-
sionis, nee non et ab infens brate and make here before Thy
resurrectionis, sed et in ccelos divine majesty, with these Thy
glorioste ascensionis: offerimus holy gifts, the memorial Thy Son
1919.] CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY 531
prseclarse majestati Tuse de Tuis hath willed us to make: having
donis ac datis, Hostiam puram, in remembrance His blessed Pas-
Hostiam sanctam, Hostiam im- sion' mighty Resurrection, and
glorious Ascension, rendering
maculatam, Panem sanctum vit* unto Thee most hearty thanks
seternse, et Calicem salutis per- for the innumerable benefits
petuse.1 procured unto us by the same:
desiring Thy fatherly goodness
mercifully to accept this our
sacrifice of praise and thanks-
giving.
The Protestant form, if it stood by itself, and was found
in some primitive rite, is undoubtedly patient of a Catholic in-
terpretation, and would, indeed, demand such if the whole in-
tention of the liturgy was evidently to do what the Church
does in offering the Sacrifice of the Mass. But the history of
the service-book of 1549, and the notorious heresy of its com-
pilers, quite forbid such an interpretation.
After the Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum, which was re-
tained, of course translated, in the new book, follows a short
exhortation which is also capable of quite an orthodox mean-
ing, but, as inserted by Cranmer, can scarcely be other than a
definite denial of the mystical Sacrifice of Our Lord renewed
in Holy Mass, and an assertion that the whole rite is a feast of
thanksgiving rather than a Divine Offering which, when
offered, becomes the Food of all the faithful :
Christ our Paschal Lamb is offered up for us once for all,
when He bore our sins on His Body upon the Cross; for He
is the very Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the
world: wherefore let us keep a joyful and holy feast to the
Lord.
The language is, it need hardly be pointed out, reminiscent of
the Paschal Preface.
Three years after the publication of this book, another,
commonly known as the " Second Prayer Book of Edward VI.,"
was put forth, and in this Cranmer's utter abandonment of the
Catholic doctrine of the Holy Eucharist was expressed even
1 " Wherefore, O Lord, we Thy servants, as also Thy holy people, calling to mind
the blessed passion of the same Christ, Thy Son Our Lord, His resurrection from the
dead and admirable ascension into heaven, offer unto Thy most excellent Majesty of
Thy gifts bestowed upon us, a pure Host, a holy Host, an unspotted Host, the holy
Bread of eternal life and Chalice of everlasting salvation."
532 CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY [July,
more unmistakably. If the compilers of the first Anglican com-
munion service had left something of the skeleton — albeit
stripped of flesh and deprived of life — of the ancient Liturgy,
this time they had, with a hatred that is almost incompre-
hensible, reduced that skeleton to a shapeless heap of bones.
Many of the changes had no doctrinal significance, and were
simply the result of a determination to shatter the very frame-
work of the Liturgy. As might have been expected, almost
every word that could bear a Catholic interpretation in refer-
ence to the Eucharistic Sacrifice was expunged. " In the First
Prayer Book there occur no less than sixteen places where
whatever words or phrases indicated one doctrine of sacri-
fice and of a real and objective presence were carefully ex-
punged. And in the Second Prayer Book nine further altera-
tions were made in passages inadvertently retained which were
found to bear a shadow of resemblence to Catholic teaching." 2
Passing over the omission of all directions for such out-
ward reverence to the Most Holy Sacrament as found expres-
sion in the rubrics of the Missal, e. g., the directions for genu-
flection, joining of the thumb and forefinger after the Con-
secration until the ablutions, and even the ablutions them-
selves— there is one rubric which disposes forever of the
fiction that the First Prayer Book, and especially the com-
munion service it contains, was in the least degree a Catholic
rite. I refer, of course, to the order which forbids " any eleva-
tion or showing of the Sacrament to the people."
It is a perpetual puzzle to students of the change of religion
in England why this direction was subsequently dropped and
never re-inserted in later revisions. It can scarcely have been
mere inadvertence; it certainly was not that, in three years,
faith in the Blessed Eucharist had been rooted out so completely
that there was no likelihood of unwillingly conforming clergy
retaining as much as they could (as we know they actually did)
of the Catholic ceremonial. Possibly it was a deliberate sop
to the men of the " Old Learning," with the hope of including
as many as possible in the new State Church; this would have
been more than likely under Elizabeth, but seems improbable
in 1552.
But the disappearance of the prohibition to elevate the
2 The Line of Cleavage under Elizabeth. By Dom Norbert Birt, O.S.B. London:
Catholic Truth Society, p. 65.
1919.] CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY 533
Sacrament explains in part why the greater number of the " ex-
treme " men in the Church of England would much prefer to
keep even the present communion service (in substance
that of 1552, with two* or three modifications owing to High
Church influence) than see the earlier " reformed " rite re-
stored. Another reason is that the service now in use can be
embedded, in an extraordinary manner, in the Missal, which
would be an entire impossibility with the rite of 1549. A
few judicious additions, omissions, and transpositions in the
"Ordinary" of the present form can produce a strange external
likeness to the Catholic Mass; while for the Canon all that is
needed is to begin boldly (secrete of course) at the Te igitur,
to interpolate the Anglican " Prayer of Consecration " after the
Quam oblationem, and after the second Elevation to proceed
with the Unde et memores and so to the end.3 To Catholics
this will sound incredible, but it is done at scores, if not hun-
dreds, of Anglican altars every day.
Besides the internal evidence of the service itself, it is only
necessary to refer to the notorious opinions, clearly expressed
in their writings, of the men who framed it, to show that there
was no intention on their part to provide an " Englished " Mass,
with some few simplifications in ceremonial. They were set
on abolishing, root and branch, what Cranmer called the
" abominable and detestable " Sacrifice of the Mass, and of
which he wrote that Christ " is not in it (the Blessed Sacra-
ment), neither spiritually, as He is in man, nor corporally, as
He is in heaven, but only sacramentally, as a thing may be
said to be in the figure, whereby it is signified." " The great-
est blasphemy and injury that can be against Christ, and yet
universally used throughout the popish kingdom, is this, that
a The controversy regarding the Prayer of Consecration in the English Prayer
Book does not trouble the clergy of the Episcopal Church in America, for the reason
that the American Rite appends to the short English Prayer of Consecration, an
" Oblation," and " Invocation " and a further intercessory form, which is regarded as
an equivalent to the Unde et memores and which contains, according to the teaching
of the " advanced clergy," a true oblation of the consecrated elements, and a true
epiclesis and which gives, moreover, an opportunity for the " little elevation "
(omnis honor et gloria). The Commemoration of the Dead is quite generally inter-
polated, secretly, in the concluding portion of the Prayer of Consecration, giving
the words " And although we are unworthy " a resemblence to Nobis quoque pecca-
toribus.
The American Book of Common Prayer follows the English Rite quite closely
except in this detail, the presence of which is accounted for by the promise of Bishop
Seabury (the first American Bishop who was consecrated by Scottish non-jurors)
to incorporate as much as possible of the Scottish Rite in the American Book.
534 CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY [July,
the priests make their Mass a sacrifice propitiatory, to remit
the sins as well of themselves as of other, both quick and dead,
to whom they list to apply the same." 4 To Cranmer's evi-
dence as to the intention of the reformers in the publication of
the Prayer Book of 1549 may be added that of Ridley, Bishop
of London, the Archbishop's chief collaborator in the work.
"They (the Catholics) pluck away the honor from the only
sacrifice of Christ whilst this sacramental and Mass-sacri-
fice is believed to be propitiatory, and such a one as
purgeth the souls, both of the quick and the dead." Coverdale,
intruded by the Edwardine government into the see of Exeter,
whom Dom Norbert Birt calls " one of the most famous pro-
motors of the Edwardine Liturgy," styles the adorable Sacrifice
the " heinous and stinking abomination " of the Catholics,
and uses blasphemous and abominable language unfit for
repetition in a Catholic review.5
These, and others like-minded, were the framers and the
sponsors of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. That there
should be a heated controversy going on amongst our Anglican
friends in its warm defence on the one hand, and its no less em-
phatic condemnation on the other, shows the small grasp of
either historical or liturgical criticism possessed by most of
these well-meaning people. The subject cannot fail to be an
interesting one to Catholic scholars; it has, indeed, furnished
our libraries with a monumental work from the learned
and eloquent pen of Cardinal Gasquet. And the present phase
of Anglican domestic controversy is almost certain to bring it
into a prominence which it has not had for many years.
As compared with the communion service used in the
Church of England since 1559 — when the form imposed in
1552 was restored almost unchanged — that in the First Prayer
Book is obviously superior in both construction and language.
No scholar, whatever his belief, would defend the extra-
ordinary wreckage which two or three generations ago Agli-
cans used fondly to term " our incomparable liturgy." As a
Protestant service-book there is a dignity and a coherence
about the earlier rite which are hopelessly lacking in the latter.
But from the Catholic standpoint the " first step which costs "
was taken, with all its deplorable consequences, in 1549. It was
4 These quotations, which might be multiplied, are from the Works of Archbishop
Cranmer, Parker Society edition, quoted by Dom Birt, op. cit., pp. 26-28.
8 Cf. Dom Birt, op. cit., pp. 33, 34, 49, et seq.
1919.] CURRENT ANGLICAN CONTROVERSY 535
then that a rite which by implication denied the Real Presence
and the Divine Sacrifice in the Holy Eucharist, was deliberately
substituted for the Church's sacred Liturgy. It is only by
courtesy that we speak of this new service as a " liturgy." As
Doctor Adrian Fortescue remarks in his treatise on The Mass,
Protestants have compiled " quite nice prayer books "6 for the
use of their people, but it would be historically as well as
doctrinally absurd to rank them with the great Liturgies of the
East and West. It was against the imposition of the book of
1549, be it remembered, that the men of Devon rose in their
thousands, demanding the restoration of the ancient rites, and
declaring that the new observances were " no better than a
Christmas game."
If then, as seems most probable, the Anglicans in the old
country, who care at all one way or the other, succeed in re-
storing the first Edwardine rite, such as use it will undoubtedly
have rid themselves of a liturgical monstrosity, and secured
greater solemnity and dignity in the supreme exercise of their
worship. The extreme men on either side will be displeased,
but will settle down to the accomplished fact.
But let no one seriously think that anything like a definite
step back in the direction of the Ancient Faith will have been
taken by the Church of England. There is this encouragement,
however, for those who wish the best to our Anglican friends—
that all such discussion as they are now involved in leads men
to think. And when they think with a good will, and the de-
termination to follow wherever the Light of Life may lead
them, they at least have their faces set towards the Faith and
the Church of their fathers.
B Doctor Fortescue considers that Bugenhagen's Lutheran service-book, com-
posed for the Protestants of Wittenberg, is about the best of these.
Bew Boohs.
HOW FRANCE IS GOVERNED. By Raymond Poincare. New
York: Robert M. McBride & Co. $2.00 net.
This text-book written by the President of the French Re-
public is intended for use in French schools. Though written
before the War, the present reediting of the English translation is
most timely. Many changes may be expected before long in the
constitution of the French Government. The book will then be
found valuable as a clear and authoritative exposition of what will
be the terminus a quo of any new departures. The unsatisfac-
tory character of the present form and workings of the Constitu-
tion has been the object of much comment on the part not only of
leading publicists outside of France but of French politicians
themselves. Some of M. Poincare's criticisms, moreover, on this
very head deserve to be especially noted by those in this country
who are sincerely interested in providing for our own future wel-
fare. Speaking for instance of the prefect of the department he
says : " In the first place he represents the Government and in
this quality he causes orders received from Paris to be executed
throughout the department. ... It is he again who appoints the
teaching staff of the primary public schools, and this is to be re-
gretted, for the prefect is by habit, if not by legal intention, an
official who busies himself considerably with politics, and it is to
be deplored that anyone should suspect political motives as en-
tering into the selection of schoolmasters."
In those few words, we have a summary of what is perhaps
the saddest and undoubtedly the most important chapter in the
history of modern France.
Another point made by the author to be carefully kept in
mind when reading this book is that " the French are almost in-
variably tempted to regard the State as a kind of Providence
which ought to provide a remedy for every evil." This is due in
large measure to their past history. France had at one time, as M.
Poincare shows, the beginnings of a tradition of liberty which, but
for Gallicanism, the shortsightedness of a lawyer Parliament and
the selfish caste spirit of the nobility, might easily have developed
into something superior even to the forms of liberty possessed in
our country and in England. But this tradition was lost. In this
connection Albert Sorel provides the key to almost the whole prob-
lem of government in modern France. At the Revolution, says he,
1919.] NEW BOOKS 537
" there were no precedents for liberty while the precedents for
despotism were innumerable. Thus one notes the gradual insin-
uation into the Revolution, on the ground of expediency, of all the
governmental methods of procedure of the ancien regime. Once
these had been reintroduced they held the mastery, and since then
the whole art of theorists has been to hide and disguise them."
POLAND IN THE WORLD OF DEMOCRACY. By Anthony J.
Zielinski. St. Louis: Privately printed.
This comprehensive war book, introduced by Archbishop
J. J. Glennon and Senator John W. Weeks, consists of seventeen
chapters on Poland, past and present, all but four of which were
written by Mr. Zielinski in essay form for the Free Poland review.
Despite its heart-felt appeal and unveiled partisanship, it differs
from the ordinary run of such books because of its conservative,
judicial tone, grasp of the subject, and historical accuracy. One
wishes that it was better organized, and that it contained a brief
bibliography. However, a number of authorities are noted in the
text, and quotations never lack a careful citation.
The glorious days of Poland from Casimir the Great to
Sobieski, the bulwark of Vienna (1333-1696), are well portrayed.
The heroic campaigns of Polish knighthood against Tartars and
Turks and against the hardly less cruel Teutonic Knights, prove
how Poland safeguarded Christianity and European civilization.
There follows a discussion of the Polish governmental system,
with its figure-head sovereign and democratic guarantees, happy
toleration of the Jews, kindly patronage of arts and letters, and
encouragement of secondary and higher education. The student
of the English constitution would hardly agree that the decree of
1430, Neminem captivabimus nisi jure victum, antedated the
habeas corpus by two centuries (p. 23). Among the reasons
assigned for the thrice partitioning of Poland, the author stresses
the hatred and fear of Polish democracy on the part of the neigh-
boring, predatory autocracies. Truly, Poland felt the heel of
Prussia and experienced the Kultur of Frederick the Great long
before the world-at-large understood. As evidence of Polish
culture there is listed a number of renowned scholars, such as,
Martinus Polonus, the thirteenth century chronicler, Copernicus,
the counter-Reformation Jesuit, Father Skarga, and such present
day leaders as Ignace Paderewski and Curie-Sklodowska. One
looks in vain for a good chapter, instead of a couple of pages upon
the knight-errant Poles of the Revolution, and the contribution to
America of the four million hard-working, thrifty, law-abiding,
and indisputably loyal Polish immigrants who have settled among
538 NEW BOOKS [July,
us during the past generation. The last chapter parallels the suf-
ferings of Ireland with those of martyred Poland, extending san-
guine hopes for self-determination for both nationalities.
PIONEERS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. By Doctor Angelo
S. Rappoport. New York: Brentano's. $2.25 net.
The great difficulty with most books on Russian subjects —
a weakness evident in Dr. Rappoport's new volume — is that they
defeat their own ends by over-enthusiasm or over-hate. The
author, long an enemy of Tsardom, makes the error of judging
every popular expression of displeasure as a revolt against vested
authority, and every effort at control from above as injustice.
With this as his theory, he attempts to show that a Tsar and his
satellites was an evil institution from the first, whereas the growth
and stability of the Russian Empire in the past was due greatly
to the authority which held together a conglomerate of peoples.
Again, the ecclesiastical revolt of Nikkon which split the old
Orthodox Church he claims to be a revolutionary movement. All
of which is quite absurd. The revolutionary movement in Russia
dates back no farther than the Decembrists, a body of aristocratic
officers who revolted at the choice of the Tsar.
In his resume of the development of the revolutionary prin-
ciples in Russia and France, M. Rappoport is at his best. In this
he is content to be the historian, showing the rise of certain forces
in each country and the difference between them.
Socialism today has resolved itself into a fight between capi-
tal and labor, but can one say that Russia is wholly Socialistic
when less than thirty per cent of her one hundred million dwell in
cities and are affected by capitalistic control? No, the roots of
the revolutionary spirit — a fact he touches on but slightly — are
embedded in the genus of the Russian people. Eventually this
ardor burns itself out, and they become docile once more. That
is precisely what has happened again and again in the past and
will happen after the Bolshevist has run his gamut.
A very interesting and enlightening part of this volume is the
history of the Jew in revolutionary Russia. It is not pleasant
reading, for their persecution was more terrible than words can
depict. The desire for justice, innate in the Orthodox Jew, has
not substituted Socialism for religion, at least Doctor Rappoport
says not, but later reports from Russia and a study of our own
Jewish colonies would make us doubt his assertion. The ortho-
doxies of Socialism and religion cannot go hand in hand. Of the
three hundred and eighty-four " Peoples' Commissaries " in the
Bolshevist Government more than three hundred are Jews, of
1919.] NEW BOOKS 539
which two hundred and sixty-four came to Russia from the United
States during the revolution, few of them having ever suffered one
hour's imprisonment for the freedom of Russia from bureaucracy!
These facts rather support M. Rappoport's statement that " the
loyalty of the Jews to their respective countries is only con-
ditional," and that therefore the Zionist movement is supported
by those Jews who are always on the side of the highest bidder.
On the whole M. Rappoport's book is to be read carefully. It
has the weakness of violent prejudice against all authority, civil
or ecclesiastical, its sophistry is patent and its deductions some-
times faulty. As a record of events it is just and readable. He
was at his best in his History of Russia, at his worst in his violent
volume on the Romanoffs — and in this, midway between those
two extremes.
THE BRITISH NAVY IN BATTLE. By Arthur H. Pollen. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Go. $2.50 net.
In a volume that teems with interest Arthur Pollen tells the
story of the victorious vigil kept by the British in the waters
of the North Sea. The War just ended will always be looked upon
as a " land " war — a struggle preeminent in the movement and
attrition of armies. Because of this fact, that during the four
years of conflict the eyes of the civilized world were anxiously
turned at all times to the lines running from Belgium to Metz,
the work of the Allies' naval forces was lost sight of. Yet of all
factors, this was the most dominant in determining the issue of
the War.
In fact, as the author points out in his chapter " Action that
was never Fought," had Germany had the foresight and audacity,
by one master stroke she might have destroyed the British Grand
Fleet as it lay unprotected in the fairway of the Solent in 1914. If
the British Fleet had then been destroyed, there would now be no
Council of Paris dictating peace terms to the Central Powers.
The author presents this tremendously important phase of
the War in a highly technical but interesting manner. He is not
slow to criticize adversely where censure is due. He makes
pointed comment of the divergence in the tactical principles em-
ployed by Sir David Beatty and Admiral Jellicoe, the Commander-
in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, at the battle of Jutland — a skirmish
that has been the source of great comment in all naval circles.
Mr. Pollen considers it amazing that this conflict was allowed to
jeopardize the existence of the Fleet, and from his comment it is
clear that he feels that immediate success might have come to the
British ships seeking the destruction of the German units, had not
540 NEW BOOKS [July,
Jellicoe drawn off his forces from active pursuit of the fleeing
enemy.
The British Navy in Battle is a critical study of the few but
important naval encounters of the War. It is a war book with
a permanent value, and will receive a well deserved place along-
side the volumes by Admiral Mahan.
HOW THE BIBLE GREW. By Frank Grant Lewis, Ph.D. Chi-
cago: The University of Chicago Press. $1.50 net.
The purpose of this work is to furnish the readers " a history
of the Bible which permits the book itself, and its keepers, to tell
the story of its origin." The author traces the history of books,
sources, collections, versions of the Old and the New Testament
writings. In consecutive chapters he deals with the books of the
Old Testament in the time of Jesus, Son of Sirach; the sources of
the Prophets and of the Law; the growth of the Law and the
Prophets; the Books of the Writings. The origin of the various
versions of the Bible is explained. A valuable summary is added
in the form of a chronology of the Bible writings and versions.
The work contains a considerable amount of useful and
valuable information. The position taken by the author on
Biblical questions is that now generally accepted by the school of
higher Biblical criticism, as opposed to traditional views.
The Catholic scholar will inevitably disagree with the author's
views on many points; such as: The authorship and the date of
the Pentateuch; his treatment of the deuterocanonical books; the
date and authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The " worth and power " of the Bible will be enhanced, not
by a treatment which " has taken away a certain kind of rever-
ence which, after all, was merely a sort of superstition," the
method employed by Dr. Lewis, but by insisting upon its sacred
character, by making inspiration an integral and organic con-
stituent of the Sacred Writings.
THE CITIZEN AND THE REPUBLIC. A text-book in government.
By James A. Woodburn and Thomas F. Moran. New York:
Longmans, Green & Co. $1.50.
The announced aim of this text-book for the upper grades of
the high school is to " answer the demand for that which is need-
ful and important in the new civics, sometimes called * community
civics,' and at the same time to hold fast to that which is good
in the old."
The book wisely suggests that the field of civics is the world,
and encourages universal instruction for social efficiency. It
contains all of the facts regarding the organization of government,
1919.] NEW BOOKS 541
and deals with the important economic and social questions which
confront citizenship. The attempt is made to make these prob-
lems the basis for the connection between the old and the new
civics. Nevertheless, there is a strong preponderance of the old
civics. There is an excess of analysis of forms and a minimum
of practice: plenty of the anatomy of government, but very little
of the physiology. The proportions are not very well kept.
For instance, there are forty-two descriptive pages of the
Senate and House of Representatives, which tell the forms
of organization as they appear in the Constitution and in the rules,
but practically none of these pages are given to the actual way in
which legislation is enacted.
The same criticism applies to other portions of the book.
Undue space is given to the analysis of the Federal Govern-
ment, while State Government is passed over in twenty-three pages
— practically all devoted to analysis of forms.
The book, however, contains excellent reference material and
good topics for study. It includes a copy of the Constitution of the
United States and of the Articles of Confederation, but omits the
Declaration of Independence. While it brings much of the infor-
mation of the old and the new civics within the covers of a single
book, it scarcely attained its aim of combining them organically.
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE. By Vicente
Blasco Ibanez. Translated by Charlotte Brewster Jordan.
New York: E. P. Button & Co. $1.90 net.
The immediate and extraordinary success of this novel is not
attributable to originality of theme or point of view. The War's
reactions, individual and general; the complications of European
family life, where international marriages are so common, when
nationalism struck the deep, dividing blow that makes a man's
foes those of his own household; the enveloping web of intrigue
against which, for a time, struggle seemed to be in vain; the un-
precedented horrors that raged in the dreadful wake of the " four
horsemen;" all these subjects had already been treated by
novelists, effectively and even memorably, previous to this publi-
cation. Here these are handled, and upon a scale so large that
the reader finds no unsuitability in the sonorous title that re-
vives memories of awe-inspiring imagery, yet focusses attention
upon personal and intimate interests which typify, in a way, the
whole tremendous drama.
It is possible that the book will long retain a high rank
among the War novels; and it is equally possible that mention
of it will first arouse in its readers' recollection the earlier por-
542 NEW BOOKS [July,
tion of the story, antedating considerably the outbreak of the
conflict. An enduring imprint is made by the delineation of the
character and picturesque surroundings of the old South Ameri-
can ranchman, the grandfather Desnoyers, head of the family
whose fortunes we follow through the first stages of the War.
In this connection, it must be stated that in this history things
are said and told which, while they do not actually lower its tone,
render it unsuitable for immature readers. Again, though the
author does not use this occasion to display his animosity to the
Church, the religious spirit is ignored. Yet his work is saved
from godlessness inasmuch as it is an epic of the love of country
which the Church has ever placed second only to love of God. In
this lies its greatest appeal and from this it receives the crown of a
fine achievement.
A word of appreciation is due to the translator whose skill
causes us to forget that the book was not written in the clear,
fluent, forceful English in which she presents it.
IN THE HEART OF A FOOL. By William Allen White. New
York: The Macmillan Co. $1.60.
To say of any piece of literary work that it has failed to meas-
ure up to its author's purpose, is to utter a banality, so widely
applicable is this verdict; yet it is a criticism that Mr. White here
invites insistently by his repeated statements as to his intentions.
There is a somewhat indiscreet challenge in his assertion that the
novel will have been written in vain unless the reader sees in the
" triumphant failure " of the high-minded, martyred labor leader
a parable of America's entrance into the War. It is improbable
that the average reader will either discover this for himself or be
particularly impressed when it is pointed out to him; on the other
hand, it is equally unlikely that the book will have been written
in vain, for him. For Mr. White has definitely accomplished cer-
tain things, though he has been unduly long about it. He has
given us the biography of a Kansas town from its first settlement
to its attainment to the rank of an industrial centre; and with this,
the story of a group of its residents, of whom one, Thomas Van
Dorn, is the fool who " hath said in his heart there is no God."
The growth of the town in wealth and importance and the corre-
sponding diminution of kindly community spirit, is well pictured,
as are the furious labor disturbances which the passion for money-
getting precipitates, the cold inhumanity where once neighbor-
liness prevailed, the undermining by sordid politics of a once
high standard. Upon the personal side the author has been no less
successful; his characters grow up with the town, and their youth
1919.] NEW BOOKS 543
is really young; moreover, their maturity is in each case con-
sonant with the character as already sketched. This is especially
true in the case of Van Dorn, whose early manhood has a gayety
that partly condoned his lack of principle, yet is entirely con-
sistent with the deliberate choice of evil by which he develops into
a cold-hearted libertine who, at the last, faces a self-ruined life.
The novel is too long and moves too slowly, the action being
encumbered with unnecessary details; and there is far too much
spoken propaganda of the higher democracy, good as some of the
ideas are. It is also to be regretted that Mr. White should not
have employed more reserve in handling certain scenes and in
using expressions that we should not be obliged to encounter in
ordinary reading. Restraint could have been exercised without
in the least detracting from the strength that may be conceded to
the book, notwithstanding its deficiencies.
SELF AND SELF-MANAGEMENT. By Arnold Bennett. New
York: George H. Doran Co. $1.00.
In this the latest addition to Arnold Bennett's series of
"Pocket-Philosophies" there are ninety-six pages, most of them
readable, on such topics as " The Diary Habit," " The Complete
Fusser," " Running Away from Life." Mr. Bennett however does
not enhance by such work as this his deservedly high reputation
as the narrator of Edwin Clayhanger's fortunes and the biographer
of the Baines sisters. And a dollar is far too high a price for this
meagre volume.
THE EMBLEMS OF FIDELITY. By James Lane Allen. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.25 net.
This volume is entitled " A Comedy in Letters " presumably
for the reason that no class- word derived from " irony " exists
to be applied to a story or a play. The conflicts and cross-pur-
poses of life appeal to certain ironically endowed intellects as
comedies in this sense, even if their result upon happiness more
nearly deserves the opposite appellation. The nucleus of the plot
is the request from a distinguished English author that a rising
young American author obtain for him some of the ferns de-
scribed in one of the latter's stories. Fantastic developments re-
sult, ultimately anything but comic in the broad and popular sense
of that word. The Englishman's letter obtrudes upon a very curi-
ous situation existing between young Sands, the American, and
his fiancee, occasioning finally not merely their separation but that
likewise of Sands' best friend and his fiancee. Yet this end is
inherent in the initial situation — one does not carry away the
" puppets of fate " idea from the story. Some excellent studies of
544 NEW BOOKS [July,
human nature are developed in the progress of the novel, and Mr.
Allen's sense of humor, as always when it goes questing, comes
back with rich spoils.
THE PARABLES OF JESUS. By Philip Coghlan, C.P. New York:
P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $1.00.
A very excellent piece of advice is given by the author of this
little volume, viz., that we should read the Parables in the words
of the Gospels, and in the version given by each Evangelist, so as
to compare the details, for it is very desirable that we become
familiar with Our Lord in the simplicity and directness of per-
sonal knowledge, rather than through other mediums however
excellent. Here, the Parables are presented in a threefold class:
those which are related by three, those related by two, and those
related by only one Evangelist, for St. John does not record any
of them. After distinguishing between those that are rather
allegories, and those that are parables proper, the author gives a
short explanation of the lesson inculcated in each. The book
imparts an amount of knowledge useful for a clearer grasp of the
groups to whom they were addressed, the prejudices, the view-
points of the listeners, and the circumstances which led up to each.
THE LOVER'S ROSARY. By Brookes More. Boston: The Corn-
hill Co. $1.25.
This little volume by Brookes More (a brother of Paul Elmer
More, the celebrated essayist) brings us a modern sonnet sequence
— a story told after the fanciful Elizabethan manner, by a group
of sonnets, fifty-nine in number, and therefore ingeniously chris-
tened The Lover's Rosary. The first part, sub-titled " pearls,"
tells of what might be called the " joyful " mysteries of young and
happy romance. The second section gathers together the " sor-
rowful " mysteries of love defeated by death and doubt.
Many of Mr. More's friends would gladly welcome a final
series of " glorious " mysteries, in which the note of love resurgent
and transfigured by faith might bring back into a story told with
sincerity, quick and realistic fancy and the grace of a scholarly
equipment in literature.
OUR NAVY IN THE WAR. By Lawrence Perry. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50.
This book, which is dedicated to Mr. Daniels, contains a tri-
bute to his work and that of his department in the War. Neces-
sarily, facts of the sort which this volume contains are limited as
to the number which may be obtained for popular publication.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 545
However, Mr. Perry has collected his material with such care
that he has a great deal of evidence with which to support his
patriotic thesis as to the growth in effectiveness and importance of
our navy under the fostering care of the Secretary of the Navy and
the men whom he has picked as his assistants. The scope of the
book is not limited to bare statistics, and the reader will often
thrill over the descriptions of marine warfare and the accounts of
the heroism of our sailors.
OCTAVIA AND NEW POEMS. By Charles V. H. Roberts.
THE GREAT CONSPIRACY. By Charles V, H. Roberts. New
York: The Torch Press. $1.50 net each.
Two more volumes of verse come to us from the pen of the
indefatigable Mr. Roberts. Octavia, following its author's
predilection for tragic themes, portrays the last scene in the life
of Nero's repudiated empress, stressing the tradition of the Chris-
tian faith with which she met this murder by imperial command.
The single act of the play, while not managed with any particular
dramatic skill, is full of inherently dramatic material. The book
contains also a poem-drama entitled, Kamerad, and verses on
varying subjects, of which the best is perhaps a colorful reverie
upon Venice.
The Great Conspiracy is a revision of Mr. Roberts' drama
built about the story of Edith Cavell, The Sublime Sacrifice. The
symbolic introduction taking place in hell, and the romantic
scenes between the great nurse and her (imaginative) lover have
been considerably expanded.
THE GENTLEMAN RANKER AND OTHER PLAYS. By Leon Gor-
don. Boston: The Four Seas Co. $1.60 net.
This little volume contains three playlets. The first, The Gen-
tleman Ranker, in four scenes, tells the story of " Private Smith "
who seeks as a common soldier in the English army stationed in
South Africa, to wipe out the disgrace which he incurred, in Eng-
land, by forging his father's name to a check. Smith's father is
Colonel-in-command, who, fatherlike, cannot quite forget that the
lad, despite his wrongdoing, is his own flesh and blood. Smith un-
covers a German plot and then risks his life to get news to the
English Relief Force. The former exploit wins him back his
father's respect; the second wins him a hero's death. The play
reads well but has no particular distinction either in dramatic
action or in plot. We have the girl who loves the disgraced soldier
and who becomes a nurse at the front; the rival suitor who is an
officer in the British army but who proves to be a German spy;
VOL. cix. 35
546 NEW BOOKS [July,
and finally, soldiers in the manner of Mr. Kipling, all of which
leaves the reader unconvinced.
The second playlet is As a Pal, a miniature cross-section of
lower life in London suburbia. Two callow youths, 'Erib and Ted,
who wish to make an impression upon the rather coy Cynthia,
affect the heroic role only to grow pallid with fear on learning
that Cynthia has another admirer (creature of her fertile fancy)
who has the strength of an ox and a consuming jealousy. Though
the situation is one of the stocks in-trade of comedy, it is well
handled.
The third playlet, Leave the Woman Out, is reminiscent of
William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes. The single scene presents
a duel of resourcefulness between the gentleman Raffles and the
great detective, named, perhaps as a delicately ironic compliment,
Doyle. The playlet is crowded with action and proves that Mr.
Gordon possesses the instinct of the dramatist.
POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND AND OLD SPAIN. By Frederick E.
Pierce. Boston: The Four Seas Co. $1.25 net.
Before Robert Frost was, there was Frederick E. Pierce,
author of The World That God Destroyed and Jordan Farms, in
which a forceful utterance, retarded somewhat by the rocks of
fact, contrasted sharply with the rather liquid and rhetorical
naturalism flowing from the author of North of Boston. For Mr.
Pierce's style has all the excellence and all the defect of the simple
historical method: he has lived so close to the nature and life
with which he concerns himself that there is some loss of atmos-
phere, some lack of illusion which we seem to require in poetical
writing. His feet are bare against the ground in a sense that can-
not be said of Mr. Frost in spite of all his attempts to reproduce
the local vernacular, a task which the author of Poems of New
England and Old Spain disavows.
The Story of a Self-Made Man is a document in sociology as
well as poetry; it can have few admirers in a world where clever
tricks are held to be sincerity and nature itself becomes almost
abhorrent from the grimaces of its similators. We might also
say of the poem Father and Son — a very fine piece of poetical
work that it seems almost excessively matter of fact.
When Mr. Pierce writes of The Night Before the Auto-da-Fe
he fares somewhat afield from his native New England glades.
The old Puritan rigor of his surroundings, however, prepares him
in a way for the logical severity of the old Spanish Inquisitors.
His poem is very finely conceived and written with great inspira-
tion, even if we must notice that the human motives which he
1919.] NEW BOOKS 547
gathers about the subject are hardly balanced by the considera-
tions he awards to the feelings of the Inquisitors, many of whom
were men of as fine hearts and tender sympathies as the persons
they were called upon to condemn.
Altogether Yale should be proud of Mr. Pierce who can write
such a poem as The Night Before the Auto-da-Fe without the
prevalent Hebrew fanaticism.
CHRISTOPHER AND COLUMBUS. By the author of " Elizabeth
and her German Garden." Garden City, New York: Double-
day, Page & Co. $1.60 net.
The merry and witty Anglo-German maidens, twin sisters,
Anna Rose and Anna Felicitas, are orphaned and left to the care
of their uncle in war-time England. He passes the responsibility
of his nieces to their relatives in America. The irrepressible twins
call themselves Christopher and Columbus because they feel that
they are as discoverers when they venture to find the New
World for themselves. Their amusing adventures on the boat, at
the wharf, and during their first months in the new country are
cleverly told by the author. The story is well written and well
balanced, and will add considerably to the artistic reputation
that its author has won. The hypocrisy of not a few Americans is
neatly touched off, but there could have been a better story told
had the teller observed a little more reticence. Sometimes irrever-
ence and commonness have been admitted, and they only serve to
mar the excellence of this very amusing book.
PASTOR HALLOFT. A Story of Clerical Life. New York: Long-
mans, Green & Co. $1.50 net.
This is a most disappointing book. In place of an absorbing
story of clerical life in America, modeled on the plan of Canon
Sheehan's stories of clerical life in Ireland, we find a book
commonplace and utterly lacking in distinction of style. The
anonymous author pictures indeed a most zealous priest, who
preaches good practical sermons, attends carefully to his sick
calls, provides an excellent school for the parish children, and
looks after their future. Some of his principles are worthy of
praise, for he was averse to distinctions based solely on the
capacity of individual purses, and refused to take money from
any parishioner who failed to make his Easter duty.
On the other hand some of his actions are far from commend-
able. For example, he manages to obtain a substantial sum of
money from a non-Catholic coal baron of the neighborhood, and
then denounces him to his face for his publicly scandalous con-
548 NEW BOOKS [July,
duct in the community. His words are : " I had his money in my
pocket, and didn't care what he might do." Again he helps a
Trappist Brother collect money for his convent, but un-ethically
insists on his posing as a priest in order to make a more effective
appeal upon the pockets of his contributors.
Too much of the book is devoted to the author's grievances
against bishops who do not provide adequately for their foreign
population, against diocesan priests who dare attempt the direc-
tion of a seminary, against young, smooth-looking religious who
give indiscreet retreats to nuns, against Sisters who spend too
much of their energy educating young ladies in academies to the
neglect of the poorer children who are driven into the State
schools, against the Roman authorities for distributing with too
lavish a hand the merely decorative titles of count, marquis and
monsignor.
THE ELSTONES. By Isabel C. Clarke. New York: Benziger
Brothers. $1.35 net.
Isabel Clarke's latest novel opens with a most dramatic set-
ing of the deathbed conversion of Lord Elstone. Despite the
bitter antagonism of an ultra Protestant mother, the three Elstone
children are won to the Church by a deep abiding sense of the joy
and spiritual happiness that transfigured their father's dying face.
Both boys to their mother's deep chagrin fall in love with the
same Catholic girl, a delightful heroine endowed with every pos-
sible charm, physical, intellectual and spiritual. The problem is
solved by the elder brother becoming a priest. The mother's perse-
cution of the young Irene only intensifies her love of things Catho-
lic, and her conversion at the end is a fitting reward for her many
years' struggle.
The characters of the story are very vividly drawn, the hills
and downs of Sussex are beautifully pictured, and the Cathol-
icism of the story, as one critic has well said, " is a happy com-
promise between the apologetic Catholicism of Marion Crawford
and the aggressive Catholicism of Father Benson."
MEDITATIONS WITHOUT METHOD. By Rev. Walter D. Strap-
pini, S.J. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. $1.80 net.
We are glad to welcome the second edition of Father Strap-
pini's well known retreat manual. The writer has in mind a three-
days' retreat based on the character and teaching of Our Saviour.
There are nine meditations in all which show how Christ's teach-
ing emerges from His actions, and how teaching by action sup-
ports and amplifies His teaching by word of mouth. As a book of
1919.] NEW BOOKS 549
meditation, it is not intended to be merely read through, but to
be thought over. The topics therefore are but lightly indicated, so
that the user of the book may be induced to develop them accord-
ing to his own private devotion. It is a pity that this volume
is so high priced.
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR MONTHLY AND ANNUAL RE-
TREATS FOR THE USE OF SOULS CONSECRATED TO
GOD. Translated from the French of the Rev. P. Dunoyer
by Edith Staniforth. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $2.25.
This volume will prove helpful to many of those for whom
it has been prepared. It contains very varied detail in the matter
of meditation, spiritual reading, and examen for each month
of the year, based on the teaching of St. Alphonsus Liguori in his
Spouse of Christ. To this is added prayers suitable to the sub-
jects of the meditations by the same Saint, prayers for Com-
munion, and finally the Ordinary of the Mass and Vespers for
Sunday in Latin and English.
HIS ONLY SON. By Rev. William F. Robison, S.J. St. Louis:
B. Herder. $1.25 net.
The six lectures of this volume on the divinity of Christ were
delivered as a Lenten course in St. Francis Xavier's Church, St.
Louis. After a brief proof of the authenticity of the Gospels,
Father Robison proves Our Lord's divinity from His own char-
acter, His sublime doctrine and its effects upon the world, the
prophecies, and lastly the miracles of Christ, especially the Resur-
rection.
The lecturer disclaims all originality of thought or treat-
ment, and acknowledges his debt to the article on Jesus Christ by
Father Grandmaison in the Dictionnaire Apologetique. Still he
says the old things in a bright, interesting fashion, and puts forth
his arguments in forcible and clear language.
WHAT WE EAT AND WHAT HAPPENS TO IT. By Philip B.
Hawk. New York: Harper & Brothers. $1.35 net.
It might be thought that we knew pretty well, by this time,
all that was to be known with regard to digestion. Perhaps noth-
ing illustrates so well how comparatively little we know as the
findings of Professor Hawk, of the Chair of Physiological Chemis-
try of the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, as to the effect
of abundant fluid drinking on digestion. Dr. Hawk's book is
written as the result of a series of recent investigations with
specially devised apparatus and new methods of analysis. These
new investigations have confirmed the idea that instinct is the
550 NEW BOOKS [July,
most precious guide with regard to food and drink. They con-
tradict a number of commonly accepted notions, supposedly
scientific, and lay low a number of prejudices.
This volume is worth while reading in order to remove a
number of misconceptions that have unfortunately found their
way into the popular mind, and are not to be eradicated except by
definite scientific authority. Of the high scientific quality and
thorough conservatism of this book there can be no doubt at all.
THE SECOND BULLET. By Robert Orr Chipperfield. New York:
Robert M. McBride & Go. $1.50 net.
The Second Bullet is a story of crime and its detection: of a
lady crook, if a crook can be a lady, and a lady a crook; of her
checkered career until her career is checked; and there is a Red
Cross dance, and a jazz band. For the benefit of those who will
not read the book, we hasten to say that the first bullet missed,
but that the second did its work only too effectively. The author
of the book worked effectively, too, for it is rather a readable
story, with plot enough for any writer or reader of " detective "
fiction. Mr. Orr handles his scenes better than he does his char-
acters and their conversation. A writer can make his characters
move where he pleases, but he cannot always make them talk well.
But the lady crook, dead and alive, is interesting; and the detec-
tive is clever enough to hold one for an hour or two, even without
the help of the chief of police, who could not hold one five min-
utes without handcuffs.
AMALIA. By Jose Marmal. Translated from the Spanish by
Mary J. Serrano. New York: E. P. Button & Co. $2.00 net.
There does not seem to be any warrant for this translation
into English of a novel written half a century ago and now out of
date, other than the fact that the hero represents " the spirit in-
carnate of the best elements of the Argentine people struggling for
democracy and freedom, in opposition to militarism and autoc-
racy." The romance might well have been left in the abridged
English version of it, previously made for school purposes, as it
does not evidence sufficient genius to justify publication for pop-
ular use in its complete form. The tedious stereotyped descrip-
tions and lumbering movement of the story are likely to hold the
attention only of those readers who are specially interested in the
history of the Argentine under the rule of Rosas the Dictator.
Besides the translation lacks distinction, and what might have
been racy in the original Spanish is strangely jejune in this Eng-
lish rendering.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 551
SIMPLE SOULS. By John Hastings Turner. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons. $1.35 net.
This novel is a trifle for entertainment only, which fulfils its
mission very successfully. Its theme, the marriage of an English-
man of rank to a girl of station far beneath his, is neither new nor
probable, but originality of treatment gives it plausibility and
makes its principals living people. There is also the attraction
of amiable sentiment conveyed humorously and with frequent wit.
It is an ephemeral contribution, but repays attention better than
the average of its kind.
IRELAND: ITS SAINTS AND SCHOLARS. By John Flood. New-
York : P. J. Kenedy & Sons. 75 cents.
This volume is intended as a companion work, and in some
sense a sequel of the author's Ireland: Its Myths and Legends.
In popular fashion Mr. Flood treats of the life and labors of St.
Patrick, St. Columcille, St. Columbanus and the other principal
saints, scholars and missionaries of Ireland. Special chapters deal
with the Irish schools at home and on the continent, and with
early Christian art, as evidenced in the writing and ornamenta-
tion of manuscripts, metal work, stone carving and building.
The work is based on the best authorities in Irish, English,
French and German, the author citing frequently the writings of
Dr. P. W. Joyce, Dr. Healy, Professor Zimmer, Miss Margaret
Stokes, the Abbe Gougaud.
YOUR NEIGHBOR AND YOU. By Edward F. Garesche, S.J. New
York: Benziger Brothers. 75 cents.
This little book provides suggestive and practical talks on
spiritual themes, written specifically for the laity.
Father Garesche writes on the striving after perfection, the
true motive of life, mortification, the power of good example, the
duty of encouragement and praise, the apostleship of the spoken
and written word, the good accomplished by laymen's retreats,
the placing of books in public libraries, and such like practical
matters.
THE TRUTH ABOUT BULGARIA. By A. T. ChristofT, Kansas
City. 25 cents.
The writer of this pamphlet, an ardent Bulgarian patriot,
sums up the wrongs inflicted on his country either by nearby
Balkan States or by the great powers of Europe. For centuries
the Greek Church, or rather the Patriarchate of Constantinople,
worked hand in hand with Turkey to erase all traces of
552 NEW BOOKS [July,
Bulgarian nationality. The Turks strove to suffocate the awaken-
ing of Bulgarian nationalism in an ocean of blood. The treaty
of Berlin cut to pieces the Bulgarian territory and enslaved the
Bulgarians of the Dobrudja to Rumania. In 1912 and 1913
Bulgaria bore the brunt of the war against Turkey, and received
only ninety-six thousand and sixty square miles of territory
against eighteen thousand granted to Greece and fifteen thousand
to the Serbians. No wonder, then, that she took the side of the
Central powers in the World War.
She did not fight against England, France, Russia and Italy.
She fought for " the liberties of mankind," for the liberation of
her own people who suffered more under Serbians and Greeks
than under the Turks. " Christian Europe had unmercifully
crucified Bulgaria for selfish ends."
This being the main thesis of the writer, it is easily under-
stood that The Truth About Bulgaria is the accommodation and,
at times, the distortion of historical facts to the " white washing "
of the Bulgarian name. This pamphlet proves once more how
difficult is the task of the Peace Conference.
A HIDDEN PHASE OF AMERICAN HISTORY, by Michael J.
O'Brien (New York: The Devin-Adair Co. $5.00 net). This
special study of " Ireland's Part in America's Struggle for Liberty,"
has already received extended notice in our pages. Those who
read Mr. Michael William's article on Ireland At Last in the
May issue of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, will not fail to possess them-
selves of Mr. O'Brien's attractive and valuable work. We heartily
recommend it to our readers.
THE MOST BELOVED WOMAN, by Rev. Edward F. Garesche,
S.J. (New York: Benziger Brothers. 90 cents.) A sub-title
describes this book as depicting the " Prerogatives and Glories of
the Blessed Mother of God." The various chapters have already
appeared in The Queen's Work. Gathered here, they evince a
great and tender affection for Mary and an enlightened compre-
hension of how much the Mother can, and will do, for those who
lean upon her.
MODERN PUNCTUATION: ITS UTILITIES AND CONVEN-
TIONS, by George Summey, Jr. (Oxford University Press, 35
West Thirty-second Street, New York. $1.50), sets forth the best
up-to-date usage in the production of work in the printer's office.
It is an effort to meet individual circumstances, the growth of a
living language; not to provide hard and fast rules for the ever
1919.] NEW BOOKS 553
changing needs of so widespread a language as the English tongue.
This treatise will be read, discussed, agreed with, differed from —
by those whose interests are touched. It is sure to arouse live dis-
cussion, and will, we think, prove beneficial to the cause of good
and choice workmanship. It bears the mark of a conservative
taste, informed by familiarity with modern requirements.
FIRST LESSONS IN BUSINESS, by J. A. Bexell (68 cents), is
one of the J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Thrift Series.
A good definition of its aims may be found in the inscription on
the cover — " Thrift earns, manages, plans, saves." The forty
short pithy chapters treat such subjects as: "Business Quali-
fications," " Private Personal Accounts," " Household Accounts,"
" Business Terms," " Business Forms" and " Savings Banks," and
dwell insistently upon the idea that success or failure most fre-
quently depend on the possession or lack of a few elementary vir-
tues, such as unquestioning obedience, courtesy, exactness in
performance of tasks. These virtues, however, are the fruit of
early training, and will prove difficult of attainment to young
people of an age to enter the business world. The book aims to
teach a self-respecting pride, the right kind of independence.
THE Benedictine Nuns of Stanbrook Abbey, Worcester, Eng-
land, are again about to place in their debt all who love
spiritual reading, especially of a deep and basic character. A new
translation of the Letters of St. Teresa has been sent to the press.
Volume I. will appear in the autumn, orders for which may now
be placed with Messrs. Benziger Brothers, New York.
This translation offers an entirely new version of the Letters
by those who have already given us the fine English translation
of the Saint's Way of Perfection and the metrical translation of
the Poems. As indicating the editorial policy, the following let-
ter is of interest : " I thought it well to give in our translation
more explanatory along with the text of the Letters than has been
done by previous translators, as not many readers know the Saint's
works well enough to place the letters respectively at their proper
times and places, thus forming out of them a connected narrative.
A few letters of other persons to her are given, such as St. Peter
of Alcantara and St. Luis Bertrand, these being needed for a com-
plete understanding of St. Teresa's own letters."
AT the request of P. J. Kenedy & Sons, we wish to state that
there was an error in the price given for the Summarium
Theologise Moralis of Father Sebastiani in the last issue. The
work sells at retail for $2.50.
554 NEW BOOKS [July,
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
The Librairie Gabriel Beauchesne presents:
L'CEuvre de Paul Claudel, by Joseph de Tonquedec, a work des-
tined to please neither the friends nor the enemies of Paul Claudel.
It manifests the most frank admiration for the poet's talent, while it
does not hesitate to criticize him in the most decided manner. Yet,
when it appeared in serial form, it received from all sides unexpected
praise. This surprising accord is perhaps a sign that the critic has
said just what was necessary and has known how to free the delicious
substance, the strong marrow of this unique work, from an exterior
sometimes rough or bizarre.
Frederic Mistral, by Jose Vincent, is the first complete work on
Mistral that has appeared in France. The author reveals to us, first
of all, the harmonious beauty of the poet's life. Then he studies his
influence and his doctrine, for it is important today to know that
Mistral was not simply a genial poet. He was also a true leader of the
people. No professional politician in the course of these last sixty
years has exercised an influence comparable to his.
M. Jose Vincent next reveals the epic talent of Mistral, after having
given a rapid analysis of his four wonderful poems : Mireille, Calendal,
Nerte and the Rhone for the benefit of the readers not yet initiated.
In the fourth place comes an examination of the lyric talent of Mistral
and the last chapter before the conclusion, which is largely synthetic,
underlines the greatness and the ingenuity of the infallible versification
of the master.
Lucien Gennari's Fogazzaro is the best and most complete biog-
raphy of the most distinguished Italian author of the nineteenth cen-
tury. The first part of the work is devoted to a very careful study of
Fogazzaro, the man, and the second part to Fogazzaro, the artist. The
volume offers a strong defence of Fogazarro's orthodoxy.
The Correspondence du Siecle Dernier, by L. de Laborie, made up
of hitherto unpublished letters of the House of Orleans and of letters
of Leopold I. of Belgium to Thiers, is of interest for specialists.
Le Mervilleux Spirite, by Lucien Roure, deals with all kinds of
Spiritism, with a final chapter on the mind of the Church on
Spiritualism. In its clear and comprehensive account of the phenom-
ena and practices of Spiritism, its concise presentation of the opinions
of authorities in this field, and its keen analysis and criticism of both
phenomena and authorities, it is, in every way, excellent. It reads
almost like a novel.
Meditations du Prisonnier, by Dom Hebrard, was originally written
to console those Vho were prisoners of the Germans. Although, in
some respects a war book, it possesses permanent value for the suffer-
ing and afflicted, and almost bears comparison with the Imitation of
Christ.
Bloud and Gay publish:
Une Campagne Francaise, by Monseigneur A. Baudrillart, one of the
the latest contributions to the Propagande Catholique Frangaise a
1919.] NEW BOOKS 555
I'Etranger. This work is made up of newspaper articles, prefaces, let-
ters and interviews dealing with the following subjects: French Prop-
aganda; Response to the Germans; A few words to those who hold
that the Holy Father has condemned our work.
Le Petit Frangais, by Hubert de Larmandie, the authentic organ
of French officer-prisoners at Brandebourg and Halle, is a very inter-
esting and amusing work with wonderful illustrations, and should ap-
peal to everyone, even to those not familiar with the French language.
Silhouettes Italiennes, by Domenico Russo, gives seven sketches of
some of the leading Italians of the day, such as General Gadorna, the
Duke of Abruzzi, the Duke and Duchess of Aosta and Tommaso Tint-
toni.
Lettres aux Neutres Sur L'Union Sacree, by Georges Hoog, gives a
straightforward statement of many facts that have been more or less
obscure and inaccessible to American readers. Although M. Hoog has
made use of a great number of French books and articles, the most
convincing part of his work is based on German sources.
Quand Us etaient a Saint Quentin, by Henri ette de Gelarie; Drama de
Senlis, by Baron de Maricourt; Sous le Poing de Per, by Albert Droul-
ers; Souvenirs D'Un Otage, by G. Desson; Blesse, Captif, Delivre, by
Hubert de Larmandie; Les Francaises et la Grande Guerre, L'Espagne
et la Guerre, by Berthem-Bontoux, are all war books or books dealing
with war problems. They belong to the historian and possess little
interest for the average American reader of the day.
In L'Avenir Frangais, by Henri Joly, the well-known author treats
of reconstruction work in France: problems that must be faced and
solved. Among the subjects he treats at great length are: "Shall we
have a new art and a new literature;" "The position of woman in the
France of today;" "Political regeneration and public morality." This
book is well worthy of careful perusal.
Entre I'Espagne et la France, by Azorin, is a very interesting work
by one of the young lights of Spain, who calls himself a Francophile.
It deals with the influence of France upon Spain and of Spain upon
France, chiefly in the departments of art and literature. Not to be out
of harmony with the actual political situation, the author has a final
chapter on militarism.
La Guerre Injuste. This is another translation from the Spanish of
one of the best known novelists of the peninsula, A. Palacio-Valdes.
The book comprises a number of letters dealing chiefly with war prob-
lems. It also touches upon Socialism, literature and religion in France.
The final chapter is devoted to a prospect of what may come after the
War.
En Esclavage, a journal of two women prisoners published by
Henriette Celarie, deals with the adventures of Deux Deportees during
the first two years of the War. It reads like a novel and holds the
interest even now when the public is surfeited with war literature.
The work is marred alone by an appendix on German atrocities which
seems somewhat overdrawn.
556 NEW BOOKS [July,
Adolphe Rette's Ceux qui Saignent are the war notes of an eye-
witness during the stirring events in the years 1914 and 1915. The
author spent most of his time dealing with the sick and wounded in
ambulances and hospitals. The work rings true and is free from all
overdrawn statements about the Germans. It makes very interesting
reading.
From the Librairie Perrin we have :
Portraits de la Belle France, by Maurice Talmeyr, a work of
intense interest dealing with the heroism shown by different classes
of society during the Great War. In it each class of society — from the
peasant to the prince — finds its own hero represented and faithfully
portrayed.
Le Cardinal Mercier, by Georges Goyau. This brief sketch of about
one hundred pages, which originally appeared in the Revue des Deux
Mondes, throws much light on Mercier, the priest and the scholar. The
most interesting part of the work is devoted to him as the philosopher
and founder of the Neo-Scolastic College at Louvain where he spent the
greater part of his life before becoming Archbishop of Malines.
La Fayette aux Etats-Unis, by Louis Pons. In these two hundred
pages, the author stirringly portrays this soul boiling with juvenile
ardor, battling in the midst of incredible obstacles to realize his ad-
venturous purposes. In the course of a rapid and orderly study, we
see live, we hear speak the intrepid soldier of Barren Hill and of
Monmouth, the conqueror of Yorktown, the generous friend of Wash-
ington and Rochambeau — finally the diplomat, crafty as well as dar-
ing, heard by all at Madrid as well as at Versailles and Philadelphia.
An epilogue treats of the manner in which the United States has paid
her debt of gratitude toward France during the period of neutrality
and since our entrance into the world conflict.
Other publications chiefly of interest to the student of French
affairs in the world conflict are Max Turmann's La Snisse Pendant La
Guerre, and La Montagne's La Vie Agonisante.
Pierre Tequi publishes:
Kantisme et Modernisme, by Abbe Van Loo, a scientific analysis
of the general principles of the philosopher of Koenigsberg, in which
the author traces all our woes in Church and in State to Fichte and
Kant,
From Payot & Cie comes:
Pas D'llusions Sur L'Allemagne, by Maurice Muret. This relent-
less analysis of German "Kultur" was written during the heat of the
conflict, and its expressions are not in every instance remarkable for
restraint. Nevertheless, it is the fruit of sincere conviction and based
upon records more fully attested than nine-tenths of those used in
writing history.
IRecent Events.
On May 7th, the anniversary of the sink-
The Peace Conference, ing of the Lusitania, the Peace Confer-
ence brought to an end the first stage of
its labors by presenting to the Germans the terms on which peace
would be granted to them. A fortnight's time was given in
which to make their answer, and to send in such criticisms in
writing as they might think fit. No oral discussion of the terms
was allowed. The Germans accordingly spent the interval in
study of the terms, and in writing a series of letters, giving their
views. These letters covered nearly all the articles of the Treaty.
The time allotted having proved too short, it was extended until the
twenty-ninth of May, on which date the German reply was handed
in to the Allies. These, in turn, took into consideration the Ger-
man objections, devoting to the task a period of more than two
weeks, and making so many alterations in the Treaty that a com-
plete revision was necessary. Most of the changes were rather of
phraseology than of substance, although there was some mitigation
of the terms.
The Germans protested that the peace terms were im-
perialistic; that they violated the Allies' own definitions of jus-
tice and right, especially the fourteen points of President Wilson.
The Allies replied that "they would be false to those who had given
their all to save the freedom of the world, if they consented to treat
the War on any other basis than as a crime against humanity and
right." To the German request that they be admitted to the
League of Nations at once, the Allies answered that admission
might be granted possibly at an early date, on condition that the
terms of the Peace Treaty are properly carried out. The increase
of the German army from one hundred thousand to two hundred
thousand men during the period of transition, asked for by the
Germans, was granted. The demand for a plebiscite in Alsace-
Lorraine is refused, while the protection of German minorities in
all ceded territory was promised. The German demand for an
alteration in the Treaty's stipulations with regard to the Saar
district, was refused. To the demand that no obstacle should be
placed to the union of Germany with German Austria, the Allies
make no reply, merely stating that they have noted it. The most
noteworthy concession made by the Allies is in allowing a plebis-
cite to be held in Upper Silesia, on the grounds that its
558 RECENT EVENTS [July,
population is said to be indisputably German, not Polish. On the
other hand, to the German demand for that part of Posen which is
indisputably German, the Allies replied that they had taken note
of the demand, but reserve to themselves the right to decide the
question. Some rectification of the West Prussian boundary is
conceded to the Germans, Dantzig, however, is to be a free city,
and the terms of the Treaty as to East Prussia are to remain
unaltered. The demand of the Germans that they should retain
their colonies on condition that they become mandatories for
them, was categorically refused by the Allies. With reference to
reparation, the German reply expressed the willingness of the Re-
public to repay the damage done to the civilian population in the
occupied parts of Belgium and France, but refused to make such a
payment for the damage done elsewhere. On this point the Allies
made no concession, but insisted that the Treaty should stand.
In reply to the German offer to pay five billion dollars before May
1, 1926, and to make annual payments beginning May 1, 1927, up
to a total not exceeding twenty-five billion dollars, the Allies state
their willingness to respect the German desire to have a definite
sum fixed as soon as possible, and to give Germany every facility
for a survey of the damage done, and for an agreement with her
creditors, as to its amount. In default of an agreement being
reached within a specified period, the terms of the Treaty will be
executed. To the demand that Germany should be allowed to take
her place in international trade, the Allies replied in the affirma-
tive, on condition that she abides by the Treaty of Peace and
abandons her aggressive and exclusive traditions. To the German
protest against the control of inland waterways, the Allies reply
by granting certain modifications, while maintaining in substance
the stipulations of the Treaty. The abolition of the commission,
to control the Kiel Canal is one of the modifications made.
Such is a brief summary of the Allies' reply. It was handed
to the German Government with an intimation that it must be
accepted within five days, which period has been extended to
seven. On June 23d, therefore, the question will be settled.
In the event of a refusal, all preparations have been made by the
Allies for a further advance into Germany.
Although the Peace Conference by definitely fixing the terms
of the Treaty with Germany, has accomplished the most important
part of the work it has to do, there remains an immense task be-
fore it, and a long list of questions to be settled. To the delegates
of the Republic of Austria only a part of the Treaty has been
handed, the most difficult parts being still under consideration.
Negotiations with Turkey and Bulgaria, have not yet begun.
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 559
Almost innumerable questions will be raised before settlement is
arrived at, one of which will be the destiny of Constantinople.
The question of Fiume still remains unsolved and would seem to
be almost insoluble, on account of the determination of the
Italians and the Jugo-Slavs not to abandon their respective claims.
The prospect of the solution of the Russian problem, although
somewhat brighter, is not clear. Questions too, will arise as to
the relations between Italy and Greece, both of which have
occupied districts in Asia Minor. The disposition of Armenia,
Syria, Mesopotamia, and of Palestine has not yet been settled.
And, perhaps most important of all, whether or not the League
of Nations is to be incorporated into the Peace Treaty is still a
question which may jeopardize the whole of the settlement already
arrived at.
The cordon being drawn around that part
Russia. of Russia, which is still subject to the
despotic rule of Lenine and Trotzky, has
been made generally more secure and tightened, except in one or
two districts. So far from having driven into the sea the Allied
forces at Archangel and on the Murman Coast, as the Bolshe-
viki so confidently predicted that they would do a few months
ago, the territory occupied by the troops of the northern Govern-
ment has, with the help of the British, French, and Finnish forces,
been considerably increased. The British reinforcements recently
raised in England by voluntary enlistment have reached the Mur-
man Coast, and replaced the troops from this country, who are
returning home, having abandoned the tardy atte'mpt to assist in
driving back the Bolshevik forces.
The large region lying between the northern territory and
Petrograd, recently cleared of the Red Army, still retains its free-
dom, although an attempt to recover it has been made recently.
The expected advance of Finnish troops toward Petrograd has
not yet taken place. However, the Finnish Government, as now
constituted under General Mannerheim, seems to have arrived at
a decision to cooperate with the Allies in taking military action
against the Bolsheviki. Whether this be true or not, it is certain
that this Government's approval has been given to the voluntary
enlistment of the Finns, who are now cooperating with the
Esthonians, and with the Russians under General Yudenitch.
These forces, operating from the south of Petrograd, have been so
successful that report had it the city had fallen into their hands.
These reports proved to be untrue, but it seems certain that they
have advanced to within a short distance of the former Russian
capital.
560 RECENT EVENTS [July,
While still retaining their possession of Riga, the attempts of
the Bolsheviki to recapture Vilna have failed. To the south the
Poles have been successful in rescuing the town of Grodno from
the enemy, thereby advancing their frontiers to the east. Further
south, however, if recent reports are true, the Bolsheviki have suc-
ceeded in breaking through, or at least denting the cordon, hav-
ing, it is said, captured Tarnopol in East Galicia. The invasion of
Bessarabia, by the Bolsheviki, reported some time ago, has not led
to any notable result. Odessa and the Crimea are still in their
possession. What extent of the Ukraine is held by them, or is con-
trolled by General Petlura, it is quite impossible to say. To the
east Admiral Kolchak's forces are still striving to reach the goals
they have in view: Viatka, Samara and Moscow. The latter city,
it is confidently predicted, will fall into the hands of the forces of
the Omsk Government by August. It is to be hoped that this
prediction will be fulfilled, although it is unwise to place much
reliance upon such anticipation. If the recent news be true, that
the Bolsheviki have recaptured Ufa, Admiral Kolchak's troops
may have to take again the defensive. A short time ago they were
so sanguine of success that it was proposed to transfer the seat of
the Government of Admiral Kolchak from Omsk to Ekaterinburg.
Great as have been Admiral Kolchak's military successes, of
still greater importance is the recognition given to him and his
Government by the Allied Powers, bringing with it, as it does, a
large measure of assistance. The recognition thus accorded at
Paris is not, indeed, the formal recognition of a fully established
government such as has just been given to Finland by Great
Britain and this country. But its effect is to assure the All-Rus-
sian Government of the sympathy of the Allies, and to promise to
it, in the event of its success in reuniting Russia, full recognition.
The most practical effect of this qualified recognition is, of course,
the supplies, ammunition, and military equipment which have
been given, the lack of which had hampered the operations of the
forces opposed to the Bolsheviki. The policy of helping Russia
has been definitely adopted now by the Western Powers. By bom-
barding Kronstadt, it would seem that the British are inclined to
go farther, and cooperate actively with the Russians who are
striving to free their country.
Before obtaining the recognition of the Allied Powers, Ad-
miral Kolchak was called upon to make it clear to them not only
that he was supported by a considerable number of the Russian
people, but also that he was in full sympathy and agreement with
the principles of the revolution. This condition was especially
requisite because the Admiral at the present time is in reality a
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 561
dictator, and obtained the dictatorship by a coup d'etat which
deprived a nominally representative government of its powers.
In answer to an application from the Allies, he declared his in-
tention of relinquishing to the Constituent Assembly, to be elected
by universal suffrage, all the powers now in his possession as soon
as he had destroyed the power of the Bolsheviki. The indepen-
dence of Poland, granted by the Provisional Government which
followed upon the overthrow of the Tsar, is fully recognized by the
Admiral, but reservations are made as to the boundaries of Rus-
sia and the status of the Baltic States, trans-Caspian and Caucasian
countries, as also of Finland. He is " disposed to recognize at
once the de facto Government of Finland, but the final solution of
the Finnish institution must be left to the Constituent Assembly."
The Admiral renews his acceptance, first made by him last year,
of the burden of paying the public debt of Russia repudiated by
the Bolsheviki Government. He declares that there can be no re-
turn in internal affairs to that regime which existed before
February, 1917. The peasants are to be secured in the possession
of the land, as this is the only way in which the future prosperity
of Russia can be maintained.
This declaration of policy has satisfied the Allies, and opened
the way for a definite policy toward Russia. This policy is,
and always has been, not to interfere in the internal affairs of
Russia, but to help the Russians to settle their own affairs for
themselves. It would seem that among the Allies there is one
Power, who had hoped this might be done through the Soviet Gov-
ernment of Moscow. The refusal of that Government to fulfill the
conditions required has banished that hope. The Powers now turn
to Admiral Kolchak, with whom the definite settlement has been
made. How large a part of Russia, Admiral Kolchak can be con-
sidered to represent, is not quite certain, but there is little doubt
that the larger part of what was once the Russian Empire is under
his control, or is willing to cooperate with him.
Within the borders of what has long been the All-Russian
Government, the dissensions which have so much hampered the
Government have been brought to an end. In particular General
Seminoff is now in full cooperation with the Admiral. The pros-
pect, therefore, of Russia's future is much brighter at present
than at any time since Lenine and Trotzky seized the reins of
power. In the new States formed out of Russia, the situation is
somewhat obscure. The armistice provided that the German
troops should remain in occupation of the Baltic States in order to
defend them from the inroads of the Bolsheviki. This occupa-
tion is still maintained, forming an army which, according to vari-
VOL, CIX. 36
562 RECENT EVENTS [July,
ous statements, numbers from fifty thousand to a hundred and
fifty thousand men. The internal situation remains unsettled. A
union of Courland, Lithuania, Esthonia, and Livonia so as to form
one federated republic has been proposed. This does not seem to
have been put into effect. Both Lithuania, and Esthonia have,
however, organized themselves into independent republics. Noth-
ing has come to our knowledge as to Courland and Livonia, but
a fifth Baltic State has appeared upon the scene, which goes by the
name of Letvia. Of this State all that can be said is that its in-
habitants seem to have become devoted supporters of the Bolshe-
viki. Of the three republics, into which the region of the Cau-
casus has been divided, the Georgian, the Caucasian and the
Azerbiejan, equally little is known, and still less of those on the
other side of the Caspian. All of them, however, are very earnest
in asserting what they regard as their rights, and it is to be feared
that they will cause some little trouble in the formation of the
hoped-for federated Russia. But, as has been said, the way now
seems to lie open, although many difficulties have yet to be sur-
mounted.
Conditions remain unchanged in the part of Russia over
which the Lenine and Trotzky Government still maintains its
power. The population both in the city and the country exists
in various degrees of famine, all obtainable food having been de-
voted by the Government to those who are willing to serve in its
army. The hopes entertained by Trotzky to overwhelm Europe
by this means, seem to be vanishing, and the only purpose they
now have in view is to gain time for propagating throughout
Europe, and even in this country, the doctrines which will cause
a universal upheaval of the working classes, and incite them to
overthrow every other class except their own. Lenine having
abandoned hope in a Coxey Army plan, pins his faith on effecting
a Bolshevist revolution. He relies for his success on a propa-
gandist army; this army is marvelously organized and is supplied
with an abundance of funds. It has agents in all the Allied coun-
tries with the chief centre at Stockholm. Recent events in New
York have brought to light the fact, that an active agency exists
in that city: tons of literature having been found in a recent
raid. The only reason why the Lenine Government still maintains
its existence is the general apathy of the population both in the
country and in the towns. This apathy, characteristic of Russia
from its long submission to a detested authority, has become
more pronounced owing to the semi-starvation which now exists.
No one is energetic enough to take active steps to overthrow the
Red Army, which is at the service of this Government.
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 563
Lenine has changed, not only in his abandonment of the
propagation of Bolshevist principles by means of the Red Army,
but also in that he seems to have recognized the sterility of those
principles, and their inability to maintain a state's existence.
This is shown by the fact that he has already broken away from
the principle of state ownership of all wealth, and has granted
railway and forest concessions to a group of American financiers.
That he has done so is an indubitable fact. There are those, how-
ever, who think that he is not acting sincerely, and that his object
is to gain credit among foreign financiers, and that should he re-
tain power, these concessions will not be carried into effect.
M. Paderewski retains his position as head
Poland. of the Cabinet in Poland, although, on his
return from Paris, he found it necessary
to send in his resignation. His reason for taking this step — a
step, which, apparently, might prove disastrous to the organ-
ization of the Polish Government, which he had been conducting
—was that the Diet refused to grant the armistice to the
Ukrainians which he had promised to the Allied Powers at Paris.
In some way, however, he has found himself able to retain office,
although the Diet refused to carry out his pledged policy, and
pushed on the military operations against the Ukrainians until
they had driven them out of East Galicia. In these districts, so far
as is known, the hostilities between the Poles and the Ukrain-
ians have ceased, but towards the north the fight against the Red
Army is still being pursued with considerable success. The rela-
tions with Germany on the Western borders of Poland have
remained undisturbed. Although the full possession of Dantzig
has not been accorded to Poland as desired, this disappointment
has been accepted with some degree of equanimity. But a new
cause of conflict has arisen.
A number of Poles advocate enlarging the borders of their
country to the full extent of the territory it once possessed, and,
therefore, to include within the new Poland, Lithuania, part
of White Russia, as well as a part of Volhynia. This, if carried
out, would give the new Poland a population of something
like forty- two millions. This over-ambitious project is bring-
ing the Republic into conflict with the inhabitants of the re-
gions which would be annexed. The Lithuanians have sent to
Paris a petition to the Allied powers to save them from an annexa-
tion repugnant to them. It is a pity that such ambitious projects
should be entertained and that the new Republic is not willing to
gather strength slowly, especially as it has so many internal dif-
564 RECENT EVENTS [July,
ficulties to contend with. A people that has been so long sub-
jected to a foreign tyrannical rule has, almost necessarily, lost the
habit of self government. Its first task should be to settle the in-
numerable questions arising out of the misgovernment to which it
has been subjected, and to right the wrongs which it suffered dur-
ing the recent War. Among these questions is the relations of
landowners and peasants. The former are said to be, in a very
marked degree, indifferent to the well-being of those who till
the land. The greatest difficulty, however, calling for settlement
is the relations between the Jews and the rest of the nation. These
relations are about the worst possible. That any organized
attempt has been made by the Government to extirpate the Jews
by what are called pogroms, is very doubtful, but according to cir-
cumstantial reports which have reached thus country, there seems
no reason to doubt that many outrages have been perpetrated.
Our Government has sent a commission to Poland, to examine
into the truth of the statements that have been made, and because
of the effect produced by these statements, the Allied Powers in
Paris have been moved to call upon the Polish Government to
guarantee by a treaty the rights of minorities. This is felt to be
so derogatory to the good name of Poland, that M. Paderewski has
returned to Paris for the purpose of inducing the Powers not to
persist in their demands.
M. Paderewski's return to Paris was not, however, ex-
clusively for this purpose. The danger to Poland arising from
its geographical situation, between Russia on one side and Ger-
many on the other, with frontiers destitute of any natural barrier
to invasion on either side, has made it clear that the restored State
will stand in need of assistance from outside, if it is to become
what the Allies hope for: an obstacle to any future attempt of
Germany to invade Russia or, vice versa, of any Bolshevist attempt
to overrun Western Europe. If France feels the necessity of
guarantees of assistance against the future German onslaught,
Poland, and for that matter Czecho-Slovakia, stand in even
greater need.
A few weeks ago the existence of the Soviet
Hungary. Government of Hungary was placed in
such great peril by the progress of the
Rumanian troops that its complete surrender was looked upon as
imminent. In fact its surrender was announced. This may have
been an unsubstantiated rumor or some change may have oc-
curred in the situation. At all events the looked-for resignation of
the Red Cabinet did not take place. Probably its retention of
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 565
power is due to the fact that the advance of the Rumanian forces
was halted by the Allies. They called upon the Rumanian authori-
ties to stop their march in Budapest. The Budapest Government,
no longer fearing the Rumanians, sent its army to the north, to
repel the advance of the Czecho-Slovak troops. In the conflict that
ensued, the Hungarian army met, for a time, with a series of suc-
cesses. The latest reports indicate that the Czecho-Slovaks have
been able to check the drive.
Mr. Balfour's fear that central Europe might become
" Balkanized " seems already to be fully realized, not only in the
continuous series of conflicts which have taken place in central
Europe since the conclusion of the armistice, but also through the
ferocious character of these conflicts. In the last encounter be-
tween Hungarian and Czecho-Slovak forces, it is reported that the
fighting was so sanguinary that no quarter was given on either
side. In some cases there were only twenty survivors in each
company.
An ultimatum is .said to have been sent from Paris calling
upon the Hungarian Soviet Government to cease hostilities, under
penalty of the occupation of Hungary by the Allied forces. That
such occupation did not take place weeks ago is to be regretted.
The action towards Hungary of the Four Powers has been marked
by the same vacillation which characterized their conduct towards
Russia. At one time it looked as if they were on the point of
occupying Hungary; at another, the recognition of the Soviet Gov-
ernment seemed to have been decided upon. An invitation to that
Government to send representatives to the Peace Conference, re-
cently reported, is construed by it as a virtual recognition,
and has led Bela Kun, the foreign minister, to renounce all prin-
ciples of Bolshevism in dealings with foreign States. " The
Hungarian Government," Bela Kun declares, " has not the slightest
hostile intention against any people on earth. It desires to live
in peace and friendship with all." With these declarations Bela
Kun seeks to win the confidence of the Allied Powers, and to pre-
vent that intervention which seems to be the only method by which
the progress of the revolution can be stayed. How little reliance
can be placed in the declarations of the spokesman of the Hun-
garian Government may be learned by an avowal made at a public
meeting a few weeks ago : " I know only one thing — namely,
what helps the proletariat and what injures the proletariat. I am
ready to lie to the Imperialist so that perhaps I even blush at what
I do, for I declare it a dishonorable act to tell the truth to the
bourgeoisie, if this truth hurts the proletariat." It would be hard
to parallel such a cynical avowal.
566 RECENT EVENTS [July,
Although up to the present time, the results of govern-
ment by the working classes have not been so disastrous in Hun-
gary as in Russia, the likelihood is that, given a sufficient time,
Hungary will suffer as much by the rule of its proletariat. Already
many executions have taken place at the arbitrary will of the
Government. Hostages have been imprisoned, taken from the
ranks of former political leaders. While there is said to be
abundance of food, the peasants are hiding it in order to secure
it from confiscation. Food prices having, in consequence, risen,
famine is imminent. Thousands of the bourgeoisie are absolutely
destitute and many of the nobility are in the same plight. The
palaces of the aristocracy in Budapest have been seized and looted
on the pretext of the socialization of dwelling houses, an instance
of which is the mansion of Count Apponyi who was turned in to
the street with an indemnity of three hundred and forty
dollars.
The nominally working-class Government not only deprives
the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie of all freedom, these classes
being denied by the very constitution all right to vote, but has so
taken all power into its own hands that even criticism of its pro-
ceedings by any member of the working classes, of which they are
supposed to be the representative, is ruthlessly suppressed. An
example of the treatment accorded to those who actively resist the
Soviet rule is given in what took place a week or two ago in the
district of Oedenburg in West Hungary. The peasants in this
district having risen up in revolt, three thousand, including women
and children, were shot or hanged by the Red Army. No freedom
of speech or of the press any longer exists. A Catholic bishop
has been thrown into prison, while the Primate of Hungary
has been placed under surveillance, as have all the other
bishops.
Sisters have been put out of the hospitals, but their services
have proved to be so necessary that the doctors demanded their
return. The Government complied with this demand, but only
on the condition that they should not say a word on religious sub-
jects. All the treasure of the churches has been seized on the
plea that it will be placed in museums. Any article that is said to
possess artistic interest has been carried off, including many
chalices and sacred vessels. While the Jews in Poland are said
to be suffering grievous injustice at the hands of the Government,
the Catholics of Hungary are experiencing similar treatment, in
kind but not in degree, at the hands of the Hungarian Socialist
Government, which is composed, as has been said already, of Jews
in a proportion of eighty per cent.
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 567
Notwithstanding repeated predictions of
Germany. its fall, the cabinet of Herr Schiedemann is
still in control of the destinies of the new
German Republic, nor has there been any change of its mem-
bers with one exception. Dr. Dernburg has been admitted to the
seat vacated by the former Minister of Finance. Being a Coali-
tion Cabinet it represents the various parties in the National As-
sembly, and consequently has not met, from its inception, with the
full approbation of either the Socialistic or the Conservative Par-
ties. The latter criticize it on account of its measures for the
nationalization of industry, the former, because those measures
are not radical enough. It has unanimously refused to sign the
Peace Treaty, Herr Schiedemann pronouncing it a brutally dic-
tated peace, the signing of which would involve the destruction of
Germany. This Cabinet, however, on the presentation of the peace
terms, decided to remain in office in the hope of obtaining a miti-
gation. It did this, because, in the words of Herr Schiedemann,
his Government was the only one possible. The Independent So-
cialists, he said, stated in their manifesto that they would sign the
Peace Treaty. " A reactionary government is out of all ques-
tion, and a Communist and Independent Government would be
acting for a people of whom they represented only a small minor-
ity." It remains problematical what course will be taken when
the time comes to give a definite answer. There are those who
think that the present Cabinet will resign and that a new one made
up of the two Socialist parties will take its place. It is more prob-
able, however, that it will be left to the Independent Socialists to
incur the odium of signing. The revolution which for a time
threatened to separate Bavaria from the German Republic failed
completely in this attempt. Herr Hoffmann's Government was,
indeed, restored to power but this restoration does not seem to
have brought with it the much needed peace and tranquillity.
Affairs became so confused that the Prime Minister gave in his
resignation.
An attempt was made to form a new Cabinet on a broader
basis. This is understood to mean that the bourgeoisie had been
called to collaborate with the Socialist parties, which have, since
the revolution, been in control of the former Kingdom. By the
establishment of a republic embracing Old Nassau, Rhenish
Hesse and the Palatinate, another state will, if it succeeds, be
added to the large number now existing. The new republic has
taken the name of the Rhenish Republic, with Coblenz for its capi-
tal, although the Provisional Government is sitting for the time
being at Wiesbaden. It will form a new Catholic state, and as
568 RECENT EVENTS [July,
such is meeting with violent opposition from French Socialists.
What these have to do with the matter is hard to say, but that
the German Government should be opposed is easily explained.
This Government has attempted to arrest its President, Dr. Dor-
dan, without attempting to suppress the movement altogether. In
the event of Germany's refusal to sign the Peace Treaty, in the
final form in which it has been just submitted, it is understood
that the armistice will, after a few days notice, be terminated,
and that the war will be resumed. The blockade will be reestab-
lished in full strength, and the Allied armies on the Rhine will
advance according to plans made by Marshal Foch. In view of
this eventuality the Germans are said to have removed their mili-
tary forces and ammunition to a line further inland, whether with
a view to avoid conflict or to take up positions suited to defence
is not known. It is estimated that in place of the old army, which
has been completely demobilized, a new force has been formed by
voluntary enlistment, which goes by the name of Freiwilligers, and
which number one hundred and eighty-five thousand. Besides
these volunteers, the National Assembly of Weimer has officially
established the new army, or Reichswehr, until May 1, 1920, and
permitted the administration to arrange all details. The War
Ministry has accordingly ordered the army of approximately
two hundred and fifty thousand men, the quota of which has not
yet been reached. Carefully prepared estimates made by Ameri-
can officers fix the present strength of the German army at three
hundred and twenty-five thousand men, many of whom are trained
soldiers. The same authorities declare that within six months
Germany could raise a million and a half fully trained men.
June 18, 1919.
With Our Readers.
ON June 6th the Senate of the United States, by a vote of sixty
to one, passed a resolution expressing that body's sympathy
with the efforts of the Irish people to secure their political free-
dom. The Manchester Guardian, in denying the charge, of those
who were not in sympathy with the resolution, that it was an un-
warranted interference with Great Britain's affairs, stated : " It is
nothing of the kind. It has a very direct bearing on the funda-
mental principles accepted as the basis of peace, and it should be
regarded not as gratuitous intervention in our domestic affairs, but
as a friendly and by no means unnecessary warning."
This resolution passed by the Senate was similar to one passed
by the House last March. Both resolutions have been forwarded
by Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, to the Peace Conference.
Meanwhile the representatives of the Irish-American Societies
presented to President Wilson a bill of charges against the present
English administration in Ireland, requesting that it be laid be-
fore the Peace Conference for action. The charges include a
catalogue of atrocities against political prisoners in Ireland, and
are in line with the statements made by the Archbishop of Tip-
perary some time ago.
" We have recently seen," he said, " the British Government
take little Tipperary boys away from their homes without a charge
against them; we saw twelve months ago how a great many of
our magnificent Irishmen were taken away and imprisoned in
England without a charge having been brought against them, or
without being given an opportunity of clearing themselves before
their peers."
* * * *
THE same protest is made by the Catholic Times of Liverpool
in its issue of May 24th.
" The determination of the English Government to persist
in its present policy towards Ireland — a policy of pure Prussianism
and nothing else — will make Irishmen more resolute in keeping
up the struggle for their liberty, however long it may last. But it
will have another important effect. The Prussianism exhibited
by the Government in Ireland has produced a feeling of strong in-
dignation in the breasts of all genuine Irishmen, and they are ready
to form a league for the purpose of appealing to all nations and
asking whether a system of coercion, unparalleled on the face of
570 WITH OUR READERS [July,
the earth today and against which every humanitarian sentiment
revolts, shall be tolerated much longer. Court-martial trials, ma-
chine-guns, armored cars, the gaols full of political prisoners,
young girls sent to prison for selling leaflets without permits, dis-
tricts converted into military areas or war-zones which people
can neither enter nor leave freely, and the whole country swarm-
ing with armed soldiers and police, forbidding meetings, making
arrests daily on the vaguest political charges which are no offences
outside Ireland, and searching houses and individuals — that sort
of rule is insupportable and bound to create chaos. Unless an
end is put to it forthwith, the projected league for appealing to the
nations against it will become a reality."
* * * *
THE charges of which the representatives, Mr. Walsh and Mr.
Dunne, demand an investigation by the Peace Conference are
very extensive : the entire document numbers thousands of words.
It states at the opening that Premier Lloyd George wished this
commission to go to all parts of Ireland. We will summarize the
charges briefly: The killing of citizens by soldiers and constables
without any justification; confinement of hundreds of men and
women in vile prisons, without any charges having been preferred
against them; inhuman treatment of prisoners; unspeakably
loathsome surroundings; abominable food; cruel punishment of
prisoners by policemen and by jailers; solitary confinement that
in a number of cases has produced insanity. The right of the
home is no longer respected in Ireland: children kidnapped be-
cause their parents are republicans, who in turn are kept in ignor-
ance of their whereabouts; summary arrests without warrant of
women and children who are railroaded to other parts of Ireland
and confined with women of loose character; right of private prop-
erty violated; heads of families unjustly deported, their families
as a consequence left in want.
Other general charges are that the educational system in Ire-
land has proved a failure: that destitution is common in Dublin,
and that burdened with taxation and robbed of the opportunity to
develop her commerce, Ireland is being bled white.
* # * *
THE report recommends that the Peace Conference appoint a
committee to sit in London and Dublin, no member of which
shall be a resident or citizen of Great Britain or Ireland, or of any
country under the dominion of Great Britain. The committee is to
be selected in the following manner :
The English Premier to select three members: the elected
representatives of Ireland, including the Unionists, the Nationalists
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 571
and the Republicans, shall also by a majority vote select three
members. The Commission shall select its own chairman who
shall be a resident and citizen of the United States, France or
Japan.
" We sincerely urge," said the proposal, " that if the Peace
Conference refuses a hearing to the people of Ireland in these cir-
cumstances the guilt for the commission of these monstrous
crimes and atrocities, as well as the bloody revolution which may
shortly come, must from this time forward be shared with Great
Britain by members of the Peace Conference, if not by the peoples
they represent."
These charges were followed by a supplementary statement to
President Wilson by Mr. Dunne and Mr. Walsh, that the very per-
sons who gave them information were being persecuted by the
British Government.
THE representatives of the Protestant Commission on Faith
and Order were received recently in audience by the Holy
Father. In answer to their request that the Catholic Church par-
ticipate in a world- wide conference on Christian Unity, the Holy
Father kindly but very firmly declined, stating that the Catholic
Church was the one visible Church of Christ upon earth: and
adding his prayer that all outside the true Church might by God's
grace see the light and reunite themselves with the visible head of
the Church by whom they would be received with open arms.
* * * *
THE Holy Father's position is, even to those who differ from
him, logical and hopeful. It declares that there is a united
Christianity in the world: that Christianity of its very essence
ought to be united, and that the de facto united Christianity in the
world stands ready to receive and welcome all who will accept it.
* * * *
THE Baptists of the United States had to face the question of
Christian Unity not long ago. They rejected the invitation
of the Commission on Faith and Order. The Baptist Church de-
clined to federate — but it declined not because the Baptist Church
is the one true Christian Church — but because it does not believe
even in Baptist unity, much less Christian unity. " The Baptist
denomination is a collection of independent democratic churches.
None of these churches recognizes any ecclesiastical authority
superior to itself. The denomination (the Baptists) in so far as it
has unity is a federation of independent democracies. If Baptist
churches do not have organic unity among themselves, they ob-
viously cannot have organic unity with other denominations.
572 WITH OUR READERS [July,
" We do not believe in any form of sacerdotalism or sacra-
mentalism among Christians who are all equally priests of the
Most High.
" We reject ecclesiastical orders and hold that all believers
are on a spiritual equality.
"With us ordination is only a formal recognition, on the
part of some local church, that one of its members is judged
worthy to serve as a pastor. The fact that such appointment is
generally recognized in all our churches is simply a testimony to
denominational good faith.'*
Such declarations as these show that the very concept of the
Church of Christ is lost to sight, and that the Christian faith is be-
ing delivered to ruinous chaos.
EACH one of us must ask pardon for our inconsistencies. But
if our life be not redeemed by the consistent whole, wherein
shall we have hope? To the poet, who must employ his fancy nor
be too tightly trammeled by the bonds of cold reason, we are all
willing to extend the law of mercy to its fullness. Yet mercy has
a limit : it is truth's handmaiden.
* * * *
THE literary journals of the month have been flooded with esti-
mates of Walt Whitman as a poet. The variety of the esti-
mates is perhaps the best index to the place occupied by Whitman
as a poet. Altogether they make of him anything and everything.
Whatever theory or absence of theory a particular writer per-
sonally professes, it is evident from his criticism that he can and
does find himself in Walt Whitman's poetry. Whitman is an
impressionable, unformed mass, a protoplasm of thought, of emo-
tion, of aspiration. A reader brings himself to Whitman, im-
presses his own thought or image thereon, and looking again be-
holds his own image.
Stevenson could find in Whitman another Robert Louis, and
Emerson could find therein himself, and Whitman acknowledged
it. Thoreau read in his writings the divinest sermons, as the
modern anarchist finds in him the strongest apologetic: the
feminist her best defence: the scoffer and the blasphemer their
strongest quotations: the lover of democracy his most inspiring
lines.
* * * *
THE unity of God's universe, because of its very simplicity, sub-
jects it to every kind of interpretation, orderly or perverted.
We cannot extend the hand without touching nobility: we cannot
begin to think without reaching some portion of truth — even
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 573
though the inadequacy of the grasp make it more false than true.
God has subjected Himself to us because He placed creation in
our hands. Yet we can never get outside of His creation. If it
is our servant, it is our master also.
We cannot touch it without touching God. Yet if we touch
it without the consciousness that it is God's, our knowledge will
be misleading : so out of proportion as to be false : a guide not to
God but from Him. The abiding remembrance of the unity of the
whole, alone can keep us safe. We may all speak of those primary
emotions, longings, aspirations of the soul that God has placed
in every one of us, love and loyalty, freedom, success and happi-
ness, but the Truth, the Way, that secures their possession is God's
Wisdom — not ours. And our wisdom is not wise until it include
both the thought and the knowledge of God. Democracy is a word
lightly used: the world is beginning to understand that if it is
to be possessed, the deepest springs of human action must be
touched and guided by a wisdom that is beyond this world.
* * * *
WHITMAN, like many another poet, touched upon many a
great truth, but the very inadequacy of his thought and of
his expression frequently make the great truth a great falsehood.
He is as much a champion of the false as of the true.
He praises chastity, yet there is no more libidinous poet in
English. He exalts the soul, yet states that the soul is no more
than the body. He acclaims religion, yet he debases God and
writes a blasphemous poem about the Crucified One. He sings
of the spiritual: yet the material, the visible, the fleshly are the
horizon of his hopes: a prater of the divine, he yet exalts the
human above it: a preacher of democracy, he is a consummate
egoist: a contemner of the past, he confesses that to the past
America owes her best traditions: a champion of law, he is yet
laudatory of the lawless hours and the lawless deeds, " no law
less than ourselves owning:" a denier of reason, yet asking men to
oe reasonable: speaking of immortality, yet doubting all things:
and — in no Pauline sense — Whitman shows himself all things to
all men. He is an unshaped mass of every imaginable vanity of
incipient thought and theory.
A recent admiring critic of Whitman has approached this
truth about him and his place in literature, when she says that
Whitman " dislikes to be definite about what is to be done next."
He was probably conscious that such an attitude was his only
protection: an answer would have betrayed his mental poverty.
When charged, for example, with destroying institutions, he
weakly answered : " I am neither for nor against institutions."
574 WITH OUR READERS [July,
" He would establish without edifices, or rules, or trustees, the in-
stitution of the dear love of comrades."
* * * *
WHITMAN would not — Whitman who prated so loudly of
nakedness — reveal himself. He is the poet not of nudity,
for that may be chaste, but of nakedness which is always in-
decent. Explain it as they will, modern sympathetic critics of
Whitman cannot free him from gross sexual indecency without
stultifying themselves. Indeed, it is difficult to free some of his
poetry from the charge of perversion. He has built his poetry, say
his friendly critics, on the truth of sex to its exaltation: as a mat-
ter of fact he has built it on a lower libidinous view of sex to
its degradation. Clothes for the body are necessary if we are
to retain both our self-respect and the respect of others. Whit-
man exalts the body naked : he delights in the phrases " to lie
naked," " to undress," " to unbare." It is his meat and drink.
And the physical delight reflects his soul. He dares the irrespon-
sibility and the abandon of emotion: the whole world, God and
our Blessed Lord and the eternal relation of man to God and of
man to man are his playthings. He will be restrained by no law,
not even the law of rhythm. He will philosophize about every-
thing, caring nothing for philosophy. He disdained art and yet if
he is to be accepted at all it can only be on the ground of his art.
Philosophy he had none: he disowns and repudiates it utterly.
Truth comes to him only through experience. His statement and
exposition of it, therefore, must be a matter not of philosophy but
of art. In repudiating art he repudiated the only vehicle of com-
munication which was his: and in repudiating philosophy he
repudiated the value of experience. He will dogmatize about the
great writers of the entire past and make sport of the greatest of
English authors. If modern democracy is to accept this man as
its serious prophet, it will have a playboy for its guide.
* * * *
THE best test of the truth of what is said here is to be found
in the fact that when a serious experience faces Whitman,
when he is sobered and made to feel like a man, he does put
clothes upon both his body and his soul: he forgets sex and uses
the very form, the dress that poets have ever used when they
really sang. The Civil War called to his idle soul just as it called
to many another. The suffering and the sacrifice made him look
more deeply into life. It brought to him a sense of evil, and
forced him to abdicate his immoral transcendentalism. The com-
mon presence of death made him borrow from St. Francis and
when men suffered in anguish and Lincoln was martyred, Whit-
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 575
man found the formless catalogues inadequate for those ever
ancient, yet ever new, emotions of the human heart, grief and
mourning. His soul asked for music and his soul brought it forth.
But it had to clothe itself because it undertook a sacred thing,
and it is when so clothed and in his right mind that Whitman de-
serves a place among the poets.
UNDER the heading of " Home Missions," His Eminence Car-
dinal Gibbons draws the attention of the General Committee
of Bishops to the need for greater missionary activity among the
negro population of our country. " On the vast negro popula-
tion," he says, " rapidly increasing in numbers and growing in
education and influence, we have made almost no impression."
In line with this suggestion comes the news of the pro-
posed " Catholic Medical Mission for the Colored " which Bishop
Allen is endeavoring to establish at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the
centre of what is known as the " Black Belt."
* * * *
THIS new and progressive departure in the field of Catholic mis-
sionary activity at home, is the direct answer of the charity of
Christ to a great need felt among the colored people of this
section. Where there is no hospital to take in their sick, and
doctors' fees are beyond their means, and nursing is poor and
scarce, it is surprising how many of these people pass away for
want of medical aid and proper care in time of sickness. A Medi-
cal Mission, therefore, in connection with the Catholic school
would be, as the appeal states, of "immense value, not only because
it brings within reach of the missionary a large number of people,
perhaps at the very end of their lives, but also because the odor
of charity spreads about like a sweet perfume, attracting power-
fully those whose minds have been affected by heretical influences.
Comparatively little is required to run, on a simple basis, a medical
mission, and our Divine Lord will surely inspire some apostolic
souls to send their little share towards this cause so dear to the
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus."
There is every reason to believe that this means for relieving
the bodies and touching the souls which has proved so successful
in foreign missions, will reap an equally rich harvest here and
bring upon all those who further it blessings a thousandfold.
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THE
Catholic &(orld
VOL. CIX.
AUGUST, 1919
No. 653.
CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY.
BY FATHER CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C.
HERE are times when ideas are more potent than
statecraft and a clear knowledge of principles of
more value than ready-made solutions. To some
extent this is true under all circumstances, but it
is especially true at a moment like the present
when the social world is in the throes of a rebirth. It is no
exaggeration to say that we stand at the beginning of a new
order of things, politically, socially and intellectually. Not
since the break-up of the mediaeval system has the civilized
world been faced with such a radical change as is taking place
today.
Whether the result will be for the world's betterment it
is as yet impossible to predict: so much depends upon the
will of man and upon the spirit in which the emancipated
human forces will use the power which has come to them. Will
the new States created by the Congress of Paris justify in prac-
tice the principle of self-determination? And will the League
of Nations subserve the peace of the world any better than
did the theory of Balance of Power? How will the working-
class use the industrial and political powers they have gained?
And will democracy in the day of its triumph prove more
beneficial to mankind than the beaten autocracies? To all
Copyright. 1919. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. cix. 37
578 CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY [Aug.,
such questions the answer lies hidden in the future. It were
sheer foolishness to dogmatize, and even yet greater foolish-
ness to close our eyes to the possibilities for evil which lie in
the lap of this new thing which has come to the world. It is
not inconceivable that the League of Nations might become an
unbearable tyranny destructive of all national liberties, not-
withstanding the safeguards meant to avert that eventuality;
and it is quite possible for democratic rule, whether in politics
or in industry, to strangle individual freedom. History is full
of the tragedies which overtake the noblest ideals once they
are launched into the practical life of the world. That is, of
course, no sufficient reason why men should shirk the great
adventure of seeking to realize the ideal of a nobler life for
men and human society: and there are times when the ad-
venture must be made if the world is not to sink into moral
chaos. Whatever may yet come of the League of Nations and
of democratic rule, it is at least an effort to save the world's
civilization from the moral bankruptcy into which it was being
led by the godless political and social systems of the im-
mediate past.
Civilization is once again in the throes of a new beginning.
Any attempt at a hasty solution of the inevitable difficulties it
must face in the process of reconstruction, will but prove
illusory and disappointing. The world must necessarily feel
its way with a patience as courageous, as its faith in its ideals
must be venturesome : and for that reason its salvation lies in
the ideals and moral principles by which its course will be
guided.
At such a moment in history the Catholic people have
need to be awake and actively to exert themselves to influence
the trend of events : for upon their action depends not only the
welfare of the Church but to a large extent the molding of
the new systems which will replace the old. If Catholics were
to stand apart idly or to fail to exercise the influence which they
undoubtedly can exercise in the reconstruction of the world's
political and industrial life, then there would be nothing to
look forward to but a world society based upon anti-Christian
ideals and animated by a spirit antagonistic to the Church.
Either Catholicism or secularism, it has been said, will shape
the destiny of the new democracy. Catholic social teaching
alone can challenge with any hope of success, the secularist So-
1919.] CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY 579
cialism which is actively working to dominate the new forces
in political and industrial society.
Properly regarded, the very gravity of the situation should
be to Catholics an inspiration, a joyous call to a strenuous en-
deavor. For once again the opportunity is offered to remold
the social life of the world upon Christian principles after long
centuries, during which the polity of the nations has been in
more or less open antagonism to the teachings of the Church and
social life was a negation of Catholic social ideals. There are
still people who speak of the present upheaval as a revolt
against medievalism : whereas in fact the political and indus-
trial systems which today are in the melting-pot, are them-
selves the great denial of medievalism and of the Christian
principles upon which it was based. What we are witnessing
now is not the break-up of the mediaeval system, but of a system
which supplanted the mediaeval and was ushered into power
under the aegis of those two great apostasies — the pagan Renais-
sance and Protestantism. No serious thinker would propose to
reestablish the mediaeval system, at least without large modi-
fications: for mediaevalism on its secular side belongs to a
world-phase which is past. Still it is well to bear in mind that
the present revolt against aggressive rationalism and the im-
moral development of the Capitalist system is largely a vin-
dication of the principles upon which the Church strove to
guide mediaeval civilization : and that fact is becoming appar-
ent to many non-Catholic students of political and economic
history.
Catholics, then, have little reason to cling to the discred-
ited political and industrial systems whose death knell has
been sounded on the battlefields of Europe. For them the one
thought at this moment should be to do their part in the up-
building of a new social order more consonant with their
Catholic ideals and principles. And this they may do with the
greater assurance of success, since so many of the ideals which
are struggling for expression in the world today are funda-
mentally akin to Catholic teaching. Thus the League of Na-
tions as at present planned, may or may not achieve its pur-
pose : yet undoubtedly in its attempt to curb aggressive nation-
alism and to establish a universal law of justice to regulate
national ambitions, it voices an ideal to which Catholicism, by
its nature, responds. So, too, not a few of the claims set forth
580 CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY [Aug.,
by organized labor — claims which many regard as revolution-
ary— what are they but restatements of Catholic teaching, revo-
lutionary only in a world which long ago revolted against
Catholicism? As Cardinal Bourne declared in his pastoral let-
ter, The Nation's Crisis: " If we review the main principles of
Catholic social teaching, we shall observe how many of the
utterances of ' modern unrest' are merely exaggerated or con-
fused statements of those very principles."
Here then Catholics have a definite point of contact and a
ground of sympathetic cooperation with the new spirit which
is challenging the systems of the immediate past. In a wide-
spread knowledge of Catholic social teaching we have the
surest defence against the danger of an anti-Christian democ-
racy.
Experience has already shown that amongst those who are
working to reconstruct the world's social life, the social teach-
ing of the Church is sure of an attentive and respectful hearing.
That perhaps is one of the most hopeful auguries for the future.
The old attitude of suspicion towards Catholic teaching which
has been prevalent amongst non-Catholics, is beginning to give
way to an attitude of expectancy. Non-Catholics are begin-
ning to feel that Catholicism has something to say in regard to
the questions of the hour, which is worth listening to. To many
the clear definite principles of Catholic teaching have come as
a surprising illumination at a time when men are groping their
way amidst vague generalities and confusing prejudices. And
to some the surprise is greater that doctrines which they have
regarded as a new revelation from the spirit of unrest, are but
restatements of the historic teaching of the Catholic Church.
Thus an opportunity is given today for the spread of Catholic
teaching amongst all sections of society such as has not come
to the Church for many centuries. Today it may be said that
the world at large will listen if Catholic teaching is put before
it. That could hardly be said of the great masses of men dur-
ing the past four centuries.
The urgent need is that Catholics should realize the re-
sponsibility which this opportunity imposes upon them; and
especially that the Catholic laity should rise to a sense of their
duty in this matter. The clergy have their responsibility too :
upon them it falls to instruct, encourage and guide the people in
the fulfillment of their duty. But in the matter of political, in-
1919.] CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY 581
dustrial and social reconstruction, it is the laity whose influence
will be most directly felt in the work-a-day world. At no time
has there been a more urgent need that the Catholic laity
should recognize the duties of citizenship and be animated by
a keen sense of the duties which the Catholic citizen owes to the
State and to society : for the voice and vote of the Catholic lay-
man may yet determine the world's moral and religious destiny.
To educate the Catholic laity in their duties as members of the
State and of the social body at large, is therefore at this mo-
ment of paramount importance : since no Catholic can do his
duty as a citizen if he lacks a proper knowledge of Catholic
social teaching in its bearing upon the questions of the time.
Without such knowledge he will be powerless either to direct
his own action or to influence the action of others.
Yet it is just in this matter of Catholic social teaching that
Catholics as a body are deficient. How many Catholic Trade-
Unionists, for instance, have any clear notion of the teaching
of the Church in regard to the labor claims put forth by organ-
ized Labor? How many Catholics can enter into a political de-
bate with any definite knowledge of what the Church teaches
as to the rights and duties of the State?
To some extent this ignorance is due to the position in
which Catholics found themselves during the long period when
Catholics were shut out from public life, and when to speak as
a Catholic was to court derision or contempt. The tradition
of those days left its mark upon us, even after we began to en-
ter once more into the general life of the State. But in part, too,
we have suffered from that universal divorce of public life from
moral and religious principles which has debased state-craft
since the sixteenth century. But whatever legitimate excuse
may be urged to account for the prevalent ignorance amongst
Catholics of the social teaching of the Church, the need and
opportunity of the present make it a duty that the Catholic laity
no longer remain ignorant, but be fitted to do their part as wit-
nesses to Catholic teaching in the building up of the new social
order.
Happily in many countries the Catholic body is already
alert, and some effort is being made to train the laity in Catholic
social teaching. In England we have the Catholic Social Guild,
which has already done some effective work not only in mak-
ing known Catholic teaching to the non-Catholic body, but in
582 CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY [Aug.,
inducing Catholics, not only of the educated class but of the
working class, to undertake a systematic study of social prob-
lems in the light of Catholic principles. What it has done is
but a promise of what it hopes to do. It began by drawing
together for common action a number of educated Catholics
actually engaged in social studies or in social work; it next
proceeded to organize study clubs, mainly amongst Catholic
workers in the north of England : it is now engaged in promot-
ing social study in our schools, both elementary and secondary.
The idea is that the elder boys and girls in our schools should
receive some elementary knowledge of Catholic social teach-
ing, and on leaving school be brought within some study club
to pursue a more advanced course of study. It is a brave
attempt to meet a grave need, and if the Catholic body in Eng-
land responds as it should, the effect must be to create a strong
Catholic influence in our national life. The real merit of the
Catholic Social Guild lies in its attempt to educate in social
knowledge all classes from the university student to the worker
in a coal mine, and to bring all classes into some relation with
each other on the basis of a common social endeavor. That is
as it should be if Catholic social action is to be of any avail.
And in taking its stand upon the principle that Catholic social
action, to be effective, must be based upon an educated Catho-
lic opinion, the Guild has shown a wise insight into the psychol-
ogy of the situation. The Catholic citizen, of whatever class or
position, will have influence for good, just in so far as he knows
what is going on around him, and is able to judge the situation
from the clear and definite knowledge of Catholic teaching.
But such knowledge does not come from instinct: it requires
education.
Some may object that so far as Catholic teaching is con-
cerned, every Catholic who has received ordinary religious in-
struction is well aware of the fundamental principles of right
and wrong which apply to social life. That is so, so far as
elementary principles are concerned : but the Catholic of today
needs more than a knowledge of mere elementary moral prin-
ciples, if he is to fulfill the duties of a citizen : he requires to
know these principles in their relation to the frequently com-
plicated problems of present-day social life. He may be quite
well aware that he must deal justly with his neighbor, and yet
hopelessly at sea when called upon to decide what is just in a
1919.] CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY 583
given circumstance. That difficulty is not unknown to the
trained thinker and moral casuist. How then can we expect
the ordinary man to take an intelligent part in the solution of
the political or industrial problems which come constantly in
his way, unless he has had some training in political and social
thinking? The objection in fact can come only from those
who themselves have given no serious thought to the questions
which are agitating the social mind of today. One thing is
certain, it is the people who are being taught to think politi-
cally and socially who will have the deciding voice in the re-
construction of the future : and mainly from their grasp of this
truth have the Socialists gained their power.
If then the democracy — the great force of the immediate
future — is to be made safe for Catholicism and for Christian
morality, the education of the Catholic citizen in social think-
ing and Catholic principles must be taken up and urged for-
ward. The need is the more apparent when we remember that
under democratic rule every man is in some measure a legis-
lator, and has a voice in the shaping of the political and social
institutions under which he lives. But without the knowledge
which enables him to form an intelligent judgment, the very
powers which democracy gives the citizen are a snare. He be-
comes the mere puppet of whoever can appeal to his emotions
or prejudices : even if his moral sense rebels against a measure,
he is unable to declare his own view intelligently and give a
convincing reason against it : and so, even though he himself is
uninfluenced, he is unable to influence others or take any share
in forming public opinion. And it is the men who create public
opinion who hold the power where democracy rules.
We need, then, some organized endeavor to give the whole
body of Catholic citizens a working knowledge of Catholic so-
cial teaching in its relation to the problems of the time : for it
is only as the Catholic body at large can bring its Faith to bear
on social reconstruction, that Catholic ideals can have their
full influence. Yet if this education is to be in any way effec-
tive, it is clear that behind this general education there must
be a body of expert knowledge which will give both guidance
and motive power to Catholic social study. We shall need
teachers to impart or direct the elementary social education
of our people; we need men and women who shall be sufficiently
expert to expound Catholic social teaching on the platform and
584 CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY [Aug.,
in the press; we need expert critics "from the legal, moral and
religious to scrutinize existing organizations, and see how far
they correspond with Catholic social justice."1
Some means must necessarily be found to provide this
higher education. If we are unable at present to establish col-
leges and schools for social study, such as are already estab-
lished by non-Catholics, we can at least organize social study
centres with a systematic higher course of social study for Cath-
olic students. Such centres, I am told, already exist in the
United States: they are certainly a necessary adjunct to Catho-
lic organization in these days.
But beyond these there is the yet more difficult necessity
of that higher expert knowledge which is the product of trained
scientific study such as belongs only to the best scholarship;
such expert knowledge as can meet and influence the highly
developed social science of the present day.
Against it is a happy augury that the need has already
produced Catholic scholars whose contributions to social
science are of the first quality in scholarship. The late Charles
Devas in England and Dr. John Ryan in America — not to men-
tion others well known to English readers — are scholars of
whom Catholics may well be proud. Of Dr. Ryan's scholarly
treatment of industrial problems from the standpoint of Catho-
lic principles, it may be said that he has set a standard for
future Catholic students which, if maintained, will undoubtedly
have far-reaching results in molding economic science in the
future. Such scholarship is the very salt of an educational
movement: without it our efforts will be in vain. We must
aim at producing students and scholars of the first rank if Cath-
olic social teaching is to have any real influence on the social
thought of the world : and to produce such scholarship we must
give to Catholic students the opportunities of developing their
knowledge, and the encouragement to pursue their studies. It
is mainly to the universities and colleges where our Catholic
youth is educated, that we must look for this encouragement
and promotion of the highest social scholarship. In these cen-
tres of the highest education Catholic social study should
surely have its place as one of the cardinal subjects of the
educational syllabus, and be treated with the dignity due to a
1 On this point Professor Hewins, late Under-Secretary of the British Home Office,
made a strong appeal at the Catholic Social Guild Conference in October, 1918.
1919.] CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY 585
science so deeply affecting the world's future and the welfare
of the Church.
It would, indeed, be to the advantage of the Church and
of the world — in view of the universality and urgency of the
need — if Catholic scholarship were to deal with social science
in the widest significance of the term, in the same spirit and
with the same thoroughness which the medieval Schoolmen
brought to the reconstruction of metaphysical thought in the
golden days of Scholasticism; for social thinking is as much a
universal form of thought today as were the Aristotelian cate-
gories in the thirteenth century. Men are thinking today in so-
cial terms and values : these terms and values are, as it were, the
logic of their thought; and it is by the elucidation of social
difficulties and problems that the Church will largely gain the
submission and respect of the thinking world. In the days of
the early Schoolmen thinkers were athirst to know how life and
Faith could be squared with " the new logic " which seemed
to them the formula of intellectual freedom : today the world
is asking how Christian morality and Christian faith can bear
the scrutiny of those ideals of social justice and political recon-
struction by which the imagination of so many is fired. Social
science has thus become one of the key-positions from which
Catholicism must approach the world of today, if the world is
to be saved to Christianity and brought into relations with the
Church.
That being so, the need is manifest for a thorough and
systematic study in the light of Catholic teaching of the world's
social thought and of the actual problems which give rise to
that thought. Like the Schoolmen in the thirteenth century,
Catholic social students of today have behind them a long
consistent tradition of Catholic teaching. They have not to
invent a new social morality nor a new religious faith to give
substance to a new morality. In the explicit teaching of the
Fathers of the Church and in the Catholic masters who have
succeeded the Fathers, they will find constant witness to the
Catholic mind. Very frequently too they will come upon restate-
ments of Catholic principles which might well have been for-
mulated to meet the very difficulties with which the present-
day world is newly confronted. There is in truth a long his-
tory of Catholic political and social teaching awaiting to be
thoroughly investigated and brought into use by the student of
586 CATHOLIC SOCIAL STUDY [Aug.,
today. But precisely as the mediaeval Schoolmen had to bring
traditional Catholic teaching to bear upon the actual intel-
lectual problems of their day and to formulate that teaching
in the terms of the thought of their day, so it is the task of pres-
ent Catholic social science to bring Catholic truth, as already
elucidated in the past, to bear upon the social problems of the
present and to formulate that truth in terms intelligible to the
habit of mind of the present day.
The task before the Catholic social student is therefore
twofold: he must on the one hand make himself intimately
acquainted with the actual social problems and thought of the
actual world : he must know the field in which he has to work ;
and to know that he must know not only what the problems
actually are and what men are actually thinking, but the his-
toric process by which such problems have come about and by
which men have come to think as they are thinking. He must
know the world of today and how the world has arrived at
the position in which it finds itself today. Only by such wide
knowledge will he be fitted to anticipate, as every scholar
should, the probabilities of developments in the immediate
future. On the other hand he must have a wide knowledge of
Catholic teaching not only in the way of abstract principles, but
as that teaching has developed ir history, since it is only in the
light of this development that he can adequately understand
Catholic teaching itself in its bearing upon the problems which
the actual world presents to him. Then only when the student
has acquired this twofold knowledge, can he hope to deal con-
structively with the work before him and contribute a scholarly
presentment of Catholic social teaching which will at once
compel the intellectual respect of the world and at the same
time convey a living message to the world's practical workers.
It was in that patient and thorough way that the Scholastic
theologians of the thirteenth century built up their masterly
exposition of Catholic truth to meet the awakened philosophi-
cal thinking of their time : nor can it be beyond the ability of
Catholic scholarship today to construct a scientific exposition of
Catholic social teaching to meet the scientific social thinking
of the present.
That such an extensive and intensive study of the social
problem from a Catholic point of view is a primary need
in the world of today is the conviction of all serious observers
1919.] AN ANSWER 587
of the situation before us : and if it be a need, then it is at the
same time a duty for the Catholic body to fulfill. Upon our
activity at this time it depends largely whether the new social
order is to be Christian or secularist: for, as even many non-
Catholics instinctively feel, the Catholic Church alone has the
power to combat with any success the secularist propaganda.
That propaganda is energetic and tireless: it is seeking by
every human means to capture and mold the world of the
future. If it is not to succeed, the Catholic body must set itself
with equal resolution and energy to convey the Church's mes-
sage to the thinking and active world. Both Catholic scholar-
ship and practical Catholic citizenship must be pressed into
the work of reconstructing the social life of the world on the
basis of Christian principles.
AN ANSWER.
BY T. J. S.
THE crossroads cross through Christ, Himself the Cross,
Only in Him our paths of love may meet,
The hungering heart must rest its hope complete
On Christ, or know the bitterness of loss.
Sunk deep in common earth, yet raised to heaven,
Embracing North and South and East and West
His arms have gathered in, received and blessed
Whatever love from heart to heart is given.
Standing at roads where meet our hearts forlorn
His priest, of souls a lover great shall be :
A cross himself raised high on Calvary
That shadows forth Love's Resurrection Morn.
THE PASSING OF KIPLING.
BY JOSEPH J. REILLY, PH.D.
IPLING arrived at the psychological moment.
The English reading public was weary of in-
trospection and preciosity and the hectic atmos-
phere of decadence. It viewed at first with dis-
trust and then with impatience those novels
which possessed a maximum of psychological refinement and
a minimum of human interest; which gave more thought to
the niceties of soul analyses than to the soul itself; which for-
got, in telling what men and women felt, to tell what they
did. That same public was surfeited with men who had no
business in life except to dance attendance upon clever — and
soulless — women, to wear, like a carnation in their coat lapels,
a title which some huge-limbed forebear had seized by virtue
of a bloody mace and a mailed fist. It felt stifled among the
perfumes and the hot-house flowers of fashionable drawing-
rooms, where there was no bloom but that of cosmeticism, no
humor of the heart but only that of the intellect, where " wan "
women with " red mouths " and " dainty " youths and blase
men foregathered in quest of new sensations for their jaded
nerves. English literature was surcharged with foreign in-
fluences. The flavor of Flaubert and Huysmans and Baudelaire
and Verlaine was unmistakable. It all smacked of the hectic,
the overdone, the maudlin, the unnatural; it was a deadly
round of strong passions, weak wills, sick souls, " weary unto
death," of which a people that ate roast beef and drank ale
and played cricket became equally — and honestly — weary.
They wanted to discover again women with hearts and men
with red blood who spent so much energy in the world's work
that they quite forgot to dabble in aesthetics and delicate sins,
who took more kindly to wearing cartridge belts than chrysan-
themums and preferred a battle to a paradox. They wanted to
rediscover Englishmen who did things — real things, new things,
somewhat with their brains and very much with their hands.
And then came Mr. Kipling.
Almost from the moment when his work made its first
1919.] THE PASSING OF KIPLING 58$
appearance in England he won a hearing and achieved a wide-
spread notoriety. And no wonder. Here were tales that tin-
gled with action and passion and life, of the kind which is lived
in the open, among men and women whose emotions are strong
and affections normal, who may on occasion disregard the
Decalogue but have not yet learned to refine it away. Here
were things the reading public could understand and enjoy
without pretence; for besides being vital and human they were
English, of the beef and ale variety. Their women were at
home in the saddle and could win an archery prize or combat
cholera. Their men were horsey and at times vulgar, with a
turn for calling a spade a spade and for chortling with glee
when summoned to face black giants in a fight to the death.
" Mr. Kipling etait Anglais d'une fagon simple, violente et, de
plus, tres nouvelle," says M. Ghevrillon, and the mass of Eng-
lishmen took him to their arms accordingly. For the most
part their swift and boisterous acceptance was uncritical —
which does not mean that Kipling escaped criticism. The elite
sneered at him and accused the general public of setting up a
false god for worship. For answer the general public heaped
the incense higher, and Kipling clubs and adulation became the
order of the day. The author of Plain Tales from the Hills and
Soldiers Three found himself a literary storm centre while yet
in his early twenties, alternately stoned and worshipped, a clay
idol to the few, a divinity to the many.
Despite attacks, the popularity of Kipling persisted. Many
critics appeared who praised his work, as well they might,
while pointing out its author's weaknesses and limitations.
Whatever could be said either for or against, one thing was
unmistakable: Kipling, for millions of English-speaking peo-
ples, put India upon the map. He discovered it for them as
veritably as Columbus discovered America.
Born in India in 1865 of English parents, Kipling acquired a
first-hand knowledge of that great empire swarming with its
myriad children, split into castes and factions, with a past
which is lost in the weird distance, and a future which remains
a riddle. His is the India of English domination, with univer-
sities and standing armies and native police; India the prey
to sudden uprisings and famines and plagues and barbaric
superstition, the Mussulmans despising the Hindus and the
Hindus hating the Mussulmans; where English rulers make
590 THE PASSING OF KIPLING [Aug.,
voluminous reports regarding things of which they know little,
and who take the credit for victories which have been won by
other Englishmen who toil in heartbreaking isolation in for-
gotten corners of the country, hungering for recognition which
never comes, and at last wearing themselves out before their
time. And over all the blazing stars of the Indian nights look
down upon the strange romance of the civilization of today
struggling with the civilization of dead yesterdays.
In such a situation as this Kipling, gifted with an imagina-
tion, beheld many things. There were the sordidness of selfish
officials and the splendid generosity of unselfish ones like Scott
and Hawkins in William the Conqueror. There were adven-
turers who coveted kingdoms like Dravot and Garnehan. There
were fatherly colonels and jejune subalterns and soldiers from
far away Britain whose lives were a round of petty adventures
and carouses and drills and the guardhouse, but who never
ceased to be human and consequently interesting. There were
women who played the part of dea ex machina like Mrs. Her-
rick; and others who were saints like Billy Martyn; and still
others who were beautiful and fascinating and wreckers of
other women's lives like Mrs. Reiver. But that was not all.
There were giant natives with bristling hair who hated the
English Government and who, armed with knives as long as
ramrods, fought like incarnate devils; there were native priests
and naked worshippers and hideous idols and temples which
it were death for a white man to invade. There were natives
educated in England who sneered at things in heaven and on
earth, like Wali Dad, but in whose hearts lurked deathless
devotion to the gods of their fathers. There were native
women, like Lalun, with black hair and eyes like the stars of
a summer night, and tiny feet that trod upon men's hearts; and
other native women, like Ameera, whom Englishmen loved and
whose joy challenged the envy of the gods.
Small wonder that this India with its obscenities, its super-
stitions, its savagery, its romance, its poetry, the splendor of
its wealth, the violence of its contrasts, where five miles from
the white man's railroad track one stumbled upon such scenes
as some Haroun-al-Raschid might have beheld, appealed
mightily to English and American readers.
The atmosphere of this unexplored land of magic was
caught with the mastery of the born artist in words. In The
1919.] THE PASSING OF KIPLING 591
City of Dreadful Night one can feel the heat reeking up from
the low-lying dwellings as if from a thousand furnaces, see the
stars dimly through a fiery haze and realize almost with a feel-
ing of suffocation what a very flaming pit India can become in
the height of the dry season. In At the End of the Passage Kip-
ling describes the men trying to sleep in the hot darkness:
" The men flung themselves down, ordering the punkah-coolies
by all the powers of hell to pull. Every door and window was
shut, for the outside air was that of an oven. The atmosphere
within was only one hundred and four degrees, as the ther-
mometer bore witness, and heavy with the foul smell of badly
trimmed kerosene lamps, and this stench, combined with that
of native tobacco, baked brick, and dried earth, sends the heart
of many a strong man down to his boots, for it is the smell of
the Great Indian Empire when she turns herself for six months
into a house of torment."
With a similar realism he depicts Kafiristan in the north
with its giant mountains covered with snow, its wind-swept
passes and its valleys over which "the man who would be
king " made his dizzy journey to death. How well he has re-
alized his setting in The Man Who Was: the great beam-roofed
mess-room of the White Hussars with its round table, its bat-
tered standards facing the entrance door, the vases of roses be-
tween the silver candlesticks, and the troopers sitting about
festive and joyous, to whom there came in rags the tremulous
wreck whimpering with terror, who had once been an officer of
the Queen. The power of contrast has seldom been more
effectively used. Here is the awesome, like the serpent among
the flowers or the death's head at the feast, tragedy amid the
revelry of life, the agony of decay among men whose minds
had never been dethroned nor their souls tortured as upon the
rack. Sometimes Kipling's descriptions are almost brutal in
their realism, a realism which owes much of its power to his
skill in the use of specific words.
England and America felt that in this man's tales they had
come to realize India. Here was the atmosphere, here the
" local color " which existed nowhere else in the world. This
Anglo-Indian youth had unlocked the door of a land of wonder
and the world was no longer left waiting with unsated curiosity,
like Fatima at the threshold of Bluebeard's chamber; it was
permitted to enter and revel in undreamed delights. The
592 THE PASSING OF KIPLING [Aug.,
astounding vagaries of the Indian conscience, debauched
through long centuries, were evident in The Recrudescence of
Imray; the mad frolics of pestilence which can turn a world
into a charnel house over night knocked at your heart in With-
out Benefit of Clergy; the ironic revenge of sin upon an isolated
community of English folk was the theme of A Wayside
Comedy; the nervous strain of inaction upon soldiers suffocat-
ing in barracks, startled you in The Madness of Ortheris and
In the Matter of a Private; the daring of vagabonds who snatch
at a crown gave us the amazing adventure of his masterpiece,
The Man Who Would Be King. And what tales those were!
Crisp and fresh, told without a wasted word, vivid and vigor-
ous, with humor and pathos, tragedy and comedy, occasional
tenderness and frequent vulgarity! The English-speaking
world devoured them all, the bad as well as the good, quite
without discrimination, then smacked its lips and called for
more. And more were forthcoming until the vein ran out and
since then — but that is to anticipate.
What did India herself think of these tales? Professor
Phelps quotes an editorial in the Calcutta Times for Septem-
ber 14, 1895, which accuses Kipling of having traduced Anglo-
Indian society and concludes by declaring: "Whether Kip-
ling is treating of Indian subjects pure and simple, of Anglo-
Indian subjects, or is attempting a Western theme, the person-
ality of the writer is pervasive and intrusive everywhere, with
all its limitations of vision and information, as well as with its
eternal panoply of cheap smartness and spiced vulgarity. . . .
Smartness is always first with him, and Truth may shift for her-
self." This sounds harsh, but even the most unquestioning de-
votee must concede it more than a grain of truth.
If Kipling, as the Calcutta Times maintained, had limita-
tions of information, he did his best to conceal them. He had
a way of imparting information en passant which one would
have to ransack an encyclopedia to find. He knew all about coal
mining, the proper manoeuvres to be executed by an attacking
army, the comparative effects of opium on the white and the
yellow races, the deadliness of Armstrongs and Nordenfeldts,
how a woman's sobs differ from a man's, and a thousand other
things. He scattered them through his stories with a premed-
itated air of unpremeditation like the richard who flings hand-
fuis of coin to the street gamins below his window, as if he had
1919.] THE PASSING OF KIPLING 593
been accumstomed to princely giving all his days. It was
Huxley who defined a cultured man as one who knew something
about everything and everything about something. But here
was a man who knew everything about everything — and that
at twenty-three!
Even more surprising than Kipling's omniscience were his
sophistication and his cynicism. Stevenson is not cynical, be-
cause dowered with psychological insight to a high degree;
O. Henry's cynicism is rare and he saves it with a laugh; Kip-
ling's cynicism is that of one to whom the Ten Commandments
have no place east of Suez, whose men don't grow up to plaster
saints, and whose women are only women after all. But on
careful scrutiny the sophistication is only a pretence and the
cynicism that of the callow youth whose virgin lips have not
yet tasted the goblet of life. " Mr. Kipling," said the Saturday
Review, " is so clever, so fresh, and so cynical that he must
be young." Which, with explanations, is an interesting
story.
The Kipling of the Indian tales (only in his twenties) doubt-
less knew much about guns and army tents and drunkenness
in barracks and other things agreeable and disagreeable, but he
knew little of men and women. To him the human creature
was without complexity; it was as morally jointless as a
wooden doll. The interplay of motives, the struggle of emo-
tions, those moments when, as Stevenson puts it, " duty and in-
clination come nobly to the grapple," were quite beyond his
ken.
His characters, indeed, were even more simple than Con-
rad's, while his conception of the complexity of life can bear
no comparison to the Slav's. Conrad can draw men — and this
gift belongs to genius — who live an existence distinct from
their creator. This is not true of Kipling's people with the ex-
ception of Mulvaney, who, despite his stage brogue, has a tear
and a laugh and a dash of Irish irrepressibility which refuses to
be overshadowed. Learoyd is almost a real person; Ortheris is
unconvincing; he was manufactured as an artistic necessity to
complete the trio. One has little realization of Dravot or
Carnehan, of Bisera or Ameera, of Trejago or John Holden.
His powers that prey were cut upon one pattern — Mrs.Hawksbee,
Mrs. Reiver, Venus Annodomini and the rest. Perhaps Kipling
might have dowered some of his women and all of his men with
VOL. CTX. 38
594 THE PASSING OF KIPLING [Aug.,
a less imperfect illusion of distinctive existence were it not that
he was himself eternally in the way. At the best you glimpsed
them as through a glass, darkly, not as they were, but as he
chose to let you see them. He touched them off in a word, a
phrase, at most a sentence, and left you gasping at his clever-
ness in reducing a human soul with its myriad complexities
to the compass of a brace of brilliant adjectives.
But one must not ask too much. With Kipling, as a mat-
ter of fact, it was action and not character which counted. The
question was always "What happened then? " and never "To
whom did it happen?" His powers were concentrated upon
the story which he packed with action, vivid, swift, instinct
with the vigor of life, and set out in high relief. He painted
in primary colors; there were no intermediate tints. Journalist
as he essentially was, he felt the need of compelling the atten-
tion of jaded readers, and he succeeded though at the price of
maintaining a high (and in the end fatiguing) tension. On
reading several of these brilliant tales in succession one is re-
minded of the fierce glare of the noon-day sun upon the beach,
of the click and hum of a locomotive at sixty miles an hour, of
the modern-day jazz band, whose music crashes with dizzying
insistence.
This tension, this glare, was at once an artistic blemish,
and an indication of the chief characteristic of Kipling's Indian
stories — force. O. Henry has force but it differs from Kipling's.
With the American it comes from directness, brevity, a genius
for the strictly essential and a mastery of technique. With
Kipling it is this and more; for it is essentially a reflex of his
worship of strength, physical dominance, power of the kind
which laughs in riotous joy while it crushes its adversary with-
out mercy or remorse. His abiding theme in his Indian tales
was the glorification of power, not the power of intellect
matched against intellect, but the power which belongs to
brawn and muscle, to machine guns, to iron and steel and
steam, to armies and navies, when all these things, rejoicing
in unchallenged success, crush their puny adversaries like the
thunderbolts of a god. In The Man Who Was the pathos of the
whimpering wreck, Limmason, is lost sight of in the veiled
threat that the British lion will one day bury its fangs in the
throat of the Russian bear. In The Drams of the Fore and Aft
we behold the British soldier in a rage that a naked black man
1919.] THE PASSING OF KIPLING 595
should dare to revolt and rejoicing to meet him body to body
and steel to steel. In The Jungle Book Mowgli does not best the
lame tiger or the hostile wolves by superiority of intellect but
by threatening them and brandishing his flaming fagots be-
fore their terrified eyes. Morrowbie Jukes in the valley of the
dead who do not die, has no treatment for Gunga Dass, the
half -naked skeleton who jeers at him, but threats and blows.1
In Bimi, Bertram is not content to shoot the jealous ape which
has slain his wife; he makes him drunk and kills him with his
hands. Everywhere it is the same. The gross Cyclops of the
Greeks had but one eye and yet Kipling, like Garlyle, burns
incense at his feet.
It was the easiest thing in the world for Kipling's worship
of power to descend to a glorification of brutality. And it did.
In his Indian tales he has no interest in plaster saints; fighting
and drunkenness and coarse jokes please him mightily. In
The Solid Muldoon, we are regaled with the details of a fistic
duel to the point of disgust. In The Incarnation of Krishna Mul-
vaney, the hero and his two pals do not get possession of Dears-
ley's palanquin by a clever ruse; Learoyd, the big Learoyd,
fights Dearsley with his fists until both are reeling and bloodied,
with Ortheris and Mulvaney applauding nearby. It never
occurs to Kipling that the contest is one-sided; Learoyd is his
man and, sympathizing openly with his characters as he always
does, we hear him chuckle as he records every blow which the
huge fists of the Yorkshireman strike home upon his adversary.
From his British blood one would expect to find him an advo-
cate of fair play, but with Kipling fair play is a thing which one
Englishman may show to another — always excepting his "sol-
diers three " — but of which he owes nothing to the natives. To
slaughter them is a righteous and a joyous business. In his
Greenhow Hill he tells us how his soldiers three lie in wait for
a native marauder who has been pilfering in the camp at night.
Their object is not to arrest him and turn him over to the mili-
tary authorities, but to shoot him down, all unknowing, like a
dog. The pleasant pastime of murder falls to Ortheris. All of
a sudden :
" A speck of white crawled up the watercourse.
" ' See that beggar? . . . Got 'im! '
1 The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes is quite obviously a tour dt force whose
indebtedness to Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym is unmistakable.
596 THE PASSING OF KIPLING [Aug.,
" Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred down
the hillside, the deserter of the Aurangabadis pitched forward,
rolled down a red rock, and lay very still, with his face in a
clump of blue gentians, while a big raven flapped out of the
pine wood to make investigation.
" ' That's a clean shot, little man,' said Mulvaney.
" Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away.
" ' Happen there was a lass tewed up wi' him, too,' said he.
" Ortheris did not reply. He was staring across the valley,
with the smile of the artist who looks on the completed work."
Dick Heldar in The Light That Failed cries: " ' Give 'em hell!
Oh, give 'em hell! ' " in an ecstasy of joy as the armored train
meets a night attack of a handful of Sudanese on its way
through the desert.
Kipling has not stopped there. He has glorified force as
a thing worthy of admiration because it is efficient and not
because it is righteous. The anguished ages through which the
world has struggled to a recognition of its obligations towards
the weak, of sympathy for the oppressed and of the glory of
righteousness even when unsupported by men and ships and
guns, are quite beyond his ken. War to him is not a gigantic
evil into which a nation should plunge only when her rights or
her honor are assailed, but as a business — and a glorious busi-
ness— in which the beast that is in all men may find joy and
renown. The ways of peace are for women and outworn men.
In A Conference of the Powers, he pictures a distinguished
novelist talking with three young officers home from India and
realizing bit by bit the meaning of their profession.
" 'You! Have you shot a man? . . . And have you, too? '
" ' Think so ! ' said Nevin sweetly.
" 'Good heavens! And how did you feel afterwards? '
" ' Thirsty. I wanted a smoke, too ! ' "
We have thrilled so frequently to Mr. Kipling's tales that
we have forgotten Le Gallienne's keen remark : " For the
most part his work (i. e., his Indian tales) is an appeal to, and
a vindication of, the Englishman as a brute." This is a hard
saying against which it may be objected that Kipling in these
early stories was dealing with the elemental passions of men.
The same is true of Bret Harte and of Joseph Conrad. But
though Bret Harte's work influenced Kipling, the portrayer of
California in '49 no less than the chronicler of dramas upon
1919.] THE PASSING OF KIPLING 597
strange coasts, has at bottom a saner attitude toward life than
the author of Soldiers Three.
The explanation is not far to seek. Kipling in his worship
of force became blinded to moral values. Let us go a step
further : his worship of force of whatever kind is too insistent,
too intense to characterize a man who is himself strong. Rather
it is a hall-mark of effeminacy, common enough in those who,
by a kind of inverted egotism, pay tribute to the very qualities
in which they themselves are lacking. Thus the dandy of
Juvenal haunted the resorts of the gladiators and stroked their
brawny arms with his lily fingers, dumb with admiration of their
prowess. As a phase of Kipling's effeminacy we may consider
his sentimentalism which, despite his efforts to conceal it, con-
stantly betrays him. Only a sentimentalist would have sent
Dick Heldar, blind and despairing, across half the world to be
shot in a Sudanese raid. In At the End of the Passage,
Lowndes " whimpered " as he gazed upon the staring eyes of
the dead Hummil, while Mottram "bent over and touched
the forehead lightly with his lips. ' Oh, you lucky, lucky devil,'
he whispered." In The Drums of the Fore and Aft when the
regiment was retreating in disorder, Charteris and Devlin,
subalterns of the last company, faced their death alone in the
belief that their men would follow.
" ' You've killed me, you cowards,' sobbed Devlin, and
dropped, cut from the shoulder strap to the centre of the chest."
But whatever the weaknesses of Kipling in these early In-
dian tales, we must remember, as the Saturday Review said,
that he was young. And that is the wonder of it. For at twen-
ty-three he gave the world such stories as Beyond the Pale, In
the Matter of a Private, The Phantom Rickshaw, The Man Who
Would Be King, and The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes. At
twenty-five he had published The Man Who Was, The Courting
of Dinah Shadd, Without Benefit of Clergy, and At the End
of the Passage, an output of such amazing excellence as no
writer of short-stories in English had ever equaled at his
years. Here were grim violence, murder, adventure, the
bizarre, the weird, humor, pathos, and, in one tale at least, ex-
quisite tenderness. The reading public rejoiced to find/in these
masterly stories " that illusion, that enlargement of experience,
that miracle of living at the expense of others " which to the
mind of Henry James measures the success of a work of art.
598 THE PASSING OF KIPLING [Aug.
Without stirring from their cushioned chairs they could live
through vivid days at Simla, flirt with pretty women, drive
through desert wildernesses, share in wild border fights, in-
vade forbidden temples, and join the gross frolics of the bar-
rack-room. No wonder they hailed this lad Kipling as a
genius; he was. They waited breathlessly for more stories,
thrilling and graphic, and they got them up to the year 1892.
What happened then is clear; why it happened is not so clear.
Kipling continued to write stories, but not great stories. He
became somewhat less sophomoric, less furiously energetic,
while abating no jot of deliberate and conscious effort in his
work. But the magic was gone; the trick was lost; the vein of
gold so seemingly rich suddenly petered out. It is a startling
commentary that in this year of grace 1919, one can add noth-
ing in his praise to Edmund Gosse's appreciation written twen-
ty-eight years ago, while Kipling, on the other hand, has sup-
plied plentiful ammunition to the devil's advocate in the
meantime. Love o' Women, with its one great moment, The
Brushwood Boy, Mrs. Bathurst, and possibly They and William
the Conquerer, the best of his subsequent tales, have been but
momentary flashes of his erstwhile genius to brighten the
eclipse of over a quarter of a century. His verve, his color,
his buoyancy, his swift plunge into the very heart of a story
are gone. His later product is important as proof that the
sentimentality which lies at his heart has mellowed him in the
years since he wrote his Indian tales and that, though he has
felt the appeal of other than elementary passions in their more
gross expression, his gift is the portrayal of action rather than
of character. And for the finest expression of that gift we must
return again to his youthful days, to those incomparable
twenties.
In those golden years he had the wisdom to write a story
for its own sake and subordinate those things which might be
gleaned from encyclopedias and text-books of science; in his
later tales he committed the deadly error of reversing the pro-
cess and sinking the literary artist in the mechanical engineer.
He should have known better, for At the End of the Passage,
written in 1891, had just missed taking rank with Maupassant's
Horla. The artist struggled with the mechanician who would
attempt a snapshot of the world beyond our ken. The mecha-
nician won and a great story was ruined.
1919.] THE PASSING OF KIPLING 599
With the march of the years, Kipling's early interest in
mechanical contrivances and the minutiae of detail has ex-
panded until he has set himself to become the celebrator of
modern-day commerce, and in place of brilliant stories has
given us masses of cold facts woven into unconvincing person-
ifications of animals, railroad trains, and ships. Lacking the
gift of self-criticism, his wanderings in the desert were long.
And the end is not yet.
Kipling was not content to cleave to the short-story. He
attempted three novels, all of which prove, among other things,
that the novel is not his gift. In 1891 he published The Light
That Failed, giving it, by a stroke of irony, a title which bears
a striking and pathetic significance in his literary career. Read
in the light of his subsequent accomplishment, it has the mourn-
ful ring of a prophecy. The Light That Failed possessed no
merits which were not more brilliantly illustrated in the best
of his already published tales, and it suffered from the process
of expansion and inflation to which it was subjected. As a
matter of fact, it is a short-story made to do duty as a novel and
it pays the inevitable artistic penalty.
Captains Courageous appeared six years later and is a good
boys' story with a conclusion of the Oliver Optic type. Now
whatever disagreement one may have with Kipling's concep-
tion of boys (witness the impossible Stalky), they undeniably
have occupied his mind and his pen to a notable degree
throughout his literary career. The potent influence of older
men in molding the character of youth and in making possi-
ble a career, are the respective themes of Captains Courage-
ous and of Kim. In the latter, published in 1901, Kipling
reverted once more to India and presented anew those types
and scenes which he had made familiar to the English-speak-
ing world in his early tales. The merits of Kim have been vari-
ously estimated, but it is significant that in one of the most re-
cent and ablest critiques of Kipling, that of Professor Phelps,
it is not even mentioned. The truth is that Kim, heralded in
many quarters as a great story, is less indebted to its inherent
merits than to the tremendous prestige of its author and to its
setting. Here is Kipling, but not the wonder-worker of the
earlier tales; here is India, but without its first fresh fascina-
tion. Weighed in the balance against The Man Who Would Be
King, Kim is as dust to gold, and it will be forgotten when
600 THE PASSING OF KIPLING [Aug.,
Without Benefit of Clergy is conceded a place among the short-
story masterpieces of the language.
Kipling wrote his early and brilliant tales because he
had interesting things to tell, and not because he had any
deliberate intention of celebrating the romance of English
rule in India. He was, however, credited by many Englishmen
with that achievement. The soft impeachment had harrowing
results, for it led him to take himself with fatal seriousness
and in consequence to play up to the part assigned him by the
jingoes among his countrymen until he grew to regard himself
as the glorifier of imperial England throughout the world. No
one, whether peasant or potentate, has since been permitted to
entertain an opinion at variance with his. Such temerity were
lese majeste.
The future, like death, is a great leveler. The sanctity of
reputations, often left inviolable out of deference to the past,
means nothing to her. She dethrones Cowley for Milton and
Willis for Poe without even a " by your leave " to the usurper,
and with a divine serenity casts into the darkness of oblivion
the reputations of men and books, permitting many a writer of
bulky tomes to be borne to immortality on the wings of a single
perfect line. Contemporary adulation, no matter how profuse,
can make no claim upon her final judgment. What that final
judgment may be on the largest part of Kipling's work, criti-
cism, though unendowed with the gift of prophecy, has a right
to hazard a suspicion. Kipling has given us a few of the great-
est short stories in English. They are great despite his nar-
rowness, his effeminacy, his pseudo-omniscience, his irritating
personality, and his fallacious views, and they were written,
by a miracle, when their author was scarcely more than a boy.
It was Dean Swift who cried, on reading The Tale of a Tub in
his decline, "Good God! What genius I had when I wrote
that book! " So too might the Kipling of the last quarter cen-
tury lament as he read anew the masterpieces of his twenties,
had not the gods denied him the grace of self-criticism.
ARMISTICE DAYS.
BY FRANCIS AVELING, S.T.D.
OVEMBER eleventh in the year of grace nine-
teen hundred and eighteen came as a shock
even to those who had been looking forward to
the stroke of eleven on that day. The last
shot of the War had been fired on the Western
Front; the cannon had belched forth their death-dealing vol-
leys for the last time; the aeroplanes glided quietly through a
peaceful sky unbroken by bursts of shrapnel and high ex-
plosive; and the men, facing each other across the plashed
and sodden fields of the low-lying valleys of Northern
France, laid aside their rifles with a sigh of relief as
they realized that the nightmare of four years and a quarter
was over. The hour had struck, weighted with the fate of the
world and the destinies of nations and peoples. The incredible
forces which had been wrrested to the destruction of human
life and years of patient human labor were leashed once more
at a word. The War was over; the unaccustomed passions
had no further reason to pulse through the hearts and minds of
those who had been striving to kill. Nature was free to re-
assert her supremacy over the wreck that man had made of her
handiwork. And yet, though the day above all others for which
men were longing had come at last — though the hour towards
which they had been yearning had struck — the War passed
as a dream passes when one is but half awake; passed suddenly
to the realization that it was as a dream, and then reverberated,
as a dream, interweaving and intermingling with the first half
appreciated sensations of waking life.
Perhaps the best of all words to describe the War that has
gone, now that it has gone, is " Dream." It all seems so utterly
unreal, and yet with a curious, haunting vividness that colors
the present, even, in its fullness and actuality. It shares with
the dream consciousness, too, in its curious " condensation."
What was peculiarly horrible and loathsome has vanished to
a point, an indescribable memory from which the color of
personality has vanished. The torn and writhing emotions
602 ARMISTICE DAYS [Aug.,
are forgotten, save as something one can describe in imper-
sonal, objective terms. Incidents are remembered, of course,
vividly and clearly enough; but it is as if someone else than
oneself had been the chief actor in them; as if it were a story
that were being recounted by a third person. The hardships
and beastliness of the daily life have faded out of sight; the
friends one learned to know, and love, before they made the
last great sacrifice are not, indeed, forgotten, but have become
etherealized into dream- wraiths, as comrades with whom one
lived and moved in some life other than this. Years have
dwindled into days and days to moments; and yet it is all there
somehow, packed into an experience which will never die,
though it will become still more and more remote from reality.
This is true now, some months after the signing of the
armistice terms. It was just as true when those terms were
signed and the great catastrophe abruptly ended. It was im-
possible to shift and change all the values that so many months
of abnormal life had brought to being in the souls of the actors
in that awful drama. It was just as impossible suddenly to
change the outlook; to pretend that one's soul was calm, or that
one had obtained command again of the over strained feel-
ings due to years of excited tenseness. Yet the knowledge was
there that all things had changed; that the cause for the unusual
values was no longer there; that there was no further reason
for harrowed feelings or unruly emotions.
So the hour of armistice came to find men curiously alike
and unlike their normal selves; groping towards a reconstruc-
tion of their own mentality while as yet they were under the
influence of that semi-impersonal and fate-driven self which
the War had made of them.
From the point of view of the army the individual is — can
be — nothing. These men were parts of a great machine, which
had to be kept going. Demobilization had to be commenced;
and at the same time a comparatively great army had to be
found to take over, and guard, the occupied territory on the
Rhine. Further than this, there were the battlefields to be
cleared up, and order of a sort brought into the wastes that the
enemy had made of the territory he had evacuated. It is as
tremendous a business to bring a war to a close, and scatter
the men who formed an army, as to begin it or to gather them
together.
1919.] ARMISTICE DAYS 603
And so the Second Army advanced to the Rhine, and made
its headquarters in the city of Cologne, with the Belgians to the
left and the Americans in Coblenz on the right, while the others
advanced into Belgium or took up their position echeloned
back towards the place where they had been when the armis-
tice was concluded. It took time for the heavy machinery to
begin to move, and for men who would be permanent to re-
place the temporary soldiers in the Army of the Rhine; time,
too, for the wheels of demobilization to begin to revolve, and
releasable men to be sent home. With the weeks, however,
all was going smoothly. The Rhine Army was made up to
strength with its new material. Men were drafted, in ever-in-
creasing numbers, back to England; and the areas between Ger-
many and the bases began to take on the appearance which
they show today. It is of these, principally, and of the men,
soldiers and civilians, who are in them, that I would write; of
the areas which, a few months ago, were packed with men and
now are almost desolate; of the fields that were the scenes of
great battles, and now only bear the scars and gaping wounds
of combats that have been fought and are over. The War was
the epic; and the armies of the Rhine its grand conclusion.
The back areas have little of the heroic in them now, though
they have much of sadness and of dumb pathos.
It is a depressing sight to look upon a land that once was
fair and beautiful, dotted over with prosperous towns and
villages, tidy, prosperous and thriving, and to see them scarred
and devastated and overthrown. It is bad enough to see the
human wrecks that war casts out upon the shores of peace;
worse to witness the sufferings and see the broken bodies of the
men as they come back from their stern work upon the actual
battlefield. The graveyards and the scattered mounds with their
little white crosses make one pause and think scarcely less than
the scenes witnessed in the Field Ambulances and Clearing
Stations. Suffering humanity is a terrible thing to look upon;
blood and wounds and death, sudden, or lingering on in pain,
wring one's heart, as they set the stage of war in all the awful-
ness of its true colors. But it is almost more terrible to see the
gaunt wrecks of human habitations; to realize that these heaps
of broken brick and fallen rubble were once homes, in which
men and women, with all their human love and feelings, their
hopes and aspirations, were born and lived and died. These
604 ARMISTICE DAYS [Aug.,
places have been consecrated by years of indwelling humanity.
They have grown up with the centuries and seen the slow climb
of civilization. They were the records of the hopes and strug-
gles, the effort and progress of a people. And what is even
more than that, they bore the impress of, and were the silent
witnesses to, each individual soul who sojourned in their midst.
Right across France, in a desolate broad track, lies this abom-
ination. Gashes and rents are torn into the earth, where once
the green meadows smiled. Concrete fortresses are dug into
the fields here, and snaky bands of rusty wire, barbed and
jagged, cut through the prospect. The coarse, rank vegetation
of four years of fallow, the rutted and displaced sets of the
paved roads, the gaunt, stripped branches that are left upon
the yet standing trees — pitiful witnesses of the martyrdom of
nature — the refuse and rubbish of war, make the scene in-
describably melancholy and depressing. But the ruins of the
villages, poor relics of former happiness, crumbling to dust and
mud about the higher mound that once was the House of God :
these tear silently at the heart-strings as few things, out of all
this disorder and horror, can. Their very pathos is intensified
by the poor, homely things lying upon their rubbish heaps —
a bird cage, the wheel of a bicycle, a child's broken perambula-
tor. The few potherbs that still grow in what was once the gar-
den, the stray flower that pushes its head up through the scat-
tered bricks, the sad-faced peasants " coming back " with their
indomitable hope : these are but the foils that make the whole
more sad.
It is a wonderful thing, none the less, to see through the
sadness that look of hope unconquered upon the faces of those
who have so suffered. Their endurance and fortitude were
amazing during the time of War. Their pluck and resolution
are no less amazing now. They have come back to their ruined
farms and homesteads, drawn by that extraordinary attach-
ment to the soil which so characterizes them, to live in some
improvised lean-to, pitched wrily against the support of a few
yards of standing wall; to burrow in a cellar that is not wholly
destroyed; or, if fortunate, to dwell in the princely habitation
of one of the huts which were used by the troops during the
War. And, little by little, they are bringing some small order
out of the chaos of what was their patch of land. They are
gathering the bricks together and clearing the encumbered
1919.] ARMISTICE DAYS 605
ground. They are working in the little gardens that they have
been able to rescue from the debris. They are ploughing the
fields as well as they can with the instruments and beasts at
their disposal. And while they are doing this — these oldish
men and women and boys, with what soldiers are already de-
mobilized from the armies — the Labor Corps are clearing the
battlefields and shelled areas. They are rebuilding the bridges
that were blown up; and repairing the roads that were de-
stroyed, and gathering the miles of barbed wire entanglements
from off the fields. They are filling in the gashes and scars
of the earth and removing the dangerous, unexploded shells
and grenades. They are salvaging whatever is, or can be made
to be, of use from the abandoned battle areas.
The country over which the fighting took place, and the
areas in which the troops of both sides were billetted, are full
of material of all sorts which was left by the enemy when he
retired, and by us when we advanced pursuing him. There are
dumps of various kinds — ammunition, engineers' stores, rail-
way material. There are old gun pits with roof shelters sup-
ported by steel bars ; and much timber, both rough and cut, in
the trenches and dug-outs. There are, or were, coal and hos-
pital stores and broken war material of all sorts. To salvage
all this, and to make a beginning of clearing the ground for its
rightful owners, the whole country has been divided into areas;
and what were the armies in the time of war are now adminis-
trations for dealing with this work. There is labor of all kinds
employed: Labor Companies of our own men; Chinese Labor
Companies; and Companies of Prisoners of War. The French
soldiers, too, are busy upon the same task; and it is little short
of marvelous to see the change that has been wrought in the
months since the day of the armistice. Railway bridges which
had been blown up are replaced, and the permanent way —
often for miles at a stretch left by the enemy as little more than
a shapeless mass of twisted and bent metals — relaid. Roads
have been at least tolerably repaired, and dangerous engines
of war discovered and removed. Engineers are busy putting
up bridges to replace the temporary structures that were hastily
thrown across rivers and canals to facilitate the passage of
troops; and lock-gates and sluices are all in the process of re-
construction. Public works come first in the rebuilding of
the land: roads and means of communication, for there are
606 ARMISTICE DAYS [Aug.,
many mouths to feed still in the depopulated area, and pro-
visions must come from a distance. Further, ways of transport
are necessary even for the clearing of the land. Then
agriculture. The thousands of acres that have lain untilled
for so long must be planted as soon as they have been
roughly cleared, for food is scarce and no ground must
be wasted now. Consequently, in little bands scattered
all over the area, work is busily going on, patching, re-
pairing, renewing, creating. And all these little bands of peo-
ple must be fed and looked after. They are housed in towns
and villages, wooden huts and canvas, and go to and from their
labor sometimes on foot, sometimes in lorries. Though noth-
ing more of the great armies that occupied these areas a few
months ago remains, except the cadre, or skeleton of head-
quarters formations, there is a vast army of laborers. There
must be ration dumps and forage dumps — for the Royal Army
Service Corps has still to maintain a great part of its horse
transport; there must be medical inspection rooms for the
sick, and stationary hospitals. As long as there are troops at
all, there must also be the organization of billetting — a net-
work of Town Major's and Sub-Area Commandants to main-
tain order and regularity in the districts committed to their
charge.
The scattered locations of the units make the work of the
Chaplains difficult. There were difficulties enough to contend
with during the hostilities. Men were often enough prevented
from having " Church Parades " by the very nature of the case.
It was not easy, often, to gather together a congregation in a
church, even when the battalions were " resting " in villages
and bivouacs behind the firing-line. The priest had to go from
billet to billet to search his boys out if he wished to be success-
ful in his ministry. He had to give them the sacraments where
and when he could — give Communion in a dug-out or a gun-
pit, absolve his penitents in crowded places or while on the
march. He had extraordinary faculties which made it possible
to do much that would otherwise have been impossible. He was
allowed to pronounce general absolution over men who had not
been able to make auricular confession. Fasting before Com-
munion was not obligatory. The Blessed Sacrament was the
constant Companion of the priest during the War. And the
men, fine, sterling, stanch Catholics, for the most part, with the
I
1919.] ARMISTICE DAYS 607
shadow of death constantly hanging over them, made ready
response to whatever their Chaplain could do for them.
Now, however, things are different. The necessity for
general absolution and non-fasting Communion has passed
away with the passing of the War. Holy Mass need no longer
be read in caverns of the earth and shelters ruder, even, than
the Stable of the Nativity. But the armistice has brought its
difficulties, none the less. In the first place, a considerable
number of our priests — never really up to the strength of
" establishment " at best — have been demobilized; the Rhine
Army, rightly, has been made up to strength; and there are not
so many left available for the back areas. Such priests as we
have are placed so as to be somewhere near the centre of each
of the sub-areas; but their work is scattered over a large dis-
trict and through a large number of camps. Transport is in-
different and uncertain; and, in any case, the Chaplain only has
a right to a bicycle to take him about. So his work is itinerant.
He goes from place to place, visiting his units in turn, gathering
his Catholics together as he can, confessing them wherever pos-
sible and either arranging to offer Holy Mass for them himself,
or telling them of the nearest French church, or makeshift for
a church, and making the hours of the Masses known to them.
This he can do for the British troops under his charge, but not
for prisoners of war, for whom he must take the services per-
sonally.
The parish churches of France and Flanders have been a
veritable godsend to the Catholic Chaplains throughout the
War. Where it was impossible for a priest to reach the whole
of his charge on a Sunday — and it must be remembered that
most of them had four battalions, to say nothing of other troops,
for whom he was responsible — he could have it put in "Orders"
that the Sunday Mass would be held " in the parish church
of ." Thus, while he made himself personally the officiant
for one or two battalions, having given all an opportunity for
confession, he could satisfy himself that all his men had a Mass
to go to. This has been the great and unique privilege of the
Catholic body in the army throughout the War; and its sig-
nificant lesson has not failed to strike home in the minds of
many who were not of the household of the Faith. In more
than one instance its realization has won souls to the Church :
souls of those who, though they knew that the Catholic Church
608 ARMISTICE DAYS [Aug.,
was what it claimed to be — universal — had never had that
knowledge brought close home to them in actual life. And
well have the parish priests of Belgium and France served our
Catholic men. There are many debts of gratitude which we
Allies owe to one another; but surely there is no debt so great
as that our Catholic men owe to the priests of the countries in
which they were fighting. They had every right to their min-
istrations, true; for there was no distinction of creed or prac-
tice. A priest is a priest, and a Catholic is a Catholic the wide
world over. But none the less, rather even the more because
of that common bond of reciprocal right and duty, the debt of
gratitude exists. And it is bountifully paid in the reverence
and affection of our boys for the clergy of these other lands, in
the prayers that rise, not only from their lips and hearts, but
from those lips and hearts in the far-off homelands, too : from
Australia and Canada and the Cape as well as from the nearer
Isles that murmured prayers and holy thoughts to God for the
safety of those they loved.
They were wonderful men, those priests of the stricken
countries, in the parishes they worked so pitifully understaffed.
Many of their brethren had been called to arms. The older,
and the weaker were left to " carry on." In not a few cases
parishes had to be amalgamated, owing to the dearth of clergy.
Often the priest would have to trudge from one village church
to the next, a distance sometimes of four or five kilometres,
carrying his hosts and wine — and breakfast in a string-bag
in his hand. They toiled and labored for their flocks, and for
the soldiers who happened to be in their villages, with all the
devotion of their calling. When their villages were shelled,
and the people had to leave, the priest was generally the last
to go. In one case at least — the hamlet is now no more than a
name upon a map — the presbytery was almost a ruin and the
church pierced by the yawning gaps of shell holes, but the Cure
refused to leave before his people had gone. They might need
him, he explained, and it was his place to be there. He was
evacuated at last by order of the British; but there was no one
to need him then, and nothing for him to do.
Such were the priests, the Cures and Vicaires, in the War.
They are hardly less devoted and self-sacrificing now in armis-
tice times. They have gone back to their parishes, these grave-
faced shepherds in black soutanes, generally on foot, and car-
1919.] ARMISTICE DAYS 609
rying their most necessary belongings in ridiculous little valises
of cardboard or canvas, or in those same little string-bags, to set
about the herculanean task of building all up afresh. The edi-
fice they have to rebuild, the garden in which they have to plant
—and look for harvest — is far less promising than the rubble
heap of the peasant or the little patch of land where he plants
out his stock of kitchen herbs and vegetables. For his church
is gone, destroyed beyond repair, or wanting so many — he
hardly dares to think how many — francs to put it in a service-
able state again. His congregation is scattered to the four
quarters of the compass. Will it ever come together afresh and
be as it was before? Will he see again the faces of the children
he baptized, to whom he taught the catechism, whom he pre-
pared for their First Communion; the husbands and wives he
married — and saw torn from each others' arms when the call
came to the men to rally to the succour of their country? He
traces out the ruined streets and demolished houses, and waits
for his people to come back. And they come: one or two at
first, then a few more, a little handful. They build their tiny
shacks and erect their huts and make their shelters, while he
provides some makeshift for a place of prayer; and calls his
children together to worship once again in their ruined village,
in the same old way, with the self-same words of praise and
thanksgiving, the same clean Oblation offered upon the altar for
the living — and the dead.
So now, in the tiny centres of reconstruction scattered
throughout the wastes that the War has made, our Catholic
men find humble churches to visit, where they can assist at the
Great Sacrifice and bow their heads for the blessing of Benedic-
tion whenever they find that they are isolated from their own
British Chaplains. There are so many units in the Labor
Groups, and, as has been said, they are so scattered that the
Chaplain can only go from group to group and from company
to company for the more intimate and personal intercourse
with the men, say his two Masses in such central places as pro-
vide for as many as is possible, and send the others to the near-
est local " church."
Sometimes, indeed, it is the other way about. Most, if not
all, of our priests have obtained faculties from the bishops in
whose dioceses they are working to hear the confessions of the
civilians who come to them. Most of them, too, have found
VOL. cix. 39
610 ARMISTICE DAYS [Aug.,
themselves temporary parish priests as well as temporary
Chaplains at one time or another during their service abroad.
And now there are places in the desert zones where there is
as yet no local priest, where the people are returning, where
their church is the Garrison Chapel of the Military Chaplain.
One location in particular — it is what remains of a large city
in West Flanders; a few standing ramparts and propped up
walls, the only relics of a long and proud history, provides a
congregation for the Chaplain which boasts of at least four
languages; and his visits to the prisoners' camps bring him to at
least two more tongues. There on a Sunday, in that vast, empty
ruin of a town, with miles of absolute desolation stretching
around it, the worshippers come together, British and French
and Belgian and Chinese, with perhaps a Portuguese or so, to
kneel and pray in common in what is, and will be as long as
memory lasts, one of the most historic spots in the world.
Prisoners of war, Germans and Poles for the most part,
have their religious services in their own camps. These are
scattered over the area, also, so that the labor shall be near the
work required to be done. Barring the fact that they are pris-
oners, the lot of these men is not so hard. They are well fed-
better, by far, than many of the disbanded soldiers in Germany
— and well housed and warmly clothed — as well, at any rate, as
our own men. Among them are artisans and skilled labor
of many kinds; and the officers who have charge of them have
employed their craft and knowledge to advantage. Their
camps are scrupulously clean and neat. They have their lit-
tle flower gardens and playing grounds. Their carpenters and
painters have made many of their wooden buildings look com-
fortable and even picturesque. Painting, indeed, seems always
to have been a great hobby with the Germans; of which they
have left many evidences in most of the offices and billets we
have recaptured from them. Their working hours are not un-
duly long, nor the work unduly hard. On the whole, they
seem to be contented enough; and some of them have even
announced their wish never to be repatriated.
Among these prisoners there is a very large proportion of
Catholics. And they are excellent, practising Catholics, too;
welcoming the priest when he comes to say Mass for them, and
approaching the sacraments with fervor and real edification.
Fortunately there is no language difficulty with regard to the
1919.] ARMISTICE DAYS 611
service, since not many of our Chaplains speak German. Still,
for the sacraments, German speaking priests are really neces-
sary; and the two or three left in the area are kept pretty busy.
Sunday is a holiday for the prisoners; and on Sundays, at least,
the Chaplain proceeds to one camp or another with his port-
able altar. He hears confessions — generally a large proportion
of his congregation wish to communicate — and reads the Mass,
while the assistants sing, as Germans are taught to sing, the
hymns that they were used to sing at home.
Everywhere in the back areas of the empty battlefields, as
doubtless, too, everywhere throughout the world, in these
armistice days, the people, men and women, soldiers and
civilians alike, are waiting anxiously for peace. What is it
going to bring? The prisoner dreams of his home, and the bet-
ter days to come now that the back of the accursed militarism is
broken, and the hideous system that made Europe like tinder
awaiting the spark, done away with forever. The British
soldier is looking forward to the day, now measurably in sight,
when he can consider his task done; when, having bled and
suffered for the liberties of his fellows, he can return to his
accustomed life of peace and quiet. The French peasant and
workman wonders in how far his little proportions will be
restored and when, at last, he will find himself in a home again;
when the flooded mines will be ready again for him to work
in them, and the great manufactories whirring once more with
machines that have replaced the debris left in them by the
wanton destruction wrought by the invader. The fifty-seven
months of the War have passed so swiftly, so much has hap-
pened in them; men have moved so far in thought and feeling
and outlook during those pregnant times; the relations of
states and empires have so changed and altered; and world
policies have undergone such reshaping that it is impossible to
say what new world will arise out of the reconstruction of the
old. But hearts are full of hope, despite the long trial of the
War; and arms, tired with the carrying of rifles, are strong to
guide the plough and drive the mine shaft and tend the loom
once more. The dawn shows over the green battlefields, rosy
with the promise of the coming day; and though as yet mists
of uncertainty hang low, the sun will rise at last. In the opti-
mism and patient cheerfulness of soldier and civilian alike lies
the promise of the future. Countries that have produced the
612 ARMISTICE DAYS [Aug.,
fighting men who have conquered, need not fear if only they are
true to themselves. Countries like France and Belgium have
shown too virile a strain, too heroic a fortitude, in the hardest
and most cruel of all tests, to be apprehensive of the fruit of
their reconstruction.
To thoughtless people the War appeared merely a mon-
strous and insensate calamity, blindly fateful and impersonally
cruel. They forgot that there was, somewhere behind it all, a
Divine Providence which nothing could overrule. There was a
reason for the War, and a reason for every incident in it,
whether we were able to see it or not. To many, too, these
days of armistice seem to be big with the impelling of the same
blind fate: a fate behind the plenipotentiaries and diplomats
who are engaged in settling the terms of peace. The matter
seems too huge, too complicated, for any one human brain:
and, where one fails, how hope for else than babel from the
many? They forget, too, that even here Providence rules and
guides.
That right and justice triumphed in the end was not due to
fertility of invention and force of arms alone, though these were
doubtless the instruments through which Divine Providence
worked, as were the patience, the courage and the tenacity of
the Allied peoples. That, having triumphed, that Cause should
not be prospered is as incredible as that it should have been de-
feated in the War. It is in the souls of those behind the Army
of Occupation on the Rhine, the souls of those in the War-
swept deserts of the land that one discerns the instruments of
a glorious reconstruction.
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY.
BY JOHN A. RYAN, D.D.
O meet the needs of the vocation and the needs of
the child in the most satisfactory way possible,
means practically a complete revision in our
evaluation and selection of subject matter for
the whole school curriculum. It means work-
ing over the materials and methods of education and training
on the basis of the most vital needs of the present time." *
The "complete revision" here called for in the subject
matter and methods of the schools, may mean a revolutionary
change, or it may be understood as only a thorough modifica-
tion. Whatever may be the precise degree of modification that
Professor Bonser has in mind, the general thought that he ex-
presses is pretty widely held today and the number of its ad-
herents is steadily increasing. Although the outcome to which
it points seems to be inevitable, we Catholics who believe in
the freedom of the will, are not constrained to assume an atti-
tude of hopeless acquiescence. We know that the most in-
evitable-appearing social outcome can be controlled and
directed by deliberate human action. Therefore, the first ques-
tion that we ask ourselves is whether this contemplated " com-
plete revision " of our educational system is necessary or desir-
able. And the tests by which this question should be answered
may be summed up in the one phrase, human welfare. How is
the change likely to affect the child, the adult, the State, the
Church?
The primary objection to the inclusion of vocational train-
ing courses in the school curriculum is that these are not
education at all but a method of trade apprenticeship. Yet this
is only a partial view. The ultimate purpose of all education
is to fit a person for life. Now the basic elements of the educa-
tional process are found in what is variously called liberal, or
cultural, or general education. Its aim is to increase the
capacity of the individual to grasp and to utilize those facts
1 Fundamental Values in Industrial Education, by Frederick G. Bonser, Assistant
Professor of Industrial Education, Teachers' College, Columbia University.
614 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION [Aug.,
and principles which underlie right and reasonable life, and to
exercise his mind effectively upon many subjects and interests.
It lays emphasis upon general intellectual and moral capacity.
For the vast majority of persons, however, this general educa-
tion, this general capacity, this general fitness is not sufficient.
Almost all persons need, moreover, that specialized knowledge
and training which enable them to become productive. They
must be fitted to increase the sum total of useful things in
the world. The product in view may be a book, a sermon, a
surgical operation, a building, a hat, or a bushel of wheat.
Whatever may be its specific nature, the product has the
capacity of satisfying some reasonable human want. If it is to
be as large and as good as possible, it will imply some degree
of special training in the producer. As distinguished from gen-
eral education, therefore, special education develops more than
an average degree of skill in some particular form of produc-
tive activity.
From the viewpoint of general human welfare, special
education is desirable because it makes for an increase of the
goods that minister to human needs. From the viewpoint of
the great majority of the persons who acquire it, or who desire
to acquire it, special education for productive effort is of fun-
damental importance because it is directly related to their live-
lihood. They need the special training in order to obtain a
larger measure of food, clothing, shelter, and all the other
requisites of right and reasonable life. If the training did not
yield these things, they would not regard it as worth seeking.
This kind of training is now generally called vocational educa-
tion. It has been defined as, " any form of education, whether
given in a school or elsewhere, the purpose of which is to fit an
individual to pursue effectively a recognized profitable em-
ployment, whether pursued for wages or otherwise." In the
words of Professor Gillette, vocational education is that which
" enables men to function efficiently for their own good and
that of society, in some of its essential callings."
The principal callings in our present society are industry,
commerce, agriculture, household economy and the profes-
sions. All these are essential callings because they are neces-
sary for human welfare. Those who are engaged in them are
at once performing a social service and earning an individual
livelihood. Obviously the greater the skill and capacity pos-
1919.] VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 615
sessed by the men and women in these callings, the larger
will be their service to their fellows, the greater will be their
product, and the more abundant will be their own share of the
good things produced. In a word, the maximum of training
will mean the maximum of individual and social benefit.
Special training for the essential callings must be obtained
either within or without the school. In one of them, namely,
the professions, the training is now almost entirely provided in
scholastic institutions : the lawyer, the physician, the engineer,
the clergyman are prepared for their life work in schools
specially designed for these purposes. School training for com-
mercial pursuits is today more nearly adequate than is the case
with the other three essential callings, agriculture, industry,
and household economics. The bookkeeper, the accountant,
the clerk, the stenographer, and the salesman get a larger pro-
portion of their training in school than does the farmer, the
machinist or the housekeeper. The reasons why the profes-
sions and commerce have been better provided for in the
schools than the other three vocations are fairly obvious. Pro-
fessional education has made such progress that it can no
longer be given through the device of apprenticeship; and the
number of persons requiring such an education is compara-
tively so small that the maintenance of professional schools
is not an extraordinarily heavy burden. Although the special
training for commercial activities that is provided in the
schools is utilized by a vastly greater number of persons than
those who seek professional education, it does not require a
very costly equipment, nor do the courses extend over a very
long time. Indeed, if the general education given in the
primary and secondary schools can be said to have any special
value for a vocation, it is for the activities that we call commer-
cial. At any rate, the graduate of a city grammar school or
high school can begin to function in a commercial pursuit with
a smaller amount of additional training than in any other
calling. Hence there is a considerable amount of truth in the
statement that our common schools at present tend to fit per-
sons mainly for commercial vocations. School training for
agriculture, industry, and housekeeping has made less progress
than has training for the other two callings partly because of the
large expense involved, but mainly because, until recently, we
have all assumed that adequate training could be obtained
616 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION [Aug.,
through apprenticeship and direct practice in the occupations
themselves. Today, however, it is pretty generally realized
that these methods are no longer sufficient. Hence we have
agricultural colleges and high schools, while " domestic
science " is taught in the grade schools as well as in the high
schools and colleges.
Inasmuch as training in household economy and agricul-
ture present fewer difficulties than industrial training, and
inasmuch as the latter is what most persons have in mind
when they think of vocational education, the remainder of this
article will be restricted to the subject of school training for
industrial occupations.
For many years both employers and educators have seen
that apprenticeship is no longer an adequate means of supply-
ing industry with skilled workers. The reasons for this con-
dition are many, and do not need to be stated at length in this
place. Let it suffice to point out that employers are disinclined
to take the time and undergo the expense of maintaining a
comprehensive system of shop training, and that the dominant
position of the machine in industry has lessened very greatly
the importance of the all-round man, the thoroughly skilled
artisan. Nevertheless machinery has not yet taken, and never
can take, completely the place of human skill in industry. The
best proof of this assertion is that for many years manufac-
turers have been compelled to import a considerable part of
their supply of skilled workers from Germany and other Euro-
pean countries.
On the other hand, a large proportion of children leave
school in the upper grades and after the first year of high
school, not because they are too poor to remain longer, but
because they do not find that the school is giving them that
particular training which will enable them to function effec-
tively in industry. Hence they become wage earners in con-
ditions that deprive the vast majority of the opportunity of
more than a slight degree of advancement in their chosen
occupation. For the majority of industrial occupations do not
provide an adequate system of apprenticeship or training.
The social question, we are frequently told, is mainly a
question of distribution. We are assured that sufficient goods
are produced to provide all persons with such satisfactory con-
ditions of living that industrial unrest would disappear if only
1919.] VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 617
the product were more equitably distributed. This is a great
exaggeration. According to the estimates of Professor King,
in his The Wealth and Income of the People of the United
States, an equal division of the national income in 1910 would
have given each family only one thousand four hundred and
ninety-four dollars, and each individual only three hundred
and thirty-two dollars. That would not have been affluence.
We need a better distribution, indeed, but we also need a larger
production. If the responsible agencies of society fail to ensure
this larger product, and neglect to provide millions of persons
with that kind of training which will enable them to earn a
decent living, these social agencies will fail in one of their
primary functions. There is not a single argument on behalf
of general elementary education which does not apply with
substantially equal force in favor of vocational education.
Now the only social agency that is able to make adequate
provision for industrial training is the State. The Church can
do much for its own children, and private persons and organi-
zations can do something, but the State is called upon to per-
form the far greater part of the task. The danger of pater-
nalism that some profess to see in such an extension of the
State's educational functions is not real. Some social agency
must provide industrial training for the masses; the State is
the only competent agency; therefore, the State is obliged to
do it. This conclusion is merely a particular application of
the great general principle laid down by Pope Leo XIII., in his
Encyclical on the Condition of Labor: "Whenever the gen-
eral interest or any particular class suffers, or is threatened
with mischief which can in no other way be met or prevented,
the public authority must step in and deal with it." In the
matter of vocational education, both the general interest of
larger production and the particular class of those who must
follow industrial pursuits, are confronted by evils which can-
not be adequately met except by the State.
So much for general principles and conditions. The par-
ticular problems underlying a system of industrial training
are numerous and very difficult. In this article we are, happily,
not called upon to solve them, nor even to state them fully.
However, two or three of them are of such pressing importance
and involve such fundamental principles that they may not
be entirely ignored. The first of these is the question whether
618 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION [Aug.,
industrial training should be imparted in a separate system of
schools, or as a part of the curriculum of the regular and ex-
isting system. We can answer at once that the former arrange-
ment must be rejected. In the first place, it would involve a
considerable increase in the cost of administration. In the sec-
ond place, it would divide the school attendants into two
sharply defined classes : those compelled, to become industrial
workers, and those aspiring to fill the so-called higher posi-
tions. This was the outcome of the German system, and it
ought to be quite as unacceptable to us as any of the other un-
democratic products and institutions of that unhappy coun-
try. " The sorting out of individuals begins at the early age
of ten in the elementary schools, when each child's social and
economic position is practically determined. It is decided then
whether he shall be one of the great army of wage-workers, or
whether he shall fall into some one of the several social classes
and vocations which stand apart from the common mass of
wage-earners." 2
Undoubtedly this system has promoted a very high degree
of industrial efficiency, but there are some things in life more
important than industrial efficiency. Among them are democ-
racy and opportunity for the masses. Finally, industrial train-
ing should be given in the regular schools because it ought not
to be divorced from cultural education. If the ordinary
branches of general education are good and useful for the
young person who will be occupied otherwise than in industry,
they are likewise of value for the person who intends to pur-
sue an industrial calling; for they give general intellectual
power. To compel the person who is learning a trade in a
school to part company with general education, is to deprive
him of opportunities that he ought to have, and to lower the
genuine social efficiency of a large proportion of the population.
All the authorities seem to be agreed that no specific voca-
tional training can with advantage be given in the grade
schools. All children, even those who intend to fill an indus-
trial occupation, should receive the benefit of this much gen-
eral education. Inasmuch, however, as there seems to be a
good deal of dissatisfaction with the subjects and methods that
occupy the seventh and eighth grades, it would be worth
while to examine whether these subjects and methods could
3 The Creative Impulse in Industry, by Helen Marot, p. 74.
1919.] VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 619
not be modified in such a way as to have some value as a prep-
aration for industrial training. Emphasis might be placed upon
the industrial aspects and relations of the regular studies of
the curriculum; a certain amount of the right kind of
manual training might be given; and some such forms of pro-
ductive activity might be carried on as those which have dis-
tinguished the schools of Gary. While these studies and activi-
ties would enable the student to learn something about his apti-
tudes and inclinations for his future occupation, their main
value would be of a general character. That is, they would be
helpful to all the pupils, to those who did not, as well as to
those who did, intend to enter industry; and they would not
have the tendency to separate the young into classes on the
basis of their future avocations.
In very general terms the normal, or ideal, system of
vocational training would seem to be along the following lines.
The curriculum of the high school should be so arranged that
the students who wished to follow the course in vocational
education could select from the regular cultural courses those
branches which would have most value for them. The students
who did not wish to obtain industrial training would naturally
make a different selection. The important point is that the
students of industrial education would be in the same school
and participate in the same curriculum as all other students.
There would be no unnecessary class separation. It is obvious
that the " industrial " students could not follow as many of the
general courses as the others; for they would have to give the
greater part of their time to the vocational branches and activi-
ties. The industrial training is necessarily of two kinds,
theoretical and practical, the former given in the school, the
latter in the shop. The practical work must be carried on
either in a shop set up and maintained in conjunction with the
school, or in an industrial concern located in the same city.
Obvious limitations beset both arrangements. Shops or fac-
tories sufficient to provide practical instruction in a great
variety of crafts, cannot be provided as a part of the school
equipment except at a cost that will frequently be prohibitive.
On the other hand, many cities and towns have no industrial
establishments, or have so few that actual shop facilities for
the industrial training of pupils would be available for only a
small number of crafts. Moreover, it is not always possible to
620 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION [Aug.,
obtain the cooperation of employers in the use of their plants
for purposes of instruction.
The " day vocational school," as the kind just considered is
technically called, seems to many authorities to be less suitable
and practicable than the " continuation school." Between the
two the essential difference is that the former has the dominant
control of the pupil both in the school and the shop, even when
the shop is an independent industrial establishment; while the
" continuation school " merely provides the theoretical part of
the industrial training to a person who is primarily an em-
ployee of an industrial concern, and who attends a vocational
school for a certain number of hours each week. It is con-
tended that most pupils take a far greater interest in both the
theoretical and the practical parts of the instruction when they
go from the shop to the school than when the order of prece-
dence is reversed. Whenever pupils do take this attitude, the
advantage will probably be with the "continuation school."
Nevertheless the latter is subject to certain definite limitations.
It can extend only to those crafts and occupations that are
actually carried on in local industrial concerns. So long as the
industrial motive and the practical demands of the employ-
ment are the determining factors in the mind of the employer
and the employee, there will be a strong temptation in the
school so to adjust the theoretical instruction as to omit or
weaken the studies in general culture, and to include only
such courses as have a more or less direct bearing on the trade
which the pupil is endeavoring to learn. The gain in interest
and concreteness is liable to be offset by the loss of a broader
culture.
How will the demand for and the provision of vocational
training affect our already overburdened Catholic schools?
The question does not seem to present difficulties that are
insuperable. The modifications suggested in the courses of the
seventh and eighth grades should not prove very inconvenient
or expensive, inasmuch as they do not call for any considerable
increase either in material equipment or teaching qualifica-
tions. In the high school the elective courses in general cul-
ture and the theoretical part of the industrial instruction should
be comparatively easy of establishment and operation. The
practical training in the local industrial concerns should be as
accessible to Catholic as to public school pupils. In those cities
1919.] VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 621
that are without sufficient industries for the practical training,
there will be greater difficulty, since the cost of setting up
shops in connection with the schools will be prohibitive in most
cases. However, there seems to be no good reason why the
pupils of the Catholic schools could not be enabled to use the
shops of the neighboring public schools for the practical part
of their training. Their theoretical instruction would, of
course, be received in their own schools. It is said that this
arrangement is even now in operation.
The great majority of children require specific training for
their vocations or occupations, as well as general education
for the general purposes of life. This special training cannot,
particularly for industrial callings, be sufficiently provided out-
side the school. Therefore, it must be provided in the school,
and the duty of making such provision falls upon society and
the State. Vocational training in the schools is necessary both
for the common welfare and for the special welfare of that
large section of the community that must obtain its livelihood
from industrial pursuits. But the training must be established
on a democratic basis and given in a democratic spirit, so that
the recipients shall neither be marked off as a separate and
lower class in separate schools, nor deprived of that amount of
general education which should be available for all the ele-
ments of the population. The problems of methods and of
ways and means are, indeed, difficult, but they must somehow
be solved because an adequate system of industrial training
will, in the long run, pay for itself in the increased national
product. Finally, our Catholic schools must be adjusted to
the requirements of vocational education, so that no Catholic
will be industrially handicapped merely because he attends
a Catholic school.
HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.
BY C. C. MARTINDALE, S.J.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPEL (Continued).
T was night; and to Our Lord came Nicodemus,
a religious authority among the Jews, and a
wealthy and cultured man (his name is Greek).
" Sir," he began, " we know that you are come
from God as a teacher. . . ."
It was a modest and honorable introduction, but Jesus
breaks off the human courtesies and the discussion so pleas-
antly suggested. He proclaims, and forthwith the atmosphere
of the scene is altered: the dark house turns definitely into a
House of God.
In solemn truth I tell thee . . .
Unless a man be re-born,
He cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus smiles. "Be born again? How can that hap-
pen?" And his thought travels back over his many years.
" An old man . . . become a child once more? "
Our Lord reiterates His doctrine.
Unless a man be born
Of water and of spirit,
He cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
That which has come into being from the flesh,
Is flesh.
That which has come into being from the Spirit
Is spirit.
So do not be astonished that I have said to thee
" You must be re-born."
Until we are accustomed to the method of these discourses,
we must of necessity break their thread with comments else
to be regretted.
Notice, then, that these conversations of Our Lord lasted a
long time. Yet they may fill not more than a page in our New
Testaments. John gives Christ's doctrine. Moreover, he
" schematizes " it; he gives to it, quite regularly, a form. Our
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 623
Lord begins with a phrase that is half -commonplace and yet a
challenge; a sentence which you might well look for and find
in the Synoptists. In it, He habitually makes use of a certain
ambiguity; His expression is susceptible of an obvious, and of
a more spiritual, interpretation. So here, He uses a phrase
which can mean : " be born a second time," or : " be born from
above." (In fact, twice already has He so spoken; for the
word which can mean spirit, can also mean the " wind.") His
hearers invariably fasten on that interpretation for which they
are by temperament prepared; the grosser, that is, the more
materialist alternative. Then Christ explains, moves forward,
deserts the lower plane for the supernatural, leading up to the
enunciation of some "Heavenly Thing" which is precisely
that to which the whole discourse tends. But, as the glory of
the doctrine grows, John's interior ecstasy gathers propor-
tionate: the conversations rarely finish; seldom are we told
"what happened then;" nor even, Christ's last words. Insen-
sibly the Divine speech melts into the Evangelist's. For a few
sentences the one shines through the other, like a sapphire
through a diamond. Then you can see distinctly that it is John
who thinks and writes.
Yet even so, John's own thought is not single. Indeed, whose
is ? Assuredly, not any poet's nor any mystic's. Assuredly, not
this supreme among mystics has one level in his consciousness
only. Thus, take the phrase " to be born of water and spirit."
Does that refer to baptism? Most certainly. After a lifetime
of baptizing, and believing the doctrine he did, John could not
possibly have used that phrase without the idea of baptism
being well to the forefront of his mind. But does it allude to
baptism only? A new birth composed of water poured and
Spirit given? Or, would Nicodemus, at any rate, accustomed
to the water-baptisms of the Jews, and of the Baptist in partic-
ular, have realized that to those water-baptisms, which at best
were purificatory, must be added a spirit-baptism, vivificatory?
Good though they were, those old religious rites remained in
the sphere of things "natural," things of earth and flesh; to
them must be added a new thing, a thing from above, of fire
and spirit. And that is, indeed, the doctrine of this Gospel and
definitely of this discourse in particular.
Nor can we for a moment doubt that to both these ele-
ments in his consciousness, John links the memory of that
624 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Aug.,
Spirit which in Genesis is seen brooding over the primeval
waste of waters, that unregenerate nature, that formless chaos
into which God's Breath puts life and order.1
This is no mere reading of all possible meanings into the
text, nor " accommodating " it to notions true enough in them-
selves, yet in fact alien to the written word. It at once adheres
to the traditional, authoritative and doctrinal interpretation of
John's words, and also illustrates what we believe to be John's
usual psychic process, abundantly attested by the whole of his
Gospel, and normal, as I said, for a poet or mystic and even, in
due measure, for any ordinary mind.
Often, in this Gospel, the comparison round which the dis-
course is built is drawn from something within the immediate
range of the hearer's senses. So, in the Synoptists, the parables
are quite likely based, as a rule, on something which the
listeners could at the moment see and hear. So now, when Our
Lord continues:
The wind blows where it wills;
Its voice thou hearest;
But thou knowest not
Whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth;
Even so is every one who is born of the Spirit;
you may hear, if you will, the night-wind whispering round
the two as they talk. Even so invisible, so mysterious in origin
and in destination, but as recognizable in its power and effects,
is the New Life to be inbreathed into the natural man.
Nicodemus, disheartened, sighs : " How can these things
happen?" Jesus, too, sighs as he reproaches him: "Thou art
' the Master in Israel,' and thou knowest not these things? "
In solemn truth I tell thee:
What we know, we speak;
What we have seen, to that bear we witness;
And our witness accept ye not.
If things of earth I have told you,
And ye believe not,
How, if I tell you Heavenly Things,
Shall ye believe?
The Law had enjoined; the Prophets had proclaimed; the
Baptist had prepared Christ's way; Nicodemus was " the Mas-
1 In the prologue, John deliberately models himself on Genesis.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 625
ter in Israel:" yet Christ's ordinary teaching had failed to win
acceptance. How then should this supreme and central mys-
tery of the new Faith find a hearing? That the witness of
Christ was rejected, or at least misunderstood, by His " own,"
His elect people, was the tragedy which haunted John.
Throughout the Gospel the horror of this rejection gathers in
gloom and density like a thundercloud, until the Evangelist
has, as it were, to incarnate the whole idea of resistance to
God's Light in the Jews, the nation who should themselves have
been a light and guiding star to the heathen. Perhaps the rous-
ing of this emotion in his mind, or the masterful psychic effect
of his declaration of this Heavenly Thing, an Eternal Life in-
breathed into man's soul, causes his own personality to expand
here and dominate, and absorb the discourse. At any rate, in
"What we know we speak ..." the Evangelist's habitual
thought, and therefore style, begin to pierce upwards through
the narrative. In "if things of earth ..." his mind is re-
focussed, for a moment, on the person of Christ; but very soon
the Saint spreads his own eagle's wings; Nicodemus is for-
gotten; John soars to the place where the Word lives con-
templating God, and follows the love-sped message of that
Word leaping down from the Father among men, a flash of
Light which the world could not tolerate nor live by, for it was
in love with darkness.
What has been taught, then, so far, is this. Man, by his
natural birth from his parents, is born into his natural kingdom
of the earth with its natural duties, moral and religious, its
natural ideals, and its proportionate natural reward. But that
is not all. Henceforward, he is to be, should he so will, re-
born, supernaturally, into the supernatural kingdom too: this
birth is spiritual, a grace-birth, and in baptism it is given. Here
then is the first Heavenly Thing. A new Life has to be in-
breathed into the old. Man, to fulfill Christ's aim, must be born
anew, and from above.
The revelation moves a pace forward.
Jesus is passing through Samaria, that unfriendly land
where even the Hebrew worship was diluted by pagan infiltra-
tion. Exhausted by His journey, He sits down " as He was,"
beside an ancient well. The disciples go on into the town to
buy food. A woman came to draw water. .
Jesus said : " Give Me something to drink."
VOL. CIX. 40
626 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Aug.,
" YOU — a Jew — ask for drink from me — a Samaritan? "
If thou didst know
The gift of God,
And Who it is that saith to thee
" Give Me to drink,"
Thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have
given thee
A Living Water.
Again, Jesus speaks ambiguously. His word can mean, both
" living water " and " fresh," spring-water. She grasps at the
material alternative. Spring-water? But the well is deep.
He has no pitcher. Yet whence, save from the well, obtain it?
Jacob made that well! Was He greater than Jacob? Whence
had He His spring-water? Jesus said:
Whosoever drinks of this water
Shall thirst again.
But whosoever shall drink of the water 7 will give him
Shall thirst no more for ever;
But the water that I will give him
Shall become within him a fountain of living water,
Leaping up into Eternal Life.
The woman, stupid merely, or fancying at best some magic
elixir, cries : " Sir, give me this water, that I be no more thirsty,
nor come here to draw ! "
Jesus, to startle her (like Nathanael) into astonishment at
least, shows that He reads the secrets of her life. She per-
ceives that He is a seer, and propounds to Him a religious prob-
lem that has intrigued her: Was worship acceptable to Yah-
weh as the Samaritans taught, only on their Mount Gerizim, or,
as the Jews taught, only in Jerusalem? Jesus answers her:
Woman, believe Me that the hour is coming,
When neither on this Mount (alone) nor in Jerusalem (alone)
Ye shall worship the Father. . . .
Nay, the hour cometh, and, indeed, even now is come
When the true worshippers shall worship the Father
In Spirit and in Truth.
Yea, for such are they whom the Father seeks to worship Him.
God is Spirit,
And they that worship must worship
In Spirit and in Truth*
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 627
Like Nicodemus, the woman gives up. Ah well, Messias
is on His way: when He is come, He will explain everything.
I am He, I, Who am speaking to you.
Here then a step forward has been taken. To Nicodemus,
the New Life had been revealed at its insertion; its inbreathing;
here it is seen as a Fountain; that is, a springing force, no mere
inert thing, like a jewel in a casket; no mere passing gift, like a
draught of water that refreshes, but needs renewal. It leaps
and bubbles upward into " Eternal Life." So, too,2 Jesus calls
all who thirst to come and drink, no water that is dead and
perishable, but what shall be a Source that flows and brims and
overflows, rivers of living water for the making glad God's city.
And John says, this is the Spirit, destined to indwell Christians.*
Thus, for all time, the keen air of morning, the storm, the
breeze among the branches, and now, sources, brooks and
rivers, for all time air and water may be for us more than
their mere selves, sacramentals, great elements in God's crea-
tion, explained and consecrated and chosen as symbols of the
Spirit.
But there is a sequel to the tale, too beautiful to be omitted
here, though not strictly carrying on the same lesson. The dis-
ciples return, with food.
" Master, eat."
" I have food to eat of which you do not know."
" Can someone have brought Him food? "
My food is to do the Will of Him Who sent Me,
And to accomplish His work.
Have you not a saying:
" Four months yet, and then the harvest comes? "
Nay ! I say to you,
Lift up your eyes and see the country-side,
Golden is it for harvesting!
Already the harvester is winning wage,
And gathering grain
Unto Eternal Life,
That he who sows and he who reaps, together may rejoice.
Therefore the episode, unlike that with Nicodemus, ends
'Chap, vii. 37-39.
* And in Apoc. xxli. 1, the River flowing through the City from God'g Throne,
is probably the Spirit
628 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Aug.,
on the note of Christ's solemn exultation. Yet, an exultation
penetrated by the pathos of His unspeakable unselfishness; not
tragedy, yet assuredly half-sadness. As he looks forward to
the glad harvests of the future, He knows that not till, and
through, the death of Him Who sowed, and the deaths of so
many whose blood too shall be the Seed, shall the divine gran-
aries be filled.
Dare we say that with tears in His eyes, yet with the
gentlest, happiest smile upon His lips, He pursues the proverb?4
Yes, for in this the saying is truthful —
" One man reaps where another man has sown."
I have sent you to reap whereat you have not labored ;
Others have labored
And you have entered into their toil.
The second step in this mystery of the Supernatural Life is,
that it is achieved by nothing less than a vital union with Our
Lord Himself.
Not only does John proclaim : " He who believeth in the
Son hath Life. 5 ... He who believeth in Him Who sent Me hath
life everlasting and hath passed from death into the Life," 6 but
" What has come to exist in Him, is Life." T
(This is what God guarantees), that "He has given us
Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son : he who hath the Son,
hath Life; he who hath not the Son, hath not Life.8 . . . We
know that the Son of God is come; and (God) hath given us
insight that we should acknowledge the True : and we exist in
the True, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the True God and
Eternal Life." 9
First, Jesus has and gives the Life.
He restores the paralytic to — as we say — life, and then
strives to raise the minds of the onlookers from this relatively
earthly event of a miracle of physical life-giving to the diviner
level. For, this physical life, however full and healthy, is but
as death if it be regarded as all; as excluding that supernatural
Life He means to impart.
4 It would need a technical discussion to show that St. John means Our Lord,
quite clearly, to be quoting two halves of a popular dictum.
•Chap. iii. 36.
"Chap. v. 24. Compare 1 John Iii. 14: "We know that we have passed across
out of death into the Life."
» Chap. 1. 4. 8 1 John v. 11. • 1 John v. 20.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 629
Greater things than these shall be shown, that then, indeed, ye
may marvel !
For even as the Father raiseth the dead, and maketh alive,
So the Son, too, when He wills, maketh He alive. . . .
In solemn truth I tell you:
He who heareth My word
And believeth in Him Who sent Me,
Hath Eternal Life;
And into judgment cometh he not,
But is passed across out of the death into the Life.
In solemn truth I tell you,
The hour is coming, nay, is now come,
When the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God,
And they who hear shall live.
For even as the Father hath Life in Himself,
So to the Son too hath He given to have Life in Himself.10
But at the hour of the supreme miracle this declaration is
complete. Lazarus dies. Jesus meets his sister.
" Hadst Thou been here, my brother had not died. Even
now. ... I know that whatever Thou shalt ask of God, He will
give it Thee."
" Thy brother shall rise again."
And she, still dwelling in the realm of " earthly things," the
current doctrines of an ultimate revival of the dead, answers
that she knows he shall rise again at the resurrection at the Last
Day.
Then one hears from His lips the tremendous identified-
tion: I AM
The Resurrection and the Life.
He who believeth in Me, though he die,
Shall live;
And all who live, and believe in Me,
Shall not die for ever.11
The Life is no third thing merely, given by one to another;
it is the communication of Himself. " I live, no longer I, but
Christ lives in me." 12
19 Chap. v. 20-26. u Chap. xi. 25, 26.
"The "New Name," In Apoc. ii. 17, "which no one knows" save the Risen
Christ Who gives it and the victorious soul who receives it, again designates this
amazing conjunction of the grace-deified self with the self of the God-made-Man.
In many ancient faiths, the name follows and belongs to the self, the kernel of life:
each man has a secret name, proper to his true inner self. Anyone who knows that,
has absolute inner power over the owner. This new, incommunicable name Im-
plies, follows and recognizes the personal Innermost communion of myself with
Christ's self. Of that utterly personal fact and experience, only He and I are aware.
630 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Aug.,
Of especial value for the illustration of this truth, the iden-
tification of what the Christian has, with what Christ is, is the
powerful use, throughout the Gospel, of the metaphor of Light,
partly because it so immediately provokes the idea of its oppo-
site, of dark; to air and water it were hard to find an opposite,
unless perhaps suffocation which John does not use; and mist,
which is not strictly the opposite of water. But the " Life "
is the Light of men : the Light shines in the dark, and the dark
cannot imprison it. 1S
I am the Light of the World
He who followeth Me
Shall never walk in the Dark,
But shall have the Light of Life.14
He who works the Truth,
Comes to the Light,15
Walk while ye have the Light,
That the Dark imprison you not.
He who walks in the Dark
Knows not whither he fares;
As ye have the Light, put faith in the Light,
That ye be Sons of Light.18
I came a Light into the world,
That all who put faith in Me, remain not in the Dark.17
God is Light,
And Darkness in Him is none at all.
If then we say that we have Communion with Him, yet
walk in Dark,
We lie, and we do not work the Truth.
If in the Light we walk, as He is in the Light,
Then have we communion with one another.18
Herein is now the consecration, as of air and water, so of that
light which men have always instinctively, and at times
idolatrously, worshipped. And were its work no more than
this, that it thus re-consecrates, re-interprets for us, re-vivifies
the universe, John's Gospel would win our gratitude.
But here, before concluding our illustration of the doctrine
of the Christian's unification with Christ, we must insert, as it
were, a parenthesis. For, especially in this idea of light, and
of its allied idea, sight, the mechanism of the appropriation
of the life by the soul, the act of acceptation, is inevitably
"Chap. i. 4-9. "Chap. vili. 12. "Chap. iii. 21. "Chap. xil. 35, 36.
«Chap. xii. 46. "1 John i. 5-7.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 631
stressed; and again, as we said, light instantly evokes its anti-
thesis, dark, in a way that air and water do not and cannot.
Let us, then, think along the following line.
To live, is to be: untruth is unreality: hence to live fully,
is to be truly, one's real self. Hence Life is Truth. Moreover,
the material world but half -exists, if you view all the possibili-
ties of existence. The full existence is the spiritual. Hence
the full Life is full Truth, and is Spirit. Hence deviation from
this true, destined self, is death and untruth. That is what sin
is. Hence, spiritually, darkness is untruth, and that, chosen
by the soul, is sin. Hence all these associated terms: Life,
Death; Spirit, World or Flesh; Truth, Lie; Light, Dark; to
Walk, to Wander; Love, and Sin.
The antithesis of a Divine Light, identified with Reality
and Truth, and darkness and unreality and error, was so com-
mon in contemporary mystical philosophy, that quite apart
from the massive, organic place filled by the same antithesis in
John's Gospel itself, we are prepared to find that it is not ex-
haustively, nor even primarily, to be conceived as affecting the
intellect. It does so; but its action is subtler, and also more
comprehensive, than that. What it gives is not only Truth,
z. e., increase of information: new knowledge of facts; but
Truth, z. e., increase of reality, of vitality, a whole richer way
of being. A strong dynamic element is inseparable from it; an
active quality; to accept it is an affair of doing; of walking.
Throughout the Epistle and the Apocalypse, the notions of
sin and falsehood reciprocate. That is why the rich idea of
Faith, the act by which we lay hold of the Heavenly Thing re-
vealed, must not, in the Gospel, be taken as containing only
an assent to a proposition, even on God's word (though it is
also that), but a total laying hold, by the entirety of the soul's
vital powers, on that vital fact, that living Truth, which is
Christ.
We are far from proposing to set out the complete Catholic
theological treatise on Faith, illustrating it by St. John's Gos-
pel, or on anything else. But, remaining within the limits of
that Gospel, we are endeavoring to reach, and in some measure
to analyze, the splendid complex contents of some of those
words which express his dominant ideas, to see how they all
work in function of one another, and of his supreme covering
idea, Eternal Life.
632 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Aug.,
Return, then, for a moment, to that idea of light. Light
(as we know it) is neither the thing seen, nor the eye that sees;
yet the thing must be illuminated, and the eye responsive in
itself, opened and gazing in the right direction, and unimpeded.
In this mystery of Faith, Christ not only is the Thing to be seen
by the soul, but is Himself the Light; so that He must first reach
our soul's eye, and be admitted by it, before we can fully un-
derstand Himself or His Father. Yet our eye, after all, re-
mains ours. We can refuse to open it; we can turn it aside;
obstacles may be interposed. Even when the Light is ours, we
can refuse to look at that which it illuminates. We can make
ourselves, in practice, blind; and — ultimate horror! we can, it
would seem, destroy as it were our optic nerve. Read now the
miracle of sight restored to the man born blind, an " earthly
thing " enough compared to the gift of Faith or spiritual Sight,
granted to the soul.
The Pharisees had derided Jesus and His claims. " Dost
thou believe," Our Lord asks him, " in the Son of Man ? "
" Why, Who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him? "
" Not only hast thou seen Him, but He Who is talking with
thee, is He."
"I believe, Lord." And he worshipped Him.
Unto a Division 19 came I into this world,
That they who cannot see, should see,
And that they who " see " should become blind.
" Are we, too, blind then? " ask the Pharisees who had cast
out the man whom Jesus had sought and found.
If ye were blind, then had ye no sin:
As it is, you say : We see.
So your sin remains.20
There is, therefore, guilty unbelief. There is the man who
sees nothing, because, though his eye be healthy, he has no light.
But there is the man, too, who refuses to look, or even, shutting
or averting his eyes, declares that there is nothing to be seen
save what now he sees. There is the man who, by dint of
tampering with his sight, may destroy the very power of vision.
Short of a re-creative miracle, his doom is sealed. It is not
true, then, that all sin is, as Socrates thought, blameless ignor-
»C/. p. 634. wChap. ix. 36-41.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 633
ance. If one but knew where the good was, he argued, one
would do it. Explain the ultimate how and why of evil choice,
we cannot. But John acknowledges what our consciences speak
loudly, that there is willful error, culpable disbelief; in fact,
that only such willed blindness deserves the name of disbelief
and sin.
What mysteries are left ! Why does one choose to see, an-
other to stay sightless, though for both alike the Light is shin-
ing, and the Thing to be seen is there, and God is soliciting the
gaze of each? Does He solicit them unequally? the one, in-
sufficiently? Is the fault, somehow, with God? That were a
blasphemy, not to be hinted at by John. Let us leave, for the
moment, this problem. I shall, in an appendix dealing with
John's preoccupation with the evidence for Christ's message,
say what more may here be fitting. For the moment, leave it
at this : God wishes all men to come to the knowledge of Him-
self, through Jesus Christ. For all men, a sufficient Light, of na-
ture and of grace, is shining. But though it can never be ex-
tinguished, it does not conquer utterly the opposing dark.
There is an obstacle: the wicked will of men; the chosen rejec-
tion, made by the flesh, and the world and Satan.
Herein, therefore, is the clue for the interpretation of
John's use of the term world (and though less frequently used,
its departmental equivalent, flesh) . " In the beginning, God
created heaven and earth " and He saw that they were good.
The Word was God, and through Him that universe was made,
and apart from Him was made nothing. Therefore, again and
again, the world, the totality of created things, is good, and in it,
that human nature which is termed, so often, " flesh." As such,
these things are good. Yet almost always John uses these
terms, "world," "flesh," as opposed to Spirit; as dark against
light : as error against truth. That is, once more, because in the
world, and in man, exists free will, and as a fact, that will has
chosen the wrong: it has sinned: it has introduced the death.
Therefore, you must regard John as considering the world and
man's will precisely under that aspect, as resisting, as Satan's,
Adversaries: not as they are in themselves, beautiful and
immaculate creatures of the Father. Here then you have no
pessimism nor scorn of God's creation : no Eastern condemna-
tion of material things as such. That were a blasphemy and
a sacrilege, to be charged to those Gnostics, truly enough,
634 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Aug.,
against whose nascent schools John, historically, is encamped.
But still less is there, in John, any facile optimism, the self -flat-
tery which suggests that in the long run nothing matters, that
evil is not ultimately distinguished from the good in itself or
its results. There are " sons of perdition," men who " die in
their sins," who do not " remain in Him." Such an one is " cast
out," like the severed vine-shoot, and is straightway " with-
ered," and " they gather him with the rest and cast him into the
fire, and he burneth." 21 The gentle Saint can still speak in
tones of thunder, and the Apostle of love can be as stern as
the inexorable Christ.
Another very important word, often used by St. John in
this connection, is the Greek crisis (x.pf<jc<; or xp^a) translated in
our New Testament, judgment. Here again is one of Our
Lord's "ambiguities." It can, indeed, mean "judgment," in
fact, "condemnation;" but the original meaning of the word
is division, separation. We still so use it when speaking of the
crisis of an illness, though I expect many people then treat it
as if it were the same as climax, and mean that the man is then
at his worst. That is not so, save as implied by the fact that he
has then reached the dividing line, when he must improve or
go under. Once or twice St. John alights plainly on one or the
other meaning: usually he hovers in the vicinity of both: to
realize this not only enriches for us the meaning of his words,
but has a definite bearing on the way in which he has to speak
of Eternal Life. Besides, it solves certain puzzles.
Thus, Our Lord twice definitely states that He was not sent,
nor came, to judge, but to save.22 Yet, in chapter five, verse
twenty- two, He declares that the Father judges no man, but
has handed over all judgment to the Son; and in chapter nine,
verse thirty-nine, He says, " For a crisis came I into the world."
The fact is, that the object of Christ's coming is not " wrath "
nor condemnation, but love and salvation; yet automatically
His coming creates a segregation, a grouping: those who, by
their free-will helped by grace, accept Him, " hear," and " be-
lieve in " Him, and those who, as freely, and despite grace, re-
ject Him. These are they who, if they fix themselves in their
isolation, and do not even come to Him, cannot " go where He
goes," but " die in their sins," 23 and " rise," not to the resurrec-
tion of life, and union with God, but — John can scarcely strain
nChap. xv. 6. "Chap. ill. 17; xii. 47. "Chap. vii. 34; viii. 21.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 635
the paradox and say (as symmetrically he should) to the
" resurrection of death " — to that of crisis or separation,24 of
self-pronounced condemnation. Each man sends himself to
hell; nay, each man is his own hell. For a man " in hell " is a
man self-chosenly separated, supernaturally, from God.
Read then the passages where Christ alludes to judgment,
testing each, first, with the translation of crisis by that word, or
by "condemnation;" then, with the translation "separation"
or " division."
God sent not the Son into the world
To judge (condemn) the world,
But that the world should be saved
Through Him.
He who believes in Him
Is not being " judged," 25
But he who does not believe
Is forthwith in a state of " judgment " 26
Because he does not believe.
Now this is the " judgment "
The Light has come into the World,
And men preferred the Dark to the Light. 2T
Automatically, the ill- willed shrink from the Light: they sepa-
rate themselves; they cower into the dark, which, as for Judas,
who goes out into it, is their appropriate and chosen place.
The Father " judges " no man,
But the whole " judgment " has He made over to the Son.
He who hears my Word,
And believes in Him who sent Me,
HATH ETERNAL LIFE,
And does not come towards " judgment "
But is passed across from Death into Life.28
He has achieved that Communion with the Living God through
Christ which is Life itself, and by very definition excludes the
idea of separation, and of death, and of condemnation.
At the beginning and end of this problem is, assuredly, the
inability of human language to cope with the very nature of
what it here is striving to express. Eternal life partakes of the
"Chap. v. 29.
28 Because by that very act of adhesion he is united to God. The whole idea of
separation is excluded.
M Readers of Greek will value the change of tense: 06 xp^ve-rai; 'T,SYJ x&tpiT<xt.
" Chap. ill. 17-19. M Chap. v. 22-24.
636 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Aug.,
nature of eternity itself, that is, it is timeless, and exists totum
simul, altogether and simultaneously. It knows neither before
nor after. But man exists in time, and his life is measured by
minutes, days and years. Therefore in the God-indwelt soul,
eternity is — how, who shall say? — mysteriously mated with
time. The timeless fact is on the rack of hours, and to our
seeing, dislocated. How can that be? Well! No philosophy
can tell us, even, how the eternal God creates the world of
space and parts and successions, nor how it stands in neces-
sary relation to Him, yet not He to it: how, in short, Eternal
and temporal can even coexist. Yet that they do, reason as-
sures us, and Faith repeats. Therefore, while in the process of
salvation there is for man a beginning, that is, the act of Faith,
when, by my willed supernatural adhesion to God, my Eternal
Life commences, and again, not an end, but at least a future
manifestation, and a moment when the presence or absence in
me of my Eternal Life declares itself, my judgment, my
irrevocable finding of myself or here, or there, the fixing of my
communion or of my separation — yet, in the truest sense, I have
or have not my Eternal Life wholly now — He who believeth
hath. ... He who eateth hath . . . my judgment is now,
and is continuous: even now, substantially, I am in my
heaven or my hell. It is no slight thing, then, to be a human
creature. Eternity and Infinity are involved with us; and
within our own soul John opens and reveals to us abysses
above and below; the presence, or willed absence, of that
Heavenly Thing; so that death brings little more than the fix-
ing, and then the overflow into our total consciousness, of what
is already ours.
Here then is this Peacemaker, in whose hand, inevitably,
is a sword : here is He Who is set for the " rise, and for the fall,
of many in Israel:" He, against Whom, if we be not for Him,
we needs must stand. Henceforward, in this world of super-
nature, there is no neutrality.
But since, please God, not thus set against Christ are our
wills, we may in humble hope return to read what more John
has to tell us of that Communion which is our true Eternal
Life.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE.
BY ALFRED G. BRIGKEL, S.J.
T might easily be supposed that Cardinal New-
man, the Catholic churchman and Edmund
Burke, the Protestant statesman, have little in
common except that they are among the per-
manent possessions of English literature and
philosophy. But an accurate examination of their philosophies
proves that in most important matters they are singularly unan-
imous. It is no paradox to say that England's greatest religious
philosopher has more traits in common with her greatest politi-
cal philosopher than with the Mills or Huxley or Spencer or
Locke or Hume or Bentham or Berkeley.
It is clear, first of all, that Newman and Burke agree in a
broad spirit of philosophic conservatism, a reverence for the
wisdom of the past, whether embodied in the traditions or
prejudices of the people or in the thinkers of the pre-Reforma-
tion period. From the following paragraph of a letter of New-
man to his mother (March 13, 1829) , it can be seen how he re-
garded the wisdom of the ages when enshrined in the uncriti-
cal traditions of the populace.
" Listen to my theory. As each individual has certain in-
stincts of right and wrong antecedently to reasoning, on which
he acts — and rightly so — which perverse reasoning may sup-
plant, which then can hardly be regained, but, if regained, will
be regained from a different source — from reasoning, not from
nature — so, I think, has the world of men collectively. God
gave them truths in His miraculous revelations, and other
truths in the unsophisticated infancy of nations scarcely less
necessary and divine. These are transmitted as * the wisdom of
our ancestors,' through men, many of whom cannot enter into
them or receive them themselves, still on, on, from age to age,
not the less truths because many of the generations through
which they are transmitted are unable to prove them, but hold
them, either from pious and honest feeling or from bigotry or
from prejudice. That they are truths it is most difficult to
prove, for great men alone can prove great ideas or grasp them.
638 CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE [Aug.,
Such a mind was Hooker's, such Butler's; and, as moral evil
triumphs over good on a small field of action, so in the argu-
ment of an hour or the compass of a volume would men like
Brougham or, again, Wesley, show to far greater advantage
than Hooker or Butler. Moral truth is gained by patient study,
by calm reflection, silently as the dew falls — unless mirac-
ulously given — and when gained it is transmitted by faith and
' prejudice.' '
It would be easy to parallel this view of Newman by many
passages from Burke's writings. The following from Reflec-
tions on Revolution in France may suffice : " You see, Sir, that
in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that we are
generally men of untaught feelings: that, instead of casting
away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very con-
siderable degree; and, to take more shame to ourselves, we
cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they
have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the
more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and
trade, each on his own private stock of reason; because we
suspect that the stock in each man is small, and that the in-
dividuals would do better to avail themselves of the general
bank and capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men of
speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ
their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in
them."
It must be noted that by " prejudice " neither Newman nor
Burke means an opinion formed without due examination of
the facts needed for a just determination. Protestant prejudice
of the sort castigated by Newman in the Present Position or
anti-Irish prejudice of the sort Galsworthy is at present flinging
broadcast was as foreign to Burke as to Newman. By " prej-
udice " Newman and Burke mean rather the mass of traditions,
opinions or prescriptive wisdom which the people hold, which
they cannot perhaps defend, but which is capable of defence.
Neither of them claims that this prejudice is entirely free from
error. They consider it rather as the crude ore of truth from
which the men of speculation are to refine out the pure ore of
truth by seeking " to discover the latent wisdom."
Similar to the respect for the prejudice of the people was
the respect which Newman and Burke showed to the pre-
Reformation thinkers. Following is a sentence from a draft
1919.] CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE 639
of a letter of Newman to Leo XIII. apropos of the encyclical on
St. Thomas' philosophy. " All good Catholics must feel it a first
necessity that the intellectual exercises without which the
Church cannot fulfill her supernatural mission duly, should be
founded upon broad as well as true principles, that the mental
creations of her theologians and of her controversialists and
pastors should be grafted on the Catholic tradition of philos-
ophy, and should not start from a novel and simply original
tradition, but should be substantially one with the teaching of
St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, St. Anselm and St. Thomas, as
those great Doctors in turn are one with each other."
Burke, like Newman, gives his full approval to the intel-
lectual methods of medievalism. Talking of English univer-
sity education he says : " We found these old institutions, on the
whole, favorable to morality and discipline; and we thought
they were susceptible of amendment, without altering the
ground. We thought that they were capable of receiving and
meliorating, and above all of preserving, the accessions of
science and literature, as the order of Providence should suc-
cessively produce them. And, after all, with this Gothic and
monkish education (for such it is in the groundwork) we may
put in our claim to as ample and as early a share in all the im-
provements in science, in arts and in literature, which have
illuminated and adorned the modern world, as any other
nations in Europe: we think one main cause of this improve-
ment was our not despising the patrimony of knowledge which
was left us by our forefathers." x
Another trait in which Newman and Burke agree and in
which they offer a striking contrast to post-Reformation philos-
ophers in general is encyclopedic knowledge. To this trait
their contemporaries bear witness as well as then: volumes.
Johnson says of Burke : " No man of sense could meet Burke
under a gateway, to avoid a shower, without being convinced
that he was the first man in England. His stream of talk is per-
petual; and he does not talk from any desire of distinction, but
because his mind is full. . . . Take up whatever topic you please,
he is ready to meet you." Froude says of Newman: "New-
man's mind was world-wide. He was interested in everything
which was going on in science, in politics, in literature. Noth-
ing was too large for him, nothing too trivial, if it threw light
1 Reflections on Revolution, p. 363.
640 CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE [Aug.,
upon the central question, what man really was and what was
his destiny." The most superficial manifestation of this vast
knowledge is the employment by Burke and Newman of
analogies and illustrations from natural science, Latin, Greek,
French and English classics, philosophy, law, theology, history,
politics, economics and education.
But the deeper manifestation of encyclopedic knowledge
is observed in the variety of subjects which both Burke and
Newman handled with ease and without the least trace of the
dillettante. Thus Newman's Dream of Gerontius is a classic in
English poetry; his Idea of a University is an educational clas-
sic; his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine is a
theological classic; his Grammar of Assent is a philosophical
classic; his Apologia pro Vita Sua has but one or two rivals in
the world's literature of self -revelation ; his volumes of histori-
cal sketches are classics; his Parochial and Plain Sermons are
pulpit classics. Burke, too, created classics in whatever field
he entered. The speeches on Warren Hastings, on the Nabob
of Arcot's debts and on conciliation with America are the
oratorical classics of the English-speaking world; the various
Letters of Burke, notably the Letters on a Regicide Peace and
the Letters to a Noble Lord are perfect models of this species
of composition; Burke's theories of political economy, which
run through all his writings, are similar to those of Adam Smith
and were thought out about the same time independently of
the economist; Burke's Reflections on Revolution in France and
his Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful mark him
as a philosopher of genius.
Another characteristic that Newman shares with Burke is
hatred of a priori philosophy. All through the Reflections
on Revolution in France Burke keeps his guns trained on the
" metaphysical and alchemistical legislators " who thought that
to theorize and to innovate was to reform. The well-merited
reproaches cast by Burke on the apriorism and unreality of
Rousseau and his school, are typical of his life-long attitude
toward theory that is out of contact with the facts of nature
and history. Newman's hostility to apriorism is summarized
in his criticism of Locke in the Grammar of Assent: " Abstract
argument is always dangerous." And the entire purpose of the
book is to prove that certitude in concrete matters is gained by
informal reasoning rather than by formal reasoning or
1919.] CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE 641
metaphysics. Still neither Newman or Burke lacked a sane
metaphysic. That metaphysic was the realism of Aristotle.
What Newman and Burke deprecated was not metaphysics
in general, but rather its intrusion into matters where moral
or probable proofs were more in keeping. Newman desired to
extinguish metaphysics as little as St. Ambrose did, from whom
he adopted the motto for the Grammar of Assent, " Non in
dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum." If
it is possible to infer from this motto that St. Ambrose, the
philosopher and jurist whose logic helped to reason St. Augus-
tine into the Church, was not a philosopher, then it is possible
to gather from the remarks of Newman and Burke on metaphy-
sics that they are not philosophers.
A realization of the complexity of any extended scheme of
thought or action is another trait exemplified in the works of
Burke and Newman, and marks them off from such one-sided
philosophers as Spinoza and Descartes who tried to reason out
everything from the narrow standpoint of mathematics. The
following paragraph from Reflections on Revolution in France
illustrates Burke's idea of the complexity of a civil polity.
" These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like
rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the
laws of nature, refracted from their straight line. Indeed, in
the gross and complicated mass of human passions and con-
cerns, the primitive rights of men undergo such a variety of
refractions and reflections that it becomes absurd to talk of
them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original
direction. The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society
are of the greatest possible complexity: and therefore no sim-
ple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to
man's nature or to the quality of his affairs. When I hear the
simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new
political constitutions, I am at no loss to decide that the
artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade or totally negligent
of their duty. The simple governments are fundamentally de-
fective, to say no worse of them. If you were to contemplate so-
ciety in but one point of view, all these simple modes of polity
are infinitely captivating. In effect each would answer its sin-
gle end much more perfectly than the more complex is able
to attain all its complex purposes. But it is better that the
whole should be imperfectly and anomalously answered than
VOL. CIX. 41
642 CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE [Aug.,
that while some parts are provided for with great exactness,
others might be totally neglected, or perhaps materially in-
jured, by the over-care of a favorite member."
The same complexity which Burke recognizes in a civil
polity is discovered by Newman in an ecclesiastical polity like
the Catholic Church. In the Via Media first published in 1837,
Newman took a very simple view of what he then called
"Romanism." Forty years afterwards he admitted, in a preface
to the revised Via Media, that his Anglican view of the Church
was untrue, that the Catholic Church was a very intricate
ecclesiastical polity differing toto coelo from the simple ab-
straction called "Romanism."
This is his account of the Catholic Church : " Her organi-
zation cannot be otherwise than complex, considering the many
functions which she has to fulfill, the many aims to keep in
view, the many interests to secure — functions, aims, and in-
terests, which in their union and divergence remind us of the
prophet's vision of the Cherubim, in whom * the wings of one
were joined to the wings of another,' yet ' they turned not when
they went, but every one went straight forward.' Or, to speak
without figure, we know in matters of this world, how difficult
it is for one and the same man to satisfy independent duties
and incommensurable relations; to act at once as a parent and
a judge, as a soldier and a minister of religion, as a philosopher
and a statesman, as a courtier or a politician and a Catholic;
the rules of conduct in these various positions being so dis-
tinct, and the obligations so contrary."
Further on in the same preface Newman describes in de-
tail the functions of the Catholic Church as follows : " Chris-
tianity, then, is at once a philosophy, a political power, and a
religious rite: as a religion it is Holy; as a philosophy, it is
Apostolic; as a political power, it is imperial, that is, One and
Catholic. As a religion, its centre of action is pastor and flock;
as a philosophy, the Schools; as a rule, the Papacy and its
Curia." The greater part of this remarkable preface is occu-
pied in showing the complexities that arise in the interaction
and collision of these different functions of the Catholic
Church.
A highly qualified style, another point of contact between
Burke and Newman, is the direct result of their realization of
the complexity of life. They introduced so many delimitations,
1919.] CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE 643
distinctions and qualifications into their writings because they
saw so clearly into the intricacy of the matters they dealt with.
This fact has lessened their popularity just as it has lessened
that of De Quincey and for the same reason. Francis Thomp-
*on thus presents it : " As a writer, De Quincey has been viewed
with the complete partiality dear to the English mind, and hate-
ful to his own. He was nothing if not distinguishing; the Eng-
lishman hates distinctions and qualifications. He loved to
divide
A hair 'twixt south and southwest side;
the Englishman yearns for his hair one and indivisible. The
Englishman says, * Black's black — furieusement black; and
white's white, furieusement white.' De Quincey saw many
blacks, many whites, multitudinous grays."
Goncreteness in the use of images and instances is another
feature common to Newman and Burke. Both of them are
loath to discuss any subject in the abstract. Although their
works abound with generalizations they are enforced with facts
and concrete examples. This insistence on the concrete comes
doubtless from the frequently expressed conviction of Newman
and Burke that men are influenced chiefly by example. Thus
Burke says: " Is example nothing? It is everything. Example
is the school of mankind and they will learn at no other."
Newman grows eloquent over the same idea : " The heart is
commonly reached not through the reason, but through the
imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony
of facts and events, by history, by description. Persons influ-
ence us, voices melt us, looks subdue, deeds inflame us."
Inductive reasoning into the origins of opinions and insti-
tutions is perhaps the most distinctive trait in the philo-
sophical method of Burke and Newman. The category of be-
coming was more alluring to them than that of being. In the
Reflections on Revolution in France Burke says : " We are but
too apt to consider things in the state in which we find them,
without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have
been produced, and possibly may be upheld." But whatever
other politicians did, Burke was never content unless he fol-
lowed a question to its ethical or historical roots. The speech
on conciliation with America, the speeches against Warren
644 CARDINAL NEWMAN AND EDMUND BURKE [Aug.,
Hastings, the speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts, the Letters
of Burke, the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beauti-
ful are full of genetic studies in law, morals and philosophy.
Many of Newman's writings are inquiries into origins. The
History of the Arians and the Development of Christian Doc-
trine are studies in Christian origins; the Grammer of Assent
is an examination of certitude in the making; the Apologia
pro Vita Sua is the genesis of Newman's conviction of the truth
of Catholicism; the Oxford University Sermons are on the
genesis of Faith; very many of the critical and historical essays
are inquiries into origins.
There is finally one burning question of today, a question
of politics or rather of ethics, on which Burke and Newman
are singularly in accord. It is the question of Ireland. It is
hard to quote from Newman or Burke on this question because
they said so many emphatic things, and said them so often that
a small volume could be made of quotations.
Let the following quotation stand as a representative one
from Newman : " It is impossible, Gentlemen, to doubt that a
future is in store for Ireland, for more reasons than can here
be enumerated. First, there is the circumstance so highly sug-
gestive, even if there was nothing else to be said, viz., that the
Irish have been so miserably ill-treated and misused hitherto;
for in the times now opening upon us, nationalities are waking
into life, and the remotest people can make themselves heard
into all the quarters of the earth. The lately invented methods
of travel and of intelligence have destroyed geographical ob-
stacles; and the wrongs of the oppressed in spite of oceans or
of mountains, are brought under the public opinion of Europe,
not before kings and governments alone, but before the tri-
bunal of the European populations, who are becoming ever
more powerful in the determination of political questions.
And thus retribution is demanded and exacted for past crimes
in proportion to their heinousness and their duration." 2
A fitting parallel to this is the following from Burke's
Tract on the Popery Laws: "It cannot, I confess, be denied
that those miserable performances which go about under the
name of Histories of Ireland do, indeed, represent those events
after this manner; and they would persuade us, contrary to the
known order of nature, that indulgence and moderation in
1 Idea of a University, p. 483.
1919.] THE SILENCES 645
governors is the natural incitement in subjects to rebel. But
there is an interior history of Ireland, genuine voice of its
records and monuments, which speaks a very different lan-
guage from these histories, from Temple and from Clarendon :
these restore nature to its just rights and policy to its proper
order. For they even now show to those who have been at the
pains to examine them and they may show one day to all the
world, that these rebellions were not produced by toleration
but by persecution, that they arose not from just and mild gov-
ernment but from the most unparalleled oppression."
THE SILENCES.
BY BRIAN PADRAIC O'SEASNAIN.
FROM the clamorous noise
I depart
Into the moonlit silences of my soul.
Suddenly
All is peace —
The little fevers of ambition forgotten
This silent share in myself —
I am often afraid —
It seems a desert —
And yet I know
That the greater part in me
Has never left these silences
And is here
Awaiting — forever — in peace.
AN UNCANONIZED SAINT.
BY MARY FOSTER.
V.
I ELL certainly, Standish, you don't show much
now," observed Tony entering his friend's studio
one sunny morning. " Haven't seen you for ages.
Hard at work? Yet I have heard nothing of a
new picture. Haven't you anything to show this
year? " Mark had not greeted his friend very cordially.
" No," he replied briefly. " I have been painting for my
own pleasure," and he began putting his sketches into his
portfolio.
" What a bear you are ! " laughed Tony, taking up another
collection. " You really might show a chap what you have been
doing. Haven't seen a thing of yours for months," he rattled
on, turning over the sheets. " That's a good head, and so is that,
and there's a ripping form there. But, I say, the faces are all
the same. Have you been making a study of one particular
woman? Who is she? She's a beauty anyhow."
Standish drew the sketches away rather roughly. " I wish
you wouldn't make your idle remarks on my studies," he said
crossly. " They're only in the rough, not to be looked at. I am
working very hard just now. Why should you disturb me? "
Tony laughed lightly and shrugged his shoulders. He was
an easy-going young man.
" Well, work away," he said good-naturedly, " only don't
stick to one face, and above all, don't fall in love with the
owner."
" Bland, your jokes are in the worst possible taste," Mark
said shortly, and he fell to work upon some draperies in a small
picture.
Tony took a turn up and down the studio.
" You've got a very great gift, Mark," he observed thought-
fully, after a few moments, " and I expect you'll be pretty well
tip-top before long. But we artists are nothing till we've lived
and loved and suffered. You've had everything your own way
so far."
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 647
Standish moved impatiently after Bland had taken him-
self off. Tony was a fool, of course, but even fools have a
way of touching truth sometimes. Things could not go on as
they were. Of course Mark had fallen in love with his sitter.
At first he had struggled against his own will, a thing he had
never done before. Family pride surged up in his heart, and
he was angry with himself for being such a sentimental idiot,
as he expressed it. Surely a man of his age ought to be able
to control his affections. Never before had pride and inclina-
tion waged war within him. Now they pulled in opposite direc-
tions. Caterina had taken a very firm hold upon his suscepti-
bilities. She appealed to all that was good and chivalrous in
him, and unconsciously she flattered his pride by her innocent
admiration of him.
Thus Mark had drifted along, living in the present, with
no thought or care for the future. One day, however, he sat
silently beside Gaterina instead of giving her her English les-
son. He was watching her pure face, thinking how refined
were her features, and what a lady she looked in spite of her
peasant's dress. On the impulse of the moment he bent for-
ward and took her hand.
" Caterina," he said gently, " do you know, I think you
love me." She turned aside in embarrassment, and tried to
withdraw her hand.
" You are so very good," she murmured as he paused.
"But do you love me? Come, little one, don't be shy.
You're old enough to know your own mind. Seventeen, aren't
you? Quite a woman. Come and tell how you would like to
be always with me, to live with me — to be my wife."
The words were out, but Mark could think of nothing but
his love. Caterina gave a little gasp. She was too simple to
discern his egotism, and she was a clinging, dependent little
creature who gave love freely and asked for but little in return.
" For I love you, Caterina," he went on more gently, and he
tried to draw her blushing face to his. " I really love you.
Will you be my wife? "
Her eyes were bewildered, but joyous, and he watched her
incredulity giving place to a look of rapture.
" Oh, you cannot mean it," she cried in trembling tones.
" You a great signore, to make me — me your wife ! Oh, no, you
cannot think of doing such a thing! "
648 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Aug.,
" But I do, Caterina, and I only want one little word from
you. Say it, little one, say yes."
" You mean it, you really want me? " she asked softly.
" I want you to be my little wife, to love me, to be always
by me — "
She glanced up into his face with her open innocent eyes
as if to read in his the confirmation of what he said. Then she
gave a little sigh and put both her hands in his.
"I have always prayed for a good husband," she said
trustfully.
VI.
Now the beautiful summer had come. Mark and Caterina
strolled out in the evenings beyond the city walls to a favorite
spot far from the passers-by. The mule bells sounded from
the hidden road, their mellow clang wafted on the sweet air,
and ever and anon arose the deep-throated note of the ox-
drivers as they urged their patient beasts.
Close by a little stream gurgled as it hastened along its
busy way to join its sister in the valley far below. Overhead
the olives shimmered in the sunlight, and the cypresses sighed
very softly as the light breezes came floating by.
Nature stirred with life, and with the great joy of living,
as she watched her numerous children — she, the universal
mother. She spread her curtain of mist over the scorching val-
ley to protect it from the fierce rays of the sun. The little
stream at her bidding caught each breeze and sent it flying
along its banks, refreshing the hot air as it passed on its cool
way. No doubt nature loved these two human children who
rested on her bosom, gazing at her beauties with eyes that
could never tire of beholding them. Perhaps she was drawn
to shower her precious gifts the more generously upon them,
because, being feminine, she would have them admire her still
more.
Thus they sat through the hot evenings, drinking their
fill of happiness in each other's presence. Thus day after
day fluttered by, like the flight of a happy bird. All realities
of life seemed far away from this wonderfully beautiful
present.
With caring for someone else beside himself, Mark's nature
improved. He became gentler and more patient, for he could
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 649
not be arrogant with this young creature who talked to him in
the faltering English he had taught her to speak. She was a
nature's artist, and a poet at heart. She held beautiful views
and her religion was a poem. Mark admired her childlike be-
lief, even while he laughed to himself at the pretty " fairy tale."
Religion was very picturesque, he thought, but of course when
Gaterina and he took up their practical life together she must
not remain in this lovely dreamland. He yearned to possess
her for his own, and though loath to disturb their idyll, he con-
strained himself to speak to her in a more practical manner,
and to broach the subject of their marriage.
" Married soon ! " she repeated with lips that quivered
tenderly as the soft flush mounted to her cheek. " You will
let me have time to prepare my dress; and the neighbors—
" Yes, Caterina, I want you very soon," he interrupted lov-
ingly. "Let us begin our life together at once. Do not let
us set forth in dreamland, let us be sensible. I don't want to
have a fussy wedding. Why can't we just quietly pop around
to the registry office one morning, and get married? "
" But Don Filippo must be told," Caterina replied, open-
ing her eyes. " And wouldn't it be nice for us to marry in my
own little church where we first met? "
Mark smiled. " Very nice, and very pretty," he said gently.
" But, Caterina, we don't want to have any more nonsense now.
We must wake up from our lovely dream. As for you, you
have lived in a poem all your life long, and it does seem very
unpoetical to break the spell. Still we must do it sometime,
and the sooner the better."
Caterina looked at him with uncomprehending eyes.
" I don't think I understand," she said humbly. " What
do you wish, Mark? If you would rather we did not ask the
neighbors to the wedding, of course we shall have it quiet. But
my own church is so near my home, would it not be as good
as the cathedral?"
"Quite as good," he answered. "But don't you see, Caterina,
we are going to start our lives together sensibly."
" Yes, and how I have prayed that the good God may bless
us. He has been so good to me in sending you to be my hus-
band. How I had prayed to the dear Madonna; she had such
a good husband. And the dear God always hears His Mother's
prayers."
650 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Aug.,
" Yes, yes, my darling," Mark interrupted, " but oh, you
do sadly want to learn sense, worldly sense, my little saint. It
is very pretty saying that God sent me to you, but you must
not live in a fairy tale any more. God may be a very great deal
to you, I've no objection to that; but Caterina, after all you are
going to marry me. Surely I must be first. But what — " he
broke off suddenly as she shrank from him.
" What do you mean? " she breathed at last as she gazed at
him, with eyes that burned in her slowly paling face. He re-
plied with a touch of authority which he had not lately used.
" Simply this, Caterina. Religion is very nice and pretty
for a young girl, but now that you are going to be my wife you
really must not brood any more about this nonsense. You say
you love me. Well I am quite willing to let you run into your
chapel sometimes and look about you, but remember I come
first in your heart."
"Before the good God — the dear Madonna?"
"Ah your God, your Madonna!" he cried impatiently.
Then he added more gently, " What a baby you are, little one !
Who are they, why do you believe in them ? Simply because a
parcel of old women told you some pretty stories about them,
in their picturesque Italian way. No, no you are no longer a
child, you are free now from all restraint. We shall be married
quietly at the registry, and I will take you away, and make you
forget your pretty bondage."
" But that would not be a marriage," exclaimed Caterina
starting up, " we must go to church — "
He laid his hand on her arm.
"That is all superstition, my darling. You have been
bound so long that you do not understand that you are free.
Your chains have been unfastened, by me."
But she drew away from him.
" Don't you believe in God? " she gasped in a strange new
voice.
" No," he replied coolly.
She put her hand to her heaving breast, confronting him
silently with shining eyes. The sun had gone behind a cloud,
no breeze stirred the solemn cypresses, the olive trees were
cold and still under the shadow which had crept over the
earth. All nature seemed silently waiting for Caterina's reply.
God alone knew the struggle which bowed her spirit down in
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 651
those awful moments of desperate temptation. Then at length
her breathing grew quieter, as her tense attitude relaxed and
she spoke in a steady voice into the tones of which there had
come a new strength:
"Then I cannot marry you."
Mark looked up in sheer astonishment at first, then his
blue eyes flamed with anger, which quickly died to a cold
proud gleam, and his voice was very bitter as he remarked
evenly :
"You love your God and your religion better than you
love me?"
"Yes," she replied, and her eyes never flickered nor did
her speech falter.
He looked straight into her brave eyes, and just for a
moment his own grew tender and yearning. But her face was
resolute, and he could see no love light burning there. The
haughty pride enveloped his countenance again, even as the
shadows had crept over the vineyards.
"Very well," he said indifferently, and he rose up and
walked away.
VII.
Mark left Siena next day. " I want to travel, and I hate
being alone, so do come with me, Tony," was all he said to his
friend, and he gave no reason for his sudden change of plans.
Standish idly chose Assisi for their first halting place.
" At all events, it is not Tuscany," he said to himself as he
stood at his hotel window enjoying the view.
Before him stretched the great plain bounded by the blue
mountains which were just now shrouded in the mysterious
evening mist. Across the olive groves, which sloped down the
hillside, a soft wind swept, making their pensive green shim-
mer, even as our home breezes play with a field of barley. But
before his eyes there rose the image of a sweet childish face, with
trusting brown eyes, and tremulous mouth. Standish felt very
hard, however. There was a latent trait in his character which
amounted nearly to cruelty. He almost desired evil to the
girl who had set his wishes aside. And for what? Mark felt
exceedingly bitter against the God for whom Caterina had
given up so much.
He lounged about moodily for some days, wandering up
652 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Aug.,
and down the tumble-down alleys of the town, scarcely glanc-
ing at their picturesqueness. His artist eye was sleeping, his
brushes were idle. He scowled at those he met, the peasant
children shrank from his frown. Yet Mark had never fright-
ened children before. Passing travelers in the hotel shrugged
their shoulders. He was an artist and therefore a boor, they
said, better leave him alone. So Tony got all the attentions
and the smiles.
Tony Bland, a dilettante in art himself, could be very
amiable when he pleased. Just now, he left Mark to himself
and went his own way, for he could see that his friend was
suffering, though he knew nothing of the cause. He bore with
Mark's impatience with a wonderful sweetness, until Standish
grew ashamed of himself.
One day the two men strolled into the great church of
San Francesco, where so many treasures adorn the walls. Tony
hoped the artist in his friend would reawaken. But Mark
scarcely glanced at the frescoes, he only had eyes for the kneel-
ing figures before the altars. Then he turned away with an
impatient exclamation.
" Gome, let us go out," he said. " This place sickens me.
How can one look at frescoes in the midst of chattering women
kneeling all over the church rattling their beads? "
It was difficult for Mark to set up his easel in a strange
scene with no gentle voice to talk to him as he worked. The
past came back to him with a rush as he adjusted the stand.
He remembered an obstinate screw which her fingers had
always unfastened for him, and when he was seated he found
he had provided himself with no water. She had always done
so for him; he had forgotten that he was alone.
He had chosen a charming view of a few dilapidated
houses seen through a vista of olive trees, where vines clus-
tered over the steps and climbed up to the blistered window
shutters. A restfulness stole over him as he worked. If only
the old spell of art would charm him again, all would be well.
He would forget.
But he could not forget. As he sketched, he remembered
how a pair of soft eyes had watched every line he drew. Some
quaintly ignorant remarks she had made recurred to him, but
they did not draw a smile to his lips now. The sun was smil-
ing over the landscape, cruelly, he fancied, for it was too gay
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 653
and bright for his thoughts. He put up his easel and stool
wearily, for there was no one to help him in the many little
intricacies, and he had never before realized how clumsily his
paintbox fitted. However, next day he continued his sketch,
and persevered doggedly until it was finished.
When he returned to the hotel that day, he found Tony
over a solitary cigar. It suddenly struck him that his friend
looked lonely, and that the eyes he raised from the paper he
was not reading were wistful.
" Old fellow," exclaimed Standish, with compunction,
" I've been an awful beast leaving you so much to yourself.
Have your friends gone? "
Tony smiled. " All of them," he replied. " Went off by the
early train to Perugia. There are only some second-hand Ger-
man f rails and a lot of impossible Americans left."
" Poor Bland ! have you been reduced to conversing with
them? "
"Tried it with the fraus; but my German and theirs did
not agree." Tony laughed, and after a moment Standish
joined in. It seemed long since he had laughed, and it did him
good.
" I've made a little sketch," he said uncovering his block.
" What do you think of it? "
He had a wonderful reliance on the younger man's judg-
ments, for Tony was never known to err in his art criticisms.
"You couldn't have chosen a more picturesque group of
cottages," Bland remarked, " and your olive trees are ex-
quisite. But my dear fellow, what's going in the foreground?
Surely you are not going to leave that great space empty? "
"What should go there? " Mark questioned half irritably.
" It is as I saw it."
" Too much foreground. Your old fault. How often have I
not told you so ? Stick in a peasant or something. That road is
simple screaming for someone to stand in its dusty expanse."
Mark took the picture to his own room, and gazed at it
earnestly. Tony was right, the foreground was overpower-
ing.
"I am going to look for a pretty model," he announced
next morning, and though the very idea of anyone taking
Caterina's place sent a little stab through his heart, he smiled
and begged his friend to accompany him.
654 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Aug.,
. .
Bland yawned. " It's so awfully warm," he said, don't
let's go far."
They strolled out through one of the town gates, the sun
beating down pitilessly upon them; and Tony leading the way
into an olive grove, soon sank down under one of the silver
trees.
"Don't let's go any further," he implored. "We'll sit
here and wait for pretty girls, or you can sketch that heavenly
glimpse of the plain through the trees."
Mark made his preparations, and looked round. The sky
was of that deep blue which Fra Angelico has coaxed into his
pictures, and soft white clouds floated idly about. Far below,
over the brown tiled roof of a tiny shrine, the vast plain
stretched in all its summer luxuriance, dotted about with small
white homesteads and marked by an occasional dark line of
cypresses. Mark sighed. It was all very beautiful, and he was
an artist, yet he felt he could not paint today. Tony, lying his
full length on the long grass, his cap tilted over one eye, kept a
lookout for pretty girls.
Two small boys were playing in the podere, jumping and
skipping with their lithe, graceful bodies, regardless of the
burning sun beating upon their closely cropped heads. An ox-
cart rumbled by, its driver invisibly asleep amongst the sacks
it contained. Another small boy joined his companions, and a
party of young women went laughing and chatting up the lane.
Tony lazily stirred his friend with his foot.
" One of those girls ought to do you," he murmured.
Mark awoke from his reverie, and glanced at the group.
" I'll try," he said without much enthusiasm.
The girl he chose was so unlike Sienese Caterina he felt it
would be easy to paint such a contrast. She laughed at his
request, but assented willingly enough, and the others stood
round to watch.
But when Mark commenced his sketch, another face arose
between him and this peasant girl. He painted the yellow
hair before him, dark — the blue handkerchief red — and the
features that appeared upon the paper were Gaterina's. The
painter uttered an impatient exclamation. He was scarcely
aware that it was Gaterina's face that his brushes were paint-
ing, he only knew that he was failing to depict what was before
him. He dismissed the girl with some money. She took it with
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 655
pretty thanks; but he remembered how Caterina had refused
to be paid for the beauty which the good God had given her.
Then he stirred the prostrate Tony and showed him what
he had done.
" Why ! " Bland exclaimed in surprise, " that's not the girl
who was standing for you just now. I know that face, that's — "
He stopped suddenly, for Mark, muttering angrily, was pack-
ing his box fiercely. But presently the painter said quietly:
" I don't think I'll paint any more at present. I don't seem
to be able to—"
"Well a holiday's a good thing," rejoined Tony cheer-
fully, " I could lie in these olive groves for hours, and feel
that I'd done a jolly good day's work in such weather as this!"
Standish spent a long time at his window before going to
bed that night. His sketch lay in pieces on the floor, his paint-
box reposed in the depths of his portmanteau. The balmy
air rushed through his open window, the moon sailed through
some fleecy clouds, illuminating stern Monte Subasio with her
fitful light, and glimmering over the sleeping town on the hill-
side. Only a nightingale lifted his voice from time to time in
the garden below. And though peace reigned over all, and
nature hushed her tired children to rest, no peace reigned in
the soul of the painter. His eyes gazed at the dreaming plain
but saw, not its shrouded beauties, only the face of a Sienese
girl. <
Next day the little town was en fete. The Assisian
maidens donned their fairest attire, and peasants flocked into
the city in their noisy mulecarts, rousing the sleeping streets to
reecho their songs and laughter.
" We are lucky to be here today," Tony observed at break-
fast. " It will interest you to see Assisi in this new aspect. To-
day it is a very different place to what we have become
acquainted with so far — a sleeping city, sunk in dreams of the
past."
" What is on today? " inquired Mark indifferently. " The
King's birthday, I suppose, judging from the flags one sees
everywhere."
" Oh, no. Today is a festa. Don't you hear the church
bells ringing? They are keeping some feast or other of the
Virgin." , > > 3
" Such superstition," growled Standish.
656 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Aug.,
" Well its very poetical," returned his friend, " and these
good people believe it all."
"Do they?"
"Why of course they do. I was thinking of looking into
that church below us into which such streams of peasants are
flowing. Come with me? "
Mark assented, because he could think of nothing better to
do. When they passed through the heavy leathern curtain, into
the dark interior of the church, he paused at the entrance with
no feeling of pleasure. Many wax candles on the high altar
illuminated the twilight of the nave and aisles, and lit up the
kneeling worshippers. Sometimes a child's pattering feet
broke the stillness, or a couple of women exchanged remarks
upon the beauty of the altar lights.
A woman knelt close by the young men, praying in an
earnest whisper. As the beads slipped through her fingers and
Ave Marias fell from her lips, she stopped occasionally to ad-
dress the good God and His holy Mother in simple language of
her own, begging that her litter of little pigs might all grow
into fine sows, that little Maria might not soil or tear her
holiday frock, that Beppa might find a good husband.
"Don't they believe?" Tony could not help whispering
to his friend. " See how they pray."
" Let us come out," returned Standish. " The atmosphere
is something awful. The Catholic church suffocates me," he
added, as they stood for a moment blinking their eyes in the
fierce sunshine without. " I hate the sight of such simple peo-
ple acting in such a farce."
" Yet it is no farce to them. They have their God, whereas
we, poor creatures, have no one. We ought to envy them."
" Envy them ! " echoed Mark in contempt. " As readily
envy a child's ignorant trust in the future."
"Have you ever regretted your childish trustfulness?"
asked Tony, as they moved across the grassy piazza under the
spreading mulberry trees.
" But now I see it was all a dream," Mark murmured slowly
after a moment's silent. "There is no foundation for trust
in the future. Hope only brings disappointment. It is better not
to anticipate what will never happen. A child thinks that all
must some right in the end. We know better."
" Yet they say anticipation is the keenest pleasure," argued
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 657
Tony. " I anticipate hugely, myself. I can dream of all sorts
of jolly things happening in the future, and if they never come
off — what then ? I have had my dream."
" I too, have had mine," Mark rejoined drearily. " Let us
leave Assisi," he added suddenly. "Let us go to some place
where life does not centre merely round the church. Everyone
here is in a state of coma, until a church festival occurs. Noth-
ing outside in the big world matters to them so long as they can
have their feasts and fasts in honor of this mysterious and in-
visible Virgin and her Son. Let us leave the place."
Bland shrugged his shoulders. " By all means," he agreed,
" let us travel about, and then we can go to Florence, and if
that is too hot, we can stay up at Fiesole."
VIII.
After a summer of idle wandering in Italy, Standish set to
work once more in his old London studio, and through the short
winter days he painted busily.
Friends admired his work and praised his industry. They
said he was altogether a different man since his Italian tour,
and encouraged him to plunge into gayety and enjoyment.
And if he was peevish and morose at times when he was not
in his highest, most reckless spirits, what was that to them?
He was an artist, so he must be allowed to have his moods,
and be made much of. These artists were so amusing.
It is quite certain that during these months, Mark was not
unhappy. It was only rarely that the adulation of his friends
jarred, and that he tired of their gay company. In his new
life, he had rather lost sight of Tony Bland, who was at this
time devoting himself to his father, an old gentleman in poor
health. The neighborhood of the Bland's home was as dreary
as could be, no houses within miles. Tony was the only son of
his lonely father. Yet it never occurred to him that he was
sacrificing himself in doing his duty to a sickly and exacting
old man, by devoting months of monotonous days at his beck
and call. It was all in the day's work, thought Tony.
Although Bland had not seen Mark for many months, the
paper brought him frequent news of his friends. The artist's
name figured in the big receptions, small personal paragraphs
appeared about him, little witticisms he had given utterance to
were carefully retailed by the press. Even the few county
VOL. cix. 42
658 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Aug.,
neighbors who called at the Eland's house, were full of the new
star which had arisen: Some deplored his rather reckless life,
most people laughed at him as the London star-gazers did.
So time went by, and the winter days lengthened gradually
and the sun opened his eyes earlier each morning to awake
the sleeping world with his light.
Mark painted rapidly, finishing picture after picture and
selling them as quickly to one of the hungry crowd who were
so anxious to possess a Work by the new fashionable artist.
Tony was shown one of his friend's productions at a house
in his neighborhood. His first impression as he looked upon it
was one of keenest disappointment. But he looked closer. It
was painted carelessly and the faces wore insipid expressions
of complacency or cunning. Yet there was something vaguely
familiar in their looks. Tony gazed in silence for some min-
utes and before he had finished his scrutiny, he could trace his
friend's hand, and through the careless execution, the chum
of old days seemed to call to him. Something else was there be-
sides what caught the eye — the soul of the painter which he
could not conceal — the soul of a suffering man.
Bland turned away, making the commonplace remarks
that were expected of him. But the picture haunted him for
many a day.
"You are such a wonderful painter," gushed one of the
many ladies who surrounded Mark's easel one spring afternoon,
" I wonder if there is anything you could not paint." She
gazed, as she spoke, at the picture before her — a wonderful
stretch of the tractless steppes of Russia.
" I cannot believe that you could paint that without hav-
ing been to the country," said another admiringly.
" Wonderful, wonderful," was murmured round the room.
" I don't think anyone present has been there," replied the
artist, " therefore no one can detect the many glaring faults
I must have made."
" But do tell us how you did it," cried a fervent admirer
clasping her hands, and turning languishing eyes to the
painter. The plumes in her enormous hat ruffled his hair, as
she laid one small hand upon his sleeve.
" I don't know how many descriptive books upon that
country I read before painting that picture," replied Mark
genially.
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 659
" Oh, it is so very lovely ! " the lady said ecstatically. " Such
tone and such body color! I can quite fancy now what Russia
must look like. Dear me ! how I should love to go there."
"What a wonderful thing it must be to paint!" sighed
another. " What a very busy life you must lead ! Fancy read-
ing all these huge books ! " she added, laying her hand on a
large vellum bound volume which lay on top of a series.
" Oh, I don't read those," Mark returned with a smile. " I
bought those for their beautiful illuminations. They're only the
Bible."
" I wonder if there is a subject upon which you could not
paint," continued the lady with the big hat, turning round ab-
ruptly and nearly sweeping a delicate piece of china from off a
shelf with her heavy plume. " I think I have seen a specimen of
every country, every type of humanity from your hand. What
is there left?"
Mark smiled with much satisfaction. " I do pride myself
upon being an all-round sort of artist," he said with compla-
cent modesty.
" Yet there is one subject we have never seen treated by
you," remarked a facetious young gentleman in the back-
ground.
"What can it be?" chorused a dozen soft voices. The
young man laughed. " We have never seen a religious subject
painted by our good friend," he said with a sly look at Mark.
A little silence fell upon the party. Religion was not
discussed amongst them, it was not considered quite good form
to mention such a thing. Mark threw his head back.
" I don't think it's beyond my power to paint virgins and
children," he returned rather scornfully.
"Why, he has painted some lovely children! " cried one
lady warmly. " Look at the portrait he made of my little son !
Why Dicky looks quite a cherub ! " There was another short
silence, for everyone felt that the mother of the cherubic son
had spoken beside the mark.
"Yes, but that is not quite the same," continued young
White presently. " Standish says he can touch any subject.
Well I say he can't paint a holy picture. I hold that a man re-
quires to have religion before he can paint one."
" Utter nonsense, my dear White," put in an elderly man
with eyeglasses, " one needn't be a fool to paint a fool."
660 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Aug.,
" And of course Mr. Standish could paint a religious pic-
ture if he wished," cried the lady with the hat. " Doubtless
he has abstained hitherto from motives of delicacy, but now — "
She glanced inquiringly at the artist.
" Well paint one," said White. " Paint a Madonna and
Child and we'll see if you can make them divine. I don't think
any of us could judge," he added with a grin, "but I'll get
hold of a devout Roman Catholic artist I know to give the
verdict, and I bet anyone £50 that he won't be satisfied with
the result."
" Done with you ! " cried the elderly man.
"I only wish ladies could bet," whispered a female ad-
mirer aside to her companion. Mark had frowned angrily at
first, but he was surrounded by a circle of flattering women,
and he forced a smile to his lips. " I shall quite long to see the
picture for I know it will be a masterpiece."
"You are so clever, dear Mr. Standish, in catching ex-
pressions," and : " You will have to present it to some Roman
Catholic convent or church," they exclaimed around him.
"Well? " asked White, as the comments subsided.
Mark flung back his head again. " Of course I'll do it,"
he said, " and when it's finished I'll invite you all to see it. And
now will you come to tea? "
" When will you have it finished? " inquired White, as he
was taking his leave.
" Oh, any time," Mark responded indifferently. " I'll dash
it off one of these days. I'll let you know when it's finished."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
SISTER TERESA.1
(In Memoriam.)
BY MARTHA ELVIRA PETTUS.
WHEN, in her arms she took the little child
(The angels might have envied her her part)
Doubt not, the Gentle Shepherd near her smiled!
Doubt not the babe was dear to His great heart.
Forsaken by your mother? Ah, poor waif!
But who is this, bends down with tender grace?
Well may you smile — stretch forth your little hands,
Seeing the light in our sweet Sister's face!
The first child in that cradle laid, she held;
And to Teresa, faith was given, to see
The children throngs : and hear the Voice that said :
" Suffer the little ones to come to Me."
And, like her Lord, she took them in her arms,
Yes, every baby, robbed of mother-care:
Sister Teresa nursed them — loved them all,
Taught them sweet ministries — and taught them prayer.
Sister Teresa! in the Blessed Home
Now, with the angels, you His glory sing:
Some day you'll answer, when He calls your name,
" The children Thou didst give me, Lord, I bring."
O happy mothers, clasp your children close,
While your dear arms their shelter still may be;
Your joy — Teresa's guerdon sweet — His words,
" Love shown a little child is shown to Me."
1 Sister Teresa Vincent received the first child left in the cradle at the Foundling
Asylum, New York City, and afterwards cared for sixty-six thousand four hundred
and thirty children there. She passed from earth May 23, 1917.
THOMAS DONGAN.
FIRST CATHOLIC GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK.
BY EUPHEMIA VAN RENSSELAER WYATT.
HE hardy traveler of the thirteenth century who
entered the harbor of New York after six or eight
painful weeks of the salt pork, rank butter, fetid
water and lively upheavals of the regular sailing
packets, was refreshed by the view of a peaceful
sylvan retreat. The town with its Dutch windmills and brick
houses, gabled and steep-roofed, ended a little above Wall
Street; the soft green hills of Manhattan rising unbroken be-
hind. Broad Street was still a canal, under whose arched
bridges the Indians' canoes glided, laden with sweet smelling
baskets and country produce, while a short walk outside the
city the pellucid waters of the Kalch pond sparkled fresh and
clear. But of this natural reservoir, our ancestors, far less de-
pendent on their baths than the Romans, made no effort to avail
themselves. Their water supply was derived from six town
wells, all brackish, and " tea water " was vended as a luxury.
In those days when one thousand pounds constituted a rich
man, Frederic Phillipse, adjudged the foremost financier, meas-
ured his capital by the hogsheads of wampum stored in his
cellar; and this primeval currency circulated in the Province
until the Revolution. So primitive, indeed, were the customs
of the metropolis that Major Andros, Seigneur of Saumaurez,
an intimate of royalty and Governor of the Province, disdained
not to be the proprietor of a little shop where a ha'pennyworth
of pins might be purchased.
Besides New York, with its two hundred houses, Beverwyck
(Albany) , and Kingston, called the Esopus, were the only towns
of any size, and between them and beyond stretched the wilder-
ness, mysterious and savage.
As the Dutch, from whom James, Duke of York, had pirati-
cally wrested the Province eighteen years before, had exploited
the fur trade to the point of diminishing returns, and as it be-
came increasingly difficult to wring from the New York mer-
1919.] THOMAS DONG AN 663
chants the custom duties, the Duke, in 1681, began to regret his
acquisitiveness. His real estate venture faced a deficit and, it
is said, he was on the point of selling the Province when
William Penn suggested the panacea of a charter. While York
availed himself of this advice, he remained true to his family's
canny reliance on a bargain. New York procured for herself
popular government only by assuring the Duke that his rev-
enues would be paid. But despite James' later reputation, we
must acknowledge that, although he had ruled the Province as
an autocrat, tolerance had always been the keynote of his rule.
This was a blessed contrast to the fanaticism of New England,
where Mrs. Dyer had been hanged, in 1659, on Boston Com-
mon, notwithstanding her virtue and her sex, for the sole crime
of being a Quaker.
The man whom the Duke now empowered to convene New
York's first Assembly was the newly-appointed Governor of the
Province, Thomas Dongan. Son of an Irish baronet and
nephew of the Earl of Tyrconnel, Dongan came of a stock
whose loyalty to the Stuarts had been unflinching, and, what
was stranger, not unrewarded. His brother, appointed Lord
Lieutenant of Kildare and Governor of Munster, was later
created Earl of Limerick. Dongan had been forced to fly
to France during the Commonwealth, when he was only a boy.
He entered the French army, and he and York, but one year his
senior, saw service together under the great Turenne. But, in
1678, the young Irishman was forced to resign his colonelcy by
an edict of Charles II. summoning all Englishmen to leave the
French service within two days. This scant interval gave him
no time to collect from Louis XIV. his heavy arrears of pay — a
debt to a humble servant which the great King wholly repu-
diated. As a consolation prize, however, Charles II. appointed
him Lieutenant-Governor of Tangier, a Portuguese plum that
had formed part of the Queen's dowry.
It was at the close of September, 1682, in the crisp glory of
the American autumn that Dongan arrived at Manhattan.
Maples were beginning to flaunt their crimsons in the woods
and the peach trees, that made the island a spot of such fra-
grant beauty in the spring, still bore their yellow fruit which
the farmers, sated with such blessings, were wont to throw to
the pigs. These forerunners of Waring's " White Wings " were
the licensed municipal street-cleaners. But while performing
664 THOMAS DONGAN [Aug.,
this necessary function, they proved such a menace to the
earthworks of the fort, to say nothing of the citizen's gar-
dens, that one of the nine bills passed by the first Assembly
was directed against their unlawful depredations.
The eighteen members of this first popular Assembly
convened by Dongan came from as far away as Pemaquid,
Maine, and Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, which were all
included in the Duke of York's grant. To their honor be it
said that in the Charter of Rights and Privileges which they
sent to the King, the theory of no taxation without represen-
tation is first definitely formulated. However the opening
phrase of this Charter — "The People met in General Assem-
bly " — had so flagrantly democratic a ring that James as King
forswore his word as Duke and vetoed it. But its principles
were observed so long as Dongan was Governor, and after
1697 when William III.'s veto of a new Bill of Rights left the
King's instructions to the Governors as New York's only con-
stitution, the right of habeas corpus, trial by jury and the
four courts of justice, instituted by Dongan, were continued
as well as the great principle of religious liberty embodied in
the Charter. " That no person or persons professing faith in
God by Jesus Christ shall at any time be in any ways molested,
or punished or disquieted or called in question for any differ-
ence of opinion on matter of religious concernment who do not
actually disturb the peace of the Province."
Dongan also tried to secure for the Province freedom from
martial law and the billeting of troops; his sagacity in the lat-
ter matter proving itself later on. For the constant and bitter
bickering that ensued between the royal governors and the
Assembly over the hated Mutiny Act — which provided billets
for the King's troops — did much to precipitate the Revolution.
It should be noted that the check placed on the Governor by
his Council and the confinement of the suffrage to freeholders
by Dongan's Assembly, were both followed by Jay, in 1777,
when drafting a constitution for the State of New York.
Dongan divided New York into twelve counties, ten of
which still exist: New York, Richmond, Kings, Queens, Suffolk,
Westchester, Ulster, Albany, Orange and Dutchess; the latter
named in honor of Mary of Modena.
Dongan also succeeded in preserving intact for the
Province the Susquehanna and Hudson valleys despite the in-
1919.] THOMAS DONG AN 665
creasing encroachments of the Quakers and of Connecticut.
Though restrained by the Duke's parsimony from establish-
ing a mint, he restored the Boston post and was the first to
conceive the idea of an intercolonial postal system. He per-
ceived the value to the Province of Van Rensselaer's prosper-
ous settlement at the head of the Hudson and having persuaded
the Patroon to sell out his feudal rights over Beverwyck, he
chartered and incorporated the city of Albany. To Dongan
the city of New York also owes her first Charter, although the
city was sixty-one years old at the time. Dongan secured to the
city all the privileges, property and public works she had en-
joyed under the "Nether Dutch Nation," and gave the little
municipality title to all vacant and waste land on Manhattan
down to low watermark. The only property reserved for
James was the fort, the Governor's garden and King's farm —
now the estate of Trinity Church — with which Dongan wanted
to endow a Jesuit college. The city was divided into wards
and the election of aldermen was ordained to take place on the
feast of St. Michael the Archangel. But the Mayor was ap-
pointed by the Governor, a custom which continued until 1834.
Besides surveying and laying out Wall Street along the site of
the old Dutch palisade, Dongan gave New York her new seal,
whose beaver, windmills and flour barrels commemorated her
chief sources of wealth, i. e., the fur trade and the flour bolt-
ing monopoly just granted her by Andros.
For all this Dongan deserves remembrance today, but even
more so for his diplomacy which laid the foundation for the
dominance of the English race on the continent — a dominance
which Chatham and Wolfe were later to confirm.
The security of the present is always a poor microscope
for the perils of the past, and few now appreciate on how deli-
cate a balance French or English predominance in North
America once hung. At a crucial moment in the struggle Don-
gan arrived in New York, whose importance geographically
cannot be minimized. In New York occur the two great breaks
in the Appalachian Chain. The valley of the Mohawk, and
more especially the Hudson, must always play an important
part in any military scheme of invasion of the Atlantic sea-
board.
Washington, writing to Trumbull on May 16, 1777, spoke of
the " important and fatal consequences " that would follow
666 THOMAS DONGAN [Aug.,
should the enemy gain possession of the passes of the High-
lands and, after mature deliberation, Arnold, with his military
prescience, chose West Point for the object of his treachery.
The majestic line of the Hudson severs New England from her
sister States as with a knife, and had Andre not been captured it
is probable that the infant Republic would have found herself
cut in twain. Though New England bore the brunt of the
horrors of the century of struggle between the French and
English, the organized warfare of the period took place chiefly
along the waterways of New York, which thus became the
colonial gatekeeper. Across the Great Garry from the Hudson
to Lake George and thence up through the beauties of Lake
Ghamplain and the Richelieu River to the mighty St. Law-
rence, ran the shortest route to Montreal and Quebec; while
along the Mohawk River wound the Iroquois Trail, now
marked by great iron rails, but once a narrow path, beaten
hard by the feet of myriad primeval runners whence, by the
Oneida Portage Path and the gloomy headwaters of Lake
Oneida, lay the most direct passage, down the swift Onondaga,
to Lake Ontario and the great Northwest.
The gateway of the Mohawk as well as all western and
northern New York, however, was controlled by the Indian
Confederacy of the Five Nations, known to the French as the
Iroquois. They had brought all the neighboring tribes into
subjection; and as kings of the wilderness the Mohawks,
Oneidas, Onondagas, Gayugas and Senecas roamed the forests
from the St. Lawrence to the Garolinas. An old man in New
England once told Golden, the historian, that the appearance of
but one Mohawk warrior was enough to send all the native
savages scurrying, like frightened rabbits, to the white men. In
any encounter in the open, the Iroquois were the only Indians
who could be relied upon to fight side by side with their white
allies. Living by clans in long wooden houses in stockaded
villages, which enclosed well cultivated gardens and orchards,
the Five Nations possessed a political organization so far in
advance of the other American aborigines that the industrious
post-revolutionary traveler, Dwight, hazards a belief that, with
equal advantages, they might have developed a culture not far
behind the Romans ! We must add, however, that the Romans
had left cannibalism far behind when they first appear in his-
tory, which the Iroquois unfortunately had not.
1919.] THOMAS DONG AN 667
A hillside on the shore of Lake Onondaga was the seat of
the Great Council of the Five Tribes, and there the council
fire, burning bright through the winter or smoking lazily un-
der the summer sun, was kept jealously alight. Its flames
were the symbol of the Confederacy's power. When this
was broken, in 1778, the sacred fire smouldered out, never to be
rekindled.
The physical development of the Mohawks particularly
impressed the English. Dunlap writes that when Benjamin
West first saw the Apollo Belvidere, he exclaimed: "A
Mohawk ! " Even the erratic Charles Lee, the General, who pre-
ferred dogs to men, lost some of his misanthropy during a visit
to the Mohawks in 1754. In a letter to his sister he declares :
The Mohawks are a much better sort than is commonly
represented. They are hospitable, friendly and civil to an
immense degree. In good breeding they infinitely surpass
the French or any other people I ever saw, if you will admit
good breeding to consist in a constant desire to do anything
that will please. ... I assure you if you were to see a young
warrior dressed out and armed you would never allow there
was such a thing as gentility among our fine gentlemen at
St. James. You may think I am joking but I give you my
word and honor I am serious. . . . They have an ease and
gracefulness in walk and air that is not to be met elsewhere.
The first encounter between the French and the Iroquois
had occurred in the same year that Hudson sailed by Man-
hattan, when Champlain defeated the Mohawks near the lake
that now bears his name. This victory proved the ultimate
defeat of the French, for the proud Confederacy never for-
gave them, and the alliance of the Iroquois with the English
gave the latter a decisive advantage — an advantage which
Dongan was the first to grasp.
On his arrival in the Province, the Irish Governor had been
quick to realize that the most valuable heritage his master had
acquired from the Dutch was their friendship with the Five
Nations. Only once in the early days had the Dutch attempted
to interfere with them. The fate of Commander Krieckebeeck
of Fort Orange, who then fell beneath their arrows, and was
served together with the most succulent of his men as piece de
resistance at the victor's feast, proved a lesson which the pru-
668 THOMAS DONGAN [Aug.,
dent Dutch never forgot. It remained for the Patroon's Com-
missary, Arendt Van Corlaer, the founder of Schenectady and
heroic rescuer of Father Jogues, to make the first treaty with
the Confederacy. So dearly was the memory of this Dutch-
man prized by his Indian friends that from then on " Corlaer "
was the Indian's name for the Governor of New York.
Schenectady and Lake Champlain were also often called by
his name, for it was in the latter that he met his death when on
his way to Quebec to be rewarded for his many kindnesses to
French prisoners.
" The Five Nations," wrote Dongan to York, " are the most
warlike people in America, and a bulwark between us and
the French. New England had been ruined in her last Indian
Wars (King Philip's) had not Sir Edmond Andros sent some
of these Nations to her assistance. I suffer no Christians to
converse with them anywhere but at Albany and that not with-
out a license." Under strict instructions to give no cause of
offence to the French, Dongan bided his time and was soon
rewarded for his patience.
The French colonization of Canada was anything but in-
tensive. The average French peasant family did not want to
emigrate and Louis XIV. kept out the Huguenots who would
in all probability have supplied the Province with industrial
communities that were the rock bottom of the English colonies.
Cleverer than France, England, though she drove her dissen-
ters from home, made full use of them abroad. On the other
hand, Canada's population was largely composed of the in-
dependent trader, who had nothing at stake in the Province but
his own pack of furs and who was more apt to choose himself
an Indian mate than to import a wife from France. As the
eastern fur trade diminished, Canada stretched out her arms
towards the illimitable possibilities of the West, but the
Iroquois, greedy for the skins which supplied them with the
means to purchase the white man's rum and guns, had already
turned their eyes in the same direction and the western trade
belonged only to him who had either conquered the Iroquois or
had made them friends.
The French Governor at this period was La Barre, a selfish
and unscrupulous man, who was not alone anxious to keep
the western furs from the Confederacy but from other French-
men as well. Fearful lest the great La Salle would share in the
1919.] THOMAS DONG AN 669
coveted riches, La Barre gave permission to the Senecas to
attack La Salle's canoes. This low treachery, however, proved
a boomerang. For the Senecas, hastily availing themselves of
the tempting invitation, made the not unnatural mistake of
attacking La Barre's own men, and the Governor, highly in-
censed, wrote to Dongan that he meant to punish their
stupidity. But nothing, however, could have been more stupid
than this letter, for not only did it give Dongan the desired
opportunity to assert that the Five Nations dwelt on English
soil and were under his authority but, by using the letter as
a lever against the French, he was able to persuade the Con-
federacy to commit themselves to the protection of the English
Crown.
On August 24, 1684, the little town of Albany teemed with
excitement. Down the wide, grassy street (still its main thor-
oughfare), lined with quaint Dutch cottages, nestling behind
trim hedgerows and gardens, where Mynheer was wont to
smoke his long pipe of an evening on the hospitable " stoep "
and where Mevrouw was pleased to flaunt her outstanding pet-
ticoats and starched cap with bobbing earrings, stalked the
proudest warriors of the Five Nations. Rich in paint and
feathers and gaudy beads, they had traveled over countless
miles of wilderness to meet " Corlaer," whose sloop had just
anchored below the Fort.
Accompanying " Corlaer " was the great gentleman, Lord
Howard of Effingham, Governor of Virginia, whose grandsire
had sailed his fleet against the Armada and whose grandson,
together with young Pitt, was to resign his commission in the
British army rather than fight against the Americans. With
impressive courtesy, the two Governors in rich array, with the
drooping feathered hats and costly embroidered coats of the
period, received the salutations of the aboriginal princes. In
later days the native dignity of the Iroquois must have been at
times undone by the incongruities of " the fashionable laced
coats and hats, buckled shoes and other presents suitable (?)
to their service," which the Governors, lacking the money for
more substantial gifts, were wont to lavish on them, but in Don-
gan's day it is probable that, except for an occasional blanket,
the Five Nations were as little concerned as to the cut of their
garments as was Adam in Eden.
Lord Howard opened the ceremonies by casting a hatchet
670 THOMAS DONGAN [Aug.,
into a hole, together with three sachems from the Oneidas,
Onondagas and Senecas, and by his joining this trio in the gut-
tural cacophony that constituted a song of peace. Having
thus procured immunity for Virginia from further Indian
raids, Dongan proceeded to warn the Confederacy of La Barre's
anger and sinister intentions.
The wrath of the Iroquois was instantly inflamed.
" Onontio 1 calls us children," they growled, " and then tries
to knock us on the head." They swore to " Corlaer " that they
would let no more Frenchmen into their country, not even the
Jesuits, who, they added, " are good men and quiet," and it took
little persuasion to make them declare themselves subjects of
the " Great Sachem Charles that lives across the Great Lake."
"Two White Brest Dear Skins" were sent to the King
that he might write and put thereon his " Great Redd Scale."
With the belts of Wampum Peeg that were sent to Charles
and York, a beaver was given to the Indian's friend " Corlaer."
Then after the interminable harangues and flights of rhetoric,
without which no Indian council was complete, the pipes were
smoked about the fire, the gifts which Dongan had brought
were distributed and after the sachems had been regaled at a
feast, the Governors gravely retired to their sloop for their fort-
night's sail down the river, and the Indians swung with their
long dog trot into the forest's dark trails, of which the Senecas
had nearly three hundred miles to compass.
Before he left Albany, however, Dongan took care to con-
firm the victory he had won, and a Dutch messenger was dis-
patched to nail the arms of the Duke of York upon all the
Iroquois castles or villages as far as Onondaga. Speeding
through the sunny open reaches and sombre woodlands of
New York, Dongan's courier first introduced the devices of
heraldry to her wilderness; and these escutcheons, though
seemingly so out of place, were symbolic of an alliance that
was to preserve New York's frontiers from the terrors of the
raids and massacres New England suffered, and which endured
until the Revolution sounded the death knell of English rule
in the Colonies.
La Barre, true to his threats, now set out for the Seneca
country, but finding them fully prepared, thanks to his own and
1 Onontio — Indian name for Governor of Canada.
1919.] THOMAS DONGAN 671
Dongan's warning, he was forced to make an ignominious peace,
and shortly after, Louis XIV., saying he feared the fatigues of
office were too much for La Barre, sent relief in the person of
a new Governor. This proved to be M. le Marquis de Denon-
ville, who soon perceived the danger of Dongan's winning
over the Iroquois, and at once set out to counterbalance his
influence. The Irishman and Frenchman were singularly well
matched and their correspondence, preserved in New York's
Colonial Documents, is a model of diplomatic astuteness and
politely tempered acrimony. Both Governors were Catholics;
men of culture and breeding; and both were untiring servants
for the cause of their respective royal masters. But here the
Marquis had the advantage. For Dongan's patron, the former
Duke of York, now become James II., was no match for Louis,
the craftiest king in Christendom.
James, despite the laxity of his private life, was an idealist
who was ready to sacrifice all worldly gains — and even his
kingdom — to his principle. His rather obtuse sincerity left him
at the mercy of Louis XIV., who knew how to bait his hook, and
who tried to take the same advantage of James' honest reli-
gious zeal as he had of Charles' dishonest cupidity.
For Le Grand Monarque used his religion, as he used all
else, to suit his own ends, and never allowed it for one instant
to come before his politics. That Louis' intrigue and his bar-
barities should have represented the Catholic party in Europe
at the period, can never be too deeply deplored. Though an
ardent son of Rome himself, Dongan, the statesman, appre-
ciated, as James could not, the menace to English domination
of the French missionaries among the Iroquois. These devoted
priests and martyrs were the prop of the French rule in Canada,
and such was the success of their preaching and example, even
among the warriors of the Five Nations, that a large number of
the Confederacy were converted and returned with the mis-
sionaries to Canada, where, known as the Caunawaughas or
Praying Indians, they often accompanied the French on their
raids and, sad to say, were the perpetrators of many outrages.
No one else could equal the tact or influence of the French
Jesuits with the savages, and so mortally afraid were the Eng-
lish of them that, in 1700, a bill was passed in New York ordain-
ing that a Catholic priest could enter the Province only on
pain of death, under which ferocious act an Englishman was
672 THOMAS DONGAN [Aug.,
hanged during the Negro Riots of 1741, although his priestly
quality was more suspected than proved.
In 1687, Dongan wrote to Denonville that he was expecting
some English Jesuits, and could therefore dispense with the min-
istrations of the French missionaries among the Five Nations.
Furthermore that he particularly requested that M. de Lamber-
ville, S.J., meanwhile, would only attend to the affairs of his
office, and not attempt to lure away the Iroquois; concluding
these amenities with a postscript:
Sir, I take great pleasure in sending you some oranges,
hearing that they are a rarity in your parts.
To which letter Denonville replied bitterly that though
New York had been a haven for the Jesuits under the piratical
Dutch, it had devolved upon a Catholic Governor to be scan-
dalized at their presence; adding curtly:
Sir, I thank you for the oranges, it is a great pity that
they were all rotten.
Dongan kept his word and brought over to New York the
first three Jesuits who ever officiated here. The epitaph of the
Latin college he attempted to found is preserved in one of
Leisler's letters, who says : " Dongan erected a Jesuit College
for Latin. Mr. Grahame, Judge Palmer & Mr. Tudor contrib-
uted their sons for some time but nobody imitating them the
College vanished." Which was a pity for, after Dongan's abor-
tive attempt, no boy could study Latin in New York for over
forty years.
Enraged at Dongan's hardihood, Louis XIV. complained to
his henchman, James, of the Irishman's interference with his
work of Christian propaganda. But fortunately Louis did not
act upon Denonville's suggestion of buying up New York,
which with James' domestic difficulties and his chronic lack
of funds, might have proved too tempting an offer. The French
King, however, touched the fruitful chord of James' religious
enthusiasm and persuaded the harassed Stuart to sign a treaty
of neutrality by which their respective Governors were re-
strained from all overt acts of hostility for a year. Under
cover of this convenient sheet, Denonville and his King quickly
established a fort on English soil at Niagara, a post Louis had
1919.] THOMAS DONGAN 673
long coveted as it commanded all the fur trade of the West. Lur-
ing the Senecas to a conference at Fort Frontenac — now King-
ston— on Lake Ontario, Denonville treacherously captured one
hundred and fifty women and children and fifty-one warriors.
These latter unfortunates, after the sacrilegious farce of an en-
forced baptism, Denonville shipped as galley slaves to France
and then, following La Barre in the mistake of applying force
instead of diplomacy, the French Governor invaded the coun-
try of the Senecas, defeated them in battle, destroyed their
villages and tortured the few old men left behind.
Just before the treaty of neutrality, Dongan had persuaded
James to acknowledge publicly the Five Nations as English sub-
jects. Assembled by the Governor at Albany, the Confederacy
promised " Corlaer " " to wage war with the French as long
as they have a man left." And Dongan knew that when an
Indian swears vengeance, he is apt to keep his word.
While maintaining a body of troops at Albany at his own
expense, Dongan hammered so persistently at James that the
King consented to insist that Louis release the Senecas, as
Englishmen, from their chains, and that he surrender Niagara.
The Iroquois, meanwhile, did not disappoint their ally. Their
prowling war parties gave the French no respite. The garrison
at Niagara, unable to venture out from their stockades for
fear of the scalping knives that lurked behind each tree, were
reduced by scurvy from one hundred and twenty to seven.
Denonville and his people, completely exhausted by the strain
of the unremitting warfare, were finally driven to consent to
Dongan's terms for peace.
The French withdrew from Niagara, and the Seneca war-
riors, with the scars of manacles upon their bronze skin, weak
from the cruel and unaccustomed captivity, returned as free
Britons. But not all the gifts and flattery with which Louis
loaded them at the last moment, could remove from their wild
hearts their bitterness towards the French. Their tribe, in-
deed, had given the Christians a noble example, for instead
of wreaking vengeance for Denonville's treachery on the
Jesuit, De Lamberville, who happened just then to be their
guest, they spared his life, but sent him home, saying they knew
all they wished of the white man's religion.
Dongan, however, was not to enjoy the victory he had
gained without the loss of English blood. He had seriously an-
VOL. ax. 43
674 THOMAS DONGAN [Aug.,
gered both Louis XIV. and William Penn by keeping them off
his master's demesne, and these powerful enemies now pro-
cured his removal from office. James offered him a commis-
sion as Major General in weak reward, but Dongan preferred
to remain in America, where he owned a manor of two thou-
sand five hundred acres on Staten Island, called Gastletowne in
memory of his Irish birthplace, and an estate of four hundred
acres at Hempstead. But like most servants of the Stuarts, he
had had to make such serious inroads on his private fortune
to make up for the absence of public funds, that he found him-
self financially much crippled, his manor being mortgaged for
two thousand one hundred and seventy-two pounds to Robert
Livingston. Dongan invested in a brigantine and contemplated
becoming a merchant, but sailing as supercargo, the Colonel
became so lugubriously ill that he hastily put back to port. He
preferred, he said, "to die on a bedde," and delightedly sold
the vessel to his friends.
When Leisler's Rebellion occurred in New York, on James'
deposition from the throne, Dongan was forced for a time to
take refuge in neighboring Colonies and during this same up-
heaval, his brother was attainted for treason in Ireland and the
Earldom of Limerick was given by William III. to Godart de
Ginkel, Earl of Athlone. This grant was, however, later re-
versed, and when William Dongan, the deposed Earl, died at St.
Germains, in 1698, the Colonel asked leave to resume the title
and repurchase the estates. With unusual magnanimity, Wil-
liam granted this request.
Harris says in his Voyages: z " Dongan's remarkable serv-
ices when James was blinded by his Catholicity and Louis XIV.
was not, were recognized by William, who offered him a very
considerable command in the Spanish service, but Dongan
chose to follow the fortunes of the Stuarts." William also
made up for Dongan's arrears of pay by allowing him two
thousand five hundred pounds of tallies.
The fruits of Dongan's statesmanship were soon garnered
in the Colonies. The very year after he was retired (1689)
Frontenac was sent out by the French King with instructions
to conquer the Province of New York, and to transport into
exile every English speaking person. The only thing that hin-
dered the indomitable old soldier from executing this ruthless
» Vol. ii., p. 301.
1919.] THOMAS DONG AN 675
command, which would have made Acadia seem child's play,
was the condition of utter collapse in which Frontenac found
Canada, thanks to the mental and physical anguish caused by
the Iroquois raids. In fairness to Dongan, however, it must be
emphasized that until Denonville's treachery, he never
incited the Indians to make war on the French, and Father de
Lamberville, S.J., has given his testimony that Dongan would
only sell powder to the Mohawks on the condition that it would
not be used against Christians.
Though Frontenac at once perceived the folly of his prede-
cessor in antagonizing the Confederacy and spent every effort
on regaining their confidence, not all his magnetic influence
could uproot the good seeds planted by the English Governor.
The Five Nations were recognized as British subjects at the
Treaty of Utrecht; New York's borders were protected; and
fur trading which, with piracy, laid the foundation for the
future wealth of the Empire State, was preserved for New York
long after it had ceased to be a factor of commerce elsewhere.
Canada, on the other hand, with her population depleted by
guerrilla warfare and her riches waning with the loss of the
monopoly of the western trade, was to end her romantic and
heroic career as a French Province on the Plains of Abraham.
Dongan died in London, in 1715, and with him the title of
Limerick became extinct. His American estates he left to three
nephews, who were forced to sell much of the land to pay off
their debt and who, in no wise, lived up to the standard set by
their distinguished relative.
Dongan, a loyal servant of Church and King, gave to each
the just proportion of his labors. Had his master, James, ex-
hibited the same tact and breadth of vision, the House of Stuart
might still be on the throne. The Irish Governor, who little
realized the important role his countrymen were to play in
the politics of New York, has left an example that all Catholic
officials should be proud to follow. Painful as it was for him
to have to interfere with the devoted labors of the French mis-
sionaries, Dongan stepped straight along the narrow path of
duty between Church and State, and his English Jesuits, had
they been permitted to remain, would not have let the salvation
of the Indians be neglected. In this connection, however, it is
curious to note that no Englishman ever quite equaled the
French in dealing with the savages, and that the British alliance
676 THOMAS DONGAN [Aug.,
with the Five Nations was due to the work of two Dutchmen,
Arendt Van Corlaer and Peter Schuyler, and to two Irishmen,
Dongan and Sir William Johnson.
It is Dongan's honof to have been responsible for the first
Mass that was solemnized in the city of New York by his chap-
lain, the Rev. Thomas Harvey, S.J. But, though Catholics then
were anything but popular here, the people at large realized
that their interests were in unprejudiced hands. Even the
Dutch dominie, Selyns, wrote home to his classis: "Lord
Dongan informs us we will have liberty of conscience. His Ex-
cellency is a man of information, politeness and affability. I
had the pleasure to receive a call from him."
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Special Articles. — T. F. Phelan, American Catholic Historical So-
ciety, 1911; County Kildare Archaeological Society, 1905; F. M.
Danaher, Thomas Dongan, Second Earl of Limerick, Address before
Dongan Club of Albany, 1889; James Grant Wilson, Memorial His-
tory of New York.
Brodhead, History of State of New York, vol. ii., p. 370, et seq.
Smith, History of New York, L, p. 66.
Narcissus Luttrell, I., p. 36; II., p. 108; IV., pp. 465, 625.
Evelyn II., 151.
Anne, Lady Fanshawe, p. 490.
O'Hart, Irish Peerages, I., pp. 181, 405.
Murphy, Memoirs, p. 101.
Moore's manuscript notes on Dongan (Manuscript Room, New York
Public Library).
New York Colonial Documents, III., IV., V., EL
Documentary History of the State of New York, II., III. (account of Eng-
lish Jesuits brought to New York by Dongan, 110).
Parkman, Frontenac and the New World.
Colden, History of the Five Nations.
Hew Books.
JAMES MADISON'S NOTES OF DEBATES IN THE FEDERAL
CONVENTION OF 1787 AND THEIR RELATION TO A MORE
PERFECT SOCIETY OF NATIONS. By James Brown Scott.
New York: Oxford University Press. $2.00.
The Convention which framed the Constitution of the United
States, says Mr. Scott, was " in fact as well as in form an inter-
national conference." The delegates were from " free, sovereign
and independent States." The document which they drew up
is an international document. In its organization the convention
pursued the methods which are followed in international con-
ferences, for each State had one vote without regard to the num-
ber of its delegates. The reservation to the people and to all the
States of all powers not granted to the general Government was a
reservation to each State as a separate, independent political
entity. It was such a reservation as a society of nations would
make for each nation. The Supreme Court treats the question of
what are justiciable causes just as an international court should
treat it. In a long line of cases it has decided what are judicial
cases and what are political cases, and it would be perfectly com-
petent for an international court to declare what international con-
troversies are justiciable and what are not. The States allied
themselves with each other under the Articles of Confederation,
but when they formed the Constitution they surrendered to the
Congress and the Supreme Court the right of settling controversies
between themselves. The formation of a society of nations would
not be a leap in the dark; the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 is
the tried example which a society of nations can safely follow.
All that the nations need to do is what the States agreed to do —
namely, to submit their disputes to a court which they shall them-
selves create. The problem which faced the States in 1787 faces
the nations now : " How can each of them divest itself of certain
sovereign powers to be used for the common good of all, not in the
interest of any one, without merging the nations in a union in
which they shall become as provinces? "
In the reviewer's opinion, the answer is that it cannot be done
and ought not to be attempted. Every nation should retain its
sovereign powers ; if it loses them it ceases to be a nation. Nation-
alism and patriotism are synonymous terms; the loss of one would
be followed by the loss of the other. They are the highest of the
political virtues and should never be discouraged.
678 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
There is no real resemblance between the American Conven-
tion of 1787 and the projected or hoped-for international con-
ference of a society of nations. There was as little difference in
1787 between an American from Georgia and an American from
New Hampshire, as there was between an Englishman from
Yorkshire and an Englishman from Surrey. All Americans spoke
the same language, had the same form of government, had been
held together by the same allegiance for nearly two centuries;
had been held together by the same enemy for eight years
of war. They were in a state of limbo after the Revolution, and
nobody supposed their flimsy confederation would be permanent.
Any one who thinks the convention which formed the more per-
fect union was an international gathering can amuse his imagina-
tion by picturing what such a gathering would be if we put for-
eign delegates in the place of the delegates from the States — Eng-
lishmen for the men from Massachusetts, Frenchmen for the
Pennsylvanians, Ukrainians for the Jerseymen, Poles for the Caro-
linians, Hungarians for the Virginians, Germans for the Georgians,
for instance. Every rule, motion and report to be of any use in
the convention would have to be put into six different languages.
Debate would be impossible. The members could not talk to each
other. Not only would their language be different, but their his-
tory, their traditions, their aspirations, their natures would be
different and antagonistic. Mr. Scott's argument will not stand ex-
amination. It is presumed that he means it to be a contribution
to the defence of the League of Nations. In reality it furnishes an
argument against it.
RISE OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN REPUBLICS. By William
Robertson, Ph.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. $3.00 net.
This volume gives English readers an outline of the move-
ment which culminated in the establishment of independent States
in the Spanish Indies, as traced in the biographies of notable
leaders like Augustin de Iturbide, Jos6 de San Martin,
Simon de Bolivar, and Antonio Jose* de Sucre. While not
ignoring the campaigns and battles for freedom, the writer lays
special stress upon the political ideals of the Spanish-American
leaders, as set forth in their declarations of independence, im-
portant constitutions, and speeches. The book deals entirely with
the transitional epoch, 1808-1831, a time between the colonial
period proper and the distinctly national period. The writer has
based his work upon original sources as far as possible, and more-
over spent a year in South America consulting a veritable legion
of books, pamphlets and studies by South American writers of
1919.] NEW BOOKS 679
note. He acknowledges his debt to three eminent writers, who
have linked their names forever with the literary history of the
revolution, Jose* Maria Restrepo, of Columbia, Diego Barros Arana,
of Chili and Bartolome Mitre, of Argentina.
The chief cause of the revolution was the detested oppressive
fiscal system of Spain, and the tyranny of the Spanish officials she
sent to govern the colonies. The example set by the United States
in breaking away from England, strongly influenced our Southern
neighbors, and the usurpation of Napoleon in the Iberian penin-
sula precipitated the movements which developed into the final
revolution. Unlike the United States, the South Americans re-
ceived no aid, material or moral, through an alliance with a for-
eign State, although men like Francisco de Miranda did their best
to interest England and the United States.
The book is well written, and remarkably free from the preju-
dice which frequently spoils books dealing with South America
and her history. Many of the author's estimates of men may be
questioned by readers who live in Buenos Aires or Caracas, Bogota
or Santiago. But he has done his utmost to be fair.
OUR FIRST TEN THOUSAND. By Sergeant Chester Jenks. Bos-
ton: The Four Seas Co. $1.00 net.
This is a little war book that merits reading, not because of
its narration of action at the front, but rather because of its
intimate pictures of life in Paris and at Chaumont, where Gen^
eral Pershing's Headquarters were situated. The author was
Sergeant in the Quartermaster's Department of the Army. He be-
gins his recital with his departure from Hoboken and carries it
up to the time he was disabled before the Americans went into
battle. There is no attempt at the heroic in the book. It deals
with the hopes of the day, the experiences of travel and the fresh
viewpoint of a young American who looks for the first time into
the lives of people not his own. The book is written in a plain,
simple style and is of value in that it supplements the more tragic
tales of actual fighting and the technical recitals of the military
experts. It is a fine little memento of the work done by those who
labored valiantly to assist the fighters.
CHIMNEY-POT PAPERS. By Charles S. Brooks. New Haven:
Yale University Press. $2.00.
The author of There's Pippins and Cheese to Come and Jour-
neys to Bagdad, those deliciously quaint essay-books, has now
published a third collection entitled — no less felicitously — Chim-
ney-Pot Papers. Mr. Brooks is as charming as ever. With a
680 NEW BOOKS {Aug.,
wealth of fancy, much quiet humor, and an unfailing whimsicality
of phrase, he discourses upon such all-important topics as " Chim-
ney Pots," "Leather Suspenders," "Livelihoods," "A Rainy
Morning," "1917," "The Difference Between Wit and Humor."
There is no page without its special joy: a genial quip, a mellow
memory of the leisured past, some little touch of acute and inti-
mate observation. Of the essayists writing today there is none so
clearly in the true Elian succession as Mr. Brooks. The wood-cuts,
by Fritz Endell, add greatly to the reader's joy in this fragrant and
treasurable book.
VOLLEYS FROM A NON-COMBATANT. By William Roscoe
Thayer. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.
$2.00 net.
Professor Thayer is very courageous in putting forward this
volume. It contains reprints of fourteen essays and poems pub-
lished during 1917 and 1918 — a period of great transition in
action. The articles were then timely and served a purpose. Re-
published, they achieve little except to show the trend of thought
of a single individual. The book shows no great inspirational
value, no extraordinary merit of content or positive shaping of
doctrine as to give it permanent value. For instance, Professor
Thayer states in his essay delivered on January 7, 1917, that the
United States was so lacking in the ability to enforce anything as
to be a laughing stock. And this in the face of subsequent events
which showed us with over two million men in France when the
armistice was signed !
It is easy to conclude that an essay which fervently pleads for
a permanent Anglo-American union and is unsufferable because
of its fawning upon the British, would contain a bitter and un-
warranted attack upon the Irish. And Professor Thayer, like all
his kind, does not disappoint. From a man who concludes his
essay by saying that John Hay " did his utmost to promote the
cause of Christ," because his efforts as Secretary of State were
spent in bringing England and the United States into closer union,
it is natural to expect slander and libel upon the Irish.
If Professor Thayer will preface his book by admitting that
he is a British propagandist, we will evaluate it honestly and give
him credit at least for its frankness of statement. But when he
cloaks his real aim in the ringing words of American patriotism,
it merely takes us a little longer to give him his real place, and
proper credit for bigotry.
In his essay on "John Hay's Policy" he says of the Irish:
"That that rule had been harsh and unsympathetic, if not act-
1919,] NEW BOOKS 681
ually cruel, no one can doubt; and oppressed Ireland would have
had the same general sympathy which the Americans gave to Italy,
Hungary, and the other downtrodden European countries, if the
leaders of the Irish Cause here had been men of different char-
acter. Displaying a remarkable talent for the lower sort of poli-
tics, the Irish got control of our large cities, and, in spite of their
temperamental passion for cracking each other's heads, they kept
together as a political body — partly because only by keeping to-
gether could they capture and divide the rich spoils, partly by
their Roman Catholic affiliations, and partly by the desire to help
their friends at home."
Such remarks brand the author for what he is. Nothing
more need be said as to the value of his writings.
COLLECTED POEMS AND PLAYS. Two volumes. John Mase-
field. New York: The Macmillan Co. $5.00 net.
Mr. Masefield has at length collected his poetical and dra-
matic writings in two handsome volumes, and his publishers have
issued them on this side the Atlantic at a price that is, on the
whole, reasonable in these days of inflated charges. Mr. Masefield
probably commands a larger audience than any other living poet.
(One excludes, of course, such stentorian voices as Walt Mason
and Ella Wheeler Wilcox.) In respect of popularity it is perhaps
not wide of the mark to call him the Tennyson of our day. Like
so many contemporary artists he has, without undue delay,
progressed — if that be the word — from an individual to a social
phase. Beginning with Salt Water Ballads which contained such
purely personal lyrics as Vision and Sea F.ever, he has gone on to
the realistic narrative of The Everlasting Mercy and The Widow
in the Bye Street. This first collection of ballads betrayed the
widely different influences of Kipling and Arthur Symons, but was
almost worthy of the high praise Gilbert Chesterton gave it. Cer-
tainly the poet had no difficulty in transferring to his pages the
savor of the sea and of the lives of seafaring men ; but there is noth-
ing here of the Masefield who, in Max's brilliant cartoon, leans
over the roofs of houses in a mean street gazing mournfully at the
lurid truculence of the dwellers upon their obscure thresholds.
Only once amid the buoyant music of these ballads is there any
hint of that note which the poet was to sound with such persistent
iteration in the long poems of his later years.
Of those long poems, The Daffodil Fields and The Dauber are
unquestionably the best. Were it not for the magically perfect
Ancient Mariner, The Dauber might fairly be described as the finest
of all English poems of the sea. What Conrad has called " the ever-
682 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
lasting sombre stress of a voyage round the Horn," has never so
superbly been evoked as in certain passages of this poem; the
desolate bleakness of that ultimate waste of waters is con-
veyed in a manner that is beyond praise. It is upon his sea poems
that Mr. Masefield's fame will surely rest.
In The Everlasting Mercy, The Widow in the Bye Street and
The Daffodil Fields while there is much to commend, there
is much also to censure; the pleasure to be derived from
them is never unalloyed. There are in these poems passages
of very real and moving beauty: there are single lines and
phrases that are simply unforgettable, but as a sound critic re-
marked many years ago — " a few good lines do not make a good
poem," and "passion, color, and originality cannot atone for
serious imperfections in clearness, unity, or truth." " There is
too much rhyme for rhyme's sake only, too much pedantic mor-
alizing, a deal too much sheer melodramatic religiosity. The truth
is that this poet, richly-dowered though he be, has never taken the
pains to learn his art down to its roots, to become " perfect master
of his perfect tool.' Pages might be excised from all the longer
poems without injury, indeed with very considerable benefit, to
the whole. It is only along the path of such beneficent ruthlessness
that the artist may advance to greatness. The plays suffer from
the same tendency of their writer to confuse violence and crudity
with strength and power. Incomparably the best of them, how-
ever, The Tragedy of Nan, is a sombre tragedy in which the
author is unfalteringly realistic; but there is the stuff of splendid
poetry in it, and readers of contemporary drama will find it dif-
ficult to forget this play, as they have found it impossible to forget
Riders to the Sea.
THE YEARS BETWEEN. By Rudyard Kipling. Garden City,
New York: Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.50 net.
The devotees of Kipling may find in this new volume fresh
proof of their author's poetical powers, but dispassionate criti-
cism can discover here new proof of Mr. Kipling's want of self
criticism, reckless cacophonies, and jejune impatience of that
large section of humanity which fails to agree with him on many
points. The volume includes Ulster which " knows the hells de-
clared for such as serve not Rome," and the now notorious Holy
War in which Mr. Kipling shakes his fist in schoolboy rage at the
Pope and other " swithering neutrals." Seriously, there is but
meagre wheat amid all these tares. For most of the poems owe it
to the magic (still extant) of Mr. Kipling's name that they have
ever seen the light
1919.] NEW BOOKS 683
Mr. Kipling makes frequent reference to the Deity to Whom
he assigns some part in the conduct of the business of the universe,
but it is always a part which He performs strictly upon the advice
of Mr. Kipling. Again we have frequent evidence of that ob-
scurity into which his unquestioned skill in implication has de-
generated these many years.
Like Walt Whitman, Mr. Kipling frequently gives us the
rough material of poetry, which is, alas, as far from the real thing
as a piece of quartz from the coin of the realm. The Female of the
Species by which Mr. Kipling scored heavily with the proletariat
eighteen years ago, is accorded a place in the midst of many poems
evoked by the War. Among these latter one looks in vain to find
a fellow to Flanders Fields, I Have a Rendezvous With Death, or
Rupert Brooke's Soldier. So much for the tares. Almost at the
end of the volume, in the collection of Epitaphs, one comes upon
the wheat. In this group Mr. Kipling has tried his hand at those
poetic forms of meaning all compact, in which Father Tabb and
William Watson had unquestioned genius. While Mr. Kipling
rarely equals their perfect finish, he achieved in these brief pieces
most of the authentic poetry in the volume. His success is due in
no slight degree to the precision of thought and expression which
restricted limits impose. An Only Son, The Coward, Pelicans in
the Wilderness, make us regret that poetry such as this is the ex-
ception rather than the rule in The Years Between.
MILITARY SERVITUDE AND GRANDEUR. By Alfred De Vigny.
Translation and Note by Frances Wilson Huard. New York:
George H. Doran Co. $1.50 net.
Faguet in Dix-Neuvieme Siecle, p. 127 et seq., and Brunetiere in
Dix-Neuvieme Siecle, p. 211 et seq., have left critical appreciations
of De Vigny, which it would be impertinent for a foreigner to re-
vise. Both, but more especially the former, state that as a lyric
poet he has exquisite outbursts with stagnant reaches of flat in-
sipidity. They scarcely consider his prose works at all. The
present volume is a collection of sketches dealing with military
life. They all exhibit that quality, which the French call tendan-
cieux, that is, they have a thesis in view, and seem designed ex-
pressly to bolster it up. As literary productions they cannot be
compared with the wonderful intaglios carved by later French
experts in the difficult art of the short story. They do not un-
veil a palpitating heart, much less do they reveal a living soul.
The translation, however, is excellent.
Reflecting on this publication, for which there does not seem
to be any crying need, we cannot help regretting that some of the
684 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
admirable Catholic works, which have appeared since the War
in French, have not been translated into English, for instance,
Quelques Prones de Guerre, by Monseigneur Landrieux, Bishop of
Dijon; Impressions de Guerre de Pretres-Soldats, by L. De Grand-
maison; La Vie Heroique, by A. Sertillanges, and Le Ttmoignage
des Apostats, by Th. Mainage.
THE WORLD WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. By William
Herbert Hobbs. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $2.50 net.
This volume contains the lectures delivered by Professor
Hobbs in his course on Patriotism at the University of Pittsburgh
during the summer session of 1918. The book is a full summary
of the events that lead up to the War including the historical back-
ground of Germany's ambitions and preparations for world
aggrandizement, the attitude of the people of the United States
prior to their entry into the War, and in particular the policies and
acts of President Wilson. The author also discusses with
great frankness, what he considers the fallacies of inter-
nationlism, the League of Nations and the peace terms. His atti-
tude toward these questions is a reflection of the views of Theo-
dore Roosevelt, Leonard Wood and James M. Beck. Like them he
is most liberal, and almost bitter, in his criticism of President
Wilson. So strong is this spirit of disapproval that the reader
gains the impression that the author's judgment is greatly warped
and out of balance. This is particularly true when Professor
Hobbs paints President Wilson as the protector of Germany. He
also errs in condemning as Prussian the efforts of the Pope to
bring about peace in the latter months of the War.
However, Professor Hobbs does strike a true note in his de-
nunciations of those pacifists and intellectuals who exerted a strong
influence to prevent our entry into the War, and who have
sought to tone down the terms to be imposed upon the Central
Powers. He has the foresight of General Wood to see that the
future of our nation depends upon the training of our youth, and
cries out against the undisciplined bringing up of our American
boys. But when the reader turns to his chapter on " Patriotism,"
the teaching of which was the purpose of the course of lectures, in-
stead of finding an exposition of principles which might guide in
these troubled times, he is confronted with a silly attempt to make
Wilson appear as playing the role of Louis XIV. in his L'etat c'est
moi. The charge may or may not be true, but it can never be sub-
tantiated on the evidence brought forward by the writer.
There is much that is valuable in Professor Hobbs' book. His
remarks are substantiated with a wealth of references, a collec-
1919.] NEW BOOKS 685
tion which will be of greater benefit as the years pass. But while
the good in it is great enough to win high praise from Colonel
Roosevelt, who has written an introduction to the volume, it is
greatly to be regretted that when the professor of geology en-
tered the field of history, he did not bring with him a more un-
biased viewpoint and a broader sense of values. The professor
shows more heat than wisdom and his work suffers accordingly.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS AND OTHER POEMS. By Lieutenant-
Colonel John McCrae, M.D. Illustrated. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons. $1.50 net.
The Great War has left us no better known poem than In
Flanders Fields, and it is but worthy that it should become the title-
giver of this slim volume which brings together the other poetic
work of the heroic Canadian surgeon. There is perhaps no lyric in
the collection which will seriously rival the poem which first brought
Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae into celebrity: but there are many
worth knowing for their nobility of thought and grave beauty of
phrasing, for the reverence and sanity and devotion to duty which
are inevitable reflections of the author's unshakably high soul.
It is for these reflections that they, and also the friendly " Essay
in Character " contributed by Sir Andrew Macphail, will be chiefly
prized and remembered.
THE FORGOTTEN MAN, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By William
Graham Sumner. Edited by Albert Galloway Keller. New
Haven: Yale University Press. $2.50.
The first half of this book is given over to essays by Professor
Sumner on the tariff and currency. The reviewer sees " pauper
labor," " plunder," " robbery," " sixteen to one," " legal tender,"
" bimetallism " and other familiar words scattered over the pages.
These essays were written for a particular purpose, at a time
when the subjects to which they relate were uppermost in the
public mind. They served their purpose and have a permanent
interest only to a few specialists; their general interest is gone.
Professor Sumner was absolutely certain that he was right on
every subject which he discussed and especially on the subject
of the tariff. Perhaps he was right on that subject, but most men
have made up their minds about it and will not be influenced by
arguments which were addressed to a past generation.
The other essays pertain to history, economics and education.
So far as history goes, however, Sumner always treated it from the
economist's point of view. Andrew Jackson, for example, was
primarily the antagonist of the Bank of the United States; Sum-
ner could hardly get beyond that. Much the best of the essays is
NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
the one on " The Forgotten Man." " The Forgotten Man " is the
unobtrusive worker who pays because some other men can't work
or won't work, who supports the paternalism of government, cares
for the paupers and criminals, the sick and the unfortunate. The
essay follows the familiar lines of orthodox political economy of
the last generation. It is a pity that the father of this school,
whose sons were pigmies beside him, the great Adam Smith, never
lived to complete his essay on " Sympathy " for the enlightenment
of those who have so joyfully propagated his doctrine of selfish-
ness.
On the paper cover of this handsome volume is quoted a re-
mark of Yves Guyot, that Sumner was " the greatest of modern
thinkers in the field of economics and political science," but there
is nothing in the book which will cause a reader to agree with
Guyot.
THE SWALLOW. By Ruth Dunbar. New York: Boni & Liveright.
$1.50 net.
Freshness and individuality are qualities the reader of war
fiction has virtually ceased to look for: therefore it is an un-
expected pleasure to find a touch of both in this novel, which is, we
are told, " based upon the actual experiences of one of the sur-
vivors of the famous Lafayette Escadrille." Midway in the nar-
rative the young aviator, "the Swallow," is severely wounded
while fighting over Hill No. 304. Despite his agony he brings his
machine back into France. For this feat he receives both the
Medaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre; but his career is ended,
and life itself has to be fought for during many months of pain in
a French hospital. This latter portion of the content has a deeper
appeal than what precedes it, which does not at all result from
the fact that it treats of circumstances that might naturally be
supposed to give more ease and assurance to a woman's pen. No
such discrimination obtains here. From beginning to end the
book is written in a manner surprisingly virile and realistic. The
intensifying of interest is due to the development of character
and the spiritual awakening that are " the Swallow's " guerdon
for long torture bravely borne ; moreover, here romance is allowed
to play an alleviating part in the shape of a most attractive Red
Cross nurse, who aids his recovery and lets him win her love.
With charm, there is humor, which is especially welcome by con-
trast with the distressingly graphic recital of his sufferings.
The general tone is so high and worthy we regret the more
that non-Catholic misapprehension should have permitted the
sharp, censorious remark about the " narrow-minded priest."
1919.] NEW BOOKS 687
JIMMIE HIGGINS. By Upton Sinclair. New York: Boni &
Liveright. $1.60 net.
Jimmie Higgins is not a novel, but a Socialist tract under the
guise of the life history of an unlettered machinist, who gives
himself up body and soul to the propaganda of Socialism. Mr.
Sinclair sneers at " the idealist Commander-in-Chief of the Ameri-
can army and navy and its pacifist Secretary of War," and shows
how effectively army men trimmed all the nonsense out of every
soldier who dared sympathize with the Socialists of the world, or
their Bolshevik friends in Russia. Jimmie is a type of the un-
derfed, underpaid, uneducated worker of today, who hopes to
solve the problems of modern industrialism by anarchy and revo-
lution. The new age, and especially the great democracy of the
West, will have to reckon in the near future with men and women
"animated by a fierce and blazing bitterness*' — such is the prophecy
with which the book ends. The book is dull and drab in the ex-
treme, and is calculated to make any decent man despise the ex-
tremists who identify social reform with class hatred, irreligion
and immorality.
CIVILIZATION. Tales of the Orient. By Ellen La Motte. New
York: George H. Doran Co. $1.50.
This book and its companion-piece, Peking Dust, cover Miss
La Motte's experiences during a year spent "from Peking to the
Equator.'* Civilization is an arraignment, in a series of terse,
cruel little stories, of Western culture as it manifests itself in the
Far East. The author has the power of branding the imagination
with the repellent and the horrible. In this regard, Civilization so
strongly suggests the work of James Joyce, or Thomas Burke's
Limehouse Nights, that the publisher's note to the effect that Miss
La Motte is of French descent hardly comes as a surprise. Her
pictures, like those of Burke, have the abruptness of an etching,
and impinge just as unforgettably upon the memory.
It is her identity with these other realists of the extreme
school that enables one, after paying tribute to Miss La Motte's
artistic power, to criticize the content of Civilization though one
may never have spent a year " from Peking to the Equator." The
weakness of a purely destructive criticism of life, Oriental or
Occidental, is that it finally ceases to be believed. One instinc-
tively discounts complete pessimism, as much as one discounts any
other obsession — perhaps more so, since an unconscious but very
obvious motive for pessimism appears in its high literary value.
The pessimistic method, when most effective, consists almost en-
tirely of omissions. Thus one may not impugn a single fact in the
688 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
whole of Miss La Motte's condemnation, and yet be haunted by the
conviction that her pictures are unjust. This will be because
familiarity with other performances of this same school teaches
the reader how adept such writers are in " selecting " — how much
on the other side they unconsciously leave out. It may be true —
it probably is true — that men of slack moral fibre, unjust and
greedy men, men who deliberately corrupt what is decent in Orien-
tal civilization for the sake of their own pockets, are sent out to
rule in the East But it seems unfair to give them exclusive
possession of the centre of the stage. Decent and brave men are
to be found everywhere, even, presumably, representing the West
in the East. Superficially, they are a less picturesque type, per-
haps, but the writer concerned with presenting life as a whole
will track them down and force them to yield up their romance,
also.
MATER CHRISTI. By Mother St. Paul. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co. $1.25 net.
Mother St. Paul of the House of Retreats, Birmingham, Eng-
land, has written two excellent books of meditation — Sponsa
Christi and Passio Christi, which we have already commended to
the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Her third volume is a
manual of devotion for the month of May, consisting of thirty-one
meditations on Our Lady. They are composed on the Ignatian
plan of visualizing what Our Lord did, said and suffered, and
indicate clearly Mary's real place in the Divine plan.
MORAL PHILOSOPHY. By Rev. Joseph Rickaby, S.J. Long-
mans, Green & Co. $2.60 net.
Father Rickaby has just published the fourth edition of his
Moral Philosophy, one of the best and most popular of the Stony-
hurst series of philosophical text-books. He has made compara-
tively few changes in the text, although he has added a new table
of addenda and corrigenda, and a new index.
A GRAY DREAM. By Laura Wolcott. New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press.
The stories and sketches in this volume picture New England
in the thirties, with its stern, old-fashioned Puritanism of Bible
reading, and dull, drab Sabbath church-going. The writer knows
the country not as an onlooker, but as a participant in its life,
which she shared for more than eighty years. The book is well
written, although a bit wearisome at times, for it is hard for us
to sympathize with the narrow outlook of these uninteresting
country folks. The child stories are the best in the volume.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 689
SERMONS ON OUR BLESSED LADY. By Rev. Thomas Flynn,
C.C. New York: Benziger Brothers. $2.00 net.
Father Flynn has written a manual of devotion to Our Blessed
Lady in the form of simple talks on the many feasts wherewith
the Church has honored her. He rightly holds that the feasts of
Our Lady provide us with something concrete in the way of his-
torical fact, dogmatic teaching, and approved ideal, set in circum-
stances so sufficiently detailed and positive that we can in some
way, at least, grasp the significance of the event or even dimly re-
alize the nature of the mystery. As the preacher's aim is edifica-
tion primarily, he ignores all critical discussions regarding con-
troversial questions such as the vision of St. Simon Stock, the
translation of the Holy House of Loreto and the like.
DOCTRINAL DISCOURSES. For the Sundays and the Chief Festi-
vals of the Year. By Rev. A. M. Skelly, O.P. Tacoma, Wash-
ington: Aquinas Academy. $1.50.
The second volume of Father Skelly's Doctrinal Discourses
covers the Lenten Season and ends with the second Sunday after
Easter. The volume comprises panegyrics on St. Thomas of
Aquinas, St. Patrick, St. Joseph and St. Catherine of Siena. These
sermons are well written, state clearly and interestingly the teach-
ing of the Church, and are full of practical suggestions for souls
in the world aiming at perfection. Every sermon is preceded by a
good synopsis, which gives a busy priest a brief but accurate in-
dication of the subject matter.
THE VALLEY OF VISION: A BOOK OF ROMANCE AND SOME
HALF-TOLD TALES. By Henry Van Dyke. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50.
In this collection of short sketches from the pen of an
author of undisputed place in American literature, one tale stands
out above the rest. For a sympathetic study of the strength and
the weakness of a French poilu, " The Broken Soldier and the
Maid of France " deserves the highest praise. We read how a
wise priest's faith in Jeanne D'Arc kept a war-torn soldier from
losing wife, country, and honor, healed his shattered nerves, and
sent him back to the front to fight and die for la gloire, and to find
at the end the full measure of that peace which had shone deep
into his heart from the eyes of the Maid of France. It is beauti-
fully told, and convincing in its utter sincerity of tone.
The other essays and tales are likewise in the main concerned
with phases of the War as seen both before and after the armistice.
In the " Sketches of Quebec " Dr. Van Dyke speaks a word in
VOL. cix. 44
690 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
honor of the whole-hearted patriotism and simple honesty of " the
plain people of Quebec — the voyageurs, the habitants, my old
friends in the back districts." Well put and timely is the plea in
" A Classic Instance " for a large view of education, one that will
again come to regard religion and liters^ humaniores in their true
light as training for citizenship. " The Hearing Ear," a rather
improbable account of a lucky knowledge of German, a stray tele-
phone receiver, and an intercepted message from the enemy
lines, is distinctly below the average. One wishes that civilians
would leave technical details to the pen of the soldier. The con-
cluding tale, " The Boy of Nazareth Dreams," is a charming nar-
ration of the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, culminating with the scene
in the Temple. It is written in a style dignified yet fanciful, with-
out a trace of the flippancy of tone one occasionally finds else-
where in a book of decidedly uneven excellence.
MAGGIE OF VIRGINSBURG. By Helen R. Martin. New York:
The Century Co. $1.40.
Ever since Helen R. Martin wrote Tillie: A Mennonite Maid,
she has been delighting an ever-growing audience with tales of the
Pennsylvania Dutch. The stories may lead far afield from their
habitat, but always behind them lurks the instincts and charac-
teristics of those strange, phlegmatic people. Such a book is Mag-
gie, an interesting tale with surprising developments.
Maggie Wentzler is brought up against the background of
hard work, a lazy father, an unsympathetic aunt and a mother
too cowed to protest. Her life history in the book begins with
her sympathy in a schoolroom for a Henry Butz, an illegitimate
child of another cowed mother. These two grow up together. As
Maggie's mother dies, she reveals the strange origin of the child,
and as this girl goes on her way to college she really sets forth
in search of her true parents. Between Henry and Maggie there is
constant companionship, vague now and then, but true to the
end. Maggie serves as secretary for an Anglican bishop — a very
thinly veiled portrait of one still living — and then as teacher in an
Anglican school. The school is supported by a steel magnate, a
widower, a hard-fisted capitalist with a heart of gold. Into that
heart Maggie creeps. At the crisis of her life the magnate marries
her. Socialistic dreams that haunted her fade away. So fades the
vision of Henry Butz who, from his first year at college, has been
getting in hot water for his Socialistic views and teachings. When
Maggie's husband dies, the paths of the two lovers cross again —
with the inevitable happy marriage and the revelation of her
origin.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 691
No one could desire a more interesting novel plot, nor, for the
type of story, better character drawing. Very vital human aspira-
tions throb through the pages. Each character in turn reaches its
crisis and surmounts its pinnacle. So much for the story. But
Miss Martin ceases being a good story teller when she becomes the
schoolmistress and lectures her readers on Socialism, poor educa-
tion and the unprotesting respectability of the Protestant Epis-
copal Church. It is the fault many novelists are showing. Wells,
for example, has long since stopped writing novels and is com-
posing lengthy pamphlets. This may be part of the novelist's
function in life, but it in no wise excuses the Socialistic rantings
of the author of this book, nor does it condone her scorn for An-
glicanism. That body may have its weaknesses and some of its
bishops may be aristocratic fools, but in justice one cannot con-
demn the entire range of its leaders, because of the silliness of one
man.
Therein lies the weakness of a good story. For in her en-
deavor to teach and condemn, Miss Martin hides the action of the
story. And yet, how futile this is! when you finish the book its
memory remains with you as a tale of noble womanhood develop-
ing against a difficult background. Socialism is entirely for-
gotten.
THE CHARMED AMERICAN. Translated by George Lewys. New
York: John Lane Co. $1.50 net.
Francois Xavier lived in San Francisco, a Frenchman in
America. When his country called back her reservists, he left
wife and child and sailed for his first home. A marked man be-
cause he had been to the United States, Francois was placed as a
private in the Iron Division of France. He saw battle, almost
constantly, for thirty-two months, and fought at La Targette,
Beausejour, Maison de Champagne, Douaumont; Hautremont, in
the Champagne, at Verdun, on the Somme, at the Chemin des
Dames, at Ypres, in the Vosges and in Lorraine.
Any man who participated in such momentous events must
have a tremendously interesting story to tell — if he lived through
them to tell it. Francois was the sole survivor of his company of
two hundred and fifty, and as wonderful as are his escapes, so in
proportion does this story take on the incredulous and the unreal.
Yet it is essentially a story of fact, facts so startling in their vivid-
ness, so nauseating in their brutal truth, so heart-gripping in
their portrayal of the horrors of war that their telling leaves the
reader wondering and dismayed. The publishers withheld The
Charmed American from publication during the early months of our
692 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
entry into the War, because they feared the impression it would
make upon the minds and hearts of the parents whose boys were
marching to war. When one reads the book he can readily under-
stand the reason for this.
The Charmed American is a great human document begotten
of pain and dripping with blood. French in its phrasing, and
humor, it is an epic of the wonderful poilu who throughout the
terrible war was a child at play, a philosopher in thought, a fierce
warrior at combat and a hero in sacrifice.
CASTING OUT FEAR. By Bigelow Guest. New York: John Lane
Co. 75 cents.
This is an addition to an already extensive literature, of a
vogue unaccountable on any theory save that of the preference of
a considerable number of people to have their thinking done for
them. Whatever the cause of the demand, at all events there
proceeds from the publishing houses a surprisingly large number
of small books of advice and instruction, moral and philosophical,
presumably for the guidance of those to whom it would not occur
to look for assistance to any but the most modern sources. In the
present instance, our author informs us, in effect, and with posi-
tiveness, that most of life's ills may be traced to fear in one form
or another, and would have us rid ourselves of it. Some of her
suggestions are excellent; but in striving to prove her point she
strains others or ignores them. The highest virtue cannot be
separated from a healthy fear. The great lover of Christ whose
love has driven out all fear, loves the more intensely because he
would fear ever to offend his Beloved. Failing to reach a true
balance, the author's work is, as a consequence, essentially in-
adequate.
WHOSE NAME IS LEGION. By Isabel C. Clarke. New York:
Benziger Brothers. $1.35 net.
All the qualities that characterize Miss Clarke's best work
are to be found in her latest novel. She knows how to tell a story,
she can draw men and women to the life, she can picture a coun-
try vividly whether it be England, Italy or Egypt, she can talk of
things Catholic without being goody-goody or a bore.
This story tells of the conflict between modern Spiritism and
the Catholic Church, its most determined enemy. The heroine is
married to a very mysterious hero, who takes away his bride to
the wilds of Algeria, where she learns to love him enough to win
him finally to the Faith. Spiritism is unveiled in all its nastiness
and diabolism, and the power of the Church to combat it, clearly
brought before the mind of the reader.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 693
CANTICA SACRA IN HON. SS. SACRAMENTI AC B.M.V. Op. 112.
By Eduardo Bottigliero, for First and Second Tenor and Bass.
New York : J. Fischer & Brother. Score, 60 cents; Voice Parts,
40 cents each.
This ideal collection consists of eleven hymns in honor of the
Blessed Sacrament, and three in honor of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, all of real musical worth, and conforming strictly to the
provisions of the Motu Proprio. It will be especially welcome in
those dioceses of the country where the legislation permits men
alone to sing in choirs. All of the hymns are of medium difficulty
and are very tuneful and melodious, while the harmonies are
especially rich and pleasing. Written for three male voices, it
attains much pleasant variety, and is interesting and acceptable.
It will meet the urgent need of Catholic organists not only in our
large churches, but in the many small churches and chapels
which cannot boast of a well trained chorus of men. Religious
communities of men will find this collection one which will ad-
mirably answer their needs.
SOLEMN VESPERS FOR QUARTETTE AND CHORUS. Com-
plete with Antiphons. By F. W. Goodrich.
SELECT CHANTS. Harmonized by F. W. Goodrich, according to
Vatican Version. New York: J. Fischer & Brother. 60 cents
each.
Since the epoch-making Motu Proprio of November 22, 1903,
composers are gradually applying the more severe norms, therein
inculcated to such compositions as give musical expression to the
liturgical text. The author of the two works mentioned above,
has certainly enriched the literature of liturgical music in the two
selections named. The harmonizations to the Vesper Chants and
the Select Chants are simple but very effective, recommending
themselves highly to good choirs, even for festive occasions. Aside
from their utility as a liturgical collection, these harmonized
Chants possess unquestionable value from a purely musical stand-
point, which all who are zealous for the reform of church music
will not be backward in appreciating.
WE OTHERS. By Henri Barbusse. New York: E. P. Button &
Co. $1.50 net.
Disappointment is in store for those who open this volume
hoping to experience again the emotional tension produced by
Under Fire. These " stories of Fate, Love and Pity " are singularly
lacking in appeal such as is seemingly promised in their porten-
tous title. They have neither the interest of imaginativeness nor
694 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
the vital force of realism; nor do they afford the intelligent pleas-
ure that inheres in a thing that is well done, even if not well
worth doing. The book instances once more the unwisdom of
launching inferior work upon the strength of an author's name.
LADY LARKSPUR. By Meredith Nicholson. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons. $1.00.
This is a tale, slight and not too excitingly told, about the ad-
ventures of an American aviator, honorably discharged, and a
beautiful young Englishwoman who masquerades, up to the last
five pages of the romance, as his recently acquired aunt-by-mar-
riage. The dialogue is dull and the characterization negligible.
The old uncle's manage of domestics who once serve the public in
the capacity of head-waiters or bell-hops, promises fun, but the
vein is not worked carefully enough to fulfill anticipation.
TALES OF SECRET EGYPT. By Sax Rohner. New York: Robert
M. McBride & Co. $1.50 net.
Whether it be that Oriental mystery has become somewhat
of a drug on the market, or that these stories suffer merely from
the haste with which they were constructed, they make rather flat
reading. In most cases, the mystery turns out to be no mystery
at all, and the art is so careless that the very illusion of mystery is
lacking. The best story in the book is the last one, in which the
author frankly abandons his attitude of compromise between un-
convincing realism and thin romance, and spins a yarn in the man-
ner of the best tales of the Arabian Nights.
GARLINGTON. By Frank Prentice Rand. Boston: The Cornhill
Co. $1.25.
Less than fifty pages make up this little book — verses of pro-
vincial and rural life, celebrating the joys and perplexities of
children and the aged, of flocks and herds and what Katharine
Tynan lovingly called the " quiet country things " of life. A note,
not without pleasing originality, is conjured up by the dripping of
maple-syrup in the cold springtime — and when the lad of Garling-
ton marches out to join the innumerable army of his freedom-lov-
ing brothers in khaki, the song-maker has climbed to that univer-
sal ground where all the songs of our latter-day world seem cer-
tain to end, or to begin.
LOVERS of Francis Thompson will be glad to know that The
Four Seas Company of Boston has brought out a limited
edition, printed on hand-made paper, of his Hound of Heaven.
This attractive booklet sells for 35 cents.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 695
NOWADAYS, by Lord Dunsany, and Painting, by W. A. Sin-
clair, are two booklets published by The Four Seas Com-
pany, Boston. The former publication is the latest defence of
poesy. And although poetry, like the State from which the book-
let comes, needs no defence, Lord Dunsany has essayed a very
good one. Perhaps no one better than he could be found for such
a task, if a man who thinks in poetic vein be allowed to make his
apology. For through his plays, and his stories, flows the stream
of poetry, as it probably also did through his years of adventure
in the battles in France. " What is it," asks the author, " to hate
poetry? It is to have no little dreams and fancies, no holy memo-
ries of golden days, to be unmoved by serene midsummer evenings
or dawn over wild lands. ... It is to be cut off forever from the
fellowship of great men that are gone; to see men and women
without their haloes and the world without its glory; to miss the
meaning lurking behind common things, like elves hidden in
flowers." He has little sympathy for those who toil merely to
amass fortunes, who fail " to see that that very happiness that
they hope their money may buy is often thrown away for the sake
of making that money/'
Painting endeavors to present the philosophy of the art. In
many respects it is delightfully simple, and certainly very reassur-
ing to those who really love pictures for what they embody of
beauty. A great picture requires no explanation, if the idea trans-
mitted to canvas falls within the range of one's own experience.
No exposition is needed, no argumentative balancing of studio
jargon, but, says the writer, " a picture should be as surprising as a
child, as convincing as a flower." He expresses reverence for the
great masters of the past, but hopes that it will not prevent us
from forming wholeheartedly and independently correct judg-
ments about works of genius of the present time. (75 cents each.)
lULIUS (LESAR, by Samuel Thurber, Jr. (New York: Allyn
J & Bacon), belongs to the series called " Academy Classics " and
is a revision of an older classic by the author's father. It con-
tains some new features, including fuller notes, a study of the
structural elements of the play, a discussion of the sources of the
tragedy, etc., as well as a list of practical topics for oral and writ-
ten composition. (50 cents.)
RETREATS FOR SOLDIERS, by Plater and Martindale, a little
brochure, treats of the necessity of retreats for soldiers and
officers in war-time and after, and also shows the excellent results
derived therefrom. (Harding More, London.)
696 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
THE need of fostering vocations for the priesthood and the
religious life, has been the inspiration of a little booklet en-
titled A Month of Devotion to Mary, Patroness of Vocations, by
Rev. Edward F. GareschS, S.J. (The Queen's Work Press, St. Louis,
Mo. 10 cents.) The booklet offers prayers for each day of the
month which recall some event or mystery in the life of the Blessed
Virgin inciting to devotion and self-sacrifice and end with a peti-
tion that souls may hear and respond to the Divine call to leave
all and follow Christ.
THE Catholic Instruction League publishes in a small booklet
(5 cents; 40 cents per dozen) the Leading Features of the
Practical Plan of the Catholic Instruction League, by Rev. John
M. Lyons, S.J. Beside showing the purpose of the League to ex-
tend the benefits of catechetical instruction to children not receiv-
ing it, the booklet contains some useful hints for catechists. It
may be procured from the office of publication, 1080 West Twelfth
Street, Chicago.
THE publications of the American Association for International
Conciliation (407 West One Hundred and Seventeenth Street,
Street, New York City) contain for June Documents Regarding
The Peace Conference; and for July The Report of the Commis-
sion on International Labor Legislation of the Peace Conference,
and The British National Industrial Conference: Report of the
Provisional Joint Commission. (5 cents each.)
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
Perrin et Cie. presents:
Emile Baumann's La Paix dn Septieme Jour, an interpretation
of the War interesting to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The
author's purpose is to show us that with the Great War has begun the
series of supreme events foretold in the Apocalypse. His book is a
compendium of all that has been foretold of the Parousia, the Second
Coming of Christ.
M. Baumann is a historian in the most modern sense of the word
as well as a fervent champion of his faith, and he very clearly and
strongly traces the story of the Church's long struggle with the forces
of materialism that have developed so amazingly in the last century.
He writes in a crusading spirit with the conviction that Christians
everywhere must prepare for the new times, the age of organized
unbelief, Socialism and Antichrist.
The first chapters, "The Pontiffs of a False Peace," and "Watch-
man What of the Night," present the various tendencies that have taken
shape in our own times, the Utopism, pacifism, false humanitarianism
that led to the twentieth century theory of the " super-state."
1919.] NEW BOOKS 697
In the light of the prophecies, he carries the reader into the age
at hand, and his word-pictures compare with Anatole France's grim
forecasts. In the chapter " The Coming Signs," M. Baumann reminds
his readers of the reality of certain warnings foretold: as the apostasy
of the nations — the general acquiescence in unbelief — and the effort of
the Jews to refound their nation. The War itself — an expiation for all
— hut begins the period of struggle that leads through an interval of
peace and glory for the Church, to that last tragedy in " Jerusalem in
the Year " when the earth brought, seemingly, to serve man, su-
preme, will hold no place for the followers of the Cross.
Christians in ages of barbarism and persecution held as their ideal
the peace that awaited the defenders of the Faith, in the phrase of St.
Augustine, "the Peace of the Seventh Day," and the closing chapters —
"When all Things Shall be Consummated" — revive that ideal and pic-
ture it as none would have dared to do before these days of Armaged-
don. M. Baumann writes as a militant Catholic, from the viewpoint of
that Church which socializing fanatics point to as their strongest op-
ponent.
From La Librairie Tequi we have:
Monseigneur Tissier's Le Fait Divin du Christ. The author ably
demonstrates the Divinity of Jesus Christ without controversy or dis-
play of erudition. He is satisfied, he says, " with fingering the gospel
and opening history." Although there is no parade of exegesis, his
limpid and living exposition supposes a very precise knowledge of
the actual state of Biblical sciences, and his doctrinal thought, although
developed without constraint, yet does full justice to the theories or
prejudices accredited by the most recent rationalism.
With persuasive logic he shows us a God in the Messiah, in the
Thaumaturge, the Prophet and the Doctor, and with all his soul con-
templates in Jesus, the Orator, the Saint, the Father and the Martyr.
His eloquence, strong and clear, vibrates with love while evoking the
admirable figure of the Divine Master, resurrected and ever-living.
Paroles de la Guerre (1914-1918), by Monseigneur Gibier, Bishop of
Versailles, and Verdun Paroles de Guerre by the Bishop of Verdun,
Monseigneur Ginisty, consist of letters, allocutions, pastorals and pan-
egyrics pronounced during the period of the War. Their appeal is
chiefly to those who are interested in the part French Catholics have
played in the War.
La Vie Religieuse, a recently edited work which bears the name of
the Vicar-General of Versailles, is not an original work of asceticism,
but a very remarkable selection of discourses for the reception and pro-
fession of nuns gathered together and published by the distinguished
Canon Millot.
Le Seminaire Notre Dame de la Merci, by Rev. H. J. Rochereau.
The director of the Seminary of N. Pamplona, Colombia, gives a very
interesting account of the seminary of French prisoners, which he and
nine of his confreres conducted during the War at Miinster and at
Limbourg. (2 francs.)
698 NEW BOOKS [Aug.,
Vie de Sainte Zita, the Patron of Servants, by Monseigneur Andre
Saint-Glair, (1 franc) is the story of the thirteenth century saint iden-
tified with Lucca, where she lived for years in the service of the
Fatinelli family.
Apparitions d'une ame du Purgatoire en Bretagne, by Vicompte
Hippolyte Le Gouvello, is an account of the apparitions of a soul in
Purgatory. The Church, however, has in no way pronounced upon
their authenticity. (50 centimes.)
Pour La Vie Interieure, by Lieutenant M (1 fr. 50), was writ-
ten by a French priest officer for his fellow priests in the fighting line.
It is an excellent manual of devotion, well calculated to keep a priest
true to his vocation amid the trials and temptations of camp life.
The Librairie Bloud et Gay publishes:
Disc ours de Reception de Monseigneur Baudrillart. This
eulogy of Count Albert de Mun, made according to custom by Mon-
seigneur Baudrillart on his entrance into the French Academy on April
10, 1919, gives a good sketch of the life and apostolate of Count de
Mun. (1 franc.)
Abbe Beaupin in Les Catholiques Frangais et VApres-Gaerre, treats
briefly and with absolute honesty of religious reconstruction work in
France. The War, he says, has done much for the rehabilitation of
Catholicism in France, but it has not done all. There must be no more
political or official Catholics, but Catholics that will live up to the
faith that is in them. Education must be reformed — there must be
more union amongst Catholics — greater activity, and, towards non-Cath-
olics, greater charity.
From the Librairie Gabriel Beauchesne comes:
La Conversion, by Joseph Huby. It traces the history of narratives
of conversion in the Church, studies the motives which may have led
converts to write, and the manner in which the argument of conversion
may be enshrined in the edifice of theoretic apologetics.
The Librairie Victor Lecoffre presents:
Monseigneur BatiffoFs scholarly treatise on the Mass, Logons sur La
Messe. It throws light upon many historical problems concerning the
Canon, the origin and development of various prayers such as the
Gloria and the Credo, the use of leavened and unleavened bread, the
epiclesis, the development of the Missal, and the various ceremonies of
the Mass. (3 fr. 50.)
"Recent Events.
There were those who expected that upon
France. the signing of the Peace Treaty with Ger-
many, M. Glemenceau would look upon his
work as finished, and retire to his well-earned rest. Up to the
present, however, both he and the Cabinet of which he is the
head continue in office, although meeting with an ever growing
opposition. The last time the question of confidence was raised in
the Chambers a larger number of Deputies voted in the negative.
The labor unrest, so prevalent throughout the world, has
manifested itself quite unmistakably in France. By the strike of
some three hundred and fifty thousand transport workers, Paris
was tied up for nearly two weeks. It was only by M. C16menceau's
intervention that the strike was brought to an end. His inter-
vention seemed to have a contrary effect, however, upon what
threatened to be an even greater inconvenience — a strike of the
mine workers throughout France. French Socialists seem willing
to cause inconvenience not only to their fellow countrymen but to
the whole world. By a large majority, they voted to refuse to
ratify the Peace Treaty, when that Treaty was laid before the
Chamber for ratification. These troubles have arisen notwith-
standing the fact that the French Parliament was the first to grant
the eight-hour day recommended in the provisions for the regula-
tion of labor throughout the world, which are incorporated in the
League of Nations. To obviate future troubles and to remove what
is at the root of these troubles, the Cabinet has just taken further
measures. In order to cope with the high cost of living, an Under
Secretary for food has been appointed, and to him has been given
special powers to prosecute unlawful speculation in food stuffs.
The new law provides penalties against those convicted of specula-
tion, including loss of political rights and the temporary closing
of stores or establishments.
As time goes on. fuller disclosures are being made of the
efforts to bring about peace with Germany. During the course of
the War the diary of an Italian, whom M. Caillaux had tried to
secure as a coadjutor in his attempt to negotiate with Germany,
brought to light the intrigues carried on behind the scenes,
and has shown how nearly successful they were. These dis-
closures only go to show how much the true friends of France had
to contend with. They had foes in front of them and foes behind,
or at least weaklings, who were more dangerous perhaps than the
700 RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
open enemy. The chief of these, M. Caillaux, still remains in
prison, not having yet been brought to trial. It is thought he may
escape altogether, so great is his influence.
The Peace Conference still sitting at Paris has much more
work to do. It is probable, or at least possible, that it may be
sitting this time next year. The Treaty with Austria, although the
terms have been presented to the Austrian delegates, has not been
signed, and the terms of the Treaties with Turkey and with Bul-
garia have not yet been disclosed, and a great many other problems
remain to be settled. No great change has taken place in the
southeast of Europe since the last notes were written.
If proof were wanting of how little reliance
Italy. can be placed on what is supposed to be the
voice of the people, recent events in Italy
should suffice to banish all doubts. Warm as was the reception
accorded President Wilson when he first arrived in France and
on his visit to England, that given him in Italy, especially by the
people, far surpassed it in enthusiastic cordiality. Popular opinion
has so changed in the short time intervening that it was found
necessary to protect the American Embassy at Rome from an
expected attack by Roman citizens. Similar treatment has been
given by Italians to their own Government. Because of his re-
sistance to President Wilson and the solution of the Fiume ques-
tion insisted upon by him, Signer Orlando and his Cabinet ob-
tained the enthusiastic support of the people as well as of the Par-
liament. Despite this, within a few weeks Signor Orlando and his
Cabinet were, owing to popular disapproval, driven from office.
Although his resignation came as a surprise to the outside world,
those familiar with the trend of events in Italy fully expected a
speedy end of his Government. Signor Giolitti had again appeared
on the scene, a sure sign that trouble was brewing.
The failure of the Italian representatives at Paris to secure the
allocation of Fiume to Italy, incensed the country and caused a
loss of confidence in its management of foreign affairs. A more
urgent cause, however, for this loss of confidence was the suffering
among the people from the high cost of living, and the failure of
the Government to take any steps towards its amelioration. The
labor unrest, so marked a feature of the present time in every
country of the world, has pervaded also the ranks of a large part of
the Italian workingmen, affecting most of all the extreme So-
cialists, who are numerous and powerful. Accordingly, when
Signor Orlando appeared before the Italian Parliament and de-
manded a secret committee for the discussion of the various
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 701
points in which the Parliament was interested, the Premier's pro-
posal was negatived by a vote of two hundred and fifty-nine to
seventy-eight. In consequence of this vote the Government at
once handed in its resignation. The King called upon Signor Nitti
to form a new ministry, and in a few days he accomplished the
task intrusted to him. The Cabinet he formed is what is called
" composite," being made up of two Radicals, five members of the
Left, four of the Right, and one who is described as a Catholic,
Signor Cesare Nava, Signor Nitti himself being ranked as an In-
dependent Radical. Other groups of the Assembly, such as the
Extreme Left, Reformist and Independents, are not represented
at all. This does not mean, necessarily, that they are definitely
opposed to Signor Nitti's Government. The most noteworthy
feature in the composition of the new Cabinet is the retirement
from the foreign office of Baron Sonnino, so long considered Italy's
strong man. His obstinate opposition, to the claims of the Jugo-
slavs, was largely responsible for Italy's want of success at the
Peace Conference. He is succeeded by Signor Tittoni, who, with
the new Premier, is supposed to hold less extreme views on this
question. As a consequence, well-founded hopes are entertained
that a settlement satisfactory to all parties will be reached.
Signor Nitti's Cabinet has not met with a very cordial recep-
tion. In fact, at present Italy is in the throes of an agitation for
a reform of the franchise that will secure a better representation
of the people than hitherto. The aim of the reformer is to intro-
duce the scrutin de liste and proportional representation. By this
means it is hoped no parliament can ever again be elected so en-
tirely under the domination of a distrusted politician and so un-
mindful of the people's wishes. As these objects are not included
in Signor Nitti's programme, a long life cannot be promised to it.
The most that is expected of it is to secure for the Italian people a
satisfactory settlement of the Italian claims regarding the eastern
shore of the Adriatic, the islands in the ^Egean Sea, the coast of
Asia Minor and the foreign extension of the African Colonies, and,
more surely, that it will relieve the economic situation in Italy.
Many well informed persons regard it as probable that Italy,
disappointed at the way in which she has been treated at Paris, will
throw herself again into the arms of Germany. Any such idea,
however, is disclaimed by the Government whose avowed policy is
to cherish the now established friendly relations with Great
Britain and France. The conflicts between the French soldiers and
the Italians, at Fiume and other places, are hard to explain, seem-
ing, as they do, to indicate that an unfriendly feeling has grown up
between the two countries. For an explanation of these occur-
702 RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
rences, we must await the report of the Commission which has
been appointed by the Council of Five at Paris. To draw the
conclusion that it represents a serious alienation of the two coun-
tries would be premature.
The food riots at various places in Italy, are attributed to
the neglect of Signor Orlando's Government to take measures for
alleviating the internal situation. These riots occurred in many
cities, especially in northern Italy. Furious mobs attacked the
shops, especially those dealing in food, while they spared those in
which clothing was sold. Chambers of Labor were established,
and the only shops saved from pillage were those indorsed by these
chambers. The people showed respect only to these chambers — for
what reason is not explained. The situation appeared serious for
some days, and seemed to indicate that at the root of the trouble
lay political rather than economic reasons. But this supposition
seems groundless. Within a short time, by recognizing the justice
of the demands of the people, rather than by the use of force
(although that was not wanting), an appeasement seemed to
have been affected. But according to the latest news this was
not so complete as was thought at first. Rioting has been resumed
in several localities accompanied by a declaration in favor of a
Soviet government and a general strike. It is asserted that, at
the beginning, the Government unwisely allowed the riots to pro-
ceed as a lesson to the profiteers, who seem to be numerous. This
mistake was soon realized and strong measures were taken to put
down the riots. The Government has announced its intention to
maintain order with firmness and without hesitation or weakness,
but it has declared further that it will take suitable measures to
alleviate the bitter condition of the people, and to secure lower
prices of food. Without this social peace cannot be guaranteed.
The hopes entertained when the last notes
Russia. were written, that those regions of Russia,
being devastated by the Bolsheviki, would
soon be freed from their control have met so far with disappoint-
ment. Indeed, in certain directions considerable success has
attended upon the efforts of the Bolsheviki. The fall of Petrograd,
then looked upon as all but certain, has not taken place. In fact
General Yudenitch, who is now Commander-in-Chief of the northern
Russian forces, and also the Esthonians and the Finnish volunteers
acting to the south of Petrograd, have met with reverses and have
been pushed back a little by the reenforced Bolshevik army. The
help extended by the British in this district, was confined to the
bombardment of Kronstadt. No troops were landed, and even the
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 703
promised assistance, in the form of food and munitions, does not
seem to have materialized. In the northern district, however, the
reinforcements sent from England to Archangel have arrived to
replace the soldiers worn out by many months of warfare in this
desolate region. These fresh troops have made considerable ad-
vances, forcing the Bolshevik forces to retire. But according to
the most recent news, the latter have made a successful stand,
thereby arresting at least temporarily the northern army. This
army, although helped by the British, is now mainly Russian,
since they have been given to understand that it is for them to
save their own country. The United States made this warning
still clearer by withdrawing all the American forces from this
district of Russia. Some American troops wall remain, however,
in the east of Siberia, but they do not appear to be taking an active
part in the campaign against the Bolsheviki.
The most severe reverses met with by the opponents of the
Bolsheviki, have been suffered by the armies of Admiral Kolchak.
Three armies, numbering in all about five hundred thousand men,
were marching in parallel routes towards Viatka, Moscow and
Samara, expecting to reach their goal within a few weeks. Their
aim was to effect a junction with the troops of northern Rus-
sia to the right, and with General Denikin's troops to the left,
while Moscow was to be the prize of the army in the centre. It
was rumored some time ago that the junction to the north had
been effected, but even if true the success has been nullified by
the fact that Admiral Kolchak's Right Army has been driven
back one hundred and fifty miles. Instead of taking Viatka, it
has lost the important city of Perm, which it had taken from the
Bolsheviki some months ago. The Army of the Left, also, has suf-
fered serious reverses. It has lost Ufa, and has been forced back
a considerable distance to the east of that city. Of the Centre
Army, which had hoped to capture Moscow, we have no news.
This would seem to indicate that it remains in its old position.
So great, indeed, have been the reverses sustained by Admiral
Kolchak's armies that it is scarcely to be expected that they will do
more than delay the advance of the Bolshevik troops. Admiral
Kolchak's failure is attributed, by some, to the strategical mistake
of failing to concentrate his efforts on one main object. The
capture of Moscow, had it been achieved, would have brought with
it all the advantages sought for.
This want of success is compensated for in some measure by
the progress of General Denikin's volunteer army operating in the
southeast of Russia. Two months ago this army had advanced
along a front reaching from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Azov,
704 RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
had wrested from the enemy more than ninety thousand square
miles of territory, and had reached a point within twenty-four
miles of Kharkoff, forcing the Bolsheviki to evacuate town after
town. Since that time General Denikin's progress has been un-
interrupted. It has also destroyed the Bolshevik regime in the
Crimea by cutting off their communications. Tsaritsyn has been
captured and the volunteer army is now within seventy-five miles
of Saratov. But for Admiral Kolchak's reverses, the hoped-for
junction of his troops with General Denikin's would have been
accomplished. The Bolsheviki have also met with serious dis-
aster in the southwest of Russia. They were forced to evacuate
Odessa (so recently captured by them) by an army which has
appeared upon the scene under the command of General Gregorieff .
This new army was made up of Ukrainians. Its relation to the
army commanded by General Petlura, of which so much has
been heard hitherto, remains somewhat of a mystery. All that is
known about it positively is that it is acting against the sup-
porters of Lenine and Trotzky.
Notwithstanding his reverses Admiral Kolchak still remains
the one hope of Russia, although he is meeting with serious oppo-
sition from some of the other factions opposed to the Bolshevik
regime. Among these is M. Kerensky, who claims that the Ad-
miral is at heart a reactionary, and will support the restoration,
if not of the Tsar, at least of a monarchy. This claim is advanced
in spite of the Admiral's declaration, that he is in favor of a Con-
stituent Assembly, freely elected, to decide the future form of gov-
ernment for Russia, and has pledged himself to relinquish his
present power to that Assembly. The opposition offered to him
has not prevented the quasi-recognition of the Omsk Government
by the Council of Four. Our own Government is taking steps to
give the Admiral more formal recognition. Within the territory
controlled by him, his authority seems now to be more completely
recognized than ever, although there are sporadic outbreaks, here
and there, of Bolsheviki. The Czecho-Slovak troops, to whose
heroic efforts is due the release of Siberia, as a whole, from the
Bolsheviki, are now expressing their desire to return to their
native land. For some time they have ceased active service against
the Bolsheviki, confining their efforts to guarding the Siberian
railway. Indeed, they have become a source of anxiety to the
Omsk Government, showing signs of opposition to it, and even of a
Bolshevik tendency, so there is little doubt that their return home
will be as welcome to the Government as to themselves.
The Russian question is so complicated that, even should
Admiral Kolchak succeed in bringing the whole of Russia under
1919,] RECENT EVENTS 705
the control of the All-Russian Government, new questions which
seem almost insoluble will arise. While he has expressed his
willingness to recognize the independence of Poland, no settle-
ment has been reached as to the eastern boundaries. To the in-
dependence of Finland, Esthonia, Lithuania, and the other Baltic
border States, and to Bessarbia's union with Rumania, he has
refused his assent. Now as the Esthonians and the Finns
supremely desire freedom from Russian control, and are being sup-
ported in this to a certain extent by the Allies, a reconciliation be-
tween their aims and Admiral Kolchak's would seem to be impos-
sible. This is one of the many questions yet to be solved by the
Allies and the Associate Powers.
The establishment of the Republic of
Poland. Poland is, of course, one of the most im-
portant events which has resulted from the
Great War. The mere fact of its establishment, however, does
not give complete assurance of permanence. In many ways, both
internal and external, its stable existence is threatened. Without
natural boundaries which would form a safeguard against in-
vasion, it lies between Germany on the west, with something like
sixty millions of people, and a possible reunited Russia on the
east, with something like one hundred and eighty millions. The
attitude of these powers is, therefore, of vital importance to
Poland. It is generally believed that Germany would be glad to
undo the Treaty which she has just signed. Russia's attitude is
still, of course, problematical. It will depend upon her ability to
establish unity again and not only unity, but independence of that
German influence which has been so potent in the past, and which,
even at this early period, promises to regain its strength. If Ger-
many and Russia should prove hostile to Poland, that State would
easily be crushed and deprived of its recently acquired independ-
ence. This danger has been enhanced by Poland's aggressive
manner towards her smaller neighbors, the Lithuanians and the
Ukrainians. She has unfortunately adopted so exasperating a
policy as to make them her enemies.
The fighting between the Poles and Ukrainians, which caused
M. Paderewski's resignation, was said to have ceased, but it has
been resumed with equal fierceness. In this fighting the forces
under General Haller's command have taken part. How M.
Paderewski could remain Premier, after the pledge he gave at the
Peace Conference — which pledge was violated through the in-
fluence of the Diet — has not been disclosed. A more conciliatory
attitude has been adopted of late towards their neighbors, the
VOL. ax. 45
706 RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
Czecho-Slovaks. M. Paderewski paid a visit to Dr. Mazaryk, the
President, for the purpose of settling outstanding questions. The
most important question between the two Republics, that of the
Teschen coal fields, still awaits a solution.
Poland's position, therefore, surrounded, as she is by States
which may prove hostile, can only be assured by a close alliance
with the Western Powers, and by their willingness to give support
in case of need. Poland seems ready to recognize this, and this
necessity doubtless has made her willing to make a treaty in-
volving no small interference in her internal affairs. It must be
admitted that such interference, galling though it may be, has been
rendered necessary by recent events in which the Jews have suf-
fered. Reports have appeared, and have been formally denied, of
pogroms on a large scale, and in many places. A commission is
now inquiring into these alleged atrocities. Whatever the truth
may be, the Western Powers have felt justified in calling upon
Poland to make a treaty, by which she recognizes that the pro-
tection of minorities of the Polish population is a matter concern-
ing not Poland alone, but the world at large. The preamble of
this treaty recites that Poland desiring to promote the principles
of liberty and justice, and to give some guarantee to all the in-
habitants over whom she is assuming authority, recognizes that
protection of minorities is an obligation of internal concern over
which the League of Nations has jurisdiction. Poland, therefore,
guarantees to all its inhabitants full protection of life and liberty
without distinction of birth, race, nationality, language or religion.
It guarantees that all racial, religious and linguistic minorities
shall, if they so desire, establish and control their own schools,
charitable institutions and the like, and freely practise their re-
ligion, and use their own language. Rights for the Jews are pro-
tected by stipulations that no elections shall take place on the
Jewish Sabbath or any Jewish festival, and no gerrymandering of
constituency shall take place for the purpose of nullifying the
Jewish vote. A strict surveillance is to be exercised by the League
of Nations. Poland is placed almost in the position of a State
controlled by mandatories. Similar treaties, however, are to be
made with Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia and Rumania. It does
not appear, however, that any special guarantee for help in case of
need has been given by the Western Powers. In some respects, at
least, Poland is advancing on democratic lines, proposing that
all titles should be suppressed. In the future there will be no
decorations except military orders, no titles except university de-
grees, and no one may wear a foreign decoration without the Diet's
permission.
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 707
On the twenty-eighth of June at 3:15 P.M.,
Germany. Paris time, the Peace Treaty was signed by
Germany which brought the War to an end.
Reckoned from the declaration of war by the Kaiser at Berlin at
6 P.M., on August 1, 1914, and including the period of the armis-
tice signed November 11, 1918, the War lasted four years, ten
months and twenty-eight days, lacking two hours and forty-five
minutes. Seven weeks and three days were devoted to the dis-
cussion of the terms imposed by the Allied and Associated Powers
before the Germans could decide to sign the Treaty. On first
learning the terms, they were almost universally pronounced to
be impossible of acceptance, and an elaborate attempt was made
by the German delegates sent to Paris to obtain a mitigation. This
attempt was not without results. Some concessions were made,
notably with reference to the cession of northern Silesia to the
Poles. The Allies, after they had replied to the German criticisms,
gave them a period of five days, subsequently extended to seven,
to sign the amended terms or to suffer the penalty of an advance
of the Allied armies into Germany. Such an advance would have
resulted in the imposition at Berlin of more rigorous terms than
those demanded at Paris. Accepting the inevitable and listen-
ing to what was clearly the voice of the German people, the
National Assembly passed a vote of confidence in the Government
when it laid before it the determination to sign the Treaty with the
Allies, with reservations as to the responsibility for the War, and
the punishment of those who have been guilty of gross viola-
tions of criminal and international law. This vote was passed by
a majority of two hundred and thirty-six votes to eighty-nine with
sixty-eight abstentions. The majority in favor of signing con-
sisted of Majority Socialists, members of the Centre Party, In-
dependent Socialists and a minority of the Democrats.
The Government, however, which submitted this resolution
to the Assembly was not that of Herr Scheidemann, who had held
the office of Premier from the time of the revolution. The mem-
bers of Herr Scheidemann's Cabinet could not come to an agreement
in the matter, and consequently resigned. Herr Ebert, the Presi-
dent, thereupon called upon Herr Hermann Miiller to form a min-
istry. This proving impossible, Herr Bauer was called upon. He
refused at first, but when the demand was repeated, he accom-
plished the task. The new Cabinet consists, almost exclusively,
of the Majority Socialist Party. A notable exception, however, is
Dr. Mathias Erzberger, one of the leaders of the Centre Party,
who has become the Minister of Finance. The majority of the new
ministers had seats in Herr Scheidemann's Cabinet. No member
708 RECENT EVENTS [Aug.,
of the Independent Socialist Party has found a seat in the new
Cabinet, which is somewhat surprising as that party had for one
of its avowed objects the concluding of peace with the Allies at any
price. The conditional reservations of the Germans were not
accepted by the Allies, and thereupon the German Government sent
to Paris, almost at the last moment, its consent to sign without
reservations. Some little difficulty was found in finding dele-
gates to sign a Treaty which sets the seal to the Fall of the Ger-
man Empire, which has had so recent a beginning.
Although some are to be found in Germany who have ex-
pressed their willingness to keep the pledges they have given, a
greater number have expressed their intention to violate them on
one pretext or another. The sinking at Scapa Flow of the men-of-
war interned there and the burning at Berlin of the French flags
captured during the Franco-German War of 1870, constituting, as
they do, violations of the armistice, give clear warning that it is
necessary to place no confidence in any promises which have been
made, unless compelled to do so. Thus warned the Allies have
formed a permanent commission to secure the observance of all
conditions imposed by the Treaty. The treaties made by this
country and Great Britain with France have for their object the
assurance of help for France should she stand in need of it when,
and if, Germany recovers from her present helplessness.
In the short time which has elapsed since the signing of the
Treaty, things on the surface have been marked by no especial in-
cident. Herr Bauer's ministry still remains in office, although
when formed its sole object for being appeared to be the signing of
the Treaty. It may survive, for its members belong for the most
part to the Socialist Democratic Majority, and have announced
their intention to continue the social reforms undertaken by the
Scheidemann Government. The Minister of Finance, Dr. Mathias
Erzberger, has undertaken the task of providing the additional
taxation, which will be necessary to pay for the wrongdoings of
Germany in foreign States as well as Germany's own expenses.
What this involves may be judged from the statement made by
the Minister, that for every hundred dollars Germany once asked
of the taxpayer, a payment of nine hundred will now be necessary.
July 17, 1919.
With Our Readers.
THE Archbishop of Toulouse, France, has just issued a notable
letter to his people on the subject of social reconstruction.
It is of special interest in view of the pamphlet, entitled Social Re-
construction, issued some months ago by the Administrative Com-
mittee of our own National Catholic War Council.
Toulouse has been seriously affected as an industrial centre
by reason of the War. The labor situation there is acute. Women
and girls in far greater numbers than ever before have gone into
shops and factories. The religious, moral, and social life of the
community has been seriously and permanently affected. In view
of these changed conditions and the need of laying down the prin-
ciples that should guide Catholics in the work of reconstruction the
Archbishop issued his pastoral. It follows closely the lines of the
famous Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII.
THE Archbishop states two reasons why he is justified in pro-
nouncing upon social problems: first, the great extension of
industrial activities in his diocese: such transformation affects
the entire social life of the people. The very name " proletariat "
arouses today innumerable vexatious problems. Secondly, these
problems vitally affect the religious, moral and economic life of
all.
Having gained the victory, shall we lose the fruit of it
through class fratricidal war? The ideas prevalent among the
working classes provoke discord; the Christian religion is the only
foundation of true fraternity.
THE Church cannot today abandon its children to radical So-
cialism, for, if it did, the world would return to paganism. The
War has begotten among the working classes a reaction against the
present system of industry. The Peace Conference has agreed
upon the necessity of an international programme of reform. The
modern workingman, even he who has denied Christianity, has
borrowed from Christianity the consciousness of his dignity and
his personal worth. He is unwilling to have his work considered
as so much merchandise. He is unwilling to have his activity con-
founded with that of the animal or the machine. Created to the
710 WITH OUR READERS [Aug.,
image of God, does he not merit respect? And can his labor,
ordained by God not only to support his material life, but to feed
his life spiritual and to win his life eternal, can that be treated as
a thing without a soul?
The fundamental error of viewing human labor as so much
merchandise is a wretched legacy of the economic materialism of
the eighteenth century and of the Revolution, an error which
governed the industrial world of the nineteenth century. When
industry asked for a law that would justify its tyranny, economic
materialism could give it nothing but the law of supply and de-
mand. This is a pagan law, defending the rule of physical force.
As Leo XIII. said : " It left the workers at the mercy of inhuman
masters and the cupidity of blind monopoly."
The morrow will be even worse than today if employers and
employees continue to answer one another as they have done in
the last century by opposing doctrines ; in other words, if they con-
tinue to speak two different languages : or if, forbidden to invoke
a moral law that the industrial world has denied, the worker
should in his turn call upon the law of physical force, the law of
the greater number.
THE Great Pope, Leo XIII., the Archbishop continues, was
not willing to relegate religion to a closed sanctuary with-
out vision and without action. He affirmed the right of the Church
to intervene in the conflict between capital and labor, because the
dispute is ultimately a moral and religious question.
For the whole social question resolves itself into a question
of contract with regard to labor between the employer and the
employee. Justice ought to rule the contract. Justice is a moral
virtue and dependent upon God, the Author and Guardian of the
whole moral law. History both past and very recent, teaches us
that the morality which denies God, the so-called " independent
morality," justifies the most grievous abuses of physical force.
Passing the examples given us by the recent War, the
economic history of the nineteenth century has taught us to de-
plore the accepted exploitation of women and of children through
the sweated labor system. And has not the same " independent
morality" justified even to the present hour the robbery and op-
pression of the weak, the destruction of the family, and even
slavery, reborn under the dictation of the mob in the great country
that was once the Russian Empire? Only that moral teaching,
promulgated and sanctioned by the authority of God, has set itself
steadfastly against such evil. The Church, as the Voice of God
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 111
upon earth, has therefore the duty of giving to Catholics and to all
men, counsels of guidance and direction on the social problems.
* * * *
LEO XIII. has expressed himself with great vigor and has no
doubt frightened some weaker spirits. He has protested
against the unjust usury practiced by certain capitalist enterprises,
and against such a division of wealth as would permit a few rich
to impose a servile yoke upon a great multitude.
Leo XIII. demanded measures that would heal such a con-
dition, measures prompt and efficacious. Some measures have
been taken in this direction and the situation is somewhat im-
proved. The last few months have seen notable progress and a
concerted effort between employers and employees to regulate
more equitably the conditions that govern the labor contract. But
there remains very much unmerited wretchedness.
* * * *
THE weakening of the Christian sense which sustained the
worker and helped him to discipline unruly desires and un-
holy appetites, the evil examples of the self-indulgent rich, the
absence of Christian education, the spread of un-Christian teach-
ings in the secular journals have kept open the wounds deplored
by Leo XIII. Conscience, the voice of God within us, preaches
duty. The Church asks every one of us to follow it. Many heed
it not or deny it. Certainly the Church desires that every one
of her children, should, as the English formula puts it, " elevate
his level of life," better the conditions of living, be better housed,
better nourished, better clothed, and have more time to give to
the cultivation of his spirit, of his soul, and to the fulfillment of his
duties towards God and his family.
* * * *
ST. THOMAS teaches, as Leo XIII. notes, that a minimum of
physical well-being is necessary in order that men may prac-
tice virtue. The Archbishop states, that following Leo XIII., he
affirms the principle of solidarity of capital and labor and, in con-
sequence, the solidarity of the mutual interests of employers and
employees. The fundamental error has been to believe that these
two were inevitable enemies. The right view, long unrecognized,
has, since the War, made unquestionable progress, and in the light
of this new knowledge many, even of the Socialists, have revised
their fundamental teachings.
The social question is a moral question. It is a question of
duty, duty once scorned and forgotten, but which, through the
War, has been reinstated with honor to its high place* If em-
712 WITH OUR READERS [Aug.,
ployers and employees fulfill faithfully their respective duties so-
cial peace will be born and will endure. The rights of both will be
respected.
* * * *
THE right idea must be entertained concerning the inequality
of human conditions and its practical consequences. If the
Church asks the worker to accept his condition with patience, she
does not ask him to renounce the right to better it. Certain So-
cialists have misrepresented the idea of Christian resignation and
implied that it obliged the worker after the manner of Mussulman
fatalism to submit to every misery. Against this the Encyclical
expressly protests. " By degrees it has come to pass that working-
men have been surrendered, all isolated and helpless, to the hard-
heartedness of employers and the creed of unchecked competition.
The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which,
although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless
under a different guise, but with the like injustice, still practised
by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added the cus-
tom of working by contract, and the concentration of so many
branches of trade in the hands of a few individuals; so that a
small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the
teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than slav-
ery itself." Let no one say the Church is so absorbed that she
neglects to view those things that concern the earthly and mortal
life.
* * * *
WHAT are the duties of justice between employers and
workers? In answer to this question the Archbishop re-
peats the formula laid down by Pius X. :
1st. To give to the worker a just wage.
2d. Not to injure him with regard to his just savings either
by violence, or by fraud or by usury of any kind.
3d. To give him the opportunity of fulfilling his religious
duties.
4th. Not to expose him to corrupt practices nor to the dan-
ger of scandal.
5th. Not to turn him from his duty towards his family nor
from his love of saving.
6th. Not to impose upon him labor disproportionate to his
health or unsuitable for his age or sex.
* * * *
THE Archbishop advises the formation of labor unions such as
Leo XIII. laid down. He shows in detail how the laborer has
been forced as an isolated individual to accept the terms of salary,
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 713
which have meant little more than famine, because of the selfish-
ness of the employers. Such is the result if we live under the
pagan and universal law of supply and demand. From such in-
justice and social unrest and revolution a faithful following of the
instructions of Leo XIII. would, and still will, save us. A labor
union that insists upon a just wage, proper hours and conditions
of labor will do as great a good to the employer as to the em-
ployed.
Modern capital, the Archbishop continues, has created the
modern industrial organization where individual responsibility is
apt to disappear into the corporate directing body. But such a
body, the Archbishop points out, is governed just as strictly and
just as directly by the moral law as is the individual employer.
For the stability and rule of social justice, organization is
necessary both for the protection of the laborer and also for the
capitalist.
Having outlined the power of the unions in bringing equal
pressure to bear upon competitors in industry, the Archbishop
says this force is used to maintain justice in the cause of
labor. It is a force used in the service of right. There is noth-
ing reprehensible of itself in such a procedure, but it certainly
does not express the real relation that should exist between
employers and employed. We go further and say that, in the
Christian idea of such a cooperative organization, the fixing
of salary and of other conditions of labor is not the uni-lateral
work of the labor union, but is the result of a peaceable discus-
sion between the heads of the labor union and the employers' as-
sociation. Nor does it endanger any of the legitimate authority
of the employer.
No one today wishes to suppress the individual right to labor.
But it is certainly advantageous to modify that liberty, since
because of economic conditions such absolute liberty would often-
times subvert justice.
* * * *
THE Archbishop expresses himself in favor, at least in the
case of large industries, of keeping the labor union and the
employers' union distinct. He repeats the words of Pius X. to the
effect that the Christian labor union is not a religious conference.
Its immediate ends are temporal. It deals at once with present in-
terests, with business questions, with the needs of the body, and
its means of support. It is Catholic by the spirit which animates
it and by the truths which it accepts for its guidance.
The Archbishop does not approve of the " neutral " labor
union. The so-called " neutral " labor unions in France claim to
714 WITH OUR READERS [Aug.,
be neither Socialist nor " confessional." The Catholic labor union
which does not keep its name and its character would soon lose
its devotion to Catholic principles. The Archbishop answers the
objection of certain Protestants who charge the Catholic labor
unions with not working for community interests. He repeats the
words of Pius X. showing how these labor unions never refuse to
cooperate on all labor questions where the welfare of the labor-
ing man will be promoted by such cooperation. He again appeals
to the employers to form Catholic employers' associations. It is
their day of opportunity to stand as leaders in Christian justice.
Leo XIII. condemned usury. But usury and its abuses have not
disappeared, far from it. We have seen money grow in power
until it recognizes no morality save that of the ticker. The sub-
ject is too immense and quite beyond us. We can scarce touch
the surface. But it is permissible for us to say to capitalists and
to Christian employers : " Unite to put morality into finance and
to Christianize money: if you do not the world will return to
paganism not without having passed through a frightful revolution
where capitalism, utterly selfish and immoral, shall have been
revenged by Socialism of which the former because of its excesses
is the forerunner."
* * * *
THE two unions — that of the employers and that of the workers
— will beget a balance of forces — a just distribution of rights
and of duties. A Joint Commission from both unions shall be the
judge of just measures, wages, hours, etc. This Joint Commission
shall be guided by a proper appreciation of the value of labor.
From labor springs the wealth of nations. As Leo XIII. has said,
without the cooperation of labor the hopes of the capitalist would
be vain: capital itself would have no value. If perchance capital
might spurn labor in the past: the present War has made such
lack of esteem impossible.
* * * - *
IT will be charged by some that " the laborer has his faults."
" Who has not? " asks the Archbishop. If he has, is he alone
fully responsible? Is not the capitalist equally culpable who, for
the sake of the "almighty dollar," exposes him to the tempta-
tion of drunkenness, of a licentious press, of an indecent stage?
Who could resist when surrounded by this cordon of temptation,
as is the workingman?
Personal contact between employer and employed, coming as
a result of the Joint Committee, will bring about a more human
and sympathetic understanding between both. Such a committee
does not endanger the authority of the employer.
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 715
The laborer is vitally interested in the nature and condition
of his contract. That contract calls for his physical and men-
tal activity : it affects his health, his time, his family life, and often-
times his moral and religious life. He cannot be indifferent to
salary: to remuneration: to method of payment: to hours of
labor, daily and weekly, to day or night work, to Sunday rest, to
all that relates to the hygiene, the safety, the morality of the shop
or the factory.
For employers to refuse to discuss such questions with their
employees is ridiculous. The Archbishop expresses the wish that
the long disputed question of the " family salary " — a salary suf-
ficient for the workingman to support his family, should be set-
tled. At the present salary rate, the workers in the cities cannot
support a large family. In the southeast of France the practice is
common of giving a fixed salary to both unmarried and married.
Above this fixed salary the heads of families receive an additional
amount proportioned according to the number of children in the
family.
* * * *
THE Archbishop concludes with an earnest plea that Catholics
awake to the gravity of the situation. We must use not
alone the supernatural means of prayer; we must use the human
means of organization and united effort.
IN a paragraph in these pages of some months ago, it was stated
that a man's esteem for the virtue of purity was a sure gauge
of his entire character, and of the honesty of all his actions.
* * * *
A SINGULAR proof of this statement may be found in the con-
duct and the tactics of those who are, under one plea or an-
other, fostering campaigns on questions of sex. Through the mov-
ing picture : the printed and spoken word : the book : the freely dis-
tributed pamphlet, they are jealously pushing their theories and
their policies. With equal persistence they are asking state and
national aid in the furtherance of their work. No one will for a
moment deny the value and the necessity of proper education in
matters of sex : nor will any one deny the necessity and the obliga-
tion resting upon us to do our part. But by very reason of this
necessity and this obligation, we shall be the more scrupulous
not to be agents promoting the very evils we claim to oppose.
There can be no question but that the moving pictures such as
"Fit to Win" or "The End of the Road" now being shown
throughout the country violate the principles of pedagogy. They
716 WITH OUR READERS [Aug.,
will do much to excite morbid curiosity: to arouse the sensual
passions : and even to show the means whereby the possible phys-
ically evil results of self-indulgence may be avoided.
* * * *
TO the money-making moving picture concern the occasion of
presenting such pictures is too good to be lost. Such con-
cerns will of course advertise the educational value of the film. In-
deed, the public is led to believe that the producers undertake the
work because of a conscience that is extremely worried over the
lack of proper education. As a matter of fact the producers pre-
sent the film because of the money return. But to see that they
are backed up by reputable societies and even by government
authorities: that their film publicly states they have the approval
of the United States Public Health Board is, indeed, deplorable.
When federal government officials come into a local community
and fight for the production of a picture which the courts have
declared indecent, it is time to ask if we who are about to bestow
self government upon the nations of the world, have it for our-
selves.
The Commissioner of Licenses of New York City forbade the
exhibition of " Fit to Fight " as an indecent film. His action has
been opposed in the courts by federal officials, and the government
of the United States instead of upholding public decency, opposed
it and attempted to defy the laws of the local commonwealth. In
the State of Pennsylvania the Governor forbade the exhibition
of " Fit to Fight."
In the matter of general public sentiment Catholic opinion
does not stand alone against such films. A meeting of prominent
public men held in New York, at which were present Catholic,
Protestant and Jew, voiced its unanimous opinion that the film
" Fit to Win " was unfit for public exhibition to any audience,
either of men alone or women alone. This film is but a type, and
if its exhibition is generally tolerated, it will be followed by a
deluge of so-called " educational " films that will but pander to
the prurient.
* * * *
THE dishonesty of these films is that they preach that knowl-
edge is virtue: that ignorance is the cause of sin: that the
greatest evil of sin is physical: that the question of sex should
not be safeguarded by the reverences of modesty and of silence.
It does not require trained education to know that all these preach-
ments are dishonesties.
Yet the perverted notion of the place of sex in life, accepted by
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 717
the promoters of such propaganda, makes them blind to these
dishonest pronouncements that really fundamentally pervert an
onlooker's entire moral viewpoint. They not only give him a
wrong angle of vision with regard to sex : they give him a wrong
angle about the whole law of personal responsibility. If the esti-
mate of the virtue that deals with the creative act be wrong or
inadequate, the view of all creation and all the things of creation
will be likewise.
* * * *
AND here we may mention how far into fields of gross im-
morality another phase of this so-called sex instruction has ad-
vanced. One is curious to know where all the funds come from
and what is the purpose that actuates their giving. For example,
a " League " that has on its " national " council many names re-
spected in the community, is not only preaching birth control, but
distributing broadcast free pamphlets that buttress its propaganda
by false argument and false illustration. It lies about the be-
ginnings of human life: it lies about the teaching of the Catholic
Church, stating that the Church has no Rule against birth control.
Against such propaganda as this the Catholic press and the
Catholic individual ought to do all in his power.
The extremes towards which such a " League " tends may be
seen from the following account published in the June Month of
the operation of a similar propaganda in England:
"Not long ago the Times (London) correspondent in Man-
chester sent a report to his paper on ' Mother and Child Welfare,'
which opened with these ominous words : * The day does not seem
very far off when the medical service of Manchester will have the
organized oversight of the working-class population from the
cradle to the grave (May 5th). And he went on with a tone of the
utmost complacency, to show in detail how the beneficent State,
with its welfare centres, its army of ' health visitors,' will usurp
parental functions at almost every stage of life. There is no suspi-
cion in the mind of this writer that he is describing an ideal abhor-
rent to the Christian sense, and that this monstrous intrusion of the
State into the family would bring about precisely one of the worst
effects of Socialism — the State-regulated family and the State-
owned child. There is no suspicion, moreover, that the condition of
things which seems to call for such interference is radically rotten,
and should be abolished with all convenient speed, so dead is he
to the right conception of human dignity and freedom. He knows,
but the public are not allowed to know, that the official health-
visitors are in many cases eugenists, engaged in the spread of
filthy Malthusian teaching. Mrs. Pember Reeves, a Socialist deeply
718 WITH OUR READERS [Aug.,
implicated in this propaganda, frankly admitted before the Na-
tional Birth-rate Commission (May 13th) that, as the result of an
experiment in Motherhood Endowment carried out by the Fabian
Society — ' the practice of limitation of the family was now being
carried on by all those parents who had forethought and common
sense . . . and was no longer a practice confined to the well edu-
cated or well-to-do.' No wonder, in view of such immoral teaching
that a prominent Glasgow Canon has issued a recommendation to
his flock to bar their doors against the army of welfare workers
which the municipality threatens to let loose upon them. May his
example be widely followed, and may the whole influence of the
Catholic body be concentrated to resist this league of paganism
masquerading as hygiene, which is diametrically opposed to the
Christian ideal of marriage and family life."
IT would, indeed, be difficult to say what standards guide the
book reviewers on some of our so-called great dailies. It may be
that they are cursed with the modern habit of thinking that
morality and religion are entirely separate from literature. If
such is their thought they only reveal their ignorance of the sub-
ject they profess to treat. All the great and enduring literature
of the world is religious, precisely because man with whom it
deals is religious.
If we were to say that the age is godless we would be termed
untruthful and pessimistic. And we believe the term would be
justly applied. But if we are to assume that the principal literary
journals of the country reflect the spirit of the age then we are
amply justified in terming it godless. We will take as a proof the
estimates given by certain prominent journals on John Gals-
worthy's latest production entitled Saints' Progress. This book
is a subtle attack upon everything which the traditional Christian
world has held sacred. It denies Christ and the value of His
teaching: it denies God: it denies personal immortality: it denies
personal responsibility: it denies morality, and it presents sex
indulgence as the only real, true life that man knows.
* * * *
GALSWORTHY himself does not realize—or at least let us hope
he does not — the fearful destruction that his book would spread
broadcast. Yet the work is done with such sinister subtlety, such
gratuitous iconoclasm, such pitiless sarcasm that to any one who
has a heart that feels, the author must appear not brutally but
satanically inhuman. The human person is stripped of every
vestige of worth, of dignity, of respect.
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 719
The " Saint," an Anglican minister, is pictured as devout but
intolerable and utterly sympathetic. He is the type of the Chris-
tian. His progress consists in abandoning his beliefs : leaving his
church; and finally being routed by a dying boy who says: "I have
no hope: no faith: but I am adventuring." He didn't altogether
" give up the drug habit; " but he stopped " administering drugs
to others." He did close the door on the past — his clerical life.
His daughter loses her faith through an unbelieving husband :
the auguments pro and con are all made by Galsworthy so that he
has no competent adversary. Not only does the unbeliever win
every time: but he is the only one who knows life, which, as we
have said, is a matter of sex indulgence. It was the only taste of
life the other daughter of the " saint " had — Noel. The man was
killed in the war : but Noel must have more of life so she marries
Jimmy Fort: why her career should end on this note of respect-
ability is a mystery except that Galsworthy is not altogether con-
sistent. No bad man ever was or could be. Jimmy threw over
Leila who had had a good deal of life, but then the true test of
marriage is " love " — which is as near an approach to free love
as Galsworthy cared to take. The ascetic is the fakir; the man
who disciplines himself is dead. Continence is bad " physically
and spiritually, fagging and perverting life."
ONE might dwell on further matters in the book — the gross sen-
sual suggestiveness : the atmosphere saturated with lewdness :
the misrepresentation of Christian teaching: the self-sufficiency
of the English prig — but it is unnecessary.
Sometime ago the Atlantic Monthly said " we must listen to
Mr. Galsworthy." Humanity has sufficient desire for the better
and nobler things than to give ear to a literary pander.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
GEORGE H. DOBAN Co., New York:
A History of the Great War. By Sir A. C. Doyle. Vol. IV. $2.50 net. Social
Studies of the War. By E. T. Clark, Litt.D. $1.50 net. Dangerous Days. By
M R. Riiiehart. $1.60 net. Canada at War. By J. C. Hopkins. $5.00 net.
The Religion of Old Glory. By W. N. Guthrie. $2.50 net. Judith (Play). By
A. Bennett. $1.00 net. The Sword of Deborah. By F. T. Jesse. $1.00 net.
P. J. KENEDY & SONS, New York:
Fernando. By J. Ayscough. $1.60. Convent Life. By M. J. Scott, S.J. $1.50
net. John Ayscough's Letters to His Mother, 1914-1916. Edited by F. Bicker-
staffe-Drew. $2.50.
LONGMANS, GREEN & Co., New York:
Memoir of Kenelm Henry Digby. By B. Holland, C.B. $5.00 net. The Christian
Monarchy. By Rev. W. Crouch, B.A. $1.00 net. The Church and the Min-
istry. By C. Gore, D.D. $6.00 net.
AMERICAN BOOK Co., New York:
Essentials of Spelling. By H. C. Pearson and H. Suzzallo. Plant Production.
By R. A. Moore and C. P. Halligan, B.S. Hamilton's Essentials of Arithmetic.
First and Second Books. By S. Hamilton, Ph.D., LL.D. New Modern Illus-
trative Bookkeeping. By C. F. Rittenhouse, C.P.A. Essentials of Modern Type-
writing. By R. L. Fritz and E. H. Eldridge, Ph.D.
E. P. DUTTON & Co., New York:
Experiments in Psychical Science. By W. J. Crawford, D.Sc. $2.00 net.
THE HOME PRESS., New York:
Requiem Mass and Burial Service from the Missal and Ritual. By J. J.
Wynne, S.J.
BUREAU OF NATIONAL LITERATURE, New York:
A History of the Great War. Vol. I. By B. Benedict, A.B.
HENRY HOLT & Co., New York:
The Day of Glory. By Dorothy Canfleld. $1.00 net.
ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & Co., New York:
The Convictions of Christopher Sterling. By Harold Begbie. $1.50 net.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York:
Father Tom. Life and Lectures of Rev. Thomas P. McLoughlin. By P. P. Mc-
Loughlin. $2.50 net.
CATHOLIC FOREIGN MISSION SOCIETY OF AMERICA, Ossiiiing, New York:
Observations in the Orient. By the Very Rev. J. A. Walsh. $2.00.
INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, Brooklyn, N. Y. :
The Precious Blood. By R. F. Clarke, S.J. What is "Benediction." By Rev. F.
M. de Zulueta, S.J. Socialist Bubbles Punctured. By D. Goldstein. St. Vin-
cent de Paul. By Rev. F. Goldie, S.J. Science and Darwinism. By Dr. J. J.
Walsh. Manhood. By M. J. Dwyer. Pamphlets.
THE CORNHILL Co., Boston :
Songs of My People. By C. B. Johnson. $1.00. A Daughter of the Northwest.
By I. W. Grissom. $1.50. Man-O'-War Rhymes. By B. F. Jenness. $1.25.
Singing Places. By M. B. Bower. Sim la. By S. Cobb. $1.25. The Test.
(Play.) By P. Hagboldt. $1.25.
THE FOUR SEAS Co., Boston:
A Spinner of Webs. By C. P. Bement. $1.50 net.
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, Washington:
The Maya Indians of Southern Yucatan and Northern British Honduras. By T.
W. F. Gann.
B. HERDER BOOK Co., St. Louis:
Life of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque. By Sister Mary Philip. $1.80 net.
AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, Melbourne:
Non-Historical History. By Rev. D. G. Purton, M.A. Drink and Democracy. By
W. J. Lockington, S.J. Pamphlet.
PIERRE TEQUI, Paris:
Famille. Par Monseigneur Gibier. 3 fr. 50. Tdches Ideals. Par Monse-igneur
Tissier. 3 fr. 50. L'Eglise (Euvre de I'Homme-Dieu. Par Monsignor Besson.
GABRIEL BEACHESNE, Paris:
L'Anarchie dans le Monde Moderne. Par G. de Lamarzelle. 7 fr.
THE
Catholic &(prld
VOL. CIX. SEPTEMBER, 1919 No. 654.
THE EDUCATIONAL REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE.
BY BROTHER CONSTANTIUS.
O understand the mission of St. John Baptist
de la Salle, it is well to emphasize some special
facts of the history of education, and determine
the position of the elementary schools, when the
apostle of popular modern education appeared
on the scene. This will enable us to note what the Church had
done before his time and what yet remained to be accom-
plished, and thus to realize the facilities and the obstacles
which the ancient institutions brought to the new foundations.
Christian education, in the beginning, was traditional. The
neophytes received oral instruction in the Catacombs of Rome.
In the shadow of the first churches erected in the West were
sacred asylums destined by the bishops for the twofold object
of fostering virtue and extending science in the future genera-
tions. Hence, the first bishops, who converted and civilized
France, established schools in their episcopal palaces and dis-
tricts. The Church and school were inseparable for the peo-
ple. For Catholicism, says Cote: " Was the most efficient pro-
moter of the popular development of the human intellect."
The cloistral schools also did great work in the cause of educa-
tion. In the sixth century, lay persons were admitted to these
schools. Hence we find the monastery divided into two
Copyright. 1919. THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
VOL. cix. 46
722 REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE [Sept.,
schools: the cloistral, for children who afterward embraced the
religious life; and the canonical, for the education of children
who embraced neither the ecclesiastical nor the religious life.
The powerful influence exercised by Charlemagne over
all the schools of his vast empire is too well known to need
comment here. Unfortunately for France, his successors did
not display the same enlightened zeal or manifest that keen ap-
preciation for knowledge and virtue which made his reign re-
markable in the annals of the history of true progress and
science.
While admitting that the schools were somewhat neglected,
we must beware of presuming that, during the seventh, eighth
and ninth centuries they were entirely overlooked. When speak-
ing of the " Dark Ages," writes de Beaupaire, it is very essential
to distinguish carefully the epochs, and not to apply to every
century comprised in this long period the unfavorable and
severe criticism which is applicable only to some. We may
say that the same distinction holds good in relation to the prov-
inces. Some of them, less distracted than others, happily pre-
served the academic traditions of the first apostles of Gaul.
Or, they were more favored by reason of the number of their
schools and the great merit of their professors.
From the seventh to the fourteenth century three principal
causes contributed to the revival of the interrupted work of
Charlemagne : 1. The extraordinary renown of certain schools;
2. The Councils, and 3. The remarkable multiplication of re-
ligious communities.
In the fourteenth century the fearful ravages which pun-
ished or tried men in those remote days, like the plague of 1348,
necessarily closed a number of schools. Indeed, few teachers
could be found who were willing to teach the elements of gram-
mar at home or in the village school. There were, however, at
this period two men, Gerard Groot and John Gerson, who
labored in behalf of the elementary schools. They endeavored
to give the children attending such schools good, religious, and
zealous teachers. So at this epoch throughout France primary
education was by no means neglected. Schools were to be
found almost everywhere, for Gerson advises bishops to in-
quire " if every parish has a school, and to open a school, if
there be not one already established."
In all the ancient primary schools taught by ecclesiastics,
1919.] REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE 723
religious and clerics, Latin was found in the list of studies.
The reading of Latin was taught by all teachers. Not infre-
quently children were not taught to read in any other language.
Those who did not enter the religious life, returned to the world
when they were competent to read and interpret the Psalter
and the Gospel. " The schoolmasters of the Middle Ages," ob-
serves Brother Azarias, "were generally young ecclesiastics
or clerics who dwelled with the pastor, helped him to sing the
Divine Offices, aided him in many ways, and usually acted as
sacristan."
The object sought in all the schools was essentially reli-
gious. Hence the reason why founders ordinarily attached
them to the parish church.
In the primary schools Christian Doctrine was not
taught in a formal manner; but the pupils were educated in a
Christian way. The poor children, however, were often either
neglected or ill-treated by teachers, who did not possess the
requisite qualities of their profession. The complaints made
by men of rank and position were truly lamentable. In 1669,
Charles Demia found that a great number of teachers of Lyons
" were ignorant not only of the methods of teaching good read-
ing and writing, but also of the principles of religion. Paris
was no better off in this respect than Lyons. The Precentor,
Claude Joly, was accused of having tolerated " junkshop men,
keepers of low restaurants, tavern-keepers, stonemasons, wig-
makers, fiddlers, puppet-showmen, and the like," as teachers
in Paris. These complaints, however, were directed chiefly
against the primary schools destined for the poor children.
Prior to the seventeenth century the government of France
never interfered with the elementary schools, except to assure
to a teacher the payment of his salary, or to erect new schools,
or to sanction the efforts of the clergy in maintaining the
morals of the schools. Such was the tenor of the Royal Decree
of 1598, of the Letter of Louis XIII. to the Bishops of Poitiers,
in 1640, and of the declarations of Louis XIV. in 1658 and 1689.
The supervision of the morals of the schools and the instruc-
tions of the teachers was left to the bishops, who generally ap-
pointed an ecclesiastic eminently qualified for that office. It
is, therefore, not surprising to find ecclesiastics of rare merit
and ability devoted to the interests of primary schools and to
read of many attempts made for the training of teachers. The
724 REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE [Sept.,
Council of Trent renovated the spirit of Christendom; and
faith, purified and regulated by discipline, produced a super-
abundance of vocations.
Among the precursors of St. John Baptist de la Salle, the
most zealous in the cause of Christian Schools was Adrian
Bourdoise (1590-1655) . M. Bourdoise opened a free school at
Liancourt, which attracted considerable attention, and met with
great success; nevertheless, he was baffled in his attempt to
establish a seminary for teachers and to emulate the famous
Seminary of St. Nicholas du Chardonet for the education of the
clergy.
Toward the close of the seventeenth century, the outlook
was gloomy and discouraging. The schools were deserted and
held in contempt. There was great need of teachers above re-
proach who would restore their good name and thus assure the
success of the schools and eventually do away with the mixed
schools. There were, moreover, at this period, children of
every condition of life to whom the study of Latin and Greek
would be practically useless. No great educator had as yet
conceived of establishing a special course, with the vernacular
as its basis and arranged to meet the new intellectual wants,
attendant on the invention of printing and the progress of in-
dustry and commerce. The demarcation between elementary
and secondary teaching was nowhere definitely settled. Con-
sequently, a change of teachers not infrequently implied a
change in the schedule of studies.
Hence, in studying the educational programmes of the
period, we are not a little surprised at the lack of special
schools, where the pupil could choose his studies or pursue his
course with a view to his future career. Even the children of
some noble and wealthy families were, at this time, condemned
to take the most elementary course, because they refused to fol-
low the classical course or because the father denied them the
privilege to prevent them from embracing the ecclesiastical
state or taking up the profession of law. In such cases, the pro-
fession of arms was deemed more favorable to the interests of
the family. To establish such a course was one of the educa-
tional reforms introduced by de la Salle.
The Rev. Nicholas Barre was among the first to recog-
nize in St. de la Salle the instrument destined by Providence to
fill, in part, the great gap in elementary instruction.
1919.] REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE 725
While the general movement in favor of popular educa-
tion was in progress, de la Salle founded the Institute of the
Brothers of the Christian Schools at the opportune moment, of
which the Church possesses the secret. The new Institute set
out with this thought, that teaching is less a career or a means
to fortune than a most elevated expression of the spirit of sacri-
fice. " Struck with the neglect in which children of the poor
were left, with all the evil consequent thereupon," says
Lamontey, "de la Salle conceived the bold idea of preparing
these boys for society by opening free schools, where they
would receive the first rudiments of secular and religious in-
struction. . . . He endeavored to accomplish the greatest pos-
sible good at the least possible expense, and we doubt very
much whether his plagiarists and imitators in many States of
the American Confederation have attained to a better solution
of this difficult problem than did this pious priest."
In June, 1680, de la Salle took the first step toward forming
an association by admitting the teachers whom he gathered
about him to his own table; finally, a year later, he went to live
with them. Touched by the admirable zeal and self -sacrifice
of de la Salle, some university-bred men presented themselves
for admission, in 1682 and 1683. "Among these," affirms
Canon Blain, the intimate friend of de la Salle, " there were to
be found men who had solid piety and excellent dispositions to
become his true disciples." Those who had no aptitude for
teaching, he dismissed; the others he trained in the art of
teaching. He determined to organize and systematize his
method of training, and, therefore, opened his Normal Col-
lege, the first establishment of the kind mentioned in the his-
tory of education. Its purpose was to train young men in the
principles and practices of the new method of teaching. It was
favorably regarded by the clergy, who sent to it intelligent
young men, and soon de la Salle had thirty under his direc-
tion.
The course of studies included simply the branches taught
in elementary schools for which the teachers were preparing.
It is a matter of interest to note that when, in 1851, the French
Government established primary and normal schools through-
out the country, it laid down practically the same course.
Here are the two courses:
726 REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE [Sept.,
1684.
Catechism. Moral and religious instruction.
Reading of printed matter. Reading.
Reading of manuscripts. Penmanship.
Penmanship. Elements of the French Ian-
Grammar and Orthography. guage.
Arithmetic, including the sys- Arithmetic, including the legal
tern of weights and meas- system of weights and meas-
ures. ures.
Plain Chant. Religious Music.
De la Salle felt insensibly drawn by Providence to choose
between the Christian schools and ecclesiastical dignities. The
crisis was at hand. The crucial test is the measure of heroic
sacrifice. "What motives," he asks, " shall actuate me in this
choice? Undoubtedly, my end and aim should be the greater
honor and glory of God, the advancement of the Church, my
own perfection, and the salvation of souls. But if these be my
motives, then I should resign my canonry and devote myself
exclusively to the schools and to the education and training of
teachers, who are to manage these schools." In accordance
with this decision, and indifferent to the opinions of men, de
la Salle resolved to renounce all honors and distribute his for-
tune among the poor. The opportunity presented itself in the
famine of 1684. Henceforth, the spirit of his Institute was to draw
its strength from absolute disinterestedness, love of poverty, pure
zeal for the salvation of souls, and perfect abandonment to
Divine Providence. Those of his adversaries who had most
violently censured him for his conduct in this regard, were
overcome by this manifestation of virtue.
His analytical mind prepared him to investigate the laws
and principles of education, his keen perception quickly seized
the fallacies of prevailing systems, his sound judgment readily
suggested better methods, and his genius inaugurated educa-
tional reforms that revolutionized the methods of primary,
elementary, and secondary teaching. Evidently, he was years
in advance of his age. No unbiased mind can approach this
eminent educator and reformer, and not feel convinced of the
debt the educational world owes him.
In February, 1688, de la Salle went to Paris to open a school
in the parish of St. Sulpice. Having seriously studied the
1919.] REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE 727
situation and needs of the children, he drew up a schedule of
study to meet their actual requirements and conditions. He
found it essential to introduce a radical change in the system
heretofore universally followed. This bold innovation was
the substitution of the simultaneous for the individual
method. The individual method, then hi vogue, consisted
in hearing and explaining the lesson of each child sep-
arately, while the others were studying. In the second or
mutual method, the more advanced pupils of a class were em-
ployed in teaching the less advanced under the supervision of
the teacher. This method was brought from India by Bell and
was popularized in England by Lancaster. The simultaneous
method, introduced by de la Salle in April, 1688, graded chil-
dren according to their capacity, putting those of the same
attainments in the same class, with the same book and follow-
ing the same lesson under the same teacher. All teaching is
done by one of these methods in some form. Today the method
most in vogue, which has stood the test of time and experience,
is the one the Brothers of the Christian Schools are identified
with, the simultaneous method.
" Like all fruitful ideas," observes Brother Azarias, " the
simultaneous method is not the exclusive property of any one
man. Others discerned its value, and men partially applied
its principles, long before St. de la Salle made it live in his
work. We do not find it in the university methods of the Mid-
dle Ages. The mere Listening to a lecture, talking upon it, and
holding disputations over it, is far from the simultaneous
method. Nor does it seem to have been followed in the Gram-
mar Schools."
" At the very time when the cry for education is going up
in Paris," pertinently remarks a modern writer, " a saintly
priest is quietly evolving the solution to all these problems. In
1681, St. John Baptist de la Salle had organized the Brothers
of the Christian Schools, and had given them the simultaneous
method of teaching. What Peter Fourier1 touched, what
Komensky 2 and Monsignor de Nesmond 3 and Charles Demia 4
had glimmerings of; what the anonymous memorialist could
nowhere find yet thought to realize, had become a fact."
1 Constitutions of the Sisters of Notre Dame, cxi., art. 6, p. 54.
* Didactica Magna, by Komensky. better known as Comenius (1592-1671).
1 Plan of Instruction and Education for Primary Schools, pp. 60, 64, 65 (1621-1715).
* Founder of the Sisters of St. Charles (1636-1689).
728 REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE [Sept.,
The pupils follow in the same lesson; they observe strict
silence; the teacher in correcting one, is correcting all: here is
the essence of the simultaneous method. Glancing over the
pages of the Manual of School Management, which de la Salle
prepared, we find scattered through them this same principle,
inspiring all the rules of wisdom and prudence in which the
book abounds. With truth Matthew Arnold has said, in speak-
ing of this Manual of School Management: " Later works on the
same subject have little improved the precepts, while they en-
tirely lack the unction." 5
We might quote pages from this handbook, applying the
simultaneous method to all the details of school life with a pre-
cision and direction that bespeaks the master-mind. But it is
needless. The method has not only been embedded in a book,
it has also been embodied in a living organism, that has pre-
served its traditions with the greatest fidelity, and that applies
them the world over. Because all of us have been trained
according to this method and see it practised in nearly all our
public and in many of our private schools throughout the land,
and have ceased to find it a subject of wonder, we may be
inclined to undervalue its importance.
All those conversant with the history of education are
familiar with the long and animated struggle in France between
the partisans of the simultaneous and mutual methods. Emi-
nent educators, philosophers, and statesmen were arrayed on
opposite sides, each claiming the superiority of the method
they championed. The University of France maintained and
practised the mutual method, and naturally insisted that that
method prevail in all schools. The Brothers, however, adhered
to the simultaneous method introduced and perfected by de la
Salle. After almost a century of conflict, common sense prevailed
and the simultaneous method of de la Salle was declared estab-
lished, in 1882, to be henceforth the method adopted in all the
public schools of France. M. Greard, then Minister of Educa-
tion, testified that " the experience of a century had taught
the Government the superiority of the simultaneous method of
teaching." In view of this pedagogical fact, Ferdinand Buis-
son, in his Dictionnaire de Pedagogic, proclaims " John Bap-
tist de la Salle the glory of France as against any other foreign
celebrity whom they would wish to thrust upon us. For when
6 Popular Education of France, p. 15.
1919,] REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE 729
there is question of the origin of schools, it is not necessary for
French erudition to make researches beyond the Rhine, be-
cause the reformer of popular teaching in Austria and Prus-
sia, Ignatius von Felbiger, was born three years after the
death of John Baptist de la Salle."
Another reason contributed to the popularity of the
Brothers' school in Paris. De la Salle, with the keen vision
of a great reformer, resolutely put aside all time-honored but
illogical methods of teaching reading. With true scientific in-
sight, he perceived the absurdity of retaining Latin texts to
teach the art of reading.
The Bishop of Chartres, Godet des Marais, having been
apprised of the new method introduced into his school by the
Brothers, criticized it and insisted upon the traditional method
of teaching reading by means of Latin texts.
In his reply, de la Salle strongly insisted upon the follow-
ing points :
1. The art of reading, in primary and elementary
schools, is of greater and wider utility when taught through
the vernacular, than when taught by means of Latin texts.
2. The vernacular is more easily taught to children who
already possess some knowledge of it, than the Latin, of
which they were wholly ignorant.
3. It requires considerably less time to learn the art of
reading through the vernacular, than through a dead lan-
guage.
4. The boys and girls, attending elementary schools,
can spend only a few years under instruction. Now, if they
are taught reading from a Latin text, they generally leave
school without being able to read the vernacular and with
only an imperfect knowledge of Latin.
As a keen observer of human nature, de la Salle was fully
cognizant of the fact that the genius for conceiving and plan-
ning, differs from the genius of executing and maintaining.
One is speculative; the other practical. Happily for progres-
sive modern education, de la Salle possessed both gifts. With
remarkable readiness and adaptability, he began the work
which succeeding educators applauded and approved : a series
of text-books in the vernacular of reading, spelling, elementary
grammar and composition, and arithmetic. To us nothing
730 REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE [Sept.,
seems more natural than such a procedure; but in his day
prejudice had to be overcome and new methods invented to
meet the new conditions that were hourly arising and demand-
ing adjustment. Only a master-mind could plan and execute
such a reform. To guard against varying moods or caprice and
the introduction of impracticable novelties, de la Salle enacted
wise, though stringent, regulations for his disciples. But regu-
lations, being means to an end, cease to be operative when the
end is attained. This truth should not be overlooked in esti-
mating the meaning and scope of his prohibition of Latin. Its
purpose was served when the vernacular became the basis of
teaching.
The genius of de la Salle was prolific and far-reaching.
He anticipated the progressive spirit of our own century.
In his time as now many pupils were compelled to leave school
at an early age, in order to add to the finances of the
family. To aid such youths de la Salle became, in 1699, the
promoter of adult teaching by establishing the Christian
Academy or the Sunday School. The institution of this
Academy preceded by eighty-four years the establishment of a
public course in drawing in Florence, in 1783, by Duke Leopold.
It is true that prior to the seventeenth century, Sunday
schools had been established elsewhere, but the sole aim was
either to teach Christian Doctrine, or else to instruct pupils
who, because they were occupied with manual labor during the
week, found it impossible to attend the elementary schools.
St. Charles Borromeo established a Sunday school at
Bologna, with the cooperation of the Mayor of the city; and
another was opened at Valencia toward 1584. Again, several
Sunday schools had been instituted in Flanders. But all fol-
lowed the same programme. The Christian Academy, or Sun-
day School, of de la Salle, for adults in the Parish of St. Sul-
pice, Paris, was of a different character and was the first of its
kind in the history of education.
Having carefully studied the existing conditions of so-
ciety, de la Salle determined upon a new and distinct creation.
Accordingly, he announced that apart from reading, writing
and arithmetic, special lessons would be given in geometry,
architecture, drawing and bookkeeping. This was an advance
toward modern methods. The Christian Academy proved a
success from its inception, supplying a need of the time, and
1919.] REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE 731
had an attendance of over two hundred young men. De
la Salle spared neither pains nor expense to maintain the
Academy and assure its success. He attained his object. It
would be impossible to credit, says a contemporary, the good
results obtained from this remarkable innovation.
With the opening of the eighteenth century, de la Salle
was confronted with singularly perplexing conditions. France
had been devastated by war and famine, the people were op-
pressed, commerce and industry were paralyzed. Education,
however, was gradually extending to a wider circle of the
masses, and with the light of instruction came new ideas, new
occupations, new ventures, a breaking away from the old
civilization, and an innate desire to wrestle with the problems
born of new conditions, and aifected by intercourse with other
nations. Even those educated in traditional methods, became
aware of a mighty change in men and things. They felt an
essential want in the actual educational system. The political
horizon had changed, society became more degenerate as the
masses continued to be shrouded in ignorance, the intellectual
world was awakened and cast off its lethargy, assuming a
bolder attitude and aspiring to greater freedom in the realm of
thought and research, and class distinctions were becoming
less marked. Merchants and tradesmen were regarded as
important factors in civic life, essential to the prosperity
and well-being of the nation. In the educational world there
was no intermediary between the classical courses and elemen-
tary instruction. Now, if the sons of merchants and tradesmen
were to meet the new conditions, what means were available to
them? Evidently there was a chasm to be bridged.
De la Salle, perceiving that every grade of school, from
the primary upward, laid undue stress on the Latin language,
resolved to inaugurate a system better adapted to fit young men
for business, professional, and scientific pursuits. Accord-
ingly, he established a course, which, reversing the old order of
things, gave undivided attention to the literature of the mother
tongue, to the fine arts, and the sciences.
The " Bull of Canonization " promulgated by Leo XIII. puts
the seal of the highest authority on the founder and apostle of
modern education. " John Baptist de la Salle," says the Bull,
" was so filled with the plenitude of the Spirit of God that, fore-
seeing by a divine insight, the needs of future centuries, he
732 REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE [Sept.,
created all kinds of establishments adapted to the instruction
and education of youth. Therefore he was not satisfied with
increasing the number of schools for the poor and with per-
fecting their methods, but he also was the first to found schools
for teaching commerce and industry, institutions which today
are known as professional schools. . . . He formulated laws and
drew up excellent regulations to govern them, which still serve
the many institutions that owe their existence to his initiative."
Evidently, de la Salle felt the pulse of his age and dis-
covered its weakness. Therefore, he applied a heroic remedy.
Even in the manner of conducting the studies, he anticipated
our times. That method was elective. Each student applied
himself to those studies which were best suited to his talents,
the best adapted to further his pursuit in life. If we take up
the catalogues of our great American universities and profes-
sional schools of today, we shall find that this method prevails
in all of them, and is yearly obtaining wider recognition.
Among other creations of de la Salle, we find the Boarding
College, established in Paris, in 1698. The history of its origin
is not without interest. When James II. lost his throne, in 1688,
he, with many Irish nobles, sought refuge in France. Among
these were fifty nobles. Louis XIV. could not employ them
advantageously, owing to their ignorance of the French lan-
guage, literature and history; yet he grasped the situation.
With a generosity which was equaled only by the delicacy dis-
played, he determined upon a plan of providing them with
suitable instruction. But to whom could he safely intrust
these noble exiles? Cardinal de Noailles was appealed to, and
and he in turn consulted M. de la Chetardie. Providence was
pointing directly to de la Salle. The rector of St. Sulpice, who
was fully cognizant of this eminent educator's merit, at once
named de la Salle as the only man who could successfully un-
dertake their instruction and education. The choice was
acceptable to the Cardinal, and the plan was proposed to the
Founder of the Brothers, who immediately assented. By this
action, de la Salle gave proof that the Brothers of the Christian
Schools were to conduct colleges as well as elementary schools.
Again, while de la Salle was in Rouen, his reputation as an
educator induced many wealthy and noble families to urge
him to open a special Boarding College at St. Yon, a suburb of
Rouen. The college was accordingly opened in October, 1705.
1919.] REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE 733
The course of study was even more varied and extended than
that given in Paris. At St. Yon there were several distinct
types of modern educational establishments, forming the most
general group of institutions then existing in Europe. In one
part was the Novitiate, in another the boarding college and
in a third, the Manual Training School, with its workshops;
while outside the walls was a free school for the children of the
neighborhood. De la Salle also opened there, in 1716, the
Christian Academy or Normal College, where the young
Brothers completed their literary, scientific, and pedagogical
training.
The laws governing all these distinct schools and the
pedagogical principles laid down by de la Salle evince a grasp
of human nature and of actual conditions truly remarkable.
These laws have been carefully treasured in the Annals and
Archives of the Institute, and will ever stand as a lasting monu-
ment to his genius, both as a reformer and as creator. Our
public school system derives its best features from the plans
and methods of de la Salle. The arrangement of classes,
division of studies, and gradations are all modeled upon those
of the great educator of the seventeenth century.
Before 1740, the Brothers of Cherbourg taught agricul-
ture, theoretically and practically. Any one at all acquainted
with the history of education in France is familiar with the
famous professional agricultural college at Beauvais, an insti-
tution founded under the auspices of Alexis de Tocqueville. Its
aim is to train intelligent farmers and fit them to cultivate the
soil scientifically. Another school worthy of mention is the
great Manual Training School at St. Nicholas, Paris. This
school is the examplar of such establishments as the New York
Catholic Protectory, the Eddington Training School, the Catho-
lic Protectory of Philadelphia, and the Manual Training School
of Quito, Ecuador. In the School of St. Nicholas, Paris, more
than three thousand pupils are receiving practical professional
instruction. When the municipal council of Paris some years
ago concluded to establish a professional school, they sent a
committee to examine the institution in charge of tlie Brothers.
So pleased were they with the methods, discipline, and pro-
gressive spirit of the institution that they declared " the work
of St. Nicholas to be the first school of manual training in Paris,
and the model for all such establishments."
734 REFORMS OF DE LA SALLE [Sept.,
Apart from agricultural, horticultural, naval and manual
training schools, there are the strictly professional scientific
institutions of France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Orient and the
United States. The polytechnic schools of St. Etienne
(France) and Carlsburg (Belgium) deserve special mention.
Then we have superior secondary schools, of which Passy
(Paris) was taken as the standard by the French Government
in 1867. "France is indebted to de la Salle," declared M.
Duruy, Minister of Education, "for establishing, developing,
and popularizing this kind of teaching. If this special kind
of teaching had been generalized, the organization of adult
schools and even special teaching would have been a century in
advance."
The rules and principles which de la Salle gave to his
disciples all bespeak practical good sense. They reveal an
intimate knowledge of boy nature. Written to cover the re-
quirements of men engaged in elementary teaching, the rules
laid down in the Management of Christian Schools stand for
all time, and are equally applicable to the teaching of higher
studies. They are the same rules by which St. de la Salle
prepared the sons of the noblemen who followed James II. to
France for positions of trust in the land of their exile. They
are the principles by which, under his supervision, his disciples
made the Boarding College of St. Yon the most successful
and advanced polytechnic school of his day. They are the
principles with which he indoctrinated the young teachers he
sent forth from the Normal Schools he had established. They
prevail in the class-rooms of all lay religious teaching orders of
men and women, whose methods are now more or less modeled
upon those of St. John Baptist de la Salle.
PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP.
BY ANTHONY BECK.
|E used to boast of our country being the " melting
pot " in which men of all races speedily became
imbued with a new spirit of liberty and loyalty.
But the World War with its conflicting race
issues has shaken us out of this rut of self-com-
placency. There has been a nation-wide awakening to the need
of inculcating real Americanism among large classes of our
people. The means most generally recommended is the ban-
ning of all foreign languages from schools, especially the
grades. Other methods suggested are the barring of immigra-
tion until the foreign element has been absorbed, the deport-
ing of radical agitators, classes in civics for foreigners, and
courses in patriotism in the schools.
The problem is not merely one of language, regulation of
immigration, night schools, and the curbing of alien propa-
ganda. It is much more complex and fundamental. It is essen-
tially a problem of the spirit. Some of the worst foes of Amer-
icanism are thoroughly conversant with the workings of our
form of government and very proficient in the use of English.
Six years ago William J. Sidis was graduated from one of our
leading secular universities as a boy prodigy. Recently he be-
gan a six months' sentence in prison for utterances which a
court pronounced un-American. According to Lieutenant
Commander Amherst of the Naval Intelligence Bureau, a
Jewess who graduated from Chicago University has been giving
Bolshevik lectures in numerous cities. Not all the wild-eyed
advocates of Soviet government in our country are foreign-
born or even the sons and daughters of former immigrants.
Some of these gentry trace their descent to old Yankee stock.
To be an American requires much more than knowledge of the
English language.
Unquestionably English should be the medium of instruc-
tion in our schools. Here and there it may be necessary to use
some other language in the first few classes as a means of teach*
ing English. In such cases a foreign language, if employed by
736 PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP [Sept.,
teachers with the true American spirit, facilitates acquisition
of our country's tongue. This is especially true of adult im-
migrants. In the Library Journal* the leading library pub-
lication, John Foster Carr, Director of the Immigrant Publica-
tion Society, submits the following on the topic of " Books in
Foreign Languages and Americanization : " " The experi-
ence of librarians who are most active in this work among
our former immigrants, is overwhelmingly in favor of
the use of the books in foreign languages. . . . They are unani-
mous in reporting that the foreign department is the most prac-
tical and direct means of increasing the circulation of books
in English among the foreign-born, particularly books on
learning our language, books on American history, biography,
books about citizenship and others of wholesome and use-
ful sorts. ... In New York the results have been so satisfactory
that within a single year the library added twenty per cent to
its foreign department." Another library " in one of our largest
cities until a few years ago refused to circulate books in foreign
languages that were not books of culture. But a change was
made, and the director is enthusiastic over the results realized
among the foreign element." " Of course," adds Mr. Carr, " the
foreign books must be carefully chosen." Otherwise the
shelves will be crowded with books of radicalism. Mr. Carr
notes that properly selected books are a great assistance to the
" heavy percentage of those who cannot gain a practical speak-
ing knowledge of a new language, no matter how great their
desire." This handicap is not peculiar to the foreigner. Com-
paratively few Americans residing in European countries, learn
to speak well the language of the land of their residence.
However, a large percentage of the immigrants can acquire
at least an elementary working knowledge of our country's
language; and where even this little is impossible, they can and
should become acquainted in their native tongue with Ameri-
can institutions and learn to appreciate the privilege of being
an American citizen. All who do not apply for naturalization
within a reasonable period should be sent back to their native
country, exception being made for aliens sojourning here on
official and other business of importance. Too long has our
country been the stamping ground of alien agitators and propa-
gandists from almost every land under the sun.
..J J April issue.
1919.] PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP 737
Still we cannot expect to dragoon the immigrant into being
an American. He will become a good citizen only when he
loves our country and its ideals; and love is not born of force.
Affection is the outgrowth of admiration, appreciation, and un-
derstanding. When the average newcomer finds that our coun-
try is really a land of liberty and opportunity, demanding
obedience to reasonable laws but respecting certain inalien-
able rights, he will give his fealty to the Stars and Stripes.
Real success in promoting citizenship depends in great
measure on the proper regard for the religious and cultural
ideals of immigrants. "The immigrants," said Rev. John
O'Grady in his address to the recent Americanization Con-
ference,2 " have for centuries been struggling for religious and
racial ideals in their own land. Autocratic European govern-
ments have been unable to deprive them of their ideals; and
America cannot hope to do it." Nevertheless, Prussian methods
are employed. " Four-fifths of the so-called * Americanization '
work now carried on," says The Nation,3 " is an ignorant and
narrow attempt to force our immigrants into the straight-jacket
of the provincial, materialistic, and inurbane ' American ' life."
The New York Evening Post4 also protests against "certain
kinds of so-called ' Americanization.' " Under the caption, " At
the Muzzle-End of ' Americanization,' " it quotes the Wash-
ington Posten,5 a Norwegian- American journal of Seattle, as
saying : " In the midst of all the wild howling which nowadays
is heard against the foreign-born in this country every day, it
is a pleasure to thumb through Americanization, a magazine
published by the Bureau of Education of the Department of
the Interior. This magazine breathes the spirit of a deep un-
derstanding of the fact that the Americanization of our foreign-
born citizens cannot be furthered by the introduction of Prus-
sian conditions in our free America. The department does not
mention one word about prohibiting the immigrant the use of
his mother tongue or by violence and force compel him to adopt
the English language." The Posten goes on to point out that
" the question of the Americanization of the foreign-born can-
not be solved by people who heartlessly abuse and ridicule the
country the immigrant has left." It cites instances of such
abuse even by officials. The Seattle journal also emphasizes
« Held under the auspices of the Department of the Interior.
8 May 17th. « June llth. « May 9th.
VOL. cix. 47
738 PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP [Sept.,
the importance of cooperating with the schools, societies, news-
papers, and churches of the immigrant.
Because of her insistence on loyalty to God which is the
basis of loyalty to country in all lawful things, the Catholic
Church has been the most efficient promoter of good citizen-
ship. Her war record proves this contention. Because she is
the Church Catholic, she speaks to men from every land a
universal soul language; nor are their tongues and their racial
ideas entirely foreign to her. For this reason the Catholic
Church can, as a rule, adopt their best traits, blend them
with American characteristics and thereby enrich our national
culture. It is the combination of the best traits of the
most enterprising people of many countries that has made
the United States a nation unique in the world's history.
The immigrant usually derives considerable advantage from
coming to our shores; but he also generally contributes some-
thing to the culture of this most cosmopolitan among the
nations.
"Our failure with the immigrant," observes Father O'Grady,8
" has been due in no little measure to our traditional attitude
towards him. A few years ago it was the despised Irish; now
it is the ' Hunkie ' and the * Dago.' American industries and the
American politician have to bear their share of the blame for
the failure of the immigrant to understand the institutions of
free America. It was difficult for them to appreciate the ideals
of a country which permitted its great employers to work them
for unreasonably long hours, for insufficient wages, and under
conditions prejudicial to their health and welfare." Secretary
Morrison of the American Federation of Labor, commenting on
the bomb outrages of June 3d, pointed out that steamship com-
panies and trusts stimulated immigration. This in itself might
have had no injurious effect on national welfare, if the new-
comers had been well treated and initiated into the spirit of our
institutions. But " many of these immigrants were herded in
large cities or other industrial centres." They constituted little
miserable foreign colonies at the mercy of company stores and
foremen. "At election time, in innumerable instances, they were
voted en bloc, and, if they would organize a trade union or sus-
pended work to stop exploitation, they were enjoined, clubbed,
and jailed. This is an old story in West Virginia, Colorado,
• Address at the Americanization Conference.
1919.] PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP 739
Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. What can Americanism mean to
those people? To them Americanism means a petty boss and
low wages. They know nothing of our theory of government.
. . . Americanism must be more than a shibboleth. It must mean
education, opportunity, and social justice for all. We must
vitalize our declarations and our beliefs that injustice has no
place on American soil."
In other words, teaching of the American language and of
civics is only part of the huge task in the promotion of citizen-
ship confronting our country. Indeed, there are fully as
many, if not more, native-born people who have lost the Amer-
ican spirit as there are immigrants who have never acquired
it. We should strive to wipe out illiteracy and to teach the
great majority of immigrants at least elementary English. But
still more important is the inculcation of the true American
spirit and of fundamental Christian principles among all, na-
tive-born as well as immigrants.
To be American means, in the first place, to be patriotic,
to love our country, and to be loyal to its ideals. America's
ideals are Christian. The widespread decay of morals, the
numerous industrial and social ills of our day do not disprove
this contention. Some of the founders of the Republic were
infected with the anti-social ideas of Rousseau and other
makers of the French Revolution. But most of them were God-
fearing men who put fundamental Christian principles into
the foundations of our government. Loyalty to our institutions,
therefore, implies obedience to the laws of God. " No man,"
said Pope Leo XIII., " can be loyal to his country who is not
loyal to his conscience and his God."
The good Christian, especially the practical Catholic, ob-
serves the divine and natural laws; and this is most conducive
to national well-being. He gives to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. He is ever ready
to defend his country against unjust attack. As a father, he
does not make himself guilty of the outrage of throttling life
at its source, but rears as God-fearing citizens the children Prov-
idence intrusts to him. He wages war against vicious diseases,
divorce, and other evils playing havoc with family life and
sapping the nation's man power. He does not patronize sex
photoplays and novels, salacious newspapers, and prurient
magazines which poison youth and vitiate public morality.
740 PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP [Sept.,
He reveres in his wife and daughters that high sense of modesty
which refuses to parade styles of dress suggestive of the
underworld. His sons do not believe that chastity is impos-
sible and necessary in women only. If honored with a political
office he performs his duty conscientiously, uses his position
to promote his fellow-men's well-being, not to enrich himself
with money stolen from the public treasury. As an employer
he provides decent working conditions and reasonable hours,
recognizes the right of labor to organize, and pays a living wage
in accordance with the principles laid down by Pope Leo 7
nearly thirty years ago. If an employee, he gives a full day's
work for a good wage, and does not turn Socialist or anarchist
when he has a grievance but uses legitimate, constitutional
means to obtain relief, meanwhile bearing his burden, mind-
ful that the Saviour, too, was a worker and suffered unjustly.
As a captain of industry, the good Christian citizen does not
exploit his workmen nor charge exorbitant prices for his
product. If a doctor, he uses his skill to save life and alleviate
suffering, not to promote race suicide and to fleece the public.
If a lawyer, he promotes respect for all laws based on justice.
He seeks to allay strife and to conciliate, instead of nursing
quarrels and enriching himself at the expense of clients. If
intrusted with the education of youth, he inculcates above all
faith in God, respect for His laws, and obedience to legitimate
civil authority. As a clergyman, he devotes his life to the cul-
tivation of all the Christian virtues and to the promotion of
fealty to God without which there can be no true and consistent
loyalty to country.
Any one conversant with the various phases of our national
life must admit that large numbers of our people fail to meas-
ure up to the standard of the Christian citizen and, conse-
quently, are not Americans in the true sense of the word. Tens
of thousands of homes are annually broken up by the divorce
demon, countless numbers of innocents are sacrificed to the god
of lust, the social evil, as the draft revealed, is horribly preva-
lent, floods of salacious literature deluge the country, crowds
flock to prurient photoplays, cases of " graft " and corruption
in office are all to common, the revelations of the Federal Trade
Commission show profiteering in necessaries of life, workers
are oppressed, or, in turn, make exorbitant demands and
1 Encyclical on the Condition of Labor.
1919.] PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP 741
profiteer in certain trades. That many of these offences have
become common and are not generally frowned upon as detri-
mental to the country's best interests, does not make them less
unpatriotic. A man may display the flag on all possible occa-
sions, make high-sounding patriotic speeches, and buy liberty
bonds; but if he furthers any of these evils, he is far from being
a real, a patriotic American. Nearly every larger community
in the country was imposed upon by such "camouflage
patriots " during the War.
There is no need to detail the sordid story now being told
all too frequently in courts and newspapers. Let us rather dwell
on the civic virtues, honesty, justice and decency, that lie at the
basis of true national greatness and are indispensable to good
citizenship. But Americanism means more than good citizenship
in the ordinary sense. Throughout the world the word Amer-
ica is synonymous with independence, security for the rights
of the individual, tolerance, opportunity and fair play.
But liberty does not mean license to break law or to
ignore it. Liberty does not imply the right to drive any kind
of a bargain, to corrupt youth, to preach class hatred, or to
waste in self-indulgence and pernicious luxury wealth in-
trusted to us by Providence for the welfare of our fellow-man.
America should be a great land of opportunity where the op-
pressed and needy of all nations can achieve independence
and earn a decent livelihood. Industrial and financial auto-
crats have monopolized the country's opportunities and re-
sources in many places, and made serfs of those for whom this
natural wealth was intended. To be genuinely American im-
plies the abolition of this economic autocracy and the granting
of equal opportunity to all who strive earnestly to become good
citizens. It means also security for the rights of the individual.
America was the first country of modern times to write into its
Constitution the Christian principle that certain personal,
natural rights cannot be alienated by majorities or by civil
authority. But the freedom of education, for instance, which
was guaranteed by the Constitution, is now menaced by private
and government monopolies. Philanthropic foundations with
enormous wealth at their disposal have usurped control of
the policies of many educational institutions. These founda-
tions, a national organization of educators, labor unions, and
other agencies are cooperating to set up a Federal Department
742 PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP [Sept.,
of Education which would virtually permit a few men, subject
to political influence, to control all the schools of the country.
One of the reasons they assign is that such a department would
aid in making Americans. While it would assist some States in
abolishing illiteracy, its underlying principle is un-American.
Let us teach English and civics to the immigrant and elimi-
nate illiteracy among native-born citizens! But let us also
try to lead those of us who have lost sight of the principles of
Washington and his fellow-citizens back to the original Ameri-
can ideals! The National Catholic War Council is showing
the way. It is encouraging Catholic societies everywhere to co-
operate with the public authorities in promoting the study of
English and civics among immigrants. It is organizing com-
mittees in Catholic parishes with a large immigrant population
for the study of civic and industrial problems. It is conducting
a nation-wide campaign for the promotion of industrial justice
and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Some Catholic
societies have for years worked along these lines. The Council
is calling on all Catholics to take up the great work.
Love of our country and loyalty to the Church should
prompt us to cooperate. With a great part of the world in the
throes of famine and of misery; with radicalism rampant and
rearing its monstrous head in our own land; with infant re-
publics all over Europe looking to our country for aid and
counsel in establishing their governments, it would be treason to
refuse to do all in our power to assist the stricken, to curb the
evils striking at the very foundation of our liberty and institu-
tions, and to develop in this land, so bounteously blessed by
God, the exemplar of a Christian democratic commonwealth.
The world's heart beats today with the pulsation of a new
day of opportunity. Our great country has emerged from the
conflict as a giant among nations. A grand vista of power and
prosperity opens before us, provided we follow the road of
sound Christian growth and development. In this vast land
of boundless resources Providence has brought together the
best from every race under the sun, but there are forces of dis-
solution at work within us. These forces are not born only
of ignorance of our institutions and language. They spring
from a deeper source. More than half of our people do not
profess adherence to any creed. And yet, as George Washing-
ton said in his Farewell Address, religion and morality are
1919.] PROMOTION OF CITIZENSHIP 743
essential to national well-being. No legislation, however, wise;
no appeals to patriotism, be they ever so stirring; no amount
of teaching of civics will alone save the day. But the Church of
Christ, which rescued the world when sunk in heathenism, will
with her divine power stem the rising tide of neo-paganism and
be the most efficient factor for the promotion of good citizen-
ship— if we apply her precepts to the solution of every problem,
industrial, social, educational and moral. Let us then proclaim
her saving message to all our fellow-citizens by word and ex-
ample! Let us bend all our energies to translating into prac-
tice her social principles.
By jealously guarding the sacred rights of Christian educa-
tion; by developing our democracy along industrial lines and
preserving it from the virus of Socialism and the domination
of economic autocracy; by championing sound labor and so-
cial measures in the legislatures and in Congress; by warring
on the licentious theatre and photoplay, the salacious journal,
and the twin monsters of race suicide and divorce; by cooperat-
ing in carrying out a comprehensive plan of Christian Social
Reform and reconstruction, we will build up Americans of the
highest order and help to realize the poet's prediction concern-
ing our great Republic :
Westward the course of empire takes its way.
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.
CARDINAL NEWMAN AND GILBERT K. CHESTERTON.
BY ALFRED G. BRICKEL, S.J.
T may seem a paradox perpetrated by Gilbert K.
Chesterton himself to assert that he is, of all
modern writers, nearest of kin intellectually to
Cardinal Newman. Newman's sober statement
and leisurely-marching sentences contrast
strangely, I admit, with the keen-edged aphorism and rapid-
fire utterance of Chesterton. But the paradox of their simi-
larity will vanish if we remember that differences of style need
not indicate differences in the ideas they help to reveal. Re-
ligion may be preached or taught scientifically or sung. For
only yesterday Cardinal Mercier expressed in thrilling pastorals
what St. Thomas encased in dry syllogisms or Prudentius
sang in martial hexameters. Similarly Newman and Ches-
terton differ in style but agree in ideas and philosophic outlook.
Chesterton, like Newman, compelled the attention of his
generation by writing a philosophical romance; a daring book,
to be sure, but one that gave him, as the Apologia gave New-
man, a permanent place in English literature. But it is not
only in the similarity of their search as revealed in the Apol-
ogia and in Orthodoxy that Newman and Chesterton resemble
each other. A closer intellectual kinship, unapparent, or, at
least unemphasized in their autobiographies, becomes clearer
as one reads their more objective writings. The likeness of
their sympathies about the subjects they chose, the frequency
with which they wrote on the same topics and the striking,
even verbal, similarity of their conclusions are more than
coincidences. They are the natural results of a harmony of
mind and heart in these two philosophers which is all the more
interesting because of the contrast of their style.
Medievalism is the first all-pervading resemblance between
Newman and Chesterton. Chesterton openly avows his alle-
giance to the Middle Ages : " I will venture to make even of
these trivial fragments the high boast that I am a medievalist
and not a modern."1 Then there is in the introduction to
1 Gargoyles.
1919.] NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON 745
Heretics an impressive picture of "a gray-clad monk (in whom
we see Chesterton), the spirit of the Middle Ages;" Chesterton
evidently approves of the monk's advice to the mob that they
should consider the philosophy of light before tearing down the
lamp post. In the same introduction Chesterton says: "I
revert to the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century in-
spired by the general hope of getting something done."
Mediaeval, again, is the inspiration of his best poetry, Lepanto,
The Wild Knight, A Christmas Song for Three Guilds, The
Crusader Returns from Captivity, and the drinking songs in
The Flying Inn; The Architect of Spears is typical of the
medievalism of many of his essays. His novels are full of
mediaeval touches and one of them, The Napoleon of Notting
Hill, is reminiscent of the thirteenth century rather than the
twentieth. But any lingering doubt about Chesterton's appre-
ciation of the Middle Ages is dispelled by his Short History of
England. In it everything mediaeval is seen, not through the
haze of Protestant prejudice, but through the eyes of one who
is a Catholic at heart. Where Mr. Wells sees only " dirt and
chickens " as distinctive features, Chesterton has riveted his
gaze on the' really distinctive features of mediaevalism : the
guilds, the crusades, the charters of liberty, the cathedrals, the
song of Roland, St. Thomas a Becket, St. Louis and St. Dominic,
philosophers, heraldry and jesters.
Newman owns his fealty to mediaevalism as frankly as
Chesterton. He glories in the fact that " Oxford has and ever
has had what men of the world will call a Popish character,
that in opinion and tone of thought its members are successors
of the old monks." 2 Then there is Newman's love of
Gothic. " I think that that style which is called Gothic,
is endowed with a profound and a commanding beauty, such as
no other style possesses with which we are acquainted, and
which probably the Church will not see surpassed till it attain
to the Celestial City. No other architecture now used for
sacred purposes seems to be the growth of an idea, whereas
the Gothic style is as harmonious and as intellectual as it is
graceful." 3 Since Newman says in another place that " our
architecture is an effect of our state of mind," it is easy to infer
that he approved of the state of mind, the entire world of
spiritual impulses that produced Gothic art. For Ralph Adams
* Mediaeval Oxford. 3 Idea of a University.
746 NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON [Sept.,
Gram has shown in his Substance of Gothic that all the philos-
ophy, religion and literature of the Middle Ages is built into the
gray cathedrals. The universities, as true a product of
medievalism as the cathedrals, Newman eulogized in some of
his finest essays; the system of education advocated in the
Idea of a University is mediaeval to the core. Finally New-
man recognized in Sir Walter Scott the precursor of the reli-
gious ideas of the Oxford Movement; and Sir Walter is nothing
if he is not the reviver of medievalism.
Newman and Chesterton resemble the men of the thir-
teenth century in their positive dogmatic attitude and in their
contempt for skepticism. In a paragraph of Heretics Chester-
ton thus arraigns the modernists : " The vice of the modern
notion of mental progress is that it is always something con-
cerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries,
the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as
mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more
definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human
brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come
to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever
to believe we are hearing of something having almost the char-
acter of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail
that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was
too strong to keep a door shut." Newman's theory of knowl-
edge in the Grammar of Assent is so dogmatic that it assumes
as certain what Neo-Scholastics have written books to prove,
viz., that certitude exists, that an external world exists, that the
mind can know the external world.
Skepticism is rejected by Newman and Chesterton as vigor-
ously as dogmatism is asserted. Chesterton devotes a chap-
ter in Orthodoxy, " The Suicide of Thought," to a criticism of
skeptics, but his attitude towards them is best summarized
perhaps in the following sentence from Heretics: "When a
man drops one doctrine after another in a refined skep-
ticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system,
when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when
he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagina-
tion, he sits as God, holding no form of creed, but contemplat-
ing all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly back-
wards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the un-
consciousness of the grass." Newman, too, looks upon skepti-
1919.] NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON 747
cism as the gradual subsidence and final submergence of
the mind. " Resolve to believe nothing," he says, " and you
must prove your proofs and analyze your elements, sinking
farther and farther, and finding ' in the lowest depth a lower
deep' till you come to the broad bosom of skepticism." *
Other favorite aversions of Newman and Chesterton are
the popular catchwords like " Darwinism " or " Progress," or
" Eugenics," which the supposedly educated mob snatches up
and flings out as though the mere words were an indictment of
orthodoxy. What's Wrong With the World, Heretics, Ortho-
doxy and The Defendant are full of proofs that the pet phrases
of modernists have met no keener analyst than Gilbert K. Ches-
terton. That shibboleth-slaying was as agreeable to Newman
as it is to Chesterton, is clear from the following sentence:
"When, for instance, I hear speakers at public meetings de-
claiming about 'large and enlightened views' or about ' freedom
of conscience ' or about ' the Gospel,' or any other popular
subject of the day, I am far from denying that some among
them know what they are talking about; but it would be satis-
factory, in a particular case, to be sure of the fact; for it seems
to me that those household words may stand in a man's mind
for a something or other, very glorious indeed, but very misty,
like the idea of ' civilization ' which floats before the mental
vision of a Turk, that is, if when he interrupts his smoking
to utter the word, he condescends to reflect whether it has
any meaning at all." 5
Respect for tradition and appreciation of the culture and
religious life of the past is another common denominator of
the philosophy of Chesterton and Newman. While Shaw,
Wells, James, Tyrrel, Loisy, Sabatier, and Harnack were clam-
oring for the total destruction of Christian philosophy and
theology, Chesterton affirmed in The Defendant: " It has ap-
peared to me that progress should be something else besides
a continual parricide; therefore I have investigated the dust-
heaps of humanity and found a treasure in all of them." And
in the introduction to Orthodoxy he comes out more explicitly
in favor of tradition. " Tradition may be defined as an exten-
sion of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the
most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy
of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and
4 Grammar of Assent. • Idea of a University.
748 NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON [Sept.,
arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking
about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the
accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified
by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a
good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks
us not to neglect a good man's opinion even if he is our father.
I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and
tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea.
We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks
voted by stones ; these shall vote by tombstones."
Newman's respect for tradition was greater than Chester-
ton's. The Fathers were the intellectual cause of Newman's
conversion; their philosophy erected on a basis of Aris-
totelianism was the philosophy of Newman. This traditional
philosophy he defended at the time when Carlyle, Arnold,
Acton, Emerson, Lowell and others in the philosophical and
literary world were seeking their intellectual salvation from
Germany. The only references Newman makes to the
modernists in philosophy are disparaging. Descartes, the
founder of modern philosophy, is reproved by Newman for
not respecting tradition: "He was too independent in his
inquiries to be always correct in his conclusions." Kant, the fin-
isher of modern philosophy, is mentioned as an exponent of
pantheism, " whether we view it in the philosophy of Kant, in
the open infidelity of Strauss, or in the religious professions
of the new Evangelical Church of Prussia." 8
Logical acumen tempered by a distrust of the all-
sufficiency of logic is another common characteristic of our
philosophers. Orthodoxy remembers its Greek meaning on
every page; it is filled with straight thinking; it scintillates with
Abelardian dialectic. Still its author warns us not to put our-
selves into the well-lighted prison of logic, because logic, un-
touched by mysticism, poetry and common sense leads to the
madhouse. His reason is simple. The world which the logician
seeks to imprison in a formula is not quite logical. " The real
trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable
world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest
kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable but not quite.
Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks
just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its ex-
OR Development.
1919.] NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON 749
actitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness
lies in wait." There is no need of proving that the man who
carved Kingsley so delicately and dialectically was a logician.
But it may be interesting to know that he, as well as Chester-
ton, knew the fallacy of measuring everything by the tape-line
of logic. " While we talk logic, we are unanswerable; but then,
on the other hand, this universal living scene of things is after
all as little a logical world as it is a poetical; and, as it cannot
without violence be exalted into poetical perfection, neither can
it be attenuated into a logical formula." 7
To attack an opponent's assumptions rather than his state-
ments is a manoeuvre common to Newman and Chesterton.
Both are logical detectives ; they do not fear the exact wording
of their opponent's arguments; but they know that the surest
way to settle a dispute is to reduce it to its simplest elements,
the one or two propositions on which it rests. There are many
subjects in which Newman and Chesterton have probed the
assumptions of their adversaries, but their words are most quot-
able on the subject of miracles since they have there stated
their conclusions most epigrammatically. The unbeliever does
not reject miracles because he has examined the evidence for
any miracle in particular; he rejects them because he has an
a priori assumption against miracles in general. The believer
tests the evidence for particular miracles and accepts some of
them, because he too has an assumption, the assumption that
there is a Power above phenomena capable of breaking in upon
an arrangement which was created as contingent and not as
necessary. Listen to Chesterton : " If a man believes in un-
alterable natural law, he cannot believe in any miracle in any
age. If a man believe in a will behind law, he can believe in
any miracle in any age." 8 Newman's words are much the
same. "What (fact) is to alter the order of nature? I reply:
That which willed it; that which willed it, can unwill it."9
Newman is even more decisive against the main assumption of
unbelievers. " They are saying, What has happened nine hun-
dred and ninety-nine times one way cannot possibly happen on
the one thousandth time another way, because what has hap-
pened nine hundred and ninety-nine times one way is likely
to happen in the same way on the one thousandth. But un-
likely things do happen sometimes. If, however, they mean
T Grammar of Assent. » Orthodoxy. • Grammar of Assent.
750 NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON [Sept.,
that the existing order of nature constitutes a physical neces-
sity, and that a law is an unalterable fact, this is to assume
the very point in debate and is much more than asserting its
antecedent probability." 10
Newman and Chesterton have turned an apparent dis-
advantage in the argument for Christianity into a positive argu-
ment in its favor. Unbelievers often allege that instead of a
single, clear and compelling argument that would force their
assent to the truth of Christianity, there are a series of intricate,
elaborately connected and long-drawn-out arguments. New-
man and Chesterton show that this intricacy is just what is to
be expected and that the adversaries' charge is a compliment
rather than a reproach. Both writers stress the fact that the
argument for Christianity is a unit, coalescing out of a series
of independent and converging evidences. Chesterton says:
" When once one believes in a creed, one is proud of its com-
plexity, as scientists are proud of the complexity of science. It
shows how rich it is in discoveries. If it is right at all, it is a
compliment to say that it's elaborately right. . . . But this in-
volved accuracy of the thing makes it very difficult to describe
this accumulation of truth. It is very hard for a man to defend
anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparatively
easy when he is only partially convinced. He is partially con-
vinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing, and
he can expound it. But a man is not really convinced of a
philosophic theory when he finds that something proves it.
He is only really convinced when he finds that everything
proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing
to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly
to sum them up. Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent
man, on the spur of the moment, ' Why do you prefer civiliza-
tion to savagery? ' he would look wildly round at object after
object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, ' Why, there
is that bookcase . . . and the coals in the coal scuttle . . . and
pianos . . . and policemen.' The whole case for civilization
(and we may add, for Christianity) is that the case for it is
complex. It has done so many things. But the very mul-
tiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming
makes reply impossible." "
All through the Grammar of Assent, the Oxford University
" Grammar of Assent. " Orthodoxy.
1919.] NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON 751
Sermons and the Essay on Development, Newman insists on the
intricacy and converging character of the Christian evidences,
but the following passage comes closest to the above para-
graph from Orthodoxy: "As regards what are commonly
called Evidences, that is, arguments a posteriori, conviction for
the most part follows not upon any one great and decisive
proof, but upon a number of very minute circumstances to-
gether, which the mind is quite unable to count up and
methodize in an argumentative form. Let a person only call
to mind the clear impression he has about matters of every
day's occurrence, that this man is bent on a certain object, or
that that man was displeased or another suspicious; or that
one is happy and another unhappy; and how much depends in
such impressions on manner, voice, accent, words uttered,
silence instead of words, and all the many subtle symptoms
which are felt by the mind but cannot be contemplated; and
let him consider how very poor an account he is able to give of
his impression, if he avows it, and is called upon to justify it." "
Versatility combined with depth of thought is another
noticeable feature in the philosophy of Chesterton and New-
man. It will hardly be denied that Newman's versatility is
perfectly compatible with a thorough treatment of his subject.
But that Chesterton is deep as well as versatile will require a
brief statement. Chesterton is anything but a shallow his-
torian; he has succeeded in his Short History of England in
being as interesting as Macaulay, without sacrificing truth to
cadences and antitheses. Chesterton is one of the most pene-
trating of critics as his Robert Browning and Charles Dickens
and many of his essays prove. He is besides a good poet, jour-
nalist and novelist. Finally his Orthodoxy, Heretics and What's
Wrong With the World proclaim him a great philosopher in an
age which philosophizes in essays and prefaces. Chesterton's
depth will appear even better if he is contrasted with some of
his contemporaries who undoubtedly show genius. Mr. Wells
is a genius in one subject-matter, in writing novels. When he
strays into theology the result is, I admit, versatile; but it is a
superficial versatility; critically considered, God The Invisible
King is a ridiculus mm. When Mr. Wells would seem versatile
by referring to history, he evinces an ignorance and shallowness
which we should not like to attribute to a boy in high school.
u Oxford University Sermons.
752 NEWMAN AND CHESTERTON [Sept.,
Arnold Bennett and Galsworthy are novelists of genius but, like
Wells, they are blind to the influence of Christianity not only as
a spiritual force, but even as a philosophical phenomenon.
There are other notable resemblances between Newman
and Chesterton. They are both realists; they abhor German
philosophy, Calvinism and Puritanism; they like to prove their
statements not by metaphysics, but by concrete historical in-
stances; they believe in the pragmatic criterion as a preliminary
criterion not as an ultimate one; they are convinced that Eng-
lish government in Ireland has been and is a withering curse;
their philosophy is to a great extent occasional (the Apologia
and Orthodoxy are the answer to a challenge) , being imbedded
in essays, poems, prefaces, novels and letters to newspapers
rather than in formal treatises. For the informal character of
Chesterton's philosophy we should be grateful, and we can say
of him what Wilfrid Ward says of Newman: "We can be
thankful that we have as the legacy of his life work not a few
technical magna opera sealed with the approval of the savants,
but the outpourings of a rich nature, rich in the gifts of spiritual
insight and devotion to duty, rich in the imagination and
knowledge of the historian, and the fancy of the poet, rich in
the brilliancy of literary form as well as in philosophic medi-
tation, riches not cast in scientific mold, but the free outpour-
ings of his nature, given to the world, as occasion offered, bring-
ing the man in close contact not with the learned few, but with
the human many." 13
13 Last Lectures of Wilfrid Ward.
FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET.
BY MARGARET MUNSTERBERG.
LILIUM REGIS.
O Lily of the King! Low lies thy silver wing,
And long has been the hour of thine un queening;
And thy scent of Paradise on the night-wind spills its sighs,
Nor any take the secrets of its meaning.
O Lily of the King! I speak a heavy thing,
0 patience, most sorrowful of daughters I
Lo, the hour is at hand for the troubling of the land,
And red shall be the breaking of the waters.
Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the blast shall with thee talk,
With the mercies of the King for thine awning;
And the just understand that thine hour is at hand,
Thine hour at hand with power in the dawning.
When the nations lie in blood, and their kings a broken brood,
Look up, O most sorrowful of daughters I
Lift up thy head and hark what sounds are in the dark,
For His feet are coming to thee on the waters!
O Lily of the King! I shall not see, that sing,
1 shall not see the hour of thy queening!
But my Song shall see, and wake like a flower that dawn-winds shake,
And sigh with joy the odors of its meaning.
O Lily of the King remember then the thing,
That this dead mouth sang; and thy daughters,
As they dance before His way, sing there on the Day
What I sang when the Night was on the waters!
HIS apotheosis to the Catholic Church, which now
seems a prophecy, is not an English rendering of
a mediaeval hymn, neither is it an ode from the
devout lips of a seventeenth century singer as
Vaughan or George Herbert — it is an " ecclesiasti-
cal ballad " sung by a singer of our own day, one whose death
was mourned, by poets rather than the reading public, little
more than ten years ago. Francis Thompson belongs to the
" modern " poets by the calendar, although, for that matter, he
might as well be and has been considered the last of the Vic-
torians. His muse, however, except for the heritage of the
VOL. ax. 48
754 FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET [Sept.,
great poets before him, notably Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, might
as well have sprung up in an earlier century. Not that he is, like
Tennyson, in The Idylls of the King, a deliberate romancer
of the past; the past concerned Francis Thompson not a whit
more than the living present. To this great Catholic poet of
modern times his Catholicism was as young, as modern, as vital
to all lesser phases of life as it was to Dante or St. Augustine.
Out of his poetry and his prose it shines as pure, as unaffected,
as irresistible as the matchless Catholicism of Murillo shines
forth from his Madonnas, or, let us say, his St. Francis, the
patron saint of our poet.
In a life of suffering and asceticism, at times in the greatest
squalor and degradation, the poet lived with his visions and,
like the lotos flower which is the symbol of purity because
it grows out of the mire, stainless and beautiful, he was ever in
search of beauty — the beauty of the spirit which he sought be-
hind " the veil of flesh." In this power of the inner eye to be-
hold a manifestation of divine love in the lowliest, in the
most sordid creature, he resembles the Austrian poet, R. M.
Rilke, who from the misery of Paris streets, as Thompson did
from darkest London, raised the mystic white flowers of his
devout inspiration.
The life of Francis Thompson has been chronicled for
all time in a gem of biographies by Everard Meynell, the son of
Thompson's great benefactors and discoverers, Wilfrid and
Alice Meynell. The biographer who, from his childhood, knew
the reserved, ascetic poet so little known to others, has read into
every phase, down to the most trivial, of his strange, lustreless
life, that inner meaning which the poet himself had enclosed in
his splendid, refulgent verse.
In all his privation, his visions never left him. He was,
indeed, like the little girl with the matches in Andersen's fairy-
tale, who, barefoot and shivering, struck one match after the
other, because in every flickering flame she saw a radiant
dream which made her forget hunger and cold. A poem found
among Thompson's papers after his death, testifies to the inner
vision that brightened his London nights:
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry — and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
1919.] FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET 755
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry, — clinging Heaven by the hems;
And io, Christ walking on the water
Not of Gennesareth, but Thames !
When almost engulfed by the downward stream of misery,
a miracle happened. After many failures, an essay of his,
Paganism Old and New, together with some poems, attracted
the more than passing notice of Mr. Wilfrid Meynell, the editor
of the Catholic periodical Merry England, who took great pains
to trace the unknown, elusive poet. At last he was found,
ragged and perplexed, and from that first meeting on, Mr. Mey-
nell was the poet's life-long friend. Indeed, to him the lovers
of Thompson owe as much as to the poet himself who, but for
the benefactor who recognized his powers and believed in him,
might have drooped in the London streets, his genius withered
before it was in bloom. Mr. Meynell sent Thompson to a
private hospital, had him cared for in the quiet seclusion of
Storrington, where he began his fruitful period of abstinence
from opium. On Thompson's return to London, Mr. Meynell
looked out for his welfare and made him a contributor to
Merry England, so that the poet found himself a journalist and
reviewer by profession. In the household of the Meynells,
Francis found the sunshine of his life : in Wilfrid Meynell more
than a benefactor — a father, a friend, a trusted guide; his wife,
Alice Meynell, herself a poet and essayist of charm, and co-
editor of Merry England, Thompson worshipped with a
Dantesque adoration which he crystallized in the cycle of
wrapt, spiritual love poems called Love in Dian's Lap. To
the little daughters of the Meynells are dedicated the Sister
Songs, another poem to the poet's godchild, Francis Meynell;
and Everard Meynell became his inspired biographer.
The Passion of Mary, simpler than most of his opulent
verse, was the first poem published in Merry England; this was
followed by Dream-Tryst, a poetic visionary remembrance
of a child he met when eleven years old, and by an essay:
Paganism Old and New. In 1889 appeared the Ode to the
Setting Sun, in 1891 Sister Songs and The Hound of
Heaven, probably his best known poem. A volume called
Poems was published in 1893, one Sister Songs in 1895 and New
Poems in 1897.
756 FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET [Sept.,
For a while Thompson made his abode in Pantasaph,
near the Franciscan monastery, where he found joy and spir-
itual kinship in discourse with Father Anselm. There also
he won a friendship which he valued ardently and which had
a profound influence on him and on his muse — that of the
other Catholic poet in England of his time, Coventry Patmore.
On him, or rather on his portrait painted by Sargent, Thomp-
son wrote the poem A Captain of Song and to him he dedi-
cated his New Poems: "... Under the banner of your spread
renown!" From the peace of the friars, Francis felt drawn
back to his beloved London. There he lived and wrote
until tuberculosis preyed on his frail body, when he con-
sented to be cared for in the country as the guest of Mr.
Wilfrid Blunt, and finally was persuaded by Mr. Meynell
to go to the hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth, where on
November 13, 1907, the strange, unearthly poet closed his
mortal eyes.
The poems of Francis Thompson are esoteric. Their in-
tellectual content is not difficult, but it is clothed in a wealth of
imagery that bursts upon one with the mystical splendor and
disarray of apocalyptic visions. To Thompson's critics his
language seemed affected, to his lovers it is the fountain of an
overcharged spirit that overflows before its waters can be
caught in orderly cisterns. Where Thompson's diction is
simple and lucid, he has achieved a rare, touching beauty;
where it is opaque, the sympathetic reader will not find his time
and effort wasted if he tries to dive into the turbid depth, for
among strange tangles of sea-weed, he will be sure to grasp
some precious pearls. Simple and tender are his short poems
to children who always inspired his love and poetry. Simple,
too, for the most part, are the powerful " ecclesiastical bal-
lads " with their heroic faith in an age of skepticism. Mystical,
like the love of Dante for Beatrice, are his love poems. Cheru-
bim and seraphim hover through his pages; the music of harps
and horns tremble through his rhythms; stars are to this poet
the most familiar objects. Indeed, no earthly creature can
hold his attention long, before he translates it into some heav-
enly symbol or sees the spirit shining through the glass of
mortal form. In The Hound of Heaven is the poet's Credo.
The Divine Hound is Christ, ever with His love pursuing the
human fugitive who seeks bliss among " man or maid," then
1919.] FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET 757
" within the little children's eyes," lastly with nature, but finds
them all wanting:
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts o' her tenderness :
Never did any milk of her once bless
My thirsting mouth.
At last the fugitive yields to the pursuing Hound, who
says:
" Lo all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me !
Strange, piteous, futile thing!
*****
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me? . . ."
Those who do not believe with Thompson that " prose is
clay, poetry the white, molten metal," should turn to his sim-
ple, lucid essays. His prose has the charm that belongs only
to the prose of poets. He himself has said in the little essay
on Sydney's Prose: "Among prose writers a peculiar in-
terest attaches to the poets who have written prose, who can
both soar and walk."
In Thompson's essays, we hear the voice of the Catholic
first and of the poet only secondly — or perhaps one should say
both at once, for to him true poetry was only a form of religion.
Thus in the individual essay on Paganism Old and New he
champions the joys and beauties of Christian inspiration as
opposed to those of paganism; indeed, he maintains that
what there is in the revival of paganism to delight us has
been given its beauty through the medium of Christian vision.
" To read Keats is to grow in love with Paganism; but it is the
Paganism of Keats. Pagan Paganism was not poetical." And
again : " The kiss of Dian was a frigid kiss till it glowed in the
fancy of the barbarian Fletcher: there was little halo around
Latmos' top, till it was thrown around it by the modern Keats.
No pagan eye ever visioned the nymphs of Shelley. In truth
there was around the Olympian heaven no such halo and native
758 FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET [Sept.,
air of poetry as, for Christian singers, clothed the Christian
heaven."
In an essay on Shelley, Thompson ardently defends his
admired poet from the distrust of the Church, and his defence
is really a championing of all high poetry as the ally of the
Church. " Beware how you misprise this potent ally, for hers
is the art of Giotto and Dante; beware how you misprise this
insidious foe, for hers is the art of modern France and of Byron.
Her value, if you know it not, God knows, and know the
enemies of God. If you have no room for her beneath the wings
of the Holy One, there is place for her beneath the webs of the
Evil One." Shelley's pantheism, for which he had no use as
such, he defended as a transition from atheism to true belief:
" Pantheism is a half-way house, and marks ascent or descent
according to the direction from which it is approached. Now
Shelley came to it from absolute Atheism ; therefore in his case
it meant rise. Again, his poetry alone would lead us to the
same concluson, for we do not believe that a truly corrupted
spirit can write consistently ethereal poetry." The most prac-
tical of Thompson's essays is In Darkest England — that
England of which he had the bitterest first-hand knowledge.
This essay is a summons to the Franciscan Tertiaries to take up
the work, then done only by the Salvation Army, in the slums
of London, and to displace the clanging methods of the Sal-
vationists by the gentle and hallowed instruments of the
Church: "For the discipline of trumpets, the discipline of
Sacraments." Particularly eloquent is his plea for the children
of darkest London who from their birth have never known
childhood.
The value of Thompson's gift to the world lies not only
in its own beauty and that of its spiritual message; it lies also
in the seed it has sown in the hearts of other poets. Francis
Thompson was, indeed, like Keats, a poets' poet. Of Coleridge,
who had such great influence upon him, Thompson wrote:
" No other poet, perhaps, except Spenser, has been an initial
influence, a generative influence, on so many poets. ... It is
natural that he also should be ' a poets' poet ' in the rarer sense
—the sense of fecundating other poets It is that he has in-
cited the very sprouting in them of the laurel-bough, has been
to them a fostering sun of song."
Such eloquent testimony cannot yet be given of Francis
1919.] FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET 759
Thompson's influence; but there is no doubt that he has entered
deeply into poets' hearts. He won the approving notice of
Tennyson and Browning, the interest and hospitality of
Meredith, the earnest friendship and enthusiastic praise of Cov-
entry Patmore. In 1897 Mr. Garvin said of Thompson in the
Bookman: " After the publication of his second volume, when
it became clear that The Hound of Heaven and Sister Songs
should be read together as a strict lyrical sequence, there was
no longer any comparison possible, except the highest, the in-
evitable comparison with even Shakespeare's Sonnets. The
Sonnets are the greatest soliloquy in literature. The Hound
of Heaven and Sister Songs together are the second greatest;
and there is no third."
Thompson's voice was heard across the Channel. The
Frenchman Delattre devoted an earnest chapter of a book on
English poets since Byron, to Francis Thompson, the poete
Catholique, in which he compares the poet to Chatterton and
to Edgar A. Poe. He says : "De tous ces poemes s'eleve non pas
un Que sais-je? angoisse, nostalgique de I'absolu, comme celui
de Pascal^ no meme le Que sais-je? romantique, alourdi de toute
rinquietude moderne et qui s'afflige du silence eternel de la
divinite — mais un Je sais ardent, energique, vehement, con-
vaincu." 1
Praise from men of letters — not all praise, a good measure
of blame, too, was his lot — is, after all, no fruit. But the singer
woke songs in the breasts of other poets. To my regret, I have
access to only two of these, though I am convinced that there
are more. One is the lovely tribute from the American poet
Charles Hanson Towne: The Quiet Singer, which has caught,
by an inspired contagion, the quiet singer's very voice:
He had been singing — but I had not heard his voice;
He had been weaving lovely dreams of song,
O many a morning long.
But I, remote and far,
Under an alien star,
Listened to other singers, other birds,
And other lovely words.
1 " From these poems there arises neither the anguished, What do I know? longing
for the absolute, as with Pascal, nor even the, What do I know? of the romanticist, op-
pressed by modern unrest and tormented by the eternal silence of God — but a flery»
energetic, vehement, positive: I know.*'
760 FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET [Sept.,
But does the skylark, singing sweet and clear,
Beg the cold world to hear?
Rather he sings for very rapture of singing,
At dawn, or in the blue, mild Summer noon,
Knowing that, late or soon,
His wealth of beauty, and his high notes, ringing
Above the earth, will make some heart rejoice.
He sings, albeit alone,
Spendthrift of each pure tone,
Hoarding no single song,
No cadence wild and strong.
But one day, from a friend far overseas,
As if upon the breeze,
There came the teeming wonder of his words —
A golden troop of birds,
Gaged in a little volume made to love;
Singing, singing,
Flinging, flinging
Their breaking hearts on mine, and swiftly bringing
Tears, and the peace thereof.
How the world woke anew!
How the days broke anew!
Before my tear-blind eyes a tapestry
I seemed to see,
Woven of all the dreams dead or to be.
Hills, hills of song, Springs of eternal bloom,
Autumns of golden pomp and purple gloom
Were hung upon his loom.
Winters of pain, roses with awful thorns,
Yet wondrous faith in God's dew-drenched morns —
These, all these I saw,
With that ecstatic awe
Wherewith one looks into Eternity.
And then I knew that, though I had not heard
His voice before,
His quiet singing, like some quiet bird
At some one's distant door,
Had made my own more sweet; had made it more
Lovely, in one of God's miraculous ways.
I knew then why the days
Had seemed to me more perfect when the Spring
Game with old bourgeoning;
For somewhere in the world his voice was raised,
1919.] FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS' POET 761
And somewhere in the world his heart was breaking;
And never a flower but knew it, sweetly taking
Beauty more high and noble for his sake,
As a whole world grows lovelier for the wail
Of one sad nightingale.
Yet if the Springs long past
Seemed wonderful before I heard his voice,
I tremble at the beauty I shall see
In seasons still to be,
Now that his songs are mine while Life shall last.
O now for me
New floods of vision open suddenly . . .
Rejoice, my heart! Rejoice
That you have heard the Quiet Singer's voice !
Another song, To Francis Thompson — Whither? is also
by an American, Lee Wilson Dodd; because it is too long to
quote entire, I shall take out a few stanzas :
And yet I trust thy vision, feel thy prescience,
And know that thou art where
All spirits dwell who raptly dream and dare
To give the radiant lie to man's crude nescience.
— Shelley is with thee there.
*****
Thy flame yet warms and lightens and shall lighten,
For thou hast shared thy fire;
Thou addest fervor to the soul's desire,
And round thy luminous song new singers brighten,
Glow, coruscate — aspire !
*****
" The angels keep their ancient places "... Master,
Thou hast not failed to be
One at the timeless tryst, nor timelessly
To sing that Song which, for our joy's disaster,
Earth could not win from thee.
To this I add a humble offering of my own at the poet's
shrine :
To FRANCIS THOMPSON.
No passer-by upon the street
Who saw thee drooping in the heat,
A starving peddler in distress,
Could guess
762 FRANCIS THOMPSON, A POETS9 POET [Sept.,
That there a poet stood in beggar's dress,
And what thus seemed a weed
Blown from a tree in Paradise
Had sprung from blessed seed
Across the aeons, through the skies
To London!
Amid the barter and the cry
Of sullen men for bread and wages,
Thou let'st the shouting throng sweep by,
And brokest bread with angels, saints and sages.
Starved peddler of the London square,
The precious ore
From thy great store,
The sacred gems and rare,
In some serene and cloistered mind
Abode should find,
As if enshrined
Beneath a high cathedral vault.
Nay—
On the broad highway
Let some road-weary wanderer halt,
And as upon a miracle divine
Come unaware upon thy spendthrift mine
Of bright celestial gold —
Great mystic aureoled!
REMOTENESS.
BY H. E. G. ROPE, M.A.
" It is a very precious thing for the world that in the homes of
Ireland there are still men and women who can shed tears for the sor-
rows of Mary and her Son." *
HE epoch that ended in 1914 was .wont to inform
us, volubly enough, of its enlightenment. His-
tory— if history survives — is likely to name it the
age of superstition. No Simon Magus ever de-
luded multitudes so widely as the manufacturers
of " public opinion." Repeated suggestion, mechanically mul-
tiplied and instantly distributed, led tens of thousands to swear
by propositions the most monstrous, false and contradictory.
The linotype-owner and his leader-writer might be persons of
whom none would seek counsel under their own names. No
matter: "It's in the paper." (Did the readers of graffiti in
old Pompeii say, " It's on the walls? ") " A vision to dizzy and
appall," this, surely? For the press was in the main a mere
commercial speculation; the new apostles sought a very earthly
Jerusalem the golden as guerdon of their labors. To call this
propaganda "education" is surely a surpassing cynicism! Its
method is that of Monte Carlo.
Among the ideas thus propagated was the identity of bang
and bustle with " life," and quiet or remoteness with " stag-
nation." Birmingham, Belfast were alive and above all Berlin;
Brittany, Burgos were dead. The countryside was " slow," un-
fit for a man of spirit, its only salvation lay in " development."
(Readers of Belloc's immortal Path to Rome will remember
how a quiet market-town thus expanded, " and was known in
hell as Depot B."). The difficult arts of ploughing and shep-
herding were thought a savage occupation. To serve a machine
and attribute infallibility to printers' ink was to be "wide-
awake," " up-to-date," " go-ahead " and what not. When bid-
den to " go ahead " may one not fairly request some guarantee
that one is not to be driven over a precipice or into a torrent?
That Christians, even Catholics, should accept such prop-
1 P. H. Pearse, Songs of the Irish Rebels, p. 95.
764 REMOTENESS [Sept.,
ositions as self-evident truths is a startling proof of the potency
of atmosphere, especially when poisoned. They are not merely
unsound, but positively opposed to the Faith that plainly as-
serts the higher excellence of the contemplative Me, the peril
and contagion of the world, and enjoins recollection, prayer,
and watchful restraint of the senses — things which spell a
measure of retirement, homely simplicity and even solitude.
No one was more sociable than Charles Lamb, yet he complains
in one of his letters of the monstrosity of never being alone.
There is a remarkable agreement among spiritual writers
that, other things equal, silence and solitude are helpful, and
the noise and excitement of the great world exceedingly un-
helpful, to the attainment of man's last end. Cum perversis
perverteris. I say "other things equal," being fully aware
that many have a distinct vocation from God to spend their
lives amid the horrors of great, modern cities, among them
lovers of nature like Faber, lovers of retirement like Newman.
St. Francis Xavier craved solitude, as St. Catherine of Siena
had wept to leave it. What is commonly forgotten is the fact
that the modern city was for them no lure, but the very con-
trary of that, a cross. The cross presses, must needs press,
where the servants of God most feel the weight of it. Now
since the industrial cities grew up, unguided, a generation of
Catholics has grown up without experience of the normal sur-
roundings of historic mankind, quite at home in, and nowise
wishing escape from, abnormal conditions. Were they gifted
with a love of the Creator's visible works, happiness would be
difficult for them, and one may believe that it is providentially
ordered they should be unconscious of their privation. Yet
surely it is a privation, and a great one. A man born blind is
happier than one who has lost his sight, and both can attain
holiness. But no saint or theologian ever taught that blindness
was desirable for mankind. In a special case it may well be
an occasion of merit, of sanctity, but the proposition stands that
sight is of the bene esse of man, a glorious gift of his Creator.
Then certain religious orders devote themselves to work
in huge cities:
monies Benedictus amabat,
Oppida Franciscus, magnas Ignatius urbes
•(»•;>'•; .''>•-.'. <:..,/.'i,. ; * i ; ;• '• : r • „• ; j , : :
because de facto multitudes are found there. They do not.
1919.] REMOTENESS 765
however, declare huge cities a good, a proposition condemned
by the wise of pagandom, and further, they fortify their sons
against the spirit of those very cities by long retreats and daily
meditations.
It should be needless to add that I am not attacking cities
as such, but overgrown and particularly industrial, machine-
made cities. Did not Plato limit the denizens of his ideal city
to some hundred thousand? The late Charles Devas, if I re-
member rightly, suggested about fifty thousand.
Cities there must be in civilized life, but they need not be
very many and ought not to be very large. Those provincial
cities of France and Italy, as yet unsmirched by industrialism,
Orvieto, Viterbo, Siena, Ghartres, Nevers, Dinan, may serve as
a norm of healthy limits. Papal Rome, before 1870, was far
below the industrial standard of bigness, and Rome was the
capital not only of the States of the Church but of Christendom.
Someone may bring against me the term pagani and all it
connotes. I grant that our holy Faith spread from the cities,
and the first churches, congregations and subsequent buildings,
were city churches. It could not be otherwise. Luxury and im-
perialism, remember, had substituted slaves, as we now sub-
stitute hideous machines, for an owning peasantry. But when
Holy Church was free to build up her own civilization she
restored, uplifted and freed the peasant, and her cities, like
all wholesome things, had fair limit and graceful form.
Ilion was closit with a clene wall, clustrit with towres,
Evyn round as a ryng richely wrought.2
Megalomania and shapeless brick swamps were not forthcom-
ing in the Ages of Faith, which the humanists, in their renegade
pride, identified with the reign of barbarism.
" But distance from industrial centres deprives men of
much intercourse with the world." Quite so, and very often
it deprives them of much intercourse with the flesh and the
devil. The three are apt to be found together and we have the
highest authority for regarding them as our mortal enemies.
Is the privation so grievous? Since when has the great world
changed its character that we should desire to make straight
its paths into the heart of the mountains or other remote re-
gions where simple living and courteous traditions linger on?
'Destruction of Troy (E. E. T. S.), v. 1634, 1635.
REMOTENESS [Sept.,
" It is well to think that, in these years, while more and
more about simple Brittany rises, the unholy tide of new and
false teaching, there are yet men fired with the zeal of the
Bishop of Gwenn to hold it back, to keep it from pressing for-
ward from the frontier of France and inward from the coasts.
They have the same love for the brave old province, the same
realization of the necessity of keeping it Breton if they would
keep it Catholic, and Monsignor Graveran's opinion of the value
of the native tongue has been confirmed by Pius IX. in one of
his marvelously significant words spoken to the Abbe Lesecleuc
— ' Guard ' he said, ' as the apple of your eye, that language
which preserves your Faith! " 3
The whole monastic system is based on the principle of
shutting out the world from particular communities. And it
was under the shadow of the cloister that the English peasantry
were happiest and most free. Local traditions of fervent
piety and homely customs are a great, a marvelous coun-
terpoise to the drag of original sin. To weaken this coun-
terpoise and add to the lure of original sin the multifarious
attractions of a world which the saintly Pius X. declared
to be in a state of apostasy from God — this does not seem,
from a Catholic standpoint, specially desirable!
" All epoch-making inventions — railway facilities, telegra-
phy, and the like — which have broken down the barriers of
time and space, and served to bring alien races into contact,
have by the same means tended to rob other nations of their
salutary isolation. And thus it comes about that, when we
turn to the most revolutionary development that has taken
place since the Flood, we have to ask ourselves whether we
are not paying some hidden price for the pleasure and instruc-
tion afforded us by the modern picture house. It has brought
into our midst vivid representations of the manners and lives
of other nations; it demonstrates their social customs and their
mechanical devices; it shows us their mountains, their rivers
and their waterfalls; it teaches us how they make money and
how they spend it. Twenty years ago it was necessary to go
abroad in order to enlarge one's mind by travel; today any
urchin who can lay his hands on twopence is able to explore the
world from ' Greenland's icy mountains to Afric's coral strand.'
What shall we have to pay for all this? There is one price that
• Dublin Review, July, 1881, p. 136. Compare Ren6 Bazin's Donattenne.
1919.] REMOTENESS 767
we cannot afford to pay. We cannot afford to barter the Irish
ideals of humor and virtue for those that obtain in the busy
marts of England, of America, or upon the Continent of
Europe. Better remain in our ignorance, better to be content
with our own innocent mirth than to participate in the cos-
mopolitan gayety of sin." 4
Indeed, Ireland is the battle ground of this debate, today.5
The Ascendancy is wise in its generation in seeking to
prevent the recovery of Ireland's own prayerful and Catholic
language. For the same reason the enemies of the Faith de-
tested Flemish.
"Love not the world, nor the things which are in
the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the
Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the
concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes,
and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the
world." 6
The world, it will be granted, has its dwelling and wields
its power chiefly in cities, above all in opulent marts. And the
world, according to the catechism, is not a very desirable neigh-
bor! " The friendship of this world is the enemy of God," says
St. James (iv. 4) , and again we read, " the whole world is
seated in wickedness." 7 Surely, then, it is permissible to re-
joice if our lot be cast in remote places, which the world is
pleased to call " backward," " God-forsaken," " stagnant " and
what not?
Thin, thin the pleasant human voices grow,
And faint the city gleams;
Rare the lone pastoral huts; marvel not thou!
The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,
But to the stars and the cold lunar beams;
Alone the sun arises, and alone
Spring the great streams.
Thus the after-Christian poet echoes the prophet psalm-
ist's: " The heavens show forth the glory of God . . . and night
unto night showeth knowledge."
I am not defending Wordsworth, whose nature- worship
4 John Ryan, M.A., LL.M., D.Sc., in Studies, March, 1918, p. 112.
* See Stella Moris, September, 1918.
•1 John ii. 15, 16. T 1 John ii. 19.
768 REMOTENESS [Sept.,
often trenched on pantheism. Rather did Ruskin read the
true voice of the visible creation, Ruskin who has led more than
one stray sheep towards the Fold, Ruskin whose own soul was
steeped in psalm and prophecy, Ruskin who haply more than
any other non-Catholic clothed in royal utterance eternal veri-
ties. " The strength of Rome was the eternal strength of the
world — pure family life sustained by agriculture, and defended
by simple and fearless manhood." 8
If this be true, and few thoughtful persons would now deny
it, industrialism is untrue, " a mockery, a delusion and a snare."
Industrialism destroys home life and multiplies pitfalls for the
chaste, lowers bodily and mental well-being. The home be-
comes a dormitory and meal-room; when the wearied parents
return from the factory the children are leaving for the jig-
saw ** pictures," or the vacuous music-hall. Mechanically as-
similating machine-made "public opinion," they despise the
callings of the Apostles, fondly presuming that any fool can
plough, reap and fish, and that the immemorial crafts and
natural wholesome environments deaden the intelligence.
This is the very contrary of the truth. They mistake " know-
ingness " for knowledge, and surface " smartness " for char-
acter. Grace builds on nature. Saints are quick to under-
stand the things of God, the highest objects of understand-
ing, and many and many a saint has come from humble call-
ing and lowly cabin. The grace of God gives no preference to
the merchant's palace or philosopher's study.
" Among our Celtic saints the shepherd's life was often the
prelude to sanctity. So it was with St. Carthage, the younger,
who, though of noble birth, tended his father's flocks on the
banks of the Mang, but when one day the King of the territory
offered him the sword and other insignia of knighthood, he
replied that he desired rather the monk's cowl, and the insignia
of the servants of God. So, too, it was with Cuthbert, who,
leading a shepherd's life, began to cherish a love of solitude,
whilst the spirit of prayer grew every day more perfect in his
heart." •
What, then, shall be said of their folly who would intro-
duce into every village the ravening home-destroying appetites
of the streets? To awaken, to multiply cravings holds not of
'Ruskin, Frondes Agrestes (1906), p. 16, note.
• Cardinal Moran, Irish Saints in Great Britain, ch. xi., pp. 294, 295. (1903 Ed.)
1919.] REMOTENESS 769
Christian wisdom. " But it would be a dangerous error to deny
that the inventive faculty is God-given." And no less danger-
ous to deny that it can be terribly abused. Poison-gas, for in-
stance, and liquid fire will hardly be claimed as the blessings
of heaven. It is permissible to have doubts as to the cinemato-
graph. "But its educative influence?" I take leave to quote
Professor Max Drennan who calls this " commercial humbug.
The educational value of the cinema is minus zero. The dili-
gent pupil in the average hall has to breathe bad, sometimes
fetid air; his eyes are dazzled with a too rapid succession of
a caricature of life lived breathlessly and incoherently in a
geographic jumble of countries; his eyesight is injured and his
power of forming orderly mental pictures or of fixing his
attention on the realties of life is impaired, if not ruined; by the
comic films his instinctive feelings of reverence for what is
pure and holy are often sapped and an undesirable amative
precocity stimulated. Any parent who encourages his child to
go regularly to the cinema is an enemy both to the child and to
the State." 10
Often have I been asked : " Don't you find it lonely in the
country? Isn't it very dull?" Minime. For loneliness com-
mend me to the crowded street, for dullness to town-life. Alas !
it would often be vain, and sometimes rude, to suggest the long-
ing for beata solitudo, or hint the weariness of random calls,
and random time-devouring converse (introduced by stale per-
juries about the weather), the idleness and boredom of many
social gatherings.
But in my helpless cradle I
Was breathed on by the rural Pan.11
" But one wants to know what is going on." Doubtless that
would be interesting if one could really know it, though the
secrets of politics and profiteering might soon lose savor.
Familiarity would be likely to breed no little contempt. Scan-
dals are apt to be " staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into
commonest commonplace." But who, outside the charmed cir-
cle, does know? I can find out what certain plutocrats would
wish me to believe; but that, I confess, does not interest me.
"To know what's going on" — does not that mean in practice
" The Irish Monthly, February, 1917, pp. 76, 77.
11 Matthew Arnold, Lines In Kensington Gardens.
VOL. era. 49
770 REMOTENESS [Sept.,
to gather and retail the guesses and gossip of the forum and the
club (like the Horatian bore), the talked and printed prattle
of the hour, commonly refuted by events? Meanwhile this
life is flowing away. Quid ad aeternitatem? Or, on lower
grounds, are these, indeed, helpful or pleasurable recreations?
Could not the spare hours be spent more healthily and pru-
dently? Some have thought so. A walk in the woods, an after-
noon's digging, a spell of The Solitaries of the Sambuca or
The Graves at Kilmorna may fairly be pleaded in comparison,
as giving a more faithful notion of " what is going on " in the
campaign that shall cease not until Doomsday, and helping
one to play one's destined part in the debate whose issues are
eternal.
Quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas.
Well, the countryside is no hindrance to votum, but rather
helpful, and as for timor, ira, voluptas, I find their room bet-
ter than their company, just at present.12 " The money which
thousands waste without anything to show for it would carry
me through the length of this glorious world. They talk of
knowledge of the world, meaning only knowledge of the human
town mites that are on it, but of the true world they know
nothing." 1S
Those who depend on newspapers lose all sense of propor-
tion. " Never could notoriety exist as it does now, in any for-
mer age of the world; now that the news of the hour from all
parts of the world, private news as well as public, is brought
day by day to every individual, as I may say, of the community,
to the poorest artisan and the most secluded peasant, by pro-
cesses so uniform, so unvarying, so spontaneous, that they
almost bear the semblance of a natural law. And hence no-
toriety, or the making a noise in the world, has come to be
considered a great good in itself, and a ground of veneration.
. . . Notoriety, or, as it may be called newspaper fame, is to the
many what style and fashion, to us the language of the world,
are to those who are within or belong to the higher circles; it
becomes to them a sort of idol, worshipped for its own sake and
without any reference to the shape in which it comes before
them." "
u " One may pray best in solitude and silence, but one may also pray everywhere
and all the time," said Plus IX., in Villefranche, ch. xxii.
"Sir W. Butler, Notebook (1885) in Autobiography, 1913, p. 76.
"Newman, Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle (C.T.S.), p. 8.
1919.] REMOTENESS 771
If isolation from the world tends to isolation from the
flesh and the devil, I conceive no great harm is done ! " It is as
difficult," says Serbian Father Velimirovic, " to find an atheist
among pastoral or farming people as it is easy to find him
among the coal-miners and iron-workers. Industry seems to
be an inhospitable home for religion. Industry and big towns
seclude a man from living and harmonious nature, from God's
works, God's immediate witnesses, and keep him in a misty sur-
rounding of men's works, the witnesses of men's cleverness.
Rural life, with its wide and clear horizon, leads to humility
before God. Industry with its narrow horizon, leads to
pride." 15
The real needs of man can be supplied in the country, for
the most part better than in the towns. (Those who set so
much store upon artificial appliances seem to proceed on the
principle that, after all, a man's life does consist in the abund-
ance of things he possesses. This is to outdo the "higher
critics " themselves ! Food, for instance, is to be had un-
sophisticated and home-grown, water from the well un-
improved by iron pipes.16 To some of us this seems no small
advantage. The nearer to the source of things the better, one
would think. The mysteries of commercial manipulation do
not inspire confidence. The dupes of popular print fancy that
country life induces mental dullness. That is a myth, or rather
a fiction.17 " Under natural conditions the degree of mental
excitement necessary to bodily health is provided by the course
of the seasons, and the various skill and fortune of agriculture.
In the country, every morning of the year brings with it a new
aspect of springing or fading nature; a new duty to be ful-
filled upon earth, and a new promise or warning in heaven." 18
Non viribus aut velocitatibus ant celeritate res magnse geruntur,
sed consilio, auctoritate, sentential
If we listen to the Fathers, we shall not find them en-
thusiastic over the advantages of crowded cities, or nearness
to the " hub of the Universe," a modest title for the navel of
" Country Life, December 9, 1916, p. 715.
16 Until a man can truly enjoy a draught of clear water bubbling from a moun-
tain side his taste is in an unwholesome state." Frederic Harrison, The Choice of
Books, p. 25.
" Jam undique silvte et solitudo ipsumque illud silentium, quod uenationi datur,
magna cogitationis incitamenta sunl. Pliny, Ep. i., 6.
» Ruskin, On the Old Road, vol. iii., p. 10.
"Cicero, Cato Major, c. vi.
772 REMOTENESS [Sept.,
speculation! Nor do they encourage any more than a neces-
sary knowledge of " what is going on," but rather deliverance
from the tyranny of the transient. It is hard to understand
what glamour can be found in the world after any considerable
experience of that world. A poor exchange truly for the daily
pageant of the Creation! Holy Church teaches surely that re-
moteness has many advantages, and poverty also.
Absolute solitude — I will not quote Aristotle — is, indeed,
for the very few. (But read these wonderful Catholic books
The Solitaries of the Sambuca and San Celestino, for the reality
of such vocations, which it is not unlawful to envy.) Coun-
try life does not mean absolute solitude; far from it. It does
reduce society to manageable proportions, to human limits.
Now a street-mob under the dreary lamps of an industrial
town is not a true society. In his sermon upon James Hope
Scott, Newman dwells upon the horribly inhuman character of
London, where men know not then* next door neighbors. An-
other Catholic educator, Patrick Pearse, declared that he could
not know as they should be known, and as he knew the Gaelic
sagas, the characters of more than about one hundred and
fifty boys.20
Again, is it not significant that remote districts have often
remained faithful while the cities of the plain and their neigh-
borhoods have made shipwreck of the Faith? Elizabeth failed
to subdue the Fylde, Brittany withstood the triumphant Revo-
lution, remote villages and hill-towns in Italy and Switzerland
resist to this day the yet more devastating invasions of vul-
garity, vice and shallow, ugly imposture which pass for " civil-
ization." Ecuador alone protested against the crime of Sep-
tember 20, 1870.
Staying in an upland Valaisian parish in July, 1914, 1 asked
the Cure, an experienced man in whose judgment all had con-
fidence, whether the mountain railway of commercial dreams
would not demoralize the devout, hard-working peasantry, and
he replied there was no doubt of it. I fear to trust you, kind
reader, with the name of that village, lest you should be
tempted to take shares in its " development." Take another,
a Celtic example. " The whole of Strathavon," writes Dom
Odo Blundell, " was long known for its fidelity to the ancient
Faith, the Laird of Ballindalloch in 1671 being prosecuted,
*» The Storg of a Success (1917), p. 37.
1919.] REMOTENESS 773
along with Gordon of Carmellie and Gordon of Littlemill, for
harboring priests and being present at Mass. By degrees, how-
ever, the lower portions of the glen gave way and conformed
to the new religion, but the more remote have ever remained
true to their former tenets, and have, along with the sister glen,
Glenlivet, been a secure shelter for the persecuted clergy and a
constant source of supply from which to refill its ranks." 31
They were terribly " behind the times," as are most folk who
regard the Ten Commandments ! " Cries of unprogressive
dotage," if Belfast and Berlin are to be believed.
Patrick Pearse, says his pupil, " had given Irish readers a
series of penetrating glimpses into the inner life of the remote
and self-contained communities that compose the Gaelthacht
of the Western seaboard.22 The author of Losagan himself
tells us : "I am imagining nothing improbable, nothing outside
the bounds of the everyday experience of innocent little chil-
dren and reverent-minded old men and women. I know a
priest who believes that he was summoned to the deathbed
of a parishioner by Our Lord in person." Introduce among
them electric cars, cinematographs and " Progress " (the capi-
tal letter is vital). Will it better them? Can it fail to harm
them? The answer to these questions, though often unwel-
come, is not difficult.
» Catholic Highlands of Scotland, vol. i. (1909), pp. 85, 56. Italics mine.
88 The Storg of a Success, preface by Desmond Ryan, p. xi.
RESEMBLANCE OF THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE
TO THE CATHOLIC MASS.
BY MICHAEL ANDREW CHAPMAN.1
HE claim of a not inconsiderable school of An-
glicans, that their denomination is an ancient
and integral part of the Holy Catholic Church,
rests on three premises, each supported by argu-
ments sufficiently specious to satisfy themselves
aiuT to form a basis of confidence which renders submission
to the True Church extremely difficult. There can be no pos-
sible doubt of the bona fides and earnestness of this school,
and their scholarship is of a solid sort which must, and does,
command respect. But, as the Irishman said, " Tis no sin to
be mistaken." And, for the purposes of this discussion, the
point of view which we must take is simply that they are mis-
taken in their premises; from which point we may go on to an
examination of the data presented by them.
The claim to have a Tactual Succession of Apostolic Order
is the foundation upon which the whole Anglican theory rests.
Allied to this is the claim that the Book of Common Prayer con-
tains a series of sufficient forms for the administration of
such sacraments as are officially recognized by the Episcopal
Church. To this is added a third claim regarding the adequacy
of local jurisdiction as opposed to the Catholic doctrine of the
universal jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, a matter not per-
tinent to the present consideration. It is to the second of these
claims that we direct attention at this time, and the serious
student, not too strongly biased, must admit that the resem-
blance between the Anglican Communion Service (for it is with
the form of the Eucharistic service that we shall specifically
deal) and the Roman Mass is not merely fancied but historically
and actually sufficiently close to constitute a very specious basis
for the claim, other things being equal — which they are not!
It must be remembered that the Communion Service of
the Church of England, from which the American Service is
copied with slight but important additions, was compiled by the
* Formerly Liturgical Consultor to the (Anglican) Bishop of Quincy.
1919.] THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE 775
" Reformers " before the wave of Continental Protestantism
had swamped the Establishment and made it the thoroughly and
avowedly anti-Catholic body which it remained until very re-
cent times. Whether or not the editors of the Edwardine
Prayer Book intended to preserve a sufficiently valid form for
the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries (" commonly called the
Mass ") or, like their successors, set out to do away forever with
what they presently called " the never-to-be-sufficiently-ex-
ecrated Mass," they seem to have produced a liturgical work
which is strangely capable of being interpreted and used in
widely different senses.
Modern " Anglo-Catholics," aside from a few close his-
torians and violent partisans, care little or nothing as to what
the compilers of the rite intended, or in fact accomplished dur-
ing the three centuries that followed. The contention is offered
that whatever they intended, they actually, by the over-ruling
Providence of God, preserved and handed down a form cap-
able of a Catholic interpretation, in the use of which the Holy
Sacrifice is pled validly and sufficiently, although the rite
has been so stripped of " non-essentials " that some interpola-
tions are, if not necessary, desirable to make its ancient and
unaltered meaning quite plain. I need only point out in pass-
ing that the strength of this argument depends on the view that
is taken as to the right of a " National Church " to alter the
forms, a prerogative distinctly claimed in Article XX. of the
" Articles of Religion." Read in the light of the preceding
Article, which declares that " the Church of Rome hath erred,
not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in
matters of Faith," it would seem clear that the Reformers
made the attempt to purify the Liturgy from what they re-
garded as vain and superstitious forms and ceremonies. Rut
this, as the Anglican commentator would be prompt to point
out, is a very different thing from abrogating the form alto-
gether.
The compilers of the Communion Service had only the
Mass upon which to model their service, and, as we shall see,
they kept fairly close to their model, so close, indeed, that
after three hundred years of using the rite as a merely memo-
rial Communion Service, a school could and did arise in the
Establishment which interpreted the forms in a Catholic sense
and clothed them with Catholic ceremonies without at all
776 THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE [Sept.,
changing the structure or exact wording of the service as they
found it, and, for some time at least, without feeling the neces-
sity of interpolations. The original leaders of the Oxford
Movement did not question the sufficiency of their Liturgy, and
it is interesting to note that though they were, some of them,
profound Oriental scholars, they made no attempt to clothe the
English rite with Greek ceremonies, but, as their advance con-
tinued, their services became more and more like those of the
nearest Roman " chapel." They claimed to be Catholics (for-
mulating the famous Branch Theory to cover the obvious de-
fects in their historical argument) who had been unlawfully
deprived for some three hundred years of their rights and
privileges, and as Catholics they set about regaining what they
were pleased to call their ancient heritage of faith and cere-
monial practice, until today the usage of the vanguard dif-
fers only in the slightest details from that of the Catholic
Church.
It is true that such extreme practice is the very marked ex-
ception, and that from this external identity the outward signs
grade down by little and little till we find, also as marked
exceptions, the old Hanoverian simplicity of usage. Between
the two one finds every sort and shade of ceremonial (as might
be said also of doctrinal coloring) more or less elaboration,
more or less interpolation, more or less resemblance to the
Catholic norm. Yet the clergy all use the forms of the Book
of Common Prayer. I cite this strange fact as showing in a
very practical way the wide range of legitimate interpretation
which can be, and is, placed on the forms. Whatever the Re-
formers intended, whether to destroy or to perpetuate the Mass
(in a "purified " form), they failed. What they did produce,
as subsequent history shows, was a form capable of interpreta-
tions so widely variant as to be mutually exclusive, a form so
equivocal as to be rendered, in perfect good faith, by clergy-
men who believe themselves to be Catholic priests offering the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and by clergymen who believe them-
selves to be good Protestant ministers and who indignantly re-
pudiate all idea of carrying out anything more than a com-
memoration, a memorial, of the Passion, in which there is
neither Sacrifice nor Real Presence, both of which they regard
as blasphemous fables.
Indeed, it would seem that the question of what the Re-
1919.] THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE 777
formers intended in their compilation of Anglican rites is
hardly pertinent except in the matter of the Ordinal which is,
of course, the crux of the whole matter. For important as the
form of the Liturgy is, it is not essential to the integrity of the
Holy Sacrifice that it be offered according to a certain ritual,
beyond the invariable utterance of the Words of Institution. I
suppose that a Catholic theologian would admit (supposing
the impossible) that if the Anglican Communion Service were
rendered by a Catholic priest there would be a true consecra-
tion, and a valid Mass and Sacrament. I do not draw the
parallel of the Anglican Ordinal in the hands of a Catholic
Bishop, for the Holy See has answered that question. I merely
submit that if Anglican clergymen were really priests they
might use their rite, bare and mutilated as it stands in the
Prayer Book, for the valid consecration of the Eucharist. And
yet, the same rite serves for the Communion Service of Angli-
cans who believe in neither priesthood nor sacrifice, and whose
idea of a sacrament is a constant grief to their more " ad-
vanced " brethren both clerical and lay.
Bearing in mind the bona fides of the " advanced " An-
glican, his firm conviction that he possesses the priesthood of
the Catholic Church, and that after a lapse of centuries he is in
a way raised up and called of God to restore to the Anglican
Branch of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church
the doctrine and practice which that Branch had for so long
gotten on without, but which is now, by a portion of her chil-
dren, felt to be desirable if not absolutely necessary to salva-
tion; it is not strange that, in spite of a prejudice which has
been an inconceivable time in dying, the leaders of the neo-
Catholic Movement should turn to the Rock from which they
were hewn. It is not strange that they should model their
counter-reformation of doctrine and practice on that which the
" magnificent rigidity of Rome " has preserved unchanged
while their forefathers slumbered and slept, if, indeed, they
did not wake to deny with cursing the very things their children
seem so anxious to reinstate. It is an interesting, and to some
inexplicable, phenomenon that a Church whose very existence
is based on a repudiation of the claims of Rome, whose service
book was compiled in a sincere effort after emancipation from
the superstitious idolatries of Papistry, should, from the very
first evidences of a recrudescence of upspringing life, tend more
778 THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE [Sept.,
and more to approximate the form, if not the ethos, of her an-
cient enemy. Upon the bare residuum, which the Reformation
left, of liturgical form and ecclesiastical usage, there has been
built up, by little and little, a very fair counterpart of the old
splendor and richness of devotion both in the forms used and
the ceremonies and vestments with which those forms are
clothed.
In this process, or rather progress, the leaders of the An-
glo-Catholic Movement have encountered certain obstacles, not
least among them the bareness of the rite which they are bound
to use. If the Service was, as they wholeheartedly believed it
to be, a Catholic Mass, and not a mere Genevan Communion
Office, it manifestly lacked certain passages which, while not
perhaps essential to the integrity of the rite, were yet extremely
desirable as serving to fix the Catholic interpretation, and eradi-
cate the contrary Protestant sense. Saying the Service at a
properly appointed altar, in vestments usually of an antique
style (about which more might be said, but which at least
served the purpose of the argument that such things were
" Catholic but not Roman " ) was not enough. The clergy
themselves felt most keenly the lack of certain forms and cere-
monies to make the action, so to speak, pointed and unequivo-
cal. And these forms and ceremonies were, as might have been
expected, the very forms and ceremonies which the Reformers
had deleted to produce their expurgated Liturgy. Little by lit-
tle the banished forms were restored. Indeed, the restoration
is still going on, and may be studied in all its stages in various
Anglican Churches in (say) a large city like New York.
Taking the Service as it stands in the Prayer Book as a
skeleton the desired passages are interpolated, usually submissa
voce, into the service at what seem to be appropriate points.
Anglican writers (myself formerly among that number) note
that " there are, in the Prayer Book Mass, certain lacunae which
correspond in location to forms in the Latin Mass which would
not necessarily form part of a Mass-book intended for the use
of the congregation." For example : some form of preparation
before the beginning of the Service is universal among Angli-
cans of all schools of churchmanship. The advanced clergy
say the Psalm Judica me and the Confiteor before ascending
to the altar. By rubrical permission the Ten Commandments
may be omitted, and a short summary of the Law said, followed
1919.] THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE 779
by the nine-fold Kyrie. This rubric is lacking in the English rite,
but is availed of by Americans to such an extent that the
longer form is rarely heard in advanced parishes (in spite of
the rubric requiring the recitation of the Commandments at
least once each Sunday). In perhaps a dozen parishes in the
United States, Gloria in Excelsis is quite frankly interpolated
after the Kyrie, although there is absolutely no rubrical sub-
terfuge for its removal from the concluding portion of the
Service.
The interpolation of " The Lord be with you " and its re-
sponse, is becoming, if not general, at least not uncommon. The
Offertory forms from the Missal are recited in a low voice, and
are printed on altar cards, the use of which is certainly growing.
The introduction to the long prayer for the Church, "Let us
pray for the whole state of Christ's Church militant," is re-
garded as equivalent to Orate Fratres and the Prayer itself
is thought by some to be a misplaced version of the Te igitur.
Here the resemblance to the Latin Mass temporarily ceases
with the " Communion Forms," i. e., an Exhortation, a Confes-
sion (by those about to communicate) and Absolution (preca-
tory in form) , " The Comfortable Words," and (later) the
" Prayer of Humble Access." These were the first portions of
the Service to be recited in English, and were used for a short
time before the Latin Mass was given up.
The Sursum corda is quite literally translated, though the
following " Proper Prefaces " differ from those of the Mass in
several details. It is quite general among High Churchmen to
add Benedictus qui venit to the Sanctus, or to say or sing it after
the " Prayer of Humble Access " and before the " Prayer of
Consecration." Indeed, this custom serves as a distinguishing
mark for those who have come to believe in some sort of Real
Presence in the Sacrament.
The English Canon differs from the American in being
shorter, ending in fact immediately after the Consecration of
the Cup. The American Service (paterned on the Scotch
at the insistence of Bishop Seabury, who had promised the Non-
Jurors from whom he received consecration as the first Bishop
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of
America, that he would secure as much similarity to the Scot-
tish rite as possible in the new American Book of Common
Prayer) includes an Oblation of the Elements, and an Invoca-
780 THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE [Sept.,
tion of the Holy Spirit (epiklesis) which is regarded by some as
an unanswerable argument for the possession of a valid
Eucharistic Sacrifice, and a source of complaisant superiority
to the Roman rite.
As noted before, the Te igitur is not usually interpolated
by American clergymen, though its use has, I understand, be-
come fairly widespread in England, where the controversy re-
garding the sufficiency of the Canon is rapidly becoming cru-
cial. But advanced clergymen usually insert all of the prayers
from Libera nos to Corpus tuum and at "High Mass" the Agnus
Dei is sung during the reception of Communion. The prayer
Placeat is also said at the end of the Service, though here a
difficulty arises on account of the usual custom of taking the
Ablutions after the Blessing instead of after the Communion of
the people. A clever tract has recently been issued in England
urging the further conformation of the English to the Roman
rite by the reception of the Ablutions at the proper time, in
defiance of the rubric at the end of the Service which requires
any of the consecrated bread and wine to be consumed " im-
mediately after the Blessing " and which, both historically and
practically, makes no reference whatever to Ablutions.
Thus is built up, in practice, what amounts to a new Serv-
ice, and a Service, be it noted, for which in its entirety the
Prayer Book makes no provision : a Service, in fact, which the
Prayer Book was compiled to supercede if not to eliminate. I
know that Anglican clergymen justify these interpolations on
the ground that their Church was wrongfully deprived of these
desirable forms: that the omission of them from the Prayer
Book (which was intended as a people's book even more than
as an altar book) does not imply a prohibition of their use as
private devotions for the officiant; and that the inclusion of
these forms in books of devotion for the people is simply that
they may not be mystified by the officiant doing and saying
things at the altar for which there is no provision in the author-
ized Book of Common Prayer. But it seems to me now, and
it seemed to me for some time before my conversion, that the
obvious necessity, felt and acted upon, to supplement the official
Anglican rite by forms borrowed from Roman (or, as Anglicans
would say, " ancient Catholic " ) sources, is in itself an admis-
sion of the equivocal character of the rite, if not of its insuf-
ficiency as a Catholic Liturgy.
1919.] THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE 781
I know that there are many who entertain grave doubts
as to the validity of the English Canon, lacking as it does the
Invocation and Oblation after the Consecration. I know that
there are some who frankly admit the defects of the rite they
are forced in loyalty to use, and who are working and praying
for its expansion and enrichment along Catholic lines. But I
know also that there are many more, indeed, I would not hesi-
tate to say a majority of the clergy of the Episcopal Church who
are quite as unaware as any " Papist " could be, of any simi-
larity between their beloved Communion Service and the Holy
Mass of the Catholic Church, and who hold a view both of the
Service itself and of the doctrinal principles that underlie it
which is worlds apart from that held and taught by the High
Church School. Lacking an authority which can settle the
point one way or another, no Anglican can put forth his own
interpretation of the Prayer Book Liturgy with anything more
than the force of his own biased reading of the history of its
genesis and development. And the appeal to history is worse
than heresy in this case, it is confusion worse confounded.
Judged by the documents of the Beformation Settlement, and
by the practice of the Established Church of England ever
since (to say nothing of the Episcopal Church in this country)
the Low Church view is at least as tenable as the High Church
contention. With such a division of opinion and teaching, not
merely into the two schools usually known as High and Low
Church, but into a multitude of schools and individual inter-
pretations betwixt and between, it is impossible to know exactly
what the Episcopal Church as a Church really does teach on
this important point.
On priesthood, Sacrifice, the Beal Presence — good men and
true range from avowedly Catholic teaching to out and out
Calvinism. And each goes to the Prayer Book to prove his
claim. " If," it has been said, " the Communion Service of the
Book of Common Prayer is not an attempt at a Catholic Mass,
then it is the most inept and meaninglessly verbose Communion
Office that any so-called Beformed Church has hitherto pro-
duced." "If," comes the reply from the low Churchman, " the
Communion Service, our incomparable Liturgy, is a Catho-
lic Mass, how have we been ignorant of that fact for three hun-
dred years, and why are most of us not only ignorant of it now
but quite content to be so? " The honest clergyman, who has
782 THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION SERVICE [Sept.,
by the mercy of God assimilated some degree of Catholic Truth
and desires Catholic practice, cannot use it as it stands, and
will not make of its rendition a mere Zwinglian memorial of an
absent Lord. Yet the resemblance is there, and even the muti-
lated and equivocal forms contained in the Service are, as
Santa Clara and Newman said long ago of the Articles, capable
of a Catholic interpretation, and lend themselves quite readily
to interpolations along Catholic lines, and to the ceremonies of
the Catholic Mass.
But, even leaving aside the question of Orders, which is,
after all, the crux of the whole matter, as Leo XIII. and his
advisers so plainly saw, the thing will not do. There never
has been a real Catholic Mass-rite which could possibly be in-
terpreted as anything but what it was, the meaning of which
could possibly be misunderstood. No one, whether he believes
in the Holy Sacrifice and the Real Presence or not, can possibly
mistake the fact that the Roman Mass takes both for granted,
just as no one whether he believes in priesthood or not, can
possibly misunderstand the claims thereto made by the clergy
of the Catholic and Roman Church. And the very fact that the
Anglican Service is not regarded by the majority of Anglicans
as a Mass-rite, must mean something more than just that for
three hundred years the truth about the English Reformation
was obscured. As Gladstone said, " It's the Mass that matters."
And it is the Mass that is dear to Anglicans of the advanced
school, and so long as they really believe that they have the
Mass they will stop where they are. That is why I say again
that it is the specious resemblance of the Communion Service,
as amended and elaborated by High Churchmen, to the Catho-
lic Mass, which is the chief obstacle to conversions from among
these separated brethren.
HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.
BY C. C. MARTINDALE, S.J.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPEL. — (Continued.)
•
HE incorporation of Christian with Christ is most
fully stated, of course, in the two Eucharistic
chapters, sixth and fifteenth, on the living Bread
and the Mystic Vine.
Jesus multiplies the loaves: the crowds flock
to Him — from the meanest of motives — less than mere miracle-
lust; He rebukes them, because they had fed on the magic food,
seeing in what He had done not even a sign of some spiritual
truth, still less the symbol of the Heavenly Things He came to
reveal.
" Work not for the food which perishes,
But for the Food which endures to Eternal Life,
Which the Son of Man is offering you;
For Him the Father hath sealed,
Even God."
" What are we to do, that we may work
Works of God? "
" This is the Work of God-
To believe in Him Whom God hath sent."
" What sign workest Thou, that we may see
And put faith in Thee?
Our ancestors did eat
The Manna in the Wilderness.
' He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.'
What workest Thou? "
" In solemn truth I tell you :
Not Moses gave you the Bread from Heaven,
But My Father is giving you the Bread from Heaven,
The True Bread.
For the Bread of God
Is THAT which comes down out of Heaven,
And gives Life to the World."
784 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
Here Christ has used His favorite ambiguity. In the Greek the
words can mean: The Bread of God is the Bread which comes
down ... or, is He Who comes down. Like the woman who
asked for the " Water," they choose the easier alternative and
petition: " Sir, give us this bread, always." He is forced into
clearer speech.
/ am the Bread of Life.
He who cometh unto Me
Shall never hunger:
And He who believeth in Me
Shall thirst no more at all
All that the Father giveth Me
Shall come to Me,
And him who cometh unto Me
I will in no wise cast out.
For I have come down from Heaven
Not to do My Will,
But the Will of Him Who sent Me.
Now this is the will of Him Who sent Me.
That of all that He has given Me, I should lose nothing
But I shall raise it up at the Last Day.
For this is the Will of the Father,
That all who see the Son and believe in Him
Should have Eternal Life,
And I should raise them up at the Last Day.
Remember, in the light of what we have already seen, that
throughout this discourse the same doctrine of unification with
Christ is being taught, the Source of True Life, with its true
immortality (and not mere physical resuscitation) involved.
" Coming to Him," " hearing Him," " believing in Him," all
these terms are, in substance, identical in meaning; they imply
that act of vital adhesion to Christ which begins, for the man in
time, and, at the Last Day, will be " manifested " in the full
meaning of its reality: the actual incorporation with Christ is
the timeless fact of Eternal Life, possessed wholly and now. In-
ception, process and consequence, are mapped out by John's
human thought and ours; but in itself, the fact is timeless: the
moment of man's " coming " is the moment of his immortaliza-
tion. In Eternity, first and last are one: Communion cancels
"judgment."
The Jews resent those words: " I am the Bread which came
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 785
down from Heaven." They knew His parents. How then could
He have come down from Heaven ?
He rebukes their argument, even while reminding them,
sadly enough, that only they whom God " draws " can come
to Him, and perhaps not all of these, even, actually respond.
But it remains that he who so comes, has the Life, and only
he. Then He resumes :
I am the Bread of Life :
Your fathers ate the Manna in the Wilderness
And died.
This is the Bread which comes down out of Heaven
That a man may eat of that,
And may not die.
I am the Living Bread
Which comes down out of Heaven;
If a man eat of My Bread
He shall live forever.
And the Bread that I will give for the Life of the world
Is My Flesh.
The Eucharist here definitely dawns.
Notice the steps by which Jesus has, so far, moved: "Be-
lieve in Me." "What are your credentials? Your heavenly
guarantee, equivalent to the Manna given by Moses? " " That
bread from Heaven gave no real Life! My Father offers and
sends a true Heaven-bread, which gives you Life. I am that
Bread from Heaven, that Bread of Life. Come to Me : believe
in Me; eat of it — of Me — and live forever! And that Bread is
My Flesh."
Now even if John had not meant to write of the Eucharist,
after his whole lifetime spent in using that Sacrament, it could
not but have come into his mind once he found himself writ-
ing down the phrases we have quoted. And if he had posi-
tively meant (as the Reformers, say, have urged) not to write of
the Eucharist, but only, for example, of Faith, he ought to have
avoided expressions which were certain to mislead his readers.
For into their minds the Eucharist would have come as infal-
libly as into his own. That the Eucharist is being thought of,
by writer and reader of this chapter, is psychologically inevit-
able. But inadequate too is the idea, common in those modern
non-Catholic critics who have suffered the violent reaction
proper to their minds, that John set out to write primarily, or
VOL. CJX. 50 .
786 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
even exclusively, of the Eucharist; or even, of Faith only, at
the beginning, and of the Eucharist only, at the end.1
Once more, and I deliberately repeat myself (for the no-
tion, though simple in itself, is hard to appropriate), the global
theme, as of the Gospel, so of this chapter, is vital unification
with Christ. In the individual case, this begins by what Our
Lord calls " coming to " Him, seeing, hearing, believing on Him,
words always including an active, vital element. The Jews
" came," yet that was physical approximation merely. They
" looked at " the signs and " listened to " the words; yet listen-
ing, " heard not," and looking, " saw " not. Why, they, like
many an inquirer, may even have given in their intellectual
assent to Christ's claims. But not yet is that faith. You will
find would-be converts yielding freely to the force of an argu-
ment; owning that the " Catholic position " is by them irrefut-
able; still you may know clearly that not yet are they " believ-
ing;" not yet is the vital contact established. Only when grace
" catches " the will, is Eternal Life begun. But even as a man,
born into the world, requires for his growth and development
a proportionate daily food; so too must his New Life, inaug-
urated at his second, spiritual birth, receive its suitable, con-
stant food. But no food is proportionate to the Eternal Life
which requires maintenance and increase, save Christ Himself;
no food can be like in character or quality to that which is in
essence unique; it must be a food identical in kind with it:
but where the Life is Christ, the food too must be Christ; and
the Eucharist is the chiefest way in which Christ feeds us
with Himself; a way having its material coefficient, for we too
are body as well as soul, and administered recurrently, for we
still live in time, and forget and grow tired, and change, and
must be succored in accordance with our state. When at the
Last Day our soul breaks out of the limiting hours and years
into its Eternal State, it will have no more need of fractional
Communions, nor Sacraments given and re-given, and multi-
plied Masses and summoning altar-rails. Mystery unconquer-
1 Maldonatus, as usual, is very good on this : and by his strong insistence on the
inclusiveness of St. John's meaning, avoids, I think, the difficulties with which Patrizi
and Wiseman, for example, have to contend, though they at least see this, that the
Eucharist is not equally uppermost in John's mind throughout the chapter, and is in
any case not to be regarded as an end in itself, an exhaustive climax, but In it*
place in a whole scheme : the supreme symbol and instrument, for the Christian, of his
incorporation with Christ. Though doubtless in so far as Holy Communion is that
incorporation, the Eucharist can be regarded even as an end. Still, our Eternal Life
of Communion is to be distinguished from our recurrent Communions.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 787
able by human reasoning! Eternal Life given to and nurtured
in my fluctuant body and unstable mind ! Not here is any more
the duty of philosophizing; but we offer to God that "heart
sincere " which faith makes strong; and to this our victory God
gives not alone that New Name which marks our new and
spiritual birth into a new reality, but that Secret Manna which
shall nourish us into the perfection of the Sons of God.2
So do not impoverish the contents of John's consciousness.
Only the most practised of Greek-natured wits, only the most
ascetic-willed philosopher, can so concentrate upon one thought
as to eliminate wholly the thoughts which are in vital associa-
tion with it. That is a habit useful, at times, and in the process
of inquiry: but in vision, you do not eliminate: you see the
whole in its parts, and the parts not dissected nor scattered here
and there, but as a living whole.
" How," the Jews struggle with the mystery, " can this Man
give us His flesh to eat? " " How can these things be? "
Like a solemn music the theme develops itself, first nega-
tive, then positive and triumphant.
In solemn truth I tell you :
If ye eat not the Flesh of the Son of Man,
And do not drink His Blood,
You have no Life in you.
He who doth eat My Flesh
And drink My Blood,
Hath Eternal Life,
And I will raise Him up at the Last Day.
For My Flesh is a true Food,
And My Blood, true Drink.
He who eateth My Flesh
And drinketh My Blood,
Abideth in Me
And I in him.
Even as He sent Me — the Living Father —
So he who eateth Me
He too shall live by Me.
This is the Bread which came down out of Heaven.
Not as the fathers ate,
And died;
He who eateth this bread
Shall live for ever.
»Apoc. 11. 17.
788 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
It is the Spirit, He concludes, which makes alive: supernatural
union with Christ does not destroy the world it conquers, nor
slay the flesh it en-souls: without it, "world" and "flesh" are
dead, indeed; but with it, true life indwells that flesh which the
Word became, so that by that Presence, and by It alone, we find
eternal "profit."
In the allegory of the Vine, Jesus, though more shortly,
teaches the same doctrine of incorporation, and with more em-
phasis, as, indeed, the occasion suggested, upon the Love which
that union implies. The act by which Christian is joined to Christ
is fully human as well as divine; it is not merely a reasoned
choice, no utilitarian decision only, by which the soul grows
into and remains in Him. Even in our earthly histories, what
unification is so strong and so transfiguring, as that which
comes through love? In the Stem, therefore, the vineshoots
dwell: separation from it is death to the shoot, and indeed,
diminution, though not death, for the Stem : union means the
glad springing-upwards of one sap through Stem and shoots
and tendrils, bearing rich clusters of grapes whose wine makes
glad not the heart of man alone, but of God.
Of this indwelling and embracing Love more will be said
when the great discourse of the Supper Room is reached.
Jesus can only assure to us this unique relation to Himself
because of His own unique relation to the Father. He can
only give us this special Life because He has it; and He has it,
because He is it; and He is it, because of that mysterious Iden-
tity which is coexistent with that mysterious otherness to be
asserted of Himself and the Father, Source of all existence.
This is a third (yet organically connected) " directive idea " in
John's Gospel. It is no doubt the object of his intuitions rather
than of his reasonings; he exclaims, not argues; asserts, not
proves; adores, not analyzes. He furnishes materials for
theologians yet unborn; he supplies them with all, perhaps,
that they will ever need; he gives them phrases which they will
allot to that Divine Nature or that Human Nature to which
they may be severally appropriate; no part, perhaps of the
treatises on Trinity and Incarnation but may be built up, forth-
with, by the aid of John's words.
But albeit the doctrine of the Godhead of Christ be in his
pages at once astonishingly complete and clear, although im-
marshaled into order, yet it remains that John's eyes are fixed
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 789
throughout upon a Person; Mystery is for him irrevocably In-
carnate : " That which we have seen with our eyes — which our
hands have handled " Doubtless this Person is That " which
existed from the beginning, which was along with God, and It-
self was ' God.' " 3 But this abstract, disincarnate view will not
continue; the Word becomes Flesh and pitches His tent among
us; and henceforward John keeps his eyes fixed on Jesus, and
will not " divide " Christ, even in thought.
Though Nathanael, in a single sentence, will call Our Lord
" Rabbi " and " Son of God," and as climax " King of Israel," 4
yet John assuredly uses the title — Son of God — as a unique and
unshared and, indeed, incommunicable predicate. True, we are
all to be, by grace, God's children; yet Jesus is the Sole-Begotten.
None has ascended into Heaven, to detect and reveal God's
secret; but one, and one only, can proclaim it, for He knows it
necessarily, His existence being in Heaven, whence He has de-
scended.5
God no man has seen ever:
The Sole-Begotten Son
Who exists in the heart of the Father,
His is the Revelation.6
And this descent is as voluntary as that further descent into
physical death, which the Incarnate Word foresaw.
I came forth from God,
And here am I;
I came not from Myself,
But He sent Me.7
I came forth from the Father,
And I came into the World:
Now I am leaving the world,
And I fare forth to the Father.8
I lay down My life for the Sheep . . .
I lay down My life
That I may take it again. . . .
8 It is impossible to render in English the nuance expressed by the presence, then
absence of the article in the phrases ^v Tcapa TOU @eou and T)V @sbq. It goes beyond " He
stood beside the King and Himself was royal." For this suggests a royalty diluted by
participation; or again, "He stood beside the Emperor, and himself was Emperor;"
for that implies that in this case there were at any rate two Emperors. 6 Osbc; "God,"
refers to God as the Ultimate, Undivided Source of all that is: 0~; without the
article, to the Nature and Substance of God, identical in the Word, and in the Father
who begets Him.
4 John i. 49. • John iii. 13, 16, 18. • John i. 18.
'John viii. 42; cf. vi. 38-42; xvii. 8. "John xvi. 20; cf. vi. 62.
790 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
No man snatcheth it from Me,
But I lay it down of Myself.
Freedom have I to lay it down,
And freedom to take it up once more.9
All this shows that the assertion that He is sent by the Father 10
marks no ultimate subordination of nature or of rdle, but that
in Him, thus sent, the Father comes; and if He insists, that He
came not to do His own Will, but His Father's,11 this marks, in
these contexts, not divergence or opposition of Wills, but their
perfect concurrence. Indeed, we observe here a mysterious
circle of causality and consequence. The Father loves the Son
because that Son does ever what is pleasing to Him : again, it is
because the Father loves the Son, that He reveals Himself to
Him, so that the Son sees all that the Father does, and Him-
self can do it, and nothing else.12 This mysterious reciprocity
of knowledge, action and love recalls that "aerolite fallen from
the skies of John " to be read in St. Matthew, chapter xi.
verse 27. "No one fully knoweth the Son but the Father;
and no one fully knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to
whom the Son shall will to reveal Him." 13
Already such a reciprocity leads up to the conviction of a
certain unity of existence, co-natural and communicated.
Thus it is that the Father substitutes the Son for Himself—
and recall how in the Apocalypse, chapters seven to fifteen, the
Old Testament symbols proper to the vision of God as the "An-
cient of Days " are transferred by the Seer to that of the Risen
Jesus — an audacity incredible were it not due to the inspired
knowledge of the truth. Thus, the Father has given over all
things into the Son's hands.14 The Father reveals Himself fully
to the Son, and pours into Him that full power over life and
death which flows from and implies essential, intrinsic identity
•John x. 15-18.
"John ill. 17-34; v. 36, 37; vi. 57; vii. 28; vili. 26-29; xii. 44, 49; xiii. 20; xvi. 5;
xvli. 3-18.
« John Yi. 38, 39 ; cf. vii. 17 ; and the doctrine of the Father's command, especially
xii. 49. 50 ; XT. 20. There is too a Hebraism latent here. In Hebrew, a denial followed
by an affirmation, "Not this (but) that," constantly implies, "Not only this, but
that . . ." or, " Not this, as opposed to that."
"John T. 17-20. The argument here is: "Trust Me that what I do Is right. The
Father loves Me, and there are no secrets between Us. And I love Him; therefore My
action reproduces His, for all my Contemplation is of His Activity, which is Himself."
John viii. 29.
* Cf. John x. 15. i« John iil. 35.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 791
of being with that which is the very Source of life and Life
itself.15 He who received the Christ receives the God Who sent
Him. "
Hence it is that the Jews with horror, the disciples slowly,
yet at the last with joy, realize that He is making Himself equal
to God,17 nay, God, and perceive that they who do not know the
Son, dare not claim that they know the Father either.18 And
thus, although the Father, the Immortal Source of Life, be
greater than That which is to "fall into the earth and die,19
yet are the Son and the Father ONE THING.20 Before Abra-
ham came into being, I AM;21 " He who beholdeth Me, beholdeth
Him Who sent Me;" 22 " Philip, he who hath seen Me, hath seen
the Father." 23
Happily, may we not think this vision of the supreme
divine fact is most clearly set forth just when the human pathos
of the Gospel gathers to its climax. Doubtless, the midnight
dialogue with the Sanhedrist, the cool pause from the dusty
roads by the ancient well, are moving and intimate scenes. Yet
the noise and wrangling of the Temple courts, the grumbled
objectors of Capharnaum, interrupting the mysterious and
majestic promises, seem to take some of the tenderness from
the Divine Voice, and to infuse an ail-but bitterness into its
inevitable grief. Sadness, indeed, is there in the quiet Supper-
room, and none can enter it without feeling, even after the exit
"John v. 21, 23, 26. "John xiii. 20. "John v. 18; x. 33; xvi. 29.
"John viii. 19; xvi. 13. Cf. 1 John ii. 23, 24. " He who denies the Son, hath not
the Father: he who acknowledged the Son, hath the Father too." Notice: Thus
far it is only from the general swing of the argument that the nature of the identity
between Father and Son must be inferred. " For He who heareth (and receiveth)
you, heareth and receiveth Me, and he who receiveth Me, receiveth Him Who sent Me,"
was said to the Apostles, who were but Christ's representatives. But it is clear that
Christ means more than that He is God's representative, to be received a* though He
were God. Similarly, to make one's self "equal to God" (v. 18), need not mean more
in itself, than to claim equality of treatment with God, like Phil. ii. 6, Tb elver, tea Oeq).
But of course equality of treatment with God can, in good metaphysic, be claimed
rightly only by one who is equal to God. But there cannot be more than one Infinite.
Therefore to be equal to God is to be God. John, however, was not even as much
Hellenized as were the Jews of Alexandria; and such an argument as the above is
quite un-Hebrew, and is Hellenic purely.
"John xiv. 20; xii. 24. *° John x. 38. "John viii. 58. M John xii. 45.
83 John xiv. 9. It is because Jesus never says anything of this sort about Chris-
tians even when He prays that they may be with Him and the Father one thing even
as He and the Father are One Thing, and however intimate be the substantial union
set up by grace, that there is no danger of any Pantheism or heterodox Monism being
based upon His words. It would be the extreme of false psychology to imagine that
Pantheism could have entered in any way into St. John's mental outlook. However
closely united be the Christian, through Christ, to God, forever is he not God, and
never shall creature be confused with, merged in, or a mode of, the Creator.
792 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
of the traitor, the immanence of the Cross; yet all the elements
of human heartbreak, of desolation and of death, revolve on a
secondary plane: the attention of Speaker and of hearer and
of reader grows f ocussed on that supreme Love which knits into
one whole the Most High God and these His " little ones," " His
own," "His friends," "His chosen," and "called" and "children"
and "His flock," because in that Highest, as in those lowest,
lives the Christ; and again, in the Christ, Highest and lowest
meet. Angels " ascend and descend " upon Him Who is above
all the heavens, and yet has been made, for a little, lower than
are they.
From the beginning of the Gospel, John has reminded us
that some men will reject their salvation, and refuse to come to
and hear their Saviour; but never once has the Saving Death
itself been spoken of in accents of gloom and tragedy.
Even as Moses, in the desert, placed the bronze serpent
high upon its pole, that the dying Israelites might look towards
it and might live, so was the Son of Man to be uplifted, unto
life;24 what if His throne of exaltation were the Cross? "I, if
I be lifted up, will draw all men to Myself." What though the
hostility of priest and erudite and politician gather itself
against Him, till the whole people seem to have become repro-
bate? "Look," they exclaim, "the world has gone after
Him." 25 What though the cynical false patriot declare that it
will pay if one man be murdered, but the nation saved? By the
radiating power of that death, the destined race of the Children
of God should be gathered from all distances of space and
time.26 Already to the Greek-named Philip come the Greeks.
" Sir, we would see Jesus;" and He exults, seeing the hour of
glorification at hand, precisely through that interval of death
and dark. " Unless the Grain of Wheat fall into the earth and
die, it remaineth alone by itself; but if it die, it beareth much
fruit." 27 This Evangelist, who omits the picture of the Agony,
and the " Angel strengthening Him," does not fear to set before
us this scene of the troubling of Christ's soul, for the sake of the
Heavenly Witness, the Voice of God, which attested the tri-
umph, through death, of the Eternal Son.28
With chapter thirteen, then, begins the second half of St.
John's Gospel, to which he sets as preface the short sentence
84 John iii. 14. «« John xii. 19. *« John xi. 49-52.
"John xii. 24, 25. ** John xii. 27.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 793
which includes a whole theology of Christ and God, and Christ
and Man : " Jesus, knowing that His hour was come for passing
over from this world unto the Father, having loved His own
who were in the world, to the uttermost loved He them."
He rose, bowed Himself, washed their feet, made Himself
servant of all, and taught that no disdain must check, no con-
descension disfigure, our duty of utmost service to our fellows.
Seeing Him thus humbled, and enjoining humility, consider
what He says:
He who receiveth him whom I send,
Receiveth Me:
And He who receiveth Me,
Receiveth Him Who sent Me.29
Already had He declared that His works were argument enough
that "in Me, the Father is, and I in the Father," 30 but "Now" He
cries, speaking with exultant freedom once the only real enemy
is gone forth — " Now is God glorified in His Son; and if, indeed,
God be glorified in Him, Him too shall God glorify in Himself,
and straightway shall He glorify Him." 31 Already the Father
speaks in Him and works in Him, and to see the One is to see
the Other also,32 and thus these " little children," who have
"kept" His words and so have received into them the new
substantial Life— Thy Word is Truth, Thy Word is Life,33 are
knit up into the same unity.34
" In that day," He affirms, " you shall realize that I am in
the Father, and you in Me, and I in you." 35 To His beloved He
repeats that We will come to Him and make our abode with
him.36 "Trust in God! Trust too in Me."37 Many are the
tarrying-places in that world which has already become God's
home; as many as are the hearts which, full of grace, are by
that very fact God-indwelt. He has no need to go to prepare
them any further " mansion." Each heart dwells in the other.
" Sir, where abidest Thou? " " I, in thee; and thou, beloved, in
Me."
For if Jesus is the Way, He is also Truth and Life, that is,
the Goal. We need no more than Him. Once in Him, we are
where we would reach. On the day when His glorification is
"John xiii. 20. 80John x. 38; cf. xiv. 11. »John xiii. 31*
"John xiv. 9-11. "John xvii. 17; vi. 63.
"Compare 1 John ii. 24, 25, 27, 28; ill. 24; iv. 13-16.
"John xiv. 20. ««John xiv. 23. "John xiv. 1.
794 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
accomplished, and Christ be revealedly " all in all," ye shall
recognize that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in
you.38 That Coming of which He speaks, when we shall know
how They "abide" is us, is, once more, but the revelation of
that Real Presence which is already here. Meanwhile, an
interspace, during which the Spirit of Truth, inhabiting us,
must teach us to appreciate more deeply and possess more
chosenly, that Fact which is ours, and which is He.89
But it were time ill-spent to analyze these chapters: they
are the seamless robe in which are clothed these final hours of
intercourse : in them is repeated every element in that wonder-
ful theology which John has stated and re-stated in the first
part of his Gospel, and each may be remembered here, but as
one sees a well-loved countryside from a hill-top in the sunset,
details fused in the glow, hard edges softened, crudities trans-
figured beneath the splendid rays. Love is the beginning and
the cause of salvation's process; Love the explanation of each
path taken, each halting-place; and triumphant, purified,
unitive love, the end. Yet no soft love; no compromise, no com-
plaisant indulgence: if the world hated Him, then too will it
hate, them will it slay;40 but for all that, is there one sentence
here not all encouragement; not justifying His declaration that
theirs is to be joy, and joy full-filled, a joy that none can take
from them? 41 His very death means joy, and is His glory.
Father, the hour is come.
Glorify Thou the Son
That the Son may glorify Thee;
Thou hast given Him power over all flesh,
That all whom Thou hast given to Him, to them He may give
Eternal Life.
(And this is the Eternal Life:
To know Thee,
The only True God,
And Him Whom Thou hast sent,
Jesus Christ.)
I did glorify Thee upon the earth
Having accomplished the work Thou hast given Me to do.
And now, glorify Thou Me, Father, at Thy side,
With the glory which I had, before the world began, with Thee.
"John xiv. 23. "John xiv. 17-26; xvi. 13.'
40 John xv. 18; xvi. 2. « John xvi. 22-24.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 795
I did manifest Thy Name
Unto the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world.
For Thee they were, and to Me Thou gavest them,
And Thy Word have they kept,
And now they have understood that all Thou hast given Me
Is from Thee . . .
I pray for them,
For they are Thine,
And all Mine are Thine, and Thine Mine
And I have been glorified in them . . .
Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name
Whom Thou gavest to Me
That they may be one thing,
As we are.
Not for them alone do I ask,
But also for them who shall believe through their word
On Me,
That all they may be One Thing,
Even as Thou, Father, art in Me,
And I in Thee,
That so they too may be in Us ...
And I, the glory Thou hast given to Me
Have I given to them,
That they may be One Thing,
As We are One Thing.
I in them
And Thou in Me,
That they may be made perfect into One,
That the world may realize that it is Thou Who hast sent Me,
And hast loved them even as Thou hast loved Me.
Father, what Thou hast given Me,
(Even to be with Thee),
That u?i// I, that where / am
They too may be with Me,
And they may contemplate My glory
That Thou hast given Me because Thou lovedst Me,
Before the world's foundation . . .
I have made known to them Thy Name,
And will make it known,
That the Love wherewith Thou lovedst Me
May be in them,
And I in them.42
"John xvil.
796 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
From the Supper-room Jesus passed to Gethsemane. John
knows well enough that henceforward the Passion must be
allowed to tell itself. Rarely enough will his turn of phrase or
special choice of thought differentiate the narrative. Yet even
so, how other are these pages, in some subtle way, from what
the Synoptists had written. 43
From the garden, Jesus goes before the representatives of
the Jewish Church: they question Him; He reminds them that
they have nothing new to hear from Him: He has no secret
doctrine. Jerusalem rejects Him. He moves before Rome's
tribunal. He declares that He came, and was sent, to bear
witness to the Truth. " What is * Truth? ' " asks the tired, con-
temptuous official; Imperial Rome, like theocratic Sion, is not
" of the Truth," and cannot " hear " Him. Yet, by the irreversi-
ble title of the Gross, Rome placards Jesus as the Hebrews' King.
Scourged, stripped, and nailed to the Gross, He waits in
the darkness. To the soldiers His clothes are abandoned; to
John, Mary is intrusted. Law is obeyed, Prophecy full-filled;
the World's Mystery is consummated. He bows His Head, and
gives His soul to God.
In the Apocalypse John had written of a Scroll, inscribed,
so over-flowing were its contents, on front and back alike, and
sealed with Seven Seals that none were wise or powerful
enough to break, that so its secret should be read. All heaven
and earth and hell are challenged, and in none of them was
one found worthy. Only the Lamb that was slain, and though
slain, stands and lives, was able to break the Seals and read the
Scroll and interpret it. Upon the Gross, Christ had put the last
word to that tremendous story; so was it "consummated,"
brought to its full perfection. And forthwith Christ unseals,
and unrolls, and tells its meaning, for its meaning is Himself;
43 Though, as I said, this is no critical commentary, it may interest readers, and
help them in their comparison of St. John with the other Gospels, to follow Calmes'
ordering of the verses of chap, xviii. to read them thus : 1-13, 24, 14, 15, 19-23, 16-18 (25
a), 25, b-27. So, almost, Comely. Manuscript authority itself shows that a confusion
of the text is here probable. Partly, no doubt, the difference between the spirit of
passages almost identical in John and in the Synoptists, is felt by our knowing, by
now, with what brooding wealth of meaning John changes certain words — like
seek, send, remain. Hence what is not the irony, in St. John, of a dialogue like:
" Whom seek ye? " " Jesus of Nazareth." " I am He." Remember the affirmations
to which the Samaritaness or the man born blind gave occasion. Remember Christ's
repeated declaration: I AM. Such an irony, too, is well-discernible when e. g.,
Nicodemus says : " We know thou art come from God to be a Teacher. . . ." And
you reflect, the while, on what John means when he says " we know," or speaks of
the Sending, or Coming, of the Son.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 797
Himself, dux vitdt mortuus, Life's Captain dead, and yet, alive
and conqueror. For, from His dead side water and blood flow
forth, water for cleansing, blood for giving Life, healing for the
past, vital promise for the future; baptism, absolution,
Eucharist; the Church, sprung from His very Heart.
They bury Him, and in the Easter dawn, He rises. John
and Peter visit the sepulchre; to Mary, in the garden of Resur-
rection, He reveals Himself by the sole speaking of her name;
Thomas doubts no more; the Holy Ghost is given. Christ hands
over His Shepherdhood in its entirety to Peter; the Church's
net sweeps in its happy multitudes. " If I will that he tarry
till I come, what is that to thee?" says Jesus of His beloved;
and the mistaken legend to which the words gave rise is gently
corrected by the author. Not Mary, and not John had to wait
anxiously for that destined apparition of Messias; no, nor even,
anxiously, for bodily death delayed or swift: in their hearts
His Coming was accomplished, and they in Him and He in them
lived, as He had willed, in perfect love and Presence.
Thus, as it were, by fragments stitched together; halting
somewhat; unable to conclude by literary climax or artistic
device such as might satisfy the worldlier spirits who might
read it, the Fourth Gospel finishes, rather than ends. The
Forty Days of Resurrection had nothing of an End about them.
Christ was not gone and done with : in His undying Church He
lives, and she in Him.
Thus it will be seen that John, by finishing after this
fashion, has once more altered the atmosphere of his vision.
When the Passion begins, the great theological presentments,
rising into ecstasy, of the first part of his Gospel are over. The
eagle is no more gazing into the very eye of the sun. The ting-
ling air of heaven, dazzling and crystalline above earth's rocks
and marshes, is no more what he breathes. In the Passion
chapters, the eagle comes home, as it were, to rest; it too, after
all, is a thing of feathers, and warm sleep, and brooding affec-
tion. In its home it heaps itself, forgetting nothing of the
glories and the height, yet content with folded wing and hooded
eye. Almost, John carries through, in his Gospel, the career
of the great ecstatics, who, as the loyal years are lived, become
calmer, as it were, and at home in their Heaven-on-earth; a
glow follows the flashing intuitions; they watch steadily, in the
golden light, what the recurrent lightning-flash had shown. So
798 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
in these Passion-chapters, the Saint rests his head upon the
Heart of Christ; his eyes are closed; his thought is at rest; just
the undying memory of those hours of love suffice him. The
peace of Calvary is his; and Jesus, dying and risen, has be-
come all Heaven and earth to him. Why, even in human love,
one person can, at times, absorb the world and self. Yet not
for that is world or self annihilated : the world is re-read, re-
gained, re-prized, in the light of its relation to the loved one.
Self is re-created, re-duplicated, at last made worthy and
great, because identified with the only life worth loving. And
if it be true that it is hard to love passionately without, in cer-
tain hours at least, some self -loss, or world-loss, or disregard of
what is not the only true-beloved, not so is the love of soul and
Christ. Source of the " more abundant life " is He; and though
John became more wholly Christ's than ever I can be my
friend's yet assuredly he lost nothing that was John; few per-
sonalities, after all these centuries make themselves more
separately felt than his; we should be weaker friends with
John, were John less wholly friends with Jesus.
Therefore, we need have no fear to pass from the history
of Christ to that of the Church. One love links the two. The
same spirit is alive in that pathetic First Epistle in which the old
age of the Apostle is so discernible. Its repetitions, its lapses of
continuous thought, its anxieties, its austerities, who would
dare to criticize any of this, or to resent it? Who, sitting among
the aged Saint's disciples, would be less than content to listen
to his faltering phrases, and to rest, in our turn, in the warm en-
compassment of his love? And weak though his body be, and
hesitating his sentences, who but will recognize, at once, the
spiritual strength within them? Why, even this Epistle has
been fruitful in words and expressions that no literature, since,
has forgotten. There is here, interiorly, no collapse of thought
and will; indeed, the sternness is, if anything, accentuated;
the Church's enemies are held well in view, and are most terri-
bly rebuked; the wickedness of the world is remorselessly de-
nounced. Yet in all alike, yes, even in controversy, the soul
of love is there, forbidding even that controversy to be limiting
and deadening.
The Church is, in the beautiful phrase of an early writer,
the Beloved: no invertebrate is she; no shifting wraith of a
mood, or way of local life, or phase of thought. Christ is in His
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 799
Christians; and the full Christ is Christ and Christian too.
Only sin, fixed and made permanent by will, can separate us.
Sins! who has no sins? Were we to say we have none, "the
truth were not in us;" nay, Himself we should make a liar;
His " Word," His explanations of human history were, again,
" not in us." But once we confess our sin, and come, and come
back, to the Source of that Life which annuls death, not only
the past is transformed, but the future is assured. Our death
will die out of us, through His death which never could de-
stroy His Life, but is our Life, our Intercession and Propitia-
tion, and that of the whole universe.44 By such men, and in
them, His Word and Plan (which are Himself) are " kept," and
in such the Love of God reaches its completion. Hereby we
know that " in Him we exist."45 No new thing, assuredly, is
this Love, but existing, in part revealed and enjoined since the
beginning; and yet, new; for the Triumph of the Light is
gradual, and only by degrees the world's darkness dwindles.46
By degrees the world ceases to be " world," founded upon evil,
and source of lust of flesh and lust of eye and flaunting boast
of " life," once the true love and life reveal to the new-born
Christian what the Father is, and how the past is pardoned;
and to the growing Christian, how to conquer what in him still
is hostile to the divine life which now is his; and to the grown
men among the faithful, prolific in their turn of Sons of God,
to understand Him Who was from the Beginning and endures
in Eternity.47 That world is passing away, an unsubstantial
mirage, in comparison to him who, identified by grace and
choice with God, endures, he too, eternally.48
Still, once more, not yet is the consummation. The Eternal
is mated with Time, but not yet are the two one perfect Sacra-
ment. The world's history traces its upward course, but by the
road of a spiral, and a tilted spiral, so that even as it progresses,
a point in its progress may, at a given moment, be lower than
what it had reached a while ago. Already, before the last
Apostle died, not only was the whole world not conquered, but
of those who seemed, indeed, to be Christ's Christians, some
had fallen away, and some, from His friends, had become His
open enemies. Heresies already were sprung up: and John
** 1 John i. 8-10; II. 12. *" 1 John II. 5.
«• 1 John ii. 7, 8. ' 4T 1 John II. 12-16.
48 1 John ii. 13. When John speaks of the Eternal Life, he uses the word t^jj :
when the transitory, human life of years and " natural " tendency, the word (6<;.
800 HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL [Sept.,
never will admit but that at the root of the perverse new
theories, was ill will. Good faith in error seemed to his mind
unthinkable. To have tasted Christ, then to reject Him—
how should that not be sin? Therefore he views with horror
those who " divide " Christ, refusing to acknowledge the one
Person, God and Man, but either assert that He is Man in seem-
ing only, or God only by some adoption or as it were by cour-
tesy, a divine spirit having settled on or enveloped the Son of
Mary, a " Christ " merely inhabiting, or " using " Jesus. Such
men, John cries, are anti-Christs : many such have already
come into being. They went out of the Christian flock . . .
had they, in truth, ever been of it? he asks, struggling with
the fearful problem of loss of grace: how shall Divine Life
die? Never called, no wonder if a man "come" not. But
called, responsive, supernaturalized, and then a soul-suicide,
how shall that happen?
More willingly John turns to contemplate the faithful, those
on whom the Anointing of the Holy One remains; it remain-
ing, they too remain. For that Anointing is the Spirit, and
its Indwelling makes of Christians, in their mysterious measure,
Christ. That grace of the Indwelling Spirit teaches them bet-
ter than by argument — though to the obedient mind musing
reason can do no harm — that Christ is true Son of God. He
who denies that, is anti-Christ; is Satan-seed; is forthwith gone
out into that Dark which swallowed up the traitor.
For, to the very end, the grave parallel seems firm. " I in
them, and they in Me :" and, those in whom the " world " abides,
and who have never fully, therefore, ceased to " abide " in this
world. To the Christian's mind are given " Heavenly Things "
for knowledge : these the world cannot understand, and there-
fore neither can it understand the Christian.40 Indeed, when a
Christian lives by grace, what of that Mystery, that fourth-
dimensional existence, can be given to the world's un-graced
vision? Not even to such a Christian is the manifestation of
that grace-life given. Not yet we see God as He is, and not yet
(we dare to say) can we see ourselves as we are, By faith we
hold to the Eternal Life whose Tent we are. Indeed, what we
do see, and what the world, alas, still sees, is the f aultiness of
our natural life, for do not our hearts still condemn us? The
Spirit is with and in us, but not yet wholly obedient are we to
«1 John ill. 1.
1919.] HOW TO READ ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL 801
Him. And if, indeed, our hearts condemn us, what then are
we to do? How shall self chasten self? Trust to the initiative
of grace ! the spontaneous activity of the Spirit. Mean are our
hearts and faulty; but " God is greater than our hearts."
" Greater is He Who is in you than he who is in the world."
" Therefore, Beloved, let us love one another, for Love is
from God, and every one who loves is born of God, and knows
God. He who does not love, never knew God, for God is Love.
Herein has the Love of God been revealed amongst us, that His
Son, His Sole-Begotten, did God send forth into the world, that
we might live, through Him. In this is the Love — not that we
loved God, but that Himself loved us, and sent His Son, a
Propitiation for our sins.
" Beloved, if so God loved us, we too owe to love one an-
other. True, God no one hath ever seen; but if we love one
another, God remains in us, and His Love is brought to com-
pleteness in us. ...
** God is Love, and he who remains in the Love, remains in
God, and God remains in him." 50
«° 1 John iv, 7-16.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
ERRATUM. — Through a compositor's error the word " not " was omitted in the
last sentence of the first paragraph on page 463, in the July issue of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD.
The sentence should have read: "We maintain that on critical grounds alone,
there Is no valid reason to suppose that Gospel and Apocalypse and Epistles are not
alike the work of John, son of Zebedee, the ' beloved ' of Our Lord."
VOL. en. ftl
MARYKNOLL AND THE FAR EAST.
BY THE EDITOR.
|ENTURIES ago Hudson, as he followed up the
river which bears his name, thought he had dis-
covered a passage through the Western to the
Eastern world. The union of the two worlds
was never thus to be won. And if so won, would
it not be used for the material growth of the world— grown
already too fat and indolent on its physical riches? It would
bear the argosies of the nations from one to another: through
it would pass the great battleships to their mission of death.
The war of nations would be waged for its possession and its
defences. It might make the world smaller: but surely, of
itself, it would never make the world larger. Largeness in its
true sense has nothing to do with physical size or physical
possessions. Largeness is the work and the gift of the spirit.
The world's real growth is measured by the increase in the in-
dividual man of the spirit of Christian charity, the spirit
whereby he more and more loves his neighbor as he loves
himself.
High on the hills that crown the Eastern bank of that same
Hudson River, near Ossining, stands the institution of Mary-
knoll. It has found not what Hudson failed to find, but what he
never sought — a true enduring passage through the Western
world to that of the East. From its hills may be seen the silver
sweep of the Hudson, backed by the stern immovable curtain
of the Palisades. To the south it opens into the gateway of the
New World. From the first day of its finding that gateway has
been circled with the rainbow of hope for the Old World. In a
new land the old might be reborn and know the vigor and the
daring of youth.
Is that why she who was so young when she brought forth
the Saviour of the world, was the favorite of its first mission-
aries and afterwards was named by Holy Church as its patron?
Or is it because she has never known corruption, that her soul
is immaculate, and her body never knew decay but was
assumed all fresh and glorious into Heaven? She is the peren-
1919.] MARYKNOLL AND THE FAR EAST 803
nial Mother of the sons of God and the brothers of Christ. She
has kept all human affections and hopes very lovely and sweet.
She has made every mother joyous, and given laughter to dance
in the eyes of children, and raised up mighty sons who buckled
on the hard armor of self-sacrifice and fought to death in the
service of her Son. She is the queen of this institution of
Maryknoll. It is the hill over which she rules and presides;
from its crest she will send her children into the valley of the
world's strife. Of her was born the gift of faith, for in answer
to her plea her Son performed His first miracle and " from that
moment the disciples began to believe in Him." They who
have denied Him, have hated her and they who love Him, love
her very dearly.
As the patron of America she will ask America with all its
rich resources to serve the Church Universal. In America
itself she will beget such faith as will not alone insure the well-
being of the Church at home, but will send forth the zealous
missionary to proclaim that faith to the Far East, to the mil-
lions who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. She who
from Maryknoll looks upon the Hudson, looks with equally
gracious eyes upon the Yang-tze-kiang.
Mary images perfectly the all-embracing love of Her divine
Son. No creature is excluded from its searching warmth, and
they who love her, the Mother of the sons of God, will, with a
vision as wide as humankind, and with unsatisfied soul, seek
to give His love to those who know it not.
Although this be the truth, does it not always demand that
some person, some lesser saviour, incarnate it for us, that we
may know and follow and serve in him and through him?
What else are the saintly leaders of history? Someone must
receive the inspiration — perhaps all unknown to himself.
Someone must be harassed by the vision which gives him no
rest till he has led himself and his followers into the promised
land. The search for that passage which would connect the
Western and the Eastern worlds was a far-off reflection of that
oft-neglected, but never entirely forgotten, truth, that all men
ought to be united in the love of one another through their
common love of God.
To one man in America was given not only the vision but
the courage to accomplish. For years he labored to arouse the
Catholics of America to a sense of their obligation to the
804 MARYKNOLL AND THE FAR EAST [Sept.,
spiritual needs of the East. By spoken and printed word he
heralded the duty and the appeal: he made known its wants
and our responsibilities. He gathered not only funds but per-
sonal disciples. And now, through the efforts of this pioneer,
the passage to the East has been found : the passage has been
effected, and the New World joins the Old in the bonds of
Christ's love.
The Very Rev. James A. Walsh is this apostle : this pioneer :
this missionary. He has told the story of fulfillment in a new
volume entitled with becoming humility Observations in the
Orient.1
It does not give the story of Maryknoll. It tells of the fields
which will be made fruitful by the long years of patient labor
and training upon that hill of Mary. She has certainly watched
over it with gracious care. It is an institution the extent and
solidity of which few realize. It has its own seminary with
full teaching staff. It is the American National Seminary for
Foreign Missions. A community of devout, consecrated women
has been founded there, and these assist in the work of prepara-
tion for foreign missions. It has not only its monthly organ,
The Field Afar, but a very worthy list of its own publications,
telling the needs of the Missions and the heroic story of mis-
sionary martyrs.
The Catholics of America do not yet fully reab'ze the far-
reaching work which through this institution they will do for
the world. Observations in the Orient will enlighten them. It
is not a dry formal treatise on the need of missionary work.
Maryknoll, while always staying close to God, never gets away
from those good pleasantries that lighten the day and its work.
It never speaks with that seriousness that forgets Christ. Its
founder, therefore, has given us an entertaining personal nar-
native of his experiences from the day he left Maryknoll for the
East till the day of his return.
His pen touches lightly the casual incident, and then in bold
strokes outlines the broad vision and the immense task. What
will strike the reader forcibly is : First, the surprising extent and
variety of Catholic missionary work in China: its personnel:
and its institutions. And, secondly, that practically all of this
work has been done by the heroic priests and people of nations
1 Observations in the Orient, by Very Rev. James A. Walsh. Catholic Foreign
Mission Society of America, Ossining, N. Y. $2.00.
1919.] MARYKNOLL AND THE FAR EAST 805
other than America. France stands preeminent, both in the
number of priests she has given and the funds she has con-
tributed. America can but claim the honor of a beginner and
an imitator. We have been but children while other nations
have shouldered the burdens of men. Now, suddenly called to
maturity, we may well ask ourselves in deep humility are we
prepared to assume the responsibilities and to fulfill the great
task? We may not even begin to boast till, for generations, we
have given equal evidence of Catholic zeal and Catholic devo-
tion as the nations who have written the imperishable and
glorious record of the past. We should be willing to sit at their
knees and learn. It is often characteristic of us Americans
to boast that we can do a job better than anybody else. We
must abandon the boast, if we are to do any work well. A sense
of fairness and humility are basic conditions of success in any
work for God or for man.
Observations in the Orient tells of the immense areas
yet untouched, embracing immortal work for sacrificial
hearts to do. The reader will learn that there are almost
two millions of Catholics in China: that the increase
in one year is two hundred thousand and that the churches and
chapels number eight thousand six hundred and sixteen. But
he will also learn that the entire population of China is three
hundred and ninety-three million souls. In the province of
Shan out of twelve million, only sixty-two thousand five hun-
dred and four are Catholics: in Kansu, of twenty-one million
five hundred thousand, only six thousand seven hundred and
eighteen; in Sz-Chuan, out of sixty-eight million seven hundred
and fifty thousand, only one hundred and forty thousand eight
hundred and seventy-two; and in the province of Kwang Tung,
a portion of which has been assigned to Maryknoll, there are but
eighty-seven thousand five hundred and ninety-seven Catholics
out of a total population' of one million seven hundred and
fifty thousand. He will also learn of the need and, indeed, the
requests for American priests: of how it is being asked why
America has not done more.
The increase in the number of native priests, and the
growth of Catholic educational institutions — the Catholic college
at Wuchang, for example, has one hundred and twenty pupils
and is recognized by the Government; the religious community
of native women named the Josephites : the Catholic hospitals
806 MARYKNOLL AND THE FAR EAST [Sept.,
and the Catholic Sisters : the Government hospital at Pekin in
charge of Catholic Sisters, all these lead one to exclaim with
the author: " If the strength of Christianity in this section of
China could develop in proportion to the growth of European
and American interests in Shanghai, the next generation would
witness marvels. How of ten ~ I think of Our Lord's words,
' The children of this world are wiser in their generation than
the children of light.' All kinds of American and European
enterprises are represented in Shanghai and every boat adds to
its foreign population. Would that we could say the same of
the Church's interests. Not that much has not already been
accomplished, not that much is not being done; but vastly more
could be done, and this is the hour, as everybody who is watch-
ing China knows full well."
It is the hour and Maryknoll has shown the way. We can,
if we will, send missionaries there who, through the Spirit by
Whom they work, will renew the face of the earth.
It would be impossible here to enumerate the unanswer-
able arguments presented in this book showing that the people
of China are ripe for the harvest. The success of the Catholic
Mission proves it. The work of the Protestant missionary,
while it has often improved social conditions, has scandalized
the Chinese by its evident disruption and self-contradictions.
They seek the one Voice that will carry with it the sure accents
of divine Truth. The standards of morality among them are
high, and that is ever a sign that the ground is fit for Catholic
planting. They suffer from gross injustice, from pitiable want,
from the degrading conditions imposed by those who have no
great concern for either their bodies or their souls. Father
Walsh tells that recently a large number of lepers were put to
death by fire in order to be rid of them.
The Catholic missionary who goes there consecrated to
nothing but their service, with no wife nor chiltlren nor family
ties, who has made himself a perfect sacrifice for them — can-
not but succeed. We believe there is enough good in human
nature to permit it to correspond to this proffered grace of God.
The Catholic faith our missionaries will preach will lift them
out of deadly paganism to the light and the life of Christian
hope and Christian love. It will make them children of the
eternal Kingdom of God, and their country one of the peaceful,
progressive nations of the world.
1919.] MARYKNOLL AND THE FAR EAST 807
We hear too often that they ought to be left undisturbed.
That is the word of those who, at home, complacently look
upon evil conditions and refuse to bear a brother's burden.
We hear that there is missionary work enough to do at home
and we should do that first. Those who so speak rarely make
sacrifices for missions either at home or abroad. To love our
brother abroad is no indication that we do not love our brother
at home. The spirit of Christ is one and all embracing. And
it is singularly true that foreign mission work does react on
those at home. It strengthens and invigorates and extends the
very spirit of which it is begotten.
Maryknoll will give increase to the strength of the Church
abroad and to the strength of the Church at home. Her mis-
sionary will carry the truth of Jesus Christ, preserved in all
its perfection by the Church, to those who sit in what is worse
than darkness. Through him will they be redeemed. And the
glory of that triumph will be reflected back not only upon the
country of Maryknoll but upon all the countries of the world.
It will cheer and inspire Catholic people everywhere to ap-
preciate more fully and extend more zealously the priceless in-
heritance of the Faith confessed by the Saints of God.
Furthermore the missionary of Maryknoll will bear a mes-
sage of political liberty which he will preach not as a matter of
politics but of fundamental justice and right. Next door to
China is Japan, persecuting the Church. That the missionary
to China can help its people to found their new Republic on en-
during principles, is due in part to the living example given
by the country to which the soil of Maryknoll belongs. He
can be free from the national prejudices that sometimes mark
the missionaries to the Orient. He has no part in extending
American prestige or American power. He comes with no new
message from the ancient Faith. His standards, his preaching,
his very accents are those of the saints who have preached the
Faith from St. Paul to St. Francis Xavier. He knows it was
that one unchangeable Faith that made nations and must re-
make them now if they are to live. He has seen America in her
constitution grant liberty and justice to all: and manifest the
meaning of democracy to the world. The new nations of the
world are looking to her. Therefore does the Apostolic Dele-
gate express the hope, in the preface to this book, " that thou-
sands of American Catholics through these pages, will be
808 MARYKNOLL AND THE FAR EAST [Sept.,
brought to a fuller realization of the share which the Catholic
body in this great Republic is so evidently called by Divine
Providence to take in the evangelization of the heathen world."
With love for every country and with invidious distinctions
towards none, the missionary leaving his beloved Maryknoll
for the Far East, may, even as did its founder, carry with him
the picture of home — and let that tender spot of his native
land have its share in sustaining him and guiding him in his
supernatural labors. Maryknoll — its consecrated name, its
sacred soil, its hills, its star-crowded sky, its chapel, we well
know that these will dwell with the msisionary afar who has
gone out from her.
Dreams of these haunted his full heart;
Their love inspired his songs and prayers
Bidding him play his part.
American Catholics must realize that the soil and the work of
Maryknoll is theirs : that the men who go out from it are theirs :
that the inspiration, the glory and the responsibility of the work
are theirs.
They must rouse their souls to a living, personal interest
and sacrifice. The hour for increased Catholic opportunity has
struck. The needy of the nations cry out to us. It is our work
— not simply to read about, not simply to contribute a pittance
towards — but a work that demands full generous sacrifice : the
contribution of money : the offering of prayers, and, if we be so
blessed, of our sons and our daughters. The old Faith is
still the redemption of the world. No power can alter it. No
power can bring achievement without cost nor victory without
sacrifice. We may rejoice at our country's growth and her
good fame and her prestige. We may rejoice and be grateful
because of the increase and prosperity of the Catholic Church in
our own land. But while we rejoice, the corresponding truth
looms large, the sense of responsibility grows almost fearful.
Are we prepared to fulfill the spiritual mission for which
God had opened to us the opportunity? That question the
present generation of Catholics must answer. It will need
the sacrifice to God, to Christ, and to His Church, of all that we
possess. China will tell us in part the answer; and she will
know because of those who from Maryknoll have traversed the
passage from the Western to the Eastern world.
LOVE, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.
BY HENRY E. O'KEEFFE, C.S.P.
T was the glory of Salvini's Othello to interpret
those finely modulated shades of Shakespeare's
genius which are missed by mediocre perfor-
mers. The revelation of Desdemona's seeming
infidelity overwhelms the Moor of Venice with
shattering despair. He is bent on her murder. He will not
spill her blood, for that would leave a scar on her skin whiter
than snow and smoother than monumental alabaster. The
light of the candle shines on his victim sleeping in her bed-
chamber in the castle. At the vision of her excelling beauty
he cries out in a paroxysm of grief: " It is the cause, it is the
cause, my soul."
This would mean that Othello, if he were to reason it out
with a mind not crushed by his towering jealousy, would say
to the chaste stars that he and Desdemona are as nothing
in the light of the flaming fixity of the moral law. The con-
straining subtlety of his conscience compels him to reiterate the
eternal character of the ordinance. The euphony of the Italian
language and the richness of Salvini's voice, lent music to the
melancholy of his cry : " It is the cause."
It is the cause then or the authentic law as strong as granite
in the eternal hills, which is the subject of our story. Upon
that law dependeth the constancy of love, the Sacramental
aspect of marriage and the erotic viciousness of divorce.
When Othello asserts that he knows not where there is the
Promethean heat to relume the light or to give the vital growth
to the plucked rose, it is but another fashion of declaring that
Desdemona, by the violation of her vow, has upset a fixed
principle for the right ordering of a fierce and alluring instinct.
The Greek fatalists, as evidenced in their tragedies, saw the
iron rigidity of that law even when they had nothing to soften
or coordinate the wayward impulses of the passion itself. Mat-
thew Arnold wrote a metrical translation of a choral ode of
Sophocles which depicts this established ordinance which is
begot not of man but of the gods. The minute before Othello
810 LOVE, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE [Sept.,
smothers Desdemona to death, he kisses her on the lips, utter-
ing with pathos the inexorable and everlasting nature of the
covenant in the sublime verse:
Oh, balmy breath, that doth almost persuade
Justice to break her sword.
When King David, in his outburst of affliction, prays God
to blot out his iniquity, he seems to put in abeyance not only
the horrors of the ravishment of the woman, and the conse-
quent disgrace of her spouse but also the loss of Absalom's
filial love, the revolt of his soldiers and the disruption of his
kingdom. For the moment the dominance of his penitential
spirit is centred in the sorrow, that his fall has struck at the
divinity of the moral law, which is an adumbration of the sub-
stance of the Divine Being in history and in life. The interior
genius of the Hebrew language makes such a translation im-
possible but the verse of the sacred pslum, even in English,
reads: "To Thee only have I sinned and have done evil be-
fore Thee, that Thou mayest be justified in Thy words."
It is the cause then, it is the steel-clad impregnability of
a divine convention. It is as hard as flint in its application
when viewed only with the eyes of unaided nature, but it is soft
and yielding as moss in golden and verdant valleys, when be-
held under sacramental light. The supernatural interpretation
of the Sacrament of Matrimony signifies that that which is
lacking in nature, is by a gracious participation in the divine,
supplied to lover and beloved. It is a moral strength which of
themselves they could not possess.
Theories of moral conduct built on self-perfectionism,
that is, that love can morally support itself, have proved ere
now to be futile. This is the reason for the structure of the
sacramental system, which secures the fidelity of the marital
estate and makes of divorce a mode of action applicable only
for a department of the Zoo. Is it not noticeable, that when
the professor of free love falls in love he seals it with a per-
sonal, if not a public vow?
It was in a picturesque region of our country and in a
not far distant time that there bloomed a fair woman, who was
flattered to the top of her bent by the appreciation of an Austra-
lian merchant of ample wealth. Both beauty and beast were
married personages, each with children. The poetic figure is
1919.] LOVE, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 811
mixed because of confusion in locating, even in the final scene,
which is the beauty and which the beast. Gradually there
were endearing palliations termed elective affinity, soul-mates,
psychical intuition and other things. But the attentions of our
hero and heroine ripened and ripened to corruption like
tainted fruit that falls from the tree. Their moral recklessness
was compared to the crystalline ingenuousness of Dante's high
and hopeless love. It was perilous imaginative adolescence in
distinction to the rugged reality of fact. Reason fleet footed
fled, and truth with winged flight flew over the hills and far
away. Passion came out of the palace of the Furies and
riotously ruled. In the lawlessness of such a moral tumult the
State provided a livelihood for a corps of lawyers by legally in-
terpreting the mad delirium of lechery as the exalted sentiment
of love. The Court then became the fertile mother and polite
patroness of a tragic horror which increased in volume with the
process of the years. Who can measure the width of de-
moralization brought to women and children in the disrupted
homes of divorced parents?
Our beautiful heroine was divorced from her husband
and two children to marry her rich paramour, who in turn was
divorced from his wife and two children, to marry her. Some
relic of the parental instinct remained when each asked for one
child. This made the moral dissolution for the children more
complete, for there lived one child of each parent in each house.
The abnormality of the relationship of each parent necessarily
reacted on the character of each child. Moreover, the diversity
of religious belief deepened the ill-adjustment, for among the
four parents, one was Episcopalian, the second Baptist, the
other Catholic and the last in a religious sense nothing at all.
In the Greek tragedies and the bloody dramas of Shakespeare,
the innocent often bear the stripes of the malefactors. The
blameless live to wince under the keen edge of infamy, be-
queathed to them by the divorced and guilty dead.
But illicit love cannot possess forever the serenity of the
genial landscape. Hamlet in his sublime fury rushes at his
incestuous mother, but the filial instinct holds him, when he
realizes that she is already punished. She shall have no peace
since her infatuation for the King is a passion which grows
by what it feeds on. Shakespeare sees the canker in our nature.
Hamlet cleaves his mother's heart in twain, with the state-
812 LOVE, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE [Sept.,
ment: "Rebellious hell can'st mutine in a matron's
bones."
To revert to our domestic tragedy enacted not in Den-
mark or Venice or Florence, but under our own eyes — a
tragedy which is an expression of a moral laxity, that even
Tolstoy thought was making for our national enfeeblement —
it was consummated for all in profound woe. The wealthy
lover shot his second wife, believing her to have shown favor to
his chauffeur. The chauffeur eager to shield the woman in the
scrimmage was also shot. They lay prostrate on the path of
the rose garden. The assassin glared at them as did Lanciotto
at Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. He reloaded his revolver,
put its point to his head, fired and fell dead. The chauffeur
lived to tender the ignominy of his ill-repute to his wife and
children. The beautiful woman died in lingering agony. As
the priest bent over her, for she was a Catholic, the surging tide
of conscience came to the top and she openly confessed her re-
morse. Likewise the primal instinct of maternity asserted
itself, like good blood in reaction, and she implored the sight
of the one child she had not seen for some years.
The game was not worth the candle. The desolation con-
sequent upon this inordinate emotion was the evidence that it
was awry and out of joint with the purpose of the Divine Will.
Its roots did not strike into the world of the invisible and the
real. It was not that sacramental love which is paradoxically
deepened by misfortune, perfected in restraint and crowned in
death.
While Othello believes Desdemona to be inconstant in
wedlock and false as water to him, by loving Cassio, all his
frame shakes with his sobbing, yet he comforts himself with
the creed that she must be destroyed to conserve the design and
economy of the moral decree. Shakespeare's one line uttered
by Salvini, with majestic grief, is simply this:
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
This living law of morality, even in the splendor of height-
ened passion, is shown again in Browning's stupendous tragedy
-The Ring and the Book. Gaponsacchi's half earthly, half
spiritual fervor for Pompilia is safeguarded not only by the
conventional law of Florence but by the gentle though author-
itative rebuke of Rome. Even with the highest mystics the
1919.] LOVE, MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 813
criminal conceits of passion must be balanced by the external
norm of spiritual authority. The scamp Guido, the chaste
Pompilia's husband, dragged her from under her bed, where
she hid, and stabbed her twenty-two times. Yet when sen-
tenced to death by Innocent XII. refers to the fact, though
execrable as he is, that he has a wife and his appeal becomes :
Christ! Maria! God!
Pompilia, will you let them murder me?
Chesterton thinks this is a splendid acknowledgment of an
ancestral tradition, an ineradicable bond, in spite of dire in-
compatibility between man and wife.
Some regard George Bernard Shaw, the satirist, as a
moralist. How so elusive and iconoclastic a personality could
be considered such, is beside the point of our discussion. If
there is any sincere purpose in the play of Candida it would be
something like this. Humanity is beguiled by the glamour of
romance, which will make the lover behold Helen's beauty
even in a brow of Egypt. To disabuse lovers of this lack of
mental equilibrium, which the pure pagan Plato called insania
furor, Shaw would turn an ancient ordinance upside down.
So in his Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant the cart often comes in
before the horse, the mousetrap runs after the mouse and some
of the puppets stand on their heads and try to place their feet
in the stars.
However, Candida recovers herself in time to observe the
absurd kink in her love-affair, with the poet who temporarily
gratifies her aesthetic and romantic sense. She returns to her
uninteresting husband whom she needs and by the law who
needs her. Alas! the amorous poet being a poet does not turn
a summersault from his frenzied heights to land on the rock of
propriety and common sense. Nevertheless, he leaves Candida
trusting that his love, like Dante's and Petrarch's, will be con-
summated somewhere in the skies. Shaw's cynicism is patent,
but we are not so much concerned about it as we are at the
phenomenon of his presuming upon the existence of a law, as
old as civilization, always consistent in its operation and in-
dependent of the individual lover and beloved. That Shaw
should construct a play in keeping with the issue of this law is
an astonishing situation for this apostle of moral confusion.
AN UNCANONIZED SAINT.
BY MARY FOSTER.
IX.
UT Standish did not dash off his picture at once.
On the contrary, he put off beginning. It was
a subject which repelled him, and he felt none
of the eagerness which usually filled him when
he began a new work. He stretched the canvas,
and then, to avoid questions from his friends, he left town for a
few days. When he returned he resolved to set to work at
once. He spent some days and many hours of the night in
thinking out his composition, and he concluded that he would
paint both figures without models.
Once he had begun he worked diligently, enjoying his
creation of a beautiful woman. He made the little one laugh
up into his mother's face with his arms outstretched. One
plump baby leg was free from the soft drapery which fell
lightly over the small figure, and the blue child eyes laughed as
much as the tender parted lips. The mother bent smilingly
over the humble cradle, her dark unbound hair hanging down
her back behind her be-ringed ears. Mark knew that it was
good, and already he looked to the praise and admiration his
picture would receive. Certainly, he thought, there was no sub-
ject he could not handle, and he felt a proud consciousness of
his own powers as the picture grew under his skillful touch.
And as his interest in his work grew, he shut himself entirely
away from his friends, spending every available hour of the
lengthening days at his easel, until he became pale and wan
from the confinement.
Eland's father had died in March, and shortly after the
young man had sold the property, feeling that, rather than
be burdened with a place he did not care about, he would
travel or perhaps have rooms in town where he might work
more seriously at literature, in which he had dabbled from time
to time.
In late May he found his way to London, uncertain about
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 815
his future, and uncertain even about his own wishes. He
hunted up a favorite aunt who had a pleasant flat in Knights-
bridge, and then bethought himself of Standish. Mark, in his
halo of fame, had left his old friend behind him, and Tony felt
a hesitation in seeking the fashionable studio. However, he
chose an early hour one morning and betook himself to the
artist's abode. He was shown into a small untidy room which
still bore traces of some festive scene. Tony sighed, without
knowing why. There was certainly nothing to deplore in the
fact that Standish was enjoying the society of his friends. But
Tony felt very out of it.
" How are you old chap ? " cried the artist rather boister-
ously as he entered the room, and he laid his hand upon Eland's
shoulder.
Tony greeted him warmly, and both struggled to get back
to the old intimate footing, but the younger man noticed that
his friend was changed. His manner was noisy rather than
cordial, and he at once plunged into descriptions of his life and
acquaintances, speaking with evident self-complacency.
When Tony asked to see the studio Mark assented rather
unwillingly. " The fact is, I've not too much time," he added.
" I'm due at a big lunch at 1 :30 for which, of course, I have to
change. After, we are all going to the Christian Science lecture
at the Queen's Hall."
" A detestable science," Tony remarked.
" Oh, well " — Standish shrugged his shoulders — " I see
no harm in it, though I dare say it is unmitigated humbug.
Still, it always amuses me to see how much people will swal-
low."
He opened the studio door as he spoke. Bland looked
round with interest at the laden easels. Certainly Mark was
snugly perched at the top of the tree.
" Who is that lovely young woman with her baby? " Tony
asked standing before the picture which first caught his eye.
Then as he looked closer, he uttered an exclamation. "Why
I know that face quite well! What a memory you have
Standish, to be able to paint your little Sienese model by heart
after so long! Only you have not done her justice, there is a
lack of purity there that the original possesses, and you have
introduced a worldly hardness into that face, such as never
appeared in that of little Caterina."
816 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Sept.,
Mark frowned. Criticism had not dealt so harshly with
him for months. "It is not the Sienese girl," he replied
roughly, " nor do I see the least resemblance to her in that.
Of course if you want to carp, you will find plenty of faults in
all my paintings I daresay. But I've worked pretty hard since
we last met, so you must be prepared to find a difference in my
style. Naturally, I've developed in every way, and these paint-
ings require far more study than the old daubs I did when we
were in Italy."
"You have done a good deal," answered Tony, quietly
looking round him, " and most of your pictures are sold, I sup-
pose. A neighbor of ours at home bought one. I saw it some
months ago. I — I liked it after I had looked at it for a bit. It
grew upon me."
" Really, Tony, you've grown mighty particular," his friend
retorted huffily, and he began to cover the large picture.
" Don't cover it yet," Bland begged. " I want to look at it
again. Who is the mother? "
" You don't seem to admire it very much," the painter said
in injured tones. " However," he relented, " as its history is
rather interesting, " I'll tell it to you." And he related the story
of the wager between young White and the elderly man with
eye-glasses.
" I have since discovered," he added with much satis-
faction, " that the old chap was A. F. Triton, R.A. So my dear
fellow, this means a good lot to me. Triton has promised to
buy the picture if he wins his bet, and I'll have his interest.
Also, it will naturally be talked about, as all my friends are
interested in the affair."
Tony had been gazing steadily at the picture while his
friend spoke. " There is some awfully good work in it," he
said slowly. " Your draperies are lovely, and I can't think
where you get your coloring. The attitude of the bending
mother is beautiful, also the little baby limbs. But the faces —
no, Mark. I don't think you will succeed. There is nothing of
the divine there. White is perfectly right. One requires to
have a sense of the religious to paint the divine."
" Well really, I never asked your opinion," cried Standish
angrily. 'What do you know about it? You seem to be able
to do nothing but find fault."
"I don't want you to be disappointed," Tony replied
1919.] AN UNCANON1ZED SAINT 817
quietly. " I see you have set your heart on this being a suc-
cess."
" Of course I have. And it shall be a success. I tell you
it means a lot to my career. Besides, I should be a laughing-
stock to my friends if I do not do what I said I could."
" Ah, that's just it." Tony nodded his head sagaciously.
Mark covered up the picture.
"I must say I think you're rather a beast," he observed.
"You always were a croaker, and now you haven't even got
the decency to wish a fellow luck."
" I do, I do indeed," Bland replied earnestly. " Only you
always let me speak my mind, and you used to think me a
pretty good critic, you know."
" People seem to be rather pleased with my present style,"
Standish answered indifferently. " At all events, my pictures
sell." He glanced at his watch, and Tony took the hint.
"Well I must be jogging off," he said good humoredly.
" You might look me up. My old hotel, you know. I've sold
the place now the poor old governor's departed. I've no ties,
and dislike the neighborhood. I expect I shall be in town for
a bit, until I make up my mind what to do."
" I envy you your free life," Standish said. " I am quite
tired out after all these months of industry. However when
my picture's done, I'll slack off a bit and take things easy."
" You ought to," Bland returned abruptly. " You are thin,
and don't look well, and your hands are hot and jumpy."
The artist laughed as he closed the door upon his friend.
X.
Tony lounged in his aunt's drawing-room. That lady sat
opposite him, erect in her stiff -backed chair; her white hair, set
off by the dark background of a curtain, threw into relief her
handsome, strongly marked features. Her keen old eyes re-
garded her nephew searchingly, and when she spoke, her voice
was gruff and rather hoarse, and her manner was abrupt and
severe.
" Well," she began, " so you've sold that dreadful hole of
a place my poor brother bought. Now what are you going to
do?"
Tony raised his mild blue eyes. " I really don't know,"
he replied indolently.
VOL. ax. 62
318 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Sept.,
" Tony, you're insmff erable sometimes," Mrs. Langf ord re-
torted. "Because you have the curse of a comfortable in-
come is no reason why you should lead the aimless life you do.
What a veritable infliction money is when it brings no respon-
sibility. Why don't you marry? " she added abruptly.
Bland smiled. " Would that give me something to do ? "
he inquired.
"It would give you an interest in someone else besides
yourself," his aunt replied severely.
The young man flushed a little.
" That's quite true," he said frankly. " I don't suppose I
do take interest in many people. I know I'm a lazy dog. Still,
I haven't had much opportunity for doing anything lately, you
must admit. We lived a very retired life, the poor old governor
and I."
Mrs. Langf ord took her nephew's hand and spread out the
long tapering fingers.
"And you always say that you have no talents to work,
you with these artistic fingers! Why don't you paint? "
"Because I've enough artistic perception to know that I
can't," he answered rather sadly. " And I'm too fond of beauty
to produce the daubs which are all I am capable of."
•" You could write."
" Perhaps," he admitted, " I have tried."
"Then continue," his aunt made answer, and she dropped
his hand. " Goodness knows you do not come of a family of
fools. You must have some brains. Where are you going to
live?"
" I really don't know," Bland replied, idly.
" Tony, you're irritating," the old lady called out sharply.
"You're utterly indolent and indifferent. What's the matter
with you?"
Tony laughed. " I'm awfully sorry," he said, rousing him-
self, for he was very fond of his aunt. " The fact is," he con-
tinued more seriously, "I'm rather concerned just now over
my old friend."
" Ah, the artist."
" Exactly. I have often spoken to you of him, and you
must have heard his name scores of times about town."
"Who hasn't?" the old lady asked rather scornfully.
"Poor Standish!"
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 819
" Why poor? " inquired Mrs. Langford coldly. " He is not
poor in friends, it seems. I have not met him, but I fancy I
am only one of the unfashionable few who have not."
" I want to talk to you about him," the young man said
rather eagerly, " I am not quite happy about him." His aunt
snorted. "He is a poor unbeliever like myself," he added.
" Oh quite. Only he is worse than you, for I hear that he
is one of those who scoffs at God and at religion." The old
lady pursed up her lips. She herself was an intensely devout
Catholic.
Tony paused a minute. Then he plunged into the story
of the wager for which Standish had painted his sacred picture.
Mrs. Langford listened in complete silence, apparently un-
sympathetically, but Tony knew that under her undemonstra-
tive manner his aunt was the kindest of women.
" Now I hear that the picture is a failure," Tony finished
up. " White won his bet, and Mark's acquaintances are laugh-
ing at him for his boasting."
"What else could you expect?" inquired Mrs. Langford.
" I rather suspect your friend has the gift of faith, and is fight-
ing it. He has, no doubt, had some story? " she added keenly.
Tony hesitated. " None that he has ever told me," he re-
plied evasively.
" Still there is one," his aunt insisted.
They sat in silence for some minutes, Tony swinging his
cap absently, between his knees, the old lady looking very for-
midable as she reflected. Bland got up to take his leave.
" I might bring him to call," he suggested. " Or you might
like to see his pictures — some day? "
Mrs. Langford glanced at him sharply. " I might — some
day," she replied ungraciously.
Tony went straight off to his friend's studio.
" I had rather you had not come," Standish said rather
querulously as Tony appeared. " I don't feel particularly
good company, and there are no new sketches to show you."
" Well I didn't come to see sketches," Tony replied genially.
" I say, old fellow," he went on plunging at once into his sub-
ject, " I'm awfully sorry about your failure — "
Mark looked at him very keenly. " Well, you were right,"
he said slowly.
" You can't do it, Mark. You can't touch things divine any
820 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Sept.,
more than those friends of yours could appreciate a truly
sacred subject. Though they are laughing at you now, they are
just as ignorant on such matters as you are."
" It's not ignorance," Standish retorted impatiently. " Be-
cause one is not swallowed up in the mire of superstition, is it
impossible to depict God? Bah! it would be the same if I
painted Buddha — the Buddhists wouldn't be satisfied."
" No, it is not the same." Tony shook his head. " White
was perfectly right, free-thinker as he is. There's something
in it, Mark, which we can't understand."
Standish did not reply. He walked over to his portfolio
and from habit began turning over a few water colors, glanc-
ing at them carelessly.
" It's good of you to have come," he said presently. " Not
many have been near me since — since I gave the tea and
showed off the picture." He spoke bitterly and turned over the
loose sheets more swiftly.
" Well old boy, you'll see plenty of me for I'm a fixture in
town for the present," Tony responded, changing his plans
that moment, and mentally postponing a long visit to York-
shire which fell due the following week. " I'd like you to
know my aunt, she's a good sort. You might come and call
some day, and I know she wants to see your pictures," he
added unblushingly.
Standish nodded without speaking. He felt very low.
After one has been petted and flattered it is not pleasant
to be laughed at nor is it agreeable to discover one's fair-
weather friends.
" I haven't got much reputation now," he said ruefully
after a moment. " People didn't really like my pictures. Now
they are beginning to find fault with them and I have a lot on
my hands and none at the exhibitions."
" A reputation's very difficult to keep up," Tony replied
cheerfully. " You should be glad not to have one. It is so much
easier when people don't expect anything of you. But I expect
more from you than the productions of the past year or so."
XL
During the month he remained in London, Mark did no
work. He felt he could not paint, and the idea distressed him.
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 821
As he knew that the pictures his fashionable friends had ad-
mired were not good, he refused to show them to any chance
visitor who came to his studio. Only somehow Tony's aunt
saw them all, saw also the sketches Mark had made in Italy,
and the studies of Caterina. In a strange fashion she had taken
a fancy to the artist, and just as strangely her peremptory and
imperious manner pleased him. In short, they made great
friends. There were points they discussed together upon which
they would never agree, but Mark always felt after he had
argued his very best, that he had never convinced her.
Often from habit, he gave utterance, in the course of con-
versation to scoffing remarks about religion, forgetting how
dear it was to her. But she, in spite of her fiery temperament,
never checked him, save by a glance. The fact that she prac-
tised her religion so carefully yet never alluded to it made
him curious, and he wished that she would talk to him about
this strange belief of hers. It might be interesting, he reflected
idly, and he would like to know if she, a sensible woman of
the world, really believed all that simple Caterina held to
be such sacred articles of her Faith.
Tony was delighted at the friendship that arose between
his aunt and his friend. The latter had not been so like his
old self for many a month, and he noticed that the fashionable
acquaintances were now but little regretted by the man whose
work they had once professed to admire.
In the autumn the friends had some pleasant shooting and
Mark seemed happier than before, though he was very quiet
and appeared to be thinking deeply. Then too, and Tony
greeted this as a hopeful sign, the easel came out once more and
the gun was often exchanged for the brush.
" Tony, old boy," Standish said one day as they lay in the
heather, their idle guns beside them, " why don't you marry? "
Bland tilted his cap more comfortably over his eyes to
shield him from the sun, and laughed lazily.
" So my aunt asks me," he replied. " Why should I ? Why
don't you? " he asked suddenly, just peeping round the corner
of his cap to see his friend's face. Then he shut both eyes and
pulling his cap still further over his face prepared to listen, for
he rather fancied that Mark was going to tell him something.
There was a short silence. The sun was reddening towards
the west, sending forth its lengthening rays across the heather.
822 AN UNCANONIZED SAINT [Sept.,
The grouse, if they mourned their slain comrades, did so in
secret for a wonderful silence brooded over the moor.
" Why don't I marry? " Mark repeated. He paused again
but Tony lay motionless, his face invisible in his tweed cap.
And then Mark told the story of his love from the very
hour he had idly entered the little church of Santa Caterina
to the day of the parting outside the city walls. He spoke
quietly, but all the bitterness of the past eighteen months was
in his voice.
" She loved her God and her religion better than she loved
me," he finished up slowly.
There was another silence. A soft breeze played along
the moor and a pink transparent haze had crept up as the sun
grew lower.
"Poor Mark, poor old fellow! " Tony murmured and he
rose slowly to a sitting position and reached for his gun, his
broad back turned to his friend until he heard a stir behind him
as Mark, too, rose to his feet.
"We're getting confoundedly lazy," the latter observed
as he swung the game bag over his shoulder. " What a limp bag
we've got to show for a day's work ! "
During the rest of the autumn and the following winter, it
was Bland who worked. He possessed an undoubted literary
gift, and with an energy he had never before displayed he set
to work to cultivate his talent, finally producing a drama which
excited attention in high circles. The two friends had rooms
close to each other, and generally worked together, Tony occu-
pying a corner of the studio and littering a table with his
untidy manuscripts. Occasionally he would read aloud a
passage and call for a criticism, or Mark would bid him leave
his writing and give an opinion on some study or sketch.
"Bland come and look at thjs," Standish called out one
day rather eagerly. " Tell me what fancy it represents."
Tony finished the sentence he was writing and came over
to the easel.
" It is pretty," he said presently, " and far more sympa-
thetic than your things generally are. You have got the attitude
of despondency in that womari's figure." He paused a moment
then added dreamily: " It looks to me like a woman in great
sorrow, in despair, one who has no hope either in this world or
in the next."
1919.] AN UNCANONIZED SAINT 823
The painter drew impatient fingers through his hair. "And
I meant it to be the Mother of Dolors ! " he groaned.
" Mark, old fellow, you can't do it," Tony said gravely, lay-
ing a hand upon his friend's shoulder. " You must believe to
paint that."
" There is something strange in it," Mark muttered. " And
I do not like to be defeated by anything."
" We can't understand it," added Tony.
" I can't see why we shouldn't as well as these church-
goers," Mark burst out suddenly, quite fiercely. He took a turn
up and down the room.
" I must get away," he said presently. " I can't stand Lon-
don any more. I feel confoundedly restless, I can't work and I
seem to want to go abroad. Ever since Christmas I've had such
queer sensations. I can't sleep at night for them. Have you
ever felt that you were being dragged to go somewhere or do
something against your will? These are my feelings at present,
and they're not particularly agreeable, so I think I'd better have
a change."
Bland looked thoughtful. "I expect you had," he an-
swered. " You haven't been away for ages and working when
one's soul isn't in it is an uphill task. Go for a jaunt abroad.
You'll come back with no end of fresh ideas."
"Alone, Tony?"
" Oh, I'll come with you, if you like," Bland rejoined good-
naturedly. " I daresay I'd have gone abroad anyhow this
spring, to collect material. One's ideas get dried up in
London."
"And yours are?" inquired Mark indicating the closely
written sheets which lay before his friend.
" Not at present," laughed the writer, taking up a discarded
sheet and pitching it on the floor. " But let us go abroad, it
would be huge fun," he added with boyish excitement.
Mark smiled slightly.
"Oh, you fossil!" cried Tony with a gay laugh. "When
shall we start; tomorrow?"
"Tony you're a baby, a real baby; but rather a jolly one.
No, we won't start tomorrow, but let us get off early next week."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
flew Boohs.
THE LIFE OF JOHN REDMOND. By Warre B. Wells. New York :
George H. Doran Co. $2.00 net.
It would seem somewhat early to attempt any permanent esti-
mate of the efforts of John Redmond for Ireland. Changes there
have been too great and radical to allow any thumb rule measure-
ment of a life so intimately bound up with Irish affairs. Yet, in a
great degree, Redmond's death was not merely personal. It
marked the passing of a epoch in Irish history, the closing of a
long and interesting chapter of English and Irish relations, and
as such can serve to delineate, if not evaluate, the changes that oc-
curred during that period.
In this respect, the present volume is helpful. It outlines
clearly the big movements of a period dominated by the successor
of Parnell, a clear knowledge of which is necessary for a comprehen-
sive understanding of present conditions and tendencies in Ireland.
With great restraint and fairness of judgment, the author brings
forward the salient features of the Irish leader's life, and in doing
so gives the reader an interesting and fruitful study of modern
Irish politics. That this is possible is due to the fact that the life of
Redmond was the embodiment of a great policy, with all his efforts
spent in attempts at its fulfillment. That policy and its develop-
ment spell out the political history of Ireland since 1878, and
consequently a review of the one must include a resume of the
broad features of the other.
Redmond was strong in his conviction — an inheritance from
Parnell, that Ireland's political, social, economic and religious
grievances could be cured by reform and constitutional compro-
mise, rather than by revolution and insurrection. This was the
actuating principle of Redmond's life. It brought him what suc-
cess he attained and was responsible largely for his ultimate
failure.
The results that he achieved by the expansion and develop-
ment of the principles of Parliamentarianism justified his leader-
ship up to the time of the outbreak of the War. By political means
he brought England to the point of granting national self-govern-
ment to Ireland. At the very hour when success should have
crowned his efforts, Redmond was confronted by the tremendous
dilemma brought to the fore by the World War. When the choice
had to be made, imperialist that he was, he preferred to remain
1919.] NEW BOOKS 825
loyal to the British Empire, trusting to British honor to do justice
to the people whose aid he pledged. England, as usual, knew no
honor and at the end of a fulsome career, the great Parliamen-
tarian stood discredited in the eyes of a majority of his own
people.
This is the great paradox of a life spent in unselfish service.
Fruitful in many ways, yet ultimately barren, the efforts of Red-
mond were negatived by the criminal duplicity of England. With
Redmond as Prime Minister of Ireland, the greatest problem of
modern times might have been successfully solved — in peace. Now
no man knows what course events will take.
Gould Redmond have done otherwise? That question is
placed squarely before the reader in a volume that commends itself
for its fine sympathy, its broad outlook and keen analysis. Mr.
Wells has treated a great life in a large way.
MEMOIR OF KENELM HENRY DIGBY. By Bernard Holland,
C.V. New York : Longmans, Green & Co. $5.00 net.
Kenelm Digby is a name practically unknown to the present
generation of Catholic readers. Mr. Holland's biography will, we
trust, tempt many of them to study Digby's noble defence of the
much maligned Middle Ages.
Kenelm Digby's great merit lies in the fact that he defended
the Catholic Church at a time when Englishmen were most bitter
and prejudiced in their denunciation of things Catholic and
mediaeval. After three centuries of calumny and misrepresenta-
tion, he was a pioneer in setting up " a strong defence of Catholic
principles, and a record of innumerable and forgotten good fruits
of them, supported by solid evidence and by a very good deal of it.
This work was done with results in the way of modification of Eng-
lish opinion and correction of English ignorance upon the sub-
ject, which has rarely been credited to its almost forgotten author."
MYSTICISM TRUE AND FALSE. By Dom S. Louismet, O.S.B.
New York : P. J. Kenedy & Sons. $1.80 net.
This book is the author's third treatise in a series on mysti-
cism. The first, a small volume entitled The Mystical Knowledge
of God, served as prelude to the second on The Mystical Life. In
these two volumes the reverend author outlined his idea of the
traditional mysticism of the Christian and Catholic Church as held
universally down to a few centuries ago. In the present work he
continues his effort to put his readers in possession of the right
concept of the mystical life. In order to this he has found it neces-
sary briefly to differentiate the mystical life from what is non-
826 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
essential or exceptional to it, namely, the miraculous; then to con-
trast the genuine mystical life characterized by fervor with the
state of tepidity; with the spurious forms of mysticism such as
Jansenism and Quietism; and with its negation, the state of sin.
He concludes with chapters on the mystical order of the uni-
verse, the " second death " in the light of mysticism, and the mar-
riage of the Lamb. The whole is written in very attractive style,
and should certainly extend to the present generation of Christians
the correct idea of the mystical life so well understood in former
ages of the Church, namely, that it is simply and solely a life with
God through active love.
THE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS. An Exposi-
tion of the Intellectual Basis of the Christian Religion. By
Rev. T. J. Walshe. New York : Longmans, Green & Co. $2.25.
Father Walshe has reproduced in English form the classical
arguments set forth in text-books of Apologetics written chiefly in
Latin, French and German. He states in his preface that he has
avoided, as far as possible, technical nomenclature, so that senior
students in English Secondary schools could follow readily the
trend of the discussion.
Logically the book is divided into two main divisions, Natural
Religion (Chapters I.-XL), which treats of the nature and existence
of God, the origin, endowments and destiny of man, and the
relations between God and man; and Supernatural Religion (Chap-
ters XII.-XVIIL), which discusses the possibility and necessity of
revelation, its criteria and phases, faith and reason, the divinity of
Christ and the divinity of the Christian faith.
The best part of the volume beyond question is the author's
defence of theism, and his clear-cut and comprehensive answers to
the objections put forth today in the name of Natural Science. The
chapters on comparative religion and eschatological apologetics
are too meagre to be of much service. But a text-book cannot be
expected to treat every question adequately.
REDMOND'S VINDICATION. By Rev. Robert O'Loughran. Dub-
lin: The Talbot Press, Ltd. 5 shillings net.
This is not so much a review of the great Irish leader's work as
it is a series of essays on modern Irish conditions. While he is
a strong champion of Redmond and Redmond's policy of consti-
tutional compromise, the author does not confine his efforts to an
intimate study of Redmond, but rather treats of many phases of
Irish politics and history which collaterally aid toward an adequate
appreciation of the Irish leader.
1919.] NEW BOOKS 827
Father O'Loughran is most entertaining in his manner of
presentation and rich in his knowledge of Ireland's past. He shows
in a most telling way the transitions in the English-Irish rela-
tions and makes out a strong case for Irish freedom. Yet, his
indictment of English policy in Ireland does much to weaken any
vindication of Redmond, whose efforts for Irish independence
were rendered futile by too great confidence in English promises.
The volume, however, despite its title, is not so much a vin-
dication of Redmond as it is a vindication of Ireland's cause. The
book will do much here in America to enlighten men's minds
toward a better understanding of the Irish question and to quicken
hearts long in sympathy with her ambitions.
FERNANDO. By John Ayscough. New York: P. J. Kenedy &
Sons. $1.60.
Monsignor Bickerstaffe-Drew gives us here a most charming
sketch of his youth. He tells of his kinsfolk, his homes in Wales
and England, his school life, and his journeying to the city of
peace. His first love of the Church came from his Protestant
mother who spoke so kindly of the monks of Valley Crucis : " How
they served God day and night, and lived only for Him and His
poor, out of sight of the selfish, greedy world." Of his mother he
says again that " if she could not teach me Catholicity, she cer-
tainly never taught me Protestantism. Her own gentle and sin-
cere, sweet and lovely religion was like a Catholic lamp, ready
trimmed and only waiting to be lighted."
As a boy he loved to steal into Catholic churches to pray; he
had a devotion to the souls in purgatory, and a tender love for the
Mother of God ; he read every Catholic book he could find, and his
firm belief in the Real Presence at last won him to the true fold.
WITH THE HELP OF GOD AND A FEW MARINES. By Lieu-
tenant-Colonel A. W. Catlin. Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday,
Page & Co. $1.50 net.
When the Colonel of the marines who made such splendid
history at Chateau Thierry narrates the history of their wonderful
victory, he tells a tale so inspiring as to need no adornment.
The author first gives a brief summary of the marines' his-
tory previous to the present War. He then takes up the story of
their recent achievements, describes their entry into the trenches
and their experiences there under the command of General Har-
bord. With remarkable vividness he carries the reader through
the action at Chateau Thierry when the marines left their rest
camp near Montdidier, were packed in motor lorries, and after rid-
828 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
ing for thirty hours, were rushed up into the front lines to stay
the fast approaching, victorious Germans. He shows how at
Belleau the marines with wonderful intrepidity fought the Ger-
mans to a standstill, broke the backbone of the German resistance
and hacked their way into Bouresches. He details how, after
turning the tide that was running high against Paris, the marines
won great credit in the Franco-American drive on Soissons, and
upheld the tradition of the marines for personal intrepidity and
bravery. Besides the story of the work done in France, Colonel
Catlin, has included in his volume an appendix that contains a let-
ter written by Major Evans to the Commandant of the Corps,
wherein he reports officially on the splendid work done by the
Corps itself and its individual members.
Colonel Catlin has rendered a distinct service by recording
for future ages the testimony of an eyewitness to the wonderful
work of the marines. In its modest statement of fact, it will
always remain a tribute to those men who, in the darkest hour of
the War, turned defeat into victory. The book is typical of its
commander author and his corps — restrained in language and
strong in action.
THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA. Edited by Dr. Allen Johnson,
Professor of American History in Yale University. New
Haven: Yale University Press. Fifty volumes at $3.50 per
volume by the set.
The Boss and the Machine, by Samuel P. Orth. Mr. Orth
has written an interesting, journalistic chronicle of American
political organization, which may satisfy the cursory reader,
who is not attracted by the less sumptuously bound books of
Bryce, Ostrogorski, the radical Gustavus Meyers, or Professors
Woodburn, Munroe and Merriam, from whence most of the ma-
terial has been drawn. While not as detached or authoritatively
historical in tone as one might wish, the volume offers a good sur-
vey of our political system. Introductory chapters outline the be-
ginnings of party life from colonial times until the use of the post-
Civil War third parties, and the development of the political ma-
chine from the caucus of Sam Adams until the creation of the
national representative convention. McMaster is quoted to em-
phasize the political corruption in the period of the fathers. This
it is well to enlarge upon, for too many superficial students see cor-
ruption only as a result of immigration, never realizing what
adepts the early native politicians were in manipulating elections
and in manoeuvring for spoils. The writer accounts for the cul-
mination of materialism and of corruption in the decade after the
1919.] NEW BOOKS 829
Civil War by pointing out the increase in business, the establish-
ment of trusts, railroad expansion, depreciated money, the growth
of fortunes, swollen immigration, and the growth of cities. Busi-
ness entered politics, for special interests sought legislative favors.
Parties organized to win regardless of the means employed and
corruption resulted. In conclusion hope is expressed that a politi-
cal awakening is coming as indicated by corrupt practices acts,
the initiative and referendum, civil service reform and extension,
and experts in governmental affairs.
The Anti-Slavery Crusade, by Jesse Macy. Professor Macy
writes in the very spirit of a lineal successor of the fiery anti-slavery
crusaders. Slavery is not treated as an economic question, as a labor
problem, but almost solely in its social, moral, and political
aspects. There is no sympathy expressed for the South, nor is
there a keen appreciation of its problem, for the writer is too in-
tense a friend of freedom to gaze in both directions from the Mason
and Dixon's line. The volume is charmingly written, replete with
information, marked by refreshingly new viewpoints, and a sense
of authority which Professor Macy always inspires.
An introductory chapter points out the non-sectional opposi-
tion to slavery as a necessary evil by the statesmen and thinkers
of the period prior to 1800. Washington, Jefferson and Randolph
are instanced as examples, as well as the Southern Congressmen
who voted for the Northwest Ordinance and the abolition of the
slave-trade. The writer, then, recounts the growth of anti-slavery
sentiment in the North, the gradual abolition of slaves by Northern
legislatures, the abolitionist activities of the Quakers, and the
heroic work of such crusaders as Benjamin Lundy, 'Lloyd Garri-
son, James G. Birney, the Grimke sisters, and of the Oberlin Col-
lege faculty. The thesis is advanced that the year 1831 marks the
turning point in the slavery question, the North accepting the
issue and the South commencing to defend rather than apologize
for their " peculiar institution." That year saw the establishment
of Garrison's Liberator in Boston, and also the Turner servile re-
bellion in Virginia. Cotton was becoming king, and slaves were
rising in value. The new political philosophy of the South was
made to accord with the industrial interest of the section. Hence-
forth no Southerner dared lift his voice in opposition. Slavery
became the dominant political issue, the keynote of American
polity in that series of events: the personal liberty laws, the
attempted exclusion of abolitionist literature from the mails and
abolitionist petitions from reception by Congress, the return of
fugitive slaves and the " underground railroad " method of escape,
830 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
the annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, the Wilmot proviso,
and the Omnibus Bill. An interesting chapter is that dealing with
Uncle Tom's Cabin, its immediate influence at home and abroad,
and its effect in making its boy-readers Lincoln-voters a few years
later. Rather little is said regarding the published travels of Olm-
stead or Helper's Impending Crisis, which demonstrated the op-
pressing influence of slave labor upon the non-slave owning, poor-
whites. Nowhere will one find a better appreciation of Sumner,
nor in so short a compass as good a consideration of the whole in-
tricate affair of " Bleeding Kansas." The discussion of the Dred
Scott case seems quite unsatisfactory, Judge Taney's decision
being made to appear specious, if not time-saving. For John
Brown, as one would expect, there is too obvious a sympathy. Mr.
Macy in a very short space speaks of the disruption of the Baptist,
Methodist, and Presbyterian denominations into slave and free
sectional divisions, but gives no idea as to how the Episcopalian
or Catholic churches stood on the issue. The reviewer believes
that there is an opportunity for an historical monograph on the
attitude of the Catholic Church in North and South toward the
whole slavery question.
Spanish Conquerors, by Irving B. Cashman. Dr« Gash-
man has written well of the Spanish explorers and conquerors, so
entering into the spirit of fifteenth century Spain, that he is able
to faithfully appreciate Columbus, Pinzon, Vespucci, Balboa,
Cortez, Pizarro, and their helping or hindering associates.
The story is a fascinating one, filled with adventure, danger,
romance, failure, and miraculous successes, whether it deals
with the four voyages of Columbus, the exploits of Balboa, or
the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro. Yet this is due to the skill
of the writer as much as to his theme, for others more scien-
tifically accurate have recounted in a lifeless way the discovery and
conquest of a new world. The Genoese sailor is seen buffeted from
court to court, until at length Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain fur-
nish him with a reckless crew and three little caravels, with
which to test his novel theory that by sailing westward from Palos
into " the land where the sunsets go," he would find Cathay
with its luring wealth of precious metals and Oriental products. A
landing is made at Guanahani on October 12, 1492. Mass is said
and a Te Deum recited, for Columbus was as fervently religious
as he was avaricious for gold or bold in adventure. Cuba and
Hayti are discovered, an outpost of Spanish civilization is estab-
lished in the way of a colony at La Navidad. Indians, golden
sands, tobacco, and parrots are brought back as gifts to the
1919.] NEW BOOKS 831
astounded court at Barcelona, where appropriate honors are
heaped upon the discoverer. A second voyage in 1495 results in
the discovery of Porto Rico and Jamaica. A third voyage in 1498
found Columbus at Paria near the mouth of the Orinoco, where
he confided to his journal: " I am convinced that this is the main-
land, and very large, of which no knowledge has been had until
now." Shipped home in fetters, the tired old mariner with his
brother Bartholomew and his son Ferdinand undertook in 1502 a
last voyage, skirting along Central America to Panama in a hope-
less attempt to find a passage to the Indies. Columbus, whom
everyone had derided save the two monks Marchena and Perez, had
failed but in his failure lay success. Mr. Cashman rightly allots
but a paragraph to Amerige Vespucci, the alert Florentine clerk,
who by publishing his letters under the title Mundus Novus gave
his name to the new continent. Of Balboa, a lieutenant of Diego
Columbus in the Antilles, it is related how he wandered with a
little force from Darien, surmounting every obstacle until he
arrived at the Pacific on the day of St. Michael in 1513. One
grieves to learn that Balboa six years later was sent to the gallows
a victim of intriguing rivals. Cortez next appears on the scene,
starting from Cuba with a few hundred men to overthrow the Aztec
empire of Montezuma, and win for his sovereign the land of Mex-
ico. The account of his exploits and those of Andreas Nino and
Gonzalez in Nicaragua rival in romantic adventure the legend of
Amadis, only in turn to be surpassed by the successes of Francisco
Pizarro over the Incas of Peru.
The Old Merchant Marine, by Ralph D. Paine. With Mr.
Paine the reader will wonder in sorrow that, " A people with a
native genius for seafaring won and held a brilliant supremacy
through two centuries and then forsook this heritage of
theirs.*' This volume, like that of Winthrop Marvin's, The
American Merchant Marine, on which it is largely based, will aid
in arousing an interest in American shipping, which, let us hope
through the interest of the present Administration and the
herculean efforts of the Shipping Board under Mr. Hurley, will
again compete with foreign merchantmen on each of the seven
seas. The colonials were vitally interested in their ships from the
day that Governor Winthrop's Blessing of the Bay sailed along the
coast to trade with the Dutch and the West Indies. They were
famous ship builders, and there were no abler seamen than those
early New Englanders. By 1700, a thousand ships were on their
registry, sailing from Salem, or Newport, or Nantucket, or Bristol
with fish, rum, whale-oil, and " niggers," to Africa or into the
832 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
Baltic or to Cadiz or London, wherever profit might award their
venture, equally fearless of seas or pirates. Burke's oft-quoted
eulogy best epitomizes their labors : " No sea but is vexed by their
fisheries. No climate that is not a witness to their toils. Neither
the perseverance of Holland nor the activity of France, not the
dexterous and firm sagacity of England ever carried this most
perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it has been
pushed by this recent people — a people who are still, as it were, but
in the gristle and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood."
Small wonder that in 1776, Yankee privateers sank English ship-
ping (but never sank the crew) in the Channel and Irish Sea, and
embargoed all trade with the English West Indies. Of their sea-
fights the author writes glowingly. The period after the Revolu-
tion saw a wonderful development, with Elias Derby of Salem dis-
patching the first ships to Calcutta and Canton, and his rival
Jonathan Games importing pepper from Sumatra in his own ships
until he made Salem a world centre for that product, and the sail-
ing of the New York Empress of China to engage in Oriental traf-
fic and the cruising of Captain Robery Gray until he discovered the
Columbia River. The first Congress encouraged domestic ship-
ping by granting preferential duties and tonnage rebates, so that
more than eighty-six per cent of our exports and imports were
carried in American bottoms. Then came an impetus to American
neutral shipping as a result of the French Revolution and
Napoleonic wars, a growth which could be checked but not de-
stroyed by Orders in Council, French Decrees, embargoes or non-
intercourse acts. This was the era of shipping fortunes, headed by
that of the eccentric French refugee, Stephen Girard. One is in-
spired by the thrilling tales of privateering in the War of 1812,
how Yankee " sea-robbers " raided the channel until London paid
fifty-eight dollars a barrel for flour, and the journals complained
that : " A horde of American cruisers should be allowed, un-
resisted and unmolested, to take, burn, or sink our vessels in our
own inlets and almost in sight of our harbors." It was then that
Captain Thomas Boyle of the Baltimore Chasseur with a fine
Irish sense of humor, sent ashore a proclamation to be posted at
Lloyds to the effect that Great Britain and Ireland were in a state
of blockade.
The epoch after the war was still more wonderful. The
Black Ball, Red Star and Swallow Tail packet lines monopolized
the trans-Atlantic business because of their matchless speed
records. Well may Americans be proud of those clipper ships,
and smilingly proud of the spread-eagleism of the roaring forties
when a shipper like Sampson and Tappan of Salem would wager
1919.] NEW BOOKS 833
$50,000 that their clipper Nightingale could out-sail any boat
afloat, English or even American. Then came the decline, the
masters might be native-born, but the forecastles were filled with
Irish, English and Scandinavian seamen, for Americans were look-
ing toward the western plains rather than out to sea. Then came
the Cunarders heavily subsidized by the English government. The
Collins Line temporarily aided by Congress gamely fought for
supremacy, but Congress failed in interest, and the sail was forced
to lower before steam-powered mailships. The Civil War with
its destruction of Northern shipping practically marked the end.
America, with thousands of miles of coast, was no longer a mari-
time power; foreign flags floated in her ports. This is the story
Mr. Paine relates.
THE THEISTIC SOCIAL IDEAL OR THE DISTRIBUTIVE STATE.
By Rev. Patrick Casey, M.A. Milwaukee: Diederich-Schaefer
Co. 60 cents.
This little book bearing the imprimatur of Archbishop Mess-
mer, attempts to set forth briefly an ideal of distribution which
would offset the demands of Bolshevism and other forms of radi-
calism. This is to be brought about by the " distributive state,'*
which is defined as follows : " When society is so economically
adjusted that at least the majority of the citizens of any given
community, possess individuality and exercise control severally,
over a ' useful ' and adequate amount of * the means of production,'
so that the whole community bears the stamp of the diffusion of
wealth." By the term " useful " and adequate amount of " the
means of production " is meant " such a sufficiency of the said
means, as will, by reason of their productive capacity, guarantee
an individual, his wife and family, a decent livelihood, plus a sur-
plus to tide the family over financial panics and industrial crises."
The author bases his exposition of the distributive state prin-
cipally upon the works of Dr. John A. Ryan and the encyclicals of
Pope Leo XIII. He does not mince words in condemning the present
distribution of wealth. The present concentration of wealth is con-
demned unsparingly, because it is concentrated in the hands of a
few. The purpose is the " diffusion of ownership into many
hands." To reform society into the distributive state the author
suggests two ways: first, by purchase, and second, by legislation.
The first he condemns. " This course," he says, " only makes the
capitalist wealthier." By legislation it is proposed to accomplish
the desired results by the following means:
" First, to intrench by legislation the man of small property
in his property rights. Second, to put a premium on small sav-
VOL. cix. 53
834 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
ings. Third, to completely alter the methods governing the flota-
tion of new companies. Fourth, to modify by legal restrictions the
abuses in the now existing companies." The book is a stimulating,
suggestive statement of well known evils.
VICTORY OVER BLINDNESS. By Sir Arthur Pearson. New
York: George H. Doran Co. $1.50 net.
It is, of course, matter of common knowledge that the blind-
ness which overtook Sir Arthur Pearson, a few years since,
checked his many activities only to inspire one nobler than any he
relinquished — the founding of St. Dunstan's Hostel for Blinded
Soldiers and Sailors that under his care they might " learn to be
blind," as he had done. The history of the undertaking, and its
fruits, is now told in this book, whose seemingly audacious title
is in reality merely embodied fact — fact, however, of as absorbing
interest as any romance ever penned. We are told that with
almost no exceptions all the British soldiers and sailors who were
blinded in the War came to St. Dunstan's; and we read with ever-
increasing wonder and admiration of the wide scope of their edu-
cation there, dormant abilities and instincts called into energetic
life, providing the learners with not only a surprising variety of
useful occupations, but with outdoor pleasures also, and vigorous
recreations which they are enabled to pursue with fearless in-
dependence.
Idealism and practicality blend most engagingly in this tri-
umphant revelation of what man can do for his fellow-man when
ingenuity is spurred by sympathy. No one could read the book
without being deeply impressed; some of us will be touched to
awed thanksgiving for the tender mercy of Our Lord manifested
in this marvelous answer to His own question : " Can the blind
lead the blind? "
CONVENT LIFE. By Rev. J. Scott, S.J. New York: P. J. Kenedy
& Sons. $1.50.
Common sense dominates this volume, described by its sub-
title as " The Meaning of a Religious Vocation." Father Scott
is well acquainted with the real article, minus the sentimentality
and glamour with which novelists have pictured it. The truth un-
adorned has beauty enough. After a general description of life in
a convent; of those who enter therein; why and how; the vows;
the requirements and the rewards thereof, the author gives an
account of the main divisions of the life by the works undertaken
by each community under these headings : Red Cross, Social Serv-
ice, Reclaiming the Wayward and Unfortunate, Teaching and
1919.] NEW BOOKS 835
Prayer and Atonement; completing the survey by a list of the Sis-
terhoods and Brotherhoods of the United States. Throughout he uses
the words nun, sister, convent or monastery according to popular
usage, while informing the reader that there is a strict ecclesiastical
distinction. The first chapter destroys all illusions as to an idle
life or an easy selfish one, while the succeeding ones proceed to
show how the nun follows Christ by helping Him to save the souls
He loves. The appeal of the book is wide. Those who are to fol-
low the call as well as those who are not, will be benefited by this
sane exposition of this glory of the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS. Edited by James
Hastings. Volume X. Picts-Sacraments. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons. $6.00 net.
The tenth volume of Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Ethics contains a number of articles of interest to Catholics, but
they are as usual so full of prejudiced misstatements as to be prac-
tically valueless. The article on the Reformation for example is
written by the late Professor Gwatkin of Cambridge, a Low Church-
man blinded by a fanatical hatred of all things Catholic. He
falsely asserts that the Reformation can be traced to the beginnings
of monasticism; that the principle of monasticism is ultimately
subversive of the Catholic Church; that the Church that converted
the barbarians was " not simply Christian, but Latin and sec-
tarian; that the vow of chastity in practice implied an immoral
priesthood ; that auricular confession " made the priest's ear the
sink of the parish;" that the Church like the Pharisees of old
mistook the Gospel for a law, and again mistook the office of law;
that the Church degraded marriage by forbidding it to the clergy;
that the Church's sacramental system was involved in the primi-
tive confusion of magic and religion; that the Church in its teach-
ing of indulgences frankly accepted money instead of good works;
the Church as a whole was a practical hindrance and not a help to
devotion; that transubstantiation is a contradiction of reason;
etc. To simulate fairness, Gwatkin quotes Grisar, Pastor and
Denifle in his bibliography, but shows no sign of having read them.
Many other false assertions are to be found on the pagan
origin of pilgrimages, the identification of the reverence for the
martyrs with the pagan hero-cult, the ascribing of democracy to
the disciples of Calvin, the Church's opposition to liberty of
thought, the conditional nature of Old Testament prophecy, the
ignorance of Our Saviour regarding the facts of demon possession
and the like.
836 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
CATHOLICITY. A Treatise on the Unity of Religions. By R. Heber
Newton, D.D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. $4.50.
The thesis of these addresses and sermons is that Christianity
is by no means a transcendent religion — its teachings are all
borrowed from pagan sources, and rebaptized by Christians in the
process of a natural evolution. The book proves that the author
was devoid of the slightest grasp of Christian origins, and totally
ignorant of the science of comparative religion about which he
talks so glibly and so inaccurately. How such a man could even
claim to be a Christian is beyond us. The misstatements of fact
are legion: that Blessed Thomas More was an indifferentist; that
the early Christians were Socialists; that the Trinity and the In-
carnation were pagan teachings; that Hindu and Catholic
asceticism were on a par; that the confessional worketh iniquity;
that all creeds are the swathing bands of the infant soul. The
book is full of repetitions, poorly written, lacking in scholarship,
and pagan to the core.
FOR THE FAITH. LIFE OF JUST DE BRETENIERES. Mary-
knoll, Ossining, New York: Catholic Foreign Missionary So-
ciety. $1.00.
This book might well cause our Catholic youth to exclaim
with St. Augustine : " If these why not I." Truly the days of the
martyrs have not yet passed. And if the blood of martyrs is the
seed of the Church the land of Korea should blossom as the rose.
The young hero whom this volume celebrates was a French-
man of aristocratic family, and better still of good pious parents.
His life exemplifies the work of perfect training when Church and
school and home surroundings combine to cultivate the vineyard
of the soul. The martyr's youthful days were passed among the
traditions of sturdy Christianity in his ancestral home, for both of
his grandfathers had been found faithful in the sifting days of the
French Revolution. His vocation to the priesthood ripened into
a call to the Foreign Missions. In July, 1864, he left France; in
March, 1866, he won the martyr's palm.
Made perfect in a short space he fulfilled a long time, but the
way, though short, was sharp ; only by long fidelity to lesser graces
could nature have been nerved for the fearful ordeal. The brave
gayety of the young martyrs, the enthusiastic devotedness of the
youthful apostles to spread the kingdom of Christ is truly inspir-
ing, and should prove contagious in America's College for Foreign
Missions.
Korea used to be known as the hermit kingdom, and a very
good account of the introduction of Christianity closes the story
1919.] NEW BOOKS 837
of this martyrdom. We note, however, a misprint. The date given
for the advent of the first Chinese priest should be 1794 not 1784,
The infant Church began its career of persecution and martyrdom
in 1791. " For forty-five years it carried on its work without
priests, without any Sacrament but baptism, without any preach-
ing but that of catechists; it passed through the general persecu-
tions of 1791, 1801, 1815 and 1827; and it gave to the Church more
than a thousand martyrs, and uncounted examples of exalted
virtues."
A TREASURY OF WAR POETRY. British and American Poems
of the World War, 1914-1919. Second Series. Edited, with
Introduction and Notes. By George Herbert Clarke. Boston :
Houghton Mifllin Co. $1.50.
Professor Clarke's Treasury of War Poetry, in its first series,
proved perhaps the most useful and valuable authology of war
poems in English yet published. A second series was to be ex-
pected, and it comes now, endeavoring to include the best of the
later verse inspired by the Great War, and armed with such
" crested and prevailing names " as those of John Masefield, Lord
Dunsany, Rupert Brooke, Joyce Kilmer, Henry Van Dyke,
Katharine Tynan, Bliss Carman, Alfred Noyes, and others.
It is regrettable that the collection should include some rather in-
effectual work from names almost equally illustrious — and it is
even more regrettable that it should sometimes miss the best work
of the poet in question. A notable instance of this oversight is
Joyce Kilmer, from whom Kings and The New School alone
are quoted: charming poems both of them, but scarcely com-
parable, as war songs, to Rouge Bouquet or the Prayer of a Soldier
in France. This omission of poems stressing the high spiritual
note is serious enough to call for revision in a subsequent edition
of so worthy a collection. Other omissions are of less importance,
and may be charged to the inevitable differences of critical opinion
when poetic matter is still close to the critic's eye — and pulse.
For all the noble things which this Treasury does include it
may well be treasured — for its poems of " sympathetic reaction to
the enkindling heroisms of war," and again of " antipathetic re-
action to its sorrows." As Dr. Clarke points out, there is much less
personal hatred in the work of the fighting poet than in that of his
non-militant brother — or sister. But it is illuminating today,
and will perhaps be even more illuminating tomorrow, to read side
by side these war songs of the mature professional poets, and
these brief, piercing lyrics from the men in the trenches, " the un-
returning army that was youth."
838 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
ACROSS THE STREAM. By E. F. Benson. New York: George
H. Doran Co. $1.50 net.
Spiritism is the theme of Mr. Benson's latest novel. The hero,
Archie, falls in love with a heartless girl, who jilts him to marry a
wealthy English lord. Against all probability he unconsciously
drifts into Spiritism, talking " across the stream " from time to
time with someone he believes to be his dead brother, Martin.
Day by day he degenerates, losing all sense of honor, truthful-
ness, kindliness and purity. Devil possessed at the end, he is
saved by the love and prayers of the sister of the girl whom he
had hoped to marry. The story is well told, the evil effects of
Spiritism well brought out, and the setting, both in Italy and Eng-
land, perfectly drawn.
THE HEART OF PEACE. By Laurence Housman. Boston:
Small, Maynard & Co. $1.25.
Laurence Housman is a literary artist who, in whatever field
he chooses to enter, may be counted on to produce work of beauty
and power, if not always of convincing sincerity, and while the
present volume is scarcely one of his best it is a notable addition
to the year's poetic output. It contains his usual variety of love
poems and religious poems — both more or less mystical in their
imagery — dramatic lyrics and lyrics of that exquisite lightness and
charm which, coupled with the prescience of death, Mr. Housman
has made peculiarly his own. Eheu, Fugaces, the lines to the lit-
tle short-lived seventeenth century Princess Mary, are an example
of this very Housmanesque note, and at the other extreme, per-
haps equally characteristic, is the colloquial reveries upon Old
Swanage, huddled " like a gray cat under the hill."
It is amusing to see on the title-page of this book "by the author
of An Englishwoman's Love Letters.'' It might equally well have
read, " by the author of Bethlehem " — or of Prunella. For one
of the most striking and persistent qualities of this poet-dramatist-
novelist-publicist-and fairy-tale-teller is the quality of imaginative
versatility. Truly, in his time he has played many parts — and
played them well !
SKETCHES AND REVIEWS. By Walter Pater, New York:
Boni & Liveright. $1.25 net.
The publisher deserves a special word of thanks for having
made it possible to procure within the covers of one pleasant little
book the best of the hitherto scattered contributions of Pater to the
library journalism of his day. This volume is the first collection
in book form of nearly all the known fugitive writings of the
1919.] NEW BOOKS 839
author since the posthumously published Essays from The Guar-
dian appeared nearly a quarter of a century ago. The sketches
and reviews here reprinted deal with the following subjects: the
correspondence of Flaubert; Arthur Symons' poems, Nights and
Days; Coleridge as a theologian; Wordsworth; George Moore as
an Art Critic. There is an introductory paper on " ^Esthetic
Poetry " which contains much sound and admirable criticism of
William Morris* poetry, and which in the beautiful lucidity of its
prose recalls the best pages of the author's Appreciations.
THE TALE OF MR. TUBBS. J. E. Buckrose. New York: George
H. Doran Co. $1.50 net.
This is an agreeable and not very taxing English story, told in
a vein of mild but sustained amusement. It relates how Mr.
Thomas Tubbs, a blameless middle-aged celibate, decides to sell
ouMhe Tubbs' leather business and take a long holiday to see life
at first hand. His misfortunes begin with his adventures. Fate
marks him as an object of unjust suspicions, and as he passes from
group to group he merely changes the onus of one suspicion for
that of another. If he did not abduct the scullery-maid of the
landlady from whose attentions he incontinently fled — the scul-
lery-maid and her ginger-colored cat — then he stole the silver
of Miss Harwood, the lady with whom the scullery-maid found a
final haven. And so on. In spite of his sinister destiny — or
rather, because of it — he attracts the romantic regard of a young
lady who sympathizes with him in his predicament and believes
in his innocence. A friendly duchess is invoked to clear his repu-
tation with her family, and the tale of Mr. Tubbs ends where all
romantic tales end — in marriage.
THE LITTLE CRUSADERS. By Katherine Bregy. Philadelphia:
Peter Reilly. 35 cents.
In this " Drama of the Children's Crusade " arranged for
presentation by children, Miss Bregy renders a notable service to
Catholic educators and makes a charming contribution to juvenile
Catholic literature. The marvelous and mysterious old story of
the Children's Crusade is here re-vitalized for us, and its spiritual
message and import developed by the seeing eye and the artistic
hand. While the play will be especially appreciated by the Catho-
lic school and club, it will appeal to all who are seeking good
plays for children with literary and religious quality.
The two-act drama is preceded by a Prologue and followed by
an Epilogue linking up the old story with latter-day children. The
author rather advises against the use of the Epilogue as " in the
840 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
nature of an anti-climax." The critic ventures to suggest that
the Prologue is likewise superfluous and rather mars the dramatic
unity of the old-world atmosphere. While the value of the
author's purpose is recognized, we feel that the little drama is per-
fect in itself and that its message cannot go astray.
Miss Bre"gy has already rendered valuable service to the Cath-
olic Theatre Movement by her Juvenile Play Catalogue. Her pres-
ent contribution to the list of juvenile plays adds to her titles of
essayist, poet and critic that of the play-writer.
ESSENTIALS OF ARITHMETIC. By Samuel Hamilton, Ph.D.,
L.L.D., New York: American Book Co. Bk. I., 52 cents; Bk.
II., 68 cents.
Dr. Hamilton's three volume course has been further
simplified here into two volumes, covering the work from the sec-
ond to the eighth grade and forming a series of vigorous and prac-
tical exercises. The many tests for accuracy and speed are very
commendable, and the grouping of the weights and measures are
most convenient for reference. The section on graphs is good
but we are inclined to reckon it as somewhat difficult and unneces-
sary. Simplicity marks the directions and the rules and defini-
tions. The exercises contain such matter as is within children's
comprehension and knowledge.
THOSE who appreciate the previous volumes of Slaught and
Lennes will welcome the revised edition of their Solid Geome-
try, conceived and prepared on a plan consistent with that pre-
viously explained and worked out in the Plane Geometry. The
grouping of much that can be for many students relegated to an
appendix, is a marked improvement. The sight exercises, too,
are especially to be commended. The applications tend to show
that solid geometry has its uses in practical science, quite apart
from its mental cultivation for the mathematician.
THE DOMINICAN COLLEGE YEAR BOOK— 1918-1919, from
far San Rafael, California, maintains its previous high stand-
ard of excellence, both literary and artistic. Love of the beautiful
in nature and appreciation of the best in literature are stamped
on these pages, where we are treated to glimpses of California's
surfeit of beauty and to worthy estimates of the poetical wealth of
Newman, Crashaw, Kilmer, Lanier and Coolbrith. This youthful
work bears promise for the future in Catholic letters.
EL PAJARO VERDE, by Juan Valera, edited by M. A. de Vitis
(65 cents) ; Anecdotas Espanolas, by P. W. Harry (80 cents),
and El Reino de los Incas, arranged from the text of Garcilaso de la
1919.] NEW BOOKS 841
Vega; edited by James Bardin ($1.00), are published (Allyn &
Bacon, New York), in the hope that they will assist the student
to attain proficiency in the use of the Spanish language. Our com-
mercial relations with the countries of South America probably
will be greatly extended in the period of reconstruction now in-
itiated, and a knowledge of this tongue will be increasingly useful.
The first, a fairy tale on the style of the Arabian Nights, is
arranged for use in connection with Professor de Vitis' grammar.
The vein of religion running through it is remarkable rather for
romance than fidelity to fact, but the book will not serve its pur-
pose the less for this.
The second lends itself to the plan proposed, of conversations
on the subject matter of the anecdotes. It is edited for conver-
sational work with appendix of familiar words, phrases, and
idioms meant to supplement the grammar used. A few more
notes would improve a new edition and bring out the point of the
anecdote. We regret to say an occasional vein of irreverence mars
some of its pages.
The third volume is the most interesting. It is from the text
of Los Comentarios Reales de los Incas, of the Inca Garcilaso
de la Vega, and is a summary of that warrior's diffusive commen-
taries. His father was one of Pizarro's companions; his mother, a
princess of the Inca line. For a general idea of the civilization and
culture of Peru the book is extremely interesting.
BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York, publishes a neat little
pocket prayer book containing the Epistles and Gospels for
Sundays and Feasts, with prayers to be recited morning and
evening, and at Mass. The price in cloth is 35 cents; in imitation
leather, gold edges, 65 cents.
A USEFUL list of One Thousand Technical Books, compiled by
Herbert L. Cowing, is published by the American Library
Association, Washington, D. C. The purpose of the publication is
to help the home libraries to keep abreast of the demand of the
returning troops for technical books.
w
wish to call to the attention of our readers the Catholic
, . Mind for July 22d, giving the full text of the report of the
members of the American Commission of Irish Independence;
Messrs. Walsh & Dunne's rejoinder to the Chief Secretary of Ire-
land and Mr. De Valera's " Appeal to America." New York: The
America Press. Five cents a single copy, $4.00 a hundred.
842 NEW BOOKS [Sept.,
FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS.
The Librarie Tequi presents :
Les Tdches Ideates Religieuses, Educatrices, Patriotiques, another
jewel in Monseigneur Tissier's crown. Many have already turned
their attention to religious reconstruction work and appointed the way
to follow. Out of the eight chapters which Monseigneur Tissier devotes
to this subject, one appears especially remarkable and is worthy of
arresting our attention, Les Deviations du sens moral et chretien.
The second part of the work — the most remarkable from our point
of view — is addressed to educators and especially to the education of the
woman of tomorrow. Monseigneur Tissier is a past master on this sub-
ject. In the third part, where victory soars radiantly, there is much
to be read, meditated and above all put in practice.
Of Monsigneur Gibier's work, Religion — Famille — Patrie, the first
volume, Peligion, has already been reviewed in these pages. The second
volume, Famille, should be particularly interesting to all well-minded
Americans. This new volume is made up of two parts : First, to have a
family. Second, to bring up a family well. The first is a subject of
burning actuality, and we should be grateful to the Bishop of Versailles
for having so courageously pointed out the scourge of depopulation and
clearly indicated the remedies for the evil.
We may judge of its importance by the following topics: Educa-
tion is a work of love, of authority, of wisdom. The ideal family. Re-
ligion and the mother of the family. Religion and the father of the fam-
ily. Religion and youth. The family and the marriage of children — the
vocation of children. The third volume, Patrie, is more interesting for
Frenchmen than Americans.
L'Eglise, (Euvre de I'Homme-Dieu, by Monsignor Besson, is a new
edition of an old work that made its author famous. We particularly
recommend this work to members of the clergy. They will find in it
delicious matter for their Sunday sermons, over and above the pleasure
of very agreeable reading.
From Emile Nourry we have :
UEvolution Intellectuelle de Saint Augustin. Volume I., Du.
Manicheisme au Neoplatonisme, by Prosper Alfaric. Prosper Alfaric
proposes to write three volumes on the intellectual development
of St. Augustine. We have here the first volume — from Manicheism
to Neoplatonism. The spirit of the author is indicated by the dedi-
cation of his work to three unbelievers of the stamp of Reinach,
Levy-Bruhl, and Guignebert. Like most critics of his class he de-
nounces all Christian writers on St. Augustine as biased and prej-
udiced. He does not hesitate to accuse St. Augustine of a poor memory
which makes him forget the real happenings of his past, and of a dog-
matic bias which makes him travesty them in order to prove a pet dog-
matic thesis. We smile when the author tells us that St. Augustine was
baptized without being a real Catholic, and accepted the Christian tra-
dition, but considered it a popular adaptation of the Platonic wisdom.
IRecent Events.
During the Peace celebration in France and
France. the celebration of the fourteenth of July,
M. Clemenceau was acclaimed as the
saviour of his country, and received such a tribute of the people's
gratitude that his position as Premier might well have been
thought secure, at least for the time being. Yet within five days
his ministry suffered defeat. This defeat was brought about by
several groups in the Chambers who sought the defeat of M.
Clemenceau's Government, but as the cooperating groups had
no such object in view, the vote was not considered decisive. In
fact a few days later it was reversed and a vote of confidence in the
Government was passed by a majority of two hundred and seventy-
two to one hundred and eighty-one. The minority was by no
means inconsiderable, and its leaders have announced their inten-
tion of continuing the fight. The result of the first vote brought about
a change in the Ministry of Food, M. J. J. B. E. Noulens replacing
M. Boret. The new Food Minister announces his intention of
prosecuting the food speculators implacably and of taking meas-
ures to insure an increased supply of wheat and sugar. The intro-
duction of an amnesty bill is another point upon which the Gov-
ernment has been criticized. It has yielded to this criticism by
promising to bring one in immediately. No fewer than twenty
thousand persons have benefited by it. The end of the Parliament
which has served during the War is now at hand, and elections
will take place for the House of Deputies in October and for the
Senate in November.
The character of the new Parliament must be more or less a
matter of conjecture, but the prospects seem favorable for the
future stability of France, inasmuch as in all likelihood a coali-
tion for more moderate parties will be formed which will prevent
disturbances by the extremists on either side. The projected com-
bination would include Radicals, Republican Socialists, Alliance
Democratique, and Federation des Gauches. The combined voting
strength of these parties in the elections of 1914 was four million
seven hundred and twenty-five thousand out of a total of eight
million two hundred and fifty thousand, as against one million
four hundred thousand for the Socialists, one million three hun-
dred thousand for the Royalists and Conservatives and eight hun-
dred thousand for the Progressives. The Peace Treaty has not
yet been ratified by the existing Parliament, but has been sub-
844 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
mitted for examination to a committee of the House of Deputies.
Their proceedings seem to be most leisurely, as the ratification is
not expected to take place before October. The British Par-
liament ratified the Treaty almost at once.
The world-wide conflict now going on in various degrees
of intensity between capital and labor has, of course, not left
France unaffected, but at present seems to be in a state of
quiesence there. The general strike which was to be called for the
twenty-first of August in France, Italy and Great Britain could not
take place because it met with so much opposition from the more
sensible members of the various labor organizations.
M. Ctemenceau's appeal seems to have been heeded. " An
epoch," he said, " has finished, another epoch has begun with a
new task, with a new series of duties. That task is no less great
and no less splendid. It is ever France who, in order to hold her
own in the world, needs all her children. It is another signal test,
and one which, above all, needs the complete cooperation of all
our energies. To work therefore. Let us devote all our energies
to the fervent wish which will unite all wills to action. Only thus
shall we bequeath intact to our sons the gifts of our ancestors'
genius which makes history as it were a glorious epitome of the
loftiest aspirations of humanity." The task before France is, in-
deed, stupendous, to say nothing of the rehabilitation of regions
left desolate by the Germans. The financial position of France is
so bad that, according to a leading financial authority, it would be
brutal to expose it in all its details. It will require the united
efforts of all the French people to place France again in a safe
position.
The fall of the Orlando Cabinet came none
Italy. too soon. The revelations which have taken
place of its proceedings at home and abroad
are sufficient to discredit its actions and to render it almost impos-
sible to place full confidence in the professions of any succeeding
ministry, however divergent they may be from those of their prede-
cessor. An adequate statement of these proceedings would require
too much space, but it may be summed up in the words of a writer
in New Europe: " Baron Sonnino and the Cammorist group be-
hind him have, for four years, fostered patiently in troubled
waters whenever they were to be found, and spared no pains in
augmenting, instead of allaying, the causes of friction and difficul-
ties of reconstruction in distracted Europe. Little, however, could
be expected of a Government which made sacred selfishness its
model, its ideal." The impression is widespread that it is not im-
probable that Italy may revert to the Germans in consequence of
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 845
the selfish aims which she has cherished having been thwarted at
Paris. An insidious campaign has been carried on in the press
against the Allies. The campaign was so serious that the new
Premier, Signor Nitti, has thought it necessary to warn the press
that the censorship would be reimposed. Of course the Govern-
ment makes no avowals of friendship for those with whom Italy
has been fighting, and the new Foreign Secretary, Signor Tittoni,
has manifested a more conciliatory disposition, although appar-
ently as unyielding as his predecessor as regards Fiume. Hope is
still entertained that a compromise will be effected, with Greece
especially. Indeed, a settlement is said to have been reached with
Greece, between whom and Italy there were many questions in dis-
pute which might have led to an endless controversy.
The sufferings of the Italian people during the War from lack
of food and coal were well known to all the world, but were thought
to be the inevitable consequence of the War. Now it appears that
the sufferings were to a large extent due to the greediness for gain
of the Italian trading classes, and to the supineness of the Govern-
ment and even of the press. Not only did the Government fail to
take measures for the relief of the people from many privations,
but its officials acted in complicity with greedy private interests,
accumulating ill-gotten fortunes at the cost of suffering to the
community. These things were borne during the War for its sake.
When peace came the hoped-for relief did not come, in fact the
profiteers raised their prices to utilize further the brief period be-
fore them. The patience of the people was exhausted, and the vari-
ous food riots throughout the country were the consequence. The
new Government of Signor Ntiti has taken the requisite steps for
alleviating the situation. In Rome the Chamber of Labor was em-
powered by the Government to announce a fifty per cent reduction
in the prices of all manufactured articles except gold and silver-
ware, jewelry and objects of art, and antiquities. A detailed price
list was given for food stuffs and other necessities. Here, too,
roughly speaking, there is a fifty per cent reduction. A mixed
committee, in which the Chamber of Labor was largely represented,
was appointed to carry out the Government decrees. It is to be
noted that the numerous riots and disturbances were purely of an
economic character not political, though, undoubtedly, they might
have developed into attempts at revolution if evils had not been
remedied. Italy is not likely to prove a good soil for the develop-
ment of Bolshevist germs unless things are pushed to an extreme.
A sign of this may be found in the way in which a Bolshevik
attempt to affect a rising in Trieste was put down. The police
were assisted by the civil population in promptly suppressing the
attempt, and seven hundred of the rioters were put in jail.
846 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
The most important of the recent events
Hungary. which have taken place in Europe is the ex-
pulsion of Bela Run and his Jewish com-
patriots from the control of Hungarian affairs. When Count
Karolyi turned over this control to the Socialists, disgusted be-
cause the Allies had so little considered Hungary as to deprive the
ancient Kingdom of something like two-thirds of her territory, the
fear that Bolshevism would spread was the greatest of Europe's
many anxieties. Many Germans were threatening to turn over their
country to Soviet rule, as a step in that direction. Various
attempts were made by the Spartacides to accomplish this result.
Good sense, however, was not wholly lacking. The strong hand of
Herr Noske, backed by the majority of the German people, has,
so far at least, made the prospect of Germany's subjection to Bol-
shevism very improbable, although not entirely impossible.
The seizure of power in Bavaria by Bolshevists, many of them
imported from Russia, was brought to a speedy end by the military
aid* sent by Prussia. Their leaders suffered the same fate, although
not on the same scale, as the Russian Bolshevists inflicted on
their opponents. Bela Kun's accession to power, however, and
the giving over of Hungary to a government avowedly Bolshevist,
were largely responsible for the fear of the extension of that move-
ment to the rest of Europe. What the rest of Europe feared,
Lenine and his associates at Moscow rejoiced in. They at once
sent, so it was reported, an army to effect a junction with the Red
Army being formed in Hungary. Lenine's army, however,
although it was said to have reached Tarnopol, never arrived at
its destination. Bela Kun was left without military aid to change
Hungary into a Soviet state, but was assisted by constant advices
from Lenine. Bela Kun did his utmost and succeeded in making
existence in Hungary quite intolerable for decent people. Liberty
disappeared; the press was so censored that no criticism of the
Government could be published, and arrests took place at its
arbitrary will. The right of private property was disallowed. The
unrest became so great that pogroms were feared and Budapest
had to be put under martial law. Even more important, perhaps,
was the failure of the fundamental principles of Bolshevism in
industrial matters. This failure was openly admitted in debates
in the Soviet congress shortly before the crisis. One of these prin-
ciples, the payment to workingmen of a fixed wage irrespective of
the skill or diligence of the employee, resulted in a falling off of the
output, as the skilled worker refused to accept the same wage as
his less skilled comrade. He either refused to work at all or failed
to work to the extent of his capacity. Even more striking was the
effect of Bolshevist principles upon agricultural production. For-
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 847
merly in Hungary the average harvest would amount to forty-one
million hundredweight, whereas today it amounts only to
eleven million. The food situation became so bad as to border
upon starvation. Wheat became a luxury; butter and milk could
not be obtained. Such were the results of the new era. When we
add to this the fact that only worthless paper money was in
circulation, it is not to be wondered at that Bela Kun's Government
ceased to be, if ever it was, representative of the people. This
fact was recognized by the Allies, who refused to treat with it as
authorized to sign any terms of peace in the name of Hungary. For
some time besides there had existed at Szegedin a Government of
which very little has been heard, in opposiion to that established
at Budapest. An attempt made by this Government to overturn
the one established at the capital failed, and led to the execution
of nearly two score of students by Bela Kun to avenge the upris-
ing. This bloody deed instead of cowing the people exasperated
them. He then established what he called the reign of the Red Ter-
ror and sought a junction with the Russian Soviet Government. If
Lenine could not come to him, he would make an effort to go to
Lenine. In pursuance of this plan he sent his troops to attack
the Rumanian army which was holding the line it had reached
when its advance was stopped at the wish of the Supreme Coun-
cil in Paris. Bela Kun's army was utterly defeated. The Ruman-
ians crossed the Theiss and in a very short time reached Budapest,
entered the city despite the protest of the Paris Council and took
over the task of preserving order. Whether or not they acted in
defiance of the Allies is not certain. The Rumanians allege that the
Allies' command did not reach them until after the occupation.
Bela Kun's Government, however, had fallen before the
Rumanians arrived. It was at once succeeded by a Socialistic Gov-
ernment made up of men whose names are not known outside of
Hungarian circles. The new Cabinet, however, included a few
members of the former Socialist Government. Hence it is prob-
able that the new regime, had it lasted, would have been scarcely
less Socialistic than its predecessor. The Cabinet immediately in-
stituted strong measures to maintain order and endeavored to
establish such relations with the Allies as would mitigate the
blockade, maintained up to that time. But whatever the projects
of the new Government they are of no great importance, for its
tenure of office was very brief. Barely a week had elapsed when
police presented themselves before the building in which its of-
ficials held their deliberations, and arrested the entire body by
order of the Archduke Joseph. By what authority the Archduke
had assumed the power no one says. He took the title of Governor
of Hungary, although he styled himself dictator.
848 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
Either to limit his power or to serve as its instrument, he has
appointed a cabinet whose members are widely known. Port-
folios have been offered to members of the Agrarian Party, the
Social Democrats, and also of the Government which has been
established at Szegedin, so that while the Cabinet excludes, of
course, all Soviet members, it contains representatives of the vari-
ous political parties of Hungary. The coup d'ttat was accom-
plished without disorder, but has already met with protest from a
large organization of the workingmen. It appears to them to in-
volve a retrograde step toward the reestablishment of the Haps-
burg monarchy. This the Archduke denies, and reminds his coun-
trymen that he was one of the first to give in his adherence to the
new Republic. He declares it to be his full purpose to watch over
affairs only so long as is required for the assembling of a Con-
stituent Assembly, to be elected by universal suffrage both of men
and women. He has not waited, however, for the meeting of this
Assembly to make certain changes, and to reverse the action of the
Soviet Government. These changes include the restoration to
the Church of the property seized by the Bela Kun Government,
and to private owners their works of art. More important still is
the restoration of the right of private property, a right abolished
by the Soviet Government.
Of course it is a matter of much speculation whether the
Archduke's accession to power marks a step towards a restoration
of the Hapsburg monarchy, either with himself as its representa-
tive or the ex-Emperor Charles. When a number of students
acclaimed him as king he refused, but whether the ex-Emperor will
do likewise is questionable. There is evidence to the fact that,
for some time, his residence has been the centre of considerable
activity, which may indicate that recent events have been at
his instigation or at least in his behalf. Anything may happen.
Among the possibilities is the accession to the throne ef Hungary
of a Hohenzollern. King Ferdinand of Rumania has been sug-
gested for king of Hungary, thus forming another dual monarchy
in place of the one that has just disappeared. His armies are now
in possession of Budapest, and although they have promised to
evacute the city the promise has not been fulfilled. Indeed, they
seem to be strengthening their hold upon Hungary by sending their
forces into the districts southwest of the capital. Rumania's suc-
cess has led to very exorbitant claims made upon the conquered
Hungarians as conditions for the armistice which the latter sought.
The Supreme Council at Paris called upon the victors to withdraw
these claims but apparently without success. Rumania's conduct,
now that she is in a position to emulate the Germans and Aus-
trians, shows a like spirit of self-aggrandizement. In fact
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 849
M. Bratiano a few weeks ago left Paris because he would not recog-
nize the right of the Allied Powers to protect by a treaty, similar to
that made with Poland, the minorities which have so long suffered
injustice under Rumanian rule. At first it looked as though the
difference between the Council at Paris and the Rumanians would
lead to a clash between them, but better counsels prevailed: the
Allies gave the Rumanian military authorities in Budapest a wider
liberty of action and the Rumanians expressed willingness to co-
operate with the Supreme Council. The Rumanians disclaim any
sympathy with the Archduke Joseph; what attitude the Supreme
Council at Paris will take towards him is not yet clear.
Reports of dissensions within the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats
and Slovenes have been current of late, also that in Croatia a re-
volt has occurred to separate that State from the new Triune King-
dom and establish it as a republic. Among the Slovenes consider-
able uneasiness is said to exist, while in Montenegro many sub-
jects of the deposed King are carrying on a guerrilla warfare
against the troops of Serbia, who are trying to effect the union of
Montenegro with Serbia, which was voted by the Parliament.
Recent events in Hungary, combined with what has happened
in the Triune Kingdom, make it not impossible that the Croats
and even the Slovenes may disassociate themselves from the Ser-
bians, from whom they differ on so many points, especially re-
ligion.
The prospect of putting an end to the cha-
Russia. otic condition of Russia, so bright two or
three months ago, now looks darker than
ever, although there is reason to hope that a brighter day will soon
dawn. The retirement of Admiral Kolchak's armies seems to con-
tinue along an eight hundred mile front, thus throwing large dis-
tricts of Russia again into the hands of the Bolsheviki. Many of
the population have secured their personal safety by flight. It has
been reported, but so far without confirmation, that Omsk is on
the point of being abandoned, and that the seat of the Kolchak Gov-
ernment will be transferred to Irkutsk. If this were done, it
would give the Bolsheviki the whole of east Siberia. But another
recent report has it that General Denikin has linked up with Ad-
miral Kolchak's left wing, his cavalry having effected a junction
with the Ural Cossacks. The full explanation of the defeat Ad-
miral Kolchak has suffered, cannot be given at present. The most
likely reason is the fact that his troops were without arms and
munitions, being in the same state as the Russian troops who
fought against Germany in ancient Galicia. This is largely due
to the vacillating policy of the Allies, who recognized him and
gave him their best wishes, yet failed to supply him with the
VOL. err. 54
850 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
wherewithal to achieve victory. This country is as much, if not
more to blame than any other of the Associated Powers for this
defeat. It is satisfactory to note, however, that within the last
few days large quantities of guns and ammunition have been rushed
to his assistance, with the hope that even yet complete disaster may
be averted. This does not mean that our Government has of-
ficially recognized Admiral Kolchak, although it has sent the
American Ambassador, Mr. Morris, to Omsk to investigate the
situation. His report has not been published.
While Admiral Kolchak has suffered many defeats, General
Denikin has met with many successes. As already mentioned,
his cavalry by effecting a junction with the Ural Cossacks, has
linked up with Admiral Kolchak's left wing, so, at least, it is re-
ported. General Denikin's right wing is within fifty miles of the
Rumanians who are acting against the Bolsheviki in Bessarabia. To
the northwest General Denikin has swept ahead and has captured
Poltava, about seventy-five miles southwest of Kharkoff, which
recently fell into his hands. In the course of these operations he is
said to have annihiliated four Bolshevist armies. The Bolsheviki
are said to have been quite unsuccessful in the Ukraine. General
Petlura was reported as besieging Kief and acting in cooperation
with General Gregorieff, who had driven out the Bolsheviki from
Odessa, but this last has been contradicted, and General Gregorieff
reported as dead. The state of the country seems to be as confused
as the news that comes from it. The peasants are said to be killing
the Jews by the tens of thousands and to be devastating the whole
country by guerrilla warfare. The Poles are asking permission of
the Supreme Council to send an army into the country to restore
order and good government. The one thing certain is that the at-
tempts of the Russian Bolsheviki to advance westward have been
foiled, although in Poland there is apprehension of an impending
attack, so an appeal has been made for an army of two hundred and
fifty thousand to deal with such an emergency. Farther north on the
Esthonian border and up to Petrograd, hostilities seem to have
ceased. Although the important town of Grodno has been freed
from Bolshevist occupation, Petrograd still remains in the posses-
sion of the Bolsheviki. Had Admiral Kolchak shown better fore-
sight it might have fallen by this time. When the Admiral was
in the full tide of success, the then head of the Finnish Govern-
ment offered to send his troops to capture the city, asking in return
that a part of Karelia should be given to Finland. This Admiral
Kolchak apparently refused, and Petrograd remained in the hands
of the Bolsheviki, as General Mannerheim declined to take any fur-
ther steps. Reports from the northern district of Russia where
British and Russian troops are acting together are contradictor^.
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 851
A Russian regiment, it is said, went over to the Bolsheviki. By so
doing they caused the loss of an important city, and Archangel was
reported taken. This is certainly untrue, for news has just come
that the British defeated the Bolsheviki at a place a long distance
south of that city. It is thought the British intend to evacuate the
northern province, and strong efforts are being made to obtain a
reconsideration of their purpose as it would be disastrous to the
Russian cause if carried out. Admiral Kolchak's military
reverses are not the sum total of his difficulties. Here and
there throughout the territory controlled by him, there are
nests of Bolsheviki who have to be watched, and within the ranks
of his nominal supporters there are many who do not support him
wholeheartedly. In fact there is some reason to attribute his
recent military disasters largely to the disloyalty of his officers.
General Seminoff's interference with the American engineers in-
trusted with the administration of the Siberian railways, has neces-
sitated a protest to Admiral Kolchak from the Allies. The Czecho-
slovaks have offered a sullen opposition to his plan, and instead
of being, as at first, an assistance to the Russian cause they have
become an embarrassment.
Rumors are current, without foundation it is to be hoped, that
the Japanese are working for their own interest rather than in
the service of Russia and for the establishment of the All-Russian
Government, the only objects which justified their intervention.
A consoling feature of the situation is General Denikin's am-
ple recognition of Admiral Kolchak as the legitimate leader, and
the one entitled to the support of all those who are working for the
restoration of Russia to unity and peace. In consequence of his
recent successes General Denikin may perhaps be looked upon as
the hope of Russia's future, and the question may be raised
whether the leadership should be transferred to him. But such
a desertion of a leader in his adversity would seem a disloyal sug-
gestion and a cowardly act.
The world has been deluged with the accounts of the atrocities
of the Bolsheviki. That their reign of terror should have lasted
so long would have been thought inconceivable. The economic sit-
uation, however, seems to make it certain that Lenine's career is
drawing to a close. In fact it has been stated (although too much
reliance must not be placed on the report) that he was anxious to
withdraw, at least for a time. Various causes are assigned for this
wish, among them his inability to cope with the numerous strikes.
The collapse of the Soviet Government of Hungary upon which
Lenine had placed so much reliance as the first step for the spread
of Bolshevism throughout the world, may perhaps have strength-
ened his purpose to retire for a time.
852 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
The Ministry of Herr Bauer, which suc-
Germany. ceeded that of Herr Scheidemann, was at
first looked upon as merely a stop-gap min-
istry for the signing of the Peace Treaty. But it still remains in
power, nor are there any signs that it is to be supplanted. The
main cause for anxiety is that it rests for its support upon the
Social Democrats and the Centre Party, and that, between those
two parties, there is the probability that a divergence may arise
upon the question of religious education, as the Social Democrats
are its enemies while the Centre warmly supports it. In the event
of a clash the Government will fall.
The general policy of the Government, as outlined by the Chan-
cellor Herr Bauer, is to hold the mean between the two extremes,
the supporters of the ex-Kaiser on the one hand and those of the
Independent Socialists who are working for the dictatorship of
the proletariat on the other hand. He warned the former that any
attempt to restore the Kaiser would be met with war to the knife
by the bulk of the nation; while to the latter he pointed out how
necessary it was for the socialization of industry that it should be
effected by gradual steps, and not by means which have caused
such disastrous results in Russia. With socialization effected
gradually, he was in full sympathy, and his Government would
bring in legislation to accomplish that result. He entertained
hopes that the Treaty of Versailles might be revised. The Foreign
Minister declared that Germany would renounce all alliances and
enter into the League of Nations and work in harmony with it.
The Premier announced his intention of introducing a law to regu-
late the Workers' Councils and the Economic Councils and obtain
coordination with the Government. He deprecated the many
strikes which had taken place, but recognized that the condition of
the people was so bad that strikes were in some degree justifiable.
The first duty of the Government would be to ameliorate, so
far as possible-, these conditions. While announcing the policy
of the socialization of industries as far as possible, he rejected the
control of industries by the Government as no remedy for existing
ills. The only remedy for the country was to set to work and
thereby retrieve the economic situation. The most prominent of
the members of the new Cabinet is Herr Mathias Erzberger, who
occupies that most difficult position in the Ministry — Minister of
Finance. He has presented to the National Assembly a first state-
ment of what must be done to provide means to pay for the dev-
astation wrought by Germany in foreign countries and for war
expenses. According to this statement no less a sum than
$6,250,000,000 must be raised by annual taxation. Of this sum,
$4,250,000,000 must be raised from new sources. The first of these
1919.] RECENT EVENTS 853
new sources is a tax on business turnovers; the second source is
called " the imperial sacrifice to needs." An income tax also is
to be introduced called the imperial income tax, levied on the profits
of invested capital, and will amount to as much as twenty-five or
even thirty per cent of these profits. The first payment to the
Allies will amount to five billion dollars and is to be made on the
first of May next. This will be done the more easily as the credits
already given by the Allies to Germany formed an important part
of it.
It is dawning upon the Germans that not only have they lost
the War, but that they, or some of them, were responsible for it, or
at least for its continuance. The Premier, Herr Bauer, claims that
the Right, which has made the restoration of the Hohenzollerns the
first article of its programme, attributes to the whole nation that
loss of the War which was due to the blind pursuit of power by the
Kaiser. Herr Erzberger's speech on what he termed the Allied
feelers for peace in 1917, has caused a long discussion in Germany,
in which both the civil and military powers have taken part, bandy-
ing accusation one against the other as to who was responsible for
turning a deaf ear.
The representatives of the Socialists who took part in the
Conference held at Amsterdam for the reorganization of trade
unions, tried to ingratiate themselves with the Socialistic work-
men from other countries by blaming the militaristic leaders of
Germany for beginning the War and for the way in which it was
conducted. They affirmed that they had been misled and betrayed.
Statements such as these, so contrary to the truth, had they not been
qualified would have broken up the congress, for it is well known
that the Social Democrats threw themselves into the War with
an ardor equal to that of the rest of the German people, and vin-
dicated every brutality which characterized it. It was only when
Mr. Gompers informed them that, if they maintained their position
of evading responsibility, it would be impossible for the workmen
of other countries to associate themselves with them, that they ex-
pressed a moderate degree of sorrow for their share of the guilt.
The assembled delegates, good naturedly recognizing this to be
all that could be expected from them, allowed the German dele-
gates to take part in their proceedings.
The German National Assembly did not delay the ratification
of the Peace Treaty. The vote approving its ratification was cast
on the ninth of July. On the thirtieth of the same month the As-
sembly took a further step for stabilizing the new order of things
in Germany by giving its approbation to the new constitution, on
which a committee has been at work since the opening of the
Assembly. This approbation was not unanimous. Seventy-five
854 RECENT EVENTS [Sept.,
members voted against it. The opposition came from the Ger-
man National Peoples, the German Peoples, and the Independent
Socialist Parties. The trial of the Kaiser has of course been widely
discussed in Germany and his brother, his sons, and the chiefs of
the military and civil services have offered to stand trial in his
stead. Marshal von Hindenburg has declared himself respon-
sible for the military orders from the time he succeeded General
von Falkenhayn, and the latter has assumed responsibility for the
foregoing period, while Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg has declared
his responsibility for the civil acts of his sovereign lord. The
matter has also been the subject of lively discussion in England,
where it was announced that the trial is to take place. Opposition
both to the trial itself and to its taking place in London seems to
be widespread. Many English writers of weight and authority
think it would be a great mistake, and object to their country be-
coming the jail of Europe. As Herr Bauer has declared before the
National Assembly that the ex-German Emperor would certainly
be brought to trial, it may be that Great Britain and the Allied
Powers will be relieved of the odious duty.
The Peace Treaty limited the German army to two hundred
thousand men. The framers of the Treaty knowing, of course,
how Prussia, in the early years of the nineteenth century, set at
nought the limitations placed on her forces by Napoleon, have
taken measures in the Versailles Treaty to prevent a similar
attempt in the future. It would seem that active measures in that
direction should be taken at once, for there are already three organ-
izations of a military character in the new German Republic: the
civil police which already exists, being capable of transformation
into a military force, and also the home guards which Herr Noske
has raised in large numbers to cope with the Spartacides. The
third force is the two hundred thousand men which the Treaty
allows. To these three more or less military organizations, Prus-
sia seeks to have a fourth in the shape of a force made up of non-
commissioned officers of the former German army, numbering
from one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand trained
soldiers. The Prussian authorities think it would be easy to ob-
tain the consent of the Paris Council to this project.
August 18, 1919.
to
With Our Readers
A VERY notable and timely book to which we wish to call the
special attention of our readers is Ireland's Fight for Free-
dom, by George Creel. It gives in small compass, but in an
unusually thorough and masterful way, the story of Ireland's un-
ceasing fight — a fight which we believe will soon be crowned with
victory.
As we said in an editorial some few months ago, Ireland's case
can never be considered as simply a domestic problem of England,
and as week succeeds week, the world is realizing that it is the
world's, not England's problem.
At the opening of his book Creel writes : " The world is asked
to consider Ireland merely as * England's domestic problem.' Cer-
tain circumstances unyielding as iron, preclude the acceptance of
any such view. Not even by the utmost stretch of amiable intent
can a question that strikes at the very heart of international agree-
ment be set down and written off as * domestic.' That magic for-
mula, * self-determination,' has marched armies and tumbled em-
pires these last few years, playing too large a part in world-con-
sciousness to be limited by any arbitrary discrimination in the
hour of victory and adjustment. Even as Poles, Czechs, Jugo-
slavs, Ukrainians, Finns, and scores of other submerged nation-
alities are struggling to the upper air of independence, so does Ire-
land appeal to the solemn covenant of the Allies with its champion-
ship of the ' right of small peoples ' and its sonorous assent to ' the
reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed.' "
reviews the recent history since 1870 of the fight for
Home Rule, and now, since such was treacherously denied,
the fight for national independence : he summarizes the more than
five centuries of aspirations and battles for Irish freedom: he re-
peats this interesting sentence of Captain Craig, M.P., showing
how valuable was the patriotism of the Ulsterites, uttered in 1911 :
" There is a spirit spreading abroad which I can testify to from my
personal knowledge that Germany and the German Emperor would
be preferred to the rule of John Redmond, Patrick Ford, and the
Molly Maguires;" and the further word of the Irish Churchman in
1913 : " If the King signs the Home Rule bill the Protestants of Ire-
land will welcome this continental deliverer as their forefathers
under similar circumstances did once before."
856 WITH OUR READERS [Sept.,
AT the end he thus summarizes the right of England's title —
and what is to be :
" Above all, more convincing than all, it is seen that England
holds title in Ireland only by invasion and armed occupation, and
that the Irish have never recognized conquest, never yielded the
voluntary submission without which the sovereign independence
of a nation does not and cannot pass. Crushed time and again by
sheer weight of numbers, borne to the very edge of extermination
in war after war, hunted like wild beasts from bog to glen,
scourged by pestilence and famine, subjected to every known
cruelty of persecution, perishing by thousands on wintry moun-
tain sides, dying with starved lips stained by the green of grass and
nettles, the soul of Ireland has never surrendered, the heart of
Ireland has never ceased to beat a battle cry of rebellion.
" Stripped of lies, prejudices, and pretense, the so-called ' Irish
question * shines forth as one of the world's most tremendous sim-
plicities. Freedom is its answer and its end. Today, no less than in
every wretched, blood-stained day for seven long, terrible cen-
turies, Ireland wants to be free. And when the miracle of spring
has not yet thrown a mantle of green over the graves of those thou-
sands who died but yesterday in the name of liberty; when the
world, like some great shell of the sea, still echoes to the inspiring
battle-cries with which England, France, and America rallied their
youth to the defence of ' weak peoples ' and the ' rights of small
nations;' when the heart of humanity was never so sick of blood
and injustice, what excuse can be offered, what excuse received, for
continuing the chains that keep Ireland in the pit while other peo-
ples climb from darkness to the light? "
ENOUGH thoughtless verbiage on the subject of religion is pub-
lished today to fill large volumes. While one may grow
impatient at the woeful lack of knowledge and of consecutive
thought which it evidences, he should be optimistic enough to
see this much of good — that it proves a growing interest and
concern on the part of many who have heretofore been scornful or
indifferent. Research and inquiry are bound to make plainer and
clearer the truth.
The Atlantic Monthly for July published an article by Arthur
Glutton-Brock, the art critic of the Literary Supplement of the
London Times, entitled Religion Now. It is a survey of the prin-
cipal Christian beliefs of the present day: all are examined, criti-
cized and all are found wanting. We have no desire to question
the author's conclusions — they are so vague that to do so would be
no more satisfactory than aiming at a target, the bull's-eye of
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 857
which could not be seen. For example : " There are some who say
that Christianity has failed, as if it were likely to succeed when
men did not believe in it. Certainly it has failed to make men be-
lieve in it; and that failure is absolute, if we hold that Christianity
is something revealed once for all two thousand years ago. But to
hold that, is to misunderstand Christ Himself. He professed to be
a visionary, that is to say, one who saw the truth, as other men see
a cow in a field; and His aim was to make men see this truth."
If the comparison expressed in this sentence holds, then Christ
saw not simply an abstract, indefinite truth, but truth concrete and
definite. This concrete truth which He knew and saw was the
same truth that through Him all men were to see. It is as definite
now as when He saw it. It is as fixed now because it is truth. It
cannot be altered or changed : if it be, it is not the truth that Christ
saw. Because of this fact the Catholic Church has ever taught
the oneness and unchangeableness of the revelation of Christ.
From it the Church may not take away even the slightest portion;
nor may she add the smallest increase. If Christianity be true,
that is, if Christianity is the concrete definite truth which Christ
saw as clearly as we see a cow in a field, then " Christianity is
something revealed once for all two thousand years ago."
* * * *
IN criticizing the dogmas of Catholic faith, the author affirms that
the " old dogmas say nothing of the kingdom of heaven." One
might as well say that the old dogmas of Christianity say nothing
of Christ.
His further objection to the Catholic Church is the oft-repeated
one that it is only for the uneducated: that the intelligent man
must injure or abdicate his reason when he joins the Church. The
same objection has been made since the days of St. John the
Evangelist. There is a difficulty in bringing the intellect into
subjection to Christ — but it is not an intellectual one.
An almost unlimited list of men and women deservedly
famous for their intellectual gifts, might be given in answer to this
writer's objections. But it is quite unnecessary. What we do
wish to point out here is that the Catholic faith does not only
not hinder or lessen intellectual activity but stimulates and in-
creases it.
In the same journal of which this writer is the art critic, there
appeared recently an article which showed that Newman had done
his best literary work after he entered the Catholic Church.
The writer cites the doctrine of infallibility as a typical example
of the abdication, so to speak, of the intellectual faculties. Of course
infallibility does not make nearly so great a demand on the reason
858 WITH OUR READERS [Sept.,
as does the doctrine of the Real Presence : and rather than submit
to authority, they who first heard the latter preached " walked no
more with Him."
* * * *
NEWMAN in a notable passage of the Apologia shows that
the doctrine of infallibility while it protects and guides also
stirs and stimulates reason. The classical passage is well worth
quoting: Newman makes his great profession of faith, his belief
in the doctrine of infallibility and then he adds :
" All this being considered as the profession which I make ex-
animo as for myself, so also on the part of the Catholic body, as
far as I know it, it will at first sight be said that the restless intel-
lect of our common humanity is utterly weighed down, to the re-
pression of all independent effort and action whatever, so that, if
this is to be made the mode of bringing it into order, it is brought
into order only to be destroyed. But this is far from the result, far
from what I conceive to be the intention of that high Providence
Who has provided a great remedy for a great evil — far from borne
out by the history of the conflict between Infallibility and Reason
in the past, and the prospect of it in the future. The energy of the
human intellect 'does from opposition grow;' it thrives and is
joyous, with a tough elastic strength, under the terrible blows
of the divinely fashioned weapon, and is never so much itself as
when it has lately been overthrown. It is the custom with Prot-
estant writers to consider that, whereas there are two great prin-
ciples in action in the history of religion, Authority and Private
Judgment, they have all the Private Judgment to themselves, and
we have the full inheritance and the superincumbent oppression of
Authority. But this is not so; it is the vast Catholic body itself,
and it only, which affords an arena for both combatants in that
awful, never-dying duel. It is necessary for the very life of re-
ligion, viewed in its large operations and its history, that the war-
fare should be incessantly carried on. Every exercise of Infal-
libility is brought out into act by an intense and varied operation
of the Reason, both as its ally and as its opponent, and provokes
again, when it has done its work, a reaction of Reason against
it; and, as in a civil polity the State exists and endures by
means of the rivalry and collision, the encroachments and defeats
of its constituent parts, so in like manner Catholic Christendom is
no simple exhibition of religious absolutism, but presents a con-
tinuous picture of Authority and Private Judgment alternately
advancing and retreating as the ebb and flow of the tide; it is a vast
assemblage of human beings with willful intellects and wild pas-
sions brought together into one by the beauty and the Majesty of a
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 859
Superhuman Power, into what may be called a large reformatory
or training-school, not as if into a hospital or into a prison, not in
order to be sent to bed, not to be buried alive, but (if I may change
my metaphor) brought together as if into some moral factory,
for the melting, refining, and moulding, by an incessant, noisy
process, of the raw material of human nature, so excellent, so
dangerous, so capable of divine purposes."
THE writer in The Atlantic Monthly states that the defect of the
Roman Catholic Church is that " it belies its name and is no
longer Catholic.*' In a recent book by a Protestant army Chaplain
of the British Expeditionary Force, the author, the Rev.
Robert Keable, tells how a Catholic priest suddenly came upon his
camp of two thousand men which included seventy Catholics —
all South Africans. The priest offered Mass, the children of
Basutoland assisted. The Chaplain writes :
" This morning's service was really an amazing illustration of
Catholicity* There is no getting away from it. Consider what that
priest did. Knowing nothing of natives whatever, and utterly un-
able to speak a word of their language, he walks in as cool as you
please, and is able to provide them with a service which (as they
testified and as I could hear) they enjoyed immensely, and which
I have no doubt uplifted them. I imagine myself in a like sit-
uation. I should have begun by fussing about hymn-books, look-
ing for an interpreter, and so on. I remember once in a camp
being in just the same position, and I remember how utterly things
failed. Nor is it any use to say that any use of a liturgy would
obviate this. Our liturgical practice does not. Partly, no doubt,
owing to our different uses, but partly because in our Holy Com-
munion emphasis is laid on language, and the language of the
Prayer Book at that, the vast majority of our boys would have
been lost in such a situation. A strange priest and a foreign lan-
guage would bewilder them. I have proved it and I know. Of
course boys trained in very High Church circles are different, or
should be; but there are few of our missions which teach as the
Romans teach, and all but none who face the possibilities and the
consequences of Catholicity, and educate for it, as they do. In
consequence, these Kaffirs could attend the Mass of a foreign
priest at a moment's notice, and understand what was done."
* * * *
ANOTHER evidence that the Roman Catholic Church does not
" belie her name " is given by this Protestant Chaplain. A
white officer attended this Sacrifice of the Mass :
860 WITH OUR READERS [Sept.,
" I will not say that there are no white men who will go to our
services with natives, for that would not be true; but our normal
custom is to have two services, one English and one native, one
white and one black, and their normal custom is to have but one.
It never enters their heads to question it; it rarely enters ours to
suggest it. Last Sunday I had fifty boys at five A.M. and thirty
more at six, and five white men at eight-fifteen. I have seen the
same thing all round Africa, at Zanzibar, Cape Town, Sierra Leone,
and Port Said. One may talk around it, seek to pooh-pooh it, or
object to it, but the fact is that that Catholic altar this morning
transcended in a moment, without premeditation, and as a nor-
mal thing which I do not suppose even arrested the attention of
priest or people, black or white, all bounds of distance, of color,
and of caste. And this is a wonderful witness among us at this
time. For the Cross alone does this. The Cross of the battlefield
annihilates all barriers, as we have seen these days a hundred
times, and so does the Cross of the Roman Catholic altar."
* * * *
AGAIN, a third time, he bears witness to the fulfillment of the
name Catholic by the Church because of its Oneness and
Sameness of Truth for all times and places and peoples :
" What strikes one is the magnificent testimony of the Church
of Rome to the inviolability of Truth. Not even the shock of an un-
paralleled world-war can shake that witness. I have heard stories
of concessions, but they have certainly been very much in part, and
they give no more sign of generally breaking down this resolution
than an occasional fall of chalk indicates the abolition of the cliffs
of Dover. No truck with heretics because of the holiness and un-
dividedness of Truth — that is the attitude. And whatever else we
say, let us express our enormous obligation for such testimony.
Looking back over the last three centuries, how, if it had not been
for Rome, should we still have had a voice amongst us to say that
Truth and Purity are sisters? That if a doctrine is a revelation of
the mind of Christ, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin-
cipalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, must be allowed to sep-
arate from it — this is her agelong witness. It is magnificent. It is
almost incredible. It is all but a final proof of her divine claim, for
unquestionably it is a rock upon which one dashes oneself to
pieces or by which one is ground to powder."
* * * *
BOTH authors agree in the statement that the Established
Church of England needs to re-make herself. The Atlantic
writer says : " It is both the glory and the shame of that Churck
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 861
that it does not really exist: it is always in process of becoming."
And Chaplain Keable : " It is no use talking of the Church of Eng-
land, for you do not know with what you are dealing."
WE in this country who have often asked anxious questions
about the Church in France, will be much interested in the
summary made by Chaplain Keable at the end of his chapter on
the defects of Anglicanism. " The Church in France is all but
penniless. It is not merely disestablished; it is — or has been till
the heroism of its clergy in the War moved the secret soul of the
nation — even persecuted. There are bishops in France with a
curate's stipend and a Third-Floor-Back Palace. And the result?
France is not strikingly religious; indeed, it is strikingly pagan,
for broad is the way and wide is the gate that leadeth to destruc-
tion ; and narrow is the way and strait is the gate that leadeth into
life. But the churches are full. The poor have the gospel preached
to them. The pure in heart see God. The lepers are often
cleansed, and even the lame walk and the blind see. And no one
says to a French priest : ' Don't talk to me of the Church in France.
No one knows for what the Church in France stands. Let your
Church live like Christ before it preaches Him.' For one knows
for what the Church in France stands; one knows that its clergy
are despised and rejected and poor as He; and if Christ be still
crucified in France today there are centurions at the foot of His
Cross who are moved to cry ' Truly this Man is the Son of God/ "
AN article of especial interest to Catholics, an article light-
ened with many a humorous sentence and entitled A Famous
Indian Dictionary, is published in the July issue of the Yale
Review. The author is Frederick S. Dickson, well known in
legal and literary circles. The compiler of this Indian Dictionary
was the famous Jesuit missionary, Father Sebastian Rale. This
heroic priest abandoned his quiet life of study in France and gladly
braved the dangers and the sacrifices of the Indian Missions in
America.
When he arrived at Quebec in 1689 he immediately applied
himself to the difficulties of the Indian tongue and two years later
began to compile his Indian Dictionary for the Abenaki Indians.
The Abenaki had a village on the banks of the Kennebec, called
Narantsouak: now altered to Norridgewock. There in 1693 Father
Rale took up residence and there found the field of his mission
labors for the remainder of his life. He taught the Indians and
862 WITH OUR READERS [Sept.,
was in turn loved by them: he erected a church: he instructed
them in secular learning and for them compiled his Dictionary.
* * * *
BUT " that a Jesuit should minister to the Indians so near to
the English settlements was both a disgrace and a menace
to the eyes of the Puritan. ... In those days the Jesuit was looked
upon by all as an unmixed evil. Jesuit and Polish priests were
warned to depart from the Colonies." Father Rale ignored this
mandate of the Massachusetts Court. Accordingly an expedition
was sent to capture him. The first attempt failed. All the Puri-
tans accomplished was " the destruction of the bark village and
the burning of the church." A second attempt succeeded in cap-
turing not Father Rale himself, but his strong box which con-
tained the precious manuscript of his Indian Dictionary. After
again burning the village and the church, the Puritans carried back
this book to Boston.
In 1724 a third expedition was more successful. It surprised
the Indian village, and " Father Rale himself fell dead at the foot
of the Cross he had planted in the centre of the settlement. His
body was mutilated, and his scalp torn off and carried in triumph
to Boston, with similar mementoes from the heads of twenty-six
Indians.
" The survivors straggled back to their ruined homes and
reverently buried the torn body of their priest. Our historians
deny to Rale the ascription of martyrdom, insisting that he was
killed because he was an active agent of the French government,
not as an apostle of the Faith. But after all, there never yet was a
martyr who was not proclaimed an enemy to the state by those who
slew him."
THE manuscript of Father Rale's Indian Dictionary is at pres-
ent in the library of Harvard University. On its first page is
the confession of its theft : " Taken after the fight at Norridgewalk
among father Ralle's papers and given by the late Colonel Heath to
Elisha Cooke, Esq. — Dictionary of the Norridgewalk Language."
BECAUSE of his unusual attainments in general scholarship, and
his rare ingenuity in handling sounds, Father Rale was able to
compile this great work. The Dictionary shows what incredible
labor and difficult problems the early missionaries were subject to
in conveying a knowledge of the Faith to the aborigines. " How
the priest devised Abenaki equivalents for some of his phrases,"
writes Mr. Dickson, " passes one's comprehension."
1919.] WITH OUR READERS 863
Yet in some fundamental matters the Indian expressed him-
self quite like the European. Father Rale in a letter to his brother
written in 1723 says : " If I should ask you, ' Why has God created
you? ' you would reply to me that ' it is to know Him, to love Him,
and by this means to merit eternal glory.' But should I put the
same question to a savage, he would reply to me thus, in the terms
of his language : ' The Great Spirit has thought of us ; let them
know Me, let them love Me, let them honor Me, and let them obey
Me; for then I shall make them enter into My glorious felicity/ "
THE Princeton Theological Review, published by the Princeton
University Press here and the Oxford University Press abroad,
claims to be a journal of serious and reliable discussion.
After publishing such a paper as The Crises of Christianity
and Their Significance by William Brenton Greene, Jr., in the July
issue, it is in a fair way to lose such a reputation. The charge
that the Catholic Church ever taught that an indulgence granted
the recipient permission to sin has long since been proved to be
absolutely without foundation, save that which it found in the
minds of malicious and lying enemies. Whatever abuses were
attached to the preaching of indulgences have nothing to do with
this charge, and are matters with which no scholar would con-
found it. Yet in this supposedly scholarly quarterly we find the
following sentence : " At first indulgences as they were called, were
granted in remission of only part of the penance imposed by the
Church for sin: afterwards they were issued as plenary remission
for the whole of it, and finally it became the custom to give them in
anticipation of the sin and the imposition of the penance."
* * * *
SUCH a statement was denied even in the time of Luther and by
one who was most violent in his Protestantism. Carlstadt,
after he left the Church, made an investigation of the whole ques-
tion, and admitted he could find no trace of such immoral enor-
mities in the preaching of indulgences.
It is furthermore well to remember that with regard to human
conduct, Luther through his defence of justification by faith alone,
taught the most immoral doctrine that the world has ever known.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
E. P. BUTTON & Co., New York:
Standing By. By R. Keable. $2.00 net. The Freedom of the Seas. By L. F.
Brown. $2.00 net. Blood and Sand. By V. B. Ibafiez. $1.90 net. The State
and the Nation. By E. Jenks, M.A. $2.00 net. Schools of Tomorrow. By J.
Dewey. The Place of Agriculture in Reconstruction. By J. B. Morman, M.A.
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