[Transcriber's note: This text is derived from http://www.archive.org/details/catholicworld07pauluoft. Page numbers are shown in curly braces, such as {123}. They have been moved to the nearest sentence break.]

The Catholic World.
A Monthly Magazine
of
General Literature and Science.

Vol. VII.
April To September, 1868.

New York:
The Catholic Publication Society,
126 Nassau Street.
1868.

John A. Gray & Green,
Printers,
16 and 18 Jacob St., New York.

Contents.

A Heroine of Conjugal Love, [781].
A New Face on an Old Question, [577].
Anecdotical Memoirs of Emperor Nicholas I., [683].
A Sister's Story, [707].
Ancient Irish Church, [764].
Abyssinia and King Theodore, [265].
Baltimore, Second Plenary Council of, [618].
Breton Legend of St. Christopher, [710].
Bretons, Faith and Poetry of, [567].
Bible and the Catholic Church, [657].
Bishop Doyle, [44].
Bound with Paul, [389].
Catacombs, Children's Graves in, [401].
Campion, Edmund, 289.
Catholics in England, Condition and Prospects of, [487].
Catholic Church and the Bible, [657].
Catholic Sunday-School Union, [300].
Children's Graves in the Catacombs, [401].
Crisis, The Episcopalian, [37].
Christopher, St., Breton Legend of, [710].
Constantinople, Harem Life in, [407].
Conscience, Plea for Liberty of, [433].
Condition and Prospects of Catholics in England, [487].
Confessional, Episcopalian, [372].
Conscript, Story of a, [26].
Colony of the Insane, Gheel, [824].
Conjugal Love, Heroine of, [781].
Council of Baltimore, Second Plenary, [618].
Cowper, [347].
Country Church, a Plan for, [135].
Cousin, Victor, and the Church Review, [95].
Cross, The, [21].
Count Ladislas Zamoyski, [650].
Church, Ancient Irish, [764].
Church, Catholic, and the Bible, [657].
Church Review, and Victor Cousin, [95].
Churches, United, of England and Ireland, [200].
Church, Early Irish, [336].
Draper, Professor, Books of, [155].
De Garaison, Notre Dame, [644].
Doyle, Bishop, [44].
Duties, Household, [700].
Early Irish Church, [356].
England and Ireland, United Churches of, [200].
England, Catholics of, Condition and Prospects, [487].
Episcopalian Crisis, [37].
Episcopalian Confessional, [372].
Education, Popular, [228].
Edmund Campion, [289].
European Prison Discipline, [772].
Egypt, Harem Life in, [407].
Face, New, on an Old Question, [577].
Faith and Science, [338], [464].
Flaminia, [795].
Faith and Poetry of the Bretons, [567].
Flight of Spiders, [414].
Florence Athern's Trial, [213].
Garaison, Notre Dame de, [644].
Graves, Children's, in the Catacombs, [401].
Gathering, Roman, [191].
Glastonbury, Legend of, 517.
Gheel, Colony of the Insane, [824].
Girl, Italian, of our Day, [364], [343], [626].
Glimpses of Tuscany—
The Duomo, [479];
The Boboli Gardens, [679].
Good Works, Merit of, [125].
Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople, [407].
Heroine of Conjugal Love, [781].
History, How told in the Year 3000, [130].
Holy Shepherdess of Pibrac, [753].
Holy Week in Jerusalem, [77].
How our History will be told in the Year 3000, [130].
Insane, Colony of, at Gheel, [824].
Italian Girl of our Day, [364], [543], [626].
Irish Church, Early, [356].
Irish Church, Ancient, [764].
"Is it Honest?" [239].
Ireland, Protestant Church of, [200].
Jerusalem, Holy Week in, [77].
John Sterling, [811].
John Tauler, [422].
King Theodore of Abyssinia, [265].
Keeble, [347].
La Fayette, Madame de, [781].
Legend of Glastonbury, [317].
Liberty of Conscience, Plea for, [433].
Life of St. Paula, sketches of, [380], [508], [670].
Life, Harem, in Egypt and Constantinople, [407].
Life's Charity, [839].
Last Gasp of the Anti-Catholic Faction, [850].
Madame de La Fayette, [731].
Magas; or, Long Ago, [39], [256].
Miscellany, [139].
Merit of Good Works, [125].
Memoirs of Count Segur, [633].
Monks of the West, [1].
New Face on an Old Question, [577].
Newgate, [772].
Newman's Poems, [609].
Nellie Netterville, [82], [173], [307], [445], [589], [736].
New York City, Sanitary and Moral Condition of, [553], [712] Nicholas, Emperor, Memoirs of, [683].
Notre Dame de Garaison, [644].
O'Neil and O'Donnell in Exile, [11].
Quietist Poetry, [347].
Race, The Human, Unity of, [67].
Rights of Catholic Women, [846].
Roman Gathering, [191].

St. Paula, Sketches of her Life, [380], [508], [670].
St. Christopher, Breton Legend of, [710].
Sayings of the Fathers of the Desert, [76], [227], [572].
Sanitary and Moral Condition of New York City, [553], [712].
Segur, Count, Memoirs of, [633].
Shepherdess of Pibrac, [753].
Sterling, John, [811].
Science and Faith, [338], [464].
Sketches of the Life of St. Paula, [380], [508], [670].
Sister Simplicia, [115].
Sister's Story, [707].
Spiders, Flight of, [414].
Story of a Conscript, [26].
Story, a Sister's, [707].
Tauler, John, [422].
The Cross, [21].
The Church Review and Victor Cousin, [95].
The Episcopalian Crisis, [37].
The Rights of Catholic Women, [846].
The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, [618].
The Story of a Conscript, [26].
Theodore, King of Abyssinia, [265].
Tennyson in his Catholic Aspects, [145].
Unity of the Human Race, [67].
United Churches of England and Ireland, [200].
Veneration of Saints and Holy Images, [721].
Wordsworth, [347].
Women, Catholic, Rights of [846].
Zamoyski, Count Ladislas, [650].

Poetry.

All-Souls' Day—1867, [236].
Benediction, [444].
Elegy of St. Prudentius, [761].
Full of Grace, [129].
Iona to Erin, [57].
Love's Burden, [212].
Morning at Spring Park, [174].
My Angel, [363].
One Fold, [336].
Poland, [154].
St. Columba, [823].
Sonnet on "Le Récit d'une Soeur," [306].
St. Mary Magdalen, [476].
Sonnet, [617].
Tears of Jesus, [113].
To the Count de Montalembert, [516].
Wild Flowers, [566].

New Publications.

Assemblée Générale des Catholiques en Belge, [431].
Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia for 1867, [574].
Appleton's Short Trip to France, [717].
Book of Moses, [142].
Campbell's Works, [720].
Catholic Sunday-School Library, [431].
Catholic Crusoe, [719].
Chandler's New Fourth Reader, [575].
Chemical Change in the Eucharist, [285].
Count Lucanor, [140],
De Costa's Lake George, [718].
Discussions in Theology, Skinner, [573].
Elinor Johnson, [576].
Folks and Fairies, [144].
Great Day, [288].
Gillet's Democracy, [719].
Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions, [573].
Histoire de France, [719].
House Painting, [720].
Infant Bridal, by Aubrey de Vere, [143].
Imitation of Christ, Spiritual Combat, etc., [575].
Irish Homes and Irish Hearts, [576].
Life of St. Catharine of Sienna, [142].
Life in the West, [287].
Memoirs and Letters of Jennie C. White—Del Bal, [858].
Moses, Book of, [142].
Mozart, [288].
Margaret, a Story of Prairie Life, [576].
Newman's Parochial Sermons, [716].
Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Missal, [574].
Northcote's Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna, [574].
Ozanam's Civilization, [430].
O'Kane's Notes on the Rubrics, [574],
O'Shea's Juvenile Library, [719].
On the Heights, [284].
Palmer's Hints on the Formation of Religions Opinions, [573].
Prayer the Key of Salvation, [143].
Peter Claver, [142].
Problems of the Age, [715].
Queen's Daughter, [720].
Red Cross, [575].
Reforme en Italic, [143].
Rossignoli's Choice of a State of Life, [576].
Rhymes of the Poets, [718].
St. Catharine of Sienna, Life of, [143].
St. Colomba, Apostle of Caledonia, [281].
Sanctuaries of the Madonna, [720].
Tales from the Diary of a Sister, [288].
The Catholic Crusoe, [719].
The Queen's Daughter, [720].
The Vickers and Purcell Controversy, [856].
The Woman Blessed by all Generations, [860].

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. VII., No. 37.—April, 1868.

The Monks Of The West. [Footnote 1]
By The Count De Montalembert.

[Footnote 1: The Monks of tie West, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard. By the Count de Montalembert, Member of the French Academy. 5 vols. 8vo. For sale at the Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau Street, New York.]

In the galaxy of illustrious men whom God has given to France in this century, there is one whom history will place in the first rank. We mean the author of the Monks of the West, the Count de Montalembert. There has not been since the seventeenth century till now such an assemblage of men of genius and lofty character gathered round the standard of the church, combating for her and leaving behind them works that will never die. Attacked on all sides at once, the church has found magnanimous soldiers to bear the brunt of the battle, and meet her enemies in every quarter. Even though the victory has not yet been completely won, with such defenders she cannot doubt of final success and future triumph. How great are the names of Montalembert, Lacordaire, Ravignan, Dupanloup, Ozanam, Augustin Co-chin, the Prince de Broglie, de Falloux, Cauchy, and of so many others! The natural sciences, history, political economy, controversy, parliamentary debates, pulpit eloquence, have been studied and honored by these men; superior in all those sciences on account of the truth which they defend, and equal in talent to their most renowned rivals.

The figure of the Count de Montalembert stands conspicuous in that group of giant intellects by the universality of his eminent gifts. A historian full of erudition, an incomparable orator, and a writer combining the classic purity of the seventeenth century with the energy and fire of the nineteenth, an indefatigable polemic, a man of the world, yet an orthodox churchman, but above all a practical and fervent Christian; this great defender of Catholic truth has merited immortal praise from his contemporaries and from posterity.

Among all the works of this energetic champion of the faith. The Monks of the West holds indisputably the first place. It is the work of Montalembert's entire life. He has put into it his Benedictine erudition, his passionate love for truth, the charming and dramatic power of his style in the narration of events, his inimitable talent for painting in words the portraits of those famous characters whom he wishes to present to the eye of the reader; and their traits remain ineffaceably stamped on the mind. Especially does the soul of the true Christian breathe on every page of the volumes. For more than forty years their author bent piously over those austere forms of the Benedictine monks of the early ages to ask them the secret of their lives, of their virtues, of their influence on their country and their age. He has studied them with that infallible instinct of faith which had disclosed to him a hidden treasure in those old monastic ruins, and in those dusty and unexplored monuments of their contemporary literature; the treasure, namely, of the influence of the church acting on the barbarians through the monks. This is the leading idea of the whole work. It would be a mistake to expect, under the title of Monks of the West, a history of mere asceticism, or a species of continuation of the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert. Writers no longer treat, as that work does, the lives of the saints. Readers are not satisfied with the simple account of the virtues practised or the number of miracles performed by the canonized children of the church. Modern men want to look into the depths of a saint's soul; to know what kind of a human heart throbbed in his bosom, and how far he participated in the thoughts and feelings of ordinary human nature. The circumstances in which he lived and studied, the opinions formed of him by his contemporaries, are weighed, and the traces left by his sanctity or genius on the manners and institutions of his country are closely considered.

The history of The Monks of the West is nothing else than a history of civilization through monastic causes. The third, fourth, and fifth volumes just published contain a complete, profound, exact, and beautiful account of the conversion of Great Britain to Catholicity. No work could be more interesting, not only to Englishmen, but to all who speak the English tongue. Hence, but a few months after the French edition of these bulky volumes, an English translation of them was given to the public, and is now well known and becoming justly wide-spread in the United States.

Irish and Anglo-Saxons, Americans by birth or by adoption, Catholics and Protestants, there is not one of us who is not interested in a work which tells us from whom, and how, we have inherited our Christian faith. Even Germans will learn in the perusal of these volumes their religious origin; for it was from the British isles that the apostles of Germany went forth to their labors. The English language is the most universally spoken to-day; the sceptre of Britain rules an empire greater than that of Alexander or of any of the Caesars. The latest statistics tell us that there are one hundred and seventy-four millions of British subjects or vassals. The two Indies, vast Australia, and the islands of the Pacific Ocean belong mostly to the Anglo-Saxon race, and feel its influence. But what are all those great conquests compared to these once British colonies, now called North America? Who can foresee the height to which may reach this vigorous graft, cut from the old oak, invigorated by the virgin soil of the new world, and which already spreads its shade over immense latitudes, and which promises to be the largest and most powerful country ever seen? Is it not therefore useful and interesting to study the religious origin of this extraordinary race? Is there an American in heart, or by birth, who is not bound to know the history of those to whom this privileged race owes its having received in so large a measure the three fundamental bases of all grandeur and stability in nations: the spirit of liberty, the family spirit, and the spirit of religion?

The history of the conversion of England by the monks answers all these questions. It comprises the apostleship of the Irish, and of the Roman and Anglo-Saxon elements during the sixth and seventh centuries. The Irish or Celtic portion of the history centres in St. Columba, whose majestic form towers above his age, illustrated by his virtues and influenced by his genius. The Roman element is represented by the monk Augustine, the first apostle of the Anglo-Saxons. Lastly, this race itself enters on the missionary career, and sends out as its first apostle a great man and a great saint, the monk Wilfrid, whose moral beauty of character rivals that of St. Columba. Shortly after these, as it were following in their shadow, walks the admirable and gentle Venerable Bede, the first English historian, the learned encyclopedist, alike the honor and glory of his countrymen, and of the learned of all nations.

We cannot resist the pleasure of giving, though it be but very incomplete and pale, a sketch of the great monk of Clonard, the apostle of Caledonia, St. Columba. [Footnote 2] Sprung from the noble race of O'Niall, which ruled Ireland during six centuries, educated at Clonard, in one of those immense monasteries which recalled the memory of the monastic cities of the Thebaid, he was the chief founder, though hardly twenty-nine years old, of a multitude of religious houses. More than thirty-seven in Ireland claim him as their founder. He was a poet of great renown, and a musician skilled in singing that national poetry of Erin, which so intimately harmonizes with Catholic faith. He lived in fraternal union with the other poets of his country, with those famous bards, whom he was afterward to protect and save from their enemies. Besides being a great traveller, like the most of the Irish saints and monks whose memory has been preserved by history, he had another passion for manuscripts. This passion had results which decided his destiny. Having shut himself up at night in a church, where he discovered the psalter of the Abbot Finnian, Columba found means to make a clandestine copy of it. Finnian complained of it as a theft. The case was brought to the chief monarch of Ireland, who decided against Columba. The copyist protested; anathematized the king, and raised against him in revolt the north and west of Hibernia. Columba's party conquered, and the recovered psalter, called the Psalter of Battles, became the national relic of the clan O'Donnell. This psalter still exists, to the great joy of the erudite patriots of Ireland.

[Footnote 2: The Catholic Publication Society will soon publish The Life of St. Columba, as given in the third volume of The Monks of the West.]

Nevertheless, as Christian blood had flowed for a comparative trifle, and through the fault of a monk, a synod was convened and Columba was excommunicated. He succeeded in having the sentence cancelled; but he was commanded to gain to God, by his preaching, as many souls as he had destroyed Christians in the battle of Cooldrewny. To this injunction his confessor added the hardest of penances for a soul so passionately attached, as was that of Columba, to his country and his friends. The penitent was compelled to exile himself from Ireland for ever. Columba submitted. Twelve of his disciples refused to leave him, and embarking with them on one of those large osier, hide-covered boats which the Celtic peoples were accustomed to use in navigation, he landed on an island called Oronsay. He ascended a hill near the shore, and looking toward the south, perceived that he could still see the Irish coast. He reëmbarked immediately, and sailed in quest of a more distant isle, from which his native land should be no longer visible. He at last touched the small desert island of Iona, and chose for his abode this unknown rock, which he has made a partaker of his own immortality.

We should read in M. de Montalembert's work the eloquent description of the Hebrides, and of that sandy and sterile shore of Iona, rendered glorious by so many virtues. "'We were now treading,' wrote Dr. Johnson, the great moralist of the eighteenth century, 'that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and would be foolish if it were possible.'[Footnote 3] And he recited with enthusiasm those verses from Goldsmith's Traveller:

'Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band.
By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature's hand.
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul.
True to imagined right, above control,
While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.' [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 3: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. By Dr. Johnson,]
[Footnote 4: The Monks of the West, vol. iv. book xi. ch. 3.]

Grace had accomplished its work. Arrived at Iona, Columba, one of the most high-spirited and passionate of the Gaels of Hibernia, became a most humble penitent, a pattern of mortification to the monks, the most gentle of friends, and a most tender father. Having no other cell than a log cabin for seventy-six years, he slept in it on the bare ground, with a stone for his pillow. This hut was his oratory and library, into which, after working all day in the fields like the lowest of the brothers, he entered to meditate on the Holy Scripture and multiply copies of the sacred text. He is supposed to have transcribed with his own hand three hundred copies of the gospels. Devoted to his expiatory mission, he commenced by evangelizing the Dalriadian Scots, an Irish colony formed between the Picts of the north and the Britons of the south. This colony was on the western coast of Caledonia and in the neighboring islands, at the north of the mouth of the Clyde, in that tract of country afterward known by the name of Argyle. But these colonists were his countrymen. Soon he was called to lay hands on the head of their chief, thus inaugurating not only a new royalty, but also a new rite, which afterward became the most august solemnity in the life of Christian nations. This consecration of the Scot Aidan as King, by Columba, is the first authentic instance of the kind in the west. Later, crossing the Grampian hills, at the foot of which the victorious legions of Agricola stopped, and venturing in a frail skiff on Loch-Ness and the river which flows from it, he confronted those terrible Picts, the most depraved and ferocious of the barbarians, disputing, through an interpreter, with the Druids, thus attacked in their last retreat. He returned often to these savages, so that he finished, before his death, the conversion of the whole nation, dotting with churches and sanctuaries their forests, defiles, inaccessible mountains, their wild fens and their sparsely peopled isles. The vestiges of fifty-three of those churches are still traceable in modern Scotland, and even the most enlightened Protestant judges of the Scottish bench attribute the very ancient division of parishes in Scotland to the missionary monk of sacred Iona.

He never forgot, in the midst of his labors, his beloved Ireland. He had for her all the tender passion of the exile; a passion which let itself out in his songs, full of a charming melancholy. "Better to die in pure Ireland, than to live for ever here in Albania." [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: Vol. iii. book xi. ch. 2.]

To this cry of despair succeed more plaintive notes breathing resignation. In one of his elegies, he regrets not being able to sail once more on the lakes and gulfs of his fatherland, nor to listen to the song of the swans with his friend Comgall. He mourns especially his having to leave Erin through his own fault, on account of the blood shed in the battles which he had provoked. He envies his friend Cormac, who can return to his dear monastery of Durrow, to hearken there to the murmur of the winds among the oaks, and drink in the song of the blackbird and the cuckoo. As for him, Columba, everything in Ireland is dear to him, except the rulers that govern it! In another poem still more characteristic, he exclaims: "Oh! what delight to glide over the foam-crested waves of the sea, and see the breakers roll on the sandy beaches of Ireland! Oh! how swiftly my bark would bound over the waters, if its prow were turned toward my grove of oaks in Ireland! But the noble sea must only bear me for ever toward Albania, the gloomy land of the raven. My feet repose in my skiff, but my sad heart ever bleeds.
...
From the deck of my boat I cast my eyes over the billows, and the big tears stand in my moistened gray eyes, when I look toward Erin; toward Erin, where the birds sing so melodiously, and where the priests sing like the birds; where the young men are so gentle, and the old so wise; the nobles so illustrious and handsome, and the women so fair to wed. ... Young navigator, carry with thee my woes, bear them to Comgall the immortal. Bear with thee, noble youth, my prayer and my blessing: one half for Ireland; that she may receive seven-fold blessings! and the other half for Albania. Carry my benediction across the sea; carry it toward the west. My heart is broken within my bosom; if sudden death should befall me, it would be through my great love for the Gaels." [Footnote 6]

[Footnote 6: Vol. iii. book xi. ch. 2.]

An opportunity was afforded him of seeing once more this beloved land of which he sang with such ardent enthusiasm. He had to accompany the king of the Dalriadians, whom he had just consecrated, to meet the supreme monarch of Ireland and other Irish princes and chiefs assembled in parliament at Drumkeath. There was question of recognizing the independence of the new Scottish royalty, hitherto the vassal and tributary of Erin. But as the exile had made a vow never again in this life to behold the men and women of Erin, he appeared in the national assembly with his eyes blindfolded, and his monk's cowl drawn over the bandage. Columba was listened to as an oracle in the parliament of Drumkeath. He not only obtained the complete emancipation of the Dalriadian colony, but he also saved the order of the bards, whose proscription had been demanded by the king of Ireland. They were for ever won over to Christianity by the holy monk, and, transformed into minstrels, continued for the future to be the most efficacious propagators of the spirit of patriotism, the indomitable prophets of national independence, and the faithful champions of catholic faith.

Arrived at the term of his career, the servant of God spent himself in vigils, fastings, and formidable macerations of the flesh. He knew in advance and predicted with certainty the day and the very hour when he should pass to a better life; and he made all things ready for his departure. He went to take leave of the monks who worked in the fields, in the only fertile portion of the island of Iona, on the western coast. He wished to visit and bless the granary of the community. He blessed the old white horse which used to carry from the sheep-fold of the monastery the milk which was consumed daily by the brothers. Having done this, he was barely able to ascend an eminence from which the whole island and monastery were visible, and from this elevated position he extended his hands and pronounced on the sanctuary which he had founded a prophetic benediction. "This little spot, so low and so narrow, will be greatly honored, not only by the kings and people of Scotland, but also by foreign chiefs and barbarous nations; it will be even venerated by the saints of other churches." He then descended to the monastery, entered his cell, and applied himself to his work for the last time. He was at that time busied in transcribing the psalter. At the thirty-third psalm, and the verse, "Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono," [Footnote 7] he ceased and said: "Here I must finish; Baithan will write the rest." After this he went to the church to assist at the vigils of Sunday; then returning to his cell, he sat down on the cold stones which had been his bed and pillow for over seventy years. There he entrusted his solitary companion with a last message for the community. This done, he never spoke more. But no sooner had the midnight bell tolled for matins, than he ran faster than the other monks to the church. His companion found him lying before the altar, and raising his head, placed it on his knees. The whole community soon arrived with lights. At the sight of their father dying, all wept. The abbot opened his eyes once more, looking around on all with a serene and joyous expression. Then, assisted by his companion, Columba lifted as well as he could his right hand, and silently blessed the whole choir of monks. His hands fell powerless to his sides, and he breathed his last.

[Footnote 7: "They that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good." Ps. xxxiii. 11.]

What a scene! Such were the life and death of this great man and great saint. After having loved Ireland so much, he could repose nowhere more appropriately than in her sacred soil. His body was transported thither to the monastery of Down, and buried between the mortal remains of St. Patrick and St. Bridget. Thus those three names, for the future inseparable, became interwoven with the history and traditions, and engraved in the worship and on the memory, of the Irish people.

Such were the men to whom Ireland owed not only her indestructible faith, but also her intellectual and moral civilization. It is not sufficiently known that Ireland in the seventh century was regarded by all Europe as the principal focus of science and piety.

There, more than anywhere else, every monastery was a school, and every school a studio of calligraphy, where the artists were not confined to copying the Holy Scriptures alone; but where even the Greek and Latin authors were reproduced, sometimes in Celtic characters, with gloss and commentary in Irish, like that copy of Horace which contemporary erudition has discovered in the library of Berne. Besides, in all those monasteries, exact annals of passing events were recorded; and these annals still constitute the chief source of Irish history. We recognize in them a vast and continual development of serious literary and religious studies, far superior to anything found in any other European nation. Certain arts even, such as architecture, carving, metallurgy applied to the objects of public worship, were cultivated with success; not to speak of music, a knowledge of which was a common accomplishment not exclusively possessed by the learned, but also by the common people. The classic languages, not only the Latin, but even in an especial manner the Greek, were spoken, written, and studied with a sort of passion, which shows the sway which intellectual preoccupations held over those ardent Celtic minds.

But whatever may have been the influence of Columba on the Picts and Scots, neither he nor his successors could exercise any direct or efficacious action on the Anglo-Saxons, who became daily more redoubtable, and whose ferocious incursions menaced not only the Caledonian clans, but also the Britons. Other missionaries were therefore needed. Whence were they to come? From that ever-burning centre of faith and charity from which the light of Christianity had already been brought to the Irish by Patrick; to the Bretons and Scots by Palladius, Ninian, and Germain—from Rome!

"Who then were the Anglo-Saxons, upon whom so many efforts were concentrated, and whose conquest is ranked, not without reason, among the most fruitful and most happy that the church has ever accomplished? Of all the Germanic tribes the most stubborn, intrepid, and independent, this people seem to have transplanted with themselves into the great island which owes to them its name, the genius of the Germanic race, in order that it might bear on this predestined soil its richest and most abundant fruits. The Saxons brought with them a language, a character, and institutions stamped with a strong and invincible originality. Language, character, institutions, have triumphed, in their essential features, over the vicissitudes of time and fortune—have outlived all ulterior conquests, as well as all foreign influences, and, plunging their vigorous roots into the primitive soil of Celtic Britain, still exist at the indestructible foundation of the social edifice of England.
...
Keeping intact and untamable their old Germanic spirit, their old morals, their stern independence, they gave from that moment to the free and proud genius of their race a vigorous upward impulse which nothing has been able to bear down." [Footnote 8]

[Footnote 8: Vol. iv. book xii. ch. 1.]

Every one knows how and by whom those Anglo-Saxons were evangelized and converted; every one knows the scene of Gregory, afterward pope, with the young slaves in the Roman forum, and the dialogue related by Bede from the traditions of his Northumbrian ancestors. Every one knows that, at the sight of those young slaves, struck by the beauty of their countenances, the dazzling whiteness of their complexion, the length of their flaxen locks, a probable sign of their aristocratic extraction, Gregory inquired about their country and their religion. The merchant, answered him that they came from the island of Britain, where all had the same fresh color, and that they were pagans. Then, heaving a deep sigh, "what evil luck," he exclaimed, "that the prince of darkness should possess beings with an aspect so radiant, and that the grace of these countenances should reflect a soul void of inward grace! But what nation are they of?" "They are Angles?" "They are well named, for these Angles have the faces of angels; and they must become the brethren of the angels in heaven. From what province have they been brought?" "From Deïra," (one of the two kingdoms of Northumbria.) "Still good," answered he. "De ira eruti—they shall be snatched from the ire of God, and called to the mercy of Christ. And how name they the king of their country?" "Alle or AElla." "So be it; he is right well named, for they shall soon sing the Alleluia in his kingdom." [Footnote 9]

[Footnote 9: Vol. iii book xii. ch. 1, p. 347.]

We will not follow the apostolate of the monk Augustine in his pacific conquests, nor the touching solicitude of the Pope St. Gregory for his dear favorites. Not because this history lacks interest—we know none more attractive, or in which the glory of the Roman Church shines forth more brilliantly—but it is better known than that of the monk Columba, which has delayed us longer. "We may simply remark that, unlike the churches of Italy, Gaul, and Spain, in all of which the baptism of blood had either preceded or accompanied the conversion of the inhabitants, in England there were neither martyrs nor persecutors from the first day of Augustine's preaching, during the entire existence of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Placed in the presence of the pure, resplendent light of Christianity, even before they understood or accepted it, those fierce Saxons, so pitiless to their enemies, displayed, in the presence of truth, a humanity and a docility which we seek in vain among the learned and civilized citizens of imperial Rome. Not a drop of blood spilled in the name of religion stained the English ground. And this prodigy is witnessed at a period when human gore flowed in torrents for any or every pretext, no matter how trivial. What a contrast between those times and later ages, when, in the very same island, so many pyres were lighted, so many gibbets raised on which to immolate the English who remained steadfast in the faith of Gregory and Augustine!"

The second volume of The Monks of the West comprises a thorough and varied account of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, not only by the missionaries sent from Rome, but also by those of England herself The great figure of St. Wilfrid looms up in this epoch. As we cannot analyze his noble and holy life, we will resume, at least, some of his traits, as drawn by the pen of M. de Montalembert.

"In Wilfrid began that great line of prelates, by turns apostolic and political, eloquent and warlike, brave champions of Roman unity and ecclesiastical independence, magnanimous representatives of the rights of conscience, the liberties of the soul, the spiritual powers of man, and the laws of God—a line to which history presents no equal out of the Catholic Church of England; a lineage of saints, heroes, confessors, and martyrs, which produced St. Dunstan, St. Lanfranc, St. Anselm, St. Thomas a Becket, Stephen Langton, St. Edmund, the exile of Pontigny, and which ended in Reginald Pole." [Footnote 10]
. . .

[Footnote 10: Vol. iv. ch. 4, p. 368.]

"In addition to all this, Wilfrid was the precursor of the great prelates, the great monks, the princely abbots of the middle ages, the heads and oracles of national councils, the ministers and lieutenants, and often the equals and rivals of kings. When duty called, no suffering alarmed, no privation deterred, and no danger stopped his course. Four times in his life he made the journey to Rome, then ten times more laborious and a hundred times more dangerous than the voyage to Australia is now. But, left to himself, he loved pomp, luxury, magnificence, and power. He could be humble and mild when it was necessary; but it was more congenial to him to confront kings, princes, nobles, bishops, councils, and lay assemblies in harsh and inflexible defence of his patrimony, his power, his authority, and his cause." [Footnote 11]
...

[Footnote 11: Ibidem, p. 369.]

"His influence is explained by the rare qualities, which more than redeemed all his faults. His was, before all else, a great soul, manly and resolute, ardent and enthusiastic, full of unconquerable energy, able to wait or to act, but incapable of discouragement or fear, born to live upon those heights which attract at once the thunderbolt and the eyes of the crowd. His eloquence, superior to anything yet known in England, his keen and penetrating intelligence, his eager zeal for literary studies and public education, his knowledge and love of those wonders of architecture which dazzled the Christian nation, and to which his voice attracted such crowds, his constancy in trial, his ardent love of justice—all contributed to make of him one of those personages who sway and move the spirits of their contemporaries, and who master the attention and imagination even of those whom they cannot convince. Something generous, ardent, and magnanimous in his nature commended him always to the sympathy of lofty hearts; and when adverse fortune and triumphant violence and ingratitude came in, to put upon his life the seal of adversity, nobly and piously borne, the rising tide of emotion and sympathy carried all before it, sweeping away all traces of those errors of conduct which might have seemed to us less attractive or comprehensible." [Footnote 12]

[Footnote 12: Ibidem, pp. 371-2.]

The fifth and last volume ends with an elaborate essay of great interest on the Anglo-Saxon nunneries. It is certain that women have taken an active part in the civilization of modern nations, more particularly among the German tribes, whose purity of morals astonished the old Romans of the empire. The Germanic races considered woman as a person, not as a thing. No sooner was the light of the gospel received among them than their women began to distinguish themselves by the ardor of their faith and the generosity of their devotion. If monasteries cover the land, convents of women rival them in number, regularity, and religious fervor. It was the kings and nobles of the Heptarchy who first set the example of a cloistered life for men; it was also the queens and princesses who founded the first convents and became their earliest abbesses. Nothing is more interesting in the whole book, and nowhere is the author more successful, than in his portrayal of those primitive natures, still tinctured with barbarism, passing through a complete transformation under the law of light and charity; to see those nuns devote themselves to as earnest a study of Greek and Latin as to that of the Holy Scriptures; quote Virgil, compose verses during the intervals of their religious duties and the singing of the office. Another remarkable trait is their profound and obstinate attachment to one or other of the parties who disputed the possession of supreme power in those troubled times—an attachment which is explained by the high rank of the abbesses who governed those numerous communities. A single one of those houses, the Abbey of Winbourne, contained five hundred nuns who sang the office day and night. Nothing is better calculated to give us a just appreciation of the manners of those times than the faithful description of the interior life of those great convents; the narration of their customs, of their lively faith, their enthusiasm for science, of their works, their literary correspondence, and of all the details of their existence. Whatever may be the charm which the author has infused into the rest of his book, that part of it, in our opinion, which excites most the curiosity of the reader by the novelty of its incidents, its charming legends, and which will be read with most avidity, is the last chapter on the Anglo-Saxon nuns.

May this rapid sketch inspire our readers with the desire of becoming better acquainted with this great and magnificent work! In all ages, remarkable books have been scarce, and, by a sad infirmity of the human mind, they have not always been properly appreciated during the lifetime of their authors. Almost all have been obliged to await the judgment of time and posterity to consecrate their glory. Let this not be the fate of The Monks of the West. Let us read and study this book. We shall find in it the history of the conversion of England in the sixth and seventh centuries; one of the most powerful arguments in support of the great thesis—that the world has been civilized by the Catholic Church. This point is the high aim, the noble thought, the idea and soul of Montalembert's master-piece. By it he has rendered an immense service to the Catholic cause, and on this account he deserves the undying gratitude of all Christians.

O'Neill And O'Donnell In Exile. [Footnote 13]

[Footnote 13: The Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel: Their Flight from Ireland; Their Vicissitudes Abroad, and their Death in Exile. By the Rev. C. Meehan, M.R.I.A. Dublin: James Duffy. New York: Catholic Publication House. Pp. 383. 1868.]

The history of the Irish race presents certain features quite exceptional, and without parallel either in the ancient or in the modern world. For example, during these last two and a half centuries that strange history has been dual or double—half of it in Ireland and the other half in foreign lands. There were the Irish in Ireland undergoing the emaciating process of confiscations and plunder, writhing under their penal laws for religion, with occasional gallant efforts at resistance, either in support of a dynasty (the Stuarts) or by way of fierce insurrection, as in 1798. And there were the Irish abroad in many lands, refugees, exiles, emigrants, who were always plotting and preparing a descent from France or from Spain to redeem their countrymen from British oppression, or else giving their service as military adventurers to any power at war with England, hoping to deal their enemy somewhere, anywhere, a mortal blow. But their thought was ever Ireland, Ireland. What country on this earth has ever inspired its children with so deep, so passionate, so enduring love?

These side-scenes in the drama of Irish life have duly repeated themselves from generation to generation, down to the present day. We see one of them in the United States this moment. Always, alongside of the transactions in the island itself—the confiscations, and ejectments, and famines, and packed juries—there is a parallel series of transactions outside among the exiles, all bearing reference to the "fate and fortunes" of the Irish at home; all moved and inspired by that insatiable craving to liberate the land of their fathers, and make good their own footing among the green hills where they were born. Of this collateral or episodical history, Fr. Meehan has selected one of the most striking and touching scenes, has thoroughly investigated it in all its aspects, and in this volume presented us with a very complete monograph of the outside life of O'Neill and O'Donnell, with their followers, from the moment when those chiefs suddenly dropped out of the large space they had so long filled in Ireland proper, and became a part of the external Irish world.

For this task, Fr. Meehan had unusual qualifications and advantages. He had long lived in Rome, where the last years of the illustrious chiefs were passed, and where, in the Church of S. Pietro Montorio, their bones lie buried under a simple inscription. More than thirty years ago, the sight of this inscription (D.O.M. Hic quiescunt Ugonis Principis O'Neill ossa—"Here rest the bones of Hugh the Prince O'Neill") excited within his mind an ardent curiosity to explore the mystery which has so long surrounded that sad flight of the "earls," and their short, feverish life afterward. Since that day the author never lost sight of his object. Though devoted to his sacred duties, and occasionally occupied in illustrating some other page of the history of his country, as in his excellent narrative of the "Confederation of Kilkenny," (see Library of Ireland,) yet he was always adding to his store of materials for the illumination of this one dark passage in the fortunes of those most illustrious of Irish exiles. At length we have the result; and it leaves nothing to be desired. Yet we feel inclined at the outset to reproach the learned author for entitling his heroes Earl of Tyrone and Earl of Tyrconnel. Why has he done this when O'Neill's own epitaph has no allusion to such a title, which, indeed, was, in his eyes, a mark of disgrace and a badge of servitude? He had, it is true, submitted to sink for a short time formally from a high chief into an earl when he was in England, and had an object to gain by pleasing and flattering Queen Elizabeth; but in his own Ulster his name and title was The O'Neill; "in comparison of which," says Camden, "the very title of Caesar is contemptible in Ireland." [Footnote 14]

[Footnote 14: Camden: Queen Elizabeth.]

Moreover, it was not until his long and desperate resistance was at length subdued, not till most of his warriors lay dead amidst the smoking ruins of Ulster, and he had made his submission to Mountjoy at Mellifont Abbey, that he consented to wear with shame the coronet of an earl before his own clansmen and kinsmen. It was a condition of the queen's "pardon" that he should so abase himself. When he quitted Ireland, however, he flung down his coronet and golden chain, and never called himself Earl of Tyrone again. Fr. Meehan himself tells us (p. 161) while describing the honors paid to the chiefs upon the continent:

"Wherever there was an Irish seminary or conventual establishment, alumni and superiors vied with each other in congratulating the illustrious princes, for such was the designation by which they were recognized in Belgium, Italy, and all over the continent."

But on this subject it may be remarked that the policy of the British government in thus forcing the coronets of feudal nobility upon the unwilling brows of Celtic chieftains, whether in Scotland or in Ireland, has never yet been sufficiently understood. It was an essential part of the invariable British system of forcing its own form of social polity upon every part of the three kingdoms, as each part fell successively under English dominion. It was necessary, as Sir John Davies, Attorney-General for Ireland under James the First, declares, to abolish what he calls the "scambling possession" which Irish chiefs and clansmen had in their lands, and compel them to hold those lands by "English tenure;" in other words, that the chiefs should become landlords or proprietors of those districts which had formed the tribe-lands of their clans, and that their clansmen should become tenants subject to rent, which, in the seventeenth century, had grown to be a commutation for all feudal services. In short, the problem to be solved was to force in the already corrupt and oppressive feudal polity (which had long lost its true uses and significance) upon the free system of clanship, the ancient and natural social arrangement of the Irish and Scottish Gaël. Neither did that plan, of obliging chiefs to become noblemen—and therefore both vassals and landlords—originate with Elizabeth and James, nor with Sir John Davies. King Henry the Eighth, a century earlier, offered to Con O'Neill, the chief of that day, the dignity of earl, which Con accepted as a delicate attention from a foreign monarch, but took care to be a chief in Tyrone—no vassals, no tenants, no "English tenure" there. The O'Brien of Thomond, however, upon that earlier occasion, did lay down at King Henry's feet his dignity of Chief Dalcais, and arose Earl of Thomond; his son was made Baron of Inchiquin; and the MacGilla Phadruig consented to become "Fitzpatrick" and Baron of Upper Ossory. For their compliance, they were rewarded with the spoils of the suppressed monasteries of their respective countries—places which their own fathers had founded and endowed for pious uses.

The process in Scotland was nearly analogous, after the accession of James to the throne of England. The Mac Callum More (Campbell) was created Duke of Argyll, and invited to consider himself proprietor of all Argyllshire—by English tenure—and landlord of all the Campbells. Mac Kenzie was dubbed Earl of Cromarty on the same terms; and so with the rest: but at home those Highland nobles were never regarded as anything but chiefs; and it was only by very slow degrees, and not perfectly until after 1745, that the old clan spirit and usages disappeared. Thus, in forcing conformity with English land-laws, and gradually bringing the soil of the two islands into immediate dependence upon the English sovereign, every step in advance is marked by some chief submitting to be made earl or baron, and reducing his free kinsmen to serfdom. Those peerages, accordingly, are monuments of subjugation and badges of dishonor. Hugh O'Neill certainly did not value his title, flung it from him with impatience, quitted earldom and country to get rid of it, and protested against it on his tombstone. For these reasons, many readers of Fr. Meehan's book will wish that the author had given to his heroes the titles by which they themselves desired to be remembered.

Having thus vented our only censure, upon a matter rather technical and formal, the more agreeable task remains, of making our readers acquainted with all the merits and perfections of this charming book. Fr. Meehan does not undertake to narrate the earlier life and long and bloody wars against the best generals of England, but takes up the story where the chief was desperately maintaining himself, and still keeping his Red Hand aloft in the woody fastness of Glanconkeine, on the side of Slieve Gallen, and by the banks of Moyola water, awaiting the return from Spain of his brother-chief, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, with the promised succors from King Philip. But in those very same days, that famous Hugh Roe had lain down to die in Spain, and succor came none to the sorely pressed Prince of Ulster. His great enemy, Elizabeth, too, was on her death-bed, almost ready to breathe her last curse. But in her agonies she by no means forgot O'Neill. Father Meehan says:

"It is a curious and perhaps suggestive fact, that Queen Elizabeth, while gasping on her cushions at Richmond, and tortured by remembrances of her latest victim, Essex, often directed her thoughts to that Ulster fastness, where her great rebel, Tyrone, was still defying her, and disputing her title to supremacy on Irish soil. But of this, however, there can be no doubt; for in February, while she was gazing on the haggard features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque void of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge Mountjoy to entrap Tyrone into a submission on diminished title, such as Baron of Dungannon, and with lessened territory, or, if possible, to have his head before engaging the royal word. It was to accomplish any of these objects that Mountjoy marched to the frontier of the north; but finding it impossible to procure the assassination of 'the sacred person of O'Neill, who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to Cecil, from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his submission but mistrust of his personal safety, and guarantee for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The granting of these conditions, Mountjoy concluded, would bring about the pacification of Ireland, and Tyrone, being converted into a good subject, would rid her majesty of the apprehension of another Spanish landing on the Irish shore. It is possible that this proposed solution of the Irish difficulty may have reached Richmond at a moment when Elizabeth was more intent on the talisman sent her by the old Welsh woman, or the arcane virtues of the card fastened to the seat of her chair, than on matters of statecraft; but be that as it may, the lords of her privy council empowered Mountjoy to treat with Tyrone, and bring about his submission with the least possible delay."

The author next carries us through the imposing scene of the chief's submission and surrender at Mellifont Abbey, and gives a vivid account of that illustrious religious house, and the lovely vale of the Mattock in which it stands; of his gloomy resignation to his hated earldom; of the organization of Ulster into shires or counties, (never before heard of in those parts;) of the new "earl's" journey to London, along with Rory O'Donnell, the other "earl," and Lord Mountjoy, with a guard of horse:

"Nor was this precaution unnecessary; for whenever the latter was recognized, in city or hamlet, the populace, notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of the hour, could not be restrained from stoning Tyrone, and flinging bitter insults at him. Indeed, throughout the whole journey, the Welsh and English women were unsparing of their invectives against the Irish chief. Nor are we to wonder at this; for there was not one among them but could name some friend or kinsman whose bones lay buried far away in some wild pass or glen of Ulster, where the object of their maledictions was more often victor than vanquished."

The new king, James the First, was very desirous to see O'Neill, who had, after his victory at the Yellow Ford, sent an ambassador to James at Holyrood, offering, if supplied with some money and munitions, to march upon Dublin, and proclaim him King of Ireland; but the Scottish king had been too timid to close with this offer. One may imagine with what mingled feelings O'Neill once more revisited that London, and Greenwich Palace, where in his younger days he had been a favored courtier, had talked on affairs of state with Burleigh, and disported himself with Sir Christopher Hatton, "the dancing chancellor." The author describes his reception at court:

"Nothing, indeed, could have been more gracious than the reception which the king gave those distinguished Irishmen; and so marked was the royal courtesy to both, that it stirred the bile of Sir John Harington, who speaks of it thus: 'I have lived to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone, brought to England honored and well-liked. 'Oh! what is there that does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters? How I did labor after that knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was near starving, eat horse-flesh in Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives to destroy him. And now doth Tyrone dare us, old commanders, with his presence and protection!'"

Returning to Ireland, "restored in blood," O'Neill lived as he best could, in his new and strange character of an earl, infested by spies upon all his movements. "Notice is taken," says Attorney-General Davies, "of every person that is able to do either good or hurt. It is known not only how they live and what they do, but it is foreseen what they purpose or intend to do; insomuch, as Tyrone has been heard to complain that he had so many eyes over him, that he could not drink a full carouse of sack, but the state was advertised thereof a few hours thereafter." [Footnote 15]

[Footnote 15: Sir John Davies's Historical Tracts.]

The author has taken great pains to ascertain the real nature of those dark intrigues against O'Neill and O'Donnell, which resulted four or five years after in the timely escape of those two "earls" from the toils of their enemies—the only measure that could save them from the fate of Sir William Wallace and of Shane O'Neill. O'Neill found himself embroiled in endless law-suits; with Montgomery, Bishop of Derry; with Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, who each claimed a large slice of his estates; with the traitor O'Cahan, his own former Uriaght, or sub-chief, who entered into the conspiracy against him, seduced by the promises of Montgomery and the Lord-Deputy Chichester. The truth was, that the "undertaking" English of the north coveted his wide domains, and could not comprehend how a rebellious O'Neill could possibly be allowed to possess broad lands in fee, which they wanted for themselves. Fr. Meehan has cast more light upon these wicked machinations than any previous writer had the means and authorities for; and it now appears plain that the chief agent of these base plots was Christopher St. Laurence, the twenty-second baron of Howth, and one of the ancestors of the noble house of that title, now gloriously flourishing amongst the Irish nobility. Fr. Meehan's researches have brought home to this noble caitiff the famous anonymous letter dropped in the Castle-Yard of Dublin, and also a detailed deposition, shamelessly setting forth his own long-continued espionage, and on the faith of conversations with several persons, charging Tyrone, Lord Mountgarrett, Sir Theobald Burke, and others, with a plot to bring in the Spaniards, and to take by surprise the Castle of Dublin. O'Neill knew nothing, at the time, of the conspiracy against him; but had a very shrewd suspicion that the Lord-Deputy Chichester and the northern Anglican bishops were resolved to have his blood, in order to get his estate confiscated. One of the McGuires, who was himself in danger from these machinations, escaped to the continent. The author says:

"Meanwhile, Cuconnaught Maguire, growing weary of his impoverished condition, and longing to be rid of vexations he could no longer bear, contrived, about the middle of May, 1607, to make his escape from one of the northern ports to Ostend, whence he lost no time in proceeding to Brussels, where Lord Henry O'Neill was then quartered with his Irish regiment. The latter presented him at the court of the archdukes, who received him kindly, and evinced deep sympathy for their Irish coreligionists, and especially the northern earls, with whose wrongs they were thoroughly conversant, through Florence Conry, fathers Cusack and Stanihurst. Father Conry, it would appear, informed Maguire that King James would certainly arrest Tyrone, if he went to London; and Maguire, on hearing this, despatched a trusty messenger to the earls to put them on their guard, and then set about providing means for carrying them off the Irish shores. The influence of Lord Henry with the archdukes procured him a donation of 7000 crowns, [Footnote 16] with which he purchased, at Rouen, a vessel of fourscore tons, mounting sixteen cast pieces of ordnance, manned by marines in disguise, and freighted with a cargo of salt. From Rouen the vessel proceeded to Dunkirk, under command of one John Bath, a merchant of Drogheda, and lay there, waiting instructions from Ireland."

[Footnote 16: The archdukes were greatly indebted to O'Neill, who gave ample employment to the queen's troops in Ireland during the war in the Netherlands, and thus prevented the English from aiding, as they wished, the revolted provinces.]

This Bath, on his arrival in Ireland, at once sought both O'Neill and O'Donnell, and informed them, on sure information procured by Lord Henry O'Neill, Hugh's son, that they would both be certainly arrested, and at the same time placed at their service McGuire's ship, which he commanded. It needed great tact and coolness on the part of O'Neill to conceal from the Lord-Deputy his intention of departure. But at last—

"At midnight, on that ever-memorable 14th of September, 1607, they spread all sail, and made for the open sea, intending, however, to land on the island of Aran, off the coast of Donegal, to provide themselves with more water and fuel.

"Those who were now sailing away from their ancient patrimonies were, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, with his countess, Catharina, and their three sons, Hugh, John, and Bernard. With them also went Art Oge, 'young Arthur,' son of Cormac, Tyrone's brother; Fadorcha, son of Con, the earl's nephew; Hugh Oge, son of Brian, brother of Tyrone, and many more of their faithful clansmen. Those accompanying Earl Rory were Cathbar, or Caffar, his brother; Nuala, his sister, wife of the traitor, Nial Garve; Hugh, the earl's son, wanting three weeks of being one year old; Rosa, daughter of Sir John O'Doherty, sister of Sir Cahir, and wife of Cathbar, with her son, Hugh, aged two years and three months; the son of his brother, Donel Oge; Naghtan, son of Calvagh, or Charles O'Donel, with many others of their trusted friends and followers. 'A distinguished crew,' observe the four masters, 'was this for one ship; for it is certain that the sea never carried, and that the winds never wafted, from the Irish shores, individuals more illustrious or noble in genealogy, or more renowned for deeds of valor, prowess, and high achievements.' Ah! with what tearful eyes and torn hearts did they gaze on the fast receding shores, from which they were forced to fly for the sake of all they held dearest! 'The entire number of souls on board this small vessel,' says O'Keenan, in his narrative, 'was ninety-nine, having little sea-store, and being otherwise miserably accommodated.' It was, indeed, the first great exodus of the Irish nobles and gentry, to be followed, alas! by many another, caused, in great measure, by a similar system of cruel and exceptional legislation."

There is a most interesting account of their stormy voyage in that small vessel; but after much hardship and danger, they made the port of Havre, and went up the River Seine to the ancient city of Rouen. The English ambassador at the court of Henry the Fourth of France, had the assurance to demand of the French government to arrest the refugees, but received a short answer: "Writing to Lord Shrewsbury, October 12th, 1607, Salisbury alludes to O'Neill's voyage thus: 'He was shrewdly tossed at sea, and met contrary winds for Spain. The English ambassador wishing Henry to stay them, had for his answer, France is free.'" (P. 123.)

From Normandy the party proceeded to Flanders, where they were received by the archdukes with the highest distinction ever shown to sovereign princes and their suite. At Brussels O'Neill met his son, the Lord Henry, then commanding a regiment of Irish for the archdukes, and also another young O'Neill, destined to do great things in his generation, namely, Hugh's nephew, Owen Roe. Our author thus introduces him:

"Even at the risk of interrupting O'Keenan's narrative, we may observe that none of these Irish exiles could have foreseen that a little boy, with auburn ringlets, then in their company, would one day win renown by defending that same city of Arras against two of the ablest marshals of France. Nevertheless, such was the case; for, thirty-three years afterward, Owen Roe O'Neill, son of Art, and nephew to the Earl of Tyrone, with his regiment of Irish, maintained the place against Chatillon and Meillarie, till he had to make a most honorable capitulation." [Footnote 17]

[Footnote 17: August, 1640. See Hericourt's Sieges d'Arras.]

And the same Owen Roe, still later, in the Irish wars of King Charles's day, fought and won the bloody battle of Benburb against the Scottish Presbyterian army, and trampled their blue banner on the banks of that same Blackwater which had seen the glorious victories of the Red Hand. From Brussels the fugitives had an intention of proceeding to Spain, but were diverted from that purpose by the archdukes, and they finally set out for Rome. The narrative of their journey across the Alps is exceedingly interesting; and on their arrival at Milan, they were welcomed with high honors by the Spanish governor, the Conde de Fuentes, and by the nobility of the province; but it need hardly be said that, in all their movements, they were closely watched by British spies; and every attention shown to them was the subject of violent remonstrance on the part of English ambassadors. Father Meehan gives us the letter of Lord Cornwallis, then ambassador at Madrid, to the lords of the privy council, expressing his loyal disgust at the splendid hospitalities of the Governor of Milan:

"'To the lords of the privy council.
"'Having lately gathered, amongst the Irish here, that the fugitive earls have been in Milan, and there much feasted by the Conde de Fuentes, I expostulated it with the secretary of state, who answered that they had not yet had any understanding of their being there; that the Conde de Fuentes was not a man disposed to such largess as to entertain strangers in any costly manner at his own charge; and that sure he was he could not expect any allowance from hence where there was intended no receipt, countenance, or comfort to any of that condition. I sent sithence by Cottington, my secretary, concerning one Mack Ogg, lately come hither, as I have been advised, to solicit for these people; which was, that as I hoped they would have no participation with the principals, whose crimes had now been made so notorious in their own countries, being both, upon public trial, condemned, and he of Tyrone, as I heard, of thirteen several murders; so I likewise assured myself that, in their own wisdoms, they would not hold it fit his majesty here should give harbor or ear to any of their ministers, and especially to that of Mack Ogg, who could not be supposed but to have had a hand in their traitorous purposes; having been the man and the means, in person, to withdraw them by sea out of their own countries, in such undutiful and suspicious manner. That myself was, in a matter of that nature, solicitous only in regard of my own earnest desire that nothing might escape this state whereby their intentions might be held different from their professions. That for these fugitives, being now out of their retreats, weak in purse, and people condemned and contemned by those of their own nation, and such as could not but daily expect the heavy hand of God's justice for their so many unnatural and detestable crimes, both of late and heretofore committed, for my own particular I made no more account of them than of so many fleas; neither did the king, my master, otherwise esteem them than as men reprobated both of God and the world, for their fa??norous actions toward others, and inexcusable ingratitude to himself."

[Transcriber's Note: The word "fa??norous" is illegible.]

The author gives a minute and graphic narrative of the journey of the "earls" through Italy, and their entrance into the Eternal City, where they were affectionately received by Pope Paul V., who assigned them a palace for their dwelling:

"The time at which the Irish princes entered Rome was one of more than usual festivity; for, on the Thursday preceding Trinity Sunday, the pope solemnly canonized Sa Francesca Romana, in the basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican. Rome was then crowded by distinguished strangers from all parts of the known world, each vieing with the other to secure fitting places to witness the grand ceremonial. But of them all, none were so honored as O'Neill, O'Donel, their ladies and followers; for the pope gave orders that tribunes, especially reserved for them, should be erected right under the dome. This, indeed, was a signal mark of his Holiness's respect for his guests, greater than which he could not exhibit. Among the spectators were many English; and we can readily conceive how much they were piqued at seeing O'Neill [Footnote 18] and the earl thus honored by the supreme head of the church."

[Footnote 18: Throughout his narrative, O'Keenan styles O'Neill according to his Gaelic title, and calls O'Donel the earl. O'Keenan was not sufficiently anglicized in accent or otherwise to respect the law which forbade the assumption of the old Irish designation peculiar to the Prince of Tyrone.]

And now began the long series of negotiations with the King of Spain and the other Catholic powers, which were to enable the "earls" to make a descent upon Ireland, reconquer their heritage, and liberate their unfortunate people from the bondage and oppression they were now enduring at the hands of King James's "undertaking" planters. O'Neill had written a formal diplomatic letter to King James, recounting the various plots and treasons which had been practised against him by His Majesty's servants in Ireland, demanding back his ancient inheritance, and announcing that, in default of compliance, he would hold himself at liberty to go back to Ireland, with a sufficient force to free his country. This ultimatum took no effect. The pope and the King of Spain, though they treated him with high respect, and awarded him a handsome pension, were slow to give the material aid that was needed; and in the year 1608, his comrade Rory (Rudraigh): O'Donnell, called Earl of Tyrconnell, died. Says Father Meehan:

"During his illness he was piously tended by Rosa, daughter of O'Dogherty, his brother's wife, the Princess O'Neill, and Florence Conry, who had performed the same kind offices for Hugh Roe O'Donel in Simancas. On the 27th July, 1608, he received the last sacraments, and on the morning following surrendered his soul to God. 'Sorrowful it was,' say the Donegal, annalists, 'to contemplate his early eclipse, for he was a generous and hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of his ancestors seemed nothing for his feasting and spending.'"

Soon after died O'Neill's son Hugh, whom the English called Baron of Dungannon. O'Donnell's brother Caffar (Cathbar) died about the same time, and the old chieftain was now left nearly alone to carry on his almost hopeless negotiations. The Irish exiles in Spain, when they heard of the death of the two O'Donnells and young O'Neill, wore mourning publicly, to the utter disgust of Lord Cornwallis, the English ambassador. He remonstrated with the King of Spain against suffering so indecent an exhibition, but received no satisfaction in that quarter; and he wrote thereon, says Father Meehan:

"'The agent of the Irish fugitives in this city has presumed to walk its streets, followed by two pages, and four others of his countrymen, in black weeds—a sign that they are no unwelcome guests here.' This was bad enough; but the news he supplied in another letter was still worse, for he says: 'The Spanish court had become the staple of the fugitive ware, since it allows Tyrone a pension of six hundred crowns a month; Tyrconnel's brother's widow, one of two hundred crowns a month; and his brother's wife, one of the same sum.'"

If the British government could only have got hold of those mourners in their "black weeds," within its own jurisdiction, they would undoubtedly have been prosecuted and punished, like the men who lately attended a funeral in Dublin. Nothing can be more provoking to a government, sometimes, than public mourning for its victims. Indeed, the Russian authorities in Warsaw have been several times so exasperated by the sight of the citizens all clothed in black, mourning for a crowd of innocent people, cut down and ridden over by the cavalry in the streets, as to feel compelled to issue instructions to the police to drag every vestige of black apparel from every man, and every woman, and child in the public thoroughfares, and to close up every shop or store which should dare to keep any black fabric for sale. But in cases where this kind of provocation is perpetrated in some foreign country, and under the protection of its laws, then your insulted government must only bear the affront as it best can.

The author next proceeds, with the aid of letters in the State Paper Office, to narrate the various projects and speculations of O'Neill and his friends, with a view to the invasion of their native country; with all which projects and speculations the British government was made fully acquainted by means of its spies and diplomatic agents. England and Spain were just then at peace, and one main hope of the exiles was that a breach might take place between them. Our author says:

"Withal, it would appear that England had not then a very firm reliance on the good faith of Spain. Indeed, Turnbull's despatches show this to have been the case; and as for O'Neill, there is every reason to suppose that he calculated on some such lucky rupture, and that Philip would then have an opportunity of retrieving the disaster of Kinsale, by sending a flotilla to the coast of Ulster, where the native population would rally to the standard of their attainted chieftain, and drive the new settlers back to England or Scotland—anywhere from off the face of his ancient patrimony. Yielding to these apprehensions, James instructed his minister at the court of the archdukes to redouble his vigilance, and make frequent reports of the movements of the Irish troops in their Highnesses' pay, and, above all, to certify to him the names of the Irish officers on whom the court of Spain bestowed special marks of its consideration. In fact, from the middle of 1614 till the close of the following year, Turnbull's correspondence is wholly devoted to these points, so much so, that the English cabinet had not only intelligence of Tyrone's designs, but ample information concerning all those who were suspected of countenancing them. Nothing could surpass the minister's susceptibility on this subject; for if we were to believe himself, no Catholic functionary visited the court of Brussels without impressing on their Highnesses the expediency, as well as duty, of aiding the banished earl and his coreligionists in Ireland."

At last, in January, 1615, O'Neill resolved to undertake the enterprise himself, some Catholic noblemen in Italy and Belgium engaging to furnish him with funds. He was to quit Rome by a certain day; but, like all his other projects, this was speedily communicated to Trumbull, who lost no time in making it known to the English cabinet. He did not leave Rome as he intended; but two months later:

"The Belgian agent sent another dispatch to the king, informing him 'that O'Neill hath sent from Rome two of his instruments into Ireland, called Crone and Conor, with order to stir up factions and seditions in that kingdom, where, in Waterford alone, there are no less than thirty-six Jesuits.'"

Next we find the same vigilant English minister apprising his government that O'Neill was about "to have some of his countrymen employed at sea in ships of war, as pirates, with commission to take all vessels," etc. In truth, it was for England a genuine "Fenian" alarm, this constantly menacing attitude of the veteran warrior of the Blackwater; a "Fenian" alarm, alas! of two hundred and fifty years ago. And how many there have been since! There was also the same eager impatience for action, the same maddening thought that the work must be done at once or Ireland was lost for ever. A certain physician, who attended O'Neill in this year, 1615, writes to a friend in London, giving him, as a sample of his patient's conversation and manner, the following anecdote:

"Though a man would think that he is an old man by sight—no, he is lusty and strong, and well able to travel; for a month ago, at evening, when his frere [Footnote 19] and his gentlemen were all with him, they were talking of England and Ireland, and he drew out his sword. 'His majesty,' said he, 'thinks that I am not strong. I would he that hates me most in England were with me to see whether I am strong or no.' Those that were by said, 'We would we were with forty thousand pounds of money in Ireland, to see what we should do.' Whereon Tyrone remarked, 'If I be not in Ireland within these two years, I will never desire more to look for it.'"

[Footnote 19: F. Chamberlaine, O.S.F.]

So thought Sarsfield when he fled with the "Wild-geese" almost a century later—if they could not return with a reenforcement of French within one year, within two years, there was an end of Ireland. So thought Wolfe Tone, after still another century, as he was gnawing his own heart in Paris at the fatal delay, and crying, "Hell! hell! If that expedition did not sail at that moment, Ireland was subdued and lost for ever and ever." It is natural that the eager spirits of each generation of Irishmen should be in haste to see the great work done in their own day. But divine Providence is in no haste, and will not be hurried. Beyond all doubt, there is a destiny and a work in store for this Irish race, so wonderfully preserved through sore trials, and in spite of repeated persistent efforts to extirpate it utterly. It has a strong hold upon life, and a potent individual character. It will neither perish from the face of the earth nor forget a single tradition or aspiration, nor part with its ancient religious faith. It not only does not attorn to the dominant English sentiment and character, but seems, on the contrary, to become more antagonistic, and to cherish that antagonism.

And it is very notable that this desperate mutual repulsion between England and Ireland does not date from the "Reformation," nor does it altogether depend upon religious differences. It is true that the acceptance of the new religion by England and its rejection by the Irish furnished the former with a new pretext and a convenient machinery for oppression and plunder. But two centuries before this, Hugh O'Neill's time—and when the English were as Catholic as the Irish—we find his ancestor, Donal O'Neill, in his famous letter to Pope John XXII., describing the relations of the two races in language which is still appropriate at this day: "All hope of peace between us is completely destroyed; for such is their pride, such is their excessive lust of dominion, such our ardent desire to shake off this insupportable yoke, and recover the inheritance which they have so unjustly usurped, that as there never was, so there never will be, any sincere coalition between them and us; nor is it possible there should in this life; for we entertain a certain natural enmity against each other, flowing from mutual malignity, descending by inheritance from father to son, and spreading from generation to generation."

The aged Prince of Ulster never saw his native land again. In the following year, 1616, he became blind and, some weeks after, having received the last rites of the church, he died at the Salviati palace at Rome.

His history from first to last is a striking and remarkable one. In the "religious" wars of the period, he was a conspicuous figure; and Henry the Fourth of France called him the third soldier of his age—he, Henry, being the first. But English historians of the past and present century have made it a rule to say nothing of him and of his great battles. They seem to desire that the name of the Yellow Ford should be blotted out of history. But once upon a time O'Neill occupied some attention in England. Spenser and Bacon wrote anxious treatises to suggest the best method of crushing him. Shakespeare delighted his audience at the "Globe" theatre by triumphant anticipations of the return of Lord Essex after destroying the abhorred O'Neill—

"Were now the general of our gracious empress (As, in good time, he may) from Ireland coming, Bringing rebellion broached on his sword. How many would the peaceful city quit. To welcome him?"

Camden, in his Queen Elizabeth, has given to the Irish war at least its due rank in the events of the time; and Fynes Moryson tells us that "the general voyce was of Tyrone amongst the English after the defeat of Blackwater, as of Hannibal among the Romans after the defeat of Cannae." Mr. Hume, though he tells us nothing of O'Neill's splendid victories over the English, yet incidentally mentions that "in the year 1599 the queen spent six hundred thousand pounds in six months in the service of Ireland; and Sir Robert Cecil affirmed that in ten years Ireland cost her three million four hundred thousand pounds," which would be about sixty millions of pounds sterling in money of the present day. So well, however, has the memory of all this been suppressed, that even an educated Englishman at this time, if you mentioned to him the great battle of the Yellow Ford would not at all understand to what event you were alluding; so that one is not at all astonished to find that Mr. Motley, in his voluminous book expressly devoted to the religious wars of Europe in those days, and especially the reign of Elizabeth, not only ignores that transaction altogether, but does not so much as know O'Neill's name. When he does once undertake to name him, he calls him not Hugh O'Neill, but "Shanes MacNeil." (History of United Netherlands, vol. iv. p. 94.)

The Irish, however, still cherish his name and keep his memory green. The peasantry yet tell that strange legend of a troop of the great chiefs lancers all lying in tranced sleep in a cave under the royal hill of Aileagh, each holding his horse's bridle in his hand, and waiting for the spell to be removed that will set them free to strike a blow for their country; and when a man once penetrated into the cave, and saw the sleepers in their ancient mail, one of them lifted his head and asked. Is the time come? To the educated and reflective Irish, also, that cardinal epoch of Irish history, in which O'Neill was the chief figure, has of late become a subject of more zealous study than it ever was before; and these will heartily thank the accomplished author of the present work for the clear light he has thrown upon one strange and painful episode in his country's annals.

The Cross.

In all ages, and among all nations, important events have been commemorated and transmitted to future generations by significant symbols. These mute symbols have served to represent the great leading ideas and characteristics of nations, communities, societies, and schools of religion, philosophy, morals, and politics. Entire histories have been treasured up for ages in these simple and inanimate emblems. In thousands of instances they have served to call to mind the stirring events of a generation, the glories of a great nation, epochs in human progress, or the rise and fall of false religions, false philosophies, and false systems of all descriptions. Each symbol comprises a language and a history of its own, which can be comprehended at a glance by the most ignorant of those whom it addresses. As the ideas which they represent pertain, for the most part, to affairs of the highest magnitude, they have always been regarded with respect and veneration.

When the legions of the Caesars were achieving the conquest of a world, their emblem of nationality and glory, and their inspiration in battle, was the Roman flag emblazoned with the Roman eagles. In the midst of the fiercest contests, a simple glance at the national symbol would fire the heart of the soldier with patrotic ardor, and often turn the tide of battle in his favor. As he looked upon his flag, the Roman soldier beheld the greatness and glory of his country, with himself as a constituent element of all this greatness, and his heart and hand were nerved with Herculean strength to meet the foe. In the eagles which floated amid the din of battle, he read the history of the empire, with her conquests, her riches, her power, her grandeur, and her Caesar; and he cheerfully gave his life for the ideas thus evoked.

The Saracen, as he marched out to battle, beheld the crescent of his prophet, and was willing to die for his cause. As the crescent waves before him, his imagination pictures the prophet beckoning him on to battle, to conquest, to proselytism, and to the sensual joys of paradise, and his courage rises, his blood boils, and his cimeter leaps from its scabbard. No danger, no fatigue, no privation daunts or deters him so long as he beholds the emblem of his religion and his race. He loves and venerates the silent symbol for the associations it calls to mind.

Napoleon I., with his battalions, traversed the continent of Europe, dictating terms to kings and emperors; and finally marshalled his victorious forces around the pyramids of Egypt. During this triumphal march, his most potent auxiliaries were the eagles of France draped in their tri-colored plumage. At the bridge of Lodi, when the French hosts shrank back appalled from the carnage caused by the terrific fire of the Austrian, Napoleon raised aloft the emblem of France before the eyes of his panic-stricken veterans. In an instant every heart was nerved, and amidst storms of balls and the shrieks of the wounded and dying, the bridge was carried and the day was won. The eagles of the first Caesars seemed to have alighted upon the tri-colored flags of the modern Caesar. Whether in the midst of the deadly snows of Russia, or of the burning sands of Egypt, or of the towering summits of the Alps, the great talisman which led the way and gave inspiration to the soldier, was the national symbol. It spoke to them of home, of kindred, friends, and of the glory of France; and they were willing to risk all for the ideas thus inspired.

How often has the tide of battle been turned in favor of England, both on land and sea, by raising the symbol of England, and the war-cry of St. George and the Dragon, in the thickest of the fight! How often, in the midst of battle and slaughter, has the drooping spirit of the Celt been roused to fierce enthusiasm and determination by a sight of his loved national emblem, the shamrock!

What true American can regard his own national symbol without emotion, love, and veneration! Whether he beholds it unfurled upon the battle-field, upon the ocean, or in a foreign land, he reads in every star and every stripe a history of his native land—of her struggles, her glories, and her future destiny. Under its shadow the soldier is a braver man, the statesman a better patriot, the citizen a truer loyalist, and the American traveller in foreign lands more proud of his nationality.

We might cite instances ad infinitum; but we have adduced a sufficient number for illustration. What is the signification and the utility of these symbols? At the birth of nations, it has always been the custom to devise some common symbol around which the people could rally as a type of nationality. On all important occasions, both in peace and in war, this common emblem is always in the midst of the people, to remind them of the past, to inspire them in the present, and to render them hopeful in the future. It is associated with all their public events, their victories, their defeats, their joys, their sorrows, their glories, their progress, their power and greatness. Is it, then, strange that it should be regarded with love, respect, and veneration? Is it strange that a sight of their mute talisman in the midst of battle should stir the soul of the soldier to its very depths, or that the heart of the patriot should swell with emotion and stern resolve when the honor or welfare of his country is in danger, or that the citizen should have a higher appreciation of the dignity and destiny of man, or that the individual should always associate it with his love of country, his pride of the past, his aspirations of the present, his hopes of the future, in a word, with his nationality? The man who has no love of father-land in his soul, who does not love and respect the emblem of his country's glory, is fit only for stratagems, conspiracies, and bloody tumults and disorders. Such a man can only be regarded as an enemy of his race; and will be frowned upon by the wise, the good, and the humane.

The emblems we have thus far alluded to refer to the worldly affairs of men, to matters of state, of government, and national prosperity. We now propose to refer briefly to the highest of all symbols—the symbol of symbols—the emblem of emblems—to one which relates to the temporal and eternal welfare of the entire human race, the holy cross. What is its signification and utility? What associations does it call to mind? It tells us of the Incarnate God sent to earth to give mankind a new law, to set them an example of a perfect life, to teach them those higher virtues and graces which fit them for happiness here and hereafter, and then to suffer and to die an ignominious death to atone for the sins of man. It calls up all the dread circumstances connected with the last days of our blessed Saviour when on earth. It brings to mind his betrayal by Judas, his arraignment before Pontius Pilate, his condemnation, his march to the place of execution with the cross upon his blessed shoulders, amidst the insults, the scoffs, the scourgings, the crowning with thorns, and other indignities of a Jewish and pagan rabble. It presents before us his ascent to the scaffold, his bloody transfixion between two thieves, his dreadful agony, his bloody sweat, his wounds, his slow and agonizing death. For whom, and for what, has the omnipotent Redeemer suffered these ignominies, these agonies, this cruel death? For all mankind, as an atonement of their sins. With his almighty power he could have summoned around him legions of destroying angels, who could have crushed to powder his persecutors; or with his mighty breath he could have consigned them to instant annihilation. But his love and tenderness for man was infinite; and he mercifully refrained from employing the power which he possessed to their injury. How vast this condescension, this love, this devotion to mortals under such provocations!

Since the date of the crucifixion, the cross, with the image of our blessed Lord attached thereto, has been universally recognized as the chief symbol of Christianity. In the days of the apostles and their immediate successors it was their ever-present memento, friend, solace, badge, and emblem of faith. Recent discoveries in the catacombs of Rome have brought to light the rude altars of the first Christians, always stamped with and designated by the sign of the cross. When these early Christians were hunted down like wild beasts, and driven by the sanguinary pagans into the most secret recesses of the earth to escape martyrdom, the holy cross ever accompanied them, ever symbolized their faith, ever served as a beacon of light, and a rallying-point for the persecuted followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

Whenever the missionaries of the church have abandoned country and friends, taken their lives in their hands, and penetrated into the remotest wilds of the savage, in order to "preach the Gospel to every creature," the holy cross, with its divine associations, has always led the way, beckoning them on in their great life-work of love, mercy, and Christianity. Often have these devoted men met the martyr's fate; but they have died in holy triumph, with smiles and prayers on their lips, with their eyes fixed on the sacred cross, and their souls on heaven. If a nation's flag has been able to stir the soul of the soldier to deeds of noble daring amid the excitement of battle, the cross of Christ has been able, not less often, to fire the soul of the lone missionary with holy love and zeal in the midst of the savage wilderness. If, with flag in hand, the soldier has rushed to the cannon's mouth, and laid down his life to win a battle, no less frequently has the missionary, holding aloft the sacred cross, rushed to the desert places of the earth, where barbarism, pestilence, famine, cruelties, sufferings, and danger of martyrdom encompass him on every side. The soldier fights his battles under the eyes of his countrymen, cheered on by applauding comrades, by martial music, and by hopes of speedy preferment; but the Christian missionary fights alone, surrounded by wild foes, far from home and friends, with no hope of temporal reward, and where, if he is killed or dies a natural death, he may be devoured by wild beasts, or remain uncoffined, unburied, and unrecognized.

Statesmen, philosophers, warriors, and citizens of all ranks love and respect their national symbols because they call to mind the events and circumstances connected with their nationalities. These sentiments are commended by the whole world. The true Christian also loves and respects the symbol which calls up before him the facts and incidents connected with the passion and crucifixion of the Saviour. Let no one delude himself with the absurd idea that it is the material of the flag, or of the cross, which calls forth these powerful emotions, and these high resolutions. Let no one suppose that idolatry can spring from the contemplation and reverence of objects which place before the mind's eye in the form of symbols the important events of a nation, or the sufferings and death of a God. Let no one question the motives or the propriety of his fellow man who bows down in tears, in love, in gratitude and devotion before the recognized emblems and mementos of great nations, and of godlike achievements.

The cross of Christ! How vast and solemn the associations connected with it! How significant its mute appeals to the hearts of mortals! How eloquent its reference to a Redeemer's love for sinful man! How glorious its history, and how prolific of heavenly aspirations!

The cross of Christ! How beautiful, how sublime, how soul-inspiring the ideas which encompass thee as with a halo of light and glory! In ages past and gone, in all the lands of earth, as it has silently ministered to the souls and thoughts of men, and carried them back to Calvary, what an infinity of blessings it has conferred! As we gaze at the Lamb of God, nailed to the cross, how sad and tender the memories which pass before the mind! Every wound of the precious body, every expression of the godlike features, calls up some act of divine love and mercy! Silently, sadly, solemnly, the holy cross has borne its sacred burden to all nations, through long ages of culture and light, of darkness and ignorance, of civilization and barbarism—a pioneer and potent agent in all good works—a talisman and solace for the poor and oppressed, as well as for the rich and powerful, a beacon of heavenly light, and a rallying-point for all Christendom!

In the dark ages, when Christianity and barbarism struggled for the mastery of Europe, the latter achieved a physical triumph; but spiritually the cross of Christ prevailed, and the barbarian conquerors became Christian converts. When nations, communities, or individuals have been bowed down with calamities and sorrows, rays of hope and comfort have always shone from the holy cross. However poor, unfortunate, wicked, degraded, and despised an individual may be, the cross of Christ still beams upon him with compassion and mercy.

Languages may be oral or printed, or pictorial or symbolical. By the two first, ideas are conveyed seriatim and slowly; by the last en masse, and instantaneously. Through the first the mind gradually grasps historical events; through the last they are presented like a living tableaux, complete in all their details. In the latter category stands the holy cross. It speaks a language to the Christian which appeals instantly to every faculty of his mind and soul. It strikes those chords of memory which take him back to Calvary, to the jeering rabble of Pilate, to the mocking minions of Caiphas, to the spectacle of a scourged, tortured, and crucified Redeemer.

Who can look upon this blessed emblem unmoved? Who can regard this mute memento of the Son of God in behalf of fallen man without sentiments of love, respect, and veneration? May God in his mercy grant that every one may properly appreciate this great emblem of Christianity—the symbol of symbols. The likeness of a crucified Redeemer sanctifies and hallows it. Not only at the name, but at the semblance of Jesus, let every knee bend in adoration.

The Story of a Conscript.
Translated From The French.

XIX.

In the midst of such thoughts, day broke. Nothing was stirring yet, and Zébédé said:

"What a chance for us, if the enemy should fear to attack us!"

The officers spoke of an armistice; but suddenly about nine o'clock, our couriers came galloping in, crying that the enemy was moving his whole line down upon us, and directly after we heard cannon on our right, along the Elster. We were already under arms, and set out across the fields toward the Partha to return to Schoenfeld. The battle had begun.

On the hills overlooking the river, two or three divisions, with batteries in the intervals, and cannon at the flanks, awaited the enemy's approach; beyond, over the points of their bayonets, we could see the Prussians, the Swedes, and the Russians, advancing on all sides in deep, never-ending masses. Shortly after, we took our place in line, between two hills, and then we saw five or six thousand Prussians crossing the river, and all together shouting, "Vaterland! Vaterland!" This caused a tremendous tumult, like that of clouds of rooks flying north.

At the same instant the musketry opened from both sides of the river. The valley through which the Partha flows was filled with smoke; the Prussians were already upon us—we could see their furious eyes and wild looks; they seemed like savage beasts rushing down on us. Then but one shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" smote the sky and we dashed forward. The shock was terrible; thousands of bayonets crossed; we drove them back, were ourselves driven back; muskets were clubbed; the opposing ranks were confounded and mingled in one mass; the fallen were trampled upon, while the thunder of artillery, the whistling of bullets, and the thick white smoke enclosing all, made the valley seem the pit of hell, peopled by contending demons.

Despair urged us, and the wish to revenge our deaths before yielding up our lives. The pride of boasting that they once defeated Napoleon incited the Prussians; for they are the proudest of men, and their victories at Gross-Beeren and Katzbach had made them fools. But the river swept away them and their pride! Three times they crossed and rushed at us. We were indeed forced back by the shock of their numbers, and how they shouted then! They seemed to wish to devour us. Their officers, waving their swords in the air, cried, "Vorwärtz! Vorwärtz!" and all advanced like a wall with the greatest courage—that we cannot deny. Our cannon opened huge gaps in their lines, still they pressed on; but at the top of the hill we charged again, and drove them to the river. We would have massacred them to a man, were it not for one of their batteries before Mockern, which enfiladed us and forced us to give up the pursuit.

This lasted until two o'clock; half our officers were killed or wounded; the Colonel, Lorain, was among the first, and the Commandant, Gémeau, the latter; all along the river side were heaps of dead, or wounded men crawling away from the struggle. Some, furious, would rise to their knees to fire a last shot or deliver a final bayonet-thrust. The river was almost choked with dead, but no one thought of the bodies as they swept by in the current. The lines contending in the fight reached from Schoenfeld to Grossdorf.

At length the Swedes and Prussians ceased their attacks, and started farther up the river to turn our position, and masses of Russians came to occupy the places they had left.

The Russians formed in two columns, and descended to the valley, with shouldered arms, in admirable order. Twice they assailed us with the greatest bravery, but without uttering wild beasts' cries, like the Prussians. Their calvary attempted to carry the old bridge above Schoenfeld, and the cannonade increased. On all sides, as far as sight could reach, we saw only the enemy massing their forces, and when we had repulsed one of their columns, another of fresh men took its place. The fight had ever to be fought over again.

Between two and three o'clock, we learned that the Swedes and the Prussian cavalry had crossed the river above Grossdorf, and were about to take us in the rear, a mode which pleased them much better than fighting face to face. Marshal Ney immediately changed front, throwing his right wing to the rear. Our division still remained supported on Schoenfeld, but all the others retired from the Partha, to stretch along the plain, and the entire army formed but one line around Leipsic.

The Russians, behind the road to Mockern, prepared for a third attack toward three o'clock; our officers were making new dispositions to receive them; when a sort of shudder ran from one end of our lines to the other, and in a few moments all knew that the sixteen thousand Saxons and the Wurtemberg calvary, in our very centre, had passed over to the enemy, and that on their way they had the infamy to turn the forty guns they carried with them, on their old brothers-in-arms of Durutte's division.

This treason, instead of discouraging us, so added to our fury, that if we had been allowed, we would have crossed the river to massacre them. They say that they were defending their country. It is false! They had only to have left us on the Duben road; why did they not go then! They might have done like the Bavarians and quitted us before the battle; they might have remained neutral—might have refused to serve; but they deserted us only because fortune was against us. If they knew we were going to win, they would have continued our very good friends, so that they might have their share of the spoil or glory—as after Jena and Friedland. This is what every one thought, and it is why those Saxons are, and will ever remain, traitors; not only did they abandon their friends in distress, but they murdered them, to make a welcome with the enemy. God is just, and so great was their new allies' scorn of them, that they divided half Saxony between themselves after the battle. The French might well laugh at Prussian, Austrian, and Russian gratitude.

From the time of this desertion until evening, it was a war of vengeance that we carried on; the allies might crush us by numbers, but they should pay dearly for their victory!

At nightfall, while two thousand pieces of artillery were thundering together, we were attacked for the seventh time in Schoenfeld. The Russians on one side and the Prussians on the other poured in upon us. We defended every house. In every lane the walls crumbled beneath the bullets, and roofs fell in on every side. There were now no shouts as at the beginning of the battle; all were cool and pale with rage. The officers had collected scattered muskets and cartridge-boxes, and now loaded and fired like the men. We defended the gardens, too, and the cemetery, where we had bivouacked, until there were more dead above than beneath the soil. Every inch of earth cost a life.

It was night when Marshal Ney brought up a reenforcement—whence I knew not. It was what remained of Ricard's division and Sonham's second. The débris of our regiments united, and hurled the Russians to the other side of the old bridge, which no longer had a rail, that having been swept away by the shot. Six twelve-pounders were posted on the bridge, and maintained a fire for one hour longer. The remainder of the battalion, and of some others in our rear, supported the guns; and I remember how their flashes lit up the forms of men and horses, heaped beneath the dark arches. The sight lasted only a moment, but it was a horrible moment indeed.

At half-past seven, masses of cavalry advanced on our left, and we saw them whirling about two large squares, which slowly retired. Then we received orders to retreat. Not more than two or three thousand men remained at Schoenfeld with the six pieces of artillery. We reached Kohlgarten without being pursued, and were to bivouac around Rendnitz. Zébédé was yet living, and unwounded; and, as we marched on, listening to the cannonade, which continued, despite the darkness, along the Elster, he said suddenly:

"How is it that we are here, Joseph, when so many others that stood by our side are dead? It seems as if we bore charmed lives, and could not die."

I made no reply.

"Think you there was ever before such a battle?" he asked. "No, it cannot be. It is impossible."

It was indeed a battle of giants. From six in the morning until seven in the evening we had held our own against three hundred and sixty thousand men, without, at night, having lost an inch; and, nevertheless, we were but a hundred and thirty thousand. God keep me from speaking ill of the Germans. They were fighting for the independence of their country. But they might do better than celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic every year. There is not much to boast of in fighting an enemy three to one.

Approaching Rendnitz, we marched over heaps of dead. At every step we encountered dismounted cannon, broken caissons, and trees cut down by shot. There a division of the Young Guard and the grenadiers-à-cheval, led by Napoleon himself, had repulsed the Swedes who were advancing into the breach made by the treachery of the Saxons. Two or three burning houses lit up the scene. The grenadiers-à-cheval were yet at Rendnitz, but crowds of disbanded troops were passing up and down the street. No rations had been distributed, and all were seeking something to eat and drink.

As we defiled by a large house, we saw behind the wall of a court two cantinières, who were giving the soldiers drink from their wagons. There were there chasseurs, cuirassiers, lancers, hussars, infantry of the line and of the guard, all mingled together, with torn uniforms, broken shakos, and plumeless helmets, and all seemingly famished.

Two or three dragoons stood on the wall, near a pot of burning pitch, their arms crossed on their long white cloaks, covered from head to foot with blood.

Zébédé, without speaking, pushed me with his elbow, and we entered the court, while the others pursued their way. It took us full a quarter of an hour to reach one of the wagons. I held up a crown of six livres, and the cantinières, kneeling behind her cask, handed me a great glass of brandy and a piece of white bread, at the same time taking my money. I drank, and passed the glass to Zébédé, who emptied it. We had as much difficulty in getting out of the crowd as in entering. Hard, famished faces and cavernous eyes were on all sides of us. No one moved willingly. Each thought only of himself, and cared not for his neighbor. They had escaped a thousand deaths to-day only to dare a thousand more to-morrow. Well might they mutter, "Every one for himself, and God £or all."

As we went through the village street, Zébédé said, "You have bread?"

"Yes."

I broke it in two, and gave him half. We began to eat, at the same time hastening on, and had taken our places in the ranks before any one noticed our absence. The firing yet continued at a distance. At midnight we arrived at the long promenades which border the Pleisse, and halted under the old leafless lindens, and stacked arms. A long line of fires flickered in the fog as far as Randstadt; and, when the flames burnt high, they threw a glare on groups of Polish lancers, lines of horses, cannon, and wagons, while, at intervals beyond, sentinels stood like statues in the mist. A heavy, hollow sound arose from the city, and mingled with the rolling of our trains over the bridge at Lindenau. It was the beginning of the retreat.

XX.

What occurred until daybreak I know not. Baggage, wounded, and prisoners doubtless continued to crowd across the bridge. But then a terrific shock woke us all. We started up, thinking the enemy were on us, when two officers of hussars came galloping in with the news that a powder-wagon had exploded by accident in the grand avenue of Randstadt, at the river-side. The dark, red smoke rolled to the sky, and slowly disappeared, while the old houses continued to shake as if an earthquake were rolling by.

Quiet was soon restored. Some lay down again to sleep; but it was growing lighter every minute; and, glancing toward the river, I saw our troops extending until lost in distance along the five bridges of the Elster and Pleisse, which follow one after the other, and make, so to speak, but one. Thousands of men must defile over this bridge, and, of necessity, take time in doing so. And the idea struck every one that it would have been much better to have thrown several bridges across the two rivers; for at any instant the enemy might attack us, and then retreat would become difficult indeed. But the emperor had forgotten to give the order, and no one dared do anything without orders. Not a marshal of France would have dared to take it upon himself to say that two bridges were better than one. To such a point had the terrible discipline of Napoleon reduced those old captains! They obeyed like machines, and disturbed themselves about nothing. Such was their fear of displeasing their master. As I gazed at the thousands of artillerymen and baggage-guards swarming over the bridge, and saw the tall bear-skin shakos of the Old Guard, immovable on the hill of Lindenau, on the other side of the river—as I thought they were fairly on the way to France, how I longed to be in their place!

But I felt bitterly, indeed, when, about seven o'clock, three wagons came to distribute provisions and ammunition among us, and it became evident that we were to be the rear-guard. In spite of my hunger, I felt like throwing my bread into the river. A few moments after, two squadrons of Polish lancers appeared coming up the bank, and behind them five or six generals, Poniatowski among the number. He was a man of about fifty, tall, slight, and with a melancholy expression. He passed without looking at us. General Fournier, who now commanded our brigade, spurred from among his staff, and cried:

"By file left!"

I never so felt my heart sink. I would have sold my life for two farthings; but nevertheless, we had to move on, and turn our backs to the bridge.

We soon arrived at a place called Hinterthor—an old gate on the road to Caunewitz. To the right and left stretched ancient ramparts, and behind rows of houses. We were posted in covered roads, near this gate, which the sappers had strongly barricaded. A few worm-eaten palisades served us for intrenchments, and, on all the roads before us, the enemy were advancing. This time they wore white coats and flat caps, with a raised piece in front, on which we could see the two-headed eagle of the kreutzers. Old Pinto, who recognized them at once, cried:

"Those fellows are the Kaiserliks! We have beaten them fifty times since 1793; but if the father of Marie Louise had a heart, they would be with us now instead of against us."

For some moments a cannonade had been going on at the other side of the city, where Blücher was attacking the faubourg of Halle. Soon after, the firing stretched along to the right; it was Bernadotte attacking the faubourg of Kohlgartenthor, and at the same time the first shells of the Austrians fell among us. They formed their columns of attack on the Caunewitz road, and poured down on us from all sides. Nevertheless, we held our own until about ten o'clock, and then were forced back to the old ramparts, through the breaches of which the Kaiserliks pursued us under the cross-fire of the fourteenth and twenty-ninth of the line. The poor Austrians were not inspired with the fury of the Prussians, but nevertheless, showed a true courage; for, in half an hour, they had won the ramparts, and although, from all the neighboring windows, we kept up a deadly fire, we could not force them back. Six months before, it would have horrified me to think of men being thus slaughtered, but now I was as insensible as any old soldier, and the death of one man or of a hundred would not cost me a thought.

Until this time all had gone well, but how were we to get out of the houses? The enemy held every avenue, and it seemed that we would be caught like foxes in their holes, and I thought it not unlikely that the Austrians, in revenge for the loss we had inflicted upon them, might put us to the point of the bayonet. Meditating thus, I ran back to a room, where a dozen of us yet remained, and there I saw Sergeant Pinto leaning against the wall, his arms hanging by his sides, and his face white as paper. He had just received a bullet in the breast; but the old man's warrior soul was still strong within him, as he cried:

"Defend yourselves, conscripts! Defend yourselves! Show the Kaiserliks that a French soldier is yet worth four of them! Ah! the villains!"

We heard the sound of blows on the door below thundering like cannon-shots. We still kept up our fire, but hopelessly, when we heard the clatter of hoofs without. The firing ceased, and we saw through the smoke four squadrons of lancers dashing like a troop of lions through the midst of the Austrians. All yielded before them. The Kaiserliks fled, but the long, blue lancers, with their red pennons, were swifter than they, and many a white coat was pierced from behind. The lancers were Poles—the most terrible warriors I have ever seen, and, to speak truth, our friends and our brothers. They never turned from us in our hour of need; they gave us the last drop of their blood. And what have we done for their unhappy country? When I think of our ingratitude, my heart bleeds.

The Poles rescued us. Seeing them so proud and brave, we rushed out, attacking the Austrians with the bayonet, and driving them into the trenches. We were for the time victorious, but it was time to beat a retreat, for the enemy were already filling Leipsic; the gates of Halle and Grimma were forced, and that of Peters-Thau delivered up by our friends the Badeners and our other friends the Saxons. Soldiers, citizens, and students kept up a fire from the windows on our retiring troops.

We had only time to re-form and take the road along the Pleisse; the lancers awaited us there; we defiled behind them, and, as the Austrians again pressed around us, they charged once more to drive them back. What brave fellows and magnificent horsemen were those Poles!

The division, reduced from fifteen to eight thousand men, retired step by step before fifty thousand foes, and not without often turning and replying to the Austrian fire.

We neared the bridge—with what joy, I need not say. But it was no easy task to reach it, for infantry and horse crowded the whole width of the avenue, and arrived from all the neighboring roads, until the crowd formed an impenetrable mass, which advanced slowly, with groans and smothered cries, which might be heard at a distance of half a mile, despite the rattling of musketry. Woe to those upon the other side of the bridge! they were forced into the water and no one stretched a hand to save them. In the middle, men and even horses were carried along with the crowd; they had no need of making any exertion of their own. But how were we to get there? The enemy were advancing nearer and nearer every moment. It is true we had stationed a few cannon so as to sweep the principal approaches, and some troops yet remained in line to repulse their attacks; but they had guns to sweep the bridge, and those who remained behind must receive their whole fire. This accounted for the press on the bridge.

At two or three hundred paces from the crowd, the idea of rushing forward and throwing myself into the midst entered my mind; but Captain Vidal, Lieutenant Bretonville, and other old officers said:

"Shoot down the first man that leaves the ranks!"

It was horrible to be so near safety, and yet unable to escape.

This was between eleven and twelve o'clock. The fusilade grew nearer on the right and left, and a few bullets began to whistle over our heads. From the side of Halle we saw the Prussians rush out pell-mell with our own soldiers. Terrible cries now arose from the bridge. Cavalry, to make way for themselves, sabred the infantry, who replied with the bayonet. It was a general sauve qui peut. At every step of the crowd, some one fell from the bridge, and, trying to regain his place, dragged five or six with him into the water.

In the midst of this horrible confusion, this pandemonium of shouts, cries, groans, musket-shots, and sabre-strokes, a crash like a peal of thunder was heard, and the first arch of the bridge rose upward into the air with all upon it. Hundreds of wretches were torn to pieces, and hundreds of others crushed beneath the falling ruins.

A sapper had blown up the arch!

At this sight, the cry of treason rang from mouth to mouth. "We are lost—betrayed!" was now the cry on all sides. The tumult was fearful. Some, in the rage of despair, turned upon the enemy like wild beasts at bay, thinking only of vengeance; others broke their arms, cursing heaven and earth for their misfortunes. Mounted officers and generals dashed into the river to cross it by swimming, and many soldiers followed them without taking time to throw off their knapsacks. The thought that the last hope of safety was gone, and nothing now remained but to be massacred, made men mad. I had seen the Partha choked with dead bodies the day before, but this scene was a thousand times more horrible; drowning wretches dragging down those who happened to be near them; shrieks and yells of rage, or for help; a broad river concealed by a mass of heads and struggling arms.

Captain Vidal, who, by his coolness and steady eye, had hitherto kept us to our duty, even Captain Vidal now appeared discouraged. He thrust his sabre into the scabbard, and cried, with a strange laugh:

"The game is up! Let us be gone!"

I touched his arm; he looked sadly and kindly at me.

"What do you wish, my child?" he asked.

"Captain," said I, "I was four months in the hospital at Leipsic; I have bathed in the Elster, and I know a ford."

"Where?"

"Ten minutes' march above the bridge."

He drew his sabre at once from its sheath, and shouted:

"Follow me, mes enfants! and you, Bertha, lead."

The entire battalion, which did not now number more than two hundred men, followed; a hundred others, who saw us start confidently forward, joined us. I recognized the road which Zunnier and I had traversed so often in July, when the ground was covered with flowers. The enemy fired on us, but we did not reply. I entered the water first; Captain Vidal next, then the others, two abreast. It reached our shoulders, for the river was swollen by the autumn rains; but we crossed, notwithstanding, without the loss of a man. We pressed onward across the fields, and soon reached the little wooden bridge at Schleissig, and thence turned to Lindenau.

We marched silently, turning from time to time to gaze on the other side of the Elster, where the battle still raged in the streets of Leipsic. The furious shouts, and the deep boom of cannon still reached our ears; and it was only when, about two o'clock, we overtook the long column which stretched, till lost in distance, on the road to Erfurt, that the sounds of conflict were lost in the roll of wagons and artillery trains.

XXI.

Hitherto I have described the grandeur of war—battles glorious to France, notwithstanding our mistakes and misfortunes. When we were fighting all Europe alone, always one against two, and often one to three; when we finally succumbed, not through the courage of our foes, but borne down by treason and the weight of numbers, we had no reason to blush for our defeat, and the victors have little reason to exult in it. It is not numbers that makes the glory of a people or an army—it is virtue and bravery.

But now I must relate the horrors of retreat. It is said that confidence gives strength, and this is especially true of the French. While they advanced in full hope of victory, they were united; the will of their chiefs was their only law; they knew that they could succeed only by strict observance of discipline. But when driven back, no one had confidence save in himself, and commands were forgotten. Then these men—once so brave and so proud, who marched so gayly to the fight—scattered to right and left; sometimes fleeing alone, sometimes in groups. Then those who, a little while before trembled at their approach, grew bold; they came on, first timidly, but, meeting no resistance, became insolent. Then they would swoop down and carry off three or four laggards at a time, as I have seen crows swoop upon a fallen horse, which they did not dare approach while he could yet remain on his feet.

I have seen miserable Cossacks—very beggars, with nothing but old rags hanging around them; an old cap of tattered skin over their ears; unshorn beards, covered with vermin; mounted on old worn-out horses, without saddles, and with only a piece of rope by way of stirrups, an old rusty pistol all their fire-arms, and a nail at the end of a pole for a lance; I have seen these wretches, who resembled sallow and decrepit Jews more than soldiers, stop ten, fifteen, twenty of our men, and lead them off like sheep.

And the tall, lank peasants, who, a few months before, trembled if we only looked at them—I have seen them arrogantly repulse old soldiers—cuirassiers, artillerymen, dragoons who had fought through the Spanish war, men who could have crushed them with a blow of their fist; I have seen these peasants insist that they had no bread to sell, while the odor of the oven arose on all sides of us; that they had no wine, no beer, when we heard glasses clinking to right and left. And no one dared punish them; no one dared take what he wanted from the wretches who laughed to see us in such straits, for each one was retreating on his own account; we had no leaders, no discipline, and they could easily out-number us.

And to hunger, misery, weariness, and fever, the horrors of an approaching winter were added. The rain never ceased falling from the gray sky, and the winds pierced us to the bones. How could poor beardless conscripts, mere shadows, fleshless and worn out, endure all this? They perished by thousands; their bodies covered the roads. The terrible typhus pursued us. Some said it was a plague, engendered by the dead not being buried deep enough; others, that it was the consequence of sufferings that required more than human strength to bear. I know not how this may be, but the villages of Alsace and Lorraine, to which we brought it, will long remember their sufferings; of a hundred attacked by it, not more than ten or twelve, at the most, recovered.

At length, on the evening of the nineteenth, we bivouacked at Lutzen, where our regiments re-formed as best they might. The next day we skirmished with the Westphalians, and at Erfurt we received new shoes and uniforms. Five or six disbanded companies joined our battalion—nearly all conscripts. Our new coats and shoes were miles too large for us; but they were warm. The Cossacks reconnoitred us from a distance. Our hussars would drive them off; but they returned the moment pursuit was relaxed. Many of our men went pillaging in the night, and were absent at roll-call, and the sentries received orders to shoot all who attempted to leave their bivouacs.

I had had the fever ever since we left Leipsic; it increased day by day, and I became so weak that I could scarcely rise in the mornings to follow the march. Zébédé looked sadly at me, and sometimes said:

"Courage, Joseph! We will soon be at home!"

These words reanimated me; I felt my face flush.

"Yes, yes!" I said; "we will soon be home; I must see home once more!"

The tears forced themselves to my eyes. Zébédé carried my knapsack when I was tired, and continued:

"Lean on my arm. We are getting nearer every day, now, Joseph. A few dozen leagues are nothing."

My heart beat more bravely, but my strength was gone. I could no longer carry my musket; it was heavy as lead. I could not eat; my knees trembled beneath me; still I did not despair, but kept murmuring to myself: "This is nothing. When you see the spire of Phalsbourg, your fever will leave you. You will have good air, and Catharine will nurse you. All will yet be well!"

Others, no worse than I, fell by the roadside, but still I toiled on; when, near Folde, we learned that fifty thousand Bavarians were posted in the forests through which we were to pass, for the purpose of cutting off our retreat. This was my finishing stroke, for I knew I could no longer load, fire, or defend myself with the bayonet. I felt that all my sufferings to get so far toward home were useless. Nevertheless, I made an effort when we were ordered to march, and tried to rise.

"Come, come, Joseph!" said Zébédé; "courage!"

But I could not move, and lay sobbing like a child.

"Come! stand up!" he said.

"I cannot. O God! I cannot!"

I clutched his arm. Tears streamed down his face. He tried to lift me, but he was too weak. I held fast to him, crying:

"Zébédé, do not abandon me!"

Captain Vidal approached, and gazed sadly on me:

"Cheer up, my lad," said he; "the ambulances will be along in half an hour."

But I knew what that meant, and I drew Zébédé closer to me. He embraced me, and I whispered in his ear:

"Kiss Catharine for me—for my last farewell. Tell her that I died thinking of God's holy mother and of her."

"Yes, yes!" he sobbed. "My poor Joseph!"

I could cling to him no longer. He placed me on the ground, and ran away without turning his head. The column departed, and I gazed at it as one who sees his last hope fading from his eyes. The last of the battalion disappeared over the ridge of a hill. I closed my eyes. An hour passed, or perhaps a longer time, when the boom of cannon startled me, and I saw a division of the guard pass at a quick step with artillery and wagons. Seeing some sick in the wagons, I cried wistfully:

"Take me! Take me!"

But no one listened; still they kept on, while the thunder of artillery grew louder and louder. More than ten thousand men, calvary and infantry, passed me, but I had no longer strength to call out to them.

At last the long line ended; I saw knapsacks and shakos disappear behind the hill, and I lay down to sleep for ever, when once more I was aroused by the rolling of five or six pieces of artillery along the road. The cannoneers sat sabre in hand, and behind came the caissons. I hoped no more from these than from the others, when suddenly I perceived a tall, lean, red-bearded veteran mounted beside one of the pieces, and bearing the cross upon his breast. It was my old friend Zunnier, my old comrade of Leipsic. He was passing without seeing me, when I cried, with all the strength that remained to me:

"Christian! Christian!"

He heard me in spite of the noise of the guns; stopped, and turned round.

"Christian!" I cried, "take pity on me!"

He saw me lying at the foot of a tree, and came to me with a pale face and staring eyes:

"What! Is it you, my poor Joseph?" cried he, springing from his horse.

He lifted me in his arms as if I were an infant, and shouted to the men who were driving the last wagon:

"Halt!"

Then embracing me, he placed me in it, my head upon a knapsack. I saw too that he wrapped great cavalry cloak around my feet, as he cried:

"Forward! Forward! It is growing warm yonder!"

I remember no more, but I have a faint impression of hearing again the sound of heavy guns and rattle of musketry, mingled with shouts and commands. Branches of tall pines seemed to pass between me and the sky through the night; but all this might have been a dream. But that day, behind Solmunster, in the woods of Hanau, we had a battle with the Bavarians, and routed them.

XXII.

On the fifteenth of January, 1814, two months and a half after the battle of Hanau, I awoke in a good bed, and at the end of a little, well-warmed room; and gazing at the rafters over my head, then at the little windows, where the frost had spread its silver sheen, I exclaimed, "It is winter!" At the same time I heard the crash of artillery and the crackling of a fire, and turning over on my bed in a few moments, I saw seated at its side a pale young woman, with her arms folded, and I recognized—Catharine! I recognized, too, the room where I had spent so many Sundays before going to the wars. But the thunder of the cannon made me think I was dreaming. I gazed for a long while at Catharine, who seemed more beautiful than ever, and the question rose, "Where is Aunt Grédel? am I at home once more? God grant that this be not a dream!"

At last I took courage and called softly:

"Catharine!" And she, turning her head, cried:

"Joseph! Do you know me?"

"Yes," I replied, holding out my hand.

She approached, trembling and sobbing, when again and again the cannon thundered.

"What are those shots I hear?" I cried.

"The guns of Phalsbourg," she answered. "The city is besieged."

"Phalsbourg besieged! The enemy in France!"

I could speak no more. Thus had so much suffering, so many tears, so many thousands of lives gone for nothing—ay, worse than nothing, for the foe was at our homes. For an hour I could think of nothing else; and even now, old and gray-haired as I am, the thought fills me with bitterness; Yes, we old men have seen the German, the Russian, the Swede, the Spaniard, the Englishman, masters of France, garrisoning our cities, taking whatever suited them from our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our flag, and dividing among themselves, not only our conquests since 1804, but even those of the republic. These were the fruits of ten years of glory!

But let us not speak of these things. They will tell us that after Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us Belgium, part of Holland, all the left bank of the Rhine as far as Bâle, with Savoy and the kingdom of Italy; and that the emperor refused to accept these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he placed the satisfaction of his own pride before the happiness of France!

But to return to my story. For two weeks after the battle of Hanau, thousands of wagons, filled with wounded, crowded the road from Strasbourg to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg. Not one in the sad cortége escaped the eyes of Aunt Grédel and Catharine, and thousands of fathers and mothers sought among them for their children. The third day Catharine found me among a heap of other wretches, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes—dying of hunger.

She knew me at once, but Aunt Grédel gazed long before she cried, "Yes! it is he! It is Joseph!"

They took me home. Why should I describe my long illness, my shrieks for water, my almost miraculous escape from what seemed certain death? Let it suffice the kind reader to know that, six months after, Catharine and I were married; that Monsieur Goulden gave me half his business, and that we lived together as happy as birds.

The wars were ended, but the Bourbons had been taught nothing by their misfortunes, and the emperor only awaited the moment of vengeance. But here let us rest. If people of sense tell me that I have done well in relating my campaign of 1813—that my story may show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove that no man can gain happiness save by peace, liberty, and labor—then I will take up my pen once more, and give you the story of Waterloo!

The Episcopalian Crisis.

In medical science, a crisis is the change in a disease which indicates its event, the recovery or death of the patient, and is, therefore, the critical moment. Webster also defines crisis to be "the decisive state of things, or the point of time when an affair is arrived at its height, and must soon terminate, or suffer a material change." No attentive observer of the religious movements which are going on around us can fail to see that the Episcopalians are, at this moment, in an interesting condition. On the one hand, the ritualists are pushing ceremonial and doctrine much further than even the elasticity of Protestantism will permit, while, on the other, the low-churchmen, alarmed at the demonstrations of their opponents, are renewing the battle-cries of the Reformation, lest the labors of Luther and Henry VIII, should be frustrated in their communion. There will soon be the clashing of arms and the interchange of active hostilities. As Catholics, we cannot but take a deep interest in the result, and we hope that all the combatants will, before going into battle, understand the cause for which they are fighting, and then faithfully fight to victory or death. An honest man should always stand by his colors, or at least openly renounce them. The object of this article is, to give a diagnosis of the present state of Episcopalianism, and, as far as our abilities and kind intentions go, to prescribe a remedy for the patient.

In the first place, we find that there is a feverish excitement about the trial of the Rev. Mr. Tyng, who, in violation of a canon, has had the hardihood to preach in a church of another denomination than his own. The canon under which he is arraigned seems to present a case against the reverend gentleman, and from the complexion of the court appointed to try him he has little chance of escaping conviction. But we imagine that even his condemnation will be nominal, and appear more as the assertion of a power than the exercise of it. The low-churchmen are quite excited by the discussion of the points involved in the trial. A writer in The Episcopalian considers the affair as the most important in the annals of American ecclesiastical history. Whatever the verdict of the court may be, it is of little account compared to the angry feelings and bitter divisions among brethren which will flow from it, and become more or less permanent. Certainly, there is more bitterness among the different sections of Episcopalians, than there is between them and other Protestants. Low-churchmen love their Protestant brethren, with the one exception of high-churchmen, whom they regard with a natural antipathy. High-churchmen love none but themselves, not the sects whom they eschew, nor the Catholic Church, which eschews them. The trial of Rev. Mr. Tyng is not the cause of the angry feelings which are now manifested, but merely the occasion for bringing them out. They exist before any occasion, and are found in the very heart of the Episcopal Church. If the Rev. Dr. Dix had preached in a Methodist place of worship, it is quite possible that no one would have made objection; but Mr. Tyng, being on the other side of the house, cannot have the same liberty. The truth is, that all rules have a wide interpretation, and are to be explained by custom, and here the defendant in the exciting trial has the advantage. Even if he should be condemned, he will be likely to have nearly all the popular sympathy, and so will become the greater man, as a kind of martyr for his principles.

The occasion, however, has brought out a bold manifesto from the high-churchmen, which is to be understood as their platform, around which they seek to rally their friends. Sixty-four clergymen have joined together to form what they call "The American Church Union," to which they invite all Episcopalians who sympathize with them. They declare that the evils of the time are fearful, "the young are growing up without education, the community is familiarized with scenes of lewdness, the marriage contract is made contemptible, the ordinances of the Gospel of Christ are disused, and the public worship of God is neglected." While thus the torrent of iniquity rages around them, they find that an evil has arisen within the Episcopal fold, which threatens the subversion of their whole system. It is nothing less than the denial of the necessity of ordination of ministers by bishops. "The right is claimed of preaching anywhere, at pleasure; ministers of non-Episcopal communities are invited to preach in our churches; and the intention is announced of breaking down every barrier between our church and the religious bodies around her." To counteract this destructive movement, they associate themselves together, in a union offensive and defensive. They promise to uphold the laws, the canons, and to follow the "godly admonitions of the bishops," while they seek "to maintain unimpaired principles which they have received from their fathers, Seabury, White, Griswold, Hobart, Doane, and Wainwright."

While we confess that our sympathies are with the signers of this pastoral, we frankly avow that it is somewhat vague and, to our minds, inconsistent. No doctrine whatever is clearly stated, except that of the necessity of episcopal ordination. The creeds are referred to, and the (undisputed?) general councils; but no explanation of their teaching is given. And then, he will be a wise man who can follow, at the same time, in the steps of the fathers whom they name. Seabury, Hobart, and Doane were high-churchmen in various degrees of altitude; but White and Griswold were quite on the other side of the fence; while Dr. Wainwright was generally thought to have been on both sides at the same time. To us, therefore, he seems the best and most gentlemanly model for the rising generation of churchmen who would be "all things to all men." Then, again, he who would follow the godly admonitions of the bishops must be able to go to the four points of the compass at the same time. Fancy an adventurer who would obey the admonitions of Bishops McIlvaine and Potter, or, at the same time, follow the counsels of Doctors Coxe and Clark. The convulsions of Mazeppa would be nothing to the agonies of his mind. No physician could prescribe a remedy for such a patient. "No man can serve two masters; either he will hate the one and love the other, or cleave to the one and despise the other." Why, therefore, in this enlightened day, write contradictions and talk nonsense? Some time ago, twenty-eight bishops made a solemn declaration against ritualism; "and," says the Protestant Churchman, "one of the gentlemen who has signed this address of the American Union not only soundly lectured, but held up to scorn and derision" these prelates, and especially the Boanerges of Western New York, who, smelling Romanism from afar, vaults like a beaked bird upon his prey. "O shame!" says the writer we have quoted, "where is thy blush?"

While thus the armies of the high-churchmen have begun to array themselves for battle, the bugle sounds loudly from the opposing camp, and the evangelicals are gathering together in earnest. A church union is being formed among them, and a writer in the Episcopalian thus speaks the designs of his party: "Let this evangelical church union be extended to every diocese and parish in the land where its principles are approved. The sacramental system is not the Gospel system, but its direct antipodes, in which the sacraments are degraded from their true position of sacred emblems, and made to serve as pack-horses to carry lazy sinners to heaven. I hear hundreds of ministers and thousands of laymen exclaim, 'Oh! that we had the power to rescue the church from the hands of those who are corrupting it!' These will be rejoiced to learn that nothing is more simple and feasible. How? I reply by saying, what even high-churchmen will hardly dare to deny, that the church of the Reformation was eminently an evangelical church, and that the evangelical portion of the present Episcopal Church constitutes absolutely all of the real successors of the English Reformed Church in this country. Ritualists and sacramentarians have no more right in this communion than avowed Romanists." The low-churchmen have the decided majority, and thus give letters dimissory to their offending brethren. "God speed the Church Union!" says a contributor to the Protestant Churchman; "but let Mr. Hopkins and his friends beware lest they themselves should be the very first upon whom this discipline shall fall. Dr. Guillotine experienced the beautiful operation of that ingenious instrument of death invented by himself. This is a precedent from which these gentlemen might learn a lesson."

The low-churchmen make a point that, while they prefer the episcopal form as more scriptural and more conformed to the primitive system, they do not unchurch other Christian denominations, and that, in this respect, they follow the teachings of the founders of the reformed English communion. They also contend that the right of the church to amend or change its laws and services is inalienable, and that the time has arrived when some important changes should be made. Bishop Griswold, whose "godly admonitions" the Church Union desires to follow, thus expressed himself: "In the baptismal office are, unfortunately, some few words which are well known to be more injurious to the peace and growth of our church than any one thing that can be named." "Allow me," says the Bishop of Chester, "to omit or alter fifteen words, and I will reconcile fifteen thousand dissenters to the church." It appears, also, that an opinion was expressed by a late presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church that the great body of Episcopalians desire some change in the phraseology of their services, and that the peace and prosperity of the church require it.

Here, then, the impartial observer can see how the ground lies. The high-churchmen insist upon Episcopal ordination, and are determined to resist all changes, while they are, many of them, disposed to give a Catholic interpretation to the articles and liturgy. The low-churchmen oppose them on all these points, and insist that a Protestant communion ought not to call itself Catholic, or use words of doubtful meaning; and that the literal sense of the articles which form their real confession of faith should be imposed upon all Episcopalians. We have ventured to call this a crisis because, if there be vitality in either party, there must come a conflict from which one side must retire defeated, leaving the field and the spoils of war to the victors. But as this is not the first crisis which has occurred in the history of Anglicanism, we opine that the battle will be fought with blank cartridges, and that, after considerable smoke, it will be found that nobody is hurt. Then from the unbloody field the combatants will retire to war with words, and to be greater enemies than ever. Individual soldiers will lay down their arms to sally in the direction of Geneva or Rome; but the great Episcopal body will quietly await another crisis. Yet this condition of a church which claims (according to some of its members—the Pan-Anglican Synod, for example) to be a part of the Catholic Church, is not healthy. In contradictories there cannot be accord, and one is right and the other is certainly wrong. A careful diagnosis of the malady of our patient leads us to the following conclusions: No one is bound to impossibilities, and therefore, before their own church, the low-churchmen are right on all points of the controversy, while, before the Christian world, their opponents are singularly isolated and unfortunate. The Episcopal Church contains two opposing elements which must ever war against each other, and, while there are inconsistencies in both liturgy and articles, the low-churchmen stand upon the only reasonable ground, and say with truth to their adversaries, that they who would be sacramentarians ought to go where their system properly belongs, and where all other things are in harmony with it. Such, we are sure, will be the judgment of the impartial observer.

1. The Episcopalians have a right to reform their services whenever they choose, and are at perfect liberty to agitate the question. By the constitution of their own church, they have the power to alter, change, or modify both their liturgy and their creeds. Did not the Church of England do this on several occasions? Has not the American Episcopal Church done it also? Did she not materially alter the prayer-book, leaving out, for example, both the form of absolution, and also the Athanasian Creed? That which has been done can surely be done again, especially in a body which disclaims infallibility, and is, therefore, sure of nothing, and is ever on all points open to progress. Here it seems to us that the high-churchmen have no ground on which to stand. They cannot assert that anything their church teaches is the voice of God, because she expressly tells them that she has no authority. They cannot hold any reasonable theory of ecclesiastical pretensions, because, by doing so, they would unchurch themselves. A church ought to know its own powers, if it have any. They may have their own opinions, and press them as such; but they have no right to lord it over the consciences of their brethren who disagree with them, as if they (the actual minority) were the church rather than their more numerous opponents. Their fathers whose "godly admonitions" they seek to follow, surely never meant to cast their "incomparable liturgy" in an iron mould. Besides, in sober common sense, all the extravagancies of the low-churchmen are nothing compared to the doings of the extreme ritualists, who have so metamorphosed the service that no uninitiated Episcopalian could ever recognize it. Think of changing every rubric, and engrafting upon the common prayer the actual ceremonies and even the words of the Roman missal. We understand that few of the signers of the union manifesto are opposed to these advances of ritualism, and that many of them are ready to hear confessions or celebrate Mass when a good occasion is offered. With what face, then, can they find fault with their brethren who exercise their liberty in another direction? And inasmuch as there is a manifest inconsistency between various parts of the prayer-book, it would be well for them and for truth to have their code revised, that the world may know precisely what they do mean.

2. On the vexed question of Episcopal ordination, we are convinced that the high-churchmen are wrong, before their own communion and before the world. The reformers under whose inspirations the English Church was formed, never intended to unchurch the religious bodies of the continent with whom they were in sympathy. The words of the ordinal refer only to the rule to be adopted in the Anglican body, and do not decide at all the question of the validity of non-Episcopal orders. The twenty-third of the thirty-nine articles is so expounded by Burnet. He says that by common consent a company of Christians may appoint one of their own members to minister to them in holy things; for we are sure "that not only those who penned the articles, but the body of this church for above half an age after, did, notwithstanding irregularities, acknowledge the foreign churches, so constituted, to be true churches as to all the essentials of a church. The article leaves the matter open for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still happen. Although their own church had been less forced to go out of the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things among themselves had not gone according to those rules that ought to be sacred in regular times. Necessity has no law, and is a law of itself."

The opinions of Cranmer, and of Barlow, the reported consecrator of Archbishop Parker, were distinctly Erastian. At a conference held at Windsor, 1547, Cranmer answers to the question, "Can a bishop make a priest?" as follows: "A bishop may make a priest, and so may princes and governors also, by the authority of God committed to them." Barlow replies, "Bishops have no authority to make priests without they be authorized by the Christian princes, and that laymen have other whiles made priests."

To the question, "Whether in the New Testament be required any consecration of a bishop or priest, or only appointing to the office be sufficient?" Cranmer answers, "He that is appointed to be a bishop or priest needeth no consecration by the Scriptures, for election or appointing thereto is sufficient." Barlow also expresses the same sentiment. (See Stillingfleet's Irenicum, and Collier, vol. ii. appendix.)

The "judicious" Hooker undoubtedly maintains the true Episcopalian belief, that ordination by bishops is preferable, but not of absolute necessity to a church. A very able article in this Magazine, published September, 1866, (Vol. III. No. 18,) shows the truth of our view. Passages are deduced from a work called Vox Ecclesiae, which contain the high-church position, and admit that in case of necessity (which is left to the individual to determine) "orthodox presbyters may ordain." As Archbishop Parker said, "Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation from all laws." The author of this article, to which we beg leave to refer our readers, shows plainly that such a doctrine "overthrows the very idea of apostolical succession, elevates human necessity above divine law, and legitimates every form of error and schism."

Before their own communion, therefore, the low-churchmen have every advantage, as they are consistent with the principles of the Reformation which brought their church into being. When Protestants desert their own platform, on what ground can they logically stand?

Secondly, before the Christian world the high-churchmen occupy a very unfortunate position. They make assertions which unchurch themselves, while they separate from their brethren, and aspire to an ecclesiastical status which they have not, which the whole world denies to them, and which they can never defend. If the apostolical succession is necessary to the existence of a church, then by the verdict of all who hold such a doctrine, they are no church; for with all their pretensions, they have it not. It has been shown over and over again, by arguments incontestable, that the ordination of Archbishop Parker, if indeed it ever took place, was wholly and entirely invalid. There is not satisfactory evidence that any ceremony of consecration was observed; there is no proof whatever that Barlow, the officiating prelate, was ever ordained; and lastly, the form used (according to the theory of the high-churchmen) was utterly inadequate to convey valid orders. What need, then, to argue further with those who will not see? If any Catholic bishop at this day should venture to consecrate with the form which they tell us was used in Parker's case, he would be subject to severe censure, and his act would be considered totally null and valueless. One would naturally suppose that the judgment of the Catholic Church on this question would be held in respect. She has preserved the ancient rite, and holds the absolute necessity of episcopal ordination; and while she considers it a sacrilege to reiterate the sacrament of orders, she reordains, without question and without condition, every English minister who, coming into her fold, aspires to the sacred priesthood. The same course has been adopted by what the Pan-Angelican Synod calls the Eastern Orthodox Church, which no more regards the Episcopalians as a church than she does the Methodists or Presbyterians. Is any more evidence required by any honest mind? If the opinion of the eastern churches is of any weight, it has been more than once given. Dr. J. J. Overbeck, a Russian priest, in a recent work on "Catholic Orthodoxy," treats at some length of the English orders, which he pronounces to be null. These are among his words:

"1. The Anglo-Catholic fathers, on the point of apostolical succession and its needfulness, held latitudinarian views, subversive of the whole fabric of the church.
2. The boasted unity or concord of Anglicans even in essentials is a specious illusion.
3. Anglo-Catholicism is genuine Protestantism decked and disfigured by Catholic spoils."
"As Parker's consecration was invalid, the apostolic line was broken off, irremediably broken off."

"If Rome considered all ordinations by Parker and his successors, namely, the whole present English episcopate and clergy, to be invalid, null, and void, and consistently reordained all those converts who wished and were fit for orders; the Eastern Church can but imitate her proceedings, as both, in this point, follow the very same principles. ... The fact of the reordination is the final and conclusive verdict on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations. By this fact all further controversy is broken off and indisputably settled."

We fancy, then, the amusement which the pastoral of the late Anglican Synod will produce in the Eastern churches, for whose benefit it has been translated into the Greek language. We would recommend to the great Patriarchs to send a commission of doctors to the West, that they may see that oneness of mind of which the bishops so fervently speak. Then when they see it, we would like to have them point it out to us, that we may see it also, and rejoice with them.

It may perhaps appear to some of our readers that our sympathies are with the low-churchmen and ultra-Protestants of the Episcopal communion. This is, however, far from being the case. We admire consistency and cannot accept logical contradictions. The Protestant ground is something that our reason can comprehend, though we believe it does away with all revelation and leads directly to infidelity. But God has furnished us with no mental powers by which to fathom a system which is neither one thing nor the other, which wears a Catholic exterior over a Protestant heart. Such will be the verdict of the world. How long Anglicanism can last we know not. It has been a kind of half-way house to the church, and it may occupy this position for a long time. It seems to us that every honest high-churchman should become a Catholic at once, when he will find what he wants, not simply on paper but in life, not in imagination but in reality. The movement called ritualism is an indication that the grace of God is stirring up the dry bones; for Anglicanism in itself is the most lifeless and unspiritual religion we know of. God grant that the movement may bring forth its proper fruits. We only fear that when it comes to "leaving all for Christ," to giving up houses and lands, wives and children, position and preferment, many will go back, (as we have seen with sorrow,) and be like the young man in the gospel, who was, at one time, "not far from the kingdom of heaven." Ritualism is only a yearning after the real presence of the Incarnate God, for which the redeemed soul longs even with anguish. "Tears were my meat, day and night, while they said to me. Where is thy God?" The true heart will find its Lord only in that one body which is his fulness. Pray, then, fellow-Catholics, pray for the sincere and true, that they may have grace to forsake the land of shadows, and come where are the bright beams of the morning; that ere the night of death overtake them, they may, like the pure-minded Simeon, see the salvation of God, and joyfully chant their "Nunc dimittis," "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

Bishop Doyle. [Footnote 20]

[Footnote 20: The Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Rt. Rev. Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. By W. J. Fitzpatrick, J. P. 3 vols. 8vo. Boston: P. Donohoe.]

"What can you teach?" "Any thing from A, B, C, to the third book of Canon Law." "Pray, young man, can you teach and practise humility?" "I trust I have, at least, the humility to feel that the more I read the more I see how ignorant I have been, and how little can, at best, be known." Such were the pithy replies to the equally condensed questions put by the venerable Dean Staunton, of Carlow College, to a young Augustinian friar who had been proposed as candidate for a professorship in that rising institution. The friar was Father James Doyle, then in his twenty-seventh year. Erect in stature, austere in features, the candid earnestness of his mind beaming through his expressive countenance, which bore the evident traces of studious habits, and the freedom of his unpretentious manners—all these qualities, combined in his looks and declared by his language, immediately enlisted the sympathetic esteem of the dean. Nor was his youth an obstacle to his acceptance. His appointment to the position followed, and the six years spent by him in the college served as a fit preparation for the public career of this eminent man, the narrative of whose life forms an essential part of the history of his country for at least fifteen years.

From the valuable work to which reference is made in the note to this article, we find much to admire in the noble character who forms the subject of Mr. Fitzpatrick's literary effort. There must have been placed at his disposal a rich and abundant store of material from which the biography was compiled. The work itself, in a literary point of view, is creditable to the diligence of the author; but at present we shall content ourselves with an attempt to gather from its comprehensive pages, and place before our readers, some of the most remarkable events that distinguished the life and were influenced by the action of the eminent prelate.

Of respectable and honorably rebellious ancestors, he was born in New Ross, County of Wexford, in 1786. In an appendix to the work before us there is a chronological article showing the descent of the Doyle family from some ancient, royal sept—a portion of Irish history by no means uncommon—to which we would refer those who should doubt his original nobility of blood. For us it will suffice to know that some of his immediate relatives had fallen for their country and its faith, and that even as far back as 1691, there were few more distinguished than the bold Rapparee chieftain, "Brigadier Doyle," who was sent from Limerick, by Sarsfield, to collect men and horses for the Jacobite army.