Chapter IX: A Bright Evening (8)

We assure our readers that we have selected this passage at random, lest we may be suspected of malice in having singled it out because of its surpassing fatuity. Who ever dreamt of saying that religion is bound up in a book? As well say that an author’s thoughts are nowhere to be found but between the covers of the book which bears his name. But mark the transparent fallacy of the underlying thought. Mr. Bixby evidently supposes that because religion had an existence prior to the books mentioned, we might therefore dispense with these, and still possess religion just as our predecessors had it before those books were yet written. But suppose those books happen to contain the previous body of religious doctrine, together with developments or disclosures inseparably connected with it; might we then carelessly reject them, as Mr. Bixby implies we might? Or does it follow that, because a “spiritual awakening” is defined to be of a special sort in one instance, it can never be so in another? Yet such is the irresistible inference to be drawn from the introductory portion of the passage just quoted. The same may be said of the reference to the priority of Christianity over the Gospel of St. Matthew. No one contends that Christianity did not exist in the lifetime of Jesus, or that it would not now exist had not St. Matthew written his Gospel; but it by no means follows that we are free to reject that evangelist’s history, since it is a compendium of Christian doctrine such as our Lord had preached it in his lifetime, and in rejecting it we would thereby reject the latter. The allusion to Lavoisier and Dalton is just as unhappy; for though it is true the science of chemistry might exist without them, still we cannot reject their treatises, since these contain the essential principles of that science.

Mr. Bixby is sometimes quite happy in stating the objections which scientists urge against religion, but we regret that he also sometimes fails to make good his refutation of their views. Thus, on page 149, he presents the argument of science in these words: “Theologians may talk glibly of soul and over-soul, Creator and creation, absolute and Infinite; they may fancy that they understand them; but they are deceiving themselves, mistaking a familiarity with words for a genuine understanding of things. Their high-sounding terms are but covers to their real ignorance.” Indeed, this is a common objection made by those whose habits of mind have been formed in the laboratory, and who have never troubled themselves much about metaphysics. Still, the objection should be met in a patient and painstaking mood, and answer given according to our lights. Mr. Bixby makes his rejoinder a _retorqueo argumentum_ by showing that science, too, bristles with difficulties and is beset with mysteries; that it borrows from conjecture more even than religion does; and that it can never hope to level all the hills and fill up all the valleys which lie along its course. This is very true and very apposite, but it may be asked: Does it contain an answer to the objection as stated? We rather think not. Cannot it be proved that we do really possess some knowledge of the Infinite and the Absolute, and that the apparent unintelligibility of these terms is to be sought for and found rather in the ignorance of those who object to them? The Infinite differs for us subjectively from no other object of thought on the score of adequacy, since we can have an adequate idea of nothing. Not even of the simplest material objects that surround us can we have at the best more than an inchoate and imperfect knowledge. How, then, can we be expected to conceive the Infinite, except in a very shadowy way, “as in a glass darkly”? Still, the fact that we speak of the Infinite and assert its attributes, that we distinguish Infinite Being from finite, and that our hearts fly towards it in unappeasable longing, is open guarantee that we have some knowledge of it, which is all that the most exacting can demand. Therefore those who confound infinite knowledge of the Infinite, which appertains to the Infinite Being alone, with that subjectively finite knowledge of it which we all possess, display an unpardonable ignorance. This is our answer to those who object that Infinite, as one term, is unintelligible, and we see no necessity for classifying it with the impenetrable secrets with which science is confronted at every step. The same may be said of the term absolute; and though we do not agree with the views of the absolute taken by Mansel, Hamilton, Kant, and Spencer, we know at least that the term has a meaning, that it implies total independence, and is based on that divine attribute which the scholastics denominate Aseity. Mr. Bixby is too timorous in his utterances. He seems to write under a Damocles’ sword, fearing to offend those great men who tread in the stately van of science. But if he hesitates to be dogmatic in one direction, he does not hesitate to be aggressive in another; and when his mood inclines that way, he sets up as the target of his shafts the doctrines and definitions of the Catholic Church.

In order to prove that Bixbyism is the only religion which is at all reconcilable with science, and to brush aside any pretensions Catholicity might entertain in the same direction, he quotes the following:

“Let him be anathema――

“Who shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold as true their assertions even when opposed to revealed doctrines.”

This proposition does not meet the approbation of Mr. Bixby. If it does not, then its contradictory must be true, which implies that a scientific utterance _may_ be true in the face of an opposing revealed truth. It is to be borne in mind that the revealed doctrines in question are supposed to be revealed, and revealed by God, and the whole statement is resolvable into this: Notwithstanding that God (in whom Mr. Bixby is a believer) has positively affirmed that a given statement is true, Mr. Tyndall or Prof. Huxley may affirm the contrary with impunity――nay, rather with a better title to our acceptance of their views――

“At nos virtutes ipsas invertimus.”

or, as Caramuel says, “We thus sweeten poison with sugar, and color guilt with the appearance of virtue.”

But in order to place himself still more _en rapport_ with his adversaries, Mr. Bixby, seemingly forgetful that he either surrenders the gage or else resolves the conflict into a tilt with a windmill, expresses himself to the following effect: “Religion has no exclusive source of information, but such sources only as are common to all branches of human knowledge.” If this be true, there is no necessity of even the shadow of an attempt to reconcile any differences which, by a stretch of fancy, might be conceived to exist between two sciences that travel along the same plane. All along, since this controversy was begun, it has been understood that the sole possible cause of conflict between science and religion arose out of the fact that they claimed each for itself more solid ground on which to stand. Reason and revelation were always supposed to be the party words of both, and every collision between them so far has resulted from the apparent irreconcilableness of these two. Mr. Bixby, in endeavoring to shift the ground of argument, should have confined himself to just that effort, and omitted those portions of his work tending to disprove all antagonism between science and religion, since, in the estimation of most men, a religion which asserts no claim to the supernatural is no religion at all. His attempted abatement of the claims of science, though well presented and sustained, works not an iota for Mr. Bixby’s point; for in all he says he is arguing for supernatural religion, which he virtually rejects, against the untenable assumptions of science.

As if in more strenuous advocacy of this idea, he elsewhere adds: “It [religion] is not all falsehood and masquerade; nevertheless, there is much popularly set down as religion which is no more religion than it is science. Now it has been bound up with one system, now with another. When Christianity first raised its head, it was told that polytheism alone was religion.” Continuing in this strain, he condemns every system of religion which stands opposed to another, and infers from the fact of such opposition the necessary falsity of them all. He even goes to the extent of affirming that the doctrines of the Catholic Church changed age by age, according to the tone of the prevailing philosophy. He says:

“In Augustine’s day Christianity was made inseparable from
the doctrines of predestination and fatalism. In Abelard’s
time it was bound up with the metaphysics of realism; in
Roger Bacon’s time, with the philosophy of Aristotle; in the
days of Vesalius, with the medical treatises of Galen; in
the lifetime of Galileo, with the astronomy of Ptolemy.
To-day it is the orthodoxy of the Council of Trent or the
Westminster Catechism that is cemented to religion, and any
attack on the one is assumed to be undermining the very
foundations of faith and morals.”

This passage is recklessly false. Any one acquainted with church history, with the rise and progress of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, understands perfectly that in St. Augustine’s time no more stringent or rigorous views concerning original sin and predestination were held than tradition and the Scriptures sanctioned and ratified. And the patient reader of the history of philosophy will also condemn the assertion that the church proper had anything to do with the long-drawn disputes between the Nominalists and the Realists. The church left those wordy disputants severely alone, though the controversy was revived by the school of the Neo-Platonists for the very purpose of embroiling the church in the quarrel. We say the controversy was revived; for in reality the dispute is as old as Plato and Aristotle.

Still more absurd is what Mr. Bixby says with reference to Vesalius and Galen. Not a single authoritative passage from father, council, or historian can be adduced to prove that the church ever committed herself to the adoption of any views concerning the structure, functions, and disorders of the human body. Indeed, Vesalius, who led the way in the great revolution which medical science underwent from the errors of Galen, was a pious Catholic, and the popular painting of the first dissection of modern times represents him with eyes piously upturned to the crucifix before entering on one of the most important steps of modern scientific inquiry in the teeth of wide-spread and violent prejudice――viz., the first dissection of the human cadaver that has led to any valuable results.

But in order to be thoroughly careful that he should allow no element of what is entitled positive religion to enter into the conception of his emotional nonentity, he discards all the known and accepted grounds of religious evidence. He says there can be no infallible authority in religious matters, since the only one which fostered the pretence has been repeatedly detected in error. His words are:

“In its unflattering mirror the oracle of Rome is exhibited
as convicted of error in scientific matters again and again;
compelled to retreat from position to position; forced to
correct and recorrect its interpretations. It is shown
vacillating to and fro in regard to the most important
ecclesiastical questions, possessed of no clear or
well-defined principles concerning many essential
theological issues, etc., etc.”

All this rodomontade is in the nature of a negative assertion, inasmuch as it would require a full review of the history of the church to refute it. It is the author’s favorite style of logic, however, and may go for what it is worth. He next rejects the authority of the Bible on the most frivolous grounds, and coming to the value of our divine Saviour’s evidence in favor of revelation, he uses the following extraordinary language:

“I desire not to deny the existence of a divine element in
Jesus. I gladly recognize him as the loftiest spiritual seer
and teacher the world has seen; the best historic embodiment
of spiritual perfection that we have. But we must own, if we
are clear-sighted and frank, that in Christ himself we do
not obtain an oracle exempt from the limitations of humanity
and the conditions of earthly knowledge.”

This is a clear negation of the divinity of Christ, and an implied avowal that Mr. Bixby ranges himself with Renan and Strauss. As before stated, Mr. Bixby’s chief aim in the first chapters of his book is to simplify the conditions of the problem which he has set before him, and we see that he has striven to do this by stripping religion of all its positive attributes, and putting in its stead a bloodless and emasculated spectre. “It is a force,” he says, “anterior to all churches and hierarchies, the grand spiritual stream flowing from above through the souls of men, of which ecclesiastical organizations are but the earthly banks, the clayey reservoirs and wooden dams, by which men have thought they could better utilize the heavenly forces.” This is fine and figurative, we confess, but more marked by sound than sense. Mr. Bixby here brands all churches as purely human institutions, and yet allows that they possess religion, that they are its conduits and distributors to men, and that dogmas and codes and ethical enactments are mere accretions, the work of human minds. These must consequently be false, and, being such, should retard rather and operate against the influences of religion pure and undefiled, the embodiment of truth. How, then, can they be said to be utilizers of heavenly force and reservoirs of religion, they being false, and it true?

“Pergis pugnantia secum
Frontibus adversis componere?”

The definition of religion which has passed current for centuries, making it to consist of a determinate and specified allegiance of man to his Maker, is contradicted by the views advanced in Mr. Bixby’s book, and therefore the few only, whose opinions are equally unsettled, can accept his conclusions. There is something so unreal and shadowy in his estimate of religion that one is at a loss to see thoroughly into what he means by it, and consequently incapable of appreciating all that his conclusions are intended to embody. “Religious truth,” he says, “(theologians and preachers defending the old beliefs have maintained) belongs to another realm from ordinary kinds of truth. It is not to be tried by the understanding. It is not to be brought to the bar of common sense, but it is to be discerned by the inner soul, and its evidence found in the soul’s satisfaction in it.” If this be Mr. Bixby’s estimate of the value of the evidence on which religious truth reposes, he must have had in view, as the ideal of all dogmatic religion, the utterances of some strong-lunged preacher at a camp-meeting. No theologian of the Catholic nor of the approximating sects ever thought for a moment that religion is not to be tried by the understanding nor brought to the bar of common sense. The evidences of revealed religion are based upon reason, which, closely scrutinizing these, is compelled to admit the claims of the Scriptures and the church, just as it is obliged to admit the truths of geometry. It is true that individual dogmas are not the subject-matter of purely rational investigation, but they appeal to our reason just as strongly through the evident infallibility of the authority which submits them to our belief. Mr. Bixby, we fear, either misapprehends plain things or is given to misrepresenting. Objectively, all truths resemble each other in that they are true――_i.e._, eternal, immutable, and necessary; subjectively, for us, those truths which we can discern with the eye of reason pertain to the natural order, and to the supernatural order those whose guarantee depends on the revealed word of God. It is evident that in the logical order, the natural precedes and underlies the supernatural, and that, with respect to the evidence on which both repose, it must be tried by the understanding, and that searchingly, and cannot escape the bar of common sense. “Truth,” says the author of _An Essay on a Philosophy of Literature_, “is independent of man. The power is his to discover, develop, and apply it; but he cannot create it. That belongs to the Infinite Intelligence alone. He it is who creates it and who creates the light of our reason by which to perceive it.” Truth, therefore, must be consistent with itself; and it is the province of every individual truth to borrow lustre from, and shed radiance on, each sister truth, and not to detract from and obstruct it. This is the logic of the schools――nay, it is the logic of Hamilton, Mansel, Baden Powell, and Faraday, whom Bixby charges with dividing the field of truth into two separate portions: one the province of knowledge, where science holds sway; the other the province of belief, where religion has her throne. Then truth may be divided against itself, and to this effect must we interpret the writings of the distinguished philosophers mentioned. We doubt not that, for logic’s sake, these scholars would all indignantly repudiate this charge which places them in an absurd and uncourted position. Pity ’tis Mr. Bixby did not attempt by a citation to substantiate his charge. He does not fail, however, to draw his accustomed inference. “Now,” he says, “by taking this mode of defending itself against the incursions of modern science, the church has aided much in spreading suspicion of the certainty of its cherished doctrines.” Then modern science does make incursions against the church, which is perfectly right, but the church is debarred the right of repelling them. A burglar may break into our house, and we are not at liberty to resist his ingress by means of the nearest weapon at hand, but we should preach him a homily on the impropriety of his conduct.

But he is brave enough in this: that not an inkling or a wrinkle of his too transparent sophistry disturbs him. Immediately after he says (p. 72): “Bishops like he [_sic_] of London may exhort the modern inquirer as eloquently as they please to throw away doubt as they would a bombshell; but it serves only to make the investigator more suspicious of the validity of religion.” Then is it not proper, Mr. Bixby, to throw away doubt? If not so, it must by all means be better to entertain doubt, so that a state of doubt ought to be our normal intellectual condition. Just in proportion as we entertain doubt may we be less suspicious of the validity of religion; but the moment we think of discarding it suspicions grow up in our minds! Verily, this kind of logic is perplexing. We admire the devout spirit which Mr. Bixby everywhere exhibits, but when it is paraded at the expense of true religion, and in a spirit calculated to lead astray the unwary, we must enter our protest against it. On page 222 he says:

“And religion needs not only to accept the corrections and
recognize the coadjutorship of science in disclosing the
ways of God, but it should engraft into itself, I believe,
more of the scientific spirit. Instead of aiming to defend
systems already established [!], and to bolster up foregone
conclusions, it should go simply with inquiring mind to the
eternal facts.”

And this passes current for reasoning! We write without bitterness of heart, but in the spirit which prompted Juvenal to say:

“Si natura negat, facit indignatio versum.”

Religion must borrow all from science, accept her criterion from science, see that she admit nothing but what the scientific plummet is capable of sounding, and reject all that does not conform to the square and compass of this arbitrary mistress. “Established systems” and “foregone conclusions” must be sacrificed at the beck of a scientific clique, and meek religion must sit awaiting crumbs from their table. Surely, had the great author of the apology for the Christian religion anticipated that an apology with such intent would be subsequently offered, he would have bestowed a different title on his famous work. But Mr. Bixby goes farther when he actually breaks down the barriers which have ever been supposed to divide science from religion. On page 223 he says:

“Thus religion is capable of being made a genuine science,
and it will never, I believe, maintain the purity, attain
the stability and accuracy, reach unto the depth and breadth
of truth which is within the demands of its grand mission
unto mankind, until it thus weds science to itself.”

This might not give offence if viewed as from the pen of a sophomore; but from a teacher――a philosopher! The passage jumbles science and religion inextricably together; it virtually identifies them, and yet pretends to hold them apart. The idea that religion is capable of being made a genuine science must sound oddly in the ears of those who have been taught to regard religion as the science of sciences, their queen, mistress, and guide. But, according to Mr. Bixby, religion is in the lowly position still of being a handmaiden to her proud sisters, with the possible prospect at some time of being elevated to their queenly plane.

In his chapters on the “Faiths of Science” and “The Claim of Science” Mr. Bixby very adroitly brings into contrast the arrogant aggressiveness of scientism with its own haltings, weaknesses, and vacillations, and we deem these two chapters to be really valuable contributions to the fast-swelling literature concerning the dispute between religion and scientism. They are inoperative of effect, so far as Mr. Bixby’s notion of religion is concerned, but they clearly prove that science is fully amenable to the charge of taking much for granted, of postulating much, of believing in the mysterious and inexplicable――the very charges it flippantly prefers against Christianity. Experience and observation have been the watchwords of science since the days of Locke, and the whole system of Scotch philosophy as taught by Reid, Stewart, Brown, and Hamilton in the past, and Bain to-day, rests on the results of those two procedures. The supersensible finds no room in this system, and is relegated to the domain of the unknowable, the unthinkable. Says Büchner: “Those who talk of a creative power which is said to have produced the world out of nothing are ignorant of the first and most simple principle founded upon experience and the contemplation of nature. How could a power have existed not manifested in material substance, but governing it arbitrarily according to individual views?” Herbert Spencer calls supersensible conceptions “pseudo-ideas,” “symbolic conceptions of the illegitimate order.” Virchow says he “knows only bodies and their qualities; what is beyond he terms transcendental, and he considers transcendentalism an aberration of the human mind.” And so with the majority of the modern school of scientism. They deem nothing demonstrable but what responds to their tests of truth, to chemical or physico-chemical modes of investigation. For this reason physiologists reject the notion of soul as a distinct substance in man, for it cannot be investigated according to the methods known to physiology; and yet, with glaring inconsistency, these men admit as the very basis of experience and observation what outlies the range and limit of the senses.

The advocates of the germ theory of disease have neither felt, seen, nor heard one of those minute spores. “We have,” says Prof. Tyndall, “particles that defy both the microscope and the balance, which do not darken the air, and which, nevertheless, exist in multitudes sufficient to reduce to insignificance the Israelitish hyperbole, the sands upon the sea-shore.” So, also, Mr. Lewes, in his _Philosophy of Aristotle_, writes: “The fundamental ideas of modern science are as transcendental as any of the axioms in ancient philosophy.” With such admissions from the leading men of the modern school, how can scientists contend that they limit their acceptance of truth to those facts which experience proves, and that, using a strict induction, they build their laws and systems on these alone? It is evident that they make freer use of hypotheses than did the scholastics. Nor does it avail them to attempt the distinction suggested by Mr. Lewes between metaphysical and metempirical knowledge. The aim of this distinction is to relieve scientism from the charges brought against metaphysical doctrines on the ground that, as they transcend the senses, they necessarily elude the grasp of the human mind. Now, the metempirical knowledge of Mr. Lewes is just as elusive of our grasp, since it does not come within the scope of the senses; and all the objections, however unfounded, which these scholars have alleged against metaphysics and the science of the immaterial, hold good against any knowledge which is not the direct outcome of the senses. Surely the new doctrine of the correlation and conservation of force pertains to the supersensible order fully as much as the doctrine of a spiritual soul. Nay, it deals in the obscure and transcendental more, a great deal, than the scholastic doctrine of first matter and substantial form. The advocates of this theory have adopted a nomenclature which repeats the very errors on account of which modern scholastics have rejected the peripatetic doctrine of matter and form. They identify all things under the title of force, and deem motion, light, heat, and electricity as so many modes of force constantly interchanging. They thus confound identity with distinction, and ignore the nature of change. Every change supposes a term from which, a term into which, and the subject of both; now, those who identify all force deny the subject of change, for that from which becomes into which in all its essentials, so that heat becomes light, and yet does not, according to the neo-terminologists, lose its identity. We have therefore the anomaly of a thing remaining the same and becoming something else at the same time. All this confusion arises from the ignorance of metaphysics in which modern men of science glory. They declare light to be a force, and no two of them are agreed as to the meaning of the word. They declare that all forces are correlated, and nowhere do we find given by them the meaning of the term relation. Now, the scholastics give no fewer than six different modes of relation, and the modern school has not given us even a definition of one. And yet these are the contemners of metaphysics and scholasticism, the men who aspire to be leaders of thought. They raise their structure on a basis of supposition, and declaim against the credulity of those who admit aught but facts of the sensible order. Their science is confused because of the vagueness of their speech and its great lack of fixity. Herbert Spencer discourses with more learning than lucidity concerning those great problems which the church solved centuries ago, and which she has so formulated by the aid of a fixed and coherent vocabulary that mere children can see her meaning. Mr. Spencer defines evolution to be “a change from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity through continuous differentiations and integrations.” This certainly pertains to the supersensible order, and in more senses than one. No wonder that such utterances are made the butt of witticisms. Thus, the Rev. Mr. Kirkman, in his _Philosophy without Assumption_, amusingly parodies the above definition of Herbert Spencer: “Evolution is a change from a nohowish untalkaboutable all-alikeness to a somehowish and in-general-talkaboutable not-all-alikeness by continuous somethingelseifications and sticktogetherations.”

And as for mistakes, commend us to science. Every new edition of Darwin contains corrections of previous errors, and Huxley has quite recently modified his views on evolution. But this is freedom of thought, just as a consistent and abiding belief which precludes the possibility of change or error is denominated by these same neoterists superstition and reaction. Mr. Bixby has well exhibited the fluctuations and errors of modern science――which is about all he has satisfactorily accomplished――in his _Similarities of Physical and Religious Knowledge_.

[184] _Similarities of Physical and Religious Knowledge._ By
James Thompson Bixby. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876.

LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.

FROM THE FRENCH.

MARCH 21, 1869.

What a day, dearest! At High Mass the Passion was sung as in the Sistine Chapel. What memories it awoke within me! It was wonderfully beautiful, and every word found an echo in my heart. O flowery Easter! the children’s festival, how I loved formerly to see its return. It was spring, bright days, verdure and flowers; but this year we have a sort of recommencement of winter instead of spring; for some days we have had snow and stormy gales, which have made it sometimes impossible to go out.

René has been reading us a beautiful fragment of the _Monks of the West_ on religious vocations; Gertrude had suggested this reading. My mother wept, and I envied the heavenly calm of the happy Gertrude.

The beautiful new-born has quite the air of a seraph; he is so fair, rosy, and silent. Adrien will be his godfather, and the honor of godmother, dear Kate, will devolve upon your Georgina. “This little last one,” Johanna said to me, “shall be quite your own, dear sister!” How good they all are! Brothers and sisters so united and happy together! The baptism is deferred, that it may take place in Brittany, and we shall have Margaret. How I love this beautiful little soul over which I shall have sacred rights!

Berthe regrets her Mad, whom Thérèse misses sadly.

22d.――The Père Meillier preaches the retreat――two sermons a day. This morning upon the retreat itself: “I will lead her into the wilderness, and there will I speak to her heart. Perfection, according to St. Bernard, is an ardent zeal always to be advancing. During this retreat God desires to _soften_, _detach_, and _fix_ our heart. We must be converted. Conversion is turning again to God. The means of conversion are time, grace, and will. The time God gives us; he himself says this: ‘Behold, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.’ Grace――this is given to us in superabundance. The will must come from ourselves; St. Bernard says that this will must be constant, courageous, and sometimes heroic.” He ended by exhorting us “not to resist God, who is standing at the door of our heart, who knocks and waits”; and faithfully to follow this retreat. “I know neither the day nor the hour, but there will be a moment in which God will speak to you; and beware, Christian souls, lest Jesus pass by and return no more!” At three o’clock on tepidity, its causes and its remedy, the whole very practical and very holy.

The same agreement as last year between René and me. Little Alix accompanied me on a visit to the worthy _Mr. Crossman_, as the children call him. Finding him more calm than usual while I was dressing his leg, I was inwardly congratulating myself, when an energetic oath, and a sudden movement more energetic still, repulsed and overthrew me: and a scene of anger followed, which made Alix tremble like a rose-leaf in a storm, and I tried in vain to appease the sick man. What is to be done to-morrow? God will help me.

23d.――Letters. Marianne is anxious. Picciola eats nothing and scarcely sleeps. “It is my belief that she is home-sick.” Anna is constantly improving in health, and the doctor forbids them to go away. Oh! how I fear the future. Marcella is radiant: “Dear Georgina, how grateful I am to this warm sun, and the vivifying breeze which Anna breathes in with delight! No more fever, no more pallor; not that her cheeks are rosy――my darling would need rouge for that――but her whiteness is _living_, and I like her thus. But what should we have done here without Lucy and Picciola and this kind Edouard? What gratitude my heart cherishes towards yours for this arrangement!”

Mistress Annah says that Edith will be completely cured when we see her again. Mary and Ellen are much beloved in the village.

Margaret shudders at the slightest indisposition of her baby. O these cradles, these dear cradles!

This evening at the piano I thought of Picciola, whom my love has made mine, and was singing this plaintive entreaty, which Edouard last year repeated with so much feeling:

“Reploie, enfant, tes ailes de colombe,
Sous ma caresse, ange, ouvre tes beaux yeux;
Si tu savais comme est froide la tombe!
Va, le bonheur n’habite pas qu’aux Cieux!
Pourquoi sitôt vouloir quitter la terre?
Dans le Ciel même est-il rien d’aussi doux
Qué les baisers dont te couvre ta mère
En te berçant, le soir, sur ses genoux?”[185]

Adrien joined me, and, in a voice more thrilling, harmonious, and touching than ever, he sang the succeeding strophes. I accompanied without seeing; strange lights passed before my eyes, and when he sang:

“Mais Dieu fut sourd: la fleur était éclose.
… Un ange aux rayons d’or
Un soir, dit on, cueillit la frêle rose,
Puis avec elle au Ciel reprit l’essor!”[186]

I burst into tears with such an explosion of despair that Adrien was alarmed. Kate, could it be possible that God would not leave us this child, almost worshipped as she is? “How susceptible you are, dear little sister!” “Oh! it is nothing”; and I went to my room. I opened a book, just at these words of M. Landriot: “You suffer; the hand of Christ alone is sufficiently light and yet powerful to heal the wounds of your soul.”

Instruction this morning on the besetting sin, which must be extirpated, and against which we must fight with a firm and determined will; at three o’clock, first on susceptibility, and then on piety. “Christian piety is a religious sentiment and a devoted zeal for everything which regards the glory of God, our own interests, and the good of our brethren.”

I had prayed so much to ask for some relief to my sick man that my visit passed off very well. I was alone, for fear of any misadventure. _Mr. Crossman_ consented to some reading, and his daughters answered to the recitation of the Rosary. This man is an enigma to me. I have sent him the doctor.

24th.――Instruction on discouragement, for which the remedies are mistrust of self and confidence in God. “Do you fear a creature?” said a saint. “Flee from him. Do you fear God? Throw yourself into his arms.” This evening, on the Sacrament of Penance――the dispositions that one ought to bring to it; the conduct requisite with regard to it: first, a great faith, a sincere humility, a spirit of reparation; secondly, to know how to pray and reflect, to speak, to listen, to be silent, to thank, and to remember. These sermons are essentially practical and such as one is glad to hear at least once in one’s life. The Père Meillier is truly a discerner of souls; he speaks of them with wonderful insight.

“Your sick man is half mad, madame!” At this agreeable announcement I hurried away to the poor man, who appeared to be touched by the constancy of my visits. I have been so happy as to get him to make his confession whilst he is still in possession of some gleams of intelligence. The mother is no longer able to leave her bed. The eldest child is sixteen years old; everything depends on her, and the dear soul loves God. My Kate will follow with pleasure the account of my week; besides, I talk confidentially to none but her. My mother never leaves Johanna, Gertrude is given to silence, Berthe is gone out; no news to-day of the exiles.

25th.――Thérèse, Marguerite, and Alix have given themselves up to me for the day. We have seen fifteen chapels; at dawn we accompanied the Blessed Sacrament to the poor family, where the two sick people received the Bread of the valiant and strong, the Bread of angels, the Bread of wayfarers, the Bread of the children of God. At three o’clock, sermon on the visit to the Blessed Sacrament. “To make this visit is a proof of faith, of understanding, and of affection.” This evening heard the magnificent singing of the _Stabat Mater_ and a sermon on the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

Letters from Brittany――the _Saint of the coast_: “I believe that my departure is near, and that you must not delay, dear friends, if you would give me the consolation of hearing those whom I love pray by my bedside!” My mother is much impressed. What is to be done? René says it is for Adrien to decide. “I think it is especially Georgina whom our saint asks for.” “It is so,” replied my mother. “René and Georgina shall go on Monday.” As every one approves of this, it will be so, I suppose. Death again!

Marcella writes――kind and pleasing details. And Picciola? O my God! thou who on this day didst give to us the greatest pledge of love, thou who hast loved us even to the end, hear my prayer! What a night is this, and fraught with what memories! At this hour was that discourse uttered at the Last Supper, and the Eucharistic Passover instituted, which will be our strength and consolation even to our last day!

26th.――“Very strange are often the destinies of men and the decrees of God. With some the thread of life snaps, even though it be woven of pure gold and shining silk; with others suffering and sorrow cannot succeed in breaking the dark thread which they pass through their cruel hands.” I read this after having heard the unfortunate wife of my sick man complain that she had been “forgotten by death.”

Twice made the Way of the Cross, was present at the Offices, heard three sermons: this morning on our Lord’s sufferings; at three o’clock on the Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross; this evening the Passion, our Saviour’s sufferings in his mind, his heart, and his body.

27th.――Meditation on contrition and satisfaction; conference on the love of God. O love! This is the subject above all others which dilates the soul, illuminates and fills it. Who will grant that I may love perfectly?

Marianne mentions a slight improvement in the general state of Picciola, who does not complain, allows herself to be taken care of, and is as much as ever like an angel. I am alone in the preparation of _surprises_, or, at least, in their purchase. Berthe and Gertrude have worked with me. I am impatient for Monday. Supposing _the saint_ should fly away without waiting for us!

28th.――_Alleluia_, dear sister! Oh! what a delicious awaking. The singing of the _Alleluia_ by René long before the dawn, then all the greetings after the Mass of Communion, and the joy of the little girls, and the delight of the good _abbé_, upon whom were showered _surprises_, and Johanna’s joy at seeing me do honor to the first _Alleluia_ of my godson! O the beautiful, beautiful day! And our poor, and Benoni, and High Mass followed by the Papal Benediction, Vespers, sermon: “He is risen!” “We find proofs of our Saviour’s resurrection in our faith and in our works.” Benediction ended about six o’clock.

Long and charming _gazette_ from Edouard. The doctor has fixed the return for the 3d of May. Thus they will be on their way home in a month. May God bring them back to us! Dearest, I am sending to the post; pray, pray, pray! Send us your good angel, and have a Mass said at Notre Dame des Victoires for our saint. It seems to me that I am going to be present at the death of a sister. How I should like you to have known her. René joins me in every line I am writing; my mother sends you her blessing. All, together and individually, send you their greetings. Christ is risen. _Alleluia!_

APRIL 3, 1869.

Dear Kate, she is here still, living, smiling, always amiable, always holy, notwithstanding her weakness. “I think that at your prayer God has renewed the miracle wrought by Elias for the widow of Sarepta; for the oil of my lamp must have been exhausted long ago.” We speak of God and of the poor, her two last affections. She has not left to the last moment the disposal of her goods. Her old castle goes to a distant relation who bears her name, her whole fortune goes to relieve the distressed, and she leaves to us her works of art――a curious and remarkable collection made by her father, and which it was not her wish should pass into the hands of the indifferent. O Kate! souls like hers should live always upon earth for its edification.

René is writing to you; I enclose also a letter from Marcella.

God guard you, dearest sister!

APRIL 5, 1869.

It was true, the oil of the lamp was exhausted. What a good life and what a holy death! “Open the windows, if you please. Oh! what harmonies. What a beautiful procession! What a splendid crown! Adieu, and thank you! Jesus! Heaven!” And this was all. It was yesterday.

The day before I entreated our saint to ask of God that he would leave us Picciola. “Will he do so? There was heaven in the look of that child on the day of her First Communion! Dear Georgina, love above all the good pleasure of God!” I write to you from the side of this bed converted into a chapel. The earthly covering is there. I have shed no tears; my soul is in a state of joy such as I never before experienced. The _saint_ had said to me: “If I am happy, I will cause you to feel it!” We have written to the relative and to the other friends. I shall not send this letter until the day after to-morrow.

_April 7._――All is over. The burial vault has received the coffin, the friends are gone away again, the relation, an eccentric personage, is preparing to do the same, and so also must we. I could have almost wished to remain again to meditate, in this chapel where our saint has so often prayed, on the latest teachings which escaped her dying lips. The relative authorizes us to take away the “gallery” whenever we like to do so; even adding, with a certain politeness, that we might look upon this dwelling as our own.

They are waiting for us at home, and I am wishing for news from Hyeres. Quick! we are going to retraverse our Brittany and return to our Penates.

Adieu for a little time, dear sister!

APRIL 12, 1869.

What haste we have had to make in order to be here at Orleans in time for the golden wedding of Pius IX.! Magnificent Mass at St. Pierre du Martroi. The interior of the ancient church disappeared beneath hangings of velvet; above the altar shone the triple-crowned tiara. The Abbé La Grange said the Mass and made a beautiful address: “Believe in the church, in her divine constitution, in her divine mission, in her splendid and incontestable immortality.” Admirable and elevating singing――the _Tu es Petrus_ and some fine strophes for the occasion; then High Mass at the cathedral, also richly adorned and resplendent, with a multitude of people. There again was heavenly singing――a remarkable _Sanctus_, and, after the Mass, the _Te Deum_, that immortal hymn of thanksgiving. Sermon, procession, benediction. At six o’clock we came out of Sainte-Croix. What a day! How I love these splendors of the divine worship, this harmony of souls, these hymns, the fragrant incense, all this grand and admirable _ensemble_ which Christianity alone can offer!

You may imagine the reception we met with on reaching home, and with what interest our account was listened to. The news is encouraging from all directions, I hope, I hope! When I think of the sadnesses of this world and all the bitternesses of life, I say with St. Stanislaus Kostka: “I am not born for present things, but future.” How much there is that is consoling in this thought!

My poor old _Crossman_ is suffering greatly, and his wife is at the point of death. Tell me, dear Kate, how is it that I see so many dead? Let us rather speak of life and its expansion; let us speak of Karl, whose kind and fraternal pages reached me this morning. How he longs for the priesthood! What a thirst he has for souls! Already in desire he springs on unknown shores, and even goes so far as to dream of martyrdom. O holy ecstasies of love! What joy it must be to conquer the infidel, and to receive these disinherited ones to the table of the Lord! “The love of one alone sheds itself upon all the beings who dwell by his side, ennobles them, and gives them understanding and strength――unrivalled and precious gifts which no other power in the world would have been able to bestow.”

The Abbé Baunard has written the _Life of the Apostle St. John_. A large heart, a lively faith, and great talents are needed in order to write the life of a saint; and as the author of whom I speak has all these, his work must be admirable. The introduction appeared in the _Annals_: “It is a book of piety. I address it to Christians and to priests――the priesthood has no higher personification than this apostle; to virgins――John was a virgin; to mothers――he merited to be given as a son to the Mother of God; to the young――he was the youngest of the disciples; to the aged――this is the appellation he gives himself in his Epistles; to contemplative souls――he was on Thabor; to those in affliction――he was on Calvary; to all who desire to love their brethren in God――charity can have no fairer ideal than the friend of Jesus.”

Good-night, dearest; my eyes are closing.

APRIL 18, 1869.

Dear Kate, a _requiem_! I have just been to pray by those two death-beds――for both are dead, piously and tranquilly; he asking my pardon for his fits of anger, and she praying for her children. I have promised to take charge of the latter; so behold me the mother of six children! René always approves. But we cannot abandon these dear young creatures to take their chance in this great town, and my mother advises that they should be sent into Brittany, where the Sisters will find them useful employment. I want your opinion, dear Kate; they belong in some measure to you also, since it is to your pious lessons that I owe my love for the blessing of the poor.

Gertrude yesterday showed me a letter from a friend asking prayers: “My Uncle Amédée is dead from an attack of apoplexy. It is fearful to say and to think of. Was his soul ready? O these unforeseen strokes of death! how terrible they are. Extreme Unction was all that could be given him. My aunt was in a pitiable state, throwing herself upon the corpse, speaking to it, … finding it impossible to realize that death had come between her and her happiness, and that he whom she so loved will answer her no more! I have a feeling of trust that at the last moment a ray of mercy and love may have illuminated his soul. No, it is not possible that our God, always good, always a Father, will not open his heaven to these poor fathers of earth who have given up to him the best part of themselves, the soul of their soul――the child who should close their eyes!”

This departed father gave to God his only daughter――entered, like Hélène, into Carmel. How necessary is faith under trials such as these! The young wife who wrote these lines is the intimate friend of Hélène, and it was her marriage that I mentioned to you two years ago. Can it be? Two years ago already!

Long drive with René into the country.

Dear sister, let us love God!

APRIL 26, 1869.

Adrien has lent me Rusbrock the admirable. Thanks for pointing it out to me, dear Kate. How beautiful is this loftiness! It is like a Sinai. I read a few lines, and then close my eyes and let my mind ruminate upon this teaching. Oh! how favored is France to possess writers so great. Alas! that so many of these should be on the side of evil, and that the readers should be so numerous of the myriads of impious works which fear not to display themselves in the light of day!

What do you say of the enthusiasm of Catholics for the Jubilee of the incomparable Pius IX.? Is it not of good augury for the Council? I am thirsting for Rome, but we shall not pass the winter there, as you hoped we should; my mother could not return thither without indescribable suffering. It was in the Catholic fatherland that René’s father felt the first approach of the illness which was prematurely to carry him off, and he died at Pisa. The violence of my mother’s grief was such as to make her friends despair of consoling her, or even of preserving her life. God calmed the anguish of this broken heart, but it would be imprudent to expose her to fresh emotion. She loves Italy, and listens when I speak of it, but she never speaks of it herself. This dear mother, so affectionate and so loved, yesterday made me a present of a delightful volume: _La Maison_ (“The House”), by M. de Ségur. It is poetry――charming, Christian poetry――which makes the tears come into one’s eyes. _The House_――a title full of promise!

“Quel ciel valut jamais le ciel qui nous vit naître?
Ce toit, ce nid chéri, ce paternel foyer,
Qu’on aima, tout petit, avant de rien connaître,
Et que jamais, au loin, rien ne fait oublier?”[187]

There are pages in this book which you would not be able to read without a certain emotion. It is the history of _Sabine_, a Nun of the Visitation. Adrien read us this exquisite little poem; my mother and I wept, Gertrude looked at the crucifix, and René at the portrait of Hélène. A poignant sorrow seemed to sigh in the voice of Adrien.

My godson is charming. The choice of his name is left to me. As he was born on the 19th of March, he has a right to the name of Joseph. I should very much like to call him Guy――a pretty Breton name. Say, Kate, if this would not be nice: Marie-Joseph-Anne-Adrien-Yves-Guy?

Adieu, beloved sister!

APRIL 30, 1869.

The exiles return to-morrow, dear Kate. What overpowering joy, and yet what dread! If this winter’s absence should not have cured our invalids! O my God! I give up my will to thee. I am just come in from Notre Dame des Miracles: I shall melt away in prayers. Thérèse smiles like the angels. Alix and Marguérite have bought flowers for their friends. A hundred times a day I enter Marcella’s room to see that nothing is wanting there. How worldly I am with my agitations!

Since you approve, my godson will be _Guy_. How beautiful the little angel is, and how I shall enjoy showing him to-morrow! My mother continues to spoil me. I have just discovered a mysterious parcel on my dressing-table; it contains the history of St. John and the life of Madame Elizabeth, by M. de Beauchesne. What a pleasant surprise!

Do you know Mgr. Dupanloup will make the panegyric? He is going to Domrémy, there to inspire himself with the memories of Joan of Arc. Several bishops will be present at the festival of the 8th of May. Nothing is said at present about our departure, but I am burning to see you, dear Kate.

My _six children_ will go with us into Brittany. I make them long and frequent visits.

Edouard’s latest _gazette_ quoted the following fragment from Alphonse Karr, which is easily to be explained by the frivolity of the times: “If a very beautiful dress were invented――a dress of fairy-like splendor, but which might only be worn in going to execution――there are women to be found who would quarrel with each other to wear this dress.” Do you believe this, dearest? Raoul declares it to be certain. Adrien and René have a better opinion of us.

Margaret wishes she were _farsighted_ enough to see as far as here――the dear, inquisitive one! She has been spending three days with Edith, and speaks to me warmly of my home――“Georgina’s house.” Ah! yes, home, home――the terrestrial Paradise, and, as a poet has said, “The urn into which the heart pours itself.”

_May 1._――It cost me something to end my letter before the arrival: they are here, dear Kate, all cured, as far as I can perceive. O the pleasure of expecting them! Then the cries of joy; the questions, crossing each other; the petulant Lucy bounding up the stairs to embrace my mother first of all; the emotion of Marcella on showing me her child well and, the doctor says, “out of danger,” and my tears on the brow of Picciola! How we had missed them!