Chapter XXVII (1)

A CHANGE OF SCENE. THE SISTERS.

Adelaide was wondrously desolate on her return home. Her noble mansion, rcplete with elegance, what was it worth to her now? The famed Pantheon, for which a splendid gallery had been built, she never entered. The thought of it seemed to sicken her. Company wearied her, solitude distracted her. Miss Fairfield, the daughter of a decayed noble family, who acted as humble companion to her grace, was quite at a loss. What could be the matter with the lady? The poor humble lady companion did her best, her efforts were altogether unheeded. The duchess remained for the most part plunged in a profound reverie.

Adelaide was reviewing the past; comparing characters; examining principles. She had not loved the duke, but none the less his death had proved a loss to her. Rich as she was, powerful as she was, she was neither so rich nor so powerful as she had been while he lived. But there was a bitterer feeling far than this. It was, that she had never been an object of love to him, or to any one. She had coveted honor, power, wealth. She had these; but there were times when she would have given them all for the consciousness of having been loved as Ellen had been. She was jealous of the affections now laid in the grave, and would ask herself whether, had she been the one whom the duke had seen first, had they met ere his affections were engrossed, would he have loved her as he had loved the injured one? "I had youth, beauty, and intellect," thought she; "why should he not have loved me as he did that orphan girl?" {766} Strange that these thoughts should come upon her now; but only now had she compelled herself to acknowledge the great depth of feeling as well as the power of intellect which the duke had possessed.

Until she had read the mystery of the "Passion" in Avrillon, she had not understood the profound heavings of a contrite heart, which she had "mocked at" when he lay dying. Her eyes were beginning to open now; the world to wear a new aspect, although as yet a cloudy mist hovered over her higher visions; for she understood not the yearning of her own heart.

She was in this softened mood when she received a letter from her father. Six months had elapsed since her mother's death, and Mr. Godfrey complained that he could not yet rouse Hester to become anything like her usual self. He had taken her to Yorkshire, but she no longer cared to interest herself in "progression;" she had been disgusted at some scenes of immorality, and had voted that intellectual improvement without the observance of the moral law was a failure. "In fact," said Mr. Godfrey, "she is absorbed in discovering a 'new principle,' and more than once I have found her on her knees, bathed in tears. What can this mean? Has she also been tampered with? I am uneasy: I am coming next week to pay you a visit, and shall bring her with me. Help me to rouse her from her melancholy, and above all to banish fanaticism, if it is that disease which has taken hold of her."

Adelaide was not altogether reconciled to Hester, in spite of Eugene's explanation; but the moment that she realized from this letter that a restraint was likely to be put upon her sister's freedom of thought, the images of her mother and Annie rose before her, and she determined to use such influence as she could to prevent "persecution." "It is but a mistaken method after all," pondered she, "persecution can only tend to engender obstinacy, and rouse the pride of our natures. If Hester has any tendency to Catholicity, it can only be combated by reason, by showing its absurdity. My father will have to bring out his learned friends, and we will have the arguments of both sides plainly propounded. It will be an excitement, if nothing else. What was it that disgusted Hester with her 'march of intellect' scheme? She is not fickle-minded naturally; there is something fermenting in her mind which must be worked out. I am curious to see the termination; and if Hester makes a friend of me, she shall have freedom to think, and freedom too to act according to her conscience. There shall be no more persecution in the family."

Ah! Adelaide, you have learnt a lesson then from sorrow; it was not thus the proud young duchess reasoned when at the zenith of her power.

Adelaide received her visitor most kindly, and soon made Hester feel at home, though there was a sedateness, almost a melancholy, about her, quite foreign to her previous deportment. Mr. Godfrey fidgeted concerning her in a manner quite unusual with him, and seemed to make it his principal occupation to provide her with interest and amusement.

One morning, to the surprise of the sisters, as they were sitting together Mr. Godfrey entered, accompanied by the rector and his lady. Adelaide had certainly done the indispensable before, in receiving and returning a formal call with these parties, but nothing like intimacy had existed. Adelaide was so rarely at church, that the reverend doctor and lady did not feel encouraged to push themselves into her society. However, Mr. Godfrey now insinuated that his youngest daughter had taken a religious turn, and that he hoped from the doctor's reputation for learning that he would be able to give that turn a right direction, since unfortunately some developments in his family in religions matters had not been satisfactory.

{767}

Dr. Lowell had looked somewhat askance on hearing this, as Mr. Godfrey's latitudinarian opinions and Eugene's Catholicity were both pretty well known, and had immediately enquired if Hester were a Catholic also. On receiving a decided negative he complied, though with some hesitation of manner. Controversy was not to the reverend gentleman's taste, and but that his wife offered to accompany him, and do her share of the talking, he would probably have backed out; but the lady possessing at once more earnestness of character and more confidence in her power of suasion than her husband, was anxious not to lose this opportunity of setting forth the value of Protestantism, and thus preserving Miss Hester Godfrey from following the pernicious examples set by Eugene and Lady Conway.

With these dispositions Dr. and Mrs. Lowell were ushered into the presence of the duchess and her sister, not altogether at ease at finding themselves in such aristocratic society. Adelaide received them with her usual quiet dignity, and turned the conversation to flowers, paintings, sculpture, literature, everything, in fact, save the topic which they came to discuss. At length, turning to Mr. Godfrey, she asked if he had introduced Dr. Lowell to the Pantheon.

"No, indeed," said Mr. Godfrey, laughing, "the doctor is more anxious about another subject just now; he is desirous of restoring his church, which has fallen out of repair."

"Indeed," said Adelaide, "then I must have the pleasure of assisting him," and she placed a well-filled purse before the doctor.

"Your grace is very good;" said the reverend gentleman. But Adelaide had risen to seek a volume of engravings on church architecture, which she placed in the lady's hand, telling her, as she presented it, that she presumed it would interest her, and might give her a hint or two to the style of embellishment suitable.

The doctor now took courage. "I am glad to see your grace so much interested in our church," he said. "I feared--" but here he stopped. Adelaide waited, perhaps a little maliciously, for the conclusion of the sentence. but it came not.

"May I ask what you fear, Dr. Lowell?" she said.

But as the answer did not seem quite ready, the lady of the reverend gentleman took up the word. "Your grace will pardon us," she said, "but as we have so seldom the pleasure of seeing you at church, the doctor feared that its reparation would not interest you so much as your kind acts now prove that it does."

Adelaide bowed, but replied simply by turning to an engraving. "I think it was in this style our church was originally built," she said; "do you propose to restore it in any way similar to the primitive idea?"

"I think not," said the doctor, "we only intend thoroughly to repair and cleanse it, unless, indeed, your grace desires your own pew altered."

"Oh! I will leave that matter to Miss Fairfield, she goes to church every Sunday, I believe, and I wish she should be made as comfortable as possible. If you will be kind enough to consult with her in this matter, I will agree to any arrangement she may make." And the duchess rang the bell; to request the attendance of the lady named.

"But," said the doctor, unwilling to lose the opportunity that seemed now to open, "I cannot believe that one so kind, so considerate, can be indifferent to matters of religion."

By this time Adelaide was amused, so she answered with a quiet smile: "It does not follow that one is indifferent to religion, because one does not consult the statute-book to find it. Great as is my reverence for English kings, queens, parliaments and prime-ministers, it is not to them I should go to learn religion."

{768}

The rector stared; his wife was equally confounded. The latter spoke first. "It is to church we were inviting you grace, to hear the word of God."

"The word of the preacher you mean, expounding what is termed the word of God, according to act of Parliament, and varying according as Henry VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, James, William, Anne, or the Georges have dictated. You must excuse me, Dr. Lowell, I am a loyal subject, and as such duly uphold church and state, and you will ever find me willing to assist your wishes; but to take my religion by act of parliament home to my heart, to regulate my private motives, and unite my being to God, is quite another affair. Ah! in good time, here comes Miss Fairfield. My dear Lucy," continued the duchess, "Dr. Lowell wishes the advantage of your good taste in rearranging his church; I give you _carte blanche_ to act in my name on the subject. I must also beg your kind offices in entertaining him and his lady this morning. They will like to visit the hot-houses, the conservatories, the gardens, perhaps, also the picture gallery and the hall of sculpture. Dr. Lowell, Mrs. Lowell, I hope at my return from my drive I shall still find you here; you will favor me with your company to dinner."

Adelaide swept from the room like a queen who had issued commands none dared to gainsay, carrying off Hester with her.

Mr. Godfrey accompanied the rector and his lady on their tour through the house, but neither he nor anyone of the parties made the slightest allusion to Adelaide's remarks respecting the state religion; nor was the subject ever broached by them in her presence again. The dinner passed off pleasantly enough, and in the evening the carriage of the duchess conveyed the married pair to their homes, they feeling themselves honored by the gracious reception which on the whole they had experienced.

Mr. Godfrey could not but perceive from this attempt that it would be useless for him to attempt giving any direction to a religious movement, should such be the subject that occupied his daughter's mind; though in truth she was habitually so silent now, it was difficult for him to discover what did interest her. Suddenly he took it into his head he would like to go to London, and he asked Adelaide if she would not open her town house, and, go too.

"Certainly, if you wish it, father. It might amuse Hester also, for as yet Hester has never gone through the campaign of a London season."

But on their arrival in town Hester did not seem in any way eager to launch forth into the great world of fashion; its frivolities disgusted her, some of the fashions shocked her, particularly the ball dresses of some of her young compeers. She could not reconcile her native modesty to do the like, and was soon voted a prude by the exclusives of _bon ton_. However, as she made no effort to shine, and had "no success" in attracting the attentions of the gentlemen, she was soon forgiven and most times overlooked.

But this latter fact she did not even perceive; she was living within herself for the most part just now, and looking for a principle when she took a glance outside. It was not perhaps at Mayfair, among the sons and daughters of dissipation, that she might expect to find it. The only thing that was remarkable about her was her propensity to take a walk before breakfast; this in London was unusual, and but that the duchess imperiously forbade her household to comment on the subject, and jealously contrived to conceal the matter from Mr. Godfrey, threatening dismissal to anyone who spoke to him about it, it would have been a never-ending topic of discussion. Hester was accompanied in these walks by her little maid, Norah, but Norah could never be brought to tell where they had been. "Sure 'twas sometimes this way and sometimes that, and how should she know the names of all those fine London streets?"

{769}

Mr. Godfrey was not often up on her return, so did not perceive that she had been absent. One day, however, when Hester came in later than usual, Adelaide met her in the hall, took her bonnet and clock from her, and whispered that Mr. Godfrey was already in the breakfast-room.

Hester entered; but she found Mr. Godfrey so busy unfolding the newspaper that he did not perceive her entrance. She passed behind him ere he was aware, and impressed a kiss on his forehead; it was her usual morning's greeting.

"Ha! Hester, so you're up at last. I have a letter on your account."

"A letter for me?"

"No! yet one that you must answer; the great philosopher of the day is smitten with the charms of the fair vestal; he asked me ere we left Yorkshire if her heart was free."

"And what did you answer him?"

"That I did not know, but would enquire; this letter is a sort of reproachful remonstrance for not having fulfilled my promise."

Hester smiled, and Adelaide enquired who the gentleman was.

"A man," said Hester, "who thinks we have evolved into human beings from worms or bats or lower creatures still. By-the-by, father, he never told us why so many lower creatures remain unevolved."

"You piece of mischief, be serious; what answer shall I give him?"

"That I don't like his pedigree: I am looking higher than worms for my forefathers."

"But seriously, Hester--"

"But seriously, father, he says the character of the ancestry often reappears in the posterity, even after the lapse of many generations; and as he may have had, a tiger, a hyena, or even a boa-constrictor in his genealogical tree, I do not feel well inclined to trust myself to his keeping."

"Is that the new philosophy?" said Adelaide; "the vicious propensities of so many of the race are then accounted for, they are but beasts of prey in tailor's clothes."

"And yourselves, ladies?" said Mr. Godfrey.

"Oh!" said Adelaide, hastily, "please do not put us into the same category, Hester and I are well content with the old story. We are daughters of men and women, created in the good old style; reigning over the brutes by special privilege, and claiming no sort of kindred with them whatever."

"And Mr. Spence, Hester--"

"Mr. Spence, father, must seek a mate among his kindred, I am of another order of beings."

"Is that your final answer?"

"It is."

"You will revoke it, Hester; I will tell him to come and plead for himself."

"It will be useless; I shall tell him as I tell you, that I do not like his pedigree."

"Is that your only objection?"

"It is sufficient for a lady to give one objection, I think, especially when that one is insuperable."

Mr. Godfrey seemed disappointed, but he made no reply: the entrance of Miss Fairfield to pour out the coffee summoned the party to the breakfast table.

Mr. Godfrey took up the newspaper, and sipped his coffee in silence; it was his habit to read in company when annoyed. Suddenly, however, he laid the paper down. "De Villeneuve dead," he said, "my first, my earliest friend!" He rose and went to the window, but shortly afterward he left the room, evidently overpowered with the sudden news. Adelaide took up the paper. "It is the father, the old marquis, and his eldest son, drowned on Lake--in a sudden squall of wind. Why, Hester, our old acquaintance now succeeds to the property and title."

"Was not the elder brother married?"

"The paper says not; or at least it says he was a widower and childless, and that the estates now devolve on the second, the youngest son, the one who was in England last year."

{770}

"Yes, and it says that he was about to start for England again when this event detained him, and that he is expected shortly; why, it is three months ago since the old marquis died."

"It's strange the news did not reach us before, but what business can our M. de Villeneuve have in England now?"

"There is some talk of his coming over to take the 'Poor Clares' back with him. He was Euphrasie's guardian, and I know he wished to get her and the community established in America. It was that wish that took him back, to see what arrangements could be effected."

"But will they go?"

"Nay, that I know nothing about; I suppose he talked with them on the matter ere he made his plans."

By this time the breakfast table was cleared, and the sisters were alone together, and Adelaide suddenly turned the conversation into another channel. "Hester," she said, "you must make me your friend; you know that you are pursuing a path of difficulty. You are my father's idol, have you thought what it will be to break his heart?"

"O Adelaide! forbear; I have thought of that, and the thought is nearly killing me, but I must on in spite of myself."

"It is true, then?"

"What is true?"

"That you go to mass every morning, and weep yourself to sleep every night, my poor, dear sister!"

"How did you discover this?"

"Your attendant showed your pillow to Lucy Fairfield, it was no longer fit to use; and Lucy followed you more than once, and saw you enter the Bavarian Ambassador's chapel in Warwick street."

"But she did not tell my father?"

"No, I have threatened with dismissal anyone who makes a remark on the subject; meantime tell me, are you a Catholic?"

"No! but I must see the end of this. Adelaide, out of Christianity there is no 'power;' and 'power' it is that we want to effect good. Science is taking the form of Atheism more and more. It represses rather than elevates. The masses are awakening to consciousness of possessing a right to intellectual culture under influences that will finally subject them even more to tyranny; for when man seeks only sensuous gratification by his science, he must eventually fall under the empire of the appetites, and then barbarism results. Is not this the history of all anterior civilization? Our modern rise has been the gradual growth of intellect evolved under the restraining influence of religion; and though men have very imperfectly submitted to these restraints, they have produced immense fruit among the masses. Even indirectly, the consciousness of the possession of soul, of immortal power, has elevated the ideal, and the laborer assumes a legitimate place in humanity. And woman, Adelaide, what is woman out of Christianity? What was she in Pagan Greece and Rome; what will she be, again if Christianity is abolished? I see but three phases for her. The Turkish harem, the Mormon polygamy, or that worse than either state, which consigns an immense number of our sex to debasement utter and desperate."

"There is too much truth in this. But, Hester, be cautious; I will not hinder you, rather will I help you, and study with you, but you are not yet a Catholic. I must then say again, be cautions: I dare not think on the result of my father's knowing your present study!"

"Indeed it has troubled me more than a little. O Adelaide! why should there be such a prejudice against any one form of religion?"

"I cannot answer that, still less can I tell why men of science should hate it so supremely; but it is so, and you know, dear Hester, that the shock of your conversion might occasion a terrible convulsion in my father. Let us proceed quietly, until the result is decided. Have you ever considered {771} what is the first step to take in the investigation of truth?"

"I am inclined to think the process must be a moral one, as well as an intellectual one. I heard a preacher say lately: 'Souls who would come to Christ, must first be gathered to the Baptist!'"

Adelaide hid her face in her hands, "There is a deep meaning in that," she said. "Hester, I too have my secret. Do you remember the Catholic priest whom I ordered to quit the house as soon as the duke was dead? His visage haunts me, he looked up from his prayers at my words, and his face seemed so full of pity, pity for me, that I half relented; but matters had gone too far. Well, I wrote to Eugene lately to inquire about him, and Eugene says he is at H---- on a mission, among the poor Irish laborers, and that young Henry, the duke's son, is with him. The mother too, the Ellen of the duke's romance, lives in the neighborhood. I have an intense desire to pay the place a visit; had you not come, I should have gone alone; now will you go with me?"

"Willingly; you are, then, in communication with Eugene?"

"Slightly; I dare not tell him all that is in my thoughts, lest I should raise false hopes. I have not faith, but I feel it would be a great gift."

"So great that it would be worth any sacrifice; but Catholics say it is a supernatural gift, and that it must come from God."

"And Eugene insists that the presence of sin blinds the soul; by obscuring the spiritual faculty, thus hindering the reception of faith."

"If so," said Hester, "we must do what we can to get clear of sin, even at the price of confession."

"It is therefor I intend to see the abbé, to make reparation. I will not voluntarily put an obstacle to the reception of God's gifts. If grace comes, it shall find me ready to receive it."

Hester looked at Adelaide in surprise. The haughty duchess had disappeared; another spirit so gentle looked from those eyes, that Hester could only throw herself into her sister's arms and weep.

TO BE CONTINUED

------

ORIGINAL.

ON THE CURE OF BARTIMEUS.

"Bartimeus, the blind man,
sat by the wayside begging.
And they say to him:
Be of better comfort:
arise, He calleth thee."

Out of the windows of my mind----
From my heart's idly open door,
My gaze the wide world wanders o'er,
And yet, alas! how blind, how blind!

My sight of things divine how dim!
Though there be not a single day
But Jesus passeth by the way;
All else I see, but blind to him.

Though rich, I seek the beggar's mite----
His beauty only do I prize;
And all is darkness to my eyes
Whilst he is hidden from my sight.

I hear a voice within my soul----
"Arise, of better comfort be,
And come: the Master calleth thee----
Thy faith shall also make thee whole."

-------- {772}

From the Dublin Review.

ORIGEN AT CAESAREA.

Origenis Libri contra Celsum (inter Opera omnia). Ed. Migne.1857.

In concluding our survey of the character and work of Origen, it will be useful to recall the leading dates in the chronology of his life to the date of his exodus from Alexandria. Born in or about 186, he became the head of the Catechetical school at the age of eighteen: About 211 he visited Rome. From that year till 231, he labored at Alexandria, with no other interruptions than short journeys into Arabia, to Caesarea, and into Greece. In 231 he left Alexandria never to return, and thenceforward the chief place of his residence was Caesarea of Palestine. In the fourth or fifth year of his sojourn there (235), Maximin's persecution compelled him to flee to Caesarea of Cappadocia. Returning to the other Caesarea in 238, he remained there for about eleven years, that is, until the commencement of the Decian persecution. During these years, however, he made another journey into Greece, and two more into Arabia. After the cessation of the persecution he lived a short time in Jerusalem, and thence removed to Tyre, where he died in 253, or 254, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. The chief divisions of his life after attaining manhood are therefore the following:

1. The twenty years (211-231) of his Alexandrian teaching.
2. The twenty years (231-251) of his life at Caesarea.
3. The three or four years from the end of the Decian persecution
(251) till his death (254.)

In our present essay we shall be concerned chiefly with the second of these periods. It was the time of Origen's most active and dignified labor. He was now not so much the teacher of disciples as the teacher of teachers and the doctor of the whole East. The church was, on the whole, at peace, her numbers were increasing, her organization developing, and her doctrines becoming daily more and more a subject of inquiry to intellects, friendly and hostile. We have before taken notice (Dublin Review, April, 1866, p. 401) how Caesarea was an important centre, political, literary, and religious; and here Origen spent the twenty years of which we now speak, in intercourse with such bishops as S. Alexander, S. Theoctistus, and Firmilian, in training such pupils as Gregory Thaumaturgus, in preaching such homilies as those on Isaiah, Ezechiel, and the Canticles, in writing such apologies as the Contra Celsum, and in carrying through such an enterprise as the Hexapla. It is to this period that we must refer the emphatic testimony of S. Vincent of Lerins. "It is impossible," says he, "to tell how Origen was loved, esteemed, and admired by every one. All that made any profession of piety hastened to him from the ends of the world. There was no Christian who did not respect him as a prophet, no philosopher who did not honor him as a master." The word piety ([Greek text]) is worth noticing, because something much more wide and broad was meant by it then than now; indeed, the original word would be better translated religion or religiousness. The term, prophet, is also worthy of being remarked; a prophet means one who is at once teacher of the most exalted class and an ascetic who has perfectly trampled this world under his feet. Finally, the philosophers looked to him as their {773} master, though he professed to teach no philosophy but Christianity, and quoted the Hebrew scriptures instead of Plato and Aristotle when men came to him with difficulties about the soul, the logos, and the creator.

In the present article, therefore, we shall be concerned with his Caesarean life; and as it is impossible to compress within moderate limits all that might be said of the literary productions of this exceedingly rich period of his labors, we shall confine ourselves chiefly to the consideration of the great work Contra Celsum. First, however, let us take a glance at the events of the twenty years, for they are not void of events which give us a notion of the man.

Since his principal charge at Caesarea was to preach the Word of God to the people, perhaps the largest part of his extant writings has come to consist of the homilies that he delivered in the discharge of this honorable duty. It was the bishop himself who, as a rule, preached in the church, and no priest was substituted whose learning and piety were not beyond all question. We have before quoted the strong words in which Eusebius has handed down the opinion of Origen held by S. Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea. On the Sunday, therefore, as we learn from himself, on festivals, and sometimes, it would seem, on Fridays or other week-days, he stood forth from among the clergy with all the weight of his bishop's mandate and of his own character, to interpret and comment on the Holy Scriptures. It would be interesting to be able to picture to ourselves that church at Caesarea in which the great light of the east spoke, Sunday after Sunday, to the mingled Greek and barbarian Christians of the capital of Palestine. It would probably be a building designed and founded for the purpose. Yet it cannot have been grand or sumptuous, or in any way resembling. a heathen temple, for Origen himself allows that the Christians had no "temples." 'What it was inside we can better guess. We know from Origen's own hints that there existed in it the usual distinctions of position for the various ranks of faithful and of clergy that are so well known from writers of a century later. We may therefore conclude that the chancel or altar part was clearly separated from the rest of the interior, and perhaps elevated above it; that the altar itself stood at some distance from the eastern wall, and that round the apsis behind it ran the [Greek text] or presbyters' bench. Here, in the centre, stood the chair of the bishop, and here he sat during the sacred liturgy in the midst of his priests, all in a semicircle of lofty seats. The deacons and inferior clergy occupied the rest of the sanctuary, which was separated by a railing from the nave. In the nave, immediately outside the rails, stood the _ambo_ or reading-desk, sometimes called the choir, for here clustered the singers and readers whose place it was to intone the less solemn parts of the liturgy. Hangings, more or less magnificent, according to circumstances, suspended above the rails, were closed during the canon of the mass; and shut out the holies from the sight of the people. Over the altar was the canopy, on four pillars, and upon the altar a linen cloth; and the chair of the bishop was usually covered with suitable drapery. When the bishop preached, he stood or sat forward, probably in front of the altar, but within the chancel-rails; it was a very unusual thing to preach from the _ambo_, though S. John Chrysostom is recorded to have done so in Sancta Sophia, in order to be better heard by the people. Origen, therefore, would preach from the sanctuary on the Lord's-day; bishop, priests, clergy, and people, in their places to hear him; the pontiff in his flat mitre with the _infulae_ of the high priesthood; the priests in the linen chasubles that came down and covered them on every side; the deacons and others in their various tunics and albs; the singers and readers with the diptychs and books of chant laid {774} ready open on the desk of the _ambo_; the faithful in the nave, men on one side and women on the other; the virgins and the widows in their seats apart; the various orders of penitents in the nave or in the narthex, and the band of listening catechumens in front of the "royal gates" (of the nave) that they hoped soon to be allowed to enter. His hearers would be of all degrees of fervor, and of many different ranks; they might include Greek philosophers and poor _vernae_ or house slaves, patricians of Roman burghs, and Syrian porters; doubtless the bulk of them were the poor and the lowly of Caesarea. He had to say a word to all, and he found means to say it, in the word of Holy Scripture. He had, by this time, dispensed himself from previously writing his discourses; and hence many of those that have come down to us are the shorthand reports that were taken down as he spoke, and afterward corrected by himself. The text or subject of the discourse was that portion of Scripture which had just been recited by the reader, or part of it; though sometimes we find that he had a text given him by the bishop or by the presbytery, and that occasionally he selected a particular subject at the desire of "some of the brethren." He held his own copy of the Scripture in his hand; for we find him comparing it with the version just used by the reader. His discourses were not set pieces of eloquence; they were true homilies, that is, familiar and easy addresses, almost seeming to have developed themselves out of an earlier style of dialogue between priest and people. They have all the abruptness, all the questionings and answerings, all the explanations of terms and sentences, and all the appreciation of difficulties that suggest rather the catechist with his class than the preacher with his auditory. We miss the poetry and fine fancy of Clement, but we gain in orderly and connected development. One is certainly tempted to think that more artistic and ornamental treatment might have been expected from the son of Leonides and the teacher of rhetoric. But Origen tells us more than once that he studiously avoids worldly and profane eloquence. His reason seems not far to seek. Rhetoric was the main profession of the pagan teachers that abounded in every town of the empire; and S. Augustin's expression, that rhetoric meant the art of telling lies, was not exaggerated. Rhetoric in those days did not mean the sound and immortal precepts of Aristotle, but the vain heaping together of empty words. It was the necessity of protesting against this that has undoubtedly given much of their ruggedness to the homilies of Origen. His watchword was, edification; his rule and law, as he expressly says, was, not completeness of exposition, not parade of words, but the benefit of those who listened. Because he was a speaker, he rejected tedious and minute disquisitions, which were more suitable for "the leisure of a writer." Because he was a speaker of the truth, he avoided, even to austerity, the imitation of profane and perverted art. He was rich in matter, and poured forth a stream of doctrine, of exhortation, of reproof. His name and character did the rest. A word from Origen had more weight than a treatise from an unknown mouth. We have no record of how his audience took his discourses, save what is implied in the general testimony to his prodigious reputation. But, on the other hand, he presents us with a few facts about his audience. We learn that some were readier to look after the adorning of the church than the beautifying of their own souls. It appears that it was difficult to get an audience together on common week-days, and that they were somewhat remiss in assembling even on festivals, though he speaks of a few as "constant attendants" on the preaching. Those who did come to church, too often came not so much to hear God's word, as because it was a festival, and because it was pleasant to have a holiday. And {775} some escaped the sermon altogether by going out immediately after the reading: "Why do you complain of not knowing this and not knowing that," he says, "when you never wait for the conference, and never interrogate your priests?" Moreover, many who were present at the discourse in body, were far away in spirit, for "they sat apart in the corners of the Lord's house and occupied themselves with profane confabulation." He did not preach to an immaculate audience: there were many who were Christians in name, Pagans in life; many who turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves; many who preferred the agora, the law courts, the farm, before the church; and many who could provide pedagogues, masters, books, money, and time, that their children might learn the liberal arts, but who failed to see that something of the same diligence and sacrifice was necessary on their own parts if they wished to become true disciples of the word of God. But from all this it would be wrong to infer that Origen's hearers were worse than others in their circumstances. Doubtless they listened with reverence both to his teaching and to his rebukes. Perhaps even they applauded him by acclamation; such a thing was not unknown a century or so later. It would be little to Origen's taste to have his audience waving their garments and rocking their bodies in ecstasy or calling out "orthodox!" as they did to S. Cyril, of Alexandria, or "Thou art the thirteenth apostle!" as the excitable Constantinopolitans did to S. Chrysostom; like S. Jerome, he preferred "to excite the grief of the people rather than their applause, and his commendation was their tears." S. Vincent, of Lerins, two centuries after Origen's preaching at Caesarea, speaks of the way in which his "eloquence" affected himself. If his audience were as well satisfied, they must have listened to him with great pleasure and profit. "His discourse," says S. Vincent, in the Commonitorium, "was pleasant to the fancy, sweet as milk, to the taste; it seems to me that there issued from his mouth honey rather than words. Nothing so hard to believe, but his powers of controversy made it plain; nothing so difficult to practise, but his persuasiveness rendered it easy. Tell me not that he did nothing but argue, There has never been a teacher who has used so many examples out of the Holy Writ." The homilies of Origen did not pass away with the voice that delivered them. Till he was sixty years old he had generally written them out beforehand. After that time the shorthand writers beside him caught every word as it fell, and so the discourses became a treasury for ever. Fortune and time have indeed destroyed far the greater part of the "thousand and more tractates" which S. Jerome says he delivered in the church, and of what remain some only exist in abbreviated Latin translations. But though their letter is diminished, their spirit pervades the whole field of patristic exposition, and many of the greatest of the Greek and Latin fathers have not hesitated over and over again to use at length the exact words of Origen. And so the sentences first uttered in the church of Caesarea have become the public property of the church universal, and while Caesarea is a ruin and its library scattered to dust, the living word and spirit of him who spoke there, speaks still in cities far greater, and to auditories far more wide; for every pulpit utters his thoughts, and Christian people, though they may not know it, are everywhere "edified" by that which was first the offspring of' his intellect.

Origen had been laboring at Caesarea for barely four years when one of those interruptions occurred that he had already become familiar with at Alexandria. The Emperor Maximin (235), a barbarian giant, whose unchecked propensities for cruelty and blood seem to have driven him absolutely mad before the end of his three years' reign, followed up the murder of his {776} benefactor Alexander Severus by a series of horrors, in which were involved both pagans and Christians alike. Any man of name, character, or wealth, in any part of the world that could be reached by a Roman cohort, was liable to confiscation, torture, and death in order to appease his frantic suspicions. Caesarea was an important Roman post, and as no one in Caesarea was better known than the head of the Christian school, we soon find that Origen is marked out for a victim. He escaped, however, by a prompt flight, and reached the other Caesarea, of Cappadocia, the see of his friend Firmilian. He had no sooner arrived there than the capricious persecution fell upon the city of his refuge, under the auspices of Serenianus the governor, "a dire and bitter persecutor," as he is called by Firmilian. In these straits he managed to lie hid for two years in the house of a lady called Juliana--a house, indeed, to which he was attracted by other considerations beside that of safety; for this lady was the heiress of the whole library of Symmachus the Ebionite, one of those learned translators of the Hebrew Scriptures whom Origen incorporated in the Hexapla. He himself mentions with great satisfaction the advantages which his biblical labors derived from the opportunities he enjoyed in his Cappadocian retirement. We are also indebted to this period for two, not the least interesting, of his works. Maximin's informers seem to have contrived to implicate the good Christian Ambrose in some trouble. That Ambrose was a man of wealth we have seen, and he was undoubtedly, also, in some considerable charge or employment which necessitated his journeying frequently from one Roman city to another. Whether this persecution caught him at Alexandria or Caesarea, or elsewhere, is uncertain; but he had received notice of his danger and was preparing to place himself in security when the insurrection of the Gordians broke out in Syria and Asia, and in the confusion and trouble that ensued he became the prisoner of Maximin's troops, and was immediately sent, or destined to be sent, to Germany, where the emperor had just concluded a triumphant campaign. The news of the danger of his zealous friend and patron drew from Origen the letter that we know now as the Exhortatio ad Martyrium. It was accompanied by another, the De Oratione, which he had perhaps already composed. These two works, into an examination of which we cannot enter, show more of the interior spirit of their writer than anything else that has reached us. When a history of the early methods of prayer comes to be written, the treatise on prayer will have to be thoroughly examined. The Exhortation to Martyrdom is full of the true Adamantine vehemence and piety. Though addressed to Ambrose, it is really, and would be accepted as a general call to the Church of Palestine to stand fast and do manfully in the dangerous times on which they had fallen. The name of Protectetus, a priest of Caesarea, which is associated with that of Ambrose in the dedication, as he was also in danger of death, felicitously localizes it, and we may look upon it as a homily, delivered in writing and from a distance, and on a new and stirring subject, to that church which he had been accustomed to edify with his words during the three or four years preceding. We unwillingly omit to enter upon it at large. At Maximin's death (238) he returned to his own Caesarea. After this, his literary enterprises, completed and undertaken, come thick and frequent. Among other works we meet with the commentaries on Ezechiel and Isaiah, on S. Matthew and S. Luke, on Daniel and the twelve minor prophets, and on several of the epistles of S. Paul. It is to this time also that belongs the celebrated exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, of which S. Jerome has said, that whereas in his other works he surpassed all other men, so in this he surpassed himself. But little of the original has come down to us, and the translation {777} of Rufinus is too free and abridged to enable us to understand how this high praise was deserved.

About the same period he made a second journey into Greece. What occasion brought him to Athens we are not informed. We find, however, that he thought very highly of the Athenian Church. In his reply to Celsus, speaking of the influence and weight that Christians were everywhere acquiring, he instances the Church at Athens, and boasts that the assembly of the Athenian people was only a tumultuous mob in comparison with the congregation of the Athenian Christians. Since Athens was even then the central light of the whole world, we may perhaps conclude that Origen's journey thither was caused by some phase of the conflict between Philosophy and the Gospel with which he had been all his life so familiar. On his return to Caesarea he wrote the answer to Celsus, with which we shall concern ourselves presently. It was written during the reign of Philip the Arabian. We are told by Eusebius that Origen wrote a letter to this emperor. What this letter can have been about is somewhat of a puzzle in history. Eusebius, to be sure, a couple of chapters before he mentions the letter, relates a story, rather coldly, about Philip's coming to the church (at Antioch) one Easter time as a Christian, and his seating himself among the penitents when the bishop (S. Babylas) refused to admit him on any other terms. S. Babylas might well reject him and place him among the penitents, for his career, which commenced, as that of most of the Roman emperors, with the murder of his predecessor, the young Gordian, had been anything but innocent. Certain it is, however, that the story was current of Philip's being a Christian. Even if he were not, which seems the more probable, there is no improbability that he may have questioned such a man as Origen about Christianity. It must be recollected, moreover, that this Emperor Philip was by birth an Arabian, being a native of Bostra. He was the son of a robber-chief, and we are first introduced to him as taking an important part in the campaign of Gordian in which the Persians were driven out of Mesopotamia. The important Roman city of Bostra, though not within the boundaries of Arabia, was sufficiently near them to be considered the metropolis of the upper part of Arabia, as Petra was of the middle. Philip, therefore, was evidently nothing more than a powerful Bedouin Sheik, such as may be seen at this very day in the countries of which he was a native, and had succeeded his father in the possession of wide influence over the predatory tribes that ranged over all Palestine, Syria, and Arabia, except the actual spots occupied by a Roman military force. His character is significantly illustrated by the incident that raised him to the purple. When Gordian's army was in Mesopotamia, his dangerous captain of Free Lances took care to have the whole of the commissariat supplies intercepted, and thus caused the mutiny which, terminated in Gordian's death. Such a feat was easy and natural to a chief whose wild horsemen commanded every part of the great Syrian desert that lay between Mesopotamia and the Roman stations off the Mediterranean coast. But what is more to our purpose is, that Origen was frequently at Bostra, and was there at the very time of Gordian's campaign and Philip's accession. Bearing in mind the extent to which the name of Origen was known among the pagan men of letters, as well as among the Christian churches, it seems impossible but that Philip must have heard him mentioned. Only let us grant that the emperor had a leaning to Christianity, even though in no better spirit than that of an eclectic, and the occasion of Origen's letter becomes clear. The mention of the Syrian desert reminds us of another celebrated name. Palmyra, or Tadmor of the Wilderness, was, at the time of which we write, almost in the zenith of her beauty, though it was not till {778} twenty years afterward that her splendor culminated and collapsed under Zenobia and Longinus. Origen knew the great philosopher, who had been his auditor at Alexandria, and whom he had most probably met again at Athens. It is quite possible that Longinus may have become the guest of Zenobia before Origen left Caesarea for the last time, and, therefore, during the time he was so familiar with the Arabian Church. We know that he had more than a mere acquaintance with the author of the Treatise on the Sublime, and, perhaps, there were no two minds of the age more fitted to grapple with each other. Of their mutual influence we have no certain traces, but it may be noted that amongst the lost works of Longinus there is a treatise, [Greek text]. Can it have had any relation to that of Origen under the same name?

It was at Caesarea, between the years 243 and the breaking out of the Decian persecution in 249, that was written the famous Contra Celsum. It is justly considered the masterpiece of its author. Ostensibly an answer to the gainsayings of a heathen philosopher, it really takes up, with the calmest scientific precision, the position that Christianity is so true and hangs together with such completeness of moral beauty, that the barkings of Gentile learning cannot confute it, nor the violence of Gentile hatred stop its inevitable march. With no rhetorical passion, with profound learning, with a knowledge of Holy Scripture truly worthy of Adamantins, with frequent passages of noble and profound eloquence, the Christian doctor builds up the monument of the faith he loved and taught; and the work that has come down to us through all those ages since it was written, has been recognized for fifteen hundred years as one of those great, complete, finished productions that are only given to the world by the pen of a genius. Eusebius, his biographer, speaks of it as containing the refutation of all that has been asserted, and, "by pre-occupation," of all that could ever be asserted on certain vital matters of controversy. S. Basil and S. Gregory Nazianzen strung together a series of favorite passages mainly from it and called their work Philocalia, "love for the beautiful." S. Jerome, whose praise cannot be suspected of partiality, puts him by the side of two other great apologists his successors, and exclaims that to read them makes him think himself the merest tyro, and shrivels up all his learning to a sort of a dreamy remembrance of what he was taught as a boy. Bishop Bull takes the Contra Celsum as the touchstone of Origen's dogmatic teaching; "he meant it for the public," he says, "he wrote it thoughtfully and of set purpose, and he wrote it when he was more than sixty years of age, full of knowledge and experience."