Chapter III (4)

This is a volume containing, within a small compass, and in a popular style, suited to the generality of readers, a history of the temporal power of the popes, by an author well acquainted with his subject. The translator has done a service to the public, in giving them the chance of reading it in English. Just at present it is quite appropriate as an offset to the ignorant and silly abuse of the papal sovereignty with which the public ears are filled. We recommend it to all our readers who wish to get some solid information on this subject. We must repeat, once more, in regard to this volume, a criticism we have to make too often, that its generally neat appearance is marred by many typographical errors. Cannot our Catholic publishers wake up to the importance of correcting their proofs properly?

----

Selections From Pope, Dryden, And Various Other Catholic Poets,
who preceded the Nineteenth Century: with biographical and
literary notices of those and other British Catholic Poets of
their class, comprising a brief history of British Catholic
Poetry, from an early period. Designed not only for general
use, but also as a text-book or reader, and a prize-book for
the higher classes in Catholic educational institutions.
By George Hill, author of the "Ruins of Athens," "Titania's
Banquet," and other poems.
Examined and approved by competent Catholic authority.
New York. 1867.

Mr. Hill expresses so succinctly in this old-fashioned title-page the real character and aim of his useful compilation that he leaves us, in fact, nothing further to say than that he has made his title good.

----

The Life Of St. Francis Of Assist,
and a sketch of the Franciscan Order.
By a Religious of the Order of Poor Clares,
(in England.) With emendations
and additions, by Very Rev.
Pamfilo da Magliani, O.S.F., (Superior
of one of the branches of the
Franciscan Order in the U. S.)
New York: P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street. 1867.

Many beautiful lives of the Saints have been written in England within the last few years. This one deserves to be classed among them, and is, on the whole, the best history of the romantic and poetic life of St. Francis we have ever read. The sketches of the history of the Order, especially those relating to missions in heathen countries, and the short biographies of distinguished Franciscans, are of great value. The Life of St. Francis has a charm entirely its own, which never wears out, and his pious daughter has narrated it well. Such a book cannot be too warmly recommended in this age of avarice, worldliness, and luxury. We wish, however, that the proofs had been more carefully corrected.

----

{719}

Claudia.
By Amanda M. Douglas,
author of "In Trust," "Stephen Dane," etc.
Boston: Lee & Shepard.

In this novel, the characters are strongly drawn, the incidents varied and striking, the dialogue well sustained, but the general effect somewhat marred by a vein of moralizing, which, in light literature, unless of absolute necessity and of a high order, always degenerates into prosiness, causing in that vast majority of readers who seek amusement only, weariness, if not disgust.

----

The Queens Of American Society.
By Mrs. Ellet, author of "The Women
of the American Revolution," etc.
New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

This volume is a signal illustration of one of the prevailing passions of the nineteenth century; a craving which brushes the bloom from the lives of our lovely young girls, and makes our charming matrons _common_; a passion for notoriety; a morbid desire to peep into other people's windows, or engage them in the improving occupation of looking into ours. Here we have the _entrée_ not only into the _minutiae_ of the drawing-rooms of these _queens_, but into their bedchambers, and stand beside their toilet-tables, and descend into their kitchens; in short, there is no part of the houses of these ladies living and moving in our midst, unransacked by the gossiping pen, save the _nurseries_, and we are left to doubt if these sumptuous homes contain such old-fashioned apartments. But the gossiping spirit of this book is not the only exceptionable feature; it is extremely snobbish. To have descended from the nobility, to have a thick volume of genealogy to fall back upon, (by the way, we may all have even a more ample chronicle than is here given us of these noble scions, if we will look at the records of the garden of Eden for our pedigree,) to be decked in velvets, point-lace, and diamonds, to have given "select dinners," or "lavish and gorgeous suppers," seems to be the most apparent end and aim of the majority of these living "queens." A sprinkling of pietism and charitable deeds is interpolated through the volume, apparently to give an "odor of sanctity" to the otherwise sensuous details. A catechism for the use of the rising generation of queens might be compiled from the pages before us. Here are two or three questions and answers taken at random from the proposed text-book:

"Q. What is the chief end of one aspiring
to be a queen in American society?

"A. To be clothed in purple and fine
linen, and to fare sumptuously every day.

"Q. How many gods are there in the 'best society'?

"A. Three.

"Q. Which are they?

"A. Genealogy, gold, and good eating.

"Q. What directions are given for dress?

"A. Whose adorning let it be the outward adorning, wearing
of gold and pearls, and putting on of apparel."

Other questions and answers will readily suggest themselves.

----

The Comedy Of Convocation, in the
English Church. In two scenes.
Edited by Archdeacon Chasuble, D.D.
New York: Catholic Publication Society.

This unique work, of which a notice appeared in the last issue of _The Catholic World_, is without doubt one of the most remarkable satires ever penned. The thorough knowledge it displays of the Anglican establishment, its incisive argumentation, the purity of its style, and its irresistible humor have never been surpassed in any essay of its kind.

{720}

These characteristics have led many critics in England and in this country to attribute its authorship to Dr. Newman; but while we think it in every respect worthy of that great writer, we feel disposed, from a more careful study of it, to believe that it has not emanated from his mind, while at the same time we are obliged to confess that we know of no other man in England who wields such a mighty pen. It has given the Anglican Church an herculean blow, and we cannot see how an honest member of the English Church or of its sister denomination, the "Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States," can rise from its perusal without an utter loss of confidence in the discordant, illogical, and unauthoritative system to which they have hitherto given their adherence. The baseless fabric crumbles at the touch of this literary giant, and sinks to a level where it can hardly elicit the admiration of its most zealous partisans.

----

Sadlier's Catholic Directory, Almanac, And Ordo For The Year Of
Our Lord 1868: with a full report of the various Dioceses in
the United States and British North America, and a list of the
Archbishops, Bishops, and Priests in Ireland.
New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.,
31 Barclay street. 1868.

The Catholic Almanac for this year makes its appearance a little earlier than it has for some years past. From a cursory glance at its contents, we think it is more correct in its details than some of its predecessors. It is gotten up with an eye to the strictest kind of economy.

----

We have received from THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE, where they are for sale, the following new works just published in England:

_The Monks of the West_, by Count Montalembert,
Vols. IV and V.

_Saint Louis, King of France_. The curious and
characteristic life of this monarch,
by De Joinville, translated from the French.

_The Story of Chevalier Bayard_, from the French
of the loyal servant, M. de Berville and
others.

_The Life of Las Casas_,
by Arthur Helps.

_Learned Women and Studious Women_,
by Bishop Dupanloup.

_Cradle Lands: Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land_.
By the Right Hon. Lady Herbert of Lea, illustrated.

_The Round Towers of Ancient Ireland_, by Marcus Keane.

_The History of Irish Periodical Literature_, from the end
of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth
century: its Origin, Progress, and Results.
By Richard Robert Madden.
2 vols. 8vo.

----

Seek And Find; Or, The Adventures Of A Smart Boy.
By Oliver Optic.

Tommy Hickup; Or, A Pair Of Black Eyes.
By Rosa Abbott.
Boston: Lee & Shepard.

Two handsome volumes of pleasantly told though rather marvellous adventure.

----

Books Received.

From Leypoldt & Holt, New York:

Nathan the Wise.
A dramatic poem, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.
Translated by Ellen Frothingham, preceded by a brief account of
the poet and his works, and followed by an essay on the poem by
Kuno Fischer.

La Littérature Française contemporaire,
recueil en prose et en vers de morceaux empruntés, aux
écrivains les plus renommés du XIXe Siècle.

Histoire d'une Bouchée de Pain:
L'Homme, par Jean Macé. With a French and English vocabulary,
and a list of idiomatic expressions. A Manual of Anglo-Saxon
for Beginners; comprising a grammar, reader, and glossary, with
explanatory notes.
By Samuel M. Shute, Professor in Columbian
College, Washington, D. C.

Condensed French Instruction, consisting of
grammar and exercises, with cross references.
By C. J. Delille.

From Harper & Brothers, New York:

Lives of the Queens of England, from the Norman Conquest.
By Agnes Strickland, author of Lives of the
Queens of England. Abridged by the Author.
Revised and edited by Caroline G. Parker.

Manual of Physical Exercises.
By William Wood, Instructor in Physical Education.
With one hundred and twenty-five illustrations.

Home Fairy Tales. By Jean Macé.
Translated by Mary L. Booth, with engravings.

Folks and Fairies.
Stories for Little Children.
By Lucy Randall Comfort.
With engravings.

French's First Lessons in Numbers.
French's Elementary Arithmetic.
By John H. French, LL.D.

The Lover's Dictionary.
A Poetical Treasury of Lover's Thoughts, Fancies, Addresses,
and Dilemmas, indexed with nearly ten thousand references, and
a Dictionary of Compliments, and a Dictionary of the study of
the Tender Passion.

--------

{721}

The Catholic World.

Vol. VI., No. 36. March, 1868.

----

Canada Thistles.

The accident of a heavy snowstorm detained me, a little while ago, at the house of a friend in the country. It was certainly a pleasant place to be cast away in. My friend was a gentleman-farmer, who united a strong taste for rustic pursuits with an equally strong as well as an intelligent fondness for literature and art. In the matter of books and pictures, philosophy and religion, we were in sympathy with each other; but when he came to milch cows and turnips, my city education got the better of me. I could neither understand his conversation nor appreciate his enthusiasm. It was agreed, therefore, that as soon as he put on his long boots and set out for the barnyard, I should retire into his cheerful library, where a blazing fire of hickory-logs, shelves well stored with all that is best in literature, and a great green-covered table, on which papers, reviews, and magazines were piled in pleasant confusion, kept me in excellent spirits while he was attending to the daily duties of the farm. How I enjoyed those idle hours! Throwing myself back in a wide arm-chair, I passed the winter mornings skimming over the pages of my favorite authors, half reading them and half dreaming; and when my friend returned from his rounds, and stretched himself in another chair on the opposite side of the fire-place, we used to chat over the various subjects that had occupied my mind since breakfast. After dinner, we usually went back to the library with our cigars. The evening we always spent with the rest of the family in the parlor.

My friend read a great deal, and was also something of an author. He contributed essays on agricultural subjects to one or two magazines. He had even published a book or so in the course of his life; and he still amused himself by penning literary criticisms, for a periodical printed in New York. I was not surprised, therefore, to find his table burdened with a good many volumes, newspapers, and pamphlets, which I knew he would never have been at the trouble of ordering.

"Yes," said he, when I made a remark about the worthless character of some of these publications; "there is trash enough here to make a man melancholy. {722} People send me these things for their own purposes, and I read them sometimes for mine. I should be tempted to be sorry for the invention of printing, only if we lost the bane, we should lose the antidote with it. Besides, I have little faith in the negative sort of virtue which is founded on ignorance. We ought to grow wiser, day by day, with the number of our teachers; but what I see here often makes me doubt it. You will find that mankind have the same propensity to use calumny instead of argument that they had two or three hundred years ago. In matters of religion and history, I believe that lies are very much like Canada thistles: let them once take root, and it is next to impossible to get the field clear of them. You may cut them all down to-day, and to-morrow their ugly heads will be as high as ever. Now, here," he continued, picking up a handful of pamphlets and newspapers, "is a crop of Canada thistles. These are all philippics against the Catholic Church. I suppose their authors call them polemical publications; but there is not an argument in one of them. They are nothing whatever but slanders which have been demolished a hundred times; and yet here they are, as bold as ever. It is consoling to be told, as we often are, that 'Truth crushed to earth will rise again;' but if a lie crushed to earth has not an incorrigible habit of rising again, then I am no reader of current literature. You and I may go out into the field of theological controversy, and, being well armed and on the right side, we may cut down every one of the calumnies which are marshalled against the church; but we know that they will jump right up again as soon as our backs are turned, and swear that they never went down. It is rather discouraging to fight against a man who doesn't know when he is dead. To answer these things now, that I hold in my hand, would be like running around the battle-field in chase of a rabble of lively corpses."

"Well," said I, "you are partly right and partly wrong. We have got to cut away at the Canada thistles, as you call them, whether we root them out or not; if we don't, they will stifle the grain. Besides, your lively corpses cannot run for ever. You may galvanize a dead body into spasmodic activity, but you cannot bring it to life again; and I believe that, every time a lie is exposed, there is good done to somebody, though the exposure may have been made a hundred times before. Take the old fiction of a female pope; one of the most preposterous of anti-Catholic calumnies, and one of the easiest to demolish, because the admitted facts of history were so plain against it. That was an incredibly long time dying; but it is dead at last--so dead that even Mr. Murphy, of Birmingham, probably does not believe it. Well, that lie would never have been laid on the shelf if Catholics had not hammered away at it until they forced their enemies to listen to them. Take the St. Bartholomew massacre--"

"I don't know about that," interrupted my friend; "there is a good deal of vitality in that thistle yet. Two things have been proved, and are now admitted by the most candid Protestant historians--that the massacre was the crime of a political, not a religious, party, and that the number of the slain has been frightfully exaggerated. The old story used to be that 100,000 fell, and Lingard has shown that the number, in all probability, did not exceed 1500. {723} Notwithstanding this, I have a volume here, called _Willson's Outlines of History_, which, I learn, is used as a text-book in the College of the City of New York, and which represents the massacre as a rising of the 'Catholics of Paris' against their Huguenot brethren, declares that it lasted in the capital 'eight days and eight nights without any apparent diminution of the fury of the murderers,' and estimates the number of the victims at 50,000. Then the writer goes on to say that the pope caused medals to be struck in commemoration of the auspicious event, and returned public thanks to heaven. A student would never suspect from this that the assassins were not the Catholic inhabitants, but the hirelings of the queen mother. Besides, the massacre lasted, not eight days and nights, but three days and two nights. This fact is of more importance than at first appears. If the slaughter had lasted so long, and so many persons had been killed, it could hardly have been the work of a band of cutthroats; but if we remember that, as all reputable historians admit, it was over on the third day, and that the number of victims, according to Froude, who is the latest Protestant authority, certainly did not exceed 2000 in Paris, and 10,000 in all France, or, according to Lingard, 1500 in the whole kingdom, it is evident that it _could not_ have been shared in by the Catholic inhabitants."

"Froude, you say, puts the number at 10,000?"

"Yes, and admits that the French Catholics cried out with horror at the outrage. Yet Froude is a most unwilling witness in our favor. His bias, as you know, is all the other way. The Calvinistic author of the martyrology of the Huguenots, published only ten years after the massacre, made careful search, and was able to find the names of only 786 persons who perished. Froude's estimate is too high, and Willson's is altogether preposterous. Then about that medal and the _Te Deum_ at Rome; everybody knows that, as soon as the horrible deed was over, the first care of the French king was to justify himself at the other European courts by false accounts of what had taken place. His ambassador informed the pope that his majesty had discovered a Huguenot conspiracy against his life and throne, and had overcome it by promptly executing the criminals. It was in the belief of this lie that the pope caused public thanks to be given for the king's victory. This is a fact as well established as any other of the 16th century. Yet Mr. Willson, and men like him, choose to go on quietly disregarding it. I think it simply a sin that anybody so grossly ignorant or so shamefully perverse should be allowed to deceive the young with what they presume to call 'history.'"

"How does Froude stand in this matter of the rejoicings at Rome?"

"Froude has too melodramatic a mind, if I may use the expression, to be a good historian. He has a dangerous gift of sarcasm and invective, and a fatal knack of putting things together so as to make an effective situation. If an inconvenient truth pops up to mar the scene, he quietly knocks it on the head, and arranges the stage to suit himself. For instance, he wants to paint the duplicity of Charles, so he mentions his lying bulletins to the pope and the other sovereigns; but he also wants to impress us with the heartless bigotry of the pontiff; so, after showing on one page that the pope could not know the truth, he coolly assumes on the next that he did know it."

"I think the best account of the massacre I ever read in a Protestant publication is that in _The New American Cyclopaedia_. Not a perfect book, of course, but upon the whole, very honest."

{724}

"Yes, if you want to get a plain statement of facts, without party coloring, you must go to some work in which many heads and hands have worked together. You know an ordinary refracting telescope of the old sort shows distant objects, not as they really are, but tinged with prismatic colors, because no one lens has the power of transmitting all rays with equal impartiality; but by a combination of lenses we get at the exact truth; one corrects another. So, if you want a thoroughly impartial, achromatic account of anything, let a number of men work at it together For this reason, a good cyclopaedia is better than a volume of history; it is perfectly cold-blooded."

"Our friend Willson," I said, turning over the leaves as I spoke, "is certainly a telescope of the old sort. His book is as gay with prismatic colors as a parlor candelabrum. See here: 'The doctrine of infallibility means _the pope's entire exemption from liability to err;_' 'Indulgences are billets of salvation, professing to remit the punishment due to sins even before the commission of the contemplated crime.' Mr. Willson knows that neither of these definitions is correct."

"No, I don't believe he does. Remember what we said just now about thistles. To you and to me these statements seem--I don't know whether to say ludicrous or shocking. We know, as well as we know the alphabet, that while the church cannot err in defining dogmas, the pope, as a private individual, is as liable to err as Mr. Willson himself; that no sin can be forgiven before it is committed, and no past sin pardoned so long as the culprit purposes committing another; but I dare say Mr. Willson is ignorant of all this. There is a certain class of unfortunate Christians, now happily dying out, who are catechised in their youth into a hatred of the pope and all his works. They look upon his holiness as a superior sort of devil, rather more wicked and dangerous upon the whole than Satan, and not half so much of a gentleman. Willson was crammed full of these sentiments when he was a boy, and now he is trying to cram the coming generation. Here is a specimen of the moral nutriment which men of his stamp are brought up on. I cut it out of an old number of _The Sunday-School Advocate_, where it appeared as a comment on a picture of a Spanish flower-girl. There must be a funny twist in the mind of the writer who could get a lesson against popery out of that.

"'SELLING FLOWERS.

"'You never saw such a flower-seller, did you? You have not
unless you have lived in Spain. The picture is meant to show
you a Spanish lady, a Spanish flower-dealer, and a Spanish
mule.

"'Spain is a beautiful land, but the people are not as happy as
they are here. Why? Because they are Roman Catholics. Once
they were a brave, powerful, rich, liberty-loving people; but
a set of priests, called Jesuits, stole into the country,
quenched their love of liberty, put out the lights of
learning, trampled upon the true religion, and made the
Spaniards boasters, bigots, and almost slaves to their kings
and queens. Pity the Spaniards, my children, and pray to your
heavenly Father to save this glorious land from ever being
ruined by that great enemy to all that is good--the Roman
Catholic Church.
x. x.'

"How can you wonder that a man who learns such nonsense in his childhood should say foolish things when he grows up? Still, Mr. Willson's ignorance does not excuse him. Any one who undertakes to write history is bound _not_ to be ignorant. He cannot plead the prejudices of education in justification of his blunders. {725} To teach calumny and religious error is as much a crime as to administer medicines without knowing the properties of drugs. We have little tenderness for an ignorant chemist's boy who poisons us by mistake, and I don't know why we should have any more for an ignorant historian who lies out of prejudice. Besides, even if Mr. Willson did not know the truth, he knew there were two sides to the story, and he was bound to study and weigh them both, which he evidently has not done. His ignorance was not invincible."

"I think, however, that the faculty of the College of New York are more to blame for adopting this work as a text-book than the author was for writing it. You know, I suppose, what that college is. It is a part of our common school system, designed for the youth of every faith, and supported by tax on all citizens alike. To allow a word taught there which could offend the religious feelings of either Catholics or Protestants is a gross outrage upon public right. It only shows, what wise men of our church have all along maintained, that Catholics need hope for no good from state education. We must be taxed for what we don't approve, and support our own schools and colleges besides.--But enough of this. Let us see the rest of your thistles."

"Oh!" said he, laughing, "there are enough of them, I can assure you. Here, for example, is _The Free-Will Baptist Quarterly_ for January, 1868. It contains an article on 'The Perversions of the Gospel a Proof of its Divinity,' and in the course of it occurs this sentence about the pope: 'He can remit sins _or permit them_, and _his pardon_ and indulgences have been _purchased with money_.' Now, a quarterly is supposed to be edited with care and deliberation, and when such a periodical states that the holy Father has power 'to permit sins' it is guilty of a misstatement which I hardly know how to distinguish from a deliberate falsehood. The editor of _The Baptist Quarterly_ is utterly inexcusable for not knowing that the doctrine which he attributes to the church is repudiated with horror by every theologian who ever wrote on our side. It has never been either maintained in theory or acted upon in practice. The statement of _The Quarterly_ is one of the most atrocious calumnies ever uttered, and the editor was bound to know it. If he is so ignorant as not to know it, he is criminally presumptuous in undertaking the functions of a popular teacher. Then, again, he says that the pope's 'pardon and indulgences have been purchased with money.' This, too, is a positive falsehood, though we are willing to believe not an intentional one. In no case, and under no color, can pardon be obtained for money. The only price ever required, the only price which can ever suffice, is hearty repentance. After pardon has been granted, there remains, as we all know, a temporal penalty to be exacted by way of satisfaction, and for this the pope may decree the contribution of money for a charitable object or any other good deed. If the editor of _The Baptist Quarterly_ does not know that this is the extent of an indulgence, then he has no business to be an editor. Ignorance does not excuse him. But let this pass. We were speaking just now of education here is an article quite _à propos_ to that subject in _The Churchman_. It is called 'Rome and the Scriptures.' The writer begins by wondering at the insolence of 'Romanists' in denying that the church withholds the Bible from the laity; and how do you think he proceeds to prove that she does withhold it? {726} Why, by showing that she lays some very necessary restrictions upon the _indiscriminate_ circulation of _translations_ of the Bible. But, it is objected, every English-speaking Catholic family has a copy of the Douay Bible in the house. Yes, says _The Churchman_, because the church lets you have it; she could forbid it if she chose. What do you think of that as a specimen of argument? The church forbids the Bible, because she might, if she pleased, only she doesn't. Besides, this writer continues, the English of the Douay version is so bad that it is practically not the vernacular; the book is as much sealed to the comprehension of the common reader as if it remained in the original Hebrew and Greek. Thus, he says, 'in Galatians v. 19-23, we have a list of the "works of the flesh," and the "fruits of the Spirit." In our version occur the words, "lasciviousness, drunkenness, revellings, long-suffering." But in the Douay version instead of such honest English, which any person of ordinary attainments can understand, we have the words, "impudicity, elrieties, [ebrieties?] comessations, and longanimity." In Hebrews ix. 23, our version reads, "the patterns of things in the heavens;" but the Douay has it, "the exemplars of the celestials." Again, in Hebrews xiii. 16, instead of "to do good, and to communicate, forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased," as in our version, the Douay reads, "Beneficence and communication forget not, "for with such hosts God is promerited." Is this what the Romanists call the Bible in the vulgar tongue?' Now, in point of fact, not a single one of the preceding texts is given in the form he quotes in the Catholic Testaments now in use. The passage from Galatians reads, 'immodesty, drunkenness, revellings.' Instead of 'the exemplars of the celestials,' we have 'the patterns of heavenly things;' and the verse from Hebrews xiii. runs thus: 'And do not forget to do good and to impart; for by such sacrifices God's favor is obtained.' In the first edition of the Douay Bible there were many obscure expressions which have since been amended. If the translators knew English but imperfectly, whose fault was it? The English government would not allow Catholics to get an education in their native country--hanged them if they caught them at it. That we have corrected their shortcomings is proof enough that we are anxious to facilitate the study of the sacred books. What would _The Churchman_ say if we accused the Anglican establishment of trying to conceal the Scriptures from the common people, because the translations of Wickliffe and Coverdale contain many antiquated expressions? That would be every whit as just as to found a similar charge against us upon the imperfections of the first editions of Douay and Rheims, (which are older, it should be remarked, than the Bible of King James.)"

"After all," said I, "I cannot regard the authorized English Protestant Bible as a model of what a popular translation ought to be."

"Of course not. Don't you remember what Hallam says about it? Here is the passage: 'It is held to be the perfection of our English language. I shall not dispute this proposition; but one remark as to a matter of fact cannot reasonably be censured, that, in consequence of the principle of adherence to the original versions, which had been kept up ever since the time of Henry VIII., _it is not the language of the reign of James I._ {727} It may, in the eyes of many, be a better English, but it is not the English of Daniel, or Raleigh, or Bacon, as any one may easily perceive. _It abounds, in fact_, especially in the Old Testament, _with obsolete phraseology, and with single words long since abandoned_ or retained only in provincial use.' (_Literature of Europe_, vol. ii. chap. 2.) The early Protestant versions are proof enough of the wisdom of our church in setting bounds to the license of careless or incompetent editors. You know there is one edition which is called by book-collectors '_the Breeches Bible_,' on account of its rendering of a passage in the third chapter of Genesis, where Adam and Eve are said to have 'sewed together fig-leaves and made themselves _breeches._' The king's printers, in 1632, were fined for publishing a Bible in which one of the commandments appeared in this form, 'Thou shalt commit adultery.' During the Commonwealth, a large impression of the Bible was confiscated on account of its corruptions, many of which were the result of design. One edition contained 6000 errors. Archbishop Usher, on his way to preach once, bought a London Bible in a bookseller's shop, and was dismayed to find that the text he had selected was omitted! In one of the English Bibles the first verse of the fourteenth (or in our Bible the thirteenth) Psalm is printed, 'The fool hath said in his heart, there is a God,' instead of 'no God.' Just see what that famous old Protestant divine, Thomas Fuller, says of this matter: 'Considering with myself the causes of the growth and increase of impiety and profaneness in our land, amongst others this seemeth to me not the least, viz., the late many _false_ and _erroneous_ impressions of the Bible. Now know, what is but _carelessness_ in other books is _impiety_ in setting forth of the Bible. As Noah, in all unclean creatures, preserved but two of a kind, so among some hundreds in several editions, we will insist only on two instances. In the Bible printed at London in 1653, we read, "I Corinthians vi. 9, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?" for "not inherit." Now, when a reverend doctor in divinity did mildly reprove some libertines for their licentious lives, they did produce this text from the authority of this corrupt edition in justification of their vicious and inordinate conversations. The next instance shall be in the Bible printed at London in quarto (forbearing the name of the printer, because not done wilfully by him) in the singing Psalms, Psalm lxvii. 2:

"That all the earth may know
The way to worldly wealth,"

for "godly wealth."' Such blunders too are by no means confined to early impressions. Why, there is an edition of the Anglican Liturgy printed at Oxford, of all places in the world, in 1813, in which occurs this dreadful blunder: 'Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the _Lord_.'"

"After this, it looks well, doesn't it, for _The Churchman_ to blame us for repressing the indiscriminate circulation of wild versions of the Scriptures?"

"My dear friend, if all men were consistent, the whole world would be Catholic. Protestantism from beginning to end is nothing but a huge inconsistency. But come: have we any more weeds to look at?"

"Here is a copy of _The Observer_; if we don't find something startling in it, it will be strange. Yes; here is a letter from the well-known _Irenaeus_ on 'the relics at Aix-la-Chapelle.' Read what he says:

{728}

"'I found that pictures of the relics were for sale in all the
shops, and I bought a few as souvenirs of my accidental
pilgrimage; particularly I sought for a good representation
of that one which is first on the list, and first in the
admiration of the people. _As the Virgin Mother Mary is
held in higher honor by all good Catholics than the Son of
God himself,_ so they likewise venerate, with a deeper
reverence, the linen garment that she wore, than the cloth
which was around the loins of the Saviour on the cross.'

What do you say to that? For my part, I cannot believe that a man so well informed on most subjects as _Irenaeus_ is really thinks that 'Catholics hold the Virgin Mary in higher honor than the Son of God himself.' If he knows anything at all about the Catholic Church, he must know that this is a downright slander."

"In point of fact, I suppose he does know it; but he belongs to a class of persons who seem to think it no harm to say anything evil of Catholics for the sake of producing a sensation. The church in their eyes is merely a convenient subject for turning an eloquent sentence; a sort of _corpus vile_, upon which it is allowable to try all manner of oratorical experiments. Besides, you know _The Observer_ is nothing but a journalistic stuffed Guy Faux, brought out periodically for the purpose of reminding mankind of the wickedness of the bloody papists."

"Do you know I pity the editor of that paper? he must have such awful nightmares. Just think of perpetually dreaming that the pope sits scowling on your stomach ready to strangle you, and a grand inquisitor lurks under the bed! I suppose _The Observer_ never goes up-stairs in the dark without dread of stumbling over a rack, or running his hand into a thumbscrew, and never falls asleep without apprehensions of a popish massacre before morning. Has he any special bugaboo to-day?"

"'The Confessional.' I will not read the whole article. Some of it is too nasty. But here is a specimen:

"'The confessional in the Roman Catholic Church, and in every
church that becomes corrupt enough to introduce it, and
slavish enough to submit to it, is an engine of tyranny over
the social, domestic, and private life of the people, with an
extent, power, and wickedness it is hardly possible to conceive.

"'It operates chiefly through the women. In most of the Roman
Catholic countries men have substantially deserted the
confessional. They go once a year, at Easter, if at all. Many
of them, nominally Catholics, do not take the communion, and
therefore do not come under the ecclesiastical necessity of
confessing. But women are more religious, more superstitious,
and more submissive to priestly domination than men. Men have
their business to think about, and often worship mammon.
Religion is the highest of all mental occupations for women;
their life is in it; it is their life--this and that to come.
In Protestant as well as Roman churches women are the most
and the best of the members. It has been so from the time
they outnumbered the disciples at the cross and the grave of
the Saviour. The confessional has its grasp on the women of
the Roman Catholic Church; and through them it rules the
households where those women are wives, mothers, sisters,
children, or servants. It is enough for the purpose of the
priests that they have one spy in a house; but the more the
better, and the nearer that spy is to the head of the house
the more valuable her service. The conduct of servants is
carefully watched; and they are changed from time to time by
the direction of priests, when the family has not the
slightest suspicion of the cause. The priests often select
willing and capable agents, who, in the capacity of servants,
male and female, act as spies and emissaries in households
they wish to supervise. The information thus obtained is
recorded, transmitted to higher powers, and used, without
scruple, in the secret and constant operations of the church
to get control over the political and material interests of
the state.'

"There is no excuse for this sort of thing. There is an untruth in almost every line. I don't charge _The Observer_ with deliberate falsehood, but it needs a good deal of charity, in a case like this, to remember the difference between a mistake and a lie. {729} Mark you, the writer does not say: 'I believe the confessional to be used for purposes of oppression,' 'I suspect that the priests keep spies in every household.' 'I dare say the church interferes with our servants,' 'I take it for granted that the priests repeat what is said to them in confession;' but all these vague and ridiculous notions are stated in the broadest manner, as admitted historical facts. That is to say, _The Observer_ makes the most atrocious charges against us without a particle of evidence to support them. 'I guess they are true,' says the writer; 'any way, I will make them.' The less the proof, the more emphatic the assertion. Suppose I have a vague suspicion that my neighbor has stolen money, and on the strength of that suspicion, not knowing whether it is well-founded or not, and having no means of knowing, I proclaim him as a thief all over town. Whether he is one or not, I commit a grave sin by defaming him on mere suspicion; and if he turn out to be an honest man after all, the fact that I believed my own story will not save me from the consequences of uttering slander. The old grannies of Protestantism act upon the principle that it is quite fair to ascribe any imaginable sin either to the pope or the devil. The wickedness of both being infinite, it is impossible to overshoot the mark."

"Even if all priests were demons, I don't see why they must also be described as idiots. 'Spies in the household!' Can you imagine anything more childish than listening to Bridget's and Mary Ann's reports of the daily life of their master and mistress? Can you imagine any use to which such information could be turned by the church? _The Observer_ no doubt supposes that the archbishop of New York has daily morning audiences with his domestic emissaries, who tell him what time _The Observer_ editor got up, how many eggs he ate for breakfast, what remarks he made at family prayers, whether the children were good, and how much butcher's meat was used in the house during the previous week. Then just think of the Roman Catholic Church being a vast intelligence-office, through which servants are changed about from house to house! You flatter yourself that you chose your cook out of a number of applicants for the place. Nothing of the kind she was sent to your house by the priests, and forced on you by a kind of legerdemain, just as a juggler forces a card. You think you discharged your last chambermaid. Oh! no; she went away because the priests had duties for her elsewhere. And the reports of all these spies, _The Observer_ assures us, are actually written out, and transmitted to headquarters! I believe there is no limit to the credulity of a no-popery zealot."

"I am glad to see, however, that some Protestants have recognized the value of the confessional to society, and have spoken warmly of its sacred influence. I suppose you know how much attention has lately been drawn to the great appalling sin of modern American women--the murder of their offspring yet unborn. It is a sin so prevalent that, as I remember reading some time ago in _The Congregationalist_, it is said that in a certain populous district in a large western city, not a single Anglo-American child had been born alive in three years! It has not escaped the notice of physicians that no such practice prevails among the Catholic population. {730} Dr. Storer, of Boston, (a Protestant,) explains this difference in his well-known essay on the subject, by the influence of the confessional; and _The Congregationalist_ took the same view. Indeed, both virtually admit that, if it were not for the confessional, the natural increase of population in the United States would be almost entirely checked."

"That is a good thing for _The Observer_ to meditate upon; but I am afraid the venerable old alarmist is incorrigible. It is hard to reason with a man whose hair perpetually stands on end with fright."

"Yes, or with a professional dealer in bugaboos. But even if he believes all his stories, I don't see what good he can possibly expect to come of telling them. They are only irritating."

"Irritating! they are criminally dangerous. The greatest enemy to a community is the man who stirs up the animosity of religious denominations against each other. The natural effect of such stories is to inspire the ignorant and passionate on the one side with contempt and hatred, on the other with resentment; and how long can society be sure of peace when it is filled with such dangerous elements? Of course, the Catholics are not so silly or so wicked as to fly to arms whenever an insult is uttered against the church, neither are Protestants going to defend Luther and Henry VIII. with fire and riot; but suppose some unforeseen circumstance produces an outbreak, what a terrible responsibility will rest upon those who prepared the materials of combustion! Mr. Froude, speaking of the St. Bartholomew massacre, says, the guilt was the queen's, but her plan could never have been carried out, had not theological frenzy already been heated to the boiling-point. He is wrong in this case, for it is proved that theological frenzy had nothing to do with the slaughter; political frenzy is sometimes quite as dangerous; but I wish those who think he is right would apply his principle to the regulation of their own conduct. The frenzy which instigated the burning of the Charlestown convent, the bloodshed and incendiarism of the Native American movement in Philadelphia, and the Know-Nothing riots in different parts of the country, had been gathered up and nursed long beforehand by preachers like _The Observer_. They did not know what they were doing, I suppose, but others foresaw and predicted the consequences. Rant is always the forerunner of riot. The periodical excitement on the subject of popery which breaks out in the United States, like the cholera or yellow fever, has always been followed by lamentable disturbances. The man who makes his living by thundering at the corruptions of the Church of Rome, is an incendiary in fact, though he may not be in intention. Of course, it is a pity that men should be prone to anger. It is a pity that we are not always meek, and long-suffering, and forgiving; that we do not bear reproaches with patience, and repay calumnies with good deeds. Our Lord tells us to love our enemies, but only a few of us are good enough to obey him. If all Catholics were perfect Christians, _The Observer_ might shout hard names at us until it was black in the face, and there would be no danger; but there is a good deal of human nature in us, after all, and it is better not to go near gunpowder with a lighted candle. I do not mean to say, of course, that there is danger of our deliberately resenting such attacks. We are far too sensible for that. No amount of abuse would, of itself, provoke us to break the peace. {731} But such calumnious harangues tend first to draw a broad line of distinction between Catholics and Protestants, and keep them apart, which, alone, is a social evil; then they inevitably fill the two parties with mutual dislike, and, in time, drive them to antipathy; the bad feeling gets worse and worse; and some day accident brings about a clash, and there is a terrible explosion, nobody knows exactly how, and nobody knows who is most to blame. All we can determine about it is, to use Froude's words, that it could not have happened 'had not theological frenzy already been heated to the boiling-point.' I think it is high time that all decent citizens, all honest theological disputants, should set their faces against the Gospel of Frenzy. I am willing to meet any man in a fair controversy, but there is nothing but danger and aggravation in bandying hard names. The only legitimate object of controversy is to make converts, and you can't do that without good temper and honest argument. The apparent purpose of such tirades as those of _The Observer_, is merely to show the preacher's own party how much better they are than the rest of the world. Nobody but a fool could expect them to do any good to the Catholics; you can't make friends with a man by abusing his mother. It ought to be clearly understood that calm theological discussion over points of discipline or dogma is always in order; but atrocious charges, unsupported by a tittle of evidence, deserve no name but that of sheer calumny, and all good men ought to detest them. If Protestant preachers only carried into the pulpit and the editorial chair the same rules of morality which, I am happy to believe, they generally practise in private life, they would observe this cardinal principle, not to publish infamous accusations against their neighbors unless they have personal knowledge of their truth."

--------

Abscondita.

Flower of the forest, that, unseen,
With sweetness fill'st the vernal grove,
Where hid'st thou? 'Mid the grasses green,
Or those dim boughs that mix above?

Thou bird that, darkling, sing'st a song
That shook the bowers of paradise,
Thou too art hid thy leaves among:
Thou sing'st unseen of mortal eyes.

Of her thou sing'st whose every breath
Sweetened a world too blind to heed;
Of Him--Death's Conqueror--that from death
Alone would take the crown decreed.

Thou sing'st that secret gifts are best;
That only like to God are they
Who keep God's secret in their breast,
And hide, as stars are hid by day.

Aubrey De Vere.

--------

{732}

Translated From The French.

The Story of a Conscript.

XV.

When I returned to myself, I looked around. I was in a long hall, with posts all around. I was in a bed, and beside me was an old gray-mustached soldier, who, when he saw my eyes open, lifted up my head and held a cup to my lips.

"Well," said he cheerfully, "well! we are better."

I could not help smiling as I thought that I was yet among the living. My chest and arm were stiff with bandages; I felt as if a hot iron were burning me there; but no matter, I lived!

I gazed at the heavy rafters crossing the space above me; at the tiles of the roof, through which the daylight entered in more than one spot; I turned and looked to the other side, and saw that I was in one of those vast sheds used by the brewers of the country as a shelter for their casks and wagons. All around, on mattresses and heaps of straw, numbers of wounded lay ranged; and in the middle, on a large kitchen-table, a surgeon-major and his two aids, their shirt-sleeves rolled up, were amputating the leg of a soldier, who was shrieking in agony. Behind them was a mass of legs and arms. I turned away sick and trembling.

Five or six soldiers were walking about, giving drink to the wounded.

But the man who impressed himself most on my memory was a surgeon with sleeves rolled up, who cut and cut without paying the slightest attention to what was going on around; he was a man with a large nose and wrinkled cheeks, and every moment flew into a passion at his assistants, who could not give him his knives, pincers, lint, or linen fast enough, or who were not quick enough sponging up the blood.

They had just laid out on the table a Russian carbineer, six feet in height at least; a ball had pierced his neck near the ear, and while the surgeon was asking for his little knives, a cavalry surgeon passed before the shed. He was short, stout, and badly pitted with the small-pox, and held a portfolio under his arm.

"Ha! Forel!" cried he cheerfully.

"It is Duchêne," said our surgeon, turning around. "How many wounded?"

"Seventeen to eighteen thousand." Our surgeon left the shed to chat with his comrade; they conversed tranquilly, while the assistants sat down to drink a cup of wine, and the Russian rolled his eyes despairingly.

"See, Duchêne; you have only to go down the street, opposite that well, do you see?"

" Very well indeed."

"Just opposite you will see the canteen."

"Very good; thank you; I am off."

He started, and our surgeon called after him--

"A good appetite to you, Duchêne!"

Then he returned to his Russian, whose neck he had laid open. He worked ill-humoredly, constantly scolding his aids.

{733}

The Russian writhed and groaned, but he paid no attention to that, and at last, throwing the bullet upon the ground, he bandaged up the wound, and cried, "Carry him off!"

They lifted the Russian from the table, and stretched him on a mattress beside the others; then they laid his neighbor upon the table.

I could not think that such horrors took place in the world; but I was yet to see worse than this.

At five or six beds from mine was an old corporal with his leg bound up. He closed one eye knowingly, and said to his neighbor, whose arm had just been cut off:

"Conscript, look at that heap! I will bet that you cannot recognize your arm."

The other, who had hitherto shown the greatest courage, looked, and fell back senseless.

Then the corporal began laughing, saying:

"He did recognize it. It always produces that effect."

He looked around self-approvingly, but: no one laughed with him.

Every moment the wounded called for water. When one began, all followed, and the old soldier had certainly conceived a liking for me, for each time he passed, he presented the cup.

I did not remain in the shed more than an hour. A dozen ambulances drew up before the door, and the peasants of the country round, in their velvet jackets and large black, slouched hats, their whips on their shoulders, held the horses by the reins. A picket of hussars arrived soon after, and their officer dismounting, entered and said: