Chapter VI (1)

"Chione in grief, and a prey to despair!"

It was the Christian bishop who spoke, and his interlocutor was Lotis.

"Even so, my lord. During her illness the report was that she was beset by the furies. When I saw her, it seemed as though the hand of some avenging god lay heavy on her. If, my lord, you Christians are adepts in magic, as many people believe I would ask you to disenthrall her from the influence under which she suffers, whatever it may be."

"And it is Chione who is this famous Leontium, who has made so great a sensation in the eastern cities?" continued Dionysius, as if not hearing the last speech of Lotis.

"It is so."

"From what I have heard, her eloquence is something unusual."

"I too have heard so; but for myself, I was never present at one of her instructions. I saw her alone, bowed down as it were beneath the weight of the truth she was carrying; but unable to speak the last word, that word which promised to be the key to all the rest, the solution of mystery, the harmonizer of ideas. That last word was not spoken at Nauplia; her pupils awaited it, but her tongue was as it were paralyzed. Some powerful influence seemed ever to prevent her from speaking it."

"Poor Chione!"

"My lord, may I venture to ask of you, do you believe, as some do, that Chione is in possession of a truth she dare not declare? that some divine hand is pressing down within her the word that is panting for expression? Is Chione bewitched?"

"She is suffering from a supernatural influence, that is certain."

"And can you deliver her? Why else did she send me to you?"

"If she so _will_, she may be delivered; but the supernatural Word she cannot speak has been offended; the sacrifice he demands is great; will she make it?"

"If in her power, I think she will. She is a mystery to me, as all life seems to be. What is that Word Chione has offended? how did she offend? what must she do to appease the divine wrath?"

"My child," said the old Areopagite solemnly, "truth is not a plaything wherewith to amuse the intellect, not a toy to while away a tedious hour with. Truth is the manifestation of the eternal harmonies, those harmonies which man has interfered with, into which he has introduced a discord, the discord of sin. The _humility_ of man, the recognition of sin, such a recognition as brings the voluntary humiliation of self, must precede his admission to the kingdom where those harmonies are restored. The vainglory of philosophy, the pride of science, however correct may be their surmises, are without _life_. {813} They can neither restore these harmonies, nor catch a glimpse of the glory of that eternal comprehensive Unity, in which all beauty, melody, and good reside; that eternal idea of which matter is the varied type. A type now deranged by man's act so hopelessly, that human power is utterly inadequate to its restoration."

"But the restorer comes; the expectation of nations points to this," said Lotis; "and that expectation is everywhere; in India as in Cathay, in Greece and among the barbarians."

"The deliverer is come already," said Dionysius.

"Then why is he not proclaimed? Is this the unspoken word that Chione might not utter? Why, if the deliverer is here, is he not announced?"

"Because, before the disorder of exterior things can be remedied, the _interior_ remedy must be applied to the soul. Exterior forms obey the interior impulse. Man is lord of matter, and man's disordered soul reflects itself upon the material subject to him. The disorder manifest throughout exterior creation will be remedied when the disordered spirit of man is healed. Therefore is it that, now that the restorer is come, he is not recognized; for he insists on the purification of the spirit, on the annihilation of selfishness, on the necessity of being reunited in spirit with the essential good as a precursor of other renovations. That done, exterior good follows as of course."

"Even as wealth follows industry, and health the practice of temperance," said Lotis.

"Natural virtue brings its results sometimes," said the venerable teacher, "when justice rules; but as matters stand now, the winner of wealth has often the least share. Oppression is one of the inevitable results of making self-love the centre of action instead of taking the justice of the eternal God for our guide. Man's soul was created in the image of God. Hence its affinity for beauty, its appreciation of lofty idea, its glowing enthusiasm at recital of heroic deeds: but man's will snapped the cord that bound it to the eternal will. Enamored of his own charms, he forgot the source of his beauty; proud of his mighty intellect, he has ceased to adore the God of all understanding; freeing himself from the shackles of duty, he cast away alike the nourishment of his beauty and the food of his towering intellect. Man's _will_ must be directed to DESIRE God ere he can regain good. Hence the work of the Redeemer is interior; it is the implanting of the Holy Spirit as the necessary step to the true redemption."

"Chione's philosophy resembles this in some degree," said Lotis.

Dionysius did not answer, Lotis resumed.

"Who is this _Word_ of whom Chione speaks?"

The answer came slowly, solemnly, deliberately, and it fell on the ear of Lotis, as if a divine power accompanied it:

"Jesus Christ."

"The Saviour anointed," whispered she to herself, as she translated the words: "The Saviour of men, anointed by God." There was evidently a revelation to her, conveyed by the words; one of those miraculous influences which, in the early days, "long ago," were so common among truth-seeking souls. Her reverie lasted long, and the good bishop did not interrupt her. He knew that the Holy Spirit was shedding his influence upon her. Suddenly she turned upon him with the question:

{814}

"And is Jesus Christ an inspired man, or is he God?"

"Jesus Christ is the Word of God, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," answered the bishop.

Lotis replied not. The bishop continued in a very low voice:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men: and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (St. John i. 1-5.)

And Lotis fell on her knees, saying, "Lead me to him, to the Divine Word, to Jesus Christ, for I will have no other master."

"It is well, my child," said the good bishop, laying his hand solemnly on her head. "It is well. May he who has thus directed your choice give you the further grace to continue unto the end. But, Lotis, you must learn the price of redemption; you must know who the Master is you have chosen."

And the venerable bishop, in a few short but impressive words, traced the history of the world from Adam's fall, through the line of patriarchs, through the perversion of morals which called forth the deluge. He spoke of the call of Abraham, of the mission of Moses, of the succession of the prophets unto John the Baptist; and finally, of the advent of our Lord himself; of his coming to his own, and of his own receiving him not; of his life, miracles, and crucifixion; of his death, resurrection, and ascension; and finally, of the descent of the Holy Spirit.

Lotis listened and believed, and demanded to be washed from her sins, that she might understand. She, yet a neophyte, seemed to comprehend that sin forms the darkness which hinders the soul from contemplating God. "Wash me from my sins," she said, "that I may see the light."'

To Be Continued.

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Affairs In Italy.

Though the disgraceful part which the Italian monarchy has played in the late invasion of Rome by marauding bands is now a matter of common notoriety, elaborate efforts are still being made by a majority of the Italian, and a certain portion of the European, press to deny the well-known facts of the case. These organs are, however, only following the illustrious example set to them by Victor Emmanuel and Count Menabrea, whose official declarations that the revolutionists had acted entirely without the authority and knowledge of the Italian government are certainly the most pitiful subterfuges to which the king and the premier of a great power could possibly have been reduced. Indeed, we can hardly conceive a more humiliating spectacle than that which the Italian government presents in solemnly assuring the world that it had not been secretly leagued with filibusters, while, to crown the disgrace of the spectacle, nobody believes a word of its denial. {815} But General Menabrea has attempted even more than this. In his answer to the invitation to the European Conference, dated November 19th, 1867, he had the assurance to state that Rome, not Italy, was the real cause of the present trouble. On another occasion he ventured upon a somewhat similar statement by saying that experience had taught Italy the impossibility of maintaining friendly relations with her neighbor on the Tiber! It is difficult to believe that any public man should care so little for his reputation for truth as to utter such reckless falsehoods. The whole history of the past eight years gives him the lie, for it proves clearly that every provocation has come from that Piedmont which is now styled Italy. Provocations by resort to the revolution, as in the seizure of the Legations in 1859, and again in that of the Marches and Umbria in 1860, when Viterbo, the capital of the patrimony, was also taken by force; provocations by resort to legislation, as in the breach of the concordats, in the civil marriages in an unchristian form, in the suppression of the spiritual orders, in the confiscation of the ecclesiastical property, in the violent measures adopted against the episcopate, and in the parliamentary resolutions about Rome; provocations by the personal speeches and acts of King Victor Emmanuel, whom neither the sense of his exalted station nor the traditions of his strictly orthodox dynasty have deterred from expressions which he will yet have cause to deplore when the fruits they are destined to bear become fully apparent; in a word, all the provocations have come from the side of Italy. All the evidences of moderation and conciliation (as was seen to the very last in the case of the bishoprics) have come from the side of the Holy Father; but they were always repaid with the blackest ingratitude. The piratical raid against the church state was merely the fit ending and the logical result of that long series of aggressive measures which furnishes the counts in the indictment against the Italian monarchy. We need not recapitulate the provocations that have for years preceded the invasion of Garibaldi's filibusters; for everybody will readily recall to mind the machinations to excite a spirit of discontent in the holy city and the surrounding districts; the aid and comfort extended to the self-styled Roman Revolutionary Committee, which has its seat at Florence; the libels against the person of the supreme pontiff and his sacred office, which have disgraced not only the press, but the floor of the two chambers; the encouragement afforded to every incendiary and fugitive from Roman justice, and the marked favor shown to all such characters by the authorities. Indeed, but for the agency which the Italian monarchy had in bringing about the invasion, that demonstration would never have become what it is, one of the most flagrant outrages known to the law of nations in modern days. In the midst of profound peace, without a shadow of an excuse or a pretext on the other side, Italy has not only tolerated, but sanctioned, the publication of the most indecent attacks on the head of the church. She has permitted the circulation of revolutionary manifestoes and appeals against a neighboring state, whose integrity the honor of the nation was pledged to respect and enforce. {816} She has suffered the raising of money and arms for avowedly hostile and unlawful purposes; the opening of recruiting stations in public places, and under the direct patronage of high officials; the discussion of general plans for the campaign; the concentration of armed bands along her frontiers, and that under the eyes of troops ostensibly stationed there to disperse and prevent all such gatherings. She has enacted a farce, as foolish as it was discreditable, in regard to the chief conspirator himself, and carried this so far as to order her navy to blockade a deserted rock, while he was held in reserve, to be turned loose when the loyalty of the pope's subjects and the incapacity of the minor chiefs threatened to defeat the whole enterprise. All these are well-authenticated facts, and have since been proved by the admissions made by the Italian press. Thus, for instance, the Florence _Diritto_, of November 25th, 1867, uses the following significant language: "All the world," says this popular organ of the Italian democracy, in an article sharply criticising the past policy of Ratazzi's cabinet, "will remember that the Garibaldian movement, _which was openly tolerated in its last phase by the government_, had given rise to the general belief that the authorities were aware of everything going on, and fully prepared to assume all the consequences. Public opinion and the public press, as they beheld the government borne along by the mighty popular torrent, unanimously approved of the supposed determination of the ministry, and rejoiced to think that such a patriotic and exalted object as the acquisition of Rome should at once have the support of Garibaldi's irregular action and the avowed sanction of the government. The whole nation fancied that the ministry had taken all the precautions necessary to attain its ends in one way or other, and in any case. .... It is therefore impossible for us to describe how bitter the disappointment was when France intervened at the most critical moment. Rome remained quiet, Prussia gave no sign of moving, and the Italian army proved entirely unprepared for the emergency." It is in the face of such admissions as these that King Victor Emmanuel has ventured to issue a manifesto denouncing the invasion of St. Peter's patrimony as having been undertaken without the authority and knowledge of his government, and that his prime minister has dared to say it was Rome, not Italy, which should be blamed for the renewed interference of France.

It is the perfidy and lawless ambition of the Italian monarchy which have brought the French back to Rome. If this be regarded as a misfortune--as, no doubt, in a certain sense it is, for a foreign occupation always gives rise to an abnormal condition, whose evils are great and whose effects often prove lasting--to whom does the guilt attach? Not to the Holy Father, not to the Romans, who have turned a deaf ear to the whispers of treason, although their temptation was not great when we take into account the present state and prospects of the monarchy! But there is no need for us to indulge in sinister prognostications. Even had the Italian forces stationed on the line, where they neither protected the papal territory nor indicated the good faith of their own government, really prevented the invasion, the crisis must have come sooner or later. It was unavoidable from the very nature of the relations between the two neighbors. But it is extraordinary that the party who is alone to blame for it should claim as a reward to be released from the obligations contracted by the September convention. {817} We cannot bring ourselves to believe for a moment that the recent outrage will result to the advantage of its authors and abettors. In the sense of the parliamentary resolutions passed at Turin and Florence, the solution of the Roman problem means nothing less than the destruction of the papal rights, and the spoliation and the oppression of the church. It will be well to bear this fact distinctly in mind. The new monarchy has unmistakably shown how it means to respect its most solemn obligations and the vested rights of others; and, above all, it has shown how it would like to treat the head of the church. And this Italy dares to demand that the gate of the papacy should be intrusted to her safe-keeping? Were it possible to obliterate the whole history of the last eight years from men's recollection, the occurrences of the last few months would alone suffice to warn Christendom against listening to such a proposition. The Roman Catholic community will hardly feel disposed to see Victor Emmanuel the intestate heir of Garibaldi at Rome, as it has seen him once before at Naples.

The Roman problem requires, no doubt, a solution, for the French are merely a momentary expedient. The subject is one that interests the whole world, and which demands a settlement that will not again expose the supreme pontiff to the danger of being besieged at the Vatican, as was his handful of defenders in the Bicoque Monte Rotondo, where they fought one against ten. We shall not even touch here upon the claims of the pope as a mere temporal ruler, and the most ancient on earth at that. Our religious sentiment rebels against dragging a question whose two component elements are indivisible into the narrow sphere of politics, and still more into the sphere of revolutionary politics which has made the nationality idea its god. The Catholic sentiment resents the base suggestion of peril to the independence of the church and its head. It cannot conceive a popedom like the one to which the Byzantine exarchs have been reduced. It wants no repetition of a Greek patriarchate among Greeks and Turks. This is a question which concerns the entire civilized Christian world, and not the Roman Catholic powers alone. The royal speech from the throne to the North German Diet contained a passage alluding to the important interests which Germany and Italy are supposed to hold in common, and the chances of Prussia's support in the case of a war with France about Rome have, no doubt, entered largely into the calculations of the Florence cabinet. But Prussia alone has over eight millions of Roman Catholic subjects, who will never consent to the total destruction of the foundation on which the independence of their church rests, and who will therefore oppose every attempt to rob the pope of his temporality. Such, at least, is the inference which we are warranted in drawing from the spirit displayed during the last month in Germany, and especially at the Mainz meeting, where two thousand leading Catholics from all parts of the country discussed the dangers of the church state. The following are the resolutions which were passed unanimously on that occasion:

{818}

"1. Divine Providence has made the successor of St. Peter the
sovereign of the Roman church state, and raised him above all
mere national interests, that he might be the subject of no
political power, but manage the religious affairs of all
Christian nations in perfect independence. This sovereign
right, conferred by God and confirmed by more than ten
centuries possession, is neither to be surrendered by the
Catholic Church, nor to be taken away from it by diplomatic
treaties or a revolutionary popular vote. The arbitrary and
chimerical scheme to make Rome the capital of Italy can never
be considered in comparison with the rights and interests of
Catholic Christendom.

2. The assertion that the pope, as a priest, is unfit to be the
head of a political government, and therefore unable to promote
the temporal welfare of his subjects, is an untruth
sufficiently refuted by the history of a thousand years. The
maintenance and restoration of the pope's political authority
in its original integrity is the only means to save Italy from
the demoralization which threatens her from the secret
societies and King Victor Emmanuel's policy. To have the Holy
Father in her midst constitutes to-day, as it has during her
whole Christian past, the highest honor, the true greatness,
and the blessing of Italy.

3. It is the duty of princes, and of every sovereign power, to
protect the independence of the head of the church to which
their Catholic subjects belong; and the Catholics of all
nations are entitled to demand that these obligations should be
sacredly observed. A government which countenances the
violation of the supreme pontiffs rights makes itself the
accomplice of the revolution. To suffer the government of
Victor Emmanuel to encourage with impunity or to undertake
itself enterprises tending to imperil the security of the Roman
church state, is to undermine all respect for the law of
nations and the principles of justice.

4. Love gifts, raised by the free, unanimous, and untiring
devotion of all Catholics, must supply the Holy Father with
that assistance which is indispensable for the government of
the church, as long as treachery and force withhold from him
the enjoyment of the estates bestowed on him in the past for
the advantage of all Christendom. For this purpose a general
organization must be formed.

5. In view of the present crisis, the maintenance of the army
which the Holy Father requires for the protection of his own
person and that of his loyal subjects is a matter which
profoundly concerns the whole Catholic world. It should be a
question of honor for every nation to be represented among its
ranks, and Germans could not dedicate their lives to a nobler
cause."

But apart from the influence of these eight millions of Roman Catholics in Prussia, no state which recognizes the binding force of its own civilizing mission, and claims to be governed by law, could take part in such a dangerous violation of international unity, whatever its political affinities and antecedents might otherwise happen to be. Germany may or may not have vast interests in common with the Italian nationality, and may even desire their realization. But the interests of religion rank far above those of Italian nationality, with which, as we have seen, the Roman question is constantly being confounded. The Italian monarchy, as at present constituted, can inspire little confidence and respect at home or abroad. Independent of all other considerations, it is difficult to perceive how any true friend of Italy, any patriot, could, even from a purely politico-national stand-point, approve of the Garibaldian raid, and the policy pursued by the Florence government in relation to it. What the new monarchy stands most in need of at present is something quite different from the Utopian completion of its unity. {819} If this object has not been reached already because Rome and its half a million of people are ruled by the pope, it will never be accomplished. The monarchy wants to strengthen itself internally, not to extend externally. A strong, able, and honest government, an efficient administration, a restored finance, a thorough system of public instruction, a development of its commerce, agriculture, and industry, and, above all, peace and harmony--these are the indispensable conditions to its future welfare, even to its existence. Nothing could therefore have been more fatal, even from the narrowest and most selfish point of view, than the breach of the September convention. It was, upon the whole, the most statesmanlike programme which the Italian government has yet adopted during its brief life, and should have been sacredly observed. Neither the treaty of alliance with Prussia, which gave Italy the chance to acquire Venetia, nor the peace of Vienna, which ratified that acquisition, could have exerted so far-reaching an influence on the domestic and foreign position of the country. The alliance with Prussia, it is true, contained the germs of advantages which might eventually have extended much beyond the settlement of the Venetian question and the abandonment of the Quadrilateral by the Austrians. But the fruition of these promises required time; for, as soon as Venetia was disposed of, it became evident that the connection between Italy and Prussia would have to remain long less intimate and important than the connection between Italy and France. As long as the latter power remained at Rome, the attention of the Italian statesmen would have to continue fixed rather on Paris than on Berlin. According to the intentions of its Italian framers, the convention of September 15th was to serve gradually to loosen the ties which bound Italy to France, and which began then already to be borne with impatience by the nation. By the evacuation of the Eternal City the Roman question was to be changed into an exclusively Italian question. But this project the conduct of the Italian monarchy, or, to speak more precisely, that of the statesmen who succeeded in office those who had devised the programme, has defeated, as we shall hereafter fully explain; and the result is, that the Roman problem has once more assumed a diplomatic, international phase, pending again between Florence and Paris.

The September convention has failed to put an end to these further pretexts for foreign interference in the domestic affairs of Italy, because its terms were never observed, and because its authors were not afforded a chance to carry their policy out. Nothing could have been more inauspicious than the fact that the statesmen who concluded the convention should have been driven from office on account of the Turin difficulties, at the very time when their measures had received the approbation of a large majority of the nation, and the sanction of the majority of the two chambers. The fall of the Minghetti ministry was an anomaly utterly contrary to all ideas of constitutional government. An important programme, which changed the entire policy of the country and committed it to a new one for the next future, had been accepted. It could never have been adopted without the sanction of the sovereign, nor without the approval of the country and its representatives in parliament. And yet those who had originated it and assumed all its responsibilities were compelled to resign power to men that accepted the legacy only because they could not help themselves, and whose views differed totally from those of their predecessors in office. {820} The Minghetti cabinet, which had to retire in consequence of the excitement caused among the people of Piedmont by the transfer of the national capital stipulated for in the September convention, was succeeded by the La Marmora, composed chiefly out of Piedmontese elements, although it repudiated all the principles of the Minghetti, while pretending to recognize the obligations resulting from the convention itself. It is easy to conceive the profound agitation produced by this change in the ranks of the moderate party, which had hitherto constituted the parliamentary majority. The most energetic element of this party had been the Piedmontese. Through its intimate relations with the reigning house, its long parliamentary experience, its business knowledge, its marked predominance in the administration and the army, the Piedmontese had always been the most trustworthy supporters of the moderate cause, the strongest bulwark against the incessant encroachments of radicalism. It was the majority of this element that now coalesced with the radicals for the purpose of fighting by their side against the late moderate leaders, whom they could not pardon for having severed the hegemony of Piedmont and Turin by the transfer of the capital to Florence. In addition to the desertion of the bulk of the Piedmontese, the remainder of the moderates split among themselves. Some refused to desert their fallen leaders; others, and especially such as had joined the new administration, while still content to adhere to a moderate policy and to accept the September convention as a part of it, yet thought they might safely venture to sacrifice the authors of the latter to the prejudices of Piedmont, and that without serious injury to the material features of the programme. This division between the supporters of the old cabinet, the so-called "Consorteria," and the new, became most conspicuous at the elections in the autumn of 1865, when the latter opposed, or permitted its followers to oppose, the candidates of the former, which resulted in large accessions to the radicals. The Ricasoli cabinet, formed in the spring of 1866, also hoped to strengthen itself by conciliating the radicals, while it continued to maintain the unfriendly attitude of its predecessors toward the Consorteria. But the result was, that the Ricasoli ministry failed to secure a majority when it dissolved parliament in February, 1867.

Is the steady decadence of the Italian monarchy due to the disintegration of the moderate party, or is this disintegration of the party of order merely a symptom of the general decline of the old country and the new kingdom? It will suffice to throw out these queries, and to contestate at the same time the circumstance that the influence of the government has diminished in the same ratio as that of the radicals has increased; that the confusion and disorder in all departments of the public service have kept pace with the financial embarrassment. Although every ministry called to office since 1864 has been more or less recruited from the _débris_ of the old moderate party, each succeeding administration has proved itself less capable of resisting the advances of the radicals and the Piedmontese opposition, and the last Ratazzi ministry was forced at the start to depend altogether on their support and forbearance. {821} These being the facts, it is only natural that the programme of the moderates in relation to the Roman and the ecclesiastical questions should have lost authority year after year, session after session, until it has finally become impracticable of execution. The non-intervention policy presupposed first of all a government strong and honest enough to enforce a pacific course toward the pope. But no such government has ever yet been known in Italy. The secret negotiations with Rome, conducted by the La Marmora and the Ricasoli cabinets, (through Vegezzi and Tonello,) related only to spiritual affairs; but even these were defeated by the machinations of the radicals in parliament and in the press. This party desires no dealings whatever with the papal government, neither in relation to temporal nor spiritual matters. It is an uncompromising opponent of Cavour's maxim, _Libero chiesa in libero stato_, which it considers the greatest misfortune that could befall the country. Between the radicals of Italy and the Church of Rome the war is one of life and death. They charge the papacy with having caused the division and subjugation of the peninsula. They hold up the whole institution as the mortal foe of every national aspiration for unity and independence. They say that only doctrinarians and disguised clericals can draw a line of demarcation between Rome's temporal and spiritual rule, and openly boast that it is their mission to complete at once the unity of Italy, and to free the world from papacy. These are the leading points in the radical programme, and they are, therefore, the exact opposite to those laid down in the September convention.

But, despite the disintegration of the moderate party, despite the feebleness of the consecutive ministries in office since 1864, a programme which substitutes the subjugation of the church for its freedom, the physical conquest of Rome for its moral, would perhaps have less rapidly gained ground, had not an entirely new factor entered into the relations between the Italian and the papal governments--between church and state; and this factor was the all-engrossing financial question. The radicals cunningly used it to hasten the solution of the Roman problem by advocating the confiscation of the ecclesiastical property, and they succeeded in persuading the moderates to countenance a policy which was felt to be an outrage to all justice. The latter, instead of acting in accordance with the principle of a free church in a free state, accepted the radical postulates. The influence of the radicals constantly grew, because they were perfectly united, decided, and logical on all questions relating to church and state, while, the moderates only reluctantly, and with the secret consciousness of their own inconsequence, assented to measures which endangered both the discipline and possessions of the church. A party which fights boldly under its own colors may be vanquished to-day, yet rally again to-morrow and conquer at last; but a party which is compelled to hide its colors and to hoist those of its foes resigns all hopes of resuming the contest after the first reverse. As far as the interests of the papacy are, therefore, concerned, there is very little difference between the radicals and the moderates of Italy. Both would like to obtain Rome, only that the latter differ in regard to the means. While the radicals would resort to brute force, the moderates would trust to cunning and plotting; for they know that the Roman question is not, like the Venetian, a mere question of national independence and unity, which can be solved permanently by war or revolution. {822} Their object is not simply the destruction of the worldly power of the pope and the annexation of the small strip of territory still left to him. The supreme pontiff has more than once lost his temporality; but his ascendency over the minds of men was rather strengthened than weakened by his adversity, and with the aid of his moral authority, his spiritual influence, he has every time regained what he had lost. To deprive him, once for all, of his worldly power, he must first be reduced to a condition which will not allow him to avail himself again of his moral authority as the head of the church, and it is to this end that the moderates have been working in various ways.

In relation to the proposed European congress we have nothing to say, except that it is an impossibility. As the pastoral letter of the Bishop of Orleans forcibly remarked, such a conference could only be composed of kings; for the fate of the supreme pontiff should never be left to the decision of a Gortschakoff or a Bismarck.

Since the above article was written, the debates in the Italian chambers have shown to us anew that the Holy Father can expect nothing from the monarchy. They have proved again that the Roman question is considered by them to be a mere political question, and this without the slightest reference to its religious and international features. Cavour once announced, with the approbation of parliament, that Italy _must_ have Rome; but General Menabrea knows full well the pressure under which the modern Machiavelli, the man of impromptu and chicane, was forced to resort to this expedient. Menabrea may, perhaps, never make common cause with Garibaldi as Ratazzi has done, not even for the sake of Rome; but he is equally destitute of moral principles. Italy, it appears, has not been rendered one whit the wiser or more honest by the deep humiliation which she has recently undergone; otherwise, she would not have the audacity to ask that the Catholic world should confide the fate of the church to a state which has for years persistently derided, oppressed, and plundered the church. Italy has too recently been leagued with one who never ceases to utter the vilest invectives and threats against the papacy, and she is quite ready to avail herself again of the next opportunity to outrage the law of nations by proclaiming the law of the revolution. Italy, even had she the wish, which she has not, would not have the power to protect the church, for she has unchained every element most hostile to it, and can now herself only exist by a chain of negations. To a state like this, to which nothing has been sacred since Charles Albert's revolt against Austria, in May, 1848, and which is so feeble internally, the Catholic world could never dream of intrusting its holiest and highest interests. Whole Europe would first have to take leave of its senses. It is not solely the Catholic powers which--unless, indeed, they aim, like Russia, at the total destruction of Catholicism--are profoundly concerned in this question. Every existing state has a vital interest in opposing this openly avowed scheme to unsettle all fundamental principles of equity and justice. Should the Italian doctrine triumph, as Menabrea dares to prophesy, the old feudal times, when might made right and brute force ruled supreme, would return on earth in this nineteenth century. The church state exists since eleven centuries, the Italian monarchy not yet as many years; the church state owes its rise to the consent of its populations, the Italian monarchy to a series of intrigues and violence, rendered successful through foreign support. {823} And now the Italian monarchy comes again, in the midst of peace, without cause or provocation, without the wish of those most deeply interested in the question, the Romans themselves, to declare once more, "Rome is mine!" Hers? how? Through those boasted moral means, which have turned out to be a band of filibusters, the accomplices of the banditti who selected the evening of the twenty-second day of October, 1867, for the purpose of inaugurating their heroic achievements with deeds of murder and arson? This is the policy--these are the principles--which General Menabrea, the putative father of the September convention and of a "moral solution" of the Roman question, has the unblushing hardihood to proclaim in the face of civilized and christianized Europe! What answer will the two hundred millions of Roman Catholics return?

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The Love Of The Pardoned.

"He to whom less is forgiven,
the same loveth less."

Disciple.

"Sweet Lord,
'Tis true thy love no measure knows;
And yet thou must agree,
A love within my bosom glows
Thou canst not feel for me--
The love that springs in pardoned hearts
With all the joy such love imparts.
I long, but why I do not know,
That thou, dear Lord, couldst love me so."

Master.

"My child,
Thy brethren are my images.
Wherefore I said to thee:
Whate'er thou doest unto these
Thou doest unto me.
Shall I have joy if thou dispense
Thy bounty on their need,
And if thou pardonest their offence
Feel not the loving deed?
That which _thou_ doest is divine.
Doubt not; _their_ love is also mine!"

--------

{824}

What Doctor Marks died of.

Some one at our camp-fire had chanced to mention Dr. Marks, which called forth the comment that the doctor had died of heart-disease--been found dead in his bed.

Major Arnold lifted his dark, bright eyes from dreaming over the coals, and looked steadily at the last speaker. "Died of heart-disease?" he repeated, with a slightly sceptical inflection.

"Yes, sir!"--very positively.

The major looked into the fire again, and thoughtfully thridded his beard through his fingers, while he appeared to weigh the pros and cons of some impulse in his mind. The pros tilted the beam, and the major spoke. But he first drew his hand down across his eyes, and swept away, with that pass, the present scene of myriad tents, ghostly-white in the moonlight, or shining crimson in the light of scattered fires; of closely-crowding, shadow-haunted southern crags and forests that lifted themselves from our feet to the horizon, their black and ragged rim standing boldly out against a sky that was flooded with the mellow radiance of the full moon, all its stars and all its purple swamped in that silent and melancholy tide.

"Poor Anne Atherton!" I had not thought that our rough major could speak so softly. "I had been going to the door every day, for weeks, to ask how she was, hoping in spite of the doctors. But one morning, when I reached the steps, I saw a strip of crape tied round the bell-knob. No need of questions that day. Poor little Anne was gone!

"I call her little; but she was eighteen, and well-grown. It is only a fond way of intimating that she crept into all our hearts. People liked her for her honest beauty, her ready smile, and her cheerful voice. Anne was not one of your bilious-sublime sort, but a strong, sweet, sensible girl, with an apple-blossom complexion and a clear conscience. Her family were old friends of mine, and Anne was engaged and about to be married to my particular crony--John Sharon--one of the best fellows that ever trod shoe-leather. Poor John! My heart ached for him as I went down-town that day.

"There's a little Scottish poem that reminded me, the first time I read it, of John Sharon's loves and hates:

'Tweed said to Till,
"What gars ye rin sae still?"
Till said to Tweed,
"Though ye rin wi' speed,
And I rin slaw,
Whar ye droon ae man,
I droon twa."'

"The current of John's feelings was like the current of Till river.

"That evening I went up to the house with my arms full of white flowers. Minnie Atherton wanted me to go in to see her sister; but I hesitated. I had always disliked to look at a corpse, and I hated to lose from my mind the picture it held of that rosy-cheeked girl, and take in its place ever so fair an image of death.

"'She looks very peaceful,' Minnie said tearfully, seeing my unwillingness. 'And you may be able to comfort John. We can't get him away from her.'

{825}

"I never was much at comforting people. All that I know how to say to a crying woman is, 'Now, don't, my dear!' and to a crying man I couldn't utter a word. Since then I have marched up to a battery with less shaking of the nerves than I felt on that day when I went into the darkened room where Anne Atherton lay dead, and John Sharon sat looking at her. There were no tears in his eyes, there was no trembling in his lip or voice. He looked as though he had so long gazed upon and studied that face of hers that his own had learned the secret of its frozen calm. I could not tell which of the two was whiter.

"How beautiful she was! There was still a faint pink in her lips; but where that marvellous rich color had bloomed in the cheeks, and a fainter tint in the small ears and rounded chin, there was now only pure white. But that pallor revealed many an exquisite outline which had been unnoted when her color dazzled the eyes. Her head was turned aside, with one hand under the cheek, and her long, fair hair was put back from the face, and lay in shining ripples down her shoulders and back. She wore her bridal dress and veil, some filmy, frosty stuff, that looked as though it might melt, being so near the cluster of candles that burned at her head. There was no light in the room but from those candles.

"Minnie scattered my flowers over her sister's hair and dress. 'I am glad that you brought tuberoses,' she said, 'Anne always loved them.'

"A long, slow sigh heaved John Sharon's breast. He carefully took up one of the blossoms and looked it all over--the flower that Anne had loved! Then he laid it tenderly back again. Not all the blooms of earth could, for any other reason, have won a glance from him at that moment; but I know that he has a tuberose engraven as sharply upon his memory as you ever saw any white flower cut upon a tomb-stone.

"Presently Minnie left the room, glancing at me as she went. I ventured to lay my hand on John's shoulder. I know it, Arnold,' he said quietly. 'You would help me if you could. But there is no help on earth. Don't worry about me. I can't leave while she is above ground. There will be time enough, by and by, for rest.'

"'I have no word of consolation to offer,' I said.

"'But I have a thought that consoles me,' he replied, leaning forward with tender passion to lay his hand on hers; 'I have not altogether lost her. I shall meet her again, my darling! I shall meet her again!'

"I turned away and left them there hand in hand.

"When I went up the next morning I found John trembling with excitement. 'I have just restrained myself from taking Dr. Marks's life!' he said, his teeth fairly chattering. 'What do you think that the brute dared to propose to me? He wants to make a _post-mortem_ examination of Anne! That young form that the hand of man has never touched, to be cut up for the gratification of a mere professional curiosity! I told him to run for his life, or I would strangle him.'

"Telling this, John panted like a man out of breath.

"I tried to soothe him. 'These doctors get used to everything,' I said. 'Marks could have no idea how you feel about it.'

"He wrung his hands, still shivering with loathing of the thought that had been forced on him. 'I can't get over it!' he said. 'I am sorry that he was called in at the consultation. If I had known in season, he should not have come. {826} He is a coarse-grained fellow, who, for the sake of gratifying his curiosity about a disease, would outrage all the decencies of life. 'I believe, Arnold--' here John choked with the words he would have uttered.

"'My dear fellow, try to forget it,' I said. 'He has asked, and you have refused, and there's an end of the matter.'

"'I don't believe that it is ended,' John said, looking at me strangely.

"'You don't mean--' I began.

"But he lifted his hand as though he could not bear to have the thought put into words. 'I shall watch her grave every night for a week,' he said. 'Will you watch with me tonight, Arnold?'

"I promised, and we parted.

"Anne Atherton's case was a peculiar one. They had called it quick consumption, for want of a better name. She always persisted in saying that she had swallowed something sharp like a pin, and that it had entered her left lung; but of all her physicians, Doctor Marks was the only one who believed it possible that she might be right. On the strength of this half agreement he had proposed the examination.

"The South cemetery, just outside the city, used to be the paradise of body-snatchers. It was in a lonesome neighborhood, and two sides bordered on the open country. Many a grave in that cemetery had given up its dead to the dissecting-knife, while the bereaved ones at home little dreamed that its sacred rest had been disturbed. The Athertons had a lot there, and Anne was buried in it. We covered the new-made grave with evergreens, wreath linked in wreath, the whole sprinkled with white flowers--a pretty counterpane for the fair sleeper below.

"It was five minutes past nine in the evening when I vaulted over the stone wall, and walked down the central avenue. The Atherton lot was not far from the entrance, and instead of a high fence, with gate and lock like the others, it was surrounded only by a low rim of granite. As I approached, I saw the tall, white monument in the centre, and John Sharon leaning against it, and looking down on the wreath-covered mound at his feet. He started when he heard my step, and came to meet me, taking my hand in a strong, cold clasp.

"'We will sit here,' he said, leading me to a shady nook at the other side of the avenue.

"The place he had selected was a grove of Norway spruces which formed a half-circle, the open side facing the Atherton lot, and not more than two rods distant from it. Thoughtful for my comfort, though indifferent to his own, John had thrown a shawl over the horizontal slab of marble in the centre of this grave, and on that we seated ourselves. He had brought, too, a little flask of brandy, which he pressed into my hand, but would not taste of himself. It did not come amiss; for the season was the last of October, and the night chilly, though clear and calm.

"I asked John what he meant to do if the doctor should make his appearance.

"'I shall frighten him,' he said. 'I have my pistol here, and mean to fire it. I couldn't bear to have a fight over her grave.'

"We sat there and awaited in silence, John with his eyes fixed on the mound across the way. The last ray of the setting moon touched with a white lustre its wreaths, and every little ghost of a flower, then slipped up the shaft of marble near by, pointed with a luminous finger to the 'rest in peace,' engraven there, showed name after name, and date after date, stole up the cross at the top, lingered an instant on its summit, then melted into the air. {827} Following its flight with my glance, I saw that the sky was of a pale, transparent gray, with a few large stars in it. Clearly out against this background stood the roofs and spires of that sleeping city that breathed while it slept, and more clearly yet the monuments, and a fine tracery of the bare trees, branch, stem, and twig showing delicate as lace-work, of that nearer city which slept in awful, breathless silence, never stirring for sunrise nor sunset, never starting at any alarm, nor opening its eyes, let who would go by.

"The evening had been calm, but as it grew toward midnight a faint and fitful breeze came now and then, like a sigh, setting that net-work of branches in a shiver, and sweeping the dry leaves about with a low and mournful rustling. The place and time, the silence that was only broken by that weird and spirit-like wind, and yet more, the face of my companion, affected me strongly. John sat leaning slightly forward, his hands clasped on his knees, his gaze fixed on that grave he had come to watch, and as motionless as any stone about us. The frozen look of his face chilled me. I could not see nor hear that he breathed; and there was no movement of an eyelid even. I would have spoken to him if I had dared. I longed for some sound which would startle him out of that trance; but there he sat motionless, apparently lifeless.

"I took a swallow of brandy and tried to occupy my thoughts otherwise. I looked through the interstices of the trees near me and counted grave-stones. Close by were two old sunken graves with slate stones leaning awry at their heads, where lay, or had lain, grandfather and grandmother Sawyer--a later John Anderson and his wife, who had gone, hand in hand, up and down the hill, and now slept thegither at the foot. I say they had lain there; for, in the fifty odd years since their burial, it was most probable that their dust had left its place beneath those tumble-down slate stones and gone about other business, rising, may be, in grasses and flowers. Not much of the old couple left in their coffins, be sure. Perhaps the children had carried the last of them away in violets and mayweed, that very summer. Possibly the birds had pecked them up, in one shape or another.

"Would John Sharon never move?

"I turned and peered back to where a small white cross stood, looking like a child in its night-gown, with arms extended. I could fancy some dear little frightened thing coming to me in that lonely place, silent from fear, or only faintly whimpering, all of a tremor, poor babe! till I should reach and clasp it safe. The rustling of the leaves was its little bare feet in them, the sigh of air was its sobbing breath.

"I gave myself a shake. Well, to be sure! a white marble cross to mark where a child had been buried a year or two before. I remembered having seen, in June, a red-ripe strawberry on that grave, looking as though the little creature's mouth were put up through the sod to be kissed.

"I turned to John Sharon again. He had not stirred. I looked at the grave he watched, and wondered if, with that steadfast gaze, he could pierce the sod, as clairvoyants tell, and see Anne lying, cold and lovely, far below, with one hand under her cheek and the other on her breast, and her hair flowing down unbound, never again to float on any breeze, to toss with any light motion of hers, to be twisted about his fingers.

{828}

"I turned quickly to touch him, but, as I raised my hand, he started. A sough of air had arisen, faint but far-reaching; the leaves rustled and crept all about the many graves; and through that sound I heard a step.