Chapter XII (2)

The English government was indignant that its agent Plowden, as it is known, should have been massacred on the highway near Gondar. Theodore avenged his death, however, by the barbarous slaughter of its authors and their associates. But the party of the "saints" in England was not satisfied with this reparation. Theodore was weak, and no match for England. It was safe, therefore, to insult him. Had he been as powerful as the United States, England would have been as loath to touch him as she is afraid to refuse satisfaction to America for the ravages of the Alabama on the high seas. She, however, suppressed the consulship of Gondar, and sent Captain Cameron as her consul to Massowah, under the protection of the Turkish flag. Captain Cameron was a brave officer who had served in the Crimea, but he was no diplomatist. {278} We all know that, as much from lack of this quality as from the semi-barbarous habits of King Theodore, who thinks himself all-powerful because he has been so successful in conquering rebels in his own kingdom, Cameron and five other English subjects, among them M. Rassam--another unskilful English agent--and two Germans, were imprisoned at Magdala on the 8th of July, 1866.

Magdala, where the prisoners still remain, is a stronghold in the Abyssinian highlands, 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and the climate there is less warm than in most parts of the torrid zone. There are a church, a treasury, a prison, and huts in the place, and a population of about three or four thousand persons, of whom four hundred are prisoners of every description; a garrison of six hundred sharpshooters and as many common soldiers armed with lance and shield. Although this fortress is considered strong by the natives, one of the prisoners writes that a single shell would suffice to blow up a place which the Ethiopians have looked upon as impregnable for three centuries.

Besides the European prisoners at Magdala, Theodore keeps fourteen others, mostly German mechanics, near his own quarters. These artisans, exported at the expense of a Protestant missionary society as "_pious laymen_" began their evangelical labors as messengers of peace in a very extraordinary fashion, by fabricating mortars and other engines of war. As for the spiritual welfare of the Christians of Ethiopia, they looked well to it by distilling bad brandy; and as for the temporal, they drove the profitable trade of slave-mongers. This is what M. Rassam, an Arabian, who turned Protestant to get employment from the English government, tells us. He was nine years at Aden as _lieutenant-governor_, and is considered one of the ablest English agents in the East, if we are to believe the parliamentary eulogium passed on him in a recent debate in the House of Commons. The last account heard from this unfortunate ambassador does not warrant the belief in his ability. The abun, Salama, having died, M. Rassam advises the English to choose another abun in Egypt, and put him at the head of the invading army as a kind of palladium! This advice, if put into execution, would be as absurd as if, on the death of Pius IX., Premier Disraeli, imitating the policy of Pitt, and wishing to restore the Marches to the Holy See, should send an army against the Sardinians, with a pope at its head elected at Canterbury or elsewhere, Jansenist or Catholic, no matter which, and should expect all the Italians to respect him as sovereign pontiff.

VI.

England has undertaken the Abyssinian expedition to preserve her _prestige_ in the East, and she is determined to gain her point. The dusky King Theodore, pretended descendant of Solomon, cannot complain that he has not received diplomatic notice. When the German who brought him the British ultimatum, told him that if he did not deliver up the prisoners he would have both the armies of England and France against him--"Let them come," said Theodore, "and call me a woman if I do not give them battle." We know not if there be more of folly or of intrepid valor in this proud answer. In fact, notwithstanding the narrations of some travellers, naturally suspected of exaggeration, the Ethiopians have no idea of the military power of the Western nations, and their king may believe that he is a match for them.

{279}

The Bay of Adulis, usually so silent, is now swarming with ships. There were in it, a short time ago, seventy vessels, without counting those of the Arabians and East-Indians. The English have built two quays to assist the debarkation of troops. The English have the Snider gun, which they pretend to be superior to the Chassepot rifle. They have even forty elephants to frighten Theodore. One of them, an elephant of good sense if ever there was one, behaved himself so badly at the debarkation of the troops, that he was sent back to Hindostan.

England is determined to succeed. Instead of borrowing, she has levied a tax of ten millions of dollars. She will need at least six times that amount before the end of the war. Every English prisoner to be freed will cost at least ten millions. But her object is not merely the freeing of the prisoners, though she asserts that it is. She has to provide water for sixty-five thousand men and many beasts on the plains of Zullah, where, in default of natural fresh water, the troops drink a distillation of sea water. They need every day one hundred and eighty thousand quarts to drink; and this quantity has been provided at the enormous cost of twenty thousand dollars for every twenty-four hours. To transport the munitions of war, mules were bought and brought to Zullah from Egypt, Turkey, Spain, and France. The English soldiers, not knowing at first how to manage them, tied them with hay ropes. Many of the mules ate the ropes, escaped into the desert, and were lost. A railroad has been built, running from the sea to Sanafe, the first border station of Ethiopia, a distance of almost one hundred miles.

The line of march has been well chosen. The English could have crossed the plains of Tigray, which are level and oppose no obstacle; and then crossed through Wasaya without meeting any noteworthy difficulty except the river Takkaze, and Mount Lamalmo. Farther on, at Dabra Tabor, where Theodore usually resides, they might have chosen either the plains of the Lanige, or the cool and verdant hills of the Waynadaga territory as the sites of their encampment. But this route is not the shortest. Besides, the Wasaya begins to be unhealthy in the month of May, and there is no forage as far as Wagara.

The shorter route, which the English have taken, is by Agame and Wag. On those elevated plateaux they may keep all their energy, and they will find a territory less ravaged by civil war, and good pastures. The distance from Zullah to Magdala is about the same as from Paris to Lyons. But artillery is with difficulty transported over many of the gullies on the route; and perhaps for the elephants it will be found impracticable. But the leader of the expedition, Sir Robert Napier, will not balk at these details. He will push rapidly on to Delanta before the rainy season, which begins about the 10th of July. According to the prisoners, if he should invest Magdala at the beginning of May, the want of water would soon force the garrison to surrender. If the first rains have fallen before his arrival, the English will occupy Tanta among the Wara Haymano, and from that point open fire on Magdala. Soldiers living in huts, without casemates or caverns, could not stand a day against the English guns. In, any case, Magdala, the great Ethiopian fortress, will be taken, and it will remain to be seen whether the troops will march to Dabra Tabor to burn the camp of King Theodore, and kill him, or make him prisoner. {280} Nevertheless, the use of diplomacy will not be despised. When Theodore put M. Rassam in prison, with great protestations of friendship, he promised him his liberty on the arrival of certain machines and expert workers. England sent both to Massowah, but required first the liberation of the prisoners without having used any of those forms which render a contract binding in the eyes of the Abyssinians. On his side, Theodore did not understand the value of a simple signature. Besides, he had been deceived by Plowden, who denied his character of consul, and cheated by the denials of the Protestant missionaries as to their attempts to proselytize the native Christians. He did not, therefore, believe the protestations of the English. The want of a sensible agent caused the failure of this negotiation, which might have succeeded if more skilfully conducted. Moreover, the English army, on entering the Tigray, issued a proclamation, of which the _Times_ published a literal copy, as ridiculous in _Amariñña_ dialect as in English. Besides, the language used is almost unknown in Agama, where this document has been published. The English officers do not seem to have known that a proclamation is never published in Ethiopia in a written form. But what will King Theodore, the pretended descendant of Solomon, do? It is difficult to answer this question. The natives report that Theodore is often out of his senses when he drinks brandy, which the "_pious laymen_" of the Protestant mission zealously manufacture for his _spiritual_ comfort. From the very beginning of his reign, Plowden informs us that he manifested symptoms of insanity. The English prisoners tell us more explicitly that Theodore himself informed them that his father was insane, and that he believed himself attacked with the same disorder. Several traits in his conduct toward the prisoners, and the massacre of one hundred of his own soldiers in his camp, on mere suspicion, give gravity to the assertions. If this be true, England has declared war against an adversary unworthy of her dignity. In case of defeat, the only refuge for Theodore is to retreat to his native province of Quara, on the border of a terrible desert, breathing pestilence on all the region around. Woe to the English soldiers if they attempt to follow him thither!

Of all the ancient empire of Yasu the Great, that Ethiopian Louis XIV., Theodore has only Quara, that he can call his own. His governors of the Tigra have been expelled by rebels, or have made themselves independent of his authority. Gojjan has proclaimed its independence; Wag also has risen in arms; Suria is free, and gives asylum to all refugees. Yet these are regions but recently subjected to the conquering arms of Theodore. Tissu Gobaze rules the lower Tigray, Wasaya, Walguayt, Simen, Wazara, and as far as Dambya, where Gondar stood before Theodore destroyed it.

What then is left to this unfortunate tyrant, resisted at home by numberless insurgents, and threatened by foreign force with destruction? The Awamas, whose rights he has respected because they know how to defend themselves, but who will seize the first opportunity to rebel; Tagusa, Acafar, Alafa, and Meca stretching along the Tana, but which he has made solitudes by his systematic pillage; and finally Bagemdir, that beautiful portion of the country, which obeys him with regret. {281} A disease, a slight cheek, or a courageous peasant, would be sufficient to destroy Theodore, that royal meteor, which, after shining for a few years, will soon be extinguished in the night of oblivion. Considering the greatness of the English preparations, we are led to suspect that she has the intention of holding Northern Ethiopia after conquering it. Appearances seems to favor this conjecture, and no matter what the English journals may say, the idea is not of French origin. Plowden urged its realization in his official letters thirteen years ago; Cameron is in favor of it; and General Coghlan timidly hints its practicability in his military monograph on Ethiopian affairs. The English have been masters of Aden for the last thirty years, and they wish to make the Red Sea an English lake. They desire Ethiopia; for from it they could invade Egypt, where "King Cotton" would rule in all his glory. They allege the case of Algiers annexed to France in justification of their project. But let it be observed that Charles X., who ransomed at his own expense, the Greek slaves sold in the markets of Constantinople and in Egypt, could not allow the Dey of Algiers alone to keep French, Spanish, and English Christians in bonds; while the English have never done anything to prevent the slave-trade in Abyssinia. Many Christian slaves are annually bought within gunshot of the British ships on the Red Sea, to be brutalized in Mussulman harems. _England has never made an effort to stop the traffic there_. Can we blame King Theodore then, who, according to his degree of intelligence and power, wished to put an end to this inhuman commerce, for saying with at least as much modesty as her majesty's government has at command, "Which of us two is the greater barbarian?"

----------

New Publications.

St. Columba, Apostle of Caledonia.
By the Count de Montalembert, of the French Academy,
New York: Catholic Publication House,
126 Nassau street. 1868.

Irish ecclesiastical history is something unique in the world, and presents to us the spirit of Christianity run into an entirely new and original mould. The Celtic race, whose most perfect and completely actualized type exists in the people of Ireland, is a singular specimen of humanity, as it used to be in the primitive ages just after, and perhaps long before the flood, preserved, continued, and apparently incapable of being destroyed or changed, in the midst of other races of totally opposite character. The sudden and entire conversion of this people to Christianity, and the invincible tenacity with which it has clung to its first faith, together with the marked individuality of the expression which it has given to the Christian idea, form a phenomenon in history which cannot be too much studied or admired. It was a happy moment for Ireland when that Chevalier Bayard of Catholic literature, the Count de Montalembert, felt his chivalrous soul moved by the story of her ancient princely monks and dauntless, adventurous apostles, and set himself to the task of writing a work which unites all the romantic, poetic charm of the lyric strains of her bards, with the accuracy and minuteness of her monastic chronicles. {282} His narrative, partly owing to the nature of his subject, and partly to his own genius, is like the _Scottish Chiefs_ and the _Waverley Novels_. The most striking, original, and grand of all the characters depicted by him in that part of the _Monks of the West_ which is devoted to Ireland, is St. Columba or Columbkill. This great man, who was by birth heir to the dignity of Ard-righ, or chief king of Ireland, the founder of Iona, and the apostle of Scotland, is the favorite saint of the Irish people after St. Patrick. He is a more thoroughly Irish saint than the great apostle of Ireland, who was the father and founder of the Irish people as a Christian nation, but was himself, probably, by birth and extraction a Gallo-Roman. A warrior, a poet, a chieftain, a monk, a statesman, an apostle, and, it is supposed, a prophet; the most intensely devoted and patriotic lover of his native island, perhaps, that ever lived; and yet sentenced by his stern old hermit confessor to perpetual banishment from it; the life of Columba overflows with all the materials of the most romantic and heroic interest.

The Life of Columba, whose title is placed at the head of this notice, is, as we have implied already, a monograph extracted from the great work on the _Monks of the West_, by Montalembert. It is a small book of only 170 duo-decimo pages, and therefore readable by almost everybody who ever reads anything better than newspapers and dime novels. It is, above all others, a book for every one, young or old, who has Celtic-Catholic blood in his veins. It is time now to use that English language which was forced by the haughty conqueror upon the Irish people, from a cruel motive which God has overruled for their glory and his own, as the means of diffusing the treasures hidden hitherto, so to speak, under a _cromlech_. Those who put this unwilling people into a compulsory course of English, little thought what a keen-edged weapon they were placing in their hands, and training them to use. They could not foresee what use would be made of it by Curran, O'Connell, Thomas Moore, Bishop Doyle, and Father Meehan. The possession of the English language places the Irish people in communication with the whole civilized world, without depriving them of their rich patrimony of traditional lore, legend, and song. It is incumbent on all who love the faith, and sympathize with the wrongs and hardships, of the Irish people, to strain every nerve to increase the number and diffuse the circulation of books, in which this religious and patriotic tradition may be perpetuated. Wherever the Irish people are, in Ireland, England, America, Australia, they are deriving their intellectual nutriment more and more from English books; and thus, in proportion as they become readers, are coming under the influence of writers who write in the English language. It is most important, therefore, for those who are charged with the responsibility of watching over their religious, moral, and intellectual culture, to see to it that their minds are not flooded with an excess of purely secular literature, which has in it no mixture of the Catholic tradition. The greatest danger and misfortune of our rising generation of Catholics in America is the lack of this tradition in historical, poetic, and romantic literature. Even those who are the descendants of parents and progenitors of the old Catholic stock, must necessarily lose by degrees all vivid sentiment of any other nationality than the American, and be more influenced by the _genius loci_ than by any other genius, whether Celtic or Teutonic. The danger to be guarded against is a peril of becoming so much Americanized as to be reduced to a _caput mortuum_ in the process. An American citizen, without faith and religion, even though he may be born and live in Boston, is involved in the consequences of original sin as well as others. It is no gain to transform a poor, simple, believing, fervent Catholic immigrant, in the second or third generation, into an intelligent, well fed, healthy animal, with a comfortable farm and the elective franchise, but with no more soul than the man with the muck-rake in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, or those dirty heathen in the suburbs of the holy city of New York, who spend their Sundays in weeding cabbages. {283} This deleterious change must be prevented, not only, by purely spiritual means, but also by preserving and fostering as much as possible the natural bonds which connect our youth of Catholic origin with the traditions of their ancestry. Hence, we are in favor of multiplying and circulating as much as possible those books which relate the history of the Catholic Church of Ireland, of her saints and prelates, her gallant chieftains and noble martyrs, her sufferings and persecutions. The English Catholic tradition, and the Scottish, are unfortunately broken. A dreary gap of three centuries intervenes between the present and the Catholic past; but in Ireland the continuity is perfect from the fifth century to the present moment. This is the great artery of life to the Catholic Church of the British empire and its colonies, and it must not be severed. There is an intense sympathy between the people of the United States and the people of Ireland. This is chiefly a sympathy with their oppressed condition as a people, and with their just demands for expiation and redress for the wrongs they have suffered from the hands of the British government. It would be prudent for the gentlemen of the English parliament to take note of this, and to be wise in time, by conceding all those rights and privileges at once with a good grace, which Ireland is sure to obtain sooner or later, whether parliament is willing or unwilling. This merely political sympathy will, we trust, prepare the way for a higher and holier sympathy with the faith, the constancy, the invincible fortitude of the Irish people as a Catholic nation, the Spartans of a sacred Thermopylae, who have immolated themselves to save the faith. It is time that the American public should learn what is the _Irish Version of the History of the Reformation_. This presupposes a previous knowledge of the first planting and cultivation of Christianity. When it is seen that the Irish fought and died for the very same religion which was planted among them by their first apostles, it will be easy to judge of the claims which the religion of Elizabeth and Cromwell had upon their submission. The labors of Montalembert are therefore invaluable, as bringing to light the hidden treasures of Irish ecclesiastical history, and in all his great work there is no chapter to be found more charming than the biography of the great patriarch of Iona. We conclude with the eulogium which Fintan, a contemporary monk, pronounced upon St. Columba in an assembly of wise and learned men, and which is justified by the history of his life. "Columba is not to be compared with philosophers and learned men, but with patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The Holy Spirit reigns in him; he has been chosen by God for the good of all; he is a sage among all sages, a king among kings, an anchorite with anchorites, a monk of monks; and in order to bring himself to the level even of laymen, he knows how to be poor of heart among the poor; thanks to the apostolic charity which inspires him, he can rejoice with the joyful, and weep with the unfortunate. And amid all the gifts which God's generosity has lavished on him, the true humility of Christ is so royally rooted in his soul that it seems to have been born with him."

----

Ecce Homo. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.
Strahan & Co., London. G. Routledge & Sons,
416 Broome street, New York. 1868.

On the day of writing this notice, Mr. Gladstone is introducing his motion for overthrowing that monstrous iniquity, the Irish Establishment. We feel, consequently, especially well-disposed toward him. Nevertheless, with all our respect for his talents and character, we cannot help being reminded of his illustrious countryman, that great ornament of the sea-faring profession. Captain Bunsby. Our English brethren, when they take up solid topics, appear to think laborious dulness and tedious obscurity the evidence of deep learning and sound judgment. Their essays are like those of collegians, who affect to write on political or philosophical subjects in an extremely old-mannish, old-cabinet-minister-like style. {284} This is remarkably the case with the venerable university dons who advocate rationalistic opinions. The style of arguing adopted by these worthy and dignified gentlemen bears a striking resemblance to the movements of one who is carefully wending his way among eggs. As an instance, we may cite the _Essays and Reviews_, perhaps the dullest book ever written, unless the _Treatises on Sacred Arithmetic and Mensuration_, by Dr. Colenso, may be thought worthy to compete for the prize. The _Ecce Homo_ is not to be placed in precisely the same category. It is, nevertheless, in our humble opinion, a very vague, wearisome, and unsatisfactory book. We cannot account for its popularity in any other way than by ascribing it to the restless, sceptical, misty state of the English mind on religious subjects; the uneasy desire to find out something more than it knows about Christianity and its author. After eighteen centuries have rolled by, the question. Who is Jesus Christ? still remains a puzzle to all those who will not submit to learn from the teacher commissioned by himself. The author of _Ecce Homo_ has endeavored to throw himself back to the time and into the period of the disciples of Christ, to examine with their eyes his words and actions, and from these to abstract a mental conception of his true character. What that conception is, remains as much a puzzle as the gospels themselves are to a rationalist, or the Exodus to Dr. Colenso. The language of _Ecce Homo_ is certainly irreconcilable with the definitions of the Catholic Church respecting the divine personality of Christ. Some of its statements respecting the nature of the work accomplished by him on the earth, and the evidence thereby furnished of his divine mission, are forcible and valuable, and perhaps to rationalists, Unitarians, and doubters, the work may be useful. No one, however, who understands Catholic theology, and believes in the true doctrine of the Incarnation, can read it without a strong sentiment of repugnance and dissatisfaction. Mr. Gladstone, nevertheless, although professing to accept the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation, undertakes the defence of the book, and even apologises for its most offensive passages. By doing this he shows that he himself does not grasp the full meaning of the formulas to which he gives his assent; and although he is not a rationalist, yet, from perpetual contact with them, and the influence of that halting, inconsequent state of mind produced by Anglicanism, he has acquired something of that dark-lantern style of which we have spoken above. There are gleams of light and passages of beauty here and there, especially on those pages where the author treats of the Greek Mythology as an imperfect effort to realize the idea of Deity incarnate in human form. As a whole, the essay, which is a mere review of another book, was well enough for a magazine article, but not of sufficient importance to warrant its publication in book form. Every person who acknowledges the true divinity of Jesus Christ while rejecting the authority of the Catholic Church, stands in a position logically absurd, and is therefore incapable of adequately advocating the cause of Christ and Christianity against the infidelity of the age. No one but a Catholic, endowed with genius, and fully imbued with the spirit of Catholic theology, can ever write in a satisfactory manner upon the Life of Christ, so as to meet that demand which causes the abortive efforts of unbelievers and half-Christians to find such an extensive circulation.

----

On the Heights. A Novel.
By Berthold Auerbach.
Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.

This volume, professing to be a translation from the German, is most thoroughly permeated with German _mysticism_; one can hardly give it the dignified name of theology. It carries one back in its bewildering metaphysics to the days of _The Dial_, when every girl of eighteen belonging to a certain clique, was devouring Bettina's correspondence with Goethe, and listening with rapt soul to lectures on "Human Life," from the oracular lips of a favorite seer; discourses utterly beyond the comprehension of the maiden's papa, but which she understood perfectly.

{285}

We are led to wonder, in our republican ignorance, if people in court life converse and act in the stilted, theatrical manner in which they are here represented; every person being what in these days would be called "highly organized." In this particular, and in the tedium and repetition of court detail, we were forcibly reminded of the voluminous works of Miss Mühlbach, with this difference, that _On the Heights_ makes no historical claim.

There are, however, very many sweet touches of nature in the book, gems of thought; and now and then a rare pearl of good counsel, near which, in reading, one involuntarily draws a pencil-line, that they may be found again. Maternal love is beautifully portrayed, both in high and low life, in the queen, and in the foster-mother of the prince.

The author evidently, knows but little of the Catholic faith, and less of its results, since the life of the _religieuse_ is continually referred to (with a slight sneer) as "_a life in which nothing happens_."

We close this volume with a sensation of weary sadness; there seems to run through its pages "the cry of that deep-rooted pain, under which, thoughtful men are languishing," like the distant tones of an AEolian harp wafted on the night breezes. There is a reaching forth in these mystic yearnings for the good, the true, and the _enduring_, which the priceless gift of faith alone brings to the weary and heavy-laden, in submission to God's appointed teacher, the church.

The mechanical execution of the work is excellent, the type clear, and the double-columed pages furnish a vast amount of reading in a small compass.

------

Chemical Change in the Eucharist.
From the French of Jacques Abbadie.
By John W. Hamersley, A.M.

Jacques Abbadie was born in Switzerland, in 1654; "studied at Saumur," writes Mr. Hamersley in his preface, "was doctorated at Sedan, and installed pastor of the French (Huguenot) Church of Berlin, at the instance of Count d'Espence."

He left his pastorate, became chaplain to Marshal Schomberg, and came to England with William of Orange in 1688. After Schomberg's death, in the battle of the Boyne, Abbadie was presented to the deanery of Killaloo, in Ireland, where he died in 1727.

His book against transubstantiation in the Eucharist, is such as might be expected from the literary leisure, taste, learning, and piety of one of Schomberg's exemplary camp-followers. We read the book with the hope of finding some objection in it worth a refutation; but we have found nothing but the stale, oft-refuted arguments of Protestants against the real presence. Led by the title of the work, _Chemical Change in the Eucharist_, we expected to meet some profound chemical discoveries that should at least seem to contradict Catholic belief. But there is not one. There is not even an allusion which would show the author to be conversant with chemistry or any of the natural sciences. Abbadie argues against the Catholic exegesis of the sixth chapter of St. John, and against the words of consecration, "This is my body," in the usual Protestant way. He insists that Christ's words are to be taken figuratively; while Catholics claim that they are to be taken literally.

One general answer will do for all heterodox interpretations of Scripture on this and on other points. If Protestants urge that private reason is the supreme judge of Scripture, how can they deny to Catholics the right to use it? And if the private judgment of Catholics finds that Christ spoke of a real presence in the Holy Eucharist, and that his words are to be taken in their plain, literal signification, why should Protestants object? In point of fact, Catholics do admit private judgment, properly understood, in the interpretation of Scripture. They affirm that the interpretation of the church or of the fathers is identical with the rational exegesis. {286} The interpretation of Protestants is _not_ a rational interpretation, and does not give the true sense of Scripture. They misinterpret the Scriptures by an _abuse_ of private judgment. They gratuitously assume that Catholic interpretation is contrary to the rational sense of the Bible; while Catholics hold that their interpretation alone is rational. As a prudent, sensible man, when he meets with a difficult passage in Homer or Sophocles, consults the best commentators to aid him in discovering the true sense; so, for a much greater reason, should a Christian seek an authoritative explanation of those hard passages of Holy Writ "which the unstable and unlearned wrest to their own destruction." One who denies that there are difficult texts in Scripture can never have read it. From the first text of Genesis to the last in the Apocalypse, the Scripture is replete with difficulties, which even the most learned commentators do not always succeed in explaining.

All Abbadie's scriptural arguments against the real presence may be, therefore, met with one remark. He explains certain texts in a figurative sense. Catholics, however, interpret them to mean what they plainly and literally express. Catholics do not need in this case to appeal to the authority of the church or to the fathers. Christ says, "This is my body;" Catholics believe him. Christ says, "My flesh is meat indeed;" Catholics believe his words. Abbadie and his sect admit that Christ says, "This is my body;" that he affirms his flesh to be meat indeed; yet they will not believe him. Who authorizes them to contradict the express words of Christ? We ask _impartial_ reason to judge between Catholic and Protestant in this controversy.

But where Abbadie shows his complete ignorance of the first elements of the higher sciences is in "Letter Fourth" of his book, p. 98. We quote from Mr. Hamersley's translation. "_All our ideas of faith rely solely on sense;_ and their value to us is measured by its certainty; and to faith, which is a conviction of divine truth, there are four essentials: God exists; he is truthful; he has revealed himself; each mystery of our faith appears in such revelation. Sir--it is noteworthy--that the _senses are the sole channels of all those truths, and their_ SOLE _vouchers_." Again, "Thus the _senses are the media of all evidence_." (P. 99.) The materialism of d'Holbach, Cabanis, Helvetius, and Condillac is identical with this doctrine of the doughty dean of Killaloo. If the senses "_are the sole channels of truth_," instead of being the mere occasions of reflection, then the whole order of intelligible ideas, the ideas of God, spirit, and cause, are illusions. The senses can only tell us the sensible or phenomenal. Now, as the ideas of God, cause, spirit, truth, justice, goodness, substance, etc., are all supersensible, they cannot come from the senses. If the senses "_are the media of all evidence_," the only things we can know are modes or phenomena, colors, forms, sounds, etc. The senses tell us nothing more. We must, therefore, deny the existence of God, of truth, of goodness, cause, substance, etc.; and turn atheists, pantheists, sceptics, or materialists, as all who logically follow out Abbadie's or Locke's metaphysics really become. The philosophy of the warlike chaplain of Schomberg's army is thus shown to be essentially immoral.

Did Mr. Hamersley know this when he translated the book? We think not, for he is evidently too innocent of logic and too ignorant of truth to be able to understand fully even the arguments of the superficial dean of Killaloo.

We shall make good our assertion by quoting a few of Mr. Hamersley's own references: "In 1845, the pope made the Immaculate Conception a part of the Roman creed and a condition of salvation." (P. 113.) The gentleman probably was thinking of the pope's decree of 1852.

"A.D. 597, Gregory I. instructs St. Augustine to accommodate the ceremonies of the church to heathen rites." (P. 125.).

"The Maronites, _originally Monothelites_, protected by the Emperor Heraclius, are now incorporated in the church of Rome." (P. 126.)

{287}

"A.D. 1295, Boniface VIII. confines ex-pope Celestine V. in _a cell about the size of his body_, lest he may elect to resume the pontificate he has resigned--guards him night and day with 6 knights and 30 soldiers. Celestine dies of cruelty." (P. 129.)

"Gregory VII. threatens to anathematize all France, unless King Philip _abandons simony_. (P. 135.) This was one of Gregory's _crimes_ in the judgment of Mr. Hamersley.

"Alexander VI. (Borgia) is elected pope--his Holiness is forthwith _adored by the cardinals_:" (P. 143.) What idolatry!

"_Penance--a sacrament by which venial sins, committed after baptism, are forgiven._" (P. 146.)

"The Nestorians were excommunicated A.D. 431, for holding, among other views, two natures of Christ."

"The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, confirmed the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, which the church had repudiated." (P. 148.)

As instances of schisms in the church, the _learned_ translator cites the following: "Dominicans and Franciscans--on immaculate conception." "Thomists and Scotists--efficacy of grace and immaculate conception." "Jesuits and Jansenists--on the doctrine of grace." (P. 150.)

"Dec. 17, 1866, the _leading Romanists of the Council of Baltimore_ invite the pope by letter to visit the United States." (P. 157.)

"Jesuit pestilence." (P. 159.) "_Plague-spots--Roman Catholic churches and institutions_." (P. 160.) This is a good instance of Mr. Hamersley's rhetoric.

"The Papal Church in the United States _has recently adopted the title of Roman Catholic_." Evidence: "It appears in large iron gilt letters over the gate of the asylum in Fifth avenue, New York--_Roman Catholic Male Orphan Asylum_." (P. 160.) _This is one of the plague-spots_!

These are but a few of the literary beauties to be found in Mr. Hamersley's additions to Abbadie. A Catholic could afford to smile at both the original and his translator, if, unfortunately, there were not found many persons so credulous as to believe their falsehoods. The original work of Abbadie is tolerable. He attempts to argue; and we have no doubt his military logic was satisfactory enough to the square-headed soldiers of Schomberg's army. Besides, when Abbadie wrote, civilization had not arrived at such a degree of progress as it has now attained. But Mr. Hamersley writes his falsehoods _now_. His ignorance and fanaticism, of which we have culled but a few of the many instances in his book, _are of our own day_. We cannot understand why he should repeat them, since there is hardly any moderately educated Protestant who does not know that most of his allegations are false. If there be any so dull or fanatical as to believe them, we feel for them more of pity than contempt.

In conclusion, we regret that the translator does not show as much good sense or taste in choosing the subject as the publishers manifest in the binding and printing of the work. We are sorry to see such fine print wasted on a bad, worthless book. Mr. Hamersley could have found nobler themes in foreign literature, even though they might be the productions of Protestants, to exercise those talents as a translator which he has failed to show as a lover of truth, a logician, or a man of good sense.

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Life in the West; or, Stories of the Mississippi Valley.
By N. C. Meeker, Agricultural Editor of the New
York _Tribune_. New York: Samuel R. Wells.

"A long residence in the Mississippi Valley, frequent journeys through its whole extent, and years of service as the Illinois correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, have furnished the materials for the following stories." Hence, it is almost unnecessary to state that their claim to our careful consideration rests upon something more substantial than the fact of their being pleasingly told, varied in incident, and unobjectionable in tone. Their real worth, and it is not slight, arises from this, that they are made the agreeable medium of conveying much valuable information concerning "life in the West;" no less the hardships unavoidably to be endured by the emigrant, the difficulties to be overcome, and the dangers to be encountered, than his almost assured ultimate triumph.

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Of general interest, but designed especially for those intending to emigrate, is the appendix, containing a brief description of the soil, climate, products, area, and population of each State and territory lying in the great Valley of the Mississippi; and also the locations of the several land-offices where application must be made and all needful information can be obtained.

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Mozart: A Biographical Romance.
From the German of Heribert Rau.
By E. R. Sill. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1868.

A poor translation of a frothy production. On the first page, the child, Mozart, is called a "three-years-old son." Mr. Sill evidently does not know that a three-year-old is English for colts and heifers. Mozart's sister is also denominated a "seven-years-old." The writer, if Mr. Sill has translated him correctly, is exceedingly ignorant, or worse. On page 54 we read: "They sought the pope's chair," (that is, the worshippers crowding to St. Peter's for the services on Maundy-Thursday,) "partly because it was the fashion, partly because they wanted to be on hand to see everybody else do it, and partly because, to an Italian, a hundred days' absolution in advance is always a pleasant and convenient thing to have." The recitation of the Tenebrae, in the evening, is called, on page 58, "the performance of Mass." Would it not be well for our enterprising publishers in this enlightened country, to employ a proof-reader who has received a passable education?

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The Great Day; or, Motives and Means of Perseverance
after First Communion.
Translated from the French by Mrs. J. Sadlier. New York, 1868.

A pretty and good little volume, intended for a gift to children, as a memento of the happy day of their first communion. We have only one criticism to make, which is, that its tone of thought is too foreign. We wish that the accomplished translator had made use of the original French only, as matter from which to compile a delightful little book under this title, (a task which she could so admirably perform,) suitable, in the freshness of its thought, to the minds of American children. In lieu, however, of the wished-for better book of Mrs. Sadlier's, we heartily recommend this present volume to the attention of all pastors, parents, and superintendents of Sunday-schools, who will find in it, we are sure, just what very many of them have long desired to procure as a worthy memento for "The Great Day."

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Tales from the Diary of a Sister of Mercy.
By C. M. Brame.
New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1868.

We all remember _Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician_, by Dr. Warren, and the intense interest everybody felt in these sketches of the tragic scenes with which the persons whose profession leads them among the sick, the suffering, and the dying are familiar. This book is on a similar plan, and is composed of graphic descriptions of what a Sister of Mercy may be supposed to see and observe in her charitable ministrations. The light of the Catholic religion thrown in among these painful, tragic scenes, relieves their shadows, and leaves a more healthful impression on the mind; in short, becoming their pathetic effect. Those who love sensation stories will find their taste gratified in this volume, and, at the same time, may be able to derive from it some good moral and religious lessons.

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We regret that a notice of _The First Report of the Catholic Sunday-School Union_ was crowded out of the columns of this number. It will appear in our next.--Ed. C. W.

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The Catholic World.

Vol. VII., No. 39.--June, 1868.

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Edmund Campion.

In the spring of 1580, Elizabeth being then queen of Great Britain, and England being in the midst of the turmoil which accompanied the final establishment of Protestantism as the religion of the realm, two expeditions set out from Rome, to restore the faith in the British isles. One consisted of two thousand armed soldiers, enlisted as a sort of crusaders, and animated by the papal blessing and the promise of indulgences, not to speak of the visions of worldly glory and profit which even soldiers who fight under consecrated banners are apt to find alluring. The other was composed of less than a score of missionaries, Jesuits, secular priests, and others, whose most enticing prospect was one of martyrdom. The soldiers were to land in Ireland and help the rebellion of the Geraldines. The missionaries were to penetrate in disguise into England, and exercise the ministry of the proscribed and persecuted faith in the secrecy of private houses and hidden chambers.

Looking at the history of those times in the light of subsequent experience, it seems hard to account for the policy which could imperil not only the lives of the missionaries, but the cause of the church, by complicating the peaceful embassy of the priests with the mission of war and insurrection. For it was no secret that the troops came from Rome, and that large subsidies from the Roman treasury were sent with them. Associated with them, too, went an eminent ecclesiastic. Dr. Saunders, with the functions of a legate. We must remember, however, that the accession of Elizabeth had never been popularly acquiesced in. Her legitimacy had never been generally acknowledged. Her reign thus far had been a series of rebellions. The party which opposed her had a fair title to the character of belligerents, and the continental powers which espoused their cause were only doing what, by the customs of the age, they had a perfect right to do. The pope had issued a bull, excommunicating the queen, absolving her subjects from their oath of allegiance, and even forbidding them to obey her; and although he had afterward so far modified the bull as to permit the English people to recognize her authority, _rebus sic stantibus_, "while things remained as they were," he had never ceased, in conjunction with other European powers, to promote attempts in Ireland and elsewhere to overthrow her and place the Queen of Scots upon the throne. {290} At this distance of time, with a line of successors to ratify Elizabeth's title to the crown, and the fact of their failure arguing against the insurgents, it is easy to condemn the papal policy; but we must remember that affairs bore a different aspect then; that Elizabeth's right to the throne was open to question; and that the Catholic faith which she was striving to suppress was still the faith of a large majority of the English people.

We have little to do, however, with this Irish expedition. It was a miserable failure, and its only effect was, to aggravate the sufferings of the Catholics and expose the missionaries to increased danger. Our purpose in this article is rather to trace the history of the more peaceful and strictly religious embassy, so far as it bore upon the life of the illustrious martyr from whom it derives its chief renown.

Edmund Campion, [Footnote 55] the son of a London bookseller, was born on the 25th of January, 1539, (O. S.,) the year which witnessed the commencement of the English persecution, of which he was destined to be a victim, and the solemn approval of the Society of Jesus, of which he was to be the first English martyr. At St. John's College, Oxford, where he was educated and obtained a fellowship, he was so much admired for his gift of speech and grace of eloquence, that young men imitated not only his phrases but his gait, and revered him as a second Cicero. It was the year after he obtained his fellowship that Queen Mary died and Elizabeth succeeded to the throne. The new sovereign allowed but a few weeks to pass before she manifested her preference for the Protestant doctrines; yet there was no attempt at first to force the heresy upon the university of Oxford, her Majesty wisely trusting to the insidious influences of time, persuasion, and high example to bring the students and professors over to her views. It is no great wonder, perhaps, that Campion, intoxicated by the incense of adulation and enervated by the worldly comfort of his position, shut his eyes to the dreadful gulf of heresy into which the English Church was drifting, and seemed hardly to realize the necessity which was being forced upon him of choosing between God and the queen. He was not required for some years to take any oath at variance with his fidelity to the church. So he gave up the study of theology, to which he had hitherto devoted himself, and applied his mind to secular learning. He was a layman, and controversy might be left to the priests. When he took his degree in 1564, he was induced to subscribe to the oath against the pope's supremacy, and by the statutes of his college he was also compelled to resume the study of divinity; yet he still managed to stave off important questions and to confine his reading to the old settled dogmas which had no direct bearing upon the questions of the day.

[Footnote 55: _Edmund Campion: A Biography_.
By Richard Simpson. 8vo, pp. 387. London:
Williams & Norgate. New York:
The Catholic Publication Society.]

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The time came, at last, when the theological neutral ground had been thoroughly explored, and Campion turned to the Fathers. In their venerable company he seemed to grow more thoughtful and conscientious. The problem of his life now was not how he could postpone serious considerations, and shake off religious responsibility, but how he could reconcile true principles with false practice; how he could remain in the Established Church of England, and yet hold to all the old Catholic doctrines which the Establishment denied. His position, in fact, was almost identical with that of the modern Tractarians, and his college at Oxford was the home of a party which entertained nearly the same opinions. There was one of the Elizabethan bishops, Cheney of Gloucester, who, having retained a good deal of the orthodox faith, sympathized heartily with Campion's aspirations and perplexities. He was the actual founder of the school represented in later times by Newman and Pusey, and he had fixed upon Campion to continue and perfect the work after he himself had passed away. The bishop persuaded our young scholar to take deacons' orders, so that he might preach and obtain preferment. But the effect of this step upon Campion was such as Cheney little anticipated. Almost immediately troubles beset his mind. He found his new dignity odious and abominable. The idea of preferment became hateful to him. He wished rather to live as a simple layman, and in 1569 he resigned his appointments at the university and went to Dublin, where it seemed that a more agreeable career awaited him. A project was then afoot for restoring the old Dublin university founded by Pope John XXI., but for some years extinct. The principal mover in the matter was the Recorder of Dublin and Speaker of the House of Commons, James Stanihurst, a zealous Catholic, and the father of one of Campion's pupils. In his house Campion received a generous welcome, and there he remained for a while, leading a kind of monastic life, and waiting for the opening of the new seminary, in which he hoped to find congenial employment. The scheme fell through, however, and the chief cause of its failure was the secret hostility of the government to Stanihurst, and the Lord-Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, who were most actively concerned in it, and to Campion, who was to have the principal share in its direction. Campion was not yet reconciled to the church, but he was already distrusted as a papist, and only saved from arrest by the protection of Sidney. Such protection, however, could not avail him long. The rebellion of some of the English Catholic nobles, the publication of the pope's bull against Elizabeth which Felton had posted on the Bishop of London's gates, and the designs of the king of Spain upon Ireland, had roused a persecution, and Campion was one of those especially designated to be arrested. The Lord-Deputy found means to warn him a few hours before the officers arrived, and he saved himself by flight. For two or three months he dodged the pursuivants about Ireland, lurking in the houses of his friends, and working, in the intervals of the pursuit, at a _History of Ireland_, which he had begun while lodging with Stanihurst. At last, seeing that he must soon be captured if he remained on the island, and fearing to compromise the friends who gave him shelter, he resolved to return to England, and accordingly, in the disguise of a lackey, took ship at the little port of Tredagh, near Dublin. The officers came on board to search for him, and questioned everybody on the vessel except the fugitive himself. They seized the manuscripts of his history, and then went away, cursing "the seditious villain Campion." He reached England in time to witness the trial of Dr. Storey, who was executed for the faith in June, 1571. {292} We are told nothing of the progress of his conversion after he left Oxford, but by this time it was complete, and he had resolved to repair to the English college at Douai, there to fit himself for more effective labors in the Catholic cause. In mid-channel the ship in which he had taken passage was overhauled by an English frigate, and Campion, having no passport, and being, moreover, suspected and denounced by his fellow-passengers as a papist, was taken off and carried back to Dover. The captain appropriated all his prisoner's money, and then set out to conduct him to London. It was soon evident, however, that the officer cared more for the purse than the captive; and without a word being said on either side, Campion understood that he might run away provided he said nothing about the money. This was enough. He escaped in one direction while his guard pretended to pursue him in another; and having obtained a fresh supply of money from some of his friends, succeeded at last in making his escape over to France.