Chapter III (8)

The author seems to feel the force of this objection, which, as he says, "is urged with seriousness by men whose purity of motive is above question, and whose personal character gives great weight to their opinions," and admits that "religious teaching does not hold that prominent position in the course of study that it should hold; but he seems forced, like many of his fellow-educators whom we have known, to argue and apologize for the common-school system, because they see no way of securing universal education and at the same time providing for proper religious training. If they turn, however, to the educational systems of France, Austria, or Prussia, they would find the problem solved. Even in Canada, the British Parliament has avoided by its provisions those serious errors under which we labor, and which are making our system daily more and more unpopular.

By "An Act to restore to Roman Catholics in Upper Canada certain rights in respect to Separate Schools," passed May 5th, 1863, they provided that "the Roman Catholic separate schools shall be entitled to a share in the fund annually granted by the legislature of the province for the support of common-schools, and shall be entitled also to a share in all other public grants, investments, and allotments for common-school purposes now made or hereafter to be made by the municipal authorities, according to the average number of pupils attending such school as compared with the whole average number of pupils attending schools in the same city, town, village, or township." (Cap. 5, sec. 20.)

And also that "the Roman Catholic separate schools (with their registers) shall be subject to such inspection as may be directed from time to time by the chief superintendent of public instruction." (Cap. 5, sec. 26.)

Let our separate schools that have been and may be established, in which the children receive a proper religious training, receive their due proportion of the public fund, and by the inspection of a board of education be kept up to the highest standard of secular learning, and the grievances under which we now suffer will be removed.

----------

{137}

From the German

The Holy Grayle.

"'Here on the rushes will I sleep,
And perchance there may come a vision true,
Ere day create the world anew.'
Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim,
Slumber fell like a cloud on him,
And into his soul the vision flew."

Lowell.

Sir Launcelot Du Lac--without his peer of earthly, sinful man--had taken the Quest of the Holy Grayle. One deadly sin gnawed at the heart of the flower of chivalry; but a mighty sorrow struggled with and subdued his remorse, and a holy hermit assoiled him of his sin. With purified and strengthened heart, he won his way to a sight of that wondrous vessel, the object of so many knightly vows. It stood on a table of silver veiled with red samite. A throng of angels stood about it. One held a wax light and another the holy cross. A light like that of a thousand torches filled the house. Sir Launcelot heard a voice cry, "Approach not!" but for very wonder and thankfulness he forgot the command. He pressed toward the Holy Grayle with outstretched hands, and cried, "O most fair and sweet Lord! which art here within this holy vessel, for thy pity, show me something of that I seek." A breath, as from a fiery furnace, smote him sorely in the face. He fell to the ground, and lay for the space of four and twenty days seemingly dead to the eyes of all the people. But in that swoon marvels that no tongue can tell and no heart conceive passed before his face. ...

The history of the wondrous vessel was in a measure made known to him. His purified eyes saw in the dim past a long line of patriarchs and prophets, who had been entrusted with this sacred charge almost from the beginning of time. The San Greal was revealed to his ardent gaze:

First: in the hands of white-robed men, who met Noah as he went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives, with him into the ark, bearing with him the bones of Adam--great Progenitor. Its origin and history were revealed to Noah, and that it was destined to be used in the most mysterious of rites.

Next: Abraham was standing before an altar on a hillock in the valley of Jehoshaphat. His flocks were grazing around or drinking from the brook Cedron: his camels and beasts of burden and armed servants in the distance. The patriarch, flushed with victory, stood as if in awe and expectation. Majestic, white-winged Melchizedek came from Salem. His tall, slender frame was full of tempered majesty. He wore a garment of dazzling whiteness, confined by a girdle on which were embroidered characters of mystic import. His long hair was fair and glossy as silk; his beard white, short, and pointed. His face shone with divine splendor. A holy calm seemed diffused in the air around him. He bore in his hands the holy vessel handed down from Noah. He placed it upon the altar, behind which rose three clouds of smoke; the one in the midst rose higher than the other two. On the altar lay the bones of Adam--long after buried beneath the great altar of Calvary--and both prayed God to fulfil the promise he had made to Adam of one day sending the great Deliverer who would bruise the serpent's head. {138} The priest of the most high God then took bread and wine-- emblems of the great Eucharistic Sacrifice--raised them toward heaven, and blessed them, and gave thereof to Abraham and his servants, but tasted not thereof himself. They who ate of this bread and drank of this wine seemed strengthened and devoutly inspired thereby. And Melchizedek blessed Abraham, and said: "Blessed be Abram by the most high God, who created heaven and earth." And he renewed to him the promise that in him should all the families of the earth be blessed.

The San Greal seemed, in the vision, left with Abraham as a pledge of that promise, and afterward, was carried down into Egypt by the children of Israel. Moses took it with him when he fled to the land of Midian, and was using it for some mysterious oblation on Mount Horeb, when the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the burning bush.

Sir Launcelot saw the vessel long after in the temple of Jerusalem among other precious objects of antiquity; its use and origin nearly forgotten. Only a few remembered its strange history, and _felt_, rather than knew, that it yet awaited its most glorious use. Its holy guardians had always watched over its safety with jealous care, until the abomination of desolation entered the holy place. But a divine Eye seemed to watch over it. At the institution of the Mass, it was in the possession of a holy woman, since known as Veronica--her who took off her veil to wipe the dust and sweat and blood from the divine face of suffering Jesus, which was left thereon so miraculously imprinted. Veronica brought the vessel to the disciples of Jesus to be used at the Last Supper.

The Holy Grayle revealed to the astonished eyes of Sir Launcelot was composed of two parts, the cup and the foot. The cup alone had been handed down from the time of the holy patriarchs. Its very form was wonderful and significant, and its composition mysterious. Jesus alone knew what it was. It was dark, compact, and perhaps of vegetable origin. It was covered and lined with gold, and on it were two handles.

The foot of the chalice, added at a later period, was of virgin gold, wrought with the skill of a cunning workman. It was ornamented with a serpent and a bunch of grapes, and gleamed with precious stones.

The whole chalice rested on a silver tablet, surrounded by six smaller ones. These six cups had belonged to different patriarchs, who drank therefrom a strange liquor on certain solemn occasions. They were used by the holy apostles at the Last Supper, each cup serving for two persons. (These cups Sir Launcelot saw belonging afterward to different Christian churches, where they were held in great reverence.) The Holy Grayle stood before our blessed Lord. ... Let not sinful hand depict the vision of that unbloody sacrifice, so clearly revealed to the adoring eyes of Sir Launcelot, and so affectingly told in Holy Writ. ...

The San Greal, fashioned with mysterious care for the most mysterious of oblations, and handed down from remote antiquity by righteous men, to whom it was the pledge of a solemn covenant, was henceforth to be the object of the veneration of the Christian world. Only the pure in heart could guard it. Angels with loving reverence folded their wings around what contained most precious Blood. Its presence conferred a benediction on the land in which it was preserved.

{139}

Sir Launcelot saw afterward the hand that came from heaven right to the holy grayle and bare it away. But a comforting voice told him that it should reappear on the earth, though for him the quest was ended.

At the end of four and twenty days, Sir Launcelot awoke. The vision had passed away, but the place was filled with the sweetest odors, as if of Paradise. Wondering thereat, he cried: "I thank God of his infinite mercy for that I have seen, for it comforteth me." And he rose up and went to Camelot, where he found King Arthur and many of the Knights of the Round Table, to whom he related all that had befallen him.

----------

New Publications.

Lives Of The English Cardinals;
Including Historical Notices
Of The Papal Court, From Nicholas
Breakspear (Pope Adrian Iv.)
To Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal Legate.
By Folkestone Williams, author of, etc., etc.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
1868. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 484, 543.

Wonders will never cease. A few years since, the present pope, willing to do honor to a great nation, conferred on one of its subjects the highest dignity in his gift. The new cardinal was a man honored alike in England and America for his learning and ability, as well as for his never departing from the strict line of his priestly and episcopal functions. One would have supposed that the English government and people would have felt flattered, and that the English sovereign, who is queen not only of certain Protestant Englishmen, but of a mass of Catholic subjects who cannot number much less than twenty millions, would, while thanking his holiness, have hinted that her twenty millions should have more than one representative in the Sacred College. Instead of this sensible course, a period of insanity ensued--England frothed, England foamed, England grew rabid.

To judge by this book, England is actually becoming sane. The author seems to feel that England is slighted because she has no cardinal. "There has recently been a creation of cardinals, and, though some disappointment may have been caused by the omission of an eminent English name from those so honored, the extraordinary claims of one of the most active of Roman Catholic prelates are not likely to be overlooked by so discriminating a pontiff as Pio Nono."

Mr. Williams here, in two goodly octavos, gives the lives of the English cardinals, from Robert le Poule to Wolsey, as he conceives it; and a rapid examination of the whole, and careful scrutiny of portions, leads us to the judgment that seldom has a work been attempted by a man so utterly unfitted for the task. As though his proper task did not afford him a field sufficiently large, he gives an introduction of eighty pages on the Papacy, the Anglo-Saxon Church, and the Anglo-Norman Church. The whole history of the church down to the Reformation is thus treated of, and to the mighty undertaking he brings only the usual superficial reading of our time, with a more than ordinary amount of religious flippancy, and false and prejudiced views of Catholic dogma, practice, polity, and life. There is not a silly slander against the church that he does not adopt and give, with all the gravity imaginable, as undisputed fact, not even deigning to quote vaguely any of his second-hand authorities or modern treatises, while, to make a parade of his learning, he gives us a four-line note in Greek to support his opinion as to a topographical question as immaterial to the history of the English cardinals as a discussion on the Zulu language would be. As instances of his utter unfitness, we might refer to his treatment of such points as St. Gregory VII., Pope Joan, and the institution of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

{140}

What his own religious stand-point may be is not easily decided. He lays down (p. 146) that Christ's divinity is his humanity; that the idea of the Good Shepherd, put forward by our Lord and ever deemed so typical of him, was of pagan origin, (p. 8,) and, from the note on the same page, that the church, as founded by Christ, was a grand failure. He maintains, too, that the Christianity, as introduced into England, was and is only the old paganism, the names of the days of the week settling the question, (p. 24.) On one point only he seems clear and positive, and this is, that on general principles popes must always be wrong, and that to deny anything they lay down must be pre-eminently right.

As a specimen of his style, take the following: "The Good Shepherd was the recognized emblem of the divine Founder of their religion, but as the community enlarged it required a human director." We are left in doubt whether this community of primitive Christians required this human director as a new emblem, or a new founder, or a new religion. He proceeds: "He who by his superior sanctity gained authority as well as admiration was invested with that character. His flock became a church, and he undertook its spiritual management in the capacity of presbyter." This is a very pretty fable, but he fails to give us any authority. An expression of our Lord shows that church authority began at the other end: "_Non vos me elegistis; sed ego elegi vos, et posui vos ut eatis,_" "You did not elect me, (your God and Redeemer,) but I picked you out and set you up to go and teach." And they did go and did teach, and such as listened to their teaching and became their disciples became Christians with human directors from the outset.

During the period covered properly by these volumes, from the beginning of the twelfth to that of the fifteenth centuries, England had comparatively few cardinals; English kings seemed to have cared little to exercise any influence on papal councils, and never sought to obtain for an English prince an honor given to members of many reigning families. The English cardinals whose names at once suggest themselves are Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear, (subsequently Pope Adrian IV.,) Cardinal Stephen Langton, Cardinal Beaufort, and Cardinal Wolsey. Of all except the first, the general idea in men's minds is drawn less from history than from Shakespeare. Of these especially, really well-written lives, with sketches of the less known and less important English cardinals, would indeed be a valuable addition; but such Mr. Williams's book certainly is not.

In beginning his life of Adrian IV., he quotes Matthew of Paris, who makes him son of Robert de Camera, said by William of Newburgh to have been a poor scholar; then cites Camden's statement that he was born at Langley, near St. Alban's; but he slips in a charge, hunted up in the filth of the wretched Bale, that he was illegitimate; as though the assertion of such a man, in the most virulent stage of the Reformation abuse, could be authority as to a fact of a period so long past. Even Fuller, as he admits, with all his readiness to belittle the papacy, only "insinuates that he was an illegitimate son." Yet Mr. Williams, on the assertion of a Bale and the insinuation of a Fuller, says, "There is reason to believe that he was the natural son of a _priest_," and on this supposition he proceeds to erect his whole superstructure.

From such a writer no book can emanate that any man can read who does not wilfully wish to be misled.

-----
{141}

Goethe And Schiller.
An Historical Romance.
By L. Mühlbach, author of "Joseph II. and his Court,"
"Frederick the Great and his Court,"
"The Empress Josephine,"
"Andreas Hofer," etc., etc.
Translated from the German by Chapman Coleman.
Illustrated by Gaston Fay.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 283. 1868.

A careful perusal of this, the author's latest production, has not caused us to modify, in the slightest degree, the opinion heretofore expressed in these pages concerning the volumes comprising what is now known as the Mühlbach series of historical romances. That they are ably written we admitted then, and we are not now disposed to deny. But this, their only merit, in our judgment, can be claimed equally as well for many literary works which no prudent father, no careful mother, would dream of keeping within reach of, much less of placing in the hands of, their guileless offspring. Illicit love, in some instances covered by a thin veil of Platonism, the intrigues of courtiers, duplicity and meanness, are the pivotal points on which the incidents principally turn. For these and similar offences against morality, the author has no word of censure, while as for the _dramatis personae_, their _virtuous_ indignation, when given utterance to, is always directed against the criminal and not the crime. In fine, we look upon these as books by which not a single person can become better or more enlightened, while very many will rise from their perusal worse than before.

-----

Father Cleveland; Or, The Jesuit.
By the authoress of "Life in the Cloister,"
"Grace O'Halloran," "The Two Marys," etc., etc.
Boston: P. Donahoe. Pp. 178. 1868.

An affecting tale, founded on fact. The main incident, the heroine withering beneath the breath of calumny and finally dying of a broken heart, truly depicts the fatal consequences too often resulting from the sin of slander. The scene is laid in England, Ireland, and the New World. The incidents being principally descriptive of the fallen fortunes of the Desmonds, the sad reverses of Squire Cleveland, and the untimely fate of the amiable heroine, give a rather sombre tone to the narrative, which is somewhat relieved, however, by the filial affection of Aileen Desmond, the quaint humor of Pat Magrath, and the unaffected piety and zealous ministrations of Father Cleveland, the good Jesuit.

-----

Outlines Of Ancient And Modern History.
Illustrated by numerous Geographical and
Historical Notes and Maps.
Embracing: Part I. Ancient History.