Chapter XII (1)

"Not always full of leaf, nor ever spring,
Not always endless night, nor yet eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, and fear to fall."

Southwell.

The services rendered by the young Colonists during the inundation attracted unusual attention to the Colony, and visitors from Tours, and even from Paris, flocked in numbers to Mettray every Thursday and Sunday. The afternoons of these two days were set apart for the public, who were permitted to be present at the boys' gymnastic exercises, and for whose pleasure the band of the military establishment performed its best pieces.

On one of these occasions, about a couple of months after the events we have endeavored to describe in the preceding chapter, Marcel remarked a gentleman whose countenance he seemed to remember, who appeared to be looking at him, almost examining him, with much attention. Toward the close of the exercises, he perceived the same gentleman in conversation with one of the head-officers of the place. Presently they came to him.

"Marcel," said the officer, "this gentleman wishes to ask you a few questions."

"I want to ask you, my boy, if you recollect ever to have seen me before!" said the gentleman, with an encouraging smile.

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"Yes, sir," replied Marcel; "I believe that I have. I think that you are the Commissary of Police in the Rue des Noyers."

"I was; I see that I am not mistaken either. I never did forget a face that struck me. You are the boy who, some years since, found a bag of Napoleons in the street and brought it to me. Am I not right?"

"Yes, sir," said Marcel, looking down.

"Well, my good fellow, your honesty saved a poor man from a broken heart; but he was very ill for a long time from the dreadful emotions of that night, and circumstances prevented my seeking you out immediately, and so it happened that, when I did go to the address you gave me, I only learnt that the woman with whom you lived was dead, and no one could tell me anything about you. I suspect that no one would. Perhaps I was recognized to be the Commissary of Police, and inspired no great confidence. But I am glad to see you again, my boy. I have just learned something of your history, and I rejoice to find that I was not mistaken in the opinion I formed of you that night that you brought me the bag. I often regretted that you received no reward. I don't know how it happened either. You're a brave fellow, too, as well as an honest one, they tell me. Shake hands, will you?"

He took Marcel's hand as he spoke; the boy burst into tears; the past returned so vividly to his recollection at that moment; the commissary's long speech brought back so much that had almost been forgotten, so much misery and shame and sin, that the different present overpowered him. The good-natured visitor patted him on the shoulder in a kind, fatherly manner, his eyes glistening with sympathy.

"Come," said he presently, "tell me what you intend to do when you leave the Colony. I hear that your time will soon be out now. What trade have you learned?"

"I am a gardener," replied Marcel. "I always loved flowers, and I should like to cultivate them."

"Quite right," said his new-found friend. "Well, I shall look out for a place for you. And now, my boy, remember that I am your friend, a sincere one, and be sure to write to me in any emergency. This is my address, _M. de Morel, Rue du Luxembourg, Paris;_ take care of this card, and do not forget to let me know two or three months before you leave the Colony."

He gave Marcel his card, with another cordial shake of the hand, and, returning to his party, shortly after left the establishment.

Marcel had a long talk with the father of the family and Polycarpe that evening. They both agreed that the promised influence of M. de Morel was a bright prospect for Marcel's future career.

"This friendship, however, is not absolutely necessary for your prosperity hereafter, Marcel," said the father. "You know well that Mettray never abandons her children. Our good director would find you a suitable situation, and continue to watch over your interests. But still I think you must do as this kind gentleman wishes. It is a pleasant and useful thing to have friends; one cannot have too many good ones!"

"You will get acquainted with the poor clerk, very likely," remarked Polycarpe. "Wouldn't you be glad to know him? I should, I think."

"Yes, I think I should too," answered Marcel thoughtfully.

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The friends went to bed that night very happy; Marcel to dream of that future garden, the aim of all his ambition, in which he wandered, hand in hand with the poor clerk, until the clarion sounded; Polycarpe to fancy himself marching, drums beating, colors flying, at the head of a regiment of Zouaves!

There is not a pleasanter place in Paris than the Garden of Plants--the people's delight and the people's own!

Who that has seen it in spring can forget its magnificent avenues of linden-trees, fragrant with the delicious perfume of the tassel-like blossoms; its grand old chestnut-trees, covered with spikes of creamy-white or rose-colored flowers; its lilac-bushes, its pear-trees, white with blossoms, as if they had been snowed on! And then the twitter of birds, mingled with the bleating of sheep and goats, and the soft lowing of cows! Delightful sights and sounds in the very heart of poor old Paris, close by the door of the hospital! 'Tis there that the pale Parisian workman spends his holiday with his wife and children; 'tis there the little ones learn to love and be gentle to God's creatures.

How pleasant it is in the warm summer-time, when the shady avenues are crowded with bands of happy children, jumping the rope or playing at hide-and-seek behind the thick trunks of the old trees planted by Buffon, while their smiling mothers sit near with their sewing. How beautiful then are the gay parterres of bright-colored flowers so skilfully grouped, so harmoniously contrasted! How interesting the rich botanic garden, where so many strange exotic plants, each with its common as well as scientific name legibly inscribed near it, can be freely and conveniently studied by all!

Who that has climbed the little hill, on whose summit stands the Cedar of Lebanon, and rested beneath the glorious spreading branches, has not felt it a heart-warming sight to watch the crowds of hard-working people rambling with their children amidst the trees and flowers of this magnificent garden; here stopping to feed the patient elephant, who seems to pass his life begging for bits of bread; here contemplating, with some aversion perhaps, the clumsy hippopotamus bathing its unwieldy form in its tank; then making a long pause before the monkeys' palace, where some twenty of those natural gymnasts excite roars of laughter by their tricks; and then again before the great cage of the many-colored parrots, that look to the delighted children like giant flying-flowers? And as they stroll along, the goats and sheep, and soft-eyed gazelles and fawns, that beg by the way, get each a few crumbs of black bread and many caresses; and the boys jest _en passant_ with the bear at the bottom of his pit--"Old Martin" they call him--and they bribe him to climb the great pole placed expressly for him, with a bit of crust; and the little girls pity the eagle as they pass by his narrow grated prison. Sitting there under the cedar, the eye falls almost involuntarily on a group of pretty houses, nestled together in a corner not far from the Museums of Natural History. They are the residences of many of the professors attached to the Garden of Plants--professors of botany, of comparative anatomy, of mineralogy and geology, of natural history, etc.--men of world-wide reputations, whom the privileged inhabitants of Paris may hear lecture on these various sciences, in well-ventilated, well-warmed halls, twice every week, for nothing.

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In an out of the way nook, but quite near to the homes of these celebrated men, there was one quaint, old-fashioned little house which, in the spring of the year 1859, had been appropriated as the dwelling of one of the head-gardeners, a young man of great intelligence in his profession, and who had lately been appointed to the situation.

It was a very little house, it is true, but large enough for the tenant and his young, newly-made wife, who thought it, for her part, the sweetest nest ever built. It was covered with climbing roses; they could scarcely be shut out by the windows and doors, so that it had received the name of "The House of the Roses." Outside, it needed no other ornament to be beautiful; inside, its charms were neatness, cheerfulness, cleanliness, and quiet.

But the afternoon that we present it to our readers the little house was in a bustle, for wife Gabrielle and her maid Marie were preparing a dinner far more elaborate than was usual in that simple household, and very anxious were the two little women that every dish should be worthy of the occasion, for the banquet was to feast the return of an old friend from the war in Italy.

The master of the house had but just got home from his daily occupations when there came a vigorous ring at the door, and he ran to open it.

"Marcel!"

"Polycarpe!"

The two friends threw themselves into each other's arms, unable to utter another word.

"How well and happy you look!" exclaimed Polycarpe at last, laying his hand caressingly on his friend's shoulder and gazing affectionately at him.

"And you, Polycarpe, what a tremendous fellow _you are_ with your turban and your great beard!" returned Marcel, looking with admiration at the supple, sinewy form of the handsome Zouave, on whose broad chest shone the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

The blushing young wife received her husband's old friend with a cordiality that soon put the soldier quite at his ease, and by the time the dinner was ended they were chatting together as if they were acquaintances of ten years' standing.

"Now, Marcel," said Polycarpe, when the happy trio were quietly seated in the little salon through whose open windows the fresh roses peeped in, perfuming the soft evening air--"now, Marcel, you must tell me something more about yourself than the few letters I have received from you have contained."

"First, let _me_ tell you something, Monsieur Polycarpe," cried Gabrielle. "Let me tell you that I shall be grateful to you, and love you as a brother to my dying day, for having saved Marcel from being a soldier."

"Madam," replied the Zouave, laughing, "you must love me as your brother, but you owe me no gratitude. Why, I had always wished to be a soldier, and it was the most natural thing in the world that I should exchange my good number for Marcel's bad one. But that drawing for the conscription is really a dreadful ordeal!"

"Thank God that you have come back to us!" ejaculated Marcel softly.

"Oh! that horrible battle of Solferino!" cried Gabrielle with a shudder. "When Marcel knew that you had been engaged in it, I thought that he would go distracted, until he was assured of your safety."

"He ought to have seen us Zouaves, how ready we were for the fight; not a man among us who would have backed out!"

{501}

"It was because I knew your impetuosity, Polycarpe," said Marcel, "that I despaired of ever seeing you again."

"Well, my friend!" said the soldier, pressing his friend's hand, "here I am, safe and sound, with two legs and two arms; there is many a brave man who came back from Solferino who cannot say that!"

"I have always been lucky," continued he after a short pause; "I entered the army a simple soldier, without a single friend, and yet here I am with the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and next month I shall get my epaulettes!"

"I am not surprised, not in the least surprised. You acted like a hero in Italy, I know, or you would not have been decorated! We shall see you a captain soon!" And Gabrielle clapped her little hands with delight at the thought.

"Come, Marcel," cried Polycarpe, laughing, "I shall become too vain if I listen to your wife any longer. Come, tell me; when we parted, you for Paris, and I for the army, how did you get on?"

"It will be a twice-told tale to you, Polycarpe, for you must have received my letters!"

"Never mind! There are gaps in what I know of your doings, and they must be filled up."

"Well, then, after that painful parting with our friends at Mettray, I proceeded to Paris, and went immediately to see M. de Morel; he was just as cordial as he had given me reason to believe he would be, and one of the very first things he did was to take me to see Gabrielle's father."

"Do you know who he was, Monsieur Polycarpe, or is that one of the gaps you mentioned?" interrupted Gabrielle, smiling.

"Oh! no, that is not a gap," replied the soldier. "I know that it was your father who lost the bag of gold Marcel was so fortunate as to find."

"What a dreadful remembrance that night is to us all even now! I was very young then, but I can perfectly recollect my poor father's despair, and my mother's bitter weeping. I have never since heard of a sum of money being found, without picturing to myself the loser's agony, and some such scene of wretchedness as I witnessed in my own home!"

"Monsieur Tixier received me as if I were his son," continued Marcel.

"Well, you were to be!" said Gabrielle archly.

"But I certainly never should have dared to have thought of such a thing then," replied her husband, smiling. "I saw Mademoiselle Gabrielle sitting at work by her mother's side; but I little dreamt that that fair young girl would ever be my wife!"

"How glad we were to see him, you can imagine, Monsieur Polycarpe! We had wanted for years to prove our gratitude to him! But you know we had never been able to find him. In the street where he used to live they told father that Pelagie Vautrin was dead, and the family with whom Marcel lived had moved."

"You can understand how that happened, Polycarpe," continued Marcel, "for you know that your unfortunate father was never seen again after that day when we so hastily fled the house. And then your mother and Loulou left the neighborhood."

"Poor father, poor mother, both gone!" sighed the soldier. "How often have I hoped to possess a decent home of my own that I might save them from a miserable old age! They are both gone, for I cannot help believing that my father is dead."

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"Loulou will be a comfort to you; the good sisters in Rue St. Jacques have brought her up well. She is a good, industrious girl, and an excellent needlewoman. Gabrielle has had her to spend the day with us twice, and we are very fond of her."

"Madame Gabrielle, how can I thank you! What kind, good friends you are to me!" The brave Zouave hid his face for a moment in his hands; when he raised it, his cheeks glistened as if they had just been washed with tears.

"Go on, Marcel, what happened after you had made the acquaintance of M. Tixier?"

"Very shortly after, M. de Morel succeeded in getting me a place in the staff of gardeners attached to the Garden of Plants, and here I have worked steadily on while you have been fighting my battles, Polycarpe."

"You have fought your own, Marcel, and manfully too!"

"Happy years they have been--my profession pleased me, and I made many friends, and as time went on I was promoted, until, at last, six months ago, I was appointed one of the head-gardeners, with a good salary and this little house rent free."

"And then, Monsieur Polycarpe, my good father, who had known for a long time that Marcel and I loved one another dearly, made him understand that my mother would be happy to call him her son!"

"Yes, when my way was clear before me, my good friend bestowed on me the best little wife that ever man was blessed with; and where do you think we went for our wedding trip?"

"Where? Why, to Mettray, of course," cried Polycarpe excitedly.

"Yes, to Mettray. We staid with Rodez at Tours; he was very kind to us, and took us to see all our friends. First of all, Priat; he is foreman to the richest baker in the town, and is very highly esteemed by his master. He was very glad to see me again, and we talked a great deal of you and of the Zouaves."

"Good fellow! I shall go to see him, one of these days!" exclaimed Polycarpe.

"Yes, do. Then we went to Mettray. How my heart beat when I caught sight again of the chapel steeple! I saw many new faces, but our kind director, and the good abbe, and the father of our family were there just the same, all well, and so glad to see me, and so glad to know that I was prosperous and happy; and they admired my little wife so much!"

"Enough, enough, Marcel!" interrupted Gabrielle, brightly blushing and smiling.

"Marcel," said Polycarpe after a short silence, "I have been on the battle-field, my comrades falling by hundreds around me, while I was spared; I have seen death in its most fearful shapes, and human suffering inconceivable to the imagination of those who have not witnessed it, and I have escaped, unhurt, untouched; but I declare to you that when the battle was over and the danger past, I never felt that overpowering gratitude that fills my heart when I remember Mettray. For, after all, what is physical pain, what is the loss of this life compared to that corruption of the heart and conscience that was ours when we first entered the Colony? I do not believe that I have ever closed my eyes in sleep since I quitted that saving home before praying, 'God bless the founders of Mettray!'"

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Protestantism A Failure. [Footnote 160]

[Footnote 160:
1. _Failure of Protestantism, and Catholicism
the Remedy_: Four Discourses delivered by the Rev.
F. C. Ewer, D.D., in Christ Church, Fifth avenue,
New York. Reported in the New York _Times_, 1868.
2. _Dr. Ewer's Reply to Dr. Adams and Others_,
in Defence of his Discourses on the _Failure of
Protestantism, and Catholicism the Remedy_. Reported
in the New York _World_, November 16th, 1868.]

Dr. Ewer is a Protestant Episcopal minister of Christ Church in this city, and is, we are assured, no ordinary man. Afflicted in early life with doubts of the truth of revealed religion, but subsequently getting the better of them, he joined the Protestant Episcopal Church, became an Episcopalian minister in California, whence he was called to the pastorate of Christ Church in this city. He is, we are told, a man of great ability, of genuine eloquence, and a true pulpit orator. He appears to be an honest and earnest-minded man, who took seriously the church pretensions of Episcopalians, treated the Episcopal Church as a real Christian church, in which he might hold, develop, and defend what he regarded as real church principles.

But he found that he had counted without his host, that is, without his vestry, with whom the principal power in Episcopalian churches is lodged. His vestry or wardens complained of his preaching, and censured his doctrine as tending Romeward, or as not sufficiently Protestant. Like a brave man, he answered their complainings by these four discourses, in which he distinctly asserts the _failure of Protestantism as a religious system, and "Catholicism" as the remedy._ Nothing could be more startling to a Protestant congregation, and it seems to have startled to a considerable extent the whole American Protestant public. But we are bound to say, if any one imagines that in these discourses Dr. Ewer rejects Protestantism for the church in communion with the Roman Apostolic See, he is very much in error. Dr. Ewer, in the train of the Oxford Tracts, the Puseyites, and the Ritualists, disclaims Protestantism, proves unanswerably that it was a blunder, and is as a religion a disastrous failure; but the Catholicity he looks to for a remedy is of a very different stamp from ours, and whether it be a genuine Catholicity or not, he claims to be as far from being a _Romanist_ as he thinks he is from being a Protestant. Rome, he says, failed in the fifteenth century, as Protestantism has failed in the nineteenth.

That Protestantism was a sad blunder, and has proved a disastrous failure, Catholics have proved over and over again; and on this point Dr. Ewer has said no more nor better than they had said before him. He has said no more than was said by the Oxford men, or than is said every day by the Ritualists, who are so strong in the English Church that its authorities do not dare condemn, and are obliged to tolerate them. The Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, lately in session in this city, could not by any means be induced to take any action against them, or to do anything to favor the party in the church opposed to them. The Anglican Church, or a considerable portion of it, would, if it could, like to get rid of the name of _Protestant_, and assume that of _Catholic_. It is growing ashamed of its origin and principles, and it has many noble members who are doing their best to bring its doctrine and form of worship up to the level of Catholicity. {504} Dr. Ewer indeed says nothing of Protestantism that all thinking men do not see and know as well as he. Protestantism was always more political and national than religious. It originated chiefly with the princes of the sixteenth century, who were opposed, for secular reasons, to the pope, or wished to frighten him in order to bring him to their terms; and it relied wholly on the civil power to diffuse, protect, and defend it. Now, when the civil powers are abandoning it as no longer necessary to their purposes, and giving partial or complete liberty to Catholics, it is able to make a show of sustaining itself only by forming an intimate alliance with the unbelief and naturalism of the age. It is not an insignificant circumstance that, when recently the attempt, for political purposes, was made in England to revive the "No Popery" cry, once so effective, it wholly failed. The Protestant mind in the Protestant world is evidently drifting away from the Reformation, even if not drifting toward the church.

But though the part of Dr. Ewer's discourses which so effectually prove the failure of Protestantism as a religious system is the part most satisfactory to us, we must for various reasons confine the remarks we design to make chiefly to the remedy proposed. The error, nay, the blunder, the author assures us, was in breaking away from the One Holy Catholic Church of the Bible and the Creed, and setting up in its place the Bible interpreted, by the private spirit or private judgment, almost inevitably tending to discredit the Bible, and to develop in pure rationalism or naturalism; the remedy, of course, must be in the return to this One Catholic Apostolic Church with its divinely instituted priesthood, its august sacrifice, its sacraments, sacred rites, and plenary authority in matters of faith and discipline. This, if asserted by us, would be very intelligible to all the world, and would mean a return to the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, or church in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome, the See or the Chair of Peter. But Dr. Ewer takes great pains to have us understand that this is not his meaning, and that in rejecting Protestantism he is far from accepting _Romanism_, or Roman Catholicity. The puzzle, then, is to determine what, which, or where is the One Catholic Apostolic Church which he proposes as the remedy of the widespread evils of Protestantism.

Is it the Roman Church? No. That is a Catholic Church, but not the Catholic Church. Is it the Greek or Oriental Church? No. That is a catholic church, but not the Catholic Church. Is it the Anglican? No. That, again, is a catholic church, but not the Catholic Church. These, the doctor says, near the conclusion of his second sermon, are particular and local churches, not the one universal church itself, but holding from it and subordinate to it. Where, then, is this universal church? He answers, in the same sermon, a little further on, "We must go deeper and broader" than these particular and local churches "to find the Catholic Church, down to the great foundation on which the three stand; down out of the differences of the brothers to the unity of the family, to find the ground upon which we stand as Catholics, not as Romanists, not s Greeks, not as Anglicans, far less as Episcopalians." {505} But is this catholic church which underlies alike the three particular churches an organ or organism distinct from them, with a centre of unity, life, and authority, independent of them, but on which they themselves depend for their church unity, authority, and life? Not at all. If we understand the author, the Catholic Church is in what these three particular or local churches have in common, in what they agree in holding, or what remains after eliminating their differences. In order not to do the author any injustice, we quote nearly at length, in his own words, the answer he gives in his fourth discourse to the question, "What is the Catholic Church?"

"Now, a church is an organism. The Catholic Church must be an
organism universal over space and universal back through time
to Christ. Suppose, now, I go to the Methodists again. I find
there an organism; but in looking back I find it was arranged
about the time of John Wesley, one hundred years ago. Before
his day there was no such church organism. I pass then to the
Presbyterians. There I find a different organism. But in
looking back I find it dates its origin only about three
hundred years ago. That will not answer, then. Very well, I try
the Congregationalists, and, in fact, each and all of the
modern Protestant organizations. Avowedly they do not, any of
them, run back into the dreadful mediaeval times--those _dark
ages_. Whatever these Protestant organisms may be, then,
they must each and all be set aside, as, at any rate, not
Catholic organisms either in space or in time, and therefore
not Catholic at all. Well, suppose I come to our church. I find
it, as an organism, with its bishops, priests, and deacons, its
ritual form of worship, its altars and sacraments, its
conventions and synods, its dioceses and parishes, running back
in the history of England into mediaeval times; yea, still
further back through the early days of old Britain and up even
to the apostles. I seem to strike something Catholic here. But
be not in haste. Suppose I go to the Roman Church. I find that
I can trace its life back also interruptedly to the apostles.
Suppose I go to the Greek Church. I find the same peculiarity
of continued existence back to the apostles there. Here, then,
in the Roman, Greek, and Anglican churches, we have reached
something which it will do at least to pause upon for further
investigation.

"But have a care. When we look a little more closely into the
Anglican organization as a whole and consider it part by part,
and when we examine the Roman organization in like manner, and
the Greek, we find that each of the three differs from the
other two in certain respects. Rome has a pope and a cultus of
St. Mary the ever-Virgin; these are not parts of the Greek (?)
or of the Anglican organisms. Though we have paused here, then,
though the Catholic Church must be hereabouts somewhere,
nevertheless, when we have reached our church, we have not yet
reached the Catholic Church we are in search of; when we go to
Rome, we have not yet reached that Catholic Church; and
equally, when we go to the Greeks, we have not reached the
object of our search. For we find that neither of these three
organisms, when taken as a whole, and in all its minutiae, is
accepted by the other two. _Shall we go elsewhere, then?
There is nowhere else to go._

"Let us look, then, more closely still here. As we examine, we
find that, although the three--Anglican, Greek, and Roman--
thus differ in some respects, they are marvellously alike in
all others. All three have a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and
deacons. All have the holy altar of the tremendous sacrifice as
the central object in their churches. All have robed clergy.
All have saints' days and identical ecclesiastical seasons. All
have a ritual form of worship. All have parishes, dioceses, and
provinces, All (?) date their life back into the first century.
All have stately ceremonials and processions; the Greeks the
most glorious, the Romans less, and the Anglicans the least.

"All acknowledge the authority of general councils. All have
the same apostolic succession and the same sacraments. Here,
then, I begin to find the Catholic Church. Those few
peculiarities in which the Greek, the Anglican, and the Roman
differ from each other are merely local; all those many
peculiarities in which the three are at one shape out for me
visibly, solidly, and sharply the great Catholic Church; one in
space as in organism, and one in time; to be found equally in
Russia, and Italy, and England, and America, and Mexico, and
Germany, and Brazil--everywhere; to be found, too, in the
nineteenth century, and equally in mediaeval time, and also in
the earliest days, unchanged and unchangeable.
{506}
And everything in the Anglican, Greek, and Roman bodies which
the three hold in common, and which has been held in them,
everywhere, always, and by all, is Catholic. Anything else,
any peculiarity which we have that Rome and the Easterns have
not, or which Rome has, but the Greeks and we have not, or
which the Greeks have, but Rome and we have not, is merely
local, partial, and not Catholic."

This is explicit enough. Take all that any one of the three holds in which the other two agree, and you have the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. Eliminate from all three the points in which they differ, which are assumed to be trifling, and take their points of agreement, and you will have what the preacher calls "Catholicism," and which he proposes as the remedy for the evils of Protestantism. Extend the rule so as to include all professedly Christian churches, denominations, or sects which professedly recognize a Christian church and a Christian ministry, and it will be the view of the Catholic Church generally taken by Protestants. No Protestant sect has ever had the audacity to claim to be itself alone the visible Catholic Church of the Creed; and none of the older Protestant sects deny that there is, in some sense, a visible Catholic Church. In the early Protestant teaching, if not in the later, there is recognized one visible Catholic Church, which is what all professedly Christian communions agree in holding, or which alike underlies them all. In this sense, Presbyterians and Congregationalists, Methodists and Baptists, Lutherans and Calvinists, have always been as strenuous asserters of the Catholic Church and of Catholicity as is Dr. Ewer himself. We see, then, in Dr. Ewer's "Catholicism," nothing that need startle a Protestant or especially gratify a Catholic. In principle, at least, he asserts a very common Protestant doctrine, and in no sense necessarily breaks, except in words, with the Protestant Reformation.

But be this as it may, it is certain that Dr. Ewer admits no catholic body or organic centre of unity and catholicity distinct from the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican churches, and independent of them, and recognizes no catholicity but what these three churches agree in maintaining and possess in common. Neither of them, he contends, is by itself alone the Catholic Church; each is a catholic church, but no one of them is the Catholic Church herself. Whence, then, their quality of catholic churches? Particular or local churches are catholic because they hold from, depend on, and commune with a catholic centre of unity, life, and authority, which is distinct from and independent of themselves. This is not the case with the three churches named; they hold from and depend on no common organic centre, recognize no organic source of life independent of themselves, are subordinated to no authority not each one's own, commune with no centre of unity which each one has not in itself, and not even with one another. They are each complete in themselves, and are therefore not three inferior churches, subordinate to one supreme catholic apostolic church, but, if churches at all, three distinct, separate, and independent churches. If, then, no one of them is the one holy catholic apostolic church, no one of them is even a catholic church, and Dr. Ewer fails entirely to recognize any Catholic Church at all.

{507}

The author is deceived in his assumption that these three churches are particular or local churches, subordinated to the universal church. St. Mary's church, which is my parish church, is a catholic church, if the see of Rome is the Catholic Apostolic See; for it depends on it, and through the bishop of the diocese communes with that see, and through that see with every other particular catholic church, thus establishing in the unity and catholicity of the See of Rome, or, as the fathers said, the See of Peter, the unity and catholicity of all particular or local churches in communion with it. By coming into communion with St. Mary's church, one comes into communion with the one universal church, is in the catholic communion, and is a Catholic; but nothing of the sort can be affirmed either of the Greek Church or of the Anglican. They acknowledge no subordination to any other organic body in existence; they depend respectively on no ecclesiastical authority or organic centre independent of themselves; they commune neither with each other nor with the Church of Rome, which holds them to be both in schism, and one of them in heresy. Certain Anglican ministers would willingly commune with the Greek Church, but it repels them, and declares that sect to be not even a church. The three churches named cannot, then, be particular churches holding from a common centre of unity, and Dr. Ewer must take one of them as the Catholic Church and exclude the other two, or have no Catholic Church at all.

The fact that there are certain points, if you will, essential points, of agreement between these three bodies, does by no means make them one body. Agreement is not identity. Great Britain and the United States speak the same language; adopt the same Common Law, which governs their respective courts; agree to a great extent in their usages, manners and customs, and civil institutions; and throughout they have a far closer resemblance to each other than has the Anglican Church to either the Greek Church or the Roman Church; and yet, are they not one nation, with one national authority, and having one and the same national life. Eliminate from New York and New Jersey the points in which they differ, and retain only the points in which they agree, and would they be one state under one and the same state government? Not at all, because they are separate organizations, and, as states, are each independent of the other. The Eastern churches were once in communion with Rome under the supremacy of the Apostolic See, and then were one with the Roman Church; but having separated from that see, they are churches in schism indeed, but _de facto_ independent. There was, down to the sixteenth century, a Catholic Church in England in communion with the Church of Rome or the Apostolic See; but the so-called Church of England is not its continuation, and, in the judgment of both the Roman Church and the Greek Church, is not a church at all, for it has no orders, no priesthood, no sacrifice; its so-called bishops and clergymen are only laymen, but for the most part educated, refined, and highly respectable laymen, devoted to the elegant pursuits of literature and science, the cultivation of private and public morals, and the interests and well-being of their families. But not to insist on this at present, we may affirm that, even supposing Anglicans have an episcopate, and that it resembles the Greek and Roman episcopates, it is no more identical with them than the government of Great Britain is identically that of Italy, Prussia, or Austria. These three states are all limited monarchies; they also all have parliamentary governments, and place the sovereignty in the nation, not in a particular family. {508} But they are not one and the same monarchy, nor one and the same government, for they are politically separate and independent. It will not do to answer this by saying that each of these three episcopates hold equally from Jesus Christ, and are one in him; for that would either suppose the church to be in her unity and catholicity invisible, and without any visible organ or manifestation; or else that Christ has three churches, or three bodies, which the author can admit no more than we, for he professes to hold or believe ONE Holy Catholic Apostolic Visible Church.

In the beginning of the extract from Dr. Ewer's fourth discourse, the church is declared to be "an organism." An organism, we need not tell a man like him, is a living body, not a simple aggregation of parts, or an organization which, having no life in itself, depends on the mechanical, electric, or chemical arrangement of its several parts. In every living body or organism, there is and must be--as the older physiologists, and even the most recent and eminent, like M. Virchow, of Berlin, and M. Claude Bernard, of Paris, tell us, and by their researches and discoveries have proved--an original central cell, from which the whole organism proceeds, in which its vital principle inheres, and which is the type, creator, originator, and director of all its vital phenomena. The whole life, evolution, and course of the organism is originated and determined by this original central cell--this germ, or ovule, without which no organic life or living body is possible. This primitive cell or germ is never spontaneously generated, but is always generated by a living organism which precedes and deposits it, according to the old maxim, _omne vivum ex ovo._ [Footnote 161]

[Footnote 161: See a very learned and scientific essay in
_Le Correspondant_, for October 25th, 1868, _De l'Idée
de Vie dans la Physiologie Contemporaine_, by Dr.
Chauffard, known to our readers by a very able essay _On
the Present Disputes of Philosophy_, translated and
published in this magazine for November last, though the
types made us call him Dr. Chauf_ai_d instead of Dr.
Chauff_a_rd.]

It is the origin and law of the unity, evolution, or growth of the organism, and is the type and generator of all the innumerable cells which form the whole cellular system of the entire organism, whether normal or abnormal.

What we insist on here is that there is no organism without this original central cell or germ, and that this central cell, whence the unity of the organism is generated by a pre-existing organism, that is, by ancestors of the same species, and is neither self-generated nor made up by any possible mechanical or physico-chemical action or combination of parts, as Messrs. Virchow and Bernard have demonstrated. This principle or law of all organic life is universal, and applies to the church as an organism, notwithstanding her supernatural character, as to any of the organisms studied and experimented upon by physiologists in the natural order. The Creator does not work after one law in the natural order, and another and diverse or contradictory law in the supernatural order; and herein we discover the reason of the perfect accord of all the Creator's works, the perfect harmony of revelation and real science, and the aid revelation gives to science, and, in return, the aid that real science gives to the interpretation and clearer understanding of revelation. God is one, and works always after one and the same law in all orders, and is never in contradiction with himself.

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The essential error of the non-catholic church theory is, that it denies the central cell or germ whence is evolved or produced the whole church organism, and assumes that the church derives her life from her members, and that she is constituted in her unity and catholicity as a living body by the combination of the several parts, or that the central cell is created by the organism, not the organism by the central or organic cell, which is as much as to say, multiplicity can exist without unity to produce it, or that dead or unliving parts can generate life and activity! No one need be surprised that men of clear heads and logical minds, trying to remove, on Protestant principles, the discrepancies between science and the Protestant religion, should rush into materialism and atheism. The principle the Protestant adopts in his non-catholic church theory is precisely the principle on which Mr. Herbert Spencer proceeds when he ascribes all the phenomena of life, or of the living organism, to the mechanical, electric, and chemical arrangement of material atoms. The same principle applied in theology leads inevitably to atheism; for, multiplicity given as prior to and independent of unity, no argument in favor of the divine existence can have any validity, nay, no argument to prove that there is a God can be conceived. Such is the terrible injury the non-catholic or Protestant church theory has done and is doing to both religion and science.

Dr. Ewer, no doubt, intends to reject, and honestly believes that he has rejected, this destructive theory, which, universally applied, results in nihilism; but we fear that he has not. He includes the one catholic church in what he calls the three particular churches--the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican. Each of these, he says, is a catholic church, but no one of them is the Catholic Church. Whence, then, do they or can they derive their character of catholic? The Catholic Church, according to him, is an organism. If an organism, it must have a central cell, an _organite_, or organic centre, originated not by itself, from which all in the organism proceeds, or in which, in the language of St. Cyprian, all "takes its rise," and therefore on which all the parts depend. This central cell, which in the church we may call the central see or chair, and which the fathers, whether Greek or Latin, call the Chair of Peter, and since it is the origin of all the parts, is evidently prior to them and independent of them. They do not constitute it, but it produces, sustains, and governs them. On no other conditions is it possible to assert or conceive the unity and catholicity of the church as an organism. Particular churches are Catholic by holding from and communing with this central see or the organic centre, not otherwise.

But Dr. Ewer acknowledges no such central cell or central see. His organism has no organic centre, and consequently is no organism at all, but a simple union or confederacy of equal and independent sees. Rome, Constantinople, or Canterbury is no more a central see or organic centre of the church than any other see or diocese, as Caesarea, Milan, Paris, Toledo, Aberdeen, London, or Armagh, and to be in the unity of the church there is no particular see, mother and mistress of all the churches, with which it is necessary to commune. The several sees may agree in their constitution, doctrine, liturgy, and discipline, but they are not integrated in any church unity or living church organism. This is the theory of the schismatic Greeks, and of Anglicans and Protestant Episcopalians, and is simply the theory of independency, as much so as that of the New England Congregationalists, but it admits no organic unity. {510} It is also the theory which Dr. Ewer himself appears to assert and defend. By what authority is he able to pronounce any one of the three churches named a catholic church, since no one of them holds from a catholic centre, or a central unity, for he recognizes no such centre or unity? The only unity of the church he can admit is that formed by the combination of the several parts, a unity formed from multiplicity. He holds that we need a great catholic reformation, a combination of the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican churches, which shall "evolve unity from multiplexity." Here, it seems to us, is an unmistakable recognition, as the basis of his catholicity, of the non-catholic church theory, and a virtual denial of the unity and catholicity of the church; for from multiplicity can be evolved only totality, which, so far from being unity, excludes it altogether.

Recognizing no central see, centre and source of the unity and catholicity of the church, how can Dr. Ewer determine what churches are in schism or what are in union, what are catholic and what are not? What criterion of unity and catholicity has he or can he have? He says the Roman, the Greek, and the Anglican are catholic, and he confines the Catholic Church to them. But how can he call them catholic, since they have no common organic centre, and have no intercommunion? We can find in his discourses no answer to this question but the fact that they have certain things in common. Why confine the Catholic Church, then, to these three alone? Why exclude Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and the Swiss, the Dutch, and the German Reformed communions? All these have something in common with the Roman, Greek, and Anglican communions, and even profess with them to believe the Apostles' and Nicene creeds. The Methodists have bishops, priests or elders, and deacons, as the Anglicans, and adopt the same articles of faith. The churches named have presbyters, and so have Presbyterians, the continental Reformed, and the Lutheran churches; some of the Lutheran churches even have bishops. There is something in common between these and the churches the author claims to be catholic. Why, then, does he exclude them from the list of communions of which the Catholic Church is composed? Or why, indeed, exclude any one who professes to hold the Christian church and the Apostles' and Nicene creeds? And why not reject as non-catholic everything which all these do not agree in holding? Does he not say that _catholic_ means all, not a part, and why exclude from the _all_ any who acknowledge Christ as their Lord and Master, and profess to be members of his church? The author has no criterion in the case but his own private judgment, prejudice, or caprice. He has no other rule, having rejected the apostolic or central see, for interpreting the _quod semper, quod ubique, et ab omnibus creditur_ of St. Vincent of Lerins. The _all_ with us means all those, and those only, who are, and always have been, in communion with the central or Apostolic See, and obedient to its supreme authority; but Dr. Ewer, who admits no such see, has, and can have, no authority for not including in the _all_, the _omnibus_, all who profess to follow Christ or to hold and practise the Christian religion. His catholicity is, then, the creature of his own private judgment, prejudice, or caprice; and his catholic church is founded on himself, and is his own arbitrary construction or creation. This is not the rejection of Protestantism, but is rather Protestantism gone to seed.

{511}

Throughout the whole of Dr. Ewer's reasoning, except where he is simply following Catholics in pronouncing and proving Protestantism a blunder and a failure, and answerable for the rationalism and unbelief in revealed religion now so prevalent among scientific, intelligent, clear-headed, and honest-minded men, there is the implied assumption that catholicity precedes the church, and that we are to determine not what is catholic by the church, but the Catholic Church by what we have, without her, determined to be catholic. This is not a Catholic but a Protestant method. We must first find the One Catholic Apostolic Church, and from her learn what is catholic, and who are catholics and who are not. This is the only scientific rule, if we acknowledge a Catholic Church at all.

If the Roman, Greek, and Anglican churches are no one of them the Catholic Church, they can be catholic, that is, be in the catholic organism, only by communing with the organic centre from which the life, activity, and authority of the organism proceeds, in which is the source and centre of the unity and catholicity of the church. But all particular churches in communion with the organic centre, and obtaining their life from it, exist _in solido_, and commune with one another. The three churches named do not commune with one another; they are, as we have seen, three distinct, separate, and independent bodies, and foreigners to one another. Then only one of them, if any one of them, can be a catholic church. The other two must be excluded as non-catholic. What the author has to determine first of all, since he restricts the Catholic Church to the three, is, in which of these three is the original, organic, or central cell, or central see, whence all the others proceed, or from which they take their rise. But instead of doing this, he denies that any one of the three is the Catholic Church, and contends that it is all three in what they hold in common or agree in maintaining. The meaning of this is, that no one of them contains the organic cell, that there is no central organic see, as we hold the See of Peter to be, and therefore no church organism one and catholic. But this is to deny the Catholic Church, not to assert it. In attempting to include in the One Catholic Apostolic Church non-catholic and foreign elements, Dr. Ewer, therefore, manifestly loses the Catholic Church itself.